Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Avoiding War with Russia

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Editor’s note: This article was originally published in American Greatness in mid-January. Its message is all more relevant now.

In this war to end all wars, there will be no one to root for.

On Christmas Eve eve, the stylist cutting my hair asked what I was doing for Christmas.

“Oh,” I said, “I’m trying to write something that’ll talk us out of war with Russia. I feel like as soon as these holidays are over, we’re going to war.”

“Hmm,” she replied, not caught as off-guard as I’d have thought. “You’re not the first person today to talk about that.”

“Really?” Now I was caught off-guard. After all, most folks (especially at Christmas) tend to have other things on their minds besides foreign policy. “Was it someone from another country?” I asked. She shook her head. 

“An American?” I was puzzled. She nodded.

“Oh,” I epiphanized. “Military?” Another nod. “What did they say?” I asked.

“That there’s gonna be a war. Early in the year. He’s high up in the Air Force and told me he’s been traveling, selling/transferring weapons to the Marines; said they need it the most.”

“And this is for a war with Russia?” I double-checked.

“Yep. Don’t quote me or anything. I mean, I just met the guy, but my boyfriend has known him for 35 years and he basically said the military is preparing for war, and it’s going to be a world war.”

My blood ran cold. Everything I’ve been working to avoid, particularly these last two years through a monthly Washington Times column, was about to be actualized. 

I looked at my perpetually disheveled self in the mirror, at my dog-rescuer t-shirt, and muttered, “What’s the point of saving this or that dog when we’re about to get them all nuked anyway?” I thought of Russia’s poor creatures too and of my mother’s friend Sveta, the 1969 women’s table tennis world champion, who now tends to Moscow’s strays.

The stylist brightened. “Hey, my daughter is studying to be a vet tech in college!” I could barely muster a “That’s great.”

“Your hair looks so cute now! Look how it bounced right up. Wanna see the back?”

I wasn’t even aware of the large hand-held mirror she’d thrust toward me, waiting for me to grab it. I took it limply and stared but could see only black in front of my eyes.

So a nation collapsing unto itself before all the world is about to do what all the clichés tell it to do: distract and unite the herd with war.

It’s the Clinton Yugoslavia distraction from Lewinsky-Broaddrick—on steroids. Atomic ones. Yugoslavia is a country that no longer exists. The Washingtonians and their pent-up henchmen/masters running our military seek the same status for Russia. It’s all there in Washington’s eternal godfather Zbigniew Brzezinski’s book The Grand Chessboard. 

I somehow managed to drive to my mother’s house. I told her that, come the new year, we were going to war over Ukraine, the last straw for Russia of NATO’s voracious expansion.

“Over Ukraine?!” she sneered in Russian. “Listen, Russia is a crappy country, but a crappier country is Ukraine. For Ukraine to be a ‘vital ally,’ you’d have to have no friends at all.”

This comes from a woman of Ukrainian-Jewish blood who, like a lot of Soviet emigrés, has always relished Russia getting even what it doesn’t have coming. Her revulsion for the place extends to these shores—she calls immigrants with still too much Russia in them (and she can spot them a mile away) “nedoyehovshiye,” or not-fully-arrived. As if they’re still on the plane somewhere between Russia and America. 

My Odessa-raised father shared her undying hatred for the Soviet Union, where at six years old he gazed out at the Black Sea and asked my grandfather, “How might one get away from this place?” The look in my parents’ eyes when American liberals would defend the USSR, often with “But you had the Hermitage!” convinced me of every human being’s potential to kill. 

In other words, I was raised a bona fide Russophobe. But the anti-Russia hysteria that has engulfed our confederacy of dunces is ridiculous—and very dangerous.

An emergency NATO meeting on Russia was held January 7, ahead of last week’s European security negotiations. Could it be all for show, pageantry for a fix that’s already in? We’ve done it before, in 1999 going through the motions with Belgrade at the Rambouillet Accords before bombing it. That was the last time our government, media, military, and public were this aligned on an issue. For months, Ukrainian soldiers have been on the move with great confidence against a much stronger neighbor, as if war were a foregone conclusion. What do they know that we don’t?

Headlines from the talks have been uniformly downbeat, lowering expectations and narrowing options outside of war. Secretary of State Antony Blinken briefed the press that “We’re prepared to respond forcefully to further Russian aggression.” He promised “massive . . . economic, financial and other consequences.” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg came closest to spilling the beans, saying we needed to “be prepared for the possibility that diplomacy will fail.” According to Politico, he “was cryptic when pressed for details.”

Naturally, we’re projecting such tactics onto our target, with an ABC report characterizing Russia’s insistence on being taken seriously—after decades of eye-poking by us—as Vladimir Putin “seeking a pretext for war.” American officials’ “concern is that the Russians will emerge . . . declaring that diplomacy has failed,” a New York Times article read, “and that Mr. Putin will . . . carry out cyber [attacks on] Kyiv.” Lo and behold, the talks ended and Reuters informed us of “Ukraine suffering a massive cyberattack.”

Yet they call it “Russian paranoia” when Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu asks what the United States was smuggling into Donetsk the week before—apparently “containers with unknown chemical components.” As if convenient and sudden chemical attacks by our designated enemies haven’t been the M.O. when United States protégés are involved. Should we brace ourselves for some sort of “incident” that could scuttle all diplomatic and economic approaches, and “necessitate” war? No, thanks to our media dutifully citing Ukrainian military intelligence, we’re to expect only provocations being prepared by Russian special services. “Russia may try to fabricate a pretext for an invasion of Ukraine,” reports Reuters citing our own trusty intelligence agencies.

So even if Joe Biden was “hopeful” last month and ruled out U.S. military action over Ukraine, some things are as out of his hands as they were out of President Trump’s. Meanwhile, any attempt to avert World War III is pounced on by Republicans as Biden caving to Putin. Witness Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) reaction last week to an NBC headline (called inaccurate anyway by NSC spokeswoman Emily Horne) that read, “Biden admin weighs proposing cuts to U.S. troops in Eastern Europe.” Cruz tweeted, “If Biden was trying to signal weakness & surrender to Putin, what would he be doing differently?”

We’re supposed to believe that the current crisis started with Russia’s troop buildup and draft treaty demanding security guarantees, such as no staging of weaponry in the newer NATO states (states we had promised Mikhail Gorbachev would never become NATO states). In fact, these are a response not only to NATO advancing on Russia over the last two decades, but as the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs outlined last month in a protest letter, “The US military and its NATO allies have gone from attempts to test the strength of our border protection system to provocations against civilian aircraft . . . US and NATO military aircraft [have been] flying without radio communication or flight plans and failing to obtain air traffic control clearances . . . which violates basic principles of international air navigation.”

Russia’s military buildup is an attempt to be heard, to underscore the seriousness of what we’ve been doing there. Russia has been trying to tell us it has nowhere to which it can retreat. “We are not deploying our missiles over at the border of the US,” a Sky News report quoted Putin as saying. “The US is deploying its missiles . . . on the doorstep of our house. . . . And you keep demanding some guarantees from us. You must give us the guarantees.” The Russian leader recalled that in the 1990s Russia did much to build good relations with the United States. “He added that CIA advisers were able to visit Russian military nuclear sites . . . ‘What else did you need? Why did you have to support the terrorists in the North Caucasus . . . to reach your goals and break down the Russian federation?’”

But we don’t talk to prey. That’s why, days later, there was still no response from the State Department to the letter about our illegal air maneuvers. And it’s why our political class scoffs at the idea of giving any heed to Putin’s terms, practically everyone calling his proposal a “nonstarter,” despite his conditions essentially being an opportunity for us to unbreak our promises and show some integrity as the good-guy winner of the Cold War.

“Not gonna happen,” former CIA Director Leon Panetta recently swaggered on “Meet the Press.” Then Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), as if we haven’t been encircling Russia, deaf-toned with “If they do invade . . . we will move more NATO assets closer to Russia.” How much closer can we get? Russia is damned if it does, and damned if it doesn’t. 

As with Bosnia, our politicians are being egged on by the press. Reporters goaded Biden during his June summit with Putin, and last month Chuck Todd told former Ukraine ambassador Bill Taylor, “I worry that we have not given [Putin] consequences. He messed with Georgia, not a lot of consequences. He took Crimea, not a lot of consequences.”

Oh yes, the Putin of our imaginations just “messes with” neighbors. He invaded Georgia just because he wanted to, and not because we gave Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili the nod to invade South Ossetia; then Putin up and “took” Crimea, surely not because our Soros-sponsored operatives helped stage a Ukrainian coup against the Moscow-friendly government of Viktor Yanukovych, spurring a Crimean referendum that chose Russia. These events facilely enter the American lexicon as “Russian aggression,” such that right now Putin is about to “invade Ukraine” just because and not because we’ve been amping up Ukraine’s war preparations, practically buzzing Russian planes, or going on fly-alongs with trespassing British ships (see the HMS “Defender” incident). That’s without mentioning our performing military exercises on Putin’s borders, stoking his neighbors’ alienation of him, or liquidating nearby Yugoslavia, where America’s second-largest from-scratch military base promptly went up..

Provoke a reaction from the strawman, then start the clock for the public at the point of the reaction. It’s our Yugoslavia M.O. again. Watch for acts of self-defense in the early days of the war to be used as retroactive proof of hostility, where it had been missing in “hacking”; “bounties on Americans in Afghanistan”; “election meddling”; “electric-grid tampering,” and every other concoction against Russia that’s fallen apart.

“Look what Russia is doing!” we’ll scream as we continue on with our gushing, unifying, politically correct hatred of Vlad the Paler and consume a glut of Russian-villain TV and film, instead of understanding that it’s our government that’s brought us to the brink of Armageddon. After all, if they can do to us what they’ve been doing these past two years, why would we think they wouldn’t subject us to potential thermonuclear war? Our expendability is now a known quantity. 

Is this where anyone thought we’d be 15 years after Putin was on hand in Bayonne, New Jersey at the groundbreaking of the 100-foot September 11 monument that Russia gave us? “It is not every day that the president of Russia comes to visit a blue collar New Jersey town,” the New York Times coverage read, “but here he was, Vladimir Putin . . . clasping hands with the mayor, and speaking of Russia’s ‘unity’ with the United States.”

Even conservatives, usually more immune to propaganda, don’t recognize they’ve been conditioned by a protracted, skewed presentation of events. So Putin doesn’t even get points for warning against Wokeism, nor for vocalizing that January 6 prisoners are victims of political persecution and reeducation? In case some do give him points, trusted luminaries such as National Review editor Rich Lowry are there to keep us on track to war. “Vladimir Putin Shouldn’t Be a Right-Wing Hero,” read his headline in Politico last month. Russian-born libertarian columnist Cathy Young beat him to it in 2013 with the Boston Globe column “Vladimir Putin is no Ally for the Right.” At the same time, the Right’s taunts that our effeminate military can’t win wars have likely gotten under the skin of our military brass and given them something to prove. “And what better way to do that than to kill people,” Tucker Carlson recently quipped. Add our “dangerously angry” American public, and the pressure cooker needs a release. Russia is the proverbial It.

So will the by-now anti-Russian Right unite behind Biden’s America at war? Sure. They’ll be glad to fit in for a moment with the lobotomized, left-molded mainstream, and show they can eschew partisanship when it’s “truly important” (watch for those op-eds), not stopping to question whether an administration that has all but dehumanized them is fighting a war for us, or for itself.

Indeed, a war with Russia would fix everything: show strength, distract, and unite. Russia makes for the perfect target: the public is already primed against it; there are no ethnic tripwires; and we’re not economically dependent on it as with China. Which is why, as former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe complained to Maria Bartiromo in late 2020, when he would brief Congress on election security threats posed by China, Russia and others, lawmakers would immediately start leaking just the Russia parts. And it’s why Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley said in a 2015 interview, “I consider Russia the number-one threat to the United States . . . Russia is the only country on earth that has the capability to destroy the United States of America. . . . China is not an enemy. They are . . . developing themselves into a great power.”

As we know, in 2020 Milley phoned China behind President Trump’s back, to reassure his counterpart that we weren’t planning an attack. “If we’re going to attack,” he said, “It’s not going to be a surprise.” But China may have a surprise for him. The memory of China’s NATO-bombed embassy in our last Eastern European war of convenience isn’t so distant, so no doubt President Xi Jinping and Putin have gamed out what happens in the event of a NATO attack on Russia. Ironically, our inability to forgive Russia’s abandonment of communism and return to Christianity has pushed it into an alliance with today’s most powerful communist regime, one that we do fear jabbing.

Only Russia can destroy America, say America’s destroyers. Have they missed 2020-21? And yet, these past two years of COVID that we complain so bitterly about may turn out to have been a reprieve, a comparative quiet before the storm. We naively ask for a better 2022, when things really could get even darker. The overgrown boys with four stars on their lapels are eager to play with their explosive toys and there’s nothing we can do about it. 

But the powerful are prone to forgetting who’s actually in control. They consistently forget that they live in a diorama and are themselves mere figurines who, along with their high-tech death machinery, can be folded like paper at the Creator’s whim. They don’t have the right to destroy His diorama, and He may have sent emissaries to prevent it. Last year, the all-mighty Pentagon formally admitted to the existence of UFOs, to their constant presence since the dawn of the nuclear age, and to their recent crescendo. Early last month, TMZ and others broadcast footage from above Chino Hills, California, of what has been called a “swarm” of UFOs. One senses that such a display at this time isn’t mere coincidence. Nukes have gone offline mysteriously before. For now, however, we can only plead futilely, like victims to their killers, “Washington, you don’t have to do this.” 

Julia Gorin was a child refusenik in the U.S.S.R. and is a widely published opinion writer and humorist. She edited the comedic volume Hillarisms: The Unmaking of the First Female President, as well as “Clintonisms: The Amusing, Confusing, and Suspect Musing of Billary.”

Comments

  1. Avoiding War with Russia
    ……………..

    Hope so–I don’t want a war with Russia, either. Still, things have indeed changed since December–Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukrain is not nothing.

    And opposing Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine is *not* “dehumanizing Russians”. I have nothing against the Russian people, many of whom don’t seem to support this aggression, either. Nor is opposng this indicative of our supposed hatred of Russia for ditching Communism and nominally at least reembracing Christianity. I don’t know *anyone* who thinks like this.

    And if the rest of the world says nothing while Russia invades Ukraine, this does not actually make the world safer. Even if you consider Ukraine disposable as Julia Gorin apparently does, what about Poland, which Russia is also threatening? The Baltic States? The rest of Eastern Europe?

    And Russia is not the oinly one who will be emboldened. There is China’s threat to Taiwan, North Korea’s threat to South Korea, Iran’s threat to Israel–and plenty of other thugs eager to find a weak West.

    There is a great deal I like and respect about Julia Gorin, but her lauding Putin as a “statesman” I still consider mistaken.

    • The Russians don’t support this. It’s for Putin and his cronies to make more money from high oil and gas prices.

      The Deep State in the US is also making lots of DOLLARS from high energy prices. That’s how Bribed-man and Hunter made so much money quick.

      The Deep State rulers are lecturing humble, ordinary Americans about how it is their patriotic duty to accept HIGH ENERGY PRICES.

      Bribed-man and the TRAITOR CLASS are SCOUNDRELS.

      They are GASLIGHTING Americans worse than ever.

      • Yes–at least some Russians have been demonstrating against this savagery–and this cannot be an easy thng to do in Russia. I’m sure there are many more who just quietly disagree.

  2. Even assuming the expansion of NATO was an error (N.B., I am not of this opinion), what Putin has unleashed upon Ukraine is a thousand times worse than any expansion of NATO.

    NATO expansion didn’t kill a single Russian or destroy a single Russian city, town or village. Besides, does anyone really think that if NATO had not expanded, Putin would not have invaded Ukraine? Really? What if the three Baltic states had not come into NATO in 2004? Think Putin would not have invaded them by now, and thus arguably demonstrating that NATO expansion has PRESERVED peace and has not been detrimental to it.

    The expansion of NATO is far more of an excuse rather than an argument for Putin’s many misdeeds—even before his heinous invasion of Ukraine. Arguing that the expansion of NATO in any manner exculpates Putin is akin to arguing that the Versailles Treaty of 1919, whatever its faults, exculpated Hitler from all that he proceeded to do.

    Putin is a monster, evil to the core. He is a killer and demonstrative once again that Russia never learns—whether under Czars, First Secretaries or now Putin.

    Yes, Ukraine, contra a lot of Western reporting, is not a democracy. It is a faux democracy, deeply corrupt and just about the most dysfunctional country in Europe. But this no more gives a sanction to what Putin has done than maintaining that Kim Il-Sung’s invasion of South Korea was OK because South Korea under Syngman Rhee was not a democracy.

    If the West is only going to defend true democracies and no other polities ruthlessly attacked, then this is a losing game for the West. Guaranteed.

    • NATO became irrelevant the day the hammer & sickle came down, and the Russian red, white & blue (albeit in a different order) went up. What’s more, NATO showed itself to be a force for evil when it waged a war against Serbia to pry out Kosovo, while at the same time ignoring the Bosnian Serbs of Srpska, a territory in Bosnia contiguous w/ Serbia, who wanted to join Serbia. And by recognizing Kosovo, NATO helped establish the template that the Russians later went on to follow w/ South Ossetia in Georgia, Donetsk and Luhansk ‘people’s republics’, although so far not w/ Transnistria.

      The better solution would have been for NATO to have been disbanded, but the US to have bilateral arms sales to the likes of Ukraine, Baltic nations and Poland. That would have kept the frontier nations secure, but cut out all the countries in Europe that weren’t remotely interested in maintaining that defense spending. For instance, Ramstein base in Germany is just a jobs program for those Germans, and Germany has been one of our most reluctant allies since the absorption of East Germany into NATO

      John Bolton claims that Trump wanted to pull the US out of NATO in his second term. I too wish that it happens. The deal that Trump had w/ the Ukrainians, where he armed them to the teeth is partly what has enabled them to resist the way they have. Of course, had Trump still been there, Russia wouldn’t have invaded, since aside from not being able to predict what Trump might do, there were also carrots involved and not just sticks

      Incidentally, I just laughed when I read a report that Trump called for painting our aircraft w/ Chinese flags and bomb the hell out of Russia, so that they retaliate against Beijing. Insane as that might be, he has the right idea: the worst thing for the free world right now is a Moscow-Beijing axis: it’s far worse than the Berlin-Tokyo axis in WWII. Oh, and this group will also have the non-Arab part of the islamic bloc – Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan – as a part of such an axis

    • Wellington says

      “If the West is only going to defend true democracies and no other polities ruthlessly attacked, then this is a losing game for the West. Guaranteed.”

      Agreed.

      And, interestingly, Ukraine is more of a “democracy” than NATO member Turkey.

    • There is a question that comes to mind concerning the Putin – NATO relationship. Why should he be apparently so rattled by NATO?
      If he was so startled by NATO wouldn’t he behave a little more cautiously with regard to Ukraine?
      I don’t think he’s bothered by NATO nearly as much as the excuses he has offered would indicate, not when it should be obvious to him and his staff that NATO is structured defensively mainly.
      I think Putin’s NATO objections and accusations are just distractions because let’s face it NATO is/was not going to launch an attack on Russia and he knows it.
      He might not have foreseen the Polish fighter jet deal though and that could ruffle some delicate feathers. But anyway in that environment a few fighters aren’t going to live for very long. Some attack drones might be more effective.

  3. The pity is that if we had followed similar advice over the last three decades and not had the constant drumbeat of Russophobia all of this could have been avoided. As it is now Putin has become unhinged and has started a criminal war. Our problem is to figure out how to help the valiant people of Ukraine without plunging the world into nuclear holocaust. Interesting isn’t it how Putin’s enabler the genocidal Chicoms are given a free pass. So I must congratulate the American oligarchy and Deep State. Guys you have finally recreated the enemy you want in Russia. And indeed Putin is a real problem and a mass murderer. Nicely done guys. Now that you have the needed Russian enemy you can go back to your favorite pastime – Getting rich by selling out America to China.

    • rbla, the idea that Putin had to invade Ukraine because of “Russophobia” is mistaken.

      • Terry, if posters have an otherwise solid posting history–as rbla does if I recall correctly–I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

    • If Russia, rbla, from the fall of, a la Reagan, the Evil Empire had embraced four things—democracy (sham democracy does not count), capitalism (crony capitalism does not count), a decent and fair legal system, and a proper moral code, it could have been in NATO by now, as both Bush 41 and Clinton offered. But instead, Russia after the fall of the USSR went with a buffoon and drunk in Yeltsin and than an ex-KGB agent who is evil to his core. Just proving again that Russia never learns, whether under Czars, First Secretaries, Yeltsin or Putin.

      Whatever faults the West has, Russia has far more. Yes indeed, Russia never learns. Rather sick of Russia and if you weren’t Russian why would you want to be?

      • Putin is a thug but we have gotten along with a lot of thuggish leaders in the third world when it served our interests to do so. But as I said when he invaded Ukraine he crossed the line and we should figure out a way to counter that, hopefully without incinerating the northern hemisphere. You seemed to prove my point about Russophobia when you indicated that it does not matter who leads Russia and that Russia never learns. I hope we can get rid of Putin but apparently it would make no real difference to you.

        Re the always virtuous NATO. The point is often made that a country’s sovereign borders are inviolate and the Russian speaking east has no right to be separated from Ukraine. I agree with that in principle, but hey anyone remember Kosovo? That occurred even before thug Putin came to power. Clinton on behalf of NATO conducted a criminal war against Serbia, rather like what Putin is doing today. And that did not endear us to Serbia’s “big brother” Russia and also created another Muslim enclave in Europe. I also recall that there was another thuggish leader, Kaddafi, who though a real SOB was cooperating with us in keeping Muslims from flooding into Europe. Well another Clinton decided along with NATO that he had to go. And she giggled about it afterward.

        Russia is essentially a gas station with nukes. But among these various comments I hear no criticism of the rising power China. I dislike Islam as much as anyone here but that does not mean I favor the genocide against the Muslim Uighurs. There is also the repression in Hong Kong and the decimation of Tibetan culture. I guess many of you have funds or business interests that are making out quite well shipping American manufacturing to China and profiting from their slave labor. And if China does invade Taiwan I wonder if we will hear the same screams against Xi and China as we are, justifiably I reiterate, hearing against Putin and Russia. Follow the money as they say. But remember Putin could not succeed in what he is doing without the support of our wonderful Covid-spreading Chinese business partners.

        • rbla, I have spoken out against China and its threatening policies many times–so have others here. And I had great hopes for Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, but now Putin has made himself a dictator. Until the invasion of Ukraine, I often noted that they were still better than the Soviet Union, though.

      • You mean like the ‘democracy’ we have today, where wanting our kids to be taught the things that matter rather than indoctrinated on CRT and trans-sexual ideology gets us targeted as domestic terrorists? Or ‘capitalism’ where companies feel free to cancel us, whether it’s GoFuckMe deleting our accounts or credit card companies refusing to allow us to buy guns using the cards, or where consulting companies like McKinsey advise corporations to not just outsource but also offshore all their manufacturing to China, w/ the result that when our ports get shut down, our shelves are empty. That capitalism?

        Yeah, Russia has its faults, but if it has to follow the example of another country, why not a country like Vietnam? Which is communist-in-name-only, but has one of the freest markets in Asia

        • There is no doubt that the West is in trouble, and I and others often note that here.

          But the idea that the West is no freer or more democratic than a dictatorship–or an Islamic theocracy–is simply *not the case*. We are taking a stand to keep the West free–many other parts of the world have sadly never known this freedom.

      • “But instead, Russia after the fall of the USSR went with a buffoon and drunk in Yeltsin and then an ex-KGB agent who is evil to his core.”

        Yeltsin should have responsibly handed the baton to the Russian Parliament to choose whom they want as President and not to an unelected ex-KGB agent. The Russian Parliament should have been more responsible and said no to Putin tampering with the Constitution and ruining the check and balance it had against abuse of power (President for life). Now they again got themselves into the same mess as in the 1930’s with Stalin. When will they ever change?

    • I pretty much agree. NATO’s raison d’être ended w/ the Soviet Union, and it was worth winding up, just like the Warsaw Pact. Yet, NATO was expanded, and Russia never allowed in, giving the message that NATO regarded Russia as the replacement enemy for the Soviet Union. And as I point out above in response to Wellington, NATO also engaged in misadventures in Serbia, and also helped destabilize Libya

      Much as I disdain President Obama, I agree w/ him when he said to Romney that the 80s called and wanted their foreign policy back. In fact, in 2016, the bulk of Republican voters – not the McConnells, Bushes, Rubios or Fiorinas – voted for the Trump vision of better relations w/ Russia, as opposed to making them an enemy or a pariah state. That policy was successfully sabotaged primarily by the likes of Adam Schitt and Eric Swalwell, and today, we’re on the brink of WWIII

      Good going, Comrades – and I’m not talking about the guys in Moscow!

      • Infidel–again, the implication that Putin *had to* invade the Ukraine because Americans were not nice enough to him simply makes no sense.

        • I didn’t say that! Like I’ve noted, one can do both these things:

          ‣ Condemn the Russian invasion
          ‣ Condemn the policies on NATO as well as on Russia preceding this invasion

          It by no means lets Moscow off the hook, but it does question a lot of the geopolitical inertia that continued after the Cold War simply b’cos our foreign policy establishment were too lazy or intellectually lightweight to take a fresh look at geopolitical ground realities. Such as whether Turkey still belonged in NATO, let alone NATO’s own existence

  4. I predicted in a past Jihad Watch post that Russia would invade regardless of what the talking heads were saying, and yes, NATO deserves much of the credit for the 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine.

    It is difficult for people to realize that in human thinking, A is to B as B is to A. That is, Russia has viewed the US as being in every role the US ascribed to Russia.

    Now we are observing the clash of two corrupt nations in which the wise choice for 3rd parties is to obstain. Ukraine is selling purity and innocence through Zelensky, now an RFK-like visage, while truthfully, this is the nation that bought influence in the Biden family.

    The US has been here before with Vietnam. First arms, then advisors and technicians, then protection of those assets, then direct conflict.

    The US doesn’t have a fully functional executive and the resulting vacuum of power is going to lead to some rogue action that will take the US into a hot war. We, of course, as citizens, will get behind it and pray that it doesn’t reach nuclear levels. It will be the historians who point out how easily it could have been avoided.

    Get some popcorn and watch Peter Seller’s truthful caricatures of politicians and the military in, “Dr. Srangelove”

    • Westman, with all respect, the idea that invading a neighboring nation and being invaded are both equally corrupt actions does not hold.

      • That’s not the point. It’s not equity that they are both corrupt. And maybe we can pat ourselves on the back that we chose the less corrupt – if we are still here.

        • Westman, South Korea also had a problem with corruption during the 1950s and thereafter–that doesn’t mean that they would have been better off under the Communist heel. One can say the same re Taiwan and Communist China. Czechoslovakia may have had some internal issues in the late 1930s–being invaded by the Nazis did not improve things.

          Ethics can be clear even when the victims are not completely perfect.

          Do you *really* think that Russia invaded Ukraine because they are not a perfect democracy?

          Then, South Korea and Taiwan are full democracies today–this never would have happened if they were lost to tyranny.

    • With respect, Westman, Putin would have taken Crimea in 2014 and invaded Ukraine in 2022 even if NATO expansion had not occurred. NATO expansion is the excuse, not the reason. The reason is that, a la George Kennan, Russia has always seen it neighbors as vassals or enemies.

      Indeed, but for the three Baltic states joining NATO in 2004, Putin would have probably invaded them by now. Thus, NATO expansion, quite arguably, has preserved the peace somewhat rather than contributing to even more Russian aggression.

      The problem is not NATO expansion. The problem is Russia never learning. If Russia really had learned it would be in NATO by now, aligned with its best interests, i.e., the West, and not making alliances with thug regimes like China, Iran and Syria.

      • Sorry, I don’t buy it, Wellington. I think the US just couldn’t adjust to a new reality and missed its opportunity. The results are horrific, mothers and children fleeing, wounded or killed; almost reminiscent of the firebombing of Tokyo.

        • What new reality, Westman?

          Seems to me you are blaming America and the West more than Putin and Russia. I hope I’m wrong here.

        • Of course I’m not blaming the US more than Putin. However, there are no innocent parties to this conflict.

        • But what new reality are you talking about, Westman? And what opportunity did America miss?

          N.B. I am of Polish descent and the worst thing my Polish aunts and my own mother could say to me when I was a bad boy (which I was more often than I should have been) was, “you’re as bad as a Russian.”

          My brother traveled extensively in eastern Europe and he told me that with the exception of the Serbians no one likes or trusts Russia, that Russia is hated. Having taught many eastern Europeans myself, from Czechs to Estonians, what my brother conveyed to me was only substantiated by what I experienced as a college teacher. And again I reference George Kennan who asserted that Russia looks upon its neighbors as vassals or enemies. No one knows this better than the Poles, though their are many “competitors” here for this top “honor.”

          I would add that when Poland joined NATO in 1999 it knew it had its greatest ally in its over one thousand year history, i.e., America, because an attack on one NATO nation is an attack on every NATO nation. Russia hated this and this speaks volumes about Russia. And why deny Poland this magnificent ally in its cause to remain alive, independent and free?

          Your turn.

        • Westman, the idea that the unprovoked invasion of a nation and being the victim of an unprovoked invasion are both indicative of there being “no innocent parties” makes no sense.

        • Westman, Japan *attacked America*. Ukraine did *not* attack Russia as you imply.

    • With respect, gi, I did not think Julia Gorin was “lauding Putin as a “statesman” “, rather I think she is saying that the statesmanship of our political class has failed. Among other things, we failed to recognize and allay Russia’s perceived security concerns turning them toward China.

      Others, like Vladimir Posner, have been pointing out the same things as this article long before Putin’s horrendous invasion of Urkraine.

      I do not see much statesmanship from our political class, or media, on our side – I hear lots of escalation talk that can not lead to a peaceful resolution to avert a horrendous third world war that would certainly bring enormous death and destruction to our shores.

      For Pete’s sake, I am not saying that “our” failures justify Putin’s horrific invasion of a corrupt, but peaceful neighbor. “If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”

      May God help us avoid a nuclear war.

  5. Biden is trying to get oil from Venezuela, but Venezuela,and now Chile and Peru,both under Leftist governments,

    plus Nicaragua and Bolivia,Iran and Afghanistan,

    are all allies of CHINA. And China is the ally of Russia.

    a. If the price of oil goes up to $100/barrel, even Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,etc,allies of the US, will want to extend that situation as long as possible,at least ONE year.

    b. Will Biden authorize fracking,etc, the measures that had made America oil-sufficient?

    It is 90% probable that NO. Leftists in America are serious about the Destruction of Capitalism in the US and then the world. Now is the time,to authorize fracking operations, oil from Canada,etc,

    would Prolong the Life of Capitalism in the US. Impossible to do it,even if its $100/barrel of oil from abroad. It is Now or Never the Time to Destroy Capitalism as quickly as possible.

    • a. Venezuela being the ally of China,Iran,Russia, gives it importance,due to the fact that MOST of the world’s oil reserves are in Venezuela.

      Even more than in Saudi Arabia.

      Will the Leftist government there fall? No, More than 50% of the cocaine exported to the 20 million crack addicts pass through Venezuela. The Venezuelan government is a NARCO-TRADER one. It receives enormous cash from cocaine. It will Always have cash to stay in power.

      b. Leftist Bolivia supplies 60% of the cocaine produced,and Leftist Peru about 40%.

      The world’s Leftist movement will always have cash available,due to crack sales ( since NO medication exists to diminish the irresistible cravings of addicts, only going cold-turkey).

    • I am connected to a farming operation in the US and fuel is already a problem for us. Biden’s handlers think farming will just absorb the increased cost which is not the case. We will raise the price to match and in some cases reduce planting. Anyone who knows calculus will realize that maximum profit is not reached by simply absorbing costs and opting for maximum production.

      So expect much higher prices for food in the fall of 2022.

      • Here we are in agreement, Westman. Most every time Democrats say they are for the common man they engage in all kinds of stupid government initiatives that create inflation and which is the cruelest tax of all.

        You’d think by now more people would have learned that whenever Democrats say they are for the middle class, the working class, etc. they are either lying or manifesting their stupidity. Biden comes to mind.

        Really, only fools or worse vote Democrat and I say this as one who has many reservations about the Republican Party but the latter still remains a sane party. The Democratic Party is no longer a sane party.

        • Wellington says,

          “Most every time Democrats say they are for the common man they engage in all kinds of stupid government initiatives that create inflation and which is the cruelest tax of all.”

          Yes, and they also increase the national debt by having to substantially increase things like the Social Security COLA, heating oil financial assistance, etc.

        • Agreed, Westman–food prices were already going up before this due to out of control inflation under Biden.

  6. Rather Vladimir Putin be better and more fittingly categorized as a sociopath or a psychopath, the fact remains that he’s the one with the supreme power in the mighty nation of Russia and he is very dangerous.

  7. Did anyone bother to read all that “Avoiding War With Russia.”? Not only is it long, it is confusing. The simplest answer is to do in the Ukraine what we did in Afghanistan when the Soviet Union took it over. We gave the Mujadeen Stinger missiles to shoot down Russian jets and helicopters.

  8. The Russian flag from the bottom is: Red, Blue, White.
    In Russian this equates to: Krahsnly, Gahlooboy, Byehliy,
    K G B
    Get it?
    Just a little Russian joke Comrades.

  9. Putin likes being thought of as dangerous, it make him feel the POWER he has over the Russian people, he wants to go down in history as the one who restored Russia to the country they once where. I have the same thought when looking in the mirror at my old fat body, ain’t ever going to happen, without killing me. And sadly going back to the days of the old Russian rule wasn’t so great for the peasants at the time.

    Our problem is not with the Russian people, it’s with Putin and the goons around him. The Russian people for the most part don’t want to go to war, they want to live in peace just like the majority of us.

    Sadly it is the wealthy power hungry that want more and more control over everything..

  10. The leaders of the American Left are keen on never letting a crisis go to waste, so their reasons and intentions for coming “down on the right side” of this “issue” may not be so pure.

    • Keys, it is not just those on the left who fail to support the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In fact, most Americans oppose this.

  11. Putin is very willing to have the Russian military murder many people of Ukraine to conquer that nation the more Ukrainians who are killed the greater will be the resentment and hate for the Russians invaders and the more resistance the Putin’s invaders will have.

    If Putin does conquer, have to kill even more people and destroy the entire infrastructure of Ukraine.

    Therefore, if Putin “wins” this war he stated it will be an empty victory for him because he will lose the respect of all the leader of the different countries of the world and by all the people in those countries will detest him.

    All the people of the Ukraine will despise him for being responsible for the deaths of their family members and friends and taking their beauteous nation and making a total ruin out of it.

    It’s amazing that someone as intelligent Putin can also be so very blind to this obvious reality.

    Putin has already lost all respect; next, he will lose his position power and end up imprisoned.

    That prison will made for himself by his ordering all those horrendous bloody murderous violence by his wanting to invade and conquer Ukraine.

  12. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all your comments, such a clever and informed lot! (Well, nearly all)

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