OMNI
US-NATO-UKRAINE-RUSSIA
WAR ANTHOLOGY #26
October 18, 2022
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
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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.
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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
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