OMNI
RUSSIA/UKRAINE NEWSLETTER/ANTHOLOGY, #14,
March 19, 2022
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2022/03/omni-russiaukraine-newsletteranthology.html
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology
Omnicenter.org/donate/
WHAT MOTIVATED RUSSIA’S ATTACK ON UKRAINE? In What Ways and to what Extent Was It Provoked by the US and the West? What are the consequences of US bigotry against Russia and Putin? What is the right wing in Ukraine? Nazis? What did the US contribute to the rise of right wing in Ukraine? Should there be a no-fly zone? Describe the expansion of NATO and Russia’s response. Many other questions are raised and answered by the following critics.
CONTENTS US, NATO, RUSSIA, UKRAINE ANTHOLOGY #14
Katrina vanden Heuvel. End the Invasion and Stop the Killing.
HISTORY
Jeremy Kuzmarov. Russia’s Invasion Was Provoked: CIA’s William Burns.
Dr. Gerald Horne. “What’s to Be Done in Eastern Europe.” US: Regime
Change in Russia.
Tomgram/Tom Dispatch. “William Astore.”
William Astore. US Cold War, US Arsenal
“When Did the Ukraine War Begin?” US Empire, NATO, 2004 Orange
Revolution, 2006 Decision, 2014 Coup in UK and Maidan Massacre,
Minsk Protocols.
Oliver Stone and Igor Lopatonok. Ukraine on Fire. How and When the
War Started (before the 2014 coup, before the 2004 Orange Revolution).
Abel Tomlinson. “Ukraine Manufacturing Atrocities to Draw in NATO.”
Fournier, “No Flies Polls.”
Remembering US Aggression
Nelson Peery, Black Fire, the Bloody US Pacification of the Philippines. Brian Terrell, “US Policy Toward Russia and Its Neighbors.” US
Aggression, Truman Doctrine, Carter Doctrine, NATO, Sanctions, Selling
Weapons, Nuclear Weapons Treaty.
END THE WAR
Vanden Heuvel (above)
AFSC. Diplomacy, Refugee Protection, Humanitarian Assistance
About Face. DemilitarizeU.
UNITED NATIONS
UN Wire. Support Refugees
BE INFORMED
No Chemical/Biological Warfare
US/Russian Counterclaims re Biowarfare.
NO HUMAN SHIELDS
Population Fund vs. Alleged Russian Attack on Hospital.
UNHCR. Human Rights Violations in Belarus.
Contents US, Russia, Ukraine, Nos. 1-5, 2014-2015
Contents Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine #13
TEXTS
End the Invasion Crisis
Katrina vanden Heuvel. “Putin’s Invasion.” De-escalation and negotiation are the only way out of this crisis. Twitter. FEBRUARY 24, 2022. https://www.thenation.com/article/world/putin-invasion-ukraine-war/
A column of armored vehicles approaches the Perekop checkpoint on the Ukrainian border on February 24, 2022. (Sergei Malgavko / Tass via Getty)
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[Since 2013 when I began collecting pro-peace articles regarding US, Russia and Ukraine, I have found several brief and accurate yet comprehensive essays which I could stand on. Here’s another, by Ms. vanden Heuvel, found online. I recommend a later version in The Nation (3.21-28, 2022). But it is not available online right now at least. What follows is the Feb. online version, pictures deleted. –Dick]
War is a tragedy, a crime, and a defeat. The Nation condemns the decision of Russian President Vladimir Putin to abandon the path of diplomacy by attacking and undertaking “special military operations” in Ukraine. These actions violate international law and fuel a dangerous escalation of violence.
We urge all parties to immediately cease hostilities, de-escalate, and seek a diplomatic solution to mitigate the risk of full-scale war and an unthinkable direct conflict between the world’s two largest nuclear powers.
The Nation has consistently called on all parties to the crisis in Ukraine to seek resolution through diplomatic means, respecting international law and international borders. Putin’s actions are indefensible, but responsibility for this crisis is widely shared. This magazine has warned repeatedly that the extension of NATO to Russia’s borders would inevitably produce a fierce reaction. We have criticized NATO’s wholesale rejection of Russia’s security proposals. We decry the arrogance that leads US officials to assert that we have the right to do what we wish across the world, even in areas, like Ukraine, that are far more important to others than they are to us.
NATO expansion provided the context for this crisis—a fact often ignored by our media. There is rank irrationality and irresponsibility in offering future NATO membership to Ukraine—when successive US presidents and our NATO allies have demonstrated that they do not have the slightest intention of fighting to defend Ukraine. Instead, Putin’s demand that Ukraine remain outside of NATO—essentially that the status quo be codified—was scorned as violating NATO’s “principle” of admitting anyone it wanted.
One immediate result was to encourage parallel irresponsibility in Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky promised voters when he ran for Ukraine’s presidency in 2019 that he would pursue a path to peace and end the war in the Donbas. Upon taking office, however, his government refused to implement the provisions of the 2015 Minsk Protocols—signed by Russia, Ukraine, France, Germany, and the EU—that essentially would have guaranteed Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality.
Now, sadly, Russia’s illegal actions will embolden the hawks and armament-mongers on all sides. Already, armchair strategists are calling for doubling the US military budget, to grasp the “strategic opportunity” to bleed Putin in Ukraine, while pushing the Europeans to build up their military forces.
Amid the drums of war, we should not lose sight of the human horror that will follow, the massive displacement, the impact of sanctions not only on Russians but also on citizens in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere.
Ukrainians in the East are already suffering. If Russia occupies the separatist republics, it will find itself confronting perpetual strife and upheaval, fueled by the US and NATO. And if it attempts to occupy the whole of Ukraine, it may face a prolonged guerrilla war far more costly than the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan. The West’s “punitive” sanctions will hurt Russia, oligarchs, and ordinary Russians—but also Europe, the United States, and the global economy’s bystanders. Oil prices—already soaring past $100 a barrel—are a harbinger of that. A revived and more dangerous Cold War will ravage domestic budgets here and in Europe—and sap resources and attention needed to address pandemics, the climate crisis, and debilitating inequality.
What is needed is not a rush to arms and to hawkish bluster but a return to intense negotiations—at the UN, at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and among the signatories to the Minsk Protocols. It is time to recognize that there remain options that, if pursued in good faith, could bring the current crisis to a peaceful conclusion.
We believe the crisis can and should ultimately be resolved by a declaration of Ukrainian neutrality and the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Donbas. To that end, we applaud the restraint shown by both France and Germany, and are particularly supportive of President Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to end the crisis. NATO or the OSCE might valuably take the initiative to open negotiations on creating a resilient new security architecture in Europe, one that engages Russia rather than threatens it, and reassures its neighbors rather than militarizes relations. That might sensibly include an end to NATO expansion, and a return to the Conventional Forces in Europe and Intercontinental Ballistic Missile treaties.
To President Biden, we say: American interests in Ukraine will never outweigh those of Russia; the US and NATO cannot and will not win a war on the ground against Russia in its own backyard; sanctions are unlikely to prevail and may indeed damage the American economy.
We urge President Biden and his administration to encourage and, if need be, help facilitate the hard but necessary work of diplomacy that is being undertaken by our allies in Paris and Berlin.
[The print version’s conclusion helpfully summarizes four of the actions for peace proposed in the article: 1)ceasefire and withdrawal of Russian forces, 2) (made possible by) declaration of Ukrainian neutrality, 3)all nations welcome refugees, 4) US sincere push for these goals via negotiations (financed by billions of dollars not for bombs). –D]
Katrina vanden Heuvel TWITTER Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of The Nation.
If you like this article, please give today to help fund The Nation’s work.
The Invasion Was Provoked
By Jeremy Kuzmarov on Mar 17, 2022 01:55 pm
Burns scornfully smears as Russian propaganda evidence that the U.S. deceitfully provoked the invasion to generate a new Cold War
CIA Director Bill Burns testified before the Senate Intelligence committee in early March that Russia and Vladimir Putin were “losing the information war over its war in Ukraine.”
“In all my years I spent as a career diplomat, I saw too many instances where we lost information wars with the Russians,” Burns said, but “this is one information war that I think Putin is losing….In this case, I think we have had a great deal of effect in disrupting their tactics and calculations and demonstrating to the entire world that this is premeditated and unprovoked aggression built on a body of lies and false narratives.”
George Orwell must be rolling over in his grave with Burns’ performance. While hypocritically excoriating Russia for promoting a “body of lies” and “false narratives,” Burns admitted to using the very same tactics in an information war in which both sides were twisting the truth.
The U.S. Big Lie centers on the claim of unprovoked Russian aggression. […]
The post CIA Director William F. Burns–Capo of World’s Biggest Spreader of Lies and Misinformation–Is Spreading The Big Lie that Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine was “Unprovoked” appeared first on CovertAction Magazine. Read in browser »
The Invasion in US Imperial History
From crisis to catastrophe…imperialism’s agenda Mar 14, 2022.
| Sonny San Juan via uark.onmicrosoft.com 3-14-22 | |||
| From Crisis to Catastrophe: What is to be done in Eastern Europe |
| Dr. Gerald Horne, Black Agenda Report, March 2, 2022 www.wrfg.org (Internet) The end of the cold war was the beginning of the America unipolar moment. But the “end of history” was followed by contradiction and arrogance which brought the conflict in Ukraine into being. The current crisis in the Ukraine will inevitably eventuate as that rarity: a turning point in world history. This involves a number of main points: First, it clarifies that the preceding epoch, the Cold War, presumably ending in December 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, will likely be seen in the future as a catastrophic success for U.S. imperialism. A success to be sure—at least in the short term—as it inaugurated the rapidly receding era of “unipolarity” and the heyday of the “sole remaining superpower.” But to attain this success, Washington executed a trio of critical blunders: there was the turbo-charging of religious zealotry that led initially to the alliance in Afghanistan in the 1980s that contributed to the demise of the Soviet Union—then the attack on New York and Washington in 2001 and the ignominious ouster of the U.S. from that same South Asian nation in August 2021. Whatever the case, it is evident that we have not heard the last of the zealots, especially since they receive covert and overt aid from certain friendly regimes, Saudi Arabia not least. Then, when Washington forced the dissolution of the USSR, this allowed Moscow to cease subsidizing Moldova, Turkestan, Georgia and formerly socialist regimes in the vicinity. This allowed Russia to husband its resources leading to what Stanford scholar, Kathryn Stoner terms in her latest tome: “Russia Resurrected,” a self-explanatory title that speaks to the development of hypersonic missiles and an agricultural superpower and a nation that can turn geopolitical tides in Syria among other sites. Imperialism failed to acknowledge that Russia had outgrown the sellout years of Boris Yeltsin and adamantly refused to adapt accordingly. NATO should have collapsed in 1991 when the USSR did but instead extended its remit to Libya, along with destroying the former Yugoslavia and devastating Afghanistan. And, above all—and ironically—the intervention in the Ukraine occurred as we were marking the 50th anniversary of yet another turning point: the U.S.-China entente of February 1972 on an anti-Soviet basis with the payoff to Beijing being massive direct foreign investment creating a juggernaut that bids fair to leave imperialism sprawling in the dust. Indeed, arguably, it is the specter of China that drove imperialist strategy toward Russia. That is, confronting Beijing directly means a faceoff with Tesla and Apple and Microsoft and Starbucks and KFC and a slew of U.S. giants, whereas weakening China’s major partner—Russia—is more palatable, at least for the time being. That is why, as I write, it is not only regime change in Kiev that is at issue: imperialism seeks regime change in Moscow, with all the dangers attendant with regard to toppling a nuclear power. MORE [A fast-moving appraisal of recent US history. Dick] https://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php/crisis-catastrophe-what-be-done-eastern-europe Dr. Gerald Horne holds the Moores Professorship of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. He is the author of more than thirty books, including Confronting Black Jacobins: The United States, the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic ; The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in Seventeenth-Century North America and the Caribbean ; and The Counter-Revolution of 1776 Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America . |
Tomgram: “William Astore, Making Sense of the New Cold War Dreamscape.” From Old Cold War to New Cold War
| TomDispatch via gmail.mcsv.net 3-15-22 | |||
| “William Astore. Making Sense of the New Cold War Dreamscape.” TomDispatch, March 15, 2022. https://tomdispatch.com/arsenal-of-democracy-or-simply-an-arsenal?utm_source=TomDispatch&utm_campaign=fad5e603cc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_07_13_02_04_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1e41682ade-fad5e603cc-309346777 “Arsenal of Democracy or Simply an Arsenal? The New Cold War Is Here to Stay, Until It Isn’t.” By William Astore. In certain quarters in this country, Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has generated enthusiasm for a new cold war. At the New York Times, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin have been described as “children of the [old] Cold War” now involved in a “face off,” an “eyeball to eyeball” confrontation harkening back to John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev contesting Berlin and Cuba in “dramatic fashion” 60 years ago. (Never mind that the “drama” over Cuba nearly led to nuclear war and the possible end of most life on Earth.) Such breathless accounts make me think of the role Slim Pickens played as Major Kong in Stanley Kubrick’s famed film Dr. Strangelove, giddy with resolve, even relief of a kind, now that he and his B-52 crew are finally headed for nuclear combat with the Russkies. Whatever else one might say of the crisis in Ukraine, the new cold war dreamscape that Washington think tanks and the Pentagon helped promulgate over the last decade against Russia or China or both is here to stay. Consider that a calamity in its own right. The end of America’s failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the disastrous results of America’s Global War on Terror launched amid a barrage of lies and self-praise, might indeed have left an opening, however slight, for a shift away from colossal military budgets and creeping militarization. Click here to read more of this dispatch. |
When did the Ukraine War begin?Editor. Mronline.org (3-12-22).
Viewing the Ukraine war as starting with the current Russian invasion leads to very different conclusions than if you consider that the starting point of this war was the 2014 U.S.-orchestrated coup in Ukraine. The coup, which had elements of an authentic popular revolt, has been used by outside powers to pursue geopolitical
When did the Ukraine War begin? Pressenza (March 8, 2022 ).
Empire, History, State Repression, WarUkraineNewswire
The conception that the war started on February 24 of this year is like viewing the “invasion” by the U.S. and its allies of Normandy in June 1944 against the “sovereign” and “democratic” Vichy French as the start of World War II. Never mind that the Vichy government was a puppet of the Nazis; that the opportunities to negotiate had long been rejected; that the war had been raging for years; and that the only option for stopping the Nazis was militarily.
The U.S. imperial army
NATO, it should be understood, is an army in the service of the U.S. empire. Viewing it simply as an alliance of nominally sovereign entities obscures that it is commanded as a tool of U.S. foreign policy in its stated quest of world dominion; that is, “full spectrum dominance.” The “alliance” members must fully integrate their militaries under that command along with purchasing U.S. war equipment and offering up their own citizens as troops.
After the implosion of the Soviet Union and the supposed end of the first cold war, instead of NATO being disbanded, the opposite occurred. There was no “peace dividend” and no honoring of the promise that NATO would not expand any further. Instead, NATO stampeded east towards the borders of the Russian Federation adding fourteen new members of former USSR republics and allies.
Even before the 2014 coup, the U.S.’s fateful decision in 2006 to draw Ukraine into NATO posed an existential threat to Russia. By December 2021, according to “realpolitik” international relations scholar John Mearsheimer, a U.S.-armed Ukraine had become a de facto member of NATO, crossing a redline for Russia. Mearsheimer concludes, “the west bears primary responsibility for what is happening today.”
Failure of peaceful negotiations
Speaking before the UN on March 2, the Venezuelan representative identified the breach of the Minsk Protocols, with the encouragement of the U.S., as the precursor of the present crisis in Ukraine.
After the 2014 coup in Ukraine, the Minsk Protocols were an attempt at a peaceful settlement through “a ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line, release of prisoners of war, constitutional reform in Ukraine granting self-government to certain areas of Donbas, and restoring control of the state border to the Ukrainian government.” Moscow, Kyiv, and the eastern separatists were all parties to the agreements.
The Russian perception of negotiations with the western alliance in the runup to the invasion, as reported by the New York Post, was described using insensitive terminology as “like the mute with the deaf” by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on his meeting with his British counterpart. (NOTE: the NYP, even in the updated version of the article, refers to Lavrov as the “Soviet” Foreign Minister, forgetting that the USSR hasn’t been around for over 30 years.)
Following the latest round of “sweeping” U.S.-imposed sanctions on Russia, their Foreign Ministry announced, “we have reached the line where the point of no return begins.” Such sanctions are a form of warfare as deadly as bombs.
Upsides of war for the U.S. and the downsides for everyone else
. . . .
How this war will end
Regardless of how one sides–or not–in the new cold war, it is instructive to understand the context of the conflict. This is especially so when views outside the dominant U.S. narrative, such as those of Russian outlets Sputnik and RT that hosted U.S. intellectuals like Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, are being silenced.
This article addressed how this war began. How it will end or even if it will end is another story. The world is spiraling into a new cold war, emanating from a region formally at peace under socialism.
Expressing a view from the standpoint of the Global South, former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva commented: “we do not want to be anyone’s enemy. We are not interested, nor is the world, in a new cold war…which is for sure dragging the whole world into a conflict that could put humanity in danger.” If there is a lesson to be learned, it is that the end of endless war will come with end of the U.S. imperial project that provoked this crisis.
To read the entire article go to:
Oliver Stone’s Ukraine on Fire Documentary free online: https://rumble.com/embed/vubrga/
Ukraine. Across its eastern border is Russia and to its west-Europe. For centuries, it has been at the center of a tug-of-war between powers seeking to control its rich lands and access to the Black Sea.2014’s Maidan Massacre triggered a bloody uprising that ousted president Viktor Yanukovych and painted Russia as the perpetrator by Western media. But was it?“Ukraine on Fire” by Igor Lopatonok and Oliver Stone provides a historical perspective for the deep divisions in the region which lead to the 2004 Orange Revolution, 2014 uprisings, and the violent overthrow of democratically elected Yanukovych.Covered by Western media as a people’s revolution, it was in fact a coup d’état scripted and staged by nationalist groups and the U.S. State Department. Investigative journalist Robert Parry reveals how U.S.-funded political NGOs and media companies have emerged since the 80s replacing the CIA in promoting America’s geopolitical agenda abroad.
FALSE CLAIMS, NATO, NO FLY ZONE
Ukraine Manufacturing Atrocities to Draw in NATO (WW3)
| Abel Tomlinson | ) | ||
| to me, Art, George, stillonthehill, pauline |
The U.S. has a deep history of manufacturing atrocities or flat making shit up to justify warfare escalations. Several such stories coming out of Ukraine have been proven false & Ukraine leaders admitted ( https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/03/technology/ukraine-war-misinfo.html) that false stories are part of their information warfare strategy. There are videos of Ukrainian civilians demanding Ukraine military divisions to stop placing military weapons & headquarters in civilian areas.
Ukraine’s leaders are begging for no fly zone NATO involvement (World War 3). The best way to get that to happen is to stage an atrocious chemical attack or attack on nuclear power plant, or on hospitals and so forth, as could have been predicted. Let’s pray that this agenda does not succeed.
From Prestigious Journalist Joe Lauria:
“Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the U.N. Security Council on Monday that Ukraine had cleared out a maternity hospital in Mariupol and set up gun emplacements there. That was four days before the hospital was hit, with 17 injuries and no deaths…
Russia would have everything to lose with such an (chemical) attack, while Ukraine and the State Department would have the strongest argument yet for NATO intervention….
If Ukraine finds a way to draw NATO in, the consequences could be unimaginable.”
Great article from Joe Lauria
ENDING THE WAR
See vanden Heuvel’s editorial above.
AFSC WEEKEND READING, 3-12-22
Tell Congress: Diplomacy, not weapons, in Ukraine: The invasion of Ukraine must be stopped–but U.S. military aid is not the answer. The U.S. and international community must avoid flooding the region with weapons. Instead we must invest in diplomacy, refugee protection, and humanitarian assistance.
BE INFORMED
DEMILITARIZEU
ABOUT FACE, 3-12-22
Dear Dick,
We are in solidarity with all people who find themselves in harm’s way for a war that was preventable. May all those seeking shelter and safety from all horrible violence be greeted with open arms.
As veterans, we know that war is not a game and that we have to seriously engage with nuance to come up with real solutions for justice and peace as real people’s lives are at stake. Our transformative organizing strategy requires that we center the people who are the most affected by the conflict and work together to end war. This DemilitarizeU we hosted this past Saturday is the first step in this strategy, and I encourage you to watch it now:
I am proud of our organizing strength to bring together Ukrainian and Belarussian experts and activists to inform us about what is hype and what is helpful. These panelists are bringing us perspective even as their families and loved ones take shelter from bombs. I am so grateful that they shared time with us, and hope you will be able to take some time to better understand this conflict by watching this video.
They address hot topics you’ve heard about like – what does this conflict have to do with oil? What role does white supremacy play in this conflict, in Ukraine, and in the US? What were the key moments that led this to happen? What is the right thing to do at this moment to de-escalate?
Thanks for being someone we can count on to enact our transformational organizing strategy to work together for justice. Take this first step by watching the video, and stay up to date as we develop a response to this situation through relationships with anti-war activists all around the world.
In community, Shawna Co-Director: About Face: Veterans Against the War
(PS – please donate today to keep excellent sessions like demilitarizeU going!)
About Face: Veterans Against The War P.O. Box 3565 New York, NY 10008
NO NO FLY ZONES
[See Ben Burgis, No to No-Fly Zone in #13.]
NO FLIES POLLS
From: Steve Fournier <guytouquet@comcast.net>
To: “guytouquet@comcast.net” <guytouquet@comcast.net>
Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2022, 10:15:13 AM EST
Subject: rant
No Flies on US!
Do you have to remind yourself from time to time that, in spite of the implausibility of current events, we are not all characters in a work of fiction? Isn’t it more likely that a wolf could eat your grandmother and dress up in her pajamas than that people in the USA could be in favor of war with Russia? Are we supposed to believe real-life American news-reporters would ever seriously suggest such a thing?
Imagine phoning somebody at random and asking whether he or she supports or opposes a no-fly zone over Ukraine. First, if the person you phoned was educated in the USA, there’s a better than fifty percent chance that your respondent doesn’t know where Ukraine is. And if you used the phrase “no-fly zone” without a detailed explanation of what that is, you were almost certainly misunderstood. After all, a no-fly zone could be a place where there aren’t any flies or maybe a spot on a baseball field or even a place where we’re all pretty hip, and there’s no flies on us. The pollsters don’t tell us whether they’re asking people whether they know what a no-fly zone is before they ask whether they’re in favor of it or not.
News reporters rarely define their terms and indulge freely and frequently in metaphor, abbreviation and acronym. If they were striving for meaninglessness they couldn’t be more ambiguous and empty in their expression. As your favorite anchorman probably didn’t tell you last time she dropped the no-fly-zone abbreviation, Ukraine is a big country, bigger than Germany, bigger than France, so big that policing its airspace would require most of the US Air Force. People who claim to advocate such a measure must know that it could never happen. Do Americans really want to send their air crews and warplanes to a place most of them couldn’t find on a map? Could they simply be giving the poll-taker what seems the more acceptable answer, in line with what’s likely to be the consensus of opinion? Maybe they’re hearing the question as “Are you in favor of a no-fly zone over Ukraine or are you a traitor?”
When you’re told by news-mongers that seventy percent of Americans are in favor of a no-fly zone over Ukraine, it’s probably advisable to be skeptical. Some people simply decline to believe any report on any subject from any source, and that may be taking skepticism a bit too far, but the idea that polls tell us much about what people really think is certainly open to challenge. We’re in an age of deception and distraction, unprecedented in the contagion of lies, fads and fictions. Polling statistics don’t say much about public opinion in the resulting atmosphere of ignorance and bigotry.
“This guy hates your guts!” That’s what the US media and government are telling each side in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. It’s not true, but, eight years of US goading have finally produced results. The conflict, involving tanks, missiles, artillery and bloodshed, is billed as a sporting event here, with all Americans ostensibly supporting the same team, and the promoters in media, business and government taking in a bundle. It may be that there is widespread consent for this atrocity among Americans, but we should not worry that it is any sort of informed consent. If Americans ever caught on to what’s really happening to their country and the world, public opinion could shift very suddenly.
“Let them kill as many as possible”- United States Policy Toward Russia and its Neighbors. Brian Terrell.
Posted Mar 07, 2022 by Brian Terrell
Originally published: CODEPINK (March 2022 )
Strategy, WarGlobal, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesNewswire
In April 1941, four years before he was to become President and eight months before the United States entered World War II, Senator Harry Truman of Missouri reacted to the news that Germany had invaded the Soviet Union: “If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible.” Truman was not called out as a cynic when he spoke these words from the floor of the Senate. On the contrary, when he died in 1972, Truman’s obituary in The New York Times cited this statement as establishing his “reputation for decisiveness and courage.” “This basic attitude,” gushed The Times, “prepared him to adopt from the start of his Presidency, a firm policy,” an attitude that prepared him to order the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with “no qualms.” Truman’s same basic “let them kill as many as possible” attitude also informed the postwar doctrine that bears his name, along with the establishment of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency, both of which he is credited with founding.
A February 25 op-ed in The Los Angeles Times by Jeff Rogg, “The CIA has backed Ukrainian insurgents before- Let’s learn from those mistakes,” cites a CIA program to train Ukrainian nationalists as insurgents to fight the Russians that began in 2015 and compares it with a similar effort by Truman’s CIA in Ukraine that began in 1949. By 1950, one year in, “U.S. officers involved in the program knew they were fighting a losing battle…In the first U.S.-backed insurgency, according to top secret documents later declassified, American officials intended to use the Ukrainians as a proxy force to bleed the Soviet Union.” This op-ed cites John Ranelagh, a historian of the CIA, who argued that the program “demonstrated a cold ruthlessness” because the Ukrainian resistance had no hope of success, and so “America was in effect encouraging Ukrainians to go to their deaths.”
The “Truman Doctrine” of arming and training insurgents as proxy forces to bleed Russia to the peril of the local populations that it was purporting to defend was used effectively in Afghanistan in the 1970s and ‘80s, a program so effective, some of its authors have boasted, that it helped bring down the Soviet Union a decade later. In a 1998 interview, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski explained, “According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujaheddin began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the reality, closely guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention… We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.”
“The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border,” Brzezinski recalled, “I wrote to President Carter, essentially: ‘We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.’ Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.” MORE https://mronline.org/2022/03/07/let-them-kill-as-many-as-possible/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=let-them-kill-as-many-as-possible&mc_cid=c558881edb&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e
The claim that Ukraine as a sovereign nation has a right to join NATO today is like saying that Germany, Italy and Japan had the right as sovereign nations to form an Axis in 1936. Founded to defend the West from Soviet aggression after World War II under the judicious “let them kill as many as possible” leadership of President Truman, NATO lost its ostensible reason to exist in 1991. It doesn’t appear to have ever realized its purpose of mutual defense against outside aggression, but it has often been used by the U.S. as an instrument of aggression against sovereign nations. For 20 years, the war of attrition on Afghanistan was waged under NATO auspices, as was the destruction of Libya, just to name two. It has been noted that if NATO’s existence has a purpose in today’s world, it can only be to manage the instability that its existence creates.
Five European countries host U.S. nuclear weapons on their own military bases kept ready to bomb Russia under NATO sharing agreements. These are not agreements between the various civilian governments, but between the U.S. military and the militaries of those countries. Officially, these agreements are secrets kept even from the parliaments of the sharing states. These secrets are poorly kept, but the effect is that these five nations have nuclear bombs without the oversight or consent of their elected governments or their people. By foisting weapons of mass destruction on nations that don’t want them, the United States undermines the democracies of its own purported allies and makes their bases potential targets for preemptive first strikes. These agreements are in violation not only of the laws of the participating states, but also of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that all NATO member states have ratified. NATO’s continued existence is a threat not only to Russia, but to Ukraine, to its members and to every living being on the planet.
[PERFORM PEACE] It is true that the United States is not solely to blame for every war, but it bears some responsibility for most of them and its people may be in a unique position to end them. Truman’s successor as President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, may have been thinking particularly about the U.S. government when he said “people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.” The security of the world at this moment of heightened threat of nuclear destruction demands the neutrality of the countries of Eastern Europe and reversing the expansion of NATO. What the United States can do for peace is not imposing sanctions, selling weapons, training insurgents, building military bases around the world, “helping” our friends, not more bluster and threats, but only by getting out of the way.
NO TO RUSSIAN AND US AGGRESSION
What can U.S. citizens do to support the people of Ukraine and those Russians whom we rightly admire, those who are in the streets, risking arrest and beatings for loudly demanding that their government stop the war? We do not stand with them when we “Stand with NATO.” What the people of Ukraine are suffering from Russian aggression is suffered daily by millions around the world from U.S. aggression. Legitimate concern and care for the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees is meaningless political posturing and to our shame if it is not matched by concern for the many millions left homeless by U.S./NATO wars. If Americans who care would go to the streets every time our government bombs, invades, occupies or undermines the will of the people of a foreign country, there would be millions of people flooding the streets of U.S. cities- protest would need to be a full-time occupation for many, even as it now seems to be for so very few of us.
MEMORY: Concluding with Some history of US Invasions
ON THE US BLOODY PACIFICATION OF THE PHILIPPINES, COLONY & LATER NEOCOLONY 3-17-22
| Sonny San Juan via uark.onmicrosoft.com | |||
From NELSON PEERY’s book BLACK FIRE (1984):
If the Americans had never committed genocide against the Indians; if they had never incited wars of annihilation between the native peoples of the land; if there had never been a Trail of Tears; if America had never organized and commercialized the kidnapping and sale into slavery of a gentle and defenseless African people; it it had never developed the most widespread brutal, exploitative system of slavery the world has ever known; if it had never sundered and torn and ground Mexico into the dust; if it had never attacked gallant, defenseless Puerto Rico and never turned that lovely land into a cesspool to compete with the cesspool it created in Panama; if it had never bled Latin America of her wealth and had never cast her exhausted people onto the dung heap of disease and ignorance and starvation; if it had never pushed Hiroshima and Nagasaki into the jaws of hell—if America had never done any of these things—history would still create a special bar of judgment for what America did to the Philippines…. [Message clipped] View entire
UNITED NATIONS
UN CHARTER FORBIDS NATIONAL AGGRESSIONS.
JUST TO SAY ‘VIOLATES INTERNATIONAL LAW’ IS MEANINGLESS
AND SAYS NOTHING TO EDUCATE OR WIN SUPPORT.
A BILL OF PARTICULARS IS NEEDED: THE HOW AND THE WHY
OF THE VIOLATION.
THE UNITED STATES HELPED IMPORTANTLY IN DRAFTING THE U N CHARTER.
THE UNITED STATES SENATE RATIFIED IT BY AN OVERWHELMING MAJORITY.
IN CHAPTER 1. ARTICLE 2, #4, THE U N CHARTER FORBIDS, EXCEPT AS AND WHEN AUTHORIZED BY THE SECURITY COUNCIL,THE USE OF FORCE AGAINST ANOTHER STATE, EXCEPT IN CASE OF DEFENSE AGAINST ARMED ASSAULT.
AND THIS USE OF FORCE VIOLATES A NORM PRESCRIBED BY OUR
OWN CONSTITUTION.
[The UN is following its fundamental principles. Let’s welcome investigation of all allegations of crimes and what the General Assembly concludes. Dick]
NO CHEMICAL OR BIOLOGICAL WARFARE
| UNITED NATIONS, un Wire, 3-11-22 |
| US denies Russian claims of biowarfare work in Ukraine The United Nations Security Council will meet today to discuss Russian allegations that the US is conducting military biological activities in Ukraine — a claim the US categorically denies and says is an attempt by Russia to justify further attacks on Ukraine. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has advised authorities in Ukraine to safely destroy any pathogens or toxins with the potential to cause disease. Full Story: The Associated Press (3/11), Xinhua News Agency (China) (3/11) |
NO HUMAN SHIELDS
| UN Wire, 3-11-22 |
| Officials slam attack on Ukrainian maternity hospital [See Joe Lauria above.] Some 80,000 women in Ukraine are due to give birth in the next three months and need to be protected, the United Nations Population Fund says as the UN rejects Russian claims that a maternity hospital hit by one of its air strikes was empty at the time of the attack. The conflict in Ukraine is disproportionately affecting women, who are at a higher risk of gender-based violence, sexual abuses and loss of access to essentials, says UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous. Full Story: Voice of America (3/10), NHK World (Japan) (3/11), CNBC (3/11) |
| un wire, 3-11-22 |
| Report highlights human rights violations in Belarus Authorities in Belarus have shut down media outlets and non-governmental organizations, intimidated or disbarred lawyers raising human rights concerns and detained, tortured, exiled or killed people protesting President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s victory in the 2020 election, a United Nations report says. “The authorities’ extensive and sustained actions to crush dissent and repress civil society, independent media, and opposition groups, while at the same time shielding perpetrators, points to a situation of complete impunity in Belarus,” says UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet. Full Story: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (3/9) |
DECREASE THE SUFFERING, ASSIST THE REFUGEES
UN Wire, 3-11-22
Guterres urges support as Ukraine refugee numbers swell
The global community must work together to support everyone affected by Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says as the UN High Commission for Human Rights warns the number of people fleeing to other countries may surpass previous estimates of 4 million. The UN High Commission for Human Rights says casualties likely exceed official tallies as “intense hostilities” delay reports in some regions, while UNICEF notes that more than 1 million children are among those who have fled Ukraine so far.
Full Story: Reuters (3/11), CNBC (3/10), Global News (Canada)/Reuters (3/9), ThePrint (India)/Asian News International (3/11)
See OMNI’s newsletters 2014 and 2015.
RUSSIA (UKRAINE) NEWSLETTER #1
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2014/03/russia-ukraine-newsletter-1.html
March 21, 2014.
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
In this newsletter: The US superpower, imperial propaganda system is inciting fear and hatred of Russia, as in Cold War days against the Soviet Union, but alternative views are readily available in numerous independent print or online magazines. If we are to have peace in the world we must be able to see the world as others see it, particularly as “enemies” see it.
CONNECTION BETWEEN US ENCIRCLEMENT OF CHINA AND RUSSIA: See OMNI’s newsletters/blogs on US Imperialism Westward Pacific/E. Asia
Contents Russia Newsletter #1, 2014
Dick, US Empire and Corporate Media: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Patrick Smith, US/New York Times Spin
Stephen Cohen, Anti-Russia Is Old Anti-Soviet
Alternative Analysis
The Nation Editorial
Alterman, Cold War Hysteria Revived
How Russia/Ukraine Look in Beijing
Charles Pierce, Dick Cheney’s View
Luke Harding, US Refuses Crimea Poll
Ray McGovern, Putin Says No to Regime Change on Its Border
Bruce Gagnon, Danger of War Following US-led Coup for Gas and Oil
Pilger, Other Coups, Same Superpower
Robert Freeman, Ukraine and WWI over Energy
RUSSIA/UKRAINE NEWSLETTER #2
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2014/04/russiaukraine-newsletter-2.html
April 10, 2014.
In this newsletter: The US superpower, imperial propaganda system is inciting fear and hatred of Russia, as in Cold War days against the Soviet Union, but alternative views are readily available in numerous independent print or online magazines. They need your financial support. If we are to have peace in the world we must be able to see the world as others see it, to qualify and test official dogma.
Contents Russia/Ukraine #2
Alternative Perspectives
Who Is Threatening Whom?
Dick, Google Search: US Bases Surrounding Russia
Steve Weissman: US Participated in Coup That Toppled Yanukovytch
Stephen Cohen, Cold War Again?
Two Essays from Bruce Gagnon
Bruce Gagnon, Boxing in the Bear (with Francis Boyle and Chandra Muzaffar)
Gagnon, Preparing for War with Russia
Franklin Spinney, What Is the Real Price of Starting a New Cold War?
US Corporate Old Cold War Media
Ira Chernus: Showdown with Russia Sells Newspapers
RUSSIA/UKRAINE NEWSLETTER #3
May 16, 2014.
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2014/05/russiaukraine-newsletter-3.html
Out of the ignorance and complacency engendered by the avoidance of reality comes hatred and war.
The opening of a Jewish prayer from the Sabbath service: “Disturb us, Adonai, ruffle us from our complacency; make us dissatisfied. Dissatisfied with the peace of ignorance, the quietude which arises from a shunning of the horror, the defeat, the bitterness and the poverty, physical and spiritual, of humans. Shock us, Adonai, deny to us the false Shabbat which gives us the delusions of satisfaction amid a world of war and hatred.”
“To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” — Robert H. Jackson, Chief U.S. Prosecutor, Nuremberg Military Tribunal
“It has been a mainstay of this book that successful antiwar movements are those that have been able to make direct links with those in the flight path of US aggression and to bring their struggles and concerns directly into the US political arena. Indeed, direct comprehension of their urgent struggles has often been a radicalizing factor in antiwar campaigns.”” Richard Seymour, American Insurgents: A Brief History of American Anti-Imperialism (2012). p. 193.
J. William Fulbright during the height of the Cold War attempted to extend his Exchange Program to the Soviet Union, but his plan to acquire a part of WWII Lend Lease money the Russians were repaying was scuttled by US Sovietphobes. See The Price of Empire. Another Arkansas native, Betty Bumpers, wife of then Senator Bumpers, created the women’s organization, Peace Links, to exchange women from the US and Russia and other countries.
Contents Russia/Ukraine Newsletter #3
Contexts
Davies, Historical Background of US Coups
William Blum, New Cold War, Same Old US Aggression
Bellant, Far Right Forces in Russia
Amy Goodman, Ukraine Between Old Cold War
Peter Hart, Distorting Putin
Dick, Fulbright’s Exchange Program for Official Enemies
Veterans for Peace Opposes US Troops to Ukraine
Michael Gordon, US Ratcheting Up the Threats, Deploying Troops in E. Europe
Cockburn, Crisis into Catastrophe?
Hooper, Solution Appalling?
McMullen, Russian Greed?
Mayer, Decline of US Empire?
Moss, Whose Advice to Trust?
Wittner, US Should Use Its Military?
Lieven, The Way Out?
Forum of 3 Essays on US and Ukraine in Z Magazine April 2014
Norman Solomon: Obama, International Law, US Double-Standards, and
Blaming Putin
Chandra Muzaffar, US Behind Ouster of Democratically Elected President
Ajamu Baraka, US Ukraine Policy Marred by Contradictions and Double
Standards
Parry, Obama Only One Able to Prevent War
NATO
Kucinich on NATO
McGovern on NATO
MEDIA
Two Essays by Robert Parry on Anti-Russian US Corporate Media
Obama Admin. and US Mainstream Media Sing the Old Imperial
Song
Neocon and Media Support of US Propaganda Campaign
Two Essays by Peter Hart in EXTRA! also on US Corporate Media
With Official Enemies, Too Much Is Not Enough
Drill for More Oil and Gas Here, and Sell to Russia’s Customers
Gordon, NYT
Parry, Bias of NYT
RUSSIA/UKRAINE NEWSLETTER #4
July 22, 2014.
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2014/07/russiaukraine-newsletter-4.html
What’s at stake:
Contents Russia/Ukraine Newsletter #4 HISTORICAL CONNECTIONS
Polner, Manipulated Crisis
Moss, Another Cold War?
Watkins, Comparing Annexations
Johnstone, Understanding Putin
Blum, US Media War Against Putin and Russia
US or Russian Exceptionalism?
NATO’S Eastward Expansion
THE CRISIS 2013-
Pilger, the Larger Coup in Washington, D.C.
Gagnon, US and NATO Intervention
Parry, Kerry’s State Department’s Fiasco
Dahlburg, Poroshnko\Ukraine Signs Up with EU
Moeri, Be Critical of Imperialisms
Zunes, Non-violence
Four Articles Via HAW
Fuerst, Germany
Contents Russia/Ukraine Newsletter #4
http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2014/07/russiaukraine-newsletter-4.html
HISTORICAL CONNECTIONS
Polner, Manipulated Crisis
Moss, Another Cold War?
Watkins, Comparing Annexations
Johnstone, Understanding Putin
Blum, US Media War Against Putin and Russia
US or Russian Exceptionalism?
NATO’S Eastward Expansion
THE CRISIS 2013-
Pilger, the Larger Coup in Washington, D.C.
Gagnon, US and NATO Intervention
Parry, Kerry’s State Department’s Fiasco
Dahlburg, Poroshnko\Ukraine Signs Up with EU
Moeri, Be Critical of Imperialisms
Zunes, Non-violence
Four Articles Via HAW
Fuerst, Germany
US MAINSTREAM MEDIA
Parry, Ukraine’s Presidential Election
Contents: Russia Newsletter #5 2017
http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2017/03/russia-newsletter-5-from-violence-to.html
Who’s the Threat? Surrounding Russia. Think Peace.
Dick, Finland and US Sign Military Accord
Blum, Who’s the Threat?
Carden, US Interventionist Orthodoxy and Ukraine
Herman, US Double Standards, the Orthodoxy, and Ukraine
Katrina vanden Heuvel, Break Through Orthodoxy to Peace Zone
Noam Chomsky, Try to Understand the Other Point of View
Trump and Russia
Stephen Cohen, “Against Kremlin-Baiting
Chris Hedges, Hacking by Russia?
CONTENTS RUSSIA’S INVASION OF UKRAINE #13
Abel Tomlinson, Ukraine Peace Protest Follow-Up
Bryce Greene, Russia Was Provoked
Scott Ritter, Harms of US Russophobia
Attempt to Shut up Prof. Mearsheimer at U of Chicago
Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies, US Support for Ukrainian Neo-
Nazis
Lucas Leiroz, Understanding Ukrainian Nazism
Steven Starr, Russia’s Fear of NATO’s Encroachment and Nuclear
Weapons
Ben Burgis, No to No-Fly Zone
March 1 to 7: International Week to Stop War with Russia
Moon of Alabama, Disarming Ukraine, Day 7
Oliver Boyd Barrett, Ukraine, Planetary Crisis, Threatening Nuclear War
Rachel Hu and Chris Garaffa, Ukraine, US, NATO Expansion, China,
Russophobia
Contents Russia and Ukraine #12
END OMNI US, NATO, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, WWIII NEWSLETTER/ANTHOLOGY #14—
OMNI Peace Newsletter | OMNI Facebook | OMNI WebsiteDick Bennett
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