What the fuck is going on in the Ukraine? And why does the US seem hell bent on starting a nuclear war over an area that has no relevance to it’s national security?

Talk about stupid shit.

According to conventional wisdom, the crisis in the Ukraine is all the fault of Russia and their aggressive leader Putin, who is attempting to recreate the glory of the Soviet empire.

University of Chicago, professor of political science, John Mearsheimer, claims that this view is at odds with reality. (Yes, it’s the same professor who, along with professor Stephen Walt, took on the the Israel lobby in 2006)

“According to the prevailing wisdom in the West, the Ukraine crisis can be blamed almost entirely on Russian aggression. Russian President Vladimir Putin, the argument goes, annexed Crimea out of a long-standing desire to resuscitate the Soviet empire, and he may eventually go after the rest of Ukraine, as well as other countries in eastern Europe. In this view, the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 merely provided a pretext for Putin’s decision to order Russian forces to seize part of Ukraine.

But this account is wrong: the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis. The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and integrate it into the West.”

Yes, yes. We discussed how the US has been relentless in its drive to isolate Russia as it pivots to the Pacific, in Who Contained Who. But, why Ukraine, and why the sudden ferocity?

Investigative reporter Robert Parry, who reported on the US involvement in Central America during the Reagan Administration, and the Iran-Contra connection, has been all over this story. Parry claims that the conflict in the Ukraine is driven by a combination of factors including: US designs on Ukrainian natural gas, US control over markets and US protection of the petro-dollar.

“So, clearly energy resources and the billions of dollars that go with them should be factored in when trying to solve the mystery of why Official Washington has gone so berserk about a confrontation with Russia that boils down to whether ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine should be allowed some measure of autonomy or be put firmly under the thumb of U.S.-friendly authorities in Kiev.

There’s also the issue of Russia’s interest in exploring with China and other emerging economies the possibility of escaping the financial hegemony of the U.S. dollar, a move that could seriously threaten American economic dominance. According to this line of thinking, the U.S. and its close allies need to bring Moscow to its geopolitical knees – where it was under the late Boris Yeltsin – to stop any experimentation with other currencies for global trade.”

Parry also factors in the role of US neoconservative ideology.

“So, while it’s reasonable to see multiple motives behind the brinksmanship with Russia over Ukraine, the sheer recklessness of the confrontation has, to me, the feel of an ideology or an “ism,” where people are ready to risk it all for some larger vision that is central to their being.

Still, ideology will only take you so far. This is the US of A where greed always walks hand in hand with ideology. As I always say, qui bono? The oil and gas industry, financed by Wall Street, sure has a lock on US foreign policy.

When you get down to the dirty, nitty-gritty of this, we’re ready to fuck up our water supply in this country so the oil and gas industry, financed by Wall Street, awash with ZIRP funding from the Fed, can make a killing. All so we can wean Europe off of that evil commie gas.

I mean, why the fuck not? We deeply contaminated parts of our county in the quest for uranium and plutonium weapons to fight the Soviets. Why shouldn’t we fuck up the rest of the country in our effort to battle the Ruskies?

There it is. The method to understand US foreign policy is: greedy-ideology. You heard it here first.

Oh, and read all of Parry’s article. First rate. His exploration of Vice-President Biden’s son Hunter’s involvement with a Ukrainian gas corporation shines a light on the connection between the business and policy.

So why doesn’t anyone else see this state of affairs for what it is?

American benevolence seems a prime candidate for this lack of understanding US foreign policy. That’s where this, don’t do stupid shit, meme comes from. It’s impossible for America to be evil, only stupid. Conventional wisdom says that America is a good faith actor  trying to help the world achieve peace and prosperity and apple pie. But, as we have discussed here Ad nauseam, conventional wisdom is fucked. To be perfectly frank, there isn’t better propaganda than American benevolence.

Just to repeat, the US has a deep state whose goal is world dominance through empire, and it’s not trying to do good, but evil. See–Not a Bug, but a Feature.

On that dark note, here is commentator Bangor commenting at Naked Capitalism, about the mindset of our rulers.

” It’s not, like many believe, that American policy makers are stupid or don’t understand the issues–they aren’t and they understand the issues very well–they just can’t propose policies that would get them fired or killed (to be perfectly blunt–when billions and trillions are on the line the oligarchs don’t f-around, and why people don’t understand that essential aspect of power shows the stunning power of propaganda).”