Dakota Beacon

Back in January we wrote here that the US should get out of Ukraine 1) while there were still some Ukrainians left alive and 2) before we started a nuclear conflagration.  That opinion still stands.

Yesterday we heard about an unmanned US drone, flying in Russian air space, being intercepted/disabled (attacked?) and downed by Russian military planes.  All of a sudden there is outrage on Capitol Hill.  Clearly, Washington would not sit by if Russia were in our space.  (We shot down a Chinese spy balloon a month ago, after all.)  Lindsay Graham, who appears to have lost his mind, says we need to go shoot down some Russian aircraft and see if we can’t get this war started.  He says, oddly, that Ronald Reagan, who, alone with Donald Trump, had been successful in keeping America out of war throughout his presidency, would do this.  Of course, we need to remember that this unhinged lunatic has also been demanding “regime change” in Russia.  Presumably he would favor a failed state full of independent terrorists any of whom might have access to the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear war materiel.  Great idea, that.  We have seen what the CIA-inspired terrorists have done for middle east peace and stability.

But we need to remember, above all, that these Lindsay Grahams do not desire a peaceful world.  It is obvious that their personal interests are better served - they think (at least until they perish in a world-wide nuclear holocaust) - by a perpetual state of war.  We also need to remind ourselves that this is not party politics.   Neocons passing themselves off as establishment Republicans have been as bad, if not worse, than Democrats.  Success, to them, means no stoppage in the war effort, whether it be in Iraq, Afghanistan or Ukraine.  This is one of the problems within the deeply divided Republican Party.  On the one side are these irrational, warmongering fools, consumed by personal greed for extended power and money (kickbacks?) and on the other, sensible businessmen and normal citizens who don’t want their world blown up or their children dragged into a pointless war on the other side of the planet in order to protect illicit CIA interests like bioweapons labs, money laundering and human and drug trafficking.  Gee.  Go figure.

Last week Tucker Carlson sent out a questionnaire to various presumed candidates for the presidency.  We don’t have the whole list, although Tucker mentioned that some, including Nikki Haley, ignored his request.  Peter Navarro was highly critical of Carlson’s effort to elicit answers - “Who does he think he is?” - but Carlson makes a good point.  No one is asking these questions and the public has a right to know where those who would lead them stand on this issue of overriding importance.  Three answers he highlighted on his show came from Trump, De Santis and Pence.  Trump opined that there would be no war there (and there shouldn’t be) if he had been in office - and this is probably true.  De Santis said we have far more priorities in our own backyard - our economic and other conflicts with China, lack of a border on our south, inflation, fentanyl, the corruption of our schools, the depletion of our own military equipment, ammunition and personnel, etc., and we have no need to be involved in what he sees as a “territorial dispute” in faraway Ukraine.  

I would have to concur with these two and add that this war has put the spotlight on US terrorism by our supposedly elected* government in the event of the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline and also in our sugar-coating the Ukrainian terrorists who have been killing hundreds of thousands of their own people in the Donbas.  Funny how we thought that was terrible when Hassad was accused of this.  Seems our government has a short memory.  

Pence, predictably, the darling of the neocon wing of the Republican Party, and deep-dyed Trump hater, would double down on this war - give it all we’ve got, no holds barred.  He would stand with Lindsay Graham.  He said, basically, that this Ukraine war is a great deal for us - they will fight Russia “so we don’t have to”.  Huh?  Why would we “have to” fight Russia in the first place?  It’s a stupid position because it will lead us straight into a direct conflict.  It has already, in fact.  How did VietNam start, again?  Oh, yeah.  We were letting France and South VietNam fight North Viet Nam and the communist bloc so we wouldn’t have to, right?  War is war.  It’s not a board game with dice to roll and pawns to move around.  This kind of immature “thinking” could bring the entire world to an end.  For what, again?  Oh.  For NOTHING.  

It seems to be up to the people to decide which way they want to go on this.  They have choices.  It is not unlikely that Pence or someone of his ilk would be foisted off on the Republican voters by the well-oiled party machinery.  We see this at the main street, small town level, as described recently in Kittson County.  We should expect this and plan ahead for it.  There will need to be an alternative ready if this happens because we can’t afford this kind of “Republican” again.  The stakes are just too high to continue with this charade.  

Putin, for his part, has led Russia in one capacity or another for over 20 years now.  WIth the exception of annexing the Crimea, with the consent of the people there, which affords Russia a warm water port, his has been the most peaceful and successful period in modern Russian history.  Had we not deliberately provoked a proxy war with him, using the people of Ukraine as our cannon fodder, we would be at peace right now, nuclear arms gathering dust in some closet, or put to better use providing energy for peaceful and gainful pursuits.  The people of Germany might be keeping their business and industry alive and their children warm and safe.  The people of Ukraine might be asleep in their beds at night, instead of dragged to the front to die.  All this, all these war crimes, just to protect the illegal practices of our CIA and government officials and the financial gain of those who are profiting by this conflict and want it to continue.  

This is a war of greed.  It is not a war in defense of anything the American people have approved of.  We are not defending “democracy”.  Yesterday we just heard that Zelenskyy has banned Orthodox monks.  He and his government before him have been murdering the ethnic Russians who have lived in the Donbas for centuries.  I would hope that Americans have finally had enough.  Enough of MPR radio and various arts organizations blurting out support for Ukraine, enough of our billions of tax dollars being shipped over without permission of Congress.  Enough of our DoD and State Department lies about our own activities there,  Enough of our terrorism and destruction of peaceful civilian infrastructure.  Enough of the threat of nuclear war.  Enough.  

The presidential election is still two years away.  Probably too long to avoid the all-out war by that means.  However, we need to contact our members of Congress and the Senate.  No war has been declared.  This has not been an emergency response to a threat to American national security.  There is no basis for one American dollar to be spent there without the approval of our legislative branch - permission to fund it from the Congress and a declaration of war from the Senate.  Maybe Lindsay Graham will propose that next.  At least then he and his henchmen can arrest people like me for having a difference of opinion.  But maybe that might hamper whatever is his pipeline to the arms money he must surely have in sight.  

We can’t risk this nonsense any longer - the stakes are way too high, unacceptably so.  The people of Ukraine, whom we have been using as pawns, would surely welcome a return to something resembling a normal life.  It would indeed be interesting to find out what they think of their President Zelenskyy, if they approve of his conduct.  He would seem not only to be a tyrant but a real embarrassment as well.  I don’t know if they will ever have that chance because they don’t live in a “democracy”.  They live in a nation where monks are banned, where news outlets are shuttered if they don’t support him, where dissent is punished severely.  This is no “democracy”.  

As Americans we should never give this our approval.  It is beneath us and our history.  We are not on the right side of this and we should not be on any side at all.  We need to put our money and our time and effort into fixing our own mess.  We are becoming the bully we used to accuse Russia of being.  

I am writing this while we are still, nominally, at peace.  Let’s hope we can extend that until we can get our own “regime change” through the next election..