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What's Driving the Anti-Russia Rhetoric?
Except for president-elect Donald Trump and those supporting his administration in the making, the American political establishment--Republicans as well as Democrats--is declaring Russia to be a dangerous enemy of the United States, and declaring its leader, Vladimir Putin, to be (according to Hillary Clinton) just like Hitler.
Republican John McCain, like Clinton, views Putin as a threat to the United States, so much so that he is worried that Trump's nominee for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, is on friendly terms with Putin. McCain said:
“It’s a matter of concern to me that he [Tillerson] has such a close personal relationship with Vladimir Putin,” McCain said on CBS’s Face the Nation. “That would color his approach to Vladimir Putin and the Russian threat.”
Like all of the other Republican contenders for the GOP nomination (other than Trump himself), Marco Rubio competed with Carly Fiorina (who bragged she would not even talk to the man) to be the most hostile to Putin of all the candidates. Lately, he tweeted about Tillerson's nomination:
“Being a “friend of Vladimir” is not an attribute I am hoping for from a #SecretaryOfState.”
GOP nominee in 2012, Mitt Romney, declared then:
"Russia...is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe. They fight every cause for the world's worst actors."
One could thus be excused for thinking that these political establishment leaders harbor a genuine fear of Russia. But there are reasons to believe otherwise.
For starters, the campaign to villify Putin as a dangerous aggressor is simply unconvincing, as this article and this article and many others point out.
Next, consider Hillary Clinton's dealings with Russia, a nation led by a man whom she purports to believe is the new Hitler. When Clinton was Secretary of State, she was in a position to veto the sale of a controlling stake in a company--Uranium One--to the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom. Uranium One controlled uranium mines in the United States. Clinton did nothing to stop this sale, although she could have vetoed it.
The only thing that is in dispute in this story is whether or not the reason Clinton did not veto the sale was because of a quid pro quo in exchange for $500,000 paid to her husband for a speech he gave to a Russian bank, or for donations some players in this deal made to the Clinton Foundation. In either case, if Clinton were sincerely fearful of Russia, why would she have allowed Russia to acquire uranium inside the United States? The answer can be found by re-examining the old Cold War.
The Phony 'Cold War'
Let's go back in history a few decades. During the Cold War we Americans were told that the Soviet Union was our deadly enemy. Russia wanted to conquer us, or blow us to smithereens with nuclear bombs. The Russian threat was so great, our leaders kept telling us, that we needed to have a military industrial complex larger and greedier than anything we would otherwise have tolerated. One day, when we vanquish the evil Soviet empire, we were promised, we won't have to produce so many guns and we'll be able to produce butter--better schools and hospitals and infrastructure and things to make our lives better and more enjoyable. But not as long as the Evil Empire threatens us.
Back then we all believed that our leaders genuinely were fearful of the Soviet Union, especially as it became a stronger and stronger military power. Little did we know that our leaders were not fearful of the Soviet Union at all. Not only were our leaders not afraid of the Soviet Union's growing military power, they (Democrats and Republicans alike) were doing all they could to help the Soviet Union become militarily stronger.
Yes, you read that last sentence right!
America's corporate and government elite, during the Cold War--including during the Korean and Vietnam wars--provided enormous quantities of military technology and materiele to the Soviet Union, without which the Soviet Union would not have been the strong military power it was.
In the Vietnam War the North Vietnamese were armed with Soviet-supplied weapons provided to the Soviets by top American corporate and government leaders. Needless to say, American GIs in Vietnam were not informed of this.
How can I make such a preposterous claim, you might ask? Well, the facts are laid out in a book titled National Suicide: Military Aid to the Soviet Union written by Antony C. Sutton in 1974. The book is 270 pages of thoroughly documented evidence that American corporate and government leaders armed the Soviet Union (essentially in secret) while pretending to fear it as our implacable enemy. This book is available from Amazon and I have typed out some excerpts from it for you to read here. If you don't believe me, read the excerpts. If that still leaves you in doubt, read the book. If you're still skeptical, verify Sutton's references independently. But please do not just wave your hands and say, "Oh, I can't believe this is true."
But Why?
But what could possibly explain American corporate and government leaders arming the Soviet Union while pretending to fear it? Why send American GIs to fight communist military forces in Korea and Vietnam while arming those very communist forces?
The answer is not that mysterious. Our corporate and government elite had very rational (although evil) reasons for arming the Soviet Union. They wanted a credible bogeyman enemy with which to frighten and control the American public. Such an enemy is of enormous benefit to a ruling elite. It justifies everything the elite does that the public would otherwise not tolerate.
A credible enemy makes the public willing to not question the upper class (in the name of patriotism uniting us all against the common enemy.) A good bogeyman will make people ignore the actions of their upper class rulers despite the objectionable class inequality and privilege enjoyed by that upper class at the expense of ordinary people suffering economic hardship. Some "hot war" fighting and the deaths of soldiers on both sides make this social control strategy work best: "If American GIs are dying the enemy must be as terrible as the nation's leaders claim."
When ordinary people aren't fearful of a bogeyman foreign enemy then they may direct their righteous anger at the REAL enemy--the upper class. An oppressive ruling class without a credible bogeyman enemy is in an extremely dangerous situation indeed!
This is what the Soviet Union's last President, Mikhail Gorbachev, knew--and what he knew the American diplomats he was speking with knew--when, as the Soviet Union was abolishing its communist self, he told the American diplomats, "I will do something very terrible to you America--I am going to take away your enemy."
It took a while for the American ruling class to figure out with what to replace the old Communist bogeyman enemy. Eventually it decided to give the honor to "Muslim terrorists" (as discussed in Dave Stratman's Inventing the Enemy.)
But "Muslim terrorists" are an imperfect enemy, according to top elite strategist, Zbigniew Brzezinski. In his Washington Post article titled, "Terrorized by the 'War on Terror,'" Brzezinski says the War on Terror is in many ways harmful and far too unsophisticated ideologically to be the basis of American power in the world for the long term. "Maybe that good old fashioned Cold War against Russia is what we really need," is apparently the thinking of a lot of corporate and government elite people today. Brzezinski has come up with an excellent rationalization for such a renewed Cold War.
In his 2016 article, "Toward a Global Realignment," [ http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/04/17/toward-a-global-realignment/ ] Brzezinski says:
"Russia’s own future depends on its ability to become a major and influential nation-state that is part of a unifying Europe."
About Europe, Brzezinski says in the same article:
"The fourth verity is that Europe is not now and is not likely to become a global power. But it can play a constructive role in taking the lead in regard to transnational threats to global wellbeing and even human survival. Additionally, Europe is politically and culturally aligned with and supportive of core U.S. interests in the Middle East, and European steadfastness within NATO is essential to an eventually constructive resolution of the Russia-Ukraine crisis."
In other words, in the new world order Europe shall remain under the economic and political hegemony of the United States ruling class, and Russia shall be a part of Europe. And since the Russian leaders today are not cooperating with this "Global Realignment" then some military force is called for; hence the warmongering and the new Cold War.
A strong case can be made that Brzezinski's strategic hostility to Russia is more than simply a rationalization for a new, phony, Cold War with Russia. There are real economic stakes, about things such as the location of oil pipelines in the Middle East, that pit American capitalists against Russian capitalists. It is quite possible that Hillary Clinton's eagerness to confront Russia militarily (by imposing a 'no fly zone' in Syria) reflects a willingness to actually go to war against Russia and even use nuclear weapons to defeat Russia.
The thinking behind this willingness to risk thermonuclear war is based on the belief (not necessarily true) by American strategists that the U.S. is now capable of launching a nuclear first strike against Russia that can not only prevent Russia from retaliating with nuclear weapons but also avoid the production of radiation by U.S. weapons. I discuss this in my article, "Why U.S. Rulers Don't Fear Nuclear WWIII with Russia." The fact remains, however, that the American anti-Russia warmongers are not motivated by any genuine fear that Russia's Putin is the new Hitler aiming to conquer us or Europeans. That was BS in the past when Russia was Communist and it is still BS.
Moral of the story? To end the warmongering--to end Americans being sent to fight and kill innocent people and die or be injured mentally or physically in the process--we have to remove the American ruling class from power. This is what www.PDRBoston.org is all about.
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