Washington Pushes Harder Against Russia

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http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/07/31/washington-pushes-harder-russia-paul-craig-roberts/

Paul Craig Roberts

Some historians believe that the cause of WW2 was UK prime minister Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler’s recovery of German territory given to other countries via the Versailles Treaty in contravention of US President Woodrow Wilson’s promise to Germany that there would be no reparations and no loss of territory if Germany agreed to an armistance ending WW1.

I do not agree. The facts seem clear. The cause of WW2 was the gratuitous and unenforceable guarantee to the Polish military government given by Chamberlain that if Poland refused to hand German lands and populations back to Germany, Great Britain would be there to support Poland. When Germany and the Soviet Union made the deal to split Poland between them and attacked, Britain due to its stupid “guarantee” declared war on Germany, but not on the Soviet Union. As France was aligned by treaty with Britain, France, too, had to declare war. Because of the reign of propaganda in the West, hardly anyone knows this, but WW2 was started by the British and French declaration of war on Germany. Yet, it was the surviving members of the German regime who were put on trial by the US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in Nuremberg for initiating aggressive war.

Nevertheless, as the general opinion is that Chamberlain encouraged Hitler to ever more aggressive actions by the British failure to respond, why has no one pointed out that the Russian government’s lack of response to Washington’s aggressive actions toward Russia encourages Washington to become more aggressive. This also is leading to war.

The Russian government, like Chamberlain’s, has not responded to provocations far more dangerous than Chamberlain faced, because, like Chamberlain, the Russian government prefers peace to war.

The question is whether the Russian government is avoiding or encourging war by its non-response to illegal sanctions and propagandistic accusations and demonizations. Russia has even allowed Washington to put ABM bases on its borders with Poland and Romania. This is like the US permitting Russia to put missile bases in Cuba.

Russia is disadvantaged because, unlike the United States, Russia is an open society, not a police state like the US where dissent is controlled and suppressed. The Russian government is handicapped by its decision to permit foreign ownership of some of its media. It is disadvantaged by its decision to accept hundreds of American and European financed NGOs that organize protests and constantly level false charges at the Russian government. The Russian government permits this because it mistakenly believes Washington and its vassals will see Russia as a tolerant democracy and welcome it into the Western Family of Nations.

Russia is also disadvantaged by its educated upper class, professors and businessmen who are Western oriented. The professors want to be invited to conferences at Harvard University. The businessmen want to be integrated into the Western business community. These people are known as “Atlanticist Integrationists.” They believe Russia’s future depends on acceptance by the West and are willing to sell out Russia in order to gain this acceptance. Even some of Russian youth think everything is great in America where the streets are paved with gold, and some of the Russian media take their cue from the Western presstitutes.

It is a difficult situation for the Russian government. The Russians mistakenly believed that the demise of the Soviet Union made us all friends. It seems only Gorbachev understands that the Soviet collapse removed all constraint on Washington’s hegemonic behavior. Few in Russia seem to understand that the enormous budget and power of the US military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower, warned in 1961, needs an enemy for its justification, and that the Soviet collapse had removed the enemy. The very minute that Russia stood up for its national interest, Washington filled the desperately needed category of “The Enemy” with Putin’s Russia.

The Russian government and upper class have been extremely slow in realizing this. Indeed, only a few are beginning to see the light.

Despite the writing on the wall, Russia’s new UN envoy, Vasily Nabenzya declared on July 29 that Russia has no alternative to “building bridges under any circumstances. We will cooperate. Americans cannot go without us, and us without them. This is an objective reality.”

This is a statement of Russian surrender.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergay Ryabkov also refuses to read the writing on the wall. He thinks Washington and Moscow must “break the vicious circle of retaliation and start anew.”

On July 30 Russian President Putin finally responded to the Obama regime’s orchestrated expulsion of Russian diplomats from Washington last Christmas and illegal seizure of Russian government properties in the Washington area by evicting 750 “American diplomats,” in reality agents working to undermine the Russian government. Putin could just as well have arrested them. It only took 7 months for Russia to respond to Washington’s hostile actions against Russian diplomats.

Sometimes the Russian government shows some awareness that it is permanently designated as Washington’s Number One Enemy. Putin explained the belated expulsion of US “diplomats” as follows: “We’ve been waiting for quite a long time that maybe something would change for the better, we had hopes that the situation would change. But it looks like, it’s not going to change in the near future… I decided that it is time for us to show that we will not leave anything unanswered.”

After saying this, Putin took it all back: “The main thing is, that we have a multi-faceted cooperation in many fields. Of course, Moscow has a lot to say and there is a number of spheres of cooperation that we could potentially cut and it would be sensitive for the US side. But I think we shouldn’t do it. It would harm development of international relations. I hope it won’t get to that point. As of today, I’m against it.”    https://www.rt.com/news/398019-putin-us-diplomats-sanctions/

A more realistic response than President Putin’s comes from Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and program director of Putin’s Valdai Discussion Club. Suslov understands that the new illegal sanctions against Russia, in addition to their advantage for US energy corporations, are an act of aggression toward Russia, the purpose of which is to make impossible the improvement of bilateral relations between the US and Russia. “Today,” Suslov said, “it is already clear that the US is our enemy, and will remain our enemy for a long time. Russia needs to adjust its state arms program, reflecting the inevitable military-political confrontation with the US. There must be investments in stratgic deterrance, in maintaining the system of guaranteed mutual destruction.”

Suslov adds: “Perhaps, it is worthwhile to turn off cooperation with the United States on those issues which are necessary first of all for the US itself. For example, the US depends on Russia in the field of space cooperation. Perhaps there is a need to make adjustments and give up part of the programs of cooperation. It is worthwhile to think about increasing military cooperation between Russia on the American continent — I mean primarily to build up cooperation with Venezuela,” Suslov said.

In Washington, anyone who departed as far as Suslov has from the delusions that hinder Russian decision-making would be fired. It will be interesting to see if Suslov has introduced more reality than is acceptible into Russian awareness of the threat that Russia faces from Washington.

Is Russia a country so desperate to be part of the West that it is ruled by delusions and illusions? If so, war is a certainty.

Comments from DiEM25

Alexander:

I doubt that anyone who has something like a clear mind in Germany would support Roberts “analysis”. So yes what he is saying would be very typical for hardcore right-wing excuses. Even the AfD wouldnt say something like this.

Also I think it is totally false on an analytical level. What Roberts is doing is trying to find the reason for WW2 in Britain because he is arguing the mistake was to support Poland.
First of all, everyone who knew Hitler’s ideology, which he published in “Mein Kampf” in 1923, would have known that he wouldn’t stop after getting Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia.


Secondly, I think it strange to argue that helping the country which got attacked means causing WW2. Hitler knew that Poland had a guarantee from the UK and still he attacked.
I could go further on, but that could take hours. I’m usually a person who is listening if somebody tries to find an alternative narrative for specific phenomena, but what Roberts tries to do there is anything but smart, in my opinion.

 

WH:  I think that what Roberts is trying to do is gather arguments that will help to prevent the next war, rather than give encouragement to the losers of the last one. It is worth being familiar with viewpoints like this if one is trying to develop policies adequate to solving Europe’s present-day problems. But it is not worth allowing them to become a bone of contention.

 

Sofia Club Declaration

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“SOFIA” CLUB (All-European Initiative) DECLARATION – 29.05.2017

SOURCE (Direct Democracy Press)

Important tectonic changes are happening in Western societies. Those changes reveal fundamental change in the instinctive perception of today’s reality both within great agglomerations and outside them.

Both Brexit and the result of the American presidential election are evidence of that. In both cases, the control of the elites over the population – mainly exercised through mainstream media – did not succed. The public has not gone in the direction favoured by the mainstream media. The media, too, weren’t able to predict or to note, at the time, the divergence from the direction they gave. These are all signs of a worrying absence of a positive feedback between the elites, the media and public opinion.

The recent presidential elections in France and Macron’s victory have shown that the ways of controlling public opinion are still able to function. A candidate  invented at the last moment   by the ruling elites (albeit being split internally), was carried to victory. However, despite the exceptional concentration of all power centres, official and in the media, the result could be achieved only, because the eventually defeated candidate was, in fact, a victim of a “cordon sanitaire” uniting all the traditional forces, left and right. Despite all of this, half the electorate did not follow this manipulation and either voted for Le Pen, or abstained, or voted with blank or spoiled papers.

In this sense, not even the French presidential elections of 2017 have refuted the existence of ongoing tectonic changes in European societies. The causes still need to be investigated further. What cannot be in doubt is the complex internal crisis manifested in various forms throughout the West. Its character is not yet understood and causes unprecedented disturbances among large masses of population. People realise, instinctively, that great issues remain unresolved, they begin to understand that the leaders aren’t able to solve those issues. People become sceptical of inadequate explanations they are given. They feel growing distrust towards the political class and treat the mainstream media with disdain. Not only does the media not tell the truth – they actively conceal it, showing a rich variety of deception.

This does not mean that Europeans have understood the causes. However, this is enough for a “cognitive dissonance” to appear, as a result of a growing contradiction between the description of reality given from above and the crude reality seen in everyday life.

Similar signs, with diverse manifestations of local experiences, are also appearing in Eastern Europe and new EU member states. The fascination with Europe is disappearing, often turning to distrust and even hostility. This is shown by the recent presidential elections in  Moldova, by the relations between Warsaw and Brussels, Budapest and Brussels, by many analogous signs which influence  Western and Eastern Europe, no less than Southern Europe. Everywhere, the number of Eurosceptics is growing. The new political organisations formed over recent years (UKIP in the UK, M5S in Italy, AfD in Germany) demonstrate this fragility and volatility. But growth does not happen, quantitative easing cannot last forever, the rate of employment is stagnating and even falling. Massive automation is to come, and it will reduce even further likelihood of painless solutions to the problem of unemployment. The middle class is suffering from a permanent decrease in their living standards. The “social contract” – which supported the Union and consisted of an exchange of promises on welfare – fulfilled – from above and votes from below – is not working anymore. The elites cannot honour this contract, and therefore the people are not ready to vote for them. The centrifugal forces are growing.

The answers from Brussels are ridiculously inadequate. Their arrogant response to the demands, if vague, for a radical change, is to accuse the people of “populism”. Misrepresenting and delegitimizing the demands for a democracy, transparency and fair government, they accuse people of some illegitimate, if not subversive, actions. The obsessive repetition of the derogatory term “populism” is a threat to the people.

We think, on the contrary, that the growing pressure from below should be encouraged and directed towards a deep democratic reform of the current European institutions. The institutions which are lightyears away from the ideas of the European Union’s founders. Those which have deprived the peoples of the forms of national democracy which they had used, for better or worse, to replace them with supranational institutions, lacking democratic legitimacy and fully subordinated to the powers of international financial capital.

The European Union goes through this systemic and multifaceted crisis without any uniting idea. In place of any dialogue, Russia became subject to daily criticism, accompanied by statements by many Euamerican elropean leaders, of disturbing predictions of a future, imminent aggression. Afterwards, they claim that to resist that aggression, it is necessary to multiply and intensify NATO’s military presence next to Russia’s borders. NATO continues its expansion by involving Montenegro and pressuring all the ex-Yugoslav countries to join. More and more explicit steps are made to make Ukraine join, too. In the latter case, it must be obvious even for the most naive observers, that NATO might provoke a very dangerous and  unpredictable conflict situation with  Russia.

The international situation is further complicated by the results of the American elections of 2016. Europe has been shown another face of America, very different from the one European leadership and mainstream media sold to the population. This is a face of a country torn and factionalized by internal cotradictions – possibly deeper than ever in its history, albeit not a very long one. This is a country uncertain of its future, in the face of an obvious economic and social crisis. But the Europe of today, instead of understanding the problem and assuming responsibility for contributing to its constructive solution, with the aim of worldwide peace, is virtually unanimous in supporting the caste which brought the US to this place. It does not admit the failure of globalisation’s philosophy;  that casino capitalism does not produce growth, that neo-liberal recipes do not offer a solution, that the growth of the last two centuries cannot be sustainable and will bring about a collapse in ecosystems; that competition only leads to a war of everyone against everyone; that worldwide social injustice is leading to an abyss and inevitably produces social conflicts, authoritarianism and rivers of blood. The proposals from Europe are the same old globalisation, the same visions of a salvationary and “inevitable” technical progress, the same desire to homogenise nations and histories in a single global grinder, the same Market as the master of money, things and even thoughts, the ever more inhumane idea of “modernity” and an arrogant claim to dictate its laws to Nature.

There is no place for a human being in that picture. Even worse: those ideas (to the extent that these can be considered ideas) are impossible in practice. Those ideas of one seventh of the world population cannot be imposed on the remaining six sevenths. There is only one way to make them reality: it is war, violence.  And the war, should it happen, will only produce a small group of victors and a destruction on a scale difficult to imagine.

One of the causes of this crisis is Western in particular. This is the inability, or unwillingness, of the Western elites to restrain from eurocentrism. We are still thinking (the European left, too, no less than the traditional right) ourselves to be the centre of the world. Currently this is obviously wrong. This non-realistic vision is the cause of all the tragic errors made in Europe and in the West. It impedes recognition of the diversity of Earth’s cultures, religions and traditions. It is both a fruit and a cause of globalisation, which pretends to homogenize all civilizations and to cancel the invincible diversity of the modern world.

There is an attempt – contrary to reality – to contrast uniformist  globalization with isolationism and autarky. However, the facts are completely different. There is a rational and pacifist response, which substitutes “competition” (everyone’s struggle against everyone else) with “cooperation”, “respect” and “equality in diversity”.

The European Institutions are fruits not only of an extreme neo-liberalism, but also of the authoritarian idea of uniformity assured by the market. The reality contradicts this unhealthy perspective. The effect of this contradiction on the Western elites, in particular those in Europe, is a militaristic hysteria, intolerant and ever more aggressive. NATO became a focal point for the growth and self-reproduction of that hysteria. Leaving NATO becomes a necessary preliminary step for Europe to turn to a serious collective reflection on national sovereignty as a tool to protect peoples from the globalist alliance.

From here, the idea of a “European army”, to replace NATO, is slowly emerging. This project must be presented as an alternative. However, it requires a simultaneous review of the current concepts of collective security, and a review of the concept of the “enemy”. The European army cannot duplicate NATO, for that would only mean a monstrous growth in military expenditure, which is already excessive. The issue is also that the selected “enemy” – Russia (for now; China will be the next) is not an enemy, in fact. Finally, the global crisis requires us to understand that the world of tomorrow will be shaken by many menaces, not strictly military in their nature. Therefore, the European army must be formed in order not only to fulfil the tasks of military security, but, first of all, to protect the European population from various threats, already repeatedly predicted.

The ill-thought enlargement of the Union in the first decade of the century, aided by fatal illusions of the new members, has put together two Europes, with differing ideas and principles. In many cases those are not just different, but directly opposite. The modern Europe was born to overcome those divisions, which culminated in World War II. Germany, France, Italy have turned the page and shown an example of reconciliation, proposed, above all, as an Anti-Nazi durable project. The new member states, however, have no desire for such reconciliation. They have been forced to join, first, NATO, and then, the Union whose principles they do not share. They have brought with them a lot of anti-Russian revanchism and Cold War spirit, lacking connection with Anti-Nazi struggle or even openly sympathetic to Nazism. Already at the beginning, there appears a strong resistance to those ideas, albeit the most realistic and peaceful ones. From across the ocean, we hear an outcry combined with an insistent demand to enlarge national military budgets up to 2 % of GDP. This is – they say – to protect the West from an enemy, which is, effectively, the other six billion people. One can only conlude that it is necessary to reject from this madness.

We need a new Europe, one which corrects the grave mistakes committed in the course of its development up to now. And there aren’t only mistakes, but also deliberate attempts to hinder the fundamental idea of constructing a democratic, Anti-Fascist, sovereign Europe. It is time to change this situation and to turn to the original ideas. We need a Europe of peoples, returning to the roots of its democracy – the national roots. One cannot replace those roots with supranational institutions lacking both identity and soul, and based on bureaucracy without democratic legitimacy. This legitimacy can only be founded on the legitimacy of national democracies. The new supranational institutions need to enrich those historical roots, not replace or undermine them. They are in need of a new level of real democracy, still to be created.  This is what those institutions haven’t achieved or understood. Therefore, the Council, the Commission, the Parliament aren’t legitimate. The treaties of Maastricht, Nice and Lisbon have been imposed from above and intended to serve the power, even domination, of the global financial circles. The disaster of Europe today, without principles or solidarity, is a fruit of “competition” and market, presented as unquestionable essentials, put above people’s will and feelings.

Therefore, we need a new Europe. It will not have the same geographical borders as now, since it is not obvious that all countries and nations share its principles. A Constituent Assembly, elected by the peoples concerned, will be needed to establish its basics. This assembly will have to create a genuine Constitution, which will overcome the limitations of an “international treaty” to become a basis for a proper Union. Such a Constitution must be approved not only by the national parliaments, but also directly by the people, through a referendum.

All this requires the conclusion that what the European Union and humanity needs today, far exceeds the framework of episodic measures of governance. Serious reforms are needed concerning the ways in which society is working. New priorities with much higher morality should come in place of the dominant and uncontrolled power of market forces. A philosophy based on competition, trampling public morality, must give way to social justice and peace.

 

  • Giulietto Chiesa (Italy), MEP (2004-2009); President of the Alternativa political association
  • Michel Collon (Belgium), journalist, director of the website Investig’Action
  • Javier Couso Permuy (Spain), MEP, Group United Left
  • Inaki Irazabalbeitia (Basque Country); MEP (2013-2014), Board member of the Aralar political party
  • Dmitris Kostantakopoulos (Greece), journalist, writer, coordinator of the Delphi Initiative, redactor of the website Defend Democracy Press
  • Kostadinka Kuneva (Greece), MEP, Group United Left Sergey Kurginyan (Russia), President of the Essence of Time political movement
  • Anna Miranda (Galicia), MEP (2012-2013&2018-2019), Group Greens/EFA; Board member of the Bloque Nacionalista Galego political party
  • Ghenadi Mitriuc (Moldova), MP, Socialist party group
  • Oleksandr Moroz (Ukraine), Chairman, For Truth and Justice political party
  • Janusz Niedzwiecki (Poland), Board member of the Zmiana political party
  • Roman Pyskov (Russia), Institut for Socio-economic and political studies Foundation
  • Roberto Quaglia (Italy), science fiction writer, Alternativa political association
  • Dimitri Rempel (Germany), President of the Einheit political party
  • Piero San Giorgio (Switzerland), writer, member of Alternativa association
  • Bogdat Tirdea (Moldova), MP, Socialist party group
  • Vasyl Tsushko (Ukraine), Vice-chairman, For Truth and Justice political party
  • Hannes Wilhelm-Kell (Germany), Chairperson, Luzyska Alianca political party
  • Zakhari Zakhariev (Bulgaria), Member of a National Council of the Socialist Party; President of the Slavyani Foundation 
  • Tatjana Ždanoka (Latvia), MEP, Group Greens/EFA, Co-chairperson of the Latvian Russian Union political party

DiEM25 in the footsteps of Altiero Spinelli?

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Democratising Europe is not about reinventing the wheel. A study of Altiero Spinelli’s efforts, especially the Congress of the European People, may increase our chances of success. Altiero Spinelli's grave, Ventotene.

Altiero Spinelli’s grave, Ventotene. Flickr/ Jon Worth. Some rights reserved.

Mr. Varoufakis: beyond your slogans, what is your practical plan to initiate a surge of democracy in Europe? This question is frequently asked in many different ways on (social) media. Though it’s a fair enough question, it is addressing the wrong person. Yanis Varoufakis, main initiator of Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), says the organisation is horizontal. So it has no fixed leader – in theory anyway. Be very aware of the radical implication. Anyone who offers a great idea could be a leader in a certain phase of such a movement. If your suggestion is accepted by an overwhelming majority of the whole movement, you can effectively direct the movement. You don’t need to wait until the organisational structure and next steps are clearer. Now it’s you who may bring it forward. If anyone may run things in this movement, will even a dead leader do? Odd question. Let me explain. The long term vision is a federation. Varoufakis elaborated on this a little in an interview with euronews‘ Isabelle Kumar: ‘Where we can have a federal government on the basis of a one person one vote system.’ I would argue, whoever says European Federation, says Altiero Spinelli.

Altiero Spinelli

Spinelli (1907-1986) started his political life at age 17 as an Italian communist. As a member of an anti-fascist movement he fought Mussolini. In 1927, because of his involvement in the resistance he was sentenced to 16 years of imprisonment and internment. In 1937 he broke with the communists when he heard about Stalin’s purges. He absolutely opposed totalitarianism. After that rupture he studied federalist ideas. In 1941, together with Ernesto Rossi, he wrote the famous Ventotene Manifesto (on cigarette papers): Towards a free and united Europe. This federalist manifesto eventually laid the basis for European cooperation. The Italian constitutional theorist is considered one of the founding fathers of the European Union. Spinelli wrote in his autobiography:

My life can be described by six courses of action, each founded on a different hypothesis.   I. Between ’43 and ’45 my working hypothesis assumed an impetuous revival of democracy that would depart from the destruction of both the previous European order and the internal ones of almost all European nation states. II. Between ’47 and ’54 my working hypothesis was that the most important moderate ministers in Europe, encouraged by the missionary democratic spirit of US foreign policy and scared of the developments in Eastern Europe, would listen to us and would start building the federal union. III. Between ’54 and ’60(?) my working hypothesis was that it might be possible to mobilise the already widespread Europeanist feeling into a popular protest – the Congress of the European People – directed against the very legitimacy of the nation states. IV. Between ’60 and ’70 while I was almost completely retiring from political action I profoundly contemplated the meaning of the European Economic Community, the new aspects of military defence introduced by nuclear weapons and the possibility of relaunching the federalist action. V. Between ’70 and ’76 my working hypothesis was that the European Commission could take the role of political guide in restarting the construction of the political union. VI. Between 76 and ’86 my working hypothesis was that the European Parliament should take the constitutional role in the European construction.   Altiero Spinelli: Come ho tentato di diventare saggio (Società editrice il Mulino: Bologna 1999 p. 348)

At the end of his life, Spinelli felt disillusioned. Only small steps were taken towards his dream, which he chased mostly in vain.

Steps beyond history

This list of hypotheses shows that more roads could lead to Rome. Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the liberals in the European Parliament, is trying route 6. Obviously, DiEM25 follows the path of Spinelli’s third attempt. In order not to repeat old mistakes, adherents to the movement especially need to know the fate of the Congress of the European People. Up till now, three reasons seem to have caused Spinelli’s failure.

Firstly, in 1954, just 9 years after WW-II, hatred for the Germans was deeply felt by many Europeans. A European federal state was therefore destined to fail.

Secondly, life for western Europeans turned out rather well in the booming years after the war. So, it was felt that there was no need to challenge the leading political figures.

And thirdly, democratisation and federalism are primarily about a political structure, not the instant access to a more prosperous life that is on so many people’s minds. Hence they lack a certain mobilising force.

But times are changing. After seventy postwar years, in general, Germans are not seen as bogeymen, rather the consensus is that the Nazis were the most horrendous representatives of a fascist wave that ravaged the whole of Europe. Furthermore, the EU is going downhill fast now, even disintegrating – so Brexit is possible.

These two circumstances create quite a contrasting scenario with Spinelli’s third period of action and favor DiEM25. When it comes to the last reason, however, the lack of a motivating force remains a challenge. So socio-economic issues have to be connected urgently to the agenda of democratisation.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and similar treaties, are of course a major threat to democracy, as well as to food safety, any possibilities for economic activities in rural areas, and so forth. They should be rejected. Let more plans on other socio-economic issues be made.

By Sjaak Scheele
Πηγή:www.opendemocracy.net