"Russia must be destroyed"
NATO mouthpieces call for escalation in face of waning Ukraine war support
The front page of my morning newspaper boldly screams that “We must treat Russia like Nazi Germany in 1945”, according to three stone-faced “military experts”.
Wow. So they want total war in the European theater? Open military conflict between Russia and the West? An invasion and dismembering of the Russian Federation, trial and execution of its leadership and a thorough purging of its political class?
Imagine top Western military leadership being featured in the media in March 2003 calling for the invasion and dismemberment of the United States after the illegal invasion of Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or any of the major transgressions on that well-known list which is too long to feature in a normal-length article.
The other major Swedish newspaper likewise laments the “horror scenario” ensuing from dwindling support for the Ukraine war, and that’s more close to home in terms of what this is all about.
All of this hand-wringing apparently connects to last night’s news that Slovakia’s likely next (as well as former) prime minister, Robert Fico, expressly rejects further support for the Ukraine war.
The New York Times’ main headline pushes the same story, painting all of Slovakia out as “joining the Putin sympathizers”, which is especially egregious since Slovakia is a NATO member:
This rhetoric really isn’t reasonable. If Slovakia’s voters no longer seem to be in favour over propping up a military conflict completely gutting a neighbouring county, a conflict which both seems to be a losing proposition at this moment, and also has resulted in a very rapid influx of refugees approaching ten percent of the Slovakian population, should Western propaganda really be painting them out as actively supporting Russia?
A key part of the situation is of course also that the US congress stopgap funding bill (lasting until November 17) which was passed on Saturday leaves out further support for the Ukraine war:
“‘We cannot under any circumstances allow America’s support for Ukraine to be interrupted. I fully expect the speaker to keep his commitment to secure the passage and support needed to help Ukraine as they defend themselves against aggression and brutality,’ [Biden] told reporters at the White House.”
The European Union, however, pledges increased support in light of the US developments.
Overall, it seems that war weariness is setting in among Western governing bodies, and the shrill tonality is likely largely a response to the funding taps tending to close.
The war has profited US corporations immensely. This is something the alternative media by and large has failed to emphasize, probably since it’s been overshadowed by the geopolitical aspects.
To begin with, the EU has been forced to restructure its entire energy supply chain, and is now thoroughly reliant on US gas, purchased at significantly higher prices than the Russian imports.
But the entire European continent has also been pushed to refurbish and expand its military capabilities, which for the very most part has benefitted the US arms industry.
The total immediate cost for all of this, likely low-balled, is said to be just shy of $200 billion.
“It’s a huge profit center for the big companies: Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and Boeing,” says William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute, where he focuses on the global arms trade and Pentagon spending. “At the moment, I think they’re riding the wave.” (AnalystNews).
On the other hand, I and many others have argued that the long-term geopolitical aspects of the situation are more important and more decisive than short- to mid-term profiteering, and that not only important factions within the Western elites want to see Russia neutralized and dismembered and its resources occupied, but that the continued structural integrity and relative resource independence of the Western economies actually necessitate this.
If this is the case, we should probably take seriously these very explicit calls for further escalation.
As I said since 2014, the entire west can go all in, 100%, and the outcome will not be what’s stated.
So am I supposed to think that Sweden, or any other European nation, or America, would -not- crumple immediately into a hysterically weeping shame-blob, after one day of Ukrainian-style casualties?