The Madness of America’s Ruling Class

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October 11, 2022

The ruling class has failed immensely.  The last two years are proof, but with each passing day, one wonders: Are America’s elites plunging into madness?  That’s a dead serious question.  With their madness may go our lives.  That’s dead serious, too.

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Joe Biden spoke the other day about the possibility of nuclear “Armageddon.”  With cataclysm in mind, Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services spent $290 million on anti-radiation drugs.  Uncle Sam makes plenty of wasteful expenditures, but is this one?    

Said our doddering president, AP, October 7:

Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser, Biden said Thursday night that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “a guy I know fairly well” and the Russian leader is “not joking when he talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons.”    

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Is Biden sounding the alarm to try to rally Americans and stave off midterm election losses for congressional Democrats?  Crass politics from Biden wouldn’t surprise, yet… 

Jordan Schachtel, writing at The Dossier on Substack, says that Volodymyr Zelensky’s call to bomb Russia (now being walked back by the Ukrainian government) has no support from NATO. 

But what if a direct attack on Russia isn’t what ignites major conflict with the Russians?      

Retired General Jack Keane, a regular on Fox News programs, appeared on “Fox & Friends” last Friday.  Keane is a war hawk.  He’s pushed for a more aggressive U.S. military posture in Ukraine since the Russian invasion. 

Keane said that if Putin uses tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the U.S. would have to respond.  No other choice.  Not in kind, mind you, but conventionally with a “comprehensive air and military attack” inside Ukraine.  The aim would be to destroy the Russian army there.  Putin loses, says Keane.  But what he omits matters greatly.

If the U.S. strikes at the Russians in Ukraine, what assurance does Keane have that the war stays there, particularly if the U.S. is trying to annihilate the Russian army?  There’s no risk of Putin expanding the war throughout Europe and to the U.S.?  Russian missiles can’t reach America?  Russian saboteurs can’t, for example, enter the U.S. — if they aren’t here already — and wreak havoc?  Maybe take out power grids? 

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If Putin loses his army in Ukraine, his regime likely collapses.  That’s what the ruling class wants.  What that destabilization does to Russia and how that may adversely impact the rest of the world isn’t discussed. 

Hillary Clinton and NATO grandees had no problem engineering Moammar Qaddafi’s killing.  Libya has been torn by strife ever since.  Acknowledging the possible consequences of destabilizing Putin’s regime may only make Americans more wary of being dragged into conflict.     

If Putin is a goner, what does he have to lose by broadening the war?  Why would the Biden administration gamble by attacking the Russian army in Ukraine? 

Keane was never asked those questions by Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade.  Regardless, there’s an underlying conceit about wanting to topple Putin.  The conceit: war will be contained to Ukraine.  A desperate Vladimir Putin would never escalate the conflict.  Why worry?  Yet two nations armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons have never warred.  American military engagement in Ukraine is fraught with many perils.  Disaster spreading well beyond Ukraine’s borders is realistic.  If not, why buy hundreds of millions of dollars in anti-radiation meds?            

Some say Putin’s back is to the wall, or near enough.  The war hasn’t resolved as he hoped.  Yet, one must account for the fog of war and propaganda, which makes war foggier. 

Putin has announced the annexation of Ukrainian territory: Luhansk and Donetsk (republics) and two areas in southern Ukraine, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.  All are under Russian control.  The spin that Putin is losing may just be spin.  Col. Douglas Macgregor, a dissenting voice and a regular guest on Tucker Carlson’s show, thinks so.  

Who trusts “U.S. intelligence sources” (Deep State) and corporate media anymore?  We hear that American intelligence is backdooring Russian generals.  Putin is hamstrung, unable to unilaterally use nuclear weapons.  We’re to believe this based on unidentified sources? 

Having been misled by U.S. intelligence about “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq and given virtually no heads up about the looming defeat in Afghanistan last year, we shouldn’t be skeptical? 

Biden speaks casually of Armageddon.  Armageddon because of a localized conflict.  Let that sink in.  A war where no vital American interest is at risk.  A war that’s limited to Ukraine and poses no threat to the homeland.  A war, though, that the ruling class and military-industrial complex conflates with U.S. security. 

Why?  Because of mindsets that are trapped in the Cold War.  Why?  Because Democrats have made Russia a whipping boy.  Democrats, who pawn off lies about Trump’s collusion with Russia to fix U.S. elections (Democrats don’t need Russians for that).  Why?  Because conflict is how the war industry ups profits.   

A war that apologists for increased American and NATO military engagement have claimed is required to “protect democracy.”  That’s a dubious claim, given that democracy and our rights are under assault here.  Dubious because of Ukraine’s extensive corruption and checkered history with democracy. 

Are we ready to sacrifice our sons and daughters for an abstraction?  Do we dare court bringing destruction to our shores?  Innocent American blood must be spilled to “make the world safe for democracy?”  Is Ukraine really the hill that Lord knows how many Americans must die on?   

When will we as a nation jettison Wilsonian sanctimony for a return to Washingtonian sensibility?  Our military is for defense; it’s not a galivanting righter of wrongs.  We haven’t enough challenges at home?  Our cities are increasingly lawless.  Big, Democrat-run cities might as well be called war zones.  We don’t have a border that’s been blown wide open by Biden administration policy? 

If our military is to engage, deploy it along the U.S.-Mexican border — or what’s rumored to be a border.  That’s where the real threat to America’s welfare and security lies.  4.5 million illegals have entered our country, bringing crime, fentanyl, illness, and poverty.  Cartels menace.  More “migrants” come daily.  And who knows how many enemy agents are among the diaspora?    

Edging toward war with Russia is eerily reminiscent of World War I’s beginning, though this time substitute Ukraine for Serbia.  History may not repeat itself, but it can approximate. 

Anyone with a basic understanding of WWI knows that it was pure folly.  It squandered tens of millions of lives and devastated Western and Central Europe — without nuclear weapons.  It gave rise to communist Russia, opened the way for fascism, spawned WWII, and finished with the Cold War.  Austria needn’t have attacked Serbia because of the assassinations of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie.  Redress there had to be, but Austria’s aggression set off a chain reaction. 

The Germans, Russians, French, and English could have pushed for restraint… could have sought to mediate, insisting that Gavrilo Princip and his fellow conspirators be dealt swift justice while keeping Serbia free from Austrian reprisals.  Yet, the great powers followed their respective allies into war, automatically.  WWI set in motion the decline of Europe, a decline that continues. 

Do we hear calls among the ruling class for American diplomacy to end hostilities in Ukraine?  Where are the peacemakers?  Ending hostilities would entail recognizing Russia’s legitimate security concerns (NATO advancing again to Russia’s border) and acceptance that Ukraine be nonaligned, though free from Russian domination.         

There are certainly no calls for diplomacy and peaceful resolutions in Washington, D.C.  Not from the Biden administration, not from Congress, not from mainline defense and foreign policy thinktanks.  Not in corporate media.  Instead, relentless belligerence.  A march toward war is their way. 

Madness?  You bet.  If the madness isn’t checked, it’s we the American people who’ll pay a most horrific price.

J. Robert Smith can be found regularly at Gab @JRobertSmith.  He also blogs at Flyover.                

Image: Charlotte Amelie, Library of Congress

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