By Jim Miles
I wasn’t at first going to listen to Rosemary Barton’s interview (CBC) with NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg considering I would probably not learn anything new. But I did and I didn’t – I did listen and I didn’t learn anything new, the interview only reinforced previously held ideas.
In general that falls into two parts. First it reminded me how much Rosemary Barton follows the mainstream media (MSM) message concerning Canada’s foreign policy in spite of the self-advertising as a hard hitting show host. Whether she is wilfully ignorant or just ignorant is hard to tell, but she continues to reiterate the MSM talking points about “Russian aggression” and accepts without question the comments made by Stoltenberg. The latter clearly demonstrates the acceptance of the MSM message as in certain other panel discussions she presents her tough talking side, which after all is what makes news entertaining.
As for Stoltenberg, he is simply the latest European stooge to operate under U.S. command within the overall NATO structure. His statements about Russia rebuilding its military, about the ’illegal’ annexation of Crimea, about not wanting a new cold war, and saying “we want to prevent conflict that is what we are doing” is all candy floss for the MSM to easily digest without having to chew on some harder contemporary/historical facts.
First, allow me to deconstruct the above positions.
Yes, Russia has rebuilt its military, very successfully if their operations in Syria are an example. But this was done with NATO being the aggressor pact, moving its boundaries right up to the Russian border in certain areas, and certainly much closer by several hundreds of kilometres in spite of Clinton’s (Bill) lie that NATO would not move into Eastern Europe after the reunification of Germany. NATO (and this includes Canada and the U.S.) demonstrated their capabilities for violent and destructive use of force in Libya as the prime example, but also aided the U.S. in Afghanistan, and more recently in the rather lame attacks on ISIS in Iraq/Syria. Lame in comparison to the major successes that the small Russian forces had after they entered the fight against ISIS.
As a further sign of aggression, the U.S. has moved nuclear capable missile sites into Poland and Romania. These are described as defensive, but considering the west’s history of military attacks against Russia (from Napoleon through the Bolshevik revolution to Hitler) the Russian perspective can hardly see these as defensive, especially against Iran, the latter being a non-nuclear capable country. Oh sorry Rosie, your MSM talking points probably tell you differently.
Saying “we want to prevent conflict that is what we are doing” is the same as Andrew Bacevich (“The United States War for the Greater Middle East.” Bacevich, Random House, 2016) saying the U.S. position is to have the biggest military and threaten anyone who doesn’t agree with them in order to have peace – in other words, we’ll threaten to bludgeon you and kill you if you do not agree to our imperial hegemony. And it’s not as if the U.S. has stopped developing and rebuilding nuclear and other forces – oh by the way did I mention the F-35 – that billion dollar boondoggle that Canada insists on buying into?
Russia annexed Crimea much to the consternation of the U.S. who were hoping to grab the Sevastopol military base and establish their NATO presence there as another piece of the puzzle in which to encircle and deconstruct Russia as an independent sovereign state. Read your history folks – this territory has centuries long association as a part of Russia. And what about the UN’s right of self-determination? The Crimeans voted clearly to ask to be annexed by Russia which the Duma accepted. This election was decidedly and clearly more democratic than anything the U.S. tried in Afghanistan or Iraq with the ‘chosen’ parachuted picks for leaders (Chalabi, Karzai). With the war in Syria ongoing, notice how quiet the MSM is about Israel and its illegal annexation of the Golan Heights.
Talking of parachuted leaders, oligarch Poroshenko is the NSA/CIA/state departments ‘man’ of the hour in Ukraine. The U.S. spent billions attempting to disrupt Ukraine enough that they could run in and grab all the goodies while making it yet another forward outpost for NATO on the Russian border. Just ask Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland, a possible next secretary of state under the probably soon to be warhawk Clinton government. The murders in the Maidan and the Odessa murders can be attributed to the neonazi Bandera militias supported by U.S. actions. These same groups wanted to ethnically cleanse Donbass of its Russian population resulting in the creation of counter militias in the region to fight them off – thus the war in Eastern Ukraine, definitely not caused by Russian aggression, although undoubtedly supported by Russia.
This of course is but another part and parcel of the drive for U.S. hegemony over the world for “supreme spectrum dominance” that Russia and China are not allowing. Russia needs to be concerned and rightfully is concerned about the western nations conceit of arms that they will rule the world, that their Wall Street corporate dominated government (can you say oligarchs – same thing in western clothing) will control all people, all governments, and all resources.
Which of course leads to the lie about not wanting a “new cold war.” Too late, we are already in a hot war by proxy (Ukraine, Syria) and the sanctions and aggressive military moves towards Russia have already created a political ‘cold war.’ It’s just another talking point to try and say, “really, it’s not our fault, we didn’t want it.” If there ever is a real hot war, then kiss your ass goodbye – the U.S. has a first use nuclear policy thanks to Paul Wolfowitz among others in the neocon PNAC group – and Russia has developed – apparently – full spectrum defensive measures that ensure the U.S. will be destroyed as well.
Scary stuff, but it is the U.S. and its drive towards controlling Europe through the creation of NATO and the EU (encompassing military, financial, and political control through selected non-elected elites), of dominating Eurasia for its resources, and above all, controlling the financial markets for the fiat petrodollar supremacy based on Saudi oil sales using the US$.
Off on a bit of a tangent? Maybe for those of you not capable of global thinking, but that is the bottom line in all this – U.S./western oligarchs attempting – obviously – global control. Certainly not the MSM message, certainly not Rosemary Barton’s message, certainly not Jens Stoltenberg’s message, and unfortunately certainly not the Canadian government’s message as it follows along with U.S. foreign policy in all its aspects. So much for sovereignty.
Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews for The Palestine Chronicle. Miles’ work is also presented globally through other alternative websites and news publications.
20 June, 2016
Countercurrents.org