www.thornwalker.com/ditch/dtw_senile empire.htm
Wright from Washington City
December 9, 2024
A senile Empire staggers toward Armageddon
By DAVID T. WRIGHT
ANY DOUBTS ONE MAY HAVE about the evil viciousness of the Permanent Regime have been swept away by the recent decision of whoever wields the real power in the Presidential Palace to allow the Ukrainian puppet regime to fire U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles into Russia proper. On November 19, it did, hitting an ammunition depot in the Russian city of Bryansk, only 236 miles southwest of Moscow, and about an equal distance from Kiev.
The important thing to note is that the missile strike had no real effect on the Russian war effort against Ukraine. Currently, the Russians are rolling up the Ukrainian army, which is in retreat, exhausted, and out of trained reserves. The Russians first efforts in the war produced setbacks and heavy casualties. However, both they and the Ukrainians have learned how to wage war using new technologies such as drones and modern electronic warfare. Make no mistake: the Ukrainians are fierce fighters. But the Russians can also fight, and they have a huge advantage in troops, equipment, and other resources. So theyve simply ground down the other side, waging a long war of attrition much as they did against the Germans in the last world war, but without the scorched-earth policies of the Soviets. Hitting one arms depot in Russia changes nothing, and the Ukrainians and their U.S. masters know it. The point of the missile attack was obviously to stir things up and prevent any kind of initiative by the incoming Trump administration to bring the war to an end.
It was an extraordinarily reckless thing to do. The Russians know that the Ukrainians dont have the ability to operate the ATACMS, which is a fairly sophisticated short-range ballistic missile system. Like the smaller HIMARS, which was deployed with much fanfare in Ukraine in June 2022, it must be operated by NATO troops, using targeting information supplied by the United States. It was in fact a direct attack on Russia by the United States, and the Russians recognize it as such. This is the first time in almost 80 years that Washington has openly attacked a great power, and the only time it has ever attacked a nuclear-armed country. Apparently, whoever is pulling Bidens strings thinks the Empire can play chicken with nuclear war and win.
The Russian response was what we have come to expect from that country: measured, restrained, but at the same time a threat. It was an attack using a new intermediate-range ballistic missile called the Oreshnik, or Hazel a missile that Western intelligence agencies apparently knew nothing about. The missile was armed with 36 independently targeted hypersonic warheads, all of which slammed into the huge Yuzhmash arms factory complex in Dnipropetrovsk. The visible damage from the warheads was not great, because they carried no explosives. As a result, they burrowed deep into the earth beneath the buildings they struck. Their real effect was to warn the Empire and its stooges that the Russians are capable of doing horrific damage to Western forces in Europe if they so choose, without using nuclear weapons.
The Oreshnik is a real game-changer. Its 36 independent warheads hit their targets at about Mach 10. Moreover, apparently these are accurately guided glide vehicles, which are able to be guided to their targets despite traveling in an envelope of hot, charged gasses that ordinarily would block radio waves. With a reported range of over 3,000 miles, this thing makes aircraft carriers nothing but sitting ducks. Just one of its warheads armed with conventional explosives could probably punch a hole through the bottom of the hull, and there is no countermeasure that can stop it. The Chinese reportedly developed a similar kind of warhead some years ago, so its possible this missile uses their technology. But the large number of guided glide warheads on a missile with a 3,000-mile range is apparently new.
Ironically, the Oreshnik is the direct result of the George W. Bush regimes abrogating the ABM (anti-ballistic missile) treaty and the Trump regimes dumping the INF (intermediate-range nuclear forces) treaty.
After destroying the treaty that Reagan had worked so hard to establish, Bush then put missile silos in the Baltic States and other locations close to Russia, ostensibly for anti-missile missiles, but also capable of launching you guessed it intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The excuse was that they were to protect Europe from Iranian missiles, but nobody seriously believed that for a moment. If loaded with ABMs, they have the potential to prevent Russian nuclear retaliation for a first strike, or, if loaded with ballistic missiles, to carry out a U.S. strike on Russia with only a few minutes warning. Bush was merely carrying on a policy of aggression against post-Soviet Russia that first took the form of U.S. financial firms strip-mining the countrys assets under the drunken Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s, later manifested itself as war on Russias ally Serbia, and has continued to this day with two U.S.-led coups in Ukraine, the current bloody war, sponsoring Al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria, and the destruction of the Nordstream pipelines.
Apparently when Putin took over the Russians rightly decided they had to prepare for the worst, so they did. They got rid of Western debt, and began to explore alternatives to the U.S.-run SWIFT banking network to make them less vulnerable to sanctions. Unable to challenge U.S. military power on its own terms, they upgraded their military industry and explored alternative approaches to dealing with U.S. air and naval power. They developed a number of weapons much less expensive than the Empires huge aircraft carrier task forces and fleets of aircraft, but effective against them. Those are weapons that the United States has no answer for or defense against, including hypersonic air-launched and surface-launched cruise missiles, the most advanced and effective anti-aircraft systems in the world, and, interestingly, a giant high speed long-range nuclear-armed torpedo. All of that has made the U.S. generals and admirals very skittish about a confrontation, which offers hope that they will prevent an escalation by the civilian jingoes in the Regime. In addition, Russia is building commercial, financial, and security relationships with countries around the globe eager to get themselves out from under the dead hand of the United States, which rules its puppets with bribes, threats, and debt slavery.
With a hollowed-out industrial sector, an economy threatened by overwhelming debt, an armed forces dependent on expensive but increasingly obsolete equipment and doctrine, and a foreign policy based on a dominant position that is ebbing away, the Empire is devolving into senility, much like Joe Biden himself. Unfortunately, those in charge are still convinced of its overwhelming power, behaving like a belligerent drunk trying to pick a fight as the rest of the world observes its growing weakness.
P.S.As this piece was being written, I learned of the sudden collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, overrun by U.S.-sponsored Islamist guerillas. It will prove to be catastrophic in many respects.
Besides the sectarian violence and instability that will inevitably result in Syria, Russia loses an important strategic ally. It will also probably lose its Mediterranean naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus, closing off its easy access to the area, and causing a serious blow to its prestige and influence. The destruction of Syria also means that its alliance with Iran, which (contrary to neo-Trot propaganda) has been a stabilizing force in the region, will be compromised. Iran will no longer be easily able to supply its allies Hezbollah in Lebanon, at a time when Israels incursion into that country has been thwarted by Hezbollah troops, who brought Israels army to an exhausted standstill. That will undoubtedly encourage more military action by Israel there. Irans increased isolation will make it more vulnerable to various kinds of attack by the United States at the behest of Israel and the neo-Trots. Expect to see more chaos and suffering in the entire region. Also look for more hostile Minitrue agit-prop about Iran, building pressure for more open Imperial aggression there.
Like the missile strikes into Russia, this surprise cant be a coincidence, coming as it does so soon before Trump takes office. Unable to win in Ukraine, the Biden regime has instead sneakily rabbit-punched the Russians where it hurts. Undoubtedly the goal is to sabotage any diplomatic efforts by the Trump regime to lower the international temperature and establish some kind of dialogue with Russia.
In sum, our decrepit Empire continues to stumble away from peace and toward war, possibly nuclear war. Make your plans
accordingly. Ω
December 9, 2024
Published in 2024 by WTM Enterprises.