Ukraine is about to lose this war
The West media has been trying to sell us that Ukraine will win their war with Russia from the very start, yet a plurality of Americans no longer believe it.
This week's was the first survey since we began asking who is winning the war — about a month after it began — in which more Americans say that Russia is winning (25%) than say Ukraine is (19%). In recent weeks the share who say neither side is winning also has increased, to 38%.
A growing share (29%) also say that Russia will be the eventual winner of the conflict, rather than Ukraine (26%). About as many say they’re not sure who will win (30%).
Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of Ukrainian military intelligence, has admitted that Ukraine is losing the war because of Russia's overwhelming advantage in artillery. Russia is using this advantage to grind down Ukrainian forces.
But their already-compromised supply lines are becoming more tenuous, and the sheer magnitude of Russian firepower is grinding down defensive positions.The reverses suffered in the past few days, after weeks of determined resistance, probably mark the most difficult week for the Ukrainian military since the surrender of the last defenders in Mariupol.
Ukraine is losing 200 soldiers killed every day, according to a senior Ukrainian presidential aide. Plus another 500 are wounded.
In addition, Ukraine is losing $5 to $6 Billion every month. To put that into perspective, Ukraine's GDP is $155 Billion. The National Bank of Ukraine predicts that the GDP will shrink by more than a third.
To offset that, the American taxpayer is going to simply give Ukraine $7.5 Billion. That was very generous of you.
The total amount of aid supplied to Ukraine by international partners since Russia's "invasion" is $30 billion. $10 Billion is in grants, the other $20 Billion in loans.
Ukraine can't maintain losses of this magnitude, militarily or economically, for much longer. Plus, because this is clearly a proxy war, the U.S. and Britain will lose when Ukraine loses.
But, as reflected in the palpable disappointment of the Ukrainians, the EU’s key leaders were clearly signaling the limits of their own support.This new European stance now places the Biden administration on the horns of a possibly insoluble dilemma, as David Goldman reported in a recent Asia Times article. With the war having reached a critical stage and the world economy reeling from supply shocks in energy and food previously supplied by Russia and Ukraine, Goldman asserts that America’s boasts of “driving Putin from power, destroying Russia’s capacity to make war, and halving the size of Russia’s economy look ridiculous in retrospect.”
...Russia has made strategic territorial gains, so such an outcome would be disastrous for Ukraine — and humiliating for the United States.
Comments
End the war. Sue for peace
Figure out, Ukrainians, who your enemies really were, and do not repeat the mistake.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Ukraine is SO last week.
The next proxy has already volunteered: Lithuania https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/lithuania-says-sanctions-goods-kali...!
For those of you checking your maps right now, Kaliningrad is Russian territory separated from the mainland by Belorussia & Lithuania, similar to how Alaska is separated from the lower 48. It’s like if Canada cut off land and air routes from Washington state to Alaska. Sea routes are available, but why would the guy in the middle suddenly become such an a$$hole? Oh yeah, because our favorite Uncle told him to.
That’s power: when you can just point to a whole country and tell them to commit suicide, and they do it! Even after watching the whole Ukraine thing go down!
Here’s the bonus part: Lithuania is NATO. So if anybody hits Lithuania, Article 5 kicks in and all of NATO gets to go to war. Whee!
“We may not be able to change the system, but we can make the system irrelevant in our lives and in the lives of those around us.”—John Beckett
No sacrifice of vassal states is too great
when it comes to
keepingtrying to keep a failing Empire alive. The EU has already been thrown under the bus by obediently toeing the Russian sanctions and seem to be facing a very cold and hungry winter.Treating its ‘friends’ so poorly, it makes me wonder if the US wouldn’t also offer up its own population in defense of it’s hubristic claim to global preeminence and a unipolar world economy.
Something's got to give.
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
Are Washington's wars meant to be won?
I thought they were merely meant to be prolonged, so that Congress could maximize the amount of money it prints and hands to rich people. Wasn't that, for instance, the point of staying in Afghanistan for as long as the US did?
“The loyal Left cannot act decisively. Their devotion to the system is a built-in kill switch limiting dissent.” - Richard Moser
It’s difficult not to believe what you state
about Washington's wars. It’s very challenging to know that the US government/military is totally de-sensitised to killing and humiliation; and that financial benefit to the few matter more than the life of so many, worldwide.
Well the purpose of the Federal government now
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/blue-and-red-do-have-something-in?r=22681&s=r
“The loyal Left cannot act decisively. Their devotion to the system is a built-in kill switch limiting dissent.” - Richard Moser
"The business of America
is business". Well, wholesale death is our last remaining export, so there you go.
Peace is not profitable. Therefore, there will be no peace.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Think about the outcome before you start
Ukraine is a NATO trained and armed nation. When Russia wins this Special Military Operation some conclusions are not very positive for the US/EU.
- Russia militarily beat NATO in a European ground war. This outcome should have been obvious. No amount of training and arming could bring Ukraine up to the level of Russia. This clearly had to be a result of dismissing Russia by virtue of Rusophobia. In any land war near Russia it is now likely that NATO could not prevail. NATO membership for the Baltic states decreases their security
- Both Ukraine and the US and NATO have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are collectively agreement incapable. Poroshenko just admitted publicly that Ukraine never intended to implement the Minsk Accords. The West never intended to force Ukraine to adhere to the Accords. This makes a negotiated settlement extremely unlikely and guarantees the virtual end of Ukraine as a Western asset.
- Russia has come to the conclusion that their move towards the West in the 1990s was a mistake. They are now fully behind creating an non-Western world with China, India, and all of the Global South. This will be a huge blow to US economic and military hegemony and the US dollar.
-
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
Boy, won’t they be surprised when Texas secedes and pivots to
become an innovation hub for Latin America!
And then Alaska secedes and begins working with Russia and China, and engineers from all three countries build a system of tunnels and bridges across the Bering Strait, as part of the Belt and Road Initiative!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bering_Strait_crossing
Which subset of Americans, realizing the present setup is failing, will be the first to ditch the war-and-empire-chained status quo and embrace a new, more harmonious way forward for the planet based on sovereignty and mutual respect?
It's a longstanding Myth that Texas can secede from the Union
If there were any doubt remaining after this matter, the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia set it to rest when he asked by a screenwriter in 2006 whether there was a legal basis for secession. In his response, he wrote: “The answer is clear,” Scalia wrote. “If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede. (Hence, in the Pledge of Allegiance, ‘one Nation, indivisible.’)”
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/01/29/texas-secession/
OTOH, “Screw the rules, try and stop us” *is* the American way
since 1776.
“When in the course of human events…” … an existing system of government so obviously no longer observes or feels itself in any way bound by its own supposed principles and rules, people have the God-given right to separate from such an unresponsive and arbitrary ruling elite and system — that’s stipulated right in the Declaration of Independence.
Since when have Americans ever let change be held back by conventions, even if everyone might previously have thought they were agreed-upon settled truths?
Wasn’t Oklahoma supposed to be Indian Territory in perpetuity?
Or, more recently, didn’t most people think they knew what “man” or “woman” meant, reaching back in time to, well, to Adam and Eve? Surprise! Suddenly sources (at least the yet-uncancelled, censor-approved ones) all say different now…
That “phase change” in mentality occurred practically overnight.
As the political, economic, and meteorological temperature rises, a unified striving to return sovereignty to lower, more local levels, closer to and more directly controlled by The People / the 99%, could well also set in very rapidly — as just such a phase change.
If Texas chooses the way of Catalonia, who ya gonna side with? Ordinary people, or the 1% ≈ the heirs of Franco’s fascists in “Madrid” ≈ imperial HQ in Washington DC?
Heh, with the Right
Seems more likely a runaway unaccountable Court and some crazy state legislatures could create the impetus for the blue states to begin talking about a hopeless situation requiring a parting of the ways.
As John Quincy Adams once observed
~
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D
councilforthenationalinterest.org
question everything
In an abstract way
...one may wonder how
All is well in the world when the US illegally invades as many as seven nations, waging a mix of wars over a twenty year period, with intense spending, endless money printing, loss of life, tens of millions of dislocated people wandering the earth, weaponizing both sides, turning cities to rubble, constant loss of life, billions of dollars worth of equipment abandoned, sanctions on any country that complains, embassies closed, diplomats expelled, treaties broken, oil stolen. assassinations, war crimes, chemical weapons attacks, drug running, arms dealing, nations destroyed, genocide, and every bit of it illegal.
During the wide spread endless US wars, not once did world's key critical supply chains break down around the world at the same time, resulting in empty shelves in the grocery store and shortages else where. During the long and pointless war on terror, Americans were never once told that they face death by starvation next year because of the war. A couple of months of US war never once resulted in sudden historic price inflation that instantly destroyed significant levels the dollar's purchasing power, both at the grocery store and the gas pump. Twenty years of massive US war spending never once caused an inflation that is so severe and unexpected that even the Federal Reserve can't figure out how to control it. Never during the corrupt US wars were people told they could be living the last days of their lives.
But four months into comparatively tiny war that the US pretends it is not fighting — Americans are told they are doomed to starvation or perhaps nuclear radiation from WWIII. It seems that the end of the world as we know it can only occur when Putin is fighting a small war with its neighbor just on the other side of a shared section of Russia's border. Doom is only predicted when Russia is fighting in a small area occupied by besieged ethnic Russians, while Russia is spending only a fraction of what the US spends on global murder and mayhem on any given day. Meanwhile, the EU chickenhawks are now certain they will be invaded by Russia because a fraction of Russia's army population is engaged in street fighting with NeoNazis in a small section of Ukraine, with virtually no support from air strikes. In the US, Americans are being cut off from medical support from pandemic infections, because the US gave its safety-net pandemic cash to Ukraine to kill Russians. Ukraine will ONLY spend OTHER PEOPLE'S money to arm its Neonazi militias to fight wars it cannot afford — wars that it could stop at any time by pledging NATO neutrality, instead of threatening to murder Russian speakers inside its borders.
Americans have so little curiosity.
This is being done by tptb on purpose w/ukraine as the excuse
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/06/two-big-errors-about-russia-by-hel...
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Is NATO direct intervention into Ukr the next step?
With the imminent defeat of the Ukr army in Donbass, it seems more likely that NATO will invade Western Ukr. Maybe move in troops to defend Odessa? Just speculating, but I had the impression that the Russians want some major payback to the Ukrainians who burned alive the Russian protesters in Odessa. Then it really becomes a major European continental war.
It seems the UK and US are hell bent on now fighting the Russians to the last European with the Lithuanians blockading civilian supplies into Kaliningrad.
NATO will not help Ukraine
But watch Lithuania: it IS in NATO, and NATO must respond (Article 5—mutual defense) with actual forces (not just mercenaries and outdated equipment) if Lithuania is attacked.
“We may not be able to change the system, but we can make the system irrelevant in our lives and in the lives of those around us.”—John Beckett
Here's Article 5
Article 5
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
"such action as it deems necessary"
Not exactly a requirement to defend militarily. NATO was a terrible idea, blocs like this cause wars, especially when you have a tiny pipsqueek nation barking at at The Bear thinking that it has the military power of all of NATO behind it. That's a recipe for a mess. The causus belli is always muddy and an entire military bloc coming down on one nation in a complex world would be a disaster. On the other hand if NATO countries used common sense and refused aid then it would prove that NATO was a useless concept in all but extreme cases or against weak third world countries as an extension of global politics. In the case of Russia as an aggressor it would mean an energy/food crisis in the NATO world and a possible global thermonuclear holocaust. My opinion is that NATO is a paper tiger and the world is just waiting for Russia or China to prove how useless it is against a serious country.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
So…
Not sure what you’re trying to say here. Italy seems to be the only NATO signatory showing any common sense in the current situation, where the pipsqueak nation isn’t even a NATO country. Are you suggesting that all NATO countries will join Italy and refrain from defending Lithuania, a fellow member of the bloc? I honestly don’t believe that to be likely.
Yes, NATO has outlived its usefulness. Yes, it will be a disaster when NATO decides to join the war.
But given the belligerence of our current government in the face of the futility of propping up this failing Empire, and their complete lack of concern for our citizens or any other humans involved, I honestly do not think that the possibility of nuclear holocaust is enough to make them back off.
It’s horrifying, but I truly think they would go there.
“We may not be able to change the system, but we can make the system irrelevant in our lives and in the lives of those around us.”—John Beckett
Biden, BoJo and Zelensky
were sitting around in a hot tub eating ice cream cones one day
ruminating on their successful destruction of the old world order
none of the three stooges were cognizant of the failure of their policies
apparently unipolar and multipolar were concepts beyond their grasps
due to underlying bipolar issues
so Zelensky suggests, between licks, "let's do Taiwan next, it will make
people forget about our failures here!" Life is but a wet dream.
And these cone heads are melting.
question everything
UN Article 51
Here's the rest of the story:
"Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”
Article 51 was meant to allow immediate self defense of a country being attacked. But clearly, the UN Security Council has the ultimate authority to authorize a continuing military action against an aggressor or not. The NATO charter cannot sidestep the authority of the UNSC. To do so is illegal and an international war crime. The state exercising the right to self defense must immediately report this action to the UNSC. Has NATO ever done this? It appears that NATO has taken the UN charter and twisted it to justify military aggression. And when has NATO ever acted in true self defense?
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
America runs NATO
Wars are only supposed to happen when they have authorization from the UN, but we attacked Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia and countless other countries because we said we were defending ourselves from some made up boogie man. I don’t remember which country Biden just sent troops to because of the terrorists there were a threat to us. And they are most probably ones that we created in the first place and have been supporting and arming them. Won’t be long now till we’re back fighting the Nazis in Europe after we’ve armed them to the teeth.
If Lithuania did that blockade on Biden’s orders then there’s a good chance they did it just so he could have an excuse to put the military in play. But every country has the right to opt out of sending their troops into the fight. Gawd, Biden has totally fck’d up the world in a short time hasn’t he? But hey no more mean tweets from the Orange Man.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
You seem to be confusing UN Article 51 with NATO Article 5
It hurts us, as USians, to know this, but lately we’re the bad guys, and we have to face that.
It would be great to come up with a way to put an end to that condition, rather than keep pretending that "Gosh, we can’t help having wars drop in our laps."
“We may not be able to change the system, but we can make the system irrelevant in our lives and in the lives of those around us.”—John Beckett
The brainwashing has been highly effective
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/23/putin-not-ready-en...
The people who commented on this essay are so misinformed on what Russia is trying to accomplish in Ukraine and why they did their unprovoked attack and what they believe about Putin and Russia just shows how people are swayed by propaganda. Goebbels was right when he said that of course people don’t want war, but if you tell lies over and over they will believe them. They think that Russians are poor and uneducated people who are ruled by mafia type rulers who rob the country blind and if they get mad enough at Putin then the mafia will put an end to him.
McCain said that Russia was just a gas station with nuclear weapons and so many people also think that. MoA has a good essay on how misinformed even Biden and his pals are about Russia. I read the most Russia-phobic comments on DK and many are made by kos himself. When the uneducated write nonsense for other uneducated people you get some of the funniest comments evah. Unfortunately these people vote and it’s no wonder they keep voting for the people who have been screwing them for decades. Read a wonderful pie fight there today on how Obama let McConnell walk all over him. Always good to start the day with a chuckle.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
One sad thing: Tom Tomorrow / Dan Perkins / “This Modern World”
cartoonist hitched his career wagon to The Other Place and, well, as a consequence, since 2016 or so his work has been almost nothing but “Orange Man bad” and “ha ha, stoopid GOP deplorablez” all the time.
Cartoonist and columnist Ted Rall, on the other hand, was run off TOP on a bullshit charge of racism, and, after the steep decline of alternative counterculture urban weekly newspapers, now probably has to make do with much less money — but not having sold out, has never lost his bite.
https://rall.com/category/columns
https://rall.com/comic
For a democratic blog
they sure focus a lot of attention on how bad republicans are. But they rarely focus on how democrats help republicans get their agenda passed when dems are the minority. And when dems are in the majority it’s the republicans fault for blocking their agenda.. Pelosi said lots of angry things about Trump for 4 years, but rarely backed it up with action.
Tom Tom's cartoons are not very funny to me and they rub my brain wrong. Rall is actually funny and especially when he hits below the belt. He’s been all over Biden’s gaffes. Thanks for the link.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Rall, tragically, is a pro-birther
and therefore a female-enslaver.
Just goes to show you can't trust anybody all the time on everything.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
That’s something many folks hold against Norman W. Pyle as well
Pyle is the writer and cartoonist behind the Strange Planet webcomic and books.
https://boundingintocomics.com/2019/04/10/strange-planet-webcomic-author...
“The Farm,” the intentional community founded by Stephen Gaskin,
also opposed abortion as incompatible with the principle of non-violence. Back in the day, they had a standing offer: “Ladies, don’t have an abortion. Come here and have your baby under the care of our midwives. We’ll raise the kid and if you change your mind later, return and you can have him/her.”
https://thefarmcommunity.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farm_%28Tennessee%29
https://www.qwant.com/?q=the+farm+community+summertown+tennessee+abortio...
Russia lost in the first week
By the end of the first month it was a shambles. Russia will never take over Ukraine, the best they can hope for is some sort of negotiated portion of the east, and frankly even that is doubtful. Russia is now looked upon with distrust by the rest of the world, especially Europe. Nato is greatly strengthened.
Russia failed to take over a small poor neighbor. Russia, with a huge army.
I guess if this is winning, losing would be what, Kaliningrad being annexed into Lithuania? Putin deposed? Losing Georgia? Colonized by Turkey?
The cost is a rounding error.
Good one…
I love snark as much as anyone.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Are you sure?
Russia's army continues to slowly advance. How long/far must the Russian army advance before it is no longer doubtful?
This has been true since the 18th Century.
It's true that their larger plan of taking Kiev failed. But that is not the same thing as losing a war.
Ah, are you keeping up with the actual war?
They may yet get Kiev.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Russia never planned on conquering Ukraine
Their plan is to demilitarize and de-nazify Ukraine and push NATO back to 1997 and make the Donbas safe for ethic Russians. After they meet their goals certain areas in Ukraine will get to vote whether to stay with Ukraine or Russia just like Crimea did which was watched by whomever watches to make sure voting is done right.
One reason why they are taking so long is because they are trying to keep civilian casualties down and not destroy much infrastructure. They would rather Ukraine military surrender instead of killing them, but they don’t give a rat’s ass what happens to the Nazis.
Anyone who doesn’t understand why Russia went in and what its goals are can read what Putin said just before Russia started their military operation. It’s not rocket science folks.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
I see it exactly as you do.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Maybe you can look at this essay about how the war is
actually going and learn how your opinion of the operation is incorrect…
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/06/lysichansk.html#more
or you can continue to believe whatever nonsense you have been reading and just be surprised when Russia doesn’t walk out of Ukraine with its tail between its leg like you think it will. BTW where are you getting your news from?
I’m just surprised by how many Americans support Nazis as long as they aren’t in their own country. And yes that’s who we have been arming in Ukraine and you can check the articles written about that back before this shit show started.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
@snoopydawg Moon of Alabama? I'll
Vlad is reputed to have killed roughly 30,000 civilians so far, and many want him brought before the Hague. He has forcibly removed thousands of civilians from parts of Ukraine he has captured and transported them to interior Russia, kinda like Stalin. Do you love Stalin too? Pol pot? Mao? Idi Amin?
The AP?
Lol…no wonder you are so misinformed about what’s happening in Ukraine. Almost every mainstream news site gets their story from the AP. It’s why you often see the same headline on numerous sites.
Russia allows outside monitors for their elections and they are more legitimate than what we have and no Putin hasn’t been poisoning his opponents. Nalvaney made it up that he was poisoned and if he was afraid of Putin why in gawd’s name would he freely return to Russia? Besides he’s a CIA plant just like Guido is for Venezuela.
1.2 million Ukrainians willingly moved to Russia because they were tired of getting killed by their government and Nazis. Zelensky was elected with 70% of the votes because he ran on upholding the Minsk agreement which means that he’d stop killing Ukrainians in the Donbas. Over 40,000 had been killed there and it’s why Russia went in and put a stop to it. Funny how that detail is always left out of AP, Reuter articles don’t you think?
Have you heard about our death toll since 1945? Over 20 million people and twice that number have been displaced. I get a kick out of Americans blasting Putin for things that they have ignored their own country of doing.
As for Nazis in Russia..good lord! 27 million Russians were killed in WW2 by Germany and it’s why they will no longer tolerate them in Ukraine.
You go on believing what you do about the Ukraine conflict, but I hope that you aren’t expecting them to win. They have no chance of winning because they are losing too many troops a day and drafting anyone who can walk and throwing them at the front line as cannon fodder.
I’m guessing that you didn’t bother to even look at the link. That tells me that you have closed your mind to learning other facts about what’s happening over there and will just believe the crap mainstream media tells you. Or did you actually believe that Saddam had WMDs? Remember who told that lie.
Your insult says a lot about you. And why you keep posting your nonsense here. Kos writes great fantasy about Ukraine that you might enjoy. His sources are probably the same ones you use.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
LOL
“We may not be able to change the system, but we can make the system irrelevant in our lives and in the lives of those around us.”—John Beckett
Your comment brought back
I would love to know your news sources. I promise I would read them with an open mind.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
@on the cusp AP, and Reuters.
Here's a good rating web site for News Sources.
https://adfontesmedia.com/
DK rates about like Breitbart of Fox.
Glad you responded.
Thanks.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981