I have today received and share with readers the link to the first installment of a lengthy two part interview that I gave to Bulgaria’s most widely viewed journalist blogger, Martin Karbowski. See А има ли Америка бъдеще? Отговаря американецът д-р Гилбърт Доктороу - независим анализатор / ЧАСТ 1 The second part will be put on the internet tomorrow.
The interview covers a broad range of subjects, mostly relating to the current state of international relations.
The title which Mr. Karbowski has given to this interview makes reference to my collection of essays of the same name published in 2016. The subtitle, or alternative title, he shows is “Does the United States have a future?” which was the title of a follow-on collection that came out a year later. These questions were closely interrelated because I argued that the two countries were engaged (already back then) in a titanic struggle from which one would emerge victorious and the other would be shattered. These questions are, of course, very timely and helped to shape our discussion in the interview.
As one might well imagine, a large percentage of Karbowski’s audience is Bulgarian and, accordingly, the subtitles and the comments are in that language. Having served for 5 years as ITT Country Manager in Bulgaria during the 1980s, I muddle through this language while readers may get help from Google Translate. What I see is a good number of supporters of what I was saying, which is interesting in itself given that for a good long time the Bulgarian government has been Russophobe and pressured by Washington to conform to its economic warfare against Moscow. It was precisely U.S. bullying that underlay the decision of Sofia to cancel arrangements for a South Stream gas pipeline that would have made land in Bulgaria. As we know, this project then was redirected by the Russians to become Turkstream, and the Turks became Russia’s gas hub in the Black Sea region. Bulgaria is also viewed by Washington today as a potential regional base for its war on Russia over Ukraine, and in particular as a possible base for F16s that will nominally be called Ukrainian when de facto they are ‘commuting’ between safe airports in Bulgaria, Romania or Moldova and Ukrainian airspace from which they will launch missiles against Russia. So far, Bulgaria has been reluctant to commit itself to this highly risky helpmate position, which might lead to Russian air strikes on its territory.
I mention in this interview the start of the Information War on Russia as following immediately upon Putin’s address to the Munich Security Conference. That took place, of course, in February 2007.
I am pleased to have been given the opportunity to explain why I believe that the USA has taken over the ugly features of the old Soviet Union, by which I mean the propaganda and outrageous lies that pass for official policy statements on international relations. The newspaper that I had in mind when speaking of “Pravda on the Potomac” was and is The Washington Post, though The New York Times comes in a close second in the race to the bottom of journalistic professionalism and integrity.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024