ON THE BEACH ?
De nieuwe sanctie maatregelen tegen Rusland laten zien hoe de Verenigde Staten nog steeds menen 'exeptional' te zijn en het Pax Americana verdedigen.
Met een president die zich m.b.t. Rusland in de hoek heeft laten drukken heeft het Congres alle ruimte gekregen. Het aantal haviken is groot. Veelal politici die de 'Koude Oorlog' maar niet kunnen of willen vergeten. Georgi Arbatov Sovjet expert Amerikaanse buitenlandse politiek zei: "We are going to do a terrible thing to you, we are going to deprive you of your enemy".
been thrashing
around ever since.
Het ‘Witte Huis’ heeft in de tijd van Obama gemeend om Rusland opnieuw als de ‘grote vijand’ te zien. Het gevolg is dat de NAVO naar het oosten is uitgebreid en oorloghitserige taal wordt gebezigd.
De Amerikaanse bemoeienis met Syrië, altijd al een politiek interessegebied van de Russen, heeft de Russen op hun beurt meer intensief doen betrekken bij de gewelddadigheden in het Midden-Oosten. Deze betrokkenheid is niet alleen voor Bashar al-Assad van grote betekenis maar verstevigd tevens de positie van Iran in de regio.
Thus Washington persists in its own strategic view in which there can be no win-win with Russia. (Trump actually spoke of trying to improve relations, only to unleash the full wrath of the US security establishment upon his head. Trump’s own unorthodox approach has not helped.)
Maintenance of overwhelming US power and strategic global reach —“full- spectrum dominance” in Pentagonese—is the American strategic goal.
Europe, by dint of proximity and experience knows and understands Russia well. Germany above all is the one major power that will always bear the primary responsibility for handling the Russian account in Europe; Russia and Germany after all are the two major powers of Central and Eastern Europe. Here Germany remains knowledgeable and sober-minded. Since the fall of the ideological empire of the Soviet Union large segments of German public opinion are uncomfortable with American policies designed to push NATO up to the very gates of Russia. Such acts are viewed as highly provocative intrusion into an area of traditional Russian sphere of influence.
Germany’s last foreign minister Frank Walter Steinmeier recently spoke out against what he saw as “provocative” NATO exercises near the Russian border in the Baltics.
In today’s post-Soviet world the reality is that most of European political culture no longer instinctively shares the American perspective on global affairs.
The US is increasingly driven by a security- and military-dominated approach to handling international crises. This trend towards the militarization of American foreign policy has been growing by leaps and bounds, particularly since 9/11. America excels at “threat perception,” it’s what keeps US think tanks and arms industries in business.
Let’s take the proposition one step farther. Despite the many shrill voices in Washington, Russia simply cannot be taken as “the greatest threat to American security and welfare.”
The US is increasingly driven by a security- and military-dominated approach to handling international crises. This trend towards the militarization of American foreign policy has been growing by leaps and bounds, particularly since 9/11. America excels at “threat perception,” it’s what keeps US think tanks and arms industries in business.
Let’s take the proposition one step farther. Despite the many shrill voices in Washington, Russia simply cannot be taken as “the greatest threat to American security and welfare.”
Non-stop American wars and their consequences are the greatest threat.
Washington’s choice of primarily military means to handle contemporary radical trends in Muslim societies has not only failed to solve them, but has demonstrably exacerbated them. We are fighting on more fronts against radicalized Muslims than ever before. Yet these multiple simultaneous American wars bleed the budget, usurp funding for social infrastructure, maintain a culture of fear, and stimulate the growth of the security state. And yes, it’s gotten worse under Trump.
Washington’s choice of primarily military means to handle contemporary radical trends in Muslim societies has not only failed to solve them, but has demonstrably exacerbated them. We are fighting on more fronts against radicalized Muslims than ever before. Yet these multiple simultaneous American wars bleed the budget, usurp funding for social infrastructure, maintain a culture of fear, and stimulate the growth of the security state. And yes, it’s gotten worse under Trump.
Welke motieven hebben het Congres en de president om zo oorlogszuchtig te zijn, terwijl er zoveel in 'huis' te doen is. Trump's verkiezingsslogan "make America great again" duidde in beginsel niet op wapengekletter.
Hoe gaat dit eindigen?
A WORLD WAITING TO DIE
The radioactive winds had not yet hit Australia.
There, survivors of the accidental nuclear war,
men and women destined to be the last human
beings on earth, prepared for extinction. Some
found solace in religion, others in alcohol and
frenzied sex, and hundreds stood waiting for
their government ration of cyanide pills, hoping
they would not have to use them-knowing
they would…..
De onderzoeksjournalist John Pilger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pilger maakt zich daar eveneens grote zorgen over.
Hij zegt: Republicans and Democrats – along with a complicit mainstream media – are plunging ahead toward war with Russia, a mad groupthink that could end life on the planet. De bezorgheid over een eventuele 'atoom oorlog' uit hij met een verwijzing naar het boek van Nevil Shute "On the Beach".
The U.S. submarine captain says, “We’ve all got to die one day, some sooner and some later. The trouble always has been that you’re never ready, because you don’t know when it’s coming. Well, now we do know and there’s nothing to be done about it.”
He says he will be dead by September. It will take about a week to die, though no one can be sure. Animals live the longest.
The war was over in a month. The United States, Russia and China were the protagonists. It is not clear if it was started by accident or mistake. There was no victor. The Northern Hemisphere is contaminated and lifeless now.
A curtain of radioactivity is moving south towards Australia and New Zealand, southern Africa and South America. By September, the last cities, towns and villages will succumb. As in the north, most buildings will remain untouched, some illuminated by the last flickers of electric light.
A curtain of radioactivity is moving south towards Australia and New Zealand, southern Africa and South America. By September, the last cities, towns and villages will succumb. As in the north, most buildings will remain untouched, some illuminated by the last flickers of electric light.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
T.S. Eliot
These lines from T.S. Eliot’s poem The Hollow Men appear at the beginning of Nevil Shute’s novel On the Beach, which left me close to tears. The endorsements on the cover said the same.
Published in 1957 at the height of the Cold War when too many writers were silent or cowed, it is a masterpiece. At first the language suggests a genteel relic; yet nothing I have read on nuclear war is as unyielding in its warning. No book is more urgent.
Published in 1957 at the height of the Cold War when too many writers were silent or cowed, it is a masterpiece. At first the language suggests a genteel relic; yet nothing I have read on nuclear war is as unyielding in its warning. No book is more urgent.
Some readers will remember the black and white Hollywood film starring Gregory Peck as the U.S. Navy commander who takes his submarine to Australia to await the silent, formless specter descending on the last of the living world.
I read On the Beach for the first time the other day, finishing it as the U.S. Congress passed a law to wage economic war on Russia, the world’s second most lethal nuclear power. There was no justification for this insane vote, except the promise of plunder. Remember uit 'On the Beach': the war was over in a month. The United States, Russia and China were the protagonists. It is not clear if it was started by accident or mistake.
A coup against the man in the White House is under way. This is not because he is an odious human being (ook wel! DWS), but because he has consistently made clear he does not want war with Russia. This glimpse of sanity, or simple pragmatism, is anathema to the “national security” managers who guard a system based on war, surveillance, armaments, threats and extreme capitalism. Martin Luther King called them “the greatest purveyors of violence in the world today.”
They have encircled Russia and China with missiles and a nuclear arsenal. They have used neo-Nazis to install an unstable, aggressive regime on Russia’s “borderland” – the way through which Hitler invaded, causing the deaths of 27 million people. Their goal is to dismember the modern Russian Federation. In response, “partnership” is a word used incessantly by Vladimir Putin – anything, it seems, that might halt an evangelical drive to war in the United States. Incredulity in Russia may have now turned to fear and perhaps a certain resolution. The Russians almost certainly have war-gamed nuclear counter strikes. Air-raid drills are not uncommon. Their history tells them to get ready. The threat is simultaneous. Russia is first, China is next. The U.S. has just completed a huge military exercise with Australia known as Talisman Sabre. They rehearsed a blockade of the Malacca Straits and the South China Sea, through which pass China’s economic lifelines.
The admiral commanding the U.S. Pacific fleet said that, “if required,” he would nuke China. That he
would say such a thing publicly in the current perfidious atmosphere begins to make fact of Nevil Shute’s fiction.
would say such a thing publicly in the current perfidious atmosphere begins to make fact of Nevil Shute’s fiction.
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| Begraafplaats Passchendaele 2017 |
None of this is considered news. No connection is made as the bloodfest of Passchendaele a century ago is remembered. Honest reporting is no longer welcome in much of the media. Windbags, known as pundits, dominate: editors are infotainment or party-line managers. Where there was once sub-editing, there is the liberation of axe-grinding clichés. Those journalists who do not comply are defenestrated.
We live in a World of Lies and We Always Have
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/30/we-do-not-live-in-post-truth-world-we-live-in-a-world-of-lies-and-we-always-have/ (Robert Fisk)
Who Rules the World? http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176137/ (Noam Chomsky)
Stop Living in Denial, Israel Is an Evil State http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.734309 (Gideon Levy)
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/30/we-do-not-live-in-post-truth-world-we-live-in-a-world-of-lies-and-we-always-have/ (Robert Fisk)
Who Rules the World? http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176137/ (Noam Chomsky)
Stop Living in Denial, Israel Is an Evil State http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.734309 (Gideon Levy)
