Cross posted from The Wild Wild Left
Sometimes trying to ferret out the geo-political inside game is an exercise in playing criminal profiler. Putting yourself inside the minds of the depraved for too long curdles your thinking. You have to face the unspeakable. Human lives are not only expendable, they are irritating obstacles to getting what you want. They long ago figured out what the public is just now hearing, we are competitors to them, in staking out the few remaining resources for themselves. We, the poor, are useless eaters and they want us dead.
I always remember my late husband saying, "Think about it, they moved the military apparatus in 1953 directly to Vietnam from Korea as that war was ending, more than 3 years prior to us being involved there in any way." Decades before PNAC's expansionism was made public, he had used evidence to prove to me that nothing, no crisis, no uprising, no discovery is ever without years of careful deliberation and manipulation by the Military Industrial Complex. The rich and powerful can and do hire the best and brightest minds to plot and plan. No string of conjunctions in one sentence has ever been more patently true. Administrations change, yet the onward march of global control by the US varies not one step from its path. Call it a shadow government, roll your eyes at the tinfoil clad illuminati cultists, name it the 1%... it really is a beast that cannot be named. The Gladio effect is everywhere, never ending. Its name is man, and its nature is greed, in reality.
Thus, the crisis of Kiev and Crimea, the taking of the Ukraine by the West has been in the making since WW2. NATO never planned to honor their promise of not expanding as the Soviet Union dissolved under pressure from our Cold Warriors Reagan and Bush the elder. It continued through Clinton, it continued through the Shrub and continues with President McHopey. The spokespuppets change, but the end game remains. There is nothing more threatening to real power behind the many thrones than the idea of people taking the resources for themselves, and sharing it. To use the profiler mindset, they think of us as another species - worker ants that either serve them or must be crushed. The resources are theirs. Its not that Russia, or more assuredly the leaders of the Ukraine practice communism in any real way. Instead, their autocrats don't play nice, pay homage in petrodollars if you will, to our autocrats. This, of course cannot be tolerated. Much less when the BRIC alliances form trade agreements among themselves from which our own autocrats cannot profit.
The wrench in all this has a name, too. His name is Edward Snowden.
The US is furious that Russia has given him refuge, to be sure. Yet, any good strategist worth his salt can make daggers out of a dungheap. That is their job, to be sure. With this time bomb comes opportunity for them.
Our allies are getting pretty pissed at us. The American people might roll over to having every detail of our lives recorded - proving once again that the common man, even their own citizens are their enemy - but heads of states aren't quite so complacent about it. In fact, Brazil, France, Mexico, Britain, China, Germany, and Spain, as well as 35 other world leaders, have compared us to the Stasi. I would call that less than pleased. Now, as revelations come forth we even tapped the Copenhagen Climate Talks? They seriously need to get the spotlight off of them, these global vultures of our Oligarchy.
Putin has gone from being a darling of ours, the "every man" who hunts, fishes and embraces Capitalism, to being the next Bin Laden in our propaganda stream for a while now. What better way to completely demonize him, than to push conflict with Russia and claim we need to "save" the poor Ukrainians from being "taken" by this monster? Of course, that framing is patently untrue... but strategists know beyond a doubt imagery always trumps honesty. It is pretty easy to "soften" the US populace to war, we love a good bad guy. A scapegoat, a distraction, someone at which to channel all our frustrations and fears that really are the result of living in a world run by autocrats. While our resources are running out, we have to fight and compete for scraps, while 85 people own more than 3.5 billion of us combined. It is imperative for those with the wealth and power for the people to never, ever realize they are our enemy. We must be kept divided, and be told to blame others. "Othering" is the most basic tool of the Class War.
So how to manage this monkey wrench, redirecting our own people's wrath, the feeling of betrayal our allies hold, and still continue the march to the East by our Oligarchs? Make the people hate Russia.
Russia has Snowden, Snowden has secrets. Secrets that could topple that house of cards and what is left of our international support. Thus far Russia has managed to look benign, because they kept him under the premise of a GAG order. Right now, the rest of the world sympathizes with Snowden, and is relieved Russia took him. Most of them were too afraid to risk the US's wrath to grant him asylum in their own nations. Russia was one of the only places on Earth that the US would not risk a military strike upon. Putin ostensibly managed a perfect balancing act: Protecting the man, the secrets and placating the West in one fell sweep. It gave her some clout. They have nukes, and nuclear grade secrets at their disposal as well.
The only logical move to the Western Oligarchs who want to expand their sphere of influence (or perhaps I should call it sphere of affluence) is to change the World's view of both the President and the Nation that holds him.
It is no stretch to think strategists are thinking:
1 - We offer to back off Crimea in exchange for Snowden. Russia keeps their only warm water port, and we put an immediate end to the risk of further exposés damaging our image with those upon whom we are spying. We would allow a splitting of the Ukraine, just the one tiny region, then put military bases in the rest of the Ukraine, right next door to the Crimean base.
2 - If Russia lifts the gag order to expose that the US is directly responsible, planned and paid for the toppling of the Ukraine's government to save its own image, we will try and spin it that Snowden was a spy for Russia (that has already been implied) the entire time. This will paint Russia as the spy, and they will then paint every leak that comes out as tainted, untrue, or simply Russian propaganda. The US will use the lifting of the gag order to delegitimatize Snowden, Putin and the entire PRISM leaks as untrustworthy.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
5
4
4
