| by Finian Cunningham
( April 12, 2014, London, Sri Lanka Guardian ) It's been a busy week for NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The week began with him telling lies, spewing propaganda, seeking to please Washington, trying to incite war in Europe with Russia, and ended with a warning to Russia to back down from military aggression.
Such is the busy life of a puppet on a string, bouncing in step with the tune called by his master. From here on, Rasmussen should be re-branded as the “Fogh of War.”
Earlier in the week, Fogh Rasmussen addressed a meeting in Paris on the “transformation of NATO.” He licked the boots of French leaders by saying:
“From Central Africa to Eastern Europe, French forces are helping make our world safer - whether under the banner of NATO, the European Union, or of France.”
Make our world safer? This was homage to French militarism that has ignited wholesale sectarian war in the Central African Republic (CAR) where thousands of people have been slaughtered since French troops landed in that country last December on the pretext of “halting genocide.”
As noted in a previous column, France did not halt sectarian killing in the CAR; it unleashed the mass killing when its troops unilaterally disarmed Muslims while giving a free hand to Christian militia there to go on a continuing rampage. All for the purpose of France grabbing rich natural resources, in particular uranium, in its former African colony.
The “Fogh of War” conflated this murderous French neo-imperialism in Africa with the NATO defence of Europe by outrageously implicating Russia as a new terrorist threat. He said Europe is confronted:
“Because from Sevastopol to Syria and the Sahel, we are facing a dangerous world, where threats are complex, unpredictable and interconnected. Newer challenges, such as terrorism, failed states, cyber and missile attacks. And old challenges in new guises, such as attempts to redraw borders by force.”
Note also the way the NATO chief manages to launder NATO-backed terrorists in Syria now as an enemy endangering Europe - to be saved by NATO! Yet, on and on he merrily danced while tying himself up in the strings of his own scripted propaganda.
Rasmussen, who was previously the prime minister of Denmark before taking up his mouthpiece job at NATO in 2009, went on to spew lies about Russian aggression in Ukraine and he called, ominously, for “a readiness action plan.”
“The current crisis [in Ukraine] poses a serious challenge to our common security,” he claimed this week.
“But,” he assured, “North America and Europe stand together in facing up to it. And we stand united in our firm response. In recent weeks, we have seen the United States’ clear commitment to Europe's security... We must review the readiness of all our forces,” said Rasmussen, sounding like a cross between a tin-pot general and an arms salesman working for Washington.
We can be sure that Rasmussen’s masters in Washington really loved that bit of melodrama about America and Europe standing together and the US commitment to Europe's security.
For this is exactly what the Danish non-entity politician is doing. He is giving a European accent to Washington's strategic agenda of sowing conflict between Europe and Russia, even if that means inciting a nuclear war.
Vladimir Putin’s government is right when it dismisses NATO claims of a Russian military threat to Europe. These reckless assertions are simply a ploy to prolong American military and political meddling in European relations with Russia. That meddling goes back to the beginning of the Cold War post-1945, and it continues until today, more than two decades after the official end of the Cold War.
The crisis over Ukraine stems from Washington and Europe’s subversion of that country and the coup d'état the West sponsored against the elected government in Kiev in February. That coup brought a rag-tag fascist junta to power, which has openly threatened ethnic Russians mainly in the east of Ukraine.
The population in the east of Ukraine now want to set up separatist republics that are aligned with Russia, as has already happened in the southern Crimea Peninsula after a legal referendum was held there last month. No wonder they do, when the self-proclaimed neo-Nazi fascists in Kiev are calling for massacres against the Russian population, as when the convicted embezzler Yulia Tymoshenko was caught saying in a leaked phone call that she relished the chance to “whack Russians in the head.”
To blame the turmoil on Russian aggression, as US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are doing, is turning reality on its head. And thanks to European puppets like Rasmussen, the rest of Europe is now being forced into a contrived conflict with Moscow.
Rasmussen, the “Fogh of War,” ended the week with even more inflammatory rhetoric when he visited the Czech Republic. Speaking in the capital, Prague, Rasmussen claimed: “For the first time since countries like the Czech Republic won their freedom, and the Cold War ended, we see one state trying to grab part of another's territory at gunpoint.”
The NATO chief again accused Russia of “illegal aggression” and of “massing troops” on the border of Ukraine, citing unspecified “satellite” evidence. He warned Moscow to “step back.”
“From Prague, I have this message to Russia: You have a choice to stop blaming others for your own actions, to stop massing your troops, to stop escalating this crisis and start engaging in a genuine dialogue,” said Rasmussen.
The fact is that Russia has been calling for dialog to resolve the crisis in Ukraine since the Western-backed street violence erupted in Kiev last November. All Russian overtures for a political settlement have been snubbed by Washington and its NATO allies.
Rasmussen is nothing but a paid puppet doing Washington’s bidding. His job is not to protect Europe, as the NATO literature claims. His job is to incite insecurity and, if need be, an all-out war, in order to serve Washington’s agenda of keeping Europe and Russia divided.
The “Fogh of War” is to step down from his NATO five-year post in September. His next career move is as yet unknown publicly. But what are the bets that Rasmussen ends up in some Washington-funded think tank on a fat salary, with lecture tour bonuses to boot? That’s the reward for non-entity Washington puppets who are playing with millions of peoples’ lives.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent.
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