Counterpunch on NATO’s Preparations for War with Russia

Okay, I’ve already blogged about one Counterpunch article today, by Garikai Chengu tracing the history of British imperial domination in Iraq. This is another article from the same magazine that needs to be read. It’s about the NATO conference yesterday and today, and the continuing build up of NATO forces along the borders with Russia. NATO troops, including British squaddies, are being sent to reinforce Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, against possible Russian aggression.

The 1980s Cold War

This was on the BBC news yesterday, which reported that there were fears about a possible Russian threat following Russian attempts to fly military aircraft over Estonian airspace. This is all extremely frightening, as it is all too much like the Cold War those of us, who are now middle aged, grew up under in the 1980s. It was a time when Thatcher and Reagan were ranting about the Soviet Union being ‘the evil empire’, and the world really was on the edge of nuclear war. It dam’ well nearly broke out too, on at least three occasions. On one of these, it was only through the very clear thinking of a Russian officer, who insisted on visual confirmation of a nuclear attack after the Soviet defence computers malfunctioned and signalled a false alarm, that we’re all here, alive today.

Reagan himself nearly started another nuclear showdown with a stupid joke. He opened a Republican rally with the quip that ‘Congress has passed legislation against the Soviet Union. Bombing begins in ten minutes’. While the Republican faithful cheered wildly, a Soviet nuclear missile base in Siberia went on red alert for half an hour. Some people should really know when to keep their gobs shut. And another nuclear incident was started by a technician dropping his spanner down a missile silo. And there no doubt have been others, too many others.

The children of my generation were left traumatised with the threat that any second we could be vaporised and our planet reduced to dead, smouldering ash, just as our parents’ had been during the Cuban missile crisis. We hoped, prayed and rejoiced that everything might be different when Communism fell. The Soviet Empire dissolved, nations threw off the yoke of tyranny, and people from the east and west could finally meet and mix, to work and set up businesses in each others’ countries. The Iron Curtain Churchill described was gone. And the spectre of nuclear holocaust was lifted from that part of the Eurasian landmass.

Now it all looks like it’s all coming back.

Cloughley on the Failure of the Campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya

Brian Cloughley, the author of the Counterpunch piece, is a former NATO soldier, whose duties included serving with an NATO atomic missile regiment. He discusses the irony of Poland hosting the NATO conference just when the Chilcot report had condemned Tony Blair for his lies and crimes in the Iraq invasion. The article describes the failures of the NATO invasions and actions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, all of which are now in a worse state than before. And despite the overwhelming numerical and technological superiority of NATO forces in Afghanistan, we still have not subdued the Taliban, who are little more than a bunch of tribesmen with only the most basic equipment. As well as increased instability and conflict in all of these conflicts, and the growth of Islamism and massive human rights abuses, the attack on Libya has also worsened the migrant crisis, as hundreds of thousands from elsewhere in Africa flood into the country, seeking a better life across the Med in Europe.

Russia No Threat

Cloughley also talks about the bloated financial nature of NATO, as it consumes a large part of its member countries’ taxes in expenditure on American arms and support that they can often ill afford. Its lavish expenditure can be seen in the fact that it has just opened a new palace in Brussels, the cost of which has escalated to $2 billion. And now NATO is strengthening its forces on its eastern borders against a supposed Russian threat, using terms like ‘forward presence’, which, despite official denials, suggest that they are preparing for a war. However, General Petr Pavel, Chairman of NATO’s military committee, has stated that Russian “aggression is not on the agenda and no intelligence assessment suggests such a thing.”

The German Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier has also warned against exacerbating the situation with further military posturing. He has said “What we should not do now is inflame the situation with saber-rattling and warmongering. Whoever believes that a symbolic tank parade on the alliance’s eastern border will bring security is mistaken. We are well-advised not to create pretexts to renew an old confrontation.” This comes from someone, whose country for over four decades was on the very front line of any possible war between NATO and the Warsaw pact.

Putin himself has told his diplomatic corps that this is all about western aggression, about NATO trying to justify itself. He said “NATO seems to be making a show of its anti-Russian stance. NATO not only seeks to find in Russia’s actions pretexts to affirm its own legitimacy and the need for its existence, but is also taking genuinely confrontational steps.”

Cloughley is convinced that there is no military threat from Russia, and this is really just the West and NATO preparing for yet another unprovoked war, selling it to its peoples on the lies that intelligence really has shown the Russians are building up their forces to invade.

See: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/08/nato-prepares-for-war-confrontation-and-insanity/

Russian Threat in 1980s and Now Non-Existent

This is terrifying, and, frankly, a damning indictment of the Continent’s leaders. It looked for a few decades that the spectre of nuclear war between Russia and the West had gone forever. Now it’s come back. I really am not sure how much of a military threat Russia is. The Beeb reports mention overflights of Estonia by Russian planes. But they attempt to do that to Britain, and have done since the 1980s and possibly long before. What usually happens is that we send up a few RAF planes just as they’re approaching Scotland, at which point they scarper back to Russia. It’s been going on for decades. My guess is that the Russians are trying something similar in Estonia. It is a deliberate attempt to intimidate, to prod us, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Russian spends vast amounts on its arms, but even then, it’s much less than American military expenditure. And Lobster has published more than one article taking apart the lies my generation were told about the military threat from the Warsaw Pact in the ’70s and ’80s. We were told that the Soviet forces were massive, their troops eager and well-trained, and well equipped. They were poised to invade Europe at any moment. They weren’t. Their military equipment, including tanks, were inferior to the West. And more importantly, by the 1970s, the USSR simply wasn’t interested. Rather than dedicated Cold Warriors bent on exported Communism, the Nomenklatura – Communist party functionaries and officials – at home were to busy enjoying their own privileges, and trying to get abroad to buy good quality western goods they could sell on the black market back home.

Ukrainian Government and Nazis; Persecution of Russians and Democrats

As for the Russian threat to the Ukraine, from what I’ve seen and reblogged here, everything suggests that rather than being the aggressors, the Russian minority is the victims. They are being persecuted, subject to nationalist violence, and prevented by physical force from exercising their right to vote. Rather than being genuine democrats, the Ukrainian government looks like your bog-standard set of post-Soviet oligarchs, and corporate stooges, comparable to their counterparts in Britain and the US. The government also contains genuine, unreconstructed Nazis from the ‘pravy sektor’ – the Right Sector. These are groups which wear the insignia and uniforms of the auxiliary SS units which collaborated with the Nazis in their invasion of the US, and truly horrific pogroms against Soviet Jews. They are ultra-violent thugs, who have carried out horrific attacks on genuine Ukrainian democrats and trade unionists. In the demonstrations that overthrew the pro-Soviet government a few years ago, they shot at and attacked the peaceful demonstrators on their own side, while trying to make it look like it came from the Russians.

I’ve also seen footage on YouTube in which Russian soldiers capture a masked soldier, who then announces that he’s an America. I don’t know whether this is propaganda, or footage of a genuine event. Either is possible. But I certainly don’t discount the possibility that some of the supposedly Ukrainian troops include American special ops forces.

Europe Pushed to Brink of War for Corporate Profit

Putin is a thug. His assassination of his political opponents in Russia and beating and intimidation of journos, who refused to follow his line, is ample proof of that. But I don’t believe he is planning to invade Poland or the Baltic States. I am most dreadfully afraid that this time, Europe is being pushed into war with Russia on false pretexts, for the corporate profit of international capital. And it will be us proles, from America, England, France, Germany, and right across Europe into Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic and Russia, who will pay the bloody price.

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