Carla Stea, Global Research
Russia’s Sergei Lavrov: the US cannot change the cold war in its ‘genetic code’
Defending Russia before the United Nations, foreign minister said the US must give up its claims of ‘eternal uniqueness’
[I]n a courageous and brilliant speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 27, 2014, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pierced the veil of obfuscation that characterizes too many speeches at the United Nations, and delivered a scathing denunciation of Western imperialism, imperialism that can only be accurately described as global theft. Lavrov, on behalf of the Russian Federation implicitly warned that US/NATO is risking global war in embarking on its campaign to seize and dominate huge territories, while inexorably and ruthlessly determined to conquer and subjugate Russia, having learned nothing from the historic reality that Napolean’s effort to dominate Russia led to the collapse of Napoleonic France, and Hitler’s attempt to subjugate Russia led to the obliteration of his Third Reich.
Perhaps this third attempt to conquer and subjugate Russia may lead not only to war encompassing huge territories of the globe, but, dialectically, may be the catalyst leading to the ultimate decline of capitalism, an economic system which thrives almost entirely on imperialism, and is undergoing a possibly terminal crisis, as described by the French economist, Thomas Piketty in his best-selling work “Capital in the 21 Century.” In desperation, dysfunctional Western capitalism is lashing out recklessly and irrationally, unwilling and unable to preclude the disastrous consequences of its myopic policies. And one possible consequence of current US/NATO policies is thermonuclear war.
Lavrov stated: “The U.S.-led Western alliance that portrays itself as a champion of democracy, rule of law and human rights within individual countries, acts from directly opposite positions in the international arena, rejecting the democratic principle of sovereign equality of states enshrined in the UN Charter and trying to decide for everyone what is good or evil.”
“Washington has openly declared its right to unilateral use of force anywhere to uphold its own interests. Military interference has become a norm – even despite the dismal outcome of all power operations that the U.S. has carried out over the recent years.”
“The sustainability of the international system has been severely shaken by NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia, intervention in Iraq, attack against Libya and the failure of operation in Afghanistan. Only due to intensive diplomatic efforts the aggression against Syria was prevented in 2013. There is an involuntary impression that the goal of various ‘color revolutions’ and other projects to change unsuitable regimes is to provoke chaos and instability.”
“Today Ukraine has fallen victim to such an arrogant policy. The situation there has revealed the remaining deep-rooted systemic flaws of the existing architecture in the Euro-Atlantic area. The West has embarked upon the course towards ‘vertical structuring of humanity’ tailored to its own hardly inoffensive standards. After they declared victory in the Cold War and the ‘end of history,’ the U.S. and EU have opted for expanding the geopolitical area under their control without taking into account the balance of legitimate interests of all peoples of Europe […] NATO enlargement to the East continued in spite of the promises to the contrary given earlier. The instant switch of NATO to hostile rhetoric and to the drawdown of its cooperation with Russia even to the detriment of the West’s own interests, and additional build up of military infrastructure at the Russian borders – made obvious the inability of the alliance to change the genetic code it embedded during the Cold War era.”
“The U.S. and EU supported the coup d’etat in Ukraine and reverted to outright justification of any acts by the self-proclaimed Kiev authorities that opted for suppression by force of the part of the Ukranian people that had rejected the attempts to impose the anti-constitutional way of life to the entire country and wanted to defend its rights to the native language, culture and history. It is precisely the aggressive assault on these rights that compelled the population of Crimea to take the destiny in its own hands and make a choice in favor of self-determination. This was an absolutely free choice no matter what was invented by those who are responsible in the first place for the internal conflict in Ukraine.”
“The attempts to distort the truth and to hide the facts behind blanket accusations have been undertaken at all stages of the Ukranian crisis. Nothing has been done to track down and prosecute those responsible for February bloody events at Maidan and massive loss of human lives in Odessa, Mariupol and other regions of Ukraine. The scale of appalling humanitarian disaster provoked by the acts of the Ukrainian army in the South-Eastern Ukraine has been deliberately understated. Recently, new horrible facts have been brought to light when mass graves were discovered in the suburbs of Donetsk. Despite UNSG Resolution 2166 a thorough and independent investigation of the circumstances of the loss of Malaysian airliner over the territory of Ukraine has been protracted. The culprits of all these crimes must be identified and brought to justice. Otherwise the national reconciliation in Ukraine can hardly be expected.”
In total contempt for truth and international law, Kiev’s escalation of the Ukranian crisis is being relentlessly prepared, in an ultimate act of deceit, as Ukranian President Poroshenko assumes military regalia, threatening Russia’s survival, and, indeed the survival of his own bankrupt country, and is now speaking of all-out war with Russia.
Last month Washington pledged and delivered 53 million dollars of US taxpayer’s money to provide military aid to the Kiev regime, which is using the ceasefire arranged by Russian President Putin and the OSCE as an opportunity to acquire more sophisticated and deadly weapons and prepare for another barbarous onslaught against civilians in east and southeastern Ukraine, where the massacre of almost 4,000 citizens of East Ukraine and the desperate plight of more than one million refugees followed the “secret” visit to Kiev, (under a false name) of CIA Director John Brennan last April.
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Many people around the world welcome Lavrov’s stance. Read below some intelligent reactions to his speech. The sample was taken from the UK’s Guardian.
[learn_more caption=”Guardian comments sampler. Click on the bar.”]
Editor’s Note: Minister Lavrov’s address was covered around the world in the usual insidious way in which the Western media report on such matters. The UK’s Guardian, among the better “leftwing” publications in the mainstream, using an AP report, could not help to inject a dose of flat-out innuendo in the more subtle style of the NYTimes. It accused Russia of the standard lies in the current Ukraine crisis: that Russia had imperial designs on Europe, that Moscow had invaded the Ukraine, “annexed” Crimea, etc., etc.
Surprisingly, the article did not impress many readers. At least half if not more filed comments that were clearly favorable to Russia, denouncing the US for the brutal hypocritical hegemon that it is. Some went far afield, directly debunking America’s claim to be the exceptional” nation, the hope of mankind, and the rest of that self-righteous script. The comments below we find particularly apt:
When the scapegoats that you point to aren’t believable enough that countries and people begin to see through the bullshit that the US generates to hide its bratish, brutish, greed and holier-than-thou attitude.. I guess one can assume that it seems that the ‘bad guy’ was and is the US.
From Wikipedia: The theory of the exceptionalism of the U.S. can be traced to Alexis de Tocqueville, the first writer to describe the country as “exceptional” in 1831 and 1840.[6] The exact term “American exceptionalism” has been in use since at least the 1920s and saw more common use after Soviet leader Joseph Stalin chastised members of the Jay Lovestone-led faction of the American Communist Party for their belief that America was independent of the Marxist laws of history “thanks to its natural resources, industrial capacity, and absence of rigid class distinctions”. American Communists started using the English term “American exceptionalism” in factional fights. It then moved into general use among intellectuals.[7][8] In 1989 Scottish political scientist Richard Rose noted that most American historians endorse exceptionalism. He suggests that these historians reason as follows:
“America marches to a different drummer. Its uniqueness is explained by any or all of a variety of reasons: history, size, geography, political institutions, and culture. Explanations of the growth of government in Europe are not expected to fit American experience, and vice versa.”[9]
secondiceberg AlfredHerring 27 September 2014 11:29pm 79
The only thing that has really made the U.S. exceptional is that its original plunderers of land that belonged to First Nations people were very lucky. Their luck was to have found a large half-continent, virtually untouched, teaming with every possible resource a country could need, land so rich that only fools could have failed to thrive in it. They did very well because they could not fail to do well. But that was not enough. In the common human error of attributing to one’s own superiority what was indeed a matter of luck, they assumed the mantle of superiority and thus exceptionalism. But the riches in the paradise they had found were not infinite and their beliefs began to crumble in the hard light of reality–population growth, greed, scarcity of resources, and the opposition of natural forces. To keep their sense of exceptionalism alive, they had to prove it to themselves in other ways, by demonstrating that in some sense they were indeed superior to other peoples. They have done that through war, trying to impose their empty dreams on others, while destroying cultures and countries that may have been more worthy. Your use of a quote from Thoreau about marching to a different drummer is more than ironic. Thoreau was a man who would rather go to jail (and did) than pay taxes to support the unjust American war on Mexico.
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You leave out the fact that in 50 years they wiped out all wildlife, almost all of the trees from coast to coast. They only believe is wrecking things.
- MikeBB2346
Indeed – all that “uniqueness’ is as mythical as the supposed benefits brought to the world by the British Empire!
Some, however, cannot help but regurgitate the brainwash:
306Yeah, they didn’t shoot down a passenger jet recently, annexed the Crimea, sent special forces into the Ukraine, are funding Assad in Syria at all are they?
LOL
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But perhaps the most brazen announcement of US/NATO intent to inflict further carnage upon the citizens of East Ukraine , whose rejection of the Nazi infested and Western controlled regime in Kiev has resulted in Kiev’s campaign of extermination of its dissident Ukrainian citizens, is the return to Kiev this month of the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs, Victoria Nuland. Ms. Nuland was made world famous (or world infamous) by her February declaration “Fuck the EU” while, on behalf of her neocon sponsors in Washington, she engineered the destabilization and overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovich, plunging Ukraine into the civil war that holds the potential of engulfing the world in a conflagration which will be known as World War III.
In her October 7, 2014 speech to the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kiev, Ms. Nuland boasted: “Ukraine this year has received $290 million in U.S. financial support plus a billion dollar loan guarantee. And now you have what so many of you stood on the Maidan for, you have an association agreement with Europe and a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement.” That “Association Agreement” holds Ukraine virtual hostage to NATO and the IMF, whose imposition of “austerity measures” will further degrade the living standards of the already impoverished Ukranians. Ms. Nuland brings a Trojan Horse into Ukraine, unctuously flattering gullible Ukranian students, who will ultimately provide cannon fodder for the war which US/NATO is inciting.
Further on in his September 27 address to the UN General Assembly, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov states:
“Let me recall a history of not so far ago. As a condition for establishing diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1933 the U.S. government demanded of Moscow the guarantees of non-interference into domestic affairs of the U.S. and obligations not to take any actions with a view to changing political or social order in America. At that time Washington feared a revolutionary virus and the above guarantees were put on record on the basis of reciprocity. Perhaps, it makes sense to return to this topic and reproduce that demand of the U.S. government on a universal scale. Shouldn’t the General Assembly adopt a declaration on the inadmissibility of interference into domestic affairs of sovereign states and non-recognition of coup d’etat as a method of the change of power? The time has come to totally exclude from the international interaction the attempts of illegitimate pressure of some states on others. The meaningless and counterproductive nature of unilateral sanctions is obvious if we took an example of the U.S. blockade of Cuba.”
“The policy of ultimatums and philosophy of supremacy and domination do not meet the requirements of the 21 century and run counter to the objective process of development of a polycentric and democratic world order.”
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27 September 2014 8:21pm
Actually I’d say he’s right it is about time America stopped telling everyone how unique it is! it’s unique in its ability to cause chaos and mess the world up and that’s it as far as I can see!