Shirreff: one more warmonger against Russia, and capitalizing on his semi-lunacy, too.

It is not only American generals who are irresponsible and declare on the basis of no evidence whatsoever that “Russia is an existential threat to the United States” and also to the Baltic states, Poland, Georgia, Ukraine, and all of Europe. British generals also participate in the warmongering.  UK retired general and former NATO commander Sir Richard Shirreff, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe until 2014, has just declared that nuclear war with Russia is “entirely possible” within the year. 

My loyal readers know that I, myself, have been warning for some time about the likelihood of nuclear war.  However, there is a vast difference between me and the Western generals.  I see the war as the consequence of the neoconservative drive for US world hegemony.  The neoconservative drive for world hegemony is acknowledged by the neoconservatives themselves in their public position papers, and it has a 15 year record of being implemented in America’s many and ongoing wars in the Middle East and Africa.  Although the Presstitute media does its best to keep our focus away from the known facts, the facts remain known.

The position of the Western generals is that “Russian aggression” is driving an innocent America/NATO to nuclear war.

Crimeans celebrate results of referendum certifying their re-integration into the Russian Federation.

Here is General Shirreff’s list of “Russian aggressions”: “He [Putin] has invaded Georgia, he has invaded the Crimea, he has invaded Ukraine. He has used force and got away with it.  In a period of tension, an attack on the Baltic states… is entirely plausible.” Shirreff is talking about make-believe happenings that even if real would be taking place inside what were until recently Russia’s long-standing national boundaries. 

General Shirreff strikes me as either uninformed or a dissembler. It is the United States and Israel who use force and get away with it. The Russian invasion of the former Russian province, Georgia, was a response to the American puppet government’s invasion of South Ossetia in which the American and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian troops killed Russian peace-keeping troops and a large number of South Ossetian civilians while the Russian government was at the Beijing olympics.

Russian tanks drive through Tskhinvali, the regional capital of Georgia’s breakaway province of South Ossetia, moving to the Russian border, Saturday, Aug. 30, 2008.

It only took a small fraction of the Russian Army a few hours to roll up the American and Israeli trained Georgian Army.  Putin had the former Russian province in his hand. He could have hung the American puppet president and reincorporated Georgia back into Russia, where if probably belongs, having spent all of modern history in that location.

But Putin did not see Georgia as a prize, and having made his point, let the Americans have their puppet state back.  The president at the time, a scummy scoundrel, was thrown out of the country by Georgians and now serves the American puppet state of Ukraine, like so many others who are not Ukrainian. Apparently, Washington can’t find enough Ukrainians who will sell out their country for Washington and has to bring in foreigners to help Washington rule Ukraine.

There has been, alas, no Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Putin would not even accept the pleas of the Russian majority populations in the breakaway provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk to be reincorporated back into Russia where they belong. If Putin actually wanted Ukraine, he doesn’t need to send in an army.  He can take back the eastern and southern parts just by accepting the pleas of the people to again be a part of Russia.

But Putin did not see Georgia as a prize, and having made his point, let the Americans have their puppet state back.  The president at the time, a scummy scoundrel, was thrown out of the country by Georgians and now serves the American puppet state of Ukraine, like so many others who are not Ukrainian.

The only plea that Putin accepted was that of the Crimeans, who with an extremely high turnout never experienced in “western democracies” voted 97.6 percent to rejoin Russia, where Crimea resided for longer than the US has existed, until Khrushchev, a Ukrainian, transferred Crimea from the Russian Soviet Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic when both were provinces of the Soviet Union. 

Little doubt that Putin accepted Crimea’s plea because Russia’s only warm water port and entrance into the Mediterranean Sea is Russia’s naval base in Crimea, and little doubt that Putin refused Donetsk and Luhansk in order to deflect Washington’s propagandistic charges, such as those of former general Shirreff. Putin reasoned, mistakenly in my view, that his refusal to accept Donetsk and Luhansk would reassure Washington’s NATO puppet states and lessen Washington’s influence over Europe.  For the corrupt Europeans, facts are of no consequence. Washington’s money prevails.

Putin doesn’t understand the power of Washington’s money.  In the entire West only money counts.  There is no such thing as Washington’s word, government integrity, truth, or even empirical facts.  There are only well-propagated lies.  The entire West is a lie. The West exists for one reason only–corporate profits. 

The retired general Shirreff claims, without any evidence, which is typical, that Putin “used force and got away with it.”

What force is the general talking about?  Can he identify the force?  The independent international observers of the Crimean voting report that it was completely fair, that there was no intimidation, no troops or any Russian intimidation present. 

The former NATO general Shirreff believes that a Russian attack “on the Baltic states is entirely possible.”  For what reason?  The Baltic states, former provinces of the Soviet Union, comprise no threat whatsoever to Russia.  The Russians have no reason whatsoever to attack the Baltic states. It was Russia that gave the Baltic states their independence.  Just as it was Russia that gave Ukraine and Georgia their independence.

Imperial Washington is leveraging the reasonableness of the Russian government to put Russia in a propagandistic light. The Russian government has permitted itself to be put on the defensive and has given the attack to Washington.

Putin: A great leader with a mistaken assumption about the West. It could prove lethal.

Russia has not attacked anyone except the terrorist group ISIS. Allegedly, Washington is opposed to terrorism, but Washington has been using ISIS in an effort to overthrow the Syrian government with terrorism.  Russia has put a halt to that. The question before us is whether the Russian government so desires to be accepted by the West that Putin sells out Syria to Washington/Israeli dismemberment in order to show that Russia is a good partner for the West.

If Russia doesn’t get over its affection for the West, Russia will lose its independence.

My understanding is that Russia has been resurrected as a Christian, morally principled country, perhaps the only one on earth.  The question that the Russian people and their Russian government need, desperately, to ask themselves is: Do we want to be associated with the War Criminal West that disobeys not only its own laws, but also international laws?

“[For those who hope the Europeans will soon break with Washington and stop the slide to war…they need to realize that] to the corrupt Europeans, facts are of no consequence. Washington’s money prevails.”

The vast majority of the evil in the world resides in the West. It is the west with its lies and greed that has devastated millions of people in 7 countries during the new 21st century.  This is the most threatening beginning of a new millennium in modern times.

Unsatisfied with its looting of the Third World, South America, Greece, Portugal, Latvia, Argentina, and now Brazil and Ukraine, the Western Capitalists have their sights set on Russia, China, India, and South Africa.

What a prize it would be to get Russia with all that vast expanse of Siberia that can be environmentally brutalized and destroyed for capitalist profits. The Russian government’s offering of free land in Siberia had better be limited to Russian citizens.  Otherwise, the land is likely to be bought up by the West, which will use its ownership of Russia to destroy the country.

The Russians and the Chinese are blinded by the fact that they lived for decades under [supposedly] oppressive and failed regimes.  Their elites look to the West as success. Their misreading of the West endangers their independence.

Neither Russia nor China seek conflict. It is a gratuitous and reckless act for Washington to send the message to Russia and China that they must choose vassalage or war.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order. 

Pentagon delegation with their Romanian accomplices celebrating the installation of a “missile defence” system on Russia’s underbelly. The Americans and their corrupt puppets are pushing the world ever closer to a nuclear war.

Aegis Ballistic Missile Defence System Successfully Tracks Simulated Missile

Putin was primarily referring to the Aegis Ashore ABM “defense” system, but also to the larger sea-based Aegis Ballistic-Missile Defense System (Aegis BMD). Russia fears the ABM system because it can knock down its nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, which essentially removes its ability to mount a nuclear response to an attack from Europe. Say goodbye to Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). At least that’s what Rumsfeldian crackpots in the bowels of the Pentagon must be thinking. The Aegis system is on land and sea in Europe and will be nominally run by NATO starting this summer, but will be managed out of a U.S. base in occupied Germany. Washington and Brussels have predictably ignored Russia’s ongoing protestations.

No surprise there, though. Nor is it a surprise that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg claimed, in a conceit as tiresome as it is ancient, that the system was not actually designed to counter Russia but rather the nefarious designs of evil Iran, which is doubtless plotting its diabolical takeover of Europe, perhaps with the aid of Dr. No and Oddjob. (Evidently, the job of the Secretary General of NATO is to frequently appear in public and make counterintuitive claims that have no basis in reality.)

Romanian army in the USSR, 1941.

In WW2 Romania collaborated with Hitler, some serving in Waffen SS uniforms, and fighting against the Soviet Union. For a variety of reasons, Fascism seems to come easy to Romania.

But by no means can we be sure that Tehran will launch a surprise attack first. Russia might send its streaming hordes across the Urals into placid Europe at any moment. As Britain’s Defense Secretary Michael Fallon once announced to the EU’s huddled masses, Russia is as big a threat to Europe as ISIS. Scheming hawk Hillary Clinton likewise compared Putin to Adolf Hitler (providing yet another reason to have this brazen imperialist institutionalized or jailed.)

Agent Carter

Like a junkyard dog, Ashton Carter is zealous in the defense of his corporate masters’ interests around the world. The Neocon infestation continues to rage under Obama as it did on GW Bush’s watch. But this is only a change in degree; US foreign policy has been rotten for many generations. 

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]ll of this theatrical posturing by Western warmongers is only escalating thanks to Barack Obama’s thoughtful choice for Secretary of Defense at the end of 2014, when he appointed security hawk Ashton Carter to the post, once a strong advocate of preemptive war on North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Iraq. As if neoconservatives like Hillary and Victoria Nuland and John Bolton and Samantha Power hadn’t already conclusively demonstrated how worthless the entire neocon movement is. Unless your goal is world domination. Then the neocons are the outfit you want: aggressive, arrogant, and amoral.

Secretary Carter likes to accuse the Russians of “saber rattling.” Could not the estimable secretary have found a less careworn cliché in his thesaurus of piffle? Notice he is claiming Russia is saber rattling by moving troops around inside its own borders. This is aggression, but NATO sending four battalions to the Baltics is necessary self-defense.

Carter added another barefaced lie to his sterling track record, “We do not seek to make Russia an enemy.” In an ABC News article covering Carter’s comments, the writer added, “The U.S. and NATO have sought to avoid provoking Moscow more than necessary, such as opting against opening new bases or permanently stationing troops in the Baltic countries.” This would be the place to insert the standard left trope, ‘breathtaking dishonesty’, but to suggest as much would imply a ‘breathtaking’ naivety. But this is an instructive example of good propaganda: the opening clause is demonstrably false, but the following independent clause is technically true. What is omitted is the unnecessary provocation of quadrupling U.S. military spending in Europe for the express purpose of moving heavy weapons to Central and Eastern Europe, and to rotate troops through the region to ensure a full armored combat brigade is a permanent presence on the edge of Russia. Washington cleverly decided to rotate troops so Moscow couldn’t accuse it of violating their now worthless NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997 wherein both nations agreed not to station large troop deployments by shared NATO-Russia borders.

(This is a good example of the kind of dispiriting legal casuistry that gives the lie to Washington’s protestations of good intentions. But it’s not only militarily that we behave like this. Note how Obama talks about “free trade” when stumping for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)? These aren’t really about trade; they’re about establishing corporate sovereignty over states and—as usual—about battering open new markets in order to privatize public assets (such as Britain’s National Health Service). If you can’t dangle an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan above the fiscal head of a troubled nation—approvable on the condition that said country privatizes public assets—then you can establish “partnerships” that create a superstructure of international corporate rights than supersede any petty protectionist measures a country might have in place. How provincial national sovereignty seems in today’s world of border-trampling financial globalization. In any event, these so-called trade treaties have as much to do with trade as the increasingly muscular posture of NATO in Europe has to do with self-defense. Even Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski once called the Bush-era plan for BMD in Europe, “designed against a non-existent threat, and designed to protect West Europeans, who weren’t asking for the protection.”)

These needless affronts by NATO are based on a premise that is so obviously false it strains credulity. Even the aforementioned ABC writer can’t resist pointing this out. After fulfilling his job description by successfully distorting the regional picture, he gleefully notes that Secretary Carter forgot to mention the historic effrontery of expanding NATO to Russia’s doorstep after promising not to, and stationing ABM systems in Europe.

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ut alas, these were “necessary” vexations. What contemptible nonsense. As one journalist noted, NATO moves closer to Russia then blames Russia for being closer to NATO.  Looking down from space, an alien would see, over time, NATO moving rapidly eastward in ever expanding numbers, not to mention hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops deployed globally on hundreds [perhaps over 1000) of military bases, actively bombing in half a dozen countries, among other actions. What sort of collective pathology permits the Pentagon and White House to claim this is all defensive behavior? It reminds me of a line in Jonathan Cook’s upbraiding of British conservatives for their gutless anti-Semite smears against Muslim Labor MP Nas Shah. Cook said, “The only suitable response is derision.”

As if to punctuate the fact of American aggression, North Korea yesterday joined India and China by announcing it would not use nuclear weapons first, but only in response to an attack. By contrast, the U.S. (hence NATO) refuses to rule out a first-strike option, and frequently hints at the preemptive use of nukes with its “all options are on the table” euphemism, in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Bill Clinton even made it an open policy with his Presidential Policy Directive 60. One might say this position is the coup de grace of America’s policy of aggression.

Not to be upstaged by craven pacifists, former NATO deputy commander Sir Alexander Richard Shirreff released this week a book predicting certain war with Russia in 2017. Naturally, Shirreff’s scenario is precipitated by Russian aggression and can only be prevented by supplying more troop deployments to Eastern Europe.

Par for the Course

[dropcap]R[/dropcap]emoved from their historical context, the hyperventilating threats so frequently issued by our so-called ‘statesmen’ sound positively cracked. But in context, they sound like the bloodless internal logic of a monomaniac. The context is a relentless historic push for world domination. Nothing less will do. The West has wanted to control and dismember Russia since the dawn of the Russian Revolution, digesting it as another vassal state on the quest to control the Eurasian continent. For a long time this animosity was fueled by the nasty specter of a viable anti-capitalist social and economic model. When the USSR collapsed, that model was pronounced DOA and consigned to oblivion by Western groupthink.

Now Russia has emerged from the festival of neoliberal looting that began under the drunken agency of Boris Yeltsin, due in large part to Vladimir Putin’s nationalism. Moscow now stands as a bulwark against the West’s targeted exploitation of Eurasia. Russia and China have grown into genuine American rivals with economic and military clout—not to mention good relations—the very thing Paul Wolfowitz, in echoing Zbigniew Brzezinski, militated against in his early Nineties foreign policy outline for the Clinton administration. We are to have no rivals, the better to pluck Middle Eastern and Eurasian resources free of constraints.

The Bush administration laid out the Middle Eastern leg of the global strategy, calling for an aggressive plan of rolling regime change beginning with Iraq, and moving through Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Iran, and finally Russia. We’ve successfully extinguished a strong civil state in Libya, helped quash Egypt’s hopes for representative government, kept Iraq from becoming a stable Shia partner for Iran, and fractured a multi-confessional Syrian state in our ongoing efforts to shatter the bridge between Tehran and Hezbollah. Obama has extended the masterplan by reorienting much of the American force posture in an Asian Pivot designed to encircle China with military bases and exclusionary investor-rights agreements.

On both fronts, we are moving toward the climax of the plot line. We are closing in on the pivotal confrontations that will ultimately determine whether Washington achieves hegemony or becomes another object lesson in imperial overreach. There are steep odds against establishing some kind of second Roman Empire that presides over a far-flung portfolio of pacified conquests. The odds seem to favor global war. Do not expect Iran and Russia and China to go gently into that dark night.

There is no one individual to blame for this madness. It is the implacable logic of imperial institutions. This is capitalism writ large. Power at any price. Hegemony at any cost. Whether it means clinical assassinations, alliances with terrorist mercenaries, genocidal sanctions, ceaseless bombing campaigns, show trials that indict the victims, or special forces manning the war rooms of jihad. There is no red line across which the forces of neo-conservatism will not cross. That is the price of full-spectrum dominance. Total amorality. The ruse of propaganda is a necessary component in democratic countries, keeping us distracted from the nasty specter of world war. It keeps Boomers celebrating the crowing achievement of their Sixties activism: the election of a black man and a woman to the presidency (policies aside). It keeps Gen Xers complacently managing the empire, heads down, docile and in debt. It thankfully hasn’t yet rewired the Millennial mind—they sometimes seem to be the sole unwavering voice of reason among us, almost pushing a New Deal liberal into the presidency, much to the consternation of the ruling class and the diseased inner sanctum of the Democratic Party, which feeds on corporate largesse and peddles incrementalism and humanitarian intervention to the disenfranchised.

If we continue down the road toward a totalitarian society, propaganda may become even more pervasive. With the population unendingly surveilled, relentlessly entrapped, enslaved by debt, permanently profiled and all-too-frequently imprisoned, elites will go about their exploitation with calm impunity as ordinary citizens internalize the dictates of power. The question is whether the flashpoints of unrest seemingly everywhere in the world will coalesce into a popular front that can stem the tide of empire. We have little time left before state repression, blood-soaked bombing campaigns, and ecological ruin overcome us. It’s either a Green New Deal or Mad Max. The choice is ours.

“In a short period of time, Russia has created a small but very effective military group in Syria. The effective work of our military forces allowed the peace process to begin.  Russian government troops and (Syrian) patriotic forces have changed the situation in the fight with international terrorism and have seized the initiative.”
…
Moscow maintains a military presence at the Khmeymin airbase in Latakia and its Tartus naval facility. Its mission to defeat the scourge of terrorism remains unchanged. It hopes diplomatic efforts can be more successful than earlier. History shows America doesn’t negotiate in good faith.  Washington undermined Geneva I and II peace talks. Current ones collapsed. Another round later in May won’t be more successful. Ceasefire is more fantasy than real.  Terrorists Washington calls “moderate rebels” took full advantage to replenish depleted ranks, regroup, rearm and regain lost territory around Aleppo – aided by US-led Western special forces and paramilitary mercenaries.
…
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he strategic village of Khan Touman in Aleppo province held by government forces since December was retaken by US-supported takfiri terrorists. Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said reoccupying the area shows foreign-backed terrorists intend continuing military operations, rejecting diplomatic conflict resolution. “We believe that the solution to the Syrian crisis is political, and the terrorists…should be denounced and crushed by (a united) international community” effort, Amir-Abdollahian stressed.

Syrian Arab Army forces advancing against terrorist strongholds in the Khan Touman region, in the Southern part of Aleppo province. The takfiris regained some ground as a result of US-sponsored violations of the truce accords. (Read more here:

http://en.alalam.ir/News/1816102 )
… 

Government forces intend liberating Khan Touman again, a Syrian military source, saying: “Thousands of fresh soldiers and a large number of the Iraqi and Lebanese Hezbollah, deployed near the small town of Homeireh, are ready to launch a joint large-scale anti-terrorism operation to drive the terrorist groups back from the positions they captured on Thursday inside and outside the town of Kahn Touman.”
…
They’ll face thousands of heavily armed Western and regional-backed terrorists. Government forces aided by Russian air power began attacking them to gain a battlefield advantage – in preparation for a large-scale ground assault to retake the village. Ceasefire gives terrorists the advantage, government troops having to regain earlier held territory lost during a pause in fighting.  Conflict won’t be resolved through diplomacy with America – committed to ousting Assad and replacing Syrian sovereign independence with pro-Western puppet governance.
…
How long will it take before Putin resumes full-scale aerial operations proved so successful while they continued? The language Washington understands best is force.