As we still wait for any evidence of Trump/Russia collusion to appear, Americans who’ve believed in the “Russiagate” scandal should ask themselves if these sound like the policies of a president who’s taking orders from Putin…
-Trump has repeatedly escalated American intervention in Syria, even as Putin has tried to take the war to a close by helping Assad win. He’s twice struck Syria based on unverified charges of chemical weapons use by Assad, approved an indefinite military presence in Syria, and continues to have his military use banned white phosphorus in attacks against Syrian civilians. This has repeatedly lead to direct encounters between Syrian and Russian forces over Syria.
-Trump has aggressed against Russia’s allies Iran and Venezuela, having imposed sanctions to deliberately starve Iranian civilians and threatened to use a military invasion to oust Maduro. The latter action recently forced Putin to send military aid to Venezuela, causing White House officials to absurdly claim that Venezuela and Russia have aggressed against the U.S.
-Time and time again, Trump has worked against Moscow’s interests and brought America closer to conflict with Russia, often in ways that surpass the anti-Russia actions of Obama. Last April, Trump authorized the expansion of NATO into Montenegro, hurting Russia’s interests. Last December, Trump defied Putin by arming Ukraine-something that even Obama felt was too dangerous to do. This January, Trump approved an anti-ballistic missile system to Japan, a move which directly went against Moscow’s wishes. This August, the Trump administration put sanctions on Russia for a nerve agent poisoning that we still don’t know Russia was even behind. And this October, Trump created unprecedented nuclear tensions between the U.S. and Russia by drawing out of the INF treaty.
These are way too many contradictions in the “Trump is Russia’s Manchurian candidate” story. And when Mueller’s investigation concludes, it looks like it will finally be confirmed that Russiagate has no supporting evidence. As Philip Eqing of NPR wrote this week: “If he [Mueller] has evidence about a geopolitical conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Russia’s active measures, the public probably won’t learn about it until the moment the special counsel’s office wants that to happen. From what is visible today, however, the case is still Swiss cheese. Unless that changes in a big way, the hottest political story in a generation may lose its place in center stage.”
As the glaring hole in proof for Russiagate ultimately forces Democrats to abandon it, anti-war voices need to seize on this as an opportunity to turn around America’s conversation about Russia.
For the last two years, this sensationalist claim has been used to silence opposition to the ever-heightening cold war escalations between the U.S. and Russia. Anyone who’s supported detente, or evaluated the claims about Russia critically, has been denounced as an agent of Putin. The effort to tie Trump to Putin has been central to this neutralization of the anti-war left, since challenging the Russia narrative is now synonymous with being pro-Trump.
This propaganda campaign is part of a larger operation by the U.S./NATO empire to strong-arm Russia into submission, which would alleviate the current collapse of American hegemony. And it’s no wonder why the campaign has been so effective at pressuring Trump towards advancing the empire’s anti-Russia agenda. Trump isn’t Putin’s puppet; he’s an opportunistic political entertainer who clearly has little idea how to handle the more complex parts of his job, and who’s let the professionals in his cabinet tell him how to handle world affairs. Since these key foreign policy figures have included calculating war hawks like Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, Trump’s aggressions against Russia make sense.
Our best hope for peace is to build a vast anti-war movement that intimidates the government into de-escalating and de-militarizing. And we need to do this quickly, because the Pentagon has already been openly preparing for war between the world’s superpowers.
No comments:
Post a Comment