The Two Superpowers: Who Really Controls the
Two Countries?
By Paul Craig Roberts
July 01, 2018 "Information
Clearing House"
- Among the ruling interests
in the US, one interest even more powerful
than the Israel Lobby—the Deep State of the
military/security complex— there is enormous
fear that an uncontrollable President Trump
at the upcoming Putin/Trump summit will make
an agreement that will bring to an end the
demonizing of Russia that serves to protect
the enormous budget and power of the
military-security complex.
You can see the Deep State’s fear in the
editorials that the Deep State handed to the
Washington Post (June 29) and New York Times
(June 29), two of the Deep State’s megaphones,
but no longer believed by the vast majority of
the American people. The two editorials share
the same points and phrases. They repeat the
disproven lies about Russia as if blatant,
obvious lies are hard facts.
Both accuse President Trump of “kowtowing to
the Kremlin.” Kowtowing, of course, is not a
Donald Trump characteristic. But once again
fact doesn’t get in the way of the propaganda
spewed by the WaPo and NYT, two megaphones of
Deep State lies.
The Deep State editorial handed to the WaPo
reads: “THE REASONS for the tension between the
United States and Russia are well-established.
Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine, instigated a
war in eastern Ukraine, intervened to save the
dictatorship of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad, interfered in the U.S. presidential
election campaign to harm Hillary Clinton and
help Donald Trump, poisoned a former
intelligence officer on British soil and
continues to meddle in the elections of other
democracies.”
The WaPo’s opening paragraph is a collection
of all the blatant lies assembled by the Deep
State for its Propaganda Ministry. There have
been many books written about the CIA’s
infiltration of the US media. There is no doubt
about it. I remember my orientation as Staff
Associate, House Defense Appropriation
Subcommittee, when I was informed that the
Washington Post is a CIA asset. This was in
1975. Today the Post is owned by a person with
government contracts that many believe sustain
his front business.
And don’t forget Udo Ulfkotte, an editor of
the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, who
wrote in his best seller,
Bought Journalism, that there
was not a significant journalist in Europe who
was not on the CIA’s payroll. The English
language edition of Ulfkotte’s book has been
suppressed and prevented from publication.
The New York Times, which last told the truth
in the 1970s when it published the leaked
Pentagon Papers and had the fortitude to stand
up for its First Amendment rights, repeats the
lies about Putin’s “seizure of Crimea and attack
on Ukraine” along with all the totally
unsubstantiated BS about Russia interfering in
the US president election and electing Trump,
who now kowtows to Putin in order to serve
Russia instead of the US. The editorial handed
to the NYT insinuates that Trump is a threat to
the national security of America and its allies
(vassals). The problem, the NYT declares, is
that Trump is not listening to his advisors.
Shades of President John F. Kennedy, who did
not listen to the CIA and Joint Chiefs of Staff
about invading Cuba, nuking the Soviet Union,
and using the false flag attack on America of
the Joint Chiefs’ Northwoods Project (look it up
online). Is the New York Times setting up Trump
for assassination on the grounds that he is
lovey-dovey with Russia and sacrificing US
national interests?
I would bet on it.
While the Washington Post and New York Times
are telling us that if Trump meets with Putin,
Trump will sell out US national security, The
Saker says that Putin finds himself in a similar
box, only it doesn’t come from the national
security interest, but from the Russian Fifth
Column, the Atlanticist Integrationists whose
front man is the Russian Prime Minister
Medvedev, who represents the rich Russian elite
whose wealth is based on stolen assets during
the Yeltsin years enabled by Washington. These
elites, The Saker concludes, impose constraints
on Putin that put Russian sovereignty at risk.
Economically, it is more important to these
elites for financial reasons to be part of
Washington’s empire than to be a sovereign
country.
http://thesaker.is/no-5th-column-in-the-kremlin-think-again/
I find The Saker’s explanation the best I
have read of the constraints on Putin that limit
his ability to represent Russian national
interests.
I have often wondered why Putin didn’t have
the security force round up these Russian
traitors and execute them. The answer is that
Putin believes in the rule of law, and he knows
that Russia’s US financed and supported Fifth
Column cannot be eliminated without bloodshed
that is inconsistent with the rule of law. For
Putin, the rule of law is as important as
Russia. So, Russia hangs in the balance. It is
my view that the Russian Fifth Column could care
less about the rule of law. They only care
about money.
In my opinion, Hedges leftwing leanings
caused him to focus on Reagan’s rhetoric rather
that on Reagan’s achievements—the two greatest
of our time—the end of stagflation, which
benefited the American people, and the end of
the Cold War, which removed the threat of
nuclear war. I think Hedges also does not
appreciate Trump’s sincerity about normalizing
relations with Russia, relations destroyed by
the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes,
and Trump’s sincerity about bringing offshored
jobs home to American workers. Trump’s agenda
puts him up against the two most powerful
interest groups in the United States. A
president willing to take on these powerful
groups should be appreciated and supported, as
Hedges acknowledges the dispossessed majority
do. If I might point out to Chris, whom I
admire, it is not like Chris Hedges to align
against the choice of the people. How can
democracy work if people don’t rule?
Hedges writes, correctly, “The problem is not
Trump. It is a political system, dominated by
corporate power and the mandarins of the two
major political parties, in which we [the
American people] don’t count.”
Hedges is absolutely correct.
It is impossible not to admire a journalist
like Hedges who can describe our plight with
such succinctness:
“We now live in a nation where doctors
destroy health, lawyers destroy justice,
universities destroy knowledge, the press
destroys information, religion destroys morals,
and banks destroy the economy.”
Read The Saker’s explanation of Russian
politics. Possibly Putin will collapse under
pressure from the powerful Fifth Column in his
government. Read Chris Hedges analysis of
American collapse. There is much truth in it.
What happens if the Russian people rise up
against the Russian Fifth Column and if the
oppressed American people rise up against the
extractions of the military/security complex?
What happens if neither population rises up?
Who sets off the first nuclear weapon?
Our time on earth is not just limited by our
threescore and ten years, but also humanity’s
time on earth, and that of every other species,
is limited by the use of nuclear weapons.
It is long past the time when governments,
and if not them, humanity, should ask why
nuclear weapons exist when they cannot be used
without destroying life on earth.
Why isn’t this the question of our time,
instead of, for example, transgender toilet
facilities, and the large variety of fake issues
on which the presstitute media focuses?
The articles by The Saker and Chris Hedges,
two astute people, report that neither
superpower is capable of making good decisions,
decisions that are determined by democracy
instead of by oligarchs, against whom neither
elected government can stand.
If this is the case, humanity is finished.
Here are the Washington Post and New York
Times editorials:
Washington Post - June 29, 2018 - Editorial
Trump is kowtowing to the Kremlin again.
Why?
Ahead of a summit with Putin, Trump is
siding with the Russian leader, with
dangerous results.
THE REASONS for the tension between the
United States and Russia are well-established.
Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine, instigated a
war in eastern Ukraine, intervened to save the
dictatorship of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad, interfered in the U.S. presidential
election campaign to harm Hillary Clinton and
help Donald Trump, poisoned a former
intelligence officer on British soil and
continues to meddle in the elections of other
democracies. Yet on Wednesday in the Kremlin,
President Vladimir Putin brushed it all aside
and delivered the Russian “maskirovka,” or
camouflage, answer that it is all America’s
fault.
Meeting with John Bolton, the president’s
national security adviser, Mr. Putin declared
that the tensions are “in large part the result
of an intense domestic political battle inside
the U.S.” Then Mr. Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov
insisted that Russia “most certainly did not
interfere in the 2016 election” in the United
States. On Thursday morning, Mr. Trump echoed
them both on Twitter: “Russia continues to say
they had nothing to do with Meddling in our
Election!”
Why is Mr. Trump kowtowing again? The U.S.
intelligence community has concluded that Russia
did attempt to tilt the election using multiple
campaigns, including cyberintrusions and
insidious social media fakery. Would it be so
difficult to challenge Mr. Putin about this
offensive behavior? A full accounting has yet to
be made of the impact on the election, but Mr.
Bolton did not mince words last year when he
described Russian interference as “a true act of
war” and said, “We negotiate with Russia at our
peril.” And now?
Summits can be productive, even – maybe
especially – when nations are at odds. In
theory, a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr.
Putin, now scheduled for next month in Helsinki,
could be useful. But a meeting aimed at pleasing
Mr. Putin is naive and foolhardy. A meeting
aimed at pleasing Mr. Putin at the expense of
traditional, democratic U.S. allies would be
dangerous and damaging.
Just as Mr. Bolton was flattering Mr. Putin,
Russia was engaging in subterfuge on the ground
in Syria. The United States, Russia and Jordan
last year negotiated cease-fire agreements in
southwestern Syria, along the border with Jordan
and the Golan Heights. In recent days, the
United States has warned Russia and its Syrian
allies not to launch an offensive in the area,
where the rebel forces hold parts of the city of
Daraa and areas along the border. The State
Department vowed there would be “serious
repercussions” and demanded that Russia restrain
its client Syrian forces. Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo called the Russian foreign minister,
Sergei Lavrov, saying an offensive would be
unacceptable. All to no avail; Syria is bombing
the area.
This is what happens when Mr. Trump signals,
repeatedly, that he is unwilling or unable to
stand up to Russian misbehavior. We are on
dangerous ground. Either Mr. Trump has lost
touch with essential U.S. interests or there is
some other explanation for his kowtowing that is
yet unknown.
New York Times - June 29, 2018 - Editorial
Trump and Putin’s Too-Friendly Summit
It’s good to meet with adversaries. But when
Mr. Trump sits down with Mr. Putin, it will
be a meeting of kindred spirits. That’s a
problem.
It’s good for American presidents to meet
with adversaries, to clarify differences and
resolve disputes. But when President Trump sits
down with President Vladimir Putin of Russia in
Finland next month, it will be a meeting of
kindred spirits, and that’s a problem.
One would think that at a tête-à-tête with
the Russian autocrat, the president of the
United States would take on some of the major
concerns of America and its closest allies. Say,
for instance, Mr. Putin’s seizure of Crimea and
attack on Ukraine, which led to punishing
international sanctions. But at the Group of 7
meeting in Quebec this month, Mr. Trump
reportedly told his fellow heads of state that
Crimea is Russian because everyone there speaks
that language. And, of course, Trump aides
talked to Russian officials about lifting some
sanctions even before he took office.
One would hope that the president of the
United States would let Mr. Putin know that he
faces a united front of Mr. Trump and his fellow
NATO leaders, with whom he would have met days
before the summit in Helsinki. But Axios
reported that during the meeting in Quebec, Mr.
Trump said, “NATO is as bad as Nafta,” the North
American Free Trade Agreement, which is one of
Mr. Trump’s favorite boogeymen.
Certainly the president would mention that
even the people he appointed to run America’s
intelligence services believe unequivocally that
Mr. Putin interfered in the 2016 election to put
him in office and is continuing to undermine
American democracy. Right? But on Thursday
morning, Mr. Trump tweeted, “Russia continues to
say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our
Election!”
More likely, Mr. Trump will congratulate Mr.
Putin, once again, for winning another term in a
sham election, as he did in March, even though
his aides explicitly warned him not to. And he
has already proposed readmitting Russia to the
Group of 7, from which it was ousted after the
Ukraine invasion.
Summits once tended to be carefully scripted,
and presidents were attended by senior advisers
and American interpreters. At dinner during a
Group of 20 meeting last July, Mr. Trump walked
over to Mr. Putin and had a casual conversation
with no other American representative present.
He later said they discussed adoptions – the
same issue that he falsely claimed was the
subject of a meeting at Trump Tower in 2016
between his representatives and Russian
operatives who said they had dirt on Hillary
Clinton.
It’s clear that Mr. Trump isn’t a
conventional president, but instead one intent
on eroding institutions that undergird democracy
and peace. Mr. Trump “doesn’t believe that the
U.S. should be part of any alliance at all” and
believes that “permanent destabilization creates
American advantage,” according to unnamed
administration officials quoted by Jeffrey
Goldberg in The Atlantic.
Such thinking goes further than most
Americans have been led to believe were Mr.
Trump’s views on issues central to allied
security. He has often given grudging lip
service to supporting NATO, even while
complaining frequently about allies’ military
spending and unfair trade policies.
The tensions Mr. Trump has sharpened with our
allies should please Mr. Putin, whose goal is to
fracture the West and assert Russian influence
in places where the Americans and Europeans have
played big roles, like the Middle East, the
Balkans and the Baltic States.
Yet despite growing anxieties among European
allies, Mr. Trump is relying on his advisers
less than ever because, “He now thinks he’s
mastered this,” one senior member of Congress
said in an interview. That’s a chilling thought
given his inability, so far, to show serious
progress on any major security issue. Despite
Mr. Trump’s talk of quick denuclearization after
his headline-grabbing meeting with the North
Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, experts say
satellite imagery shows the North is actually
improving its nuclear capability.
While the White House hasn’t disclosed an
agenda for the Putin meeting, there’s a lot the
two leaders should be discussing, starting with
Russian cyberintrusions. Mr. Trump, though, has
implied that Mr. Putin could help the United
States guard against election hacking. And
although Congress last year mandated sweeping
sanctions against Russia to deter such behavior,
Mr. Trump has failed to implement many of them.
In a similar vein, should Mr. Trump agree to
unilaterally lift sanctions imposed after Moscow
invaded Ukraine and started a war, it would
further upset alliance members, which joined the
United States in imposing sanctions at some cost
to themselves. Moreover, what would deter Mr.
Putin from pursuing future land grabs?
Mr. Trump could compound that by canceling
military exercises, as he did with South Korea
after the meeting with Mr. Kim, and by
withdrawing American troops that are intended to
keep Russia from aggressive action in the
Baltics.
Another fraught topic is Syria. Mr. Trump has
signaled his desire to withdraw American troops
from Syria, a move that would leave the country
more firmly in the hands of President Bashar
al-Assad and his two allies, Russia and Iran.
Russia, in particular, is calling the shots on
the battlefield and in drafting a political
settlement that could end the fighting,
presumably after opposition forces are routed.
What progress could be made at this summit,
then? Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin may find it easier
to cooperate in preventing a new nuclear arms
race by extending New Start, a treaty limiting
strategic nuclear weapons that expires in 2021.
Another priority: bringing Russia back into
compliance with the I.N.F. treaty, which
eliminated all U.S. and Soviet ground-launched
ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges
between 500 and 5,500 kilometers, until Russia
tested and deployed a prohibited cruise missile.
Mr. Trump’s top national security advisers
are more cleareyed about the Russian threat than
he is. So are the Republicans who control the
Senate. They have more responsibility than ever
to try to persuade Mr. Trump that the country’s
security is at stake when he meets Mr. Putin,
and that he should prepare carefully for the
encounter.
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