Russia Is Not Our Enemy

Whereas I understand the overwhelmingly Orwellian predilection of Government always finding an external enemy to demonize and for the nation’s citizens to hate and fear, I have grown tired of this overused and timeworn ploy.

For one thing, there seems to be no end to the people we should now suspect and fear. There is Syria, that unstable and supposedly secular state that is now in upheaval at the hands of the Muslims. They have The Bomb.

Then it’s Iran who since the 1950s have chafed under their U.S. backed King turned Dictator, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, The Shah. THEY hate us and will do anything to undermine the good ol’ American way.

China seems to always be threatening us one way or another whether it is economically, militarily, its expansion into the African continent or in its declarations that neighboring states are their own and annexing” them.

So the list just grows: Afghanistan, Iraq, Venezuela, Cuba, etc. etc.

But it seems there was always Russia. Growing up it was the Soviet Union or as their sports jerseys always read: CCCP.

The Soviet Union and their Kiev based government were the perfect nemesis for the ever imperial United States. They were an older culture, educated and in the period after WWII were just as militarily powerful.

They were the perfect foil. The Yin to our Yang, the grim faced Washington Generals to our colorful joke cracking Harlem Globetrotters.

I remember growing up watching Wide World of Sports on TV and there was an international boxing competition where we had a squad of amateur boxers, kids really, like 19 or 20 years old with records like 21 wins and 3 losses and we put them up against a Soviet team where they had mostly “students” or rather “physical education majors” from the University of Leningrad or Moscow or something and these guys were in their mid to late 20s and had records of 116 wins and 8 losses. They were professional boxers in actuality and for the most part the U.S. kids got pasted. The team would lose 10 out of 12 contests and afterward the U.S. coach came on and said, “We’ll need more resources in order to BEAT THE RUSSIANS.” And I turned to my brother, who was older and wiser than I, and said, “You hear that? We gotta beat the Russians!” And I’ll never forget what he said to me.

“Why do we have to beat the Russians?”

And I had no answer. I still don’t have an answer. Why DO we have to beat the Russians?

I don’t see Russia as an enemy and I guess I never have. Oh, I’ve been TOLD that they are bad and lead by a series of bad men and the Supreme Soviet et al and the people were not free to move about or even leave the country. Growing up they were the land of Sputnik, Propaganda and World Domination. They would attempt to prove their supremacy at any opportunity.

But we never got to see why so many of these clashes with the Soviet Union actually happened.

The Cuban Missile Crisis is a case in point. The U.S. put nuclear missiles in Turkey aimed at Moscow and the U.S. attempted an armed invasion of Cuba.  In light of this, Russians sending missiles to Cuba would be a logical counter measure and something they would not have initiated otherwise. So why was Russia the bad guy in this event when President Kennedy’s blunders caused the whole thing? I never got that.

So now Edward Snowden has been granted asylum in Russia. I’m glad for this. I think Russia is a better place to be than that toilet of a country Venezuela, a place that Hugo Chavez has managed to destroy in 13 short years in his attempts to “lift up the downtrodden”. Not to say that Russia doesn’t still have it’s issues but we’re not doing too good around here either thanks to decades of shoddy leadership, national media news blackouts and the growing encroachment of government upon every facet of our lives. Sound familiar? This is exactly what WE in the United States used to accuse the Soviet Union of being. The shoe now appears to be on the other foot.  

But people like Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning are the true conscious of America today. They have seen the wrongs our government is doing and in good conscience they could not just stand by and watch. They have risked all to bring the truth out. What would YOU do if you saw what they saw? And now that you know what they know, what will YOU do?

In the 1960s we here in the U.S. applauded dissention. But now that the dissenters are in power, these people cannot be tolerated for doing what was thought not so long ago to be the right thing when they see something unjust.  Neither Mr. Snowden or Mr. Manning can release enough so called classified material that could do as much damage to our nation than what our own government has done on its own.

So we see the U.S. government and their media propaganda machine all on the side of “My Country, Right or Wrong”.  But the Government is wrong in its daily violations of the U.S Constitution. The Congress is wrong in allowing this to happen. Since when can warrantless searches happen and nobody says anything? Since when does the President order payments to foreign countries without the Congress approving the funds? Who is alright with this?

Of course Russia never seemed to be tolerant of dissent even a little bit and the U.S. used to use that attitude to bash them over the head any chance we got. But times have changed and that moral high ground is LONG GONE.

No, the enemy of the American people isn’t Russia, China, North Korea or even Iran. The biggest enemy of the AMERICAN PEOPLE is the U.S. GOVERNMENT. They’re campaign of surveillance, influence buying, unscrupulous alliances with big business and the big banks and then having the American taxpayer bankroll the whole thing over and over is a HIGH CRIME.

It is well past the time to withdraw from our foreign entanglements around the globe. They have served no purpose in the long run but to cause more trouble for the nations involved and their people and in the case of Syria, Libya and Iraq, have caused death and ruin to many civilians. The American people are not served by these actions and it only sends notice that our government is out of control.

 We have created enemies for the sake of creating enemies. Whether it’s the law of unintended consequences or by design, this has become our business.