The
Unraveling of American/Russian Relations
By Paul
Craig Roberts
October
15, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- Dear Readers: I agree that the official Las
Vegas story seems to be unraveling. A public
mass shooting should be transparent, not opaque.
I think we explored the story long enough to
discover that without knowing the facts, we
cannot arrive at an explanation with confidence.
It is
time to move on to another unraveling—that of
US/Russian relations. This unraveling is far
more serious as it threatens life on earth. I
have warned of the consequences of Washington
threatening Russia’s security by breaking
agreement after agreement, by placing missile
bases on Russia’s borders, by orchestrating
anti-Russian coups in former Soviet provinces,
and by a continuing volley of false accusations
against Russia. There is no act more reckless
and irresponsible than to make one nuclear power
fear nuclear attack from another.
Alert
observers have become aware of the mounting
danger. Canadian professor
Michel
Chossudovsky writes
that Washington has taken nuclear war from a
hypothetical scenario to a real danger that
threatens the future of humanity.
Mikhail
Gorbachev, the Soviet leader who worked with
President Ronald Reagan to end the Cold War and
the threat of nuclear Armageddon,
has
appealed to President Trump
and President Putin to hold a summit meeting and
bring an end to the rising tensions. Gorbachev
wrote in the Washington Post that “it is far
from normal that the presidents of major nuclear
powers meet merely on the margins of
international gatherings.” This is especially
the case as “relations between the two nations
are in a severe crisis.”
Gorbachev’s warning could be an understatement.
Last March, General Viktor Poznikhir, the deputy
commander of the Russian military’s Operation
Command expressed concern that Washington could
be preparing a surprise nuclear attack on
Russia. See
https://dninews.com/article/moscow-us-missile-systems-europe-may-lead-sudden-nuclear-attack-russia
and
http://www.newsweek.com/russia-us-global-missile-defense-lead-nuclear-war-europe-591244
and
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-officials-u-global-missile-192829855.html
Had any
such statement from the Russian high command
been issued anytime during the 20th century Cold
War era, the President of the United States
would have immediately contacted the Soviet
leader and given every assurance that no such
plan or intentions toward Russia existed. As far
as I can tell, the Trump White House let this
ominous announcement pass unremarked. If this is
the case, it must have provided confirmation to
the Russians’ conclusion.
For
some time I have pointed out that the entirety
of the West, both the US and its vassal states,
continue to ignore very clear Russian warnings.
Gilbert Doctorow has made the same point.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/10/10/deaf-ear-dire-russian-warnings.html
Perhaps
the most clear of all was Putin’s public
statement that “Russia will never again fight a
war on its own territory.” If Washington’s EU
vassals did not hear this clear warning that
they are courting their nuclear
destruction—especially the Poles and Romanians
who have mindlessly hosted US missile bases—they
are as deaf as they are stupid.
One
Russian official told the idiot British
government to its face that if the British
threat to first use nuclear weapons is directed
at Russia, if such an attempt is made, Great
Britain will disappear from the face of the
earth.
There
is no doubt that that would be the case.
So why
do Washington’s impotent vassals talk tough to
Russia, a government that only desires peace and
has threatened Britain in no way. Nor has the
Russian government threatened France, Germany,
Italy, Belgium, Greece, Spain, Portugal, the
Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland,
or any of the former Eastern European vassals of
the Soviet Union that exchanged their captivity
to the Soviet Union for captivity to Washington.
Russia has not even threatened Ukraine, which
Russia could wipe out in a couple of minutes.
Why are all of these countries, apparently led
by mindless, gutless two-bit politicians,
aligned with Washington’s false propaganda
against Russia?
The
answer is money. The vassals are paid to go
along with the lies. As Alain of Lille said as
long ago as the 12th century, “not God, not
Caesar, but money is all.”
What
are the forces driving Washington’s provocation
of Russia? There are three, and they comprise a
vast conspiracy against life on earth.
One is
the Neoconservatives. The Neoconservatives were
convinced by the Soviet Collapse that History
has chosen not the proletariat but American
“democratic capitalism” as the
socio-politico-economic system for the world,
and that this choice by History conveys on
America the status of the “indispensable,
exceptional” country, a status that places
America above all other countries and above
international law and, indeed, America’s own
laws.
America
is so exceptional that it can torture people in
total violation of both US law and international
law. The government in Washington can, on
suspicion alone without presentation to a court
of evidence and conviction, confine US citizens
indefinitely, torturing them the entire time,
and can assassinate them at will without due
process of law. This is the definition of a
total police state tyranny. Yet Washington
represents America as a “great democracy,” whose
endless wars against humanity are “bringing
democracy to the world.”
America
is so exceptional that it can bomb other
countries indiscriminately without officially
being at war with those countries.
America
is so exceptional that the separation of powers
prescribed in the American Constitution can be
totally ignored by the executive branch as, the
Neoconservatives claim, the President has
“unique powers” not limited by the Constitution,
which, of course, is just another lie.
Russia,
China, and Iran are targets of the
Neoconservatives, as were Iraq, Afghanistan,
Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and provinces of
Pakistan, because these countries have/had
independent foreign policies and are/were not
Washington’s vassals.
The
Neoconservative doctrine states that it is the
“principal goal” of US foreign policy “to
prevent the rise of Russia or any other state”
that can serve as a constraint on Washington’s
unilateralism.
The New
York Times under this headline on March 8, 1992,
explains the Wolfowitz doctrine:
U.S. Strategy Plan Calls for
Insuring No Rivals Develop
A One-Superpower World
http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/wolfowitz1992.htm
Special
to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, March 7 In a broad new policy
statement that is in its final drafting phase,
the Defense Department asserts that America’s
political and military mission in the
post-cold-war era will be to ensure that no
rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western
Europe, Asia or the territories of the former
Soviet Union.
A
46-page document that has been circulating at
the highest levels of the Pentagon for weeks,
and which Defense Secretary Dick Cheney expects
to release later this month, states that part of
the American mission will be convincing
potential competitors that they need not aspire
to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive
posture to protect their legitimate interests.
The
classified document makes the case for a world
dominated by one superpower whose position can
be perpetuated by constructive behavior and
sufficient military might to deter any nation or
group of nations from challenging American
primacy.
Every
state with an independent foreign policy is a
constraint on Washington, especially states with
nuclear capabilities such as Russia and China.
A
second interest with incentive to provoke Russia
is the US military/security complex. President
Eisenhower, a five-star general, warned
Americans in 1961 that the “military-industrial
complex” was a threat to American democracy.
Today the military/security complex is much more
than a mere threat to American democracy. It has
already taken over the US government and the
Trump administration, which is run by generals,
and it now threatens all life on earth.
The
military/security complex has an annual budget
of one thousand billion dollars. This sum is
larger than the Gross Domestic Products of all
but a handful of countries on earth. Such an
immense budget conveying such power desperately
needs a dangerous enemy for its justification.
Russia has been assigned this role. Given the
power of the military/security complex, the role
assigned to Russia cannot be mitigated by
Russian diplomacy. Moreover, the interests of
the military/security complex and the
Neoconservatives are in agreement.
The
third powerful interest group leading to
conflict with Russia is the Israel Lobby. In
Washington the Israel Lobby is extremely
powerful. If the Israel Lobby puts legislation
or a resolution before Congress, it usually
passes almost unanimously, as anyone who votes
against it is likely to be eliminated in the
next election.
The
Israel Lobby is closely linked to the
Neoconservatives, the principal figures of which
are Zionist Jews tightly allied with Israel.
Some are joint US/Israeli citizens. The Israeli
influence in Washington is so strong that the
Vice Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank is
the former chairman of the Israeli Central Bank.
Israel is so powerful in Washington that it even
runs US economic policy.
The
Zionists in Israel want to expand. Their
doctrine is “from the Nile to the Euphrates.”
That is the Zionist claim of the land that God
gave to the Chosen People.
In
pursuit of this goal, Israel twice sent the
Israeli Army into southern Lebanon to occupy
that part of the country in order to seize the
Litani River, water resources that Israel
desires.
However, twice the Hezbollah militia drove out
the vaunted Israeli Army. Israel now fears to
send the army again. Instead, Israel is using
its power over the government in Washington to
use the US military to put Syria and Iran in the
same chaos as exists in Libya and Iraq. The
reason is that Syria and Iran are the supporters
of the Hezbollah militia. Deprived of support,
Hezbollah can be defeated by Israel.
It is
Israel, not the US government per se, that is
driving the US to war with Iran. Israel, which
almost always gets its way in Washington, is
encountering difficulties. Washington’s EU
vassals are opposed to renewing conflict with
Iran. Europe is overwhelmed with problems, many
of which stem from Washington’s wars, and
doesn’t need the Iranian one again. Neither does
the US military, defeated in Syria and unable to
win in Afghanistan after 16 years against a few
thousand lightly armed Taliban. Washington’s
defeat in Afghanistan on top of the defeat in
Vietnam has destroyed any fear of Washington’s
conventional forces, which is why Russia and
China expect the next war to be nuclear.
Moreover, if Russia will not tolerate
Washington’s overthrow of Syria, Russia
certainly will not tolerate Washington’s
overthrow of Iran. And it is unlikely that China
will either as, according to reports, China gets
20% of its oil from Iran. Indeed, the Russian
and Chinese interest in Iran is so strong that
it is inexplicable that the Israel Lobby thinks
it is so strong that it can drive Washington
into war with Iran. The hubris and arrogance of
the Neoconservatives and the Israel Lobby are
the greatest the world has seen since Hitler
marched off into Russia.
If the
dumbshits in Washington repeat this folly, the
lights on Earth will be turned off.
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.