Major General Mark Weatherington, Commander of the U.S. Joint-Global Strike Operations Center, bragged in a video interview: “We are sustaining a surge in bomber operations, vital to demonstrating peace and stability. We need to keep our adversaries off balance.”
Is it wise to keep a nuclear power “off balance?” It is precisely this kind of statement, combined with the recent nearly daily deployment of U.S. bombers and surveillance planes along the borders of Russia — in the Arctic, in the Black Sea, and along Russia’s borders in Europe — which has forced Moscow to conclude that the U.S. and NATO are in fact preparing for an invasion. The most recent case: three B-1 bombers Sept. 11 flew from Texas to the East Siberian Sea, a mission which “demonstrated how the U.S. strategic bombers are able to support any mission, anywhere around the globe at a moment’s notice,” according to a statement from the U.S. European Command.
Colonel-General Sergey Surovikin, the commander of Russia’s Aerospace Forces, briefed military attachés in Moscow Sept. 11 on the danger to Russia. “According to our assessment, during this event,” he said, “the B-52 crews worked out how to reach the threshold of using cruise missiles with a simulated missile strike on objects in the Kaliningrad region and other western regions of our country.” Regarding the Black Sea flights, he added, “According to our assessment, objects located on the territory of the Southern Military District were considered as targets.”
This escalation of threats is taking place, even as President Donald Trump insists that he wants friendly relations with Russia, while pulling down troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan and trying to end the “endless wars.” More explosively, the President has directly attacked the top brass at the Pentagon for working hand in hand with the military-industrial complex in fomenting wars. As Col. Richard Black (ret.) told the Schiller Institute conference on Sept. 5, there is a military coup being openly discussed among the flag grade officers who have waged these criminal “regime change” wars over the past 17 years under Bush and Obama.
What about Biden? While there are extremely serious questions about his mental capacity — an issue which is increasingly calling into question the state of the Democratic Party itself — the Biden campaign is stridently denouncing President Trump for being soft on the “dictators” Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. A Biden presidency, they rant, would not let China and Russia get away with their “aggression.” The parallel between their rhetoric and the ranting of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper could not be more obvious. Would Biden push the button, or rather, would whoever would end up running a Biden Administration push the button? Add to that the open support from Democratic leaders for the violent insurrection on the streets of many U.S. cities, which are escalating rather than declining, and the threat to the country is clear.
The extreme danger of a war breaking out, even before the election, must be countered with a person-to-person meeting among Presidents Trump, Putin and Xi. As Putin has decided not to personally attend the UN General Assembly this month, and Xi Jinping is also not attending, a direct meeting appears unlikely — but at least a virtual meeting is both possible and urgent. Beside the war danger, there are other “universal” issues which must be resolved by the world’s powers — the pandemic, the economic disintegration, the financial bubble, starvation facing millions in Africa and elsewhere.
The videos and transcripts of the four panels of the Sept. 5-6 Schiller Institute conference (https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2020/08/13/conference-war-drive-towards-armageddon-or-a-new-paradigm-among-sovereign-nations-united-by-the-common-aims-of-mankind/) provide detailed proposals for all of these issues, but their realization depends on a summit of these world leaders. The Imperial division of the world into warring blocs can no longer be tolerated by patriots of this or any other nation. As Schiller said, patriots must also be citizens of the world.
