OMNI
Ukraine War Anthology #28
February 18, 2023
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology
https://omnicenter.org/donate/
CONTENTS
US/NATO’S WAR AGAINST RUSSIA
Current Actions Against the War
World Beyond War, February 19 RALLY
United for Peace and Justice, “Peaceful Alternatives to War,” February 24,
2023.
History
John Mearsheimer, "The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine Crisis."
George Beebe. "Ignoring the Ghosts of the 'Great War' - at Our Own
Peril"
Jeffrey D. Sachs. "Ukraine Is the Latest Neocon Disaster."
Space Alert interview with John Walsh. “War against Russia and China.”
Sustaining the Ukraine War
Space Alert. “Kiev’s Nazi Forces Attack Donbass.”
Seymour Hersh, “Nord Stream Sabotage Is the Dumbest.”
Caitlin Johnstone. CBS Silenced by Ukraine Gov.
NYT Report on Civilians Killed.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Phoenix Ghost Drones to Ukraine.
Dave DeCamp. Lend-Lease for Weapons.
Benjamin Norton. Spanish Lawmaker on NATO’s Subservience to US Interests.
Anatole Lieven on Russian Intellectuals.
Fabrizio Casari. Europe a Sinking Ship.
NATO on Russia’s Western Border
Scott Ritter. “Lithuania’s Brinkmanship.”
Destabilizing Russia’s Southern Border.
Gavin O’Reilly on Uzbekistan.
MAKING PEACE, STOP THE WAR, DIPLOMACY NOT SLAUGHTER
"Ending the War in Ukraine: Three Possible Futures"By Rajan Menon.
US Public Support for the War Decreasing.
"Anatol Lieven on NATO Expansion & What a Ukraine Peace Settlement Could Look Like." Interview by Amy Goodman.
TEXTS
PEACEFUL ALTERNATIVES TO THE WAR (HERE AND AT END)
February 19 RALLY in Washington D.C.,
rageagainstwar.com/rallies
On February 19 in Washington D.C., a major rally and march will bring forth the following demands. Sister events listed on the rageagainstwar.com website at rageagainstwar.com/rallies are being planned in Montpelier, Sacramento, Fresno, Ann Arbor, Los Angeles, Tacoma, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco. You can plan and add your own where you are, or head to the closest one.
This is a rally being planned by an uncomfortably large coalition, including people and groups that have very strong and important disagreements with each other on topics other than the urgent need to reduce the risk of nuclear war and bring a halt to the killing in Ukraine. It's unfortunate that many people who have opposed past wars do not oppose this one, and that many who oppose this one are willing to support other ones. World BEYOND War's mission is to educate people in the direction of opposing all war and preparations for war, and this is one place we can do that.
If you attend, please get to know some new people, and please respectfully and constructively make the case to them for war abolition. You can use these flyers, these sign-up sheets, and wear this gear. Let's turn out in as large a crowd as possible!
Join us at the Lincoln Memorial at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, February 19th. After the rally, we'll march to the White House. Schedule here.
I'll be one of the speakers and see you there! Forward this to your friends!
Peace, David Swanson, World BEYOND War World BEYOND War is a global network of volunteers, chapters, and affiliated organizations advocating for the abolition of the institution of war. Donate to support our people-powered movement for peace.
One Week from Today (Feb. 24)
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In case you hadn’t read Mearsheimer’s essay
"The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine Crisis"
By John J. Mearsheimer, National Interest, posted June 23, 2022.
A lengthy, detailed argument that US policy was principally responsible for the war's outbreak and that current US policy, in its focus on weakening Russia, is downgrading the prospects for a negotiated settlement and for an end to suffering in Ukraine. The author teaches political science and international relations at the University of Chicago.
Editor’s note: This speech was given at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence on Thursday, June 16.The war in Ukraine is a multi-dimensional disaster, which is likely to get much worse in the foreseeable future. When a war is successful, little attention is paid to its causes, but when the outcome is disastrous, understanding how it happened becomes paramount. People want to know: how did we get into this terrible situation?
I have witnessed this phenomenon twice in my lifetime—first with the Vietnam war and second with the Iraq war. In both cases, Americans wanted to know how their country could have miscalculated so badly. Given that the United States and its NATO allies played a crucial role in the events that led to the Ukraine war—and are now playing a central role in the conduct of that war—it is appropriate to evaluate the West’s responsibility for this calamity.
I will make two main argumentstoday.
First, the United States is principally responsible for causing the Ukraine crisis. This is not to deny that Putin started the war and that he is responsible for Russia’s conduct of the war. Nor is it to deny that America’s allies bear some responsibility, but they largely follow Washington’s lead on Ukraine. My central claim is that the United States has pushed forward policies toward Ukraine that Putin and other Russian leaders see as an existential threat, a point they have made repeatedly for many years. Specifically, I am talking about America’s obsession with bringing Ukraine into NATO and making it a Western bulwark on Russia’s border. The Biden administration was unwilling to eliminate that threat through diplomacy and indeed in 2021 recommitted the United States to bringing Ukraine into NATO. Putin responded by invading Ukraine on February 24th of this year.
Second, the Biden administration has reacted to the outbreak of war by doubling down against Russia. Washington and its Western allies are committed to decisively defeating Russia in Ukraine and employing comprehensive sanctions to greatly weaken Russian power. The United States is not seriously interested in finding a diplomatic solution to the war, which means the war is likely to drag on for months if not years. In the process, Ukraine, which has already suffered grievously, is going to experience even greater harm. In essence, the United States is helping lead Ukraine down the primrose path. Furthermore, there is a danger that the war will escalate, as NATO might get dragged into the fighting and nuclear weapons might be used. We are living in perilous times.
Let me now lay out my argument in greater detail, starting with a description of the conventional wisdom about the causes of the Ukraine conflict. MORE click on title
What We Can Learn from WWI
George Beebe. "Ignoring the Ghosts of the 'Great War' - at Our Own Peril." Responsible Statecraft, posted July 1.
Via H-Pad - Historians for Peace and Democracy
Argues that lessons from both the beginning and the end of World War One have been ignored in NATO's strategic planning in regard to the Ukraine war. The author is a former Russia analyst for the CIA and is currently Grand Strategy director of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
from Global Network: Kiev Nazi Forces Attack Donbass Since 2014.
Since 2014 the US-UK-NATO armed, trained and directed military forces of Ukraine have been sent to the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine (along the Russian border) to kill their fellow citizens whose only crime is they speak Russian. Since the US orchestrated coup d'etat in Kiev in 2014 more than 14,000 people have been killed in the Donbass and more than 34,000 wounded. |
The New York Times reported on June 25 that the CIA (with allied intelligence agency support) has been directing the war in Ukraine. MORE google the title
BIDEN’S FAMILIAR WARMAKERS
Jeffrey D. Sachs. "Ukraine Is the Latest Neocon Disaster."
Common Dreams, posted June 28
"The Biden Administration is packed with the same neocons who championed the US wars of choice in Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Syria (2011), Libya (2011), and who did so much to provoke Russia's invasion of Ukraine." The author is a University Professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.
Anti-Communism/Socialism (from 1918 to) 2022
US FOREIGN POLICY: WAR AGAINST RUSSIA AND CHINA
7-19-22 John Walsh (interview). | 7:39 AM (1 hour ago) | |||||||||||||||
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Russophobia:Doubling Down v. Russia
“Nord Stream Sabotage Is The Dumbest U.S. Act In Years, Says Seymour Hersh.” in World by Countercurrents Collective. 17/02/2023. Seymour Hersh, the famous investigative journalist, has slammed U.S.’s alleged involvement in bombing the Nord Stream gas lines as one of the “dumbest” decisions taken in years, warning that the move will have “horrific” consequences for Europeans and further undercut the already “supremely useless” NATO alliance.
Speaking to Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman for an interview on Wednesday, Hersh outlined his recent report on the destruction of the pipelines last year, which found that the U.S. played a key role in planting and detonating explosives on sections of the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea. MORE https://countercurrents.org/2023/02/nord-stream-sabotage-is-the-dumbest-u-s-act-in-years-says-seymour-hersh/?swcfpc=1
Consequences: Corruption: Mainstream Media for War
MEDIA FAILURE TO REPORT
Alan MacLeod “Media ignore Seymour Hersh bombshell report of U.S. destroying Nord Stream II.” MintPress News, February 15, 2023. Posted Feb 16, 2023. Originally published: (more by MintPress News)
Imperialism, State Repression, Strategy, WarAmericas, Europe, Germany, Russia, United StatesNewswireBiden administration, Nord Stream II gas pipeline, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
It has now been one week since Seymour Hersh published an in-depth report claiming that the Biden administration deliberately blew up the Nord Stream II gas pipeline without Germany’s consent or even knowledge—an operation which began planning long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Based on interviews with national security insiders, Hersh—the journalist who broke the stories of the My Lai Massacre, the CIA spying program and the Abu Ghraib torture scandal—claims that in June, U.S. Navy divers traveled to the Baltic Sea and attached C4 explosive charges to the pipeline. By September, President Biden himself ordered its destruction. According to Hersh, all understood the stakes and the gravity of what they were doing, acknowledging that, if caught, it would be seen as a flagrant “act of war” against their allies.
Despite this, corporate media have overwhelmingly ignored the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter’s bombshell. A MintPress News study analyzed the 20 most influential publications in the United States, according to analytics company Similar Web, and found only four mentions of the report between them.
The entirety of the corporate media’s attention given to the story consisted of:
A 166-word mini report in Bloomberg;
One five-minute segment on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” (Fox News);
One 600-word round up in The New York Post;
A shrill Business Insider attack article, whose headline labels Hersh a “discredited journalist” that has given a “gift to Putin”.
The 20 outlets studied are, in alphabetical order:
ABC News; Bloomberg News; Business Insider; BuzzFeed; CBS News; CNBC; CNN; Forbes; Fox News; The Huffington Post; MSNBC; NBC News; The New York Post; The New York Times; NPR; People Magazine; Politico; USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.
Searches for “Seymour Hersh” and “Nord Stream” were carried out on the websites of each outlet, and were then checked against precise Google searches and results from the Dow Jones Factiva news database.
This lack of interest cannot be explained due to the report’s irrelevance. If the Biden administration really did work closely with the Norwegian government to blow up Nord Stream II, causing billions of dollars worth of immediate damage and plunging an entire region of the world into a freezing winter without sufficient energy, it ranks as one of the worst terrorist attacks in history; a flagrant act of aggression against a supposed ally.
Therefore, if Biden did indeed order this attack, it is barely possible to think of a more consequential piece of news. Indeed, according to Hersh, all those involved—from Biden, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan—understood that what they were doing was “an act of war.”
The Nord Stream attack was also one of the world’s worst ecological disasters, constituting the largest single leak of methane in history—a gas 80 times worse for the planet than carbon dioxide at accelerating climate change.
“The media system has, predictably, tried to marginalize the report,” Bryce Greene, a writer and media critic who has closely followed the press’ lack of interest in scrutinizing the Nord Stream story, told MintPress, adding,
They don’t want to deal with the repercussions. It also reflects poorly on the profession…Even Jeffery Sachs in his Bloomberg interview said that journalists he knew personally understood that evidence, but also understood that the media system they worked in wouldn’t respond kindly to any suggestion of U.S. complicity, so they kept quiet.
Greene explained that bothersome facts about the war have consistently been swept under the rug, noting that,
This is indicative of the entire Ukraine War coverage. From hiding the history of NATO expansion, to calling Ukrainian Nazis Russian propaganda, to CBS even retracting a story about Ukrainian corruption. The fact that U.S. media figures want to be seen as ‘on the good team’ or ‘on the right side of history’ means that they’re unwilling to confront reality as it exists. . . . https://www.mintpressnews.com/media-ignore-seymour-hersh-bombshell-report-of-us-destroying-nord-stream-ii/283677/
“CBS wanted to do critical reporting on Ukraine’s government but Ukraine’s government said no.”
Originally published: Caitlin A Johnstone Blog on August 10, 2022 (more by Caitlin A Johnstone Blog) | (Posted Aug 13, 2022)
WarEurope, UkraineNewswire
Following objections from the Ukrainian government, CBS News has removed a short documentary which had reported concerns from numerous sources that a large amount of the supplies being sent to Ukraine aren’t making it to the front lines.
Reportng the War continued: KILLING CIVILIANS
NYT Reports 'Strikes On Civilians' That Happen To Hit Military TargetsBy Moon of Alabama. Popular Resistance.org (7-17-2). Just last week the New York Times reported of a Russian strike 'on civilians' in Chasiv Yar even as its own reporter at the location acknowledged in a detailed separate report that the apartment complex that was hit was mostly housing military forces. Yesterday a Russian missile strike hit the town of Vinnytsia in western Ukraine. The New York Times is again lamenting about a damage to civilian buildings even as the main target was obviously a military one. Strikes on Civilians Deep in Ukraine Show Russia’s Lethal Reach VINNYTSIA, Ukraine — A volley of missiles hit a shopping center, a dance studio and a wedding... -more-
$54 billion and counting So far the US Congress has appropriated $54 billion for the US proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.
When it came to a vote in the US House and Senate - all Democrats in Congress voted in favor of sending these funds to Kiev. Only Republicans (primarily in the House) voted NO.
The funding bills passed overwhelmingly at the very time our own economy in the US is suffering dramatically. The same can be said about NATO member nations who also have sent major funding to Kiev for the war. The unintended 'blow-back' from sanctions on Russia have been devastating.
The Rand Corporation study of 2019 calls for the 'Overextending and Unbalancing Russia'.
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
P.O. Box 652 Brunswick, ME 04011 globalnet@mindspring.com
SUSTAINING and Prolonging the WarTHE WAR Continued
WEAPONS TO UKRAINE
“Phoenix Ghosts are part drones, part missiles. How does that change combat?” BAS (6-2-22).
The US is sending over 120 Phoenix Ghost drones to Ukraine. They could transform ground combat by combining the maneuverability, usability, and flight time of a drone with the lethal effects of a missile, says researcher Dan Gettinger. Read more.
US Lend-Lease to Ukraine
“Biden Signs Bill Reviving World War II-Era Lend-Lease Program To Ukraine.”By Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com. Popular Uprising.org (5-12-22). President Biden on Monday signed a bill into law reviving the World War II-era lend-lease program for Ukraine, paving the way for an escalation in US military aid to Kyiv. The Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022 allows Biden to send weapons to Ukraine free of charge while technically requiring payment at a later date. Under the lend-lease act during World War II, the US sent billions of dollars in weapons to the Soviet Union, China, Britain, and other allies. The legislation received massive bipartisan support in Congress, passing by voice vote in the Senate and by a vote of... -more-
Purpose of War to Build Up US War Industry and US Power Over Europe
Spanish Lawmaker: NATO Subordinates Europe To US
"Why Russian Intellectuals Are Hardening Support for War in Ukraine" By Anatol Lieven, Portside, posted June 18
Says that many Russian intellectuals who loathe Putin and opposed the invasion are now joining in support for the war effort out of "an increasingly strong feeling that the United States is trying to use the war in Ukraine to cripple or even destroy the Russian state."
Fabrizio Casari. “Europe Dances on the Titanic.” Internationalist 360° on July 13,2022(more by Internationalist 360°) (Posted Jul 16, 2022). State Repression, Strategy, WarAmericas, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesNewswireNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Russia-Ukraine War.
140 days after the start of Russia’s military operations in Ukraine, the Western reaction, which according to Biden would have erased Russia from the international scene, turns out to be a political and economic failure.
NATO ON RUSSIA’S WESTERN BORDER: Continuing and Possibly Expanding the War
Scott Ritter. “Lithuania’s Brinkmanship.” Consortium News. June 30, 2022. (Posted Jul 09, 2022).
Imperialism, State Repression, Strategy, WarAmericas, Europe, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesNewswireNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Suwalki Gap
On June 18 the government of Lithuania acted on a decision by the European Commission that goods and cargo subject to European Union sanctions could be prohibited from transiting between one part of Russia to another, so long as they passed through E.U. territory.
Almost immediately Lithuania moved to block Russia from shipping certain categories of goods and materials by rail to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, encompassing the former East Prussian Baltic port city of Konigsberg and its surrounding environs. They were absorbed into Russia proper as a form of war reparations at the end of the Second World War.
Lithuania cited its legal obligation as an E.U. member to enforce E.U. sanctions targeting Russia. Russia, citing a 2002 treaty with Lithuania which ostensibly prohibits such an action, has called the Lithuanian move a blockade and has threatened a military response.
[Photo deleted]A formation of NATO fighter jets flying over Lithuania in 2015. (NATO)
Lithuania, as a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, is afforded the collective security guarantees spelled out in Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which stipulate that an attack against one member is an attack against all. Through its actions, Lithuania risked bringing Russia and NATO to the brink of armed conflict, the consequences of which could be dire for the entire world given the respective nuclear arsenals of the two sides.
From the moment Russia initiated its so-called “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine, the nations that comprise NATO have been engaged in a delicate dance around the issue of how to support Ukraine and punish Russia without crossing the line of committing an overt act of war that could prompt Russia to respond militarily, thereby triggering a series of cause-effect actions that could lead to a general European conflict, and perhaps World War III.
In retrospect, the early debates in the European halls of power about whether to provide Ukraine with heavy weaponry seem almost innocent when compared to the massive infusion of weaponry that is taking place today.
Even Russia has softened its hardline stance going in, where it had threatened unimaginable consequences for any nation that interfered with its military operation in Ukraine.
Today the situation has evolved to the point where NATO is engaged in a de facto proxy conflict with Russia on Ukrainian soil which is designed, frankly speaking, to kill as many Russian soldiers as possible.
Russian Objectives MORE click on title
RUSSIA’S SOUTHERN BORDER
Gavin O'Reilly. “Lukashenko’s prediction comes true–regime change comes to Uzbekistan.” Al Jazeera on July 8, 2022 (more by Al Jazeera). (Posted Jul 11, 2022).
Lukashenko had predicted the highly coincidental timing that suggests that the current strife in Uzbekistan has been orchestrated as a means to eventually lead to further destabilization along Russia’s southern border.
Inequality, State Repression, Strategy, WarEurope, Russia, UkraineNewswireBelarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Kazakhstan, RAND Corporation, the former Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev
On Saturday, a month-long state of emergency was declared in the former Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan, in response to violent protests in response to government plans to revoke the autonomy of the north-eastern republic of Karakalpakstan, a decision which Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev would later drop following a visit to the region.
Despite the current disturbances only starting several days ago, their sudden escalation to extreme violence, as well as the coordinated coverage of the situation by corporate media outlets, including the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe, already bears all the hallmarks of a CIA regime change operation.
Indeed, such a situation was predicted by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenkoin January of this year, when a similar regime-change attempt was taking place in Uzbekistan’s larger northern neighbour Kazakhstan.
This attempt, carried out in line with a May 2020 document published by neoconservative think tank the RAND Corporation, sought to destabilize the central Asian Republic in order for the after-effects to spill over into neighbouring Russia, with the 7,000km land border shared between both nations being the second largest in the world after Canada and the U.S.
Following the deployment of the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) to Kazakhstan however, at the request of Nur-Sultan, the Western-backed colour revolution attempt was quelled in the space of two weeks, with the military alliance withdrawing from the central Asian country soon after.
Belarus itself had experienced a colour revolution attempt in August 2020, when following Lukashenko’s Presidential electoral victory over opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a Euromaidan-style colour revolution was launched against Minsk, the former Soviet Republic being a long-time target for the regime change lobby owing to it being Moscow’s sole European ally, having highly-nationalised state industries, and the instalment of a pro-Western government resulting in Russia’s entire Western border being composed solely of NATO-members and allies.
Indeed, the encirclement of Russia was a motivating factor in the aforementioned Euromaidan colour revolution launched in response to then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s November 2013 decision to suspend an EU trade deal in order to pursue closer ties with Moscow. MORE click on title
ENDING THE WAR
"Ending the War in Ukraine: Three Possible Futures"
By Rajan Menon, TomDispatch.com, posted June 26
Teases-out the dimensions of three possible ways in which the war might end, arguing that, in any case, "in 2022, with so much headed in the wrong direction, a major war is the last thing this planet needs." The author teaches international relations at the Powell School, City College of New York and is the author of The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention (Oxford U. Press, 2016).
Ending the War in Ukraine: Three Possible Futures https://www.juancole.com › 2022/06 › ukraine-possible... Jun 27, 2022 —
How the Ukraine War Ends | Robert Wright & Rajan Menon
https://www.youtube.com › watch
2:11 Rajan walks through three ways the war could end12:57 Assessing Ukraine's and Russia's military aims25:45 The causes and consequences ...YouTube · Nonzero · Jul 26, 2022
With a 12% decrease, less Americans support aid for Ukraine: Poll. Al Mayadeen. February 15, 2023 (more by Al Mayadeen). (Posted Feb 16, 2023.)
Financialization, Imperialism, Strategy, WarAmericas, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesNewswireNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Russia-Ukraine War
A new poll showed that many Americans are growing impatient with the U.S. government‘s support of Ukraine. According to–recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, support among the American public for giving Ukraine weapons and direct economic assistance has waned as the war approaches its one-year mark.
48% support the United States giving arms to Ukraine, 29% oppose it, and 22% are neither in favor nor opposed, as per the poll. In May 2022, less than three months into the war, 60% of U.S. adults supported sending weapons to Ukraine, it further showed.
The poll revealed that Americans are roughly evenly divided on whether or not to transfer federal funding directly to Ukraine, with 37% in favor, 38% opposed, and 23% saying neither.
The signals of waning support for Ukraine come as President Joe Biden prepares to visit Poland next week to commemorate the first anniversary of the war in Ukraine.
It is worth noting that Biden has vowed repeatedly that the U.S. will assist Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” Privately, administration officials have told Ukrainian leaders that there is–limit to the patience of–splintered Congress–and the American people–for the expenditures of–war with no clear end in sight. In 2022, Congress allocated around $113 billion in economic, humanitarian, and military spending.
19% of Americans have–high level of confidence in Biden’s ability to handle the situation in Ukraine, while 37% have some confidence and 43% have none, as per the poll.
Biden’s handling of the war has mostly divided opinion along partisan lines. Among Democrats, 40% have high confidence in Biden to handle the crisis, 50% have some confidence, and 9% have none. A huge majority of Republicans (76%) believe they have little confidence. These figures have remained basically constant since last May.
The U.S. President has agreed on sending light multiple rocket launchers known as HIMARS Patriot missile systems, Bradley fighting vehicles, Abrams tanks, among others. However, Biden continues to reject Ukraine’s request for fighter jets.
And 59% believe that avoiding economic damage to the United States is more important than properly penalizing Russia, even if it means sanctions are less effective. Almost–year ago, in March 2022, the situation was reversed: 55% believed it was–higher priority to successfully restrict Russia, even if it meant harming the U.S. economy. . . .
"Anatol Lieven on NATO Expansion & What a Ukraine Peace Settlement Could Look Like." Interview by Amy Goodman and Nermeen Shaikh, Democracy Now!, posted June 30.
Anatol Lieven is a policy analyst and author of several books on Russia and its neighbors. He is a senior fellow of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Patrick Lawrence. “The Imaginary War.” Consortium News. Popular Resistance.org (7-16-22). What were the policy cliques, “the intelligence community” and the press that serves both going to do when the kind of war in Ukraine they talked incessantly about turned out to be imaginary, a Marvel Comics of a conflict with little grounding in reality? I have wondered about this since the Russian intervention began on Feb. 24. I knew the answer would be interesting when finally we had one. Now we have one. Taking the government-supervised New York Times as a guide, the result is a variant of what we saw as the Russiagate fiasco came unglued: Those who manufacture orthodoxies as well as... -more-
READ THIS AND WRITE A SUM
TMS Weekly Digest 20 Jun - 26 Jun 2022
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Returning to Realism: The Other Face of the Ukraine Crisis
Mohamed Mahad D. Darar | E-International Relations – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Jun 2022.The debate over the driving force behind Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has divided the West into two major camps: one renders Russia’s offensive as Putin’s grand scheme to resuscitate the Soviet Empire, while the other portrays Russia’s aggression as Putin’s response to the expansion of NATO to Russia’s neighbors. While both arguments merit serious attention, both ignore a crucial connection. MORE click on title.
Western media
'Western' Media Spread Copium To Prolong The War In UkraineBy Moon of Alabama. Popular Resistance.org (7-6-22). FIND AN EXCERPT THAT RELATES TO TITLE
What did Russia just do? It had made an ambitious attempt to encircle a large are in Donbas and succeeded with the effort in just a few days. The Ukrainian army threw everything it had available into the cauldron and lost thousands of men while the Russian army avoided direct men against men fighting to minimize its own casualties. So while the Ukrainians will also benefit from the now shorter frontline they have lost many soldiers and abandoned lots of equipment during the last weeks and will have difficulties to create any reserves. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the Russian forces are not able to repeat... -more-
THE WAR COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED,
First Aim of Peace Movement: PREVENTING WARS, Not Allowing Them to Start, Not PREPARING for WAR BUT FOR PEACE
[The following article published by CAM in Nov. 2021 explained why a US/NATO war over Ukraine should not happen and how to prevent it. It is even more important today.]
“The High Stakes of the U.S.-Russia Confrontation Over Ukraine” by MEDEA BENJAMIN, NICOLAS J.S. DAVIES.
Americans should beware of romanticizing the "old" Cold War as a time of peace, simply because we somehow managed to dodge a world-ending nuclear holocaust.
November 22, 2021
A report in Covert Action Magazinefrom the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic in Eastern Ukraine describes grave fears of a new offensive by Ukrainian government forces, after increased shelling, a drone strike by a Turkish-built drone and an attack on Staromaryevka, a village inside the buffer zone established by the 2014-15 Minsk Accords.
The People’s Republics of Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR), which declared independence in response to the U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014, have once again become flashpoints in the intensifying Cold War between the United States and Russia. The U.S. and NATO appear to be fully supporting a new government offensive against these Russian-backed enclaves, which could quickly escalate into a full-blown international military conflict.
What we are watching in Ukraine, Syria, Taiwan and the South China Sea are the opening salvos of an age of more ideological wars that may well be just as futile, deadly and self-defeating as the “war on terror,” and much more dangerous to the United States.
The last time this area became an international tinderbox was in April, when the anti-Russian government of Ukraine threatened an offensive against Donetsk and Luhansk, and Russia assembled thousands of troops along Ukraine’s eastern border.
On that occasion, Ukraine and NATO blinked and called off the offensive. This time around, Russia has again assembled an estimated 90,000 troops near its border with Ukraine. Will Russia once more deter an escalation of the war, or are Ukraine, the United States and NATO seriously preparing to press ahead at the risk of war with Russia?
Since April, the U.S. and its allies have been stepping up their military support for Ukraine. After a March announcement of $125 million in military aid, including armed coastal patrol boats and radar equipment, the U.S. then gave Ukraine another $150 million package in June. This included radar, communications, and electronic warfare equipment for the Ukrainian Air Force, bringing total military aid to Ukraine since the U.S.-backed coup in 2014 to $2.5 billion. This latest package appears to include deploying U.S. training personnel to Ukrainian air bases.
Turkey is supplying Ukraine with the same drones it provided to Azerbaijan for its war with Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. That war killed at least 6,000 people and has recently flared up again, one year after a Russian-brokered ceasefire. Turkish drones wreaked havoc on Armenian troops and civilians alike in Nagorno-Karabakh, and their use in Ukraine would be a horrific escalation of violence against the people of Donetsk and Luhansk.
The ratcheting up of U.S. and NATO support for government forces in Ukraine’s civil war is having ever-worsening diplomatic consequences. At the beginning of October, NATO expelled eight Russian liaison officers from NATO Headquarters in Brussels, accusing them of spying. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, the manager of the 2014 coup in Ukraine, was dispatched to Moscow in October, ostensibly to calm tensions. Nuland failed so spectacularly that, only a week later, Russia ended 30 years of engagement with NATO, and ordered NATO’s office in Moscow closed.
Nuland reportedly tried to reassure Moscow that the United States and NATO were still committed to the 2014 and 2015 Minsk Accords on Ukraine, which include a ban on offensive military operations and a promise of greater autonomy for Donetsk and Luhansk within Ukraine. But her assurances were belied by Defense Secretary Austin when he met with Ukraine’s President Zelensky in Kiev on October 18, reiterating U.S. support for Ukraine’s future membership in NATO, promising further military support and blaming Russia for “perpetuating the war in Eastern Ukraine.”
More extraordinary, but hopefully more successful, was CIA Director William Burns’s visit to Moscow on November 2nd and 3rd, during which he met with senior Russian military and intelligence officials and spoke by phone with President Putin.
A mission like this is not usually part of the CIA Director’s duties. But after Biden promised a new era of American diplomacy, his foreign policy team is now widely acknowledged to have instead brought U.S. relations with Russia and China to all-time lows.
Judging from the March meeting of Secretary of State Blinken and National Security Advisor Sullivan with Chinese officials in Alaska, Biden’s meeting with Putin in Vienna in June, and Under Secretary Nuland’s recent visit to Moscow, U.S. officials have reduced their encounters with Russian and Chinese officials to mutual recriminations designed for domestic consumption instead of seriously trying to resolve policy differences. In Nuland’s case, she also misled the Russians about the U.S. commitment, or lack of it, to the Minsk Accords. So who could Biden send to Moscow for a serious diplomatic dialogue with the Russians about Ukraine?
In 2002, as Under Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, William Burns wrote a prescient but unheeded 10-page memo to Secretary of State Powell, warning him of the many ways that a U.S. invasion of Iraq could “unravel” and create a “perfect storm” for American interests. Burns is a career diplomat and a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, and may be the only member of this administration with the diplomatic skills and experience to actually listen to the Russians and engage seriously with them.
The Russians presumably told Burns what they have said in public: that U.S. policy is in danger of crossing “red lines” that would trigger decisive and irrevocable Russian responses. Russia has long warned that one red line would be NATO membership for Ukraine and/or Georgia.
But there are clearly other red lines in the creeping U.S. and NATO military presence in and around Ukraine and in the increasing U.S. military support for the Ukrainian government forces assaulting Donetsk and Luhansk. Putin has warned against the build-up of NATO’s military infrastructure in Ukraine and has accused both Ukraine and NATO of destabilizing actions, including in the Black Sea.
With Russian troops amassed at Ukraine’s border for a second time this year, a new Ukrainian offensive that threatens the existence of the DPR and LPR would surely cross another red line, while increasing U.S. and NATO military support for Ukraine may be dangerously close to crossing yet another one.
So did Burns come back from Moscow with a clearer picture of exactly what Russia’s red lines are? We had better hope so. Even U.S. military websites acknowledge that U.S. policy in Ukraine is “backfiring.”
Russia expert Andrew Weiss, who worked under William Burns at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, acknowledged to Michael Crowley of The New York Times that Russia has “escalation dominance” in Ukraine and that, if push comes to shove, Ukraine is simply more important to Russia than to the United States. It therefore makes no sense for the United States to risk triggering World War III over Ukraine, unless it actually wants to trigger World War III.
During the Cold War, both sides developed clear understandings of each other’s “red lines.” Along with a large helping of dumb luck, we can thank those understandings for our continued existence. What makes today’s world even more dangerous than the world of the 1950s or the 1980s is that recent U.S. leaders have cavalierly jettisoned the bilateral nuclear treaties and vital diplomatic relationships that their grandparents forged to stop the Cold War from turning into a hot one.
Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, with the help of Under Secretary of State Averell Harriman and others, conducted negotiations that spanned two administrations, between 1958 and 1963, to achieve a partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that was the first of a series of bilateral arms control treaties. By contrast, the only continuity between Trump, Biden and Under Secretary Victoria Nuland seems to be a startling lack of imagination that blinds them to any possible future beyond a zero-sum, non-negotiable, and yet still unattainable “U.S. Uber Alles” global hegemony.
But Americans should beware of romanticizing the “old” Cold War as a time of peace, simply because we somehow managed to dodge a world-ending nuclear holocaust. U.S. Korean and Vietnam War veterans know better, as do the people in countries across the global South that became bloody battlefields in the ideological struggle between the United States and the U.S.S.R.
Three decades after declaring victory in the Cold War, and after the self-inflicted chaos of the U.S. “Global War on Terror,” U.S. military planners have settled on a new Cold War as the most persuasive pretext to perpetuate their trillion dollar war machine and their unattainable ambition to dominate the entire planet. Instead of asking the U.S. military to adapt to more new challenges it is clearly not up for, U.S. leaders decided to revert to their old conflict with Russia and China to justify the existence and ridiculous expense of their ineffective but profitable war machine.
But the very nature of a Cold War is that it involves the threat and use of force, overt and covert, to contest the political allegiances and economic structures of countries across the world. In our relief at the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which both Trump and Biden have used to symbolize the “end of endless war,” we should have no illusions that either of them is offering us a new age of peace.
Quite the contrary. What we are watching in Ukraine, Syria, Taiwan and the South China Sea are the opening salvos of an age of more ideological wars that may well be just as futile, deadly and self-defeating as the “war on terror,” and much more dangerous to the United States.
A war with Russia or China would risk escalating into World War III. As Andrew Weiss told the Times on Ukraine, Russia and China would have conventional “escalation dominance,” as well as simply more at stake in wars on their own borders than the United States does.
So what would the United States do if it were losing a major war with Russia or China? U.S. nuclear weapons policy has always kept a “first strike” option open in case of precisely this scenario.
The current U.S. $1.7 trillion plan for a whole range of new nuclear weapons therefore seems to be a response to the reality that the United States cannot expect to defeat Russia and China in conventional wars on their own borders.
But the paradox of nuclear weapons is that the most powerful weapons ever created have no practical value as actual weapons of war, since there can be no winner in a war that kills everybody. Any use of nuclear weapons would quickly trigger a massive use of them by one side or the other, and the war would soon be over for all of us. The only winners would be a few species of radiation-resistant insects and other very small creatures.
Neither Obama, Trump nor Biden has dared to present their reasons for risking World War III over Ukraine or Taiwan to the American public, because there is no good reason. Risking a nuclear holocaust to appease the military-industrial complex is as insane as destroying the climate and the natural world to appease the fossil fuel industry.
So we had better hope that CIA DIrector Burns not only came back from Moscow with a clear picture of Russia’s “red lines,” but that President Biden and his colleagues understand what Burns told them and what is at stake in Ukraine. They must step back from the brink of a U.S.-Russia war, and then from the larger Cold War with China and Russia that they have so blindly and foolishly stumbled into.
MEDEA BENJAMIN Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace, is the author of the 2018 book, "Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran." Her previous books include: "Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection" (2016); "Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control" (2013); "Don’t Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart" (1989), and (with Jodie Evans) "Stop the Next War Now (Inner Ocean Action Guide)" (2005).
Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.
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