"And the noteworthy thing is this, that while America avariciously fed the war with her industry and avariciously intervened in order to help crush a likely and dangerous competitor, she has nevertheless retained a reputation for pacifism. This is one of the most interesting paradoxes, one of the most curious jokes of history-jokes from which we did not and do not derive much merriment. American imperialism is in essence ruthlessly rude, predatory, in the full sense of the word, and criminal. But owing to the special conditions of American development, it has the possibility of draping itself in the toga of pacifism. This is not at all done in the manner of the imperialist parvenus of the old world where everything remains transparent. In the case of the US, however, its bourgeoisie and its government, thanks to the special conditions of America's development, this same pacifist mask seems to have become so glued on the imperialist visage that it cannot be torn off… The imperialist progress of the US therefore proceeds under the banner of "the freedom of the seas,” "open doors,” and so on. Thus when America is compelled to engage in acts of open military criminality, the responsibility — in the eyes of the US population and to a certain degree in the eyes of mankind as a whole, falls upon all the other citizens on the planet but not on the USA itself.” Leon Trotsky from the Internet Archive
As the United States fractures internally (Roe v Wade overturned, economy, military spending, etc.), president Joe Biden and his NATO cronies continue to pursue a sanctions regime-and NATO expansion-against Russia that is having the ironic effect of damaging the economies of Europe and the United States, and the ability of the US to wage war. That reality seems to have reached everyone in the world except the dolts who lead the Western nations.
It truly is astonishing to watch the G-7 and NATO summits which are theaters of the absurd; meetings of rouge bandits laughing away while their policies lead to death and destruction on a global scale. Highway robbery does not describe adequately what the US-Europe have done with Russian foreign assets or those of other nations (Iran, Venezuela, Afghanistan) at the receiving end of the US sanctions regime. Further, as the United States and its NATO puppets continue to punish Russia for its military activities in Ukraine, the end result of the deadly gambit is to send to the slaughter more Ukrainians as Russia methodically moves to liberate Luhansk and Donetsk, and fortify its gains in the south of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, defense contractors apparently are set to make billions to replenish stocks of ammunition and weapons sent to Ukraine by the US and NATO. US troop and equipment levels in Europe will reach Cold War heights in the future. But even here, the feckless allies seem to be shooting themselves in the foot, so to speak, as-like sanctions on Russian oil and other goods that have been counterproductive-the ability of US defense industry to arm Ukraine and its customers in a timely manner, or to go toe to toe with Russia's and China's defense production capacity, is open to question. Does the US have an adequate defense industrial base to continue to supply the Ukrainians and fight the Russians and Chinese? Moreover, the Russians have thrown a monkey wrench into US military theory about precision guided weapons as the ultimate solution to fighting cheaper and more accurately on the battlefield.
According to Alex Vershinin writing for the Royal United Services Institute:
"The first key assumption about future of combat is that precision-guided weapons will reduce overall ammunition consumption by requiring only one round to destroy the target. The war in Ukraine is challenging this assumption. Many "dumb' indirect fire systems are achieving a great deal of precision without precision guidance, and still the overall ammunition consumption is massive. Part of the issue is that the digitization of global maps, combined with a massive proliferation of drones, allows geolocation and targeting with increased precision…The war in Ukraine demonstrates that war between peer or near-peer adversaries demands the existence of a technically advanced, mass scale, industrial-age production capability. The Russian onslaught consumes ammunition at rates that massively exceed US forecasts and ammunition production. For the US to act as the arsenal of democracy in defence of Ukraine, there must be a major look at the manner and the scale at which the US organizes its industrial base. This situation is especially critical because behind the Russian invasion stands the world's manufacturing capital — China. As the US begins to expend more and more of its stockpiles to keep Ukraine in the war, China has yet to provide any meaningful military assistance to Russia. The West must assume that China will not allow Russia to be defeated, especially due to a lack of ammunition. If competition between autocracies and democracies has really entered a military phase, then the arsenal of democracy must first radically improve its approach to the production of materiel in wartime.”
WTF?
And what is the effect on Europe and the entire globe of banning Russian oil from the world market. Well, China and India have been absorbing Russian black gold exports and then there is this little technicality that puts the bluster of Biden and his fellow NATO thieves over their Russian oil embargo and price caps statements to the challenge. According to Automatic Earth:
"By any standards, there are definitely not enough adequate oil blends around to come close to satisfying European refinery requirements comparable to homogenous continuous over-abundant constant Russian high-quality Ural's which the EU now has decided to ban. And also please accept once and for all that a specific oil blend is not just "any oil blend” to be plugged & played anywhere anytime. Oil blends are not fungible. A very specific refinery or processing plant tune-up needs to be specifically matched with an always constant high-quality homogenous oil blend in large enough quantities and for a given desired output such as diesel fuel, or whatever. No "open architecture” is possible here, that´s just for IT nerds, not for refineries. And definitely there are no vendors all lined up happily willing and able to sell you their oil blend in unlimited quantities already fully adapted to whatever plant you may have ´as-is´ for whichever desired production output you may need delivered just-in-time on-demand and only when you need it.”
What the f*&^ is going on? With every new counterproductive sanction, it almost seems that the US-NATO countries know full-well that sanctions do not work and are setting up their people up for some kind of wicked escalation that Biden will announce in a televised address to the US nation. It'll go something like this: "We've tried everything to limit Russia's ability to fight in Ukraine and it hasn't worked. Now we must, for the sake of humanity, send our troops, aircraft, missiles into Ukraine to stop the Russians. It is painful for me to make this decision. God Bless our troops.”
It is so very clear that the US and NATO are aching to fight the Russians directly in Ukraine (as the New York Times reported recently the CIA and Special Operations forces are supporting Ukraine and they have been since the beginning of the conflict there and as early as 2014). But If Russia falters in Ukraine then that means China would get involved directly as it will not allow the US-NATO to colonize Russia. Who else might come to Russia's aid or what other conflicts might arise around the globe as the US gets bogged down in Ukraine or maybe Taiwan? No one knows for sure. Uncertainty reigns in 2022 and that means every decision made by US-NATO leaders is nothing more than a gamble. The West is running out of cards to play.
Consider this: There are also plans to take Russia whole. What? An official US government body, the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, seeks to "decolonize Russia.” On 23 June they held a conference titled Decolonizing Russia: A Moral and Strategic Imperative. The goal, under the guise of liberating Russia's indigenous peoples, is to colonize it to decolonize it.
"Serious and controversial discussions are now underway about reckoning with Russia's fundamental imperialism and the need to "decolonize” Russia for it to become a viable stakeholder in European security and stability.”
It really appears that US and NATO leadership want a great conflagration to happen between the Great White West and the Slavs, Chinese (21st Century Red Menaces), and other non-White ethnicities (Iranians). We seem to be heading back to the days when Western Europe and the USA were best known for colonizing, exploiting and enslaving people, from India, Africa, and Central America right to the plantations of the US southern confederacy where Blacks were enslaved and picking cotton.
In this view, the core driver in the US-NATO Great Power Competition is really a global race war as hatred of the Russian and Chinese peoples is cultivated in the western citizenry each and everyday by the mainstream media, a key player in the US military information support operations (MISO) program. As the US propaganda campaign has it, the US never committed atrocities in Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria or Vietnam or the Philippines or Chili or wherever its plutocratic interests were threatened. Propaganda says the US has never committed war crimes. Well, Trotsky was correct: the pacifist mask, the mask that talks about law and order, democracy and freedom is nearly impossible to tear off because, apathetic US citizens-and naive global populations- refuse to believe that US engaged in the exact same activities it accuses its enemies of.
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” a famous revolutionary once said.
Perhaps the 21st century citizens of the West should revisit and modify a practice the Greeks used during bad times. These days, it seems, US-European leaders seem to be the cause of rotten events and they are certainly "angering the gods.” So pick a couple of leaders from the US-NATO alliance (those demigods) and, to make sure they know they will be held to account by the gods and the people, follow this formula:
"Whenever the anger of the gods declares itself through famine, an epidemic or other catastrophes, an attempt is made to deflect it onto a man and a woman of the people…They are paraded through the streets to the sound of instruments and, after having been beaten, they are banished from the city (Athens) and at other times they were condemned to the flames and their ashes thrown to the wind.” Giacomo Leopardi in the Zibaldone, quoting Aristophanes from Equities