A Rosary with Beads of Blood

In a fuzzy, feel-good war story, BBC reports on the success of a Canadian marketeer who has raised just shy of one million dollars on behalf of the Ukraine by drawing a picture of the Virgin Mary holding a Javelin anti-tank missle. The creator "now plans for the "Saint Javelin" campaign to become a full-time effort ."

BBC goes on to report that the success of the campaign "is is a result of the outsized importance that anti-tank weapons such as the US-produced Javelin are playing in Ukraine's efforts to resist the Russian invasion. ... The US and Nato allies have reportedly already shipped over 17,000 anti-tank missiles - including Javelins - to Ukraine. ...The missiles, he said, have allowed Ukrainian forces to fight the invasion"

WE RESPOND!!! THE PERFIDIOUS RUSSKIES INVADED, AND WE (WITH THE INTERCESSION OF SAINT JAVELIN) RUSH TO THE AID OF THE VALIANT, HEROIC, SUFFERING UKRANIANS!!!

If that's your take-way, you just go snookered big time. Shipping Javelins to the Ukraine was a casus belli -- one of the triggers for -- Russian invasion. Let the facts speak for themselves

Reuters 17 June 2020. "Washington sent a first shipment of Javelin systems worth around $47 million to Kyiv in April 2018." The sale was approved by Putin's Puppet, aka Donald Trump.  [ read ]

The Atlantic Council:

On April 30 [2018], the US Department of State confirmed the delivery of Javelin antitank missile systems to Ukraine. This issue has been long-standing: the Obama administration refused to send the weapons to Kyiv, while President Donald Trump changed course.

Some experts warn that giving Ukraine lethal defensive weapons will only enrage the Russians and escalate the war, while others, including Atlantic Council experts, have insisted that arming Ukraine is the most effective way to change the facts on the ground and force Russian President Vladimir Putin to finally negotiate.

Ian Brzezinski, Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center on International Security: "This delivery of Javelins is an operationally and geopolitically significant demonstration of US determination to support Ukraine, an action long overdue following Russia’s 2014 invasion.

"Javelins alone will not enable Kyiv to force Russia out of Crimea and Donbas, but they substantively increase Ukraine’s ability to impose costs on Russian forces. ...In these ways, the Javelins will help to deter further Russian seizures of Ukrainian territory."  [ read ]

Well that worked out well....

But Javelins are just the tip of the arms question. The real issue is the likely re-introduction of theatre range cruise missiles in eastern Europe, including the Ukraine.

In brief, in February 2019, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in effect since 1987. Of course the U.S. alleged Russian violations. Whether the allegations are true or not, withdrawing from a treaty can only make matters worse because it repudiates the basis for negotiations.

Precisely for that reason, Trump's withdrawal was Hossanahs for generals who got to plan with new toys and manna from heaven for the defense industry who got to produce them. As stated in a January 2022 article in the Texas [sic] National Security Review:

"The treaty’s end paved the way for the United States to reintroduce these missiles to the battlefield, this time as conventional strike assets instead of the nuclear-armed versions that had dominated the Cold War. Because the U.S. Army had previously established long-range precision fires as its top modernization priority, the associated loosening of missile restrictions created an innovation opportunity for U.S. forces.

"Since the United States withdrew from the treaty, the Army has embarked on numerous projects at varying ranges, including a moderate range increase from its current systems to a 500–600-kilometer range precision strike missile and a more strategically designed 2,700-kilometer range hypersonic missile. Additionally, future long-range strike capabilities have begun to influence emerging U.S. military doctrine..."

As the article noted, there was little to no public discussion on the policy implications of these moves. All of Russia's grievances were swept under the carpet. Very conveniently as it turns out, because by pretending grievances don't exist, the reaction to them appears irrational or malicious.

That is precisely the picture the BBC and the entire cadre of the West's "Truth Delivery System" had contrived to paint.

Simon de Beauvoir famously said that if you treat a man as an inferior he becomes an inferior. Likewise, if you treat a country as an enemy, it will become your enemy. And that is what we have done.

Saint Javelin's rosary will be beaded in blood.