Category Archives: Europe

BREAKING: NEW COLUMN: It’s Biblical, Zelensky: A Leader Who Fails To Haggle For The Lives Of His People Has Failed

Ethics, EU, Europe, Foreign Policy, Hebrew Testament, Reason, Republicans, War

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Critical thinking is not in the American bone marrow. A decade or two must first pass, during which only the “mute-button pundits” get to mouth received lies. We’re currently suspended in that phase with respect to Ukraine and its mythical leader. But in the unlikely case that my readers suddenly doubt my instincts—I’m pleased to report that in Ukraine, there are already  rumblings against lionized leader Volodymyr Zelensky.

This from the impeccable reporters of the leftist Economist: “… she and her colleagues were lulled into a false sense of security by Volodymyr Zelensky’s urging that life should carry on as normal, and by the inaction of the Ministry of Culture. ‘It was all, ‘Don’t mention the war’, says another art historian; ‘basically, they screwed up.’”

That’s in the spirit of my NEW COLUMN, “It’s Biblical, Zelensky Is A Failed Leader,” which appeared on WND.COM, The Unz Review and The New American.

Excerpt:

… To normies, a leader who doesn’t plead for the lives of his people is a failed leader. Diplomacy, negotiations, a cease fire: that’s the nomenclature clear-thinking people ought to wish instinctively to hear when they see the immiseration of Ukrainians and their cities. To my knowledge, not before the war and not now has Zelensky initiated, or partaken in, or been urged to pursue serious, high-level talks with Putin.

And while there is some indication that Zelensky might be inching closer to acceding  “neutrality for Kyiv and security guarantees for Moscow,” publicly, Zelensky has done nothing but snarl his contempt for Russia, roaring at the Kremlin to “hold peace talks now or suffer for generations.” This is not diplomacy, but yet more political posturing and provocation. (But then Zelensky, an actor, could be prepping to appear before the central, universal seat of asininity: Hollywood’s Oscars.)

The Hebrew Testament (though “Old,” it’s never out-of-date) is bedecked with examples of leaders pleading, even bargaining, for the lives of the Stiff-Necked People. Abraham haggled ingeniously with The Almighty over Sodom and Gomorrah. Queen Esther petitioned mighty King Xerxes (Ahasuerus) on behalf of Persian Jews, and Moses did the same for his enslaved people before Pharaoh. Another Hebrew has written that “he who saves you from war is better than he who sends you to war.” That’s what real leadership is about—uphold and fight for the people’s natural right to live peacefully. …

… MORE on WND.COM, The Unz Review and The New American.

BREAKING: Finally, the cocky little guy, Zelensky, is scrambling to make diplomacy noises—could it be to cover his sorry ass at the eleventh hour? Via a source called NTD:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says a meeting between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin is needed to negotiate an end to the war, and that any compromise needs to be approved by a referendum. Meanwhile, people have started to evacuate from the Black Sea port of Odessa as Russian forces loom.

Note how Zelensky’s first instinct is to create a media record of his belated impulse to move in the right direction. Very slick. You’d think that after weeks of hell for Ukrainians—we’d learn that the president had already set up an open line to Putin. But no.

Zelensky’s diplomacy is still aspirational.

Oh, and in case you didn’t know where his heart lies: Over to Zelensky: “Justin Trudeau was one of those leaders who inspired me to join politics.”

The European Parliament’s Christine Anderson has some fighting words for Zelensky’s political muse: Trudeau, “You are a disgrace to any democracy. Please spare us your presence”. Watch. Listen.
What an eloquent, and powerful lady she is. If only the Deplorables of America had such representation.

UPDATE (3/15): Ukraine: Republicans Revert To The Neoconservative Mean

Bush, Europe, Free Markets, Iran, Iraq, Neoconservatism, Republicans, Trade, War

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Conservatism has tragically and unforgivably reverted to the neoconservative mean. Just as in 2016, 14 years after the invasion of Iraq, rose a presidential candidate against Genghis Bush and that man’s destruction of Iraq—in ten years time, perhaps, the GOP will field a presidential candidate who’ll quit moralizing and demonizing; will strive fiercely to negotiate and accommodate, won’t alienate and sanction, and will trade, trade, trade.

But it might be too late by then for realpolitik.

The Republicans are pushing for war and that no-fly zone. They are admonishing Biden for his so-called weakness—for that is how they frame avoiding a nuclear war with Russia. The War Street Journal has only rebuke for Biden’s policy of “containment against Russia.” On Fox News it’s rah-rah for war (i. e., a no-fly zone over Ukraine) all day long. The female journos and pundits, especially, choose to use incendiary verbiage, pregnant with provocation, such as “a red line”; “this was a red line for Obama… will Biden consider it a red line.. blah-blah.”

Translated it’s, “Come on big boy; sock it to Putin.” War porn.

Rand Paul is no Ron Paul. But at least the senator from Kentucky has berated the forever-war, dastardly GOP for rejecting diplomacy with Iran, the mention of which has not even crossed their lips with respect to Russia.

UPDATE (3/15): War always brings the neoconservative to the fore. Victor Davis Hanson is one. A nice man, but never-the-less, a neoconservative, front-and-center in the enunciation of consummate neoconservative abominations known as “The Bush Doctrine,” which was responsible for the noxious bifurcation knows as, “If you are not with us, you are against us.”

The West has been caught sleeping and … an opportunistic dictator … saw a chance and … took it just like he did in 2014. 

Neocons love sanctions, which are as useless in achieving political ends as they are ruthless in their effects on the most vulnerable. As far as their ultimate outcome—embargoed are counterproductive. “Nicholas Mulder, assistant professor in the history department of Cornell University in New York, is the author of ‘The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War’ (2022)'”:

Sanctions alone have a poor record of halting military adventures. During the 20th century, only three out of 19 attempts to use sanctions as a policy to impede war have been successful: two of these were the work of the League of Nations. It nipped in the bud incipient border wars in the Balkans, between Yugoslavia and Albania in 1921 and between Greece and Bulgaria in 1925. The other successful use of sanctions was American financial pressure on sterling, which forced an end to Britain’s Egyptian military expedition in the Suez war of 1956.

UPDATED (3/12/022): NEW COLUMN: True Story: Russia Finds WMD In Ukraine!

America, China, Democracy, Europe, Foreign Policy, Neoconservatism, Propaganda, Russia, War, WMD

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NEW COLUMN IS “True Story: Russia Finds WMD In Ukraine!” It is on WND.COM, The Unz Review and The New American.

Excerpt:

… I had framed the duty of diplomacy and statesmanship at which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has failed so miserably and with such grave consequences for his countrymen as realpolitik.

Realpolitik is practical politics, the art of getting along, differences and all, in a real world in which reality, especially power differentials, is accepted and dealt with. The onus was on the Ukrainian president to practice realpolitik with his powerful neighbors, the Russians, I argued. Zelensky ought to have shown Putin respect and negotiated an agreement with him, one that would have appeased Russia with respect to Ukraine’s outsized, idiotic NATO and EU aspirations. Promise the Russians “a non-aligned, neutral Ukraine,” is how Col. Doug McGregor put it.

What I call realpolitik, political scientist John Mearsheimer terms “great-power politics.”

“When you’re a country like Ukraine and you live next door to a great power like Russia,” he posits, “you have to pay careful attention to what the Russians think, because if you take a stick and you poke them in the eye, they’re going to retaliate. … States in the Western hemisphere understand [great-power politics] full well with regard to the United States.”

With his fatigues, simplistic jingoism and facility with TV optics and social media—Zelensky certainly appeals to the war channel females (Fox News) and to distaff worldwide. But he has been worse than useless in the grander scheme of things. As Mearsheimer points out, matter-of-fact, Ukraine is going to lose more territory, its economy has been wrecked as are its cities and infrastructure in ruins. Eastern Europe is becoming more unstable. China and Russia have been thrust into each other’s arms.

The West claims the blame lies solely with Putin, to whom are attributed assorted phantasmagoric expansionist programs and projects. According to this angels-and-demons Disneyfied storyline, Putin plans on claiming the Baltic states of Eastern Europe “out of a longstanding desire to resuscitate the Soviet Empire,” even though the Russian president has disavowed the creation of a greater Russia and certainly doesn’t have the economic wherewithal to mount protracted invasions and occupations. …

… READ THE REST. NEW COLUMN, “True Story: Russia Finds WMD In Ukraine!,” is on WND.COM and The Unz Review for now.

UPDATED (3/11/022): Curiously, Ukraine the “free” and “democratic” had mounted, a la the USA, its own January 6 kind of offensive on its opposition, whom the Zelensky state had placed under house arrest. Check it out.

Coverage of Ukraine before the war is also instructive. Of course, nothing justifies a war of aggression, but a lot explains it.

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UPDATE (3/12/022):  Once a banal neocon; always one. Douglas Murray, ConInc darling of FoxNews, offers, on Fox News, not a balanced analysis of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, only the rah-rah, Zelensky’s sexy; Putin’s a commie nonsense. Murray’s fan boys continue to claim magnificence and originality for their boy. Nothing Douglas Murray says is magnificent or original or particularly inspiring. You could say that about, say, the late Christopher Hitchens. But this guy? What’s wrong with people! He always manages to miss the very important point. Like here: https://www.ilanamercer.com/2020/10/wake-systemic-anti-whiteness-deadly-witness-south-africa/

David and I were right about shallow Murray:
WATCH/READ:

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Musil Protege summed Douglas Murray up truly originally. Put it this way: Murray could not summon such prose as this:

A real poseur, no? Another soi disant Oakeshott heir who hasn’t yet heard that he was never in the will. A Mute-button pundit. His hectoring style has all the suavity of the schoolmarm of distant memory. 80 years ago he would have been teaching Silas Marner to 5th Graders.

U.S. Biowarfare Labs In Ukraine Confirmed: What Else Is Russia Right About?

America, Democracy, Europe, Foreign Policy, Government, Neoconservatism, UN, War, WMD

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ON HARD TRUTH, prerecorded today, March 9, out tomorrow, my partner, David Vance, confronted me with the news about the now-confirmed claims, first made by the Russians, that  “Washington was operating biowarfare labs in Ukraine.”

American sources, liars to the core, had called the claims “‘laughable,’ suggesting Moscow may be laying the groundwork to use a chemical or biological weapon.” Out came the story-lines about conspiracy, the CCP and QAnon.

It’s hard to overstate the degree to which the United States and its scurrilous, insidious and invidious enablers—in media and state; stateside and abroad—lie.

The Dishonrable Victoria Nuland, who, as I documented in February of 2014, was taped plotting to “midwife a new, anti-Russian Ukrainian government,” told the truth for once, today.

Glenn Greenwald reports:

Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), hoping to debunk growing claims that there are chemical weapons labs in Ukraine, smugly asked Nuland: “Does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons?”

Rubio undoubtedly expected a flat denial by Nuland, thus providing further “proof” that such speculation is dastardly Fake News emanating from the Kremlin, the CCP and QAnon. Instead, Nuland did something completely uncharacteristic for her, for neocons, and for senior U.S. foreign policy officials: for some reason, she told a version of the truth. Her answer visibly stunned Rubio, who — as soon as he realized the damage she was doing to the U.S. messaging campaign by telling the truth — interrupted her and demanded that she instead affirm that if a biological attack were to occur, everyone should be “100% sure” that it was Russia who did it. Grateful for the life raft, Nuland told Rubio he was right.

But Rubio’s clean-up act came too late. When asked whether Ukraine possesses “chemical or biological weapons,” Nuland did not deny this: at all. She instead — with palpable pen-twirling discomfort and in halting speech, a glaring contrast to her normally cocky style of speaking in obfuscatory State Department officialese — acknowledged: “uh, Ukraine has, uh, biological research facilities.” Any hope to depict such “facilities” as benign or banal was immediately destroyed by the warning she quickly added: “we are now in fact quite concerned that Russian troops, Russian forces, may be seeking to, uh, gain control of [those labs], so we are working with the Ukrainiahhhns [sic] on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach” — [interruption by Sen. Rubio]:

These biowarfare Ukrainian laboratories are located near Russian borders.

The point I made on Hard Truth (you can hear it tomorrow) was the only one, in my opinion, relevant in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Plainly put, this, first, is a reminded of the extent, the depth and the gravity of American lies. The Americans have been arming Ukraine for years. “American special forces have even been training potential partisans in eastern Ukraine.” Unless you are telling me the Russians should trust us (LOL); The Russians had reason to be worried existentially.