Not So Fast, Skater Boy

The UK police are apparently much less inclined to excuse the outrageous killing of a hockey player by another player than the global media is:

ITEM 1: NHL player Adam Johnson died on live TV after Matt Petgrave slashed his throat with his skate. Petgrave has a history of bad behavior in the EIHL, including racking up the most penalty minutes and getting booted out of games. The media quickly has declared it a total accident, but many viewers and expert hockey players are not convinced.

ITEM 2: A man has been arrested for the manslaughter of Nottingham Panthers player Adam Johnson after his tragic death last month. The 29-year-old American ice hockey star was reportedly killed after a skate slashed his throat in a collision during a match against Sheffield Steelers on October 28, causing a fatal neck injury.

Like pretty much every other man who grew up in Minnesota in the 1960s-1980s, I played ice hockey from a very young age. I played for eight years, and if it hadn’t been for a) early morning ice times, b) pretty girls on the ski slopes, and c) indoor winter tennis, I almost certainly would have played varsity in high school. I still consider the Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament to be the third-best televised sporting event after a) NFL Redzone and b) March Madness, although I haven’t been a particular fan of any team since the Minnesota Fighting Saints shut down after the 1977 season and the Minnesota North Stars moved to Dallas in 1993.

And as a former hockey player, I have absolutely no problem saying that the kick that killed Adam Johnson was 100 percent intentional. I never, ever, saw anything that even came close to resembling what Petgrave did in all my years of playing and watching hockey. I don’t believe the African player was trying to kill Johnson, but he was clearly attempting to harm the other player when he struck him with his skate, so if that’s not manslaughter, then nothing is. There is no way the incident was merely “an accident”.

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Endgame Ukraine II

The unravelling has started and it’s obvious that the neocons have already decided to pull the plug and turn off the life support system of the Kiev regime.

Let’s summarize recent developments:

  • Zaluzhny’s aides are deleted, one by assassination
  • Large-scale new ‘house cleaning’ of entire general staff is reportedly announced from Zelensky’s side
  • Major media campaigns from both sides push urgent narratives of stalemates, Zaluzhny implying the war will be lost, and an eye-opening exposé on a ‘isolated’ and ‘messianic’ Fuhrer-bunker version of Zelensky
  • Zelensky suddenly cancels presidential elections, likely sussing the plan to promote Zaluzhny as challenger
  • Money spigot has still been turned off for the foreseeable future, with no realistic plans on horizon at the moment
  • Ukraine now catastrophically losing on virtually every front of the war, set to soon lose another major, strategically critical city
  • Many influential voices like Arestovich now openly push ceasefire
  • The ‘grim reaper’ CIA director set to pay visit, which only happens on eve of some major pivot or escalation. Diplomats and Foreign Secretaries are sent to ‘discuss options’ or ‘negotiate’—CIA directors are sent to deliver final threats of action

Now, much of the foregoing information is already being discussed elsewhere. But the one chief question no one else seems to be asking is the most critical of all: if factions in the West intend to replace Zelensky with Zaluzhny, then what is the actual purpose? What do they intend for Zaluzhny to do or accomplish that Zelensky cannot?

Some haven’t thought this through, and just assume that “Zaluzhny is a strong leader” and therefore is being made to replace Zelensky so that he can whip the military into shape and win the war. But why would Zaluzhny need to be president to do that? He’s already the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and that’s literally his job description.

So, logically speaking, the only possible explanation I can see making sense is that Zaluzhny is being chosen to sell the ceasefire to the people. Such a thing would sound more acceptable from the standpoint of a military leader and strategist who can explain that the situation is hopeless without time to recover and replenish the forces with an armistice. And more importantly, to sell it to the troops.

Notice how all of this has been transparent to anyone who simply watches the direction that the elite neocons are taking. This was obvious as far back as April and May, but the need to focus on the defense of Israel, which is the absolute #1 neocon priority, means that the Ukraine war will be over as soon as a military leader a) replaces Zelensky/Yermak and b) meets Putin’s terms.

However, it may not be as easy to accomplish (b) as the neocons and the media believe. I expect Putin will demand, at the very least, a complete end of the collective sanctions regime, a disinvitation to NATO, and the province of Odessa, and it’s going to be very, very difficult for all the true believers in the Narrative to accept that.

Notice, in particular, that the CIA director who is meeting with Zelensky this week wrote the following to his then-boss, Condoleeza Rice, in 2008 when he was the ambassador to Russia:

“Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”

In any event, don’t be surprised if the collapse and first attempt to reach a settlement happens considerably sooner than anyone expects. Keep in mind that the speed with which these events are taking place tend to indicate that the war in the Middle East is not proceeding as well as anticipated.

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US Casualties in Middle East

It appears US special forces are already actively engaged in the Middle East and possibly even in Gaza.

Five American service members were killed in a crash late Friday after their helicopter had a “mishap” during a training exercise and went into the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the military said Sunday. Two officials confirmed that the five were Army special operations soldiers, as first reported by The New York Times and Washington Post. Search and rescue efforts went into Saturday before being called off, according to the officials.

“Training Exercise,” in the military context, is always a pseudonym. The US special forces don’t “train” overseas, unless they are training foreign militaries. The “mishap” was most likely the fact that the helicopter was shot down, although the list of possible culprits is far too long to even hazard a guess.

Meanwhile, Gazans are reporting encounters with English-speaking troops with US flags on their uniforms. Given the number of dual citizens in the IDF, this doesn’t necessarily mean US special forces are already on the ground in Gaza, but it would be very foolish to assume they are not already engaged there.

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Arktoons 14 Million

Sometimes slower, sometimes faster, but Arktoons just keeps growing. Keep an eye out for some interface changes soon, as well as the return of a few of our more popular comics and the introduction of some new ones.

There are three ways to support Arktoons. First and foremost, find a series that is a daily read. Our creators, both Arkhaven and independent, are putting out 4-8 new episodes every single day. There are now literally thousands of episodes available. And for the fiction readers, there is at least one text episode every day – Mondays feature Chuck Dixon’s The Sidewinders, for example.

Second, back our crowdfunding campaigns. We don’t have any running right now, because we’re working on fulfilling our existing ones, but we’ll launch another one once we get a few more of these omnibuses out, including both Midnight’s War and AH:Q. And third, subscribe to Arktoons.

Congratulations to everyone involved, from the authors to the backers, the creators, the devs, and the production team.

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Ukraine Endgame

As US supports pivots to the Middle Eastern front, Russian strategists are already contemplating what comes after the surrender of Ukraine, the fall of the Kiev regime, and the end of the Special Military Operation in Novorossiya.

Immediately after the end of the Special Military Operation, the West will not be able to fight with us. It does not have a trained army, it will not accumulate the required amount of resources, it has no plans for war with Russia. It only has scraps of speculation and guesswork. These three factors make war with NATO unlikely. It is clear that the United States can push the Europeans to take crazy steps. But on the economic and diplomatic front we have specialists who will try to keep them from doing this. And the NWO will lead to processes that will lead to a split in the European Union and NATO. If we break through a land corridor to Hungary, then Serbia will be magnetized to this axis. And it can be followed by Slovakia and Romania, where very interesting processes are taking place. Eastern Europe will begin to break away from old Europe, which will be severely depressed due to the economic situation. After all, Europe is  defeated not only on the eastern front, but also in the global south. 

Consider this: Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Serbia have a combined population of roughly 42 million. This is substantial, it is also a promising market–make your own conclusion. As I already stated many times, Russia doesn’t need love or obedience, Russia is interested in trade with people who still recognize that there are only two genders. Simple as that. Once the land bridge is built, European structure changes dramatically.

It’s unlikely that either Zelensky or the Kiev regime will long survive the fall of Avdeevka, whether it is followed by a Russian winter offensive or not. Post-Zelensky succession struggles have already begun, and as the assassination of the top personal aide to the Ukrainian Armed Forces shows, they are likely going to be very violent and nasty. And the first priority of whoever wins will be to surrender to Russia on the most favorable terms possible.

My assumption is that Russia will not accept any settlement that does not include the transfer of Odessa. And while it is clear that Ukraine does not have the ability to prevent Russian forces from taking it, there is no reason for Putin to spend the Russian blood required to do so when a little patience and a new regime will likely allow him to accomplish his goals without it. This patient approach might, in fact, be a micro-analogy for the way Xi is approaching China’s desired reunification with its wayward island.

The longer Israel is enmeshed in Gaza, and the more US resources that pour into the region, the more it looks to me as if the October 7 attacks were intended to draw the US deep enough into the conflict to prevent its full engagement on any other front. While both the Netanyahu government and the anti-China faction of the neocons welcomed the redirection of the US military focus from Ukraine to Israel, it chiefly appears to serve the strategic interests of the Russians, which might explain why the Russians have been surprisingly inactive in Syria while Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran have all been unexpectedly passive in response to the slow-paced Israeli invasion.

The scale of the global violence may be limited and regional to date, but the strategic scope is observably worldwide. It appears the complexities of WWIII will pose an even greater challenge to historians than its predecessor. But now that the second front appears to have been opened, it can only be a matter of time before the third one – presumably Taiwan, though possibly the Philippines – follows suit.

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