The Ideological Perils of Bernie Sanders
Hope and Change 2.0
By EOIN HIGGINS | CounterPunch | June 12, 2015
A Bernie Sanders run at the Democratic nomination has garnered a lot of interest from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Members of the anyone-but-Hillary caucus (who readily admit they will vote for her anyway come the general election) are desperately seeking an alternative. Just as in 2008, a challenger has come from her putative left. Then it was the Junior Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama. This time, it is the Independent Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders.
Although it is difficult to remember now that we are seven years into the neoliberal and neocon Obama administration, in the primary battle between Clinton and Obama there seemed to be an actual difference between the two candidates. Where Clinton was a relic of the past, Obama was the future. Where Clinton’s record in the Senate tied her irrevocably to the wars and policies of the Bush administration, Obama’s scant record and impassioned though empty speeches on the campaign trail promised a new way forward. Hope. Change.
It hardly bears explaining what a sham the Obama campaign of 2008 was. Wether bailing out the banks to warrantless domestic surveillance, or continuing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and extra-judicial assassinations, a plurality of the most noxious Bush policies were continued and in many cases expanded under Obama. The writing was on the wall in the first week, of course, when Obama immediately broke his pledge to close Guantanamo.
Yet after seven long years of their increasingly acrobatic Obama apologia and the slow, slow realization that they were duped into supporting a president well to the right of sainted slime Ronald Reagan, the liberal wing of the Democratic Party is willing and ready once again to throw its support behind an inevitable disappointment.
It’s not that Bernie Sanders is as right wing as Barack Obama on domestic issues. Sanders has identified as a democratic socialist for most of his political career and his rhetoric on domestic economic policy is remarkably consistent. He isn’t radical, or at least he wouldn’t be in a sane society. Sanders embodies and exemplifies the traditional urge of the Democrats to be slightly more accommodating to the interests of the working class under capitalism, while still maintaining the basic economic status quo.
For an illustrative example of Sanders’ lack of radical politics, take his social media post of a few weeks ago which was spent lauding Facebook for paying its employees a baseline salary of 15 dollars an hour. Now while it is certainly better for the company to pay its workers 15 dollars an hour than, say, 10 dollars an hour, it’s not as if Facebook is the kind of company any self-respecting member of the left wing of American politics should be heaping praise upon. After all, this is a company that a few years ago was shamed into backing away from assuming control over the life rights to the image identity of newborns.
“Fine,” you say, “I can see that Bernie may have had to adopt some of his rhetoric and policies to the realities of American capitalism. But he’s still in favor of the working class! Haven’t you heard his speeches? This won’t be like Obama, I swear it! He’ll be different!”
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Bernie Sanders is no friend of the working class, in America or the world. It’s fundamentally impossible to be such if you support the Washington war machine and the system of Western imperialism. And Bernie Sanders has proven, over and over again, that he is the friend of those who dominate, not the domineered, and the friend of those who kill, not their victims.
Bernie has been a vocal supporter of American military adventurism for the length of his Congressional career. Whenever there are wars to be fought, Bernie comes out in favor of them eventually and helps to facilitate their fighting. Maybe he sees it as an American Jobs Program to send the country’s disadvantaged youth halfway across the world to kill similarly disadvantaged people who had the misfortune to be born in the wrong country. Maybe he just doesn’t care about the poor in other countries. Who knows. What’s for sure, though, is that the Independent Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, likes war just as much as his Democratic and Republican counterparts.
When the reality of Sanders’ milquetoast left wingery and neocon foreign policy finally sink in for the American liberal, the refrain will include such hits as:
“Well, it’s him or Hillary”
“What alternative would you choose?”
“It’s hard to be ideologically pure and politically successful”
These are all meaningless arguments. In fact, they’re the antithesis to the arguments being used by Sanders’ allies to support his bid for the Democratic nomination. Almost every week, another thinkpiece or article is released wagging the metaphorical finger at Sanders naysayers for denying the possibility of a Bernie Democratic nomination. “If you work at it and go out and vote,” they say, “then Bernie will beat Hillary and get the nomination!”
Here’s a real alternative: find a candidate who actually represents the left and go out and vote for him or her in the general election. Supporting Bernie Sanders will only lead to more disappointment, no matter what happens in the primary fight and general election.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Reviving the Cold War
By JACK BALKWILL | CounterPunch | June 11, 2015
The National Security State is risking our lives in an attempt to promote a new arms race and revive the old Cold War.
At the center of this they are pushing an ABM system initially labeled “Star Wars” by its opponents, since having been known by a great many euphemisms since, starting with “The Strategic Defense Initiative,” and lately “missile defense.”
The ABM program will not die, for once “defense” contractors develop a new profit source, it dispenses cash forever in the best government money can buy.
Strategic weapons experts say if the Russians built such an ABM system on our borders we would attack it and blow it up, because it would interfere with our nuclear deterrent. In other words, it would be feared as a component of a first-strike nuclear attack.
But that doesn’t stop the USA from building one on Russia’s borders and supplementing it with ship-borne components in the seas around Russia, even knowing the Russians and Chinese have declared they will manufacture more nuclear weapons in response. This throws arms control out the window, exactly as planned by the “Nuclear Mafia,” a term coined by former Commander in Chief of Pacific Forces, Admiral Noel Gaylor, to describe defense contractors.
THE NEW COLD WAR
Our National Security State is pushing for a new arms race which could result in global investors and global corporations bringing in as much as trillions of dollars over time. Astronomer and anti-nuclear activist Carl Sagan (and friend, I edited some of his anti-nuke work) once estimated that the old Cold War cost over $10 trillion, enough money, at the time, to buy everything in the USA except for the land.
The Nuclear Mafia see the current “War on Terror” as extensively manpower-based, and the cost of maintaining a large troop force is competing with their funding for strategic weapons systems. They don’t want expensive-to-maintain troops, they want strategic submarines, manned bombers and ICBMs that provide stunning profit.
So the National Security State folks in the Executive Branch and Congress, on behalf of their Nuclear Mafia sponsors, are worrying the Russians by enlisting former Warsaw Pact nations and former Soviet Republics into NATO, right on their borders. At the end of the old Cold War, Secretary of State James Baker promised the Russians we wouldn’t do this.
This week, in Pravda, Vyacheslav Tetekin, who sits on the Russian Duma Committee on Defense, said “Our own sworn friends have been moving their red lines closer and closer to Moscow. They may eventually say that Russia can not have its troops stationed somewhere near Moscow, as it would threaten Europe’s security.”
He continued, “In a nutshell, they have been progressively moving towards Russia’s borders. At first, they made Eastern European countries NATO members. Afterwards, they moved into the territory of the former Soviet Union and approached key industrial and military centers. They are unacceptably close – I am talking about the Baltic region. Today, they say that any response from the Russian side would be considered as Russia’s aggression against the West.”
Coupled with this NATO encroachment, the USA is initiating the new Star Wars system on Russia’s borders, an obvious attempt to trigger a new arms race, since there is no practical reason for doing this. One feeble excuse given was that the ABM system is to defend against Iranian missiles, but Iran has no ICBM nor nuclear warhead, so this was just propaganda with which to fool the American public.
These belligerent acts have caused the Russians to begin building weapons systems with which to defend themselves, exactly as planned. The Nuclear Mafia are using this as an excuse to build weapons systems in further response, even though we could stop it all by agreeing not to build any of this, because the Russians had largely disarmed after the end of the Cold War, and really don’t want to spend money on another ridiculous arms race. Our government is selling us out, and endangering people everywhere by this corrupt act.
And the corruption is as deep as it goes. Our tax dollars are going toward TV commercials for the defense contractors, and commercials in newspapers and online with no reasonable explanation, since there is only one buyer, the US government, already besieged by Nuclear Mafia lobbyists. Our tax dollars are also going for millions of dollars in Nuclear Mafia campaign contributions with which to bribe the Congressional and presidential candidates. The Nuclear Mafia say the money comes from a different pot, which is ridiculous when one looks into what the money buys– public opinion and government leaders to push programs which are not only unnecessary, but dangerous to global security.
Back during the Cold War I interviewed retired Admiral Gene LaRocque, when the USA had 30,000 nuclear warheads, and asked him if we had enough for our defense. He gave me a confused look, replying “How can you defend someone with a nuclear weapon?” These strategic nuclear forces have nothing to do with defense.
The idea that the Russians are a threat to global peace is itself ridiculous coming from a nation with 800 overseas military bases. Russia has one, in Tartus, Syria.
“Russia is not building up its offensive military capabilities overseas and is only responding to security threats caused by US and NATO military expansion on its borders, “President Vladimir Putin told Italian outlet Il Corriere della Sera this week. Putin added, “I think that only an insane person and only in a dream can one imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO.“
The reason for the ongoing belligerence against Russia and China is to trigger a new cold war with a lucrative arms race, like the fifty-year cold war that brought in billions in profit for the Nuclear Mafia who all but run the country today and are willing to risk global, thermonuclear war for the profits that a new arms race would bring them.
US encircling Russia with bioweapons labs, covertly spreads them – Russian FM
RT | June 11, 2015
The US is obstructing international efforts to eradicate biological weapons, seeking to involve other nations covertly in research on weaponized diseases, Moscow charged. America’s record of handling bioweapons is poor.
The accusations of mishandling biological weapons voiced by the Russian Foreign Ministry refer to a recent report that the US military shipped live anthrax by mistake. Last week, the Pentagon admitted sending samples of the highly dangerous disease to at least 51 labs in 17 US states and three foreign countries.
The delivery “posed a high risk of outbreak that threatened not only the US population, but also other countries, including Canada and Australia. Of great concern is the shipment of bacteria to a US military facility in a third country, the Osan Air Base in South Korea,” the Russian ministry said in a statement.
It added that an anthrax outbreak incident occurred in 2001, which also involved a US military lab.
For Russia such incidents are of particular concern, because one of its neighbors, Georgia, hosts a research facility for high-level biohazard agents. The Richard G. Lugar Center for Public and Animal Health Research near Tbilisi is an undercover American bioweapons lab, a branch of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Russia believes.
“American and Georgian authorities are trying to cover up the real nature of this US military unit, which studies highly dangerous infectious diseases. The Pentagon is trying to establish similar covert medico-biological facilities in other countries [in Russia’s neighborhood],” the Russian ministry said.
Moscow says the US is de facto derailing international efforts under the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), a 1972 international treaty aimed at eradicating bioweapons worldwide.
“The US administration is obviously not interested in strengthening this convention. It’s known that in 2001 the US unilaterally torpedoed multilateral talks in Geneva to work on a verification mechanism for the BWTC and have since obstructed their restart. Decades of international effort to strengthen the convention were derailed,” the statement said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry’s indictment comes amid a wider list of accusations against the US over what Moscow sees as American violations of various international agreements dealing with weapons control, non-proliferation and disarmament.
The statement came in response to a US annual report on the issue, which accused Russia of various wrongdoings. Moscow considers such reports “megaphone diplomacy.” Such tactics aren’t aimed at resolving any differences, but instead support America’s pretense to be the ultimate judge of other nation’s behavior, the ministry said.
Americans support military force against Russia if necessary: Poll
Press TV – June 11, 2015
A majority of people in the United States are supporting a military strike against Russia in response to an attack by Moscow on a NATO country, according to a new survey.
The poll conducted by the Pew Research Center showed Wednesday that 56 percent of Americans back a military response.
The result is in sharp contrast with the European countries as people in Germany, Italy and France do not support war on Russia.
In Germany, 58 percent of the respondents said they are against the use of military force. People in France and Italy oppose the idea 53 and 51 percent respectively.
After the US, 53 percent of the public in Canada are in favor of a military response.
“Many allied countries are reluctant to uphold Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which requires NATO members to defend an ally with armed force if necessary,” the survey said.
The survey also indicated that people in NATO countries view Russia as the culprit in the deadly Ukraine conflict.
The US accuses Russia of destabilizing Ukraine by supporting pro-Russian forces in the eastern regions. The Kremlin, however, denies the allegations.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Ukraine crisis was deliberately manufactured by “unprofessional actions” of the West.
“I believe that this crisis was created deliberately and it is the result of our partner’s unprofessional actions,” Putin said.
“I would like to emphasize once more: this was not our choice, we did not seek it, we are simply forced to respond to what is happening,” he added.
Putin Says US Imperial Footprint Unmatched: ‘Draw a Map and See’
Despite US military dominance, Obama accuses Russian leader of attempting to ‘recreate Soviet empire’
By Lauren McCauley | Common Dreams | June 9, 2015
Responding to ongoing brinkmanship between the United States and his country, Russian President Vladimir Putin dared reporters to publish a map of the two nations’ global military footprints and then “see the difference.”
The comments came over the weekend as G7 leaders assembled in Bavaria, Germany—a meeting which, prior to the recent upheaval in Ukraine, would have also included Russia. On Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama closed the summit by saying that the Russian leader was aiming to “recreate the Soviet empire.”
G7 leaders stood united in their threat to increase sanctions against Russia if the conflict in Ukraine escalates.
“Does he continue to wreck his country’s economy and continue Russia’s isolation in pursuit of a wrong-headed desire to recreate the glories of the Soviet empire?” Obama asked in his closing remarks. “Or does he recognize that Russia’s greatness does not depend on violating the territorial integrity and sovereignty of other countries?”
However, Obama’s accusations of Russia violating the “sovereignty of other countries” are striking in light of the United States’ own military strategy, which Putin highlighted days earlier in a Saturday interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
“U.S. military spending is higher than that of all countries in the world taken together,” Putin said. “The aggregate military spending of NATO countries is 10 times, note—10 times higher than that of the Russian Federation.”
Outside of what he described as the “remnants” of Soviet-era armed forces in Tajikistan, Armenia, and zones with high terrorist threat such as the Afghanistan border and Kyrgyzstan, Putin said that “Russia has virtually no bases abroad.”
“We have dismantled our bases in various regions of the world, including Cuba, Vietnam, and so on,” he said.
And despite statements about Russian aggression, this draw-down highlights a policy that “in this respect is not global, offensive or aggressive.”
“I invite you to publish the world map in your newspaper and to mark all the U.S. military bases on it,” Putin continued. “You will see the difference.”
Amid the verbal sparring match, the U.S. military also took steps to increase pressure on the ground.
On Friday, U.S. Strategic Command announced that three nuclear-capable B52 bombers were being deployed in addition to two B2 bombers to the United Kingdom for exercises to demonstrate “the United States’ ability to project its flexible, long-range global strike capability” in training missions over the Baltic states and Poland.
US Dragging Europe Into ‘Crusade’ Against Russia – Former French PM
Sputnik | 10.06.2015
Former French prime minister Francois Fillon has said that Europe is now fully dependent on the US, which is dragging it into a ‘crusade’ against Russia and is pursuing a policy which is absolutely contradictory to European interests.
“Europe nowadays has lost its independence. The US is dragging it into a ‘crusade’ against Russia, which absolutely contradicts European interests,” former French prime minister Francois Fillon said in an interview with the French news channel BFMTV.
“The US is also pressuring Germany to yield to the demands of Greece in order to find a compromise. German intelligence is spying on France, but not in its own interests, but those of the US,” he said.
The politician also added that the US justice system constantly interferes into the work of the European judicial authorities.
In the Middle East, the US is pursuing a policy which completely contradicts European interests and is a real danger to them, but the countries of Europe are forced to agree to it.
Fillon also criticized the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement between the EU and the US and added that he is decisively against signing it, given the way it is worded now.
Instead of Training to Solve Crimes, Cops Team Up with the Military to Prep for War
By Gary Franchi | The Free Thought Project | June 9, 2015
NORTH VERNON, IN – While the media was focused on Bruce Jenner’s transformation into Caitlyn Jenner last week they missed the further transformation of the Indiana State Police into a militarized police Force.
Together with the Indiana National Guard they weren’t practicing solving crimes, they were practicing Fast Rope techniques from a Blackhawk helicopter.
The above video contains actual footage which the Free Thought Project secured from the department of Defense, of the exercises.
Unlike in the recent special forces exercise that just occurred in Michigan, using live ordinance at an abandoned public school, this exercise took place at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center.
Discarding their traditional police uniforms they adorned military fatigues and we’re fully equipped to kill.
This clearly contradicts Obama’s declaration of last month to crack down on the militarization of local police.
Even while Obama claims a crackdown is occurring, the local police can still use military equipment because through a loophole that equipment doesn’t belong to them. It belongs to the military.
All around us we are witnessing a military buildup enslave a free people while the media fixates on issues of no consequence to liberty.
The only way around it is to bypass them altogether. Use the power in your hands right now to inform others. Without an informed and activated citizenry can we ever be free.
So join Next News in the New Media Coalition with the Free Thought Project and share this to your social networks.
If you’d like to see what military equipment your local department has acquired through the Fed’s 1033 program, you can do so at this link.
Russia has better things to do than start WW3
By Bryan MacDonald | RT | June 8, 2015
Vladimir Putin said this weekend that “Russia would attack NATO only in a mad person’s dream.” Unfortunately, there are a lot of mad people working in western politics and media.
If the G7 were based on GDP, adjusted for purchasing power, it would be comprised of the USA, China, India, Japan, Russia, Germany and Brazil. Such a lineup would have remarkable clout. Members would boast 53% of the globe’s entire GDP and the planet’s 3 genuine military superpowers would be represented.
The problem for Washington is that this putative G7 might actually be a forum for a real debate about the world order.
Instead of a real G7, we have a farce. An American dominated talking shop where the US President allows ‘friendly’ foreign leaders to tickle his belly for a couple of days. There is no dissent. Washington’s dominance goes unquestioned and everyone has a jolly time. Especially since they kicked out Russia last year – Vladimir Putin was the only guest who challenged the consensus.
However, the problem is that this ‘convenient’ G7 is way past its sell-by-date. The days when its members could claim to rule the world economically are as distant as the era of Grunge and Britpop. Today, the G7 can claim a mere 32% of the global GDP pie. Instead of heavyweights like China and India, we have middling nations such as Canada and Italy, the latter an economic basket case. Canada’s GDP is barely more than that of crisis-ridden Spain and below that of Mexico and Indonesia.
Yet, the Prime Minister of this relative non-entity, Stephen Harper, was strutting around Bavaria all weekend with the confidence of a man who believed his opinion mattered a great deal. Of course, Harper won’t pressure Obama. Rather, he prefers to – metaphorically – kiss the ring and croon from the same hymn sheet as his southern master.
NATO and the G7 – 2 sides of 1 coin?
There was lots of talk of “Russian aggression” at the G7. This was hardly a surprise given that 6 of the 7 are also members of NATO, another body at which they can tug Washington’s forelock with gay abandon. Obama was at it, David Cameron parroted his guru’s feelings and Harper was effectively calling for regime change in Russia. It apparently never occurred to the trio that resolving their issues with Russia might be easier if Putin had been in Bavaria? The knee-jerk reaction to remove Russia from the club was hardly conducive to dialogue.
Meanwhile, Matteo Renzi stayed fairly quiet. It has been widely reported that the Italian Prime Minister privately opposes the EU’s anti-Russia sanctions due to the effects on Italy’s struggling economy. Also, Renzi’s next task after the G7 summit is to welcome Putin to Rome.
With that visit in mind, Putin gave an interview to Italy’s Il Corriere della Sera where he essentially answered the questions that Obama, Cameron and Harper could have asked him if they hadn’t thrown their toys out of the pram and excluded Russia from the old G8. Putin stressed that one should not take the ongoing “Russian aggression” scaremongering in the West seriously, as a global military conflict is unimaginable in the modern world. The Russian President also, fairly bluntly, stated that “we have better things to be doing” (than starting World War 3).
Putin also touched on a point many rational commentators have continuously made. “Certain countries could be deliberately nurturing such fears,” he added, saying that hypothetically the US could need an external threat to maintain its leadership in the Atlantic community. “Iran is clearly not very scary or big enough” for this, Putin noted with irony.
A world of ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’
For Washington to maintain its huge military spending, it has to keep its citizens in a state of high alarm. Otherwise, they might insist that some of the armed forces’ cash is diverted to more productive things like hospitals and schools. These services, of course, are not very profitable for weapons manufacturers or useful for newspaper and TV editors looking for an intimidating narrative.
Following the collapse of the USSR, Russia was too weak and troubled to be a plausible enemy. Aside from its nuclear arsenal – the deployment of which would only mean mutual destruction – the bear’s humbled military was not a credible threat. Instead, the focus of warmonger’s venom shifted to the Middle East and the Balkans, where Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Slobodan Milosevic and Osama Bin Laden kept the general public’s attention occupied for roughly a decade and a half. However, they are now all dead and pro-war propaganda needs a new bad guy to play the Joker to America’s Batman.
Kim Jong-un looked promising for a while. Nevertheless, the problem here is that North Korea is too unpredictable and could very feasibly retaliate to provocations. Such a reaction could lead to a nuclear attack on Seoul, for instance, or draw Washington into a conflict with China. Even for neocons, this is too risky. Another candidate was Syria’s Basher Al-Assad. Unfortunately, for the sabre rattlers, just as they imagined they had Damascus in their sights, Putin kyboshed their plan. This made Putin the devil as far as neocons are concerned and they duly trained their guns in his direction.
Russia – a Middle East/North Africa battleground?
In the media, it is noticeable how many neocon hacks have suddenly metamorphosed from Syria ‘experts’ into Russia analysts in the past 2 years. Panda’s Mark Ames (formerly of Moscow’s eXILE ) highlighted this strange phenomenon in an excellent recent piece. Ames focused on the strange case of Michael Weiss, a New York activist who edits the anti-Russia Interpreter magazine (which is actually a blog). The Interpreter is allegedly controlled by Mikhail Khodorkovsky and a shadowy foundation called Herzen (not the original Amsterdam-based Herzen) of which no information is publicly available.
Weiss was a long-time Middle East analyst, who promoted US intervention to oust Assad. Suddenly, shortly before the initial Maidan disturbances in Kiev, he re-invented himself as a Russia and Ukraine ‘expert,’ appearing all over the US media (from CNN to Politico and The Daily Beast ) to deliver his ‘wisdom.’ This is despite the fact that he appears to know very little about Russia and has never lived there. The managing editor of The Interpreter is a gentleman named James Miller, who uses the Twitter handle @millerMENA (MENA means Middle East, North Africa). Having been to both, I can assure you that Russia and North Africa have very little in common.
Weiss and Miller are by no means unusual. Pro-War, neocon activists have made Russia their bete noir since their Syria dreams were strangled in infancy. While most are harmless enough, this pair wields considerable influence in the US media. Naturally, this is dressed up as concern for Ukraine. In reality, they care about Ukraine to about the same extent that a carnivore worries about hurting the feelings of his dinner.
Russia’s military policy is “not global, offensive, or aggressive,” Putin stressed, adding that Russia has “virtually no bases abroad,” and the few that do exist are remnants of its Soviet past. Meanwhile, it would take only 17 minutes for missiles launched from US submarines on permanent alert off Norway’s coast to reach Moscow, Putin said, noting that this fact is somehow not labeled as “aggression” in the media.
Decline of the Balts
Another ongoing problem is the Baltic States. These 3 countries have been unmitigated disasters since independence, shedding people at alarming rates. Estonia’s population has fallen by 16% in the past 25 years, Latvia’s by 25% and Lithuania’s by an astonishing 32%. Political leaders in these nations use the imaginary ‘Russian threat’ as a means to distract from their own economic failings and corruption. They constantly badger America for military support which further antagonizes the Kremlin, which in turn perceives that NATO is increasing its presence on Russia’s western border. This is the same frontier from which both Napoleon and Hitler invaded and Russians are, understandably, paranoid about it.
The simple fact is that Russia has no need for the Baltic States. Also, even if Moscow did harbor dreams of invading them, the cost of subduing them would be too great. As Russia and the US learned in Afghanistan and America in Iraq also, in the 21st century it is more-or-less impossible to occupy a population who don’t want to be occupied. The notion that Russia would sacrifice its hard-won economic and social progress to invade Kaunas is, frankly, absurd.
The reunification of Crimea with Russia is often used as a ‘sign’ that the Kremlin wishes to restore the Soviet/Tsarist Empire. This is nonsense. The vast majority of Crimean people wished to return to Russia and revoke Nikita Khrushchev’s harebrained transfer of the territory to Ukraine. Not even the craziest Russian nationalist believes that most denizens of Riga or Tallinn wish to become Russian citizens.
Putin recalled that it was French President Charles de Gaulle who first voiced the need to establish a “common economic space stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok.” As NATO doubles down on its campaign against Moscow, that dream has never looked as far off.
Bryan MacDonald is an Irish writer and commentator focusing on Russia and its hinterlands and international geo-politics. Follow him on Facebook
US presidential hopeful: Sanctions don’t facilitate ‘rapprochement’ with Russia
RT | June 8, 2015
Former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee, who has entered the race for the Democratic nomination for president, has questioned the US policy of imposing sanctions on Russia. There are “better ways to get rapprochement” with Moscow, he said.
“I should think there would be better ways of getting a rapprochement with Russia,” Democratic presidential hopeful Chafee, a fierce critic of rival frontrunner Hillary Clinton over her 2002 vote on Iraq War, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
“They’re so important in the world, and especially to the countries, the former Soviet Republics, such as Ukraine,” said Chafee, who previously served in the Senate as a Republican.
He added: “We need to wage peace in this world. That’s our responsibility. That’s the charge that we’re given with our economic power that we have.”
When asked how he would reshape relations with Russia and President Vladimir Putin, Chafee said to start with the US needs to learn from previous mistakes.
“Stop making mistakes that Secretary Clinton made when we were trying to restart our relations with Russia and Sec. Clinton presented the foreign minister with a symbolic gesture and they got the Russian word wrong. It’s those types of mistakes that set back a relationship – little symbolic mistakes.”
In 2009, the then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, with a little gift meant to highlight the Obama administration’s readiness “to press the reset button” in relationships with Moscow. Instead of the Russian word for “reset” (perezagruzka) the box featured a different word – peregruzka, which translates as “overload” or “overcharged.”
“You’ve got it wrong,” Lavrov noted with a smile. The grammatical gaffe created a stir in the media.
The carrot-and-stick policy in regard to Russia has been considered unconstructive and ineffective by a number of politicians and economists. A senior member of Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD), Matthias Platzeck, told Die Welt am Sonntag newspaper in May that among other things, “The process of disintegration in the Middle East, in Iran, Afghanistan and Syria can only be solved with Russia.”
Greece revealed last month it was asked by the US to prolong anti-Russia sanctions. Athens replied that Russia is a strategic ally and the “sanction war” is causing it an estimated loss of €4 billion a year.
“I was asked to support the prolongation of the sanctions, particularly in connection with Crimea. I explained the Ukrainian issue was very sensitive for Greece as some 300,000 Greeks live in Mariupol and its neighborhood, and they feel safe next to the Orthodox Church,” Defense Minister Panos Kammenos was cited as saying on the Ministry of National Defense website.
Italian media also previously reported that the sanctions have affected the country’s economy, with trade turnover falling by 17 percent, and the Italian economy losing 5.3 billion euros. Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said in May that “Italy can’t afford to close the doors to Russia” and “can’t cut ties” with Moscow. Gentiloni also told La Stampa newspaper that Russia plays a major role in resolving world crises.
European experts estimate that due to the sanctions, the West lost €40 billion last year, which includes a €12 billion loss by European farmers. Despite the economic difficulties that the sanctions against Russia, imposed over its stance on the conflict between Kiev and rebels in eastern Ukraine, have brought to the EU, leaders gathered at the G7 meeting on Sunday called for even tougher measures. Russia was expelled from the club last year in protest over its support for the referendum in Crimea, where the majority of residents voted for secession from Ukraine and in favor of joining Russia.
According to a statement issued by the White House after a one-on-one meeting between Angela Merkel and Barack Obama in Bavaria, it was restated that the “duration of sanctions should be clearly linked to Russia’s full implementation of the Minsk agreements and respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty.”
Ahead of Obama’s visit to Germany, White House spokesman Josh Earnest stated, however, that the introduction of the sanctions on Russia has not brought any positive results.
“I would acknowledge that we have not yet seen the kind of change in behavior that we have long sought now,” Earnest said in his daily press briefing.
The Obama administration has maintained that the longer the sanctions are in place, “the more of an economic bite they take out of the Russian economy.” This, despite the fact a number of EU members have been hit hard by Russian counter-sanctions.
“I think these sanctions are affecting Europe much more as a whole than was expected, and the others on the other side of the Atlantic are not affected at all,” former Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told RT in November.
The Minsk-2 deal, reached on February 12, includes a requirement to withdraw heavy weapons from the contact line and establish a buffer zone. But tensions have been running high in eastern Ukraine recently, leading to growing concerns that the fragile ceasefire was on the verge of collapse.
Kiev forces shelled Donbass on June 3, killing at least six people and injuring 90 others. The RT crew recorded dramatic footage of the shelling’s aftermath. The US State Department refused to acknowledge that the Kiev authorities are violating the Minsk peace agreements, however, turning a blind eye to daily OSCE reports that equally implicate the government and the rebel forces. The Ukrainian General Staff acknowledged last week that Kiev’s forces were using heavy artillery that had previously been withdrawn from the frontline under February’s Minsk peace deal.
Moscow, meanwhile, believes that the timing of the new tensions is directly connected with the upcoming EU summit, which is to take place in Brussels later this month.
2637716 06/06/2015 Firemen extinguish fire at the Oktyabrksy market caused by a shell hit during the shelling of Donetsk. Irina Gerashchenko/RIA Novosti
“Yes, indeed, in the past Kiev had already heated up tensions amid some large international events. This is the case, and now we are seriously concerned about the next repetition of such activity,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week.
At the United Nations Security Council meeting on Friday, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, told its members that he has noticed “frustration” with Kiev’s “flagrant violation and blunt ignorance of the Minsk agreements” among even those Western states that are “loyal to Kiev.” The UN Security Council members urged both sides in the Ukrainian conflict to exercise restraint and uphold the ceasefire last week.
The conflict erupted in April 2014 after Kiev sent troops to the Donetsk and Lugansk regions as local residents refused to recognize the coup-imposed authorities in the capital. According to the UN Human Rights Office, at least 6,116 people have been killed and 15,474 wounded during a year of fighting.
Soros Pushes US Bailouts and Weapons for Ukraine
By Ron Paul | June 7, 2015
If you look at the track record of the interventionists you might think they would pause before taking on more projects. Each of their past projects has ended in disaster yet still they press on. Last week the website Zero Hedge posted a report about hacked emails between billionaire George Soros and Ukrainian President Poroshenko.
Soros is very close to the Ukrainian president, who was put in power after a US-backed coup deposed the elected leader of Ukraine last year. In the email correspondence, Soros tells the Ukrainian leadership that the US should provide Ukraine “with same level of sophistication in defense weapons to match the level of opposing force.” In other words, despite the February ceasefire, Soros is pushing behind the scenes to make sure Ukraine receives top-of-the-line lethal weapons from the United States. Of course it will be up to us to pay the bill because Ukraine is broke.
But Soros seems to have the money part covered as well. In an email to Ukrainian leaders, he wrote that Ukraine’s “first priority must be to regain control of financial markets.” Soros told Poroshenko that the IMF would need to come through with a $15 billion package, which was confident would lead the Fed to also come through with more money. He wrote: “the Federal Reserve could be asked to extend a $15 billion three months swap arrangement with the National Bank of Ukraine. That would reassure the markets and avoid a panic.”
How would the Fed be convinced to do that? Soros assured Poroshenko: “I am ready to call Jack Lew of the US Treasury to sound him out about the swap agreement.”
So George Soros will use his influence in the US government to put the American people on the hook for a bankrupt Ukraine — forcing us to pay for weapons, more military training, and Ukraine’s crippling debt.
Who is thrilled with Soros’ drawing the US government into more intervention in the region? The military-industrial complex for one is happy at the prospect of big weapons “sales” to Ukraine. The bankers are thrilled. Washington power-brokers are thrilled. There is something in this for everyone who is politically well-connected. The only losers are the people who will be forced to pay for it, the American taxpayers.
No one seems to ask why we are involved in Ukraine at all. Is it really any of our business if the east wants to break away from the west? Is it a vital US interest which flag the people wish to hang in Donetsk?
One thing we should be sure of is that Ukraine’s debt will not be paid. As in other bailouts, much of it will be transferred to the US taxpayer through the IMF and the Federal Reserve. All of this is only possible because of the perception that the dollar is still the world’s reserve currency. But this too is coming to an end. US military and financial interventionism worldwide are only speeding up the process.
Featured Video
Prof Seyed Marandi: Will the US Collapse the Global Economy?
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
The Balfour Declaration – A Century of Jewish Power
By Gilad Atzmon | May 17, 2017
This year, Palestinians and their supporters mark the 100th anniversary of The Balfour Declaration, a written statement from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, to Walter Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, in favour of the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.
For Palestinians, The Balfour Declaration was the beginning of their plight: a century of ethnic cleansing at the hands of European newcomers who claim Palestine as their historic home. Yet, for some reason, supporters of the Palestinians are desperate to suppress discussion of the motivation for the Balfour Declaration – how and why did it come about? … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Prof Seyed Marandi: WILL the US COLLAPSE the GLOBAL ECONOMY?
- Larry Sanger Said Wikipedia Punishes Dissent. Then It Banned Him.
- How Darializa Avila Chevalier Is Different From Other Elected Progressives
- Israel Declares 464 Dunams in Sinjil as “State Land”
- Strait of Hormuz as strategic red line: Why Iran must confront Oman’s corridor plan and Trump’s threats
- House to vote on proposal ending $3.3bln in military aid to ‘Israel’
- Mission unaccomplished – Part I: America failed to achieve every war objective against Iran
- Iranian Victory – Gulf States Creating ‘Regional Security Framework’ With Iran
- IRGC Navy rejects new Strait of Hormuz shipping routes
- Seyed M. Marandi: Trump Lost the Iran War – Must Sell It as a Victory
- If Americans Knew
- The NDAA Proposed Merger of the U.S. and Israeli Military is Strategically Unwise and Inherently Unconstitutional
- Victories by Pro-Palestinian Democrats Show the Party’s Shift on Israel
- Massie moves to strike $3.3B in Israel military aid from the budget
- How Jeffrey Epstein’s Israeli Network Shaped Congo’s Deadly Mineral Trade
- Gaza officials warn of ‘silent famine’ as aid deliveries fall far below planned levels
- Wheat harvest becomes act of defiance as West Bank farmers race to outrun Israeli settler attacks
- The ICC must investigate Israel’s genocidal use of sexual violence
- The Myth of Israeli Self-Sufficiency
- Internal Documents Show Trump’s “Board of Peace“ Moving to Crush Palestinian Self-Determination
- Israel Blocks Hundreds of Gaza Students from Scholarships Abroad
- No Tricks Zone
- 2025 Study: Cloud Effects Reduce Downwelling Longwave Radiation, Overriding The CO2 Impact
- 3 New Studies Find Increasing Trends In Solar Radiation Since The 1980s – Easily Explaining Warming
- THE TRANSCEIVER PARADOX: Why Organoid Intelligence (OI) Could Become Our Ultimate Alien Predator
- German Wind Turbines Face Regulatory Shutdown Due To Excessive Noise
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
Aletho News 