The Ukraine Crisis Remains Unresolved — Paul Craig Roberts
September 9, 2014 | Original Here Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter
The Ukraine Crisis Remains Unresolved
Paul Craig Roberts
Some Western commentators interpret the cease fire in Ukraine
obtained by President Putin as a victory for Russia. The reasoning is
that the cease fire leaves Ukraine with disputed borders, which rules
out Ukraine’s membership in NATO.
But will the cease fire hold? The right-wing Kiev militias, whose
members often wear nazi insignias, are not under Kiev’s complete
control. These militias can easily violate the cease fire, and there
are already reports of violations. Moreover the billionaire oligarch
that Washington has installed in Kiev as president of Ukraine will
violate the ceasefire on Washington’s orders, unless, of course, Putin
has put the fear of God in him.
To a military strategist the Russian response to the trouble that
Washington has caused Russia in Ukraine, longer a part of Russia than
the US has existed, is a mystery. Russia lost Ukraine because of its
weakness when the Soviet Union collapsed, and Washington forced Russia
to permit an independent Ukraine, which served Washington’s purpose of
breaking up the Russian Federation.
The western Ukrainians, who fought for Hitler during World War II,
maintained an impressive lobby organization in Washington and secured
their independent country, but they did not control Ukraine because much
of the country consists of former Russian territories made part of
Ukraine by Soviet leaders in the 20th century.
Blood ties from intermarriage over centuries and tied economic
interrelationships between Russia and Ukraine achieved over centuries
essentially left Ukraine as part of Russia, where it has resided for
centuries.
This frustrated the World Empire Neoconservatives, who have
controlled the US government since the corrupt Clintons, whose regime
brought Third World corruption into American political life. Remember
Robert Reich, Clinton’s university friend and Secretary of Labor who
resigned from Clinton’s cabinet on principle. Clinton betrayed the
constituency that elected him, as did Obama. Clinton’s two-timed wife,
allied with Zionist Israel, the banksters, and the military/security
complex, is the Democrats’ current favorite for their next presidential
nominee.
As it was in Rome, dynasties are now the sources of US presidential
leadership. And as it was in Rome, the US is on the path to
destruction, which occurs when the ambitions of leaders take precedence
over the fate of the country.
Keeping Ukraine out of NATO is no doubt a goal of the Russian
government. However, the trouble that Washington brought to Russia in
Ukraine–by orchestrating a coup, installing a puppet government, and
unleashing violence against the residents of the former Russian
territories that Soviet leaders attached to Ukraine–is being used for
wider purposes than to incorporate Ukraine within NATO.
In other words, Washington’s strategic goals go beyond NATO membership for Ukraine.
One goal is to break apart the economic and political relationships
between Europe and Russia. By using Ukraine to demonize Russia,
Washington has pushed the European Union into imposing sanctions on
Russia that disrupt the trade relationships and create distrust.
The distrust serves Washington’s purpose. Washington has demonstrated
to Russia that Washington’s bought and-paid-for European politicians
are unwilling to have foreign policies independent of Washington’s.
Europe’s lack of an independent policy means that the Russian government
is hampered in its use of diplomacy.
Another Washington goal is to build up military forces on Russia’s
borders. NATO has used the “crisis” to stoke fear of Russia in the
Baltics and in Poland. Washington and NATO generals speak of Russian
attacks as if it is a foregone conclusion that Russia intends to invade
Eastern Europe. To protect against the “Russian threat,” NATO has
created a “quick reaction force” and is building up supplies of military
equipment and new bases on Russia’s borders. Whatever the outcome in
Ukraine, Washington has used Ukraine to start a new Cold War.
The Western presstitute media, a collection of government
propagandists, has misrepresented the situation in Ukraine from the
beginning. In place of news coverage, there has been propaganda against
Russia. Consequently, Western peoples who rely on the media are
misinformed about Ukraine and place all blame on Russia. The fact that
the American people are misinformed makes it easy for Washington to
continue to orchestrate events to Russia’s disadvantage.
Washington has no interest in resolving the troubles in Ukraine.
Washington has successfully used Ukraine to create fear of Russia both
in Europe and in the United States. Washington has successfully used
Ukraine to damage European-Russian economic and political relations, and
Washington has succeeded in starting a new Cold War that will keep
profits flowing into the US military/security complex.
As the Kiev government is Washington’s puppet, there is no reason to
expect a resolution of the conflict that Washington brought to Ukraine
and to Russia.
It is not only Washington that rejects a resolution of the Ukrainian
difficulties created by Washington, but also the EU. Washington’s
puppet, Herman Van Rompuy, President of the Washington front group – the
European Council – announced, if news reports are correct, which they
seldom are, that the European Union is imposing sanctions on the Russian
energy firms Rosneft, Gazpromneft and Transneft as well as state-run
companies with turnover of more than $27 billion a year.
The Russian response to this audacity should be to turn off the gas in the winter without warning. All of it.
As Putin’s interest is to separate Europe from Washington’s control,
this would do it. All of East and West Europe and Ukraine would be on
their knees in Moscow begging for the energy to be turned back on. All
Putin would have to say is
“only non-NATO members get gas.”
That would bring an end to Washington’s assault on Russia.
The American neoconservatives, a deranged cadre of warmongers, are
denouncing Obama for “weakness” for not sending troops to Ukraine. The
neocons, who have involved the US since the Clinton regime in costly and
failed US military aggressions abroad, claim that Obama’s leadership
has resulted in NATO loosing its will and its muscle.
It remains for the Russian government to demonstrate that all muscle over Ukraine and Europe resides in Moscow.
Washington
has pressured the Philippines, whose government it owns, into
conducting joint military exercises in the South China Sea. Washington’s
excuse is that China has territorial disputes with the Philippines,
Indonesia, and other countries concerning island and sea rights in the
South China Sea. Washington asserts that China’s territorial disputes
with the like of Indonesia and the Philippines are a matter of United
States’ national interests.
Washington has not made it clear what Washington’s stake is in the
disputes. The reason Washington cannot identify why China’s disputes
with the Philippines and Indonesia are threats to the United States is
that there is no reason. Nevertheless, the undefined “threat” has become
the reason Washington needs more naval bases in the Philippines and
South Korea.
What this is all about is provoking a long-term cold war conflict with China that will keep
profits and power flowing into Washington’s military-security complex.
Large profits flow to armaments companies. A portion of the profits
reflow into campaign contributions to “the people’s representatives” in
DC and to presidential candidates who openly sell out their country to
private interests.
Washington is going to construct new naval bases in the Philippines and
on the environmentally protected Jeju Island belonging to South Korea.
Washington will waste tax revenues, or print more money, in order to
build the unnecessary fleets to occupy these bases. Washington is
acquiring bases in Australia for US Marines to protect Australia from
China, despite the lack of Chinese threats against Australia. Bush and
Obama are the leading models of the “people’s president” who sell out
the people, at home and abroad, to private interests.
Why is Washington ramping up a new cold war?
The answer begins with President Eisenhower’s warning to the American
people in his last public address about the military/industrial complex
in 1961. I won’t quote the warning as it is available online.
Eisenhower pointed out to Americans that unlike previous wars after
which the US demilitarized, after World War II the cold war with the
Soviet Union kept the power and profits flowing into the
military/industrial complex, now known as the military/security complex.
President Eisenhower said that the flow of power and profit into the
military/industrial complex was a threat to the economic wellbeing and
liberty of the American people.
No one paid any attention, and the military/security complex was glad to
be rid of the five-star general war hero president when his second term
expired. Thanks to the hype about the “Soviet threat,” the
military/security complex faced an unlimited horizon of mounting profits
and power as Americans sacrificed their future to the interests of
those who protected Americans from the Soviet threat.
The good times rolled for the armaments companies and security agencies
for almost three decades until Reagan and Gorbachev reached agreement
and ended the cold war. When the Soviet Union subsequently collapsed,
the future outlook for the power and profit of the US military/security
complex was bleak. The one percent was about to lose its fortunes and
the secret government was about to lose its power.
The military/security complex went to work to revive the need for a
massive “defense” and “security” budget. Among their willing tools were
the neoconservatives, with their French Jacobin ideology and Israeli
loyalties. The neocons defined America as the “indispensable people.”
Such extraordinary people as Americans must establish hegemony over the
world as the sole remaining superpower. As most neoconservatives are
allied with Israel, the Muslim Middle East became the target of
opportunity.
Muslims are sufficiently different from Westerners that Muslims are easy to demonize.
The demonization began in the neoconservative publications. Once Dick
Cheney had the George W. Bush regime staffed with neoconservatives, the
next step was to create “threats” to Americans out of verbiage about the
Taliban’s responsibility for 9/11 and about “Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction,” including verbal images from Bush’s National Security
Advisor of “mushroom clouds” over US cities.
No one in the US government or the “free” US media or the media of the
US puppet states in England, Europe, Japan, Taiwan, Canada, Australia
and South Korea was struck by Washington’s proposition that “the world’s
sole superpower” was threatened by the likes of Iraq and Iran, neither
of which had any offensive military capability or any modern weapons,
according to the unequivocal reports of the weapons inspectors.
What kind of “superpower” is threatened by Iraq and Iran? Certainly, not a real one.
No one seemed to notice that the alleged 9/11 hijackers were Saudi
Arabians, not Afghans or Iraqis, yet it was Afghanistan and Iraq that
were labeled “terrorist threats.” Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, which do
terrorize their subjects, are safe from having America bring them
democracy, because they are Washington’s puppets, not independent
countries.
As fear of nonentities swept over the population of “the world’s sole
superpower,” the demands for war against “America’s enemies”--”you are
with us or against us”--swept through the country. “Support the troops”
plastic ribbons appeared on American cars. Americans went into a
frenzy. The “towel heads” were after us, and we had to fight for our
lives or be murdered in our beds, shopping centers, and airliner seats.
It was all a hoax to replace the Soviet threat with the Muslim threat.
The problem that developed with the “Muslim threat” is that in order to
keep the profits and power flowing into the military/security complex,
the promised six-week war in Iraq had to be extended into 8 years. The
war in Afghanistan against a few thousand lightly armed Taliban has
persisted for more than a decade, longer than the attempted Red Army
occupation of Afghanistan.
In other words, the problem with hot wars is that the need not to win
them in order to keep them going (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan are
all long-term wars never won) in order that the profits and power
continue to flow to the military/security complex demoralizes the US
military and creates the world-wide impression that the “world’s sole
superpower” cannot even defeat a few thousand insurgents armed with
AK-47s, much less a real army.
In Iraq and Afghanistan more US soldiers have died from demoralization
and suicides than from combat. In Iraq, the US was humiliated by having
to end the war by putting the Sunni insurgents on the US military
payroll and paying them to stop killing US troops. In Korea the US was
stopped by an army of a backward third world country that lived on rice.
What would happen today if the US “superpower’s” militarily confronted
China, a country with an economy on which the US is dependent, about
equal in size to the US economy, operating on its home territory? The
only chance the evil in Washington would have would be nuclear war,
which would mean the destruction of the entire world by Washington’s
hubris.
Fortunately, profits are more important to Washington than ending life
on earth. Therefore, war with China will be avoided, just as it was
avoided with the Soviet Union. However, China will be presented by
Washington and its prostitute media, especially the New York Times,
Washington Post, and Murdoch’s collection of whores, as the rising
threat to America. The media story will shift the importance of
America’s allies from Europe to countries bordering the South China Sea.
American taxpayers’ money, or newly printed money, will flow into the
“new alliance against China.”
China’s rise is a great boon to the US military/security complex, which
governs america in which there is a pretense of “freedom and
democracy.” China is the profitable replacement for the “Soviet threat.”
As the days go by, the presstitute media will create in the feeble
minds of Americans “The CHINA Threat.”
Soon whatever little remains of the US living standard will be
sacrificed to Washington’s confrontation with China, along with the
seizure of our pensions and personal savings in order to deter “the
China threat.”
If only Americans were an intelligent people. Then they might have some
prospect of holding on to their incomes, remaining wealth, and liberty.
Unfortunately, Americans are so thoroughly plugged into the Matrix
that they present as a doomed people, incapable of thought, reason, or
ability to comprehend the facts that the rest of the world sees clearly.
Can reality be brought to the American people? Perhaps a miracle will occur. Stay tuned.
