Washington invokes the language of war against Russia
14 January 2017
Significant sections of the American political establishment are actively preparing for war against Russia. This is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the language used to describe Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin by top Republicans and Democrats in recent weeks.
“Is Vladimir Putin a war criminal?” Senator Marco Rubio (Republican from Florida) demanded of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at a hearing on Wednesday. “Do you believe that Vladimir Putin and his cronies are responsible for ordering the murder of countless dissidents, journalists and political opponents?”
While replying that Russia is a significant threat to US interests, Tillerson refrained from repeating Rubio’s language. This prompted Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen to express her dismay that Tillerson was “unwilling to agree with Senator Rubio’s characterization of Vladimir Putin as a war criminal.”
The performance was repeated at a Senate hearing on Thursday for the secretary of defense nominee, General James Mattis. Republican Senator John McCain, who last month denounced Putin as a “thug and murderer” and called the alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails an “act of war,” declared that the US will be “engaged in global conflict for the foreseeable future… Hard power [that is, the military] matters, having it, threatening it, leveraging it for diplomacy and at times using it.”
For decades, and in particular in the quarter century since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the American media and political establishment have followed a well-worn script in advance of every war of aggression. In the run-up to the bombing of Serbia in 1999,…