A Letter To U.S. Ambassador Brigety
The Letter I Would Write to Ambassador Brigety If I Were a South African
by David Cherry, Schiller Institute USA
June 9, 2023
H.E. Ambassador Reuben Brigety
Embassy of the United States
Pretoria, South Africa
Dear Ambassador Brigety, I think it proper and necessary to respond to your accusation on May 11 that South Africa has supplied munitions to Russia.
I do not have knowledge of whether any munitions were sent to Russia. But—whether sent or not sent—your accusation was an example of the bullying that you claimed your country does not practice. It was an example of ‘Do as I say, not as I do’.
I wish to remind you of a like circumstance, in which the United States itself would have been considered the culprit according to your recent unfortunate address.
American Neutrality
At the beginning of World War II against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, the United States, while still a declared neutral, arranged to supply tanks and planes to the British and the Soviet Union. (R.A. Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent: American Entry into World War II, 1967, p. 107: “while still technically a neutral”)
When Britain declared war on Germany in 1939, the United States remained neutral. American opinion was strongly against fighting a war—until December 7, 1941, when Germany’s ally, Japan, bombed Pearl Harbour in Hawaii. That changed everything, overnight. It led to U.S. declarations of war against Japan and Germany.
But nine months earlier, the Lend-Lease Act of March 11, 1941 had enabled the United States government to sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of munitions, to any nation whose defense the President considered vital to the defense of the United States.
(Emphasis added.) See it here: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/lend-lease-act
The South African case today would be very similar, if indeed South Africa were to sell munitions to Russia. South Africa recognises that Russia is a nation whose defense is vital to its own security and sovereignty. (That is true for all African countries.) Why? In a unipolar world, in which Russia has no significant power, South Africa would have no friend with power comparable to that of the U.S., to turn to, if need be. The defense of South Africa and all Africa thus requires that neither Russia nor China be crushed. It is also in South Africa’s national interest to sustain friendship with all countries, including America, and it strives to do so.
Anglo-American War Aims Since 2014
But the war party in Washington and London was already intent on destroying Russia, even before Russia began its Special Military Operation in Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Before that date, the Kiev government was intensifying its shelling of Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine, an operation that had already killed many thousands of innocent civilians ever since 2014, as documented by the OSCE, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which had U.S., British, and European backing! But its findings were disregarded, because the Anglo-American powers, by their own later admission, were trying to provoke Russia to invade Ukraine.
At the same time, the Anglo-American powers were shaking a fist at Russia, threatening destruction if Russia did invade. At a background press briefing on Jan. 25, 2022, two unnamed ‘senior administration officials’ at the White House described ‘the severity of the economic consequences we can and will impose on the Russian economy’, including ‘an atrophying of Russia’s productive capacity over time … [to] hit Putin’s strategic ambitions to industrialise his economy’. The United States, the UK and Europe, they said, ‘are unified in our intention….’ The
White House documentation is here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/01/25/background-press-call-by-senior-administration-officials-on-russia-ukraine-economic-deterrence-measures/
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin declared on April 25, 2022 that Russia must be crushed and its capacity to arm itself sharply reduced. (In such a condition, of course, it would also have to submit to U.S. hegemony.) The President, the Secretary of State, and the National Security Adviser agree with him in word and deed.
Secretary Austin’s words on April 25, 2022: https://ua.usembassy.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-and-secretary-lloyd-austin-remarks-to-traveling-press/
If you think it is ‘outrageous’ (your word) to call the Ukraine war a proxy war between the U.S./NATO and Russia, and ‘outrageous’ to say that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was induced by the U.S. breaking its promise to Russia by moving NATO ever eastward after 1992—not to mention by funding and organising the coup against an elected government in Ukraine in 2014—you may be living (by choice) in the information bubble that is putting many Americans to sleep.
Does not Prof. John Mearsheimer at the University of Chicago call it a proxy war? And Ray McGovern, for 25 years a CIA analyst on the Russia desk, who prepared the President’s Daily Brief and chaired the preparation of National Intelligence Estimates in the 1980s? And Col. Richard H. Black, who was the chief of the Army Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon after flying combat missions in the Viet Nam War? And Chas Freeman, former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, former Deputy Chief of Mission to China, and vice chairman of the Atlantic Council for 12 years? They and many others call it a proxy war. You can find some of their contributions on YouTube, where they explain why it is a proxy war and what dynamic brought it about.
Seen in this context—of the U.S. striving to maintain its status as the sole superpower—your May 11 attack on South Africa—like many other U.S. actions—is consistent with the policy to crush Russia as stated by Secretary Austin and other ‘senior administration officials’.
Your accusation misrepresented South Africa as a partisan in the Ukraine war. It appears that one of your purposes was to scuttle the African Peace Initiative of six African presidents led by our President, Cyril Ramaphosa, which had been in the works behind the scenes for many weeks.
Such an initiative would not be credible if President Ramaphosa could be portrayed as a partisan. Despite your attack on May 11, the Africa Peace Initiative was successfully launched on May 16. Mr. Ambassador, there is a better America than the one that motivated your attack. Let us recall it.
A Better America
In 1956 when General Eisenhower was the U.S. President, Egypt’s President Nasser nationalised the strategic Suez Canal and promised compensation to the British and French owners. What then happened? Britain, France, and Israel went to war against Egypt and were expecting that President Eisenhower would join them. He refused. He realised that it was not in America’s national interest, and that it would not be in the interests of America’s friends in the Middle East. Instead, President Eisenhower sought and obtained a resolution from the UN General Assembly condemning the invasion. Without U.S. participation, the war effort collapsed.
Please read about it here: https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/eisenhower-and-the-suez-canal-crisis
President Eisenhower was not always on the side of the angels, but it is important that he responded to President Kwame Nkrumah’s request for help in his initial effort to build a major hydroelectric dam in Ghana. We recall President Obama saying to Africa, ‘We don’t do infrastructure’. President Obama’s statement is reported, for example, here: (https://lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com/analysis/nigeria/)
President Eisenhower, in his farewell address at the end of his second presidential term, also warned the American people of the growing power of what he called the ‘Military-Industrial Complex’—the very instrument that organised the murder of Eisenhower’s successor as President. John F. Kennedy succeeded President Eisenhower in 1961. No one could say that Eisenhower or Kennedy was an isolationist president. Kennedy, too, represented a better America. There were then American troops in Viet Nam on a small scale to help the Saigon government fight the communist uprising. By 1963, the Saigon government was not succeeding, and there was a debate within the Kennedy administration over whether the U.S. should escalate its involvement, or get out.
In October, President Kennedy made the decision to get out. He was not being advised by ‘communists’ or ‘Russians’. Among those who advised him was the famous retired army general, Douglas MacArthur, in 1961. President Kennedy concluded that greater U.S. involvement was not healthy for the United States. A month later, in November 1963, he was assassinated, and U.S. involvement in Viet Nam was immediately escalated. An attempt was even made to conceal the fact that Kennedy had made such a decision.
Read about it here: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/galbraith-exit-strategy-vietnam/
The ensuing Viet Nam War was a nightmare and a disaster for the people of Viet Nam. It did great damage to America, too. It opened the door to all of the ‘wars of choice’ that followed, including the destruction in Somalia, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya. (Where was the ‘Protect’ in the ‘Right to Protect’?) It damaged Americans’ conception of themselves. Their morale suffered and they became more callous. It damaged America’s reputation in the world. It shifted drug consumption in America to a higher level. And many Americans were killed and maimed, or suffered catastrophic psychiatric damage. We have had many bad presidents, but presidents Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy were inclined in varying degrees to follow the patriotic foreign policy of presidents George Washington and John Quincy Adams.
It was Adams who, while Secretary of State, spoke of America and her foreign policy to the Congress on the Fourth of July 1821, and said, ‘Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. ‘But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. ‘She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. ‘She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. ‘She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example’.
The Cold Coup in Washington
The murder of President Kennedy by elements within several U.S. agencies—including the CIA, Pentagon, FBI, and Secret Service—was the opening shot of a cold coup that continued to unfold with the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965 when, having converted to Islam, he rejected hatred of white people; of Martin Luther King in 1968, when he began to mobilise Americans against the Viet Nam War; and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, who opposed the Viet Nam War and was expected to win the Democratic Party nomination for President.
Read about the assassination of President Kennedy here: James W. Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable (2010).
For the context, read what an insider had to say, the Chief of Special Operations in the Pentagon at the time, Fletcher Prouty, who wrote The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World (1973). Col. Prouty was no stranger to me and my associates.
See him interviewed about his book here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuqN3Dktra8&t=183s
America has never been the same since
Today, the beneficiaries of the coup, the neoconservatives in both parties, are utterly blinded by their preconceptions and the arrogance that flows therefrom. They believe that toppling governments and resorting to force is the answer when softer methods fail. And if they still fail, they redouble their application of the same methods. But the world has changed. They see it, but they misread it.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that escalating toward a nuclear confrontation is good, because it ‘makes it easier for President Putin to make the hard choices’ that Blinken is looking for. It is clear that Mr. Blinken believes President Putin will be the first to blink. Does he not know that the Soviet Union sacrificed 27 million lives to defeat Nazi Germany in World War II? Twenty-seven million. Does he not know that Russians today are patriots and that, as in World War II, they are becoming more determined patriots as they feel increasingly threatened? Even recently, Russians thought well of Americans, but that is changing now. Neither side will blink. Unless the game board is overturned, there will be a thermonuclear war. A nuclear war may kill us all. Many who don’t die from the blast will die in the massive firestorms that follow. The rest will die from cold and starvation, as the clouds of soot in the stratosphere spread around the world and obscure the Sun for years—nuclear winter.
See nuclear war and nuclear winter in this short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQMXx4F093E
and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0zlyfhz7hk
Will the Real America Stand Up? But now, at last, there is a possibility of something closer to the real America returning to power, as the 2024 Presidential election approaches. There are candidates who reject the policy of permanent war and of escalating to the brink of nuclear war. They oppose the concept of American dominance at any price, and they reject the small clique that worships at that altar. My respectful proposal to you, Mr. Ambassador, is that you revisit America’s history, to which you are no stranger, and examine your conscience. Whether you remain at your post or not, ‘go home’ to your heart. Take inspiration from I Corinthians 13 (verses 4–6 and 11) in the Bible: ‘Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; … When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things’. Yes, let us become men and women! You are on the stage of history: You are not a spectator. Which America will you represent?
I wish you well.
Sincerely,
David Cherry
The Schiller Institute USA