Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave a speech before the U.N. Security Council this morning about the current tensions regarding Ukraine and Russia. After bombarding the world with assertions of false flag attacks and an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine – even offering dates – that never materialized, the Biden administration has decided to double down, with Blinken claiming that Russia could invade Ukraine “at any time” and “in coming days.”
Blinken also mentioned the need to protect national sovereignty. That’s right, the nation that bombed Yugoslavia and invaded Iraq without UN sanction and violated its UN mandate to facilitate regime change in Libya suddenly wants to bust out their harmonica and sing us all a sad song about the inviolability of national sovereignty.
Blinken has set up his story so that if Ukrainian forces were to attack the Donbas – if this happened it would likely be forces not directly under Zelensky’s control as he certainly realizes by now that it’s not in his interest to invite a Russian military attack – any Russian military assistance to the Donbas would be framed as aggression based on Russia lying or having executed a false flag. Blinken even frames any attempts by Russia under those circumstances to attempt diplomatic action, by calling meetings of the UN Security Council, as “insincere.”
As is customary for the US government in the post-Cold War era, no evidence was presented to back up any of this. After babies in incubators, WMD’s, Viagra-pumped Qaddafi mass rape forces, and moderate rebels in Syria, we’re supposed to just take all of this on faith.
Of course, if none of this comes to pass in the next couple of weeks, Biden can go into his State of the Union and into the mid-term election season with a political win by claiming that he stared down Putin and Putin blinked.
The Biden administration obviously thinks they’re being clever with this stunt, but they sure aren’t being wise.
Natylie, this entire Ukraine farce is Biden’s “wag the dog” moment. Biden’s total failure in his domestic agenda has made him desperate, and he is willing to drive this country into war to save his ass. Biden and Blinken are Cold War addicts and long time Russophobes, and they know they can count on the demonization of Putin and the ingrained Russophobia in the US, cultivated since the Bolshevik revolution over 100 years ago to control the “narrative.” Facts, history, truth, logic, reason–none of it matters. No matter what Putin says or does it is dismissed or distorted. As you point out, even after the US National Security State has been exposed as pathological liars over and over again—WMD, babies thrown out of incubators, Libyan troops on Viagra, Syria using chemical weapons, etc.–one would think the fourth estate (i.e., journalists) would stop being stenographers for war and militarism and start doing what journalism is intended to do–that is, question authority. It’s as if the whole WMD fiasco never happened, as if the NYT has amnesia and has forgotten that it had to “apologize” to its readers for being hoodwinked by the Bush cabal. Let’s face it—it’s all about who controls the “narrative,” and unfortunately those of us who prefer facts and truth to lies and propaganda have been losing the battles for a long time now. What will it take to turn it around? That is the question for which no one has come up with an answer.
Ms. Baldwin is well within her rights to critique.
There have been some notable intelligence and foreign policy failures on the part of American leaders over the past several decades. There is also a notable lack of understanding of Russia and of Mr. Putin’s role in Russian history since 2000, when he unexpectedly inherited what may be the toughest job in the world. Not every terrible thing that has happened on VVP’s watch is his fault; much of it was happening under Yeltsin, and much of it is ascribable to the ways of the “siloviki,” who have not changed. Putin probably could not change them even if he wanted to. And corruption: a constant feature of Russian life for centuries already.