Tuesday 1st of October 2024
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"tickets on themselves"

In the US media and in the writings of a number of political scientists, the decline of the role and influence of the United States in the world is increasingly recognised. However, Washington is still thinking in terms of the last century, believing that the whole world revolves only around itself, and that the ‘poor’ United States are being opposed by revisionist (i.e. refusing to live according to US ways) powers, such as China and Russia, and such ‘villains’ as Iran and DPRK even openly sabotage US policy. 

 

The US elites just cannot accept the changes in the world   Veniamin Popov 

 

It would seem that the incredible growth of the Chinese economy, which has overtaken the US one and confidently and rapidly continues to develop, the strengthening of other states – primarily the Russian Federation – as well as the more energetic activities of the states of the Global South to protect their own interests should have sobered US officials. The unipolar period of the world ended long ago, and now even the leaders of Western European states recognise that we live in a system of international relations that is characterised by multipolarity.

Sometimes one has to wonder with what arrogance US statesmen and public figures look at the world, tending to interpret the numerous miscalculations and failures of US foreign policy as malicious machinations of hostile states.

For example, according to the director of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, Condoleezza Rice, who at the beginning of the 21st century was both assistant to the President for National Security and Secretary of State of the United States (and during this period of the image of a pragmatic politician was being created for her), in an article published recently by the Foreign Affairs magazine, she concludes that existing problems “are complicated by Russia’s growing cooperation with China, Iran and North Korea. The four countries have a common goal: to undermine and replace the US-led international system that they hate”.

The article admits that “the United States is tempted to turn inward”, so it is titled «The Perils of Isolationism». The main idea is that the US should continue its interventionist course with only minor adjustments. Rice writes that “the United States is a different country now – exhausted by eight decades of international leadership, some of it successful and appreciated, and some of it dismissed as a failure. The American people are different, too – less confident in their institutions and in the viability of the American dream. Years of divisive rhetoric…have left Americans with a tattered sense of shared values”.

The US does not want to remove the uniform of the ‘global gendarme’

However, no matter what, Washington must continue its vector of pressure in international affairs, strive (as before) to isolate Russia and maintain that “China’s behaviour is unacceptable”. “Never again should Washington unfreeze Iranian assets as the Biden administration did”.

According to Rice, in order to ensure an internationalist foreign policy, in other words ensuring Washington’s dictate and interference, the president must paint a vivid picture of what this world would be like without an active United States, i.e. without US leadership. In this case, we all face chaos and disorder. Only the United States is capable of ensuring the future development of mankind, since “great-power DNA is still very much in the American genome”. Recognising that Americans have seriously exhausted their capabilities in the outside world, Rice ignores and does not mention the possibility of reaching compromise and solutions based on taking into account the interests of other parties; it is only about the US imposing its views and its decisions, it simply cannot suggest other options.

Unfortunately, such a black-and-white vision of the world is still very typical for most US political scientists. They cannot break free from the uniform of the world gendarme in any way. Even the biggest failures in foreign policy in recent years have not taught them anything.

 

Veniamin Popov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Candidate of Historical Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook“

 

https://journal-neo.su/2024/08/29/the-us-elites-just-cannot-accept-the-changes-in-the-world/

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

tickets: to have tickets on yourself

To have an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or value; to be conceited. The evidence for this phrase dates from 1904. It became popular around the time of the First World War, and increasingly so into the 1920s and 30s. The original meaning of the word ticket is uncertain, but it probably refers to betting tickets (a person is so confident in their ability that they would bet on himself or herself). Other suggestions have included raffle tickets, price tags (especially the kind that used to be displayed on the outfit of mannequins in shop windows), or prize ribbons awarded at agricultural shows.

1945 Townsville Daily Bulletin 28 November: Entered a haughty lady with enough rings on her fingers to open a jeweller's shop. One glance convinced me she had ‘tickets on herself’, and in her own mind believed she was superior to the others in the compartment.

2001 Australian (Sydney) 26 September: Freeman is often portrayed as a shy, humble athlete, but she professed the opposite to be true. ‘I think I have always had the overwhelming audacity to believe I could win. I always had tickets on myself, I just didn't speak about it publicly’, she said.

sanity professionals....

MEMORANDUM TO: The Candidates for U.S. Vice President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: Clarity on Ukraine

At Tuesday’s debate, we strongly suggest you avoid repeating familiar “facts” that do not bear close scrutiny. Chief among these is the claim that Russia’s decision to send troops into Ukraine was “unprovoked”. A companion is the claim that Russia will not stop in Ukraine and that Poland will be “next”.

A constructive debate needs to be informed by accurate facts; we offer some below:

Unprovoked

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg inadvertently gave the game away on Ukraine during a speech at the European Parliament on Oct. 7, 2023, with these words:

“He [Putin] wanted us never to enlarge NATO…We rejected that…So he went to war to prevent more NATO.”

Reaching farther back, we remind you that on Feb. 1, 2008 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told then-U.S. Ambassador William Burns in no uncertain terms that Russia would be provoked if NATO invited Ukraine to become a member.

Burns titled the embassy cable #08MOSCOW265, sent immediately to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: 

“NYET MEANS NYET: RUSSIA’S NATO ENLARGEMENT REDLINES.”

Nevertheless, Bush and Cheney scorned that warning and just two months later successfully pressed other NATO leaders to agree, in the NATO Summit Declaration of April 3, 2008, that Ukraine “will become a member of NATO.”

You will probably recall that earlier still, on Feb. 9, 1990, Secretary of State James Baker successfully persuaded Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to accept reunification of Germany in return for an undertaking by the U.S. not to expand NATO “one inch eastward.”

Since then NATO has more than doubled in size, with all new members east of what had been East Germany.

Coup d’ Etat, Kyiv, Feb. 2014

The coup in Kiev, appropriately known as the “most blatant coup in history” – drove out duly elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and turned the issue of Ukraine joining NATO into a very live issue. The coup government, which was given official U.S. recognition in record time, immediately called for NATO membership

Crimea was the first big fly in the ointment. By an accident of history Crimea, traditionally part of Russia, had been ceded to Ukraine by Soviet fiat (ukaz) in 1954. It hardly mattered then because Ukraine was a constituent Republic of the USSR.

After the USSR fell apart in 1991, and after the 2014 coup leaders declared NATO membership as a main goal, it mattered greatly.

Crimea’s strategic significance to Russia cannot be understated. Suffice it to point out here that Russia’s only ice-free naval base is in Crimea. That’s why a quick plebiscite was held; the vote was overwhelming in favor of annexation by Russia; and that was speedily accomplished.

This too was branded “unprovoked” by the likes of Sen. John McCain. The Establishment media were obfuscating this issue to such an extent that one of us was provoked into sending a letter to the editor of The Washington Post, published on July 1, 2015:

“Sen. John McCain was wrong to write that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea without provocation. What about the coup in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, that replaced President Viktor Yanukovych with pro-Western leaders favoring membership in NATO? Was that not provocation enough?

This glaring omission is common in the Post. 

The March 10 World Digest item ‘Putin had early plan to annex Crimea’ described a “secret meeting” Mr. Putin held on Feb. 23, 2014, during which ‘Russia decided it would take the Crimean Peninsula.’ No mention was made of the coup the previous day. …”

‘Poland Is Next’

During his debate with Donald Trump, President Joe Biden claimed that Putin “wants all of Ukraine. … Do you think he’ll stop? … What do you think happens to Poland and other places?” Vice President Kamala Harris has posed the same question.

The following facts should not come as a surprise. Official Ukrainian sources have long since confirmed that Putin did stop in March 2022, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to forswear membership in NATO.

This was the key provision in the Ukraine-Russia deal initialed by Davyd Arakhamia, who at the time was Zelensky’s chief negotiator at the talks in Istanbul at the end of March 2022, hardly a month into the war. 

Ukraine agreed to become neutral and the Russians lifted their objection to Ukraine joining the EU. Security guarantees sought by Kyiv (short of NATO membership) would be worked out. The fighting would stop. Agreement on the status of Crimea would be put off to the future.

Arakhamia was so outspokenly disappointed by this outcome, that The New York Times was forced to carry the story, replete with the texts of various treaty drafts that it had been keeping under wraps. (That was more than three months ago. Better late than never, we suppose.)

Accordingly, it is not quite right to warn that “Putin won’t stop” after Ukraine, when it is “flat fact” that he already did stop barely seven weeks after hostilities started. You are probably aware that it was the U.S. and U.K., courtesy of former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, that put an end to the talks and the draft treaty, and told President Volodymyr Zelensky to fight on. 

Former Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has admitted, with a smirk, that she and Boris “encouraged” Zelensky to scuttle the deal.

These are just some of the facts that should be honored in a truthful debate. We shall be happy to answer any questions either of you may have.

 

FOR THE STEERING GROUP —

VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY

  •  Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer (ret) and former Office     Director in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research

  • Bogdan Dzakovic, former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security, (ret.) (associate VIPS)

  • Graham E. Fuller, Vice-Chair, National Intelligence Council (ret.)

  • Philip Giraldi, C.I.A., Operations Officer (ret.)

  • James George Jatras, former U.S. diplomat and former foreign policy       adviser to Senate leadership (Associate VIPS)

  • Larry C. Johnson, former C.I.A. and State Department Counter Terrorism officer

  • John Kiriakou, former C.I.A. Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

  • Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., U.S. Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003

  • Douglas Macgregor, Colonel, USA (ret.) (associate VIPS)

  • Ray McGovern, former U.S. Army infantry/intelligence officer & C.I.A. analyst; C.I.A. Presidential briefer (ret.)

  • Pedro Israel Orta, former C.I.A. and Intelligence Community (Inspector General) officer

  • Scott Ritter, former MAJ, USMC; former U.N. Weapons Inspector, Iraq

  • Coleen Rowley, F.B.I. Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.) 

  • Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)

  • Ann Wright, retired U.S. Army reserve colonel and former U.S. diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq War

  • https://consortiumnews.com/2024/09/30/vips-memo-advice-to-us-vice-presidential-candidates/

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.