As the Ukraine Crisis Escalates Critics of US International Policy Abound. The Economist Pleads For a Tougher Stance

The Economist was broadly a supporter of the Bush's wars in the Middle East, at least at the outset on principles,  it's Feb 22 2003 Issue asserted that "if Mr Hussein refuses to disarm, it would be right to go to war". Of course as yours truly as well as most sensible and educated people  knew at the time, there was no disarmament to be sought, as there were no weapons of mass destruction to begin with or at least no delivery capability for what potentially was left of Saddam's chemical weapons.  The rationale for going to war with Iraq was a fraud from the start. The trauma of 9/11, Israel's influence and the neocon administration's view of the world were central in the US obsession over the Iraqi threat, and some have argued that the Iraq war was an illegal war and therefore a crime.  In the years following Operation Iraqi Freedom, the great lies of the Bush (and Blair) administration led to the violent death or maiming of hundreds of thousands in Iraq as the conflict quickly turned into a quagmire in the middle of a civil war.

The infamous Bush-Blair memo proving the Allies sought to provoke Saddam into a conflict :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush%E2%80%93Blair_2003_Iraq_memo

There are two nations that today and in the future pose a threat to world peace. Russia as it is today is not one of them

Today with Mr Bush and his neocon cronies long gone, a US military and population suffering from combat fatigue and a "leftist" President with no ties to the military industrial complex in the White House, many it seems find reasons to worry about the unwillingness of the US to get into new wars. Mr Obama is compared to Jimmy Carter - with whom I would argue historians and public opinion have been most unfair-  and is criticized for his lack of resolve in Syria - another potential quagmire and civil war where taking sides means helping islamic fundamentalists - and  more recently with Russia in the Ukraine crisis. Mr Obama is doing a fine job on the international security front -aside from his drone assassination policy - and the criticism is unfair. Rather one has to worry about the hawkish rhetoric that surfaces time and again on the issues of Ukraine and of Russia's obvious desire to rebuild its might of the past. The danger for the world lies probably more in isolating and weakening Russia and its economy than in Ukraine - and perhaps other former USSR republics - going back under Moscow 's control within a revived Greater Russia. The world would probably be better off with a stronger Russia, provided this can be accompanied by improving international relations and westernization of all aspects of the Russian society and economy (human rights, democracy, rule of law, governance, etc.). It's a near certainty it won't happen if Russia is being ostracized and cut off from the Western world. Economic sanctions not only will hurt western economies and Europe foremost but could have dangerous long term consequences on the path Russia chooses to take. Russia has failed to make its economy less dependent on oil and natural resources prices  and when the world faces a  new economic downturn, Russia may find itself in such a dire position that it will turn to bellicose leaders and desperate policies that pose a serious risk to world peace or stability. What we could see then would be far worse than the current games played by Mr Putin in Ukraine.

Putin is no angel, but he is no madman either

Vladimir Putin is no angel and he has made clear he has the ambitions of a modern day Tsar of Russia but he is everything but a fool. Comparisons with Hitler are off-base. Some prominent observers of the Ukraine crisis and of Putin's rule are arguing that Mr Putin has plans to go after other states in the wake of the annexion of Crimea, that Mr Putin will use similar tactics to destabilize former USSR republics and bring them back under Russian influence, that therefore Mr Putin must be stopped by strong sanctions and a show of force by the Allies along the borders of NATO. They have a point but the solution does not lie in increased tensions and military exercises set dangerous precedents. Rather it's time for the EU and the West in general to stop meddling with the politics of former Eastern bloc countries. The EU  shares a large responsibility in the Ukraine unrest . By attempting to draw Ukraine - and former Eastern bloc countries - closer and under its sphere of influence, it has created conflicts within the country. Russia also rightly worries about the expansion of NATO, the loss of buffer states and a waning influence.  NATO's expansion represents one of the greatest threat to peace in Europe. NATO was created to defend against the USSR, arguably the threat to western Europe no longer exists, it probably never existed as the Soviets had no plans to conquer the western world  and were just as worried about the West as we were about them.  As we commemorate the 100 years of the start of WWI, we should remember how mankind's worst episode of foolishness started : the interplay of alliances between nations threw the world into the inferno of the Great War.  With today's NATO, if a conflict arises between a former Warsaw Pact nation and Russia, the whole of Europe and the US could be drawn into war. The peoples of core European countries must work together to reverse course so that such nonsense will never be possible.

Minding our business : it's unfortunate but faced with Russia's meddling in Ukraine, the West can hardly claim moral high ground 

The West and the US would be hard pressed to lecture Russia on Ukraine with the moral high ground.

Not just because of the Iraq war, but following the long list of controversial wars and outright crimes that were committed in the name of world security and of the preservation of freedom - in reality often to the benefit of industries and special interest groups, with the main goal to preserve our economic supremacy. There are two nations, two superpowers that today and in the future pose a threat to world peace. Russia as it is today is not one of them.

Which superpower constituted the biggest threat to mankind by starting the nuclear arms race after 1945 ?


We must ask ourselves to which extent our perception of world events is shaped by our government, media and special interest groups. As a child I grew up convinced that the Russians would one day invade Europe, I thought wars against communism were a necessity and the many Vietnam war movies produced by Hollywood told us the US were the good guys. It's only years later with the advent of the internet that I learned in detail about the Tonking Gulf Resolution, Agent Orange (one of the greatest war crimes of the West) and the massacres of civilians by the US GI's in Vietnam. As a Belgian citizen the truth about the brutal history of colonial Congo was completely occulted from me until I spent time outside the country. At my local elementary school I even had relatives of Mobutu Sese Seko as my classmates. Even though his daughter laughingly told us one day he was a mean man who threw people to crocodiles,  it was never revealed to me that Mobutu was a brutal dictator backed by the CIA, if I heard it later I thought it was unverified, and probably a "communist" point of view. For officially Mobutu was a great friend of Belgium. Of course I had never heard of the story of Patrice Lumumba either, and how my government, the CIA and the MI6 plotted the brutal assassination of one of Africa's most brilliant political leader because he was too independent and jeopardized the continued exploitation of Congo's riches by the West. Propaganda worked just as well in other western countries to hide state crimes. The British Empire contrary to a widely accepted myth was not exactly a benevolent rule, atrocities were committed in the 50's in Kenya by the British rulers, great crimes were committed earlier in colonial India as well, not to mention Malaysia and the Malayan Emergency conflict. Link to the Guardian.com: Deny the British empire's crimes ? No we ignore them -
As for the French government, for 15 years (1955-1971) it led a secret and bloody war in Cameroun where many atrocities were committed. Most people have never heard about it. I heard german history books for a long time after the war were forgetful of some key facts of WWII, I read the same about history books in Japan. The truth is, to a certain extent we are all fed lies and are all shaped by our propaganda. That's why the wise travels, studies history and  distrusts government. The people of the former USSR feared our aggression, we feared the same from them. Today is no different.

  Short catalogue of the crimes of the West (since 1945) : 

           The Iraq War : Remember those two ? 

Agent Orange : One of the greatest crimes of the West against humanity and the Creator. Agent Orange was manufactured by US based Dow Chemical (also maker of napalm for incendiary bombs) and Monsanto, dubbed the "evil company". Even today Monsanto refuses to admit the role of the chemicals it used  in the disastrous after-effects of the herbicide. The US used Agent Orange in Vietnam and the UK was the first one to use it in Malaysia in a brutal war against communist insurgents. Three million vietnamese civilians died during the war in Vietnam. The US Government not only is immune from prosecution by Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange but for a long time denied even symbolic compensation to Vietnam veterans exposed to the defoliant. That is how government rewards war "heroes", the nation's "best and finest" who made the "ultimate sacrifice",  official language for young 18-year old kids who don't know better and are sent to the butchery by politicians.  If you have Monsanto in your portfolio, do an internet search for "Agent Orange"  (not to mention other "wonderful" products from Monsanto) and press the sell button .

Patrice Lumumba : the first democratically elected leader of Congo and one of the most brilliant minds in Africa was brutally eliminated by the government of Belgium with a nod and approval from the US (which had first ordered his assassination) and the UK . They were so afraid of his ideas of true independence that Belgian agents used acid to dissolve his body to destroy all evidence and make sure his followers could not rally on a grave site.  For decades, the true story of the death of Lumumba was hidden to Belgians and to the world.

Nagasaki : the necessity of the first nuclear bombing has been debated, but Nagasaki three days later was unnecessary. The US military needed a live testing ground for its new weapon. The Japanese made perfect guinea pigs for the job.

 What can we hope for in Ukraine ? Could European equities hold clue ? 

Ukraine and Russia should resolve their differences without military conflict and with minimal interference of the West. Ukraine is ethnically diverse and has long historic ties to Russia, therefore a reasonable outcome for all parties can be reached if the Ukrainian government and the international community resign themselves to accepting regional referendums on joining the Russian Federation where the population leans on closer ties with Russia rather than with the EU.  Stockmarkets, so far, do not seem to care about what is happening in Ukraine, that may be, hopefully, because a solution, a compromise, will be reached and the latest Ukraine crisis will prove to have no long term consequences on European economies.