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Ukraine

How Europe Was Pushed Towards Economic Suicide

May 19, 2022 Moon of Alabama. , , , ,
As Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, wrote in early February, before Russia's intervention in Ukraine: America no longer has the monetary power and seemingly chronic trade and balance-of-payments surplus that enabled it to draw up the world’s trade and investment rules in 1944-45. The threat to U.S. dominance is that China, Russia and Mackinder’s Eurasian World Island heartland are offering better trade and investment opportunities than are available from the United States The most glaring example is the U.S. drive to block Germany from authorizing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to obtain Russian gas for the coming cold weather. Angela Merkel agreed with Donald Trump to spend $1 billion building a new LNG port to become more dependent on highly priced U.S. LNG. (The plan was cancelled after the U.S. and German elections changed both leaders.)

What Is Offensive, What Is Defensive, In The Ukraine Conflict?

May 18, 2022 Bharat Dogra, Popular Resistance. , , ,
An important aspect of debate on conflicts relates to identifying offensive and defensive forces as this has important implications for ethical aspects and the moral strength commanded by contending sides.  In the Ukraine conflict there are many complexities, but perhaps such identification can become becomes easier if we follow Prof. Richard Falk in seeing the Ukraine war in terms of not one but three wars—Russia vs. Ukraine, USA vs. Russia and Western Ukraine vs. Eastern Ukraine. If Russia vs. Ukraine war is seen to be starting from February 24 2022, then clearly Russia is in the offensive position in this war. However in the larger and for world peace the riskier war-- the  USA versus Russia conflict—the USA is clearly in the offensive for the much longer period of nearly three decades.

The New Iron Curtain

May 17, 2022 Patrick Lawrence, Consortium News. , ,
We have read a great deal about a new Cold War since the U.S. cultivated the coup of February 2014 in Ukraine and the nation was tragically divided against itself.  Some of us have ruminated in print, in this publication and elsewhere, on this emergent reality. With the back-to-back announcements that Finland and Sweden intend to apply for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Cold War II” is no longer merely a handy locution for columnists and those who pontificate on barstools. The accession of these Nordic nations to Washington’s principal instrument of power projection is assured and will be complete in very short order. This will solidify the wall Washington and its European clients insist on erecting to divide the world yet more perversely and destructively than it was for the four decades and some of Cold War I.

Live-Action Role Play In Ukraine

May 16, 2022 Scott Ritter, Consortium News. , ,
It was — literally — a made-for-television moment. A former U.S. Navy chief petty officer turned cable news pundit, dressed in a fresh out-of-the-box camouflage uniform replete with body armor and magazine pouches, wearing matching camouflage helmet and gloves, and cradling an automatic rifle, stared into the camera and announced “I am here to help this country [Ukraine] fight what is essentially a war of extermination.” With a Ukrainian flag on his left shoulder, and a U.S. flag emblazoned on his body armor, the man, Malcolm Nance, declared that “This is an existential war, and Russia has brought it to these people and is mass murdering civilians.” A day before, Nance had tweeted a black-and-white photograph of himself, similarly clad, announcing “I’m DONE talking.”

It Is Foolish For Finland And Sweden To Join NATO

May 15, 2022 Jan Oberg, The Transnational. , , , , , ,
Here’s what the West is intellectually unable – in the midst of its boundlessly self-righteous, militarist mood to see: NATO’s expansion policy created – and is responsible for – the conflict. Russia created – and is responsible for – the war. There exists no violence which is not rooted in underlying conflicts. Conflict and peace literate people, therefore, talk about both. And if they want peace, they do not increase the symptoms – the war – they address the real cause, the conflict and ask the conflicting parties to tell what they fear and what they want and then move, step-by-step towards a sustainable solution. But neither the mainstream media nor politicians have the civil courage to address the conflict. It’s only about the war and only about Russia/Putin who must be punished, no matter the price to be paid by future generations. If we survive.

The Chris Hedges Report: Ukraine And The Resurgence Of American Militarism

May 14, 2022 Chris Hedges, The Real News Network. , , ,
The war in Ukraine, stoked in part by NATO expansion and the violation of promises made to Moscow at the end of the Cold War, now looks set to become a lengthy war of attrition—one funded and backed by the United States. What will be the consequences of the United States’s commitment to long-term conflict, and where will we be when the war finally ends? Andrew Bacevich explains in this interview how the end of the Cold War triggered a new bout of American military interventionism that has now spanned decades. Moreover, as Bacevich argues, if the fighting in Ukraine ceases without a geopolitical plan for peaceably bringing Russia back into the community of nations, we risk setting the world stage for even greater conflict. Andrew Bacevich is a West Point graduate, retired Army Colonel, and Vietnam war veteran.

The Bizarre, Unanimous Democratic Support For The $40b War Package

May 14, 2022 Glenn Greenwald. , , , , ,
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. Except for two missing members, all House Democrats — every last one, including all six members of the revolutionary, subversive Squad — voted for this gigantic war package, one of the largest the U.S. has spent at once in decades.

Advancing Interconnected Solutions To The Food, Energy And Finance Crises

May 14, 2022 Shiney Varghese, Resilience. , , ,
The governing body of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) met in Rome on April 8, 2022 in an Extraordinary Session to examine the “impact of the Ukraine-Russia conflict on global food security and related matters under its mandate” and advise on how it should proceed. Meanwhile, just two days earlier, the Civil Society and Indigenous People Mechanism (CSIPM) at U.N. Committee on World Food Security (CFS) called for an Extraordinary Plenary Session of the CFS. We must consider these developments along with a new initiative from the U.N. and against the background of the FAO’s global food prices index reaching its highest level ever.

NY Times Shifts Prowar Narrative, Documents Failure Of US In Ukraine

May 14, 2022 John V. Walsh, Popular Resistance. , , ,
The New York Times has a job to do – and it has done that job spectacularly well over the past few months.  The Times is a leader, in the opinion of this writer, the leader in spelling out the US narrative on the war in Ukraine, a tale designed to keep up morale, give the war a high moral purpose and justify the untold billions pouring from the taxpayers’ pockets into Joe Biden’s proxy war on Russia. Day in and day out in page after page of word and picture it has been instructing one and all, including politicians and lower level opinion shapers, exactly what to think about the war in Ukraine. So, when the Times says that things are not going well for the US and its man in Kiev, Volodymyr Zelensky, it is a man bites dog kind of story.  It tells us that some truths have gone from uncomfortable to undeniable. 

A Manufactured Crisis In Ukraine Is Victimizing The World’s Peoples

May 13, 2022 U.S. Peace Council. , , , ,
With the conflict in Ukraine entering its third month, the likelihood of a successfully negotiated peace — an immediate necessity — is becoming ever more remote. This proxy war by the United States is designed to use the Ukrainian people to mortally disable Russia. Those who profit from war benefit, while those most vulnerable suffer: Ukrainian civilians, but more broadly working people internationally and especially in the Global South. It was expected that the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 would put an end to the first Cold War and the threat of world nuclear annihilation. Instead, the world’s remaining superpower continued its imperialist quest of global “full spectrum dominance” to prevent the emergence of “any potential future global competitor.

Rand Paul Blocks Senate Vote On $40 Billion Ukraine Aid

May 13, 2022 Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com. , , , ,
On Thursday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) blocked an effort in the Senate to hold a quick vote on the nearly $40 billion aid package for Ukraine that passed in the House on Tuesday. “My oath of office is to the US constitution not to any foreign nation and no matter how sympathetic the cause, my oath of office is to the national security of the United States of America,” Paul said on the Senate floor before blocking the vote. “We cannot save Ukraine by dooming the US economy.” Paul blocked the vote because he wanted to include text in the bill that would create a special inspector general for oversight of the billions being sent to Ukraine. He initially offered to include the oversight as an amendment, which would have been voted on separately, but he ultimately wanted to change the legislation.

To Honor Odessa Anti-Fascists, Stop Weapons To Ukraine

May 13, 2022 John Parker, Black Agenda Report. , , , , , ,
Now more than ever, we must raise the reality of the nature of the Ukrainian government, to alert our class to the danger of U.S.-led NATO expansion, the greatest danger to humanity today. The massacre at the Odessa House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014, was a war crime by proxy, with Nazi and other fascist gangsters following the script written for them by U.S. imperialism before 2014. But instead of being tried in the International Criminal Court – because they were doing the bidding of U.S. and European imperialists – they received the de facto immunity for war crimes enjoyed by all U.S. forces committing murder and genocide spread across the globe.

Info-Warrior Malcolm Nance

May 11, 2022 John Kiriakou, Consortium News. , , ,
Malcolm Nance, the MSNBC talking head who bills himself as an “intelligence professional,” recently quit his media gig, signed on to the so-called International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine and left to battle the Russians.  At least that’s what he wants all of us to think.  There are so many things wrong with this story that I don’t know where to begin.  So, I guess the best place to begin is at the beginning. I met Malcolm Nance in the spring of 2001.  I had returned from an overseas assignment as a C.I.A. counterterrorism officer to take a course called “advanced counterterrorism operations.”  As part of the class, the participants were given about a dozen books related to the latest thinking on terrorism and how to combat it.

Ukraine: Why The War Started And Failed Attempts On Snake Island

May 11, 2022 Moon of Alabama. , , ,
Ukraine started the war on Wednesday, February 16 2022, when its forces near the Donbas republics began preparatory artillery strikes for an all out ground attack on the Donbas republics. The February 15 report of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine recorded some 41 explosions in the ceasefire areas. This increased to 76 explosions on Feb 16, 316 on Feb 17, 654 on Feb 18, 1413 on Feb 19, a total of 2026 of Feb 20 and 21 and 1484 on Feb 22. The OSCE mission reports showed that the great majority of impact explosions of the artillery were on the separatist side of the ceasefire line. On February 19 the Ukrainian President Zelensky announced at the Munich Security Conference that the Ukraine would ditch the Budapest memorandum and all related agreements.

Biden Signs Bill Reviving World War II-Era Lend-Lease Program To Ukraine

May 11, 2022 Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com. , , , ,
President Biden on Monday signed a bill into law reviving the World War II-era lend-lease program for Ukraine, paving the way for an escalation in US military aid to Kyiv. The Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022 allows Biden to send weapons to Ukraine free of charge while technically requiring payment at a later date. Under the lend-lease act during World War II, the US sent billions of dollars in weapons to the Soviet Union, China, Britain, and other allies. The legislation received massive bipartisan support in Congress, passing by voice vote in the Senate and by a vote of 417-10 in the House, with only Republicans voting against the bill.
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