NATO's Big Lie Exposed

So, here we are, the day that NATO imperialism assured us, confidently, that Russian imperialism was going to march into Ukraine.  But, that lie has already, now been exposed.  If Russia was going to have rolled into Ukraine, it would have done so in the early hours, not in broad daylight.  But, no such invasion was ever, in fact, likely.

As I wrote, yesterday, the record of Russia, in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and in Ukraine has not been to engage in such wholesale invasions and occupations.  That is in contrast to the history of US imperialism, which launched wholesale attacks to invade and permanently, occupy the territory of others be it, the seizure of parts of Mexico, which were annexed into the US, for example, California, and Texas, its wholesale invasion, with its NATO allies of Korea, its repetition of that in Vietnam, and not to mention the occupations of Japan and Germany after WWII, during which it installed US friendly governments.  

In Germany, that included incorporating former NAZIS in the regime, whilst simultaneously introducing laws against free speech Berufsverboten, and on organisation by socialists.  That is not to mention the more recent invasions of Kosovo, which was torn away from Serbia, by NATO, or the invasions of Iraq, and Libya.  Perhaps its an example of what psychologists call transference, whereby, NATO imperialism is using its own mindset, as the basis for forecasting how Russia would act.

And, as I said, yesterday, all military strategists consider that an invading force requires a 4:1 numerical advantage over the defending military to have any chance of success.  Yet, Ukraine has over 300,000 troops and some of the latest, NATO provided military hardware, giving it an advantage of more than 2:1, even over the 130,000 Russian troops that NATO claims are sitting on the border.  That means that Russia has only about 10% of the troops in place that would be required if it was seriously going to invade, and NATO strategists, must be aware of that.  So, their claims, and the hysteria they have produced, is clearly all for public consumption, and a known lie.

UK defence Minister Ben Wallace said that Russia should be judged on its actions rathe than its words, when it came to Russian claims that it had finished its exercises in Western Russia, and some of the troops were returning home.  True, but then, those deeds include the certain invasion that NATO had claimed was going to happen, not actually happening.  All of this hyperbola by NATO, or more precisely by the US and its UK lapdog, strongly resembles the lies that were put forward as absolute gospel truth by those same imperialists prior to them launching their attack on Iraq, in 2003.  Even the late Colin Powell admitted his embarrassment at having fronted up those lies in front of the UN.

But, if we are to judge countries by their actions, then we have to judge NATO in the same way, rather than accepting the other big lie that NATO and its lackeys amongst the social imperialists have tried to present, which is that it is a purely "defensive" alliance.  Its history, and that of its member states proves the complete opposite.  Not only did the US finance and arm the gangsters of the KLA in Kosovo, in order to use them to undertake violence against Kosovan Serbs, so as to provoke communal violence, and give itself a justification for its war against Serbia, but it then ripped Kosovo away from  Serbia, exposing the lie of its claims to defend "self-determination of states".

Having done so, it attempted the same thing, in relation to Russian majority regions of Georgia, such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia.  It thought that it could push forward in those regions without Russia responding to defend the Russian majority within them, as the BBC's Tim Whewell reported at the time, in 2008.  Whewell reported that one of the top OSCE officers in South Ossetia, a former British Army officer, told how the OSCE base itself had 40-50 Georgian shells land around it, and it was, he said, nowhere near anything that could have been described as a military target. He told how they had been warning the OSCE that something was brewing for several weeks, because the Georgians had been stepping up their military attacks.  Only a couple of weeks before, the Georgians had fired several mortars into the town, but nothing had been done to put pressure on the Georgians to prevent such an attack. The reason appeared to be, firstly, a feeling that Russia would not respond, and secondly that, if it did, the West could represent it as the bogeyman.

The delusional Georgian President of that time, Mikhail Saakashvilli, is now active in Ukrainian politics, having been prosecuted and stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship in 2017, by President Poroshenko.  He was rehabilitated by Ukraine's current President.  So, the US, NATO, and its stooges have form when it comes to these kinds of actions, including the use of false flag operations of which the US is a past master.  In fact, its in that light that the supposed cyber attack on Ukraine's defence systems, yesterday, should probably be seen, as it provides a useful distraction from the fact that the promised Russian invasion never, in fact happened!

But, looking at the actions rather the the words of NATO, then we can look at the fact that 15 of the 18 NATO countries have now sent thousand of troops half way around the world to sit on Russia' borders menacingly, and they are not claiming that this is just part of some military exercise!  The US has 750 military bases across the globe, in over 80 countries.  It has put troops in countries with some of the vilest dictators, such as in Kirgizstan, and Uzbekistan, where it is quite happy to cuddle up to monsters for its own strategic advantage. 

The vile kleptocracy of Putin, in Russia, is one that socialists should oppose.  We call on Russian workers and socialists to oppose it, and to work towards replacing it with a workers state.  But, it is up to the Russian workers themselves with the help of the international labour movement to bring that about.  We can have no faith in NATO imperialism in that regard, because, it is largely responsible for the existence of Putin's regime to begin with.  It was US imperialism that imposed the grinding conditions on the Russian economy after the fall of the USSR, which acted to dismember, intimidate and demean it, with its economy being destroyed by the imposition of Friedmanite Monetarist policies, and the corruption that created the fabulously wealthy oligarchs that were provided with funds to take over the former state assets, and who are now the people who also fund right-wing populists, such as those within the Tory Party that pushed through Brexit and so on.

The whole history of US imperialism is that it never overthrows dictators on the basis of some altruism and support for an abstract democracy, but only where it benefits US imperialism itself.  It is more likely to simply overthrow one dictator and replace them with an even worse one it can control, or even to overthrow democratic governments, and replace them with dictators that will do its bidding.  There is no reason why workers and socialists should give any succour to NATO imperialism in such ventures, and should ensure that the social imperialists within the labour movement, who do propose such a course of action are swiftly kicked out of it.  They are class traitors.  On the contrary, our mantra must be as with the position  of socialists prior to WWI - The Main Enemy Is At Home.  Our primary task is to stop the warmongering and imperialist ambitions of our own capitalist state, and to intensify our opposition to it.

Of course, there is another reason why US imperialism has been ramping up all of the hyperbola in recent weeks, and it has nothing to do with actual war plans.  As John Authers, pointed out the other day in his Bloomberg Newsletter,

"In the same way, it’s very easy for what now looks like the possible imminent invasion of Ukraine to break everyone’s concentration. There are very good reasons why it should. Many established certainties of the world order would be scrambled by such an event, while in markets it is reasonable to assume that such a shocking incident would lead to lower bond yields once more, and higher oil prices."

In 2018, when a growing global economy began to cause interest rates to rise, and led to a 20% drop in financial markets, Donal Trump launched his global trade war, focused on trade with China and the EU.  It was assisted by the disruption to trade and investment that accompanied Brexit, though as with Britain's role as US lapdog, on a much smaller scale, by comparison.  The result was that, it gave the Federal Reserve an excuse to stop its policy of tapering of QE, and of tentative increases in its policy rates.  It cut rates, and restarted QE, once more, sending financial markets upwards, in the same way that such action has done over the last 30 years.  When that impetus began to fade, in 2019, along came the forcible closing down of economies across the globe via the lockdowns and lockouts under cover of COVID.  As Professor Mark Woolhouse has described that, it was the start of a year (actually two years) of madness.

But, from the perspective of the ruling class, which nowadays owns all its wealth in the form of fictitious capital, as well as its conservative social-democratic lackeys, it was not madness at all.  What is madness for them is seeing asset prices crash by 20%, or potentially much more!  Over the last 30 years, they have shown themselves more than willing to destroy the real economy, to prevent it growing too fast, if that is what is required to prevent interest rates rising, and asset prices crashing.  So, with the arguments to demand continued lockdowns, or other forms of constraints on the economy, on the basis of COVID becoming ever more ludicrous, with the dam breaking, and economies opening at an increasing pace, even with rates of inflation already at 40 year highs, with interest rates already rising rapidly, and with employment at high levels pushing wages higher, and profits lower, the danger of a massive crash in asset prices, and so of the paper wealth and power of the ruling class, becomes apparent.

No wonder the global ruling class needs a diversion from that reality by hyping up the potential for war, so as to again provide a façade behind which it can try to print even more money tokens, end the rise in central bank rates, and so push up asset prices once more.  No wonder, it sees the threat of war, and a consequent reduction in global trade and investment as a useful means, once more of reducing the upward pressure on wages and interest rates, and so again of inflating the delusion of wealth from assets.