Antinuclear

The Ultimate End of NATO

By 2008 NATO had become a bloated edifice largely unrecognizable from the organization that had been created at its founding, in 1949. Its appetite for expansion knew no bounds, with membership offers being dangled before two former Soviet Republics, Georgia and Ukraine, and military engagements being initiated in North Africa and the Persian Gulf.

Once NATO began expanding, both in terms of membership composition and scope and scale of its non-European military commitments, it was obvious to any observer exercising a modicum of intellectual curiosity that NATO existed for the sole benefit of the United States.

Exposing NATO

By militarizing the Ukraine crisis, Russia has exposed the absolute military impotence of NATO. First and foremost, after dangling the bait of NATO membership before Ukraine for the past fourteen years, NATO was compelled to confess that it would not be able to come to the defense of Ukraine in case of any Russian military invasion because Article 5 only allowed collective defense to be invoked for NATO members, which Ukraine is not.

Germany, Biden was saying, is little more than a colony of the United States.

The Ultimate End of NATO,   Russia’s goal is not to destroy Ukraine—this could be accomplished at any time. Rather, the goal of Russia is to destroy NATO by exposing its impotence, writes Scott Ritter.  Consortium News 11 Feb 22, 

” …………………………………………. A Messy History.

Students of history might be experiencing what Yogi Berra once famously called “Déjà vu all over again” when examining the frenetic activities undertaken by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) today, as it responds to what it alleges is a provocative Russian military buildup along the Russian-Ukrainian border.

The Trans-Atlantic alliance is a strange amalgam of political, economic, and military belief systems cloaking a mass of 30 nations who manage the day-to-day activities of their organization through a consensus-based, collective decision-making process that is as unwieldy as it is inefficient.

Originally formed as a collective of 12 nations united by the desire, as the first secretary-general of NATO, Lord Ismay, once quipped, “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”, the Trans-Atlantic alliance was, first and foremost, a club comprised of nations which had two things in common—a shared belief in the primacy of democratic governance, and a desire to be protected under the umbrella of American military power.

Early on the alliance witnessed a period of expansion, as it grew to 16 nations following the admittance of Turkey, Greece, Spain, and Portugal. These 16 nations served as the foundation of NATO throughout the Cold War, united in their determination to stand up to any potential Soviet aggression targeting the territory of western Europe.

NATO was always, from a political standpoint, a mess. Strong pro-communist movements in France and Italy led to the unseemly situation where the intelligence services of an allied nation, the United States, were engaged in manipulating the domestic political affairs of two ostensible allies to keep the communists out of power.

West Germany carried out its own unilateral Ostpolitik, seeking better relations with Soviet-occupied East Germany, much to the consternation of the United States. France, offended by what it (rightly) believed to be the dominance of the United States in the military command structure of the alliance, withdrew its military from NATO command authority. And Turkey and Greece were engaged in their own regional Cold War which, in 1974, went hot over the island of Cyprus.

The glue that held the alliance together was the collective defense provisions of Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which provides that if a NATO Ally is the victim of an armed attack, each and every other member of the Alliance will consider this act of violence as an armed attack against all members and will take the actions it deems necessary to assist the Ally attacked.

For much of the Cold War, the NATO alliance was configured militarily so that there was little doubt as to what actions would be taken, with a standing NATO army deployed in West Germany in constant combat readiness, prepared to repel any attack by the Soviet Army and its Warsaw Pact allies. Likewise, NATO maintained significant air and naval forces deployed in the Mediterranean Sea ready to confront any Soviet aggression there. These forces were anchored by a massive standing U.S. military presence comprising hundreds of thousands of troops, tens of thousands of armored vehicles, thousands of combat aircraft, and hundreds of naval vessels.

This full-time presence of concentrated combat-ready military power, prepared as it was to fight at the drop of a hat, gave the Article 5 obligation far more gravitas than it perhaps deserved. The reality of Article 5 is such that, upon its invocation, Allies can provide any form of assistance they deem necessary to respond to a situation based upon the circumstances.

While this assistance is taken forward in concert with other Allies, it is not necessarily military in nature and depends on the material resources of each country. In short, Article 5 leaves to the judgement of each individual member country to determine how and what it would contribute in the case of its invocation.

With the end of the Cold War in 1990-91 came the dismantlement of this full-time combat-ready military force. The unified nature of the NATO military component that existed in the 1980’s ceased to exist barely ten years later, with each member state carrying out its own demobilization and restructuring based upon domestic political requirements, and not the requirements of the alliance.

NATO Goes on Offense

During this time NATO also watched its long-held mantra of being a purely defensive alliance fall to the side as it engaged in offensive military operations on the soil of the former Republic of Yugoslavia, and non-member, and a offensive bombing campaign against Serbia, despite Serbia not having attacked any NATO member.

This deconstruction of NATO’s military capabilities and status as an exclusively defensive organization took place hand in glove with a decision by NATO to expand its membership to include the former members of the Warsaw Pact, beginning with the accession of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in 1999. The enlargement of NATO was seen as achieving two objectives—from the NATO perspective, it brought most of Europe together into a single collective of allied parties who, because of their membership, would contribute to the overall stability of Europe.

But there was another perspective at play, that being that of the U.S.. While NATO responded to the U.S. invoking of Article 5 after the 9/11 attacks, providing airborne surveillance aircraft for North American patrols and naval forces in the Mediterranean Sea, several core members, led by Germany and France, balked at becoming involved in the post-9/11 military misadventures of the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This prompted then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to make a quip denigrating “Old Europe” at the expense of “New Europe.” The continued expansion of NATO eastwards, absorbing all of the former nations of the Warsaw Pact along with three former Soviet Republics in the Baltics not only pushed NATO’s geopolitical center of gravity further east, but also put NATO on a collision course with Russia, whose opinion most NATO members had conditioned themselves to ignore.

NATO went on to provide military and police training support to Iraq in 2004, following that nation’s defeat at the hands of a military coalition which included the U.S., U.K., and Poland providing combat troops, and Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands providing political support.

Likewise, NATO contributed significant military forces to reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. These troops operated under Article 4 authorities after the U.S. brought the Afghan situation post-9/11 to the attention of the general membership, which voted to authorize member states to deploy to Afghanistan in support of U.S. reconstruction and nation-building operations.

In 2011, NATO engaged in offensive military operations in Libya, part of a larger political campaign to remove the Libyan leader, Muammar Qaddafi, from power.

A US Adjunct

By 2008 NATO had become a bloated edifice largely unrecognizable from the organization that had been created at its founding, in 1949. Its appetite for expansion knew no bounds, with membership offers being dangled before two former Soviet Republics, Georgia and Ukraine, and military engagements being initiated in North Africa and the Persian Gulf.

While the bloated organizational structure of NATO looked impressive on paper, there were two realities that no amount of puffing and posturing could obviate. First and foremost was the absolute dearth of real military power on the part of the non-U.S. NATO components.

 To support and sustain their respective military commitments to Afghanistan, the major NATO nations involved—Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy—were forced to cannibalize their overall military capability to surge their respective military components forward. Even then, none of these nations could accomplish their Afghan mission without the logistical support provided by the United States.

This over-reliance upon U.S. military capacity only underscored the inconvenient reality that NATO had become little more than an adjunct of U.S. foreign and national security policy. The U.S. had always played an oversized role in NATO. If this was singularly focused on preserving European security, the non-U.S. members of NATO could deceive themselves into believing that they were co-equal partners in a defensive-oriented Trans-Atlantic arrangement.

Once NATO began expanding, both in terms of membership composition and scope and scale of its non-European military commitments, it was obvious to any observer exercising a modicum of intellectual curiosity that NATO existed for the sole benefit of the United States.

Nothing drove this point home more than the humiliation NATO suffered at the hands of the U.S. when it came to the abandonment of the Afghan reconstruction mission. The decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was made unilaterally by the United States, without consultation. NATO, faced with a fait accompli, had no choice but to do as ordered, and leave Afghanistan with its tail between its legs.

The ultimate humiliation was yet to come. Nothing takes place in a vacuum, and the expansion of NATO, combined with its offensive re-orientation, drew the ire of Russia, which took extreme umbrage over the encroachment of a military alliance no longer bound by the constraints of collective self-defense, but rather imbued with a post-Cold War posture built around the notion of containing and constraining a Russia which was recovering from its post-Soviet collapse malaise and, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, was actively restoring it position as a regional and global power.

NATO Fissures

Russia had, since 2001, been sounding a claxon call about NATO expansion and the threat it posed to Russian security interests. These calls were ignored by NATO and its U.S. masters, largely because they believed Russia to be too weak both militarily and economically.

While NATO chased post-9/11 ghosts in the Middle East and Afghanistan at the behest of its American overseer, Russia worked to reform its economy and military. In 2008 Russia defeated Georgia in a short but violent war precipitated by a Georgian military assault on the breakaway territory of South Ossetia. In 2014, Russia responded to the U.S.-orchestrated Maidan coup that ousted the democratically-elected president of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovich, by annexing Crimea and throwing its support behind pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region of Ukraine.

The important thing to note about the current crisis in Ukraine is that while the underlying issues are solely the byproduct of NATO overreach, the timing of the crisis is based upon a Russian timetable defined by purely Russian goals and objectives. The goal of Russia is not to destroy Ukraine—this could be accomplished at any time. Rather, the goal of Russia is to destroy NATO.

This will not be accomplished through the direct use of military force, but rather the indirect threat of military action which forces NATO to react in a way which exposes the impotence of an organization which long ago lost its raison d-etre, collective defense, and instead flounders under the weight of a mission—the containment of Russia—it cannot achieve, and which its membership is not united in pursuing.

Here are a few statements of fact—the Russian military would defeat any force NATO can assemble in a stand-up conventional fight. The entire notion of collective self-defense is predicated on the ability to deter any potential adversary from considering military action against a NATO member because the outcome—the total defeat of the attacking party—was never in dispute.

While a truly defensive alliance would have the moral authority to call out the build-up of Russian military power around Ukraine as un-duly provocative, NATO has long since lost the ability to apply that label to itself with any degree of seriousness. From the standpoint of Russia, when the same “defensive” alliance which bombed its ally Belgrade and worked to overthrow the leader of Libya puts its sights on acquiring Ukraine and Georgia as members, such actions can only be viewed as aggressive, offensively oriented-measures that function as part of a broader anti-Russian campaign.

Exposing NATO

By militarizing the Ukraine crisis, Russia has exposed the absolute military impotence of NATO. First and foremost, after dangling the bait of NATO membership before Ukraine for the past fourteen years, NATO was compelled to confess that it would not be able to come to the defense of Ukraine in case of any Russian military invasion because Article 5 only allowed collective defense to be invoked for NATO members, which Ukraine is not.

Moreover, the “massive” economic sanctions that NATO has promised to unleash in lieu of a military response have turned out to be as impotent as NATO’s military power. Despite what the political leadership of NATO and the United States may say to the contrary, there is no unity of purpose when it comes to imposing sanctions on Russia in the event of a military incursion into Ukraine.

In short, any sanction package that targets Russian energy and/or access to banking institutions will hurt Europe far more than Russia. While the United States continues to push for Europe, and in particular Germany, to wean itself off Russian energy supplies, the fact is there is no viable alternative to Russian energy and, moreover, Europe is increasingly recognizing that the U.S. position has less to do with European security and more to do with a play by the U.S. to grab the European market for itself.

Under normal conditions, the U.S. cannot compete with Russia in terms of price and volume when it comes to natural gas deliveries. If, through sanctions, the U.S. can cut off Europe from Russia, then the U.S. will be able to impose its own energy products on Europe at prices that otherwise would be uncompetitive.

NATO’s Realization

The individual members of NATO are beginning to awaken to the reality that their organization is little more than an impotent tool of American global hegemony. Hungary has cut its own gas deal with Russia, in defiance of U.S. directives to pull back. Croatia and Bulgaria have made it clear that they will not be deploying troops in support of NATO posturing on Ukraine.

Turkey has stated that it views the Ukraine crisis as little more than a thinly disguised effort by NATO and the U.S. to weaken Turkey by forcing it to fight Russia in the Black Sea. But perhaps the most telling moments came when the two European powerhouses of NATO, Germany, and France, were compelled to come face to face with the reality of their subservient role vis-à-vis the U.S..

When French President Emmanual Macron flew to Russia to try and negotiate a settlement to the Ukraine crisis, he was confronted with the reality that Russia won’t negotiate with France without the U.S. first expressing support for the positions being put forward by the French President. The U.S. matters; France does not.

Likewise, the German chancellor was forced to stand mutely during his visit to the White House while U.S. President Joe Biden “promised” that he would unilaterally shut down the NordStream 2 pipeline project, even though the U.S. had no role to play in the construction and administration of the pipeline. Germany, Biden was saying, is little more than a colony of the United States.

The final nail in the NATO coffin came on Feb. 4, when the Russian president met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. The two leaders issued a 5,000-plus word joint statement in which China threw its weight behind Russia’s objection to NATO expansion into Ukraine.

The Sino-Russian joint statement was a de facto declaration that neither Russia nor China would allow the U.S.-led “rules based international order” being promulgated by the Biden administration to go forward unchallenged. Instead, the two nations announced that they will be pursuing a “law based international order” which draws on the United Nations Charter for its authority, in contrast to unilateral rules which only serve the interests of the U.S. and small blocs of allied nations.

A Different World

The world has fundamentally changed. NATO literally has no relevance. Its last gesture of defiance lays in the deployment of forces into eastern Europe to bolster the defensive capabilities of that region in accordance with Article 5. The forces deployed—a few thousand American paratroopers, and a smattering of other contingents from other NATO nations—not only cannot defeat a Russian adversary, but doesn’t even provide a modicum of deterrence value should Russia be inclined to shift its sights away from Ukraine toward Poland and the Baltics.

What NATO doesn’t realize is that Russia has no intention of invading either Ukraine or eastern Europe. All Russia has done is demonstrate the empty shell that NATO has become by underscoring just how empty the Article 5 promise of collective defense truly is.

In this regard, one should view NATO’s current round of muscle flexing as the modern-day equivalent of Picket’s Charge, the high-water mark of the Trans-Atlantic alliance. In the weeks and moths to come, NATO will be faced with the reality that Russia is not invading anyone, and that the muscle flexing it is currently engaged in is not only not needed, but worse, unsustainable.

The fractures exposed in NATO’s membership when it comes to Ukraine will only grow larger over time. It may take years for NATO to go away, but let no one be fooled by what is happening—NATO is finished as an alliance.

Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.  https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/11/the-ultimate-end-of-nato/

February 14, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Clean South Australia – No Waste

 https://www.ourfuturesa.org.au/clean_state_no_waste?fbclid=IwAR2kqw02naA6-CEmchvXavaipyb3nhJRoeZDIsci8A6y-O-xVxMUDa3LS-QSA has been a national leader in waste management and the circular economy, including our highly successful and popular container deposit scheme, and bans on plastic bags and single-use plastics. 

However, per capita, our waste levels remain amongst the highest in the world. We need to step up our ambition.

Concerningly, we also face a Federal Government plan to impose a nuclear waste dump on our state, despite the fierce opposition of the Barngarla Traditional Owners.

We are asking the parties to commit to:

	Actively opposing the Federal Government’s attempt to impose a temporary intermediate level nuclear waste facility in SA.
	Publicly advocating for intermediate level waste (which needs to be kept safe from humans for 10,000 years) to continue to be stored in situ at Lucas Heights until a comprehensive, permanent (deep geological) solution is in place for the disposal of Australia’s long lived radioactive waste.
	Expanding the successful and popular Container Deposit Legislation scheme to all glass (including wine and spirit) bottles, and plastic milk bottles.
	Diverting 90% of municipal solid waste (MSW) from landfill by 2023, including state-wide comprehensive organics and food waste recycling.
	Pushing nationally for an urgent phase-out of plastic waste in packaging through extended producer responsibility and a ban on the sale of products containing micro-plastics/micro-beads.

February 14, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Temporary spent nuclear fuel storage isn’t temporary.

It is difficult to believe the nuclear power industry and the federal government are so unethical that they would defer the difficult and dangerous task of spent nuclear fuel disposal to future generations of Americans. The present generation must find a permanent disposal solution.

Temporary spent nuclear fuel storage isn’t temporary  https://www.santafenewmexican.com/opinion/my_view/temporary-spent-nuclear-fuel-storage-isnt-temporary/article_068d44e0-854c-11ec-b25d-a70bff5372b1.htmll By Dennis McQuillan, 13 Feb 22,   The proposal to “store” spent nuclear fuel in New Mexico is a Trojan horse that will defeat the goal of geologically isolating this highly radioactive and chemically toxic material, and create hazards to future generations of Americans.

At face value, the plan is to consolidate up to 10,000 canisters of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants across the United States, store them in New Mexico for decades or even a century, and transport them to an undetermined permanent disposal facility that the federal government will someday establish.

In reality, after more than six decades of using nuclear power to generate electricity and amassing 90,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel, neither the industry nor the federal government has established a permanent repository for the fuel. Moreover, after Nevada stakeholders rejected the Yucca Mountain site, federal funding and efforts to find another potential spent nuclear fuel repository ended in 2010.

The citizens of New Mexico have every reason to doubt that deposits at the interim storage facility would ever be moved. Even if a future repository is established, there is no guarantee the funding and determination to dig up and relocate 10,000 canisters of spent nuclear fuel would exist at that time.

What is certain is this: Spent nuclear fuel will remain dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years, and the interim storage facility will not provide geologic isolation.

As proposed, the fuel would be buried at depths less than 100 feet in young alluvium in a region with shallow groundwater, land subsidence and sinkholes, amid one of the most prolific oil patches in the nation. By contrast, radioactive waste generated by national defense activities is isolated 2,150 feet underground, in 250-million-year-old salt beds, at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The proposed interim storage facility is geologically unsuitable even for a period of decades.

It is difficult to believe the nuclear power industry and the federal government are so unethical that they would defer the difficult and dangerous task of spent nuclear fuel disposal to future generations of Americans. The present generation has benefited from electricity generated by nuclear power, and the present generation must find a permanent disposal solution.

New Mexico executive agencies, Attorney General Hector Balderas, state Sen. Jeff Steinborn, Reps. Matthew McQueen, Tara Lujan and other state legislators, are working to stop this geologically unsound, dangerous, unethical and disingenuous proposal to “store” spent nuclear fuel in New Mexico. But federal action is necessary. Congress urgently needs to give the federal government a statutory directive, and funding, to complete the mission of finding a permanent repository for the geologic isolation of spent nuclear fuel. Dennis McQuillan is the former chief scientist of the New Mexico Environment Department and lives in Santa Fe.

February 14, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

South Carolina Bill to compensate the region for federal govt’s failure to clean up plutonium contamination

The Senate Finance plan is a big win for our region,” Young said Wednesday. “Since 2015, our county’s legislative delegation has worked to address the federal government’s failure to remove the stored plutonium and the failure to fulfill the” promise of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, a never-finished nuclear fuel plant at the Savannah River Site.

Plutonium settlement spending bill heads to S.C. Senate, By Colin Demarest cdemarest@aikenstandard.com, Feb 9, 2022

A bill divvying up money South Carolina secured from the federal government for its failure to remove plutonium from the Savannah River Site is now headed to the Senate, after a finance panel wholeheartedly endorsed the measure Tuesday.

February 14, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

“Australia is falling behind:” Clean energy investment shackled by outdated rules — RenewEconomy

Investors see an optimistic future for Australia’s clean energy sector, as long as regulators remove the roadblocks. The post “Australia is falling behind:” Clean energy investment shackled by outdated rules appeared first on RenewEconomy.

“Australia is falling behind:” Clean energy investment shackled by outdated rules — RenewEconomy

February 14, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

“The lights will stay on:” Coalition and Credlin slammed for misinformation on renewables — RenewEconomy

Clean Energy Council takes unusual step of publicly calling out Murdoch media and Coalition ministers for peddling misinformation on renewables. The post “The lights will stay on:” Coalition and Credlin slammed for misinformation on renewables appeared first on RenewEconomy.

“The lights will stay on:” Coalition and Credlin slammed for misinformation on renewables — RenewEconomy

February 14, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Taylor and department invited Santos to promote CCS in Australia’s pavilion at Glasgow — RenewEconomy

Angus Taylor and the federal energy department actively sought out Santos’ presence in Australia’s official pavilion at COP26, senate estimates hears. The post Taylor and department invited Santos to promote CCS in Australia’s pavilion at Glasgow appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Taylor and department invited Santos to promote CCS in Australia’s pavilion at Glasgow — RenewEconomy

February 14, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Independents want rooftop solar scheme to support two million home batteries — RenewEconomy

Helen Haines says a proposal to reward batteries with renewable energy certificates could see an extra two million household batteries installed. The post Independents want rooftop solar scheme to support two million home batteries appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Independents want rooftop solar scheme to support two million home batteries — RenewEconomy

February 14, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

People are prepared to vote for stronger climate policies

People are prepared to vote for stronger climate policies

The Coalition and Labor are seeking to discourage voters from turning to independents and minor parties, but their failure to achieve long-lasting policy change has voters looking elsewhere.

February 14, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The revolution will be electrified – 7am podcast

The revolution will be electrified – 7am podcast

Australia has long been considered an international pariah on climate policy. But one Australian — a former climate adviser to US President Joe Biden — thinks that we’re uniquely positioned to become one of the most successful zero-emission economies in the world. Today, inventor and scientist Saul Griffith on his plan to transition Australia into a clean energy future.

February 14, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The RAND Corporation’s plan for regime change in Moscow.

RAND Corporation study calls for regime change in Moscow, http://space4peace.blogspot.com/2022/02/rand-corporation-study-calls-for-regime.html Bruce Gagnon,13 Feb 22,

Obama’s ambassador to Ukraine made a trip to US-NATO training base in western Ukraine (where the Nazis predominate). US Special Forces are rotated into the base from Ft. Carson, Colorado to train the Kiev regime’s Army. Many of the Nazis have been brought into this ‘new military unit’.

More than 27 million people in the former Soviet Union died during Hitler’s WW II invasion. Imagine how Russians today feel when they see the US arming, training and directing Nazi forces to attack the Russian-ethnic citizens living in the Donbass region of Ukraine, right next to the Russian border.

Imagine how Moscow felt when they first read this RAND Corporation study. When we look at current events can we notice the direct connection to the points from this study listed below? Whether it is US-NATO military expansion right up to Russian borders or efforts by Washington to kill the Nordstream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany – it is clear that there is a method behind US-NATO madness. If you were sitting in Russia’s shoes how would you react to these proposals below – many of which have been or are now being implemented?

Despite these vulnerabilities and anxieties, Russia remains a powerful country that still manages to be a U.S. peer competitor in a few key domains. Recognizing that some level of competition with Russia is inevitable, RAND researchers conducted a qualitative assessment of “cost-imposing options” that could unbalance and overextend Russia.

February 14, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

USA’s plan – far right Ukrainian militia to attack Russia-speaking Donbass Region – drawing Russian support – USA then to claim Russia aggression

Al Ronzoni <aronzonijr@msn.com> wrote:

The World Socialist Website also confirms from sources in Donetsk that it actually looks like Ukraine will make the first move v. them and Luhansk. Then, if Russia responds in any way, that will constitute the “invasion,” then Menendez “Mother of All Sanctions” will be imposed and Nord Stream 2 will be cancelled.  Hell, even if Russia doesn’t actually do anything, the fact that fighting will be taking place , ‘fog of war” etc. can be used to still claim Russia has invaded. No doubt Biden and US leadership think this can be “managed” with Russia embroiled in a protracted conflict in the Donbass Region that can be capitalized on to marginalize Russia’s economic relations with Europe, in favor of the US and to make further NATO expansion, perhaps now including Sweden and Finland, easier. 

Another brilliant essentially neo-con type plan. What could go wrong?

US accelerates troop deployments as Biden threatens “world war” with Russia, WSWS,Alex Lantier, Johannes Stern, 12 February 2022  

As Washington and its NATO allies work to militarily surround Russia, US officials yesterday declared that a US-Russia war is imminent.

Yesterday, Washington announced the deployment of 3,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division to bases in Poland, which borders Ukraine. Britain and Germany will send hundreds of soldiers to strengthen NATO battlegroups in Estonia and Lithuania. This comes after NATO countries have for weeks delivered Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and Turkish TB2 Bayraktar drones to the Ukrainian regime in Kiev.

Nearly two decades after Washington invaded Iraq based on lies that it had “weapons of mass destruction,” US imperialism and its NATO allies are concocting a strategy to trigger a war with Russia, a nuclear-armed power, under conditions where they can blame Russia for it. Reports of mounting Ukrainian military activity in the Donbass region suggest that a NATO-backed military provocation can be staged there to trigger the war.

The narrative NATO is peddling—that it is acting to defend Ukraine from Russia—is a pack of lies. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has publicly declared that Russia’s military posture is not consistent with plans for an all-out invasion of Ukraine. Moreover, when reporters challenged US claims that Russia is preparing an attack, State Department spokesman Ned Price could do nothing but argue that undisclosed “intelligence information” meant his claims were true.

In 2014 … the NATO powers backed a putsch in Kiev, where far-right militias toppled a pro-Russian Ukrainian president and set up a NATO puppet regime. As these militias backed by NATO mercenaries attacked Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine like Donbass and Crimea, these areas broke off from Ukraine, with Crimea voting to rejoin Russia. Since then, far-right Ukrainian militias have faced off against Russian troops in Crimea and Russian-backed militias in the Donbass.

…………. Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine are reporting highly advanced NATO war preparations. Yesterday, Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) leader Denis Pushilin cited Biden’s call on US citizens to leave Ukraine, warning that war was imminent. “The US President, probably, given US influence in Ukraine, has information that allows him to make such statements and take such a position. … Ukraine may attack at any moment. Ukraine has everything ready for that: the concentration of forces and means makes it possible to do it at any moment, as soon as a political decision is made.”

On February 9, the DPR Militia’s Deputy Chief Eduard Basurin said Ukrainian tanks are taking positions only 15 kilometers from theirs, near Avdeyevka, Gorlovka and Novgorodskoye. Yesterday, Basurin said Ukrainian forces also deployed an S-300 missile system.

Such deployments violate the 2015 Minsk accords, which temporarily froze the Ukraine conflict and sent the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor the front line. Basurin said, however, that Kiev regime forces are using electronic jamming to prevent OSCE observers from using drones to observe these deployments. “It seems that OSCE observers are quite content with a situation where it is impossible to record violations by Ukraine,” he said.

Significantly, DPR forces last month warned, based on their sources in Kiev, that they expect an attack to come as soon as Ukrainian armored assault brigades are assembled and in position.

On January 28, Basurin said: “According to our intelligence, the Ukrainian General Staff under the guidance of US advisers at the Ukrainian Defense Ministry is putting final touches to a plan for offensive operations in Donbas. The date of aggression against the people’s republics will be set when the attack groups have been created and the operation’s plan approved by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council.”

These are conditions in which NATO could goad Russia, a nuclear power, into war. Were such an attack to begin, DPR forces would likely require Russian military assistance to avoid being overrun by far-right Ukrainian militias, which call for killing Russians and have bombed Russian-speaking Ukrainian cities near Russia’s borders. If Moscow intervened against this, however, it would provide grounds for NATO war propaganda, denouncing Russian aid to the DPR as an “invasion” of Ukraine……….. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/02/12/ukra-f12.html

February 14, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment