25 Feb, 2015 15:10

‘US policymakers’ arrogance over Ukraine astounding’

The US has bases in 100 countries around the world, is escalating its involvement in the Mid-East and meddling in Ukraine’s affairs yet taking a moral stand against Russia trying to influence other countries, the Answer Coalition’s Richard Becker told RT.

Amid the diplomatic struggle for peace in Eastern Ukraine the UK is going to send military personnel to help Kiev train its army.

RT:Why is David Cameron making these aggressive statements while his European neighbors France and Germany are working for peace within the Normandy Four?

Richard Becker: I think it is worth mentioning that Britain’s intervention in Russia goes back a long time - almost a hundred years - including military intervention in the 1900’s-1920’s. But the interests are clearly divergent - France and Germany, in particular Germany, have far greater economic interests that play in this. Also Britain has been for many, many years now, for decades, the junior partner of the US and may be representing the US view when we take that in the context of what we are hearing from Kerry and various senators. It’s dangerous, these are dangerous moves that the threat, the danger of a wider war is a real one, and we are talking about powers that have nuclear weapons. No one from the starting point who says: “We want that kind of a war.” But when you begin climbing the escalation ladder you’re not sure where that ends.

RT:Cameron's idea of sending military trainers and equipment to Ukraine has already met resistance in the UK with some opposition politicians saying it would spell disaster. How deep is that divide of opinion?

RB: It is very possible that the US overreached, particularly the US in its intervention in Ukraine. It was blatant last year when, just about a year ago now and the months preceding that, when [John] McCain and Victoria Nuland from the State Department were there passing out chocolates and praising the demonstrations. Clearly what the agenda was - to not only bring Ukraine into the EU and into its orbit, but into NATO which is into the US orbit and to have NATO be able to be right up against a long frontline with Russia. This is a very dangerous stand that they are playing. Clearly the US interests are interests that may not be the same interests, and are not the same interests clearly as those of France and Germany.

RT:But it's not just Cameron talking about sending arms to Ukraine. Foreign Secretary Kerry also accused Russia of driving wedges between East and West saying that "Russia is engaged in a massive effort to sway nations … reigniting a new kind of East-West zero sum game that we think is dangerous and unnecessary…” Is that what Russia's doing?

RB: It is quite amusing to hear John Kerry. I mean, the US leaders, the US politicians will say anything. Here you have US bases in a hundred countries around the world, you have new escalating US intervention in the Middle East on top of everything else that happens. And yet there is that supposedly moral pose taking a stand against Russia trying to influence other countries. The arrogance of the policy-makers and leaders like Kerry is astounding… They act as if Ukraine is the 51st state of the US. Somehow what is going under is some kind of a threat to the US. In fact what is the threat is the US agenda which I mentioned before.

RT:Kerry also mentioned about “arming and training” the Ukrainian army. (will find a link to this fragment). Was that just a slip of the tongue, do you think?

RB: I don’t know if it was or not, but clearly the US is intervening in many different ways in the situation in a country that is half-way around the world from the US and acting as if it is in the aggrieved party, so has a right to do everything and use all kinds of intervention including the provision of military hardware to the Ukrainian army.

RT:US Secretary of State also accused Russia of driving wedges between East and West. But then he also mentioned what he called “Russia's propaganda effort.” He said: "Russia is engaged in a rather remarkable period of the most overt and extensive propaganda exercise that I've seen since the very height of the Cold War." Why did he have to once again evoke the Cold War?

RB: I think that the reason for that is an attempt to rally the US public opinion behind the administration and the administration’s very aggressive stands in regard to Ukraine, in regard to Eastern Europe, and in regard to Russia. So that is what the invocation is about. The US policy which has been outlined in a number of national security strategies is that there should be no other country that can rival the US. The US must be the lone superpower in the world and any challenge to that must be crushed.