the last thing that washington wants....

Trump, Orban, Putin: Why are all the ‘dictators’ hellbent on peace?
With the Washinton and Brussels establishment apparently only interested in more bloodshed, someone has to speak sense...

One of the greatest farces of these modern times is that those who scream the loudest about democracy and human rights are the very same people who violate international norms at every opportunity.

BY Robert Bridge

In the June issue of The New Republic, a left-leaning US political journal, a scowling Donald Trump was featured on the cover sporting a Hitler moustache above a caption that read: “American fascism, what it would look like.”

“We chose the cover image, based on a well-known 1932 Hitler campaign poster, for a precise reason: that anyone transported back to 1932 Germany could very, very easily have explained away Herr Hitler’s excesses and been persuaded that his critics were going overboard,” the editors explained in a post on X (formerly Twitter). “After all, [Hitler] spent 1932 campaigning, negotiating, doing interviews – being a mostly normal politician. But he and his people vowed all along that they would use the tools of democracy to destroy it, and it was only after he was given power that Germany saw his movement’s full face.”

There’s just one problem with the journal’s nervous handwringing: Trump has already served a four-year term as US leader and there was no visible sign of fascist goosestepping down Main Street during that period. In fact, just the opposite is true. While Adolf Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, thus triggering World War II, Trump went down in the history books as the first American commander-in-chief in modern times to avoid a military conflict. Now on the campaign trail for the second time, with the insatiable defense industry licking its chops for more profits, the Republican frontrunner has declared he would end the Ukraine-Russia conflict in 24 hours if reelected.

When it is considered that ‘democracy’ today primarily works on behalf of the military industrial complex and other associated business interests, it is easier to understand how Trump is described in the corporate-owned media as an existential threat to the American republic. Peace is the last thing on Washington’s mind, and Russia understands that better than any country.

Back in 2008, the “dictator” Vladimir Putin deliveredhis now-famous speech at the Munich Security Conference where he warned his Western colleagues on the dangers of military expansion.

“NATO expansion… represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our Western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them.”

Despite Putin’s explicit warning, NATO went on to add an additional six members to the alliance, bringing the total number to 32, with Ukraine, ignoring Moscow’s major red line, scheming to be number 33. For anybody who asserts this is only a “defense alliance” would do well to consider what America’s response would be if all of Latin America and the border state of Mexico were joining a military alliance led by Moscow. Needless to say, we would be knee-deep in bloodshed by now. Yet Russia is supposed to accept an endless military incursion smack up against its border.

This was certainly not the last time Russia attempted to broker a peace deal with Washington. Almost eight years after the 2014 Maidan Revolution, and months before Moscow kicked off its special military operation in Ukraine, the Kremlin released its plan for peace on the continent. Among other things, the draft treaty called for the US and Russia to refrain from deploying troops in regions where they could be perceived as a threat to each other’s national security, as well as a ban on sending their troops and military hardware into areas where they could strike each other’s territory. The treaty was also designed to ban the deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Europe. Had the Western powers consented to the plan – it barely made headlines in the NATO countries – it’s not difficult to imagine decades of peace between east and west, the very last thing that Washington wants.

Instead, the US and its European puppets placed Russia in an impossible position with regards to the ongoing militarization and Nazification of Ukraine, forcing it to respond as any other country concerned about its national security would.

This leads us to the West’s third favorite bogeyman, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has dared to declare that his country is predominantly Christian and conservative and has every right to stay that way. Orban, whose country now holds the rotating EU Council presidency, went on a peace-making tour with stops in Moscow, Kiev, Beijing, and Washington (where he ruffled more than one hawk’s feathers by visiting Trump at Mar-a-Lago instead of Biden in DC). The frustration on the part of Brussels as it watched the Hungarian “tyrant” speak out in favor of reducing weapons sales was laughable if not downright pathetic.

“Hungary has presented the trips as a ‘peace mission’ to help negotiate a ceasefire for the war in Ukraine. Orban may consider himself as one of the few who can speak to both sides – but in reality he has no mandate to do so,” wrote Armida van Rij, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, a European think tank. The question remains, however, who will speak out on behalf of peace if not Trump, Putin, and Orban? The answer thus far is nobody.

While there are certainly other statesmen besides Trump, Putin, and Orban on the international stage who can make the case for peace, time is running out to hear those critical voices.

https://www.rt.com/news/600937-trump-orban-putin-us-brussels/

By Gus Leonisky at 14 Jul 2024 - 7:45am
Gus Leonisky's blog
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hysterical....

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - NATO leaders at the Washington summit this week were in an almost hysterical state as they contemplated not just the serious, sustained challenge of a rising Russia and China, but also the likelihood that Donald Trump will be reelected in November, European and US foreign policy and national security experts told Sputnik.

"NATO is almost hysterical as it confronts the failure of its backfiring attempts to 'contain' Russia, China, Iran and the DPRK [North Korea] and the imminent likely election of a NATO-sceptic Trump as US president," former United Kingdom ambassador to Syria and political commentator Peter Ford said on Thursday.

The 32-nation alliance unveiled its new declaration earlier in the day emphasizing its determination to confront Russia and China in defense of what it called international law and to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. However, the declaration made no reference as to other nations' and alliances' rights to interpret those concepts differently from NATO.

Ford said the declaration did not appear to be rational and rather than presenting the alliance's principles and priorities in a way that could provide the basis for negotiated agreements with other nations, it indulged wildly in abuse.

"A psychiatrist reading the inordinately verbose, repetitive, breast beating, self-justifying NATO declaration would immediately diagnose a person having a nervous breakdown," Ford said.

The former UK diplomat also said NATO leaders were now so limited in their understanding of the world that they could not recognize other nations' aspirations while clinging to old intellectual constructs such as their alleged "rules-based order."

"That the declaration repeatedly uses NATO's favorite but post-Gaza utterly discredited term 'rules-based order' underlines that the organization is in pathological denial, unable to see itself as others see it," Ford said.

This denial extended to the refusal to acknowledge that while NATO may have gained more members, but in reality more liabilities than assets, two key states - Turkey and Hungary - were now increasingly members in name only, he said.

Ford said the declaration principally signals NATO's commitment to continue stoking the Ukraine conflict over a very long period, but this bluster may only last until the November US presidential election.

"We can but pray that Russia and China are sensible enough to see through the bluster and wait to see what happens," Ford added.

NATO'S AVALANCHE OF LIES

American University in Moscow President Edward Lozansky agreed that the declaration was irrational and worse, one that brings the world closer to the edge of the abyss.

"The avalanche of lies is astonishing; the biggest one is that NATO is only a defensive organization and is not involved in this war [in Ukraine] when, in reality, it is not only involved but has provoked it," Lozansky said.

NATO claimed to champion the forces of freedom and progress in the world, but its militaristic and aggressive policies against so many nations undermined its own rhetoric, he said.

Lozansky also said he was unsure why Hungary and Slovakia signed the declaration, which contradicted their previous statements, but speculated that perhaps they had to yield to the enormous pressure - something that has happened in the past to disobedient members.

NATO DECLARATION A TEXTBOOK OF IMPERIAL OVERREACH

US constitutional historian and political commentator Dan Lazare said the declaration read like an archaic document out of the distant past, so unconnected with reality that it resembled something King Louis XVI might have issued before the French Revolution.

"The declaration is a textbook example of imperial overreach," Lazare said, adding that while the alliance claims enemies are pressing in from all sides, NATO was extending its reach to ever-farther corners of the globe.

"According to the document, it is opening up a liaison office in Jordan, expanding operations in Kuwait and discussing strategy with the AUKUS [Australia-United Kingdom-United States] nations" while also proclaiming the Indo-Pacific region as directly affecting Euro-Atlantic security, Lazare said. "But why stop there? Why not extend operations into the Antarctic or the Strait of Magellan?"

Lazare said a few elements in the declaration were particularly over the top even by NATO standards, such as the proclamation the alliance members will never recognize Russia’s new territories, including Crimea.

"But doesn't NATO know that the Crimean population has shown repeatedly that it doesn't want anything to do with Ukraine and that the formula is therefore a recipe for endless war?" Lazare said.

While the declaration accuses Russia of sabotage, acts of violence and provocations at allied borders, among other malicious activities, it is widely known the United States and its NATO allies were responsible for the greatest single act of sabotage by destroying the Nordstream 2 pipelines, he said.

However, Lazare described the NATO Declaration's attack on China as especially ironic, Lazare said.

"What does NATO expect China to do - hold America's coat while it finishes off Moscow and then directs its aggression toward Beijing?" Lazare said.

If Washington truly wanted to put an end to the deepening Russia-China partnership, it should try lowering the temperature and adopting a more cooperative and reasonable approach, he said.

"Neither country is going away soon, so the United States better learn to live with it," Lazare added.

LAST DITCH EFFORT TO PROP UP CRUMBLING ALLIANCE

California State University Emeritus Professor of Political Affairs Beau Grosscup saw the declaration as a desperate last-ditch attempt to prop up the venerable and crumbling alliance before the US elections are held in November.

"I assess the meeting and declaration as an effort to shore up NATO before the 2024 US election, and the possibility of a Trump win," Grosscup said.

The declaration was also crafted to make a strong statement of support for Ukraine in its war against Russia, he said.

"Finally, the declaration is very clear that NATO is expanding its capabilities and commitments into the Pacific and Middle East/African theaters," Grosscup said.

The declaration was meant to try and show both NATO's friends and critics that the alliance was still a powerful force in the world to be reckoned with - a statement of unity and resolve that puts in doubt any notion of its demise among critics, he said.
However, the declaration will do nothing to change inexorable global realities and will not significantly change the dynamic of great power relations, Grosscup said.
For all the bluster and bluff, the declaration will seriously further increase already grave global tensions as China and Russia will see it as an aggressive act, Grosscup added.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240712/nato-in-state-of-hysteria-as-alliance-faces-russia-china-trump-reelection---experts-1119357524.html

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