Russia is a threat, alright – to US imperial aspirations

I've been more than a little surprised at the rehashed Cold War propaganda that's been circulated in the mainstream media ... and totally shocked at some of the people I know who've bought into that "Putin is the new Stalin" bullshit.

As though the Crimea re-annexation represents anything like a threat to Europe or, even more ridiculous, to the United States.  For what it's worth, Crimea became part of the Russian Empire in 1783, well before the US used force to annex territories that belonged to Mexico and attempted to do the same in Canada (what do you think was meant by Fifty-four Forty or Fight! ?)

After World War II, the government of Canada (under Prime Minister Mackenzie King) viewed Stalin's government of Russia as a very unpleasant regime; but not directly dangerous to anyone else; particularly not to Canada.  Canadian diplomats argued that Stalin's primary interest was the preservation of Communist rule in Russia and the reconstruction of a shattered economy and a society devastated by war.  Russia lost twenty million people in World War II, a death toll far higher than any other country, allied or axis.

Russia wasn't focused on expanding ... but the West needed a new enemy; a new monster to slay; and the commies were it.

The Russian Empire was greatly expanded during World War II, not by conquest, but when Soviet control of Eastern Europe was signed, sealed, and delivered into Moscow’s hands by Franklin Roosevelt at Yalta.  The fact is, a broken Russia did not exit World War II with plans for increasing its territorial control; Russia's focus was on trying to rebuild its economy (and, of course, to demonstrate the superiority of communism over western-style capitalism). That is why, in our lifetimes, since their great victory over German military aggression in World War II, the Soviets have been quite conservative in their military policy. That policy has been predominately defensive. Russia's only use of military power has been to defend their territory in the Communist bloc, or to defend their allies against foreign invaders; not to extend their territory.

Contrast that with the military policy of the United States.  How many sovereign countries have been attacked by the US since 1945?  Hell, I would count the number just since 2001 as seven: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and Uganda.  That is four more countries, under President Obama, I believe, than under his predecessor ... so the number effectively doubled after Americans elected a "peace president."

Pay attention. The threat isn't an expansionist Russia ... it's a Russia that blocks American expansionism.  Vladimir Putin is the enemy because he's the only world leader with the gonads to speak against a US foreign policy of aggression, invasion, and conquest. 
 

It wasn't stolen from Americans; they gave it away

America's problems don't have political solutions, and certainly not military solutions.  Americans lost their moral bearings.  America lost its soul.

What I see breaking down in American society is the belief that the United States of America represents that most essential ingredient of Western thought:  that unshakeable faith in human progress (the belief that the direction of the world is always toward a better future; more prosperous, more secure, less stressful and hazardous).  It is that belief that a better world is not only possible, that it is inevitable.  The United States was going to take the lead among nations in building that brave new world.

Most of us know, now, that isn't true.  American society took a huge step backward when it resorted to these four things:  1) an unprovoked attack on a tiny impoverished nation that was unable to defend itself; a cowardly act of bullying of the very worst sort, 2) holding prisoners without charges, without legal recourse, without regard to their guilt and giving them absolutely no hope of release, 3) torture of helpless prisoners, not just in violation of international law (which it is), but in violation of American principles of justice and civilized behavior and, finally I believe, 4) the use of unmanned remotely-piloted aerial drone, the use of robotics in warfare, to kill indiscriminately, women and children whose lives were flippantly dismissed as "collateral damage."

When a society lets expediency outweigh morality, there is really no limit to what that society can and will do without the onerous burden of moral responsibility.

The mood of hopelessness, helplessness, and despair that is gripping Americans today is by no means unjustified, and it is not due to any external force.

What Americans possessed, uniquely, they gave away ... essentially, for empty promises.  A handful of magic beans.  Because they were afraid.  Boo hoo.

To their shame.

To their eternal shame.

45 years ago, today

"It's so groovy to see all you people living in tents ... a cloth house is all you need if you got love."
___
John Sebastian, Woodstock, August 16, 1969

John Sebastian turned 70 this year.  He still performs. 

Russian food embargo already hurting the EU

The Associated Press reports:

EU Farmers To Lose $16 Billion as Russians Support Food Embargo
Russia Responds to Western Sanctions
Associated Press

MOSCOW, August 14 (RIA Novosti) – According to the Associated Press, the EU agricultural export to Russia reached $15.8 billion in 2013. Thus, the estimated loss for the European economy could be about $16 billion, experts claim. Moreover, Russian sanctions may draw Europe into a market crisis, the French National Federation of Unions of Agricultural Operators warns.

Russia's independent Levada Center pollster admits that about 72 percent of Russians approve of the imposed sanctions. Vladimir Putin's approval ratings in Russia remain at their highest point as well.

I believe the United States made yet another huge blunder in forcing its European Union allies to impose economic sanctions on Russia.  Europe depends, primarily, on hydrocarbon imports from Russia; an embargo on Russian gas and oil imports can hurt Russia only if Russia cannot find an alternative consumer of the natural gas that it pipes to the European Union through tiny Ukraine. The embargo on Russian natural gas had the immediate effect of bring Russia and China closer together.  After 20 years of talks between Russia and China, in May of this year Vladimir Putin signed a huge 30-year deal to pipe 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China; worth about US$400 billion at the time of the deal.  In return, China will invest US$20 billion in Russian's gas fields and pipeline system. And there's a military component. China will buy Russian military exports. 

And that was the most significant outcome of Obama's threats of both military and economic sanctions on Russia ... it drove Russia and China right into signing an agreement in which they'll protect themselves against American-led NATO aggression.

The United States made damned sure that Americans wouldn't feel the effect of those trade sanctions before they imposed them.  America's allies need to realize that ... they were thrown under a bus.

The perception of most Canadians I've talked to about this is that the US and the sycophantic government of Stephen Harper threw Canadian farmers under that bus ... Canada is a major exporter of agricultural products to Russia; the most important, I believe, is pork.

Canadians, by and large, do not believe Canada should be supporting the US in its proxy war with Russia.  The US is proving itself to be a very bad ally.

The political ineptitude of America's government is truly shocking. Fast-forward to this week. The false claims made by the US-backed government in Kiev (claims I'm sure were made with the full approval of the Obama Administration) that the 270 aid trucks sent from Russian to Ukraine were "Trojan horses" containing Russian military hardware.  Those bullshit claims more than doubled the effectiveness of Putin's power play.

The whole purpose of Russia's "humanitarian relief mission" was to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the US using "humanitarian relief" as a pretext for involving itself militarily in Iraq.  So what do those Russian trucks contain? I'm sure you'll find blankets, medical supplies, baby formula.

Score another one for Vladimir Putin.

And, by the way, American – keep pounding your chest if you want, but forcing your astronauts to beg rides home from the International Space Station in Russian vehicles does nothing at all for your image abroad.

The Emperor is, indeed, naked.

Do what's right; always, not just what's "safe"

Why are the events of 12 years ago still relevant?  Because Americans seem bound and determined to repeat the mistakes of the recent past.  It's as though they have learned nothing; and have acquired no wisdom at all. 

Why go back 12 years and remind Americans of how they acted then?  Quite simply; because many are acting exactly the same way now.  Have you noticed?What happened in the runup to the Iraq invasion is important. And absolutely and completely relevant.

Friend, do not try to convince me that your support for the invasion of Iraq – which was a tiny, impoverished, unarmed and defenseless country when it was attacked in March 2003 – was morally justified, or was justified by the facts at hand.  We both know better.

Let me tell you why most Americans went along with that invasion; an unprovoked aggression against a weaker people, totally out of keeping with the espoused values of the American nation:  because it was convenient to do do.  To have spoken out, in that highly-charged atmosphere of hatred, was to stand alone; was to incur the disdain of – and hostility from – friends, family, and your community.  I know.

Most Americans, now as then, will gauge the collective conventional wisdom, and they will not depart from that, not an iota; they will do what they feel is safe; not what they know is right.

And that's what I condemn; not error; but the deliberate choice of the safest course, the one which requires no courage, with a total disregard for what one knows is right.

I am not talking about politics right now; or even world events; I'm talking about principle, character.   And the politics of it aside, I will tell you this; my character will not permit me to make that same choice.

And that has set me apart from the crowd.  Forever.  I'm glad of it.

Ten Years Ago: August 11, 2004

It was ten years ago, on Wednesday, August 11, 2004, that the Washington Post, in a long front page story written by staff writer Howard Kurtz, became the second of the nation's most prominent newspapers to admit serious flaws in their coverage of the WMD claims during the buildup to the Iraqi war.  The Post admitted their culpability in a deception.  Previously, in May, the New York Times made the same admission, though not nearly so prominently, and certainly not anywhere near the front page of the print edition. The full Washington Post feature is still available: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58127-2004Aug11.html In the ten years since, time has pretty much taken the wind out of the sails of those people who vehemently insisted that those vast "weapons of mass destruction" stockpiles ever existed and that it is only a matter of time till they are located. Almost no one is going to argue, now, for the existence of the WMD, but I still hear two arguments made frequently:  1) that "everyone believed, at the time, that those WMD existed" and 2) that all the available evidence pointed to the existence of the stockpiles claimed by the Bush Administration in its justification for this war. Neither of those claims was true. I'm here to tell you, absolutely, that not "everyone" believed at the time that the Administration was telling us the truth about the "imminent threat" of attack from the Hussein regime in Iraq.  I know that to be far from true.  The fact that people remained silent about their skepticism; that's to their shame, but anyone who was looking for the truth, and eschewing the mainstream news media to do so, knew that all of the "evidence" used to support the claims of a WMD threat had been discredited.  At the time of the invasion, in March 2013; there was no credible proof of any threat. As for the 2nd claim, that all the evidence available at the time supported the existence of those weapons, well, that's not true either.  We have learned, since, that much of the evidence that would have refuted the bogus WMD claims prior to the invasion was kept out of public view by broadcast and print news media outlets that deliberately hid these stories, or didn't give them the attention they deserved. They lied by omission.  By the time I made my own decision that the WMD claims were not based on any real evidence, it was already known that the yellowcake uranium that was "proof" of an nuclear weapon development program, the high-grade aluminum tubing that was to be used for rocket bodies or nuclear fuel rods or whatever, the claims that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had contact with the Iraq government; all these claims were known to be false. There was scant evidence that the security of the United States was threatened by the tiny country of Iraq.  Most of the claims were not only unfounded, they were preposterous.  Indeed, if any evidence at all had existed, the Bush Administration could have silenced every single critic of the war by sending the UN inspectors to one single location where banned agents of warfare were hidden – one only – the existence of all the rest would have then been conceded by the skeptics.  When asked to do that; they refused.  Why?  We know, now, why. They had nothing, and they knew it. Here's my point:  The Internet was practically our only conduit to the facts in early 2003, and it largely remains so now. Turn off that TV.  It's a propaganda machine.

Morality isn't subject to situational interpretation

There is absolutely no moral equivalence between 1,500 dead civilians, 30% of who are believed to be children, in 4 weeks, and 28 dead Israelis from wildly inaccurate and very ineffective rocket attacks over a thirteen-year period. [source].  None.

Those who claim Israel acted appropriately by attacking civilians in Gaza, are practicing the same moral relativism that allowed Americans to say, 10 years ago, "Americans do not torture ... well ... except when ..."

True moral principles are not applied selectively; only when it's convenient; only when it meets the approval of the public; they are individual, non-negotiable, and immutable.  They are not influenced by propaganda or politics.

And they are not determined by the State or by the Church or by the Republican Party or the U.S. Army or Marine Corps or the Boy Scouts of America.

Friends, when you let someone else – or worse, an institution – decide morality for you; you are acting immorally. All morality – my morality; yours – is individual; it isn't determined by any institution.

We do not excuse our own actions by pointing to the actions of others. Others are not responsible for how we behave; we can never blame our own behavior on others; that is a basic principle of honor, and a long-standing principle of manhood.