Hasbara Buster
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US-NATO Build-up to Cold War 2.0
By Peter Koenig
This is NYT’s headline of 20 April 2014:
“In Cold War Echo, Obama Strategy Writes Off Putin” Followed by:
“President Obama is focused on isolating Russia by cutting off its economic and political ties to the outside world, limiting its expansionist ambitions and effectively making it a pariah state.
Even as the crisis in Ukraine continues to defy easy resolution, President Obama and his national security team are looking beyond the immediate conflict to forge a new long-term approach to Russia that applies an updated version of the Cold War strategy of containment.
Just as the United States resolved in the aftermath of World War II to counter the Soviet Union and its global ambitions, Mr. Obama is focused on isolating President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia by cutting off its economic and political ties to the outside world, limiting its expansionist ambitions in its own neighborhood and effectively making it a pariah state.
Mr. Obama has concluded that even if there is a resolution to the current standoff over Crimea and eastern Ukraine, he will never have a constructive relationship with Mr. Putin, aides said. As a result, Mr. Obama will spend his final two and a half years in office trying to minimize the disruption Mr. Putin can cause, preserve whatever marginal cooperation can be saved and otherwise ignore the master of the Kremlin in favor of other foreign policy areas where progress remains possible.”
On 17 April Secretary of State Kerry traveled with all the fanfare of an envoy by an emperor without clothes to Geneva, to hold four-way talks with Russia, Europe and representatives of the illegal Nazi Government of Ukraine – to decide the future of the Ukraine.
Kerry’s allure was that of his predecessor Hillary Clinton, when she exclaimed laughing about Gaddafi’s lynching, “we came, we saw and he died…”.
In Kerry’s mind, Russia was a mere figure at the table, good to enhance the American propaganda machine. Kerry would support any elusive agreement, so that the presstitute media could again denigrate Putin for his ‘concessions’, adding that he had avoided further sanctions (sic) for now – and later ‘punish Russia, because the non-agreement could not be implemented.
Disinformation and outright lies! As the credibility gap is widening and people in Europe and even in the US are increasingly seeking alternative news media to find out the truth, the lies are becoming progressively more brazen.
The American-European public has been drilled for decades by the corporate lie-media that the world must dance to the canons of the United States of America. It’s normal that Washington must mingle everywhere, that Obama – or whoever else is the corporate puppet in office – calls the shots, that the eternal warrior has the last word – on just about everything and everywhere.
What business does the US have in Ukraine, in Syria, in Iran – and wherever they put their bloody hands?
Well the wind is changing. Increasingly people in Europe and even in America are watching, listening to and reading alternative news sources.
While John Kerry’s showed-off in Geneva with his ridiculously conceited threats, President Putin broadcast a four-hour televised Q&A session, where people from all over Russia and even from of the Russian Federate States could call in with questions and comments. Most of them were referring to Ukraine and Crimea. Mr. Putin answered them frankly, without teleprompter – no pre-conceived replies.
Mr. Putin uses facts when he refers to the ‘Kiev Nazi government’ as an illegal mob put in place with the help of Washington and its European puppets, fomenting unrest and killing in the streets. The 5 billion dollar investment for ‘regime change’ in Ukraine, at that time a sovereign country – Ms. Nuland’s admission – is not reported in the western media. No wonder, Mr. Putin’s rating at home is way above the steadily faltering popularity of Obama and his European cronies.
Since WWII, Washington has been sowing unrest and death around the world – death in the millions, all for reasons of expansion, of global hegemony – Korea, Vietnam, Argentina, Chile, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Central Africa, Venezuela, Thailand, Syria – and now Ukraine — to name just a few. Some of these countries were subdued by direct US military / NATO action. In others, Washington’s Assassin-in-Chief is fighting ‘proxy’ wars, using personally approved drone killings and other willing allies, like Hollande and Cameron, to do the dirty work – meaning murdering tens of thousands of people to achieve ‘regime change’, to further the emperors global dominance – dominance over resources, people and their economies.
When it doesn’t work in a first go, there is temporary media respite, so people may forget; just to be picked up again later by the presstitute corporate information outlets to give global brainwashing no rest. – To the point, where the constant US meddling in other countries’ affairs has become an order of the day and an order of value for the Western world. It is not only accepted – it has become the norm.
In recent history it started with the artificially created Cold War, where the world was made to believe that the Soviet Union – the country that has suffered the most under WWII, with an infrastructure largely destroyed and losing more than 25 million people, was a nuclear threat to the US and to the world; that they had superior nuclear fire power than the west, including the US.
This justified an unprecedented arms race of the US which at the same time discouraged Europe from building up their own military forces, but rather ‘include’ them into the newly created (1949) North Atlantic Treaty Organization – known as NATO.Europe was lured into believing that they didn’t need to re-arm, as NATO was there to defend them from whatever evil might come – meaning from the east, the Soviet Union.
They all bought it, except for Charles deGaulle. He knew it was a mistake trusting the Americans and pulled his country out of NATO in 1966. De Gaullesaw the US history and its twisted agenda for world dominance. His policy was to keep France as an independent sovereign country, to be ready on its own. Hence, in France, a nuclear power,a NATO base was no longer allowed – until the neoliberal, CIA agent, President Nicolas Sarkozy, nicknamed “Sarkozy the American”, reversed de Gaulle’s decision. In 2009, 43 years after de Gaulle kicked NATO out of France, Sarkozy opened the door for NATO to re-enter France.
For the Pentagon, a Europe with no serious army was like a hidden treasure. The US economy hopping from war to war for sheer survival – after WWII followed Korea, then Vietnam – needed a long-term commitment to conflict. The Cold War flourished with massive propaganda at tremendous cost to the point where the Western public fully believed that the Soviet Union was indeed a danger. In fact, most of the people still believe it today.
In the meantime, the war machine NATO keeps running under the pretext of ‘the war on terror’ – an eternal threat, demanding a never-ending escalation of military power. The bought corporate media makes sure that the public at large wants that never-ending war on terror to keep them safe. Terror is anything or anybody that doesn’t submit to the empire’s dictate.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia entered an agreement with the West, foremost the United States, that NATO would not advance beyond where it was at that time, in other words at the eastern border of West-Germany. Since then, in total disregard and disrespect for the treaty, NATO today has moved eastwards into East Germany (now of course unified with West Germany), the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and several new countries that emerged from the former Yugoslavia – which was also destroyed by a Washington instigated sectarian war. At that time, Clinton, another assassin-in-chief, was leading the war scepter – of course, also in the name of humanity.
As to advancing NATO ever closer to the Russian borders with French support, here is what Sarkozy the American said in a NATO Summit a year earlier,in April 2008 in Bucharest. He exclaimed,
By Peter Koenig
This is NYT’s headline of 20 April 2014:
“In Cold War Echo, Obama Strategy Writes Off Putin” Followed by:
“President Obama is focused on isolating Russia by cutting off its economic and political ties to the outside world, limiting its expansionist ambitions and effectively making it a pariah state.
Even as the crisis in Ukraine continues to defy easy resolution, President Obama and his national security team are looking beyond the immediate conflict to forge a new long-term approach to Russia that applies an updated version of the Cold War strategy of containment.
Just as the United States resolved in the aftermath of World War II to counter the Soviet Union and its global ambitions, Mr. Obama is focused on isolating President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia by cutting off its economic and political ties to the outside world, limiting its expansionist ambitions in its own neighborhood and effectively making it a pariah state.
Mr. Obama has concluded that even if there is a resolution to the current standoff over Crimea and eastern Ukraine, he will never have a constructive relationship with Mr. Putin, aides said. As a result, Mr. Obama will spend his final two and a half years in office trying to minimize the disruption Mr. Putin can cause, preserve whatever marginal cooperation can be saved and otherwise ignore the master of the Kremlin in favor of other foreign policy areas where progress remains possible.”
On 17 April Secretary of State Kerry traveled with all the fanfare of an envoy by an emperor without clothes to Geneva, to hold four-way talks with Russia, Europe and representatives of the illegal Nazi Government of Ukraine – to decide the future of the Ukraine.
Kerry’s allure was that of his predecessor Hillary Clinton, when she exclaimed laughing about Gaddafi’s lynching, “we came, we saw and he died…”.
In Kerry’s mind, Russia was a mere figure at the table, good to enhance the American propaganda machine. Kerry would support any elusive agreement, so that the presstitute media could again denigrate Putin for his ‘concessions’, adding that he had avoided further sanctions (sic) for now – and later ‘punish Russia, because the non-agreement could not be implemented.
Disinformation and outright lies! As the credibility gap is widening and people in Europe and even in the US are increasingly seeking alternative news media to find out the truth, the lies are becoming progressively more brazen.
The American-European public has been drilled for decades by the corporate lie-media that the world must dance to the canons of the United States of America. It’s normal that Washington must mingle everywhere, that Obama – or whoever else is the corporate puppet in office – calls the shots, that the eternal warrior has the last word – on just about everything and everywhere.
What business does the US have in Ukraine, in Syria, in Iran – and wherever they put their bloody hands?
Well the wind is changing. Increasingly people in Europe and even in America are watching, listening to and reading alternative news sources.
While John Kerry’s showed-off in Geneva with his ridiculously conceited threats, President Putin broadcast a four-hour televised Q&A session, where people from all over Russia and even from of the Russian Federate States could call in with questions and comments. Most of them were referring to Ukraine and Crimea. Mr. Putin answered them frankly, without teleprompter – no pre-conceived replies.
Mr. Putin uses facts when he refers to the ‘Kiev Nazi government’ as an illegal mob put in place with the help of Washington and its European puppets, fomenting unrest and killing in the streets. The 5 billion dollar investment for ‘regime change’ in Ukraine, at that time a sovereign country – Ms. Nuland’s admission – is not reported in the western media. No wonder, Mr. Putin’s rating at home is way above the steadily faltering popularity of Obama and his European cronies.
Since WWII, Washington has been sowing unrest and death around the world – death in the millions, all for reasons of expansion, of global hegemony – Korea, Vietnam, Argentina, Chile, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Central Africa, Venezuela, Thailand, Syria – and now Ukraine — to name just a few. Some of these countries were subdued by direct US military / NATO action. In others, Washington’s Assassin-in-Chief is fighting ‘proxy’ wars, using personally approved drone killings and other willing allies, like Hollande and Cameron, to do the dirty work – meaning murdering tens of thousands of people to achieve ‘regime change’, to further the emperors global dominance – dominance over resources, people and their economies.
When it doesn’t work in a first go, there is temporary media respite, so people may forget; just to be picked up again later by the presstitute corporate information outlets to give global brainwashing no rest. – To the point, where the constant US meddling in other countries’ affairs has become an order of the day and an order of value for the Western world. It is not only accepted – it has become the norm.
In recent history it started with the artificially created Cold War, where the world was made to believe that the Soviet Union – the country that has suffered the most under WWII, with an infrastructure largely destroyed and losing more than 25 million people, was a nuclear threat to the US and to the world; that they had superior nuclear fire power than the west, including the US.
This justified an unprecedented arms race of the US which at the same time discouraged Europe from building up their own military forces, but rather ‘include’ them into the newly created (1949) North Atlantic Treaty Organization – known as NATO.Europe was lured into believing that they didn’t need to re-arm, as NATO was there to defend them from whatever evil might come – meaning from the east, the Soviet Union.
They all bought it, except for Charles deGaulle. He knew it was a mistake trusting the Americans and pulled his country out of NATO in 1966. De Gaullesaw the US history and its twisted agenda for world dominance. His policy was to keep France as an independent sovereign country, to be ready on its own. Hence, in France, a nuclear power,a NATO base was no longer allowed – until the neoliberal, CIA agent, President Nicolas Sarkozy, nicknamed “Sarkozy the American”, reversed de Gaulle’s decision. In 2009, 43 years after de Gaulle kicked NATO out of France, Sarkozy opened the door for NATO to re-enter France.
For the Pentagon, a Europe with no serious army was like a hidden treasure. The US economy hopping from war to war for sheer survival – after WWII followed Korea, then Vietnam – needed a long-term commitment to conflict. The Cold War flourished with massive propaganda at tremendous cost to the point where the Western public fully believed that the Soviet Union was indeed a danger. In fact, most of the people still believe it today.
In the meantime, the war machine NATO keeps running under the pretext of ‘the war on terror’ – an eternal threat, demanding a never-ending escalation of military power. The bought corporate media makes sure that the public at large wants that never-ending war on terror to keep them safe. Terror is anything or anybody that doesn’t submit to the empire’s dictate.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia entered an agreement with the West, foremost the United States, that NATO would not advance beyond where it was at that time, in other words at the eastern border of West-Germany. Since then, in total disregard and disrespect for the treaty, NATO today has moved eastwards into East Germany (now of course unified with West Germany), the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and several new countries that emerged from the former Yugoslavia – which was also destroyed by a Washington instigated sectarian war. At that time, Clinton, another assassin-in-chief, was leading the war scepter – of course, also in the name of humanity.
As to advancing NATO ever closer to the Russian borders with French support, here is what Sarkozy the American said in a NATO Summit a year earlier,in April 2008 in Bucharest. He exclaimed,
“We need NATO and a European Defense. We need the United States and the United States needs strong allies. For France this opens the door for a transformation of her relations with NATO……. We’ve got the same values; we are friends.”
He added, “On Afghanistan …We have to win. We are committed for a long time until victory. There’s no other solution”. Continuing, “It is with pleasure that France today welcomes Croatia and Albania into the [NATO] Alliance.”
Eventually he said — “On Georgia and Ukraine, we don’t accept any veto by anyone. These two countries are destined to join NATO.” Note the year – 2008.
The corporate mass media, all financed with mickey-mouse dollars, printed at will, achieved from the 1960’s onward an American- European mindset that serves Washington today to continue demonizing Russia and its President, Vladimir Putin, with the objective for the West to invade Ukraine with its western destructive, debt-ridden financial system and put NATO at Moscow’s doorstep.
Mr. Putin’s non-aggression, diplomacy and international statesmanship is certain to attract more support than do the ever twisted fork-tongued lies of Washington’s Nobel Peace Prize winning warrior.
Besides, Russia has a huge economic leverage on the west, particularly on the US. In addition to supplying 50% of Europe’s energy, Russia and its allies, China and the other BRICS and associates could destroy the dollar by a click of the mouse. Russia and China have already declared they will trade hydrocarbons in the future in their own local currencies, a measure already being carried out for general trading among the BRICS and associates. In addition, the BRICS are preparing to issue a new currency, an alternative to the dollar, and an international monetary transfer system that will bypass the notorious privately owned BIS – Bank for International Settlement, under which all international payments have to transit through US banks.
‘Times they are a-changing…’ according to Bob Dylan– and he is right.
Peter Koenig is an economist and former World Bank staff. He worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources.
US-NATO Build-up to Cold War 2.0
He added, “On Afghanistan …We have to win. We are committed for a long time until victory. There’s no other solution”. Continuing, “It is with pleasure that France today welcomes Croatia and Albania into the [NATO] Alliance.”
Eventually he said — “On Georgia and Ukraine, we don’t accept any veto by anyone. These two countries are destined to join NATO.” Note the year – 2008.
The corporate mass media, all financed with mickey-mouse dollars, printed at will, achieved from the 1960’s onward an American- European mindset that serves Washington today to continue demonizing Russia and its President, Vladimir Putin, with the objective for the West to invade Ukraine with its western destructive, debt-ridden financial system and put NATO at Moscow’s doorstep.
Mr. Putin’s non-aggression, diplomacy and international statesmanship is certain to attract more support than do the ever twisted fork-tongued lies of Washington’s Nobel Peace Prize winning warrior.
Besides, Russia has a huge economic leverage on the west, particularly on the US. In addition to supplying 50% of Europe’s energy, Russia and its allies, China and the other BRICS and associates could destroy the dollar by a click of the mouse. Russia and China have already declared they will trade hydrocarbons in the future in their own local currencies, a measure already being carried out for general trading among the BRICS and associates. In addition, the BRICS are preparing to issue a new currency, an alternative to the dollar, and an international monetary transfer system that will bypass the notorious privately owned BIS – Bank for International Settlement, under which all international payments have to transit through US banks.
‘Times they are a-changing…’ according to Bob Dylan– and he is right.
Peter Koenig is an economist and former World Bank staff. He worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources.
US-NATO Build-up to Cold War 2.0
