Paul Craig Roberts -- Pentagon to create “Ukraine command”

 

 

September 30, 2022 

 

Pentagon to create “Ukraine command”

Paul Craig Roberts

This is a serious development.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (2-L) speaks in the presence of Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov (R) and US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, general Mark Milley (L) during a meeting of Ministers of Defense at the US Air Base in Ramstein, Germany, 26 April 2022. [EPA-EFE/RONALD WITTEK]

 

As I have said over and over, the Kremlin’s go-slow limited military operation is a fatal mistake resulting in a wider war.  An operation that should have been concluded in a week is now in its seventh month and seems destined to continue indefinitely as the Kremlin does nothing to disrupt the Ukrainian government’s war effort or the endless supplies of weapons that the West pours into Ukraine.  The long-running conflict has allowed Western propaganda to portray the Russian military as unsuccessful and to convince Western decision-makers that Russia can be defeated in Ukraine.  This conviction has led to ever higher states of Western involvement.  

 

With the Pentagon’s creation of a “Ukraine Command,” we move closer to the introduction of US troops.  In fact US military forces are already involved.  They train Ukraine’s soldiers at the US Army’s European Headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany, thus committing Germany to the intervention in Ukraine.  US military personnel provide targeting information for Ukraine’s attacks on Russian positions.  Yet, despite the growing involvement of US/NATO, the Kremlin holds on to its limited operation, dangerous in its failure and miscalculation, as Russia’s dilly-dallying has convinced the West that the Kremlin has no stomach for real conflict, encouraging Washington to take another step toward sending troops by forming a “Ukraine Command.”  

 

Putin’s emphasis on legalisms might be the undoing of Russia.  The Kremlin could have avoided the Ukraine conflict by doing in 2014 what it is doing, belatedly, in 2022–accept the Donbass Russians’ request to be returned to Russia.  The Kremlin could have avoided the US/NATO military commitment to Ukraine by knocking out Ukraine before the West had time to react.

 

Blunders have a cost, and the cost of the Kremlin’s blunders is developing into direct conflict between US and Russian soldiers.

 

https://www.rt.com/news/563768-pentagon-weapons-ukraine-command/ 

30 Sep, 2022 05:05

HomeWorld News

Pentagon to create ‘Ukraine command’ – media

The new military unit will reportedly be modeled on “train-and-assist efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan” over the last 20 years

FILE PHOTO: US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and officials from 50 other countries attend the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, September 8, 2022. ©  US Air Force / Staff Sgt. Megan M. Beatty

 

The Pentagon is working to create a new military command devoted to arming and training Ukrainian soldiers, US officials have told multiple media outlets, suggesting the effort will effectively “overhaul” the current process for weapons transfers to Kiev.

 

The command would be based in Wiesbaden, Germany – where the US Army keeps its European headquarters – and be made up of 300 staffers led by General Christopher Cavoli, who heads up the military’s European Command, according to unnamed officials cited by the New York Times and CNN on Thursday.

 

“The changes, which aim to give a formal structure to what has been improvised since the war’s onset, are roughly modeled on US train-and-assist efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past two decades,” the Times reported.

 

While the new unit would look to make major alterations to the current train-and-equip program for Kiev, Wiesbaden will remain a key component in the scheme, as most Ukrainian troops currently being instructed on American weapons are doing so in or near the city.

 

Since Russia sent troops into the neighboring country in late February, US military aid to Ukraine has largely been managed from Germany and Poland by Lieutenant General Christopher Donahue, who also oversaw the chaotic evacuation of US forces from Afghanistan last year. However, Donahue and his staff are set to return home next month, creating the need for a specialized command oriented toward training and arming Ukrainian troops.

 

The proposal for the new unit was initially floated earlier in the conflict by General Tod Wolters, with Cavoli ‘fine-tuning’ the idea after taking his place at EUCOM in July, according to the Times.

 

In late August, the Wall Street Journal similarly reported that Washington was looking to appoint a general to lead the arm-and-train program in Ukraine, suggesting the initiative could receive an official mission name, as well as “long-term, dedicated funding” from the US government. The outlet added that the changes would mark a “shift from the largely ad hoc effort to provide training and assistance to the Ukrainians for years.”

 

The US has authorized nearly $17 billion in arms transfers to Ukraine’s military so far this year, with the vast majority of that aid approved since hostilities escalated in February. Though large quantities of gear and ammunition have come directly from existing stockpiles, the Pentagon is also working with arms contractors to manufacture weapons specifically for Kiev, including 18 brand-new High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) announced earlier this week – one of the longest-range platforms provided by Washington to date.

 

IMPERDÍVEL-- CHRIS KANTHAM -- OS ESTADOS UNIDOS REBENTAM O NORDSTREAM2 E A ECONOMIA ALEMÃ

  

IMPERDÍVEL-- CHRIS KANTHAM -- OS ESTADOS UNIDOS REBENTAM O NORDSTREAM E A ECONOMIA ALEMà 

 NÓS EXPLODIMOS  O GASODUTO NORDSTREAM E A ECONOMIA ALEMÃ

 

Os EUA têm vindo a travar guerras híbridas contra oleodutos russos há muito tempo. Explodir o Nord Stream 2 há alguns dias é apenas o mais recente dessa longa saga geopolítica.

 

Na década de 1980, a CIA adulterou um software de oleodutos que foi vendido à União Soviética. O software causou uma explosão tão grande que os cientistas pensaram que a URSS tinha conduzido um teste nuclear!

 

Nos anos 90, os rebeldes chechenos armados e financiados pelos EUA - parte da recém-formada Al Qaeda - fizeram explodir muitos oleodutos russos. O objectivo era monopolizar o petróleo e o gás do Mar Cáspio. As empresas ocidentais tinham oleodutos (BTC) que atravessavam o Azerbaijão, a Geórgia e a Turquia.

Durante a última década, os EUA impediram repetidamente muitos países europeus de aceitarem novos oleodutos russos. Apenas a Turquia teve a coragem de desafiar a América.

 

As duas principais rotas mais antigas de petróleo/gás russo para a Europa eram/são através da Ucrânia e da Polónia, ambas muito anti-Rússia durante a última década.

 

Por esse motivo é que Putin construiu os oleodutos Nord Stream, que estão instalados debaixo do mar, em águas internacionais.

 

No entanto, a começar pela Administração Trump, os EUA continuaram a tentar bloquear os oleodutos Nord Stream. As sanções e as ameaças não conseguiram impedir os oleodutos.

 

Em Fevereiro deste ano, algumas semanas antes da invasão, Biden referiu o Nord Stream 2. Disse acintosamente que "se a Rússia invadisse a Ucrânia, deixaria de haver um Nord Stream 2. Vamos acabar com ele".

 

O repórter perguntou então como é que Biden faria, uma vez que se tratava de um acordo entre a Alemanha e a Rússia.

 

Biden fez uma pausa e depois disse com desdém: "Prometo-vos que seremos capazes de o fazer".

 

 

Além disso, a senhora do golpe de Maidan, Victoria Nuland, também proferiu o seguinte, pouco antes da invasão: "Se a Rússia invadir a Ucrânia ... de uma forma ou de outra, o Nord Stream 2 não avançará".

 

Estas pessoas são tão descaradas que se gabam abertamente da sabotagem. O  anterior Ministro da Defesa da Polónia e actual membro do Parlamento Europeu, Sikorski, tweetou "Thank You. EUA" com uma foto da explosão do Nord Stream!

 

 

E no mesmo dia em que o NordStream foi explodido, foi anunciado um oleoduto submarino a ligar a Suécia e a Polónia! Como o "mercado livre" e o capitalismo funcionam tal como a Máfia.

 

Poucos meses antes,  os EUA e a NATO estavam a testar drones submarinos não tripulados e explosivos perto dos gasodutos NordStream 2. Também foram vistos helicópteros norte-americanos Blackhawk a sobrevoar os oleodutos NordStream.

 

Nada disto deveria ser difícil de compreender. Mas a psicologia humana impede os alemães e os europeus de verem o que lhes está a acontecer.

 

Os EUA têm de destruir a Eurásia para prolongar o século americano. O que significa perturbar as relações pacíficas e mutuamente benéficas, da Europa com a Rússia e a China.

 

Significa dizimar a Alemanha, o motor económico da Europa.

 

Com uma inflação de dois dígitos, os preços da energia a disparar e a escassez de electricidade... A Alemanha será desindustrializada, especialmente se a crise durar mais um ou dois anos. As indústrias, os cientistas e os engenheiros alemães mudar-se-ão para os EUA, que os aceitarão generosamente.

 

E a Europa terá um atraso de cerca de duas décadas. A maioria dos países europeus - França, Itália, Espanha, etc. - já tiveram um crescimento zero do PIB per capita durante mais de uma década. Acrescentando a inflação, o nível de vida baixará em breve 30-40%.

É simplesmente espantoso como os europeus não fazem a menor ideia do que lhes estão a fazer.

 

O controlo da mente e a propaganda funcionam tal como o que poderiamos ler num romance de ficção científica.

A Must Read -- CHRIS KANTHAM -- US BLOWS UP NORDSTREAM AND GERMAN ECONOMY

  

 US BLOWS UP NORDSTREAM AND GERMAN ECONOMY 

The US has been waging hybrid wars against Russian pipelines for a long time. Blowing up Nord Stream 2 a couple of days ago is just the latest in that long geopolitical saga.

 

In the 1980s, the CIA tampered with a pipeline software that was sold to the Soviet Union. The software caused such a huge explosion that scientists thought the USSR had conducted a nuclear test!

 

In the 1990s, the US armed and funded Chechen rebels — part of the newly formed Al Qaeda — who blew up a lot of Russian pipelines. The goal was to monopolize oil and gas from Caspian Sea. Western corporations had pipelines (BTC) that ran through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.

 

 

For the last decade, the US repeatedly stopped many European countries from accepting new Russian pipelines. Only Turkey had the courage to defy America.

 

The two major older routes for Russian oil/gas to Europe were/are through Ukraine and Poland, both of which had turned very anti-Russia over the last decade.

 

This is why Putin built Nord Stream pipelines, which run under the sea in international waters.

 

However, starting with the Trump administration, the US kept trying to block Nord Stream pipelines. Sanctions and threats failed to stop the pipelines.

 

In February this year, a couple of weeks before the invasion, Biden addressed Nord Stream 2. He ominously said that “if Russia invaded Ukraine, there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

 

The reporter then asked how Biden would do it, since it was a deal between Germany and Russia.

 

Biden paused, and then said in a villainous manner, “I promise you, we will be able to do it.”

 

 

Furthermore, the Maidan Coup lady, Victoria Nuland also said this just before the invasion: “If Russia invades Ukraine … one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.”

 

These people are so brazen that they openly brag about the sabotage. Former defense minister of Poland and current EU Parliament member, Sikorski, tweeted “Thank You. USA” with a photo of the explosion of Nord Stream!

 

 

And on the same day that Nord Stream was blown apart, a undersea pipeline linking Sweden and Poland was announced! How “free market” and capitalism work just like the Mafia.

 

Few months back, the US and NATO were testing unmanned underwater drones and explosives near the Nord Stream 2 pipelines. US Blackhawk helicopters were also seen flying right over the NordStream pipelines.

 

None of this should be difficult to understand. But human psychology prevents Germans and Europeans from seeing what’s happening to them.

The US must destroy Eurasia to prolong the American Century. It means disrupting Europe’s peaceful and mutually beneficial relations with Russia and China.

It means decimating Germany, the economic engine of Europe.

With double-digit inflation, skyrocketing energy prices, and electricity shortage … Germany will be deindustrialized, especially if the crisis lasts for another year or two. German industries, scientists and engineers will move to the US, who will generously accept them.

And Europe will be set back a couple of decades. Already, most European countries — France, Italy, Spain etc. — have had zero growth in GDP-per-capita for more than a decade. Add in inflation, the standard of living will soon be down 30-40%.

 

It’s simply astonishing how Europeans have no clue about what’s being done to them.

The mind control and propaganda are like what one would read in a science fiction novel.

 

EN — LARRY ROMANOFF — Life in a Failed State — Part 1 — September 27, 2022

Life in a Failed State,

Part 1

By Larry Romanoff, September 27, 2022

The United States of Inequality

So Long, Middle Class

Poverty, The Great Equaliser

The Richest Country’s Empty Plates

Homes and Homelessness

Jobs and Labor

 

Introduction

 

In an earlier essay on the 1917 Jewish revolution in Russia,[1] I related this quote: “The [Jews] systematically exterminated the  clergy, the wealthy, the business class, the intelligent educated class, all the high-achieving segments of the population, leaving Russia with a population of ignorant workers, peasants, and a powerful Jewish ruling elite.”

 

This is precisely the situation - and the intent - with the US today. The methods are different, but the final result will be the same. It is dispiriting that, while the signs are everywhere to be seen, few seem sufficiently interested or astute to connect the dots. In reading these combined essays on this topic, it will greatly assist your understanding if you keep in mind that the events and circumstances described herein were all deliberately created and implemented. None of what you will be reading about, was an accident of fate or due to "economic circumstances beyond control". All was contrived for the above transitional purpose, and that transition is perhaps 80% completed in the US today. Read, and form your own judgment.

 

The United States of Inequality

 

EN — LARRY ROMANOFF — The Fraudulent Matrix of US Economic Statistics — September 27, 2022

 

The Fraudulent Matrix of US Economic Statistics

By Larry Romanoff, September 27^th, 2022

 

 

The US government and Western media enjoy accusing other nations of producing unreliable economic numbers, but it is widely recognised that there are no national economic statistics in the world as deliberately unreliable and misleading as those of the US. One notable feature of the Great Transformation was the US government’s innovativeness in fabricating statistics that raised economic misinformation to an art form. Many researchers have published studies demonstrating that the official US economic statistics in nearly all areas are badly distorted to paint a positive picture widely divergent from reality, but with the compliant media controlling the narrative, few Americans have any idea of the true state of their economy or the personal consequences of these statistical manipulations. As one commenter noted, “The jobs numbers are fraudulent, the unemployment rate is deceptive, the inflation measures are understated, and the GDP growth rate is overstated. Americans live in a matrix of lies.”

 

As we will see, the true unemployment rate is far higher than the number officially stated, inflation is more than three times as high as the US government acknowledges, and the GDP only little more than half of the published numbers. The same is true with statistics on wages, housing, and more.

 

GDP

 

EN -- LARRY ROMANOFF -- America’s Labor Movement and the Post-War Social Contract -- September 27, 2022

 

America’s Labor Movement and the Post-War Social Contract

By Larry Romanoff, September 27^th, 2022

 

UAW leader Walter Reuther took a few minutes off from negotiating to speak at Cadillac Square, Sept. 4, 1961. Tony Spina, Detroit Free Press. Source

 

“In contrast to most other industrialised nations, neither the US government nor its corporations have ever held workers or employees in much regard, and the US never accepted the concept of labor unions. Unions were always denigrated in the media as a kind of dangerous socialism that would exploit workers, but it was actually North American capitalism that exploited workers while socialism that attempted to protect them.”

 

Thanks to the media, most Americans today still have this understanding backwards from reality. As we will see, there was a brief period after the Second World War during which an intense fear of social unrest produced a kind of "enlightened corporate self-interest" that resulted in a benign labor landscape, but that illusion was dispelled by the 1980s and The Great Transformation, with union membership fell by about 70%, largely through the harsh capitalist and legislative climate. The majority of American workers still wanted (and needed) labor unions, but the anti-union conspiracy was too powerful.

 

From almost its earliest days, The FBI infiltrated labor unions and installed corrupt officials in attempts to destroy them from the inside. This was done under the pretense of combating "labor racketeering", some of which actually existed, but the infiltrations were conducted primarily to undermine and destroy the unions.[1] When those attempts failed and labor organisers showed signs of being successful, they were either simply murdered or framed and convicted of crimes, and often executed. The US government has for all of its history acted with absolute disregard for the law, whenever the law became inconvenient to the purpose at hand. One of these purposes was the crushing of labor, where the government frequently not only fabricated criminal charges against union organisers but convicted them under laws that had never existed. In one famous case, labor organisers trying to create a mine workers union in Pennsylvania were charged by the state with murder and conspiracy. When these charges failed to hold, the organisers and about a dozen union members were hanged for “obstinacy”.

 

Ukraine can use Western weapons against ‘territories seized by Russia’ – US

  

27 Sep, 2022 19:55

Home World News

Ukraine can use Western weapons against ‘territories seized by Russia’ – US

US Secretary of State Blinken says Washington won’t recognize “annexed” regions as Russian

 

FILE PHOTO. Ukrainian soldiers target Russian positions from a US-supplied M777 howitzer in Kharkov Region, July 14, 2022. ©  AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka

Washington has no objections to Kiev using Western-supplied weapons to target territories that may decide to join Russia, as the US considers the vote to do so illegitimate, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday. 

The US and its allies have supplied Ukraine with a variety of weapons, including tube and rocket artillery. At a joint press conference with his Indian counterpart Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Washington, Blinken was asked if the US had any objections to Ukraine using those weapons to attack targets in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson, which just wrapped up a vote on joining Russia.

“We will never recognize the annexation of Ukrainian territory by Russia,” Blinken told reporters. “Ukraine has the absolute right to defend itself throughout its territory, including to take back the territory that has been illegally seized, one way or another, by Russia. And the equipment, the weapons that we and many other countries are providing, have been used very effectively to do just that.”

Russia’s “annexation” of the Donbass republics and the two regions will make zero difference to either Ukraine or the US, Blinken insisted. “The Ukrainians will continue to do what they need to do to get back the land that has been taken from them. We will continue to support them in that effort.”

In June, when the US first sent long-range HIMARS rocket artillery to Ukraine, Blinken said he had received “assurances” from Kiev that they will not be used on Russian territory, and that he believed them due to a “strong trust bond.”

Kiev’s forces have since used the US-supplied weapons to target civilians in Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye, which are under Russian control. Ukraine has also bombed Crimea and border towns in the Russian regions of Kursk and Belgorod. Crimea rejoined Russia in March 2014, after the US-backed coup in Kiev, while Donetsk and Lugansk declared independence. 

Blinken also accused Russia of a “diabolical scheme” to deport or “disappear” the local Ukrainian population and “bus in” Russians who would then vote in a manipulated referendum to get annexed by Moscow. 

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”

In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.

 

FINAL RESULTS OF THE REFERENDUM:Donetsk People's Republic - 99.23% -- Lugansk People's Republic - 98.42% -- Zaporozhye region - 93.11% -- Kherson region - 87.05%

 

FINAL RESULTS OF THE REFERENDUM:

Donetsk People's Republic - 99.23% 

Lugansk People's Republic - 98.42% 

Zaporozhye region - 93.11% 

Kherson region - 87.05%

 

https://twitter.com/AmericansPTSD/status/1574875156677271566?s=20&t=RBngDuInA2u4YO5VrTynwQ

Paul Craig Roberts -- A Fateful Moment of History Is Upon Us

 

A Fateful Moment of History Is Upon Us

September 27, 2022  

A Fateful Moment of History Is Upon Us

Paul Craig Roberts

Dear Readers, 

I have explained to you that there has been no Russian defeat in Ukraine and will not be a Russian defeat.  I informed you that Putin and the Kremlin are committed to  one important thing that differentiates Russia from the US and that is that Russia follows international law and the US does not.  This is why there has been no “Russian invasion of Ukraine” as proclaimed by Western propagandists.  Kiev, the functioning of the Ukraine government, and the cities and infrastructure of western Ukraine have not been attacked.  The Kremlin has limited its military operations to the areas in Ukraine where the majority Russian population was being shelled, occupied, and murdered by Ukrainian forces and which faced last February an invasion of a large Western-trained Ukrainian army and neo-Nazi militias intended to overthrow the two independent Donbass republics recognized  by the Russian government.  The republics requested Russia’s intervention, which made the “limited military operation” legal under international law.

As my readers know, I regard the limited operation a mistake as it has drawn out the conflict and allowed the West to get deeply involved, thus promising a wider war that would likely turn nuclear.  I thought and still do that Russia was emphasizing legality at the risk of nuclear war.

The Kremlin has now acted to remove the constraint of international law with the referendums in the four areas whether the inhabitants wish reunification with Russia.  It is clear that the vote will be yes, and that the Duma and the Kremlin will proceed rapidly to reincorporate the former Russian territory back into Russia.