The Turks have shot down a Russian jet that may (or may not) have been skirting into Turkish territory at the time. This marks the first time since the start of the Cold War that nuclear-armed NATO has committed an act of war against another nuclear-armed state. It’s a well-known and well-rehearsed scenario for a possible global conflagration.
Many of us have been warning about such an eventuality for some time – since at least the moment the US and its tame puppies in Europe went full Strangelove and began openly backing what amounted to a NATO takeover of Ukraine and Crimea. Now it’s come to pass. And if this isn’t the trigger for Armageddon, the next such flashpoint might be. And there will be more – and more and more – until the non-crazies find the spine to step in and put an end to the madness.
Let’s not kid ourselves. This incident is not likely to be Turkey acting unilaterally. Nor is it some unfortunate screw-up. ISIS are currently being pressed almost to death. The communication corridors between northern Syria that permit ISIS oil to enter Turkey (in those un-stoppable convoys), and weapons to enter Syria, are coming under increasing pressure from Russian airstrikes and from ground operations by Syrian forces. If these previous wide-open corridors are closed or disrupted it would very possibly mean the beginning of the end for the NATO-proxy force striving to destroy the Syrian government. It would also be a big fail for Turkey’s president Erdogan in his bid to destroy the Kurds and establish a wider Turkey.
The shoot-down has to be seen in that context, as a deliberate and completely insane escalation, very probably with the tacit or overt support of the most lunatic neocon factions in Washington, in order to draw NATO in to “defend” Turkey from “Russian aggression.” A Hail Mary, last ditch attempt to win out or die trying.
It’s yet another clear message that there are people with access to power in Washington who are a) not sane and b) not going to be stopped by any thought of consequences.
The question is – will this – not so long ago unthinkable – event be a final wake-up call to non-crazy portions of the establishment, that they can’t just roll along, hoovering up cash and kudos, and assume everything will turn out ok?
The signs aren’t good. After all most of the European heads of state, diplomats, corporate media are more or less US appointees, chosen for their obsequiousness, cupidity and lack of moral compass, not for their brains or acumen. They have been dimwittedly cheering their way to global annihilation for over a year. And, judging by the Guardian live feed, it doesn’t look as if much is changing thus far.
Shaun Walker is still making arch comments about Russian “sabre-rattling”, as if he thinks WW3 is a joke, or a video game, or that barstool he parks his arse on is ICBM-proof.
Philip Hammond, the UK Foreign Secretary, is gleefully quoted accusing Labour MP Dennis Skinner of being an “apologist for Russian actions” because Skinner questioned the wisdom of Turkey being in NATO.
Does Hammond think it was Russia that shot down a Turkish plane?
Does he think at all?
Some blithering moron with a blog is quoted, because he thinks Putin won’t really mind too much about losing a plane or two, and opines smugly that “I suspect neither Moscow nor, at the very least, the other European Nato powers will want to let this go too far.”
Hmmm…And what about the NATO power(s) that decided shooting down the plane was a good move? Should we be confident they don’t want to “let this go too far”? Because I think the fact they shot down the jet in the first place implies that is exactly what they do want. I further suggest blind faith and smug smiles are not going to be enough to get us through the next days, weeks and months.
But then this “New York university professor” displays almost total estrangement from reality in other ways, when he adds “Putin really wants a return to 19th century geopolitics, when might made right…”
In fact right there is a microcosm of the entire problem confronting us. This man apparently lives in the same world the rest of us live in. He has seen Libya unfold. He’s seen what happened in Iraq. He’s watched the naked aggression of the US expressed all over the world. He must know that “might makes right” is the central tenet of US foreign policy.
Yet he writes something that is the total reversal of this truth. And apparently expects his readers to accept it. He may – even more worryingly – actually believe it himself. And the Guardian thinks this is an appropriate response to the situation we find ourselves in today.
This is the same estrangement from veridical reality that now seems to affect the entire political and media establishment in most of the western world. They live and breathe in a made-up world, where truth is – whatever the group dynamic says it is. They are given a sense of unity against “them” (i.e. us) who are dangerously “other” and tell plausible-sounding “lies” that have to be quickly erased. They are given a sense of total impunity by the apparently global reach of their narrative, and they encounter very few individuals in the inner sanctum of their daily lives who question its truth. They have become bubble people. Insulated from the real, and therefore impervious to the idea of consequence. They have learned to despise everything that is not them or their chums, even if it’s the largest country in the world, with an arsenal of nuclear weapons sufficient to end all life on the planet. This is why they have no fear, and precious little sanity.
These people could happily go on making their silly speeches about Russian aggression, tapping out their silly column inches of faux narrative and Doublethink, and no one would be more surprised than they when the war they are helping to sell becomes a reality.
But let’s be hopeful. Maybe Obama is going to find more to say than warmed-over Cold War blather, sub intelligent conflations of Assad with ISIS, and fairly blatant threats? Maybe Merkel is going wake up that torpid brain of hers and realise it’s time to get off the death train. Maybe Hollande is going to do more than simper andplay runner for the cool kids. Maybe Cameron really is up to the challenge ahead.
Time will tell. But don’t set your hopes too high.
Meanwhile on CiF the same handful of brain-dead trolls keep posting their pitiful war-mongering trash (without being censored)again…
and again…
and again…
and again…
until hell freezes over, or the earth boils, as oblivious to consequence as their masters.
