August of Provocations

August is traditionally a month of political recess. The citizens of Europe also like to take a vacation during this period. But by no means do all Western politicians take a rest in these days; they are actively preparing new provocations, and not just for the autumn.

History recalls how such “preparations” ended up for Europe and the world. A century ago, in August 1914, World War I flared up, which was also provoked by someone, having begun with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and an initially local conflict between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. There are other examples too. A quarter of a century later, in July to August 1938, there was the Soviet-Japanese conflict near Lake Hassan. And seven years after that, also at the beginning of August, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wiped from the face of the earth by nuclear bombings.

Coincidentally, exactly 30 years before the release of the first atomic bomb, on August 6, 1915, one of the most poignant and symbolic episodes of World War I took place, having to do with the use of another deadly and barbaric weapon — chemical agents — against Russian troops, the so-called “dead men attack” ….

Unfortunately, in recent times too it has been in August that invasions, armed border conflicts, and other obviously prepared, artificial events have taken place time and again. It’s enough to bring to mind the hot August of 1999, when Basayev and Khattab’s terrorist squads invaded Dagestan, or 2008 in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where the American puppet M. Saakashvili set out as the initiator and executor of a military adventure. Now he is “training” in Odessa, which forever committed to memory the tragedy of dozens of people burned alive. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, where for the second year now blood is being spilled, armed clashes continue.

Now, when there is unrest throughout the world, it’s necessary to watch carefully for any political provocations brewing on the various shores of the Atlantic. It’s important to see and analyze in depth everything that’s being done in the West and is being thrown in to them on the playing fields of international organizations.

Several days ago, the U.N. Security Council voted on an obviously politicized issue — on the creation of an international tribunal. This time the excuse was, alas, the tragedy of the Malaysian Boeing, though to date there hasn’t been such a tribunal for a single plane crash. As in the case of other draft resolutions by the Security Council, regarding the situation surrounding Crimea in March of last year, we used our veto. And do you think anyone seriously expected the vote would turn out otherwise?

But the main instigator — the United States, no doubt about it — won’t let it go. It’ll probably now force a discussion in other — albeit not binding — formats. Washington will issue a decision at any level for something that supposedly unties its hands. Because it’s Washington that’s interested in instability, which gives the U.S. time to continue old and begin new plundering. It is only for this that it needs a new brouhaha surrounding the Boeing catastrophe, where the version of events the U.S. itself fabricated was thrown in long ago.

I think the U.S. will further zombify people with its false information, indulge in wishful thinking, and create all new reasons for fomenting anti-Russian sentiments in Europe. It’s trying to turn even the U.N. Security Council into a platform for its propaganda, which has already exceeded all conceivable limits. The Russian veto, in essence, saved the reputation of the Security Council. After all, the decision of such a tribunal would be deliberately untruthful and unjust, about which Canadian international law expert Christopher Blake, one of the participants of our round table in July in Moscow, recently spoke openly.

You may ask: What is the ultimate U.S. objective? The answer is as before: Its external debt is enormous, and the impoverishment of other states is the method it’s most used to. Even having a global “printing press” in U.S. hands has stopped helping. Even complete control over NATO and wiretapping and blackmailing the European Union’s “major league” won’t save it. For the 21st-century edition colonizers, all this isn’t enough. It’s necessary not only to keep the dollar as the sole global currency, but also to creep closer to the economic riches of other major powers and regions of the world.

As a matter of fact, because of this, the U.S. has now published a new list of Russian organizations and individuals, giving instructions to its banks — and with their help, to European banks — not to work with our entities and to find any reason for it. It seems like the U.S. is also pinning a lot of hope on the upcoming hearing in a U.S. court on a so-called claim by former Yukos shareholders. The primary objective is to give American jurisdiction a global monopoly, as well as to maintain its former influence on the world financial system and remain its sole decision-maker. Even the Euro’s fate doesn’t count, nor do Europe’s other economic losses.

Honestly, it’s not a matter of reacting. Even watching all these antics becomes wearying, let alone pondering what served as the reason for introducing such plunderous sanctions only now and not months earlier. Whether American politicians had an objective to reach an agreement with us on Iran first or something else, the cynicism of their policy is obvious. But by sowing the wind, you reap the whirlwind—something it would be useful for the current U.S. president, who is already essentially a “war president,” to keep in mind. As North American analysts themselves have written, for only a few years out of the two and a half centuries of its existence has the U.S. done without wars. And all too often, it has been at war with nations very far from its borders.

Well, August has just begun. But it’s for good reason that its very first events smell of a deep political autumn. All indications are that an escalation is being prepared, but it is, after all, by no means the first of the whole train of just such escalations that have happened before our very eyes. They say that forewarned is forearmed. I’m sure we won’t give in to these provocations either. And as for an international tribunal, it will take place one day, on very different grounds than its current requesters want. And one day, a genuinely objective and professional court of law will take into account all the facts, including those about which I’ve written today. It will be such a tribunal, and not some other kind. And you and I will live to see it.

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About Jeffrey Fredrich 199 Articles
Jeffrey studied Russian language at Northwestern University and at the Russian State University for the Humanities. He spent one year in Moscow doing independent research as a Fulbright fellow from 2007 to 2008.

1 Comment

  1. Russia invaded its neighbor and seized the Crimean Peninsula. Then Russia fomented a civil war in Ukraine, killing thousands. Then Russia and its allies shot down a Malaysian civilian airliner. Russia’s tough August is a product of its own misguided aggression, and there will be lots more tough times as long as Russia continues to bully and provoke its neighbors.

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