Fire, Fury and Foolishness - How The Psycho Putz Could Get Us Into A Nuclear War

We all mostly suspected Drumpf was insane, but his bombastic, ignorant rhetoric yesterday proved it beyond a doubt and showed why this screwball needs to be put into a straitjacket asap. His blabbering about raining "fire and fury ...the likes of which have never been seen before"  emulated Kim Jong Un himself. As one commentator put it "it was as if Trump looked at himself in the mirror and saw Kim Jong Un""   The problem is that this game is deadly serious and even had former Col.  Lawrence Wilkerson, saying that he's frightened - given our commander-in -chief has no sense, and basically controls the nuclear codes.

That this cockeyed numskull already (yesterday morning)  leaked classified satellite information (to do with spotting N. Korean patrol boats)  in a retweet on 'Fox 'n Friends' was bad enough. It confirmed his unreliability as a leader as well as his lack of judgment and instability.  He is, basically, not a man to be trusted and certainly not in a major crisis such as we are facing now. Indeed, 61 percent in a recent poll expressed unease in "Dump's" ability to deal with North Korea. In most other nations such a vote of no confidence would see him replaced.

Sadly, not even his new "minder"-  Gen. Kelly - was able to stop this crazy fool from engaging his Twitter account and - as noted on 'Morning Joe' - jeopardizing U.S. assets and methods.

Then, ensconced at his vacation getaway club at Bedminster, NJ Trump told journalists

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States, They will be met with fire and the fury like the world has never seen.”

In other words, this certifiable maniac is vowing nuclear retribution against the North Koreans merely for making threats.   Try to process that, and the level of mental derangement and lack of judgment to make such a remark, broadcast worldwide.  In the wake of this monkey's performance John McCain told an Arizona radio station:

"I don’t know what he’s saying and I’ve long ago given up trying to interpret what he says. That kind of rhetoric, I’m not sure how it helps.”

Well, that's the point! It doesn't help, only further fuels the crisis and ramps up the temperature.

As I posted earlier, this hotheaded maggot doesn't possess the skill, background historical knowledge or intelligence to steer clear of a conflagration with a nuclear state that would unleash a pitiless assault not on the U.S. (which is currently too far away to strike with a functioning ICBM) but on its South Korean ally. Specifically, the 25 million citizens of Seoul, the "most densely populated city on Earth."

When asked in an MSNBC interview back in April  if Trump would actually attack North Korea, former CIA North Korea specialist Sue Mi Terry responded:

 “I can’t see him following through on this and that is the problem with the brinksmanship policy. Because you’re putting yourself in a bind. You will either have to back down and lose credibility or you are stuck on a ledge with a military option which is very, very risky.

 North Korea is not Syria. It’s not Afghanistan. It’s going to have very devastating consequences.  North Korea will retaliate to any kind of military option. They will retaliate against South Korea given seventy percent of its ground forces are deployed within 100 kilometers (60 miles) of the DMZ.  And there’s twenty thousand U.S. military in South Korea and twenty million people in Seoul”

Other experts on North Korea have also warned that this aggressive rhetoric could backfire on Trump, convincing Kim Jong-Un that his regime is in imminent jeopardy and triggering what he sees as a pre-emptive attack.  This is the biggest danger. Given the North is all about survival, anything perceived as an imminent threat to that survival would unleash all their weapons in a last ditch preemptive attack. If the U.S. then responded with a full scale nuclear response to obliterate the totalitarian state it could also draw in the Chinese and even the Russians. At the end we could be looking at a full, all- out thermonuclear war with more than 9,500 hydrogen weapons exchanged.

Daryl Kimball, the head of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said - in response to Trump's reckless rhetoric:

“It is dangerous and reckless and counterproductive for Donald Trump to threaten the annihilation of North Korea. What we need is a dialogue to reduce tension and avoid catastrophic miscalculation. We are currently on the road to a conflict and we have to get to the off-ramp.”

The North Korean regime quickly responded, matching Trump’s bellicosity by saying it was “carefully examining” a plan for a missile strike on the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam. In a separate statement, a military official was quoted as saying Pyongyang could carry out a "pre-emptive operation if the US showed signs of provocation”.

And there we have the linchpin to massive nuclear war, if one side misjudges the intentions of the other.

National security advisor H.R. McMaster has said that the administration is weighing all options, including a “preventative war”.

 

North Korean ICBM test. The Defense Intelligence Agency now confirms the North has miniaturized nuclear warheads to fit atop the missile.

 

East Asia nuclear non-proliferation expert Jeffrey Lewis argues it is already too late for that, quoted in the UK Guardian as saying:
“The pre- in preventative means ‘before’,If you start the preventative war after they have the nuclear ICBM’s, it’s just a regular old nuclear war.”

Lest people not take this seriously, the Pentagon - as reported last night - is already trying to prepare military options for Trump. All of this is under the rubric of "preventative war"  Three days ago in the WSJ John Bolton actually presented these "options".   It is as if the military is prepared to back Trump at the expense of the 25 million in Seoul and environs. Presumably they will be "collateral damage" if the lunatic gets his way.  Where is the sanity? Let's recall also that last year the same military minds were appalled when Trump asked: "If we have nuclear weapons why can't we use them?"   Gen. Michael Hayden actually responded that the current U.S. nuclear response system is no longer constructed for deliberation but "rapid and effective" action. In other words, once a decision to launch is made, it's all over.

The last time we came this close  to nuclear catastrophe was in October, 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis. On October 27, 1962 U2 pilot Rudolph Andersen Jr. conducted a reconnaissance flight over Cuba when he was targeted and shot down by two Soviet SA2 surface to air missiles. The Cubans and Russians had fired the first shot in the drawn out Missile crisis (now in its 12th day) and the Joint Chiefs pressured JFK to strike back - with air strikes.  Kennedy, however, correctly suspected that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had not authorized the downing of unarmed reconnaissance planes, and he didn’t want to abandon diplomacy. He resisted the Joint Chiefs - especially Gen. Curtis Lemay (who actually had the temerity to compare him to Neville Chamberlain) which is why we can discuss the events today.

It is not at all clear that Trump possesses anywhere near the sobriety and sense of JFK. Which also means it is not at all evident that he can avoid getting us into a nuclear war.  Maybe in this case, one of Trump's generals (Kelly?) will pull the nuclear football out of his hands before he can do final disastrous damage.

Or at least we can hope

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/lawrence-wittner/74496/playing-nuclear-chicken-with-our-lives

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-stanton/74499/trump-s-psychopathy-threatens-the-internal-stability-of-the-united-states-and-the-world

And:

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/345961-ex-gop-senator-trump-is-sick-of-mind-should-be-removed-from-office

Unhinged Rhetoric Does This Nation No Good - Now James Woolsey Wants to Execute Snowden?

Former CIA head James Woolsey said the 'blood of French citizens is on Edward Snowden's hands'. No,  the blood of those citizens is on ISIS' hands, you fool!

"I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America. And we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.” - Sen. Frank Church, referencing the NSA in 1975.

Let us admit in a time of hyped terror, with robed lunatics barking threats on almost every TV screen in a 24/7 medium, it takes courage for a citizen not to become petrified and hide under his or her bed. It also takes courage and character, as well as confidence in one's own positions, not to surrender to hysteria and especially political fear-mongering, to give these slime what they want, which is to change who and what we are as a nation,

So it's been disconcerting to hear the recent insane rhetoric coming out of assorted yapping mouths lately, mostly those who we knew were already detached from reality.

Such as Donald Trump now calling for a database to track all Muslims, and Ben Carson comparing the Syrian refugees (mainly women and children) trying to escape their war torn country to rabid dogs. Then there was former CIA head James Woolsey who actually said "the blood of French citizens is on Edward Snowden's hands" in a debased pop off that rivals those of even Trump and Carson.

What is this lunatic thinking? Where does he pull this from? Is he even remotely aware that the end-to-end encrypted devices and apps (like 'Whats App') used by the ISIS bugs weren't even around when Snowden made his revelations in 2013? (On November 18, 2014, Open Whisper Systems announced a partnership with WhatsApp to provide end-to-end encryption by incorporating the encryption protocol used in their TextSecure application into each WhatsApp client platform. Prior to this there were numerous security holes and issues). Of course, it's all insanity ratcheted up and made to sound rational. It isn't. It's nutso talk. (Especially as it is the Tech companies which are now most adamant about not removing encryption for their apps because they believe it will degrade the devices' usefulness.)

Snowden then was absolutely correct to expose the violations of our 4th amendment rights which even a subsequent   300-page report  by a commission (appointed by Obama himself)  found to be infringing on our civil liberties with dragnet collection of our personal information and data. What are we even worth as a country and a people if we succumb to so much fear that we're prepared to sacrifice our principles and liberties which is precisely what these fucktard terrorists want?

But given that the CIA also believed JFK was guilty of "treason" - and so had him terminated in an executive action- the words out of Woolsey's mouth perhaps aren't surprising.  In JFK's case, he earned the company's wrath by refusing to support their ill-conceived Bay of Pigs invasion with air power, and then fired Allen Dulles as CIA Director in the aftermath. Worse, he commenced a year's long secret rapprochement with Fidel Castro - certainly which would be viewed as a stab in the back, just like Snowden's revelations are now by Woolsey.

Thankfully more of the background details of this will be brought out in David Talbot's new work, “The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government,”  which extends out from JFK’s murder to investigate the rise of the whole shadowy network that Talbot holds ultimately responsible for the president’s assassination, and which metastasized in its wake. This is a work long since needed, and particularly how Dulles kept his little operations going on sub rosa even after JFK ditched him. (Dulles was later appointed to be on the Warren Commission by LBJ. Two real traitors working in league with each other to cover their foul tracks.)

As for the Reepo presidential candidate clowns popping off with their own whacked out rhetoric on the refugees, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson had this to say on Chris Hayes' All In last night:

"It doesn't surprise me coming from the right wing blather of the Republican Party. It's the kind of talk that surrounded the internment of the Japanese who were loyal to a fault. But we put them in concentration camps. It's the kind of talk that's extremely dangerous. It's the kind of talk that plays right into the hands of Al Baghdadi and Al Zawarahi, Al Musra and so forth.

Because that's what they want...they want us to act to bring about our own suicide".

That suicide, of course, also extends to killing our own constitutional principles in the interest of trying to get absolute security. But as Benjamin Franklin put it: "Those who would sacrifice liberty to gain a temporary security deserve neither liberty or security."

He didn't mince words. And why should he have? Liberties once lost, as Woolsey would have wanted us to do, are difficult if not impossible to win back. Once you give them up - say in the midst of combating these asshole terrorists (the latest attack was in Mali last night) you surrender to them, without even firing a shot.

Most citizens, indeed, aren't even aware our liberties (including the right to own guns) hang on a metaphorical knife edge. This concerns Reagan’s Executive Order 12656, issued in 1988, which has remained in effect since and was actually activated after 9/11. The order stated that Continuity of Government procedures were called for in the event of "any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States."

According to the 9/11 Commission Report (p. 326; cf. p. 38), "Contingency plans for the continuity of government" were implemented on September 11, 2001.  Later mutations of COG under the Bushites  equated political dissent with treason. In regard to the last, the definition of "terrorist" was expanded to "domestic terrorist" by congress in 2001, to include:

"“…activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States"

 According to the ACLU, “this definition is broad enough to encompass the activities of…prominent activists, campaigns and organizations.”  That includes past protest movements like Occupy Wall Street and anyone who currently protests the Keystone XL pipeline, chemical toxins in water or fracking. (No surprise this meme is still lurking - ready to spread- as we learned in the Denver Post (Nov. 18) that certain citizens of Thornton, CO had their names and home locations placed in red on a city council map as "opponents to fracking". )

How much did Snowden reveal or confirm that we didn't know or realize before - bordering on coming this [[ close to a totalitarian state? investigative reporter Christopher Ketcham disclosed the extent of the spying :

"The following information seemed to be fair game for collection without a warrant: the e-mail addresses you send to and receive from, and the subject lines of those messages; the phone numbers you dial, the numbers that dial in to your line, and the durations of the calls; the Internet sites you visit and the keywords in your Web searches; the destinations of the airline tickets you buy; the amounts and locations of your ATM withdrawals; and the goods and services you purchase on credit cards. All of this information is archived on government supercomputers and, according to sources, also fed into the Main Core database.

There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” He and other sources note the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.”

Are Americans really ok with all that indiscriminate snooping in a terror war? If so, they merit neither liberty or security. They are prepared instead to surrender their most precious rights to the ISIS or other rats at the drop of a hat. Blaming the French deaths on Snowden also shows Woolsey has his head where the Sun doesn't shine, just like the CIA's earlier mutations (e.g. Allen Dulles) who orchestrated Kennedy's executive action then blamed it on a patsy they set up.)

Former NSA code breaker Bill Binney  delivered the sane view after the Snowden disclosures emerged and those like James Clapper and Keith Alexander were making noises about the need for mass warrant, dragnet searches.

"First of all I don’t understand this being bamboozled into thinking that you have to do this to find bad guys. That’s false. There’s very simple principles you can use to find out who is the bad guy and who isn’t and you can do this without violating anybody’s privacy”.

Americans need to keep things in perspective as this current terror epoch continues and not surrender their brains and balls to the hysterical, unhinged voices spouting off on the tube. Better yet turn the tube off - as well as other media access- and reclaim your gray matter by doing some serious reading.  As author Harold Bloom put it:

"If we fail to read conscientiously and seriously we risk becoming lost in the visual media"

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/walter-brasch/64867/the-republicans-rhetoric-of-hate-and-fear


Excerpt:

"In the history of the United States, just the members of the white-hooded Protestant-professing fire-and-brimstone Klan killed and maimed more Americans than all the murders by non-Christian terrorists—and that includes 9/11. Add in the number of serial killers, the racists who killed children in churches, the zealots who killed health care personnel because they performed legal abortions, and the people like the Oklahoma City bombers and the Unabomber, and the number of pretend-Christians killing Americans rises to hundreds of times greater than any Muslim attack."

U.S. Nuclear Counterforce Option Against Russia A Boneheaded Idea

It appears that the U.S. Neocon warmongers still ensconced in Obama's administration have a new plan to teach those Russians a lesson. According to a Denver Post piece ('U.S. Pondering Tougher Responses to Russia', June 5, p. 13A):

"The Obama administration is weighing a range of aggressive responses to Russia's alleged violations of a Cold War -era nuclear treaty, including deploying land based missiles in Europe that could pre-emptively destroy the Russian weapons."

Seriously? Hold strain, you haven't seen the half of it. As the piece goes on:

"The options go so far as one implied- but not stated explicitly - that would improve the ability of U.S. nuclear weapons to destroy military targets on Russian territory."


So, in other words, start World War III. To rejuvenate memories again, let's recall that the Russians have retained a “limited use" nuclear doctrine by which they reserve the right to employ nukes if they feel overwhelmed by conventional outside forces, say NATO’s, see e.g.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/russ-wellen/54873/russia-still-addresses-conventional-weapons-gap-with-u-s-via-nukes

As noted therein:

"On March 13, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ran a piece by Nikolai Sokov with the paradoxical title Why Russia calls a limited nuclear strike “de-escalation.” He writes, “In 1999, at a time when renewed war in Chechnya seemed imminent, Moscow watched with great concern as NATO waged a high-precision military campaign in Yugoslavia.” It became concerned both that “the United States would interfere within its borders” and that the “conventional capabilities that the United States and its allies demonstrated seemed far beyond Russia’s own capacities.”

In response, Russia

… issued a new military doctrine whose main innovation was the concept of “de-escalation”—the idea that, if Russia were faced with a large-scale conventional attack that exceeded its capacity for defense, it might respond with a limited nuclear strike.

Of course, such response would also occur  if there is any U.S. nuclear first strike, especially on Russian targets.  You can therefore take it to the bank that any such U.S. belligerent tomfoolery would be met with an all -out Russian nuclear strike on those nuclear weapons and the nations hosting them.


Now, the other side - because that's important. As the article notes (ibid.):

"Russia denies violating the treaty and has in turn claimed violations by the U.S. in erecting missile defenses."

Which is spot-on true as I have pointed out before, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/03/do-we-need-missile-defense-system-in-e.html

In an April 22, 2012, Wall Street Journal article ('Missile Gaffe Leaves European Unfazed', WSJ, today, p. A8) even Stefan Niesiolowski, chairman of the defense committee in the Polish Lower House of Parliament, noted such a missile system was not needed in Poland. Quoting him from the WSJ piece:

"There's no military threat and we haven't had a situation as secure as this in 300 years. The level of U.S. military engagement in Poland therefore is not of top importance."

WOW! No military threat? Then WHY do it? Obviously, to further antagonize the Russians,  having already dismissed Russia as a third rate nation after abusing a 1991 agreement in which NATO was not to have moved one millimeter further to the east if the Soviet Union was dissolved. Mikhail Gorbachev held up his end of the deal, the U.S. didn't. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-game-theory-perspective-on-ukraine.html

The ultimate bellicose move, of course, was instigating the coup in the Ukraine, which lies right on Russia's geographical doorstep. Let us see how close:




Note Ukraine abuts Russia on its southwest border. Note it carefully!  Now, try to conceive a juxtaposition of events and conditions whereby Florida (on the U.S. SE coast) has somehow become a separate protectorate  - say like Puerto Rico - and is suddenly taken over by hundreds of thousands of Cuban Castro sympathizers.  They localize attention at Miami where they essentially take over and raise Cuban flags. All this on a state right next to Georgia.

In a  symmetrical situation  would the U.S. just sit back and let events unfold, especially if the commie Cubans were going around beating up upstanding citizens, defacing buildings, burning up synagogues or churches  etc.? In your dreams!  There'd be such a display of 'shock and awe' invasion it would make your head swim! So no one can prattle away nonsense and tell me the U.S. wouldn't do the very same thing Russia is now doing, if the situation were somehow reversed.

But see this is the problem with the Neoliberal Pax Americana meme: one standard for the U.S. and another for everyone else. And no other nation better dare try to extend hegemony outside its national borders.

According to the Post piece, quoting a Lt. Col. Joe Sowers:

"All the options under consideration are designed to ensure that Russia gains no significant military advantage from their violation."

Totally oblivious to the fact that it has been the U.S. trying to press such advantage. Indeed, Pentagon and White House officials are even considering admitting the Balkan nation of Montenegro into NATO - further arousing Russian ire (WSJ today, p. A5) .  Even Ret. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson agreed back in MARCH, 2014, that if he was Putin and faced the sort of belligerence and upheaval in the Ukraine instigated by U.S. neocons (like Victoria Nuland) , he'd have made the exact same responses. Including going into the Crimea.

So what is really behind all this U.S. huff and puff?  Most of it can be traced to the document known as NSC-68 prepared by Paul Nitze of the National Security Council – completed by 1950. The document essentially contained the blueprint for unending strife and undeclared wars, all of which would be invoked on the basis of a zero tolerance threshold for foreigners’ misbehavior. The putative basis? To enable U.S. agitation, overthrow (or assassination) of democratically-elected leaders, e.g. Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954,

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/ 

 and large and small occupations (ranging from the few thousand troops in the Dominican Republic in 1965, to more than 200,000 in Iraq by 2006.) 

The motivating force of the document was clear in this regard:

“a defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere”

In other words, any place for which the U.S. even remotely construes a “defeat of free institutions” gives it license to intervene at will. This critical aspect is described thusly by Morris Berman[1]:

“Nitze emphasized the importance of perception, arguing that how we were seen was as crucial as how militarily secure we actually were. This rapidly expanded the number of interests deemed relevant to national security”.

In other words, it provided the formula for unending war, and the building of Empire. The problem for the U.S. now is that countries like Russia and China are no longer prepared to kowtow to the spread of the Neoliberal Empire based on this misbegotten Nitze doctrine. They are going to aggressively engage and protect their own spheres of influence as robustly as the U.S. would for its own.

Russia, for its part, and after the U.S. has moved its influence right up to its border, is not prepared to sit still and wait for hammers to fall.

Of course, Russian aggression will be a key topic in the G-7 summit tomorrow. But perhaps these misfits would be better served focusing on U.S. and NATO aggression provoking the Russians to react as they have. See :NATO's Warmongers:

  http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/brian-cloughley/54851/the-belligerent-alliance-natos-warmongers

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-boardman/62512/french-rap-us-and-nato-for-playing-russian-roulette-with-ukraine

------

[1] Morris Berman: 2006, Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire, W.W. Norton, page 118.


 

Obama: "Russia is a Regional Power" - And Other Moronic Remarks

No, I am emphatically not an "Obamabot" as would be obvious if thinking people read my posts critical of him.  I voted for him twice given the horrific alternatives, but was never on his "band wagon" in the sense of turning a blind eye to his flaws and misguided policies, i.e. drone killings, "debt commission", Chained CPI, supporting NSA mass spying, anti-whistleblower stance etc. Now, in hindsight, I still congratulate him when I believe he's made a policy choice, speech or decision that's wise and justified, and I criticize him when I believe he's veering off course, doing something ill-advised or stupid (perhaps because of bad advice).

In the latter category, Obama delivered a talk at a Nuclear Security summit in the Netherlands yesterday that was remarkable for its abysmal failure to grasp basic geopolitics, his dismissal of Russia as any kind of power on the global stage, and his failure (or unwillingness) to grasp the Ukraine crisis at any more than a Neoliberal media level.

Of course, the superficial content of his spiel could well also reflect  Obama’s “chameleon-like nature” in taking on the hues of the venue he addresses, first pointed out by Salon.com writer David Bromwich in his recent piece, ‘Obama’s Disappearing Act – What Happened to the President He Wanted To Be?’   As Bromwich observed:

 

"More than most people, Obama has been a creature of his successive environments. He talked like Hyde Park when in Hyde Park. He talks like Citigroup when at the table with Citigroup. And in either milieu, he likes the company well enough and enjoys blending in. "

 

So, it may well be that Obama’s ridiculous rhetoric could be attributed to this trait, we don’t know. I merely highlight here some of the examples of all the wrong things he said yesterday. Things which others might seriously misinterpret or read more into than warranted.

Among the absurd rhetoric we heard was that “Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors, not out of strength but out of weakness.”

 

In fact, given how Putin has immensely assisted Obama in both Iran and Syria,  this is a putdown that boggles the mind. Putin and Russia’s influence, in finding alternative approaches to both the Iranian nuclear program, and the events in Syria – in July- enabled Obama to ease out of what would surely have been two disastrous new conflicts he (and the country) didn’t need.  If Russia is  merely a “regional power” this would never have been feasible nor would Obama have been so dependent on Putin for this assistance - which he has yet to acknowledge in any public speech (one reason why Robert Parry has shown he's been at the mercy of the neocons - see e.g.
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/54745/how-looking-forward-tripped-up-Obama

The U.S. political elites,  as ensconced in the Neoliberal political class and media,  DO like to believe this stupid meme,because it resonates with their long time (20 year) narrative of a “defeated” superpower which now can barely take care of itself. The Neolibs and their neocon allies  and media fifth columnists may like to believe this horse shit, but no critically thinking citizen should.

They ought to understand instead that any Russian "weakness" was incurred by its willingness to partake of the Neolib New World Order itself – which at the time  (1991) was proffered to Mikhail Gorbachev in return for the U.S. not expanding NATO.  That  acceptance caused much pain, as described in Naomi Klein’s book, ‘The Shock Doctrine:  The Rise of Disaster Capitalism' (2007), since it reduced or obliterated  Russian citizens’ long time support systems while allowing entry of a parasitical form of capitalism.

 

Despite that, Russia has found a way, predicated on its vast resources and emerging energy sector to become the 2^nd largest producer of gas and oil next to Saudi Arabia. Indeed, much of Europe depends upon it – so the EU nations dare not become too enamored of their sanctions, lest the energy plug be pulled.  In addition, lest Obama forget, Russia still retains more than 3,000 nuclear warheads on as many ICBMs which surely merits equal superpower status – given it’s the only nation with the ability to reduce the U.S. to ashes, as one of its ministers recently put it.  This capability alone demands no one in a leadership role in the U.S. dismiss Russia, or cast it as only a "regional power". Any nation that has the nuclear capacity to incinerate the globe is no "regional power".


This is not something to take lightly or write off to appease an audience which stock and trade is terrorism. Nor is it an excuse to make a glib comment such as Obama also rendered yesterday: i.e.  that “Russia is not the number one US national security threat”  and he is "more concerned about the possibility of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan" (by terrorists).  If he really believes that is his number one concern, right now, he ought to consider resigning from the Presidency.  Because in his position, I’d damned well be more worried about the Ukraine situation overheating to the point nukes are used in a limited conflict and then escalates to all out nuclear war.

 

In respect of this overheating Obama didn’t help matters with two other stupid remarks he made:

 

“We (the US) have considerable influence on our neighbors. We generally don't need to invade them in order to have a strong cooperative relationship with them,"

 

Hmmmmm….. “we generally don’t need to invade them” but we WILL if we find a national security smokescreen to invoke! (As opposed to Russia's legitimate right to occupy the Crimea according to an existing treaty- see below-  and, in its own sphere of influence,).  In other words, Obama is saying the U.S. can invade if and when it chooses to, as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has in more than 20 nations since the end of World War II – based on the ‘Monroe doctrine” or whatever specious basis it can find (NSC-68), but no other nation has a right to protect or exercise its self –interest.

Obama then compounded this foolishness by adding that: the United States "would use its military to come to the defense of any NATO country that is threatened " adding "We will act in their defense against any threats. That’s what NATO is all about.”
 

Actually, no – it isn’t what NATO is "all about". NATO is a Cold War relic, now  exploited by the U.S. to expand its sphere of influence, in this case  against Russia’s – since the end of the Soviet Union. (I believe part of it is also to act like a bully and rub Russia's 'nose' in the dirt. "Nya, nya - see what we can do and you can't stop us!") Indeed one can argue that NATO is a war mongering entity as noted herein:

NATO's Warmongers:  http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/brian-cloughley/54851/the-belligerent-alliance-natos-warmongers
 

I hate to be the one to have to remind Obama that this is a promise he’s not likely to keep, say if Russia feels threatened by a belligerent NATO puppet, e.g. Lithuania or Poland,  and strikes against it. The reason is that the Russians have retained a “limited use" nuclear doctrine by which they reserve the right to employ nukes if they feel overwhelmed by conventional outside forces, say NATO’s, see e.g.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/russ-wellen/54873/russia-still-addresses-conventional-weapons-gap-with-u-s-via-nukes

As noted therein:

"On March 13, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ran a piece by Nikolai Sokov with the paradoxical title Why Russia calls a limited nuclear strike “de-escalation.” He writes, “In 1999, at a time when renewed war in Chechnya seemed imminent, Moscow watched with great concern as NATO waged a high-precision military campaign in Yugoslavia.” It became concerned both that “the United States would interfere within its borders” and that the “conventional capabilities that the United States and its allies demonstrated seemed far beyond Russia’s own capacities.”

In response, Russia

… issued a new military doctrine whose main innovation was the concept of “de-escalation”—the idea that, if Russia were faced with a large-scale conventional attack that exceeded its capacity for defense, it might respond with a limited nuclear strike.

In the unnerving 1983 film ‘Threads’ such a scenario played out in a future Iran, after the U.S. and NATO allies bombed a nuclear plant at Isfahan. The Russians used tactical nukes to even the score and halt advancing NATO forces, the U.S. did likewise, and within days the exchange could no longer be controlled and had escalated into a full scale nuclear war. Is this what Obama really wants? Then he better be careful what promises he makes and how he wields his rhetoric.

The most utterly arrogant comment made, however, was that:  “Russia of course has the legal right to have troops in its own country” – as if this is a big deal or carries some profound, hitherto unknown concept.

Of course they can have troops in their own country!  So can the U.S.!  SO what? The issue isn’t having troops in one’s own country, but the willingness to deploy them where and when a nation feels its sphere of influence threatened. This is why Russia has deployed troops (more than 20,000 in Crimea, which are LEGAL btw, according to a treaty – see:

http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-us-

 

And the U.S. has no business challenging that or referring to it as "invasion" or "aggression" etc.. True, CIA director Brennan (the same guy who spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee - that had Dianne Feinstein in an uproar),  "didn't believe this justified Russia's moves", but I revert back to what Col. Wilkerson (Ret.) noted 3 weeks ago on MSNBC - that given the U.S. neocons conducted a putsch, a coup - Russia  WAS justified and Wilkerson would have done it too if in Putin's place as he himself noted. 

The U.S. meanwhile, has deployed tens of thousands of troops wherever it damned well pleases and in flagrant disregard of any international norms or laws. It instead creates its own "laws" or "doctrines" (i.e. "Bush doctrine") to justify incursion and interference  wherever it sees some vague “threat” that has no direct bearing whatever on national security – such as the illegal Iraq invasion

Don’t bother to tell the Russians where and how their troop deployments are “legal” or allowed if you don’t adhere to the same standards or to international courts of law or previously established international legal norms and principles such as Nuremberg Principle VI. (Condemning "crimes against Peace", i.e. "Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression" as in the case of the Iraq War.)

I do believe, assuming Obama wasn’t putting on his “chameleon act” for the nuclear security audience in The Hague, that he needs to study my post on a game theory perspective to the Ukraine crisis. He will get more out of it than listening to Victoria Nuland or Robert Kagan!

-----

On that note, let me applaud Obama for his forceful words yesterday on the need to pull back NSA bulk phone data collection. But I would like to see scaling back the NSA's dragnet of the internet via its PRISM and MUSCULAR programs too. And until something is actually done, and there is pull back, it remains only  interesting rhetoric.

See also:
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-boardman/55005/media-whoop-up-stampede-to-cold-war-hot-war-whatever

"Putin Is Acting Rationally" : Col. Lawrence Wilkerson Again Brings Sanity to Bear

"They act as they please: here and there, they use force against sovereign states, building coalitions based on the principle ‘If you are not with us, you are against us.’ To make this aggression look legitimate, they force the necessary resolutions from international organizations, and if for some reason this does not work, they simply ignore the UN Security Council and the UN overall.”

Nothing in that key passage of Putin’s speech is crazy. He is stating the reality of the current era, though one could argue that this U.S. aggressive behavior was occurring during the Cold War as well. Really, since World War II, Washington has been in the business of routinely subverting troublesome governments (including overthrowing democratically elected leaders) and invading countries (that for some reason got in Washington’s way). - Robert Parry, Washington Post's Anti-Putin Group Think, on smirkingchimp.com

--
“This is an earthquake, and not a four-point earthquake,” a Russianist named Toby Gati told the Times Tuesday. Gati served in Bill Clinton’s State Department and now brokers business deals, correspondent Peter Baker tells us.

Absolutely this is so. It is an earthquake high on the Richter scale for many in the West, but for none more than the strategists and architects of  the neoliberal order -  the lopsided “globalism” in vogue these past couple of decades. For them, a defeat has come, an outer boundary tested and now requiring retreat.-   Patrick L. Smith, 'More Half Truths About Ukraine', on salon.com


Amidst the wasteland of Neoliberal American media, and even having to howl as the WaPo neocon editors yapped yesterday about "Russian expansionism" - there was fortuitously a pearl of sanity and reason amongst all the propaganda, jingoistic blather and bombastic mind rot. It came from Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret.) appearing again on Chris Hayes 'All In' last night.

Readers may recall I have referenced Col. Wilkerson's earlier appearance on All In, e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP-MRxXWmHI

multiple times, noting how he described what occurred in Kiev as a "coup" and that it was engineered by the necons. He also stated flatly that if he were Putin he'd have done the same thing - e.g. move troops into the Ukraine-Crimea.  All this is coming from a long time military man who once worked with Gen. Colin Powell. He is now a professor at  The College of William and Mary and his voice is one that is sorely needed in these times when rationality and sober talk is at such a premium amidst the boast and hog swill of the media.

Last night it was refreshing to see and hear Col. Wilkerson again, especially given the day's usual empty threats, i.e. from Biden - lecturing Russia on its "false logic" and "dark path" (talk about 'pot-kettle-black'!)  and all the other crap coming from the neoon puppets (like John McCain) and  throughout the gov't.  The only downside is that Wilkerson had to share air time with a Ukrainian stooge and mouthpiece named Andrij Dobriansky of the "Ukrainian Congress Committee of America". (Granted, Hayes likely had been ordered to put this mouthpiece on by Comcast-owned MSNBC to "preserve balance:")

Hayes began by putting to Col. Wilkerson that:

 "This is it. Crimea is now Russian, if not recognized by international law. Certainly in terms of the facts on the ground.  So what does the U.S. do. Or is that just the way it is?"

Wilkerson responded, and immediately took note of a militant statement made by the NATO Secretary General, Rasmussen:

"I agree with you, And I have to say, Chris,  that watching Mr. Rasmussen, NATO' s Secretary General,  issue the statement you just played, reminded me he was the Danish leader who got his country -- Denmark - into the disastrous Iraq war in 2003.

This is not something that anybody needs. Not the West, not Russia, not the world, There needs to be an end to the polemics, as you showed from people like John McCain, an end of the passion, an end to the punditry, and a solution.

The solution is staring us in the face. Gordon Adams and John Mirscheimer and others have talked about it in editorials the last two or three days. Ukraine needs to be a buffer state between an alliance that Russia hates, NATO, and a country that NATO has a problem with, Russia. Funny that!

Ukraine needs to be the buffer state. Crimea needs to be exactly where it is, with Russia - where it's been for over three hundred and fifty years, and we need to stop the passionate statements and get down to business and work this out. We don't need a war."

Chris Hayes then replied, that people "did not necessarily predict or intelligence didn't do a very good job of foreseeing the fact that Vladimir Putin would send these unmarked soldiers into Crimea in response."

Wilkerson then reinforced the point he made in his earlier All In appearance:

"Chris, let me tell you that I can only imagine that John Brennan (head of CIA) who was too preoccupied with trying to spy on the Senate of the United States, missed this - because any fool - my four year old grandchild would know, that given the history of Russia -  Crimea was going to be just as important as Panama was for us in 1989-90. When we invaded Panama and removed their leader under the so-called Monroe Doctrine, which has been around for nearly 150 years.

Russia has its 'near abroad' doctrine. Call it what you will, it's what great powers do within their spheres of influence."


Chris then posed the hypothetical of extending the scenario to Donetsk and the eastern Ukraine, i.e. Russia wouldn't want hostile forces to take those either, so "Do you just let that play out the same way you let Crimea play out?"

Col. Wilkerson's response had Hayes raising his eyebrows:

"Well let it play out, exactly as say our blockade of Cuba has played out for us. We're isolated, Cuba's changing rapidly and the policy is an abject failure. I don't see any problem with giving Putin abject failure after abject failure, after all he's not presiding over a very healthy country right now."

Hayes then let the puppet Dobriansky have his two cents, which was pathetic compared to Col.Wilkerson's deep insights. Dobriansky, with a straight face,  claimed Russia was "operating as a rogue state"  and "operating in a world (irrational) just like North  Korea" .

Hayes then invited response from Col. Wilkerson, leading in with the comment:

"You seem to be saying Putin is acting - if not in accord with international law- then acting rationally as a great power preserving its sphere of influence- not as a rogue state.

Wilkerson acknowledged this take, asserting:

"Of course he's acting rationally! Let me just say that I object one hundred percent to what we do all the time in Washington and that is put a personal character face on every crisis. I don't care if it's Putin or Catherine the Great, this is Russia".

Dobriansky insisted, however, HE "will put a face on it" thereby demonizing Putin like the Neoliberal press-media and its assorted lackeys.

Hayes then aptly played a tape of a Svoboda lawmaker assaulting the head of state television in his own office, before forcing him to write a letter of resignation. (The video clip shows the neo-Nazi imp grabbing the state media guy by the necktie and pulling it, damned near to a stranglehold.)  Chris expressed concern that what is now a "small sliver of far Right parties" is going to grow but the Ukrainain puppet Dobriansky only responded that "I don't know about these characterization of Svoboda as far right, ultra right, all these different things about right wing and left wing" - which shows he's an ignoramus too claiming the "rhetoric in Russia is insane" ,

Wilkerson got the final word, after Hayes expressed concern of how "militarism in rhetoric and action acts like a tuning fork" and things can quickly escalate, get out of hand:

"I certainly feel for people in Ukraine who genuinely want a better economy and a better life but I will say that I have seen no leader that the Ukrainians have been able to produce at this point. It seems they are only interested in oligarchy.....So Ukraine's got to work out a lot of its own problems - these fundamental problems - itself.  And the best way to do that in my view - and to not excite this great power rivalry that might suck us all in - is to create a buffer state there. Recognize Crimea as being gone. Get the CIA out of Kiev. Get the NID, NED and the rest out of Kiev, and let the Ukrainians take that part of Ukraine and bring it back to some type of prosperity and stability."


So the solution is there, and in fact could have been predicted from my post on the game theory perspective: we need to have Ukraine be a 'buffer' between NATO and Russia. We cannot allow, nor will Putin, having NATO right at his doorstep with a toehold in the Ukraine, any more than we would allow an invader on our doorstep in this hemisphere.

Spheres of influence for great powers. So long as we disrespect Russia and refuse to acknowledge its great power status then we will also refuse to allow it to operate within its own sphere of influence. We will instead puff our chests and pretend to be the 'cops' of central and eastern Europe as well as the western hemisphere!

This is a prescription for war  - and not the type any of us wants, or that any nation can gain from!

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/54891/washington-posts-anti-putin-group-think

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/20/the_new_york_times_manufactures_ignorance_more_half_truths_about_ukraine/

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/54874/neocons-ukraine-syria-iran-gambit

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/russ-wellen/54873/russia-still-addresses-conventional-weapons-gap-with-u-s-via-nukes