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Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 16:35:46 +0100
Subject: Re: Joe Vialls: An amazing geopolitical assessment!
From: Helene Connor <•••@••.•••>
To: <•••@••.•••>
Dear Richard,
This analysis is earth-shaking. I wish you would not have cut the
article though. What is the "fall-back plan" they have in store?
Thanks for sharing with us the info that comes your way. We need
to know...
Best regards.
Helene
------------
Dear Helene,
I didn't cut the article. It ended abruptly with that reference to "Fortress
Americas". Perhaps that is a teaser for a follow-on article -- I hope so.
Perhaps Vialls thought stopping short would save him from suicide.
Not sure.
One shudders to think what Plan B might be about.
rkm
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From: •••@••.•••
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 22:32:18 EST
Subject: Re: Joe Vialls: An amazing geopolitical assessment!
To: •••@••.•••
Richard,
Yes, it's a very interesting article, even fascinating, but it
leaves monumental questions unanswered, mainly What does Russia
have against Israel that would make them make such threats or
carry out such actions? Vialls doesn't make that clear enough
for me.
Also, he doesn't give any clue as to how he knows of Russia's
plans. We can't just take his word for it, can we? As to your
remark about Britain and France choosing appeasement at Munich, I
think we may have gone over this before, where I pointed out that
it was not appeasement, it was collusion -- a common desire to
crush Bolshevism.
Take care,
Bill
----------
Dear Bill,
Nice to hear from you.
I agree that Munich was collusion, but that would have required
some supporting comments, drifting from the topic. I figured that
it was best to argue from the assumption that appeasement was
real, making it easy for those who believe that -- and those who
know better would be able to get past that and see the real
lesson the East has learned: beware the West in general -- it
speaks with a forked tongue. In Cantonese, the slang for
"European" is "White Devil".
I don't know where Viall gets his intelligence on Russia, or if he makes
it up. I'm hoping someone out there might have seen something for
or against credibility. But what Vialls claims makes sense in terms
the motivations and capabilities of the players. With the first Gulf
War, the Yugoslavia intrigues, and the post-911 aggressions, Russia
and China must realize that the US will listen to power and power
only. Such is the nature of bullies. Also, China & Russia are being
backed into a corner. A cornered beast usually attacks -- with whatever
fangs it has available.
I don't think we need to assume Russia is out to get Israel, any more than
we need to assume France & Britain had any great love for Poland. In both cases,
there was a line drawn in the sand for reasons not to be found in the vicinity
of
the line. Britain and France knew that the invasion of Poland signalled
ambitions
on Germany's part that would burst apart the European balance of power.
Similarly,
the Chinese and Russians understand that US-Israeli plans in the Middle East,
and US
plans in the Caspian and Korean regions signal an intention to achieve global
hegemony,
and a line again must be drawn somewhere.
regards,
rkm
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Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 11:31:20 +0800
To: •••@••.•••
From: Dion Giles <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: Joe Vialls: An amazing geopolitical assessment!
Dear Richard
Joe Vialls' assessment is indeed fascinating, and in these
dangerous times actually encouraging: an opposing fist under the
aggressors' nose is less-worse than the aggressors being able to
launch adventure after adventure. But we have to remember that
geopolitics is the language of grabbers, power-seekers and
colonialists, not the language of the people. From the point of
view of humanity, the Russians and Chinese rulers are not better
than the American rulers. They are as bad or worse, and what
they have to offer the people in terms of human freedom is
decidedly worse. Russia's murderous colonial campaign against
Chechnya dwarfs anything waged by the US, including the illegal
invasion of Iraq, since the rape of Vietnam. China's human
rights record (and even post-Soviet Russia's to say nothing of
the Soviet Union's) is a country mile worse than America's (bad
though that is). The Chinese threats to Taiwan, and colonialist
annexation of Tibet, may sound fine in geopolitical terms but
flies in the face of the right of peoples to self-determination.
---<snip>---
Dion Giles
Western Australia
-----------------
Dear Dion,
Certainly we do not see a 'good guys' vs. 'bad guys' in the East
vs. the US. But I'm not sure I would agree with your
characterization of the East being so much worse in its
oppressive actions. As the years go by, I find more and more of
the anti-Communist propaganda I was raised on was vastly
exaggerated. And I find the US was up to much worse than I ever
imagined. In Argentina during the era of The Disappeared -- a
project of Nelson Rockefeller and the School of the America's --
they used to take cargo planeloads of prisoners and dump them
miles out into the ocean. It doesn't get much worse than that.
The significance of these recent events lies in what you call the
'opposing fist'. In the current context that amounts to a retreat
from globalization, a counter-force to globalization. The article
spoke of geopolitical issues. But what about economics? If China
and Russia gain confidence in their ability to run an independent
geopolitical course, might they then not also stop and reconsider
their embracing of the disastrous capitalist economic path?
Might they not return to a more socialist position, this time out
of economic pragmatism rather than Marxist ideology? Might they
not see that such a stance might enable them to become a point of
leadership for the third world seeking to get out from under the
harsh thumb of the IMF? Has the US unleashed a new Cold War in
which it is this time on the defensive? Just as it has managed
to cause weapons of mass destruction to be introduced where
formerly there were none?
Who knows? If we enter again into bi-polar world, with the
lessons of the Cold War and the globalization era behind us, anything
becomes possible.
rkm
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Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 18:28:43 -0800
Subject: Re: Joe Vialls: An amazing geopolitical assessment!
From: Eva Lyman <•••@••.•••>
To: <•••@••.•••>
Hi, your point of view is interesting, but I don't agree with some of your
assessment of the situation.
At Munich, the French, and English betrayed (fortunately) the Czech
Republic with whom they had a tri-partite agreement of mutual defense.
(Had they gone to war I'm sure I wouldn't be writing you today.)
My assessment of the Vials article is that the Russians and Chinese have had
enough of the US encroaching on their territorial sphere of influence, and
have stood up to the arrogant sole superpower and shown that there are other
big players in the field.
As my dad used to say, the Americans play poker and the Russians play chess
(and the Chinese play 'go', a game like chess) -- what he meant was that the
US foreign policy does not seem to be well thought out into the future and
depends on bluff. Like poker.
Then again, I think the Russians, judging by their long term history don't
tend to go to war, but tend to defend, and here they are trying for a
political, and strategic checkmate to defend their interests.
They don't go to war but have bravely defended their territory, as we know
both against Napoleon, and Hitler. I can recall only two historical
occasions when Russia invaded Europe, once under Peter the Great, who
attacked little Sweden (and lost), and then Catherine the Great (a German
princess) attacked Poland, when Austria and Germany did at the same time.
Like the Americans, Russians don't tend to attack countries any remotely
their equal.
I understand China doesn't have a history of expansionism either, but tends
to protect its territory with determination and courage.
So I feel that these two countries have simply decided that the US is
stepping too close to their borders, and are making a move to check mate
this. Unless the US pushes them into a corner (and that is not in its
history either, look who they pick on, Panama, Iraq, historically the
Indians etc.), they won't go to war.
I never thought the Russians would have gone to war over the Cuban missile
crisis, like I say, it's not in their historical nature. Should the USA
attack them, however, they would give their defense all they've got, and
that's plenty. They are a lot tougher on the whole than us coddled North
Americans.
We saw in 1945 what sort of conditions they were willing/able to fight
under. As Churchill said it was the Asian hordes coming to civilised Europe.
Some even traveled in little hay filled carts pulled by a horse. We had
several dozen camped in our yard, and thousands in town, doubling the town
size by their numbers. For a kid it was an unforgettable experience, as they
let us play on and hang off the cannon on their tanks, and just loved little
kids to pieces.
They had none of the American army's support personnel, but essentially
lived off the land they passed through, shooting a cow here, stealing a
horse there, as needed.
I just wonder if Putin will survive his effort to pull Russia out of the
gutter. He seems to be ruffling a lot of powerful feathers, especially of
the financiers.
Didn't think I'd ever be cheering for an ex KGB man, but I must say I would
feel a lot safer if there was more than one superpower. A balance of power
is usually safer for all concerned.
Cheers, Eva L
------------
Dear Eva,
Many thanks for sharing your personally-handed-down experiences.
You speak apparently of Eastern Europe...which country?
cheers,
rkm
--
============================================================
"...the Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the
suspension of the Weimar constitution followed the
Reichstag fire."
- Srdja Trifkovic
There is not a problem with the system.
The system is the problem.
Faith in humanity, not gods, ideologies, or programs.
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