The Two Superpowers: Who Really Controls the Two
Countries?
The Two Superpowers: Who Really Controls the Two
Countries?
Paul Craig Roberts
Among the ruling interests in the US, one interest
even more powerful than the Israel Lobby—the Deep State of the
military/security complex— there is enormous fear that an uncontrollable
President Trump at the upcoming Putin/Trump summit will make an agreement that
will bring to an end the demonizing of Russia that serves to protect the enormous
budget and power of the military-security complex.
You can see the Deep State’s fear in the editorials
that the Deep State handed to the Washington Post (June 29) and New York Times
(June 29), two of the Deep State’s megaphones, but no longer believed by the
vast majority of the American people. The two editorials share the same
points and phrases. They repeat the disproven lies about Russia as if
blatant, obvious lies are hard facts.
Both accuse President Trump of “kowtowing to the
Kremlin.” Kowtowing, of course, is not a Donald Trump
characteristic. But once again fact doesn’t get in the way of the
propaganda spewed by the WaPo and NYT, two megaphones of Deep State lies.
The Deep State editorial handed to the WaPo reads:
“THE REASONS for the tension between the United States and Russia are
well-established. Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine, instigated a war in
eastern Ukraine, intervened to save the dictatorship of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad, interfered in the U.S. presidential election campaign to harm Hillary
Clinton and help Donald Trump, poisoned a former intelligence officer on
British soil and continues to meddle in the elections of other democracies.”
The WaPo’s opening paragraph is a collection of all
the blatant lies assembled by the Deep State for its Propaganda Ministry.
There have been many books written about the CIA’s infiltration of the US
media. There is no doubt about it. I remember my orientation as
Staff Associate, House Defense Appropriation Subcommittee, when I was informed
that the Washington Post is a CIA asset. This was in 1975. Today the Post
is owned by a person with government contracts that many believe sustain his
front business.
And don’t forget Udo Ulfkotte, an editor of the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, who wrote in his best seller, Bought
Journalism, that there was not a significant journalist in Europe who was not
on the CIA’s payroll. The English language edition of Ulfkotte’s book has been
suppressed and prevented from publication.
The New York Times, which last told the truth in the
1970s when it published the leaked Pentagon Papers and had the fortitude to
stand up for its First Amendment rights, repeats the lies about Putin’s
“seizure of Crimea and attack on Ukraine” along with all the totally
unsubstantiated BS about Russia interfering in the US president election and
electing Trump, who now kowtows to Putin in order to serve Russia instead of
the US. The editorial handed to the NYT insinuates that Trump is a threat to
the national security of America and its allies (vassals). The problem, the NYT
declares, is that Trump is not listening to his advisors.
Shades of President John F. Kennedy, who did not
listen to the CIA and Joint Chiefs of Staff about invading Cuba, nuking the
Soviet Union, and using the false flag attack on America of the Joint Chiefs’
Northwoods Project (look it up online). Is the New York Times setting up
Trump for assassination on the grounds that he is lovey-dovey with Russia and
sacrificing US national interests?
I would bet on it.
While the Washington Post and New York Times are
telling us that if Trump meets with Putin, Trump will sell out US national
security, The Saker says that Putin finds himself in a similar box, only it
doesn’t come from the national security interest, but from the Russian Fifth
Column, the Atlanticist Integrationists whose front man is the Russian Prime
Minister Medvedev, who represents the rich Russian elite whose wealth is based
on stolen assets during the Yeltsin years enabled by Washington. These
elites, The Saker concludes, impose constraints on Putin that put Russian
sovereignty at risk. Economically, it is more important to these elites for
financial reasons to be part of Washington’s empire than to be a sovereign
country. http://thesaker.is/no-5th-column-in-the-kremlin-think-again/
I find The Saker’s explanation the best I have read of
the constraints on Putin that limit his ability to represent Russian national
interests.
I have often wondered why Putin didn’t have the
security force round up these Russian traitors and execute them. The
answer is that Putin believes in the rule of law, and he knows that Russia’s US
financed and supported Fifth Column cannot be eliminated without bloodshed that
is inconsistent with the rule of law. For Putin, the rule of law is as
important as Russia. So, Russia hangs in the balance. It is my view
that the Russian Fifth Column could care less about the rule of law. They
only care about money.
As challenged as Putin might be, Chris Hedges, one of
the surviving great American journalists–who is not always right but when he is
he is incisive–explains the situation faced by the American people. It is
beyond correction. American civil liberties and prosperity appear to be
lost. https://russia-insider.com/en/politics/america-shows-many-signs-impending-catastrophic-collapse-pulitzer-prize-winner-explains
In my opinion, Hedges leftwing leanings caused him to
focus on Reagan’s rhetoric rather that on Reagan’s achievements—the two
greatest of our time—the end of stagflation, which benefited the American
people, and the end of the Cold War, which removed the threat of nuclear
war. I think Hedges also does not appreciate Trump’s sincerity about
normalizing relations with Russia, relations destroyed by the Clinton, George
W. Bush, and Obama regimes, and Trump’s sincerity about bringing offshored jobs
home to American workers. Trump’s agenda puts him up against the two most
powerful interest groups in the United States. A president willing to
take on these powerful groups should be appreciated and supported, as Hedges
acknowledges the dispossessed majority do. If I might point out to Chris,
whom I admire, it is not like Chris Hedges to align against the choice of the
people. How can democracy work if people don’t rule?
Hedges writes, correctly, “The problem is not Trump.
It is a political system, dominated by corporate power and the mandarins of the
two major political parties, in which we [the American people] don’t count.”
Hedges is absolutely correct.
Hedges is absolutely correct.
It is impossible not to admire a journalist like
Hedges who can describe our plight with such succinctness:
“We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health,
lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, the press destroys
information, religion destroys morals, and banks destroy the economy.”
Read The Saker’s explanation of Russian
politics. Possibly Putin will collapse under pressure from the powerful
Fifth Column in his government. Read Chris Hedges analysis of American
collapse. There is much truth in it. What happens if the Russian people
rise up against the Russian Fifth Column and if the oppressed American people
rise up against the extractions of the military/security complex? What happens
if neither population rises up?
Who sets off the first nuclear weapon?
Our time on earth is not just limited by our
threescore and ten years, but also humanity’s time on earth, and that of every
other species, is limited by the use of nuclear weapons.
It is long past the time when governments, and if not
them, humanity, should ask why nuclear weapons exist when they cannot be used
without destroying life on earth.
Why isn’t this the question of our time, instead of,
for example, transgender toilet facilities, and the large variety of fake
issues on which the presstitute media focuses?
The articles by The Saker and Chris Hedges, two astute
people, report that neither superpower is capable of making good decisions,
decisions that are determined by democracy instead of by oligarchs, against
whom neither elected government can stand.
If this is the case, humanity is finished.
Here are the Washington Post and New York Times
editorials:
Washington Post
June 29, 2018
Editorial
Trump is kowtowing to the Kremlin again. Why?
Ahead of a summit with Putin, Trump is siding with the Russian leader, with dangerous results.
June 29, 2018
Editorial
Trump is kowtowing to the Kremlin again. Why?
Ahead of a summit with Putin, Trump is siding with the Russian leader, with dangerous results.
THE REASONS for the tension between the United States
and Russia are well-established. Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine, instigated
a war in eastern Ukraine, intervened to save the dictatorship of Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad, interfered in the U.S. presidential election
campaign to harm Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump, poisoned a former
intelligence officer on British soil and continues to meddle in the elections
of other democracies. Yet on Wednesday in the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin
brushed it all aside and delivered the Russian “maskirovka,” or camouflage,
answer that it is all America’s fault.
Meeting with John Bolton, the president’s national
security adviser, Mr. Putin declared that the tensions are “in large part the
result of an intense domestic political battle inside the U.S.” Then Mr.
Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov insisted that Russia “most certainly did not
interfere in the 2016 election” in the United States. On Thursday morning, Mr.
Trump echoed them both on Twitter: “Russia continues to say they had nothing to
do with Meddling in our Election!”
Why is Mr. Trump kowtowing again? The U.S. intelligence
community has concluded that Russia did attempt to tilt the election using
multiple campaigns, including cyberintrusions and insidious social media
fakery. Would it be so difficult to challenge Mr. Putin about this offensive
behavior? A full accounting has yet to be made of the impact on the election,
but Mr. Bolton did not mince words last year when he described Russian
interference as “a true act of war” and said, “We negotiate with Russia at our
peril.” And now?
Summits can be productive, even – maybe especially –
when nations are at odds. In theory, a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin,
now scheduled for next month in Helsinki, could be useful. But a meeting aimed
at pleasing Mr. Putin is naive and foolhardy. A meeting aimed at pleasing Mr.
Putin at the expense of traditional, democratic U.S. allies would be dangerous
and damaging.
Just as Mr. Bolton was flattering Mr. Putin, Russia
was engaging in subterfuge on the ground in Syria. The United States, Russia
and Jordan last year negotiated cease-fire agreements in southwestern Syria,
along the border with Jordan and the Golan Heights. In recent days, the United
States has warned Russia and its Syrian allies not to launch an offensive in
the area, where the rebel forces hold parts of the city of Daraa and areas
along the border. The State Department vowed there would be “serious
repercussions” and demanded that Russia restrain its client Syrian forces.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the Russian foreign minister, Sergei
Lavrov, saying an offensive would be unacceptable. All to no avail; Syria is
bombing the area.
This is what happens when Mr. Trump signals,
repeatedly, that he is unwilling or unable to stand up to Russian misbehavior.
We are on dangerous ground. Either Mr. Trump has lost touch with essential U.S.
interests or there is some other explanation for his kowtowing that is yet
unknown.
New York Times
June 29, 2018
Editorial
Trump and Putin’s Too-Friendly Summit
It’s good to meet with adversaries. But when Mr. Trump sits down with Mr. Putin, it will be a meeting of kindred spirits. That’s a problem.
New York Times
June 29, 2018
Editorial
Trump and Putin’s Too-Friendly Summit
It’s good to meet with adversaries. But when Mr. Trump sits down with Mr. Putin, it will be a meeting of kindred spirits. That’s a problem.
It’s good for American presidents to meet with
adversaries, to clarify differences and resolve disputes. But when President
Trump sits down with President Vladimir Putin of Russia in Finland next month,
it will be a meeting of kindred spirits, and that’s a problem.
One would think that at a tête-à-tête with the Russian
autocrat, the president of the United States would take on some of the major
concerns of America and its closest allies. Say, for instance, Mr. Putin’s
seizure of Crimea and attack on Ukraine, which led to punishing international
sanctions. But at the Group of 7 meeting in Quebec this month, Mr. Trump
reportedly told his fellow heads of state that Crimea is Russian because
everyone there speaks that language. And, of course, Trump aides talked to
Russian officials about lifting some sanctions even before he took office.
One would hope that the president of the United States
would let Mr. Putin know that he faces a united front of Mr. Trump and his
fellow NATO leaders, with whom he would have met days before the summit in
Helsinki. But Axios reported that during the meeting in Quebec, Mr. Trump said,
“NATO is as bad as Nafta,” the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is
one of Mr. Trump’s favorite boogeymen.
Certainly the president would mention that even the
people he appointed to run America’s intelligence services believe
unequivocally that Mr. Putin interfered in the 2016 election to put him in
office and is continuing to undermine American democracy. Right? But on
Thursday morning, Mr. Trump tweeted, “Russia continues to say they had nothing
to do with Meddling in our Election!”
More likely, Mr. Trump will congratulate Mr. Putin,
once again, for winning another term in a sham election, as he did in March,
even though his aides explicitly warned him not to. And he has already proposed
readmitting Russia to the Group of 7, from which it was ousted after the
Ukraine invasion.
Summits once tended to be carefully scripted, and
presidents were attended by senior advisers and American interpreters. At
dinner during a Group of 20 meeting last July, Mr. Trump walked over to Mr.
Putin and had a casual conversation with no other American representative
present. He later said they discussed adoptions – the same issue that he
falsely claimed was the subject of a meeting at Trump Tower in 2016 between his
representatives and Russian operatives who said they had dirt on Hillary
Clinton.
It’s clear that Mr. Trump isn’t a conventional
president, but instead one intent on eroding institutions that undergird
democracy and peace. Mr. Trump “doesn’t believe that the U.S. should be part of
any alliance at all” and believes that “permanent destabilization creates
American advantage,” according to unnamed administration officials quoted by
Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic.
Such thinking goes further than most Americans have
been led to believe were Mr. Trump’s views on issues central to allied
security. He has often given grudging lip service to supporting NATO, even
while complaining frequently about allies’ military spending and unfair trade
policies.
The tensions Mr. Trump has sharpened with our allies
should please Mr. Putin, whose goal is to fracture the West and assert Russian
influence in places where the Americans and Europeans have played big roles,
like the Middle East, the Balkans and the Baltic States.
Yet despite growing anxieties among European allies,
Mr. Trump is relying on his advisers less than ever because, “He now thinks he’s
mastered this,” one senior member of Congress said in an interview. That’s a
chilling thought given his inability, so far, to show serious progress on any
major security issue. Despite Mr. Trump’s talk of quick denuclearization after
his headline-grabbing meeting with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un,
experts say satellite imagery shows the North is actually improving its nuclear
capability.
While the White House hasn’t disclosed an agenda for
the Putin meeting, there’s a lot the two leaders should be discussing, starting
with Russian cyberintrusions. Mr. Trump, though, has implied that Mr. Putin
could help the United States guard against election hacking. And although
Congress last year mandated sweeping sanctions against Russia to deter such behavior,
Mr. Trump has failed to implement many of them.
In a similar vein, should Mr. Trump agree to
unilaterally lift sanctions imposed after Moscow invaded Ukraine and started a
war, it would further upset alliance members, which joined the United States in
imposing sanctions at some cost to themselves. Moreover, what would deter Mr.
Putin from pursuing future land grabs?
Mr. Trump could compound that by canceling military
exercises, as he did with South Korea after the meeting with Mr. Kim, and by
withdrawing American troops that are intended to keep Russia from aggressive
action in the Baltics.
Another fraught topic is Syria. Mr. Trump has signaled
his desire to withdraw American troops from Syria, a move that would leave the
country more firmly in the hands of President Bashar al-Assad and his two
allies, Russia and Iran. Russia, in particular, is calling the shots on the
battlefield and in drafting a political settlement that could end the fighting,
presumably after opposition forces are routed.
What progress could be made at this summit, then? Mr.
Trump and Mr. Putin may find it easier to cooperate in preventing a new nuclear
arms race by extending New Start, a treaty limiting strategic nuclear weapons
that expires in 2021.
Another priority: bringing Russia back into compliance
with the I.N.F. treaty, which eliminated all U.S. and Soviet ground-launched
ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers,
until Russia tested and deployed a prohibited cruise missile.
Mr. Trump’s top national security advisers are more
cleareyed about the Russian threat than he is. So are the Republicans who
control the Senate. They have more responsibility than ever to try to persuade
Mr. Trump that the country’s security is at stake when he meets Mr. Putin, and
that he should prepare carefully for the encounter.
