Bush's Strategic Partnership with Russia

By Joel Skousen

Perhaps words don’t mean anything anymore, but frankly, I’m getting weary of hearing the word "partnership" used to link us with the world’s two most egregious tyrannies: Russia and China. All of the rest of the world’s crimes against humanity pale in comparison with what takes place in Russia and China every year. Like it or not, virtually every modern American president since George Bush Sr. has been trying to foist this grand deception upon a naive American populace--that these formidable enemies can be pacified and reformed if we just give them enough help. Of course, once we have given them sufficient aid and technology they do become a danger and then we must placate them because they are "too strong to challenge." With China we are still in the first stage of pretending China’s predatory intentions can be moderated with trade. On the other hand, we have long passed the point where Russia is impotent--although the establishment media persists in the grand deception that "Communism is dead" and that Russian military power is dying. Russia harbors the largest military forces in the world and is secretly building and upgrading those forces. We used to treat Russia as the military monster that must be pacified, but now our own government covers for and actually aids Russian rearmament. In that vacuum of reality, the politicians have moved in to fill the void with a newly hatched "Strategic Partnership" doctrine, which now permeates any discussion of US/Russian relations.

I’m going to use a commentary piece by Stratfor.com (which I firmly believe to be a front for CIA placement of disinformation) as the basis of my criticism. Why use Stratfor.com if it is a disinformation source? Because we can learn much of what the other side is trying to do by analyzing their own statements--just as you can learn from reading one of the many front-line establishment news sources like Time or Newsweek, if you’re careful not to take their reports at face value. So let’s go through the Stratfor.com article, and analyze this piece of disinformation line by line. My comments will be in [brackets].

In this article, Stratfor is commenting on the ongoing high-level Bush administration initiatives going on in Moscow as a follow-on to the Bush summit with Putin in Genoa. National Security Advisor Condolezza Rice and Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfield are the prime participants in these Moscow talks. The Stratfor.com analysis begins with a quote from Rice describing the talks as the "‘first of many such talks that would describe a totally different kind of relationship between the United States and Russia, one not based on outdated Cold War thinking [Rice denigrates the Cold War concept that Russia is a threat--a key concept used in softening up her audience for what she will propose], but one that reflects the very different relationship that we can and we hope we should have with Russia in the years ahead...We are talking about a bigger issue than what we do about missile defenses and strategic weapons.’" [Indeed, there is a bigger issue: to complete the process of disarmament of strategic US military forces in order to set the stage for the next war.]

Stratfor.com, referring to the US, then states, "Unable to recognize political claims [i.e. Russia’s claimed right to control the affairs of all the former Soviet states. Actually Stratfor is being less than honest here. The US has engaged in de facto recognition of Russian control over all of the former Soviet states directly bordering Russia. The US also acceded to Russia’s brutal invasion and occupation of Chechnya.] or deliver billions in economic aid [which Bush would like to do but can’t yet get away with], Washington is trying to position a reform of the existing arms control regime as a dramatic transformation of relations between the United States and Russia [This is not dramatic, but a continuation of the unilateral disarmament process undertaken by the Clinton administration. It is now to be carried to conclusion by another globalist president, while feigning conservative principles]. The Russians are listening and open to this, so long as it is the preface to more substance." [Indeed they are listening! --but still suspicious about what appears to be an unwarranted US interest in committing military suicide. The Russians, as consummate cheaters and deceivers, have trouble believing the US is this stupid. And they are right--there is an ulterior agenda.]

The article continues, "Both sides can gain. Washington gets rid of missiles it doesn't want anyway. [Doesn’t want? True for our globalist leaders, but not for the reasons the reader is expected to infer from this statement--that they are "too costly to maintain" and that there is no need for deterrence against our new "friend" Russia. This perception smacks of FDR’s effusive friendship with Russia and "Uncle Joe" Stalin during the 30’s and 40’s. Don’t liberals ever learn from history? Actually, they know very well what they are doing. US globalists want these missiles removed in order to ensure a window of US vulnerability to future attack which, in turn, will drive the world’s reluctant sheep into the arms of a UN run global military response.] The Russians accept the changes in the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, paving the way for NMD. The Russians can spend less on their strategic weapons [in public] and more on the conventional forces needed to control the Russian near abroad." [It is interesting how the US is not only helping the Soviets cover for their secret underground strategic weapons (NBC warheads on mobile missiles), but they are actually providing Russia with an excuse to build up its conventional forces. Notice that Stratfor.com doesn’t mention that the Russians already committed to deep reductions of conventional forces in the Conventional Forces-Europe (CFE) treaty--which they have never fully complied with. Russia is busy feigning conventional weakness in order to lull Western forces into complacency, and here we are encouraging them to openly rebuild conventional forces.]

"But the Putin government probably suspects the American initiative [but not for the reasons Stratfor gives here]. Embedded in the American offer is NMD, and around NMD are other elements such as increasing U.S. power in space, restructuring U.S. power projection capabilities and developing new generations of weapons. [The reason a National Missile Defense (NMD) is a threat to the Russians is that they suspect it will not be aimed at rogue nations but at the Russians’ secret plans to begin the next war with a nuclear pre-emptive strike.] The Russians are happy to play along [the only truthful statement in this analysis], but if this is all the Americans are offering, the deal won't fly. Unless this is the opening of an overture that includes billions in economic aid or recognition of a larger Russian sphere, the American offer is only the thing that Russians would have wanted in the 1970s and 1980s, not in 2001." [Notice how Stratfor ends with a push to give the Russians what the Bush administration now views as politically impossible. Every attempt to subtly mold public opinion embeds a hook such as this . This is also why Stratfor.com was willing to link up with Joe Farah’s conservative website, WorldNetDaily.com. Conservatives are the target audience of this false analysis.]

Another wave of propaganda came out on the wire services in the aftermath of Rumsfield’s visit with Putin this week in Moscow. As if in unison, the reports all praised Rumsfield for gaining the upper hand in his dramatic showdown with Putin over NMD. Rumsfield reportedly made Putin a "take it or leave it" offer with no room for compromise, implying what the US has been saying all along: "we’ll proceed with our NMD with or without your permission." The news reports, including one by Newsmax’s John Perry, gushed over how "Putin blinked" and lost the showdown. All this is hogwash. In the first place, no reporter knows what goes on in those secret meetings except what biased sources attached to the principals tell them. Second, if the US has the legal grounds to proceed with NMD without Russia anyway [which is true], why are they going to all the trouble to engage in another round of one-sided and unverifiable disarmament? Third, and most importantly, Putin can’t give in on the NMD because it is the only potential weapon that can threaten the keystone of Russia’s future attack plans. Note that even though the NMD is ineffective in its concept and questionable in effectiveness, it is the perception of threat to Putin combined with his suspicions about US black budget weapons programs that makes it impossible for him to agree to Rumsfield’s poker play.

Here is what I think will finally emerge from the talks--though we will never know all the truth because the US has a very bad habit of keeping secret its agreements with Russia: Russia will play "hard-to-get" and the US will add financial aid to sweeten the deal. Russia will still refuse to openly embrace NMD and the US will proceed with its side of the proposals (unilateral, unverifiable disarmament, coupled with economic and military technical aid to Russia) as a "confidence building" measure. Indeed, the first element has already come true. Russia’s defense minister announced that Russia will not go along with the NMD proposal.

In other news, Anatoly Kornukov, Commander of all Russian air forces, announced this week that 80 percent of Russian military aircraft will be modernized and updated by 2005 [which correlates with my analysis of the US window of vulnerability as posted on the front page of my website--www.joelskousen.com]. This comes from a government that claims not to have enough money to even maintain its aircraft or submarine fleet.

Despite campaign promises by George Bush to fight against racial preferences, and despite John Ashcroft’s former record of fighting racial preferences, the Justice Department under Ashcroft instructed Solicitor General Ted Olson to defend government racial and minority set-aside contracts for government projects. Olson said the government set asides were "narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest." (The "compelling interest" doctrine of law is one of the greatest open-ended evils used to abridge individual and family rights.) He also went on to say, "Congress has a compelling interest in eliminating discrimination and its effects on government spending and procurement." But eliminating government discrimination is NOT the same thing as using reverse discrimination as a tool, which is the issue here.

Another terrorist faction leader was killed this week by IDF special forces, and yet the PLO’s Yassir Arafat remains free to flit about from one country to another without restrictions, building up support for his terror offensive. The Israeli government has control over the skies. They have control over where Arafat operates his private jet. On occasion they have grounded Arafat, but it never lasts for more than a day. Clearly Sharon is acceding to the demands of the international community in giving Arafat a continued ticket to free movement. Meanwhile, Israeli citizens are not free to move about without the fear of constant Arab gunfire targeting their vehicles.

As the list of victims from suicide bombings grew even longer, Arabs openly celebrated the carnage in the streets of Lebanon. Few other cultures seem to possess this lack of moral restraint at expressing jubilation over the destruction of innocent civilians in a terrorist strike. As if to fly in the face of the protection he receives as the de facto voice of the Palestinians, Arafat continues to aid and abet terrorist attacks. According the highly reliable Arutz-7 news service, Arafat released from detention this week three Hamas terrorists who were involved in the June 1, 2001 attack at the Tel Aviv Dolphinarium, which claimed the lives of 21 Israelis. Israeli intelligence has numerous recordings of Arafat giving direct orders to terrorists and invoking general policies to continue the violent intifada--despite pledges to attempt to halt terrorism. Leaders of the international community have been allowed to hear these intercepted telephone recordings, but the Sharon government continues to aid Arafat’s pretenses to peace by refusing to make them public, even to the Israeli public.

It is very clear that Arafat and his terrorist cadres are no longer taking orders from their international sponsors. But despite this small sized rebellion within globalist ranks, Arafat is still allowed to continue his rampage. Of course, this is partly understandable given the international community’s willingness to use war as a means of justifying intervention. Every week the war drum beat gets louder in the Middle East. Even the Russians have joined in by announcing to the World Tribune news service that they predict a major war in the Middle East within 3 to 6 months. One would think they should know when and if war is coming--after all, the Russians and Chinese are arming all the potential antagonists: Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, as well as a half a dozen other surrogates in the region. (The Russians gave as evidence statements of Egypt, Israel’s most aggressive enemy, that if the Sharon government invades the Palestinian areas, Egypt will enter the demilitarized zone in the Sinai with its Third Army. The International Community failed to utter a single protest about Egypt’s open intentions to violate an international agreement.) But one has to ask the question, why would the Russians announce the threat of war publicly? They are clearly arming certain nations for a future war; why the heads-up?

What I suspect Russia is doing is engendering a reaction within the international community to further delay the expected Israeli invasion of the Palestinian armed strongholds (Areas A and B of the Oslo Accords). This would have the effect of postponing the coming war til a time frame when Russia’s Arab surrogates will have operational the missile systems necessary to tackle Israeli defenses (2-3 years away at least). Certainly, on its part, the international community wouldn’t mind having a mini-war sufficiently bloody to justify a UN peacekeeping mission in Israel as well as some form of divided autonomy in Jerusalem between Arabs, Jews and Christians (controlled by the Vatican).

Meanwhile, despite campaign promises to never negotiate with the PLO until the violence stops, Sharon allowed leftist Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to begin high level talks with everyone in the PLO except Arafat himself--as if that small technicality keeps Sharon faithful to his promise. Sharon purposefully brought the leftist Labor party of Shimon Peres into his coalition government in order to give the left a de facto veto power over his pretended right-wing policies. I should also mention that Sharon and Peres are close friends and belong to the inner circle of globalists who desire to weaken Israel’s status as a sovereign state.

As the Israeli Maariv news service opined, "In all the fuss over whether Peres will talk with Arafat or only his senior aides, and whether Peres will go alone or be accompanied by a senior army officer, the main point has apparently been forgotten: What exactly will Peres talk about with whomever he happens to be meeting? We've had the Sharm el Sheikh declaration, the Mitchell initiative and the Tenet document which all aimed at getting a cease-fire in place, and none of them were worth the paper they were written on."

The bottom line is that the Sharon government continues to undermine its own stated policy of rooting out terrorism in the Palestinian areas. Rumors abound of military preparations to invade the "safe areas" in both the West Bank and the Gaza strip where Arafat’s cadres manufacture and harbor tons of explosives, mortars and heavy weapons. I have no doubt the plans are there, but the implementation so far has never come. Even this week’s planned tank assault on the Arab Beit Jalla neighborhood (which has been the source of constant Arab gunfire upon neighboring Jewish housing) was scrapped on orders from Sharon. Israel’s defense minister denied any US pressure, but numerous other sources confirm such pressure was received and hovers like a constant cloud. As I have said before, Israel’s refusal to implement a military victory only guarantees further violence. There will be further escalation.

WORLD AFFAIRS BRIEF (excerpt) August 17, 2001 Copyright Joel Skousen. Quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief. Website: http://www.joelskousen.com

(Ed. Note: We thank Joel Skousen for allowing his insights to be reprinted in part at Web Today. For access to his complete weekly columns, available by subscription, we refer you to his homepage http://www.joelskousen.com)

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