F William Engdahl: NATO scuttles US plan to encircle Russia

 As any student of WWII history knows, the war against Germany mostly took place in Russia, Western Europe being a sideshow and US participation a laudable afterthought. If not for General Winter and the T-34, Germany and Japan would have divided Eurasia and Africa and here in the US only the ocean might have saved us. Whether one likes Russia or not and whatever their government happens to be, they are right up there with Vietnamese as people one should absolutely not start trouble with. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just plain stupid, like for example George W. Bush and the horse he rode in on. The French, Chinese and US can tell you what happens if you mess with Vietnam, and the French and Germans can tell you all you need to know about messing with Russia. Much better to have them as friends than enemies.

  Me, I'm hoping the pirates in Somalia and the Strait of Malacca mess with the Russians. They won't fuck around with hand-wringing and whine about human rights and so forth. They'll zorch them, their familes, their friends, their homes and their whole fucking countries until it stops, and despite all the clucking and tut-tutting, the world will be a better, happier place. We have enough problems without stinking pirates from non-nations. Historically, human rights have never applied to pirates. String 'em up from the yard-arm; it's just that simple. Or mine their ports and cluster-bomb their cities. Whatever does the job.

  Same goes for the Pakis that hit Mumbai. Give Pakistan a reasonable chance to deal with it, then toss a little nuke into their 'tribal area' if they need some motivation,something small but very dirty, render a valley uninhabitable forever. Enough already of these Stone-Age savages in this 'tribal area'. It might make a suitable worldwide nuclear waste repository and toxic-waste dump. Fuck'em.

Asia Times Online :: Central Asian News and current affairs, Russia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan

..... Translated into real political language, Washington has undergone a stunning setback in its agenda of encircling Russia with NATO. Despite the fact that president-elect Obama retained Bush Administration Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and named a person to be Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who has strongly supported bringing Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, key European NATO members, led by Germany and France, blocked what must be a unanimous membership decision. .....