By Paul Craig Roberts

January 14, 2017 "Information Clearing House" - Reuters reports that 2,700 US troops accompanied by tanks are moving across Poland toward the Russian border. Col. Christopher Norrie, commander of the 3rd Armoured Brigade Combat Team, declared: “The main goal of our mission is deterrence and prevention of threats.” Apparently, the colonel is not sufficiently bright to realize that far from preventing threats, the force he is leading presents as a threat. And to no less a military power than Russia.

What is the point of this miniscule force? It would not constitute a threat to Russia if it were 100 times larger, perhaps even one thousand times larger. Remember, Hitler invaded Russia against an unprepared Stalin with the largest and best military force the world had ever seen in the largest military operation in human history. The German invasion force was comprised of 3,800,000 troops, 600,000 motorized vehicles, 3,350 tanks, 7,200 artillery pieces, and 2,770 aircraft. The Red Army, despite its officer corps having been purged by Stalin, ate up this magnificient force and won the war against Germany.

Compared to Stalin’s Russia, Putin’s Russia is prepared. NATO is not capable of assembling a large enough force to invade Russia. So what is the point of the 2,700 US troops moving across Poland toward Russia?

The answer is to keep alive the Western propaganda that Russia is a threat and to make it as difficult as possible for Trump to normalize relations with Russia. It is extraordinary that the US military is conducting this provocative exercise that contradicts the policy of the incoming president. The US military, the CIA, and their whores in the US media are undemocratically pursuing their own agenda independently of the policy of the president-elect. According to the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, US intelligence officials have even warned the Israeli government not to share intelligence information with the Trump administration, because Putin has “leverages of pressure” over Trump and Trump will leak the information to Russia and Iran. http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.764711

We can see how the military/security complex’s sabotage of Trump’s policy works. Constant accusations have forced Trump to say that possibly the Russians were involved in a hacking that never occured, neither by Russia nor anyone else. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, Tillerson, has to declare Russia to be a threat in his confirmation hearing in order to be confirmed. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Mattis, has had to say in his confirmation hearing that the US needs to be prepared to confront Russia militarily, adding that there are few areas in which the US can cooperate with Russia which he says is trying to break NATO.

We could dismiss Trump’s admission as throwing a bone to the CIA so they can feel vindicated and get off his back, and the statements by Tillerson and Mattis could be dismissed as what has to be said in order to be confirmed. Nevertheless, these statements from Trump’s top appointments are being used as confirmations that everyone except Trump, even Trump’s own government, realize that Russia is a threat. The propaganda picture of Russia that the Obama regime worked so hard to create now has the luster of acceptance by Trump’s nominees for State and Defense. Whether Tillerson and Mattis mean it or not, clearly the US Congress in thrall to the campaign donations from the military/security complex is determined that Russia be regarded as a threat.

The Russians watching all this must quickly be losing their hopes for normalized relations. The US ruling establishment is causing hope to fade and suspicion to rise in the Russian government, thus raising barriers within Russia herself to Trump’s policy of better relations.

Nothing speaks more clearly of the unbridled evil of the US Establishment than its willingness to risk conflict with Russia for the sake of its hold on power and profit.

Where is the liberal-left’s moral conscience? Why is the liberal-left helping the military/security complex delegitimize Trump and box him in so that his agenda is dead on arrival and thermo-nuclear war remains an option?

Is Trump Already Finished?

By Paul Craig Roberts

It did not take long before we knew there was no hope of change from President Obama. But at least he went into his inauguration with an unprecedented number of Americans on the Mall showing their support for the President of Change. Hope was abundant.

But with Trump, we are already losing faith, if not yet with him, at least with his choice of those who comprise his government even before Trump is inaugurated.

Trump’s choice for Secretary of State not only sounds like the neoconservatives in declaring Russia to be a threat to the United States and all of Europe, but also sounds like Hillary Clinton in declaring the South China Sea to be an area of US dominance. One would think that the chaiman of Exxon was not an idiot, but I am no longer sure. In his confirmation hearing, Rex Tillerson said that China’s access to its own South China Sea is “not going to be allowed.”

Here is Tillerson’s statement: “We’re going to have to send China a clear signal that first, the island-building stops, and second, your access to those islands also not going to be allowed.”

I mean, really, what is Tillerson going to do about it except get the world blown up. China’s response was as pointed as a response can be:

Tillerson “should not be misled into thinking that Beijing will be fearful of threats. If Trump’s diplomatic team shapes future Sino-US ties as it is doing now, the two sides had better prepare for a military clash. Tillerson had better bone up on nuclear power stategies if he wants to force a big nuclear power to withdraw from its own territories.”

So Trump is not even inaugurated and his idiot nominee for Secretary of State has already created an animosity relationship with two nuclear powers capable of completely destroying all of the West for eternity. And this makes the US Senate comfortable with Tillerson. The imbeciles should be scared out of their wits, assuming they have any.

One of the reasons that Russia rescued Syria from Washington’s overthrow is that Russia understood that Washington’s next target would be Iran and from a destroyed Iran terrorism would be exported into the Russian Federation. There is an axis of countries threatened by US supported terrorism—Syria, Iran, Russia, China.

Trump says he wants to normalize relations with Russia and to open up business opportunities in the place of conflict. But to normalize relations with Russia requires also normalizing relations with Iran and China.

Judging from their public statements, Trump’s announced government has targeted Iran for destabilization. Trump’s appointees as National Security Advisor, Secretary of Defense, and Director of the CIA all regard Iran incorrectly as a terrorist state that must be overthrown.

But Russia cannot allow Washington to ovethrow the stable government in Iran and will not allow it. China’s investments in Iranian oil imply that China also will not permit Washington’s overthrow of Iran. China has already suffered from its lost investments in Libyan oil as the result of the Obama regimes overthrow of the Libyan government.

Realistically speaking, it looks like the Trump Presidency is already defeated by his own appointees independently of the ridiculous and completely unbelievable propaganda put out by the CIA and broadcast by the presstitute media in the US, UK, and Europe. The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and BBC have lowered themselves below the National Enquirer.

Possibly, as I wrote earlier today (http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/01/13/the-establishment-is-trying-to-steal-the-presidency-from-trump-paul-craig-roberts/), these statements from Trump’s appointees are nothing but what is required to be confirmed and are not operational in any sense. However, it is possible to stand up to the bastards in confirmation hearings. I stood up in my confirming hearing, and the embarrassed Democrats requested that the entire hearing be deleted from the record.

If the Chairman of Exxon and a Lt. General are not capable of standing up to the imbecilic Congress, they are unfit for office. That they did not stand up is an indication that they lack the strength that Trump needs if he is to bring change from the top.

If Trump is unable to change US foreign policy, thermo-nuclear war and the destruction of Earth are inevitable.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.

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