While we have been distracted by the collapse of the two party system in this country, held in sick fascination by the Republican side show, Ted Cruz and the snake people, the world apparently refused to stop. Isn't there a rule that they aren't supposed to do anything significant until we let them know we are ready? After all . . .
I certainly had a rude awakening that things have somehow changed. This past week may have been the turning point internationally when the reigns slipped from the hands of god's chosen nation. They actually slipped from our hands back sometime during the second Bush regime but like the Wiley Coyote we have been frantically going through the motions unaware that the ground is gone. This awakening for me was a one, two punch delivered by the bear riding Putin in a speech almost totally ignored in the US and Great Britain and a brutal article by Peter Van Buren explaining the complete lack of US policy in any way connected to reality in the Middle East. Descend below the squiggle for links to the two pieces that we are desperately trying to ignore . . .
While initially there was no coverage of the Valdai Club meeting at which Putin spoke it quickly became obvious that this couldn't be ignored. Particularly when the Financial Times and others began calling this the most important speech since Churchill's Iron Curtain speech of 1946. The reaction in the US has been escalating at the magnitude of the potential damage to the fantasy land we have come to inhabit.
This is really too important to summarize and the viciousness of the attacks on Putin will quickly make it difficult and dangerous to try to summarize. Whatever else you can say about Vladimir Putin he certainly blew the rules of the game up in everyone's face. Here is the link to official transcript of the speech:
The second blow was not so new or shocking but takes on added meaning when seen in its full imaginary splendor.
What Could Possibly Go Right?
Four Months into Iraq War 3.0, the Cracks Are Showing -- on the Battlefield and at the Pentagon
By Peter Van Buren
Karl von Clausewitz, the famed Prussian military thinker, is best known for his aphorism “War is the continuation of state policy by other means.” But what happens to a war in the absence of coherent state policy?
Actually, we now know. Washington’s Iraq War 3.0, Operation Inherent Resolve, is what happens. In its early stages, I asked sarcastically, “What could possibly go wrong?” As the mission enters its fourth month, the answer to that question is already grimly clear: just about everything. It may be time to ask, in all seriousness: What could possibly go right?
I think things are coming to a head and we may have completely lost control . . .