by Eve Ottenberg:

AS INFLATION ravages the west, Europeans are told by NATO chieftain Mark Rutte to sacrifice more for the glorious cause of tyranny in Ukraine. Pensions must be trimmed, inflation accepted and any other social benefits put on the chopping block. What, you may ask, is the logic here? Well, there isn’t any, unless Rutte believes the stupendous lie that Moscow intends for its tanks to roll over the Polish border on a westward march through Europe.

The Kremlin doesn’t even want western Ukraine, no less Poland, and has been remarkably consistent in its messaging about this for years: Moscow intends for a neutral Ukraine, a la Austria, a Slavic neighbour NOT in NATO. The Kremlin also aims to protect Ukraine’s Russian population from Kiev’s terrorism. In keeping with these goals, Russia annexed four Russian-speaking oblasts and Crimea and says holding onto them, along with neutrality and demilitarization of a Ukraine positively flooded with western weapons, intensely fortified defensive lines and ‘trainers,’ are its PRECONDITIONS for talks with Kiev.

Russian President Vladimir Putin explained this in June. Nothing has changed since – oh, except that the west won’t abandon its fool’s errand of trying to harm Russia. So the war continues, and Russia, winning, advances. The longer this goes on, the more Ukraine loses in territory and men. In fact, if Donald Trump doesn’t pull the plug, Moscow’s preconditions could expand to include MORE land.

So what precisely must Europeans — whose 2023 birthrate fell by 5.7 per cent — tighten their belts for? After all, Americans won’t be doing so for this lost cause; make no mistake, with Joe ‘War Is My Legacy’ Biden gone, we are on our way out of Ukraine — our money, our weapons, our mercenaries, our special forces, our NATO officers and our CIA spooks. Biden’s little Ukraine caper cost us hundreds of billions of dollars in cash and armament, and somehow I doubt Donald Trump will keep flushing that money down the toilet. It is a murderous waste. You don’t have to be a card-carrying member of the GOP to see that.

To answer the question: Europeans must sacrifice for the greater glory of their political class, up to its eyeballs in the blood and muck of a losing proxy war and delusions of grandeur swirling around their membership in NATO and the European Union, two organizations of no apparent benefit to anybody other than American elites, enabled by them simply to snap their fingers and see Europe hop to. Oh, and those beneficiaries include, of course, self-promoters like European Commission prez Ursula von der Leyen, who get to prance around the world stage as if they actually matter, when they’re not busy using their exalted positions to feather their own nests.

Not unrelated to economic sacrifice, German chancellor Olaf ‘Liver Brain’ Scholz’s government fell December 16. Since Scholz has done more than anyone else in Deutschland to tank the economy, this comes as no surprise. After all, he pusillanimously refused to make a fuss when Biden’s CIA and navy bombed critical German infrastructure, namely the Nordstream pipeline, thus eliminating cheap energy in Germany, thereafter catapulted into deindustrialization. Scholz also stubbornly refused to let his nation avail itself of the one remaining and functioning Nordstream pipeline that could pump cheap Russian gas to the Teutonic homeland and thus stanch the financial hemorrhage caused by energy price inflation.

Who’s ultimately responsible for that inflation, which has shuttered over 10,000 German businesses? The country’s great ally, America, led by a war-crazed octogenarian who bet the farm on economic sanctions against Russia, lost, and now, predictably, is on his way out of office. But I guess Scholz doesn’t want to offend his partner in the Ukraine crime, Biden, by calling it quits and asking Putin to switch on Nordstream so Germans can afford to flip on the lights. The West may be losing in Ukraine and thereby collapse Scholz’s government, but for this crop of EU bigwigs, it’s ‘never say die.’ They’d rather cut the noses off their nation’s faces, just to spite Russia.

How are the West’s adversaries faring amid this hullaballoo over war, Europe’s attempted color revolutions in places like Georgia, annulled elections in Romania, and governmental calamities in Germany and France? Quite well, actually. Russia edged out Japan some months back as the world’s fourth largest economy in purchasing power parity, while for over 100 countries, China is the biggest trading partner. China, no doubt disgusted with the sewage of American politics, namely congressional dimwits threatening and insulting it at every opportunity — well, China, has switched most of its trade away from the US to the Global South, where it’s doing quite nicely. Meanwhile in Europe, Beijing wins the automobile market. No surprise there, as flagship German corporation Volkswagen, among others, lays off 35,000 workers and closes factories. Economically, China and Russia keep gaining lots of allure.

Take BRICS. This group, the non-Western answer to the haughty G-7, expands like no tomorrow, as everybody clamours to enter it. With nine members and 13 partner countries, BRICS has won the global popularity contest. Its members control 30 per cent of world oil production, 40 per cent of the planet’s population, and one-third of global GDP in purchasing power parity. Meanwhile, western countries slide financially downhill. Economics experts argue, to take one example, that the Irish economy, reliant on foreign investment, is headed for a crash. According to Philip Pilkington December 17 in the Telegraph, ‘the Chinese have both the capacity and the will to seriously hurt America in a trade war.’

Let’s hope that doesn’t happen, but if it does, could it be any worse than where we are now? As Pilkington tweeted December 17, ‘There is a man in the white house imposing energy sanctions to destroy Europe and pushing the world to the brink of nuclear conflict. His own staff say he can’t say a sentence or understand basic phrases. No one is stopping this.’ That’s the same Biden gang responsible for eggs priced at $7 a dozen, gas close to $4 per gallon, your car insurance costs zooming through the roof and 22 per cent of US renters, according to a Redfin survey, spending their ENTIRE income on rent.

Trump calls for ending the catastrophic combat in Ukraine and Gaza. He has also suggested making some sanctions go away. Since sanctions massively cause inflation, this provides hope that maybe our money can reclaim some of its value, so that a meal at a restaurant and a small bottle of antacid afterward doesn’t bust the weekly budget. American proles, like their European counterparts, are sick of sacrificing for failed foreign adventures. If they could meet to discuss this, they’d likely see they have the same problem: lousy leadership. But then, to do that, they’d have to board a plane and maybe book a hotel room, and you don’t want even to get started on how much accommodations and airfare cost these days, because that’ll empty your bank account, pronto.

CounterPunch.org, December 28. Eve Ottenberg is a novelist and journalist. Her latest novel is Booby Prize.