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There is a road via negotiation and compromise toward peaceful coexistence. And tragically, this is a road that is not being followed today.
Why not? "What kind of madness possesses the the American and NATO leaders today?
First of all, captivated by "group think," these leaders appear to be totally clueless about political psychology and history, as they attempt, full-out, to bully Russia with threats and sanctions. Don't they realize that such behavior almost invariably unites a nation behind its leader -- even a despot as ruthless as Josef Stalin? Again, look to history: Pearl Harbor, The Battle of Britain, Operation Barbarossa (the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union). The Japanese were convinced that Americans were weak, selfish and pleasure-seeking. Destroy their Pacific fleet and the Americans will surely sue for peace. When warned not to invade the Soviet Union, Hitler reportedly said: "We have only to kick in the front door and the whole rotten Russian edifice will come tumbling down."
Didn't happen!
Instead, we Americans responded to the Japanese attack with defiance, as did the Russians to the Nazi invasion.
Yet today, the political ignoramuses that write and implement our foreign policy seem to believe that with a few sanctions and NATO missile bases along the western border, Russia will fold like a cheap lawn chair and meekly consent to "regime change" followed by economic colonization in the "hegemony" of the neo-cons' "New American Century."
Don't these Ivy-League idiots understand who they are dealing with? Did they flunk all their history classes at Harvard and Yale? Do they not realize that the Russians are a proud and stubborn people, who, just like us, respond to threats with defiance? "Billions for defense, not one Kopeck for tribute." Just ask the Germans.
Russia is a nation that built factories from the ground up east of the Urals after the Germans flattened their industrial base in the west. It is a nation that produced thousands of first-class weapons such as the Ilyushin Stormavic fighter-bomber and the T-34 tank. It is a nation which, at the sacrifice of a sixth of its population, pushed back the Wehrmacht along a two-thousand mile front from Leningrad through Stalingrad to Sevastopol and the Caucuses, all the way back to the streets of Berlin.
Yet we somehow believe that the Russians won't stand up to our economic bullying. People capable of believing that are also capable of believing that when we invade Iraq our troops will be "greeted with flowers and sweets," and that the cost of the invasion will be fully covered by oil revenues. (Off by a mere three-trillion dollars).
And so now, having failed to learn from history, we Americans are apparently preparing to repeat it.
III
Instead, let's all pause for a moment, take a deep breath, and look carefully down that dreadful road, before we travel on.
First, it is past time that we shelve the imperial ambitions that were clearly articulated by the Neo Cons and the Project for a New American Century. Aside from the immorality of such pretensions, the simple fact is that the rest of the world, Russia above all, will not tolerate and will steadfastly resist the American "hegemony" that the neo-cons wish to impose on them. The nations beyond our shores are well aware of the misery that unregulated libertarian capitalism has brought to the mass of Americans, and they want none of it.
As we may soon discover to our sorrow, the rest of the world is well-equipped to resist and reject "the New American Century." Especially so if economic alliances unite against the American "hegemon." Such alliances are being formed at this moment, as China has recently agreed to come to Russia's aid during its current economic crisis. And today, the BRICS alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) is gaining strength, and is in place to dominate the global economy if and when the 95% of humanity outside our borders has had quite enough of our lawless arrogance and bullying.
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