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False Western Narratives Have Caused a Real Russia-West Split

Tony Kevin

We have a situation now in which two major world governments, UK and Russia, both nuclear powers and permanent members of the UNSC, are upholding entirely opposed and contradictory narratives on two issues – the alleged Salisbury/Amesbury Novichuk poisonings, and the alleged nerve gas attacks by Assad Government forces on 7 April in Douma, Syria (on basis of false White Helmets-staged evidence). The latter allegation led to a US/UK bombing attack on Syrian Air Force bases.

On both issues, the US and French governments – also UNSC members and nuclear powers – have in solidarity supported UK government- sourced narratives , though in the former case there has been no UK judicial process, and in the latter case OPCW inspectors have found no physical evidence of use of nerve agents in Douma , and nor do local people’s accounts support the allegations.

In the Salisbury case, OPCW technical reports made public in Moscow on 14 April by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, detailing results of the Skripal samples analysis by the OPCW Spiez Laboratory in Switzerland, support a finding that the Skripals were probably poisoned temporarily with non- lethal BZ toxin , found in the Skripal samples, and that quantities of Novichok (A-234) lethal toxin had twice been added to the samples before they passed from British Govt to OPCW custody, in two clumsy attempts some weeks apart to create a false Novichok chemical trail. Lavrov commented, in strong language for him, that the fact Spiez Lab found these two doses of A-234 in the samples “appears to be utterly suspicious.”

Nevertheless, two days later on 16 April, the OPCW Executive Council , under Western pressure, decided unprecedentedly not to release the full reports of the samples testing by the four OPCW laboratories in Switzerland, thereby casting serious doubt on the professional reputation of OPCW. See here and here.

The second document contained a manifestly untrue statement by Mr Marc-Michael Blum, the Head of the OPCW Laboratory and leader of the technical assistance team that was deployed to the United Kingdom, that

The Labs were able to confirm the identity of the chemical (Novichok, or A -234) by applying existing, well-established procedures.

*** There was no other chemical that was identified by the Labs ***.

The precursor of BZ that is referred to in the public statements, commonly known as 3Q, was contained in the control sample prepared by the OPCW Lab in accordance with the existing quality control procedures. Otherwise it has nothing to do with the samples collected by the OPCW Team in Salisbury. This chemical was reported back to the OPCW by the two designated labs and the findings are duly reflected in the report.’

This is simply laughable. The OPCW defence was that Britain had requested a very restricted test looking only for Novichok, and that it was therefore correct procedure for OPCW to withhold publication of the full laboratory results. So there is no official confirmation or denial of Lavrov’s statement that the Spiez Lab had found that A-234 had twice been improperly added to the Skripal samples. And a blatant lie was told on BZ.

Lavrov on 14 April had stood just short of accusing the UK government of concealing evidence and tampering with samples. But his imputation was very clear. Clearly he was appealing to Britain and the OPCW to do the right thing on 16 April. They did not do so. His words, recorded on the Russian MFA website, went unreported in the West. They are the essential basis of the Russian counter-narrative.

On the alleged use of CW in Douma, an alleged child victim Hassan Diab testified in The Hague three weeks later on 27 April that he had never been gassed, but he had been cruelly used in a White Helmets staged propaganda film.

Then, much later, the OPCW reported on 6 July their inspectors’ findings that they had not found any organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation products in Douma.

These are facts. But it appears that facts no longer matter. In the UNSC, the weight of numbers is with the three Western permanent members and their allies. China has been circumspect on the issue, saying almost nothing except calling for proper procedures to be followed in OPCW.

Russia and China continue to have rights of veto on any future UNSC resolution that might try to condemn Russia for allegedly behaving as an international outlaw in these two contested matters.

Is there any legal way Russia could be expelled from the UNSC over either or both of these sets of allegations? America and Britain seem hell-bent now on portraying Russia as an international criminal, but surely this should carry no credibility now with the majority of the UNGA membership outside the compliant NATO/EU/Australia grouping.

There seems no way in which the facts of Salisbury/Amesbury can be publicly established, as long as the UK Government continues to suppress and tamper with evidence, and as long as its Western allies and the OPCW Executive continue to give to the UK Government cover and support. Only the election of a Corbyn Labour Govt might offer prospect of change, because Corbyn is a decent man who would refuse to sustain a UK government lie.

Russia will continue to press for consular access to their citizens the Skripals. They cannot let the issue be forgotten. So it will go on being a cause of major Russia-UK tension and bad blood, as the histories of the two series of events recede into mythology and contested narratives, and as distracting myths and legends accumulate around Salisbury-Amesbury.

Now, the US government is resorting with increasing recklessness to unilateral sanctions outside the UN system, announcing two tranches of increasingly severe sanctions against Russia, in August and November, unless Russia admits its crimes and promises not to repeat them. Russia has of course rejected these demands out of hand, as internationally illegal and without any justification.

If the US pursues this course it will lead to further distancing between the US and Russian economies. As Lavrov points out, many other countries will draw their own conclusions about the US’s reliability as an economic partner and reserve currency.

The most likely medium-term scenario is continued simmering anger and resentment on both sides , encouraging further polarisation of a ‘3 versus 2’ situation in UNSC. But I don’t see how Russia could be expelled or suspended from the UNSC.

The current situation suits Western Russia-hating elites. It is in their interest to delay and impede any moves to Russia-West detente, keeping tensions high but at a level just short of war, and keeping Trump on a tight leash for as long as he remains US President. So far, sadly, it is all working out according to this plan.

Tony Kevin, former Australian diplomat and author of ‘Return to Moscow’ (2017, UWA Publishing).

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Cherrycoke
Cherrycoke
Aug 20, 2018 10:07 AM

The author quotes:

” The Labs were able to confirm the identity of the chemical (Novichok, or A -234) by applying existing, well-established procedures.

*** There was no other chemical that was identified by the Labs ***.

The precursor of BZ that is referred to in the public statements, commonly known as 3Q, was contained in the control sample prepared by the OPCW Lab in accordance with the existing quality control procedures. Otherwise it has nothing to do with the samples collected by the OPCW Team in Salisbury. This chemical was reported back to the OPCW by the two designated labs and the findings are duly reflected in the report.’"

I don’t mean to defend the OPCW on this, but this is false, probably due to sloppy writing. Marc-Michael Blum never mentioned “Novichok, or A-234” as a quick glance at the document, provided by the author himself makes clear.

vexarb
vexarb
Aug 18, 2018 7:02 PM

I think this headline mistakes the effect for the cause. It was the estrangement (“West’s Russophobia) that inspired the Novijoke.

Jo
Jo
Aug 18, 2018 5:57 PM

Usa has no problem continuing to threaten Russia at UN… because it is a public forum used by west especially usa and uk to lambast Russia there ….giving voice to such as Powers and Hayley and these create headlines western media so loves to continue the planned russophobic bogeyman hysteria. Russia keeps appealing to UN eg recent converstations between Lavrov and UN General Secretary on Syria and upkeeping of international law so consequently has dug itself a moral hole that it cannot leave it…..even though UN is powerless and does very very little even to hold up its own charters. A perfect conundrum with no means of solving it. Just what usa wants….who threatens anyone else who does not go along with its wishes. Which appears to be current usa foreign policy too.

Big B
Big B
Aug 18, 2018 11:06 AM

Another aspect that blurs the old West v East narrative (a ‘Western imperium’ v a fictive ‘Eastern anti-imperial bloc’) is that Russias response to the new Cold War provocations is inhibited by the fact that they believe that they need (transnational) capital (FDI) to expand their economies. They do not: a fact PCR, Michael Hudson and the Saker have been pointing out for a while now. The real Fifth column in Russia (and China) is neoliberalism. Trying to attract $$$$ capital destroys economies: witness, the entire fucking world! In return for a faux-initial-growth period (an illusion caused by monetising debt) the economy is gutted and the people mathematicised and dehumanised (as debt slaves) – witness: the whole fucking world! Why Russia would want to integrate in a subservient vassalised semi-peripheral position within the neoliberal world system – that has been the ruination of the whole fucking world – is beyond me. They should make a clean break from the neoliberal world order (which, contrary to internet memes, they have not – they are operating WITHIN a neoliberal world order). Why they do not break is also beyond PCR: who puts it more sanguinely than I do:

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/08/12/the-self-imposed-impotence-of-the-russian-and-chinese-governments/

Norman Pilon
Norman Pilon
Aug 18, 2018 4:56 PM
Reply to  Big B

“Why Russia would want to integrate in a subservient vassalised semi-peripheral position within the neoliberal world system – that has been the ruination of the whole fucking world – is beyond me.”

The logic of capital is ‘concentration,’ and there is a threshold beyond which the accumulation of wealth and power — if the accumulation that is the sine qua non of capital is to continue ( . . . and it must) — manifests in cultural or ideological terms among the ruling elites as neoliberalism.

This isn’t a ‘choice,’ moral or otherwise. It is the result of and dictated by competitive profit seeking, that is to say, by the ineluctable concentration of power into the hands of fewer and fewer factions of unfathomably wealthy people.

As you put it, the entire fucking world, and there are really NO ECONOMIC EXCEPTIONS, is under the sway of transnational capital. But here is the rub: the logic (of capitalist production and accumulation) that is the organizing principal of all so called ‘economies of scale’ is ‘identical’ the world over. Consequently, if under the circumstances most of what can be designated as ‘transnational capital’ is currently largely owned and managed by the Euro-American-Japanese nexus, that ‘domination’ is a purely contingent or accidental state of affairs. In other words, given the opportunity, had circumstances been different, or if circumstances change of their own accord, so to speak, the ownership and management of ‘transnational capital’ might well either have been or might eventually even become through the pressures of economic and military competition that of an ‘apparent’ Russian-Chinese-Iranian nexus, or that of a combination of any ruling factions of whatever nationalities or regions.

It is a mistake, from the standpoint of ordinary people, from the standpoint of the overwhelming majority of people in the world, to continue trying to understand the political and economic evolution of the world as it pertains to them directly by means of the conceptual categories used by and dominating the capitalist ruling establishments the world over.

The ‘national interest’ — regardless of whether it is Russian or American or Canadian or whatever the fuck — is NOT the interest of anyone having to earn a wage for a living, be that person a Russian or American or Brit or whatever the fuck.

No capitalist establishment — and ALL governments ruling today are CAPITALIST — speaks or acts in the interest of ordinary people, people who are constrained to exchange their ‘socialized and collective work’ for increasingly inadequate wages meted out to them on an individual basis.

If your approach to what is going on in the world is only in terms of what one so called nation intends for another so called nation, you don’t get the crux of the situation in which you and all of the rest of us find ourselves.

Capitalist factions exist and they do cohere in national units.

But the real division in the world is between the majority, who are exploited, and the tiny cohorts of the owners of capital, who exploit the majority.

People need to change how they see themselves and who they designate as ‘other.’

Working-class Russians are not ‘other’ than working-class Americans, and so it is the world over, and the identity is in an objective sense ‘fundamental’ because the weight and effects of capital on the working-class all over the planet is fundamentally the same. All other so-called differences truly pale in comparison.

As Rosa Luxemberg put it:

Quote begins:

In a class society, “the nation” as a homogeneous socio-political entity does not exist. Rather, there exist within each nation, classes with antagonistic interests and “rights.” There literally is not one social area, from the coarsest material relationships to the most subtle moral ones, in which the possessing class and the class-conscious proletariat hold the same attitude, and in which they appear as a consolidated “national” entity. In the sphere of economic relations, the bourgeois classes represent the interests of exploitation – the proletariat the interests of work. In the sphere of legal relations, the cornerstone of bourgeois society is private property; the interest of the proletariat demands the emancipation of the propertyless man from the domination of property. In the area of the judiciary, bourgeois society represents class “justice,” the justice of the well-fed and the rulers; the proletariat defends the principle of taking into account social influences on the individual, of humaneness. In international relations, the bourgeoisie represent the politics of war and partition, and at the present stage, a system of trade war; the proletariat demands a politics of universal peace and free trade. In the sphere of the social sciences and philosophy, bourgeois schools of thought and the school representing the proletariat stand in diametric opposition to each other. The possessing classes have their world view; it is represented by idealism, metaphysics, mysticism, eclecticism; the modern proletariat has its theory – dialectic materialism. Even in the sphere of so-called “universal” conditions – in ethics, views on art, on behavior – the interests, world view, and ideals of the bourgeoisie and those of the enlightened proletariat represent two camps, separated from each other by an abyss. And whenever the formal strivings and the interests of the proletariat and those of the bourgeoisie (as a whole or in its most progressive part) seem identical – for example, in the field of democratic aspirations – there, under the identity of forms and slogans, is hidden the most complete divergence of contents and essential politics.

Quote ends.

The National Question

rtj1211
rtj1211
Aug 19, 2018 1:48 AM
Reply to  Norman Pilon

Economies of scale is actually an interesting study: you find that as you scale up beyond a certain size, the economies turn into inefficiencies.

I am not sure whether anyone has considered ‘economies of scale’ in investment management, but I would posit that beyond a certain concentration of wealth, decision-making becomes poorer.

Something to do with fewer and fewer minds actually taking decisions and morevand more wisdom being excluded.

Norman Pilon
Norman Pilon
Aug 19, 2018 12:20 PM
Reply to  rtj1211

Right. Perhaps ‘economies of scale’ is not the correct term for what I meant to express.

Better, perhaps: ‘large economies’ — countries like the U.S. or Russia or any another nationally designated unit, and trading blocs, like NAFTA or the European Union.

Point well taken.

BigB
BigB
Aug 19, 2018 2:00 PM
Reply to  Norman Pilon

Hi Norm, where have you been!

Capital accumulation is a tyranny of dispossession by violent means: a totalising crime of ultra-violence inflicted by humanity – not just on humanity, on biodiversity, but also inflicted on the very fabric and metabolism of Nature. It is a crime against the Unborn and the dispossession and monetisation of their future. Yet is such a ubiquitous crime that it has become normalised and internalised as socially necessary (in the imperial heartlands, at least). Ones wealth, wellbeing, and status within a capitalist society are functions of imperial violence. One expects the superclass to betray humanity, each other, and Nature in the pursuit of aggressively-competitive maximal-greed capital accumulation; and their bourgeois political class to uphold that betrayal with their own; what I would not expect is the continued unwitting betrayal of the exploited working class by the working class …by legitimating, internalising, and embodying the values and politics of alienation and imperialistic violence as their own.

This manifests in a sectarian identitarianism: where there can be no unity of common cause. Capital accumulation, being imperial ultra-violence, a priori negates humanity. Humanity is externalised and subordinated to the economic calculus of hyper-aggressive competitive super-accumulation. It is a fundamental and continual denial of who we are: something the young Marx focussed on. We are alienated from our work; from each other; from our environment; but also fundamentally alienated from our ‘species essence’ …our own true (and co-operative) nature. What humanity, dignity, and community we can retain is the only refuge from the commodification of identity and ecomomisation, urbanisation, and privatisation of society. Integration into, and acceptance of, capitalist society comes at the (cognitively unconscious) cost of the distortion and deformation of consciousness. Such returns in conferred status, wealth and relative happiness are trade-offs in authentic truth-value and amount to cultural micro-imperialisms over Self and Other.

“The possessing classes have their world view; it is represented by idealism, metaphysics, mysticism, eclecticism; the modern proletariat has its theory – dialectic materialism”

This is prescient from Red Rosa: the culturally hegemonic worldview of the possessing classes has become ubiquitously absorbed by the vestigial class stratification left in the wake of globalisation. 80% of the former industrial cores ‘modern proletariat’ are now in the Global South. The ‘workers’ of the North do not sufficiently recognise class relations: the dynamics of historical materialism have been dissipated. The Northern ‘proletariat’ have become the hegemonic cultural vassals of the possessing classes’ world-view: which they recognise as their own without recognising the inherent imperial violence (which is hidden as credit imperialism and militarily exported violence). Imperial heartlands, such as the UK, are at ‘peace’: our imperialist violence, economic rape, and environmental degradation are externalised elsewhere. Out of sight is out of mind: integration into an inherently ultra-violent way of life seems Authentic.

The very imperialist, exceptionalist worldview of the possessing classes’ (by dint of which they possess our Humanity and Conscience) is the Enlightenment world-view of Cartesian mechanist-materialist instrumental rationality. Well, the American imperium is the Enlightenment Project objectified: so what is the dialectical materialist alternative that Rosa highlighted a century ago?

For me: it is a replacement of the quantitative with the qualitative (quality of life liberated from the totalitarian violence and mathematicisation of quantitative capital accumulation (reducing self to statistic)) as Andre Gorz pointed out in his “Critique of Economic Reason”. Individual qualitative enhancement of the spiritual – not just the material – facets of life are dialectically co-mutually benefiting of community and society. It’s so simple: it’s a wonder no one thought of it before! I do seriously wonder that Marx was born at all. The understanding of the anti-humanism of our internationally shared predicament under the tyranny of capital accumulation is backsliding …for want of Marx and Rosa’s knowledge that is at least a hundred years old? Why are we not building a new eco-humanism on the shoulders of such giants?

Separation from Self; separation from Nature; and separation from Other (our common and universal humanity); are are an econometric of imperial ultra-violence written into the code of capital accumulation. Enlightenment inhumanism is the conceptual cultural construction of the possessing class: invented and continually imperially violently imposed (though for many, the violence is surreal and exported, and only a reported unreality through the media spectacle – thus responsibility for the violence is pre-absolved as inevitable and Other). This is how the modern capitalist society dysfunctions: by simulating the core values of the Enlightenment inhumanism. Liberalism, humanism, universalism, democracy, justice, and the rule of law are codes for the ultra-violence and super-exploitation of neoliberalism.

Only, don’t try and tell a socialist ‘progressive’ that …it is as though Marx had never existed.

[And Norm, don’t leave it so long next time!]

vexarb
vexarb
Aug 19, 2018 8:22 PM
Reply to  BigB

@BigB: “It is a fundamental and continual denial of who we are: something the young Marx focussed on. We are alienated from our work; from each other; from our environment; but also fundamentally alienated from our ‘species essence’ …our own true (and co-operative) nature”.

This para fits in with something I noted about young Karl: born in 1818 he belonged to the same Mid-to-Late Romantic generation as Heinrich Heine (b.1810), Robert Schumann (and Richard Wagner (b.1813); the 1848 generation. Like Wagner and Heine, Marx was exiled for Revolutionary Activism. Unlike them, he persevered and turned himself into the iron-grey intellect of socialist politics; but I think the old Dialectical Materialist still carried the same romantic heart that beat in “the young Marx”.

rilme
rilme
Aug 18, 2018 8:29 AM

Who was behind the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia?
The USA, and, of course, “israel”:

https://americangoy.blogspot.com/2008/08/you-knew-this-was-coming-israeli.html

tutisicecream
tutisicecream
Aug 18, 2018 6:46 AM

It is still a subject of continuing concern that the Media is so easily influenced [infiltrated?]by what are blatant lies and fake narratives which form an increasing media echo chamber of deceit.

The current wave of Russophobia arguably started back at the time of the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia. That blatant provocation by the US educated and groomed stooge Saakashvili against Russia was the first total inversion of the facts. It was possible to trace the inversion from the first reporting of fact into the established narrative, that Russia invaded Georgia. A narrative which was revived recently in the WMSM for the 10 year anniversary of the brief war.

The exact same was witnessed when the Ukrainian coup happened at first there was some factual reporting but then that was subsumed by the fake narrative/s. Since then it has been pretty much open season for Russophobics in the slime stream media. No need any more to hide behind the manipulation of the plot just come right out with the screen play and make out as if it were based on a true story!

That’s where we are now. The Skripal nonsense the White Helmets mockumentaries and tele-tubing snuff vids. All blatantly presented as if they were Encyclopaedic Britannic facts. It’s worth noting though that as the Orange one is happily sticking the trade war boot into, well nearly everyone globally, the craven spooks* making a quick buck from “dissing the diss” -info are running for cover as they are in it up to their grubby necks…

the likes of Steele & Le Mesurier

Big B
Big B
Aug 18, 2018 10:37 AM
Reply to  tutisicecream

I think the roots go back as far as 2001 when a young upstart called Vladimir Putin called time on the Yeltsin era ‘Family’ of oligarchs. He dared to jail Khodorkovsky and Glushkov. Around 2003 is when I think the oligarchy (who had put VVP in) decided he had to go, IMO. The fact that this decision was made among (all bar one) Jewish Russians negates the West-East narrative; or certainly blurs the hard demarcation of boundaries.

In fact, that the oligarchs who were ultimately behind the Russophobia agenda were themselves Russians, requires a more nuanced narrative. In fact, those who are manipulating the narrative for personal gain are not really resident anywhere (not even Londongrad) would mean we are looking at a ‘supra-ideology’ emanating from a stateless transnational superclass: a supra-society that the unfettered capital accumulation of neoliberalism has raised beyond nation states or national boundaries.

Historically, ideologues – inter alia – included Boris and Badri (Berezovsky and Patarkatsishvili) who were virulently anti-Putin (through their co-owned media outlets Kommersant, ORT, and TV6). Litvinenko was Berezovsky’s man; as Saaskashvili was Badri’s. We can’t look at the Georgian war without linking Badri back to the ‘Family’ of oligarchs. Both Khodorkovsky’s (Pavel and Mikhail) are more ideologically aligned to Browder than the Kremlin: particularly with the European Magnitsky Act. Anyone who visits the Saker knows that there is an American Fifth Column – the “Atlantic Integrationists” – with whom VVP has to balance power within a Yeltsin era political infrastructure that favours their needs – more and more animalistic capital accumulation.

Of course, a full picture is not forthcoming because the suprasociety or overclass does not exist. Its existence (at least as a conceptual entity) can only be inferred. Nor is it monolithic: which can be inferred from the fact that Browder was opposed by the Clinton Mafia when he was bringing in the Magnitsky Act (with help from the Israel lobby) in 2012. The Magnitsky Act and the Uranium One deal went through within a short time frame. We are probably looking at the end of the ‘Russian Reset’ around the Syrian intervention in 2015 for the consolidated suprasociety/Deep State/overclass commitment to the Cold War external regime change agenda (Operation Beluga?) we can witness today.

Consider how the Steele/Dearlove Cabal and the Clinton Mafia seamlessly combined with elements of the CIA, NSA, FBI, DOJ, to instigate Russiagate? I maintain Trump was a handy secondary target: Russiagate’s primary target is VVP. These people are not patriots, they are all traitors, who are not working for national, but supra-national dark actors …who are neither Western or Eastern: but ‘globalist’. They are non-domiciled (for tax evasion purposes: think of Browder who is ‘British’) and the supra-ideology, if not the actual narratives, emanate from their needs …wanton, rapine, deadly, cannibalistic capital accumulation. They serve no nation, only themselves. They need to be identified, outed and stopped: if that is at all possible …because in virtually all analysis: they do not exist. And to suggest they do is now antisemitic.

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Aug 17, 2018 7:08 PM

The public is being softened up for the next phase in US acquisition of territory and the gas, oil and mineral resources that go with it.

The US clearly wants to crush Iran: a goal complicated for them by Iran’s alliance with Russia, and the joint success of Iranian and Russian forces against the western backed coup in Syria.

The recent poisoning and ‘chemical weapons’ scares are both transparent psych-ops with the media playing its customary role of acting as mouth piece for amoral security forces.

The failure to hold to account any western leader responsible for mass murder in Iraq and beyond tell us that facts are now more or less irrelevant when it comes to either influencing the public mood or more importantly preventing a descent into an even more devastating form of warfare.

If the public can be conned so easily over controlled explosions at the world trade centre (again without a single repercussion) then I’m sceptical of them being able to follow or take much interest in contested lab reports, while media facilitated Russiaphobia might deter even those who have taken to the trouble to do their own research.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Aug 17, 2018 10:35 PM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

Tony Kevin’s hope that a Corbyn Government would clean up the Skripal Augean stable of lies seems to me misplaced. Corbyn has already endorsed the ‘Magnitsky’ economic warfare on Russia, at the behest of Browder, and, in any case he will NEVER be allowed to become PM, unless he has made pledges to CHANGE NOTHING. The dying Western Reich will cause a thermo-nuclear war in its rabid death-throes-there is no way they will EVER give up their determination to rule the world, every square inch of it.

rtj1211
rtj1211
Aug 19, 2018 1:52 AM

I really do not understand why politicians need to kowtow to Browder. He is one man.

richarda
richarda
Aug 23, 2018 11:37 AM
Reply to  rtj1211

One man among Billions?

BTW, check out “The Magnitsky Act : Behind the Scenes”

archie1954
archie1954
Aug 17, 2018 5:50 PM

Follow the money. Who benefits from such an estrangement? Why does such an estrangement benefit certain parties. Publicly name such parties and stop their dangerous game!

JJ139
JJ139
Aug 17, 2018 5:48 PM

Wow you really are pathetic now.

What is known as the Cradle (more properly Cradles) of Civilisation emerged from Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient India, Ancient China and even parts of what is now Mexico. Looking at a map of the world, none of these areas could be described as being in the ‘West’. Which rather suggests the copying was the other way round.

JJ139
JJ139
Aug 17, 2018 5:49 PM
Reply to  JJ139

This is a reply to the now firmly resident barking troll CE.

comite espartaco
comite espartaco
Aug 17, 2018 5:57 PM
Reply to  JJ139

They were Westerners at that time… with respect to China… Western culture and civilisation never abjured from its Middle Eastern and Egyptian origins (that is what we just said), Greek civilisation is full of references to it. Of course, all these things are known thanks to Western Science… lefto-bot…!!!

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Aug 17, 2018 10:37 PM
Reply to  JJ139

Yes, but the West rules ‘under God’, don’t forget.

comite espartaco
comite espartaco
Aug 17, 2018 5:32 PM

It is a grave mistake to think that the ‘West’ is anti-Russian or anti-East or Anti-South. The West is the most advanced compendium of the knowledge of mankind, East, West, North and South. Indeed, many of the ideas and abstract concepts that non-Western peoples have about the world and themselves and their role in the world, are copies and modifications of Western themes or ideologies and, conversely, many ideas of the West have been ‘mined’ and elaborated by the sophisticated critical methods of the West. The West, should be understood not as its exploiters and political class of traitors, always ready to betray their countrymen to the exploiters of the ‘East’ or ‘South’, but by the workers of the West, that have produced the power and might of the West and constitutes the universal model for development and progress.
The simplistic ideologies that pretend to confront an evil West against a good and virginal Third World or East or South, are ‘Western’ ideologies, normally, although not always, conveyed by leftist groups and produced by the exploiters of the whole world, to reinforce local hierarchies of exploiters and destroy the Western Working Class Movement (the most dangerous one as it is the most organised and powerful), and divide the planet into antagonistic groups of workers, segmented by racial, religious, ethnic and other types of particular interests. There is, then, an articulation and complementarity between the exploiters of the world, East and West and this is reflected in the ‘thirdworldist’ ideologies of today.
It is also a grave mistake, derived from ‘thirdworldist’ wishful and flawed thinking, to consider the East or South or Third World, as a monolithic and coherent whole. It is not and that was clearly understood by President Nixon and his team, when they visited China in 1972 and obtained the effective conversion of China that open the doors to globalisation and the destruction of the USSR. That is why, it is not safe to expect a stable ‘3 v 2’ polarisation of the UNSC or the emergence of a viable BRICS alliance (see, for instance, the recent confrontations between China and India and their rivalry through Pakistan, Sri Lanka and their own border).

JudyJ
JudyJ
Aug 17, 2018 7:14 PM

Presumably ‘the simplistic ideologies’ you refer to are the fundamental ideologies of morality and integrity which, in spite of the West’s ‘advanced knowledge, development and progress’ which you are so proud to give us a history of, are sadly in limited supply among Western PTBs. It is the continued existence and dominance of such ‘simplistic ideologies’ that will ultimately determine whether mankind survives or self-exterminates, not a fatuous argument about who in the world can claim the right to call themselves the supreme source of knowledge.

comite espartaco
comite espartaco
Aug 17, 2018 7:42 PM
Reply to  JudyJ

That is a very simplistic view, indeed. In the first place you would have to define what is ‘morality’ and ‘integrity’ and which ideologies are the ones that uphold that ‘morality’ and ‘integrity’. For example, we maintain that Marxism, the real one that we represent, is ‘moral’ and ‘integral’ and our Marxist analysis has shown you that the ‘leftist’ ideologies are not, as they are based on false representations and misunderstandings that support exploitation. But there is more. You would have to demonstrate or, at least, give reasons, that mankind, as it is now, is worth saving from the supposed Apocalypse that leftist are so kin on reminding us all at every turn and, above all, why we should be afraid of that scaremongering. You should understand that there is something called ‘struggle’ and ‘fight’ or ‘war’ of which not all humans are scared.

JudyJ
JudyJ
Aug 17, 2018 9:07 PM

Thanks for your comments, c.e. All I can say in reply is that, whether or not it is a simplistic view, I have a problem with lying and deception – as per the essence of this article – whoever the protagonist is and whatever their ideological start point may be. It may well be that not all humans are scared of the concepts of ‘struggle’, ‘fight’ or ‘war’ but personally speaking I would rather that those people were not running countries. I live in hope that common sense will prevail in the end, if not in my generation then perhaps in the next, and all nations will eventually (at the risk of sounding very soppy and idealistic) learn to live in harmony and with respect for each other throughout the world; unfortunately I have little confidence in that hope. I would prefer to be given the opportunity to witness the future actions of political and military leaders and their impact on societies before coming to an opinion on whether mankind is worth saving. For the time being I don’t think planet Earth is in the best of health in terms of the impact of mankind on fellow man and the natural kingdom but it would probably be a touch premature for me to suggest that it’s all worth destroying at the earliest opportunity – being selfish, and at the risk of being distastefully flippant, perhaps wait until I’m gone then everyone else can do whatever they like!

comite espartaco
comite espartaco
Aug 17, 2018 11:41 PM
Reply to  JudyJ

In reality we coincide and we could agree with some of the things that you express but, as they say, the devil is the detail and that is what we have been trying to show. Our critique is directed to unmasking the apparent truths and accepted views adopted by most leftist militants, supporters of the left and exploiters in general, even if unconsciously. Lies and deceptions that prevent people from fighting properly and effectively against the main problems of mankind and that leaves the solution of those problems in the hands of a super-natural fate or the dubious moral conversion of exploiters and impotently blames, materialises and allocates a supposed guilt to certain portions of humanity.
As communists we look forward to a World ‘Government’ or, rather, Administration, but we are not Utopians and we know that our aims will come, if at all, through organised struggle, as already has been demonstrated throughout history. To organise this struggle and speed up progress, the lies and deceptions that immobilise workers and citizens have to be rejected, especially the ones that pass as the real philosophy of the Working Class and working humanity. Building on unsound foundations will not benefit anyone and will leave us with the despair and resignation of the deGaullian ‘après moi le déluge’, even though there is always some truth in it.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Aug 17, 2018 10:41 PM
Reply to  JudyJ

The Zionazis hate the non-Western civilizations because of their innate racist supremacism, whereby they imagine themselves the supreme human type. They’ll never control China as they do the West, hence the hatred.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Aug 17, 2018 10:39 PM

The usual racist, Orientalist, vicious swill-an absolutely undisguised Zionazi.

frank
frank
Aug 17, 2018 11:23 PM

and still the sad bloke continues. LOL