OMNI
UKRAINE WAR ANTHOLOGY #30A
June 4, 2023
USA-NATO-UKRAINE-RUSSIA
COMPILED BY DICK BENNETT FOR A CULTURE OF PEACE, JUSTICE, AND
ECOLOGY
OMNI ANTHOLOGIES ON SOVIET UNION/RUSSIA
Each
of these items will lead you to the other anthologies as of May 2023.
RUSSIA
(Newsletter) ANTHOLOGY #10, January 28,
2022 https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2022/01/omni-russia-newsletter-10-january-28.html
SOVIET/RUSSOPHOBIA
ANTHOLOGY #2, March 3, 2023
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2023/03/omni-sovietrussophobia-anthology-2.html
UKRAINE WAR ANTHOLOGY #28, February
18, 2023
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2023/02/omni-us-nato-ukraine-russia-war.html
UKRAINE WAR ANTHOLOGY #29
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2023/05/omni-us-nato-ukraine-russia-war.html
UKRAINE WAR ANTHOLOGY #30, June 4, 2023
Number of articles in first 18 Ukraine War Anthologies, 2014-2022:
306. From #19-28 = 189. Total in 28 Anthologies: 495. The quantity is an important
point. Clearly, contrary to the
presentation of the war by the US and NATO, there are two ways of understanding
the war. The Ukraine War includes a
propaganda war. Inside the US, the war
is supported by mainstream journalism, especially television, which reports
mainly official opinions and data. A
citizen, surrounded with mainly one view of good and evil, might be excused for
thinking she or he knows the truth. But
in the case of wars, the truth is entangled with so many powerful controlling
interests—the billions of dollars to the military-corporate complex (jobs!),
patriotism--that an ordinary citizen must very actively seek opposing views to
be informed. It’s like our justice
system: a prosecutor and a defense are considered necessary to ascertain the
facts and the motives involved in a murder.
The truth of a war (mass murder) is often like investigating a thousand
murders with only the prosecution or the defense present. I have had to search for the opposition: 495
articles. It’s miniscule compared to the
one-sided pro-war onslaught, but at least nobody can say the war was an open
and shut case. I had to go to foreign
sources and read books and plumb friends to discover if reality derived
exclusively from the Pentagon and White House and Congress (the MICC). For example, here are my sources in #29 (in
addition to friends):
Antiwar.com
Common Dreams
Consortium News
Counterpunch
Council on Foreign Relations
Dissident Voice
Eurasia Review
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
The First Casualty (book)
Foreign
Affairs
Global Network against Nuclear
Weapons and Power in Space
The Guardian (UK journal)
Independent
Australia
Orinoco Tribune
Responsible Statecraft
United for Peace and Justice
University of Chicago
CONTENTS
UKRAINE WAR #30A
[Note 30A, my first division of an anthology
into parts. The large number of essays was
exhausting, and forced me to divide into smaller, more manageable anthologies.]
3 essays
trace aspects of the war from beginning to present.
Fergie Chambers, “A Donbas diary: Looking back at the early stages of the conflict in
Ukraine.”
Colin Todhunter. “Sowing seeds of plunder.”
M. K.
Bhadrakumar. “U.S. hopes to snatch victory from jaws of defeat in Ukraine.”
CALLS
FOR PEACE
International Summit for Peace in
Ukraine – Vienna, Austria, June 10 -11.
Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies. “When Will US Join Global Call to End Ukraine War?
John Mearsheimer. “The West is playing
Russian roulette.”
JEFFREY D. SACHS. “The United States, not Russia, provoked this
war. We must stop the war and negotiate
peace.”
David Schwartzman. “How China can prevent climate catastrophe?”
Orinoco Tribune. Xi Jinping: all parties must “create the
conditions” for a political solution.
Global Network. Stop funding US proxy war against Russia.
STEVE BROWN. “Why is
Assange in Jail and Not Seymour Hersh?”
TEXTS
Three pieces function as a
wide-ranging introduction looking back and ahead--on the early stages of the
war in Donbas, Ukraine; who’s the aggressor and what and how Ukraine is losing;
and where is victory now?
Seven make the case for
stopping the war, including some of our country’s finest writers, organizers,
and activists: Jeffrey Sachs is world-renowned for his skills on all levels; Medea
Benjamin also writes books and organizes for peace and justice, and is physically
fearless against power; and John Mearsheimer, like them, is world renowned for
exposing mendacious officials and telling the truth (like the other two he has previously
appeared in these anthologies). And
four more.
The final reading, on the pipeline
sabotage, functions as a coda.
Fergie
Chambers, “A Donbas diary: Looking back at the early stages of the conflict in
Ukraine.” – OpEd” Editor.
Mronline.org (4-7-23).
Originally
published: Eurasia Review on March 17, 2023
(more by Eurasia Review) | (Posted Apr
06, 2023)
Empire,
Fascism, Movements, StrategyEurope, Russia, UkraineNewswireNorth Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO), Russia-Ukraine War This article was produced by Globetrotter.
. . .When my friend
Pyotr arrives, we sit for beers and share our recent stories; it is late March
2022, just one month since Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine
began. I have been maneuvering a bureaucratic maze as I try to gain entry into
the Russian Federation and the separatist republics of the Donbas; I am
awaiting a call back from consulates in Romania and Moldova. Pyotr has just
arrived from Kiev by train. A number of his comrades in communist, socialist,
and union organizations around Ukraine have been detained.
Recently, the Kononovich brothers, notable Ukrainian communists,
had been arrested and disappeared (following their imprisonment, they are
now under house arrest). Over a few days of conversation, I learn
more from Pyotr than I could ever put into writing; he says to me at one point:
“if there is one thing to understand, it is that sovereignty in Ukraine and
Eastern Europe has been stolen by the West not through any military invasion or
political party, but through the infiltration of Ukrainian civil society by
Western interests, NGOs, and right-wing nationalists. Everyone in Ukraine knows
that Washington directs this process, whether they support it or not.”
After a week in
Bucharest, I head for the consulate in neighboring Moldova, where I have just
spent nearly a month reporting on the refugee influx from Ukraine. I have been
advised that it is my only option for obtaining a visa to Russia. The divide
between pro-Western and pro-Russian civilians is palpable where the Moldovan
government is led by Maia Sandu, a graduate of Harvard University’s John F.
Kennedy School of Government, and former staffer for the World Bank.
Just as in Ukraine,
there is a push in Moldova by pro-West factions to limit public use of the
Russian language, despite Russian being the native tongue of hundreds of
thousands of Moldovans. . . . At last,
the visa materializes. I leave Moldova and travel to Russia. . . . MORE
https://mronline.org/2023/04/06/a-donbas-diary/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-donbas-diary&mc_cid=726928b808&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e
Colin Todhunter. “Sowing seeds of plunder.”
Editor. Mronline.org
(5-17-23). A Lose-Lose Situation for
Ukraine
Originally published: Dissident Voice:
a Radical Newsletter in the Struggle for Peace and Justice on May 10, 2023 (more
by Dissident Voice). (Posted May 16, 2023). Imperialism, Movements, Political
Economy, WarEurope, UkraineNewswire
[Causes of the War Part I: Who Owns the Land]
It’s a lose-lose
situation for Ukrainians. While they are dying to defend their land, financial
institutions are insidiously supporting the consolidation of farmland by
oligarchs and Western financial interests.
So says Frédéric Mousseau, Policy Director of the Oakland Institute, an
independent think tank.
Depending on which
sources to believe, between 100,000 and 300,000 Ukrainian soldiers (possibly
more) have died during the conflict with Russia. That figure, of course, does
not include civilian casualties.
[Causes of the War Part II: Bipartisan political and mainstream media Russophobic
narrative of Russia the aggressor in Ukraine is false.]
The mainstream
narrative in the West is that Russia grabbed Crimea and then invaded Ukraine.
Russia is portrayed as the outright aggressor which wants to restore its
control over large swathes of Europe.
[The real causes of
Russia’s intervention.]
However, this narrative is false and has been debunked by various
commentators who explain in
some depth how Ukraine has been used and manipulated as part of a geopolitical
campaign formulated by neoconservatives in Washington to destabilise Russia.
The expansion of NATO
towards the east, the U.S.-backed coup in 2014—followed by eight years of the
shelling of the ethnic Russian eastern parts of the country by the regime in
Kyiv resulting in around 14,000 deaths—led up to the military intervention by
Russia, which regards the expansionism and militarism as an existential threat.
It is not the purpose
of this article to explore these issues. Much has already been written on this
elsewhere. [Every number of these 30 anthologies has included at least one
article or book that asserts this alternative narrative. The narrative matters, for ]. . . . billions of dollars’ worth of military
hardware has been sent to Ukraine by the NATO countries and hundreds of
thousands of young Ukrainians have died.
They died in the belief that they were protecting their nation—their
land. A land that is among the most fertile in the world.
[Causes of the War Part I continued: Who Owns
the Land]
MORE click on essay’s title
Colin
Todhunter is
an independent writer specialising in development, food and agriculture. You can read his new e-book Food, Dependency and
Dispossession: Resisting the New World Order for free here.
Dissident Voice, located
in Santa Rosa, CA, is an internet newsletter dedicated to challenging the
distortions and lies of the corporate press and the privileged classes it
serves. The goal of Dissident Voice is to provide hard
hitting, thought provoking and even entertaining news and commentaries on
politics and culture that can serve as ammunition in struggles for peace and
social justice. DV Senior Editor
Angie Tibbs. gro.eciovtnedissid.wen@eigna The DV website (www.dissidentvoice.org).
“U.S. hopes to snatch victory from jaws of defeat in Ukraine.”
M. K. Bhadrakumar. mronline.org (6-26-23).
The G7 Leaders’ 2700-word statement on
Ukraine, issued in Hiroshima after their summit meeting glossed over the
burning question today–the so-called counter-offensive against the Russian
forces.
By M. K. Bhadrakumar (Posted May
25, 2023)
Originally
published on May 21, 2023.
Imperialism,
WarAmericas, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesNewswireGroup of Seven
largest rich countries (G7), North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO), Russia-Ukraine War
The G7 Leaders’ 2700-word statement on Ukraine,
issued in Hiroshima after their summit meeting glossed over the burning
question today–the so-called counter-offensive against the Russian forces.
It is a deafening
silence, since rumours are swirling about the disappearance of the
commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces. Significantly, President Vladimir
Zelensky himself is making himself scarce from Kiev touring world
capitals–Helsinki, Hague, Rome, Vatican, Berlin, Paris, London and Jeddah and
Hiroshima. It does seem that something is rotten in the state of
Denmark.
As the G7 summit
ended, the head of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin announced on Saturday that
the Russian operation to capture the strategic communication hub of Bakhmut in
Donbass region of eastern Ukraine lasting 224 days, has been brought to a
successful completion, overcoming the resistance by more than 80,000 Ukrainian
troops.
It is a painful moment
for Zelensky, who had boasted before U.S. lawmakers in Capitol Hill last
December that “just like the Battle of Saratoga (in 1777 during the American
Revolutionary War), the fight for Bakhmut will change the trajectory of our war
for independence and for freedom.”
Meanwhile, to distract
attention, there is talk now about a subtle shift in the U.S. policy regarding
supply of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine in an indeterminate future. . .
.,MORE click on title
International
Summit for Peace in Ukraine – Vienna, Austria, June 10 -11, 2023
United for Peace
and Justice (May 2023).
Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies. “When Will US Join Global Call to End Ukraine War?
31/05/2023
When Japan invited the leaders of Brazil, India
and Indonesia to attend the G7 summit in Hiroshima, there were glimmers of hope that it might be a forum for
these rising economic powers from the Global South to discuss their advocacy
for peace in Ukraine with the wealthy Western G7 countries that are militarily
allied with Ukraine and have so far remained deaf to pleas for peace.
But it was not to be. Instead, the Global
South leaders were forced to sit and listen as their hosts announced their
latest plans to tighten sanctions against Russia and further escalate the war
by sending U.S.-built F-16 warplanes
to Ukraine.
The G7 summit stands in stark contrast to
efforts of leaders from around the world who are trying to end the conflict. In
the past, the leaders of Turkey, Israel
and Italy have stepped up to try to mediate. Their efforts were bearing
fruit back in April 2022, but were blocked by the West, particularly the U.S. and
U.K., which did not want Ukraine to make an independent peace agreement with
Russia.
Now that the war has dragged on for over a
year with no end in sight, other leaders have stepped forward to try to push
both sides to the negotiating table. In an intriguing new development, Denmark,
a NATO country, has stepped forward to offer to host peace talks. On May 22,
just days after the G-7 meeting, Danish
Foreign Minister Lokke Rasmussen said that his country would be ready to host
a peace summit in July if Russia and Ukraine agreed to talk.
“We need to put some effort into creating a
global commitment to organize such a meeting,” said Rasmussen, mentioning that
this would require getting support from China, Brazil, India and other nations
that have expressed interest in mediating peace talks. Having an EU and NATO
member promoting negotiations may well reflect a shift in how Europeans view
the path forward in Ukraine. More https://countercurrents.org/2023/05/when-will-us-join-global-call-to-end-ukraine-war/
The U.S. rejection or dismissal of peace
initiatives illustrates the disconnect between two diametrically opposed
approaches to resolving international disputes: diplomacy vs. war. It also
illustrates the disconnect between rising public sentiment against the war and the determination of
U.S. policymakers to prolong it, including most Democrats and Republicans.
A growing grassroots movement in the U.S. is
working to change that:
§ In May, foreign policy experts and grassroots
activists put out paid advertisements in The New York Times and The Hill to urge the U.S. government to be a
force for peace. The Hill ad was endorsed by 100 organizations around the
country, and community leaders organized in dozens of congressional districts to deliver the ad to their
representatives.
§ Faith-based leaders, over 1,000 of whom signed a letter to President Biden in December
calling for a Christmas Truce, are showing their support for the Vatican’s
peace initiative.
§ The U.S. Conference of Mayors, an organization
that represents about 1,400 cities throughout the country, unanimously adopted a resolution calling on the President
and Congress to “maximize diplomatic efforts to end the war as soon as possible
by working with Ukraine and Russia to reach an immediate ceasefire and
negotiate with mutual concessions in conformity with the United Nations
Charter, knowing that the risks of wider war grow the longer the war
continues.”
§ Key U.S. environmental leaders have recognized
how disastrous this war is for the environment, including the possibility of a
catastrophic nuclear war or an explosion in a nuclear power plant, and have
sent a letter to President Biden and Congress urging a
negotiated settlement.
§ On June 10-11, U.S. activists will join
peacemakers from all over the world in Vienna, Austria, for an International Summit for Peace in
Ukraine.
§ Some of the contenders running for president,
on both the Democratic and Republican tickets, support a negotiated peace in
Ukraine, including Robert
F. Kennedy and Donald Trump.
The initial decision of the United States and
NATO member countries to try to help Ukraine resist the Russian invasion had
broad public support. However, blocking promising peace negotiations and
deliberately choosing to prolong the war as a chance to “press” and “weaken” Russia changed the nature of the war and
the U.S. role in it, making Western leaders active parties to a war in which
they will not even put their own forces on the line.
Must our leaders wait until a murderous war of
attrition has killed an entire generation of Ukrainians, and left Ukraine in a
weaker negotiating position than it was in April 2022, before they respond to
the international call for a return to the negotiating table?
Or must our leaders take us to the brink of
World War III, with all our lives on the line in an all-out nuclear war, before they will permit a ceasefire and a
negotiated peace?
Rather than sleepwalking into World War III or
silently watching this senseless loss of lives, we are building a global
grassroots movement to support initiatives by leaders from around the world
that will help to quickly end this war and usher in a stable and lasting
peace. Join
us.
Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for
Peace, and the author of
several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and
Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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.
Countercurrents is answerable only to our readers.
Support honest
journalism because we have no PLANET B. Become a Patron at Patreon Subscribe to our Telegram channel
https://countercurrents.org/2023/05/when-will-us-join-global-call-to-end-ukraine-war/
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Mearsheimer: NATO
success brings us closer to Nuclear War
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10:55 AM (30 minutes ago) |
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Dear friends,
Take a listen to this
short (or longer) video clip from the distinguised foreign policy expert
Professor Mearsheimer. He explains how we (US-NATO) are backing Russia into a
corner where they become more & more likely to use nuclear weapons. He
highlights the perverse paradox that the more NATO succeeds in its objective of
"defeating Russia", the more likely nuclear war becomes.
"I find it quite
remarkable at this point in time, how few people seem to understand"
the danger that this war may turn into a thermonuclear war and we will all be
dead
There'll be no more
London, there'll be no more Europe..."
Mearsheimer
Short Video clip:
https://twitter.com/ivan_8848/status/1634126014589616130?t=rlpQgBeASwrJPmdYOv6eqQ&s=19
Longer interview
video, I sent previously:
JEFFREY D. SACHS. “The
United States, not Russia, provoked this war.
We must stop the war and negotiate peace. “ Common
Dreams. May 23, 2023
George Orwell wrote
in 1984 that "Who controls the past controls the future:
who controls the present controls the past." Governments work relentlessly
to distort public perceptions of the past. Regarding the Ukraine War, the Biden
administration has repeatedly and falsely claimed that the Ukraine War started
with an unprovoked attack by Russia on Ukraine on February 24, 2022. In fact,
the war was provoked by the U.S. in ways that leading U.S. diplomats
anticipated for decades in the lead-up to the war, meaning that the war could
have been avoided and should now be stopped through negotiations.
Recognizing that the war was provoked helps us to understand how
to stop it. It doesn’t justify Russia’s invasion. A far better approach for
Russia might have been to step up diplomacy with Europe and with the
non-Western world to explain and oppose U.S. militarism and unilateralism. In fact,
the relentless U.S. push to expand NATO is widely opposed throughout the world,
so Russian diplomacy rather than war would likely have been effective.
The Biden team uses the word “unprovoked” incessantly, most
recently in Biden’s major speech on the
first-year anniversary of the war, in a recent NATO statement, and in the most
recent G7 statement. Mainstream media
friendly to Biden simply parrot the White House. The New York Times is
the lead culprit, describing the invasion as “unprovoked” no fewer than 26
times, in five editorials, 14 opinion columns by NYT writers, and seven guest
op-eds!
There were in fact two main U.S. provocations. The first was the
U.S. intention to expand NATO to Ukraine and Georgia in order to surround
Russia in the Black Sea region by NATO countries (Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria,
Turkey, and Georgia, in counterclockwise order). The second was the U.S. role
in installing a Russophobic regime in Ukraine by the violent overthrow of
Ukraine’s pro-Russian President, Viktor Yanukovych, in February 2014. The
shooting war in Ukraine began with Yanukovych’s overthrow nine years ago, not
in February 2022 as the U.S. government, NATO, and the G7 leaders would have us
believe.
The key to peace in Ukraine is through negotiations based on
Ukraine’s neutrality and NATO non-enlargement.
Biden and his foreign policy team refuse to discuss these roots
of the war. To recognize them would undermine the administration in three ways.
First, it would expose the fact that the war could have been avoided, or stopped
early, sparing Ukraine its current devastation and the U.S. more than $100
billion in outlays to date. Second, it would expose President Biden’s personal
role in the war as a participant in the overthrow of Yanukovych, and before
that as a staunch backer of the military-industrial complex and very early
advocate of NATO enlargement. Third, it would push Biden to the negotiating
table, undermining the administration’s continued push for NATO expansion.
The archives show irrefutably
that the U.S. and German governments repeatedly promised to Soviet President
Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not move “one inch eastward” when the Soviet
Union disbanded the Warsaw Pact military alliance. Nonetheless, U.S. planning
for NATO expansion began early in the 1990s, well before Vladimir Putin was
Russia’s president. In 1997, national security expert Zbigniew Brzezinski spelled out the NATO
expansion timeline with remarkable precision.
U.S. diplomats and Ukraine’s own leaders knew well that NATO
enlargement could lead to war. The great US scholar-statesman George Kennan
called NATO enlargement a “fateful error,” writing in the New York Times that, “Such a
decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and
militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the
development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to
East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions
decidedly not to our liking.”
President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Defense William Perry
considered resigning in protest against NATO enlargement. In reminiscing about
this crucial moment in the mid-1990s, Perry said the following in 2016: “Our
first action that really set us off in a bad direction was when NATO started to
expand, bringing in eastern European nations, some of them bordering Russia. At
that time, we were working closely with Russia and they were beginning to get
used to the idea that NATO could be a friend rather than an enemy ... but they
were very uncomfortable about having NATO right up on their border and they
made a strong appeal for us not to go ahead with that.” MORE https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/wgtgma5kj69pbpndjr4wf6aayhrszm
By recognizing that
the question of NATO enlargement is at the center of this war, we understand
why U.S. weaponry will not end this war. Russia will escalate as necessary to
prevent NATO enlargement to Ukraine. The key to peace in Ukraine is through
negotiations based on Ukraine’s neutrality and NATO non-enlargement. The Biden
administration’s insistence on NATO enlargement to Ukraine has made Ukraine a
victim of misconceived and unachievable U.S. military aspirations. It’s time
for the provocations to stop, and for negotiations to restore peace to Ukraine. Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Feel free to republish and share widely.
JEFFREY D. SACHS
Jeffrey D. Sachs is a
University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at
Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until
2016. He is also President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network
and a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development. He has been
advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an
SDG Advocate under Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Sachs is the author,
most recently, of A New Foreign Policy:
Beyond American Exceptionalism (2020). Other books include: Building the New American Economy: Smart,
Fair, and Sustainable" (2017) and The
Age of Sustainable Development (2015) with Ban Ki-moon.
Ceasefire, Stop the Killing and Destruction. And Stop Wars to Stop Warming.
“How China can prevent climate catastrophe? Moving humanity toward global
ecological civilization.”
David Schwartzman.
Mronline.org (4-12-23).
As
the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report tells
us, there is still a chance to keep warming at no more than the 1.5°C target,
but tipping points to climate catastrophes much worse than we are witnessing
now will kick in if this target is breached. It is now crystal clear that ongoing wars, in particular the Ukraine war, create huge
obstacles to the global cooperation necessary for any chance of meeting the 1.5°C
warming target. Following the lead of China’s peace plan,
we should support the call for an immediate ceasefire in the Ukraine war, and
for all parties involved to negotiate.
DIPLOMACY NOT WAR
“China’s president on Ukraine conflict: all sides involved should assume
responsibility.” Editor. Mronline.org (4-11-23).
The
president of China, Xi Jinping, commented to his French counterpart, Emmanuel
Macron, that all parties involved in the conflict in Ukraine “must assume their
responsibilities” and “create the conditions” for a political solution and
avoid escalation.
Originally published: Orinoco Tribune on April 8, 2023 by
Últimas Noticias (more by Orinoco Tribune) | (Posted Apr
10, 2023)
WarAsia, China, Europe, France, Russia, UkraineNewswireRussia-Ukraine War
The president of
China, Xi Jinping, commented to his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, that
all parties involved in the conflict in Ukraine “must assume their
responsibilities” and “create the conditions” for a political solution and
avoid escalation. President Xi made this
remark after Macron told the Chinese leader that he “knows” that he has the
Chinese president’s support “to make Russia come to its senses and bring all
parties to the negotiating table.” The
dialogue took place on Thursday April 6, during the French president’s visit to
China. During the meeting, Xi told
Macron that China supports peace, and will continue to promote dialogue and a
peaceful resolution of the Ukraine crisis.
MORE click on title
Stop funding US proxy
war against Russia: Protest Apr 15 Topsham
4-4-23 Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator |
8:08 AM (4 hours ago) |
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STEVE BROWN. “Why is Assange in Jail and Not Seymour Hersh?” Counterpunch (February 27, 2023).
On February 7, Seymour
Hersh – arguably the most credible investigative journalist of our era –
published a bombshell exposé revealing that the United States was guilty of
blowing up the Nord Stream II undersea pipeline that was supposed to deliver
natural gas from Russia to the Federal Republic of Germany.
Hersh’s revelations
were based entirely on classified information leaked to him by a member of the
government with first-hand knowledge of the planning and implementation of the
attack on the pipeline – a member of the government who clearly broke the law
by violating his fiduciary duty not to reveal classified information to an
unauthorized source.
Like Chelsea Manning,
who had revealed classified information to Julian Assange, for which she was
convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison, Hersh’s source, if identified,
would surely also be convicted and sentenced to similar long-term imprisonment.
But Hersh’s source has
not been identified. However – Hersh himself has. According to the same logic
under which Assange was indicted for publishing classified information, and now
faces up to 175 years in prison, Hersh, too, should be indicted and face
comparable long-term imprisonment.
So why is Sy Hersh
still free?
Hersh broke the same
laws that the U.S. government accuses Julian Assange of breaking. But unlike
Assange, a foreigner whom the U.S. has unsuccessfully been trying to extradite
from England for years, Hersh is an American citizen living right here in the United
States – easy to find, cuff, indict, convict and throw in prison for the rest
of his life.
So why is Sy Hersh
still free?
Surely the classified
information that Hersh has revealed is even more dangerous to the safety of the
U.S. than what Assange revealed. Hersh
showed that the U.S. had committed an unprovoked act of war against Russia.
This gives Russia an absolute legal right to retaliate under Chapter VII, Article 51, of the United Nations Charter,
which cites self-defense as an exception to the prohibition against the use of
force.
Since Russia happens
to be a nuclear power, its potential retaliation could trigger World War III
and wipe out not just the U.S. but the entire human race. Therefore, in any
comparison of who has placed the U.S. in greater danger – Julian Assange is a
piker compared to Sy Hersh.
So why is Sy Hersh
still free?
The answer is this.
Although President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Under
Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland would love to throw Sy
Hersh into a maximum security prison for the rest of his life, as punishment
for revealing their complicity in blowing up the Nord Stream II pipelines
– they don’t dare to. If they did, it would be tantamount to
admitting that … what Hersh published is true.
Which would be
embarrassing, to say the least, because Biden and Company have spent every day
since February 7 denying that Hersh’s revelations are true. In
other words, they claim he made it all up – which means, according to them,
that he did not publish classified information. Therefore he
cannot be guilty of any crime.
That’s the frustrating
double bind in which Biden now finds himself. It must drive him crazy. Because
the day he sends federal agents to put the cuffs on Sy Hersh, that is the day
he and Blinken and Nuland will have to admit that they lied, that Hersh’s
exposé is true, and that they did indeed order the destruction of the Nord
stream pipelines.
So of course that day
will never come, and Sy Hersh will remain a free man. Which is why, at least
this one time, I am glad that our leaders are liars.
[Forwarded to me by
Sonny San Juan, Jr.] https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/02/27/why-is-assange-in-jail-and-not-seymour-hersh/
END UKRAINE WAR ANTHOLOGY
#30A
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