Washington Pushes Harder Against Russia
By Paul
Craig Roberts
August
01, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- Some historians believe that the cause of WW2
was UK prime minister Chamberlain’s appeasement
of Hitler’s recovery of German territory given
to other countries via the Versailles Treaty in
contravention of US President Woodrow Wilson’s
promise to Germany that there would be no
reparations and no loss of territory if Germany
agreed to an armistice ending WW1.
I do
not agree. The facts seem clear. The cause of
WW2 was the gratuitous and unenforceable
guarantee to the Polish military government
given by Chamberlain that if Poland refused to
hand German lands and populations back to
Germany, Great Britain would be there to support
Poland. When Germany and the Soviet Union made
the deal to split Poland between them and
attacked, Britain due to its stupid “guarantee”
declared war on Germany, but not on the Soviet
Union. As France was aligned by treaty with
Britain, France, too, had to declare war.
Because of the reign of propaganda in the West,
hardly anyone knows this, but WW2 was started by
the British and French declaration of war on
Germany. Yet, it was the surviving members of
the German regime who were put on trial by the
US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in
Nuremberg for initiating aggressive war.
Nevertheless, as the general opinion is that
Chamberlain encouraged Hitler to ever more
aggressive actions by the British failure to
respond, why has no one pointed out that the
Russian government’s lack of response to
Washington’s aggressive actions toward Russia
encourages Washington to become more aggressive.
This also is leading to war.
The
Russian government, like Chamberlain’s, has not
responded to provocations far more dangerous
than Chamberlain faced, because, like
Chamberlain, the Russian government prefers
peace to war.
The
question is whether the Russian government is
avoiding or encouraging war by its non-response
to illegal sanctions and propagandistic
accusations and demonizations. Russia has even
allowed Washington to put ABM bases on its
borders with Poland and Romania. This is like
the US permitting Russia to put missile bases in
Cuba.
Russia
is disadvantaged because, unlike the United
States, Russia is an open society, not a police
state like the US where dissent is controlled
and suppressed. The Russian government is
handicapped by its decision to permit foreign
ownership of some of its media. It is
disadvantaged by its decision to accept hundreds
of American and European financed NGOs that
organize protests and constantly level false
charges at the Russian government. The Russian
government permits this because it mistakenly
believes Washington and its vassals will see
Russia as a tolerant democracy and welcome it
into the Western Family of Nations.
Russia
is also disadvantaged by its educated upper
class, professors and businessmen who are
Western oriented. The professors want to be
invited to conferences at Harvard University.
The businessmen want to be integrated into the
Western business community. These people are
known as “Atlanticist Integrationists.” They
believe Russia’s future depends on acceptance by
the West and are willing to sell out Russia in
order to gain this acceptance. Even some of
Russian youth think everything is great in
America where the streets are paved with gold,
and some of the Russian media take their cue
from the Western presstitutes.
It is a
difficult situation for the Russian government.
The Russians mistakenly believed that the demise
of the Soviet Union made us all friends. It
seems only Gorbachev understands that the Soviet
collapse removed all constraint on Washington’s
hegemonic behavior. Few in Russia seem to
understand that the enormous budget and power of
the US military/security complex, about which
President Eisenhower, warned in 1961, needs an
enemy for its justification, and that the Soviet
collapse had removed the enemy. The very minute
that Russia stood up for its national interest,
Washington filled the desperately needed
category of “The Enemy” with Putin’s Russia.
The
Russian government and upper class have been
extremely slow in realizing this. Indeed, only a
few are beginning to see the light.
Despite
the writing on the wall, Russia’s new UN envoy,
Vasily Nabenzya declared on July 29 that Russia
has no alternative to “building bridges under
any circumstances. We will cooperate. Americans
cannot go without us, and us without them. This
is an objective reality.”
This is
a statement of Russian surrender.
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Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov
also refuses to read the writing on the wall. He
thinks Washington and Moscow must “break the
vicious circle of retaliation and start anew.”
On July
30 Russian President Putin finally responded to
the Obama regime’s orchestrated expulsion of
Russian diplomats from Washington last Christmas
and illegal seizure of Russian government
properties in the Washington area by evicting
750 “American diplomats,” in reality agents
working to undermine the Russian government.
Putin could just as well have arrested them. It
only took 7 months for Russia to respond to
Washington’s hostile actions against Russian
diplomats.
Sometimes the Russian government shows some
awareness that it is permanently designated as
Washington’s Number One Enemy. Putin explained
the belated expulsion of US “diplomats” as
follows: “We’ve been waiting for quite a long
time that maybe something would change for the
better, we had hopes that the situation would
change. But it looks like, it’s not going to
change in the near future… I decided that it is
time for us to show that we will not leave
anything unanswered.”
After
saying this, Putin took it all back: “The main
thing is, that we have a multi-faceted
cooperation in many fields. Of course, Moscow
has a lot to say and there is a number of
spheres of cooperation that we could potentially
cut and it would be sensitive for the US side.
But I think we shouldn’t do it. It would harm
development of international relations. I hope
it won’t get to that point. As of today, I’m
against it.”
https://www.rt.com/news/398019-putin-us-diplomats-sanctions/
A more
realistic response than President Putin’s comes
from Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the
Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy
and program director of Putin’s Valdai
Discussion Club. Suslov understands that the new
illegal sanctions against Russia, in addition to
their advantage for US energy corporations, are
an act of aggression toward Russia, the purpose
of which is to make impossible the improvement
of bilateral relations between the US and
Russia. “Today,” Suslov said, “it is already
clear that the US is our enemy, and will remain
our enemy for a long time. Russia needs to
adjust its state arms program, reflecting the
inevitable military-political confrontation with
the US. There must be investments in stratgic
deterrence, in maintaining the system of
guaranteed mutual destruction.”
Suslov
adds: “Perhaps, it is worthwhile to turn off
cooperation with the United States on those
issues which are necessary first of all for the
US itself. For example, the US depends on Russia
in the field of space cooperation. Perhaps there
is a need to make adjustments and give up part
of the programs of cooperation. It is worthwhile
to think about increasing military cooperation
between Russia on the American continent — I
mean primarily to build up cooperation with
Venezuela,” Suslov said.
In
Washington, anyone who departed as far as Suslov
has from the delusions that hinder Russian
decision-making would be fired. It will be
interesting to see if Suslov has introduced more
reality than is acceptable into Russian
awareness of the threat that Russia faces from
Washington.
Is
Russia a country so desperate to be part of the
West that it is ruled by delusions and
illusions? If so, war is a certainty.
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.
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
