Exclusive: U.S.-Russian
tensions keep escalating – now surrounding the murder of Russian
opposition figure Boris Nemtsov – yet almost no one on the American side
seems to worry about the possibility that the tough-guy rhetoric and
proxy war in Ukraine might risk a nuclear conflagration, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry (Updated with Washington Post editorial on March 3.)
The United States and Russia still maintain vast nuclear arsenals of
mutual assured destruction, putting the future of humanity in jeopardy
every instant. But an unnerving nonchalance has settled over the
American side which has become so casual about the risk of cataclysmic
war that the West’s propaganda and passions now ignore Russian fears and
sensitivities.
A swaggering goofiness has come to dominate how the United States
reacts to Russia, with American politicians and journalists dashing off
tweets and op-eds, rushing to judgment about the perfidy of Moscow’s
leaders, blaming them for almost anything and everything.
These days, playing with nuclear fire is seen as a sign of seriousness and courage.
Anyone who urges caution and suggests there might be two sides to the
U.S.-Russia story is dismissed as a wimp or a stooge. A what-me-worry
“group think” has taken hold across the U.S. ideological spectrum.
Fretting about nuclear annihilation is so 1960s.
So, immediately after last Friday night’s murder of Russian
opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, the West’s media began insinuating that
Russian President Vladimir Putin was somehow responsible even though
there was no evidence or logic connecting him to the shooting, just 100
meters from the Kremlin, probably the last place Russian authorities
would pick for a hit.
But that didn’t stop the mainstream U.S. news media from casting blame on Putin. For instance, the New York Times published
an op-ed by
anti-Putin author Martha Gessen saying: “The scariest thing about the
murder of Boris Nemtsov is that he himself did not scare anyone,”
suggesting that his very irrelevance was part of a sinister political
message.
Though no one outside the actual killers seems to know yet why
Nemtsov was gunned down, Gessen took the case several steps further
explaining how – while Putin probably didn’t finger Nemtsov for death –
the Russian president was somehow still responsible. She wrote:
“
In all likelihood no one in the Kremlin actually ordered the killing —
and this is part of the reason Mr. Nemtsov’s murder marks the beginning
of yet another new and frightening period in Russian history. The
Kremlin has recently created a loose army of avengers who believe they
are acting in the country’s best interests, without receiving any
explicit instructions. Despite his lack of political clout, Mr. Nemtsov
was a logical first target for this menacing force.”
So, rather than wait for actual evidence to emerge, the Times
published Gessen’s conclusions and then let her spin off some even more
speculative interpretations. Yet, basing speculation upon speculation is
almost always a bad idea, assuming you care about fairness and
accuracy.
Remember how after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, some terrorism
“experts” not only jumped to the false conclusion that the attack was a
case of Islamic terrorism but that Oklahoma was chosen to send a message
to Americans that no part of the country was safe. But the terrorist
turned out to be a white right-wing extremist lashing out at the federal
government.
While surely hard-line Russian nationalists, who resented Nemtsov’s
support for the U.S.-backed Ukrainian regime in Kiev, should be included
on a list of early suspects, there are a number of other possibilities
that investigators must also consider, including business enemies,
jealous rivals and even adversaries within Russia’s splintered
opposition – though that last one has become a target of particular
ridicule in the West.
Yet, during my years at the Associated Press, one of my articles was
about a CIA “psychological operations” manual which an agency contractor
prepared for the Nicaraguan Contra rebels noting the value of
assassinating someone on your own side to create a “martyr” for the
cause. I’m in no way suggesting that such a motive was in play regarding
Nemtsov’s slaying but it’s not as if this idea is entirely preposterous
either.
My point is that even in this age of Twitter when everyone wants to
broadcast his or her personal speculation about whodunit to every
mystery, it would be wise for news organizations to resist the
temptation. Surely, if parallel circumstances occurred inside the United
States, such guess work would be rightly dismissed as “conspiracy
theory.”
Nuclear Mischief
Plus, this latest rush to
judgment isn’t about some relatively innocuous topic – like, say, how
some footballs ended up under-inflated in an NFL game – this situation
involves how the United States will deal with Russia, which possesses
some 8,000 nuclear warheads — roughly the same size as the U.S. arsenal —
while the two countries have around 1,800 missiles on high-alert, i.e.,
ready to launch at nearly a moment’s notice.
Over the weekend, I participated in a conference on nuclear dangers
sponsored by the Helen Caldicott Foundation in New York City. On my
Saturday afternoon panel was Seth Baum of the Global Catastrophic Risk
Institute who offered a sobering look at how the percentage chances of a
nuclear war – though perhaps low at any given moment – add up over time
to quite likely if not inevitable. He made the additional observation
that those doomsday odds rise at times of high tensions between the
United States and Russia.
As Baum noted, at such crisis moments, the people responsible for the
U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons are more likely to read a possible
computer glitch or some other false alarm as a genuine launch and are
thus more likely to push their own nuclear button.
In other words, it makes good sense to avoid a replay of
the Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse by
edging U.S. nuclear weapons up against Russia’s borders, especially
when U.S. politicians and commentators are engaging in Cold War-style
Russia-bashing. Baiting the Russian bear may seem like great fun to the
tough-talking politicians in Washington or the editors of the New York
Times and Washington Post but this hostile rhetoric could be taken more
seriously in Moscow.
When I spoke to the nuclear conference, I noted how the U.S.
media/political system had helped create just that sort of crisis in
Ukraine, with every “important” person jumping in on the side of the
Kiev coup-makers in February 2014 when they overthrew elected President
Viktor Yanukovych.
Since then, nearly every detail of that conflict has been seen
through the prism of “our side good/their side bad.” Facts that put “our
side” in a negative light, such as the key role played by neo-Nazis and
the Kiev regime’s brutal “anti-terrorism operation,” are downplayed or
ignored.
Conversely, anything that makes the Ukrainians who are resisting
Kiev’s authority look bad gets hyped and even invented, such as one New
York Times’ lead story citing photos that supposedly proved Russian
military involvement but quickly turned out to be fraudulent. [See
Consortiumnews.com’s “
NYT Retracts Russian Photo Scoop.”]
At pivotal moments in the crisis, such as the Feb. 20, 2014 sniper
fire that killed both police and protesters and the July 17, 2014
shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 killing 298 passengers and
crew, the U.S. political/media establishment has immediately pinned the
blame on Yanukovych, the ethnic Russian rebels who are resisting his
ouster, or Putin.
Then, when evidence emerged going in the opposite direction — toward
“our side” — a studied silence followed, allowing the earlier propaganda
to stay in place as part of the preferred storyline. [See, for
instance, Consortiumnews.com’s “
President Gollum’s ‘Precious’ Secrets.”]
A Pedestrian Dispute
One of the points of my
talk was that the Ukrainian crisis emerged from a fairly pedestrian
dispute, i.e., plans for expanding economic ties with the European Union
while not destroying the historic business relationship with Russia. In
November 2013, Yanukovych backed away from signing an EU association
agreement when experts in Kiev announced that it would blow a $160
billion hole in Ukraine’s economy. He asked for more time.
But Yanukovych’s decision disappointed many western Ukrainians who
favored the EU agreement. Tens of thousands poured into Kiev’s Maidan
square to protest. The demonstrations then were seized upon by far-right
Ukrainian political forces who have long detested the country’s ethnic
Russians in the east and began dispatching organized “sotins” of 100
fighters each to begin firebombing police and seizing government
buildings.
As the violence grew worse,
U.S. neoconservatives also saw an opportunity, including Sen. John
McCain, R-Arizona, who told the protesters the United States was on
their side, and Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs
Victoria Nuland, who passed out cookies to the protesters and plotted
with U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt on who would become the new leaders
of Ukraine. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “
NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine.“]
Thus, a very manageable political problem in Ukraine was allowed to
expand into a proxy war between nuclear-armed United States and Russia.
Added to it were intense passions and extensive propaganda. In the West,
the Ukraine crisis was presented as a morality play of people who
“share our values” pitted against conniving Russians and
their Hitler-like president Putin.
In Official Washington, anyone who dared suggest compromise was
dismissed as a modern-day Neville Chamberlain practicing “appeasement.”
Everyone “serious” was set on stopping Putin now by shipping
sophisticated weapons to the Ukrainian government so it could do battle
against “Russian aggression.”
The war fever was such that no one raised an eyebrow when Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko told
Canada’s CBC Radio last
month that the West should no longer fear fighting nuclear-armed Russia
and that Ukraine wanted arms for a “full-scale war” against Moscow.
“Everybody is afraid of fighting with a nuclear state. We are not
anymore, in Ukraine,” Prystaiko said. “However dangerous it sounds, we
have to stop [Putin] somehow. For the sake of the Russian nation as
well, not just for the Ukrainians and Europe. … What we expect from the
world is that the world will stiffen up in the spine a little.” [See
Consortiumnews.com’s “
Ready for Nuclear War over Ukraine?”]
Instead of condemning Prystaiko’s recklessness, more U.S. officials
began lining up in support of sending lethal military hardware to
Ukraine so it could fight Russia, including Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper who said he
favored the ideathough it might provoke a “negative reaction” from Moscow.
Russian Regime Change
Even President Barack Obama and other U.S. leaders who have yet to
publicly endorse arming the Kiev coup-makers enjoy boasting about how
much pain they are inflicting on the Russian economy and its government.
In effect, there is a U.S. strategy of making the Russian economy
“scream,” a first step toward a larger neocon goal to achieve “regime
change” in Moscow.
Another point I made in my talk on Saturday was how the neocons are
good at drafting “regime change” plans that sound great when discussed
at a think tank or outlined on an op-ed page but often fail to survive
in the real world, such as their 2003 plan for a smooth transition in
Iraq to replace Saddam Hussein with someone of their choosing – except
that it didn’t work out that way.
Perhaps the greatest danger from the new neocon dream for “regime
change” in Moscow is that whoever follows Putin might not be the pliable
yes man that the neocons envision, but a fierce Russian nationalist who
would suddenly have control of their nuclear launch codes and might
decide that it’s time for the United States to make concessions or face
annihilation.
On March 3, the Washington Post’s neocon editorialists emphasized the need for ousting Putin as they
praised Nemtsov
and other anti-Putin activists who have urged an escalation of Western
pressure on Russia. The Post wrote: “They say he [Putin] can be stopped
only by steps that decisively raise the cost of his military aggression
and cripple the financial system that sustains his regime.”
The Post then added its own suggestion that Putin was behind
Nemtsov’s murder and its own hope that Putin might be soon be removed,
saying: “It’s not known who murdered Mr. Nemtsov, and it probably won’t
be as long as Mr. Putin remains in power.”
Yet, what I find truly remarkable about the Ukraine crisis is that it
was always relatively simple to resolve: Before the coup, Yanukovych
agreed to reduced powers and early elections so he could be voted out of
office. Then, either he or some new leadership could have crafted an
economic arrangement that expanded ties to the EU while not severing
them with Russia.
Even after the coup, the new regime could have negotiated a
federalized system that granted more independence to the disenfranchised
ethnic Russians of eastern Ukraine, rather than launch a brutal
“anti-terrorist operation” against those resisting the new authorities.
But Official Washington’s “group think” has been single-minded: only
bellicose anti-Russian sentiments are permitted and no suggestions of
accommodation are allowed.
Still, spending time this weekend with people like Helen Caldicott,
an Australian physician who has committed much of her life to
campaigning against nuclear weapons, reminded me that this
devil-may-care attitude toward a showdown with Russia, which has gripped
the U.S. political/media establishment, is not universal. Not everyone
agrees with Official Washington’s nonchalance about playing a tough-guy
game of nuclear chicken.
As part of the conference, Caldicott asked attendees to stay around
for a late-afternoon showing of the 1959 movie, “On the Beach,” which
tells the story of the last survivors from a nuclear war as they prepare
to die when the radioactive cloud that has eliminated life everywhere
else finally reaches Australia. A mystery in the movie is how the final
war began, who started it and why – with the best guess being that some
radar operator somewhere thought he saw something and someone reacted in
haste.
Watching the movie reminded me that there was a time when Americans
were serious about the existential threat from U.S.-Russian nuclear
weapons, when there were films like “Dr. Strangelove,” “Fail Safe,” and
“On the Beach.” Now, there’s a cavalier disinterest in those risks, a
self-confidence that one can put his or her political or journalistic
career first and just assume that some adult will step in before the
worst happens.
Whether some adults show up to resolve the Ukraine crisis remains to
be seen. It’s also unclear if U.S. pundits and pols can restrain
themselves from more rushes to judgment, as in the case of Boris
Nemtsov. But a first step might be for the New York Times and other
“serious” news organizations to return to traditional standards of
journalism and check out the facts before jumping to a conclusion
.
Israel Strikes Hamas Targets in Gaza After Intercepting Rocket
