The Russia-Ukraine crisis continues unabated as the United States ignores
all of Russian President Vladmir Putin's security demands and spreads a
frenzy of fear by claiming that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent.

In a new exclusive interview for Truthout on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine
crisis, world-renowned public intellectual Noam Chomsky outlines the
deadly dangers of U.S. intransigence over Ukrainian membership in the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) even when key Western allies
have already vetoed earlier U.S. efforts in that direction. He also seeks
to shed some light on the reasons why Republicans today seem to be divided
on Russia.

https://menafn.com/1103644305/Noam-Chomsky-US-Approach-to-Ukraine-and-Russia-HasLeft-the-Domain-of-Rational-Discourse&source=30

Chomsky — whose intellectual contributions have been compared to those of
Galileo, Newton and Descartes — has had tremendous influence on a variety
of areas of scholarly and scientific inquiry, including linguistics, logic
and mathematics, computer science, psychology, media studies, philosophy,
politics and international affairs. He is the author of some 150 books and
recipient of scores of highly prestigious awards including the Sydney
Peace Prize and the Kyoto Prize (Japan's equivalent of the Nobel Prize),
as well as dozens of honorary doctorate degrees from the world's most
renowned universities. Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and currently Laureate Professor at
the University of Arizona.

The following transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

C.J. Polychroniou : Tensions continue to escalate between Russia and
Ukraine, and there is little room for optimism since the U.S. offer for
de-escalation fails to meet any of Russia's security demands. As such,
wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the Russia-Ukraine border crisis
stems in reality from the U.S.'s intransigent position over Ukrainian
membership in NATO? In the same context, is it hard to imagine what might
have been Washington's response to the hypothetical event that Mexico
wanted to join a Moscow-driven military alliance?

Noam Chomsky : We hardly need to linger on the latter question. No country
would dare to make such a move in what former President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt's Secretary of War Henry Stimson called“Our little region over
here,” when he was condemning all spheres of influence (except for our own
— which in reality, is hardly limited to the Western hemisphere)..
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is no less adamant today in condemning
Russia's claim to a“sphere of influence,” a concept we firmly reject (with
the same reservation).

There was of course one famous case when a country in our little region
came close to a military alliance with Russia, the 1962 missile crisis.
The circumstances, however, were quite unlike Ukraine. President John F.
Kennedy was escalating his terrorist war against Cuba to a threat of
invasion; Ukraine, in sharp contrast, faces threats as a result of its
potentially joining a hostile military alliance. Soviet leader Nikita
Khrushchev's reckless decision to provide Cuba with missiles was also an
effort to slightly rectify the enormous U.S. preponderance of military
force after JFK had responded to Khrushchev's offer of mutual reduction of
offensive weapons with the largest military buildup in peacetime history,
though the U.S. was already far ahead. We know what that led to.

The tensions over Ukraine are extremely severe, with Russia's
concentration of military forces at Ukraine's borders. The Russian
position has been quite explicit for some time. It was stated clearly by
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at his press conference at the United
Nations:“The main issue is our clear position on the inadmissibility of
further expansion of NATO to the East and the deployment of strike weapons
that could threaten the territory of the Russian Federation.” Much the
same was reiterated shortly after by Putin, as he had often said before.

Historian Richard Sakwa … observed that“NATO's existence became justified
by the need to manage threats provoked by its enlargement” — a plausible
judgment.

There is a simple way to deal with deployment of weapons: Don't deploy
them. There is no justification for doing so. The U.S. may claim that they
are defensive, but Russia surely doesn't see it that way, and with reason.

The question of further expansion is more complex. The issue goes back
over 30 years, to when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was
collapsing. There were extensive negotiations among Russia, the U.S. and
Germany. (The core issue was German unification.) Two visions were
presented. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev proposed a Eurasian security
system from Lisbon to Vladivostok with no military blocs. The U.S.
rejected it: NATO stays, Russia's Warsaw Pact disappears.

For obvious reasons, German reunification within a hostile military
alliance is no small matter for Russia. Nevertheless, Gorbachev agreed to
it, with a quid pro quo: No expansion to the East. President George H.W.
Bush and Secretary of State James Baker agreed. In their words to
Gorbachev:“Not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries
as well, it is important to have guarantees that if the United States
keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of
NATO's present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction..”

“East” meant East Germany. No one had a thought about anything beyond, at
least in public. That's agreed on all sides. German leaders were even more
explicit about it. They were overjoyed just to have Russian agreement to
unification, and the last thing they wanted was new problems.

There is extensive scholarship on the matter — Mary Sarotte, Joshua
Shifrinson, and others, debating exactly who said what, what they meant,
what's its status, and so on. It is interesting and illuminating work, but
what it comes down to, when the dust settles, is what I quoted from the
declassified record.

President H.W. Bush pretty much lived up to these commitments. So did
President Bill Clinton at first, until 1999, the 50th anniversary of NATO;
with an eye on the Polish vote in the upcoming election, some have
speculated. He admitted Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to NATO.
President George W. Bush — the lovable goofy grandpa who was celebrated in
the press on the 20th anniversary of his invasion of Afghanistan — let
down all the bars. He brought in the Baltic states and others. In 2008, he
invited Ukraine to join NATO, poking the bear in the eye. Ukraine is
Russia's geostrategic heartland, apart from intimate historic relations
and a large Russia-oriented population. Germany and France vetoed Bush's
reckless invitation, but it's still on the table. No Russian leader would
accept that, surely not Gorbachev, as he made clear.

As in the case of deployment of offensive weapons on the Russian border,
there is a straightforward answer. Ukraine can have the same status as
Austria and two Nordic countries throughout the whole Cold War: neutral,
but tightly linked to the West and quite secure, part of the European
Union to the extent they chose to be.

The U.S. adamantly rejects this outcome, loftily proclaiming its
passionate dedication to the sovereignty of nations, which cannot be
infringed: Ukraine's right to join NATO must be honored. This principled
stand may be lauded in the U.S., but it surely is eliciting loud guffaws
in much of the world, including the Kremlin. The world is hardly unaware
of our inspiring dedication to sovereignty, notably in the three cases
that particularly enraged Russia: Iraq, Libya and Kosovo-Serbia.

Iraq need not be discussed: U.S. aggression enraged almost everyone. The
NATO assaults on Libya and Serbia, both a slap in Russia's face during its
sharp decline in the '90s, is clothed in righteous humanitarian terms in
U.S. propaganda. It all quickly dissolves under scrutiny, as amply
documented elsewhere. And the richer record of U.S. reverence for the
sovereignty of nations needs no review.

It is sometimes claimed that NATO membership increases security for Poland
and others. A much stronger case can be made that NATO membership
threatens their security by heightening tensions. Historian Richard Sakwa,
a specialist on East Europe, observed that“NATO's existence became
justified by the need to manage threats provoked by its enlargement” — a
plausible judgment.

The U.S. is vigorously fanning the flames while Ukraine is asking it to
tone down the rhetoric.

There is much more to say about Ukraine and how to deal with the very
dangerous and mounting crisis there, but perhaps this is enough to suggest
that there is no need to inflame the situation and to move on to what
might well turn out to be a catastrophic war.

There is, in fact, a surreal quality to the U.S. rejection of
Austrian-style neutrality for Ukraine. U.S. policy makers know perfectly
well that admission of Ukraine to NATO is not an option for the
foreseeable future. We can, of course, put aside the ridiculous posturing
about the sanctity of sovereignty. So, for the sake of a principle in
which they do not believe for a moment, and in pursuit of an objective
that they know is out of reach, the U.S. is risking what may turn into a
shocking catastrophe. On the surface, it seems incomprehensible, but there
are plausible imperial calculations.

On Friday, February 4, 2022 at 10:31:32 PM UTC-8, slider wrote:
> The Russia-Ukraine crisis continues unabated as the United States ignores
> all of Russian President Vladmir Putin's security demands and spreads a
> frenzy of fear by claiming that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent..
>
> In a new exclusive interview for Truthout on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine
> crisis, world-renowned public intellectual Noam Chomsky outlines the
> deadly dangers of U.S. intransigence over Ukrainian membership in the
> North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) even when key Western allies
> have already vetoed earlier U.S. efforts in that direction. He also seeks
> to shed some light on the reasons why Republicans today seem to be divided
> on Russia.
>
> https://menafn.com/1103644305/Noam-Chomsky-US-Approach-to-Ukraine-and-Russia-HasLeft-the-Domain-of-Rational-Discourse&source=30
>
> Chomsky — whose intellectual contributions have been compared to those of
> Galileo, Newton and Descartes — has had tremendous influence on a variety
> of areas of scholarly and scientific inquiry, including linguistics, logic
> and mathematics, computer science, psychology, media studies, philosophy,
> politics and international affairs. He is the author of some 150 books and
> recipient of scores of highly prestigious awards including the Sydney
> Peace Prize and the Kyoto Prize (Japan's equivalent of the Nobel Prize),
> as well as dozens of honorary doctorate degrees from the world's most
> renowned universities. Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus at the
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology and currently Laureate Professor at
> the University of Arizona.
>
> The following transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
>
> C.J. Polychroniou : Tensions continue to escalate between Russia and
> Ukraine, and there is little room for optimism since the U.S. offer for
> de-escalation fails to meet any of Russia's security demands. As such,
> wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the Russia-Ukraine border crisis
> stems in reality from the U.S.'s intransigent position over Ukrainian
> membership in NATO? In the same context, is it hard to imagine what might
> have been Washington's response to the hypothetical event that Mexico
> wanted to join a Moscow-driven military alliance?
>
> Noam Chomsky : We hardly need to linger on the latter question. No country
> would dare to make such a move in what former President Franklin Delano
> Roosevelt's Secretary of War Henry Stimson called“Our little region over
> here,” when he was condemning all spheres of influence (except for our own
> — which in reality, is hardly limited to the Western hemisphere).
> Secretary of State Antony Blinken is no less adamant today in condemning
> Russia's claim to a“sphere of influence,” a concept we firmly reject (with
> the same reservation).
>
> There was of course one famous case when a country in our little region
> came close to a military alliance with Russia, the 1962 missile crisis.
> The circumstances, however, were quite unlike Ukraine. President John F.
> Kennedy was escalating his terrorist war against Cuba to a threat of
> invasion; Ukraine, in sharp contrast, faces threats as a result of its
> potentially joining a hostile military alliance. Soviet leader Nikita
> Khrushchev's reckless decision to provide Cuba with missiles was also an
> effort to slightly rectify the enormous U.S. preponderance of military
> force after JFK had responded to Khrushchev's offer of mutual reduction of
> offensive weapons with the largest military buildup in peacetime history,
> though the U.S. was already far ahead. We know what that led to.
>
> The tensions over Ukraine are extremely severe, with Russia's
> concentration of military forces at Ukraine's borders. The Russian
> position has been quite explicit for some time. It was stated clearly by
> Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at his press conference at the United
> Nations:“The main issue is our clear position on the inadmissibility of
> further expansion of NATO to the East and the deployment of strike weapons
> that could threaten the territory of the Russian Federation.” Much the
> same was reiterated shortly after by Putin, as he had often said before.
>
> Historian Richard Sakwa … observed that“NATO's existence became justified
> by the need to manage threats provoked by its enlargement” — a plausible
> judgment.
>
> There is a simple way to deal with deployment of weapons: Don't deploy
> them. There is no justification for doing so. The U.S. may claim that they
> are defensive, but Russia surely doesn't see it that way, and with reason..
>
> The question of further expansion is more complex. The issue goes back
> over 30 years, to when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was
> collapsing. There were extensive negotiations among Russia, the U.S. and
> Germany. (The core issue was German unification.) Two visions were
> presented. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev proposed a Eurasian security
> system from Lisbon to Vladivostok with no military blocs. The U.S.
> rejected it: NATO stays, Russia's Warsaw Pact disappears.
>
> For obvious reasons, German reunification within a hostile military
> alliance is no small matter for Russia. Nevertheless, Gorbachev agreed to
> it, with a quid pro quo: No expansion to the East. President George H.W.
> Bush and Secretary of State James Baker agreed. In their words to
> Gorbachev:“Not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries
> as well, it is important to have guarantees that if the United States
> keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of
> NATO's present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.”
>
> “East” meant East Germany. No one had a thought about anything beyond, at
> least in public. That's agreed on all sides. German leaders were even more
> explicit about it. They were overjoyed just to have Russian agreement to
> unification, and the last thing they wanted was new problems.
>
> There is extensive scholarship on the matter — Mary Sarotte, Joshua
> Shifrinson, and others, debating exactly who said what, what they meant,
> what's its status, and so on. It is interesting and illuminating work, but
> what it comes down to, when the dust settles, is what I quoted from the
> declassified record.
>
> President H.W. Bush pretty much lived up to these commitments. So did
> President Bill Clinton at first, until 1999, the 50th anniversary of NATO;
> with an eye on the Polish vote in the upcoming election, some have
> speculated. He admitted Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to NATO.
> President George W. Bush — the lovable goofy grandpa who was celebrated in
> the press on the 20th anniversary of his invasion of Afghanistan — let
> down all the bars. He brought in the Baltic states and others. In 2008, he
> invited Ukraine to join NATO, poking the bear in the eye. Ukraine is
> Russia's geostrategic heartland, apart from intimate historic relations
> and a large Russia-oriented population. Germany and France vetoed Bush's
> reckless invitation, but it's still on the table. No Russian leader would
> accept that, surely not Gorbachev, as he made clear.
>
> As in the case of deployment of offensive weapons on the Russian border,
> there is a straightforward answer. Ukraine can have the same status as
> Austria and two Nordic countries throughout the whole Cold War: neutral,
> but tightly linked to the West and quite secure, part of the European
> Union to the extent they chose to be.
>
> The U.S. adamantly rejects this outcome, loftily proclaiming its
> passionate dedication to the sovereignty of nations, which cannot be
> infringed: Ukraine's right to join NATO must be honored. This principled
> stand may be lauded in the U.S., but it surely is eliciting loud guffaws
> in much of the world, including the Kremlin. The world is hardly unaware
> of our inspiring dedication to sovereignty, notably in the three cases
> that particularly enraged Russia: Iraq, Libya and Kosovo-Serbia.
>
> Iraq need not be discussed: U.S. aggression enraged almost everyone. The
> NATO assaults on Libya and Serbia, both a slap in Russia's face during its
> sharp decline in the '90s, is clothed in righteous humanitarian terms in
> U.S. propaganda. It all quickly dissolves under scrutiny, as amply
> documented elsewhere. And the richer record of U.S. reverence for the
> sovereignty of nations needs no review.
>
> It is sometimes claimed that NATO membership increases security for Poland
> and others. A much stronger case can be made that NATO membership
> threatens their security by heightening tensions. Historian Richard Sakwa,
> a specialist on East Europe, observed that“NATO's existence became
> justified by the need to manage threats provoked by its enlargement” — a
> plausible judgment.
>
> The U.S. is vigorously fanning the flames while Ukraine is asking it to
> tone down the rhetoric.
>
> There is much more to say about Ukraine and how to deal with the very
> dangerous and mounting crisis there, but perhaps this is enough to suggest
> that there is no need to inflame the situation and to move on to what
> might well turn out to be a catastrophic war.
>
> There is, in fact, a surreal quality to the U.S. rejection of
> Austrian-style neutrality for Ukraine. U.S. policy makers know perfectly
> well that admission of Ukraine to NATO is not an option for the
> foreseeable future. We can, of course, put aside the ridiculous posturing
> about the sanctity of sovereignty. So, for the sake of a principle in
> which they do not believe for a moment, and in pursuit of an objective
> that they know is out of reach, the U.S. is risking what may turn into a
> shocking catastrophe. On the surface, it seems incomprehensible, but there
> are plausible imperial calculations.
>
> We might ask why Putin has taken such a belligerent stance on the ground.
> There is a cottage industry seeking to solve this mystery: Is he a madman?
> Is he planning to force Europe to become a Russian satellite? What is he
> up to?
>
> One way to find out is to listen to what he says: For years, Putin has
> tried to induce the U.S. to pay some attention to the requests that he and
> Foreign Minister Lavrov repeated, in vain. One possibility is that the
> show of force is a way to achieve this objective. That has been suggested
> by well-informed analysts. If so, it seems to have succeeded, at least in
> a limited way.
>
> Germany and France have already vetoed earlier U.S. efforts to offer
> membership to Ukraine. So why is the U.S. so keen on NATO expansion
> eastward to the point of treating a Russian invasion of Ukraine as
> imminent, even when Ukrainian leaders themselves don't seem to think so?
> And since when did Ukraine come to represent a beacon of democracy?
>
> It is indeed curious to watch what is unfolding. The U.S. is vigorously
> fanning the flames while Ukraine is asking it to tone down the rhetoric.
> While there is much turmoil about why the demon Putin is acting as he is,
> U.S. motives are rarely subject to scrutiny. The reason is familiar: By
> definition, U.S. motives are noble, even if its efforts to implement them
> are perhaps misguided.
>
> Nevertheless, the question might merit some thought, at least by“the wild
> men in the wings,” to borrow former National Security Advisor McGeorge
> Bundy's phrase, referring to those incorrigible figures who dare to
> subject Washington to the standards applied elsewhere.
>
> A possible answer is suggested by a famous slogan about the purpose of
> NATO: to keep Russia out, to keep Germany down and to keep the U.S. in.
> Russia is out, far out. Germany is down. What remains is the question
> whether the U.S. will be in Europe — more accurately, should be in charge.
> Not all have quietly accepted this principle of world affairs, among them:
> Charles de Gaulle, who advanced his concept of Europe from the Atlantic to
> the Ural's; former German Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik; and French
> President Emmanuel Macron, with his current diplomatic initiatives that
> are causing much displeasure in Washington.
>
> If the Ukraine crisis is resolved peacefully, it will be a European
> affair, breaking from the post-World War II“Atlanticist” conception that
> places the U.S. firmly in the driver's seat. It might even be a precedent
> for further moves toward European independence, maybe even moving toward
> Gorbachev's vision. With China's Belt-and-Road initiative encroaching from
> the East, much larger issues of global order arise.
>
> As virtually always in the past when it comes to foreign affairs, we see a
> bipartisan frenzy over Ukraine. However, while Republicans in Congress are
> urging President Joe Biden to adopt a more aggressive stance toward
> Russia, the proto-fascist base is questioning the party line. Why, and
> what does the split among Republicans over Ukraine tell us about what is
> happening to the Republicans?
>
> One cannot easily speak of today's Republican Party as if it were a
> genuine political party participating in a functioning democracy. More apt
> is the description of the organization as“a radical insurgency —
> ideologically extreme, scornful of facts and compromise, and dismissive of
> the legitimacy of its political opposition.” This characterization by
> political analysts Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein of the American
> Enterprise is from a decade ago, pre-Donald Trump. By now it's far out of
> date. In the acronym“GOP,” what remains is“O.”
>
> I don't know whether the popular base that Trump has whipped up into a
> worshipful cult is questioning the aggressive stance of Republican
> leaders, or if they even care. Evidence is skimpy. Leading right-wing
> figures closely associated with the GOP are moving well to the right of
> European opinion, and of the stance of those who hope to retain some
> semblance of democracy in the U.S. They are going even beyond Trump in
> their enthusiastic support for Hungarian President Viktor
> Orban's“illiberal democracy,” extolling it for saving Western
> civilization, no less.
>
> This effusive welcome for Orban's dismantling of democracy might bring to
> mind the praise for Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini for
> having“saved European civilization [so that] the merit that Fascism has
> thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history”; the thoughts of
> the revered founder of the neoliberal movement that has reigned for the
> past 40 years, Ludwig von Mises, in his 1927 classic Liberalism.
>
> Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson has been the most outspoken of the
> enthusiasts. Many Republican senators either go along with him or claim
> ignorance of what Orban is doing, a remarkable confession of illiteracy at
> the peak of global power. The highly regarded senior Sen. Charles Grassley
> reports that he knows about Hungary only from Carlson's TV expositions,
> and approves. Such performances tell us a good deal about the radical
> insurgency. On Ukraine, breaking with the GOP leadership, Carlson asks why
> we should take any position on a quarrel between“foreign countries that
> don't care anything about the United States.”
>
> Whatever one's views on international affairs, it's clear that we've left
> the domain of rational discourse far behind, and are moving into territory
> with an unattractive history, to put it mildly.
>
> (C.J. Polychroniou is a political scientist/political economist, author,
> and journalist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and
> research centers in Europe and the United States)
>
> ### - smile, can always rely on good old chomsky to provide an 'objective'
> view of us silly humans scrabbling in the dirt, pretending to be
> intellectuals but never quite making it due to a whole in-built set of
> stinky prior agendas that poisons everything...
>
> iow: the human race is full of shit! so much so that we're actually
> unlikely to survive our own stupid machinations!
>
> greed, dishonesty & fear still ruling the species at every turn and
> intersection, and screw the traffic lights!
>
> we're clearly unable to get-out of our OWN way???
>
> it's a crisis now alright, today, in ukraine... one that's gonna KEEP
> occurring and REPEATING + getting worse each time, if not in europe then
> elsewhere, on & on until the human race either radically changes it ways
> and grows the fuck up (and learns to live together) or destroys itself in
> some crazy outpouring of self-hatred & loathing...
>
> imho & observation though we're prolly just too greedy & DUMB to survive?
>
> the winning/losing game is just all too important to us!?
>
> unfortunately it's moronic haha! the equivalent of being addicted to
> buying scratch-cards or playing the lotto: ya KNOW ya can't ever win it
> for real but still do it anyway LOL !
>
> when it comes to the 'current' ukraine crisis though: we 'should' stop now
> and start talking, come to some NEW arrangement... and THIS time WITHOUT
> the forked-tongue and then maybe we'll get somewhere! coz just can't see
> russia taking ALL these direct threats to their security lying down??
>
> not a chance, they're a nuclear super-power in their own right ffs,
> there's gonna be trouble otherwise!
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVzM6cS1iME
>
> (was lucky enough to actually be sitting in this audience at earls court
> for this heh, was an incredible concert)
it's where's my shit and buy my shit culture.
i want what i want and i want it now fucker.
i don't care if kids in china are starving. where's my wheaties damnit? lol

> it's where's my shit and buy my shit culture.
> i want what i want and i want it now fucker.
> i don't care if kids in china are starving. where's my wheaties
> damnit? lol

### - yep, it's called instant gratification heh...

and is actually one of the tests 'for' intelligence (or the lack of it
thereof heh)

e.g., (and this is a question for testing younger people...)

you'd be asked: if you could have $100 right now or $200 in a year's time

which would you choose?

i.e., the ones who want it now are 'not' intelligent because they went for
'instant gratification'

thus we can extrapolate (from what you say above) that the vast 'majority'
of the human race is really quite dumb haha (although ya wouldn't have to
be a fucking genius to figure that out lol) :)))

yep! we's basically dumb as a bucket of rocks!

explains everything LOL ! :D

(poor humanity: they know not wot they do...)

The Crux

The U.S. adamantly rejects this outcome, loftily proclaiming its
passionate dedication to the sovereignty of nations, which cannot be
infringed: Ukraine's right to join NATO must be honored. This principled
stand may be lauded in the U.S., but it surely is eliciting loud guffaws
in much of the world, including the Kremlin. The world is hardly unaware
of our inspiring dedication to sovereignty, notably in the three cases
that particularly enraged Russia: Iraq, Libya and Kosovo-Serbia.

[]

A bunch of business men want to sell natural gas to Europe.
You, me and Chris are paying 2X electric bills to stop the Nordic Pipeline.
It's people pretending to be lefty and righty, stealing our money.

[]

The machine-cosmos equation is hammering the Americans.
Favorite line "I had a bad day with her Angel Wings."

Mushroomhead - Qwerty
https://youtu.be/1JZGFjufJEY

Ms. Thang - Black Rock - The Girl - "The What - Full Self"
George Harrison - What Is Life
https://youtu.be/fiH9edd25Bc

Only information exists.
Information is size-less.
Information aggregates.
Consciousness is The Who
What When Where Why Vs. The How.
How is The Core measuring itself as The Others (Satellite Cores)

Getting advanced connectivity to: The Core - Noble Abstracts Vs. Prime Geometry - Individual Observers.
https://www.mysterywire.com/video/mw-interview-rey-hernandez-discusses-changes-after-close-encounters/7193447/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0DpBnUznd0

you can't stop wartime, it's coming

any questions ?

> you can't stop wartime, it's coming
>
> any questions ?

### - summat's comin' that's for sure... oh boy

either a completely 'new' arrangement/agreement with the russians (which
who knows, could even work out alright for all concerned (get us a new
international order to things say) provided 'everyone' gets 'equal' rights
& security assurances etc etc, or it'll just continue... it has to be
summat everyone's happy with!

or.... go to war WITH russia!?

(it's unthinkable ffs! thus a NEW way to handle ALL this, wot's been going
on for decades, HAS to be found!)

problem is... CAN we put ASIDE our differences and actually manage to DO
that?? LOL ! :)))

are we BIG enough yet to DO summat like that!!! place yer bets!

(they did it in south africa against ALL the ODDS! this now is our chance
to do summat similar?)

as in: ACTUALLY MOVE ON FROM THE DAMNED PAST!!! (what a fucking relief
THAT would be huh!)

it's still a convoluted mess in s,africa, they's still only trying to
figure it all out... but what they actually gained there was the chance to
start over with none of the bs from the past blocking their road... now
they can grow :)

Biden Presses Reluctant German Chancellor On Halting Nord Stream 2, Imposing Russia Sanctions

Monday, Feb 07, 2022 - 03:47 PM

Macron was in Moscow in talks with Putin, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was in Washington meeting with Biden on Monday. Despite Germany lately coming under heavy criticism from the more hawkish corners of the NATO alliance for its less than muscular response to the Ukraine crisis, Biden told reporters while welcoming Scholz that they are "in lockstep" on "confronting Russian aggression" at Ukraine's border.

Going into the meeting, admin officials said the two leaders would spend time talking about a "robust sanctions package" aimed at Moscow in the event of a military offensive. However, Scholz has not indicated willingness to go along with any level of punitive economic measures, given also Germany's close trade and energy ties with Russia, not the least of which still looms large in the background is Nord Stream 2.

"Germany is one of America's closest allies. We're working in lockstep to further deter Russian aggression in Europe," Pres. Biden says during meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. https://t.co/FTICr9WzP4 pic.twitter.com/al0ffdfhIE
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) February 7, 2022

On this matter, the White House indicated Biden is pressing the German Chancellor on putting in place plans to halt cooperation with Russia on Nord Stream 2 if Ukraine is invaded. But given the pipeline is now complete, and ready to start pumping gas while merely awaiting final German regulatory approval, it's hard to see how amenable Berlin will in the end be to this option.

CNN described, "Looming over the meeting, however, is the question of Scholz's resolve to confront Putin. Among the United States' major European allies, Germany has appeared the most reluctant to commit to lethal aid, sending thousands of helmets instead of weapons and refusing to allow another NATO ally, Estonia, to send German-made howitzers to Ukraine."

Germany remains among leading European countries which has refused to bolster its forces along NATO's 'eastern flank' - and has gone so far as to ban its weapons from being shipped Ukrainian forces.

Perhaps the more interesting eye-brow raising statements from the day's flurry of diplomatic activity on the Ukraine crisis came from Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He started with the usual statements of vowing "real and profound consequences should Russia choose to continue aggression" - while also teasing specific courses of action previously floated as options on the table:

"We developed a high-impact, quick-action response that would inflict massive costs on the Russian economy and financial system including sanctions and significant export control," Blinken said, adding that the EU is preparing "complementary" actions.

Ahead of Biden-Scholz presser, @PressSec affirms that WH policy on Nord Stream 2 is 'if they (Russia) invade, it will not move forward."

But she won't go as far to say if that's also Germany's position.
— Eli Stokols (@EliStokols) February 7, 2022

He said this while standing beside European Commission Vice-President Josep Borrell at their joint presser in Brussels. Blinken charged that Russia stands ready to disrupt Europe's gas supplies:

"When Russia halted gas supplies over a dispute with Ukraine in 2009, people died from the cold. And when energy supplies fail, economies falter," he said. "We’re determined to prevent that from happening and to mitigate the impact on energy supplies and prices should Russia choose to cut natural gas supplies to Europe more than it already has."

Blinken referenced ongoing measures of the US administration to put in place contingency plans "in the event that Russia turns off the spigot or initiates a conflict that disrupts the flow of gas through Ukraine," but without confirming much in the way of specifics.

But he also hinted that a diplomatic opening could be focused upon proper implementation of the prior Minsk agreements, which would involve breakaway regions of Donbass moving toward a "special status"...

Blinken is asked about the Minsk agreements. He says he supports advancing them (even as some in Kyiv say it could destabilize Ukraine). "It is a fair assessment to say that Ukraine has sought to move forward [on its obligations], while Russia has moved forward on virtually none" pic.twitter.com/tLXWAN5EJ7
— John Hudson (@John_Hudson) February 7, 2022

"The [Minsk] agreements speak of special status for the Donbas and I believe that with the appropriate sequencing, Ukrainians would be prepared to move forward", Blinken said.

He emphasized that all sides are in agreement on respecting the Minsk accords, but still faulted Russia for failing to adhere to them, which remains a likely only avenue to ensure peace and find a lasting settlement to the crisis.