The Western Narrative

 The Western narrative, present in all the Western media, has been, since March, 2022, that the Ukraine, with advanced US weapons, completely destroyed the Russian invasion force. All Putin's outmoded and inept Soviet tanks and aeroplanes were no match for the advanced US weapons the Ukrainians had and with which they killed almost all the soldiers and destroyed almost all the tanks and aeroplanes. A few Russians managed to avoid the Ukrainian army and continue to shell undefended villages, killing civilians, but the Ukrainian military are too well protected for the Russians to dare attack.

After the Ukrainians killed off the initial invasion force, Putin is drafting 13-year-old boys and 70-year-old men, since that's all he has left.

Now, of course, the same people who forced a referendum on Serbia and took Kosovo announced that any Russian referendum is a heinous violation of international law and, of course, the "Rules-based-order", where only the US can make any rules or give any orders, and all American rules are supported by all the US neocolonials in Europe and the UK, meaning those rules have the universal support of everyone who is allowed to have an opinion.

The current Western narrative is that the Russians have trapped some civilians (no Ukrainian army around, since they can't be everywhere) and forced them to vote to be part of Russia, something no one in Ukraine wants.

Like all the Western narrative, Russia have videos showing soldiers in their 20s with lots of working tanks and aeroplanes that are obviously (if one knows tanks) far more advanced than Soviet tanks, but, of course, a) the West make it as difficult as possible for anyone to see those videos, and b) the Weast say that anyone who does see them is just seeing a Photoshopped video that makes those 13-year-old boys and 70-year-old men look like they're in their 20s and riding in modern tanks and aeroplanes.

The Russians also have videos of lots of people very happy to be voting to be part of Russia. Again, the Western narrative is that they are forced to pretend to be happy at gunpoint.

It seems clear that a huge majority will vote to be part of Russia. Russia brought about 1,000 foreign observers who say the election is honest, but, of course, the Western narrative is that it's just a few dozen actors in different costumes. Looks in the Russian videos to be about 1,000 from all over, but the Western narrative says don't be fooled by the Russian Photoshop.

And, on Wednesday, it gets interesting: the Western narrative is that everyone in the Ukraine wants the Russians out, that no one voted to be part of Russia except at gunpoint, but on Wednesday, Russia will say the Donbass, Kherson, and Zaporozhye are now part of Russia and will be defended as part of Russia.

And NATO say they will help the Ukraine with intelligence, advisors, and weapons to return all the territory that the West consider part of the Ukraine and reduce Russia to several small, unarmed states.

So is NATO about to lose a lot of their military satellites that have been providing targeting information for the HIMARS the West gave the Ukraine? Will Russia finally cut all the rail lines that bring Western weaponry into the Ukraine? Will Russia target the foreign advisors?

And what will NATO do then?????

Thucydides Next?

With the collapse of the USSR, the US had no competitor, no nation strong enough to challenge the US. Russia and the PRC always supported all US resolutions in the UN Security Council since they knew the US could make them trouble they could not handle. So they both voted to let the US destroy Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. The US was Global Hegemon.

But in 2012, Graham Allison wrote a paper called the Thucydides Trap, that every hegemon will fight tooth and nail to prevent any nation rising to where it could challenge the hegemon.

So the US was starting to notice that the PRC was rising rapidly, and Allison wrote that it was more likely that the US would take steps to stop the rise of the PRC while the PRC was still too weak to stop the US.

Then the US noticed that Russia was also rising and needed to be brought down, and so pushed Russia with a threat of putting so much of NATO in the Ukraine that Russia no longer had MAD. If Russia let NATO install nukes and ABM and several divisions of NATO troops, Russia would have no choice but to do as NATO demanded, to split into several small, unarmed nations that could never challenge the US.

The Western media reported that Russia's invasion of the Ukraine was a total disaster for Russia. The Ukraine, armed with advanced Western weapons, easily destroyed the Russian invasion force, killed almost all the soldiers, and destroyed just about all the tanks and aeroplanes. Plus the sanctions have completely destroyed the Russian economy. The media promised that the Russian regime that ordered the illegal and unprovoked invasion of the Ukraine will collapse very soon, Russia will owe massive reparations, so all Russian energy will go to US oligarchs, and Europe will once again have plenty of energy, so the ordinary Europeans must put up with cold showers for just a few weeks to save Democracy.

Only Russia kept slowly adding territory until last week, when the Russians withdrew all their soldiers from the entire Kharkov oblast, leaving behind a LOT of equipment, and also many ethnic Russians who are now being tortured and killed after Russia promised to defend them and to never abandon them. Russia was unable to stand up to the Ukraine armed with advanced Western weapons. The Western media are delighted and say that the loss of the Kharkov oblast is just the start, the Ukraine will very shortly have evicted all the Russian military from the Ukraine, including the Crimea, and this will force the Russian regime to fall and the new regime will be completely compliant with all NATO demands.

Is there anything Russia can do except surrender? Quite some discussion, with many pro-Russians saying 'No!'. The Kharkov Oblast was critical, without it, Russia cannot defend the territory they managed to acquire over the past 6 months, that Russia lost more territory in three days than they gained in the last 4 months, so the Russian invasion is finished.

Of course, some say that Kharkov Oblast was very hard to defend, and by withdrawing before the Ukraine army arrived, all those Russian troops were saved for another day. We don't know which now, but we might find out very soon.

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Meanwhile, the original Thucydides conjecture, that the US must take down the PRC, is back on the table. The US want to dismantle the PRC the same way they are trying to dismantle Russia: get the PRC to attack Taiwan, then give Taiwan massive Western armaments and intelligence that will let Taiwan destroy the PLA without costing a single Western life, and sanctions will destroy the PRC economy. The US want this to happen before 2025, since they see the PRC rising, and figure it's a guaranteed victory for the US and Taiwan before 2025, and rather a danger than Taiwan might lose after 2030.

So first, the US sent Pelosi, which infuriated the PRC, but all the PRC did was send a few warships to sail around Taiwan. Not enough.

So now the US has ordered Taiwan not to sell a single chip to the PRC, and the PRC desperately needs many of the chips that only Taiwan can produce, so the US are sure that either the PRC will watch their economy collapse for lack of Taiwan chips, or they will attack Taiwan, and either of these will accomplish the US goal of destroying the PRC the same way the Western media assure us that Russia have already been totally destroyed.

So far, the PRC still haven't done anything. But as more and more factories cannot complete their products without those chips, what will the PRC do? What can the PRC do?

I guess we'll find out fairly soon.

Will the US succeed in removing both Russia and the PRC as possible challengers to US hegemony, or will something go wrong with the carefully contrived plan of the US?

Again, we'll find out.

Appeasement

 Churchill said, "History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it." His history was brilliant. A lot of truth, but some lies of omission and some lies of commission, but the history made Churchill look very, very good. The worst lie of commission was Appeasement.

Some things, we know Churchill got right. When he wrote that, when Hitler said he would abrogate the Treaty of Versailles, the UK could have demanded regime change and Germany would have had no choice but to tell Hitler he was out and then pick some other Chancellor and then World War II would have been avoided with no lives lost, this is obviously correct. Churchill said he fought for this and lost, but I can't find any evidence he really did fight for regime change in Germany in 1933. But he was certainly right in his history that that would have been the best thing for the world.

Of course, as Orwell wrote, Airstrip One would ally with Eurasia against Eastasia, then ally with Eastasia against Eurasia, then back again. And Winston Smith had to rewrite all the history books so, when Airstrip One was allied with Eurasia, Airstrip One had always been allied with Eurasia.

So, when Napoleon was Emperor of France, Airstrip One was allied with Russia against France, or Eastasia against Eurasia. After Napoleon, Airstrip One allied with France and the Ottomans, i.e., Eurasia, against Russia, i.e., Eastasia.

In WWI, Airstrip One was allied with the Russian Empire against Germany and the Ottomans. Then, after WWI, Airstrip I allied with Germany against the USSR. The UK leaders were terrified of the USSR, saw it marching into Western Europe and taking over most of Europe and maybe the UK. So letting Germany rearm in 1933 as a bulwark against the USSR seemed like a good idea at the time. And the rabid anti-Communist, Adolph Hitler, seems like a good ally. Churchill might have vehemently disagreed, as he said he did in his histories, but I can't find any newspaper articles about Churchill speeches against letting Germany rearm.

By 1938, the UK and France knew war with Germany was necessary, but neither was ready. France would not support the UK against Germany until the Maginot Line was complete, i.e., 1939. And Chamberlain did not want war before the radar shield was ready to prevent a German bombing campaign that could destroy the UK: the RAF would have no idea when or where the Luftwaffe was attacking, so only a few would be able to fight, and could do very limited damage. Had the UK gone to war in Czechoslovakia without the support of France, there would have been no Miracle at Dunkirk. German bombing would have been devastating with very few Luftwaffe losses each bombing run.

So Chamberlain said he'd agreed to give Hitler part of Czechoslovakia (Czechoslovakia was divided up among Germany, Poland, and Hungary) and had gotten Hitler's assurances of peace.

Churchill's history said that was appeasement: in 1938, Germany was still very weak, and the BEF could easily have defeated the Wehrmacht. This is false, of course. Chamberlain did the right thing, but, after Dunkirk, the UK needed a scapegoat, and Churchill chose Chamberlain (who had died, so he could not defend himself).

In fact, the UK and France intended to go to war in 1939, when the Maginot Line and the British radar system were both ready. So they asked Poland to say Germany could no longer access East Prussia, Germany signed a treaty with the USSR, and they agreed to split Poland, with Germany getting the Polish land between Germany and East Prussia.

And as soon as Germany and the USSR attacked Poland, the UK and France declared war on Germany, expecting that the Wehrmacht would be unable to stand up to the Maginot Line and the BEF and the French military.

Things didn't go all that well. Belgium had an impregnable fortress all along the German border, but, while it was impregnable from the German side, it had no defences on the Belgian side, and paratroopers overran the fortress from the Belgian side and opened the gates.

The BEF and French Army lost, but at least almost all of the BEF made it back to the UK thanks to the Miracle of Dunkirk. And the bombings by the Luftwaffe had massive losses, since the entire RAF knew when and where the Luftwaffe were coming and managed to shoot down large number of the bombers until Germany ran out of bombers and the Battle of Britain worked out OK for the UK. Lots got bombed, but not nearly as much as before the radar was ready. Churchill, of course, since the radar was Top Secret, said the success of the RAF was because the RAF ate lots of carrots.

But Churchill's myth that Appeasement was the reason for WWII, that it could have been avoided if the UK stood up to Germany in 1938, has led to the War in Vietnam (not going to war would have been appeasement), and just about every other US war after WWII.

And now the US and the European neocolonial governments all say Putin wants to recreate the USSR and the Warsaw pact, and if we do not stop him in the Ukraine, that's appeasement, and we'll again be facing the Warsaw Pact and then they'll overrun Western Europe, then the UK, and then the US.

So every ordinary European (not the ruling elite, of course) must be willing to put up with cold showers, since not putting up with them would be appeasement.