This editorial appears in the July 27, 2018 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
EDITORIAL
Trump and Putin Are Making Peace! Important Lessons for the Whole World
[Print version of this editorial]
July 21—It ought to be obvious to any thinking person that improving the U.S.-Russia relationship, the relationship between two nations that hold over 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, whose use would wipe out humanity, is a good thing. Therefore, Presidents Trump and Putin absolutely deserve credit for having paved the way, at the Helsinki Summit, for overcoming the current crisis between those two countries through dialogue and cooperation. However, given the unprecedented hysteria of the neoliberal establishment in the United States and the mainstream media on both sides of the Atlantic, in response to this summit, it also becomes clear that this power elite is willing to accept the destruction of human civilization rather than agree to cooperation with Russia.
This reality urgently requires a reassessment of the strategic situation—not only, but especially in European nations such as Germany, where the population has an image of Trump shaped (for example) by reports on Trump on ARD television where 98% of the coverage is negative, and where the demonization of Putin is now part of the “group think” of the local establishment.
The fact is that about half of American voters elected Trump as President, not least because he had promised in his election campaign that he would put the relationship between the United States and Russia back on a sound footing, after it had been brought to an unprecedented, historic low-point by the administrations of George W. Bush and above all Barack Obama. Trump commented on this situation by saying that it was primarily due to American foolishness, for which observation the pseudonymous Publius Tacitus provides detailed arguments at Sic Semper Tyrannis, the blog of the renowned security analyst Pat Lang. Regarding the accusation of Russian “interference” in the 2016 election, Publius Tacitus writes that the United States has a long, blood-soaked history of intervention in other countries and the overthrow of elected governments. Regarding the allegation of hacking, he pointed out that the United States, with the CIA, NSA and the Pentagon itself, has the largest and most robust computer networking and hacking capabilities in the world. So those making the accusation live in the biggest damn glass houses.
One of the most interesting effects of the hysteria with which the U.S. establishment has reacted to Trump’s attempt to normalize relations with Russia is that the structures of the so-called “deep state” have become transparent. When John Brennan, CIA chief during the Obama administration, accuses Trump of high treason at Helsinki, then of course the question arises as to who or what is allegedly being betrayed. The American people? The American Constitution? Since when is it high treason when the President tries to ensure the physical survival of his own people through a policy of diplomacy and dialogue?
What causes this establishment and its “presstitutes” (as Paul Craig Roberts calls mainstream media representatives) to go off the rails, is that Trump’s election victory has shaken the foundations of the neoliberal Anglo-American Empire. Trump promised in his election campaign that he would improve relations with Russia and end the policy of wars of intervention. With the two historic summits of Singapore and Helsinki, he has demonstrated, despite the establishment’s enormous resistance, that he is keeping these promises.
The editor of the blog Antiwar.com, Justin Raimondi, commented under the title, “Trump’s ‘Treason’: Challenging the Empire,” that “The utter malevolence of our political class was dramatized in all its darkness by their reaction to the Helsinki summit.” Ordinary Americans don’t think like elite Americans, he said, who see themselves as the guardians of the international order, a role inherited from the British. “Trump’s foreign policy mission (whether he knows it or not) is to eviscerate the outmoded structures—and prejudices—of the Cold War era, and inaugurate a new era in our relations with the rest of the planet.”
The international response to the Helsinki Summit signals that most countries see in it the manifestation of a new order. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying welcomed the meeting; China, she said, is glad to see an improvement in the relationship between Russia and the United States, which is conducive to world peace and helps the international community to face common challenges together. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu welcomed the summit, as did German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who emphasized that these meetings should become normal and that it was “good for everyone” that the next meeting was already planned. Italian Interior Minister Salvini welcomed the rapprochement and described it as good for Italy and Europe.
Whether the hope can be fulfilled of overcoming the Cold War mentality (which can quickly lead to a hot war), and the establishment of a new, better world order, depends critically on the outcome of the war between the U.S. establishment and Trump. The latest episodes in this fight include the U.S. Justice Department’s indictment of twelve members of Russian military intelligence, who were accused, literally on the eve of Helsinki, of interfering in the U.S. election, in an obvious attempt to poison the climate for the summit. The well-known Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz condemned this as a terrible mistake by the Justice Department, which is not supposed to influence foreign policy.
During the joint press conference with Trump in Helsinki, Putin demonstrated that he is a master of the principle of the flank. He invited Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the spearhead of the U.S. establishment, to Russia so that his team could interview these twelve military intelligence officers there, in return for the right of Russian investigators to interview former U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul and Bill Browder, who was convicted in absentia for tax evasion in Russia—a major contributor to Hillary Clinton’s election campaign and responsible for the drafting of the Magnitsky Act. Russia also wanted to interview “former” MI6 agent Christopher Steele, a business partner of Browder, and author of the infamous Trump dossier which formed the basis for the entire staging of the ongoing coup attempt against Trump.
Such a collaborative inquiry would be the only way out of the realm of mutual accusation, and an enlightening exercise in clarifying the truth, as you would inevitably come across the role of British intelligence in the coup attempt against Trump—the secret memoranda of the British GCHQ surveillance apparatus to Obama with the request to monitor Trump Tower, and the entire, extremely professional operation of Christopher Steele to manipulate the 2016 election campaign. There you would find the evidence of the collusion of the Obama administration’s intelligence chiefs with MI6 in a coup attempt against the elected U.S. President.
Only four days after Putin’s proposal, amidst hysteria over Trump’s alleged betrayal, the U.S. Senate voted by a stunning 98 to 0, to prohibit such reciprocal investigations. Ambassador McFaul, who is not only credited with close ties to Browder, but also with active involvement in a policy of regime change against Putin, presented himself as a martyr to Russian attacks, from which the 98 senators, in a sick display of so-called patriotism, had to protect him. But that’s not the end of the story. The role of British intelligence and of numerous FBI and Justice Department personnel continues to be the subject of investigations in the Congress and by Trump’s lawyers and accused Russians. Some judges have already called for prison sentences for these people.
And then there is the all-important question in America: “How will this play in Peoria?”—“Peoria” being a metaphor for the Great Midwest of the United States, which has a very different political spectrum than the two coasts or Washington inside the Beltway. The majority of the citizens of these states chose Trump because they have been the victims of U.S. establishment policy, and not least because they want a better relationship with Russia. The congressional midterm elections in November will bring this to light.
This domestic political debate in the United States has the most direct implications for the whole world. Should Trump prevail, then, despite the current tensions with China over the U.S. trade deficit, there is a chance for a whole new international policy among the nations of the world, based on recognition of sovereignty, non-intervention in each other’s internal affairs, dialogue and mutual benefit. If Trump’s opponents prevail, we are probably not far from World War III. So it’s time for supporters of “progressive,” “left,” and “liberal” politics, who have been in the same boat with the CIA, FBI, and MI6 since Trump’s election, to reflect on whether the mainstream media have not nudged them into the wrong corner.
