US
Ambassador to Hungary
Overthrow Assad, Let in Refugees, and Fight
Russia...or Else!
By Daniel
McAdams
May 08,
2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- "Ron
Paul Institute"
- If
anyone wants a short course on what's wrong with US
diplomacy look no further than US Ambassador to
Hungary Coleen Bell's
speech Friday to the Foreign Affairs Committee
of the Hungarian Parliament. In typical diplo-speak
there was plenty of flowery language about shared
values, fish swimming together in the same water
(?), sappy poetics like "together, out of that
winter, we would force the spring," and talk of
together being "part of the world’s greatest
military and political alliance."
But make no mistake: Inside Ambassador Bell's velvet
glove is an iron fist, poised to strike should
Washington's annoyingly independent-minded Fidesz-led
government step out of line on the big issues. And
by "big" issues it should be understood that the US
means the issues it considers in the interests of
its own foreign policy, not those in Hungary's
interest.
Message to Hungary: do as we say or you will be
sorry.
Ambassador Bell's previous job was as a television
soap opera producer, but raising more than two
million dollars for the election of Barack Obama
"earned" her the position of top US diplomat in
Hungary.
The former television producer does know how to
deliver her lines, though. She lectured the
Hungarians about Syria, explaining to them that ISIS
and Assad are both equally evil and both equally to
blame for the disaster that is Syria.
ISIS has flourished in Syria, she told the
Hungarians, because it "exploits the chaos of civil
war in Syria, a conflict that has now claimed more
than 250,000 lives." But she does not mention that
it was US backing for "regime change" in Syria --
beginning at least in 2006, as we learn from a
critical Wikileaks-released
US Embassy Damascus memo -- that created that
very chaos she blames for the rise of ISIS.
In fact it is propaganda to call what is happening
in Syria a "civil war," as the forces battling the
Syrian government are all sponsored by foreign
powers like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the US. It is
a proxy war against the Syrian government, not a
civil war.
She then tells the Hungarians ISIS will never be
defeated in Syria until Assad is overthrown:
[W]e know
we won’t be able to defeat Daesh in Syria unless
we also deal with the civil war and particularly
with Assad. Because as long as Assad is there,
he remains the most powerful magnet for foreign
fighters and recruits to Daesh.
Does she
assume Hungarians are so stupid that they believe
that by attacking and beating ISIS back nearly to
Raqqa (with Russian assistance), the Syrian
government of Assad is actually benefitting ISIS?
Attacking ISIS means Assad is on the side of ISIS?
"Since February, the cessation of hostilities
reduced the violence in Syria, allowing millions of
Syrian civilians to take the first steps toward
reclaiming a normal life," says the Ambassador,
without even mentioning what brought the ceasefire
about in the first place: Russian participation
along with the Syrian army in the decimation of
al-Qaeda and ISIS positions in northwest and central
Syria. In fact it is absolutely bizarre that in the
world of Ambassador Bell (and the State Department
hacks who drafted her speech), the Russian
intervention against al-Qaeda and ISIS simply never
took place or was too inconsequential to mention.
Is any Hungarian so ill-informed that he would
believe such nonsense?
Bell used the tragedy in Syria to pressure Hungary
on the (largely American-made) refugee crisis.
Hungary's firebrand prime minister, Viktor Orban,
has, along with several of his central European
counterparts, stood up to Brussels' (and
Washington's) demands that Hungary take in tens of
thousands of migrants who heeded German Chancellor
Angela Merkel's call to come to Europe and enjoy
lots of free stuff.
Last month Orban
told Hungarian Radio that if he accepts the EU
migrant resettlement plan, “it would be determined
not in Hungary but in Brussels who we have to live
together with, and how the ethnic composition of the
country will look in future.” He has rejected such a
notion.
"Every sovereign nation has the right and an
obligation to protect its borders," Bell told the
Hungarian Parliament, "But every nation, as a part
of the international community, also has a
fundamental obligation to help refugee populations
seeking safety."
Translation: your sovereignty is not determined by
you, but rather by us. It is a practice articulated
by Orwell in 1984 whereby a person can think two
completely contradictory thoughts at the same time
seemingly without any mental conflict.
But here is where the iron fist inside Bell's velvet
glove glints in the sun. She pointedly condemned the
Hungarian government position by praising those in
Hungary who hold the opposite view, i.e. the
Hungarian opposition:
We commend
the humanitarian spirit of Hungarian leaders,
law enforcement and military personnel, and
ordinary citizens who are responding to this
crisis with generosity and compassion.
Then she gives
Hungary Washington's marching orders:
We
continue to stress that any solution to these
migration challenges should focus on saving and
protecting lives, ensuring the human rights of
all migrants are respected, and promoting
orderly and humane migration policies. That
includes the support of all Member State
governments for the refugee agreement forged
between the EU and Turkey.
Translation:
Hungary must support the EU
agreement with Turkey which would see tens of
thousands of migrants settled in EU member
countries, including Hungary itself. The problem is
that the Hungarian parliament
explicitly rejected Brussels' forced migrant
settlement plans for Hungary and plans to hold a
nationwide referendum on the subject. Bell is saying
here that Hungary's elected representatives and even
the Hungarian voter must be ignored and Brussels'
dictate obeyed.
When it comes to Russia, Ambassador Bell also has
some instructions for Budapest: Moscow is your enemy
and don't you forget it.
She told Hungarian parliamentarians:
As many
Hungarians have reminded me, you need no
introduction to the nature of Russian
aggression. Your response has always been to
show resolve. Our best weapons, in fact, are
resolve and solidarity.
Weapons? Quite
a loaded word.
Orban has been seen in Washington as insufficiently
enthused about sanctions on Russia, which hurt
Hungarian trade and business interests. Ambassador
Bell makes it clear that Hungary must adhere to US
demands of Russia, even if they are completely
incoherent:
As the
United States and Hungary have both stated many
times, Russia has a simple choice: fully
implement Minsk or continue to face sanctions.
Russia must withdraw weapons and troops from
the Donbas; Russia must ensure that all
Ukrainian hostages are returned; Russia must
allow full humanitarian access to occupied
territories; Russia must support free, fair, and
internationally-monitored elections in the
Donbas under Ukrainian law; and most important,
Russia must restore Ukraine’s sovereignty.
That last
point should be taken to mean that Russia must
ignore the will of the people of Crimea who voted in
overwhelming numbers to re-join Russia after just 25
years as part of independent Ukraine.
Not to worry, Ambassador Bell is confident that
Budapest will do everything Washington tells it to
do:
More than
this, Hungary is equal to the great challenges
of our times, and the United States is counting
on you.
To stiffen
their spine, US Ambassador Bell reminds the
Hungarians that they are part of "our global order"
and touts the great examples set by the US,
including:
Our system
of international economic, political, and social
norms and institutions have kept the peace and
fostered prosperity for decades. Whether it is
international law, environmental protection,
trade regulations, anticorruption laws, child
labor laws, human rights safeguards, the
nonproliferation regime, public health systems,
international financial institutions, UN
peacekeeping, or a robust civil society – these
norms and institutions give life and stability
to our global order.
In the era of
NSA spying on innocent Americans, Guantanamo, CIA
torture, weapons sales to the world's worst
dictators (Saudi Arabia for one),
destruction of the environment by the US war
machine, "regime change" operations that violate the
sovereignty of other states, and outright aggression
in opposition to US and international law (Libya,
etc.), Bell's suggestion that "our global order" is
the pinnacle of civilization should get a laugh out
of most Hungarians. In fact, from Libya to Syria to
Ukriane to Pakistan and Afghanistan, the US
interventionist attempt to forge a global order with
blood and bullets will go down in history along with
the authoritarianisms of the 20th century as one of
humanity's darkest chapters.
Here is the short version of Ambassador Bell to
Budapest: "to be our partner means you do what we
say whether or not it is in your interest."
Funny, that was Moscow's message to Budapest from
1948 to 1989.
Copyright © 2016 by RonPaul
Institute.
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