07/15/16 – Joe Lauria – The Scott Horton Show

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Introducing Joe Lauria, UN Joe, correspondent, United Nations correspondent for the Wall Street Journal for a long, long time.
Now a little bit more freelance.
Usually you can find him over at consortiumnews.com.
On the line from the lobby at the airport in Berlin today.
Welcome back to the show.
How you doing, Joe?
Thank you.
I'm doing fine, Scott.
I should do that more often.
Tell the people where my guests are on the line from.
A lot of times it's really interesting, but I always forget to.
Yeah, I was in Amman, Amman, Jordan the last time you spoke.
Yeah, there you go.
You could go.
Yeah, see?
Doesn't that make it more interesting, everybody?
When you picture where the guy is?
Yeah.
Especially when it's somewhere far away and interesting.
And yeah, hey, speaking of Berlin, it's kind of the crux of the matter, ain't it?
Germany, major power in Europe, part of the NATO alliance, core of the EU, if not the core of NATO.
And the last time we spoke was, I don't know, a week ago or something, was about the German foreign minister telling NATO and America to chill before they get us into a war with Russia.
But since then, and there were war games that had just been held, and then now since then, though, they've had their big political meeting.
And so now I will ask you to tell us everything that you know and think about the big NATO meeting that has just recently taken place.
Unfortunately, the outcome was what was expected, but also this frack in the alliance that was opened up by those remarks from Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the foreign minister of Germany, who had said about a week prior to the NATO summit that NATO should stop sabre rattling and war mongering or making war cries against Russia, and that this was extremely dangerous and that we needed to cooperate with Russia and the West would not achieve anything by a tank parade, is how they put it, on the eastern border.
And of course the troops, the 31,000 NATO troops that took part in that, marched many of them from Germany to Poland to the Russian border, the exact route that the Nazis took in 1941 in Operation Barbarossa when they invaded Russia, the Soviet Union.
That symbolism was not lost on a lot of people.
So the summit came and that split kind of remained.
Steinmeier didn't make the same exact remarks, but he was not full-throated, did not give full-throated support, nor did Bulgaria, Italy.
These countries showed that they thought that Russia was a partner, and they made that clear statement that they made at the summit, and even Angela Merkel made some, you know, after she gave all the war mongering talk that the Americans demanded of her and expected of her, she then also, I think, tried to play to the left side.
She has an election, she has to be elected again, so she doesn't want to completely alienate Steinmeier's camp, especially the Social Democrats, and she said that, you know, it would be better if we were partners with Russia, but in the meantime we're going to prepare for a war, and the NATO statement, the declaration that came out is 35 pages long, and the fifth paragraph already talks about Russia's aggressive actions, including provocative military activities in the periphery of NATO, and its demonstrated willingness to pertain to political goals by the threat and use of force, and that Russia is a source of regional instability, and is fundamentally challenging the alliance.
Now, if you put that into a mirror, you'd get the exact opposite, which is exactly what NATO is doing, which is NATO is the one raising tensions, which is what Steinmeier said, NATO is the one whose military activities are threatening and aggressive, NATO is the one that's causing Russia to take defensive measures that are then interpreted as offensive.
This is really how you look at it, what is offensive and what's defensive, this is really the divide in this argument, and as I point out in that last article I did, you know, Mark Twain talked about this last century, that statesmen will put forward cheap lies to attack the country, lies about the country that's to be attacked, and the population will believe it, and then once that population stands up for itself, they're accused of aggression, and then it becomes a matter of so-called self-defense when it's really aggression.
So this is what we're seeing, and it's dangerous for two main reasons.
One, there is language in this declaration that hints at a possible ultimatum to Russia at some point on Crimea.
They ask Russia, you know, they're doing their due diligence by asking Russia to please vacate Crimea and give it back to Ukraine, of course they know that's not going to happen, and building up forces in the south in that area where Russia's also on the Russian side been building up forces, and also along the eastern frontier, Poland and the Baltics, these are the flashpoints, and Syria is of course the third possible flashpoint, but the Crimean one is probably the most dangerous.
If an ultimatum is made at some point, this would not be under Obama's presidency, because at this moment he is negotiating with Russia to try to cooperate in Syria, which is what they should have been doing all along, it's what Putin proposed at the UN General Assembly in his speech just over an hour or so after Obama spoke last September, when he called for a grand alliance reminiscent of the Soviet, US, and West alliance against the Nazis to join together to destroy this monster, this Frankenstein monster that Putin clearly said the US had a hand in developing, which they have, and was out of hand rejected, and now we're talking about them possibly working together, as it's becoming clearer and clearer, now again after Nice, before that Brussels, Paris, after Turkey airport in Istanbul.
This is way out of control, this is something Al-Qaeda was never capable of, 9-11 aside, and they're realizing now that this blowback is getting way out of hand, and they've got to do something, so I think that's driving in some extent the US-Russian attempts to coordinate their attacks on the Islamic State in Syria, and then in Iraq as well, at least the Americans are taking the charge there, because that is the priority, even Donald Trump said at one point, at least, I don't know what he said five minutes after that, but at one point he said that the priority is getting rid of, destroying this monstrous group and then we deal with Assad and what happens, and I think Obama's coming around to see that, he put the brakes on an attack on Syria after that chemical weapons attack, he's trying to do this, I don't know how far they're going to go, they're asking for this safe zone to be set up that I doubt Russia will ever allow, that's Hillary Clinton's main thing, so under a Clinton presidency, which looks likely, or even under a Trump one, we don't know, this cooperation could fade and we could see the move on Crimea and an ultimatum given to Putin, and if he calls their bluff, what will the West do, will they start hostilities to get back Crimea, I mean that could be the point we could reach, and I think that's what came out of this NATO summit basically.
Well, and you know, I hate to say it, but same as always I guess, that the fact that this is crazy does not mean it's not true, or outside the realm of possibility or even conventional thinking in D.C., you know, what we should do is expand our naval presence in the Black Sea, that'll show them we mean business, this is what the adults are talking about, the people in power.
Yes, and again, you have to blame the corporate media because they never reported those remarks of Steinmeier or Peter Pablos, the head of the NATO military committee who, a week before the summit, said there was no intelligence to show any Russian aggression, no intelligence suggests that.
It blew up this whole year's worth of drumming into Western citizens' minds that Russia was poised to pounce and threaten us with war, and we have to defend against them, and he said it's not true.
So if the press doesn't publish that over and over again, doesn't even look critically at this argument and these continued statements from Western officials that Russia is the threat, and of course, as far as Ukraine goes, the way that coup d'etat was covered.
They barely mentioned the Victoria Nuland tape in which she's speaking to the American ambassador to Ukraine, and a few weeks before Yanukovych is overthrown, they're talking about midwifing this thing, gluing it together, and that Yatsenuk would be the new prime minister, and that's of course who became the prime minister, and this is red-handed, smoke-and-gun evidence of collusion by the United States, by the undersecretary of state and the local ambassador to glue together a midwife coup d'etat, and what did the Western press cover?
That she used the F-word.
I don't know if you could use it on your radio station, but she said F-you to the Europeans, to the EU, because they weren't on board fully, they were hesitant about this, as they rightly should have been, so she said F-you, and that's when we got a little bit of titillation in the press, ha, ha, ha, Victoria Nuland used the F-word, and that was completely unimportant, what was important was the evidence of the U.S. coup d'etat.
Now, if that hadn't been reported, if the American people understood this, they'd say, well, wait a minute, maybe the people of eastern Ukraine are rebelling against this coup, they don't want to be ruled by this installed government, they voted overwhelmingly for Yanukovych, and their guy was overthrown, and they don't want to be ruled by this very anti-Russian government that had no problem working with very extremist groups, neo-Nazi types, that went ahead and committed massacres, and that was in the vanguard of the fighting in Maidan, and killing police, and that scared Yanukovych and his government to leave, that's how the coup took place, with that ugly, not that there wasn't legitimate protest against Yanukovych, and there was, but this vanguard of extremist was what happened, the U.S. colluded together, now the people of Crimea did not want to be ruled by Kiev, by this coup government, and of course, that the U.S. and Bush, going back to the Bush administration, talked about Ukraine becoming part of NATO, I mean, then there'd be a big battle over this naval base that the Russians have in Crimea, you know, Russia doesn't want to lose that base, they have a lease, so he, they organized a very quick referendum, and they overwhelmingly voted to join Russia, Western diplomats and others, they support their view, say that this is not a legitimate referendum, because it was organized very quickly, well, they've had polls since then that still show overwhelming, you know, a year later, maybe not at 90%, but they still support for having joined Russia, so it takes a year to do the referendum, rather than a few weeks, I don't know how the result would have been different, but Crimea is something that the West is demanding Russia would give back, starting with this request, this is like in this NATO declaration, that it could come to an ultimatum to Putin, and then that would be a really tough spot, and as far as Syria goes, whether the U.S. in the short term works together with Russia, once Hillary Clinton or perhaps Trump gets in power, that could end, I think with Clinton it's almost certain to end, she wants to set up a safe zone, a no-fly zone to shoot down Syrian Arab army planes, or Russia, they're the only ones flying in Syria right now, so this could also be a flashpoint between Russia and the U.S., and it's absolute insanity, they're being driven by the megalomania to try to retake, control the Russian economy, the way they had it with Yeltsin, during the Clinton years, with Yeltsin in, where Wall Street ran the place in their alliance with oligarchs, raped the country, people were destitute, Putin, you know, authoritarian, he's protecting Russian interests, and he has approved the living standards of most Russians, and they like him for that, 80% approval, but Wall Street doesn't like him, and the neocons don't like him, because he's not their guy, and he's standing up, and anybody who stands in the way of their global demands of domination, which we know about from Project New American Century, it's written down, has to be removed from one way or the other by coup or other means, so they're playing with a huge fire, and in the meantime, the western publics are pretty much unaware of this very threatening situation between Russia and NATO, and they're, even here in Germany, where I am now, where there's a larger section of the public that's aware of American abuse of power since the end of the Second World War, they, you know, there's no demand for American bases to leave this country, 70 years after the Second World War, 25 years after the Cold War, why is America here?
I asked Germans, or Russians, to threaten, and of course, they buy this, despite what their own foreign minister has said, despite what a lot, many members of the Social Democratic Party, or even the more left parties, say, Anglo-Liberal keeps getting elected, they keep buying the American story, that they're here to protect their way of life against Russia, and of course, the real threat is coming from Middle East, which is blowback for western involvement there for decades, and particularly since the invasion of Iraq, and that's the only time they seem to be aware that some people don't happen to like the west for some reason, otherwise people are so consumed by consumerism, even here in western Europe, that, you know, this is something just noise in the background, and they watch the news and they'll discuss it, but they're into their own lives, and they don't really know how dangerous their leaders are being, in terms of setting up a possible conflict with Russia, particularly with the next American president.
Hey, let me ask you this, Joe, did anybody talk about eventual integration of Ukraine, actually, into NATO, and or Georgia, as they have in the past?
They've dropped that, for the most part.
They just talked about Ukraine in the document that Russia is destabilizing Ukraine.
But they weren't talking about, we still want to eventually integrate them into the NATO alliance.
They're just talking about sovereignty, territorial integrity, the right to decide its own future course, free from outside interference, that could be an implication that they want to join NATO.
But they're not saying that right now.
Well, that's good.
Not that I could see in this document.
All right, now, so compare the status quo for me between, you know, where we were last fall, and where we are now in terms of the changes in American, German, and other troops in eastern Europe, the buildup in Poland, whatever troops, I know, they've done some parades and this and that.
But do we now have an expansion of numbers of Americans based in the Baltic states, for example?
Yes, yes, a small number.
I think it's like 4,500, I'm not quite sure.
But on a permanent basis now?
They're permanently going to be based around it, yes.
Right on Russia's border.
This is not an invasion force of Russia.
It's a political message at this point.
Sure.
Yeah, it's not even a deterrence.
You know, if they really thought like they claim that Russia was due to invade the Baltic states at any time, what's 4,000 troops going to do about that?
Well, exactly.
Exactly.
It's not a deterrence because they know they don't need to deter a non-threat.
They know this, despite what they're saying.
Despite the war, the communication warfare that they've had, they know that there's no threat.
So yes, that's not going to deter.
But if it starts growing, you know, we have to think about, especially around southern regions near Crimea, I think that really could be the potential most dangerous point.
If they really make an issue of getting Crimea back, and they give an ultimatum to Putin, and he calls their bluff, what do they do?
He says, I'm not backing down, I'm not giving Crimea back to Ukraine.
The people voted, maybe he says, let's have another referendum, and they probably would probably vote, stay part of Russia again.
They wouldn't recognize that one either.
So, you know, this stationing of US troops permanently on the borders are not something alarming in itself at this point.
But it's the rhetoric, the rhetoric coming out of this declaration, that's what's alarming.
Yeah.
Well, you could see the strategy of putting troops in Estonia, for example, even just 4,000 of them, enough to be a tripwire, enough to say that, you know, at any point, not that the 4,000 would be enough to repel a Russian attack, but that if the Russians did attack, that would necessarily mean they were killing Americans, which would finally actually give us a quote unquote reason to follow our commitment under the NATO treaty to actually go to war.
Because, you know, it's like the West is blackmailing themselves, in other words.
They're worried that if Russia ever did go into the Baltic States, that they might say, well, we're not going to trade Houston and Denver and L.A. and D.C. for, you know, villainous or whatever.
But if we have troops there, then I guess we will.
So they're kind of throwing their hat over the fence, you know, by and committing themselves to a course of action that they might otherwise back down from, it sounds like.
Yeah, well, 4,000 troops could also be enough for provocative action at the border if they want to throw Russia into a war, try to make it look like Russia is the aggressor.
Having those troops there could be useful as a provocative measure, and it is provocative already.
And then, of course, we can't forget the missile system that's been put last month into Romania and the one to be put later this year in Poland.
And these are missiles that supposedly are to defend against Iranian nuclear-tipped rockets coming into Europe.
Now, after the Iran deal, they're less likely to have a nuclear weapon, and there was never any proof that they were weaponizing anyway.
You talked to Gareth Cordner, I think, several times on your show about that.
So these are offensive weapons, because they could do a number of things.
They could be fitted with offensive weapons, but they also, if they can take out an outgoing barrage of Soviet missiles, that opens, that takes away Russia's ability to respond, to defend themselves, and then the U.S. can attack Russia with smaller and smaller mobile nukes, put it onto fighter jets, another very dangerous development.
And the trillion dollars that Obama is spending to upgrade nuclear defenses, or offenses of the U.S., are these small nukes that would be more easy to use because the damage wouldn't be as extensive as a huge nuclear device, but still extremely dangerous, and could lead to further exchanges.
I mean, you've got to wonder why the people in Washington are thinking this way on Wall Street, except that they've lost touch with the rest of our reality, and they're living on their own, where they've got so much power, so much wealth, so much control, that they can't stop themselves.
It's a drug, they need more, and they can't have anybody stand in their way.
They literally want world domination.
It sounds silly, it sounds like some fantasy film, but it's true, by the statements they've made, by the documents they've come out with, that they don't want any, as the Project for a New American Center said, they want any power to challenge America around the world.
China and Russia are the two powers that can do that, and that's why there's encirclement of these countries with bases, troops, sanctions against Russia now, and some way they had Russia for a while under Yeltsin, they've lost it, and they want it back.
They want people to get really rich off of that deal that they had there in the 90s, and they don't have this now, and I think that's really what drives them.
It's more wealth and more power, and they don't like disobedience.
It's about being obeyed.
American leaders want to be obeyed.
They want to be the rulers of the world.
They're really getting off on this, and American people haven't got a clue, because the home country suffers enormously from this policy, with huge amounts of money wasted, and totally ignoring social problems at all.
They keep getting worse and worse, but the population is not mobilized, and when it does, it doesn't last long.
Let's hope it builds from what we've seen from Occupy Wall Street, from whatever Sanders drummed up, but that's the only thing that can stop this, would be a really sustained mass protest in the U.S. Do not let up, and maybe Hillary Clinton will invite those protests.
Nah, she'll placate the only people who could possibly care, would be the rank-and-file left and liberals, and they'll be placated the same as they've been under Obama, and this goes to what you're constantly going back to, is basically the gap between what's happening and what the American people know about it, if anything at all, or what position, what kind of narratives they've been fed, and it's not the same kind of fever pitch, but the consensus really is just about as tight as it was in the run-up to the Iraq war, I think, where all serious people already agree something's got to be done about Saddam's weapons.
The only question is, do we attack now, or do we let the sanctions and inspections go a little bit longer before we attack?
These are the two choices that you have to choose from.
Everybody has already accepted all the false premises to lead us to this very narrow debate, so wait around for him to attack us, or go ahead and do the manly thing and preempt now.
That's exactly how they pushed us into the Iraq war, and they seem to pretty much, for the people who are listening at all, they seem to be getting away with pushing that narrative about Putin, because after all, I mean, they don't have a big USSR, global communism, red flag kind of, you know, demon enemy, so mostly they just kind of demonize him on the margins, you know what I mean?
They're not making the Cold War with Russia the centerpiece of American life like it was in the 50s or something like that, but, you know, at the same time, there's no one outside the consensus who has any kind of voice where anyone can hear it.
I mean, it's you and me, we might as well be camping in the woods right now talking about this over a smoke and a ball.
It feels like talking to you.
You're over the campfire.
Yeah, I mean, we're just...
I'd like to make it the centerpiece of, he says there's a number one threat, and again, the provocation of the coup d'etat in Ukraine caused Russia to act by annexing, after referendum, Crimea, and by Russian military, intelligence, financial support, and volunteers to help Eastern Ukrainians fight against the coup government.
So that was portrayed as a big invasion.
We talked last time about Breedlove's leaked emails about how he's pushing this lie about the invasion and there's 40,000 Russian troops on the border.
It was all nonsense, just because he was a lunatic, and he's not the only one involved here.
I think Ash Carter's a lunatic, and he's really not really upset, for example, about what I was talking about earlier about this possible Russian-U.S. collaboration in Syria against ISIS.
He doesn't like this at all, but Obama is right now resisting his displeasure, and I hope he continues to do that.
But, you know, he's not here long enough.
We're going to miss Obama, as much as I criticize him, and the more awful things he's done.
The use of espionage act, his war on whistleblowers in the press, his use of drone warfare.
He stopped attack on Damascus three years ago.
I think he is now smartening up in terms of Syria and realizes ISIS is the bigger problem than Assad, but he's not doing much about Russia, you know, I can tell you.
He's letting this go through, but I don't think there's going to be any kind of hot war with Russia under Obama, but this is very possible after.
You know, don't forget, you talked about Saddam, the links, the parallels.
One of them was, whenever an American leader or Secretary of State or President calls a foreign leader Adolf Hitler, you know they're planning to attack.
Noriega was Hitler, Saddam was Hitler, I think Milosevic may have been referred to as Hitler, and of course Putin has been called Hitler by Hillary Clinton.
So once you start hearing that, you know, those are like, that's the hot button word that America can talk, we got to get him, it's Hitler.
That's all they need to say.
And, you know, troublesome people like us who are talking in the woods, they can let us talk, this is free speech in America.
Say whatever you want, it doesn't have any impact.
It's not making any difference.
We have free speech.
The moment things start to get out of hand, they have ways to stop people from mobilizing against this, and militarized police is one of them.
Yeah, well, I don't know, man, I'll tell you what.
Well, let me ask you this.
What about politics in Russia?
I mean, they know that the Americans don't really want a hot war, just a cold one, because they're making money and getting medals for their suits and, you know, whatever.
But, you know, I mean, when I was a kid in the 80s, basically Reagan, at least at first, canceled detente and went back to brinksmanship.
Let's make some MX missiles and all this crap.
And times certainly seemed a lot more dangerous then.
At least there was, the whole thing was dressed up in this ideological conflict of good and evil and the USSR was a hell of a lot bigger empire than the Russian Federation is now, that's for sure.
So, you know, I just wonder whether the Russians kind of maybe are taking this in stride.
Like, well, listen, we know that the business of America is the arms manufacturers raping the rest of the American people all day and night.
But that doesn't necessarily have to affect us.
Yeah, they've backed off of actually bringing Ukraine into NATO.
It's not like they're really going to push a regime change in Moscow that could lead to a threat to the American homeland, after all, right?
So maybe we can do this whole Cold War again and survive it again.
Joe, what do you think?
I don't think they are sure of that at all.
I don't think that the Russian leadership thinks that the U.S. is being led only by cynical, cool-minded people who want to make money for their friends so that when they're out of government they can get jobs in these defense contractors or as contractors for the National Security Agency or whatever, and that this is all just a big game.
I think that they are aware that might be leaders actually believe this themselves, their own propaganda, their own delusions.
They're not necessarily dealing with stable individuals who have fingers on buttons, and they take it very seriously.
There is a fifth column, the Russians call it, of liberals who are pro-Western inside.
They have apparently a lot of influence in the Central Bank.
There is a newspaper called Moscow Times you've listened to, which is apparently anti-Putin.
I mean, this gives the lie that he has total control over the media and that it's a monolithic state, and he has authoritarian measures, I guess.
But I'm not an expert at all on domestic Russian politics.
I've only been twice to Russia, so I don't speak about that.
But I think that the way they've reacted to these moves by NATO and by the U.S. noises coming out of the U.S. and China the same way, I think they're dealing with people who are potentially unstable, who could make grievous errors in terms of their hubris, and that could lead to a confrontation.
They're not taking any chances.
I don't think they just see this as a money-making operation.
I wish it were only that.
And you know that the American public is grossly misinformed about what's going on, and that they could be led to support a war.
No, during Reagan's day, you mentioned, there was more awareness.
Yes, the world seemed more dangerous.
There was the Cold War.
We were all aware since the 50s about nuclear, possibly a nuclear war with Russia.
And that was mapped and studied and reported on day by day, the relationship between the Kremlin and the White House, and how this would change with new leaders on both sides, the numbers of nuclear warheads, troop movements.
I mean, this was something that everybody knew about and was talking about.
Nobody's talking about what we're talking about right now, about what NATO just declared, what's going on with these troop movements, what the German foreign minister said.
And this could be, therefore, more dangerous, because there isn't the awareness that this could lead to a nuclear confrontation.
And we've got hot wars in Syria that could be an absolute flashpoint between Russia and the US.
We had the Saudis and the Turks wanting to invade on the ground, and Obama stopped them back in March.
It could have led to a confrontation with Russia.
We've got Hillary Clinton who wants to come in there and challenge Russia in Syria, it sounds like, and maybe in Eastern Europe and in Ukraine.
And Victoria Nuland is driving that.
She could be Secretary of State, I think you may have heard.
Victoria Nuland could be Hillary Clinton's Secretary of State, the woman who's the face of the coup d'etat in Ukraine, whose husband, Robert Kagan, is one of the leading neocons.
What does that bode for Russian-US relations?
It's all sneaking up on people because they're not aware, as they were during the real Cold War.
This is not an ideological battle, as you point out, which the Cold War was.
This is a strategic battle for global control of resources, markets, and power, and just brute power, and eliminating people standing in their way because they don't think anyone should stand in their way.
Because we're the Americans, and we rule the world, basically.
And they're very well aware of having an empire, even if they don't call it that themselves, but the American people are not aware of that.
And that's really a big problem, too, not being able to see ourselves as the world sees America.
There's just no self-reflection.
Being outside the U.S. as long now as I have, it's easier and easier to view the U.S. for what it is.
Even when I'm in the U.S., my view of what the U.S. is and what the Americans around me, what their view is, is in total conflict.
And it becomes insufferable, in fact.
But when you're out of the U.S., I mean, it's so obvious to the rest of the world, most of the rest of the world, when they think about it, that U.S. is an aggressive power and that they're dangerous.
Well, and when the crisis gets bad enough that people start to pay attention, I don't know why, Joe, that they haven't figured out yet to blame America first, you know, at least until they find out some further information, to assume that whatever is wrong, of course, is Washington, D.C.'s fault.
What world are these people living in?
I mean, I'm from here, too.
But damn, haven't you noticed that everything they tell you is a lie and everything they do is wrong and leads to horrible consequences?
And yet if the news broke out that, yeah, there was a skirmish on the border between, you know, Russian troops and Ukrainian ones or Estonian ones or whatever, the American people would not object when TV instructed them that that's right, everyone.
History began today when Russia did something crazy without provocation.
They would accept that.
But that's the thing where it's it really becomes the people's fault at some point.
You know, I was smarter than that when I was a teenager.
So what other excuse to grown adults who've lived through decades of this have at this point?
You know, I totally agree, totally agree with you.
Can't blame it on leadership.
They need followers.
And we all we both grew up there and fed this crap and we fought our way through it.
We wanted to know.
We wanted the facts, wanted to make up our own mind.
And what we've discovered is very contrary to what our leaders are telling us.
But most people are not interested.
And they do share those who aren't interested in who blindly accept this, whether in Europe, here or certainly in the States.
They do bear huge responsibility.
And the leaders in Russia are aware of this.
That's why it's a dangerous thing that they're just not trying to make money out of it.
The public could be behind this.
They'll buy anything the American leaders tell them that Russia did.
Russia is the bad guy.
Iran is the bad guy.
North Koreans are bad.
They are bad.
Everybody's bad guy in international politics.
Some are worse than others, you know, and and each conflict that begins has specific reasons why it doesn't.
We're analyzing now what could lead to this conflict.
This is not being done in the American press.
It's all about Russia's aggression.
I mean, all these blanket statements in the New York Times, in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post on on the networks that just given that there is Russian aggression.
It's nonsense.
And when the head of the committee military committee says it's nonsense or the requirements of Germany, it's not reported.
Because that it disrupts the narrative.
They don't want anything in there that makes it complicated.
But that's what reporting the news is all about.
Extremely complex.
And there's all different sides.
And there's nothing really certain half the time.
But they want certainty.
Russia's bad.
America's good.
This is a cartoonish view of the world.
It's extremely dangerous when you have these kind of leaders who don't have to look behind their back at the public who's objecting to this.
And they've got all the means, material resources, and all the propaganda means at their disposal to do what they want until they meet an enemy that will stand up to them.
And then they got to find a way to push them aside.
And that's what we're looking at with Putin.
How can they push him aside?
That's without having to cause a nuclear war.
But they're not taking that off the table.
It looks like it's not even being discussed in a realistic way in the mainstream.
That's extremely dangerous.
All right, y'all.
That's Joe Loria.
You and Joe covers the United Nations now doing freelance work.
You find him oftentimes over at ConsortiumNews.com.
Thanks very much for making time for us during your travels today, Joe.
You're quite welcome, Scott.
Good to talk to you, man.
All the best.
Yep.
You too, man.
All right, y'all.
And so that's the show.
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Thanks, y'all.
Hey, y'all.
Scott Horton here.
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Know your enemy.
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