The demonization of Russia among Western journalists has gotten so perverse, that if Vladimir Putin were to jump in an erupting volcano and rescue a family of four Americans, carrying them on his back hobbling along on the melted stumps of his legs to a hospital 50 miles away, the mainstream media in the U.S. would report that Vlad the Impaler in some disconnected attempt to reconstruct the Soviet Empire had personally kidnapped four defenseless U.S. citizens and was holding them in a labor camp in the Siberian tundra.
Nothing good about Russia ever makes the cut these days, only the bad, much of it fabricated by the U.S. government itself. Even indisputable facts of history take a back seat to vilifying everything Russian. With appalling disrespect, Western leaders snubbed Russia by refusing to take part in the 70th-anniversary celebrations of victory over Germany held in Moscow in 2015. Likewise with the recent 80th-anniversary victory day celebrations, attended by many top leaders from all over the world. Then at equivalent ceremonies in Europe, scant mention was even made of the Russian campaigns, which resulted in the deaths of over 10 million Russian soldiers. If you bother to check the record, you will discover it was not France, England, and the U.S. that defeated Hitler. It was Russia.
I don't say this because I'm a Russia lover or a Putin apologist. This is a matter of historical record. Maybe to the propagandists in the West with their highly focused, patently obtuse agenda, facts don't matter. But to you and I, if we are to have any shot at all at embracing harmony in the world, facts are vital to a greater appreciation of a nation of 146 million people whose government is armed with over 5,000 nuclear warheads.
Here are some more facts. Feel free to check the historical record:
1) Joseph Stalin proposed in 1952 that Germany be reunited as a single neutral country with free elections. A central condition was that Germany not be part of a NATO alliance, which it viewed as a military threat. Russia was under enormous pressure economically after being ravaged by World War II and wanted to reduce the growing tensions between the East and the West.
Of course, by ignoring and ultimately rejecting this proposal, it would take another forty years of Cold War hostility and posturing to reunite Germany, then as an loyal ally and military stronghold of the U.S., though ironically, Germany for decades until fairly recently has been one of Russia's most important European trading partners.
2) Prior to the 1963 Cuban missile crisis, Nikita Khrushchev for almost a decade proposed substantial reductions in offensive weapons. While America was implementing the largest peace-time military build-up in history, Russia was in fact reducing its military capability.
Khrushchev finally became convinced, especially after the U.S. placed in nearby Turkey nuclear-tipped Jupiter missiles that could easily reach Russia, that America was bent on attacking the Soviet Union. This was the underlying reason for deploying nuclear missiles in Cuba, precipitating one of the most dangerous crises in history. Perhaps not the wisest thing to do, given the level of tensions the U.S. maintained with its constant better-dead-than-Red fear mongering; nevertheless the missiles in Cuba were basically the Soviet's attempt to achieve some sort of parity, at least a minimal acceptable level of mutually assured destruction with America.
3) In 1983, the U.S. risked starting World War III with provocative and unnecessary probing of Soviet air defenses, a military exercise called Able Archer. This was purely a strategic and psychological maneuver intended to bolster support Reagan was soliciting from Congress and U.S. allies for his Star Wars missile defense system. Because at this same time the U.S. was deploying nuclear-tipped Pershing II missiles in Europe that only had a 5-minute flight time to key targets in Russia, Soviet leadership understandably viewed Star Wars not as a defensive system but as the means for establishing a first-strike capability. And it suspected the probing of its air space and testing of its defense systems via Able Archer, was a prelude to an attack. Speculation about a first-strike nuclear attack on Russia continues to this day. Extremely dangerous!
4) Reagan and Gorbachev in the end were quite sincere about totally eliminating nuclear weapons by the end of the 20th century; thus their verbal agreement during a summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, to work toward eliminating the nuclear arsenals of both Russia and the U.S. was quite authentic. It was not posturing. Moreover, the whole idea for eliminating the entire nuclear arsenals of both countries was initiated by Soviet Premier Gorbachev in a letter sent to President Reagan January 14, 1986. It was actually his idea.
5) Russia only has nine foreign military bases. This is in contrast to what many estimate to be 700-800 in at minimum 80 countries by the U.S. A cursory glance at a world map shows that a substantial number of these bases form a ring around Russia. Even the most impartial observer would not view this as a coincidence and would at least appreciate why Putin and company see much of what America does as provocative if not blatantly confrontational and why some analysts on both sides conjecture that America is preparing to launch a preemptive nuclear attack on Russia, begging the question what such an attack would preempt other than the continuation of the human species.
6) Contrary to headlines that screamed foul in the American media, Russia never invaded Crimea. The simple fact is that there were 16,000 troops already stationed there, as per a standing treaty with the Ukrainian government. When the elected President of the Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, certainly corrupt and questionable in his own right, like most Ukrainian politicians was driven out of the country by street thugs, these troops were instructed to protect key physical assets in the region, as well as make sure that the many native Russians who were living there remained safe. There was no firefight, no resistance. After 97% of voters demanded in an internationally-monitored referendum to rejoin Russia, the region that had been part of Russia going back to 1786, returned to Russian authority - hardly an invasion by any stretch of the imagination. No troops stormed over the border. No shots were fired.
7) Far from being the instigator of the current crisis in the Ukraine, Putin has consistently played peacemaker and attempted to defuse the situation, even as native Russians came under threat from the new government in Kiev, and now Russian civilians are still being attacked daily with drones. Battalions of Neo-Nazi fighters now comprise key sectors of Ukraine's military forces. These were among the shock troops that originally rampaged through the eastern regions, attacking Donetsk and Luhansk, two strongholds of pro-Russian separatists and home to a majority of Russians, after the Maidan uprising.
8) Contrary to the narrative being pushed by the White House obviously the creation of neocon ideologues swarming like locusts at all levels of the bureaucracy, especially in the State Department and think tanks within the beltway,the evidence is quite clear that the entire 2014 coup was engineered and directed by the U.S., using agent provocateur NGOs,funded by National Endowment for Democracy. Senator John McCain and Asst. U.S. Secretary of State Victoria Nuland were even on the front lines during the demonstrations. This is, of course, not what you were being told by the American press, which still leads the charge in continuing to pin all blame on Russia and Putin.
Now am I making a one-sided case here? Of course not. There have been for over six decades, extending right up till the present, gross deceptions and blunders on both sides. I bring up the above examples because the collective memory of the American public seems to be very short. Or more likely, many well-meaning Americans may not even be familiar with these particular facts in the first place. Anything good about the Soviets and now the Russians tends to be overwhelmed and replaced by the fiercely promoted and much easier-to-embrace black hat characterization we hear regurgitated over and over.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
