OMNI
RUSSIA NEWSLETTER #10,
January 28, 2022
Compiled by
Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
(#1 March 21,
2014; #2 April 10, 2014; #3 May 16, 2014; #4 July 22, 2014; #5 March 10, 2015;
#6 Sept. 1, 2016; #7, October 3, 2017; #8, Nov. 10, 2021; #9, January 20, 2022)
CONTENTS
RUSSIA NEWSLETTER #10
This anthology begins with
indignation by Tomlinson, WBW, and Butterfield, moves to analysis and action by
Lowendorf, Taibbi, Franklin, and Prashad, to an appeal for peace by WBW, and to the extensive
scholarship of Prof. Zunes .
Abel Tomlinson. “The US Wants War,
Not Russia.”
World Beyond War. “No War in Ukraine!”
Greg Butterfield.
“Ukraine, U.S. drum up war threats against Donbass and Russia.” April
8, 2021.
Henry Lowendorf reports the ”terribly
destructive U.S. foreign policy” that has “has no moral, or legal, or logical
authority.”
Matt Taibbi via George Paulson. “Let’s Not Have a War.”
H. Bruce Franklin. “Another Game of Russian Roulette,” on the
Cuban Missile Crisis.
Vijay
Prashad. “Why Ukraine’s borders are back at the center of geopolitics.”
WBW, Appeal for Negotiation, a mini-anthology within a
mini-anthology.
TEXTS
A note on
Ukraine
From Abel Tomlinson 1-22-22
"Despite the ocean of lies being fed to American masses,
the truth is: it’s U.S.A. that wants war, not Russia. It’s the U.S.A. that is
pushing nuclear-armed NATO military bases to Russia’s doorstep; it’s USA that
sponsored a neo-Nazi Ukraine coup; it’s USA practicing massive war games on
Russian borders; it’s USA surrounding Russia & many others with over 800
foreign military bases; it’s USA that has invaded & overthrown over 50
nations & killed millions after WWII. The USA created the Ukraine
crisis & is hoping to overthrow the Russian & Chinese governments,
which would cause unimaginable death & destruction, especially if it
escalates into nuclear war. Do Not Consent to this Evil Warmonger Agenda!"
No War in Ukraine! From
World Beyond War
We are
alarmed by the increasing tensions between the nuclear-armed governments of the
U.S. (and its NATO allies) and Russia and are extremely concerned about what
seems to be the increasing likelihood of war.
We must
raise our voices. Add your name and comments to this petition. Share it with others to
sign. Then help us forward it to your elected officials.
To: The Governments of NATO Nations
No War in Ukraine! Nothing is worth risking war, much less
nuclear war. No side wants war in Ukraine, and certainly not the people of
Ukraine. Someone must find the courage to push back against the momentum toward
war, and lead the way toward cooperation and disarmament.
Add your name and your comments!
Share far and wide! World
BEYOND War is a
global network of volunteers, chapters, and affiliated organizations advocating
for the abolition of the institution of war.
Ukraine, U.S. drum up war threats
against Donbass and Russia. April 8, 2021 |
Newswire. Mronline.org (4-9-21). Originally published: Struggle
La Lucha by Greg
Butterfield (April 2, 2021 ) .
“U.S. Secretary of State
Antony Blinken, in a phone call with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba
on Wednesday, affirmed Washington’s support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity
‘in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression,’ the State Department said in a
statement,” Reuters reported March
31.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported March 30 that U.S. European Command (EUCOM) had
changed Ukraine’s status on an internal watch list from “possible crisis” to
“potential imminent crisis.”
Completely missing from
these reports, however, is the fact that Ukraine has been building up its troops
and military hardware on the “line of contact,” the front line
of the conflict, since mid-January.
At the
same time, Ukrainian military forces have stepped up unprovoked attacks on
frontline settlements in Donetsk and Lugansk, killing and injuring residents
and targeting homes, schools and other civilian targets.”
“The USA has
the unique condition of being a flagrant violator of human rights within its
own borders and in practically every region of the world. No other nation has
such a systematic record. Its massive control of media and communications hides
this truth from its own people.”
Henry Lowendorf on
Connecticul’s Warmongering Senators.
Date: Thu, Jan 20, 2022 at 7:49 PM (from Sonny San Juan)
Subject: "Ready for another game of Russian roulette?"
The
article below, recounting some history that many do not remember if
they ever knew, reminds us how stupid, counterproductive and terribly
destructive U.S. foreign policy is.
Once
again the US is stoking nuclear fire. Once again it shills blame on an enemy it
has consciously created to be an enemy. Moving missiles, all sorts of weaponry
and nuclear armed Naval fleets up to the borders of Russia while mocking
Russia’s defense measures and demands to reverse course and reduce tensions,
the imperial US is wagering the future of civilization and perhaps life on the
planet on odds that Russia will lie down and agree to be marched over. Those
who lead us in this direction are truly insane.
Both Connecticut Senators
just returned from a junket to Ukraine to trade toasts with the ultra corrupt
leaders of that country. They have returned to urge President Biden to ignore
Russia’s actual security interests - it having been invaded 3 times through
Ukraine and Poland within just over 2 decades with over 27 million human lives
lost and untold physical destruction . Read that again.
And what does Ukraine mean to
the US? Are we protecting democracy? Having overthrown the Ukrainian
constitutional government in 2014 - not to mention those of so many other
countries - the US has no moral, or legal, or logical authority to claim it is
defending Ukrainian democracy, which under a subservient government can’t even
be called democratic. Indeed the US government is currently unable, unwilling,
to defend its own democracy.
Contact Senators Blumenthal and
Murphy. Here’s what I wrote: "I'm ashamed that you go to Ukraine, fully
aware that its government leaders were hand chosen by the US State Department,
in order to provoke a winless war with Russia based on lies. I'm ashamed that
you traffic with neoNazis and a government that celebrates
them."
Dick Blumenthal: 860-258-6940 https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/contact/write-to-senator-blumenthal
Chris Murphy: 860-549-8463 https://www.murphy.senate.gov/contact
Peace /\ Justice
Henry Lowendorf
Greater New Haven Peace
Council
George Paulson 1-27-22
This article by Matt Taibbi came out a day ago. Taibbi
spent years in Russia, speaks Russian.
This may be the best short summary I’ve seen of the current
standoff in Ukraine. Taibbi points out that Obama, relatively speaking,
displayed wisdom when it came to the idea of getting into a shooting war with
Russia over Ukraine. He also points out that war means, in the case of
Russia, real war, with a country that has a real military and can really fight
back. No “good” options left for an Uncle Sam who is used to calling all
the shots. Peace,
Matt Taibbi. “Let’s Not Have a War” The American foreign
policy establishment, chasing decades of failures, appears to be seriously
considering the unthinkable in Ukraine.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/lets-not-have-a-war?r=lofz&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
H. BRUCE FRANKLIN. “Ready for Another Game of Russian Roulette?” JANUARY 19, 2022.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/19/ready-for-another-game-of-russian-roulette/
[At this moment of possible nuclear war, everyone who wishes to avert war should compare this crisis with that of the Cuban Missile crisis. –Dick]
As the U.S. moves nuclear forces
closer and closer to the border of Russia, and as our corporate media bang
their war drums louder and louder, does anyone remember the Cuban missile crisis?
In June of 1961, just three months after the Bay of Pigs
invasion of Cuba was defeated, the United States began the deployment of
fifteen Jupiter nuclear missiles to Turkey, which shared a border with the
Soviet Union. Each missile, armed with a W49 1.4 megaton thermonuclear warhead,
was equivalent to 175 Hiroshima bombs. With their fifteen-hundred-mile range,
the missiles were capable of annihilating Moscow, Leningrad, and every major
city and base in the Russian heartland. Each missile could incinerate Moscow in
just sixteen minutes from launch, thus wildly raising the possibility of
thermonuclear war caused by technological accident, human error,
miscommunication, or preemptive attack.
We didn’t hear about the Jupiter missiles and of course we
didn’t hear anything about Operation Mongoose, the top-secret plan launched on
November 1, 1961, to overthrow the government of Cuba through a systematic
campaign of sabotage, coastal raids, assassinations, subversion leading to
CIA-sponsored guerrilla warfare, and an eventual invasion by the U.S. military.
The armed raids and sabotage succeeded in killing many Cubans and damaging the
economy, which was hit much harder by the economic embargo announced in
February. However, the assassination plots were foiled, and all attempts to develop
an internal opposition failed. Many of the CIA agents and Cuban exiles who
infiltrated the island by sea and air were captured, and quite a few of them
talked, even on Cuban radio, about the plans for a new U.S. invasion, which was
planned for October. Cuba requested military help from the Soviet Union, which
by July was sending troops, air defense missiles, battlefield nuclear weapons,
and medium-range ballistic missiles equivalent to the U.S. Jupiter missiles in
Turkey.
At 7 p.m. eastern time on Monday, October 22, 1962, John F.
Kennedy delivered the most terrifying presidential message of my lifetime.
Declaring that the Soviet Union had created a “clear and present danger” by
placing in Cuba “large, long-range, and clearly offensive weapons of sudden
mass destruction” “capable of striking Washington, D.C.,” he announced that
U.S. ships would immediatEly impose a “strict quarantine,” a transparent
euphemism for a blockade, on the island. Knowing that the American people knew
nothing about the recent and ongoing U.S. deployment of the Jupiter ballistic
missiles capable of striking all the cities of the Russian heartland, he
stated, “Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift
that any . . . change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite
threat to peace.” And knowing the American people knew nothing about Operation
Mongoose and its previously planned invasion of Cuba in October, the president
stated over and over again that these Soviet missiles were “offensive threats”
with no defensive purpose. Here was his most frightening sentence: “We will not
prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war in which
the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth—but neither will we shrink
from that risk at any time it must be faced.”
MORE https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/19/ready-for-another-game-of-russian-roulette/
What may have looked to the public like a Soviet capitulation
turned out to be a successful, desperate, and potentially fatal gamble by the
Soviet Union. They won a tit-for-tat removal of the land-based missiles within
sixteen minutes of incinerating either Moscow or Washington, with a bonus of
stopping the imminent invasion of Cuba and possibly future invasions as well,
all without having to commit to the future defense of Cuba.
Behind the scenes, Kennedy now had to deal with the shrieking
hawks, furious at the president both for missing the golden opportunity to
annihilate the Soviet Union and for an ignominious surrender of America’s
exceptional right to invade Cuba and to station nuclear weapons wherever it
pleased.
Alarmed by how close we had come to nuclear apocalypse, Kennedy
and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev set up a telephone hot line to enable
direct communication, developed a personal relationship to ease tensions, and
succeeded in August 1963 in banning nuclear testing in the atmosphere, under
water, or in space. The president inspired many of us with an eloquent June
1963 American University commencement address about the world’s crucial need
for an enduring peace. He even urged “every thoughtful citizen” who desired
peace to “begin by looking inward—by examining his own attitude toward peace,
toward the Soviet Union,” which he extolled for its heroic World War II
sacrifices. But then of course he went on to claim: “The Communist drive to
impose their political and economic system on others is the primary cause of
world tension today.” Since today Russia is as capitalist as Saudi
Arabia, Australia, and United States, what is “the primary cause of world
tension today?”
President Kennedy’s final remarks began with this statement:
“The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war.” So it
must have been Vietnam that started a war with the United States.
“Ready for Another Game of Russian Roulette?” BY H. BRUCE FRANKLIN, adapted from Crash Course: From the Good War to the Forever War.
|
APPEAL
FOR NEGOTIATION FROM WORLD BEYOND WAR |
|
War is not inevitable. War is a
choice. It is always a bad one.
Read Peter van den Dungen's critique
of Why War by Christopher Coker. Read David Swanson's "Munich Is Not in Ukraine." Read "Global Civil Society Urges to
Stop Saber-Rattling over Ukraine and Negotiate Sustainable Peace"
by Yurii Sheliazhenko. Watch "Ukraine on Fire"
by Oliver Stone. Sign and share WBW's petition for peace in
Ukraine! MORE ON RUSSIA/UKRAINE FROM WBW
|
|
CONTENTS, RUSSIA NEWSLETTER #9, 2018-2020
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2022/01/omni-russia-newsletter-9-1-20-22.html
WAYS US WARRIORS GO
TO WAR
Bruce Gagnon. What is the US Agenda? NATO Expansion and
Regime Change
George
Paulson. Russophobia
Biden.
Putin a Killer
John Pilger. “In Ukraine, the US is
dragging us towards war with Russia.”
Matt Taibbi. “10 Ways to Call Something Russian Disinformation Without Evidence.”
Alan MacLeod. False Bounty Claim.
McGovern, Russiagate
Boyd-Barrett, Russiagate as “puerile narrative.”
Galloway. Macron: the Problem is
USA
Russia’s 100,000 Troops
Grossman. NATO Maneuvers.
WAYS TO PEACE
All of the Above
Hobson. Reverse NATO Expansion and US Withdrawal from NATO
Dick. Critical Thinking Through Exposure
of Fallacies
END RUSSIA
NEWSLETTER #10
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