PROFESSORS OBSERVE EVENTS IN UKRAINE
All last week university professors were dealing with puzzled students about events in Ukraine, and making an important contribution to the public discourse. A panel at Columbia University last week typified the academic approach, bringing insightful perspective, including a never discussed religious aspect. These are the dispassionate observers who can find no place in the mainstream media. Here is a chance to calibrate your views outside the media and public circus that usually surround world events. Without giving away any spoilers - This situation is more seriously dangerous than most media observers have imagined. SUGGESTION: Visit university websites, including the military academies, looking for talks and panels on Ukraine; there you will get info and analysis that are not narrative driven.
ZELENSKY FIDDLES WHILE KIEV BURNS
Rep. Madison Cawthorn, not a paragon of political virtue himself, last week called Ukraine’s government the most corrupt on earth. Similar charges surfaced during investigations into the Biden family’s dealings there. And a Google search will flood one with many more examples. But now informed observers see the “money machine” at work with President Zelensky’s whirlwind tour of Western Capitals to drum up more donations while urging citizens to keep fighting to the end. Plus the scripted emergence of his smartly coiffed wife by his side for the first time. His Western PR handlers are probably delighted with how little coaching the former TV actor needs to emotionally punctuate his appeals. If all this is true, that may explain dragged out negotiations with the Ukraine reps who can never get to the table on time. One of the more punctual reps was executed last eeek as a traitor. What gives here? Only Zelensky knows.
BIDEN FIDDLES WHILE ZELENSKY BURNS
While Zelensky was on his “dash for cash,” Biden kept reiterating: more money, more equipment, more sanctions, but … no U.S. troops on the ground. Biden’s message to Russia was loud and clear: “Take Ukraine: it’s yours.” The US dropped the “Mother of All Bombs” on Afghanistan to no success, just as they prepared the “Mother of All Sanctions” for Russia - but no boots and no jet fighters “that might widen the war.” Ukraine’s last hope is a false flag event to force an end to the West’s bootless policy: nuclear plant attack didnt work, neither did maternity hospital attack, nor did attack on school buildings. Are chemical attacks next? That was a red line the US failed to cross in Syria. Ukraine’s days are numbered as Russia is changing tactics to commit its full military and air power to renewed objectives. So Zelensky may have to choose between exile in Warsaw or Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach, depending on where he’ll get a better deal for his tell-all book on how Ukraine was used by the West to crack Russia.
MORE THAN A WAR: THE GREAT RESET
As starry-eyed volunteers poured in from the West, Putin announced that volunteers from within and outside Russia would be permitted to join the fray. The President of Chechnya, one of the Russian republics, offered to send its seasoned guerilla fighters to penetrate the Mariupol defenses. Foreign Minister Lavrov said that they were considering requests of about 20,000 volunteers from the Middle East to fight on Russia’s side. Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (still smarting from the Clinton-era NATO bombs) declared their support of Russia. As the world begins to take sides, this geopolitical conflict is morphing into a clash of civilizations, marking the end of the nation-state paradigm established in 1648 by the Peace of Westphalia. World War II was the seminal event that exposed the inability of nations, democratic or not, to avoid war via interlocking alliances. NATO is the last vestige of the monopolar world.
PEOPLE’S CONVOY OFF COURSE
An excellent short documentary on the US version of the Canadian Trucker Convoy was released last week. If anyone thought the People’s Convoy was a rag-tag bunch of KFC bucketeers, they were portrayed as a complex community with many common causes. Liberal and progressive media like to conflate anti-maskers with anti-vaxxers. Or scan for the grubby red MAGA hats. Or look for the signature garb of various white supremecist groups. The People’s Convoy was diverted from its D.C. destination by a show of force after Canada’s Trudeau used martial law to crush the movement there. So they began circling the Beltway endlessly as vultures ready to swoop in at the first sign of weakness. All are aware that the business of January 6 was largely left undone.
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