This week
marks the 72nd anniversary of the criminal US bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. And as is the case each year, there is much discussion
and lamenting over this atrocity, as there well should be. For the
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not necessary for victory; Japan had
already sued for peace. It was the opening salvo, a brutal one, in the
first Cold War in which the world was nearly incinerated during the Cuban
missile crisis.
This week is also the one month anniversary of the first
in-person meeting of Presidents Trump and Putin at Hamburg on July 7 in the
shadow of the G20 meetings. This comes at a time when we find ourselves
years into a New Cold War. Given the tensions between Russia and the US, the
leading nuclear powers, one would think that there would be rejoicing over the
prospect of relieving the tensions between the nuclear superpowers. For
that was the agenda of the Trump-Putin summit, as such meetings were called
during the first Cold War. Unfortunately, such rejoicing was not to be
heard, quite the opposite – with a few rare exceptions
This is
lamentable, to say the least, because as tensions grow between the superpowers,
the chance for nuclear war increases. During his lengthy interviews with Vladimir Putin, Oliver Stone
showed him the movie “Dr. Strangelove” which Putin had never before seen.
Putin commented that the movie captured, among other things, a technical truth
with its depiction of the Doomsday Machine. That is, said Putin, nuclear
weapons grow increasingly harder to control with every passing day. Given
this, the failure to applaud the Trump-Putin on the part of those who were full
of praise for the UN vote on denuclearization made me wonder whether there was
any thought behind their chatter. Hatred of Trump and Putin seemed to
blot out a rational concern for human survival. Are we living in a mad
house? Did we not learn our lesson when we narrowly escaped Armageddon in
Cold War 1?
In the face of such madness, let us take the time to offer
full-throated, unmistakable praise for the Trump-Putin summit meeting.
The parley was a long time coming because of the relentless attack on Trump
over Russiagate, a Big Lie told blared out relentlessly lo these many months
and only now collapsing for want of so much as a smidgen of evidence.
Although Trump had promised to hold this summit with Putin even before he was
inaugurated, he could not do so because of the intense Russia-gate related
pressure against it – from the Elite of both Parties but with the Democrats far
in the lead. But Trump pushed ahead with the meeting anyway; as we learned
during the 2016 campaign, this is not a guy who gives up despite the odds.
To begin,
the summit was undeniably a success with solid achievements and follow-ups.
Stephen F. Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Russian History at Princeton and NYU,
and one of the few to offer praise for the meeting, summed up the meeting’s
four main accomplishments thus:
Formalizing and symbolizing the new détente partnership between
the American and Russian presidents (The symbolism of the two Presidents
meeting, shaking hands and “getting along,” to use a phrase often invoked by
Trump in the 2016 campaign, should not be underestimated. It can have a
great effect on public opinion and show people that to feel friendly toward
Russia and Putin is legit. After all the President feels that way. jw);
Agreement to cooperate in Syria against terrorist forces there,
not only in the limited ways announced, but in more expansive ways, which meant
agreeing with Moscow that Syrian President Assad must remain at least until
ISIS is fully defeated;
Creating a bilateral US-Russian channel for negotiating a
settlement of the Ukrainian civil and proxy war, thereby bypassing, or reducing,
the role played thus far by Germany and France, which has largely failed; and
Agreeing to discuss ways to limit the dangers of cyber
technology in international affairs. (Though Trump was forced to talk back this
agenda item, no doubt it remains on the US-Russian agenda, a subject of
negotiation, as it should be, considering the ways in which cyber attacks could
undermine nuclear security on both sides.)
To these I would add the cease-fire in southwest Syria which was
arranged in the run-up to the meeting and announced there. This
cease-fire is still holding, and Russian FM Lavrov has announced that more
ceasefire zones are in the works in Syria. Any time that the guns fall
silent, the killing stops and people can return to their homes, there should be
jubilation – especially in the outlets devoted to peace. Sadly that has
been far from the case in the progressive press or the MSM.
The cooperation on Syria continued with a thunderbolt in the
form of a Trumpian tweet on Monday night, July 24:
“The Amazon
Washington Post fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous,
and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad…..”
A superb
assessment of this tweet marking Trump’s order to end the CIA’s regime change
op and its de facto support for jihadis in Syria comes from David
Stockman here:
Occasionally one of Trump’s tweets slices through Imperial
Washington’s sanctimonious cant. Indeed, Monday evening’s 140 characters cut
right to the bone. Needless to say, we are referencing not the dig at the
empire of Bezos, but the characterization of Washington’s anti-Assad policy as
“massive, dangerous and wasteful”.
No stouter blow to the neocon/Deep State “regime change” folly
has ever been issued by an elected public official. Yet there it is – the
self-composed words of the man in the Oval Office.
Stockman follows with a brief history of the U.S.’s
covert war on Syria and Syria’s historical mistreatment at the hands of earlier
Western Empires. (It is to the credit of Antiwar.com for publishing
Stockman’s piece – in contrast to the far more widely published feverish
denunciation by John McCain: “If these reports are true, the administration is
playing right into the hands of Vladimir Putin.” Thus, is any initiative
for peace greeted from the two wings of the War Party.)
On top of this there is Secretary Tillerson’s statement that
cooperation on Syria is continuing and developing, mirroring the statement of
FM Lavrov.
I fully
expect that this evaluation will bring a storm of condemnation. Some will
accuse the author of parroting the “Kremlin line,” or being a Putin puppet,
dead giveaways for the old Cold War mindset. But I would offer one word of
advice to such naysayers. Support the good in what Trump
does and oppose the bad. Very simple. And certainly, the
good includes New Détente with Russia since it may well mean the survival of
humanity. We might not get another shot at it. No other major
national political figure, other than Rand Paul, is calling for it, which means
we are in very deep trouble, perhaps mortal trouble.
John Walsh [send him mail]
is a frequent contributor to CounterPunch.com, Antiwar.com, LewRockwell.com and
DissidentVoice.org. He is a founding member of “Come Home America.” Until
recently he was Professor of Physiology and Neuroscience at the University of
Massachusetts Medical School.
Copyright © 2017 John V. Walsh
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