[continued from previous message]   
      
   for example, our 60-year war against Cuba, including Kennedy’s   
   terrorist war. Brutal, harsh, destructive sanctions, the entire world   
   opposes them. Europe opposes them. Take a look at the United Nations   
   vote. Last vote was 184 to two against them. United States and Israel.   
   Israel’s a satellite, it has to vote with the United States.   
      
   So universal opposition, but universal adherence to them because   
   they’re terrified of the United States. Other countries won’t violate   
   US sanctions, even though they oppose them and hate them, because they   
   understand international affairs. They understand that the United   
   States is a violent, rogue state, we should do what it wants. Do I   
   have to run through the history on that?   
      
   Bill Fletcher Jr.: No, you obviously don’t. But Germany had   
   substantial business dealings with Russia.   
      
   Noam Chomsky: Right.   
      
   Bill Fletcher Jr.: France was not interested in some sort of European   
   conflagration. All I’m saying is that it’s one thing to go along with   
   US policy when it’s far afield. What we’re dealing with Ukraine,   
   though, was right in the face of the Germans, the French, and other   
   Europeans. And the NATO countries, at least two of them, bigger ones,   
   were saying they did not want Ukraine in.   
      
   Noam Chomsky: And they’re saying other things too. They hate the Cuba   
   sanctions. They hate the Iran sanctions. They hate lots of other   
   things that the United States does, but they adhere to them because   
   they’re terrified of our violent rogue state. They adhere to them. So   
   they oppose them.   
      
   Now to get back to your question, if there had been anyone in the   
   Kremlin with any resemblance to being a statesman, what they would’ve   
   done is quite different from what Putin and the hard men around him   
   decided to do. They would’ve exploited the opportunity to bring France   
   and Germany into an agreement, pretty much along the line of   
   Gorbachev’s common European home, without military alliances. France   
   and Germany, as you mentioned, have very good reasons to want to   
   pursue this possibility. President Macron of France, actually, in a   
   very limited way tried to pursue it with his abortive interchanges   
   with Putin.   
      
   Would’ve been a very sensible thing to try to do. That requires   
   statesmanship. Okay. Would it have worked? We don’t know. Putin and   
   his circle didn’t try. They reached for the guns right away, the way   
   other great powers do, like the United States. It was a criminal   
   decision. And from their point of view, an utterly stupid decision.   
   What Putin did was provide the United States, on a silver platter, the   
   greatest gift it could imagine. It handed Germany and France over to   
   the United States. Placed them deep in the US’s pocket, now totally   
   subordinate to the United States, when Russia’s interest, including   
   his interest, would’ve been to try to draw them out of the US orbit   
   and into a framework of the kind that Gorbachev outlined. Which was   
   not new, incidentally.   
      
   A major issue right through the Cold War since the Second World War   
   has been, what will be the status of Europe? Will Europe be   
   subordinate to the United States within the NATO framework, so-called   
   Atlanticist framework? Or will Europe become an independent force in   
   world affairs along the lines that the goal outlined, as he put it,   
   Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals with no military blocks?   
   Basically Gorbachev’s vision. And that’s been on the table for 75   
   years. Major issue. The United States, of course, approves the NATO   
   Atlanticist framework. Again, if there was a statesman in the Kremlin,   
   they would’ve explored the goal list, Gorbachev’s vision of a European   
   common home with no military alliances.   
      
   Instead, what they did is reach for the revolver, carry out criminal   
   aggression, severely harming themselves, giving the United States the   
   greatest gift it could imagine. Going back to China and the United   
   States, you can imagine a reason why neither of them, why they’re both   
   essentially following the same line, fight to the last Ukrainian and   
   don’t do anything to enhance the possibilities of peaceful settlement.   
   In fact, undermine them, in the case of the United States, by backing   
   Putin to the wall with no escape hatch. A plausible explanation for   
   this joint stand of China and the United States is that they both see   
   the evolving situation as pretty much to their advantage. In the   
   Chinese case, it’s driving Russia into becoming a subordinate to the   
   Chinese growing system.   
      
   China is developing a huge system of development loans extending   
   through central Asia, incorporating South Asia, moving to Turkey soon,   
   probably to central Europe, moving to Africa, to Southeast Asia, even   
   to US domains in Latin America. If they can draw - Russia’s already   
   part of it, but if Russia can become a subordinate member of it,   
   providing raw materials, heavy weapons - Its specialty - But nothing   
   else as it declines, that’s to China’s advantage.   
      
   What about the United States? Putin, in his criminal foolishness, gave   
   the United States everything that American strategists could want, put   
   Europe deep in the US’s pocket, now they do whatever the United States   
   says. In fact, they’re going quite wild. Like in Italy, canceling   
   lectures on Dostoevsky, kicking Russian cats out of an international   
   cat conference. US hawks couldn’t want anything more.   
      
   Also, increasing their military expenses. There’s joy in the Lockheed   
   Martin headquarters, you can be certain. Also, there’s joy in the   
   ExxonMobil headquarters because what’s happening, one of the most   
   important things that’s happening, is that the slim chances of   
   escaping disaster, catastrophe by destroying the environment, those   
   slim chances are being reduced, may be eliminated. The offices of   
   ExxonMobil, the joy is overflowing, not concealed. They’ve got these   
   annoying environmentalists out of their hair. They now want to be   
   loved, or as they put it, they want to be hugged for their work   
   because now they’re saving civilization by increasing the production   
   of fossil fuels and driving the world to total catastrophe. They want   
   to be hugged for it. So there’s plenty of joy in august strategic   
   circles and military production, fossil fuel circles. So why do   
   anything to try to save Ukrainians? Why not continue to fight to the   
   last Ukrainian?   
      
   Bill Fletcher Jr.: So Noam, you are placing a lot of emphasis on what   
   the role of the United States has been in laying the foundation for   
   this crisis. And I want to better understand what’s going on in the   
   Putin regime. You have talked quite eloquently about the criminality   
   of the Putin regime. I’m thinking about what Putin did to the   
   Chechnyans. I’m thinking about what was done with the Russian   
   intervention in the Syrian uprising and the brutal bombings that the   
   Russians were engaged in, and other kinds of activities. And in that   
   sense, I see a line that goes from Chechnya to Ukraine that is not   
   just about the role of the United States, except and insofar as   
   perhaps competition. How do you look at that?   
      
   Noam Chomsky: Chechnya was ugly, vicious, destructive, but it is   
   within the Russian Federation. Ugly, we’ve got plenty of examples.   
   Take Syria. Syria, what was happening, it was criminal and murderous   
   and destructive. But if we want to know the reasons, they’re not   
   obscure. The United States, France, Germany were supporting opposition   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)