Renee Parsons

Jackson Browne’s prophetic lament was written before the world lost its collective sense of purpose as Browne never needed to exactly define the Deluge.  It was understood that he meant to rouse the baby boomer generation to assume the mantle of a world moving beyond transcendence as it lurched into an age of materiality and mediocrity.  WW III was not yet a part of the Deluge equation.   

Even in the days of relative innocence; there was an understanding at a deep unconscious level that Browne was warning of an approaching storm, what might be a debacle Come Home to Jesus moment.  In his timeless masterpiece, identifying the “troubled years that came Before the Deluge,” by those already “angry at the way the earth was abused by the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power,” the frightening escalation by NATO and its allies occurring in Ukraine is setting the stage for a direct nuclear confrontation with Russia.   

And they struggled to protect her from them 

Only to be confused by the magnitude of her fury in the final hour       

A profound genius, the best song writer of his time and beyond, Browne wrote of today’s greed and avarice eerily prescient in his best moments of prognostication.  While he might have speculated that the Deluge was limited to a moral bankruptcy of the American Republic as precursor, so thorough and multi-faceted in its deliberation, the impending truth of nuclear annihilation represents a more appalling future than ever contemplated. 

In what can only be interpreted as a new series of frightening escalations and provocative military threats against Russia, the tyrannical NATO and its allies have initiated a momentous level of belligerence with the first delivery of multi-role, high performance  US built F 16’s that are nuclear-capable bombers due to arrive in the next few weeks.  

As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov predicted “The supply of increasingly destructive weapons to the Kiev regime indicates the West’s lack of interest in ending the conflict.  The supply of F16 to Kiev is meant to convey that the US and NATO are ready to go to any lengths in Ukraine that they are ready to signal in the nuclear sphere.”  

In other words, as any knuckle-head could figure out, as the world continues to rotate on its axis, international turmoil has increased full tilt with NATO removing any pretense of being a diplomatic champion of harmony and reconciliation.  

Instead a false interpretation of reality is proclaimed built on decisions already decided,  unbeknownst to the general public, shielding it from an about-to-happen calamity.  A reality where nuclear Armageddon qualifies as the Deluge.

“While the sand slipped through the opening 

And their hands reached for the golden ring 

When their hearts they turned to each other’s hearts for refuge 

In the troubled years that came before the deluge” 

In an interview with the Economist, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called for an end to the prohibition of western weapons to strike military targets within Russia, a prohibition previously supported by the US.   

By virtue of Stoltenberg’s sudden declaration allowing the use of western weaponry within Russian borders, once NATO publicly succumbed to additional weapons for Ukraine, almost every other European nation, one at a time, began to fall in line; all in a series of well rehearsed meticulous pronouncements feigning weighty deliberations. 

Most importantly, the American public who fund every iota of weaponry to the point of a $34 trillion debt, needed to be convinced that a legitimate purpose existed.  We, your leaders, have more information than you will ever know.  We have carefully negotiated the details and reached a thoughtful, unquestionable conclusion:   

that the US spiraling war against Russia was the result of carefully calculated consideration and that the ‘collective west’ in order to survive must provide lethal weapons to Kiev, especially missiles with long range capacity to reach deep inside Russia. 

In support of US policy was a choreographed schedule of media performance, intended to mislead Americans that a  coordinated weapons strategy has been adopted along with a predilection to believe their own bullshit without ever sourcing the privileged elites responsible for life-death decisions that affect a majority of the world’s population. 

Over the course of a week,  the US played its role well with Biden appearing to bow ‘under pressure,’ as administration officials stretched to review “legal questions.”  Biden “edges” toward sending cluster weapons and reversing his stance with ‘anonymous’ administration source suggesting that a change in Biden’s view is ‘inevitable’ while the pretend President rarely knows the time of day much less the nuance of reversing complicated military policy.  

Even the roll out of Soltenberg’s initial pronouncement was dutifully followed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken softening the US position to allow Kyiv to strike a Russian population with American-provided weapons.  The EU’s Chief Diplomat Josef Borrell identified several western European countries had ‘modified’ their view to allow their weaponry against Russia.  French President Macron endorses the right to strike military targets inside Russia as well as ‘neutralize’ Russian military bases as Poland cited Ukraine “can use equipment as it sees fit.”  

Long time war hawk UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron surprised no one that Ukraine had already been authorized to strike Russia with UK provided weapons as well as the Dutch Foreign Minister called for restrictions to be lifted.  The Finnish Foreign Secretary announced no restrictions had been placed on weapons provided to Ukraine as Germany’s Scholz said they had ‘exhausted ability to support Ukraine’. 

“And in the end they traded their tired wings 

For the resignation that living brings 

And exchanged love’s bright and fragile glow 

For the glitter and the rouge 

And in a moment they were swept Before the Deluge” 

***

The backstory is that Russian Federation Security Council Deputy Dmitry Medvedev who rarely holds back has made explicit warnings that any NATO–generated attack or weapons of western origin used in the war, those countries would be held responsible including comparable repercussions beyond Ukraine.  

In view of recent NATO developments, Medvedev left little to the imagination  responding that “All their military equipment and specialists fighting against us will be destroyed both on the territory of former Ukraine and on the territory of other countries.” 

In addition, Medvedev cited long-range weapons supplied to Ukraine “directly operated by servicemen from NATO countries” considered tantamount to active participation in the war and combat operations against Russia.

***

Almost immediately with completion, the Crimea (aka) Kerch Strait Bridge in 2018  provided a 12 mile span linking mainland Russia with the Crimean peninsula, the Bridge became a source of Ukraine animosity and object of multiple attacks in July 2022 and July 2023 as if it had been personally constructed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.   

As it quickly became a favorite target of the Ukraine military including total destruction of Russia’s Moskva missile cruiser, the Bridge featured a dual use purpose with a traffic lane and a railway track enabling daily military and other essential deliveries to Crimea. 

Despite the fact that Catherine the Great restored Crimea to Russia in 1752, the Bridge continued as a source of controversy as Crimean residents voted 95% to annex back to Russia in 2014 as the NATO intrusion became unavoidable. 

The most intense attack on the  Kerch ferry occurred recently with twenty explosions near Kerch damaging two ferries.  Russian Defense Minister identified US-secretly supplied ATACMS missiles as the culprit as Ukraine  launched 20 drones at Crimea, fourteen of which were destroyed by air defenses as the remaining six were “suppressed by electronic warfare.”

The Russian Minister of Defense asserted that its air defense had shot down eight ATACMS over the Azov Sea as well as eight airborne drones over the Black Sea close to Crimea, home to Russia’s nuclear naval base at Sevastapol.    

There was speculation that ATACMS were in operation during an April attack on a key logistic air base in northern Crimea although the Ukraine goal has always been to devastate the Crimean Bridge.  Republican Senator Lindsay Graham (SC), a close associate of former President Donald Trump, asserted the goal is for  “ATACMS to knock the bridge down between Crimea and Russia.”

Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor, confirmed that the President had authorized a ‘significant number’ of ATACMS  in February provided for in a $60 billion package approved by Congress in March. The number is now believed to be thirty ATACMS.

ATACMS will join alongside the newly-committed British Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles, both are expected to increase fire power deep within Russia, far from the frontlines. 

 “Let the music keep our spirits high 

Let the buildings keep our children dry 

Let creation reveal it’s secrets by and by, by and by 

When the light that’s lost within us reaches the sky”

***

At latest accounting, it may be that the US proposal for long range deep interior missile strikes has been shelved temporarily as Putin’s red line of an ‘unending escalation’ grew more vivid, sharpening the nuclear backlash on Europe with the understanding that Putin was not seeking conciliation.  Now directly involved, the US is providing weapons that could only have a US source, as it has removed itself from the pretense of acting in a proxy capacity.  

In describing the potential horrific depth of the current crisis, former weapons inspector Scott Ritter spoke of Americans willing to risk that Russians will not respond and remain restrained as he revealed that if Russia’s early warning command and control defense radar is eradicated, that action will automatically trigger a built-in nuclear response and that it will take only ‘one stupid human mistake and “You are about to die.”