(Article by Paul Craig Roberts republished from PaulCraigRoberts.org)
Are the peoples of the Western world so completely insouciant that they do not notice that their politicians are pushing them into direct conflict with Russia? It seems Hungarians are the only European people who have any sense.
https://www.rt.com/news/598644-budapest-peace-march-nato/
The Kremlin could not issue any warnings more dire, and in response moronic Western politicians provoke harder. Are they unable to comprehend that they are provoking a nuclear war, or is it their intention to provoke a nuclear war?
Biden, Blinken, and NATO have made another U-turn. The long range missiles that Ukraine could not use for attacks on Russian territory can now be used that way, but, for now, only on military targets. But the distinction between military and non-military targets is a distinction without meaning or substance. All modern wars are attacks on civilians and infrastructure.
The argument that resulted in removing restrictions on long range missiles is that in order to defend itself Ukraine needs to be able to use the weapons Washington provides to attack the military infrastructure that Russia uses to attack Ukraine.
Russia will simply attack the sites from which it is being attacked, so the long range missiles will contribute nothing to Ukraine’s defense. Even worse: as the Kremlin knows the missiles have to be programmed with targeting information by US and NATO personnel, Russia regards the countries responsible for the targeting as combatants and targets. We are on the verge of the final widening of the war.
As every previous no-no became a yes-yes, the Kremlin has to assume that the no-no prohibition on sending NATO troops will soon become a yes-yes. If realism prevails in the Kremlin, this forces Putin to abandon his limited military operation and to knock out Ukraine before it fills up with NATO soldiers.
From the beginning it was obvious to me that the limited military operation was a strategic blunder that would allow the West to become involved, with the consequence being the widening of the war. That is precisely what has happened. We have reached the point where Putin is telling the West to back off or out come the nukes.
But no one in the West hears.
Washington cares no more for Ukrainians than it cares for Palestinians. The Ukraine conflict is a way for Washington to force Russia into a response that can be used to justify a US/NATO attack on Russia. What is to be served by this? It is a form of suicide for the West.
Where is a responsible Western leader to diffuse this dangerous situation? Why are there none? Keeping Russian Donbas in Ukraine, where it should never have been put, is not worth the war that is being fomented.
As the long range missiles cannot improve Ukraine’s battlefield performance, their only purpose is to be used for provocations. Anyone looking at the situation who thinks more provocations are what is needed is insane.
It is mind-boggling to actually watch Western leaders foment a nuclear war.
There is no opposition from Congress. None from print and TV media. None from European governments except Hungary. Western peoples are too insouciant to understand that they are standing on the edge of annihilation.
“We Are Inches Away from Destruction” — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban
Some who find reality too upsetting take issue with my warnings of how close we are to a final war. I have acquired a new accolade — “scaremonger.” But I am not the only aware person on earth. Dr. Postal at MIT understands the seriousness of the situation, as does Mike Whitney, Steven Starr, Gilbert Doctorow, Scott Ritter, and Viktor Orban. Even the restrained, unprovocative Putin now understands that Russia is confronted with war, not a limited military operation to liberate the Donbas Russians.
Prime Minister Orban says that every week he sees more and more signs that the EU and NATO are preparing for military action. The Western governments, Orban has concluded, “want to defeat Russia, they want to achieve military success at any cost.” The cost will be life on the planet. Why is Ukraine’s NATO membership more important than the massive loss of life and perhaps the livability of life on the planet? https://tass.com/world/1796133
It is extraordinary that the Western world will do nothing to stop Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, but is prepared to destroy life on earth for the artificial borders of an artificial country called Ukraine, which is known historically as “the Ukraine,” that is, as a province of a larger country.
Orban tells the truth. He says “NATO is a strong defensive alliance created to protect its member states, not to intervene in another war.” Orban says he will do what he can to prevent Hungary from being drawn into the maelstrom. “This is not our war, and Hungarians should not suffer because of it.”
But Hungary along with any survivors and Mother Earth herself and all her creatures and plant life will suffer from the massive fires, radioactivity, perhaps a nuclear winter, total disruption of all global supply chains, and so forth. The countries that survive, if any, will be those well removed from the blast zones, wind patterns loaded with radioactivity, and self sufficient in food production. All economies dependent on global relationships will be destroyed.
The world as it is organized today cannot survive a major war. How will cities of millions of people be sustained when supply chains no longer exist? Without war Mexico City with its 20 millions is almost empty of water.
I can continue asking these kind of questions, to which there are no answers.
But it is pointless.
The problem is that except for Orban and Putin, every Western political leader is committed to war for no justifiable reason.
There is no reason for the pending war. Ukraine can exist as a neutral state. Washington can pull back its presence on Russia’s borders.
The American neoconservatives’ nonsensical demand for US hegemony can be abandoned. Whatever the consequences of accepting reality, they are better than nuclear war.
Why is it that no one in the Western world understands the threat to life?
What is the explanation for Biden now approaching the end of his fourth year in office HAVING NEVER MET WITH PUTIN IN AN EFFORT TO RESOLVE THE MOST DANGEROUS CRISIS IN HUMAN HISTORY?
The dumbshits governing us do not comprehend that today’s thermonuclear weapons can be a thousand times more powerful as the atomic bombs the US dropped on two Japanese civilian cities. The weapons today do not merely obliterate large cities, they obliterate large regions.
Steven Starr and other experts have expressed their concerns that a nuclear war could fill the atmosphere with dust and debris that would block the sun for years until it settled. In those years there may be a limited or non-existent growing season. Therefore, all life can be the casualty.
From a presentation by Dr. Theodore Postal, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
The Russian nuclear Early Warning System (EWS) at Amir was damaged by an attack. The decision to attack the Russian EWS was made in Washington. The drones were guided to their targets using US aerial and satellite reconnaissance (they have to take multiple evasive actions in the course of their flights to evade Russian radar systems, and this can only be supplied via real-time targeting information provided by the US). The operators of the drones were likely mercenaries trained in the US or out-of-uniform US troops. Russia knows this and so it considers this a US attack on its nuclear Early Warning System.
The attack was reckless beyond comprehension. ANY such attacks against the EWS system used to protect Russia from a nuclear attack can justify, under Russian law, a nuclear retaliatory strike.
The US/NATO/Ukraine previously conducted multiple drone attacks on the Russian airbase at Engels, which is where Russia keeps its long-range strategic nuclear bombers. It appeared that at least in one of these attacks, a strategic nuclear bomber was damaged. Engels airbase is hundreds of miles inside of Russia and the drones could not have made it to the base without real-time targeting information supplied by US aerial and satellite reconnaissance.
Russian military planners must consider these attacks as a possible prelude to a nuclear first strike against Russia by the United States.
The US and NATO are also preparing to send F-16s to Ukraine. Russia has announced that they will consider these to be nuclear-capable weapon systems and treat them accordingly, including striking whatever bases these weapons are launched from — inside or outside of Ukraine (meaning in Poland and Romania).
Biden today authorized attacks inside Russia using US long-range weapons. France and Germany then followed the US, giving their approval to the use of Western-supplied weapons to attack targets inside Russia.
The situation in Ukraine is escalating to the point of being out of control. Yet Western mass media ignores these events and the general public remains blissfully unaware that their leaders continue to escalate the war in Ukraine to the point where it can become a nuclear war that will destroy all nations and peoples.
Gilbert Doctorow explains that Russia’s “dead hand” launch system cannot be deterred by a first strike
Gilbert Doctorow reminds us that the Russians have a “dead hand” launch system. Even if every Russian command and control center is wiped out in a first strike against Russia, sufficient missiles launch to wipe out the US and Western Europe. In other words, there is no advantage in a US first strike on Russia. https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/06/01/first-strike-capable-why-russia-is-indifferent-to-damage-to-one-or-another-ground-based-radar-installation/
Doctorow also reminds us that it only takes one fully loaded hypersonic non-interceptible Sarmat multiple warhead missile to level a country the size of the UK to the ground, and only several to erase the US from the map. It goes far beyond insanity for Europe and the US to cultivate their own suicide. The media keep all information from the public, which is unaware that its continued existence is in question.
Here is Scott Ritter on the likely consequences of attacks inside Russia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt_-BS7vY_o
Scott Ritter reminds us that the weapons used to strike inside Russia have to be programmed by the US/NATO countries that supply them. Ukraine is ancillary to the process. Russia understands this and has stated that Russia will attack the countries responsible.
Here is a summary of the Scott Ritter video provided by an expert who shares my concern that Washington is driving the world into nuclear war:
“Scott Ritter explains that any further attacks on Russian strategic sites or attacks on Russian territory using missiles or cruise missiles will result in Russia hitting back against all the NATO targets — inside and outside Ukraine — responsible for such attacks.
“This includes US aerial reconnaissance assets: US satellites, AWACS, and Reaper drones; it includes any NATO headquarters and air bases that were involved in the preparation, programming, targeting, and launching of the long-range missiles and drones used to hit Russian territory. This includes bases within France, the UK, Germany, and possibly the US.
“Ritter says that such attacks would result in the NATO nations struck by Russian retaliatory strikes invoking Article V of the NATO Charter, claiming they had been attacked by Russia. Ritter says that if NATO member states take this action and unite in war against Russia, then Russia will launch a massive nuclear strike against all these nations. I hope he is wrong.
“Given that the US, the UK, France, and Germany have all signed off on using long-range weapons against Russia, albeit in a ‘limited’ area of Russia, I think we are close to the scenario that Ritter suggests because the ‘limited’ area of Russia subject to attack will expand. A situation will arise where Putin is forced to hit back in a way that is decisive. The West will deny that the Russian strike is in retaliation for their own thinly disguised attacks on Russia — they will call the Russian strikes “unprovoked aggression” and an act of war.
“The US and NATO have been hiding behind the lie that it is Ukraine fighting Russia — not the West fighting Russia. When US, UK, French, and German weapons arrive in Ukraine, they become “Ukrainian weapons”, and thus Ukraine, not the West, is made responsible for whatever is done with them, whatever targets they hit.
“Russia no longer will accept the lie that only Ukraine, not the West, is at war with Russia. Even Putin has publicly stated that the high-tech, long-range weapons are US and NATO weapons, programmed, operated, guided, and launched by US/NATO troops. The targets are decided on by the US, not by Ukraine. The weapons have to use real-time guidance from US aerial and satellite reconnaissance, hence, Russia will destroy the satellites, drones, and AWACs providing the targeting information. All the components of the attacks on Russia will be targeted.
“Russia is not bluffing. Russia will not back down.”
It is extraordinary that the entire political leadership of the Western world is pushing the world into nuclear war. Why does the West seek its own destruction? What is to be gained?
During the 20th century Cold War in which I was intimately involved both as a trustee of the Committee on the Present Danger and as a member of a secret Presidential Committee with authority to investigate the CIA’s opposition to President Reagan’s effort to end the Cold War and normalize relations with the Soviet Union, I can say with confidence that even hard line anti-communists sought to reduce tensions instead of provoking war.
What I have witnessed in the 21st century is the most egregious cultivation of war by the US government in human history, and no one in the print or TV media tells us the consequences.
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