The U.S. has declared that Donbass is different. How it is different, nobody will say, because you are not supposed to ask, writes Vladimir Golstein.
Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, the largest U.S. military base in Europe, is called a smaller Guantanamo for housing terrorism suspects. ( KFOR, Task Force Falcon Public Affairs Office)
By Vladimir Golstein
There once was a country called Yugoslavia. It was a multi-ethnic, multi-religious federalist country, rather prosperous by Socialist standards, and consisting of proud people who stood up to Adolph Hitler and even Joseph Stalin.
There were intermarriages, great food, and great films too. And then the West — once the Soviet Union began to collapse — decided that it was Yugoslavia’s time to collapse too. It would no longer be a country but the land of ancient Balkan hatreds. And they began to foment them and foment them, blaming one republic in particular: Serbia.
Serbian villains were blamed for slowing the rapid European integration of all the other republics, which began to declare their independence. This independence — Slovenia, Croatia and so on — was quickly embraced by the West. Germans were there first, trying out their new role as the masters of Europe, so all these republics were eventually recognized and then — since the population was mixed — civil strive began within each newly, independent republic.
Serbian minorities from every republic began to be harassed and kicked out. All this was condoned and supported by the West, which started a new narrative: great separatists, bad Serbians. [The Clinton administration, including then U.N. ambassador Madeleine Albright, gave a green light to Croatia to ethnically cleanse a quarter of a million Serbs from the Krajina region. Years later, angry Czechs in solidarity with Serbs, confronted Albright at a book signing in Prague. She called them “disgusting Serbs.”]
Kosovo
Those who remember, can recall wars, and bombing and propaganda campaigns. In 1999, NATO intervened militarily to help the largely ethnic Albanian Kosovo gain its independence from Serbia. The autonomous province of Kosovo had voted 99 percent in favor of independence in a 1991 referendum. Eight years later NATO was bombing Belgrade on its behalf.
The U.S. charged the Serbs with ethnic cleansing, but one study suggests the Kosovars fled Serbia en masse only after NATO started bombing. Today neither the Council of Europe, nor the United Nations recognizes Kosovo’s independence, though the United States does. The U.S. then built its largest and most expensive European military base in Kosovo.
I was invited during the NATO campaign to participate at a panel named “Kosovo and Moral Responsibility” organized by Yale Hillel with two other participants. One was the most respected Yale professor who demanded more bombs be directed at Serbia. She constantly made references to Munich and the appeasement of Hitler in regard to the Serbs.
When I muttered something about Serbian children found dead next to their teddy bears in a train falling from a bridge bombed on the order of Bill Clinton, I was accused of demagoguery by that famous professor, who began to rhapsodize about the beauties of Dubrovnik in Croatia, threatened by the evil Serbs.
Hashim Thaci, then U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Fatmir Sejdiu with the Declaration of Independence of Kosovo, May 21, 2009. (Office of Prime Minister of Kosovo)
Somehow, it became a moral responsibility of the West to wrest the ancient Serbian lands with its thirteen century Orthodox monasteries to give to Albanian gangsters from the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), who the U.S. once branded as terrorists and who became infamous for selling Serbian body parts to western buyers. Their leader was Hashim Thaci, pictured above with Joe Biden, who later became president of Kosovo.
Donbass
In 2014, after the U.S.-backed violent coup that overthrew Ukraine’s democratically-elected president, the coup regime outlawed the Russian language and neo-Nazi gangs began attacking Russian speakers, including burning dozens of people alive in a building in Odessa. Twelve days after that incident, the largely ethnic-Russian oblasts of Lugansk and Donetsk declared independence from Ukraine.
Like in Kosovo, both provinces held referendums that returned overwhelming majorities for independence. Kiev responded by launching a war against these Russian speakers who the regime called “terrorists.”
Well. Where was the United States, Germany and other progressive European countries, when Donbass declared their independence? Nowhere, of course, as these republics were immediately dismissed as separatists and Russia-backed guerrillas, in addition to terrorists. Where were the Yale professors wringing their wrists about moral responsibility toward the Donbass people? Where are the endless articles about Ukrainian atrocities, bombing of schools and hospitals, displacing millions of people? That’s right! Nowhere! Why?
Because Uncle Sam said so. He declared that this is different. How it is different, nobody will say, because you are not supposed to ask. It is different, end of story, and if you ask questions, you are a Russian stooge.
We can recognize Slovenia and Macedonia, but not Novorossia or Donetsk. It is different. One is supported by NATO, another by Russians. Don’t you see the difference? I don’t. Nor do the millions of others who remember what Germans, Americans, Brits or the French once did to their countries.
So yes, New York Times and The Guardian, Joe Biden and Boris Johnson. Start your campaign again. Declare the illegality of recognizing breakaway republics, denounce evil Russians hell bent on invasion and do your usual stuff by parading fake authorities who’ll pontificate on the Moral Responsibility of denying Donbass its safety and freedom. You ain’t fooling anyone who is not willing to be fooled.
Vice President Joe Biden at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, Thursday, May 21, 2009. (White House/David Lienemann)
Vladimir Golstein, a former associate professor at Yale University, is chair of the Department of Slavic Studies at Brown University and is a commentator on Russian affairs.
forse in kossovo c’era una maggioranza di cittadini americani e/o italiani,francesi,olandesi ecc che non potevano parlare inglese o italiano o francese ecc…, non potevano ricevere la pensione,i servizi sociali e le cure mediche; in più forse venivano bombardati da 8 anni dalla madrepatria serba? allora ha fatto bene la NATO a bombardare belgrado e distruggere la yugoslavia. certo che i cittadini UE vada come vada, l’hanno preso duro nel posteriore e qualcuno si sta intascando fior di miliardi della popolazione europea
Actually there is an ocean of difference between the situation of Kosovo and that of Donbass. If we just get beyond the obvious similarity of the blatant disregard for international law and the dirty sneekiness of the intervention we will readily notice that while the Russian intervention in Donbass happens within its ex-sphere of influence if not also control, the American intervention in Kosovo is a trans-Oceanic penetration into someone else backyard through some sneeky backplay !
Great point. But these nuances are going to be ignored, of course, and Russia’s legitimate interests and concerns — dismissed.
Idealistically, I do not believe that “spheres of influence” and “backyards” have any place in a Westphalian nation-state system that is not simply a façade for neo-imperial entities (**cough** the P5 on the UN Security Council **cough**) to have their way with the sovereign nations of the world … but then I am also crazy enough to believe that the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact is still a treaty in force, and war (ESPECIALLY preemptive war) is illegal for all of the states that ratified it, which even the US State Department acknowledges, then shrugs away and ignores.
In any case, both Vladimir V. Putin and Joe “Everything South of the Mexican Border is America’s Front Yard” Biden demonstrably do not concur with these assessments.
Succinctly put and an excellent summary of the situation; Russia was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t. I was in the FRY in the early 1990’s and saw the venal and base appeal to non-existent ‘ethnic’ rivalries. It was a useful way to break up the economic potential of the FRY and enable its exploitation by the rest of Europe, particularly Germany and starting with Slovenia.
Brilliant article,thanks so much.
An enlightening article. It shows how bereft that corporate media has become.
“Because Uncle Sam said so. He declared that this is different. How it is different, nobody will say, because you are not supposed to ask. It is different, end of story, and if you ask questions, you are a Russian stooge.” American narrative control at work, with its willing helpers. It seems this has always been the case but with institutions like Homeland Security and social media, this is narrative control on steroids. No wonder the humanities and history are downplayed in US education. The last thing that an American government wants is an educated public.
Yes, we heard a lot about “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) in the days of the Yugoslavia breakup. Now it’s all about “territorial integrity.” Thanks to Vladimir Golstein for reminding us of the U.S. and NATO’s double standards.
I am reminded of the role PR played, as one of its practitioners boasted about his success at getting people (particularly Jewish leaders) to think of Nazi death camps in connection with the Serbs.
James Harff was Director of the Washington-based PR firm Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs. He directed the company’s efforts in representing Yugoslavian republics seeking to secede: Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo (Albanians). He explained how he made use of a Newsday article mentioning Serbian death camps.”We did not confirm the existence of death camps in Bosnia, we just made it known that ‘Newsday’ affirmed it.”
Harff: “We are professionals. We had a job to do and we did it. We are not paid to be moral.”
All of this appears in a book by Jacques Merlino who interviewed Harff on French TV, “Les Verités yugoslaviennes ne sont pas toutes bonnes à dire.”
And that Serbian “death camp” turned out to be run by Croatia.
Washington a été vêlé par la BÊTE impérialiste occidentale. Sa nature barbare et BESTIALE est génétique, sa génitrice étant la dictature aristocrate bourgeoise affairiste cléricale libérale nombriliste inféodante économico-politique (désignation de sa répugnante BÊTE impérialiste occidentale).
Washington ne doit sa raison d’être qu’aux guerres perpétuelles qu’il engendre. Il a été engendré lui-même pour détruire notre HUMANITÉ.
PLUS DE 200 ANS D’EXISTENCE, PLUS DE 200 ANS À GUERROYER ET À DÉTRUIRE.
Good to see you on CN Vladimir.
Outstanding explanation of objective reality, unlike all the false narratives emanating from the American mass media as per Washington’s orders.
Imagine a foreign power, say one of Washington’s favorite designated enemies like China or Russia infiltrating the US population and successfully fomenting a coup d’etat to topple one of our recent cardboard cutout patriotic presidents. Maybe half the country could not stand the guy, but he was elected and the other half of the electorate loved him no end. Say that president was named Donald Trump and a number of states in the old confederacy felt they had no duty under our constitution to pay allegiance to the usurper imposed by the foreign interlopers and they were declaring their independence (a second time) from the federalists in Washington. Honestly, what do you think would happen?
Why is it so hard to imagine a parallel series of responses justifiably taking place elsewhere in a country that our agents had infiltrated and overthrown? Most Americans, under the influence of their mass media, seem to believe that other Americans were willing to stage an “insurrection” on 6 January 2021 (though in reality no more than a terribly disorganised and overwrought group demonstration unfolded) to preserve the old order and block the formal ascension of the new because they firmly believed fraud had been perpetrated in or subsequent to the election.
If the US government could sell that notion and most of the American people could at least tenuously believe it, how can they so cavalierly dismiss the possibility (nay, the likelihood) that the rebellions in the ethnically Russian Donbas oblasts had no foundations in the quest for justice and were merely a facile land grab by Putin, as they are made out to be by the Ukrainian coup plotters, their Washington handlers, and now by the entirety of the UN Security Council without the slightest of bit of examination let alone the deep investigation that the known facts cry out for?
Yes, Professor Golstein , like the numerous other recent outrages in which Washington has lethally meddled in other countries, torn down their extant governments via bloody warfare and replaced them with highly unpopular puppets, this Washington-authored outrage have been a real tragedy, especially for the 14-16,000 ethnic Russians killed by Ukrainian military actions. What is really an affront to everyone’s intelligence is how a diplomatic poseur like Mr. Blinken, in the service of a master with such dubious competence as Lord Biden, thinks he can get away with the narratives he proffers which have all the substance of “the dog ate my homework” while he denigrates President Putin’s fact based history lessons. Very reminiscent of another flimsy false narrative formulated to prevent the ascension of one Donald J. Trump (duly elected in spite of all his admitted flaws) to the White House known as “Russiagate,” don’t you think? Seems like the quintessential solution to all political impasses in the United States: just make up some cock and bull story that blames Russia and then rhetorically cuff Putin and his country around till the public interest fades. Seems to be the essence of American governance these days.
Excellent post.
A very interesting article. As well as Kosovo, which the Russians have already cited, the 1992 splitting off from Yugoslavia of Croatia and Bosnia, gleefully supported by Germany , Austria, the Vatican, the USA was immediately accepted as valid. Serbia has been demonised ever since right up to the present day, and if you read about the many “massacres” in the region, Serbs are always the ones blamed and punished. These two Republics in Ukraine are hardly unique .
Biden misleadingly refers to Ukraine as a “sovereign” nation while hiding from the public the fact that the US covertly sponsored the armed overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically nationally elected government in 2014, and after successfully doing so, installed a President beholden to the US.
Bidenis willing to overthrow foreign governments if not pro-US. So much for championing democratic values.
He also hides from the American public, US support for the Ukraine military attacking the Russian separatists in violation of the Minsk Agreement.
The US, not just Russia, should be showing humanitarian concern for the lives of Russian civilians residing in separatist areas in Ukraine.
In the 50’s Eisenhower expressed that if Russia set free it’s satellite countries, both the US and Russia should engage in disarmament so military budgets could be reduced and thus allow our respective countries to meet the needs of it’s populace.
Eisenhower also expressed that it was against American values to topple foreign governments nor for the US to interfere in foreign government’s economy.
Both the overthrow of the Ukrainian national elected government and imposition of economic sanctions violate Eisenhower’s expressed principles.
President Biden won’t acknowledge that both NATO and Russia have to draw-back missiles pointed at each other. Without Biden acknowledging such there can be diplomacy or a future peaceful world.
Instead, Biden provides Ukraine with offensive arms that acerbates the problem.
While the mainstream press only puts on guests who call for decisive support for Ukraine, the American public has reservations.
Was on a bus today and passengers expressed their dissatisfaction with Biden, don’t want to see higher gas periods, and are fearful of the US being drawn into WW 111 which would result in almost total human annihilation of the planet.
IF Biden keeps the US on it’s present course, while offering no real diplomacy, the Democrats retaining Congress and his being re-elected President are in jeopardy, along with no enactment no new voting Rights or Build Back America program.
Until President Biden speaks about NATO and Russia mutually withdrawing it’s missiles, there’s no hope for peace.
US-sponsored coups in Guatemala and Iran took place under Eisenhower as well as sending US troops to Lebanon and machinations in Syria.
This author clarifies the right and
wrong of America’s military-industrial complex intent: to surround
Russia and keep the weapons manufacturer’s profits flowing, also Wall Streets.
A quick look at just three basic facts shows Russia is acting in
self-defense against NATO and its European allies: 1) the Ukraine government is a product of U.S. regime change and is illegitimate, also heavily neo-Nazi; 2) its president refuses to honor the Minsk II
accords so Putin has no choice 3) the people of Donetsk and Luhansk regions are attacked by well-armed Western powers with high killing power, the people attacked consider themselves Russian not Ukranian, 4) sorry for the bad math, 1991 marks the U.S. as liar in chief saying NATO wouldn’t move an inch eastward if
then Soviet Union allowed a united Germany, Gorbachev kept the Russian promise, guess who lied? 5) forget the math, I’m on a roll: U.S. missiles surround Russia, what if they did that to us?
Ultimately, there should be no objection to Donetsk and Luhansk (alongside all of the CIS-2 nations), Kosovo, Taiwan, or for that matter, e.g., Puerto Rico, the Republic of Lakotah, Vermont, Texas, Alaska, etc. in the United States, and Idel-Ural, Karelia, Northern Caucasus, etc. in Russia, holding independence referenda if they so desire, without the interference of any great powers (especially foreign military involvement or NGOs putting their finger on the scale in favor of one outcome or the other), save for electoral observer missions to even-handedly report on whether the proceedings appear “free and fair,” and accompanying commitments that any resulting new states will remain neutral and not host foreign military bases and installations on their soil.
The Bush II administrations’ directive to rewrite history according to the interests of U.S. hegemonic hubris, which is the economic directive of the artless Fortune 100, reigns Supreme. U.S. is governed by a sometimes sophisticated fascism.
The heartless Madeleine Albright has an op-ed piece in today’s (2/23/22) New York Times strongly criticizing Vladimir Putin’s decisions vis a vis the LDNR. It is entirely consistent both with her past career and the Times present reporting on the subject.
Another excellent article helping to make Consortium News such a valuable resource.
I find it amazing that any thinking, rational and even partially observant person in the “Western world” actually believes that for no good reason at all, Russia suddenly was seized with a burning desire to start a war in Ukraine. Just google a quick ‘Russia-Ukraine unrest’ since the USA led coup against Ukraine in 2014 and you will see that the western media headlines are full of Russiagate, Russia, Russia Russia, imminent attack! ad infinitum, poking Putin over and over again, then suddenly out of nowhere! Russia attacks Ukraine! More the fool Americans who are starving, close to homelessness, poorly educated, trained to toil for Bezos, to actually believe the lies their government stuffs them full of. But of course – only Americans are right and just and full of love for all their fellow humans – so much so, they are willing to push another country into war and kill many civilians so they can prove this great magnanimity. Just as they can starve the very Afghans they so casually bombed day and night without a second thought about saving all those poor Afghan women!
It is getting increasingly difficult to separate the American government from everyday Americans and the problem is spreading globally, with more of us also becoming aware that our own countries are also behaving in such a manner and despising it, but feeling we have no power to stop the insatiable and corrupt hegemon that is eating the world.
You’d think reading the news that this is all a disaster and failure of international relations. As long as the Germans can the pipeline, The US is quite happy.
As you and others have commented, the US got what it wanted–Germany won’t approve NS2. But it’s a 2fer for the US corporations, the energy sector will sell gas to Europe and the weapons manufacturers will send more weapons to Ukraine, purchased by Congress. Yes, it’s all about the money, lives be damned. Thank you CN for being a place where we can get news, the network and cable news are all propaganda machines.
I keep thinking that this is a nightmare I am living through and I will wake up soon and all be normal again ,but of course ,I am just fooling myself .
I have been watching what the US state department ,NATO ,has been doing all over the world , creating havoc ,killings, overthrowing governments that did not bow down to them , the list is long and bloody. All the while of course always blaming others for what they are guilty of themselves to shield themselves from their wrongdoings .The big media corporations make sure that so no one notices .
I am in my twilight and wonder where the decency of humanity has gone ? Who is driving the world to madness ? When will this end ?
It is about the money isn’t it . We were warned about usury weren’t we .
Thank you Vladimir Golstein and CN for shedding light on the machinations of the day .
You’re not the only one, Guy, Baron feels the same, he’s an import to the UK, arrived in the 60s, had to flee the country of birth, if anyone were to suggest to him then Britain will morph into a regime rooted in lies, half-truths and deceptions, he would have given his life to bet she won’t, it can never happen, he thought. Lucky, he didn’t bet.
Don’t you know, when WE do it, then that makes it Okay!
When THEY do it, then The Boots Of Totalitarianism Are On The March.
Thanks so much, I am begininnig to understand it all. I will share this on twitter.
Terrific article, Joe! Thanks.
I agree with Lou, but there’s an addition. The American shale oïl business, very large despite its environmental & climate damage, is in deep trouble because we’re overproducing without it. The whole shale industry is in trouble. The very first thing that happened a few days ago was that tankers full of shale oil were directed to Europe.
I find Trump pretty execrable, but once in a blue moon he gets it right. When he says Putin is a genius compared to Biden, he’s right. If we don’t get better leaders than those who only hear the CIA whisperers, this planet is finished, kwisha, over, goodbye. Perhaps it already is. It didn’t seem necessary, but maybe we were created to test the two-legged, big-brain theory and it simply didn’t work, ego and competition got in the way
“We [Exceptionalists] felt it was worth it.” – Mad Maddie
“We came, we saw, he died” – Her Cackleship HRC
“I was only following orders” – Adolf Eichmann
Cold runs the blood in the veins of the vainglorious.
Excellent points.
The West’s hypocrisy – led by the ‘master’ hypocrite the US, is totally sickening. And let us face it…it is us, the white race.
Great article. Thank you so much
As usual, its all about the Money. The US has been trying to stop Nord Stream 2 for years.
Why? Because the US wants to sell it’s gas to Europe. Ukraine is against the pipeline because they will lose the transit fees they currently receive from Russia. Germany’s government has been a supporter of the pipeline for years, including Merkel. Now all of a sudden, the are against it, after many visits by the US politicians….who knows what kind of promises have been made to Germany to achieve this.
Do business with the US and you end up with burnt fingers…
“Do business with the US and you end up with burnt fingers…”
In present context burning fingers may neither be fit for purpose nor achievable, in so far as purpose is perceived instead of purposes, sometimes known as “what is for afters?” which if ignored often lead to diappointments.
Exactly! Money talks… And don’t forget that by paying extra buck for gas, Germany will have to add it to the price of their products, thus, making it less competitive vis a vis US. That’s a move Trump would pursue for sure.
Plus Americans (and everybody else) will end up paying higher inflationary prices…on everything. Just the thing this economy needs. I hope that Tulsi Gabbard or whatever third party candidate runs against the Dems and the GOPers makes sure to bring this up in every campaign speech and twice on Sundays. The REAL rate of inflation some say is 20%, which is KILLING the middle class. Is Loco Joe shooting for Zimbabwe rates of inflation that has most of us living in tent cities?
If I might add, that natural gas in America’s oil shales will be a rare and high-priced commodity some day down the road as our finite resources all play out. The figures are always subject to recalculation but they are available and peak anything-you-want-to-talk-about is REAL. All the curves extrapolate to total planetary collapse by approximately 2100 AD. The 2050 projections are already ominous. ET had better bail us out with zero point energy pretty soon or its Mad Max World. Better to leave that gas in the ground for now and use it ourselves later on when most of the other fields in Russia, the ME, and other significant venues are tapped out. It is economically idiotic to recover it now at high expense (in production costs and environmental damage from fracking) to sell low just to undercut Russia.
I know, I know, “ourselves” tacitly means America’s oligarchs. You’d think the elect in our midst would be smart enough to look out for their own future interests, but maybe they don’t care for their own kids. Maybe they think that Elon Musk is gonna sell them resource-laden acreage on Mars for Bitcoin along with a workforce. They are a puzzlement.
For “The West” the term double standards is wholly inadequate. The term “standards du jour” would be more appropriate. Plausibly “whatever standards that let us extract the most money” would be better. What’s funny is that Putin didn’t even want to do NSII. It was a German idea that they sold as a commercial project.
Actually, it’s not even clear that the US wants to sell its own gas to Europe (after all US gas producers are partly responsible for the gas price spike in Europe, cause they started selling gas to China at a higher price). Americans just don’t want Europe to buy Russian gas. The negative effect that it had and will have on the European economies is totally irrelevant, so long as it’s a hit on the Russian economy.
No-no, the negative effect on EU economy is VITAL as EU is an economic competitor to the USA.
“EU is an economic competitor to the USA.”
That is the limited polite version.
“The United States of America” are networks of coercive social relations.
Consequently, the impolite version is of systemic significance and hence of wider import/longevity and reads: some are food sources and human shields of “The United States of America” roles increasingly at risk as a consequence of networks of coercive social relations (co-operation by coercion refers) , whilst others are increasingly no longer being pereceived as plausible food sources and human shields of “The United States of America”, hence the increasing amplitude and widening resort to hysterics, including like the STASI trying to eat all the sausages before some find out.
True, but Europe will become increasingly dependent on the US to meet its energy needs and, hence, increasingly servile as well. The smartest thing that European nations could do would be to withdraw from NATO and pursue friendly relations with Russia and China. The US would throw a massive hissy fit, but what could they do to stop it?
“True, but Europe will become increasingly dependent on the US to meet its energy needs and, hence, increasingly servile as well.”
……in so far as purpose is perceived instead of purposes, sometimes known as “what is for afters?” which if ignored often lead to disappointments since, when you wish upon a star, it makes no difference who you are, when you wish upon a star, your dreams only come true, when you are asleep.
Russia does not care, as it has China and other clients waiting. The gas price rise recently has apparently already paid for the Russian investment. Germany asked for and got (finally) the NS2 because it needed it. Scholz gave in to Biden’s imperious “we will shut down the pipeline”, showing Germany has no real independence.
“Russia does not care,”
“as it has China and other clients waiting.”
In some social relations projections containing expectations are very popular, hence the division of your first sentence above.
The first part “Russia does not care” has validity, since some do not assign the significance to others that others seek to assign to themselves,
where as “as it holds preserving the lives of their associates of greater significance than “profits”, which their opponents hold to be improbable beliefs, as illustrated by your response of “as it has China and other clients waiting” which obfuscates possible motivations/purposes.
No one seems to notice the hypocrisy and irony of the suspension of the certification process for the NS2 pipeline. The U.S. has said many times that Russia would use the NS2 as leverage against Germany and the EU. Then the U.S. turns around and uses the NS2 as leverage against Russia. Russia has not talked about shutting down the NS2 or the NS1 or the Yamal-Europe pipelines. I suspect that Germany is just along for the ride, either threatened with sanctions by the U.S. or offered plenty of LNG at reduced prices if they complied with the U.S. demands. But it’s about the money as you say.
Note that the U.S. is once again escaping making any real sacrifices. The U.S. freezes the assets of a couple Russian banks and oligarchs, and claims victory. Costs the U.S. nothing. And the U.S. will continue to import Russian petroleum and petroleum products. But Germany and Europe will suffer for the loss of the NS2. European countries will no doubt be called upon to make more sacrifices in the future. When you’re the world’s number one super-power, you can get away with these things.
The best case scenario is that the suspension is short. That Germany comes to its senses when it realizes it is being played, and then defies the US (as it did regarding overflights by the UK of war materiel to Ukraine) by reinstating NS2. Bonus points if it threatens to leave NATO over the US warmongering. US actions could fracture NATO after this over-reach, which would be a genuinely good thing, and restore a measure of sanity to Europe. It might even bring the US to its senses, but that is a slender chance at best, and probably wishful thinking, given the absence of thought on display by Biden, Blinken, Nuland, Sullivan, et al.
It’d be sweet if you’re right but alas, while I think the Europeans are brighter than the Ukrainians, I don’t think they’re that bright. To me, at least, it’s obvious that the US started hyping the whole invasion thing to get the vassals back in line. Unfortunately, I don’t think that the Europeans are going to pay any attention to either the shelling that Kiev has been doing in the Donbass or the argument that they themselves have made about a responsibility to protect (R2P) that they used to follow their master, the US, into Libya, Afghanistan, etc. And that will be why they fail.
“No one seems to notice the hypocrisy and irony ….”When you’re the world’s number one super-power, you can get away with these things.”
That some, but not all rely on what seems, is an advantage to some who also see opportunities facilitated/implemented with the complicity of those who rely on what seems.
More likely that threats were used against Germany than that promises were made.
Who knows what kind of promises were made? I would suggest what kind of threats were made.
From circa 1996 onwards in emulation of practices of Mr. Bismarck and Mr. Bleichroder in creation of the Kaiser Reich/K.u.K post 1866 , Germany and Austria embarqued on projects to increase/re-establish their spheres of influence in joint development of the Danube and its hinterland from Regensburg via Braila to the Danube delta and the Black Sea, with an additional spur from Cerna Voda to the Black Sea south of Constanta.
Phase two was envisaged as extending from Regensburg to Rotterdam and feasibility studies were underway through cooperation with various parties including NEI in Rotterdam, partly to finesse relations with Benelux members.
In 1999 as part of the “democratic gifts” within the unravelling of Yugoslavia in which Germany enjoyed a prominent role, NATO bombed not only the Yugoslavian landmass, but also the Danube in the vicinity of the Iron Gates.
This blocked the Danube, thereby undermining Austrian and German projects.
The Austrians and the Germans were advised confidentially by representatives of “The United States of America” that others had won the cold war and hence their joint activities were misguided,
however that after a reasonable time lag, some of their projects suitably modified would be continued by the “European Union” and they would be awarded some contracts under that umbrella.
These contracts were awarded in 2001 and subsequent under the guise of projects to facilitate the expansion of the “European Union” and some contracts remain operational today.
The opponents are not completely inept and realise that threats are best made to “little people”.
“Bigger people” tend to be reminded of “precedents”, and if such knowledge does not deliver desired results, that other of their associates will aid them in seeing the errors of their ways.