By Phil Butler
The junta currently in control of Ukraine is delighted U.S. President Donald Trump has become history’s most dangerous loose cannon. The oligarch controlled media in Kiev began churning out the propaganda right after Trump approved a plan to provide lethal defensive weapons to the regime. The key weapons system involved, the Javelin anti-tank missiles caused a kind-of “new toy” delight from Ukraine’s reporters. My country appears today as the international “pusher man” for an arms trade that resembles the Columbia cocaine cartels. More importantly for the people of Ukraine is whether, or not, the liberal world cartel can be beaten back. Here’s some thoughts on this.
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton recently called the “US-Russian proxy war in eastern Ukraine, a seminal event of the 21st century.” The distinguished expert went on to describe the magnitude of this geo-political mess as a “toxic and dangerous”, and a catastrophe that will affect international relations for a generation. Professor Cohen is absolutely correct, but is too dignified to simply spell out the fact that the people of Ukraine (and many of the rest of us) are now royally screwed for decades. Cohen’s story appeared on The Nation, but his analysis rides the proverbial fence revealing the fact the U.S. supported liberal world order sanctioned this catastrophe for profit. I discussed their Ukraine/Eastern Europe strategy briefly in this piece on NEO the other day. The nitty gritty of the war on the Donbass is not that complicated. The guns, guts, and blood spilt on both sides of this implanted conflict are a new (perhaps) diabolical form of total war that includes psychological, tactical, and economic strategies to destroy and enemy. And that enemy is Russia.
My earlier reports have framed elements of the economic warfare levied on Ukraine and Russia, and how bankers like the Rothschilds, the Soros types, and corporations like Monsanto, Cargill, and DuPont have swooped in to pick at the bones of a shattered country. However, I am no soothsayer in all this. Anyone who studies the regime change in Ukraine knows this well. The big question that remains paramount is; “Can Ukrainians be rescued from the skullduggery and carnage?” If we are honest, the diagnosis for saving Ukraine is dismal. And when I say Ukraine I mean pro-Russia bastion that is Novorossiya in the east too. While scholars like professor Cohen do help people to understand conflicts like Ukraine, Libya, and Syria, their analyses their efforts at impartiality drown in the backwash of corporate propaganda in the west. Cohen and a few scholarly others end up beating around the bush on a geopolitical situation that is black & white. This is one reason the news (fake news) coming out of key situations is so one sided in America. When the bodies pile just so high, blue collar workers and geo-political gurus must take a side. Cohen and these others will have to sooner or later stand on either side of the fence. What’s needed is a surgical, clinical, and calculating assessment of what was and is a systematic dismantling of the traditional order of things. Such an assessment in Ukraine may well reveal the motives, methods, and potential outcomes, and most assuredly who the real perpetrators are.
We already know Ukraine is being raped by the eastern and western oligarchs now. This report via The National Interest talks about the IMF’s role in saddling Ukraine with incomprehensible debt forever. So, I won’t delve into this aspect here. We also know the country will never be out from under the piling debts the Poroshenko regime is rubber stamping. The economic onslaught the liberal order has launched everywhere Russian interests lie, it’s an easily definable narrative and mission. Let’s just call this “sanction warfare.” But, what about expert risk assessments on the potential for a military cataclysm? For this I defer to my friend and colleague, the now legendary former NATO military analyst, The Saker (pseudonym).
“You show me a capitalist, and I’ll show you a bloodsucker” ― Malcolm X
Last month he published a full-fledged analysis entitled; “2018 – War or No War?” The study is extensive, but essentially points to the liberal world order’s recuperation from the Hillary Clinton bust, and frames the probable strategies for renewed U.S. aggression worldwide. For the purposes of my editorial, a focus on only Ukraine and the embattled Donbass is necessary. In his analysis The Saker puts a heave focus on the Neocons, which are for me just one component of the liberal world order cartel of families and banker henchmen. These “Neocons”, and their London banker comrades are already engaged in the raping and pillage Ukraine with unheard of fearlessness. The Saker aptly describes their aggressive and now overt actions because of their belief that:
- They can buy anybody
- Those they cannot buy, they can bully
- Those that cannot be bullied, can be killed
- And that ultimately nothing can happen to them since they are immune.
As I write this, the sound of “cooing” and dancing in Kiev and the U.S. Senate echoes in the background. So, with this dastardly ambiance setting the tone, let’s put some of this gargantuan mess in perspective.
First and foremost, we must address the question of whether or not there will be renewed war on the Donbass. For a first clue let’s consider that even the American magazine Popular Mechanics is blushing over the effectiveness of President Trump’s new toys for Ukrop Nazis. A few days ago, PM wrote that Trump’s move was “an audacious geopolitical step”, characterizing the new anti-tank missile:
“The Javelin is one of the deadliest anti-tank missiles ever designed and will bolster Ukraine’s defenses in its military showdown with Russia. The sale is aimed squarely at Russia’s large and powerful tank fleet.”
From a media analyst’s standpoint, try and imagine what it means for a technology and scientific magazine to glow in admiration at the mobility and concealability of such a weapon system, and the fact the systems will offset Russia’s tank advantage! What kind of Hollywood madness is it when the dawn of the 21st century reverts to the nuclear madness of the 1950s? Setting aside juvenile missile coolness and the funny Armageddon, the analysis we have from The Saker and other expert analysts suggests a U.S. backed offensive against the Donbass may be imminent. But before we launch into these assessments let’s consider that since Ancient Egypt the javelin has been considered an offensive weapon, and not defensive. And the Raytheon and Lockheed-Martin FGM-148 Javelin is highly effective as an offensive weapon against either tanks or fortified positions as part of a “lightning strike” ahead of all out assault. You see, the problem with journalists covering these tactical situations is that almost all have next to no experience in real-world warfare. The average geo-political or news writer figures a military offensive is just big tanks, supported by air cover, rolling over an enemy. But at the level of an Anti-Armor Platoon, Weapons Company, or Infantry Battalion, the boots take the territory and eliminate threats via “platforms”, be they air or armored, etc. I won’t get into anti-armor techniques such as the HAW- MAW-LAW referred to in this U.S. Marine Corps manual, but eliminating Donbass (for instance) armor or fortified positions at the maximum range of the Javelin might be part of a preemptive blitz assault on the Novorossiya lines. And one with minimal risk compared with the defeats the Ukraine Nazis faced before. Give The Saker’s risk assessment that a Russian intervention over a U.S. backed offensive against Novorossiya, and the desirability of the win-win the Neocon/LWO psychopaths perceive as an outcome – I’d say the odds are good for scorched Earth on a broader Ukraine front. As The Saker puts it, if Russia intervenes to save the Donbass heroes from elimination – “A Neocon dream come true: the NATO has a purpose again: decades of Cold War v2 in Europe.”
“A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.” – Fidel Castro
Returning to the media home front, we discover the once venerable Washington Post effecting part of the psychological warfare on the public. The Jeff Bezos run paper proclaims President Trump’s new weapons for Ukraine policy is “a worthy application of the ‘peace through strength’ principle of President Ronald Reagan.” So, all the geometrical warfare units are in place, with Donald Trump ready to destroy the “evil empire” instead of Ronald Reagan. And in the meanwhile, on the other side of the shaky Minsk II ceasefire, Novorossiya’s frontline trenches get hammered with almost continual bombardment from the Kiev junta. On this line, I spoke with independent journalist Patrick Lancaster from the trenches while finalizing the draft of this story. This video of Lancaster with pro-Russian forces confirms there is no real ceasefire. When I asked Patrick about the caliber of the mortar or artillery fire, he told me; “I was told when the fighting slowed, that these were 120-millimeter artillery rounds after the range and trajectories were calculated.” If Lancaster’s position was shelled with 120 mm artillery, then the Minsk ceasefire was certainly breached by the Kiev side on this night. And while the shells fall outside Donetsk, the organization charged with oversight for Minsk, the OSCE busies itself counting how many cars and trucks cross the border to Novorossiya.
In conclusion, all we need assess really is where all the “pressure” is being exerted from, in order to determine who the real aggressor in Ukraine is. And any genuine evaluation shows that the overwhelming pressure in this situation is from west of the Donbass and Russia via the aforementioned psychological, tactical, and economic elements. Russia’s role was and is reactionary and defensive at every level. This can be proven actually, and if you read the headlines from Google News, you’ll always find Russia accused of meddling in elections in Mexico, or Vladimir Putin being responsible for some other catasrophe. RussiaGate simply will not go away, the pressure is full on, and anybody who cannot see this is blind as a bat. In a world where any Russian military maneuver is deemed some kind of “full scale war simulation,” and any NATO operation a standing defense of democracy and the American Way, the writing is literally on the wall. Reading this week that Europe is now a “victim” of Russia’s new oil strategy, even though the U.S. and allies exert every influence to ensure Russian gas does not flow west, I think of Nero fiddling as Rome burned. What apathy and insanity must have plagued great Rome for the world’s greatest empire to collapse from within?
With all the set pieces of strategy in place, and with the western publics fully indoctrinated via propaganda tools and societal distractions, the “pusher man” set the stage for the economic onslaught on Russia. Then, practice runs at tactical strategic operations were turned up after Iraq and Afghanistan. Libya and Syria, then Ukraine were met with innate apathy by society. Today, the volume and intensity is being turned up in the face of only a modicum of resistance, at least in the view of the “order” bent on complete domination. So, in my humble estimation, a seared Ukraine seems unavoidable. That is, unless Russia’s Putin can pull out another defensive miracle. It seems to me the only thing that can save Ukraine is the people of this ravaged country.
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” – JFK