The Demonization of Russia and Putin

[nangyale]

The Rocky punch in US foreign policy
By Issa Ardakani


"This is not Rocky IV," said US Secretary of State John Kerry with respect to the Russian response to the ongoing putsch in Ukraine. Some may find it strange that an American secretary of state would invoke the name of an anti-Russian Hollywood movie to implore a Russian leader to heed his warnings. But in fact, Kerry's statement is not unusual at all; rather, it represents the wider lack of self-awareness which is the driving force behind American foreign policy culture. This lack of self-awareness manifests itself perfectly in Rocky IV. The movie was not only a masterpiece of political propaganda, but it has unintentionally served as a window into the absurdities of American exceptionalism and the concept's role in US foreign affairs.

The artificial villain
The first issue of note in Rocky IV is the artificial, contrived nature of the driving conflict. This conflict is strictly born out of the emergence of our villain - Russian Olympic champion Ivan Drago, who is introduced to us through a Sports Illustrated cover. The cover reads: "Russians invade US sports." As we all know, this is in reference to Drago's foray into professional boxing.

In the Hollywood universe, this is sufficient reason to make one a villain (so long as he's Russian, anyhow). However, objectively speaking, how can anyone consider such an act to be an "invasion?" Drago going pro is only an act of aggression within the context of American exceptionalism and its inherent paranoia. Compare this to actual current events: American officials and media personalities are crying imperialism over the potential "annexation" of Crimea by Russia, despite the fact that Crimea's government requested Russian military presence, and the option to join the Russian Federation will be put up to vote in Crimea. A democratic imperialism, indeed.

Glorification of a non-glorious struggle
Apollo Creed, boxer Rocky Balboa's former rival and current friend, plays a big role in propping up the non-conflict: "I don't want this chump to come over here with all that hype, you know … trying to make us look bad. They've tried every other way. With Rocky's help, we can get great media coverage. We can make them look bad for a change." And minutes later: "You and me, we don't even have a choice. … We have to be right in the middle of the action because we're the warriors. And without some challenge - without some damn war to fight, then the warrior may as well be dead, Stallion."

Apollo equates Drago entering professional boxing to a Soviet violation of American sovereignty, and likens the boxing ring to a field of battle. To any sensible viewer, this type of disproportionate response and over-politicization of a non-issue should be taken as an indication of Apollo's delusion and paranoia. But that is not how this speech is framed in the movie. The filmmakers clearly want us to take this as the rousing speech of a brave warrior, much like how Mr Kerry and the like expect us to take their stances on Russia as having any semblance of moral value.

Right and wrong sides of the tracks
So, what is it about Drago that makes him a villain? Why should we, the audience, be pulling for Apollo or Rocky? In the press conference before the Drago and Creed's Las Vegas exhibition bout, Apollo makes an *** of himself, taking repeated verbal jabs at Drago's expense while Drago remains completely silent. Apollo's patriotic offensive continues into fight night, when he participates in a ringside concert along with James Brown, performing "Living in America." Until this point in the movie, there is really nothing that would objectively suggest Apollo being the character we should sympathize with. So why is it a foregone conclusion that Drago is the baddie? Simply put: because Apollo is American. Drago is Russian. That's all that matters. Apollo has the right to make an *** of himself; Drago's mere existence in professional boxing is an act of aggression against him and his country.

This extends to other characters in the movie, as well. Take note of how Ludmila (Drago's wife) is depicted for doing more or less the same things as Rocky's wife Adrian. When Adrian supports Rocky in his training, it is portrayed as an act of love by a devoted wife. But Ludmila's support of her husband - including her concern for threats against his life - is essentially used as a point in favor of her being evil.

Another case of this double standard can be seen as the commentators discuss the Moscow crowd's booing of Rocky. "Listen to this crowd! - We knew he wouldn't be popular, but this borders on pure hatred." Note: there was no reference to "pure hatred" when Drago faced similar levels of booing in his Las Vegas. Such double standards only make moral sense within the context of American exceptionalism. But these very double standards are often the backbone of American stances. We can see this in American dealings with Iran, for example - where the United States government has afforded itself the right to embargo the country and threaten it with military action, for enriching uranium within the limitations of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

During the press conference announcing the Drago-Rocky bout, it is revealed that the Russian side has two demands: they want the fight to take place in Russia, on Christmas day. The latter is to be interpreted as a depiction of the atheistic communists' disregard for the most important holiday for Christians. But there are two very important flaws with this: firstly, Christmas for Orthodox Christians (Russians being among them) is on January 7, by which time most American families have already disposed of their tree. So why should such a date have even been objectionable for Americans? Secondly, it makes no sense for a country where "The NBA on Christmas day" has become a tradition, to express opposition toward the idea of a sporting event being held on Christmas.

As for the location of the fight, the moment Rocky tells the press that the fight will be in Russia, there is an uproar. But why? Why is the idea of the fight being held in Russia so objectionable? Wanting to hold the fight in Russia is not political at all, unless you find it offensive that any sporting event be held outside of your own country.

Politicization of sport
These Russian demands, among other things, are used by the filmmakers to depict how the Russians are politicizing the sport. When Ludmila says "We are not politic," we are meant to take it as a bald-faced lie. But there truly is nothing political about their demands. The uproar is based upon a foundation of hypocrisy and self-styled exceptionalism.

Furthermore, how can the movie condemn the supposed politicization of sports, when Rocky IV's narrative is itself a politicization of sports (and not in such a subtle way, either)? The politicization of sports is nothing new to the United States, and Russia has been a prime target of this politicization. The Winter Olympics in Sochi were politicized to a very high degree amongst American athletes and media personalities alike, with Bob Costas' anti-Putin political monologue, Pussy Riot appearing at the Amnesty concert in New York to coincide with the Sochi games, and numerous American athletes before the games protesting Russia's supposed oppression of homosexuals.

Self-redemption through submission
In the lead-up to the fight, Rocky trains in almost total isolation. In fact, his plane to Russia lands in what seems like a remote village. (But then again, perhaps this was the filmmakers' understanding of what Moscow looked like). Rocky did not interact with very many Russians until fight night, where he was booed violently. At the start of the fight, the Russian people are one with Drago. Their emotions and animosity are surrogates; they act on behalf of the stoic Drago, whose character does not allow for such expressions of emotions. The Russian people are the villain.

However, the transformation of the crowd from enemy to friend is the single most important dynamic of the movie. What happened during the course of the fight that, following its end, led Rocky to become the object of adoration of the people of Moscow? What happened was, Rocky won. The first cheer for Rocky was heard after Rocky started not getting completely throttled by Drago. And this momentum would build until, toward the end of the fight, it seemed that almost everyone (including the General-Secretary of the CPSU) was on Rocky's side. Rocky achieved all of this simply by punching the Russian people's national hero into submission.

The Russian people redeem themselves and reclaim their humanity only by disowning Drago and embracing Rocky. In other words, had the Russians not began to cheer on the man in red, white and blue trunks as he beat their greatest sportsman, they would have languished in their moral inferiority. Submission to America's will is the requisite for moral acceptability. Thus, immoral world actors like Israel, Saudi Arabia and the like, can become moral simply through their allegiance to the American imperial project.

It is clear that the makers of this film had a Kanye West-level of self-awareness with respect to their country. But considering the recent statements by Kerry, and other American behavior on the world stage, this is not very surprising. Rocky IV may be recognized by most Americans viewers as being ridiculously absurd, but these same viewers should not neglect to notice that the movie tells us more about the sad reality of American foreign policy than first glance would seem to reveal.


Issa Ardakani is a Detroit-based historian and political analyst who writes mostly about Iranian issues. He has a twitter account (@TheHalalButcher).

 

[LordTyrannus]

Its all about killing the people who figured out the new order. The Globalists just want to keep the good helpless (brainless) sheeps.

At one point a global resistance force (Rebels) are already calculated into their plans. Putin will be one of the Leaders of such a Resistance.

The payed Experts and strategists of the Zionists are the best ones in their field. They can even calculate the exact number of Humans to die in World War 3 and the aftermath. They use Supercomputers for WW3 simulations.

 

[nangyale]

A Dangerous Ploy
Putin’s Demonizers
by ANDREW LEVINE

Democrats and Republicans are at each other’s throats most of the time. There are many reasons why. Fundamental philosophical or ideological differences are not among them.

This is not the accepted view. The conventional wisdom has it that they adhere to different philosophies — that Democrats are liberals and Republicans are conservatives. Maybe something like that was more or less true once upon a time. Nowadays, the contention rings hollow.

For one thing, it gives Democrats and Republicans too much credit. It also insults liberalism and conservatism.

Lately, the idea that Vladimir Putin is one of the “bad guys” has also become conventional wisdom; on this, Democrats and Republicans agree. This is remarkable — not just because it is their custom to disagree, but also because it wasn’t long ago that the opposite was the case.

George W. Bush looked Vladimir Putin in the eye, beheld his soul, and saw that it was good. Only unreconstructed Cold Warriors gainsaid him. Now Hillary Clinton, echoing the media consensus, likens Putin to Hitler. As every kindergartener knows, this is shorthand for evil incarnate.

On this, she speaks for the entire political establishment.

However real liberals and conservatives have no reason to demonize Russia’s leader. Liberals should welcome him in under their capacious tent. Conservatives should embrace him.

Nevertheless, Democrats and Republicans demonize him.

Since philosophical differences don’t explain this, there must be some other reason. Could it be because Russia is the country Putin leads?

Neither Americans nor Europeans are genetically anti-Russian, and neither are they disposed to denigrate Russian culture. But their political and economic elites are sensitive to any and all suggestions that the economic system from which they benefit is not, as it were, a blessing unto the nations.

This makes Russia a problem for them inasmuch as, even today, the conventional wisdom has it that Russia’s relation to capitalism is problematic.

Ironically, conservatism’s is too. Liberalism’s is not.

Indeed, liberalism has been joined to capitalism from Day One.

Intimations of both emerged in the Netherlands and England as early as the sixteenth century, and the two developed almost in tandem — joined, before long, by capitalist centers in Western Europe and North America.

Early liberalism was, in effect, capitalism’s justifying theory.

Political philosophers have been advancing views of what liberalism is ever since, and liberal politics has assumed a wide variety of forms.

Still, in all its varieties, there is a common core. As the name suggests, it has to do with liberty or freedom. More precisely, it has to do with distinctively liberal views of this core value.

The conception of liberty to which liberals are most wedded, historically and conceptually, is individualistic and negative; individuals are free to the extent that they are free from coercive interferences.

This understanding sometimes melded into more positive conceptions, according to which individuals are free to the extent that they are able to do the things they want to do, and it has lately been joined to less individualistic understandings derived from seventeenth and eighteenth century (small-r) republican political theory.

The idea has also lent itself to a wide range of philosophical elaborations, bearing on notions of equality and justice and on other deep problems of moral philosophy.

But as a political doctrine, liberalism’s underlying emphases have remained fairly steady over the years: its focus is and always has been to minimize coercive, state interferences.

Liberalism is therefore a theory of limited government. In earlier times, it opposed absolutist theories according to which the sovereign’s power is in principle unlimited. It won that battle long ago.

It is therefore fair to say that except for a handful of unreconstructed devotees of defunct illiberal ideologies, everyone is a liberal nowadays. Conservatives are liberals too.

In common parlance, illiberalism and “dictatorship” are sometimes conflated. This is understandable, but it can also be misleading.

There are regimes in weak or failed states that have dictatorial characteristics, and there are political leaders who sometimes act “dictatorially.”

That is how our media now portray Vladimir Putin. And it is how some Tea Partiers, exceptionally deluded ones, portray Barack Obama.

But regardless of the merit of these charges, the fact remains: where the sovereign’s power is restricted by enforceable laws, liberalism is all there is. This holds for the United States, and it holds for Russia as well.

The first liberals were mainly concerned with commerce; their goal was to substitute the invisible hand of the market for the visible hand of the state, and to replace feudal property relations with a private property regime.

Liberalism’s old mercantile and feudal enemies are gone, but its doctrinal commitments remain.

“Libertarians” continue to echo positions taken by the first liberals; their faith in free markets and private property is unbounded. Conventional wisdom places them in the conservative camp but, in reality, they are as liberals can be.

Mainstream liberals are less doctrinaire or, as conventional wisdom has it, more “pragmatic.”

That word too has philosophical roots that bear only a vague relation to how it is used in our political culture. There, “pragmatic” just means “open-minded” or “flexible.”

In that sense, mainstream liberals generally are pragmatic. Within the broad limits set by their overriding commitment to liberal principles, they are fine with whatever works.

Partly for this reason, they are not interested in promoting classical liberal economic doctrines. A more important reason is that their main concerns are not economic at all.

They are advocates of tolerance, and all it implies.

This focus is hardly new. It predates the French and American Revolutions.

Many factors combined to turn liberalism into a philosophy of tolerance. The devastation brought on by the wars of religion that followed the Protestant Reformation was perhaps the most important.

The shift in emphasis has been so profound and its consequences so far-reaching that hardly anyone these days, outside libertarian circles, still thinks that economic and political liberties comprise a seamless web.

Indeed, mainstream liberals generally favor regulated markets and restrictions on property rights. But, for them, these are only secondary concerns. Their main interest lies in defending such rights and liberties as are elaborated in, say, the American Constitution’s Bill of Rights and in The Declaration of the Rights of Man.

If only to make their lives easier, political officials are constantly tempted to run roughshod over these protections. But where the rule of law is maintained, there are limits to how far they can go. This is true in Russia, it is true throughout the EU, and it is true in the United States as well.

Is Putin qualitatively worse than ordinary leaders of liberal states? Is he worse than Obama? The answer is of course, or so we are told.

After all, how could a graduate of the Harvard Law School and a teacher of Constitutional law at the University of Chicago be less liberal than a former official of the KGB?

But when the final reckoning comes, the obvious answer may not seem obvious anymore.

What has Putin done that is worse, from a liberal point of view, than putting the entire planet under 24/7 surveillance? Has he ordered assassinations without any semblance of due process, the way Obama has? Has he deported some two million people? Has he protected kidnappers and torturers?

And then there is the Edward Snowden question, where the views of Obama et. al. on transparency and press freedom stand revealed, and where Putin has been on the side of the angels.


It is almost axiomatic that free expression is better protected in Obama’s America than in Russia today. But is it true? Compare America’s corporate media with RT (Russia Today) TV, the television service now derided as Putin’s propaganda network.

The level of commentary and analysis on RT is far superior, and the diversity of views is greater. If that is what a propaganda network is like, then bring it on.

Putin is said to be violating international law in the Crimea. This is surely a mark against his liberalism because support for the rule of law is central to liberal politics.

But, in this too, is he worse than Obama? At least he is not a serial offender.

Of course, Democrats are notoriously spineless, and also reluctant to stand up for liberal values when one of their own is in the White House. So when the call goes out to demonize, they demonize. No surprise there.

Were they better liberals, though, they would surely resist the call. They might not be on Putin’s side in the Crimea, but they would have to regard him, at worst, as one of their own; one who has gone astray. They would regard Obama that way too.

Then there are the conservatives.

At its most fundamental level, conservatism is a frame of mind that accords a high priority to conserving things as they are. In much the way that liberals accord pride of place to the absence of state interference, conservatives value stability and order above all.

They are therefore change-averse, and they are especially loath to tamper with fundamental institutional arrangements. Change is disruptive; the more radical the change, the more disruptive it is likely to be.

No doubt, this temperament is more widespread in Republican than Democratic ranks.

But as a full-fledged political philosophy, conservatism hardly exists in our political culture. How could it when what we have to conserve is inherently destabilizing!

Since the dawn of the Christian era, conservative thinkers throughout Christendom have drawn upon theological notions, like the doctrine of Original Sin, that imply support for institutions that maintain order through political and moral coercion.

Because many of the first settlers in British North America were religious refugees, this strain of conservative thought has been a presence on the American scene from the time the first Europeans arrived. But the situation evolved, and pre-Enlightened ways of thinking waned.

Indeed, the republic established in the aftermath of our War of Independence was liberal from birth, and its founding principles were those of the Enlightenment.

This is one reason why strains of thought that have anti-liberal implications have had a hard time taking hold. Another is that we have no feudal past and therefore no historical memory of non-capitalist ways of life that enhance stability and order.

Capitalism, after all, is a revolutionary economic system; it overthrows and reconstructs everything it encounters. As The Communist Manifesto famously proclaimed, under its aegis, “all that is solid melts into air.”

Conservatives today, real ones, live in capitalist societies and therefore accommodate to its destabilizing consequences. But the tension can never be entirely overcome.

This is why our conservatives are, at best, only risible facsimiles of the genuine article.

Nevertheless, nearly all Republicans and alarmingly many Democrats call themselves “conservatives.”

They are not entirely wrong because there is at least one characteristic of authentic conservatism that they share with the real deal.

Contemporary conservatives are liberals; everyone is. But liberals on the self-identified liberal side of the liberal consensus, the ones who take tolerance more seriously than what the libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick called “capitalist acts between consenting adults,” typically want the state to be as neutral as possible — not just towards competing religions and ways of life but towards all conceptions of the good that are in any way contentious.

For them, the state’s role is not to promote particular conceptions of the good, but rather to treat competing conceptions fairly.

Conservatives, on the other hand, genuine ones, are still true, or true as they still can be in modern pluralistic societies, to particular conceptions of the good; conceptions that accord with their underlying philosophical commitments.

Liberals have conceptions of the good too, of course; but they regard them as matters of individual conscience only. Conservatives are inclined to want to use state power to promote the conceptions they favor.

Our self-styled conservatives are like them in this respect.

But is this not what Putin is accused of by those who call him a dictator? And, for that matter, are not the conceptions of the good that Putin is charged with wanting to promote basically the same as the ones his demonizers uphold?

To hear Republicans and Democrats tell it, Putin is running the show for reactionary Russian clerics – either for opportunistic reasons or because he believes their gobbledegook or both. But why is that a problem for American politicians, especially for the self-styled conservatives among them? Apart from theological niceties of no political significance, our home grown theocrats are on the same page.

Real conservatives should therefore embrace Putin, not vilify him; and not just for his purported pre-Enlightenment sympathies.

Being pessimists about human nature, real conservatives tend to favor authoritarian political styles and hardheaded, realist diplomacy. They like strong leaders, and despise floundering, clueless moralizers – like the ones now making foreign policy in the United States.

They have a point: liberal internationalists – humanitarian interventionists especially – are more dangerous.

But, then, why demonize Putin for being the kind of leader real conservatives admire?

It was telling that one of the less fatuous attendees at the recently concluded Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington effectively, though grudgingly, agreed.

Rudolph Giuliani took his turn disparaging Obama by praising Putin’s leadership. Instead of muddling along like Obama from one situation to another, Putin, Giuliani pointed out, knows where he is going.

Like other great conservative leaders of the past – Charles de Gaulle comes immediately to mind – Putin approaches politics and diplomacy like a game of chess, envisioning the larger situation and anticipating the right move several steps ahead.

And so, when it suits his purpose, he will bail Obama out, as he did when he had backed himself into a corner from which, without Putin’s intervention, he would have gotten the United States bogged down in Syria’s civil war – to the detriment of everyone involved.

Or, when doing so is in his interest, he can prevail over the American president, notwithstanding the fact that the United States has a stronger hand to play.

Under the true conservative tent, there is evidently still room for a kind of greatness that is lacking in the liberal wing of the larger liberal fold.

Greatness, but not goodness. On this, as on almost everything else, George W. Bush was wrong. Hillary Clinton is wrong too.

Putin is the closest approximation the world now has to the great conservative leaders of the past. Conservatives should appreciate this about him. But the gap between real conservatives and the self-styled ones around us is extreme; they might as well be different species.

Still, though, the question remains: why is Putin demonized?

I would venture that the fact that Putin is the leader of Russia has more than a little to do with it.

Even in what Gore Vidal aptly called the United States of Amnesia, it registers at some level that, a century ago, Russians moved history forward; that they broke free from the capitalist system.

The Communists who led the Russian Revolution then went on to organize and oversee the construction of a historically unprecedented, ostensibly socialist, order. It was a valiant effort – undertaken in an economically backward country and in the face of the relentless opposition of far stronger enemies.

Tragically, what they concocted turned out to be a mixed blessing at best. Seven decades later, it all fell apart.

But Communism – in Russia, and then in Eastern Europe and China — was a living presence throughout much of the twentieth century; its effects on politics and reflections on politics were profound.

Even in a country and at a time when Republican-leaning states and regions are described as “red,” the memory of Communism lingers at some level.

Putin is no less pro-capitalist than anyone else in the liberal fold, and he is as fine a conservative leader as one can be in today’s world.

The east –the Russian part as much as the Chinese – is no longer even remotely red (except perhaps in the sense that Republicans are), but the memory persists in our collective consciousness.

And so, when a Russian leader becomes an obstacle in America’s way, the empire strikes back. Step one is to vilify the leader. And if there is anything our foreign policy establishment and our compliant corporate media are good at, vilification tops the list.

Demonizing Putin may be useful in the short run to the empire’s “bipartisan” stewards.

But, they are dealing with someone more formidable than themselves, and they are getting in over their heads. It is a cynical and dangerous ploy from which incalculable harm could follow.

ANDREW LEVINE is a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, the author most recently of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY (Routledge) and POLITICAL KEY WORDS (Blackwell) as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His most recent book is In Bad Faith: What’s Wrong With the Opium of the People. He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy) at the University of Maryland-College Park. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

 

[nangyale]

That's the Question...
To Understand or Not to Understand Putin
by DIANA JOHNSTONE
Paris.

In Germany these days, very many citizens object to the endless Russia-bashing of the NATO-oriented mainstream media. They may point out that the U.S.-backed regime change in Kiev, putting in power an ultra-right transitional government eager to join NATO, posed an urgent threat to preservation of Russia’s only warm water naval base in Crimea. Under the circumstances, and inasmuch as the Crimean population overwhelmingly approved, reinstating Crimea in the Russian federation was a necessary defensive move.

In Germany, anyone who says thing like that can be denigrated as a “Putinversteher” (a Putin understander).

That says it all. We are not supposed to understand. We are supposed to hate. The media are there to see to that.

While the West doggedly refuses to understand Putin and Russia, Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, seems to understand things pretty well.http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/158367084X/counterpunchmaga

He seems to understand that he and his nation are being systematically lured into a death trap by an enemy which excels in the contemporary art of “communication”. In a war situation, NATO communication means that it doesn’t matter who does what. The only thing that matters is who tells the story. The Western media are telling the story in a way which depends on not understanding Russia, and not understanding Putin. Putin and Russia become fictional villains in the Western version, just the latest reincarnation of Hitler and Nazi Germany.

The horrific massacre in Odessa on May 2 proved this. The photographic evidence, the testimony of numerous eye witnesses, the smoldering bodies and the shouts of the killers are all there to prove what happened. Tents erected to collect signatures in favor of a referendum to introduce a federal system into Ukraine (now a politically divided but totally centralized state) were set on fire by a militia of fascist thugs who attacked the local federalists as “separatists” (accusing them of wanting to “separate” from Ukraine to join Russia, when that is not what they are seeking). The local activists fled into the big trade union building on the square where they were pursued, assaulted, murdered and set on fire by “Ukrainian nationalists”, acting on behalf of the illegitimate Kiev regime supported by the West.

No matter how vicious the assaults, Western media saw no evil, heard no evil, spoke no evil. They deplored a “tragedy” which just sort of happened.

Odessa is proof that whatever happens, the NATO political class, political leaders and media united, have decided on their story and are sticking to it. The nationalists that seized power in Kiev are the good guys, the people being assaulted in Odessa and in Eastern Ukraine are “pro-Russian” and therefore the “bad guys”.

Understanding Putin

So despite everything, let’s try to understand President Putin, which is really not very hard. Behind every conscious action there should be a motive. Let’s look at motives. Today, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, who certainly gives every sign of never understanding – or wanting to understand – anything, parroted the NATO line that Russia was “trying to orchestrate conflict and provocation” in Ukraine’s east and south.

That makes no sense. Putin has absolutely no motive to want civil war to rage in neighboring Ukraine, and very strong reasons to do all he can to avoid it. It confronts him with a serious dilemma. Ongoing vicious attacks by fanatic nationalists from Western Ukraine on citizens in the east and south of the country can only incite the victimized Russian-speaking Ukrainians to call on Russia for help. But at the same time, Putin must know that those Russophone Ukrainians do not really want to be invaded by Russia. Perhaps they want something impossible. And it is perfectly obvious that any use of Russia’s military force to protect people in Ukraine would let loose an even wilder demonization of Putin as “the new Hitler” who is invading countries “for no reason”. And NATO would use this, as it has already used the reunification of Crimea with Russia, as “proof” that Europe must tighten its alliance, establish military bases throughout Eastern Europe and (above all) spend more money on “defense” (buying US military equipment).

The Western takeover of the Kiev government is clearly a provocation to draw Putin into a trap that certain Western strategists (Zbigniew Brzezinski being the chief theorist) hope will cause Putin’s downfall and plunge Russia into a crisis that can lead to its eventual dismemberment.

Putin can only wish to find a peaceful solution to the Ukrainian mess.

While Washington reverts to Cold War “containment” policy to “isolate” Russia, Putin today held talks in Moscow with Didier Burkhalter, the Swiss president and current chairman of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), in hope of initiating some sort of peaceful mediation.

Putin Pulls Back From False Flag Plan?

On this occasion, Putin announced that he had pulled back Russian forces from the border with Ukraine. He indicated that this was to ease concerns over their positioning, meaning claims that Russia was preparing an invasion. He also advised against holding referendums for greater autonomy in the Russophone areas until “conditions for dialogue” can be created.

However, news reports indicated that this reported military pullback caused new concerns among some Ukrainians, who felt Russia was abandoning them in their hour of need, and among some Russians, who feared the President was backing down under Western pressure.

It is not impossible that the pullback order was linked to a Novosti RIA report dated May 6, which indicated that the Ukrainian secret service was planning an imminent false flag operation in order to accuse Russia of violating the border with Ukraine.

Novosti said it had learned from security circles in Kiev that the Ukrainian secret service SBU had secretly shipped about 200 Russian army uniforms and some 70 forged Russian officer ID into the Eastern Ukrainian protest stronghold of Donetz, to be used to stage a false attack on Ukrainian border patrols.

Novosti said the reports were unconfirmed, but they could nevertheless be taken seriously by the Russians. “The plan would be to simulate an attack on Ukrainian border troops and to film it for the media”, the report said. In connection with the plan, a dozen or so combatants from the ultranationalist Right Sector were to cross the border and kidnap a Russian soldier in order to present him as “proof” of Russian military incursion. The operation was scheduled for May 8 or 9.

By pulling Russian troops farther away from the border, Putin could hope to make the false flag operation less plausible and perhaps to forestall it.

The whole Ukrainian operation, at least partly directed by Victoria Nuland of the U.S. State Department, has been characterised by false flag operations, most notoriously by the snipers who suddenly spread murder and terror in Maidan square in Kiev, effectively wrecking the internationally sponsored transition agreement. “Pro-West” insurgents accused President Yanukovych of sending the killers and forced a rump parliament to give government power to Ms Nuland’s protégé, Arseniy “Yats” Yatsenyuk. However, there has been plenty of evidence to show that the mysterious snipers were pro-West mercenaries: photographic evidence, followed by the telephone statement by the Estonian foreign minister to that effect, and finally by the German television channel ARD whose Monitor documentary concluded that the snipers came from the extreme right anti-Russian groups involved in the Maidan uprising. Indeed, all known evidence points to a fascist false flag operation, and yet Western media and politicians continue to blame everything on Russia.

So whatever he does, Putin now has to realize that he will be deliberately “misunderstood” and misrepresented by Western leaders and media. Over the heads of the American people, over the heads of the Germans, French and other Europeans, a private consensus has obviously been reached among persons we may describe as our own Western “oligarchs” to revive the Cold War in order to provide the West with an “enemy” serious enough to save the military-industrial complex and unite the transatlantic community against the rest of the world.

This is what Russian leaders are obliged to understand. What they need most to save the world from endless and useless conflict is the understanding of all those Americans and Europeans who have never been consulted or informed about this perilous shift in strategy, and who, if they understood, would surely say no.

Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions. She can be reached at diana.johnstone@wanadoo.fr