Next week marks the 3rd anniversary of Saudi’s intervention in Yemen’s civil war where US warplanes flown by US-trained pilots drop US-made bombs that have killed thousands of innocent civilians.

So you can see where all the claptrap about Russian spy poisoners is leading us, with apparently not the slightest understanding or concern about the horrific consequences. A variation of the ‘weapons of mass deception’ lie all over again that was used to justify the calamitous war and invasion of Iraq that killed more than a million people and left a dysfunctional and corrupt occupied battlefield. According to peace activist Medea Benjamin the ‘million’ minimises the enormity of the tragedy. Using the best information available (the US military refused to keep a tally) she estimates that 2.4 million Iraqis have died since the 2003 invasion, along with the obliteration of its history and culture. But no-one has been held accountable.

Russian spies and poisons are a ploy by Washington and its allies to conceal the fact that the West’s cant about ‘promoting democracy’ and ‘defeating terrorism’ is just hollow doublespeak to conceal the reality that the Pentagon is the nerve centre for a huge killing juggernaut that operates for the benefit of US capitalism, an out-of- control monster that is destroying our world. Trump is already lining up a ‘war cabinet’ of madmen and has deployed warships in the Red Sea, the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, ready to launch 400 long-range Tomahawks. On March 17, the Russian General Staff warned about an imminent attack on Syria and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared that the US, Britain, France and others had special forces operating in Syria that were directly engaging the Syrian Army. ‘US instructors’ are training militants to stage false flag chemical attacks in southern Syria, said to be pretexts for air strikes on Syrian government troops and infrastructure, planned provocations that you can bet your bottom dollar will be widely covered in our media. But, and it’s a big but, Russia’s new suite of hypersonic weapons gives it an edge over would-be enemies and we can only hope that it might make the US and its NATO buddies think carefully before going to war. As Tim Anderson writes in his excellent book The Dirty War on Syria: ‘Although every war makes ample use of lies and deception, the dirty war on Syria has relied on a level of mass disinformation not seen in living memory. British/Australian journalist Philip Knightley pointed out that war propaganda typically involves a depressingly predictable pattern of demonising the enemy leader, then demonising the enemy people through atrocity stories, real or imagined. Accordingly, a mild-mannered eye doctor called Bashar as Assad became the new evil in the world and according to consistent western media reports, the Syrian Army did nothing but kill civilians for more than four years. To this day, many imagine the Syrian conflict is a ‘civil war’, a ‘popular revolt’ or some sort of internal sectarian conflict. These myths are, in many respects, a substantial achievement for the big powers which have driven a series of ‘regime change’ operations in the Middle East region, all on false pretexts, over the past 15 years.’ Russia’s intrusion into the conflict in 2015 with its vast air power has turned the tide, which is why America’s wheels are coming off and why Rus- sophobia has peaked. It is prudent to pre- dict that the way America approaches war there will be a sensible technological re- sponse to Russia in the foreseeable future. Its track record over the past decades is a record of military and humanitarian disasters. Finally, a quirky poem from Leunig: I was radicalised by the butterflies And later by a tree. And then a word from a passing bird Put radical thoughts in me. And I am on the watch-list now With the fish and pixies too, Who call to me with a note of glee ‘Just do what you can do’.

This article was originally published by "Australia-Cuba Friendship Society " -  - Melbourne Newsletter - April 2018