US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nicki Haley
Take your pick, Russia, China and Iran. All are in the crosshairs of US machinations ranging from war like provocations at their borders, fomenting internal dissent with the intent to bring eventual regime change, hegemony over them or war.
Now with Donald Trump in the White House it's becoming evident that he is no different than if a Democrat was in charge. Nuances, attitudes, bombast may be different but the ultimate strategy remains the same.
The US is a militant state needing "enemies", real or contrived to justify its bloated, unnecessary war machine and it's been that way since the end of WWII when the US stood alone as the preeminent power, unrivaled only to be challenged by the Soviet Union once it became a nuclear power. That brought the onset of the cold war which lasted 40 years till the demise of the USSR in 1991. Then it took 10 years for a new "enemy" to be found.
And with 9/11 that new "enemy" conveniently became al Qaeda, its face Osama bin Laden with his Islamic terrorism network and with it the war on terror.
But terrorists as "enemies" can hardly justify a $trillion dollar defense, security, surveillance budget so a new cold war had to be contrived so Russia, China and Iran became the new "enemies". In conjunction the American people had to be brought on board, made fearful through the governments tried and true propaganda formula, repeated endlessly through its complicit corporate MSM enablers to buy into and support this new cold war.
And here we are today.
On Thursday another bad omen came emanating from the Trump administration on the foreign policy front.
The "Donald's" UN Ambassador Nicki Haley speaking before the UN Security Council said, "The United States continues to condemn and call for an immediate end to the Russian occupation of Crimea. Crimea is part of Ukraine. Our Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control of the peninsula to Ukraine." While reading Haley's comments one thought Obama's UN Ambassador Samantha Power had returned to the scene.
Haley's remarks came during a emergency UN meeting after new violence emerged in Eastern Ukraine with the Russian speaking Eastern Ukrainian's blaming the Ukrainian government for the renewed fighting while Kiev said it was the so called "rebels", the Russia backed separatists that were violating the Minsk ceasefire agreement.
"Reportedly" an unidentified source told CNN, "the White House was aware in advance of Haley's speech...didn't get direction...but wasn't asked not to do it" while "another source said the National Security Council signed off on the remarks." Think what you will of the validity considering it was CNN's unidentified sources.
So is Trump reversing himself with regards to Russia just days after last Saturday's reportedly favorable one hour phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin?
It's hard to say. It wasn't Trump making the remarks at the UN and it wasn't Trump saying he agreed with Haley's comments.
But Haley's remarks definitely contradicts Trump's earlier position regarding Crimea when in the campaign he supposedly "hinted" he might recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea.
All this comes after newly confirmed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said before the Senate Foreign relations Committee, "I would block access to the islands in the South China Sea."
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