From exactly one year ago yesterday:

The Unz Review

The Crisis in Ukraine is not about Ukraine. It's about Germany

"The primordial interest of the United States, over which for centuries we have fought wars-- the First, the Second and Cold Wars-- has been the relationship between Germany and Russia, because united there, they're the only force that could threaten us. And to make sure that that doesn't happen." George Friedman, STRATFOR CEO at The Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs The Ukrainian crisis has...

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The Ukrainian crisis has nothing to do with Ukraine. It’s about Germany and, in particular, a pipeline that connects Germany to Russia called Nord Stream 2. Washington sees the pipeline as a threat to its primacy in Europe and has tried to sabotage the project at every turn. Even so, Nord Stream has pushed ahead and is now fully-operational and ready-to-go. Once German regulators provide the final certification, the gas deliveries will begin. German homeowners and businesses will have a reliable source of clean and inexpensive energy while Russia will see a significant boost to their gas revenues. It’s a win-win situation for both parties.

The US Foreign Policy establishment is not happy about these developments. They don’t want Germany to become more dependent on Russian gas because commerce builds trust and trust leads to the expansion of trade. As relations grow warmer, more trade barriers are lifted, regulations are eased, travel and tourism increase, and a new security architecture evolves. In a world where Germany and Russia are friends and trading partners, there is no need for US military bases, no need for expensive US-made weapons and missile systems, and no need for NATO. There’s also no need to transact energy deals in US Dollars or to stockpile US Treasuries to balance accounts. Transactions between business partners can be conducted in their own currencies which is bound to precipitate a sharp decline in the value of the dollar and a dramatic shift in economic power. This is why the Biden administration opposes Nord Stream. It’s not just a pipeline, it’s a window into the future; a future in which Europe and Asia are drawn closer together into a massive free trade zone that increases their mutual power and prosperity while leaving the US on the outside looking in. Warmer relations between Germany and Russia signal an end to the “unipolar” world order the US has overseen for the last 75 years. A German-Russo alliance threatens to hasten the decline of the Superpower that is presently inching closer to the abyss. This is why Washington is determined to do everything it can to sabotage Nord Stream and keep Germany within its orbit. It’s a matter of survival.

Also from Mike Whitney:

The Unz Review

Why Do Americans Hate Putin?

Why do Americans hate Putin? Tucker Carlson thinks he knows. Here's what he said: '... Democrats in Washington have told you it's your patriotic duty to hate Vladimir Putin. It's not a suggestion. It's a mandate. Anything less than hatred for Putin is treason. Many Americans have obeyed this directive. They now dutifully hate Vladimir Putin. Maybe you're one of them. Hating Putin has become the...

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... the central purpose of America’s foreign policy. It’s the main thing that we talk about. Entire cable channels are now devoted to it. Very soon, that hatred of Vladimir Putin could bring the United States into a conflict in Eastern Europe.

Before that happens, it might be worth asking yourself: What is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much? Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years? Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl?” (Tucker Carlson,”Americans have been trained to hate Putin, and will suffer because of it“, Fox News)

Is Carlson right, do Americans hate Putin because the media and the political class in Washington have told them to do so?

Yes and no. Yes, the media and the politicians have played a big role in the demonization of Putin. But, no, they’re not the main drivers of this smear campaign. That designation belongs to the plutocrats behind-the-scenes who use the media to attack Putin in order to promote their own globalist agenda. That’s what’s really going on; the news is being shaped to advance the interests of elites.

After all, what do the American people really know about Putin? Have they ever listened his speeches or read his statements following meetings with other world leaders? Have they ever tuned-in to his marathon 4-hour “ask-anything” Q&A sessions? Have they ever read transcripts of his interviews where he speaks candidly on critical policy issues, culture or religion?

No, of course, not. Everything Americans know about Putin they read in the media. And that’s the problem, because media despises Putin. And they despise him for the same reason they despise Trump, because the media’s wealthy owners see him as a threat to their political agenda. That’s the whole deal in a nutshell. Putin is not hated because he is a “KGB thug” or a “new Hitler”; that’s just public relations gibberish. He’s hated because he is an obstacle to the globalists achieving their geopolitical objectives. That’s the motive that drives this smear campaign. Putin has blocked them in Chechnya, South Ossetia, Syria and now Ukraine. He has derailed their grand plan to “pivot to Asia” and to encircle China with US military bases. He has been a thorn in their side for the better part of two decades and he has thrown a wrench in their loony plan to crush emerging centers of power and rule the world for the next century. That’s why they hate him, and that’s why they use their media to make you hate him, too. Check out this chart from a recent report at Pew Research:

WARS ARE ALL ABOUT POWER AND THE ECONOMY

Michael Anton, Will Ruger, & David Goldman Debate – “Empire and Economy: Great Powers in Conflict”

Intercollegiate Studies Institute September 27, 2022
https://youtu.be/fds-sBNbGBI

Michael Anton, Will Ruger, & David Goldman recently debated “Empire and Economy: Great Powers in Conflict” at the Intercollegiate Studies Institutes event called the American Economic Forum

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute is dedicated to educating the next generation of great Americans.

Asia Times

Breaking Russia? More like breaking ourselves

"We're going to bleed the Russians in the field!" was what one senior US Air Force official proudly claimed at an event I was speaking at last year. It made sense. At the time, Russia had illegally...

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America’s days as the primary player in Europe will close fast without a radical policy shift on Ukraine

... For America to get out of its current predicament, it must end its unflinching commitment to Ukraine and instead focus on shoring up NATO’s threatened eastern flank. NATO was a defensive multilateral alliance, not a vehicle for unilateral American power projection.

If Washington can get back to viewing NATO that way, a geopolitical catastrophe might yet still be avoided. Washington and Brussels must work to restore a semblance of diplomacy with Moscow, too.

If Washington continues pouring its resources, time and prestige into Ukraine’s lost cause, then the results will be as catastrophic for us as they were for Europe in 1914—and a Western victory under those conditions is not assured.

Whether Russia wins in Ukraine is not as important as what the ongoing conflict there will do both to the NATO alliance and America’s staying power in Europe. Presently, America’s days as the primary player in Europe are closing fast unless a radical policy reorientation can be affected.

Historical facts....thanks, something to learn from.  

Why don't you tell us all why Biden is like Hitler. Thanks!

The Spectator World

A history lesson for Joe Biden

The past never really repeats itself. When it comes to history, Heraclitus rules: you cannot step into the same river twice, mon brave

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... In 2014, during the consulship of the divine Obama, Vladimir Putin took the measure of his adversary and decided the time was ripe for a little military adventurism. He invaded and took possession of Crimea. Did he hold his breath? I do not know. Maybe. Obama stamped, or tapped, his feet; the “international community” tut-tutted. No one did anything. So Vlad relaxed and got on with his hobbies of hobbling journalists and riding stallions.

Then came Donald Trump’s first term. All beautiful people hated him. He was so infra dig. Those ties. That diction. The fast food. The fondness for proles. The unenlightened attitudes about the gods of Gaia, Gender and ESG. Appalling. But — or perhaps I should say “and” — he started no wars. And people like Putin, the diminutive Michelin Man in North Korea, the mullahs in Iran, and even Pooh-Bear in China sized up the Bad Orange Man and decided to tone down the belligerence and bide their time. Putin, for example, made no move in Ukraine during Trump’s first administration. Coincidence?

The Spectator World

How to win the war that everyone is losing

Imagine the good guys win tomorrow. What exactly will we have won? Ukraine was the poorest country in Europe even before the war. Afterward

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Russia is losing the war in Ukraine. So is Ukraine. And so are we.

Imagine the good guys win tomorrow. What exactly will we have won? Ukraine was the poorest country in Europe even before the war. Afterward it will remain as dependent on American dollars as it is now — and on American arms. Russia will not have disappeared, after all.

The last war-torn and impoverished country that required open-ended American support was Afghanistan. Yet all the weapons and funds we lavished on Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani failed to keep the Taliban at bay after we left. The money also didn’t help with Afghanistan’s corruption problem. Will it help with Ukraine’s? In 2021, Transparency International ranked Ukraine second only to Russia as the most corrupt country in Europe.

Volodymyr Zelensky, the Western media’s hero of liberal democracy, has banned political opposition. That may be understandable, if still lamentable, in wartime. But who will hold his government accountable after the war? The aim of any war is a superior postwar order. If the White House or global democracy gurus such as Anne Applebaum and Francis Fukuyama can’t offer a credible postwar scenario, we should assume this war will end like most of our others since the dying days of the Cold War.

Even the best of our wars since the End of History began have left us worse off. America backed freedom fighters defending their country against the Russians in the 1980s, but the Soviet Union’s loss in Afghanistan ultimately cleared the way for the Taliban’s victory. And Taliban-controlled Afghanistan hurt us on September 11, 2001, in a way the Soviet Union and its satellites had never dared.

The 1991 Persian Gulf War seemed like a total triumph at the time. Yet the war continued long after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait had been repelled in the form of no-fly zones enforced by American airpower. Our military presence in Saudi Arabia enabled Osama bin Laden to recruit enraged Islamists into al-Qaeda to wage campaigns of terror against us. America’s failed occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq were consequences of our earlier war to defend Kuwait.

[...]

The rationale for America’s support for Ukraine, after all, is that Ukraine is the first domino, and if it falls, the next might be a NATO member. America has the alliance to help us fight wars — the official line is that our allies are vital to our own security — but we have to fight wars to protect the alliance. And as our allies increase, the perimeter we must defend increases, too. Ask not where this stops but whether it ever does.

America is called upon to be the world’s policeman at a time when American policemen aren’t allowed to keep order in our own cities. Our parties believe democracy and constitutional government are fraying at home, yet also believe we can mobilize our people and their taxes to bring order to Ukraine, Russia and the South China Sea. Our republic was designed to serve the American people. Our leaders want the American people to serve the world. Americans themselves have only a limited willingness to do so, and when leaders like George W. Bush surpassed that willingness, the result was the election of a mildly antiwar Democrat, Barack Obama, and then a wildly anti-establishment Republican, Donald Trump.

YO MAX!!

Why didn't you read the editorial from an expert, to know ---  some MORE?