Will the Russians Ever Learn?

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Paul Craig Roberts
OpEds

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]nsult after insult after insult, and the pathetic Russian Foreign Ministry still asks, “do the American authorities have no wish to normalize the dialogue?”  https://www.rt.com/russia/470312-fbi-questioning-russian-mp/

Of course they don’t.  How much evidence does the Russian Foreign Ministry need?  The Americans arrest the son of a Russian lawmaker abroad far outside any legal US jurisdiction—they kidnapped him—and brought him to Washington for a Kangaroo Court trial.  The Americans  arrested a Russian woman in the US, Maria Butina, falsely accused her of spying and sentened her to prison.  It goes on and on.  Now the Americans have detained for questioning Inga Yumasheva, a member of the Russian Parliament, who was invited to the US to participat in the Fort Ross Dialogue forum, an annual event in which Americans and Russians can talk directly to one another.

Is the Russian government capable of understanding that it is dangerous for Russians, even for members of the Russian government, to come to the US or to go anywhere outside Russia where they can be kidnapped by Washington’s thugs? 

After Washington violated diplomatic immunity and seized control of the Russian consulate in San Francisco and trade offices in New York and Washington, how can the Russians not know that the US is a gangster state?  How does Russia have normal relations with the US gangster state? Is the Russian government incapable of recognizing obvious facts?

The great humiliations that the Russian government so willingly accepts only encourages more humiliations.  The humiliations will worsen. Will the Russians again meekly complain when Putin himself is detained and interrogated on his entry into the United States? Indeed, he could be arrested for interferring in US presidential elections.  Will the Russian government again grovel before Washington?  When will the groveling stop?  The humiliations will worsen until the Russian government replies in kind elevated by a factor of 5 or 10. The humiliation and abuse of Russia will not stop until Russia kicks Washington’s teeth down its throat.  Time is of the essence.

There is no reason whatsoever for Russia to be so afraid of the United States, a bankrupt, socially degenerating country that after two decades has proved unable to defeat a few thousand lightly armed Taliban in Afghanistan, just as the cowardly Israeli army, good only for killing women and children, has been chased out of Lebanon twice by a small Hezbollah militia. 

Why does the Russian government invite scathing adverse publicity everywhere in the world by enabling US and US vassal provinces in Europe to finance NGOs that are subversive organizations run by the CIA inside Russia to cause protests and disruptions such as the recent Moscow protests that undermined the performance of the ruling parties in the Moscow elections?  The drop in the vote that supports Russian independence, rather than accommodation to Washington, was not from the success of the American propaganda.  It resulted from disgust of patriotic Russians that their government will not protect Russia from American interferrence in Russian elections.

Hasn’t the Russian government noticed in the Hong Kong violence the consequences of the Chinese government’s nonchalance toward the activities of American-financed NGOs?  Why does the Russian government invite the same experience?  Have as many Russian officials been paid off by Washington as Chinese officials have?  How rife is treason in Russia and China?

Russia, China, and Iran seem unable to come to grips with the fact that Washington is a dangerous adversary that intends to exercise hegemony.