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djean111's avatar

Hillary, as SOS, refused to sign on to the world-wide ban. The US is enthusiastically fine with cluster bombs. Inflicted on other countries, of course.

When Albright said that the sanctioned-caused deaths of perhaps 500,000 Iraqui children were okay, because the US achieved its goals, on 60 Minutes, FFS!, then more people really should have gotten a clue about where the US stands on inflicting death and destruction. I read that Okinawa was going to ask the UN to stop the US from building more bases in Okinawa, which makes Okinawa even more of a big fat target. It seems that is what the US builds best - military installations, all over the world, encircling Russia and China. Who's the warmonger?

Also, the NYT - surprisingly - concluded that the missile that struck a Ukrainian market and killed around 18 people, on the same day that Blinken went to Ukraine, was fired by and from ......Ukraine. Not as splashed around as the instantaneous blame on Russia when it happened. No mention of the way the footage taken by people who were there was doctored to erase the actual image of the missile coming in, reflected on the parked cars, of course. That clearly showed the direction that missile came from. Perhaps meant to prepare Zelensky for a lesser amount of "aid". I am thinking that Ukraine sees its citizens as little false flag opportunities, as little sacrifices, as grist for the West's mill.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

No, I'm not an Edward R Morrow wannabe. I just honor him by quoting him and I think it's a great quote. Besides, I don't think he would mind.

Thanks for the great points and the links. From what I've seen, MacGregor's been consistently right about the Ukraine war from the beginning, and he has no doubt been smeared for that thought crime.

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Theresa's avatar

Excellent synopsis!

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Mr. Raven's avatar

Thanks for sharing this. I can't afford paid subscriptions to anyone, so this is very useful.

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djean111's avatar

I am living on my Social Security. So - me too. And, hopefully, Biden will never get his ardent wish to cut Social Security; he is very proud of how many times he has tried, over the years. Maybe he just forgot.

Side note - I will never forget that official spokesperson trying to give Biden CREDIT for the bigger - INFLATION-CAUSED - increase in Social Security. Which we got because Nixon signed it into law.

I don't bother with mainstream dreck, I do likeYoutube for Scott Ritter and MacGregor and The Duran folks, for starters.

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Mr. Raven's avatar

Good choices along with Aaron Matte and the Grayzone ad Glenn Greewald I am trying to switch over to Rumble for video after the hit job on Russell Brand being my last straw with censorship there. I do finding it hopeful people are reaching across left right lines to listen to people like MacGregor, the real fight is the 99 percent v.s. the 1 percent, which is why this kind of Occupy type analysis was replaced with divisive woke propaganda from the establishment after Occupy. It's frustrating to me how much of the left bought into woke and Psy-ops like Breadtube. Caleb Maupin has a good book, Breadtube serves imperilism.

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Fargeen1's avatar

OK, well done rooting for Putin. Of course Russia is going to win this current thing eventually. Empires always win against numerically and militarily inferior political entities. History is replete with examples, including Russia’s and America’s… or Persia or Rome, for that matter.

For a while.

Empires. You know, like the US empire, or any other historical empires, including Russia’s Empire. The one thing that empires have in common is that they embrace and use power without respect to the interests of any other countries or cultures that they conquer. They may allow local Until, at some point, the subjects of the Empire rebel… Like most of Latin America and some other parts of the world, in the case of the US/formerly British Empire, and most of Eastern Europe, in the case of the Soviet (Russian) Empire.

The idea that Putin’s empire will be any different is laughable. You’re blind if you don’t see that Putin is every bit as ravenous and merciless as any other imperial leader. Just because he is in a pitched global battle against Western imperial ambitions doesn’t change that at all.

I don’t root for either one of them.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

Wrong on so many counts. For one thing, empires often lose to numerically and/or militarily inferior political entities. One need look no further than Afghanistan to see THAT. Three modern empires, three!, met their match in Afghanistan.

Ukraine will lose because their NATO-trained, very professional army that existed when the war began is mostly dead. The patriotic volunteers who flocked to the colors to replace them are mostly dead or unable to fight anymore. All that's left are unenthusiastic draftees. The Russians, on the other hand, mostly support the war. Like it or not, it's true, and they think they have good reason to do so.

And just who is rooting for Putin, anyway? The unnamed but probable CIA officer? Seymour Hersh? Me? No, none of us are. We just respect his intelligence more than anyone making decisions in our own government. At least the Russian people don't have to be embarrassed every time their president says anything in public.

I think we can agree that neither one of us can say that about our past two presidentes, anyway.

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Fargeen1's avatar

Yes, I know about the perfidy of our former presidents. I have no use for either of them.

But who knows what the Russian people actually think? Anyone there who casts doubt on the “special military operation“ (of course you can’t call it a *war*!) risks a lot, including unemployment and/or detention, and maybe worse. If they are embarrassed, they don’t dare say so. Just look at the number of formerly independent media sources in Russia, which have been forcibly closed or intimidated out of existence. (But of course we can’t, because they are all gone). Do most other countries that claim to respect democracy do that?

The fortunes of the war in Ukraine appear to change weekly, if not daily. I won’t presume to project the outcome of a conflict that has already been far more complicated and protracted than anyone on either side ever predicted. I don’t know how anyone half a world away, like you or me, can project an ending to this godawful mess.

In the meantime, lots of youthful and/or physically able Russian citizens are doing all they can to stay below the radar of enlistment offices. I don’t blame them. They are pretty much in the same situation as young Americans in the Vietnam era, doing anything they can to avoid going into that charnel house. Perhaps if Putin‘s government was more honest about the situation in Ukraine, more would be willing to lend their efforts to the fight… but no, that doesn’t work either, because no matter how you dress it up, imperial aggression just is what it is, whether Rome, Persia, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, the US, UK, 19th century France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, China, or Russia is behind it.

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djean111's avatar

"But who knows what the Russian people actually think?"

None of us, but you go ahead and purport to know. No, you do not. And, well, saying anything against Zelesnky puts one on a CIA-adminstered kill list, Zelensky has suspended elections, and jailed or disappeared anyone who is not for him. Banished any opposing press and opposing Parties. Keeping a US citizen jailed because he reported things against Ukraine - with, evidently, the tacit okay of the US. Also trying to drag back all the Ukrainians who fled Ukraine in order to not get killed. Issuing Interpol arrest warrants. Ukrainian men who seem eligible to be killed in action are hunted down and dragged off. Plenty of footage for that. Fair and balanced reporting is always good, eh?

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Fargeen1's avatar

No, I do not know. There is no “purport.” (Though this is starting to sound like Yoda here)

Impartial sources for your assertions above?

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djean111's avatar

I did not see any attribution to impartial sources for your assertions about what is happening in Russia. And Google is (or may not be) your friend. And perhaps there are no impartial sources - I do not think the West's $MSM can be considered more than lapdogs, though.

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djean111's avatar

No one is "rooting for Putin". You really seem mired in that trite old "if you are not with us, you are against us" thing. Well - I am not for Ukraine, I am not for what the US has been doing there. I am not for the Democrats OR the Republicans OR the Green Party OR any of the current candidates, except, perhaps, for RFK Jr., and that is a useless endeavor, really.

I respect Putin's intellect; I don't believe Biden has one. And I won't be doing the lesser evil cha-cha in regard to anything. And there is absolutely no point at all spending time rooting against Putin; I think Ukraine/US/the West is wrong, that's all. They do not want trade or peace, they want war and end stage capitalism and all the misery that brings in order to enrich a few.

I laughed a lot the other day when I read that the Clinton Foundation will be adminstering humanitarian aid for Ukraine. I mentioned this in a notes thing. Bwahahaha! Zelensky is going to get Haiti-ed by the OGs of grift. I feel sorry for the Ukrainians - except for the Banderas worshippers and the ones who consider Russians as orcs and express a desire to keep killing them. The US knows this and still supports them. The US wants to divide up Russia and "re-educate" Russians. Is Putin supposed to say Thank you sir, may I have another? Currently, propaganda is being spewed that implies that RUSSIA nuked cities in Japan, and that the UK won WWII with the help of Ukraine - NOT Russia. A pox on all of those people. Funny thing - the Urainian press doctored up some footage to make it seem like Zelensky had a full house instead of a third at the UN - and the footage they used showed Zelensky in the audience, I suppose he is clever enough to actually talk to himself and listen to himself at the same time.

Accusing someone of "rooting for Putin" is such an old Democrat Party trick. Funny, that.

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Robert Billyard's avatar

You should double down on your history as neither Russia or China are imperialists. The British and the Americans have plundered the world like no other empires and killed millions in the process .

We in the West have the bad habit of projecting our crimes on to other nations as we do so we become the ultimate hypocrites.

I doubt you have read or listened to a Putin speech. He is a cut above Western leaders.

It is high time Westerners cultivated a more objective worldview and quit repeating the bullshit that emanates from London and Washington .

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Mr. Raven's avatar

Oh please spare me. Putin is just responding and protecting people in Donbas and Crimea who voted to become part of Russia who are under attack by Victoria Nuland’s cat’s paw Azov Battalion Nazis.

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Robert Billyard's avatar

Thanks for this!

What I am hearing now is that NATO is preparing for a longer war.

It is too bad Hersh doesn't publish some of his blogs as freebees.

Paid subscriptions are a real problem as well established sites often only have two or three per cent of their readers as paid subscribers/donors.

Substack is attracting some top notch journalists like Ben Norton and Aaron Mate and going paid is a big problem for a lot of people

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Mr. Raven's avatar

It’s a dilemma to be sure the patronage model allows writers not to be beholden to corporation and advertising. That is very liberating for the writer, not so great for the readers with no funds. And full communism makes the writer beholden the collective, there is no utopia.

As a writer here myself I do have the option to have paid memberships, but I don’t paywall anything, that’s the closest I have come to for squaring the circle, for me anyway.

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Robert Billyard's avatar

I have come to accept as a blogger for 20 years that I work as an unpaid volunteer. I am used to it as I am also a visual artist and it has never earned me a living wage. Its the price we pay for exercising our passions.

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Mr. Raven's avatar

It shouldn't have to be that way, we should be paid for our labor. I have managed to get a few paid subscribers here, slow steady progress, though I still need my day job.

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The Revolution Continues's avatar

“Viet-kraine” may be coming to an end sooner than later? Good news!

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

Yup. Sooner than later, though that sooner part sure has taken a long time to get here.

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jbnw's avatar

You've heard me say this many times - this was Biden's war of choice. If Biden had gone for diplomacy, as he claimed, he would have encouraged the Minsk accords that the US endorsed in the UN Security council. Then Ukraine wouldn't have lost territory, infrastructure, and the lives of 400,000 or so citizens.

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Mr. Raven's avatar

And you know why of course, neo-cons in his administration like Victoria Nuland, and corrupt business dealings with Hunter as the intermediary.

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jbnw's avatar

Yes, with Biden as Obama's point man from around 2013. It's all on very public record that was carefully ignored by the Western media.

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Mr. Raven's avatar

Nuland is also a Dick Cheney protege, something I just found out recently, so she has been in this neo-con "regime change" game for a long time. Also she is married to Patrick Kagan from PNAC.

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The Passionate Progressive's avatar

Robert Kagan not 'Patrick' Kagan

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Mr. Raven's avatar

Yep, I misremebered, 50 lashes with a wet noodle for me.

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Mr. Raven's avatar

It's so frustrating that most people don't know about smoking guns like a recorded call from Nuland picking Ukraine's government after the U.S. orchestrated coup in 2014. A coup that had participation of the Azov Battalion and other Nazi Banderites, followed by a genocidal slaughter of ethnic Russians in the Donbas. When you do any digging at all, the whole thing stinks like a dead goat asshole.

I am not a huge Donald Trump fan but it is ironic that he was impeached for talking to Shokin about Biden family corruption and then Biden had Shoken fired for investigating that corruption and has thus far has suffered no consequences from it.

Shitlibs are so gullible... I literally think they are too dumbed down by corporate media to follow all this if they could even be bothered to care in the first place.

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Robert Urbaschek's avatar

I applaud you for doing this. As someone who also does journalism on Substack, I have always believed in the importance of keeping essential information accessible. When I started offering paid subscriptions, I was very careful not to lock off my reporting. Of course I hope that people that can afford to support me do so, but I do not want that to be a prerequisite for reading it and becoming more informed.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

Thanks. Perhaps I should do more of these, though I can only afford to subscribe to a few people here.

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sadoldgirl's avatar

Yes, indeed: thank you.

I don't look at this with much hope. The US was never interested in the fate

of Ukraine. Crimea is a different story, because it implies the rule of the

Black Sea. The reason for the Pentagon's push for fighting in Zaporoshnia

region lies exactly in that goal. Since this failed the attacks will come from

Odessa with long range drones or missiles, helped by US/UK intelligence.

As long as there are no serious russian civilian deaths the Kremlin will wait

it out. However, sooner or later one or two of those missiles will cause too

much destruction for Moscow to ignore, and the answer could be drastic.

The second reason for a longer term conflict lies in the fact that Russia

cannot/ will not agree to a freeze, because i) the West cannot be trusted and

ii)this will only mean a restart in a few years.

Thus we will have to wait and see, but outside of accepting Russian demands

I see no real end to this conflict.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

Accepting Russian demands is the ONLY way to end this war sooner, and less bloodier, rather than later. Russia can achieve its goals militarily if it has to, with or without cease-fires. That's another thing Sy Hersh's intelligence source made abundantly, if implicitly, clear.

I suspect that if the Ukrainians fire too many missiles and drones at Sevastopol from Odessa, the Russians will simply add annexation of the entire, predominantly Russian, Black Sea coast to their demands, and they'll get that as well.

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The Passionate Progressive's avatar

I agree with accepting Russian demands as the ONLY way to end the war - US as evidenced from so many nuclear arms control agreement withdrawals, Iran nuclear deal withdrawal, Minsk I, II, etc., etc., etc. has no negotiation credibility with the Russians...Further, they are winning and they don't need to negotiate only to have to revisit this crisis again.

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The Passionate Progressive's avatar

Thanks for the summary - can't afford all the subscriptions I would like and Hersch's synopsis is worth hearing....Having said that, to me it seems inconsistent that Zelensky is bullying and that the White House/US media are pushing this (obviously to me for the 2024 elections) and as Mercouris argues 'the neocons have no reverse gear'....It would seem to me that the 'bullying' is the other way around - I mean Zelinsky spring 2022 was told by Boris Johnson to stop negotiating at the Istanbul Summit. It would seem to me to be more logical that Zelinsky is being handed a UK/US script and being the actor that he is, he is delivering on cue....But it is a puzzle, there is also a fairly reasonable argument that Zelinsky has the goods on Biden crime family, et. al. and is exploiting that for resources. Either way, the Ukrainians are cannon fodder. ..As they used to say in military intelligence, analysis continues.

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