Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts

Friday, February 27, 2015

US Propaganda Driving Situation Toward War

Washington has destroyed trust between nuclear powers, thus raising the specter of war

What is the purpose behind Washington’s cause and misrepresentation of the Ukraine conflict?
Ambassador Jack Matlock made an important speech at the National Press Club on February 11. Matlock served as US ambassador to the Soviet Union during 1987-91. In his speech he describes how President Reagan won the trust of the Soviet leadership in order to bring to an end the Cold War and its risk of nuclear armageddon. 
Reagan’s meeting with Gorbachev did not rely on position papers written by staff. It relied on a hand-written memo by Reagan himself that stressed respect for the Soviet leadership and a clear realization that negotiation must not expect the Soviet leaders to do something that is not in the true interest of their country. The way to end the conflict, Reagan wrote, is to cooperate toward a common goal. Matlock said that Reagan refused to personalize disagreements or to speak derogatorily of any Soviet leader.
Matlock makes the point that Reagan’s successors have done a thorough job of destroying this trust. In the last two years the destruction of trust has been total.
How can the Russian government trust Washington when Washington violates the word of President George H.W. Bush and takes NATO into Eastern Europe and places military bases on Russia’s border?
How can the Russian government trust Washington when Washington pulls out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and places Anti-Ballistic Missiles on Russia’s border?
How can the Russian government trust Washington when Washington overthrows in a coup the elected government of Ukraine and installs a puppet regime that immediately expresses hostility toward Russia and the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine and destroys Soviet war memorials commemorating the Red Army’s liberation of Ukraine from Nazi Germany?
How can the Russian government trust Washington when the President of Russia is called every name in the book, including “the new Hitler,” and gratuitously accused of every sort of crime and personal failing?
Washington and its neoconservative monsters have destroyed trust with demonization and blame of Russia for violence in Ukraine for which Washington is responsible.
Washington has forced Europe to impose economic sanctions on Russia that are based entirely on lies and false accusations. The Russians know this. They recognize the blatant hostility, the blatant lies, the never-ending crude propaganda, the hypocritical double-standards, the push toward war.
Simultaneously China is experiencing hostile encirclement with Washington’s “pivot to Asia.”
By destroying trust, Washington has resurrected the threat of nuclear armageddon. Washington’s destruction of trust between nuclear powers is the crime of the century.
On February 24, I held accountable Alexander J. Motyl and the Council on Foreign Relations for publishing on February 5 a large collection of blatant lies in order to create a false reality with which to demonize the Russian government. I observed that the publication of ignorant nonsense in what is supposed to be a respectable foreign policy journal indicated the degradation of the Western political and media elite.
I did not think things could get any worse, but one day later I came across Andrew S. Weiss’ article in the Wall Street Journal. 
Weiss’ article is the most amazing collection of misrepresentations imaginable. It is impossible to believe that the vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment could possible be so totally misinformed. The false reality that Weiss creates precludes any diplomatic resolution of the conflict that Washington has created with Russia.
What is the explanation for Weiss’ misrepresentations of Putin, the origin of the conflict and the cause of its continuation?
Recalling the confession of Udo Ulfkotte, an editor at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, that he published under his name articles handed to him by the CIA and that the entire European press does the same, was Weiss handed the disinformation by the CIA, or by Victoria Nuland, or is the answer simply that Weiss worked on Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council, the State Department and the Defense Department and is one of Washington’s propaganda operatives currently operating out of a think-tank?
The more important question is: What is the purpose behind Washington’s cause and misrepresentation of the conflict? Was the destruction of trust between nuclear powers intentional or a consequence of other purposes? Is Washington simply using its ability to control explanations in order to cover up its involvement in the overthrow of a democratically elected government, an outcome that has gone bad? Or is the answer merely that Washington is peeved that it failed to get its hands on Russia’s Black Sea naval base in Crimea and has had to give up, at least for now, on getting Russia out of the Mediterranean and out of the Russian naval base at Tartus, Syria?
As I explained today to an international conference hosted by institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Moscow State Institute of International Relations, the neoconservative ideology of US world hegemony requires the prevention of “the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere” with sufficient resources and power to be able to serve as a check on unilateral action by Washington.
When Russian diplomacy blocked Washington’s planned invasion of Syria and planned bombing of Iran, the neoconservatives realized that they had failed in their “first objective” and were now faced with a check on unilateral action. The attack on Russia instantly began. The $5 billion Washington had spent funding NGOs in Ukraine and cultivating Ukrainian politicians produced the overthrow of the elected Ukrainian government. Washington imposed a puppet government that instantly employed violent words and deeds against the Russian population, resulting in the secession of Crimea and the formation of other break-away provinces.
With English as the world language and the compliant media or presstitutes in Washington’s service, Washington has been able to control the explanation, blame Putin for the crisis, and force Europe to breakup its economic and political relations with Russia by imposing economic sanctions.
In a vain and failed attempt to keep the US as the Uni-power capable of dictating to the world, the neoconservatives have recklessly and irresponsibly resurrected the threat of nuclear armageddon. The neoconservative dominance of US foreign policy makes impossible any restoration of trust. Washington’s propaganda is driving the situation toward war. As neither Washington nor the Russian/Chinese alliance can afford to lose the war, the war will be nuclear. Any survivors will be doomed by nuclear winter.
The entire world must quickly become aware of the danger and confront the evil regime that the neoconservatives–the Sauron of our world–have created in Washington. To do otherwise is to risk life on earth.
This article originally appeared on paulcraigroberts.org. Reprinted with permission from the author.

Mirrored from PressTV.com
--Joe

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Cold War - Hot War - Obama's Brilliant Advisors

[UPDATE III :: Tuesday, May 6, 2014] - The Crisis in Ukraine - What can be done
by FLOYD RUDMIN - Tromsø, Norway."The crisis in Ukraine is serious.  At some point soon, reality needs to become the priority.  No more name-calling.  No more blaming.  If there are any adults in the room, they need to stand up.  The crisis in Ukraine is going critical, and that is a fact.
[UPDATE II :: Saturday, April, 19, 2014] - On Nazis, Jews & Ukraine ‘de-escalation’
"For all of what passes for Western ‘intelligentsia’ carping on Putin as a Stalin remix, the ‘sick Russian bear’ and stupidities of the same ilk, a strategy lesson is evolving. The Kremlin does have a vision, the will and the means to pursue it, perseverance, and a carefully calibrated method. Sun Tzu would approve it. Don’t provoke; wait. Be patient, but not inactive. Accrue your potential. Then retake the initiative. Strike only when the right convergence presents itself. And then the ‘tactician’ on the other side, already blinded because he does not respect you, will be left clueless, wondering what hit him."
 - Works for me.

[UPDATE :: Thursday, April, 17, 2012] - Kiev: Military operation in Ukraine southeast to go on despite Geneva agreement]

Stephen Cohen: A New Cold War Is Already Underway

“For the first time in my lifetime, since the Cuban Missile Crisis, hot war with Russia is imaginable,” Nation contributing editor Stephen Cohen told Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman on Thursday. Cohen, a Russia historian and expert on US-Russia relations, slammed the Obama administration for suggesting that the crisis in Ukraine was exclusively due to “Putin’s meddling,” and warned against a build-up of NATO forces near Russia’s borders. In an effort to end the crisis, Russia, Ukraine, the US and the European Union will begin talks today in Geneva. “Putin will compromise at these negotiations,” Cohen warned, “but he will not back off if confronted militarily.”
—Sam Adler-Bell — The Nation

Here is the complete interview on Democracy Now:

"We Are Not Beginning a New Cold War, We are Well into It": Stephen Cohen on Russia-Ukraine Crisis

As negotiations over the crisis in Ukraine begin in Geneva, tension is rising in the Ukrainian east after security forces killed three pro-Russian protesters, wounded 13 and took 63 captive in the city of Mariupol. Ukrainian officials said the pro-Russian separatists had attempted to storm a military base. The killings came just after the unraveling of a Ukrainian operation to retake government buildings from pro-Russian separatists. Earlier today, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the authorities in Kiev of plunging the country into an "abyss" and refused to rule out sending forces into Ukraine. Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has announced a series of steps to reinforce its presence in eastern Europe. "We will have more planes in the air, more ships on the water and more readiness on the land," Rasmussen said. We are joined by Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. "We are not at the beginning of a new Cold War, we are well into it," Cohen says, "which alerts us to the fact 'hot war' is imaginable now. It’s unlikely, but it’s conceivable — and if it’s conceivable, something has to be done about it."

Read the complete interview here.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Washington Drives the World Toward War

[UPDATE :: Tuesday, April 15, 2014]


The Attack on Russia is Mounting
by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
The CIA director was sent to Kiev to launch a military suppression of the Russian separatists in the eastern and southern portions of Ukraine, former Russian territories for the most part that were foolishly attached to the Ukraine in the early years of Soviet rule.
Washington’s plan to grab Ukraine overlooked that the Russian and Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine were not likely to go along with their insertion into the EU and NATO while submitting to the persecution of Russian speaking peoples.  Washington has lost Crimea, from which Washington intended to eject Russia from its Black Sea naval base. Instead of admitting that its plan for grabbing Ukraine has gone amiss, Washington is unable to admit a mistake and, therefore, is pushing the crisis to more dangerous levels.
If Ukraine dissolves into secession with the former Russian territories reverting to Russia, Washington will be embarrassed that the result of its coup in Kiev was to restore the Russian provinces of Ukraine to Russia.  To avoid this embarrassment, Washington is pushing the crisis toward war.
The CIA director instructed Washington’s hand-picked stooge government in Kiev to apply to the United Nations for help in repelling “terrorists” who with alleged Russian help are allegedly attacking Ukraine. In Washington’s vocabulary, self-determination is a sign of Russian interference. As the UN is essentially a Washington-financed organization, Washington will get what it wants.
The Russian government has already made it completely clear some weeks ago that the use of violence against protesters in eastern and southern Ukraine would compel the Russian government to send in the Russian army to protect Russians, just as Russia had to do in South Ossetia when Washington instructed its Georgian puppet ruler to attack Russian peacekeeping troops and Russian residents of South Ossetia.
Washington knows that the Russian government cannot stand aside while one of Washington’s puppet states attacks Russians.  Yet, Washington is pushing the crisis to war.
The danger for Russia is that the Russian government will rely on diplomacy, international organizations, international cooperation, and on the common sense and self-interest of German politicians and politicians in other of Washington’s European puppet states.
For Russia this could be a fatal mistake. There is no good will in Washington, only mendacity. Russian delay provides Washington with time to build up forces on Russia’s borders and in the Black Sea and to demonize Russia with propaganda and whip up the US population into a war frenzy.  The latter is already occurring.
Kerry has made it clear to Lavrov that Washington is not listening to Russia. As Washington pays well, Washington’s European puppets are also not listening to Russia. Money is more important to European politicians than humanity’s survival.
In my opinion, Washington does not want the Ukraine matters settled in a diplomatic and reasonable way. It might be the case that Russia’s best move is immediately to occupy the Russian territories of Ukraine and re-absorb the territories into Russia from whence they came. This should be done before the US and its NATO puppets are prepared for war. It is more difficult for Washington to start a war when the objects of the war have already been lost. Russia will be demonized with endless propaganda from Washington whether or not Russia re-absorbs its traditional territories. If Russia allows these territories to be suppressed by Washington, the prestige and authority of the Russian government will collapse. Perhaps that is what Washington is counting on.
If Putin’s government stands aside while Russian Ukraine is suppressed, Putin’s prestige will plummet, and Washington will finish off the Russian government by putting into action its many hundreds of Washington-financed NGOs that the Russian government has so foolishly tolerated.  Russia is riven with Washington’s Fifth columns.
In my opinion, the Russian and Chinese governments have made serious strategic mistakes by remaining within the US dollar-based international payments system. The BRICS and any others with a brain should instantly desert the dollar system, which is a mechanism for US imperialism. The countries of the BRICS should immediately create their own separate payments system and their own exclusive communications/Internet system.
Russia and China have stupidly made these strategic mistakes, because reeling from communist failures and oppressions, they naively assumed that Washington was pure, that Washington was committed to its propagandistic self-description as the upholder of law, justice, mercy, and  human rights.
In fact, Washington, the “exceptional, indispensable country,” is committed to its hegemony over the world. Russia, China, and Iran are in the way of Washington’s hegemony and are targeted for attack.
The attack on Russia is mounting.
Paul Craig Roberts is a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. Roberts’ How the Economy Was Lost is now available from CounterPunch in electronic format. His latest book is How America Was Lost.

Mirrored from CounterPunch. 

UPDATE: The Obama Game - Is Putin Being Lured Into a Trap?


I posted the article, in part, as a response to local blogger and lawyer Eric Kirk and his Brownshirts. If you don't know, "Brownshirts are a collection of thugs who get quite annoyed at those who oppose" them, their judging, their propaganda, wanton personal hyperbolic attacks and their sick never-ending filthy lies. In the real world of yesterday they were nothing more than a gang of bullying political murderers that paraded around in all their glorious self-righteous impunity. Today, none of them are of the 1% oligarchic plutocracy, but they serve them just the same as the "Brownshirts."

[Picture Source]

--Joe

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Do as I Say Not as I Do

Ralph Nadar wrote this on Counterpunch. Read for some perspective on Barack Obama, the Ultimate Hypocrite.

Hollow Advice
Obama to Putin: Do as I Say Not as I Do
by RALPH NADER
Dear President Obama:

As you ponder your potential moves regarding President Vladimir V. Putin’s annexation of Crimea (a large majority of its 2 million people are ethnic Russians), it is important to remember that whatever moral leverage you may have had in the court of world opinion has been sacrificed by the precedents set by previous American presidents who did not do what you say Mr. Putin should do – obey international law.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

International Law Versus American-Style Anarchy

UPDATE :: Did President Obama Forget Ukraine’s Government Was Overthrown?


ON COUNTERPUNCH

MARCH 06, 2014 

Coming Soon to Ukraine

American Hypocrisy on International Law

by CURTIS FJ DOEBBLER

The threat of Russian intervention in Ukraine has caused American lawyers and diplomats to raise their voices about the legality of Russian military action in Ukraine. These complaints, however, are based more on political rhetoric and posturing than on an understanding of international law.

Americans who supported ostensibly illegal action against the people of Afghanistan and the people of Iraq that left an estimated 3 million Afghanis and Iraqis dead and whose perpetrators have gone with almost complete immunity are now claiming that Russia is following their example. Well, not exactly. Actually they are claiming that America was right and that Russia is wrong. Another more objective way of putting it is that these American lawyers and diplomats are claiming exceptionalism to international law while trying to argue that their version of international law applies to Russia. In other words, what the United States did to Afghanistan and Iraq, other can’t do to friends of the United States, even if the others are acting within the ambit of international law, when the United States was not.

Such hypocrisy is dangerous to the development and application of international law and to the international community as a whole. It is dangerous because it misinterprets international law and intentionally misleads the international community about what international is, how it comes about, and how it works.

Unlike the weapon in the hands of a few States that think they are special, international law is in reality  the lowest common denominator among all States. It is the most fundamental rules of the international community that govern relations among all people. International law functions as basic rules that have been agreed between States for the conduct of their affairs in a way that allows people of diverse social, political, and economic understandings of the world to live together.
The rest of the article on CounterPunch.