If anyone above a kindergarten pay-grade has figured out America’s vital interest in the Ukraine, it has not been reported — or even leaked from the foundering vessel that is the US State Department. In fact, when you consider the results, it’s hard to understand the rationale behind any recent US foreign policy endeavor. Mr. Putin of Russia summed it up last week, saying, “Anything the US touches turns to Libya or Iraq.” Vlad has a point there, and what he left off the list, of course, was Ukraine, which entered the zone of failing states a few months ago when the US lubricated the overthrow of its previously-elected government.Mr. Kunstler archly makes a good point. There isn’t a single foreign policy initiative of ours worth the bones of an Arkansas grenadier since William Jefferson Clinton "saved" Bosnia to obviate a too-close examination of his DNA and habits of sexually harassing White House interns. Female interns as it turns out, for which I personally am grateful. Little did we know.What complicates things is that Ukraine is right next door to Russia. . . . The casual observer from Mars might easily discern that Russia has a range of real interests in Ukraine. Especially if the central government of Ukraine can’t control its own economic affairs.
The US claims to have interests in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya. These nations are respectively 11,925, 11,129, 10,745, and 10,072, miles away from America — not exactly neighbors of ours.[1]
Of course, just because a country is a long way away does not mean, ipso facto, that we might not have a vital interest there worth defending. However, when we don’t defend our own door step [hint: Bienvenido queridos jóvenes, trafficantes y terroristas islámicos], it's, um, hard to give any credence to anything detectable only by over-the-horizon radar. Looked at from this vantage point, our foreign policy "team" isn’t exactly wearing our particular colors get down to it.
The current full court press to paint Vladimir Putin as The Handmaiden of Beelzebub (THB) and sound the tocsin for The Russian Neo-Soviet RecrudesenceTM rings very hollow to me given the legit Russian interest in its only warm water naval port in Crimea – yet to be acknowledged by any Western leader to my knowledge – and our inexplicable, well-funded efforts to bring down the previous Ukrainian government. Yes, there was an earlier agreement involving Ukraine's giving up its nuclear arsenal but that Russian access was an implicit part of that deal, if not more. In the too-clever-by-half department, we successfully destabilize the previous Ukrainian government and . . . several sniper deaths, one shameful massacre of Ukrainian troops, thousands (I think) of wounded and dead Ukrainians, one downed civilian aircraft, one Russian armored incursion (permanent), one Russian-controlled Crimea, and ten tons of Western/Obamanian posturing, sanctioning, and dressing up in mom's dress and high heels later, who is to say that the status quo ante isn’t something that could be said to have been tolerable according to a certain way of looking at things, if not something to be embraced with alacronism.[2]
Shades of Gaddafi's Libya, Mubarak's Egypt, and Hussein's Iraq.
This isn’t to say that Mr. Putin is without blemish. Even terrible actions laid at his feet, however, pale in comparison -- back here in the real world of tradeoffs and relative evils -- to the wholesale betrayal of Western populations by loathsome Western politicians who have connived at the abandonment and evisceration of constitution, law, and tradition; attacked religion; undermined free markets; destroyed the family; humiliated and perverted their police forces; rejoiced over the advance of socialism; embraced multiculturalism; made a joke out of representative institutions; made taxpayers yearn for mere fiscal profligacy; and guaranteed either (1) a humiliating subjection of their own people to jeering, revengeful blacks and/or insufferable and savage Muslims or (2) a salutary and correcting bloody uprising of Western abos. Choose only one.
President Twinkletoes and his European fellow clown car passengers have created utter chaos in the Middle East and Messaptomania and no sane person not in the grip of some lunatic, leftist, utopian, redistributionist, constitution- and logic-free fantasy – but I repeat myself – should pay any heed to what these wallah kahuna bwanas have to say about "the national bleeping interest."
God save us from the love child of someone or other, the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. State Department, U.S. government employee unions, the U.S. Democrat and Republican Parties, U.S. state bar associations, the main-stream media everywhere, the European Union, and satanic Islam and its gutless enablers!
Pending that, well, enjoy today’s versions of the Great Game that make a demolition derby or lesbian mud wrestling a profound intellectual experience in comparison.
Notes
[1] "Busybody Nation." By Jim Kunstler, Clusterfuck Nation, 9/1/14.
[2] I acknowledge legitimate Ukrainian desires to rid themselves of their previous kleptocrats and the tragic experience of those people at the hands of the predecessor Russian government. I don’t pretend to understand what forms Ukrainian thinking and do not dismiss it in the least. I focus here only on the competence and loyalties of putative Western leaders whose reckless actions in Ukraine and elsewhere are the cause of so much misery and waste.
Revised 9/7/14.
"Messaptomania"? If that isn't a typo, it should be spelt "Messofptomainea", in which case it would be both funny and accurate.
ReplyDeleteYeah, WTF, I'm Just Waitin on Jesus, Ready and willing to step up when required for the innocent, that is all, a servant, nobody's Bitch.nglhts
ReplyDeleteBeing the cynic I am, I am of the belief that the fact that Joe Biden's son is a VP with an energy company with major investments in the Ukraine might have a smidgin of relevance. Just saying.
ReplyDeleteMs. Romano, I'm ever a naif in these matters of crass, private interests determining national policy but I'm doing my best to come up to speed. The analysis of who was benefited by all that TARP and QE money is an education in this topic all by itself. I also find Patric Byrne's writings about the financial world at his site "Deep Capture" compelling.
ReplyDeleteThere was obviously a Klingon tractor beam quality to the force drawing Obama into serious military involvement in Syria and Libya. A similar force seems to be at work in Ukraine and, more seriously, our rush to make Putin into some kind of a monster. The Biden connection you point out is thus a valid hypothesis.
On this 100-year anniversary of the start of WWI we seem to be similarly proceeding on some kind of unstoppable autopilot. Such a comparison can be over-emphasized but I don't detect any evidence of any hands on the brake lever of the train pulling us to a confrontation with Russia.
There's more to it than just Biden's son. The NATO rush to the Russian border some years back seemed odd to me and that's from someone who loathed the Soviet Union. However, I have it on good evidence that the U.S.S.R. is no more. I'm curious if Brzezinski has any influence here.
Pray for cooler heads.
yes, Brzezinski's CFR-globalist-TriLat machinations are very much involved; I used to know the man, and he has a direct line to Obama. The overall vector re Russia, Libya, Iraq, though, is the petrodollar. The U.S. economy is a top-down Ponzi, based on printing debtbux to buy stuff, and then forcing oil-producers to stay on the dollar, thus maintaining international demand at sufficient levels to forestall domestic hyperinflation. Both Iraq and Libya tried to drop the dollar, and got butchered, now Russia is doing same...Ukraine is a wedge aimed at destroying Russia itself, as per Zbig's GLOBAL CHESSBOARD perscription. 'Course Russia, unlike Libya and Iraq has nukes and a respectable military, so the DC Ponzi schemers & neo-conz + EU banksters are all in a quandary. Syria is somewhat of a special case - almost no oil - but Israel wants Assad's regime taken down as a means of breaking the Shi'ite Crescent - inadvertantly established by Bush43 when he took down Sadaam's Sunni regime in Iraq - and so cutting the weapons flow from Iran to Hezbollah in south Lebanon...selfsame who gave Israel a bloody nose in the '06 border war. Just now one of the Isramerican tools - ISIS - has gotten a bit frisky, so Obama will attempt to push them out of Iraq and get them back onto the original Syrian target.
ReplyDeleteI said after the Soviet Union collapsed that we would come to long for the stark simplicities of the Cold War. I made mention of the tractor beam in my comment above and it seems an adequate image to describe a variety of powerful forces that impel the U.S. to act in odd ways, none of which appear to vindicate any obvious U.S. interest.
ReplyDeleteThe Israeli interest in wanting to take down Assad is a very interest angle, and not one I'd seen in the words you used. The Israeli influence on U.S. policy is always something of an "X" factor. As is the imperative to do the bidding of the Saudis.
The obvious infatuation of otherwise smart people with globalism and multiculturalism is beyond odd to me. Interesting that you are acquainted with ZB. I never paid much attention to him but I'm beginning to think that would be a useful thing to do as he might be something of a weather vane. Much like McCain.
The petrodollar seems like it would generate fury on the part of those who must use it, given our casual debasement of the dollar with our feckless and moronic fiscal and monetary policies. I suppose there are great obstacles in the way of other nations using some other currency.