A couple of days ago, several European news channels reminded us all of the fifth anniversary of Merkel’s opening the doors of Europe to mass uncontrolled entry of Syrian, North African, Sub-Saharan African, Afghani, Iraqi, Bengladeshi and other assorted migrants. They gave us heartwarming stories of the successful settlers, all of which would appear to validate the humanitarian concerns that the German Chancellor said motivated her action as it did in several other states, particularly Sweden and to validate her widely cited call at the time: “Wir schaffen das!” (We can manage it).
What they did not remind us is of the mayhem this open door policy stirred up between Member States of the European Union, deepening the divisions between the founding members and the most recently joined countries from Central Europe. Nor did they consider how this massive influx of peoples aroused strong populist movements in so many countries against the abandonment of Europe’s frontiers and identity as majoritarian white and Judeo-Christian for the sake of multiculturalism. In other words, how it stirred up nationalism, which had been the bête-noire of the European Union’s founders, who said it was the engine of war. And they ignored one further collateral effect of the uncontrolled violation of European borders: namely the outcome of the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom which it tilted to ‘Leave.’ This all by itself put the future of the European Union experiment in doubt.
No one back then or since dared say the obvious: that the Iron Lady had not succumbed to feminine emotions of compassion and humanitarian zeal but was acting in the most cynical fashion possible to cover all traces of the truculence by which she had in the preceding two years overseen the rape of Greece and Portugal under the Troika for the sake of securing the finances of German and French banks now that the state bonds of these and other Southern European states on which they had stocked up were becoming worthless thanks to the 2008 financial crisis and application of the policy of austerity across Europe that she and her Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble personally guided.
In the past couple of days, she has done it again: her announcement that German military experts had identified Novichok as the substance with which Alexei Navalny was poisoned defied all logic, as I called out in an essay yesterday that has been widely read.
Developments over the past 24 hours indicate that the German Chancellor has once again acted in the most reprehensible and irresponsible manner that threatens to unleash the dogs of war.
A most interesting and, I believe credible, piece of information was released yesterday evening by President Lukashenko in Minsk. He said that his intelligence forces had intercepted a telephone conversation between German and Polish officials which point to Polish direction of the whole Novichok story with intent to put Russian President Putin on the defensive under massive NATO and Western pressure over the alleged violation of international rules on chemical weapons, and thereby prevent Russian intervention in the unfolding confrontation in Belarus between Lukashenko and his opposition. The Polish agent was saying that “we are at war and all means are acceptable.” Such an explanation fits very nicely with the obvious designs that Poland has on Belarus, just as it meddled egregiously in the Maidan putsch in Ukraine.
I do not mean to say that Mr. Lukashenko does not have his own interests in spreading this story, by which he shows his usefulness to his big friend in the Kremlin upon whom his continuation in power depends. However, saying that does not cancel out the transcripts he claims to have and they must be investigated.
The question, of course, is why Chancellor Merkel would follow this script and ignore all the logic surrounding the collateral contamination of Novichok that has not been seen in the Navalny case, why she would ignore the logic telling us that the Russians never would have sent Navalny to Germany for treatment if there were any possibility of Novichok having been used and ultimately detected, why in general Vladimir Putin would ever sanction such a criminally inculpating action against a minor pest who posed no real threat to his rule. How could the diploma holding physicist that Merkel is fall for such nonsense? The only plausible explanation is unadulterated cynicism along the lines of her ‘Wir schaffen DAs’ past.
Today’s news also brought to the fore a development in Washington which highlights the relevance of my observation at the close of my essay yesterday regarding the interconnected nature of Merkel’s new charges against Russia and her unwillingness to follow Donald Trump in a trade, political and military confrontation with the People’s Republic of China, which happens to be Germany’s largest export market worth 200 billion Euros annually.
Whatever one may think of Donald Trump’s intellectual level, he understood the Chancellor’s bait and switch stratagem perfectly well and directly came out against it, saying that he has seen no proof of the Novichok poisoning and that for the USA the PRC poses a far greater security threat than Russia.
In summation, though yesterday and in recent weeks we have not seen Merkel suffering the shakes that set off speculation over her deteriorating health half a year ago, it is high time for her to leave the world stage before she further undermines European and global stability.
Gilbert Doctorow is a Brussels-based political analyst. His latest book Does Russia Have a Future? was published in August 2017. Reprinted with permission from his blog.
© Gilbert Doctorow, 2020
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