UKRAINE & NATO: A MISTAKE OF COLOSSAL AND CATASTROPHIC PROPORTIONS

It is not as if those in the West who created the ongoing Ukrainian debacle were not informed of the dangers inherent in the exercise of bringing it into NATO. Prominent figures within both academic and governmental positions repeatedly warned against NATO expansion and specifically against the inclusion of Ukraine into NATO.

The architect of the West’s containment policy regarding the Soviet Union during the Cold War, George Kennan, said this of NATO’s expansion eastward:

''I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves.''

The present CIA chief, William J. Burns said this in a cable in 2008 when he was U.S. ambassador to Russia:

“Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin).” “I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”

Then we have Angela Merkel, a key figure opposing Ukraine joining NATO:

‘German Chancellor Angela Merkel was one of the key opponents to giving Georgia and Ukraine a Membership Action Plan at the April 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit.’

These are only a few of the many who gave stern warnings concerning the folly of the approach of George W. Bush who pushed through a statement in 2008 against all opposition saying that both Georgia and Ukraine would join NATO at some point.

All expert opinion was ignored in a mix of hubris, unspeakable levels of ignorance and reckless unconcern. Now we see how the avoidance of sound advice regarding NATO expansion and Ukrainian inclusion in NATO is unravelling so many issues intimately connected to the conflict in Ukraine.

The USA and its allies are now on an unstoppable downward trajectory as they continue to lose influence, partly it must be assumed because of the recklessness that has been displayed over the issue of Ukraine and NATO. A figure approaching half a million are dead or injured. The power of the U.S. dollar to control markets and exert pressure via unilateral sanctions is declining by the direct actions of states that were once tightly bound into the U.S. global economic network. The reputation of figures such as Joe Biden, Anthony Blinken and the coterie of yes-men and women around them is at rock bottom and those such as neoconservative, Victoria Nuland have little better reputation than common criminals.

All came from those initial stages of self-deception and pure ignorance demonstrated by George W. Bush exacerbated by year after year of doubling down rather than backtracking through good, pragmatic common sense. Now there is no wriggle room left, by constantly doubling down rather than seeking a diplomatic compromise, the political and military elites of the USA cannot help but face total humiliation at the very least… and nuclear annihilation at worst.

The most devastating factor for the West that surmounts all others in the medium to long term however, is the global effect weakening the western position that has reached its peak during the Ukraine crisis.  Multiple nations, previously restrained in their actions, are now quite clearly distancing themselves from the western powers and increasingly looking eastward for allies. The migration to the BRICS group demonstrates this with obvious geopolitical clarity and demonstrates if nothing else does that the mistakes of the western powers culminating in the disastrous Ukraine policy are having a disastrous effect that will endure. A fully-fledged multipolar world where western power is severely curtailed if not fully quarantined is now fast emerging.

None of this was unavoidable and in the case of Ukraine this is especially true. Contrary to the lies underpinning the absolutely flawed policy of doubling down of the western powers, Vladimir Putin sought peace all down the line in respect of Ukraine and right up to the end when it became clear to him that the western powers never did have any intention to agree a peaceful solution to the situation. Even as late as the winter months of 2021 Russia sought an agreement to pursue a new security architecture for the whole of Europe. Putin made his appeal directly to NATO and to the Biden administration. His appeals were rejected. Just as his earlier request that Russia should be allowed to join both the EU and NATO was rejected.

Now we stand at a crossroads for the West. Potentially one last chance to turn things around exists. But will the western powers pursue that last chance and convince the Zelensky regime to seek peace? The chances are slim. The greater likelihood is that the U.S. and its allies will attempt to double down yet again, hoping that their luck will change this time and their reputations, at the very last moment,  will be saved.

Meanwhile, somewhere between 400 and 600 men die each day the conflict continues. Isn’t it time therefore for the leaders of the western world to recognise that the lives of these human beings is SO much more important than the dubious reputations they appear so much more concerned with? History cannot but have an extremely harsh judgement on these wilfully reckless and ignorant men and women, those that made these mistakes of such colossal and catastrophic proportions regarding Ukraine.

WHY DOES VLADIMIR PUTIN USE THE EXPRESSION ‘EMPIRE OF LIES’ TO DESCRIBE THE WEST?

Since February 2007 when Vladimir Putin addressed a security conference in Munich which the entire political elite of the western world attended he has been a marked man. Prior to this speech where Putin explained Russia would not be a slave to western domination he was wined and dined in the West. Up to this time the western leaders clearly considered him to be a malleable who would not stand in the way of western agencies dominating in Russia. His speech in Munich disabused them of this idea.

Since Putin’s Munich speech until the present day Putin has been vilified by western politicians and pundits alike, accused of almost every crime imaginable. The character assassination attempts have poured out, arriving from every political and media quarter in the West and have been very successful. The reputation of Vladimir Putin in the West has been driven well into the negative to such an extent that many believe Putin even outranks the reputation for evil of even Adolf Hitler.

The fact is that Vladimir Putin is an eminently capable and intelligent man who, as regards most people and particularly politicians, is extremely law-abiding, even when there would be advantage to him in deviating from that stance. If you wince and even laugh at this description it only goes to show just how effective the perpetual character-assassination attacks against him have been since 2007. Putin studied law and there are innumerable reports, even among U.S. state department officials, that his reputation for honesty as a bureaucrat working in St Petersburg long before Yeltsin saw him as presidential material, was as the most honest to be found.

Of course Putin is not talking of himself when he calls the collective west the ‘Empire of Lies’. He is talking of the entire approach to Russia and the myriad fabrications and downright lies, deceptions and examples of devious behaviour that Russia has met with over the last several decades. It can be argued with merit that virtually nothing said about Russia over these decades has been truthful. If we take the Minsk Agreements as an example, both Angela Merkel and ex-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko have both said in recent times that Russia’s attempt through Minsk to find a peaceful path to the Ukrainian problem was set up as a sham, a charade with which to dupe Russia, giving Ukraine time to re-arm.

Minsk in 2015 was followed by the political and media circus surrounding Donald Trump in 2016 and beyond whereby Russia was used as a weapon with which to attack and potentially oust him from office. Ultimately, ‘Russiagate’ as it came to be called, proved to be what the Americans call a ‘Nothingburger’. Every device possible was used to make the fabricated charges stick. The name of Russia was dragged through the mud while that of Vladimir Putin was emphasised and re-emphasised time and time again as a Machiavellian evil influence on almost every aspect of North American life.

More recently, when every attempt by Putin and Russia to find a way to avoid conflict over NATO expansion and Ukrainian attacks on the Russian-speaking civilian population of eastern Ukraine which had been continuous since 2014, a military operation was begun to achieve the goals set by Minsk and further to make NATO give up its ambition to include Ukraine in its alliance. As was the case previously when almost no reporting of Ukrainian shelling of civilians,  a daily and nightly occurrence from 2014 to February 2022, western media continued in its 100% bias against Russia. Russia was daily accused of every negative aspect possible regarding an action it has been relentlessly provoked into taking.

One of the most egregious lies told and repeatedly told is that Russia’s action was ‘unprovoked’. Arguably there has never in living memory been a more proved action than Russia’s on February 24th 2022. Putin and Russia had gone every possible extra mile to avoid taking the step it did that day. However, every suggestion made by Putin and Russia was rejected out of hand while western leaders did everything possible to pull the wool over Russian eyes and deny Putin and the Russians any way out but the one that was so reluctantly taken on that day.

Whether the truth first became the first casualty of ‘The War on Terror’ enabling the USA to do things it had rejected as unethical and immoral such as engaging in torture, kidnapping (rendition) and imprisonment without trial (Guantanamo incarceration) and this led inevitably to the broad use of propaganda, psychological and black operations (PsyOps/BlackOps) is a matter only of conjecture. However, when standards of integrity begin to slip there is inevitably a descent into the telling of lies, via semantic camouflaging (torture became ‘enhanced interrogation techniques, kidnapping became rendition and treatment of prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention was ruled out by redefining prisoners as ‘Enemy Combatants’). The slippery slope to ever more lies became unavoidable by this point.

For all the reasons above and the continuing totally one-sided and utterly biased portrayal of the situation in Ukraine perhaps you see now why Putin has used the phrase ‘The Empire of Lies’ to describe the political degeneracy that runs and drives the West down to ever-lower levels of trustworthiness, deception and the kind of distortion of the facts commonly only seen in the most totalitarian of states.

RUSSELL BRAND FOLLOWS IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF OTHERS MARKED BY WESTERN ELITES FOR DESTRUCTION

The elites of the western world are running scared. That is, the western political, media, military, security and intelligence elites are petrified that the populations they are supposed to control are becoming too aware of being controlled. It has been decided therefore to deliver as many shocks to those populations as needs be to introvert them sufficiently to make them more malleable. Ostensibly these elites are the servants of the people rather than their masters but this has always been just as much a fable as the concept of democracy. These elites see themselves as masters, not servants and always have done.

When one of those the elites consider underlings starts to increase the general awareness of western populations to the point where they realise they are being controlled rather than served by these elite groups they target those upstarts for destruction. One such currently is Russell Brand. A concerted attempt is being made to destroy the reputation of Russell Brand due to the dangers western elites see for themselves and the illusion of democracy which they hide behind. Each individual that points out the nature of the dictatorship behind the mask of western democracy instantly becomes a target for destruction.

Julian Assange and Scott Ritter are two individuals who were made targets in recent years for being too successful in pointing out the lies that western elites were intent on spreading as fact. Russell Brand is the latest to come under their hammer. Others such as Neil Oliver of Scotland and several in the United States such as Colonel Douglas Macregor and Max Blumenthal are sure to be targeted heavily soon. The CIA, based in Langley, Virginia along with its network of media workers across the USA, UK and Europe will have extensive files and library of dirt from which to fabricate a campaign on any and all of those who stray out of line and speak against those who run things in the West.

Contradict the state/media line on the covid plandemic, the Ukraine proxy war or anything else the western masters need their servants to believe in will initiate a reaction whose ultimate purpose is to gag, censor and ruin those deigning to be so willfully free. Freedom is the second false percept that acts as an equally controlling fabrication across the nations of the collective West. To paraphrase George Carlin you don’t have state representatives, you have OWNERS. They own you. They own you and condition you incessantly and continually through lies distributed daily by their mass media contacts. The CIA’s ‘Operation Mockingbird’ never ended but was only ever extended. The goal of fully controlling mainstream media was accomplished.

The current case regarding Russell Brand exposes just how far the corruption of any remaining principles western state elites may have had has gone. Justice and the long-established rule of innocent until proven guilty has been abandoned. In its place when those spreading too much awareness regarding western state lies and crimes are concerned is trial by media accusation, trial by television and through print media. As with the West’s proxy war in Ukraine no contradiction is to be allowed, no adjudication of the facts from the other side is to be allowed. The only information to be supplied is that which fits the narratives western states require acceptance of in order to punish those who insist on contradicting western state lies.

The western state requirement is that western populations remain in a dumb, hyper-controllable state, self-blinding and submissive, kept within a narcissistic, materialist bubble of ignorance regarding their lamentable state as sheeple rather than as thoughtful individuals. As George Carlin has pointed out, the owners don’t want discerning individuals, only modern day slaves, those just smart enough to do the bidding of their masters and no more. Citizens becoming aware of the matrix of lies they are told to keep them ignorant of how they are controlled is something western elites regard as anathema and work constantly to erase. Russell Brand with his many million followers is a danger to them therefore and merits the present campaign designed to destroy his influence.

The elites of the western world are losing it. Their past crimes are catching up with them. Nation after nation is wrenching itself free of their control. Africa is rebelling against a France that has been exploiting it for over a century. Multiple nations across the Global South and Latin America are escaping western control in similar fashion, breaking with the oppressive controlling grip of western bullies who have abused them and oppressed them for countless years. The cumulative pressure on western elites has made them desperate and ever more willing to use reckless means to try to shore up their dwindling control. Power junkies fast losing their fix they are becoming ever more destructive of any remaining part of the facade of “freedom”, “democracy”, “justice” and “human rights” they have used for so long now to control, threaten, abuse and destroy others who threaten their domination, their self-granted dictatorship.

Russell Brand has been relentlessly pointing out these abusive emperors without clothes for years now and the effect of his criticisms have now become too great to ignore, the numbers of his followers too large and too influential. So now they have decided to act and snuff out this warrior for greater awareness. He is no longer to be allowed to encourage questioning of required elite narratives. The criminal conspiracy that runs the western world has dispensed with its mask of propriety and integrity revealing the snarling visage that has ALWAYS lurked there. The rabid hunger to continue the control over its populations has been exposed for all to see. And the fear of its own citizenry is exposed right along with it. 

HOW LONG WILL WESTERN POPULATIONS FEED DICTATOR ZELENSKY?

Volodymyr Zelensky may have begun his political career as a Russian-speaking peace activist who happened to be an actor in a popular TV series where he fought corruption as a servant of the people… but how quickly he flipped to the opposite pole regarding each and every character trait.

Apart from being the most vociferous warmonger since Hitler he has proceeded with speed down the path to dictatorship with almost every passing month since his election as president. Jailing those who opposed him, closing down radio and TV networks who dared criticise him and building known extremists with a Nazi mindset into his army this former comedian is anything but funny.

Zelensky heads an army of haters, people who in recent days have used Russian prisoners of war to explode mines by making them run into the fields where they are laid. If they survive they are executed. These are the same fine fellows who enjoyed gouging out the eyes of other Russian POWs, of kicking them to death after placing bags over their heads, who think nothing of shelling the Russian-speaking Ukrainians of the Donbass, supposedly their fellow Ukrainian citizens. Zelensky praises these godawful demons. As do many elite figures and organisations within western political and media spheres. You may recall how the AZOV Battalion were once beyond the pale in the West. No more. Now they are accorded the status of heroes.

Now Zelensky comes with his begging bowl to Washington once again seeking fresh weapons of war and almost endless U.S. dollars with which to continue a conflict that only Russia wishes to see end. More slaughter is the only thing Zelensky’s sponsors appear ready to countenance. More grist for the meatgrinder mill that is the Ukrainian offensive that has ground on for months now, plodding forward with extremely little to show for it but mounds of bodies. Biden and Blinken plus their braid-covered colleagues make up fairy stories of Ukrainian progress while shielding their eyes to the sorry facts, their reckless gambit against Russia has utterly failed.

So how much longer will the increasingly impoverished citizens of the USA and Europe continue to cough up their hard-earned cash to support a dictator in Ukraine who loses in excess of 500 of his compatriots every day that dawns while stoking ever more hatred and lust for war? For how much longer will the White House and their clones in London’s Whitehall be tolerated as their incessant lies are increasingly exposed as cynical tools with which to condition their populations? How can this cynical farce by western political and media elites go on? How can these people sleep at night? Presumably they would far rather see thousands more die than have their lies brought to light. 

Do westerners even care? Are they so lost within their little self-interested worlds and political cynicism that they turn a constant blind eye to the fact that their societies are fast crumbling around them while their money is fed into the mouth of hell in Ukraine? Are they so inured with it all that they believe nothing can be done and that the politicians are all equally bad, so what’s the point of trying to change anything? Each political party westerners might vote for sing the praises of this war, devote themselves to its furtherance and seem totally dedicated to sending ever more of whatever Zelensky needs into that unholy maw.

But really… how long now, even in their present apathetic and highly conditioned state of mind, will western populations continue to feed the West’s most favoured dictator, Volodymyr Zelensky?

ARE ZELENSKY AND HIS ARMY PURE AS DRIVEN SNOW AS CONSTANTLY DEPICTED?

Western media coverage of Ukraine has been uniformly positive, depicting a poor, helpless and infinitely lovable Ukraine that deserves every possible help that can be given her. On this basis February 24th 2022 when the Russian military crossed the border into Ukraine was the beginning of the timeline regarding the relationship between these two nations.

With all else out of sight and mind Volodomyr Zelensky became the new Winston Churchill and Vladimir Putin the new Adolf Hitler. With nothing before February 24th 2022 to ever be taken into consideration it could be said that Russia had made an unprovoked attack and who in the western mainstream or among western populations used to believing what their mainstream news outlets said, would contradict it?

It was so black and white. Amnesia ruled the airwaves regarding anything preceding that day in 2022. The fact that the Ukrainian military had been shelling the Russian-speaking civilian population of eastern Ukraine for eight years previously was written out of history at a stroke. The fact that upwards of 15,000 had died between 2014 and 2022 was not considered worthy of report. Things had to be kept good and simple so as not to confuse anyone with too many details.

The Ukrainians were as pure as driven snow and the Russians were as evil as the Nazis if not more so. Memories of how similar narratives had been used in the past to convey things as eminently simple were forgotten along with all the consequences that came along with the certainty of convictions based on falsehoods, distortions, knowing deceit and downright lies. It was a new time, new circumstances and a new media who for sure wouldn’t stoop to the tactics used before to manufacture the general public’s consent.

That consent was vital when hundreds of billions were to be fed to a regime in a nation that few had ever given two hoots about only days or weeks before. This clean slate of the mind was soon filled with data however, very selective data, filtered with a view to maintaining consent and obscuring too many inconvenient facts. Just as between the year 2014 and 2022 there was essentially zero reporting on the men, women and children who had fallen victim to Ukrainian army shelling so now the narrative would run that any negative aspect regarding Ukraine was the work of those vile Russians.

Have eyes been opened to the reality that has been the sorry fate of the entire population of Ukraine and specifically that of the Russian-speaking population who live everyday normal lives in one half of a nation that by rights ought to be two? Have a greater number of people become aware of the hatred that a large minority in western Ukraine feel for the Russian-speaking population over in the East, the names they call them, the contempt in which they hold them, to the degree that they would wish them dead? Every last man, woman and child? Hopefully many more are now aware of the true Nazis in this tragic conflict and have realised just how completely they have been hoodwinked into believing otherwise.

The cult-like belief in the merits of those Ukrainians who fought alongside the actual Nazis in world war two are the stuff of nightmares and horror films. Their mindset, it can be argued, shows just how much of that known Nazi evil has survived, passed down grandfather to father to son to arrive to horrific consequence in western Ukraine today. The articles and television specials which showed something of this mindset in the early months of 2014 were soon to vanish and be replaced by those created with a view to presenting alternate facts. These alternate facts would depict these modern day Nazis as patriots and Ukrainian national heroes.

Even today you cannot utter one negative word about the holy warriors of Ukraine or their valiant Churchillian leader in the western mainstream. The facade of perfect integrity in face of overwhelming evil must be maintained at all costs. Nothing can be allowed to sully the purity and grace of the Ukrainian sacrosanct quest to save the entire world from the evil Russian hordes led by their heartless criminal leader. The torture and murder of Russian prisoners of war must not be dwelt upon but be called ‘Russian Propaganda’. Recent footage from a deceased Ukrainian soldier’s mobile phone showing how Russian prisoners were made to run into minefields and executed if they survived will also no doubt be called the same.

Anything that might taint the picture of Ukraine as the poor hapless victim is not to be dwelt upon. Not the shelling of civilians (which goes on to this day, every day bringing civilian casualties) not the clear evidence of the Ukrainian being guilty of sending missiles into a marketplace to impress Anthony Blinken on a visit to Kiev, not the wholesale massacre of civilians in Bucha, not the shelling of civilians hoping to catch a train out of Kramatorsk, not the blowing up of civilians hiding from attack in a beautiful theatre in Mariupol. Nothing must interfere with the meme of Ukrainian purity of mind, spirit and deed.

Some will see the work of the Devil in all this. Only he could be so deceivingly evil. But no, this is all the work of humans, most of them holding high office, whether in Washington or Fleet Street, London’s Whitehall, Wall Street or Langley, Virginia and of course never in Kiev. Not in pure and unsullied Kiev where reside the purest souls ever known who wouldn’t hurt a fly or tell even the most inconsequential lie. Believe these latter “facts” delivered daily by all western political and media elites, editors and so-called journalists. Believe them and see if like Iraqi WMD that certainty of purity does not become a thing of vast ugliness and utter disgrace over time. The West’s leaders have made their populations complicit in this crime of the century and time will reveal that they and those in Kiev are in fact those who are the closest thing to pure evil on this planet.

WILL THE SLOVAKIAN ELECTIONS BOOST THE PRO-RUSSIAN SURGE NOW UNDERWAY?

On the 30th of this month Slovakia votes in a new government. Leading the polls currently is a government in waiting led by Robert Fico, a seasoned political campaigner and one of the leading European politicians calling for a halt to the prolonging of the war in Ukraine. If elected there would most certainly be a major shift in the Slovakian approach to both Ukraine and to Russia. Robert Fico is well known in Slovakia for a trip to Moscow after which he stated that it was not clear to him that the US-EU narrative on the origins of the war was correct.

Robert Fico as premier minister along with his party, SMER (‘Direction’) would at the very least be Russia-neutral in stance while advocating that everything possible should be done to promote a peaceful end to the conflict. Mr Fico’s stated policy is that Slovakia should no longer supply funds or weaponry to the Ukrainian regime with which to continue a war that it clearly has no chance of winning. His stance will without doubt virtually mirror that of Hungary’s viktor Orban, that hostilities should cease, a ceasefire called and negotiations between the two sides be started.

Slovakia’s addition to the present Hungarian stance on Ukraine cannot help but create a shockwave across the European Union. This in addition to the pro-Russian surge that is already well underway in Latin America (in Lula’s Brazil and with Argentina joining the BRICS) and the Global South where six new members including Saudi Arabia have joined Russia in the BRICS. At least thirty four additional nations are in line to also join at some point. Russia’s call for nations to trade using local currencies (i.e no longer the U.S. dollar) is being widely heeded. Russian delegations, including that of Russia’s Sergey Lavrov, are welcomed all across the world other than the increasingly isolated EU and USA.

All in all, with an expanding Russian economy, safeguarded from however many sanctions packages the EU and USA cobble together, Russia could with some merit be described as whole as ‘The Teflon Territory’, nothing the western powers wish to hurt Russia with sticks for any length of time. On the contrary, what is rapidly sticking is inflation, possible stagflation and likely recession across the collective west. While Russia is accepted in the figure of Vladimir Putin across most of the world, despite the West-promoted idiotic, counterproductive sham regarding him at the International Criminal Court, Russia (unlike its detractors) has little to concern it.

The war in Ukraine has clearly been won by Russia. All the wishful thinking misinformation western politicians and media notwithstanding, there is no win for the Ukrainian regime remotely in prospect.  If the truth be told there never was unless the western powers via NATO decided to start a third world war by direct involvement. This is far, far too important to Russia in respect to its border and internal security for all time to give up on its goals or to be inclined in the slightest not to see them all through to 100% completion. All the cards are in Russian favour now, no matter how many other cards in the name of more money or weapons emerge from the western sleeve. Russia has this. And now this will be recognised to even greater extent with each passing day.

The transformation of Slovakia’s stance of both Ukraine and Russia will be just the latest of many clear indicators that views on what has happened in Ukraine and what is happening now will create a sea change in attitudes. Russia is going nowhere, she is here to stay. The foolish European and American political and media elites who underestimated her will have to eat crow pie and before long retreat from the idiotically irresponsible and wrong-headed approach they have taken until now. They will have to eat their vicious words against Russia that they have spouted for so long now (since 2007 and Putin’s Munich speech at least). That is if they are not overthrown by their recently vastly impoverished populations first.

In Slovakia, if the polls are correct we should see some of the first political dominoes fall. The European liberal elites will be aghast if so. Their fantasyland of delusions regarding Ukraine and Russia will evaporate and hopefully they will begin to attain a greater grasp of reality, take the road to pragmatic reason rather than vituperative ranting and slowly, but surely begin to join the pro-Russian surge now underway.

“WASHINGTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM!”

How do North America’s political elites feel they are perceived across our world where they are involved in an attempt to coerce us all into being their mirror image? As shining white knights on proud stallions who are fearlessly coming to the rescue of metaphorical maidens in danger? Stalwart guardians of all that is decent and praiseworthy ever holding aloft the holy flags of freedom and democracy, selfless warriors giving their all so that others can be free?

Or… behind all the rhetorical flourishes that signify the spotless sanctity of all the above are they in reality quite cynical about the reception they are accorded and see through all the false smiles and glad-handing to the far grungier fact that though they may be seen as useful when bestowing patronage and a leg up to their favorites when it comes to winning elections, they are in fact despised as incorrigible self-seekers? The reality is much more likely to be the latter… but do they care? As long as what they do guarantees that American interests are enhanced, probably not.

Under the flags held aloft signifying all things wondrous and inherently attractive that display what they bear as gifts, the fact of hard-bargaining to win the fruits of the bribes offered lurks always. The quid pro quo for the largesse offered by way of influence-peddling or the covert nobbling of inconvenient opponents or even perhaps the odd assassination is always the furtherance of American national interests. Neither party is naive, nor anything approaching wet behind the ears novices at this game. All the political niceties regarding the totem buzzwords, ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ are dispensed with as hard bargaining begins. All the theatre for the cameras is left far, far behind, especially when a chosen despot who may further American foreign policy is concerned.

So how are they seen, these Secretaries of State who come mincing in all smiles while the cameras roll and then instantly switch such fakery off when the gloves come off? For what they are without doubt, soulless automatons for a ruthless but extremely powerful state there to provide influence and finance in exchange for a certain prostituting of national values and populations. Slit-eyed negotiators out for all they can get and to give as little as possible by return, always looking for the possible need for the ‘jackals’ to come in and twist a few arms if some leader is not quite cooperative enough.

This game has been played for so long now that it appeared to be almost the only one in town. The almighty USA and its emissaries held the whip hand and those who were dependent on their largesse and ability to destroy inconvenient political opponents were seen as a necessary evil if you wanted to take power in a nation with the least resistance possible. That dirty game however has suddenly come under threat and all evidence points to it being spoiled. An equally powerful player, and some may say an even MORE powerful player has entered the fray. That player is China and to a lesser but increasing degree, Russia can be said to be waiting in the wings also.

Going, and in some cases already gone, are the easy pickings for U.S. state figures roaming the world seeking to bribe, threaten, corrupt and cajole others to side with them or if not then to ruin the political chances of those who “mistakenly” believe their loyalties lie with their own populations. Are we to believe the fancy words spoken at press conferences afterwards? More merit is surely to be found in believing in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. The ego-massaging and fanciful phrases about the upholding of western liberal values and so forth is so much hogwash lapped up by a media not known for overestimating the sheeple who rely on them for their “facts”.

Thankfully these cynical theatrics are now about to dwindle and fade from view. Some honest relationships are now being formed where such horsetrading for influence within a Mafia-like ambiance will be consigned to a desperately few locations for a disgraced USA whose methodologies have been fully exposed to the light of day by contrast with the new openness to come. A nation that has for too long abused and sullied relationships around the world through its criminal and semi-criminal interactions is about to be shamed, never to show its ugly face again.