Last weekend, the world came very close to nuclear war.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House last Friday. (Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
By Scott Ritter
Special to Consortium News
Most Americans approached last weekend thinking about how they would spend the much-anticipated end of the work week with their friends and family.
Few realize how close they came to actualizing the scenario so horrifyingly spelled out in Annie Jacobsen’s alarming must-read book, Nuclear War: A Scenario.
72 minutes.
That is all it takes to end the world as we know it.
That is less time than most movies playing at the local cinema.
Most people could not drive to the local home improvement store to buy the materials needed to do the little repairs around the home that usually wait for the weekend.
Walk the dogs?
Play with the kids?
Forget about it.
72 minutes.
And everything you thought you lived your life for would be dead.
And if you survived?
To quote Nikita Khrushchev, “The survivors would envy the dead.”
Ukraine, together with many of its NATO allies, has been asking for permission from the United States, the United Kingdom, and France to be able to employ precision-guided long-range weapons systems provided by these countries against targets deep inside Russia.
On Sept. 6, at a meeting of the Ramstein Contact Group, a forum where U.S.-NATO military support to Ukraine is coordinated, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky personally appealed to the group for more weapons support from its Western allies and called on allies to allow Ukraine to use the weapons they provided to strike deeper inside Russia.
Zelensky Seeks ‘Long-Range Capability’
Zelensky and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, on Sept. 6. (DoD/Chad J. McNeeley)
“We need to have this long-range capability,” Zelensky said, addressing the attendees, who included U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin,
“not only on the divided territory of Ukraine but also on Russian territory so that Russia is motivated to seek peace. We need to make Russian cities, and even Russian soldiers think about what they need: peace or Putin.”
Secretary Austin, in comments made afterwards, said he didn’t think the use of long-range missiles to strike inside Russia would help end the war, adding that he expected the conflict would be resolved through negotiations. Moreover, Austin noted, Ukraine had its own weapons capable of attacking targets well beyond the range of the British Storm Shadow cruise missile.
Despite Austin’s pushback, President Joe Biden appeared to be on track to give Zelensky the green light he was looking for regarding the use of British-provided Storm Shadow cruise missiles and U.S.-provided long-range ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) missiles for strikes on Russian soil.
On Sept. 11, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, accompanied by British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, visited Ukraine, where they held meetings with Zelensky and his newly appointed foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha.
Blinken & Lammy in Ukraine
Blinken and Lammy, on right side of table in center, meeting with Sybiha, opposite them, in Kiev on Sept. 11. (State Department/Chuck Kennedy
Blinken and Lammy, however, failed to make the announcement the Ukrainians were waiting with bated breath to hear. Instead, Blinken and Lammy reiterated the full support of their respective nations to Ukraine’s victory, adding that they would adapt their support to meet Ukrainian needs. “The bottom line is this: We want Ukraine to win,” Blinken said after his meeting with Zelensky.
The stage was now set for Keir Starmer, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, to fly to Washington, D.C., last Friday, where he would meet with Biden and jointly agree to give Ukraine permission to use Storm Shadow and ATACMS against targets inside Russia.
Starmer Goes to Washington
Starmer with members of the press on his way to Washington last Friday. (Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Russia has long made it clear that it would view any nation which authorized the use of its weapons to strike Russia as a direct party to the conflict.
In comments to the media in Russia last Thursday — one day before the Biden-Starmer meeting at the White House — Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear that any lifting of the restrictions on Ukrainian use of U.S.- and U.K.-provided long-range weapons would change “the very essence of the conflict.” He said:
“This will mean that NATO countries, the United States, European countries are fighting Russia. And if this is the case, then…we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, speaking after Putin’s announcement, noted that the Russian president’s words were “extremely clear” and that they had reached their intended audience — U.S. President Biden.
Biden didn’t seem happy about the message. In responding to a question from reporters prior to his meeting with Prime Minister Starmer at the White House about what he thought about Putin’s warning, Biden snapped angrily, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.”
Putin in a meeting in Moscow last week. (Kremlin)
The evidence suggests otherwise.
At a White House press conference that same day, Robbie Gramer, the White House correspondent for Politico, asked John Kirby, the spokesperson for the National Security Council, “Do you take Putin at his words that strikes into Russian territory by U.S. — or British — or French-made missiles would actually expand the war?”
Kirby’s response was telling in many ways. “It’s hard to take anything coming out of Putin’s face at his word. But this is not rhetoric that we haven’t heard from him before, so there’s really not a lot new there.”
Gramer followed up: “So, in other words, you know, in the deliberations about this long-range strike, threats from Putin are not a big factor for you guys in your deliberations on this?”
“Well,” Kirby responded,
“you didn’t let me finish the answer, so let me try…I never said, nor have I — would we ever say that we don’t take Mr. Putin’s threats seriously. When he starts brandishing the nuclear sword, for instance, yeah, we take that seriously, and we constantly monitor that kind of activity. He obviously has proven capable of aggression.
He has obviously proven capable of escalation over the last, now, going on three years. So, yeah, we take these comments seriously, but it is not something that we haven’t heard before. So, we take note of it. Got it. We have our own calculus for what we decide to provide to Ukraine and what not. And I think I’d leave it there.”
Just to drive the point home, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, told the Security Council last Friday that NATO would “be a direct party to hostilities against a nuclear power,” if it allowed Ukraine to use longer range weapons against Russia. “You shouldn’t forget about this and think about the consequences,” he declared.
‘Don’t Play With Fire’
Nebenzia in June. (UN Photo/Manuel Elías)
The finishing touches on driving home the seriousness of Putin’s warning was left to the Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov. Speaking to the Russian media also last Friday Antonov said he was surprised that many American officials believed that
“if there is a conflict, it will not spread to the territory of the United States of America. I am constantly trying to convey to them one thesis that the Americans will not be able to sit it out behind the waters of this ocean. This war will affect everyone, so we constantly say – do not play with this rhetoric.”
Putin’s words had caught the attention of several former U.S. government officials, who had called Antonov for clarification.
“Yesterday’s statements from Vladimir Putin were weighed very carefully here. Several ex-officials called me asking to explain what actually stands behind those statements. I simply replied: ‘Don’t play with fire.’”
Antonov at Arlington National Cemetery in 2018, during a commemoration of the cooperation of U.S., Soviet and Allied armed forces during World War II. (U.S Army/ Elizabeth Fraser, Public domain)
Antonov’s sentiments were likely echoed through existing back-channel communications used by the Department of Defense and the C.I.A.
In the end, the message got through — Biden pulled back from giving Ukraine the permissions it sought.
Most Americans are unaware about how close they came to waking up Saturday morning, only to find that it was their last.
Ukraine Was Ready to Launch
Had Biden yielded to Starmer’s pressure (the British, together with Ukraine and several NATO nations, believed that Putin was bluffing), and signed off on the permission, Ukraine was prepared to launch strikes on Russia that night.
(British soldiers deployed in Ukraine would be needed to operate the Storm Shadows and they are already there, according to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has refused to send similar weapons to Ukraine.)
Russia would likely have responded with conventional attacks on Kiev using new weapons, such as the Avangard hypersonic warhead, which would each deliver a blow equivalent to 26-28 tons of explosives.
Russia would also most likely have struck NATO targets in Poland and Romania where Ukrainian fighters are based. And, lastly, Russia would have struck British military targets, possibly including those on the British Isles.
This would prompt a NATO retaliation under Article 5, using a large number of NATO long-range strike weapons targeting Russian command and control, airfields, and ammunition storage facilities.
The Russian response would most likely involve the launching of more Avangard conventional warheads against NATO targets, including Ramstein airbase and NATO headquarters, as well as airbases from which strikes against Russia were launched.
NATO headquarters in Brussels. (NATO)
At this juncture the United States, using nuclear employment plans derived from a nuclear posture which emphasizes the pre-emptive use of low yield nuclear weapons to “escalate to deescalate”— i.e., force Russia to back down through a demonstration of capability — would authorize the use of one or more low-yield nuclear warheads against Russian targets on Russian soil.
But Russian doctrine has no capacity for engaging in a limited nuclear war. Instead, Russia would respond with a general nuclear retaliation targeting all of Europe and the United States.
Whatever U.S. strategic forces that survived this onslaught would be fired at Russia.
And then we all die.
72 minutes.
And the world ends.
We were one stroke of the pen away from this outcome on Friday, Sept. 13, 2024.
This isn’t a drill.
This isn’t an academic exercise.
This is the real world.
This is life or death.
This is your future held hostage by a madman in Kiev, backed by lunatics in Europe.
The question is — what are we going to do about it?
There is an election on Nov. 5 where the next commander-in-chief of the United States will be selected by “we, the people.”
This person will be the one holding the pen in any future scenario where life or death decisions that could manifest into a general nuclear war will be made.
It is incumbent upon we, the people, to make sure that Americans demand the candidates for this office articulate their policy vision regarding the war in Ukraine, the prospects of peace with Russia, and what they will do to prevent the outbreak of nuclear war.
But they won’t do that if we, the people, remain silent about the issue.
Stand up.
Speak out.
Demand to be heard.
72 minutes is all it takes to end life as we know it.
We almost all died over the weekend of Sept. 14-15, 2024.
What are we going to do to make sure that doesn’t happen again?
Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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“Ukraine Was Ready to Launch”
Ukraine did launch.
See those Russian munitions storage sites destroyed.
“Secretary Austin, in comments made afterwards, said he didn’t think the use of long-range missiles to strike inside Russia would help end the war, adding that he expected the conflict would be resolved through negotiations. Moreover, Austin noted, Ukraine had its own weapons capable of attacking targets well beyond the range of the British Storm Shadow cruise missile.”
When the Pentagon has to give you a reality check your plans might be just a tad extreme.
Starmer, remember, helped to keep Assange in jail. This rat bastard is an enemy to anyone who wants to be left alone. Good job UK! You’ve elected yet another warmonger.
Zelensky is nothing but a vengeful money grubber.
He wants to take existential revenge against Russia because the damned idiot, goaded by Crazy Joe Biden, made the immoral choice of a lifetime to allow the West to use his country and his people to destroy Russia for its own selfish purposes. Both Zelensky and NATO can go immediately to where they belong: the ninth level of Hell.
Scott Ritter is quite right. I have read the book (Annie Jacobsen’s, Nuclear War: A Scenario), recently, too. It is quite terrifying, and also highlights the way in which a series of ‘unplanned’ and ‘uncontrolled’ events can lead to total annihilation.
All the best laid plans……………… cannot prevent Armageddon. And even if it does go according to ‘plan’, it doesn’t leave any winners, only losers. Everyone loses! Russia has a deadman’s switch, which ensures full retaliation even if its decision centres are knocked out by US missiles.
Newly elected UK prime minister, Starmer, with Blinken’s backing, and Zelensky’s persistent and deranged badgering, is trying to do something he clearly doesn’t understand. He is also refusing to listen to people who a) really do understand what’s at stake, b) take Russia’s warning seriously, and c) don’t want to take the chance that it could all go hideously wrong and kill us all.
For what purpose is he trying to escalate, other than his extreme Russophobia, and manipulation by the real shadowy powers behind him? He’s a puppet, just like Blinken and the others, who doesn’t understand that he is being setup, manipulated and eventually sacrificed.
With such reckless, ignorant, unintelligent, and obsessed people like him in power, it is only a matter of time before somebody does something really, really stupid.
We dodged a bullet this time – just, but what about next time?
Caption:
“Starmer with members of the press on his way to Washington last Friday. (Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)”
Gee, this photo looks like a still from “The Wizard of Oz.”
LOL. I thought that photo was really weird. They all look like they’re hanging on his every word. What a bunch of “hangers-on”. Maybe hoping to reap some of the “gifts” extended to him by various outlets:
Xxxx://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/20/glasses-donor-money-keir-starmer-pm-approval-ratings-liz-truss
(A friend in the UK refers to him as “Sir kneels a lot”.)
It occurs to me that I would prefer a sane and practical Putin to be my President!
Why are we letting the obviously mentally impaired most powerful person on the planet make decisions that would make all countries inhabitants to be incinerated along with most life on the planet.
It is one way to achieve Netanyahu’s goal of Palestinian elimination, but it would also eliminate the Zionists and Israelis.
It is ironic that the OLD MEN leading the charge to annihilation will probably miss seeing the results of their childish, egocentric actions.
The latest Zionist terror attack prices that the electronic controlled warfare is prominent. Russia has quietly developed that strategy and probably would first paralise US NATO first then choose a demo target … The Pentagon and NATO as a demo. If you eliminate the internet, GPS and electricity grids the next is total social unrest each American grabbing their guns to shoot at each other on sight …
A pointless essay. Ritter implies the answer is in how Americans vote. But vote for what. The choices are the incumbents who are in league with those planning a war or the idiot who will let it happen because he doesn’t understand.
I agree. Both parties make up a single war party. If anything, Kamala Harris speaks in more bellicose terms than Donald Trump. For the vast majority of American voters, foreign/military policy is far down on their priority list. The scenario laid out by Scott Ritter does not even enter their minds.
I disagree with John.
The Democratic Party is the greatest threat to the survival of the USA, at any level (legal, moral, military, constitutionally).
Especially now that the Cheneys have joined the undemocratic Dem bash.
Kamala Harris is a total nitwit.
This is obvious even from the fund-raising video currently running on YouTube in which she is the “on-screen talent.”
Barf.
Please read this:
hxxps://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-wins-europe-loses-washington-lets-brussels-down
Main point re Trump is toward the end.
I will be voting for Trump-Vance. Never thought I would say this.
Despite the awful Trump record re Occupied Palestine.
But the Dems are even worse on Occupied Palestine.
There is a slim chance that Trump-Vance will nix the Zionists’ Samson Option.
Why was it so hard for Biden to ascertain whether non-existence was preferable to recognising that Russians, like Americans, deserve to live and protect their way of life from a mob of maniacal mass murderers selected by our deranged politicians, oligarchs and media moguls? If the correct answer is not obvious, these louts have forfeit their own right to live or take one more breath, and no one should feel sorry about exterminating such egregious threats to all other life on our precious Earth. Sorry, but how else is one to deal with the dilemma that Biden has bestowed upon the entire planet? The US must get a dose of its own poison, with the assurance that Russia will never strike first.
Scott Ritter – National Treasure !
Thank You Scott
Zelensky has shit-for-brains. Putin does want PEACE! We (the west) are the ones promoting war…
The US department is only interest in selling weapons, power, and global dominance. They don’t give about peace. Peace is their enemy.
Right. The U.S. only got involved with Zelensky to create a cause for war with Russia. Compare this administration of war mongering, world threatening lunatics to that of JFK in the Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK and Khrushchev negotiated and saved the world from oblivion in 1962. This crazy bunch of incompetents is doing just the opposite. Biden and Blinken and the rest of them need to be thrown out in November. They have brought the world to the edge of nuclear war. What could be worse?
Yes, there are many details that inform the possibility of specific actions, but here is a larger and, to my mind, even more devastating understanding: humans have never not used a major technology of their creation. In any final analysis (final! Such a casual turn of phrase) the details will not matter; it is the existence of these weapons in a world of increasing social, economic and environmental pressures that will result in their eventual use…with clearly foreseeable consequences.
The great Fritz Leiber had a quote about “never” … it goes “never shares a big bed with once” … let’s hope (it’s all we have, hope) that this once we don’t use the killer tools to full effect.
In case you missed this:
[Note: Unlikely you’ll hear this on your radio]
Profoundly simple tune with some hot licks
emphasizing pertinent lyrics for our time.
hxxps://youtu.be/bLaKsB4HVZ8
I’M SORRY – Jesse Welles
Great song and lyrics. Thankyou
I read Annie Jacobson’s book recently! I will never be the same as before! I lived through WW 2 in occupied The Netherlands.
Scott Ritter is right, of course. Pope Francis told his American flock to vote for the lesser of two evils! Really?? As someone who left the faith many years ago, I will not follow that advice. I took a good deep look at humanity instead and am simply horrified beyond words.
Me too Maria. Horrified is the word. Here’s an interview with Annie Jacobson:
Xxxx://thebulletin.org/2024/04/an-interview-with-annie-jacobsen-author-of-nuclear-war-a-scenario/
“We want Ukraine to win”
What does that even mean to these psychopaths? Russia is NOT giving up the acquired former oblasts. They are now firmly Russian territory.
So, what do they mean when they say ‘win’? A Ukraine “win” in their conception is a restoration of the former oblasts to Ukraine, AND the collapse of the Russian government, and possibly the Russian Federation as a functioning state. This is the madness that they propose. And it WILL mean nuclear war. There is no getting around that. So, who’s gonna blink?
So this is where the journey ends. I have now spent 80 years in wasting my time and saying goodbye to my family and others and have resigned myself to the abject stupidity of my countrymen, them and others. If there is a God he had better move quickly. But frankly when you reach a certain frame of mind it really does not matter much any more. It should always be understood that our species was always flawed from the start
We’re going to do nothing, as we always do. The people have no voice in what The Empire does. Their hopes, fears, and aspirations mean nothing to our Capitalist, Imperialist owners. The Empire will continue to provoke the war that will destroy it, and us with it. Insanity rules, and will have its way.
The “elected representatives of the people” in Washington stopped listening to the people a long time ago, and now do exactly as they please, living in a dangerous alternate reality that thinks we the people are expendable as collateral damage. Nuclear war leaves out no one, from the highest to the lowest of humankind. These f****rs should not be allowed to remain in power for another minute.
I couldn’t agree more. Compare the horrendous lunatics of the Biden administration with JFK and his Executive Committee in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy loved life and moved to preserve it. The neocons who have held power in the Biden administration and the previous Bush II administration amount to a death cult. This lethal administration has to be voted out. Trump will negotiate with Putin.
Absolutely. If we still exist on election day, we can all vote them out.
I will not apologize to Mr. Ritter for stepping on his story here. I don’t think he will mind one bit.
Instead he has warned everyone unequivocally of what is going on, how quick this could happen and made the call for everyone to get involved by contacting their representatives (?) and Senators in D.C.
Scotts story here should serve as a warning to anyone who thinks these people actually know how to get out of the mess Bush 41 made years ago. Needless to say I’m not sure they have a damned clue about what they are doing.
Time for a wake call has came and passed. Everyone “get it” now.
Wake the hell up kids and refuse to stare at bright lights.
I constantly fear that Scott will be made a martyr by one of the crazy self-righteous hijackers of the Democratic Party, who are about as “liberal,” “democratic” and protective of our American constitution as the Azov Regiment.
No mention that China said it would back Russia if Russia were attacked by US and UK missiles.
The 1962 Cuban missile crisis pales in comparison to the dangers we are facing today.
At least Kennedy and Kruschev knew that neither they nor their nations were murderous and suicidal like these jackasses in Washington seem to be. You want to choose life and peace over meaningless, futile oblivion? Just tell your armies to stand down and begin honest negotiation with the other side. You know what their policies are. Putin must have spelled them out to you about a million times.
WHAT TO DO?
Political realities eliminate the possibility of just demanding virtue. Below is the beginning of John Mearsheimer’s
article in “Foreign Policy” in the fall of 2014 in which he eloquently defines the problem. (He is of course joined by
many others such as Andrew Cockburn, Gabriel Kolko and more.) Those of us who believe in the truth of Scott
Ritter’s analysis must realize that we are forced to operate within a given set political structure. That is not to say one
agrees with its conclusions.
One is always thankful that people like Ritter realize the danger of escalation. We must seek resolution or face humiliation.
We seem to have gained experience in the humiliation route. The West is no longer the dominant power in the world with
the ability to persuade it to our views as in “The Truman Doctrine”. That has failed and failed again.
“According to the prevailing wisdom in the West, the Ukraine crisis can be blamed almost entirely on Russian aggression. Russian President Vladimir Putin, the argument goes, annexed Crimea out of a long-standing desire to resuscitate the Soviet empire, and he may eventually go after the rest of Ukraine, as well as other countries in eastern Europe. In this view, the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 merely provided a pretext for Putin’s decision to order Russian forces to seize part of Ukraine.
But this account is wrong: the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis.”(available online)
Great Scott!
So many doubters.
And just getting through the next 45 daze before the election will be miracle of biblical proportions, what with a demented precedent with his finger on the button. This is scary stuff!
We are way past the stage of concern for our humiliation!
This is a wrong attitude, when contemplating the necessity for immediate negotiation!
The options are not between seeking “resolution or face humiliation”.
This is the error of mindest, inculcated into Americans, from birth.
In international relations, we are either the exceptional nation-state, or we are humiliated.
Emotion and reason combined, make a hard pill to swallow.
Leaves not much room for the rational, critical thinking, required in negotiations.
The US’s lately become apparent, to one and all, crumbling international prowess, and its actual diminishing hegemonic power, will not, even at this late stage, permit it to sit down and negotiate.
There needs to be more of an awareness of just how close we are to the unwitting extinction of life on Earth.
The result of the outcome of all or nothing attitudes will be the funeral of humiliation’ burying it in the ashes of human life on Earth?
It is just as I said in an earlier post at CN. The right wingers blew it and they blew it “Big Time”. CIA , Et al. who made foreign policy in spite of absolutely no mandate to do decided unilaterally they could do regardless and beat the the entire worlds population into submission by force.
This was a major miscalculation made by a large group psychotic, narcissists who by deception and wile misrepresented themselves and their goals through the use of total secrecy.
Time has come to end their rein.
Jesus H
I am still confused why anybody believes Biden is capable of deciding anything other than what flavor of ice cream he wants. There is NO way he decided to backtrack on supporting Starmer and attacks inside Russia. The puppeteers are laughing at our belief in “democracy” as they, behind the curtain, move the needle even closer to the end.
Someone should remind these fools that in a global nuclear war dying last isn’t the same as surviving. These people won’t even put the work in to bring up their own kids and pay a nanny to do that, so the necessary hard grind which survival entails is way beyond them. They won’t last long once they resurface. That’s assuming their security details haven’t already got rid of them to become the new kings and queens.
“Moreover, Austin noted, Ukraine had its own weapons capable of attacking targets well beyond the range of the British Storm Shadow cruise missile.”
I was certainly not aware of this important piece of information. Clearly, Zelensky and Starmer are both warmongering lunatics and should not be trusted at all (other than to act as warmongering lunatics).
We should all be grateful to Defence Secretary Austin for helping to expose the deception behind plans to send ‘Storm Shadow’ missiles to the Ukraine and for supporting a negotiated settlement.
We must demand an immediate ceasefire and a halt to military aid for the Ukraine.
The problem is that our demands fall on deaf ears. Our only hope is to elect a sane candidate for president in November and in order for that to happen both the Democratic and Republican candidates must be defeated.
“Sane candidate”? Which one is that?
Jill Stein.
Claudia De La Cruz. If she’s not on my ballot, then Cornel West.
You’re right, W.R. Voting simply empowers the same result. Then, why vote at all? The most patriotic thing a citizen than do is vote no confidence by not voting at all.
I turn in an unmarked ballot. I don’t know if they even notice, or ponder the reason if they do.
That is obviously not going to happen. The Democrats have become the war party. I used to be a Democrat back when they were a generally sane bunch. Sadly, this is not true today. This administration is way off the rails. They are completely incompetent in dealing with Russia and the Ukraine War. What right do they have to endanger the continued existence of the world by guessing that Putin is bluffing? Putin is not bluffing. And the Biden administration has to be the most stupid and reckless we have ever had.
How pitiful that the world is in the hands of miscreants like Zelensky, Biden, Starmer and on and on ad nauseum, the United Nations, NATO, the filthy media and the entire bucket full of slime. We pay them with taxes they wantonly use against us and threaten the lives of every living creature on earth. We need to get off our knees and make them flee into the dark holes they came out of.
Hear, hear.
Hear, hear!!
thank you, mr ritter, for reminding us, yet again,
of where our priorities should be. given our reck-
less decision makers who seem to be indifferent
to the CONsequences of their warmongering
and arrogant to the point of no ret_urn, we can
only hope for a miracle or two, hope that in –
or rather before! – the end, sanity will prevail.
“PEACE FOR ALL TIME!” was JFK’s vision.
he was killed shortly after he proclaimed it.
but the vision remains. now would be the time
to make it happen.
Please, enough with the “St. John of the Kennedys” BS. Kennedy was an ardent Cold Warrior and imperialist who almost got the whole planet destroyed during the Cuban Missle Crisis. I know it’s highly unusual, to say the least, to hear a President talk about peace, but it’s still talk, and Kennedy surely meant, “peace on OUR terms “
You are entitled to your opinion, everybody has one. However it is your opinion not mine. I will remind you though, you sure as hell are not entitled to make up your own facts.
This something need you learn, maybe not. Taking a lead from the orange turd will not get you much respect here. You might wish to do some historical research of the time period in question. Show me some facts Tim. Facts man just the facts.
Apparently you are very much triggered by the truth.
Tim, the present is all the time we have. Tilting at the JFK windmill provides no solution to the mess we are in, or how to navigate ourselves through and out of it. We appear to be ensnared in the talons of the beast, with no one able to bell the cat or provide a means of escape, or a willingness to even try.
@tim n.: thank you for responding!
i concede that JFK was no angel. his words stay with me, though.
i still find “peace for all time!” quite appealing and i know i’m not alone.
“… because we all inhabit this small planet. we all breathe the same air.
we all cherish our childrens’ future. and we are all mortal.”
quite discomforting instead i find the thought that ONE cool-headed,
courageous RUSSIAN SOLDIER, vasili arkhipov, helped prevent the
nuclear disaster that might have sprung from the cuban missile crisis.
similar case in 1983, when stanislav petrov, another cool-headed,
courageous RUSSIAN SOLDIER, prevented a nuclear war and was
named, by some, ‘the man who saved the world’. who knows of him?
as to US [foreign] policy always on US terms:
my EU country’s law and decision makers will agree to deploying
US state of the art hypersonic missiles on its territory, as of 2026.
not in my name and quite against my will.
again, i know i’m not alone, but the hawks’ stranglehold is strong.
western f.lawmakers: arrogant,
ignorant, and indifferent,
to the point of no ret_urn.
thank you, mr. ritter, for reminding us, yet
again, of what our priorities should be, now!
” f.lawmakers:” Flawmakers I love it!
An accurate description of the current US policy.
If people in this country weren’t so heavily indoctrinated with fairytale illusions about this government and what its true motives are, Jill Stein would win in a landslide.
Very likely. The warmongers have no conscience, no functioning rationality. For them, it is all a video game where they don’t get hurt when the game is over. What goes on in what they call their brains is incomprehensible to me.
Or even if they merely knew of her existence and had knowledge of her (and Ware’s) platform! Maybe not a landslide but at least a healthy percentage of the vote.
With the State Department now dominated by militarist lunatics, Kamala could possibly get us all killed, she’s proven herself during her entire political career to be totally subservient to the whims of the warmongering psychopaths. Trump’s not much better, yes, but Kamala’s a deranged political dilletante who’s truly an empty vessel intellectually. She’s the Peter Principle to a tee. The national security state in Washington will have her wrapped around its finger, she’ll be completely at its beck and call.
Kamala’s “A New Way Forward” contains two pages that are dedicated to more incendiary and extremely dangerous and provocative Russophobia, of course concocted and written by sadistic and truly unhinged “CIA Democrats”. She’s an obviously terribly shallow woman who cannot be trusted. One shudders at the thought of the fate of the world in her murderous and ignorant hands.
Yes, Kamala is an idiot. Idiots are what got us into this mess and idiots are continuing.
And all this risk, the potential to end human civilization and billions of lives, for what? Let’s remember what the war is about: the USUKNATO not accepting neutrality for Ukraine as Russia had demanded for decades. This is literally all Russia was demanding in late ’21 and all through the conflict: no Nato for Ukraine and no stationing of troops and weapons by outside parties in Ukraine.
These people are utterly MAD, are they not?
They are indeed MAD. Certifiably insane.
YES, and unfortunately madness is not uncommon in USUKI. Delusional “leadership,” grotesque egotism, belief systems formed in Magical Thinking Hell where they want everyone else to live.
“all this risk … for what?” For control of Russia’s vast energy and material resources in order to prevent the collapse of the Western empire which has sunk itself into extreme debt that it can never repay while it loses faith from the rest of the world in its currency and diplomatic reliability.
Excellent points. My comment was re the actual mainstream narrative explanation for the war: that this is about Ukraine being “free” to join the “West” etc.
On this idiotic altar is human civilization supposed to be risked.
Throughout human history, we have witnessed empires that are in decline resorting to extreme violence, in order to attempt to hold on to their hegemony. With the rising of the Global South, the weakening of the petro-dollar, the rising U.S. national debt above $35 trillion (and the utter impossibility of servicing the interest on that debt), the U.S. global empire is in a state of decline. With an economic system that produces little of value other than military weaponry and munitions, it is in no position to sustain itself much longer. The historical circumstances that allowed the U.S. to dominate the world for decades are unraveling.
In light of all of this, the U.S. neocon ‘Deep State’ sees only one way out of its predicament: military force. It can no longer win economically, or morally, or politically. The only tool left in its bag is militarism directed against anyone standing in its way. We are truly witnessing the decline and fall of another empire. Perhaps, if we survive this, we will finally see a better world being born.
“For control of Russia’s vast energy and material resources ”
And Ukraine’s of course.
The purpose being for our oligarchs to make even more money with resource monopolies and wars that use up all the resources without improving or prolonging any civilians’ quality of life or actual lives but just generate cash for the oligarchs, who then hide their profits in tax havens.
The very definition of insanity.
They aren’t mad. It’s all intentional. The military-industrial complex needs war to keep up their profit margins, and politicians need their fat political donations and lucrative no-show jobs on corporate boards once they end their political careers, and both sides need their money laundering machine in Ukraine to keep cleaning their illicit money thorough arm sales. Russia lobbing a few nuclear warheads on American or British soil would be GREAT for business. If a million or two proles have to die to make that happen, it’s an acceptable cost for someone else to pay.
You are of course correct in that these “leaders” are just agents of the money makers behind the scenes who put them in charge. Precisely to increase war and conflict and chaos, all of that being good for business.
But the madness comes in treating Russia and China as if they are Venezuela, Iraq and Libya. They are not. They are nations that can end human civilization on earth if they are pushed too far, both, for varying reasons, being extremely defensive of their national security.
Money making ends when the strategic bombs start flying …
They’re gambling on Putin being a measured, responsible leader who wouldn’t go full-tilt nuclear holocaust from the get-go (contrary to how they portray him when talking to the press). They assume he doesn’t have the stones to actually follow through on his threat, or if he does he would launch a limited strike to prove he is serious without ending civilization. They don’t care if he blows Elmendorf Air Force base in Alaska off the map, or some random base in a US territory that is not in the States.
indeed, therefore it is extremely important that russia makes extremely clear that retaliation will not be confined to europe and that they know where the shareholders will be hiding.
They are criminally insane and malevolent. The fact is there is no knowledge of history, interest or understanding of how, when and what caused this conflict. No one cares – they just listen to MSM.