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<div class="entry-date">Weekend Edition April 18-20, 2014<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/18/the-strangelove-effect/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/18/the-strangelove-effect/</a><br>
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<div class="subheadlinestyle"><big><big><b>Or How We are Hoodwinked
into Accepting a New World War
</b></big></big></div>
<h1 class="article-title">The Strangelove Effect</h1>
<div class="mainauthorstyle"><big><big>by JOHN PILGER</big></big></div>
<div class="main-text"><big><big> </big></big>
<p><big><big>I watched <i>Dr. Strangelove</i> the other day. I have
seen it perhaps a dozen times; it makes sense of senseless news. When
Major T.J. “King” Kong goes “toe to toe with the Rooskies” and flies
his rogue B52 nuclear bomber to a target in Russia, it’s left to
General “Buck” Turgidson to reassure the President. Strike first, says
the general, and “you got no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>President Merkin Muffley: “I will not go down in history
as the greatest mass-murderer since Adolf Hitler.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>General Turgidson: “Perhaps it might be better, Mr.
President, if you were more concerned with the American people than
with your image in the history books.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>The genius of Stanley Kubrick’s film is that it accurately
represents the cold war’s lunacy and dangers. Most of the characters
are based on real people and real maniacs. There is no equivalent to <i>Strangelove</i>
today, because popular culture is directed almost entirely at our
interior lives, as if identity is the moral zeitgeist and true satire
is redundant; yet the dangers are the same. The nuclear clock has
remained at five minutes to midnight; the same false flags are hoisted
above the same targets by the same “invisible government”, as Edward
Bernays, the inventor of public relations, described modern propaganda.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>In 1964, the year <i>Strangelove</i> was made, “the
missile gap” was the false flag. In order to build more and bigger
nuclear weapons and pursue an undeclared policy of domination,
President John Kennedy approved the CIA’s propaganda that the Soviet
Union was well ahead of the US in the production of Intercontinental
Ballistic Missiles. This filled front pages as the “Russian threat”. In
fact, the Americans were so far ahead in the production of ICBMs, the
Russians never approached them. The cold war was based largely on this
lie.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has ringed
Russia with military bases, nuclear warplanes and missiles as part of
its “Nato Enlargement Project”. Reneging a US promise to Soviet
President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that Nato would not expand “one
inch to the east”, Nato has all but taken over eastern Europe. In the
former Soviet Caucuses, Nato’s military build-up is the most extensive
since the second world war.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>In February, the United States mounted one of its proxy
“colour” coups against the elected government of Ukraine; the shock
troops were fascists. For the first time since 1945, a pro-Nazi, openly
anti-Semitic party controls key areas of state power in a European
capital. No Western European leader has condemned this revival of
fascism on the border of Russia. Some 30 million Russians died in the
invasion of their country by Hitler’s Nazis, who were supported by the
Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the UPA, responsible for numerous Jewish and
Polish massacres. The UPA was the military wing, inspiring today’s
Svoboda party.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Since Washington’s putsch in Kiev — and Moscow’s
inevitable response in Russian Crimea, to protect its Black Sea Fleet —
the provocation and isolation of Russia have been inverted in the news
to the “Russian threat”. This is fossilised propaganda. The US Air
Force general who runs Nato forces in Europe – General Breedlove, no
less — claimed more than two weeks ago to have pictures showing 40,000
Russian troops “massing” on the border with Ukraine. So did Colin
Powell claim to have pictures of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
What is certain is that Obama’s rapacious, reckless coup in Ukraine has
ignited a civil war and Vladimir Putin is being lured into a trap.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Following a 13-year rampage that began in stricken
Afghanistan well after Osama bin Laden had fled, then destroyed Iraq
beneath a false flag, then invented a “nuclear rogue” in Iran,
dispatched Libya to a Hobbesian anarchy and backed jihadists in Syria,
the US finally has a new cold war to supplement its worldwide campaign
of murder and terror by drone.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>A Nato Membership Action Plan or MAP — straight from the
war room of <i>Strangelove</i> — is General Breedlove’s gift to the
new dictatorship in Ukraine. “Rapid Trident” will put US troops on
Ukraine’s Russian border and “Sea Breeze” will put US warships within
sight of Russian ports. At the same time, Nato war games throughout
eastern Europe are designed to intimidate Russia. Imagine the response
if this madness was reversed and happened on America’s borders. Cue
General “Buck” Turgidson.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>And there is China. On 24 April, President Obama will
begin a tour of Asia to promote his “Pivot to China”. The aim is to
convince his “allies” in the region, principally Japan, to re-arm and
prepare for the eventual possibility of war with China. By 2020, almost
two-thirds of all US naval forces in the world will be transferred to
the Asia-Pacific area. This is the greatest military concentration in
that vast region since the second world war.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>In an arc extending from Australia to Japan, China will
face US missiles and nuclear-armed bombers. A strategic naval base is
being built on the Korean island of Jeju less than 400 miles from the
Chinese metropolis of Shanghai and the industrial heartland of the only
country whose economic power is likely to surpass that of the US.
Obama’s “pivot” is designed to undermine China’s influence in its
region. It is as if world war has begun by other means.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>This is not a Strangelove fantasy. Obama’s defence
secretary, Charles “Chuck” Hagel, was in Beijing last week to deliver a
menacing warning that China, like Russia, could face isolation and war
if it did not bow to US demands. He compared the annexation of Crimea
with China’s complex territorial dispute with Japan over uninhabited
islands in the East China Sea. “You cannot go around the world,” said
Hagel with a straight face, “and violate the sovereignty of nations by
force, coercion or intimidation”. As for America’s massive movement of
naval forces and nuclear weapons to Asia, that is “a sign of the
humanitarian assistance the US military can provide”.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Obama is currently seeking a greater budget for nuclear
weapons than the historical peak during the cold war, the era of
Strangelove. The United States is pursuing its longstanding ambition to
dominate the Eurasian landmass, stretching from China to Europe: a
“manifest destiny” made right by might.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big><i><i><strong>John Pilger</strong> is the author of
Freedom Next Time. He can be reached through his website:<a
href="http://%20www.johnpilger.com"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.johnpilger.com']);"> www.johnpilger.com</a></i></i></big></big></p>
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