In 1997, president Yeltsin complained to Clinton so much about NATO expansion that Clinton eventually refused to meet Yeltsin anymore. Bill was clearly too busy in the Oval Office with a Cuban affair …
Germany unification chancellor Helmut Kohl promised strong economic ties with Russia
Helmut Kohl at an electoral rally in Erfurt for first free elections in East Germany in 1990 © Reuters
Bonn Pledges Broad Help to Yeltsin : Germany: Kohl treats the Russian leader as a chief of state. The two vow industrial, economic and cultural cooperation | LA Times - Nov. 22, 1991 |
Life after Kohl? We'll Always Have Germany | Foreign Affairs - Fall 1997 |
The United States scrapping treaties with the Russian Federation
The US as nuclear rogue state. Part I of II | by Sirocco Tue Aug 2nd, 2005 |
As Iran begins preparations for the resumption of uranium processing, the US is repeating its threats of imposing sanctions through the UN Security Council. "We cannot allow rogue states that violate their commitments and defy the international community to undermine the NPT's fundamental role in strengthening international security," President Bush insisted recently.
As we approach the 60 years anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki annihilations, it is time for some perspective. Notably, it is time to reflect on how, while pretending to do the opposite, the Bush administration has waged total war on the precarious international framework for nuclear arms limitation. In so doing it has not merely violated legally binding commitments, but effectively thwarted humanity's hope of a world free - or at the very least, nearly so - from nuclear weapons.
Without reform of human rights body, UN credibility at stake, Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned
Iran sanctions are unjust and harmful, says UN expert warning against generalised economic war
Obama's Nuclear Weapons Policy is His Greatest Achievement and Gravest Disappointment | IPS - June 1, 2016 |
Of all the accomplishments and disappointments of the Obama presidency, his nuclear weapons policy is the greatest.
Yes, you read that correctly. Obama's approach to nukes will be his most significant legacy as well as his most salient failure. Obama promised "hope and change" in 2007. The paradox of his nuclear weapons policy is that it falls somewhere between these aspirational poles of his presidency.
Consider, for instance, two highlights of Obama's tenure: Prague and Hiroshima.
On April 5, 2009, only several months into his first term, President Obama gave a speech in Prague embracing the agenda of nuclear disarmament. His remarks were not particularly radical. But it was the first time that a sitting U.S. president had committed the country to the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, albeit with no specific deadline attached.
The speech meandered across several topics -- human rights, Europe, NATO. But halfway through, Obama pivoted to the dangers of nuclear weapons. "If we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then in some way we are admitting to ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable," the president declared, and then went on to challenge that very inevitability. "Today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons."
Behind this speech lay a profound shift in the U.S. establishment's understanding of nuclear weapons. Once a cornerstone of U.S. security policy, nukes had become, on balance, a profound liability.
So-called rogue states and unpredictable non-state actors were now players in the nuclear game, and they wouldn't necessarily abide by the same rules of deterrence that (barely) kept the Nuclear Five (the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom) from using their arsenals. Non-proliferation was no longer sufficient. Even Cold War hawks Henry Kissinger and George Shultz (along with Sam Nunn and William Perry) declared that nuclear disarmament was to America's geopolitical advantage -- indeed, they'd done so a full two years before President Obama took his step forward in Prague.
Jump to last week in Hiroshima. The president is nearing the end of his second term. Against the advice of some Japan hands in the administration, Obama decided to visit the site of the first use of atomic weaponry in history. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped a single atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing over 60,000 people immediately (and more than 70,000 subsequently through radiation poisoning). Obama was very clear that the visit did not constitute an apology for U.S. actions, even though conservative critics like John Bolton were quick to label the trip part of the president's "shameful apology tour."
In Hiroshima, Obama reiterated his call for the elimination of nuclear weapons: destroying stockpiles and preventing the spread of nuclear material. In remarks as eloquent as any of his best speeches, he said, "We must change our mindset about war itself -- to prevent conflict through diplomacy, and strive to end conflicts after they've begun; to see our growing interdependence as a cause for peaceful cooperation and not violent competition; to define our nations not by our capacity to destroy, but by what we build." From Prague to Hiroshima, the president's line on nuclear weapons has been clear, consistent, and forceful.
President Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivered remarks following a wreath-laying ceremony at the Hiroshima Peace | Video C-Span |
Hawks are calling for an expansion on America's "tactical" nuclear weapons. Here's why it's a bad idea.
The huge risk of small nukes | Politico - Mar 10, 2017 |
Trump's patron in chief Sheldon Adelson urged president Trump to use a nuclear bomb on Iran ... money talks.
Washington should then threaten to drop nuclear bomb on Tehran if it fails to comply with Western demands, powerful casino magnate says.
Sheldon Adelson calls on US to nuke Iranian desert | TOI - Oct 24, 2013 |
Searching ET for earlier writings on Eastern European states, I came across this diary by DoDo.
A very worthwhile long read. Here follows an abstract ...
The Central European Realignment | by DoDo Sat Nov 1st, 2008 |
When you think of Coalitions of the Willing, missile defense bases, visa agreements, fear of Russia, and veto threats in the EU, Central-Eastern Europe seems hopelessly Atlanticist.
However, I have long argued that things aren't that simple and things are changing. South of Poland, there are pipeline deals (and again), criticism of Georgia for the war with Russia, even in Poland, where there is a new pragmatic and Europe-focused approach to Russia, too, and a Euro drive.
It seems the new reality has dawned on some members of the USAmerican foreign policy elite, too. In the aptly named American Interest magazine, eminent political scientist Charles Gati writes of a Faded Romance.
Read more details on a romance faded on both sides, and the proposal of a leaner foreign policy for the region (one without pushing missile defense and Nabucco) obviously aimed at a future Obama administration, below the fold.
Charles Gati, who emigrated from Hungary after the 1956 Revolution, is currently director of the Russian and Eurasian Studies Center at John Hopkins University. However, he is not just another academic without influence: he was chief adviser on Russian and European issues for both the GHW Bush and first Clinton administrations, and seems to be "in the loop" to this day.
The first paragraph of Gati's new article is worth quoting in full:
How Mitteleuropa Fell Out of Love with America | American Interest by Gati - Nov 2008 |
Since the Bush Administration took office in 2001, the United States has lost most of its once immense influence in the Central and East European countries of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria. Each of these new democracies, having joined NATO and the European Union in the past decade, continues to maintain at least cordial relations with Washington.
Many have done more than that, contributing to military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Kosovo led by the United States and NATO (or the European Union). Even so, their politicians and diplomats now tilt toward the European Union, and their citizens' daily lives are absorbed and transformed far more by European associations than by American ones.
Geography, money and shared European values have made a difference. Far more surprising is the improvement in relations between Russia and several of the countries of Mitteleuropa [DoDo: don't quite understand why he uses the German word for Central Europe] --- notably Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Latvia --- primarily because of their need for Russian energy. Unless the Georgia crisis turns into a game changer, the region's romance with the United States will come to an end.
Actually I am not that, er, optimistic, but I agree that US ties are weakening. And I can't suppress a smug smile when reading of a "surprise".
In comparison with the situation in the nineties, Gati notes:
The historical comparison is striking and instructive: Throughout the 1990s and as late as 2001, the Central and East European countries invariably turned to Washington for guidance. They appreciated the significance and benefits of the Atlantic Alliance and sought to join NATO. At that time, the United States, recent victor in the Cold War against the despised Soviet Union, could do no wrong.
When American diplomats made a request to any of the region's governments, they did not have to ask twice. It would have been unthinkable then for Poland to demand major U.S. concessions in exchange for allowing American defensive missiles on Polish soil.
To a large extent, membership in the European Union in 2004 (except for Romania and Bulgaria, which joined in 2007) made Washington's loss of influence all but inevitable. The United States could not, for example, compete with the European Union's willingness to make Poland eligible for about 85 billion euros for regional development in the 2007-13 period. The result, as reported in a 2008 Eurobarometer survey, is that Poles, rather Euro-skeptical only a few years ago, are now among the European Union's most enthusiastic supporters.
This contains a bit of nostalgia seen through rose-tinted glasses. One thing American diplomats had to ask not twice, not thrice, but a hundred times was raising defense spending once in NATO. And American requests weren't always respected out of love: some (especially ex-communist) governments complied for recognition (getting red carpets rolled out and White House photo-ops), and quite often the US used blackmail and threats in the background.
Yep ... nice former Soviet satellite states with a great record on human rights, true diligence the judicial system and LGBT rights. What a gross mess dragging the whole European Union into an unwanted war ... a nightmare especially on whose soil the war hostilities are playing out.
A False Flag Moment ...
Full break of Europe with aggressive war hawks in London and Washington DC.
The MEP could force the EU Commission to let the hammer fall on Poland and Hungary. Postponement of economic sanctions isn't longer an option. The EP had passed legislation a year ago to tackle the disregards by both nations to European norms and solidarity.
ECJ adviser backs rule-of-law measure in blow to Poland and Hungary | The Guardian - Dec. 2, 2021 |
Poland saved byt he bell, the EU-27 loses and will not recover this decade, if ever.
Will the EU-27 Survive the Biden Years? | by Oui Tue Sep 14th, 2021 |
The United States and the United Kingdom - Masters of Deceit and war propaganda
G W F and McCarthyism In A Digital Age - Part 2 | by Oui Thu Feb 1st, 2018 |
A sad period in US politics when Hamilton Federalists have become allies of the Clinton Democratic party ... FDR turning in his grave!
Purely coincidental, Martin Longman covered this topic in a front page story.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions was questioned for several hours last week by the special counsel's office as part of the investigation into Russia's meddling in the election and whether the president obstructed justice since taking office, according to a Justice Department spokeswoman.
RussiaGate demolishes the Democratic party ...
An opposite view ...
You can choose how much you want to trust the Hamilton 68 dashboard, considering people like Michael Chertoff and William Kristol sit on their board, but among the suspected Russian troll accounts they're monitoring the FBI has the most twitter mentions (1161, as of this writing) in the last forty-eight hours. There's now a naked confluence of effort coming from congressional Republicans, the White House and Russian social media troll and bot accounts.
The misinformation from this group is now being advocated on progressive blogs to further anti-Russian hysteria and create that new adversary all of us should fear. About the influence of Russian bots demonstrated by Hamilton68 ...
Publish the list of these so called Russian bot accounts & provide full names & addresses of the so called independent analysts. @ErinBrockovich
RRelated reading ...
International Coalition to Defeat Democrats and Hillary in 2016 | Posted by Oui on July 9, 2018 |
Samantha Power takes the lead ... again!
VP Biden - Nuland - Power - Freedom R2P - violating International law and the UN Charter
Samantha Power, the Monster, and the Libyan Intervention | by Frank Schnittger on Sep 8th, 2011 |
During the George Bush administration, favourite son of the Saudi Kingdom and close friend of Prince Bandar.
Iraqi Oil - the $250bn gift to Saudi Arabia and Russia | by Jerome a Paris Sat Dec 24th, 2005 |
Building new alliances in the wealthy Arab world ...
The Grumpy Old Man Going Crazy
War in Yemen
Saudi warplanes carpet-bomb Yemen with US help. This must end
War on Palestine
The Neocon war hawks and John McCain - Joe Biden - Joe Lieberman - John Bolton - Michael Weiss - Robert Kagan - William Kristol - Anne Appelbaum - Vicky Nuland - Dick Cheney and millions of repeating warmongers and those exiled in the City of London have won the ultimate battle to confront a sovereign nation. Millions died after 9/11 and terror spread across the globe through America's foreign policy of intervention and regime change by any means. Respecting borders and UN Charter provision of sovereignty? Dragged before the ICC in The Hague?
Supreme Court on rendition and torture ... black sites are state secrets.
Urgency of cases on war crimes at the ICC in The Hague ...
Decision and appeal may take some years ...
On 12 April 2019, ICC Pre-Trial Chamber II on war crimes in Afghanistan ...
In the Impugned Decision, the Pre-Trial Chamber concluded that, 'notwithstanding the fact that all the relevant requirements are met as regards both jurisdiction and admissibility, an investigation into the situation in Afghanistan would not serve the interests of justice'.
[Statement : 27 September 2021] of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim A. A. Khan QC, following the application for an expedited order under article 18(2) seeking authorisation to resume investigations in the Situation in Afghanistan.
Russophobia, Disinformation and Dehumanization
Google translation …
About fakes and real history | by Medvedev |
"Ghost of Kyiv", an image of an aircraft, which is taken from a computer game. A drone shot down by a can of cucumbers. The “dead heroes” who surrendered to the Russian warship. Mariupol maternity hospital, now - Bucha. What unites them? These are fakes, ripened in the cynical imagination of Ukrainian propaganda. Numerous PR agencies, "troll factories" run by Western governments and their "manual" NGOs and NGOs, cook them for huge amounts of money.
Day by day, the news about "horror stories" and "overcomes" is becoming more and more delusional. However, the Kyiv fake car stops at nothing! In order to dehumanize Russia and its maximum denigration, the enraged beast from the National Battalions and the Territorial Defense Forces are ready to casually kill their own civilians. This is because deep Ukrainianism, fueled by anti-Russian poison and an all-consuming lie about its identity, is one big fake. This phenomenon has never happened in history. And now it doesn't exist.
Leipzig University professor Oscar Peschel issued the legendary phrase, later attributed to Chancellor Otto von Bismarck: "The Austro-Prussian War of 1866 was won by a Prussian schoolteacher." German militarism was cultivated at the desks. His spirit at the end of his journey was reborn into the monster of National Socialism and was eventually destroyed only by the Red Army in 1945. High German science and culture - Roentgen, Planck, Freud, Mann, Hesse - could not oppose anything to those who thirsted first for blood and colonies, and after the First World War - revenge and "living space" in the East. And if the great German minds failed to curb the war machine, what can we say about today's Kyiv - there are definitely no "Einsteins" there. True, there is Klitschko.
The current Ukrainian radical also grew up behind the student bench. In beautiful embroidered shirts and with thoughts of hatred for everything Russian. Instead of being proud of the joint achievements of their ancestors, since 1991, a pseudo-history of Ukrainian statehood has been written “on the knee”: the generational connection of Kievan Rus with the lands of Novgorod, Pskov and Vladimir-Suzdal Rus was “hacked”. For the sake of the mythical "history of Ukraine" of the XIV-XVII centuries, the idea of a single Russian people was destroyed. The gallery of the 20th century is generally composed only of zoological Nazis, murderers and collaborators, elevated by the modern Ukrainian "agitprop" to the rank of heroes - Konovalets, Shukhevych, Bandera, Klyachkovsky, Melnyk.
The passionate part of Ukrainians has been praying for the Third Reich for the last 30 years. Literally. Disgust is caused by photographs in which Nazi symbols are found in almost every military unit of Ukraine taken by our army - standards, literature, posters. Even cups with swastikas! This is not a game of fascist aesthetics, as Westerners are trying to prove to us. This is an ideology. It should not be surprising that mentally transformed into the Third Reich, having written down the names of Jews and Nazi henchmen in history books, Ukraine will suffer its own fate. There she is dear, such Ukraine! As well as individual freaks who consider themselves entitled to represent such Ukraine. A lesson for them will be not only the current special operation, but also episodes of the glorious past. For example, when Pavel Sudoplatov destroyed the nationalist Yevhen Konovalets, politely handing over to this sweet lover in Rotterdam a candy box with a bomb inside - "Here's a present for you from Kiev." There will be many more such "gifts" for Nazi criminals!
Russian President Vladimir Putin firmly set the goal of demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. These complex tasks do not happen all at once. And they will be decided not only on the battlefields. To change the bloody and full of false myths consciousness of a part of today's Ukrainians is the most important goal. The goal is for the sake of the peace of future generations of Ukrainians themselves and the opportunity to finally build an open Eurasia - from Lisbon to Vladivostok.
