Wednesday 24 April 2024

NoW: UKRAINE UPDATE....WAS ICKE RIGHT?

 
THINGS in the Ukraine may be coming to a head, like a zit ready to pop. The ground is drying up, the Russians are poised to advance to the Dnipro River (and then?...) and the poor people of Ukraine, soldiers, and civilians alike, may come to regret the fact that America’s largess hasn’t dried up as well.
On the weekend, the U.S. congress allocated sixty-one billion dollars for Ukraine to continue its unwinnable war against Russia. It took many months of wrangling and negotiating byzantine party politics,* but the Republican House Speaker (probably soon out of a job) finally caved and brought the contentious bill forward for a vote, which passed on Saturday amid cheers and Ukrainian flag waving (a breech of House etiquette) like they were at a football match or were a herd of trained seals flapping their flippers on cue.
But regardless of how much money the Americans pump into that war-weary nation, along with the EU and other cuck-states subservient to the U.S.—like Canada, on the hook for $3-billion this year—in the end there will be no chest-thumping touchdowns in the final quarter for Ukraine. 
IT SHOULD BE NOTED that ‘only’ around $13 billion will go directly to restocking Ukraine’s armaments store, with $9 billion in forgivable “loans”.😂 [Good luck collecting! Ed.] And the rest, as American Sec of Defense Lloyd Austin recently commented “…approximately $50 billion…will flow directly into our defense industrial base, this bill will create good American jobs in more than 30 states even as it reinforces U.S. long-term security.” So, the weapons manufacturers' money-making carousel keeps spinning round and round in Washington. War is good for business, don't you know. Meanwhile, Zelensky and his band of execrable warmongers are expanding the country’s military enlistment cohort to include males aged 18 to 60, as well as extending the length of service soldiers must serve. Ukraine’s armies are facing a manpower shortage. Hundreds of thousands have died. Russia is stepping up its bombardment of Ukrainian infrastructure, particularly its energy grid: No electricity means no trains to move troops and munitions until diesel locomotives can be brought online. It looks like Russia will soon push back Ukrainian armies to the Dnieper River, then it’s anyone’s guess whether Putin will send his forces south or north. If they move south, Odessa will fall and Russia will probably extend its land bridge to the Russian enclave of Transnistria, situated in the disputed territory along the Ukrainian/Moldavian border. Don't forget that Eastern Ukraine has always been predominately Russian-speaking and most there are ethnically Russian (unlike Western Ukraine which is comprised mostly of ethnic Poles, Hungarians and Romanians).
 
SO, the point of all this is to ask what’s the point for Ukraine continuing this folly? Why? It may yet lose all its Black Sea ports and still more territory the longer the fighting continues. Negotiating now would be in Ukraine's best interest. But warmongering elites in the USA and G7+ like Nato chief Stoltenberg, the EU's Ursula von der Leyen, French president Emmanuel Macron, Joe Biden, etc., can’t let go and accept the fact Ukraine has lost. Instead, they remorselessly urge Zelensky to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.
 
THIS spring disbursement of funds from the United States will only prolong the fighting for a short while. More Ukrainians will die needlessly, and the outcome will be the same. But the danger of escalation is real. Long-range “Storm Shadow” missiles, supplied by America’s pit bull Britain, and American “ATACMS” (“Army Tactical Missile Systems”), systems that can strike deep into Russian territory, may be a step too far for the Russians. We may yet see Russia bring down the hammer and move to roll up the Ukrainian army and stamp out every missile battery and army that threatens its territory. And we may see by the summer Ukraine's armies buckling and breaking in this most preventable of wars.
 
AGAIN: More money will not solve the problem or save Ukraine. Only negotiations and treaties will, though I fear it is too late for bargaining, and it will be Russia, on the battlefield, that will have the final say.
 
Cheers, Jake.______________________________________
 
    Was David Icke right? Do space lizards secretly control us?
*
NOT to dwell too long on inside baseball, but for months Speaker Mike Johnson refused to table in the House of Representatives a vote on legislation sending further aid money to Ukraine unless the U.S. southern border issue was first addressed. Then, in early April he met with CIA director Bill Burns and National Security director Avril Haines and shortly thereafter did a 180° turn and brought before the House a military aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. He also presented legislation extending FISA courts' ability to authorize warrant-less surveillance operations on non-U.S. persons (but, in reality, it also would allow domestic spying surveillance of American citizens). The bills passed both House and Senate on 23 April.
Some commentators wonder what made the Speaker change his mind about money for Ukraine and green lighting a two-year extension on FISA's warrant-less surveillance protocols, yet without one whisper of attention being given to the mass influx of illegal immigrants along the U.S./Mexico border. One wonders what was said to Speaker Johnson in those early April security briefings to make him reverse his months-long refusal to allow a House vote on Ukrainian aid. Was he bribed or blackmailed? Was it a case of Epsteinitis? Was it the lizard people? Who knows?
House Republicans, for the most part, are enraged with Johnson's about-face, and may soon vote to remove him from his speakership. On the other hand, most House democrats are pleased with Johnson’s volte-face, and may move to thwart his dismissal, just to piss-off the Republican legislators. Now children, play nice! 
AS AN ASIDE: Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate (providing he's not in jail, and even then....) has endorsed Johnson's stance on Ukraine aid while ignoring the southern border crisis leaving Trump supporters shaking their heads in disbelief. According to polls, most Americans are more concerned about illegal immigrants coming through Mexico than wars thousands of miles away. Are American oligarchs jerking Trump's chain? It's funny season again in America, AKA the Presidential elections.😭
 
+ CANADA, as a member in good standing at the G7 economic club (United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, U.S., Canada), has pledged $3-billion in military aid for Ukraine in 2024, as well as inking a bi-lateral security agreement with the kleptocracy. This agreement is a consolation prize for Ukraine not being fast-tracked (or any tracked!) into NATO, and it is full of “assurances”, but light on “guarantees”. It’s the: we’ll-send-you-what-we-can-when-we-can-maybe schtick. The carefully-worded agreement was inked with little fanfare, a further indication Canada really does not want to be obligated to send military aid to Ukraine in the future, with the current deal being a sop to Zelensky and his familiars,  and to pro-Ukrainian groups in Canada. Other G7 countries are devising similar bilateral security agreements with Ukraine. 
ONE WONDERS what will happen to all those agreements when Russia dictates Ukraine's terms of surrender later this fall. They won't be worth the paper they're written on in a de-militarized and neutral Ukrainian rump state. 
 
Hey, here's a thought:  What if Poland or France, or even Britain, sends troops into Ukraine? Does that mean the NATO contingent of 2,000 Canadian troops stationed in Lithuania will doff their NATO kit and jump into the fray? Do Canadians really want to see our troops fighting Russian troops? Is that a good thing with WWIII just around the corner? Note that Russia's nuclear protocols call for the use of nuclear weapons to defend its territory if the Russian state is confronted with an existential crisis, say by invasion or imminent downfall. China has a "no first use" policy for its nuclear arsenal, while the United States "...has refused to adopt a no first use policy and says that it reserves the right to use nuclear weapons first in the case of conflict." (Wikipedia)   Stay tuned.  
AS IF nuclear annihilation weren't enough to worry about, CANADA has, for some reason, just concluded a “free trade” deal with Ukraine. 😟 Talk about going down with the ship! I’m sure by this time next year [Provided we're not fried to a nuclear crisp. Ed.] that the trade deal will feel more like an albatross around our effervescent PM’s neck rather than a feather in his cap. 
 
WE SHOULD NOTE there are 1.2 million Ukrainian Canadians in our country, most living out west or in B.C. That’s a lot of voters to keep happy with policies that may please them but do little for Canada’s overall security or for its pocketbook.
We should be looking for ways and venues (like the Arctic Council) where we can have dialogue and areas of cooperation with Russia (like the International Space Station). Instead, we follow in lockstep the Americans on things like ineffectual sanctions regimes (now into its 16th round).
👉Russia is a nuclear power. It's not going away. It has a rich history and culture. It also has legitimate security concerns that should have been listened to before now. We seem hell-bent on imposing a NATO encirclement of Russia (now that Sweden and Finland have been accepted into the Western military alliance). Why? The Russia of today is not the USSR of yesteryear. NATO has long-outlived its usefulness and a new European security architecture needs to be put in its place which requires Russian input at the very least. We need to stop the bear-baiting before it's too late.  
 
 
 
   Geisha