Trotsky and Lenin believed that revolution in the West – in one of the key centers of capitalism – was necessary to secure the future of the international revolution. But they both also understood the importance of the revolts by those oppressed by colonialism and imperialism.
As Trotsky put it in 1919, while on the frontline with the Red Army, “The road to Paris and London lies via the towns of Afghanistan, the Punjab and Bengal”
You can add ‘Syria’ to that list now as Russia deliberately forces ever more Syrians to flee and head towards Europe in the hope that they will undermine and destabilise society there one way or another.
That Russia has been intentionally intensifying the migration crisis, ‘weaponising’ it, has been claimed for several weeks now.
The BBC ignored that except on one occasion when they acknowledged this was thought of as a problem by some (ie NATO) but NATO’s concerns were dismissed as a lot of unwarranted nervousness about the wonderful Russkies intentions.
The BBC finally caught up yesterday as they couldn’t ignore the explicit statement by a NATO general that Russia was using the migration crisis as a ‘weapon’……
Migrant crisis: Russia and Syria ‘weaponising’ migration
Russia and Syria are deliberately using migration as an aggressive strategy towards Europe, the senior Nato commander in Europe has said.
US Gen Philip Breedlove said they were “weaponising” migration to destabilise and undermine the continent.
He also suggested that criminals, extremists and fighters were hiding in the flow of migrants.
Blink though and its gone…nowhere in plain sight today on the website, a major story airbrushed from the news by the BBC…however they do have the entirely misleading (as you’ll see below) ‘Oh what a lovely (cold) war!’ still on its pages from several weeks ago.
The BBC do not want you to think that migration is a problem that will destroy Europe and you might just come to that conclusion, if you hadn’t already, if you understood that the Russians believed mass migration of Muslims into Europe would overwhelm and break Europe….therefore confirming your suspicions about the consequences of mass migration from Muslim countries.
When these suspicions were first raised a few weeks ago the BBC’s analysis of the situation was rather pro-Russian, or at least rather complacent as to the likelihood of the Russians posing any threat to Europe or the world…..
Oh, what a lovely (cold) war!
This is the BBC’s acknowledgement that there has been suspicions about Russia’s stealth attacks using migration and propaganda…but it is dismissed out of hand by the BBC reporter as ‘NATO getting it self in a spin’…presumably he thinks, about nothing.
Hybrid war?
Where is the threat of world war leading to nuclear annihilation?
Russia, it is said, potentially threatens the Baltic Republics. Nato has got itself in a spin over a supposedly new kind of warfare seemingly practised by the Russians – so-called hybrid war – blurring the boundaries between peace and conflict.
No Armageddon
It is true that Russia – through its satellite channels, its funding of curious political forces in the West and so on – seeks to create a counter-culture to the prevailing Western view. In this it has had modest success.
But this is a pale shadow of the propaganda activities of Soviet days, nor are there the legions of the wrong but well-meaning supporters who saw in Soviet communism the salvation of mankind.
Nothing to worry about there then. The ‘pale shadow’ that has more spies than it had in the Cold war, that is out there annexing countries at will, that is murdering opponents on the streets of London, that silences its critics one way or another in the Motherland, that is still playing its Cold War hand as it supports all the usual suspects who oppose the West…and on top of that we have the Islamist jihad with its ‘legions of well-meaning supporters who see Islam as the salvation of mankind’.
The Guardian reported Russia’s intentions weeks ago…..
Refugees are becoming Russia’s weapon of choice in Syria
Russia’s flat denials of responsibility for the lethal bombing of hospitals and schools in Syria cut no ice in Ankara. Senior Turkish officials say Vladimir Putin and his Syrian allies are shamelessly using increased refugee outflows resulting from these and similar attacks as a weapon of war – one that is deliberately aimed at Turkey and Europe.
As did Der Spiegel….
The Hybrid War: Russia’s Propaganda Campaign Against Germany
The brief disappearance of a girl in Germany recently become an international political issue. Russia is exploiting the case for propaganda purposes as part of its strategy of a hybrid war aimed at destabilizing the West and dividing Europe.
As the saying goes, truth is the first casualty of war. This is especially true of the propaganda war Moscow has been waging against the West and its open societies since the crisis in Ukraine began.
The refugee crisis provides Moscow with an issue that is even better suited to divide German society. Russian propaganda portrays the West as having been infiltrated by too many foreigners, making it unable to guarantee the safety of its citizens. It stirs up resentment against refugees and migrants and attempts to undermine confidence in democratic institutions and the established media.
This is all part of a strategy to both discredit and weaken the West. Russia sees this as necessary to safeguard its interests.
The left-wing Der Spiegel uses this to try and close down debate about migration suggesting that it is merely Russian propaganda that stirs up anti-migration feeling and thus anyone who keeps on saying migration is a problem is doing Russia’s work for them…the BBC missed a trick there…..though it did use exactly the same ‘reasoning’ with ISIS…saying they wanted to divide us …therefore we must love migrants and embrace them in order to confound the Jihadi’s devilish plot.
The BBC decided the Russia story wasn’t newsworthy…or rather decided to bury the truth as it was a story that was yet another nail in the coffin of the BBC narrative about the wonders of immigration.
On a similar note another one of the BBC’s favourite narratives comes under attack…that of the heroic, and careful, cautious, considered and prudent leader who didn’t rush headlong into something without a great deal of thought.
Or as others see him, a ditherer who won’t commit to anything important.
In the Sunday Times at the same time those articles about Russia were appearing [just not on the BBC] Roger Boyes wrote…
The great, grey fox Zbig Brzezinski has Barack Obama dead to rights. “He doesn’t strategise,” says Jimmy Carter’s former security guru. “He sermonises.” As the revolt against Bashar al-Assad enters its sixth year, the price of the president’s preference for moral imperatives over effective military action is now clear to all [Not to the BBC which likes a good sermonising and moral imperatives]: Obama has lost Syria. He has invited presidential historians to the White House for dinner: they should tell him that the desertion of the Syrians, and not the Iranian nuclear deal [BBC cheer] or the withdrawal from Afghan battlefields [or indeed a premature withdrawal from Iraq] will go down as his legacy.
Of course it wasn’t just Obama who allowed Putin to slip into Syria….Ed Miliband was at the forefront of the betrayal that left the Syrians at Assad’s mercy. When do you ever hear the BBC discuss that?
Here is another nail in another BBC favoured narrative…that the Iraq War gave rise to ISIS [Never mind that ISIS, under a different name, was set up before the war even began]….again, by coincidence, at the same time the reports about Russia first appeared [Just not on the BBC]…and again in this interview that suggestion arises…
Five Live broadcast an interview ( 1 hr 21 mins) with ‘Award-winning foreign correspondent Janine di Giovanni, who writes for Newsweek and Vanity Fair, gave her insight into the war in Syria.’
In the first part of the interview di Giovanni tells us that we could have intervened very early on and stopped the war and….that Russia was deliberately causing an exodus of immigrants to provoke the region….and was deliberately targeting rescue workers….a ceasefire only allows Assad to regroup and rearm.
If we had intervened earlier we could have prevented the immigration csisis she says and we did not pay enough attention to the rise of ISIS.
Then we get the second BBC narrative…..that ISIS was created by the West’s actions in Iraq. [Once again let’s be clear…’ISIS’ was in existence pre the Iraq war, crushed by the Iraq Surge in 2007 it only resurfaced due to the Arab Spring and in particular the war in Syria….Assad himself sponsoring ISIS having released them from his prisons and refraining from attacking them as they became his de facto allies against the ‘moderates’…..a history that the BBC should know as it is well documented.]
Di Giovanni says she disagrees and if anything, the West’s inaction promoted the rise of ISIS by allowing Assad to carry on and he was then able to rebuild ISIS for his own purposes.
The BBC will of course ignore everything Di Giovanni had to say and will continue to pedal the false narrative about the Iraq war, ISIS, Obama’s brilliance and of course the ever popular one about Sykes-Picot and the British and French ‘carving up the Middle East’…thus causing all the problems today.
What did Orwell say about who owns history owns the future? The BBC learnt that lesson well as it rewrites history to suit its own narrative.
I think you have bought the BBC’s line on Ukraine, Syria, Turkey and Putin.
Why would Putin want to destabilise the West? He clearly doesn’t want the EU up against his borders, hence his concerns over Ukraine and Turkey. It is in his interests to be able to sell gas to a stable Europe, (not the EU).
As to Syria his policy makes far more sense than the criminal nonsense from the USA and the EU with their wish to arm the peaceful(!), non-existent democratic, moderate Muslims in their struggle to impose sharia on the world. If only they knew which lot of ‘rebels’ to support!
You should know by now: If the BBC backs it back away!
The BBC line that Russia is no threat as shown by its ‘Oh what a lovely (cold) war’ report and ignoring the Russian use of immigrants as a ‘weapon’ you mean?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/35710578
Rio 2016: Refugee team to compete at Olympics
This idea is utter nonsense. I’ve already given up being interested in the Olympics. No wonder they can’t sell the tickets.
I am so sorry, I have put this post in the wrong place. -My wife accuses me of doing the same at night time!
Wronged, the Olympics became a joke long before this !
They ought to introduce special events that the “refugees” would win medals in:
Long Distance Walking, Fence Climbing, Rock Throwing, Skirt-Lifting and Gynaecology combination, Petrol-Bomb making, Impersonation of Children (Contestants must be 30 and over for this), Passport Burning, Mobile Phone Stealing, Team violence. Building Burning.
From http://sceptic.eu/#whyworry
“Since the fall of the USSR, Russia has given up control of over 700,000 square miles of territory; the EU has gained control over 400,000 of those square miles. A large part of the remainder lies within Ukraine and the EU has aggressively set its sights on bringing Ukraine into its fold, tempting with an ‘Association Agreement’ and financial bribes as well as actively encouraging the overthrow of a democratically elected president (Yanukovych), much to the Russians’ chagrin.”
And while we’re on the subject of aggression:
The EU engineered coups d’état in Greece and Italy, removing democratically elected governments and replacing them with technocrats, headed by a banker in Greece and a former EU commissioner in Italy. The Italian cabinet was then composed entirely of unelected figures. Paralysed by economic fear, other member states stood by and watched these two democracies being emasculated by the EU elite, itself unelected, in ways which would usually be considered as acts of war.
More at http://wisermonkeys.uk/eu.html
Alan! I agree with most of what you write. You are over simplify this. I think you are trying to bring conclusion to an out of control scenario. Russia never wanted this to happen, nore encourage it. It was already happening! It has been happening well before Assad turned on his peaceful, loving, anti-violence Syrian! Clearly the Al Beeb will change their story every 5 seconds because they are trying to push agenda. An agenda that’s pre-wriiten and not for negotiation. Syria is fucked because it’s Muslim. Every country in the world that’s Muslim is fucked. Even none Arab Muslim Indonesia is riddled with death and Islamic punishment. Islam is your problem. End of
Russia clearly has an interest in destabilising its rivals-and it`s a tragedy that we stuck the boot into Yeltsin when we could have had Russia as a long-term ally back in the early 90s.
Russia was on its knees and would have responded well enough, if only we`d still had a Thatcher and a Reagan still in power,
Unfortunately we had Major and Bush who stood for nothing. Grey Number Twos who fell into bigger peoples shoes and were clueless and driven by oafs who used them to get quick rip off deals from its prostrate naighbour.
So-few years later-we get Putin who cares for his patriotic cause of a country FAR more than the Godless self-loathing elires he faces in the flaccid west.
Putin is only doing what IS are doing-and had we stood up to Putin whilst he too was biddable, we`d be in a better place today.
Would Cameron worry anybody?
Obama, Blair and Brown…THAT is the calibre of lefty draft dodger who we`ve sent out to deal with Putin or IS.
And our enemy just KNOW that these clueless traitors with no principles but to run for cover at the first whiff of trouble are what we choose to represent us…leading from behind, golf playing perverts and fantasists.
Which is why we`re stuffed at the moment.
I agree ChrisH. We have leaders that are driven by media approval and poll ratings (though as we have seen in the GE, all normal people do not participate in polls, so basically it’s just the same delusional shitlickers they are trying to please). The interests of the people who pay their wages and put them in charge are irrelevant. We are just a means to grab power. No wonder ROPers from the west are leaving for the pure land of lslam in such numbers because our leaders clearly do not give a shit about any of us here. However, the incompetence and negligence of our elite has only allowed the true nature of Islam to flourish. It was always there, ready to destroy any town, city, country or continent it infests. Strong leadership will have prevented it’s destruction, as it has for thousands of years. Putin is bad for the West but strong and utterly dedicated to the protection of Russia. St A-Bomb-a and Mike from wheeler dealers are just professional con artists and charlatans. Their only interest is self interest.
The current situation in Syria is down to Obama, Camoron and Holland. They wanted regime change and armed and trained the “opposition”. This has led to a prolonged vicious conflict that should never have happened. Not satisfied with creating mayhem in Libya they repeated the same mistake in Syria.
The refugees are a consequence of these activities. Then Merkel opens her trap and invites them all to Germany.
An interesting debate. It is clear that the West failed to deal fairly with Russia after the collapse of the USSR. A series of mistakes followed mainly in extending the reach of Nato. That was aggressive and unnecessary at the time. The Western politicians seemed to have forgotten Russian experiences in the 20th Century wars.
Russia is part of European civilisation and with a restored Orthodox Church needed to be treated as part of it.
It is possible to argue that from Gorbechev onwards the policy of Russia was to anticipate and counter resurgent Islam. I was told this as long ago as the early 90s.
Given that the intervention in Syria makes perfect sense as if Assad falls then it will inevitably become a failed state hostile to the West and to Russian interests in the Caucasus
The refugee crisis is another matter and not directly the fault of the Russians. Firm Western action could have prevented it but that would have meant trampling on the sensibilities of our liberal culture .
Resurgent Islam is a threat to all of Europe both East and West. This was true in the past and remains so now.
The difference is that Russia knows this whilst we in the West are still in denial.
There are definite conflicts of interest with Russia. I would say that most of them stem from the actions of an out of control bankster/governmental class in the West that has tried to suck the life out of us and would dearly love to do the same to the Russians.
We in the West are not all in denial. There are a very many of us now who are aggressively vocal against Islam and it’s relentless destruction and of everything ‘European’. The number of us grows every day. With every relentless and frightened story of Islamic enrichment. Besides those with vested interests in the protection and expansion of Islam and those psychotically delusional to reality, nearly all Europeans are starting to feel uncomfortable at best with what is happening to our way of life. The media and political parties of every European state have tried to create a fantasy world narrative to accommodate Islam. They have tried everything to hide the truth. They have lied to us. They have even begun changing the very heart and fabrics of our great and wonderful societies to continue this accommodation. The problem is Islam cannot be tamed. Those damn Muslims won’t play ball. Islam cannot change. Our leaders have naively assumed that they could. They think they are mini God’s. They are better than us sheep. In their sick minds they have won the right to play God with all of us and by God they will pursue their aims like all peace giving jihadis.
Remember what they did to Palmyra, and ponder the fate of our cathedrals if they get their way here.
Whilst Gen Breedlove MIGHT have a point, it should be remembered that the current crisis in Syria has been exacerbated by by the actions of the west……