Bring Back The Cold War
Paul Craig Roberts
Pundits have declared a “New Cold
War.” If only! The Cold War was a time when leaders focused on reducing
tensions between nuclear powers. What we have today is much more dangerous:
Washington’s reckless and irresponsible aggression toward the other major nuclear
powers, Russia and China.
During my lifetime American
presidents worked to defuse tensions with Russia. President John F. Kennedy
worked with Khrushchev to defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Richard
Nixon negotiated SALT I and the anti-ballistic missile treaty, and Nixon opened
to Communist China. President Carter negotiated SALT II. Reagan worked with
Soviet leader Gorbachev and ended the Cold War. The Berlin Wall came down.
Gorbachev was promised that in exchange for the Soviet Union’s agreement to the
reunification of Germany, NATO would not move one inch to the East.
Peace was at hand. And then the
neoconservatives, rehabilitated by the Israeli influence in the American press,
went to work to destroy the peace that Reagan and Gorbachev had achieved. It
was a short-lasting peace. Peace is costly to the profits of the
military/security complex. Washington’s gigantic military and security
interests are far more powerful than the peace lobby.
Since the advent of the criminal
Clinton regime, every American president has worked overtime to raise tensions
with Russia and China.
China is confronted with the crazed
and criminal Obama regime’s declaration of the “pivot to Asia” and the prospect
of the US Navy controlling the sea lanes that provision China.
Russia is even more dangerously
threatened with US nuclear missile bases on her border and with US and NATO
military bases stretching from the Baltics to the Black Sea.
Russia is also threatened with
endless provocations and with demonization that is clearly intended to prepare
Western peoples for war against “the Russian threat.” Extreme and hostile words
stream from the mouth of the Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary
Clinton, who has called the president of Russia “the new Hitler” and threatened
Russia with military force. Insouciant Americans are capable of electing this
warmonger who would bring Armageddon upon the earth.
Yesterday, Israel’s voice in the US,
the New York Times, added to Hillary’s demonization of the most responsible
leader in the world with this editorial: “Vladimir Putin’s Outlaw State.” This
irresponsible and propagandistic editorial, no doubt written by the
neoconservatives, blames all the troubles in Ukraine and Syria on Putin. The
NYT presstitutes know that they have no case, so they drag in the
US-orchestrated false report on MH-17 recently released by Washington’s
Netherlands vassal.
This report is so absurd as to cast
doubt on whether intelligence exists anywhere in the Western world. Russia and
the now independent Russian provinces that have separated from Ukraine have no
interest whatsoever in shooting down a Malaysian airliner. But despite this
fact, Russia, according to the orchesrated report, sent a surface-to-air
missile, useful only at high altitude, an altitude far higher than the
Ukrainian planes fly that are attacking Russians in the separated republics, to
the “rebels” so that the “rebels” could shoot down a Malaysian airliner. Then
the missile system was sent back to Russia.
How insouciant does a person have to
be to believe this propaganda from the New York Times?
Does the New York Times write this
nonsense because it is bankrupt and lives on CIA subsidies?
It is obvious that the Malaysian
airliner was destroyed for the purpose of blaming Russia so that Washington
could force Europe to cooperate in applying illegal sanctions on Russia in an
attempt to destabilize Russia, a country that placed itself in the way of
Washington’s determination to destabilize Syria and Iran.
In a recent speech, the mindless
cipher, who in his role as US Secretary of Defense serves as a front man for
the armaments industry, declared the one trillion dollars (1,000 billion
dollars or 1,000,000 million dollars, that is, one million dollars one million
times) that Washington is going to spend of Americans’ money for nuclear force
renewal is so we can “get up in the morning to go to school, to go to work, to
live our lives, to dream our dreams and to give our children a better future.”
But Russia’s response to this buildup
in Washington’s strategic nuclear weapons is, according to Defense Secretary
Aston B. Carter, “saber rattling” that “raises serious qustions about Russia’s
leaders commitment to strategic stability.”
Do you get the picture? Or are you an
insouciant American? Washington’s buildup is only so that we can get up in the
morning and go to school and work, but Russia’s buildup in response to
Washington’s buildup upsets “strategic stability.”
What the Pentagon chief means is that
Russia is supposed to sit there and let Washigton gain the upper hand so
Washington can maintain “strategic stability” by dictating to Russia. By not
letting Washington prevail, Russia is upsetting “strategic stability.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry, who
has been broken and tamed by the neoconservatives, recently displayed the same
point of view with his “ultimatum” to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
In effect, Kerry told Lavrov that Russia must stop helping Syria resist the
jihadist forces and allow the US-supported ISIS to regain the initiative and
reduce Syria to the chaos in which Washington left Libya and Iraq. Otherwise,
Kerry said that the agreement to cooperate is off.
There can be no cooperation between
the US and Russia over Syria, because the two government’s goals are entirely
different. Russia wants to defeat ISIS, and the US wants to use ISIS to
overthrow Assad. This should be clear to the Russians. Yet they still enter
into “agreements” that Washington has no intention of keeping. Washington
breaks the agreements and blames Russia, thus creating more opportunities to
paint Russia as untrustworthy. Without Russia’s cooperation in setting
themselves up for blame, Russia’s portrait would not be so black.
On September 28, 2016, the New York
Times gave us a good example of how Washington’s propaganda system works.
The headline set the stage: “Russia’s
Brutal Bombing of Aleppo May Be Calculated, and It May Be Working.” According
to the NYT report, Russia was not bombing ISIS. Russia was “destroying hospitals
and schools, choking off basic supplies, and killing aid workers and hundereds
of civilians.”
The NYT asks: “What could possibly
motivate such brutality?”
The NYT answers: Russia is
“massacring Aleppo’s civilians as part of a calculated strategy . . . designed
to pressure [moderates] to ally themselves with extremists,” thereby
discrediting the forces that Washington has sent to overthrow Syria and to
reduce the country to chaos.
When America’s Newspaper of Record is
nothing but a propaganda ministry, what is America?
Pundits keep explaining that
Washington’s 15 year old wars in the Middle East are about controlling the
routing of energy pipelines. Little doubt this is a factor as it brings on
board powerful American energy and financial interests. But this is not the
motive for the wars. Washington, or the neoconservatives who control the US
government, intend to destabilize the Russian Federation, the former Soviet
Central Asian countries, and China’s Muslim province by adding Syria and then
Iran to the chaos that Washington has created in Iraq and Libya. If Washington
succeeds in destroying Syria as it succeeded in destroying Libya and Iraq, Iran
becomes the last buffer for Russia. If Washington then knocks off Iran, Russia
is set up for destabilization by jihadists operating in Muslim regions of the
Russian Federation.
This is clear as day. Putin
understands this. But Russia, which existed under Washington’s domination
during the Yeltsin years, has been left threatened by Washington’s Fifth
Columns in Russia. There are a large number of foreign-financed NGOs in Russia
that Putin finally realized were Washington’s agents. These Washington
operatives have been made to register as foreign-financed, but they are still
functioning.
Russia is also betrayed by a section
of its elite who are allied economically, politically, and emotionally with
Washington. I have termed these Russians “America Worshipers.” Their
over-riding cause is to have Russia integrated with the West, which means to be
a vassal of Washington.
This “academic report” is a direct
assault on the Russian/Chinese alliance. It makes one wonder whether the report
was funded by the CIA. The Russian media fall for the “common interest”
propaganda, because they desire to be included in the West. Like Russian
academics, the Russian media know English, not Chinese. Russia’s history since
Peter the Great is with the West. So that is where they want to be. However,
these America Worshipping Russians cannot understand that to be part of the
West means being Washington’s vassal, or if they do understand the price, they
are content with a vassal’s status like Germany, Great Britain, France, and the
rest of the European puppet states.
To be a vassal is not an unusual
choice in history. For example, many peoples chose to be Rome’s vassals, so
those elements in Russia who desire to be Washington’s vassal have precedents
for their decision.
To reduce Russia’s status to Washington’s
vassal, we have Russian-US coperation between the Moscow-based Institute of
World Economy and International Relations and the US-based International
Institute for Strategic Studies. These two co-conspirators against Russian
sovereignty are working to destroy Russia’s strategic alliance with China and
to create a US-Russian Pacific Alliance in its place. One of the benefits, the
joint report declares, is “maintaining freedom of navigation and maritime
security.”
“Freedom of navigation” is Washington’s
term for controlling the sea lanes that supply China. So now we have a Russian
institute supporting Washington’s plans to cut off resource flow into China.
This idiocy on the part of the Moscow-based Institute of World Economy and
International Relations is unlikely to reassure China about its alliance with
Russia. If the alliance is broken, Washington can more easily deal with the two
constraints on its unilateralism.
Additionally, the joint report says
that Moscow could cooperate with Washington in confidence-building measures to
resolve territorial disputes in the Asia-Pacific region. What this means is
that Russia should help Washington pressure China to give up its territorial
claims.
One cannot but wonder if the
Moscow-based Institute of World Economy and International Relations is a CIA
front. If it is not, the CIA is getting a free ride.
The foreign policy of the United
States rests entirely on propagandistic lies. The presstitute media, a Ministry
of Propaganda, establishes an orchestrated reality by treating lies as fact.
News organizations around the world, accustomed as they are to following
Washington’s lead, echo the lies as if they are facts.
Thus Washington’s lies–such as Saddam
Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Iranian nukes, Assad’s use of chemical
weapons, Russian invasions–become the reality.
Russia’s very capable spokeswoman,
Maria Zakharova, understands that Washington uses the Western media to control
explanations by shaping public opinion. She terms it a “reality show.” However,
Zakharova thinks the problem is that Washington misuses “international
relations and international platforms for addressing internal issues.”http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45564.htm
By this she means that Obama’s foreign policy failures
have made him hysterical and impudent as he strives to leave a legacy, and that
American/Russian relations are poisoned by the US presidential campaign that is
painting Trump as a “Putin stooge” for not seeing the point of conflict with
Russia.
The US presstitutes are disreputable.
This morning NPR presented us with a report on Chinese censorship of the media
as if this was something that never happens in the US. Yet NPR not only censors
the news, but uses disinformation as a weapon in behalf of Washington and
Israel’s agendas. Anyone who depends on NPR is presented a very controlled
picture of the world. And do not forget German newspaper editor Udo Ulfkotte,
who admits he planted stories for the CIA in the Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitnung and says that there is no significant European journalist who doesn’t
do the same thing.
The situation is far more serious
than Zakharova realizes. Russians seem unable to get their minds around the
fact that the neoconservatives are serious about imposing Washington’s hegemony
on the rest of the world. The neoconservative doctrine declares that it is the
principal goal of US foreign policy to prevent the rise of any country that
would have sufficient power to serve as a check on American unilateralism. This
neoonservative doctrine puts Russia and China in Washington’s crosshairs. If
the Russian and Chinese governments do not yet understand this, they are not
long for this world.
The neoconservative doctrine fits
perfectly with the material interests of the US military/security complex. The
US armaments and spy industries have had 70 years to entrench themselves with a
huge claim on the US budget. This politically powerful interest group has no
intention of letting go of its hold on US resources.
As long ago as 1961, President Dwight
D. Eisenhower in his last public address to the American people warned that the
Cold War confronted Americans with a new internal danger as large as the
external Soviet threat:
“Our military organization today
bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or
indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
“Until the latest of our world
conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of
plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we
can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been
compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added
to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the
defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net
income of all United States corporations.
“This conjunction of an immense
military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American
experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt
in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We
recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to
comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all
involved; so is the very structure of our society.
“In the councils of government, we
must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or
unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous
rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
“We must never let the weight of this
combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take
nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the
proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with
our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper
together.”
President Eisenhower’s warning that
our liberties were equally at stake from the military/security complex as from
the Soviet Threat did not last 24 hours. The military/security complex buried
Eisenhower’s warning with extraordinary hype of the Soviet Threat.
In truth, there was no Soviet threat.
Stalin had buffered Russia from the West with his control of Eastern Europe,
just as Washington controlled Western Europe. Stalin had eliminated Trotsky and
his supporters who stood for world revolution. Stalin declared “socialism in
one country.”
Stalin terminated international
communism. But the American military/security complex had much money to gain
from the American taxpayers in order to “protect America from International
Communism.” So the fact that there was no effort on the part of the Soviet
Union to subvert the world was ignored. Instead, every national liberation
movement was declared by the US military/industrial complex to be a “falling
domino” of the Communist takeover of the world.
Ho Chi Minh begged Washington for
help against the French colonialists in Vietnam. Washington told him to go to
hell. It was Washington that sent Ho Cho Minh to seek communist support.
The long Vietnam war went on for
years. It enriched the military/security complex and officers’ pensions. But it
was otherwise entirely pointless. There were no dominoes to fall. Vietnam won
the war but is open to American influence and commerce.
Because of the military/secutity
complex more than 50,000 Americans died in the war and many thousands more
suffered physical and psychological wounds. Millions of Vietnamese suffered
death, maiming, birth defects and illnesses associated with Washington’s use of
Agent Orange.
The entire war was totally pointless.
It achieved nothing but destruction of innocents.
This is Washington’s preferred way.
The corrupt capitalism that rules in America has no interest in life, only in
profit. Profit is all that counts. If entire countries are destroyed and left
in ruins, all the better for American armaments industries.
Yes, please, a new Cold War. We need
one desperately, a conflict responsibly managed in place of the reckless,
insane drive for world hegemony emanating from the crazed, evil criminals in
Washington who are driving the world to Armageddon.