OMNI RUSSIA NEWSLETTER #10, JANUARY 28, 2022

OMNI

RUSSIA NEWSLETTER #10,
January 28, 2022

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology.

(#1 March 21, 2014; #2 April 10, 2014; #3 May 16, 2014; #4 July 22, 2014; #5 March 10, 2015; #6 Sept. 1, 2016; #7, October 3, 2017; #8, Nov. 10, 2021; #9, January 20, 2022)

http://omnicenter.org/donate/

CONTENTS RUSSIA NEWSLETTER  #10

This anthology begins with indignation by Tomlinson, WBW, and Butterfield, moves to analysis and action by Lowendorf, Taibbi, Franklin, and Prashad, to an appeal for peace by WBW, and to the extensive scholarship of Prof.  Zunes .

Abel Tomlinson. “The US Wants War, Not Russia.”

World Beyond War.  “No War in Ukraine!”

Greg Butterfield.  “Ukraine, U.S. drum up war threats against Donbass and Russia.”  April 8,  2021.

Henry Lowendorf reports the ”terribly destructive U.S. foreign policy” that has “has no moral, or legal, or logical authority.”

Matt Taibbi via George Paulson. “Let’s Not Have a War.” 

H. Bruce Franklin.  “Another Game of Russian Roulette,” on the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Vijay Prashad.  “Why Ukraine’s borders are back at the center of geopolitics.”
WBW, Appeal for Negotiation, a mini-anthology within a mini-anthology.

TEXTS

A note on Ukraine

From Abel Tomlinson 1-22-22

"Despite the ocean of lies being fed to American masses, the truth is: it’s U.S.A. that wants war, not Russia. It’s the U.S.A. that is pushing nuclear-armed NATO military bases to Russia’s doorstep; it’s USA that sponsored a neo-Nazi Ukraine coup; it’s USA practicing massive war games on Russian borders; it’s USA surrounding Russia & many others with over 800 foreign military bases; it’s USA that has invaded & overthrown over 50 nations & killed millions after WWII.  The USA created the Ukraine crisis & is hoping to overthrow the Russian & Chinese governments, which would cause unimaginable death & destruction, especially if it escalates into nuclear war. Do Not Consent to this Evil Warmonger Agenda!"

No War in Ukraine!From World Beyond War
We are alarmed by the increasing tensions between the nuclear-armed governments of the U.S. (and its NATO allies) and Russia and are extremely concerned about what seems to be the increasing likelihood of war.
We must raise our voices. Add your name and comments to this petition. Share it with others to sign. Then help us forward it to your elected officials.

To: The Governments of NATO Nations

No War in Ukraine! Nothing is worth risking war, much less nuclear war. No side wants war in Ukraine, and certainly not the people of Ukraine. Someone must find the courage to push back against the momentum toward war, and lead the way toward cooperation and disarmament.

Add your name and your comments!

Share far and wide!  World BEYOND War is a global network of volunteers, chapters, and affiliated organizations advocating for the abolition of the institution of war.

Ukraine, U.S. drum up war threats against Donbass and Russia.  April 8, 2021 | Newswire.  Mronline.org (4-9-21).  Originally published: Struggle La Lucha by Greg Butterfield (April 2, 2021 ) .

“U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a phone call with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Wednesday, affirmed Washington’s support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity ‘in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression,’ the State Department said in a statement,” Reuters reported March 31.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reported March 30 that U.S. European Command (EUCOM) had changed Ukraine’s status on an internal watch list from “possible crisis” to “potential imminent crisis.”

Completely missing from these reports, however, is the fact that Ukraine has been building up its troops and military hardware on the “line of contact,” the front line of the conflict, since mid-January.

At the same time, Ukrainian military forces have stepped up unprovoked attacks on frontline settlements in Donetsk and Lugansk, killing and injuring residents and targeting homes, schools and other civilian targets.” 
“The USA has the unique condition of being a flagrant violator of human rights within its own borders and in practically every region of the world. No other nation has such a systematic record. Its massive control of media and communications hides this truth from its own people.”

Henry Lowendorf on Connecticul’s Warmongering  Senators.

Date: Thu, Jan 20, 2022 at 7:49 PM (from Sonny San Juan)
Subject: "Ready for another game of Russian roulette?"
The article below, recounting some history that many do not remember if they ever knew, reminds us how stupid, counterproductive and terribly destructive U.S. foreign policy is.   

 Once again the US is stoking nuclear fire. Once again it shills blame on an enemy it has consciously created to be an enemy. Moving missiles, all sorts of weaponry and nuclear armed Naval fleets up to the borders of Russia while mocking Russia’s defense measures and demands to reverse course and reduce tensions, the imperial US is wagering the future of civilization and perhaps life on the planet on odds that Russia will lie down and agree to be marched over. Those who lead us in this direction are truly insane.  

 Both Connecticut Senators just returned from a junket to Ukraine to trade toasts with the ultra corrupt leaders of that country. They have returned to urge President Biden to ignore Russia’s actual security interests - it having been invaded 3 times through Ukraine and Poland within just over 2 decades with over 27 million human lives lost and untold physical destruction . Read that again.  

 And what does Ukraine mean to the US? Are we protecting democracy? Having overthrown the Ukrainian constitutional government in 2014 - not to mention those of so many other countries - the US has no moral, or legal, or logical authority to claim it is defending Ukrainian democracy, which under a subservient government can’t even be called democratic. Indeed the US government is currently unable, unwilling, to defend its own democracy.  

Contact Senators Blumenthal and Murphy. Here’s what I wrote: "I'm ashamed that you go to Ukraine, fully aware that its government leaders were hand chosen by the US State Department, in order to provoke a winless war with Russia based on lies. I'm ashamed that you traffic with neoNazis and a government that celebrates them."  

Dick Blumenthal: 860-258-6940 https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/contact/write-to-senator-blumenthal 

Chris Murphy: 860-549-8463 https://www.murphy.senate.gov/contact 

Peace /\ Justice 

Henry Lowendorf 

Greater New Haven Peace Council 

George Paulson  1-27-22

This article by Matt Taibbi came out a day ago.  Taibbi spent years in Russia, speaks Russian.   

This may be the best short summary I’ve seen of the current standoff in Ukraine.  Taibbi points out that Obama, relatively speaking, displayed wisdom when it came to the idea of getting into a shooting war with Russia over Ukraine.  He also points out that war means, in the case of Russia, real war, with a country that has a real military and can really fight back.  No “good” options left for an Uncle Sam who is used to calling all the shots.    Peace,

Matt Taibbi. “Let’s Not Have a War” The American foreign policy establishment, chasing decades of failures, appears to be seriously considering the unthinkable in Ukraine. 

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/lets-not-have-a-war?r=lofz&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web 

 H. BRUCE FRANKLIN.   “Ready for Another Game of Russian Roulette?” JANUARY 19, 2022.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/19/ready-for-another-game-of-russian-roulette/

  [At this moment of possible nuclear war, everyone who wishes to avert war should compare this crisis with that of the Cuban Missile crisis.    –Dick]

As the U.S. moves nuclear forces closer and closer to the border of Russia, and as our corporate media bang their war drums louder and louder, does anyone remember the Cuban missile crisis?

In June of 1961, just three months after the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba was defeated,  the United States began the deployment of fifteen Jupiter nuclear missiles to Turkey, which shared a border with the Soviet Union. Each missile, armed with a W49 1.4 megaton thermonuclear warhead, was equivalent to 175 Hiroshima bombs. With their fifteen-hundred-mile range, the missiles were capable of annihilating Moscow, Leningrad, and every major city and base in the Russian heartland. Each missile could incinerate Moscow in just sixteen minutes from launch, thus wildly raising the possibility of thermonuclear war caused by technological accident, human error, miscommunication, or preemptive attack.

We didn’t hear about the Jupiter missiles and of course we didn’t hear anything about Operation Mongoose, the top-secret plan launched on November 1, 1961, to overthrow the government of Cuba through a systematic campaign of sabotage, coastal raids, assassinations, subversion leading to CIA-sponsored guerrilla warfare, and an eventual invasion by the U.S. military. The armed raids and sabotage succeeded in killing many Cubans and damaging the economy, which was hit much harder by the economic embargo announced in February. However, the assassination plots were foiled, and all attempts to develop an internal opposition failed. Many of the CIA agents and Cuban exiles who infiltrated the island by sea and air were captured, and quite a few of them talked, even on Cuban radio, about the plans for a new U.S. invasion, which was planned for October. Cuba requested military help from the Soviet Union, which by July was sending troops, air defense missiles, battlefield nuclear weapons, and medium-range ballistic missiles equivalent to the U.S. Jupiter missiles in Turkey.

At 7 p.m. eastern time on Monday, October 22, 1962, John F. Kennedy delivered the most terrifying presidential message of my lifetime. Declaring that the Soviet Union had created a “clear and present danger” by placing in Cuba “large, long-range, and clearly offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction” “capable of striking Washington, D.C.,” he announced that U.S. ships would immediatEly impose a “strict quarantine,” a transparent euphemism for a blockade, on the island. Knowing that the American people knew nothing about the recent and ongoing U.S. deployment of the Jupiter ballistic missiles capable of striking all the cities of the Russian heartland, he stated, “Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift that any . . . change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace.” And knowing the American people knew nothing about Operation Mongoose and its previously planned invasion of Cuba in October, the president stated over and over again that these Soviet missiles were “offensive threats” with no defensive purpose. Here was his most frightening sentence: “We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war in which the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth—but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced.”    MORE https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/19/ready-for-another-game-of-russian-roulette/

What may have looked to the public like a Soviet capitulation turned out to be a successful, desperate, and potentially fatal gamble by the Soviet Union. They won a tit-for-tat removal of the land-based missiles within sixteen minutes of incinerating either Moscow or Washington, with a bonus of stopping the imminent invasion of Cuba and possibly future invasions as well, all without having to commit to the future defense of Cuba.

Behind the scenes, Kennedy now had to deal with the shrieking hawks, furious at the president both for missing the golden opportunity to annihilate the Soviet Union and for an ignominious surrender of America’s exceptional right to invade Cuba and to station nuclear weapons wherever it pleased.

Alarmed by how close we had come to nuclear apocalypse, Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev set up a telephone hot line to enable direct communication, developed a personal relationship to ease tensions, and succeeded in August 1963 in banning nuclear testing in the atmosphere, under water, or in space. The president inspired many of us with an eloquent June 1963 American University commencement address about the world’s crucial need for an enduring peace. He even urged “every thoughtful citizen” who desired peace to “begin by looking inward—by examining his own attitude toward peace, toward the Soviet Union,” which he extolled for its heroic World War II sacrifices. But then of course he went on to claim: “The Communist drive to impose their political and economic system on others is the primary cause of world tension today.”  Since today Russia is as capitalist as Saudi Arabia, Australia, and United States, what is “the primary cause of world tension today?”

President Kennedy’s final remarks began with this statement: “The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war.”  So it must have been Vietnam that started a war with the United States.

“Ready for Another Game of Russian Roulette?” BY H. BRUCE FRANKLIN, adapted from Crash Course: From the Good War to the Forever War.

CONTENTS, RUSSIA NEWSLETTER #9, 2018-2020
 https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2022/01/omni-russia-newsletter-9-1-20-22.html   

WAYS US WARRIORS GO TO  WAR

Bruce Gagnon.   What is the US Agenda? NATO Expansion and Regime Change

George Paulson.  Russophobia

Biden. Putin a Killer
John Pilger. “In Ukraine, the US is dragging us towards war with Russia.”

Matt Taibbi.  “10 Ways to Call Something Russian Disinformation Without Evidence.”

Alan MacLeod.  False Bounty Claim.
McGovern, Russiagate
Boyd-Barrett, Russiagate as “puerile narrative.”
Galloway.  Macron: the Problem is USA
Russia’s 100,000 Troops
Grossman.  NATO Maneuvers.
WAYS TO PEACE
All of the Above
Hobson. Reverse NATO Expansion and US Withdrawal from  NATO
Dick.  Critical Thinking Through Exposure of Fallacies

END RUSSIA NEWSLETTER #10