John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"'Pattern of misbehavior' keeps Russia from G7 ministers meeting, but it still dominates agenda"
This tells us just how ridiculous our international situation is. The main purpose of international organizations, such as the G7, is to keep the exchange of ideas and views among world leaders going, to talk rather than to act in isolation, and to gain understanding of the views of other major states.
But that is clearly not the way the G7 is being used today. As with the United Nations – which today is quieter and more passive than ever before in my lifetime, owing to American pressure, pressure about how to vote and for whom and pressure over anything displeasing with various episodes of unilaterally cutting-back its financial obligations, as we saw with UNESCO – the G7 is being used as a mechanism for American policy. And it seems to be willingly going along for the ride.
So, here we start with an important leader being the intense subject of discussions at the G7. That leader, an exceptionally rational and open-minded person, is perfectly ready to discuss any of your concerns, as are his major ministers. But the United States is absolutely determined to exclude that leader, and it uses its huge military, diplomatic, financial, and economic muscle with allies and partners to keep him isolated.
So, you never talk to the person who is the intense subject of your interest? That sure makes sense to me.
And what “misbehavior” (silly word) we can fairly ask? Taking steps to thwart the effects of an American-paid coup in a country on his border (a coup against an elected government, mind you)? Imagine what America would do if a third party did the same in, say, Mexico? There would be tanks in Mexico City immediately. Putin has invaded nothing. He, too, could easily have had tanks in Kiev, had he wanted to.
The coup government's own behavior has been scandalous and should be the subject of discussion. The government legislated against the language rights of one-quarter of Ukraine's population early on. That's precisely why the predominantly Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine unilaterally seceded.
The coup-government started a civil war with the two Russian-speaking regions in the East, also known as Donbas. The same coup-government has made a mess of the national economy, sending it into a tailspin. Corruption in the coup-government is so rife, even American-dominated Europeans can even smell it. For their inept efforts at civil war in the Donbas, the coup-government took new measures for a military draft in Western Ukraine. It has been a disaster with countless young men going into hiding.
But I think none of this really has a great deal to do with why the United States busies itself with labeling and treating Russia as a pariah state and pressuring its allies to do the same. These matters only provide a pretext. America is determined to reduce Russia since it sees it as one of the major stumbling blocks in its current drive for world dominance. Russia is the only country that can obliterate the US, China not having arrived at quite that level yet, although it is working on it. Russia’s geographical location, right next to Europe and close to the Middle East, areas of intense American involvement and interference, also strongly affects American official attitudes, as does, of course, Russia’s independent view of world events.
Of course, another irritant for America is the terrible situation in Syria, previously a peaceful and beautiful land, whose leader remains at least as popular as any leader in the West you can name. Russia has come to the assistance of an ally that was literally invaded by huge well-armed, well-paid gangs of terrorists. Of course, if you only superficially view American rhetoric about terror, you would say Russia is the hero of the piece. At any rate, it is only doing what every country is entitled to do, to help an ally by formal request.
The trouble is, in this instance, things are not quite what they seem. America employs complete double-think towards terror. Terrorists who oppose us, we hate. But terrorists who support us are not only just fine, we will support them. Support them covertly, of course, because the State Department would never declare such things openly. That is the situation in Syria which Russia has run up against in the effort to do what they are entitled under international law to do, defend an ally and fight terror, and they are also very much hated for this reason.
America never stops playacting the role of world defender of freedom, even while frequently its actions go in just the opposite direction. Its public image is assiduously cultivated as a kind of international comic-book superhero. Of course, all the confusion engendered with the general public by America’s two faces only helps the project along. It does take a bit of effort to inform yourself, and all of America’s corporate press is enlisted in the patriotic task of working against accurate information.
Contemporary America simply wants to dominate everything on the planet now. It’s reflected in the Pentagon’s slogan of recent years, “full-spectrum dominance.”
And this should be a profound cause of concern for everyone, but America’s immense economic, financial, diplomatic, and publicity muscle are at work preventing intelligent dissent from other countries. After all, every ordinary person understands how and why it is dangerous to have a dictator ruling a country. Then why is it any more acceptable to have a dictator ruling the planet? It’s not, of course. It’s even more dangerous.
