First, moments ago, the US DOE announced in a shocking announcement that it would proceed with the first draw down and sale of crude from the US strategic petroleum reserve, the first since June 2011, in what it said was a “test sale to check the operational capabilities of system infrastructure”, but is really just a shot across the bow at Putin for whom high commodity prices are orders of magnitude more important than how the Russian stock market performs.

And now, as Bloomberg just reported, the US has escalated even further, citing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, who “has claimed that in the case of an escalation of unrest in Crimea, the US Army is ready to back up Ukraine and its allies in Europe with military actions.” From Bloomberg: “According to the website of the Atlantic Council, Dempsey said that ‘he's been talking to his military counterparts in Russia, but he's also sending a clear message to Ukraine and members of NATO that the US military will respond militarily if necessary’.”

“We're trying to tell [Russia] not to escalate this thing further into Eastern Ukraine, and allow the conditions to be set for some kind of resolution in Crimea. We do have treaty obligations with our NATO allies. And I have assured them that if that treaty obligation is triggered [in Europe], we would respond,” Dempsey said. The real question is how Putin will react to this quantum escalation in verbal hostilities: wild guess here, but somehow we doubt he will pick up and leave.

Ms Merkel, 59, a Protestant pastor’s daughter, grew up in East Germany under a system in which Mr Putin, 61, once had a hand, as a KGB agent stationed in Dresden. Fluent in Russian, she literally speaks his language and, arguably, understands his view of the world better than any other European leader touched by the Ukrainian crisis.

It was, by her spokesman’s account, tough talk between two leaders who seemingly could not be more different but who are bound by a shared history. According to advisers in both Berlin and Moscow, the two leaders are unafraid to voice their disagreements and they often heed each other.

Germany is at once dependent on Russia for up to a third of its oil and gas, and tens of billions of dollars in trade, while it is also a leading member of NATO, a pillar of Western policy, and the biggest economy in the 28-nation European Union.

Ms Merkel’s governing partners, the Social Democrats, issued a similar warning. “Europe stands dangerously close to the brink of a military confrontation,” the party said this week in an unusually tense statement. “One hundred years after the start of World War I, military force should never again become the means of conducting politics. Europe stands at a crossroads,” it added. “We must do everything in our power to prevent a new division of our continent and a regression into a pattern of confrontation long considered overcome.”

I have sat in meetings with governments from Asia to Europe and the ONLY reason I have done so, is because I understand that cardinal rule. I once had to advise a head of state that he had no choice but to devalue his currency. I was told that was impossible because it was a campaign promise that would not happen. I had to craft the words to say the currency would float to seek its OWN LEVEL. That was “politically” acceptable since it was not a decreed “official” devaluation despite the fact the free markets would do the same thing.

I have NEVER in my entire life witnessed such BRAIN-DEAD decisions coming from the Obama Administration in any government in the world or former administrations. To impose “sanctions” on Russia is absolutely INSANE!!!! That puts Putin in a box that he cannot escape from for if he relaxes he is then seen as weak at home and the hardliners will eat him alive. Obama has just made the crisis far worse.

Russia has retorted and it will now CANCEL all nuclear treaties. It can shut off the energy to Europe and watch them crawl. Now, any international observers will NEVER get into Crimea. We have dumb and dumber at the helm here. Obama is doing EVERYTHING perfectly wrong and this escalation will only grow far worse. Even China has rejected Obama’s Sanctions.

When I was called in by China and met with the Central Bank, they stated right up front, they agreed with our analysis, but they could not come out and politically say what we were saying. This is no different. You cannot come out and try to make Putin back down before the entire world. This is pure stupidity. If I were him, that audacity would prevent any negotiation at this point and I could not blame him or China for saying that Obama is seriously out of line. Putin cannot now yield or he will lose control of government.

This is absolutely the worse political move I have EVER witnessed in my life for it has ZERO chance of doing anything positive and it will throw away everything every presidency has tried since Nixon – create a dialog for peace.

Dr Roberts: “The Parliament in Crimea has voted to secede from Ukraine and return to Russia. The Crimean population is Russian and they don’t want anything to do with the American-orchestrated coup in western Ukraine. In 9 days there will be a referendum to see whether a majority of the people agree with this, and of course they will.

Now, there’s been no Russian invasion. That’s a lie coming directly out of Victoria Nuland’s State Department and it has spread all over the world. “According to the Russian/Ukrainian Agreement, Russia is permitted 25,000 troops in Crimea. So the notion that 16,000 Russians, who have been there since the 1990s, recently invaded is a lie. It’s just another one of Washington’s lies like Saddam Hussein’s ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ or Iranian nukes.

What’s so puzzling is that anyone ever believes Washington because it never tells the truth about anything. It always lies. I can’t think of a single statement that has come out of Washington in the 21st century that wasn’t a lie. They lied about Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Georgia, and now they are lying about the Ukraine. That’s all they do - they lie.

So why anyone would believe anything Washington or its EU puppets say is beyond me. Europe is nothing but a puppet component of the American empire. There are no independent governments in Europe. But what you will see in 9 days, unless the American fools do something stupid and cause a war, is Crimea will simply secede.

It includes thefts of official Ukrainian government funds, again sent to the Swiss hill sanctuary. It includes sanctions delivered by a US Paper Tiger, sure to cause horrific backlash. It involves the last gasp attempt to obstruct the Gazprom energy pipelines, which will inevitably corner the European market in monopoly. It involves subterfuge with the NATO card (aka Narcotics And Treachery Outlaws) with missiles placed on the Russian borders. Look for NATO members to find a back door to exit the spurious treaty.

It involves playing with nitro-glycerine in the Petro-Dollar room. It involves putting tremendous risk for much more clear isolation of the United States. The more the US government pushes, the more the US will be isolated. Remember that Nazis steal from their enemy states, de-fraud from their allied states, and force themselves into an isolated state. In Ukraine, the United States has over-played its weak hand. Already, a secret document was leaked in London that the UK government would not support the US-led sanctions against Russia.

History repeats itself from the Kremlin phone calls made during the Syrian conflict just a few months ago, when the UK government withdrew its support and left the US isolated, looking very weak. Already, Putin has threatened to dump US Treasury Bonds. Putin aptly calls the Anglo-Americans as Mutants. Imagine the lunacy of trying to cut off the only Russian warm water military naval port in the Crimea.

Just as stupid as the Trans Pacific Partnership faux pas, trying to cut off China from its Asian neighbors and partners in trade. The intelligence level of the US government has never been more stupid, destructive, and in full view. The lost ground for the United States is obvious and glaring in the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Caucasus region.

“We here in the United States don’t hear any real news about the situation in Ukraine - we just hear the State Department’s lies. The whole reason for the protests in Ukraine, the whole reason for the coup orchestrated by Washington, was for that purpose - to put missiles in Ukraine. Washington already has these missile bases in Poland. Washington is on the verge of putting the country of Georgia into NATO, and once that happens they can put missile bases in Georgia. This is why the United States wants Ukraine, they want to put missiles on the Russian border in Ukraine.

So that is what the United States hopes, that by achieving this kind of missile supremacy over Russia they can neutralize the Russian strategic deterrent and make Russia more amenable to accept whatever it is Washington wants to do. There is no doubt whatsoever about that. I think that is a very dangerous miscalculation. The Russians are a proud people. They defeated Napoleon when nobody else could. They defeated Hitler when nobody else could. They defeated the Tatars, and they drove out the Mongolians. The Russians are not the kind of people who want to be anybody’s puppet.

The Germans, French, and the British are content to be American puppets. The Russians would not be content doing that. So what Washington is doing is creating a scenario that very easily could lead to nuclear war.”