A Russophobic Rant From Congress

Townhall.com ^ | December 9, 2014 | Pat Buchanan

[Kaslin]

Hopefully, Russians realize that our House of Representatives often passes thunderous resolutions to pander to special interests, which have no bearing on the thinking or actions of the U.S. government.

Last week, the House passed such a resolution 411-10.

As ex-Rep. Ron Paul writes, House Resolution 758 is so "full of war propaganda that it rivals the rhetoric from the chilliest era of the Cold War."

H. R. 758 is a Russophobic rant full of falsehoods and steeped in superpower hypocrisy.

Among the 43 particulars in the House indictment is this gem:

"The Russian Federation invaded the Republic of Georgia in August 2008."

Bullhockey. On Aug. 7-8, 2008, Georgia invaded South Ossetia, a tiny province that had won its independence in the 1990s. Georgian artillery killed Russian peacekeepers, and the Georgian army poured in.

Only then did the Russian army enter South Ossetia and chase the Georgians back into their own country.

The aggressor of the Russo-Georgia war was not Vladimir Putin but President Mikheil Saakashvili, brought to power in 2004 in one of those color-coded revolutions we engineered in the Bush II decade.

H.R. 758 condemns the presence of Russian troops in Abkhazia, which also broke from Georgia in the early 1990s, and in Transnistria, which broke from Moldova. But where is the evidence that the peoples of Transnistria, Abkhazia or South Ossetia want to return to Moldova or Georgia?

We seem to support every ethnic group that secedes from Russia, but no ethnic group that secedes from a successor state. This is rank Russophobia masquerading as democratic principle.

What do the people of Crimea, Transnistria, Georgia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Luhansk or Donetsk want? Do we really know? Do we care?

And what have the Russians done to support secessionist movements to compare with our 78-day bombing of Serbia to rip away her cradle province of Kosovo, which had been Serbian land before we were a nation?

H.R. 758 charges Russia with an "invasion" of Crimea.

But there was no air, land or sea invasion. The Russians were already there by treaty and the reannexation of Crimea, which had belonged to Russia since Catherine the Great, was effected with no loss of life.

Compare how Putin retrieved Crimea, with the way Lincoln retrieved the seceded states of the Confederacy -- a four-year war in which 620,000 Americans perished.

Russia is charged with using "trade barriers to apply economic and political pressure" and interfering in Ukraine's "internal affairs."

This is almost comical.

The U.S. has imposed trade barriers and sanctions on Russia, Belarus, Iran, Cuba, Burma, Congo, Sudan, and a host of other nations.

Economic sanctions are the first recourse of the American Empire.

And agencies like the National Endowment for Democracy and its subsidiaries, our NGOs and Cold War radios, RFE and Radio Liberty, exist to interfere in the internal affairs of countries whose regimes we dislike, with the end goal of "regime change."

Was that not the State Department's Victoria Nuland, along with John McCain, prancing around Kiev, urging insurgents to overthrow the democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovych?

Was Nuland not caught boasting about how the U.S. had invested $5 billion in the political reorientation of Ukraine, and identifying whom we wanted as prime minister when Yanukovych was overthrown?

H.R. 578 charges Russia with backing Syria's Assad regime and providing it with weapons to use against "the Syrian people."

But Assad's principal enemies are the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaida affiliate, and ISIS. They are not only his enemies, and Russia's enemies, but our enemies. And we ourselves have become de facto allies of Assad with our air strikes against ISIS in Syria.

And what is Russia doing for its ally in Damascus, by arming it to resist ISIS secessionists, that we are not doing for our ally in Baghdad, also under attack by the Islamic State?

Have we not supported Kurdistan in its drive for autonomy? Have U.S. leaders not talked of a Kurdistan independent of Iraq?

H.R. 758 calls the President of Russia an "authoritarian" ruler of a corrupt regime that came to power through election fraud and rules by way of repression.

Is this fair, just or wise? After all, Putin has twice the approval rating in Russia as President Obama does here, not to mention the approval rating our Congress.

Damning Russian "aggression," the House demands that Russia get out of Crimea, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Transnistria, calls on Obama to end all military cooperation with Russia, impose "visa bans, targeted asset freezes, sectoral sanctions," and send "lethal ... defense articles" to Ukraine.

This is the sort of ultimatum that led to Pearl Harbor.

Why would a moral nation arm Ukraine to fight a longer and larger war with Russia that Kiev could not win, but that could end up costing the lives of ten of thousands more Ukrainians?

Those who produced this provocative resolution do not belong in charge of U.S. foreign policy, nor of America's nuclear arsenal.

[JadeEmperor]

"I hope Pat is getting a good stipend from Putin."

I wonder if you are too close to the truth. Too close for comfort.

Seeing how RT and Kremlin bots are pushing the same Alex Jones NWO/bankster/Jewish/conspiracy koolaid everywhere from zerohedge to here. How they play the paleocons, the traditionalists, the libertarians and all manner of paranoid malcontents like a fiddle by co-opting and exploiting the narrative.

At least during the Cold War the KGB was somewhat constrained by the Marxist-Leninist ideology of the CPSU. They could only engage Leftist/Marxist groups and individuals in the West with their rhetoric. They could not openly court nationalist/fascist and other groups without revealing their hypocrisy to their Leftist supporters. Until now.

With no official ideology to limit the scope of how they can present themselves to the outside world, the KGB are now completely opportunistic and utterly ruthless in their methods. One of them puts on a Western suit, crosses himself and voila, he is the defender of the West and Christianity all of a sudden somehow! (Nevermind that if you watch their internal narrative, meant for domestic consumptions, the West and USA in particular, are still Enemy No 1.)

For a long time I was a skeptic when it came to Anatoly Golytsin/Perestroika Deception thesis, but now when revanchist neo-Soviet emerges like a malignant phoenix from the ashes, I do begin to wonder. I do begin to wonder. For our sake I do hope their Topols and Bulavas feature the same fine quality of erstwhile Soviet workmanship - cold solder joints, hand-soldered jumpers across circuit boards and bolts "tightened" with a sledgehammer. Either that or we are screwed. Because we are asleep for the most part.

[Impy]

Pat, you ignorant slut. You and Ron Paul can both have a nice hot cup of STFU.

[elhombrelibre]

The Soviet Union was not an empire? Wow, that sentiment is beyond believe. I'm floored. I guess you think all of its member states willingly joined the Soviet Union. Was that why they needed an Iron Curtain to prevent people from leaving it's non-empire. You probably don't think they had a secret police, a GULAG, or an unfree country either. And what Putin does today is just defensive in nature because Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Georgia, and Ukraine are picking on poor Putin, in your mind.

[elhombrelibre]

You must have really been upset when Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” Not only did he disparage the great nation Putin loved, the nation whose collapse Putin called the greatest tragedy of the 20th CEN, but he misdefined what an empire is, in your view.