Fascinating discussion about Ukraine, censorship and the insanity of the neocons (of the U.S. and western Europe). Here’s an excerpt from a much longer conversation titled “Gambling with Nukes” by Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn.

Matt Taibbi 0:16
There’s a gamble implicit in it. You are firing missiles at a nuclear power and you are gambling that they are not going to fire them back, right? And there was, there were actually quotes from American officials talking about how, you know the real irresponsible people were the Russians. They were the ones you know, who were being irresponsible. Let’s see what was the quote? The EU foreign policy chief Joseph Burrell said it’s not the first time that Putin plays the nuclear gamble, okay? And this was before the launch of the British missiles, and after the launch of the of the ATACMS missiles. And then, and then this guy, [British Prime Minister, [Keir] Starmer, who comes out, and he looks like a cross of Max Headroom and Noel Coward. I mean, like, I can’t even that the whole presentation is so disturbing. This like kind of blinking creature who speaks in that bizarre accent, just repeating catch phrases over and over again while he talks about firing missiles at Russia. It just seems crazy, right? And then that is succeeded by new news that came out that, apparently, the French are going to be next, and they’re going to, they’re going to be sending something called SCALP missiles into Russia. And, you know, then we get the ICBM fired back.

Walter Kirn 1:59
Well, they’re, they’re all they’re all making themselves targets, aren’t they? I mean, they’re lining up. Should there be any doubt about the legitimacy? Who cares about legitimacy? Who cares about all the rules anymore these? Who cares about the norms? Dude, they just broke the biggest norm in history, which was to send our missiles into a nuclear state to land and explode. That’s the biggest norm in American or world history, since those kind of things were invented, frankly, so the rules based international order–that’s out the window. Norms are out the window, not shooting missiles into the home territory of the greatest nuclear power next to the United States is out the window. All of this being led by a lame duck American president who is all week in South America, while his vice president, who just ran for president, is vacationing in Hawaii. Well, Aloha. The whole mask is off.

The thing that scares me is how these people ever expect that they and their party will be taken seriously for five seconds should they ever try to float a peace message or a humanitarian message. Again, the party of social justice, and in England, the left wing party, the Labor Party, to which Starmer belongs, are at a moment when we have actually, in the United States, the center, the crown, of this power structure, voted out our executive It is beyond insane, and it will not end well. Matt, just as I was upset on Monday, I can tell you that next week we will be even more upset. Things are going to happen, and things are already happening every day, when this missile went off this morning. Every power in the world that has modern warning systems had an alarm go off right for the first moments after its launch. The United States had to assume that it was under nuclear attack.

Matt Taibbi 4:18
Think about that, folks. And this is now where we get into this dark place where we’re depending upon warning systems and human judgment to keep us from taking a step that probably protocol tells them they should, right? You know, if there’s a certain kind of missile launched in a certain situation. This is how we reply. I’m imagining that there are things that they’re supposed to do in these situations. Another just quickly, we should get this out of the way before we get some of the backstory, which makes this even worse.

As these missiles were being launched by the west into Russia. Remember, this is like all the NATO countries are now saying, essentially, we’re going to do our own attacks. We got these news stories about internet cables being cut in the Baltic Sea. And if we can see there is a should be a picture of some of these [headlines]. Yes, here we go. “Germany suspect sabotage after undersea internet cables are severed.” So this happens on, I think, Sunday and Monday and basically there are internet cables connecting Germany and Finland on the one hand, and then I believe it was Lithuania and Sweden on the other hand. And the German defense minister says this is sabotage. You know, they come right out and say, This is not an accidental thing. Somebody did deliberate acts of sabotage, etc, etc. That, you know, Europe is full of headlines about hybrid warfare. And once again, by the way, you see, we haven’t had to deal with the consequences of this military action in any significant way in America, but the Europeans have their economy, has massively shrunk since this war started because of disruptions to energy costs, and now they’re dealing with things like this, where they’re going to have disruptions to service. They’re being told that Russian commandos are probably underwater off their shores, doing God knows what. So they’re freaked out. It’s hype, you know.

Walter Kirn 6:49
Nord Stream, Nord Stream. Cutting underwater cables, pipelines, cyber war, blacking out whole countries, cities. That’s all on the table. People don’t realize there are many steps between now and annihilation, between what we’re doing. Escalation isn’t just a word. It’s something you’re going to understand when you turn on the TV and it doesn’t go on in your dark room. Okay? The United States is acting like this. Imagine I wanted to get in the fight with the biggest, toughest, meanest gang member in the world, but instead of fighting him myself. I got a kid with a remote control receiver in his brain to fight for me, and I was like, Well, how dare he hit back at me. It’s the kid that’s doing the fighting, see. And then I and then I put a grenade in the kid’s hand, and he throws it at the guy, and I’m like, but you can’t throw it back at me. I’m not fighting! That fig leaf is such an idiotic comfort to anybody who is taking comfort from it, because I promise you, that’s not how it’s seen on the other side.

Matt Taibbi 8:16
Well, no, I mean, and that’s, that’s kind of the point, right? I mean, as much as we want to say, “Well, this isn’t us doing it. This is Ukraine doing it.” Yes, we’re supplying the weapons, and

Walter Kirn 8:31
yes, we give permission when they can be used. And yes, we actually operate the systems with our with our people,

Matt Taibbi 8:39
and they can’t be operated without help of our satellites and, you know, our personnel. And apparently, according to one report I read, you need to have a top secret US security clearance to to operate them. None of this stuff fools the Russians. They know exactly who’s doing what and really when Kier Starmer and some of the other European leaders come out and say, you know, we’re gonna, we’re going to green light the use of these missiles, Justin Trudeau gave it, gave a press conference, a very nervous looking press conference where he talked about how he was so much in favor of, you know, turning the heat up on Russia.

So all right, but why is this happening now? Why is it happening after the election? And you and I talked a little bit about this on Monday, but I didn’t fully get it at the time, and now reading some of the stuff that’s coming out from over there, and even from Ukraine. So Zelensky is saying openly that he expects peace talks to commence shortly after Trump comes to power. He gave this an interview that was very clear, yeah, he says, the war will end faster once Trump takes office.This is their approach, their promise to their society, and it is also very important to them. And in the Russian press, they’re saying the same thing, like we expect, that there will be, you know, some some changes when Trump comes to Office. They’re openly talking about, you know, are these missiles connected to the coming inauguration of Donald Trump? Absolutely, and this is one of the reasons why people are saying that there’s been this sudden, very bloody offensive by the Russians, apparently, according to some, at high cost, but they’re seizing lots of territory now because both sides want to improve their bargaining position when they get to the inevitable peace talks. But you know that makes sense a little bit for Ukraine and Russia, maybe, but for us to get involved with this, you know, nuclear poker game. Why would we do this, like, what’s in it for what’s in it for us? Really, I don’t understand it.

Walter Kirn 11:08
I think we have to ask some questions that the internet and the censorship algorithms attached to it are designed to keep us from asking, and frankly, would have been absolutely designed to keep us from asking had Democrats won and their vision of a completely moderated anti-disinformation universe come true. The question you have to ask is whether our national interest is really the consideration anymore. Whether The United States, as a sovereign entity, is in some sense, a bit of a sacrificial lamb to something we don’t understand, because in terms of national interest, Ukraine and Russia is not probably at the highest level. It wasn’t, remember, in the public’s mind, at least until recently, that we knew what was going on in Ukraine, that we even knew where it was. Most Americans probably still don’t if they appreciated how close it was to the capitals, both of Europe and of Russia. They would, I think, be taken aback. Ukraine has been an issue since the Trump administration. Remember, he was impeached for some untoward communications with Zelensky in a way that none of us can even understand now, Ukraine has been at the center of American Affairs for many, many years, and now, as that power structure changes, it is still and even more intensely at the center.

This decision to somehow take out Putin or whatever, the objective of this war is to have a kind of permanent station in Ukraine from which to move into Central Asia and exploit its resources, is one that has never been properly explained and is only talked about now in the most jingoistic terms. “It’s about our freedom.” That’s what [Keir] Starmer just said. “This is about our freedom.” What in the hell is he talking about?

Matt Taibbi 13:23
He doesn’t vote on this. We did, actually.

Walter Kirn 13:26
Yeah, we voted against it. And also, Mr. Freedom, Keir Starmer, I refuse to call him sir. I don’t recognize British titles of you know, gentility.

Matt Taibbi 13:35
That’s right. I apologize.

Walter Kirn 13:37
Well, but, but anyway, he presides over the least free country among our major allies, as far as I’m concerned, one where you can and will be arrested for certain sorts of posts on social media. One that has literally summoned Elon Musk using that word in the last few days to come before them and stand charged with disinformation crimes, as though he’s somehow responsible for the riots in their country that have resulted from their immigration policies.

Matt Taibbi 14:13
Yeah, they’ve, they’ve codified stochastic terrorism, essentially and they have two different, actually three different layers of legal speech control. In Europe, there’s, I mean, in the UK, there’s the European law. Then there’s the the old laws, getting back to 1986 that allow them to to arrest people for, you know, harmful speech, but they just haven’t used those laws until recently. And then there’s the new law, the Online Safety Act, which they just passed, which relaxed those standards so you absolutely can be arrested for for saying something untoward in in England. And so yes

Walter Kirn 14:53
And they have just issued a virtual warrant for Elon Musk to come before them. Yeah, and what? do they expect that if they find him responsible, he’s free to go, or would he be? I mean, we are dealing now with allies who resemble our old enemies in certain ways, and we could make a lot of hay about freedom in England in the same way they’re making it about, you know, Russia or whatever,

Matt Taibbi 15:27
right

Walter Kirn 15:29
Also we have in Ukraine, you know, actually a kind of precedent for what’s happening here. Zelensky has passed his due date. He was supposed to be reelected, he stayed. He has overstayed his term of office.

Matt Taibbi 15:48
That’s food for thought, for sure. Yes,

Walter Kirn 15:52
We live in a country where the biggest crime until about a week ago, was Donald Trump not recognizing the results of an election. Well, this guy who’s up there now or in South America, and whoever stands behind him is not recognizing the results of an election in a way so much more profound than disputing the count that it can’t even really be measured.

Matt Taibbi 16:17
Yeah, it’s really amazing. And then the whole angle on this that you know Trump is coming in. And by the way, the Republicans have been pretty there have been a lot of Republicans who’ve been pretty Hawk-like on this issue. So it’s

Walter Kirn 16:34
Of course, there have been, yeah, but Matt, Donald Trump isn’t one of them, right? He hasn’t been one of them. The whole distinction between him and the rest of these Republicans is that he’s not one of them. And probably the reason he won is because he’s not one of them. Right? Exactly. They’ve also placed him in the position of someone who now has to negotiate somehow with two hands tied behind his back, because he’s not the real president, yet, not legally, and they are expecting him to sort of do it in public. He can’t do that. He has to preserve all his latitude and make all of his approaches and so on behind the scenes. They can’t be the ones shooting missiles and then expect him to be the one publicly negotiate

Matt Taibbi 17:23
Right. Even though the Trump people have pretty harshly criticized these missile launches, they’re not in power yet. And so we’re in this, this crazy kind of dead zone where we don’t know who is making the decisions. It’s clearly not Joe. Joe Biden. We can show video and a little bit of what he looked like this weekend while all this was going on, but we’re escalating significantly, and in a way that the Russians are calling a major escalation. They’re saying it’s a new phase. Putin had this very long speech on Monday before the ATACMS landed, where he got up and he basically said, look, the distinction is they’ve been Ukraine has been sending drones into Russia. We’ve been attacked on our territory. That’s not the issue. The issue isn’t whether or not we’re going to allow Ukraine to attack us. The issue is that this is a an attack, not by Ukraine on us, and that is the distinction. And we have to now decide whether or not we are going to treat this as an attack by a different power. And you know. And the [Russian] foreign minister, [Sergey] Lavrov, says we have to respond accordingly. But in the Russian press, they’re all talking about how this is this two-month period that’s coming is going to be critical to the entire world’s future. I mean, I can show you–if we can put up the headline … Yeah, so it’s, you know, the nuclear turn of Putin, right? There’s only 60 days left to decide on World War. And, yes, that’s what the headlines look like over there. You know, where we had 60, days of nuclear poker left. And yeah, that’s pretty disturbing. We’re counting on Putin not to strike back during this period. And is that a good bet?

Walter Kirn 19:36
And yeah, we’re daring him to do it.

Matt Taibbi 19:37
Right. exactly, exactly.

Walter Kirn 19:40
We’re counting on him not to do it, but we’re daring him to do it right now. America loves poker, right? We watch the poker world series. It’s become a television event, and far less rich tournaments than that. Poker depends entirely on guessing the behavior, guessing at the likely behavior of. Of your opponents, right? All these people who tell you to calm down and so on and not to think too much and to go about your business, they, I hope, are all in the business of examining what the enemy is likely to do, right? I mean, if they’re not, then they’re simply throwing us over a cliff and somehow, using their game theory calculations and their sense of what the other side’s capabilities are. What its vulnerabilities are. They’ve decided that they can push this to a certain unknown level, which they haven’t shared with us yet. And they want and they won’t share Keir Starmer basically refused up there, I can’t share operational details. In other words, I can’t share what our thinking is. I can’t share how far over the cliff we’re going to drive you or we’re going to try to make them drive but you know, just, just be clear. It is a game. We’re doubling down. First of all, we pause. That didn’t mean I’m going to meet you. That means I’m going to double down, right?

Matt Taibbi 21:05
Yeah, I’m not checking.

Yeah, I’m not checking. I’m gonna push it.

Right.

Walter Kirn 21:11
So okay, they’re playing a poker game. We don’t get to see it. We don’t get to and we are discouraged from doing our own thinking about what the other side might do, because how do little us understand? I mean, every one of those 50s movies that we talked about on Monday, like Dr Strangelove is about, you know, imagining what the other side will do. But the real end message of Dr Strangelove is that the people in the bunker on our side keep rationalizing, even after the world is destroyed. So in at the end of Dr Strangelove, you see that the planes haven’t been called back. World War Three is happening. The world will be incinerated. But they have a nice discussion in the bunker about how they can go down into deep caverns, and if they have enough breeding pairs of humans, they can easily survive and come back in 70 years or so.

Matt Taibbi 22:16
Yeah, we’ll give you 10 women for every male, right?

Walter Kirn 22:19
So the lesson is that inside these groups, inside these inner sanctums, they are making calculations about survival that are completely independent of what you and me consider to be survival. And in fact, may involve sacrificing us.

Matt Taibbi 22:38
Yeah, and the security of the entire world? Why is this? It’s obviously relevant, because nuclear war is always relevant, but but what’s so fascinating about this is that they wouldn’t be in this position politically if they hadn’t already demonstrated–I mean, the reason this regime was voted out is because most ofAmerica, as or at least a majority of Americans who voted, sort of judge this group of rulers to be out of touch, to be in a bubble, not really seeing what’s going on. They have errors of vision, errors of reporting. They’re they’re not seeing the world clearly.

Walter Kirn 23:27
Great point man, right? Great point. America decided that this is the group that can preside over inflation at the level where you’re going bankrupt yet tell you the economy is good. This is the group that tells you that you have bodily autonomy, but throws you out of military if you don’t take their untested vaccine. This is the group that, as recently as COVID was willing to shut down the entire United States, the schools, the small businesses, all sorts of things to recover from a disease which we weren’t very sure was all that serious, and we’ve yet to find out how it even got started. This group has been playing with people’s lives, and then when they push back, where they ask questions, has been doing things like shutting off their social media. That’s how they react. And over in Britain, we’ve got an even more advanced form of it, where, you know, you will get a knock at the door from the police if you ask questions. Or, or, you know,

Matt Taibbi 24:42
or protest

Walter Kirn 24:43
So they did throw them out. They didn’t want them these people in control. They didn’t want them in control their economy, their health policy, and they certainly didn’t want them in control of nuclear war. But as though to remind us who’s in charge, they have decided, almost as a body, US, Canada, Britain, France, this whole class photo that we see at the GA of these nouveau leaders, the WEF approved, Trudeau, Macrons, Starmers, etc, have decided that we’ll show you little folks, and they are. And that’s what’s happening. And in answer to your question is, as to what our national interest is, this is a show of force, not against Russia,

Matt Taibbi 25:34
Against us.

Walter Kirn 25:36
Against the people, right?

Matt Taibbi 25:37
Yeah, and the irresponsibility, it’s on a scale that I almost can’t even describe it. Is there an analog in history to anything like this? I mean, certainly we’ve had atrocities that are worse. I mean, there’s no question of that. But I can’t think of a situation where, for the sake of something that is really an abstraction, they’re risking everything. I mean, it’s likely that this is not going to end up in nuclear war. The the poly market betting markets has it at 12% right now,

Walter Kirn 26:21
Right. And Trump had 11% chance of victory back in 2016 according to The New York Times, or even less, you know, yeah. And Bitcoin was out 1000 once, and had a very small likelihood of going to 2000 but now it’s at 97.5 today. If you want to look at the real indicators of what is coming and just ignore the poly markets and the pollsters and all the other people who’ve basically misled us about everything, look at the market Bitcoin, which is a kind of digital prepping.

Matt Taibbi 26:59
Yeah, gold markets

Walter Kirn 27:01
Yeah. Is is now approaching $100,000 per Bitcoin. Wealth is being transferred in a way that is amazing. You know, something the stock market can only achieve over long periods is being achieved in a short time using this Bitcoin. And Bitcoin is short you know, it’s shorting the fiat currency. The usual way of doing things. That’s one way to look at it. It’s shorting Harris and Starmer. It’s shorting Joe Biden and Trudeau. Trudeau is looking more and more like a gibbering idiot. Starmer looks like a robot, as you said. Biden has looked like a zombie, and now he is apparently an invisible zombie.