A senior Russian diplomat confirms: “Russia is preparing for war” – is anybody listening?

The Saker

November 02, 2018

[This analysis was written for the Unz Review]

Andrei Belousov, deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department of Nonproliferation and Arms Control, has recently made an important statement which I shall quote in full and then provide a translation.

Original Russian text: “Тут недавно на заседании Соединенные Штаты заявили, что Россия готовится к войне. Да, Россия готовится к войне, я это подтверждаю. Да, мы готовимся защищать нашу родину, нашу территориальную целостность, наши принципы, наших людей. Мы готовимся к такой войне. Но у нас есть серьезные отличия от Соединенных Штатов Америки. И в лингвистическом плане это отличие заключается всего в одном слове, что в русском языке, что в английском языке: Российская Федерация готовится к войне, а Соединенные Штаты Америки готовят войну”

Translation: “Recently at a meeting the United States stated that Russia is preparing for war. Yes, Russia is preparing for war, I can confirm it.  Yes, we are preparing to defend our homeland, our territorial integrity, our principles, our values, our people. We are preparing for such a war.  But there is a major difference between us and the United States.  Linguistically, this difference is just in one word, in both Russian and English: Russia is preparing for war while the United States is preparing a war” (emphasis added).

We are so used to western diplomats and politicians saying more or less anything and everything (as the joke goes: when do you know that a politician is lying? When his lips move) that many of us stopped paying attention to what is being said. If tomorrow Trump or some “Congressperson” goes on national TV and declares “read my lips – up is down, dry is wet and yes means no” – most of us will just ignore it. The truth is that being exposed to that constant stream of empty, bombastic and always dishonest statements makes most of us immune to verbal warnings, even when they come from non-western political figures.

It is, therefore, crucial to fully realize that Russian official and diplomats carefully measure every word they say and that when they repeat over and over again that Russia is ready for war, they actually and truly mean it!

Of course, there have been those in the West who fully saw this danger and have been warning about it for years, I especially think of Prof. Stephen Cohen and Paul Craig Roberts here.  And I have been warning about this for four years now, beginning with the article “Obama just made things much, much worse in the Ukraine – now Russia is ready for war” posted on March 1st, 2014, followed by many more articles with the same warning since (see “The Russian response to a double declaration of war” on September 27th, 2014; “Did Russia just “gently” threaten the USA?” on November 12th, 2015; “Debunking popular clichés about modern warfare” on May 19th, 2016; “How Russia is preparing for WWIII” on May 26, 2016; “A Russian warning” on June 1st 2016; “Assessing the Russian Military as an Instrument of Power” on August 25th, 2016; “Progress report on the US-Russian war” on December 1st, 2017; “What price will mankind have to pay for the collapse of the Empire?” on April 13th, 2018; “Each “click” brings us one step closer to the “bang!” on April 20th, 2018).  But for all our efforts, we have been “voices crying in the wilderness” which is hardly surprising since even Putin’s blunt warning during his March 1st speech to the Russian Federal Assembly was quickly dismissed as “posturing” and quickly forgotten.  This is why two weeks following that historical speech I compared Russia to a peaceful rattlesnake (yes, they are peaceful creatures!) desperately trying to warn a drunk idiot to back-off but to no avail: the drunk idiot just boastfully declares “hold my beer and watch this” and tries to grab the snake.  I concluded by saying that:

May, Trump, Macron and Merkel, of course, but also their sycophantic presstitutes and the herds of zombified followers all believe in their invulnerability and superiority. The terrifying truth is that these folks have NO IDEA whom they are dealing with nor do they understand the consequences of pushing Russia too hard. Oh, in theory they do (yeah, yeah, Napoleon, Hitler, we know!). But in their guts, they feel safe, superior and just can’t conceive that they can die, and their entire society can just disappear.

Sadly, since then things have only gotten worse.  This is why a clearly disgusted and frustrated Putin recently declared that

“Any aggressor should know that retribution will be inevitable and he will be destroyed. And since we will be the victims of his aggression, we will be going to heaven as martyrs. They will simply croak and won’t even have time to repent,”

Needless to say, the western ziomedia interpreted this warning as a sign of “Russian aggression,” not as a desperate attempt to wake up a delusional and infinitely arrogant Empire.

By the way – something very similar has been happening between the USA and China with an increasing number of Chinese officials publicly declaring that the Chinese armed forces need to prepare for war (here is just the latest such warning).

Sadly, the Chinese warnings are as ignored and as dismissed as the Russian ones.  And that is truly frightening.

At least during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the entire world press was reporting about the confrontation minute by minute, and everybody knew that the danger of war was very real. In contrast today, hardly anybody gives the possibility of war much thought. In fact, the leaders of the AngloZionist Empire seem to be dead set on multiplying their provocations against Russia ranging from holding major military exercises right at the Russian border to giving the most prestigious EU human right prize to a convicted terrorist (the Poles, always so helpful, even suggested that Sentsov ought to be given the Nobel!). The EU also failed to notice the Ukronazi acts of piracy in the Sea of Azov but instead, condemned Russia for strictly enforcing her legal right to retaliate for the Ukronazi actions.

Such a level of hypocrisy is disgusting, of course.  But it is also very, very dangerous.

Frankly, considering the fantastic and genuinely heroic efforts of Putin and Xi to avoid a major (nuclear) war with the Empire, I would suggest that they, not convicted terrorists, be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (but I am not holding my breath here…)!

In sharp contrast to the western corporate media, the Russian media has been discussing the possibility of war with the US/NATO on a daily basis, and the discussion always revolves around the question “are they really crazy enough to actually attack us even though that would mean their certain destruction?!“. In fairness to the Russians, seeing folks like Nikki Haley or John Bolton, the question of “are they crazy?” is a logical one. But I think that it is also possibly misleading. Here is why:

While clearly some Neocons are truly batshit crazy, most are not. Stupid, ignorant, arrogant, hateful and evil – yes. But not necessarily insane. And for that reason, I don’t think that the AngloZionist leaders will stumble into a war against Russia as a result of their insanity. Besides, while US politicians are, indeed, amazingly stupid and ignorant, there are enough men in the US armed forces who remember the warning of Field Marshal and Viscount of Alamein Bernard Montgomery who famously declared to the House of Lords:

“Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: “Do not march on Moscow”. Various people have tried it, Napoleon and Hitler, and it is no good. That is the first rule. I do not know whether your Lordships will know Rule 2 of war. It is: “Do not go fighting with your land armies in China.” It is a vast country, with no clearly defined objectives“.

Most senior US military commanders must realize that war against Russia and/or China is a suicidal proposition.

But while the insanity of western leaders is unlikely to cause a war, I am afraid that their despair might.

Think of it: right now the USA is engaged in two parallel processes: on the one hand the USA is involved in sanctions and economic wars against most of the planet while on the other hand, the USA is withdrawing from one major international treaty after another (including arms control treaties). Ask yourself a simple question: is this the behavior of a country which is weak or strong? What does this “full-spectrum” policy of confrontation and self-isolation (because that is what withdrawing from so many agreements and treaties does: isolate the USA) mean? Does it signal the actions of a confident and strong power or one which is desperate and lashes out on all levels?

As this short post by Larchmonter445 reminds us, the current batch of US leaders are first and foremost *losers* and while they are still doing a pretty good job of window-dressing and flag-waving, it is becoming increasingly impossible to hide the magnitude of the multi-level slow-motion collapse of the AngloZionist Empire. I suppose that the band playing on the deck of the Titanic also played louder and louder, but the outcome of the show was never in doubt. The same is happening here and therein lies an enormous danger: the harder it becomes to conceal the magnitude of the unfolding disaster, the more the Empire lashes out, making the situation even worse which then makes it even harder to conceal the magnitude of the disaster. The Empire in general, and the USA specifically, is literally cracking on all levels and there is absolutely no reasonable and halfway viable way to reverse this trend because the one and only solution for the USA to survive is to give up the Empire and become a “normal” country – something US leaders are not even willing to contemplate. The Neocons, especially, seem to have a quasi-religious belief (or maybe it is just an uncontrolled knee-jerk reaction) that when one of their putative “clever” plans fail, the correct solution is to double-down. They seem to have fully internalized the German aphorism “wenn es mit Gewalt nicht geht, dann geht es mit mehr Gewalt!” (if violence can’t fix it, then even more violence will), forgetting that this belief did Germany no good against Russia. As for the general western public, it has been successfully turned into what I call “ideological drones“: brainwashed automatons who will wave their (Chinese made) flags to cope with any residual cognitive dissonance.  When their certitudes finally come crashing down, they will also lash out at everything and everybody in abject despair and impotent rage.

Right now the USA and the “global West” (aka the AngloZionist Empire) are on a direct collision course with Russia (and probably China too).  Right now, I see very few signs that anybody in the western elites is able (or willing) to admit that at the end of that road there is war and the destruction of the USA (and possibly much of Europe).  Right now, the leaders of the Empire appear to be firmly locked into what the French call the “fuite en avant” (which can roughly be translated as “flight forward”, or “headlong rush”, “panic-induced compulsion to further exacerbate a crisis or calamity” or even “unconscious mechanism that causes a person to throw himself/herself into a dreaded danger”). I suppose that there is a sad and tragic irony in the fact that the result of the US elites constantly conjuring up some completely imaginary Russian “interventions” (in the USA and elsewhere) might eventually result in a very real Russia intervention, in the form of devastating missile strikes, but this is hardly a consolation.

How likely is that to change in the foreseeable future?

Not very likely, I am afraid.

Will Putin and Xi be able to avert the looming war with the West?

Maybe.  But with each passing day bringing only further escalations and provocations from the “global West” their task is becoming harder and harder.

So far all the Russian and Chinese warnings have fallen on deaf ears and, frankly, I don’t believe that more warnings will do any good.

This might be the time for Russia and China to begin pushing back seriously. Everything else has failed, at least so far.

The Saker

Lil’ Miss AIPAC Nikki Haley Ends Her Reign of Terror at the UN

Source

“As a blogger and political analyst, I’m a little sad that Haley’s gone. She was the geopolitical gift that kept on giving”

The world is not shedding any tears now that Lil ‘Miss AIPAC, Nikki Haley, has finished her time puffing up her political resume at the U.N.  To describe her performance as U.N. Ambassador over the last two years as strident and obnoxious would be a kindness.

Haley, simply put, was out of her depth as a diplomat, preferring to pre-run for President and shore up the support of the Israeli lobby in the U.S. rather than do her job with any modicum of honesty or integrity.

Her resigning quickly after the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is interesting, however.

While she has been, nominally, one of President Trump’s most public supporters she has also been instrumental in undermining Trump on foreign policy initiatives that do not comport with the wishes of her pay-masters at AIPAC.

While it is questionable how far Trump bows to the powerful Israeli lobby, no such questions should arise with Haley.  She literally invites my nickname for her with every public pronouncement.

Neocons Never Die

So, what are the implications of this move by Haley less than thirty days before the mid-terms elections?

Well, the first part of this is obvious.  The neoconservative/Never-Trump wing of the GOP, still smarting that their plan to hurt Trump by helping the Democrats scuttle the Kavanaugh appointment, are continuing to push the narrative that Trump has no control in the White House.

So, Haley, one of his best allies in the Administration, resigns suddenly to continue that appearance.  It doesn’t matter that she apparently wanted out before year end.  She could have held off until after the mid-terms to assist Trump in getting the GOP over the finish line with the House and Senate intact.

She didn’t do that.  And if that doesn’t clarify for you just who she truly works for, then sadly nothing will.

Honestly, she has been such a caricature of a Neocon during her time miscast as a diplomat, anyone would be better than her short of Paul Wolfowitz or Dick Cheney, because John Bolton already got a promotion to National Security Advisor.

Nimrata’s Gift of Garbage

As a blogger and political analyst, I’m a little sad that Haley’s gone.  She was the geopolitical gift that kept on giving every time she said something monumentally vile as she transparently worked to undermine anyone not fully on board with the Protocols of the Elders of AIPAC.

But, it’s not like Nimrata will be leaving the public spotlight.  She craves it too much.  The U.N. Ambassadorship was always simply her bully pulpit to plot her course to the Presidency.

And it’s sad that she wasn’t gone twenty minutes before that speculation began hitting the Twitterati of the Right.  The only thing more ignorant than that is the Leftists who see the invisible hand of Vladimir Putin behind every move of the Trump Administration thinking Haley was somehow Trump and Putin’s enemy at that level.

The likely story here is that, as I said, Haley was done burnishing her political throne at the U.N. and is looking for the next step in her designs on the White House.

I’m having a hard time believing that she resigned due to the recent report of her accepting luxury flights as gifts.  That’s something with her connections and positioning she could weather.  Seriously, does anyone think a few free flights would be enough to take down, one of the biggest war-hawks in D.C.?

If you do then you still probably think Elon Musk is a genius.

So, that leaves us with a few possibilities off the top of my head.

1. Trump will fire Jeff Sessions after the mid-terms as is expected.  And Lindsay Graham will be promoted to Attorney General (not bloody likely).  This would pave the way for Nimrata to replace him in the Senate and set her up as the AIPAC Candidate of Choice for 2020 or 2024, depending on whether a Trump removal is successful.
2. She was the one who wrote the infamous New York Times Op-Ed, or at least was the one who released it to the Times, and Trump fired her from the administration over it, because this resignation blind-sided everyone.
3. She has been instrumental in facilitating MI-6 operations to undermine Trump’s plans to forge better relations with Russia and has been coordinating them through the U.N.  This is pure speculation on my part.  Just spitballing here.

If either #2 or #3 are correct then Trump feels confident that his position in D.C. has improved to the point where he can begin removing the neocon influence from his administration.  The shootdown of the IL-20 fiasco has French, British and Israeli fingerprints all over it.  And nearly got us involved in a war with Russia, something both Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis do not want.

Something about this doesn’t feel right.  And it’s either the beginning of the end of the Neoconservative reign o’er Trump or it’s them tightening the noose around his neck.

The next few weeks will tell the tale.

Either way, with Hurricane Michael bearing down on Waffle House country, Nimrata’s waitressing skills could be put to productive use for the first time in two years

John Bolton, and his boss President Donald Trump, are enemies of our future.

Enemy Of Our Future
By Lawrence Davidson

If you look up the meaning of the term “reactionary,” you will probably get something like the following: “A reactionary is a person who holds political views that favor a return to the status quo ante, the previous political state of society, which they believe possessed characteristics that are … absent from the contemporary status quo of a society.”

Historically, this sort of person pops up over and again: the agents of monarchy fighting to reimpose the divine right of kings, the devotee of religious movements seeking to return society to some purer golden age, the leader of the social movement seeking to censor evolution, and, more to our present point, Donald Trump’s call to “make America Great Again” by reintroducing racism and ultra-nationalism as guides for public policy. As the last example suggests, it is usually bad news when the reactionary gains power.

One aspect of the status quo ante we are dealing with here is represented by the Trump administration’s assertion that, as the leader of the government of a sovereign state, he has the right to act in an unrestrained manner. For President Trump, such an alleged right is a sine qua non for “making America great again.” This assertion is, of course, not unique to Trump. Most U.S. presidents (and other leaders) have sought to act in an unrestrained way. But most have also given at least lip-service to a set of international rules—even if they are only of a diplomatic nature. Not so with Trump, who seems willing to dismantle treaties, alliances and trade pacts based on personal feelings. His only enduring alliance is with Israel, perhaps based on mutual racist inclinations.

Present (that is, status quo) institutions that attempt to impose international rules of behavior are targets for Trump and his reactionary allies. To Trump, these institutions must be done away with just because they stand in the way of the nation’s alleged traditional unfettered right to act as, in this case, President Trump sees fit.

Specifically, which institutions are we referring to? They are the relatively weak international institutions that came into being after World War II, such as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC). These are organizations put into place to discourage the type of state-bred chaos and crimes that almost destroyed civilization in the 1930s and 1940s. Therefore, there is no doubt that this effort is central to the world’s future peace and progress. As George Santayana famously noted, “those who forget the the past are condemned to repeat it.” The same goes for those who simply ignore the past’s lessons

The ICC, which was established by a multilateral treaty known as the Rome Statute, has been functioning since 2002. It seeks to prosecute, among other things, any repeat of two horrid past mistakes: the commission of war crimes and the practice of apartheid. Recently, the ICC has sought to officially investigate possible U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan as well as Israeli policies and actions against Gaza and on the occupied West Bank.

Part II—John Bolton

It appears that these efforts on the part of the ICC have set off a storm of indignation at the White House. In response, President Trump has set loose his present National Security Adviser, John Bolton, to orchestrate an attack on the international court. Bolton is nothing if not a pit bull in human form—the perfect point man to carry on the administration’s war on those who would keep the peace through the application of international law.

Thus, in early September, 2018, Bolton declared the following: “The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court.” Alas, Bolton is using “false news” here. There is nothing illegitimate about the ICC. As noted, its establishment was by international treaty and followed a strict ratification process. To date, 123 countries have ratified the Rome Statute. Also note that Bolton is assuming future prosecution as a reason for trying to block the present investigation. That would suggest that he believes the U.S. is vulnerable. And finally, the allies referenced here amount to just one. Bolton stated that the “Palestinian Liberation Organization’s office in Washington was being ordered closed out of concern about Palestinian attempts to prompt an ICC investigation of Israel.”

So what will the U.S. do if the ICC persists? Bolton, at this point working up a real head of steam, declared that “We will not cooperate with ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us.” In addition, “if the inquiry goes ahead, the administration will consider banning judges and prosecutors from entering the United States, put sanctions on any funds they have in the U.S. financial system and prosecute them in American courts.”

Part III—Enemy of Our Future

To the extent that the United States, or any other country, reverts to ultra-nationalism and stands against institutions such as the United Nations and the ICC, it endangers the future of not only Americans, but everyone else.

And that is one of the reasons why John Bolton, and his boss President Donald Trump, are enemies of our future. It is not that they have forgotten the tragedies brought upon the world by nationalism and its wars—culminating in the genocidal bloodbath of World War II. It is probable that they do not see these tragedies as criminal. Rather they see them as necessary actions on the road to national greatness. This is a perspective they would call “realistic” and in line with mankind’s aggressive nature. Thus, institutions that seek to criminalize such behavior are just hopelessly “idealistic” roadblocks to the pursuit of the national interests of the United States.

Perhaps more important is that the rest of the world’s population has also either remained ignorant of or forgotten such vital lessons, and so once more can be led by dangerously narrow-minded leaders into the next abyss. Karl M. von der Heyden, who as a small child survived the destruction of Berlin at the end of World War II, has written a brief testimony to the consequences of war and inadequate memory. Mr. von der Heyden tells us that now, “seventy years after World War II, millions of people in the U.S. and Europe have forgotten the lessons learned from that war.” That is why “ultra-nationalist and xenophobic appeals” are once more politically acceptable and successful. Thus, in the long run, “nothing can be taken for granted.”

Placing people like Trump and Bolton into leading government positions is the same as inviting fascism back into our national lives. And, we have issued that invitation quite democratically. This raises questions about the adequacy of not only our political system, but also our educational system. It would seem that the two are different sides of the same coin. The political system can work only if the educational system can sustain the memory of important national lessons learned in the past. At this point both systems have failed us—allowing into power enemies of our future.

Lawrence Davidson is a retired professor of history from West Chester University in West Chester PA. His academic research focused on the history of American foreign relations with the Middle East. He taught courses in Middle East history, the history of science and modern European intellectual history.

Amerika Uber Alles

Amerika Uber Alles 
By Eric Margolis

This was hell week in New York City. Traffic was paralyzed from one end of the narrow island to the other as bigwigs and their entourages flocked to the city for the fall opening of the United Nations.

Making matters worse, President Donald Trump chose the occasion to lambaste nations he does not like in a crude display of boorishness not seen since Soviet boss Nikita Khrushchev banged his shoe on his desk at the General Assembly back in 1960.

Trump reserved special venom for his pet bêtes noirs, Iran and China. His jeremiad against Iran was reportedly written by senior aide Stephen Miller, a rabidly anti-Muslim extremist who speaks with the voice of Israel’s expansionist far right.

Trump reiterated his doctrine of American ultra-nationalism. Political and economic nationalism are his credo. The president claimed he had indeed made America great again, whatever that means.

The president’s speech was greeted by derisive laughter from the General Assembly, a first in UN history.

I was reminded of Dr. Samuel Johnson’s famous bon mot, ‘patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.’ Indeed it is.

And of the words of the late British professor, A.P. Thornton: ‘Patriotism is the first platform of fools.’

Patriotism is poison. Dictators, despots, lunatics – and too many democratic politicians – use it to inflame popular passions to enhance their power. There is nothing wrong with loving and respecting one’s homeland. Canadians offer a fine example of quiet national pride without obnoxious flag-waving and bullying.

But everything is wrong with unleashing toxic nationalist emotions to promote empire-building or eradicating whole peoples. Look at the current horrors in Burma and the recent mass crimes in Bosnia.

As a former soldier and war correspondent, I cringe when I see all the faux patriotism of sports events, chants of ‘USA, ‘USA,’ and pro-war propaganda on TV. Having walked many of the battlefields of World War I, on which millions died, I detest the kind of patriotic cant that ended the civilized glories of pre-war, 19th Century Europe. The idiotic cries in 1914 of ‘on to Berlin’ and ‘on to Paris’ haunt us. Their modern version was ‘Get Saddam’ and ‘bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.’

Trump, who sees himself as more an emperor than democratic president, continues to press for war with Iran, egged on by the cabal of pro-Israel advisors that surround him. Billionaire gambling king Sheldon Adelson pulls the strings from just backstage.

Now, in a new eruption of paranoia, President Trump just claimed that China was trying to rig this fall’s elections. How? By placing tariffs on US agricultural exports to China to punish Trump’s many supporters in the farm belt.

Add Trump’s economic war against Turkey which had locked up an American evangelical pastor accused of involvement in the attempted 2016 coup against the elected government. This contrived furor was clearly aimed at pleasing Trump’s core evangelical supporters. No matter that America was spitting in the face of old ally Turkey whose soldiers had saved many American GI’s during the 1950-53 Korean War and allows the US to keep nuclear weapons at its Incirlik air base.

Unfortunately, many Americans who have never known war at home since 1865 are all too eager to follow a path to war provided it’s far away and a turkey shoot. But now, having bombed all the usual Muslims and ravaged the Mideast, our national security state has to face the ominous reality that the US may have to confront real, big-time enemies, Russia and China. This clearly invokes the nightmare threat of a nuclear confrontation.

President Trump, who thundered at North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, ‘my nuclear button is bigger than yours,’ is not the best pilot to guide his nation through dangerous waters. While Trump has some solid advisors – generals Mattis and Kelly – he is also surrounded by a coterie of political fanatics, many plucked from the political gutter. Trump’s unnecessary trade wars and embargoes could easily lead to shooting wars.

We don’t need nationalism, we need wise, cautious leadership.

Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times, the Khaleej Times, Nation – Pakistan, Hurriyet, – Turkey, Sun Times Malaysia and other news sites in Asia. ericmargolis.com

Trump Regime’s Rage for Regime Change in Venezuela

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)

Beginning with the Clinton co-presidency, US regimes opposed Venezuela’s Bolivarian social democracy, wanting pro-Western puppet rule replacing it.

In 2001, after Hugo Chavez compared Bush/Cheney’s global war on terrorism with the 9/11 attacks, Washington’s ambassador Donna Hrinak was recalled for consultations.

Ahead of Bush/Cheney’s aborted two-day April 2002 coup against Chavez, State Department cables said it couldn’t be ruled out, the incident one of others to follow against him and Nicolas Maduro.

Days earlier, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza tweeted:

“Venezuela reiterates its denouncement and condemns the continuing aggressions that the US government has directly promoted against the constitutional President @NicolasMaduro, democratically elected and re-elected by a wide electoral margin in May of this same year,” separately tweeting:

“We denounce the intervention plans and support for military conspirators by the government of the United States against Venezuela. Even in US media, the crass evidence is coming to light.”

Like their predecessors, Trump regime hardliners want Maduro removed. International law prohibits interfering in the affairs of other nations, except in self-defense if attacked.

The 1970 UN General Assembly Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation Among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations (Resolution 2625) affirmed “the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples” in all nations.

It proclaimed their right to “freely determine, without external interference, their political status and to pursue their economic, social and cultural development” – requiring compliance by all member states.

It prohibited the “threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state,” calling for resolving disputes “by peaceful means.”

International, constitutional and US statute laws never impede Washington’s aim to topple ruling authorities in nations it opposes – Venezuela a prime target because of its world’s largest oil reserves Republicans and undemocratic Dems want control over.

Rex Tillerson when secretary of state and Mike Pompeo when CIA director openly called for toppling Maduro.

At the time, Pompeo accused the Venezuelan president of usurping power and inflicting pain on the Venezuelan people – a bald-faced lie, ignoring US political and economic war on the country still raging.

As CIA director, Pompeo orchestrated months of street violence, falsely calling Bolivarian social democracy a threat to US security, supported by Trump instead of denouncing and preventing what’s going on.

Straightaway after replacing Tillerson as secretary of state last March, Pompeo warned about toughening Trump regime policies against US security threats in Latin America – despite none existing, aiming his remarks mainly at Venezuela.

Illegal sanctions were increased, political and economic war escalated. At the time, Trump said he wouldn’t rule out a “military option” to remove Maduro. Added toughness against Cuba was signaled.

Former Reagan administration assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs Roger Noreiga accused then-under secretary of state for political affairs Thomas Shannon of failing to pursue enough toughness against Maduro.

When Pompeo replaced Tillerson at State, he said Trump regime policies can reverse what he called “shortcomings” in Latin America by “get(ting) tough on (regional) hot spots.”

On Friday, Pompeo warned of unspecified “actions” the Trump regime intends pursuing against Venezuela, saying:

“You’ll see in the coming days a series of actions that continue to increase the pressure level against the Venezuelan leadership…who are working directly against the best interest of the Venezuelan people.”

“We’re determined to ensure that the Venezuelan people get their say.” Maybe he has another coup d’etat, political assassination, or war of aggression in mind.

The Trump regime’s notion of what National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis called “a peaceful, orderly return to democracy” is all about eliminating it wherever it exists and preventing its emergence elsewhere.

Venezuelan Bolivarian social democracy is a prime Trump regime target for elimination. Another attempt to remove Maduro could come any time.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Stephen Lendman

Stephen Lendman was born in 1934 in Boston, MA. In 1956, he received a BA from Harvard University. Two years of US Army service followed, then an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. After working seven years as a marketing research analyst, he joined the Lendman Group family business in 1967. He remained there until retiring at year end 1999. Writing on major world and national issues began in summer 2005. In early 2007, radio hosting followed. Lendman now hosts the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network three times weekly. Distinguished guests are featured. Listen live or archived. Major world and national issues are discussed. Lendman is a 2008 Project Censored winner and 2011 Mexican Journalists Club international journalism award recipient.

The United States of America – The Real Reason Why They Are Never Winning Their Wars

By Peter Koenig

Global Research, September 20, 2018

This essay is inspired by Professor James Petras’s article, describing that the US never wins wars despite trillions of investments in her war budget and obvious military superiority.

Professor Petras is of course right, the United States is currently engaged in seven bloody wars around the globe (Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya) and has not been winning one, including WWII. The question is: Why is that?

To these wars, you may want to add the totally destructive and human rights adverse war that literally slaughters unarmed civilians, including thousands of children, in an open-air prison, Gaza, the US proxy war on Palestine, carried out by Israel; plus, warmongering on Iran, Venezuela and North Korea. Let alone the new style wars – the trade wars with China, Europe, and to some extent, Mexico and Canada, as well as the war of sanctions, starting with Russia and reaching around the world – the fiefdom of economic wars also illegal by any book of international economics.

Other wars and conflicts, that were never intended to be won, include the dismantlement of Yugoslavia by the Clinton / NATO wars of the 1990s, the so-called Balkanization of Yugoslavia, ‘Balkanization’, a term now used for other empire-led partitions in the world, à la “divide to conquer”. Many of the former Yugoslav Republics are still not at peace internally and among each other. President Tito, a Maoist socialist leader was able to keep the country peacefully together and make out of Yugoslavia one of the most prosperous countries in Europe in the seventies and 1980s. How could this be allowed, socioeconomic wellbeing in a socialist country? – Never. It had to be destroyed. At the same time NATO forces advanced their bases closer to Moscow. But no war was won. Conflicts are still ongoing, “justifying” the presence of NATO, for European and US “national security”.   

Then, let’s not forget the various Central American conflicts, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, the 8-year Iraq – Iran war – and many more, have created havoc and disorder, and foremost killed millions of people and weakened the countries affected. They put the population into misery and constant fear – and they keep requiring weapons to maintain internal hostilities, warfare and terror to this day.
 
All of these wars are totally unlawful and prohibited by any international standards of law. But the special and exceptional nation doesn’t observe them. President Trump’s bully National security Advisor, John Bolton, recently threatened the ICC and its judges with ‘sanctions’ in case the dare prosecution of Israeli and American war criminals. And the world doesn’t seem to care, and, instead, accepts the bully’s rule, afraid of the constant saber-rattling and threats being thrown out at the resisters of this world. Even the United Nations, including the 15-member Security Council, is afraid to stand up to the bully – 191 countries against 2 (US and Israel) is a no go?

None of these wars, hot wars or cold wars, has ever been won. Nor were they intended to be won. And there are no signs that future US-led wars will ever be won; irrespective of the trillions of dollars spent on them, and irrespective of the trillions to come in the future to maintain these wars and to start new ones. If we, the 191 UN member nations allow these wars to continue, that is. – Again, why is that?

Image on the right: Victoria Nuland

The answer is simple. It is not in the interest of the United States to win any wars.

The reasons are several. A won war theoretically brings peace, meaning no more weapons, no more fighting, no more destruction, no more terror and fear, no more insane profits for the war industry – but foremost, a country at peace is more difficult to manipulate and starve into submission than a country maintained at a level of constant conflict – conflict that not even a regime change will end, as we are seeing in so many cases around the world. Case in point, one of the latest ones being the Ukraine, after the US-NATO-EU instigated February 2014 Maidan coup, prepared with a long hand, in Victoria Nuland’s word, then Assistant Secretary of State, we spent more than 5 years and 5 billion dollars to bring about a regime change and democracy to the Ukraine.

Today, there is a “civil war” waging in eastern Ukraine, the Russian leaning Donbass area (about 90% Russian speaking and 75% Russian nationals), fueled by the ‘new’ Washington installed Poroshenko Nazi government. Thousands were killed, literally in cold blood by the US military-advised and assisted Kiev army, and an estimated more than 2 million fled to Russia. The total Ukraine population is about 44 million (2018 est.), with a landmass of about 604,000 km2, of which the Donbass area (Donetsk Province) is the most densely populated, counting for about 10% of population and about 27,000 km2.

Could this Kiev war of aggression end? – Yes, if the West would let go of the Donbass area which in any case will never submit to the Kiev regime and which has already requested to be incorporated into Russia. It would instantly stop the killing, the misery and destruction by western powers driven Nazi Kiev. But that’s not in the interest of the west, NATO, EU and especially not Washington – chaos and despair make for easy manipulation of people, for exploitation of this immensely rich country, both in agricultural potential – Ukraine used to be called the bread basket of Russia – and in natural resources in the ground; and for steadily advancing closer to the doorsteps of Moscow. That’s the intention. 

In fact, Washington and its western EU vassal allies are relentlessly accusing Russia for meddling in the Ukraine, in not adhering to the Minsk accords. They are ‘sanctioning’ Russia for not respecting the Minsk Protocol (Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany agreed on 11 February 2015 to a package of measures to alleviate the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine), when in fact, the complete opposite is true. The west disregards the key points of the accord – no interference. But western propaganda and deceit-media brainwash western populations into believing in the Russian evil. The only ones meddling and supplying Kiev’s Nazi Regime with weapons and “military advisors” is the west. 

The going strategy is lie-propaganda, so the western public, totally embalmed with western falsehoods, believes it is always Russia. Russians, led by President Putin, are the bad guys. The media war is part of the west’s war on Russia. The idea is, never let go of an ongoing conflict – no matter the cost in lives and in money. It’s so easy. Why isn’t that addressed in many analyses that still pretend the US is losing wars instead of winning them? – Its 101 of western geopolitics.

The Survival of Humanity. Economic Warfare against the World

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For those who don’t know, the US State Department has clearly exposed it’s plans to guarantee world primacy to the Senate’s Foreign Relations Commission. Assistant Secretary of State, Wess Mitchell, has declared that the United States is punishing Russia, because Moscow is impeding Washington from establishing supremacy over the world. It gets as blunt as that. The US openly recognizes the reason for their fight against Russia, and that Washington would not accept anything less than a full capitulation.

The full supremacy over the world is not possible without controlling the entire landmass of Eurasia – which for now they, the US, does not dominate. Mitchell added, contrary to optimistic hypothesis of earlier administrations, Russia and China are the most serious contenders to impede materially and ideologically the supremacy of the United States in the 21st Century, in a reference to the PNAC, Plan for a New American Century.

Then Mitchell launched a bomb, “It is always of primordial interest for the United States’ national security to impede the domination of the Eurasian landmass by hostile powers.” – This clearly means that the United States will shy away from nothing in the pursuit of this goal – meaning an outright war – nuclear or other – massive killing and total destruction – to reach that goal. This explains the myriad false accusations, ranging from outright insults at the UN by a lunatic Nikki Haley, the never-ending saga of the Skripal poisoning, to Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections – and whatever else suits the political circumstances to bash Russia. And these fabricated lies come mostly from Washington and London – and the rest of the western vassals just follows.

“War is hugely profitable. It creates so much money because it’s so easy to spend money very fast. There are huge fortunes to be made. So, there is always an encouragement to promote war and keep it going, to make sure that we identify people who are ‘others’ whom we can legitimately make war upon.” Roger Waters, Co-founder of the rock band Pink Floyd.

Russia today is attacked by economic and trade “sanctions”, by travel bans, by confiscated assets they have in the west. The Cold War which propagated the Soviet Union as an invasive threat to the world, was a flagrant and absolute lie from A to Z. It forced the Soviet Union, thrown into abject poverty by saving the west from Hitler during WWII – yes, it was the Soviet Union, not the US of A and her western ‘allies’ that defeated Hitler’s army – losing between 25 and 30 million people! – Imagine! – by saving Europe, the Soviet Union became unimaginably devastated and poor. 

The US propaganda created the concept of the Iron Curtain which basically forbade the west to see behind this imaginary shield to find out what the USSR really was after WWII – made destitute to the bones by the second World War. Yet this Cold War and Iron Curtain propaganda managed to make the western world believe that it is under a vital threat of a USSR invasion day-in-day-out, and that Europe with NATO must be ready to fend off any imaginary attack from the Soviet Union. It forced the Soviet Union to using all her workers’ accumulated capital to arm themselves, to be able to defend themselves from any possible western aggression, instead of using these economic resources to rebuild their country, their economy, their social systems. That’s the west – the lying, utterly and constantly deceiving west. Wake up, people!!!

Here you have it, confirmed by Wess Mitchell. The US would rather pull the rest of the world with it into a bottomless and an apocalyptic abyss with its sheer military power, than to lose and not reaching her goal. That’s the unforgiving ruling of the deep state, those that have been pulling the strings behind every US president for the last 200 years. – Unless the new alliances of the East – i.e. the SCO, BRICS, Eurasian Economic Union – half the world’s population and a third of the globes economic output – are able to subdue the United States economically, we may as well we doomed.
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As the seven present ongoing wars speak for themselves, chaos – no end in sight and intended – allow me to go back to a few other wars that were not won, on purpose, of course. Let’s look again at WWII and its sister wars, economic wars and conflicts. Planning of WWII started soon after the Great Depression of 1928 to 1933 – and beyond. Hitler was a ‘convenient’ stooge. War is not only hugely profitable, but it boosts and sustains the economy of just about every sector. And the major objective for the US then was eliminating the Bolshevik communist threat, the Soviet Union. Today its demonizing President Putin and, if possible, bring about regime change in Russia. That’s on top of Washington’s wish list.

In the midst of the Great Depression, in 1931, the US created the Bank for International Settlement in Basel, Switzerland, conveniently located at the border to Germany. The BIS, totally privately owned and controlled by the Rothchild clan, was officially intended for settling war compensation payments by Germany. Though, unknown to most people, Germany has paid almost no compensation for either WWI and WWII. Most of the debt was simply forgiven. Germany was an important player in Washington’s attempt to eliminating the “communist curse” of the USSR. The BIS was used by the FED via Wall Street banks to finance Hitler’s war against the Soviet Union. 

As usual, the US was dancing on two weddings: Pretending to fight Hitler’s Germany, but really supporting Hitler against Moscow. Sounds familiar? – Pretending to fight ISIS and other terrorists in the Middle East and around the world, but in reality, having been instrumental in creating, training, funding and arming the terror jihadists. When WWII was won by the Soviet army at a huge human sacrifice, the US, her allies and NATO marched in – shouting victory. And to this day these are the lessons taught in western schools, by western history books, largely ignoring the tremendous credit attributable to the Soviet Union, to the Russian people.

And since the USSR was not defeated, the Cold War had to be invented – and eventually with the help of Washington stooges, Michael Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, the west brought down the Soviet Union – preparing the way for a unipolar world. This grandiose goal of the exceptional nation was however – and very fortunately – stopped in its slippery tracks by the ascent of Russian President Putin.

But that’s not all. For dominating Russia, Europe had to be ‘colonized’ – made into a “European Union” (EU) that was never meant to be a real union, as in the United States of America. The idea of a European Union was first planted shortly after WWII by the CIA, then taken over by the Club of Rome – and promoted through numerous conventions all the way to the Maastricht Treaty of 1992. The next logical step was to give the EU a Constitution, to make the EU into a consolidated Federation of European States, with common economic, defense and foreign relations strategies. But this was never to be. 

The former French President, Giscard d’Estaing (1974 – 1981), was given the task to lead the drafting of an EU Constitution. He had strict instructions, though unknown to most, to prepare a document that would not be ratified by member states, as it would have bluntly transferred most of the EU nations sovereignty to Brussels. And so, the constitution was rejected, starting by France. Most countries didn’t even vote on the Constitution. And so, a federation of a United Europe didn’t happen. That would have been an unbeatable competition to the US, economically and militarily. NATO was eventually to take the role of unifying Europe – under the control of Washington. Today, the EU is ever more integrated into NATO.

What happened in parallel to the construct of a (non) European Union, was the European financial and economic colonization or enslavement, through the Bretton Woods Agreements in 1944. They created the World Bank, to manage the Marshall Plan, the US-sponsored European reconstruction fund, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to monitor and regulate the gold standard (US$ 35 / Troy Ounce), vis-à-vis the so-called convertible mostly European currencies. In fact, the Marshall Plan, denominated in US-dollars, was the first step towards a common European currency, prompted by the Nixon Administration’s exiting the gold standard in 1971, eventually leading to the Euro, a fiat currency created according to the image of the US dollar. The Euro, the little brother of the US fiat dollar, thus, became a currency, with which the European economic, financial and monetary policies are being manipulated by outside forces, i.e. the FED and Wall Street. The current President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, is a former Goldman Sachs executive.

These are wars, albeit the latter ones, economic wars, being constantly waged, but not won. They create chaos, illusions, believes in lies, manipulating and mobilizing people into the direction the masters of and behind Washington want them to move. These are the same masters that have been in control of the west for the last 200 years; and unknown to the vast majority of the western population, these masters are a small group of banking and financial clans that control the western monetary system, as we know it today. It was brought into existence in 1913, by the Federal Reserve Act. These masters control the FED, Wall Street and the BIS – also called the central banks of central banks, as it – the BIS – controls all but a handful of the world’s central banks. 

This fiat financial system is debt-funding wars, conflicts and proxy hostilities around the world. Debt that is largely carried in the form of US treasury bills as other countries’ reserves. The continuation of wars is crucial for the system’s survival. It’s hugely profitable. If a war was won, peace would break out – no war industry profit there, no debt-rent for banks from peace. Wars must go on – and the exceptional nation may prevail, with the world’s largest military-security budget, the deadliest weapons and a national debt, called ‘unmet obligations’ by the US General Accounting Office (GAO) – of about 150 trillion dollars – about seven and a half times the US GDP. We are living in the west in a pyramid monetary fraud – that only wars can sustain, until – yes, until, a different, honest system, based on real economic and peaceful output, will gradually replace the dollar’s hegemony and its role as a world reserve currency. It’s happening as these lines go to print. Eastern economies, like the Chinese, with China’s gold-convertible Yuan, and a national debt of only about 40% of GDP, is gradually taking over the international reserve role of the US dollar. 

The US of A, therefore, will do whatever she can to continue, demonizing Russia and China, provoke them into a hot war, because dominating, and outright ‘owning’ the Eurasian landmass is the ultimate objective of the killer Empire.

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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. 

Peter Koening is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Peter Koenig, Global Research, 2018