There is
great pressure on Donald Trump not to make amends with Russia,
journalist and author John Pilger told RT. Geopolitical analyst
Patrick Henningsen, and retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen
Kwiatkowski, also joined the discussion.
US
President-elect Donald Trump gave his first interview to the press
since winning the US presidential election in November. Speaking to
The Times of London, he called NATO “obsolete” and hinted that
sanctions against Russia might be lifted.
"Let's
see if we can make some good deals with Russia," he said,
adding that, in his opinion, nuclear weapons should be reduced.
Meanwhile,
in an interview to The Wall Street Journal published on Friday, he
said: "If you get along and if Russia is really helping us,
why would anybody have sanctions if somebody’s doing some really
great things?"
RT:
In the interview with The Times the president-elect said there is a
possibility American sanctions against Russia will be lifted if deals
are made between the two countries, including on nuclear arms
reduction. How do you read this potential agreement?
John
Pilger: It seems that all the noise that he’s made suggests
that he wants to do a deal with Russia. That makes a lot of sense
from everyone’s point of view. There is a great deal of pressure on
him not to do that. He seems to be resisting it, but all this is
speculation… I would have thought, listening to President Putin and
Trump’s remarks that a deal is in the offing. And that’s a very
good thing if there’s not going to be a war between Russia and the
United States.
What about
China? Mr. Trump seems to divide the world between Russia and China:
good Russia, bad China. So we’ll see. I don’t know.
RT:
Why do you think the rhetoric has quite swiftly changed? Russia has
been known as bogeyman number one. Why is Trump setting sights on
China at the moment?
JP: I
have no idea what goes on inside Donald Trump’s mind. If I
speculate, I suppose I look back on the election campaign when Trump
made a lot of rather fatuous views and abuse of China. He blamed
China for destroying jobs in the US. China became the bogeyman. I
think in his coterie, particularly his Chief of Staff, who is closely
aligned with Taiwan, there is a pro-Taiwan element and anti-Beijing
element. Whereas I think Trump himself has always wanted to simply
get along with Russia. You look at his designated Secretary of State.
He wants to get along with Russia. But at the same time, he is
threatening war with China. It is utterly bizarre.
RT:
What about Obama’s legacy? How will he be viewed by future
historians?
JP:
In fact, in 2009, Obama said he wanted to help rid the world of
nuclear weapons, yet no president since the end of the Cold War has
increased nuclear warhead spending as much as Obama has. Obama has
been one of the most violent presidents. He initiated a worldwide
terrorist campaign with Hellfire missiles being fired by drones at
so-called terrorists, certainly at weddings and funerals… in some
of the poorest countries in the world. What I find personally some of
the most shameful descriptions are those from so-called intellectuals
in the West - writers, journalists, people in the liberal
establishment who have had all the privilege that they ought to know
better – yet they are falling in sycophancy to this man, who has
done what he was meant to do. He served the power.
As far as
Trump goes, he worries them because they didn’t get their woman
[Hillary Clinton]; he worries them because he doesn’t come from
inside that milieu, although Trump is actually the embodiment of a
modern, powerful America. He’s made his money in property. But that
still puts him outside the State Department, the CIA, even outside,
to a large degree, his own party. And what worries them most of all
is that he might recklessly go around the world and make peace with
countries like Russia. That would be appalling! We need a second Cold
War to keep things cooking along. That may sound like a parody, but
unfortunately, it’s true.
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