Two Warnings

Except for the arrest of a leading al Qaeda official, the pre-war news has not been happy. Turkey turned its back on America at the eleventh hour, blocking U.S. troop deployments and throwing Washington's military calculations into confusion. The French recently talked of vetoing a UN resolution on the use of military force against Iraq. Even the Pope, a man who lived under communism in Poland, has declared that a war against totalitarian Iraq would be immoral. On March 5 the Pope sent an emissary to warn President Bush that, "God is not on your side if you invade Iraq." The Pope believes that a war against Iraq would be "a defeat for humanity." Meanwhile, the Whittier Daily News is reporting that anti-war protestors trashed a 9/11 memorial last Saturday. Anti-war ruffians "burned and ripped up flags, flowers and patriotic signs" along Whittier Blvd. The deep rot of political correctness was not only apparent on the side of the vandals but also on the side of the local authorities. The Whittier Daily News reported that, "although officers witnessed the vandalism Saturday afternoon, police did not arrest three people seen damaging the display because [according to police Capt. John Rees] they were 'exercising the same freedom of speech that the people who put up the flags were.'" These stories show that the West is paralyzed and divided. A larger power is on the march. This power supports Saddam and lifts him up. In recent days America has received two warnings about this power - two warnings that, predictably, will go unheeded.

Leading Russian dissidents have written an open letter to President Bush, published by Front Page Magazine. The authors are Vladimir Bukovsky and Elena Bonner - two voices of conscience. Bukovsky is a man whose passion for truth and freedom led him to suffer twelve years in Soviet prisons, labor camps and psychiatric hospitals. Elena Bonner was married to the late human rights activist and Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov.

Bukovsky and Bonner are worried about America's "alliance" with Russia. In the struggle against Iraq and terrorism the American side has become too trusting. It has accepted the words of KGB officers who pretend to be democrats. Bukovsky and Bonner ask "why is it necessary to fight for such a noble cause in alliance with ... regimes essentially no different from that of Saddam Hussein?"

"The case in point, is, of course, Russia," they explain. "Contrary to popular belief in the West, it is not on the way to democracy and market economy." As Bukovsky and Bonner point out, in Russia's last presidential election "the voters had a choice between a Communist leader and a KGB colonel." And the KGB colonel won. According to Bukovsky and Bonner, "the power was handed back to them, once again, and they were very quick to reestablish their authority throughout the country, as well as to reinstate the old symbols of the Soviet Union - the national anthem and the Red flag in the Army."

Bukovsky and Bonner also have something to say about Russian organized crime. "It is not ... [mere] corruption anymore, it is a system where the KGB (now called FSB) is running most of the organised crime, protection racket, drug trafficking, arms sales and contract killings."

A few of us in the West, thanks to the work of Joseph Douglass, know about the KGB's use of organized crime. What was apparent to a lone specialist fifteen years ago is now obvious to the Russians themselves. The truth is, Russian organized crime is linked with terrorism. It is the soup in which the terror organizations are nurtured. Failing to realize the connections between Russia, organized crime and terrorism, the West is bungling its way toward certain defeat. Bukovsky and Bonner were scandalized when British Prime Minister Tony Blair welcomed Russia into the anti-terrorist coalition "because Russia has such a vast experience in fighting terrorism."

The two dissidents never thought they'd hear such absurdity from the lips of a Western politician. They remind us that, "Russia, in its former incarnation as the Soviet Union ... practically invented modern political terrorism, elevating it to the level of state policy." Furthermore, as Bukovsky and Bonner point out, Russia has been "arming Saddam for decades, providing him, among other things, with facilities for biological warfare."

Allying with Russia is a mistake because Russia is actually working against the United States. The case of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea illustrates the point. North Korean Gen. Roh Chunsok recently stated during a reception in Pyongyang that his government welcome's Moscow's assistance. Gen. Roh added that North Korea's defense ministry has "reached new levels of cooperation" with Moscow. "Our contacts are actively developing in the spirit of agreements reached at meetings between Supreme Commanders-in-Chief of our countries Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Il in Vladivostok and Moscow in 2001 and 2002," Gen. Roh explained.

Some readers of this column are unhappy that Russia is mentioned so often. But any global analysis that leaves out a big player like Russia is no analysis at all. The wishful thinking of those who cling to false promises cannot stand up to strategic realities, however long the falsification of reality is insisted upon.

The warning of Bukovsky and Bonner goes to the heart of this problem. The two Russian dissidents ask a basic question that the West doesn't want to hear: "[Is] it not true that your new 'partners' such as Russia secretly sell military equipment (including nuclear technology) to the Axis of Evil countries even now? Will the United States ever learn this lesson, or will it continue forever to build up new enemies while fighting present ones?"

But there is more going on than Russia's contribution to the Axis of Evil. The politicians in Washington have committed a further blunder that will endanger America two-to-five years down the road. And this brings us to the second warning of recent days. I refer to a March 7 press release from the Center for the National Security Interest (CNSI). This warning, as strong and forthright as it is, will not get the national attention it deserves because of a cultural and intellectual disconnect that afflicts the American psyche. The CNSI statement begins with the following unequivocal words: "The Center for the National Security Interest condemns the unanimous passage of the US-Russia Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions by the US Senate on Thursday. Implementation of this treaty will serve to eviscerate the US strategic nuclear arsenal by as much as three-quarters from what it was when the Bush Administration came into office."

The CNSI correctly points out that a threat exists from the Strategic Rocket Forces of the Russian federation, and from "an increasing number of opposing nuclear states including the People's Republic of China, North Korea and possibly the Islamic Republic of Iran which are increasingly hostile...." In this regard, none are so blind as those that will not see. The CNSI warns: "This treaty does not require the destruction of Russian missiles or warheads, but merely requires that a certain number of them be redeployed on the last day of the year 2012. These missiles can be redeployed the day after under the terms of the Treaty."

In my book, Origins of the Fourth World War, I wrote a chapter called "Treaty Mania." I suggested that this mania might lead to America's undoing. Over a decade ago I wrote the following words: "Seabed treaties, ABM and ICBM, biological, even Moon Treaties and Weather Conventions. Why so many treaties? And why is there so much faith placed in them? Could it be that urging us into so many empty gestures makes the gestures more mechanical, more knee-jerk? Is it a form of conditioning, wherefore, at long last, we sign, amidst heaps of paper, something vital, dangerous and irrevocable?"

As the CNSI statement explains, "Russia has withdrawn from START II Treaty restraints and has vowed to retain until at least 2016 the bulk of its SS-18 and SS-24 ten-warhead 'monster' missiles, which were banned under that treaty. It has also stated that it will retain other MIRV'd missiles such as the SS-19, which were to be reduced under that treaty."

Russia retains its nuclear power, backtracking on previous treaty commitments. Now why would our "friends" in the Kremlin do such a thing? And why would they be working behind the scenes to build up Iran, China and North Korea? Why do they oppose our war in Iraq? Is it because they agree with the Pope and the French and the anti-war movement (which they had a hand in creating during their previous, Soviet incarnation)?

Think of all the bunkers and underground cities that house the vast military-industrial complex of the Urals. If the 1990s UN inspection regime produced a fiasco in Iraq, the game is even more hopeless in Russia. And yet, U.S. authorities remain hopeful. This hopefulness springs from a cultural/intellectual disconnect. Politicians are the creatures of culture. Now take a close look at the pathologies of American culture. In terms of psychological effects, a culture can be like a prison with bars. Escaping from this prison is impossible for those who wish to retain power. To break with the received wisdom of the day is to enter a wilderness. And in this wilderness there is very little money and no power.

According to the CNSI statement, the nuclear missile reduction treaty ratified last Thursday "lacks adequate verification or enforcement measures and so the Russian Federation will have precious little incentive to fully comply with it. It is nothing but a lifeline meant to appease Moscow by allowing them to retain the bulk of [their] 'heavy' nuclear missile arsenal while the US disarms."

A culture of appeasement has grown up in our midst. A cynical disregard of national security for the sake of "peace" has corrupted our national psyche. According to the CNSI statement, "Even the timing of US Senate passage was meant to appease Moscow and dissuade them from making good on their threat to veto the UN resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq." As Bukovsky and Bonner explained, how can U.S. policy work when it is guided by such inconsistencies? On the one hand we eschew appeasement with Iraq, on the other hand we are eager to appease Russia.

According to the CNSI statement, "the Russian Federation will likely follow past practices by retaining the vast majority of its own current strategic nuclear stockpile, which already outnumbers the US stockpile by as much as five to one. Indeed, were it not for the Administration's ongoing charm offensive to forge a new alliance with Moscow against terrorism, despite the fact that [Moscow] has a long and extensive history ... as a supporter of terrorism, this treaty would never have been signed or ratified."

Here is a case of short-term thinking on the American side and long-term thinking on the Russian side. According to the CNSI, "Passage of this treaty signals the beginning of the end for the US as a superpower and heralds its replacement by a surging Sino-Russian military alliance, which already greatly outnumbers the US in terms of nuclear and conventional military forces."

Only a deluded person, lacking knowledge of Russia and China, could disagree with this factual statement. It seems the war on terror has diverted policymakers from larger strategic questions. And that diversion, having successfully run its course, will find us disarmed or disarming in the face of an emerging geo-strategic challenge unlike anything we have seen before.

America has received two vital warnings about a larger danger that confronts us. Will policymakers turn a blind eye to Russia's stratagems or will the administration be jolted to its senses? I fear that America has let slip her advantages of old and lacks the courage to correct past mistakes. Men are easily led into folly by false hopes. Vanity clings to a false victory. Arrogance and self-congratulation with regard our Cold War victory has led an all-too-human government to further miscalculations.

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jrnyquist [at] aol [dot] com ()