RANT: I'LL HAVE ONE TREATY TO GO AND A SIDE SERVING OF DIPLOMACY, PLEASE

   

“The ability to think is one of the most defining features of humankind. In different cultures, the definition of humanity is associated with concepts such as consciousness, knowledge and reason. According to the classic western tradition, human beings are defined as “rational” or “logical animals”. Logic, as the investigation on the principles of reasoning, has been studied by many civilizations throughout history and, since its earliest formulations, logic has played an important role in the development of philosophy and the sciences.” (UNESCO)*

 

THIS PAST WEDNESDAY was “World Logic Day”, and I don’t know about you, but to me it feels like that bird—logic—has flown the coop! And are you getting a little worried that the American president Donald Trump has bats in his belfry? The forty-seventh president of the United States has been in office one year into his four-year second term, and his administration seems to churn out one example of head spinning nonsense after another:

 

His Gaza peace plan has seen over 460 Palestinians killed and 1200 wounded by Israeli bombs, drones and gunfire since October 2025’s so-called ‘ceasefire’. Israel still occupies almost half of Gaza with its troops and is not likely to withdraw them any time soon. His hot and cold, amateur-hour diplomacy with Russia conducted by Mutt & Jeff (Whitkoff, Kushner) hasn't altered the Ukraine war's trajectory in the slightest. Last summer’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear research sites and the recent Mossad/CIA attempt at “regime change” in Iran by arming agitators both failed to achieve their desired results. Recently, Trump’s folly in Venezuela and his kidnapping of President Maduro and his wife also may not have the desired effect of making the Venezuelan government kowtow to Washington. And as far as exploiting the South American country's oil reserves, Amereican oil companies are not do keen to go into Venezuela, citing internal instability, degraded petroleum infrastructure, and added costs extracting the heavy, “sour” petroleum reserves of the inland Orinoco Oil Belt. There is also the likelihood of sabotage by Venezuelans who’ll not take kindly to the arrival of ‘Gringo carpetbaggers to their patch.

 

IT'S BEEN AN ERRATIC foreign policy to say the least (and don’t forget Trump wants Greenland by hook or by crook), along with scandals at home—the Epstein files have much to reveal yet; Brownshirts ICE agents usurping constitutional rights of American citizens in their hunt for illegal aliens, including the murder in Minneapolis of a mother of three followed by incredibly lame excuses from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officials and other politicos, and shameful, blame-the-victim comments by Vice President J D Vance. Just watch the video; it was a totally unjustified shooting by a masked ICE agent who should be charged with murder. And, despite what White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller (AKA ‘Little Mussolini’) says, ICE officials are supposed to abide by the law, they are not above it. Miller is truly a piece of work, a neo-con nutbar, who spits more venom than a viper. And he has the ear of the US president.

 

THERE IS SO MUCH to delve into in this post that I’ll have to pick one news item for now: the dangers of escalation in the Ukraine/NATO/US v. Russia conflict. Does anyone in their right mind think it was a good idea to attack Russian strategic deterrence facilities on three separate occasions: One in 2024, the missile attack on Russia’s early-warning radar installations. In 2025, the drone attacks on the Russian strategic bomber fleet damaged several heavy bombers, and the recent, and perhaps most dumb fuck, was the drone attack late last month on an official residence of President Putin in the Volgograd region of western Russia. And the compound also contains a strategic weapons control centre! What were they thinking? 

 

Fortunately, all the drones were shot down. Ukraine’s president Zelensky, disavowed any knowledge of the attack, as did Trump, in a call Putin made to the American president shortly after the attack. Putin may not have been there--Russian security around the president whereabouts is tight--but if he had been, we might have been in a WWIII scenerio!

Question: WTF were they hoping to accomplish by this hostile and provocative action? Poke the Russian bear? Keep it dancing? Don't they know the cage door is open and the bear’s patience is wearing thin?😕

 

TWO THINGS TO WATCH FOR in the coming weeks:

👉One is whether America will finally appoint an ambassador to Moscow. The position has been vacant since June of last year, with only an interim head of mission running things. In addition, as a sign of good faith, Washington could return Russian embassy property. Two compounds were seized during the Obama presidency for alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election at the beginning of the RussiaRussiaRussia! psyop to create a Russian ‘boogeyman’ and Trump as ‘Putin’s puppet’ nonsense we had to put up with during the first Trump presidency. Reinvigorating diplomatic ties between the world’s two nuclear superpowers is a no-brainer. Trump has said he wants a thaw in US/Russia relations, but we’ll see what happens. While he’s at it, direct fights between the US and Russia could be re-established; that’s easy-peasy and it would benefit both countries. (Opening air traffic between the two might encourage EU and NATO member states to do likewise and get over their giant hissy-fits with Russia. But that would assume Western leaders weren’t a pack of incompetent nincompoops. Just sayin’)😜

 

👉THE SECOND MAJOR THING we should be watching for is something that needs to be resolved in less than a month’s time. The New START (nuclear) arms control treaty between the US and Russia is set to expire on 5 February. On 8 January Trump recently made another of his off-hand comments in the Oval Office during an interview with the New York Times when he said, “If it expires, it expires. We’ll just do a better deal.” Russia, some months ago, proposed a one-year extension to the treaty during which time discussions could be held to update and strengthen its core principles. Recall in 2019, during President Trump’s first administration, the Americans walked away from another nuclear arms treaty, the INF (Intermediate Nuclear Forces) treaty, citing Moscow’s non-compliance because of its testing of a mobile, ground-launched, intermediate-range nuclear-capable missile.

FOR its part, Russia complained about the construction of missile US bases in Poland and Romania housing Aegis Ashore launch systems. Ostensibly, they were sited in the East European countries as ‘defensive’ installations to intercept intermediate and long-range ballistic missiles coming from the Middle East, Iran being the chief bug-a-boo in this lame scenario. Moscow pointed out that the launch arrays could easily be reconfigured with nuclear warheads and be used to attack Russia. American officials poo-pooed the idea and disregarded Russia’s legitimate concerns that the US was in violation of the INF treaty.

To be fair, both sides, as far as I understand, were ‘effing around’ the edges of the treaty, looking for an advantage. 

 

US PRESIDENT George Bush’s unwise 2002 walkaway from the 1972 ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) treaty, was done so the US could develop an intermediate-range anti-ballistic missile “shield” that would give them, on paper at least, the possibility of launching a successful “first strike” against Russia (and China?), and relying on their ABM system to destroy the inevitable counter-attack from Russia. It should be noted that the defensive system never got off the drawing board. But, after Bush’s destabilizing walkaway from the ABM treaty, Moscow began work on new missile systems that could penetrate any ABM system developed by the Americans. Hence, the array of new types of Russian missiles unveiled¹ during the later stages of the Ukraine War. Before Bush withdrew the US from the ABM treaty, both sides, Russian and American, were vulnerable to devastating counterattacks from the other, where both societies would be destroyed no matter who fired first. This Cold War treaty lasted for decades, was dubbed “MAD” (Mutually Assured Destruction) and along with the substantial drawdown of nuclear weapon arsenals under predecessor treaties to New START (Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty), things were basically balanced between the nuclear superpowers.

 

That went away in 2002, and with the US, over the next decade siting ‘defensive’ missile emplacements in Poland and Romania, with the unspoken threat of more bases—perhaps ringing Russia with defensive and offensive missile bases in NATO member states along its borders.² New missile systems began design and development in Russia but were under wraps for years. 

A saving  grace in 2009 was the New START nuclear disarmament treaty that was negotiated during the Obama presidency. It helped keep things cooler with further drawdowns in nuclear stockpiles. But Trump’s foolish walkaway from the INF treaty in 2019, opened the door to develop and deploy an array of short and medium range nuclear and non-nuclear missiles for both sides.³ After that, Russia began unveiling their new weapons.

 

REALLY SORRY about going into the weeds about this stuff (and I hope that I’ve been accurate and that all this makes sense), but all of us should be concerned that the ONLY nuclear weapons treaty left on the books is New START which expires 5 February. After that we can envision the Americans and Russians (and perhaps other nuclear powers) adding to their arsenals or deploying more warheads onto their siloed missiles, mobile launch systems, bombers and submarines.

SO, WATCH AND SEE what Trump does. Will full diplomatic relations between Moscow and Washington finally be restored? And will Trump decide (hopefully not during a sundowner episode) to renew this important nuclear treaty?

I'm not hopeful, so for now I’m taking a tab of Soma® and going to an orgy-porgy.  

  

CHEERS, JAKE.

 

* In association with the International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH).

 

1. Like the new hyper-sonic missiles, against which no anti-ballistic missile arrays can stop. And other intermediate and inter-continental missiles that are being showcased in Ukraine. 

 

2. Last year, the United States installed a similar missile system in the Philippines. Temporarily, I believe. But they weren’t after any giggles and grins in doing so. Such a base would be a threat to Beijing, who were livid at the time over the operation. Fun times in Holocene where things are heating up.

 

3. China, not part of ABM, INF or New START treaties (but is part of the Non-proliferation and Test Ban treaties) has recently begun enlarging its strategic nuclear weapons arsenal in response to the growing instability and potential for a new nuclear arms race. The more the merrier! What could go wrong?

 

       

RANT: THE CURIOUS CASE OF COLONEL JACQUES BAUD

   

sanction- noun: a threatened penalty for disobeying a law or rule. Codes of practice should be accompanied by sanctions for offenders. Punishment; deterrent; punitive action; embargo; ban; discipline; penalization; correction; retribution

 

WE HEAR A LOT ABOUT sanctions these days, country-based restrictive measures “imposed by one country or entity on another with the aim of limiting the target country’s trade and business relations.” (A Brief History) Such sanctions can have significant effects on a country but can also have unintended consequences (or intended ones) causing immiseration of poor and vulnerable populations within the target country. We’ve witnessed how the EU, Britain, the United States and most Western nations have imposed round after round of sanctions against Russia* since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, in the form of trade restrictions, assets freeze, travel bans, and transaction denials, for example.  Countries, entities within target countries like their militaries or branches of government, companies, banks and individuals have had sanctions imposed on them by the United Nations Security Council. Since 1966 the UNSC has put in place sanction regimes on 726 individuals and 273 entities.

 

“Sanctions are a common tool for seeking to influence foreign governments and individuals to change their behaviour. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) can impose sanctions in response to a threat to international peace and security.” (mfat.govt.nz)

 

Sanctions can be imposed by UNSC or by countries with the political and economic clout to do so. By far, the United States is the country that imposes the most with "three times as many sanctions as any other country or international body, targeting a third of all nations with some kind of financial penalty on people, properties or organizations.” (Wikipedia) A list of over 12,000 individuals, entities and countries.

IN TERMS OF ACTIONS against individuals, the July 2025 sanctioning by the United States of the United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, stands out as a particularly shameful abuse of governmental power.

 

“Albanese has been a vocal critic of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, and…published a report accusing over 60 companies, including some U.S. firms, of supporting Israeli settlements in the West Bank and military actions in Gaza.” (Reuters)

 

Albanese, an Italian citizen, was denied a visa to enter the United States, even though she’s a UN diplomat and had duties to attend the opening 2025 fall session in New York. (She had to attend virtually.) The sanctions froze her American assets and bank accounts; her credit cards no longer worked. She could no longer access her American healthcare plan or have transactions with American companies, banks, other services, etc. The sanctions regime imposed on Albanese significantly affected her professional and personal life, though she remains the UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine. [One spunky gal! Ed.]

And over the last few years, it’s been one Russian oligarch (or bank or whatever) after another being sanctioned, their property in the West seized, their assets frozen by the U.S, EU, et al, until they surely must have run out sanctions or oligarchs by now!

 

👉BUT TURNING TO THE RECENT CASE of Colonel Jacques Baud, there is a different and quite disturbing wrinkle to the never-ending sanctions saga. On December 15, 2025, the EU Commission issued a list of the latest individuals, entities and countries to be sanctioned. And Baud’s name was on it. Just so you know, Colonel Baud is a Swiss national whose home is in Brussels, Belgium where he has lived for many years. He is a ret. Swiss Army Colonel with an extensive CV and experience in NATO and intelligence services; he provides analyses on security and intelligence matters as well as geopolitical commentary. He is the author of several books.

👉HERE'S THE QUESTION TO ANSWER: What is the difference between the sanctions imposed on Russian oligarchs and ones placed on Colonel Baud? The answer is: they’re the same. The only difference is that Baud is a citizen of the EU not a foreign national living abroad. The EU is using a sanctions regime meant to target those living outside the EU and who might be considered enemies or at least acting against the interests of the EU or acting in ways that are contrary to EU “values”. As Colonel Baud put it when interviewed shortly after he made the list: “The EU now considers its own citizens as enemies.”¹  

LIKE ALBANESE who was sanctioned by the U.S., Baud has had his bank accounts and assets within the EU frozen. He cannot withdraw money or use his credit cards. He cannot engage in any business transactions with EU companies or services, and I suspect even his access to healthcare, private or public is denied, without express permission. (From whom?) Furthermore, he cannot travel within the EU, within the Schengen “free borders” system. Banks and businesses within the EU will not have anything to do with him, fearful they would come under fire from European Union fascists commissioners and be slapped with secondary sanctions or penalties themselves. No money can be transferred to him from abroad, nor from inside the EU. If Colonel Baud wanted to return to Switzerland, to access his Swiss bank account for example, and he could somehow get to Switzerland, a non-EU state, he would not be allowed to return. It's as if Baud is being ‘shunned’ by Europe. This is truly Kafkaesque and a ‘catch-22’ trap Baud finds himself ensnared in.²

 

👉As I’ve said, sanctions regimes are meant to address foreign “threats”. But going forward, they may increasingly be used to silence dissenting voices within the EU. It’s telling that this latest sanctions list was assembled during a meeting of EU foreign ministers and was presented to the European Council for adoption by Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign affairs chief. Baud points out internal sanctions protocols override European legal practices whereby, under normal circumstances, an accused is given warning of the state’s actions; they have the right to legal representation during the charging and pretrial regime, and have their day in court in a timely fashion. Colonel Baud was given no warning he was to be listed. There was no forum, no court or tribunal for him to attend and defend himself against these charges. A decision was made by the European Council and he was given notice he was on the sanctions list. It was a fait acompli and as far removed from proper legal procedings in a democracy as you can get. Furthermore, he has no clear path to make enquires about his case, nor any clear procedure to challenge it.

There are few legal avenues open to him. This is because sanctioning is a political process separate from legal system. He may get a lawyer to challenge the ruling, but the court would almost certainly conclude they have no jurisdiction or judicial authority to compel the EU Commission to rescind its decision. Even the EU’s highest court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ), should it even decide to hear the case, might not have the jurisdiction or authority to abrogate the European Commission’s decision to place Colonel Baud on its list. The high court would be able to examine the rather brief “Statement of Reasons” given for sanctioning the Swiss National for accuracy only. [#57, p. 11 of “List”] Suppose the Statement claimed, incorrectly, that Jacques Baud was a French national. The court could issue an injunction to cease and desist. In other words, the ECJ would likely be limited to a narrow examination of the case, just whether the nuts and bolts of the Statement were accurate. 👉AND THE KICKER HERE is that the European Commission could simply reissue a corrected version of the Statement of Reasons and put Baud back on the list. Easy-peasy. 

IIUC, it's a political case that can be resolved only by political means. Not through the courts. Courts at all levels, it seems, would run into similar jurisdiction issues, and the same goes for human rights tribunals. All of them would hit the brick wall where they have no authority to overrule the European Commission, even if Baud's legal and human rights, as spelled out in the EU's own founding charter, are being trampled on by the current wrecking crew in Brussels! 

 

IT'S CLEAR that Colonel Baud’s legal rights of due process, of legal representation during the charging period, and a prompt trial by a jury of his peers are subverted by the sanctions process. So, too, are his human rights. In Brussels, he cannot access his bank. He cannot use credit/debit cards. He would need special dispensation from, I assume, the EU Commission itself. His rights of freedom of movement and expression, even his right to work are trampled on by power-hungry technocrats. Put yourself in his position. If he wants to buy groceries, he needs to engage with the EU bureaucracy at its highest level, a cumbersome, time-consuming, expensive and Byzantine process simply to get permission to buy a loaf of bread. It's outrageous! Frans Kafka must be spinning in his grave!

NEIGHBOURS, FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES make offerings of support. But money cannot be transferred from Switzerland to Colonel Baud. If someone wished to send him money electronically that would be flagged by the banks and credit card companies and stopped. Even if someone wanted to “Uber Eats” a bag of groceries to him, the individual could be charged with..what? Over-kindness? And the service could receive secondary sanctions or an onerous penalty. Colonel Baud suggests that deliveries to his address would be flagged by the authorities. Fortunately, he has received help from neighbours and friends with food, but this is an untenable situation and a gross violation of his legal and human rights. His lawyer is currently making an appeal to the European Commission, in what will be a messy, convuluted and costly process with a limited margin for success. Baud suggests part of the problem is what I mentioned earlier: these sanctions are meant to be placed on individuals and entities outside the EU. He gives the clarifying example of a typical country’s security apparatus. Most countries have an institution for foreign threats and a separate one for internal threats. For example:

    Army vs. Police

    MI6 vs. MI5 in Britain

    CIA vs. FBI in the United States

    CSIS vs. the Mounties in Canada(?)

PROBLEMS OCCUR when you confuse or conflate the two systems. The former USSR combined services for external and internal threats under one roof—the KGB. Baud notes dryly that the EU has created ‘its own KGB’ by such actions.

 

👉BAUD HAS NOT broken any laws. He is not a threat, a terrorist, or a “mouthpiece” for pro-Russian propaganda like the Commission’s Statement of Reasons claims. He is neither a propagandist (though Baud notes creating propaganda is not illegal), nor is he someone who ‘makes up conspiracy theories’, also something that is not illegal. But by circumventing the legal system and using vague, ill-defined political powers and tools, the EU is attempting to silence those who ask critical and uncomfortable questions about, for example, the Ukraine war, or about Russia-EU-NATO-United States relations. In his carefully argued, unbiased investigations it is obvious to anyone who listens to him that he is sincere in his beliefs and scrupulous in his analysis, dealing with facts, not conjecture or 'wishcasting'. He pushes back, against the party line, for example, by saying Ukraine has lost the war, a view that runs counter to the government's narrative and MSM's talking-heads. He also says that Russia was provoked into invading Ukraine in order to counter what it considers to be an existential threat from NATO’s ever-eastward expansion to its borders, with a Ukraine in NATO being a bridge too far. Again, Jacques Baud's views may be contrary to those held by EU authorities, even heresy to some, but expressing them in public forums (and providing convincing arguments supporting his claims) is not illegal. At least not yet.

👉AND for his measured and scholarly analysis, and thoughtful commentary, he is to be sanctioned into silence.³   

 

 

CHEERS, JAKE. _____________________________________

 

* Sanctions against a country the size of Russia, with its natural resources and mature industrial base have failed to  cripple it’s economy or change its war aims in Ukraine.

1. Jacques Baud is the second Swiss national to be hit with sanctions related to supposed Russian propaganda claims in recent months. The Swiss-Cameroonian pan-African activist Nathalie Yamb was banned from entering the EU and her assets in the EU were frozen in April of this year.

2. Kafkaesque is used to describe situations that are disorientingly and illogically complex in a surreal or nightmarish way. It can be used to describe any situation or literary work, which often involves characters navigating bizarre bureaucracies (unnecessarily complicated government systems full of confusing and contradictory procedures and paperwork)” (Dictionary.com)

Catch-22 "is a paradoxical, no-win situation where the only solution to a problem is denied by a rule or circumstance inherent in the problem itself, creating an impossible loop, like needing experience for a job, but needing a job to get experience. From Joseph Heller's 1961 novel, it describes illogical rules that trap individuals, often highlighting arbitrary authority or bureaucracy, as seen [in the novel] when an Airforce pilot must be insane to be grounded but by applying to be grounded (for being insane) that proves the pilot is sane (for not wanting to fly and be killed), thus forcing them to fly.” (ibid.)

3.  The Swiss government has provided Baud with less than fulsome support. Baud reckons this is because Switzerland wishes to have closer ties with the EU (it is not a member of the EU) and doesn’t want to ruffle any feathers as it negotiates. The Swiss people, on the other hand, are more engaged with Baud’s case. They look at what the EU Commission has done to trample on Colonel Baud’s legal and human rights and are increasingly concerned about becoming intertwined with an institution that is becoming more repressive with each passing day. With more attention paid to Baud’s case, public pressure may sway the nabobs in Brussels to remove him from the list. Or they may stick to their guns and use their new, extra-judicial cudgel to further damage freedom of speech in the EU. Time will tell.

 

[Finallly, I think Colonel Baud's case and others are 'test runs' to see how far the EU bureaucracy can go in clamping down on freedom of expression and dissenting views. The same thing was said about the 2022 Trucker Strike in Canada where participants' and supporters' bank accounts were frozen by the federal government to break the protests in Ottawa and out west. Stay tuned. It's going to be a rocky 2026, and the year's only eight days old! Ed.] 

 

p.s. A bit of good news is a recent appeal to the EU Commission that is being sent today with the signatures of dozens of academics, political commentators and journalists. We will see if their appeal falls on deaf ears.