Tom's Blog on Life

Completely underplayed in a previous post on Ukraine was a statement by US policy makers of a suppressive purpose that has influenced US international relations for the past 75 years.

US imperial planner, George Kennan, an architect of the first cold war, wrote in 1948, “Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.”

Instead of using its power to lift the survival potential of the population in other countries up to the level of the US, the stated aim was to maintain the disparity, to keep others down.

No wonder some regard the powers behind the US government as the principle terrorist organisation on the planet!

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1948v01p2/d4

On February 16, 2022, a full week before Putin sent combat troops into Ukraine, the Ukrainian Army began the heavy bombardment of the area (in east Ukraine) occupied by mainly ethnic Russians. …the bombardment dramatically intensified as the week went on until it reached a peak on February 19, when a total of 2,026 artillery strikes were recorded. Keep in mind, the Ukrainian Army was, in fact, shelling civilian areas along the Line of Contact that were occupied by other Ukrainians.

…What their data shows is that Ukrainian Forces were bombing and killing their own people. This has all been documented and has not been challenged.

So, the question we must all ask ourselves is this: Is the bombardment and slaughter of one’s own people an ‘act of war’?

We think it is. And if we are right, then we must logically assume that the war began before the Russian invasion (which was launched a full week later) We must also assume that Russia’s alleged “unprovoked aggression” was not unprovoked at all but was the appropriate humanitarian response to the deliberate killing of civilians. In order to argue that the Russian invasion was ‘not provoked’, we would have to say that firing over 4,000 artillery shells into towns and neighborhoods where women and children live, is not a provocation? Who will defend that point of view?

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/whitney-setting-record-straight-stuff-you-should-know-about-ukraine

(Tom: This is a stellar example of situational awareness. It was a post on Quora.com, one of the social media sites of which I am a member. You can post questions and other members will post answers.

1. You cannot be this aware when you are drunk or stoned. Hence I do not drink or do drugs.

2. You cannot be as aware of your present time environment if your attention is hung up on past losses and upsets. I have read that the average person has 70% of their available attention units stuck in the past and only 30% available to them in present time. This is why I have devoted a good portion of my life to recovering attention units from past mistakes and failures.

3. You cannot be this aware of a natural environment if your total experience of life is digital.

It takes knowledge of an ideal or normal scene, accurate observation of the existing scene, analytical comparison of the two, certainty of your observation, intelligence to conceive of a handling, decisiveness and personal integrity to follow through on a survival plan despite objections.)

The Post On Quora:

Have you ever had a really bad feeling about a place, and immediately abandoned what you were doing, and got the hell out of there? Tell us about it.

My Grandfather in 1959.

He was with a group planning to camp in Yellowstone park. They had no sooner started to set up camp then he demanded, in his loudest, most demanding German fashion, they leave. They did.

That night the earthquake hit. The entire campground was buried. Where he was camped, there were no survivors.

The friends and family he was with grumbled all night about his irrational behavior. He made them drive for several hours before stopping. They felt the ground shake, but had no idea how bad it was until they heard the news reports.

The following day, they no longer grumbled.

Grandpa said it “felt bad,” he then noticed “a wrong silence” and the complete absence of birds. He also said there were no ants on the ground.