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Yesterday, US State Department representative John Kirby tried to, so to say, "play a bluff."
The most hilarious aspect of the situation is that this soldier by profession, John Kirby, tried to act like a diplomat and bluff not only Vladimir Putin personally, but all of Russia.
He failed miserably from the start, so much so that Russian "propagandists" chipped in and sent him a present for his personal contribution to discrediting America in the eyes of Russians. His quote came in very handy, as it will be actively used against the Russian liberal-Westernists who love to tell everyone about how good America is and how there is nothing to fear.
Even a very foolish person will find it difficult to believe that John Kirby, foretelling explosions in Russian cities and Russian soldiers coming back in body bags, in fact wishes us all happiness and prosperity. Thank you very much, Mr. US State Department spokesman!
Unlike many other journalists, political analysts, and commentators, I am not inclined to see any extravagant militaristic outburst in the State Department jungle, some kind of a new chapter in Russian-American relations, or any harbinger of a new global hot war. I have several reasons for such an understanding.
First of all, Kirby essentially said nothing new. It is also nothing new that terrorists closely tied to the US have worked against Russia. As for the remark that the Russian Army's anti-terrorist operations will lead to bombs going off in Russian cities, well, the Americans already "warned" us about this during Putin's campaign in Chechnya.
I'll repeat. The State Department spokesman said essentially nothing new. Of course, our diplomats and officers should still have publicly spanked him for these words, but they are actually doing that now.
Secondly, let's call things by their names. John Kirby is a nobody. Really, a nobody. He is a secretary who reads briefings aloud. Of course, we could assume that the secretary was given the order to announce the direct threat of a terrorist war against Russia, but it's difficult to believe that such a threat could be taken seriously.
Passing the signal for actions which could easily lead to a global nuclear apocalypse requires more serious figures even in the US.
Thirdly, the State Department has already taken a step back and Kirby himself is now making sluggish excuses and trying to pretend that nothing of the sort happened.
I'll recall that the Americans, whenever they carry out a psychological attack, never operate according to the scheme of "speak and run away." When they do, they consistently put pressure - clearly, loudly, and at all possible levels of the bureaucratic hierarchy. Here, this is nowhere to be seen clearly. There is no "storm and onslaught" here.
This suggests that we are witnessing yet another irresponsible stunt by the "Clintonoids" who, in this case, resemble the cockroaches in the head of the American political elite.
It is clear that a reasonable question arises in this situation: So what really did happen? I have two suggestions.
1. There are persistent rumors among well-informed people involved in Russian politics that the Americans received an unexpected surprise in the form of their secret coordination center in Syria being bombed as a response to their recent bombardment of Syrian troops. This symmetrical response is given special intensity given that, according to unofficial information, this strike ended the lives of many American, Saudi, and Israeli officers who had long been working in Syria even though their presence was not officially recognized by anyone.
In these circumstances, they [the US] didn't want to accuse Russia of doing something of the sort, but wanted to say something bad. And here Mr. Kirby, in such a sophisticated way, promised to avenge his fallen comrades. Let's recall that Kirby is not a career diplomat, but a former soldier, so this version holds water.
2. Soon enough, there will be elections in the US, and many American officials really want to maintain their positions after the elections. As it turns out, many American, Latvian, Ukrainian, and Polish officials and politicians believe that if they say some horrible stuff about Russia, then the future Hillary Clinton administration will give them cookies, good positions, and many other bonuses.
So they're trying to do what they can. Given that John Kirby does not give the impression of being a man endowed with intelligence and wit, the version that this "State Department secretary" tried to curry favor with the future Clinton administration seems to me to be very likely.
I understand that we usually associate such behavior with Ukrainian politicians, but, as I have said many times, the US is, unfortunately, turning into a larger Ukraine.
Nothing remains for us to do besides having no regrets, and continuing to bomb Syrian terrorists. If we do this long, hard, and consistently enough, then soon enough the whole world will stop taking the threats of the State Department seriously. And this would mean the definitive end of US hegemony.
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