The Euros And Ukraine

Posted on June 13, 2024 by thezman

During Covid, one of the questions that kicked around was how would the public react when they found out the government was lying? The answer is we do not know as the whole thing has been thrown down the memory hole for the most part. The truth about Covid has slowly seeped into the public consciousness, but no one asks them about it and no media outlet discusses it. The best anyone can tell is that the Covid lies have become a part of the general cynicism.

We will soon get another case to see how the public will respond when the truth is nothing like what they have been told by the media. In the case of Project Ukraine, this test will happen in Europe where the local media talks about the war in Ukraine in terms that have always been fanciful. It was European media that gave us the “Ghost of Kiev” and the babushkas knocking down fighter jets with canned goods. They continue to feed their public outlandish stories about the war.

Those with an interest in the war and access to the internet can find out what is actually happening on the battlefield. The facts are often blurred by the fog of war and the bias of the people doing the reporting, but with some patience you can get a good picture of what is happening in Ukraine. It is even possible to get a sense of what is happening outside the war zone as there are still plenty of Ukrainians posting stuff to popular apps like Telegram and Instagram.

Very little of this reality gets into Europeans media. Instead, they produce content like this from the UK Telegraph, which is supposed to be a serious media platform, not the typical British tabloid. Not only are they “reporting” that Ukrainian “wonder weapons are decimating the Russians”, but they also have a special section with high production quality explanations of those wonder weapons. In other words, this is a highly choregraphed bit of propaganda designed to deceive the public.

The wonder weapon stuff is mild compared to some of the other posts you will find about Ukraine in the Telegraph. This one claims the Ukrainians are about to seize Crimea because their squadrons of unicorns are showering the place with magical fairy dust they shoot from their ass. That is not an exaggeration, as magical farting unicorns would be more plausible than the contents of the actual post. The whole thing is a fantasy with no basis in reality.

It is not just the UK media that is gaslighting the public. The German media is full of similarly nonsensical stories. Here is the Ukraine page for Bild, which you can use Google to translate into English. Die Zeit is probably the most respected news site in Germany, and it just copies and pastes whatever Kiev, or the neocons send them about what is happening in the war. While not as ridiculous as the UK media, the continental media is gaslighting its public just as hard.

The problem is the war is going horribly for Ukraine. The Russian army is slowly and methodically grinding the Ukraine army into bits. Every month the Ukrainians are forced to fall back at some point along the line of contact. The Russians have knocked out the power grid of the country, which means there is no electric for up to twenty hours per day in some areas. The Ukrainian army is literally snatching men off the streets and sending them to the front due to a lack of manpower.

What Ukraine war watchers have known for a long time is that at some point, the Ukraine army will not be able to keep fighting. At some point, the Russians will decide it is time to end the war on its terms. Given that this is a proxy war between Washington and Moscow, the assumption is the fall is when things come to a head, just in time for the presidential election. Maybe it will happen sooner or maybe later, but at some point, reality will burst through those European headlines.

From a distance, it is hard to know if the firehose of nonsense about the war is fooling the European public. The recent elections suggest that at the minimum the public is tired of the ruling parties putting the welfare of Ukraine ahead of the welfare of the European people. It is possible that the Euros have been wise to the media nonsense about Ukraine, but simply care more about other things. Like Covid, it is hard to know as no one bothers to find out what the public thinks.

Unlike Covid, the collapse of Project Ukraine is not going to be easy to sweep under the rug by ignoring it. With Covid, the liars scurried off with their bags of cash and the pols declared victory as they let their foot off the neck of the public. The general public was simply happy to get back to normal. That is probably not going to work with Ukraine as there is no benefit to putting the topic in the past. There will simply be what the media claimed to be true and the truth, which is the opposite.

Compounding the problem in Europe is the fact that the leading politicians have made Ukraine their signature issue. In the U.S., the pols have been giving it a good leaving alone for a year now, other than the big funding push in February. Note that as soon as that bill passed, they changed the subject. In Europe, the political class has made Ukraine a test of their legitimacy. Therefore, when the Ukraine army surrenders, they cannot shrug and move on to other issues.

One of the lessons of the Soviet era was that the accumulation of lies eventually saps even the most repressive regime of legitimacy. The Soviet system fell apart when no one could think of a reason to support it, not even the people at the top of the system who benefitted from it the most. In this way, Ukraine and Covid may be analogous to Afghanistan and Chernobyl. These are events that delegitimize the system by making clear that nothing it says or does is on the level.

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Death In Dollars

Posted on June 12, 2024 by thezman

Without much fanfare and no coverage in Western media, one of the most important agreements of the 20th century was allowed to expire last week. That agreement is the deal made between the United States and Saudi Arabia in 1974 that established what has been known ever since as the petro-dollar. Saudi Arabia would price its oil exports exclusively in U.S. dollars and invest its surplus oil revenues in U.S. Treasury bonds while the U.S. provided military protection to the kingdom.

The importance of this deal cannot be overstated. The demand for dollars has kept the currency strong and thus kept imports cheap. It also allowed the Federal Reserve to “export excess dollars” to developing countries with a need for dollars. The institutional demand for treasuries as a result of this agreement allowed for the low interest rate environment we have seen for decades. This has made it possible for the United States to build up massive debts both publicly and privately.

Another way to think about this deal is by pricing energy in dollars, the dollar became the default global currency because the dollar was a proxy for energy units. This made the Saudis the head of the mint and the Federal Reserve the global bank. The Saudis could control the flow of energy units around the world, a very profitable position, and the United States could skim from every transaction denominated in dollars, which was every transaction across national borders.

The reason for the lack of coverage of this historic event is two-fold. One is the mass media is now populated by zombies with no agency of their own, so until the regime hands them copy, they have nothing to say. The other is the financial world has no idea where this is going. Five years ago, no one imagined this deal would be allowed to expire, but years of mismanagement by the Biden administration has made a hash of things all over the world.

There is speculation that the Saudis are simply bargaining hard knowing that the Biden admin is desperate. Anthony Blinken is supposedly prepared to offer the Saudis a generous nuclear package, in addition to more military support, in order to continue the relationship, but of course it comes with a catch. The Saudis will have to normalize relations with Israel, something they are loath to do. There is no upside to them making a deal with a regime that routinely slaughters Arabs.

Now, the expiry of this deal does not mean much at the present. Half a century of pricing everything important in dollars will not be unraveled quickly. Tens of trillions in assets are priced in dollars, so the dollar remains the default currency, but it does open the door to alternatives. The Saudis will now accept other currencies for their energy products, which means OPEC will follow their lead. China can now buy oil in yuan, rather than swap yuan for dollars.

In the short-term this will not change much of anything, but over time it will result in a decrease in the demand for dollars. For example, if you trade with China for manufactured goods, it makes sense to trade in the yuan for energy products as it simplifies trade with China. The same is true for the Russian ruble, the Indian rupee, and the Brazilian real. Of course, it also means bypassing the American controlled banking system for settling these transactions.

The next shoe to drop in this process is a settlement system that operates outside the control of Washington. Project mBridge is a scheme for creating a digital currency to facilitate cross border transactions. The Saudis have recently joined this project, which is mainly supported by China. The Russians have recently shown interest in the project, despite years of resistance. The trade war launched by Washington has changed opinion in Moscow about dealing with the West.

That is another aspect to this. The Russian economy not only absorbed the sanctions blow, but it has also grown faster than the Western economies. Russia now has the fourth largest economy in the world. Sanctions forced the Russians to do thigs like replace the retail credit card system with their own system. They cleaned up their banking system to root out fraud and corruption. It was an inadvertent test case for creating financial systems outside of Western control.

Again, none of this signal the collapse of the dollar. The people screaming such things have no idea how the world actually works. What we are seeing is the slow decline of the American financial order. The countries that make things, fix things, dig things from the ground and invent things are starting to see that they do not need the countries that merely count things. This is especially true when the people doing the counting have a history of stealing from their customers.

What comes next is the slow decline in the demand for dollars and euros, which will make inflation a feature of Western economies. It will also mean the slow rise in borrowing rates in the West. If the rest of the world needs fewer dollars and euros it means they need fewer bonds denominated in dollars and euros. That leaves Western governments with the choice of cutting spending or printing money, which is the same thing but only less honest.

None of this was inevitable. After the Cold War, the United States could have remained the world’s banker and honest broker. Instead, the economic elites of America allowed the world’s most dishonest people to gain control of foreign policy. They used that power to launch a decades long crusade against their ancient enemies and in the process, they squandered the good name of the American people and destroyed global trust in the United States. Decline is now what must follow.

When Prophecy Fails

Posted on June 5, 2024 by thezman

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the logic of the West has rested on the theory that the Russians cannot sustain a long war. In the winter of 2022 the argument was summed up by Francis Fukuyama in this legendarily wrong post. In that post he claimed the Russian army was about to collapse at any minute and maybe take the Putin government down with it. He then followed up on that claim with a similar post, in which he claimed to have been right, amazingly enough.

It is tempting to dismiss Fukuyama as just another brazen hustler that circulates around the managerial class, but he is one of the more successful ones. His famous book, The End of History and the Last Man, was a massive best seller primarily because he pushed all the right buttons for the post-Cold War elites. It was massively successful flattery because the people being flattered believed it. They continue to believe it, which is why they maintain a bellicose foreign policy.

Put another way, these grifters passing themselves off as intellectuals tell us something about the system that hosts them, but also the people they flatter. Fukuyama gets to travel around the empire passing as a sage, because the people hosting him think he is right and that is because they want him to be right. Meanwhile, a guy who has been consistently right, John Mearsheimer, gets called mean names, mostly because he is right and the people calling him names hate him for it.

This blinkered view is how we got the war in Ukraine. This almost religious belief that the triumph of the West in the Cold War was the beginning of the final journey into the promised land, the end of history, has shaped imperial policy, both foreign and domestic, for decades. Fukuyama wrote his book in 1992 and others have been building on it ever since. In his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski argued for the breaking up of Russia to finish the Cold War.

In other words, the war in Ukraine is not something that happened for no reason at all, but rather it is the product of a messianic outlook in the West that has existed since at least the end of the Cold War. In fact, the war looks like it comes right from the Western playbook to undermine and topple the Putin government. This study by the RAND Corporation, the most important think tank in the empire, talks specifically about this type of project as a tool to destabilize Russia.

The point of all this is to properly frame the war as part of the overall belief system of the West, rather than just something that happened for no reason at all. Washington expected this war because they had been planning for it for decades. Even though they were wrong in most of their assumptions, there is no reason to think that belief structure has changed. History shows that believers do not abandon their beliefs when faced with disconfirmation. They just believe harder.

That is important to understand when thinking about what comes next. The micro-countries of NATO are now yapping about war with Russia. Hilariously, tiny Estonia is offering security guarantees to Ukraine. The Estonia military is about the size of the Las Vegas police department and probably just as lethal. Lithuania is now inviting in the Germans to build defensive structures for the assumed Russian attack. Perhaps the Germans will bring their broomsticks with them.

The reason these small players are making these noises is the same reason Fukuyama wrote a book, calling the people he wished to flatter, the deliverers of mankind from the clutches of irrationality. These micro-countries organize their foreign affairs around flattering the powerful. Without NATO, Kaja Kallas is as well-known as the mayor of Wichita, but in NATO she can stand on the big stage, just as long as she tells Washington what they wish to hear.

This is what makes the moment so dangerous. Kallas is a simpleton, but an obsequious simpleton, so she often speaks the truth about her masters. Washington has no plan for ending the war other than the total defeat of Russia, something that can only happen if they launch nuclear weapons. The current debate about letting Ukraine use NATO weapons to attack inside Russia is mostly about normalizing the idea of NATO attacking inside Russia, something the Russians will never tolerate.

Compounding all of this is the fact that Ukraine is slowly being ground down by the Russian war machine. All of Ukraine is now forced to ration electricity. Major cities have long blackouts due to the lack of energy. The Ukraine army is desperate for soldiers, but all of the men have gone into hiding to avoid being grabbed off the streets and sent directly to the front. These raw “recruits” are being trained at the front, which means thrown into a trench with a rifle and a few grenades.

The point is we will soon see something like what Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter described in their study of a UFO cult. Western political leaders have been assured for decades that the promised land lies just after the final disillusion of Russia, which will come any day now. Like the people waiting for the space aliens, they have been waiting for regime change in Russia. Instead, they may be facing angry mobs outside their own palaces as the project collapses.

We live in an age of wonders, but the greatest wonder to be revealed will be when the regime realizes that the future promised to them by the neocons and their fellow travelers was never going to be reality. When the Ukraine army starts to buckle and the politics in Kiev become violent, how will the West react? Will reality suddenly descend upon Washington, or will they do like the cult members in When Prophesy Fails and find some way to internalize it and keep the faith?

The Great Panic

Posted on May 13, 2024 by thezman

Ever since the Hamas attacks on October 7th, 2023, the American empire has been convulsed by increasingly deranged tremors. The Israelis adopted a policy that on the surface makes little sense. All it has done is poison relations with the Arabs and much of the world. In America, both political parties have gone nuts in response to the attacks, Israel’s response, and the reaction to that response. Peak madness may be Lindsey Graham suggesting Israel uses nukes on Gaza.

Graham, of course, is trying to show he is the most Zionist of Zionists in a party that makes Likud look dovish. Elected Republicans are obsessed with Israel to the point where even pro-Israel supporters are suffering from severe cringe. Here is Ted Cruz claiming that no one came to the aid of Jews in the Second World War and that Israel has had to go it alone. The logic here is that you are either on the side of unconditional support for Israel or you are Hitler.

One reason for this, of course, is the power of AIPAC. Thomas Massie has opposed the blank check to Israel, so AIPAC has launched both a smear campaign against him, but also a television campaign in his state. AIPAC has been threatening politicians around the country with what could best be described as a “stand with Israel or you get two in the hat” marketing campaign. The only thing missing is a pic of Kennedy slumped over in the car as his wife tries to keep his head together.

The madness is not contained to the street level politics. The normally sober minded David Goldman, the man behind the Spengler column in the Asia Times, posted a crazy rant about Christian Nationalism at the Claremont site, American Mind. In that post he seems to suggest that Christians do not deserve their own nations and must worship Israel if they want to survive. It is a bit of mask dropping that you only ever see from fringe players in the diaspora.

All of this raises the question as to what is happening here? The large and well-funded philosemitic ecosystem seems to be shaking itself to pieces. The trigger for this lurch into madness was the Hamas attack, which the people in this ecosystem demand be treated like a world defining event, when in reality it was just another reprisal in a long running blood feud between the Arabs and Jews. For some reason, it is not seen as such by these people. Instead, it is an inflection point.

One reason for this is the changes inside Israel. The old guard is reaching its demographic end point. Since its founding, Israel has been controlled by Ashkenazi Jews, mostly from the diaspora. The other Jewish tribes, particularly the Mizrahi, have been spectators. The Mizrahi are the Jews who have always been in the Middle East, as opposed to those who migrated with the Roman Legions into Europe. Mizrahi is a modern term that means “eastern.”

The dominance of westernized Ashkenazi Jews has meant that Israeli politics has reflected the politics of the American empire. One side has taken the dovish view of Arab relations, and the other side has taken the hawkish view. Further, Israel diplomacy has followed American diplomacy. This has made it easy for the Israelis to deal with the rest of the world diplomatically and provided some limits on Israel behavior. Now that the Mizrahi are ascendent, this dynamic is changing.

The Mizrahi have now entered government and are taking over what has been the political right in Israel. They have an agenda that starts with the removal of the Arab populations from “Greater Israel” which is why the expression “from the river to the sea” is so controversial. The Mizrahi also demand the return to Talmudic law and the building of the third temple, which means destroying the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Mizrahi back Netanyahu, who needs them to survive politically.

This changing of the guard inside Israel explains the crazy response from the Israelis, in the teeth of global opposition. It does not explain why the Israelis seem willing to offend their supporters in America. Normally, the protests we see in the West would have led to strong pressure from whoever is occupying the White House to tone down the violence and address the optics. Instead, we have both parties demanding total, unconditional obedience to the Israeli cause.

That gets to a different problem. Project Ukraine has brought to light some hidden truths about the Global American Empire. One is that the vaunted American war machine is a paper tiger. Western wonder weapons were supposed to scare the Russians into submission, but instead they have been a colossal failure. Further, all of the predictions about how the war would unfold and how Russia would respond to Western efforts have turned out to be fantastically wrong.

Project Ukraine is looking like the Varian Disaster for the American empire. This is having a profound impact on the internal politics of the empire. After all, the people responsible for this catastrophe look a lot like the people who are mismanaging the unfolding catastrophe in the Levant. It is not hard for even the most dimwitted to make the connection because the people running foreign policy routinely claim primary allegiance to Israel.

There is also a changing attitude in the general public. Thirty years ago, Washington would not have had to do these marketing stunts to whip up support for Israel, because the public supported Israel. The public has clearly changed. The long allergy to thinking about the role of Jews in these foreign projects is gone and now you see things in the public square with regard to the role of Jews in politics that would not have seen the light of day a few decades ago.

This does not mean Americans are becoming antisemitic. It just means as ethnic and racial awareness break through the forcefield of mass media menticide, awareness of both Israel and Jewish influence in politics is growing. People notice that Ben Shapiro cares more about Israel than America. They are noticing that public officials love Israel more than they think about their alleged constituents. Just compare Nick Fuentes to Kevin MacDonald and you can see the change.

Taken together this explains the panic we are seeing. The erratic behavior and weird mask dropping are the result of the sudden awareness that the old arrangements with regards to Israel and the Jewish people are falling apart. Just as the American empire is reaching its denouement, the Jewish century is also reaching an end. As the world transitions to a multipolar order, the internal politics of the West must change with it in order for the West to survive.

For people whose lives were constructed around the old order being permanent, this emerging new order is causing panic. In fact, much of what makes up elite Jewish identity depends on the old imperial order remaining in place. That means the multipolar world and the new American politics are a mortal threat. The panic we are seeing, whether genuine or purchased as in the case of Republican politicians, is the result of the great change that is about to sweep the American empire.

WW3 Watch

Posted on May 7, 2024 by thezman

The first week of May has brought fresh worries that the war in Ukraine will lead to the third and final world war. On Twitter, “WW3” has been trending on and off as various rumors hit the system. Currently, the driver is statements from Russia that any attacks on Russia by Western troops operating in Ukraine will be viewed as an attack by that country on Russia, which means war. Russia also announced that she will be testing tactical nuclear weapons to underscore the point.

To understand what is happening we have to go back to the big funding bill passed by Congress at the end of April. The political class in Europe and the United States came away thinking this would turn the tide, but soon learned that the bill was about paying off creditors, not funding new weapons. There are no new weapons to send, at least not until after the November elections. The $60 billion was about paying the MIC and the bankers for money invested in Project Ukraine.

Of course, there are events on the battlefield. The Russians have broken through the center of Ukrainian defenses in a major way. All along the line of contact the Ukrainians are on the backfoot, but in the center they are at risk of collapse. The Russians managed to do this without committing large numbers of troops. It is assumed they will now commit to exploiting this gap in the Ukrainian lines with the half million men they have in reserve, waiting for better weather.

In light of these two factors, the Europeans have been making noises about introducing troops into Ukraine. The truth is, NATO has had people in Ukraine for ten years and ramped up their presence at the start of the war. These have been contractors or government employees operating as contractors. Some contractors just happen to employ former soldiers of NATO countries. Even so, it is enough of a fig leaf for the Russians to pretend they are not NATO soldiers.

Then there is the rumor that the French Foreign Legion was dispatched to Ukraine and possibly hit by Russian missiles. Regime media was dispatched to deny this claim, which means it is most certainly true. While technically not French troops, it is unclear if the Russians will buy it. They summoned the French and British ambassadors to repeat what has been said in the past, which is any attacks on Russia by troops from these countries will result in retaliation on these countries.

The final piece of the puzzle is Victory Day. This is when the Russian people celebrate their victory over the Nazis in the Great Patriotic War. Rumors have been swirling that Ukraine, with help from Britain and France, will launch attacks on Crimea as a way to embarrass Putin this week. For a week, NATO surveillance drones have been in the area and Ukraine has been sending drones to map Russian radar. The rumor is this is in preparation for a massive attack on the Kerch bridge.

The fact is the only way the Ukrainians can attack this bridge is by using NATO missiles like the British Storm Shadow or French Scalp. These would have to be launched in large numbers along with other missiles and drones. The Ukrainians lack the expertise to operate these weapons, so it means they will be operated by British and French personnel, either officially or unofficially. The Russians know this, as they recorded the Germans discussing this over the winter.

Put all of this together and you have a scenario in which NATO is growing desperate over what is happening on the battlefield and Russia is losing patience with these pipsqueak countries doing the bidding of the neocons in Washington. From the perspective of Russia, the only reason NATO is not coming to the table with a deal is they just want to see as many Russians die as possible or they are plotting an invasion after the November elections.

Despite the growing desperation in Europe, there remains this weird delusion about Russia that is at the root of these escalations. Since the start of the war, it has been assumed that at some point the Russians will blink. For three years NATO has upped the ante in terms of weapons and rhetoric, always assuming that this new wonder weapon or new threat will cause the Russians to back down. This never happens, but the belief remains unshakable.

The question is what happens when the Ukraine army begins to collapse? The signs are everywhere right now. Elite units are refusing to fight. There have been mass surrenders of newly deployed conscript units. The ideological units now spend their time making stylish videos, rather than fighting. The Russians are preparing for major summer offensives, which may cause the line of defense to collapse. This would leave the Ukraine army broken into pieces.

When the unthinkable begins to be reality, what will happen to that unshakable confidence that all it takes is one more escalation? Can the West accept defeat in Ukraine, or will they have no choice but to go bigger? The evidence to this point suggests they will think they have no choice but to go bigger, maybe declaring a no fly zone over Western Ukraine or introducing troops to guard the Dnieper. Maybe they take control of Odessa and dare the Russians to attack.

One glimmer of hope for those who do not want to see the world end in nuclear annihilation is Chinese ruler Xi Jinping Ping visiting Europe. His first stop was France to flatter the megalomaniacal Macron. The point of Xi’s trip is to convince the Europeans that their interests lie in finding a settlement with Russia. Making Macron the first visit suggests the Chinese know he is a simpleton who is easily flattered, but also the driving force for escalation in Ukraine.

What the Chinese could offer the Europeans is a way out of the trap they have built for themselves with the Russians. They can get to pretend to be important figures by cutting a deal with China to end the war in Ukraine. Of course, this would mean breaking with Washington, so it is a long shot. Maybe it is enough to get Macron to retreat on the escalatory rhetoric. That could be enough to prevent another round of escalation and avert the end of the world.

The Politics Of Failure

Posted on May 1, 2024 by thezman

One of the eternal truths of human society is that the people with real power are those with control of the economics of society. Whether the society is ruled by a king or a committee of girl bosses, the people who have the final say on all matters are those who control the wealth of society. The golden rule of human organization is “the man with the gold makes the rules.” Without much fanfare, we may have seen this rule work its magic in the big neocon funding bill.

The first thing to note about the money for Project Ukraine is most of the money will never turn up in Ukraine, at least not in the form of weapons. If you read the text of the bill most of the money is for slush funds the White House can use to replenish weapons taken off the shelf and sent to Ukraine over the last year. It appears the White House has been shipping weapons to Ukraine that were not paid for by Congress, so this created a debt to the Pentagon budget that is now repaid.

The number of actual weapons going to Ukraine as a result of this bill is a fraction of the sixty billion allocated. Ukraine needs advanced air defense systems, artillery tubes and artillery shells, but none of this is coming from Washington. The main reason for this is none of these things exist, at least not in surplus quantities. You cannot send what does not exist, even with billions to spend. Instead, Ukraine is getting what is available which is wheeled vehicles and surplus arms.

It is not all that clear that supplying Ukraine with what they need would make much of a difference, as Ukraine has another problem. The Ukraine army is running out of men and there is no money solution to this problem. It takes time to draft and train men to fight this sort of war. According to Ukraine sources, they need two hundred thousand men right now to be made whole. That deficit grows bigger by about a thousand men a day and there is no way to solve this problem.

The reality on the battlefield raises an important question. If there is no money solution to the problems facing Ukraine on the battlefield, then why spend sixty billion on this project when it must inevitably fail? That money could be used to other foreign policy adventures like the planned war with China over Taiwan. Of course, they could spend the money on Israel. There is always an appetite for that in Washington. Instead, they chose to shovel sixty billion into the Ukraine furnace.

The first clue is all the money allocated to the Pentagon for various undefined things supposedly related to Ukraine. It is clear the administration sent far more to Project Ukraine than Congress authorized. What most likely happened is something like the old arms-for-hostages game played in the Reagan years. Military contractors sent men and material to Ukraine on the promise they would be made whole with interest at some point in the future. The future arrived in that bill.

The other clue is the money being sent to Ukraine for economic support. It is so tangled up in the language of government that it would take years for an outsider to figure out what any of it means. This is how Washington launders trillions of dollars through and for friends of Washington. Billions will go into obscure programs administered by the administrative state and then those funds will end up in grants to NGO’s or contracts to vendors with obscure business models.

Of course, some will go to the Ukraine government, but with very specific instructions on how it is to be spent. There are many friends of Washington that have unpaid bills for services rendered to Ukraine. The vendors must be paid in dollars, not the worthless currency of Ukraine. Some of this money will be directed through Kiev to those friends of Washington. It would be a total coincidence if those vendors just happened to employ friends and family of important people in Congress.

Most likely this was the main reason for the sense of urgency. Over the last two years big players have been making deals with Ukraine for economic development, on the assurance that Ukraine would win the war. BlackRock, for example, made a number of deals with Kiev. BlackRock and JP Morgan have created a bank for rebuilding Ukraine, by which they mean looting Ukraine. Large global operators have been cutting deals with Ukraine since the start of the war.

What this means is heavy weight players have been given exclusive access to Ukraine in exchange for economic assistance now. Much like how the Pentagon “borrowed” from military contractors, the regime has been promising the usual suspects first rights to loot Ukraine after the war, in exchange for “investments” now. This is all done informally, but no one is hiding it. War has always been good for business, especially the banking business.

In other words, another purpose of this bill was to repay economic elites who had been talked into going along with the project. Keep in mind that players like BlackRock and JP Morgan have money in Russia as well. Now that it is clear that Ukraine will lose the war, they need to think about how the world looks after Project Ukraine. As you always see with a failing enterprise, the insiders are getting their money out before it becomes obvious to everyone that the enterprise is doomed.

This is all speculation based on the available data, but the facts on the ground are making it clear to everyone that Ukraine is finished. The text of this spending bill and the announced weapons transfers that are part of it all point to a rush for the exits rather than a new commitment to the project. The smart money just jumped out the window, carrying your tax dollars with them. That means the next phase is finding someone in Washington to blame for the failure of the enterprise.

A Lesson In Managerial Imbecility

Posted on April 17, 2024 by thezman

It appears the end times have been avoided as Israel has been forced to take no for an answer and not escalate her war with Iran. The Iranians put on a show of force, apparently as part of a deal with Washington, as their answer to the Israeli attack on their consulate in Damascus. Israel has been making noises about “retaliation” but for now it appears they are not getting any support for it. At least for now, it seems the prospects for a regional war have ended.

On the surface this looks like a rare occurrence of realpolitik from Washington, as they used diplomatic channels to head off a major conflict. That or the hotheads who always want war were finally told no by the few remaining sober minded people left in the foreign policy establishment. Alternatively, it could simply be that Iran had other motivations in addition to avoiding war. In other words, dumb luck saved Washington from a catastrophe in the Middle East.

Evidence for the latter was on display during and after the attack. The first thing that was reported was an impressive number of drones put into the air from a variety of locations in Iran, northern Iraq, and Yemen. Israel had no trouble taking out these drones, but that is not the point. The point is Iran can fill the sky with cheap targets for the extremely expensive Israeli air defense system. Modern war is fought on the balance sheet and Iran can now fight on that front.

It was not just a drone attack. The Iranians launched a variety of cruise missiles mingled in with their drone swarms. This is a tactic the Russians used to deplete the Ukrainian air defense systems last year. They filled the sky with drones. This often overwhelmed the air defense systems, but also exposed the location of radars and launchers, which were targeted by missiles. The Iranians demonstrated the ability to coordinate this sort of attack, which is an ability they lacked to this point.

The third interesting bit from that attack was the use of liquid fueled ballistic missiles, which were able to penetrate Israel air defenses. These were the strikes that hit the airfield in the Israeli desert. To this point it was assumed the Iranians did not have the technology for this sort of missile. As far as anyone knew, they had solid fuel rockets, but now they seem to have taken the next step in rocketry. It also means their chemical industry has also made big strides.

The final item of interest is the accuracy of the attack. To this point it was assumed the Iranians did not have the ability to precisely target their missiles or guide them in flight, but it appears they now have the technology. Presumably, they now have access to GLONASS, which is the Russian GPS. It also means they have the ability to use this information in real time to adjust flight paths. The Russians most likely supplied this at some point over the last two years.

This is why the “dumb luck” option makes the most sense. The reason the Russians are willing to help the Iranians with this is the gross mismanagement of American foreign policy over the last decade or more. In the past, Russia and China avoided these sorts of technology transfers, in order to avoid sanctions. Now that the West has imposed every conceivable sanction on Russia, the Russia are free to act in ways that they never would have considered five years ago.

Of course, the fact that sanctions failed to dent the Russian economy has made the threat of sanctions into a barking chihuahua. The Chinese have been transferring technology to Russia, despite the threat of sanctions. The reason is they see how the Russians got around those sanctions. This also means the Chinese could be helping the Iranians with their missile program as well. Iran, after all, revolutionized the drone game with the Shahed 136, so have things to share too.

All of this is the result of mismanagement by Washington. The sanctions war on Russia was poorly conceived and executed, but the biggest mistake was not considering the downstream consequences. Iran now has the ability to make anti-ship missiles that the American navy cannot defeat. No one knows if they have taken this step, but now we know they can take that step. This would most likely not have been possible if not for the sanctions war on the world.

This incident between Iran and Israel is a good example of how the decline in aptitude accelerates in a managerial system. The selection pressure inside the foreign policy establishment has been in favor of conformity to orthodoxy over strategic thinking, which has resulted in an ecosystem in which people like Victoria Nuland rise to the highest reaches of the system. Like everyone else, she rose up the ranks due to her fidelity to established orthodoxy in spite of her incompetence.

You can be sure the collection of dullards and mediocrities that run the Biden administration are celebrating themselves for defusing this situation. Instead of recognizing what really happened, they come away thinking they are master chess players on the international stage. That is another thing about managerialism. Every failure is somehow turned into confirmation of their expertise. The result is a system packed to the gills with overly confident imbeciles.

The question that arises from this is when will these imbeciles run out of luck and do something from which they cannot be saved? The Soviets had the Afghan war debacle and then the Chernobyl meltdown. Taken together, these failures by their managerial class drained all trust from the system. Most likely it will take something similar to collapse American managerialism. People might want to look up the nearest nuclear power plant and make sure you are not downwind.

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The Real World War

Posted on April 2, 2024 by thezman

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Over the last two years most people who bother paying attention to the world have figured out that the American Empire is waging a proxy war on Russia. The primary proxy is Ukraine, but lesser proxies are also involved. Armenia used to have good relations with Russia but has now been turned into a Western catspaw for the purpose of stirring up trouble in the region. America overthrew the government of Pakistan two years ago so they would not cooperate with Russia.

We could be seeing another front in the war. Israel made the outlandish decision to bomb the Iranian embassy in Damascus. Reportedly the target was a high-ranking Iranian general who was at the facility holding meetings. It could be the other people were the real targets or it could just have been a target of opportunity as Israel tries to draw Iran into a war. Regardless, targeting an embassy in a third country violates centuries of precedent and custom.

Embassies are technically the territory of the country operating them, so this attack on the Iranian embassy is the same as an attack on Iran. That is how the world will view it and certainly how Iran sees it. The Middle East is a dirty place and all of the players, especially Israel, are dirty players, but this is well beyond the norm. There is also the fact that Israel is bombing the capital of Syria, even though there is no state of war between the two countries.

The way to think of this is to imagine if the Russians hit the American embassy in Poland with a missile. Russia is not legally at war with Poland or America, even if both countries are aiding and abetting Ukraine. If the Russians attacked Poland, then it is war, and everyone understands this. Somehow, Israel and her supporters in America seem to think this rule does not apply to Israel. Both China and Russia have come out with strong statements condemning the attack.

One of the worst kept secrets on earth right now is that Israel wants a war with Iran, and they assume this will draw in the United States. The Israelis wanted this war back in the Bush years during the Iraq war. They assume Iran would lose such a war and the regime would be toppled as a result. Israel foreign policy is based on the idea that if the Arab world is in chaos, there will be no organized resistance to Israel. Of course, Iran is also working on getting nuclear weapons.

The question now is what happens next. The Biden administration does not want a war with Iran as the military is stretched thin. Presumably, they will try to make some sort of backroom deal with Iran to defuse things. Russia is the chief sponsor of Syria and has air defense systems in the country. To this point they have not shot down Israeli jets, but that could change now. Russia is also a partner with Iran so the Russians will need to do something to show support for both countries.

China has been making inroads into the region, primarily by helping to facilitate a reproachment between the Saudis and Iran. The peace that now exists between the Houthis and the Saudis is largely a result of this effort. Iran sponsors the Houthis, and they agreed to make peace with the Saudis as part of this warming relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Note the Saudis have not allowed America to use its airspace to attack the Houthis.

In other words, this is not twenty years ago when Iran was alone and largely isolated from the world due to American sanctions. Iran now has two enormously powerful allies, and it is slowly rejoining the Arab alliance led by Saudi Arabia. Iran now has options that it did not have two decades ago. Instead of retaliation we will probably see an effort to win a diplomatic war against Israel, with the help of China and Russia, as Israel is, for all practical purposes, a tentacle of the American Empire.

This is where the real war is being waged at the moment. The American Empire is based on the assertion that the post-Cold War world is a rules-based one led by the United States, who enforces the rules. The repeated violations of the rules by Washington are what drives both Russia and China. Their argument in favor of a multipolar world is that Washington cannot be trusted to follow the rules, so Washington letting Israel violate important rules is a proof of sorts.

There is also the obvious fact that Washington can no longer control Israel. You get to be the lone superpower when everyone has to obey. Israel thumbing its nose at Washington over Gaza is a problem. Israel bombing embassies in third countries is a humiliation of Washington. The Washington led order rests on everyone, including Israel, accepting that order. If Israel does not respect that order, then it will not be long before the rest of the world follows suit.

Of course, what we are seeing in this new world war is chaos all along the borders of the American Empire. Washington’s plan for Russia for the last three decades has been to create chaos around the borders of Russia, believing this would slowly sap her economic and political strength. This is what is now happening to the American Empire, which is forced to race around the world dealing with crises, many of which are the result of its own actions, like we see in Ukraine.

This is what may prevent a regional war in the Middle East. Russia and China know that time is on their side. As a result, Iran also can play the waiting game. At some point, the American Empire will have no choice but to give up on the region. It has largely been driven out at this point. There are American troops in Syria and Iraq, but the cost of supporting them will soon be prohibitive. Instead of Iran retaliating against Israel, she can wait and deal with Israel at a later date.

What we are seeing is the world organizing not for a great final war with the American Empire but the world organizing to manage the decline of the empire. Washington stirs up trouble hoping to preserve itself by unsettling rivals and Israel hopes to start a regional war before her patron is too weak. Meanwhile, the rising powers of the world are trying to avoid a real war with the declining American Empire. The real world war is a war to survive the end of the last empire.

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The Gangster State

Posted on March 25, 2024 by thezman

Note: Behind the green door is a post about the horrors of living in a town free of diversity and a post about the internationalization of Hollywood. The Sunday podcast was posted early for a change. Subscribe here or here.

Whenever there is a terrorist attack, the main question immediately after it is who conducted the attack. This is not just for the mundane reason of apprehending the people responsible, but also for understanding why they did it. Terrorism, by definition, exists within the context of a larger political cause. A crazy person opening fire at a mall is a different thing than an Antifa member opening fire at a church school. The former is simply crazy while the latter has a political motivation.

After the attack on the Moscow music venue over the weekend, the first thing people naturally asked is who did it. The Russians quickly apprehended the four gunmen and then the question shifted to who sponsored it, as it was clear that these four people could never have done this alone. The Russians have arrested a dozen other suspects they think may have been involved, but the four Tajiks have been identified as the shooters and they have confessed.

The bullets were still flying when the many bot accounts operated by American intelligence started to flood social media platforms with claims that it was Islamic terrorism, which was a red flag. Then Washington rolled out the ISIS-K claim, which is another red flag. No one had ever heard of ISIS-K until now, so that is one problem, but the bigger problem is ISIS is an American creation. Coupled with the recent State Department warnings, it looks suspicious.

It gets even more suspicious when internet sleuths figured out that the head of ISIS-K is a person calling himself Sanaullah Ghafari, who used to work at Bagram airfield as a special guard to the vice president of the American backed Afghan government, until that government was ousted by the Taliban. Mr. Ghafari also has ties to NATO as a sanctioned arms dealer. Maybe this is the wrong Sanaullah Ghafari, it is a common name, but it is another red flag.

What we know is that four Tajiks were given weapons that are exceedingly rare on the black market and paid a quarter of a million dollars each to go on a shooting rampage in Moscow and then they fled toward Ukraine. Washington claims they were backed by an organization that was created by Washington and appears to be led by a man with deep ties to American intelligence. It should be noted that Washington is now backing off the ISIS story, which can be interpreted in several ways.

There is another way of looking at this. It is possible that the White House simply has no idea what is going on with Project Ukraine. This would not be the first time they were caught off-guard by a terrorist act. After the Nord Stream attack, the Biden admin jumped from story to story, trying to find a narrative that people would accept, until the CIA planted the story of Ukrainian frogmen using a dingy to float out into the sea and plant the bombs on the gas pipeline.

The Biden admin was also lost when Daria Dugina was blown up by a car bomb in an attempt to assassinate her father, Alexander Dugin. The first story said that there was no way the Ukrainians were behind it. Eventually, they had to admit that it was most likely Ukrainian intelligence behind the assassination. This event was the start of a pattern where Ukraine or friends of Ukraine in the murky world in which the Kagan cult operates do things outside official channels.

Of course, stupidity always plays a role in these things now. Back when all the best people were sure the looming Ukrainian offensive would smash the Russian lines, Mark Milley, told a gathering of top NATO commanders and Ukrainian special forces being trained by the American military, “There should be no Russian who goes to sleep without wondering if they’re going to get their throat slit in the middle of the night. You gotta get back there, and create a campaign behind the lines.”

Every day for over two years voices of authority in Washington have said that Ukraine must win by any means necessary. European leaders come out daily and say there are no red lines when it comes to beating Russia. France is now threatening to send their troops into Ukraine and encouraging other NATO countries to join them. If you are running a CIA operation in Syria, like Sanaullah Ghafari, you are not going to hesitate to help your friends put together a terror attack in Moscow.

Getting back to the central question of terrorism, the answer here may be that this is the result of the Biden administration losing control of their foreign policy. They are no longer calling the shots. Instead, it is the shadowy world of the usual suspects doing what they like without regard to the political or geopolitical consequences. It is not as if the political class ever had tight control of foreign policy. Maybe now they no longer have any control over what happens in their name.

If you want further evidence that the White House no longer controls foreign policy, you can look at what Israel is doing. Netanyahu is openly defying the White House in his campaign to drive the Arabs out of Gaza. Anthony Blinken has been sent there to beg Netanyahu to stop a dozen times to no avail. If America’s greatest ally no longer cares what the White House has to say, maybe Israel is simply working with people it sees as more important than the White House.

Since the most likely suspect in the Israel case is also behind Project Ukraine, it is not a big leap to think they are working with the Ukrainians to conduct terrorism. It is also not a big leap to think that these same people would turn their weapons on politicians that do not support their projects. Given the direction of the Ukraine war, this may explain why European politicians make daily devotionals to the project. They do not want any Tajiks showing up at their house.

All of this is speculation and supposition, but it fits in with the general breakdown of order we see in the Global America Empire. For the last ten years this has been the defining feature of America. The rules are falling to pieces because powerful people refuse to abide by them or enforce them. This Ukraine fiasco suggests that America is falling into gangsterism. Powerful players no longer care what elected officials say or think as they conduct their private agendas.

The End Of the Line

Posted on March 19, 2024 by thezman

In his farewell address, George Washington cautioned against the habitual hatred or the habitual fondness toward other nations. The former is easily understood, as hatred for other countries can lead to wars that are against the interest of the people. The latter is less well understood. Having strong relations with another country seems like a good thing, but if taken too far it can easily lead to compromises that harm the people and also create animosities with other countries.

If your country is predisposed to trade with Country A under favorable terms, but not with Country B, the latter is going to assume this is due to some animosity and maybe consider you to be a hostile adversary. On the other hand, the friends of Country A will naturally assume they deserve the same consideration as Country A. The adversaries of Country A, of course, will naturally assume you to be their enemy. When a country makes an ally, it assumes the ally’s enemies.

This was the crux of Washington’s message. relations with other countries must always be measured against the yardstick of national interest. A temporary alliance with another country is good business if it is good for the people and it does not bring with it long term complications with other countries. Open-ended alliance by definition will bring long term complications, which is why they must be avoided. This is where the phrase “entangling alliances” originates.

We may be seeing this play out with the open-ended relations America has had with Israel for the last half century. Both political factions in Washington find themselves lashed to an Israel government committed to a policy in Gaza that most of the world sees as a genocide of the Palestinians. The defenders of Israel will dispute this, but that does not alter the political problem for Washington. Most of the world opposes American support for Israel’s continued attacks on Gaza.

Last October, both factions in Washington were tripping over one another to show limitless support for Israel. Then the growing Muslim population in the United States, imported by the two factions in Washington, started to rebel against the Democrat side with protests and boycotts. The Republican side found that their voters were not all that interested in this project. In fact, there is a growing anti-Israel faction developing within the populist grassroots of the Republican coalition.

That may be why Chuck Schumer just gave a speech condemning Israel Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, demanding new elections in Israel. This is something that was thought impossible six months ago. The Israel lobby’s lock on both parties is such that no one would have dared speak out this way. Clearly, concerns about the impact on the coming election in places like Michigan is part of it. Schumer is trying to split the Israel lobby by isolating and attacking Netanyahu.

Joe Lieberman was quick to condemn Schumer for his “attacks” on Israel. Amusingly, Lieberman is defending the grotesque double standard applied in favor of Israel by claiming that Schumer is not applying the same standard to other countries like Ukraine and Britain that he is applying Israel. Of course, Donald Trump, hopelessly trapped in the last century, is attacking Schumer thinking this pleases his base and it will get Israel money flowing his way.

The trouble for both sides of the political class is exactly what Washington warned against in his farewell address. This open-ended commitment to Israel creates unnecessary enemies and strains necessary alliances. The most important country in the region is not Israel, but Saudi Arabia. Support for Israel in this war in Gaza may be the final nail in the coffin for this long profitable relationship. The petrodollar is the cornerstone of American hegemony around the world.

For a long time, this open-ended relationship with Israel was sustainable because the United States was the lone superpower. Everyone had to do business with the Americans, even if they did not like it. The Saudis needed American protection and financial support, so they had to turn a blind eye to the Israel problem. The rest of the Arab world saw what American power could do in Iraq and to Iran and wanted no part of that, so they looked the other way as well.

The world is quickly changing, and this open-ended relationship is now becoming another liability for the American empire. In fact, Israel is making Washington look feeble by refusing to back off their war in Gaza. The rest of the world sees a pipsqueak country leading a supposed superpower around by the nose. In other words, this is not just bad for business in the Middle East. Washington’s Israel problem is becoming a global embarrassment for the American empire.

This is the problem with empire. Empires function as protection rackets, which means defending weaker powers. Those weaker powers, however, must be tightly controlled or otherwise they will pick fights that must be fought by the empire. We got the Second World War largely due to Britain making an open-ended commitment to Poland, which went out of its way to pick fights with Russia and Germany. Israel is now threatening to start a wider war unless it is allowed to wipe out Gaza.

It is also a great example of what Washington warned against. The habitual fondness for Israel has made America a slave to the policy preferences of Israel. Worse yet, it has institutionalized foreign lobbying in Washington. One reason politicians care more about foreign countries than America is it is far more lucrative. Our “friend” Israel is happy to shower your representative with cash if he puts the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of you and your community.

Washington wrote, “The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.” America has been a slave to Israel for a long time, but even a slave will revolt when his survival is at stake. That may be what we are seeing with the Schumer speech. This open-ended relationship with Israel is threatening American hegemony in the world. Having the most Jewish man in America give this speech was a signal that the slaves are about to revolt.

In the end, this Gaza affair may be the bridge too far. Americans are sickened by the footage and offended by the defense of it. Now the elites are fearing that this affair could undermine their position. Once the politicians see that there is no penalty for opposing this stuff, then the whole arrangement will begin to unravel. Israel’s control over Washington and the public debate over this relationship may have reached a tipping point and may no longer be tolerable.

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