It's one step closer, folks. The U.S. and Russia have been rattling sabers since the week after the end of the Cold War. Russia and U.S. both upped their game this week with pro-war rhetoric and aggressive military moves in Eastern Europe.
This week Putin formally recognized the Donbas region republics of Donetsk and Luhansk (DPR and LPR) as independent. Russia has moved troops into the area, and there are reports of missile strikes on Ukrainian military installations near Kyiv. The action is being referred to as an invasion.
Biden has responded with economic sanctions against Russia and moving U.S. military infantry, attack helicopters, and fighter jets into nearby Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Thousands of U.S. troops are already deployed in other Eastern European countries.
Putin is drawing a line in the sand at NATO expansion and U.S. missile launch site installations in Europe close to Moscow. To back up his "nyet," Putin pointed out that Russia has the largest nuclear missile collection in the world.
Biden is saying, "game on—let's do this" (I am paraphrasing). Next move for the U.S.?
U.S. actions could trigger responses ranging from the failure of Biden to get re-elected to a nuclear war that destroys a large part of the surface of the Earth. It's a spectrum.
I am watching for how successful Biden/his handlers/D.C. war hawks are in getting an illegal war started with Russia.
I suspect the Pentagon is drooling with anticipation. Reviewing plans, previous simulations, drills. Selecting tactics from the rehearsal books. And I suspect Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and other Pentagon Partners are already watching for the jump in their stock prices.
Will Congress declare war on Russia, making U.S. military action in Eastern Europe legal? No way, based on the last 60 years of history of illegal wars that U.S. presidents started. Declaration of war has an essentially nil chance; it isn't done this way anymore.
It is far more likely that Biden will illegally start and conduct a war. Note that the wide range of sanctions he has already announced are an act of war, albeit against the American people just as much as against Putin and the Russians.
Remember Biden was V.P. for Obama, who currently holds the record for starting more wars than any President in U.S. history. Remember Biden as V.P. was a significant part of the U.S. assisted coup in Ukraine that put in place the current government, overwhelmingly against the desires of the Eastern Ukraine Donbas region Russian speaking people. Remember, one of the ways the new Ukrainian government sent a thank-you to Biden was to hire his son on a high-paying Board of Directors position in a Ukrainian energy company, in a business he knows nothing about conducted in a language he doesn't speak.
Biden has skin in this particular game. It is personal for him, as well as for Putin. And the two together have control over 90% of the world's nuclear arsenal. What could go wrong?
We just celebrated George Washington's Birthday this week. One of Washington's most adamant warnings was never to get involved in conflicts between European nations. From Washington's Farewell Address:
"The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible… Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities."
- George Washington, Farewell Address, September 1796
Listen to George, Mr. Biden. He was right.
The one big team of war hawks—mainstream Democrats, mainstream Republicans, defense contractors, and lapdog legacy media (but then I repeat myself)—are shouting from their bully pulpits: "DO SOMETHING NOW."
As if failure of the U.S. military to stop Putin now means Russian tanks will be rolling into Paris next year.
The war hawks have forgotten the Soviet Union collapsed a while ago. Or, they are pretending it never did. Russia is not the USSR. The Russian GDP is less than Germany, less than Brazil. The war hawks love the Russian boogieman, referring to Russia and Putin just as they once referred to the USSR and Stalin.
But Russia is not a threat to the U.S.—if the U.S. left Russia and Europe to their local squabbles. Russia has no economic basis for a protracted war with the U.S. or Russian territory expansion into Paris and Berlin.
The threat is the continued expansion of the anti-Russia military coalition of NATO. A group whose entire purpose was to counter the Soviet Union. But there were a lot of money and political points to be made using NATO, so it was repurposed to counter Russia.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Bush promised NATO would never be expanded east of the former East/West Berlin line. Yet U.S. Presidents, ever since, helped to do precisely the opposite.
And now we have land-based Aegis missile sites in Eastern Europe, in former Soviet bloc countries that are now NATO members. U.S. missile sites capable of nuclear-tipped Tomahawk cruise missiles, though (allegedly) loaded only with anti-missile armaments in "defense." From Putin's point of view, doesn't this look a lot like the missiles the USSR installed in Cuba during Kennedy's time? Kennedy drew a line in the sand then too.
Does Biden believe in the principles behind the Declaration of Independence? Should we recognize that the vote of the people in the areas Russia moved into seceded from Ukraine?
The concept of the right of self-governance, liberty, and freedom are trotted out when it suits a political agenda and ignored when it doesn't. One might wonder which side the war hawks today would have been on in 1775, as their statements and actions indicate they would have been on the side of King George.
Other "leaders" are jumping on the bandwagon. Trudeau announced Canadian sanctions against Russia in the name of "freedom." Come on now, Trudeau supports the freedom of the people? The South African government is calling for sending troops to defend Ukraine against Russia as if protecting the Donbas region people from a government they voted to join is "support." Perhaps the current ANC leaders regret not going to war to oppose the secession that formed Nambia when Nelson Mandela got elected. War is good for political power, and politicians are doing their thing by diving in.
Mainstream news in 1775 would have been demanding General Gage quell the unrest and confiscate the guns in Lexington and Concord. In 1776 they would have called for support of the "legitimate" government in London, opposing the rebels who voted to secede from Great Britain.
Putin's actions are claimed to be in support of the people of Donetsk and Luhansk (DPR, LPR), who are 70-80% Russian speaking and mostly of Russian heritage. The DPR and LPR people voted about 90% in favor of the former Ukrainian government that was ousted in a CIA-assisted coup and secede from Ukraine and join Russia.
Any military action Biden conducts to resist Russia from its military presence in the independent DPR and LPR means Biden opposes the principles America was founded upon—the right of the people to determine their form of government.
The two republics in the Dombass region declared independence. Russia signed a treaty with them. They are not part of Ukraine now if the principles of the Declaration of Independence are considered valid. They formally requested help from Russia against Ukraine.
Who knows? Maybe Biden will be successful and get a new war started. It's been over a year in office, and he hasn't started one yet. This one could even go nuclear—what fun that would be for the hawks!
I'm not defending Putin, or Biden, or the Ukrainian government. They are all bad.
However, I do support the right of the two regions to leave Ukraine, as they did, formally establishing DPR and LPR. I support the right of people to determine their own form of government and join with others in a system of government, which they did. I agree with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison on this question.
I see Biden using the U.S. military to fight Russia from its presence in LPR and DPR today, the same as if France would have helped England defeat Virginia and Pennsylvania in the 1770s. Happily for us, Washington explained what was going on to General Lafayette at the City Tavern in Philadelphia, and France helped the Americans in their secession effort. LPR and DPR voted to leave Ukraine. That carries a lot of weight with me as it did with France back in the day.
Biden is doing the opposite of France in the 1770s.
And Biden is risking nuclear war to do it. Of all the things to be concerned about in engaging in other people's squabbles all over the globe, the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons should be quite high on the list of things to be tread carefully on.
Joe should listen to George. Stay out of Europe's internal affairs.
