Peace In Our Time? If Europe And Russia Have Their Way And Not U.S. ~ THE 5TH ESTATE ASIA

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Peace In Our Time? If Europe And Russia Have Their Way And Not U.S.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

MSM studiously continues to ignore the fact that this entire episode that has brought Europe to the brink of WWIII and complete destruction was Obama's failed CIA engineered and financed coup in Kiev designed to "punish" Putin for granting asylum to Edward Snowden

WORLD NEWS
By Dallas Darling
02/09/2015

As Europe and Eurasia anxiously await to see if the Ukraine-Russia Conflict can be resolved peacefully, possibly avoiding more bloodshed and a catastrophic war, signatories (Russia, Ukraine representatives and Ukraine separatists) to last September's accord will be meeting in Minsk this Wednesday. Following two other meetings last Friday in Moscow, between Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russia's President Vladimir Putin, and then again on Saturday in Munich, the mood is hopeful. In fact, many believe there will be "peace in our time."

But the same cannot be said of the United States. From prominent political leaders to radio talk-show hosts and people on the street, almost everyone is excitedly discussing the crisis.

Many are even anticipating and desiring a kind of World War Three scenario. What accounts for such major differences?

It was not long ago that the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to the European Union. The 2012 decision was met with praise and accolades, and rightly so.

The committee recognized six decades during which Europe had renounced violence and become a beacon of "peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights," both on the subcontinent and beyond.(1) The European Union's peace model has been a tremendous success, especially when considering World War One and Two, and then the Cold War. Tens of millions of people were killed across Europe, with national boundaries being redrawn. While the wars created unspeakable refugee crises, immense war crimes and atrocities were committed against various ethnicities. But again, past hatreds have been buried. Germany and Europe reunified after the Cold War.

Ruins of Cathedral of St. Quentin, France, 1918 by Edward Harrs (NARA)

While Europeans understand the massive sufferings and human toll of a war ravaged continent, including the destructive nature of nationalistic pride, belligerency and retaliation, the same is not true for the U.S. And yet for well over 150 years, it has not faced a serious military threat, nor is there a plausible situation by which one could emerge.(2) With the world's largest economy, the most powerful military, a huge nuclear arsenal, a civilian population armed to the teeth, and protected by two oceans and friendly neighbors, one could assume the U.S. would be a peace-loving nation, that it felt safe and secure within its borders. But perhaps the very pillars of American security is the reason many Americans yearn for a global conflict. In other words, they have never really known the horrors and devastating long-term effects of an intra-continental war.

Berlin, 1945

Being a superpower, the U.S. also seems incapable of comprehending power balancing among other nations, something Europe and Eurasia have had to achieve to prevent the emergence of a dominant power and more conflicts. While geography has finally brought European and Eurasian nations together, both being careful to contain isolated and sectional conflicts, the U.S. gravely exaggerates international instabilities.

As two historical scholars warned: "If history has taught us anything, it is precisely the contrary of the lesson drawn by those who urge us to be the world's policeman.

It is that peace is normally divisible and that conflicts, whatever their origin, are normally of merely local or regional significances."(2) Behind this conventional wisdom are two dangers: a colossal armaments industry and a mass media that induces fear and imaginary threats.

Also undermining peace in our time is historical selectivity.

Politicians embellish the Munich Pacts (there were three meetings) of 1939, when Britain's Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed an amiable treaty with Germany's Adolf Hitler. This isolated incident of where appeasement failed neglects the hundreds of others where it succeeded. Extremely complex conditions, where boundaries had been redrawn and ethnic minorities in turmoil, glossed over. Neither is the U.S. able to recognize that it might be the actual aggressor. The U.S. has admitted a role in toppling Ukraine's pro-Russian leader.

England and Europe found out exactly what it meant to attempt appeasement with a dictator

As a result, there has been a resurgence of neo-Nazis, attacking and massacring Ukrainian separatists. The most recent one, a defenseless hospital in Donetsk shelled by Ukraine troops(4), evokes the Odessa Massacre, in which dozens were burned to death in a union building.

Regarding the massacre of Ukrainian separatists, a member of the Ukrainian parliament said, "Bravo, Odessa ... Let the Devils burn in hell." An official of Ukraine's national security, Dmytro Yarosh, called it "another bright day in our national history."(5) Furthermore, Russia is no Nazi Germany, as many Americans claim, stirring up Danzig and East Germany and easily annexing the Rhineland, Austria, Sudetenland, and then Czechoslovakia. Nor does Putin have an alliance with several other European nations, as Hitler did. Finally, how many nations in the Western Hemisphere has Russia invaded and occupied with troops?

Compare this to the United States and its numerous preemptive wars and soldiers stationed in the Eastern Hemisphere, such as Iraq,Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and, of course, every NATO member.

Merkel playing kissy-face with Satan

On Monday, Merkel meets with President Barack Obama. After 5000 deaths in Ukraine, she will carry this message of peace in our time:

"I cannot imagine any situation in which improved equipment of the Ukrainian army leads to President Putin being so impressed that he believes he well lose militarily… I understand the debate but I believe that more weapons will not lead to the progress Ukraine needs." (Does this also mean more U.S. troops as some Americans propose?)

Despite what U.S. war hawks are saying and Cold War warriors planning, peace in our time has won out far more many times than aggressive belligerency and preemptive war in our time. It is time for the U.S. to follow the lead of the European Union, which, and unlike the United States(6), has proven to be a model of peace and security, not to mention unity.

Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John's Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.worldnews.com. You can read more of Dallas' writings at www.beverlydarling.com and wn.com//dallasdarling.

(1) www.allvoices.com. "European Union wins Nobel Peace Prize" by Herbert Dyer, Jr., December 11, 2012.

(2) Callahan, Patrick. Logics Of American Foreign Policy: Theories Of America's World Role. New York, New York: Pearson and Longman Publishers, 2004., p. 55.

(3) Ibid., p. 56.

(4) www.assosciatedpress.com. "After Deadly Shells, Sorrow and Chaos at Donetsk" by Simon Valmary., February 4, 2015.

(5) www.axisoflogic.com. "Six Live Cremations the West Want You to Ignore" by Robert Barsocchini, February 5, 2015.

(6) For example, in trying to topple President Assad of Syria, the United Nations has claimed that over 200,000 Syrians have now been killed.

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