Dear Friends and Patriots,

One of those ancient Greek dramatists, a guy named Aeschylus, once wrote, “In war, truth is the first casualty.” Aeschylus lived a long time ago; a "fer piece back," as my grandmother might say. He was born somewhere around 525 and died about 455. That's BC, in case you wonder. A slightly updated version of that sentiment was supposedly uttered by California Senator Hiram W. Johnson in 1917, when he told the Senate, "The first casualty when war comes is truth." Johnson was speaking while the Senate was debating the declaration of war against Germany in WWI. I bring those two references to you in order to demonstrate that truth is immutable. Time does not change what is true, regardless of how a thing may be portrayed. Wars are tornados with truth at their core, obscured by impenetrable whirlwinds of lies that always accompany any armed conflict.

I was reminded of the immutability of truth today as I was watching a couple of videos sent to me by our friend Nick Bush. The link is below for those who want to comprehend a bit deeper than my cursory dialog. That truth is ... today the truth of anything is seldom what it seems. The videos are cases-in-point. Both feature Judge Andrew Napolitano, first in an interview with long-time intelligence community member and commentator Larry Johnson, second with retired US Army LtCOL Doug MacGregor.

The main subject of both interviews is the recent release of classified documents that deal with our involvement in the war in Ukraine. It's interesting to hear the take on that from both Johnson and MacGregor. They see some things the same way, but not others.

I was most struck by the comments by Johnson regarding the arrest this week of Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old resident of Massachusetts. Teixeira is an IT specialist, and he is alleged to be the person who accumulated and released the documents. Johnson's opinion is Teixeira is either being set up, or is part of an elaborate disinformation operation. How does Johnson know? Among the documents made public he saw an insider briefing sheet from the CIA. It's the kind of brief sheet that's produced daily for top intel officials within "The Company." Johnson makes it clear that outside of the CIA itself those brief sheets are only accessible by the Director of National Intelligence. No one at DoD has the ability to retrieve and read them, regardless of their rank or security clearance.

Having had a TS/SCI clearance myself during two different stints with the Navy, I can tell you that everything Larry Johnson says rings 100% true. That being the case, we should ask ourselves "What's going on here?" Johnson speculates the true intent of the release is to create a lowered expectation of success among the American people in order to allow the Biden Administration some cover when the truth of the war in Ukraine is apparent to even the dumbest among us. The truth is spelled out in those classified documents, which detail a very different picture of the reality on the ground in that war. It's a reality that I know is true. I'm a realist. I haven't had one moment in the past 16 months when I didn't think there was something entirely phony going on in Europe. The notion that Russia can be militarily defeated by Ukraine is just nonsense. Even if the Russians were out of practice and had low morale they could still kick Ukraine's tail in a year. Yet, we're still watching the destruction and slaughter. Why? Some of the answers lie in those documents. Some, but certainly not all.

When thinking about this little war, keep in mind the dissolution of the Soviet Union and certain events and promises that were made in the aftermath. When Ukraine declared its independence it had most of the Soviet nuclear arsenal within its boundaries. No one liked that. It was truly a dangerous situation that everyone agreed needed to be addressed. We had the START inspections going on then and the US and NATO people knew where every Soviet nuke was and exactly what it was. Securing those nukes against the possibility of misuse was of paramount concern at the time. To do that the US, NATO member nations, and Russia entered into talks with Ukraine's government. The deal that was brokered was to allow Russia to take all those nukes to Russia, where they would be subject to START provisions. In exchange, Ukraine was promised non-interference from Russia and security guarantees from western powers. Russia had a special request that was agreed to – Ukraine would never become a part of NATO.

Everyone seemed to be okay with the agreement. The nukes went to Russia and many of them were systematically dismantled. All went well for years, until the US, during Obama's administration, managed a coup in Ukraine and installed the government they'd engineered. That was a bit of a shock to the Russians, not to mention the people of Ukraine. Russia realized we were involved in Ukraine up to our elbows. That's about the time we committed to facilitate the bio-engineering labs that were built in Ukraine. Russia considered the presence of those labs to be a security threat and they complained. We just ignored them. Ukraine then wanted some air defense weapons. Obama refused. Things went from bad to worse. Ukraine started making overtures to NATO. They were feeling insecure and wanted a more substantial shield than the promises made earlier. The constant overtures to NATO set the Russians on edge. They knew the west. They understood that, sooner or later, the west was likely to cave in and admit Ukraine into NATO. Russia has a long history of paranoia about such things.

It's always important to understand there are many sides to any international situation. Every side that can be considered needs to be. People and their livelihoods are being destroyed in the war in Ukraine. No side is blameless, least of all our own. A few years ago it appeared the west was willing to observe "the legitimate security interests of Russia." Then, it appears, they just stopped caring. There are myriad reasons for that, but the simple truth is – the west decided to ignore the truth that Ukraine had one of the most corrupt regimes in the world. Or, perhaps they were acknowledging that very corruption and purposefully provoking the war with Russia. In the end, it doesn't matter why they did what they did. In the end it's only important to understand that what we're told about Ukraine and that war is seldom true. It's all lies. It's all been lies. People will believe what they want. One thing they need to deal with is the truth that there's no truth to be found anywhere over there, other than the truth that many lives are being lost and billions upon billions in property damaged. The truth about why it's all been happening – that truth depends entirely on who you're talking to. There is no "the" truth, other than the one that tells us there are ten lies offered for every truth told.

I am one who struggles to find truth amid all the lies of the war in Ukraine. One thing I believe is true involves the World Economic Forum and the role it's played. The war is a great diversion. As long as people are focused on Ukraine they have little time to pay attention to the machinations of the Cabal. The war is great for business. It's a great opportunity for transferring wealth from the pockets of taxpayers everywhere into the coffers of the already mega-wealthy. It's been a great way to facilitate some of the Cabal's more obscure initiatives. It’s certainly weakened Europe and made it more unstable. The Nordstream pipeline attack, regardless of who did it, worked in Russia’s favor and also the Cabal’s. It makes one wonder, who all is in league with whom?

When I think of Ukraine and its war I am left with a feeling of deep sadness that the entire nation is being victimized for profit. Who can change that? No one. Ukraine is now fully in the palms of the Cabal. Their fate is whatever the Cabal decides. Watch and see. The war will be over relatively soon. Then, and only then will we be able to see what it was truly about. We have to see what's to become of the land and its people. I can guarantee you it will be eye-opening if people will only pay attention.

I'll return to the original theme of this discourse now and give my observations of the remarks of Lt. COL MacGregor. You have to watch the interview with Johnson first to make sense of it. If you do, you may be a bit confused by the way MacGregor approaches the entire thing. It's as if he believes the entire security breach is real and happened like we're being told. In other words MacGregor appears to have been completely bamboozled by the official stories being released. He doesn't perceive anything wrong with the narrative. When Judge Napolitano plays a video of a supposed "gamer buddy" of Teixeira he at least says he doesn't find it convincing. He does recognize that video as possible disinformation, but seems to still want to believe the main story line.

I don't know about you, but when I take the two interviews at face value I have to say Johnson's remarks seemed to be the most on-point and true. MacGregor comes off as something of a supporter of the status-quo. Is that just my raging confirmation bias speaking? Johnson convinced me by pointing to the one piece of evidence that convinced him. MacGregor did not convince me at all. He seems a bit unwilling to suspend his belief in the integrity of the Pentagon. He keeps returning to his notion that those 21, 22, 23, and 24 year-olds in the military are trustworthy. That's not the question being raised. That's not the point. MacGregor is either too dense to comprehend the point, or he's trying to appear as if he is. He seems to go out of his way to ignore the possibility that the entire episode is a ruse of some kind. He admits he believes the documents are real, but doesn't want to speculate that their release was anything but the act of one person.

This is where I want to bring in my own experience. I worked for DoD for a total of 42 years. I was around IT people for over 30 of those years. I know Jack Teixeira is an IT specialist. That does allow him the potential to breach security and access documents that he has absolutely no need to see. I know that all classified repositories have several layers of security that have to be dealt with to access them. One needs a great deal of will, a lot of time, and some very specialized knowledge to get at many of those documents. MacGregor is right when he says the information in most Secret or NOFORN documents is in the public domain. The things that make them classified are those facts and factors that provide their specific context – that makes the information classified. Top Secret and above are things not found in the public domain. They include knowledge that's to be kept secret and the means and methods used to acquire that knowledge. To me, it's a bit inconceivable that Jack Teixeira spent his on-duty time sifting through reams of documents to find those he supposedly released. He wouldn't be able to do that in any off-duty capacity. I've never met an IT person who had so much dead time on their hands they could do what Teixeira is accused of. Then, there is the fact that Teixeira worked in a Secure Classified Information Facility (SCIF). All DoD IT facilities that have the capability to store, transmit, or transfer classified material are certified to the same rigorous security requirements, just as any other SCIF. Among those requirements: no cell phones or cameras are allowed, no removable media such as CDs or flash drives are allowed, and everyone who enters and leaves is logged in with IDs and date/time stamps. How do I know? I worked in a DoD SCIF for three straight years.

There's a suggestion made by Johnson that someone may have handed the documents to him outside of his duties. If he's involved at all, that's a more likely scenario. But, that scenario leads to further speculations of who? and why?

Will we ever know the truth of any of this? Maybe, but not likely. My only appeal to all of you is to understand one thing only – WE'RE BEING PLAYED AGAIN!

Watch the two videos at this link, then decide for yourself: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/04/14/suspicious-cats-correct-johnson-and-macgregor-give-details/

In Liberty,

Steve