OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #142, SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

 OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #142, SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

Abel Tomlinson. “Negotiate Peace Now”
David Bromwich.  “Living on a Planet”

Negotiate Ukraine Peace Now.  August 28, 2023. 
Negotiate Ukraine Peace Now – Abel Tomlinson (wordpress.com)

As the U.S. proxy war with Russia in Ukraine grinds on, and Joe Biden demands billions more for war, we must ask when will this end?  How much more blood and treasure will be spilled for a lost cause?  All signs indicate the much-hyped Ukraine counter-offensive has failed.  Even pro-war mainstream media and some pro-war politicians are admitting so, and some are starting to understand the war is unwinnable.  But wasted blood and treasure are nothing compared to the threat of nuclear war.

As far too many have forgotten, war with Russia and China could quickly become a nuclear war that could cause extinction of our species. Even Ronald Reagan, a flaming peacenik compared to current warmongering Democrats and Republicans, said “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”  It seems like half the country has collective amnesia as to what the acronym M.A.D. means. 

Part of this induced amnesia is caused by politicians and mainstream media misleading the public, yet again, about the causes of the Ukraine war.  This makes it harder for people to understand that peace negotiations are the logical answer. One of the primary mainstream lies is that the war was “unprovoked,” but a mountain of evidence proves otherwise. The U.S. absolutely provoked the war, despite massive warnings against doing so.

There are many credible experts telling the truth on this subject, such as Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Professor John Mearsheimer, U.S. military officials of The Eisenhower Network, former NATO official Jacques Baud, award-winning journalist Robert Parry, and many more.  Award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone’s documentary Ukraine on Fire is also a massive eye-opener. Award-winning journalist Joe Lauria details here the reasons the U.S. wanted the war with Russia. Also here here, here, and here are some good books on the subject as well.

These sources tell the story of how the war really started with the 2014 U.S.-sponsored coup, well recorded in a leaked U.S. State Department phone call.  This coup led to the 9 year old civil war between ultranationalist Ukrainians in West Ukraine and ethnic Russian Ukrainians in the East.  This war killed 14,000 people before 2022.  Millions of Ukrainians opposed the violently installed coup government that began passing discriminatory laws against the large ethnic Russian minority.  Shortly after the coup, Professor Mearsheimer prophetically stated that the U.S. was “leading Ukraine down the Primrose Path,” encouraging Ukraine to pursue a suicidal confrontation with Russia, and the result is “Ukraine will get wrecked.” 

Additionally, these sources tell the story of how USA promised not to expand NATO military forces eastward to Russian borders.  This promise is published in the National Security Archive of George Washington University. Starting with Bill Clinton, the U.S. broke that promise repeatedly, despite numerous warnings not to from Western experts and the Russian government.  A litany of top strategic thinkers warned that NATO expansion would cause serious conflict with Russia, especially expansion to Ukraine, including George Kennan, Jack Matlock, Henry Kissinger, Stephen Cohen, John Mearsheimer and many more.

At issue is not just NATO military bases and war games on Russian borders, but the movement of NATO’s nuclear weapons closer and closer to Moscow. The situation is very similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviets put missiles near our borders; Americans were not having it and we nearly entered nuclear war. Peace negotiations solved that crisis and peace negotiations are the only sane way to solve the Ukraine crisis.

DAVID BROMWICH.  “Living on a War Planet…and Managing Not to Notice.”   AUGUST 30, 2023.

Following is the conclusion to Bromwich’s article; 
. . . In a recent article at TomDispatch, Michael Klare recalled the public shame that never properly attached to U.S. energy companies for “choosing to perpetuate practices known to accelerate climate change and global devastation. Among the most egregious, the decision of top executives of the ExxonMobil Corporation — the world’s largest and wealthiest privately-owned oil company — to continue pumping oil and gas for endless decades after their scientists warned them about the risks of global warming.”

 

Such environmental indifference, as Klare rightly notes, persisted long after the reality of climate disruption was recognized by the polluters. No less irresponsible has been the choice to perpetuate the war habit even as we recognize the inseparable role wars have always played in the destruction of the planet. The Ukraine war was launched by Russia in an exertion of brutal short-term opportunism, but it was also provoked by the United States as one of a long series of wars and regime-change operations that were meant to give the U.S. uncontested leadership of a unipolar world.

 

All of us now inhabit a war planet threatened in other devastating ways as well. Our escape will not be achieved through a new “norms-based” international order in which NATO, with the U.S. at the helm, replaces the United Nations as the global authority presiding over war and peace. The “next war on the horizon,” whether in the Baltic Sea, the Persian Gulf, or Taiwan, is a matter of grave interest to the citizens on all those horizons who may want anything but to serve as its field of exercise. Meanwhile, the lesson for the United States should be simple enough: the survival of the planet cannot wait for the world’s last superpower to complete our endless business of war.