"Over the last 70 years they have ruled over populations who have been at the forefront in terms of organizing themselves and demonstrating against war wherever it happens to be waged. But it turns out that they were not able to defend those same
populations from a war that had been brewing at home since at least as early as 2014.
https://asiatimes.com/2022/03/why-europe-needs-to-take-a-hard-look-at-itself/ "The European democracies have just shown that they have a government without the people. There are numerous reasons for coming to this conclusion.

Both Russia and the US have been preparing for this war for some time.

In the case of Russia, there had been clear indications in recent years that the country was accumulating huge gold reserves and giving priority to a strategic partnership with China. This was especially noticeable in the financial sphere, where a bank
merger and the creation of a new international currency are the ultimate goal, and in the sphere of trade, with its Belt and Road Initiative and the tremendous possibilities for expansion that it will open up throughout Eurasia.

As regards relationships with its European partners, Russia has proved to be a credible partner, while making clear what its security concerns were. These were legitimate concerns, if we only stop to think that in the world of superpowers there is
neither good nor bad, only strategic interests that need to be accommodated.

That was the case with the 1962 missile crisis, when the US drew a red line in respect of the installation of medium-range missiles 70 kilometers from its border. Let it not be thought that the Soviet Union was the only one to give in, because the US
also removed its medium-range missiles from Turkey.

Trade-off, accommodation, lasting agreement. Why wasn't it possible in the case of Ukraine?

Let us turn to the preparations on the US side.

Faced with the decline of the global dominance it has enjoyed since 1945, the US is trying at all costs to consolidate its zones of influence, so as to maintain its advantages in trade and access to raw materials for US companies.

What is written below has been gleaned from official and think-tank documents.

The policy of regime change is not aimed at creating democracies, but rather at creating governments that are loyal to US interests. Not a single democratic state has emerged from the bloody interventions in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya.

The promotion of democracy was not what led the US to support coups that deposed democratically elected presidents in Honduras (2009), Paraguay (2012), Brazil (2016) and Bolivia (2019), not to mention the 2014 coup in Ukraine.

China has been the United States' main rival for some time now. In the case of Europe, the US strategy rests on two pillars: to provoke Russia and to neutralize Europe (and Germany in particular).

In 2019, the Rand Corporation, a well-known organization dedicated to strategic studies, published a report titled“Extending Russia ,” produced at the request of the Pentagon. The report details how to provoke countries in ways that can be exploited
by the US. It has this to say about Russia:

Do we need to hear more in order to understand what is happening in Ukraine? Provoke Russia into expanding and then criticize it for doing so. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's eastward expansion – against what was agreed with Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 – was key in triggering the provocation.

Another important step was the violation of the Minsk Accords.

It should be pointed out that when the Donetsk and Luhansk regions first claimed independence after the 2014 coup, Russia did not support their claims. It favored autonomy within Ukraine, as provided for in the Minsk Accords. It was Ukraine – with US
support – that tore up the agreements, not Russia.

As for Europe, its No 1 concern is to consolidate its status as a minor partner that does not dare interfere with the zones-of-influence policy. Europe has to be a reliable partner, but it cannot expect reciprocal treatment.

That is why the European Union – to the clueless surprise of its leaders – found itself excluded from AUKUS, the security pact among the US, Australia and the UK for the Indo-Pacific region. The minor-partner strategy requires that Europe become more
dependent, not only in military terms (something that NATO can always be relied on to ensure) but also with regard to the economy and the area of energy in particular.

US foreign policy (and democracy) is dominated by three oligarchies (for oligarchs are not the monopoly of Russia and Ukraine): the military-industrial complex; the gas, oil and mining complex; and the banking and real estate complex.

These complexes yield fabulous profits thanks to so-called monopoly rents, that is, privileged market positions that allow them to inflate prices. Their goal consists in keeping the world at war and increasingly dependent on US arms supplies.

Europe's energy dependence on Russia was thus something unacceptable. And yet, in Europe's eyes, it was not a question of dependence, but rather of economic rationality and a diversification of partners.

With the invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions, everything fell into place as planned. The stocks of the three complexes rose immediately, and the champagne began to flow. A mediocre, ignorant Europe, totally lacking in strategic vision, falls
helplessly in the hands of these complexes, which will soon let Europe know what prices it will have to pay. Europe will be impoverished and destabilized because its leaders failed to rise to the moment."

Worse than that, it can't wait to arm Nazis. Nor does it seem to remember that, in December 2021, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution – proposed by Russia – aimed at“combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that
contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.” Two countries, the US and Ukraine, voted against it."

(Boaventura de Sousa Santos is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Coimbra (Portugal), and Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tuesday, March 22, 2022 at 1:27:39 AM UTC+8, stoney wrote:

On Monday, March 21, 2022 at 10:01:13 PM UTC+8, ltlee1 wrote:

"Over the last 70 years they have ruled over populations who have been at the forefront in terms of organizing themselves and demonstrating against war wherever it happens to be waged. But it turns out that they were not able to defend those same

populations from a war that had been brewing at home since at least as early as 2014.

https://asiatimes.com/2022/03/why-europe-needs-to-take-a-hard-look-at-itself/
"The European democracies have just shown that they have a government without the people. There are numerous reasons for coming to this conclusion.

Both Russia and the US have been preparing for this war for some time.

In the case of Russia, there had been clear indications in recent years that the country was accumulating huge gold reserves and giving priority to a strategic partnership with China. This was especially noticeable in the financial sphere, where a

bank merger and the creation of a new international currency are the ultimate goal, and in the sphere of trade, with its Belt and Road Initiative and the tremendous possibilities for expansion that it will open up throughout Eurasia.

As regards relationships with its European partners, Russia has proved to be a credible partner, while making clear what its security concerns were. These were legitimate concerns, if we only stop to think that in the world of superpowers there is

neither good nor bad, only strategic interests that need to be accommodated.

That was the case with the 1962 missile crisis, when the US drew a red line in respect of the installation of medium-range missiles 70 kilometers from its border. Let it not be thought that the Soviet Union was the only one to give in, because the US

also removed its medium-range missiles from Turkey.

Trade-off, accommodation, lasting agreement. Why wasn't it possible in the case of Ukraine?

Let us turn to the preparations on the US side.

Faced with the decline of the global dominance it has enjoyed since 1945, the US is trying at all costs to consolidate its zones of influence, so as to maintain its advantages in trade and access to raw materials for US companies.

What is written below has been gleaned from official and think-tank documents.

The policy of regime change is not aimed at creating democracies, but rather at creating governments that are loyal to US interests. Not a single democratic state has emerged from the bloody interventions in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and

Libya.

The promotion of democracy was not what led the US to support coups that deposed democratically elected presidents in Honduras (2009), Paraguay (2012), Brazil (2016) and Bolivia (2019), not to mention the 2014 coup in Ukraine.

China has been the United States' main rival for some time now. In the case of Europe, the US strategy rests on two pillars: to provoke Russia and to neutralize Europe (and Germany in particular).

In 2019, the Rand Corporation, a well-known organization dedicated to strategic studies, published a report titled“Extending Russia ,” produced at the request of the Pentagon. The report details how to provoke countries in ways that can be

exploited by the US. It has this to say about Russia:

Do we need to hear more in order to understand what is happening in Ukraine? Provoke Russia into expanding and then criticize it for doing so. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's eastward expansion – against what was agreed with Soviet leader

Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 – was key in triggering the provocation.

Another important step was the violation of the Minsk Accords.

It should be pointed out that when the Donetsk and Luhansk regions first claimed independence after the 2014 coup, Russia did not support their claims. It favored autonomy within Ukraine, as provided for in the Minsk Accords. It was Ukraine – with

US support – that tore up the agreements, not Russia.

As for Europe, its No 1 concern is to consolidate its status as a minor partner that does not dare interfere with the zones-of-influence policy. Europe has to be a reliable partner, but it cannot expect reciprocal treatment.

That is why the European Union – to the clueless surprise of its leaders – found itself excluded from AUKUS, the security pact among the US, Australia and the UK for the Indo-Pacific region. The minor-partner strategy requires that Europe become

more dependent, not only in military terms (something that NATO can always be relied on to ensure) but also with regard to the economy and the area of energy in particular.

US foreign policy (and democracy) is dominated by three oligarchies (for oligarchs are not the monopoly of Russia and Ukraine): the military-industrial complex; the gas, oil and mining complex; and the banking and real estate complex.

These complexes yield fabulous profits thanks to so-called monopoly rents, that is, privileged market positions that allow them to inflate prices. Their goal consists in keeping the world at war and increasingly dependent on US arms supplies.

Europe's energy dependence on Russia was thus something unacceptable. And yet, in Europe's eyes, it was not a question of dependence, but rather of economic rationality and a diversification of partners.

With the invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions, everything fell into place as planned. The stocks of the three complexes rose immediately, and the champagne began to flow. A mediocre, ignorant Europe, totally lacking in strategic vision,

falls helplessly in the hands of these complexes, which will soon let Europe know what prices it will have to pay. Europe will be impoverished and destabilized because its leaders failed to rise to the moment."

Worse than that, it can't wait to arm Nazis. Nor does it seem to remember that, in December 2021, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution – proposed by Russia – aimed at“combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices

that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.” Two countries, the US and Ukraine, voted against it."

(Boaventura de Sousa Santos is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Coimbra (Portugal), and Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.)

Absolutely right, the key points of US are to provoke Russia and neutralize EU, especially Germany. This is so that Germany is evicted as leader of EU and will make to obey US. By neutralizing Germany, US can put all the EU countries under their

influence and manipulation.

US as member of NATO countries, US will force them to buy their weapons, equipment, fighter aircrafts, and other military hardware. By provoking Russia, US will sacrifice Ukraine to the Russia. US will release more leeway to instigate Russia to attack

and conquered.

By this way, it is like killing two birds with one stone. This will make EU countries worried and become dependent on US to come to them. US will then tell them to buy more of their over-priced planes, equipment, and weapons.

Germany being the EU head, is also be shaken by US to let US to control Germany. US waited for than 20 years to get rid of the powerful Merkel to retire. Now US is not participating in the war but is happy to see NATO countries are needing them and

will be falling into their traps.

US is using one stone kills two birds to let Ukraine eaten up by Russia. US will then prepare to nuke Russia. This will lead to nuclear war initiated by US in EU against Russia.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Monday, March 21, 2022 at 10:01:13 PM UTC+8, ltlee1 wrote:

"Over the last 70 years they have ruled over populations who have been at the forefront in terms of organizing themselves and demonstrating against war wherever it happens to be waged. But it turns out that they were not able to defend those same

populations from a war that had been brewing at home since at least as early as 2014.

https://asiatimes.com/2022/03/why-europe-needs-to-take-a-hard-look-at-itself/
"The European democracies have just shown that they have a government without the people. There are numerous reasons for coming to this conclusion.

Both Russia and the US have been preparing for this war for some time.

In the case of Russia, there had been clear indications in recent years that the country was accumulating huge gold reserves and giving priority to a strategic partnership with China. This was especially noticeable in the financial sphere, where a bank

merger and the creation of a new international currency are the ultimate goal, and in the sphere of trade, with its Belt and Road Initiative and the tremendous possibilities for expansion that it will open up throughout Eurasia.

As regards relationships with its European partners, Russia has proved to be a credible partner, while making clear what its security concerns were. These were legitimate concerns, if we only stop to think that in the world of superpowers there is

neither good nor bad, only strategic interests that need to be accommodated.

That was the case with the 1962 missile crisis, when the US drew a red line in respect of the installation of medium-range missiles 70 kilometers from its border. Let it not be thought that the Soviet Union was the only one to give in, because the US

also removed its medium-range missiles from Turkey.

Trade-off, accommodation, lasting agreement. Why wasn't it possible in the case of Ukraine?

Let us turn to the preparations on the US side.

Faced with the decline of the global dominance it has enjoyed since 1945, the US is trying at all costs to consolidate its zones of influence, so as to maintain its advantages in trade and access to raw materials for US companies.

What is written below has been gleaned from official and think-tank documents.

The policy of regime change is not aimed at creating democracies, but rather at creating governments that are loyal to US interests. Not a single democratic state has emerged from the bloody interventions in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya.

The promotion of democracy was not what led the US to support coups that deposed democratically elected presidents in Honduras (2009), Paraguay (2012), Brazil (2016) and Bolivia (2019), not to mention the 2014 coup in Ukraine.

China has been the United States' main rival for some time now. In the case of Europe, the US strategy rests on two pillars: to provoke Russia and to neutralize Europe (and Germany in particular).

In 2019, the Rand Corporation, a well-known organization dedicated to strategic studies, published a report titled“Extending Russia ,” produced at the request of the Pentagon. The report details how to provoke countries in ways that can be

exploited by the US. It has this to say about Russia:

Do we need to hear more in order to understand what is happening in Ukraine? Provoke Russia into expanding and then criticize it for doing so. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's eastward expansion – against what was agreed with Soviet leader

Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 – was key in triggering the provocation.

Another important step was the violation of the Minsk Accords.

It should be pointed out that when the Donetsk and Luhansk regions first claimed independence after the 2014 coup, Russia did not support their claims. It favored autonomy within Ukraine, as provided for in the Minsk Accords. It was Ukraine – with US

support – that tore up the agreements, not Russia.

As for Europe, its No 1 concern is to consolidate its status as a minor partner that does not dare interfere with the zones-of-influence policy. Europe has to be a reliable partner, but it cannot expect reciprocal treatment.

That is why the European Union – to the clueless surprise of its leaders – found itself excluded from AUKUS, the security pact among the US, Australia and the UK for the Indo-Pacific region. The minor-partner strategy requires that Europe become

more dependent, not only in military terms (something that NATO can always be relied on to ensure) but also with regard to the economy and the area of energy in particular.

US foreign policy (and democracy) is dominated by three oligarchies (for oligarchs are not the monopoly of Russia and Ukraine): the military-industrial complex; the gas, oil and mining complex; and the banking and real estate complex.

These complexes yield fabulous profits thanks to so-called monopoly rents, that is, privileged market positions that allow them to inflate prices. Their goal consists in keeping the world at war and increasingly dependent on US arms supplies.

Europe's energy dependence on Russia was thus something unacceptable. And yet, in Europe's eyes, it was not a question of dependence, but rather of economic rationality and a diversification of partners.

With the invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions, everything fell into place as planned. The stocks of the three complexes rose immediately, and the champagne began to flow. A mediocre, ignorant Europe, totally lacking in strategic vision, falls

helplessly in the hands of these complexes, which will soon let Europe know what prices it will have to pay. Europe will be impoverished and destabilized because its leaders failed to rise to the moment."

Worse than that, it can't wait to arm Nazis. Nor does it seem to remember that, in December 2021, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution – proposed by Russia – aimed at“combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that

contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.” Two countries, the US and Ukraine, voted against it."

(Boaventura de Sousa Santos is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Coimbra (Portugal), and Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.)

Absolutely right, the key points of US are to provoke Russia and neutralize EU, especially Germany. This is so that Germany is evicted as leader of EU and will make to obey US. By neutralizing Germany, US can put all the EU countries under their
influence and manipulation.

US as member of NATO countries, US will force them to buy their weapons, equipment, fighter aircrafts, and other military hardware. By provoking Russia, US will sacrifice Ukraine to the Russia. US will release more leeway to instigate Russia to attack
and conquered.

By this way, it is like killing two birds with one stone. This will make EU countries worried and become dependent on US to come to them. US will then tell them to buy more of their over-priced planes, equipment, and weapons.

Germany being the EU head, is also be shaken by US to let US to control Germany. US waited for than 20 years to get rid of the powerful Merkel to retire. Now US is not participating in the war but is happy to see NATO countries are needing them and will
be falling into their traps.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Monday, March 21, 2022 at 5:27:39 PM UTC, stoney wrote:

On Monday, March 21, 2022 at 10:01:13 PM UTC+8, ltlee1 wrote:

"Over the last 70 years they have ruled over populations who have been at the forefront in terms of organizing themselves and demonstrating against war wherever it happens to be waged. But it turns out that they were not able to defend those same

populations from a war that had been brewing at home since at least as early as 2014.

https://asiatimes.com/2022/03/why-europe-needs-to-take-a-hard-look-at-itself/
"The European democracies have just shown that they have a government without the people. There are numerous reasons for coming to this conclusion.

Both Russia and the US have been preparing for this war for some time.

In the case of Russia, there had been clear indications in recent years that the country was accumulating huge gold reserves and giving priority to a strategic partnership with China. This was especially noticeable in the financial sphere, where a

bank merger and the creation of a new international currency are the ultimate goal, and in the sphere of trade, with its Belt and Road Initiative and the tremendous possibilities for expansion that it will open up throughout Eurasia.

As regards relationships with its European partners, Russia has proved to be a credible partner, while making clear what its security concerns were. These were legitimate concerns, if we only stop to think that in the world of superpowers there is

neither good nor bad, only strategic interests that need to be accommodated.

That was the case with the 1962 missile crisis, when the US drew a red line in respect of the installation of medium-range missiles 70 kilometers from its border. Let it not be thought that the Soviet Union was the only one to give in, because the US

also removed its medium-range missiles from Turkey.

Trade-off, accommodation, lasting agreement. Why wasn't it possible in the case of Ukraine?

Let us turn to the preparations on the US side.

Faced with the decline of the global dominance it has enjoyed since 1945, the US is trying at all costs to consolidate its zones of influence, so as to maintain its advantages in trade and access to raw materials for US companies.

What is written below has been gleaned from official and think-tank documents.

The policy of regime change is not aimed at creating democracies, but rather at creating governments that are loyal to US interests. Not a single democratic state has emerged from the bloody interventions in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and

Libya.

The promotion of democracy was not what led the US to support coups that deposed democratically elected presidents in Honduras (2009), Paraguay (2012), Brazil (2016) and Bolivia (2019), not to mention the 2014 coup in Ukraine.

China has been the United States' main rival for some time now. In the case of Europe, the US strategy rests on two pillars: to provoke Russia and to neutralize Europe (and Germany in particular).

In 2019, the Rand Corporation, a well-known organization dedicated to strategic studies, published a report titled“Extending Russia ,” produced at the request of the Pentagon. The report details how to provoke countries in ways that can be

exploited by the US. It has this to say about Russia:

Do we need to hear more in order to understand what is happening in Ukraine? Provoke Russia into expanding and then criticize it for doing so. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's eastward expansion – against what was agreed with Soviet leader

Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 – was key in triggering the provocation.

Another important step was the violation of the Minsk Accords.

It should be pointed out that when the Donetsk and Luhansk regions first claimed independence after the 2014 coup, Russia did not support their claims. It favored autonomy within Ukraine, as provided for in the Minsk Accords. It was Ukraine – with

US support – that tore up the agreements, not Russia.

As for Europe, its No 1 concern is to consolidate its status as a minor partner that does not dare interfere with the zones-of-influence policy. Europe has to be a reliable partner, but it cannot expect reciprocal treatment.

That is why the European Union – to the clueless surprise of its leaders – found itself excluded from AUKUS, the security pact among the US, Australia and the UK for the Indo-Pacific region. The minor-partner strategy requires that Europe become

more dependent, not only in military terms (something that NATO can always be relied on to ensure) but also with regard to the economy and the area of energy in particular.

US foreign policy (and democracy) is dominated by three oligarchies (for oligarchs are not the monopoly of Russia and Ukraine): the military-industrial complex; the gas, oil and mining complex; and the banking and real estate complex.

These complexes yield fabulous profits thanks to so-called monopoly rents, that is, privileged market positions that allow them to inflate prices. Their goal consists in keeping the world at war and increasingly dependent on US arms supplies.

Europe's energy dependence on Russia was thus something unacceptable. And yet, in Europe's eyes, it was not a question of dependence, but rather of economic rationality and a diversification of partners.

With the invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions, everything fell into place as planned. The stocks of the three complexes rose immediately, and the champagne began to flow. A mediocre, ignorant Europe, totally lacking in strategic vision,

falls helplessly in the hands of these complexes, which will soon let Europe know what prices it will have to pay. Europe will be impoverished and destabilized because its leaders failed to rise to the moment."

Worse than that, it can't wait to arm Nazis. Nor does it seem to remember that, in December 2021, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution – proposed by Russia – aimed at“combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices

that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.” Two countries, the US and Ukraine, voted against it."

(Boaventura de Sousa Santos is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Coimbra (Portugal), and Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.)

Absolutely right, the key points of US are to provoke Russia and neutralize EU, especially Germany. This is so that Germany is evicted as leader of EU and will make to obey US. By neutralizing Germany, US can put all the EU countries under their

influence and manipulation.


It is obvious that Ukraine has, ethnicity-wise as well as cultural, issues with Russia. The hastily determined border with a lot of ethnic and religiously speaking Russians residing in Ukraine, after the implosion of USSR made the problems unavoidable.
Many Ukrainians seem to follow a neo-nazi approach toward Russian minority among them. In response, Russia initiated a motion targeting Ukraine in the UN:
"Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.”
The UN General Assembly adopted the resolution. Ukraine voted against it for obvious reason. The US also voted against it because it wanted to have Ukraine on its side against Russia. Most European nations as well as Japan and Australia chose to
abstain. It is understandable for Japan and Australia to abstain. After all, it is an European issue. It, however, does not make sense for European powers to abstain. Do they really expect Russia to do nothing over widespread neo-nazism in Ukraine
against the Russians.

If one has doubt over neo-nazism in Ukraine, try the following:

"...Tucker airs a video clip with the head of a Ukraine’s military hospital telling a journalist interviewing him that he has ordered those under his command to castrate captive Russian soldiers, because they are not human, but rather “cockroaches.”
YouTube took the video down, but it’s still watchable online; Tucker had the clip. The Ukrainian doctor, Gennadiy Druzenko, later apologized for his words.

Tucker says that inasmuch as we Americans are paying for a lot of Ukraine’s defensive war on Russia, we should know what we are funding. He says several times in the ten minute segment that he supports Ukraine’s self-defense against this unjust
invasion, but he is not about to pretend that Zelensky and Ukraine are other than they really are, just because it feels good."

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/jd-vance-holds-line-against-warmongering-tucker-carlson/

US as member of NATO countries, US will force them to buy their weapons, equipment, fighter aircrafts, and other military hardware. By provoking Russia, US will sacrifice Ukraine to the Russia. US will release more leeway to instigate Russia to attack

and conquered.

By this way, it is like killing two birds with one stone. This will make EU countries worried and become dependent on US to come to them. US will then tell them to buy more of their over-priced planes, equipment, and weapons.

Germany being the EU head, is also be shaken by US to let US to control Germany. US waited for than 20 years to get rid of the powerful Merkel to retire. Now US is not participating in the war but is happy to see NATO countries are needing them and

will be falling into their traps.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tuesday, March 22, 2022 at 2:39:06 PM UTC-7, ltlee1 wrote:

On Monday, March 21, 2022 at 5:27:39 PM UTC, stoney wrote:

On Monday, March 21, 2022 at 10:01:13 PM UTC+8, ltlee1 wrote:

"Over the last 70 years they have ruled over populations who have been at the forefront in terms of organizing themselves and demonstrating against war wherever it happens to be waged. But it turns out that they were not able to defend those same

populations from a war that had been brewing at home since at least as early as 2014.

https://asiatimes.com/2022/03/why-europe-needs-to-take-a-hard-look-at-itself/
"The European democracies have just shown that they have a government without the people. There are numerous reasons for coming to this conclusion.

Both Russia and the US have been preparing for this war for some time.

In the case of Russia, there had been clear indications in recent years that the country was accumulating huge gold reserves and giving priority to a strategic partnership with China. This was especially noticeable in the financial sphere, where a

bank merger and the creation of a new international currency are the ultimate goal, and in the sphere of trade, with its Belt and Road Initiative and the tremendous possibilities for expansion that it will open up throughout Eurasia.

As regards relationships with its European partners, Russia has proved to be a credible partner, while making clear what its security concerns were. These were legitimate concerns, if we only stop to think that in the world of superpowers there is

neither good nor bad, only strategic interests that need to be accommodated.

That was the case with the 1962 missile crisis, when the US drew a red line in respect of the installation of medium-range missiles 70 kilometers from its border. Let it not be thought that the Soviet Union was the only one to give in, because the

US also removed its medium-range missiles from Turkey.

Trade-off, accommodation, lasting agreement. Why wasn't it possible in the case of Ukraine?

Let us turn to the preparations on the US side.

Faced with the decline of the global dominance it has enjoyed since 1945, the US is trying at all costs to consolidate its zones of influence, so as to maintain its advantages in trade and access to raw materials for US companies.

What is written below has been gleaned from official and think-tank documents.

The policy of regime change is not aimed at creating democracies, but rather at creating governments that are loyal to US interests. Not a single democratic state has emerged from the bloody interventions in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and

Libya.

The promotion of democracy was not what led the US to support coups that deposed democratically elected presidents in Honduras (2009), Paraguay (2012), Brazil (2016) and Bolivia (2019), not to mention the 2014 coup in Ukraine.

China has been the United States' main rival for some time now. In the case of Europe, the US strategy rests on two pillars: to provoke Russia and to neutralize Europe (and Germany in particular).

In 2019, the Rand Corporation, a well-known organization dedicated to strategic studies, published a report titled“Extending Russia ,” produced at the request of the Pentagon. The report details how to provoke countries in ways that can be

exploited by the US. It has this to say about Russia:

Do we need to hear more in order to understand what is happening in Ukraine? Provoke Russia into expanding and then criticize it for doing so. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's eastward expansion – against what was agreed with Soviet

leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 – was key in triggering the provocation.

Another important step was the violation of the Minsk Accords.

It should be pointed out that when the Donetsk and Luhansk regions first claimed independence after the 2014 coup, Russia did not support their claims. It favored autonomy within Ukraine, as provided for in the Minsk Accords. It was Ukraine –

with US support – that tore up the agreements, not Russia.

As for Europe, its No 1 concern is to consolidate its status as a minor partner that does not dare interfere with the zones-of-influence policy. Europe has to be a reliable partner, but it cannot expect reciprocal treatment.

That is why the European Union – to the clueless surprise of its leaders – found itself excluded from AUKUS, the security pact among the US, Australia and the UK for the Indo-Pacific region. The minor-partner strategy requires that Europe

become more dependent, not only in military terms (something that NATO can always be relied on to ensure) but also with regard to the economy and the area of energy in particular.

US foreign policy (and democracy) is dominated by three oligarchies (for oligarchs are not the monopoly of Russia and Ukraine): the military-industrial complex; the gas, oil and mining complex; and the banking and real estate complex.

These complexes yield fabulous profits thanks to so-called monopoly rents, that is, privileged market positions that allow them to inflate prices. Their goal consists in keeping the world at war and increasingly dependent on US arms supplies.

Europe's energy dependence on Russia was thus something unacceptable. And yet, in Europe's eyes, it was not a question of dependence, but rather of economic rationality and a diversification of partners.

With the invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions, everything fell into place as planned. The stocks of the three complexes rose immediately, and the champagne began to flow. A mediocre, ignorant Europe, totally lacking in strategic vision,

falls helplessly in the hands of these complexes, which will soon let Europe know what prices it will have to pay. Europe will be impoverished and destabilized because its leaders failed to rise to the moment."

Worse than that, it can't wait to arm Nazis. Nor does it seem to remember that, in December 2021, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution – proposed by Russia – aimed at“combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices

that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.” Two countries, the US and Ukraine, voted against it."

(Boaventura de Sousa Santos is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Coimbra (Portugal), and Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.)

Absolutely right, the key points of US are to provoke Russia and neutralize EU, especially Germany. This is so that Germany is evicted as leader of EU and will make to obey US. By neutralizing Germany, US can put all the EU countries under their

influence and manipulation.

It is obvious that Ukraine has, ethnicity-wise as well as cultural, issues with Russia. The hastily determined border with a lot of ethnic and religiously speaking Russians residing in Ukraine, after the implosion of USSR made the problems unavoidable.

Many Ukrainians seem to follow a neo-nazi approach toward Russian minority among them. In response, Russia initiated a motion targeting Ukraine in the UN:

"Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.”
The UN General Assembly adopted the resolution. Ukraine voted against it for obvious reason. The US also voted against it because it wanted to have Ukraine on its side against Russia. Most European nations as well as Japan and Australia chose to

abstain. It is understandable for Japan and Australia to abstain. After all, it is an European issue. It, however, does not make sense for European powers to abstain. Do they really expect Russia to do nothing over widespread neo-nazism in Ukraine
against the Russians.

Russia invaded Ukraine not because of neo-Nazism, but because Ukraine doesn't want to be under Russia's control. Same reason that the PRC is talking about invading Taiwan. Everything else is propaganda. Neo-Nazism is just an excuse. Putin is more Nazi-
like than most Ukrainians. He has rained death and destruction on Ukraine, and the hypocrites won't admit it.

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