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Role Reversal In The New Cold War
Submitted by Justin Raimondo via Anti-War.com,
This past weekend marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the reunification of Germany, an event that formalized the end of the cold war. The so-called “German Democratic Republic,” one of the most repressive of the Soviet-imposed regimes established in the wake of World War II, was no more. It imploded without a shot being fired.
The largely bloodless revolution that swept across Eastern Europe, toppling Communist dictatorships from Berlin to Budapest, soon penetrated the epicenter of the “evil empire” itself – and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics evaporated like mist on a sunlit morning. It was the end of the cold war, and peoples all over the world breathed a joyful sigh of relief – and yet that joy was not shared by all.
The cadre of that troublesome little sect known as the neoconservatives weren’t convinced that the Soviets were on their last legs: they had opposed the arms control agreements signed by Ronald Reagan in the Kremlin’s twilight years, attacking them as signs of “appeasement” and arguing that any rapprochement with the Soviets would give them breathing room and the strength to gather their forces for one last push against the West. The United States, they averred, should take the opportunity to push harder and institute a policy of “rollback,” because only a foreign policy of aggression could defeat the Evil Empire once and for all.
They were wrong.
What happened, instead, is that the captive nations of the Soviet bloc rose up all on their own, without any substantial support from us, and overthrew their oppressors. Not because we had weakened the USSR in any significant way, but because a system that never worked to begin with had finally reached its endpoint. As the great libertarian theoretician Ludwig von Mises had predicted as early as 1920 that it would.
Indeed, it could be argued that all our efforts during the cold war era had merely strengthened the Leninist project, unnaturally extending its lifespan. For Joseph Stalin realized two vital facts early on:
1) That in spite of Soviet propaganda, the Russian economy was no match for the West, and that it was necessary to build up Soviet industry on a massive scale. Thus began the various Five Year Plans that sought to make the leap from a backward agricultural economy into something resembling an industrial powerhouse.
2) That the old Bolshevik ideology of “proletarian internationalism” – the idea that the World Revolution was a perquisite for the survival of the Soviet state – had to be ditched. The Trotskyists, who clung to the original Leninist conception, were purged, and in the place of the old party line the Stalinists substituted Soviet “patriotism,” i.e. Russian nationalism, as the official ideology of the post-Leninist Kremlin.
While the economic project of the Stalinist regime rendered dubious results – slave labor cannot serve as the basis of a modern economic order, and the inability of the Soviet system to overcome the calculation problem could not be overcome – their ideological revisionism met with more success. Instead of appealing to some abstract ideal, i.e. egalitarianism, the theories of Karl Marx, etc., they instead evoked loyalty to real-world allegiances: in short, they became “patriots,” in whatever country they were operating in.
In Russia, Soviet propaganda focused on the “Great Patriotic War” against Germany during World War II – of course downplaying Stalin’s pact with Hitler and their joint invasion of Poland, which sparked the conflict to begin with. Sure, the Russian people had to wait on line for the simplest items, but, the regime told them – with some justification – that the West was getting ready to destroy them, just as Hitler had tried to do, and that only the Soviet government could protect Holy Mother Russia from a repeat of that horrific catastrophe in which millions perished.
In the Third World, where the Soviets were engaged in an ideological battle with Western-backed regimes, they posed as champions of “national liberation,” and – abjuring purely communist slogans – called for a “national democratic revolution” and inveighed against “foreign domination,” denouncing the brutalities of colonialism. This is what made the victory of the Communist-dominated National Liberation Front of Vietnam possible, and it energized Marxist insurrections throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Fidel Castro never revealed himself as a Communist until well after taking power because he realized what Stalin discovered long before the Cuban revolution overthrew a US-supported despot: that nationalism – allegiance to a really-existing entity, rather than a moral or ideological abstraction – has the power to inspire people to resist.
So while economic reality eventually overcame the Soviets, and doomed their system to failure from the beginning, they managed to survive as long as they did – and inspire a global movement – in large part due to the energy imparted to them by the West. The very effort to “roll back” Communism had the opposite result, generating a nationalistic reaction that aided the Soviets to such an extent that, for a while, it looked – on the surface – as if they had the advantage. Communism, you’ll recall, was supposed to be the “wave of the future,” along with all the other totalitarian movements – fascism and national socialism – that gained ascendancy in the wake of World War I. As it turned out, Marxism proved to be a dead end, albeit one that had all the appearance of an idea whose time had come.
Looking back on the demise of the Soviets, one can see that the same hubris that blinded the Communists to their own imminent decline and fall has its echoes in today’s world.
The Western response to the Communist implosion was, at first, quite reasonable. In negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev, who saw the Soviet empire crumbling all around him, Western leaders guaranteed that NATO would not move eastward. As Joshua Shifrinson, citing declassified US government documents, argued in Foreign Affairs:
“The story begins in the months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, as policymakers struggled to determine whether and how a divided Germany might reunify. By early 1990, U.S. and West German officials decided to seek reunification. Uncertain about whether the Soviets would be willing to withdraw from East Germany, they decided to offer a quid pro quo.
“On January 31, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher publicly declared that there would be “no expansion of NATO territory eastward” after reunification. Two days later, US Secretary of State James Baker met with Genscher to discuss the plan. Although Baker did not publicly endorse Genscher’s plan, it served as the basis for subsequent meetings between Baker, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. During these discussions, Baker repeatedly underlined the informal deal on the table, first telling Shevardnadze that NATO’s jurisdiction ‘would not move eastward’ and later offering Gorbachev ‘assurances that there would be no extension of NATO’s current jurisdiction eastward.’ When Gorbachev argued that ‘a broadening of the NATO zone’ was ‘not acceptable,’ Baker replied, ‘We agree with that.’ Most explicit was a meeting with Shevardnadze on February 9, in which Baker, according to the declassified State Department transcript, promised ‘ironclad guarantees that NATO’s jurisdiction or forces would not move eastward.’ Hammering home the point, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl advanced an identical pledge during meetings in Moscow the next day.
“At that point, it was easy to see the outline of a new strategic landscape coming into view: Germany would reunify, the Soviet Union would pull back, and NATO would halt in place. According to any ordinary sense of the term ‘east,’ all of the countries to which NATO later expanded would have remained outside the Western orbit. As a diplomatic cable summarizing Baker’s meetings put it, ‘The Secretary made clear that the US had supported the goal of [German] unification for years; that we supported a unified Germany within NATO, but that we were prepared to ensure that NATO’s military presence would not extend further eastward.’”
Yet the domestic pressures in the US for NATO expansion were too strong to let this guarantee stand for very long. NATO maintains standards for its member militaries, and the upgrades required for the entry of the East European countries would prove immensely profitable for US weapons makers – who soon launched a campaign for NATO expansion that had its tentacles reaching into both political parties. And there was also the inherently expansionist dynamic embedded in all global empires, such as the American. This was fueled by the ideological Kool-Aid of the “end of history” fable, pushed by the neoconservatives, who dreamed of a Hegelian “universal homogenous state” – to be established by the United States.
As NATO pushed up to the gates of Moscow, what happened, oddly enough, is that the Americans and the Russians switched roles. The former, invoking a militant “democratic” internationalism, adopted the revolutionary rhetoric and mindset of the early pre-Stalinist communists, while the latter took up the conservatizing role abandoned by Washington.
Which is where we are today – except that the danger posed by Washington is far greater than any the old Soviet empire could have mustered, for two reasons:
1) The Soviet economic system was inherently unworkable, and ended the only way it could have ended. On the other hand, the American economic system is the mightiest industrial machine the world has ever known: capitalism has created enormous wealth, and while we’ve eaten a lot of our seed corn and built up an enormous mountain of debt, the system is still coasting along on the achievements of the past.
2) Stalin was essentially an “isolationist,” that is, he didn’t want to get too involved in the affairs of other countries, concerned as he was with cementing his own despotic rule at home. That’s why he ditched the old Leninism, drove Trotsky into exile, and declared the official Soviet doctrine of “socialism in one country.” In the US, however, “isolationism” is out of style: both parties support an “internationalist” foreign policy, differing only in the details of how to apply the general principle of empire-building on a global scale.
What all this means is that the world’s wealthiest nation has now decided it can and should rule the world – and has embarked on a campaign, consisting of both military and “soft power” aspects, to achieve just that. And while this effort effectively undermines whatever claim the US once had to be being the leader of the “Free” World – as Edward Snowden revealed, and as the continuous erosion of our constitutional liberties underscores every day – Washington still wields the banner of “freedom” to great effect, especially when compared with the regimes it seeks to overthrow.
Baldly stated, the United States government is the greatest danger to peace and freedom the world has ever known. This is true precisely because it has held aloft the torch of liberty for so long, an example to the world of what a society based on individual freedom can achieve. That is the great paradox of American power. As we abandon our libertarian heritage – even as we retain the forms of a constitutional republic – we destroy what made our power possible.
The process is reversible: we can restore our old republic – but only if we give up the mirage of empire. If we continue to pursue the fatal dream of a beneficent internationalism, America will lose itself, dissolve its unique character – and wreak destruction, not only on its own people but on the peoples of the world. In switching roles with the Soviets, we prefigure their fate: and the resulting implosion is going to shake the world to its foundations in a way that the fall of the Kremlin never did. In programming our own self-destruction, we will likely drag much of the world with us.
Those are the stakes, and they are high – too high for us anti-interventionists to rest for a single moment.
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It's really simple...
Putin and the Ruskies KNOW Obozo is a pussy!
The US should just go ahead and admit our recent defeats (Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq). Ron Paul always had it right (earlier on, I did NOT have it right).
If the USA gets now, yeah, OK we are humiliated before the world. That's OK, not too expensive a lesson. Much cheaper than getting dragged into a general Middle Eastern war, or risking something big & bad with Russia.
We cannot police the world. Let "them" fight their own damn wars.
Imperialistic behavior is bring collapse for Amerikanski!
We are all Soviets now !
No Boris, the man who comes after Mr.Putin and this document is what brings collapse for Amerikanski!
http://www.scribd.com/doc/251695098/Russia-s-2014-Military-Doctrine
Obama will not finish his second term! Banned independent documentary reveals the truth. This will scare millions! Current Events Linked to Ancient Biblical Prophecy!
http://motivationdose.com/is-america-babylon/
Anyone who says the "end days" are upon us and that they know the secret to surviving them is full of shit. There is no surviving the biblical "end days", else they would be called something like "bad days" or "sort of like the end days, days".
This is life and nobody gets out alive. Have faith in your creator that you may live again after the end of this one. Stop believing in snake oil salesmen on the interwebs.
All this hot slav-muslim action is just Obama being more flexible after his re-election. Ditto ukraine. Ditto the Iran deal and the Iran-Russia alliance.
Boris Alatovkrap rocks!
Good on you! A real man admits his mistakes.
Rock On DCRB
"...The US should just go ahead and admit our recent defeats (Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq)..."
I agree 38BDW22, but I am little people and my opinion doesn't matter. The ruling class of the U.S. - the psychopaths in Washington - are never going to admit or even recognize defeat. Tyler makes the same mistake of a unified U.S. with this statement:
"...The process is reversible: we can restore our old republic – but only if we give up the mirage of empire..."
No - there is no 'we'. There is the federal bureaucratic psychopaths of the ruling class in Washington D.C., and then there are their little people subjects. The entire purpose of the federal government for the last century (at least) has been to transfer my rights and powers to the state, i.e., the federal government. I get to decide nothing - that's the way the system is designed. The ruling class decides and they will never give up their mirage of empire. It's all about more control to them - 'empire' is why they exist. You're as unlikely to convince them of giving up their lust for empire as you are talking them out of being psychopaths.
I, on the other hand, have given up on my mirage of an actual constitutional republic and democracy in the U.S. - it simply doesn't exist and hasn't for a very long time.
Agree with you Paveway, the process is not reversible. We cannot get back what we have lost without great destruction. We must move forward and do the best we can to improve our own lives and teach our children the truth. Perhaps they will then be able to see through the lies and hypocracy of the elite. They will then be that much better off when the current system implodes.
Anyone who thinks it is possible to know who won in less than 100 years hasn't thought about the issues or read much history. Are the Amish winning? What dimensions?
History is hypothesized to be understandable by people, not just a random string of happenings, but plans and execution driving it all. Maybe, but you have to say the loss rate is >50%, not a good record of human forethought.
Reasoning is a low-precision process : https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/10/02/warning-ideas-are-dangerous/
The quality of thought displayed by our professionals is very low, imho. They wouldn't ever make it as programmers, they got no clue what testing is.
History is won by the winners of the battle and those who are left around to write the books. There is a poem written about the charge of the light brigade. It was written about the war in which Russia took the Crimea away from the Ottomans. France and Britain decided to help out the Turks.
The peoples then didn't really consider themselves very much Ottoman. They most certainly do not now. Cross the Black Sea from the Ukraine and Crimea. You find yourself in Turkey. Go east in Turkey and you will find that most will tell you that you're now in Kurdistan. Go east from there and you will find yourelf in Afghanastan, go south and you find yourself in Syria, Iraq and Iran. THERE IS NO WAY FOR THE WEST TO WIN THIS. Old Persia, Babylon, Assyria, and the Kurds have decided to finally punk the Americans and colonial powers and link up with the Russ to the north and the Indus and Chineese to the east. There's your new silk road. The Arabs will go back to the sand from which they came.
Look up a World Map. NATGEO has a good interaactive one. Draw a line directly south from Moscow. You will find Donetesk. Drive a little southwest and you find the Crimean Pennisula. Cross the Black Sea and you will enter Turkey.. right about the point where the Kurdish insurection starts. Go south from there? You enter Allepo and Syria. Trace your finger down to Iran, through Iraq and over into Afghanastan.... THAT IS WHAT PUTIN IS THINKING ABOUT. THE MAP FUCKERS.
I don't know about drawing lines. One can draw a line southish from El Paso and hit Venezuela but that doesn't mean that's what we're after.
I think the US should soft pedal this demonize Russia stuff although Paveway's excellent comment and Rawmendo's excellent article show that Vox Popeye is hors de combat. Ergo, we get more of the "Putin is the new Stalin" garbage. (Not hanging that on you, BTW).
I think it's just about the naval base in Syria. The blood for oil deal was weak when the hysterics were in full cry about the US attack on Iraq and if we're getting any oil out of that fiasco it must be going through China.
No doubt Putin and a bunch of "folks" east of Cyprus have had a bellyful of the neocon invade the world/invite the world bullshit, not to mention just plain old stomach-churning US sanctimony and hypocrisy. Some of our GOP presidential candidates sound like the reincarnation of Gengis Khan. Not a few sensible foreigners must surely think the US (and Europe) are bat shit crazy, not to mention pathetic wimps and fiscal idiots. (I don't know who isn't a fiscal idiot so that point is weak.) If that SCO deal didn't exist, sensible people would have to create it.
Once one gives up on the idea that the Supreme Court wouldn't betray the Constitution, that elections mean anything, and that the political class wouldn't intentionally seek the destruction of the founding people of the US, well, then you can see our vicious, sanctimonious, dishonest activities in the ME for what they are.
'He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.' ~George Orwell
pick your enemies carefully. Generally in their defeat, you have to become uglier than they can be
The USA has morphed into only what the USSR could only have hoped to become
Its called "debt slavery" the inevitable consequence of a human rights violation-that of using humans as collateral.
Its basically the reason the world by the end of the 19th century had outlawed slavery. Slaves can't consume.
Problem is the Western Anglo-American Bankers and the MIC have painted themselves into a similar corner Joe Stalin and his buddies found themselves at the end of WWII.
Stalin and his henchmen could see what was going on at Nuremberg-and they looked around the room at one another-and promptly dropped the iron curtain-until they themselves had all died of old age. They assumed-quite correctly-that an open door policy would lead them to the same courtrooms.
The current pack of crooks and thieves know that in a just and open world-they too would be in a courtroom but for the electronic Iron Curtain they have assembled. The freedoms compromised by that electronic iron curtain assembly have choked off business worldwide and created monopolies behind legislative, judicial and electronic firewalls that are virtually impenetrable-except eventually by the impoverishment of those outside.
The "United States Government" represents Satan, not the hard-working Yanks.
Satan would not take those fuckers.
Satan already has taken the USGOV.
There is more than ample evidence.
The United States Government does not represent Satan, but some elements of the population of people that work for the United States Government do. An extensive look at those that lobby K-Street is what most Americans should be looking at. The push to militarize, corporatize, and nationalize, is structural. Errosion of the Rights paradigm is structural in terms of access to jurisprudence. Lobby groups have become the Satan you are refering to IMHO.
Puppetmasters are the same.
Wanksters?
Pranksters?
Banksters?
Nature abhors a vaccum, One tyrant walks out the door and another enters. There is no utopian government, it is a contradictory phrase, the closest thing to heaven on earth would be a earth without central governments. Hell, Monarchs were more benevolent than these inbreds running the show.
History shows a cycle of empires forming, power becoming centralised, power being abused, tyranny and then demise and collapse. However it is possible to stop this cycle if the lessons of power are learned. This is because the same cycle tends to occur in organisations and there are now enough examples of organisations that have learned these lessons to give hope that governments can learn this too. The lessons are ; Treat people with respect, decentralise power and weed out the narcissists,
Monarchs didn't have modern firepower that makes these modern fools think that their dicks are actually growing.
No empire implosion in history has ever been reversed. It would be a first. Like a tumor suddenly deciding to shrink.
There is always the slight chance that no reversal is needed.
If EVERYONE ELSE collapses before you do.... well "YOU WON".
^^
You see, that's exactly why all dying Empires unleash one last wave of death and destruction in their final hours...
"If everyone else collapses (is destroyed) together with you... maybe they won't notice your collapse".
That's good. I bet I'm not the only one saying "Please make China have structural economic problems too!"
No fan of the Treason Class here but I don't much care for the PRC option either.
The Russians learned from their mistakes in Afghanistan and the CIA trained/funded Al Queda. This is not a repeat. This is a country, Syria, asking very old allies for help. The west will eventually leave the Sunnis of the area twisting in the wind and allow the Kurds to rise. ...that is unless they are willing to go full thermonuclear war. There is no move to make against bascially all of Asia. It's not like even the oil frackers of the US are going to be against higher oil prices. There is way too much firepower being moved in by Iran, Iraq, Russia and Lebanon for a proxy war. This will be decisvie.
The wild card is Turkey. They know if the West aqueisces to the new Persian Empire, the Kurds will indeed rise and take half the country. The only nation other than Syria that is involved in an existential drama is Turkey.
There are Kurds in Iran too.
There are also Christians in Iraq and Syria.
Nonetheless, Obama has blown any opportunity to have the US be constructive. We should leave, let the chips fall as they may, and regret that our choices set up future massacres...
* * *
Turkey has a nasty set of geopolitical problems.
The Shia have a much better track record of being tolerant of Kurds, Druze, Christians or whatever. They recognize they were there before them. The Sunni, especially the Wahhabi Sunni are batshit crazy and do not. All of those groups would probaly say OK to Persian rule. Just like they did 2500 years ago.
Yea our government is a bunch of fucking idiots- the Baath Party of Syria and Iraq, along with Socialist Iran were the moderate secular goverments that we are purportedly looking for to responsibly govern the area today. The trouble is that we destroyed all of them and instead propped up the worst of them all, Saudi Arabia, whose second highest export after oil is state-sponsored terrorism. I know some will say that Saddam was really evil or something naive like that, but if you study the historical record, we basically armed him and encouraged his regional ambitions, much like the British Empire and Imperial Japan pre WWII. Its good that Iran and Russia are working on cleaning this mess up because there is pretty much no way that we can positively participate other than to leave these countries alone and stop arming all these religious extremists, both between Saudi Arabia and the imperialist-zionist Israel.
they've definitely taken a turn for the fascist.
although to be fair, the historical record is fairly consistent about them being a conflicted state with extremely corrupt deep state politics.
The writer is rather mistaken about the strength of the US economic engine. It is desperate for fuel and desperation does not put one in a position of strength.
Desperation does make the US extremely dangerous to those around it.
Think about it, Rope. If the west went all in and went to war, trade would all but stop. China surely would take sides. The United States would go into revoloution quicker than Russia did in WWI and we know it. There is very little nationalism in this country and even more loathing. I don't even think the boys with their fingers on the ACTUAL nuclear triggers would comply after a short period of time.
War is not the only danger.
Think of humanity as an extended family. When a member of a family becomes stressed due to say a gambling or drug addiction, abusive relationship or whatnot it stresses the links between members. Now let us think about a close to fully exploited planet and consider that our planetary family has eaten through its savings and its budget has been running negative every year for 15 years.
Such a family can be destroyed without an actual 'war' being waged.
Thus, a stressed out US trying to fuel its debt addiction with new resources becomes dangerous to the rest.
I buy most of this except that the US is really a paper tiger when it comes to fighting in Asia. There is simply no way we have enough troops and force to hold territory out there for an extended period of time, especially if the civilian populace deems it unworthy to sustain with voluntary, much less drafted manpower.
Even though I know that we aren't seriously trying to restabilize Afghanistan or Iraq, I honestly doubt that we could even if we really wanted to. Not unless the locals wanted it anyways, which they may have at one time, but now most definitely don't.
Our leadership is skilled enough with soft oppression, but they are NOT going to win a land war in Asia. What the fuck are we doing over there? Our our people really such horribly shallow misanthropes as to be ok with the one million iraqi civilian deaths for... Oil?
It's feels like watching Oz behind the curtain- a lot of us are recognizing the great game bullshit but the leadership keeps on playing their role in this agitprop masquerade all the same. hell, the citizens are at it too, eagerly ignoring any indication that they are deep in the rabbit hole.
romulus, remus would tell you that the House of Saud is headed up by an aged King who is off his rocker, There are open letters about usurption, have two open war fronts and their one and only comodity has shit the bed. The New Persians have allied with the Russ and are consolidationg their territory. The Jews have obvioulsy cut a deal with the Russ, hence their silence. The Americans can't do anything but condemn and use the CIA. Not really, anyway. There won't be any Western soldiers going over there, AGAIN. The battle is fucking LOST. Russia is setting up artillary for Iranian troops to start in Syria and go all the way back home through Basra. Nothing the West can do but whine about it in the media.
As soon as tv came to every house, immediately america became the greatest nation on earth...
Who is defending Women, the right to life, religions other than Islam, and sanity?
Russia! Certainly not the U.S.S.A.!
The US isn't defending Islam (I know you didn't say they were). We're destroying Islam, just doing it in a roundabout way by promoting radicals that destroy the central government in Islamic countries like Libya, and we tried to do in Syria; or outright bombing them back to the Stone Age like we did in Iraq, Afghanistan, and others.
And pushing "refugees" into Europe and the U.S. to "strengthen" our economies and societies?
C'mon, you know better than that...
Europe and the US are being floooded with immigrants, Muslims and others, destroying the cohesiveness of our societies, that's a different but related agenda.
Amurika! So fucking tired of that and the U.S. not being what it should be.
Wake up you fucking dope dumb fuck somnolent non-patiriots - the U.S.S.A. is sucking ass right now. SUCKING ASS! Just admit it.
"Wake up you fucking dope dumb fuck somnolent non-patiriots"
Do you think there are many of these listening to you?
% of US reading this? Maybe 0.0005 (say 1,500 people)
Question: When is the US going to be taken over by Americans, and kick out the zio collaborators?
It seems that never ending wars won't do it.
Young men coming back maimed and mentally scarred won't do it.
Debt up to our ears won't do it.
Shitty economy won't do it.
Lies by the mainstream media won't do it.
Kids fucked up on SSRIs and shooting other kids won't do it.
Populace brainwashed by the TV won't do it.
Empty suits in Washington won't do it.
Greedy bankers getting away with stealing our children's future won't do it.
Nazi police forces won't do it.
Corporations raping the planet won't do it.
Women degrading themselves on the internet won't do it.
Literally setting fire to the Bill of Rights and Constitution won't do it.
Letting in half the population of the third world won't do it.
I'm afraid that nothing is going to change until people's children are starving in the streets.....
The real mirage is GDP growth.
Unless one already knows that GDP growth means growth in debt, eh. Cuz then it ain't no mirage it's just plain old bullshit that the man manufactures for the MSM, and mass consumption. Growth in debt is not technically growth, or GDP growth by a textbook definition of GDP growth. It is certainly no mirage here on Z/H.
Sophi Shevardnadze (the hotty on RT) is the grand daughter of the old Soveit forign minister. Cool eh.. I didn't know that.
The only way I see this getting totally out of hand is if Turkey goes Fatal Attraction. Russia and the Ottomans have a long running history of turf warfare. The Russians took Crimea away from the Ottoman Empire, after all. If the Turks stirred up shit and pulled out their NATO contract, would the West oblidge? not sure. Though, that in my mind is the only way this will not be an open and shut case.
AND REMEMBER! right across the Black Sea from Turkey is Ukraine and the Crimea.
The new Russian cruise missile systems cover the whole of the Black Sea, and the Bastion system ahlf of it near RUssia manilnad and Crimea. The Black Sea is now a Russian lake.
BTW the bridge from mainland Russia to Crimea is coming on nicely. The stupid Ukrainian NeoNazis blockading Crimea are going to shoot the small farmers / business owners in the foot. Look out for fun there.
"What happened, instead, is that the captive nations of the Soviet bloc rose up all on their own, without any substantial support from us, and overthrew their oppressors. Not because we had weakened the USSR in any significant way, but because a system that never worked to begin with had finally reached its endpoint. As the great libertarian theoretician Ludwig von Mises had predicted as early as 1920 that it would."
You simply must be joking - no one who took the time to write all of those words could possibly believe this paragraph. Please speak to someone from Eastern Europe alive during the 1980s before you repeat that and sound like an idiot again
+1000
It's just a little humor from the weekend Tyler, the article is Alatovkrap.
The Americans also accused the Russians of shooting down MH17. The attack was definitely US/Ukraine. On that basis, watch out for US troops being sent to northern Jordan//northern Iraq bordering Syria. This would be militarily stupid, but an excellent way to stage a false-flag causus belli. It would be too difficult to dump the bodies of a few dead ISIS members dressed in Syrian/Russian army uniforms.
So what really happened? I don't know about nations rising up, but the Soviet system rotted from the inside because socialism is an impossible, unworkable idea, just as Mises knew it would.
So what really happened?
Read below, Insurrexion posts an accurate of how things really happened.
I am frm Yugosavia and what I think happened is that the system did rot from the inside. Hence the demagogues like Milosevic et.al rose to power just by telling ignorant people what they wanted to hear and blaming others (as Bush or Obama did in the US).
I read in Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine that Clinton governemnt did their best to destabilize Russia as much as possible by supporting privatization on the cheap by Yeltzin's cronies etc. and creating Friedman's lunacy attack on everyone else just for the fuck of it
So I think Eastern Europe did rot from the inside and the Western banksters and their cronies made it deliberately harder
The Republic can be restored- we can always comfort ourselves with platitudes and wishes and dreams.
Bullshit Mr Author between 9-11 and the Global financial crisis there was but not one tar and feathering,that and now with Obama no one that could of made a difference Political,Religious or Academic or other I am aware of has shown anything other than complete moral cowardice
.Your republic is lost it is now a Corporation and an evil one at that,now in its hubris it does not even negotiate,not even with friends it just tells them what to do and woe betide those that do not obey.I have no great stake in Americas fate but I am concerned of dire consequences for my country when it manifests
I wouldn't worry about it, Khnum. The US is glued together by paper money. Like Rome, the majority live in the cities, no manufactoring capability, anymore. The supply chain from food to energy is as delicate as it gets. Once the paper money takes a hit, the US goes down. However, don't count us out. We are still a very resourcefull people with shitloads of reasources and two oceasn that remove us. I suspect it would not take the United States more than a generation to rebuild.
And there is absolutely no way any nation can invade the United States and occupy it. You think the stonage backwards Afghans were tough? I don't think there is any other nation on the planet that doesn't throw up a little in their mouth thinking about trying to occupy the Americans. It won't happen. We'll just end up stewing for a bit.
Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws!
Mayer Amschel Rothschild
My friend. We have been occupied for a very long time now. It's a shame you can't see that.
Let me add what a few of us and Mr. Putin know as a part of the historical record.
At the beginning of the first Bush Fuck Presidency in 1989, George H.W. Bush initiated a program of covert economic warfare to bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union. The name of this program appears to be Project Hammer, a multi-billion dollar covert operation, ‘third world investment program’ whose investments remained covert.
September 11, 1991, George H.W. Bush and Alan Greenspan financed $240 billion in secretive bonds to finance a program to end the Cold War through an attack on the economy of the Soviet Union. Some have called these bonds, "Brady Bonds."
This program consisted of four major covert operations including:
1) Theft of the Soviet treasury,
2) Currency destabilization of the Ruble,
3) Funding of the KGB Generals’ August 1991 coup against Gorbachev, and
4) Takeover of the key energy and defense industries in the Soviet Union.
The 1991 coup against Gorbachev was engineered by KGB General Vladimir Kruchkov, who reported to General Victor Cherbrikov. Both of these men were business partners with Robert Maxwell, a British financial mogul, a documented Israeli secret service agent, and a representative of U.S. intelligence interests.
In the same month as the coup, Maxwell was in Russia and received $780 million dollars from the CIA via the Israelis to pass on to General Kruchkov. Shortly after the coup, Maxwell died mysteriously on his yacht after attempting to blackmail the U.S. and Israeli intelligence operations. It is widely rumored that he was assassinated by either CIA or Mossad agents in lieu of them delivering his expected blackmail payment. Maxwell’s link back to George Bush died just as mysteriously. Senator Tower died in a plane crash and under suspicious circumstance in April of 1991.
Fast forward ten years to the second Bush Fuck. With the Brady bonds out in the market, they sat for ten years, like a ticking time bomb. At some point, they had to be settled -or cashed in, on September 11, 2001. They came due for settlement and clearing on September 12, 2001.
Howver, it gets worse. This covert Cold War operation (started in 1989) resulted in a series of foreign and U.S. allegations of financial impropriety, and there were at least nine fucking federal investigations being conducted into bank accounts related to these operations.
The records for some of these investigations resided in Building Six, Building Seven and on the 23rd Floor FBI office in the North Tower. The account structure set up by the U.S. intelligence operations was besieged by investigations from nine different directions, any one of which may have exposed the source of that funding, and traced it to its Black Eagle Fund origins. Those investigations needed to be diverted.
The two firms in the U.S. most likely to be handling them would be Cantor Fitzgerald and Eurobrokers – the two largest government securities firms in the U.S. The federal agency mostly involved in investigating those transactions was the Office of Naval Intelligence.
On September 11, 2001, those same three organizations: the two largest government securities brokers and the Office of Naval Intelligence in the US took near direct hits immediately below the targeted offices, assuring that the flames would engulf the floors above. The Office of Naval Intelligence was in the section of the Pentagon destroyed that day by internal explosives, a cruise missile or an airliner. Take your pick. It doesn't matter.
Beyond the other motivations (i.e., invading the Middle East, MIC profits, and Larry Silverstein's insurance policy), 9/11 was required to cover up the existence of the Black Eagle Trust, and the covert activities it had funded for over 50 years. The destruction of lives and buildings was a cover-up of continued lawlessness by the brotherhood of businessmen and criminals referred to as ‘the Enterprise’ in the 1980s.
So, as long as there is no justice in America, there will be no hope for America.
Your nation has been infected with pure evil. That evil has spread like an incurable virus.
The Source
A far more accurate account of the events than that written by Justin Raimonda and placed here by ZH.
It matters not. As Styx sang, "the jig is up, the news is out, they finally found me. the renegade who had it made; been tricked for a bounty."
Actually, "Sr." (aka "Poppy") had nothing to do with it. The plans actually began between Nov. '80 and Dec. '81. The task force included the following:
Bill Colby
Bill Casey
Vernon Walters
Leo Wanta
William French Smith
Ronald Reagan
("Sr." was NOT included.)
https://app.box.com/s/hfgvcqg7gqh7i27at6sv53ywu87lwarp
Fascinating. Pappy Bush's name keeps popping up all over the place. Have no idea how much of this is true, but it is fascinating. And as is said, truth is often stranger than fiction.
Russian Spetznaz in Syria.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/russia-spetsnaz-special-forces/2015/10/05/id/694822/
the title is misleading. they are not bodyguards for Assad. They are there to eliminate all threats to Assad - all "terrorist" groups.
It can't be long before special forces from various countries start clashing head-to-head in Syria.
Personally think they are there to capture & process high valued targets from Langley as territory is reclaimed from the ground assault. Imagine the horror in D.C. seeing American CIA/Spec Ops hog tied next to Al-Qaeda/ISIS prisoners.
The author is completely ignorant of what Reagan's CIA, in league with the Polish pope and (for but one example) the Solidarity labor union, were covertly doing across the Soviet empire to stir up all that discontent and rebellion, with the specific goal of collapsing the Soviet Union.
It worked even much better than the neocons ever imagined - and that success is what turbo-charged them to instigate colored revolutions all across Russia's near abroad several years after 1991 in order to finish off Russia as a threat to US global dominance.
That nearly worked too - except that Putin rose to power in time to push back and frustrate those plans, as we now know.
We'll see more attempts to use this covert strategy against Russia and China - but those two rising powers are prepared for it, and it won't succeed.
Putin's giving the US some of its long overdue comeuppance by spearheading a geopolitical and even a military assault on Western interests and taking leadership and influence away from America. China will follow suit in its region too.
The Cold War II is on!
The Cold War never really ended. There was a brief pause after the wall came down, when the US MIC celebratinng its great victory suddenl realised they had killed the golden goose.
in the end, this is about the petrodollar. IRAQ, AND IRAN HAVE CAST THEMESLVES WITH RUSSIA.... that's checkmate. who gives a shit about the crazy Arabs then?
its Check but its not checkmate. Checkmate would involve the mass dissolving of US military bases around the world and we arent there yet.
wrong. it's checkmate. russia, iraq and iran all aligned and pumping oil will put the geriatrci and senile kind of saud to bed.
He's right, while the US bases remain it is not ckeckmate.
there is not a chance in hell that the house of Saud gives a shit about innocents being bombed, anywhere. they're concerened with not only the end of the petro dollr... the rise of an allliance of Russia, Iran, and Iraq...the new OPEC... especially if you throw in some other states like vennie and niger
let us not forget, anyone who even whispered about ending the petro dollar was invaded. iraq, Libya, etc. NOW? we can't invade. we just got cock blocked by one of the World's largest producers. And it would seem, if we bitch too much? the World's largest consumer will tell us to shut it. You need to make the most money in order to maintain the biggest army.
Putin's long term gambit may be to play both sides. Russia really wants the cat bird seat on controlling ME oil. After the Shia areas are controlled by Iran, Putin may turn to the Royals in KSA and make an offer they can't refuse.
Having KSA as a client along with the Shia cartel run by Iran means checkmate for the petrodollar (and with that all those bases around the world).
nope russia wont do that, the russians are not known for stabbing their allies backs
You need to make the most money in order to maintain the biggest army
Wrong, If you can print the currency everybody is accepting as "payment", you may just print more.
True, and it's incredible how long the US has gotten away with this. But it can't go on for ever.
The fall of the Berlin Wall was the signal for the robber barons and reckless bankers to come out and play and re-create their glory days of the 1920s.
They invented something called neo-Liberalism/neo-Con to make it sound new, when it was just a re-hashed 1920s.
1920s/2000s - high inequality, high banker pay, low regulation, low taxes for the wealthy, robber barons (CEOs), reckless bankers, globalisation phase
1929/2008 - Wall Street crash
1930s/2010s - Global recession, currency wars, rising nationalism and extremism
1940s/? - Global war
We are nearly there with the Middle East on fire and the two nuclear super-powers at each other’s throats.
Well said Sir !
After Pax Romana, Pax Espagna, Pax Napoleon, Pax Britannia, now Pax Americana that morphs into NWO "towering like a colossus"...
The West's Imperial time line lives on. It is now its black swan song.
Are we seeing the reversal of the 1492 pivot that made West master of the world thanks to the Magellans and the Cortez ?
In any case, with the WMD that we have today and their dissemination --even to the extent that we MILITARISE SPACE-- humanity is now on a destructive trajectory led by the Hubristic who play at the Casino and think that the sun never sets on their global Brave New World. And you don't have to be just a climate denier to see that.
Tipping Times !
Our NWO masters look like Captain Ahab of the Pequod looking for Moby Dick ! Kill Kill Kill the beast of our own invention !
Its time to bleed the Swine before it eats our minds !
We need a Voltaire to tear down the tinsel curtain of the New Bourbons!
Who became more intelligent by reading the writings of Voltaire?
https://youtu.be/-W8fA0Z2cRE?t=2m4s
Starting from 1928, the Soviet economy was put under a system of planning whereby all modes of production were socialized and foreign trade was de-emphasized in favor of an autarkic system of domestic demand and supply. The irony was that Soviet central planning adopted much of its effective techniques from successful US experience. It was a system of planning focused solely on unit end-results while externalizing social costs. The key distinction was that the Soviets rejected and bypassed the corporate structure and replaced shareholders with state ownership. Stalin brought about "revolution from above". Its main features were: strengthening of political dictatorship in the name of the proletariat (equivalent to enhancing management authority in the US in the name of shareholders), collectivizingkulak peasants (equivalent to agri-business development in the US), emergency measure authority (equivalent to government bailouts and regulations in the US), introduction of a five-year plan structure (adopted from US corporate strategic planning) and rapid expansion of urban labor force (equivalent to urbanization in the US), and tight state control over agriculture (equivalent to farm subsidy programs in the US), heavy industry (equivalent to defense contracts in the US) and finance (equivalent to central banking in the US). Between 1934 and 1936 the Soviet economy achieved a spectacular economic growth rate that continued despite political purges of Trotskyites between 1936 and 1938. Economic growth was unfortunately interrupted by war in 1941. German invasion of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was not independent of apprehension of continued Soviet economic success.
Propaganda works. It worked in the USSR, in Nazi Germany, in imperial Japan and in the capitalist US, each to instill in the general public an acceptance of its system as being the suitable one if not the best, despite visible shortcomings. It helped achieve optimal effectiveness and stability in the overall economy in all these countries.
http://henryckliu.com/public_html/page105.html
It's time to terminate Pax KKK* - (whose "Peace" is "The Peace Of The Grave" thru Unending Warfare on innocents)
A good start would be rounding-up PNAC architect Paul "Rat Face" Wolfowitz & the other KKK - the Kriminal KAGAN Klan.
Should be able to get most of the other scumbags shortly thereafter, trying to board flights to Tel Aviv.
(KKK* - KHAZAR KRIMINAL KABAL aka NeoCONS)
One of the great lies perped by the West during the Cold War and since for its own benefit is that the old Soviet Union came about and was fully supported by the Russian people en masse despite that it began as a communist Bolshevik Revolution. When the USSR collapsed, huge numbers of Russians were glad to see the back of it and their fairly rapid adoption of a more liberal Western mindset is evidence of that.
Putin has no intention whatsoever of re-creating the old USSR, not even a 21st century version of it. None of that is on his agenda. He wants Russia to become a fully paid up member of the global community which will improve the lives of Russian people and increase Russian influence on the world stage. Part of this is his deep belief that global peace is far more likely if there is a multi-polar world rather than a uni-polar world run out of Washington/Westminster. Most right-minded people can see that. It's too bad that Western corridors of power cannot face that reality and want to march to war with Russia and China to maintain its hegemony.
Millions in the West now find ourselves supporting Russia and Putin, not because we want to live there and become Russian and start eating borsch, but because we can see that Putin's vision is right and "our leaders" are wrong.
Role reversal has taken place.
"When the USSR collapsed, huge numbers of Russians were glad to see the back of it and their fairly rapid adoption of a more liberal Western mindset is evidence of that"
I know a number of Russians that would disagree with this "adoption of a more liberal mindset"
you are an Englishman, aren't you? your mindset might be the reason why you think that everybody "ought to adopt it"
it's the same mindset that equates conservativism with liberalism and abhors every form of equalism, btw, even visible in your avatar, where you go "EU = bad = ergo socialist"
the way I see it Russians mostly trashed their extremes of equalism while still keeping important (to them) parts. meanwhile, they became more conservative, but not more liberal
evidence for that: Vladimir Putin's government
------------------
btw, the Scottish National Party might be comparison. they are more conservative (and more equalist/socialist) then the Torys, which makes the Torys more liberal then them (in ideological principles, which might or not traduce themselves in political realities)
You could have added the Loch Ness monster and asked the question that haunts the mind of all British subjects : Is the Monster Tory or Labour inclined, more conservative or more liberal ?
We all know it only eats Haggis!
Welcome back to kick the ass of those who do or don't believe that Draghi is the Euro's Loch Ness monster--depending on which side he sits!
All we know about him is that for him to print is akin to eating Haggis !
Oh to Haggis or not to Haggis is the existential question today!
"I know a number of Russians that would disagree with this "adoption of a more liberal mindset""
There are always exceptions to any rule. In Russia and even in the West.
My point was that we are witnessing in Russia under Putin "a generational transition towards a Russian equivalent of the Western mindset". (At least the one we had before our governments turned full-on-corporatist-fascist and are trying to take the place of the old USSR.) The West should welcome that but instead our .govs want to crush it and keep Russia as underdogs, imposing the Western banking model and stealing its natural resources.
Witness the numbers of European cars Russians buy (or used to buy before sanctions). Russia is going through a change rather similar to China and even Brazil and India. It takes time and it doesn't mean they will abandon their own culture overnight, just adapt to progress.
Conservatism in Russia is a remnant of the old days and will give way on a generational timescale to more openness and societal liberalism, like contraception is a remnant of conservatism in the Catholic church.
smacker, perhaps I have to make a comparison
take the "Western banking model and stealing its natural resources". both driven by liberalism (which has several ugly sides, too)
both in it's "laisser faire" "ad absurdum" of government-fiat-credit-powered yet still (in theory) private banks and the simple notion of "I pay for it, ergo is mine" preceded by: "you have to trade with me or else..." (sometimes coupled with restrictions on which currency this trade has to be based on)
London could be seen as the world capital of liberalism. see how it welcomes the wealthy, regardless of their creed or colour. and see how it grants "non-dom status" to them
progress, btw, is what Russians rejected and are still in process of rejecting
progress is - ideologically speaking - the common thread of liberalism and equalism (/socialism), opposed by conservativism
I strongly doubt that Russia is heading towards this kind of direction. even Singapore is an example of a different tack, with way more conservative, non-progressive elements
the past very successful export of the British political values mix to the world (and their picking up by America) is not a guarantee for their complete takeover of the planet
witness your own disenchantment with the current application of them on your own island. or, again, witness the "national-socialist" SNP in Holyrood, and how easily they talk about nationalizations
Your view of Russia is based upon a switch being turned on/off. First USSR, then switched over to Western liberalism. It doesn't work like that. I believe that change happens on a generational timescale. The human psyche and culture cannot be changed by force or according to the whims of a Western schedule. Russia is changing slowly and the next several generations will see that. Unless there's WWIII and then nothing is certain, for any of us.
Just to clarify, my allegiance is not so much to the British model. (In recent years I have realised that we have never been a proper democracy, more like a benevolent corporatist model).
My position is far more closely aligned to the America that its founding fathers tried hard to develop where people are encouraged to make a success of their lives and stand on their own feet, and all the other good things carefully articulated in its Constitution. Sadly, the powers of totalitarianism have been trying to destroy that for a long time and it's gathering pace. And it's on sites like ZH that the whistle is being blown, long and hard to wake up Americans to what's happening.
You describe exactly how I feel. In Serbia and Yugoslavia we used not to like Russians when I lived there before the civil wars. We viewed them as potential agressors. After having lived in England, US and Canada I am starting to feel exactly as I did in Yugoslavia in late 80s. The feeling of bieng ruled by a mafia. I think multi-polar world is better for eveyone (including common Americans etc), and for that reason I respect Putin more than I do any Western politican. I have been travelling around the world since March, and I felt better and freer in every country I have been to (compared to the US, UK and Canada) including Germany, Serbia and now Japan. Haven't seen any homeless since I left America, and the same goes for fat people (and of course fat homeless)
Freedom? I do not think we have freedom. I believe that the people of this world deserve freedom and a chance to grow and develop without the control of those who genetically spliced us together and made us their slaves.
I think that if we can ever be free of those who make us live in a dialectic while they live parasitically off of us we could prosper greatly. Do we owe them our lives perpetually as slaves? Do children owe their entire lives perpetually to their parents?
They may argue that they gave us a chance... but they did not. They have always been there in the background dividing us, enslaving us. Thank you for the technology, but it is not helping. It is yours, not ours. Take it back if you like. I for one am ungrateful because your technology is always bent like you, toward pursuits that divide and enslave. We need to find our own path.
Arrogantly, ignorantly I believe that I can relate to either side ... but have chosen the lesser because I believe it is right.
I think it all started with religion - the origial totalitarianism. Based on psychopathy - how to turn your victims' qualities into a wepon against them
The newer the religion, the more totalitarian it gets - they are learning from previous iterations.
I remember reading the Odyssey - when he fucked Circe the goodes who turned his man into pigs. Imagine a story about a Christian hero fucking the Virgin Mary or any other immaginary chicks from christian mythology
Impenetrable ignorance
who? The Virgin Mary?
You have a point there : ignorance is bliss ! Virgin Mary type bliss!
Rus=Best. Thanks web brigade!
Interesting. A Magnetic Reversal has occured in Geopolitics. Quite amazing times really. The trick is going to be how not to get caught out as things start to shift. I think right about now is a goodtime for people to start to think about how this will affect them.
1. The US is quickly being negated in the Middle East - this is a fact. 20+ years of war and sanctions in the name of 'democracy' and things are pretty much FUBARD. The Saudis are now fighting on 2 fronts and making enemies very quickly in the ME.
2. US has lost the moral high ground - the MSF hospital bombing was a clear and stark example of that. I found the blame game especially disgusting "The Afghans called in the strike. We were just the delivery boys."
3. Information flow - the web gives us real time news and info and allows us to sort fact from fiction. Amazing, past 12 months alone I have looked at CNN maybe 2-3 times and now read RT daily along with ZH as this allows me to be ahead of the pack who read the same shit every day.
4. American Politicians are Psychopaths - from Obama down to the City Councilman who wants to be mayor in the next 10 years. These people are dangerous. Only if real Americans become involved in politics can the US be changed. Perhaps this is why there is such a popular support for Trump.
5. The flood of immigrants from the Middle East into US and Europe IS ONLY GETTING STARTED. I live in the Middle East and I can assure you of this. This is intentional and will not stop. It will only speed up.
6. World economy is teetering. Many are worried.
7. US shale oil industry has been destroyed - it is just a slower moving version of 9/11. What country/ally of the US was present at both crime scenes?
I must admit, the Russians caught me off guard with their Syria game. That was a good show - quick, efficient, quiet, polite, and they did it properly. This means Putin has reached his point of threshold. He is not one to be fucked with now - which means of course Obama will do so. In short, there is now a full on proxy war going on.
With the Magnetic Reveral of geopolitics I think one only has to look back into history to see where to make money. In the meantime, I am off to Russian language classes!