US SECRETARY of state Mike Pompeo used his speech in Berlin last Friday to threaten nothing short of war against Russia, China and Iran, saying: ‘Western free nations have a responsibility to deter threats to our people’ from countries which threaten the ‘democratic freedoms’ of the West.
In a speech to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Pompeo launched into an attack on these countries and demanded that US imperialism’s European ‘allies’ get on board with the war drive.
His two-day trip to Berlin was aimed at bolstering the NATO alliance which has come under stress recently as European countries have started to realise that their supposed US ally is quite prepared to treat them the same as its enemies when it comes to trade war.
Indeed Pompeo, when not damning Russia, China and Iran for interfering and even invading other countries, devoted a lot of his speech to attacking the German government for the Nord Stream gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, which he condemned as meaning ‘Europe’s energy supplies will depend on Putin’s whims.’
Pompeo wants Europe to be dependent on the US and its oil and gas companies instead.
Any scepticism amongst the European nations about its US allies is certainly not shared by the leaders of the British military.
The head of the British army, General Sir Nick Carter, used the Remembrance Day anniversary to write an article in the Telegraph that echoed Pompeo’s threat of a world war. He faithfully repeated Pompeo’s warnings saying that ‘Ambitious states such as Russia, China and Iran are asserting themselves in ways that challenge our security, stability and prosperity.’
Carter went on: ‘This is overlaid by the threat from non-state actors such as Daesh using terror to undermine our way of life’ and warned of the new economic weapons and use of ‘disinformation tactics’ to spread ‘fake news’ and discord amongst the people.
Carter is keen to stress that he is not ‘suggesting that our opponents want to go to war in the traditional definition of the term but reckless behaviour and the lack of respect for international law relating to these new types of “weapons” risks escalation that could easily lead to inadvertent miscalculation.’
But Carter warns that the First World War was instigated by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, an act which ‘escalated into general war as a result of a complex web of alliances and a series of miscalculations by leaders who assumed they could control hostilities’.
In fact, it is imperialism that has waged its most recent wars through the use of Islamic terrorist proxies – not Russia, China or Iran.
In Syria, the failed attempt to overthrow the legitimate government of President Bashar Assad was mainly conducted by proxy terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda, the Nusra Front and Islamic State, created, funded and supported by US imperialism.
The US worked hand in glove with these terrorists, a fact that Carter won’t admit.
Imperialism has been responsible for all the wars and invasions that have taken place and cost the lives of millions of men, women and children from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.
Carter’s assertion that the First World War was due to some obscure Archduke being killed is patent nonsense designed to cover the truth that it was the outcome of imperialist rivalries between the waning power of British imperialism and the rising power of Germany.
It was a war fought to determine who would dominate the exploitation of the world, with the fast developing US capitalism watching and preparing to take over as the leading imperialist power while the European nations destroyed themselves.
Capitalism, in its final and most degenerate imperialist stage, is the cause of wars as it seeks to solve its crisis through re-conquering the world for capitalist exploitation.
The threat of a new world war comes not from Russia, China or Iran but from imperialism, and the only way to prevent it is through the overthrow of imperialism through the victory of the world socialist revolution.
