Saturday, March 29, 2014

Obama Blows Smoke at Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin may not have been thinking war before his talk with Obama, but
he certainly may be now.

CNN reports:
 Obama said that Putin has described the breakup of the Soviet Union as tragic, and that he may feel that the West has taken advantage of Russia.
"He may be entirely misreading the West," Obama said. "He's certainly misreading American foreign policy. We have no interest in encircling Russia, and we have no interest in Ukraine -- beyond letting the Ukrainian people make their own decisions about their own lives."
Say what? Didn't the overwhelming majority of Crimeans vote to secede? Isn't that letting the people decide?

As for encircling Russia, did Obama forget that it was likely Russia that released the tape that caught U.S. officials plotting the overthrow of the democratically elected Ukranian government? Which is only one of many operations by the U.S. to encircle Russia. As Eric Margolis notes:
Soviet chairman Mikhail Gorbachev had agreed to let rebellious East Germany escape Soviet control – but in exchange for NATO’s vow not to push east in previously Soviet dominated areas of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. The US and NATO agreed, then quickly broke their pledge.

NATO’s advance into Eastern Europe, the Baltic and the Caucasus – not to mention former Soviet Central Asia -  that brought the US-led alliance right up to Russia’s borders. US anti- missile systems were scheduled to go into Poland, close to Russian territory. New US bases were set up in Bulgaria,  Romania and Central Asia.

Unsubtle US efforts to bring ex-Russian Ukraine and the vital Sevastopol naval base in Crimea under NATO control  - no doubt to punish Russia for supporting Syria and Iran – proved the last straw for the Kremlin.
Putin is not likely taking Obama's blowing smoke very well. And if Putin rolls into Ukraine, there isn't much the U.S. or NATO will be able to do about it. Margolis again:
Talking tough is easy. Defending Eastern Europe from a possible Russian invasion will not be. The main problem is that while US/NATO guarantees have been advanced to Russia’s sensitive borders, their military capabilities have not.  In short, commitment without capability.

Russia’s military could take over the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in an afternoon. Sizeable portions of their populations are ethnic Russians.

NATO is not deployed or equipped to go to war over Ukraine: its troops are far to the west, without supply systems or air cover. Besides, European powers, aside from the little Nazis in Denmark and Ukraine’s nationalists, want no part of war with Russia – that’s left to the war hawks safely at home in Washington.
But keep in mind who started things. First, it was the U.S. instigated coup in Ukraine and now sanctions. And Margolis informs about sanctions:
The barrage of trade sanctions Washington imposed on Russia is an act of pre-war. We should remember that US sanctions imposed on Japan in 1941 that led Tokyo to attack the Western powers.
Pat Buchanan also gets it:
As NATO allies Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia occupy the east coast of the Baltic Sea, NATO allies Rumania and Bulgaria occupy the west coast of the Black Sea. Turkey sits on the south coast of the Black Sea, aspiring NATO ally Georgia the east coast. Should Ukraine join NATO, as John McCain seeks, the Black Sea becomes a NATO lake.

When Putin defended the seizure of Crimea by saying he did not want to visit Russia’s two-century-old naval base at Sevastopol, and be greeted by NATO sailors, did he not have a point?...

State’s Victoria Nuland says we invested $5 billion in re-orienting Ukraine away from Russia. How would we respond if we awoke — as Putin did in February — to learn a pro-American government in Mexico City had been overthrown by street mobs financed by Beijing, a pro-China regime installed, and this unelected Mexican regime wanted out of NAFTA in favor of joining an economic union and military alliance with China?
Bottom line: The U.S. empire is mad. The grand planners of the empire really want to control the world. They will lie, cheat, steal and kill, in an attempt to advance their outrageous goals.

1 comment:

  1. Like a mirror, the situation in Ukraine reflects what is going on and what has been happening in the world over the past several decades. After the dissolution of bipolarity on the planet, we no longer have stability. Key international institutions are not getting any stronger; on the contrary, in many cases, they are sadly degrading. Our western partners, led by the United States of America, prefer not to be guided by international law in their practical policies, but by the rule of the gun. They have come to believe in their exclusivity and exceptionalism, that they can decide the destinies of the world, that only they can ever be right. They act as they please: here and there, they use force against sovereign states, building coalitions based on the principle “If you are not with us, you are against us.” To make this aggression look legitimate, they force the necessary resolutions from international organisations, and if for some reason this does not work, they simply ignore the UN Security Council and the UN overall.

    This happened in Yugoslavia; we remember 1999 very well. It was hard to believe, even seeing it with my own eyes, that at the end of the 20th century, one of Europe’s capitals, Belgrade, was under missile attack for several weeks, and then came the real intervention. Was there a UN Security Council resolution on this matter, allowing for these actions? Nothing of the sort. And then, they hit Afghanistan, Iraq, and frankly violated the UN Security Council resolution on Libya, when instead of imposing the so-called no-fly zone over it they started bombing it too.

    There was a whole series of controlled “colour” revolutions. Clearly, the people in those nations, where these events took place, were sick of tyranny and poverty, of their lack of prospects; but these feelings were taken advantage of cynically. Standards were imposed on these nations that did not in any way correspond to their way of life, traditions, or these peoples’ cultures. As a result, instead of democracy and freedom, there was chaos, outbreaks in violence and a series of upheavals. The Arab Spring turned into the Arab Winter.

    A similar situation unfolded in Ukraine. In 2004, to push the necessary candidate through at the presidential elections, they thought up some sort of third round that was not stipulated by the law. It was absurd and a mockery of the constitution. And now, they have thrown in an organised and well-equipped army of militants.

    We understand what is happening; we understand that these actions were aimed against Ukraine and Russia and against Eurasian integration. And all this while Russia strived to engage in dialogue with our colleagues in the West. We are constantly proposing cooperation on all key issues; we want to strengthen our level of trust and for our relations to be equal, open and fair. But we saw no reciprocal steps.

    On the contrary, they have lied to us many times, made decisions behind our backs, placed us before an accomplished fact. This happened with NATO’s expansion to the East, as well as the deployment of military infrastructure at our borders. They kept telling us the same thing: “Well, this does not concern you.” That’s easy to say.

    It happened with the deployment of a missile defence system. In spite of all our apprehensions, the project is working and moving forward. It happened with the endless foot-dragging in the talks on visa issues, promises of fair competition and free access to global markets.

    http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/6889

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