Money makes the war go round
The Cold War is not over - it has shifted into the hawkish minds of some influential American lobbyists and politicians, who have envision battles rattling on with a vengeance.
It is true that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says ties between Moscow and Washington have significantly improved since she was appointed America's top diplomat, but despite a warming in relations, some political groups in the US are actively pushing for a more aggressive stance. And not only against Russia.The Salon web magazine has looked into the expense records of one lobby group in Washington and revealed that for years it has courted journalists who adopt distinct anti-Russian standpoints by arranging interviews for them, and paying for their trips and dinners.One of those reportedly wooed by the lobby, called Orion Strategies, is a journalist named Eli Lake from the Washington Times. He wrote a series of pieces undermining the reset between Russia and the US. One of his articles focused on allegations that Russia masterminded last year’s explosion near the US embassy in Georgia – accusations he took from Georgian investigators, of course. And as it turns out the lobby that approached Mr. Lake is officially contracted by the Georgian government.RT tried to get in touch with Mr. Lake but he did not respond.Analysts say it is not so much the Georgians’ agenda that a lobby like Orion Strategies is pushing forward, but rather that of Washington hawks. The head of Orion was an aide to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who actively cheered for the war in Iraq. Then he was an aide to Senator John McCain, well-known for his hawkish foreign policy views. Senator McCain never concealed his desire to see Russian leaders overthrown – though not exclusively Russian.“Dictators all over the world – including Bashar Assad [in Syria], maybe even Mr. Putin, maybe some Chinese, maybe all of them – might be a little bit more nervous because clearly the people of Libya rose up [as] we assisted them,” he proclaimed recently.“This group of people has a large number of institutions that they work through. They have a large number of think tanks, magazines and newspapers to push this idea of supremacy of the US,” retired US Army Colonel Ann Wright reveals.
Washington has arguably never been short of warmongers. The most visible one these days is the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Romney has already delivered tough words to the likes of Iran, Pakistan and China.He also called for boosting America’s military spending, ending the reset with Russia and unfolding a robust missile defense program in Europe. “America is not destined t be one of the world's several equally-balanced global powers. America must lead the world,” presidential candidate Mitt Romney stresses.“Romney is pitching himself as a candidate for the military industrial complex hoping that they bite,” evaluates Brian Becker, director of the Answer coalition.America’s vast military industry will be first to benefit from the strong rhetoric of Washington’s war hawks. “Some of the biggest transnational corporations that make weapons, that benefit from the ideology that the US must exercise military supremacy and have an endless arms race. And those big companies are tied to the biggest banks on Wall Street,” Brian Becker points out. “There is a military-industrial complex and it is facilitated by having pretext for endless wars. So when President Obama said we’re pushing a reset button with Russia, this whole lobby and Romney’s industries said that’s bad, because any relaxation of tensions means less of an excuse to produce more weapons.”America is the world’s number one weapons’ producer and exporter. And countries like Georgia are looking to become the next market for American weapons. We are familiar with US politicians and influential groups in Washington calling for the end of the reset with Russia, but it is not just Russia with which tensions are being ramped-up. The same people are doing a lot of fear mongering against countries like China and Iran. The list is pretty long, actually.Meanwhile, experts agree the only side that could benefit from a potential confrontation is America’s military machine. And definitely not the people in the countries involved.
