America is the Nation of nations, built not of one people or culture, but rather the culmination of our globe into a single union, representing how the strength of diversity can create a world of both peace and prosperity. That is the nation our predecessors built for us, but that is far from the nation we are on course to leave to our posterity. Reclaiming our self-governed republic from the corporate backed power holding it hostage won’t just help us start solving our problems but will also afford us a chance to reintroduce ourselves to the world and repair the relationships that decades of brutality and manipulation have deteriorated.

I haven’t been to every country, but I’ve circled the globe more times than I’ve been able to keep count of. I’ve had the pleasure in my life of traveling the world, visiting all different types of places, and meeting all different types of people. I’ve lived lavishly in Dubai, and I’ve lived poorly in Afghanistan. I’ve been a civilian in Europe and married my wife in Tbilisi, Georgia; but I’ve also been on covert missions that traversed me through Europe in undocumented ways. I’ve worked directly with Lithuanians, Italians, the British, Egyptians, Saudi’s, and others. I’ve posed as State Department and USAID officials on covert operations, been involved in captures and interrogations, and spent time in prisons all over the world where we house “terrorists.” I’ve collected biometrics from dead bodies, and sometimes even living people who would be executed only minutes later. I’ve landed on C-130’s in the middle of Saudi deserts during prisoner swaps. I’ve even lived in Afghan villages, sometimes for weeks at a time, with little backup other than Afghan soldiers and a general awareness from coalition forces operating around the area in the event of an emergency.

I’m not proud of any of it, I share only to explain I did enough to understand the pure evil caused by the dark side of American power, evil always justified as necessary to combat threats, but threats that only existed because of the evil we created. It’s a disastrous loop, one that exists to create the illusion danger is lurking without exposing that it’s the dangers we are creating that produced the illusion to begin with. And it’s all done so the expenses we justify from these perceived threats enrich the military industrial complex, among the rest of the elite class. After all, they are who’s making the money, and who’s funding the campaigns of the politicians allowing the wars. But they’re also paying for the lobbyist that promotes the need for war and the corporate media with advertisements alongside a never-ending supply of so-called experts who have spent careers perfecting the language to manipulate Americans into either accepting their justification or tuning it all out completely.

America is a nation vastly superior to that of any other, with the power to guide all nations toward a renewed sense of cooperation and mutual respect if we so choose. We’ve long allowed that power to be used at the behest of our nation’s, and the world’s, richest and most elite; however, if the People reclaim that power by standing up and offering something tangible to Americans at elections in a uniting way, we will then have the ability to re-introduce the prospect of a safer and more respectful world, in the interests of the American People.

Despite a propagandist push by the corporate backed media to convince you otherwise, the United States has been directly involved, for decades, in escalations that were instrumental to the war in Ukraine. There is ample video and written evidence that proves NATO’s commitment to respect Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union and not expand NATO eastward, something we did countless times, even so far to reach Russia’s borders. There are numerous examples of a false narrative fed to the American public of Russia scheming to compromise the President, hack servers, rig elections, and leak damning evidence of corruption involving American politicians (and their kids) in the name of destroying America, a nation with a GDP fourteen times itself and a military capable of destroying their own overnight.

Along with weather, sports, and other current events, Americans only learn of Putin as a tyrant hell bent on power and thirsty for blood, never being able to see him for the soldier he really is, willing to do everything necessary for the good of his people. I don’t believe for one second that Vladimir Putin is a good guy, but I’m certain he’s the product of the American dominance and power that created the oppression on others. I’m further certain it was this same oppression that warranted the acceptance from the Russian people of his viscous leadership to begin with.

Had we never outcasted Russia from the world and labeled them as threats to western civilization, I believe they would never have taken such a hostile approach to us, either. Had we never expanded our influence into Eastern Europe in search of control and power, they would have never seen us as the threat we were to them. Had we never elected ruthless tyrants to force the world into our submission, they would have never elected ruthless tyrants to defend them from that submission. Vladimir Putin is a man who will definitely face the level of scrutiny upon his appearance before God I know I am due for all the wicked I’ve wrought to humanity, as every President we’ve had at least in my lifetime also faces, as well. But it’s time we stop looking at him any differently than we look at ourselves; because just as our tyrannical force can unleash the evil within Putin, that same force has the power to incentivize Putin into peaceful and friendly submission, too.

We can’t pretend the United States didn’t fund the coup in Ukraine in 2014 because we know we did. We can’t continue sending hundreds of billions of our dollars to further incite the war in Ukraine knowing our evil intentions behind it. We can’t be willing to spend money creating problems abroad while problems in our own country that could be fixed at a fraction of the cost remain neglected. We cannot be blowing up pipelines. And we can’t keep believing in half-truth narratives designed to depict our enemies as evil while obfuscating the evidence proving how much worse we are than them. I believe wholeheartedly that Russia and the United States have had every opportunity to become great allies since the early 1990’s and that the only thing preventing an alliance was the United States’ own interests in keeping them an enemy.

Think about it, how many times can you recall off the top of your head the media falsely blaming Russia for something? But have you ever seen the coverage detailing how the Ukrainian coup, funded covertly by the United States in 2014, was precisely the cause of all the unrest? Was there any public debate over the opposing trade deals the EU and Russia offered to Ukraine; and if so, did no one suggest the wild idea that Ukraine could have trade deals with both sides that best benefits the people of Ukraine? Why did it have to be one or the other and why are we allowing such binary outcomes to become acceptable behavior on the international stage? And why the hell does it benefit the United States so much to have Russia as an enemy rather than a friend? Well, quite frankly, it doesn’t; but in the strategic interests of the elite alone, it just might.

It might benefit the military industrial complex to have Russia as an enemy for precisely the reason we’re sending billions in aid now, because it isn’t like we’re flying planeloads of cash over there and setting them up on a shopping spree, we’re transferring those funds into the accounts of the weapons manufacturers to cover the costs for weapons we’ve committed to them. That said, no one ends up profiting from this war more than our own military industrial complex, just like they did through the expansion of NATO, as well as the two decades we spent in Afghanistan and another in Iraq. I know from first-hand experience that most of the world views America as the oppressors, but that isn’t the America we really are, and it’s on us to change back into something representative of the People.

If, indeed, America is once again reclaimed and represented by the People, there will be nothing to stop peace from being achieved in Ukraine. They’ll be nothing to stop us from acknowledging the corruption created by the politicians we’ve discarded, and condemning the actions they took to escalate the war. They’ll be no reason for us to continue our hostilities toward Russia, not with a profit seeking military industrial complex influencing our lawmakers’ decisions anymore. And there will be nothing stopping us from engaging with both Russia and Ukraine in a renewed spirt of friendship to establish a commitment towards a more peaceful and less destructive future. I believe NATO can and should be dissolved, but only when countries awaken to a world free of the dominance and oppression that is either exclusively for or derived because of tyrannical American power. I believe a new wave of leadership would cause an end to our domineering attitude internationally so that the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Libya, Djibouti, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, and a hundred other countries could once again look to America for the leadership and promise a nation derived from nations should be able to provide.

When I look at Vladimir Putin, I see a brilliant yet brutal man. Aside from the brittleness that age, and perhaps disease, may be imposing, I see a soldier who had enough of his own experience with death to be able to see beyond the veils of deception, much like I think of myself. I see a man with a self-determined destiny of service and defense to his people, one that was undoubtedly molded by bold actions he was known to take as a KGB agent.

I learned of a story about Putin talking a mob out of storming the KGB safehouse he was defending as the Berlin Wall came down, a story worth admiring regardless of what you may think of him. With his life on the line, facing a mob seeking blood, Putin rationalized with them that the house, which he defended alone, was packed with agents ready to open fire on anyone who dared to enter. He pleaded with them to spare their own lives and come back after they all left, assuring the mob their departure was imminent. Regardless of who he is today, he displayed levels of intelligence, courage, and cleverness that any nation should look for in a leader. He could have fled the house and allowed the secrets within to be exposed, but instead he remained steadfast in his duties of service to his people, and in the process, displayed content within his character fit for that of a leader.

I believe that in a world where American imperialistic aggression subsides, it would create the ability for Russian imperialistic aggression to become altered as well. I believe our hostile posture toward each other can be replaced by goodwill efforts to seek out mutual benefits that promote the overall welfare of any nation involved. Put bluntly, America can’t be the purveyors of justice and righteousness without ourselves following doctrines of justice and righteousness, and if we lead with justice and righteousness we can entice the world to follow. Peace can be achieved in Ukraine, possibly overnight, so long as American leadership is predicated upon justice and righteousness. That can happen if we just wake up, unite, say no to the past and yes to the future. It’s a simple notion, one that once you see, the more the elites do to manipulate you, the more obvious it starts becoming to you and the easier it is to keep your back turned from. But once your back is turned, the only challenge is finding something palpable to replace the failures of the past, which will literally take all of us doing together.

A less adversarial demeanor internationally, especially one able to promote peace in Ukraine, would have the potential to positively affect the approach we are taking with our other fractured relationships, such as North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Yemen. From what I learned by Donald Trump’s willingness to engage with North Korea, I believe the opportunity to begin a diplomatic relationship with them is very much alive and should be sought out with great enthusiasm. As with Russia, neither their military nor GDP fall anywhere near the territory of causing us any real harm. In fact, all of them combined doesn’t leave much of a dent. Yet for some reason, we’ve been told by the same corporate news trying to convince us Russia is evil and we’re good, that North Korea is a threat worth justifying both our military budget and the sanctions that leave their citizens stuck in poverty and despair.

For every talking point that argues North Korean leadership is evil by illustrating the poor quality of life there, it should have always been pointed out that the massive sanctions we’ve held on them for decades has far more to do with the poverty they face than the oppression of their own leader. Again, I’m not defending the actions or assuming any qualities in Kim Jong-un, I’m only recognizing up front that our sins outweigh, and oftentimes prompted, his. Again, making these acknowledgements under the umbrella of a new generation of American leadership is something that would come naturally to us once we’ve discarded the failed leadership from our past, knowing that improving our most fractured relations are in the best interest of the American People.

Looking past the threat of nuclear war, I believe the greatest threat to the United States is undoubtedly China; and if we’re hellbent on having an enemy we don’t have to look further than that. But I don’t believe we truly need enemies, and I believe that the same strength that would afford us the opportunity to repair our most broken relationships would be enough to influence a better relationship with China as well, especially if we found ways to get more of the world behind a new way of thinking.

China is facing a multitude of challenges that threatens their future. In a world where imperialism is an acceptable international strategy, China will address these challenges with solutions that undoubtedly harm the people of other nations; but I believe a renewed spirit of American leadership has the potential to incentivize China, as well. China is expected to have a working-age population of just 650 million by 2050, while our own population is projected to surpass 450 million that same year. In addition, while the median age in China is about 38 today, it will be over 54 in 2050; as ours is 38 today and will be around 41 by then. Without getting into any other details, it is quite clear to any American willing to inquire that the dynamics of the world in thirty years will be far different from the dynamics of the world today, and the sooner we begin to collaborate on smooth transitions together the better it will become for all of us in the end. Are we to expect that, in thirty years from today, the half-trillion in imports we receive from China each year will continue being produced by a severely aged working population two-thirds-size of what it used to be, or that their diminished population can support the imports of a nation 50% larger than it was before?

It will take a variety of economic experts to properly craft the hundreds of international agreements that both eliminate outdated and obsolete treaties as well as establish modern and forward-looking agreements. But those experts will never have the opportunity to chart a course for us until everyday Americans willing to uphold their own responsibilities to their society see the writing on the wall and realize we’re all going in the wrong direction. It takes authentic representatives to guide our experts into finding solutions that benefit those they represent, and America is desperate for authentic representation. The problems facing China are indeed some of the most complex and troublesome facing the entire world, problems I wouldn’t dare claim to have all the answers for. And that makes no mention of the problems facing India, Africa, or elsewhere in the future, as well. But like most obstacles that need leadership to overcome, reaching solutions takes leaders who are determined to seek out the right direction that leads us toward them.

Any American concerned about the future of our nation and the world has undoubtedly discovered by now that China is definitely thinking about their future and is exploiting the United States to the fullest in the process. China knows what their future holds, and to survive they are using the same tactics of aggression we mainly invented following World War II. But the truth is, even with a population decline there is the potential of a prosperous China, as well as a prosperous Taiwan, without the need for strife but rather with the effort of goodwill and mutual benefit. Clearly, in the conditions that exist today this is all a fairy tale; but provided the citizens of our country accept the challenge of reclaiming our roles of leadership, these are achievements that we can reach, ones that will save us all from the impending determent our current future has in store for us.

I’m past the point of accepting our involvement in any international turmoil as just without being truthful about our own injustices, and I’m confident that most other Americans are as well. We’re past the point of believing the threats Iran poses on us all today isn’t directly correlated to the eighty years of meddling and control the United States manipulated onto them out of our own evil self-interests. We’re past the point of believing the two decades and $2 trillion we spent in Afghanistan “defending freedom” wasn’t a murderous plan to enrich the military industrial complex and further assert the American agenda of control strategically onto others. We’re past the point of believing that Hunter Biden or Jared Kushner just happened to be such brilliant minds they collected millions, or even billions, from around the world without it having anything to do with the influence their powerful fathers hold, or that the money was exchanged for anything other than favorable action. We’re past the point of believing NATO is required to defend us, as our military budget triples that of China’s and far surpasses any other nation in the world by a staggering margin of grandeur. We’re past the point of believing our own government isn’t capable of the evil it would take to assassinate even one of our own leaders, let alone a foreign leader that disfavors our international agenda. I’ll say this a thousand times if I must, I don’t have all the answers, you do. I possess what it takes to get the discussions needed to find the right answers started, which is why I’ve recognized my duty for leadership. But I don’t possess the experience and knowledge to find them myself, that takes us all working together, finding them together. If I’m light on ideas, I can assure you that I’m heavy on direction, and finding solutions requires us all to do things in an independent, American way.