It can be said, with absolute certainty, that never in the history of humanity has a nation gone to war to bring a better standard of living to its enemies. However, that is exactly the context in which the West now sells its endless and countless wars. It sells this to three audiences: home front, the enemy and foreign neutrals/allies. The words the West, specifically, the Anglo-West uses are coached in terms of human rights, prosperity and freedom, though the results of those wars, both for the attacked victims (the West has not been directly attacked for 50 years by any military power, with the exception of Argentina) and the people on the home front, have proven far from it. Simply put, nations go to war to improve their own wealth and power, or at the very least to improve the wealth and power of the rulers.
On the home front, the public is brainwashed to see everything in absolute black and white, good guy, bad guy. Of course that their own nations will be the ones striking first, destroying the lives of millions and occupying the lands of the fallen, stripping them of resources and implementing puppet regimes, is to be ignored and seen as the acts of the self-righteous, or rather "righteous" Western "democracies" coming to save the poor and run down from themselves. In the mean time, the war costs in debt, inflation and loss of rights and freedoms and the sacrifices of blood go beyond any benefits perceived or real.
To the enemy, the West sells these ideas in order to create a fifth column, who will eagerly assist in the defeat of their own nations. Now some governments absolutely should be over thrown and destroyed, the Soviets for example, but it can only be done, if it is really to benefit the people, by those oppressed peoples. It is a far cry from supporting a local revolution and civil war and invading. One is by the oppressed peoples and the other is to oppress the people, just by a different set of smiling sociopaths declared a righteous war, a mission accomplished or a war we can not afford to loose. When Carthage and Rome fought, Carthage, there was no doubt in Carthage that Rome deserved to rule, it did not and it was a ludicrous idea. The fight was to the end, the bitter end and to the defeated when destruction at worst and slavery at best.
To the neutrals and allies it is to share the burden and the sacrifice, the cost, while the benefits are kept only to those launching the oppression.
Look at Iraq. Was Saddam a bastard? Of course he was, but to say, 6 years later, that the people, those still alive or not in exile, are better off than under him, is equally ludicrous. The nation is destroyed, infrastructure cratered, violence of the mass scale a daily, some times, hourly event. The wealth of the nation sucked out to the victors and their puppets.
In truth, the war was all about that wealth, even though it was coached in words of human rights and self defense. The fact alone, that little to no thought went into the post war period demonstrates this. Additional facts, such as the lack of the WMD and their facilities, the issue of Saddam, two months earlier, negotiating the Food For Oil Program into Euros from Dollars, equally lends credence to this.
From today's vantage point, even the Cold War is easily seen to be the farce it always was. This is not meant in any way as a defense of the Soviet Institution or the murderous dictator Stalin, however, the confrontation, that lasted from 1948 to 1991 and cost hundreds of thousands of lives, was in itself a farce by the West. The Anglo-West claimed that it was defending democracy and capitalism from the Soviet Threat, but with the exceptions of Eisenhower, Reagan and Thatcher, the Anglo-West has been on a programmed and well run decent into that very Marxism that is now accelerating towards its final lap to victory. It would seem that the Anglo elites were not so much worried about Marxism as to loosing power to others on their way there. Now they still get their Marxism, which enthrones them as the ruler elite and they get to enjoy it also.
NATO was organized in 1949 and the Soviet response to the "defense" block of military powers, did not take form until 1955. If NATO had been truly defensive, it would have come after a Soviet military organization, not predating it by 6 years. Further, upon its formation, Stalin actually asked to join it but was refuted. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was no lifting of human suffering but instead a decent into a new abyss for 8 years, as the West, upholding my original point, raped and plundered the assets of Russia, utilizing a alcoholic and near mindless Yeltsin and local thieves to carry out this rape. Not until Putin and now Medvedev came to power to defend and rebuild Russia was there any hope of anything but more suffering in the future. Of course they were instantly branded as anti-human rights enemies of the West and the western peoples again asked to sacrifice even more of their blood and wealth to fight this new "menace".
Now, less than 20 years after the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, the leaders of NATO, the Anglo nations, daily come to resemble the enemy they spent hundreds of billions against. The same elites are in power, of course, be it directly on the thrones or in the shadows holding the coat tails.
Yet their people, fed on propaganda, never stop to ask: why did they sacrifice in the Cold War, when they are now moving willing down the same road to the same end results as those they supposedly fought against?
For over 100 years Middle East wars have all been fought over energy resources.
ReplyDeleteHello Again "Stan",
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of truth in your writing, me from the USA. There has always been wars someplace in the world.
As far as the USA, our country went onto the fast-track towards a "Socialism-Marxism" after JFK's assassination. Ted Kennedy, Pres. Carter and Liberal Democrats led the way. Most of the Democrats and 'smooth talking' Lawyers that spin everything so the naive, ignorant followers stay in goose-step. In 2012, we will be almost 75% a Socialist Country and laws will be changed so Obama will be allowed to run for a third term as President.
You and I have Pride in our fellow countrymen and women, it's 'those in charge' that create the problems between our countries.
Money and Women are the two most common reasons for War, I don't expect it will ever change.
RJ Bell
The war in Iraq has cost the U.S. billions of dollars if not trillions, not counting the 6,000 Americans killed in action. The war may have been fought for wealth, but the real end result is that it has nearly bankrupted America, and you can see it in the current financial crisis even if no one in the mass media dare say it. When American troops finally took Bagdad the vaults of the Iraq bank had been raided and the gold reserves taken; by who? Who knows but only a fraction was recaptured. The Oil infrastructure was ruined and production went down. To this day we in America have not seen any Iraqi oil help fuel prices; on the contrary, since the war started prices have tripled. Calculated or not, the war in Iraq has been ruinous for America, even worse than the Vietnam war because back in those days the American Empire was in its heyday. Any military commander worth its salt will avoid fighting a two front war, but that’s exactly what the U.S. leadership did, opened two wars at the same time, one in Iraq and another in Afghanistan. In addition a third theater was opened by the so called ‘War on Terror’ with more money funneled towards antiterrorists programs. Thousands of lives lost, trillions of dollars wasted. Of course the only winners are the arms producers and those who wanted to see America fail, which is probably the same American inside government.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Cold War, my haunch is that it was an understood game all along. The Soviet leadership was in cahoots with the Western leadership and the whole war a dastardly game of chess between two opponents that knew the results beforehand and used it to bring their hegemony over entire nations. Finally, the stodgy Soviet empire was broke, its mission to kill millions and millions accomplished, its task of destroying the spirit of Eastern Europe successfully done. It was then time to dismantle it without a shot being fired and bring it to the new game of globalism. Do you think that the Soviet Empire just went out without a bang by chance or because it was the will of the people? No, it was disbanded because it served the purposes of whatever international elites control the real chords of power. The communist Soviets and the super capitalist western financiers where working together all the time. You can’t get more diabolically evil than that. No disrespect to Mother Russia, that suffering land of martyrs who endured the horrors of Lenin and Stalin, but it looks like Mr. Putin is just as much as part of that system as the others like Obama in the U.S. and Mr. Brown in Great Britain. Mr. Putting was a KGB agent and operative for many years. Unless he had a great big change or heart or a true conversion to Christianity, I have very serious doubts about him.
The Middle East has seen wars and destruction from the beginning of history. It was here that Adam ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil after all. Akkadians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, Hebrews, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks, Franks, English, French, Germans, Americans all have fought wars in this area since time immemorial. It seems like great powers are attracted to the region. But I think it was the British Empire who left the worse mess of all, by dividing the former Turkish Empire into new nations that had no historical or ethnical background or reason to exist, artificial nations like Iraq and or course the greatest cluster mess of all, the partition of Palestine into a new Israeli nation (there had been no Jewish nation in the Middle East since the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70 and later their complete deportation after the Bar Kokhba rebellion around AD 130) and the so called Palestinian enclaves. The whole thing was done as stupidly as possible and has caused now decades of violence and hatred. And there seems to be no end in sight.
How can you be so sure Putin and Medvedev aren't a part of the same group of elites that have ruined the United States. It is my belief that they are.
ReplyDelete@Stanislav
ReplyDeleteI agree on the key points, but vastly disagree on the "pro-Russian" and "anti-western" spin.
The wars are declared for the variety of half-bogus arguments.
Maybe you enlighten us about the reasons for the invasion of Khiva in 19th century by "old" Russia?
Or about the (former) interest of "new" Russia in Iraq: namely LUKoil's $4 billion deal for West Qurna, $50 billion Iraqi-Russian agreement for the development of the western Iraq, and all the weapon deals?
Is this post a belated cry for the lost economic interest in Iraq, and much earlier in the eastern bloc?
This blog talks a lot about western elite. What about the eastern elite? Russian (and especially Moscovian) elitism is well know.
I second Rudy on the KGB & Putin ties. Maybe we will get real and look at the freedoms of an average citizen? How about starting with the right to carry arms?
Khiva was invaded due to slavery. Turks and Persians were using Chechens to slave raid Russia, Georgia and surrounding areas. After 100 years of punitive counter raids, Chechnya and Daghistan were brought to heal.
ReplyDeleteThen the Khivans started raiding, for the Turks and Persians. Eventually they were also brought to heal for that same reason. You should know the history, it is writen pretty straight forward.
As for right to carry, yes lets us look at it. In Russia you can buy rifles and shotguns and own pistols of non-battle caliber (22 caliber or so). Air pistols of 9mm are also available, many of which get reworked into real pistols. Would I like to see more, sure, yes I would. And there are pushes in the government to liberalize it more.
But let us compare to most of the West. With the exception of America, I know for a fact that this is much more liberal than UK and Australia where NO WEAPONS are allowed and often not even small knives. It is also, I believe, more libral than Canada, France, Germany and Italy and on the same level as your Ukraine.
Next issue...
@StictSum
ReplyDeleteI judge them by their actions and they have rebuilt the Russian economy, put in protections for Russian industry and acted first and foremost as nationalists not internationalists and warned the US/UK leaders repeatedly not to be socialists and nationalize industry.
Wonderful observations, friend Slava. You remind me of another one of my heros, Pat Buchanan.
ReplyDelete"On the home front, the public is brainwashed to see everything in absolute black and white, good guy, bad guy."
ReplyDeleteThe public generally agrees with the US/media approach to military aggression, etc, no brainwash necessary. Keeps them safe from terrorists, and at no cost. The media give them what they want; they are in business, sell ads.
Bad Rulers, Angel public!
From a commenter:
"You and I have Pride in our fellow countrymen and women"
On the basis of what?
"It's 'those in charge' that create the problems between our countries."
Who put them there? We are to be proud of this?
Did they put a gun to their head to force them to take the no-down loans.
Did they pass a law that you live in a plastic condo 50 miles from the shop?
Is there now and ordnance which dictates that your vehicle must weigh a minimum of 3 tons and and be based on a truck frame. Why not say no more truck frames; the unibody appeared in 1973. No one says no! On and on.
It makes no sense to have pride in a collection of humans just because they are ruled by the same government and share the same geography. This is pumped by the Global Ruling Elite and in itself is jingoistic and underlies the license for wars.