{"id":6611,"date":"2017-12-18T15:13:59","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T15:13:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/evaggelatos.com\/?p=6611"},"modified":"2017-12-18T15:18:26","modified_gmt":"2017-12-18T15:18:26","slug":"sorry-chump-you-didnt-have-it-in-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/evaggelatos.com\/?p=6611","title":{"rendered":"`SORRY CHUMP. YOU DIDN\u2019T HAVE IT IN WRITING\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Eric Margolis \u03bf \u03b4\u03b7\u03bc\u03bf\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03b3\u03c1\u03ac\u03c6\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03ac\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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by Eric Margolis<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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December 16, 2017<\/span><\/p>\n

At a time when the United States is convulsed by anti-Russian hysteria and demonization of Vladimir Putin, a trove of recently declassified Cold War documents reveals the astounding extent of the lies, duplicity and double-dealing engaged in by the western powers with the collapsing Soviet Union in 1990.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was covering Moscow in those days and met some of the key players in this sordid drama.\u00a0\u00a0 Ever since, I\u2019ve been writing that the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, were shamelessly lied to and deceived by the United States, Britain, and their appendage, NATO.<\/span><\/p>\n

All the western powers promised Gorbachev and Shevardnadze that NATO would not expand eastward by \u2018one inch\u2019 if Moscow would pull the Red Army out of East Germany and allow it to peacefully reunify with West Germany.\u00a0 This was a titanic concession by Gorbachev: it\u00a0led to a failed coup against him in 1991 by Communist hardliners.<\/span><\/p>\n

The documents released by George Washington University in Washington DC, which I attended for a semester, make sickening reading (see them online).\u00a0 All western powers and statesmen assured the Russians that NATO would not take advantage of the Soviet retreat and that a new era of amity and cooperation would dawn in post-Cold War Europe. \u00a0US Secretary of State Jim Baker offered \u2018ironclad guarantees\u2019 there would be no NATO expansion. \u00a0Lies, all lies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gorbachev\u00a0was a humanist, a very decent, intelligent man who believed he could end the Cold War and nuclear arms race.\u00a0\u00a0 He ordered the Red Army back from Eastern Europe.\u00a0 I was in Wunsdorf, East Germany, HQ of the Group of Soviet Forces, Germany, and at Stasi secret police HQ in East Berlin right after the pullout order was given.\u00a0 The Soviets withdrew their 338,000 troops and 4,200 tanks and sent them home at lightening speed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Western promises made to Soviet leaders by President George W. H. Bush and Jim Baker quickly proved to be empty.\u00a0 They were honorable men but their successors were not. \u00a0Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush quickly began moving NATO into Eastern Europe, violating all the pledges made to Moscow.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Poles, Hungarians and Czechs were brought into NATO, then Romania and Bulgaria, the Baltic States, Albania, and Montenegro.\u00a0 Washington tried to get the former Soviet Republics of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO.\u00a0 The Moscow-aligned government of Ukraine was overthrown in a US-engineered coup.\u00a0 The road to Moscow was open.<\/span><\/p>\n

All the bankrupt, confused Russians could do was denounce these eastward moves by the US and NATO.\u00a0 The best response NATO and Washington could come up with was, \u2018well, there was no official written promise.\u2019\u00a0 This is worthy of a street peddler selling counterfeit watches.\u00a0 The leaders of the US, Britain, France, Belgium and Italy all lied.\u00a0 Germany was caught between its honor and imminent reunification. So even its Chancellor Helmut Kohl had to go along with the West\u2019s prevarications.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the time, I wrote that the best solution would be for the demilitarization of formerly Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe.\u00a0 NATO had no need or business to expand eastward.\u00a0 Doing so would be a constant provocation to Russia, which regarded Eastern Europe as an essential defensive glacis against invasions from the West.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, with NATO forces on its western borders, Russia\u2019s deepest fears have been realized.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, US military aircraft based on the coasts of Romania and Bulgaria, former Warsaw Pact members, probe Russian airspace over the Black Sea and the vital strategic port of Sevastopol.\u00a0 Washington talks about arming chaotic Ukraine.\u00a0\u00a0 US and NATO troops are in the Baltic, on Russia\u2019s northwestern borders.\u00a0 Polish right-wingers are beating the war drums against Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1990, KGB and CIA agreed to the principal of \u2018not one inch\u2019 eastward for NATO.\u00a0 Former US ambassador to Moscow, Jack Matlock, confirms the same agreement. Gorbachev, who is denounced as a foolish idealist by many Russians, trusted the Western powers. He should have had a battalion of New York City garment district shyster lawyers to document his agreements in 1990.\u00a0 He thought he was dealing with honest, honorable men, like himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is it any wonder after this bait and switch diplomacy that Russia has no trust in the Western powers?\u00a0 Moscow watches US-run NATO oozing ever eastwards. Today, Russia\u2019s leaders firmly believe Washington\u2019s ultimate plan is to tear apart Russia and reduce it to an impotent, pauper nation.\u00a0 Two former Western leaders, Napoleon and Hitler, had similar plans.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead of carrying on about Hitler\u2019s duplicity after Munich, we should look at our own shameless behavior after 1990.<\/span><\/p>\n

Copyright\u00a0 Eric S. Margolis fron www.EricMargolis.com\/12\/16\/2017
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`SORRY CHUMP. YOU DIDN\u2019T HAVE IT IN WRITING\u2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n