The Castle Report: Ukraine is a Goldmine

Play

Darrell Castle talks about the words of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from the state of South Carolina, speaking on Face the Nation on CBS last Sunday. He explained why we can’t afford to allow Russia to prevail in Ukraine.

Transcription / Notes


Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 14th day of June in the year of our Lord 2024. I will be talking about the words of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from the state of South Carolina, speaking on Face the Nation on CBS last Sunday. He said that we can’t afford to allow Russia to prevail in Ukraine because then Russia would have access to Ukraine’s vast mineral wealth and it would share it with China, so it would be better if it were available only to the U.S. and its allies.

I am grateful to the senator for finally saying out loud and in public for the whole world to see and hear the reason the United States is fueling the war in Ukraine and seems to be trying to constantly make it worse. He emphasized the immense value of Ukraine’s critical mineral resources, estimated to be worth between $10 to $12 trillion, and the strategic importance of these assets for the U.S. and the Western World. He also underscored the necessity of supporting Ukraine to ensure those resources do not fall into the hands of Russia and China.

So, my thanks to the senator for confirming that the politicians, bureaucrats, and billionaires who run the U.S. government are not sacrificing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian lives along with the infrastructure of an entire nation, as well as more than $120 billion of U.S. debt for no good reason. The sacrifice is not for such nebulous old-fashioned concepts as freedom and democracy, and it is not for the self determination of the Ukrainian people.

Most importantly, it is not for the peace and security of Europe because Russia seeks to rebuild the Soviet Union and that would obviously threaten a great deal of Europe. It is not because Russia wants to recapture the Baltics first, then move on to Poland, Romania, and so on and so forth. No, it’s not any of those things which are now revealed to be lies and more lies as I have been saying since the U.S. inspired coup in 2014. It is money, just filthy lucre and it always has been money. Quoting the senator:

“They’re sitting on $10 to $12 trillion of critical minerals in Ukraine. They could be the richest country in all of Europe. I don’t want to give that money and those assets to Putin to share with China. If we help Ukraine now, they can become the best business partner we ever dreamed of. That $10 to $12 trillion of critical mineral assets could be used by Ukraine and the West, not given to Putin and China. This is a very big deal how Ukraine ends. Let’s help them win a war we can’t afford to lose. Let’s find a solution to this war. But they’re sitting on a gold mine. To give Putin $10 to $12 trillion of critical minerals he will share with China is ridiculous.”

That performance of Senator Graham’s was quite an eye opener, but I promised myself I would not overreact. I will not allow my base instinct to control my thoughts about the senator’s explanation of the war, therefore, I will not call the senator a corrupt war mongering hypocritical insane lunatic. The mask of morality with which U.S. politicians have always covered their actions has now been removed. The posturing about whether Russia has designs on the Baltics and the rest of Europe is just so much BS. So, thank you Senator for telling us the truth, finally.

Do you think the senator told the nation the truth because he thought we would find his reasoning appealing or because he thinks we are just too stupid to understand him. I wonder if he thinks the average American would be more than willing to push the world to the brink of nuclear war to help the U.S. corporate bottom line. In addition to being vile, disgusting, and morally repugnant, it is completely flawed reasoning. It makes no sense at all unless you own or at least are heavily invested in the resource companies that will benefit from all the death, destruction, chaos, and risk.

If the U.S. is simply making an investment that’s one thing, but it sounds a lot like gambling with life and death for millions to me. The secretary of defense told us early in this poker game that our purpose in funding it and thus making it a lot worse was to weaken Russia, to bleed Russia, and thus degrade the Russian ability to make war. I can now safely assume that the reasoning is far simpler than it seemed to me at first. If Russia is bled dry as the secretary put it, then Russia would be less capable of resisting U.S. efforts to steal or purchase through munitions and warfare, the Ukrainian natural resources.

The senator is a longtime hawk, especially when it comes to Russia, but a hawk toward war in general. I always thought it was because he is a raving, power mad lunatic, but now I see that much of it is cold and rational. He referred to Vladimir Putin as a megalomaniac who is attempting to re-create the Russian empire by force of arms. That is straight out of Saul Alinsky who used to counsel his young radicals like Hillery Clinton in his book, Rules for Radicals, where he said accuse your enemy of what you are doing. So, I guess when the senator says this is a war we can’t afford to lose, he means that literally.

He also said that the U.S. should speed up efforts to steal $300 billions of Russian sovereign assets and he made a demand that Russia be designated a state sponsor of terrorism under U.S. law. I have to ask whether Russia is the terrorist since the real goal of the war has been so forthrightly revealed by the senator.

By a strange coincidence, one day prior to senator Graham’s remarks, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban argued that the West wants Kiev to win the conflict with Russia so that it can control Ukraine’s wealth. Orban was interviewed by Hir TV about the war, and he accused the U.S. and its allies of seeing Ukraine as a potentially huge source of revenue which they will be able to control, provided Russia is defeated. He also noted that the conflict is a major boost for Western arms suppliers, creditors, and speculators, noting that this is the reason the war has dragged on for so long.

I have spoken well of Mr. Orbin before because I have always found him to be honest, forthright, with a love of his country and a desire to do his best for the Hungarian people. Those are honorable traits and I can think of no other Western leader who has them. Western leaders normally want the cloak of morality to cover their wars and their violations of human rights and their murders, but when the cloak is lifted the insides are pretty ugly to look at.

Russia has stated over and over throughout this conflict that its goals are to protect the largely Russian-speaking population of Donbass against persecution by Kiev, and to ensure Russia’s own security in light of NATO expansion toward its borders. Russia has never expressed an intention to take over Ukraine let alone Europe and that includes Ukraine’s natural resources. These goals are apparently the ambition of the United States and its allies, at least according to Senator Lindsey Graham.

Graham has been the escalator in chief especially during all of 2023 and so far in 2024. His constant demands for escalation, his constant complaining that weapons shipments are not enough along with his demands that more and more sophisticated weapons should be sent have kept this conflict going and have made it much worse. He certainly bears a great deal of responsibility for bringing the world to the brink although the bottom line is still Joe Biden. The president signs off on everything, or else it does not go. If Biden doesn’t sign the order, then the weapons don’t go and if Biden doesn’t give Zelensky permission to attack inside Russia with U.S. weapons it would not happen, therefore the escalation is American.

Long range precision guided missiles being sent deep into Russia to attack military targets but most importantly to attack Russian early warning radar systems are especially troubling. They are troubling to me because if I were Vladimir Putin, I would not put up with it and I wonder how much longer he will. The missiles must have targeting systems linked to satellites and maintained by people in NATO countries on the ground. The origins of the missiles, their supply chains and maintenance facilities are legitimate military targets and that would mean Russia attacking NATO countries thus triggering a probable article 5 NATO response.

I wonder if there is anyone left in the U.S. government who has any sense at all. The steady path toward World War III continues and no one will vary from it. Russia meets each escalation with its own escalation. Each U.S. escalation has been a tactical failure so far but that hasn’t stopped the flow of new weapons and tactics. If there are any rational leaders left in the West, when do they consider the possibility that the war is lost, deescalate, and seek a treaty to end it. That might be a monetary loss for senator Graham though, so I won’t count on it but still, I can’t help but wonder.

In the latest escalation the U.S. and its NATO allies have green-lighted missile attacks deep inside Russia using U.S.-made ATACMS ballistic missiles with a range of about 190 miles. The attacks have hit both civilian and military targets such as the Russian nuclear missile warning system. These attacks are prompting severe Russian responses including the destruction of the entire Ukrainian power grid. Using U.S. supplied drones and missiles to attack the Russian early warning system for incoming nuclear armed missiles is about as provocative as it gets without an actual nuclear attack.

Both the U.S. and Russia adhere to a nuclear philosophy that is called launch on warning. That means that as soon as an incoming nuclear missile is detected you launch, and you don’t wait for them to hit their targets. That’s why attacking the early warning system is such an eye opener and has never been done by either side. Ukraine doesn’t have nuclear missiles so why would it have any reason to attack a nuclear missile early warning system. Ukraine launched these missiles into Russia, but it could not have done so without U.S. and NATO supply and most importantly U.S. satellite targeting information.

What would the U.S. do if Mexico launched missiles supplied by Russia with targeting data also supplied by Russia, to attack U.S. early warning system radars. Hitting a radar system that is a part of nuclear defense leaves a gap in that link, that system. The launch on warning is then even more on a hair trigger and even more sensitive to detection and launch. Therefore, the world resides on a hair trigger and remains just one split second decision or mistake from disaster. Is the natural resources wealth of Ukraine worth nuclear war. Apparently, some lunatics in Washington think so but they never bother to ask us normal people if we think it is.

The Russian reluctance and restraint, rather than a compliment, has become a hinderance to peace because it creates the belief that because they haven’t attacked NATO, they never will. That reaction is more evidence to compliment Tucker Carlson’s interview with Putin in which Putin appeared rational and not a bloodthirsty lunatic. He doesn’t appear to want war with the U.S. and NATO, but I wonder how much longer he will permit his country to be attacked without consequences. The other day Russian deputy chairman of the Security Council. Dmitry Medvedev told the world that Russia knows where the attacks are coming from.

“I would like to warn American leaders against miscalculations that could have fatal consequences. For unknown reasons, they underestimate the seriousness of the rebuff they may receive.”

Mr. Medvedev is wrong about one thing though. The reasons are not unknown. It is because the West is led by illegitimate, incompetent, and reckless people who don’t seem to know or care what nuclear war is and they are driven primarily by money and power.  They assume they can play with fire and not be burned.

Finally, folks, it seems to me that this is an illegitimate criminal system that seeks to benefit from cannibalizing other countries by way of mass death and destruction all the while cloaking itself in a flag of false morality. How can we support that?

At least that’s the way I see it,

Until next time folks,

This is Darrell Castle,

Thanks for listening.


Photo Credit: Shutterstock

Give the Devil his Due: Putin is Right about Crimea being Russian Turf

13 May 2014

by Peter B. Gemma, National Executive Committee Member

Putin Russian President Putin’s claim that, “Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia,” is an uncomfortable assertion (for some), but as pundit Eric Margolis points out, “President Putin keeps bringing up history to justify his assertive policies towards Ukraine and Crimea. This annoys Americans, who know little about history and refuse to accept Russia as a great power — and certainly not as an equal.”

First, the fundamentals. Catherine the Great formally absorbed Crimea, slightly smaller than Belgium, into the Russian empire in the 18th century. That’s when Russia’s strategically important Black Sea naval base at Sevastopol was built (it’s been operational ever since). In 1921, during the Russian revolution, the White Army controlled Crimea for a short time but it was quickly morphed into the Soviet Union. Crimea only became part of Ukraine when Soviet strongman Nikita Khrushchev, by an impulsive stroke of the pen, gave the peninsula to his native land in 1954. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Crimea ended up inside an independent Ukraine, but as a formally autonomous region — specifically because its culture, history, and ethnic lines were far closer to Russia than Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin summed up the transition this way: “Millions of Russians went to bed in one country and woke up abroad. Overnight, they were minorities in the former Soviet republics, and the Russian people became one of the biggest — if not the biggest — divided nations in the world.”

While the central government of the Ukraine teetered financially in recent years and political unrest grew, Moscow took the bold initiative of backing the formidable Crimean underground in their attempt to set history right by re-aligning with Russia. That resulted in much finger pointing and shouted accusations of annexation by the West — but the precedent of nations declaring independence and unification with others is a long established option on the world stage.

While discussing Crimea, the State Department won’t incorporate the messy details of the Serbia/Montenegro/Kosovo entanglement, where the US and its allies forced borders to be created by ethnic divisions. The White House will not reference the occupation of Goa by India in 1961, nor will we even hear about the peaceful transitions of the People’s Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba merging to form Tanzania in 1964, or the
independent monarchy of Sikkim, where a majority of its subjects voted by plebiscite to become a state of India in 1975. Heck, America’s annexation of Hawaii in 1898 is a giant pineapple sitting in the foreign policy room. Apparently these are ancient historical facts that complicate the black and white arguments over Crimea.

However Putin won’t ignore the past. He notes that NATO and the West thought Kosovo, with its Albanian majority, had to be split to protect minorities and establish political and economic stability. Putin reminded Western politicos of the, “well-known Kosovo precedent — a precedent our Western colleagues created with their own hands in a very similar situation, when they agreed that the unilateral separation of Kosovo from Serbia, exactly what Crimea is doing now, was legitimate and did not require any permission from the country’s central authorities.” Touché. Distribution_of_ethnic_groups_in_Crimea_20011-273x300

As far as international law and diplomatic precedent, the Crimean vote to re-join Russia is in compliance with the UN International Court finding when making an advisory opinion on July 22, 2010 regarding Kosovo: “No general prohibition may be inferred from the practice of the Security Council with regard to declarations of independence,” and “General international law contains no prohibition on declarations of independence.”

Putin also brought to the table the US acknowledgment of April 17, 2009, given to the UN International Court in connection with the hearings on Kosovo: “Declarations of independence may, and often do, violate domestic legislation. However, this does not make them violations of international law.”

The facade of the world of nations siding with Washington on the Crimea question is thin. Although the US resolution “defending Ukraine’s territorial integrity” was adopted by the UN General Assembly, the tally was 100 members voting yes, but a significant minority, 69 countries, cast nay/abstain ballots — and the dissenters were made up of a variety of voices.

Nations that voted against the UN resolution or abstained include Brazil, South Africa, India, Jamaica, China, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Putin had this to say after the vote: “We are grateful to all those who understood our actions in Crimea. We are grateful to the people of China, whose leadership sees the situation in Crimea in all its historical and political integrity. We highly appreciate India’s restraint and objectivity.”

Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner stated that the West’s reaction is a double standard, noting that, “the UN Charter stipulates the right of people to self-determination, which means that this rule should be applied to all countries without any exception.”

Czech Republic leader Milos Zeman has said that the West should accept the fact that Crimea is now part of Russia, stressing that the former autonomous region won’t return to Ukraine in any foreseeable future. He described Nikita Khrushchev’s decision to give Crimea to the Ukraine as “stupid” and called the current situation “idiotic.”

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai said, “We respect the decision the people of Crimea took through a recent referendum that considers Crimea as part of the Russian Federation.”

Closer to home, Americans are advising Washington not to get involved in Crimea. According to an April 21st Rasmussen Reports national survey, 58 percent of Americans want Washington to leave the situation alone.

Perhaps more telling, one poll revealed that about 84 percent of Americans couldn’t find Ukraine on a map — even 77 percent of college graduates failed to correctly point to Ukraine (which says a lot about public schools anddisinterest in Ukraine).

It’s time to give the devil his due and move on. Gregory Copley, editor of Defense and Foreign Affairs, puts it this way: “Crimea is now part of Russia, the West will come to terms with that, the question is how much longer they’ll perpetuate the crisis in the rest of Ukraine and whether they will escalate the problem, which I think will be unwise for the US and Western European interests.”

____

This article originally appeared at www.Unz.com, May 13, 2014