Pete Hendrickson (@LostHorizons)

Cutting Through The Mind-Numbing War-Monger Drumbeat ...along with a salute to Greg Abbott of Texas, who, as is his occasional wont, did a very good thing last week; some housekeeping notes; and an early appearance of the Irish Letter. I'M GOING TO BEGIN TODAY WITH THE EVENTS IN UKRAINE, the discussion of which, due to the efforts of war enthusiasts to poison the atmosphere against contrary views, might require frequently-repeated denials of being a Putin supporter or apologist throughout since what I have to say about it all is going to cut deeply against the narratives being churned out by Western media and officialdom. I ask you to simply assume and insert those denials as needed, so as to minimize what otherwise would be quite tedious for both of us. I also ask you to remember that the folks I will be contradicting are the same folks that assured you it would just be "two weeks to flatten the curve" and served up all the other bs and associated dissent-repression that has followed for lo, these past two years and more. That says all that should need be said on the matter of whose motivations should be considered suspect. NOW, DISCLAIMER DULY ISSUED, let's dive into the deep end: The Russian invasion is NOT unprovoked. Though it is now as memory-holed (and/or spun) fact as the court-stenographer-and-propaganda-engine Western media can make it, in 2014 the Obama administration engineered a coup in Ukraine, turning that country into a direct security threat-- both technically and viscerally-- to Russia. The Russia-friendly, democratically-elected government of Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown by a violent mob of Ukrainian Nazis, fueled and guided by United States operatives with a $5 billion budget. In its place these operatives installed an unelected nest of rabid Russia-haters of and from Ukrainian collaborators with the German Nazi army (see https://www.thenation.com/article/world/blinken-holocaust-ukraine/) which used Ukraine as a corridor in its invasion of Russia during World War II and left millions of dead Russians in its wake-- in fact, ~20 million-- and eager to become a home for NATO missiles 250 miles from Moscow. Happily, the US-engineered coup is beyond dispute, as much as the presstitute media attempts to suggest otherwise by ignoring or pooh-poohing it: In a(n unfortunately) rare instance of such covert or heavily-spun malefaction being proven by hard evidence, a telephone call between US State Department operative Victoria Nuland and Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt was intercepted in which Nuland and Pyatt discuss who they would put in place as the US puppet government upon completion of the coup (if approved by Joe Biden, who had overall control of the operation). Listen to the call at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV9J6sxCs5k (with subtitles onscreen). Continued: https://losthorizons.com/N/184.htm#1