In an article on May 13, 2014 in The Guardian, republished here, John Pilger warned the “U.S. is threatening to take the world to war” over Ukraine, words that have taken on new meaning.
Maidan coup in Ukraine, 2014. (Wikipedia)
The Guardian
Tue 13 May 2014 15.30 EDT
By John Pilger
Why do we tolerate the threat of another world war in our name? Why do we allow lies that justify this risk? The scale of our indoctrination, wrote Harold Pinter, is a “brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis”, as if the truth “never happened even while it was happening”.
Every year the American historian William Blum publishes his “updated summary of the record of U.S. foreign policy” which shows that, since 1945, the U.S. has tried to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democratically elected; grossly interfered in elections in 30 countries; bombed the civilian populations of 30 countries; used chemical and biological weapons; and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders.
In many cases Britain has been a collaborator. The degree of human suffering, let alone criminality, is little acknowledged in the west, despite the presence of the world’s most advanced communications and nominally most free journalism. That the most numerous victims of terrorism – “our” terrorism – are Muslims, is unsayable. That extreme jihadism, which led to 9/11, was nurtured as a weapon of Anglo-American policy (Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan) is suppressed. In April the U.S. state department noted that, following Nato’s campaign in 2011, “Libya has become a terrorist safe haven“.
The name of “our” enemy has changed over the years, from communism to Islamism, but generally it is any society independent of western power and occupying strategically useful or resource-rich territory, or merely offering an alternative to U.S. domination.
The leaders of these obstructive nations are usually violently shoved aside, such as the democrats Muhammad Mossedeq in Iran, Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and Salvador Allende in Chile, or they are murdered like Patrice Lumumba in the Democratic Republic of Congo. All are subjected to a western media campaign of vilification – think Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez, now Vladimir Putin.
“If Putin can be provoked into coming to their aid, his pre-ordained ‘pariah’ role will justify a Nato-run guerrilla war that is likely to spill into Russia itself.”
Washington’s role in Ukraine is different only in its implications for the rest of us. For the first time since the Reagan years, the U.S. is threatening to take the world to war. With eastern Europe and the Balkans now military outposts of Nato, the last “buffer state” bordering Russia – Ukraine – is being torn apart by fascist forces unleashed by the U.S. and the EU. We in the west are now backing neo-Nazis in a country where Ukrainian Nazis backed Hitler.
Having masterminded the coup in February against the democratically elected government in Kiev, Washington’s planned seizure of Russia’s historic, legitimate warm-water naval base in Crimea failed. The Russians defended themselves, as they have done against every threat and invasion from the west for almost a century.
But Nato’s military encirclement has accelerated, along with U.S.-orchestrated attacks on ethnic Russians in Ukraine. If Putin can be provoked into coming to their aid, his pre-ordained “pariah” role will justify a Nato-run guerrilla war that is likely to spill into Russia itself.
Instead, Putin has confounded the war party by seeking an accommodation with Washington and the EU, by withdrawing Russian troops from the Ukrainian border and urging ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine to abandon the weekend’s provocative referendum.
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These Russian-speaking and bilingual people – a third of Ukraine’s population – have long sought a democratic federation that reflects the country’s ethnic diversity and is both autonomous of Kiev and independent of Moscow. Most are neither “separatists” nor “rebels”, as the western media calls them, but citizens who want to live securely in their homeland.
Like the ruins of Iraq and Afghanistan, Ukraine has been turned into a C.I.A. theme park – run personally by C.I.A. director John Brennan in Kiev, with dozens of “special units” from the C.I.A. and F.B.I. setting up a “security structure” that oversees savage attacks on those who opposed the February coup. Watch the videos, read the eye-witness reports from the massacre in Odessa this month. Bussed fascist thugs burned the trade union headquarters, killing 41 people trapped inside. Watch the police standing by.
How right you were?https://t.co/JqFCJs4PJ7 pic.twitter.com/8ZGh6GRz3R
— marie velenski (@LOULOUGUINNESS) September 24, 2022
A doctor described trying to rescue people, “but I was stopped by pro-Ukrainian Nazi radicals. One of them pushed me away rudely, promising that soon me and other Jews of Odessa are going to meet the same fate. What occurred yesterday didn’t even take place during the fascist occupation in my town in world war two. I wonder, why the whole world is keeping silent.” [see footnote]
Russian-speaking Ukrainians are fighting for survival. When Putin announced the withdrawal of Russian troops from the border, the Kiev junta’s defence secretary, Andriy Parubiy – a founding member of the fascist Svoboda party – boasted that attacks on “insurgents” would continue. In Orwellian style, propaganda in the west has inverted this to Moscow “trying to orchestrate conflict and provocation“, according to William Hague. His cynicism is matched by Obama’s grotesque congratulations to the coup junta on its “remarkable restraint” after the Odessa massacre. The junta, says Obama, is “duly elected”. As Henry Kissinger once said: “It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but what is perceived to be true.”
In the U.S. media the Odessa atrocity has been played down as “murky” and a “tragedy” in which “nationalists” (neo-Nazis) attacked “separatists” (people collecting signatures for a referendum on a federal Ukraine). Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal damned the victims – “Deadly Ukraine Fire Likely Sparked by Rebels, Government Says“. Propaganda in Germany has been pure cold war, with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung warning its readers of Russia’s “undeclared war”. For the Germans, it is a poignant irony that Putin is the only leader to condemn the rise of fascism in 21st-century Europe.
A popular truism is that “the world changed” following 9/11. But what has changed? According to the great whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, a silent coup has taken place in Washington and rampant militarism now rules. The Pentagon currently runs “special operations” – secret wars – in 124 countries. At home, rising poverty and a loss of liberty are the historic corollary of a perpetual war state. Add the risk of nuclear war, and the question is: why do we tolerate this?
Great comments, folks! John Pilger is…I can’t praise him enough, after reading his articles and hearing him speak for quite a few years.
A Wise and Saintly man, to me and many others around the world.
And Thank You CN for all you do in bringing vital information to those of us who want the Truth.
The Tories stay in power in England, Italy seems to be regressing towards the Mussolini era, and Americans keep voting for the Repulsive Party candidates and the DemoRAT Party candidates, rather than funding and then voting for alternative party candidates (which, unfortunately, aren’t going anywhere) and lament, or at least those who care, about why things are getting worse than getting better. When will they ever learn?
If we’re looking back at predictions, I’d add my view that Kissinger’s August 2014 Wall Street Journal Op-Ed was a virtual declaration of (Cold) War. I wrote this at NakedCapitalism.com days after Kissinger wrote his Op-Ed. I then repeated this observation several times on a few other blogs (notably moonofalabama.org) in the years after.
No doubt I’m not the only one. There are plenty of people who read blogs like Consortium News who are also knowledgeable and cynical. Yet few outside readers of anti-war oriented blogs seem to have cared about our misgivings.
Kissinger’s Op-Ed was written after the Donbas rebels had decisively beaten Ukrainian forces. As the “dean” of the US Foreign Policy Establishment, he was writing to reassure the capitalist class that the West would ultimately prevail in the struggle against a revitalized Russia and a rising China. He called on USA to look to its past glory and ultimate victory in the first Cold War as a guide to winning the new Cold War.
10 months later, Trump – touting MAGA – entered the Republican Primary to contend for President of the United States. Trump sliced-thru 18 seasoned Republican President’s to face his family-friend, Hillary Clinton, who had just beat Bernie Sanders – who called Hillary a friend of 25 years and refused to attack her on character issues (infamously giving Hillary a ‘pass’ on her email server, saying “enough with the emails!”).
Despite being a seasoned politician and having run or participated in three previous Presidential campaigns, Hillary made “mistakes” that alienated key voter groups and, in the closing weeks of the campaign, she declined to campaign in the three mid-Western states that SHE KNEW would decide the election.
The rest is history.
Trump won and soon proved that “America First” meant little more than increased militarism as he demanded that Europeans increase their contributions to NATO; created a “Space Force”; moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem; exited arms control treaties and the JCPOA peace agreement; engaged in belligerence toward China; and more. We may well ask WHY the US establishment hates Trump so much. He did everything they might want him to do – including compromising the populist right by a foolish riot on January 6th.
Apparently “Hank the Shank”, knows a box canyon when he sees one or two. Third time is a charm!
It’s important to remember that the US-provoked and sustained conflict in Ukraine is a project of long duration. Probably all the way back to the end of WWII. While the current and past D administrations did put the final pieces in place to make this gambit for global hegemony, the entirety of this effort is equally shared by both parts of the duopoly.
While we disenfranchised citizens are poked, prodded, and urged to continue this partisan “war” against each other, the unified duopoly conscripts our wealth, health, our hopes and dreams, and chuckles in the dark at how easily the sheep are led around by false shepherds.
Remember that when the US Legislature votes on military spending the tallies are almost always unanimous affirmations, with the zealous “representatives” throwing even more at the bloated military than even it requested. This of course can’t last. There is such a thing as a real economy and real debt.
Yes, Mr. Pilger hit the nail on the head in 2014; many others did also – more than many here seem to remember. It is not just one or two lonely voices; it is only that the narrative control is so nearly airtight.
Let’s say Puttin blows up a few of his pipelines to NATO countries with his nukes, that means NO quick repairs and winter is here.
NATO is left holding an MT energy bag. Puttin wants to spread the misery and he is. Same as US in Iraq.
NATO might want to watch what they wish for.
Like I been saying, cornered “rats” are dangerous.
I will be very interested in the developments of this story about the apparent attack on Nord Stream’s pipeline.
Yahoo News from Bloomberg this AM hXXps://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-latest-zelensky-wants-more-070617102.html?fr=sychp_catchall
I’m simply a very interested individual who follows these “shit storm” stories. Like many other’s I have grandchildren and now a great grandchild and I can tell everyone this I believe it’s time Bidens shut down this latest and most dangerous war of opportunity. The world seems to be a much more dangerous place now.
And hell, who would have thought so ? A broken down retiree who now says I told ya so.
Thanks CN
John should sub to Telegram too. Same for Consortium News — please. One hardly has time to check out email these days, especially when subjected to rolling black outs which is starting to happen all over, so leaving the app launched, at least means one is able to stay in touch with the latest — often critical news updates.
Could anyone fathom how much more peace there would if the US was less bellicose? The cancer of our planet.
_Pretty grim stuff.
Clinton’s talking about their foundation (?), Hillary trying to be coy about running in 2024, now Biden leaning toward running for a second term himself after taking the World to the brink of nuclear war. WTF
And now Puttin proving he just maybe crazier than a “shit house rat”. With his “I ain’t bluffing” statement. The world helped push Puttin in this corner and now he is starting to act like a cornered animal, and no one saw this coming?
Ain’t this being black-mailed by the treat of nuclear war fun. Then these dirty bastards wonder why no one trusts them or respects them.
Like I’ve been saying this all could have been handled very differently. This mess the US helped create doesn’t seem to me to be worth pursuing much longer. Puttin has proven he’s crazy enough to go all in. The enormous loss of life and waste of treasure by Puttin are no more the actions of a world leader that are Biden’s.
Here is to hoping someone some where knows something the rest of us don’t.
Thanks CN
“The world helped push Puttin in this corner” – say, what? The Obama and Biden (and previous) administrations deliberately pushed Putin into this corner and Thank God that he had the balls to take them on rather than just wring his hands and let the U.S. continue with its flagrant world-wide terrorism as it has for the past 75 years or so. The U.S. public hasn’t done squat to put a stop to it, neither has anyone else, and NATO has embraced it as a co-conspirator.
Someone needs to save the world from its catastrophic problems even if that means risking a nuclear holocaust set off by its psychopathic current ruling elite, because they clearly are dedicated to taking the world somewhere equally catastrophic if allowed to continue as they have been.
Robert, please explain to us all, what YOU would have done in the case of the wars the Ukraine Govt unleashed upon the Russian speaking people’s ???? Seems like you IGNORE totally, the FACT, they were BUTCHERING these people for EIGHT years. And not any concern forthcoming from YOU, or anyone else for that matter. Expalin to us, WHY this is O.K. with you. May I suggest YOU place yourself in Putin’s shoes for a while, consider the things he has said, (I’m not talking here of the West allegations, but translated direct speaches he has released) are a MAJOR concern to HIM and his Government, issues that the West laughed at, and threw back in his face.
Then we have YOU posting on here how “evil” and nutso he is, because he’s concerned about the encroaching Western NATO push to his boarders ??? Seems to me, folks like YOU, are EVIL and pose the major threat to the World, because you flatly refuse to see anyone else’s point of view, and THAT, is precisley what has brought the World to this position. NOT Putin’s concerns, rather the ARROGANCE of the WEST, to his concerns.
“The world helped push Puttin in this corner” – say, what? The Obama and Biden (and previous) administrations deliberately pushed Putin into this corner and Thank God that he had the balls to take them on rather than just wring his hands and let the U.S. continue with its flagrant world-wide terrorism as it has for the past 75 years or so. The U.S. public hasn’t done squat to put a stop to it, neither has anyone else, and NATO has embraced it as a co-conspirator.
Someone needs to save the world from its catastrophic problems even if that means risking a nuclear holocaust set off by its psychopathic current ruling elite, because they clearly are dedicated to taking the world somewhere equally catastrophic if allowed to continue as they have been.
Thank you Consortium for reprinting this!!! John Pilger was so right then and even more so now. Although I read everything CN published back then about Ukraine (as I do now) there was a lot I didn’t fully realize. I didn’t realize that the CIA and the FBI were assisting and training the Nazis in how to attack the Donbas area even back then when the Maidan coup had just happened. And I forgot how sick it had made me to hear Obama congratulate the Nazis over burning people to death at Odessa.
Please keep the history lessons coming – it’s amazing how quickly we forget, especially when we are constantly told lies that say the opposite. Do you have any articles giving more info about the CIA and the FBI helping the neo Nazis?
“Propaganda in Germany has been pure cold war, with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung warning its readers of Russia’s “undeclared war”. For the Germans, it is a poignant irony that Putin is the only leader to condemn the rise of fascism in 21st-century Europe.”
——
The Russians have pointed out, correctly, that they once again face German tanks rolling towards them, again vowing to dismember their nation. They point out that the European alliance they face today is almost identical to the one that invaded before under the leadership of both Napoleon and Hitler.
The US and UK are the main differences. The UK was with Russia on both prior occasions, due to power politics against their European rivals. In between, after the defeat of Liberte in France, and before the unification of Germany, the UK joined the French for their own Crimea War. An unsuccessful war remembered mainly for a poem about British military stupidity.
The US was with Russia against Hitler, but Revolutionary France was still Revolutionary America’s closest European ally under Napoleon in opposing the English Tyrant. The year of the fall of Paris and of Napoleon’s government marked the year the Americans went to war with the British, again. So, Team USA splits 1-1 on this one. Of course, to break the tie, Uncle Sam had American Boots on the Ground in Russia helping the counter-revolution of the oligarchs against the people after 1917.
But, otherwise, from France to Germany to Italy to Poland to a united Europe, this all looks very familiar. At least from the Russian perspective of seeing them all united in hatred and marching towards Russia vowing death and destruction. The Russians recognize what is occurring because they have seen it before. The Russians have a quiet confidence, also because they have seen this before.
–“It’s like we are captured by some dark force we find impossible to escape. WTF?”
“You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas
You’ve just crossed over into
The Capitalism Zone”
The land where human lives matter less than profits.
Thanks for reposting this important piece. It’s a vital reminder of how we got to got to this point. The neo-con/neofascist forces of the deep state and their functionaries like Nuland and the Kagans are sleep-walking the US to the brink of a nuclear precipice. We need the same peace movement that opposed the Iraq war to awaken to the facts, and take to the streets demanding an end to weapons shipments to Ukraine, and force Ukraine to talks with Russia. There is no sane alternative. Which is telling about the quality of the west’s leaders and their moral bankruptcy. To remain silent is to acquiesce and makes us complicit.
Here in the US, the great majority refuse to listen to these reports, so deep is the effect of Straussian propaganda. They are still calling this a just war, especially the Democrats, so effective is the misinformation blitz. Short memories vis-a-vis WMDs the Afghanistan Papers and all of the corporate wars. And of course, people who have memories of recent and past history are referred to as crackp0ts. Mass shootings, wars and anti-depressants. Ain’t capitalism grand?
John Pilger is amazing with respect to both his courage (surely he must be on Zelensky’s “hit list”) and his ability to ferret out the truth (which is kept deeply buried by our Western “democracies” and must be attached to incredible perils). Pepe Escobar, another ( maybe I should say “the” other?) globe-trotting true journalist, represents about the other half of this bleak, forbidden picture which we get to hear about in occasional bits and snatches. The rapid connectivity they have with obscure sources close to the turmoil is impressive. Erase just these two individuals and Washington’s chosen fascists to rule the non-Western World at its pleasure would have easy sledding in their takeover attempts. Thank you both for dedicating your life’s work to protecting true human rights.
Now let me just see the British record.
The Indian Mutiny The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the form of a mutiny of sepoys of the Company’s army in the garrison town of Meerut, 40 mis northeast of Delhi.’ It is estimated that half a million died.
The Opium War against China.
Putting down the rebellion in Ireland. ‘A terrible Beauty is Born’ – W.B.Yeats 1916.
The Bombardment of Alexandria in Egypt by the British Mediterranean Fleet – The French weighed in – took place on 11–13 July 1882. Admiral Beauchamp Seymour was in command of a fleet of fifteen Royal Navy ironclad ships which had previously sailed to the harbour of Alexandria to support the khedive Tewfik Pasha amid Ahmed ‘Urabi’s nationalist uprising against his administration and its close ties to British and French financiers.
Wars in South Africa 1899-2001
The war in Kenya.
The war in Cyprus
The Afghan wars – all three of them.
The war in Malaya
European annexations in Africa, – Belgium – the Congo was a particularly gruesome affair.
The Amritsar massacre India – The Bombardment of Alexandria in Egypt by the British Mediterranean Fleet took place on 11–13 July 1882. Admiral Beauchamp Seymour was in command of a fleet of fifteen Royal Navy ironclad ships which had previously sailed to the harbour of Alexandria to support the khedive Tewfik Pasha amid Ahmed ‘Urabi’s nationalist uprising against his administration and its close ties to British and French financiers.
Jamaica – ”Each successive mail brings ever more startling news of the Jamaica infamies. The letters of English officers about their heroic exploits against unarmed ‘Niggers’ (sic) are priceless. The spirit of the British Army has at last emerged unblushingly. The soldier enjoy it. Even the Manchester Guardian has been compelled this time to come out against the officials in Jamaica’ Engels to Marx 1 December 1865.
The French occupations of Algeria, Mali, and Indo-Chna.
I’ll stop here. The list is extensive. This is the record of the ‘the West’
Thank you John Pilger, CN and the commenters here who “get it.” I come here to remind myself that not all people are buying the all too obvious rubbish the US government and its apologists are shoving up our butts and down our throats. This BS is glaringly apparent – why are we so blind ? How can we allow this ?
Also from John Pilger referring to Leni Riefenstahl in “Triunph of the Will.” She identifies “the submissive void.” What could better describe the dystopian place we are in? We have entered the Twilight Zone in human history yet again. It’s like we are captured by some dark force we find impossible to escape. WTF?
Intercepted the phone call around February 5th, 2014:
Victoria Nuland, US State Dept, Asst Secretary of European and European Affairs:
“.. I think that Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. ..”
“.. He’s the… what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside. ..”
…..
“.. I just think that Klitsch going in… he is going to be at that leval working working for Yatseniuk, it’s just not going to work. ..”
Geoffrey Pyatt, The US Ambassador to the UKR:
“.. Yeah, no, I think that’s right. OK. ..”
…..
“.. Good. Do you want to set up a call with him as the next step. ..”
Victoria Nuland, US State Dept, Asst Secretary of European and European Affairs:
“.. Sullivan’s coming back to me VFR [.direct to me.], saying you need [..US Vice-President Joe..] Biden. .. and I said probably tomorrow for an atta-boy and to get the deets [..details..] to stick. So, Biden’s is willing. ..”
…..
“.. Fuck the EU!!! ..”
Geoffrey Pyatt, The US Ambassador to the UKR:
“.. No, exactly. ..”