Twenty years after the Soviet Union voluntarily dissolved (as provided for in its Constitution), twenty years after the Warsaw Pact was disbanded after promises by NATO not to encroach eastwards, after two decades of lies, broken promises and acts of aggression by NATO, we see clearly what this organization stands for but Russia is up to the mark.
Honestly, I would prefer to be sitting here writing an Easter op-ed based upon friendship, cooperation, cultural exchanges, common values, sharing of food, playing soccer together, cultural initiatives, sending kids on Summer sports camps. I would love to be focusing on Summer Schools where our children can learn about each other's customs, lore, traditions, trek through the countryside, enjoy nature, see the wildlife, learn about the animals, shoot some photos and so on. I would love to write a piece about Easter traditions in Russia and how people say Khristos Vosgres! (Christ is risen!) to which the reply is Voistinu Vosgres! (Truly he is risen!) and talk about Easter cake and cheese curds...
But no! No, instead here I sit looking glumly at my keyboard, depressed and concerned, but moralized and optimistic due to the fact that the Russian Federation has a President who has a global vision, who understands what is really going on behind the scenes, who has the courage to take pre-emptive action and who has what it takes to serve as a counter-weight to NATO's hegemonic schemes.
Let this article, and those like it, serve as a screenshot of the geopolitical situation today and let those who trust one word NATO in particular or the west in general say, read it carefully and understand its message.
For twenty years I have been saying the same thing and after twenty years I see that most regrettably, I have been proven one hundred percent right, which brings me no satisfaction at all. The very second NATO started making promises that it would not encroach eastwards if the Warsaw Pact was dissolved I started saying "No, don't trust them". At that time there was too much back-slapping and camaraderie with the newly fangled friends from the West for anyone to take any notice and I was derided as an anachronistic, paranoid nut case living in the past and spreading hatred.
I was not spreading hatred, I was telling the truth. I saw clearly that while the Soviet armed forces were basically defensive, NATO's armed forces were and are, global in capacity and offensive. It was obvious what would happen. So while western financial institutions were trying to bankrupt Russia's economy, NATO did indeed encroach eastwards as I had said and looking at the map today, Russia has an iron fist clenched around its neck, from Poland to Romania and Bulgaria, armed to the teeth.
What the populations of NATO countries do not know is that their Governments are supposed to spend around 2 percent of their GDP per year on weapons systems provided by NATO, which has at the top of the pyramid the US arms lobby which, together with the energy, banking and pharmaceutical lobbies, controls Washington and shapes its policies. And those of its NATO poodle states.
Idealists like Obama are neutered upon their Oval Office birth.
Last year, NATO spent around 1.2 trillion dollars on weapons systems, operations and administrative costs. That is one point two thousand billion dollars or one trillion, two hundred thousand million dollars, or 1,200,000,000,000 USD. That is four times, in just one year, what it would cost to eradicate poverty around the world, forever. And it would pay for hospitals in Bulgaria, schools in Romania, cancer treatment in England, cheaper energy bills, improved public transportation. In the United Kingdom, there are fewer hospital beds per capita than practically everywhere else in the western world. Yet... one point two thousand billion dollars is spent by NATO, every year. NATO - the UK, its master across the Pond and its allies.
With that sort of expenditure, it is patently obvious that NATO is not just a defensive organization protecting Europe from...er...Albania? No, no! Mars? I know! I know! An attack by Burkina Faso!! Ah right, a missile attack from the Islamic Republic of Iran. No, really!
Joking apart, it is also patently obvious what the western mindset is regarding Russia. I speak, to various degrees, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, English, Romanian, Albanian, Afrikaans and Russian and understand bits of other languages, I have some 400 TV channels on my system covering all these languages, so I know what I am talking about. Russia was and is still regarded in the hearts and minds of the leadership of NATO member states as something big, dark and dangerous. All you have to do is read the headlines of their newspapers and watch their TV programmes from time to time. And every single time they refer to Russia, there is something negative, keeping alive the eternal image of an untrustworthy bear in a china shop.
And this, to a backdrop of NATO being essentially ruled by an Anglo-Saxonic elite (OK with the token Dane who records private conversations, in turn as trustworthy as a crack-starved whore dying for a fix, or even less so) and the Anglo-Saxonic psyche is one in which, generally speaking of course, they smile to your face then make snide remarks behind your back. That is why I have always said, do not trust them, especially when they get together and form a critical mass.
Are these the ramblings of a paranoid anachronistic nutcase? Judge for yourselves. As soon as the Warsaw Pact dissolved, what happened? They intervened in the Balkans, sparking off the Civil War in Bosnia, they masterminded the dissolution of Yugoslavia, they kidnapped the President of Serbia (Milosevic) and held him illegally at The Hague, they cavorted with Albanian terrorists, aiding the Ushtria Çlirimtare ë Kosovës (KLA), wined and dined things like Thaçi in Washington without knowing what they were dealing with, ignored the human rights abuses by the Albanians, ignoring the fact that they were raping girls, cutting off heads and trafficking human organs.
Then they tried to make a deal with Mullah Omar in Afghanistan after they had funded, trained, armed and aided the Mujaheddin, who morphed into the Taleban and when Omar sent them where they belonged, they invaded, based upon 9/11, you know the event when the aircraft slammed into the Pentagon. No really. And when pristine Arab passports were found chucked on top of the pile of rubble in New York after the programmed implosion of the Twin Towers.
Then we had Iraq. We had colour revolutions all across Eurasia, we even had an attempted White Colour Revolution in Russia, complete with pictures in the newspapers of millions of people demonstrating in Moscow, which were in fact copied and pasted from 1991 when people were demonstrating about how the USSR was dissolved in a political process which did not involve the people.
We had, and we have, the torture and concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, then Washington and its poodles dare to speak about human rights abuses, let them choke when they do on their own words.
Then in 2008, Georgia. There were advisors from NATO states among the invading force which fired missiles at civilians in South Ossetia, murdering 365 civilians and military personnel, commands were given in English, while the western press said the missiles were Russian systems firing southwards. They tried it on again in Syria, where once again, after Libya, terrorists were used against the legitimate Government of President Assad, who is supported by far more than 50 per cent of his people, against marauding gangs of thugs, torturers, murderers, who in turn have murdered thousands of Syrian emergency services and security personnel, including policemen. And the west supports these demonic hordes?
Once again they paraded pictures taken from other theatres of war (Iraq, a decade before) to increase the demonology and then threw their toys out of the pram when President Putin stopped a western invasion of Syria in support of their terrorists, who were being pushed back, after yet another false flag event (chemical weapons attack which was perpetrated by anti-Assad forces in an area packed with Syrian Army personnel, a report of which has incriminated Washington itself) which in turn tried to create a causus belli.
The real target? Russia's Mediterranean naval base.
Hardly had the ink dried on the agreements over Syria, when NATO had its eyes on Ukraine, to be more specific, Russia's Black Sea naval bases, which it had coveted for years. The Maidan protesters were not acting alone, and the entire process was orchestrated with NATO's connivance. Terrorists were firing at the Ukrainian police and at the same time on the protesters, while President Yanukovich refused to open fire on his people. Agents provocateurs were calling for the deaths of Russians and Jews in the streets of Kiev, and the west supported them?
If Russia had not acted swiftly and with determination, today, the Crimean naval bases would belong to NATO because they would have been on the soil of a Ukraine ruled by a Junta crawling with Fascists and whose rhetoric has been from day one, anti-Russian.
The Constitution of the Russian Federation states that it is the duty of the Russian President to protect Russians inside Russia or on its borders. Russia has fostered friendly relations with all of its neighbours, while NATO sours the cream on a constant basis spreading its venom and hatred while it uses entire nations to achieve its hegemonistic goals.
And the ultimate goal, let there be no doubt, is Siberia and its huge resources. They will not stop, they will continue to chip away, with colour revolutions here, invasions there, sabotage here, murder there. They are dishonest, they are malevolent and they are downright evil. Trust NATO at your peril.
Recent history has taught us, however, that Russia is up to the mark. For now, the score stands at 3-0. Russia won in Georgia, Russia won in Syria and Russia won in the Crimea, yet the game is far from over. With NATO on the other side of the ball game, get ready for the goal-posts to be shifted, the referee assassinated and replaced and the playing surface tilted 45 degrees before the rules are changed and the team on the right of the pitch can pack the field with 500 players.
The second good note is that the population in the NATO countries is increasingly informed, is tired of NATO's wars and acts of intrusion overseas and is well aware that Government spending favours the energy, weapons, banking and pharmaceutical lobbies more than it does providing public services. This can only go on for so long, before the house of cards collapses.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru