How Wrong Can a Guy be?
Sunday, March 6, 2022 2:04 PM
“You cannot be serious!”—John McEnroe
Dear Friends + Interlocutors,
Not quite three weeks ago, I wrote: “Luckily, it looks like this contrived Ukraine crisis is fizzling out, despite all the Biden White House hype to promote a conflict that would trigger sanctions.” How wrong can a guy be?
In the meantime, just the opposite happened. The White House studiously avoided serious negotiations with the Kremlin and thereby precipitated the war it claimed to be heroically trying to prevent.
Presto, the trap door slammed shut. Washington responded by slapping massive, unprecedented economic and financial sanctions on Russia. Berlin and the rest of Europe piled on, with everybody expressing surprise, shock and indignation.
Dialing back to four and a half weeks ago, February 2nd, please note a front page headline in the NY Times paper edition: Putin Claims U.S. is Trying to Goad Moscow into War. Here’s some of it:
The Russian president claimed it was the United States that was fanning the flames of war, seeking to goad the Kremlin into action and create a pretext for enacting harsh new sanctions….
“Their most important task is to contain Russia’s development,” Mr. Putin said of the United States, repeating one of his frequent talking points. “Ukraine is just an instrument of achieving this goal. It can be done in different ways, such as pulling us into some armed conflict and then forcing their allies in Europe to enact those harsh sanctions against us.”
Asked about the United States’ written responses to Moscow’s security demands, which were delivered last week, Mr. Putin said that it was clear “that the principal Russian concerns turned out to be ignored.”
Asked about the United States’ written responses to Moscow’s security demands, which were delivered last week, Mr. Putin said that it was clear “that the principal Russian concerns turned out to be ignored.”
And there, in a nutshell, you have what happened...predicted by a principal actor in the drama. Washington did succeed in bringing its strategy to a successful conclusion. Although Putin saw through it ahead of time, he nevertheless concluded he had no choice but to proceed.
As an antidote to the awful nonsense in the mainstream media—which is congratulating itself and cheering on the Biden White House—I submit the following YouTube videos. One recent, one from 2021:
What You Don’t Know about the war in Ukraine [warning: some vulgarity]
And an excerpt from Putin’s annual press conference on December 23, 2021:
The hysteria about Putin and the sanctions on Russia have reached beyond what seemed imaginable and rational. Clearly, the Kremlin has lost the propaganda war, big time.
But there could be a huge economic downside for the U.S. and its European sidekicks.
Ken Griffin is a highly successful American hedge funder. In a recent interview on Bloomberg, Griffin warns that Washington could be endangering U.S. Dollar reserve status by its weaponization of the Dollar. Watch the interview.
I have opined elsewhere that the world reserve status of the U.S. Dollar was the most important and long lasting prize Washington gained from the outcome of the Second World War.
At the present time, one could argue that American prosperity depends upon it.
Patrick
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