41

Sauron Rules in Washington

by Paul Craig Roberts

“The problem is that the world has listened to Americans for far too bloody long.” Dr. Julian Osborne, from the 2000 film version of Nevil Shute’s 1957 book, On the Beach

A reader asked why neoconservatives push toward nuclear war when there can be no winners. If all die, what is the point?
The answer is that the neoconservatives believe that the US can win at minimum and perhaps zero damage.
Their insane plan is as follows: Washington will ring Russia and China with anti-ballistic missile bases in order to provide a shield against a retaliatory strike from Russia and China. Moreover, these US anti-ABM bases also can deploy nuclear attack missiles unknown to Russia and China, thus reducing the warning time to five minutes, leaving Washington’s victims little or no time in which to make a decision.
The neoconservatives think that Washington’s first strike will so badly damage the Russian and Chinese retaliatory capabilities that both governments will surrender rather than launch a response. The Russian and Chinese leaderships would conclude that their diminished forces leave little chance that many of their ICBMs will be able to get past Washington’s ABM shield, leaving the US largely intact. A feeble retaliation by Russia and China would simply invite a second wave US nuclear attack that would obliterate Russian and Chinese cities, killing millions and leaving both countries in ruins.
In short, the American warmongers are betting that the Russian and Chinese leaderships would submit rather than risk total destruction.
There is no question that neoconservatives are sufficiently evil to launch a preemptive nuclear attack, but possibly the plan aims to put Russia and China into a situation in which their leaders conclude that the deck is stacked against them and, therefore, they must accept Washington’s hegemony.
To feel secure in its hegemony, Washington would have to order Russia and China to disarm.
This plan is full of risks. Miscalculations are a feature of war. It is reckless and irresponsible to risk the life of the planet for nothing more than Washington’s hegemony.
The neoconservative plan puts Europe, the UK, Japan, S. Korea, and Australia at high risk were Russia and China to retaliate. Washington’s ABM shield cannot protect Europe from Russia’s nuclear cruise missiles or from the Russian Air Force, so Europe would cease to exist. China’s response would hit Japan, S. Korea, and Australia.
The Russian hope and that of all sane people is that Washington’s vassals will understand that it is they that are at risk, a risk from which they have nothing to gain and everything to lose, repudiate their vassalage to Washington and remove the US bases. It must be clear to European politicians that they are being dragged into conflict with Russia. This week the NATO commander told the US Congress that he needed funding for a larger military presence in Europe in order to counter “a resurgent Russia.
Let us examine what is meant by “a resurgent Russia.” It means a Russia that is strong and confident enough to defend its interests and those of its allies. In other words, Russia was able to block Obama’s planned invasion of Syria and bombing of Iran and to enable the Syrian armed forces to defeat the ISIS force sent by Obama and Hillary to overthrow Assad.
Russia is “resurgent” because Russia is able to block US unilateral actions against some other countries.
This capability flies in the face of the neoconservative Wolfowitz doctrine, which says that the principal goal of US foreign policy is to prevent the rise of any country that can serve as a check on Washington’s unilateral action.
While the neocons were absorbed in their “cakewalk” wars that have now lasted 16 years, Russia and China emerged as checks on the unilateralism that Washington had enjoyed since the collapse of the Soviet Union. What Washington is trying to do is to recapture its ability to act worldwide without any constraint from any other country. This requires Russia and China to stand down.
Are Russia and China going to stand down? It is possible, but I would not bet the life of the planet on it. Both governments have a moral conscience that is totally missing in Washington. Neither government is intimidated by the Western propaganda. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said yesterday that we hear endless hysterical charges against Russia, but the charges are always vacant of any evidence.
Conceiveably, Russia and China could sacrifice their sovereignty for the sake of life on earth. But this same moral conscience will propel them to oppose the evil that is Washington in order not to succumb to evil themselves. Therefore, I think that the evil that rules in Washington is leading the United States and its vassal states to total destruction.
Having convinced the Russian and Chinese leaderships that Washington intends to nuke their countries in a suprise attack (see here, for example), the question is how do Russia and China respond? Do they sit there and await an attack, or do they preempt Washington’s attack with an attack of their own?
What would you do? Would you preserve your life by submitting to evil, or would you destroy the evil?
Writing truthfully results in my name being put on lists (financed by who?) as a “Russian dupe/agent.” Actually, I am an agent of all people who disapprove of Washington’s willingness to use nuclear war in order to establish Washington’s hegemony over the world, but let us understand what it means to be a “Russian agent.”
It means to respect international law, which Washington does not. It means to respect life, which Washington does not. It means to respect the national interests of other countries, which Washington does not. It means to respond to provocations with diplomacy and requests for cooperation, which Washington does not. But Russia does. Clearly, a “Russian agent” is a moral person who wants to preserve life and the national identity and dignity of other peoples.
It is Washington that wants to snuff out human morality and beome the master of the planet. As I have previously written, Washington without any question is Sauron. The only important question is whether there is sufficient good left in the world to resist and overcome Washington’s evil.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

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Alan
Alan
May 14, 2017 11:28 PM

Mr Craig Roberts analysis appears stuck in the east/west, cold war mentality where nations exist led by an elected apparatus. Whenever this fails to fit we have the new buzz phrase of ‘Deep State’ that only supports this facade. Every country has it’s lunatic senators and ministers who base our reality upon religious or political ‘ism’s’. Most, thankfully are transparent and just want to line their and their families pockets. This doesn’t mean they are capable of initiating changes upon the scale envisioned by Mr Craig Roberts. In concession theirs and their backers potential gain, may be aligned sufficiently over such a period of time, that may enable such an apocalyptic scenario. I believe the level of greed and disloyalty involved would require coincidences far greater than any conspiracy theory. If there be Armageddon I doubt neither Washington nor Tolkien will share much blame.

StAug
StAug
May 10, 2017 6:33 PM

Or is it all just a game to keep us A) shitting ourselves with fear (fearful Serfs are obedient Serfs)… and B) focused on the terrifying melodramas of misdirection while the real magic proceedeth apace?
If Nuclear War was ever seriously considered as a viable option, wouldn’t They have done it, already, via Reagan? Surely “Intelligence” would have indicated that the retaliatory potential of Russia/China/ NK was much weaker in c. 1984, making that the optimum strike year. Also, surely: no “secret plan” of a Nuclear War Strategy would be ours to read and debate on The Internet… I have to assume that us reading the so-called plan was the point of Them concocting it. I also have to assume that Russia (et al) are just as interested in scaring their Serfs as the USSUK is in scaring theirs.
Further, I hate to say it, but some (if not quite a few) Alt News sites monetize the fears of their readers and regularly stoke these fears by predicting Imminent Apocalypse with the febrile certainty (and track record of accuracy) of Christian millennial cults. Fellow ParaPolitical Paranoids Be Wary!

rtj1211
rtj1211
May 10, 2017 7:04 PM
Reply to  StAug

Back in 1984, the USSR was reckoned to be going tits up so the Cold War could be won without firing a shot.
Now, both Russia and China have renewed national self-confidence.
Destroying self-confidence requires violence……

StAug
StAug
May 11, 2017 12:01 AM
Reply to  rtj1211

“Back in 1984, the USSR was reckoned to be going tits up so the Cold War could be won without firing a shot.”
Overkill has always been Their Prime Directive. They only engage nations with limited-to-zero means to protect themselves… when Russia was going “tits up” would have been precisely when they would have launched an attack (under whatever pretext)… if they were going to. And, again: I’ve been seeing the “War World 3 Begins in a matter of months or weeks!” headlines, at Alt Sites, since 9/11. Any of the governments under discussion, as ever, have more to fear from their own citizens than from the other governments; War World 3 is, in fact, between The Serfs and The Lords and it started to heat up a few decades ago. The War of Feudal Reversion, call it…

BigB
BigB
May 11, 2017 12:40 PM
Reply to  StAug

Just curious, why ’84 in particular? My memory is that ’82, and particularly ’83; was when the height of the threat of Armageddon was greatest – and the historical precedent for the present escalation of the strategy of tension.
Back then the Pentagon crazies thought they could win a regionalised hybrid nuclear/conventional war in the European theatre – by installing Pershing II and nuclear cruise missiles in Europe – including, of course, at Greenham Common. We now know that Strategic Air Command were playing PSYOP nuclear chicken, testing Soviet defences – which convinced the Soviets that US/NATO was developing a first strike capability. At the height of the tension, we had at least two potential trigger points – the ‘Petrov’ incident, and ‘Able Archer 83’ – which the Soviets mistook as an actual initiation of the launch sequence.
In other words, although the fear porn is all about control – mistakes have unconscionable consequences. Along with the later incident, when (a drunken?) Yeltsin activated the nuclear briefcase in response to a Norwegian weather balloon launch – we are here more by luck than judgement.
Now, if THAAD becomes active in South Korea, and with the ABM system in Poland activated against the non-existent DPRK and Iranian threats – the reaction time for the Russian ‘line-of-sight’ radars is reduced from 15 to a 5 minute hair trigger [Postol et al.] The greater the potential of the destruction of most (if not all) of the higher life forms on the planet – the safer the world becomes – that truly is the definition of MAD! And the cockroaches shall inherit the earth – no doubt. I think they already have.
If we literally don’t know what is over the horizon – rather than condition a fear response – I say “fuck ’em, ‘carpe diem’, love and be loved.” If it comes to it, I’m going out with a smile on my face.

StAug
StAug
May 11, 2017 2:44 PM
Reply to  BigB

“Yeltsin activated the nuclear briefcase in response to a Norwegian weather balloon launch..”
If only we could be sure that that were all true, eh? Do we really think the Russians were that stupid?
Re: 1984: I was just using it as shorthand for “early ’80s”
I’m just under the impression that these old nationalist tropes and antipathies are fading echoes from an increasingly obsolete control system (in much the same way that the Vatican is) and the emerging power structures are trans-national; the new “states” are Corporate and the EU, for example, represents an attempt to move in the direction of global financial arrangements reflecting that change. But Das Volk are set in their ways… Brexit is a little glitch that TPTB will have to go along with (to some extent), eye-rollingly, or risk a messy explosion of semi-revolutionary violence, and the rise of some “Populist” politicians also mirrors this. A generation or so after Daddy Bush’s “thousand points of light” speech, things aren’t quite where TPTB wanted them… it’s like trying to get a whole family of gradeschool kids out the door on a precise schedule: good luck. TPTB will continue to carrot-and-stick us until we leave the obsolete Nation State model behind, finally (and we’re all neatly cashless and chipped? Isn’t an i-phone just a huge, external, transitional “chip”?)…
…but anyone with any power and of any political consequence will own Real Estate in the best spots around the planet, and they’ll have financial interests equally dispersed and varied, and the last thing THEY want is for the summer homes or ski palaces or retirement lakes to be cratered and irradiated and the local Serf Pool extinct. The “Middle East” is the dumping ground for the depleted uranium… not Zurich/ Moscow/ Manhattan. All those bombs are meant for brown and/or black people, not Europeans. And the Chinese are too well-defended to fuck with. TPTB are going to use Putin to “good cop” a “negotiated solution” to the Syrian thing that will see TPTB getting their way, in the end, with the WW3 of M.A.D. not happening. And I suspect that the much of the money that supposedly went to “Star Wars Defense Systems” and all that other stuff went, and goes into, a Black Budget instead. They’ve probably burned the Trill they stole on 9/11, right? They need more! So, scare the Serfs and pump up the “Defense Budget”! And so on.
(One of the few parapolitical hypotheses of mine that I sincerely hope I’m right about! laugh)

BigB
BigB
May 11, 2017 6:09 PM
Reply to  StAug

I hope you’re right too, and to laugh is the [only] right response. I read Antony Sutton back in the day, in fact, it was probably my introduction to the fact that the narrative history we are sold – and the actual narrative history – are often diametrically opposed. If viewed from the POV that the Soviet technological capability was provided by the West, and funded by Wall St – it puts a different spin on the whole Cold War scenario. Contrived fiction or not, there is still the inherent danger of error.
PCR’s article seems to be based on analysis done by Theo Postol, among others. They conclude that the US has tripled the efficiency of their existing nuclear arsenal by ‘Super-Fuzing’ their warheads: thus attaining nuclear supremacy. They theorize that the Saurons and Strangeloves could be planning a first strike disablement. Would they do it? Hell yeah, especially if they have no concept of a ‘Nuclear Winter’ – which apparently, they don’t. Is it all fear porn? It seems to me a ridiculous end to go to just to artificially levitate the markets, induce soporific obeisance from us serfs, or to divert attention from a domestic $20tn impending economic collapse? They have potentially less disastrous ways of achieving those goals. Anyway, they have got us pretty much tame and enrolled in their agenda – as far as I can tell.
It may well be that the neocon psycho-pathogens believe the conquest of Russia is a winnable and survivable scenario. It is, and will always be, their ultimate goal. If you put the world on a 5min ‘Super-Fuzed’ hair trigger – there is no margin for error. Like I said, hope you are right!
http://www.globalresearch.ca/turning-a-blind-eye-towards-armageddon-u-s-leaders-reject-nuclear-winter-studies/5586228
http://www.globalresearch.ca/americas-top-scientists-confirm-u-s-goal-now-is-to-conquer-russia-disarming-enemies-with-a-surprise-nuclear-first-strike/5588524

StAug
StAug
May 11, 2017 8:17 PM
Reply to  BigB

Ooops, it appears my response is in moderation, for some reason! I’ll wait it out before trying again…

StAug
StAug
May 11, 2017 8:36 PM
Reply to  StAug

So, BigB: I’ll try to re-post my response to you that got gobbled by a moderation glitch earlier! It follows…
Re: Sutton: yep… reading Sutton, Quigley, Butler, et al, seems to be a rite of passage among us. In the end, I’ve found very, very few sources I “trust”… I felt Dave McGowan was exactly who he claimed to be, and I think Scott Creighton is, too (though I don’t always agree with his conclusions)… but, after a few years of it, I’ve also started reading the Obvious Disinfo, between the lines, for the Information they appear to be attempting to taint (by associating it with Bigfoot/ Shape-Shifters/ Paul-is-Dead and, now, Flat Earth!). I read Miles Mathis, from time to time, for the whiplash of occasionally piercing insights mixed with head-spinningly blatant nonsense (John Lennon is alive? MLK was crypto-Jewish? Hiroshima faked? Uh…..). “Paul Rigby” is an interesting denizen of various forums… no site of his own, as far as I can tell; pretty methodical take on JFK/ Castro.
What’s your take on John Judge? I dismissed him, early on, because his stuff was carried on dodgy sites and therefore effectively tainted, but now that I look at his material on, say, Jonestown, he’s looking more solid than I at first believed. And how do you feel about the pre-Net Godparents of it all, Skolnick and Brussell? Quite curious about your reading on those…

BigB
BigB
May 12, 2017 11:18 AM
Reply to  StAug

Sorry to disappoint, I get most of my info from the likes of 21 Wire, NEO, RT, UK Column etc. Most of the people you mention have passed me by, I’m afraid. If Brussel = Bertrand Russell: of course I am aware of his stance for peace, but apart from that – I rejected the Western philosophical mindset a lifetime ago. It’s logical and empirical application will lead blindly to our destruction, as evidenced above. It disheartens me that in a world of near infinite choice, we’ve narrowed our future to just two – nuclear Holocaust or ecocide. Way to go! Brilliant philosophy!

StAug
StAug
May 12, 2017 12:09 PM
Reply to  BigB

Aha! Your “Antony Sutton” reference led me to assume you were familiar with the Paranoid’s Parapolitical Canon in its deepest weirdest nooks! Laugh (Which is why secret handshakes or code-words are useful)

BigB
BigB
May 12, 2017 12:52 PM
Reply to  BigB

Nope, my head went East nearly forty years ago – it has only relatively recently come back round. We appear to have diverged in time and come back randomly to a similar POV – a bit like particle and anti-particle. Hope it don’t end in our mutual destruction! LOL! 🙂

StAug
StAug
May 12, 2017 8:39 PM
Reply to  BigB

Incidentally, BigB! Here’s some material from Brussell (Mae Brussell), the writer I mentioned above… a bit from her CONSPIRACY NEWSLETTER, a feature in the radical rag The Realist… from (hold onto yer hats)… 1974. The topics: cointelpro, psyops, shills, CIA fronts and false flags… ! Ever get the feeling we haven’t made much progress in 50 years…?
http://ep.tc/realist/98/index.html

BigB
BigB
May 13, 2017 12:16 AM
Reply to  StAug

I’ll see your Brussel and raise you PCRs next installment featuring Russian fear porn? Not sure where you live but I thought it was nice of Treason May and Fallon to piss off the Russians by saying we may go to a first strike capability. O well, will save them the job of destroying the country!
http://www.globalresearch.ca/washington-is-preparing-a-nuclear-first-strike-against-russia-are-you-ready-to-die-zero-awareness-and-no-discussion/5589829

Seraskier
Seraskier
May 12, 2017 4:57 AM
Reply to  BigB

[[ Just curious, why ’84 in particular? ]]
Andropov died in 1984 (or was murdered – opinions vary). Kremlin-watchers expected his anointed heir Gorbachev to take the helm – but instead the walking corpse Cherenenko took power. This sent a signal to the world that the USSR was in the grip of morbidly ill and incompetent leaders.
Gorby politely waited Chernenko’s last days out, knowing that every time Chernenko failed to appear for a major public event, his star would shine more brightly by comparison.
So in many ways, 1984 marked the beginning of the end of the Old Regime – because the country itself was keen and eager to change. The appointment of a man too sick to attend his own public events was not only a critical error – it blackened the careers of those who had pushed for his appointement when he was already hospitalised.

BigB
BigB
May 12, 2017 10:39 AM
Reply to  Seraskier

All you say is true, but I feel that we can make the conclusion that the Old Regime was waning with the application of hindsight. From a personal perspective in the UK, tensions did not ease until much later, even after the start of Glasnost. The USAAF did not start removing nuclear warheads until ’87/’88. Trust me, from the disinformation we were being fed, no one thought the Soviet Union was collapsing in ’84.

Seraskier
Seraskier
May 13, 2017 1:04 AM
Reply to  BigB

Entirely agreed!
Very often a cultural incident can set the tone for public debate and perception. Sting and The Police wrote and recorded “Russians” in 1984 (although in fact it was not released until 1985 for production-related reasons).
The song is an allegory of the American policy of MAD (Murually-Assured Destruction) and a nuclear holocaust. In addition to referencing Prokofiev’s music from the Lieutenant Kije suite, the intro material includes a Russian-language radio report about talks between Margaret Thatcher, and the then-unknown Soviet junior minister Mikhail Gorbachev. This snippet pins the song unquestionably to 1984.
And, of course, there is the question that Orwell’s book seemed straining to become a self-fulfilling prophecy in the same year.. although of course, it is not about the USSR at all.

BigB
BigB
May 13, 2017 4:08 PM
Reply to  Seraskier

“In Europe and America, there’s a growing feeling of hysteria…. believe me when I say to you, I hope the Russians love their children too.” Revised 2017 version – I hope the Neocons love their children too!

StAug
StAug
May 15, 2017 11:59 PM
Reply to  BigB

““In Europe and America, there’s a growing feeling of hysteria…”
GoodGawd, I remember that vid as though it were the day before yesterday! Sting at his sententious best… before he moved on to doing background music for New Age resort boutiques. Someone needs to do a “nuclear winter” mixtape… remember “The Future’s So Bright (I gotta wear shades)”?

Seraskier
Seraskier
May 11, 2017 11:17 AM
Reply to  rtj1211

[[ Back in 1984, the USSR was reckoned to be going tits up ]]
And by whom was this fatuous assessment made? The same neocon numpties (Zbigniew Brzezinski et al) who later claimed Serbia would capitulate in 48 hours? The ones that gutless turd Bill Clinton believed… Madeleine Allshite and so on???
There was certainly no feeling that this was happening here in Moscow at that time. A few dumbass Americans believed that having Pepsi-Cola on sale on Nevsky Prospekt spelt the end of the line for Russia?? Billy Joel gave a concert? He later made a film in which he claimed that he had single-handedly brought down the USSR. It’s this kind of infantile trash that makes Americans the jackasses of the known world.

Dead World Walking
Dead World Walking
May 10, 2017 6:23 AM

Doom.
It’s a short word, but a long sentence.

Seraskier
Seraskier
May 9, 2017 10:33 PM

[[ In short, the American warmongers are betting that the Russian and Chinese leaderships would submit rather than risk total destruction. ]]
And these are the self-same Neanderthals who believed that Serbia would surrender in 48 hours, Who stated resolutely that Saddam had WMD [“they are hidden under the palm trees, this is solid intelligence, this is not conjecture’ (c) Colin Powell]. Who faithfully pledged they would close the Gitmo Gulag. And who claimed that Russia was the “Number One Existential* Threat” to the USA.
* thereby proving that Admiral James Richardson is a clueless American asswipe with no idea what “existential” actually means.

binra
binra
May 9, 2017 8:18 PM

That reptilian reflex has a way of replacing Consciousness with the rules of war – which rule out truth in a tempt to replace it with victory… or death.
Don’t underestimate the power of self-hate to operate a shadow agenda beneath the mask of professed or presented narrative identities.
If you can flag up your own involvement – you can work to release it for a fresh take instead of a mis take. But the false flag is the diversion of guilt in projected or redirected blame – and penalty.
This is such a core curriculum that it is expected to be simply understood by induction and operate as code beneath the mind that thinks it is a mind.

BigB
BigB
May 9, 2017 7:52 PM

I met a traveller from a near future land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Donnie Trumpymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level fallout ash stretches far away.
Apologies to Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Paul Stelt
Paul Stelt
May 9, 2017 6:17 PM

Agree with analysis of US policies as evil. Do not however, share the sanctimonious evaluation of Russian principles. This is the country that produced murderous Bolsheviks, the NKVD, and Stalin. China has never to my knowledge, pursued expansionist policies, a big point in their favor.

archie1954
archie1954
May 9, 2017 6:45 PM
Reply to  Paul Stelt

Don’t lump Russia in with Communism! Your comments concerning the evil that the USSR represented should be restricted to Communism and not to Russia itself. For goodness sake, just consider Stalin for instance. He wasn’t Russian, he was Georgian. As for Communism, the people who were most affected by it were the various peoples of the former USSR and it is they who got rid of it. What’s not to like about Russia? It is a nascent democracy, it has a capitalist economy and it is Christian!

Seraskier
Seraskier
May 9, 2017 10:23 PM
Reply to  Paul Stelt

Mommy come put you beddy-byes, Junior.

Empire Of Stupid
Empire Of Stupid
May 10, 2017 2:37 PM
Reply to  Paul Stelt

“China has never to my knowledge, pursued expansionist policies”
The Tibetans might beg to differ, as might the Uighurs.

archie1954
archie1954
May 10, 2017 6:51 PM

“Tibetans, Uighurs”? Come now! Compare those two groups to Canadians and Mexicans, both adjuncts to the US empire.

Seraskier
Seraskier
May 10, 2017 11:25 PM
Reply to  archie1954

Really? I had no idea that the USA had yet taken to murdering Canadian bishops, and replacing them stealthily with clerics ordained in Washington.

archie1954
archie1954
May 11, 2017 12:15 AM
Reply to  Seraskier

You are speaking of tactics. There are many ways to achieve your goal. Replacing religious leaders is jut one but it doesn’t affect the policy of compromising your neighbours in one way or another.

Seraskier
Seraskier
May 11, 2017 11:19 AM
Reply to  archie1954

The comparison of Canada with Tibet is fatuous.

archie1954
archie1954
May 11, 2017 9:55 PM
Reply to  Seraskier

I thought so myself so why did you do it?

Frank
Frank
May 10, 2017 5:18 PM
Reply to  Paul Stelt

The principal difference between totalitarian regimes, such as Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia and the nominal ‘democracies’ is that the first, Nazi Germany, directed state violence against both its internal and external enemies. Stalinism, however, tended to use violence and repression against its internal enemies but was not an imperialist country in the real and technically correct sense of the word and was forced into wars not of its choosing, in 1920, the wars of internvention and 1941.
What needs to be borne in mind is that the imperialist powers, principally the UK, USA, France and the German late comer, have used unprecedented and massive violence against people outside of the core capitalist/imperial world – and still, do. For example:
”Between 50 and 55 million people have died around the world as a result of western imperialism and neo-colonialism since the end of WW2. This relatively short period has arguably seen the greatest number of massacres in human history. Most were performed accompanied by lofty slogans such as freedom and democracy.” Andre Vltchek – ”On western terrorism.” coauthored with Noam Chomsky.
Just add the numbers together: Korea, Indo-China, Indonesia, latin-america (too many to cite) East Timor, Iraq, Libya, Syria. One particularly egregious instance of open endorsement of mass murder was Madelaine Albright’s quite unabashed admission that the massacre of Iraqi children – 500,000 according to UNICEF – as a result of the sanctions impsoed upon Iraq between the two gulf wars was a price worth paying, paying for what exactly is never explained. But it is unknown by most of those who live in the imperial heartlands that any of these humanitarian outrages ever happened. In the British Playwright, Harold Pinter’s words, ‘they never happened, and even while they were happening they were not happening.”
And this was just after the second world war. But imperialism has a long and bloody history, involving slavery, genocide and the destruction of whole countries and cultures. My own country – the UK – was responsible for the slave trade, and the partition and the colonization of much of Africa, and India. The Indiian Mutiny in 1857 was a case study in the unrestrained violence of imprialism on a native population. Amaresh Misra, a writer and historian based in Mumbai, argues that there was an “untold holocaust” which caused the deaths of almost 10 million people over 10 years. In fact the UK was ejected from much of its colonial possessions by force, this included Ireland, Cyprus, Kenya, South Africa, India, Aden, Malaya and Hongkong where its lease ran out. As for Ireland that little matter is still unfinished.
I could also cite France and its wars in Indo-China and Algeria, the Belgian atrocities in the Congo, Portugal’s colonial wars in Angola and Mozambique, but I don’t want to labour the point.
Suffice it to say that this rampaging juggernaut of the collective imperialism under US command, is, if anything, committing greater crimes now than it ever did in the past.
So when we talk about mass murder the above considerations should be borne in mind.

archie1954
archie1954
May 10, 2017 6:24 PM
Reply to  Frank

Ask any American about what you said in this article and they will give you a blank stare!

Kavy
Kavy
May 9, 2017 4:42 PM

Shocking article. Europe is sleepwalking into oblivion. I don’t understand Boris Johnston stirring up trouble with the Russians. What planet are the Conservatives on. Do they want to die just so US corporations can reign supreme?
The British public is not being informed. The propaganda in the media is shocking. Very nice journalists on TV report the news, but don’t tell people that the CIA trains the head chopping terrorists, or that the CIA has been trying to topple the Syrian government since the 1960’s supporting the terrorist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, who want to install Sunni militant Islam in Syria with all its horrors.

rtj1211
rtj1211
May 9, 2017 7:23 PM
Reply to  Kavy

You do not understand Johnson because you think forvyourself.
Johnson has a US passport, is a self-serving demagogue, totally interested in personal advancement and utterly incapable of responsibility. He believed Blairs dodgy Iraq dossier and went into the war lobbies like a meek lamb in 2003. I consider that a life ban from being an MP, but the MPs decide who can be an MP, not the people.

Empire Of Stupid
Empire Of Stupid
May 10, 2017 2:45 PM
Reply to  Kavy

You cling to the quaint notion that an independent UK government is a thing. The reality is that the UK is a doubleplus loyal vassal of the Moronic Hegemony, completely integrated into the industrial-espionage-surveillance system, and has been since Tawny Fucking Blur sold his and the UK’s soul to the highest bidder.

binra
binra
May 10, 2017 3:58 PM

Why stop at or give focus to one personage in a history that goes way back when?
Perhaps Tony Blair was associated with your own dis-illusionment?
All that is needed to align with an evil or a dis-integrity is to perceive it framed as the lesser of evils forced to choose between, or a necessary sacrifice to avert a worse outcome that is feared or believed to be otherwise inevitable otherwise – or even a collateral necessity to bring a brand new world order that cant be born until all these other powers are rendered impotent.
The framing of the mind is key – and manipulators focus on this to set and control the narrative framing of events to the continuity or survival of invested interests from ‘fear of loss’ .
The framed mind is always the blame mind, for guilt defends against exposure of underlying causes within our own conflicted sense of self by personifying them in projected terms of self specialness. Such specialness seeks and finds validations outside itself to attack in a sense of relative righteousness.
To reclaim Soul Sovereignty – live from it. Grow culture by living genuine values and extending a sense of worth that others can freely elect to recognize, appreciate and join in. Of course this is exactly what the ‘mind of deceit’ needs to subvert to its own refuelling. So that a movement of solidarity for a just society became divided, walled out, infiltrated or diluted and subverted to a controlled ‘opposition’ is just the way the mind works.
In older times, one was exhorted to be vigilant for one’s peace and against the deceiver. Rationality itself was subverted to a trojan role, and deceit and self-illusion ‘rule’ out the conditions of their own healing or re-wakening. Sweeping out our own Temple – or in modern terms our own template of self-definitions and beliefs that operate such framing as I point to – is the part we play in withdrawing support from the false and freeing it to align in and give witness to true.
Cursing the darkness – adds not a whit of light. But that recognition IS light in which to catch oneself in act or choice and thus be Free to make another – rather than automatically persist a past conditioned grievance.
If you don’t get on with my attempt to articulate – just don’t give your power away to ‘Them’ or to Him’ or the past that is otherwise passed. Struggle to assert and control a narrative competition is neglecting the only presence that is actually here to discover, appreciate, unfold as and grow in. This would be no less true in any other moment – but our emotional attachments effectively take over unless we have some space of awareness of them.
Gain a world, lose (awareness of) Soul. So release investment in the narrative story of the world and redeem it within a truly lived appreciation, or waste and be wasted in bitter futility of ‘negatively’ framed appreciations.

archie1954
archie1954
May 10, 2017 5:59 PM
Reply to  binra

I appreciate your erudite attempt to articulate a response to today’s reality, but a simplified version would suffice. Just tell everyone to think for themselves, make use of the information highway, never be cowed by the opposition etc.

binra
binra
May 10, 2017 9:10 PM
Reply to  archie1954

Oh I wont tell everyone anything they are not already opening to in themselves. But actually I don’t tell so much as extend information that may resonate with the focus of the reader – or it may not. I love freedom of being – so I would rather people learn whatever it is their choices bring them the realisation of – rather than think and think some more without connecting their thought to their perception and reactions.
Everyone does ‘think for themselves’ and thus reads me or they read their daily reality in their own way and through the lens of their past conditioning and perhaps their present insight – but thinking of a certain kind can and does operate a jamming signal and a distortion filter – not unlike a bot-net of captured minds that are cowed largely in the illusions of freedoms. Once disturbed into such thinking – they are easily cowed into choosing a false sense of security that they forfeit freedom so as not to be disturbed – and of course… it doesn’t work nor does it stop there. Its a ‘devil’s pact’.
So mind-control or narrative reality framing is supported by the notion of thinking for oneself – and I know that is not what you intended with the phrase – and yet who does not think they think for themselves?
Simple is the face reality underneath which a morass of complexity operates and is defended against exposure by divide and rule of each thinking for themselves. And its purpose aligns to private self-interest – rather than a relational willingness within the whole.
Truly shared purpose is a truly shared mind. You may not find relevance or resonance in what I wrote – but I do. Everything is as ‘deep’ as you are. No more and no less – and by your thinking is it so. And as you sow – so shall you reap is a decision – always a present decision – even if running on ‘autobot’.
So notice your thoughts and your feelings – including when cowed by opposition or adversity – for if you don’t – they are thinking you and you are a willing but hapless victim to them and the world they bring you and will assign it to roles in your Script – for it isn’t the main stream media who invented narrative control, but the lie and the father of it. Truth need not tell reality what or how to be – and so when anyone tells you anything – don’t react as if it is true in the terms it presents itself – but feel the context and the purpose embodied. Accept the thoughts that resonate and are relevant for you now and make them your own by living as if they are true of you – and then they are – and through them are you on purpose and in alignment with who you now feel and know and prefer to be – of a completely different vibrational presence that ‘thinking about’. Freedom of being. The doing comes from the accepted definitions and beliefs and thoughts that give you this experience. Everything we ‘do’ embodies what and who we believe we are. Conflicted beliefs invoke conflicted behaviours. Conflicted thinking – compartmentalized, loses even the sense of commonality to a mentalized state of trapped attention. Life is All about and everywhere – yet the autobot cannot see or feel it. But you are no autobot – you are the Life!
(“Danger! Will Robinson!”). And Life is Living Thought in which its connection with Everything is felt. (Exterminate!”). And the release into the freedom of this is ineffably lovely. This is something of our daily reality in such moment of noticing as is NOT shut down and sacrificed to the dictate of fear-programming (that has its own spectra (spectre?) of mutually reinforcing derivatives.
Stop! Shhsh! Listen… relax, let be, and feel into being. Ignore Sauron’s rules. Hold onto no thing and be a space for what is here to notice – including your feelings – but notice anyway without introducing struggle. You will ‘open’ to your self and this will register with you where you can know something directly – even if you can say or think what – but it is now in the walk and talk of your day – and serves the awareness to notice in place of routine reactions of an autobot ‘getting through the day’ as if the point of life was to get there.
If you cant relax to a presence of discernment, the internet will net you! Just as thinking nets you when you forget or neglect to notice what is actually here.
Don’t worry if this missed you – it remains as facet to the theme. Have joy in your day.