Paul Craig Roberts: The Trump Regime Is Insane / Ten Days Before The End Of The World / latest dispatches.

Dateline: April 13, 2018 

 

Is it insane to push for war with Russia, a major nuclear power?
Is it insane to threaten Russia and bring false charges against her?
Is it insane to brag about killing “hundreds of Russians”?
https://news.antiwar.com/2018/04/12/pompeo-russians-met-their-match-us-killed-hundreds-of-them/

A normal person would answer “yes” to the three questions. So what does this tell us about Trump’s government as these insane actions are the principle practice of Trump’s government?

Does anyone doubt that Nikki Haley is insane?

Does anyone doubt that John Bolton is insane?

Does anyone doubt that Mike Pompeo is insane?

Does this mean that Trump is insane for appointing to the top positions insane people who foment war with a nuclear power?

Does this mean that Congress is insane for approving these appointments?

These are honest questions.

Assuming we avoid the Trump-promised Syrian showdown, how long before the insane Trump regime orchestrates another crisis?

The entire world should understand that because of the existence of the insane Trump regime, the continued existence of life on earth is very much in question.

People such as Stephen Cohn and myself, who were actively involved throughout the entirety of the Cold War, are astonished at the reckless and irresponsible behavior of the US government and its European vassals toward Russia. Nothing as irresponsible as what we have witnessed since the Clinton regime and which has worsened dramatically under the Obama and Trump regimes would have been imaginable during the Cold War. In this brief video, Stephen Cohen describes to Tucker Carlson the extreme danger of the present situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvK1Eu01Lz0&t=54s

The failure of political leadership throughout the Western world is total. Such total failure is likely to prove deadly to life on earth.

Ten Days Before The End Of The World

The criminally insane governments of the US, UK, and France are sending a flotilla of missile ships, submarines, and an aircraft carrier to attack Syria in the face of Russian warnings. What is the likely outcome of this outrageous act of aggression based entirely on an orchestrated and transparent lie, an act of reckless aggression that is more irresponsible and more dangerous than anything done by the demonized Nazi regime in Germany?

There are no protests from European governments. There are no protesters in the streets of European and US cities. Congress has not reminded Trump that he has been given no authority by Congress to launch a military attack on a sovereign country that is likely to ignite a war, possibly World War 3. Everyone seems content with the prospect of the end of the world. The moronic American presstitutes are egging it on.

Here are possible outcomes:

(1) The Russians, trapped in the deluded belief that facts and evidence matter to the West and that common sense will prevail, accept the attacks. This outcome is the most dangerous of all, because this outcome will encourage more attacks until Russia is backed into a corner and has no alternative to a direct nuclear attack on the US.

(2) Russia takes the initiative in the brewing conflict and escorts the US missile ship, USS Donald Cook, out of attack range of Syria before the attack flotilla arrives and declares a perimeter line beyond which the Western flotilla becomes target for attack. This should force a showdown between Trump’s warmonger government and the US Congress that would challenge Trump’s ability to unilaterally commit the US to war.

(3) Russia escorts the Donald Cook away from the scene and simultaneously wipes out the military capabilities of Saudi Arabia and Israel, removing Washington’s ground-based allies in its attack on Syria, thus loading the odds in Russia’s favor, and making it clear that Russia is going to pre-empt attack, not respond to one.

(4) Russia, in the deluded belief that it must prove itself in the right, accepts the attack and its unpredictable damage before responding. This outcome is almost as bad as the first, as this lets the war start in contrast to options (2) and (3) which have some possibility of preventing a US/Russian confrontation by forcing common sense on the Americans.

(5) Senior German politicians inform Merkel that Britain and France’s support of the US strike on Syria could commit NATO to a war with Russia. Germany has had one devastating experience with the Russian military and does not need another. They could pressure Merkel to withdraw Germany from NATO. The resulting consternation/confusion would likely halt the US attack on Syria/Russia.

(6) The US Joint Chiefs of Staff could easily and honestly conclude that in the event of a Russian response to an attack on Syria, the entire flotilla could be lost, carrier included, inflicting a humiliating defeat on US arms, and that in view of this possibility, the Joint Chiefs recommend against the announced attack. Possibly this has occurred and explains Trump’s latest tweets, which suggest that doubts might have entered Trump’s mind.

Even if a hopeful outcome such as (5) and (6) occurs, we are left with the dangerous situation that some elements in the US and UK governments were able to orchestrate two events—the alleged Skripal poisoning and the alleged Assad chemical attack—and use the events to leverage unsupported accusations against Russia and Syria as justifications for an illegal military attack on a sovereign country. That such an outrageous orchestration is possible proves that there is no democracy or constraint on government in the US and UK.

American Officials Continue to Make Laughing Stocks of Themselves

 

[dropcap]H[/dropcap]ere is “Mad Dog” Mattis, the US Secretary of War, stating that he has no evidence that there was a chemical weapons attack in Syria last week, but that he personally believes that there was one.

I remember when a person who claimed to believe something for which there was no evidence was either a religious fanatic or an ideologue. No serious person would express a conviction when there was no evidence to support it.

This raises questions as to Mattis’ fitness for office. He is prepared to lead the US into war with Russia based on nothing but his belief. This is insanity.

Even a low grade moron, which appears to be above the intelligence level of the current US Secretary of War, understands that Syria would not, within a few hours of its liberation of the Syrian people of Douma, have used chemical weapons against the civilian population for which its soldiers were dying in order to liberate.

According to RT, the Organization for the prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is on its way to inspect the site. I had read that the US had vetoed allowing an investigation. According to RT, the OPCW is only permitted by Washinton to determine whether any chemical weapons were used, not, if they were, by who. If the OPCW can be pressured to say evidence of chemical weapons use was found, Washington will seize on that as proof that Syria did it.

As the former head of the OPCW has made clear, the organization is not independent of Washington’s control. It is supposed to be independent but is not. Jose Bustani, a Brazilian diplomat who was Director-General of the OPCW reports that he was ordered to resign by John Bolton, the dangerous neoconservative warmonger who is currently National Secruity Adviser to President Trump. Bustani pointed out to Bolton that he was appointed by the OPCW member states, not by the US, and refused to resign. Here is Bolton’s reply: “OK, so there will be retaliation. Prepare to accept the consequences. We know where your kids are.” https://www.rt.com/usa/423477-bolton-threat-opcw-iraq/

This is American diplomacy at work. It is based entirely on lies, bribes, threats, coercion, murder. Remember the State Department official who told the president of Pakistan, do as I say now or we will bomb you into the stone age?

Bolton had Bustani voted out. The members of the OPCW preferred their Washington subsidies to being an honest organization.

It makes no sense for Russia to rely on “international organizations” that are under Washington’s control.

It makes no sense for Russia to rely on common sense in the West. There is no common sense anywhere in the West. If the West had common sense, the West would not be sending a flotilla to attack Russian and Syrian forces.

It makes no sense for Russia to speak about their “American partners.” No such partner exists. Russia has only American enemies.

The neoconservatives who control US foreign policy have stated it clearly in their declaration that the principle goal of US foreign policy is to prevent the rise of Russia and any other country that could serve as a constraint on US unilateralism. The neoconservatives have made it abundantly clear that Russia has to go. It is dangerous for Russia to disregard such a clear warning. Yet when I am interviewed by Russian media, the journalists are perplexed by “neoconservative.” What is that, they ask.

How can it be that Russian journalists are unaware that the powerful interest group whose most warmonger member, John Bolton, sits as Trump’s right-hand man, has marked Russia for vassalage, conquest, or annihilation? A country this uninformed hasn’t much survival potential.