For those who have been avoiding the news, people are freaking out about things suddenly being detected in the skies. Ross Douthat of all people had to weigh in, and of course he put a very Douthatian spin on it.
Sometime very soon, one hopes, the Biden administration will attempt to explain to the American people what they think our fighters shot down over Lake Huron and northern Canada and off Alaska, be they balloons or drones or something somewhat stranger. If that happens, we will take a meaningful step toward solving a longstanding, conspiracy-shadowed mystery: What, exactly, are all the unidentified flying objects — sorry, sorry — unidentified aerial phenomena that our military keeps encountering in the skyfields above planet Earth?
Or will they tell us?
...This would fit one of the patterns of our era, which is what you might call the incomplete reveal. Sometimes a phenomenon goes from being the subject of crank theories and sub rosa conversations to being more mainstream, but without actually being fully explained or figured out. Or sometimes a controversy takes center stage for a little while, a great deal seems to hang upon the answer, and then it isn’t resolved and seems to get forgotten. What’s at stake in these kinds of cases isn’t a conspiracy theory (though they may give rise to them) but a question or a secret — something that’s acknowledged to matter, that’s theoretically knowable, but that slips away from reach.
Douthat goes on to talk about more things he’d like explained: who blew up the Nordstream pipeline, what were Jeffrey Epstein’s secrets, did Coronavirus leak out of a Chinese Lab, what’s the real story about Brett Kavanaugh — Christine Blasey Ford?
Personally, I’d rather find out A) why Douthat still has a job at the Times, and B) why Trump isn’t wearing an orange jumpsuit yet, but that’s just me. Oh, and maybe just what is the deal between Jared and the Saudis?
But I digress.
Kos has been covering the tankie movement and their universal theory of everything: it can all be traced back to American Imperialism.
Caitlin Johnstone has suspicions about what’s really going on in the skies.
...I remain open to all possibilities, from mundane balloons, to a sudden increase in interest in aerial objects that have long been common, to U.S. government psyop, to lightbulb-headed visitors from the great unknown.
While I may not know what these UFOs are, I do know what they will be used for.
...It is a very safe bet that whatever the U.S. government determines these objects to be, the response to that determination will feature increased militarism and the advancement of pre-existing Pentagon agendas.
We’re already seeing Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna using the UFO incidents to argue for sanctions on China and to accuse Beijing of “cyber warfare”, and Republicans are already claiming that the threat of Chinese spy balloons means there can be no cuts to military spending.
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Yup — it’s all about getting ready for war with China.
...For the imperial swamp the answer is always more militarism; it doesn’t matter what the question is. Whether they decide these UFOs are a foreign threat or something unknown or something else entirely, the solution funneled through the U.S. empire’s groupthink apparatus will entail more military spending and more weapons of war.
And again I remain open to all possibilities, but I do find it very interesting that we’re seeing completely unprecedented activity in North American skies which is certain to lead to more U.S. military expansionism at the exact same time the U.S. prepares its “great power competition” against China and the governments aligned with it.
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Johnstone has also recently laid out how US imperialism sabotaged peace talks in Ukraine.
...[Former Israeli Prime Minister] Bennett is about as unsavory a character as exists in the world today, but Israel’s complicated relationship with this war lends itself to the occasional release of information not fully in alignment with the official imperial line. And his comments here only add to a pile of information that’s been coming out for months which says the same thing, not just regarding the sabotage of peace talks in March but in April as well.
In May of last year Ukrainian media reported that then-British prime minister Boris Johnson had flown to Kiev the previous month to pass on the message on behalf of the western empire that “Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with,” and that “even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not.”
In April of last year, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that “there are those within the NATO member states that want the war to continue, let the war continue and Russia gets weaker.”
Shortly thereafter, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that the goal in Ukraine is “to see Russia weakened.”
...In March of last year Bloomberg’s Niall Ferguson reported that sources in the U.S. and U.K. governments had told him the real goal of Western powers in this conflict is not to negotiate peace or end the war quickly, but to prolong it in order “bleed Putin” and achieve regime change in Moscow. Ferguson wrote that he has reached the conclusion that “the U.S. intends to keep this war going,” and says he has other sources to corroborate this:
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See? The basic conflict in Ukraine could easily have been settled months ago. Never mind the naked aggression, the war crimes, the territory seized, the civilian casualties or all the rest of it. It’s the U.S. that’s keeping it all going.
Not to worry though. An anti-war protest scheduled for February 19 will bring an end to the war — and if it doesn’t, that just shows that things can still get done despite the power of the imperial military industrial complex. Diana Johnstone helpfully explains how it will succeed even if it doesn’t.
A bunch of people who disagree with each other on a lot of things have actually gotten together to organize a big antiwar rally in Washington next Sunday. I say, Bravo!
In a nation as divided as the United States is today, a large rally of people who agree with each other on everything is hardly imaginable.
A rally by people who disagree with each other gives hope that a movement to stop war can grow, and even shake the political system paralyzed by the military industrial congressional complex and confusion spread by its servile media.
Abroad, the United States has exploited deep political enmities to provoke a war in Ukraine intended to split Europe definitively, cutting Russia off totally from Germany and the EU, cementing permanent U.S. control of Western Europe.
This divisive policy is pursued in all sorts of sneaky ways that make it hard to uncover and explain. The war in Ukraine creates division between those who have understood what it’s all about and those who haven’t. A large movement is needed to spread discussion, understanding and opposition.
While supporting the war machine’s foreign policy of divide and rule, in recent years the American political class has also fostered internal divisions to an unprecedented extent — some of them real, some of them more or less artificial.
The degree of internal animosity echoes the international hatred fostered by U.S. President Joe Biden’s geopolitical mindset. WE are the GOOD (democracy), THEY are BAD (not communism any more, rather, “autocracy”).
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And China and Russia are innocent parties who just happen to be in our Imperial way. Read the rest of Diana Johnstone’s commentary to find out why she still thinks it’s a good thing that groups antithetical to her other beliefs are coming together for the rally.
Ross Douthat really needs to talk to both Johnstones here. Between them, they should be able to explain all the things that puzzle him.
UPDATE: Richard Fedder has an issue with what he sees as a growing anti-anti-imperialism tone at Daily Kos. He’s not wrong to have concerns, so I’ve taken time to address them here in comments.