mr hornberger nails it with this essay titled: good for putin for exposing the empire's hypocrisy, though others have written about it this essay does it in a few words, accurately;

At the risk of being accused of befriending one of the two premier enemies (or rivals, opponents, adversaries, or competitors) of the U.S. national-security establishment (the other one being China), I feel compelled to commend Russian President Vladimir Putin for exposing the rank hypocrisy of U.S. officials.

I must admit that I couldn’t help but smile when I read that Putin was threatening to send Russian troops to Cuba and Venezuela in response to U.S. attempts to absorb Ukraine into NATO, which would enable the Pentagon and the CIA to send U.S. troops, missiles, and tanks to Russia’s border.When I read Putin’s statement, I knew immediately what the U.S. response would be  … and that it would not be a principled one. Not surprisingly, U.S. officials didn’t like Putin’s idea at all, as reflected by U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan exclaiming, “If Russia were to move in that direction, we would deal with it decisively.”

Whoa! Now just wait a minute. We keep hearing U.S. officials saying that Ukraine is an independent, sovereign country (despite the fact that the U.S. government helped foment the regime-change operation that installed a pro-U.S. puppet regime in the country). As such, U.S. officials maintain that Ukraine has the rightful authority to join NATO, that old Cold War dinosaur that should have gone out of existence decades ago.

But Cuba and Venezuela are independent sovereign countries too, aren’t they? As such, don’t they have the authority to invite foreign troops into their countries? And just as the U.S. government establishes military bases all over the world, including in countries that are located close to Russia, why doesn’t Russia have the authority to do the same in Cuba and Venezuela?.........read more.....