As Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, some U.S. officials and analysts
were already warning of a possible escalation of the conflict into a wider
war.

The trigger: Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.

As the fighting continues, we unpack what Article 5 is, what could invoke
it, and the places and people to watch.

What is it?

Article 5 is a key pillar of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty — also known
as the Washington Treaty — and is based on the principal of collective
defense. It means that an attack on one member of NATO is deemed to be an
attack on all.

Ukraine is not a member of NATO, but a number of its neighbors are.

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/26/1082964072/russia-ukraine-nato-article-5?t=1645890678858

"There are 30 members of NATO, and we have given all of them Article 5,"
said Mary Elise Sarotte, a professor of history at Johns Hopkins
University and author of Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of
Post-Cold War Stalemate.

"And I don't think Americans understand this — that means we are obligated
by treaty to basically defend them or go to war if they are attacked by
Russia. We are obliged to treat an attack on Estonia as if it were an
attack on Chicago by treaty."

"So, if there is an Article 5 incursion, this could very quickly become
not Ukraine's war, but our war."

The article states:

[NATO members] will assist the party or parties so attacked by taking
forthwith, individually and in concert with the other parties, such action
as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and
maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Article 5 has been invoked once — in response to the 9/11 attacks.

What could trigger this?

Russia has attacked Ukraine by land, sea and air – but there remains a
question over cyberattacks.

Less than 24 hours after the invasion began, U.S. Senate Intelligence
Committee chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., warned that if Russia launched
major cyberattacks on Ukraine, the damage could spill beyond the country's
borders.

Sen. Warner says a direct NATO-Russia conflict would be 'uncharted
territory'

"When you launch cyberattacks, they don't recognize geographic boundaries.
Some of that cyberattack could actually start shutting down systems in
eastern Poland," he said.

"If you shut down Polish hospitals because they can't get power to take
care of their people, you're rapidly approaching what could be viewed as
an Article 5 violation of NATO ... so we are in an uncharted territory."

Retired U.S. Navy Adm. James Foggo echoed this sentiment shortly after the
attack began, saying the U.S. was right to station troops in Poland.

"We're doing that because we do not want the spillover effects to impact
any of our NATO allies," he said. "If there is an interaction — a kinetic
interaction, a fight — between Russian troops and American troops it could
trigger a world war. So, we need to reinforce our allies and make sure
that this crisis is contained just to Ukraine and continue to support
Ukraine with lethal weapons."

The countries that could be affected

It's unclear whether a traditional armed conflict will go beyond Ukraine
and Russia and trigger it again. But Sarotte said there were particular
places to watch.

"We're going to see, I think, regime change and we're also going to see
[Russian President Vladimir Putin] take control of more areas. I think
he's de facto already taken control of Belarus," she said.

"Then there is a question about does he try to do something to the
Baltics, which also used to be part of the former Soviet Union. And that's
really dangerous because the Baltics are in NATO."

On Friday, NATO leaders issued a scathing condemnation of Russia after
meeting to discuss the invasion of Ukraine, calling the attack "the
gravest threat to Euro-Atlantic security in decades."

The alliance said it was now taking "significant additional defensive
deployments of forces" to its eastern flank and said it would give
"political and practical support" to Ukraine.

In a statement on Thursday, it said: "Our commitment to Article 5 of the
Washington Treaty is iron-clad. We stand united to protect and defend all
allies."

### - this being yet another very good reason why ALL this has just
gotta... STOP???

'war' being the only other option to the UN sitting around that table and
thrashing it ALL out once and for all! (i.e., lock 'em all IN that damn
room and don't let the fuckers OUT till it's all properly sorted! that's
their fucking job!)

coz ww3 ISN'T gonna SOLVE anything for ANYONE!!! that much IS clear!

meanwhile, every fucker's clamouring ever-louder for.... WAR! WAR! WAR!!!
like lunatics geez!?

even though it's the very LAST thing humanity actually needs...

(could even be the very last thing humanity does ffs!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ7zbzJZsjs

"keep talking"

On Saturday, February 26, 2022 at 8:31:39 AM UTC-8, slider wrote:
> As Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, some U.S. officials and analysts
> were already warning of a possible escalation of the conflict into a wider
> war.
>
> The trigger: Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
>
> As the fighting continues, we unpack what Article 5 is, what could invoke
> it, and the places and people to watch.
>
> What is it?
>
> Article 5 is a key pillar of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty — also known
> as the Washington Treaty — and is based on the principal of collective
> defense. It means that an attack on one member of NATO is deemed to be an
> attack on all.
>
> Ukraine is not a member of NATO, but a number of its neighbors are.
>
> https://www.npr.org/2022/02/26/1082964072/russia-ukraine-nato-article-5?t=1645890678858
>
> "There are 30 members of NATO, and we have given all of them Article 5,"
> said Mary Elise Sarotte, a professor of history at Johns Hopkins
> University and author of Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of
> Post-Cold War Stalemate.
>
> "And I don't think Americans understand this — that means we are obligated
> by treaty to basically defend them or go to war if they are attacked by
> Russia. We are obliged to treat an attack on Estonia as if it were an
> attack on Chicago by treaty."
>
> "So, if there is an Article 5 incursion, this could very quickly become
> not Ukraine's war, but our war."
>
> The article states:
>
> [NATO members] will assist the party or parties so attacked by taking
> forthwith, individually and in concert with the other parties, such action
> as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and
> maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
>
> Article 5 has been invoked once — in response to the 9/11 attacks..
>
> What could trigger this?
>
> Russia has attacked Ukraine by land, sea and air – but there remains a
> question over cyberattacks.
>
> Less than 24 hours after the invasion began, U.S. Senate Intelligence
> Committee chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., warned that if Russia launched
> major cyberattacks on Ukraine, the damage could spill beyond the country's
> borders.
>
> Sen. Warner says a direct NATO-Russia conflict would be 'uncharted
> territory'
>
> "When you launch cyberattacks, they don't recognize geographic boundaries..
> Some of that cyberattack could actually start shutting down systems in
> eastern Poland," he said.
>
> "If you shut down Polish hospitals because they can't get power to take
> care of their people, you're rapidly approaching what could be viewed as
> an Article 5 violation of NATO ... so we are in an uncharted territory."
>
> Retired U.S. Navy Adm. James Foggo echoed this sentiment shortly after the
> attack began, saying the U.S. was right to station troops in Poland.
>
> "We're doing that because we do not want the spillover effects to impact
> any of our NATO allies," he said. "If there is an interaction — a kinetic
> interaction, a fight — between Russian troops and American troops it could
> trigger a world war. So, we need to reinforce our allies and make sure
> that this crisis is contained just to Ukraine and continue to support
> Ukraine with lethal weapons."
>
> The countries that could be affected
>
> It's unclear whether a traditional armed conflict will go beyond Ukraine
> and Russia and trigger it again. But Sarotte said there were particular
> places to watch.
>
> "We're going to see, I think, regime change and we're also going to see
> [Russian President Vladimir Putin] take control of more areas. I think
> he's de facto already taken control of Belarus," she said.
>
> "Then there is a question about does he try to do something to the
> Baltics, which also used to be part of the former Soviet Union. And that's
> really dangerous because the Baltics are in NATO."
>
> On Friday, NATO leaders issued a scathing condemnation of Russia after
> meeting to discuss the invasion of Ukraine, calling the attack "the
> gravest threat to Euro-Atlantic security in decades."
>
> The alliance said it was now taking "significant additional defensive
> deployments of forces" to its eastern flank and said it would give
> "political and practical support" to Ukraine.
>
> In a statement on Thursday, it said: "Our commitment to Article 5 of the
> Washington Treaty is iron-clad. We stand united to protect and defend all
> allies."
>
> ### - this being yet another very good reason why ALL this has just
> gotta... STOP???
>
> 'war' being the only other option to the UN sitting around that table and
> thrashing it ALL out once and for all! (i.e., lock 'em all IN that damn
> room and don't let the fuckers OUT till it's all properly sorted! that's
> their fucking job!)
>
> coz ww3 ISN'T gonna SOLVE anything for ANYONE!!! that much IS clear!
>
> meanwhile, every fucker's clamouring ever-louder for.... WAR! WAR! WAR!!!
> like lunatics geez!?
>
> even though it's the very LAST thing humanity actually needs...
>
> (could even be the very last thing humanity does ffs!)
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ7zbzJZsjs
>
> "keep talking"
catch 22 on LSD

>> meanwhile, every fucker's clamouring ever-louder for.... WAR! WAR!
>> WAR!!!
>> like lunatics geez!?
>>
>> even though it's the very LAST thing humanity actually needs...
>>
>> (could even be the very last thing humanity does ffs!)
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ7zbzJZsjs
>>
>> "keep talking"

> catch 22 on LSD

### - it's going way beyond being rational anymore...

'reason-itself' appears to be on the... wane?

fights being known to break out under such circumstances huh...

(it'll be a miracle if it *doesn't* happen!)

why oh why is the human race sooo damn... stupid!

I was at my bank today waiting in a short line. There was just one lady in front of me, an Asian lady, who was trying to exchange yen for dollars. It was obvious she was a little irritated. She asked the teller, "Why it change? Yesterday, I get two hunat dolla of yen. Today I only get hunat eighty? Why it change?" The teller shrugged his shoulders and said, "Fluctuations." The Asian lady says, "Fluc you white people too!"

### - an irishman, a scotsman and a jew walked in a local bar...

the barman took one look at the 3 of 'em and said:

oh fuck off - and get the hell outta here!

ahaha :)))

Imagine Dragons - Radioactive - Promo
https://youtu.be/ktvTqknDobU

https://youtu.be/ybirL3EtMb8
Imagine Dragons - Radioactive - Live

It takes a study of pathology to see.
One side is pointing a shotgun at the other.
Putin shall employ nuclear weapons if necessary.
The time for talking is long over and Putin has called USG's bluff.
He's made a decision the USG thought they made long ago about death.
USG is addicted to tormenting and torturing, as an after effect of nuclear genocide.

If the USG proxies of NATO interfere nuclear conflict is guaranteed.
The American's owe to nuclear first strike genocides to the law of cause and effect.
Washington DC and San Francisco are the agreed upon debt free targets for Vladimir.
Almighty shall destroy every weapon the Americans contemplate using to block the payment.
There are no UFO/UAP, Almighty is here with trillion of ships above and trillions of ships below lightmach-23.

On Almighty's clock the Trinity bomb went off less than five seconds ago.
This cosmos equation collapsed and has been restored to balance all equations.
Vlad knows that there are no UFO/UAP just Almighty and his gear working on Almighty and his gear.
Vladimir knows deep in his heart that if Almighty can't balance the equation he uses the Solar Warden
command and blows the sun, captures the consciousness from above and below and ends the American Experiment.

So it's Washington DC and San Francisco, or the Sun and Earth.
I'll be using my copies of this cosmos to run an infinite series of scenarios.
One way or another the clear lattice effects help to sober up the rival ant colonies.

The Trinity bomb created the wounded Jesus Christ.
He was trapped in the crossfire between New Mexico and Sodom - Gomorrah.
Those two places shared points in common as inward verses outward data lightmachs.
The original identity pattern and the injured identity pattern were redeployed and studied
side by side. They have come and gone. The American Experiment is now in Dismantle V. Annihilate mode.

The pathology present is not reversible.
No civilization has ever attacked Almighty and survived.
The future "Trinity" explosion created "The Christ" in the past.
The past-present-future became a loop with no original point.
An event existed in the past that must be created by an event in the future.

THE PAST

SRV - Caught In The Crossfire - Promo
https://youtu.be/F73EcycGCO8

Stevie Ray Vaughan : Crossfire Live
https://youtu.be/Lss2Q584O5M

THE FUTURE

Imagine Dragons - Radioactive - Promo
https://youtu.be/ktvTqknDobU

https://youtu.be/ybirL3EtMb8
Imagine Dragons - Radioactive - Live

THE PRESENT
ATM 2085 CORE 32313.3

"COMING SOON"
To A debris field near you.

LowRider wrote...

> "COMING SOON"
> To A debris field near you.

### - sigh, am thinkin' have maybe just about had enough of this freakin'
planet...

it's like tryin' to communicate with a brick fucking wall !

doesn't ever get... anywhere!

so what else can a poor boy do but fuck off?

damn!

(sorry, but i don't think i wanna be in their next BIG shoot-em-up movie,
it's got a sad ending...)

> (sorry, but i don't think i wanna be in their next BIG shoot-em-up movie,
> it's got a sad ending...)

Thanks for fighting with me.
Keeps the toxic rhythms from achieving 99.99% dissonance.
Old Bush, Clinton, Young Bush, Obama, even sorry to say Trump
can't face the reality of descending into eternal cannibalism.

A definitive article I saved for you - blanket condemnation of USA elites.
The idea-theme, "The end never justifies the means."
That stuff about Jesus was very hard to figure out, He is a truthful friend..
That case is now closed.

Joe Walsh - Life's Been Good
https://youtu.be/T204WpZSbLw

Doobie Brothers
Jesus Is Just Alright/Listen To The Music
https://youtu.be/kx2PgEj3B-g

[]

Ukraine’s Deadly Gamble
By tying itself to a reckless and dangerous America,
the Ukrainians made a blunder that client states will study for years to come
by Lee Smith
February 25, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin chose this war, Joe Biden said in his Thursday afternoon speech to America regarding the conflict in Ukraine. That is true, but U.S. elites also had something to do with Putin’s ugly and destructive choice—a role that Democrats and Republicans are eager to paper over with noble-sounding rhetoric about the bravery of Ukraine’s badly outgunned military. Yes, the Ukrainian soldiers standing up to Putin are very brave, but it was Americans that put them in harm’s way by using their country as a weapon, first against Russia and then against each other, with little consideration for the Ukrainian people who are now paying the price for America’s folly.

It is not an expression of support for Putin’s grotesque actions to try to understand why it seemed worthwhile for him to risk hundreds of billions of dollars, the lives of thousands of servicemen, and the possible stability of his own regime in order to invade his neighbor. After all, Putin’s reputation until this moment has always been as a shrewd ex-KGB man who eschewed high-risk gambles in favor of sure things backed by the United States, like entering Syria and then escalating forces there. So why has he adopted exactly the opposite strategy here, and chosen the road of open high-risk confrontation with the American superpower?

Yes, Putin wants to prevent NATO from expanding to Russia’s border. But the larger answer is that he finds the U.S. government’s relationship with Ukraine genuinely threatening. That’s because for nearly two decades, the U.S. national security establishment under both Democratic and Republican administrations has used Ukraine as an instrument to destabilize Russia, and specifically to target Putin.

While the timing of Putin’s attack on Ukraine is no doubt connected to a variety of factors, including the Russian dictator’s read on U.S. domestic politics and the preferences of his own superpower sponsor in Beijing, the sense that Ukraine poses a meaningful threat to Russia is not a product of Putin’s paranoia—or of a sudden desire to restore the power and prestige of the Soviet Union, however much Putin might wish for that to happen. Rather, it is a geopolitical threat that has grown steadily more pressing and been employed with greater recklessness by Americans and Ukrainians alike over the past decade.

That Ukraine has allowed itself to be used as a pawn against a powerful neighbor is in part the fault of Kyiv’s reckless and corrupt political class. But Ukraine is not a superpower that owes allies and client-states judicious leadership—that’s the role of the United States. And in that role, the United States has failed Ukraine. More broadly, the use of Ukraine as a goad against enemies domestic and foreign has recklessly damaged the failing yet necessary European security architecture that America spent 75 years building and maintaining.

Why can’t the American security establishment shoulder responsibility for its role in the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine? Because to discuss American responsibility openly would mean exposing the national security establishment’s role in two separate, destructive coups: the first, in 2014, targeting the government of Ukraine, and the second, starting two years later, the government of the United States.

In the last year there have been two attempted “pro-democracy” inter-elite coups in pro-Kremlin states on Russian borders: Belarus and Kazakhstan. Both of those so-called “color revolutions” failed, but Ukraine represents a much more pressing concern, especially given the country’s push for NATO membership, which Biden officials like Secretary of State Antony Blinken publicly encouraged last year with no intention or possibility of actually making it possible. Yet rather than compelling the United States to rethink the wisdom of planting the NATO flag on Russia’s border, Putin’s escalating rhetoric—and troop movements—only made the Biden team dig in deeper.

This is a game that Biden and key figures in his administration have been playing for a long time, beginning with the 2013-14 Obama administration-backed coup that toppled a Russia-friendly government in Kyiv. This was the so-called Maidan Revolution, a sequel of sorts to the George W. Bush-backed Orange Revolution of 2004-05. Much of that same Obama foreign policy team—Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Victoria Nuland, Susan Rice, and others—is now back in the White House and State Department working in senior posts for a president who personally ran Obama’s Ukraine policy.

What did all these figures have in mind for Ukraine? The White House and U.S. foreign policy experts from both parties are united in claiming that Ukraine is a U.S. ally, a democracy, and a beacon of freedom, which are no doubt fine words to hear when you have been left to fight Vladimir Putin on your own. But to understand what Ukraine truly is, we must start where all geopolitics begins: by looking at a map.

Ukraine is situated between two greater powers, Russia and the European Union. That makes Ukraine a buffer state. Geopolitical logic dictates that buffer states cultivate and maintain cordial relations with the greater powers that surround them, unless they want to be swallowed up by one of those powers. That’s because siding with one great power against another often leads to catastrophe. No less an authority than the prophet Isaiah tells us so. He warned the Jews not to side with the pharaoh—a broken reed, he called Egypt, which pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it—in the dynasty’s conflict with the Babylonians. Isaiah was right: The Jews bet wrong and were dragged off into exile.

Today Israel is no longer a buffer state; rather, it’s a regional power. But geography didn’t change, which means that Israel is still a tiny country surrounded by larger entities, like Turkey and Iran.

So how did the Jewish state transcend buffer-state status? Because it acquired what is reportedly a large nuclear arsenal with air, land, and sea delivery capabilities—the vaunted nuclear triad—which render it immune to an enemy’s first strike, and ensures, for the time being anyway, that Israel is no longer a stomping ground for empires. Conversely, Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in 1994 in exchange for U.S. security guarantees in the event its neighbors, Russia in particular, turned hostile.

What kind of strategy dictates that a state hand over its security vis-a-vis local actors to a country half the world away? No strategy at all. Ukraine was not able to transcend its natural geography as a buffer state—and worse, a buffer state that failed to take its own existence seriously, which meant that it would continue to make disastrously bad bets. In 2013, the European Union offered Kyiv a trade deal, which many misunderstood as a likely prelude to EU membership. Young Ukrainians very much want to join the EU, because they want access to Europe so they can flee Ukraine, which remains one of the poorest countries on the continent.

The trade deal was an ill-conceived EU project to take a shot at Putin with what seemed like little risk. The idea was to flood the Ukrainian market, and therefore also the Russian market, with European goods, which would have harmed the Russian economy—leading, the architects of this plan imagined, to popular discontent that would force Putin himself from office. Putin understandably saw this stratagem as a threat to his country’s stability and his personal safety, so he gave Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych an ultimatum: either reject the deal and accept Moscow’s $15 billion aid package in its place, or else suffer crippling economic measures.

When Yanukovych duly reneged on the EU deal, the Obama administration helped organize street demonstrations for what became history’s most tech-savvy and PR-driven regime change operation, marketed to the global public variously as Maidan, EuroMaidan, the Revolution of Dignity, etc. In February 2014, the protests forced Yanukovych into exile in Moscow. Consequently, Nuland and other Obama administration officials worked to assemble a new Ukrainian government friendly to the United States and therefore hostile to Russia.

In late February, the Russians responded to the American soft coup in Ukraine by invading Crimea and eventually annexing it and creating chaos in Eastern Ukraine. The Obama administration declined to arm the Ukrainian government. It was right to avoid conflict with Moscow, though by leaving Kyiv defenseless, it showed that the White House had never fully gamed out all the possible scenarios that might ensue from setting a client state on course for conflict with a great power. Instead, Obama and the Europeans highlighted their deadly miscalculation by imposing sanctions on Moscow for taking advantage of the conditions that Obama and the Europeans had created.