Biden Says Nord Stream 2 Pipeline Won’t Go Forward if Russia Invades Ukraine
Yesterday, president Biden said Nord Stream 2 Pipeline Won’t Go Forward if Russia Invades Ukraine
“If Russia invades, that means tanks and troops crossing the border of Ukraine, again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will put an end to it,” Mr. Biden said at a joint appearance with Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany after the leaders met at the White House. “I promise you, we will be able to do it.”
Struggle For a United Front
The Financial Times says US and Germany struggle to present united front on Nord Stream 2
The FT reports Chancellor Scholz repeatedly dodged questions on the fate of the pipeline and refused to even mention it by name. Instead, he offered a generic assurance that “there won’t be any measures in which we have a differing approach” and said Russia would pay a “high price” for any attack.
Any Day Now
It’s been “any day now” for how many any days now? https://t.co/AYZXdnKXTv
— Mike “Mish” Shedlock (@MishGEA) February 7, 2022
Evidence US Won’t Share
Skepticism of government officials – especially when what they say is based on evidence they won’t share – is something the press corps needs to relearn over and over again, if they learn it at all. https://t.co/HOSU2L0qUS
— Dan Froomkin (PressWatchers.org) (@froomkin) February 4, 2022
Heated Exchange Between State Dept. & Media on Evidence Russia Fabricating Attacks by Ukraine
The US State Department claims Russia about to stage a “False Flag” incident to invade Russia.
A US media hero asks “where’s the evidence”.
US State Department: “One possible option the Russians are considering, and which we made public today, involves the production of a propaganda video – a video with graphic scenes of false explosions depicting corpses, crisis actors, mourners, and images of destroyed locations, entirely fabricated.”
Reporter “This is Alex Jones Territory. What evidence do you have that there is some propaganda film in the making?“
Please play the video, at least the first five minutes fore the claim and the reporter’s questions.
Olympian Calm in Ukraine
Finally, please consider the WSJ article Ukraine’s Zelensky Wants to Fend Off Russia—And America, Too
With Russian military forces gathering on three sides of Ukraine last month, advisers to President Volodymyr Zelensky urged a low-key response. His top national security adviser, in a cellphone call, counseled him with two words: “Olympian calm.”
The following day, Mr. Zelensky addressed the nation on television and said the threat of war was no greater than any other time since Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded portions of the country in 2014.
This is the tack chosen by Mr. Zelensky, a 44-year-old ex-comic with no political experience prior to his election, in his bid to fend off both Russian aggression as well as the American response it has kicked off.
Mr. Biden spoke by phone with Mr. Zelensky not long after the TV appearance to warn about the increased security threat from Russia, U.S. officials said. When Mr. Zelensky argued that the threat has been constant since 2014, Mr. Biden disagreed, the officials said. Russian troops were not far away in southern Belarus, the U.S. president noted, posing a potential game-changer.
Mr. Zelensky built a career on the Ukrainian and Russian comedy circuits. His role in a sitcom as an honest schoolteacher-turned-president propelled him to a landslide victory in the April 2019 election, where he ran as an outsider who would bring peace and uproot Ukraine’s corrupt political system.
Russia! Russia! Russia!
We’ve seen this “Boy Screams Wolf” movie before, many times: Vietnam, Syria, Iraq, Libya, and of course Russia allegedly costing Hillary the 2016 election.
There is no reason for anyone to believe the US State Department.
That is not the same as believing Russia. They are all a pack of liars.
This time the US state department wants us to believe Russia is creating “a video with graphic scenes of false explosions depicting corpses, crisis actors, mourners, and images of destroyed locations, entirely fabricated.”
Yes, this is Alex Jones territory.
Will Russia invade? Color me more than a bit skeptical. If Putin wanted to invade, I suggest he would have done so already. But yes, it’s possible.
Regardless, the US State Department hype is more than a bit over the top and grounds for huge skepticism in and of itself.
Where Does Germany Stand
Circling back to the top, Germany does not appreciate US meddling either.
As noted on January 29, 2022, The Battle for Europe Integration Has Failed and Russia Provides Proof
Germany and Russia are natural allies. Chancellor Olaf Scholz would rather the US mind its own business, and so would I.
The US cannot solve every global problem and should not even try. History provides proof: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya all come to mind.
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Mish
What the leadership of Europe must think of our recent presidents. I voted third party last pres election because Joe has been a long time chicken hawk war hawk and drug war warrior. He so far is almost as bad as Trump. He fired everybody in his cabinet that was honest about weed use in the past. He is a hypocrite. If he was a good president he would be honest about the origins of Covid, he would slap a pandemic profiteering tax on companies that made out like bandits during the pandemic aka Truman, he would legalize weed at the Fed level, and he would put a stop to all of the tech censorship. Instead his administration’s covering up data the origins of Covid and problems with the Covid vaccines has dropped trust in the gov to a new low. And his vaccine mandates are a new low. The guy is a big pharma, military industrial complex schill who does what his corporate donor masters tell him to do.
Perhaps we should fill in the back story a bit. In December 2021 Russia
sent to the US and Nato a list of demands in order to improve relations between
Russia and the West. The Demands were:
1) The Ukraine would never be a member of Nato
2) Nato remove any troops or weapons deployed to countries that
entered the alliance after 1997,
which would include much of eastern including Poland, the former Soviet
countries of Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and the Balkan countries
3) Russia has also demanded that Nato rule out further expansion and
that it does not hold drills without previous agreement in the Ukraine, Eastern
Europe, in Caucasus countries such as Georgia or in Central Asia.
4) The US would withdraw all nuclear weapons from Europe.
Needless to say that these demands are unacceptable on all levels and were
made to be rejected because it would mean a complete dismantlement of NATO and
the subservience of Europe to Russia.
Secondly we have Vladimir Putin himself published a long article on July
12, 2021 in which he justified to himself that the Ukraine is not separate from
Russia and that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only
in partnership with Russia.
In his words: link to en.kremlin.ru
Now we have Russia amassing 120,000 troops in circle around the Ukraine.
What is one to think? From what he says and does one can conclude that he wants
war or the fruits of war without war if possible but in any case he wants the
Ukraine. That is pretty evident and the problem for us is pretty clear too. Do
we resist or not and if we do then what type of resistance can we and should we
do? If we don’t resist then Nato becomes an empty alliance and some here would
love that. If we resist then we have a wide range of ways to resist that go to
direct intervention (unlikely because unnecessary) to arming the Ukrainians
enough to make a Russian invasion too bloody, expensive and uncertain for
Russia to manage. For the moment that is what we are doing. We will see if
Putin goes further.
“Demands are
cheap and tariffs” makes no sense in this area and the demands Trump made were negotiating points
and they were negotiated. Putin’s demands were made to be rejected because
giving into to them would have meant giving back to Russia all the countries
they had dominated under the old USSR and who had joined Nato for protection
specifically to avoid being dominated by Russia again. It would mean a renunciation
of Nato’s core principles and that is non-negotiable. Putin knows this and
still made those demands knowing fully well that we cannot comply with them in
any way. Yes the situation sucks and nobody is happy with it but it is there
before us. We tried hiding in the 1930’s. It didn’t work.
What is one to think?”
them until Russia got back on their feet and then give them back so
Russia could continue to dominate them as before?”