What to Do About Ukraine

America showed in the Cuban Missile Crisis that we would not tolerate, even at almost unimaginable danger, intrusion into our zone. Among the Russians, as their history illustrates, a similar code of action prevails. Having suffered, as fortunately we have not, horrifying costs of invasion throughout history but particularly in the Twentieth Century, the Russians can be expected to block, by any means and up to any cost, intrusions into their zone.

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–We said we understood this fundamental policy objective of the Russians, and officially on behalf of our government, Secretary of State James Baker Jr. agreed not to push our military activities into their sphere. We have, however, violated this agreement and have added country by constituent country of the former Soviet Union and its satellites to our military alliance, NATO.

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On the Black Sea, the concept of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an oxymoron.

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–We are now at the final stage, just short of Russia itself in the Ukraine, and, as the Russians know, some influential Americans have suggested that we should push forward to “the gates of Moscow.” Those who advocate what the British once called a “Forward Policy,” now see the necessary first steps to be the arming of Ukraine.

–And finally, there is no way in which we or the European Union could arm Ukraine to a level that it could balance Russia. Thus, the weapons are likely both to give the Ukrainians unrealistic notions of what they can do vis-à-vis Russia and to be seen by the Russians as “offensive” moves to which they might feel compelled to respond. Consequently, they could lead us all into a war we do not want.

So what to do? In a word: stop.

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[Ukraine’s] government is corrupt, tyrannical and weak. The best we can do is to remove outside deterrents to the growth of a healthy, secure and free society.

The way to do this is two-fold: first we need to stop our military intrusion into Ukrainian-Russian affairs, so diminishing Russian fears of aggression, and, second, wherever possible and in whatever ways are acceptable to both parties to assist the growth of the Ukrainian economy and, indirectly, the stability and sanity of the Ukrainian governing system. A first step in this direction could be for Ukraine to join the European Union.

  William Polk at TruthOut

This is essentially what ex-CIA senior analyst and Russian expert Ray McGovern says about how we brought ourselves to this crisis over Ukraine.

William Polk, veteran foreign policy consultant, participated in the events surrounding the Cuban missile crises in 1962.

Were There Any UFO Sightings?

New cases of the inexplicable disorder, dubbed “Sleepy Hollow,” have appeared in Kalachi, the village in Kazakhstan where every tenth villager, including children, has mysteriously fallen asleep in broad daylight, some unable to wake up for days on end.

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The first cases of the "sleeping epidemic" were reported in March 2013. Everyone in the village has a family member or a friend who has fallen asleep for no apparent reason, according to locals.

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"Of the 218 families, 124 expressed a desire to relocate. Thirty-four families (95 people), including 27 children, have already left the village," he said.

  RT

To spread the disease.

One might imagine that the initial reaction to an unknown, unidentified disease would be to quarantine and keep people in. Call me crazy.

Last month Professor Leonid Rikhvanov, from the Department of Geo-ecology and Geo-chemistry in the city of Tomsk, said that Soviet-era uranium mines could be to blame, with radon gas from the nearby mines seeping to the surface, poisoning local residents.

Could be. But what if it’s something else?  Something communicable.

While radiation levels in the town and at the mine closest to it are at a normal 16 micro-roentgen per hour, the RTD team's Geiger counter showed an alarming 268 micro-roentgen per hour at an abandoned, filled-in mineshaft further from the village. However, an independent analysis of Kalachi's water, soil, and vegetation samples did not detect any abnormalities.

So, are all these sick people going out for picnics at the contaminated mine?

People have described further symptoms, including hallucinations, memory loss, dizziness and nausea.

Okay, I wouldn’t want that (at least not the dizziness and nausea - I already have memory loss, and hallucinations could be fun), but falling asleep for days sounds like a gift to me.

While children are being treated for toxic encephalopathy (a brain malfunction), adults are said to have suffered strokes. But after several days in intensive care, they are usually back to normal – until they feel abnormally sleepy again. Some doctors assert that mass psychosis is to blame.

Or fairies.  Or aliens.

I do so like it when "doctors" "assert" things without proof.  Hey, we don't know what it is, then it must be mass psychosis.  Or fibromyalgia.

I wonder what their treatment for toxic encephalopathy is.  Is that a good idea?  I mean, since they don't know what the real issue is.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Danish Pre-Crime Police

A 15-year-old Danish boy has been taken into care after fears he would become radicalized and his Muslim father would send him to Syria. The boy had begun to attend the Grimhoej mosque, which has become infamous for not denouncing the Islamic State.

  RT

Sounds like the synopsis for a bad Tom Cruise movie.

”Infamous for not denouncing the Islamic State”?  Is that now a crime in Denmark?

[T]eachers at his school were becoming concerned at the boy’s radical leanings and changes in behavior. According to the Danish newspaper Iullands-Posten, he had told another boy at school that it is fine, “to kill Jews,” and “it is ok to be a suicide bomber if infidels are the target.”

Sounds like any number of redneck comments here in rural America.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Us vs. Them

Wandering around YouTube recently, I stumbled across some good old government-issue propaganda. It was a video clearly meant to stir American emotions and prepare us for a long struggle against a determined, brutal, and barbaric enemy whose way of life is a challenge to the most basic American values. Here’s some of what I learned: our enemy is engaged in a crusade against the West; wants to establish a world government and make all of us bow down before it; fights fanatically, beheads prisoners, and is willing to sacrifice the lives of its followers in inhuman suicide attacks. Though its weapons are modern, its thinking and beliefs are 2,000 years out of date and inscrutable to us.

Of course, you knew there was a trick coming, right? This little U.S. government-produced film wasn’t about the militants of the Islamic State. Made by the U.S. Navy in 1943, its subject was “Our Enemy the Japanese.”

  Peter Van Buren

The Late David Carr on Whistleblowers

DHS Funding Bill Update

House conservatives were told a shutdown-averting vote last night bought them a week reprieve to strategize a new fight against President Obama's immigration orders. Democrats believe they've been promised a vote on a full-year funding bill by next Friday.

A week from now, one of those groups is going to be very disappointed—and likely irate at the deception of its own leadership.

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Multiple Democratic aides confirmed leadership had promised their bosses a vote on the Senate-passed full funding bill next week.

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Reports of such an agreement were vehemently denied by the speaker's office. "No such deal or promise was made," said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.

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Rep. Anna Eshoo, a Pelosi ally, was among many in the caucus who said the minority leader would not have switched course on short-term funding without earning the best deal she could. "This wouldn't have been accepted if that wasn't going to be the case," she said.

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Pelosi's office would not confirm or deny a deal with Boehner.

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[Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly] called the promised deal "an awfully thin reed on which to decide to vote for a one-week extension after you whipped Democrats to vote against a three-week extension."

   National Journal

Must have had their little heads a-spinning.  What do they do?  Just wait for her to tell them how to vote?

And the mystery saga continues. Stay tuned.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Another Example of How All That Surveillance Is Working

[Mohammed Emwazi, the Islamic State terrorist known as “Jihadi John,” ] was a computer programming graduate of the University of Westminster and lived in Queen’s Park, West London, [and] is thought to have killed American journalist James Foley. The killing was shown in a video released last August.

He is further believed to have featured in the videos of the beheadings of US journalist Steven Sotloff, British aid worker David Haines, British taxi driver Alan Henning, and US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, also known as Peter.

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Emwazi was a “person of interest” for MI5 as he was a member of a London based jihadi cell that had been set up to recruit militants.

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Despite clearly being on the radar of the British intelligence services, Emwazi, who was born in Kuwait and travelled to the UK as a child with his family was able to avoid detection and eventually escape to Syria in 2013.

“Given the numbers who appear to have ‘slipped through the net’, it is legitimate to ask, how many more people must die before we start to look more closely at the strategy of our intelligence services?” said the former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, writing in the Guardian on Friday.

  RT

Another case to which the punch line could be: are the Five Eyes intelligence/security agencies incompetent or complicit?

Goodbye and Thank You to a Rare Man

And a truly unique president. If there has ever been another country's ruler like Pepe Mujica in all of history, I have never heard about it.  And more's the pity.

Uruguay's president, Jose “Pepe” Mujica, a former guerrilla who lives on a farm and gives most of his salary to charity, is stepping down after five years in office, ending his term as one of the world's most popular leaders ever.

Mujica, 79, is leaving office with a 65 percent approval rating. He is constitutionally prohibited from serving consecutive terms.

"I became president filled with idealism, but then reality hit," Mujica said in an interview with a local newspaper earlier this week, according to AFP.

  RT

Too bad.

Mujica, a former leftist Tupamaro guerrilla leader, spent 13 years in jail during the years of Uruguay's military dictatorship. He survived torture and endless months of solitary confinement.

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He refused to move to Uruguay’s luxurious presidential mansion to live in a farm outside Montevideo with his wife and [...] dog named Manuela. Pepe gives away about 90 percent of his salary to charity, saying he simply doesn't need it. He drives an 1987 Volkswagen Beetle.

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In January, a young Uruguayan man posted a message on his Facebook page [...]

“On Monday, I was looking for a ride from Conchilla and guess who picked me up on the road?” [It was the president and his wife.] “They were the only ones who would stop!”

“When I got out, I thanked them profusely because not everyone helps someone out on the road, and much less a president,” the man told Uruguay’s El Observador newspaper.

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Last year, Mujica turned down a $1 million offer from an Arab sheik who offered to buy his blue car. Pepe refused to sell the vehicle, saying it would offend "all those friends who pooled together to buy it for us.”

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Mujica says "there's still so much to do" and hopes that the next government, led by Tabare Vazquez (who was elected president for a second time last November) will be “better than mine and will have greater success."

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After Latin America’s anti-drug war proved a failure, the South American country became the first in the world to fully legalize marijuana, with Mujica arguing that drug trafficking is in fact more dangerous than marijuana itself.

One of the most progressive leaders in Latin America. Muijica also legalized abortion and same-sex marriage and agreed to take in detainees once held at the notorious Guantanamo. [...] Although they were cleared for release back in 2009, the US was not able to discharge them until [the] Uruguayan President offered to receive them [this past December].

Now, THAT doesn't seem to be going so well.

Dear Pope Frank:  Surely this man is a saint.

Oh, God. Even his dog is poor.

It's Sunday

When asked if they supported “establishing Christianity as the national religion,” 57 percent of the Republicans surveyed told Public Policy Polling (PPP) that they were in favor.

  RT

Only 57%?! I'm encouraged.

Women were more likely to support the official establishment of Christianity in the US, with two-thirds – 66 percent – responding “yes” to the question, while less than half the men surveyed – 49 percent – chose that option.

Stockholm syndrome.

Science fared even worse than the First Amendment. The poll’s finding “supports the growing perception liberals have of conservatives,” meaning Republicans are “anti-science Christian theocrats,” the New Civil Rights Movement wrote.

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A majority of Tea Party members – 61 percent – said they don’t accept the theory of evolution.

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Overall [all Republican primary voters], 37 percent of those surveyed believe in the theory, with less than half – 49 percent – disbelieving.

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When it came to global warming, only a quarter of respondents said they believe in climate change. [...] Self-identified Tea Party members were vehemently against the scientific phenomenon, with 91 percent being so-called “climate deniers.”

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Women were more likely to believe in global warming, at 30 percent. Only 20 percent of men agreed. Meanwhile, women were less likely to believe in evolution – 30 percent, compared to 43 percent of males.

Don’t know what that indicates on either count.

PPP, a Democratic-leaning firm, surveyed 316 Republican primary voters from February 20-22. The margin of error was 5.5 percentage points.

That’s not an inconsequential margin of error I think. But if there’s error, I’m guessing it’s in overestimating the fanatics’ grasp on reality, and underestimating the percentage who want an American theocracy.

It's Sunday

Good thing we don't live in a theocracy here in the U.S. of A.

 

Oh, yeah.  That.