Ex-US State Dept Analyst: Putin is Right to Send Signal to the West Akin to Cuban Missile Crisis
18:23 GMT 06.06.2024 (Updated: 18:24 GMT 06.06.2024)
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Only Western countries appear to be susceptible to their leadership's lies about Russia, while the rest of the world is not buying into it, ex-US Army psychological warfare officer and the State Department counterterrorism analyst Scott Bennett told Sputnik.
During the second day of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), Sputnik sat down with former US State Department counter-terrorism analyst Scott Bennett to discuss the meaning of the SPIEF platform, US-Russia relations and rising geopolitical tensions.
When asked whether one can draw parallels between the SPIEF and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Bennett responded that such a comparison is inappropriate. According to the expert, Davos' ideology stems from Godlessness, materialism and decadent corrosives that destroy individual and cultural identity.
"But in the St. Petersburg Economic Forum I see a mix of national integrity, national pride, cultural identity, cultural pride, as well as economic mathematics of business and industry," Bennett told Sputnik. "You also have the foundation of family values, tradition [and] Russian Orthodoxy."
Nobody Buys Into West's Scaremongering About Russia
Despite the West's fear-mongering, no one in the world considers Russia a "threat", continued the psychological warfare veteran. The 2024 Munich Security Index (MSI) – a dataset on global risk perceptions – has recently demonstrated that even the population of the Group of Seven does not see Russia as a top threat, let alone the global majority of developing countries.
"The world is not in danger because of Russia," Bennett said. "The world is not threatened by Russia. The world has no fear of Russia. That's the reality. The propaganda that the West has generated, and particularly the United States, and more specifically the LGBT* left-wing Democrat, uniparty Republican epicenter in Washington, they are inventing this fountain of lies about Russia and spreading that to poison the minds of people in Europe. And I think only Europe is susceptible to it. You don't have anyone in Africa or Asia drinking from that fountain of lies and death."
According to the expert, the US government is pushing its "woke globalist left-wing agenda" without any sense of restraint, self-reflection or professional intelligence, while Russia is standing its ground and warning that the West's conduct could lead to war.
"We're seeing Russia being pushed into a position where it is going to defend itself and that defense could be a military strike against Western targets not because it wants to, but because it has to," Bennett stressed.
During his meeting with the foreign press on June 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the West's increasing involvement in the Ukraine conflict, as well as NATO member states greenlighting the use of its weapons to hit targets inside Russia by the Kiev regime. Putin highlighted that Russia has a wide array of options to respond with, including asymmetrical and nuclear ones in case the country's sovereignty and independence are gravely threatened.
'We'll See Whether West Learnt Cuban Missile Crisis Lesson'
According to Bennett, Putin is right in suggesting Russia could provide weapons to countries hostile to the US in response to the West sending long-range arms to Ukraine as an asymmetric response to NATO's escalation in Ukraine.
"That's a very intelligent strategic position to have, first of all," the US psychological warfare veteran said. "I think Putin is exactly right. I mean no doubt they have thought about that for years, but they've been too respectful and too cautious to say it until now… So when Putin is saying this, I think he is trying to get the West to think, stop."
The pundit emphasized that Russia is giving this signal not because it wants to do this but because it is forced to do this by the West.
"I think it is a good way to get the West's attention," said Bennett, comparing Putin's signal to that made by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev when Washington sought to install its nuclear-armed, medium-range ballistic missiles in Turkey. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 became a wake-up call to the Kennedy administration and made it backpedal on the missile deployment.
"We'll see if the West learns its lesson," Bennett said.
Why US November Elections Are in Danger
Bennett believes that the present American administration is in crisis and doesn't rule out that Team Biden will resort to Operation Gladio-style "false flag attacks" in the US ahead of the election to blame them on Russia and postpone or cancel the vote.
"I personally do not think we will have an election in the United States in November of 2024," he said. "I believe the Biden administration and their minions in the CIA and the FBI are already demonstrating a degree of authoritarianism and fascism where they are going to create Operation Gladio false flag attacks in the United States, try and blame it on Russia or a Trump supporter, and declare some kind of a national emergency martial law where they can get away with the same corruption that Zelensky did, and try and hold on to power that way."
Team Biden has a record of undermining its political opponents and is involved in the manipulation of votes during the 2020 elections, according to Bennett. Now they are striving to keep their power by all means, he noted, forecasting that they may try to replace Biden with some Democratic Party "stars" like Gavin Newsom or Megan Whitmer while hoping that they will get away with this.
*extremist organization banned in Russia.
