OMNI
US, NATO, RUSSIA,
UKRAINE war ANTHOLOGY, #21:
HISTORY, ORIGINS,
CAUSES, MEANINGS OF THE WAR; MAY 29, 2022
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology
Omnicenter.org/donate/
Contents of #21 ANTHOLOGY
WAR
Marius
Trotter. The Russian Perspective, The Crucial
History:
FROM WWII TO 2022
The US-NATO-UKRAINE-RUSSIA WAR BEGINS IN 2014
The Maidan Coup
J. Kuzmarov.
2014 Odessa Massacre.
John Walsh.
Coup Against Elected Pro-Russian President and Attacks on
Donetsk and Lugansk (Donbass)
Pro-Russians.
Fergie Chambers. Neo-Nazi Aidar Battalion Torture vs. Donbass
Pro-
Russian Rebels.
Statement from Black Liberation Movement.
MR Editors, From 2014 to Present.
Samir Amin.
Large Geo-Political Context.
Triad of Western Control,
Anatol Lieven. Dangers of US Proxy War.
NATO Expansion
Global Times. Now Finland and Sweden and Risk of
European War.
Glenn Greenwald. US Bipartisan (the War Party) Support for War
$$.
Richard Ochs.
US Biggest Lies for War.
PEACE
Jeremy Kuzmarov. US and Russian Tradition of Friendship.
TEXTS
ORIGINS,
CAUSES, PURPOSES OF THE WAR
The
Crucial History:
FROM WWII
TO 2022
“Everyone is forgotten and nothing is remembered: The war in Ukraine and
Russia’s reawakening.” Editor. Mronline.org (5-12-22).
After the most
titanic, nightmarish war in modern history, after rivers of blood shed from
Kiev to Moscow, from Stalingrad to Kursk, the workers and farmers of the Soviet
Union had vanquished the most vile killing machine the world had yet seen. But for the Donbass WWII was not over: “For eight
years- 2014 to 2022- the people of the Donbass were besieged by the Ukrainian
military and neo Nazi paramilitaries.”
https://mronline.org/2022/05/11/everyone-is-forgotten-and-nothing-is-remembered/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=everyone-is-forgotten-and-nothing-is-remembered&mc_cid=698ecb0740&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e
WE
MUST LEARN MORE ABOUT RUSSIA AND UKRAINE 2014
Maidan Coup
The
West staged a coup to overthrow the Ukrainian government
https://static.poder360.com.br ›
2014-Coup-1 The
2014 Maidan revolution in Ukraine that led to the ouster of
then-president Viktor. Yanukovych was in fact a coup orchestrated
by the United States and ...
7 pages
How and why the US Government Perpetrated the
2014 Coup ...
https://moderndiplomacy.eu ›
Sample Page Jun 4,
2018 — Ukraine's replacing its democratically elected neutralist
Government in February 2014, by a rabidly anti-Russian Government, was a
violent event ...
The
WAR Beginning IN 2014
“The Once Bright City Became Gloomy
and Sad:” Survivor of 2014 Odessa Massacre Reflects Back on Tragedy
By Jeremy Kuzmarov on May
10, 2022 07:06 am
Massacre part of planned act of intimidation by U.S.-installed
government and precipitated civil war in Ukraine
On May 2, 2014, at least 48 people were killed when right-wing
Ukrainian forces burned down the Trade Unions Building in Odessa. The victims
had taken refuge in the building after opposing the February 2014 coup d’etat
in Ukraine that was backed by the U.S. State Department.
Eight years after the massacre, the International Action Center,
a New York-based anti-war group founded by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey
Clark, hosted a public commemoration that included
testimony from a survivor named Alexey who currently lives in Luhansk in
eastern Ukraine.
Alexey spoke movingly about his friend and comrade, Andrey
Brezevsky, who was beaten to death by neo-Nazi thugs with a metal bar after he
jumped out of the Trade Unions Building to escape the fire.
Brezevsky’s mother, after her son’s death, lost her teaching
position at a local university after being denounced by right-wing groups.
Alexey emphasized that none of the perpetrators of the Odessa
massacre was ever punished. In the aftermath of the atrocity, neo-Nazi groups
mocked and persecuted the relatives of the victims, like Alexey’s mother.
The once bright city became “gloomy and sad,” Alexey said. The
massacre had not happened by accident, but was a “planned act of intimidation”
by Ukraine’s post-coup government. It was “designed to intimidate the
opposition [and] was an act of political terrorism perpetrated by the Ukrainian
state targeting unarmed civilians [the victims in the fire were all
unarmed].” […]
The
post “The Once Bright City Became Gloomy
and Sad:” Survivor of 2014 Odessa Massacre Reflects Back on Tragedy appeared first
on CovertAction Magazine.
The
WAR Beginning IN 2014
By John V. Walsh, Popular Resistance (4-29-22.). 2014
saw two pivotal events that led to the current conflict in Ukraine. The
first, familiar to all, was the coup in
Ukraine in which a democratically elected government was overthrown at the
direction of the United States and with the assistance of neo-Nazi elements
which Ukraine has long harbored. Shortly thereafter the first shots in
the present war were fired on the Russian-sympathetic Donbass region by the newly installed Ukrainian government.
The shelling of the Donbass which claimed 14,000 lives has continued for 8
years, despite attempts at a cease-fire under the Minsk accords which Russia... -more-
Touring an Aidar Dungeon
Editor. Mronline.org
(5-8-22)
Shortly after the U.S.-backed Maidan
coup in the winter of 2014, in
conjunction with Crimea’s secession from Ukraine and union with
Russia in March of that year, protests began to break out in the Donetsk and
Lugansk regions in the east of the country, known together as Donbas.
Inside the walls of the small-town sausage
plant which became a Neo-nazi prison.
“Ukraine:
Touring an Aidar Dungeon.” Originally
published: Internationalist
360° on May 5, 2022 by
Fergie Chambers
(more by Internationalist 360°)
(Posted May 07, 2022)
WarEurope, UkraineNewswireDonbas, Donetsk, Lugansk, Lugansk People’s
Republic (LPR), U.S.-backed Maidan coup
The horrors of a meat plant-turned Ukrainian Neo-Nazi base and
prison
Inside the walls of the small-town sausage plant which became a
Neo-nazi prison.
POLOVYNKYNO, LUGANSK
PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC, 4.5.2022-Shortly after the U.S.-backed Maidan coup in
the winter of 2014, in conjunction with Crimea’s secession from Ukraine and
union with Russia in March of that year, protests began to break out in the
Donetsk and Lugansk regions in the east of the country, known together as
Donbas. In Donetsk, to the south, the now-notorious Neo-Nazi “Azov” Battalion emerged as the principal combatant force
on the Ukrainian side; in the north, along the front lines in Lugansk, known
since May of 2014 by anti-Maidan, Russian separatists as the Lugansk People’s
Republic (LPR), the lesser-known, but possibly more ruthless “Aidar” Battalion was more prevalent.
Even Amnesty International, an organization which is reliably in the corner of
western informational hegemony, reported back in 2014 on
the abuses of Aydar.
The article
concludes: After a week of visiting
shelling sites in civilian areas on an almost daily basis, it was difficult to
imagine seeing something more disturbing. Wednesday’s visit to the Aidar
dungeon proved this assumption wrong, and reinforced the blatant reality of a Ukrainian
regime that is overrun with nationalism, barbarism, and criminality,
particularly in its armed forces, and most especially aimed at the people of
Donbas.
The Aidar battalion was
made an official part of the Ukrainian military in 2016, and has participated
in a number of Kiev state-sanctioned events, including last year’s independence
parade.
A Statement On Ukraine From The
Black Liberation Movement
By
Black Liberation Movement Organizations, Black Agenda Report. Popular Resistance.
Org (5-6-22). The ongoing crisis and
war in Ukraine threatens to pull the world into a disastrous nuclear
confrontation. Disinformation, lies, and propaganda from the US and other
western media are aimed at confusing millions of people inside the US and
around the world to view Russia as the aggressor, while hiding the US role in
the evolution of this conflict. One major example of this manipulation is that
western media have not been honest about the massive
role that the US played in facilitating a 2014 coup in Ukraine that
overthrew the country’s democratically elected president... -more-
FROM
THE 2014 COUP TO PRESENT
Introduction.
The Editors. Monthly
Review. May 2022 (Volume 74, Number 1)
(May 7, 2022). To get a firm grasp on the current situation in Ukraine, we must
understand the central role that the
United States and NATO have played in the conflict from the start, beginning in
2014 with the U.S.-engineered Maidan coup. | more…
The Large Geo-Political Context
Russia and the Ukraine crisis: The Eurasian Project in conflict with the
triad imperialist policies. Samir
Amin. Mronline.org (5-8-22)
We wanted to draw readers’ attention to this piece by Samir
Amin, which was written at the time of the Maidan Coup in 2014.
—Eds. 1. The current global stage is dominated by the attempt of historical
centers of imperialism (the U.S., Western and Central Europe, Japan—hereafter
called “the Triad”) to maintain their exclusive control […]
|
Learning nothing from
history [A Comprehensive Survey]
|
|
A warning
to all people intelligent enough to think about the prospect of global
annihilation--all to save Ukraine and profitable corporate weapons
merchants???
Date: Thu, Apr 28, 2022 at 9:31 PM
Subject: Learning nothing from history
The horrible dangers of pushing a US
proxy war in Ukraine
If there is indeed a
shift in strategy to another level of confrontation with Russia, we need to
know what we’re getting into.
APRIL 27,
2022, Anatol Lieven , RESPONSIBLE
STATECRAFT
HTTPS://RESPONSIBLESTATECRAFT.ORG/2022/04/27/THE-HORRIBLE-DANGERS-IN-PUSHING-A-US-PROXY-WAR-IN-UKRAINE/
To
judge by its latest statements, the
Biden administration is increasingly committed to using the conflict in
Ukraine to wage a proxy war against Russia, with as its goal the weakening
or even destruction of the Russian state.
This
would mean America adopting a strategy that every U.S. president during the
Cold War took great pains to avoid: the sponsorship of war in Europe,
bringing with it the acute risk of escalation towards direct military
confrontation between Russia and NATO, possibly ending in nuclear
catastrophe. The U.S. and NATO refusal to support armed rebellions against
Soviet rule in eastern Europe was obviously not based on any kind of
recognition of the legitimacy of Communist rule and Soviet domination, but
simply on a hard-headed calculation of the appalling risks involved to
America, Europe and humanity in general.
A
note of caution, however, while there is considerable unease in sections of
Russian society about an aggressive war against Ukrainians —whom Moscow
after all claims to be a “brotherly people” — a war against American
attempts to harm and subjugate Russia has much stronger public appeal.
During
his visit to Kiev this week, U.S.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated that the
U.S. wants to see “Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the
kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” On the same day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared on Russian television that by supplying
Ukraine with heavy weaponry, NATO is now “in essence” involved in a proxy
war with Russia.
Lavrov
compared the situation in terms of nuclear danger to the Cuban missile
crisis. We might do well to remember in this context how very close
humanity came to nuclear annihilation in the fall of 1962.
Two of
Lloyd Austin’s remarks are especially worth examining in some detail. The
first is that weakening Russia is necessary in order to prevent it
repeating its invasion of Ukraine elsewhere. This statement is either meaningless,
hypocritical, or both. There is no sign that Russia wants to or indeed
could invade any other countries. As far as an attack on NATO is concerned,
the miserable performance of the Russian military in Ukraine should have
made absolutely clear that this is a fatuous chimera.
Russia’s
military presence in Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh is at the request of the
Armenians themselves, and is indeed essential to protect them against
Turkey and Azerbaijan. When it comes to combating Islamist extremism in Central
Asia and elsewhere, Russia’s interests and those of the West are in fact
aligned.
Moscow’s
original goal of overthrowing the Ukrainian government and subjugating the
whole of Ukraine failed utterly. Given the losses that the Russian military
has suffered, it seems highly unlikely that Russia can capture any more
large Ukrainian cities, let alone conquer the whole of Ukraine.
If
however what is meant by victory is Ukrainian reconquest — with Western
help — of all the areas lost to Russia and Russian-backed separatists
since 2014, then this is a recipe for perpetual war, and monstrous losses
and suffering for Ukrainians. The Ukrainian army has fought magnificently
in defense of its urban areas, but attacking entrenched Russian defensive
positions across open country would be a very different matter.
Moreover,
since Russia has annexed Crimea and the vast majority of
the Russian people believe that this is Russian national territory, no
future Russian government could possibly agree to give it up. A goal of
complete Ukrainian victory therefore does indeed imply the destruction of
the Russian state — something that Russia’s nuclear arsenal exists to
prevent.
There
is however a fatal ambiguity involved in such statements. For if what they
suggest is a U.S. commitment to help Ukraine to go on fighting until
Ukraine has reconquered all of the
territory taken by Russia since 2014, including Crimea, then this implies a
permanent war with the destruction of the Russian state as its goal; for
short of the collapse of the Russian state, no Russian government will
surrender Crimea, and for geographical reasons, no Ukrainian victory on the
ground can bring this about. Furthermore, while China has so far been
very restrained in its support for Russia over Ukraine, Beijing could not
possibly tolerate a U.S. strategy aimed at the destruction of the Russian
state and the consequent complete isolation of China.
A U.S.
strategy of using the war in Ukraine to weaken Russia is also of course
completely incompatible with the search for a ceasefire and even a
provisional peace settlement. It would require Washington to oppose any
such settlement and to keep the war going. And indeed, when in late March
the Ukrainian government put forward a very reasonable set of peace proposals, the lack of public U.S. support for
them was extremely striking.
Apart
from anything else, a Ukrainian treaty of neutrality (as proposed by
President Zelensky) is an absolutely inescapable part of any settlement —
but weakening Russia involves maintaining Ukraine as a de facto U.S. ally.
U.S. strategy as indicated by Lloyd Austin would risk Washington becoming
involved in backing Ukrainian nationalist hardliners against President
Zelensky himself.
How
long would Russia accept such a Western strategy before it decided to
escalate, in an effort to terrify the Europeans in particular into
splitting from America and seeking a peace settlement? Even if direct war
between Russia and the West could be avoided, how long would Western unity survive in these circumstances? So
far, Russian attacks aimed at interdicting Western weapons supplies have
been confined to Ukrainian territory. What would be the consequences if
they are extended to Polish territory? What if Ukraine uses Western
weaponry to launch attacks on Russia itself — as the British deputy defense
minister has (with almost insane irresponsibility) suggested?
During
the Cold War, no U.S. president ever forgot that Washington and Moscow
between them have the ability to destroy human civilization and even put an
end to the human race. For this reason, first the Truman and then the
Eisenhower administration adopted the strategy of “containing” the Soviet
Union in Europe, and not trying to “roll back” Soviet power through armed
support for anti-Soviet insurgencies in eastern Europe.
Our
leaders of today should remember this. They should also remember that where
both sides engaged in proxy warfare outside Europe, the consequences were
disastrous for themselves and still more disastrous for the wretched people
on the ground who became the pawns of these great power agendas. Have we
really learned nothing from history?
|
|
NATO’S EXPANSION (see earlier anthologies and NATO anthology #1)
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2022/05/omni-nato-anthology-1-may-20-2022.html)
EXPANSION
CONTINUES TODAY
“NATO’s northward expansion risks turning Europe into a new powder keg.”
Editor. Mronline.org (5-15-22).
"Finland must apply for NATO membership
without delay," Finland's President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna
Marin jointly announced on Thursday. A similar announcement will come from
Sweden on Sunday.
Originally published: Global Times on May 13, 2022 by Global Times (more by Global Times) | (Posted May
14, 2022)
Movements,
Strategy, WarAmericas, Europe, Finland, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine, United StatesNewswireNATO
“Finland must apply for
NATO membership without delay,” Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto and Prime
Minister Sanna Marin jointly announced on Thursday. A similar announcement will
come from Sweden on Sunday.
US SUPPORT FOR THE UKRAINIAN GOVERNMENT
US
BIPARTISANSHIP=US WAR PARTY=US MILITARISM
The Bizarre, Unanimous Democratic
Support For The $40b War Package By Glenn
Greenwald. PopularResistance.org (5-15-22). After Joe Biden
announced his extraordinary request for $33 billion more for the
war in Ukraine — on top of the $14 billion the U.S. has already spent just
ten weeks into this war — congressional leaders of both parties
immediately decided the amount was insufficient. They arbitrarily increased the
amount by $7 billion to a total of $40 billion, then fast-tracked the bill for
immediate approval. As we reported on Tuesday night, the House
overwhelmingly voted to approve the bill by a vote of 388-57. All
fifty-seven NO votes came from Republican House members. -more-
“The 16 Biggest Lies the U.S. Government Tells America About the Ukraine
War.” By Richard Ochs. CovertAction Magazine. May 18, 2022.
In any war, the first casualty is truth. Here
are the biggest lies to deconstruct when evaluating
the considerations documented in the article:
1. “Ukraine is a democracy”
2. “National sovereignty is sacred”
3. “Putin is a war criminal”
4. “The world condemns Russia’s invasion”
5. “Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons”
6. “With his back against the wall, Putin will
resort to chemical warfare, just like in Syria”
7. “Putin may resort to biological warfare”
8. “Russia is targeting civilians in Ukraine”
9. “Russia will make false-flag attacks”
10. “If Putin prevails in Ukraine, he will
attack NATO countries next”
11. “Russia is threatening nuclear power plants”
12. “Russia’s invasion threatens the whole world”
13. “The U.S. has a ‘free press’ while Russia’s
news is controlled”
14. “Russia is planning cyber attacks on the
U.S.”
15. “Russia is killing children.”
16. “Russia may use tactical nuclear weapons.”
[…]
The post The 16 Biggest Lies the U.S.
Government Tells America About the Ukraine War appeared first
on CovertAction Magazine.
|
PEACE
#21
One of the most
dispiriting aspects of hot war is its severing of so many of the peacemaking
connections that gave hope for the future. Attempts to understand what had been
thought so hateful are halted, and the nations are frozen by war. Walls that had been torn down are
rebuilt. Bridges that had been
built, or were under construction, are abandoned or even destroyed.
During the First Cold
War some people on both sides valued empathic pathways to peace. Two whom I admired most in my home
state of Arkansas were Betty Bumpers, founder of Peace Links between US
and USSR women, and J. William Fulbright, founder of the Fulbright
Exchange Program.
When the Soviet
Union collapsed the faith of Bumpers and Fulbright in the power of direct
people-to-people interaction to create peace continued in multifarious
ways. In 2020 The Nation.Travels,
for example, organized “The Changing Faces of Russia” tour to St.
Petersburg and Moscow specifically to explore the inner workings we were
not long before threatening with thousands of nuclear weapons.
Many of these
advances toward international peace are presently ditched for violence. But notall.
Jeremy
Kuzmarov. “Why Should Russia and the
United States Be Enemies When They Have a 240-Year History of
International Friendship and Support? By CovertAction
Magazine. May
07, 2022 .
April 25 marked the 77th anniversary
of the “Oath of the Elbe,” when U.S. and Russian soldiers embraced in a
historic meeting on the Elbe River in Torgau, Germany, to mark the final
end of the Third Reich and pledge mutual understanding, empathy and
peaceful relations between the U.S. and Soviet Union
Despite today’s hysterical hostility towards Russia—fomented by U.S.
corporate interests, implemented by opportunistic politicians, and
enflamed by a complicit mass media—the Russian and American people have a
long tradition of friendship and mutual support.
Long forgotten is a history of U.S.-Russian cooperation
that goes back to the era of Catherine the Great who supported the
American revolution.
Believing that the American
colonists were right, Catherine refused a request by King
George for 20,000 Russian troops to help crush the revolution. King George subsequently
tried to bribe Catherine by offering
an island of Menorca in the Mediterranean Sea in exchange for convincing
France to exit the war and thus forcing the American rebels to fight
alone. Again, however, the offer was turned down.
During the Crimean War in the 1850s, when Russia was
invaded by Britain, France and Turkey, President Franklin Pierce sent arms and munitions, as
well as engineers and doctors, to assist the Russians.
Russia returned the favor during the American Civil War
(1861-1865), when Abraham Lincoln called for Russian help because Great
Britain and France began supporting the Southern Confederacy in an
attempt to destabilize and weaken the United States.
The Russians sent the Imperial Navy’s flagship, Alexander
Nevsky, along with four other vessels into New York harbor four days
after the Union defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga as a warning for the
British and French to back off—which they did.[1]
Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles wrote in his diary afterwards:
“God Bless the Russians,” while future Supreme Court Justice Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Jr., a Union army lieutenant, wrote a song about “the
nation who was our friend when the world was our foe.”[2] […]
The post Why Should Russia and the
United States Be Enemies When They Have a 240-Year History of
International Friendship and Support? appeared first
on CovertAction Magazine.
|
|
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CONTENTS #20, CONSEQUENCES OF WAR (10): CONTROL OF
INFORMATION/CENSORSHIP. RESISTANCE:
PEACEMAKING.
Patrick
Lawrence. “The US Bubble of Pretend.”
George
Paulson. Scott Ritter and President
Poroshenko.
Glenn
Greenwald. “The Censorship Campaign
against Western Criticism of NATO….”
Evan
Reif. War of Repression against “anyone
who dares to speak against the Kyiv regime.”
Jeremy
Kuzmarov. “Ukraine Hunts Down Traitors
Helping Russia.”
Chris
Hedges. “American Commissars.”
Caitlin
Johnstone. “Pay Pal Blocks [Criticism]
of U.S.”
Margaret
Kimerley. “Obama Wants Censorship.”
Johnstone.
“Being Anti-War Isn’t Easy.”
CPNN. Russian Nobel Laureate Attacked in Russia.
Silencing Occurring Also in Russia.
PEACE (3)
Art Hobson.
“Why must we make war? The frailties of Homo sapiens.”
UN’s
Guterres
Ukraine
Pacifist Movement
Medea
Benjamin and Nicolas Davies. “This Is
How the US Could Help Bring Peace to Ukraine”
END US, NATO, RUSSIA,
UKRAINE war,
Anthology #21, 5-29-22
