By Paul Craig Roberts

May 22, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - It is not only American generals who are irresponsible and declare on the basis of no evidence whatsoever that “Russia is an existential threat to the United States” and also to the Baltic states, Poland, Georgia, Ukraine, and all of Europe. British generals also participate in the warmongering.  UK retired general and former NATO commander Sir Richard Shirreff, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe until 2014, has just declared that nuclear war with Russia is “entirely possible” within the year. 

My loyal readers know that I, myself, have been warning for some time about the likelihood of nuclear war.  However, there is a vast difference between me and the Western generals.  I see the war as the consequence of the neoconservative drive for US world hegemony.  The neoconservative drive for world hegemony is acknowledged by the neoconservatives themselves in their public position papers, and it has a 15 year record of being implemented in America’s many and ongoing wars in the Middle East and Africa.  Although the Presstitute media does its best to keep our focus away from the known facts, the facts remain known.

The position of the Western generals is that “Russian aggression” is driving an innocent America/NATO to nuclear war.  

Here is General Shirreff’s list of “Russian aggressions”: “He [Putin] has invaded Georgia, he has invaded the Crimea, he has invaded Ukraine. He has used force and got away with it.  In a period of tension, an attack on the Baltic states… is entirely plausible.” Shirreff is talking about make-believe happenings that even if real would be taking place inside what were until recently Russia’s long-standing national boundaries. 

General Shirreff strikes me as either uninformed or a dissembler. It is the United States and Israel who use force and get away with it. The Russian invasion of the former Russian province, Georgia, was a response to the American puppet government’s invasion of South Ossetia in which the American and israeli trained and equipped Georgian troops killed Russian peace-keeping troops and a large number of South Ossetian civilians while the Russian government was at the Beijing olympics. 

It only took a small fraction of the Russian Army a few hours to roll up the American and Israeli trained Georgian Army.  Putin had the former Russian province in his hand. He could have hung the American puppet president and reincorporated Georgia back into Russia, where if probably belongs, having spent all of modern history in that location.

But Putin did not see Georgia as a prize, and having made his point, let the Americans have their puppet state back.  The president at the time, a scummy scoundrel, was thrown out of the country by Georgians and now serves the American puppet state of Ukraine, like so many others who are not Ukrainian. Apparently, Washington can’t find enough Ukrainians who will sell out their country for Washington and has to bring in foreigners to help Washington rule Ukraine.

There has been, alas, no Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Putin would not even accept the pleas of the Russian majority populations in the breakaway provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk to be reincorporated back into Russia where they belong. If Putin actually wanted Ukraine, he doesn’t need to send in an army.  He can take back the eastern and southern parts just by accepting the pleas of the people to again be a part of Russia.

The only plea that Putin accepted was that of the Crimeans, who with an extremely high turnout never experienced in “western democracies” voted 97.6 percent to rejoin Russia, where Crimea resided for longer than the US has existed, until Khrushchev, a Ukrainian, transferred Crimea from the Russian Soviet Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic when both were provinces of the Soviet Union. 

Little doubt that Putin accepted Crimea’s plea because Russia’s only warm water port and entrance into the Mediterranean Sea is Russia’s naval base in Crimea, and little doubt that Putin refused Donetsk and Luhansk in order to deflect Washington’s propagandistic charges, such as those of former general Shirreff. Putin reasoned, mistakenly in my view, that his refusal to accept Donetsk and Luhansk would reassure Washington’s NATO puppet states and lessen Washington’s influence over Europe.  For the corrupt Europeans, facts are of no consequence. Washington’s money prevails.

Putin doesn’t understand the power of Washington’s money.  In the entire West only money counts.  There is no such thing as Washington’s word, government integrity, truth, or even empirical facts.  There are only well-propagated lies.  The entire West is a lie. The West exists for one reason only–corporate profits. 

The retired general Shirreff claims, without any evidence, which is typical, that Putin “used force and got away with it.”

What force is the general talking about?  Can he identify the force?  The independent international observers of the Crimean voting report that it was completely fair, that there was no intimidation, no troops or any Russian intimidation present. 

The former NATO general Shirreff believes that a Russian attack “on the Baltic states is entirely possible.”  For what reason?  The Baltic states, former provinces of the Soviet Union, comprise no threat whatsoever to Russia.  The Russians have no reason whatsoever to attack the Baltic states. It was Russia that gave the Baltic states their independence.  Just as it was Russia that gave Ukraine and Georgia their independence.

Imperial Washington is leveraging the reasonableness of the Russian government to put Russia in a propagandistic light. The Russian government has permitted itself to be put on the defensive and has given the attack to Washington.

Russia has not attacked anyone except the terrorist group ISIS. Allegedly, Washington is opposed to terrorism, but Washington has been using ISIS in an effort to overthrow the Syrian government with terrorism.  Russia has put a halt to that. The question before us is whether the Russian government so desires to be accepted by the West that Putin sells out Syria to Washington/Israeli dismemberment in order to show that Russia is a good partner for the West.

If Russia doesn’t get over its affection for the West, Russia will lose its independence.

My understanding is that Russia has been resurrected as a Christian, morally principally country, perhaps the only one on earth.  The question that the Russian people and their Russian government need, desperately, to ask themselves is: Do we want to be associated with the War Criminal West that disobeys not only its own laws, but also international laws?

The vast majority of the evil in the world resides in the West. It is the west with its lies and greed that has devastated millions of people in 7 countries during the new 21st century.  This is the most threatening beginning of a new millennium in modern times.

Unsatisfied with its looting of the Third World, South America, Greece, Portugal, Latvia, Argentina, and now Brazil and Ukraine, the Western Capitalists have their sights set on Russia, China, India, and South Africa.

What a prize it would be to get Russia with all that vast expanse of Siberia that can be environmentally brutalized and destroyed for capitalist profits. The Russian government’s offering of free land in Siberia had better be limited to Russian citizens Otherwise, the land is likely to be bought up by the West, which will use its ownership of Russia to destroy the country.

The Russians and the Chinese are blinded by the fact that they lived for decades under oppressive and failed regimes.  They look to the West as success. Their misreading of the West endangers their independence.

Neither Russia nor China seek conflict. It is a gratuitous and reckless act for Washington to send the message to Russia and China that they must choose vassalage or war.

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.