Transcript for 11/18/24: POLITICAL PURGATORY II – THE LYING AND THE DYING W/ SEAN PATRICK HAZLETT

After election defeats, political writers are quick to explain how the losses all added up and how mistakes are made. What usually is maybe a few days of analysis has now wound up to be weeks of throwing politicians under the bus. Pointing out the difference between a Trump win as opposed to a Democratic win is that Biden and his team are giving us the illusion that the transition of power will be peaceful and surrendered without contention.

Part of this illusion was the invitation for Trump to meet with Biden in the Oval Office. Amid the hollow smiles and handshaking Biden has said that his transition team is already set for a warm welcome to Trump at the White House. 

But as James Ponder and I reported last Thursday, we are now in a moment of political purgatory where in the weeks of transition there can be all sorts of political maneuvers that could leave Trump with a mess to clean up.

Days ago it was a conspiracy theory, that Biden would hand over World War III to Trump but apparently, it is no longer a conspiracy theory -- the gauntlet has been dropped, and the dinner that both Trump and Biden had didn't have time to digest before the neocons in Biden's shadowy group did what we all knew was coming.

Reports emerged on Sunday that the US finally approved Ukraine’s request to use long-range ATACMS missiles against targets inside of Russia’s pre-2014 borders, which was followed by other reports claiming that France and the UK then followed suit. 

President Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use powerful American long-range weapons for limited strikes inside Russia in response to North Korea’s deployment of thousands of troops to aid Moscow’s war effort--Both James Ponder and I knew it was going to happen -- but what wasn't known was how fast the move would be made.

The easing of restrictions on allowing Kyiv to use the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, to hit targets inside Russia is a significant reversal in U.S. policy and comes as some 10,000 elite North Korean troops have been sent to Kursk, a region of Russia along Ukraine’s northern border,

The move precedes by two months the return to the White House of President-elect Donald Trump, who has signaled he intends to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, though without offering details of how he will do so.

Now he has to deal with these shenanigans as the road to World War III is being paved over the bodies of the dead -- and so while Biden continues his lying -- the dead keep dying and I am sure there are a lot more surprises awaiting us on the road to Trump's presidency.

Until recently, the Biden administration was steadfastly opposed to Ukraine firing ATACMS into Russian territory, warning that the measure could lead to escalation by the Kremlin that was out of proportion to its battlefield benefits.

ATACMS — pronounced “attack-ems” — is a supersonic guided missile system that can be fitted with either cluster munitions or conventional warheads, with a maximum range of about 190 miles. Ukraine for months has sought permission to use the powerful missiles against Russian territory, arguing that the weapons would enable its strapped forces to strike deep in the country and hit targets that would degrade the Kremlin’s war machine.

Ukrainian President Zelensky today said: "There's a lot of talk in the media about us receiving permission for respective actions. But strikes are not carried out with words. Such things are not announced. Missiles will speak for themselves."

Unnamed US officials said Kiev plans to unleash its first long-range strikes in the coming days.

Zelensky ominously implied later that day that this could happen very soon. The reason why this is the moment of truth is because Putin earlier warned that it would amount to NATO’s direct involvement in the conflict.

The reason why the US only just now greenlit Ukraine’s request is that the outgoing ruling collective wants to create the conditions for ensuring that Trump either perpetuates or escalates the conflict. There was concern after his historic electoral victory that he’d completely cut Ukraine off of aid and thus hand Russia its desired maximum victory that would then lead to the US’ worst-ever strategic defeat.

In any case, what’s most important is how perceptions of those who are still in power shape their policy formulations, which in this example manifested themselves through granting Ukraine the use of Western long-range missiles despite Russia’s prior warnings. The whole point is to intensify the conflict over the next two months before Trump’s reinauguration so that he inherits a much more difficult situation than at present. This is expected to push him into adopting a more hawkish position on the conflict.

Realistically speaking, however, all that’ll likely happen between then and now is that Russia carries out more missile strikes against military targets in Ukraine. Nothing extraordinary like its speculative use of tactical nukes or bombing NATO is expected.

Russian President Putin - whose stalling war is almost at the three-year mark, previously warned that allowing Ukraine to fire Western-supplied weapons into Russia would drag NATO into direct conflict.

Moscow today insisted that the US has taken “a very big step towards the beginning of World War Three" in giving Ukraine the go-ahead.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov pointed to Putin’s earlier statements in St Petersburg when he indicated such a move could trigger a world war. 

He said: "We have, of course, paid attention to the relevant publications, which are without reference to any official sources.

"And here the position of our President, the position of the Russian side, was very clearly and unambiguously formulated by our Head of State in his statement that he made in St Petersburg.

"It says everything very clearly. I simply recommend that you read these words of the President once again."

Meanwhile, a Russian foreign minister added that any use of long-range missiles to attack its territory would constitute a "radical change" in the war provoking an "appropriate and tangible" response.

Putin previously warned: "This is their direct participation, and this already, of course, significantly changes the very essence, the very nature of the conflict.

"It will mean that Nato countries, the United States, European countries are at war with Russia."

Can we now see that the strategy that was predicted is meant to escalate the conflict and bring about a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO?

We knew that something was afoot when on November 5th, 2024, the Military conducted a test launch of a hypersonic nuclear missile hours after the polls closed.

They said the purpose of the test was to show the 'readiness of nuclear US forces' and provide 'confidence in the nation's nuclear deterrence' amid fears of the growing threat of the outbreak of World War III.

However, in the aftermath of the test. I think it is pretty obvious that the agenda of an all-out war would be used to test the nerve of the incoming President Trump.

Any attempt by Trump to stop U.S. military support for Ukraine will undoubtedly face fierce opposition from the pro-war forces in his own party, particularly in Congress, as well as perhaps the entirety of the Democratic party. 

Two years ago, 30 progressive Democrats in Congress wrote a letter to President Biden asking him to consider promoting negotiations for peace. The party higher-ups were so incensed by their lack of party discipline that they came down on the progressives like a ton of bricks. 

Within 24 hours, the group rescinded the letter. They have since all voted for money for Ukraine and have not uttered another word about negotiations.

So a Trump effort to cut funds to Ukraine could run up against a bipartisan congressional effort to keep the war going. And let’s not forget the efforts by European countries, and NATO, to keep the U.S. in the fight. Still, Trump could stand up to all these forces and push for a rational policy that would restart the talking and stop the killing.

Let us not forget the carnage that continues in the Middle East.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is already busy getting ready for a second Trump presidency. On the very day of the U.S. election, Netanyahu fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who opposed a lasting Israeli military occupation of Gaza and had at times argued for prioritizing the lives of the Israeli hostages over killing more Palestinians.

Israel Katz, the new defense minister and former foreign minister, is more hawkish than Gallant and has led a campaign to drag Iran into a major conflict -- just one more thing that will be left to President Trump to clean up.

So Netanyahu has deliberately surrounded himself with allies who back his ever-escalating war. They are surely developing a war plan to exploit Trump’s support for Israel, but will first use the unique opportunity of the U.S. transition of power to create facts on the ground that will limit Trump’s options when he takes office.

We will soon see if Trump can make progress in moving the Ukraine war toward negotiations, potentially saving the lives of many thousands of Ukrainians and Russians. But between the catastrophe that Trump will inherit and the Warhawks he is picking for his cabinet, peace in the world seems more distant than ever. 

Meanwhile, all over Europe, the alarm has been sounded for preparations in case of a large-scale attack.

Sweden and Finland have just published and updated their advice online on "preparing for incidents and crises" on how to manage on their own in the event of a war. In a section on military conflict, the digital brochure explains how the government would respond in the event of an armed attack - stating authorities are "well prepared for self-defense."

Finnish networking company Cinia claims that officials have detected a mysterious "fault" in the Cinia C-Lion1 submarine cable between Finland and Germany-- intelligence is saying that someone attempted to cut the communication cables.

The details of the cable attack are yet not known and are currently being investigated. Corrective measures have been initiated and the repair vessel is getting ready to go on the site. The exact repair time is not yet known, but typically the repair time for submarine cables is between 5 and 15 days.

Finland's international telecommunication connections are routed via multiple routes and the impact of a single cable failure depends on the resilience of the service providers' connections.

Last Thursday it was reported that there was a warning issued about terrorists that would probably attempt to cut communication cables between Europe and the United States. 

A little more than two years ago, in a similar area of the Baltic Sea, Russia's Nord Stream undersea pipeline feeding Germany NatGas exploded. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has stated that the US ordered the attack on the vital pipeline.

German authorities had reportedly issued a European arrest warrant in June for a Ukrainian national suspected of sabotaging the pipeline along with two others, using a yacht called Andromeda.

Russia however said the Ukrainian Navy had "neither the equipment nor the trained specialists to carry out a deep-sea terrorist attack", adding that "only special forces units of NATO countries could carry out sabotage of this scale."

Citing U.S. officials, CNN reported that Russia was developing a sabotage unit with submarines and drones to target underwater infrastructure by order of the defense ministry's Main Directorate for Deep-Sea Research.

It is obvious to me that President Biden wants the proxy war he and NATO have created to be Trump-proof so that the promise of ending the war will have to be ignored of postponed.

Or as his critics have said -- he would have to ignore Ukraine and appease Russia, which would harden the resolve of those who falsely believe that Trump is a puppet of Russia.

Allegations that Trump was a “puppet” of Russian President Vladimir Putin cast a pall over his entire first term as president, and there are no signs that his opponents have abandoned that tactic. 

It was an absurd accusation, since Trump’s policy toward Russia actually was more hardline than that of his predecessors. Not only did he ship arms to Ukraine (a step that Barack Obama had refused to take) but he engineered the U.S. withdrawal from two major arms control agreements (Open Skies and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) that Putin and other Russian leaders considered vital to their country’s security. The Trump administration also continued NATO’s provocative expansion into Eastern Europe despite the Kremlin’s escalating warnings about such unfriendly moves.

The notion that Trump was “soft” on Russia during his first term was (and remains) a destructive, highly politicized myth. Over the past four years, though, Trump and at least some supporters in Congress, the news media, and the foreign policy community seem to have gained an understanding that Washington’s current Russia policy has been disastrous and requires drastic reforms. It is less certain whether he will muster the courage to ignore the smears and make the necessary policy changes to begin repairing relations with Russia.

Ending the U.S./NATO proxy war that has cynically used Ukraine as a military tool to weaken Russia is a crucial initial step. Washington’s strategy has resulted in the deaths of thousands on both sides of the conflict. Moscow remains emphatic that Ukraine occupies a neutral status in Europe and not become an official or de facto member of NATO. 

That stance was an important component of the Kremlin’s policy long before Putin came to power.

Whatever the ultimate outcome of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, though, it should be determined by diplomacy between those two parties. 

The egregious meddling by the United States and the rest of NATO has created a bigger tragedy for all concerned. One of Donald Trump’s earliest actions as the 47th president should be to end Washington’s entanglement in the Ukraine-Russia war.

He has promised to do so -- but the Biden administration's efforts to sabotage that plan are obvious and as I said was just a conspiracy theory until it became obvious that the plan would be set in motion to draw in more countries to fight a war that sees no sign of ending,

I can also see That Trump is surrounding himself with hardliners-- which is curious.. perhaps he sees the future and realizes that he has to face the inevitable and that is to lead a broken country in the throes of an out-of-control war that was launched by his predecessor.

If Trump heeds the advice of his neocon Warhawk cabinet members, the US will be heading for disaster in several places at once.

Putin is averse to escalation since he sincerely fears everything spiraling out of control into World War III. Time and again, precedent proves that he’ll do his utmost to avoid that worst-case scenario as proven by his refusal to significantly escalate after Ukraine bombed the Kremlin, Russia’s early warning systems, strategic airfields, the Crimean Bridge, oil refineries, and residential areas, among its many other targets. There’s accordingly no reason to expect him to jump out of character and significantly escalate after this.

Having said that, sometimes even the most patient people snap, and it’s always possible that Putin might have enough and decide to do what many of his supporters have wanted from the get-go. This could take the form of replicating the US “shock and awe” bombing campaign, no longer caring about civilian casualties, and proverbially throwing the kitchen sink at Ukraine. In other words, Russia could take a page from Israel’s playbook as was explained here, which could raise the odds of a maximum victory.

If he stays the course and doesn’t escalate after Ukraine uses Western long-range missiles against targets inside of Russia’s pre-2014 borders, then that could be seen as yet another “goodwill gesture”, which would be aimed at making it easier for Trump to broker a peace deal. The trade-off though is that he might be convinced by some of the hawks around him into interpreting this as weakness, thus emboldening him to “escalate to de-escalate” and leading to serious opportunity costs for Russia.

In that event, it would have been better in hindsight for Russia to escalate just below the level of a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis, enough to advance as many of its interests as it can while also not going as far as to provoke an “overreaction” from the West that could lead to freezing the conflict pronto. It remains unclear what Putin will ultimately do, but whichever of these two choices he makes will determine the trajectory of this conflict from now on, either more escalation or a possible compromise.