Two and a Half Butt-Heads

How to let Putin know that we're “serious” about the goings-on in Ukraine?  Send Joe Biden, of course! At the risk of over-using the term “tone-deaf”, how did Obama manage to miss the point that his vice president is widely regarded – not only here but overseas as well – as a world-class buffoon? I mean... if he had really wanted to show the Russkies that we mean it, he should have sent someone with more gravitas – like Bozo the Clown, or Pee-Wee Herman. And just to add to the absurdity, we have John Kerry, AKA Lurch, mumbling and growling in the background like some one-man Greek chorus. (OK then, make it three butt-heads – two plus two halves.)

So you have your answer right there – we're not serious. And yet we're sending troops into Poland, en route to the Baltics? Because they were, somehow, talked into joining NATO (an organization that should have folded the minute the Soviet Union broke up)? So OK, Mr. President, what do you seriously propose here? A land war with Russia on what, up until recently, was Soviet soil? You're going to succeed where both Napoleon and Hitler failed? And with nuclear arsenals complicating the matter? And if non-nuclear (how to keep it that way is beyond me) war with Russia is not contemplated, why go through the charade of sending troops ever there? Ah yes, I know, it's “symbolic”, right? And in fact, our entire foreign policy these days is symbolic; it has no real substance. It is – I'll say it again – a sign of a dying empire (ours, that is – the Soviets just put theirs on hold for a while).

Besides, Obama – and Democrats in general – don't really believe in foreign policy any longer; to them it's just an annoyance and a distraction from the real work at hand, which is to collectivize the U.S. The Democrats used to be known as the “war party”, and this, I believe, began with Wilson, i.e. with the progressives, who felt that enlightened democracy for just one country (i.e. us) wasn't enough – that it had to be spread throughout the world (by force, if need be). And this was just one of the many manifestations of humanism -- the notion that “we” (the intellectuals) know better than “the people” (ignorant, impulsive, superstitious, etc.) what is best for them. This attitude persisted through World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, although with diminishing fervor and idealism, and more cynicism... and then when the Cold War faded away we became reformers without a cause. (The “War on Terror”, which is actually a war on Islam, hardly measures up – a war on a religion by a post-Christian society? I'm unable to make any sense out of that.) But old habits die hard, and rather than pull us out of Iraq and Afghanistan the day he took office, Obama perpetuated Bush's folly... and besides, he was (and is) owned by the Regime, which always profits handsomely from war. But just because you're fighting endless wars doesn't mean you have a coherent foreign policy; in fact it could be said that war is our foreign policy, period. (The real “war party” now is the Republicans, who are, in turn, neocons, who are fake patriots ruled by internationalists. So Obama, basically, inherited a war he didn't believe in from people who did believe in it. But it didn't matter what he believed, because he had his orders.)

But to get back to Ukraine and environs -- there are already signs that Western Europe is not totally buying in to this idea of ours to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with whomever the Russians appear to be picking on, or might be picking on at some time in the near or distant future; they are just too dependent on Russia in the commercial, practical sense (AKA “energy”). And we know that, contrary to popular belief, we follow the EU's orders more often than they follow ours – or, to be more precise, both we and the EU follow orders from the cabal, which is, according to my theory, based in Europe. In any case, I imagine the EU is much more willing to cut Russia a bit of slack than we are – for one thing, the Europeans live in Europe. They are much more entitled to be “war-weary” than we are, have ever been, or ever will be. They are all about negotiation – you know, that thing we call “compromise” and “cut and run”. They are much more appreciative of issues of hegemony, “turf”, and so on. (And we should be, since we still cling to the Monroe Doctrine, which is why the Cuba boycott drones on even though we are trading partners with Vietnam.) I imagine they would be willing to cut Ukraine, and maybe the Baltic States as well, loose in order to keep the peace. And yes, Chamberlain's ghost is rising, but so what? What ever happened to “realpolitik”? (If Hitler had stuck to the agreement, Chamberlain would be a hero on par with George Marshall. But that's a long shot.)

There's a reason we never invaded across the Iron Curtain, and it's the same reason the Soviets didn't (in the other direction). The Cold War was kept cold for what I assume were good reasons, but now, in the post-Soviet era, we're disoriented (or as George W. Bush would say, “disorientated”). Those newly-free countries are rightfully ours, dammit! Or... I mean, if not “ours” exactly... um... well, they at least ought to be allowed to join NATO, AKA “us and some other guys”. Which is a way of saying they ought not to be free – I mean really free, i.e. “non-aligned”. But clearly, neither side is willing to put up with such nonsense. So they send troops up to their border, and we send troops halfway around the world to their border... anyone see any asymmetry here? If the Russians had troops in New Brunswick or Ontario, it would make more sense... and if we minded our own damn business, that would make more sense as well. But it was not meant to be.

I should add that the commentariat has been “leaking”, in a very subtle way, the idea that a war with Russia is off the table... ain't gonna happen... not contemplated... etc. And since they are in the same echo chamber as Obama & crew, one has to wonder, why are they so confident in this, even though the actions of the administration don't provide any basis for confidence, at least not on the surface? This is further evidence that troop movements, Kerry's mumblings, Biden's buffoonery, etc. are just so much strutting and chest pounding – symbolism with a bit of body english. Read between the lines of the Regime's organs and it doesn't sound like we're in a crisis at all – merely a dialogue. And this would be OK if it were only the gullible American public who had to be dealt with, but the Russians are very good at seeing through things like this, and the more Obama piles on, the weaker he becomes in their eyes, which, arguably, emboldens them even more, etc. A new domino effect? Stay tuned.

Showdown at the Not-OK Corral

 

I guess it was only a matter of time. We passed (or failed, depending on one's point of view) the first test, which was Georgia... then passed/failed the second test, which was Syria... then there was a period of truce for the Olympics... and now Putin is putting pressure on Ukraine, which threatens to wander off the post-Soviet reservation, and we're passing/failing that test as well. So, basically, he took the measure of Obama, his administration, and U.S. “resolve” in general, and decided that he had nothing to lose, and a lot to gain, by showing the flag in the Crimea and at least intimidating the new EU-friendly administration of Ukraine as well as its military. And his excuse is that there are Russians in Ukraine, and they're in danger of being treated like second-class citizens. Well yeah, that's what happens when people are caught on the wrong side of a new (or old) national border. It's happened time and time again in history, and this is no exception. And it's largely Stalin's fault, because he's the one who decided that the best way to handle all the various “nationalities” in the Soviet Union was to ship half of them to the Gulag and then settle a bunch of loyal Russians in each territory in order to run things and keep an eye on the rest. So when the Soviet Union broke up – basically into pieces defined by the various Soviet republics, and in some cases by earlier borders dating from World War I, all these places wound up with Russian minorities. Too bad, so sad. So suddenly the people who had been throwing their weight around in those territories since World War II (at least) were not so secure any longer. They were, in a way, in the same position as the Carpetbaggers who invaded the South after the Civil War -- “large and in charge” until the natives asserted themselves.

Now frankly, if I were an ethnic Russian I might almost prefer to be part of a minority in, say, Estonia than in the majority in Russia – I'm talking in terms of economics and personal freedom now. But ethnic loyalties usually triumph abstract concepts of “rights”, and even economics; no self-respecting Russian wants to be ruled by Estonians, or Kazakhs, or whoever. Things have to be pretty bad for someone to renounce their homeland once and for all, the way the Cuban exiles did. Even some of the countless “illegals” from Latin America go back to their home country eventually – provided they managed to save up enough money in the U.S. And who hasn't met a displaced Californian who longs to go back to the land of their birth? And so on. “Ideas”, and internationalism, are fine things if you're a person with no national or ethnic loyalties, but most people are not rootless cosmopolitans; they will always long to go home, even if “home” is a place they've never seen. (Witness the “right of return” which is a key concept for Jews vis-a-vis Israel, for instance.)

And one can say, but isn't the migration of peoples the rule rather than the exception, historically? At any given time, doesn't a large portion of the human race find themselves strangers in a strange land? And the answer is yes. Go back to the Israelites in Egypt. People go where they have to go in order to survive, and they tend to stay there unless things become intolerable. And every once in a while, a minority becomes a majority – as it clearly did in this country the minute the colonists outnumbered the Native Americans. So whose country is it anyway? It all depends on which slice of history you want to take. Recall the trouble Serbia had (and continues to have) giving up Kosovo – because although it was populated largely by Albanians it had great historical significance for the Serbs. Everyone wants self-determination, but what that is depends on one's point of view – the group with which one identifies. Washington, DC prided itself on being “Chocolate City” a few decades back, even though it has enclaves of rich white folks; New Orleans was supposed to become even more “chocolate” after Katrina, although I'm not sure how that's working out. Mexico is reclaiming, through sheer force of numbers, territory that it lost to the U.S. right up through the Gadsden Purchase. And the number of racial/religious/ethnic groups that have a claim of some sort on Israel/the West Bank/Jerusalem is too high to count.

So what we're seeing now in Ukraine is just another example of a process of give-and-take that has characterized just about any place you can name throughout history. And the funny thing is, we have always had this notion that, in a sense, history is over with when it comes to borders. The way things were at the close of World War II is pretty much the way they ought to be, and ought to stay – as if there were some cosmic map that dictated everything once all the blank spaces were colored in. Of course we did make an exception for Israel, but in general we find shifting borders terribly upsetting – unless it's in our favor, like the reunification of Germany or the breakup of the Soviet Union. But remember how hard we fought to keep Korea and Vietnam split in half? It just raises all kinds of issues with geography textbooks when things keep shifting around. South Sudan? What the heck is that? Most Americans would have a hard time finding Argentina on a world map. So quit bothering us with all these new places. (And don't get me started on Nunavut!)

So to get back to the Ukraine kerfuffle – I'm not going to belabor the argument zipping around the Internet re: the moral equivalence of Russia in Ukraine vs. the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan. Actually, the Russians have a better argument. We invaded Iraq because some Saudis from Afghanistan attacked us (allegedly) on 9-11. OK, that made a lot of sense. And we invaded Afghanistan because they had provided aid and comfort to said Saudis – as if the planning for the attacks couldn't have been carried out in any Moslem country (or in any number of neighborhoods in Paris, etc.). Russia, on the other hand, has deep historic, ethnic, linguistic, etc. ties to Ukraine, not to mention they share a common border (without even 90 miles of water in between, like us and Cuba). Now, this is not to say that Ukraine isn't “diverse” in its own way, as shown here:

http://ex-army.blogspot.com/2014/03/ethno-linguistic-map-of-ukraine.html?spref=fb

We can see that some people wound up, after World War I and/or II, on the wrong side of the border. But again, that's the rule rather than the exception.

So am I saying that Russia ought to be huffing and puffing, and throwing its weight around Ukraine? Ideally, no. But ideally, any minority in any country ought to be allowed to live in peace without having to cry out to some other country (especially a big and powerful one) to save it. And common sense should apply as well. Who, in Iraq, asked us to invade Iraq? Ditto Afghanistan. So if we're talking aggression here... well, hopefully you get my point.

Then there's the question, what should we “do” about it – if anything? Sarah Palin was ready to start a war with Russia over Georgia. Obama – who couldn't be further from Palin on the political spectrum – was all ready to invade Syria until Putin looked him in the eye and said “unh-unh”. The paleocon/libertarian position is that it's none of our damn business. But our leaders are all a-tizzy, making all sorts of threats, most of which are pathetic, frankly. It would be more respectable to just stand up and say, we're over here and they're over there, and the twain are not going to meet. We're not cops, and the world is not our beat. Besides, we're bankrupt. Et cetera. But of course, no one's going to say that because it would violate our “core values”, and be an admission that the American Era is over with – or at least fading fast. I mean, imagine leaving world affairs to the tender mercies of Russia and China – scandalous! Humiliating! Demeaning! Et cetera. So it's better to spit and hiss and wring our hands – much more respectable, ahem. (Oh, and by the way, people are already starting to talk about a “domino effect”, like if we let Putin get away with this, who's next? Lithuania? One of the “stans”? Who knew there was this much Cold War nostaliga floating around? Heck, there's even a decent amount of Stalin nostalgia in Russia.)

It's been remarked that “Putin plays chess, and Obama plays basketball”. In other words, the typical Russian strategy is to make a move, see what happens, make another move, etc. In chess it's called a gambit – and the result may appear to be a setback, but it's part of a larger plan. What's required, above all, is patience, and being able to operate below the surface of things. The long run is what counts – and no one is more of expert in this than the Chinese, but the Russians aren't far behind. After all, didn't Uncle Joe wait patiently all through the 1920s, 1930s, and World War II before he made his move to establish the Iron Curtain and the Warsaw Pact? The Soviets could have moved into Europe at any time after the end of World War II, but they didn't; in fact they allowed some areas that had been part of the old empire, like the Baltic States, to declare independence. But once the opportunity arose – aided, in no small part, by Uncle Joe's friends in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, they made their move... and, again, there wasn't a whole lot we could do about it.

The basketball strategy, on the other hand is, basically, you charge ahead and if you get knocked on your ass you get up and charge ahead some more. Subtle it ain't (at least as far as I can tell). A perfect metaphor for American foreign policy in our time. (And in fact, we aren't even that good at passing the ball – not that anyone else is interested in it... )

I see our helplessness as just another earmark of a waning empire. But again, as with national borders, our dominance on the world stage was meant to last forever – unlike that of all the empires and pretenders up to now – because we have ideas, and principles, and are the shining city on a hill, etc. Yeah, well, if that's true why has so much of the world failed to sign on? I mean, OK, our economy is linked to nearly all other national economies in a way that would have been inconceivable up until recently; even the British Empire could never have claimed the interdependency that exists now. Our culture – such as it is – has spread far and wide. National leaders world-wide are wearing suits and ties now. People are eating Big Macs. And so on. In some senses we really have taken over the world. But in other ways we have no more influence than ever – less in some cases (militant Islam, e.g.). People in sub-Saharan Africa who wear Nikes and “Hard Rock Cafe” T-shirts still engage in the same primitve, brutal tribal warfare that they have for millennia. The only serious resistance to American cultural influence comes from fundamentalist Islamic countries – and they still use cell phones and laptops. So we have “conquered” the way the European powers once conquered much of Africa, Asia, and Latin America – everyone speaks English, they all use our gadgetry and dress in our clothes, but below that superficial level the age-old beliefs, habits, memes, etc. are alive and well. Once again, things that people can identify with – the age-old truisms – tend to, in the long run, trump ideas. If the pen is mightier than the sword, then home and hearth are more powerful than either one.

But in another sense, the “American Empire” isn't American at all – assuming it ever was. It has been absorbed into a larger empire – that which I call the Regime or Cabal – headquartered in Europe. We still do the heavy lifting – we're the cannon fodder – but we're taking orders from people way above Obama's pay grade; all he does it pass them on. Now, the EU is the most prominent overt manifestation of this Regime, and we have seen the loving care with which it beggars less-solvent economies (the so-called PIIGS) and then takes them over. And this is the entity that half of Ukraine wants to join? Even knowing that it will be next in line? On the other hand, the attraction of Russia has to be somewhat tarnished given that Stalin & Co. tried, within living memory, to exterminate Ukraine – or at least the Ukrainians – in one of the great genocides of the 20^th Century. The Ukrainians call it the Holodomor, which was, for them, the equivalent of the Holocaust. This alone would give anyone pause when it comes to cozying up to Russia.

So, as so often happens, the little guy (even though Ukraine is a fairly large country) finds itself caught between two larger entities, both of which may have evil intent. Poland experienced it in World War II, and now it's Ukraine's turn. One can only hope and pray.

News and Comments

Playing Chicken in Kiev

It doesn't take much reading between the lines to understand the current controversy in Ukraine. One side wants to align itself more closely with the EU – i.e. with the “West”, i.e. with us... and the other side wants to move, at least partly, back under the wing of Mother Russia. Now, there is nothing new about this issue; it's quite ancient, in fact. You can find the issue of “Europhilia” vs. “Slavophilia” -- i.e., do we want to be Europeans or not? -- coming up in 19th-Century Russian novels, and it goes back at least as far as Peter the Great. That's Russia, of course, but Ukraine has its own version of the very same dilemma, and when it looks around at the other former Soviet republics, it can see a full range of solutions, from the enthusiastic embrace of the EU by the Baltic states (which were never Slavic anyway) to a deeper commitment to Islam among the Central Asian “stans”.

To our conventional way of thinking, it seems obvious. After all, Ukraine was horrendously mistreated by the Soviets back in the 1930s, and once pacified became just another one of the gray, nameless, faceless Soviet republics. And now they are free! So why turn around and re-align with their former rulers and persecutors? I mean, OK, because of its size, economy, and culture, Ukraine might wind up as a most favored trading partner of Russia (assuming it's not already), but wouldn't the whole thing be just a bit intimidating – a marriage of non-equals?

On the other hand, is this really the best time for Ukrainian leaders to propose a closer alliance with the West? Maybe it's better to be a second-class citizen within the Russian sphere of influence than a third- or fourth-class citizen with regard to the EU. Plus, what's the EU's trajectory these days? It's basically morphing into the next German Empire. Does Ukraine really want to go the way of Greece and the other insolvent places that were forced to sell themselves down the river to the more sober power north of the Alps? Because, like it or not, this is the sort of thing that's likely to happen when a place that is politically chaotic gets into an economic “arrangement” with a place that's not. We've already seen it any number of times.

And that's just about the EU. An alliance with the EU is also, inevitably, an alliance with the U.S., and one look at our political system these days, where the inmates have clearly taken over the asylum, should be enough to sober anybody up. And besides, the EU or its surrogates have assumed a dominant, if not totally controlling, role over the U.S. banking system and thus its economy. If it can happen to us, it can certainly happen to Ukraine in much less time.

Add to this the unlikely fact that Russia has actually started to assume moral leadership on the world stage, as in the case of Syria. Clearly, the Russian Empire is starting to come back to life and regroup, whereas ours is fragmenting and falling into chaos. Which team is starting to look like the winning team? Where does the future lie? Ukraine is going to have to cast its lot in one direction or another, and I don't envy them their choice.

Can They Hear Me Now?

The award for the funniest news item in ages has to go to the story about the fake “signing” guy at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela. Standing an arm's length from President Obama (and any number of other, ahem, dignitaries) this guy pulled off a coup that would put Sacha Baron Cohen to shame. Apparently he managed to penetrate security and sneak up on stage and start “signing” with absolutely no problem – and those in charge didn't know anything was amiss until it was pointed out, later on, that the guy hadn't been saying, er, signing anything whatsoever but just “moving his hands around”.

But what a beautiful metaphor for Obama and his administration! You can't make this stuff up. Placed on high for no discernible reason – check. Much gesticulating and waving of arms, but totally content-free – check. A total fraud and a hoax – check. Only detected after the fact, once it was too late – check. “An absolute circus” -- check.

Ah yes – this is life in South Africa, where hope and change rule... where an oppressed people finally got their piece of the pie and said “it's our turn”. And hey, there are bound to be missteps now and then – after all, haven't any number of impostors manged to crash White House parties and have their pictures taken with The Anointed One?

And, oh yes, the guy was not taken into custody – at least not right away. And, it turns out, this is not the first time he's played this trick. Yeah... always give someone another chance, that's the American way.

At any rate, it's too funny. Just the thing to liven up the holiday season.

Snakes on a Plane

There's another story that came out of the Mandela pilgrimage, but one that requires a bit of reading between the lines. It seems that the plane that transported Obama & the missus to South Africa was also graced by the presence of George W. Bush (a fellow member of the Regime), Mrs. Bush, and Hillary Clinton (a former political rival of The Anointed One). Conspicuous by their absence from the First Plane were Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, the reason given being “logistical issues”.

Logistical issues, my a**. My guess is that Obama didn't want to be seen spending that much time with Carter; it might have invited unfortunate comparisons. And as to Bill – well, I suppose the prospect of him and Hillary spending an entire flight to South Africa on the same cramped, stuffy airplane didn't appeal to either one of them. It would have been the longest time they spent together since leaving the White House!

Ending With a Whimper

The Pittsburgh Steelers retain an infinitesimal mathematical possibility of making the NFL playoffs – provided a few other teams all come down with herpes or shingles in the meantime. Otherwise, fuhgeddaboutit. On the plus side, it means we can finally relax and just enjoy the game instead of having our intestines tied in knots on every play. After all, somebody has to lose – right? But I guess when most people are “educated” in the public schools, where everyone is a winner each and every day, it's hard to accept that fact of life.

Up the Vigilante

Turns out that George Zimmerman is a badass with a temper after all. Ah well, it's too late now. Maybe Neighborhood Watch can hire more Mister Rogers clones in the future.