{"id":146668,"date":"2015-04-20T17:37:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T17:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?guid=c46467eb738b9c2ead07b61ef4161be8"},"modified":"2015-04-20T17:37:00","modified_gmt":"2015-04-20T17:37:00","slug":"gunslinger-us-general-readies-for-war-with-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/gunslinger-us-general-readies-for-war-with-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"Gunslinger US General Readies for War with Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\"><b>Gunslinger US General Readies for War with Russia<\/b><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">by Stephen Lendman<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">America is run by neocon lunatics and gunslinger generals. Together they threaten world peace.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Washington\u2019s only enemies are ones it invents to wage endless wars of aggression &#8211; premeditated ones against one country after another posing no threat to anyone.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Rogue states operate this way. Readers familiar with Orwell&#8217;s 1984 understand. America exceeds the worst of what he envisioned.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">World peace hangs by a thread. Humanity&#8217;s survival is up for grabs.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">General Ben Hodges heads US Army Europe (USAREUR). On April 18, he lied telling <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/worldnews\/europe\/russia\/11547247\/Europe-faces-a-real-threat-from-Russia-warns-US-army-commander.html\"><span style=\"color: #1255cc;\">London&#8217;s Telegraph<\/span><\/a> NATO must stay united against a &#8220;real threat&#8221; from Russia.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">&#8220;This is not an assumption,&#8221; he blustered. &#8220;There is a Russian threat.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Fact: The whole world knows Russia threatens no other country &#8211; not America, other NATO members, other nations, none whatever.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Fact: No country goes more all-out for world peace and stability than Russia.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Fact: None try harder to resolve ongoing conflicts diplomatically.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Fact: None more deserve high praise for their efforts.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Fact: America more than any other nation threatens world peace, stability and security.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Fact: Its endless direct and proxy wars kill millions.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Fact: It&#8217;s reckless imperial agenda may kill us all.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Hodges outrageously accused an unnamed Russian official with threatening Denmark with a nuclear attack &#8220;if it participates in any missile defense program&#8221; &#8211; &nbsp;intended entirely for offense against Russia.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">He said deploying US combat forces in Eastern Europe close to Russian territory and parading them across international borders (an exercise called Dragoon Ride) sends a &#8220;reassuring (signal to) our allies.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">In March, angry anti-war Czechs responded saying &#8220;Tanks? No thanks!&#8221; They want no part of US combat troops and heavy weapons on their territory.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">They called it &#8220;an unnecessary and dangerously provocative military (stunt), which only increas(s) international tension.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">World Without Wars and Without Violence member Tana Bednarova said &#8220;(t)he last time that vehicles like this came to the Czech Republic, they were Soviet tanks coming to crush moves towards democracy in 1968.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">&#8220;We don\u2019t want such vehicles from foreign armies coming here ever again,&#8221; she stressed.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">She criticized NATO&#8217;s eastern expansion saying if Washington and Alliance partners &#8220;want to create security in the world, then Russia and China and all other countries\u2026should be invited to join.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Separately, Hodges said &#8220;(t)he whole purpose (of US Eastern European deployments) is to assure those allies that live closest to the Bear that we are here.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">&#8220;President Putin exercises freedom of movement all the time. He moves troops and stuff around Russia whenever he wants to.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Fact: He does it nonthreateningly inside Russian territory.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Fact: America operates provocatively on foreign soil close to Russia&#8217;s borders &#8211; risking direct confrontation by intent or judgmental error.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">According to Hodges, perhaps it&#8217;s inevitable so America has &#8220;to be militarily ready.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">&#8220;The best insurance we have against a showdown is that (US-dominated) NATO stands together.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Accusations of &#8220;Russian aggression&#8221; ring hollow &#8211; Big Lies substantiated only by provocative bluster.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">&#8220;We&#8217;re not interested in a fair fight with anyone,&#8221; Hodges said. &#8220;I want to have overmatch in all systems.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Russian lower house State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachev said Hodges&#8217; comments show US-dominated NATO will never treat Russia equitably.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">It wants military superiority in readiness for an eventual showdown with Moscow.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">It wants hundreds of thousands of NATO Rapid Deployable Corps combat troops positioned close to Russia&#8217;s borders. It wants war, not peace.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">In his last interview before death, noted German author Gunter Grass warned about &nbsp;&#8220;sleepwalking towards another world war.&#8221; He told the Spanish newspaper El Pais:<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">&#8220;We have on the one side Ukraine, whose situation is not improving; in Israel and Palestine things are getting worse; the disaster the Americans left in Iraq, the atrocities of Islamic state and the problem of Syria.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">&#8220;There is war everywhere. We run the risk of committing the same mistakes as before. So without realizing it, we can get into a world war as if we were sleepwalking.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">&#8220;All of this together makes me realize that things are finite &#8211; that we don&#8217;t have an indefinite amount of time,&#8221; Grass explained.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Maybe less than he imagined.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">His new book as editor and contributor is titled &#8220;Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">http:\/\/www.claritypress.com\/LendmanIII.html<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px;\">It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.&nbsp;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div><b>Gunslinger US General Readies for War with Russia<\/b><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>by Stephen Lendman<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>America is run by neocon lunatics and gunslinger generals. Together they threaten world peace.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Washington&rsquo;s only enemies are ones it invents to wage endless wars of aggression &#8211; premeditated ones against one country after another posing no threat to anyone.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Rogue states operate this way. Readers familiar with Orwell&#8217;s 1984 understand. America exceeds the worst of what he envisioned.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>World peace hangs by a thread. Humanity&#8217;s survival is up for grabs.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>General Ben Hodges heads US Army Europe (USAREUR). On April 18, he lied telling <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/worldnews\/europe\/russia\/11547247\/Europe-faces-a-real-threat-from-Russia-warns-US-army-commander.html\"><span>London&#8217;s Telegraph<\/span><\/a> NATO must stay united against a &#8220;real threat&#8221; from Russia.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;This is not an assumption,&#8221; he blustered. &#8220;There is a Russian threat.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Fact: The whole world knows Russia threatens no other country &#8211; not America, other NATO members, other nations, none whatever.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Fact: No country goes more all-out for world peace and stability than Russia.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Fact: None try harder to resolve ongoing conflicts diplomatically.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Fact: None more deserve high praise for their efforts.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Fact: America more than any other nation threatens world peace, stability and security.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Fact: Its endless direct and proxy wars kill millions.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Fact: It&#8217;s reckless imperial agenda may kill us all.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Hodges outrageously accused an unnamed Russian official with threatening Denmark with a nuclear attack &#8220;if it participates in any missile defense program&#8221; &#8211; &nbsp;intended entirely for offense against Russia.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He said deploying US combat forces in Eastern Europe close to Russian territory and parading them across international borders (an exercise called Dragoon Ride) sends a &#8220;reassuring (signal to) our allies.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In March, angry anti-war Czechs responded saying &#8220;Tanks? No thanks!&#8221; They want no part of US combat troops and heavy weapons on their territory.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>They called it &#8220;an unnecessary and dangerously provocative military (stunt), which only increas(s) international tension.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>World Without Wars and Without Violence member Tana Bednarova said &#8220;(t)he last time that vehicles like this came to the Czech Republic, they were Soviet tanks coming to crush moves towards democracy in 1968.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;We don&rsquo;t want such vehicles from foreign armies coming here ever again,&#8221; she stressed.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>She criticized NATO&#8217;s eastern expansion saying if Washington and Alliance partners &#8220;want to create security in the world, then Russia and China and all other countries&hellip;should be invited to join.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Separately, Hodges said &#8220;(t)he whole purpose (of US Eastern European deployments) is to assure those allies that live closest to the Bear that we are here.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;President Putin exercises freedom of movement all the time. He moves troops and stuff around Russia whenever he wants to.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Fact: He does it nonthreateningly inside Russian territory.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Fact: America operates provocatively on foreign soil close to Russia&#8217;s borders &#8211; risking direct confrontation by intent or judgmental error.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>According to Hodges, perhaps it&#8217;s inevitable so America has &#8220;to be militarily ready.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;The best insurance we have against a showdown is that (US-dominated) NATO stands together.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Accusations of &#8220;Russian aggression&#8221; ring hollow &#8211; Big Lies substantiated only by provocative bluster.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;We&#8217;re not interested in a fair fight with anyone,&#8221; Hodges said. &#8220;I want to have overmatch in all systems.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Russian lower house State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachev said Hodges&#8217; comments show US-dominated NATO will never treat Russia equitably.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It wants military superiority in readiness for an eventual showdown with Moscow.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It wants hundreds of thousands of NATO Rapid Deployable Corps combat troops positioned close to Russia&#8217;s borders. It wants war, not peace.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In his last interview before death, noted German author Gunter Grass warned about &nbsp;&#8220;sleepwalking towards another world war.&#8221; He told the Spanish newspaper El Pais:<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;We have on the one side Ukraine, whose situation is not improving; in Israel and Palestine things are getting worse; the disaster the Americans left in Iraq, the atrocities of Islamic state and the problem of Syria.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;There is war everywhere. We run the risk of committing the same mistakes as before. So without realizing it, we can get into a world war as if we were sleepwalking.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;All of this together makes me realize that things are finite &#8211; that we don&#8217;t have an indefinite amount of time,&#8221; Grass explained.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Maybe less than he imagined.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>His new book as editor and contributor is titled &#8220;Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>http:\/\/www.claritypress.com\/LendmanIII.html<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div>It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.&nbsp;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1217,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-146668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}