ANNOUNCEMENT! I have officially joined the land of Substack. It was probably inevitable. But I'm very excited about the opportunities the platform affords. And most of all, looking forward to making insufferable people's heads explode
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Michael Tracey
@mtracey
Roving journalist, friend to all dogs mtracey@protonmail.com
Michael Tracey’s Tweets
Everything I want "people to take away from this article" is stated in the text of the article itself, over and over again, as clearly as humanly possible
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Replying to @mtracey
Hmm So what do you want people to take away from this article? Cause it seems that you basically are saying we should have never done anything to help anyone during world war 2 and we should just give Putin what he wants. In fact at what point do you think it’s ok to tell them no
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Pro tip: if you denounced this within seconds or minutes, it's a dead giveaway, because I know you could not possibly have read over 10,000 words that quickly
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A Fairy Tale Version of World War II is Being Used to Sell the Next World War
mtracey.substack.com/p/a-fairy-tale
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A Fairy Tale Version of World War II is Being Used to Sell the Next World War
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If high-level US officials were threatening use of nuclear weapons over Vietnam -- which was seen as far less central to America's national interest than Ukraine is seen to Russia's national interest -- it seems dangerous/foolish to just blithely assume that Putin is "bluffing"
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Barry Goldwater and Curtis LeMay publicly threatened use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam. General Westmoreland drew up secret plans, which were already in motion until Lyndon Johnson found out and scuttled them
Vietnam was not nearly as important to the US as Ukraine is to Russia
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Part II of our emergency Nuclear Endgame special coming up at 9pm EST
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Sanctions/embargoes were understood within the highest ranks of the US Government to be highly escalatory actions that could provoke Japan, and consequently lead the US into war. Which is why the Roosevelt Administration had avoided taking such drastic action, until July 1941
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Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was an escalation. The US imposition of an oil embargo on Japan four months earlier was also an escalation, albeit of a different magnitude. Rational people should be able to comprehend this without blithering hyper-moralism and spasms of rage
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The lack of priority assigned to humanitarian concerns makes intuitive sense, because US aerial bombardment against Japan subsequently killed as many as 900,000 civilians in a campaign of deliberate civilian targeting
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However, there had been factions within the Administration that were "eager to impose the type of economic sanctions against Japan that would lead to war." None of these debates revolved around humanitarian concern over Japanese actions in China, but pure US strategic concerns
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Until July 1941, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, backed by Roosevelt, "did not favor confrontation over China and he did not favor confrontation over Southeast Asia." (See: "Going to War with Japan 1937-1941" by Jonathan Utley)
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The "Rape of Nanking" became known in December 1937. There was no organized campaign of punitive sanctions by the US against Japan until July 1941. If you want to believe the US suddenly had a benevolent humanitarian revelation at that time... feel free to live in La La Land
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The US oil embargo (steel and other goods too) was in response to fascist Japanese wars of aggression and brutal war crimes, including the wholesale massacre of civilians, systemic sexm crimes, looting as national policy and many more. Tracey just likes fascism twitter.com/mtracey/status…
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Lots of influential people have hallucinated the idea that right-wing opposition to liberal social policy, which has existed forever, is now an "open fascist street mobilization." And they're also viewing *foreign* policy through this same prism, with predictably rational results
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Feeling like I am running out of ways to say that we’re in the middle of an open fascist street mobilization, with the tacit support of a political party and its media organs
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I view myself as someone who is not influenced by your revealingly petty appeal to reputation management. That consideration may guide your behavior, but it's never guided mine. If you think my reputation should suffer on account of scrutinizing US foreign policy, I welcome that
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If pointing out the consequences of US foreign policy means my "reputation gets scuttled" in the eyes of over-socialized, conformist mediocrities on Twitter, I will happily take that tradeoff. Lots of people throughout history have faced much harsher penalties for doing this
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They will deny "Western policy" had anything to do it, and will in fact claim triumphant vindication for that policy -- amidst the smoldering ruins
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If Western policy towards Ukraine leads to nuclear or biological warfare, there is only one thing you can say with absolute certainty: not a single US diplomat or bureaucrat will lose his/her job, and many will get promoted.
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Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was an escalation. The US imposition of an oil embargo on Japan four months earlier was also an escalation, albeit of a different magnitude. Rational people should be able to comprehend this without blithering hyper-moralism and spasms of rage
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It's fair to say what Anne Applebaum writes in The Atlantic is reasonably representative of US foreign policy consensus. And she says "victory" in Ukraine means regime change in Russia -- elimination of Putin. Exactly the kind of existential stakes that could lead to nuclear use
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Barry Goldwater and Curtis LeMay publicly threatened use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam. General Westmoreland drew up secret plans, which were already in motion until Lyndon Johnson found out and scuttled them
Vietnam was not nearly as important to the US as Ukraine is to Russia
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I don't know if Putin is "bluffing." John Sweeney doesn't know if Putin is "bluffing," either. All either of us know is that today Putin said: "This is not a bluff." Anything else is pure psycho-babble conjecture
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Vladimir Putin is bluffing. His Chinese and Indian riders don't want nuclear escalation. He's such a fragile monster he dare not call for a nationwide draft.
His time is running out. twitter.com/olliecarroll/s…
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Emergency escalatory Callin coming up at 9pm EST with
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Metaphysically imbuing the conflict as a hinge point for the entire "world order" -- which is more like a religious prophecy than a claim with appraisable empirical content -- has been a tactic from the beginning to elicit escalating intervention in the conflict by foreign actors
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We’re at a point where Russia invades a country, occupies several cities, declares them to be part of Russia and threatens the world with nuclear war if it disagrees.
If this is allowed to stand, our world order in done.
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Trump is the one who first supplied weapons to Ukraine, continues to brag about that fact, elevated Ukraine to NATO "enhanced partner" status, reaffirmed US commitment to Ukraine's full NATO membership, and accused Putin of committing genocide. Otherwise, very plausible scenario
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The fucked up thing is, if Trump was in office, he would be supplying weapons for Putin, and Michael wouldn't have shit to say about "escalation." Ukraine would be reeling from a humanitarian catastrophe and probably be Russia's newest province. dailykos.com/stories/2022/9
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Recognition of bi-directional escalatory spiral is necessarily predicated on the observation that Russian escalations do "count" -- hence my inclusion of "Russian escalation Y" in the example. If it didn't "count," I wouldn't have included it. Sorry you misunderstood so badly
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Replying to @mtracey
You want to pretend it's impossible to plainly observe that "Russian escalations Q, R, S, T, U, V, & W" occurred.
~"Russia merely does things which don't count. It's only anything done in response, which are escalations." twitter.com/mtracey/status
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For those who've been living in a self-denial propaganda bubble for the past seven months, here's one of the countless items in mainstream sources arguing that the current risk of nuclear annihilation is "as great, or greater" than the Cuban Missile Crisis
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With nuclear annihilation a likelier prospect today than at any point since at least the Cuban Missile Crisis -- and with that likelihood continuing to grow -- you'd think keeping tabs on this escalatory cycle would be seen as highly prudent. But, not according to the troll army
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They want to make it impossible to plainly observe that "US escalation X" can lead to "Russian escalation Y," by ruthlessly maligning anyone who makes such a plain, reality-based observation as a Putin lover, a fascist, a Nazi, a genocide denier, a conspiracy theorist, or similar
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The pro-Ukraine troll army -- endorsed by US think tanks, celebrated in US media, and promoted by US politicians -- has made its central mission to render discussion of observable reality as unpleasant and maddening as possible, in order to obfuscate the reality of US policy
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For months, the pro-Ukraine troll army has swarmed to dismiss any suggestion that delivery of long-range weapons could be escalatory, or attacks on border areas inside territorial Russia could be escalatory. Today, Putin cites these actions as justification for his own escalation
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My assumption is not "that de-escalation is always a good thing." That would be a prescriptive or normative statement. I've been making the descriptive or positive statement that escalation has undoubtedly occurred. If you want to argue this escalation is "good," go right ahead
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the disingenuous part of Tracey’s entire rant for the past few weeks is a hell-bent assumption that de-escalation is always a good thing. he has blanketed that escalation and de-escalation are intrinsically linked to good and bad twitter.com/mtracey/status…
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According to the Ambassador of Ukraine to Estonia, the US is now backing to the hilt a military force whose stated objective is to "exterminate every occupant"
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The Ukrainian army will exterminate every occupant, voluntary or mobilised. A full-scale war did not frighten us. We are united. Mobilization in Russia is confirmation of that. - Ukraine’s Commander in chief Zalyzhnyy #StopRussia #StandWithUkraine
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Non-exhaustive list of "de-escalatory" measures advocated over the years by Congressman Kinzinger:
- US troop surge in Iraq
- US troop surge in Afghanistan
- US bombing of Libya
- US bombing of Syria
- US bombing of Iran
- No Fly Zone in Ukraine
Certified "de-escalation" expert
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I’m all for de-escalation.
The retreat of Russia will de-escalate. #nafo #NAFOfellas twitter.com/mtracey/status…
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Thank you Congressman for stating bluntly that US policy in Ukraine is "not about de-escalation," but rather the opposite. This will be a helpful clarification for many
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It’s not about de-escalation, now it’s about victory.
Surprised you didn’t know that. #nafo twitter.com/mtracey/status…
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Pro tip: threatening use of nuclear weapons can be denounced as a moral wrong, but so too can events which gave rise to the threats. For instance, the US bombing of Hiroshima can be denounced, but so too can the Japanese abuse of American POWs which partly motivated the bombing
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The experience of Donald Trump is that he's wrong about some stuff, but also right about some stuff, including stuff that others in the political/media class refuse to openly acknowledge
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One of the chief tactics of the pro-Ukraine online troll army -- weirdly endorsed by those who once claimed to be hyper-threatened by "foreign interference" -- has been to make it as miserable as possible to discuss the truth, i.e., the obvious escalatory spiral of the conflict
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Replying to @mtracey
How are you doing buddy? Crawl out of the woods already - we’re waiting on you and your eScALaTioN takes.
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And remember, everyone who's demanded total, unquestioning support for US foreign policy in this regard are the true defenders of liberty and justice
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The new Ukraine situation is a predictable result of a political environment in which "We demand total military victory and unconditional defeat of our opponent" and "Send in the tanks, fighter jets, heavy artillery, and long-range missiles" are not considered "pro-war" positions
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