Previously: My Interview at Book of Mormon PodcastNothing I've read in the Book of Mormon the past couple of years has struck me as forcefully as what Jesus told the Nephites would occur among us in the last days. Three times he reiterated the sins that would be among us, and since He was only among the Nephites for a short time, he must have really wanted us -the ones who would eventually receive that record- to sit up and take notice when we saw these things take place. Each time the Savior reiterated the list of sins we would be awash in, two in particular were always at the top of His list: "lies and deceptions." I assume therefor that he wanted us to be especially keen in watching out for them. (I included each list with corresponding cites in my earlier post "The Sins at the Top of the List.")
We've seen an abundance of lies and deceptions foisted on us by those in positions of power these past few years, and the latest attempt to get the populace to go along with their schemes is this idea that we should take sides with them against Russia. They have told us repeatedly that it will require us, the common people, to make sacrifices, but they haven't been up front about why.
I've been watching a lot of coverage about what is happening in Ukraine since last week, but nowhere am I seeing the full story told. No, not even on the Fox News Channel, where virtually everyone there (with the possible exception of Tucker Carlson) has taken the same posture that network did twenty years ago when they banged the war drums in support of America's invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. In short, all of mainstream media, both liberal and conservative networks, have suddenly become avid warhawks.
So, if you've a mind not to get fooled again this time around, you deserve to know what they haven't been telling you.
What They Haven't Been Telling You
First thing to know about the situation in Ukraine is that this not something you should be manipulated into taking sides on. There is nothing patriotic about siding with the ruling elite on this; they are in the wrong.
This is little different than a gang war between two crime families, the Deep State versus the Russia. Think of it as a feud between the Genovese crime family and the Gambino crime family. This doesn't involve you, and if you take sides with one crime family over another, you are in the wrong as well. God will not smile on you for cheering on either side. So here are the facts:
In case you're too young to remember, for several decades following World War II, the Soviet Union consisted of Russia and fifteen satellite countries. These satellite countries were all communist, just like Russia. The leaders of these satellite countries were puppet dictators who took their orders from the Politburo in Russia. You'll recognize the names of some of these satellite nations as Poland, Georgia, Czekoslovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Kazakhstan, and a handful of other countries with names ending with "-stan."
And, of course, Ukraine.
Back then, the Soviet Union, a sizable superpower that openly threatened to "bury" the West, was rightly considered a threat to the rest of the world. So the major Western countries created an alliance known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. The idea behind NATO was that if the Soviets tried any funny business, we would all gang up on them. So in that respect, NATO was successful in getting the Soviets to play nice. Then, after the Soviet Union fell in December of 1991, Russia lost control of its puppet states. The people of these countries, tired of communism, moved toward more democratic governments. And all was well with the world, kinda sorta.
With the Soviet Union no longer a threat, one would expect that NATO, which existed only as a guard against encroachments by the Soviets, would have been dissolved, being no longer needed. But that didn't happen. In fact, in the decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO has continued to expand, giving truth to the old adage that governments, once given power, almost never give that power up, even long after any reason exists for them to have that power. And this is where Ukraine comes in.
Ukraine is not a free nation. It is not a democratic republic. Hell, it isn't even a democracy. Due to secret machinations by America's Deep State intelligence agencies and other globalist provocateurs, whatever halfway decent leaders who used to run Ukraine have been replaced or undermined so that today Ukraine's government is almost as thoroughly corrupt as our own. Ukraine has, for all intents and purposes, become a vassal state of the U.S. government. This is why our president (also beholden to globalists) is hell-bent on bringing Ukraine in as a member nation of NATO.
Now, why would that be? Why would NATO have need of a member country that exists right next door to Russia? Well, that's kinda what Vladimir Putin wants to know.
The truth is, Putin does know why, and I'll get to that in a minute.
When I said Ukraine is not a free country, I was not entirely accurate. A large portion of a region of Ukraine has declared their independence from Ukraine. They consider themselves a free people who have formed a free nation they call Donbas. Here's what that looks like on the map:
You'll notice that Donbas is right smack dab next to Russia. Here's the thing about the people of Donbas: like a lot of people who left Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union, they are overwhelmingly Russian. They speak Russian. Their culture is Russian. The vast majority of them are devout Christians who attend Russian Orthodox churches there in the Donbas region. One other thing: Ukrainians don't like the people of Donbas.
Now the people of Donbas don't want to be governed by Ukrained. But that doesn't mean they want to go back to being governed by Russia, either. So some years ago they declared their independence. How do you think the government of Ukraine has reacted to a swath of its population declaring themselves no longer under their the iron fist of the government of Ukraine? Well, Ukraine says they can't be allowed to be independent, and to that end the Ukrainian government has been shelling the Donbas region for the past eight years. Let that sink in: Ukraine is killing Ukrainians just because they want their freedom. The president of Canada has nothing on the president of Ukraine.
Why do you suppose Ukraine wants these people to fall back in line? Well, one reason could be that Donbas is right on the border of Russia. NATO is a highly militarized outfit, and Putin certainly realizes that if NATO gets a toehold in Ukraine, and if Donbas is out of the picture, NATO would be setting up weapons right next door to Russia, right on the border. That, Putin somehow presumes, could be a clear threat to the safety of his country. All signs point to Putin preferring that doesn't happen.
Just as an aside, Putin finds Biden's threats of sanctions laughable; threats by Biden mean absolutely nothing to the Russians. They don't give a hang about Biden's sanctions. They have all the energy, and we don't, thanks to Biden shutting down all sources of energy the very day he took office. The Russians also have control of a great deal of the world's grain, and Russia has already stopped shipping it to us the moment Biden announced his feckless sanctions against them. If anyone is going to suffer from Biden's silly sanctions, it will be the American people, who will be largely dependent on Russia in order to fill their gas tanks, as well as many of the other things Russia controls that we're going to need to use and eat.
So, no surprise, our genius politicians didn't quite think this through before poking that stick in Putin's eye.
This is what Biden and the establishment spokesmen mean when they tell the American people that if war breaks out in Ukraine, sacrifices will have to be made. Not by them, mind you; they all have huge government pensions and no reason to worry about how they're going to fill their Bentleys with gas. They mean you. You will have to make sacrifices. But they never tell us why, except for feigning nebulous clichés that suggest that antagonizing Russia is somehow "the right thing to do."
Putin long ago recognized Donbas as a sovereign state. Is it a cynical move made only because it will play to his advantage? Could be. It certainly is to his advantage to have a sovereign nation of people who share Russia's culture on his doorstep rather than a nation of foreigners who are hostile. But what does any of that matter to you and me? Why should we care about any of this, other than being in favor of seeing a people who wish to be free allowed to be free?
What, then, is the actual danger of a potentially hostile puppet country like Ukraine right on the doorstep of Russia?
Well, for one thing, many in the know claim that Ukraine has eight separate labs involved in the development of chemical and biowarfare, and that these labs are controlled by the United States. Is that true? Well, there is no shortage of reports pooh-poohing the idea that such labs could possibly exist, but I've seen no compelling arguments to refute the allegation. In essence, the sources relied on in these reports always consist of some U.S. official or other coming out and denying these labs exist. So, I guess we're supposed to just trust the word of people who are known to be compulsive liars.
The question we deserve to ask is, are Putin's accusations plausible? Well, his planes did bomb eight laboratories and I think his government has sufficient evidence to suggest he knew what he was after. Russia has intelligence agencies too, you know. For my part, I think it's extremely naïve in this day and age to believe that any developing nation is not developing bioweapons. This report from the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine says Ukraine has a biological threat reduction program. Where does that program conduct its business? Why, in labs, of course! "The Biological Threat Reduction Program’s priorities in Ukraine are to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concerns..." A further evidence is this report claiming that the Russian invasion of Ukraine risks release of dangerous pathogens. What dangerous pathogens? I thought they said they didn't have any.
But Why Bioweapons?
It's much easier to deploy chemical and bioweapons on an enemy country than it is to line up tanks and soldiers and conventional weapons that everyone can see coming. It's also easier to deploy those weapons if the country you're planning to use them on is right next door.
But before Ukraine can pull anything like that off, it's going to have to do something about those pesky people of Donbas, because they are right smack dab in the way. Despite the propaganda you're hearing, Putin has not been attacking civilians in Ukraine. What you're not specifically hearing is that the Russian bombers took out all eight of those labs, as well as any pertinent military installations. He has stated that his operation is not to occupy Ukraine but to "demilitarize and de-Nazify" that country. I don't know how far Putin is going to go with this, but so far he has said he is doing nothing more than protecting the people of Ukraine from their government, which is the same thing the U.S. said when they bombed Libya. Which makes the U.S. look like hypocrites for criticizing him, since he's only doing what the Americans claimed was right and proper.
Wait...Did He Say Ukraine Is Full Of NAZIS?!
Sure seems like it. Four years ago Reuters News Service put out a piece showing that groups sporting actual Nazi-era symbolism and spouting neo-Nazi ideology have infiltrated the Ukraine armed forces, with the tacit approval of the Ukraine government. This is not reported in our media, if for no other reason than it would embarrass the Biden administration to have to admit it was opposing the Russians for opposing Nazis. (You may have noticed Biden says he opposes Nazis too.) And lest we forget, Hitler was actually defeated by Russia in the second world war; America and Britain showed up pretty much after Der Fuhrer had been defeated. So, if there's anything we know about Nazis, they don't much care for them Russians.
Openly identifying as Nazis and Nationalists seems to be all the rage in Ukraine right now, and for whatever reason, they really seem to have it in for anyone named Ivan. When you watch the opening of the video featured on that site showing Ukrainian children at a Summer Youth Camp shouting "We are Ukraine's children! Let Moscow lay in ruins, we don't give a damn! We will conquer the whole world!" it's not hard to see why Putin might want to prevent that toxic ideology from crossing over into his country. And you can see why he supports the independence of Donbas, seeing as everyone else in Ukraine seems to want them dead.
Which brings us to the salient lesson here, and one all Mormons should truly take to heart. The Book of Mormon teaches us that we should defend our lands, and that we get in trouble when we meddle in the affairs of other countries. That was also the sage advice of George Washington. But what we have here is one country (the U.S.) meddling in the affairs of another county (Ukraine) so far away that it makes no sense that the U.S. should have any interest in Ukraine at all. This has resulted in the country right on Ukraine's border (Russia) feeling it necessary to defang the aggressor when it feels threatened.
It was clearly wrong -and incredibly stupid- for Biden and his handlers to poke the Russian bear, but is it moral for the Russian bear to finally decide it has had enough and poke back? Well, that's the dilemma, isn't it? If The Russians are careful to only eliminate the direct military threats, it's still a sticky situation to defend in light of scripture, but I can't say I don't understand the motivation to strike defensively.
What I do believe firmly is that the wise thing would be for America's ruling establishment to recognize it went too far, and for our war-hungry politicians to slink back home and lick their wounds, lesson learned. But this I am sure they will not do, because the political class as it stands today is not very smart; certainly not smart enough to do what's right. And they have long ago stopped allowing themselves to be guided by the word of God in all that they do.
I certainly don't foresee they will ever stop trafficking in lies and deceptions. The bigger question for Americans, and everyone else in the West, is this: Are you ready to die for Ukraine? More pointedly, are you ready to die at the hands of Russia in clear violation of the commandment God gave His people in D&C 98:33? Because that is what your government is about to demand you do. As Lew Rockwell reminds us, this is not a desirable outcome, given the fact that the U.S. government is clearly in the wrong here, has had ample opportunity to repent, and the enemy it proposes to go up against has nuclear weapons pointed right at us, and will probably use them if pushed to the wall:
"Instead of maintaining the status quo, we have expanded NATO towards Russia’s border. Make no mistake–Russia considers the expansion of NATO as a direct military threat. . . the United States has been conducting regular military exercises in countries bordering Russia for more than 20 years. If you think these exercises are of no concern to Russia you are worse than a damn fool. Now we are arming the Ukraine with weapons that will be used against Ukrainians with strong ties to Russia. This is madness that carries a genuine risk of sparking a nuclear conflagration. Russia will not be bullied and will not cower.” "The great expert on Russia Stephen Cohen warned us over two years ago that trouble lay in store for us: “Ukraine is not ‘a vital US national interest,’ as most leaders of both parties, Republican and Democrat alike, and much of the US media now declare. On the other hand, Ukraine is a vital Russian interest by any geopolitical or simply human reckoning. Why, then, is Washington so deeply involved in Ukraine?. . . The short but essential answer is Washington’s decision, taken by President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, to expand NATO eastward from Germany and eventually to Ukraine itself. Ever since, both Democrats and Republicans have insisted that Ukraine is a ‘vital US national interest.’ Those of us who opposed that folly warned it would lead to dangerous conflicts with Moscow, conceivably even war. Imagine Washington’s reaction, we pointed out, if Russian military bases began to appear on Canada’s or Mexico’s borders with America.” -"Why Die for Ukraine?" Lew Rockwell, January 29, 2022Here is what Paul Craig Roberts wrote just today in a piece titled "Russia Demilitarizes Ukraine":
"The West, of course, is screaming its impotent accusations, but the barrage of Western media lies will have no effect on the outcome. If the Western World had any intelligent leaders, what would they conclude? They would conclude that the days of baiting the bear are over. As I have reported for some time, Russia has had enough of the West’s lies, deceptions, insults, and provocations. Henceforth, when Russia tells them something, they would do well to turn their ears on. Putin has said that Russia will not permit Ukraine to develop nuclear weapons, and he has said that Russia will not tolerate US/NATO bases on her borders. The US and NATO had better believe it.
"Putin said Russia has no intention to occupy Ukraine. Russia does not want Ukraine, but Russia will not permit the continued militarization of the country by the US and NATO or the Ukrainian attacks on the Donbass Russians. The West had better understand this."
If Biden's latest debacle has shown us anything, it is that the Ruling Class is not the infallible, indestructible behemoth they thought they were. America is no longer the biggest sonofabitch in the valley, and those in power had better learn that real quick. Our nation is weak, and it is crumbling, and this is all because we -if not all of us, at least those we have allowed to rule over us- no longer recognize that Jehovah is our Lord, and "he that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God." (2Samuel 23:3).
Here is theologian Dr. Steven Turley discussing how, on February 24th of this year, the globalist order officially collapsed. This is also an excellent 13 minute summary of everything I've written above. I think you should share it:
Is Turley correct? Does this mark the beginning of the end of the unchallenged power of the global elite? Time will tell. But I'm sure of one thing: In spite of the collective efforts of all the globalists, deep state operatives, corrupt politicians, and their myrmidons in the media, not everyone is falling for this deception. Not this time.
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