https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2022/10/omni-us-nato-ukraine-russia-war.html
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology
Omnicenter.org/donate/
What’s at Stake.
In the middle of WWI, the highly decorated British Army officer and celebrated poet, Siegrfried Sassoon, wrote “Finished with the War: A Soldier’s Declaration” denouncing the war for being “prolonged by those who have the power to end it.” The British War Department chose not to courtmartial Sassoon, but instead sent him to an Army hospital specializing in “shell shock” patients (PTSD today). The military purpose of the hospital was to return soldiers back to the war in France. Its political purpose was to silence criticism of the war.
In her novel about these hospitals, Regeneration, Pat Barker considers grotesque physical contortions, paralysis, deafness, blindness, muteness, stammerings, nightmares, tremors, and memory lapses to be unconscious, unwitting protests against the horrors of trench warfare, and the removal of those behaviors—fitting “young men back into the role of warrior”– as patriotic psychiatry no matter how cruel the treatment. But Captain Sassoon was an anomaly. He experienced some nightmares, but nothing else. He wanted to return to the war, where he might relieve the suffering of his soldiers. He was physically and mentally “fit.” But he opposed the war and would not abandon his “A Soldier’s Declaration” that the war was being fought for the “evil and unjust” ends of the leaders who exploit the “callous complacence” of the civilian majority at home.
That’s a major problem to the War Department, then and now.
Likewise the United States and NATO refused to stop the rush to war by Ukraine and Russia, but rather expedited it, as these twenty-six anthologies demonstrate. Not only by expanding a nuclear armed NATO to Russia’s border, or by quashing negotiations and arming Ukraine, but by controlling information at home about the war the US advanced a “good” Ukraine and an “evil” Russia, and a hideous war and heightened nuclear danger. –Dick
Published Russia Ukraine article count
#24: 32 articles
#23: 16 articles
#22: 13 articles
#21: 12 articles
#20: 14 articles
#19: 31 articles
#1-18(2014-2022): 306
Total: 424
Survey of OMNI’s first 18 R/U Anthologies, 2014-2022:
Total number of entries: 306. From #19-24 = 118. Total 424 as of 8-1-22.
Most of these entries were necessarily from sources other than the corporate mainstream because US mainstream newspapers support the nation in its wars.
CONTENTS OF US/NATO/UKRAINE/RUSSIA WAR October 18, 2022 (1 book and 15 essays)
Causes
Dan Kovalik. The Plot to Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Putin.
Laurence H. Shoup. “Giving War a Chance. Council on
Foreign Relations and Preparing for World War.”
Cook. Hollywood.
Provocations.
Keeping the War Going
Weiss. Ukraine v. International Law
Kuzmarov. US Involvement.
Knight. “Credibility Gulch.”
Global War: Two Reports on Pelosi’s Vist to Taiwan
Consequences
de Sousa Santos. An Overview
Stopping the War, Making Peace
Tulsi Gabbard leaves the Democratic War Party.
Marcy Winograd and Media Benjamin report US history of nuclear extortion and call for
stopping the Ukraine War as JFK did the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Brad Wolf on the corrupting influence war and profits have on everything, including the press.
Chay Bowes. “War Propaganda About Ukraine. . . . .”
Sonja van den Ende.“Russians welcomed as liberators in many Eastern Ukrainian cities….”
John Parker. Western War, Western Media.
Anthology #25 Table of Contents
UKRAINE WAR TEXTS #26
CAUSES
GIVING WAR A CHANCE! Preparing for World War: Soviet/Russiaphobia, Council on Foreign Relations, Hollywood films, Steps to War, Provocations
Dan Kovalik. The Plot to Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Putin. Introduction by David Talbot. Skyhorse, 2017.
Publisher’s Description
An in-depth look at the decades-long effort to escalate hostilities with Russia and what it portends for the future.
Since 1945, the US has justified numerous wars, interventions, and military build-ups based on the pretext of the Russian Red Menace, even after the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991 and Russia stopped being Red. In fact, the two biggest post-war American conflicts, the Korean and Vietnam wars, were not, as has been frequently claimed, about stopping Soviet aggression or even influence, but about maintaining old colonial relationships. Similarly, many lesser interventions and conflicts, such as those in Latin America, were also based upon an alleged Soviet threat, which was greatly overblown or nonexistent. And now the specter of a Russian Menace has been raised again in the wake of Donald Trump’s election.
The Plot to Scapegoat Russia examines the recent proliferation of stories, usually sourced from American state actors, blaming and manipulating the threat of Russia, and the long history of which this episode is but the latest chapter. It will show readers two key things: (1) the ways in which the United States has needlessly provoked Russia, especially after the collapse of the USSR, thereby squandering hopes for peace and cooperation; and (2) how Americans have lost out from this missed opportunity, and from decades of conflicts based upon false premises. These revelations, amongst other, make The Plot to Scapegoat Russia one of the timeliest reads of 2017.
Preparing for World War: Council on Foreign Relations
Laurence H. Shoup. “Giving War a Chance.” (May 7, 2022). mronline.org (5-13-22).
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is the ultimate agenda-setting, strategic planning, and consensus-forming organization of the U.S. capitalist ruling class. The latest book to come out of the CFR orbit, Strategy of Denial (2021), thus provides an opportunity to concretely observe how the monopoly capitalist ruling class is preparing the people of the United States for what could be a catastrophic world war. | more…
HOLLYWOOD
Jonathan Cook. “How the Pentagon dictates Hollywood storylines.” https://mronline.org/2022/08/06/how-the-pentagon-dictates-hollywood-storylines/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-the-pentagon-dictates-hollywood-storylines&mc_cid=d2ddae50d7&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e
New documentary discloses the ways western publics are softened up for aggressive, global U.S. militarism through the Pentagon’s influence over thousands of US films and TV shows.
STEPS TO WAR
“The Developing Situation in Ukraine:A webinar with Scott Ritter and Joe Lombardo.”
UNAC The United National Antiwar Coalition.” Friday, September 30, 2022 at 4 PM Eastern.
Click here or the image below to register for the webinar
In recent weeks, there have been important developments in Ukraine. In four territories in the Eastern and Southern part of the country there have been referenda for the people to choose if they want to become part of Russia, there has been a partial mobilization of reserve forces in Russia, a Ukrainian offensive in Kherson and economic fallout from the US/EU imposed sanctions that seem to be sinking the economies, especially of NATO countries. Please join us to hear an analysis of developing events, what we can expect in the future and how to we get peace in the region. for more information: UNACpeace@gmail.com
PROVOCATIONS
From UNAC, United National Antiwar Coalition, unac.notowar.net. While $billions are sent to Ukraine for war, working people face escalating costs of food and energy, we face recession, growing insecurity and attacks on efforts to unionize. The continuing wars and military provocations have brought us to the brink of nuclear war.
During this election period, the continuing wars, military provocations and the war-caused inflation and recession are getting little attention. Additionally, Washington seem determined to start even more fires around the world. Nancy Pelosi’s China provocation trip to Taiwan; hints that the U.S. may be moving towards strikes against Iran; and reports that new U.S./south Korea war games will practice a “decapitation” strike against the north (DPRK): all show the urgent need to speak out. Let us know the details of any actions you organize by clicking here. View planned actions here (list in formation)
Keeping the War Going
In the middle of WWI, the highly decorated British Army officer and celebrated poet, Siegrfried Sassoon, wrote “Finished with the War: A Soldier’s Declaration” denouncing the war for being “prolonged by those who have the power to end it.”
WAR CRIMES
Amnesty International On Ukraine’s Violations Of International Law By Clara Weiss, WSWS. The human rights organization Amnesty International released a report Thursday showing that “Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals.” Amnesty International’s findings corroborate an earlier report by the United Nations which also provided evidence that the Ukrainian army has been using civilians as human shields in the conflict. Both of these recent reports come on top of extensive documentation of war crimes committed by the Ukrainian army and its neo-fascist paramilitary … -more-
ANOTHER US WAR
“High-Level Ukrainian Intelligence Official Admits U.S. Deeply Involved in Ukraine Conflict” By Jeremy Kuzmarov. CovertAction Magazine (Aug 08, 2022).
Major General Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of the Kyiv regime’s military intelligence directorate, admitted in an interview with the British daily Telegraph, that the U.S. government is involved in targeting decisions regarding U.S. supplied Lockheed Martin’s High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).
Moscow has seized on this admission to charge the U.S. with direct involvement in the Ukraine War.
Asked by the Telegraph how the HIMARS have so precisely targeted Russian fuel and ammunition depots (at least this is what the Kyiv regime has alleged—ed.), as well as battlefield headquarters in eastern Ukraine, General Skibitsky replied, “in this case in particular, we use real-time information.”
U.S. officials are not providing direct targeting information, Skibitsky claimed, because it would potentially undermine their case for not being direct participants in the war.
However, he suggested that there was a level of consultation between intelligence officials of both countries prior to launching missiles that would allow Washington to stop any potential attacks if they were unhappy with the intended target.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov made a video statement saying that Skibitsky’s admission “undeniably proves that Washington, contrary to White House and Pentagon claims, is directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine.” […]
The post High-Level Ukrainian Intelligence Official Admits U.S. Deeply Involved in Ukraine Conflict appeared first on CovertAction Magazine.
US ENERGY WAR AGAINST RUSSIA AND MEDIA CO-CONSTRUCTION OF THE OFFICIAL RATIONALIZATION
Showdown at “Credibility Gulch” in Ukraine War By Dee Knight. CovertAction Magazine. May 06, 2022.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s during the war in Vietnam, everybody knew about the “credibility gap,” which morphed into Credibility Gulch as the official story stretched ever-farther from reality.
We are seeing it again in the current war between the United States/NATO and Russia, being fought out mainly in Ukraine. It is becoming “the Mother of All Energy Wars,” according to Charlotte Dennett, who highlights U.S. determination to cut Western Europe off from Russian gas and oil. She also links it to the recent endless wars to control the world’s energy supply in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Iran, and to dominate the Eurasian landmass with its enormous deposits of fossil fuels and other rich resources.
So when Joe Biden says he is doing “everything within my power” to address “Putin price hikes,” he is stretching truth to the breaking point. He is really saying we need to endure higher prices for gas—and food, rent, clothes, and everything else—because of the reckless draconian sanction war on Russia. It is an economic war of attrition against Russia, but it is hitting the whole world. So far Western Europe is suffering more than Russia, and the poorest people in the world, especially in Africa and the Middle East, are likely to be hurt the most. This hurt will turn into a massive showdown with reality.
About the war itself, there is just one acceptable narrative in the mainstream media: that it is an unprovoked and illegal aggression by Russia. Any alternative views are “far-fetched claims from Russia” to “discredit international concerns about… war crimes,” in the words from the April 12 New York Times. In the online version of that article Ben Norton, editor of Multipolarista.com, is shown with a red line across his face, tweeting on Chinese media. It says Norton “claimed that a coup sponsored by the United States government took place in Ukraine in 2014 and that U.S. officials had installed the leaders of the current Ukrainian government.” […]
The post Showdown at “Credibility Gulch” in Ukraine War appeared first on CovertAction Magazine.
Two Reports on Pelosi’s Provocation
US Military Activity Near Taiwan:
By Counter Currents. Popular Resistance.org (8-8-22). U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby condemned Chinese military drills in the area and said the Pentagon had ordered the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and her escorts to remain near Taiwan to “monitor the situation.” The USS Reagan and her accompanying ships are based in Japan and were deployed to the East China Sea in recent days, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi paid a visit to Taipei against Chinese objections. China has responded to Pelosi’s visit by launching extensive drills around Taiwan and firing a dozen missiles across the island. -more-
Nancy Pelosi, Taiwan And Baltimore
By Stephen Millies, Struggle La Lucha. Popular Resistance.org (8-8-22). Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the U.S House of Representatives, landed in Taiwan Province on August 2. Her trip is a dangerous provocation against the People’s Republic of China. Pelosi arrived on the 58th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson claimed Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin had attacked a U.S. Navy destroyer. The Pentagon Papers later admitted this was a lie, a complete fabrication. That it was a lie didn’t stop LBJ, who used the lie to start bombing Vietnam. Even the United States government concedes that there’s only one China. -more-
CONSEQUENCES TO EUROPE AND THE WORLD
“Ukraine Is a Wake-Up Call for Europe” by Boaventura de Sousa Santos . Countercurrents. 12/08/2022.
It is becoming clear that U.S. neoconservatives have succeeded in creating a warmongering, anti-Russian mood in Europe through an unprecedented information war, the consequences of which will take some time to assess. It is, however, possible to identify the signs of what is to come.
Losers: We do not yet know who will win this war (or if anyone will win it, apart from the arms industry). But we do know who will lose the most: the Ukrainian and European people. Parts of Ukraine are in ruins, millions of people have been displaced, and the euro has fallen; these are signs of defeat. In the seven decades since the destruction caused by World War II, Europe had risen again. Led by high-profile politicians and supported by the United States in its anti-communist crusade, Western Europe managed to establish itself as a region of peace and development (even if, alas, at the expense of colonial and neocolonial violence and appropriation). All it took to put the peace and development at risk was one ghost war: fought in Europe, but not led by Europe, and not even in the interest of Europeans.
Energy transition: Carbon dioxide (CO2), which is responsible for global warming, remains in the atmosphere for many thousands of years. It is estimated that 40 percent of the CO2 emitted by humans since 1850 remains in the atmosphere, according to a Deutsche Welle report that cited the 2020 international Global Carbon Budget study. So, although China is the largest emitter of CO2 today, the fact is that, if we look at the CO2 emissions data for 1750 to 2019 (from Deutsche Welle’s analysis of Our World in Data figures), Europe was responsible for 32.6 percent of emissions, the U.S. for 25.5 percent, China for 13.7 percent, Africa for 2.8 percent, and South America for 2.6 percent of the total emissions during that period. Given the cumulative emissions debt that Europe has rung up over the course of 269 years, the story of its recent credit toward balancing the global carbon budget by leading the fight for renewable energy in recent decades is a qualified success—it is the least they can do. We may be critical of an energy transition that is underpinned by the ecology of the (mostly European) rich, but at least it was heading in the right direction. The war in Ukraine and the fossil fuel energy crisis it triggered were enough to make all projects related to this energy transition evaporate. Coal has returned from exile, and oil and nuclear energy are being rehabilitated. Why is perpetuating the war more important than advancing the energy transition? What democratic majority has decided to follow in that direction?
Political spectrum: The approaching economic and social crisis will have an impact on the political spectrum in European countries. On the one hand, it is worth noting that it is the most authoritarian governments (like Hungary and Turkey) and far-right parties that have shown the least enthusiasm for the warmongering, which is encapsulated in the anti-Russian triumphalism that has dominated European politics in recent months. On the other hand, the left-wing parties, with few exceptions, have given up their own (left-wing) position on the war. Some of those parties who had distinguished themselves in the past with their stance against NATO have remained silent in the face of its senseless and dangerous expansion to all continents. When the continuation of the war and the expansion of military budgets begin to cause the impoverishment of families, what will the citizens think in terms of political choices made in the name of protecting them? Will they not be attracted to opt for the parties that have shown the least enthusiasm for the warmongering jingoism that caused their impoverishment?
Citizen safety: In June 2022, Interpol made public its concern that a large number of the weapons supplied to Ukraine could enter the illegal arms market and end up in the hands of criminals. This situation is all the more serious since some of the equipment provided to Ukraine includes heavy artillery. The experience of what has happened in the past in other theaters of war justifies this concern. For example, much of the war material supplied by the U.S. to Afghanistan ended up in the hands of the Taliban against whom the U.S. army was fighting. The U.S. tragedy of successive massacres caused by armed civilians is well known. What will happen in Europe if the easy accessibility of these weapons leads to them ending up in the wrong hands?
Normalization of Nazism: Shortly before the war in Ukraine, several intelligence services and security think tanks had been warning about the strong presence of neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine, their military training and equipment, and the way they were being integrated into the regular military forces, which is unprecedented. Understandably, the outbreak of war has put this concern to rest. What is at issue now is whether Nazism can be turned into a nationalist ideology like any other and whether its recurrent attacks on progressive politicians in Ukraine can be converted into patriotic acts. It remains to be seen what impact this will have in Europe, against the background of the growth of the extreme right.
Phantom anti-communism: The anti-Russian hatred that has been exacerbated in Europe by the invasion of Ukraine subliminally contains anti-communist hatred, even if it is known that the Communist Party is a minority in Russia and that President Vladimir Putin is a right-wing politician who is a friend of the European far right. For sectors of the ultra-right, communism is now an empty signifier and serves as a weapon to demonize political opponents, to justify canceling those opponents on social media, and to promote hate speech. It is to be feared that this hangover will remain in political life beyond the war in Ukraine.
Crime and injustice in the Balkans: The war in Ukraine has had the effect of bringing to the attention of more informed Europeans the arbitrary way Yugoslavia was destroyed, the NATO bombing of civilian targets in 1999, and the war crimes that were committed by all sides in former Yugoslavia. Historical and religious anti-Balkan prejudice—Chancellor Klemens von Metternich of the Austrian Empire (in office 1821-1848) used to say that Asia began on Landstrasse, the street in Vienna where Balkan immigrants lived—has come to be reflected in the way some countries in the region have been waiting for many years to join the EU.
It is too early for a general assessment of the times we are living through, but the signs are disturbing and do not bode well.
Boaventura de Sousa Santos is the emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. His most recent book is Decolonizing the University: The Challenge of Deep Cognitive Justice.
This article was produced by Globetrotter.
Countercurrents is answerable only to our readers. Support honest journalism because we have no PLANET B. Subscribe to our Telegram channel.
GET COUNTERCURRENTS DAILY NEWSLETTER STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX
STOPPING THE WAR, MAKING PEACE
PIERCING THE WEST’S PROPAGANDA WAR
Tulsi Gabbard leaves the Democratic War Party.
Marcy Winograd and Media Benjamin report US history of nuclear extortion and call for
stopping the Ukraine War as JFK did the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Brad Wolf on the corrupting influence war and profits have on everything, including the press.
Chay Bowes. “War Propaganda About Ukraine Starting to Wear Thin.”
Sonja van den Ende.“Russians welcomed as liberators in many Eastern Ukrainian cities….”
John Parker. Western War, Western Media.
By the 1960s here in Fayetteville, AR, friends and I referred to the Democratic and Republican Parties as the War Party. So I wonder where Ms. Gabbard has been since WWII. But in domestic policies we saw, and see today a huge difference between them, and I intend to vote for Green New Deal Democrats.
By Jeremy Kuzmarov on Oct 16, 2022 08:09 am
Former Hawaii Congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has left the Democratic Party, saying that it has been taken over by an “elitist cabal of warmongers” who are “dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.”
On her podcast on October 11, Gabbard recalled that, when she decided to run for the Hawaii State House in 2002 at the age of 21 and had to select a party affiliation, she settled on the Democrats because she was inspired by figures like Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy, and by Democrats who opposed the Vietnam War and stood up for workers in Hawaii who were being exploited by large landowners.
The GOP by contrast appeared to her to stand for the interests of big business and the warmongering elite.
But today, Gabbard said, the Democrats are in the thrall of the military-industrial complex and use liberal rhetoric to support wars of aggression. They have pushed the world to the precipice of World War III and “don’t care who pays the price.”
The war in Ukraine, according to Gabbard was “not provoked by Vladimir Putin, but by the United States and some European nations in NATO that are using the Ukrainian military and people as chess pieces with the aim of regime change in Russia.”
The military-industrial complex is happy to send all those weapons to Ukraine, but, she asked, “if we vote to send these billions of dollars to Ukraine, is that strengthening our national security or undermining it?”
Gabbard said that she ran for president in 2020 because “she saw where we were headed.” She raised the danger of a potential nuclear holocaust in her campaign and on the national debate stage as a result of bellicose U.S. policies, but the “dominant politicians and media ignored her message and didn’t care—then or now.” […]
A friend asked me why I was so negative about the US. Would the same question be posed to the ACLU, or AFSC/FCNL, or Public Citizen, or to any of the thousands of individuals and organizations which try to create a truthful, just, and ethical foundation for public policy and thereby to avoid the totalitarian adaptation to climate change chaos Jonathan Neale warns about? The next essay corrects Pres. Biden’s ignorance or lying regarding nuclear weapons, and provides paths to peace in Ukraine and in the world. The US could have prevented the Ukraine war and can stop it, and the US can end nuclear threatening. –Dick
MARCY WINOGRAD AND MEDEA BENJAMIN. “Nuclear Extortion? Abolish Nuclear Weapons.” OCT 14, 2022.
President Biden could follow in JFK’s footsteps by offering to remove anti-ballistic missiles from Poland and Romania.
In a moment of candor, President Biden told Democratic Party contributors the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” is the highest since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviet Union installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, 90 miles from Florida. Referring to Russian President Putin’s veiled threats to use short-range nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the President added it was the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis such a “direct threat” had been issued.
Not true.
The US has a history of nuclear extortion.
In I950, during the Korean War, President Truman said launching nuclear weapons was under “active consideration” against Chinese troops in North Korea.
In 1953, President Eisenhower–who later denounced the military industrial complex–threatened to order a nuclear launch if the Chinese refused to negotiate an armistice in the Korean War.
In 1969, during the Vietnam War, President Nixon secretly ordered B-52 nuclear bombers on high alert to pressure the North Vietnamese to surrender. Nixon subscribed to the “madman theory”–make your enemy believe you are mad enough to use nuclear weapons and the enemy will fold. But that theory proved ineffective, with US troops fleeing Vietnam in 1973 after an estimated 2-million Vietnamese lay dead, nearly 60,000 US soldiers in body bags.
The list of US nuclear extortion threats continues in 2007 with President George W. Bush stating “All options are on the table” should Iran pursue a nuclear program.
In 2017, President Donald Trump–in the wake of North Korean missile testing –threatened North Korea with “fire and fury … the likes of which the world has never seen before.”
In 2020, the US deployed B-52s, dual capable of conventional and nuclear weapons, flying over the Black and Baltic seas to simulate attacks on Russia’s military bases and ports.
The uncomfortable truth is that as long as there are nuclear weapons, we are all hostage to those few individuals who can order their launch.
On the anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the answer is not to build more nuclear weapons, but to return to the arms control treaties Bush and Trump abandoned and to sign on to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to abolish nuclear weapons from the face of the earth.
At the Democratic Party fundraiser, President Biden also said, “”We are trying to figure out what is Putin’s off ramp? Where does he find a way out?”
The way out is for President Biden and every member of Congress to immediately call for a ceasefire, support peace negotiations and end the weapons shipments that risk Armageddon.
Skeptics argue diplomacy would set a dangerous precedent allowing any autocrat from a nuclear-armed nation to hold the sword of Damocles over our head.
In reality, the stage for nuclear blackmail was set long ago, in 1945, when at the close of WWII, President Truman dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and three days later Nagasaki to irradiate and annihilate an estimated 200,000 people in an explosion of fire and a rain of ash.
The stage for nuclear extortion was set when President George W. Bush in 2002 abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty that capped the number of missile systems the US and Russia could deploy to destroy incoming missiles. Both countries had recognized that defensive missile systems could escalate the arms race with the development of new weapons to overcome the defensive shields, and that such shields–if promised effective–might encourage a country to launch a first strike without fear of retaliation.
The stage for nuclear blackmail was set in 2019 when former President Donald Trump ripped up the US-Russia Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Before this, the two superpowers had destroyed almost 3,000 short and intermediate range missiles.
As recently as last year the US Congress, in violation of its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), voted to continue funding a trillion-dollar nuclear “modernization” program. As part of this decades-long nuclear rearmament, the US will replace 400 Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM’s) on hair trigger alert in the midwest with 600 new nuclear missiles. These new missiles buried deep in underground silos will pack nuclear warheads that are each 20 times more powerful than those the US dropped on Japan.
From explicit threats to implicit threats, the US has resorted to nuclear blackmail throughout the years.
President John F. Kennedy resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis, not with weapons but diplomacy. The US offered to remove nuclear weapons installed in Turkey in exchange for the Soviet Union’s removal of missiles from Cuba.
President Biden could follow in JFK’s footsteps by offering to remove anti-ballistic missiles from Poland and Romania. He could offer to support neutrality for Ukraine. These are off ramps.
On the anniversary of this 13-day Cuban missile crisis in which the world waited and prayed, the answer is not to hurl more arms at Ukraine to risk nuclear war but to support an immediate ceasefire and pursue a diplomatic settlement to bring us back from the brink.
I live in Arkansas, so the next article recalls our former Senator J. William Fulbright’s book The Pentagon Propaganda Machine. The book is notable for its rarity and the courage of its author in exposing head-on this major source of US militarism. But a full response to the Machine it’s not. A comprehensive equally direct book each year since Fulbright’s was necessary, one that made transparent the Pentagon-Military Industrial Complex-Congressional-Presidential-Educational-National Security State Complex, but that has not happened, and the public continues to cheer or passively permit its presidents’ wars.
BRAD WOLF. “ The Media Finds Its War.” OCT 12, 2022
It comes as no surprise that corporate media likes a good, wholesome war as much as the average American. It sells.
On Sunday, October 9, The New York Times published an article entitled “An American in Ukraine Finds the War He’s Been Searching For.” It could just as easily be entitled “The Media Finds the War It’s Been Searching For.” It is, sadly, a story of the corrupting influence war and profits have on everything, including the press, that very institution which is to keep a constant check on our government, particularly in affairs of war.
The article depicts the exploits of a 59-year-old American soldier, retired after 30 years of combat experience, working in the battlegrounds of Ukraine with his own start-up military training company called the Mozart Group, a “saucy response to a Russian mercenary outfit” called the Wagner Group.
The language throughout the article is fawning, unquestioning, repeatedly glamorizing the soldier and his war. It’s Pentagon propaganda. The only question the journalist really raises is whether the soldier and his company can make a difference in helping the Ukrainians.
The invasion of Ukraine by the Russians and the killing of civilians is immoral and illegal. The meddling influence of the U.S. in stirring this long-simmering, highly dangerous pot is inexcusable. Fearless, independent journalism is needed to report on all sides of this horrific, complicated conflict. Unfortunately, this recent article demonstrates all too well how corporate media has lost its way when searching for its bankable war.
The article begins with a quote from the soldier: “Please, come with me,” he says, begging an old woman with “a face etched by countless sorrows” to leave the area before the Russians arrive. The soldier has “black smoke filling his nostrils, staring at the Ukrainian woman he had never met, pleading with her to evacuate.”
Such descriptions as a “saucy response” and “black smoke filling his nostrils” catch the eye when reading what is supposed to be independent, objective journalism. Has the journalist become the soldier in breathing black smoke? Does describing the name of the soldier’s company of mercenaries as “saucy” romanticize the soldier and his actions?
The journalist writes that the soldier is dodging bombs and bullets because this war is, according to the soldier, “absolutely unambiguous.” The soldier then asks the question, “How many wars in modern times are morally unambiguous?” Unfortunately for the reader, the journalist fails to probe the soldier’s vitally important question.
Challenging such statements from the subject of a story, or at the very least placing them in some context, seems the least a journalist should do. That the U.S. is fighting a proxy war against Russia with Ukraine as its latest pawn is never offered as a potential ambiguity invading the clarity of this soldier’s “morally just war,” or for that matter, the clarity of America’s understanding of this war.
The journalist then speaks for “Americans of a certain vintage” in claiming this war “lacks the murkiness of past wars like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.” This war, the journalist seems to say, is at last The Good War. No need to mention American interference in the internal affairs of Ukrainian politics or a nuclear-armed NATO bordering Russia. This war is one big, saucy, unambiguous march against evil.
At one point the soldier confesses he is in Ukraine partly for the adrenalin rush, because soldiers are always “looking for it, right?” They always want to be “where it is.” He also confesses to guilt over his past actions in war as to why he is working in Ukraine now. In fact, the soldier seems more honest about his actions than the enamored journalist.
The story ends with a quote from a Ukrainian mother “clutching two loaves of soft white bread” in a battle-scarred area who sees the soldier and says she recognizes him. “He’s good,” she says, relieved, and the article ends with those adoring words: He’s good. Perhaps he is. But is this story good journalism? Or jingoism?
It comes as no surprise that corporate media likes a good, wholesome war as much as the average American. It sells. Morally ambiguous wars, or worse, peace, do not sell. People lose interest. This NYT article is illustrative of so many articles in corporate media about Ukraine and war.
The real story here, other than corporate media being a megaphone for the Pentagon, is of one man trying to redeem his past acts of violence by committing future acts of violence in yet another proxy war of superpowers. It is a story of a culture of militarism and toxic masculinity perpetuating the idea that if we can just find a good, morally unambiguous war all will be well with our society.
Unfortunately, for readers of The New York Times, and for much of humanity, those stories are rarely told.
| Chay Bowes. “War Propaganda About Ukraine Starting to Wear Thin.” CovertAction Magazine. Aug 13, 2022. More and More Are Seeing Through the Lies As Amnesty International confirms the inconvenient truths, which many independent journalists and political observers already knew, about the Ukrainian army’s behavior in Donbass, it’s worth examining how manipulating the truth has become—not only as an everyday occurrence but as a central element of the West’s proxy war in Ukraine. An increasing number of mainstream journalists, commentators and ordinary individuals who had rushed to “Stand with Ukraine ” are finding the inconvenient truths about the Zelensky regime and its Army harder and harder to ignore. It was the icon of American democracy, President Abraham Lincoln that said “You can fool part of the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time.” Of course, even though Lincoln’s astute observation has been widely misquoted, it certainly has a particular resonance when we consider the recent misadventures and persistent foreign policy failures of his beloved United States. Most particularly are American efforts to maintain an increasingly skeptical public’s support for its faltering and hugely costly geopolitical ambitions in Ukraine. The current crisis in Ukraine is however different; it has seen the pro-Western media machine cultivate and disseminate disinformation, propaganda and fake news on a previously unseen scale. While the U.S. and its NATO allies prosecute their proxy conflict on the ground, in the air, and at sea, another illicit battle is being fought on social media, TV and radio. Of course, propaganda and the winning of “hearts and minds” is nothing new when it comes to conflict. As far back as the 19th century Governments were aware of how important the narrative was at home, they actively sought to suppress details which they thought may be offensive or unhelpful to the home audience. […] The post War Propaganda About Ukraine Starting to Wear Thinappeared first on CovertAction Magazine. Be the people’s resistance media! Forward this email to a friend and share the articles on social media. |
| Sonja van den Ende.“Russians welcomed as liberators in many Eastern Ukrainian cities contrary to western media depictions.” Editor. Mronline.org (8-13-22). People of liberated territories likely to vote in favor of joining Russia in forthcoming referenda—just like Crimeans did in 2014. [Sonja van den Ende has been reporting on the war in eastern Ukraine and has received protection from the Russian military.—Editors] >On my way from Severodonetsk to Lysychansk on the right bank of the Donetsk River in eastern Ukraine, I saw many destroyed buildings as well as a lot of cars, ambulances and rescue vehicles. A few bodies could be seen when I passed the Bilohorivka Bridge, which was targeted by the Ukrainian army. During the Russian special operation, which started on February 24, 2022, heavy fighting took place in Lysychansk—the first coal-mining settlement of the Donetsk basin. The most intense fighting took place in late March 2022, destroying dozens of buildings and causing civilian casualties. The regime in Kyiv claims that the Russians had this on their conscience, but the facts refute this. . . . https://mronline.org/2022/08/12/russians-welcomed-as-liberators-in-many-eastern-ukrainian-cities-contrary-to-western-media-depictions/ |
Fact Finding Mission To Donbass Part 2: Western Media Misreporting the War. By John Parker, Black Agenda Report. Popular Resistance.org (8-12-22). What do the New York Times, Kiev Independent, Euromaidan Press, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, TikTok here in the U.S. have in common? They are all funded by or staffed by Western and U.S. intelligence members pushing the U.S. narrative about the war in Ukraine. This is why Struggle-La-Lucha.org organized a fact-finding mission to Ukraine and Russia to report on the suppressed information that challenges the narrative of NATO and its member states, led by the U.S. This is the second part of my report. The social media outlets are an open door to organizations like NATO, military suppliers, and… -more-
CONTENTS UKRAINE WAR ANTHOLOGY #25
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2022/08/omni-us-nato-ukraine-russia-war-25.html
Causes of the War
Gerald Sussman. The Long CIA Propaganda War
Bryce Greene. “What’s Missing from Corporate Media’s [MSM] Ukraine Coverage?” 2022.
Patrick Lawrence. “The Great Acquiescence—Glory to Ukraine.” 2022.
Michael Welton. “”…How John Mearsheimer and Stephen Cohen Challenged the Dominant Narrative.” 2022.
Kit Klarenburg. “How CIA Front Laid Foundations for Ukraine War.”
More on Nazis in Ukraine (see Anthology #24)
Sonja Van den Ende. “Ruins of Azov Steel Factory Display Nazi Insignia. “
Gregory Shupak. “Pushing for War Over Ukraine While Ignoring Its Nazi Ties.”
Sustaining the War
George Paulson. “The Politics of Biden’s Escalation.”
Amy Goodman. “Western Mass Media.”
Ben Norton. NATO Sacrificing Ukrainians.
Jeff Abramson. The US, Lethal Weapons, and Russia.
Jeremy Kuzmarov. Brzezinski, Poland, US Baltic Sea Base.
Ben Norton. “CIA and Western Special Ops Are in Ukraine.”
Dave DeCamp. Biden: US Increasing Military Presence in Europe.
Peace
Richard Falk. “A European Call for an End to the Ukrainian War.”
Rick Sterling. “Handling International Crises from JFK to Biden.”
Kathy Kelly and Matt Gannon. “To Heal. We Must Cultivate Hope.”
Jim Chambers. “Resisting the ‘Collective West.’”
END US-NATO-UKRAINE-RUSSIA WAR #26