U.S. and Its Eurolackeys Punish Russia for Arranging Ukraine Ceasefire

Well, file this one under No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.

Just a week after Russia helped arrange a ceasefire in the Ukrainian civil war (which is what it is, a fact Western media and political bosses refuse to acknowledge) which despite constant Western carping and criticizing and pissing on it, has held, the U.S. and its European Union stooges are attacking Russia with more economic warfare sanctions.

The sectors of the Russian economy targeted for damage are finance (Russian banks and credit), energy (including a blockade of oil drilling equipment and technology) and defense.

It's not just the EU ducks lined up in a row behind their U.S. master. It's also Norway, Canada, and Australia. Interestingly, not Israel. And not the Latin American nations, most of which over the past decade have broken free of their formerly utter subservience to the U.S. hemispheric hegemon.

The U.S. and its lackeys are still demanding total surrender from Russia. Complete withdrawal from Ukraine. Complete abandonment of the vulnerable Russian-speaking Ukrainian population. Complete cessation of all Russian influence in a nation on its own border.

But there's no reason to be surprised by this. Arrogant demands are nothing new for Western imperialist powers. And when you think you have the right to be the boss of the entire planet, as U.S. elites are convinced they have, this sort of outrageously overbearing and unreasonable behavior has to be expected.

The Western client regime in Kiev is still issuing belligerent statements, and the U.S.-bloc politicians, from Obama on down, continue to speak in bellicose terms whenever mentioning Ukraine. At the same time the U.S. is attacking Russia and threatening one of its core strategic interests, it still demands that Russia do its bidding in other foreign policy arenas, such as strong-arming Iran into giving up its nuclear enrichment program, battling the Islamic terrorists who are taking over parts of the Middle East, and providing a transit route for the U.S. evacuation of its military forces from Afghanistan. Bowing to the U.S. and doing its bidding as a willing stooge is what's called “being a responsible international player.” To be part of the so-called “international community” means being a loyal member of the U.S. “team.”

The fact that a cessation of fighting isn't enough to satisfy the demands of the U.S. bloc is telling. They don't want compromise, or peaceful resolution. They want the fascist forces to crush the secessionists, and can't even abide limited autonomy, it seems. Hence their attacks on and sabotage of the ceasefire along with the negotiations for more rights for the eastern Ukrainian provinces.

And just to show how stupid and short-sighted the U.S. is, consider this: the Ukraine is a core strategic interest for Russia. It is a distant and unimportant country for the U.S. The rise of China, on the other hand, is THE major strategic challenge facing the U.S. (Their obsession with Islamic terrorism apparently distracts U.S. imperialist elites from seeing this obvious fact. Obama at one point seemed to notice it, when he announced a “pivot” to Asia away from the Middle East. As so often with Obama, his follow-through was feeble.) The U.S. needs Russia to be part of a containment alliance against China. Yet the U.S. is driving Russia and China together. The two are making deals for Russia to supply oil and natural gas to China- which counters the attacks on Russia's energy industry by the West, including constant talk about finding alternate supplies.

The U.S. is so very powerful, not only in its own right, but also because of the constellation of subaltern states it dominates, which greatly magnifies its ability to work its will. This allows it to get away with one destructive blunder after another, such as the Vietnam War, the empowering of Islamofascists to punish the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The question is, how much arrogant stupidity can the U.S. get away with before the consequences for the U.S. become serious?