OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #143, SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #143, SEPTEMBER 13, 2023 

Dick Bennett.  Two Books on the US Warfare State
Dmitri Kovalevich.   “Class and Nation in the Conflict in Ukraine.” 
Chris Hedges Report.  “There Are Very Few Good Films About War.  20 Days in Mariupol is an Exception.”  

Manufacturing Consent in the Warfare State
    I am reshelving my books after a broken water pipe, and am finding books I want to read again. 
Fred Cook’s The Warfare State (1962)(Mullins UA23.C673) remains a good source of understanding the true nature of our nation—a bully in 1962 and 61 years later still a bully, including still “making verbal declarations of war on Russia.,” still “:less possible than ever before to place any kind of effective check upon the Military.”  See the chapter titles: 1. The Fateful Issue (just stated); 2. The Growth of Militarism; 3. Birth of the Cold War; 4. Madison Avenue in Uniform; 5. The Bomb That Changed the World; 6. How the Warfare State Runs; 7. No Disarmament for US; 8. The Face of the Radical Right; 9. Shelters Are to Bury You; 10.  MAD.

      One book I want to reread but cannot find at home and is not in Mullins, is one of the best books I have ever read on the implementation of US foreign policy--Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky (1988).   (I have asked for a replacement.)     It applies the authors’ “propaganda model” to the mass media of the US, which “serve to mobilize support for the special interests that dominate the state and private activity.”   Since US wars and US warming continue, Manufacturing Consent is as relevant today as it was in the 1980s. I reviewed the book warmly in Fayetteville’s Grapevine Weekly (Oct. 6, 1989).   --Dick

 

Dmitri Kovalevich.   “Class and Nation in the Conflict in Ukraine.” 
Originally published: Al Mayadeen  on June 2, 2023  (more by Al Mayadeen).   (Posted Jun 03, 2023).   Google: Al Mayadeen is an Arab Independent Media Satellite Channel.   Dmitri is a Ukrainian journalist and activist of the banned communist organization 'Borotba'.  Class, Imperialism, WarAmericas, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesNewswire

[Here are the opening and closing sentences of the article.]

Every military conflict these days has a class component; the soldiers directly involved in hostilities are usually drawn or conscripted from poorer social classes. The current conflict in Ukraine is no exception to this.

There are also differences in approaches between Ukraine and Russia to military staffing and individual freedom from military service. This difference is primarily due to the difference in the economic potential and human resources of the two countries.

[To read the entire article:   https://mronline.org/2023/06/03/class-and-nation-in-the-conflict-in-ukraine/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=class-and-nation-in-the-conflict-in-ukraine&mc_cid=5cf7e358cd&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e]

As shown by their online comments, many Russian servicemen are convinced they are fighting a proxy war against NATO and in favour of a multipolar world. They believe that when Ukraine’s forces are exhausted, NATO will throw in soldiers from Poland, Romania and other countries of Eastern Europe. Russian servicemen more often perceive their actions in Ukraine as a regular job. They don’t voice bitterness, but neither do they express much enthusiasm.

A minority of Ukrainian armed forces personnel–holding ultranationalist views– believe they are fighting to defend Europe from Asian hordes coming from Russia. But ordinary soldiers tend to view the military hostilities as a kind of fate – they were unlucky and did not have time to hide, but fate can still help them survive if they are lucky enough to find a basement to hide somewhere on the front line.

I am sure that after the cessation of hostilities, the ordinary masses of Ukrainian soldiers (not the ultranationalists) will quickly and easily find common ground again with their Russian compatriots in struggling for a better country and better world. This will not even require a long period to heal moral wounds.

ANTI-WAR DOCUMENTARY ABOUT UKRAINE WAR
“There Are Very Few Good Films About War.  20 Days in Mariupol is an Exception.”   Chris Hedges Report (July 22, 2-23).  [For the full essay click on title.] 

. . .Most feature war films and documentaries, from The Sands of Iwo Jima to Saving Private Ryan, are war pornography. They romanticize those wielding the terrible instruments of death. . . .

The documentary “20 Days in Mariupol,” a chronicle of the first 20 days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, captures what I witnessed as a war correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. It fails, as all films about war must fail, but it succeeds where few films about war succeed. It relentlessly rips back the veil on war - fatally wounded children and pregnant women torn apart by shell fragments; the frantic and doomed efforts of doctors to save them; the shrieks and lamentations of those cradling the bloodied bodies of the dead; the collapse of the social order once the fragile structures of a civil society cease to exist and looting and pillage become a way to survive. In war there are only predators and prey. . . .

The film focuses exclusively on Russian atrocities. It ignores those committed by Ukrainians. I covered enough wars to know there were some. . . .

It is not that what we see in the film is not true. Rather, it is that the film omitted what would not reflect well on Ukraine. When you depend on military units for protection and logistics you censor your reporting. If the reporters had reported on the abuses and atrocities carried out by Ukrainian units the protection they received would have been withdrawn. As much as I admire the documentary, the lie of omission is still a lie. It is the most common lie told in war. Only reporters who dare to report without embedding in military units are free to report the truth. But this is very dangerous and lonely work. This willful self-censorship is a serious flaw in the film, but it does not distract from the power of the visceral footage or the courage of the reporters.  . . .  Chris Hedges - Wikipedia