In the past year, additional proof has emerged proving the West’s provocation of Russia to give it its “Vietnam” in Ukraine.
Consortium News on Feb. 4, 2022 warned that the U.S. was setting a trap for Russia in Ukraine, as it had in Afghanistan in 1979 and Iraq in 1990, to provoke Russia to invade Ukraine to provide the pretext to launch an economic, information and proxy war designed to weaken Russia and bring down its government — in other words, to give Russia its “Vietnam.” Twenty days later Russia invaded.
One month later, President Joe Biden confirmed that a trap had indeed been set, as reported by Consortium News on March 27, 2022, republished here today. The evidence that the U.S. wanted and needed Russia to invade as cause to launch its economic, information and proxy wars was clear:
- The U.S. backed a coup in 2014, installing an anti-Russian government in Kiev and supporting a war against coup resisters in Donbass.
- The 2015 Minsk Accords to end the Ukrainian civil war were never implemented.
- On the day of the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion Biden told reporters that economic sanctions were never intended to deter Russia, but to show the Russian people who Russian President Vladimir Putin was. In other words the U.S. was not trying to stop the invasion but to overthrow Putin, as Biden confirmed a month later in Warsaw, in order to restore the dominance over Russia the U.S. enjoyed in the 1990s.
- The United States and NATO rejected Russian treaty proposals to create a new security architecture in Europe, taking Russia’s security concerns into account. Despite a Russian warning of a technical/military response if the draft treaties were rejected. The U.S. and NATO rejected them nonetheless, knowing and welcoming the consequences. Rather than withdrawing NATO forces from Eastern Europe as the treaty proposals called for, NATO sent more troops.
- For 30 years, NATO continued expanding towards Russia, despite promises to the contrary, routinely holding exercises near its border, despite fully understanding Russia’s objections, from Boris Yeltsin to Putin, and knowing it would provoke a hostile reaction. Sen. Joe Biden said as much in 1997.
- The fake Russiagate scandal helped prepare the U.S. population for hostilities against Russia and launched sanctions based on a lie that have never been lifted.
- Despite 100,000 Russian troops on the Russian side of the border, the OSCE reported an increase of shelling by Ukraine of Donbass at the end of February 2022 indicating an impending offensive against ethnic Russian civilians who had suffered eight years for resisting an unconstitutional change of government in 2014. It was tantamount to baiting those Russian forces to cross the border.
In the past year, additional evidence has emerged proving the West’s provocation:
- U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin acknowledged that the U.S. strategy in Ukraine is to “weaken” Russia. To this end, the U.S. has stopped peace efforts, even by Israel, to prolong the conflict.
- Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former French President Francois Holland, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroschenko all admitted in recent months that they never had any intention of implementing the Minsk Accords (endorsed by the U.N. Security Council) and were stringing Russia along to give time for NATO to train and equip the Ukrainian military for the Russian intervention it anticipated.
- Planning for sanctions against Russia began in November 2021, three months before the invasion, according to Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Council.
- Planning to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines were begun by the United States in September 2021, five months before the invasion, according to reporting by Seymour Hersh.
- Taken together, all this evidence leaves little doubt that the U.S. was provoking Russia to invade Ukraine in order to implement its plan to bring down the Russian government. That the U.S. plan has so far failed, is another matter.
This was Consortium News‘ report on March 27, 2022:
In a moment of candor, Joe Biden has revealed why the U.S. needed the Russian invasion and why it needs it to continue, writes Joe Lauria.
President Biden departs Brussels en route to Poland early Friday morning. (White House)
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
March 27, 2022
The U.S. got its war in Ukraine. Without it, Washington could not attempt to destroy Russia’s economy, orchestrate worldwide condemnation and lead an insurgency to bleed Russia, all part of an attempt to bring down its government. Joe Biden has now left no doubt that it’s true.
The president of the United States has confirmed what Consortium News and others have been reporting since the beginnings of Russsiagate in 2016, that the ultimate U.S. aim is to overthrow the government of Vladimir Putin.
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said on Saturday at the Royal Castle in Warsaw. The White House and the State Dept. have been scrambling to explain away Biden’s remark.
But it is too late.
“The President’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region,” a White House official said. “He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.”
On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “As you know, and as you have heard us say repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia, or anywhere else, for that matter,” the last words inserted for comic relief.
Biden first gave the game away at his Feb. 24 White House press conference — the first day of the invasion. He was asked why he thought new sanctions would work when the earlier sanctions had not prevented Russia’s invasion. Biden said the sanctions were never designed to prevent Russia’s intervention but to punish it afterward. Therefore the U.S. needed Russia to invade.
“No one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening,” Biden said. “That has to sh- — this is going to take time. And we have to show resolve so he knows what’s coming and so the people of Russia know what he’s brought on them. That’s what this is all about.” It is all about the Russian people turning on Putin to overthrow him, which would explain Russia’s crackdown on anti-war protestors and the media.
It was no slip of the tongue. Biden repeated himself in Brussels on Thursday: “Let’s get something straight … I did not say that in fact the sanctions would deter him. Sanctions never deter. You keep talking about that. Sanctions never deter. The maintenance of sanctions — the maintenance of sanctions, the increasing the pain … we will sustain what we’re doing not just next month, the following month, but for the remainder of this entire year. That’s what will stop him.”
It was the second time that Biden confirmed that the purpose of the draconian U.S. sanctions on Russia was never to prevent the invasion of Ukraine, which the U.S. desperately needed to activate its plans, but to punish Russia and get its people to rise up against Putin and ultimately restore a Yeltsin-like puppet to Moscow. Without a cause those sanctions could never have been imposed. The cause was Russia’s invasion.
Regime Change in Moscow
Biden’s speech in Warsaw. (Office of the President/Wikimedia Commons)
Once hidden in studies such as this 2019 RAND study, the desire to overthrow the government in Moscow is now out in the open.
One of the earliest threats came from Carl Gersham, the long-time director of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Gershman, wrote in 2013, before the Kiev coup: “Ukraine is the biggest prize.” If it could be pulled away from Russia and into the West, then “Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”
David Ignatius wrote in The Washington Post in 1999 that the NED could now practice regime change out in the open, rather than covertly as the C.I.A. had done.
The RAND Corporation on March 18 then published an article titled, “If Regime Change Should Come to Moscow,” the U.S. should be ready for it. Michael McFaul, the hawkish former U.S. ambassador to Russia, has been calling for regime change in Russia for some time. He tried to finesse Biden’s words by tweeting:
On Putin, Biden expressed what billions around the world and millions inside Russia also believe. He did not say that the US should remove him from power. There is a difference.
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) March 27, 2022
On March 1, Boris Johnson’s spokesperson said the sanctions on Russia “we are introducing, that large parts of the world are introducing, are to bring down the Putin regime.” No. 10 tried to walk that back but two days earlier James Heappey, minister for the armed forces, wrote in The Daily Telegraph:
“His failure must be complete; Ukrainian sovereignty must be restored, and the Russian people empowered to see how little he cares for them. In showing them that, Putin’s days as President will surely be numbered and so too will those of the kleptocratic elite that surround him. He’ll lose power and he won’t get to choose his successor.”
After the fall of the Soviet Union and throughout the 1990s Wall Street and the U.S. government dominated Boris Yeltsin’s Russia, asset-stripping former state-owned industries to enrich themselves and a new class of oligarchs, while impoverishing the Russian people. Putin came to power on New Year’s Eve 1999 and started restoring Russia’s sovereignty. His 2007 Munich Security Conference speech, in which he blasted Washington’s aggressive unilateralism, alarmed the U.S., which clearly wants a Yeltsin-like figure to return. The 2014 U.S.-backed coup in Kiev was a first step. Russiagate was another.
Back in 2017, Consortium News saw Russiagate as a prelude to regime change in Moscow. That year I wrote:
“The Russia-gate story fits neatly into a geopolitical strategy that long predates the 2016 election. Since Wall Street and the U.S. government lost the dominant position in Russia that existed under the pliable President Boris Yeltsin, the strategy has been to put pressure on getting rid of Putin to restore a U.S. friendly leader in Moscow. There is substance to Russia’s concerns about American designs for ‘regime change’ in the Kremlin.
Moscow sees an aggressive America expanding NATO and putting 30,000 NATO troops on its borders; trying to overthrow a secular ally in Syria with terrorists who threaten Russia itself; backing a coup in Ukraine as a possible prelude to moves against Russia; and using American NGOs to foment unrest inside Russia before they were forced to register as foreign agents.”
JUST NOW: ""I think Ukrainians were waiting for a long time for such a statement. I think this statement is absolutely correct."
–Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on President Biden's controversial statement about Putin's removal.pic.twitter.com/6ucqdJS0oM
— John Berman (@JohnBerman) March 28, 2022
The Invasion Was Necessary
The United States could have easily prevented Russia’s military action. It could have stopped Russia’s intervention in Ukraine’s civil war from happening by doing three things: forcing implementation of the 8-year old Minsk peace accords, dissolving extreme right Ukrainian militias and engaging Russia in serious negotiations about a new security architecture in Europe.
But it didn’t.
The U.S. can still end this war through serious diplomacy with Russia. But it won’t. Blinken has refused to speak with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Instead, Biden announced on March 16 another $800 million in military aid for Ukraine on the same day it was revealed Russia and Ukraine have been working on a 15-point peace plan. It has never been clearer that the U.S. wanted this war and wants it to continue.
NATO troops and missiles in Eastern Europe were evidently so vital to U.S. plans that it would not discuss removing them to stop Russia’s troops from crossing into Ukraine. Russia had threatened a “technical/military” response if NATO and the U.S. did not take seriously Russia’s security interests, presented in December in the form of treaty proposals.
The U.S. knew what would happen if it rejected those proposals calling for Ukraine not to join NATO, for missiles in Poland and Romania to be removed and NATO troops in Eastern Europe withdrawn. That’s why it started screaming about an invasion in December. The U.S. refused to move the missiles and provocatively sent even more NATO forces to Eastern Europe.
MSNBC ran an article on March 4, titled, “Russia’s Ukraine invasion may have been preventable: The U.S. refused to reconsider Ukraine’s NATO status as Putin threatened war. Experts say that was a huge mistake.” The article said:
“The abundance of evidence that NATO was a sustained source of anxiety for Moscow raises the question of whether the United States’ strategic posture was not just imprudent but negligent.”
Senator Joe Biden knew as far back as 1997 that NATO expansion, which he supported, could eventually lead to a hostile Russian reaction.
Biden in 1997 saying that the only thing that could provoke a "vigorous and hostile" Russian response would be if NATO expanded as far as the Baltic states pic.twitter.com/i0yfEgIGZA
— Alex Turrall (@ImReadinHere) March 7, 2022
The Excised Background to the Invasion
It is vital to recall the events of 2014 in Ukraine and what has followed until now because it is routinely whitewashed from Western media coverage. Without that context, it is impossible to understand what is happening in Ukraine.
Both Donetsk and Lugansk had voted for independence from Ukraine in 2014 after a U.S.-backed coup overthrew the democratically elected president Viktor Yanukovych. The new, U.S.-installed Ukrainian government then launched a war against the provinces to crush their resistance to the coup and their bid for independence, a war that is still going on eight years later at the cost of thousands of lives with U.S. support. It is this war that Russia has entered.
Neo-Nazi groups, such as Right Sector and the Azov Battalion, who revere the World War II Ukrainian fascist leader Stepan Bandera, took part in the coup as well as in the ongoing violence against Lugansk and Donetsk.
Despite reporting in the BBC, the NYT, the Daily Telegraph and CNN on the neo-Nazis at the time, their role in the story is now excised by Western media, reducing Putin to a madman hellbent on conquest without reason. As though he woke up one morning and looked at a map to decide what country he would invade next.
The public has been induced to embrace the Western narrative, while being kept in the dark about Washington’s ulterior motives.
#Russia co-existed with #Ukraine until the 2014 US-backed coup and Kiev's war against ethnic Russians who resisted it. Everything goes back to 2014–a now 8-year civil war. Airbrushing that out of the story, as Western media does, amounts to deliberate deception.
— Joe Lauria (@unjoe) March 1, 2022
The Traps Set for Russia
Six weeks ago, on Feb. 4, I wrote an article, “What a US Trap for Russia in Ukraine Might Look Like,” in which I laid out a scenario in which Ukraine would begin an offensive against ethnic Russian civilians in Donbass, forcing Russia to decide whether to abandon them or to intervene to save them.
If Russia intervened with regular army units, I argued, this would be the “Invasion!” the U.S. needed to attack Russia’s economy, turn the world against Moscow and end Putin’s rule.
In the third week of February, Ukrainian government shelling of Donbass dramatically increased, according to the OSCE, with what appeared to be the new offensive. Russia was forced to make its decision.
It first recognized the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, a move it put off for eight years. And then on Feb. 24 President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine to “demilitarize” and “denazify” the country.
Russia stepped into a trap, which grows more perilous by the day as Russia’s military intervention continues with a second trap in sight. From Moscow’s perspective, the stakes were too high not to intervene. And if it can induce Kiev to accept a settlement, it might escape the clutches of the United States.
A Planned Insurgency
Biden and Brzezinski (Collage Cathy Vogan/Photos SEIU Walk a Day in My Shoes 2008/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain/Picryl)
The examples of previous U.S. traps that I gave in the Feb. 4 piece were the U.S. telling Saddam Hussein in 1990 that it would not interfere in its dispute with Kuwait, opening the trap to Iraq’s invasion, allowing the U.S. to destroy Baghdad’s military. The second example is most relevant.
In a 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, Jimmy Carter’s former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted that the C.I.A. set a trap four decades ago for Moscow by arming mujahiddin to fight the Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan and bring down the Soviet government, much as the U.S. wants today to bring down Putin. He said:
“According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the reality, closely guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
He then explained that the reason for the trap was to bring down the Soviet Union. Brzezinski said:
“That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: ‘We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.’ Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime, a conflict that bought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.”
Brzezinski said he had no regrets that financing the mujahideen spawned terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. “What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?,” he asked. The U.S. today is likewise gambling with the world economy and further instability in Europe with its tolerance of neo-Nazism in Ukraine.
In his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, Brzezinski wrote:
“Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire. Russia without Ukraine can still strive for imperial status, but it would then become a predominantly Asian imperial state.”
Thus U.S. “primacy,” or world dominance, which still drives Washington, is not possible without control of Eurasia, as Brzezinski argued, and that’s not possible without control of Ukraine by pushing Russia out (U.S. takeover of Ukraine in the 2014 coup) and controlling the governments in Moscow and Beijing. What Brzezinski and U.S. leaders still view as Russia’s “imperial ambitions” are in Moscow seen as imperative defensive measures against an aggressive West.
Without the Russian invasion the second trap the U.S. is planning would not be possible: an insurgency meant to bog Russia down and give it its “Vietnam.” Europe and the U.S. are flooding more arms into Ukraine, and Kiev has called for volunteer fighters. The way jihadists flocked to Afghanistan, white supremacists from around Europe are traveling to Ukraine to become insurgents.
Just as the Afghanistan insurgency helped bring down the Soviet Union, the insurgency is meant to topple Putin’s Russia.
An article in Foreign Affairs entitled “The Coming Ukrainian Insurgency” was published Feb. 25, just one day after Russia’s intervention, indicating advanced planning that was dependent on an invasion. The article had to be written and edited before Russia crossed into Ukraine and was published as soon as it did. It said:
“If Russia limits its offensive to the east and south of Ukraine, a sovereign Ukrainian government will not stop fighting. It will enjoy reliable military and economic support from abroad and the backing of a united population. But if Russia pushes on to occupy much of the country and install a Kremlin-appointed puppet regime in Kyiv, a more protracted and thorny conflagration will begin. Putin will face a long, bloody insurgency that could spread across multiple borders, perhaps even reaching into Belarus to challenge Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Putin’s stalwart ally. Widening unrest could destabilize other countries in Russia’s orbit, such as Kazakhstan, and even spill into Russia itself. When conflicts begin, unpredictable and unimaginable outcomes can become all too real. Putin may not be prepared for the insurgency—or insurgencies—to come.
WINNER’S REMORSE
Many a great power has waged war against a weaker one, only to get bogged down as a result of its failure to have a well-considered end game. This lack of foresight has been especially palpable in troubled occupations. It was one thing for the United States to invade Vietnam in 1965, Afghanistan in 2001, and Iraq in 2003; likewise for the Soviet Union to enter Afghanistan in 1979. It was an altogether more difficult task to persevere in those countries in the face of stubborn insurgencies. … As the United States learned in Vietnam and Afghanistan, an insurgency that has reliable supply lines, ample reserves of fighters, and sanctuary over the border can sustain itself indefinitely, sap an occupying army’s will to fight, and exhaust political support for the occupation at home.'”
As far back as Jan. 14, Yahoo! News reported:
“The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in 2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to some of those officials.
The CIA-trained forces could soon play a critical role on Ukraine’s eastern border, where Russian troops have massed in what many fear is preparation for an invasion. …
The program has involved ‘very specific training on skills that would enhance’ the Ukrainians’ ‘ability to push back against the Russians,’ said the former senior intelligence official.
The training, which has included ‘tactical stuff,’ is “going to start looking pretty offensive if Russians invade Ukraine,’ said the former official.
One person familiar with the program put it more bluntly. ‘The United States is training an insurgency,’ said a former CIA official, adding that the program has taught the Ukrainians how ‘to kill Russians.’”
In his Warsaw speech, Biden tipped his hand about an insurgency to come. He said nothing about peace talks. Instead he said: “In this battle, we need to be clear-eyed. This battle will not be won in days or months either. We need to steel ourselves of a long fight ahead.”
Hillary Clinton laid it all out on Feb. 28, just four days into Russia’s operation. She brought up the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1980, saying “it didn’t end well for Russia” and that in Ukraine “this is the model that people are looking at … that can stymie Russia.”
"Remember, the Russians invaded Afghanistan back in 1980," Hillary Clinton says. "It didn't end well for the Russians…but the fact is, that a very motivated, and then funded, and armed insurgency basically drove the Russians out of Afghanistan." pic.twitter.com/iirtXI4vz4
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) March 1, 2022
What neither Maddow nor Clinton mentioned when discussing volunteers going to fight for Ukraine is what The New York Times reported on Feb. 25, a day after the invasion, and before their interview: “Far-right militias in Europe plan to confront Russian forces.”
The Economic War
Along with the quagmire, are the raft of profound economic sanctions on Russia designed to collapse its economy and drive Putin from power.
These are the harshest sanctions the U.S. and Europe have ever imposed on any nation. Sanctions against Russia’s Central Bank sanctions are the most serious, as they were intended to destroy the value of the ruble. One U.S. dollar was worth 85 rubles on Feb. 24, the day of the invasion and soared to 154 per dollar on March 7. However the Russian currency strengthened to 101 on Friday.
Putin and other Russian leaders were personally sanctioned, as were Russia’s largest banks. Most Russian transactions are no longer allowed to be settled through the SWIFT international payment system. The German-Russia Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline was closed down and become bankrupt.
The U.S. blocked imports of Russian oil, which was about 5 percent of U.S. supply. BP and Shell pulled out of Russian partnerships. European and U.S. airspace for Russian commercial liners was closed. Europe, which depends on Russia gas, is still importing it, and is so far rebuffing U.S. pressure to stop buying Russian oil.
A raft of voluntary sanctions followed: PayPal, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix and McDonalds have been shut down in Russia. Coca-cola will stop sales to the country. U.S. news organizations have left, Russian artists in the West have been fired and even Russian cats are banned.
It also gave an opportunity for U.S. cable providers to get RT America shut down. Other Russia media has been de-platformed and Russian government websites hacked. A Yale University professor has drawn up a list to shame U.S. companies that are still operating in Russia.
Russian exports of wheat and fertilizer have been banned, driving up the price of food in the West. Biden admitted as much on Thursday:
“With regard to food shortage … it’s going to be real. The price of these sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia, it’s imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well. And — because both Russia and Ukraine have been the breadbasket of Europe in terms of wheat, for example — just to give you one example.”
The aim is clear: “asphyxiating Russia’s economy”, as French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian put it, even if it damages the West.
"We are going to wage a total economic and financial war on Russia" declared Bruno Le Maire, French Minister of the Economy and Finance today.
"We will therefore cause the collapse of the Russian economy" until "Putin returns to better intentions in Ukraine" https://t.co/IWuGeZRSWX
— Aki Heikkinen (@akihheikkinen) March 1, 2022
The question is whether Russia can extricate itself from the U.S. strategy of insurgency and economic war.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe
The party or parties which planned and carried out the destruction of Nordstream 2 pipelines were well aware beforehand of the harsh negative consequences which Europeans would experience when the “Go!” criminal order was issued, most importantly the consequence of inadequate energy for heating homes, cooking food and maintenance of healthy personal hygiene, – all negative consequences relative to the health and well-being of everyday European citizens.
Some of a more spiritual persuasion might conclude the destruction of Nordstream 2 illustrates an action in direct contravention of the well-known spiritual phrase understood by most people as The Golden Rule: “Do unto others what you would have done unto you”.
It may be perceived as hyperbole to suggest that, in a sane world, true world leaders would have arranged for the repair of Nordstream 2 as rapidly as possible, to alleviate the mentioned imposed energy-dependent harsh roadblocks placed by the destroyers on Europeans to their everyday upkeep of health and well-being, yet such repair initiatives remain absent..
People around the world might ask themselves: “What form of spirituality serves as the foundation-for-actions and motivates those in the ‘global leadership segment of the population’, particularly those of the ‘(Golden?)Rules based order’?”…
Such a criminally-insane anti-spirituality strongly suggests an unfortunate loyalty or worship of what most people understand as “The Dark Side”. Those on The Dark Side are recognizable in their rejection of the proposition that all human beings are inherently sacred (made or declared holy), and ultimately, truly brothers and sisters in the human family… Herein lies the world’s entire, paramount, unavoidable and urgent spiritual problem..
President Putin must avoid the latter stages of this U.S. trap; this is how he will accomplish it; remember, President Putin is now trapped in the corner, Russia will have nothing left to lose. Therefore; Russia must shut down the economic and financial markets in the “West”. Russia will send “rockets” to destroy all main centres of Banking, Exchange and Trade; Russia will destroy all main arteries of Western communications; Russia will destroy all main Western Sea Ports; Russia will destroy all airborne rockets and airborne attack weapons; Russia has all the means to do this, unannounced, in reserve. The West will hurt like never before. The West has announced their intention to totally destroy Russia, Russia has only one option, that is to preempt the West’s intentions, or to die a subjugated death anyway! Allow me to predict, Russia, and President Putin especially, will resist to the end for “The Right”, and Russia, along with President Putin, could not be more right!
Thanks, Joe. This is very well put together. It would blow millions of minds to read and absorb the real history of all this. Our mutual task is to reach out to others who are truth-impoverished AND move them to action before it is too late. Let’s all — all of us — redouble our efforts toward this. USE Joe’s piece — bit by bit, if necessary, but NOW!
The tragedy is that we lack the “well-informed citizenry” that President Eisenhower acknowledged is necessary to prevent the threat to our democracy posed by the increasing power of the MIC — now the (expanded) MICIMATT.
As for the aims of the Biden, Blinken, Sullivan and Nuland (second only to the law proverbial law firm of Dewey Cheatem and Howe), they are not only benighted but extremely dangerous. Putin cannot be dismissed as paranoid. He has heard from the lips of US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin:
“One of the US’s goals in Ukraine is to see a weakened Russia. … The US is ready to move heaven and earth to help Ukraine win the war against Russia.”
Can the US “move heaven and earth”? Not without using nuclear weapons. As VIPS noted in our Jan. 26, 2023 Memo to Biden:
“Thus, there is a large conceptual – and exceptionally dangerous – disconnect. Simply stated, it is not possible to “win the war against Russia” AND avoid WWIII. It is downright scary that Defense Secretary Austin may think it possible. In any case, the Kremlin has to assume he thinks so. It is a very dangerous delusion.”
Thanks again, Joe, for putting it all together. Let’s all use Joe’s piece to educate as many others as possible. ‘There is such a thing as too late”, as Dr. King put it.
Ray
I’ve heard it said that the skripal/novichok episodes in the uk were false flag ops designed to generate anti Russian sentiment in the uk in preparation for the anti Russia war now being fought. I couldn’t possibly comment on such outrageous moves.
Great outline and context, something willfully omitted from Mass Media Cartel articles. I have link to a Rand Corp paper that is also very clear
“Overextending and Unbalancing Russia” that makes the policy very clear. As of April 2022, there is an interesting editors note about how the “research” is being mischaracterized for “propaganda”.
Reading The Grand Chessboard today, (or re-reading) is chilling. Foreign policy is long-term, and even with Trump supposedly “friends” with Russia, he attacked Russia’s allies (Syria, Iran, China) with military and/or siege warfare (illegal “sanctions”) and attacked Russia directly with illegal sanctions. So, as usual, despite the BS from a long-time conman, Trump attacked Russia and Russian interests.
The late Prof. Stephen Cohen, in an interview with Amy Goodman, said that the US-orchestrated regime change operation in Kiev 2014 would result in war. Ukraine was a “red line” and they knew it. Cohen was likely one of the first to predict a military reaction from Russia.
As a European, I don’t understand the first thing about US domestic politics. To me the Trump presidency was a revelation as it showed that US presidents are just puppets of the Deep State or the Blob, or whatever you want to call it. Even though Trump wanted to improve relations with Russia and even though he hated Ukraine and Nato, the Deep State made him supply heavy weapons Ukraine. That is something the Neocons hadn’t achieved under Obama even though Neocons like Biden and Nuland had important posts in the Obama administration.
This just goes to show that the US has ceased to be a democracy long time ago. The US is just a plutocracy with fascist tendencies. I guess that is the price Americans have to pay for the Empire. The two-party system doesn’t allow for new movements and allows corruption to fester. For getting elected one needs enormous amounts of money and support from the oligarchs. And once a president is elected he has to follow what the Deep State wants.
I think Russia is probably more democratic than the US because Putin has removed the oligarchs from power. The oligarchs have to serve the state and not vice-versa.
I’m certainly not a Trump fan, but he definitely wouldn’t have led us into the Ukraine war.
I believe it’s fairly self evident that Russia knew in 2014 what was coming and started their preparations. As such, the sanctions have been effectively neutered and have rebounded on the hegemon and its lackies. Russia is now much stronger and the West much weaker, Putin has proved himself in every aspect superior to any and all of the western ‘leaders’.
China is taking note and making their own preparations.
The USA is a busted flush.
When will the good people in the West wake up and purge the cancer at the heart of their troubles ?
Thank you for republishing this article. It was important when written and even more so today. It should be required reading for every American citizen.
Hubris will be the undoing of the US Empire.
Americans believe they destroyed the Soviet Union by means of Brzezinski’s Afghanistan trap. That’s erroneous. In reality, the Soviet leaders dissolved the Soviet Union because, due to the Social Democrat policy of détente, they were seduced into thinking that there could be peaceful coexistence with the West. Having erroneously interpreted the effect of Brzezinski’s Afghanistan trap, the Neocons then made the mistake of believing that they could destroy the Russian Federation with Brzezinski’s Ukraine trap. Thus, based on an erroneous interpretation of history, the Neocons formulated an erroneous strategy for future action. If they had wanted to undermine Russia, they should have used détente and rapprochement to make Russia a liberal democracy. Instead, the Neocon hostility towards Russia hardened the nationalist faction in Moscow. Western support for the opposition to destabilize Putin’s government actually forced the Kremlin to use repressive measure and delay democratization. Thus, the West prevented democratization of Russia.
Moreover, the Neocons overestimated the military, economic and technological strength of the West and underestimated Russia strength. In reality, conservative Russia has a lot more stability than the woke West, which is embroiled in intractable social, political and economic problems. The manufacturing of Western economies has been hollowed out while Western economies sink ever deeper into debts, which could bring the whole card house tumbling down at any moment.
And since 85% of the human population does not support the economic war against Russia, the West has isolated itself instead of isolating Russia. Even though the sanctions fail to have the desired effect, the West has already reached the limit of the sanctions it can impose. With more than one third of the human population under Western sanctions, the sanctioners start to feel the pain more than the sanctioned. International organizations such as the BRICS+ and the SCO, comprising sanctioned countries, start to dwarf Western organizations. Even in the Western camp, many countries start to seek exceptions from the sanctions; which undermines Western resolve.
Thus, the West has fallen into the trap it has set for Russia. Russia cannot retreat from its mission in Ukraine because Nato at its border is an essential threat to Russia’s national security. Ukraine is of no strategic importance to US security; however, losing a proxy war against Russia threatens the US’s global hegemony. Consequently, neither side can back down. We are on autopilot for WW3. The Neocon gang of 4 (Biden, Nuland, Blinken, Sullivan) is too deeply involved in the Ukraine adventure to do a U-turn. The only thing that can save us now is regime change in Washington. Maybe Trump and Musk have the right political instinct when they call out Nuland as the chief culprit.
Ukraine was a region of Russia (like a state) since at least the 1700s, until the USSR dissolved in 1991. It’s a little country, roughly the size of Texas alone. By contrast, Russia is roughly twice the size of the US. If Russia wanted Ukraine, they would have it. This is Biden’s war, not Putin’s. So how did all this come begin? Start with the US role in Ukraine’s 2014 coup, and in the installation of (multi-millionaire entertainer) Zelensky in 2019 – setting the stage for war.
that it was a trap, yes; but I am sure Russia fell into it almost willingly, perhaps setting a bigger trap for the west. The fact that Russia withstood these monstrous sanctions is not luck; it was planned as if they had already prepared strategies for them. That is what should worry United States.
China, Russia, and who knows who else are ready to go to war. It is what we do not see yet that should worry us. I believe they are much better prepared than us, and I believe US soil is their primary target; you cut the head of the snake and everything else falls into pieces. I think US made the mistake in believing is well protected by bodies of water, but not in an asymmetrical war. Recent study has shown that the US missile defense is not even ready to face NK missile threat, imagine Russia and China.
Although at UN the majority voted for Russia to remove its troops, when the moment come only Japan and SK will be on NATO’s side… which nation would support countries that diverted more than 2000 tons of grain to go feed pigs in Spain rather than going to Africa to feed poor children? I would not… regardless the outcome of this war, we the Western people will be no longer welcomed in this planet; will have to always look over our shoulders, we will never be safe and relaxed… that will be like living in hell
I think you’re right. Russian and China are much better prepared than the west understands. This failure to understand is evidenced by the last year where Russia not only has resisted the sanctions but has turned them to its advantage.
The weaknesses of the US and the collective west states are many. Even the western intelligence community has fallen for the ‘sickness’ that has overcome western leaders, resulting in flawed interpretation and analysis. Add this to the barrage of disinformation disseminated by western government and media, and the whipped up hysteria – and you get a toxic recipe for heavily flawed policies and decisions. In short, they can’t see or think straight! They are blind, ignorant, confused and increasingly desperate.
Both China and Russia see this, and are taking full advantage of it. It is their chance to overturn the oppressive hegemony of the West. And they are succeeding at an astonishing rate which the west hasn’t understood or accepted yet. The rest of the non-western world is beginning to jump on board as they also see their chance to escape the western yoke of oppression. The momentum of this change is increasing rapidly.
But when the reality catches up with the US and the collective west, the real trouble will start. When they realise their mistakes and start to understand the implications and the new realities, they are likely to lash out in desperation, like a cornered animal. That means escalation, and that could lead to a hot war!
Incorrect. Americans seem to forget that when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, so did their economic and social systems. Russia had been solidly focused on rebuilding, and once again became serious economic competition to the US – something the US cannot to9lerate. America played the key role in Ukraine’s 2014 coup and in installing Zelensky in 2019, launching this proxy war. While Americans have been deluged with war propaganda, note that Zelensky is hated by much 9f Ukraine as a puppet of the West. From this, we know his days are numbered. What matters is whether or not Biden actually launches nuclear world war. Understand that this means our deaths.
Anyone who thinks the Kremlin wasn’t baited into launching its liberating SMO is a propagandized braindead imbecile.
Little Blinkie, fat Nudelman and the rest of the Zio freaky punks played an extremely dangerous and deadly game for eight years, Russia finally said enough.
Nicely stated, Drew! You are correct!
Thanks Frank.
Stay strong.
Though Russia ‘fired the first shot”, that was not the cause of this war. The US/NATO war AGAINST Russia began in 2014, with the US orchestrated coup there followed by soon flooding Ukraine with weapons and training up Ukie nao-Nazis. And, let’s not forget the prelude to this being twenty years of NATO expansion eastward. ……….. OF course, with 24/7 MSM propaganda/brainwashing, there iS no history between US/Russia/NATO/Ukraine prior to Feb 24, 2022. Plus, Putin is Hitler, haven’t you heard? He’s determined to reconstitute the USSR, haven’t you heard? And, there are NO neo-Nazis in Ukraine – they’re ‘freedom fighters’, haven’t you heard??
Russia’s intervention in Ukraine’s civil war to halt the slaughter of folks in Donbas was regrettable, but, necessary. UN Article 51 – Responsibility to Protect. …….. most relevant.
Russia needs to bring this war to a swift and decisive end with overwhelming force. Don’t give the US imperialists a chance to send more advanced missiles/tanks, or decide to use the nuke option. ………Plus, it’s unrealistic to think that the US public will come to see this for what it really is——> a US imperial war against Russia to control its vast resources, dismantle the country and isolate China (next on the empire’s target list). The critical mass of understanding these realities that’d lead to a pushback against US policy is outpaced by the wall-to-wall propaganda in all sectors of US media.
Exactly.
So starving people in the targeted for regime change country, in the proxy war country, the vassal counties and the home country are all worth the price to maintain unipolar hegemony. That’s called supporting freedom and democracy. It boggles the mind given US foreign policy history, how people in the Western countries believe this. Truly dystopian.
Given the failure to sell the Russian bad-guy narrative it seems Washington is more likely to experience regime change and that will be welcomed by all good people across the globe.
Mr Putin clearly has the backing of the Russian people. There will be no partisan insurgency in those provinces that voted to rejoin Russia. The US fomented two coups in Ukraine the second one finally stuck thanx to our allying ourselves with the Ukrainian Nazis. The CIA won’t be able to stir up trouble in the four provinces that rejoined Russia because Russia has the support of the people living there (there’s a reason that Kiev is frantic about Ukrainians siding with Russia). Finally, the US and the EU are going broke and the economic warfare is destroying Europe’s economy and it isn’t doing ours any good either. We’ll see who can last the longest.
Jeff Harrison, yes sir!
Your iron-clad recall of an historical event. Khrushchev pounding that lectern with his shoe. I’m pretty impressed by the connection you made there even more impressed by your applying it to the present situation with Putin.
You ever consider working for the State Department? No, seriously you obviously seem to have a much better grasp of the current situation than those there currently calling the shots.
Putin’s decision to invade was a forced error on his part IMHO and it proves the diabolical extremes our national security apparatus will engage in for a perceived ideological victory, hegemony. So much for superior intelligence, national security and Sound Leadership!
We now are in possession of the proof, MORE EVIDENCE EMERGES THE US WANTED RUSSIA TO INVADE, that those intended to be peace loving leaders working in our best interests are liars, presenting us with false pretenses to pursue the overthrow of foreign leaders.
I would very much bring everyone’s attention to the fact that they seem to have no aversion to putting American through intense periods of anxiety and squandering our national treasure in these asinine pursuits that are akin to petty pissing contests that push the world toward nuclear annihilation.
Proves beyond the pale our leadership is totally incompetent, disingenuous. and not interested in doing what is in the best interest of the majority of Americans.
Time to clean house maybe!
YThanks CN
How many millions of people are injured and dead because of the dirty politics of Biden?
The military, industrial complex continues to make its billions and the cost is paid in blood of innocents.
Is the Ukraine, Russia war why the war in Afghanistan had to be stopped?
In 1944 Japan wanted to surrender, but Roosevelt refused to allow the emperor to retain his position. An additional year cost how many additional lives? Truman finally accepted the surrender because he did not want to share the spoils of war with Russia. Russia was just getting ready to fight in the Pacific.
Thank you Joe for the explanation, one that no one could make up.
One thing became immediately clear to me, now realizing the depths to which this hair brained scheme ran explains why Seth Rich had to die. No one should be surprised.
Thank you, Joe Luria and Consortium News for this reprise of the history leading up to Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine. The US MSM is has done its best to cover up US complicity in starting this war, as well as brainwash the US public with its anti-Putin and Russophobic commentary for the last twenty years, or so. As the US Empire continues down the road to its inevitable dissolution, this article will be an important historical document to explain one of the major causes of its decline.
Right on the money, Foghorn! And your last sentence will be an historical fact in the archives of the downfall of Imperial Amerika.
And yes, thank you Joe Lauria and Consortium News for exposing the consistent lies of the power-mad misanthropes in Wash. D. C. and the professional propagandists of the MSM.
And today, one year after “the plan” was implemented, it is the Biden admin and America’s dreams of an American led uni-polar polar world that are circling the drain. Neocons are legends in their own minds. They create nothing of value. They build nothing to be prized nor desired. They are in it only for themselves. Their hearts are putrid and they are despicable.
I agree. Biden is a hack and a Cold War guy.
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” ? George Orwell, 1984
The Democrats can simultaneously believe:
— that neo-Nazis, calling themselves ‘The Right Sector’, storming the government buildings of Kiev, overturning the results of the last election, is an act of ‘democracy’.
— that neo-Nazis, calling themselves “The Oath Keepers, storming the government buildings of Washington, with the aim of overturning the results of the last election, is an attack on ‘democracy.’
Well, it makes sense to the Cheney Family, so I’m sure it must be Right.
That’s a good analogy. I like that.
?? makes sense to the Cheney family? beg to differ…it is the NULAND-KAGAN family and the rest of that despicable Neocon tribe…
Correct!
I agree January 6th was an Act of Democracy.
America has very strange ideas for what ‘peace’ is.
I’m reminded of a role on a hockey team known as ‘the pest’. Constantly aggressive. Constantly in your face. Constantly trash talking. Constantly trying to fake injuries and thus corrupt the referee (and usually making you wonder what occurs in the referee locker room, but that’s another topic). Constantly hitting you with cheap shots. If they can hit you with their stick when the referee won’t see it, you’ll get a nasty bruise.
In the midst of this, the Americans then act like ‘throwing the first punch’ is the ultimate of evil and that they are of course angels and pure to the soul.
If you look at America’s Hybrid War Against Russia …. the Economic War began years ago (when were the first ‘sanctions’ applied?). The Diplomatic War began decades ago, under Cheney/Nuland IIRC. The Propaganda War began years ago. The Sports War began several Olympics ago. And yet, America claims that everything was at ‘Peace’ up until the moment that Russia attacked the people on their borders who had been placed there by America, who openly expressed a racist hatred of all “Russians” (including a large part of their own population), who were armed by America, who were trained by America, who were massing troops on the border of Russia, who were openly talking about invading Russia and carving off parts of Russia to add to their country, and who were talking about using nuclear weapons against Russia. It is a very strange notion of “peace” that says that this was a peaceful situation before Russia acted.
Don’t forget that when someone finally hauls off and wallops “The Pest”, most of the audience stands up and cheers. The home-team fanatics won’t, but even they will remember that they used to hate that guy when he wore fabric of a different color.
One has to remember that the dirty tricks the U.S. used has worked before. Chile, Venezuela, Cuba, the Philippines are examples of many. It’s just that it has fallen flat when they tried it on Russia. In any case failure affects only the dead and dying. The weapon suppliers and Congress that gets kick -backs are rewarded handsomely. They’re planning ahead for their next caper–China.