Judge Napolitano:
"General Keith Kellogg, who president Trump has indicated he wants to be his principal emissary and adviser on Ukraine and Russia, sounded the other day like he had just had breakfast with Tony Blinken. He is reported to have said--it has been reported and not denied--that if Putin doesn't discuss quickly the concept of a ceasefire we'll send more ammunition, military gear, and equipment to Ukraine. How crazy is that?"
Col. Douglas MacGregor:
"It's worse than crazy. There are three things. First of all we are risking a direct confrontation with Russia. We don't understand and don't care to listen to people who tell us that the Russians are at the precipice of going to war against us.
"In other words, they're asking themselves, 'What's the point of trying to talk to the Americans? There's no evidence that they will keep their word, there's no evidence that they will honor any agreement we make, so under these circumstances why not just mobilize the country and strike to the West all the way to the Polish border?' This is frightening. It's not something that the Russians want to do, but when you hear the kind of thing that you just mentioned uttered by General Kellogg, that suggests that they may not have any choice.
"Again it's a failure to admit that Russia has any legitimate interest whatsoever. They do have legitimate interests and we ought to recognize that. We need to stop treating them as the redheaded stepchild that has no rights, no opportunity to speak, and then we also need to look at Europe and understand Europe is rapidly slipping from our grasp."
Putin has been consistent from the before the Military Operation that he simply wants to be left alone by NATO, the EU and the US. His terms for peace have been reasonable and have not changed.
Alastair Crooke:
"There are reports that Macron and Starmer agreed in a conversation that Zelensky must conduct some provocative operation [this week]
"--a false flag operation or a provocative attack into Russia, into the depth of Russia or something else--sufficient to create an absolute pressure on Putin to respond, and thus to destroy the meeting altogether, to stop the meeting taking place.
"The Europeans are terrified of the [Alaska] meeting taking place [on Friday] and they want to stop it. I believe the Russians have probably picked up on it, suggesting that there is going to be an attempt to create some incident, some security catastrophe, that creates the impossibility of following up on this meeting. And the Euros are trying to insert Zelensky into Alaska, whether invited or ...
"For four hundred years, Americans lived in a world wherein your brother, your neighbor, your town and region were your responsibility. And where you yourself, could do anything under the commodious carapace of the King of Kings.
"More than anything, the CIA wanted Christianity destroyed; it bred self-determination and strength. Under MKUltra, and mostly at Stanford’s Research Center, using the flower children and rock scene of L.A. and San Francisco, they figured out how to ruin human potential.
"In fact, they called it the human potential movement, in a typical inversion of reality. What it did was celebrate and encourage your worst impulses, praise your degradation, tell you that weakness is your strength, supplant your heritage with the heritage of foreign faiths and experimental practices."
Elizabeth Nickson
"Donald Trump doesn’t understand what (Russian Defense Official) Medvedev tweeted. Medvedev was telling Trump to knock it off with the dangerous threats, saying that if you do this, America can end up looking like the walking dead because of the Dead Hand.
"The Dead Hand is a reference to the perimeter system, which is a defensive system put in place by the Soviet Union back in the 1980s. So that if they are ever struck preemptively by the United States—a first strike, by the way, the tactic to be used in a first strike is to bring the Ohio-class submarines close to Russia’s shores, fire off their Trident missiles on a flattened trajectory to avoid detection so you can strike the targets quicker, which is what Trump just actually appeared to order the U.S. Navy to do. So, the Dead Hand now becomes a factor, because if Trump is dumb enough to launch an attack against Russia, the Dead Hand (the defensive perimeter system) will ensure that all of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces ...