RT | July 9, 2023

The Russian Air Force is conducting joint exercises with its Syrian counterparts, so part of the countrys airspace remains off-limits to the US-led forces, the Defense Ministry reiterated after the Pentagon accused Russia of harassing American drones for the third time this week.

The Russian side once again expresses concern about the systematic violations of deconfliction protocols related to the flights of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) of the so-called international anti-terrorist coalition, the deputy head of the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria, Rear Adm. Oleg Gurinov, said in a statement on Saturday.

On Friday, the commander of US Air Forces Central, Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, claimed that three MQ-9 drones were once again harassed by Russian fighter aircraft while flying over Syria, for the third day in a row. He shared no footage of the encounters this time, but accused Russian pilots of making 18 unprofessional close passes that caused the MQ-9s to react to avoid unsafe situations.

On Wednesday, Moscow and Damascus kicked off a joint air defense drill, which is scheduled to last until the middle of this month. Electronic warfare units are also involved in the exercise, preparing for joint action to counter enemy airstrikes.

Asked whether the US drones could have indeed flown into a restricted area, Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder insisted at a press briefing on Thursday that it would be preposterous to suggest Washington was to blame.

You did you see the video?.. So to suggest that somehow, you know, this is our fault, its ridiculous. So okay?, he told journalists .

Ryder went on to say that US forces have very successfully deconflicted with the Russians over many years but refused to say whether the US was following deconfliction protocols this time.

Social psychosis is widespread.  In the words of the British psychiatrist, R. D. Laing, The condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of ones mind, is the condition of the normal man.

He was not referring to raving, drooling, hitting-your-head-against-the-wall lunacy but a taken-for-granted acceptance of a world long teetering on the edge of nuclear extinction, to take the most extreme example, but surely only one of many.  The insouciant acceptance and support of psychotic rulers who promote first-strike nuclear war is very common.  First strike nuclear policy is United States policy.

I recently wrote an article about the dangers of the fourteen U.S. Trident submarines.  These subs constantly cruise under the oceans carrying 3,360 nuclear warheads equivalent to 134,400 Hiroshima bombs.  All are on first strike triggers.  And, of course, these are supplemented by all the land and air based nukes.  My point was not very complicated: now that the United States government has abrogated all nuclear weapons treaties and continues to escalate its war against Russia in Ukraine, we are closer to nuclear annihilation than ever before.

This conclusion is shared by many esteemed thinkers such as the late Daniel Ellsberg who died  on June 16, 2023 and whose 2017 book The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, makes clear that nuclear war, waged intentionally or by mistake or accident, is very possible. In the months before he died, he warned that this is now especially true with the situation in Ukraine and the U.S. provocations against China.

The Grayzones Max Blumenthal recently addressed the UN Security Council on the danger of U.S. actions in Ukraine and asked:

Will we see another Douma deception, but this time in Zaporizhzhia?

Why are we doing this? Why are we tempting nuclear annihilation by flooding Ukraine with advanced weapons and sabotaging negotiations at every turn?

Finian Cunningham has just raised the specter of a thermonuclear catastrophe initiated by a U.S./Ukrainian false flag attack on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant.

So my article was in no way unusual, except for my concentration on the Trident submarines.

When, against my better judgment, I read some commentators responses to my piece at a few websites where my article was posted, I was taken aback when I read the following [all emphases are mine]:

• Like many other boo...