1.
Lavelle: Hello, and welcome to CrossTalk, where
all things are considered. I’m Peter Lavelle. Over the past year, CrossTalk
have asked our guests many times whether we have the spectre of a new Cold War.
Today, it is all too obvious that there is a new Cold War. What needs to be
asked now are the conditions and terms of this conflict and its possible
outcomes. [break] To cross-talk the new Cold War, I’m joined by my guests, Chris
Hedges in New York, [] also in Providence, we cross to Vladimir Golstein, he’s
an associate professor of Slavic Studies at Brown University. All right
gentlemen, CrossTalk rules, and that means you can jump in any time you want. I
very much encourage it. Chris, if I can go to you first. I do believe now the
events being played out with Washington sending more equipment to NATO’s allies
in Europe right to Russia’s border here. We are in a new Cold War without the
Ideology but it is a conflict between the West and Russia. And I’d like to quote John McCain, I don’t usually do this on
this programme, he said in his recent op-ed, “No one in the West wants to
return to the Cold War.” But the events being played out since the Coup
d’État in Feburary of the last year in Kiev, it seems to me, and I’d like to
know your opinion on it since I have you on this programme, that the West is doing
everything possible that it can do to bring about a new Cold War and the
conflict with Russia.
2.
Hedges: Exactly. You know, it’s tragic, what’s
happened. There was an understanding that was reached at the end of the
so-called initial Cold War between Gorbachev and Reagan, a kind of mutual
cooperation. And we saw right after 9/11 a betrayal, orchestrated by the Bush
administration, but the Ideological roots of it were really set by the Clinton
administration, in particular Strobe Talbott. The belief that nothing could
stand in the way of American Hegemony throughout the World, that it could do
whatever it wanted. This is what’s created what I would call imperial overreach
in the Middle East, in the Eastern Europe and in Ukraine. An utter
insensitivity to the Rights and demands of innumerable countries, starting with
Iraq, but going all the way back to Moscow. And we saw right after 9/11 how
this worked out. After the attacks of 9/11, Putin offered all sorts of assistance
and help to the Bush administration, including connecting US with the northern
alliance, which was allied with Russia, allowing overflights, and what the Bush
administration did in response is it turned around and expanded NATO, although
Reagan had promised Gorbachev the expansion of NATO would end in the East
Germany, and it walked out on the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
3.
Lavelle: In 2002.
4.
that precipiated the crises that we’re
undergoing right now. So it is an extention the old Cold War, but I think, more
importantly, it is a betrayal of all the agreement Washington had made with
Moscow.
5.
Lavelle: Vladimir, if I can go to you. I found this quote, it’s from Chuck Hagel when he was the
Secretary of Defense, “We also must deal with the revisionist Russia with its
modern and capable Army on NATO’s doorstep.” Now, that is the most
amazing statement from someone in that position. It’s as if the Russia’s moving
towards NATO. Vladimir, why is it that People in the West cannot understand how
Russia understand its own Security. It sees a massive military alliance. Look what it
just did in Lybia, and that’s just one example. And it’s moving closer
and closer, using very bellicose language. But of course, Russia is deemed the
aggressor.
6.
Vladimir: [skip]
7.
Lavelle: Let me go back to Chris here, because
you bring up a very good point. Chris, I am a big fan of a lot of your work. I
read a lot of it, I watched a lot of your interviews. And one of the things
you’ve mentioned– and I’m going to sum up in my own words here – a lot of
Western Media coverage, whether it’s Iraq or it’s Ukraine today, it lacks
context, chronology, chronology, and most importantly, responsibility. And I
know the Ukraine story extremely well, because I do this programme almost every
single week now for the last 18 months. And when I bring on people with
dissenting points of view, they don’t have the chronology down, they don’t have
the causality down, they certainly don’t have the responsibility down, and the
context is always missing. And that’s why it’s very difficult to explain to
people what’s happening in Ukraine, because Western Media just clings to a very
simplistic, very cartoonish narrative that seems more or less to fit, because Russians
are always the bad guys anyway.
8.
Hedges: This is also true in the Middle East,
and I was the Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times, and spent 7
years in the region, it’s exactly the same. When you report daily events
anywhere without context and without any historical understanding, then it’s almost
absurdist. You can’t understand what’s happening between Israel and
Palestine unless you understand, going all the way back to Skyes-Picot
Agreement in 1916 and the Ethnic Cleansing that Israelis carried out in 1948.
The same is true in the Ukraine. If you’re illiterate in terms of History, then
that kind of historical amnesia, which I think you’re right, dominates much of
the Media narrative makes you easily manipulated by the official sources, who
have an agenda, and in this case a
quite frightening agenda, which is blinded by their own hubris. They
think that they can push, not only within the Middle East, but in the Eastern
Europe, in ways that are, as Vladimir pointed out, exceedingly dangerous.
9.
Lavelle: Vladimir, it seems to me when we look
at the Cold War, there were terms and conditions which both sides interacted
in, masters of destruction. [?] Both sides understood that. The op-eds of the New York Times, Friedman, “This new Cold
War is not any fun.” It’s not a fun Cold War like it was in the past. I
found that to be strangely unnerving, because they were still talking about two
countries with nuclear weapons. And now they’re going toe-to-toe like they
never did, they never did during the Cold War. Americans have their military
Forces in West Germany, very far away from the Russian border. Now, they’re
right up to the border. And they’re going to militarise the border with NATO
countries bordering Russia. And the Russians are not supposed to react?
10.
Vladimir: [skip]
11.
Lavelle: Chris, it looks like what’s happening
right now.
12.
Hedges: Let me, Peter.
13.
Lavelle: Jump in, go ahead.
14.
Hedges: Under the Cold War, the fault lines were
established, they ran through Berlin. Those fault lines were understood and
accepted by both sides. What you saw after the so-called the end of the Cold
War at 1989 was that American Establishments became drunk on its own Power. You
have Wolfowitz, just to cite one of these neo-cons, getting up and saying that
– I’m paraphrasing the quote – Russia must never be allowed to become a great
Power again. It was the idea that American imperial reach could dominate the
entire globe with no impediments, no understanding of the consequences of its
Action, not taking into account the History, Culture. And that’s what we’re
seeing. They are in some ways kind of Ideologically blind in a sense that they
believe that they can impose and dictate their Will throughout the globe, and
that is prouving disastrous, not only in the Ukraine, but again going back to
the debacle that has become the Middle East.
15.
Lavelle: Okay gentlemen, I’m going to jump in
here. We’re going to go to a short beak, and after that short break, we’ll
continue our discussion on the new Cold War. Stay with RT. [break] Now we’re
joined by David Swanson in Charlottesville, []. David, it’s good to have you on
the programme. In the segment, we wanted to kind of talk about Ideological
roots to the new Cold War to the possible paradigm here. And I’m sitting here
now in Moscow, and what’s happening now with NATO and Ashton Carter’s more push
for defense spending and more armament for NATO, it looks like from the
Moscow’s position that we’re having a new Cuban Missile Crisis, but in reverse.
16.
Swanson: You might have a half of it in reverse.
The United States have, during the Cuban Missiles Crisis, quitely taken out
missiles out of the Turkey, and I don’t know where Russia is required to take
the missiles out of. They are not in Cuba. And you don’t have Kennedy in the
White House, either. There’s a good prospect of people like Bush the Third or
Hillary Clinton, and even Barack Obama, none of these people are John Kennedy.
These are all people who just might risk the global apocalypse rather than, as
I just heard the phrase, a humiliating defeat. The Cold
War was never ended by the United States. The Soviet Union was the excuse in
pursuit of the global domination. That never ended. What’s new here other than
promoting Arms races with China or Russia - you can’t really call it a race, because the leader is so far out
ahead - is the crisis in Ukraine. It’s
the Coup d’État and the false accusations of Aggression, the shooting down of
an airplane, and so forth. That’s not new. But the US behaviour never really
changed from the Cold War through now.
17.
Lavelle: Chris, one of the things that I think
is very terrifying.
18.
Hedges: Let me just.
19.
Lavelle: Go ahead, jump in, jump in. Go ahead.
20.
Hedges: Ukraine would not have a Military without Washington. It would be a
bankrupt and failed State without Washington. So it’s not even a proxy War. We
created the military conflict in the Ukraine, and we are responsible for the
destruction of the eastern cities, 1.5 million refugees and the displaced, and
the 50,000 dead. It comes right out of Washington.
21.
Lavelle: Chris, what bothers me is that, and
what is truly terrifying is that, we’re seeing a game of chicken being played.
When Barack Obama comes to Russia – I don’t know who’s directly informing him –
but he doesn’t even get his facts straight, let alone the interpretation of
Politics and History and strategy. He just doesn’t get his facts straight. Then
they’re saying, “Russia must do this, Russia must do that.” Look at the Minsk
Agreement. Go read it. Barack Obama, please read it. It’s in 13 points. Russia
doesn’t have to do anything, just read it. It’s in plain English in WikiPedia.
But no one has done that in Washington apparently. And they’re playing a game
of chicken, and if you know this side, they’re not going to back down, and
that’s what worries me. They say these are our Security interest, X, Y, Z. Not
for Poroshenko, not for these neo-Nazi figures in Ukraine, etc., etc. That’s
the tripping point here. Go ahead, Chris.
22.
Hedges: The danger is they don’t understand it’s
a game of chicken. All of the relations towards Russia
have its antecedents in the insane decision by the First Bush to announce that
we won the Cold War. If you go back and look at the statements that were
made by Gorbachev and Reagan, they talk about how nobody won, we both won, this
kind of stuff, there would be a partnership. And all of the Rhetoric, which I
think in a way Moscow naïvely believed, both Gorbachev and Putin. And certainly
Yeltsin, who became utterly obsequious to Washington, especially towards the
end. They
really misunderstood the venality of an American Power. So as soon as the Rhetoric changed – and this was adopted by
the Clinton White House – the attitude changed, and the attitude was, We won
the Cold War, we are the strongest Power on Earth, we can do whatever we want. And
what frightens me is that I don’t think they even grasp that this is a game of
chicken. To go back before, they’re utterly blinded by their own hubris and
their own imperial overreach, which will have disastrous consequences for the
United States. Already is in the Middle East, and will, I fear, in the Ukraine
as well.
23.
Lavelle: Vladimir, Russia and Putin are accused
of a lot of things in Western Media, and I don’t have time to enumerate them.
But one thing I think is quite clear. This is the Russia that can say No and
does say No, and that’s what infuriates the official Washington, the Washington
Consensus. That the Russia actually says No.
24.
Vladimir: [skip]
25.
Lavelle: Vladimir, I think the European Union
and the United States have given up direct Democracy a long, long time ago.
They would never do that. David, if I can go to you. One of the biggest
problems – I agree with what Chris is saying here – is the level of hubris. The
problem with Washington is that they cannot begin to comprehend other countries
define their own Security themselves. Because Washington says, “That’s not in
their national interest. You shouldn’t do that.” Even when Russia has its own
military exercises in its own country. “That’s provocative. That’s aggressive.”
In their own country. While the United States sends trainers and other military
hardware directly to Ukraine, but that’s not provocative. It’s Orwellian. Go
ahead, David.
26.
Swanson: It’s
double-standard, and it’s long-standing. And people like Charlie Rose are payed
good money not to understand anything, and
that’s true of many people in Washington. It doesn’t advance your career to
understand anything. It advances your career to believe your own Propaganda.
[StevenSoderbergh.] And traditionally, War Propaganda demonises a leader and a whole
People. It’s getting harder and harder with the shrinking globe to
demonise a whole People. People know Russians. There are Russians in the
leading sports teams and in people’s neighbourhoods, my kids go to Russia back
and forth, so you really have to focus on demonising a single individual,
demonising Putin. And they’re cooking up this stories about Invasions and
Agressions that everybody believes, because it’s been repeated so many times
without any evidence.
27.
Lavelle: I agree. It’s repeated over and over
and over again. All you have to do is, Go to the
Google News and just put in Putin and Russia. How many people repeat the same
stories over and over and over again on a daily basis. It’s really quite
extraordinary. Chris, if I can go back to you. One of the things the Russia
says it’s going to do is to modernise its Military or it’s going to counteract
many kind of the military posture the West poses against it. It’s called “loose
Rhetoric” in Washington. For me, it’s the irony of the ironies. We have one
country that says they will do add 40 more missiles, which Vladimir Putin
announced. Then you have Ashton Carter saying, “This is
loose Rhetoric.” When the United States have surrounded Russia with NATO
bases and continues to do so, but that’s not provocative. Again, how can they
not see that Russia will protect itself and go to a great great lengths to do
it? It will not suffer a catastrophic defeat, and that’s what should worry us
all.
28.
Hedges: I’ve spent 20 years at the outer reaches
of the Empire as a foreign correspondent, most of them with the New York Times. And the
Rhetoric that comes out of Washington bears no resemblance to, number one,
policy, number two, the Reality on the ground. The whole idea that we would
invade Iraq to implement Democracy. And we saw what happened in Gaza, there
was a Free Election and Hamas won.
29.
Lavelle: Yup.
30.
Hedges: You saw what happened in all sorts of
countries throughout the World. The US is interested in
Power, it’s interested in expanding primarily its economic explotation. Part of
the reason they turned on Putin is because he challenged foreign oil companies
that had Monopoly over Russian oil. This is something that ** have taken
down in Iran. You have one kind of game of Rhetoric which is primarily domestic
and, perhaps to the extent that it works, international consumption, but the
Reality is far more Machiavellian and far more driven by desire for economic
and military supremacy. Okay so, Ashton Carter says this is loose Rhetoric.
They’ll say anything. You have Hillary Clinton running around calling Putin
Hitler.
31.
Lavelle: Chris, to be staying with you. How do
you go back from that? When you call someone Hitler, how do you sit down and
talk to him? This is the absurdity of all these Rhetoric. It gets to a certain
point where you deny a dialogue. Dialogue is out the window. Go ahead, Chris.
32.
Hedges: Right, that’s the danger. And we see that within the Ukraine itself, where Kiev has
called the eastern part of the country, those who are fighting against Kiev and
US-backed & NATO-backed Forces, as a terrorist. They have not named this
for what it is, which is a Civil War. They have not recognised the
legitimate grievances on the part of the Russified segment of the Ukraine. I
have to go back to this kind of blindness that comes with imperial hubris. This goes all the way back to Thucydides or Æschylus’s
play. The Persians and Darians. A ghost comes back and explains to the Persians
that their defeat was caused by Pride, overweaning Pride.
33.
Lavelle: Chris, I have to jump in here. On that
sad note, I have to end the programme. Many thanks to my guests in
Charlottsville and in Providence. And thanks to our views for watching us here
on RT. And remember, CrossTalk rules.
