It Is
Like A Western Movie: A Showdown Is In The
Making
By Paul
Craig Roberts
October
22, 2018 "Information
Clearing House"
-
It has taken the US military/security complex 31
years to get rid of President Reagan’s last
nuclear disarmament achievement—the INF Treaty
that President Reagan and Soviet President
Gorbachev achieved in 1987.
The
Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was
ratified by the US Senate on May 27, 1988 and
became effective a few days later on June 1.
Behind the scenes, I had some role in this, and
as I remember what the treaty achieved was to
make Europe safe from nuclear attack by Soviet
short and intermediate range missiles, and to
make the Soviet Union safe from US attack from
short and intermediate range US nuclear missiles
in Europe. By restricting nuclear weapons to
ICBMs, which allowed some warning time, thus
guaranteeing retaliation and non-use of nucular
weapons, the INF Treaty was regarded as reducing
the risk of an American first-strike on Russia
and a Russian first-strike on Europe, strikes
that could be delivered by low-flying cruise
missiles with next to zero warning time.
When
President Reagan appointed me to a secret
Presidential committee with subpoena power over
the CIA, he told the members of the secret
committee that his aim was to bring the Cold War
to an end, with the result that, in his words,
“those God-awful nuclear weapons would be
dismantled.” President Reagan, unlike the crazed
neoconservatives, who he fired and prosecuted,
saw no point in nuclear war that would destroy
all life on earth. The INF Treaty was the
beginning, in Reagan’s mind, of the elimination
of nuclear weapons from military arsenals. The
INF Treaty was chosen as the first start because
it did not substantially threaten the budget of
the US military/security complex, and actually
increased the security of the Soviet military.
In other words, it was something that Reagan and
Gorbachev could get past their own military
establishments. Reagan hoped that as trust
built, more nuclear disarmament would proceed.
Now
that President Reagan’s remaining achievement
has been destroyed, what are the consequences of
the Trump administration’s concession to the
profits of the US military/security complex?
There
are many, none good.
The
massive US military/security complex profits
will increase as more increasingly scarce
American resources flow into the production of
intermediate range missiles in order to counter
“the Russian threat.” The Republicans will want
to pay for this by cutting Social Security and
Medicare. I am unsure that the Democrats would
be any different.
The
Zionist neoconservatives now have their hope
rekindled of re-establishing American and
Israeli hegemony with an undetected first strike
nuclear cruise missile attack on Russia.
More
pressure will be on Putin’s government from
Alexei Kudrin, the Jewish Lobby, and the
billionaire oligarchs put in place by Washington
and Israel during the Yeltsin years when Russia
was degraded to an American vassal state. These
Russian traitors are so powerful that Putin has
to tolerate them. With neoconized Washington
doing everything it can possibly do to damage
the Russian economy and to draw Russian
resources off from economic and infrastructure
needs to military spending, Kudrin and the
Western-supported elements of the Russian media
will, with their demands to accommodate
Washington, encourage Washington to put yet more
pressure on Russia with the intention of forcing
Russia into a vassal status with the Germans,
British, French, and the rest of Europe, along
with Canada, Australia, and Japan.
The
Russian government, by its meek response to
extraordinary provocations, continues to
encourage more provocations, as the provocations
cost the US and its vassals nothing. The Russian
government’s toleration of traitors, such as
Kudrin, does not convince Western peoples that
Russia is an open, free speech society. Instead,
they believe Kudrin, not Putin. Americans
believe that Putin is a thug who stole $50
billion and is one of the world’s richest men. I
heard this yesterday from my own cousin. The
Western media never paints a correct picture of
life in Russia. The only achievement of the
Russian government’s non-confrontational
response to the West and toleration of treason
within its own government is to convince
Washington that Putin can be overthrown, just
like the pro-Russian president of Ukraine and
the presidents of Honduras, Brazil, Argentina.
In the
20th century Americans, or that small percentage
that is sentient, were influenced by dystopic
novels such as Kafka’s The Trial, Orwell’s 1984,
and Huxley’s Brave New World. We identified
these novels with life in the Soviet Union, and
we feared being conquered and subjectged to such
life. It was a long time before I realized that
the “Soviet threat” was a hoax, like Saddam
Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” like
“Iranian nukes,” like “Assad’s use of chemical
weapons,” like . . . you can provide the
examples.
The
vast majority of the peoples in the world have
no idea what is happening. They are trying to
find or to keep jobs, to provide housing and
food, to find the money for a mortgage or car or
credit card payment in the US, and in much of
the world water to drink and a bit of food to
eat. They are stressed out. They have no energy
to confront bad news or to figure out what is
happening. They are abandoned by governments
everywhere. Outside of Russia, China, Iran,
Venezuela, where is there a government that
represents the people?
Even in
Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea,
are there governments that actually believe in
themselves instead of in Western propaganda?
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.