Ban of Russian Olympic Team – Cold War at Its
'Best'!
By Andre Vltchek
July 29, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
-
The Empire is becoming thoroughly unpredictable. It
is attacking on all fronts. It lost all its shame
and decency.
New Cold War is now in full swing and the West is
using both old and new tactics, in order to demonize
and discredit all of its opponents: from Russia to
China, Venezuela, North Korea, South Africa and
Iran.
Our anti-imperialist media outlets, including
those of the RT, TeleSUR, Press TV, CCTV and Sputnik
are being labeled as ‘propaganda’ channels.
Defensive and internationalist initiatives of our
countries are branded as aggressions. Those
governments that are relentlessly working on behalf
of the people are defined as ‘evil’ or at least as
‘dictatorships’.
The Empire is erecting complex and destructive
web of lies and manipulations, literally trapping
some countries in grotesque pseudo-legal concepts,
as recently happened to China, which was confronted
by The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The
Hague, which has recently ruled against, what F.
William Engdhal described, as “any and all claims of
China to various islands or even rocks inside what
is known as the 'Nine Dash Line' between China’s
coast and The Philippines.” China actually never
asked for any ‘arbitration’; it is repeating that it
has been ready to negotiate directly with the
Philippines. But the West and the previous servile
administration in Manila decided to turn this
historical dispute into a yet another ideological
and propaganda battle.
The War against the “coalition of unwilling” is
constantly diversifying. Propagandists in North
America and Europe are inventing new ‘weapons’ of
mass intellectual and information destruction.
Nothing is left intact.
The latest ‘battle’ is truly unconventional, one
could even say ‘innovative’ – it is an attempt to
demonize Russian athletes, and even to prevent them,
at lease some of them, from participating in the
upcoming Rio de Janeiro Olympic games!
Of course, Russia’s athletes are legendary, as
are its artists, scientists and thinkers. To drag
the entire Russian Olympic team through the dirt and
infamy could be definitely considered a great
victory for the Western Empire and its
fundamentalist philosophy. To ban it altogether from
participating at the Olympics would be even more
‘delightful’.
“Just look at those sneaky, filthy, dishonest
Russians – they are cheating wherever they go! They
are doping their athletes, turning them into some
robots stuffed with steroids... They are winning
unfairly!”
WATCH: Thousands March Against Olympics
in Rio de Janeiro
Deena
Stryker makes an excellent point in her recent essay
for the NEO:
“Today the
airways were full of talk about the possibility that
Russia would be banned from taking part in the
up-coming Olympic Games in Brazil, on the pretext
that the IOC has ‘definitive proof’ — in the words
of a spokesman — that the Putin government was
complicit in the doping of its athletes going back
to 2013.
Two
things strike me as strange: the first is the fact
that the Russian doctor and former lab head who
apparently faked test results now lives in
California, were he heads a laboratory.
The
second thing is that sports fans are less likely
than other people to be up on foreign news and
international politics, while they are passionate
about sports news... These people are bound to make
up a sizable portion of any electorate, so someone
in President Obama’s foreign policy team probably
decided to target them instead of consumers of hard
news. Sports fans have probably not followed the
Ukraine coup, or even the NATO buildup on Russia’s
borders...”
The IOC
itself is historically a notoriously corrupt
institution. It has been always more than willing to
provide favors to those who either pay, or hold
reigns of power.
It is not
that the Russian labs and all Russian athletes are
clean, far from it! There were definitely several
(or many) cases of doping, and the labs were not
always ‘clean’ or transparent. But!
But so many
athletes and so many labs, all over the world, are
guilty of the same wrongdoings. But it is only
Russia that may be forced to pay the heaviest, the
ultimate price.
To claim
that this is not part of the political battle would
be ludicrous.
But
sidelining, even demonizing Russia may not be the
only purpose for this complex ‘operation’.
Just very
recently, Brazil, the host country of the 2016
Olympic games, went through some agonizing events.
Its socialist government had been framed and forced
out of power, by both the local extreme right wing
elites and by their handlers in the West.
Protests
are still raging. Discontent with the coup and with
the new regime is growing.
There is
great chance that there will be clashes between the
protesters and armed forces, during the Games.
In such an
explosive environment, anything could become
symbolic, even the epic fight of the Russian,
Chinese, Cuban and other athletes against the
competitors representing the West.
During my
recent visit to Brazil I realized how popular Russia
is becoming among the ordinary people there. It is
clear for whom so many Brazilian sports fans would
be cheering, especially now, after the shameless
coup.
This (the
planners in Washington most likely decided) has to
be prevented. The solidarity of BRICS countries
should not be shown on television screens to those
billions of sports fans all over the world.
Now, with
Temer and his clique holding power in Brazil, it
would be much easier to simply ‘delete’ Russia from
the Olympic map, if the IOC decides to impose blank
ban on the entire Russian team.
If the coup
never took place, if Dilma and the PT were still in
power, there were several ways to resist this latest
West’s onslaught against Russia and its athletes.
There were even ways to humiliate the spineless IOC.
For instance, the government of Brazil could have
arranged a parallel event for the Russian athletes,
in order to show its solidarity. But now, the way
things are, there is no chance for such a
‘rebellion’!
Brazil is
screaming under attacks from the market
fundamentalists. Its new (illegitimate, but fully
pro-Western) government naturally sees Russia as one
of its archenemies.
One should
never under-estimate the Empire! In its own, deeply
destructive way, it is truly brilliant. Its
Machiavellian tactics are extremely effective. And
this sport saga is just a proof of it!
On July 26,
2016, the RT reported:
“The
International Olympic Committee has rejected calls
for a blanket ban on Russia at the Rio 2016 Games,
ruling that individual sports federations should
decide whether Russian athletes are eligible to
compete.
Athletes will need to meet strict criteria laid out
by the IOC, including proving to international
federations that they have a clean doping record and
have been tested by “reliable” international
anti-doping bodies.”
Conditions
are almost impossible to meet, in such a short time
that is left before the beginning of the Olympic
games in Rio.
The Empire
is becoming thoroughly unpredictable. It is
attacking on all fronts. It lost all its shame and
decency.
And the
Western mass media is now fully lined-up, providing
ideological cover and unabashed propaganda. And now
it is not only the media in the United States, but
also in Germany, the U.K. and elsewhere.
Most
likely, the free world (those countries that are
refusing to accept the West’s dictates) will soon
lose one more important battle. But the struggle
goes on! Those Russian athletes who will make it to
Rio will be fighting great symbolic battles, like
those that were fought in Berlin, during the 1936
Olympics. Andre Vltchek is a philosopher,
novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He
covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries.
His latest books are: “Exposing
Lies Of The Empire”
and “Fighting
Against Western Imperialism”.Discussion
with Noam Chomsky:On Western Terrorism. Point
of No Return is
his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania –
a book on Western imperialism in the South
Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia
– The Archipelago of Fear”.
Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV.
After living for many years in Latin America and
Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East
Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through
his website
or his Twitter.
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