Putin Hands it to Pompous British Twit

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

There is no doubt Vladimir Putin, no more than Jeb Bush, Barack Obama, or any of the representatives or spokespersons of the US or western capitalist class is a friend of working people. But in this interview Putin touches on the roots of the increased tension between the Russians and the West, US imperialism in particular.  Of course, tension between nation states based on the capitalist mode of production is an inherent and inescapable problem. The great powers drag small allies in to their orbit or form regional economic blocs in order to increase their global influence and their market share with regard to their rivals, or more accurately, their share of the plunder of the world's natural resources.

But it is inescapable for anyone who takes the time to drag themselves away from the TV, especially the US mass media which is the most censored and controlled in the so-called "free world", that the US capitalist class and its military machine is the most destabilizing factor in the world community and  the source of instability and tension from the China Sea (yes it's next to China) to the Persian Gulf (Yes it's next to Persia) and the  border of Latvia or Poland. Yes they're next to Russia.

Putin, is the ex KGB thug and his human rights record is no better than George Bush the man responsible for the destruction of Iraq and murder of a million or so people. Putin's no cleaner than Dick Cheney,  remember him, he shot his buddy in the face after drinking too much booze.  That doesn't mean Putin is never right about anything.  The US has surrounded Russia with bases, also up to a point China.  Even in Syria when one thinks about it, Russia has a right to be more concerned about replacing the dictator Assad with an Islamic fundamentalist regime, it's next door to Russia and the US has a history of supporting terrorists groups, it's terrorist groups that is. The various "Stans" in Central Asia also have huge Muslim populations that border Russia and there is also Chechnya which has great potential for instability and unrest. The US has funded and armed some of the most murderous regimes in the world. The Saudi's for example.

None of these folks are clean here and in places like Syria and throughout the world I am convinced we will continue to see similar developments, regional wars, ethnic and religious turmoil until the working class finds its feet and enters the global stage in a major way.  In places like Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran (the US overthrew the democratic secular government of Iran in 1953 and installed a dictator) the vast US spy agencies and its covert and at times overt operations ensured the political forces that led the movements for self determination as well as the growth of independent unions and workers' organizations were crushed by despotic regimes. Unless, of course, the opposition was pro-market and pro western. The US helped Saddam Hussein crush his democratic opponents.

As far as the British BBC interviewer here he has no credibility at all.  British colonialism has a history of mass murder and ethnic cleansing that puts the Zionists to shame, starting with Ireland. When the BBC journalist speaks he is simply repeating the US  state dept. line and Putin is no fool, he replies to him as if he's speaking to CNN. British capitalism is a tenth rate power and only has any clout at all as the Pentagon's parrot.

The world's working class though has been busy.  There is no doubt US imperialism's footprint in Latin America has been weakened due to the rising opposition to it in that region and the rise of leftist governments in Venezuela and Bolivia in particular. The US being bogged down in the Middle East is another factor. US capitalism is armed to the teeth and we're paying for it back home.

As I write there are major clashes between students and the South African government. We have seen the huge strikes and protests throughout Asia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh not to mention China and India. The Russian working class with its history of struggle will not remain silent, now or in the future, And here in the US, the burden of financing US capitalism's corporate wars will reach a boiling point in the not so distant future.  The US working class too has a rich militant history of struggle against one of the most crass and violent ruling classes of all and will enter the stage of history with a vengeance at some point. The America that Hollywood shows the world does not exist.

But Putin, like him or not, is correct in his answer to this pompous representative of the British ruling class.

A decent book on the US intervention in Central Asia in the aftermath of the collapse of the old Soviet regime is Michel Chossudovsky's War and Globalization. I think it might have been republished under the title The Globalization of War.