=By=
Kathy Kelly

Missiles loading on a B61. (US DOD SSGT Phil Schmitten)

SINCE 1983, Sharon Tennison has worked to develop ordinary citizens’ capacities to avert international crises, focusing on relations between the U.S. and Russia. Now, amid a rising crisis in relations between the U.S. and Russia, she has organized a delegation which assembled in Moscow yesterday for a two week visit.  I joined the group yesterday, and happened to finish reading Sharon Tennison’s book, The Power of Impossible Ideas, when I landed in Moscow.

An entry in her book, dated November 9, 1989, describes the excitement over the Berlin Wall coming down and notes that “Prior to the Wall’s removal, President Reagan assured Secretary General Gorbachev that if he would support bringing down the Wall separating East and  West Berlin, NATO would not move ‘a finger’s width’ closer to Russia than East Germany’s border. With this assurance Gorbachev gladly signed on.

Little could he or the world have guessed that this promise would soon be broken during the next administration – and that the redeveloping distrust between the countries would threaten to become a second Cold War, due to NATO’s expansion up to Russia’s borders.”

Today, NATO and U.S. troops will conclude 10 days of military exercises, Anakonda, on Russia’s western border, involving 31,000 troops. The operation was named after a snake that kills by crushing its prey. Ongoing deployment of 4,000 additional NATO troops has been announced.  U.S. and South Korean military exercises just completed at the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea were dubbed “Decapitation” and mobilized 320,000 troops.

Conn Hallinan, in “Bear Baiting Russia,” notes that “Russia has two bases in the Middle East and a handful in Central Asia. The U.S. has 662 bases in foreign countries around the world and Special Forces (SOF) deployed in between 70 and 90 countries at any moment. Last year SOFs were active in 147 countries. The U.S. is actively engaged in five wars and is considering a sixth in Libya. Russian military spending will fall next year, and the U.S. will out-spend Moscow by a factor of 10. Who in this comparison looks threatening?”

It’s important for U.S. people to learn more, from ordinary Russian people, about their responses to troop build-up and new bases on their borders, threatening military exercises, and antagonistic arsenals of nuclear weapons on high alert. As President Vladimir Putin begins summoning a new Russian National Guard that could include 400,000 troops, it’s important to hear how Russian people feel about this development.

Rather than foster cartoonized versions of foreign policy, the media should help people recognize complexity in Russian society and include awareness of desires to live in peace on the part of people in both countries.

U.S. people committed to peace making might help ordinary Russians sense the complexity of U.S. society and better understand how U.S. military spending and build up toward war adversely affects civil society in the U.S.

Suppose someone in Russia were to ask me what I was doing before coming to Russia.  In honesty, I’d explain that the previous week companions and I finished a 150 mile walk to a supermax prison in my home state of Illinois which could eventually subject 1900 people to tortuous years of solitary confinement, doubling the number of such cells in the U.S. Like the military-industrial complex in the U.S., the prison-industrial complex is now rooted in government salaries and corporate profits, and it’s hard to uproot it.

Before joining the walk, I lived for several weeks in late May and early June with young volunteers in Kabul who long to “live without war.”  15 years into the U.S. war in Afghanistan, the U.S. has “succeeded” in creating conditions for ongoing war.

NATO and U.S. officials claim that their military exercises in countries around the world will enhance international security, but those of us who are members of the  delegation here in  Russia believe that it’s essential to swiftly reverse the present trend toward Cold Wars with Russia and China. The fantasy of world domination endangers people throughout the world and within the U.S. as people again shudder over the possibility of war between nuclear armed powers.

This morning, Dmitri Babich, an active journalist for over 25 years focusing on Russian politics, said it’s important to name the problem we face, and he believes the fundamental problem is the U.S. insistence on being institutional supremacists, – exceptionalists.

In other words, the policy fantasy that stands in the way of addressing major world problems cooperatively is the idea that the United States can retain and expand the boundaries of “sole superpower” domination. United States policy should stop poking and provoking Russia and China along their frontiers, and instead seek negotiated peaceful coexistence.

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]issiles fitted with thermonuclear warheads and on battle-ready status are unstable, and, at any time, can result in the catastrophic destruction of cities on both sides, and even the ending of civilized life on earth.

With active cooperation among the great powers and large reductions in wasteful competitive military spending, all countries could cooperatively address the threats from climate change, water shortages, regional underdevelopment, and economic pressures caused by population growth.

Ordinary people everywhere should do all that we can to demand that all international disputes be resolved  by non-military means, avoiding all wars and achieving the deactivation of all nuclear weapons.

Sharon Tennison’s work to develop citizen-to-citizen diplomacy, since 1983, suggests that people could work together to tackle such problems.

But, informed public opinion in the U.S. and in Russia will be crucially needed.

My friend Brad Lyttle, a lead organizer of and participant in the “San Francisco to Moscow Walk” (1960 -1961) recently wrote to President Obama that there is no reason why the U.S. and Russia should continue to jeopardize the very existence of the human species with their huge nuclear arsenals. “Work with President Putin to reduce and eliminate these,” wrote Brad. “Emphasize a trustful and positive approach. Don’t assume that the future needs always to be as bad as much of the past.”

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Dispatches from
STEPHEN LENDMAN

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t’s hard fathoming Russia’s Syria strategy. Scaling back its aerial operations last March gave US-supported ISIS and other terrorist groups time to regroup, rearm and replenish their ranks for new attacks ongoing. A previous article said Moscow continues the futility of negotiating with Washington in good faith, its adversary, not partner.  

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Kerry is again proffering thinly veiled threats against Russia and SAssad. The empire’s script never deviates from its original criminal intent.

Believing diplomacy with a sworn enemy can work is foolhardy and fruitless, risking the opposite outcome of what’s sought. The only language America understands is force. It’s time to stop believing otherwise and start going all-out to liberate Syria from the terrorist scourge Washington created and supports. Otherwise it’ll flourish, grow, likely spread to Russia’s heartland and elsewhere, making it much harder to contain and defeat.

It’s vital to crush all armed groups in Syria waging war on its sovereignty and people, fighters imported from scores of countries. Syria is Obama’s war, not civil as widely misreported.

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]nternational law affirms the right of self-defense. Russia is involved in Syria at the behest of its government, combating US-supported terrorists, vital to eliminate or face endless war, mass slaughter and destruction. Peace talks were dead-on-arrival. Cessation of hostilities proved farcical. Washington wants war, not peace.

Yet Russia announced a 48-hour ceasefire in Aleppo, another exercise in futility US-supported terrorists won’t observe – on Wednesday its Defense Ministry issuing a statement saying:

“On Russia’s initiative, a ‘regime of silence’ has been introduced in Aleppo for 48 hours from 00:01 on June 16 (2100 GMT Wednesday) with the goal of lowering the level of armed violence and stabilizing the situation” – despite no possibility of achieving this objective.

“International law affirms the right of self-defense. Russia is involved in Syria at the behest of its government, combating US-supported terrorists, vital to eliminate or face endless war, mass slaughter and destruction…”

Moscow’s action followed John Kerry warning about US “patience…not (being) infinite” – saying it’s “very limited with respect to whether or not Assad is going to be held accountable.”

“(W)e are not going to sit there while Assad continues to assault Aleppo and while Russia continues to support that effort…We are not going to allow that to continue. It is very clear that the cessation of hostilities is frayed and at risk and that it is critical for a genuine cessation to be put in place” – unattainable because Washington wants war, not peace, and Russia knows it.

So why does it keep fiddling while Syria burns? It’s time to call Kerry’s bluff, challenge US imperialism responsibly, go all-out to free Syria from the scourge of terrorism, aid other regional countries battling it.

The alternative is letting it flourish and spread to Russia’s heartland, a far greater challenge to confront than involvement in ongoing Middle East wars.

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W. Casey. [Source : es.wikipedia.org]

Washington’s great strategic card is its control of the Great Whore, the American media and its satellites around the world, all of which would immediately paint (and have, already, on numerous occasions) any and all just actions by Russia and other anti-imperialist powers as “aggressions” meriting full-scale retaliation. It is the existence of this criminal international machinery of mass disinformation, at the service of the most brutal and corrupt ruling class in modern history, and whose main components are the global media conglomerates—NYTimes, Time-Warner, WaPo, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, Fox, BBC, Pearson, Berstelmann, Springer, Vivendi, etc.—that constitutes today one of the gravest dangers to the survival of humanity and the establishment of a world without war.—PG.

 

About the author

STEPHEN LENDMAN lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."  ( http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html ) Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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By DAN GLAZEBROOK

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Normandy landings, launched 72 years ago this week, saw the opening of a second front against the Nazis in Europe by the US and the UK after years of procrastination. Despite the signing of a ‘mutual assistance’ agreement with Britain in 1941, and the Anglo-Soviet alliance in 1942, for years very little was done by the US or Britain to actually fight the Nazi menace. In a joint communique issued in 1942, they agreed to open a second front in Europe that same year, an agreement they broke and then postponed repeatedly, leaving the Soviets to fight the strongest industrial power in Western Europe alone for three years – at an eventual cost of 27 million lives.

S. Spielberg’s 1998 blockbuster war epic Saving Private Ryan reinforced the perception in the West that it was the heroic Anglo-Americans who had won World War II by breaking the Germans’ military machine. Western media has worked hard recently to erase the Soviet contribution to the allied victory.

The US and Britain, it seemed, were following what International Relations theorist John Mearsheimer has termed a ‘bait and bleed’ policy, allowing Germany and the Soviet Union to “bleed each other white” whilst they themselves stood on the sidelines. “If we see Germany winning, we ought to help Russia,” declared US Senator (and later President) Harry Truman in June 1941, “and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible.” The British Minister for Aircraft Production Colonel Moore-Brabazon echoed his views the following month, telling a lunch party of government officials that the best outcome on the Eastern front would have been the mutual exhaustion of Germany and the USSR in order that Britain could then move in to dominate Europe. He was eventually forced to resign following uproar from a public determined to see their government do more to help the embattled Soviets.

The heroic sacrifice of the Russian people in WW2 has been intentionally blurred and denied by Western propaganda. The USSR lost 27 million people to the conflict, and suffered the destruction of thousands of towns and infrastructure, easily dwarfing the losses of any other combatant. (Place cursor over slider images to stop animation.)

[metaslider id=125434]

In the end, it was not until well after the Nazis’ fortunes had been decisively reversed at Stalingrad that the long promised ‘second front’ actually materialized. Indeed, by this point the outcome of the war had effectively already been determined. D Day, then, was waged not to defeat the Nazis but to ensure the Soviet Union, who had borne almost all of the sacrifice, would not reap the fruits of their victory. As Soviet Admiral Kharlamov, head of the Soviet Military Mission in Britain during the Second World War, wrote, “Certain circles, both in the United States and Britain, feared that should the Red Army defeat Germany single-handed, the Soviet Union would have enormous influence on the post-war development of and social progress in the European countries. The Allies could not allow that to happen. This is why they considered the opening of a second front in Europe not so much a military action but as a political measure aimed at preventing the progressive political forces from coming to power in European countries.” Documents declassified in 1998 revealed that Churchill had even ordered the drawing up of a plan that would see British and US troops push on beyond Berlin alongside a rearmed German army in a nuclear war against the Soviets.

A dedicated anticommunist and imperialist, Missourian Harry Truman was one of the first amoral scoundrels in the White House to plunge the world into an unnecessary global conflict.

History is now repeating itself, this time as farce. From 2014 until September 2015, ISIS appeared to sweep all before them, achieving hugely symbolic victories in Iraq’s Mosul and Fallujah, Syria’s Raqqa and Palmyra, and Libya’s Derna and Sirte. At the same time, under Saudi and Turkish tutelage, Al Qaeda’s ‘Al Nusra front’ was making gains in Syria, and the Ansar Sharia faction in Libya took Benghazi, paving the way for a major ISIS infiltration. The West did little to help. In Syria, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) had been left to fight such groups not only bereft of support from the West, but facing a West apparently determined to destroy them. Similarly, the Libyan National Army – representing the elected Libyan parliament – was hamstrung by an arms embargo scrupulously observed in relation to them, but regularly violated by the West’s gulf allies when it came to the ‘Libya Dawn’ sectarian militias who were attacking them. And even the US’ supposedly closest allies in the Iraqi army, the elite ‘Golden Division’, had trouble getting effective US support when they needed it.

“As in 1945, having sat back whilst a vicious and genocidal group laid waste to thousands upon thousands of soldiers fighting alone against them, the Cameron regime now wants to deny those armies the fruits of their heroic sacrifices…”

Despite this, starting with last September’s Russian intervention in Syria, the tide has begun to turn against ISIS and Al Qaeda, paving the way for a string of victories by the Syrian Arab Army and the Libyan National Army in particular, and pointing, potentially, towards the full restoration of governmental authority in both countries.

In Libya, the key moment was in February 2016, when the Libyan National Army finally regained control of Benghazi from ISIS and Ansar Sharia after 18 months of intense fighting. Both the ISIS presence in Benghazi and the city’s liberation were predictably downplayed in Western media, despite the city’s fate having been apparently so important to British and US leaders back in 2011. On May 3^rd, the Libyan National Army began its march West from Benghazi towards ISIS’ last Libyan holdout in Sirte.

We have reached a point in history when the corruption of Western regimes is such that we lack words to describe the filth represented by scum like David Cameron and his ilk.

In February, too, a massive Syrian army offensive towards Aleppo began to make serious gains, taking territory from Al Qaeda, ISIS and Ahrar Al Sham. On February 3^rd, the supply route to Aleppo was severed, breaking a rebel siege of two government-held towns south of Azaz. Mass surrenders to the SAA followed, including 1200 in Hama. Then, exactly one month later, the world-historic city of Palmyra was liberated from ISIS by Syrian government forces backed with Russian air support. In what was presumably an attempt to appear relevant, the US had also launched two token airstrikes on the city, illustrating, said journalist Robert Fisk, that the US “want to destroy iSIS – but not that much”.

Today, ISIS’ original stronghold, the capital of its self-declared caliphate, is itself under threat. The Times reported earlier this week that a massively re-moralised Syrian army, is “storming towards the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa” and that “the Syrian regime’s elite Desert Hawks unit, backed by the Russian airstrikes, crossed the southern border of Raqqa province at the weekend – the first time that any of Assad’s forces have set foot there since being driven out by ISIS nearly two years ago.” They have been making swift advances.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hroughout 2016, then, the national armed forces of Libya and Syria, representing the elected governments of both countries, have been on a roll; and the days of ISIS and their sectarian bedfellows may well be numbered. So it is interesting that it is precisely this moment – not when ISIS were making gains, but now that they are facing defeat – that British troops have deigned to openly enter the fray.

SAS troops (the Brits’ brand of Green Berets) are now operating in Syria, supposedly helping in the fight against ISIS, but considering the Anglo-American record of duplicity and blatant imperialism in the area, this cannot be taken seriously. In all likelihood, these guys are there to defend ISIS’ fighting capability and very survival.

The same edition of the Times that reported that the SAA were “storming towards …Raqqa” also carried, as its front page story, the news that “British special forces are on the frontline in Syria defending a rebel unit”, noting that “the operation marks the first evidence of the troops’ direct involvement in the war-torn country rather than just training rebels in Jordan.” And the same newspaper had reported the previous week that British special forces undertook their first known combat mission in Libya on May 12^th, in support of the ‘Libya Dawn’ faction of the Libyan civil war. Libya Dawn is an umbrella group of mainly Misrata-based militias that emerged following the elections of June 2014 under Qatari patronage to fight against the newly elected secular parliament, and its armed forces, the Libyan National Army (LNA). The Times tacitly acknowledged that, up until now, the LNA has been fighting ISIS alone, noting that “MIsrata had largely ignored the metastasis of ISIS in Sirte, 170 miles away, since the first terrorist cells embedded themselves there in 2013”. Now, however, alongside the British ‘boots on the ground’ that Cameron vowed would never step foot in Libya, they have suddenly found themselves the ‘chosen force’ to liberate the country.

As in 1945, having sat back whilst a vicious and genocidal group laid waste to thousands upon thousands of soldiers fighting alone against them, the Cameron regime now wants to deny those armies the fruits of their heroic sacrifices. Cameron would rather see Raqqa and Sirte liberated by a ragtag of militias with little to unite them other than their sectarianism, than to see the authority of the elected governments restored. With British troops now in combat roles alongside the insurgents in Syria, however, this raises the prospect of a direct confrontation with Russian forces. Just like Churchill in 1945, it appears he is quite prepared to risk this. Back then, saner heads prevailed. The question is – where are those heads now?

A version of this article originally appeared at: Rt.com

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DAN GLAZEBROOK is a political journalist and author.  Glazebrook has written for RT, Counterpunch, Z magazine, the Morning Star, the Guardian, the New Statesman, the Independent and Middle East Eye, amongst others. His first book Divide and Ruin: The West’s Imperial Strategy in an Age of Crisis was published by Liberation Media in October 2013. It featured a collection of articles written from 2009 onwards examining the links between economic collapse, the rise of the BRICS, war on Libya and Syria and 'austerity'. He is currently researching a book on US-British use of sectarian death squads against independent states and movements from Northern Ireland and Central America in the 1970s and 80s to the Middle East and Africa today.

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Nauseated by the
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Andre Vltchek
Itinerant Philosopher and Journalist

OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENTS XI JINPING AND VLADIMIR PUTIN

Dear Mr. President Xi Jinping,

Dear Mr. President Vladimir Putin,

The re-emerging specter of nuclear catastrophe is once again haunting the world.

The West is trying to isolate and provoke two great, proud, powerful and sovereign countries; China and Russia. It appears that the pathological desire to gain (or more precisely, re-gain) full control over the entire world is fully restraining all remaining flickers of rationality and humanism inside the brains of the politicians and business ‘elites’ in Washington, London and elsewhere.

The danger is real. It is enough to take a brief look at the map depicting the world at the beginning of the 20th Century, to realize that the West is capable of enslaving almost the entire Planet, by forcing through its colonialist and imperialist designs.

Western imperialism has already exterminated hundreds of millions of human beings, in all corners of the globe. And even now, it is still murdering millions, directly and indirectly.

Both China and Russia experienced the horrors of Western invasions. On several occasions, both nations had to turn to steel, in order to resist and to survive. And both nations are now, once again, standing tall, proudly facing those who are trying to break them, to force them into submission.

It is becoming clear now that China and Russia will not back off. It is because they both want, above all, peace and justice for this world. They suffered terribly from the invasions and wars. They know how high the price of freedom and independence is. But if attacked, they will not yield. They will fight, no matter how high the cost. They would fight to defend their own people, and to defend humanity, as they already have done on several occasions, losing millions, but in the end always defeating evil!

*

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]hina and Russia are not alone! They have allies all over the world. Some allies are simple people in the oppressed countries; others consist of entire countries like South Africa, Iran, Syria or Cuba.

Until very recently, almost the entirety of Latin America stood by China and Russia and vice-versa. Great changes were taking place in Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and elsewhere. Politically and economically, many South American countries began moving close, closer, towards Beijing and Moscow. The war against imperialism (re-) gained its new front.

Attempts to destabilize Latin American revolutions arose almost immediately. The West began ‘organizing’ and then supporting the ‘opposition movements’; funding hostile NGO’s, plotting and financing coups, demonizing new governments through propaganda and indoctrination campaigns.

Treasonous and morally corrupt local ‘elites’ quickly joined forces with Washington; their loyalties were, for centuries, with Europe and then with North America, as well as with multi-national companies.

I have been living and working in Latin America for many years. I know some of the continent’s greatest thinkers and revolutionaries, but I am also familiar with their oligarchs and feudal rulers. South American elites have no mercy for the common people of their nations. They cannot even be called “nationalists”. Just like the Western imperialists, they would easily sacrifice millions of innocent “un-people” (to borrow Orwell’s definition), in exchange for maintaining their privileges.

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s happened in Chile before the 1973 US-sponsored coup against the socialist President Salvador Allende, the local elites are now, once again, determinedly ruining the local economies all over South America. They are ‘creating shortages’, organizing and mobilizing right-wing unions, while withdrawing billions of dollars from their countries. For them it is no longer about business or making profits (they have plenty of money stored abroad), but about retaining control over their countries, often on behalf of the West.

Recently, Argentinian socialism collapsed, and the neo-fascist President Macri gained power. Brazil was hit by a coup, which gave corrupt, mostly evangelical, and right-wing pro-Washington politicians, de-facto control over the country. Both Argentina and Brazil began dismantling their social policies, signing ludicrous deals with the North, including those that will soon allow the United States to build military bases in Tierra del Fuego and elsewhere.

The West is achieving its goals; to torpedo BRICS, to weaken the anti-imperialist global alliance, and to discredit the Latin American model through its indoctrination channels.

Almost overnight, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Cuba had lost two of their economically most powerful Latin American allies.

And the West will not stop. Venezuela is next on its mafia-style hit list, as well as Ecuador, most likely followed by Bolivia!

I have just returned from South America. Argentina is waking up to a horrible nightmare. The Brazilian people feel that they were swindled, fooled. There are protests shaking Argentinian and Brazilian cities. But many feel almost hopeless, faced by such Machiavellian, complex and ‘perfectly’ organized operations fielded by the collusion between the West and local ‘elites’.

I have also worked, recently, in Ecuador, where I became convinced that the West would never give up its attempts to destroy all progressive governments and regain full control over what it believes is its ‘backwater’.

The tactics used to destabilize entire countries are the same everywhere. For many years I have been traveling to virtually all corners of the world, wherever the Empire has been trying to break the will of the people: from Ukraine and China, to Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Iran, South Africa, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, to mention just a few of the most ‘obvious’ places. My latest book: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”, is more than 800-pages ‘heavy’, and full of examples of how those tactics are applied on all continents.

But in South America, the West is now attacking almost the entire continent, and it does it openly, with no shame.

Don Salvador Allende: Chile’s martyred president remains a painful memory in the continent’s struggle for sovereignty. An object lesson in the perfidy of local elites allied with Washington, and the necessity of clear tactics and unity.

[dropcap]D[/dropcap]efending the independence of this continent – South America – is essential for the survival of humankind.

This is the frontline now! But it is the frontline where one nation after another is collapsing under the terrible pressure of destructive, mainly foreign forces collaborating tightly with each nation’s own Fifth column—its national oligarchy. It goes without saying that if the Empire wins here, it will try ‘not to lose momentum’; it will immediately move to another part of the world that is still standing. The destructive work will continue, (while hundreds of millions lives get ruined) until the Empire’s final victory, or until it gets decisively confronted and stopped!

In Caracas, Quito and La Paz, we are now witnessing an epic fight for the entire continent, but also indirectly for Moscow, Beijing, as well as for those still defenseless countries scattered all over the world.

It is because this fight is essentially for the survival of the basic principles of humanism, decency and solidarity. It is a battle against the most cynical and oppressive forces on Earth! In short, it is a battle against ‘imperialism’, which is synonymous with ‘fascism’!

*

[dropcap]V[/dropcap]enezuela is still standing, but it is screaming, suffering, and in terrible pain.

It cannot go on like this for too long; it cannot survive alone.

It either receives some substantial help, or it will eventually collapse.

The economic scavengers are already encircling its weakened body; even speculating and betting on its foreign debt. The ‘opposition’ is so sure of its upcoming macabre victory that it is already allocating posts in future governments to its members.

The point has come when Venezuela cannot defend itself alone anymore. For years it topped the hit list of the Empire. For years no effort to ruin it was spared: coups, assassinations, economic blackmail, and a constant, ferocious media war!

And still, for so many years, Venezuela has been showing great solidarity with the rest of the world. It has stood at the vanguard of the fight against imperialism. It was spreading foreign aid all over the world, while it was flying (via TeleSUR) those optimistic and inspiring voices of the Latin American revolution, to all corners of our Planet. (I made five documentary films for TeleSUR, in several conflict zones of the world, under almost impossible circumstances; something that makes me, to this day, immensely proud).

Like China and Russia, Venezuela refused to crack even under tremendous pressure.

It began building a new, great and united South American fatherland, returning optimism, zeal and hope to the people of the continent that has been, for centuries, tormented and continuously raped by the West/North.

Not everything was done ‘perfectly’, but nothing in this world is or should be expected to be perfect. The Venezuelan (Bolivarian) Revolution is called the process; it is a long and complex journey, but a breathtaking journey nevertheless – from slavery to freedom, to internationalism and social equality.

The Venezuelan people are now paying an immense price for not abandoning their principles. They are castigated mercilessly by the Empire, for making their own choices, for defending their freedom, and for refusing to return to subservience. But above all, they are punished for returning hope to others, for inspiring others, millions of others, all over the world!

Because hope is what the Empire tries to strangle, mercilessly, everywhere.

Venezuela clearly demonstrated that a different world is possible, that solidarity is still alive, and that the revolution can serve the people.

If Venezuela dies, at least it will die standing.

“Here, nobody surrenders!” These were words of Hugo Chavez, printed on the iconic election poster, after his death. Here Chavez, already gravely ill, with his face covered by raindrops, was defiantly clenching his fist.

When the poster appeared, I was in Caracas. I stood there, in front of it, for at least one hour, in the middle of the square, unable to move. I thought, as many others most likely did: “A true revolutionary should go all the way! If he doesn’t dare to, he should better stay where he is and go nowhere at all.”

Chavez went all the way and Venezuela followed him – a true revolutionary and his remarkable Bolivarian motherland.

Yes, if it would have to die, Venezuela would die standing. But it should never be allowed to perish!

*

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] have both Russian and Chinese blood in my veins. I was born in Russia. And I spent many years in Latin America, writing, making films, covering wars and then revolutions. And followed then, by the Western subversions!

For me an alliance, and even some sort of unity between China, Russia and South America, is the essential pre-condition for the survival of humanity.

The West knows that such an alliance would break its monopoly on power; that all three models are now inspiring billions of people all over the world. These models may be different to some extent, but the bottom line is always the same: putting the people first, while trying to deter neo-colonialism and imperialism.

If that bottom line were to prevail, that would mean the end of a long and bloody period of Western global dictatorship. It is that simple!

The West would rather murder billions than to accept its defeat. Because ‘defeat’ would mean that its countries would have to finally behave as equals towards the rest of the world, something culturally and psychologically unacceptable to most North Americans and Europeans.

The world has to finally defend itself. It has to defend its people. Too many lives have already been lost, too many nations plundered and ruined. Now countries under the attack should embrace each other, help each other, and not to allow each other to fall.

The Western propaganda machine is spreading sinister but very effective lies that “all large countries are the same, that they have identical imperialist tendencies”.

The only way to contradict such fabrications is to offer concrete and bright examples to the contrary.

The world has been drowning in the cynicism and nihilism administered by the Empire. In order to snap out from depression, in order to erect the great flags of the resistance again, people need a substantial dose of emotions, optimism, poetry, and human warmth. They also need true leadership.

They need big and powerful countries like China and Russia to show the way.

To inspire the world, it is not enough to do “economically well”, or to be “strong” (although those are essential pre-conditions for progress and even for survival). What people all over the world are longing for, are solidarity, social commitments and internationalism.

Both China and Russia are offering exactly those, and have been for many decades. But it is often done in a subdued and modest way. Therefore, for the lackey Western mass media, which still controls the flow of information in most parts of the world, it is still easy to omit, and even to deny the truth.

To bail out, to rescue Venezuela, would send a powerful message to both the Empire and to the rest of the world.

It would be a truly positive message, full of optimism, decency and pride.

In Russia, a country that suffered immensely from countless foreign invasions, there is one important term – “наши” (“ours”). The world is clearly divided between those who are “ours” (our loved ones, our comrades, compatriots, friends and allies), and enemies.

By nature, the Russian people are immensely loyal to those whom they have already accepted as their close ones, as “ours”. They are loyal to their comrades to the point that they would, without even blinking, die defending them or give them their last shirt or a piece of bread. There is no limit to the generosity towards those that Russian people love.

And Chinese solidarity is legendary as well. Otherwise, how could this enormous country lift almost all of its citizens out from poverty?

If Venezuela is defended and saved, the message to the Empire and to the world would be powerful and clear: “Do not touch ‘our’ brothers and sisters! If you harm them, you will be confronted.”

*

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n Russia, during the old days, the rallying cry, the call to battle was often “they are beating our people!”

And this is exactly what is happening now. “They are beating our people!” Venezuela, our beautiful and proud sister, our comrade, our ally, is being tortured, humiliated and devastated!

Let us stand up. Let us not allow Venezuela to be violated.

I have lost all my hope for the hypocritical, toothless Western “Left”. With some bright exceptions, it will do nothing, absolutely nothing practical to help! As it did nothing to rescue Cuba when Cuba was bleeding. It had to be China, after all, which extended its powerful hand across the seas towards Havana saving the revolution!

And now, again, only Beijing and Moscow would be able to make that decisive and powerful epic gesture!

As was demonstrated when China rescued Cuba, and is now being shown where Russia is fighting for Syria; these two great and brave nations are willing to get engaged when the time is ripe, and therefore capable of saving Venezuela!

*

President Xi Jinping, President Vladimir Putin, I am writing this letter with great respect for both of you personally, and with profound admiration for your countries. In many ways I also belong to both Russia and China, despite my determined internationalism, and my perpetual lack of “home”.

I also write this with great hope.

I do not know how to resolve the situation practically – how to save Venezuela in a sensible but also truly determined way. I cannot offer any practical political advice to the two of you – great leaders of two enormous countries.

I have merely outlined the global situation, the murderous drive of the Empire and the plight of Latin America, the continent, which is so deeply engraved in my heart.

And I am stating the obvious: now it is only China and Russia that can save Venezuela. And I am also repeating what we all already know, in South America, in China and in Russia: “Only if united, we will never get defeated!”

With great respect,
Andre Vltchek

Andre Vltchek

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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By Eric Draitser

Russia’s president Vladimir Putin looks dubious about shaking Obama’s hand in New York in 2015. He should be. Count your fingers afterwards, Vladimir.

Putin’s face says it all.

As the world is faced with numerous crises requiring cooperation between the US and Russia – Syria, Ukraine, and international terrorism to name just three – Washington just can’t help its Russophobic ways.

McFaul—This guy and his ilk are the men who push the world to the edge. They should be in gaol for crimes against humanity, like constant warmongering.

Most recently, former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul expressed his extreme displeasure (dare I say revulsion) at the idea that the Canadian Government, and specifically its Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion, could possibly make the independent decision to not follow the diktats of Washington in adopting a Canadian version of the Magnitsky Act, a piece of proposed legislation which would have severe repercussions for the Russia-Canada relationship.  McFaul, a staunch anti-Putin crusader whose time as ambassador was marred by countless failures and embarrassing public blunders, went so far as to cast doubt on the commitment to human rights of Mr. Dion and the Canadian Government.

Canada’s Stephane Dion. Flogged for refusing to become a rubber stamp of America’s State Dept.

In highly undiplomatic language, McFaul bluntly declared, “Do you stand for human rights or not? If this is an important value [sic] then this is something that should be done.” Leaving aside the condescension oozing from every word of that statement, it is quite clear that the US political establishment is not at all pleased with its usually pliant partners in the Great White North who, it seems, are attempting the unthinkable: conducting a foreign policy that is independent of the United States, at least on this issue.  Indeed, despite the finger-wagging from McFaul, and the ceaseless lobbying and self-promotion of the vulture capitalist and convicted criminal Bill Browder, Canada is unwilling to sacrifice its increasingly friendly relations with Moscow simply to satisfy the anti-Putin obsession of interests based in Washington and London.

Indeed, Browder is undeniably the leading voice of the transnational lobbying effort to internationalize the Magnitsky Act – a US law passed in 2012 that places sanctions and restrictions on key figures in the Russian government ostensibly over alleged participation in the murder of whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky – and to try to isolate Russian President Putin and his closest advisers.  Of course, embarrassingly for Browder, he was until a decade ago the leading pro-Putin voice in the western investing community in Russia, lauding Putin up and down as the savior of Russia.

For instance, in 2005 Browder told the New York Times, when speaking about the jailing of the criminal oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, that “Putin cares about foreign investors; he just doesn’t care about them enough to allow one oligarch to use his ill-gotten gains to hijack the state for his own economic purposes.”  However, the warm and fuzzy feelings Browder once had for Putin & Co. seem to have evaporated right around the time he was curtly shown the door out of Russia.  As Pando’s Mark Ames wrote in 2015:

And ever since his KGB pals decided they’d had enough of him and chased him out to London a very rich vulture capitalist, Browder has styled himself as the Mother Theresa of global vulture capitalism—and he’s thrown untold millions into promoting that public relations/lobbying effort, whose goal is to use human rights abuses he once covered for and profited from as a cudgel to force the Kremlin to become investor-friendly to vulture capitalists like Bill Browder again.

So it seems that the Magnitsky Act itself, and Browder’s crusade to make it holy writ around the world, is less a product of concern for human rights, and more the result of a personal vendetta against the Russian Government by a very rich and influential vulture capitalist nested comfortably in the City of London, hatching his various anti-Russian pressure campaigns.

Foreign Affairs Minister Dion has rightly pointed to Canada’s invitation to join the International Syria Support Group in Vienna as an example of the fruit of the Russia-Canada relationship, implicitly arguing that it would be unwise to pass a Magnitsky-style bill solely to placate anti-Russian elements in Washington and London while alienating an important global power with considerable political, economic, and diplomatic influence.

Interestingly, in all the talk of human rights, and the chastising of Dion and the Canadian government for their shameful sale of $15 billion of combat vehicles to Saudi Arabia, it is completely ignored that the US is the principal arms dealer to Saudi Arabia, and countless other autocratic regimes which routinely, and quite systematically, violate the human rights of their own people.  So it would seem that for the US human rights is the convenient club with which to bash allies over the head, but which can be completely ignored when it suits Washington’s political and geopolitical agenda.

Russia = bad. Russia = human rights violator. Russia must be punished.

Saudi Arabia = friend. Saudi Arabia = human rights violator but let’s not talk about. Saudi Arabia must be rewarded with tens of billions of dollars of military equipment.

Got it? Good.

Ultimately, the issue is really about control.  The US would like to be able to control the way in which Canada, and all the countries of the West, carry on their relations with Russia.  Washington would like to cobble together a “united front” of sorts that will isolate Russia and, in the wildest pipe dreams of strategic planners, bring down Putin and his administration.

And the US believes that the combination of sanctions, depressed oil prices, Magnitsky-style legislation, and a number of other political, economic, and diplomatic weapons will bring those pesky old Russians to heel.  How little Washington has learned.

---

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eric Draitser is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City and the founder of StopImperialism.com. He is a regular contributor to RT, Counterpunch, New Eastern Outlook, Press TV, and many other news outlets. Visit StopImperialism.com for all his work. 

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