The Road to Nuclear Armageddon
By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. | June 16, 2022
Ladies and gentlemen, we face a grave danger. The leader of a major European power wants to make territorial revisions. He is surrounded by hostile powers who threaten him. He does not seek war with other countries but if the hostile powers continue to encircle him, he will fight. A European war looms.
You probably think I’m talking about the current crisis between Russia and the Ukraine, but I’m not. I’m talking about Europe just before World War II began in September 1939. At that time, Hitler wanted small territorial revisions with its Polish neighbor. East Prussia was cut off from the rest of Germany by a band of territory called the Polish Corridor.
As the great British historian A.J. P. Taylor explains,
“The losses of territory to Poland were, for most Germans, the indelible grievance against Versailles. Hitler undertook a daring operation over this grievance when he planned co-operation with Poland. But there was a way out. The actual Germans under Polish rule might be forgotten—or withdrawn; what could not be forgiven was the ‘Polish corridor’ which divided East Prussia from the Reich. Here, too, there was a possible compromise. Germany might be satisfied with a corridor across the corridor—a complicated idea for which there were however many precedents in German history. German feeling could be appeased by the recovery of Danzig. This seemed easy. Danzig was not part of Poland. It was a Free City, with its own autonomous administration under a High Commissioner, appointed by the League of Nations. The Poles themselves, in their false pride as a Great Power, had taken the lead in challenging the League’s authority. Surely, therefore, they would not object if Germany took the League’s place. Moreover, the problem had changed since 1919. Then the port of Danzig had been essential to Poland. Now, with the creation of Gdynia by the Poles, Danzig needed Poland more than the Poles needed Danzig. It should then be easy to arrange for the safeguarding of Poland’s economic interests, and yet to recover Danzig for the Reich.”
The British responded by guaranteeing Poland’s western boundary against Germany. They also issued a guarantee to Romania, even though there had been no threat to that country. As a result of the guarantee, Poland refused to negotiate with Germany. War broke out, and Poland was destroyed. The great Murray Rothbard tells us what happened:
“And as a direct result, Poland was destroyed. Hitler’s ‘demands’ on the Poles were almost non-existent; as Taylor points out, the Weimar Republic would have scorned the terms as a sell-out of vital German interests. Hitler at most wanted a ‘corridor through the Corridor’ and the return of heavily-German (and pro-German) Danzig; in return for which he would guarantee the rest. Poland resolutely refused to yield’ one inch of Polish soil,’ and refused even to negotiate with the Germans, and this down to the last minute.”
Murray draws an important lesson from what happened then. This lesson provides the key to keeping us out of a nuclear war today. And of course a nuclear war would destroy the world. Here is what Murray says:
“[Polish Foreign Minister Józef] Beck clearly knew that Britain and France could not actually save Poland from attack. He relied to the end on those great shibboleths of all ‘hard-liners’ and other ‘crackpot realists’ everywhere: X is ‘bluffing’; X will back down if met by toughness, resolution, and the resolve not to give an inch. (Just as in the case of Finland, when the ‘X is bluffing’ line of the hard-liners is shown to be sheer absurdity, and X has already attacked, the ‘hard-liner’ turns, self-contradictorily, to the dictum that not ‘one inch of sacred soil’ will be given up, no peace while the enemy is on our soil, etc., which completes the ruin of the country by its ‘hard-line’ rulers. This is what Beck did to Poland.) As Taylor shows, Hitler had originally not the slightest intention to invade or conquer Poland; instead, Danzig and other minor rectifications would be gotten out of the way, and then Poland would be a comfortable ally, perhaps for an eventual invasion of Soviet Russia. But Beck’s irrational toughness blocked the path.”
Now we have the background we need to understand what’s going on today. Russia is surrounded by a hostile NATO alliance. The propagandists for brain-dead Biden like to say that Putin had Ukraine surrounded. But in fact, the US and its NATO satellites had Russia surrounded. In the years before the current crisis, we had ample opportunity to reach a compromise settlement. Instead, we kept the option of membership in NATO open to Ukraine and overthrew a Ukrainian President who was pro-Russian. At the Kremlin. . . in a speech in November 2021] Putin drew his red line:
‘The threat on our western borders is … rising, as we have said multiple times. … In our dialogue with the United States and its allies, we will insist on developing concrete agreements prohibiting any further eastward expansion of NATO and the placement there of weapons systems in the immediate vicinity of Russian territory.’
A story in The New York Times exposes what brain-dead Biden and the gang of neo-cons that controls him have in store for us. According to an item that was published April 26,
“When Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III declared Monday at the end of a stealth visit to Ukraine that America’s goal is to see Russia so ‘weakened’ that it would no longer have the power to invade a neighboring state, he was acknowledging a transformation of the conflict, from a battle over control of Ukraine to one that pits Washington more directly against Moscow. . . in word and deed, the United States has been gradually pushing in the direction of undercutting the Russian military.
It has imposed sanctions that were explicitly designed to stop Russia’s military from developing and manufacturing new weapons. It has worked — with mixed success — to cut off the oil and gas revenues that drive its war machine. . . over the longer term, Mr. Austin’s description of America’s strategic goal is bound to reinforce President Vladimir V. Putin’s oft-stated belief that the war is really about the West’s desire to choke off Russian power and destabilize his government. And by casting the American goal as a weakened Russian military, Mr. Austin and others in the Biden administration are becoming more explicit about the future they see: years of continuous contest for power and influence with Moscow that in some ways resembles what President John F. Kennedy termed the ‘long twilight struggle’ of the Cold War.
Mr. Austin’s comments, bolstered by statements by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken about the various ways in which Mr. Putin has ‘already lost’ in the struggle over Ukraine, reflect a decision made by the Biden administration and its closest allies, several officials said on Monday, to talk more openly and optimistically about the possibility of Ukrainian victory in the next few months as the battle moves to the Russian-speaking south and east, where Mr. Putin’s military should, in theory, have an advantage.
At a moment when American intelligence officials are reporting that Mr. Putin thinks he is winning the war, the strategy is to drive home the narrative that Russia’s military adventure will be ruinous, and that it is a conflict Mr. Putin cannot afford to sustain.”
Let’s make sure we understand this. Critics of US policy have pointed out for a long time that America has surrounded Russia with nuclear bases. It helped overthrow a pro-Russian government in the Ukraine. Naturally, this made Putin nervous. He does not want an invasion of Russia through the Ukraine, as happened in World War II, when Russia lost millions of lives. Now, the brain dead Biden gang of neocons is saying to Putin, “You are exactly right! We do want to degrade Russia to a minor power and use the Ukraine as a base for attack!”
Nothing could be more certain to lead to nuclear disaster. The Russians warn us about this A story in The Guardian says:
“Russia’s foreign minister has accused Nato of fighting a proxy war by supplying military aid to Ukraine, as defence ministers gathered in Germany for US-hosted talks on supporting Ukraine through what one US general called a ‘very critical’ few weeks.
Sergei Lavrov told Russian state media: ‘Nato, in essence, is engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy. War means war.’
He also warned that the risks of nuclear conflict were now ‘considerable’. . . When asked about the importance of avoiding a third world war, Lavrov said: ‘I would not want to elevate those risks artificially. Many would like that. The danger is serious, real. And we must not underestimate it.’”
If it weren’t for the US arms shipments to the Ukraine, Russia and the Ukraine would quickly arrange a settlement that would protect Russia’s security interests. Those in control know this, but they don’t want a peaceful settlement along these lines. They want to rule the world. They don’t want countries that reject US supremacy to have a role in the world.
“Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told CNN’s Jim Sciutto on Tuesday that the entire ‘global international security order’ put in place after World War II is at stake if Russia gets away ‘cost-free’ following its invasion of Ukraine. . . ‘What’s at stake is the global international security order that was put in place in 1945. That international order has lasted 78 years. . . Milley’s warning about the potential global implications of Russia’s actions in Ukraine also underscores the current sense of urgency felt by the US and its allies as the war enters what they say is a critical juncture… Shortly after Milley’s interview, [Defense Secretary] Austin also stressed the importance of moving quickly to provide Ukraine with the military aid it needs, saying during a news conference that the US and other allies and partners ‘don’t have any time to waste’ when it comes to providing crucial assistance to counter Russia as their invasion continues.
‘We don’t have any time to waste. The briefings today laid out clearly why the coming weeks will be so crucial for Ukraine, so we’ve got to move at the speed of war. . . Austin also said that he thought Ukraine ‘will seek to once again apply to become a member of NATO in the future.’”
Is there anything we can do to de-escalate the situation? The greatest Congressman in American history, Dr. Ron Paul, whom we are here today to honor, has the answer. America should end its encirclement of Russia and disband NATO. Let’s look at his vital message to us:
“When the Bush Administration announced in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia would be eligible for NATO membership, I knew it was a terrible idea. Nearly two decades after the end of both the Warsaw Pact and the Cold War, expanding NATO made no sense. NATO itself made no sense.
Explaining my ‘no’ vote on a bill to endorse the expansion, I said at the time:
NATO is an organization whose purpose ended with the end of its Warsaw Pact adversary… This current round of NATO expansion is a political reward to governments in Georgia and Ukraine that came to power as a result of US-supported revolutions, the so-called Orange Revolution and Rose Revolution.
Providing US military guarantees to Ukraine and Georgia can only further strain our military. This NATO expansion may well involve the US military in conflicts unrelated to our national interest…
Unfortunately,. . . , my fears have come true. One does not need to approve of Russia’s military actions to analyze its stated motivation: NATO membership for Ukraine was a red line it was not willing to see crossed. As we find ourselves at risk of a terrible escalation, we should remind ourselves that it didn’t have to happen this way. There was no advantage to the United States to expand and threaten to expand NATO to Russia’s doorstep. There is no way to argue that we are any safer for it.
NATO itself was a huge mistake. . . I believe as strongly today as I did back in my 2008 House Floor speech that, ‘NATO should be disbanded, not expanded.’ In the meantime, expansion should be off the table. The risks do not outweigh the benefits!”
The saddest part of this whole manufactured crisis is that it should make absolutely no difference to us whether Russia controls Ukraine. How is that a threat to the United States? Whatever Biden and his neocon advisers say, America should stay out of conflicts that are none of our business. As usual, Murray Rothbard put it best. “In the context of the 1980 Afghan war, he quoted Canon Sydney Smith – a great classical liberal in early 19th century England who wrote to his warmongering Prime Minister, thus:
“For God’s sake, do not drag me into another war!
I am worn down, and worn out, with crusading and defending Europe, and protecting mankind; I must think a little of myself.
I am sorry for the Spaniards – I am sorry for the Greeks – I deplore the fate of the Jews; the people of the Sandwich Islands are groaning under the most detestable tyranny; Baghdad is oppressed, I do not like the present state of the Delta; Tibet is not comfortable. Am I to fight for all these people?
The world is bursting with sin and sorrow. Am I to be champion of the Decalogue, and to be eternally raising fleets and armies to make all men good and happy?
We have just done saving Europe, and I am afraid the consequence will be, that we shall cut each other’s throats. No war, dear Lady Grey! – No eloquence; but apathy, selfishness, common sense, arithmetic!”
The same people who imposed Covid-tyranny on us now want us to risk war with Russia. Let’s stop them before it’s too late.
Western media and politicians prefer to ignore the truth about civilians killed in Donetsk shelling
Remnants of the Uragan MLRS rocket which struck the Donetsk maternity hospital June 13. © Eva Bartlett / RT
By Eva Bartlett | Samizdat | June 16, 2022
Following intense Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk on June 13, some Western media sources, in tandem with outlets in Kiev, unsurprisingly claimed that the attack – which killed at least five civilians and struck a busy maternity hospital – was perpetrated by Russian forces.
Why Moscow would launch rockets at its own allies wasn’t explained, nor would it make much sense.
The Donetsk People’s Republic’s foreign ministry reported: “Such an unprecedented. in terms of power, density and duration of fire, raid on the DPR capital was not recorded during the entire period of the armed conflict [since 2014]. In two hours, almost 300 MLRS rockets and artillery shells were fired.”
The Ukrainian shelling began late morning, resumed in the afternoon, and continued for another two hours in the evening, a deafening series of blasts throughout the city, terrorizing residents and targeting apartment buildings, civilian infrastructure, the aforementioned hospital, and industrial buildings.
Locals say this was some of the heaviest bombing of Donetsk since 2014, when the eponymous region declared its independence from post-Maidan Kiev.
In the Budyonnovsky district in the south of the city, Ukrainian shelling of a market killed five civilians including one child. Just two months ago, Kiev’s forces hit another Donetsk market, leaving five civilians dead.
In the hard-hit Kievskiy district, to the north, the shelling caused fires at a water bottling plant and a warehouse for stationery, destroying it. The building was still in flames when journalist Roman Kosarev and I arrived about an hour after the attack. Apartment buildings in the area also came under firer, leaving doors and windows blown out and cars destroyed.
The destroyed gas station was on a street where I stayed in April, which is completely residential.
DPR head Denis Pushilin said, “The enemy literally crossed all the lines. Prohibited methods of warfare are being used, residential and central districts of Donetsk are being shelled, other cities and settlements of the DPR are also under fire now.”
Hypocritical silence after maternity hospital shelling
In a world where media reported honestly instead of manufacturing its own reality, there would be outrage over Ukraine’s attack on the Donetsk maternity hospital. But history shows that is not a world we live in.
As I wrote last year, Western media and talking heads also diligently avoided condemnation when terrorists attacked or destroyed Syrian hospitals, including the shelling of a maternity hospital in Aleppo, which killed three women.
At the damaged Donetsk hospital, I saw the gaping hole in the roof and remnants of the Uragan MLRS rocket which struck it. Most of the windows of both buildings were blown out.
Images shared on Twitter noted, “Both gynecology and intensive care have been bombed.” Other footage, taken by Donetsk war correspondent Dmitri Ashtrakhan, showed dozens of women, some heavily pregnant, taking shelter in the basement of the shelled maternity hospital.
Were these women and this hospital in Kiev, you can bet Western media would be loudly reporting it 24/7 for weeks. Instead, just as the West has steadfastly ignored Ukraine’s eight years of war on Donbass, they also omit reporting on the hospital.
Grotesquely, some Ukrainian and Western media instead disingenuously reported that it was a Russian attack, not Ukrainian, which terrorized, injured and killed civilians on June 13.
Just as Western media’s lack of reporting, or twisting of the narrative, on Ukraine’s shelling was to be expected, so too was the UN’s weak-worded condemnation, with the Spokesman for the Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, calling it “extremely troubling.” You can bet that were the situation reversed and Russia responsible for bombing a Ukrainian maternity hospital, his words would have been far stronger.
In fact, they already have been: Three months ago, when Kiev accused Russia of an attack on a maternity hospital, in Mariupol.
Back then, the Guterres emphatically tweeted, “Today’s attack on a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, where maternity & children’s wards are located, is horrific. Civilians are paying the highest price for a war that has nothing to do with them. This senseless violence must stop. End the bloodshed now.”
A strong reaction to what later emerged to be a hoax claim, when the UN itself even admitted it could not verify the story. But a mild reaction to a documented reality in Donetsk.
The UN did, at least, rightly note the attack on the Donetsk maternity hospital was, “an obvious breach of the international humanitarian law.” So there’s that.
The thing is, Ukraine has violated international law for its eight years of waging war on the Donbass republics, using prohibited heavy weapons and targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. This is only the latest incident.
Tears flow for hoax hospital bombing
In March, Western corporate-owned media supported Kiev’s claim that Russia had launched air strikes on a Mariupol maternity hospital, claiming three civilians had been killed. At the time, as reported, “The White House condemned the ‘barbaric’ use of force against innocent civilians, and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted that ‘there are few things more depraved than targeting the vulnerable and defenceless’.”
As it turned out, witnesses reported there hadn’t been any air strike. There were explosions: just as terrorists bombed an Aleppo home in 2016 and used a mildly injured boy for their propaganda against Syria and Russia, so too did Ukrainian forces in Mariupol, setting the stage to incriminate Moscow.
Russia called the accusations “a completely staged provocation,” analyzing photos from the area and noting “evidence of two separate staged explosions near the hospital: An underground explosion and another of minor power, aimed at the hospital building,” and further noting that a “high-explosive aviation bomb would destroy the outer walls of the building.”
Russia also pointed out that the facility had stopped working when Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion expelled staff in late February and militarized the hospital, as Ukrainian forces did elsewhere in Donbass.
Marianna Vyshemirskaya, one of the women featured in the Western propaganda around the hospital, later spoke out and said there was no air strike, and that prior to the alleged event, Ukrainian soldiers expelled all the doctors and moved pregnant women to another building.
She also maintained that she and other women were filmed without warning by an Associated Press journalist dressed in a military uniform and wearing a helmet.
Even now, two days after Ukraine’s intense bombardment of Donetsk and targeting of the maternity hospital, when still more testimonies have emerged, Western media and politicians remain silent.
The suffering, and deaths, of the people of Donetsk doesn’t fit the Western narrative, so they misreport it or simply just don’t reference it at all, enabling Ukraine to continue to commit war crimes.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
Turkey & Russia Suggest Path for Grain Ships to Access Ukrainian Ports
By Kyle Anzalone and Will Porter | The Libertarian Institute | June 16, 2022
Ankara and Moscow have put forward potential solutions to reopen Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, with Russia offering safe passage to ships while Turkey said it could help guide vessels around Ukrainian naval mines deployed to stall the Russian advance.
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters on Wednesday that the Kremlin is open to creating a “safe passage” for grain shipments, but said Moscow could not guarantee a route that would be free of mines
“We are not responsible for establishing safe corridors. We said we could provide safe passage if these corridors are established,” he said. “It’s obvious it’s either de-mine the territory, which was mined by the Ukrainians, or ensure that the passage goes around those mines.”
While Turkey has said it would “take some time” to clear away the munitions, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu suggested safe corridors could be found in some Ukrainian ports, presenting the offer as a short-term solution.
“Since the location of the mines is known, certain safe lines would be established at three ports,” the FM said earlier on Wednesday, adding that ships could “come and go safely to ports without a need to clear the mines.”
Cavusoglu went on to say that Ankara has not received a response from the Kremlin on the proposal, but is currently working with the United Nations on a plan. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric confirmed that discussions were underway, though noted that an agreement from both Ukraine and Russia would be needed to move forward.
Turkey’s National Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, meanwhile, told TRT that the three nations recently created an “emergency communication mechanism” to resolve the problem and reopen Ukraine’s ports, but it’s not yet clear whether any progress had been made in negotiations. Last Sunday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also announced that he plans to hold a three-way dialogue on the issue with his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts sometime in the coming weeks, after Ankara hosted several rounds of lower-level peace talks.
Kiev, however, has signaled that it will not accept the Russian or Turkish proposals. Speaking at an event in Washington on Wednesday, David Arakhamia, a lawmaker and the head of Ukraine’s negotiation team, said “Our military people are against [de-mining the ports], so that’s why we have very, very limited optimism for this model.”
The UN has warned that the disruption of grain exports from Ukraine could have a massive impact on global food supplies. Together, Moscow and Kiev provide up to 40% of Eastern Europe’s grain purchases, and make up an even greater part of some countries’ total imports.
While Ukrainian and American officials have repeatedly blamed Russia for the shortages, Moscow has rejected the charge, instead pinning the scarcities on US sanctions and the explosives still deployed at key Ukrainian seaports. The Kremlin previously offered to help establish a safe route for shipping vessels in exchange for sanctions relief, but Washington refused to take up the deal.
The US and its Western partners have attempted to cripple the Russian economy through heavy sanctions in response to the invasion, some pledging outright embargoes on the country’s energy exports. While the penalties initially sent the ruble tumbling, it has since made a significant comeback and is now among the best performing currencies against the dollar in 2022. Meanwhile, the White House is now quietly pushing US shipping companies to do business with Russian fertilizer suppliers.
The conflict raging in Eastern Europe has not severed all business ties between Moscow and Kiev, as Ukraine’s state-run Naftogaz has continued to work with its Russian equivalent, Gazprom. Though the two firms have reportedly done hundreds of millions of dollars in trade since the war kicked off in February, the shaky truce could soon fracture, as Naftogaz is now pursuing a lawsuit against Gazprom for alleged underpayment.
Mexico President Slams “Immoral” NATO Proxy War in Ukraine
By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | June 13, 2022
The president of Mexico has condemned NATO’s approach to the war in Ukraine – labelling it “immoral.”
“How easy it is to say, ‘Here, I’ll send you this much money for weapons.’ Couldn’t the war in Ukraine have been avoided? Of course it could,” said President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
López Obrador didn’t elaborate on how, but fair to say a peaceful resolution would have centered on the negotiation of:
- Some form of independence for the eastern Ukraine provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk
- A Ukraine government pledge that it will not join NATO
- Ukraine’s recognition that Crimea is now part of Russia
The increasingly dismal prospects for Ukraine’s military now seem to point to a negotiated end to the war that embraces those same three elements, but perhaps with Donetsk and Luhansk—which together comprise the Donbas region—joining Russia outright.
Though we’re likely to end at the same position—or worse, from a Western view—the Biden White House and NATO member countries were content to first wage a weapon-industry-enriching proxy war that took a terrible human toll on Ukraine, paired with economic warfare that’s causing despair and hunger for people in the United States, Europe and around the world.
U.S.-NATO policy is tantamount to saying, “I’ll supply the weapons, and you supply the dead,” said López Obrador. “It is immoral.”
His comments come as Russian forces continue to strengthen their position in the Donbas, while having already secured a “land bridge” of territory connecting Russia to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
The remarks were López Obrador’s second display of independence from Washington in recent days. Last week, he refused to attend the U.S.-hosted Summit of the Americas, in protest of Biden’s exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Explaining his refusal, López Obrador said, “I believe in the need to change the policy that has been imposed or centuries, the exclusion, the desire to dominate… the lack of respect for the sovereignty of the countries, the independence of every country.”
Mexico voted for a U.N. resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but López Obrador has otherwise proclaimed, “Our posture is neutrality.”
López Obrador is a member of the Morena party. A month after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, six Morena members were among a group of Mexican legislators who launched a “Mexico-Russia Friendship Committee,” which applauded Russian Ambassador Viktor Koronelli when he addressed the group in March.
“For us this is a sign of support, of friendship, of solidarity in these complicated times in which my country is not just facing a special military operation in Ukraine, but a tremendous media war,” Koronelli said. “Russia didn’t start this war, it is finishing it.”
Diplomat slams media silence on Ukrainian shelling of maternity hospital
Samizdat | June 14, 2022
Deputy head of Russia’s mission to the UN Dmitry Polyansky has criticized the Western media for its unwillingness to condemn the shelling of a maternity hospital in Donetsk by Ukraine.
“Where is Western media reaction?” Polyansky asked in a tweet on Tuesday. “All those BBC, Reuters, AFP, who were shouting about damage to [a] maternity hospital in Mariupol used by Ukrainian nationalists as a firing position?”
Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) officials reported that Kiev’s forces recently stepped up their indiscriminate shelling of Donetsk. On Monday, five people were killed and almost 40 others injured as several areas of the city, including a market, came under fire.
At least one of the shells hit a maternity hospital, damaging the building and shattering its windows. Fatalities and injuries were avoided due to the fact that patients and staff had taken shelter in the basement, according to DPR officials.
“Ukraine is deliberately targeting civilians. Will we hear a word of condemnation?” the Russian diplomat wrote.
He also shared a video of a reporter showing the damage done to the maternity hospital and patients hiding in the basement.
In an earlier tweet, Polyansky stressed that there were no military units in the areas that Ukraine shelled. “The West is fully responsible for these crimes” as Donetsk is being struck with NATO shells that were recently provided to Kiev by its foreign backers, he wrote.
Ukraine’s attack on the maternity hospital in Donetsk has been largely ignored by the Western media, but Reuters did dedicate a few lines to the incident in its report on Monday.
“Russian news agencies later reported that a shell had fallen on a maternity hospital in the city of Donetsk, triggering a fire and prompting staff to send patients into the basement. There was no independent confirmation of any of the attacks and Reuters could not ascertain whether they had taken place,” the agency wrote.
However, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that Russia struck a maternity hospital in Mariupol on March 9, the story made headlines in most major Western media outlets. Three people, including a child, were killed in the incident, local authorities said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has denied targeting the medical facility at all, suggesting the whole thing had been staged by the Ukrainians, who detonated explosives on the ground. The authenticity of the photos presented by Kiev as proof of the claimed Russian attack has also been questioned by many online.
Marianna Vyshemirskaya, one of the pregnant women featured in the images that appeared on the front pages of many major outlets, later claimed that there had been no Russian airstrike on the hospital. She insisted that she told AP journalists about it, but they decided not to mention it in their reporting.
Vyshemirskaya, who was evacuated to the DPR from Mariupol and has since become a mother, also said her photos had been distributed without her consent.
Pentagon-NATO Blowback in Nicaragua?
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | June 13, 2022
In what is obviously a tit-for-tat response to the Pentagon’s role in ginning up the Russia-Ukraine war, Nicaraguan officials have announced that they have invited Russian troops to visit the country for “humanitarian”and “training” purposes. They are saying that the visit will be “routine,” but there is actually nothing routine about it.
It will be fascinating to see how the Pentagon and its loyal supporters within the mainstream press respond to the announcement. So far, there have been no Pentagon reaction and no mainstream press editorials or op-eds coming to the defense of Nicaragua’s “right” to enter into a military alliance with Russia.
Don’t forget, after all, that that is the root cause of the crisis in Ukraine — the “right” of Ukraine to join NATO, the old Cold War dinosaur. If NATO ends up absorbing Ukraine, the Pentagon will be able to fulfill its longtime aim of installing nuclear missiles pointed at Russia’s cities along Russia’s border with Ukraine.
For its part, Russia has long made it clear that this was a “red line” that it would not permit to be crossed, just as U.S. officials refused to permit Soviet nuclear missiles to be installed in Cuba in 1962. That’s what precipitated Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — the attempt to establish Russia’s control over the Ukrainian regime in order to prevent the Pentagon from fulfilling its longtime aim through NATO to install nuclear missiles along Russia’s border.
The U.S. mainstream press, which oftentimes acts like an American Pravda, has been vociferous in its defense of Ukraine’s “right” to join NATO. It’s an independent country, they have repeatedly pointed out, and, therefore, it has the “right” to join any military alliance it wants.
Okay, fair enough. But then what about Nicaragua? Isn’t it just as independent as Ukraine? Given such, why doesn’t it have the same “right” to enter into a military alliance with Russia or, for that matter, China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, or Vietnam?
Why are the Pentagon and its mainstream press acolytes remaining quiet about those questions?
Wouldn’t it be darkly ironic if the Pentagon’s NATO machinations with Ukraine ended up producing blowback in the form of a permanent Russian military base in Nicaragua? Wouldn’t it be darkly ironic if Russia accepted an invitation from Nicaragua to establish nuclear missiles in Nicaragua?
What then would be the response of the Pentagon and its mainstream-press acolytes? Would they opine that while Ukraine has the “right” to join NATO, which would enable the Pentagon to install its nuclear missiles on Russia’s border, Nicaragua has no “right” to enter into a similar military alliance with Russia (or China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, or Vietnam)? If they were to take that position, would not their evil NATO machinations and hypocritical two-faced policies be on open display for all the world to witness?
Of course, none of this had to be. If the old, rotten Cold War dinosaur NATO had been dismantled at the end of the Cold War, which it should have been, the Pentagon could not have used it to engage in its Cold War machinations that ultimately have led to the deadly and destructive Russia-Ukraine war.
And now we are witnessing blowback from the Pentagon’s NATO machinations in the form of a possible Russia military base in Nicaragua or, even worse, another Cold War crisis similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
As I point out in my new book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, President Kennedy was able to circumvent and nullify the Pentagon’s Cold War machinations during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and everyone in both Russia and the United States was better off for it. Unfortunately, however, as everyone knows, President Biden is no John Kennedy, and therefore, it is impossible to predict how this latest crisis will be resolved.
Purchase An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story at Amazon: $9.95 Kindle version; $14.95 print version.
After Touting Military Resolution of Ukrainian Crisis, EU’s Borrell Now Wants Dialogue With Moscow
Samizdat – 13.06.2022
“This war will be won on the battlefield”, European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell said in April while announcing an additional 500 million euros in EU military assistance to Kiev. In May, the diplomat complained that the bloc had run out of hardware to provide Ukraine and urged the EU to boost its defence capabilities.
Russia and the EU are bound by the confines of geography and must coexist and talk to one another, the EU’s foreign affairs chief has indicated.
“Russia will continue to exist after peace negotiations, and it is necessary to define clearly how we intend to coexist with the country. It will be very difficult after what Russia has done in Ukraine… but we still have to try to coexist with the Russians on this continent”, Borrell said in an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche.
The diplomat assured that the channels of communication with Russia “were never closed”, pointing to Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s recent visit to Moscow, African Union Chairman Macky Sall’s trip to Sochi, and visits of United Nations envoys to Russia to discuss Ukraine’s grains exports. “We must continue to talk with Russia”, Borrell emphasised.
Asked about the fate of EU weapons aid to Ukraine, and whether they were achieving the results on the ground that Brussels was hoping for, Borrell characterised the arms deliveries as “war, not a picnic on the grass”, and that Russia was bombing the convoys. He admitted that over the past 100 days, the EU “used a lot of our capabilities in service of Ukraine and it is imperative that our stocks be renewed”.
Asked whether Brussels should help Ukraine directly militarily, Borrell stressed that he doesn’t “engage in theology”, and reiterated the need for EU aid to reach Ukrainian forces as quickly as possible, “because they are not waging a conflict with banknotes but with guns”.
“Having said that, all conflicts end with a ceasefire and negotiations, and it is necessary for Ukraine to be able to approach this phase from a position of strength”, the diplomat said.
The EU high representative for foreign affairs’ comments mark a stark contrast with sentiments he expressed in April about to need to “win” the conflict in Ukraine “on the battlefield”, and to tailor weapons deliveries to Kiev’s needs. “We need to continue to increase our pressure on Russia. We have imposed massive sanctions already but more needs to be done on the energy sector, including oil… Ukraine will prevail and rise back even stronger. And the EU will continue to stand by you, ever step of the way”, he promised at the time.
A month later, Borrell complained that the EU had run out of weapons to send, blaming “past budget cuts and underinvestment”.
The EU has committed to send over two billion euros in aid for the Ukrainian military, on top of roughly 4.1 billion euros to support Kiev’s economy. Last month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed providing Ukraine with an additional nine billion euros in fiscal support, to be paid back at the end of the year.
Since the onset of the Ukraine crisis in 2014, Washington and Brussels have provided Ukraine with tens of billions of euros’ worth of military assistance and economic loans. But assistance has come with conditions, including requirements that the country open its markets, and carry out painful reforms aimed at liberalising its economy. Aid has also occasionally been tied to political preconditions, with then-former Vice President Joe Biden boasting in a 2018 panel meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations on how he had threatened to withhold a $1 billion loan to Kiev unless Ukraine’s president fired a prosecutor investigating the activities of a gas company working with his son Hunter.
Russia accuses US of concealing data on biolabs
Samizdat | June 12, 2022
The US has been concealing information about its “military biological activity” in the post-Soviet states, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday. This, according to Zakharova, raises “serious questions” about Washington’s compliance with the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC).
In an interview with TASS published on Sunday, Zakharova said, “the United States prefers to remain silent about the ongoing work in the post-Soviet space and does not provide information within a framework of the BTWC confidence-building measures.”
“Assertions that the activity of the Pentagon and related structures is focused solely on health issues are not true. Clearly, health care assistance does not require the involvement of the US military,” Zakharova said.
She added that Washington’s claims that it is collecting biomaterial and monitoring the epidemiological situation “only reinforce and intensify” Russia’s fears over America’s compliance with the BTWC.
Moscow’s recently published evidence regarding the alleged sprawling network of US-funded biolabs across Ukraine only adds to the suspicions, Zakharova said.
In a series of briefings starting in March, the Russian military has presented evidence of the Pentagon’s involvement in funding laboratories in Ukraine. According to Russia’s Investigative Committee, the US poured more than $224 million into biological research in Ukraine between 2005 and early 2022. Western pharmaceutical giants, nonprofits, and even the US Democratic Party were involved in the scheme, Moscow claims.
The Pentagon has “significantly expanded its research potential not only in the field of creating biological weapons, but also obtaining information about antibiotic resistance and the presence of antibodies to certain diseases in populations of specific regions” while working in Ukraine, Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Force, said in May.
Zakharova also pointed out that the US has not yet withdrawn its reservation to the 1925 Geneva Protocol for the prohibition of biological and chemical weapons. The US was among the countries that declared the protocol would cease to be binding regarding enemy states that do not observe the prohibitions of the protocol.
In this regard, “the question quite reasonably arises about the real goals of the Pentagon’s international military biological activity,” Zakharova said.
Earlier this week, the Pentagon published the ‘Fact Sheet on WMD Threat Reduction Efforts with Ukraine, Russia and Other Former Soviet Union Countries’. In the document, the US military said that following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US and its partners have led “cooperative efforts to reduce legacy threats from nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons left in the Soviet Union’s successor states, including Russia.”
According to the Pentagon, the US has “worked collaboratively to improve Ukraine’s biological safety, security, and disease surveillance for both human and animal health,” by providing support to “46 peaceful Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and disease diagnostic sites over the last two decades.” These programs have focused on “improving public health and agricultural safety measures at the nexus of nonproliferation.”
In the same paper, the US military accused Russia and China attempting “to undermine this work by spreading disinformation and sowing mistrust in the people and institutions all over the world that contribute to WMD threat reduction.”
According to Zakharova, Moscow considers this publication part of Washington’s “information campaign” aimed at justifying its military biological activities in the post-Soviet space and to “divert the attention of the international community from its true non-transparent and unseemly direction.”
Zelensky’s delay in opening sea corridor threatens the globe with hunger
By Paul Antonopoulos | June 10, 2022
Hundreds of Ukrainian mines floating in the Black Sea threaten to halt tens of millions of tons of grain from being exported. Ukrainian officials claim it would take six months to clear the mines, something which directly contradicts the long-held claim that Russia’s naval blockade is preventing the export of wheat.
Markiyan Dmytrasevych, an adviser to Ukraine’s Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food, said that regardless of any agreement with Russia, thousands of mines would remain floating around the port of Odessa, making the export of wheat difficult. According to Dmytrasevych, it will take until the end of the year to clear out all the mines, thus making a mockery of the months-long disinformation campaign that Russia was blockading Ukrainian wheat shipments and therefore responsible for any global food shortage.
Russia and Ukraine collectively supply about 40% of the wheat consumed in Africa, and due to the war and consequential anti-Russia sanctions, prices have already risen by about 23% across the continent. The two countries also account for about 33% of the world’s grain supply, and wheat prices have skyrocketed by a third since February 24.
To derail a global food crisis, Ukraine’s Black Sea coastline will have to be demined. However, demining efforts require specialized equipment to scour wide swaths of open water, something Kiev was fully aware of when it began mining the Black Sea.
NATO issued a warning on June 1, stating: “Drifting mines have been detected and deactivated in the Western Black Sea by coastal nation’s authorities. The latest statement of regional authorities, confirming another sighting of a mine, shows the threat of drifting mines in the Southwest part of the Black Sea still exists.”
Along with the obvious problem associated with traversing mine-laden waters, shipping insurance for vessels heading to the region has skyrocketed. “There is clearly a growing nervousness around the region in the insurance market, especially in relation to the Black Sea,” Marcus Baker at insurance broker and risk adviser Marsh told Reuters.
Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelensky told the Financial Times that while, in theory, he supports a maritime corridor, no Russian vessels should be allowed access. “On UN-led talks to restore access to Ukrainian Black Sea ports, Zelensky was willing to back the idea of a maritime corridor to enable grain exports from Ukrainian ports as long as no access was given to Russian ships,” the paper reported. “There was no need for a dialogue with Moscow to resolve the blockade given that the only threat to world food supplies was coming from Russia.”
However, despite Kiev now acknowledging that demining efforts could take up to six months, Zelensky is still attempting to blame Russia’s naval blockade as the reason why 75 million tons of grain could be stuck in Ukraine after the summer season.
Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš is also disingenuous to the situation, questioning to the Atlantic Council on June 8 whether “a US or French warship [should] go through the Bosphorus and dock in the port of Odesa?”. Of course, his suggestion completely omits that US and French warships would not only have to break the Russian blockade, but also traverse mined waters.
None-the-less, Ukraine is in a difficult position. As the country unrelentingly refuses to negotiate an end to the war with Russia on the open orders of Washington and London, Ukraine does not want to weaken its coastal defenses around Odessa. However, at the same time, it has been exposed that Ukraine’s Black Sea mines are responsible for halts in the export of wheat, and not Russia’s naval blockade as Western leaders, officials and media led to us to believe for months.
Despite offering a way out of the emerging food crisis by calling for the demining of the Black Sea and the creation of a maritime safe corridor, Ukraine Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko tweeted on Wednesday that the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov “are empty.”
“Ukraine has made its position on the seaports clear,” Nikolenko tweeted. “Military equipment is required to protect the coastline and a navy mission to patrol the export routes in the Black Sea. Russia cannot be allowed to use grain corridors to attack southern Ukraine.”
As Kiev stubbornly continues to carry out the demands of the US and UK, it appears that the establishment of a safe corridor for the export of grain from Ukraine will not emerge anytime soon, thus artificially creating a global food crisis that can be relatively easy to resolve, despite the inevitability of high wheat prices. Most disingenuously though is the continued portrayal that Ukraine is not responsible for the halt of exports, however, even this has been exposed to the point that Western media cannot ignore Kiev’s refusal to demine its coast.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
On Ukraine, ‘progressive’ proxy warriors spell disaster
Urging leftists to support the Ukraine proxy war, Bernie Sanders aide Matt Duss whitewashes the US role, attacks The Grayzone, and advocates dangerous militarism.
By Aaron Maté | The Grayzone | June 7, 2022
The unanimous vote by progressive lawmakers for the $40 billion Ukraine funding bill has been followed by a near-unanimous refusal to defend it. To date, no member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus – with the sole exception of Cori Bush – has publicly explained why they chose to hand over billions of dollars to the weapons industry and intensify a proxy war against nuclear-armed Russia.
Amid this resounding silence, Matt Duss, a foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders, has stepped in to fill the void. In a New Republic article titled “Why Ukraine Matters for the Left,” Duss attempts to convince fellow progressives that the “provision of military aid” to Ukraine “can advance a more just and humanitarian global order.” Duss has only praise for a Biden administration that, in his view, “should be applauded for its judicious reaction to the Ukraine crisis.” By contrast, Duss opts to launch an attack on dissident journalists, myself included, who don’t share his enthusiasm.
To make his case, Duss omits an abundance of inconvenient facts, betraying either considerable ignorance of the Ukraine-Russia conflict or a deliberate effort to distort it.
While apologia for US hegemonic projects is normal in DC foreign policy circles, Duss’ contribution is particularly noteworthy given his painstaking attempt to cast himself as an outsider. “Our political class,” Duss states, “advocates military violence with a regularity and ease that is psychopathic.” Duss’ comment is both accurate and wildly ironic, given his choice to advocate our political class’s military violence in Ukraine — with the remarkable ease that he identifies in others as psychopathic.
When it comes to how the Biden administration has handled the Ukraine crisis, Duss cannot identify a single fault. “The Biden team clearly did not seek this war,” Duss claims, and “in fact… made a strenuous, and very public, diplomatic effort to avert it.”
Duss does not explain what the administration’s “strenuous” diplomacy entailed, perhaps because even its top officials now openly admit that none existed.
In an interview with War on the Rocks, State Department counsellor Derek Chollet was asked if NATO expansion into Ukraine was “on the table” in pre-invasion contacts with Russia. “It wasn’t,” Chollet replied. The White House, Chollet explained, “made clear to the Russians that we were willing to talk to them on issues that we thought were genuine concerns they have that were legitimate in some way,” including “arms control.” (emphasis added) But when it comes to “the future of Ukraine” and its potential NATO membership, Chollet said, this was deemed a “non-issue.”
To Duss, the Biden administration’s (openly admitted) refusal to even discuss Russia’s core demands – and to only entertain issues that it deemed to be “legitimate” on Russia’s behalf – is apparently a “strenuous diplomatic effort.” If “diplomacy” amounts to enforcing US hegemony, as many in DC seem to believe, then Duss would have a case. But in the rest of the world, where diplomacy entails constructive dialogue with a semblance of parity, he does not.
Duss also takes aim at the argument, advanced by prominent leftists including former Brazilian President Lula da Silva, that a US-European pledge that Ukraine won’t join NATO “would have solved the problem” with Russia.
To refute Lula, Duss stresses that “in the weeks leading up to the war, U.S. allies, specifically German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, signaled clearly” that Ukraine’s NATO ascension “was not going to happen.” According to Duss, it is Putin who sabotaged their efforts by invading, and who “has now made that discussion moot.”
Duss omits what also happened in the weeks leading up to the war. While Germany and France did indeed float a proposal to keep Ukraine out of NATO, it was Ukraine – with US backing – that rejected it. According to an account in the Wall Street Journal, Scholtz proposed to Volodymyr Zelensky on Feb. 19 – five days before Russia’s invasion — that Ukraine “renounce its NATO aspirations and declare neutrality as part of a wider European security deal,” signed by both Putin and Biden. But Zelensky rejected Schultz’s plan, a response that “left German officials worried that the chances of peace were fading.” In dismissing the Germans’ NATO proposal, Zelensky joined the Biden White House, as State’s Derek Chollet acknowledged and other Biden officials made clear in public.
Ignoring US-Ukrainian rejectionism, Duss then declares that “it seems absurd to suggest that even an ironclad public pledge from President Biden that Ukraine would never be accepted into NATO would have convinced Putin to draw back the 180,000 troops he had placed on Ukraine’s borders.” Perhaps, but that very public pledge happened to be the centerpiece of Germany’s last-minute diplomatic effort – one that Duss himself invoked, and that Zelensky (along with Biden) chose to reject.
Duss’ whitewashing of the Biden administration’s rejection of diplomacy before the Russian invasion carries over to the period since.
Since Russia’s invasion, Duss says, the White House has “acted with restraint and care not to get drawn into a wider war with Russia.” While it is true that Biden has opted not to start World War III – in other words, has opted not to trigger a global suicide pact — he has done anything but act with “restraint.” One day before Duss’ article was published, Biden authorized the delivery of medium-range advanced rocket systems to Ukraine. These rockets have the capacity to strike inside of Russia; the US is acting on Ukraine’s assurance that it won’t.
Duss may support undermining diplomacy in Ukraine and shipping off billions of dollars worth of heavy weaponry instead, but this can only be described as “restraint” if the sole measure is an immediate — rather than merely prospective — nuclear holocaust.
Duss is so impressed with Biden’s handling of the war that he cannot even detect a tangible path that could end it. “As of this writing,” Duss declares, “I have seen no evidence of a settlement in the offing—as in, a deal that Putin would actually entertain, let alone accept—that we’re refusing to ‘push for.'”
If Duss cannot see evidence of a realistic settlement that Russia could accept, then he is being willfully blind. Russia’s explicit proposals, issued before the war and after, including two weeks into the invasion, called on Ukraine to “cease military action, change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognise the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states.”
It is worth noting that the latter is Russia’s only new condition: for the eight years before the February invasion, Russia formally accepted the Minsk accords, which, to end the Donbas war, would have kept the Donetsk and Lugansk regions inside Ukraine’s borders, with limited autonomy.
Duss is free to argue that Russia’s terms for ending the war are unacceptable. But to pretend that Russia has not even laid out those terms, is to essentially advocate that the war never end.
By omitting Russia’s stated terms for a settlement, Duss also allows himself to erase one of the invasion’s key causes: the 2014 Maidan coup, and the ensuing eight-year Donbas war that had left more than 14,000 people dead by the time Russian forces crossed the border on February 24th.
In his 2500+ word piece, Duss makes no mention of the Donbas war and how it began: the 2014 ouster of a democratically elected Ukrainian president, with new leadership selected by Washington; the coup government’s assault on Ukraine’s ethnic Russian and anti-coup citizens, who launched a rebellion in the Donbas; the critical role of fascists and neo-Nazis in the Maidan coup and the Donbas war since; the fascist-led sabotage of the 2015 Minsk accords, which could have put an end to the conflict. By omitting this history, Duss can also omit how the US has helped undermine the Minsk agreements by siding with Ukrainian’s far-right and choosing to use the Donbas war to “fight Russia over there” (Adam Schiff) and “make Russia pay a heavier price,” (John McCain), because Ukraine’s “fight is our fight.” (Lindsey Graham).
After ignoring Russia’s stated grounds for a peace settlement, Duss goes on to disingenuously claim that the Ukrainian government has been pushing for one.
“Ukraine presented Russia with a far-reaching set of proposals over a month ago, including a commitment to ‘permanent neutrality,’” Duss claims. “Volodomyr Zelenskiy continues to offer to negotiate directly with Putin to end the war.”
It is true that Ukraine presented Russia with a 10-point plan in late March. But Duss omits what happened immediately after: while Russia “signaled its preliminary support,” (RAND analyst Samuel Charap) Ukraine’s Western backers sabotaged it, and Zelensky acquiesced. In early April, Ukrainian and Russian officials were finalizing details for a Zelensky-Putin summit. But UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to Kiev and ordered him to halt diplomacy. Citing sources close to Zelensky, Ukrayinska Pravda reports that Johnson informed his Ukrainian counterpart that Putin “should be pressured, not negotiated with.” Johnson also relayed that even if Russia and Ukraine chose to sign security guarantees, the UK and its allies would not take part – rendering any such agreement worthless.
Zelensky clearly received the message, as Duss’s own source makes clear. When Duss claims that Zelensky “continues to offer to negotiate directly with Putin to end the war,” he links to a Reuters article that reveals such an “offer” to be hollow. Zelensky, Reuters reports, said he would only negotiate with Putin if Russia first withdrew entirely from Ukraine – an obvious non-starter. “Get out of this territory that you have occupied since February 24,” Zelensky said. “This is the first clear step to talking about anything.” Zelensky also “ruled out suggestions… that Ukraine should make concessions for the sake of securing a peace agreement that would allow Putin to save face.”
Thus, returning to Duss’ rendering, Zelensky’s “far-reaching proposals” were immediately rescinded under Western orders, and Zelensky’s “offer to negotiate” was premised on a condition that would have made negotiations impossible.
None of this is to suggest that Russia was justified in launching an invasion of Ukraine. To defend the use of force, which has been so catastrophic, Russia has to meet a high burden of evidence that, in my view, it has not. But one does not need to defend Russia’s invasion to see through Duss’ attempt to whitewash the US role in provoking and prolonging it.
Tellingly, Duss is openly hostile to journalists who have reported on the context that he has omitted. Out of nowhere, Duss introduces an attack on The Grayzone, the Max Blumenthal-founded news outlet that I work for. While Duss has nothing but praise for Biden, he has nothing but ad hominems for us (“pernicious authoritarian agitprop,” “atrocity-denying grifters” “click-baiting provocateurs”). After sharing this vitriol, he then immediately declares that engaging with us is “wasting time.”
I feel the same way about his juvenile name-calling, but interested readers can judge for themselves whether his insults are supported by facts. (He links to two “sources,” one a Medium blog post that, true to the neo-McCarthyite norm, peddles innuendo that The Grayzone is funded by Russia, among other smears).
If Duss is genuinely concerned about wasting time, he also might reflect on why he devotes ample space to paying lip service to progressive principles, only to ultimately endorse policies that flagrantly violate them. “Centering opposition to U.S. imperialism and militarism is an entirely appropriate starting point,” Duss states. Yet Duss’ desired end point would see leftists center U.S. imperialism and militarism, with disastrous results: among them, prolonging a proxy war against a nuclear armed power, threatening a worsening global food crisis, and sentencing more Ukrainians to death.
Even putting aside US complicity in the Ukraine proxy war and its dangers for the planet, progressives like Duss might wish to consider the likely political consequences. One obvious guide is the election of 2016, when Donald Trump won over a significant portion of voters by claiming to oppose the military interventionism that Duss is now urging progressives to embrace. Having seemingly learned nothing from 2016, Democrats in 2022 are again ceding anti-war sentiment to Republicans, 68 of whom voted against the $40 billion Ukraine bill in the House and Senate (versus zero Democrats).
As at least some Republicans vote against the proxy war, Biden has defended the domestic pain caused by his Ukraine proxy war by blaming “Putin’s Price Hike” and trying to argue that “defending freedom is going to cost.” Biden’s defense of “freedom” in Ukraine is now costing him a transatlantic flight to grovel at the feet of the Saudi autocracy, in the hopes of staving off a humiliating cost in the November midterms.
Continuing his mealy mouthed approach, Duss both claims to support diplomacy while simultaneously declaring it to be unattainable. The US, he says, “should certainly be actively engaged in finding a diplomatic path to end the war, and avoid committing to maximalist aims that could foreclose one.” But yet, according to Duss, “for the moment that path is unclear.”
If the path toward peace for Ukraine is unclear to Duss, then that can only be because he has chosen to erase the factual background and the diplomatic solutions on offer, thereby reinforcing the “maximalist aims” that he claims to oppose. Duss’s proxy war apologia will certainly win him a warm reception in establishment DC circles. For the US progressive movement, Ukraine, and the rest of the planet, it only spells disaster.
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From the Archives
How 1960’s French Nuclear Tests Are Still Claiming Lives in Algeria
Sputnik – 15.02.2018
On February 13, 1960, France carried out its first nuclear test in Algeria’s southern Reggane region. According to official statistics, 17 nuclear tests were carried out in total over the next 6 years. The area remains affected, and local scientists say that radioactive contamination has caused genetic mutations and irreversibly changed the region.
There are no official statistics on the number of victims. The only figures can be found in the records kept by the French representative of the local church, which lists 42,000 victims of nuclear tests. Three years ago, the French Ministry of Defense issued a statement, putting the number at 27,000 people. The victims include French soldiers as well as local Algerians who lived in the surrounding areas. … continue
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