Dear Friends + Interlocutors,

Here’s an illuminating item in the SCMP from January of this year, before the Ukraine crisis started to take off in a really big way and ended when Putin threw up his hands and ordered the invasion. You know, the so-called “unprovoked” invasion that supposedly caught everyone in Washington by surprise.

The article illustrates that at the same time Joe Biden's White House was warning how it would take “decisive” action should Russia deploy military elements to Cuba or Venezuela, Washington and its establishment commentariat in America and Europe acted as if Putin was out of his mind to be concerned about NATO/U.S. existing deployments up against Russia’s border.

There had been and there was going to be no serious effort by Washington or NATO to address the Kremlin’s legitimate security concerns re NATO expansion and re the bloody hijinks in Ukraine in the aftermath of Washington’s CIA-instigated 2014 coup in Kiev. Hence we now have a war, and everyone in Washington and at NATO agree that it is Russia’s fault. 

Evidently, what is good for the goose (Washington) is not good for the gander (Moscow). It’s a one-way street, where the U.S. dictates the rules and agenda. It has been that way since the end of the Cold War. 

I’m afraid—with Washington drenched in stupidity, myopia and arrogance—that things will probably get worse. The same messianic mindset that got the U.S. into the two Iraq wars (1991 & 2003) is at work here in this ill-advised proxy war against Russia. 

Washington officials continue to meddle in matters far afield from America’s legitimate concerns, and to lie brazenly about it. This is what I call busybodyism. How long can it go on? What will be the ultimate consequences?

P.S. This is a South China Morning Post article and I am unable to put it in “reader’s view” format. I hope there is no pay-wall to read it. 

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