Russophobia Essential for US Middle East Policy – Lord Truscott

Although I was extremely upset with Russia for invading the Crimea, I have since come to believe that Crimeans actually wanted it, and I'm impressed that they pulled it off without a shot. The Ukrainian government is even more corrupt than Moscow, so they are probably better off. 

I have been leery of and critical of Putin's desire to rebuild the old Soviet empire and that still concerns me. But the hyperbolic, anti-Russian rhetoric coming out of the west in the past year has been disconcerting to say the least.

More on this later, but first, be aware this report originated with RT (Russia Today), a state-controlled news media, therefore, a lack of bias cannot be assumed, or even hoped for, but the statements of Lord Truscott are what is important here.

The sole focus of Western foreign policy on regime change in Syria is extremely worrying – not only for Syrians, but beyond – as it feeds arms sales and necessitates a climate of unprecedented Russophobia in order to function, Lord Peter Truscott told RT.

As major parts of Aleppo are liberated, the information war between Russia and the West continues to heat up. “There is an information war going on,” Truscott told RT, adding that “it occurs against the background of a level of Russophobia which I have not seen for many, many years.”

“I have been following Russia and international relations closely for 35 years and I have never witnessed so much Russophobia as I am witnessing today,” Truscott said. “It is not just the accounts of what is happening in Syria but a general attitude towards Russia. I think people just need to calm down. I am hopeful that the new Trump administration will take a more measured position [towards] Russia.”

Truscott sees a number of causes for this, as well as strategic reasons for the West to continue using Russia as pretext for things going wrong in Syria or beyond.

The proxy war in Syria

He sees the current situation in Syria as, firstly, a proxy war in which various regional players fight for different sides and, of course, different strands of Islam. However, it’s also a geopolitical split, where multiple players vie for control, their spheres of influence intersecting.

“What we are witnessing is Syria is a proxy war in effect and various regional players support different sides in this conflict that represents a religious split,” Truscott told RT, adding that “it is also a geopolitical split with the West on one side and largely Russia on the other.”

Ultimately, for Truscott, the reason Syrians – especially those in Aleppo – have it worse than they could is because rebuilding is being sacrificed for alternative aims, such as regime change. This leads to underreporting on both sides, be it the bombing of western Aleppo or the current situation in Yemen – a country the United States has business interests in, as long as it’s dealing with Saudi Arabia.

“It is not just eastern Aleppo, which suffered from bombing and civilians being killed, but also western Aleppo – and that is being underreported. The Western media have been focusing on eastern Aleppo but it is being underreported what is going on in western Aleppo during some of the attacks that take place there,” he said, stressing that “another example of Western coverage is what is happening in Yemen.”

The primary casualties of this are of course civilians, Truscott said. But there is another victim – truth. With multiple business interests at stake – such as the $500 million the US pumped into the rebels, as well as deals with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other Gulf States – regime change can be implemented, and money can be made.

“It is clear that the rebels are being supplied by weapons, munitions, equipment and money quite openly by countries like the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and some of the Gulf states. The US made no secret out of the fact that it pumped around $ 500 million in supporting some of the rebels,” Truscott stressed.

“Western foreign policy in Syria that is focused exclusively on regime change and getting rid of Assad has been an absolute disaster,” Truscott added. “You would think that the West would learn from history. It didn’t work very well in Iraq; it was a total disaster in Libya – which contributed to the refugee crisis that Europe is experiencing. And the same thing is going on in Syria.”

Pursuing regime change, Truscott said, “would just create a bigger crisis than [the one] that we are experiencing at the moment.”

‘Easy to fall back on old Cold War enemy rhetoric to justify defense spending’

So what is the reason behind Russia’s role as such a convenient enemy in Syria and the wider region? According to Truscott, it does not merely lie in Moscow’s support for Assad, but continues the old Cold War policy supported by the US military industrial complex due to its perceived low costs.

“The military industrial complex needs an enemy to justify its massive defense spending. It is very convenient for some to pick Russia as an enemy because they do not think there is much cost involved in that,” he told RT.

He also explained that the US sees a rivalry with Russia as a less risky option than a potential conflict with China. “If one picks China as an enemy, it is much more difficult to deal with a population of 1.4 billion people and a rising superpower as well as an economic powerhouse, which the US needs for trade,” Truscott said.

He went on to say that some people in the US military regard tense relations with Russia as a convenient justification for pursuing their old doctrine and pretending that their strategy is still relevant.

Can you spell NATO? It was 25 years ago that people began to question the need for NATO as the walls were coming down and communism was collapsing. Suddenly war broke out in the Balkans! I'm sure it was a coincidence! Really sure! Well, somewhat sure!

Now, as the EU has started talking about forming a military force, NATO is beginning to feel like it might end up in the scrap heap, so it can hardly be a surprise that Cold War rhetoric has returned. It is just a question of in what part of Europe will the war break out.

“It is quite an easy option for a lot of people in the military and security establishment to fall back on Russia as an old Cold War enemy and that is a bit of a comfort zone that gives them existential justification for their existence in their current stance,” Truscott told RT.

At the same time, he stressed that Western politicians must adapt to the rapidly changing reality and acknowledge the existence of new threats that pose a real danger, instead of promoting the old myth of perceived Russian aggression.

“The existential threat to the West is not Russia, it is Islamist fundamentalism,” he said.

And as long as we keep getting out attention deflected toward Russia, we are playing right into the hands of Muslim extremists and fundamentalists.

UK Inquiry Find Blair Went 'Beyond the Facts' Promoting Iraq War; No Inquiry for USA

The 7 year inquiry made it clear that there was no real evidence of WMDs or any immediate threat from Iraq. It found that Blair pushed for war without any scrutiny from parliament.

The USA did the same only VP Cheney knew the facts and altered them presenting outright lies to the people and to the world. 

And, based on those lies, pressured other countries into joining their illegal and immoral war. The US needs an inquiry to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Blair went ‘beyond the facts’ & damaged UK politics when advocating for Iraq invasion – Chilcot

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair © Neil Hall / Reuters

Former British PM Tony Blair resorted to rhetoric unsupported by any compelling evidence when he promoted the Iraq invasion to his cabinet and the British people, eroding public trust and inflicting long-term damage on UK politics, Sir John Chilcot said.

The author of the 2.6-million-word inquiry into the UK’s involvement in the US-led invasion in Iraq in 2003, Chilcot told the House of Commons Liaison Committee on Wednesday that he could “only imagine” how much time it would take to repair the trust of the UK public in politics damaged by Tony Blair, who manipulated public opinion and his own cabinet by strong words into invading Iraq, rather than presenting hard evidence. 

"I think when a government or the leader of a government presents a case with all the powers of advocacy that he or she can command, and in doing so goes beyond what the facts of the case and the basic analysis of that can support, then it does damage politics, yes," Chilcot said, as cited by the Independent, after being questioned about the longstanding repercussions of Blair’s policy.

In his parliamentary address to the nation on March 18, 2003, Blair had employed all his rhetorical prowess to persuade the public of an “imminent threat” that did not exist, the report has found.

"A speech was made in advocate's terms and putting the best possible inflection on the description that he used," Chilcot said, adding that “objectively” the decision to send troops to Iraq was “unreasonable.”

However, Chilcot was cautious about blaming Blair for duping the British people into believing what he knew was not true, saying, “It’s impossible for me to say what was going through Tony Blair’s mind when he came to the conclusions he did,” the Guardian reported.  

While Chilcot does not consider Blair to be an outright liar who would “state falsehoods knowing them to be false,” he believes that the former PM had exploited his “political and personal dominance” over the cabinet to shun any debate on the issue.

Even when some cabinet members attempted to initiate a debate and seek more info from the PM on the weapons of mass destruction the then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was claimed to possess, Blair appeared to dodge the questions, Chilcot said.

"They were promised it sometimes, but the promises were not delivered,” Chilcot said, as cited by Daily Mail, recalling the evidence he was given by Blair’s foreign secretary Jack Straw.  

The single-handed manner in which Blair dealt with the issue bypassing his government’s oversight resembles the way it could have been handled in the absolute monarchy of the 18th century, with Blair being a sovereign himself, Iain Wright, the member of the committee from the Labor Party, pointed  out.  

"Is it almost the 21st Century equivalent of Louis XIV – 'I am the state'?" he asked Chilcot, as cited by the Guardian. Chilcot, in turn, agreed with the notion.

"I observed what can be described in that way,” he said.

"Sir John's evidence confirmed what many of us have long suspected – in making his case for war, Mr Blair went beyond the facts. In doing so, Mr Blair eroded the trust of the electorate in its leaders, a shocking legacy," the committee chair said, commenting on the questioning session.

The much-awaited seven-year investigation into the Iraqi war, the Chilcot Report, was published in July. While the report did not raise the issue of the legality of the war, it shed light on the lack of evidence that would suggest that Iraq posed immediate threat to the UK, and blamed government for “wholly inadequate” preparations of the UK army to the war and underestimating its consequences.

In the wake of its release, Blair defended his controversial decision to venture into the war, arguing it was “the right thing to do” saying that he was acting in “good faith.”

Faith in who, or what? You acted recklessly, Mr Blair, and sorely tarnished a legacy that would otherwise have been complimentary, and you did it deliberately. No, it was not 'the right thing to do', as time has made clear, 'it was the wrong thing to do' as any immoral act always is.