So I enjoy another point of view, but I think you've missed the boat on why people in this country don't want war, and it's not that we don't know ourselves. I think we've gotten too good a picture of ourselves.
Last night on Tucker Carlson, he showed a few clips of our politicians defending intervention in this mess, of which two struck me. The first was Lindsey Graham, who told us that we had to "defend democracy." Lindsey Graham is the same man who won't say a word about censorship, who won't go visit the people in the DC jail who have been kept in solitary confinement for nearly a year, and who has not said a word about Fidel Castro Jr to the north of us freezing bank accounts for people who were peacefully protesting. If Lindsey Graham won't defend our own democracy, his calls to defend Ukraine's so-called democracy fall flat. And then after him was Nancy Pelosi, so spitting mad she could barely keep her teeth in her mouth, talking about how Putin was an evil rich man who only got wealthy exploiting his own people. This is the woman who, with her husband, has used her position in Congress to amass a fortune of nearly a half a billion dollars. Talk about exploiting people.
So here is what people have started to recognize. We need to "fix" America before we go telling other countries what to do. Over two years of COVID and even before we have watched as large corporations have, with our politicians and bureaucracy, taken over the running of this country for their own benefit, increasingly squashing any complaints as "fascism" (irony of ironies), white supremacy, racism, the list goes on and on. We don't have a democracy here anymore and we're starting to recognize it. In other words, we know exactly who we've become, and we don't like it one little bit and we're not going to be distracted from our own problems by a bunch of elites that start a war in Europe. For two years, we've been mandating that people wear ineffective coverings on their faces, get vaccines that don't work, locking people in their homes, tearing children away from schools for no reason, forcing people to die alone. Nothing was "democratic" about that much less humane. So when people tell us, OMG, Russia will take over, we shrug. Right now, the authoritarianism of Russia and the authoritarianism of the West is just a matter of degrees and we have no room to go pointing fingers. *That* is why there is no appetite for war.
Yes, I believe many who spew this narrative have another unstated agenda, such as forcing Russia to back off in the midddle east so they can put their pipeline through Syria. THAT was what the war there against Assad was about where we funded tribes of imported beheaders to attack as surrogate troops, until Russia crushed them.
Brilliant summary of the disgust most Americans feel toward what’s left of our democracy and the sanctimonious elites who have been assaulting it. I would add an even more visceral item to the list, that being their fanatical demand that we purge ourselves of fossil fuels. While Biden and his puppet masters have declared war on our fossil fuel industry, they have blessed Putin's embrace of it. As a result, Putin is piling up rubles to fund his adventurism while most of us Americans watch our bank accounts decline. Had Biden kept in place the Trump policies that gave us energy independence and the ability to blunt the energy blackmail Putin is imposing on Europe, his calculus would most certainly have been different than what we are witnessing now.
More to your point however, the same fools that precipitated this mess demand that you and I be obedient to their whims and suffer the consequences of their dictates. With the “war on terror” having flopped and Covid being exposed more and more as an excuse for government overreach, Ukraine is nothing more than the next episode in the corporate/media/government complex’s ongoing quest to dominate we mere citizens.
Has anyone thought about the fact that there have been no changes to the "team lineup" after the Afghanistan debacle? If this were a business people would be fired, policies would be examined and new perspectives would be welcomed. But not so in the highest Administration.
Julian Assange in 2011 said "The goal is to use Afghanistan to wash money out of the tax bases of the US Europe and through Afghanistan and into the hands of a transnational security elite. The goal is an endless war, not a successful one."
Ukraine was supposed to continue to be the same moneymaker for the Swamp, but Putin beat them. He's tired of Ukraine being used by the west to play their games.
Second thought:
Who in the bigger picture ultimately gains from this?
The Davos crowd.
Davos/Biden/Obama's policies are geared to destroy the US as a global influence; no other nation will trust the US for protection.
I wonder why Putin views Ukraine as a puppet to NATO...
Could it be that Biden bragged about a threat to illegally withhold aid to the country in exchange for firing the prosecutor that was investigating the energy company his son was a board member of?
The Davos bunch seems almost gleeful the west is neutered and has no energy independence meaning we can’t stop Xi or Putin unless we all freeze (which if Christian’s were concentrated in the north Brandon would sign off on instantly)………. God help us all.
The question is - from incompetence or is it intentional?
I admit to being surprised Putin went all in on Ukraine. The Russian people have cheered when he takes land in regions that effectively want to be taken. Taking the entirety of Ukraine is a major escalation for Putin that deviates from his usual take land from pro-Russians to become Russian and get cheered at home. This taking a whole country that doesn’t want taken is somewhat uncharted territory for Putin and could go 100 different directions of bad.
Either way, it doesn’t matter since we can’t do anything. We have incompetent military leadership. We are tired of endless foreign wars. We got to experience far more peace and global stability from 2017-2020 and we have no public appetite for going back to war again.
Our intelligence agencies are more focused on Christian soccer moms than actual threats (maybe that’s why they didn’t see a full scale invasion coming).
Europe has not gotten to a place they can defend themselves even though Western Europe has had over 70 years. Creeping authoritarianism in the west (most recently blackfacehitler) where opposition to the far left is locked up with out a key or bank account, and supporters burn cities punishment free, has cost us our moral superiority.
Most importantly, in the woke urbanite rush to force the masses (including themselves) to own nothing by 2030, the west gave up energy independence. Seen by those who meet in Davos as a positive development in their push to destroy western wealth because, equity, none of these fake climate warriors seem bothered such a move gave Putin, and potentially Xi, the leverage to do whatever they darn well please.
Maybe orange man had it right after all………….. And for anyone trying to claim Putin “would have” done it under Trump - you don’t have any objective facts on your side. Putin did not do it under Trump. Period. One year into Brandon, Putin HAS invaded Ukraine - all of it apparently - in a more aggressive way than ever before. So don’t give me this bs that Putin would have done something under a different administration he didn’t actually do, and didn’t have the leverage to do.
I’m sending prayers to people in Poland and Taiwan, who very much want to keep their freedom and prosperity. It may take God protecting them because we all know with Brandon in charge, and Darth Vader hiding from a cold commanding our troops, there isn’t anything our country can do to stop them.
Brilliant comment. This author completely missed the mark. Not until they stand up and defend our democracy will I support their desire to defend another’s, which is not even a democracy.
Another brilliant comment it appears we are fighting back though not aiming for a war but frightening back against the establishment it’s more important than going into a war we need to clean the ring around our bath first before we take on Ukraine let’s start with that
I think the mosaic is almost complete. Even the fools who voted for Biden and compliant republican adornments like Lindsey Graham are beginning to see it. They’re all just as power hungry as Putin and even better propagandists.
I think it's pretty clear who's in that club. You can start with he shrillest Trump critics on the Democratic side and work your way through the fork tongued Trump "allies" on the Republican side. Both parties have long standing members who have managed to slither up the food chain. As long as they're compliant they get to feed at the trough. If not our intelligence agency enforcers and corporate media smear artists remind them who is really in charge.
As Neville Chamberlain said-Peace in our time. Except there wasn't peace in their time. How long do we let Putin run rough shod over these countries until we take action? Do we let him keep taking slices off the salami? Does having any views not in direct correlation and alignment with yours and not of lily white purity automatically make one ineligible to have an opinion of what action this flawed but wonderful nation should do? Would you have been content to let Nazi Germany and their allies partition the world, relegating millions of people more to death.
Word salad. Sophomoric word salad at that! Prattling! Off topic. Inane and irrelevant.
The reason that the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan actions failed is because we could not instill the western values of freedom and democracy, however flawed some may think they are, and Western values to these people whose main job in life was survival. Eastern Europe has similar if not the same values as the rest of Europe and the United States. Our perceived flaws in one area are do not obviate the things we get right.
Russia was found to be a paper tiger before. Why not again?
If we are going to tolerate authoritarians north of our border invoking emergency powers to crush political opposition whenever blackfacehitler wants, why on earth do we care of Putin takes a pro-Russian, Russian speaking, Russian Orthodox giant field in eastern Ukraine?
You seem to be ignoring we could have avoided this outcome if we had simply treated Ukraine like Finland and said no NATO.
Are we going to let China build a military base or join a military pact with Mexico or Canada? If we would not allow that threat on our border, why do you think Putin would welcome NATO on his?
Putin doesn’t have ambitions to rule the world. He wants his sphere of influence and we are in no position, morally or otherwise, and hove no obligation, to meddle. Meddling by the Obama administration in 2013 caused the problem.
Whataboutism at its worst. If the inept prime-minister of Canada was allowed to have emergency powers for a few days, than why shouldn’t Putin be allowed to invade his neighbor, kill scores of people and drag the country in the slavery of his Russian colonial empire? Perfect equivalency, right?
First for Canada - For a few days? He can has shown he can have them whenever he wants them, which makes it more of a permanent option thing. Isn’t the crushing of political opposition one of the reasons we supposedly hate Putin? But it’s just fine if blackfacehitler does it right? Just some working class folks who are as disposable as American public school kids? That your thought?
As to Putin, when Brandon reduced domestic energy production and Germany shut down nuclear plants at the behest of the WEF, we lost our leverage regardless of the moral implications. We lost our ability to deter Putin, and Ukraine’s territorial integrity isn’t something we should be sending Americans yo die for.
War is terrible and people die, but we have caused a crap ton of deaths over the last 30 years. If we really didn’t want Putin to invade Ukraine, we’d treat them like Finland and say no NATO. This was 100% avoidable.
Eastern Ukraine is a Russian speaking, Russian Orthodox, pro-Russia population. They get to choose between the culturally similar authoritarian on their eastern border, or the authoritarians in the west with no shared culture who assure them men can give birth.
We caused the coup in 2013 throwing out the democratically ejected pro-Russia president of Ukraine and ensuring the pro-west dictator took his place. That didn’t help the people if Ukraine.
We kill scores of people in our pointless wars. In the last 20 years, Putin hasn’t come close. What on Earth makes you think you get a say in what Putin is or isn’t “allowed” to do???
What do you know about the revolution of 2014? You can’t even get the year right. Do you know how many hundreds of thousands of people have risked their life protesting against Yanukovych? Do you know how many of them were killed? Do you have any relatives among those killed? You Americans have no clue about hardship, even less so about life in a dictatorship, but it doesn’t stop you from always blabbing about fake facts you pick up on your favorite loonie websites. What on earth makes YOU, pampered American, think you have a saying in what Ukrainians are or are not allowed to do?
War sucks. People die. It’s cruel and evil. It’s sickening. So are dictators (which I would not know anything about with family still in Cuba 🙄).
I have, and never suggested having, any say in what Ukraine does. What I said was that if you feel called to defend Ukraine, please stand up and do so personally. I am praying for Ukraine, but I’m no more willing to send American troops to die than AOC was willing to condemn Miguel last year.
People are so gullible. Banks accounts still frozen, innocent protestors still in jail, trucks still impounded with threats to sell off, licenses and businesses still shut down, but hey, he “only” used the emergency act a “couple of days” to beat journalist, beat protestors, make it so people who supported them can’t feed their kids, and illegally confiscate property and jail political opposition. Great news!!! He’ll only need the powers to be a dictator “a couple of days” every time some pesky working class person gets tired of his tyranny and speaks up. It’s so almost Democratic of Castro Jr.
He got the emergency powers on February 14th and relinquished them on February 23, much sooner than planned, because of the justified outcry. That’s a few days, in case you didn’t know that, naive or not. I used the word “inept” referring to Trudeau and I totally disagree with the way he handled the issue. My post was about false equivalence, but this seems to be too subtle for some.
He did not "relinquish" them. The Parliament gave them to him for 30 days, and that wasn't just a fluke. It's not like he said, "Oh, no, never mind." He yammered on about needing them in case there was another blockade. Remember "two weeks to flatten the curve"? Welcome to "two weeks" of "emergency" powers. And he never should have had that power to begin with, so all of this is ridiculous and should be challenged. "Inconvenience" is no reason to prosecute peaceful protestors.
The equivalence is nothing more than a matter of degrees in brutality. If he can invoke emergency powers whenever he wants, then he always has them.
People are still in jail, most who were targeted still can’t work, still can’t have their property, still can’t use a bank, still don’t have a license - commercial or personal, still can’t feed their family after making sure the woke urbanites could hide from a cold with full bellies for 2 years. The Rebel News reporter who was targeted and beaten by police then they shot her point blank in the leg with a chemical cartridge is still injured.
The political class here is unwilling to stand up for freedom and democracy here. But we are supposed to believe that’s what they “really” seek elsewhere???? As they put in vaccine passports and ESG social credit scores and destroy actual livelihoods and lock grandma from Jan 6th up in solitary for a year?
Good luck getting public support by claiming it’s cool for our leftists to crush peaceful political opposition or dissenting views, but not those other leftist on the other side of the globe.
If you don’t like it I hear Ukraine is accepting volunteers to protect their borders, absolutely nothing is stopping you from putting your own life and money where your mouth is on how are “we allowing” Putin to do anything. Why aren’t you personally doing anything to stop him?
You have no clue who I am and what I do about this situation, but that doesn’t stop you from throwing useless words around. You think that this issues are for everybody in the world what they are for you Americans, just a gratuitous parlor game? Some people are actually in harm’s way. How many of your relatives have been killed or imprisoned by dictatorial regimes?
I think you should ask any German survivors of World War II if Russia is a laler.tiger. I will provide a one-way ticket to the nearest military recruiting station to you and all your physically fit family members. The USG will provide the body bags. Recycled, of course.
100%. Not to mention that nobody has any faith in our military leadership. American's don't want to sacrifice their fathers, brothers and children on a war that could have been easily averted by projecting strength. Instead we focused on imaginary white supremacy in the military and fired special forces members for vaccine hesitancy.
Focused on imaginary white supremacy indeed. None of the media or administration can ever point to exactly who they are referring. Even their blind believers should be asked if they went outside their home and looked in every direction could they point to even one example of that? At work...look around...see anyone you would walk up to and say I bet you're a white supremacist? Anywhere. Seriously. Where are all these so called people? I don't know a single person that I would even suspect of that. And yet we're to believe it's the biggest threat to our freedom?
That's exactly how I feel. Nobody ever wants to go to war. It should be a last resort. But expecting American citizens to back a war after being insulted, mocked and disrespected for over a year is not going to happen.
Good summary! We face the tectonic political plate shift towards the CCP's model of social credit enabled centralized totalitarianism -- the openly advocated vision of the World Economic Forum (the Great Reset), sliding over and suffocating the Great Enlightenment of the Sanctity of the Individual, best articulated by the American Bill of Rights.
Russia is a distraction. China's long march toward an elite-imposed fascism is the enemy.
Besides, only a dozen or so of our thirty-plus Army combat brigades are ready enough to deploy -- we're at a readiness capability below what we entered WWII with. The only real kinetic force we can project against division-size forces are tactical nukes -- and we are not about to use them. Checkmate Putin. And China salivates over Taiwan.
Fascism was a creation of Giovanni Gentile and his more famous Italian compatriot, Benito Mussolini. It was certainly sold as anti-communist, but was basically socialism + nationalism.
Modern leftist progressives have adopted it and carry the torch. They demand that corporations do the bidding of the government, and that the workers have a controlling say in the corporations. Most of all, they demand absolute fealty to the dictates of (progressive) government.
So, perhaps the original Italian Fascism can be labeled as "right" (whatever that means these days), but it is now being practiced for the world to see by the "extreme left" by which I mean progressives of the Trudeau cloth.
Both Lillia Gajewski and Zoe Strimpel tell only a part of the story. Who we are both as a people and as a nation can’t be based on myth and propaganda, but has to be based on a clear eyed vision of our past history, our present state, and our obligation to the future. And we can’t wait until we’ve reached perfection before we allow ourselves to act to save the drowning. How we handle the current Russian threat, and the looming Chinese threat, will very much define our future.
That was true as soon as the Soviet Union fell. That was true when Obama and bush crushed our ability to be energy independent. That was true when Western Europe and US progressives sold out prosperity to slave labor in China and bs from the WEF clearly meant to bankrupt the west, not save the planet.
Most importantly, these same issues were evident when people gave Trump no credit for geopolitical stability and decided to elect Biden despite the warnings of exactly what is happening, well, happening if elected.
We are simply walking the path of accepting those consequences solidified with Biden’s election.
Well said! In retrospect with one caveat. Isolationism has rarely, if ever worked. Whether we have the “appetite” for war or not, we will be affected by what’s happening over “there”. Today its Eastern Europe. Where will it be tomorrow?
While I agree in principle about isolationism, our "wars" in the last few years have not benefited anyone other than a few special interests. The people we've tried to "help" in nearly every case have ended up worse off for our "intervention."
This article was absolutely hilarious... can anyone tell me what the point of writing, or worse, reading that, actually was? Nowhere in the entire article did he make any rational argument whatsoever regarding what our costs will be and what our benefits will be. We literally now view politics as a "I say, you do" equation, as a opposed to a "you tell me why, I decide, and vote accordingly based on my willingness to trade that cost, for that benefit."
When America "fought" the cold war, it was on the rational basis of illustrating that freedom and liberty create more value for citizens than communism does. We all agreed on that, and we won simply by being more free than they are. You'll have to forgive the citizens of the United States, who watch their freedoms be stripped every day, if fighting for principles our leaders no longer believe in in the first place is just a step too far.
Today, I'm MUCH more worried about the communism on our northern border, on our airplanes, and in our schools than I am about Putin doing EXACTLY what we did during the cold war and trying to eliminate threats on his border (Cuba, anyone?)
Regardless, our gender studies professor (why is he writing an article on war in Russia/Ukraine?) are going to have to explain exactly what they think we're fighting for before any rational person is going to listen. As ridiculous as it is, at least when we went to Iraq most sane people accepted it was for oil. A ridiculous reason, and a war CANNOT be won without occupation following that war (it has never happened in human history) so we knew we weren't going to win, but at least we could rationalize the economic principles back home. It was a disaster, we all know it (and most knew it at the time), but at least we pretended. Biden CHOSE to give up energy independence, the single most important stabilizing factor for a country in the global hierarchy (can you taste all those coal plants burning in China?) and now is pretending we need a war to stabilize energy markets? The biggest problem we have in waging war (which we only do as a means for laundering our ridiculous debt anyway...) is that half the American people are no longer quite so uneducated on why exactly we're doing what we're doing. And no one seems to want to have to a rational discussion about that as they scream "we must go to war to project strength for the world." Strength in what exactly? Strength in promoting gender studies? I just need anyone to say this in a way that makes sense and doesn't scream of hypocrisy.
I like how somehow it's the American people's fault that we aren't up for more war, after a year of trashing every ounce of deterrent, appearance of strength, and even sanity while systematically destroying the unity of the country from within. Sorry, I'm taking conscientious objector status. Let Hunter and his fellow board members fight this one. It took a while but we finally figured it out.
This is too funny. As it turns out, our "gender" woke author actually writes a weekly newspaper column on gender politics and dating. So, what's next, Miss Manners on advanced topics in genetic engineering and nuclear physics.?
I missed the part where forcing the military to add pronouns to their bios and build non binary latrines somehow enhances deterrence. Maybe talk to Putin's manager?
Here's our latest recruit for the coming "gender inclusive" war with Russia. You know, walk softly and carry a big "stick." Oh yes, Putin's quaking in his boots.
has it ever opened a history book ? after reading this trash i think not , stick to gender politics , your flowery poety is just that . what a waste of 3 minutes
it? Can we please have some civility here? I come here to have arguments - I can get trolling, especially bullying trolling from a man to a woman, elsewhere. In substance I agree with you, but you make it impossible for me to stand with you because of your attitude. That goes for a lot of commenters here. Raise your level of discourse!
it they them , whatever , you see bullying i see calling out BS. tired of all this gender bs , be what or who you want to be but don't expect me to be bullied into using insane terms beause it pleases you . Im out wish i could get my money back and turn off all the email from this site every time I make a comment . I don't need or want your likes or whatever means zero to me
Jerry you can turn off email notification of likes and comments. Go to your profile settings. And I agree that blurting out your antipathy is a waste of everyone's time. If your comment is just an emotional belch, just yell at your computer screen and spare us.
making personal and disparaging comments about the person who brings a message is trolling - this person's poetry and her profession have no bearing on her thoughts about American foreign policy. I don't really agree with some of her arguments, but that should be the focus, not her artistic production. You're right - it's the article that should not receive mercy - we all as people deserve respect no matter how dumb our ideas. The commenter is confusing the personal with the public.
She has as much qualification to comment on foreign policy as my 5-year old granddaughter. As a veteran, and an individual who has worked in East Asia, Central Asia, the Levant and Africa, among the locals, not as a tourist riding a bus and staying in a Western hotel isolated from the locals, I can say that this author's worldview is imbecilic and NEVER should have been published.
We should never be telling the world what to do. We should be showing them. And we aren't doing that either. Anyway, deterrence is psychological and a key function of the head of state, which obviously is non-existent with our current long term care resident.
Thank you for your service. I have family members and friends who have made the ultimate sacrifice and I do not take for granted, for one second, what our military means to us. How it has been used and abused by politicians, neocons, corporatists and globalists belittles the good names of those of who have given of themselves in good faith. Thank you again for all you've given!
To be fair, there is an argument for resisting the advance of tyrannical regimes in this article. That was reason enough for WWII, although it took some time for the US to make up its mind about that after the horrors of WWI. I'm not supporting military intervention here, but where does the US draw a line against the violent takeover of democratic countries? Should we meet our commitment to NATO if it comes to it, and it very plausibly could? Who saw NATO as a bad idea during the Cold War? If our official stance is non-intervention in any conflict, where does that lead? This is not an easy question to answer. I don't care who wrote this essay or what the author's positions are on other topics. Ideas don't need to be pilloried just because you don't like the person presenting them. The author specifically anticipates the reactions seen here and is asking a legitimate question about the way America sees its role in the world. It's a pretty vague piece overall, but not just drivel as some are suggesting.
I thought NATO deliberately didn't admit Ukraine for the reason it's still a bright line on defense and that adults in the room realistically saw that NATO shouldn't push that far east, on Russia's doorstep, that Ukraine's attempt at independence was provisional and could be ended. Russia's actions toward Ukraine seem to revive the relevance NATO; Trump said it was not necessary any more. What do you think?
Yes, Zoe is a female name, like my next-door neighbor's daughter. Doubt either Zoe will fight. Hopefully, my neighbor's son won't have to fight for no reason, as my generation did in Vietnam and my sons' generation in Afghanistan and Iraq.
During the two and half years before America entered World War I, on the European continent, those who objected to entering the war were pacifists and the Socialist party with some objecting based on civil libertarian principles.
Charles Lindbergh led the Antiwar charge, not to enter the war in Europe, before that infamous day in 1941. He was a proponent of isolationism, who believed northern European descendants were inherently superior, just like Hitler did!
But today, the top two posts are antiwar because of the imposition of a pandemic and the woke society they think we live in.
What a strange world we live in! “The Times They Are a-Changin.”
I struggle with references to WWII in the context of this conflict. These are not like for like comparisons - or if they are I'm really missing something. This reminds me of using the Spanish Flu as a reference point for COVID-19 despite them being orders of magnitude apart in terms of impact. The mortality rate of the Spanish Flu was closer to stage 2 breast cancer than it was to COVID19. The flu season of 2018 killed more people across Europe than COVID19 did in the 2020 flu season, and, abstaining for lockdown related deaths, killed more people than the flu season of 2021 did as well. Check Euromomo and you can do the math yourself.
So for comparison sake, why wasn't the US invading Kuwait the start of WWIII? Or the US invading Iraq? Or the US Invading Afghanistan? Or all the proxy wars the US and China have participated in in Africa by arming different sides to install our preferred "government?" Why wasn't Yemen the start of WWIII? Or the Russian Annexation of Crimea? Or the genocide of the Uyghurs if we really want to start making comparisons to the early days of WWII?
Why didn't we care about any of these conflicts, even ones WE started, but now we must sacrifice of ourselves for the benefit of Ukraine (maybe - since a large minority, that is possibly a majority, view themselves as Russians)? These are the questions that aren't being answered.
Politics should be a relatively straight forward game - tell me the cost of the crisis at hand, the cost of the proposed solution to that crisis, and the likelihood of that solution actually reducing the cost of the crisis. For COVID19 every single mitigation measure we attempted made things worse until the virus finally burned itself out. There is absolutely a point where Russian expansion becomes too great a cost/threat to ignore, and I'm not even saying it's not right now, what I'm saying is I want someone to explain to me why it IS now and it wasn't those times? And what is the cost to us going to be of eliminating that threat?
I'm not pro or anti-war... I'm pro transparent cost/benefit analysis that weigh both sides of an equation and present a reasonable solution. Sanctions - high cost to the poor and middle class in the US and zero chance of working, so those should have been taken off the table immediately. Military presence - large cost to us, limited chance of working without direct conflict, I don't see a positive outcome. Direct conflict - HUGE cost to us, and I can't even tell you what their chances of working are because we haven't even defined what working is. Is working just protecting the mob rule of Ukraine so we can continue to launder money there? Sorry, but that's not worth any cost to me. If there are other benefits let's hear them, and then let's have a rational analysis of the costs and the benefits... War is a TERRIBLE thing and should be a last resort, but at the very least we should know WHY we are going to war, and what these hardships (of which our protected ruling class who won't feel ANY of) will actually cost us, the people, in the end.
I think the fear , and IMO a justified one, is that this is a precursor to a larger confrontation. And the question is, does a strong response here increase or decrease the likelihood of that? We do not, and cannot know at this point.
ButTheDataSays, I was referencing, before we entered World War II, there was a war on the continent of Europe. Is there not a war on the continent of Europe today?
That was my fault... I got to writing too fast and apologize for missing the distinction, though I'm not sure it matters if it's a he or a she writing the article. But either way, my mistake.
No problem! Of course given the author's purported "expertise" on gender (and apparently deciphering the inscrutable male mind), I wasn't really sure your were punking her!
Sorry no. Quite literally - Ukraine is the bread basket of Russia. He knows the asset he is striving to get. Understanding the history - you will get why this reunification is important to him. He planned it all along.
The "history" is lengthily outlined in his speech. Do you think he's insincere? Is this all about getting Ukranian grain? Lebensraum? He's going to pay a fantastically high price for getting some cornfields. No he's insane, it's straight out of Hitler-insanity, the feeling that the end of WWI was "unfair" to Germany with the territorial concessions (see the Danzig speech 9/17/39), same with the end of the Cold War being "unfair" to Russia. Same arguments, same modus operandi - but we live with nuclear weapons now, the stakes are infinitely higher.
The best sanction we have is to ramp up energy production . We do it better and cleaner than Russia. It will also put us in a better position with the Iran negotiations. The climate alarmist know it but they don’t care. Time to stop listening to children - the world is a dangerous place . If we don’t, expect Taiwan to be next and for Biden to sign a weak agreement with Iran (for oil) and then war in Mideast . 2024 is too far away .
Taiwan will likely be next and there's nothing we can do about it. If there was, we wouldn't do it. Most of the leadership of both parties get large weekly paychecks from the CCP.
World has survived climate change - it is real but the “science “ is not as dire as the hype. Climate science is evolving and models changing - plus it does not take into account technology .
World will not survive nuclear war - it is obvious
It does take a large amount of hubris for someone to say I know more than 97% of the climate scientists, but you seem to have an overabundance of it. Am I mistaken? Are you saying you're clairvoyant? You know that the magic wand of technology will take care of climate change! I'm sure you know this, but I'll say it anyway, the planet will survive, but the question is, will the mammals survive because I have a hunch that cockroaches will
Not saying warming is not a real problem but you are incorrect about the 97 percent number . Common misperception meant to gaslight.
Question - are the climate models evolving? The science is not perfect snd is still evolving . Small changes in assumptions have huge impact on output - going both ways. It could be worse or it could not be as bad. That is fact . That is the science . Scientific method should be taught in school- otherwise we are doomed by the village idiots
Let’s see, can I blow smoke as good as you? With the evolution of climate change models for the 50+ years, and add on top of that the advancements of supercomputers, is a reason 97% of the climate scientist believe the addition of CO2 into the atmosphere is increasing the temperature here on earth. The difference between your smoke blowing and mine is that I’ll provide evidence. By the by, whose the village idiot?
“Studies confirm climate models are getting future warming projections right”
Britain has two years before it become Siberia based on the expert prediction made in 2004.
There are many more examples of just how inaccurate those “models” have been. Why would any rational person think the same people who were wrong on 2004 are suddenly correct now?
But they are still models. Yes I know your argument relies on "supercomputers" but the data is driven by humans. Humans subject to confirmation bias. Hell my local weatherperson uses several models and the prognostications are fairly iffy. Having said that my lying eyes have demonstrated that the climate ( as opposed to weather) is changing. I do not doubt that the burgeoning human population impacts that but I do not know, and do not think anyone does, how and why. What we know about climate is miniscule. We only have very incomplete data going back 300 years or so. That is a drop of the climate bucket. It is akin to basing all of our understanding of ancient history on a particular Greek writer. Yes I know we have some data from ice cores but our knowledge of that data is in its infancy as well. It is not addressing climate that concerns me. It is over-reliance on a governmental fix based on ill-conceived "solutions" which concerns me. And if you are inclined to respond with the plaintive, "[B]ut we've got to do-o-o something[!]" be advised that is a huge red flag for me.
Trump had all of this under control via economic leverage - the best weapon ever invented - which is why the Cabal - Molly Ball at Time(Feb 5th 2021) - had to unseat him.
Tariffs were killing China, 52 cruise missiles crippled Syria, he made the U.S. into a net energy exporter crippling Iran and Russia, he killed Soliemani - the one man most responsible for killing Americans thereby neutralizing Iran further, created the Abraham Accords instigating true peace in the middle east, secured our southern border(for once), and on and on and on... Stability in the world defined.
Biden has undone all of this and here we are. As someone who has been to war for these United States I am here to tell you that our resolve has never wavered for this country, but our leaders have been bought off(Biden family purchased by Burisma(Ukraine) and China) and we will not support them in any way.
I am a veteran, my family has fought and bled for this country since the Revolution, but no member of my family will fight for Milley's Military. As far as I can see, the current version of the USG is as authoritarian and totalitarian as any of history's worst, hiding behind the fiction if an elective, representative, democratic republic. That country died 50+ years ago.
We wouldn’t want China plopping a military base with strike capabilities on the Rio Grande. Why would Putin want one on his border? This wouldn’t have happened if we just treated Ukraine like Finland as neutral and stopped with this nonsense of letting them in NATO which wouldn’t happen anyway. Or if Clinton accepted Russia’s offer to join NATO in 1999 in order to counter China. Or if Orange man had won.
Obama also organized a coup in 2013 to throw out the democratically elected pro-Russian president of Ukraine and put in power the current pro-west authoritarian dictator of Ukraine. Our coups have consequences. The pro-Russian, Russian Orthodox, Russian speaking people of eastern Ukraine became separatist starting in 2014 because, shocker, they like Russia better than us. In North America we go around locking up political opponents of the left, we have a biased lying media, we hurt working people with political policy. Why would the people of Eastern Ukraine pass up the culturally similar authoritarians in Russia in exchange for the not culturally similar authoritarians in the west?
Next, there are military skirmishes in disputed areas around the world all the time. Our media ignores most of them. The vast majority of Americans had no clue Brandon was using drones to bomb North Africa in July 2021 just before the Afghan debacle. We don’t pay attention to constant fighting in countries starting with a K bordering Russia. But with Covid ending, and an administration desperate to blame inflation the administration’s policies have directly caused on an external cause, here we go fanning the Russia flames, pretending we want Ukraine in NATO, causing global geopolitical instability. Idiocy is how we stumbled into WWI - which was pointless. We do not want to stumble into WW III!!!!
If a bunch of oil and natural gas leases hadn’t been cancelled by Brandon we’d still be energy independent. Putin wouldn’t have leverage over us. I guess leftist want to be enslaved by the WEF because they keep voting for this predictable bs.
Before I permanently deleted Facebook I predicted the following if Brandon won. Not because I’m a super genius, but because it was predictable. Remember that - this was known and predictable and discussed and those voting for Brandon ignored the warnings because mean tweets birth their feelings and Covid scared them. Please don’t do it again in 2022 and 2024.
Here were my predictions in fall 2020 (I wish I had been wrong):
“1 - We are going to have inflation either way, but if Biden wins it will be much, much worse. He will institute policies
to cut oil and gas production here when there is no alternative. It will make climate change worse because countries like China and India will increase coal usage. It will drive up the prices of everything here and most hurt the poor and middle class.
2 - Covid won’t end in 100 days under Brandon. Masks might come off for summer, but back on they’ll go when seasonal cases tick up in the fall. It won’t end until some other crises can be used to fear monger. There will likely be a vaccine this year, but our first attempt aren’t usually all that great. It took over a century to get the smallpox vaccine down. Hopefully a great tool for the actually vulnerable, but kids aren’t and they are sitting at home for no reason in every school district controlled by Democrats today. How long will you put up with this?
3 - Geopolitical instability. Biden is weak. Putin and Xi are not. Putin will take a land grab. I don’t know if it will be eastern Ukraine, some pro-Russian K country, or part of Finland’s frozen tundra, hopefully not thriving Poland, but he won’t miss the opportunity to take something as he always does under weak US presidents. Where the pain here begins is if Xi takes Taiwan. Let’s pray that doesn’t happen.
4 - For all the demands to tax people “like me” more, the reality is my tax bill will probably fall with any tax change. The rich already pay the most proportional in taxes here, unlike Europe where individual taxes are flat, VAT are regressive, and corporate taxes low. I’ll most likely get my SALT deduction back on 100% of my income and pay 2% more on a small portion. My overall tax bill will drop. Even if I don’t get SALT back, the inflation tax will hurt you under Biden way more than a 2% increase on a small portion of my income plus the proportional effect of inflation on me. Inflation increases the asset values of those who own them already, and expenses for all.
5 - Our schools will excelerate their long decline and continue focusing on ridiculous neoracist theories, sexualization of little kids will expand, that the teacher’s unions, not the children, matter will become very obvious. The left thinks only wealthy parents should have a say in schools. They tell you as much when they say “send them to private school if you want a say” all the time. If the left is smart they will stop saying this out loud, but they aren’t, so I suspect every few weeks there will be more stories about more Dem politicians and teacher’s unions telling parents who don’t want their kids taught to judge others based on skin tone or don’t want sexual orientation, of any type, discussed with their 1st grader, to go pound sand.
I get people hate Trump personally, but Presidential elections involve voting FOR policies and candidates. They aren’t a popularity contest on “do you like orange man?” Forget this at your own risk. Regardless of what you tell yourself or narrative sounds pretty, we are all going to have live with the actual policy outcomes. I hope I’m wrong, but if Biden wins, remember the bad was predictable even if I’m only right about one of these things. Can you even imagine if they all happen? Is that a risk you want to take because you hate Trump personally?”
Not every wealthy parent gets a say anymore. Several Park Avenue private schools (with tuitions north of $50K) informed parents shortly after the NYC riots that their kids will be indoctrinated with a CRT agenda, no exceptions permitted. "Take your child elsewhere, if you don't like it" they told parents, or words to that effect.
The attorney general of the United States designated dissenting parents as 'domestic terrorists.'
How many times do you have be beaten over the head before you get the picture?
We have more of a say. When the academics at my kids’ old Catholic school went to crap, and they let an 8th grade girl openly transition, I moved them to an academically excellent private, conservative, Christian school that rejects race and gender ideology. We couldn’t control their old school, but we still had options to control their choices. And we don’t pay anywhere near $50K a year for one of the top private schools in NC with an alumni list to rival any New England prep or boarding school.
I a firm believer that where there is a will, there is a way. But I also recognize financial means gives you options and taking less will to find ways. If one can afford $50K a year in tuition, even in NYC, those folks can afford homeschool tutors, conservative private schools, or some other option. It’s a heck of a lot easier to protect their kids than police officers whose entire salary isn’t even double tuition for one kid at these prep schools. The idea that protecting one’s children shouldn’t involve some sacrifice isn’t reality.
Never in my life have I more wished that I would have been really wrong. 😩. In 2000 I was a college freshman and wrote a paper I didn’t want Bush to win because we’d go to war in Iraq. I clearly had no clue 9/11 even could happen. All I did was listen to what the people around Bush were saying and took them at their word for what they could control and what most likely would follow.
Brandon said he’d shut down domestic energy as much as he could. While the Hunter Biden laptop wasn’t out, Biden’s long support for pro-western Ukrainian leaders he helped put in power during Obama against the will of the people was well known. People forget how many coups the Clinton state department helped cause.
Well, Putin likes land grabs and shutting down the energy independence of a superpower makes that calculation easier. Brandon said he’d fund CRT and gender ideology. Erasing women was on his website as a day 1 promise he followed through on. He promised to be the “best” partner to teachers unions (never mentioned kids or education quality). He stated he opposed school choice. He promised more regulation and more unfunded government spending which leads to predictable inflation - more of it when one drives up energy prices.
These results were entirely predictable for anyone who read the moron’s campaign website. Unfortunately most never clicked on it and instead voted based on the media hysteria of “orange man bad.” My biggest hope is people stop doing that. Read the policies. Consider the reality of how they’d be implemented. Turn the stupid TV off. I don’t know if enough have or will.
All my respect for those who suffer under the communist dictature in Cuba. No respect at all for those who propagate the lie, picked up from Putin’s propaganda, that the Maidan revolution of 2014 (not 2013!!!) is Obama’s or CIA’s coup. This is just as offensive to Ukrainians and anybody who lived under the Russian colonial empire yoke as it would be to pretend that Cuban dissidents and fighters for freedom are just traitors and risk their lives and suffer emprisonnent only because they’re paid by the CIA, because that’s what Castro’s propaganda says. You dislike Obama, you dislike Biden, well, I assure you you’re not the only one, but how about showing some respect for historical facts?
First, I am relying on facts. I’m attaching some articles below that link to or reference easily searchable declassified documents (mostly from left wing sources).
Second, I voted for Obama twice with my initial support largely because he opposed the Iraq way. I’m not an ideologue. I’m happy with what actually works.
At the time I didn’t think about the role Clinton and cronies would play in Obama’s administration. I was stupid for not paying attention to who Obama was going to surround himself with in DC. It is easier for me to accept I was just wrong to try big centralized government with lots of excessive regulation that never really works. I won’t make that mistake again, so it’s easy to avoid. Paying attention to who is actually steering the boat is a bit more difficult - especially with a lying media.
When I realized I screwed up voting for Obama, I learned. Instead of learning you want to sit on your high horse talking about “pampered Americans” which conflates moronic, woke, highly degreed but only really medium income urbanites that have been hiding from a cold they got anyway for 2 years with ALL Americans. In my community I’m surrounded by people who fled the likes of Putin and Castro. This country is a country of immigrants, and those who descend from free settlers, and freed slaves. Stop with the American people suck mantra.
I also hope Ukraine wins. I’m heartbroken that lots of people are dying. It’s ugly and terrible and awful. The chances of still being a nation after this are much higher for Ukraine if we don’t get involved up front and cause a lot of death and no solutions, or inadvertently push the planet into WW III.
I am shocked that Putin went all in on Ukraine. I thought he’d take a few more eastern regions without much anything and it’d be over. It doesn’t make me want to send Americans to die, but it shows how far we’ve fallen, how little Putin fears the Biden administration, and how our green energy policies have made the west impotent. We can’t defend anything globally even though “green energy” policies aren’t really helping the environment. Renewables contain lots of toxic or ecologically destructive materials like lead in solar panels and rare earth minerals in wind mill magnets. No one who ignores nuclear is serious about cleaner energy.
If WW III begins we only stand a chance if we don’t start it. The “leader” of our military runs around dressed up like Darth Vader hiding from a cold and “accidentally” gave the Taliban $85billion in US arms. We have lost any moral authority, at home we’ve lost our trust in any government agency, and we have no will to send kids to die for a President more interested in enriching his crack head son and siblings than making decisions with an interest on how they impact the American people. Just this week Brandon cut off MORE domestic energy production but promised to drain strategic oil reserves as the chances of war, which require oil, tick up quickly.
Next, the CIA probably interferes in Cuba often, and people probably die. They do that a lot. Our “intelligence” community exist to perpetuate itself and little else. Ever heard of Russiagate???? Honduras?
Not a word from Zoe about what Europe would or should do, after all it is a European problem, but just like Yugoslavia they expect the U.S. to do all the heavy lifting. Maybe Blinken should send Putin his Spotify music.
For many Americans post-Iraq, it boils down to one question: whose child is going to be sent to war?
Would you tolerate your son or daughter sent to the front lines of Ukraine or Taiwan?
It’s relatively easy to send arms, but this won’t stop a motivated invasion by a superior force; the kind of deterrence that the author, or McMaster are talking about requires boots on the ground.
Putin may be a bad guy, but before you pound the drums of war, reflect on whether you’d send your own child to defend these faraway countries. No, you wouldn’t. You’d assume that’s the work of some military family down south, or in your own working class suburbs. Probably people who voted for Trump.
Wrong. If you really believe in shoring up the international order with actual deterrence, then you’ve got to have skin the game.
"..You’d assume that’s the work of some military family down south, or in your own working class suburbs. Probably people who voted for Trump..." Everybody knows this is the kind of work those 'other' people do.
Your comment implies military families down south or from working class suburbs aren't mainstream Americans. I beg to differ. They are the backbone of America that make the rest of it possible.
My great-grandfathers fought against Southerners at Gettysburg and at numerous places in VA. They missed Antietam because their units were shot up pretty badly at Second Bull Run and remained behind when the army marched up the Potomac in pursuit of Lee. Some South Carolinians died within 10 yards of my great-grandfather's guns at the Gettysburg Peach Orchard. Southerners of all classes proved themselves to be men worthy of repsect. My father fought alongside their grandsons against the Japanese in World War 2. When I went in the service during the Vietnam War, he told me to make friends with Southerners and keep them.close, because they never ran from a fight. As a civil engineer.based in New York, I worked on numerous projects in rural Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. As a matter of fact, I met John Edwards at a.public hearing in Robbinsville, NC when he was a local legislator. I thought then that he had a future. Southerners, as a rule, are the best people in the United States, in my opinion.
No, the contrary: the elites, the opinion-makers, the upper middle-class to whom these appeals for shoring up the “world order” are directed are the ones whose voices are the loudest for “deterrence”.
The military families are indeed the backbone of America. They will pay an exorbitant price for this shoring up, just as they did in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The people who send them to war never seem to have children in the military themselves - no surprise.
My comment was strictly to address what I perceived as the diminishment of the southern and working class military families. But I agree that the self-perceived upper class elites use those families as cannon fodder. Now more than ever.
My comment was to emphasize the contempt the political class has for those that serve in the ranks. Please note the use of the quote marks around 'other'. That was underline the word and the fact that those inside the beltway consider them an underclass. I'm sorry I was not more direct.
Having spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan I have nothing but respect for those military families. It angers me that our elites - people with whom I grew up in Cambridge, Mass, for example, don’t know anyone who served, and don’t think about their importance in protecting the rights and freedoms we take for granted.
Democrats don’t want to exert American power because they think exerting power is evil white imperialism. They just want to stand unified in feckless disappointment with Europe because it makes them feel sophisticated.
Republicans no longer want to exert American power because they know that the aforementioned people who hate America will be in charge of the effort.
Basically everyone who went to Harvard and Yale hates the United States because they were trained to hate the United States by ‘intellectuals’. They control the permanent government. That’s why we are here.
My go-to for war expertise is always an intimacy and gender “expert!” Zoe’s piece simply adds to the entire theater this Bad Russia vs The Biden-exploiting Urkraine really is. No sane individual trusts anything that is being reported about this conflict by our Regime propaganda machine. Biden’s puppet masters desire nothing more than the collapse of America and the dollar and our military. Defending the “democracy” of Ukraine via a Biden regime who hates democracy (the same one who applauded Trudeau’s tyranny) is dangerous and moronic.
The invasion of Ukraine is a disaster for US foreign policy and credibility abroad. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union Ukraine was the third largest nuclear power in the world. It was only persuaded to surrender its arsenal based on accords signed with the United States, UK and Russia that its borders would be respected. It was widely assumed that the US would act as the guarantor of that agreement. What lesson does an Iran or North Korea take from all of this?
This is actually a very even handed article even though I disagree with the author's belief that the United States should go to war over Ukraine. I suspect my disagreement stems from the fact that I study the history of military and political science, while the author studies "the history of intimacy and gender". The irony of a gender studies professor advocating war halfway around the world (which his/her/zirs/its sons/daughters/demiboys/non-conforming offspring will never fight) is just too rich to pass up.
“if Ukraine were to join NATO, it would serve as a direct threat to the security of Russia.”
Putin's rhetoric about Ukrainian Nazis is pretty comical and obviously a lie, but this line is 100% true. This is how nations warn each other of red-lines (existential threats), and it is the one consistent demand Putin has made: get NATO off our doorstep.
The United States entered WWI when Germany attempted to make a military alliance with Mexico. Yet we castigate Russia for invading a neighbor who seeks a military alliance with us. We nearly went to war with the Soviets when they stationed missiles in Cuba, but declare unjustified Russia's concern about missiles 250 miles from Moscow. Putin is certainly a thug, but his demands are hardly without historical precedent. Has anyone heard of the Monroe Doctrine?
America isn't afraid of war. We're tired of our incompetent generals and politicians getting us into wars they won't win in places that don't matter to us. It's not fear; it's prudence.
"Putin is a much bigger threat than most Americans believe... He will support anyone and anything that can disrupt the liberal world order that has allowed the U.S. and other free nations to thrive."
And why shouldn't he? That "liberal world order" was hardly innocuous; it was constructed to contain and fight his own country. In as much as that order is an American empire, we should expect other nations to not comply with it. China is using its Belt and Road initiative to attempt to build a new global order centered in Beijing. We are justifiably concerned about that, and seek to damage that effort. It escapes me how Putin's challenge to the "US global order" is any different.
"The longer we pursue policies of retrenchment and withdrawal, on either humane or self-interested grounds, the more ground we cede to our enemies—and the more blood that will be ultimately spilled."
This is categorically false. Vladimir Putin leads a very large but essentially 3rd world country with a military budget the size of France. While he certainly wants influence over his neighbors (particularly his fellow Slavic neighbors), he lacks the political or military capability to take over Europe. Comparisons to 1938 Munich are overblown. Most countries aren't the 3rd Reich. Most leaders aren't Adolph Hitler. We should stop treating every border dispute in the world as if it's the Rhineland.
It was well within the power of Biden / Macron / Scholz / Zelesky to solve this diplomatically. They categorically refused. It's as if they just couldn't believe that someone (other than the US) would really use force when a neighbor refused to comply with words. They still can solve it, but the conditions on the ground now mean the solution will be a more bitter pill to swallow.
To paraphrase Queen Amidala from Star Wars (those prequels that don't actually exist): "sometimes negotiations with blasters are more effective." Putin understands that. We don't.
'It was well within the power of Biden / Macron / Scholz / Zelesky to solve this diplomatically..'
Putin asked for the moon and the stars - ie demanding NATO withdraw to its borders circa 1997. He knew full well those were non starters. He also knew that Ukraine was nowhere near NATO status, ready for entry, if ever. Which leads me to believe he used that ruse to provide cover for his military build up along the border, so when the farcical 'independence' of the two new republics in Ukraine's east was announced by the puppets in the Duma, his troops were already in position to cross over and 'defend' them.
In other words, I don't think NATO is a problem for Putin, he just wants another Belarus clone in Ukraine, with a supine government totally dependant on Moscow. He was never interested in diplomacy.
As for his attack, and the means by which he can hold on to the country - I think he'll be in for a surprise.
“Moyn mocked the war on terrorism. ‘More people die slipping in the bathtub than from terrorism, and far more on the roads,’ he said.”
We should be able to expect more from a Yale professor than this tired cliché. I am a retired CIA officer who spent much of my career working the counterterrorism (CT) mission. The statistic he so blithely and unthinkingly repeats doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is the result of the sacrifices of, and hard work carried out by, dedicated national security professionals across the globe, often in harm’s way, since 9/11, not to mention the sacrifices of the families of those personnel. It’s not because there weren’t credible threats and groups capable of carrying out such attacks, casualties from which would have far exceeded deaths in bathtubs.
It is a positive that our CT success allowed Americans to live with little to no worry and in peace, pursuing happiness on their own terms, and certainly able, as this piece suggests, to focus on and address other problems. Unfortunately, we became victims of that success, as Americans came to believe terrorism is no longer a significant threat. With us pulling back from our forward deployments, and as we still haven’t started to fight the ideological battle required to denigrate the terrorists center of gravity, I predict it won’t be long before this threat resurfaces in a visible way. I hope I’m wrong about that.
I appreciate your vote of thanks. It was an honor to serve and I was fortunate to have had the career I did.
I am curious about your comment. Which techniques do you understand are being deployed against the citizenry? And by whom? I want to better understand your concern, before I comment. Thanks in advance for elaborating.
I was likely inaccurate regarding actual techniques. I am incensed at parents and other citizens being referred to as "terrorists", although I suspect that may include collection and analysis of their communications and other data.
Lynne, Thank you for your clarification. I am likewise incensed at that DOJ characterization of parents and other citizens. As the DOJ direction to the FBI to conduct such investigations is in the law enforcement sphere, rather than the intelligence one, I don't know what methods, if any, they might be employing, nor the laws, regulations and policies that would govern the use of such measures. Put differently, I strongly oppose the DOJ's direction to the FBI and the premise for it, and am concerned about the chilling effect that will have on people who merely want to exercise their right to free speech. However, I don't have a sense of what, if anything, the FBI has done to carry out the DOJ's orders. That said, if the FBI is pursuing such domestic terrorism investigations against people without solid probable cause, I think that would qualify as an abuse of power.
I would apply your thoughts to how the Jan 6 protestors are being held without charge and bail, also the tactics shown in how they're being questioned. Gateway Pundit has several interviews with those being held in the DC jail
Please read the Dept. of Homeland Security's National Terrorism Advisory Systems' "Terrorism Threat to the U.S. Homeland" of Feb. 7, 2022.
It starts like this:
"The US remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of "mis-dis-and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic Threat Actors...
....these Threat Actors seek to exacerbate societal friction and sow discord and undermine public trust in gov't institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence..."
So what this document is doing is labeling anyone who says anything that doesn't echo the gov't line as terroristic "Threat Actors".
Dissenting voices are now "Threat Actors", Rick.
More:
"...For example, there is widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19..."
It's called dissent, and democracy does't exist without it, but they know this.
Anyhow, it's a truly sickening doc. - a gov't warning about a "terrorism threat"-a"heightened threat environment"-coming from the citizens- and it illustrates what Lynne is referring to.
Please read it.
And double read that part about MDM to understand what truly NUTS is.
Anna, While MDM exists, I share your concerns that there are people in government that are hyping that threat, misapplying it to protected speech, and to some extent looking the other way when it is favorable to their own side. What are they afraid of? Competition in the marketplace of ideas that would adversely affect their agenda. To the extent this is happening, it's wrong.
Did you work under John Brennan? If not, do you believe he added luster to the CIA's reputation? It seems tome that lying POS, together with Clapper, Comey and Hayden were more intent on destroying the lives Americans along with our democracy than any terrorists
Good. I hope we stay "afraid", which is another word for SANE.
Fact: Ukraine is part of Russia.
If Putin bombed NYC or Texas, we'd be justified in responding, because those are part of OUR nation. Ukraine is not part of OUR nation, so it's none of our fucking business.
So I enjoy another point of view, but I think you've missed the boat on why people in this country don't want war, and it's not that we don't know ourselves. I think we've gotten too good a picture of ourselves.
Last night on Tucker Carlson, he showed a few clips of our politicians defending intervention in this mess, of which two struck me. The first was Lindsey Graham, who told us that we had to "defend democracy." Lindsey Graham is the same man who won't say a word about censorship, who won't go visit the people in the DC jail who have been kept in solitary confinement for nearly a year, and who has not said a word about Fidel Castro Jr to the north of us freezing bank accounts for people who were peacefully protesting. If Lindsey Graham won't defend our own democracy, his calls to defend Ukraine's so-called democracy fall flat. And then after him was Nancy Pelosi, so spitting mad she could barely keep her teeth in her mouth, talking about how Putin was an evil rich man who only got wealthy exploiting his own people. This is the woman who, with her husband, has used her position in Congress to amass a fortune of nearly a half a billion dollars. Talk about exploiting people.
So here is what people have started to recognize. We need to "fix" America before we go telling other countries what to do. Over two years of COVID and even before we have watched as large corporations have, with our politicians and bureaucracy, taken over the running of this country for their own benefit, increasingly squashing any complaints as "fascism" (irony of ironies), white supremacy, racism, the list goes on and on. We don't have a democracy here anymore and we're starting to recognize it. In other words, we know exactly who we've become, and we don't like it one little bit and we're not going to be distracted from our own problems by a bunch of elites that start a war in Europe. For two years, we've been mandating that people wear ineffective coverings on their faces, get vaccines that don't work, locking people in their homes, tearing children away from schools for no reason, forcing people to die alone. Nothing was "democratic" about that much less humane. So when people tell us, OMG, Russia will take over, we shrug. Right now, the authoritarianism of Russia and the authoritarianism of the West is just a matter of degrees and we have no room to go pointing fingers. *That* is why there is no appetite for war.
Best comment of the day!!!!
As a veteran and American I agree 100% with you. Very well said.
Amen, brother. This veteran of our Southeast Asian misadventure agrees with you 100%.
Yes, I believe many who spew this narrative have another unstated agenda, such as forcing Russia to back off in the midddle east so they can put their pipeline through Syria. THAT was what the war there against Assad was about where we funded tribes of imported beheaders to attack as surrogate troops, until Russia crushed them.
I, too.
Brilliant summary of the disgust most Americans feel toward what’s left of our democracy and the sanctimonious elites who have been assaulting it. I would add an even more visceral item to the list, that being their fanatical demand that we purge ourselves of fossil fuels. While Biden and his puppet masters have declared war on our fossil fuel industry, they have blessed Putin's embrace of it. As a result, Putin is piling up rubles to fund his adventurism while most of us Americans watch our bank accounts decline. Had Biden kept in place the Trump policies that gave us energy independence and the ability to blunt the energy blackmail Putin is imposing on Europe, his calculus would most certainly have been different than what we are witnessing now.
More to your point however, the same fools that precipitated this mess demand that you and I be obedient to their whims and suffer the consequences of their dictates. With the “war on terror” having flopped and Covid being exposed more and more as an excuse for government overreach, Ukraine is nothing more than the next episode in the corporate/media/government complex’s ongoing quest to dominate we mere citizens.
Has anyone thought about the fact that there have been no changes to the "team lineup" after the Afghanistan debacle? If this were a business people would be fired, policies would be examined and new perspectives would be welcomed. But not so in the highest Administration.
First thought:
Julian Assange in 2011 said "The goal is to use Afghanistan to wash money out of the tax bases of the US Europe and through Afghanistan and into the hands of a transnational security elite. The goal is an endless war, not a successful one."
Ukraine was supposed to continue to be the same moneymaker for the Swamp, but Putin beat them. He's tired of Ukraine being used by the west to play their games.
Second thought:
Who in the bigger picture ultimately gains from this?
The Davos crowd.
Davos/Biden/Obama's policies are geared to destroy the US as a global influence; no other nation will trust the US for protection.
The Great Reset juggernaut continues forth.
I wonder why Putin views Ukraine as a puppet to NATO...
Could it be that Biden bragged about a threat to illegally withhold aid to the country in exchange for firing the prosecutor that was investigating the energy company his son was a board member of?
The Davos bunch seems almost gleeful the west is neutered and has no energy independence meaning we can’t stop Xi or Putin unless we all freeze (which if Christian’s were concentrated in the north Brandon would sign off on instantly)………. God help us all.
The question is - from incompetence or is it intentional?
I admit to being surprised Putin went all in on Ukraine. The Russian people have cheered when he takes land in regions that effectively want to be taken. Taking the entirety of Ukraine is a major escalation for Putin that deviates from his usual take land from pro-Russians to become Russian and get cheered at home. This taking a whole country that doesn’t want taken is somewhat uncharted territory for Putin and could go 100 different directions of bad.
Either way, it doesn’t matter since we can’t do anything. We have incompetent military leadership. We are tired of endless foreign wars. We got to experience far more peace and global stability from 2017-2020 and we have no public appetite for going back to war again.
Our intelligence agencies are more focused on Christian soccer moms than actual threats (maybe that’s why they didn’t see a full scale invasion coming).
Europe has not gotten to a place they can defend themselves even though Western Europe has had over 70 years. Creeping authoritarianism in the west (most recently blackfacehitler) where opposition to the far left is locked up with out a key or bank account, and supporters burn cities punishment free, has cost us our moral superiority.
Most importantly, in the woke urbanite rush to force the masses (including themselves) to own nothing by 2030, the west gave up energy independence. Seen by those who meet in Davos as a positive development in their push to destroy western wealth because, equity, none of these fake climate warriors seem bothered such a move gave Putin, and potentially Xi, the leverage to do whatever they darn well please.
Maybe orange man had it right after all………….. And for anyone trying to claim Putin “would have” done it under Trump - you don’t have any objective facts on your side. Putin did not do it under Trump. Period. One year into Brandon, Putin HAS invaded Ukraine - all of it apparently - in a more aggressive way than ever before. So don’t give me this bs that Putin would have done something under a different administration he didn’t actually do, and didn’t have the leverage to do.
I’m sending prayers to people in Poland and Taiwan, who very much want to keep their freedom and prosperity. It may take God protecting them because we all know with Brandon in charge, and Darth Vader hiding from a cold commanding our troops, there isn’t anything our country can do to stop them.
Looks like you've identified another item to add to the list
They were promoted because it was SO profitable for so long!
Brilliant comment. This author completely missed the mark. Not until they stand up and defend our democracy will I support their desire to defend another’s, which is not even a democracy.
Regarding the war on terror flop, it is worse than that - it is being used against the citizenry.
(Biden can also use the psy op of Ukraine for the next several months to deflect attention away from the bodies piling up from the jab-)
elections coming-
( never let a crisis, especially a self-manufactured one- go to waste.)
Another brilliant comment it appears we are fighting back though not aiming for a war but frightening back against the establishment it’s more important than going into a war we need to clean the ring around our bath first before we take on Ukraine let’s start with that
I think the mosaic is almost complete. Even the fools who voted for Biden and compliant republican adornments like Lindsey Graham are beginning to see it. They’re all just as power hungry as Putin and even better propagandists.
I think we need to see exactly who is on the take. On both sides.
I think it's pretty clear who's in that club. You can start with he shrillest Trump critics on the Democratic side and work your way through the fork tongued Trump "allies" on the Republican side. Both parties have long standing members who have managed to slither up the food chain. As long as they're compliant they get to feed at the trough. If not our intelligence agency enforcers and corporate media smear artists remind them who is really in charge.
I want public confirmation and disclosure.
Yes !
As Neville Chamberlain said-Peace in our time. Except there wasn't peace in their time. How long do we let Putin run rough shod over these countries until we take action? Do we let him keep taking slices off the salami? Does having any views not in direct correlation and alignment with yours and not of lily white purity automatically make one ineligible to have an opinion of what action this flawed but wonderful nation should do? Would you have been content to let Nazi Germany and their allies partition the world, relegating millions of people more to death.
Word salad. Sophomoric word salad at that! Prattling! Off topic. Inane and irrelevant.
The reason that the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan actions failed is because we could not instill the western values of freedom and democracy, however flawed some may think they are, and Western values to these people whose main job in life was survival. Eastern Europe has similar if not the same values as the rest of Europe and the United States. Our perceived flaws in one area are do not obviate the things we get right.
Russia was found to be a paper tiger before. Why not again?
If we are going to tolerate authoritarians north of our border invoking emergency powers to crush political opposition whenever blackfacehitler wants, why on earth do we care of Putin takes a pro-Russian, Russian speaking, Russian Orthodox giant field in eastern Ukraine?
You seem to be ignoring we could have avoided this outcome if we had simply treated Ukraine like Finland and said no NATO.
Are we going to let China build a military base or join a military pact with Mexico or Canada? If we would not allow that threat on our border, why do you think Putin would welcome NATO on his?
Putin doesn’t have ambitions to rule the world. He wants his sphere of influence and we are in no position, morally or otherwise, and hove no obligation, to meddle. Meddling by the Obama administration in 2013 caused the problem.
Whataboutism at its worst. If the inept prime-minister of Canada was allowed to have emergency powers for a few days, than why shouldn’t Putin be allowed to invade his neighbor, kill scores of people and drag the country in the slavery of his Russian colonial empire? Perfect equivalency, right?
What a stupid comment.
First for Canada - For a few days? He can has shown he can have them whenever he wants them, which makes it more of a permanent option thing. Isn’t the crushing of political opposition one of the reasons we supposedly hate Putin? But it’s just fine if blackfacehitler does it right? Just some working class folks who are as disposable as American public school kids? That your thought?
As to Putin, when Brandon reduced domestic energy production and Germany shut down nuclear plants at the behest of the WEF, we lost our leverage regardless of the moral implications. We lost our ability to deter Putin, and Ukraine’s territorial integrity isn’t something we should be sending Americans yo die for.
War is terrible and people die, but we have caused a crap ton of deaths over the last 30 years. If we really didn’t want Putin to invade Ukraine, we’d treat them like Finland and say no NATO. This was 100% avoidable.
Eastern Ukraine is a Russian speaking, Russian Orthodox, pro-Russia population. They get to choose between the culturally similar authoritarian on their eastern border, or the authoritarians in the west with no shared culture who assure them men can give birth.
We caused the coup in 2013 throwing out the democratically ejected pro-Russia president of Ukraine and ensuring the pro-west dictator took his place. That didn’t help the people if Ukraine.
We kill scores of people in our pointless wars. In the last 20 years, Putin hasn’t come close. What on Earth makes you think you get a say in what Putin is or isn’t “allowed” to do???
What do you know about the revolution of 2014? You can’t even get the year right. Do you know how many hundreds of thousands of people have risked their life protesting against Yanukovych? Do you know how many of them were killed? Do you have any relatives among those killed? You Americans have no clue about hardship, even less so about life in a dictatorship, but it doesn’t stop you from always blabbing about fake facts you pick up on your favorite loonie websites. What on earth makes YOU, pampered American, think you have a saying in what Ukrainians are or are not allowed to do?
War sucks. People die. It’s cruel and evil. It’s sickening. So are dictators (which I would not know anything about with family still in Cuba 🙄).
I have, and never suggested having, any say in what Ukraine does. What I said was that if you feel called to defend Ukraine, please stand up and do so personally. I am praying for Ukraine, but I’m no more willing to send American troops to die than AOC was willing to condemn Miguel last year.
A "few" days. I love the naivete.
People are so gullible. Banks accounts still frozen, innocent protestors still in jail, trucks still impounded with threats to sell off, licenses and businesses still shut down, but hey, he “only” used the emergency act a “couple of days” to beat journalist, beat protestors, make it so people who supported them can’t feed their kids, and illegally confiscate property and jail political opposition. Great news!!! He’ll only need the powers to be a dictator “a couple of days” every time some pesky working class person gets tired of his tyranny and speaks up. It’s so almost Democratic of Castro Jr.
He got the emergency powers on February 14th and relinquished them on February 23, much sooner than planned, because of the justified outcry. That’s a few days, in case you didn’t know that, naive or not. I used the word “inept” referring to Trudeau and I totally disagree with the way he handled the issue. My post was about false equivalence, but this seems to be too subtle for some.
He did not "relinquish" them. The Parliament gave them to him for 30 days, and that wasn't just a fluke. It's not like he said, "Oh, no, never mind." He yammered on about needing them in case there was another blockade. Remember "two weeks to flatten the curve"? Welcome to "two weeks" of "emergency" powers. And he never should have had that power to begin with, so all of this is ridiculous and should be challenged. "Inconvenience" is no reason to prosecute peaceful protestors.
The equivalence is nothing more than a matter of degrees in brutality. If he can invoke emergency powers whenever he wants, then he always has them.
People are still in jail, most who were targeted still can’t work, still can’t have their property, still can’t use a bank, still don’t have a license - commercial or personal, still can’t feed their family after making sure the woke urbanites could hide from a cold with full bellies for 2 years. The Rebel News reporter who was targeted and beaten by police then they shot her point blank in the leg with a chemical cartridge is still injured.
The political class here is unwilling to stand up for freedom and democracy here. But we are supposed to believe that’s what they “really” seek elsewhere???? As they put in vaccine passports and ESG social credit scores and destroy actual livelihoods and lock grandma from Jan 6th up in solitary for a year?
Good luck getting public support by claiming it’s cool for our leftists to crush peaceful political opposition or dissenting views, but not those other leftist on the other side of the globe.
If you don’t like it I hear Ukraine is accepting volunteers to protect their borders, absolutely nothing is stopping you from putting your own life and money where your mouth is on how are “we allowing” Putin to do anything. Why aren’t you personally doing anything to stop him?
You have no clue who I am and what I do about this situation, but that doesn’t stop you from throwing useless words around. You think that this issues are for everybody in the world what they are for you Americans, just a gratuitous parlor game? Some people are actually in harm’s way. How many of your relatives have been killed or imprisoned by dictatorial regimes?
Yes, I have family still trapped in Cuba. I’ll repeat, if you want to go save Ukraine then go do it.
I’m as committed to defending Ukraine tonight as US leftist and Biden we’re to helping the now murdered protestors in Cuba last summer.
Oh, brother.....
I think you should ask any German survivors of World War II if Russia is a laler.tiger. I will provide a one-way ticket to the nearest military recruiting station to you and all your physically fit family members. The USG will provide the body bags. Recycled, of course.
What propaganda nonsense!
Well stated.
100%. Not to mention that nobody has any faith in our military leadership. American's don't want to sacrifice their fathers, brothers and children on a war that could have been easily averted by projecting strength. Instead we focused on imaginary white supremacy in the military and fired special forces members for vaccine hesitancy.
Focused on imaginary white supremacy indeed. None of the media or administration can ever point to exactly who they are referring. Even their blind believers should be asked if they went outside their home and looked in every direction could they point to even one example of that? At work...look around...see anyone you would walk up to and say I bet you're a white supremacist? Anywhere. Seriously. Where are all these so called people? I don't know a single person that I would even suspect of that. And yet we're to believe it's the biggest threat to our freedom?
That's exactly how I feel. Nobody ever wants to go to war. It should be a last resort. But expecting American citizens to back a war after being insulted, mocked and disrespected for over a year is not going to happen.
Causing merrick Garland AG to call the American parents domestic terrorist
You left out the CIA, DOD, FBI and Media. After Russiagate honestly I don't believe anything they say anymore.
BAM!
This comment was better than the article. Thank you.
Good summary! We face the tectonic political plate shift towards the CCP's model of social credit enabled centralized totalitarianism -- the openly advocated vision of the World Economic Forum (the Great Reset), sliding over and suffocating the Great Enlightenment of the Sanctity of the Individual, best articulated by the American Bill of Rights.
Russia is a distraction. China's long march toward an elite-imposed fascism is the enemy.
Besides, only a dozen or so of our thirty-plus Army combat brigades are ready enough to deploy -- we're at a readiness capability below what we entered WWII with. The only real kinetic force we can project against division-size forces are tactical nukes -- and we are not about to use them. Checkmate Putin. And China salivates over Taiwan.
"leftist fascism" is redundant
Fascism was a creation of Giovanni Gentile and his more famous Italian compatriot, Benito Mussolini. It was certainly sold as anti-communist, but was basically socialism + nationalism.
Modern leftist progressives have adopted it and carry the torch. They demand that corporations do the bidding of the government, and that the workers have a controlling say in the corporations. Most of all, they demand absolute fealty to the dictates of (progressive) government.
So, perhaps the original Italian Fascism can be labeled as "right" (whatever that means these days), but it is now being practiced for the world to see by the "extreme left" by which I mean progressives of the Trudeau cloth.
post of the year . Well said
Agree 100%
Both Lillia Gajewski and Zoe Strimpel tell only a part of the story. Who we are both as a people and as a nation can’t be based on myth and propaganda, but has to be based on a clear eyed vision of our past history, our present state, and our obligation to the future. And we can’t wait until we’ve reached perfection before we allow ourselves to act to save the drowning. How we handle the current Russian threat, and the looming Chinese threat, will very much define our future.
That would be a fine sentiment if we weren't already drowning ourselves. That's my point.
That was true as soon as the Soviet Union fell. That was true when Obama and bush crushed our ability to be energy independent. That was true when Western Europe and US progressives sold out prosperity to slave labor in China and bs from the WEF clearly meant to bankrupt the west, not save the planet.
Most importantly, these same issues were evident when people gave Trump no credit for geopolitical stability and decided to elect Biden despite the warnings of exactly what is happening, well, happening if elected.
We are simply walking the path of accepting those consequences solidified with Biden’s election.
Well said Phil Helms
Well said! In retrospect with one caveat. Isolationism has rarely, if ever worked. Whether we have the “appetite” for war or not, we will be affected by what’s happening over “there”. Today its Eastern Europe. Where will it be tomorrow?
While I agree in principle about isolationism, our "wars" in the last few years have not benefited anyone other than a few special interests. The people we've tried to "help" in nearly every case have ended up worse off for our "intervention."
Very true!
The comment is better written and more informative than the article. Thank you Lillia. Your thoughts are my thoughts.
Yes Yes Yes! And thank you for not omitting the facts about Lindsey Graham.
Remarkable fence straddler, is he not?
Lillia...very nicely done
Totally agree. Well put.
"so spitting mad she could barely keep her teeth in her mouth"
Pelosi uses only the finest denture grip.
Lilia for the W.
This article was absolutely hilarious... can anyone tell me what the point of writing, or worse, reading that, actually was? Nowhere in the entire article did he make any rational argument whatsoever regarding what our costs will be and what our benefits will be. We literally now view politics as a "I say, you do" equation, as a opposed to a "you tell me why, I decide, and vote accordingly based on my willingness to trade that cost, for that benefit."
When America "fought" the cold war, it was on the rational basis of illustrating that freedom and liberty create more value for citizens than communism does. We all agreed on that, and we won simply by being more free than they are. You'll have to forgive the citizens of the United States, who watch their freedoms be stripped every day, if fighting for principles our leaders no longer believe in in the first place is just a step too far.
Today, I'm MUCH more worried about the communism on our northern border, on our airplanes, and in our schools than I am about Putin doing EXACTLY what we did during the cold war and trying to eliminate threats on his border (Cuba, anyone?)
Regardless, our gender studies professor (why is he writing an article on war in Russia/Ukraine?) are going to have to explain exactly what they think we're fighting for before any rational person is going to listen. As ridiculous as it is, at least when we went to Iraq most sane people accepted it was for oil. A ridiculous reason, and a war CANNOT be won without occupation following that war (it has never happened in human history) so we knew we weren't going to win, but at least we could rationalize the economic principles back home. It was a disaster, we all know it (and most knew it at the time), but at least we pretended. Biden CHOSE to give up energy independence, the single most important stabilizing factor for a country in the global hierarchy (can you taste all those coal plants burning in China?) and now is pretending we need a war to stabilize energy markets? The biggest problem we have in waging war (which we only do as a means for laundering our ridiculous debt anyway...) is that half the American people are no longer quite so uneducated on why exactly we're doing what we're doing. And no one seems to want to have to a rational discussion about that as they scream "we must go to war to project strength for the world." Strength in what exactly? Strength in promoting gender studies? I just need anyone to say this in a way that makes sense and doesn't scream of hypocrisy.
I like how somehow it's the American people's fault that we aren't up for more war, after a year of trashing every ounce of deterrent, appearance of strength, and even sanity while systematically destroying the unity of the country from within. Sorry, I'm taking conscientious objector status. Let Hunter and his fellow board members fight this one. It took a while but we finally figured it out.
This is too funny. As it turns out, our "gender" woke author actually writes a weekly newspaper column on gender politics and dating. So, what's next, Miss Manners on advanced topics in genetic engineering and nuclear physics.?
https://profilesinfo.com/zoe-strimpel-wiki-networth-age/
I missed the part where forcing the military to add pronouns to their bios and build non binary latrines somehow enhances deterrence. Maybe talk to Putin's manager?
Here's our latest recruit for the coming "gender inclusive" war with Russia. You know, walk softly and carry a big "stick." Oh yes, Putin's quaking in his boots.
https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/b9f/0d3/d6b50d10b390cfa79db41af27efcc48877-Winters-NY-Mag-Gabriel-Mac-06.w710.jpg
OMG, that picture. Scary not because he/she projects strength but rather illness.
Wait until you read the article:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/gabriel-mac-essay.html
has it ever opened a history book ? after reading this trash i think not , stick to gender politics , your flowery poety is just that . what a waste of 3 minutes
it? Can we please have some civility here? I come here to have arguments - I can get trolling, especially bullying trolling from a man to a woman, elsewhere. In substance I agree with you, but you make it impossible for me to stand with you because of your attitude. That goes for a lot of commenters here. Raise your level of discourse!
it they them , whatever , you see bullying i see calling out BS. tired of all this gender bs , be what or who you want to be but don't expect me to be bullied into using insane terms beause it pleases you . Im out wish i could get my money back and turn off all the email from this site every time I make a comment . I don't need or want your likes or whatever means zero to me
don't leave Jerry!
Liberals need to be reminded at every opportunity of this Law of the Universe:
"Don't dish it out if you can't take it"
They love to dish it but their heads explode when we clap back.
Keep clapping back.
and I totally agree with you on this pronoun BS- don't be bullied by the word police into using fake terms.
Jerry you can turn off email notification of likes and comments. Go to your profile settings. And I agree that blurting out your antipathy is a waste of everyone's time. If your comment is just an emotional belch, just yell at your computer screen and spare us.
Sorry, I’ve been polite for 54 years. Done with that.
Bye, Felicia.
Criticism is not trolling, and this article deserves no mercy.
making personal and disparaging comments about the person who brings a message is trolling - this person's poetry and her profession have no bearing on her thoughts about American foreign policy. I don't really agree with some of her arguments, but that should be the focus, not her artistic production. You're right - it's the article that should not receive mercy - we all as people deserve respect no matter how dumb our ideas. The commenter is confusing the personal with the public.
She has as much qualification to comment on foreign policy as my 5-year old granddaughter. As a veteran, and an individual who has worked in East Asia, Central Asia, the Levant and Africa, among the locals, not as a tourist riding a bus and staying in a Western hotel isolated from the locals, I can say that this author's worldview is imbecilic and NEVER should have been published.
No, the complaints are valid. The writer has no expertise in the matters opined upon and so are no more significant than anyone else's.
Oh please, get over yourself.
I'm going to start referring to the Great Ukraine War as Cornpops's Revenge.
Corn Pop was a bad dude.
And this was the point the author missed. We know ourselves too well. We have no room to be telling the rest of the world what to do.
We should never be telling the world what to do. We should be showing them. And we aren't doing that either. Anyway, deterrence is psychological and a key function of the head of state, which obviously is non-existent with our current long term care resident.
I'm a veteran of Desert Storm/Shield and I agree with everything you wrote.
Thank you for your service. I have family members and friends who have made the ultimate sacrifice and I do not take for granted, for one second, what our military means to us. How it has been used and abused by politicians, neocons, corporatists and globalists belittles the good names of those of who have given of themselves in good faith. Thank you again for all you've given!
To be fair, there is an argument for resisting the advance of tyrannical regimes in this article. That was reason enough for WWII, although it took some time for the US to make up its mind about that after the horrors of WWI. I'm not supporting military intervention here, but where does the US draw a line against the violent takeover of democratic countries? Should we meet our commitment to NATO if it comes to it, and it very plausibly could? Who saw NATO as a bad idea during the Cold War? If our official stance is non-intervention in any conflict, where does that lead? This is not an easy question to answer. I don't care who wrote this essay or what the author's positions are on other topics. Ideas don't need to be pilloried just because you don't like the person presenting them. The author specifically anticipates the reactions seen here and is asking a legitimate question about the way America sees its role in the world. It's a pretty vague piece overall, but not just drivel as some are suggesting.
I thought NATO deliberately didn't admit Ukraine for the reason it's still a bright line on defense and that adults in the room realistically saw that NATO shouldn't push that far east, on Russia's doorstep, that Ukraine's attempt at independence was provisional and could be ended. Russia's actions toward Ukraine seem to revive the relevance NATO; Trump said it was not necessary any more. What do you think?
Trump did not say NATO had no use, he said the NATO countries should bear their share of the costs.
Interesting, you read the piece and found it vague; I read it and considered his framing pro-war.
it's a woman - I had to look to check that out because I tend to assume “he“ in oublic discourse, something I'm trying to correct
Yes, Zoe is a female name, like my next-door neighbor's daughter. Doubt either Zoe will fight. Hopefully, my neighbor's son won't have to fight for no reason, as my generation did in Vietnam and my sons' generation in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I stand corrected, I suppose, I should get in the habit of using the word author! That way, I won’t have to be concerned about their sex.
OK, but the author is a female - or at least "identifies" as such.
During the two and half years before America entered World War I, on the European continent, those who objected to entering the war were pacifists and the Socialist party with some objecting based on civil libertarian principles.
Charles Lindbergh led the Antiwar charge, not to enter the war in Europe, before that infamous day in 1941. He was a proponent of isolationism, who believed northern European descendants were inherently superior, just like Hitler did!
But today, the top two posts are antiwar because of the imposition of a pandemic and the woke society they think we live in.
What a strange world we live in! “The Times They Are a-Changin.”
I struggle with references to WWII in the context of this conflict. These are not like for like comparisons - or if they are I'm really missing something. This reminds me of using the Spanish Flu as a reference point for COVID-19 despite them being orders of magnitude apart in terms of impact. The mortality rate of the Spanish Flu was closer to stage 2 breast cancer than it was to COVID19. The flu season of 2018 killed more people across Europe than COVID19 did in the 2020 flu season, and, abstaining for lockdown related deaths, killed more people than the flu season of 2021 did as well. Check Euromomo and you can do the math yourself.
So for comparison sake, why wasn't the US invading Kuwait the start of WWIII? Or the US invading Iraq? Or the US Invading Afghanistan? Or all the proxy wars the US and China have participated in in Africa by arming different sides to install our preferred "government?" Why wasn't Yemen the start of WWIII? Or the Russian Annexation of Crimea? Or the genocide of the Uyghurs if we really want to start making comparisons to the early days of WWII?
Why didn't we care about any of these conflicts, even ones WE started, but now we must sacrifice of ourselves for the benefit of Ukraine (maybe - since a large minority, that is possibly a majority, view themselves as Russians)? These are the questions that aren't being answered.
Politics should be a relatively straight forward game - tell me the cost of the crisis at hand, the cost of the proposed solution to that crisis, and the likelihood of that solution actually reducing the cost of the crisis. For COVID19 every single mitigation measure we attempted made things worse until the virus finally burned itself out. There is absolutely a point where Russian expansion becomes too great a cost/threat to ignore, and I'm not even saying it's not right now, what I'm saying is I want someone to explain to me why it IS now and it wasn't those times? And what is the cost to us going to be of eliminating that threat?
I'm not pro or anti-war... I'm pro transparent cost/benefit analysis that weigh both sides of an equation and present a reasonable solution. Sanctions - high cost to the poor and middle class in the US and zero chance of working, so those should have been taken off the table immediately. Military presence - large cost to us, limited chance of working without direct conflict, I don't see a positive outcome. Direct conflict - HUGE cost to us, and I can't even tell you what their chances of working are because we haven't even defined what working is. Is working just protecting the mob rule of Ukraine so we can continue to launder money there? Sorry, but that's not worth any cost to me. If there are other benefits let's hear them, and then let's have a rational analysis of the costs and the benefits... War is a TERRIBLE thing and should be a last resort, but at the very least we should know WHY we are going to war, and what these hardships (of which our protected ruling class who won't feel ANY of) will actually cost us, the people, in the end.
I think the fear , and IMO a justified one, is that this is a precursor to a larger confrontation. And the question is, does a strong response here increase or decrease the likelihood of that? We do not, and cannot know at this point.
Your comment is spot on. War has so many unintended consequences that scare the hell out of me.
ButTheDataSays, I was referencing, before we entered World War II, there was a war on the continent of Europe. Is there not a war on the continent of Europe today?
It's a she by the way
That was my fault... I got to writing too fast and apologize for missing the distinction, though I'm not sure it matters if it's a he or a she writing the article. But either way, my mistake.
No problem! Of course given the author's purported "expertise" on gender (and apparently deciphering the inscrutable male mind), I wasn't really sure your were punking her!
No Putin is not doing what we did in the Cold War. He’s lost his mind. Read his speech.
Sorry no. Quite literally - Ukraine is the bread basket of Russia. He knows the asset he is striving to get. Understanding the history - you will get why this reunification is important to him. He planned it all along.
The "history" is lengthily outlined in his speech. Do you think he's insincere? Is this all about getting Ukranian grain? Lebensraum? He's going to pay a fantastically high price for getting some cornfields. No he's insane, it's straight out of Hitler-insanity, the feeling that the end of WWI was "unfair" to Germany with the territorial concessions (see the Danzig speech 9/17/39), same with the end of the Cold War being "unfair" to Russia. Same arguments, same modus operandi - but we live with nuclear weapons now, the stakes are infinitely higher.
Ukraine:Russia::Virginia:United States::1861:2022. Straight from.the SAT.
"can anyone tell me..." Thanks! I thought it was just me who thought it...
With Greenawald and Tiabbi eating crow who’s left to advise us on Putin?
The best sanction we have is to ramp up energy production . We do it better and cleaner than Russia. It will also put us in a better position with the Iran negotiations. The climate alarmist know it but they don’t care. Time to stop listening to children - the world is a dangerous place . If we don’t, expect Taiwan to be next and for Biden to sign a weak agreement with Iran (for oil) and then war in Mideast . 2024 is too far away .
Taiwan will likely be next and there's nothing we can do about it. If there was, we wouldn't do it. Most of the leadership of both parties get large weekly paychecks from the CCP.
The question is, what offers the best opportunity for species survival: a nuclear holocaust or a climate holocaust? And I don’t mean human!
World has survived climate change - it is real but the “science “ is not as dire as the hype. Climate science is evolving and models changing - plus it does not take into account technology .
World will not survive nuclear war - it is obvious
It does take a large amount of hubris for someone to say I know more than 97% of the climate scientists, but you seem to have an overabundance of it. Am I mistaken? Are you saying you're clairvoyant? You know that the magic wand of technology will take care of climate change! I'm sure you know this, but I'll say it anyway, the planet will survive, but the question is, will the mammals survive because I have a hunch that cockroaches will
Ignorance must be bliss .
Not saying warming is not a real problem but you are incorrect about the 97 percent number . Common misperception meant to gaslight.
Question - are the climate models evolving? The science is not perfect snd is still evolving . Small changes in assumptions have huge impact on output - going both ways. It could be worse or it could not be as bad. That is fact . That is the science . Scientific method should be taught in school- otherwise we are doomed by the village idiots
Let’s see, can I blow smoke as good as you? With the evolution of climate change models for the 50+ years, and add on top of that the advancements of supercomputers, is a reason 97% of the climate scientist believe the addition of CO2 into the atmosphere is increasing the temperature here on earth. The difference between your smoke blowing and mine is that I’ll provide evidence. By the by, whose the village idiot?
“Studies confirm climate models are getting future warming projections right”
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver?fbclid=IwAR1dKlYZA2QA8FBNkAI7ghr7QNNp9vRCnl5F6LgUbvc_YzAWP-xn6ykpYEI
Britain has two years before it become Siberia based on the expert prediction made in 2004.
There are many more examples of just how inaccurate those “models” have been. Why would any rational person think the same people who were wrong on 2004 are suddenly correct now?
But they are still models. Yes I know your argument relies on "supercomputers" but the data is driven by humans. Humans subject to confirmation bias. Hell my local weatherperson uses several models and the prognostications are fairly iffy. Having said that my lying eyes have demonstrated that the climate ( as opposed to weather) is changing. I do not doubt that the burgeoning human population impacts that but I do not know, and do not think anyone does, how and why. What we know about climate is miniscule. We only have very incomplete data going back 300 years or so. That is a drop of the climate bucket. It is akin to basing all of our understanding of ancient history on a particular Greek writer. Yes I know we have some data from ice cores but our knowledge of that data is in its infancy as well. It is not addressing climate that concerns me. It is over-reliance on a governmental fix based on ill-conceived "solutions" which concerns me. And if you are inclined to respond with the plaintive, "[B]ut we've got to do-o-o something[!]" be advised that is a huge red flag for me.
I agree with your analysis. Plus the unintended consequences of ill-thought out solutions.
Trump had all of this under control via economic leverage - the best weapon ever invented - which is why the Cabal - Molly Ball at Time(Feb 5th 2021) - had to unseat him.
Tariffs were killing China, 52 cruise missiles crippled Syria, he made the U.S. into a net energy exporter crippling Iran and Russia, he killed Soliemani - the one man most responsible for killing Americans thereby neutralizing Iran further, created the Abraham Accords instigating true peace in the middle east, secured our southern border(for once), and on and on and on... Stability in the world defined.
Biden has undone all of this and here we are. As someone who has been to war for these United States I am here to tell you that our resolve has never wavered for this country, but our leaders have been bought off(Biden family purchased by Burisma(Ukraine) and China) and we will not support them in any way.
I am a veteran, my family has fought and bled for this country since the Revolution, but no member of my family will fight for Milley's Military. As far as I can see, the current version of the USG is as authoritarian and totalitarian as any of history's worst, hiding behind the fiction if an elective, representative, democratic republic. That country died 50+ years ago.
Completely agree. Have a wonderful day!
Great post. Loved my Navy time. Would NEVER join the current military
Same here. My grandchildren will NEVER serve the current USG.
81,000,000 votes!! Most secure election ever!!
On the one hand, $6 gas, 8% inflation, two embassies evacuated, the entire post World War 2 order dissolved, and China ascendant.
On the other hand, NO MEAN TWEETS.
Let's keep it all in perspective.
Consequences to stealing an election. We gave up peace and prosperity, it was stolen from us
I’d pay $6 a gallon for mean tweets right about now.
The US military can't be committed since it's already fighting global warming and extremism. That would make it a three front war.
Don't forget racism. That's another front.
The army is now a construction brigade for the world’s underprivileged. Thanks DNC!
That is hilarious!!
We wouldn’t want China plopping a military base with strike capabilities on the Rio Grande. Why would Putin want one on his border? This wouldn’t have happened if we just treated Ukraine like Finland as neutral and stopped with this nonsense of letting them in NATO which wouldn’t happen anyway. Or if Clinton accepted Russia’s offer to join NATO in 1999 in order to counter China. Or if Orange man had won.
Obama also organized a coup in 2013 to throw out the democratically elected pro-Russian president of Ukraine and put in power the current pro-west authoritarian dictator of Ukraine. Our coups have consequences. The pro-Russian, Russian Orthodox, Russian speaking people of eastern Ukraine became separatist starting in 2014 because, shocker, they like Russia better than us. In North America we go around locking up political opponents of the left, we have a biased lying media, we hurt working people with political policy. Why would the people of Eastern Ukraine pass up the culturally similar authoritarians in Russia in exchange for the not culturally similar authoritarians in the west?
Next, there are military skirmishes in disputed areas around the world all the time. Our media ignores most of them. The vast majority of Americans had no clue Brandon was using drones to bomb North Africa in July 2021 just before the Afghan debacle. We don’t pay attention to constant fighting in countries starting with a K bordering Russia. But with Covid ending, and an administration desperate to blame inflation the administration’s policies have directly caused on an external cause, here we go fanning the Russia flames, pretending we want Ukraine in NATO, causing global geopolitical instability. Idiocy is how we stumbled into WWI - which was pointless. We do not want to stumble into WW III!!!!
If a bunch of oil and natural gas leases hadn’t been cancelled by Brandon we’d still be energy independent. Putin wouldn’t have leverage over us. I guess leftist want to be enslaved by the WEF because they keep voting for this predictable bs.
Before I permanently deleted Facebook I predicted the following if Brandon won. Not because I’m a super genius, but because it was predictable. Remember that - this was known and predictable and discussed and those voting for Brandon ignored the warnings because mean tweets birth their feelings and Covid scared them. Please don’t do it again in 2022 and 2024.
Here were my predictions in fall 2020 (I wish I had been wrong):
“1 - We are going to have inflation either way, but if Biden wins it will be much, much worse. He will institute policies
to cut oil and gas production here when there is no alternative. It will make climate change worse because countries like China and India will increase coal usage. It will drive up the prices of everything here and most hurt the poor and middle class.
2 - Covid won’t end in 100 days under Brandon. Masks might come off for summer, but back on they’ll go when seasonal cases tick up in the fall. It won’t end until some other crises can be used to fear monger. There will likely be a vaccine this year, but our first attempt aren’t usually all that great. It took over a century to get the smallpox vaccine down. Hopefully a great tool for the actually vulnerable, but kids aren’t and they are sitting at home for no reason in every school district controlled by Democrats today. How long will you put up with this?
3 - Geopolitical instability. Biden is weak. Putin and Xi are not. Putin will take a land grab. I don’t know if it will be eastern Ukraine, some pro-Russian K country, or part of Finland’s frozen tundra, hopefully not thriving Poland, but he won’t miss the opportunity to take something as he always does under weak US presidents. Where the pain here begins is if Xi takes Taiwan. Let’s pray that doesn’t happen.
4 - For all the demands to tax people “like me” more, the reality is my tax bill will probably fall with any tax change. The rich already pay the most proportional in taxes here, unlike Europe where individual taxes are flat, VAT are regressive, and corporate taxes low. I’ll most likely get my SALT deduction back on 100% of my income and pay 2% more on a small portion. My overall tax bill will drop. Even if I don’t get SALT back, the inflation tax will hurt you under Biden way more than a 2% increase on a small portion of my income plus the proportional effect of inflation on me. Inflation increases the asset values of those who own them already, and expenses for all.
5 - Our schools will excelerate their long decline and continue focusing on ridiculous neoracist theories, sexualization of little kids will expand, that the teacher’s unions, not the children, matter will become very obvious. The left thinks only wealthy parents should have a say in schools. They tell you as much when they say “send them to private school if you want a say” all the time. If the left is smart they will stop saying this out loud, but they aren’t, so I suspect every few weeks there will be more stories about more Dem politicians and teacher’s unions telling parents who don’t want their kids taught to judge others based on skin tone or don’t want sexual orientation, of any type, discussed with their 1st grader, to go pound sand.
I get people hate Trump personally, but Presidential elections involve voting FOR policies and candidates. They aren’t a popularity contest on “do you like orange man?” Forget this at your own risk. Regardless of what you tell yourself or narrative sounds pretty, we are all going to have live with the actual policy outcomes. I hope I’m wrong, but if Biden wins, remember the bad was predictable even if I’m only right about one of these things. Can you even imagine if they all happen? Is that a risk you want to take because you hate Trump personally?”
Not every wealthy parent gets a say anymore. Several Park Avenue private schools (with tuitions north of $50K) informed parents shortly after the NYC riots that their kids will be indoctrinated with a CRT agenda, no exceptions permitted. "Take your child elsewhere, if you don't like it" they told parents, or words to that effect.
The attorney general of the United States designated dissenting parents as 'domestic terrorists.'
How many times do you have be beaten over the head before you get the picture?
We have more of a say. When the academics at my kids’ old Catholic school went to crap, and they let an 8th grade girl openly transition, I moved them to an academically excellent private, conservative, Christian school that rejects race and gender ideology. We couldn’t control their old school, but we still had options to control their choices. And we don’t pay anywhere near $50K a year for one of the top private schools in NC with an alumni list to rival any New England prep or boarding school.
I a firm believer that where there is a will, there is a way. But I also recognize financial means gives you options and taking less will to find ways. If one can afford $50K a year in tuition, even in NYC, those folks can afford homeschool tutors, conservative private schools, or some other option. It’s a heck of a lot easier to protect their kids than police officers whose entire salary isn’t even double tuition for one kid at these prep schools. The idea that protecting one’s children shouldn’t involve some sacrifice isn’t reality.
Wow! Hats off to you! You definitely called it!
Never in my life have I more wished that I would have been really wrong. 😩. In 2000 I was a college freshman and wrote a paper I didn’t want Bush to win because we’d go to war in Iraq. I clearly had no clue 9/11 even could happen. All I did was listen to what the people around Bush were saying and took them at their word for what they could control and what most likely would follow.
Brandon said he’d shut down domestic energy as much as he could. While the Hunter Biden laptop wasn’t out, Biden’s long support for pro-western Ukrainian leaders he helped put in power during Obama against the will of the people was well known. People forget how many coups the Clinton state department helped cause.
Well, Putin likes land grabs and shutting down the energy independence of a superpower makes that calculation easier. Brandon said he’d fund CRT and gender ideology. Erasing women was on his website as a day 1 promise he followed through on. He promised to be the “best” partner to teachers unions (never mentioned kids or education quality). He stated he opposed school choice. He promised more regulation and more unfunded government spending which leads to predictable inflation - more of it when one drives up energy prices.
These results were entirely predictable for anyone who read the moron’s campaign website. Unfortunately most never clicked on it and instead voted based on the media hysteria of “orange man bad.” My biggest hope is people stop doing that. Read the policies. Consider the reality of how they’d be implemented. Turn the stupid TV off. I don’t know if enough have or will.
Amen!
Great post and prescience!!
All my respect for those who suffer under the communist dictature in Cuba. No respect at all for those who propagate the lie, picked up from Putin’s propaganda, that the Maidan revolution of 2014 (not 2013!!!) is Obama’s or CIA’s coup. This is just as offensive to Ukrainians and anybody who lived under the Russian colonial empire yoke as it would be to pretend that Cuban dissidents and fighters for freedom are just traitors and risk their lives and suffer emprisonnent only because they’re paid by the CIA, because that’s what Castro’s propaganda says. You dislike Obama, you dislike Biden, well, I assure you you’re not the only one, but how about showing some respect for historical facts?
First, I am relying on facts. I’m attaching some articles below that link to or reference easily searchable declassified documents (mostly from left wing sources).
Second, I voted for Obama twice with my initial support largely because he opposed the Iraq way. I’m not an ideologue. I’m happy with what actually works.
At the time I didn’t think about the role Clinton and cronies would play in Obama’s administration. I was stupid for not paying attention to who Obama was going to surround himself with in DC. It is easier for me to accept I was just wrong to try big centralized government with lots of excessive regulation that never really works. I won’t make that mistake again, so it’s easy to avoid. Paying attention to who is actually steering the boat is a bit more difficult - especially with a lying media.
When I realized I screwed up voting for Obama, I learned. Instead of learning you want to sit on your high horse talking about “pampered Americans” which conflates moronic, woke, highly degreed but only really medium income urbanites that have been hiding from a cold they got anyway for 2 years with ALL Americans. In my community I’m surrounded by people who fled the likes of Putin and Castro. This country is a country of immigrants, and those who descend from free settlers, and freed slaves. Stop with the American people suck mantra.
I also hope Ukraine wins. I’m heartbroken that lots of people are dying. It’s ugly and terrible and awful. The chances of still being a nation after this are much higher for Ukraine if we don’t get involved up front and cause a lot of death and no solutions, or inadvertently push the planet into WW III.
I am shocked that Putin went all in on Ukraine. I thought he’d take a few more eastern regions without much anything and it’d be over. It doesn’t make me want to send Americans to die, but it shows how far we’ve fallen, how little Putin fears the Biden administration, and how our green energy policies have made the west impotent. We can’t defend anything globally even though “green energy” policies aren’t really helping the environment. Renewables contain lots of toxic or ecologically destructive materials like lead in solar panels and rare earth minerals in wind mill magnets. No one who ignores nuclear is serious about cleaner energy.
If WW III begins we only stand a chance if we don’t start it. The “leader” of our military runs around dressed up like Darth Vader hiding from a cold and “accidentally” gave the Taliban $85billion in US arms. We have lost any moral authority, at home we’ve lost our trust in any government agency, and we have no will to send kids to die for a President more interested in enriching his crack head son and siblings than making decisions with an interest on how they impact the American people. Just this week Brandon cut off MORE domestic energy production but promised to drain strategic oil reserves as the chances of war, which require oil, tick up quickly.
Next, the CIA probably interferes in Cuba often, and people probably die. They do that a lot. Our “intelligence” community exist to perpetuate itself and little else. Ever heard of Russiagate???? Honduras?
https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2018/06/04/how-and-why-the-u-s-government-perpetrated-the-2014-coup-in-ukraine/
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/08/hillary-clinton-secretary-state-war-drones/
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/11/hillary-clinton-and-electoral-coup-haiti
Not a word from Zoe about what Europe would or should do, after all it is a European problem, but just like Yugoslavia they expect the U.S. to do all the heavy lifting. Maybe Blinken should send Putin his Spotify music.
LOL about Spotify. Forgot about that little nugget.
America is afraid of the common cold.
Truth
wow! perfect perspective!
For many Americans post-Iraq, it boils down to one question: whose child is going to be sent to war?
Would you tolerate your son or daughter sent to the front lines of Ukraine or Taiwan?
It’s relatively easy to send arms, but this won’t stop a motivated invasion by a superior force; the kind of deterrence that the author, or McMaster are talking about requires boots on the ground.
Putin may be a bad guy, but before you pound the drums of war, reflect on whether you’d send your own child to defend these faraway countries. No, you wouldn’t. You’d assume that’s the work of some military family down south, or in your own working class suburbs. Probably people who voted for Trump.
Wrong. If you really believe in shoring up the international order with actual deterrence, then you’ve got to have skin the game.
Most Americans don’t, and won’t.
"..You’d assume that’s the work of some military family down south, or in your own working class suburbs. Probably people who voted for Trump..." Everybody knows this is the kind of work those 'other' people do.
That story don't play no more, as they say in the 'hood. The DC elite went to the well one time too often in Afghanistan/Iraq. The well be dry.
The people that want the wars are never the ones who have to fight them. Read Smedley Butler's War is a Racket, if you haven't already.
I'm well acquainted with the only Marine the peacemongers have, now, and will respect.
Your comment implies military families down south or from working class suburbs aren't mainstream Americans. I beg to differ. They are the backbone of America that make the rest of it possible.
My great-grandfathers fought against Southerners at Gettysburg and at numerous places in VA. They missed Antietam because their units were shot up pretty badly at Second Bull Run and remained behind when the army marched up the Potomac in pursuit of Lee. Some South Carolinians died within 10 yards of my great-grandfather's guns at the Gettysburg Peach Orchard. Southerners of all classes proved themselves to be men worthy of repsect. My father fought alongside their grandsons against the Japanese in World War 2. When I went in the service during the Vietnam War, he told me to make friends with Southerners and keep them.close, because they never ran from a fight. As a civil engineer.based in New York, I worked on numerous projects in rural Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. As a matter of fact, I met John Edwards at a.public hearing in Robbinsville, NC when he was a local legislator. I thought then that he had a future. Southerners, as a rule, are the best people in the United States, in my opinion.
No, the contrary: the elites, the opinion-makers, the upper middle-class to whom these appeals for shoring up the “world order” are directed are the ones whose voices are the loudest for “deterrence”.
The military families are indeed the backbone of America. They will pay an exorbitant price for this shoring up, just as they did in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The people who send them to war never seem to have children in the military themselves - no surprise.
My comment was strictly to address what I perceived as the diminishment of the southern and working class military families. But I agree that the self-perceived upper class elites use those families as cannon fodder. Now more than ever.
My comment was to emphasize the contempt the political class has for those that serve in the ranks. Please note the use of the quote marks around 'other'. That was underline the word and the fact that those inside the beltway consider them an underclass. I'm sorry I was not more direct.
Having spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan I have nothing but respect for those military families. It angers me that our elites - people with whom I grew up in Cambridge, Mass, for example, don’t know anyone who served, and don’t think about their importance in protecting the rights and freedoms we take for granted.
Democrats don’t want to exert American power because they think exerting power is evil white imperialism. They just want to stand unified in feckless disappointment with Europe because it makes them feel sophisticated.
Republicans no longer want to exert American power because they know that the aforementioned people who hate America will be in charge of the effort.
Basically everyone who went to Harvard and Yale hates the United States because they were trained to hate the United States by ‘intellectuals’. They control the permanent government. That’s why we are here.
Spot. On.
My go-to for war expertise is always an intimacy and gender “expert!” Zoe’s piece simply adds to the entire theater this Bad Russia vs The Biden-exploiting Urkraine really is. No sane individual trusts anything that is being reported about this conflict by our Regime propaganda machine. Biden’s puppet masters desire nothing more than the collapse of America and the dollar and our military. Defending the “democracy” of Ukraine via a Biden regime who hates democracy (the same one who applauded Trudeau’s tyranny) is dangerous and moronic.
The invasion of Ukraine is a disaster for US foreign policy and credibility abroad. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union Ukraine was the third largest nuclear power in the world. It was only persuaded to surrender its arsenal based on accords signed with the United States, UK and Russia that its borders would be respected. It was widely assumed that the US would act as the guarantor of that agreement. What lesson does an Iran or North Korea take from all of this?
To say nothing of Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, Europe etc.
This is actually a very even handed article even though I disagree with the author's belief that the United States should go to war over Ukraine. I suspect my disagreement stems from the fact that I study the history of military and political science, while the author studies "the history of intimacy and gender". The irony of a gender studies professor advocating war halfway around the world (which his/her/zirs/its sons/daughters/demiboys/non-conforming offspring will never fight) is just too rich to pass up.
“if Ukraine were to join NATO, it would serve as a direct threat to the security of Russia.”
Putin's rhetoric about Ukrainian Nazis is pretty comical and obviously a lie, but this line is 100% true. This is how nations warn each other of red-lines (existential threats), and it is the one consistent demand Putin has made: get NATO off our doorstep.
The United States entered WWI when Germany attempted to make a military alliance with Mexico. Yet we castigate Russia for invading a neighbor who seeks a military alliance with us. We nearly went to war with the Soviets when they stationed missiles in Cuba, but declare unjustified Russia's concern about missiles 250 miles from Moscow. Putin is certainly a thug, but his demands are hardly without historical precedent. Has anyone heard of the Monroe Doctrine?
America isn't afraid of war. We're tired of our incompetent generals and politicians getting us into wars they won't win in places that don't matter to us. It's not fear; it's prudence.
"Putin is a much bigger threat than most Americans believe... He will support anyone and anything that can disrupt the liberal world order that has allowed the U.S. and other free nations to thrive."
And why shouldn't he? That "liberal world order" was hardly innocuous; it was constructed to contain and fight his own country. In as much as that order is an American empire, we should expect other nations to not comply with it. China is using its Belt and Road initiative to attempt to build a new global order centered in Beijing. We are justifiably concerned about that, and seek to damage that effort. It escapes me how Putin's challenge to the "US global order" is any different.
"The longer we pursue policies of retrenchment and withdrawal, on either humane or self-interested grounds, the more ground we cede to our enemies—and the more blood that will be ultimately spilled."
This is categorically false. Vladimir Putin leads a very large but essentially 3rd world country with a military budget the size of France. While he certainly wants influence over his neighbors (particularly his fellow Slavic neighbors), he lacks the political or military capability to take over Europe. Comparisons to 1938 Munich are overblown. Most countries aren't the 3rd Reich. Most leaders aren't Adolph Hitler. We should stop treating every border dispute in the world as if it's the Rhineland.
It was well within the power of Biden / Macron / Scholz / Zelesky to solve this diplomatically. They categorically refused. It's as if they just couldn't believe that someone (other than the US) would really use force when a neighbor refused to comply with words. They still can solve it, but the conditions on the ground now mean the solution will be a more bitter pill to swallow.
To paraphrase Queen Amidala from Star Wars (those prequels that don't actually exist): "sometimes negotiations with blasters are more effective." Putin understands that. We don't.
'It was well within the power of Biden / Macron / Scholz / Zelesky to solve this diplomatically..'
Putin asked for the moon and the stars - ie demanding NATO withdraw to its borders circa 1997. He knew full well those were non starters. He also knew that Ukraine was nowhere near NATO status, ready for entry, if ever. Which leads me to believe he used that ruse to provide cover for his military build up along the border, so when the farcical 'independence' of the two new republics in Ukraine's east was announced by the puppets in the Duma, his troops were already in position to cross over and 'defend' them.
In other words, I don't think NATO is a problem for Putin, he just wants another Belarus clone in Ukraine, with a supine government totally dependant on Moscow. He was never interested in diplomacy.
As for his attack, and the means by which he can hold on to the country - I think he'll be in for a surprise.
I think Putins rid Ukraine of Nazis was directed at Germany.
“Moyn mocked the war on terrorism. ‘More people die slipping in the bathtub than from terrorism, and far more on the roads,’ he said.”
We should be able to expect more from a Yale professor than this tired cliché. I am a retired CIA officer who spent much of my career working the counterterrorism (CT) mission. The statistic he so blithely and unthinkingly repeats doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is the result of the sacrifices of, and hard work carried out by, dedicated national security professionals across the globe, often in harm’s way, since 9/11, not to mention the sacrifices of the families of those personnel. It’s not because there weren’t credible threats and groups capable of carrying out such attacks, casualties from which would have far exceeded deaths in bathtubs.
It is a positive that our CT success allowed Americans to live with little to no worry and in peace, pursuing happiness on their own terms, and certainly able, as this piece suggests, to focus on and address other problems. Unfortunately, we became victims of that success, as Americans came to believe terrorism is no longer a significant threat. With us pulling back from our forward deployments, and as we still haven’t started to fight the ideological battle required to denigrate the terrorists center of gravity, I predict it won’t be long before this threat resurfaces in a visible way. I hope I’m wrong about that.
Thank you for your work. But I am deeply alarmed that the techniques you deployed are now being leveled at the citizenry.
Lynne,
I appreciate your vote of thanks. It was an honor to serve and I was fortunate to have had the career I did.
I am curious about your comment. Which techniques do you understand are being deployed against the citizenry? And by whom? I want to better understand your concern, before I comment. Thanks in advance for elaborating.
Best,
Rick
I was likely inaccurate regarding actual techniques. I am incensed at parents and other citizens being referred to as "terrorists", although I suspect that may include collection and analysis of their communications and other data.
Lynne, Thank you for your clarification. I am likewise incensed at that DOJ characterization of parents and other citizens. As the DOJ direction to the FBI to conduct such investigations is in the law enforcement sphere, rather than the intelligence one, I don't know what methods, if any, they might be employing, nor the laws, regulations and policies that would govern the use of such measures. Put differently, I strongly oppose the DOJ's direction to the FBI and the premise for it, and am concerned about the chilling effect that will have on people who merely want to exercise their right to free speech. However, I don't have a sense of what, if anything, the FBI has done to carry out the DOJ's orders. That said, if the FBI is pursuing such domestic terrorism investigations against people without solid probable cause, I think that would qualify as an abuse of power.
I would apply your thoughts to how the Jan 6 protestors are being held without charge and bail, also the tactics shown in how they're being questioned. Gateway Pundit has several interviews with those being held in the DC jail
Anna, I am not up to speed on the facts here as perhaps I should be. However, I have heard some of those allegations; if true, they're wrong as well.
Please read the Dept. of Homeland Security's National Terrorism Advisory Systems' "Terrorism Threat to the U.S. Homeland" of Feb. 7, 2022.
It starts like this:
"The US remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of "mis-dis-and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic Threat Actors...
....these Threat Actors seek to exacerbate societal friction and sow discord and undermine public trust in gov't institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence..."
So what this document is doing is labeling anyone who says anything that doesn't echo the gov't line as terroristic "Threat Actors".
Dissenting voices are now "Threat Actors", Rick.
More:
"...For example, there is widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19..."
It's called dissent, and democracy does't exist without it, but they know this.
Anyhow, it's a truly sickening doc. - a gov't warning about a "terrorism threat"-a"heightened threat environment"-coming from the citizens- and it illustrates what Lynne is referring to.
Please read it.
And double read that part about MDM to understand what truly NUTS is.
Finally, what are they afraid of?
They are afraid of the truth getting out.
Anna, While MDM exists, I share your concerns that there are people in government that are hyping that threat, misapplying it to protected speech, and to some extent looking the other way when it is favorable to their own side. What are they afraid of? Competition in the marketplace of ideas that would adversely affect their agenda. To the extent this is happening, it's wrong.
I think they are afraid of ending up behind bars
Did you work under John Brennan? If not, do you believe he added luster to the CIA's reputation? It seems tome that lying POS, together with Clapper, Comey and Hayden were more intent on destroying the lives Americans along with our democracy than any terrorists
I did. I was not and am not a fan of his.
Don't forget Vindemann, that odious little weasel. I think we, and by we I mean the United States of America, have been infiltrated.
I have had no use for the CIA since the 1970s. If I were a former CIA employee, I'd keep my mouth shut to avoid ridicule.
Good. I hope we stay "afraid", which is another word for SANE.
Fact: Ukraine is part of Russia.
If Putin bombed NYC or Texas, we'd be justified in responding, because those are part of OUR nation. Ukraine is not part of OUR nation, so it's none of our fucking business.