Authored by Eric Zuesse via TheDuran.com,

The same people, Republicans and Democrats, who lied through their teeth for an invasion of Iraq in 2003, are doing it again for an invasion of Russia, sometime soon, so as to ‘defend’ ‘democracy’.

The US has by now swallowed up virtually all lands surrounding Russia, at least in Europe, the latest being Ukraine, and is placing its missiles now on and near Russia’s borders, which is to Russians like would be to Americans if Russia had swallowed up Canada and were placing its missiles there.

But the lying holier-than-thou US Establishment accuses Russia of being ‘aggressive’ when Russia holds war-games on and near its borders in order to prepare for a US-NATO invasion, which actually looks increasingly likely to them every day — and not because of ‘Russian propaganda’, but because of the US Government’s actions.

Hillary Clinton clearly hated Russians and wanted to start a war against Russia by establishing a no-fly zone in Russia’s ally Syria (which Russia defends while the US invades and occupies Syria) so as to shoot down Russia’s planes there, and then, when Russia shoots down US planes in retaliation, America would have its pretext for invading Russia itself ‘so as to defend democracy against Russian aggression’ — but instead, Donald Trump became elected, and he has now turned out to be almost as much of a neoconservative as she was. This displays how extreme the grip is that the neocons, the Establishment and its many minions who dominate both of the two Parties and the press, now have.

An example of the Establishment’s holier-than-thou lies, is an article that appeared on February 22nd at the magazine, The National Interest, whose article-title is itself a marvelous deception, “Averting the US-Russia Warpath” (while the subliminal message there is: reasons why we’ll probably have to invade Russia), and whose authors are three ‘defense’ hawks, including James Northey Miller, of Harvard.

He had been an Under Secretary of Defense during the Administration of the merely moderately neoconservative President Barack Obama — the President who in 2014 grabbed Ukraine, and who used Al Qaeda in Syria to lead ’the rebels’ there in order to try to grab Syria. (Ukraine had been friendly toward Russia and is now rabid against Russia; and Syria was and is allied with Russia; so, both of these two lands were American grabs, and the neocon Trump continues both.)

Anyone who trusts the US Government to represent in international affairs the interests of America’s public, instead of the interests of America’s billionaires, has been deceived by the Establishment’s (the billionaires’ and their agents’) virtually all-pervasive propaganda in America, and therefore needs a lot of re-learning about US history before understanding anything about US foreign policies.

There is very good and sound reason why around the world the United States is considered, by far, to be “the biggest threat to peace” — because it is. (The Peter Kuznick book and Oliver Stone documentary Untold History of the United States, are the best cleaner-away of ‘historical’ lies about US history from 1912 to 2012 that I know of — and the seeing or reading of that, will expose to anyone the mockery of historical truth which is represented in articles such as “Averting the US-Russia Warpath.”)

This ordinary, and profoundly deceptive, article starts:

FOR NEARLY twenty years following the end of the Cold War, military confrontation between the United States and the Russian Federation seemed implausible. Even during periods of tension, as during the Kosovo crisis in the late 1990s, few believed that disagreement between Washington and Moscow could lead to a serious crisis, no less war. Before the first decade of the new century had passed, however, Russian officials were accusing the United States of working to isolate Russia. Such apprehensions have mounted steadily in Russia in the years since. At the same time, Russian behavior, including interventions in Ukraine and Syria, military posturing and harassment in Europe, and interference in Western elections, has led many in the United States to conclude that, while a US-Russian conflict is by no means inevitable, the risk of such a confrontation is growing.

The “Russian officials were accusing the United States,” while there was supposedly actual “Russian behavior, including interventions in Ukraine and Syria, military posturing and harassment in Europe, and interference in Western elections,” which pretexts the Establishment is now debating with itself whether that will be sufficient to ‘justify’ an American and NATO invasion, as response.

This holier-than-thou and upside-down presumption, of Russian-government guilt and American-government innocence, is reeking throughout that pompous article; but what’s even worse is that the reality is exactly the opposite of the story-line that’s portrayed in it.

The actual reality is: Ever since 24 February 1990, the US and its NATO allies have been pursuing secretly a continuation of the Cold War after the termination in 1991 of the Soviet Union, and of its communism, and of its counter-NATO military alliance, the Warsaw Pact; and the US plan has been to swallow up, first the former Warsaw Pact nations, and then the former nations (such as Ukraine itself) that were inside the Soviet Union itself, and then, any other foreign allies that Russia might still have (such as Syria); and, then, finally, to invade and conquer Russia itself.

And, instead of helping those countries, the US Government has been destroying them.

Neoconservative, holier-than-thou, lying is so widespread in America’s ‘news’media, there’s practically nothing else than such deceptions about Russia, that’s “Fit to Print” (or broadcast) in today’s United States, and this is true in the media of both Parties, not merely the Republican media, or the Democratic media. This neoconservative consensus — the bipartisan ceaseless warmongering — is driven by the military-industrial complex (MIC) profiteers, whose companies’ main market is the American and allied governments (so that in order to increase their sales, more and costlier weapons must be purchased by those governments).

It’s the MIC-sick current style of capitalism: capitalism that’s of, by, and for, the billionaires: a fascism that’s merely called ‘democracy’. (By contrast, one area of commerce that Russia refused to privatize was its weapons-manufacturers — there aren’t any stockholders who pay politicians to increase the ‘defense’ budget: instead, the Government itself is in control over that.)