No, Joe, that’s not Hunter you’re sniffing. But Zelensky is a pretty good substitute – every bit as corrupt, drugged-up and delusional as the First Son.
So hug away. You have already proven (repeatedly) that there is no betrayal of America’s true homeland security you will not eagerly embrace.
And, yes, unlike the manifold images on Hunter’s laptop, this picture of the purported hero of the free world snorting cocaine was probably photo-shopped. But so what?
How would our addle-brained President tell the difference!
After all, he apparently can’t even tell the difference between friend and foe. That’s surely the implication of the great Seymour Hersh’s latest bombshell about the pipeline bombings.
According to Hersh’s Deep State sources, the guy shuffling around the Oval Office is so befuddled that he actually ordered the bombing of the $25 billion and strategically crucial Nord Stream pipelines. The latter, of course, are half-owned by Germany, which is by far Washington’s most important and powerful European ally, and have been the economic conduit for cheap Russian gas that has fueled the German industrial economy.
To be sure, Biden apologists keep blathering about his intrepid stand for the postwar"liberal international order". But given that Washington has been a serial invader, occupier and destroyer of dozens of countries since WWII, that’s a risible joke. Still, who in their right mind would incinerate the economic lifeline of an ally, hoping that the damage just might possibly ricochet and hit an enemy, too?
Indeed, Joe Biden said in no uncertain terms before the event that he would do it, even if he hasn’t yet explicitly confessed. But he doesn’t need to because there are exactly zero alternative suspects.
In that regard, we insist on ruling out Russian self-sabotage. Putin is no prince of men, but he is most definitely not irrational or stupid. The fact that at the time of the explosion last September the mainstream press cast a sideways glance at Moscow and then promptly went radio silent on one of the most brazen acts of war in recent times tells you all you need to know.
Even the nattering nabobs of the national security states’ knee-padded fourth estate didn’t buy the "Putin did it" canard.
By the same token, who could possibly believe that the likes of Latvia or Poland did the deed without Washington’s blessing and specialized equipment and super-frogman capabilities?
After all, the pipelines were made of heavy duty ultra-hardened steel, which is further coated with immense layers of concrete. To be exact, each section of the Nord Stream pipelines has a steel case nearly two inches thick, which, in turn, is surrounded by a concrete coating another three-to-four inches thick.
It was estimated by German authorities, therefore, that the explosions which mutilated these super-pipes – probably beyond repair because the inner lining have now been flooded with saltwater – had the force of 500 tons of TNT and registered at 2.5 on the Richter scale.
So, as they say, this was the work of a "state actor" from a list that was never larger than one. And now we know for sure because Sy Hersh has always exposed lies, not told them: My Lai, Nixon’s secret bombing of Cambodia, the CIA’s domestic spying program, the Abu Ghraib torture chambers, the CIA weapons "ratline" from Benghazi to the Syrian terrorists – were all his reporting, about abominations which most definitely did happen.
So it is in the context of the utter madness of the Nord Stream pipeline bombing that Sleepy Joe’s appalling trip to Kiev, on President’s Day no less, needs be understood. That is to say, this wasn’t just White House grandstanding complete with phony air raid sirens in yet another rendition of foreign policy by photo-op. It was actually evidence that Washington’s proxy war in Ukraine has descended into stupidity and wickedness that knows no bounds.
In the first place, there is not a scintilla of benefit to America’s homeland safety and security being served by this infinitely foolish proxy war against Russia. The mere $1.8 trillion GDP and middle-level technology of Russia is no military threat whatsoever to the $47 trillion of NATO GDP, along with the high tech muscle that Washington brings to the table.
And that’s to say nothing of the comparative resources plowed into defense spending per se. For NATO that now totals $1.2 trillion per year (two-thirds of which is footed by Washington) or 14 times the $84 billion being spent by Russia, including the enormous expenditure of material and equipment in Ukraine.
In other words, there is not a snowball’s chance in the hot place that a Russian military, which got bogged-down on its own doorstep against a rag-tag, nearly bankrupt state run by thieves, fanatics, adventurers, opportunists and clowns, could possibly mount the global land, sea and air armada with 5,000 mile supply lines that would be needed to storm the New Jersey shoreline.
By the same token, Cool Hand Vlad may be an evil-doer against his own domestic subjects, but he’s not about to attempt national suicide by attacking America’s triad deterrent armed with 3,750 nuclear warheads. Not when just a handful of successful strikes would be more than enough to obliterate Moscow, St. Petersburg and the rest of Russia’s major cities.
In a word, Russia has absolutely no way to circumnavigate America’s ultimate defense – the great Atlantic and Pacific ocean moats – either by conventional forces or nuclear attack. Therefore, the risible idea that we are "fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them here" is just plain crackpottery.
Nor do we need a proxy war in Ukraine to defend Poland, Germany and the rest of the European land mass from Putin’s alleged intention to recreate the Soviet Empire. Again, there is not a shred of evidence for this proposition outside of neocon whoppers constructed from whole-cloth, and the proof is actually in the pudding.
To wit, if the Polish, Lithuanian, Estonian, Latvian, Dutch, German and Spanish leaders, for example, thought Russia would really be rolling in the tanks after finishing off Ukraine, they would be spending a hell of a lot more than 2.42%, 2.36%, 2.34%, 2.10%, 1.65%, 1.44% and 1.01% of GDP on defense, respectively.
The fact is, the combined defense budgets of the above seven European nations amount to just $115 billion or 1.60% of their collective GDP. That’s a lot more than Russia spends, of course, but barely 50 days worth of Pentagon extravagance.
Stated differently, they don’t think the Rooskies are coming for them, not even Poland and the Baltics, because their meager defense budgets betray their true security assessments. At the end of the day, what is driving their pro forma support for Washington’s Ukraine madness is essentially domestic politics.
After all, the German Green Party, which is the essential minority partner in the Olaf Scholz-led coalition government, used to be the peacenik wing of German politics. But now they have become raving war-hawks for a barely disguised reason. Namely, they’ve discovered that the best way to get rid of fossil fuels is to outlaw the massive supply of natural gas and petroleum that was coming from the now demonized Russia.
That is to say, the road to "net zero" apparently wends its way through Moscow!
Likewise, for more than a century running anti-Russia howling has been a staple of domestic Polish politics – before, during (sub-rosa until the rise of Solidarity in 1980) and after the Soviet occupation. And that’s especially been the case since Uncle Sucker brought them into NATO in 1999 and offered to foot the bill for a needlessly provocative stance against their far larger neighbor.
But notwithstanding all of the anti-Russian fulminations by their politicians, it is evident that the Polish establishment is not quaking in its boots about Russian divisions heading their way. The proof lies in the fact that they spend only $430 per capita on defense compared to America’s defense spending of $2,600 per capita.
That’s right. The defense spending per capita of Poland, which is way over there next door to its historic enemy, is only 16% of what’s being spent by Washington, which is way over here far beyond the reach of Putin’s military.
By the same token, Russian leaders, and Putin is no exception, have long understood that they are loathed by the Poles, the Germans and especially the non-Russian inhabitants of the Baltics. So the very thought of Russians re-occupying lands that were exploited to the hilt by Moscow during the Cold War, and which left an immense distaste for things Russian, is a giant non-starter.
Indeed, unlike Joe Biden, Vlad Putin is actually fiscally literate. He knows that attempting to occupy any part of non-Russian Europe would be a costly catastrophe.
And we use the term "non-Russian Europe" very precisely. What is the opposite of non-Russian Europe is the Russian-speaking precincts of Crimea, the Donbas and the Black Sea rim through Zaporizhzia, Kherson, and Odessa.
Those regions comprised Novorossiya ("New Russia") for 150 years during which they were settled and developed by Russian workers, farmers and capitalists. And all this occurred long before they were arbitrarily inserted into Ukraine at gunpoint by Lenin and Khrushchev during the 20th century.
In the case of Crimea, for instance, it’s about as "Ukrainian" as Senator Pocahontas Warren is Cherokee. That is to say, one-sixteenth, at best.
Moreover, not only did all of these regions overwhelmingly vote to rejoin Mother Russia during Putin’s September referendums, but the dog which isn’t barking behind the so-called line of contact tells you all you need to know.
These millions of mainly Russian-speaking folks are not begging to be liberated from the yoke of Moscow. Nor is the Russian Army being harnessed, fragged and sabotaged from the rear by a local resistance waiting to welcome the Ukrainian Army with open arms.
To the contrary, by all the evidence they simply want an end to Kiev’s NATO-funded and promulgated war on their regions. This utterly unnecessary and unjustified internal war has been brutal and unrelenting more or less since they choose to breakaway from the Ukrainian state after the Washington-instigated and financed coup of February 2014 installed a nasty little band of Russian-hating Neo-Nazis in Kiev.
That is to say, the answer is and always has been partition of the unnatural hodgepodge within Ukraine’s current borders put together by communist dictators who long ago departed for the hot place they didn’t believe in.
What prevents this salutary outcome is neither the ruler in Moscow nor the overwhelming portion of the American electorate. Instead, at the end of the day the roadblock lies with the two hideous men pictured in embrace at the top of the page.
One is senile and stupid. The other is stupider still and delusional beyond measure.
Yet they march the world toward a nuclear Armageddon. And now the detestable little freak who dares to demand that the world bend to his every beck and call for arms and aid has even said the quiet part aloud. Said Zelensky earlier this week –
"Because if China allies itself with Russia, there will be a world war,
Well, no, fortunately there will be no world war, but only because the impending Russian offensive is set to finish off the Ukrainian army before Washington can effectively respond and just after Zelensky books safe passage to South America in the nick of time.
In turn, that will mean the end of the American Empire because after Washington’s ignominious retreats from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the world, like the children in the fable, will be jeering the Naked Empire and its utterly senile leader.
And that would be just in the nick of time, too.
David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He’s the author of three books, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed, The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America, TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin… And How to Bring It Back, and the recently released Great Money Bubble: Protect Yourself From The Coming Inflation Storm. He also is founder of David Stockman’s Contra Corner and David Stockman’s Bubble Finance Trader.
