HOLD ON, WE'RE COMING!

Like most people, I was shocked to learn that former American president Donald Trump was shot as he attended a rally in the small town of Butler, Pennsylvania last weekend (13 July). Fortunately, he was not seriously injured, sustaining a grazed ear as his would-be assassin narrowly missed his target. Two other people in the stands behind Trump were seriously wounded while a third man, a former fire chief from the area was shot dead protecting his family by covering them with his body. The entire incident—from the assassin’s first shot until Secret Service snipers returned fire, killing 20-year-old Matthew Crooks—was over in a matter of seconds. Trump was then bundled off stage by his Secret Service bodyguards into a waiting limousine and taken to a local hospital for medical treatment.

TRUMP LATER posted he was well and offered his condolences to the family of the former fire chief who’d been killed and his best wishes for those wounded during the incident. Five days later he attended the Republican National Convention venue in Milwaukee where he became the party’s candidate to run against Joe Biden in the upcoming presidential elections this November.

THERE ARE MANY QUESTIONS to be answered in the coming days and weeks as several inquires into the incident have been convened to review the conduct of local police and in particular the Secret Service which is tasked with the safety of the former president. There are issues around how effective the Secret Services’ command and control protocols and communications networks were, as well as lapses in on-site inspections and placement of personnel around the event, etc. There are various reports that the assassin was spotted several minutes or more before shots were fired hanging around the perimeter of the rally near the buildings located closest to the podium.

👉Bystanders even filmed him on top of the building from which he presumably fired. Why wasn’t this obvious “high point” covered by police or Secret Service personnel? Further, it appears authorities were alerted by rally attendees about a person acting suspiciously on the outskirts of the event upwards of 30 minutes before the shooting. Why was there no follow up of their reports?  

    West and Gordon

It appears Crooks acted as a “lone gunman”, whose motivations are yet unclear. He had no social media presence to speak of and appears to be a loner with few friends. IN ADDITION, there are unconfirmed reports of a second gunman located in a water tower some distance behind Crooks and along the same line of sight to the stage. Solo gunman or something more? I look forward to reading the unredacted files on the shooting in sixty-years or so….😞

THAT SAID, I think it’s fair to say the Secret Service’s B-team was on deck last Saturday, and frankly it showed. [Some Secret Service members guarding the former president were replacements for his usual team. Ed.] But I’d like to cut to the chase and offer a solution for the once and future king president’s bodyguard problems: Send in the best of the best, namely, Secret Service agents Capt. James T. West and Artemus Gordon, arguably the most dynamic and successful team the Service ever produced. They would never dodge a bullet or leave at large any culprit that was a threat to the president or to the United States. Even their arch-foe, the maniacal, criminal mastermind Doctor Migulito Loveless fell beneath their ‘sword of justice’.

 

HIRED during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, their long-standing track record of 100% case closures is rivaled by few in the agency’s long and storied history. In fact, their dispatch to take the reins of Donald Trump’s protection team could take place in a matter of days, or weeks at the most, as soon as their private railroad car catches up with the Trump campaign tour. Good luck, sirs!

 

“Charming gunslinger James West and Artemus Gordon, an inventor and master of disguise, are the country's first Secret Service agents, traveling the Old West at the behest of President Ulysses S Grant, fighting villains, encountering beautiful women and dealing with fiendish plots to take over the world.” 

(Wikipedia)

 

 Cheers, Jake.

 

NoW UPDATES: GAZA.

 

I SHOULD BE SURPRISED, even shocked by the report, but sadly, I am not. Over the past nine months, as Israel’s destruction of the Gaza Strip continued apace and as the number of Palestinians killed by the Jewish state’s bombs and missiles climbed into the tens of thousands, the official death toll was tabulated through the Gaza Health Ministry. Today, that number is more than 38,000, with ten-thousand or more dead under the rubble. [And over 70,000 wounded and injured because of the conflict. Ed.] Over 62% of Gazan homes have been destroyed along with critical infrastructure like water, sewage and electrical services, educational centres, mosques, churches and other public buildings and businesses, and shockingly 82% of Gaza’s hospitals. Over one-third of all the buildings in Gaza have been destroyed, and eighty percent of its people have been internally displaced from their homes, sequestered in poorly sited and serviced, and often unsafe, refugee camps that are regularly attacked by the IDF. We see what’s happening every day there on our phones so it’s not hard to see why the ICJ (International Court of Justice) in The Hague is adjudicating a charge of genocide against the state of Israel and the ICC (International Criminal Court) is formulating a charge of war crimes against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, though the ICC is so politicized that it may fail to issue international arrest warrants for the two. We’ll know soon enough.

BUT more to the point: Are the casualty figures from the Gaza Health Ministry accurate? Gazan health authorities use recorded hospital deaths and burials to compile their figures, but due to the massive destruction within the enclave, accurate statistics are difficult to come by. Over these terrible nine months, the death toll in Gaza rose, but seemed not to be commensurate with the amount of destruction we were witnessing. Still, those figures are the ones relied on by the UN and WHO (World Health Organization) and most media organizations in reporting the cost in human lives resulting from Israel’s genocidal rampage in Gaza. Those numbers held until 5 July.

 

THAT WAS the day the prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet, published what it calls a “correspondence” or “letter” entitled: “Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential”. The submission to The Lancet by R. Khatib, M. McKee and S. Yusuf, is referred to as a letter because it is not peer reviewed but is nevertheless published in the medical journal's “correspondence section” as an essay worthy of debate and contemplation. The letter’s authors relied on a 2020 study for their source data to come up with a casualty figure that is truly staggering. They note that, given the level of destruction, the official death count is probably an underestimate, with many more buried under the rubble of collapsed high rises and homes than had previously been thought. As well, and importantly, deaths from a lack of medical care, from disease, malnutrition, etc., termed “indirect” deaths resulting from the conflict, need to be considered to present an accurate picture of projected Palestinian deaths since 7 Oct.

 

“Armed conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence. Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases. The total death toll is expected to be large given the intensity of this conflict; destroyed health-care infrastructure; severe shortages of food, water, and shelter; the population's inability to flee to safe places; and the loss of funding to UNRWA, one of the very few humanitarian organizations still active in the Gaza Strip.” (The Lancet, 5 July.)

 

The letter states that in the above-mentioned 2020 study of conflicts in 193 countries between 1993 and 2017, and published in BMC Medicine, indirect deaths were recorded in ratios varying from 3 to 15 times the number of direct deaths. July's Lancet “correspondence” by Khatib et al uses a conservative ratio of 4 to 1. That is: For every direct death (from bombing, gunfire, etc.) four more indirect deaths can be expected* both during the invasion and in its immediate aftermath. The correspondence concludes that “…it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186, 000 [Italics mine] or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict.” This death toll, if The Lancet's estimate holds true, will account for seven to eight percent of the total Gazan population of 2.3 million, most of which is now sequestered in the southern third of the enclave. Time will tell if Khatib et al's figures are accurate.

 

👉NOTE that on 24 July, war criminal extraordinaire, Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu will address the American Congress in what will no doubt be a massive jerk-fest of love and adulation. It will be interesting to witness how many standing ovations this scoundrel receives as he speaks before legislators from both the House and Senate, with only a handful saying they will boycott Netanyahu’s speech because of his actions in Gaza. The rest will cheer and clap this scumbag until their hands are sore. Will he present a peace proposal that will see Palestinians and Jews living together in harmony and mutual respect. Not a chance. But he will probably scold the U.S. and its cuck president for not providing Israel with more weapons, bigger bombs and sacks of cash to help fight his genocidal war against the Palestinian people so that "Greater Israel" can at last be born from the river to the sea. And all those members of congress will sit there while the Israeli leader takes a dump on them. But it's clap, clap, clap, and “no worries!” Their cheques are in the mail from the AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) lobby and its rich Zionist funders.¹

 

👉CURRENTLY, it is unclear whether Netanyahu intends to expand the war by launching an offensive in the north against Lebanon’s Hezbollah militias. It would be in character for the wily politician to announce the start of such an offensive while he speaks before the American Congress later this month. More than sixty-thousand Israeli citizens who lived in the north have been displaced to central Israel, many staying in hotels at the government’s expense. They want to return home. Now. Meanwhile, their towns and infrastructure continue to be targeted by Hezbollah's missiles and drones as the Lebanese militia acts in solidarity with the Palestinians. Netanyahu has few choices.  Either he curtails or minimizes operations in Gaza, to transfer more troops to the northern border, or he bombards southern Lebanon, provoking a major response from Hezbollah, in the hope that the Americans enter the fray with their aircraft and missile batteries. The Israeli PM's goal is to push Hezbollah back to the Latini River and create a buffer zone so that displaced Israelis can return to their homes.

At the same time, Netanyahu doesn’t want to ease up on his Gazan operation because any kind of peace deal with Hamas might see him more readily removed from office to face prosecution for a string of financial crimes he is charged with. He doesn’t want to go to jail and that’s one reason why he set in motion the longest military campaign in Israel’s history. Most populations are generally more reluctant to depose their leaders in a time of war. And, in Israel, the vast majority of the population supports Netanyahu's campaign in Gaza, even if they are highly critical of his domestic policies, for example, his handling of the economy, legal reforms, and of course, charges of corruption, etc.

 

👉With respect to Gaza, Israel's armed forces are not trained in the type of combat they encounter there—a war of attrition and close-quarter combat. In the past, IDF forces usually attacked Hamas (and other groups) with superior air power, followed with a quick mopping-up operation by ground troops, “a short, sharp shock.”

 

 

SOME commentators suggest the conflict will end with a truce of some sort and the Palestinian question kicked down the road until the next uprising. Netanyahu, meanwhile, may gain favour with extremist elements in Israeli society as someone who opened up the Gaza Strip for Jewish settlers and whittled down Palestinian numbers through his clearly genocidal policies in conducting the war and through forced emigration. [I think he'll dump all 2.3-million Palestinians into the Sinai by hook or by crook. Ed.] 

ON the other hand, some pundits suggest the conflict may expand into a larger, regional war if Syria, Jordon, even Turkey and, of course, Hezbollah (and possibly Iran) decide to challenge Israeli hegemony. 

👉If the IDF should fail in prosecuting its war plans and if Israel were seriously threatened by its neighbours it is good for all to remember that Israel is a nuclear weapons state ('undeclared') with an estimated stockpile of 200-300 nuclear warheads. It also has in its policy papers a nuclear weapons  protocol called the Sampson Option.  And if it should ever be evoked, then all bets are off.

 

 

I ALWAYS liked the idea of Israel. It was portrayed as a beacon of light in the desert. Israelis were a strong and creative people given a safe harbour after the depredations and horrors suffered under last century’s German Naziism. The biblical setting in the Levant seemed an ideal place for them to be safe and free, and many east European Jews migrated there after the war to establish the “only democracy in the Middle East”. Liberalism had a beachhead fronting the regressive, tribal forces of Arabic and Muslim populations. And naturally, it would encounter, from time to time, blowback and discord as it established itself in the Levant. It was a David versus Goliath tale, a real-life replay of the biblical story. But, in the end, it was more like a fairy tale only children would believe.

I JUST DIDN'T pay enough attention or really looked at what was happening in Palestine. My first glimpse 'behind the curtain', as it were, was in 2014 when Israel bombed several locations in Gaza City killing over 2,000 Palestinians and destroying thousands of homes, which at the time I thought was excessive and crossed a line.

PERIODICALLY, there would be this or that riot, or uprising, or suicide bombing, assassination, kidnapping, etc., and I assumed such outbreaks and reprisals were the price democracy and freedom must pay, and Israel’s periodic “mowing the grass” counterattacks were an ugly necessity. But the 2018 “March of Return”, where Palestinians peacefully marched to the border fences with Israel demanding the right to return to their homes in occupied Palestine and during which Israeli snipers shot protesters, infamously ‘kneecapping’ many, made me wonder whether the IDF was out of control. But Israel as a whole was a force for good in the world. Wasn’t it? The pot continued to bubble away on the back burner.

POINT IS, I ignored Palestine and what had really happened there since WWII (and earlier). The Israeli reprisals following the Palestinian raid on 7 October 2023 ripped the band-aid off, so to speak. Israel, once a gleaming jewel of democracy in the Middle east, its military all powerful, I now see its reality: It is a settler-colonial, apartheid state that from its founding stole land and subjugated the people living there. And today it is guilty of committing war crimes, including genocide.

👉I view Israel as a psychologically ill society² that, as it is currently configured, should not continue to exist. By stealing more and more land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem it has put the kibosh to any realistic two-state solution. The image of friendly kibbutzim, healthy communal living and making the land bloom, has been replaced with angry settlers destroying aid cargoes and carrying AK-47s.

I assume Israel's aim will be to take two-thirds of the Gaza Strip and begin constructing settler enclaves there like they’ve done throughout the West Bank and occupied Palestine. Gazans—over two million of them—will be left to live in squalor in a permanent refugee camp along the Egyptian border. Perhaps they will cross over into the Sinai somehow or emigrate elsewhere in the Palestinian diaspora. Or perhaps they will die from disease, despair or hunger, with their families, their communities, their futures in ruins. Netanyahu and his fascist cabal could care less. And, I am sad to say, a majority of Israel's citizens feel the same. For me, for the first time, I feel that the state of Israel is no longer necessary. Judaism can exist in the world without a land designated exclusively for Jews.  

👉ISRAEL is a failed political project on the downward slope. It is a Potemkin village writ large, except people actually live there. Will it ever become a truly liberal democracy, with Jews and Palestinians living side-by-side as equals. That’s probably a pipe-dream, right up there with the “two-state” solution. But that is its only hope for survival, because a "Jewish" state, a theocracy in other words, is incompatible with a democracy. You can't be both. And a Jewish theocracy, with  millions of its citizens living unequal, subjugated lives, or else a Jewish state with non-Jews expelled and surrounded by hostile Arabic and Muslim countries is not a recipe for longevity either.

And, worryingly, Israel becoming a smoldering ‘ashtray’ is another possibility best not even imagined. Time will tell.  

 

 Cheers, Jake._____________________________________

 

* NOTE: the "letter" is an estimate of cumulative deaths recorded in Gaza as well as an estimate of indirect deaths that are occurring and will occur in the war’s immediate aftermath from a variety of factors. The letter’s authors are not saying that 186,000 deaths have occurred, but rather that figure, or one considerably higher, is what we can expect to find when this bloody conflict is over, if mortality rates in past wars are to be any judge.

 

1. AIPAC is a Washington-based Israeli lobby group that channels millions of dollars into the coffers of legislators and political parties to ensure legislation favorable to Israel makes it through the American Congress. It even provides a staffer for each congressional member to ‘splain how they should vote when the issue of Israel/American relations are concerned. We hear lots these days about “election interference” and accusations of “foreign meddling” in domestic affairs by Russia or China, but their handiwork pales in comparison to AIPAC’s lobbying efforts, so much so that some political commentators are calling it a case of ‘the tail wagging the dog’, in other words that Israel, through its powerful lobby in Washington, has been very successful, up until now, in commanding legislation favorable to Israel.

Q: How is it advantageous to the U.S. to keep sending armaments and money to a regime (Israel) that is seen to be committing war crimes daily? How is it advantageous for the U.S. to continue supporting an apartheid state that stands accused by the world’s highest court (International Court of Justice) of committing genocide?  

A: It's not to America’s advantage. None of it. America’s reputation is being dragged through the mud as it arms and finances Israel's genocide that is on display daily for the world see on social media. [That includes the reputations of all the Western cucks and toadies, including Canada for the most part, who follow in lockstep American foreign policy. Ed.] Israel is not an ally of the United States, it's an albatross around its neck and it needs to be brought to heel or discarded.  For sure, Joe Biden could halt Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza with a phone call. If America would only would use the extraordinary leverage it holds over Israel—namely cutting off weapon supplies and money, that would bring the carnage in Gaza to a screeching halt. But legislators in Washington don’t do this because the Israel lobby is too powerful. It has too much cash to spread around numerous political campaigns of pro-Israel legislators, or to launch primary attacks against recalcitrants who refuse to go along. 

 

CRITICS say the U.S. Congress is bought and paid for by AIPAC, and voting records speak for themselves. They show bipartisan agreement, and near unanimous votes in favour of sending Israel billions in dollars and weaponry every year. And, inviting PM Netanyahu,  a leader accused of genocide, to speak before the assembled Congress in a couple of weeks, no doubt giving him numerous standing ovations, will be the icing on Israeli's cake. The American Congress is a troop of trained seals clap, clap, clapping for the war criminal Netanyahu! Shameful….

 

 2. Recall that Israel has as an unwritten, though previously enacted, doctrine known as the "Hannibal Directive". It states that any Israeli soldier, or citizen for that matter, are to be killed if they are in danger of being taken prisoner and held for ransom by an opposing force. This, surely, is an example of a dysfunctional state, one that is insular, paranoid, and given to extremes. The Hannibal Directive was evoked during the 7 October Hamas attacks, with perhaps half of the deaths recorded that day caused by 'friendly fire.'

 

👉Another point to consider--Israel's destruction of Gaza and becoming a pariah state in the eyes of the world: In terms of antisemitism globally, how does Israel's actions in Gaza make Jews outside Israel safer? I would be gobsmacked to learn that incidents of antisemitism did not have a significant uptick as the world watches Israel's atrocious behaviour in the Palestinian enclave. And, for Jews living inside Israel, things seem to be much less safe than before. Those Israelis who can afford it are leaving the country. Emigration numbers since the Gaza war began speak for themselves.

 

 

         

RANT: MORE UPDATES

 

    Major "King" Kong from Doctor Strangelove

Re: Peace Talks. IN AUGUST there is to be an important meeting around ending the conflict in Ukraine  to be held in the Red Sea seaport of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.* The meeting is a follow-up to one held earlier this year in Copenhagen.  Several countries will attend: India, Brazil, Indonesia, Egypt, Mexico, Chile and Zambia, so far have said they would come. American National Security Advisor, Jake (“The Snake”) Sullivan, will also attend. There are  30 countries in all invited to the two-day event. Russia is not invited. "Ukraine and Western officials hope that the talks, which exclude Russia, can lead to international backing for peace terms favoring Ukraine," the Reuters report said. .A third such meeting is planned for the fall to continue the discussions. All three summits are less about genuine peace talks than they are about peeling away support for Russia among Global South nations (Africa, Latin America, East Asia) who have not marched in lockstep with the West’s sanctions protocols or calls to outright condemn Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, having instead remained neutral in the debate. The US State Department is determined to win them over. This will be a test to see if American threats of sanctions will cudgel the African delegations into the West's camp or if will they side with Russia and the BRICKS representatives who are attending. It's noted that after the recent NATO summit in Lithuania, where Zelensky received a less than warm reception, his star may be waning, so let's watch to see whether his stock drops further in Jeddah. The conference is to be held August 5-6. 

ADDITIONALLY, this event comes less than two weeks after a successful Russia-Africa Economic Summit in St. Petersburg, so it will be interesting to see which way the wind is blowing from the Saudi Arabian sea port, this month.

 

    1919 Paris Peace Talks Session

AND APPARENTLY, there         are unofficial discussions quietly going on between Poland, the Baltic states and, I presume, Ukraine in which Ukraine will make territorial concessions in future treaty talks (something the Zelensky regime has refused to consider thus far), which might open the door for direct negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.⁺ These informal talks are facilitated by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who was instrumental in the deal earlier this year which saw several Ukrainian neo-Nazi Azov battalion commanders transferred  into the custody of Türkiye (Turkey), during the battle for Mariupol, instead of facing certain death at the hands of the Russians. Abramovich and his interlocutors may help bring Russia and Ukraine (and the United States) to the negotiating table for substantive peace talks, if these preliminary discussions prove fruitful. It’s early days, of course.☮

BUT WAIT! There's another peace initiative was just put on the table by a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official, Aleksey Polishchuk, who said in a statement that the tactical nuclear weapons, recently deployed in Belerus by Russia could be removed if Russia’s security concerns are addressed and the long-standing NATO deployment of similar Armageddon weapons in Europe are drawn down. He described Russia's decision to station nuclear weapons in Belarus as a necessary measure to

 

"...buttress the security of both Moscow and Minsk. Polishchuk said that Russia sent nuclear weapons to Belarus 'in response to years-long destabilizing nuclear policies by NATO and Washington, as well as the fundamental changes that have recently taken place in key areas of European security.'”

 

Russia does not want a war with the West, nor to have never-ending nuclear weapon expansion. It wants its genuine security needs to be understood and respected. This offer by Polishchuk could be a step along the road to real peacemaking. But will the fukheads politicians in the collective West accept Polishchuk’s olive branch? I’m not holding my breath.¹

 

RE: RFK JR. Robert Kennedy Jr. said recently he will not run as an Independent if he fails to gain the Democratic nomination for President in 2024.² This is unfortunate. He is unlikely to be allowed to run on the Democratic ticket because of the threat he represents to party insiders. His foreign policy views, for example, are focused on diplomacy over militarism. He wants to close most overseas American military bases (there are 700 plus!) and slash the Pentagon’s defense budget. He wants to take Big Pharma to task, ending the shady dealings that the sector has with regulatory bodies like the FDA, CDC, NIAID (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Fauci’s old money tree stomping grounds.) He'd even pardon Julian Assange and Edward Snowden! However, Kennedy could kill the goose that lays the golden eggs for Democratic party insiders and legislators with his reform agenda. Party elites and Deep State apparatchiks  will fight tooth and nail to stop him. 

 

BUT, his staunch support for Israel, a country which has rightly been called an apartheid state for its treatment of the Palestinian people, takes some of the shine off his star, for me. Grayzone editor, Max Blumenthal in conversation with investigative reporter Aaron Maté suggest (at the video’s 107:00-minute mark) that Kennedy should be pushing back against Israel for its human rights abuses, its war-like posture in the region, not to mention it's undeclared stockpile of nukes it keeps under wraps! 

POLITICALLY, it would make more sense for him to challenge Israel, a policy that would be in keeping with his other, pro-peace policies. Aaron suggests the Democratic Party’s base of voters are younger now and more inclined to be critical of Israel. You would think Kennedy would be going after their votes. Both journalists agree that the powerful Israel lobby in the United States has the ear of both parties (Democrats and Republicans) anyway; they don’t really need Kennedy to keep military aid to Israel flowing, something Kennedy, as president, would no doubt ensure, but, then, so would his rivals on both sides of the aisle. (Does his campaign receive significant funding from the pro-Israel lobby? If so, then it's another misstep on his part.) His pro-Israel stance might garner him campaign donations from rich AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) members but, in the end, that may prove to be an albatross around his neck. It's a definite fumble on Kennedy's part, IMHO.

RFK JR. calls himself a “traditional, Kennedy Democrat”, but what he may not entirely see is that the Democratic Party of today is light years away from the party of his forebears. Party leadership will screw him out of any nomination bid like they screwed Bernie Sanders (twice). Still, it’s refreshing to listen to an adult in the room.

 

RE: Psychopaths. My last post concerned those pathologically ill persons (Narcissists and Psychopaths) and I thought I'd include excerpts from a Catlin Johnstone article where she gives her take on this motley crew abroad in the world today. While we may relax and forget about psychopaths most of the time and stop trying to understand them because doing so makes your brain hurt, you can bet your mother’s milk they haven’t stopped thinking about us and trying to understand what makes us tick.😟As always, Caitlin has helpful commentary on the subject:

 

“The feeling of guilt is useless and can safely be dropped entirely. The only people who might benefit from feeling some guilt are the sociopaths and psychopaths among us who never experience it anyway. For those among us with healthy empathy centers, guilt is unnecessary to motivate good behavior and often becomes a tool that manipulators use to control us.”

 

“Antisocial personality disorder, more commonly known as sociopathy and psychopathy, is one of the greatest obstacles to human thriving. That there really are creatures among us who don’t think or feel like the rest of us do and frequently use their lack of empathy to climb the ladders of wealth and power sounds made up (and even sounds like the basis of many racist belief systems), but it is a fact. Not until our species becomes so emotionally intelligent and awake that sociopaths and psychopaths are unable to thrive in it or go unseen will this problem disappear.”

 

“You can recognize sociopaths, psychopaths, and other narcissists in your life by paying attention to how much energy they pour into convincing you to believe stories about others, about themselves, and especially about you. Someone who often spends energy trying to get you to believe negative things about yourself is someone you should get out of your life as quickly as possible.” (Catlin Johnstone, “Fifteen Useful Facts”. July2/23 blog post.)

 

Cheers, Jake.

____________________________________________________________

 

* Russia is not invited, so I don’t see how this is a serious venue for any peace negotiations, especially if Ukraine continues to present unrealistic demands and acts  the spoiler at the event.

 

+  Scott Ritter, in an interview on the “Garland Nixon” podcast, mentions the Polish-Baltics' unofficial talks at the 50:00 minute of the video. 

 

    "You stole my PRECIOUS!!!"

1. A smarmy, though interesting, 2022 Foreign Policy article provides background on the cancelled INF Treaty which "forbids both sides from developing land-based missiles and launchers that could hit targets between 310 and 3,400 miles away."  By 2018 the United States had deployed the (originally ship-borne) MK-41 anti-missile missile systems in dry land facilities in Romania and soon Poland, with the explanation they were to 'defend' against Iranian missile attacks.🤣 Russia protested, saying they were a violation of the treaty because they could easily be repurposed to fire nuclear payloads thus they should be considered as offensive, tactical weapons. “When we express concern about this, we are told, in effect: ‘Just trust us,’” Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the United States, wrote.

ANOTHER interesting, pro-NATO article in a RealClear Defense publication details the installation of the Aegis Ashore land-based anti-missile system in Romania beginning in 2010 (and Poland a few years later.) The article also provides background information on the George Bush administration's decision in 2002 to change its nuclear policy in terms of creating a missile defense system to prevent attacks on European soil. All the while, as the Mk-41 anti-missile systems were first proposed then deployed, Russia argued such a system was “capable of upsetting strategic stability.” 

The United States and NATO ignored Russian concerns, finally walking away from the INF treaty entirely in 2019 (Trump). One consequence of the West's bad faith dealing with respect to its nuclear treaties with Russia was Russia's R&D over the years into hyper-sonic missiles that could by-pass any anti-missile array. Another consequence is the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear missiles in Belarus this year.

TENSIONS ratchet up until something gives.³ Broken treaties are difficult to repair. Let's hope the New Start treaty, the final nuclear arms agreement still standing between the US and Russia, survives its pull-by date of 2026. [Because we might ring in 2027 with a bang! Ed.]

 

2. Nor, Kennedy says, will he run as a Republican as some wags have suggested. 

 

3. ONE COMMENTATOR mused that anti-Russian and anti-Putin sentiments in the collective West went into high gear after Russia's 2015 intervention in Syria. Syria's president, Bashar Assad, requested Russia's assistance combating radical jihadist militias, including the Islamic State (IS) who threatened the stability of his government. It should be noted that the CIA was funding these radical terrorists and fanatics at the time,  who, a short while ago, had been sworn enemies of America. Russia's continued intervention in Syria directly challenges American hegemony in the region, drawing a line in the sand, and signaling the declining power of the American empire for all the world to see. Putin did that and the American Deep State HATES him for it.  

AS AN ASIDE, America's animus towards the Russian president may go back even further. Putin came to power in 1999 and has been President or Prime Minister continuously ever since. From the first, he found it logical to think of Russia as a "European" nation; it's history had, until recently, been inextricably linked with the continent. During the 1990s  Russia was in a bad way following the collapse of the USSR in 1989. Its economy was in terrible shape and people were suffering. The population noticeably declined as living standards fell. At the time, Putin welcomed and needed foreign investment, from Europe and America, in particular, to restart the economy.

INTO this mix came Western oligarchs and financial institutions who saw a big "For Sale" sign up in Russia. Local oligarchs and their Western counterparts made billions stripping Russia of its wealth. After a few years of this abuse, Putin put a stop to it. He began to rein-in the wealthy elites, jailing some, banishing others. His policies curbed the worst excesses of both foreign and domestic carpetbaggers, and put Russia on the road to recovery and a secure sovereignty. Western oligarchs HATED him for stopping their fun. Too bad. So sad.

 

 

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