The barbaric ideology of nationalism was a coarse and shallow foundation on which a vibrant body politic could grow and prosper. Within this wasteland of discredited nationalism, Jean Monnet claimed confidently that Europe's peace and recovery was contingent upon its discarding any naive notions of "national sovereignty:"
“There will be no peace in Europe if the States rebuild themselves on the basis of national sovereignty, with its implications of prestige politics and economic protection (...). The countries of Europe are not strong enough individually to be able to guarantee prosperity and social development for their peoples. The States of Europe must therefore form a federation or a European entity that would make them into a common economic unit.” [1]If we view Monnet's observation in the context of the current conditions in Europe, the peace and prosperity resulting supposedly from the ushering of a continental collective resonates today as weak slogans. Just ask Greece. That is the Greek people. Since 2010 the troika became the economic czar of Greece. Of the subsequent $284 billion in bailout funds provided to Greece, more than 90% went to European and Greek financial institutions. [2].
Russian Foreign Minister stated that Russia would consider increasing its bilateral relations with Greece if it fails to agree on beneficial terms with the troika. "In response Wolfgang Schäuble, German Finance Minister, launched an ultimatum to the Greek Foreign Ministry: 'I don’t believe that Russia can replace European solidarity'" [3]. Schaube's statement suggests he speaks on behalf of the Greek people who just elected the Syriza party whose platform rejects the troika's austerity nightmare from which they still suffer. In his view Syriza is just an acute impulse that lacks any power needed to promote its agenda to the troika. So the popular will of the Greeks seems irrelevant; and, they will incur a swift troika backlash if they accept a Russian financial aid package much less punitive than the harsh terms that continue to inflict harm on Greece. Ask Victor Yanukovich or the 5,000+ killed thus far in Ukraine and roughly one million people have been displaced since the coup that occurred on February 22, 2014.
Those moralized choruses of secular priests chanting "Never again" may only be referring to humanity's tolerating recrudescence of barbarism resembling the Third Reich. Troika's usurping all economic decisions of an individual nation like Greece may impose hardship, but only appears barbaric to us simpletons lacking wisdom and knowledge necessary to appreciate Austerity as the lord's work. But, in a concrete contrast to the abstraction of finance, neo-NAZI movements operate in Ukraine.
Much western media sources gloss over the often invoked "Never again" when neo-Nazis wage war against separatists in eastern Ukraine. For example, the west opted to avoid commiserating the return of neo-Nazis when they scored a military victory against those damned separatists. Tom Parfitt of "The Daily Telegraph" ignored the implied groupthink, choosing instead to express his observations that Ukraine's military gains occur at the price of resurrecting atavistic evils supposedly buried at Nuremberg nearly seventy years ago:
But Kiev’s use of volunteer paramilitaries to stamp out the Russian-backed Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics”, proclaimed in eastern Ukraine in March, should send a shiver down Europe’s spine. Recently formed battalions such as Donbas, Dnipro and Azov, with several thousand men under their command, are officially under the control of the interior ministry but their financing is murky, their training inadequate and their ideology often alarming.
The Azov men use the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel (Wolf’s Hook) symbol on their banner and members of the battalion are openly white supremacists, or anti-Semites. [4].Instead of Obama pressuring Poroshenko, he allows Congress to take the initiative (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/09/democrats-are-now-pushing-obama-to-give-guns-to-ukraine.html) pushing us closer to the brink of World War Three. He is in effect the facilitator in chief.
John McCain always stands in front of all U.S. warmongers. His incendiary rhetoric is filled with histrionics, but other Senators follow his example. Democrat Senator Richard Blumenthal expressed his warmongering credentials:
Ukrainians are being slaughtered and we have a role to play in imposing restraint… We need to see that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin understands nothing but force. He is a thug, he has not responded to sanctions.” [5].This rhetoric shows that U.S. Senators possess the fatal combination of simplistic and inaccurate thinking. What actions has Putin taken that demonstrates his thuggishness? A report on the conditions in Ukraine authored by U.S. persons tied to the foreign policy establishment that include Michele Flouronoy, Strobe Talbot, and Steven Pifer entitled "Preserving Ukraine's Independence, Resisting Aggression" (http://www.thechicagocouncil.org/sites/default/files/UkraineReport_February2015_FINAL.pdf?utm_content=buffere6681&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer) echoes the well established notion of Putin as the contemporary Hangman of Ukraine. But, in fact, this report also claims Ukranian intelligence assessments are unreliable:
Ukraine lacks any real intelligence or reconnaissance on the ground, and that its assessments of the number of Russian forces in the conflict are in stark disagreement with actual intelligence conducted by NATO. The numbers are incoherent, they vary wildly depending on the Ukrainian adviser you talk to, and most importantly, are not in alignment with U.S./NATO data. The only visible agreement between NATO and Ukraine on the composition of separatist forces appears to be that the overwhelming majority of fighters are locals and likely Ukrainian citizens, which completely undermines the premise of the entire report that Russian forces are the key participants and their casualties will prove a deterrent. [6].The age of digital panopticons covering the universe suggests this lack of real intelligence is a deliberate act motivated by the U.S. empire to misinform the public, conditioning the american public in particular to believe that no diplomatic or political solution is possible.
Today Greece remains in debt peonage to the troika. By sacrificing its destiny to serve as another base in the latest U.S. proxy war against Russia, Ukraine has degenerated into a failed state.
So "Never again?"
1. Historiasiglo20.org. http://www.historiasiglo20.org/europe/monnet.htm
2. Meijer, Raul Ilargi. "Debt in the Time of Wall Street." The Automatic Earth. Feb 05, 2015. http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/02/debt-in-the-time-of-wall-street/
3. Rodriguez, Ariel Noyola. "Athens diplomacy looks to Moscow." Voltaire Nerwork. Feb 06, 2015. http://www.voltairenet.org/article186679.html
4. Parfitt, Tom. "Ukraine Crisis: the neo-Nazi fighting pro-Russian separatists." The Telegraph. Aug 11, 2014. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11025137/Ukraine-crisis-the-neo-Nazi-brigade-fighting-pro-Russian-separatists.html
5. Nancy A.Youssef and Tim Mak. "Democrats Are Now Pushing Obama to Give Guns to Ukraine." The Daily Beast. Feb 05, 2015. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/09/democrats-are-now-pushing-obama-to-give-guns-to-ukraine.html
6. Kofman, Michael. "How to Start a Proxy War with Russia." The National Interest. Feb 05, 2015. http://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-start-proxy-war-russia-12187?page=2
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