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COLUMNISTS

Moscow’s Problem: Dealing with Imbeciles and Vassals

Finian CUNNINGHAM | 10.02.2015 | 16:44

Russia is in a dilemma. How can it work through a peaceful settlement over the Ukraine conflict – and avoid a wider, more terrible war – when it is having to communicate with imbeciles and vassals? We are referring to the American and European leaders, respectively. The problem of trying to have a conversation with imbeciles is that they are simply incapable of understanding anything outside of their obtuse reality. They suffer from cognitive dissonance and are proud of it. In fact, the more cognitively dysfunctional, the more the imbecile is celebrated as being strong. Imbeciles cannot be enlightened; their ignorant and boorish way of looking at the world is impervious to any different, even more correct perspective. Indeed, they have a visceral aversion to correction, which only retrenches their imbecility all the more. The problem in dealing with vassals is that they are powerless to change course – even if they have a residual ability to think independently and to recognise an alternative perspective as being more correct, or at least reasonable. Thus we have the dilemma facing Russia in its dealings with Washington and its European allies over the Ukraine conflict.  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking in Munich last weekend, deplored the lack of European independence in averting Washington’s systematic vandalism of the international order. Lavrov was scoffed at for daring to speak the truth and more so because he used logic and historical evidence to support his argument. The imbecilic Americans substitute axioms and accusations for rational dialogue. They are guided by their own self-serving propaganda and are deluded by every word of it. And proud of it! God bless America! US President Barack Obama, who is supposed to be one of the most thoughtful American politicians, evidently can’t think beyond the uniform straitjacket narrative that posits, without a scintilla of evidence, that the conflict in Ukraine as «all Russia’s fault».  Speaking with German Chancellor by his side at the White House this week, Obama said that he was considering sending lethal weapons to the Kiev regime «to help Ukraine bolster its defences in the face of separatist aggression». Obama accused Russia of fuelling the conflict and of trying to violate Ukraine’s territorial integrity «down the barrel of a gun».  Reality check. Ethnic Russians are being killed in their homes, basements, schools and streets, by the Western-backed Kiev regime, which launched a gratuitous war on eastern Ukraine ten months ago, resulting in over 5,500 dead and more than a million people displaced – and yet Obama condemns the violence as «separatist aggression» and wants to send more deadly weapons to the offenders.  From Obama on down the political ladder, it only gets worse. The Vice President Joe Biden told the security conference in Munich last weekend that «Ukrainians have the right to defend themselves» and so the US should send military support to ward off «Russian aggression».  So, Mr Biden, what about the right of ethnic Russian Ukrainians defending themselves? Are they debarred from doing so? Are they not Ukrainians? Or maybe because they are ethnic Russians that makes them inferior in your view? America’s top diplomat John Kerry, a supposedly urbane, multilingual cosmopolitan, reiterates the same baseless, brainless accusations against Russia, claiming the latter to be the «biggest threat to Ukraine». Kerry also wants to send weapons to Ukraine to teach Russia a lesson. Ditto Ashton Carter, the incoming Defence Secretary. Ditto Michel Flournoy, who is tipped to be Defence Secretary if Hillary Clinton wins the 2016 presidency. Ditto Bobby Jindal who is a hot contender for the Republican presidential candidacy. Ditto Republican foreign policy chief Bob Corker. Ditto the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey. Ditto the members of America’s foreign policy establishment at the Brookings Institute and Atlantic Council. Ditto the editorial boards of America’s top media corporations, including the New York Times and Washington Post. All of them unblinkingly repeat the mantra that the Ukraine conflict is due to Russian aggression and that arming the Kiev regime is a swell idea for peace. All of them regurgitate a corny travesty of history which paints Russian President Vladimir Putin as «a mid-20th Century dictator» in the same «expansionist» vein as Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini. (Without a whit of understanding that mid-20th Century fascism was fomented as a covert policy of Western capitalist powers to attack the Soviet Union, and resulted in 30 million dead Russians. A policy that continues today in the form of US support for the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev as a destabilising force towards Russia.) The scary thing about American imbeciles is that they don’t have an inkling that they might be brainwashed. They are Orwellian clones who believe that war is peace, slavery is freedom, and truth is whatever you are told it is. American politicians attending the Munich Security Conference derided efforts by Germany’s Merkel and French President Francois Hollande to engage Putin in political dialogue over the Ukraine crisis as «bullshit».  The three leaders are proposing to follow up lengthy discussions held in Moscow last weekend with a further meeting in Minsk, the Belarus capital, this week. It’s far from certain that Putin, Merkel and Hollande can achieve a breakthrough to get the Kiev regime to sit down and talk with the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. The uncouth Americans are certainly trying their best to scupper dialogue before it is even given a chance to progress.  In contrast to the gung-ho Americans, there is a new consensus among the Europeans that pouring more weapons into Ukraine is no solution, indeed is to be avoided, and that the separatists have reasonable grounds for political autonomy deserving a respectful hearing. The Europeans, at least publicly, may still adopt the hoary narrative that Russia is destabilising Ukraine covertly with its troops or military support for the separatists. Moscow flatly denies those claims. But at least the Europeans seem to have enough intellectual subtlety to realise that maximalist finger-pointing against Putin is counterproductive and that there might be more than one side to the story.  To her credit, Angela Merkel has stood firm in her opposition to American calls for increasing military involvement in Ukraine. While in Washington this week, she categorically ruled out supporting the idea of sending more weapons into Ukraine. Merkel’s opposition to US proposals has been denounced by leading Republican Senators as «appeasement» of Putin, with asinine analogies to Chamberlain and Hitler at the 1938 Munich conference.  Dealing with American imbeciles is thus impossible. They inhabit a different mental world from most other people. Their world is formed by ahistorical propaganda and a boorish attitude that makes dialogue, reciprocation, or socratic elucidation a dim prospect. Their arrogance and ignorant conceit are obstacles to genuine communication and understanding. It’s all Putin’s fault; it’s all due to those morose Russian hordes; it’s the evil Soviet empire making a comeback. A US-backed regime-change illegal operation in Kiev against an elected government? A US-backed regime waging war on ethnic Russian people in eastern Ukraine? Are you nuts, you Putin-pussy-apologist? How can you deal with such people? You can’t. However, the additional problem is that the Europeans are not free to really act on their incipient independent thoughts. It is clear that Merkel and Hollande, and many other European leaders, realise that US plans to flood Ukraine with even more lethal weapons is a woeful idea that potentially could spark World War III. It is clear that many Europeans think US-led sanctions against Russia are not only counterproductive, but actually an unreasonable, hostile policy that is hurting European workers, farmers and economies as much as it is Russia’s. The problematic fact is that European states are vassals of America. They are not free to act out of line from Washington’s dictate, no matter how ludicrous is the latter. Germany is considered the powerhouse of Europe and the fourth largest economy in the world. Yet, as German political analyst Christof Lehmann reminds us, Germany has never had genuine political independence since the end of the Second World War. It does not have a constitution befitting a modern state, and it continues to be occupied by military forces belonging to the «victorious» American and British allies. «Germany is a de facto colony of the US», says Lehmann. «At any time, under the postwar basic law, American troops can take over the government of Germany, which technically and legally is an occupied state, a vassal state». The American NSA spying on Chancellor Merkel revealed in 2013 by Edward Snowden is a case in point. More telling is how Merkel did not respond to that gross infringement of German «sovereignty» with the political force that that American violation merited. She meekly accepted the intrusion as a condition of American postwar hegemony. Lehmann points out how any past moves by Germany to create an independent foreign policy, and one in particular that involves rapprochement with Russia, have been serially vetoed by the US and its British ally. «We saw that under Chancellors Willy Brandt and Gerhard Schroeder, their efforts at adopting a more friendly relation with Russia were sabotaged at every step by Washington and London», says Lehmann. That is why Merkel deserves much credit for making her bold stand this week against American militarism in Ukraine. Her dissent is highly significant of a potential cleavage in US-European relations. What she is doing is challenging a fundamental red line in Washington: namely, that European states, and Germany especially, cannot, must not, dare to question American hegemony and its longterm policy of hostility towards Russia. Merkel and Hollande may be finally getting the message from the millions of ordinary EU citizens who deeply object to American warmongering towards Russia at Europe’s expense. But given the tradition of European vassalage to the imbecilic Americans, the chances of a positive breakthrough for peaceful relations remain elusive. European leadership is still a captive of Washington’s clutches. But the disgusted European masses might just be forcing a break in the imbecilic bonds.

Tags: European Union Germany Russia Ukraine US http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/02/10/moscow-problem-dealing-with-imbeciles-and-vassals.html