Jeremy Corbyn Accused of Being Russian “Collaborator”
By Glenn Greenwald
January 17,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- "The
Intercept"
-
The leader of the U.K.’s
Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn,
called for a “de-escalation” of tensions between
NATO and Russia, adding in a BBC interview on Thursday:
“I want to see a de-militarization of the border between
them.” Along with the U.S., the U.K. has been rapidly
building up its military presence in the Baltic region,
including in states that border Russia, and is
now about to send another 800 troops to Estonia, 500
of which will be permanently based.
In response,
Russia has moved its own troops within its country near
those borders, causing serious military tensions to rise
among multiple nuclear-armed powers. Throughout 2016,
the Russian and U.S. militaries have
engaged in increasingly provocative and aggressive
maneuvers against
one another. This week, the U.S.
began deploying 4,000 troops to Poland, “the biggest
deployment of U.S. troops in Europe since the end of the
Cold War.”
It was in this
context that Corbyn said it is “unfortunate that troops
have gone up to the border on both sides,” adding
that “he wanted to see better relations between Russia,
NATO and the EU.” The Labour leader explained that while
Russia has engaged in serious human rights abuses both
domestically and in Syria, there must be “better
relationships between both sides … there cannot be a
return to a Cold War mentality.”
The response to
Corbyn’s call for better relations and de-escalation of
tensions with Moscow was swift and predictable. The
armed forces minister for Britain’s right-wing
government, Mike Penning, accused Corbyn of being a
collaborator with the Kremlin:
These
comments suggest that the Labour leader would rather
collaborate with Russian aggression than mutually
support Britain’s NATO allies. As with Trident,
everything Labour says and does shows that they
cannot be trusted with Britain’s national security.
This is the
same propagandistic formulation that has been used for
decades in the West to equate opposition to militarism
with some form of disloyalty or treason: If you oppose
military confrontation with a foreign adversary or
advocate better relations with it, then you are accused
of harboring secret sympathy and even support for those
foreign leaders, and are often suspected of being an
active “collaborator” with (or “stooge” for) them.
This lowly
smear tactic was, of course, deployed over and over
during the Cold War with regard to those who argued for
improved relations or a reduction of conflict with
Moscow, but it has been repeatedly used since then as
well every time it comes time to confront a new Foreign
Villain (those opposed to the invasion of Iraq were
pro-Saddam, those who opposed intervention in Libya were
Gaddafi apologists, those who objected to war on terror
programs are terrorist sympathizers, etc. etc.).
But this
template has recently become super-charged, more widely
invoked than ever, as a result of the starring role
Russia now plays in U.S. domestic politics, where many
Democrats blame Russia for Hillary Clinton’s defeat.
Putin now occupies the role of Prime Villain in
Western discourse, and this Cold War rhetorical template
— anyone opposing confrontation is a Kremlin operative
or stooge — has thus been resurrected with extraordinary
speed and ease.
The compelling
justifications for Corbyn’s concerns about NATO/Russia
tensions are self-evident. The U.S. and Russia have
massive arsenals of nuclear weapons. As Lawrence Krauss
detailed in the New Yorker in October, the two
countries have come horrendously close to full-on,
earth-destroying nuclear war on several occasions in the
past, and the systems they still maintain are conducive
to apocalyptic error through miscommunication and
misperception, let alone direct military confrontation.
As Krauss noted:
In general,
during the Obama presidency, we have only deepened
our dangerous embrace of nuclear weapons. At the
moment, around a thousand nuclear weapons are still
on a hair-trigger alert; as they were during the
Cold War, they are ready to be launched in minutes
in response to a warning of imminent attack.
It is not
hyperbole to say that perhaps nothing is more reckless,
more dangerous, than ratcheting up tensions between
these two countries. That’s what makes it so repellent
and toxic to demonize those such as Corbyn as
“collaborators” or traitors merely because they oppose
this escalation and belligerence. But this is the script
that — once again — is quickly becoming
mainstream orthodoxy in both Washington and London.
Let us, for a
moment, imagine if this framework were applied
consistently rather than manipulatively. Democrats have
been alarmed — rightfully so — by the preliminary
belligerence of Trump and his top aides toward
nuclear-armed China:
accepting a call from Taiwan’s president,
openly questioning the decades-old “One China”
policy, suggesting the U.S.
would militarily intervene to prevent Chinese
control over nearby uninhabited islands (the latter was
also suggested by the current head of the U.S.
Pacific fleet).
But applying
the prevailing Russia logic to these concerns, should
one not accuse these Democrats objecting to
confrontation with China of being “collaborators” with
and apologists for the dictatorial regime in Beijing,
which imprisons dissidents and
tortures ethnic and religious minorities? Should we
publicly ponder whether the liberal writers demanding
that Trump cease his aggressive posture are being
clandestinely paid by the Chinese Politburo or merely
acting as “useful idiots” for it? Should those objecting
to Trump’s belligerent policies be accused of siding
with a dictatorial regime over their own president and
country?
Of course none
of those things should happen, because it is not only
rational but morally compulsory to be deeply wary of
those who seek to escalate tensions between countries
with large nuclear arsenals. At the very least, one
should be free to debate these policies without being
smeared as a traitor. That applies to China, and it
applies to Russia. And those who voice such concerns
should not, as Corbyn just was, have their loyalties and
integrity be impugned by our new Cold Warriors.
* * * * *
For the crucial
context on NATO/Russia tension that is very rarely heard
in the Western press, I highly recommend these two
items:
(1) This
Foreign Affairs article by University of
Chicago political scientist John J. Mearsheimer on the
West’s relentless, aggressive march eastward up to
Russian borders and its consequences.
(2) The passage of this
interview with Noam Chomsky by German journalist Tilo
Jung — beginning at 40:30 — that explains the crucial
historical context of NATO’s march eastward toward
Russia, how that is perceived in Moscow, and, most
important of all, why the dangers this behavior creates
are incomparable:
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