@CB I don't know why we insist on blaming the people. "Why aren't they out in the streets?" we demand, acting like the years 2002-2016 never happened.

We WERE in the streets, in large numbers, protesting the war, and it didn't matter a damn. Then we put somebody in who was supposed to change these murderous crap policies, and instead he expanded them fourfold (with, I admit a bit of hesitation and some attempts to pull back in Syria, and an agreement with Iran, both of which indicate that Obama, despite his many evils, had some reservations about a shooting war between superpowers, because, well, he's not insane). But regardless of Obama possibly having a bit of compunction about starting a nuclear war, he did the absolute opposite of what we put him in to do. And that was after our large protests both here in the US and around the world had no effect whatsoever.

This isn't just partisan idiocy, protecting Obama because "he's our guy." It is that for the partisans, but since 2011/12, they are an increasingly small portion of the population, or even of the electorate. The reason "the people" aren't out in the streets is that they don't believe they can fucking do anything about war, that the US going to war is pretty much entirely out of their control.

If people within the military started refusing to fight--an extraordinarily difficult decision with a lot of horrid personal consequences--I think the people would rally behind them. Well, all the people except the partisans, who are horribly susceptible to propaganda, and would probably believe any dissident troops to be Putin's stooges.

#3.1
everyone can see it. Unfortunately the average American attention span is so short they've already forgotten most of it before the next commercial finishes. That's why gimmicks like skewering babies on pitch forks is needed to focus their attention.

Libya? That's the company that puts vegetables inside cans.
Afghanistan? That's where we killed bin Leaden and freed the country.

It's not called the United States of Amnesia for nothing.

@humphrey @humphrey Putin is not exactly a pussy. He values the naval base in Tartus that pisses off the Us Navy.

#4.1 I still have my doubts about the long term results.

@CB

But neither Putin nor the lengthy list of other countries on the neocon hit list can afford to wait until the nukes are already flying toward them... the neocon intent has been long obvious and it cannot expect that these countries will not form a cohesive unit in hitting their attackers both home and abroad in a last-ditch effort.

And it doesn't take all that many of today's more powerful, if smaller, nukes to kick enough dust up high enough into the stratosphere to trigger a decade or more of the degree of global dimming and drought spelling disaster for oxygen-dependent life on a planet where the global life support system's already under for-profit attack and entering an accelerating death-spiral as a result.

Not that 'geoengineering' now officially underway won't produce a similar result... but the nuclear radiation from this suicidally murderous MAD scenario the Psychopaths That Be are attempting to initiate certainly won't help.

On the other hand, there's also the geoengineering's lucrative destruction of the protective ozone barrier between us and deadly radiation originating outside of the planet, while massively adding to toxic industrial pollution - for the purpose of continuing even more massive 'cost-cutting' industrial pollution - by perpetually pumping them into the stratosphere to perpetually shower down everywhere on Earth, while perpetually cutting sunlight (made deadly by this) required for planetary survival on a world they plan to doom either way for very short-term corporate-billionaire profit and power.

We're dealing with a relatively small number of appallingly ignorant, greed-blinded and reality-denying lunatics and their brain-washed/bullied/bribed/blackmailed lackeys and we cannot forget this. Reason has been shut out of their world-views and they function on 'might makes right' lawlessness, as they've long been permitted to do without repercussion. And with this comes the bizarre assumption that somehow, no matter what they destroy, they'll come out alive and able to enjoy a good life.

We know that not one word out of any of The political Parasite Class can be trusted, and aware people are going by their actions; this will include those in the target countries, and when that final line is crossed by the Psychopaths That Be - massing military and missiles on Russia's borders in the effort to begin MAD - and triggers their defenses, those countries with nothing left to lose - a condition which encompasses the whole of the living world, aware of this or not - will go all out and go down swinging as hard as they can. As we will all go down, because we failed to recognize the signs so carefully propaganda-distorted and concealed from us and to fight back politically when it was still possible to do so pacifically.

Putin is not a wimp to be bullied and is well aware of what's at stake, as are the leaders of the many other countries under threat from the Psychopaths that Be.

When Putin says that this maniac-imposed war will not be fought within his country's borders, he means it, which appears to be the case with, I'd suspect, the rest of the hit-list countries, like the rest of us, doomed anyway, and who would be better going down fighting in the effort to dispose of the threat at its roots.

And it will all be coming home to roost within the countries harbouring these psychopathic terrorists within government - while these would-be global-dominating lunatics count on being able to disable their victim's defenses to shoot vulnerable sitting ducks and surviving this themselves, no doubt, personally sitting it out within luxury bunkers.

The rest of us can count ourselves lucky if we're at a likely ground-zero...

Edited to add a missed letter, invariably noticed while waiting for the post to go through...

#5.3
Unfortunately, being 'prepared' increases the likelihood of this option actually being taken in the future and maybe even a sign of what is already planned.

Just look back to 7 October 2001 and the start of the Afghan war. The UK was doing fully armed 'military exercises' starting 15 September 2001. How handy was this? BTW, it is now known that the attack on Afghanistan was planned well before 9/11.

British army practises expeditionary operations in Oman
9 October 2001

Since September 15, Britain’s armed forces have been engaged in Operation Swift Sword II in the deserts of the Gulf state of Oman. The operation is expected to cover a six-week period through October. One quarter of Britain’s total military capacity will be involved in the operation, at a cost of £93 million.

It is the UK’s largest military deployment since the 1991 Gulf War and its largest naval operation since the Falklands/Malvinas War in 1982. Some 24 ships, 23,000 military personnel, 400 armoured vehicles and a squadron of fighter-bombers are involved. In the past, smaller military exercises in the region were used to showcase British defence manufacturers, but the size of Operation Swift Sword (Saif Sareea in Arabic) points to broader strategic considerations.

The operation was first announced on November 8 last year, and so precedes the present military offensive against Afghanistan, although the forces presently stationed in Oman may well be diverted to the anti-Taliban campaign should the need arise.

'STEPPING UP AND STANDING FIRM' Royal Navy dispatches destroyer to Black Sea to head-up Nato taskforce protecting Brit troops in Ukraine
29th January 2017

BRITAIN is set to send one of its most advanced warships to the Black Sea – in the first operational mission in the region since the Cold War.

HMS Diamond, a Type 45 destroyer, will sail to Ukraine carrying as many as 60 Royal Marine and Special Boat Service commandos – and equipped with state-of-the-art anti-aircraft rockets.
...
HMS Diamond's arrival will reportedly coincide with the deployment of British troops to Estonia and Poland, while the RAF also sends Typhoon jets to Romania.

I think Mattis and Tillerson are going to keep pushing Putin to see where his red lines are. They know Putin is extremely rational and not prone to knee jerk responses to adversaries.