Mar 13, 2018

Does Skripal poisoning show the UK is just a Punch & Judy sideshow for US interests?

by Tangible Truth

Boris and Theresa “standing up to Russia”?

So Rex Tillerson has been sacked. Maybe directly after expressing his support for tough actions on Russia yesterday in response to the UK Skripal poisoning, or maybe “on Friday” – claims are contradictory.

Trump has finally spoken out, saying the US will “condemn” Russia if the facts bear out. Which is nicely ambiguous.

What is going on? Imminent WW3? So much hysteria, and so much that doesn’t add up. Its a particularly strange situation.

The sane minority have been left agog at the huge influx of renewed and reinvented Russian hate in the UK over the last few days. Seemingly out of nowhere, this tidal wave of bile has struck – leaving us stunned, hearts in mouths – echoing, as it does, the lead up to Iraq, Libya and Syria….

The clock is ticking on Theresa May’s “ultimatum to Putin”, a 24hr deadline for a Russian “credible response” to the alleged Salisbury-poisoning using an alleged military-grade nerve agent. Russia have responded, nay, demanded! says the Guardian, that we act in “in accordance with the convention to ban chemical weapons” and provide samples. Putin has ‘smirked’ at a BBC journalist, when asked if Russia did it, reports the Daily Mail.

The tension seems to be ramping up. There’s that feeling that something is going to snap…
But what if we’re missing an angle here? And does this tie in with the House Intelligence Committee’s recent announcement that it is closing its investigation on Trump, having found “no evidence of [Russian] collusion”?

To all outward appearances, the UK’s chips are down. We HATE Putin and we HATE Russia! All eyes are turned to them. We fear them. We are outraged by everything they and their London Oligarchs stand for (are they Putin’s Olicharchs? Sometimes they are said to be, and not at others. No one can really make up their mind about who they serve, want they want).

But this manufactured rage is in stark contrast to the US MSM who have been philosophical, noncommittal and even restrained on the matter up till now.

Considering the fact 13 Russian “trolls” can fan their Russophobic flames for months on end and that their hysteria on the topic of “Russian interference” is a universal constant in world politics today, this sudden restraint is worthy of note.

The status of the UK on the world stage has tended to be increasingly mocked, usually through the context of criticising Foreign Minister Boris Johnson.

Increasingly we are portrayed as a sycophantic servant to US interests. And indeed, when Johnson, referring to the Skripal poisoning, remarks “I’ve been encouraged by the willingness of our friends to show support and solidarity,” it becomes increasingly easy to make our own inference, and replace the word ‘encouraged’ with the word ‘instructed’.

I suggest we are indeed being instructed to put on this absurd performance of aggression purely to put Trump on the spot. Divert from the admitted lack of evidence for “collusion”. Force him to either condemn Russia and finally sign up on the new wave of sanctions or provide more fodder for neoliberals to describe him as “soft” on Putin.

I suggest this is why the US is happy to remain subdued for the moment. Because the UK is its proxy, now so irrelevant in world politics it can be used to promote US interests without the risks attached to a serious world power doing the same.

I suggest all the UK’s grandstanding and Falklandising basically amounts to a public statement of our client status and how little we really matter any more. Even our threats are simply an ineffectual distraction, used precisely because we won’t upset the Russian big boys too much, but still provide that handy excuse for some Russia-based Trump-bashing in the colonies.

I suggest the UK is an offshore sideshow, nowadays. A punch and Judy act, where Boris Jonson and Theresa May hit things with sticks and squawk and squawk and no one, except their tiny domestic audience really cares.

Perhaps when Marina Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, describes these goings on as a “circus” she was being a little more specific than we realise. Perhaps when Putin ‘smirks’ he is merely enjoying the show.