A Time for Europeans to Choose

As my regular readers will observe I am not only taking a Russia-friendly approach on my blogs but I am posting articles which are actively calling for the European Union to build and strengthen a rapport with the Russian Federation as a friend and partner of the EU.

Ex-chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder is right to see Russia's destiny to be with the European Union. Moreover, I would like to see the Russian Federation join the EU but recognise that to be a pipe-dream, at least for now. Firstly, the EU would feel threatened by the prospect of its huge neighbour swamping the rest and secondly, the US would never allow such a threat to its global, imperial pretensions to materialise.

The present danger that we face in Europe is not from Russia but from the continued trouble-making instigated by self-serving neocons ensconced in the White House and their errand-boys in Downing Street and the east European EU. These fifth-columnists are on the payroll of US imperialism and have no wish to see a united Europe developing a foreign policy independently of the US. They would rather that the EU take on a 'Euro-Atlantic' role together with Washington's cat's paw, NATO, under US global military-economic hegemony.

Any sane person would see that such an arrangement, the present status quo, not only results in the destabilising of European security --as we have seen recently result in the Caucasus-- but that it puts Europe under the constant threat of regional war exacerbated and provoked by US interference. Saakashvili is not the only madman to have wheedled his way into power in eastern Europe. There are other narrow-minded fanatics and opportunists, for example in Poland, the Czech Republic and the Ukraine, who would be more than willing to do the bidding of neocon bosses in the USA to bring destruction upon the heads of Europeans.

Some of us remember how the US planned its nuclear strategy in the 'eighties to include a European Theatre of War, meaning a 'limited' nuclear exchange with the old Soviet Union to include Europe and not the north American continent. That threat led to the growth of a huge Peace Movement in Europe and an equal loss of US popularity. It is ironic that the US appears to be free now to develop its First Strike nuclear doctrine of 'Compellance' with the installation of the ABM missile shield (more of that anon) with no such resistance from Europeans.

The ABM shield is certainly not popular either amongst the people of Poland or the Czech Republic where public opinion is simply being ignored by opportunist, pro-US governments. While crowing about the need for representative democracy amongst others, the Atlanticists' own record in that concern is, to say the least, deplorable. While ruthless imperialism by war criminals is ok for the Good Guys of the West where Might is Right the slightest sign of the East's approaching western atrocities is noisily denounced. It's all rather yawningly tiresome.

At least one Russian strategist is warning us that the conflict in the Caucasus is by no means over and that the mischief-makers in Washington DC will now be looking to cause a bigger crisis in the Ukraine which could lead to civil war and a confrontation between Russia and the West. As well as that, the ongoing threat of a surprise attack by the US proxy, Israel, with or without support from the US military during the time prior to the November presidential election, puts us all on a Red Alert.

The need for a collective, friendly European initiative towards Russia is now needed urgently. As France's Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, is reported to have said the other day in respect of our need to build a common alliance with Russia:

"We have to be together. The US have their own views, but we are living close to Russia. We need to develop our own policy, a neighbouring policy. We have to talk about our views of being close to Russia, a great country, a partner."

Kouchner, of course, is absolutely right. It's not surrender-monkey talk but that of the pragmatic, classic diplomacy for which while France is traditionally famed is anathema to the fanatics who still rule the dual-party, opposame dictatorship in the USA. Kouchner, all credit to him, speaks as a European, unlike the traitorous Brown and Miliband who will happily sell out the interests of their own people in order to ensure a continued political sodomy by their American minders.

It's time to cut the crap and deal with matters of survival. The hour is already very, very late. Homegrown Europhobes who continue to bleat about a 'fascist EU state' are their and our worst enemy. For all their talk about a loss of 'sovereign' powers the reality is that they would rather Britain forsake its European partners to continue as a vassal state of Washington DC, serving the warmongering interests of the notorious Anglo-American fraternities responsible for the deaths of 70 million Europeans in two world wars.

So which is it to be, fellow Britons? Will you, as Europeans, choose a common destiny where Europe and Russia coexist together in peace or are you prepared, through inaction, to allow your quisling leaders continue with a diabolical 'special relationship' which has caused so much bloodshed and misery on this war-torn Planet? The time to decide has come and the time for dithering is ended.

Which is it to be?

Rory Winter, Chimes of Freedom

Tweedledum & Tweedledee in the Great British Non-Debate

Nowhere in Europe can the issue of Europe have become so polarised as it has in Britain. Yet the issue of a Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty has been confused (and I suspect deliberately so) with the question of whether Britain should remain or withdraw from the EU.

Whereas there is a strong outcry for a Referendum in certain quarters the prospect of withdrawal remains much less popular. Britain's anti-EU campaigners know this and seek to cloud the issue by using the call for a Referendum as proof of the unpopularity of the EU. It's no accident that anti-EU newspapers like the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph are all the most vociferous when it comes to demanding a Referendum. And David Cameron's Tory Party, not known for its love of things European, is no different.

During the recent House of Commons debate on the Lisbon Treaty it was significantly the Tories who felt threatened by the prospect of a European Defence Force which they see as a threat to the present Anglo-American 'special relationship' and alliance. Cameron claims that the 'special relationship' is in his and the Tory party's DNA. It shouldn't take much analysis to understand what he means.

And whereas it is perfectly understandable that writers like Susan George should denounce the Treaty as a blueprint for 'neo-liberal' exploitation and for the people of France and Holland to have rejected the proposed Constitution for similar reasons we should be much more cautious with the British Right as well as the caravan of anti-EU nationalists which follows on behind it.

A major reason the British Right is fighting the Lisbon Treaty is because it sees the creation of a European Defence Force as the first step towards a military bloc which would seriously challenge not only the present Anglo-Saxon Alliance but the imperialist military power behind it.


Now Eire is under threat from Nato

When reminded of the paradox in their 'independence' argument the anti-EU nationalists have no answer. For how can they really be serious about a British 'independence' which in the cruel light of day simply does not exist? And if the nationalists on the Left are, as they often profess to be, anti-Nato and against the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan how can they square this with their hostility to a EU which is feared by US analysts as a growing threat to US foreign policy?

Opposition to the EU in Britain tends to come from a deeper source of resentment than just concern for the threat of unemployment resulting from the Treaty's 'neoliberal' economic policies. It is something to be found in the well-springs of national identity or now rather a lack of one following a post-imperial hangover. It is probably no accident that there exists no serious interest here in a debate about the need for more democracy within the EU. Why bother when you can get your opinions ready-made from the Sun? And yet how many who read the Sun know that Rupert Murdoch, a naturalised US citizen, is a mortal enemy of the EU? And if they did would they trouble to join up the dots?

Unlike Eire with its Dublin Castle Forum debate the people of the UK are not being allowed any debate over the Lisbon Treaty. The British must rely on the paucity of --even then grossly distorted-- information it receives from the national mainstream media and a government whose attitude to the European Project is in a word ambivalent. While on the one hand successfully blackmailing the EU with threats to veto the Treaty if not allowed major opt-outs concerning industrial relations and civil rights Gordon Brown returns to our shores claiming these opt-outs to be an "achievement"! An achievement for whom, the people or a reactionary government going busily about turning Britain into a police-state?

There never was a time when Britain more needed an intelligent, informed national debate about where this country is headed for. But that need is not even on the agenda of an unelected Brown government whose deeply undemocratic nature makes even the Tories look like the champions of freedom. Of course, they are not. If Labour and the Tories have one thing in common it is that they share a deep belief in the Atlantic alliance between Britain and the USA.

That Alliance, while in the interests of Anglo-American capital, is certainly no friend of the people. Both Labour and the Tories would like to keep Britain in the EU to act as a trojan horse for US interests and interventionism. And that is why Tweedledum and Tweedledee do not want a national debate on Europe or, indeed, anything else.

While campaigning for a more democratic Europe the reality of the Anglo-American status quo should never be forgotten. What European democrats should be working towards is not only a decentralised and democratic European Federation --one that is truly people-friendly-- but for a Europe that has the economic, diplomatic and military teeth to present itself as a defensive counter-force in a new, multipolar world of powers.

Paul Carline from the Initiative & Referendum Institute, Marburg, comments:

An excellent analysis. There are very good reasons for believing that a federated Europe based on popular sovereignty and direct-democratic rights (citizen-initiated referendums and obligatory referendums on key issues - as is already the case in the Irish Republic) would be a safer and more prosperous place.

There's every reason to think that Britain would also be better off as a federal country, like Switzerland and Germany.

In fact, Switzerland, with its 26 sovereign cantons, each with its own constitution based on popular sovereignty, is a great model for an EU which now has 27 member states.
Academic studies in Switzerland show that the more direct democracy there is i.e. the more the people have real rights of political decision-making and initiative, the happier people are and the more efficient and prosperous the economy is.

When anti-EU people speak of 'national sovereignty', they are talking about an undemocratic claim to exclusive power by an unrepresentative parliament and government in which a tiny handful of people around the prime minister can take momentous decisions such as committing Britain to illegal wars (incidentally making those who promoted and supported those decisions war criminals in international and domestic law. cf. the Campaign to Make Wars History at www.makewarshistory.org).

Is that the kind of sovereignty we want?