There’s a lot to admire about Khameini. He was personally brave (fought in the Iran/Iraq war on the front lines), he was well educated, and within the limits of his religious beliefs quite humane. He was entirely opposed to nuclear weapons.
And that last bit was his greatest failure. North Korea is fine. No North Koreans are dead because of American attacks.
Iran could have had nuclear weapons any time in the last twenty years, at least. Iran was attacked, twice, because it didn’t have nukes, not because it did.
The lesson of Israeli and American actions makes it clear that every nation in the world needs nukes. Every single one.
This is what the NPT regime and the taboo against using nukes was meant to make unnecessary. But every time. Every time I talk about the possibility of Iran winning the war someone says “well then Israel or America will nuke them.”
If this is true, it means that Iran needs and needed nukes and so does everyone else.
If nukes aren’t “off the table” for pre-emptive use, everyone needs to have them.
This is what America has wrought.
(Secondary note: as a Canadian it is in my self interest for the US to take the largest losses possible. Every hit America takes makes me and my country safer. There is only one country in the world which has threatened to annex Canada, after all, and unfortunately, no one paid attention to me over the last 30 years when I said the US wasn’t trustworthy and we needed a deterrent.)
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Feral Finster
I have said this for years. That the United States and Israel would attack was ever always only a question of “when” and not “if”.
Hope that the moral high ground was worth it.
Oakchair
Hope that the moral high ground was worth it.
————-
For someone who is extremely religious then the moral high ground is worth it because all time on Earth is a trial to determine if someone is a good enough person to exit Hell and go to Heaven. The physical world is nothing compared to the spiritual world which lasts for eternity.
Of course that type of world view has negatives but then again when we look at the countries who oppose the Gaza genocide they are almost exclusively in countries that are less materialist and more spiritual.
StewartM
This is what the NPT regime and the taboo against using nukes was meant to make unnecessary. But every time. Every time I talk about the possibility of Iran winning the war someone says “well then Israel or America will nuke them.”
If this is true, it means that Iran needs and needed nukes and so does everyone else
Oh, there was another alternative. An alternative where the US:
a) doesn’t attack nations not practicing aggression;
b) places under its protective umbrella any nation that forebears getting nukes.
(Or in other words, when Bibi threatens to nuke Iran, we answer “You do that, and we’ll pound Israel”. I always thought that should be a component of any deal with Iran not to get nukes.)
Unfortunately for these to work, the US has to have leadership willing to uphold agreements made in the past. We can’t seem to get that kind of leadership, as that would require both intelligence and virtue.
Instead, we get stupid leadership elected by stupid people (by Bonhoeffer’s division, people who manage to both make their own lives worse while making everyone else’s life worse as well). This may be the stupidest decisions yet made by any country’s leadership since those of Imperial Germany in the lead-up to WWI.
The only possible bright spot I am hoping for is that the demands of this war grants a reprieve of sorts for both Venezuela and Cuba, other non-aggressive countries to get ‘hit’ by this administration. Maybe the Palestinians too may gain, but I’m not sure that Bibi will ever put the brakes on his ethnic cleansing program (with Allied armies closing in on Berlin, Hitler still was giving trains carrying Jews to the camps priority over military needs, after all).
Feral Finster
“Oh, there was another alternative. An alternative where the US:
a) doesn’t attack nations not practicing aggression;
b) places under its protective umbrella any nation that forebears getting nukes.”
Never going to happen..The kind of power that the United States wields is like catnip for sociopaths. No way that they would have it and not use it
Feral Finster
@Oakchair:
A lot of innocent people suffer because this guy refused to do what was necessary to protect them.
mago
I’m a pacifist and also a pragmatist. Given Iran’s history and position, going nuclear would have been their best defense. Rabid dogs and sharks care fuck all for your morals and spiritual values.
Stephen Bobb
The Zionists are responsible for every death
KT Chong
Türkiye (formerly Turkey) needs to get nukes, A-S-A-P.
Last month, a former — and the next — Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett announced in a Jerusalem conference: “Turkey is the new Iran.”
Hear and see him say it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZoe4qD79Dc
Türkiye is sitting on lands that were promised to Jews 2,000 years ago — lands that are part of the Greater Israel map and project.
Wallflower
For years (feeling like the boy calling out the naked Emperor), I’ve been saying Canada should develop or acquire nuclear weapons. If any argue against this, I say: we are a stable democracy with a modern economy, and relatively solid freedoms. We fought in WW1 and WW2, as well as Korea, Kosovo, Aghanistan, etc. We are in the UN, NORAD, NATO, 5 Eyes, CUSMA, and every other gold seal international organization you can name.
Our suzerein (the US) is demanding a greater Defense contribution from Canada, and I agree (full disclosure: I hate nukes, but I agree with Ian that, with regards to the Americans, it’s existentially safer to have nukes than to be seeking them). We have made empty promises of increasing our Defense spending for the international “team”, so let’s live up to our promises!
Is there some idea out there that Canada can’t be trusted with nukes? Somehow, we’re just fine with Great Britain, France, Russia, China, Pakistan, India, the US, Israel, and frothing North Korea having them? We are at least as responsible as the best on this list.
Bonus: CaNUKES, if centered near the American border, could be designed for 360 degree swivel action (helpful in tense trade talks)
cc
Stephen Bobb, thanks, agreed (though I also concur with Ian that what the US has taught the whole world is that you need to have nuclear deterrence to fend off the power-crazed psychopathic US bully.)
Some other observations, via Simplicius, on Trump (Netanyahu)’s murder of the 86-year-old Khamenei along with members of his family (including a great-granddaughter, so probably children and grandchildren in between too):
“A writer and lecturer on Islam illuminates the issue:
To understand the significance of Khamenei’s assassination and why it’s such a catastrophic blunder for the US, consider this:
Iran has never had a martyred Supreme Leader. (Khomeini died of a heart attack.) For the leader of the Islamic Republic to be martyred by the Great Satan is 1000% on brand.
Furthermore, Khamenei was killed in Ramadan, the same month as Ali, the first imam of Shiism.
He was also killed with his family, which Shia view as parallel to the martyrdom of Husayn and his family in Karbala.
This takes Khamenei and the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic to record levels in the eyes of the Shia globally, and increasingly Sunnis.
Trump made this incredible blunder because he obeyed Netanyahu and adopted the Israeli strategy of kill everyone and everything.”
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/us-suffers-worst-day-of-air-losses
So, again, perhaps “Operation Epic Fury” will become known as “Operation Epic Fuckup”?
Carborundum
Reporting coming in that Mojtaba Khamenei has been named the new Supreme Leader in spite of the IAF striking the building housing the Council of Experts. For context, if true, this is even more of a realpolitik exercise than naming his father was back in the day – even a bit lower on the religious credentials scale. That said, a potent power bloc in his own right (as in, I don’t think a puppet – more an independent actor true believer) .
I have a tough time thinking that this was who Trump was thinking of when he said they had alternative leaders in mind…
mago
Operation EpicEpstein?
StewartM
Mago
Operation EpicEpstein?
Which — ta da!–was also probably an Israeli intelligence operation.
And the most frustrating thing about the Epstein papers US coverage to me, is that almost none of the outrage is being directed at the intelligence agency which probably coldly, deliberately, and calculatedly set such an evil blackmail operation up.
Hey Skipper
Absent Sharia supremacism, this conflict does not exist.
Ian Welsh
I don’t like Iranian theocrats. But if I have to choose who to support between Muslim Theocrats and Pedophile genociders, I know who I’m going to choose and anyone who chooses the genocidal pedophiles is, at best, a propagandized fool, and more likely a budding psychopath who would have supported Hitler.
Jan Wiklund
His name was Khamenei – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei – not Khameini. I think you mix him up with Khomeini, but that was a different guy.
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Unfortunately for these to work, the US has to have leadership willing to uphold agreements made in the past. We can’t seem to get that kind of leadership, as that would require both intelligence and virtue.
Spot on, StewartM. Take the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. It wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crl3ndxglwxo
As a newly independent Ukraine emerged from under Moscow’s shadow in the early 1990s, Kyiv turned its back on nuclear weapons.
But nearly three years after Russia’s full-scale invasion, and with no clear agreement among allies on how to guarantee Ukraine’s security when the war ends, many now feel that was a mistake.
Thirty years ago, on 5 December 1994, at a ceremony in Budapest, Ukraine joined Belarus and Kazakhstan in giving up their nuclear arsenals in return for security guarantees from the United States, the UK, France, China and Russia.
Strictly speaking, the missiles belonged to the Soviet Union, not to its newly independent former republics.
But a third of the USSR’s nuclear stockpile was located on Ukrainian soil, and handing over the weapons was regarded as a significant moment, worthy of international recognition.
“The pledges on security assurances that [we] have given these three nations…underscore our commitment to the independence, the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of these states,” then US President Bill Clinton said in Budapest.
Bill said, “just trust us”. Yeltsin said, “just trust us”. China was included as well and also said, “just trust us”. If Ukraine had kept the nukes, Russia would not be waging an “SMO” on it today just as Israel and America would not be waging an SMO on Iran if Iran had nukes as Ian informs.
Getting rid of the largest ICBMs, Oleksandr says, clearly made sense. In the mid-1990s, America was no longer the enemy.
But Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal included a variety of tactical weapons, with ranges between 100 and 1,000km.
“
As it turned out, the enemy was much closer,” Oleksandr says.
“We could have kept a few dozen tactical warheads. That would have guaranteed security for our country.”
Mark Level
Late commenting as I was occupied yesterday with Sean Paul Kelly’s series of brilliant posts.
I agree with Stephen Bobb and with cc, while not disagreeing with Ian. It is not a case of either/or, it is a case of “and”. Bibi is #1 Architect, Taco Donald is complicit but did not have any choice as if he refused, Bibi & Co. would’ve released the compromat pics they had of him. That would’ve destroyed his already tottering presidency, but complying did the same thing, as I started saying on day 2. Khamenei followed his spiritual dictates conscientiously, paid the ultimate price. I wonder if there’s also a cultural blinder active there? One side of my family was Anglo-Saxon, German in fact, very big on bullying and cruelty; coming up I was forced to engage so as not to be beat down. You can strategically sidestep a bully once or twice if clever, but at a certain point when engagement comes, no choice but to fight for your dignity. Maybe Iran was only run with that level of cruelty under the Shah (as nobody can credibly deny, open looting and SAVAK Torture/Murder centers. It was “bad” when Assad did it, it was fine for Saddam until we no longer needed him, etc. “We” does not equal me of course.)
Khamenei’s refusal to go nuclear was clearly for the domestic audience, not for those of us in the Imperial Centers who would simply snort in derision over such “limp-wristed” naivete, and believe in “Kill or Be Killed.” (Which I don’t but I do believe in self-defense, a biological imperative.)
Due Dissidence just did a segment about some stupid Euro Pro-genocide Harpie, a very calm Muslim guy was interviewing her. He said “What’s your evidence that Iran has killed ‘tens of thousands’ across the world, please spell out where and when that happened?” Evidently she knew she was lying, she just began angrily speaking over him and refusing to reply. She yelled, she diverted, and eventually she spat out: “The 3 US service members who just died” (due to Iranian self-defense), that was the best she could do!!
My point. The Lies work with the dumbest, most propagandized colonialist vassals. They do not work with the Victims. Speaking of moral superiority, Hamas does not attack the Zionists evacuating their wounded, even in the midst of their own genocide, due to Islamic ethics. Now I have derided this from a practical point in the past, but when the entire Collective West screams non-stop about the subhuman Muslims, the filthy Arabs, the dirty wogs in India, blah-blah, those with eyes to see can and do see. Most of the world knows who “the Baddies” are at this point.
Suppose a False Flag is arranged in the US, will the RoW (rest of World) react in the way it did after 9/11? Clearly not, Ian has already spoken for the Canadians. Okay, the Epstein Class misleadership (hat tip to Adolph Reed, who coined the term for the Black misleadership class) will all bray like donkeys, Macron will send an Aircraft Carrier (gotta repeat the carnage done in Algeria, Vietnam, the Vichy Regime, that’s la gloire for Macron) while the lights are going out across France due to higher energy costs. Carney’s on board for the genocides (Lebanon, Gaza, West Bank, Iraq) but some small part of the public may not be, Ian’s point.
Pepe Escobar asserted this morning that Trump will TACO by Wednesday. I dunno. If Bibi brandishes the sex pics again, don’t think he can. He wants to chicken out, but he’s cornered.
West will spew the Big Lie non-stop as it’s starved of energy resources, morale will sink as conditions worsen, and the really big attacks by Iran in the region might start at the end of this week when the “Iron Dome” defense is exhausted. Does US even have the missiles to save their asses, or were they squandered long since in Ukraine?
You shouldn’t bluff when you have a weak hand. Middle East is on fire, regional war just as the Iranians predicted. There will be no “Venezuela” dodge or agreements, doomsayers wrong on that. Speaking of which: Carborundum shocked me with an intelligent and insightful comment that lacked any obvious bias or bad faith. My sincere thanks to him, as stated, when conditions change our opinions change, your take was valuable.
Mark Level
Oh, and thanks to Oakchair, good to see him back, always relevant and ahead of the curve. Haven’t heard from GrimJim in ages, another wise man, he is missed.
And Stewart M, many have renamed Donald’s Big Dump “Operation Epstein Fury”, not very Epic up to now, other than the blowback.
spud
why did north korea get nukes, “YUGOSLAVIA” anyone who did not learn from that outrage, will get taught a lesson that iran refused to understand.
YUGOSLAVIA only happened because morons got a hold of the soviet union and said can’t we just all get along.
that viewpoint still holds some sway in russia today. russian politicians don’t get it, they are not to big to fail.
the russian politicians still hold out hope that europe will accept them as equals.
cc
> “Absent Sharia supremacism, this conflict does not exist.”
The US-Israel-UK-led West armed and used AQ/ISIS/HTS to overthrow the secular government of Syria, and quickly welcomed the head-chopper terrorist leader with open arms while he still had a US $10M bounty on head. Massacres and other horrible atrocities against non-hardline-Sunni ethnic minority groups quickly followed, while the West turned a blind eye. So no, this conflict isn’t about Sharia at all.
More accurate would be: “Absent Zionist Jewish supremacism, this conflict does not exist.” But even that should probably be seen as a tool or mechanism of the West to use fanatic Jewish settlers to expand the Empire’s colonial outpost.
Indrajit (Indi) Samarajiva from Sri Lanka provides an interesting sitrep on the Resistance’s ongoing defence against the unprovoked full-scale attack and assault by the Empire (US-Israel-UK, Anglo-Zionists).
https://indi.ca/iran-war-march-3rd/
DMC
cc: excellent and much overlooked point. The martyrdom of even a a fairly average leader elevates their cause pretty much across the board with the generality of Muslims. Its almost as if the Zionists and their lackies are tryimg to prvoke world wide jihad, not just the sort of “garage band” jihad of ISIS, al Queda, ISIL, and the like.
Feral Finster
Since Ukraine never had control of any nuclear weapons nor and delivery systems, the point is moot.
I note that L&S conveniently neglects to mention the “not one step to the east” promise that NATO broke as quickly as convenient, or the fact that the Ukrainian constitution guaranteed neutrality (until the American-sponsored coup).
StewartM
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Point taken on Ukraine; however, if Yeltsin, Kebech, and Kravchuk (the leaders of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine) had actually respected democratic opinion instead of giving themselves promotions to be leaders of indepedent states instead of just leaders of Soviet republics, then there would be no accord. Because nearly 80 % of Soviet citizens voted “keep the USSR together”.
Once all the republics became independent, I see wars as pretty much inevitable, as nationalist politicians would ‘wave the bloody flag’ of past wrongs. The USSR kept a lid on this, which to me was a GOOD thing. Moreover, like India’s partition, there was no clean way to draw the borders without significant overlap of ethnic and language groups. When the Austrian-Hungarian empire was broken up post WWI, the first thing that the newly-indepdent nations of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, etc did was to *attack* each other over border disputes (with Poland also attacking the USSR).
With India, this has led to two ethnically Indian states—India and Pakistan–irredeemably hostile to each other and pointing nukes at each other. Surely this wasn’t the best model to follow?
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Because nearly 80 % of Soviet citizens voted “keep the USSR together”.
Do you really expect me to believe 80% of the citizens of Poland, for example, wanted to remain part of the USSR in an effort to keep the USSR together?
Ukraine is not engaging in an SMO against Poland or any of its other neighboring countries and none of those other countries are in conflict with Ukraine. The Balkans is not an apt comparison. There is some similarity considering Yugoslavia under Tito cobbled together a bunch of countries but there is as much that wasn’t similar as was similar.
All of that is irrelevant to my point, a point you concede and take. America doesn’t honor its agreements and nor does Russia or China. If Ukraine had held onto the nukes, there would be no SMO against it today. And to Feral, as if Ukraine couldn’t have developed the technical know how to manage the nukes. Give me a break. Using your logic, Iran could never develop a nuclear weapons program and manage it despite Ian’s claims. Also, if you read the article, NATO has been stringing Ukraine along with future promises of possibly joining, but it’s always been that. NATO doesn’t want Ukraine as part of it, otherwise Ukraine would be part of it already.
someofparts
In all the commentary I have followed, only one person pointed out that we are in the middle of Ramadan.
Feral Finster
Ukraine hasn’t developed anything without foreign help. Post-1991 Ukraine is a low-functioning state.
I lived there, I ought to know. And yes, the West is dangling out NATO membership for Ukraine, whether or not they go through with it is beside the point.
StewartM
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Poland wasn’t voting in the 1991 election on whether to keep the USSR together. Ukraine was, and the vote was “keep it together” by a large margin. “Keep it together” passed by 71.5 % in Ukraine.
The reason why the USSR dissolved and Ukraine became an independent country was not due to popular opinion, but because it allowed self-interested politicians to elevate themselves to being leaders of independent countries. Pure self-promotion.
I saw this once in my own company. there was a decision to split the company in two, and it was really an astoundingly stupid idea. It led to a palace coup with the then-CEO being forced into retirement. The only people disappointed about the palace coup were the would-be leaders of the spun-off company, who were SO looking forward to being CEOs and board members themselves. It wasn’t a good idea either for the legacy company nor the new company.
Ditto here.
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The time for Iran to have developed a nuclear weapons program would have been during the Reagan administration. I’m sure Iran could have arranged to pay bribes to the CIA for their dirty wars in Latin America whilst the CIA turned a blind eye to Iran’s nuclear aspirations. Reagan, whilst perhaps a stooge, was not Israel’s stooge so he could have easily been manipulated to tell Israel to shut its face when it grumbled about Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
different clue
Poland was never part of the USSR. Poland was a member of the Warsaw Pact and was technically speaking a de jure independent country.
About them nukular weapons that Ukraine “gave up” . . . I remember reading, don’t remember where/when, that the Russian Central Authorities kept all the launch codes and arm codes. The Ukrainians could not work those codes out. The USSR atom and H bombs in Ukraine were just useless pieces of inert furniture from a Ukrainian viewpoint, so why not “get something” for giving them up?
There was more to Ukraine than Banderazis. But there were indeed Banderazis and there still are. Still and all, when Russia invaded Ukraine with major kinetic force, many non-Nazi Ukrainians rallied around the Country and the Flag. Invasions often do that. Saying that one is either pro Putinazi or pro Banderazi is another one of those useless Binary Fallacies which certain leftists love to call out even while they practice them their own selves.
Every accusation is indeed an admission.
Hey Skipper
HS: “Absent Sharia supremacism, this conflict does not exist.”
IW: “I don’t like Iranian theocrats. But if I have to choose who to support between Muslim Theocrats and Pedophile genociders, I know who I’m going to choose …”
Slightly over 3% of the Gaza population was killed between October 7 and the current cease fire, including combatants. That has to be the worst genocide ever.
Regardless, absent Sharia supremacism, the putative genocide doesn’t happen. Iran and Israel do not share a border. Israel has no interest in Iran, other than being left alone. But because of the virulent Jew-hatred baked into Islam, Iran has long been fomenting conflict in whatever way it can. There is no strategic need for them to have long range ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, or support proxies.
I’m not sure what pedophilia has to do with the subject at hand, but it is ironic considering that in Iran, girls can legally be married from the age of 13, or as young as 8 years and 9 months (9 lunar years) with paternal or judicial permission.
Finally, on Mar 2, you said this: “If you didn’t read my two previous piece, the second is about the math of missiles/drones vs. Interceptors. (Spoiler: Iran, if it keeps going, will run the US/Israel and Gulf States out of interceptors long before it runs out of missiles and drones.) ”
Left out is launchers. The US and Israel now have air dominance over Iran. Possible launch sites are well known. The wave attacks that should have happened in order to saturate defenses have not.
This is from the Institute for the Study of War:
“The US-Israeli combined force continued to degrade Iran’s ballistic missile and drone infrastructure in Iran. US Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander Admiral Brad Cooper stated on March 3 that the combined force has “severely degraded” Iran’s air defenses and destroyed hundreds of Iran’s ballistic missiles, drones, and launchers. The IAF announced on March 4 that it attacked several ballistic missile and defense storage sites overnight on March 3 and 4. Satellite imagery confirms strikes at the following missile bases: Esfahan South Missile Base in Esfahan Province, Kashan Missile Base in Esfahan Province, Dezful Missile Base in Khuzestan Province, and Southwest Tabriz Missile Base in East Azerbaijan Province. Kashan Missile Base is located near the 840th Missile Group in Aran va Bidgo, Esfahan Province. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) struck a missile storage facility at Esfahan North Missile Base that houses Ghadr missiles in order to prevent further launches. Iran has reportedly used Ghadr missiles to attack Israel in the current conflict.”
Mark Level
To Stewart M– thank you for your study of history, facts I had long forgotten. And obviously the old timers here will know who is more credible, you or LAS. His citation of Poland, an outlier, is highly dishonest. Let’s not forget Poland’s role during WW II; when the Red Army freed Auschwitz and other Prison camps, the Germans had fled West and left their Polish and Ukrainian capos to run them. I’m sure LAS will take umbrage and deny, but just as you are more credible than he is, I think Art Spiegelman’s account of his parents’ narrow survival will carry more weight with serious thinkers.
No fan of Bill Clinton, obviously, but even he knew he couldn’t let there be massive dispersion of the USSR’s Nuclear bombs to smaller states: not to Kazakhstan, not to Ukraine, well-known as the poorest and most corrupt ex-Soviet “republic”, and additionally in the Western areas of Galitzia (an alternate spelling I’ve seen to distinguish it from Spanish Galicia, a much more jolly place I can assure you) where Nazi ideology, Banderism, was rife. Finster notes another LAS falsehood, it’s easy as shooting fish in a barrel.
Let’s review some of LAS’s highlights since he signed up to represent NAFO on this site: 1. He falsely claimed soon after joining that Russia had already lost “1 million troops” or more, and would soon squander “1 million more” to take “Keev.” Didn’t happen, not gonna happen, SMO went for more important prizes like currently, Odessa. (I bet some folks in NYC will return to Odessa when it’s liberated. None of them signing up to die for Ukraine in the meantime.) 2. A more recent prediction from L&S was that the handsome generals (a Trump term) would rise up to oust him and save our “democracy.” Loony toons. As to whether Russia will take back Kiev, I remain in the dark. It’s highly important to Russian history, where Kievan Rus was founded 862 c.e, but the recent destruction of the power grid there makes me think it may not be a priority. I guess Putin equivocated too much in the SMO slow grind, and now the actual Hard Liners are even more in control. The Duran noted recently that P. is not even publicly talking about the situation currently, I think there are other irons in the fire in Iran and protecting shipping lanes from US Piracy.
Glad LAS can at least see that America honors exactly 0 of its commitments or treaties, but it is absurd to lie that “Russia and China” don’t, without a single example given. First Angela Merkel and later Macron admitted that they never intended to honor the Minsk II Treaty which Merkel begged the Russians for, that they were just killing time to “build up Ukraine.” We all see how that worked out. Please provide a single or two data points for your claim, LAS, one that can be documented. For the time being, it’s assertions made unsupported by any facts whatsoever. Russia and China were the rival Hegemons to be destroyed at the end game of Western predation, they did not have the luxury to make agreements and tear them up the next day that the “Rules Based” phonies did shamelessly.
Also, LAS, important public intellectual that you are, can you please give the audience here a clear explication of why you subscribe to and like Banderism so fervently? When I was swatting away that “Mary” person recently (think she used to post as “Mary Bennet”, once snapped angrily at mago for being a “hipster”, her claim not mine), I looked at the Webpage for Bandera again. I think Wikipedia did a good, fair job on this one, right down the middle, not a twisted set of distortions and smears like Max Blumenthal (proven right well over 90% of the time in 20+ years of writing) and the Grayzone (ditto.) Here’s a link, but you know this stuff like the back of your hand, I am certain, like a good Marxist could explicate on the subtleties of Dialectical Materialism or why Trotsky failed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera
What inspires you about this racist killer? I would direct you to the “Views” section, which covers him broadly. He’s included in the section on “Fascism”, the 2nd entry alphabetically after Balbo, part of a Rogue’s gallery of 29 Fascist luminaries, including both Hitler and Mussolini, as well as Quisling, & Primo de Rivera, who I know a bit about.
Factors of his political “philosopy” they emphasize start with “ultranationalism”, “fascism”, “racism” and “anti-Semitism”, also “strong hostility to democracy, communism, and socialism,” are these also central values to you? I know you have sneered that Zohran Mamdami is a phony and not a real socialist more than once. Your fellow pro-Ukrainian Timothy Snyder notes that he “”aimed to make of Ukraine a one-party fascist dictatorship without national minorities,” it’s true that ethnic Russians, Moldovans, Poles, Romanians, Hungarians and other minority populations were grabbed up earliest by the Azov folks and military recruiters as the first cannon fodder before Ukrainians to be fed into the Russian meat-grinder. Now the Ukrainians, apart from the wealthy, are on the chopping block too. Your Bandera fellow-traveler Mr. Yaroslav Hunka who got 2 standing ovations from Justin Trudeau and Zelensky killed lots of Poles, 4,000 the common estimate, in his 3 years in the Waffen SS, they asked that he be sent to Poland for prosecution, but Canada protects its Nazis just as Trump protected the J6 rioters.
Do you share Bandera’s goal of “selective breeding to create a ‘pure’ Ukrainian race”, you never struck me as an advocate of Eugenics, but perhaps I’m missing the point? Do you find his gender fluidity in the picture of him cross-dressed as “a cossack” attractive? I will admit this is the one feature in the whole profile that I see wherein the man was ahead of his time.
Please dilate, I’m just trying to understand why a grown man would have such enthusiasm for such a failed monster, and his philosophy and goals. Oh, and one last question. Did you know that your beloved Azov Batallion who were the muscle at Victoria Nuland’s (the butcher of Iraq, and also Palestine) 2014 Maidan Coup was founded by Russian, and Russian-speaking Soccer Hooligans? Look into it, I’ll find the proof if you can’t. And did you know that while they torture, castrate (sometimes on camera per the head of the Mozart Group Andrew Milburn on a military fan-boy podcast now defunct) Russian prisoners, here–see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart_
hypocritically they have exempted themselves from the Law that Russian may not be publicly spoken as “the language of the Imperialist”? Can you explain this to us as a regional expert? Please share. I am looking forward to your well-documented reply, thanks in advance.
spud
very good over view. remember, the debt crises is not the budget, but the balance of payments, which the trade deficit is the giant pink elephant that cannot be missed in the balance of payments.
the empire has no choice but to openly and blatantly steal now.
let steve keen point out that what bill clinton, tony blair, gerhard schroder, gorbachev, yeltsin and other towering mental midgets did to us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5LeZipKp78
What Happens to China When the U.S Economy Collapses
Mark Level
Well, the AI sure played a funny trick on me just now. I had the Mozart Group page open, recalled Milburn’s name and that he was the trainer for the Ukrainians, the alternative to “the Wagner Group.” A blond, Brit serving as a US Marine. When he went on the ex-Military podcast where he shared the bits about the Ukrainians torturing and castrating Russian captives on camera after they got him wasted on good Scotch and fine cigars. Also, I’d seen him earlier in the war, when the MSM asked him if Ukraine head guys were stealing large amounts of ordnance given by the US and reselling it elsewhere. He admitted that they were, but said “I don’t care”, they have to be supported regardless. Here’s the actual page I had open: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart_Group
Milburn was fired the day after he spilled about murder and castrations being filmed, it was fine when he admitted to the thefts. (Hey, what are the odds some went to Hezbollah or Hamas? I’m okay with that.)
And here’s drunken Milburn admitting to Ukrainian atrocities, war crimes: https://needtoknow.news/tag/colonel-andrew-milburn/?print=print-search
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Poland wasn’t voting in the 1991 election on whether to keep the USSR together. Ukraine was, and the vote was “keep it together” by a large margin. “Keep it together” passed by 71.5 % in Ukraine.
Actually, Poland is a better proxy for my point but still, despite your contrarianism, Ukraine still suffices as an example that what is good for the Iran goose, ir good for the Ukrainian gander. No double standards, remember?
Poland wants nuclear weapons and it deserves them every bit as much as Iran does or Pakistan or India. It will ensure Russia does not do to it what it’s doing to Ukraine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFM4WdJpCyM
Now, back to that 71.5%. Please provide evidence supporting this claim. It is starkly at odds with the Ukraine’s vote for independence where 90% of the participants voted to be independent of the Soviet Union.
https://euvsdisinfo.eu/report/in-1991-the-large-majority-of-ukrainian-citizens-voted-to-remain-within-the-ussr/
In an historic referendum and presidential election on December 1, 1991, residents of Ukraine overwhelmingly voted for independence and chose Leonid Kravchuk, the chairman of the republic’s Supreme Soviet, as president. Hundreds of foreign observers and correspondents watched as 84 percent of eligible voters went to the polls. Over 90 percent of participants, including many non-Ukrainians, cast ballots in support for independence.
A fully independent Ukraine appeared only after the Soviet Union unravelled in 1991. The legislature of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic declared sovereignty on 16 July 1990 and then full independence on 24 August 1991.
The independence status was supported by citizens of all regions without exception, including Crimea, and the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The Ukrainian people demonstrated their unity to the world in their desire to be free.
The reason why the USSR dissolved and Ukraine became an independent country was not due to popular opinion, but because it allowed self-interested politicians to elevate themselves to being leaders of independent countries. Pure self-promotion.
The reason the Soviet Union collapsed is multi-dimensional and much more complex than this. Popular opinion in the Soviet Union didn’t account for much. Those poor people had the stuffing knocked out of them. Opinions in the Soviet Union were a dangerous thing indeed.
I’m not discounting your point about self-serving politicians, fyi. DC sums it up nicely how I feel about Ukraine, although I don’t share DC’s opinion about the value of the nukes and whether or not Ukraine couldn’t have cracked the codes.
The Kremlin would have you believe Ukraine simply doesn’t exist and never existed. Ukraine exists every bit as much as Iran exists. Those who carry water for the Kremlin and disseminate this propaganda, in turn delegitimate Iran because MODERN Iran is also illegitimate and doesn’t exist if not for the British considering the British created MODERN Iran. I don’t subscribe to that notion, that Iran is not a legitimate country, any more than I subscribe to the Kremlin’s propaganda that Ukraine doesn’t exist and therefore cannot be a country and is not a country.
Mary
‘ When I was swatting away that “Mary” person recently (think she used to post as “Mary Bennet”’
Wrong again, Mark. Just like last time.
Mary is Dan Kelly is Jason is Miss Jennings is Dan Kelly is Mary.
There have been others, but those have gotten the most use.
These nom de plumes were all talking about ‘deep Zionist stuff’ long before anyone here was; in fact, the amateur research and writing I’ve done would have been – and was – smeared as ‘antisemitic’ and ‘conspiratorial’ here and elsewhere while now these things are all discussed openly!
For the record, I also posted as ‘Mark Levine’ from NYC over at NC as an experiment to see how Susan Webber and the esteemed commentariat would respond to such a name.
This was around the time that Susan Webber scrubbed her board so she could be included in some archive here in the US. I remember the commenters all wondered whether this grand historical archive would also include their comments. Yves said she thought it would.
All my ‘Dan Kelly’ posts were removed from Moom of Alabama after I destroyed rapist-apologist ‘b’ that day he decided to
He must have ‘gotten the call’ as a few commenters aptly noted.
Fascinatingly, this Bernhard character had allowed my posts on the obvious interrelatedness of Jewish Supremacism-Epstein-Zionism-occupied Palestine-9/11 false flag-etc etc etc but I guess at some point he just had enough. It couldn’t have been my last comment or tow because they were pretty innocuous compared to all the others.
Also, I didn’t really write anything that many others had written in their own way that day. I was probably just too direct and too vociferous in those moments, as is my wont.
Of course, other times I’m wordy as fuck and can’t get out of my own way.
I like that me.
***
‘I’m a pacifist and also a pragmatist. Given Iran’s history and position, going nuclear would have been their best defense. Rabid dogs and sharks care fuck all for your morals and spiritual values.’
It’s strange – and that’s an understatement – to think that the pragmastism of maintaining one’s pacifist beliefs requires one to produce weapons that can blow up the world.
It’s strange. But it’s not necessarily wrong.
Nuclear weapons all-around for the spiritual-pacifist win!
Any compromise with power ultimately benefits power.
***
I was listening to a dude named Patrick Henningsen attempt to explain that Khomeini doesn’t really have any political power, that Iran has this spiritual side but it also has a political side that is independent and actually much more democratic than ‘westerners’ believe.
I think the latter is true – to an extent.
But if the spiritual side has the ultimate say in what may and may not be used to defend the country then that is quite obviously a political decision.
Pragmatically, there is no distinction.
It was not too long before I simply had to turn Henningsen off.
As fallible and silly and childish as I can tend to be I nevertheless cannot take all the obvious absurdities and downright idiocies slung at me by these otherwise intelligent internet personalities.
***
Ismail Qaani is a stooge. He survived three major attacks against both Iranian and Hezbollah military-political leadership by simply walking out of the room or cancelling at the last minute before the attacks occurred.
Just a reminder that Quds is the top of the intel-military hierarchy in Iran.
So let’s assume for the moment that there was no ‘supreme spiritual leader’ in Iran who got in the way of the ‘hardliners’ – or even moderates – who recognize, as Ian and mago and others have noted, that a nuclear deterrent is in fact necessary for peace – as paradoxical as that may seem spiritually.
I would simply submit here that that wouldn’t matter if in the end your internal state ‘security’ is such that a Mossad spy can operate the way Qaani has been operating for years.
This also goes a long way towards explaining why Hezbollah has been such a mess. You can talk about decentralized assymetic operations all you want, but in reality Quds is the ‘control center’ of Hezbollah’s operations.
That’s all for now. I’ll crawl back into the sandbox now so the adults can get serious. Remember, kids shoudl be seen and not heard.
That attitude explains a lot, no?
Mary
‘that day he decided to…’
that day he decided to say ‘move on, there is nothing to see here’ regarding child rape integral to structural Zionist power
Mark Level
Miss Jennings was the one who was regularly claiming that Putin was so Uber-Zionist he would flush the entire Russian Nation down the crapper, let it be colonized and broken into dozens of pieces. Well, that didn’t happen, and not gonna happen. Was that you? Are you claiming that? I am unclear . . . just mixing together the names of multiple past commenters doesn’t really enlighten anyone.
If you think Henningsen is stupid, you are not too smart. Now Alex Krainer is a different kettle of fish, that moron for like a year after Trump’s election was slinging MAGA slop. “Trump will not enter any stupid wars, he will better the economy for the white Rust Belt voters who voted for him” etc. etc. Truly moronic. I wouldn’t watch anything he was in, don’t know why someone as smart as Nima Alkorshad would spend 10 seconds in his company.
I assumed your anger with me and challenging my bona fides for being on the site of wars was pro-Ukrainian fellow traveling with the likes of LAS, who won’t cop to his own Banderist motivations, cowardly. Everyone knows Bandera is the Ukrainian national hero of the fascists, LAS never heard of him I guess?
IF you are anti-genocide and anti-Epstein Class pedophilia and blackmail then you are a potential ally, clearly. But if you think with any coherence you would not then also be pro-Ukro, Zelensky voiced his desire early in his failed Grift/Reich to make Ukraine “Big Israel”, slaughtering Slavs on behalf of his fellow Ubermenschen (wanna-bes) the Deutsche Hitler revisionists. . . Maybe you’re just a provocateur with no actual principles or beliefs stirring things up? “Dan Kelly” often said sensible things, Miss Jennings nearly never . . .
Anyway, I proved my main point, I passed thru 2 countries at war in 1983-1984, each one twice. As a borderline White Hispanic I was in no direct danger of being exterminated in the rural genocide of the Guatemalan indigenous people, still those children with no training and semi-automatics were kind of scary. My life was potentially in danger in Nicaragua, and my rectum was threatened when I returned to the US. When I lived in New Orleans, I knew the wife and brother of the late Ben Linder, who went to El Salvador and died fighting for the FMLN against the death squads. I am reasonably brave, even when young I was not foolhardy, knowing John Linder and Ben’s widow (don’t recall her name 4 decades later, she worked as a nurse I do recall), I split the difference and went to Nicaragua, developed my Spanish on the way. Joining the FMLN was too big an Ordeal for me.
So have you ever witnessed war directly? Are you black or white, straight or gay, or just a poseur of many faces? It doesn’t matter much, conversing with people who are insincere or provocateurs is not a good use of time. Thanks for the limited self-exposure, if that’s what you did here.
Mary
‘It doesn’t matter much, conversing with people who are insincere or provocateurs is not a good use of time.’
All the world’s a stage, Mark, and we are merely players.
I thought internet anonymity was a positive?
***
‘Putin was so Uber-Zionist he would flush the entire Russian Nation down the crapper, let it be colonized and broken into dozens of pieces. Well, that didn’t happen, and not gonna happen. Was that you? Are you claiming that?’
Actually, many ‘hardliners’ and even some not-so-hardliners inside Russia say somewhat similar things. They don’t even bring up the Zionist-Chabad angle.
But no, I never stated that under any of my anonymous internet aliases.
I have wondered why Russia doesn’t do more to help Palestine.
And I have to come understand that it is because of the very close relationship between Russia and those occupying-genociding the indigenous population of Palestine.
The power structure in Russia isn’t going to do anything to seriously hurt the Zionist entity.
Simply consider that no one in the upper echelons of Russian power will even use the word genocide.
And they all still support the long-gone ‘two-state’ solution which they have steadily supported even as facts on the ground have eliminated its possibility.
If I had said ten years ago…hell, even five years ago…if I had said that Syria was indispensable to Iran’s defense everyone who loves Russia and Putin unconditionally and without any qualification whatsoever would agree.
Then Syria falls and all of a sudden it’s all Iran’s fault even though Russia screwed Iran in Syria.
You can listen to the beautiful Vanessa Beeley and Fiorella Isabel explain this to you if you can’t stand my own incessant blathering.
***
‘If you think Henningsen is stupid, you are not too smart.’
I described him as ‘otherwise intelligent.’
Stupid is your word.
If Patrick has trouble understanding the rather obvious problem with a spiritual leader interfering in politics to the point it puts everyone inside the entity and many of its allies in danger, which is the same point Ian just made in this piece…
And I have stated many times that I am not that smart.
That is what is so confounding to even my rather limited intellectual faculties.
***
‘then you are a potential ally’
Yes sir Mr Lenin. I submit to you and yours entirely and please direct me appropriately so I never lose the notion of the vanguard operating on behalf of the common man.
Funded by ‘western’ capitalists, most of whom were…
‘Are you black or white, straight or gay…’
What the hell does it matter who my ancestors were or who I like to fuck? I thought it was all about the revolution.
Come on Mark. You can do better.
Mark Level
The line is a joke, from a Prince song– guess you are not into normie culture? “Controversy” is the title. Stirring up controversy to gaslight, not very admirable.
Alright, your not my fricking ally? No big loss. “Win” as big as you can by trolling anonymously, many revolutions have won that way, right? You don’t determine whether I do “better” or worse. You are a chronophage, time-suck. I will simply ignore you.