John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JAMES CARDEN IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
Trump’s Withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty Jeopardizes US National Security
Clueless Trump clearing another impediment to an arms race with Russia
https://www.checkpointasia.net/trumps-withdrawal-from-the-open-skies-treaty-jeopardizes-us-national-security/
Good piece. Trump is nicely and accurately characterized at the beginning.
We are all living through the deliberate setting-up of a nightmare world, one where international law and order and institutions count for little or nothing.
But note that we do not see Congress making any efforts to stop Trump’s abusive efforts abroad.
I don’t think the impeachment investigation counts because that is about politics, the politics of realizing they do not have a leading candidate for the 2020 election who likely can defeat Trump.
And the politics around the possible opening of the whole “can of worms” involved in the American-induced coup in Ukraine with all of its aftereffects.
Not to mention, the insane Russia-gate fantasies which seem to have acquired a life of their own simply because they are so useful to so many important figures.
The fantasies do not die away because America has been conditioned for three-quarters of a century to hate and fear Russia. It was ferocious conditioning in everything from the language of the press and politicians to the entertainment industry with its streams of shows and films like the old J Edgar Hoover-approved “FBI” series or “I Led Three Lives” or “The Manchurian Candidate” and scores of others.
Anyone pointing out the many merits of today’s Russia, so immediately in stark contrast with the Russia of the prime Soviet period, only risks being called a Russian “troll” or “bot” or “asset.”
The Congress is under exactly the same set of influences as Trump.
He's just loud and ugly about it, and they gladly let him take the blame for going where they want to go themselves, but they really do nothing to stop him.
All of these matters - from the destruction of important treaties to the horrors of Syria and support for one of the world’s bloodiest tyrants in Saudi Arabia - ultimately reflect America's awareness of its relative decline in the world and its refusal to accept new realities.
It perhaps has come to believe in its own myths of exceptionalism too much, of its inherent goodness, of its rightness, of its entitlement. Patriotism as it is practiced in America is, after all, a form of religion with its own sacred myths and tenets and blind spots, and it has a fierce hold on the country still.
It is stoked regularly as an important reinforcing mechanism for all those pointless imperial wars and insane military costs.
The country’s relative decline represents no malign forces at work, as the bizarre words of Trump often suggest. It is a quite natural outcome of the growth and development of other states plus changing technologies, but it is an outcome America's establishment is desperate to somehow correct by almost any means, except the straightforward one of working hard to compete.
With prestige and authority and wealth at stake, virtually all pretenses of still being Jimmy Stewart’s America of, say, 1953, are gone. There is simply no room for tears or sentimentality or wanting the reputation of being a nice guy.
America’s establishment is much quietly encouraged in this by Israeli interests because Israel sees its best interests in the Middle East as being supported by an aggressive America, not a polite and diplomatic one. It can’t be kingpin in its region if America isn’t feared.
And despite its own good relations with Putin, Israel, beneath the surface, does not like Russia. It does not want Russia's influence in the Middle East, and it very much sees Russia as a stumbling block to the desired America supremacy and aggression in many areas.
To start with, Russia is friendly with too many Arabs, and that’s an automatic black mark in Israel’s power calculous. The fact that Putin’s Russia strives to have good relations with all states means nothing to Israel, a state which deliberately maintains terrible relations with a number of others.
The growing sense of Russia’s increasing prestige in the Middle East and America’s declining prestige also generates quiet animosity.
The only way I can see this changing is with a turnaround in Israel’s view of its place in the region and of its neighbors. And just what are the chances of that?
But even without Israel's influential encouragement, Washington's power establishment does seem set on maintaining a dangerous course out of its own motives of pride and arrogance.
