The leading Republican war hawk in the U.S. Senate, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain of Arizona, in a single week, misused his position to entertain arcane testimony from three decrepit agents of U.S. power politics.
In rapid succession, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; retired General Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush; and Zbginiew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, testified before a beaming McCain about the need to maintain the Treaty of Westphalia system in an era when social networks and the Internet pose a threat to the Westphalian nation-state system devised in 1648 after the Thirty Years’ War.
It is clear that what McCain, Kissinger, Scowcroft, and Brzezinski want maintained is an ever-expanding federalized European Union, which is now slowly absorbing as its newest Westphalian nation-state underlings, Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. The EU, which mixes Westphalian secular federalism with neo-Holy Roman Empire dogma, is backed militarily by a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), acting as the centurions for Atlanticist power brokers of Washington, London, and Berlin. The present status quo must be maintained at all costs, according to Kissinger, Scowcroft, and Brzezinski, the three men responsible for the continuation of the Soviet bloc-NATO Cold War of the past into the neo-Cold War dividing Russia and NATO of today.
Although it is difficult to determine what the three old men of Western power politics mean in their support of the Westphalian system, it is safe to assume that what they are defending is a world system in which a few elitist regimes dictate international policy for the rest of the world. Kissinger told the Senate committee that he sees Europe of the early 1600s and Europe today as similar because in both cases one sees “a multiplicity of political units, none powerful enough to defeat all the others, many adhering to contradictory philosophies and internal practices, in search of neutral rules to regulate their conduct and mitigate conflict.”
It is clear that Kissinger believes that the European Union and NATO provide “neutral rules” for competing countries to mitigate conflicts. It is quite possible that Kissinger, suffering from advanced stages of dementia, actually believes the international “governance” pabulum discussed at such elitist conclaves as the Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations, and the Davos World Economic Forum. There never has been, nor is there now, or ever will be a neutral stance by NATO or the European Union on any matter that pits anti-unipolar forces like Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Brazil and others against the military-intelligence-banking elites of the Western alliance.
Mr. Kissinger, above all else, stressed the need for “the building block of European order,” something he stated was as needed after the Thirty Years’ War as it is needed today. Kissinger defended the Westphalian system as unjustly “maligned as a system of cynical power manipulation, indifferent to moral claims” Some would suggest that Mr. Kissinger’s long history of support for fascist dictatorships makes him an unsuitable spokesman for “morality” in international affairs.
Not to be outdone by Kissinger in his praise for Westphalian order, Scowcroft claimed that the twin threats of the information society (in particular, the use of social media to organize against the political status quo) and climate-change posed the greatest danger to maintaining the Treaty of Westphalia. Scowcroft strenuously defended the Westphalian nation-state system before a smiling McCain. This is the same McCain who championed the civil wars in Libya, Iraq, and Ukraine, which have effectively led to their demise as legitimate nation-states. Consistency, however, has never been an attribute of neoconservatives like McCain and those who support his brand of U.S. interventionism around the world.
Brzezinski’s idea of Westphalia is to unite Europe against the Russian “menace.” Brzezinski, an unreformed Polish nationalist who shares his philosophy with fellow Polish right-wing nationalist Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, has never missed a chance to berate Russia and call for its political, economic, and military subjugation to NATO and the European Union.
In the minds of Kissinger, Scowcroft, and Brzezinski, Europe today is not very much different than the 17th century Europe of the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III; Cardinal Richelieu of France; French Cardinal Mazarin representing the child king, Louis XIV; and the diplomats sent by the leaders of Spain, Sweden, Netherlands, Switzerland, and smaller duchies and kingdoms to Osnabruck and Munster in Westphalia to hammer out the Treaty of Westphalia. In other words, diplomacy and the fate of nations and peoples were best left to the unelected elites of the 17th century. The “decrepit three”—Kissinger, Scowcroft, and Brzezinski—would not change anything from the 17th century and, in fact, their policies for decades have been to determine the future of the world from conclaves such as Bilderberg, Davos, and other secretive meetings.
The goals of those who hammered out the Westphalian system in 1648 were the continuation of feudalism and serfdom in Europe. Although Westphalia recognized the independence of the Netherlands and Switzerland, with the rights of Jews in the Netherlands guaranteed, the Netherlands and Switzerland would soon become the headquarters for unbridled international mercantilism, which included the slave trade, and banking, respectively. Westphalia in 1648 and its derivations of today are contrivances engineered to protect the interests of the elites and wealthy class. The murmurings of royal privilege can still be heard in Europe today with Prince Henrik of Denmark, the French husband of the Danish Queen, complaining that he should be known as a “King Consort” rather than a lowly “Prince Consort.” Criticism of the Spanish monarchy’s involvement in fraudulent business deals and the Belgian monarchy’s alleged covering up of pedophile scandals has actually resulted in royalists attacking their critics for violating the arcane standard of lèse-majesté, which makes any criticism of the monarchy a violation of the law.
The Westphalian advocates are trying to protect a corrupt plutocracy composed of royalists, militarists, and unscrupulous business tycoons in Europe who work in concert with neo-colonialist puppets in developing countries that are indebted to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. As seen with George Soros’s and the Central Intelligence Agency’s joint manipulation of social media to achieve their Westphalian goals, such social media can also be used against the power elites that cling to the concept of the modern nation-state as their only means of survival.
Although the Westphalian proponents claim their system advocates three main principles: 1) state sovereignty; 2) equality of states; and 3) the non-intervention of one state in the international affairs of another, the subjugation of Greek, Irish, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese state sovereignty to the whims of the Euro-bankers and globalist financial corporations puts to rest the idea of respect for state sovereignty. The intervention of Western alliance nations into the affairs of Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and most recently, Macedonia, shows the lack of recognition for the non-intervention clause said by Westphalian supporters to be its greatest hallmark. Repeated threats by NATO powers to the independence of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, and Nagorno-Karabakh, and the self-determination of Crimea and Donbass, shows that the Westphalian principle of the equality of states are mere words.
The world is changing and it is veering away at breakneck speed from the quaint notions of Westphalia. The only people who are arguing for Westphalian governance are three elderly men—Kissinger, Scowcroft, and Brzezinski—who normally would be arguing for a greater serving of apple sauce from their elder care providers.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
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Old senile men and Westphalian fascism
Posted on March 5, 2015 by Wayne Madsen
The leading Republican war hawk in the U.S. Senate, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain of Arizona, in a single week, misused his position to entertain arcane testimony from three decrepit agents of U.S. power politics.
In rapid succession, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; retired General Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush; and Zbginiew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, testified before a beaming McCain about the need to maintain the Treaty of Westphalia system in an era when social networks and the Internet pose a threat to the Westphalian nation-state system devised in 1648 after the Thirty Years’ War.
It is clear that what McCain, Kissinger, Scowcroft, and Brzezinski want maintained is an ever-expanding federalized European Union, which is now slowly absorbing as its newest Westphalian nation-state underlings, Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. The EU, which mixes Westphalian secular federalism with neo-Holy Roman Empire dogma, is backed militarily by a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), acting as the centurions for Atlanticist power brokers of Washington, London, and Berlin. The present status quo must be maintained at all costs, according to Kissinger, Scowcroft, and Brzezinski, the three men responsible for the continuation of the Soviet bloc-NATO Cold War of the past into the neo-Cold War dividing Russia and NATO of today.
Although it is difficult to determine what the three old men of Western power politics mean in their support of the Westphalian system, it is safe to assume that what they are defending is a world system in which a few elitist regimes dictate international policy for the rest of the world. Kissinger told the Senate committee that he sees Europe of the early 1600s and Europe today as similar because in both cases one sees “a multiplicity of political units, none powerful enough to defeat all the others, many adhering to contradictory philosophies and internal practices, in search of neutral rules to regulate their conduct and mitigate conflict.”
It is clear that Kissinger believes that the European Union and NATO provide “neutral rules” for competing countries to mitigate conflicts. It is quite possible that Kissinger, suffering from advanced stages of dementia, actually believes the international “governance” pabulum discussed at such elitist conclaves as the Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations, and the Davos World Economic Forum. There never has been, nor is there now, or ever will be a neutral stance by NATO or the European Union on any matter that pits anti-unipolar forces like Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Brazil and others against the military-intelligence-banking elites of the Western alliance.
Mr. Kissinger, above all else, stressed the need for “the building block of European order,” something he stated was as needed after the Thirty Years’ War as it is needed today. Kissinger defended the Westphalian system as unjustly “maligned as a system of cynical power manipulation, indifferent to moral claims” Some would suggest that Mr. Kissinger’s long history of support for fascist dictatorships makes him an unsuitable spokesman for “morality” in international affairs.
Not to be outdone by Kissinger in his praise for Westphalian order, Scowcroft claimed that the twin threats of the information society (in particular, the use of social media to organize against the political status quo) and climate-change posed the greatest danger to maintaining the Treaty of Westphalia. Scowcroft strenuously defended the Westphalian nation-state system before a smiling McCain. This is the same McCain who championed the civil wars in Libya, Iraq, and Ukraine, which have effectively led to their demise as legitimate nation-states. Consistency, however, has never been an attribute of neoconservatives like McCain and those who support his brand of U.S. interventionism around the world.
Brzezinski’s idea of Westphalia is to unite Europe against the Russian “menace.” Brzezinski, an unreformed Polish nationalist who shares his philosophy with fellow Polish right-wing nationalist Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, has never missed a chance to berate Russia and call for its political, economic, and military subjugation to NATO and the European Union.
In the minds of Kissinger, Scowcroft, and Brzezinski, Europe today is not very much different than the 17th century Europe of the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III; Cardinal Richelieu of France; French Cardinal Mazarin representing the child king, Louis XIV; and the diplomats sent by the leaders of Spain, Sweden, Netherlands, Switzerland, and smaller duchies and kingdoms to Osnabruck and Munster in Westphalia to hammer out the Treaty of Westphalia. In other words, diplomacy and the fate of nations and peoples were best left to the unelected elites of the 17th century. The “decrepit three”—Kissinger, Scowcroft, and Brzezinski—would not change anything from the 17th century and, in fact, their policies for decades have been to determine the future of the world from conclaves such as Bilderberg, Davos, and other secretive meetings.
The goals of those who hammered out the Westphalian system in 1648 were the continuation of feudalism and serfdom in Europe. Although Westphalia recognized the independence of the Netherlands and Switzerland, with the rights of Jews in the Netherlands guaranteed, the Netherlands and Switzerland would soon become the headquarters for unbridled international mercantilism, which included the slave trade, and banking, respectively. Westphalia in 1648 and its derivations of today are contrivances engineered to protect the interests of the elites and wealthy class. The murmurings of royal privilege can still be heard in Europe today with Prince Henrik of Denmark, the French husband of the Danish Queen, complaining that he should be known as a “King Consort” rather than a lowly “Prince Consort.” Criticism of the Spanish monarchy’s involvement in fraudulent business deals and the Belgian monarchy’s alleged covering up of pedophile scandals has actually resulted in royalists attacking their critics for violating the arcane standard of lèse-majesté, which makes any criticism of the monarchy a violation of the law.
The Westphalian advocates are trying to protect a corrupt plutocracy composed of royalists, militarists, and unscrupulous business tycoons in Europe who work in concert with neo-colonialist puppets in developing countries that are indebted to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. As seen with George Soros’s and the Central Intelligence Agency’s joint manipulation of social media to achieve their Westphalian goals, such social media can also be used against the power elites that cling to the concept of the modern nation-state as their only means of survival.
Although the Westphalian proponents claim their system advocates three main principles: 1) state sovereignty; 2) equality of states; and 3) the non-intervention of one state in the international affairs of another, the subjugation of Greek, Irish, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese state sovereignty to the whims of the Euro-bankers and globalist financial corporations puts to rest the idea of respect for state sovereignty. The intervention of Western alliance nations into the affairs of Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and most recently, Macedonia, shows the lack of recognition for the non-intervention clause said by Westphalian supporters to be its greatest hallmark. Repeated threats by NATO powers to the independence of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, and Nagorno-Karabakh, and the self-determination of Crimea and Donbass, shows that the Westphalian principle of the equality of states are mere words.
The world is changing and it is veering away at breakneck speed from the quaint notions of Westphalia. The only people who are arguing for Westphalian governance are three elderly men—Kissinger, Scowcroft, and Brzezinski—who normally would be arguing for a greater serving of apple sauce from their elder care providers.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).