Cold War – Old and New

Jan Oberg July 8, 2022 There have been lots of reports about how G7 leaders snubbed dinner, photo-op, handshake, concerts, etc. since Russia’s foreign minister Lavrov would also be present during the G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia. Here is Lavrov’s comment to Tass: “This is how they understand protocol, politeness and code of conduct.” Here is another report. This is of course neither professional, good diplomacy nor statesmanship – but, worse, it is an indicator of how little knowledge these people have about how to make peace – an indicator of peace illiteracy – and without wanting to offend children: How childish international politics has become. Diplomatic skills are decreasing as military skills and rhetorics take top priority à la ‘We have overwhelming military power and we do not need to think about the future or show good manners.’ A kind of diplomatic decadence. I do not believe for a...

President Joe Biden speaks at the NATO summit at the group’s headquarters in Brussels on June 14, 2021. Photo: Francisco Seco/Pool/AFP via Getty Images Jon Schwarz June 30, 2022 NATO’s summit showed how the “North Atlantic” Treaty Organization has decided it has an extremely expansive global mission. IN A STOP last week on his way to Belgium for Monday’s NATO summit, President Joe Biden visited a Royal Air Force base in eastern England. “In Brussels,” he told the assembled crowd, “I will make it clear that the United States’s commitment to our NATO alliance and Article 5 is rock solid. It’s a sacred obligation that we have under Article 5.” These lines were aimed at a tiny number of human beings. Certainly almost no Americans have any idea what “Article 5” is part of or what it says. Originally published at The Intercept on June 15, 2022 But Biden’s words were genuinely significant. Article 5...

Jack F. Matlock, Jr. May 27, 2022 An avoidable crisis that was predictable, actually predicted, willfully precipitated, but easily resolved by the application of common sense, writes Jack Matlock, the last U.S. ambassador to the U.S.S.R. We are being told each day that war may be imminent in Ukraine. Russian troops, we are told, are massing at Ukraine’s borders and could attack at any time. American citizens are being advised to leave Ukraine and dependents of the American Embassy staff are being evacuated. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president has advised against panic and made clear that he does not consider a Russian invasion imminent. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has denied that he has any intention of invading Ukraine. His demand is that the process of adding new members to NATO cease and that in particular, Russia has assurance that Ukraine and Georgia will never be members. President Joe Biden has...

Photo by Jiyeon Park on Unsplash Edward Curtin May 19, 2022 Isn’t it always? With the start of World War III by the United States “declaring” war against Russia by its actions in Ukraine, we have entered a time when the end of time has become very possible. I am speaking of nuclear annihilation. I look down at my great-uncle’s gold Elgin pocket watch from the 19th century. His name was John Patrick Whalen, an Irish immigrant to the US who fled England’s colonialist created famine in Ireland. It tells me it is 5:15 PM on April 21, 2022, a date, coincidentally, with a history.  Originally published at Off-Guardian No doubt John looked at his watch on this date in 1898 when the United States, after the USS Maine exploded from within in Havana harbour (a possible false flag attack), declared war on Spain in order to confiscate Spanish territories – Cuba, Puerto Rico,...

Ben Norton May 18, 2022 NATO sees Ukrainians as mere cannon fodder in its imperial proxy war on Russia The US-led NATO military alliance has made it clear that it is willing to fight to the last Ukrainian in order to bleed Russia and advance Western geopolitical interests. In a shockingly blunt admission, The Washington Post acknowledged that some NATO member states want “Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying” in order to prevent Russia from making political gains. Originally published at Globalresearch In an April 5 report on peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, the major US newspaper disclosed that NATO is afraid that Kyiv may give in to some of Moscow’s demands. The Washington Post wrote explicitly: “For some in NATO, it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying than to achieve a peace that comes too early or at too high a cost to Kyiv and the rest of Europe.” Anonymous...

Richard E. Rubenstein May 17, 2022 Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, it was fair to call the ensuing conflict “Putin’s war.” True, the U.S. and Europe could probably have avoided the invasion by calling a halt to NATO expansion and negotiating seriously with the Russians about key security issues. True, U.S. arms had been pouring into Ukraine since the overthrow of the pro-Russian government there in 2014, and Ukraine was using them to kill pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region. But Putin was still responsible for crossing the line into organized violence. It does matter who shoots first, and he shot first. Originally published at Transcend.org Even so, that is not the end of the discussion. Far from it. At first one could rightfully have called this Putin’s war, but it has now become Joe Biden’s war as well. Consider what has happened so far. The advance...

Jan Oberg 14 maj, 2022 Engelska versionen av denna finns här Detta är vad västvärlden intellektuellt sett – mitt i sin gränslöst självrättfärdiga, militaristiska sinnesstämning – inte förmår att se: Natos expansionspolitik skapade – och är ansvarig för – konflikten. Ryssland skapade – och är ansvarigt för – kriget. Det finns inget våld som inte har sin grund i underliggande konflikter. Konflikt- och fredskunniga människor talar därför om båda. Och om de vill ha fred ökar de inte symptomen – kriget – utan de tar itu med den verkliga orsaken, konflikten, och ber de stridande parterna att berätta vad de fruktar och vad de vill och tar sig sedan steg för steg vidare mot en hållbar lösning. Men varken mainstream media eller politiker har civilkurage nog att ta itu med konflikten. Det handlar bara om kriget och bara om Ryssland/Putin som måste straffas, oavsett vilket pris kommande generationer ska betala....

Diplomatic Security Service conducts a training at the National Cathedral in Washington in 2020. (U.S. State Department) Sam Husseini May 2, 2022 The late U.S. secretary of state’s association with Biden and the Clintons can be seen as a war-making, mutually absolving clique, writes Sam Husseini. It’s fitting that U.S. President Joe Biden and Bill and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should eulogize Madeleine Albright at the mammoth Episcopalian institution calling itself the “National Cathedral.” After all, just last year, Albright eulogized fellow war maker, “trailblazer” and fellow Episcopalian Colin Powell there for his “honesty, dignity, loyalty and an unshakable commitment to his calling and word.”  Albright, Biden and the Clintons covered for each other’s criminal war making — and ultimately, they all enabled and covered for Republican criminality as well. All showed they were capable of murderous deceits.  Originally published at Consortiumnews.com It sparked some measure of attention during the 2020 election,...

Photo: GT Martin Jacques April 16, 2022 The overwhelming assumption in the West is that the world, with a few exceptions, is strongly opposed to Russia’s military actions in Ukraine. The West itself, including the great majority of Europe, seems to be of one voice in its condemnation. But worldwide the picture is rather more complicated. In the UN General Assembly on March 3, while 141 countries condemned Russia’s invasion and called for an immediate withdrawal, 35 countries abstained and five voted against. In the recent vote to exclude Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, 93 countries voted in favour, 58 abstained and 24 were against.  Originally published at Global Times in China While there are clearly deep misgivings on the part of many countries about Russia’s actions, there is also widespread concern about the stance of the US. The most interesting, and potentially by far the most significant...

John Pilger April 5, 2022 Marshall McLuhan’s prophecy that “the successor to politics will be propaganda” has happened. Raw propaganda is now the rule in Western democracies, especially the US and Britain. On matters of war and peace, ministerial deceit is reported as news. Inconvenient facts are censored, demons are nurtured. The model is corporate spin, the currency of the age. In 1964, Marshall McLuhan famously declared, “The medium is the message.” The lie is the message now. Originally published by EurasiaReview on February 19, 2022 But is this new? It is more than a century since Edward Bernays, the father of spin, invented “public relations” as a cover for war propaganda. What is new is the virtual elimination of dissent in the mainstream. The great editor David Bowman, author of The Captive Press, called this “a defenestration of all who refuse to follow a line and to swallow the unpalatable and are brave”....

Edward Curtin April 5, 2022 Oliver Stone Documents the Past to Illuminate the Present The timing of the early March 2022 release of this digital streaming documentary could not be more auspicious.  For anyone wanting to understand how we arrived at a new Cold War with the second Irish-Catholic Democratic president in US history, Joseph Biden, spewing belligerent absurdities about Ukraine, Russia, and Vladimir Putin, and leading a charge toward a World War III that could easily turn nuclear, the aggregated factual details in this series of why President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA and its minions is essential history that illuminates current events. Originally published at Off-Guardian While Kennedy was the last US president to genuinely seek peace at the cost of his life, his successors have all been lackeys in love with war and in full awareness that the promotion of war and the military-industrial...

Cold War Against Russia – Without Debate A prophetic conversation from 2006 with professor Stephen F. Cohen (1938-2020) Read also, carefully Cold War Against Russia – Without Debate (2014)By Katrina vanden Heuvel & Stephen F. Cohen The Obama administration’s decision to isolate Russia, in a new version of “containment,” has met with virtually unanimous support from the political and media establishment. And then ask yourself why Western mainstream media and politicians start their history on February 24, 2022, and insist that everything is the fault of Russia and Putin, the latter having gone mad on February 23. My conclusion is based on this and lots of conflicts being reported in these media the last 20+ years: • You are being deceived. • There is a purpose behind that. • It serves Western self-righteousness and to cover up the Himalayan Western mistake to a) break all promises to Russia (Gorbachev at...