Reposted by request from https://boosty.to/cluborlov/posts/3d5c81f9-58c6-4f83-bb6d-aca002d21801
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Recently the various talking heads in Washington and elsewhere in the West have come out of their stupor to announce that the Ukrainian effort to defeat Russia on the field of battle has failed. From the perspective of a Russian, their pain would be most delicious; however, there are several considerations that prevent the Russians from experiencing joy while observing the extreme discomfort of the combined West.
By far the most important, overarching consideration is the horrific loss of life on the Ukrainian side which this effort has incurred, especially during the Ukrainian counterattacks this summer, none of which managed to penetrate the first of three Russian lines of defense and the stunningly idiotic battle over the completely useless dead town of Artyomovsk, a.k.a. Bakhmut. You might think that the Russians view the Ukrainians as the enemy, and why would they be upset over enemy losses, but that's just not the case. Their real enemy is the US and most Russians have by now figured that out.
To refer to the population of the former Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic as "the Ukrainians" is simply a misnomer. They are really a sort of Russian. There are several varieties of Russian: Velikorussians (most of them), Byelorussians of Belarus, Novorussians of Novorossiya (Donetsk, Lugansk, etc., in the east of the former Ukraine), Malorussians (in some of the remaining parts of the former Ukraine), and they are all different sorts of Russian. Huge numbers of them are now dead or displaced or in dire straits economically and politically. The lone government-owned television channel in Kiev (all the others have been shut down because of democracy) recently let it slip that there were over a million casualties — around half a million dead and the rest wounded and no longer fit to serve. Some other sources put the overall number at closer at 1.5 million. That's around 5% of the remaining population within the former Ukraine.
Extrapolate to wives, mothers and children of these casualties, and it's a third of the population that's been affected — absolutely horrific, genocide-level numbers! They may have been the enemy, but that's a temporary, transient condition. As a more permanent condition, "the ashes of our fallen beat upon our hearts," as the Russians like to say, and these deaths, be they Russian, Ukrainian, or half a dozen of each, will have to be avenged. Who is guilty of these deaths? Why, of course, it is those American statesmen (and states-harpies) who had thought it clever and winsome to turn the Ukraine into an anti-Russia and incite it to attack it. And for the sake of what? Extreme stupidity, that's what!
The first element of extreme stupidity was to go to war against Russia. The two worst military errors one can ever commit are: 1. going to war against Russia and 2. going to war against Russia. If you aren't sure, then ask the Swedes, the Poles, the French and the Germans — they'll tell you how it always ends. It ends with Russian cavalry riding into Paris (1814) or Russian tanks rolling into Berlin (1945). The Swedes got lucky: the Russians simply bought them off with some silver coins (by having them agree to sell Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and they've been quiet as mice under a broom ever since. The Poles, for their rambunctious behavior, got off easy for being fellow-Slavs and just had to spend a century as part of the Russian Empire and then another half a century as a Soviet satellite.
The pattern is always the same: the Russians at first dawdle, retreat and try to negotiate instead of fighting, and then they decide that a war is on after all and just kill everyone. The Russians probably wouldn't even bother rolling in to London or Washington, who are yet to learn this lesson — and just use some hypersonic rockets instead — so it would be slightly less stupid of the Brits and the Yanks to just take it as read and stand down. Except now it's probably too late for that because large amounts of Russian blood have been spilled. Oops!
The second element of extreme stupidity was for the Ukrainians to trust the Americans and the Europeans to help them. The American officials (and, to a lesser extent, the European ones), as well as the military-industrial complex of the West, certainly helped themselves. Most of the well over $150 billion of aid supposedly lavished on the Ukraine settled in Americans' own pockets or was wasted on buying up US treasury paper or cybercurrency which ended up in the coffers of the US Democratic Party. There was also a chorus line of US and EU officials waltzing through Kiev — their favorite money laundry — to collect their large gratuities, in cash, which they smuggled home as diplomatic baggage. And then there were the weapons: the war on Russia allowed the West to unload its inventories of obsolete Soviet-era war junk as well as their own largely useless artillery and armor, and to sell — at list price, mind you! — ordnance that had expired or was about to. Did any of this "help" actually help the Ukrainians? No, it did not.
Note that it isn't any sort of great secret that the Americans can't be trusted. Who exactly did well by trusting the Americans? How did that work for Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, president of South Vietnam? Well, at least he escaped in time. So did Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan — he escaped with a planeload of cash! Perhaps Muammar Qaddafy of Libya did well by agreeing to pay $1.5 billion in reparations for the Lockerbie bombing and to dismantle Libya's nuclear program? No, he got tortured to death while American officials laughed about it. The best that Vladimir Zelensky can hope for is to pull an Ashraf Ghani and escape with a planeload of cash. Will Benjamin Netanyahoo manage to do as well when his time comes?
None of this was an accident; for Americans, wars are strictly a business proposition. The Ukraine has served its purpose as a dumping ground for obsolete war junk and as a money laundry; thank you all very much, you may die now. This is nothing personal, strictly business. To quote the recently deceased Henry Kissinger, "To be an enemy of the US is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal." Truer words have never been spoken.
Now that the blush is off the Ukrainian sunflower, demented old Biden went public with a threat: either keep sending money to the Kiev regime or US soldiers will have to fight Russia. What? Oh, yes, the US definitely needs another war because the alternative (so these bright-minded American statesmen and states-harpies appear to think) is a full-blown civil war inside the United States because, you see, Americans are finally beginning to realize who is responsible for their dropping standard of living and the general disarray of their once vaunted "American way of life": the public officials in Washington. It is therefore important to distract them with some foreign military entanglement. It has to be short of catastrophic, as a war with China over Taiwan would be, and it might be necessary as an excuse to cancel or postpone the elections next year. Then perhaps the open casket of Emperor Dementius Optimus Maximus can lie in state for the next four years and after that the embalmer's warranty would expire, so don't you even ask!
My humble proposal is: why not have both a foreign military defeat and a full-blown civil war? The US seems to have a backup plan in case the Ukrainians drop their weapons, march across the frontline and fraternize with the enemy (which thousands of them are doing already, having realized that nothing bad happens to them when they do that and that borscht tastes just as good on the Russian side). The backup plan is to throw little disposable nations — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — at Russia. That seems to have been the only possible rationale for accepting them into NATO. But fighting Russia by throwing the three tiny Baltic statelets at it is like battling a hippopotamus by throwing cabbages in its mouth — likely to elicit some brief chomping noises and a satisfied grunt.
Finland and Poland — two more former parts of the Russian Empire — would logically be the next sacrificial victims, but are likely to become a bit cagey about being sacrificed on the altar of US world hegemony. And if their men refuse to be massacred Ukrainian-style and run off, then what? Will American soldiers be forced to throw themselves at Russian defensive lines next? Never mind the risk of a nuclear war (Russia won't be in any rush to go nuclear) but Russia might decide to nip the problem in the bud by blowing up Washington's power centers using conventional weapons which Americans don't know how to intercept.
In either case, with more foreign distractions or without, it is already high time for a full-on civil war on US soil. The US is full of guns and ammo that's in private hands, and that ammo has to be used up somehow. Perhaps the Russians will get to feel some joy after all — by watching the US blow itself up while making Russia great again.