Author: Rick Rozoff

A piece was published in the Erie Times News of Pennsylvania with the title: Putin plans to crush liberty in Ukraine. Free World must unite to stop him.

It is attributed to four Congresspersons: Brian Fitzpatrick (Pennsylvania), Andy Harris (Maryland), Marcy Kaptur (Ohio) and Mike Quigley (Illinois). The first two are Republicans, the other two Democrats, for all the difference it makes.

Quigley represents a district right south of the one I live in. His seat was formerly occupied by Dan Rostenkowski, who was involved in a franking scandal with the U.S. Post Office; later by Rod Blagojevich, who in his later capacity of governor of Illinois went to prison for allegedly attempting to sell recently inaugurated President Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder; then by Rahm Emanuel before he became the chief of staff for Obama in his first term in the White House. (Blagojevich’s attorneys complained that they weren’t allowed to introduce a tape of a telephone conversation between their client and Emanuel, then White House chief of staff, on the above transaction during their client’s trial. The implication was that the tape would exonerate Blagojevich, perhaps by demonstrating that the White House was in on the aborted auctioning of a sitting president’s Senate seat.) As you can see, American officeholders have distinct notions about transparent and honest government to pass onto their Ukrainian counterparts.

Continue reading “Who Russian Officials Believe They Can Negotiate With”

A TASS report follows commentary.

This is a serious issue, perhaps the most serious of issues in Europe, but coming as it does immediately on the heels of Russia’s prior list of demands being resolutely rejected by the U.S. and NATO yesterday, the prospects of Washington and Brussels positively responding to this one either don’t appear good.

See: Stoltenberg address and what it means for world peace

On the issue of joint nuclear drills and five European NATO nations hosting U.S. B61 tactical nuclear bombs, the following excerpts are from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Article I:
Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly….

Continue reading “Russia Calls on US To Withdraw Nuclear Weapons From Europe, Cease Joint Nuclear Drills With Non-Nuclear Allies”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has just finished his address and virtual press conference on NATO and the U.S. State Department separately presenting their written responses to Russia’s security demands of the past couple months.

The Russian demands include a pledge for NATO not to admit Georgia and Ukraine, both which border Russia, into the military alliance, to guarantee that the US and NATO not base missiles in Ukraine within a few minutes’ striking distance of Moscow, and to withdraw forces and military equipment from some of the fourteen Eastern European nations brought into NATO since 1999. Those are reported to have been Russia’s demands. But there has been a disturbing lack of transparency on both sides.

The State Department has insisted that Russia not release or divulge the contents of the response it delivered to Russia within the past two hours, and today Russian government news media report that Russia has agreed to that stipulation.

It is highly significant that the American ambassador to Russia delivered the US response to the Kremlin late at night Russian time (the delivery wasn’t confirmed until that time at least), as it is that the NATO secretary general was the first Western official to publicly speak about the US and NATO responses, although he spoke at night Belgium time, whereas it was the middle of the workday for Secretary of State Antony Blinken and President Joe Biden.

Continue reading “Stoltenberg Address and What It Means for World Peace”

For years Western governments, their loyal oppositions and their servile (and controlled) news media have portrayed the Russian government of President Vladimir Putin as irrationally hostile toward NATO, often contrasting his alleged behavior to that of his predecessor Boris Yeltsin.

The above characterization of Putin is inaccurate. He didn’t say much if anything about the unprecedented NATO expansion in 2004, when seven nations – Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia – were incorporated into the military bloc. Six of those were formerly in the Warsaw Pact and three of them former republics of the Soviet Union which now border Russian territory.

When Putin was prime minister in 2010 President Dmitry Medvedev attended the NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal, the first time any Soviet or Russian head of state had done so.

Continue reading “Putin in 2022 and Yeltsin in 1999”

From former advisor Suzanne Massie, former Assistant Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts, former budget director David Stockman and former White House Communications Director Patrick Buchanan.

When former Reagan officials oppose U.S. and NATO preparations for war with Russia and even the most (nominally) progressive members of the House and Senate don’t, it’s a telling indication of how politics have developed in the US in the post-Cold War era.

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Panic over ‘war with Russia’ strong in US, Biden cannot stop it, Reagan’s advisor says
Suzanne Massie noted that she did not believe that peace was impossible with Russians

The panic over the allegedly possible “war with Russia” in the US is now particularly strong because US President Joe Biden is not capable of stopping it. That said, it’s only a small group of people escalating this panic while the general public has no desire for a conflict, according to ex-advisor to US President Ronald Reagan Suzanne Massie.

Continue reading “Former Reagan Officials Denounce US-NATO War Plans”

Interfax-Ukraine reported that the Danish ambassador to Ukraine paid a two-day visit to the front line of his host country’s war in the Donbass region. The press report phrased its account of the event like this: “On July 19-20, a delegation of the Kingdom of Denmark, led by Ambassador Ole Egberg Mikkelsen, visited the area of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO), and also met with representatives of Luhansk Regional Military-Civil Administration.” On the latter score, that is the part of Lugansk still under control of the Ukrainian government.

The Danish delegation, for all the world as though its members were military attachés, or military advisors, met with Deputy Commander of the Joint Forces Eduard Moskaliov and toured an observation post of a Ukrainian armed forces unit that is assigned to the Joint Forces Operation, until recently the Anti-Terrorist Operation. (National Anti-Terrorist Operation would have provided a more accurate acronym.)

Continue reading “Ukrainian Conscripts Kill Kin To Preserve Monarchy in Europe”