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Trump or Putin?
EU Loses Plot on Biggest Threat
By Finian
Cunningham
If ever
an image captured the dysfunctional nature of
the European Union it was the assembled leaders
of the 28 member states photographed at an
ancient fortress on the Maltese island this
week.
February 05, 2017
"Information
Clearing House"
- "Sputnik"
-
Talk about "fortress mentality"! The European presidents
and prime ministers were scheduled to deal
with migration from North Africa as a threat to the
bloc's stability.
But instead,
their summit was dominated by the issue of US President
Donald Trump and the shared perception that the new
occupant of the White House poses an urgent challenge
to the EU.
"Prime
ministers and presidents at Malta summit line up to
scorn Trump's conduct, accusing him of lack of respect,"
reported the Guardian.
French
President Francois Hollande even said that if the EU did
not unite to oppose Trump's populist nationalism, then
the bloc was doomed to collapse.
The irony
of the European leaders' existential apprehensions
about the new American president is laughable. For
months, these same European politicians have been led
by the nose by Western state propaganda alleging it was
Russian President Vladimir Putin who is the top threat
to EU stability.
European news
media like their US counterparts have pushed
sensationalist claims that the Kremlin is out to subvert
EU democracies, undermine "European values", promote
Eurosceptic political parties and smash the union.
German
Chancellor Angela Merkel
warned only a few weeks ago that putative Russian
state hackers would now turn their attention
to forthcoming elections in Netherlands, France and
Germany as they had allegedly done in the US to help
Donald Trump get elected.
Amazingly
with this backdrop of anti-Russia fear-mongering, the EU
leaders in Malta this week made not a single mention of
"Russian threat".
All the angst
of Europe's supposed leaders was devoted to Donald Trump
undermining their institutional existence.
What does that say
about the credibility of EU politicians? When they flip
from making hysterical allegations against Russia
to huddling around like frightened children fretting
about how a new American president might induce their
demise.
It is
consummate proof that the present array of incumbent EU
leaders are completely out of touch with reality. No
wonder they are quaking in their boots about forthcoming
elections. Because one suspects that they fear a day
of reckoning with angry electorates who are sick of the
incompetence at the helm of government.
Another staggering
example of disconnect among the EU cabal was the
appalling violence in Ukraine this week. While the
dithering politicians were fretting about Donald Trump,
they were apparently oblivious to the war raging
in Europe.
The Kiev regime
which the EU brought to power in a coup d'ιtat
in 2014, along with the Americans this week unleashed
a full-on offensive against the breakaway self-declared
republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.
Thousands
of rockets, mortars and tank artillery rounds rained
down on civilian areas of Donetsk city and suburbs
in some of the worse violence seen since the Minsk peace
accord was signed in February 2015.
Kiev officials
openly
admitted that their military forces were "advancing"
on the rebel-held territories. The unilateral violation
of the Minsk ceasefire was also confirmed by the
ineffective monitors belonging to the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as BBC
media
footage showing tanks sheltering among apartment
blocks in the town of Avdiivka.
Several civilian
deaths were reported from the artillery barrages by the
Kiev regime's military, which Russian foreign ministry
spokeswoman Maria Zakharova
denounced
as "barbaric violations of the Geneva Convention" the
international law forbidding the targeting
of non-combatants.
Yet while these
war crimes were carried out on the people of eastern
Ukraine, the Kiev regime's president, Petro Poroshenko,
was being entertained in Berlin. Which is rather
fitting, given the despicable history of Berlin using
Ukrainian proxies to carry out extermination programs
against ethnic Russian people.
None of this
criminal war in Europe made it on to the agenda of the
EU leaders holding their summit in Malta, purportedly
convened to discuss future threats to the bloc.
Unbelievably, top
German news publication Deutsche Welle in its weekly
round-up of global events did not have a single article
on the criminal depredations of the Kiev regime and
their Neo-Nazi brigades.
The BBC, the
British state broadcaster, defied its own video evidence
of Kiev's tanks violating the ceasefire, by venting
unfounded claims that Russia was fueling "aggression
against Ukraine".
Apart from the
incriminating evidence of aggression by the US and EU-backed
Kiev regime, the other key factor here is timing. The
renewed escalation in violence occurred one day after US
President Trump held a phone call with Russia's Vladimir
Putin. That phone call last Saturday was
reportedly cordial and underscored the leaders'
commitment to end the conflict in Ukraine.
No doubt that
is why the Kiev regime launched its offensive the very
next day in a brazen attempt to try to blame Moscow
for initiating the violence despite all evidence
to the contrary and hence to solicit American military
support. The Kiev regime is petrified that Trump might
actually make a deal with Putin, which would leave it
stewing its own corruption and bankruptcy.
Of course,
reliable Western mouthpieces like US Senator John
McCain, suitably
amplified by media outlets, gave cover to the Kiev
regime's ploy by claiming that "Putin was testing
Trump's resolve".
Shamefully,
Trump's new ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki
Haley, embarrassed herself by
peddling the arrant nonsense of "Russian aggression"
in Ukraine.
Western
politicians and media are, as usual, dealing
in falsehood and fantasy over Ukraine's conflict. They
cannot face the facts that a horrible regime was
violently installed in Kiev against an elected
government, under the auspices of Washington and the EU.
Worse still, the West is complicit in the ongoing war
crimes through omission or willful distortion about the
suffering being inflicted on the people of eastern
Ukraine.
Blaming Donald
Trump or Vladimir Putin for the demise of the EU is the
ultimate form of scapegoating by a bunch of incompetent
leaders. They are so incompetent that they can't even
decide on who is the supposed threat to their existence.
A criminal war is
raging in Europe, with civilians being blown to pieces
in apartment blocks in Donetsk, and at the very same
time, the so-called EU leaders don't even see fit
to talk about that during their summit in Malta this
week.
At this rate, the
European Union, as we know it, is doomed. The disconnect
between rulers and the reality of ordinary citizens is
so vast that implosion seems inevitable. The ultimate
in unaccountability is the way the EU has created the
appalling crisis in Ukraine, and yet doesn't even
discuss the manifest suffering of people there.
No, the EU
"leaders" are too busy discussing overblown or imaginary
dangers posed by Trump or Putin. Getting its own house
in order by being accountable and responsive to the
democratic needs of citizens is evidently not on the
agenda.
One final note
is that Francois Hollande, the most unpopular French
leader since the Second World War, is in the running
to become the next president of the European Council.
Enough said.
The views
expressed in this article are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of
Information Clearing House. |
