"If Trump had become president, the Ukraine conflict would not have happened."
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"I don't know if you saw, I wrote a few weeks ago, for a friend. Maybe a lot of people won't like it, but it is what it is." J.M. 16.5.2022
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I have asked Josef Mašín to answer a few questions about the current situation in Ukraine. He has summarised his views in the following text, for which I thank him warmly.
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Putin has never accepted the collapse of the Soviet Union. The paranoia inherent in Putin was the driving force behind the KGB, for which Putin worked and which prepared him for his future career. His first attempt to return Russia to its former glory took place in Georgia in 2008. Putin is not the first and will not be the last to try to exercise his ambitions in the way he is now demonstrating in Ukraine. Not only Stalin, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Mao, Pol Pot, the Ayatollahs, Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping and others have preceded him or will follow him. It is the task of the leaders of the civilised world to prevent or counter their actions. The present ones have failed in this task.
The world euphoria generated by the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the fall of Lenin and Stalin-style communism has given rise to new countries and ideas on a global scale. Ukraine became an independent country whose infrastructure was an important part of the Soviet Union and a necessary bridge to Western Europe. After its independence, Putin-led Russia saw Ukraine as a buffer against the feared expansion of the West, NATO, into Putin's dream sphere of a new Greater Russia.
The independence of an independent Ukraine relied overwhelmingly on the economic infrastructure left behind by the Soviet Union, much of which was the gas pipeline built from Russia to Germany during the Cold War, despite massive opposition from the Reagan administration when the implementation of this project pushed back the day of the Soviet bloc's collapse by years. Reagan was considered a "cowboy" by the Europeans, just as Trump is today, when he tried to persuade NATO partners to contribute to their defence and stop supporting their potential enemies.
Russia and Ukraine have not become, are not, and never have been democracies. Russia and Ukraine are oligarchies where corruption is part of everyday life. Business and political affairs, privatization of national assets are handled in both countries by exchanging various benefits under or above the table, or by jingling prison keys for unsuitable competitors, often accompanied by the rattle of AK-47s. The winners have become powerful oligarchs or leading politicians. The difference is that Ukraine has Vladimir Zelensky and Russia has Vladimir Putin.
To achieve the position that Putin occupies in Russia requires qualities that Putin, as he has already proven, possesses. Putin today, in the Western world, has no active politician equal. Only China's Xi Jinping is more cunning and has more resources than Putin. Putin has nuclear weapons, with which he successfully threatens. However, I do not believe he is suicidal. World War III between America (5,600 nuclear weapons) and Russia (6,257 nuclear weapons) would mean the end of civilization on this planet. Putin sees his real enemy in the United States. Putin was created and his power was given to him by the European Union.
The danger of World War III lies in the inability of the administration in Washington to deal with the dictators and would-be imperialists of Putin's calibre. The Biden administration sees the main enemy of the United States and the end of the world in the global warming predicted by Greta Thunberg for next year and in the internal enemies opposing the Black Lives Matter and AntiFa rampages.
The West, America, led by Ronald Reagan, won the Cold War, not with the help of but in spite of its allies. America, overwhelmingly influenced by the demographic changes after the end of the Cold War, went through a period that spawned Bill Clinton, Bush (Jr.) and eventually the "woke generation" that gave us Obama and Biden. The 30 members of NATO, with 3-4 exceptions, have become a band of freeloaders where America, naively, still bears the burden of all alone (an attack on one is an attack on all).
In Putin's paranoid KGB eyes, it is NATO that is moving ever further East and that threatens Russia to which Western politicians, underestimating Putin's danger, have added credibility by using Putin as a red bandana to deal with domestic political issues. Any of the NATO members, by their behavior or inaction, can bring NATO or America into a state of war where nuclear weapons can be deployed against America and its 340 million people. But these members, with 3-4 exceptions, do not feel obliged to contribute to their own, let alone, collective, defense. None of these members has the moral right to take actions leading to a potential escalation of the conflict, and they have no right to NATO membership, American assistance, or protection.
Unlike Western economies, the Russian economy is not dependent on the financial system, but on raw materials and their exports. The pipeline through Ukraine and Poland has become one of the most important arteries for Russian gas exports and a source of income for Russia, where in both countries this sector, although only partially privatised, is controlled by powerful oligarchs and corrupt bureaucrats for whom, especially in Ukraine, the diversified gas and gas trade destined for Europe/Germany has become a source of billions of dollars in income and corruption.
In 2005, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, again over US objections, motivated by the intention to circumvent the problems with Ukraine and for personal gain, signed the Nord Stream contract with Russia/Gasprom1. Angela Merkel, despite opposition from eastern EU countries, followed with the Nord Stream 2 contract in 2015. She did not heed President Trump's warnings.
Despite the massacre unfolding in Mariupol, Zelensky's call to arms against the Russians, the avalanches of refugees who have lost everything, the pipeline through Ukraine and Poland, delivering gas to Germany, continues to run, at full speed, tolerated by all, despite the war and thousands of deaths. The income for Russia works even without Swift. 80 percent of Gasprom's income from gas sales comes from the gas stream running through war-torn Ukraine.
The sanctions imposed on Russia by the Biden administration hurt America more than Russia, whose economy does not depend on Wall Street and the financial markets. The predominance of the dollar as a reserve currency and the interest in buying dollar-backed US bonds allow America to finance its world role. As the world's "business" seeks new avenues, independent of the dollar, interest in the dollar declines.
Putin's dream of a return to the former glory and greatness of the Soviet Union began with the success in Georgia, which Putin achieved without much effort. America has been busy in Afghanistan and Iraq; Georgia is of no strategic or economic importance.
Emboldened by his success in Georgia, Putin occupied Crimea. Crimea became part of Ukraine only during the existence of the Soviet Union, through the efforts of Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian, after Stalin's death. The majority of the population of Crimea is of Russian nationality. Crimea, with a minority of Tatars and Ukrainians living there, was appropriated by Tsarist Russia as a result of the war with the Ottoman Empire in 1774. Putin's action in Crimea has played out in the same way as his earlier intervention in Georgia.
America was busy with the presidential election, Iraq and Afghanistan. Barak Obama, whose mother was white, became president. Obama feels more black than American. After law school, he became a "community organizer" in Chicago. He was a disciple of the infamous Bill Ayres and the America-hating pastor Jeremiah Wright, the authors of the Constitution. Obama's avowed goal was to fundamentally change America, to undo the great power status it had gained after the moral and economic defeat of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in a world where America was a model of democracy. Already he and his family were exemplary proof of what anyone can accomplish in America. A country that was the last refuge for all who sought freedom and protection from the tyrants of this world, or the opportunity to develop their potential.
In defense of Crimea, the Obama administration, of which the current U.S. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, was also a member, sent blankets as aid to Ukrainians asking for weapons.
Obama's vice president was Joe Biden, a plagiarist, career politician, political chameleon and head of a family mafia clan living off the corruption enabled by his position in the Senate. In the Obama administration, Biden was put in charge of Russia and Ukraine.
The corrupt swamp that Russia and Ukraine have become, just like China, have become a breeding ground for the Biden family. The share for the "Big Guy" (the head of the clan that was Joe Biden) of the loot was 10 percent. Biden's son Hunter, a branch of the US Navy fired for drug use, became a member of a supervisory board controlled by the oil and gas oligarchs of the Ukrainian firm Burisma; his "pocket money" amounted to millions of dollars a year. After Hunter's intercession, Daddy also arranged for tens of millions of dollars in Pentagon funding for Metabiota, a U.S. firm that in turn used the money to fund bio-research in Ukraine. The existence of these companies and the research going on there, which is probably benign in itself, became one of the reasons used by Putin to invade Ukraine.
The Obama administration decided to provide Ukraine with an additional $1 billion in financial aid for the construction of the oil industry, but since Burisma was under genuine investigation for corruption, Joe Biden visited Ukraine and publicly (on TV) declared, if the investigator was not removed in one hour, "No money". The investigator was recalled. Everyone was helped.
Russian oligarchs also contributed to the Biden family budget with $3.5 million paid through the Moscow mayor's wife into Biden's account.
Obama and Biden didn't have to worry about Putin. Obama, preoccupied with domestic political changes, promised Putin (recorded on TV) in a conversation with Medvedev that he would cut a deal with Putin. Hillary Clinton, Obama's Secretary of State, sent Putin the "key to a new understanding" ("reset button"). The new understanding, even after the events in Crimea, was satisfactory for Russia and financially for the Clinton mafia clan. The Russian oligarchs, Rosatom, were given permission by the Obama administration to buy and thus gain control of Uranium One, one of America's most important strategic companies.
https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/109694/documents/HHRG-116-II06-20190625-SD004.pdf
With the ascension of President Trump, who was not dependent on Russian or Ukrainian bribes and under the influence of his change of NATO policy to "Peace through Strength", Putin's ambitions were put on ice for the duration of his presidency. Ukraine received, first, weapons, Javelin missiles, from America; this aid was stopped by Biden immediately after his inauguration, to the praise of European allies.
The installation of the senile Biden in the presidency, Biden's authorization of the Nord Stream 2 operation, the American fiasco in Afghanistan, the weakness of NATO, the collapse of the American southern border, the COVID 19 pandemic, the abuse of politics to take power, leading to substantial changes in the American way of life, coupled with the weakening of the armed forces by Secretary of Defense Austin, supported Putin in his decision to take step number three, to declare the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk, and finally, to invade Ukraine.
Putin's assault on Ukraine began by creating unrest in Donetsk and Luhansk, the former Don region, populated by mostly Russian-speaking Cossacks. The Cossacks used to be the most reliable troops in the Tsarist army, a kind of personal "Swiss Guard" for the Tsars.
The overrun of Ukraine, just like the expected Chinese attempt to seize Taiwan, did not happen and would never have happened during Trump's presidency. After the Biden administration took office, the only question was whether Taiwan or Putin's attempt to overrun Ukraine would come first.
Taiwan is now only a matter of time and the political situation in America. If that situation does not change, it will only be a matter of time and the lessons China has learned from Ukraine. The Ukraine war and its significance are merely a prelude to what a China-Taiwan conflict would mean for the whole world.
Although Russia has a GDP only about that of Italy, despite this, Putin has saved $680 billion for his invasion of Ukraine and the expected "sanctions", which is enough for now, including the continued income from the gas and oil royalties, also from former Warsaw Pact members who hate Putin, but mainly from the Germans. "We'd be cold and we wouldn't be able to drive on the Costa Brava!"
Putin's income from the sale of raw materials that helps him finance the overrun of Ukraine is more than 1 billion euros a day! In addition to the money, NATO members are also sending weapons to the Ukrainians with a rallying cry, against which ammunition paid for by NATO members is flying at the defenders of Ukraine. However, it seems that NATO partners are running out of weapons supplies, so for now they are only providing training, or rather relying on America directly.
Last week, Biden authorized his Secretary of Defense Austin to hand over $1 billion worth of weapons to Ukraine. Ukrainian soldiers are generally not proficient at operating them, and the infrastructure in the country to transport them to the East where they would be needed is non-existent. In addition, the US has provided $500 million to cover the salaries of government employees. This week, Biden submitted a request to Congress for an additional $33 billion in aid to Ukraine.
Lloyd Austin is an "African-American", a former US Army general, and during the Obama administration, the commander of Central Command, under whose command 8 Arabs were trained at a cost of $600 million to fight Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. After the training was completed, all 8 fighters disappeared without a trace. Austin retired and became a Pentagon lobbyist for Raytheon before being called by Biden to be Secretary of Defense in which capacity his first goal was to politically purge the officer corps and impose political training under the rules of Neo-Marxist Critical Race Theory. Biden, Austin and another warlord, Gen. Mark Milley, were the orchestrators of the debacle in Afghanistan.
Gen. Mark Milley, the chief of staff of the U.S. military, whose chest is festooned with medals and whose greatest credit was the introduction of new uniforms for Army officers, is a traitor. Indeed, after the November 2020 elections, he told his Chinese counterpart confidentially by telephone that if the United States were preparing a pre-emptive attack on China, he would be the first to hear from him. For such an act, Miley would be court-martialled and executed in time of war. Milley is now Biden's chief of staff. He, too, sees the greatest enemy of the United States in global warming and the enemy within, which is the opponents of the neo-Marxist indoctrination of CRT (Critical Race Theory) mandated by Austin, which he oversees.
I believe that President Zelensky is a patriot and is making a sincere effort to defend Ukraine against Putin's onslaught and I wish him success. A refreshing revelation after Iraq and Afghanistan! Unfortunately, President Zelensky, who had to reckon with Putin's ambitions after Georgia and pro-Russian activities on Ukraine's eastern borders, has played the wrong card in 2019-2020, betting on Joe Biden at a time when the Democrat-controlled US Congress and Senate were negotiating the impeachment of President Trump. It was about corruption in Ukraine and Zelensky did not provide support to President Trump and his investigative team in their efforts to expose the corruption of Hunter and Joe Biden in Ukraine. He promised more from Biden, a known player who was already overpaid from the Ukrainian point of view. This small service played a big role in the U.S. election. If Trump had become president again, the Ukraine conflict would not have happened.
The Russia-Ukraine war cannot be solved on the military field. There will be no winner! We live in the 21st century, when 10 countries possess nuclear weapons. America, I hope for now, has abandoned the Reagan doctrine of "Peace Through Strength". A third, hot, world war would mean the end of civilization. We are not in the 1950s, when nuclear weapons were not in the hands of maniacs and ideologues. Only the USA had this weapon in its hands, and then, sensibly, the world followed the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) rule until the end of the Cold War.
Putin saw a suitable opportunity to implement his plan after the Biden administration took office: America had lost its sovereign position of strength. The advanced dementia of the American President Biden, the obvious incompetence of the American vice-president, the debacle in Afghanistan, the collapse of the Mexican-American border, Iran, the end of friendly relations between the United States and the Arab countries, America's return to the Treaty of Paris with disastrous consequences for the American economy, racial storms associated with looting and arson in the big cities.
The European Union, where the 'woke' ideology, rooted in the former socialist system of Eastern Europe, led by Germany, lives under the terror of the imminent end of the world caused by global warming, is heading towards that end by destroying nature by building hundreds of thousands of windmills and totally rewiring it. They are fanatical about the propaganda of the new industrial lobby created around this ideology, which is served by spokespeople of the calibre of Greta Thunberg.
Lithium is a necessary element to produce the batteries needed to realise the dream of renewables based on windmills and solar panels. However, lithium is only found in this world in quantities one-third of the projected need. Europe will always be dependent on imports of gas, oil or the construction of nuclear power stations.
The war between Russia and Ukraine will not have a winner; it cannot be won on the battlefield. The use of nuclear weapons would mean the end of civilisation as we know it. The Ukrainians, just like the Russians, continue to trade in gas and oil, flowing under the feet of their citizens who are killing each other. Both rivals have the same customers with whom they are paid. Putin delivers $1 billion a day to fund his military arsenal. Ukraine receives weapons and the money flows through channels that already had oligarchs and corrupt bureaucrats sitting at the end of them before the Russian invasion. Many culprits are involved in the tragedy of the Ukrainian people and its continuation. The actions of all the drivers of this conflict have nothing to do with morality.
European politicians who have failed and contributed to NATO's irrelevance as a defender of peace in the past have no right today to call for actions that would prolong and exacerbate this conflict. Punishing Putin by immediately stopping the import of gas and oil from Russia to Europe would have an effect somewhat similar to Putin's use of nuclear weapons and is therefore neither practical nor logical. And in a sense not even moral (hundreds of millions of people would be exposed to death due to a complete economic collapse).
In the interests of globalisation, US and European politicians do not want to see the possibility of future danger in countries led by dictators where human rights are suppressed for religious or ideological reasons. Today it is Putin, tomorrow it will be China.
The crimes against human rights in China go beyond those that took place in Russia before Putin's invasion of Ukraine. However, neither America nor Europe dare to take steps to prevent a repeat of what is happening in Ukraine today. This time, however, elsewhere and on a larger scale. Indeed, the global industrial lobby and the current total economic dependence on China prevent this from happening.
The Ukrainian conflict must be brought to an end at the diplomatic table. Putin sees that his aggression has cost him dearly. Ukrainians are not Afghans. Gas will not stop flowing from Russia to the European Union, EU citizens will not freeze to death in winter, thousands of Ukrainians and Russians will die, and the oligarchs on their yachts in Monte Carlo and their dachas in London will breathe a sigh of relief and return to their trade.
A possible conflict between China and Taiwan must be avoided, because this conflict would have consequences for the whole civilised world. This can only happen if NATO returns to Ronald Reagan's doctrine of "Peace through strength!" Taiwan must be immediately recognised by all NATO members as an independent state and must be supplied with the weapons needed for effective self-defence. NATO members must stand by their words with their money (put your money where your mouth is). Those who do not do so with immediate effect have no place in NATO.
I hope that on November 5, 2024, America will resume the role it had for the world in the past, before November 3, 2020.
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WHO IS JOSEF MAŠIN?
Josef Mašín Jr (born 8 March 1932 Prague is the son of Czechoslovak officer Josef Mašín and a member of the former anti-communist resistance group the Mašín Brothers.
In 1945, he received the Czechoslovak Medal of Valour from President Benes. Later, together with his brother Ctirad and friends, he formed an anti-communist group. In the autumn of 1953, the group decided to reach West Berlin. In the Western Zone, they expressed their interest in returning to Czechoslovakia as paratroopers. Subsequently, they became members of the US Army. They arrived in the United States by ship in March 1954. Military training followed, after which the brothers and Paumer decided to join the Special Forces. After a five-year commitment to the U.S. Army, the brothers went into civilian life and began to pursue business ventures. In 2008, they received a plaque of honor from Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek.
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To understand Russia, one must also be aware of the influence of the Mongols on its mentality. Nearly 300 years of Mongol domination in Russia inevitably left genetic traces, manifested to this day in their thinking, actions and manners. Putin has never known true friendship in his entire life, so he trusts only himself and trusts no one.
I believe that the war in Ukraine will contribute to restoring good manners, or rather will severely curb the all-pervasive corruption that is almost everywhere and will bring the able to the top, as in any crisis when prosperity always exposes the incompetent. Unmanaged prosperity always leads to a decline in morals, exposes the incompetence of politicians, and generates new Churchills and Reagans. Otherwise Nature would have to step in, as the supreme Lord and the last instance of common sense. J.Š.
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