ALL QUIET IN THE WEST (A MEDITATION)

Gaither Stewart
(Rome)

Still from All Quiet on The Western Front (1930), the classic film on the lost WWI generation based on E.M. Remarque’s novel and directed by Lewis Milestone left an enduring mark, but the ruling circles once again managed to launch another fratricidal war by 1939. (click to expand)

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his morning as I begin piecing together ideas prompted by a reading of one of the best anti-war books ever written—Erich Maria Remarque’s Im Westen Nichts Neues (All Quiet On the Western Front)—contemporary leaders of Europe of East and West are gathered in Milan three hundred miles north of Rome to discuss concepts of war and peace just as men have done since the ancient Greeks did while at the same time their armies were plundering their world. A few days later, a five-hour conference, One Hunded Years of War, took place at Bishop’s Gate in London

This year of 2014—one hundred years after the begin of WWI, “the war to end all wars”, began in Europe—is the proper time to refer back to the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet On the Western Front, an excellent framework to discuss the terrible dichotomy in man: his irresistible urge for war and death as opposed to his need for peace and life. I had read Remarque’s book as a young man in English; now I have just read it in the writer’s German language … of the country where I spent many years of my early adulthood and which language creates a very different atmosphere and mood than the version I remembered and transmits to me a clearer understanding of the writer’s intentions.

I was struck by the author’s constant use—every few pages it seems—of the German word Dasein, often translated into English as “existence”. Dasein, or “being there”, or presence, is fundamental in existential philosophy to mean the whole experience of being of the human species: the awareness of our “being there” as well as the dilemma of living with our fellow human beings while aware that we are ultimately alone with ourselves.

Thus Dasein in that full sense of the word becomes an important theme of Remarque’s book: while it is emblematic of the opposing forces of war on the one hand and peace on the other, it reflects in the deepest sense individual man’s relationship with war, which is fear and death. In Remarque’s book only the soldier’s comradery, his love for his closest comrades without whose presence he returns to a state of solitude and alienation from life, keeps him alive. Yet when his comrades fall, his Dasein somehow continues.

The world goes around and everything comes back again. Human beings say and do the same things again and again. Man’s behavior and the ways of the world throughout history are truly inexplicable. Since the life of mankind is a chain of continuity, man’s unchanging behavior points us back to the ancient Greeks whose civilization was a major link in that chain. And what do we find there? We find the same warmongers and pacifists of today, identical war parties and peace parties, arms industries, the generals who predictably “just love war”, and, as one might expect, the same identical massacres of non-combatants as an everyday event in America’s wars, now conveniently called “collateral damage”, a military euphemism dating from the Vietnam War today so common that we nearly skip over those terrible words. Hopefully someday collateral damage will be called by its real name: “Crime against humanity”.

Paul in the bomb crater with his victim, enemy and soon to realize, brother. (Still from All Quiet on the Western Front, 1930)/ click to expand

Greek classics confirm that human beings are not as innovative as we like to think. A recent look at Greek ideas on power subsequently led me step by step to considerations of how power in the time of the Greeks of 2500 years ago led inevitably to war, just as it has for the last one hundred years. Ambition, power, wealth, influence, the urge for domination.

Euripides’ tragedy of 415 B.C. is considered by some critics as the greatest anti-war play ever written. That historical conclusion is truly astounding, considering the number of wars fought among the world’s major civilizations since those times. But, wait! Before going further I should situate this literary work in its proper framework: First of all—as do America’s wars today—it took place in “peacetime”, in the aftermath of the fall of Troy to the victorious Athenians. Centralizing Athens had just brutally sacked the island state of Melos to force it into the Greek Federation, much in the same fashion that centralizing USA undertakes its wars for “regime change” throughout the world. The Greek military action had shaken the people of Athens itself, as each new slaughter of civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan should stun us today. As was customary in those times most male citizens of Melos were massacred and women and children enslaved. At the same time the “peacetime” Greeks were preparing an unprovoked war against Sicily (read Syria and Iran for today), which in the long run however did not work out well, similar to America’s failure in Ukraine of 2014.

Actual German line. Appears to be freshly built and not yet exposed to actual combat, rain and mud. (click to expand)

Euripides’ tragedy reflected that then recent history. The play is set in Troy in the period between the fall of the city-state to Athens and the departure of the Greek fleet for home. The same thing had happened there as in Melos: the innocent civilians had suffered most. The Trojan men were slaughtered while the Trojan women were distributed among the victors. But as happens time and time again throughout history, the villains, the hated Athenian Odysseus, pretty, full-breasted Helen over whom the war was fought, and her former husband Menelaus, all survived. The focus in Euripides’ masterpiece is about the defeated Trojans. For a change the warlike Greeks are the bad guys.

Like Euripedes tragedy, Remarque’s novel is about the defeated, the Germans. Men of both sides fought the wars and suffered, but, as usual, the defeated suffered the most.

The Greay War stimulated many artists, here a British rendition of the cost of war. (click to expand)

The Great War stimulated many artists, here a British rendition of the cost of war. (click to expand)

A primary element to compare and discuss is the hopelessness, uselessness and absurdity of war. In Euripides you see the hopeless despair of the women survivors in Troy: their fates as slaves and concubines of the victors. Remarque instead shows the hopelessness, the lostness, the solitude, the annihilation not only of individuals but of an entire generation of young men of eighteen to twenty years-old sacrificed for a war his characters do not understand. His was the first Lost Generation: the German soldiers of WWI. At one point, after the death and gore of his comrades, the terror and the tac tac tac of machine guns and the crash of grenades and shells, after the inferno of the trench warfare front, Remarque’s hero, Paul Bäumer thinks: “I see that peoples are driven one against the other and silently, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently kill (each other). I see that the smartest brains in the world invent weapons and words in order to make it more refined and long-lasting. And I and all people of my age, here and over there, in the whole world, and my generation experience the same.”

He ruminates: “For many years our activity was killing—it was our first profession in our Dasein. Our knowledge of life is reduced to death. What can happen afterwards? What will become of us?”

Likewise, today, one hundred years after Paul, our generation should recall the despondent Mothers of Mayo in Argentina during another kind of war, the Iraqi mothers and wives and daughters and their maimed and morally destroyed men folk. We can also recall the wives and mothers of American soldiers killed and maimed in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the broken lives of hundreds of thousands of America’s young men, many of whom are now abandoned on the desolate streets of the cities of America.

German trench, 1916 (click to expand)

The lack of compassion on the part of the Greek warriors recalls the same degeneration of humanity as seen in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo and the unseen peoples, unknown and unnamed, under the bombs from stratospheric airplanes and unseen and unmanned drones. The inhumanity of war. So great was the savagery of the Greek victors too that even the gods Athena and Poseidon turned on them and destroyed many of their ships on the return voyage home.

Remarque describes a scene during the last days of the war when Germany knows it is defeated and soldiers are awaiting a peace declaration, an unopposed enemy airplane playfully chases one lone German soldier fleeing across open fields before, for entertainment, destroying him with a burst of machine gun fire.

Yet in Remarque, despite such individual displays of spite and savagery, the signs of comradery extend across the front lines from soldier to soldier who though they kill each other to survive even in hand-to-hand combat, they do not hate the enemy and even celebrate life together. “How senseless all that has ever been written, done or thought, when such is possible. It must be all lie and unimportant if the culture of thousands of years cannot prevent this stream of blood, that this jail of torture of hundreds of thousands can exist.”

A real German soldier of WWI. Note how boyish he looks.

The war rages on. Paul and his comrades cease to count the weeks they have spent fighting. Paul compares war to a deadly disease like the flu, tuberculosis, or cancer. The men’s thoughts are molded by “the changes of the days”: when they are fighting, their thoughts go dead; when they are resting, their thoughts are good. Their prewar lives are “no longer valid” since the years before they joined the army have ceased to mean anything. Before, they were “coins of different provinces”; now, they are “melted down,” and they all “bear the same stamp.” They identify themselves as soldiers first, only second as individual men. They share an intimate, close bond with one another, like that of convicts sentenced to death. Survival requires their complete, unquestioning loyalty to one another.

Paul talks to a dead soldier he has killed in hand-to-hand combat, explaining that he did not want to kill him. In the man’s pocketbook Paul finds a picture of a woman and a little girl. He reads what he can of the letters tucked inside. Every word plunges Paul deeper into guilt and pain. The dead man’s name is Gérard Duval, and he was a printer by trade. Paul copies his address and resolves to send money to his family anonymously. As dark falls again, Paul’s survival instinct reawakens. He knows that he will not fulfill his promise to the French soldier. He crawls back to his trench. Hours later, he confesses the experience of killing the printer to his comrades. They point out that he took no pleasure from his killing, that he had no choice; it was kill or be killed.

The tragedy written by the Athenian playwright is so pro-Trojan that it would cause not only bewilderment in a tongue-tied American mainline critic of America’ role in Afghanistan today, but also the destruction of his career. Only a pitiful small part of America feels sympathy for the defeated or even speaks of an undigested Vietnam. We can well wonder how long it will be before mainline culture discuses US guilt in Iraq or in Libya or today in Ukraine. How hard to pronounce ourselves pro-Afghan in this war.

One wonders why we are incapable of the same self-criticism Euripides was 2500 years ago. An uncomfortable truth for culture historians is that the world of the Greeks was upside-down. It was ruled by tragedy and ruthlessness and disregard for human lives; war and death and destruction reigned. Yet anyone who has read the classics knows that its men of culture, unlike their counterparts in the West today, resisted. The great Greek tragedies—of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus—were committed expressions of cultural freedom directed against power in all its forms. Though the Greeks were a male-dominated, martial society, the writers were the ethical conscience of mankind. Euripides’ message was that war scars the defeated and the victors alike. And not even post-bellum cleansing can remove the stain of blood and guilt.

Similarly, Remarque’s hero, Paul Bäumer, observes the Russian prisoners in a camp adjacent to a German recovery area and feels sympathy for them in near starvation. “The spirit of brotherhood among the prisoners touches Paul deeply. They live in such miserable circumstances that there is no longer any reason for them to fight among themselves. Paul cannot relate to them as individual men because he knows nothing of their lives; he only sees the animal suffering in them. People he has never met, people in positions of influence and power, said the word that made these men his enemy. Because of other men, he and they are required to shoot, maim, imprison, and kill one another. Paul pushes these thoughts away because they threaten his ability to maintain his composure. He breaks all of his cigarettes in half and gives them to the prisoners. One of the prisoners learns that Paul plays the piano. The prisoner plays his violin next to the fence. The music sounds thin and lonely in the night air, and only makes Paul feel sadder”

Euripides’ message was that war scars the defeated and the victors alike. And not even post-bellum cleansing can remove the stain of blood and guilt.

So who profits from the inhumanity of war? War profiteers are nothing new and should be recognizable for what they are. In Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, the Chorus, standing at urns filled with the ashes of young men warriors (recalling the body bags and caskets bringing the dead back from America’s wars) recite: “For war’s a banker, flesh his gold.” Just as today, the makers of swords and spears and helmets and shields of the time censored all talk of peace. Generals like two-gun General Patton singing of the “joy of war” and “crazed for sweet human blood” sorrowed at the very mention of the word “peace” … at which ordinary people always rejoice.

Statistics of war dead are always misleading. In Greece, chiefly soldiers died. The women of Troy and Melos were enslaved. In Remarque’s WWI only the poorer civilians suffered privations of their creature comforts.

British trench at the Somme.

In our times, the great majority of dead are instead civilian, the collateral damage: in Vietnam, ninety per cent of the total dead were Vietnamese civilians as opposed to 59,000 American dead and its hundreds of thousands mutilated. In Iraq, probably ninety-nine per cent of the total dead are civilians.

At first also the Greek wars seemed glamorous and righteous and heroic … young men off in adventure to see the world. But those wars too ended in slaughter. Men and gods now know that America’s modern wars without winners, only losers, always hurt the innocent and pillage man.

Conquerors never conquer completely and the defeated are never defeated completely. Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and Cuba and Nicaragua, to name a few, are the proof. But in the attempt, the innocent pay.

Most people know that the reasons for war are as absurd as is war itself. A gossipy (now metaphorical) aside about Helen of Troy recounts that the bloody ten-year Trojan War was over the bigamist and two-faced Helen, first Athenian as the wife of Menelaus, then Trojan as wife of Paris, then again Athenian, back in the arms of forgiving Menelaus. Helen, it was said, had great hair, bland manners, a cute little wart between her eyebrows, little mouth and perfect tits. Menelaus erupted into Troy to kill her for her marital betrayal but according to myth he only had to take one look at her bared breasts before he dropped his sword. In her life Helen apparently did little more than display her body … and betray. We do not know what she thought. Apparently, like war, she had no virtues. Most certainly she brought disaster to men and has been defined as “an irresistible sorrow”. Perhaps chastised by conscience but still a slave of her passions, Helen once referred to herself as “bitch that I am”—which describes clearly the reasons for war. She was the confirmation of Horace’s cutting words that even before Helen “the cunt (again metaphorically) was the cause of wars”.

Among the absurd causes of war stands up front patriotism, a most difficult obstacle for modern Americans. Today in America the opposite of patriotism has become disloyalty, anti-Americanism and betrayal. How difficult for Americans to be pro-Iraqi or pro-Afghan in public. The prominent Athenian opinion maker, Euripides, resolved the problem in this way: he was less against his Athens than opposed to all war makers. The purpose of his Trojan Women was apparently an attempt to shock and shake people to their senses as their leaders continued on their warlike path of conquest and the spread of their empire with the sword. The same dilemma goes for America today: for most certainly opposition to the wars, rejection of Washington’s Cold War-terrorist bugaboo, and convictions of a Washington-organized Twin Towers tragedy, are not unpatriotic principles.

Who in his right senses is not in accord with Euripides who screamed across Athenian stages 2500 years ago the same word pacifists cry today: “Enough!”

WAR & CONFLICT BOOK ERA: WORLD WAR I/THE FRONT

WWI: German assault. (click to expand)

Remarque’s hero’s reaction to the front strips the romanticism out of the war experience. Like the defenseless civilian today, the WWI soldier does not speak of the honor and glory of fighting or dying for one’s country; rather, he insists that the soldier fights for his life. He relies on instinct to save himself from bullets and bombs and concentrates on acquiring food, clothing, and shelter rather than on an abstract ideal of patriotic duty to the fatherland. Like civilians today, even small children, he learns to cope with constant fear, uncertainty, bombardment, and violence by regressing from his human sensitivities into a state of animalistic and instinctive self-preservation. Mother earth is often his salvation. Paul ruminates that for the soldier, the earth takes on a new significance at the front: he buries his body in it for shelter, and it receives him every time he throws himself down in a fold, furrow, or hollow. At the front, a man’s ancient animal instincts awaken. They are a saving grace for many men who obey those instincts without hesitation. When they reach the front they are instantly transformed from soldiers into “human animals.” Paul’s description of the soldier’s relationship with the earth—that mankind seems intent on destroying today—is full of sexual metaphors and imagery and alludes to the relationship between mother and child. The sexual imagery of “folds, and hollows, and holes” and men thrusting iron rods into the earth combined with the idea of the earth as mother suggest an Oedipal relationship between the soldier and earth. Although this Freudian interpretation is complicated by the fact that the earth is almost everything to the soldier—brother, friend, and mother—the sexual and maternal systems of imagery predominate.

Remarque’s soldiers, like many members of America’s lost generations, regard the war as something that could not possibly end because they cannot imagine anything else. They conceive their adult identities as inextricably linked to their lives as soldiers. One soldier has the most definite postwar plans, but even his answer involves remaining in the army—he cannot imagine himself as anything but a soldier. Paul and his younger comrades cannot imagine functioning in civilian jobs after what they have seen and done.

Their only definite plan for the future is to exact revenge upon those who worsened their condition.

They betray anxiety about the end of the war, as if they fear its end as much as they fear the war itself.

Thinking and planning for the future requires concrete forms of hope, but the horror of trench warfare doesn’t allow them to have hope for anything other than survival.

Remarque’s soldiers can do nothing but wait. Chance determines whether things will take a turn for the better or for the worse. Paul relates that he once left a dugout to visit friends in a different dugout. When he returned to the first, it had been completely demolished by a direct hit. He returned to the second only to discover that it had been buried.

Remarque’s WWI young soldiers like many Americans only know war. They have no experiences as adults that do not involve a day-to-day struggle to survive and maintain sanity. After inhaling poison gas, Paul is given fourteen days of leave to recuperate. A wave of intense desire to return home seizes him, but he is frightened because he has no goals; were he to return home, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself. He fears that his generation will yield no survivors—that they will return home as living corpses, shells of human beings. Fears pertinent to US soldiers today; another collateral effect. Paul cannot bear the thought. Something that is essentially human in them must survive the years of bombardment, but he feels that his own life has been irrevocably destroyed. This rings like also Palestinians under ceaseless Israeli fire or Pakistani under American drone fire must feel.

The autumn of 1918, after the bloodiest summer in Paul’s wartime experience, Paul is the only surviving member of his original group of classmates. The war continues to rage, but now that the United States has joined the Allies, Germany’s defeat is only a matter of time.

In light of the extreme privations suffered by both the German soldiers and the German people—as was happening in revolutionary Russia—it seems likely that if the war does not end soon, the German people will revolt against their leaders.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The Fifth Sun. His widely acclaimed espionage novels, The Trojan Spy and Lily Pad Roll, focusing on America’s stealth efforts to encircle and dismember Russia, are part of the Europe Trilogy, to be completed in 2015 with the third volume, Time of Exile, currently in preparation by Punto Press.

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The Russian response to a double declaration of war

A dispatch from The Saker
The context: a double declaration of war

Vladimir-PutinPR-TV

[L]istening to Poroshenko a few days ago and then to Obama at the UNGA can leave no doubt whatsoever about the fact that the AngloZionist Empire is at war with Russia. Yet many believe that the Russian response to this reality is inadequate. Likewise, there is a steady stream of accusations made against Putin about Russia’s policy towards the crisis in the Ukraine. What I propose to do here is to offer a few basic reminders about Putin, his obligations and his options.

First and foremost, Putin was never elected to be the world’s policeman or savior, he was only elected to be president of Russia. Seems obvious, but yet many seem to assume that somehow Putin is morally obliged to do something to protect Syria, Novorussia or any other part of our harassed world. This is not so. Yes, Russia is the de facto leader of the BRICS and SCO countries, and Russia accepts that fact, but Putin has the moral and legal obligation to care for his own people first.Second, Russia is now officially in the crosshairs of the AngloZionist Empire which includes not only 3 nuclear countries (US, UK, FR) but also the most powerful military force (US+NATO) and the world’s biggest economies (US+EU). I think that we can all agree that the threat posed by such an Empire is not trivial and that Russia is right in dealing with it very carefully.

Sniping at Putin and missing the point

Now, amazingly, many of those who accuse Putin of being a wimp, a sellout or a naive Pollyanna also claim that the West is preparing nuclear war on Russia. If that is really the case, this begs the question: if that is really the case, if there is a real risk of war, nuclear or not, is Putin not doing the right thing by not acting tough or threatening? Some would say that the West is bent on a war no matter what Putin does. Okay, fair enough, but in that case is his buying as much time as possible before the inevitable not the right thing to do?!

Third, on the issue of the USA vs ISIL, several comment here accused Putin of back-stabbing Assad because Russia supported the US Resolution at the UNSC.

RUSSIA DESK
The Saker

And what was Putin supposed to do?! Fly the Russian Air Force to Syria to protect the Syrian border? What about Assad? Did he scramble his own air force to try to stop the US or has he quietly made a deal: bomb “them” not us, and I shall protest and do nothing about it? Most obviously the latter.

In fact, Putin and Assad have exactly the same position: protest the unilateral nature of the strikes, demand a UN Resolution while quietly watching how Uncle Sam turned on his own progeny and now tries to destroy them.

I would add that Lavrov quite logically stated that there are no “good terrorists”. He knows that ISIL is nothing but a continuation of the US-created Syrian insurgency, itself a continuation of the US-created al-Qaeda. From a Russian point of view, the choice is simple: what is better, for the US to use its forces and men to kill crazed Wahabis or have Assad do it? And if ISIL is successful in Iraq, how long before they come back to Chechnia? Or Crimea? Or Tatarstan? Why should any Russian or Syria soldier risk death when the USAF is willing to do that for them?

While there is a sweet irony in the fact that the US now has to bomb it’s own creation, let them do that. Even Assad was clearly forewarned and he obviously is quite happy about that.

Finally, UN or no UN, the US had already taken the decision to bomb ISIL. So what is the point of blocking a perfectly good UN Resolution? That would be self-defeating. In fact, this Resolution can even be used by Russia to prevent the US and UK from serving as a rear base for Wahabi extremists (this resolution bans that, and we are talking about a mandatory, Chapter VII, UNSC Resolution).

And yet, some still say that Putin threw Assad under the bus. How crazy and stupid can one get to have that kind of notion about warfare or politics? And if Putin wanted to toss Assad under the bus, why did he not do that last year?

Sincere frustration or intellectual dishonesty?

But that kind of nonsense about the Syria is absolutely dwarfed by the kind of truly crazy stuff some people post about Novorussia. Here are my favorite ones. The author begins by quoting me:

“This war has never been about Novorussia or about the Ukraine.”

and then continues:

That statement is too vacuous and convenient as a copout. Do you really mean to say that the thousands of people murdered by shelling, the thousands of young Ukrainian conscripts put through the meat grinder, the thousands of homes destroyed, the more than 1 million people who have turned into refugees… NONE of that has anything to do with Novorussia and Ukraine? That this is only about Russia? Really, one would wish you’d refrain from making silly statements like that.

The only problem being, of course, that I never made it in the first place 🙂

Of course, it is rather obvious that I meant that FOR THE ANGLOZIONIST EMPIRE the goal has never been the Ukraine or Novorussia, but a war on Russia. All Russia did was to recognize this reality. Again, the words “do you really mean to say that” clearly show that the author is going to twist what I said, make yet another strawman, and then indignantly denounce me for being a monster who does not care about the Ukraine or Novorussia (the rest of the comment was in the same vein: indignant denunciations of statements I never made and conclusions I never reached).

I have already grown used to the truly remarkable level of dishonesty of the Putin-bashing crowd and by now I consider it par for the course. But I wanted to illustrate that one more time just to show that at least in certain cases an honest discussion is not the purpose at all. But I don’t want to bring it all down to just a few dishonest and vociferous individuals. There are also many who are sincerely baffled, frustrated and even disappointed with Russia’s apparent passivity. Here is an excerpt of an email I got this morning:

I guess I was really hoping that perhaps Russia, China The BRICS would be a counter force. What I fail to understand is why after all the demonisation by the U.S and Europe doesn’t Russia retaliate. The sanctions imposed by the West is hurting Russia and yet they still trade oil in euros/dollars and are bending over backwards to accommodate Europe. I do not understand why they do not say lift all sanctions or no gas. China also says very little against the U.S , even though they fully understand that if Russian is weakened they are next on the list. As for all the talk of lifting the sanctions on Iran that is farcical as we all know Israel will never allow them to be lifted. So why do China and Russia go along with the whole charade. Sometimes I wonder if we are all being played, and this is all one big game , which no chance of anything changing.

In this case the author correctly sees that Russia and China follow a very similar policy which sure looks like an attempt to appease the US. In contrast to the previous comment, here the author is both sincere and truly distressed.

In fact, I believe that what I am observing are three very different phenomena all manifesting themselves at the same time:

1) An organized Putin-bashing campaign initiated by US/UK government branches tasked with manipulating the social media.
2) A spontaneous Putin-bashing campaign lead by certain Russian National-Bolshevik circles (Limonov, Dugin & Co.).
3) The expression of a sincere bafflement, distress and frustration by honest and well-intentioned people to whom the current Russian stance really makes no sense at all.

The rest of this post will be entirely dedicated to try to explain the Russian stance to those in this third group (any dialog with the 2 first ones just makes no sense).

Trying to make sense of an apparently illogical policy

In my introduction above I stated that what is taking place is a war on Russia, not hot war (yet?) and not quite an old-style Cold War. In essence, what the AngloZionists are doing is pretty clear and a lot of Russian commentators have already reached that conclusion: the US are engaged into a war against Russia for which the US will fight to the last Ukrainian. Thus, for the Empire, “success” can never be defined as an outcome in the Ukraine because, as I said previously, this war is not about the Ukraine. For the Empire “success” is a specific outcome in Russia: regime change. Let’s us look at how the Empire plans to achieve this result.

The original plan was simplistic in a typically US Neocon way: overthrow Yanukovich, get the Ukraine into the EU and NATO, politically move NATO to the Russian border and militarily move it into Crimea. That plan failed. Russia accepted Crimea and the Ukraine collapsed into a vicious civil war combined with a terminal economic crisis. Then the US Neocons fell-back to plan B.

usMilitaryLibertyarmed

Plan B was also simple: get Russia to intervene militarily in the Donbass and use that as a pretext for a full-scale Cold War v2 which would create 1950’s style tensions between East and West, justify fear-induced policies in the West, and completely sever the growing economic ties between Russia and the EU. Except that plan also failed – Russia did not take the bait and instead of intervening directly in the Donbass, she began a massive covert operation to support the anti-Nazi forces in Novorussia. The Russian plan worked, and the Junta Repression Forces (JRF) were soundly defeated by the Novorussian Armed Forces (NAF) even though the latter was suffering a huge deficit in firepower, armor, specialists and men (gradually, Russian covert aid turned all these around).

At this point in time the AngloZionist plutocracy truly freaked out under the combined realization that their plan was falling apart and that there was nothing they could really do to rescue it (a military option was totally impossible as I explained it in the past). They did try economic sanctions, but that only helped Putin to engage in long overdue reforms. But the worst part of it all was that each time the West expected Putin to do something, he did the exact opposite:

Nobody expected that Putin would use military force in Crimea in a lightening-fast take-over operation which will go down in history as at least as amazing as Storm-333.
Everybody (including myself) expected Putin to send forces into Novorussia. He did not.
Nobody expected Russian counter-sanctions to hit the EU agricultural sector.
Everybody expected that Putin would retaliate after the latest round of sanctions. He did not.

There is a pattern here and it is one basic to all martial arts: first, never signal your intentions, second use feints and third, hit when and where your opponent doesn’t expect it.

Conversely, there are two things which are deeply ingrained in the western political mindset which Putin never does: he never threatens and he never postures. For example, while the US is basically at war with Russia, Russia will gladly support a US resolution on ISIL if it is to Russia’s advantage. And Russian diplomats will speak of “our American partners” or “our American friends” while, at the same time, doing more than the rest of the planet combined to bring down the AngloZionist Empire.

Imperatives Russia cannot ignore

First, I consider the following sequence indisputable:

First, Russia must prevail over the current AngloZionist war against her. What the Empire wants in Russia is regime change followed by complete absorption into the Western sphere of influence including a likely break-up of Russia. What is threatened is the very existence of the Russian civilization.

Second, Russia will never be safe with a neo-Nazi russophobic regime in power in Kiev. The Ukrainian nationalist freaks have proven that it is impossible to negotiate with them (they have broken literally every single agreement signed so far), their hatred for Russia is total (as shown with their constant references to the use of – hypothetical – nuclear weapons against Russia). Therefore,

Third, regime change in Kiev followed by a full de-Nazification is the only possible way for Russia to achieve her vital objectives.

Again, and at the risk of having my words twisted and misrepresented, I have to repeat here that Novorussia is not what is at stake here. It’s not even the future of the Ukraine. What is at stake here is a planetary confrontation (this is the one thesis of Dugin which I fully agree with). The future of the planet depends on the capability of the BRICS/SCO countries to replace the AngloZionist Empire with a very different, multi-polar, international order. Russia is crucial and indispensable in this effort (any such effort without Russia is doomed to fail), and the future of Russia is now decided by what Russia will do in the Ukraine. As for the future of the Ukraine, it largely depends on what will happen to Novorussia, but not exclusively. In a paradoxical way, Novorussia is more important to Russia than to the Ukraine. Here is why:

For the rest of the Ukraine, Novorussia is lost. Forever. Not even a joint Putin-Obama effort could prevent that. In fact, the Ukrainians know that and this is why they make no effort to win the hearts and minds of the local population. If fact, I am convinced that the so-called “random” or “wanton” destruction of the Novorussian industrial, economic, scientific and cultural infrastructure has been intentional act of hateful vengeance similar to the way the AngloZionists always turn to killing civilians when they fail to overcome military forces (the examples of Yugoslavia and Lebanon come to mind). Of course, Moscow can probably force the local Novorussian political leaders to sign some kind of document accepting Kiev’s sovereignty, but that will be a fiction, it is way too late for that. If not de jure, then de facto, Novorussia is never going to accept Kiev’s rule again and everybody knows that, in Kiev, in Novorussia and in Russia.

US military power is still enormous. (click to enlarge)

What could a de facto but not de jure independence look like?

No Ukrainian military, national guard, oligarch battalion or SBU; full economic, cultural, religious, linguistic and educational independence; locally elected officials and local media, but all that with Ukrainian flags, no official independence status, no Novorussian Armed Forces (they will be called something like “regional security force” or even “police force”) and no Novorussian currency (though the Ruble – along with the Dollar and Euro – will be used on a daily basis). The top officials will have to be officially approved by Kiev (which Kiev will, of course, lest its impotence becomes visible). This will be a temporary, transitional and unstable arrangement, but it will be good enough to provide a face-saving way out to Kiev.

This said, I would argue that both Kiev and Moscow have an interest in maintaining the fiction of a unitary Ukraine. For Kiev this is a way to not appear completely defeated by the accursed Moskals. But what about Russia?

What if you were in Putin’s place?

Ask yourself the following question: if you were Putin and your goal was regime change in Kiev, would you prefer Novorussia to be part of the Ukraine or not? I would submit that having Novorussia inside is much better for the following reasons:

it makes it part, even on a macro-level, of the Ukrainian processes, like national elections or national media.
it begs the comparison with the conditions in the rest of the Ukraine.
it makes it far easier to influence commerce, business, transportation, etc.
it creates an alternative (Nazi-free) political center to Kiev.
it makes it easier for Russian interests (of all kinds) to penetrate into the Ukraine.
it removes the possibility to put up a Cold War like “wall” or barrier on some geographical marker.
it removes the accusation that Russia wants to partition the Ukraine.

In other words, to keep Novorussia de jure, nominally, part of the Ukraine is the best way to appear to be complying with AngloZionist demands while subverting the Nazi junta in power. In a recent article I outlined what Russia could do without incurring any major consequences:

Politically oppose the regime everywhere: UN, media, public opinion, etc.
Express political support for Novorussia and any Ukrainian opposition. Continue the informational war (Russian media does a great job)
Prevent Novorussia from falling (covert military aid)
Mercilessly keep up the economic pressure on the Ukraine
Disrupt as much as possible the US-EU “axis of kindness”
Help Crimea and Novorussia prosper economically and financially

In other words – give the appearance of staying out while very much staying in.

What is the alternative anyway?

I already hear the chorus of indignant “hurray-patriots” (that is what these folks are called in Russia) accusing me of only seeing Novorussia as a tool for Russian political goals and of ignoring the death and suffering endured by the people of Novorussia. To this I will simply reply the following:

Does anybody seriously believe that an independent Novorussia can live in even minimal peace and security without a regime change in Kiev? If Russia cannot afford a Nazi junta in power in Kiev, can Novorussia?!

In general, the hurray-patriots are long on what should be done now and very short on any kind of mid or long term vision. Just like those who believe that Syria can be saved by sending in the Russian Air Force, the hurray-patriots believe that the crisis in the Ukraine can be solved by sending in tanks. They are a perfect example of the mindset H. L. Mencken was referring to when he wrote “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong”.

The sad reality is that the mindset behind such “simple” solutions is always the same one: never negotiate, never compromise, never look long term but only to the immediate future and use force in all cases.

But the facts are here: the US/NATO block is powerful, militarily, economically and politically and it can hurt Russia, especially over time. Furthermore, while Russia can easily defeat the Ukrainian military, this hardly would be a very meaningful “victory”. Externally it would trigger a massive deterioration of the international political climate, while internally the Russians would have to suppress the Ukrainian nationalists (not all of them Nazi) by force. Could Russia do that? Again, the answer is that yes – but at what cost?

A good friend of mine was a Colonel in the KGB Special Forces unit called “Kaskad” (which later was renamed “Vympel”). One day he told me how his father, himself a special operator for the GRU, fought against Ukrainian insurgents from the end of WWII in 1945 up to 1958: that is thirteen years! It took Stalin and Krushchev 13 years to finally crush the Ukrainian nationalist insurgents. Does anybody in his/her right mind sincerely believe that modern Russia should repeat such policies and spend years hunting down Ukrainian insurgents again?

Russian diplomats are much more akin to explosives disposal specialists or a mine clearance officer: they have to be extremely patient, very careful and fully focused.

By the way, if the Ukrainian nationalists could fight Soviet rule under Stalin and Krushchev for a full 13 years after the end of the war – how is it that there is no visible anti-Nazi resistance in Zaporozhie, Dnepropetrivsk or Kharkov? Yes, Luganks and Donetsk did rise up and take arms, very successfully – but the rest of the Ukraine? If you were Putin, would you be confident that Russian forces liberating these cities would receive the same welcome that they did in Crimea?

And yet, the hurray-patriots keep pushing for more Russian intervention and further Novorussian military operations against Ukrainian forces. Is it not about time we begin asking who would benefit from such policies?

It has been an old trick of the US CIA to use the social media and the blogosphere to push for nationalist extremism in Russia. A well known and respected Russian patriot and journalist – Maksim Shevchenko – had a group of people organized to track down the IP numbers of some of the most influential radical nationalist organizations, website, blogs and individual posters on the Russian Internet. Turns out that most were based in the USA, Canada and Israel. Surprise, surprise. Or, maybe, no surprise at all?

For the AngloZionists, supporting extremists and rabid nationalists in Russia makes perfectly good sense. Either they get to influence the public opinion or they at the very least can be used to bash the regime in power. I personally see no difference between an Udaltsov or a Navalnii on one hand and a Limonov or a Dugin on the other. Their sole effect is to get people mad at the Kremlin. What the pretext for the anger is does not matter – for Navalnyi it’s “stolen elections” for Dugin it’s “back-stabbed Novorussia”. And it does not matter which of them are actually paid agents or just “useful idiots” – God be their judge – but what does matter is that the solutions they advocate are no solutions at all, just pious pretexts to bash the regime in power.

In the meantime, not only had Putin not sold-out, back-stabbed, traded away or otherwise abandoned Novorussia, it’s Poroshenko who is barely holding on to power and Banderastan which is going down the tubes. There are also plenty of people who see through this doom and gloom nonsense, both in Russia (Yuri Baranchik) and abroad (M. K. Bhadrakumar).

But what about the oligarchs?

I already addressed this issue in a recent post, but I think that it is important to return to this topic here and the first thing which is crucial to understand in the Russian or Ukrainian context is that oligarchs are a fact of life. This is not to say that their presence is a good thing, only that Putin and Poroshenko and, for that matter, anybody trying to get anything done over there needs to take them into account. The big difference is that while in Kiev a regime controlled by the oligarchs has been replaced by a regime of oligarchs, in Russia the oligarchy can only influence, but not control, the Kremlin. The examples, of Khodorkovsky or Evtushenkov show that the Kremlin still can, and does, smack down an oligarch when needed.

Still, it is one thing to pick on one or two oligarchs and quite another to remove them from the Ukrainian equation: the latter is just not going to happen. So for Putin any Ukrainian strategy has to take into account the presence and, frankly, power of the Ukrainian oligarchs and their Russian counterparts.

Putin knows that oligarchs have their true loyalty only to themselves and that their only “country” is wherever their assets happen to be. As a former KGB foreign intelligence officer for Putin this is an obvious plus, because that mindset potentially allows him to manipulate them. Any intelligence officer knows that people can be manipulated by a finite list of approaches: ideology, ego, resentment, sex, a skeleton in the closet and, of course, money. From Putin’s point of view, Rinat Akhmetov, for example, is a guy who used to employ something like 200,000 people in the Donbass, who clearly can get things done, and whose official loyalty to Kiev and the Ukraine is just a camouflage for his real loyalty: his money. Now, Putin does not have to like or respect Akhmetov, most intelligence officers will quietly despise that kind of person, but that also means that for Putin Akhmetov is an absolutely crucial person to talk to, explore options with and, possibly, use to achieve a Russian national strategic objective in the Donbass.

I have already written this many times here: Russians do talk to their enemies. With a friendly smile. This is even more true for a former intelligence officer who is trained to always communicate, smile, appear to be engaging and understanding. For Putin Akhmetov is not a friend or an ally, but he is a powerful figure which can be manipulated in Russia’s advantage.

What I am trying to explain here is the following:

There are numerous rumors of secret negotiations between Rinat Akhmetov and various Russian officials. Some say that Khodakovski is involved. Others mention Surkov. There is no doubt in my mind that such secret negotiations are taking place. In fact, I am sure that all the parties involved talk to all other other parties involved. Even with a disgusting, evil and vile creature like Kolomoiski. In fact, the sure signal that somebody has finally decided to take him out would be that nobody would be speaking with him any more. That will probably happen, with time, but most definitely not until his power base is sufficiently eroded.

One Russian blogger believes that Akhmetov has already been “persuaded” (read: bought off) by Putin and that he is willing to play by the new rules which now say “Putin is boss”. Maybe. Maybe not yet, but soon. Maybe never. All I am suggesting is that negotiations between the Kremlin and local Ukrainian oligarchs are as logical and inevitable as the US contacts with the Italian Mafia before the US armed forces entered Italy.

But is there a 5th column in Russia?

Yes, absolutely. First and foremost, it is found inside the Medvedev government itself and even inside the Presidential administration. Always remember that Putin was put into power by two competing forces: the secret services and big money. And yes, while it is true that Putin has tremendously weakened the “big money” component (what I call the “Atlantic Integrationists”) they are still very much there, though they are more subdued, more careful and less arrogant than during the time when Medvedev was formally in charge. The big change in the recent years is that the struggle between patriots (the “Eurasian Sovereignists”) and the 5th column now is in the open, but it if far from over. And we should never underestimate these people: they have a lot of power, a lot of money and a fantastic capability to corrupt, threaten, discredit, sabotage, cover-up, smear, etc. They are also very smart, they can hire the best professionals in the field, and they are very, very good at ugly political campaigns. For example, the 5th columnists try hard to give a voice to the National-Bolshevik opposition (both Limonov and Dugin regularly get airtime on Russian TV) and rumor has it that they finance a lot of the National-Bolshevik media (just like the Koch brothers paid for the Tea Party in the USA).

Another problem is that while these guys are objectively doing the US CIA’s bidding, there is no proof of it. As I was told many times by a wise friend: most conspiracies are really collusions and the latter are very hard to prove. But the community of interests between the US CIA and the Russian and Ukrainian oligarchy is so obvious as to be undeniable.

The real danger for Russia

So now we have the full picture. Again, Putin has to simultaneously contend with

and a campaign in the social media to discredit him for his passivity and lack of appropriate response to the West.
3) a network of powerful oligarchs who want to use the opportunity presented by the actions of the first two groups to promote their own interests.
4) a 5th column for whom all of the above is a fantastic opportunity to weaken the Eurasian Sovereignists
5) a sense of disappointment by many sincere people who feel that Russia is acting like a passive punching-ball.
6) an overwhelming majority of people in Novorussia who want complete (de facto and de jure) independence from Kiev and who are sincerely convinced that any negotiations with Kiev are a prelude to a betrayal by Russia of Novorussian interest.
7) the objective reality that Russian and Novorussian interests are not the same.
8) the objective reality that the AngloZionist Empire is still very powerful and even potentially dangerous.

It is very, very, hard for Putin to try to balance these forces in such a way that the resulting vector is one which is in the strategic interest of Russia. I would argue that there is simply no other solution to this conundrum other than to completely separate Russia’s official (declaratory) policy and Russia’s real actions. The covert help to Novorussia – the Voentorg – is an example of that, but only a limited one because what Russia must do now goes beyond covert actions: Russia must appear to be doing one thing while doing exactly the opposite. It is in Russia’s strategic interest at this point in time to appear to:

1) Support a negotiated solution along the lines of: a unitary non-aligned Ukraine, with large regional right for all regions while, at the same time, politically opposing the regime everywhere: UN, media, public opinion, etc. and supporting both Novorussia and any Ukrainian opposition.
2) Give Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs a reason to if not support, then at least not oppose such a solution (for ex: by not nationalizing Akhmetov’s assets in the Donbass), while at the same time making sure that there is literally enough “firepower” to keep the oligarch under control.
3) Negotiate with the EU on the actual implementation of Ukraine’s Agreement with the EU while at the same time helping the Ukraine commit economic suicide by making sure that there is just the right amount of economic strangulation applied to prevent the regime from bouncing back.
4) Negotiate with the EU and the Junta in Kiev over the delivery of gas while at the same time making sure that the regime pays enough for it to be broke.
5) Appear generally non-confrontational towards the USA while at the same time trying as hard as possible to create tensions between the US and the EU.
6) Appear to be generally available and willing to do business with the AngoZionist Empire while at the same time building an alternative international system not centered on the USA or the Dollar.

As you see, this goes far beyond a regular covert action program. What we are dealing with is a very complex, multi-layered, program to achieve the Russian most important goal in the Ukraine (regime change and de-Nazification) while inhibiting as much as possible the AngloZionists attempts to re-created a severe and long lasting East-West crisis in which the EU would basically fuse with the USA.

Conclusion: a key to Russian policies?

Most of us are used to think in terms of super-power categories. After all, US Presidents from Reagan on to Obama have all served us a diet of grand statements, almost constant military operations followed by Pentagon briefings, threats, sanctions, boycotts, etc. I would argue that this has always been the hallmark of western “diplomacy” from the Crusades to the latest bombing campaign against ISIL.

Russia and China have a diametrically opposite tradition. For example, in terms of methodology Lavrov always repeats the same principle: “we want to turn our enemies into neutrals, we want to turn neutrals into partners and we want to turn partners into friends“. The role of Russian diplomats is not to prepare for war, but to avoid it. Yes, Russia will fight, but only when diplomacy has failed. If for the US diplomacy is solely a means to deliver threats, for Russia it is a the primary tool to defuse them. It is therefore no wonder at all the US diplomacy is primitive to the point of bordering on the comical. After all, how much sophistication is needed to say “comply or else”. Any petty street thug knows how to do that. Russian diplomats are much more akin to explosives disposal specialists or a mine clearance officer: they have to be extremely patient, very careful and fully focused. But most importantly, they cannot allow anybody to rush them lest the entire thing blows up.

Russia is fully aware that the AngloZionist Empire is at war with her and that surrender is simply not an option any more (assuming it ever was). Russia also understands that she is not a real super-power or, even less so, an empire. Russia is only a very powerful country which is trying to de-fang the Empire without triggering a frontal confrontation with it. In the Ukraine, Russia sees no other solution than regime change in Kiev. To achieve this goal Russia will always prefer a negotiated solution to one obtained by force, even though if not other choice is left to her, she will use force. In other words:

Russia’s long term end goal is to bring down the AngloZionis Empire. Russia’s mid term goal is to create the conditions for regime change in Kiev. Russia’s short term goal is to prevent the junta from over-running Novorussia. Russia’s preferred method to achieve these goals is negotiation with all parties involved.

A prerequisite to achieve these goals by negotiations is to prevent the Empire from succeeding in creating an acute continental crisis (conversely, the imperial “deep state” fully understands all this, hence the double declaration of war by Obama and Poroshenko.)

As long as you keep these basic principles in mind, the apparent zig-zags, contradictions and passivity of Russian policies will begin to make sense.

It is an open question whether Russia will succeed in her goals. In theory, a successful Junta attack on Novorussia could force Russia to intervene. Likewise, there is always the possibility of yet another “false flag”, possibly a nuclear one. I think that Russian policy is sound and the best realistically achievable under the current set of circumstances, but only time will tell.

I am sorry that it took me over 6400 words to explain all that, but in a society were most “thoughts” are expressed as “tweets” and analyses as Facebook posts, it was a daunting task to try to shed some light to what is turning to be a deluge of misunderstandings and misconceptions, all made worse by the manipulation of the social media. I feel that 60,000 words would be more adequate to this task as it is far easier to just throw out a short and simple slogan than to refute its assumptions and implications.

My hope that at least those of you who sincerely were confused by Russia’s apparently illogical stance can now connect the dots and make better sense of it all.

Kind regards to all,

—The Saker

The Great Balts: The Russian factor, NATO, European “prosperity”

A personal assessment.

PLEASE CLICK ON THE BAR BELOW TO READ A SPECIAL PREFATORY NOTE BY THE MANAGING EDITOR OF THE RUSSIA DESK
[learn_more caption=”PREFATORY NOTE”] The saga of the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on the shores of the Baltic Sea is an ancient story, intersecting at various historical moments of what we refer to in a general way as “Europe”. Since 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, those small states—formerly part of both the Russian Empire and the USSR —have been independent. “Back in the European fold,” delighted Western spokesmen declared in 1991. “Back in the heart of Europe.” During the Cold War, the question of the Baltic States was one of the most disputed and controversial issues between East and West.

Unlike Ukraine today, the Baltic States then exited apparently easily from a Russia in disarray. They joined both the European Union and NATO and today even host NATO military bases right on Russia’s borders, even though remaining dependent on Russia for energy and despite their large ethnic Russian populations who do not want to leave their homes and move to Russia.

Approximately 30% of the six million total population of the three states are ethnic Russian. Although Russian economic sanctions have hit the Balts hard, Latvia for example asks for an even greater NATO/EU/US presence. On the one hand, the USA promises more military presence there, while on the other, Russia continually issues warnings against increased NATO presence in East Europe. Though there is a tendency to generalize and toss all three Baltic states into the same pot, they are in fact very diverse one from the other. Estonian is a Finnic language and the country’s people consider themselves Nordic. Latvian and Lithuanian are Indo-European languages, though the countries’ histories are vastly different: Lithuania was part of a major European empire for many centuries, while Latvia and Estonia farther north were united for many centuries. The three countries became part of the Russian empire in the 18th century, then became independent after WWI. They were occupied (according to the Baltic States) or voluntarily joined the USSR in the 1940s. They have again existed as sovereign states for now fifty years. But they are poor, while the diaspora of these peoples is worldwide, from Poland and Sweden to the USA and also to neighboring Russia. —Gaither Stewart [/learn_more]

The Great Balts: The Russian factor, NATO, European “prosperity”
A personal assessment.

By Alevtina Rea

estonia1

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he subject of Russia in the Baltic countries is definitely a sore one. The ghost of former co-existence and lingering insecurity still haunts Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, even if they became independent entities 23 years ago, in September 1991. And even, as experts note, they left the USSR on very favorable terms: no debts and keeping ownership of companies that were part of all-Union property. Despite this noble gesture on the part of Russia, as far as I heard, these three states are obsessed with their Soviet past and hostile to their former partner.

In fact, the question of the so-called Soviet occupation has been elevated in the Baltic countries to the status of one of the main principles of construction of a new national identity. As a result, discrimination toward ethnic Russians and paranoid Russophobia are a common practice in all three. What’s more, egged on by the West, they have turned into barking mongrels attacking an imposingly serene giant bear, who quietly goes about his business without paying much attention to these small and occasionally mean attacks.

SIDEBAR

Screen Shot 2014-09-27 at 3.25.44 PM

Obama reassures the Baltics of protection against “Russian aggression.”

(Continued from above the sidebar)

After joining the European Union, the Baltic countries began to receive substantial financial assistance for the development of certain areas of their economy within the Brussels framework of leveling regional development. Thus, in 2004-2006 Lithuania received from various European funds 1.7 billion Euros, Latvia – 1 billion Euros, and Estonia – 800 million Euros. The planned allocation for 2007-2013 was, respectively, 6.8 billion Euros, 4.6 billion Euros, and 3.4 billion Euros.

Thus, these three overgrown “kids” were never weaned from the accustomed donation/external support scheme, with the only difference that now they began to receive subsidies not from Moscow but from Brussels. However, there was and is a very significant difference between the Soviet Union and the European Union. EU membership not only provides a multimillion dollar infusion; it also imposes severe restrictions on the economies of the member states, which led to the destruction of many of the competitive enterprises in the Baltic States. This same pattern is currently being imposed on Ukraine, with the EU calling for a virtual dismantlement of the nation’s industrial base. In the Balts, a well-developed sugar industry in Latvia has been eliminated, in keeping with the onset of 2006 EU reforms – under the pretext of opening the market to third countries and declining sugar prices.

RUSSIA DESK
Gaither Stewart Managing Editor
Alevtina Rea Deputy Editor • Paul Carline Deputy Editor

ANTI-RUSSIAN PARANOIA

Being so paranoid about anything Russian, the Baltic States turned their backs on their comfortable past in the former Soviet Union, snubbed Russia on the way to their supposedly prosperous European development “future”, ruined their industrial base and agriculture at the first order of the EU brass, and, basically, found themselves in the demeaning position of cheap laborers of their idol – western capitalism. Deceived and manipulated!

Discrimination of the Russians as a linguistic minority in the Baltic countries—a silly, self-wounding notion catering to cheap chauvinism— is expressed in a gradual narrowing of the scope of the Russian language. According to Wikipedia, “As of 2011, there are 1,052,520 ethnic Russians in the Baltic States (Latvia 556,422, Estonia 321,198, Lithuania 174,900), having declined from 1,726,000 in 1989.” Although the Russians and Russian-speakers make up a large part of Baltic States population, they are deprived of the right to appeal in Russian through the administrative channels, they have limited opportunities for education in Russian, and they are denied the right to receive official information in Russian. According to historian W. Shnirelman, Latvia and Estonia especially are guilty of political discrimination. Most of the ethnic Russians didn’t receive respective citizenship of these countries and have been excluded from the political process.

Russia, once again, is being forced to divert precious income to defense expenditures. Fortunately, the nation has a strong scientific and technological base to build on and remains highly original in its weapons designs.

CLICK TO EXPAND IMAGE

Given the latest demonization of Russia by Western media scoundrels, I was curious to investigate the Russian barometer as far as the Baltic States are concerned. I was interested in three simple questions: 1. What do the Balts think about Russia nowadays? 2. What is their relationship toward ethnic Russians who live in Baltic States? 3. What is their relationship toward NATO? Olga, our source in Moscow, has the following to report:

“The Baltic countries present a very complex question. I communicate with the Lithuanians and Latvians who live and work in Moscow. But I have not been there myself for a while, and there are less and less of my friends who stay in these countries. Some of them went to Europe, but the majority went to Russia.
“The positions of those who came to live in Russia are diametrically different. Some people, quite successfully, combine their work with volunteering at the embassy and with the Diaspora, but, at the same time, they harbor a negative attitude toward the country where they found shelter and a loaf of bread, so to speak. One such friend has a farm in Lithuania; she goes there to sow, plow and harvest, but right now she cannot do anything with the fruits of her labor. According to EU legal restrictions, she has no right to sell her produce in (Western) European countries. Hence, her harvest is rotting. As she says, mice are eating it.

Position of the Balts in Europe

“Many Balts who live in Russia are obsessed with a strange feeling that they are spied on by the KGB all the time (KGB is long gone, but they are still paranoid about it), and, basically, they look ridiculous and pathetic. Of course, we do not say anything to them – and what could you say, really, when they open their eyes wide and whisper that someone is shadowing them? Who instilled this paranoia in them? Because of this nonsense, we try to cut our communication with them to a minimum.

“Once upon a time, in the Soviet Union, the Baltic republics were considered almost an island of Europe and freedom, and now they are some poor excuse … There are, of course, some very successful people from over there who are internally free and totally adapted to their life in Russia, and they have tons of friends! These people are of what one might call “a normal psychology.” But those who, for whatever reasons, are easily influenced and clearly manipulated – ended up zombified to such a degree that even many years of residence in Russia cannot teach them anything. Sometimes I think that they are secretly gathering in some undisclosed hangout and singing either Lithuanian or Latvian songs. Who needs them with their fears and hatred?

“Occasionally, I ask those zombified, ‘Why did you come here, if you hate Russia so much?’ They say, ‘And where could we go?’ So strange! For example, if I hate America, never in my life will I go there! Some double standards are at play, nothing else! In my opinion, having double standards is immoral.

“The situation with NATO is definitely a tricky question. It is not just black and white … On the one hand, some people welcome them but complain that the country should feed them. Quite often, NATO officials behave impudently toward the local residents. The situation has sort of calmed down a bit, but still, they are disliked because of their rudeness and arrogance.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CounterPunch, a leading left journal of fact and opinion. Ms. Rea is currently a deputy editor with The Greanville Post’s Russia Desk, and a contributing author to CounterPunch, Cyrano’s Journal Today, Uncommon Thought Journal, and the International Journal of Baudrillard Studies. She can be reached at rea.alya@gmail.com.

Obama & State Dept. contradict each other on ‘Russian troops in Ukraine’ – Putin’s spokesman

The Big Lie machinery of the American state never stops, amplified by the complicit Western European media

An east-Ukrainian rebel inspects a gun at a destroyed war memorial at Savur-Mohyla, a hill east of the city of Donetsk, August 28, 2014. (Reuters / Maxim Shemetov) / Click to enlarge.

[T]he US President says it is now “provable” that “Russian combat forces and tanks” moved into Ukraine. But Kremlin says Obama’s words are in conflict with the State Department that said it has no proof of Russian troops in the area.

A DISPATCH FROM RT.COM

A statement from the Russian president’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov came in response to Barack Obama’s address to the Baltic States’ leader. Speaking ahead of NATO summit, President Obama said that the US has no doubt that Russian troops are involved in the fighting in eastern Ukraine.

What we have in Ukraine is not a Russian invasion but the participation of brave Russian volunteers interested in protecting their brothers and cousins and stopping the advance of US-sponsored fascism. Deal with that.

“The Russian forces that have now moved into Ukraine aren’t on a ‘humanitarian’ or ‘peacekeeping mission.’ They are Russian combat forces with Russian weapons in Russian tanks. There are Russian warheads with Russian weapons and Russian tanks. Now, these are the facts. They are provable. They’re not subject to dispute,” Obama said at a press-conference in Tallinn.

However, this information comes into conflict with the recent statement of the US State Department, Peskov said.

“We have repeatedly said there are no Russian troops on the territory of Ukraine. While Obama says there can be no doubts about that, US Department of State officials say simultaneously with their president that the United States has no proof of Russian military presence in Ukraine. This situation underscores their reluctance to use facts,” the Russian president’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Russian News Service radio station.

“It’s an obsession with attributing a negative role in the development of the Ukrainian crisis to Russia, and we strongly object to this,” Kremlin’s spokesman added.

ridiculed by Russia’s Defense Ministry, while an alliance of seven former US intelligence officers – the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) – said the evidence produced by NATO from the Ukrainian-Russian border was on a par with the “same dubious, politically ‘fixed’ kind used 12 years ago to ‘justify’ the US-led attack on Iraq.”

‘Many of our comrades can’t look quietly’

On Wednesday, Russian veterans have called to end speculations around those Russian men who voluntarily joined east-Ukrainian rebels in the fight against Kiev.

“These are not adventurers, not criminals, not mercenaries, these are Russian people, who have it already laid down in their genes: to help our friendly nations in a difficult situation. We understand that this internal conflict or civil war in Ukraine is not Russia’s business. But this way Russia [through volunteers] has a right to help,” said Colonel-General Valery Vostrotin, the chairman of the Council of the Moscow Department “Battle Brotherhood”.

Shevchuk (Still from RT video)

A retired Russian officer Vladimir Melnik is one of those men. He is now undergoing treatment in Moscow after being injured in a leg in Ukraine.

He does not call himself a hero. For him, born and raised in the Donetsk region, when it still was part of the USSR, supporting rebels in his native land is a duty. His relatives and friends still live there. Melnik says he could not leave them in a time of trouble.

“If somebody intrudes into you house, starts killing your brothers, your sisters, raping your women, killing your children and rob elders —how would you react to this? I understand that this is, primarily, a spiritual struggle; looking at what is happening in the world today, I would not like to stand and watch as our Orthodox people are being killed in their own homes,” he says.

A retired Russian officer Vladimir Melnik (Still from RT video)

Melnik says there are many volunteers – former military personnel like him – fighting along with self-defense forces in the south-east of Ukraine.

“There are many of us and more people were ready to come. For now, Thank God, we are coping [with the situation] with the tools we have,” Melnik says.

When asked if he was paid or offered anything for coming to Ukraine, he says: “If I came to my father and said: Dad, I’m here to protect you from fascists for money, he would not understand me, neither would others. I wouldn’t have any respect for myself as well.”

Melnik says it was tough for eastern Ukrainian men “to leave their mines” and take arms, but now, thanks to the experience which people with military background shared, they “understand more.”

Asked about military equipment, Melnik confesses that everything rebels have is old, “from the Soviet time”, but this is enough to hold the fort.

“It is not difficult to find arms in Ukraine,” he says. “There are many ammunition depots left after the Soviet Union. It is old, from Soviet times. Yes, guys had to repair some of it or replace some of the details, but it works.”

Members of Russian veterans organizations fighting in Ukraine. We should all salute them. (Image from oficery.ru)

OSCE: No armed men crossing Ukraine border

OSCE’s observer mission has indicated in its latest report that it has not witnessed any Russian troops or tanks crossing the border into Ukraine.

What it did record, however, was an increased presence of unmanned aerial vehicles and young men and women crossing from Russia into Ukraine unarmed.

There has been “increased military activity principally of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the vicinity of the Border Crossing Points,” OSCE said in the weekly update from August 28 to September 3.

“Throughout the week, the OTs [Observer Teams] noticed a net increase of young people (both men and women) wearing military-style dress crossing the border in both directions but did not observe any weapons among these groups.”

OSCE noted that supporters of self-defense forces said they are not allowed to cross the border with weapons. But once they cross into Ukraine, weapons can be obtained from self-defense forces.

The observer mission added that situation in Lugansk remains “dire.” OSCE cites accounts of “severe destruction caused by artillery fire which resulted in the interruption of water, gas and electricity supplies, the latter apparently unavailable for more than five weeks in some areas including Lugansk city itself.”

ON THE NEXT PAGE

(Excerpt)
Dolores Ibárruri, La Pasionaria
Barcelona, November 1, 1938

“YIt is very difficult to say a few words in farewell to the heroes of the International Brigades, because of what they are and what they represent. A feeling of sorrow, an infinite grief catches our throat – sorrow for those who are going away, for the soldiers of the highest ideal of human redemption, exiles from their countries, persecuted by the tyrants of all peoples – grief for those who will stay here forever mingled with the Spanish soil, in the very depth of our heart, hallowed by our feeling of eternal gratitude.

From all peoples, from all races, you came to us like brothers, like sons of immortal Spain; and in the hardest days of the war, when the capital of the Spanish Republic was threatened, it was you, gallant comrades of the International Brigades, who helped save the city with your fighting enthusiasm, your heroism and your spirit of sacrifice. – And Jarama and Guadalajara, Brunete and Belchite, Levante and the Ebro, in immortal verses sing of the courage, the sacrifice, the daring, the discipline of the men of the International Brigades.

For the first time in the history of the peoples’ struggles, there was the spectacle, breathtaking in its grandeur, of the formation of International Brigades to help save a threatened country’s freedom and independence – the freedom and independence of our Spanish land.

Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, Republicans – men of different colors, differing ideology, antagonistic religions — yet all profoundly loving liberty and justice, they came and offered themselves to us unconditionally.

They gave us everything — their youth or their maturity; their science or their experience; their blood and their lives; their hopes and aspirations — and they asked us for nothing. But yes, it must be said, they did want a post in battle, they aspired to the honor of dying for us.

Banners of Spain! Salute these many heroes! Be lowered to honor so many martyrs!

Mothers! Women! When the years pass by and the wounds of war are stanched; when the memory of the sad and bloody days dissipates in a present of liberty, of peace and of wellbeing; when the rancors have died out and pride in a free country is felt equally by all Spaniards, speak to your children. Tell them of these men of the International Brigades.

Recount for them how, coming over seas and mountains, crossing frontiers bristling with bayonets, sought by raving dogs thirsting to tear their flesh, these men reached our country as crusaders for freedom, to fight and die for Spain’s liberty and independence threatened by German and Italian fascism. They gave up everything — their loves, their countries, home and fortune, fathers, mothers, wives, brothers, sisters and children — and they came and said to us: “We are here. Your cause, Spain’s cause, is ours. It is the cause of all advanced and progressive mankind.”

Today many are departing. Thousands remain, shrouded in Spanish earth, profoundly remembered by all Spaniards. Comrades of the International Brigades: Political reasons, reasons of state, the welfare of that very cause for which you offered your blood with boundless generosity, are sending you back, some to your own countries and others to forced exile. You can go proudly. You are history. You are legend. You are the heroic example of democracy’s solidarity and universality in the face of the vile and accommodating spirit of those who interpret democratic principles with their eyes on hoards of wealth or corporate shares which they want to safeguard from all risk.

We shall not forget you; and, when the olive tree of peace is in flower, entwined with the victory laurels of the Republic of Spain — return!

The Ukraine disorders, as seen through Russian eyes

Obama loses to Putin again
Lyuba Lulko, Pravda.ru

AP photo

Lyuba Lulko
Pravda.Ru

Read the original in Russian

Дмитрий Судаков