by B. R. GOWANI
U.S. Senator John McCain gestures during a session at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos January 24, 2014. PHOTO/Ruben Sprich/Reuters
The Republican Senator from Arizona and former presidential candidate John McCain is never at peace with peace, even itsy bitsy peace, that is, negotiating with Iran or not dropping bombs on Syria – even though both countries are victims of US economic embargoes and news media lies and propaganda. At the World Economic Forum in January 2014, he was critical of President Barack Obama:
Then he advised his “friend” John Kerry, the US Secretary of State:
“[John Kerry needs to work hard] as long as we have a president who does not believe in American exceptionalism”.
Government officials the world over are allergic to truth and so when someone in power speaks the truth, it is our duty to acknowledge. Kerry, at the same forum, refuted the charge:
“I must say I am perplexed by claims that I occasionally hear that somehow America is disengaging from the world, this myth that we are pulling back or giving up or standing down. In fact, I want to make it clear today that nothing could be further from the truth. This misperception, and in some case, a driven narrative, appears to be based on the simplistic assumption that our only tool of influence is our military, and that if we don’t have a huge troop presence somewhere or we aren’t brandishing an immediate threat of force, we are somehow absent from the arena. I think the only person more surprised than I am by the myth of this disengagement is the Air Force pilot who flies the Secretary of State’s plane.”
Just within a month, however, the Obama administration gave McCain a good news: it had removed Ukraine’s elected President Viktor Yanukovych in a United States sponsored successful coup.
The US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland met Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych PHOTO/BBC
In the photo on the left, the US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, with a big smile, is shaking hand with President Yanukovych whom she, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the US Ambassador to Ukraine, were planning to remove from power. And he was removed by distributing money to the opposition groups and creating chaos in the country.
In the photo on the right, Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt (centre) met Ukrainian opposition leaders Vitaly Klitschko (L) and Arseniy Yatsenyuk (R) PHOTO/BBC
Here is what Nuland is heard telling Pyatt, in a leaked phone conversation, as to which of the two opposition leaders should take over:
“Good. I don’t think Klitsch should go into the government. I don’t think it’s necessary, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Nuland again:
“I think Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience….”
And so it was. On February 27, 2014, with the blessings of the United States, Arseniy Yatsenyuk was installed as the Prime Minister of Ukraine.
(Read and/or listen to the conversation between Nuland and Pyatt here.)
McCain laments that during his worldwide travels, he unanimously hears that the US is withdrawing and its influence is on the the decline. One wonders who does he talk to. Has he ever spoken to the victims of the US armed forces and the CIA in Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and many other countries.
Here is the US government owned Voice of America reminding readers about the US military record:
“By some counts, the U.S. has been involved in more than 50 significant military actions in the last half century – an average of more than one a year – ranging from significant fighting in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan to lesser incursions in such far-flung countries as Kuwait, Bosnia, Pakistan, Libya, Grenada, Haiti and Panama.
That total does not count more limited U.S. actions, such as drone strikes it now is carrying out against suspected Taliban insurgents in the Middle East.”
The United States is waiting for an excuse to harden its grip on the encirclement of Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin is right now walking on a sword’s edge. One wrong move on his part will result in the US success in dragging him in a long war. The US is trying to lure, as Mike Whitney points out correctly, Putin government into its trap, as the US did it in the 1970s with another Russian government (then it was part of the Soviet Union) by giving it its “Vietnam.” Here are the infamous words of Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser:
If Russia is dragged into a war with its neighbor Ukraine, it will be a great news for McCain and his fellow warmongers. Then you’ll see him praising the Obama government and shaking hands with Obama.
This is how the civilized derive their pleasure.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com