ZIONCONS

MICHAEL T. KLARE—The word “encirclement” does not appear in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), signed into law by President Joe Biden on December 27th, or in other recent administration statements about its foreign and military policies. Nor does that classic Cold War era term “containment” ever come up. Still, America’s top leaders have reached a consensus on a strategy to encircle and contain the latest great power, China, with hostile military alliances, thereby thwarting its rise to full superpower status.

The gigantic 2022 defense bill — passed with overwhelming support from both parties — provides a detailed blueprint for surrounding China with a potentially suffocating network of U.S. bases, military forces, and increasingly militarized partner states. The goal is to enable Washington to barricade that country’s military inside its own territory and potentially cripple its economy in any future crisis.

RUSSELL BENTLEY—The U.S. and Ukraine are secretly preparing for all-out war while advancing propaganda to make it appear that Russia is the aggressor. Diplomatic talks in Geneva by the U.S. and Russia have failed to alleviate tensions because the U.S. refused to adhere to Russia’s demand that Ukraine “never, never ever” become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman stated that the U.S. would “not allow anyone to slam closed NATO’s Open Door policy.”

Since the February 2014 Maidan coup—where worshippers of Nazi collaborators Stepan Bandera overthrew Ukraine’s democratically elected pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych—the U.S. has provided $2.5 billion in military aid to the Ukrainians, including $450 million in 2021 alone. (Since 2014, the EU has provided 17 billion euros to Kyiv!)

THE SAKER—There are no official results from the meeting in Geneva yet.  The US has promised to give the Russians an official answer in writing within a week.  The Russians have declared that they have explained the Russian position to their US counterparts in minute details, leaving no ambiguity.  According to Russian sources, the US position was a “diehard/stubborn” one.

THE SAKER—Sadly, I don’t see the Biden White House capable of riding out the hysterics of the War Party, if only because the War Party fully compensates what it lacks in common sense with a maniacal determination to prevail, if only because should “peace break out” they would lose their incomes.  I sure hope that I am wrong here, but it would take a quite charismatic leader to dare to openly take on the War Party (we all remember how the swamp quickly drained Trump rather than the other way around).

FINIAN CUNNINGHAM—All the signals point to an invasion by an emboldened Kiev regime of the breakaway Donbass region. The plight of the ethnic Russian population in the face of wanton aggression will bring strong political pressure on Moscow to intervene militarily.

However, the dutiful Western media will report this like a self-fulfilling prophesy and lay the blame on Russia for “violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity”. Putin will be denounced as Europe’s “new Hitler” along with other absurdities laundered as truth. More economic sanctions will be unleashed against Moscow and most likely the Nord Stream 2 gas project between Russia and the European Union will be axed as a matter of Brussels’s “solidarity” with oppressed Ukraine.