OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #104, DECEMBER 14, 2022

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #104, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Ukraine War
Benjamin Abelow.   How the West Brought War to Ukraine. 
Art Hobson. Dangers of the Ukraine War.

Benjamin Abelow.  How the West Brought War to Ukraine. 

May 8, 2022.

Misguided American and NATO policies created the Ukraine crisis. Now they risk nuclear war.   
https://medium.com/@benjamin.abelow/western-policies-caused-the-ukraine-crisis-and-now-risk-nuclear-war-1e402a67f44e  
Preface: If you prefer to read this essay as a book
This essay is now available, slightly modified and revised, in book form — Paperback, eBook, and Audible. You can purchase these at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and your local independent bookstore. You can also read more about me and my work at my website. A German-lauguage edition is available in all markets, including in Germany, for example, here, and a free German edition — beautifully illustrated with landscape paintings by the artist Archip Kuindschi (1841–1910), for whom a museum is named in Mariupol, Ukraine — is available here. A Slovene translation, which is being published by the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, is in progress, and a Polish edition is being negotiated. Translations into other languages are being explored.
 
Copyright  This essay is protected by copyright. Copyright © 2022 Benjamin Abelow 
Overview
For almost 200 years, starting with the framing of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the United States has asserted security claims over virtually the whole Western hemisphere. Any foreign power that places military forces near U.S. territory knows it is crossing a red line. U.S. policy thus embodies a conviction that where a potential opponent places its forces is crucially important. In fact, this conviction is the cornerstone of American foreign and military policy, and its violation is considered reason for war.

Yet when it comes to Russia, the United States and its NATO allies have acted for decades in disregard of this same principle. They have progressively advanced the placement of their military forces toward Russia, even to its borders. They have done this with inadequate attention to, and sometimes blithe disregard for, how Russian leaders might perceive this advance. Had Russia taken equivalent actions with respect to U.S. territory — say, placing its military forces in Canada or Mexico — Washington would have gone to war and explained that war as a defensive response to the military encroachment of a foreign power.

When viewed through this lens, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is seen not as the unbridled expansionism of a malevolent Russian leader but as a violent and destructive reaction to misguided Western policies: an attempt to reestablish a zone around Russia’s western border that is free of offensive threats from the United States and its allies. Having misunderstood why Russia invaded Ukraine, the West is now basing existential decisions on false premises. In doing so, it is deepening the crisis and may be sleepwalking toward nuclear war.

This argument, which I now present in detail, is based on the analyses of a number of scholars, government officials, and military observers, all of whom I introduce and quote from in the course of the presentation. These include John Mearsheimer, Stephen F. Cohen, Richard Sakwa, Gilbert Doctorow, George F. Kennan, Chas Freeman, Douglas Macgregor, and Brennan Deveraux.   MORE https://medium.com/@benjamin.abelow/western-policies-caused-the-ukraine-crisis-and-now-risk-nuclear-war-1e402a67f44e     

[Buy this book.  We did too little to prevent this war, so now we strive harder to stop it. The key is knowledge.   Opponents of US global aggression should support the scholars, publishers, and distributors of that opposition.   Instead of asking ourselves what can I do to stop US imperialism; I’m just a single person:  Buy two copies—and Medea Benjamin’s excellent new book too.  –Dick]

Dear Friends,

 The war in Ukraine becomes ever more dangerous for the planet.  Nuclear weapons use has become a real possibility.  A more general war in Europe, between NATO and Russia, has become a real possibility.  Here is my summary of the most pertinent parts of a news story, quoted from this morning’s NWADG: 

 NATO chief Stoltenberg calls the risk of war with Russia real. Ukraine could spin out of control.  "If things go wrong, they can go horribly wrong," he says.  "It is a terrible war.  It is also a war that can become a full-fledged war that spreads into a major war between NATO & Russia.  We are working on that every day to avoid that,  There is no doubt that a full-fledged war is a possibility.  It is important to avoid a conflict that involves more countries in Europe and becomes a full-fledged war in Europe."  Russia has repeatedly accused NATO allies of effectively becoming a party to the conflict by providing weapons, training, and military intelligence to attack Russian forces.  Putin again accused the West of using Ukraine as a tool against his country:  "For years, the West shamelessly exploited and pumped out its resources, effectively turning the country into a colony.  Now it is cynically using the Ukrainian people as cannon fodder against Russia by continuing to supply Ukraine with weapons, sending mercenaries, and pushing it to a suicidal track.:" 

 Where is the national peace move movement when we need it.? The peace movement showed up during the Vietnam War, the First Iraq War, and the Second Iraq War.   We should in my opinion have shown up more forcefully in the Afghan War, the attack on Libya, and the Syrian War.  This war in Ukraine is a bigger mistake than these past wars because it carries a real threat of expansion to the entire planet.   Peace – Art 

     [I wrote to Art regarding his criticism of the peace movement.   Here are my extended thoughts.

My Peace Movement Directory (James Richard Bennett 2001) described 1200 anti-war orgs in N. America. Some peace groups did disappear after Iraq, as I discovered by checking a sample a few years later. But that did not mean the peace movement was not showing up following that war.   Although some of those groups ceased operation after the Iraq invasion, others continued forcefully (e.g., the Quaker AFSC and FCNL) and strong new ones arose (e.g. World Beyond War). 
      Art’s comments reminded me of similar criticism a decade ago; e.g., “Where are the protests now?”by JONATHAN GURWITZ , SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS. Posted: June 6, 2011 at 3:58 a.m.
      With U.S. forces engaged in military conflicts in three countries—four, if you count Pakistan—have you ever wondered what happened to the vigorous antiwar movement of the Bush era and all those trendy protests against American bombs falling on Muslim nations?  (Also published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 6-6-11 ) .   

     Dick’s Comment jotted down at that time:    Most of the replies to Gurwitz at the SAE-N focused on Gurwitz’ criticism of the Democrats’ “anti-war opportunism of the Bush years” (Democrats anti-war under Bush, silent under Obama).    Another theme in his article is the admirable consistency of principled anti-war protesters, whom he illustrates by Cindy Sheehan.   He respects individuals who, having evaluated the human and financial costs of war, have become “committed to a philosophy of peace,” because  “…there are legitimate, principled reasons to oppose U.S. military interventions.” 
      The peace movement is the varied expression of this philosophy of peace, for which we can be proud: prevent wars, stop them, succor the injured and homeless..   Gurwitz, of course, does not in the least prove that Democrats who marched and wrote against the unnecessary, illegal, immoral, and wasteful US aggressions of the time and are now not marching and speaking publicly are opportunists.   Perhaps confidence in public demos waned after President Bush disregarded the largest global public effort to prevent a war in 2003. Some are partisan, members of the War Party, but Gurwitz does not explore possible principled explanations for their present apparent silence.  For example, some who seem silent now have decided to employ different methods of protest.   Nor does he even try to justify slandering the anti-war protests from 2001 to 2008 as “trendy.”     But we can thank Gurwitz for praising consistently principled peacemakers like Cindy Sheehan.
     Yes, our leaders have gone to war belligerently ever since WWII; and yes our two Parties are the ruling one War Party in foreign affairs.  But Art, Arkansas’ preeminent principled, anti-war  peacemaker, is right:  it doesn’t have to be that way.  Be informed about the Ukraine War.  Overthrow the War Party.  Join a local or/AND a national principled peace organization and make it stronger.   (Fayetteville has OMNI; Little Rock has ACPJ and WAND.)