WOLGANG Schiller: Wenn die Journalisten von SPIEGEL, ZEIT, WELT, FAZ und taz und SZ auch nur halb so gut wären wie Jonathan Cook, dann wäre uns schon sehr geholfen.
It’s up to Europe, more than Putin, to take responsibility for the energy crisis
by Jonathan Cook.
After fueling the war in Ukraine, the arrogant and judgmental attitude of the West is now plunging Europe into recession.
Outraged Western leaders are threatening to cap Russian natural gas import prices after Moscow cut off supplies to Europe this month, deepening an already dire energy crisis and rising cost of living.
In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Europe a „freezing“ winter unless there was a change of course.
In this exchange of blows, the West continues to intensify the rhetoric. Putin is accused of employing a mixture of blackmail and economic terror against Europe. His actions are meant to prove once again that he is a monster that cannot be negotiated with and a threat to world peace.
Starving Europe of fuel in the run-up to winter, with the aim of weakening the resolve of European states to support Kyiv and turning European populations against their leaders, is Putin’s first maneuver in part of his plot to expand his territorial ambitions from Ukraine to the rest of Europe.
In any case, this is the all too familiar narrative shared by Western politicians and media.
In fact, Europe’s arrogant and sanctimonious posturing over Russian gas supplies, disconnected from any discernible geopolitical reality, reflects precisely that same recklessness that helped bring about Ukraine’s invasion in the first place. Moscow.
It is also the reason why there has been no exit ramp – a path leading to negotiations – even as Russia has seized large swathes of Ukraine’s eastern and southern flanks, territories that cannot be reclaimed without further massive loss of life on both sides, as highlighted by the limited Ukrainian assault around Kharkiv.
Economic wars against weak states
The Western media bears a great deal of responsibility for these serial failures of diplomacy.
Journalists too loudly and uncritically amplify what American and European leaders want their audiences to believe. But maybe it’s time for Europeans to get a little taste of what things may look like to Russians.
The media could start by dropping their outrage at “insolent” Moscow for refusing to supply gas to Europe.
After all, Moscow has made the reason for the gas supply cutoff crystal clear: it is retaliation for economic sanctions imposed by the West, a form of collective punishment affecting the whole of the Russian population which presents a risk of violation of the laws of war.
Westerners are used to waging economic wars against weak states, usually with the futile aim of overthrowing rulers they dislike or to smooth things over before directly or indirectly sending in troops.
Iran has faced decades of sanctions that have a devastating effect on its economy and people without bringing down the government.
At the same time, Washington is waging what amounts to its own form of economic terrorism against the Afghan people in order to punish the ruling Taliban for humiliatingly ousting US occupation forces last year.
The UN said last month that the sanctions had contributed to the risk of more than one million Afghan children starving to death.
The current economic sanctions against Russia are not virtuous either, nor is the blacklisting of Russian athletes and cultural icons. Sanctions are not intended to push Putin to the negotiating table.
As US President Biden made clear in March, the West is preparing for a long war and wants Putin out of power.
Rather, the goal is to weaken his authority and, in a fanciful scenario, encourage his subordinates to turn against him.
The West’s game plan, if it deserves the name, is to force Putin to overdeploy Russian forces in Ukraine by flooding the battlefield with weapons, and then watch his government collapse under the weight of popular discontent.
But in practice, the reverse is happening, as was the case in the 1990s when the West imposed sanctions on Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Putin’s position is getting stronger and will continue on this path whether Russia wins or loses on the battlefield.
Doubly senseless penalties
The West’s economic sanctions against Russia are doubly insane.
They reinforce Putin’s message that the West seeks to destroy Russia, just as it has done previously in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen.
Putin can thus quite plausibly claim that only a strongman can prevent an independent Russia from crossing the border into servitude.
And at the same time, the sanctions demonstrate to the Russians all the skill of their leader. Economic pressure from the West has largely backfired: sanctions have had little effect on the value of the rouble, while Europe appears to be heading for a recession as Putin turns off the water tap. gas.
Russians may not be the only ones to silently rejoice as the West gets a dose of the drug it loves to forcefully administer to others.
The vanity of the West, however, takes on a more troubling dimension. This is about the same haughty belief that the West would have suffered no consequences for its economic war against Russia, in the same way that it was assumed earlier that NATO would have nothing. had to fear by placing missiles at the gates of Moscow (presumably, the effect on the Ukrainians was not taken into account in the calculations.)
The decision to recruit more and more Eastern European states into the NATO fold over the past two decades not only broke promises made to Soviet and Russian leaders, but also went to the against the advice of the most expert strategists in the West.
Guided by the United States, NATO countries have tightened the military grip on Russia year after year, while claiming that this grip is entirely defensive.
NATO has openly flirted with Ukraine, hinting that it too might join its anti-Russian alliance.
The United States played a role in the 2014 protest movement that toppled the Ukrainian government, a government elected to keep channels open with Moscow.
After the installation of a new government, the Ukrainian military incorporated ultra-nationalist and anti-Russian militias which engaged in a devastating civil war with Russian communities in the east of the country.
And all the while, NATO has been secretly cooperating with that same Ukrainian army and training it.
At no time during the eight long years of civil war in Ukraine has Europe or the United States bothered to imagine how all these events unfolding in Russia’s backyard could be seen by ordinary Russians.
Need a scarecrow
Don’t they fear the West just as Western public opinion has been encouraged by their media to fear Moscow? Putin did not need to invent their concern. The West did it on its own.
The encirclement of Russia by NATO was not an isolated mistake. As well as the West’s interference in the coup and its support for a nationalist Ukrainian army that is increasingly hostile to Russia.
NATO’s decision to flood Ukraine with weapons rather than focus on diplomacy is not an aberration. Nor is imposing economic sanctions on ordinary Russians.
All these elements form a whole, a pattern of pathological behavior of the West towards Russia and any other resource-rich state that does not fully submit to Western domination.
If the West were a patient, he would be diagnosed with a severe personality disorder, with a strong propensity for self-destruction.
Worse still, this inclination doesn’t seem to be fixable – not as things stand. The truth is that NATO and its American conductor have no interest in changing. Their goal is to have a believable bogeyman who justifies continuing the massive redistribution of wealth from ordinary citizens to an already ultra-rich elite.
An alleged threat to Europe’s security justifies pouring money into the mouths of an expanding war machine, disguised as „defense industries“ – the military, arms manufacturers and the ever-growing complex of surveillance, intelligence and security industries.
NATO and the American network of more than 800 military bases around the world are constantly growing.
This scarecrow also guarantees the unity of Western populations in their fear and hatred of an external enemy, which makes them more inclined to rely on their leaders to ensure their protection – and at the same time, that of the institutions. of the power these leaders uphold as well as the status quo they represent.
Anyone who suggests meaningful reform of this system may be treated as a national security threat, traitor or madman, as former UK Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn learned the hard way.
Finally, this bogeyman distracts Western audiences from deeper threats, those for which our own leaders – rather than others – are responsible, such as the climate crisis which they have not only ignored, but continue to fuel. by the military posturing and global confrontations they employ to create a diversion. This is a circle of self-destruction that could not be more perfect.
Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union, the West has been searching for the perfect bogeyman to replace the USSR, one that would pose an existential threat to Western civilization.
Iraq’s weapons of mass distraction could be deployed in 45 minutes…until we learned they didn’t exist.
The Afghan Taliban harbored al-Qaeda…until we learned that the Taliban had offered to hand over Osama bin Laden even before the 9/11 attacks.
There was the terrifying threat of the Islamic State (IS) head-cutters…until we learned that they were distant allies of the West in Syria and were being supplied with weapons by Libya after it was liberated by the West from its „dictator“, Muammar Gaddafi.
And we should always worry about Iran and its supposed nuclear weapons, even if Tehran signed an agreement in 2015 establishing strict international surveillance to prevent it from developing a bomb… until the United States casually discard the deal under pressure from Israel and choose not to replace it with anything else.
Each of these threats was so serious that it required an enormous expenditure of energy and funds, until it achieved its goal of terrifying Western populations and thus forcing them to nod.
Invariably, Western interference has generated a backlash that has created a new temporary enemy.
Now, as in a predictable sequel to a Hollywood movie, the Cold War is making a comeback. Russian President Putin plays a leading role there. And the military-industrial complex is licking its chops.
European leaders are asking ordinary citizens and small businesses to brace for a recession as energy companies once again rake in „mind-blowing“ profits.
As during the financial crisis fifteen years ago, when the population had to tighten its belt by undergoing austerity policies, a crisis offers ideal conditions for an upward redistribution of wealth.
Like other officials, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has sounded the alarm about „civil unrest“ that may arise this winter as prices soar across the Europe, while demanding that public money be used to send even more weapons to Ukraine.
The question is whether Western populations will continue to believe in the discourse of an existential threat that can only be addressed if they put their hands in their pockets instead of their leaders.
Textausschnitt Standardartikel:
„Mitterer kommt aus dem Heeresnachrichtenamt des Bundesheers, das für die Auslandsaufklärung zuständig ist und seit Jahrzehnten eng mit deutschen und US-Geheimdiensten zusammenarbeitet. Symbol dieser Zusammenarbeit ist die Abhörstation Königswarte bei Hainburg, von der aus während des Kalten Krieges Telefon- und Funkverkehr im Ostblock und auf dem Balkan abgehört wurde. Heute zapft sie auch Kommunikationssatelliten an. Die gewonnenen Informationen werden anderen westlichen Geheimdiensten zur Verfügung gestellt – im Austausch für andere Informationen. Die „Soldaten für Neutralität“ kritisieren diese Zusammenarbeit und sehen die Königswarte als Beteiligung am Drohnenkrieg der USA.“Ende Textausschnitt Standardartikel.
SEHR GROSSER RESPEKT! Erster Oberst der öffentlich ausspricht, was auf der Abhörstation Königswarte abgeht. Oberst Gottfried Pausch