Dangerous Crossroads: Trump Declares War on Russia, New Cold War will Continue Until Moscow Complies…
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By Eric Zuesse
Global Research
Friday, Feb 17, 2017
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin
U.S. President Donald Trump made unequivocally clear, on February 14th,
that the new Cold War between the U.S. and Russia will continue until
Russia complies with two conditions that would not only be humiliating
to Russia (and to the vast majority of its citizens), but that would
also be profoundly immoral.
One of these two conditions would actually be impossible, even if it weren’t, in addition, immoral. For Vladimir Putin to agree to
either of these two conditions, would not only be a violation of his
often-expressed basic viewpoint, but it would also cause the vast
majority of Russians to despise him — because they respect him for his
consistent advocacy of that very viewpoint. He has never wavered from
it. The support of Russians for that viewpoint is virtually universal.
(This article will explain the viewpoint.)
TRUMP’S DEMAND #1: “RETURN CRIMEA”
In order to understand the Russian perspective on the first of these
two issues (which any American must understand who wants to understand
the astounding stupidity of Mr. Trump’s position on this matter), which
is the issue of Crimea (which had for hundreds of years been part of
Russia, but was then suddenly and arbitrarily transferred to Ukraine in
1954 by the Soviet dictator — and the U.S. now demands that his dictat
regarding Crimea must be restored), two videos are essential for anyone to see, and here they are:
The first video below (and
no one should read any further here who hasn’t seen that video or at
least the first twelve minutes of it, because it’s crucial) shows the
U.S.-engineered coup that violently overthrew the democratically elected
President of Ukraine in February 2014, under the cover of ‘a democratic
revolution’, which was actually nothing of the sort, and which had
instead started
being planned in the U.S. State Department by no later than 2011, and
started being organized inside the U.S. Embassy in Kiev by no later than
1 March 2013. The head of the ‘private CIA’ firm Stratfor, has rightly called it “the most blatant coup in history”.
The second video below shows
the massacre of Crimeans who were escaping from Kiev during the
Ukrainian coup, on 20 February 2014, and which massacre came to be known
quickly in Crimea, as “the Pogrom of Korsun,” which was the town where
the fascists whom the Obama regime had hired were able to trap the
escapees and kill many of them. That’s the incident which — occurring during the coup in Ukraine — stirred enormous fear by Crimeans of the rabid hatred toward them by the U.S.-installed regime.
Finally on the issue of Crimea, all of the Western-sponsored polls that were taken of Crimeans both before and after the plebiscite on 16 March 2014 (which was just weeks after Obama overthrew the Ukrainian President for whom 75% of Crimeans had voted) showed over 90% support by Crimeans for Crimea’s return to being again a part of Russia. Everyone agrees that there was far more than
50% support for that, among the Crimeans. Furthermore, even Barack
Obama accepted the basic universal principle of the right of
self-determination of peoples when it pertained to Catalans in Spain,
and Scotch in UK, and neither he nor anyone else has ever been able to
make any credible case for applying it there and generally, but not in Crimea — especially under these circumstances.
So, on the first issue, Trump’s demand that Putin force the residents
of Crimea to become subjects of the coup-regime that Obama had just
established in Ukraine, it won’t be fulfilled — and it shouldn’t be fulfilled. Obama instituted the sanctions against Russia on the basis of what he called Putin’s “conquest of land” (referring
to Crimea), but Russians see it instead as Russia’s standing steadfast
for, and protecting, in what was historically and culturally a part of
Russia not a part of Ukraine, the right of self-determination of peoples
— especially after the country of which their land had been a part for
the immediately prior 60 years (Ukraine), had been conquered three weeks
earlier, via a bloody coup by a foreign power, and, moreover, this was a
foreign power whom Crimeans loathed. Putin will not accept Trump’s demand. Nor should he.
TRUMP’S DEMAND #2: END THE UKRAINE-v.-DONBASS WAR
The way that this demand was stated on February 14th was “deescalate violence in the Ukraine,” referring to Ukraine’s invasions of its own former Donbass region,
which broke away from the Obama-installed Ukrainian regime shortly
after Crimea did, but which Putin (after having already suffered so much
— sanctions, etc. — from allowing the Crimeans to become Russians
again) refused to allow into the Russian Federation,
and only offered military and humanitarian assistance to protect
themselves so that not all of the roughly five million residents there
would flee across the border into Russia.
Donbass had voted 90% for the Ukrainian President that Obama illegally replaced in his coup.
Francois Hollande, Angela Merkel, and Vladimir Putin, had established
the Minsk negotiations and agreements, to end the hottest phase of the
(Obama-caused) war between Ukraine and Donbass; and a crucial part of
the Minsk-2 agreement was that Ukraine would allow the residents of
Donbass a certain minimal degree of autonomy within Ukraine, as part of a
new Ukrainian Federation, but Ukraine’s Rada or parliament refuses to do that, refuses to allow it,
and the United States and its allies blame the residents of Donbass for
that refusal by their enemies, and blame the Donbassers for the
continued war, or, as Trump’s press secretary referred to it on February
14th, “violence in the Ukraine.” He’s demanding that Donbass stop the
war, when Donbass is being constantly attacked by a Ukrainian regime
that refuses even to fulfill a fundamental provision of the peace
agreement that Hollande, Merkel, and Putin, had arranged, and that both
Ukraine and Donbass signed. (Note: even Hollande and Merkel weren’t able
to get the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Obama, to so much as participate
in this effort for peace.)
A demand like that — for the victim to stop the fight — is impossible
to fulfill. It’s like, in World War II, blaming the United States,
Soviet Union, and UK, for their war against Germany, Italy, and Japan.
It is a cockeyed demand, which requires only cockeyed credulous
believers, for it to be taken seriously.
The way that Sean Spicer, President Trump’s press spokesperson, put this demand in his February 14th press conference, was:
President Trump has made it very clear that he expects
the Russian government to deescalate violence in the Ukraine and return
Crimea. At the same time, he fully expects to and wants to be able to
get along with Russia.
To some people, that combination sounds idiotic. In any event, it’s
not merely unrealistic; it is downright impossible. It’s not seeking
peace with Russia; it is instead reasserting war against Russia.
Spicer said, with evident pride: “The President has been incredibly tough on Russia.”
A reporter at the press conference challenged that statement: “To me
it seems, and I think to a lot of Americans it seems that this President
has not been tough on Russia.” Spicer answered by referring to the
statement that America’s new U.N. Representative, Nikki Haley, had made.
She said at the U.N. on February 2nd:
I must condemn the aggressive actions of Russia. … The
United States stands with the people of Ukraine, who have suffered for
nearly three years under Russian occupation and military intervention.
Until Russia and the separatists it supports respect Ukraine’s
sovereignty and territorial integrity, this crisis will continue. … The
United States continues to condemn and call for an immediate end to the
Russian occupation of Crimea. Crimea is a part of Ukraine. Our
Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns
control over the peninsula to Ukraine.
So, Spicer said that,
with respect to Russia, I think the comments that
Ambassador Haley made at the U.N. were extremely forceful and very clear
that until —
Q That was an announcement from Haley, not the President.
MR. SPICER: She speaks for the President. I speak for the
President. All of us in this administration. And so all of the actions
and all of the words in this administration are on behalf and at the
direction of this President. So I don’t think we could be any clearer
on the President’s commitment.
Trump is continuing Obama’s war against Russia, although he had not
given America’s voters to expect anything of the kind. Some voters (this
writer is one) had voted for him because Trump alleged that he strongly
disagreed with his opponent Hillary Clinton about that — he outright
lied to the voters, on the most important thing of all. He applied
mental coercion — deceit — in order to win. But as it turns out, he’s
not really opposed at all to Obama’s coup in Ukraine. Perhaps he is so
stupid that he’s not even aware that it was a coup, instead of a ‘democratic revolution’ (the cover-story). Maybe he’s so stupid, that he believes Obama’s lies.
At least Hillary Clinton was honest enough to make clear that she was going to continue Obama’s policies (only worse). But she was so stupid that she couldn’t even beat Donald Trump.
Anyway, all of that is water over the damn, now.
Initially, it had seemed that the only way in which Trump was aiming
to satisfy the U.S. aristocracy (owners of the military-industrial
complex, among other things) about increasing the ‘defense’ budget, was
going to be a buildup against Iran; but, now, that war might end up playing second fiddle.
The war with Russia can only escalate,
unless or until President Trump reverses course and states publicly,
and provides to the American people and the world, the clear evidence
of, his predecessor’s perfidy, both in Ukraine, and in Syria.
Unless and until he comes clean, and admits that the problem between
the U.S. and Russia isn’t Putin, but instead Obama, it will continue
escalating, right up to World War III; and here is why:
When it escalates to a traditional hot war, either in Ukraine or in
Syria, the side that’s losing that traditional war will have only one
way to avoid defeat: a sudden unannounced nuclear all-out blitz attack
against the other side. A nuclear war will last less than 30 minutes.
The side that attacks first will suffer the less damage, because it will
have knocked out some of the other side’s retaliatory missiles and
bombs. If Donald Trump were intelligent, then one could assume that he
knows this. He’s not, so he doesn’t. He plods on, toward mutual nuclear
annihilation. Perhaps, like Hillary Clinton, he believes that the U.S.
has ‘Nuclear Primacy’ and so will ‘win’.
It’s all so stupid. But, even worse, it’s evil. And I’m not talking
about Russia or Putin here. The real problem — on this ultimate issue,
of avoiding a nuclear winter — is my own country: the United States of
America. To call this a ‘democracy’ is not merely a lie; it is a bad joke. The American public are not to blame for this evil. The American aristocracy are. It’s an oligarchy gone mad.
Trump promised to ‘drain the swamp’. Instead, he’s feeding the alligators.
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