Category Archives: Foreign Policy

April 2, 2023 · 12:36 pm

Guess, we need to ponder who we are

“God grants Liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it.”

-Daniel Webster, 1834

This is going to be a long geopolitical and domestic politics blog post (venting). I get weary of the right-wing news media and social media echo-chamber, where every bit of anti-American propaganda, not only gets repeated without critical evaluation, it’s wholeheartedly believed. There are a whole lot of people who trust zero hedge and various pundits without any reservations. What bothers me the most is how so few people who rush to blabber on about the hot topics and frame it to feed their own belief system, actually read anything that challenges that hot take or dig deeper into the history. Often this propaganda, and I use the term propaganda, not information or news, comes framed intentionally to incite and inflame and fuel deeper divides within America. It also invariably comes framed to advance the foreign policy objectives of America’s adversaries. The goal is to turn Americans against, not only the opposing partisan side, but to turn them against foreign policy objectives that really are in America’s national interests.

The American left has a long history of embracing regimes and political ideologies that run counter to our American foundational principles, but now the right-wing, drunk on gulping down too much Trump-era populist swill, enthusiastically wave the American flag, while at the same time embracing isolationist foreign policies and the Trump doublespeak position of making excuses for some of the world’s worst dictators and despots. This isn’t going to be an anti-Trump blog post, it’s going to be a plea for Americans to actually step back and take a long hard look, at not only the “fake news media,: but the entire right-wing media echo-chamber too. Some of the most popular right-wing punditry are total frauds and as much “fake news” as CNN, the NYT, MSNBC, etc.

My blog is filled with anti-Democratic Party foreign policy and domestic policy positions, so this isn’t that I am a liberal. I really do find Trump a phony, shallow con-man and I never lose sight that he was also Bill Clinton’s former golfing buddy. He was a liberal celebrity who liked to hang out with Howard Stern and Joe and Mika. However, I don’t think Trump is the biggest “threat to democracy.” I just put him into the same category as liberal Democrat frauds like his former friends, because under all his ridiculous rabble-rousing red meat populism he throws to his adoring fans at rallies, Trump’s moral center is not conservative, not Christian, not pro-life, not pro-2nd Amendment – it’s 100% Pro-Trump. That is it. He was a liberal NY celebrity, who hobnobbed with the rich and famous. His cheap slogans that he feeds his fans, who repeat them and emblazon hats with, are not actual policies – they’re just sound bites in an endless spin information war. Trump understood the Democrat’s spin war, especially the power and influence of social media to drive public opinion, and that’s why he became such a potent threat to them. Trump was very effective at Twitter spin battles and both deflating Dem spin narratives and hijacking many of them.

So, what is the biggest “threat to our democracy.” in my view, well, here’s my answer – I think that phrase is a silly spin diversion, because our American democratic traditions depend on confidence in the United States Constitution (our constitutional republic) and our founding principles – not on one person or political party. The biggest threat is if “we the people” no longer have faith in our system. Americans losing trust in the American system is the biggest threat to America.

Trust is the keystone that keeps America strong. and without that – we will fall. That is what I believe.

So, now to the current geopolitical mess – the Biden administration is following the Obama team playbook. The Obama playbook which was a total disaster for America and led to endless foreign policy debacles abroad, divisive racial politics, abuses of power using executive branch power to target political enemies, but most of all the Obama playbook operated off of a “rules for thee, but not for me” principle. And this is where America’s foreign adversaries took full advantage of that Obama team hubris. It was interesting reading the Forstchen novels about an EMP attack, with partisan political overtones and he included a scenario where lax security with handling classified information, like the Hillary email server, followed into how the White House, operating from a secure bunker after an EMP attack, behaved.

It wasn’t only Hillary Clinton who was reckless and disregarded the rules on handling sensitive and classified information – it permeated through the entire Obama administration and it included President Obama himself. When the FBI released the Hillary email investigation notes in the fall of 2016, I read through all of them, trying to answer questions I had and things I didn’t understand, despite mountains of reporting and media coverage of that scandal. For instance, I didn’t really have an answer as to why she set up that private email server. The FBI’s chronology of the private email server, made clear to me that former president, Bill Clinton, set up that private email server in their home for his Clinton Foundation work. When Hillary was selected to be Obama’s Secretary of State, the Clintons upgraded that private server and Bill’s aide, Justin Cooper and Hillary’s campaign IT guy, Bryan Pagliano, under the direction of Huma Abedin did that upgrade.

Of course, Democrats will chant, “but her emails,” and plug their ears whenever that scandal is mentioned, but the scandal while coming to light over classified information on that private UNSECURED server, skipped the more important question. Why did Hillary use a private email server in her home? The answer to that goes to former President Bill Clinton, who actually set-up that private server in their home for his Clinton Foundation work. Then when Hillary was ready to become Secretary of State, the Clintons upgraded that private server, under the supervision of Hillary’s aide, Huma Abedin. This isn’t my theory – it’s in the FBI Notes on the email server investigation, which were released in the fall of 2016. Why would the Clintons merge the Sec. of State emails onto their private Clinton Foundation email server in their home? That question was never asked by the liberal media and the right-wing media ranted about “Lock her Up” and about classified emails. The thing is classified emails on an unsecure server were only how the corruption came to light. The deeper core corruption was the Clintons set up a system merging the US State Dept. business with their foundation business on a private server in their home. They used US government information and a high political office (Sec. of State) to advance their private Clinton Foundation. Hillary wasn’t acting in the interests of the American people or even the administration she served in – she was out for their family business of raking in money from the rich and famous, at home and abroad.

Reading those FBI Notes, it became clear to me that several other Obama officials had been sending sensitive and classified information via private email accounts too, including President Obama. And that’s why nothing happened to anyone who mishandled classified information in that email scandal – it would have implicated the highest level of the Obama administration – President Obama, himself. Now this rehash isn’t about sour grapes that there was no accountability – it’s because in the world of geopolitics – it’s not about Democrats or Republicans in the eyes of the rest of the world. It’s about the United States of America.

Most Americans seem to have no concept that in the rest of the world they see America as either an ally, adversary, or a global superpower that can’t be ignored, well, couldn’t be ignored as long as America remained a superpower. The rest of the world pays close attention to American news and while American media and Americans live hunkered down in hostile partisan camps, foreign governments and entities saw opportunities to exploit those American divides and those glaring security weaknesses. It’s a given that several foreign intelligence entities knew about the Clintons unsecured private server and had accessed it, especially when that private server came to light in 2013, when a Romanian hacker, Guccifer, hacked into Clinton advisor and friend, Sidney Blumenthal’s email. The actual Clinton email server scandal didn’t become big news until the spring of 2015, when the 2016 presidential campaign began. During that two years between the Guccifer hack being reported and the spring of 2015 when the email server scandal erupted, it’s guaranteed that foreign intel agencies expended a lot of effort to exploit that unsecured private email server, where all of the State Dept. business was sitting unprotected. It’s also obvious to me that the story we were fed about Huma Abedin storing State Dept. emails on the Weiner family laptop was just an unintentional accident is not true. That’s the story Clinton operatives floated and it’s the story, former FBI director, James Comey, sold the American people. Huma Abedin oversaw the Clinton private server upgrade, right before Hillary became Sec. of State upgraded and Bill Clinton aide, Justin Cooper, testified in Congress that Abedin also managed the SCIFs in both Clinton residences – Chappaqua and their DC home. Abedin told the FBI she knew nothing about the private email server until 2015, when the story broke in the news. That is also a lie – she orchestrated the private server upgrade right before Hillary became Sec. of State in January of 2009. Be that as it may, this post isn’t about the Obama corruption, the Clinton corruption, the media corruption, of even the Trump corruption – it’s about our own corruption – “we the people.” “We the people” elect corrupt people – over and over and over again.

I’ve been a right-wing American my entire adult life, but I feel both a great deal of unease with how corrupt the right-wing news media and punditry crowd is, despite trusting so many of these sources over the years. I could easily see how dishonest the liberal, mainstream media was for decades with all their spin word games and selling Democrat narratives constantly, but I was blind that the right-wing media was just as dishonest and corrupt. That was a very uncomfortable revelation for me – to admit right-wing media/pundits I trusted were as dishonest as the liberal ones. And likewise, this goes for the political class too – the Republicans in Washington are as corrupt as the Democrats. All that binary choice stuff, of settling for the lesser of two evils, in politics just sinks us further. Trump is not a savior on a white horse, he’s a liberal New Yorker, playacting at being conservative. There is no man on a white horse coming to save America – it will take a whole lot of Americans to work together to do that.

Americans, especially right-wing Americans rant about loving what America used to stand for, but for many years, I wonder what they think America stood for, what they want it to stand for and how they think retreating from the world stage will return America to the “greatness” they desire.

The reality of all those indulgent “rules for thee, but not for me” antics within the Obama administration allowed America’s adversaries to easily acquire sensitive and classified information constantly – yes, it’s guaranteed that the Clintons private server was accessed by several foreign entities, but the national security nightmare went way beyond the Clintons private server – it was throughout the entire Obama administration, where officials, including Obama, did not follow sound security protocols to safeguard American intelligence and information. Back in the 1990s, a common criticism leveled against the Clinton administration was that many of the WH officials would never have passed a traditional security background investigation, including President Clinton. GWB had more old-school type people in his administration and following the security rules. However, there was the lying though, especially about Iraqi intel and WMD there too and that’s why I don’t want to make this about which party is worse. With Obama, Trump, now Biden, being the Obama JV team, it’s more of the same lax handling of information.

President Trump spent more time on promoting himself and fixated on fighting with the media than he ever spent worrying about America’s problems at home or abroad. In fact, even with that J-6 disgrace, all the people who did get arrested were left on their own. He continually fundraised off of that, proclaiming he’s a victim, but he never spent one cent to aid any of those J-6 defendants with legal counsel – not one cent. With the latest crazed Dem effort to indict him, Trump was back out there trying to incite his followers to get out and protest. I did see a former, strident Trump-supporter pundit tweet that no Repubs should listen to Trump and go protest in a blue city, because Trump wasn’t going to spend even a penny to help them, if they got arrested. I believe Trump is about Trump, but there were policies promoted during his presidency that I supported. There again Trump usually went out and threw his own people under the bus or created unnecessary obstacles to get those policies implemented.

This veered off from the geopolitics, so let me try to get back on track in this rant. America, being a world superpower, has allowed Americans to prosper and build a standard of living that can not be sustained, if America retreats or is relegated to “just another country” status. A lot of Americans want it both ways – they want all of the perks of being a superpower (all those nice things we have in our homes, a standard of living unheard of in world history, a veritable land of plenty), but they now don’t want to burden any of the responsibilities that come along with being a world superpower.

Ukraine has become an area where America’s adversaries successfully feed anti-American propaganda into the right-wing media ecosystem by masking it as anti-Biden, anti-NATO, and painting Russia as a victim. Putin launched a full-scale invasion into Ukraine. Russia and China haven’t been “pushed” closer because of America and Europe aiding Ukraine – Russia and China were plotting to wage an economic war against America and the West for years – yes, YEARS. The signs were there with the ever increasing fossil fuel and economic deals they were ironing out and implementing. Here’s a Foreign Policy article:

“Just weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Putin and Xi famously declared their “no limits” partnership in a 5,000-word statement that rattled Western countries. As they drew closer politically, so too did their economies. Trade between Beijing and Moscow skyrocketed by more than 30 percent to nearly $190 billion in 2022, particularly as China bought up Russian crude oil at heavily discounted volumes. That year, Moscow was also Beijing’s second-biggest supplier of crude oil, coal, and pipeline gas, according to Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.”

Got that – “weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine.” What, I believe Putin expected when he invaded Ukraine, was a Western response like the Afghanistan Withdrawal debacle and western disunity. That the West actually banded together to help Ukraine came as a shock to the Russians and Chinese. Never fear though, the American right-wing media has been filled with non-stop pro-Russia propaganda, especially Tucker Carlson and that retired COL. he brings on to spew against aiding Ukraine, talk about how spectacular Russia’s military is doing and predict Ukraine failure. They also absolve Putin of blame for launching a full-scale invasion into Ukraine.

While Trump’s former friends were people like the Clintons, Tucker Carlson, was friends with Hunter Biden. I always look to where people came from and Trump was a pampered rich kid, who sought out rich and famous liberal friends. Tucker Carlson isn’t from a working class background – he’s part of the elite. His step-mother is a Swanson Enterprises heir. One of the emails on the Hunter Biden laptop was Tucker seeking Hunter’s help to get his son into Georgetown, where Hunter is a graduate. That email was from 2014, when Joe Biden was vice president. I don’t trust anything Tucker Carlson says and the text messages recently released in the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News, just highlight how dishonest some of the big name Fox pundits are – they want to keep their right-wing followers angry about the Democrats and “fake news,” and will sell any story to keep them watching. Sure, the liberal media and Democrats are hyping these FOX text messages for their own partisan objectives, but the bottom line is these text messages are legit and show just how dishonest and disingenuous those big name Fox primetime pundits really are. A Tucker Carlson is no different than a Chris Cuomo, in my estimation.

Now to the big picture, I believe aiding Ukraine is important for America and important for our European allies, if the US hopes to remain a world leader. How the Biden administration has handled the Ukraine situation and their insane belief they can wage a two-front war – aiding Ukraine to fight Russia and at same time waging a war against American fossil fuel production is where I disagree.

I’m perplexed by flag-waving Americans, who rail against any American aid and want isolationist policies, yet they rant about America First and returning America to past glory. They expect America to be a powerful country like in the past, while not caring that Russia and China have been aggressively working to build an alliance to knock America into backwater status for years, I have heard no answers. All they rant about is senile Biden, dastardly Democrats, and buying into every crazy conspiracy theory, that centers on fueling anti- US government paranoia. The right-wing news media ecosystem is as corrupt as the liberal media and as infested with hostile foreign information operations and propaganda. The left-wing news devolved into insane propaganda since 2016, when #Resist replaced any sort of journalistic standards, so they filled their news media space with every former Trump crony, who turned on him or assorted crooks, swindlers, frauds and angry women, who they could find to trash Trump and try to destroy him, by any means necessary. And yeah, the left-wing media is still hard at work on their #Resist project, evidenced by the recent Trump indictment.

Bottom-line for me is I recognized the Global War on Terror was a disaster as the insurgency in Iraq was growing and training the Afghan security forces had turned into a bottomless pit of graft and corruption, with the US pouring in arms and aid that disappeared into thin air. So, I was slower than many people, who advised against invading Iraq, but I did eventually catch on that our endless wars, with all their stupid slogans masquerading as strategy, were not being won. I understand why so many Americans don’t want US troops engaged in faraway wars that they don’t think are our fight, but when it comes to Russia and China – well, Ukraine isn’t only about Ukraine – it’s about that Russia-China alliance that’s growing and is committed to replacing the US as the leader on the world stage.

If America abandons Ukraine, America will be pushed into backwater status quickly and trust in America will evaporate. If that happens the American standard of living will drop and we will be facing an ever-increasing array of threats, at home and abroad, with fewer and fewer allies. That’s the reality of walking away from your strongest allies and a treaty, NATO, which has served as the centerpiece of American foreign policy post WWII to keep America and our closest allies safe. Winston Churchill coined the phrase “iron curtain,” to describe the Soviet Union’s aggressive takeover of eastern Europe at the end of WWII and it seems sad to me that so many right-leaning Americans, who proclaim how much they love vets and those who served, can so easily mouth excuses for Putin’s full scale invasion of Ukraine and ignore history. So many European countries, even the wacky liberal ones, quickly saw the threat from that Russian aggression and there’s been a rush for them wanting into NATO. That isn’t because they want a world war – they fear Russian aggression escalating. Putin isn’t the good guy here and Russia isn’t the victim.

Remaining trapped in the scorched earth partisan spin war way of thinking and ranting about “the other side” keeps America locked into reacting constantly to the latest media Outrage of the Day or racing down propaganda-filled rabbit holes, that keep Americans isolated, disunited and fighting among ourselves. We aren’t responding based on any sort of principles or calm reflection – we are just spin addicts getting the next hit. It’s way past time to start ignoring most of the incendiary political and cultural “national conversations” and piles of flaming garbage that pass for hot takes and “news.” The only way to rebuild any semblance of a united country is to begin talking to other Americans and listening to opposing viewpoints and ideas. If all you do is get fired up and angry about every alarming headline, you have ceded control to your emotions.

When we look beyond our water’s edge, we are neither Democrat or Republican, we are Americans. Many Americans don’t seem to realize that is how the world views us. How do we view ourselves as Americans? I suppose most people muddle about for some political concepts in the founding documents or for others it’s all about social justice or diversity. I think America is still struggling for a national identity since the collapse of the Soviet Union and our rise to being the world’s superpower. Samuel P, Huntington wrote an interesting book, Who Are We? The Challenges To American National Identity in the early 2000s. I think he was right that we are still in a sorting out period about our national identity, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, where the Cold War played a major part of our national identity, but a nation is made of people and the character of those people will define the national identity.

We, as Americans, probably need to take a long hard look in the mirror and first figure out who we are as individuals and ask, “What do I really believe?” If you can’t see beyond media-driven partisan anger and outrage, you certainly can’t Make America Great Again or unite our country. I come from an old school, where if you give your word, you keep it, especially with making a solemn vow or taking an oath. I swore an oath to defend the constitution. For me, it’s deeply disturbing to hear talk among some people on the American right about a “national divorce,” and I’m shocked at how easily so many Americans have rushed to embrace this idea, which would only aid America’s adversaries and make it easier for them to extinguish America’s light of liberty.

I’m not ready to throw in the towel on America. I look to all those Americans who came before me and all of their sacrifices that made the cushy lifestyle we enjoy even possible. I pray that their tears, toils and struggles weren’t all for naught.

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February 10, 2023 · 10:04 am

More on the Chinese spy balloon

This is going to be a Chines spy balloon blog post. I like stating the topic in the beginning, as sort of a warning.

Yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Committee held a hearing on the Chinese spy balloon incident. There was a public portion and then later they held a closed hearing in a classified setting. I watched the public hearing and came away with more questions than answers.

Following the hearing Senator Chris Murphy (D) took to Twitter to post this:

Well, as I mentioned many times I like to read through news articles, because often further through the article I learn important bits of information that weren’t in the flashy headlines. The idea that we learned so much information from tracking what the balloon was doing took a hit, when I read this CNN update, US officials disclosed new details about the balloon’s capabilities. Here’s what we know, which was updated at 11:13 pm Feb. 9, 2023, when I pulled this information from it:

“The officials told lawmakers that the US has assessed that little new intelligence was gleaned by the Chinese balloon operation because the Chinese appeared to stop transmitting information once the US learned of the balloon, in addition to US measures to protect sensitive intelligence from China’s spying operations, according to the sources.”

So, we couldn’t track what they were transmitting.

Then there was this information:

“Only evidence that was on the surface of the ocean has been delivered to FBI analysts so far, one official said, which includes the “canopy itself, the wiring, and then a very small amount of electronics.” The official said analysts have not yet seen the “payload,” which is where you would expect to see the “lion’s share” of electronics.”

So, how on earth we know for sure what kind of threat this balloon posed without the payload recovered yet and only a “very small amount of electronics,” I have no earthly idea. The Pentagon officials also gave some explanation about the conditions in Alaska for recovery influencing the decisions not to shoot the balloon down and also fears of provoking an escalation of tensions with China, according to this article. I heard the one Pentagon official offer a rationale on the Alaskan recovery difficulties rationale in the open hearing.

This CNN update also included this information about the classified briefing and I think this is the real reason the Biden administration didn’t act sooner:

“In the classified congressional briefings, the administration officials argued that the US didn’t move earlier to shoot down the balloon in part over fears it could provoke an escalation of military tensions with China or even a military conflict. Biden gave the order to shoot down the balloon whenever the Pentagon felt it was safe to do so, the sources said, so the Pentagon ultimately made the call on when to shoot it down.”

Our Pentagon was paralyzed for days over fears of how China might react to shooting down an unmanned balloon…

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February 8, 2023 · 6:04 pm

Figuring out where we are

This post is going to be about how people view situations and where they get their information. In my blog post yesterday, which was about an American national security issue, I mentioned that I just recently moved from cable to streaming TV. My sister, who convinced me to try streaming, told me I would find news and other things to watch streaming that I don’t with my cable. I was thoroughly sick of the American news media and that includes liberal news media and FOX and right-wing news media. Along with the various big streaming services, she mentioned some free apps with news and other programming.

Last night I watched a Euro News broadcast. I found the coverage of the earthquake aftermath in Turkey and Syria very informative. I also watched an interview with the prime minister of Moldova, who explained the Russian efforts to destabilize her country. I hear a lot of Americans, who hold right-wing views, say things that sound like Russian propaganda and that worries me. I’ve heard this line about how “we shouldn’t poke the bear,” so many times that I automatically grit my teeth every time someone says that. While it’s true the West has expanded NATO and alliances close to Russia, at the same time Russia has been aggressively targeting its neighbors for years now, while America and our European allies paid mostly lip service to that aggression. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.

While I don’t have a crystal ball, I feel we’re already on a path to a wider war, even though I still hope leaders can find ways to avoid that. I have believed for a few years now that China and Russia intend to challenge America’s global economic position and try to bump us to third place. I also, due to years of news reports on China and Russia, believe Russia wants to regain some of its territory from the Soviet era and that China is preparing for war. The news has reported on China’s activities in the South China Sea and toward Taiwan for years. What I wonder is how many Americans will just keep ranting about “don’t poke the bear” or “don’t mess with the dragon” and blame America for our adversaries aggression?

In WWII there were plenty of Americans who held this same attitude – until America was directly attacked. One thing I will say about aggression is appeasement and shows of weakness are actions. Every school yard bully knows how to read displays of weakness too and it does not deter a bully. In fact, usually it emboldens them.

I assume most Americans have no idea where Moldova is, but I won’t be surprised if Moldova is in the news more in the near future. Here’s a quote from that EuroNews interview with the prime minister of Moldova (the video is at the link):

“Russia is trying to destabilise Moldova by sponsoring protests and conducting cyber attacks, the country’s prime minister told Euronews on Tuesday.

“We are seeing elements of hybrid war. We are seeing, for example, pro-Russian forces trying to destabilise the country politically through paid protests which quickly subsided when the oligarchs that fled Moldova were put on the sanctions lists and their money flows were restricted,” Natalia Gavrilița said.

“We are seeing cyber attacks. We’ve had the biggest cyber attacks in 2022 in the history of our country, and we are seeing bomb threats.”https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/02/07/russia-conducting-hybrid-war-in-moldova-with-protests-and-cyber-attacks-prime-minister

Somewhere down the road, in years, I expect historians might look back at this time and instead of wondering about “poking the bear” or “messing with the dragon,” they might be wondering how devastatingly weak the US looked with that Afghanistan withdrawal debacle and an incident like failing to take down an unmanned Chinese spy balloon, as it floated over the American heartland and our most sensitive military sites for a week. They might ponder again, how provocative weakness really is to countries with territorial aspirations on their minds

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February 3, 2023 · 5:55 pm

Up, up and away

I have more questions than answers on the reports of a suspected high-altitude Chines spy balloon floating over the continental US that’s been big news since yesterday..

First, I suspect the Biden administration and Pentagon wanted to get ahead of this story, because concerned citizens in Montana saw the balloon and there was no way to put a lid on this story. I am presuming that’s the only reason why they’ve made public statements.

My first thought was wondering if this was the first time Chinese spy balloons have floated over the US there would probably be more concern. So, today ABC reported this:

“The high-altitude reconnaissance balloon was not the first such craft to pass over the U.S. in this way, a senior defense official said in a briefing.

A separate senior official told ABC News the balloon is the size of three buses and complete with a technology bay, which the defense official said they “wouldn’t characterize” as “revolutionary.”

The defense official said they “are confident” the balloon was sent by China.

“Instances of this activity have been observed over the past several years, including prior to this administration,” the official said, noting that “it’s happened a handful of other times over the past few years … It is appearing to hang out for a longer period of time this time around.””

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/chinese-spy-balloon-surveilling-us-senior-official/story?id=96860718

Note the effort to deflect responsibility from the Biden administration by adding the phrase “including prior to this administration.” So, today, if this report is true, I learned Chinese spy balloons have flown over the continental US before “a handful of times” and our national defense people just observed that happening and didn’t inform the American people about it. With a lot of concerned citizens spotting this balloon and even photographing, it seems to me what the Biden administration is doing is trying to downplay the seriousness, telling Americans, there’s nothing to worry about and at the same time they’re making public statements about how tough they’re being with China… It feels to me they want to get past this story as quickly as possible.

Did the US raise concerns with China the “handful of other times over the past few years” this happened or did our government just sit back and observe?

So, I guess we’re just supposed to accept that Chinese spy balloons floating across America are no big deal, according to the Biden administration and the Pentagon and at the same time believe the Biden administration takes this matter very seriously, is carefully monitoring the balloon and is letting Beijing know this is unacceptable. Somehow, the two messaging tracts seems a bit discordant to me.

This Pentagon messaging game seems about as honest and transparent as their Afghanistan Withdrawal Debacle messaging.

We live in a surreal time.

————————————————————————————————————————

Okey dokey, here’s an update 10:16 pm, 2/3/2023: So, I just listened to this video of a CNN report from this morning – interviewing former Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper. The CNN reporter mentions this assertion that Chinese spy balloons flying over the US happened in the previous administration and Esper says he has no recollection of any such incident. At 6:37 in this video the question begins:

Here’s a 9:15 pm report from CBS:

“By Friday morning, the balloon was no longer over Montana but had moved over the Midwest and is now over “the middle of the country,” according to a U.S. official. A Chinese balloon has never been over the middle of the country before. The only other time a Chinese balloon has flown over the continental U.S. was during a brief overflight of Florida. There have been overflights of Hawaii and Guam. In previous instances, the Chinese have been able to recover the balloon. Although it can maneuver, it will still travel in the direction it is carried by the jet stream.”

As you can see the Biden administration narrative keeps shifting And as it shifts it reminds me of the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle where they kept trying to blame Trump for everything going wrong, while insisting there would be no evacuations from rooftops like the US evacuation from the US embassy in Saigon in 1975… until there was just such an evacuation from the US embassy in Kabul.

I am prepared for the Biden administration to keep saying there’s nothing to worry about with this Chinese provocation and then spending more time to figure out a new narrative for when they realize there was something to worry about. The Austin Pentagon willingly carried every single one of the Biden administration lies about the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle. The Chinese were in Kabul working with the Taliban to aid in creating chaos for the US withdrawal too. They already know the Biden administration will exhaust every opportunity to appease America’s enemies rather than take decisive action.

Biden and his advisers were part of the Obama administration who thanked Iran for taking such good care of the US sailors Iran captured during the Obama presidency and following that return of US sailors, Iran unleashed propaganda videos of US sailors on their knees, to humiliate America’s military. It’s important to remember exactly who these people are in the Biden administration:

All this focus on debris fields for why they can’t risk taking down this Chinese spy balloon are just excuses for not being willing to take action, I think. And each bit of information the Biden administration and the Pentagon release will likely shift the narrative, as their spin crumbles.

I expect more shows of weakness from the Biden administration and more narratives that crumble under scrutiny.

Appeasement always exacts a higher cost down the road.

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January 25, 2023 · 7:17 pm

Ukraine and tanks

This is going to be a post on my views about the situation in Ukraine, since the news today is all about tanks being sent to Ukraine… tanks Ukraine’s military isn’t even trained to operate. I heard the Biden spokesman, Kirby, blabbering on this afternoon about how we’re going to have tank training teams and this was like echoes of the same claptrap we heard for 20 years about Afghan security forces, Iraqi security forces, and even training those imaginary “moderate” Syrian rebels” forces… It felt like he was reading the same old script.

First, I believe that pushing back against Russian and Chinese aggression is in America’s best interests, because allowing Russia and China to expand their influence, while we bury our heads in the sand by buying into hyped narratives about how we shouldn’t “poke the bear” or “mess with the dragon,” are really just appeasement. Appeasement sends the message of weakness and only invites more aggression.

That said, the approaches taken by European countries and the US thus far have not worked as expected and while Russia has aggressively worked to cut new energy deals around the world, Europeans and the US tried to have their cake and eat it too. They were still importing Russian oil and gas, while imposing more and more sanctions against Russia and telling us how evil Putin is. If he’s so evil, why weren’t they feverishly working to ramp up their own fossil fuel production, so they wouldn’t have to rely on Russian oil and gas?

On top of that insanity, at the same time the West was trying to have it both ways with buying Russian oil and gas, while imposing more and more sanctions against Russia and pouring more and more arms and money into Ukraine, the West decided to escalate their economic war against their own countries’ fossil fuel industries and citizens by running full steam ahead with their Great Reset effort.

None of this makes any strategic sense. Wars still require vast amounts of weapons, equipment… and fossil fuel. No military in the world runs on green energy. If you’re serious about supplying a war effort, you ramp up your own fossil fuel production; you don’t keep trying to import it from your adversary and decimate your own fossil fuel production capabilities.

The Biden team travelled around the world, hat in hand, begging despotic regimes for oil… They’d rather grovel to despots than do the sensible thing and unleash American fossil fuel production and ramp up green energy development. We should utilize every means of energy production that we can.

As far as what the actual end game strategy is in Ukraine, I don’t think any of the Western leaders have clearly articulated that and then had all of these other leaders agree on a strategy.

This isn’t about Republicans vs. Democrats, it’s about the reality of war, I think, and nothing I’ve seen thus far with how Western leaders have conducted this proxy war in Ukraine has made much sense.

I’d like to believe our leaders have learned something from the defeats of the GWOT strategy and regime change strategies we followed for 20 years, but it seems like no one has learned anything, except our adversaries…

The way I see it is either we really want Russia to be pushed back or we want to wage this crazy green energy war against fossil fuel and our own citizens, but trying to do both at the same time will be disastrous.

Update 1/28/2023: I was thinking about the endless string of failures in US strategy since 9/11 and the string of military misadventures, that were just memory-holed, as the strategic DC brain trust came up with one bad idea after another and faced no accountability for their previous failures. Here’s a short excerpt from a 2015 blog post I wrote:

” In 2014 Jamal Maaroof was touted:  “Meet Jamal Maarouf, the West’s best fighting chance against Syria’s Islamist armies”.  After receiving US training and weapons, to include TOW anti-tank missiles, Maaroof struck a peace deal with ISIS.”

The first link is the media hyping the latest strategic “big idea” in 2015 – arming “moderate” Syrian rebels to help in the fight against ISIS. So, the US Army embarked on supposedly vetting Syrian rebel groups and finding “moderates” (here’s a clue in a Sunni insurgency there aren’t any moderates) to train. This rebel leader, Maaroof and his rebel band were trained and armed by the US Army with TOW anti-tank missiles and as soon as they returned to the battlefield in Syria, they struck a peace deal with ISIS. Some groups that the US armed handed their US weapons over to ISIS or united with ISIS fighters. So much for vetting these groups. The same people – politicians, retired top brass and military experts, who hit the media and sold all these bad ideas, are still hard at selling this proxy war in Ukraine, which they’re not prepared to really fight. The Biden administration and European leaders, I think, are more committed to their Great Reset, which will cause endless suffering and mayhem on their own citizens, not defeat Russia in Ukraine.

Pushing back on Russian aggression is in American and European strategic interests, but doing it in such a half-assed way has already shown Russia (and America’s other adversaries) again, that we’re not really serious and time is on their side. It doesn’t matter if it’s an R or a D after the name of the President, because both sides are fully-invested in this corrupt military-industrial game and this mess is going to drag on and on, with the potential to escalate bubbling right below the surface.

Trying to work out some sort of ceasefire and deal between Ukraine and Russia would be the least bad option, I think, since the US and the Europeans can’t seem to agree on much of anything and have been dragging their feet on getting arms to Ukraine all along, despite the lip service that they’re sending more. Even this tank announcement was followed by :

“Despite President Biden’s promise to send 31 Abrams M1 tanks to Ukraine on Wednesday, it could take months for the artillery to arrive, according to reports.

The New York Post reported that Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh confirmed that the U.S. does not have enough of M1 Abrams tanks in its stockpile to send over to Ukraine at this time.”

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bidens-promise-send-tanks-delayed-lack-inventory-reports

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October 11, 2022 · 11:16 am

Signals, noise and mixed messages

This post is going to be about our modern news media ecosystem and the Ukraine war. First point I’d like to make is it’s very hard to discern the signals from the noise. The signals are the meaningful information, while the noise just makes it harder to detect the signals. Our partisan spin information war now fills the American news media space with so much noise that important signals often get drowned out or buried completely, regardless what news media format you’re consuming. Even print media often doesn’t provide the most basic information about images or events in their copy and lots of times the important details are buried way down in the story.

It’s become commonplace to see photos and videos circulate on the internet that don’t include any information about when and where it was shot, who took the photo or video, who the people are in the images and a clear explanation of what the image shows. Often images are selectively edited or altered, which leads to further confusion. Many people, without any hesitation, share images and videos they `they know nothing about and they buy into them completely.

Both Russia and Ukraine have waged massive propaganda efforts, since Russia invaded Ukraine. Unfortunately, so many American political leaders, former government officials, to include former intel and defense officials, and many, many “experts” on foreign policy from academia now live online. Our news media people live online too. They also leap to share information they have no idea where it came from or if it’s true. The human race wasn’t ready for social media, I think.

I know I’m beating a dead horse here, but again Twitter is the main online social media space where they congregate and unfortunately that’s where most of them get their “information.” The problem with this rapid tweeting and retweeting behavior is the signals usually get missed, while the tweet noise floods the zone. The rest of America, who isn’t following the Twitter politics crowd ends up with the “news” that’s spun out from the partisan spin battles on Twitter to other news media in America.

Most Americans aren’t on Twitter and even if they went on Twitter it’s doubtful they’d see what I’m talking about. I didn’t understand Twitter’s role in the American spin information war at first either, but then I decided to follow hundreds of politicians, journalists and news organizations to see what would show up in my feed. Then I spent a lot of hours watching the Twitter interactions and learning how the partisan talking points generated and that opened my eyes to how the corrupt Dem spin information war, that I’d been trying to understand since the 90s, was operating in the Twitter age.

Trump learned how to fight spin battles on Twitter too and there’s now a dedicated Trumpian right-wing spin effort too, plus some assorted other right-wing media spin efforts. I can go on Twitter and sit for about 15 minutes scrolling my feed filled with journos and politicians and see spin cycles form in real time. It happened by accident, not by design, because I was just wondering why the cable news had begun mentioning Twitter and tweets so much.

One important point about the American spin information war is we don’t live in a vacuum, so foreign operatives are involved in trying to influence the American news too and the Russians have always been aggressive about those efforts, going back through most of the last century.

Russia was struggling to counter the Ukrainian propaganda war and the one place in America where Russian propaganda gains traction these days, bizarrely is within the right-wing media space, where due to the binary-thinking, many Americans will be for or against something based on if the “other side” is for it, they are automatically against it. Dems and Hollywood rushed to wrap themselves in Ukrainian flags and worship Zelensky, so many on the right automatically took the opposing view.

Anyway, back to the signals and noise in regards to the Ukraine war, both Ukraine and Russia are running massive propaganda wars, so getting accurate information about the facts on the ground is difficult. Added onto this is Hollywood and Democrats rushed to aid Zelensky’s propaganda war and Zelensky reminds me of Donald Trump in some ways. He’s a former actor and knows how to stage himself effectively, just like Trump’s a master of owning the stage. Trump could upstage any world event. Zelensky has been packaged and sold by Democrats and the vast liberal media space as the infallible hero and too many Americans are invested in Ukraine without any serious thought to American national interests.

There are important reasons for America and Europe to thwart Putin’s naked aggression, but at the same time it’s important to carefully keep sight of American national interests in how we do that.

The worst thing Biden and many European leaders have done is talk big, then drag their feet on aiding Ukraine, while mewling to Putin, trying to coax him to keep the oil and gas flowing. They imposed punishing sanctions on Russia, to include on buying Russian oil. Then they continued to buy Russian oil. What kind of message did that send Putin? If you want to be taken seriously, you need to put your money where your mouth is. Biden and many of the European leaders have talked out of both sides of their mouth.

And worst of all, if you truly feel stopping Putin’s aggression is a grave threat to stability in Europe and that weakness at this critical juncture would embolden, not just Putin, but China too, then it makes no sense to try to embark on some cockamamie green-energy transformation. The Ukraine-Russia conflict has led to a full-blown economic war, but the US and Europeans weren’t as serious as Putin has been. If you were serious about stopping Putin, you’d be ramping up American fossil fuel production and the Europeans would be postponing their Great Reset to fight the Ukraine War, which they blabber on is the greatest threat since WWII. They would not be buying a drop of Russian oil, and they’d be working overtime trying to carefully assess what arms to send to Ukraine, while trying to speed up resupply of their own military stockpiles. Instead, they were just trying to kick the can down the road, hoping Putin would back down, so they could focus on their Great Reset and green-energy transformation. Their priority wasn’t stopping Putin – it was the Great Reset.

The Biden administration is most concerned about all its liberal pet projects – green-energy, racial politics, gender politics and most of all defeating and crushing Republicans. I haven’t seen any real seriousness in how the Biden administration has gone about helping Ukraine or really wanting to stop Putin’s aggression. Now that things have spiraled into a huge mess, Biden isn’t out there giving any calm. clear articulation of what the goals are, what’s at stake, or why the US should care about the war in Ukraine. Instead, he was rambling on at a Dem fundraiser about Armageddon and Putin – just like he tried to blame his own war on American fossil fuel as being Putin’s fault. He was concerned about defeating Republicans – not about convincing Putin to withdraw from Ukraine.

The Biden administration has offered no clear and consistent statements on Ukraine, that it followed with actions that bolstered those words. It was all big talk, then still buying Russian oil, while the Germans and French kept going on bended knee to the Russians, begging them not to turn off the Russian oil and gas spigots. The US/European effort to aid Ukraine has been a hodgepodge, convoluted mess with a lot of foot-dragging and lack of coordination between Western leaders and a lack of coordination with Ukrainian leaders. I believe the Obama foreign policy people are running this sideshow, because it has all the earmarks of their incompetent and clueless stumbling and bumbling, followed by overreactions that were the Obama foreign adventures.

I have no idea how things will turn out, but I feel certain that if the US and West cave on Ukraine, China will be on the move very quickly. A lot of Americans, especially on the right, have become isolationist after all the military adventurism in the past two decades and they don’t want to hear about sending US troops anywhere. I understand that, but the reality is Reagan was right: “We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

America is still a force for good. If we decide to pick up our toys and go home, saying it’s not our problem or we don’t want to be the world’s policeman, that won’t keep us safe. Russia, China and other malignant actors in the world would quickly move to fill the void left by a US retreat from the world.

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October 8, 2022 · 12:56 am

Putin isn’t a victim in Ukraine

Well, the situation in the Ukraine war is still volatile and a lot of right-wing media in America keep selling the idea that NATO is somehow responsible for “poking the bear” and absolving Putin of blame for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Other former Soviet countries that sit on Russia’s border became NATO members and Russia didn’t invade them or launch a full-scale invasion into them and somehow the same Americans who spout this “poking the bear” idea that Russia sells, don’t mention that.

Of course, the Obama administration meddled in Ukraine extensively and clumsily interfered in internal Ukrainian politics. I disagreed, in principle with most, and in execution of all of the Obama foreign policy efforts in Ukraine. However, it wasn’t only the West that was on the move in Ukraine. Russia was aggressively on the move and all of Russia’s actions weren’t just because the US was “poking the bear.” Russia has continually interfered in internal Ukraine politics too. Several former Eastern bloc countries wanted to become members of NATO, fearing Russian aggression, and many of them have a history of Soviet Russia rolling over their countries and forcing them under Soviet control. Russia doesn’t have any inherent right to rebuild the Soviet Union or to seize parts of neighboring countries.

Why so many Americans buy into this overly simplistic Russian apologist “poking the bear” point of view in regards to Ukraine, I think is mainly because it became a right-wing media talking point to criticize the Obama administration’s foreign policy. How right-wing America became Putin apologists due to the American spin war still amazes me at times.

Putin has had aspirations of rebuilding some of the former Soviet Union and returning Russia to being a world superpower. Ukraine is economically and strategically vital to Russia, with a massive gas pipeline system, but Russia also depends on the naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea for its only warm water port, with access to the Black Sea. Russia and Ukraine both depend on those economic ties and Russia won’t willingly give up access to that strategically vital port. Things in Ukraine-Russia relations are a bit more complicated than just trying to blame the US for Putin deciding to launch a full-scale invasion.

It’s a bit disconcerting to watch the American right become Putin apologists and to act like Russia is a victim all the time. A full-scale invasion of a country, that was intended to quickly decapitate the Ukrainian government in Kiev, before the West could organize and muster a response, wasn’t a “poor Russia was defending its interests” move – it was a bold, act of aggression intended to take over Ukraine.

Buying into these simplistic talking points like “the US was poking the bear,” to excuse Putin’s naked aggression, completely ignores Putin’s repeated opining about the collapse of the Soviet Union being the greatest geopolitical catastrophe and his desire to regain both Soviet glory and territory and to reestablish Russia’s world superpower position in the world.

One other point, I’d like to make is that if the US and Western European countries had not been exerting western influence in Ukraine, just like other parts of the former Soviet bloc, that doesn’t mean Putin wouldn’t have acted aggressively and it’s a ludicrous position based on Russian history and Putin’s stated objectives. If the US and West hadn’t been “poking the bear,” Putin would have acted more aggressively sooner in Ukraine. Russia was interfering in internal Ukrainian affairs too and wanted a puppet government in Kiev, willing to take direction from the Kremlin. Appeasement of Russia for fear of “poking the bear would have led Russia to feel more emboldened. Putin saw the Biden Afghanistan withdrawal debacle and American civil divides and didn’t expect America and Europe to unite quickly and respond in Ukraine.

If the US and West had failed to unify and aid Ukraine the world situation would likely be even worse, not all rainbows and unicorns. Russia and China were plotting an aggressive economic war against the US and West before Russia invaded Ukraine. I feel certain that if Russia had met little resistance in Ukraine, China would have read that as a green light to make bold military moves already.

We might be heading into a larger, serious global conflict, but to assume it’s all the US’s fault for “poking the bear” is ludicrous. Russia and China want to dominate the world economy and diminish (demolish) the US’s predominant role in the world. If America just retreats, that won’t leave us or the world safer and it certainly won’t stop Russian and Chinese aggression, let alone impede other bad actors in the world.

Weakness is provocative.

Update: For all the Americans who want to buy into the US is the aggressor against poor Putin by meddling in Ukraine, I want to point out both Russia and China are aggressively at work trying to foment chaos in our hemisphere too and would that not be “poking the US?”. Russia and China have been expanding their economic and military reach in our backyard since post-WWII. They’re very active militarily and economically in South America, Central America, in the Caribbean and even exerting influence in Mexico. I am sick to death with how idiotic and historically clueless the right-wing pundit class has become and sadly millions of right-wing Americans buy into all of this crapola every single day. They hate Biden so much, that they’ll make excuses for Putin and buy into acting like Putin is a victim.

What on earth happened to the party of Ronald Reagan?

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October 2, 2022 · 7:24 pm

A few Nord Stream facts

I keep hearing this Nord Stream talking point, “Why would Russia blow up their own pipeline?” This generated in the American right-wing media ecosystem very quickly, so let’s get some facts straight – Nord Stream 1 & 2 aren’t only “Russian” pipelines – they’re JOINT ventures with Russian Gazprom paying half the cost of construction and a group of western companies paying half:

“Gazprom paid half the cost of building Nord Stream 2, with the remainder of the $11 billion pipeline project financed by British oil and gas major Shell (SHEL.L), Austria’s OMV (OMVV.VI), France’s Engie and Germany’s Uniper (UN01.DE) and Wintershall DEA (WINT.UL).” Source: Reuters article from March 2022.

The Europeans have been trying to keep Russia pumping gas, because especially the Germans are very dependent on that Russian gas. First there were reports that Nord Stream 1 was shut down due to needing repairs back in July and Canada sent the repaired turbine to Germany for that repair.

By August Russia said they couldn’t do the repairs on Nord Stream 1

By September: Russia cuts off gas exports to Europe via Nord Stream indefinitely

Nord Stream 2 wasn’t even operational yet.

“The construction of the pipeline started in 2011, to expand the Nord Stream line and double annual capacity to 110 billion cubic metres (3.9 trillion cubic feet). It was completed in September 2021, but has not yet entered service.” Source: Wikipedia

Russia has a massive gas pipeline project with China, that when completed will reach all the way to Shanghai.

Russia has other lucrative gas and oil deals with numerous countries and is the largest oil exporter in the world and will surely find new markets, while the Europeans are scrambling to find oil and gas to get through this winter. Even the US was importing Russian oil.

So, let’s look at this idea of “Why would Russia blow up their own pipeline?” Well, Russia was putting the screws to the Europeans, especially the Germans, trying to pressure them to back down on supporting Ukraine. The Europeans and US and Canada held their alliance together with supporting Ukraine and escalated the sanctions against Russia. Russia refused to get Nord Stream 1 operational and stopped pumping gas, then issued more threats and even threatened nuclear war, while the Germans were still trying to get Russia to resume shipping gas and scrambling to try to find other sources around the world. Russia exerted its influence with OPEC, so when Biden went to Saudi Arabia, begging for more oil, he was rebuffed.

Russia expanded their market in India by offering huge discounts. Here’s a September 2022 article: Russia is now offering even more discounts to India on oil

Why would the US or Europeans blow up Nord Stream 1, which will devastate western companies, while Gazprom has expanding markets?

Russia had already cut its losses on Nord Stream and can survive without Nord Stream, while the Europeans and US are scrounging around for oil and gas. Of course, in the US the oil and gas shortages are completely due to the Biden administration’s decision to kill the American oil and gas industry with their crazy green energy plan, but still what would the US gain by blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, which Russia had already written off and was using to try to blackmail the Germans to abandon Ukraine? Russia would gain a lot by giving the Germans and Europeans the middle finger by blowing that up and threatening nuclear war. It would show the Western alliance that Russia won’t hesitate to use more force. At the same time the Nord Stream explosions occurred, Putin announced Russia was annexing parts of Ukraine.

I can’t say 100% who sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines, but I can say there’s a lot of evidence that Russia had plenty of motivations to give a big middle finger to European leaders and to let them know that if they continue aiding Ukraine, Russia will retaliate forcefully.

So many right-wing Americans blame the US for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while absolving Putin of any blame. I disagreed with US policy decisions in Ukraine during the Obama administration and I disagree with a lot of decisions the Biden administration has made before and since Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year. However, Russia also has escalated this war and Russia is the one threatening nuclear war. Putin is not some victim in this war and Russia had no legitimate right to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Part of why so many Americans rushed to buy into blaming the US for the Nord Stream explosions I blame on the Democrats and their corrupt “Trump/Russia Collusion” smear campaign, which was total bs. That years-long Democrat smear effort led many Americans on the right to just discount Russian disinformation as being a real thing. I blame Trump too, because at times he talked like Putin was a great guy.

And here’s the beauty of the useful idiots in the US carrying water for Russian propaganda- they hate Biden so much that they will make excuses for Putin these days. Tucker Carlson rushed to carry that water a few days ago. Carlson also frequently casts Putin as a good guy. Lots of other ordinary people on social media have too. I watched a prepper video recently by a hard-working, decent American guy, who hates Biden and the left’s radical agenda a lot, which I understand completely. He was quoting RT – Russia Today as his source and I was wondering how Americans could be so willing to buy into Russian propaganda.

Here’s the thing about Putin – he hates America and the West (that includes right-wing Americans too) and he’s still very much the KGB agent. Despite the Democrats calling everything on the right in America “Russian disinformation,” the reality is actual Russian disinformation still exists and unfortunately now right-wingers in America, who used to understand the Russian threat, are walking around citing RT and talking about how Putin isn’t such a bad guy. Our own domestic spin war has led so many Americans to distrust our own government and each other more than they distrust Putin, who wants to destroy the West and rebuild the former Soviet Union. And, I suppose many Americans no longer remember the Cold War or understand that history.

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September 30, 2022 · 3:08 pm

Nord Stream pipeline leaks whodunit

Here’s a link to a CNBC report on the Nord Stream pipelines: Russian pipeline leaks spark climate fears as huge volumes of methane spew into the atmosphere

Here’s a link to a Wall Street Journal article about NATO formally blaming sabotage for the leaks: NATO Formally Blames Sabotage for Nord Stream Pipeline Damage

Here’s a Reuters piece: Putin accuses West of blowing up pipelines as Europe steps up vigilance

Here’s a Washington Examiner piece: Russian ships observed near area of explosions that caused Nord Stream pipeline leaks: Report

Tucker Carlson, the most watched primetime FOX pundit was quick to blame the US for the Nord Stream pipeline leak. He has been against the US and Europeans aiding Ukraine all along. Among right-wing media, this buzz gained traction with the line “Why would the Russians blow up their own pipeline when they could just shut off the gas? This seems like a stupid argument to me. Somehow, these right-wing hot takes that “only this argument makes sense” with no real information seems to be the default right-wing media ecosystem these days.

John Brennan, the former Obama CIA director, rushed to blame Putin.

Here’s the thing, I have no way of knowing for sure, but I will say the argument Tucker Carlson made, rushing to point the finger at the US seems reckless and designed to foment more divides in America and was intended to turn Americans on the right against the US government and against aiding Ukraine. To state that the US or Europeans sabotaging that pipeline is the only possible explanation, with no real evidence, is as reckless as Brennan rushing to blame Putin.

Russia is currently not shipping more gas via that pipeline, but Russia knew there was still gas in that pipeline that will now not be delivered to Europe with winter approaching, is my understanding at this point. I could be wrong. And at the same time Russia was trying to annex parts of Ukraine this week. Russia is not above trying to fuel divides in America over support for Ukraine and certainly not above staging elaborate false flag operations. Russia also is not against sending stronger messages to US and European leaders, that Russia will not hesitate to escalate the economic war.

The gas that was still in the pipeline should be gone by Sunday according to the Reuters article: “Gas will continue to pour out of Nord Stream 1 until Sunday, the Danish energy agency said on Friday, though the leak on Nord Stream 2 is expected to cease on Saturday.” Russia had already shut off the gas – that’s the key part and a short-lived leak, that sent a strong message to the Europeans that Russia won’t be sending more gas, while at the same time blaming the US and the West for the leaks doesn’t seem beyond Putin to me.

I distrust the Biden administration and I certainly distrust John Brennan, but at the same time, Putin has shown himself to be ruthless and there’s a long, long history of Russian false flag operations against the West.

At this point, I’m just waiting to see what happens next.

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August 7, 2022 · 10:24 pm

Mark Levin explains the growing threat of China

After all the Afghanistan/Iraq military actions for decades, many Americans are understandably tired of sending US troops to foreign countries. However, isolationism isn’t an option in a world with adversaries intent on destroying America in any way they can. It’s not just the left in American that’s pacifist and isolationist now. There’s a loud segment of the “America First,” Trump-right, that keeps bellowing about isolationism too. Mark Levin does a very good job here, explaining why paying attention to China’s military and economic expansion and being militarily prepared to defend America and American interests is important:

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