Do the Taliban ban all girls from school?

 One of the things I find strange is that the Iranian channel, PressTV, was shut down by the US. For one day. Then they had it back up. The Taliban had a website, but the US shut it down, and it stayed down for almost a year, but they got it back up. But Russia, supposedly a major tech power, has been shut down for months and is still inaccessible. The Russians suffered from a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack that blocked everyone. They suggested Tor, but their DDOS protection software blocks Tor. They suggested a different system, but it is also blocked. So the Russians have been far less successful than the Taliban in keeping their news channel open and available (heck, they live right next to the Taliban, they should pop in and ask for advice).

Anyway, the Taliban website is back up. What is interesting is that the Western press, on 23 March 2022, said that schools were supposed to be open to girls on 23 March but all the girls were sent home. However, if one checks the Taliban website, it says that one school opened to girls on 25 March.

So the Western press reports (with videos, even though Westerners are not allowed to film inside Afghanistan) that all girls were told to go home on 23 March, girls are not allowed to attend school in Afghanistan. But Afghanistan reports that girls were able to go to school on 25 March. Another story says that both boys and girls will be able to take the university entrance exams.

It must be annoying to the Western press that all can see for themselves the Taliban denials of Western news stories about Afghanistan.

Now if only the Russians would go ask the Taliban how they did it so we can once again see the Russian version of the news.

The Importance ot the Ukraine

 In 1812, a Frenchman decided to conquer Russia. He started with 500,000 men, lost time, men, and matériel crossing the Ukraine, and returned to France in 1813 with just 10,000 men. After which, the British made short work of him.

In 1914, the Germans planned to be in Paris before the French could mobilise, but they figured they had better secure their eastern front, and so attacked the Ukraine, and the attack on Paris failed, as did their war effort.

In 1941, a German fellow with a red beard tried to conquer Russia the USSR, again losing men and time and matériel in the Ukraine, failed, and could not stop the Americans coming from the west (the Americans were only coming because it looked like the USSR would be taking Paris if they did not).

So, starting in 2014, NATO figured they'd start from the eastern Ukraine. Maybe. In 2021, Russia said NATO in the Ukraine would be a red line, and NATO said that would be the decision of NATO, and Russia would have no say in the matter. So in 2022, Russia moved to de-NATO the Ukraine. NATO, joined by the rest of the EU plus always neutral Switzerland plus Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan declared sanctions on Russia, declared that all Russian assets were confiscated, all Russian US$ and € were confiscated, the entire Russian economy would collapse, and with it the Russian war effort to de-NATO the Ukraine. So Russia demanded payment in rubles and the PRC demanded payment in ¥. Previously, Saddam said Iraq would demand payment in € and the US destroyed Iraq and hanged Saddam. Then Gaddafi demanded payment in € so the US/UK/France destroyed Libya and had Gaddafi killed in an unspeakable fashion. 

Sadly, Russia do not seem to be Iraq or Libya. It looks like Europe can pay in rubles or freeze in the dark. And Saudi seem happy to let the PRC pay in ¥ (or RenMinBi to use the new and improved replacement for PRC¥).

People say the US$ is the world's Reserve currency, which, according to Adam Smith (not the 18th century Adam Smith, the 20th century Wall Street gossip columnist), is not right. The world has several reserve currencies, i.e., the currencies major International Banks must keep in reserve. These are currently the US$, the  €, the UK£, the Japanese ¥, and the Swiss CHF. In Breton Woods, the US$ was declared the world's Key Currency. In 1900, the Great Powers were the UK and France, with Germany trying to become a Great Power, and the US a power in the Western Hemisphere, a Hemisphere most overlooked. So the Great Currencies were the UK£ and the French ₣. By 1944, the UK£ and the French ₣ were collapsing, and the US$ was worth about 0.88 gm of 24K gold (the exact amount was in Troy ounces, a measure with which few are familiar, but it was about 0.88 gm of pure gold). So the US$ became the Key currency, the only currency good for just about all International trade, because it was liquid and the same as gold, so perfect as the Key currency. Until 1971, when President Nixon said the US$ was only worth the paper it was printed on. There was some inflation, as much as 20% a year, but the US$ remained the Key Currency for lack of any alternative: not enough gold, and no other currency that could bear the weight of supporting all international commerce. Having the Key currency gave the US huge economic strength.

The Europeans tried to replace the US$ with the €, which did become a sub-key currency, but only in the Euro zone. There was no currency that could challenge the US$. The banks refused to elevate the RenMinBi to the status of a reserve currency, so it was not really a threat. Until the Russian sanctions, and now it is.

The US, joined by all its allies, tried to destroy Russia. So far, not much luck. But they do seem to have taken careful aim and managed one well-placed shot: 

 in their own foot.

Is Russia not paying attention?

 Russia complain that the Western, i.e. US/European, coverage of the problems in the Ukraine skip the Eastern part of the Ukraine, specifically the Donbass.

The problem in the Ukraine is definitely Russia's fault. In 1750, the Ukraine ended at the Dnieper River. West of the Dnieper River was an area of Poland called Galicia. The Czar seized Galicia, and the Galicians hated everything Russian. When the Wehrmacht arrived in WWI, Galicia wanted to transfer from Russia to Germany, and the Wehrmacht obliged them for a few months after Germany defeated Russia. But then Germany lost, and Galicia became part of Poland. Until WWII, when Stalin annexed Galicia back onto the Ukraine. When the USSR collapsed, Galicia and East Ukraine all voted together, and the majority voted to leave Russia. Russia signed an agreement to respect the entire territoriality of the Ukraine. Of course, the East Ukraine and Galicia could agree about little or nothing, so the freely elected presidents were all weak, with divided support from East Ukraine and Galicia that wanted very different things. Until 2014, when Obama sent the CIA in. The Official US/Western version is that the CIA brought democracy to the formerly autocratic Ukraine, Putin felt threatened, and decided to rebuild the USSR, starting with the Ukraine.

The Russians say the Galicians killed about 14,000 Eastern Ukrainians in the Donbass from 2014 until 2022, while the Western media said nothing. The Russians were not paying attention. Lately, the European/US media have said a lot about what has been happening in the Donbass.

The Russian version, proclaimed from 2014 until Russian media was cut off in March, 2022, was that the Galicians murdered 14,000 Donbass Ukrainians for speaking Russian and going to the Russian Orthodox Church. The Russians claim, just because it is a historical fact, that the people in the East Ukraine prefer the Russian language and the Russian Orthodox religion, but after the 2014 Revolution (led by the CIA), the Galicians took over and made the Russian language and the Russian Orthodox Religion capital offences, and sent the Ukrainian military (consisting of primarily Galicians) to execute the heinous capital felons speaking Russian.

The official Western version is that, after the Ukraine became a democracy in 2014, Putin decided to recreate the USSR, and he started by trying to annex the Donbass and make it part of Russia. Of course, everyone in the Donbass was a loyal Ukrainian who hated, detested, and despised everything Russian. None spoke Russian, none had the slightest interest in attending the Russian Orthodox Church, being Lutheran and Roman Christians who all hated the Orthodox 'religion'.

So, to annex the rabidly Ukrainian Donbass, Putin sent the Russian military into the Donbass in 2014, and over the next 8 years, they murdered 14,000 Donbass Ukrainians.

So there is agreement that someone murdered 14,000 Donbass Ukrainians between 2014 and 2022. The Western media all agree it was the Russian military. Russia say it was the Galicians.

The Western reporters, if they are even in the Ukraine, are in Lviv, a long way from the Donbass. They say they have reliable sources. Many say they know Russians who admit it was the Russian army that murdered 14,000 people in the Donbass.

The Russian reporters are actually in the Donbass, and the people say how grateful they are that the Russian military finally arrived in February 2022 to help protect them from the Galicians.

Obviously, the Western reporters and the Western media and Alphabet and Meta and Apple all know the official US government version is the only correct version, and they have made it pretty much impossible for anyone to see the Russian version.

So we have just now learned about the 14,000 dead Donbass Ukrainians, after years of saying that all claims of 14,000 dead Donbass Ukrainians were a Russian lie, but now those 14,000 really are dead, and it was the Russians who killed every last one of them. And one won't find anything else in the Western media or social media. Obviously, Alphabet, Meta, and Apple control just about all the Western social media that everyone sees, and about four conglomerates control all the traditional media, and all agree that only the US version, verbatim, is the TRVTH, the whole TRVTH, and nothing but the TRVTH.

What is happening in the Ukraine???

 Once upon a time, if one watched the different news channels, the basic facts more-or-less agreed, it was the reporters' opinions about those facts that differed. The BBC, ordered by the British government  to report a great victory at Dunkirk lest the British public demand surrender, reported a defeat followed by a miracle: most of the BEF were evacuated when capture or massacre seemed certain. I fear the German version also reported that the Wehrmacht defeated the British, but did not wax quite as euphoric about the evacuation, but that version has been lost to the history readily available to riff-raff such as myself, though perhaps a few historians have access to a few, preserved copies.

Today, the Russian press report that the Russian invasion of the Ukraine is going according to plan. The Russian care not to target civilians mean that progress is necessarily very slow but steady, and the current regime, which is led by the CIA, includes many Nazis, wants to join NATO and host NATO nukes and ABMs, and is murdering all the ethnic Russians in the Ukraine, will eventually (not sure when) be replaced by a neutral government that will guarantee the rights of all the citizens of the Ukraine and will be strictly neutral, and never a member of NATO.

The rest of the press report that the evil and stupid Putin attacked the Ukraine expecting a victory in a week or less, but the Russian army, undermined by massive corruption, are not a match for the Ukrainian patriots and have lost many, many soldiers, tanks, and aeroplanes and are almost utterly destroyed, but still Putin presses on. The Russian economy has been completely destroyed by sanctions, they can no longer produce anything. Russians are going hungry, and without electricity or heat. It is not clear how much longer the evil and stupid Putin will press on with this senseless, illegal invasion of a free country where every law abiding citizen has full rights, unlike the autocracy that is Russia where no one except Putin has any rights.

Before, the Western press would have said, 'Zelensky/Biden good, Putin evil,' while the Russian press would have said, 'Putin good, Zelensky/Biden evil,' but would have more-or-less agreed on who was winning. Not any more. A hospital bombed? Both agree a hospital was bombed, but...

The Western press assure us the maternity and paediatric hospital was full of expectant and recently delivered mothers, and also newborn and ill children, and the Russian bombing completely destroyed it and injured 17 of those inside. 

The Russian press are equally insistent that some Azov Nazis insisted all the women and children leave the hospital, then set it up as a centre for the Azov Battalion to fight the Russian liberators, so Russia, knowing this, bombed the hospital building (no longer a working hospital), but the Azov Battalion had few, if any casualties.

The Western press assures us that the Russian lie that the Azov Battalion are neo-Nazis, they are strictly peaceful, pro-democracy Ukrainians fighting to preserve the freedom and democracy of the Ukraine.

The Russian press has long-distance photographs and videos of the Azov Battalion wearing swastikas and Wolfsangels, both Nazi symbols, so the Russian press do not claim that these are neo-Nazis, there's nothing neo about them.

Did the Russian press doctor the photographs to insert the swastikas and Wolfsangels? Or maybe the Azov are foreign, Hindu volunteers who want to help the native Ukrainians defend their country against Russian invasion, and are just wearing some symbols of their religion? Given the contradictory videos and interviews, no way to tell.

Don't know much about history, don't know much geography

For some time, the US have been sharply divided, with a slender majority 'knowing' that the Democrats are right and good and just and American and making America strong and prosperous and ... while the Republicans are just about all (except Liz Cheney) evil and want to destroy America.

Meanwhile, a large minority 'know' that the Republicans are right and good and just and American and ... while the Democrats are ignorant and evil and want to destroy America.

All know that the USSR was an evil dictatorship where everyone lived in abject poverty because every rouble went to spreading Communism worldwide, leaving nothing for such trivialities as food or clothing or housing for the ordinary Soviet slave.

But then the US helped Yeltsin free the USSR, and all was great until the evil Putin took over and started trying to rebuild the USSR. This is his goal. And he suddenly and inexplicably began the work of re-enslaving millions of unfortunates about a week ago when he invaded Ukraine, a nation that had been free and Democratic since 1991. A nation Putin intends to enslave and annex as the first step in rebuilding the evil Soviet Empire. And the US must stop him.

But, as I said, the US is divided. That slender majority are grateful that St Biden is now president and is doing all he can to stop the evil Putin. They are grateful that the 2020 election had FBI safeguards that prevented Russia/the USSR from stealing the election as they did in 2016, when Trump really won just 9 states, as St Obama informed us in Jan 2017, but Russia hacked the polls in 21 states giving Trump faux victories in those 21 states and a faux 30 state majority in the evil Electoral College that must be abolished yesterday. Had Trump, Putin's Puppet, remained in power, he would have congratulated Putin for his good work rebuilding the USSR, and would have offered Putin all the help he could provide.

The large minority are sure that, had the Democrat machinery not been allowed to steal the 2020 election, the evil Putin would never have dared attack the Ukraine with a real president like Trump in office.

***

Few Americans know history, since just about all the people in history books are dead now, and the Superbowl is much more important than reading about a bunch of obscure dead people no one has ever heard of. Ditto geography, since everything outside the US is a wasteland where no reasonable Americans would ever want to go and risk their lives.

So none care that, in 1750, the Russian Empire ended at the Dnieper River, but between 1750 and 1800, the Russian Empire annexed 60% of the Polish Empire, and all those who were formerly Polish consider themselves Europeans and Germanic and consider the Russians Asians and untermenschen. Naturally, they hated being annexed and hate everything Russian. The Ukraine east of the Dnieper River had always been Russian, as was the Crimea. The Ukraine west of the Dnieper was Poland before 1800 and again between WWI and WWII, when Stalin re-annexed it to the Ukraine east of the Dnieper River (plus bits of Austria).

After the Ukraine left the USSR, presidents, to get elected, needed votes from both sides of the Dnieper River, so were divided and weak. Fortunately, in 2014, the CIA slipped into the Ukraine and gave lots of money and weapons to the Western Ukrainians who fought with the Wehrmacht in WWII, who were considered Aryans by the Wehrmacht, and who still figure Ukrainians from east of the Dnieper are untermenschen. It was a free and fair election where every gun got a vote, and the CIA ensured that the Western Ukrainians had all the votes, and killed a lot of Eastern Ukrainians to form a free and democratic government that replaced the old dictatorship. Of course, all Americans know is that the Ukraine was a free democracy from 1991 until 2022 when Putin attacked.

The old pro-Russian dictatorship let everyone speak any language they chose and go to any church they wanted, which the new democracy knew was horrible, and, since the Ukraine was now free and Democratic, banned the Russian language and the Russian Orthodox Church, as any good, Democratic government would do. This represented a great and Democratic improvement over the former dictatorship. And the good Aryans began trying to exterminate all the untermenschen, as well they should have done: the Ukraine was now a free and prosperous Democracy where everything Russian had to be banned, since everything Russian is a sign of dictatorship that must be eradicated. This almost all Americans know and strongly support.

In addition, the US said that the Ukraine must join NATO and would be armed with many nukes and an ABM shield to protect the good, Ukrainian democracy from Russian dictatorial aggression. With the nukes so close that they could destroy Russia completely before the evil Russians could respond, the Ukraine could lead the way to making Russia into at least four free, unarmed democracies who would stop spreading evil in the world and would always do whatever the US told them to do, which is obviously the best thing any nation can possibly do. Such a felicitous future the evil Putin was determined to prevent, but he is now against the whole world. 

The US reliably report that the Ukraine have told them that almost half the Russian invaders have been killed, most of the Russian tanks and aeroplanes destroyed, and the Russian invasion will collapse soon, but it was still evil of Putin to even try to overrun the Ukraine and replace their free and fair democracy with a brutal dictatorship that would not even let the police enforce the basic law that being a Russian was illegal and a capital offence in the Ukraine. Of course, being a Russian should obviously be banned throughout the entire world, since those Russians are Untermenschen, as every American knows. And if the Ukraine say they are winning, who could possibly doubt them? Looks like the US dream of breaking Russia up into four unarmed, independent states should soon be very easy for the CIA.

So the US continue to vehemently disagree: every Democrat knows St Biden is doing all the right things to stop the Russian invasion while Trump, Putin's Puppet, would have helped Putin with his evil invasion, while every Republican (except Liz Cheney) knows Putin would never have dared to attack the Ukraine if Trump were still in power, but all agree that all Russians are evil, and the US must do all it can to liberate Ukraine and then Russia so Russia can never again try to overthrow a free Democracy.

Up and Down

 Iran put up a website/satellite TV station to give their version of the news. To make it easy to find, they bought a .com site from a western ISP. The US moved to take down that site, PressTv.Com. Anyone who tries to access it gets

But those Persians have some Internet-savvy experts who switched to PressTV.ir and that site is up and running.

A couple of years ago, the Taliban put up a site, alemarahenglish.com but the US shut that site down. The Taliban tried alemarahenglish.net , but the US control .com and .net and took that down as well. For at least a year, the Taliban could not get their ideas across, but they eventually found an Internet-savvy person who set up their new site, alemarahenglish.af which the US cannot block.

The USAF project manager who funded the creation of the Internet made it so the US military could still communicate during and after WWIII, so the Internet is very resilient if one knows what one is doing. And now both the Persians and the Taliban know.

The Russians chose .com for their website, and, after the US CIA took over the Ukraine in 2014 and encouraged the Western Ukrainians to kill the ethnic Russians who inhabit the Eastern Ukraine (the Ukraine splits at the Dnieper River, with those to the West mostly disliking ethnic Russians and those to the East mostly ethnic Russians), Russia complained, but did very little for 8 years.

When the USSR collapsed, the CIA managed to make Yeltsin president, and he let the CIA dissolve the USSR then destroy Russia as long as they kept him well supplied with vodka. When Yeltsin got sick and had to step down, the CIA had already dismantled the Soviet Union, the Russian military, Russian industry, Russian schools, and also insisted that Yeltsin's successor must have CIA approval, so they picked an obscure mayor no one had ever heard of, and he always lauded everything the US did, while secretly rebuilding Russia, so secretly that the CIA did not notice. In 2011, the US wanted to destroy Libya, and put the destruction of Libya before the UN Security Council, and Russia voted a strong 'Yes!'. In 2013, the US put the destruction of Syria before the UN Security Council and Russia did not vote. Not as good as a strong 'Yes!' but still acceptable (and Syria still exists only because PM Cameron put the destruction of Syria up to a vote in Parliament, and the UK Parliament voted, 'NO!').

However, when the CIA took over the Ukraine in 2014, Putin had Russia annex the Crimea, even though it had always been Ukrainian since 1954. The CIA were furious, but were not quite ready to fight Russia. Russia forced the Ukraine to sign the Minsk agreement that ethnic Russians would not be harmed, but the Ukraine never bothered with the Minsk agreement and killed about 10,000 ethnic Russians between 2014 and 2022.

Then the CIA said the Ukraine would join NATO and host a huge US nuclear arsenal that could reach Russia in about 1 minute, so Russia would not have time to respond, and the US would have total destruction of Russia available. There would be no need to actually nuke Russia, the Russian leadership would know that the US could do so and Russia could not stop them nor would Russia have anything left with which to retaliate, so MAD would be gone, only the AD of Russia if Russia did not do exactly as the US told them to do, probably division into four or more unarmed, independent puppet states.

So the evil Putin invaded the Ukraine and says he will demilitarise and de-CIA the Ukraine.

And a week later, the Russian English, French, and German channels are down. The satellite TV is down. The websites are down. Since they chose .com for the English, French, and German sites, the US had no difficulty shutting all of them down. A huge DDOS attack means one does not get, as one did with the old Taliban site, 'No such site,' instead one gets a blank page until the 'Timed out' message appears. Russia appears distracted by their pursuit of the CIA in the Ukraine: I know Russia have plenty of Internet-savvy experts who could get the site back up, but for now, all the Russia information website and satellite TV channels are down (except their Arabic channel which is still operational).

And I have no idea when the Russian sites will be back up. They've been down for about 12 hours now, and show no sign of coming back to life. I am getting a new message: 'You might be a bot. You are not allowed to access this site.' So that's stopping the DDOS, along with everyone else.

I hope the Russians get their Internet news channels and satellite news channels back up and running. For now, I must rely on the Iranian and Taliban sites to get a version of the news which is not the Western version (Qatar is in bed with the US, so al-Jazeera tends to repeat the US version of the news).

And for now, no way to watch any Russian news, except in Arabic.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehn goodbye?

The Ukraine is split at the Dnieper River. Most of those to the West of the Dnieper River consider themselves Western, more closely related to Germans than Russians. Most of those to the East of the Dnieper River consider themselves Russians. When Nazi Germany were marching across the Ukraine in WWII, those west of the Dnieper River welcomed the Wehrmacht as liberators, and the Wehrmacht agreed that able-bodied men could join the Wehrmacht, since they were good Aryans. Both those Ukrainians from West of the Dnieper River and the Germans in the Wehrmacht considered those from East of the Dnieper to be a lower class of people, not quite human, Slavs suitable only to serve as slaves to their Aryan masters. Also, there were far more Slavs than the Aryans needed as slaves, so the number of Slavs needed to be reduced to provide Aryans with Lebensraum, but the Slavs were not to be totally exterminated as the Nazis planned to do with some other ethnic groups.

In 1991, the Ukraine voted to leave the USSR, leave Russia, and become an independent nation. For 13 years, every president needed the support of both Eastern and Western Ukrainians. Then the US sent the CIA with money and weapons, and in a free and fair election where every gun got a vote, they elected a Western Ukrainian who declared that everything Russian was strictly prohibited: speaking the Russian language or going to the Russian Orthodox Church was a capital offence. The West considered this a very good law, and, of course, every nation must maintain the rule of law. The CIA remained as advisers to the government, who worked hard to enforce the law and kill anyone speaking Russian or trying to keep a Russian Orthodox Church open, and, again, the West applauded this bringing of peace and stability to the entire Ukraine. The evil Russians objected to this peaceful, advanced democracy where the CIA got most of the votes. Russia was a very weak state, and knew there was not much they could do. Russia did illegally annex the Crimea, which had always been part of the Ukraine ever since 1954, but the Ukraine cut off the river providing all the water to the Crimea, and begged the West for materiel with which to return the Crimea to the Ukraine. Also, in the south-east of the Ukraine, some ethnic Russians had kept some materiel and continued illegally speaking Russian and attending the Russian Orthodox Church. Of course, the Ukraine did its best to enforce the law against these heinous criminals and made every effort to kill them all, but with limited success. They managed to legally execute about 15,000, but there were more than 2 million of these criminals. The Ukraine begged the West for more materiel so they could enforce the law, and the West promised that materiel would be coming, but later.

After the collapse of the USSR, which the CIA did not see coming, the CIA moved quickly and helped Yeltsin become head of the Russian state. The CIA gave Yeltsin all the vodka he wanted, and he let the CIA dismantle the Russian military, disable most of the Russian nuclear arsenal, dismantle Russian industry so rebuilding the dismantled military would be impossible, and even disrupted Russian education so there would not be educated people to rebuild. All very good work, applauded by the West. But Yeltsin got sick and had to step down. The CIA said they had a veto over who would be the next head of state, so the Russians picked an obscure mayor no one had ever heard of. The mayor applauded everything the US did. When the US proposed to the UN Security Council that they destroy Libya in 2011, Russia voted 'Yes!' When the US proposed to the UN Security Council that they destroy Syrian in 2013, Russia did not vote, so the motion passed by a large majority. But this obscure mayor was secretly rebuilding Russian industry, the Russian military, Russian schools, and the CIA did not notice. But Russia remained very weak relative to the US, the US could have demanded regime change, and the mayor knew he would either have to step down or see the US completely destroy Russia. So he did pretty much everything the US demanded.

Until 2022, when he announced that the good, Aryan Ukrainians who were strongly pro-US and should have remained in charge would be removed as the heads of the Ukraine, along with the CIA. The world was furious. Or at least the West was furious. And this includes Turkey who closed the Hellespont to Russian ships, and Switzerland who usually remain neutral. (Threats of countermeasures by the US might have influenced Switzerland and Turkey, or maybe the Aryans in both countries had achieved control of both states and all good Aryans know that the Western Ukrainians and the Americans were doing the right thing.)

The UN Security Council voted 11 to 1 with 3 not voting to condemn the Russian aggression in the Ukraine, so the resolution lost, since Russia inherited the USSR veto. The Ukraine were furious. They said that was wrong, that Russia have no right to the Soviet veto. Russia must either be downgraded from a permanent member of the Security Council to an ordinary member of the UN, or ejected from the UN for violating the UN charter, and the US agreed.

So on 28 Feb 2022, the US announced that 12 members of the Russian UN delegation are losing their seats, they are no longer allowed in the US, and so are no longer allowed in the UN. Russia protested that UN delegates must be allowed to enter the UN, but the US say 'NO!' The US want to see if there is anything Russia can do about having 12 members of its UN team removed. If it turns out the US can remove 12 members with no repercussions, why not remove all of them? As of today, Russia still have their representative on the security council, but if the US can ban 12 members of the Russian UN delegations, why not ban all of them? If the US get away with banning 12 with absolutely no consequences, the US will probably say no Russian is allowed a seat in the UN, and just about all of the UN will agree that the US has the right to unilaterally cancel Russia's formerly permanent membership on the Security Council. Then the Security Council will vote unanimously to condemn the Russian aggression, the Russian attack on the law in the Ukraine, the Russian support for capital felons speaking Russian or attending the Russian Orthodox Church in the Ukraine.

The US know they now have a secure defence against a Russian nuclear attack. If the US think the Russians are planning such an attack, they have a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe, plus an anti-missal defence system in Eastern Europe. The threat of a Russian attack will prompt an US prophylactic attack with missiles that can reach their Russian targets in less than 5 minutes, before Russia can possibly respond, so most of the Russian nuclear arsenal will be destroyed before Russia can deploy it, and the anti-missal system will stop all the rest, so Russia no longer have MAD, the US have the AD of any nation that dares to defy the US, The US want every nation to know that when the US say 'Jump!' the only allowable answer is 'Yes, sir. How high?'

Russia remain convinced that the US conviction that MAD no longer exists is wrong, that Russia has managed to rebuild its military to the point where it can stand up to the US. Which means standing up to the US and just about all of Europe plus Turkey and Japan.

Some of us think the world is in a far more dangerous place than we thought we were in 1962 when I had to sleep on the floor. The USSR put nuclear weapons in Cuba, and the US said if they did not immediately remove those weapons, it meant nuclear war. We lived in a tiny village, and all our relatives who lived in big cities came to stay with us, since everyone figured all major cities would be destroyed, but not the tiny villages. So they got my bed and I got the floor.

Now, of course, since 1987, we know everything we heard about the Cuban missile crisis was a lie. The US had nukes in Turkey, and Khrushchev demanded they be removed. Or else. And put nukes in Cuba.

So Kennedy called Khrushchev and said, 'I have to run for re-election and you don't, so if you'll say the US got everything we demanded, I'll pull all those nukes out of Turkey and let you send inspectors to verify, but you have to say you capitulated because the US was too strong for the USSR to stand up to us.' Khrushchev agreed, so it wasn't until 25 years later when the documents were declassified that we learned there was never a real threat of a nuclear war, it was the US who capitulated to all the Soviet demands.

But this time, I think there really is a threat, because the American leadership believe that MAD no longer exists, that the ultra-advanced US defences mean there is only the AD of any nation that dares to defy the US,  including Russia and the PRC. And the US have been wrong about just about everything, almost certainly including this.