False and Dangerous Coverage Surrounding the INF

I have listened to several reports dealing with the US withdrawal from the INF, or Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty which was signed by Reagan and Gorbachev in 1987.

Almost all the reports I've heard give only the US side of the story and buttress Washington's claims that Russia is in violation of the treaty and thus since it has been rendered practically obsolete, the US withdrawal only reflects the on-the-ground reality and will afford Washington the legal cover for further production of intermediate range weapons. Russia is clearly made out to be the villain.

But this hardly the whole story.

The BBC and NPR have both engaged in flat deceit when it comes to this issue. Russia has indeed produced medium range weapons capable of a first strike. They did this in response to years of Western/NATO encroachment and the US placement of Anti-Missile batteries along its frontiers. Moscow has claimed (and not without reason) that these platforms can function as offensive weapons systems and with little effort could be re-tasked for first strike capability... and no one would know, there would be no accountability. The systems represent a clear violation of the treaty. Through a deceitful loophole the US has found a way to circumvent the 1987 agreement.

Both sides lie and both sides hide what they're doing with their nuclear weapons. I saw the American side of this first hand as I saw nuclear weapons in places where they weren't supposed to be. There's little basis for trust but what trust had been established in the late 1980's has broken down and while both sides are responsible, the overwhelming onus of blame rests on Washington's shoulders.

One can disagree with Vladimir Putin and Kremlin policy but responsible news reporting, journalism that wants to tell the whole story and inform its audience, news that supposedly is meant to augment the democratic process must necessarily do all it can to tell the comprehensive story and place it in its context. Outlets like the BBC and NPR fail in this regard and shamefully so. Neither specifically Left or Right these outlets defend the foundational planks of the Western Establishment and will not seriously call into question the military, intelligence agencies and/or the financial keystones of the western order. They will occasionally probe and push but in the end, any serious revelations are utilised and spun... the investigative journalism ends up being turned on its head and instead functions as a means of credibly covering up the scandals and the lies.

Watching this episode it's hard not to wonder and reconsider so many of the impulses and impressions of past historical developments. As a child of the Cold War it isn't hard to grasp just how propagandised we were. Just last night I was watching a 1990's movie which hinted at some of the angst and uncertainty of the post-Cold War period and its geopolitics. September 11 changed this and yet now in many ways the West has moved on and building on the deceit and misperception of the post 9/11 years, the new Cold War paradigm has been added and in many ways (culturally) we're back where we were but given the changes in technology and the nature of our culture today the situation seems more dangerous and volatile than ever. Suddenly all those anti-nuclear, anti-Cold War pop songs of the early 1980's seem relevant again. I hear them on the radio while in the car and on the one hand they bring back a flood of memories, on the other hand I hear the words more poignantly than I ever did before.