(MENAFN- Asia Times)
NEW YORK – The custom-built Oculus headset delivered to my door by a hooded monk seemed to malfunction. The palace on the Place de Vosges appeared once again in the Metaverse but in black and white rather than bright cartoon colors, with less furniture and fewer objects d'art, with drab walls unadorned by the paintings I had admired at our last meeting.
A bit uncertain on my feet I wandered about the virtual-reality residence until I nearly stumbled on, or rather walked through, the translucent ghost of Cardinal Richelieu, the evil genius of 17th century France and master strategist of the Thirty Years' War.
“Please accept my pardon for my reduced circumstances,” the Cardinal said after we exchanged the usual pleasantries. The budget has been under strain since Meta's stock price collapsed.
That didn't bother me; in truth, I preferred the damp ossuary of the Carthusian monks, numberless levels below the sewers of Paris, where I had first materialized the Cardinal's spirit with the help of a magnum of Chateau Petrus and a spittoon. Virtual reality gave me headaches.
“Your time as always is gratefully appreciated, Eminence,” I offered.“And since your time is constrained,” I added quickly,“please tell me what will happen in Ukraine, and then what will happen elsewhere in consequence.”
Said the Cardinal:
Allegory celebrating the nomination of Cardinal de Richelieu (1585-1642) to the office of superintendent of navigation and trade in October 1626. Engraving by Goyrand, Claude (1620-62), Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris
“But what of the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men who returned to the country to fight the Russians?” I objected.
“They will find out that it is unpleasant to fight the Russians, as their grandfathers did during the Second World War. A few tens of thousands of them will be killed, and others will rot for some time in Russian prison camps as the Russians encircle and annihilate the main body of the Ukrainian army in the Donbass. Then they will join their families in Poland or Germany.”
“But surely the Americans won't stand for this!,” I protested.
“About the Americans do not worry so much. They are becoming accustomed to humiliation. Does no one remember their unseemly departure from Afghanistan last year? They thought they were clever in cultivating Ukraine as a de facto member of NATO, perhaps with anti-missile systems that could be converted into short-range missiles with nuclear warheads if the need were to arise.
Putin believed that he had an agreement with the Europeans under Minsk II to keep Ukraine neutral and to guarantee autonomy to Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine in the East, and he believed – with some justification – that Washington sabotaged this agreement. So he attacked.”
Richelieu's biretta began to flicker and for a moment I thought I saw a straw boater instead. It occurred to me that he was about to break into“Thank Heaven for Little Girls.”
“But Eminence,” I protested,“surely the Americans must have known that the Russian army might destroy Ukraine!”
The Cardinal sneered, his Metaverse mustache twitching violently, as he replied:
“Don't fight with Russians,” I translated.“To every stratagem of war they react with some unforeseeable brutishness.”
“Bingueaux!” said the Cardinal.
Ask Napolean. The painting is 'Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow,' by Adolph Northern.
“What will happen if the Russians succeed?” I demanded.
He was prepared for that question and answered immediately:
“And China, Eminence? What will China do?” I asked.
“China will eat melons, to use their idiom; they will stand on the sidelines, watch and do nothing at all except enjoy the misery of the United States. They will show the instruments of torture to Taiwan in the expectation that their actual application will not be necessary. They will build more hypersonic weapons and other nasty devices that make the American navy rather unwelcome in their part of the world. And they will quietly tell countries of interest to them that the United States failed once again in Ukraine as it failed in Afghanistan, and that China will have to be reckoned with as a new pole of global power.
“But surely,” I protested,“there is something that Washington can do to avoid sliding down this slippery slope!”
Richelieu's face settled into a ghastly smirk.“Of course, there is something Washington can do! If I commanded a country with the power of the United States, rather than a mere France, I would …”
Sparks sprang from my Oculus headset, and I tried to remove it, but it seemed glued to my face. The Cardinal's avatar began to disintegrate into random pixels and the three dimensions of the palace on the Place des Vosges collapsed into a flat plane. Nothing was visible of Richelieu except his mustache, which vibrated like the wings of a dragonfly, sending out a horrendous racket that drowned out his voice.
I awoke next to an empty bottle of Russian Standard vodka and a half-eaten blini wrapped in the editorial section of the Wall Street Journal.
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