American Citizens Send Message to the War Party in Washington: US Should Keep Out of Ukraine
By Vojin Joksimovich, PhD
Modern Tokyo Times
A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, conducted during the showdown with Russia over Ukraine, found that Americans in large numbers want the country to pull back from the world stage: Americans Want to Pull Back from World Stage. The poll finds that 47% of respondents who called for a less active role in world affairs marked a larger percentage than in similar polls conducted in 2001, 1997 and 1995. The poll also showed that President Obama’s approval rating for handling foreign policy plummeted to its lowest level. In addition, a Pew poll conducted in December found a majority of Americans, more than ever before in 50-year history of polling, think that the US should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along as best they can on their own. A Pew/USA poll conducted found that by 2:1 Americans oppose any military aid to Ukraine. A YouGov poll conducted in April found that only 14% Americans felt the US has “any responsibility” to get involved in Ukraine, and 18% felt that the US “has any responsibility to protect Ukraine if Russia were to invade.” The Huffington Post says: Pluralities of Democrats, Republicans and Independents agreed that the US does not have responsibility to protect Ukraine.
These poll results should come as no surprise to anybody including the War Party (term borrowed from Pat Buchanan) within the Washington DC beltway. As early as 1999, during this writer’s Kosovo presentation in the US Congress a congressman asked “Given that more than 90% Americans cannot find Kosovo on the map, why should we care who is in charge of Pristina.” Indeed, why? The House of Representatives didn’t approve the Clinton Administration aggression in violation of a host of international laws, but President Clinton ignored their resolution.
Recently, the Washington Post reported that only one out of six Americans could find Ukraine on the map. Why should the Americans care whether Crimea is a part of Ukraine or Russia where it belonged since Catherine the Great until Khrushchev in 1956, when Ukraine was only a Soviet republic not an independent country? Why should the Americans care about the enforcement of Stalin’s USSR ethnic diversity order which created Ukraine as the Soviet Republic, rather than the Peter the Great order of Mother Russia?
It can be safely concluded that even fewer Americans would be able to find uninhabited Senkaku Islands in Japan and Diaoyu Islands (China’s name) on the map. Nonetheless, the Obama administration has decided to challenge the Russian bear and the Chinese tiger simultaneously. Since Americans in high percentages do not approve these renewed Cold War foreign policies, a legitimate question needs to be asked as to whose interests are being served if not the interests of bulk of the American people, who will end up together with their kids and grand-kids paying debts incurred by policies of the War Party. Jack Bowsher in his book Educating Voters for Rebuilding America quotes estimated cost of the War on Terror from 2002 to 2014 (primarily wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) at $5 trillion in borrowed money, a significant fraction of the present total nation’s debt of about $17.5 trillion.
Victoria Newland’s Explanation
Victoria Newland, Assistant Secretary for European Affairs and famous for her F… EU tape, explained that the US has invested over $5 billion to subvert Ukraine away from its historic relationship with Russia and into the US sphere of interest. These $5 billion could have been spent to rebuild America so that young people, who borrow money to go to college, can find jobs rather than having to return to their parents in order to survive. Ron Paul, former congressman and the presidential candidate, said: “Washington’s role in pumping $5 billion into the effort to ‘control Ukraine’ is plain interventionism and meddling which could easily result in disaster.” Indeed it already has and is getting worse in particular with regard to the Odessa massacre. With US support a bloody civil war is in progress in the Ukraine. While the conflict might not evolve into a military confrontation with Russia, the US/EU sanctions imposed on Russia are de facto an act of war. Ron Paul blamed the US and its allies for provoking the Ukrainian conflict in the first place despite the Western leaders and media outlets claiming Russia’s culpability.
Newland added that there are prominent businessmen and government officials who support the US project to subvert Ukraine. This group of foreign policy elitists, the War Party consisting of Conservative Neocons and Responsibility to Protect (R-to-P) leftists, has acquired the status of unchecked monopoly in foreign policies with regard to the Clinton, Bush 43 and the Obama administrations. Newland’s husband is a neocon champion Robert Kagan, who has served as Senator McCain’s adviser.
De facto, this elitist group has hi-jacked US foreign policies. Their core methodology consists of Pox Americana imposition on the world by virtue of regime changes of so called defiant regimes (color revolutions), by use of NATO, defense of the dollar coupled with prior Hitlerizations of leaders of those countries in the way of US/NATO expansion. After Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Assad now Putin has been Hitlerized ad nauseam.
The New World Order (NOW) announced by Bush 41 upon conclusion of the Cold War, has evolved into the New World Disorder. Iraq is a failed state, Egypt has spiraled out of control, Libya has plunged into an internecine war, Assad is fighting aggression, withdrawal from Afghanistan after thirteen years of war with Taliban are all evidence of the War Party failings.
Regime Changes: “Color Revolutions”
The methodology for the overthrow of non-compliant political leaders to replace them with subservient ones is known as a “color revolution.” There are countless “color revolutions,” fomented by Western institutions such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) among others. To name a few color revolutions: The Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the Orange Revolution in Kiev, etc. The first successful color revolution under Western auspices was in Serbia in October 2000 resulting in the overthrow of the Milosevic regime. Classical signs of a Gene Sharp type of revolution were present. Gene Sharp is the founder of the Albert Einstein Institution dedicated to advancing the study of non-violent revolutions.
Color revolutions were attempted in Belarus and Syria but failed thus far. However, on February 22nd so called Euromaidan Square Pravi Sektor ultra-nationalist mob in Kiev has succeeded in overthrowing the duly elected president of Ukraine and his government and replacing them with an interim government hand-picked by Washington.
Use of NATO
In 1991-92 73-year old Yugoslavia was dismembered to become a staging ground for the US/NATO domination of the Balkans. Unitary Yugoslavia was undesirable, while now unitary Ukraine is imperative. Yugoslavia, a truly multi-ethnic and multi-religious society, was an excellent laboratory for the experimentation by Western powers. A purely defensive alliance was transformed into an aggressor. Enforcement of the Dayton Accords in Bosnia was the first step towards US/NATO domination of Eastern Europe. This has been a repudiation of NATO’s original charter and indeed a repudiation of the basis the US Senate ratified the treaty. Initially, 60,000 NATO troops had been deployed in Bosnia. NATO Aggression culminated in the 78-days of infamy against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, then Serbia and Montenegro, which amounted to 78 days of incessant bombing of a sovereign country not representing any threat to the US whatsoever. So, the US/NATO Drang Nach Osten policy marched along.
In 1998, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined NATO. In 2004, not only the rest of former Soviet satellites, previously Warsaw Pact members, but also three Baltic States, former Soviet republics, joined NATO. This was all in violation of the pledge made to the Soviet President Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastward into the former Soviet empire. Moscow pulled the Red Army out of Europe, closed its bases in Cuba, dissolved its evil empire and sought friendship with the US. Then president Bush 43, Cheney, McCain, Biden and others were pushing to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, but Germany and France vetoed that initiative.
Germany and France refused to participate in the US 2003 aggression of Iraq. However, NATO got the mission to join the US forces in Afghanistan in fighting the Taliban and to overthrow the government of President Gaddafi in Libya. The mission in Afghanistan is ending in 2014. So NATO could become without a mission. Former congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich predicted in December that the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, which initiated the Ukrainian crisis, has been NATO’s Trojan horse.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel made a pitch to NATO for renewed military spending using Russian actions in Ukraine as the reason. His predecessors, Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, made high-profile speeches on the same subject but without much impact. The majority of NATO members reduced defense spending in 2013 with countries like Hungary and Spain reducing their defense budgets by 11.9%. NATO defense spending by country as share of GDP in 2013 varied from 0.9% in Spain to 2.4% in Britain, compared to 4.4% in the US. While a major increase in military spending may not be on the cards, the appetite for further cuts has definitely disappeared. Hence, the Ukraine crisis has conclusively extended NATO’s life, which should make the War Party in Washington happy.
Defense of the Dollar
After WWII, the dollar became the world’s preeminent currency and as such the backbone of international trade. This has helped the US to dominate the global economy. Since 1971 and even more so after the 2008 financial crisis the Fed has issued a lot of dollars thanks to US exploding debt levels. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts that the US debt will continue its rapid growth. Foreigners have considerably slowed buying dollars. The dollar’s importance has been declining together with the US relative economic power. China, predicted to overtake the US economy soon, is actively laying the groundwork for its Yuan to become the basis for international trade. The other BRIC countries Russia, Brazil and India, are also beginning to wean themselves off the dollar. Now with sanctions against Russia, the US seems to be shooting itself in the foot. Putin has announced plans to move away from the dollar. Gazprom has announced it will issue bonds denominated in the Yuan.
The US has a long history of defending the dollar dominance. Those who dared to challenge the dollar have been punished. Three examples. In 2000 Saddam Hussein proclaimed that he will sell Iraq’s oil in euros. In 2006 he was hanged. In 2010 Muammar Gaddafi called on African and Muslim nations to create a new gold-backed currency called the dinar. In 2011 he was beaten to death. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF managing director and a French presidential candidate, called for a new world currency. A maid at the Sofitel Hotel in New York accused him of sexually assaulting her. He lost his position at the IMF and withdrew from the presidential elections in France.
Vojin Joksimovich, PhD is the author of three books and over 110
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