It will take a good fifteen-twenty years, but you simply trick the small nation. Overthrow their government. Propagandize their minds. Steal their elections. Bribe their media. Bribe the teachers. Bribe the musicians.
Bribe the military. Invest billions of dollars in a long-running color revolution.
As USAID documents will reveal, all this started in 2003 as the US State Department persuaded Ukraine they could poke the bear and expect Western backup "to the last man." Which means when it's all over, there will only be one Ukrainian male left alive. No one really thought about that because the slogans all sounded so inspiring.
"The campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in Western branding and mass marketing," The Guardian's Ian Traynor wrote of the 2004 upheaval in November that year.
How Much Did the "Orange Revolution" Cost?
The US and its allies reportedly spent $65–$100 million over two years to support Viktor Yushchenko-led opposition, with much of the funding allegedly covert and funneled through NGOs.
The US State Department:
in FY2003 and FY2004 officially allocated $188.5 million and $143.47 million, respectively, for "assistance programs" in Ukraine
$54.7 million (FY2003) and $34.11 million (FY2004) went specifically to "democracy programs" in Ukraine on the eve of the 2004 election
"Democracy program" funds were used for electoral and government reform, independent media, political development, and training for administrators, lobbyists, and NGOs. The money was channeled through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Eurasia Foundation, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), US Embassy in Kiev, and others.
Of all the evils to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops every other. War is the patent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes, are the known instruments for bringing the many under the dominion of the few.
In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people!
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
-James Madison, Political Observations, 1795
We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
-President Dwight Eisenhower, Farewell Address, 1961
We don’t know. Are plans being made for a magnificent sarcophagus? Something like the huge, elaborate one he imagined for Charlie Kirk? Not that I know of. When will be the day of his death? I don’t know, but his Creator has already appointed the day and the hour.
Will his funeral be meaningful, theologically? With Christian theology? I don’t know that either.
But I have been impressed with the funeral of one great nobleman who died 25 years ago at age 99, buried in Austria. His final resting place was not elaborate, but significant. It was in the crypt of a Capuchin church, the place where his royal ancestors, monarchs of a vast, 600-year-old empire, had been entombed for centuries. The crypt was locked and guarded by Capuchin friars.
Prince Otto von Habsburg, born in 1912, would have been the next in line as king of that empire, but Hitler invaded Austria and ordered the arrest and murder of the prince, who escaped into Europe and played a leading role in world affairs for ...