Filipino Scholar Walden Bello on Why the Global South Is Suspicious of U.S. Motives in Ukraine War
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
MARCH 02, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/2/p ... _expansion
GUESTS: Walden Bello, acclaimed Filipino scholar and activist who is campaigning for vice president in the Philippines. He is co-founder of Focus on the Global South and an adjunct professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton.
We speak with acclaimed Filipino scholar and activist Walden Bello on the Global South’s response to the unfolding crisis in Ukraine. Bello says there’s hesitation from many world leaders to take an active role in the crisis, arguing that there is a lack of explicit national interests and a general suspicion the U.S. provoked the invasion to take advantage of the subsequent backlash against Russia. He says people in the Global South realize that ever since the Soviet Union fell apart, ”NATO and the U.S. tried to take advantage of it in an aggressive eastward expansion of NATO right onto the countries that would border the Soviet Union.” Bello also expresses fear the U.S. may try to stoke tensions with China over Taiwan, saying, “China’s not interested at this point in any sort of military conflict that would jeopardize what is its big reputation right now of peaceful economic diplomacy.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’d like to bring Walden Bello into the conversation. Walden, you’ve been a leading analyst of the Global South. And interestingly, some key countries in the Global South have not been as united over this issue of condemning Russia in its invasion. I’m thinking specifically, for instance, the BRIC nations — Brazil, India — South Africa have declined to condemn Putin’s invasion. Mexico’s Manuel López Obrador did criticize the invasion but has refused to participate in any economic sanctions against Russia, as well, of course, as Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, longtime enemies of the United States in Latin America, have also been muted in terms of their response to the Russian invasion. What do you make of that? And also, what’s the situation with the Philippines?
WALDEN BELLO: Yes. Thank you, Juan and Amy, for inviting me here.
I think that there is in fact this hesitation that you see across the board. I think, though, that a number of countries, including the Philippines, which was initially speaking about, you know, taking a more neutral stance, have come out with a condemnation of the invasion. But, beyond that, I think there will be not very much support across the Global South for more actively or proactively taking the side of the United States, which, of course, the U.S. wants to make a diplomatic win here by trying to get most of the countries in the United Nations General Assembly to condemn the invasion. So, I don’t think there will be many that will, beyond going from condemning the invasion, going to taking a more active role to try to isolate Russia. And that’s my sense about how things are going at this point.
One thing that people feel is, you know, that their national interests are not really involved in this in a major way. The second thing is they really fear that there is an agenda on the part of the U.S., that while this is an unjustified invasion, the U.S. has in fact provoked it and is trying to take advantage of it at this point in time. I think that quite a lot of people in the Global South realize that ever since the Soviet Union fell apart in 2001, NATO and the United States tried to take advantage of it in an aggressive eastward expansion of NATO right onto the countries that would border the Soviet Union, including the Ukraine. The other thing is it’s not only been NATO expansion; it’s also been interference, active interference, in Ukrainian politics, oftentimes supporting far-right-wing fascist groups within Ukraine. And the Central Intelligence Agency has indeed been very active in that sort of thing.
So, my sense is that one cannot discount real security fears on the part of Russia, on the part of Putin. I mean, this is almost like, you know, if you get — if Ukraine enters NATO, you’re almost creating a situation in which NATO and U.S. nuclear missiles would be right at the border of Russia, pretty much like in 1961 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The whole rationale of the U.S. for calling that sea-wide quarantine by Kennedy was in fact to say that short-range missiles would be right about 90 miles away from the United States. So, you know, I think that is the kind of concern and fear that you have at this point within the Russian leadership, so I would not sort of say that it’s really an illusion, as one of your earlier speakers had said. That’s very real.
And the problem, of course, from my point of view, is that, as our friend from Jacobin said, there really could have been a diplomatic solution to this whole thing. But the U.S. was not interested in that diplomatic solution. I think what Russia probably would have been interested in pushing was creating some sort of a neutral zone of countries, you know, bordering Russia that would in fact not be hosts for NATO and its nuclear weaponry. So, a diplomatic solution that could have created a neutral zone, you know, was pretty much, I think, the rational thing to do, given the security concerns of the Russians, as well as the independence concerns of the Ukrainians. But I think the West was not interested in that. And I think while this invasion must really be condemned, I think one must also acknowledge that the U.S. has played a provocative role in this whole thing.
The other thing that I would like to also stress is that the U.S. is desperate for some credibility at this point in time, especially after the very shameful exit from Afghanistan, in which it lost a lot of credibility globally, as well as within its allies in Europe. And I think one of the tragedies of this, Putin’s move, has been to give the United States sort of an opportunity to try to assert that sort of superpower leadership for the West.
Now, you know, some people are saying that, “Hey, doesn’t this sort of create a situation where China might be tempted to take over Taiwan?” And that’s sort of in the air, but — which is, I think, pretty silly. First of all, Ukraine is not tied to the U.S. by any sort of security treaty. Taiwan is, you know, despite the fact that the U.S. has this contradictory policy of recognizing just one China. Secondly, U.S. military forces are in the Taiwan Straits. They own the South China Sea. The 7th Fleet is there all the time, so that the Chinese are not foolish enough to think that any sort of invasion of Taiwan would be successful. The third thing is, China is not interested at this point in any sort of military conflict that would jeopardize what is its big reputation right now of peaceful, economic diplomacy that it has really been pushing. I mean, anything that would go in a militaristic direction, I think they would not be really provoked into. My worry, in fact, is that the United States, with its tremendous military forces surrounding China, from Japan down South Korea —
AMY GOODMAN: We have 15 seconds, Walden.
WALDEN BELLO: Yes — might be the one that might begin to stoke tensions over here. That’s my big worry, not about China taking over Taiwan.
Walden Bello on U.S. Motives in Ukraine War, by Amy Goodman
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Re: Walden Bello on U.S. Motives in Ukraine War, by Amy Good
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Ukrainian Pacifist in Kyiv: Reckless Militarization Led to This War. All Sides Must Recommit to Peace
by Amy Goodman
Democracy Now
MARCH 01, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/1/u ... ile_strike
GUESTS; Yurii Sheliazhenko, executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, board member of the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection, member of the board of directors at World BEYOND War and a research associate at KROK University in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Russia has escalated attacks against Ukraine, launching a missile strike hitting a government building and shelling civilian areas in Kharkiv, reportedly targeting civilians with cluster and thermobaric bombs, and killing more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers at a military base in Okhtyrka. Meanwhile, the U.S. rejected Ukrainian President Zelensky’s demand for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying it could lead to a war between the U.S. and Russia. This comes as Ukrainian and Russian negotiators failed to reach an agreement on Monday and the European Union approved Ukraine’s emergency application to be a candidate to join the union. We go to Kyiv to speak with Yurii Sheliazhenko, executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, who says “support of Ukraine in the West is mainly military support” and reports that his country “focuses on warfare and almost ignores nonviolent resistance to war.” He also discusses Zelensky’s response to the crisis, the European Union’s approval of Ukraine’s emergency application, and whether he plans to leave the war-torn city of Kyiv soon.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The Russian invasion of Ukraine has entered its sixth day, with Russia escalating its bombardment. Satellite images show up to a 40-mile convoy of Russian armored vehicles, tanks and artillery heading to Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Earlier today, a Russian missile hit a government building in Kharkiv, causing a huge explosion in Ukraine’s second-largest city. Civilian areas in Kharkiv have also been shelled. Ukrainian authorities also reported more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the eastern city of Okhtyrka after a Russian missile strike on a military base.
On Monday, Ukraine and Russia held five hours of talks near the Belarus border, but no agreement was reached. The two sides are expected to meet again in the coming days. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, but the United States and its allies have ruled out the idea, saying it could lead to a broader war.
Ukraine and human rights groups have also accused Russia of targeting civilians with cluster and thermobaric bombs. Those so-called vacuum bombs are the most powerful non-nuclear explosives used in warfare. Russia has denied targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure. Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court has announced plans to investigate war crimes in Ukraine.
At the United Nations, the General Assembly held an emergency meeting Monday to discuss the crisis. This is Ukraine’s Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya.
SERGIY KYSLYTSYA: If Ukraine does not survive, international peace will not survive. If Ukraine does not survive, the United Nations will not survive. Have no illusions. If Ukraine does not survive, we cannot be surprised if democracy fails next. Now we can save Ukraine, save the United Nations, save democracy and defend the values we believe in.
AMY GOODMAN: And just before we went to broadcast, the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the European Parliament by video. At the end, the Parliament gave him a standing ovation.
We go now to Kyiv, where we’re joined by Yurii Sheliazhenko. He is the executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement and a board member of the European Bureau of Conscientious Objection. Yurii is also a member of the board of directors at World BEYOND War and a research associate at KROK University in Kyiv.
Yurii Sheliazhenko, welcome back to Democracy Now! We spoke to you just before the Russian invasion. Can you talk about what’s happening on the ground right now and what you are calling for as a pacifist?
YURII SHELIAZHENKO: Good day. Thank you for balanced journalism and covering peace protest as part of pains and passions of war.
Military politicization between the East and West went too far, with reckless military operations, NATO expansion, Russian invasion to Ukraine and nuclear threats to world, militarization of Ukraine, with exclusion of Russia from international institutions and expulsions of Russian diplomats literally pushing Putin from diplomacy to escalation of war. Instead of breaking the last bonds of humanity out of rage, we need more than ever to preserve and strengthen venues of communication and cooperation between all people on Earth, and each individual effort of that sort has a value.
And it is disappointing that support of Ukraine in the West is mainly military support and the imposition of painful economic sanctions on Russia, and reporting on conflict focuses on warfare and almost ignores nonviolent resistance to war, because brave Ukrainian civilians are changing street signs and blocking streets and blocking tanks, just staying in their way without weapons, like tank men, to stop the war.
For example, in Berdyansk city and Kulykіvka village, people organized peace rallies and convinced the Russian military to get out. Peace movement warned for years that reckless militarization will lead to war. We were right. We prepared many people for peaceful dispute resolution or for nonviolent resistance to aggression. We upheld human rights, universal obligations to help refugees. It helps now and gives hope for a peaceful solution, which exists always.
I wish to all people for universal peace and happiness, no wars today and forever. But, unfortunately, while the most of people, most of time, in most of places, live in peace, my beautiful city of Kyiv, capital of Ukraine, and other Ukrainian cities are targets of Russian bombardments. Just before this interview, I heard again distant sounds of explosions from windows. Sirens howl many times during day, last several days. Hundreds of peoples are killed, including children, because of Russian aggression. Thousands are injured. Hundred thousands of people are displaced and seeking refuge abroad, additionally to millions internally displaced persons and refugees in Russia and in Europe after eight years of war between the Ukrainian government and Russia-backed separatists in Donbas.
All males in the age from 18 to 60 are restricted in freedom of movement abroad and called to participate in war effort, without exceptions to conscientious objectors to military service and those who are fleeing from war, too. War Resisters’ International strongly criticized this decision of Ukrainian government to prohibit all male citizens in age 18 to 60 to leave the country and demanded a withdrawal of these decisions.
I admire massive antiwar rallies in Russia, courageous peaceful citizens who nonviolently oppose Putin’s war machine under threats of arrest and punishment. Our friends, conscientious objection movement in Russia, also members of European Bureau for Conscientious Objection, condemns the Russian military aggression and calls on Russia to stop the war, calls all recruits to refuse military service and apply for alternative civilian service or claim exemption on medical grounds.
And there are peace rallies around the world in support of peace in Ukraine. Half-million of people in Berlin hazard to protest against war. There are antiwar actions in Italy, in France. Our friends from Gensuikyo, the Japan Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, responded to Putin nuclear threats with protest rallies in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I invite you to seek for recent international and United States antiwar events at the website WorldBeyondWar.org, to participate in the global day of action to stop the war in Ukraine on March 6 under a slogan, “Russian troops out. No NATO expansion,” organized by CodePink and other peace groups.
It is a shame that Russia and Ukraine up to now fail to negotiate ceasefire and failed even to agree on safe humanitarian corridors for evacuation of civilians. Negotiations between the Ukraine and Russia didn’t achieve a ceasefire. Putin needs neutral status of Ukraine, denazification, demilitarization of Ukraine and the approval that Crimea belongs to Russia, which is contrary to international law. And he told it to Macron. So, we renounce these demands of Putin. Ukrainian delegation on negotiations was ready to discuss only ceasefire and Russian troops leaving Ukraine, because, of course, territorial integrity matters of Ukraine. Also, Ukraine continued shelling of Donetsk while Russia bombarded Kharkiv and other cities. Basically, both parties, Ukraine and Russia, are belligerent and not willing to calm down. Putin and Zelensky should engage in peace talks seriously and in good faith as responsible politicians and representatives of the people, on the basis of common public interest, instead of fighting for mutually exclusive positions. I hope that there is a —
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Yurii, Yurii Sheliazhenko, I wanted to ask you — you mentioned President Zelensky. He’s being hailed in many of the Western media as a hero since the invasion. What is your assessment of how President Zelensky has been functioning in this crisis?
YURII SHELIAZHENKO: President Zelensky is totally surrendered to war machine. He pursues military solution, and he fails to call Putin and ask directly to stop the war.
And I hope that with the help of all people in the world telling the truth to power, demanding to stop shooting and start talking, aiding those who need it and investing into the peace culture and education for nonviolent citizenship, we could together build a better world without armies and borders, a world where truth and love are great powers, embracing East and West. I believe that nonviolence is a more effective and progressive tool for global governance, social and environmental justice.
The delusions about systemic violence and war as panacea, a miraculous solution for all social problems, are false. The sanctions with which the West and the East are imposing on each other as a result of a battle for control over Ukraine between the United States and Russia may weaken but will not split the global market of ideas, labor, goods and finances. So, the global market will inevitably find a way to satisfy its need in global government. Question is: How civilized and how democratic will be the future global government?
And military alliances’ aim to uphold absolute sovereignty are promoting despotism rather than democracy. When NATO members provide military aid to support sovereignty of Ukrainian government, or when Russia sends troops to fight for self-proclaimed sovereignty of Donetsk and Luhansk separatists, you should remember that unchecked sovereignty means bloodshed, and sovereignty is — sovereignty is definitely not democratic value. All democracies emerged from resistance to bloodthirsty sovereigns, individual and collective. War profiteers of the West are the same threat to democracy as the authoritarian rulers of the East. And their attempts to divide and rule the Earth are essentially similar. NATO should step back from conflict around Ukraine, escalated by its support to war effort and aspirations of membership of Ukrainian government. And ideally, NATO should dissolve or transform into alliance of disarmament instead of military alliance. And, of course —
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you something, Yurii. We just got this word in. You know, Zelensky has just addressed by video the European Parliament. They gave him a standing ovation after, and the European Parliament has just approved Ukraine’s application to join the European Union. What is your response to that?
YURII SHELIAZHENKO: I feel proud for my country that we are joined to alliance of Western democracies, European Union, which is a peaceful union. And I hope that all the world in the future will be peaceful union. But, unfortunately, European Union, as well as Ukraine, have a similar problem of militarization. And it looks like a dystopian Ministry of Peace in Orwell’s novel 1984, when European peace facility provides military assistance to Ukraine, but there is almost absent assistance to nonviolent solution to current crisis and to demilitarization. I hope, of course, Ukraine belongs to Europe. Ukraine is a democratic country. And it is great that the Ukrainian application to join European Union is approved, but I think that this consolidation of West should not be consolidation against so-called enemy, against the East. East and West should find the peaceful reconciliation and should pursue global governance, unity of all people in the world without armies and borders. This consolidation of West should not lead to a war against East. East and West should be friends and live peacefully and demilitarized. And, of course, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is one of venues of total demilitarization which are needed desperately.
You know, now we have a problem of archaic governance based on sovereignty of nation-states. When, for example — when Ukraine prohibits many citizens to participate in public life speaking Russian, it seems like normal. It seems like sovereignty. It is not, of course. It is not a just cause for invasion and military aggression, of course, as Putin claims, but it is not right. And, of course, the West many time should say to Ukraine that human rights is a very important value, and freedom of expression, including linguistic rights, matter, and the representation of pro-Russian people, Russian-speaking people in political life is important thing. And the oppression of culture of our neighbor and their diaspora in Ukraine, of course, will infuriate Kremlin. And it infuriated. And indeed this crisis should be deescalated, not escalated. And this indeed great day when Ukraine was recognized a European nation should not be the prelude for opposition, military opposition, between Europe and Russia. But I hope that Russia, too, will head out with their military forces from Ukraine and will also join European Union, and European Union and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and other regional alliances, African Union and so on, in future will be parts of a united global political entity, global governance, as Immanuel Kant in his beautiful pamphlet, Perpetual Peace, envisaged, you know? A plan of Immanuel Kant for —
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Yurii, Yurii Sheliazhenko, I wanted to ask you — in terms of the issue of deescalating the situation and seeking to achieve peace, Ukraine has requested a no-fly zone over certain areas of Ukraine. That would obviously have to be enforced by the militaries of the European Union and the United States. What do you feel about this issue of a call for a no-fly zone over Ukraine?
YURII SHELIAZHENKO: Well, it is continuation of this line to escalation, to engage whole West, united in military aspect, to oppose Russia. And Putin already responded to this with nuclear threats, because he is infuriated because he is, of course, scared, as well as we are scared today in Kyiv, and the West are scared about the situation.
Now we should stay calm. We should think rationally. We should unite indeed, but not unite to escalate conflict and give military response. We should unite pursuing peaceful solution of conflict, negotiations between Putin and Zelensky, presidents of Russia and Ukraine, between Biden and Putin, between the United States and Russia. Peace talks and things about future are the key, because people start war when they lose hopes in future. And today we need revived hopes in future. We have a peace culture, which are starting to develop throughout the world. And we have old, archaic culture of violence, structural violence, cultural violence. And, of course, the most of people are not trying to be angels or demons; they are drifting between culture of peace and culture of violence.
AMY GOODMAN: Yurii, before we go, we just wanted to ask you, since you are in Kyiv, the military convoy is just outside of Kyiv: Are you planning to leave, like so many Ukrainians have tried to leave and have left, something like estimates of half a million Ukrainians over the borders into Poland, Romania and other places? Or are you staying put?
YURII SHELIAZHENKO: As I said, there is no safe humanitarian corridors agreed by Russia and the Ukraine for leaving civilians. It is one of failures in the negotiations. And as I said, our government thinks that all males should participate in war efforts, and blatantly violates human right to conscientious objection to military service. So, it is no way for pacifists to flee, and I stay with peaceful Ukraine here, and I hope that peaceful Ukraine will not be destroyed by this polarized, militarized world.
AMY GOODMAN: Yurii Sheliazhenko, we want to thank you so much for being with us. Yes, males between the ages of 18 and 60 are not allowed to leave Ukraine. Yurii is the executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, board member of the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection, also member of the board of directors at World BEYOND War and research associate at KROK University in Kyiv, Ukraine.
by Amy Goodman
Democracy Now
MARCH 01, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/1/u ... ile_strike
GUESTS; Yurii Sheliazhenko, executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, board member of the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection, member of the board of directors at World BEYOND War and a research associate at KROK University in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Russia has escalated attacks against Ukraine, launching a missile strike hitting a government building and shelling civilian areas in Kharkiv, reportedly targeting civilians with cluster and thermobaric bombs, and killing more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers at a military base in Okhtyrka. Meanwhile, the U.S. rejected Ukrainian President Zelensky’s demand for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying it could lead to a war between the U.S. and Russia. This comes as Ukrainian and Russian negotiators failed to reach an agreement on Monday and the European Union approved Ukraine’s emergency application to be a candidate to join the union. We go to Kyiv to speak with Yurii Sheliazhenko, executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, who says “support of Ukraine in the West is mainly military support” and reports that his country “focuses on warfare and almost ignores nonviolent resistance to war.” He also discusses Zelensky’s response to the crisis, the European Union’s approval of Ukraine’s emergency application, and whether he plans to leave the war-torn city of Kyiv soon.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The Russian invasion of Ukraine has entered its sixth day, with Russia escalating its bombardment. Satellite images show up to a 40-mile convoy of Russian armored vehicles, tanks and artillery heading to Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Earlier today, a Russian missile hit a government building in Kharkiv, causing a huge explosion in Ukraine’s second-largest city. Civilian areas in Kharkiv have also been shelled. Ukrainian authorities also reported more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the eastern city of Okhtyrka after a Russian missile strike on a military base.
On Monday, Ukraine and Russia held five hours of talks near the Belarus border, but no agreement was reached. The two sides are expected to meet again in the coming days. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, but the United States and its allies have ruled out the idea, saying it could lead to a broader war.
Ukraine and human rights groups have also accused Russia of targeting civilians with cluster and thermobaric bombs. Those so-called vacuum bombs are the most powerful non-nuclear explosives used in warfare. Russia has denied targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure. Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court has announced plans to investigate war crimes in Ukraine.
At the United Nations, the General Assembly held an emergency meeting Monday to discuss the crisis. This is Ukraine’s Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya.
SERGIY KYSLYTSYA: If Ukraine does not survive, international peace will not survive. If Ukraine does not survive, the United Nations will not survive. Have no illusions. If Ukraine does not survive, we cannot be surprised if democracy fails next. Now we can save Ukraine, save the United Nations, save democracy and defend the values we believe in.
AMY GOODMAN: And just before we went to broadcast, the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the European Parliament by video. At the end, the Parliament gave him a standing ovation.
We go now to Kyiv, where we’re joined by Yurii Sheliazhenko. He is the executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement and a board member of the European Bureau of Conscientious Objection. Yurii is also a member of the board of directors at World BEYOND War and a research associate at KROK University in Kyiv.
Yurii Sheliazhenko, welcome back to Democracy Now! We spoke to you just before the Russian invasion. Can you talk about what’s happening on the ground right now and what you are calling for as a pacifist?
YURII SHELIAZHENKO: Good day. Thank you for balanced journalism and covering peace protest as part of pains and passions of war.
Military politicization between the East and West went too far, with reckless military operations, NATO expansion, Russian invasion to Ukraine and nuclear threats to world, militarization of Ukraine, with exclusion of Russia from international institutions and expulsions of Russian diplomats literally pushing Putin from diplomacy to escalation of war. Instead of breaking the last bonds of humanity out of rage, we need more than ever to preserve and strengthen venues of communication and cooperation between all people on Earth, and each individual effort of that sort has a value.
And it is disappointing that support of Ukraine in the West is mainly military support and the imposition of painful economic sanctions on Russia, and reporting on conflict focuses on warfare and almost ignores nonviolent resistance to war, because brave Ukrainian civilians are changing street signs and blocking streets and blocking tanks, just staying in their way without weapons, like tank men, to stop the war.
For example, in Berdyansk city and Kulykіvka village, people organized peace rallies and convinced the Russian military to get out. Peace movement warned for years that reckless militarization will lead to war. We were right. We prepared many people for peaceful dispute resolution or for nonviolent resistance to aggression. We upheld human rights, universal obligations to help refugees. It helps now and gives hope for a peaceful solution, which exists always.
I wish to all people for universal peace and happiness, no wars today and forever. But, unfortunately, while the most of people, most of time, in most of places, live in peace, my beautiful city of Kyiv, capital of Ukraine, and other Ukrainian cities are targets of Russian bombardments. Just before this interview, I heard again distant sounds of explosions from windows. Sirens howl many times during day, last several days. Hundreds of peoples are killed, including children, because of Russian aggression. Thousands are injured. Hundred thousands of people are displaced and seeking refuge abroad, additionally to millions internally displaced persons and refugees in Russia and in Europe after eight years of war between the Ukrainian government and Russia-backed separatists in Donbas.
All males in the age from 18 to 60 are restricted in freedom of movement abroad and called to participate in war effort, without exceptions to conscientious objectors to military service and those who are fleeing from war, too. War Resisters’ International strongly criticized this decision of Ukrainian government to prohibit all male citizens in age 18 to 60 to leave the country and demanded a withdrawal of these decisions.
I admire massive antiwar rallies in Russia, courageous peaceful citizens who nonviolently oppose Putin’s war machine under threats of arrest and punishment. Our friends, conscientious objection movement in Russia, also members of European Bureau for Conscientious Objection, condemns the Russian military aggression and calls on Russia to stop the war, calls all recruits to refuse military service and apply for alternative civilian service or claim exemption on medical grounds.
And there are peace rallies around the world in support of peace in Ukraine. Half-million of people in Berlin hazard to protest against war. There are antiwar actions in Italy, in France. Our friends from Gensuikyo, the Japan Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, responded to Putin nuclear threats with protest rallies in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I invite you to seek for recent international and United States antiwar events at the website WorldBeyondWar.org, to participate in the global day of action to stop the war in Ukraine on March 6 under a slogan, “Russian troops out. No NATO expansion,” organized by CodePink and other peace groups.
It is a shame that Russia and Ukraine up to now fail to negotiate ceasefire and failed even to agree on safe humanitarian corridors for evacuation of civilians. Negotiations between the Ukraine and Russia didn’t achieve a ceasefire. Putin needs neutral status of Ukraine, denazification, demilitarization of Ukraine and the approval that Crimea belongs to Russia, which is contrary to international law. And he told it to Macron. So, we renounce these demands of Putin. Ukrainian delegation on negotiations was ready to discuss only ceasefire and Russian troops leaving Ukraine, because, of course, territorial integrity matters of Ukraine. Also, Ukraine continued shelling of Donetsk while Russia bombarded Kharkiv and other cities. Basically, both parties, Ukraine and Russia, are belligerent and not willing to calm down. Putin and Zelensky should engage in peace talks seriously and in good faith as responsible politicians and representatives of the people, on the basis of common public interest, instead of fighting for mutually exclusive positions. I hope that there is a —
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Yurii, Yurii Sheliazhenko, I wanted to ask you — you mentioned President Zelensky. He’s being hailed in many of the Western media as a hero since the invasion. What is your assessment of how President Zelensky has been functioning in this crisis?
YURII SHELIAZHENKO: President Zelensky is totally surrendered to war machine. He pursues military solution, and he fails to call Putin and ask directly to stop the war.
And I hope that with the help of all people in the world telling the truth to power, demanding to stop shooting and start talking, aiding those who need it and investing into the peace culture and education for nonviolent citizenship, we could together build a better world without armies and borders, a world where truth and love are great powers, embracing East and West. I believe that nonviolence is a more effective and progressive tool for global governance, social and environmental justice.
The delusions about systemic violence and war as panacea, a miraculous solution for all social problems, are false. The sanctions with which the West and the East are imposing on each other as a result of a battle for control over Ukraine between the United States and Russia may weaken but will not split the global market of ideas, labor, goods and finances. So, the global market will inevitably find a way to satisfy its need in global government. Question is: How civilized and how democratic will be the future global government?
And military alliances’ aim to uphold absolute sovereignty are promoting despotism rather than democracy. When NATO members provide military aid to support sovereignty of Ukrainian government, or when Russia sends troops to fight for self-proclaimed sovereignty of Donetsk and Luhansk separatists, you should remember that unchecked sovereignty means bloodshed, and sovereignty is — sovereignty is definitely not democratic value. All democracies emerged from resistance to bloodthirsty sovereigns, individual and collective. War profiteers of the West are the same threat to democracy as the authoritarian rulers of the East. And their attempts to divide and rule the Earth are essentially similar. NATO should step back from conflict around Ukraine, escalated by its support to war effort and aspirations of membership of Ukrainian government. And ideally, NATO should dissolve or transform into alliance of disarmament instead of military alliance. And, of course —
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you something, Yurii. We just got this word in. You know, Zelensky has just addressed by video the European Parliament. They gave him a standing ovation after, and the European Parliament has just approved Ukraine’s application to join the European Union. What is your response to that?
YURII SHELIAZHENKO: I feel proud for my country that we are joined to alliance of Western democracies, European Union, which is a peaceful union. And I hope that all the world in the future will be peaceful union. But, unfortunately, European Union, as well as Ukraine, have a similar problem of militarization. And it looks like a dystopian Ministry of Peace in Orwell’s novel 1984, when European peace facility provides military assistance to Ukraine, but there is almost absent assistance to nonviolent solution to current crisis and to demilitarization. I hope, of course, Ukraine belongs to Europe. Ukraine is a democratic country. And it is great that the Ukrainian application to join European Union is approved, but I think that this consolidation of West should not be consolidation against so-called enemy, against the East. East and West should find the peaceful reconciliation and should pursue global governance, unity of all people in the world without armies and borders. This consolidation of West should not lead to a war against East. East and West should be friends and live peacefully and demilitarized. And, of course, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is one of venues of total demilitarization which are needed desperately.
You know, now we have a problem of archaic governance based on sovereignty of nation-states. When, for example — when Ukraine prohibits many citizens to participate in public life speaking Russian, it seems like normal. It seems like sovereignty. It is not, of course. It is not a just cause for invasion and military aggression, of course, as Putin claims, but it is not right. And, of course, the West many time should say to Ukraine that human rights is a very important value, and freedom of expression, including linguistic rights, matter, and the representation of pro-Russian people, Russian-speaking people in political life is important thing. And the oppression of culture of our neighbor and their diaspora in Ukraine, of course, will infuriate Kremlin. And it infuriated. And indeed this crisis should be deescalated, not escalated. And this indeed great day when Ukraine was recognized a European nation should not be the prelude for opposition, military opposition, between Europe and Russia. But I hope that Russia, too, will head out with their military forces from Ukraine and will also join European Union, and European Union and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and other regional alliances, African Union and so on, in future will be parts of a united global political entity, global governance, as Immanuel Kant in his beautiful pamphlet, Perpetual Peace, envisaged, you know? A plan of Immanuel Kant for —
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Yurii, Yurii Sheliazhenko, I wanted to ask you — in terms of the issue of deescalating the situation and seeking to achieve peace, Ukraine has requested a no-fly zone over certain areas of Ukraine. That would obviously have to be enforced by the militaries of the European Union and the United States. What do you feel about this issue of a call for a no-fly zone over Ukraine?
YURII SHELIAZHENKO: Well, it is continuation of this line to escalation, to engage whole West, united in military aspect, to oppose Russia. And Putin already responded to this with nuclear threats, because he is infuriated because he is, of course, scared, as well as we are scared today in Kyiv, and the West are scared about the situation.
Now we should stay calm. We should think rationally. We should unite indeed, but not unite to escalate conflict and give military response. We should unite pursuing peaceful solution of conflict, negotiations between Putin and Zelensky, presidents of Russia and Ukraine, between Biden and Putin, between the United States and Russia. Peace talks and things about future are the key, because people start war when they lose hopes in future. And today we need revived hopes in future. We have a peace culture, which are starting to develop throughout the world. And we have old, archaic culture of violence, structural violence, cultural violence. And, of course, the most of people are not trying to be angels or demons; they are drifting between culture of peace and culture of violence.
AMY GOODMAN: Yurii, before we go, we just wanted to ask you, since you are in Kyiv, the military convoy is just outside of Kyiv: Are you planning to leave, like so many Ukrainians have tried to leave and have left, something like estimates of half a million Ukrainians over the borders into Poland, Romania and other places? Or are you staying put?
YURII SHELIAZHENKO: As I said, there is no safe humanitarian corridors agreed by Russia and the Ukraine for leaving civilians. It is one of failures in the negotiations. And as I said, our government thinks that all males should participate in war efforts, and blatantly violates human right to conscientious objection to military service. So, it is no way for pacifists to flee, and I stay with peaceful Ukraine here, and I hope that peaceful Ukraine will not be destroyed by this polarized, militarized world.
AMY GOODMAN: Yurii Sheliazhenko, we want to thank you so much for being with us. Yes, males between the ages of 18 and 60 are not allowed to leave Ukraine. Yurii is the executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, board member of the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection, also member of the board of directors at World BEYOND War and research associate at KROK University in Kyiv, Ukraine.
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Re: Walden Bello on U.S. Motives in Ukraine War, by Amy Good
by admin » Wed Mar 09, 2022 1:20 am
On International Women’s Day, Ukrainian LGBTQI Activist Describes Russian Siege as Millions Flee
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
MARCH 08, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/8/u ... aping_kyiv
GUESTS: Olena Shevchenko, Ukrainian human rights and LGBTI activist who recently relocated to Lviv in western Ukraine after fleeing Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky released a video on Monday to admonish Russia for breaking promises to let Ukrainian citizens evacuate safely through “humanitarian corridors,” as Russian forces have continued to lay siege to civilian centers. We go to western Ukraine to speak with Olena Shevchenko, Ukrainian human rights and LGBTI activist who recently fled the Russian military assault on Kyiv with her parents and has been helping to evacuate others. Vulnerable communities such as disabled and transgender people have a more difficult time fleeing to safety, says Shevchenko.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show looking at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has entered its 13th day. The United Nations says over 2 million refugees have now fled Ukraine in the largest exodus in Europe since World War II. Ukrainian officials say civilian evacuations have begun after Russia announced a temporary ceasefire in some of the hardest-hit areas, including the northeastern city of Sumy, where 21 people, including two children, were reported killed in airstrikes just hours before the evacuations began. But Ukraine has accused Russia of shelling civilians fleeing Mariupol, the besieged southern port where many residents have gone days without food or water. Russia is also accused of continuing to attack civilians in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which has been devastated by days of Russian attacks. One Ukrainian woman named Maryna said she was hit by shrapnel from Russia’s shelling when she went to donate blood. She spoke to Reuters while sitting in a wheelchair at a hospital.
MARYNA: [translated] My brother and I came to give blood, and we were shelled. The blood transfusion center was shelled. We had just left the center, and we were shelled by Russian occupiers. And my brother died on the second day, February 27th. And I remained in hospital with shrapnel wounds in my legs.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier today, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, the former Chilean president, called on all forces to stop targeting civilians.
MICHELLE BACHELET: Since the council’s urgent debate, the number of civilian casualties has continued to grow. I’m deeply concerned about civilians trapped in active hostilities in numerous areas, and I urge all parties to take effective action to enable all civilians, including those in situations of vulnerability, to safely leave areas affected by conflict. The office has received reports of arbitrary detention of pro-Ukrainian activists in areas that have recently come under the control of armed groups in the east of the country. We have also received reports of beatings of people considered to be pro-Russian in government-controlled territories. I repeat my urgent call for a peaceful end to hostilities.
AMY GOODMAN: As we mark International Women’s Day, we’re joined by Olena Shevchenko, Ukrainian human rights defender, LGBTI activist, recently fled Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, with her parents and relocated to Lviv in western Ukraine.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Olena. It’s great to have you with us. Why don’t you just tell us about that journey, what that meant — we’ll be showing a map right now of Ukraine — going from Kyiv to Lviv? How did your parents handle it? How did you? And why did you go?
OLENA SHEVCHENKO: Hi. Well, honestly, it was a very hard and long way. And it started just day before we left, because I was able to transfer my parents from the left bank of the city to the right bank, and it took four hours by taxi. And the taxi cost us more than 300 of euros. So you can imagine, for instance, for those people who don’t have any money, for instance, in occupied cities, in Kharkiv and Kyiv now, in Mariupol, how they can get out. It’s almost not possible.
And we had just two options to leave the city. It’s the train and the bus. And the train station, this is obviously not even possible to get on the train, because the queues are like for two or three days. And the most — those of vulnerable communities, I mean, people with disabilities, for instance, women with children, they don’t have any chances to get on the trains, because this is the huge fight between those who want to leave Ukraine. And it took almost 24 hours to go to the safer place.
So, yeah, now I am in Lviv, because it’s not possible anymore to stay there without electricity, without water, without heat. It’s not even possible to do something like to help, because we are working now via internet connection. We are trying to help people to escape from those cities. So, it’s not — I don’t have any sense to be there without such things. So now I am in Lviv, and we establish the shelters here for those who are able to escape, at least.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Olena, you’ve been — as you said, you’ve been helping others who are trying to get to safer regions. Could you talk about some of the people that you’ve been helping and their stories?
OLENA SHEVCHENKO: You know, I have so many stories now, and I am not sure if anybody actually want to hear those stories, because mainly stories are about those people who can’t even leave their houses because they don’t have any access to elevators anymore, and they are still at homes, women who are trying to get out with their parents, people with disabilities, like I said, like elderly people, those who are sick. So, I don’t know how to help them. And we receive like thousands of messages every day, and you just suffer because you can’t help anymore. You can help, I don’t know, 10, 20 people a day, but that’s thousands of requests.
Especially — I’m not talking just about LGBTQI people. We also — the founder of the Women’s March, the huge initiative. Basically, we received through our social networks from different women, from different cities, the requests for help. They don’t have medicines. They don’t have food. They don’t have any chances to survive. Just yesterday, we received a message from two people on the wheelchairs who said they are in Bucha, very near the Kyiv, without anything, in a basement, and nobody knows who will go there and save them. I am not sure if they’re still alive.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you mentioned the Women’s March. Today is International Women’s Day. Could you talk about the impact especially of this invasion and the fighting now on women and children, and your message to the international community?
OLENA SHEVCHENKO: My message to international community, you know, that this is not what women invent, I mean, in terms of the war. That’s not something we invent. But we are in the center of this war. We are on the center of this humanitarian crisis, because women now everywhere. And we heard so many cases now of rapes in these occupied cities. Like, I heard like a woman scream. Then those Russian troops just send in the videos. And I hear the sound of screaming of women who are in the same time raped by soldiers. I don’t think this is — like, it’s not about heroism. It’s not like about heroes. War is a disaster for everybody, and it needs to be stopped, because that’s not about human rights. That’s not about geopolitic. That’s just a disaster. Why somebody needs to come to other places, just, you know, with this aim to put the flag on some buildings and said, like, “Now it’s mine”? So, women are still seen as some things which can be taken. So, basically, that’s still about the power.
And that’s why we are in need to more solidarity around the world, not only women, everybody, against the war, against the violence. So it was our main message for today’s manifestation, which we prepared during the year. But it’s not possible now to go to the streets. So that’s why we’re asking others, other women in different cities, in different countries, go to the streets and say no to war, say no to violence.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about reports of trans Ukrainians unable to leave because their gender identity on their passport did not match their gender identity — that’s the case of trans people — and the whole issue of having to show a passport, which so many people do not have, and the discrimination against Roma, Black students who are in Ukraine trying to flee, who we interviewed.
OLENA SHEVCHENKO: Yeah, that’s the case. It’s almost not possible for those people who have these male documents still or for other trans people to cross the border, because during the war they need to be on the war by law. So, basically, they don’t have any possibility to leave the country. That’s why they are staying in our shelters. And, of course, there is an option, like you said, for Roma people, as well, just to trying to cross the border without documents, but it’s also very problematic, even taking into account that we’ve been said by different bodies — I don’t know — in Ukraine and different countries that it will be possible for people without documents to cross the border, but it’s not.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you, Olena, about a group in Ukraine that is trying to reach out to Russian parents or people, relatives of Russians who are looking for their loved ones, Russian soldiers in Ukraine, to see if they’re dead. It’s an antiwar hotline. And people call in, and the Ukrainians try to get information on those Russian soldiers — these efforts we so rarely hear about of peace across borders.
OLENA SHEVCHENKO: I don’t know what to say. Yes, we have many small initiatives which are trying to still talk about peace. And, of course, it’s not like the highly popular theme right now in Ukraine or in other countries, of course. Everybody is more concentrated on, you know, winning something or who will be the winner of this war. But I don’t think that this is the good action to make. So, basically, yes, many people trying to somehow make the connections. And, of course, for those who live in Russia, I mean, for mothers, first of all, it’s really important to know what happened with their children. I personally don’t think they need to be responsible for Putin’s actions. I think they need to know the truth.
AMY GOODMAN: On that note, Olena Shevchenko, we thank you so much for being with us, Ukrainian human rights defender, LGBTQI activist, recently fled Kyiv with her parents and relocated to Lviv in western Ukraine.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
MARCH 08, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/8/u ... aping_kyiv
GUESTS: Olena Shevchenko, Ukrainian human rights and LGBTI activist who recently relocated to Lviv in western Ukraine after fleeing Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky released a video on Monday to admonish Russia for breaking promises to let Ukrainian citizens evacuate safely through “humanitarian corridors,” as Russian forces have continued to lay siege to civilian centers. We go to western Ukraine to speak with Olena Shevchenko, Ukrainian human rights and LGBTI activist who recently fled the Russian military assault on Kyiv with her parents and has been helping to evacuate others. Vulnerable communities such as disabled and transgender people have a more difficult time fleeing to safety, says Shevchenko.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show looking at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has entered its 13th day. The United Nations says over 2 million refugees have now fled Ukraine in the largest exodus in Europe since World War II. Ukrainian officials say civilian evacuations have begun after Russia announced a temporary ceasefire in some of the hardest-hit areas, including the northeastern city of Sumy, where 21 people, including two children, were reported killed in airstrikes just hours before the evacuations began. But Ukraine has accused Russia of shelling civilians fleeing Mariupol, the besieged southern port where many residents have gone days without food or water. Russia is also accused of continuing to attack civilians in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which has been devastated by days of Russian attacks. One Ukrainian woman named Maryna said she was hit by shrapnel from Russia’s shelling when she went to donate blood. She spoke to Reuters while sitting in a wheelchair at a hospital.
MARYNA: [translated] My brother and I came to give blood, and we were shelled. The blood transfusion center was shelled. We had just left the center, and we were shelled by Russian occupiers. And my brother died on the second day, February 27th. And I remained in hospital with shrapnel wounds in my legs.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier today, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, the former Chilean president, called on all forces to stop targeting civilians.
MICHELLE BACHELET: Since the council’s urgent debate, the number of civilian casualties has continued to grow. I’m deeply concerned about civilians trapped in active hostilities in numerous areas, and I urge all parties to take effective action to enable all civilians, including those in situations of vulnerability, to safely leave areas affected by conflict. The office has received reports of arbitrary detention of pro-Ukrainian activists in areas that have recently come under the control of armed groups in the east of the country. We have also received reports of beatings of people considered to be pro-Russian in government-controlled territories. I repeat my urgent call for a peaceful end to hostilities.
AMY GOODMAN: As we mark International Women’s Day, we’re joined by Olena Shevchenko, Ukrainian human rights defender, LGBTI activist, recently fled Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, with her parents and relocated to Lviv in western Ukraine.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Olena. It’s great to have you with us. Why don’t you just tell us about that journey, what that meant — we’ll be showing a map right now of Ukraine — going from Kyiv to Lviv? How did your parents handle it? How did you? And why did you go?
OLENA SHEVCHENKO: Hi. Well, honestly, it was a very hard and long way. And it started just day before we left, because I was able to transfer my parents from the left bank of the city to the right bank, and it took four hours by taxi. And the taxi cost us more than 300 of euros. So you can imagine, for instance, for those people who don’t have any money, for instance, in occupied cities, in Kharkiv and Kyiv now, in Mariupol, how they can get out. It’s almost not possible.
And we had just two options to leave the city. It’s the train and the bus. And the train station, this is obviously not even possible to get on the train, because the queues are like for two or three days. And the most — those of vulnerable communities, I mean, people with disabilities, for instance, women with children, they don’t have any chances to get on the trains, because this is the huge fight between those who want to leave Ukraine. And it took almost 24 hours to go to the safer place.
So, yeah, now I am in Lviv, because it’s not possible anymore to stay there without electricity, without water, without heat. It’s not even possible to do something like to help, because we are working now via internet connection. We are trying to help people to escape from those cities. So, it’s not — I don’t have any sense to be there without such things. So now I am in Lviv, and we establish the shelters here for those who are able to escape, at least.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Olena, you’ve been — as you said, you’ve been helping others who are trying to get to safer regions. Could you talk about some of the people that you’ve been helping and their stories?
OLENA SHEVCHENKO: You know, I have so many stories now, and I am not sure if anybody actually want to hear those stories, because mainly stories are about those people who can’t even leave their houses because they don’t have any access to elevators anymore, and they are still at homes, women who are trying to get out with their parents, people with disabilities, like I said, like elderly people, those who are sick. So, I don’t know how to help them. And we receive like thousands of messages every day, and you just suffer because you can’t help anymore. You can help, I don’t know, 10, 20 people a day, but that’s thousands of requests.
Especially — I’m not talking just about LGBTQI people. We also — the founder of the Women’s March, the huge initiative. Basically, we received through our social networks from different women, from different cities, the requests for help. They don’t have medicines. They don’t have food. They don’t have any chances to survive. Just yesterday, we received a message from two people on the wheelchairs who said they are in Bucha, very near the Kyiv, without anything, in a basement, and nobody knows who will go there and save them. I am not sure if they’re still alive.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you mentioned the Women’s March. Today is International Women’s Day. Could you talk about the impact especially of this invasion and the fighting now on women and children, and your message to the international community?
OLENA SHEVCHENKO: My message to international community, you know, that this is not what women invent, I mean, in terms of the war. That’s not something we invent. But we are in the center of this war. We are on the center of this humanitarian crisis, because women now everywhere. And we heard so many cases now of rapes in these occupied cities. Like, I heard like a woman scream. Then those Russian troops just send in the videos. And I hear the sound of screaming of women who are in the same time raped by soldiers. I don’t think this is — like, it’s not about heroism. It’s not like about heroes. War is a disaster for everybody, and it needs to be stopped, because that’s not about human rights. That’s not about geopolitic. That’s just a disaster. Why somebody needs to come to other places, just, you know, with this aim to put the flag on some buildings and said, like, “Now it’s mine”? So, women are still seen as some things which can be taken. So, basically, that’s still about the power.
And that’s why we are in need to more solidarity around the world, not only women, everybody, against the war, against the violence. So it was our main message for today’s manifestation, which we prepared during the year. But it’s not possible now to go to the streets. So that’s why we’re asking others, other women in different cities, in different countries, go to the streets and say no to war, say no to violence.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about reports of trans Ukrainians unable to leave because their gender identity on their passport did not match their gender identity — that’s the case of trans people — and the whole issue of having to show a passport, which so many people do not have, and the discrimination against Roma, Black students who are in Ukraine trying to flee, who we interviewed.
OLENA SHEVCHENKO: Yeah, that’s the case. It’s almost not possible for those people who have these male documents still or for other trans people to cross the border, because during the war they need to be on the war by law. So, basically, they don’t have any possibility to leave the country. That’s why they are staying in our shelters. And, of course, there is an option, like you said, for Roma people, as well, just to trying to cross the border without documents, but it’s also very problematic, even taking into account that we’ve been said by different bodies — I don’t know — in Ukraine and different countries that it will be possible for people without documents to cross the border, but it’s not.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you, Olena, about a group in Ukraine that is trying to reach out to Russian parents or people, relatives of Russians who are looking for their loved ones, Russian soldiers in Ukraine, to see if they’re dead. It’s an antiwar hotline. And people call in, and the Ukrainians try to get information on those Russian soldiers — these efforts we so rarely hear about of peace across borders.
OLENA SHEVCHENKO: I don’t know what to say. Yes, we have many small initiatives which are trying to still talk about peace. And, of course, it’s not like the highly popular theme right now in Ukraine or in other countries, of course. Everybody is more concentrated on, you know, winning something or who will be the winner of this war. But I don’t think that this is the good action to make. So, basically, yes, many people trying to somehow make the connections. And, of course, for those who live in Russia, I mean, for mothers, first of all, it’s really important to know what happened with their children. I personally don’t think they need to be responsible for Putin’s actions. I think they need to know the truth.
AMY GOODMAN: On that note, Olena Shevchenko, we thank you so much for being with us, Ukrainian human rights defender, LGBTQI activist, recently fled Kyiv with her parents and relocated to Lviv in western Ukraine.
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Re: Walden Bello on U.S. Motives in Ukraine War, by Amy Good
by admin » Thu Mar 10, 2022 2:01 am
Russian Invasion Shows Risks of Addiction to Fossil Fuels; Will Biden Fund Shift to Renewables?
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
MARCH 09, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/9/w ... renewables
GUESTS: Antonia Juhasz, investigative journalist covering oil and energy.
Global oil and gas prices are skyrocketing as the U.S. bans Russian energy imports as part of its sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine. In retaliation, Russia threatened to cut off natural gas to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. We speak to energy and climate investigative reporter Antonia Juhasz, author of “The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry,” about growing calls for a green energy revolution amid the climate crisis and rising prices for fossil fuels. “The bottom line is to achieve, first, peace in Ukraine and stop Putin, and then to make the transition from fossil fuels,” says Juhasz.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman in New York, joined by Democracy Now! co-host Juan González in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Hi, Juan.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Hi, Amy. Welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its 14th day, we begin today’s show looking at the war’s impact on global energy markets. On Tuesday, President Biden announced a ban on imports of Russian oil, gas and coal. Britain followed up by saying it would phase out imports of Russian oil by the end of the war. The European Union has announced plans to reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas by two-thirds this year. President Biden announced the U.S. ban during an address from the White House.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Today I am announcing the United States is targeting the main artery of Russia’s economy. We are banning all imports of Russian oil and gas and energy. That means Russian oil will no longer be acceptable at U.S. ports and the American people will deal another powerful blow to Putin’s war machine. This is a move that has strong bipartisan support in Congress and I believe in the country. Americans have rallied to support the Ukrainian people and made it clear we will not be part of subsidizing Putin’s war.
AMY GOODMAN: Britain said it would end Russian oil imports by the end of the year. Global oil and gas prices have soared over the past two weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine and experts warn prices could keep rising. Earlier this week, Russia threatened to cut off natural gas shipments to Europe in response to Western sanctions. Russia provides the E.U. countries with about 40% of their natural gas and about a quarter of its oil. Meanwhile, oil giants BP, Shell, and Exxon have announced plans to halt operations in Russia. The CEOs of Big Oil have long held close to the Russian government. Former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, who served as Secretary of State under Donald Trump, received Russia’s Order of Friendship Medal by Vladimir Putin in 2013. On Tuesday, analysts at Goldman Sachs said, “Given Russia’s key role in global energy supply, the global economy could soon be faced with one of the largest energy supply shocks ever.”
In recent days, the Biden administration has begun exploring other ways to increase global oil supply. Over the weekend, Biden administration officials traveled to Venezuela to discuss the possible lifting of sanctions on the nation’s oil industry. The White House has also floated the idea of Biden visiting Saudi Arabia in an effort to mend relations and to urge the kingdom to pump more oil. While the Biden administration is pushing more oil drilling, many climate activists say now is the time to invest in a green energy revolution. Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts said, “This moment is a clarion call for the urgent need to transition to domestic clean energy so that we are never again complicit in fossil-fueled conflict.” We go now to Antonia Juhasz, investigative journalist focused on energy and climate. Antonia is the author of three books, including The Tyranny of Oil. She teaches at Tulane University in New Orleans, where she is joining us from. Antonia, welcome back to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with President Biden’s unilateral announcement of the energy ban—oil, gas and coal—from Russia, the significance of this.
ANTONIA JUHASZ: It is extremely significant, Amy, and thank you so much for having me, and thank you, Juan. There are many parts of that speech that were very important. I would say the most important is actually when Biden said, “The U.S. must transition to clean energy; that’ll mean tyrants like Putin won’t be able to use fossil fuels as weapons against other nations.” He didn’t limit it to Putin and he essentially stated that the United States was going to now see the wielding of fossil fuels as a weapon of war. That’s a profound statement and should have profound impacts on the way that we look at the way many nations and many companies use fossil fuels and the impacts on people, the economy, war, peace, the climate, et cetera.
By stating that the United States would end any oil, liquefied natural gas or coal imports, the United States was being the first nation to take that full step against Putin and to essentially say that peace in Ukraine is dependent on a shifting off of fossil fuels, ending Russia’s ability to wield fossil fuels as a weapon of war, and the world and the nation’s necessity to transition off of fossil fuels. That is the message that has been being loudly repeated out of the political leadership in the Ukraine, citizens of Ukraine, people around the world, the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres. This message has kept being repeated, that a key tool towards peace is the unwinding of the global reliance on fossil fuels.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Antonia, at the same time, the Biden administration is looking to reorient its supplies and obviously world supplies, in discussions with Venezuela, possibilities. There seems to be an impetus to reach a deal with Iran and also the attempts to get Saudi Arabia and some of the Gulf states to increase their oil supplies. Both leaders of the Emirates and of Saudi Arabia declined to have phone calls with Biden, apparently, according to press reports. So is it really a shifting more toward renewable energy or is it an issue of having to reorient the supply routes in terms of oil?
ANTONIA JUHASZ: There’s the short and the long term. First of all, I think it is really important to say that the price spike that we have seen immediately in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is not about a shortage of supply of any natural resource at this point of oil or natural gas. It is energy traders trading on the expectation of a reduction in supply and pushing the price of oil up. The price of oil going up has immediately impacted the price of gasoline. If we regulated energy traders’ behavior, we could address that problem right now. But the reality is right now, the expectation is that there will be a reduction in supply of Russian oil on the global market, of Russian natural gas because Putin has already been using the supply of natural gas as a tool against Europe. So controlling the flow, the decision whether to let natural gas flow to Europe, which also has very significant impacts.
So in the short term, the Biden administration did orchestrate, which is a fairly profound shift in global energy politics—the International Energy Agency acted to coordinate its members led by the United States to increase oil supplies by 60 million barrels. That was essentially as a direct rebuff against OPEC’s unwillingness to do so. That is because Saudi Arabia is aligned with Russia and trying to protect Russian interests and is not going to put more oil into the market, in order to support Russia. It is not surprising to me that the Saudis are not taking Biden’s call. I don’t think that’s going to happen. In the short term, there is a desire to demonstrate that there will be more oil and that should hopefully reduce the stress that’s being put on the market by energy traders and again the expectation of a reduction in supply.
But I think we need to hold the administration and the rest of global leaders to their pledges, which is that they are saying, “This is a short-term solution. The long-term or even immediate-term solution is the transition to fossil fuels.” And they need to be held to those statements. Every member of the Biden administration who has spoken has reiterated that statement and they need to be held to that statement because what, if anything, this war has shown us is how insecure we are based on this dependence. The United States is the leading guzzler by far of gasoline. The power that the price of gasoline has over political elections, people’s pocketbooks, everything in between, is an incredible weakness.
The dependence of Europe on—and I call it methane gas, not natural gas, because natural gas is about 93% methane—Europe’s dependence on methane gas has put it into this position where it is having an almost impossible time divorcing itself from Putin’s power. Being unable to do that means that there isn’t a stand to be able to take against wielding the war against Ukraine. So that incredible weakness that is created by that dependence on methane gas and the idea that methane gas should be considered a quote-unquote “bridge fuel” from fossil fuels to renewable energy, I think has been put into stark—has been exposed to be not a bridge fuel at all, but rather a continued weakness not only on compounding the climate crisis, but in continuing to support autocrats in some of the most brutal regimes in the world.
I think we need to look at the actions of the oil companies, BP, Shell, even Exxon who have been unwinding and divesting their partnerships with Russia and doing so with public statements in which they say that they are doing this for humanitarian reasons, they do not want to put their money behind Putin and support his war. That sentiment, the same as Biden’s sentiment in his speech, needs to be applied and thought of to all of their partnerships with all of the other countries that are wielding control over fossil fuels as weapons. Saudi Arabia is a key example and its brutal war on Yemen. All of the same oil companies that partner with Russia and Putin partner with the Saudis, are in deep partnerships with the Saudis. And expanding this analysis to say, “How can we unplug this power, this influence?”
In the short term in the United States, we need to be really clear. We import zero liquified natural gas from Russia. We only get about 3% of our oil from Russia, which we don’t need, and we do import some coal. But we are not reliant on any of those resources, and we can immediately lead the globe in demonstrating that our goal isn’t, quote-unquote, “energy independence.” We don’t need to be independent of other nations. But what we do need to do is make our energy sources localized and democratized, so that we are using less energy by placing renewable energy sources as close to us as possible, making them democratically controlled, cooperatively controlled and operated, so that we are not simply replacing one form of extractives, massive extractives to supply renewable energy with what we are giving away for fossil fuels, but to say that the more that we can localize our energy sources, the less dependent we are on any mass extraction or mass control of that extraction of the resource. We can do that rapidly, and we can do that right away, and we can help other nations do that as well.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Antonia, I wanted to follow up on this issue of Europe’s position, though. Obviously, Europe did not follow directly with Biden’s decision yesterday. What about the issue of this Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, and also that this crisis erupts just as Nord Stream 2 was getting ready to go into operation?
ANTONIA JUHASZ: This is a war that is the first significant, well, since Russia’s invasion of Crimea, the first superpower war over fossil fuels, about fossil fuels, in the climate era and that has dramatically changed the discussion of all of these issues. So this isn’t a war for oil in the way that the Iraq war was literally to capture oil fields and turn them over to oil companies. This is a war that is fueled by the financial support of fossil fuels, that is supporting Putin and giving him control over so much of world decision-making. But also the immediate impetus for the war was a dispute over a natural gas pipeline, Nord Stream 2. Nord Stream 1 is the pipeline that carries a significant amount of methane gas to Europe and it goes from Russia through Ukraine under the Black Sea to Germany. Putin has been withholding natural gas from that pipeline to Europe as he is trying to get Nord Stream 2 into action. Nord Stream 2 specifically does not go through the Ukraine, bypasses the Ukraine so that Putin wasn’t exposed to this weakness of Ukraine’s somewhat control of that pipeline, bypasses Ukraine, follows a similar path to get to Germany. It’s built, it’s ready to go, but Europe and the United States have been trying to stop Russia’s pending action against Ukraine by not letting the gas flow through Nord Stream 2. That recent decision to not let the gas go through Nord Stream 2 was the most immediate predecessor to Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. So in many ways, this is a war that’s about a pipeline, the flow of natural gas, and about Putin’s ability to wield fossil fuels as a weapon.
AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had this response when asked by Fox if the U.S. would do more to produce oil at home.
JEN PSAKI: Let me give you the facts here, and I know that can be inconvenient but I think they are important in this moment. To the contrary, we have been clear that in the short term, supply must keep up with the demand, here and around the world while we make the shift to a secure clean energy future. We are one of the largest producers with a strong domestic oil and gas industry. We have actually produced more oil—it is at record numbers—and we will continue to produce more oil. There are 9,000 approved drilling permits that are not being used.
AMY GOODMAN: Wow. Here is Jen Psaki saying we are going to up the production of oil at a time with a huge push for renewables, and she is admitting this. So there is an interesting challenge here. You have the Ukraine bill that is racing through Congress, around $10 billion to help Ukraine. Then there is the issue of whether there is a way of crafting Build Back Better to be framed in terms of Ukraine, which would make it more palatable to Republicans. Can you talk about this, and which side is going to win? Not Republican or Democrat, but those who are deeply concerned about renewables versus a huge gush of more oil production in the United States?
ANTONIA JUHASZ: Yeah. Jen Psaki said about three days earlier that the core of the Biden administration’s agenda is to transition to clean energy and off of fossil fuels as rapidly as possible. And I think actually both are true. What I think she is doing right now is there is a huge push that was first led by the American Petroleum Institute, the largest oil company lobbying group in the United States, putting pressure—and this was now just a week and a half ago; this has all happened so quickly—on the Biden administration not to implement any sanctions on Russian oil, not because they were worried necessarily about Putin, but because of all the U.S. oil companies and Western oil companies that have such large stakes in Russia and they did not want those to be impacted.
At the same time, the American Petroleum Institute and their supporters in Congress have been pushing that the response to the war needs to be that we produce more oil and that we can’t pass Build Back Better, we can’t pass legislation that would put more restrictions, more regulations on the oil industry because obviously the solution to the war is that the United States needs to be producing so much more oil and gas. What the response of the Biden administration has been is, “Don’t worry, we are producing tons of oil and natural gas.”
The first year of an administration, just to be clear, is usually the results of the policies of the previous administration. So the Trump administration didn’t produce as much in its first year because it was still under the sway of the Obama administration’s policies. Trump then significantly, dramatically increased production over the course of his subsequent years in office, reaching a high point just before the COVID crash. This first year of the Biden administration is really the tail ends of Trump administration policies that have kept that production at record highs. Jen Psaki is saying, “Look, we’re producing all this oil and gas, so the solution, therefore, is clearly not to reduce regulation. Our regulations are not stopping you from producing.”
I believe that the administration is trying to get Build Back Better passed. If we want to rapidly transition to renewable, localized, democratized, renewable energy in the United States, that’s the bill. That’s the bill that’s in Congress right now to do it. Of course, as I’m sure your listeners know, it has been stopped by one senator, really, and that is Joe Manchin of West Virginia who is the most heavily funded fossil fuel member of Congress by a long shot right now. Obviously, coal is his primary personal financial interest, but he is the most heavily supported of the fossil fuel industry of any member of Congress right now, and he is single-handedly stopping this bill from moving forward. It is very, very hard for the administration to act on its pledges to transition to renewable energy without that legislation.
That said, there are executive orders that the administration can do and can put into place, and it proved that it could do that yesterday. When Biden gave his speech, he simultaneously released I think two executive orders that not only—that go further than the ban on the imports, but also ban U.S. companies and banks or any financiers from financing or investing in Russian energy. The one question that brings to my mind is there are still corporate holdouts. Chevron, for example, has not divested its holdings in the Caspian Pipeline. Exxon hasn’t divested its holdings in the Caspian Pipeline. They are in partnership with Russian oil, with Russia on that pipeline because it carries their oil from Kazakhstan. They really want to keep producing in Kazakhstan. Talk about a world leader that is a brutal controller of his country; that’s Kazakhstan. They don’t want to lose those holdings, and they don’t want to lose that pipeline. So there is a lot of moving parts happening here and the bottom line is to keep putting pressure on the administration, on the companies to uphold their pledges that the bottom line is to achieve first peace in Ukraine and stop Putin and then to make the transition from fossil fuels.
AMY GOODMAN: Antonia Juhasz, thank you for being with us. There is so much to talk about. Investigative journalist focused on energy and climate. Author of several books, including The Tyranny of Oil. She is speaking to us from New Orleans where she teaches at Tulane University.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
MARCH 09, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/9/w ... renewables
GUESTS: Antonia Juhasz, investigative journalist covering oil and energy.
Global oil and gas prices are skyrocketing as the U.S. bans Russian energy imports as part of its sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine. In retaliation, Russia threatened to cut off natural gas to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. We speak to energy and climate investigative reporter Antonia Juhasz, author of “The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry,” about growing calls for a green energy revolution amid the climate crisis and rising prices for fossil fuels. “The bottom line is to achieve, first, peace in Ukraine and stop Putin, and then to make the transition from fossil fuels,” says Juhasz.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman in New York, joined by Democracy Now! co-host Juan González in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Hi, Juan.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Hi, Amy. Welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its 14th day, we begin today’s show looking at the war’s impact on global energy markets. On Tuesday, President Biden announced a ban on imports of Russian oil, gas and coal. Britain followed up by saying it would phase out imports of Russian oil by the end of the war. The European Union has announced plans to reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas by two-thirds this year. President Biden announced the U.S. ban during an address from the White House.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Today I am announcing the United States is targeting the main artery of Russia’s economy. We are banning all imports of Russian oil and gas and energy. That means Russian oil will no longer be acceptable at U.S. ports and the American people will deal another powerful blow to Putin’s war machine. This is a move that has strong bipartisan support in Congress and I believe in the country. Americans have rallied to support the Ukrainian people and made it clear we will not be part of subsidizing Putin’s war.
AMY GOODMAN: Britain said it would end Russian oil imports by the end of the year. Global oil and gas prices have soared over the past two weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine and experts warn prices could keep rising. Earlier this week, Russia threatened to cut off natural gas shipments to Europe in response to Western sanctions. Russia provides the E.U. countries with about 40% of their natural gas and about a quarter of its oil. Meanwhile, oil giants BP, Shell, and Exxon have announced plans to halt operations in Russia. The CEOs of Big Oil have long held close to the Russian government. Former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, who served as Secretary of State under Donald Trump, received Russia’s Order of Friendship Medal by Vladimir Putin in 2013. On Tuesday, analysts at Goldman Sachs said, “Given Russia’s key role in global energy supply, the global economy could soon be faced with one of the largest energy supply shocks ever.”
In recent days, the Biden administration has begun exploring other ways to increase global oil supply. Over the weekend, Biden administration officials traveled to Venezuela to discuss the possible lifting of sanctions on the nation’s oil industry. The White House has also floated the idea of Biden visiting Saudi Arabia in an effort to mend relations and to urge the kingdom to pump more oil. While the Biden administration is pushing more oil drilling, many climate activists say now is the time to invest in a green energy revolution. Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts said, “This moment is a clarion call for the urgent need to transition to domestic clean energy so that we are never again complicit in fossil-fueled conflict.” We go now to Antonia Juhasz, investigative journalist focused on energy and climate. Antonia is the author of three books, including The Tyranny of Oil. She teaches at Tulane University in New Orleans, where she is joining us from. Antonia, welcome back to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with President Biden’s unilateral announcement of the energy ban—oil, gas and coal—from Russia, the significance of this.
ANTONIA JUHASZ: It is extremely significant, Amy, and thank you so much for having me, and thank you, Juan. There are many parts of that speech that were very important. I would say the most important is actually when Biden said, “The U.S. must transition to clean energy; that’ll mean tyrants like Putin won’t be able to use fossil fuels as weapons against other nations.” He didn’t limit it to Putin and he essentially stated that the United States was going to now see the wielding of fossil fuels as a weapon of war. That’s a profound statement and should have profound impacts on the way that we look at the way many nations and many companies use fossil fuels and the impacts on people, the economy, war, peace, the climate, et cetera.
By stating that the United States would end any oil, liquefied natural gas or coal imports, the United States was being the first nation to take that full step against Putin and to essentially say that peace in Ukraine is dependent on a shifting off of fossil fuels, ending Russia’s ability to wield fossil fuels as a weapon of war, and the world and the nation’s necessity to transition off of fossil fuels. That is the message that has been being loudly repeated out of the political leadership in the Ukraine, citizens of Ukraine, people around the world, the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres. This message has kept being repeated, that a key tool towards peace is the unwinding of the global reliance on fossil fuels.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Antonia, at the same time, the Biden administration is looking to reorient its supplies and obviously world supplies, in discussions with Venezuela, possibilities. There seems to be an impetus to reach a deal with Iran and also the attempts to get Saudi Arabia and some of the Gulf states to increase their oil supplies. Both leaders of the Emirates and of Saudi Arabia declined to have phone calls with Biden, apparently, according to press reports. So is it really a shifting more toward renewable energy or is it an issue of having to reorient the supply routes in terms of oil?
ANTONIA JUHASZ: There’s the short and the long term. First of all, I think it is really important to say that the price spike that we have seen immediately in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is not about a shortage of supply of any natural resource at this point of oil or natural gas. It is energy traders trading on the expectation of a reduction in supply and pushing the price of oil up. The price of oil going up has immediately impacted the price of gasoline. If we regulated energy traders’ behavior, we could address that problem right now. But the reality is right now, the expectation is that there will be a reduction in supply of Russian oil on the global market, of Russian natural gas because Putin has already been using the supply of natural gas as a tool against Europe. So controlling the flow, the decision whether to let natural gas flow to Europe, which also has very significant impacts.
So in the short term, the Biden administration did orchestrate, which is a fairly profound shift in global energy politics—the International Energy Agency acted to coordinate its members led by the United States to increase oil supplies by 60 million barrels. That was essentially as a direct rebuff against OPEC’s unwillingness to do so. That is because Saudi Arabia is aligned with Russia and trying to protect Russian interests and is not going to put more oil into the market, in order to support Russia. It is not surprising to me that the Saudis are not taking Biden’s call. I don’t think that’s going to happen. In the short term, there is a desire to demonstrate that there will be more oil and that should hopefully reduce the stress that’s being put on the market by energy traders and again the expectation of a reduction in supply.
But I think we need to hold the administration and the rest of global leaders to their pledges, which is that they are saying, “This is a short-term solution. The long-term or even immediate-term solution is the transition to fossil fuels.” And they need to be held to those statements. Every member of the Biden administration who has spoken has reiterated that statement and they need to be held to that statement because what, if anything, this war has shown us is how insecure we are based on this dependence. The United States is the leading guzzler by far of gasoline. The power that the price of gasoline has over political elections, people’s pocketbooks, everything in between, is an incredible weakness.
The dependence of Europe on—and I call it methane gas, not natural gas, because natural gas is about 93% methane—Europe’s dependence on methane gas has put it into this position where it is having an almost impossible time divorcing itself from Putin’s power. Being unable to do that means that there isn’t a stand to be able to take against wielding the war against Ukraine. So that incredible weakness that is created by that dependence on methane gas and the idea that methane gas should be considered a quote-unquote “bridge fuel” from fossil fuels to renewable energy, I think has been put into stark—has been exposed to be not a bridge fuel at all, but rather a continued weakness not only on compounding the climate crisis, but in continuing to support autocrats in some of the most brutal regimes in the world.
I think we need to look at the actions of the oil companies, BP, Shell, even Exxon who have been unwinding and divesting their partnerships with Russia and doing so with public statements in which they say that they are doing this for humanitarian reasons, they do not want to put their money behind Putin and support his war. That sentiment, the same as Biden’s sentiment in his speech, needs to be applied and thought of to all of their partnerships with all of the other countries that are wielding control over fossil fuels as weapons. Saudi Arabia is a key example and its brutal war on Yemen. All of the same oil companies that partner with Russia and Putin partner with the Saudis, are in deep partnerships with the Saudis. And expanding this analysis to say, “How can we unplug this power, this influence?”
In the short term in the United States, we need to be really clear. We import zero liquified natural gas from Russia. We only get about 3% of our oil from Russia, which we don’t need, and we do import some coal. But we are not reliant on any of those resources, and we can immediately lead the globe in demonstrating that our goal isn’t, quote-unquote, “energy independence.” We don’t need to be independent of other nations. But what we do need to do is make our energy sources localized and democratized, so that we are using less energy by placing renewable energy sources as close to us as possible, making them democratically controlled, cooperatively controlled and operated, so that we are not simply replacing one form of extractives, massive extractives to supply renewable energy with what we are giving away for fossil fuels, but to say that the more that we can localize our energy sources, the less dependent we are on any mass extraction or mass control of that extraction of the resource. We can do that rapidly, and we can do that right away, and we can help other nations do that as well.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Antonia, I wanted to follow up on this issue of Europe’s position, though. Obviously, Europe did not follow directly with Biden’s decision yesterday. What about the issue of this Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, and also that this crisis erupts just as Nord Stream 2 was getting ready to go into operation?
ANTONIA JUHASZ: This is a war that is the first significant, well, since Russia’s invasion of Crimea, the first superpower war over fossil fuels, about fossil fuels, in the climate era and that has dramatically changed the discussion of all of these issues. So this isn’t a war for oil in the way that the Iraq war was literally to capture oil fields and turn them over to oil companies. This is a war that is fueled by the financial support of fossil fuels, that is supporting Putin and giving him control over so much of world decision-making. But also the immediate impetus for the war was a dispute over a natural gas pipeline, Nord Stream 2. Nord Stream 1 is the pipeline that carries a significant amount of methane gas to Europe and it goes from Russia through Ukraine under the Black Sea to Germany. Putin has been withholding natural gas from that pipeline to Europe as he is trying to get Nord Stream 2 into action. Nord Stream 2 specifically does not go through the Ukraine, bypasses the Ukraine so that Putin wasn’t exposed to this weakness of Ukraine’s somewhat control of that pipeline, bypasses Ukraine, follows a similar path to get to Germany. It’s built, it’s ready to go, but Europe and the United States have been trying to stop Russia’s pending action against Ukraine by not letting the gas flow through Nord Stream 2. That recent decision to not let the gas go through Nord Stream 2 was the most immediate predecessor to Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. So in many ways, this is a war that’s about a pipeline, the flow of natural gas, and about Putin’s ability to wield fossil fuels as a weapon.
AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had this response when asked by Fox if the U.S. would do more to produce oil at home.
JEN PSAKI: Let me give you the facts here, and I know that can be inconvenient but I think they are important in this moment. To the contrary, we have been clear that in the short term, supply must keep up with the demand, here and around the world while we make the shift to a secure clean energy future. We are one of the largest producers with a strong domestic oil and gas industry. We have actually produced more oil—it is at record numbers—and we will continue to produce more oil. There are 9,000 approved drilling permits that are not being used.
AMY GOODMAN: Wow. Here is Jen Psaki saying we are going to up the production of oil at a time with a huge push for renewables, and she is admitting this. So there is an interesting challenge here. You have the Ukraine bill that is racing through Congress, around $10 billion to help Ukraine. Then there is the issue of whether there is a way of crafting Build Back Better to be framed in terms of Ukraine, which would make it more palatable to Republicans. Can you talk about this, and which side is going to win? Not Republican or Democrat, but those who are deeply concerned about renewables versus a huge gush of more oil production in the United States?
ANTONIA JUHASZ: Yeah. Jen Psaki said about three days earlier that the core of the Biden administration’s agenda is to transition to clean energy and off of fossil fuels as rapidly as possible. And I think actually both are true. What I think she is doing right now is there is a huge push that was first led by the American Petroleum Institute, the largest oil company lobbying group in the United States, putting pressure—and this was now just a week and a half ago; this has all happened so quickly—on the Biden administration not to implement any sanctions on Russian oil, not because they were worried necessarily about Putin, but because of all the U.S. oil companies and Western oil companies that have such large stakes in Russia and they did not want those to be impacted.
At the same time, the American Petroleum Institute and their supporters in Congress have been pushing that the response to the war needs to be that we produce more oil and that we can’t pass Build Back Better, we can’t pass legislation that would put more restrictions, more regulations on the oil industry because obviously the solution to the war is that the United States needs to be producing so much more oil and gas. What the response of the Biden administration has been is, “Don’t worry, we are producing tons of oil and natural gas.”
The first year of an administration, just to be clear, is usually the results of the policies of the previous administration. So the Trump administration didn’t produce as much in its first year because it was still under the sway of the Obama administration’s policies. Trump then significantly, dramatically increased production over the course of his subsequent years in office, reaching a high point just before the COVID crash. This first year of the Biden administration is really the tail ends of Trump administration policies that have kept that production at record highs. Jen Psaki is saying, “Look, we’re producing all this oil and gas, so the solution, therefore, is clearly not to reduce regulation. Our regulations are not stopping you from producing.”
I believe that the administration is trying to get Build Back Better passed. If we want to rapidly transition to renewable, localized, democratized, renewable energy in the United States, that’s the bill. That’s the bill that’s in Congress right now to do it. Of course, as I’m sure your listeners know, it has been stopped by one senator, really, and that is Joe Manchin of West Virginia who is the most heavily funded fossil fuel member of Congress by a long shot right now. Obviously, coal is his primary personal financial interest, but he is the most heavily supported of the fossil fuel industry of any member of Congress right now, and he is single-handedly stopping this bill from moving forward. It is very, very hard for the administration to act on its pledges to transition to renewable energy without that legislation.
That said, there are executive orders that the administration can do and can put into place, and it proved that it could do that yesterday. When Biden gave his speech, he simultaneously released I think two executive orders that not only—that go further than the ban on the imports, but also ban U.S. companies and banks or any financiers from financing or investing in Russian energy. The one question that brings to my mind is there are still corporate holdouts. Chevron, for example, has not divested its holdings in the Caspian Pipeline. Exxon hasn’t divested its holdings in the Caspian Pipeline. They are in partnership with Russian oil, with Russia on that pipeline because it carries their oil from Kazakhstan. They really want to keep producing in Kazakhstan. Talk about a world leader that is a brutal controller of his country; that’s Kazakhstan. They don’t want to lose those holdings, and they don’t want to lose that pipeline. So there is a lot of moving parts happening here and the bottom line is to keep putting pressure on the administration, on the companies to uphold their pledges that the bottom line is to achieve first peace in Ukraine and stop Putin and then to make the transition from fossil fuels.
AMY GOODMAN: Antonia Juhasz, thank you for being with us. There is so much to talk about. Investigative journalist focused on energy and climate. Author of several books, including The Tyranny of Oil. She is speaking to us from New Orleans where she teaches at Tulane University.
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Re: Walden Bello on U.S. Motives in Ukraine War, by Amy Good
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Tariq Ali on Ukraine, NATO Expansion & How Putin’s Invasion Galvanized a Russian Peace Movement
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
MARCH 09, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/9/t ... _backfired
GUESTS: Tariq Ali, historian, activist, filmmaker, author, and editor of the New Left Review.
We go to London to speak with writer and activist Tariq Ali about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s historic address to the British House of Commons, Russia’s invasion and NATO expansion into Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, U.S. officials have reportedly traveled to Venezuela to discuss lifting sanctions and increasing imports of Venezuelan oil to make up for the oil shortage induced by new sanctions on Russia. “Further escalation, further armaments, pouring in weapons is going to make conditions worse, principally for people of Ukraine,” says Ali.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, the War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman with Juan González. As we continue to look at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we go to London. On Tuesday, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, gave a historic virtual address to the British House of Commons.
PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: [translated] We will not give up and we will not lose. We will fight til the end. We will fight at sea, we will fight in the air, we will defend our land, whatever the cost. We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the cities and villages, on the streets. We will fight on the hills…Strengthen the sanctions against the country, terrorist Russia, and recognize it as a terrorist country. Find a way to make our Ukrainian skies safe. Do what you can, what you have to, what is obliged by the greatness of your country and your people.
AMY GOODMAN: Ukrainian President Zelensky received a standing ovation from the British lawmakers. Joining us now from London is historian, activist, filmmaker, author Tariq Ali. He is on the Editorial Committee of the New Left Review. Days before the Russian invasion, he wrote a piece headlined News from Natoland. On Sunday he took part in an International Day of Action against the war in Ukraine. Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Tariq. Can you talk about what Zelensky’s message was, what Britain is doing, and overall your response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?
TARIQ ALI: Let’s start with Zelensky’s message. It was a propaganda message, quite honestly, using some famous phrases from Churchill’s speeches. But forgetting it wasn’t Churchill’s speeches that won the Second World War; it was, as the whole world knows or should know, the key battles fought by the Red Army on Russian soil and what is now Ukrainian soil that destroyed this final cord [sp] of Hitler’s Germany and led to defeat. We should never forget that, whatever the rhetoric.
The basic purpose of Zelensky’s address to the House of Commons, clearly organized by the Foreign Office, et cetera, was to plead for a no-fly zone. That is the key demand of the Ukrainians. But it is a demand that NATO has intelligently so far rejected because it knows that to impose a no-fly zone over the Ukraine at the present time could lead to a mega escalation of the war and possibly the use of nuclear weapons. So that particular demand isn’t going to get anywhere. It is largely pressure on Putin, but Putin knows what he is doing.
Now, as far as the war itself is concerned, Amy, how will it end? In fact, nobody knows. Neither Putin who launched it, nor NATO who have created a situation over the last 30 years, as some of the more intelligent U.S. commentators have been telling us now for a long time, has finally reached its apogee. It will end here, whatever the solution. My own feeling is that Putin’s attempt to mimic the United States and pretend that Russia is a great imperial power is foolhardy. It won’t work. Apart from anything else, apart from the fact that he is isolated from large chunks of the countries around him, if you look at the U.S., if you look at the GDP of Russia, it is $1.4 trillion, less even than Italy and minuscule compared to the United States, which is on $20.9 trillion. So how can you even attempt to mimic the United States, even were it a good thing, which it obviously isn’t.
So I think it has backfired and I think the key question now we have to ask is the following: How should we try and end this war? Further escalation, further armaments, pouring in weapons is going to make conditions worse, principally for the people off Ukraine. They are the ones who are suffering the most. And it’s the refugees and the ordinary citizens who don’t want this, who are suffering. So the question has to be asked, is a bloody partition the only solution? And if it is, then why not start the process now? Neither side wants it, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t argue for it just like we argue for ending fossil fuels. It’s no more utopian than that. So it’s something that nobody is arguing.
I mean, just look at it. In Russia, we’ve seen the emergence of a really courageous powerful peace movement for which one has total sympathy. They are being beaten up, they’re being locked up. In Britain, both Boris Johnson and his understudy, the Labour leader Keir Starmer, have attacked Stop the War. In Russia, Putin tells them “You’re agents of NATO,” which they deny and say, “We don’t report to NATO.” Here in Britain, Johnson and Starmer attack the peace movement and saying, “By bringing in criticisms of NATO, you are supporting Putin,” which we deny as well. It was George Bush who started this whole thing—”If you are not with us and our wars, you’re with the terrorists.” And we said it wasn’t an acceptable way of arguing and we refused to accept that divide, as we are doing now.
The key thing politicians in Europe and elsewhere should be asking are, “How are we going to end this tragedy?” I don’t think Putin, who miscalculated I think disastrously what he could achieve—it is obvious now from information coming out, he thought it would be a quick [inaudible] and they met with resistance which they were not prepared for. To give you just one example, Putin sent policeman, his police guard, people who do special duties as security, into Kyiv who were beaten back. Quite a lot of them were killed. So it is not in anyone’s interest, certainly not in the interest of Russia.
So we could have a number of things coming out of this conflict, a bloody partition of the Ukraine, which I think is better than a continuing war. And Putin could be toppled from within Russia because people in Russia are beginning to see exactly what is going on. Some of my more utopian friends, Russian philosophers and activists, are telling me, “We are hoping that he will suffer a blow at the hands of the Ukrainians, not NATO, so it might trigger off a new revolution in Russia itself.” I don’t believe any of this.
I think effectively, the Russian elite will get very angry if this war goes on endlessly. Because how can you maintain control of a country which doesn’t want to be occupied? NATO has just learned that after 20 years in Afghanistan, or I hope they have learned that and will not attempt a repeat performance anywhere in Europe. Putin should have learned that from Russia’s own experiences in Afghanistan, but he clearly hasn’t. How can you occupy a country without keeping thousands and thousands and thousands of your own troops there? Even if you set up a puppet government, they will need the backing of Russian troops. So I am sure these things are being discussed seriously.
Or, Amy, you could do what the U.S. did in relation to Venezuela. Having failed to topple the Chavista governments and Maduro, they actually imagined, created an imaginary government with a total imbecile, Guaido, as its president, recognized him, got their European friends to do the same. No one in South America takes it seriously. No one. So you can imagine, an imagined president in an imagined country, Putin could try the same. I wouldn’t advise it. It would be a total failure.
The third thing to point out, that whereas in the past you had a situation where Ukrainians were fairly evenly divided between being not with Russia but broadly speaking on that side or broadly speaking being with United States and its military organization, NATO. It was 40/40. It was at one stage even higher, 50/50. Now, we don’t know, but I would suggest from speaking to some of my friends from Ukraine that no one wants a permanent occupation by the Russians, or very few people do, and that there are probably more people now in favor of NATO than there were before.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: This issue of the response of those on the left, there is an article in The New York Times today that says, Socialists’ Response to War in Ukraine Has Put Some Democrats on Edge. It is openly critical of the Democratic Socialists of America for claiming that the imperialistic expansionism of NATO helped to fuel the crisis that exists now. There are already candidates running against people like Jamaal Bowman on a foreign policy position and attacking DSOC. What should be the response of those on the left to this invasion and the situation right now?
TARIQ ALI: I think we can’t dissociate the invasion completely from NATO’s aggressive policies over the last few decades. I mean, they were warned, “Don’t try it on in the Ukraine” and yet last November, Biden went ahead and more or less—not more or less—said that the protocols were all ready to incorporate the Ukraine into NATO. Now it’s not just the left that is saying this. You have to understand, Thomas Friedman in The New York Times, their star columnist, cannot by any stretch of the imagination be said to be on the left, yet his two columns in February were very critical. And he quoted a very interesting piece from George Kennan, who you know is the father of Cold War historiography, the real old Cold War. Kennan warned some years ago that if you carry on like this, you will end up with a very ugly situation in the Ukraine.
Then you have other examples, that in 2008, Condoleezza Rice in Bush’s White House was told clearly by an intelligence official that he had been in Russia for two and a half years and had met nobody—he said, “I met everyone. People who hated Putin, liberals, people in the military, and none of them supported NATO in the Ukraine.” So he said cleverly and intelligently, “Move back from that position.” This man who said this, William Burns, is currently director of the Central Intelligence Agency, having to deal with the consequences of advice he had given that was rejected.
So saying that NATO is involved is just a fact of life. There are a number of very good books by U.S. foreign policy scholars coming out, one called Not One Inch by M.E. Sarotte at Johns Hopkins, and she argues that from the very beginning, there was the failure of Russian leaders to understand that basically the U.S. and Germany were going to go their own way, and Gorbachev was stabbed in the front. “Not one inch eastwards should we move,” said Baker. That was the pledge given in return for German unification. And Helmut Kohl, the West German chancellor at the time, told Gorbachev, “We will not even permit NATO bases in the former East Germany.” That is how far they went, not one inch. They came in 300 miles through swaths of former Soviet union territory. So you have to understand—
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds. I want to thank you so much for being with us, Tariq. Clearly, a lot to unpack here and we will continue this conversation. We also will post online a discussion with you about what is happening in Venezuela, with Juan Gonzalez, not our own González but the emissary for President Biden going to meet with Maduro in Venezuela and what this means. Tariq Ali is a historian, activist, filmmaker and author. He is on the Editorial Committee of the New Left Review.
Days before the Russian invasion, he wrote a piece headlined News from Natoland.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
MARCH 09, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/9/t ... _backfired
GUESTS: Tariq Ali, historian, activist, filmmaker, author, and editor of the New Left Review.
We go to London to speak with writer and activist Tariq Ali about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s historic address to the British House of Commons, Russia’s invasion and NATO expansion into Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, U.S. officials have reportedly traveled to Venezuela to discuss lifting sanctions and increasing imports of Venezuelan oil to make up for the oil shortage induced by new sanctions on Russia. “Further escalation, further armaments, pouring in weapons is going to make conditions worse, principally for people of Ukraine,” says Ali.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, the War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman with Juan González. As we continue to look at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we go to London. On Tuesday, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, gave a historic virtual address to the British House of Commons.
PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: [translated] We will not give up and we will not lose. We will fight til the end. We will fight at sea, we will fight in the air, we will defend our land, whatever the cost. We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the cities and villages, on the streets. We will fight on the hills…Strengthen the sanctions against the country, terrorist Russia, and recognize it as a terrorist country. Find a way to make our Ukrainian skies safe. Do what you can, what you have to, what is obliged by the greatness of your country and your people.
AMY GOODMAN: Ukrainian President Zelensky received a standing ovation from the British lawmakers. Joining us now from London is historian, activist, filmmaker, author Tariq Ali. He is on the Editorial Committee of the New Left Review. Days before the Russian invasion, he wrote a piece headlined News from Natoland. On Sunday he took part in an International Day of Action against the war in Ukraine. Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Tariq. Can you talk about what Zelensky’s message was, what Britain is doing, and overall your response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?
TARIQ ALI: Let’s start with Zelensky’s message. It was a propaganda message, quite honestly, using some famous phrases from Churchill’s speeches. But forgetting it wasn’t Churchill’s speeches that won the Second World War; it was, as the whole world knows or should know, the key battles fought by the Red Army on Russian soil and what is now Ukrainian soil that destroyed this final cord [sp] of Hitler’s Germany and led to defeat. We should never forget that, whatever the rhetoric.
The basic purpose of Zelensky’s address to the House of Commons, clearly organized by the Foreign Office, et cetera, was to plead for a no-fly zone. That is the key demand of the Ukrainians. But it is a demand that NATO has intelligently so far rejected because it knows that to impose a no-fly zone over the Ukraine at the present time could lead to a mega escalation of the war and possibly the use of nuclear weapons. So that particular demand isn’t going to get anywhere. It is largely pressure on Putin, but Putin knows what he is doing.
Now, as far as the war itself is concerned, Amy, how will it end? In fact, nobody knows. Neither Putin who launched it, nor NATO who have created a situation over the last 30 years, as some of the more intelligent U.S. commentators have been telling us now for a long time, has finally reached its apogee. It will end here, whatever the solution. My own feeling is that Putin’s attempt to mimic the United States and pretend that Russia is a great imperial power is foolhardy. It won’t work. Apart from anything else, apart from the fact that he is isolated from large chunks of the countries around him, if you look at the U.S., if you look at the GDP of Russia, it is $1.4 trillion, less even than Italy and minuscule compared to the United States, which is on $20.9 trillion. So how can you even attempt to mimic the United States, even were it a good thing, which it obviously isn’t.
So I think it has backfired and I think the key question now we have to ask is the following: How should we try and end this war? Further escalation, further armaments, pouring in weapons is going to make conditions worse, principally for the people off Ukraine. They are the ones who are suffering the most. And it’s the refugees and the ordinary citizens who don’t want this, who are suffering. So the question has to be asked, is a bloody partition the only solution? And if it is, then why not start the process now? Neither side wants it, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t argue for it just like we argue for ending fossil fuels. It’s no more utopian than that. So it’s something that nobody is arguing.
I mean, just look at it. In Russia, we’ve seen the emergence of a really courageous powerful peace movement for which one has total sympathy. They are being beaten up, they’re being locked up. In Britain, both Boris Johnson and his understudy, the Labour leader Keir Starmer, have attacked Stop the War. In Russia, Putin tells them “You’re agents of NATO,” which they deny and say, “We don’t report to NATO.” Here in Britain, Johnson and Starmer attack the peace movement and saying, “By bringing in criticisms of NATO, you are supporting Putin,” which we deny as well. It was George Bush who started this whole thing—”If you are not with us and our wars, you’re with the terrorists.” And we said it wasn’t an acceptable way of arguing and we refused to accept that divide, as we are doing now.
The key thing politicians in Europe and elsewhere should be asking are, “How are we going to end this tragedy?” I don’t think Putin, who miscalculated I think disastrously what he could achieve—it is obvious now from information coming out, he thought it would be a quick [inaudible] and they met with resistance which they were not prepared for. To give you just one example, Putin sent policeman, his police guard, people who do special duties as security, into Kyiv who were beaten back. Quite a lot of them were killed. So it is not in anyone’s interest, certainly not in the interest of Russia.
So we could have a number of things coming out of this conflict, a bloody partition of the Ukraine, which I think is better than a continuing war. And Putin could be toppled from within Russia because people in Russia are beginning to see exactly what is going on. Some of my more utopian friends, Russian philosophers and activists, are telling me, “We are hoping that he will suffer a blow at the hands of the Ukrainians, not NATO, so it might trigger off a new revolution in Russia itself.” I don’t believe any of this.
I think effectively, the Russian elite will get very angry if this war goes on endlessly. Because how can you maintain control of a country which doesn’t want to be occupied? NATO has just learned that after 20 years in Afghanistan, or I hope they have learned that and will not attempt a repeat performance anywhere in Europe. Putin should have learned that from Russia’s own experiences in Afghanistan, but he clearly hasn’t. How can you occupy a country without keeping thousands and thousands and thousands of your own troops there? Even if you set up a puppet government, they will need the backing of Russian troops. So I am sure these things are being discussed seriously.
Or, Amy, you could do what the U.S. did in relation to Venezuela. Having failed to topple the Chavista governments and Maduro, they actually imagined, created an imaginary government with a total imbecile, Guaido, as its president, recognized him, got their European friends to do the same. No one in South America takes it seriously. No one. So you can imagine, an imagined president in an imagined country, Putin could try the same. I wouldn’t advise it. It would be a total failure.
The third thing to point out, that whereas in the past you had a situation where Ukrainians were fairly evenly divided between being not with Russia but broadly speaking on that side or broadly speaking being with United States and its military organization, NATO. It was 40/40. It was at one stage even higher, 50/50. Now, we don’t know, but I would suggest from speaking to some of my friends from Ukraine that no one wants a permanent occupation by the Russians, or very few people do, and that there are probably more people now in favor of NATO than there were before.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: This issue of the response of those on the left, there is an article in The New York Times today that says, Socialists’ Response to War in Ukraine Has Put Some Democrats on Edge. It is openly critical of the Democratic Socialists of America for claiming that the imperialistic expansionism of NATO helped to fuel the crisis that exists now. There are already candidates running against people like Jamaal Bowman on a foreign policy position and attacking DSOC. What should be the response of those on the left to this invasion and the situation right now?
TARIQ ALI: I think we can’t dissociate the invasion completely from NATO’s aggressive policies over the last few decades. I mean, they were warned, “Don’t try it on in the Ukraine” and yet last November, Biden went ahead and more or less—not more or less—said that the protocols were all ready to incorporate the Ukraine into NATO. Now it’s not just the left that is saying this. You have to understand, Thomas Friedman in The New York Times, their star columnist, cannot by any stretch of the imagination be said to be on the left, yet his two columns in February were very critical. And he quoted a very interesting piece from George Kennan, who you know is the father of Cold War historiography, the real old Cold War. Kennan warned some years ago that if you carry on like this, you will end up with a very ugly situation in the Ukraine.
Then you have other examples, that in 2008, Condoleezza Rice in Bush’s White House was told clearly by an intelligence official that he had been in Russia for two and a half years and had met nobody—he said, “I met everyone. People who hated Putin, liberals, people in the military, and none of them supported NATO in the Ukraine.” So he said cleverly and intelligently, “Move back from that position.” This man who said this, William Burns, is currently director of the Central Intelligence Agency, having to deal with the consequences of advice he had given that was rejected.
So saying that NATO is involved is just a fact of life. There are a number of very good books by U.S. foreign policy scholars coming out, one called Not One Inch by M.E. Sarotte at Johns Hopkins, and she argues that from the very beginning, there was the failure of Russian leaders to understand that basically the U.S. and Germany were going to go their own way, and Gorbachev was stabbed in the front. “Not one inch eastwards should we move,” said Baker. That was the pledge given in return for German unification. And Helmut Kohl, the West German chancellor at the time, told Gorbachev, “We will not even permit NATO bases in the former East Germany.” That is how far they went, not one inch. They came in 300 miles through swaths of former Soviet union territory. So you have to understand—
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds. I want to thank you so much for being with us, Tariq. Clearly, a lot to unpack here and we will continue this conversation. We also will post online a discussion with you about what is happening in Venezuela, with Juan Gonzalez, not our own González but the emissary for President Biden going to meet with Maduro in Venezuela and what this means. Tariq Ali is a historian, activist, filmmaker and author. He is on the Editorial Committee of the New Left Review.
Days before the Russian invasion, he wrote a piece headlined News from Natoland.
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Re: Walden Bello on U.S. Motives in Ukraine War, by Amy Good
by admin » Fri Mar 11, 2022 12:23 am
Victoria Nuland: Ukraine Has "Biological Research Facilities," Worried Russia May Seize Them
The neocon's confession sheds critical light on the U.S. role in Ukraine, and raises vital questions about these labs that deserve answers.
by Glenn Greenwald
Mar 9, 2022
WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 08: Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland testifies before a Senate Foreign Relation Committee hearing on Ukraine on March 08, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Self-anointed "fact-checkers” in the U.S. corporate press have spent two weeks mocking as disinformation and a false conspiracy theory the claim that Ukraine has biological weapons labs, either alone or with U.S. support. They never presented any evidence for their ruling — how could they possibly know? and how could they prove the negative? — but nonetheless they invoked their characteristically authoritative, above-it-all tone of self-assurance and self-arrogated right to decree the truth and label such claims false.
Claims that Ukraine currently maintains dangerous biological weapons labs came from Russia as well as China. The Chinese Foreign Ministry this month claimed: "The US has 336 labs in 30 countries under its control, including 26 in Ukraine alone.” The Russian Foreign Ministry asserted that “Russia obtained documents proving that Ukrainian biological laboratories located near Russian borders worked on development of components of biological weapons.” Such assertions deserve the same level of skepticism as U.S. denials: namely, none of it should be believed to be true or false absent evidence. Yet U.S. fact-checkers dutifully and reflexively sided with the U.S. Government to declare such claims "disinformation” and to mock them as QAnon conspiracy theories.
Unfortunately for this propaganda racket masquerading as neutral and high-minded fact-checking, the neocon official long in charge of U.S. policy in Ukraine testified on Monday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and strongly suggested that such claims are, at least in part, true. Yesterday afternoon, Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), hoping to debunk growing claims that there are chemical weapons labs in Ukraine, smugly asked Nuland: “Does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons?”
Rubio undoubtedly expected a flat denial by Nuland, thus providing further "proof” that such speculation is dastardly Fake News emanating from the Kremlin, the CCP and QAnon. Instead, Nuland did something completely uncharacteristic for her, for neocons, and for senior U.S. foreign policy officials: for some reason, she told a version of the truth. Her answer visibly stunned Rubio, who — as soon as he realized the damage she was doing to the U.S. messaging campaign by telling the truth — interrupted her and demanded that she instead affirm that if a biological attack were to occur, everyone should be “100% sure” that it was Russia who did it. Grateful for the life raft, Nuland told Rubio he was right.
But Rubio's clean-up act came too late. When asked whether Ukraine possesses “chemical or biological weapons,” Nuland did not deny this: at all. She instead — with palpable pen-twirling discomfort and in halting speech, a glaring contrast to her normally cocky style of speaking in obfuscatory State Department officialese — acknowledged: “uh, Ukraine has, uh, biological research facilities.” Any hope to depict such "facilities” as benign or banal was immediately destroyed by the warning she quickly added: “we are now in fact quite concerned that Russian troops, Russian forces, may be seeking to, uh, gain control of [those labs], so we are working with the Ukrainiahhhns [sic] on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach” — [interruption by Sen. Rubio]:
Nuland's bizarre admission that “Ukraine has biological research facilities” that are dangerous enough to warrant concern that they could fall into Russian hands ironically constituted more decisive evidence of the existence of such programs in Ukraine than what was offered in that same Senate in 2002 and 2003 to corroborate U.S. allegations about Saddam's chemical and biological programs in Iraq. An actual against-interest confession from a top U.S. official under oath is clearly more significant than Colin Powell's holding up some test tube with an unknown substance inside while he points to grainy satellite images that nobody can decipher.
It should go without saying that the existence of a Ukrainian biological “research” program does not justify an invasion by Russia, let alone an attack as comprehensive and devastating as the one unfolding: no more than the existence of a similar biological program under Saddam would have rendered the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq justifiable. But Nuland's confession does shed critical light on several important issues and raises vital questions that deserve answers.
Any attempt to claim that Ukraine's biological facilities are just benign and standard medical labs is negated by Nuland's explicitly grave concern that “Russian forces, may be seeking to gain control of” those facilities and that the U.S. Government therefore is, right this minute, “working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces.” Russia has its own advanced medical labs. After all, it was one of the first countries to develop a COVID vaccine, one which Lancet, on February 1, 2021, pronounced was “ safe and effective” (even though U.S. officials pressured multiple countries, including Brazil, not to accept any Russian vaccine, while U.S. allies such as Australia refused for a full year to recognize the Russian COVID vaccine for purposes of its vaccine mandate). The only reason to be “quite concerned” about these "biological research facilities” falling into Russian hands is if they contain sophisticated materials that Russian scientists have not yet developed on their own and which could be used for nefarious purposes — i.e., either advanced biological weapons or dual-use “research” that has the potential to be weaponized.
What is in those Ukrainian biological labs that make them so worrisome and dangerous? And has Ukraine, not exactly known for being a great power with advanced biological research, had the assistance of any other countries in developing those dangerous substances? Is American assistance confined to what Nuland described at the hearing — “working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces” — or did the U.S. assistance extend to the construction and development of the "biological research facilities” themselves?
For all the dismissive language used over the last two weeks by self-described “fact-checkers,” it is confirmed that the U.S. has worked with Ukraine, as recently as last year, in the “development of a bio-risk management culture; international research partnerships; and partner capacity for enhanced bio-security, bio-safety, and bio-surveillance measures.” The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine publicly boasted of its collaborative work with Ukraine “to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern and to continue to ensure Ukraine can detect and report outbreaks caused by dangerous pathogens before they pose security or stability threats.”
This joint US/Ukraine biological research is, of course, described by the State Department in the most unthreatening way possible. But that again prompts the question of why the U.S. would be so gravely concerned about benign and common research falling into Russian hands. It also seems very odd, to put it mildly, that Nuland chose to acknowledge and describe the "facilities" in response to a clear, simple question from Sen. Rubio about whether Ukraine possesses chemical and biological weapons. If these labs are merely designed to find a cure for cancer or create safety measures against pathogens, why, in Nuland's mind, would it have anything to do with a biological and chemical weapons program in Ukraine?
The indisputable reality is that — despite long-standing international conventions banning development of biological weapons — all large, powerful countries conduct research that, at the very least, has the capacity to be converted into biological weapons. The work conducted under the guise of “defensive research” can, and sometimes is, easily converted into the banned weapons themselves. Recall that, according to the FBI, the 2001 anthrax attacks that terrorized the nation came from a U.S. Army Research scientist, Dr. Bruce Ivins, working at the U.S. Army's infectious disease research lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland. The claim was that the Army was "merely” conducting defensive research to find vaccines and other protections against weaponized anthrax, but to do so, the Army had to create highly weaponized anthrax strains, which Ivins then unleashed as a weapon.
A 2011 PBS Frontline program on those anthrax attacks explained: “in October 2001, Northern Arizona University microbiologist Dr. Paul Keim identified that the anthrax used in the attack letters was the Ames strain, a development he described as ‘chilling’ because that particular strain was developed in U.S. government laboratories.” Speaking to Frontline in 2011, Dr. Keim explained why it was so alarming to discover that the U.S. Army had been cultivating such highly lethal and dangerous strains in its lab, on U.S. soil:
This lesson about the severe dangers of so-called dual-use research into biological weapons was re-learned over the last two years as a result of the COVID pandemic. While the origins of that virus have not yet been proven with dispositive evidence (though remember, fact-checkers declared early on that it was definitively established that it came from species-jumping and that any suggestion of a lab leak was a “conspiracy theory,” only for the Biden White House in mid-2021 to admit they did not know the origins and ordered an investigation to determine whether it came from a lab leak), what is certain is that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was manipulating various coronavirus strains to make them more contagious and lethal. The justification was that doing so is necessary to study how vaccines could be developed, but regardless of intent, cultivating dangerous biological strains has the capacity to kill huge numbers of people. All of this illustrates that research that is classified as "defensive” can easily be converted, deliberately or otherwise, into extremely destructive biological weapons.
At the very least, Nuland's surprising revelation reveals, yet again, just how heavily involved the U.S. Government is and for years has been in Ukraine, on the part of Russia's border which U.S. officials and scholars from across the spectrum have spent decades warning is the most sensitive and vulnerable to Moscow. It was Nuland herself, while working for Hillary Clinton and John Kerry's State Department under President Obama, who was heavily involved in what some call the 2014 revolution and others call the “coup” that resulted in a change of government in Ukraine from a Moscow-friendly regime to one far more favorable to the EU and the West. All of this took place as the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid $50,000 per month not to the son of a Ukrainian official but to Joe Biden's son, Hunter: a reflection of who wielded real power inside Ukraine.
Nuland not only worked for both the Obama and Biden State Departments to run Ukraine policy (and, in many ways, Ukraine itself), but she also was Vice President Dick Cheney's deputy national security adviser and then President Bush's Ambassador to NATO. She comes from one of America's most prestigious neocon royal families; her husband, Robert Kagan, was a co-founder of the notorious neocon war-mongering group Project for the New American Century, which advocated regime change in Iraq long before 9/11. It was Kagan, along with liberal icon Bill Kristol, who (along with current editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg), was most responsible for the lie that Saddam was working hand-in-hand with Al Qaeda, a lie that played a key role in convincing Americans to believe that Saddam was personally involved in the planning of 9/11.
That a neocon like Nuland is admired and empowered regardless of the outcome of elections illustrates how unified and in lockstep the establishment wings of both parties are when it comes to questions of war, militarism and foreign policy. Indeed, Nuland's husband, Robert Kagan, was signaling that neocons would likely support Hillary Clinton for president — doing so in 2014, long before anyone imagined Trump as her opponent — based on the recognition that the Democratic Party was now more hospitable to neocon ideology than the GOP,[/u] where Ron Paul and then Trump's neo-isolationism was growing.
You can vote against neocons all you want, but they never go away. The fact that a member of one of the most powerful neocon families in the U.S. has been running Ukraine policy for the U.S. for years — having gone from Dick Cheney to Hillary Clinton and Obama and now to Biden — underscores how little dissent there is in Washington on such questions. It is Nuland's extensive experience in wielding power in Washington that makes her confession yesterday so startling: it is the sort of thing people like her lie about and conceal, not admit. But now that she did admit it, it is crucial that this revelation not be buried and forgotten.
The neocon's confession sheds critical light on the U.S. role in Ukraine, and raises vital questions about these labs that deserve answers.
by Glenn Greenwald
Mar 9, 2022
WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 08: Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland testifies before a Senate Foreign Relation Committee hearing on Ukraine on March 08, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Self-anointed "fact-checkers” in the U.S. corporate press have spent two weeks mocking as disinformation and a false conspiracy theory the claim that Ukraine has biological weapons labs, either alone or with U.S. support. They never presented any evidence for their ruling — how could they possibly know? and how could they prove the negative? — but nonetheless they invoked their characteristically authoritative, above-it-all tone of self-assurance and self-arrogated right to decree the truth and label such claims false.
Claims that Ukraine currently maintains dangerous biological weapons labs came from Russia as well as China. The Chinese Foreign Ministry this month claimed: "The US has 336 labs in 30 countries under its control, including 26 in Ukraine alone.” The Russian Foreign Ministry asserted that “Russia obtained documents proving that Ukrainian biological laboratories located near Russian borders worked on development of components of biological weapons.” Such assertions deserve the same level of skepticism as U.S. denials: namely, none of it should be believed to be true or false absent evidence. Yet U.S. fact-checkers dutifully and reflexively sided with the U.S. Government to declare such claims "disinformation” and to mock them as QAnon conspiracy theories.
Unfortunately for this propaganda racket masquerading as neutral and high-minded fact-checking, the neocon official long in charge of U.S. policy in Ukraine testified on Monday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and strongly suggested that such claims are, at least in part, true. Yesterday afternoon, Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), hoping to debunk growing claims that there are chemical weapons labs in Ukraine, smugly asked Nuland: “Does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons?”
Rubio undoubtedly expected a flat denial by Nuland, thus providing further "proof” that such speculation is dastardly Fake News emanating from the Kremlin, the CCP and QAnon. Instead, Nuland did something completely uncharacteristic for her, for neocons, and for senior U.S. foreign policy officials: for some reason, she told a version of the truth. Her answer visibly stunned Rubio, who — as soon as he realized the damage she was doing to the U.S. messaging campaign by telling the truth — interrupted her and demanded that she instead affirm that if a biological attack were to occur, everyone should be “100% sure” that it was Russia who did it. Grateful for the life raft, Nuland told Rubio he was right.
But Rubio's clean-up act came too late. When asked whether Ukraine possesses “chemical or biological weapons,” Nuland did not deny this: at all. She instead — with palpable pen-twirling discomfort and in halting speech, a glaring contrast to her normally cocky style of speaking in obfuscatory State Department officialese — acknowledged: “uh, Ukraine has, uh, biological research facilities.” Any hope to depict such "facilities” as benign or banal was immediately destroyed by the warning she quickly added: “we are now in fact quite concerned that Russian troops, Russian forces, may be seeking to, uh, gain control of [those labs], so we are working with the Ukrainiahhhns [sic] on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach” — [interruption by Sen. Rubio]:
Nuland's bizarre admission that “Ukraine has biological research facilities” that are dangerous enough to warrant concern that they could fall into Russian hands ironically constituted more decisive evidence of the existence of such programs in Ukraine than what was offered in that same Senate in 2002 and 2003 to corroborate U.S. allegations about Saddam's chemical and biological programs in Iraq. An actual against-interest confession from a top U.S. official under oath is clearly more significant than Colin Powell's holding up some test tube with an unknown substance inside while he points to grainy satellite images that nobody can decipher.
It should go without saying that the existence of a Ukrainian biological “research” program does not justify an invasion by Russia, let alone an attack as comprehensive and devastating as the one unfolding: no more than the existence of a similar biological program under Saddam would have rendered the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq justifiable. But Nuland's confession does shed critical light on several important issues and raises vital questions that deserve answers.
Any attempt to claim that Ukraine's biological facilities are just benign and standard medical labs is negated by Nuland's explicitly grave concern that “Russian forces, may be seeking to gain control of” those facilities and that the U.S. Government therefore is, right this minute, “working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces.” Russia has its own advanced medical labs. After all, it was one of the first countries to develop a COVID vaccine, one which Lancet, on February 1, 2021, pronounced was “ safe and effective” (even though U.S. officials pressured multiple countries, including Brazil, not to accept any Russian vaccine, while U.S. allies such as Australia refused for a full year to recognize the Russian COVID vaccine for purposes of its vaccine mandate). The only reason to be “quite concerned” about these "biological research facilities” falling into Russian hands is if they contain sophisticated materials that Russian scientists have not yet developed on their own and which could be used for nefarious purposes — i.e., either advanced biological weapons or dual-use “research” that has the potential to be weaponized.
What is in those Ukrainian biological labs that make them so worrisome and dangerous? And has Ukraine, not exactly known for being a great power with advanced biological research, had the assistance of any other countries in developing those dangerous substances? Is American assistance confined to what Nuland described at the hearing — “working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces” — or did the U.S. assistance extend to the construction and development of the "biological research facilities” themselves?
POLITIFACT
The Poynter Institute
Tweets
stated on February 24, 2022 in a tweet:
Russia is targeting U.S. biological weapons labs in Ukraine invasion.
by Jeff Cercone
February 25, 2022
There are no US-run biolabs in Ukraine, contrary to social media posts
PolitiFact, Feb. 25, 2022
For all the dismissive language used over the last two weeks by self-described “fact-checkers,” it is confirmed that the U.S. has worked with Ukraine, as recently as last year, in the “development of a bio-risk management culture; international research partnerships; and partner capacity for enhanced bio-security, bio-safety, and bio-surveillance measures.” The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine publicly boasted of its collaborative work with Ukraine “to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern and to continue to ensure Ukraine can detect and report outbreaks caused by dangerous pathogens before they pose security or stability threats.”
This joint US/Ukraine biological research is, of course, described by the State Department in the most unthreatening way possible. But that again prompts the question of why the U.S. would be so gravely concerned about benign and common research falling into Russian hands. It also seems very odd, to put it mildly, that Nuland chose to acknowledge and describe the "facilities" in response to a clear, simple question from Sen. Rubio about whether Ukraine possesses chemical and biological weapons. If these labs are merely designed to find a cure for cancer or create safety measures against pathogens, why, in Nuland's mind, would it have anything to do with a biological and chemical weapons program in Ukraine?
U.S. Embassy in Ukraine
Notice: Assistance for Ukrainians Evacuated to Poland Assistance in Poland.
Ukraine-Related Calls: +1 606 260 4379 (outside the U.S.) or +1 833 741 2777 (from the U.S.) Phone Number
Biological Threat Reduction Program
The U.S. Department of Defense's Biological Threat Reduction Program collaborates with partner countries to counter the threat of outbreaks (deliberate, accidental, or natural) of the world's most dangerous infectious diseases. The program accomplishes its bio-threat reduction mission through development of a bio-risk management culture; international research partnerships; and partner capacity for enhanced bio-security, bio-safety, and bio-surveillance measures. The Biological Threat Reduction Program's priorities in Ukraine are to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern and to continue to ensure Ukraine can detect and report outbreaks caused by dangerous pathogens before they pose security or stability threats.
The indisputable reality is that — despite long-standing international conventions banning development of biological weapons — all large, powerful countries conduct research that, at the very least, has the capacity to be converted into biological weapons. The work conducted under the guise of “defensive research” can, and sometimes is, easily converted into the banned weapons themselves. Recall that, according to the FBI, the 2001 anthrax attacks that terrorized the nation came from a U.S. Army Research scientist, Dr. Bruce Ivins, working at the U.S. Army's infectious disease research lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland. The claim was that the Army was "merely” conducting defensive research to find vaccines and other protections against weaponized anthrax, but to do so, the Army had to create highly weaponized anthrax strains, which Ivins then unleashed as a weapon.
A 2011 PBS Frontline program on those anthrax attacks explained: “in October 2001, Northern Arizona University microbiologist Dr. Paul Keim identified that the anthrax used in the attack letters was the Ames strain, a development he described as ‘chilling’ because that particular strain was developed in U.S. government laboratories.” Speaking to Frontline in 2011, Dr. Keim explained why it was so alarming to discover that the U.S. Army had been cultivating such highly lethal and dangerous strains in its lab, on U.S. soil:
We were surprised it was the Ames strain. And it was chilling at the same time, because the Ames strain is a laboratory strain that had been developed by the U.S. Army as a vaccine-challenge strain. We knew that it was highly virulent. In fact, that’s why the Army used it, because it represented a more potent challenge to vaccines that were being developed by the U.S. Army. It wasn’t just some random type of anthrax that you find in nature; it was a laboratory strain, and that was very significant to us, because that was the first hint that this might really be a bioterrorism event.
This lesson about the severe dangers of so-called dual-use research into biological weapons was re-learned over the last two years as a result of the COVID pandemic. While the origins of that virus have not yet been proven with dispositive evidence (though remember, fact-checkers declared early on that it was definitively established that it came from species-jumping and that any suggestion of a lab leak was a “conspiracy theory,” only for the Biden White House in mid-2021 to admit they did not know the origins and ordered an investigation to determine whether it came from a lab leak), what is certain is that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was manipulating various coronavirus strains to make them more contagious and lethal. The justification was that doing so is necessary to study how vaccines could be developed, but regardless of intent, cultivating dangerous biological strains has the capacity to kill huge numbers of people. All of this illustrates that research that is classified as "defensive” can easily be converted, deliberately or otherwise, into extremely destructive biological weapons.
FP Report: False Claims of U.S. Biowarfare Labs in Ukraine Grip QAnon
REPORT
False Claims of U.S. Biowarfare Labs in Ukraine Grip QAnon
The conspiracy theory has been boosted by Russian and Chinese media and diplomats.
By Justin Ling, a journalist based in Toronto.
Foreign Policy, Mar. 2, 2022.
At the very least, Nuland's surprising revelation reveals, yet again, just how heavily involved the U.S. Government is and for years has been in Ukraine, on the part of Russia's border which U.S. officials and scholars from across the spectrum have spent decades warning is the most sensitive and vulnerable to Moscow. It was Nuland herself, while working for Hillary Clinton and John Kerry's State Department under President Obama, who was heavily involved in what some call the 2014 revolution and others call the “coup” that resulted in a change of government in Ukraine from a Moscow-friendly regime to one far more favorable to the EU and the West. All of this took place as the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid $50,000 per month not to the son of a Ukrainian official but to Joe Biden's son, Hunter: a reflection of who wielded real power inside Ukraine.
Nuland not only worked for both the Obama and Biden State Departments to run Ukraine policy (and, in many ways, Ukraine itself), but she also was Vice President Dick Cheney's deputy national security adviser and then President Bush's Ambassador to NATO. She comes from one of America's most prestigious neocon royal families; her husband, Robert Kagan, was a co-founder of the notorious neocon war-mongering group Project for the New American Century, which advocated regime change in Iraq long before 9/11. It was Kagan, along with liberal icon Bill Kristol, who (along with current editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg), was most responsible for the lie that Saddam was working hand-in-hand with Al Qaeda, a lie that played a key role in convincing Americans to believe that Saddam was personally involved in the planning of 9/11.
That a neocon like Nuland is admired and empowered regardless of the outcome of elections illustrates how unified and in lockstep the establishment wings of both parties are when it comes to questions of war, militarism and foreign policy. Indeed, Nuland's husband, Robert Kagan, was signaling that neocons would likely support Hillary Clinton for president — doing so in 2014, long before anyone imagined Trump as her opponent — based on the recognition that the Democratic Party was now more hospitable to neocon ideology than the GOP,[/u] where Ron Paul and then Trump's neo-isolationism was growing.
You can vote against neocons all you want, but they never go away. The fact that a member of one of the most powerful neocon families in the U.S. has been running Ukraine policy for the U.S. for years — having gone from Dick Cheney to Hillary Clinton and Obama and now to Biden — underscores how little dissent there is in Washington on such questions. It is Nuland's extensive experience in wielding power in Washington that makes her confession yesterday so startling: it is the sort of thing people like her lie about and conceal, not admit. But now that she did admit it, it is crucial that this revelation not be buried and forgotten.
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Re: Walden Bello on U.S. Motives in Ukraine War, by Amy Good
by admin » Fri Mar 11, 2022 3:47 am
Ukraine Crisis/Nuclear Boondoggle
by Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader Radio Hour
February 12, 2022
https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/ukr ... oondoggle/
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 414 TRANSCRIPT
Steve Skrovan: Does anyone actually wanna go to war over Ukraine right now? The United States doesn't. We have no real national interest in Ukraine worth dying for. Russia doesn't. Economic sanctions and military mobilization could cripple them. Europe doesn't. Many European countries are dependent on Russian gas. Ukraine certainly doesn't. They would undoubtedly suffer the most casualties and highest economic costs. So why is [Vladimir] Putin sending troops to Russia's border with Ukraine? Why is [Joe] Biden moving troops into Europe under NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] and threatening to impose sanctions on Russia?
Our guest today will be Katrina vanden Heuvel, publisher and an editorial director of the Nation magazine and now columnist for the Washington Post. In three of her recent columns, “What a Sensible Ukraine Policy Would Look Like,” “Stop the Stumble Toward War with Russia,” and “The Exit From the Ukraine Crisis That's Hiding in Plain Sight”, she lays out the facts of our current Ukraine crisis and makes a case for peace....
David Feldman: Katrina vanden Heuvel has been visiting Moscow for 40 years, written a book about [Mikhail] Gorbachev and his reformers. She is also the editorial director and publisher of the Nation magazine and writes a weekly column for the Washington Post. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Katrina vanden Heuvel.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Thank you.
Ralph Nader: Welcome indeed, Katrina. We have a very serious audience who is quite skeptical of what the Western nations are now doing about Ukraine. And I think they also need to be aware, if they're not, that Napoleon invaded Russia; the German regimes invaded Russia in World War I and World War II, generating maybe 50 million deaths and untold devastation. And then the Western nations led by the United States created a military Alliance confronting the Soviet Union called NATO and also created a huge market for US corporate arms sales. So that's why the dictator Putin can think that he has a good deal of Russian worry behind him. So with that background, what is your take right now on Ukraine?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Thank you, Ralph. You know, it's interesting because we talk a lot about Putin and his authoritarianism, but it's across the establishment, the political establishment, Putin's blob that there is opposition to what you were talking about, which is the North American treaty alliance, NATO. [Boris] Yeltsin’s government opposed. Let me give what I think is the original sin as we look out at the very, very dangerous Ukraine crisis, perhaps as dangerous US-Russian confrontation since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. In 1990, he and [Ronald] Reagan ended the cold war. And in Germany, when there was German reunification in 1990, Gorbachev was promised by George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker that NATO would not move “one inch eastward.” And if people doubt that, the National Security Archives in Washington has primary documents and has confirmed this, though it hasn't been covered in our newspapers of record.
NATO began to move eastward immediately. In three or four years, it had gobbled up more than 15, 20 countries; it's now 30 countries. And the epicenter of the new cold war is no longer in Berlin. It's on Russia's borders. NATO, as you pointed out, Ralph, is not a coffee klatch. It's not like the AARP. I used to say, it's not like a tea party. You can't say that anymore. This is a military alliance that was designed to counter the Soviet East European military alliance, the Warsaw Pact. When the Soviet Union ended, the Warsaw Pact ended. So the purpose of NATO has always been not clear except to those who are raking in the dollars, because you have to have military equipment compatible with the US and others. It's a big lobby group.
Now, in 1997, when [Bill] Clinton decided to keep expanding, you know, there was a debate in this country, Ralph, you may remember it. George Kennan, an esteemed diplomat, warned Thomas Friedman that this would be the gravest error, continue the Cold War. There was a debate in the Senate. Now Biden didn't vote against, but Senator [Bill] Bradley did. You had hardliners like Paul Nitze and [Edward] Teller opposing NATO expansion, but Clinton moved ahead. Yeltsin was a weak read and acceded to a lot of what Washington wanted.
So we are now here with NATO on Russia's borders. And I think the Russians said, we've been communicating to you for years and years.
And the final straw was 2008 when [George H. W.] Bush worked to fast track Ukraine and Georgia. And I think it's the Ukraine piece. I don't wanna allocate blame, but you know, there's blame to go around right now [with] the Russian troops massing. But this is not a new situation, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: When you say NATO expansion, this was not a military invasion of Eastern Europe. By expansion they went to Hungary and Poland, Czechoslovakia and others, and signed them up, right?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Here's the thing. People ask why shouldn't Ukraine as a sovereign nation be allowed to join NATO? Well, first of all, because of the territorial fighting in Ukraine. Right now, according to NATO's own charter, Ukraine couldn't join NATO. But NATO is a military alliance, Ralph. And, you know, in 1990, for a split second, there was an alternative security architecture on offer. George H. W.[and] Baker tamped it down pretty quickly, but someone I greatly admire, Gorbachev, had a vision, which is not unheard of that other institutions in Europe lead the way – not a military one. Because what we've done is militarize relations with Russia, which were already militarized.
And so I think one has to be very aware. NATO, for many people, sounds like a feudal organization. You've talked about this, Ralph. There is a kind of amnesia and a failure to remember history. And I think in that, there was a CNN reporter the other day who called one of our writers, Anatol Lieven, very good writer. And they were talking about the warm water port in Crimea, Sevastopol, and the reporter said, “Which side did the Soviet Union fight on in World War II?” It's kind of like, I understand why we don't get the full range of views, which is needed because there's a history hole here.
Ralph Nader: Well, in your Washington Post piece, you say, “Is there any way out of the exceedingly dangerous crisis?” I think it's more dangerous than most people have been writing about it. Because when Biden said only one man is gonna decide whether Russia is gonna invade Ukraine and that is Vladimir Putin. Well, the corollary to that is if Putin is humiliated, he may just flip and one man has got his finger on the nuclear trigger. We're playing Russian roulette here.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: It is very dangerous. We published a piece by the former head of Physicians for Social Responsibility about the nuclear. You have two nuclear powers involved here. I have to say, though, that this country, it's all Putin, Putin, Putin. Do not forget, I mean, there is a blob in Russia, there are political forces, even if it is an authoritarian country. A major general published a letter in Moscow two days ago, signed on by 15 colonels and generals, protesting Putin's lack of decisiveness. This is very dangerous. We see it in this country. The hawks are ascended. Diplomacy is the only way out, Ralph. And the offer in 2015 was called the Minsk Agreement. And it was agreed to for a brief period; there was a cease fire. The parties attached to it are Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany. The UN [United Nations] endorsed it. The OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] endorsed it. Samantha Power then at the UN thought it was the best option as did Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State. What it entails essentially is that the Donbas region and the Eastern part of Ukraine, the Russian speaking region where there are Russian troops or separatists, be given autonomous status within a federated society, language protection, the borders of Ukraine are sovereign, that Ukraine become a non-aligned country, almost like the Finland or Austrian State Treaty in 1955. And I think this provides for sovereign borders, independence, but not in NATO. There is an offer though, this idea, that there'd be a moratorium on NATO expansion, maybe in 15 years. And what's interesting about this, Ralph, I'll say just briefly, is that you do have three new leaders involved. Because when it last came up, it was [François] Hollande in France, [Angela] Merkel in Germany, and the chocolate oligarch, [Petro] Poroshenko in Ukraine. You do have a new leader in Ukraine, [Volodymyr] Zelensky, who at one point last week said enough with all this hot talk in Washington; it’s hurting the Ukrainian economy. You have [Emmanuel] Macron who is on his way out as French president, who's channeling his own [Charles] de Gaulle. And the new government in Germany, I think, is hopeful in terms of not being corrupt the way so many in this country say is because of the pipeline. That is a factor, but they've done business with Russia and they've had relations with Russia as a European power that are different than ours. So I think this agreement, the Minsk Agreement, the parties who had met in Paris two weeks ago, are meeting in Berlin this coming week; it's a possibility, but it needs space and it needs patience. And I think that is lack of supply in our political culture.
Ralph Nader: And why did it fall apart after 2015?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: It fell apart partly because there was a disagreement about what would happen first. Would the Russian separatists leave before the Ukrainian Kiev troops in that part of Ukraine, that region, leave? And then there was a disagreement about simple things but important like language protection. Because this is a Russian speaking part of Ukraine, Ralph. And one of the first things the new Kiev government did in 2014 was begin to impose language restrictions, that you couldn't study in Russian, or those kinds of things, which are very unsettling for people. But it did not last long, which is a problem, but it is back on offer. It is more of a crisis moment. So I think there are possibilities if there's a will and a persistence.
Ralph Nader: Well, there are other factors involved. Biden doesn't wanna appear weak. Putin doesn't wanna appear that he has to back down and be humiliated in front of the Russian people. And Biden wants to send a signal to China about not invading Taiwan. So there are a lot of other things going on. This reminds me of how World War I started with the assassination of Archduke in Sarajevo and Serbia. And then it went like lightning through a bunch of egos who all knew each other – the Czar, the Kaiser in Germany, France, England. They all knew each other. They had intermarriage with each other's families. But they had their egos involved. And, you know, 25 million people were killed in World War I.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: But you know, Ralph, it's so true. It is more reminiscent. I'm glad you brought up World War I or not. But there's often this misguided historical analogy to Munich, right? Diplomacy is appeasement. In fact, this is much more reminiscent of World War I, which is kind of the sleepwalking into war. And the war in Ukraine is in the trenches for now. I mean, it could escalate to tactical nuclear weapons, but it is trenches. It's similar to World War I. And people know each other, the intermarriage between Russia and Ukraine and the family relationships is why it's so deeply asymmetrical. The United States has no vital – not to be callous, but no vital national security interest in Ukraine. What we do need to remember is 15,000 civilians have already perished in the fighting. What I'm really worried about, Ralph, is not so much the sending of US and NATO troops to Eastern European countries ringing Ukraine, but we've already sent $3 billion worth of weapons into Ukraine in the last years. And there are at least a few thousand US advisors there to assist Ukrainians now with this equipment. And what if some, US soldiers are killed on the battlefield, the escalation –
Ralph Nader: That's right. That's part of the rumble to war. Then it becomes support to troops. Shut up, Americans, and keep shopping, which is what George W. Bush told us when he and [Dick] Cheney engaged in the criminal war and destruction of Iraq in 2003. I wanna quote a sentence from your article in the Washington Post. You say, “Minsk II is a compromise. As such, it requires hard choices on all sides. Ideally, the agreement would be accompanied by a treaty between Russian and United States and Europe guaranteeing neutrality for Ukraine similar to the enforced neutrality of Austria since the cold war’s early years.” And that raises a question we got from one of our listeners recently, who asked, “Why can't NATO declare Ukraine a neutral buffer zone?” It seems maybe that could be a compromise for all three parties involved.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: That is a very interesting question because I do think Ukraine's role, if it could be a stable, peaceful, and prosperous country, would be as a bridge between east and west. There's a history here that the protest in Ukraine 2013 began when the EU [European Union] had on offer to the then president an economic agreement. Putin had put in that why not Ukraine as a member of both the European association involved with Russia, but also the EU, a kind of tripartite. That was rejected by EU, by the then president.
That or the moratorium on NATO expansion vis-à-vis Ukraine. But I'm serious about the fact that there is a NATO charter, as you well know, Ralph, that Article V is that members would come to the defense of a NATO member under attack. But it's also the fact that you need to be territorially whole, which Ukraine is not now, to join.
Ralph Nader: That NATO provision is subject to the US Constitution. And if the Congress declares war, that NATO provision is inoperative. Congress here is like an inkblot. They're watching Biden threaten the harshest sanctions ever imposed by the United States on Russia and all the terrible impacts on the Russian people. Well, that happens to be illegal under international law, Katrina. You can't impose sanctions on the country with a disproportionate impact on the civilian population. And the civilian population would take the lion’s share of the brunt here. It wouldn't be Putin and his entourage. And there's no one saying to Biden, Hey, do you understand international law? Do you understand treaties? Do you understand Geneva conventions, which we’re a signatory to?” It's the same kind of a runaway rumble to war without knowing what the consequences are. It's as if they just want to humiliate Putin.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: So the [Congressional] Progressive Caucus is thinking hard about sanctions. It's maybe late, but sanctions are an act of war in many ways and counterproductive. They've been both illegal, counterproductive and lead to humanitarian catastrophe in most parts. But there's also another side of sanctions. It is a race to the bottom. You're right. In the Congress and the Senate right now, between Democrats, who just wanna wait if the war begins before sanctioning, and the Republicans, who are gung ho to start now, there is discussion about the authority to use military force and using the Constitution's war powers, because this is illegal in the sense of sending American men and women, even as special advisors. But sanctions play in different ways, Ralph, I mean, inside Russia, I've seen this. It has brought people together and made them more anti-American. It has strengthened Putin in some ways, because they have a $650 billion reserve. They've started producing things they didn't. And so it's counterproductive. I agree with you that they try to target Putin or his associates, but that's very tough. Very tough.
Ralph Nader: Well, the New York Times today reports that it's likely to be a long delayed standoff between the Western countries, US and Russia. What does that mean?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Well, it could be a game of bluff. I mean, I continue to think the more time that elapses, the more possibility for diplomacy and the more possibility for face-saving maneuvers. I mean, I think the fact – I was gonna say, Thom Friedman, who is a barometer for not much, but he gave an interview the other day where he believes that the Finland, Austria nonaligned proposal is a good one.
I think people are looking out and seeing – first of all, I think it's not a bad thing because I think we should not be a unipolar world. But you got China and Russia coming closer in different ways. They will continue to compete, but our policies are pushing them closer. Certainly, the National Security Strategy, Ralph, which came out about a year ago, right? It named Russia and China as our challenges, enemies. We are in a new world. We haven't even talked pandemic, Ralph. Think of the money that's being squandered. And famous bipartisanship in Washington, you think about this all the time, is betrayed through votes on this defense budget, which they added 25% to or something. Anyway…
Ralph Nader: With Democrats supporting it, they added $24 billion to the bloated, wasteful military budget--more than Biden and the Pentagon asked for. This is totally reckless.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: It's totally reckless.
Ralph Nader: Reckless behavior.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: And for people who think it's a jobs program, you could use that money in far more effective, productive ways, because it has been a jobs program. And you heard about this shareholder call with the big four defense companies. You know, they're salivating. And NATO, by the way, is part of that. But I think that you got the pandemic, you have climate crisis, you have global inequality, you have issues which need to be addressed, I will say, in this country, Ralph, the demonization, I have no brief for Putin. I've worked in Russia with women's groups, independent media. I've seen the suppression/repression of groups like Memorial. But what's happened is it's all Putin all the time. And we fail to understand that it's a country, where you can't understand Russia right now without understanding the ascendants of the Russian Orthodox Church or the fact that 40% of Putin’s edicts are not fulfilled. It's Putin, but it's also a country which has a lot of forces in it. The demonization of Putin is not a policy. It's an alibi for a policy. And it has also led to the ability to think about war. If you demonize something or someone or a country, it's easier to see why one would go to war. So I simply suggest we should understand that cold wars are not good for any progressives, any people who believe in the rule of law, because the space for dissent, for reimagining a different kind of foreign policy closes down in militarization.
Ralph Nader: Well, you have in your article a little light at the end of the tunnel here, when you say – it just came out a few days ago, listeners. You say, “In Paris last week, seven years after the Minsk II agreement, Ukraine and Russia held marathon eight-hour talks mediated by Germany and France. A new round of Minsk talks will be held in Berlin in the second week of February. “As we confront the worst US-Russian confrontation in decades, isn't it time for the United States to join with its allies to revive a path to a settlement that might lead to a stable peace.” What do you think now of these talks?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: I don't think anything very specific will come out of these talks in Berlin. The hope is that they continue in short order. Not delayed, delayed, delayed. But I do think there should be thought given to continuing the nuclear security process. And, you know, it's not sexy, but a new security architecture in Europe could be on the agenda. Because Gorbachev in 1987 gave one of the most remarkable speeches at the UN, talking about a common European home from Vladivostok in the east of Russia to Lisbon. And, you know, that's not farfetched, if there was a different – less militarized. Because NATO has militarized it. And again, I come back to that's not the way to move forward right now. But I do take hope that talks continue, and people know that this could be one of the great cataclysmic, catastrophic military actions. So the hope is no accidental shooting, no stumble into war and no hotheads,
Ralph Nader: There's none of that caution in the Biden regime. They've just sent several thousand US soldiers to various countries, Romania, Poland.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: I know.
Ralph Nader: They've got an Air Force squadron in Estonia. They're not letting Putin save face if he decides to back off because he's gonna lose a lot if he invades Ukraine. What kind of nonsense diplomacy is this when you don't show the adversary a way out?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: I think there may be talks to find a way for Putin to climb down. And I think there is a mixed – there's not a great balance, but they keep talking deterrence and diplomacy. They don't stop talking diplomacy, but the balance between deterrence and diplomacy does seem off. But there's an element of showing power with these troops. As I said, Ralph, I'm more worried about the weapons going into Ukraine and the special ops. I think the troops around ringing are kind of a show of power to get Putin to take seriously the diplomacy. But it is the case that this is not an administration… this is an administration that has been very – I would use the word – aggressive toward Ukraine. That was Biden's project, by the way, in the [Barack] Obama White House. He was considered the proconsul to Ukraine. We gotta have some new thinking about how to ensure that Ukraine become a sovereign, prosperous, stable country. And it's not gonna be through a war where they are conscripting or seeking troops up to 57 years old for men and there was a story about women fighting up to 60. That's inhumane in addition to the failure of military responses.
Ralph Nader: Well, if the shoe was on the other foot, you always have to do that in foreign policy.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Absolutely.
Ralph Nader: If we were invaded from the north in two wars and 50 million Americans were killed and there was a hostile power north and it surrounded us with a military alliance and it put soldiers in Cuba and Nicaragua, what do you think we would do? I mean…
Katrina vanden Heuvel: We would shout to the rooftop and what have we done, Ralph? You can see it. The Monroe Doctrine, the way we've policed our neighborhood over years is from Allan Nairn…
Ralph Nader: Yeah. We're about to blow up the world on the Cuban missiles crisis.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: And look at how we're handling Cuba now. We're decimating a small country for reasons not fully clear at all, and we're treating it like our backyard. And, I think what if you had Russian troops on the Canadian border or Russian troops in Mexico, that has been kind of put out there, there is an expression of strategic empathy. Putting yourself in the other’s shoes is not condoning, it's understanding. But I think there's been a degradation of diplomacy, Ralph, because it's viewed too often as appeasement and that is a very dangerous equivalence.
Ralph Nader: Empires know how to wage wars. They don't know how to wage peace. Proposals by then Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and before he was a Congressman Jim McGovern to have a Department of Peace to countervail this kind of rush to reckless increase in the risk of war. I wanna leave our listeners with this suggestion. Obama was gonna go into Syria. He thought that was a little bit of a stretch. So he said, “I want to go to Congress to get authority.” When that was publicized, millions of emails came in from left, right, conservative, liberal to their members of Congress saying, “Don't you dare.” I think it was 98-2 in terms of the predominant opposition. And I think, listeners, do your part, get to your senators and representatives and tell them, assert the constitutional authority of Congress, which is supreme over NATO's treaty, and which is much more likely to result in public hearings and a larger perspective on what's going on here before it's too late. Thank you very much, Katrina.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Thank you, Ralph.
**************
[Ari Melber] I want to play a little bit of Putin. This was in an older interview. This is before the invasion, but goes to the mindset that you may understand. This was with our own NBC colleague Keir Simmons where he tries to make the argument that really he has to respond to NATO, that Russia is constantly on the defense, as he puts it. Take a look.
[President Vladimir Putin] What was the point of expanding NATO to the east and bringing this infrastructure to our borders? And all of this before saying that we're the ones who have been acting aggressively? Why? On what basis did Russia after the USSR collapsed present any threat to the United States or European countries? We voluntarily withdrew our troops from eastern Europe, and what did we get in response? We got in response infrastructure [inaudible] wars. And now you're saying that we're threatening to somebody?
[Ari Melber] You're an expert at getting to the roots of things, not taking it all at face value. Can you share with us your view from your time there, does he in any way believe some of this stuff, because he's closed off as you described, or when you get to these international issues is it still his version of propaganda, baiting, what in America we sometimes call trolling and constantly making it out as if he must respond because of what the West is doing?
[Andre Kozyrev] It's both....
-- Kremlin Vet: They’ll Overthrow Putin Before Giving Him ‘Bad News’ About Russian Setbacks In Ukraine, by Ari Melber, 3/9/22
by Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader Radio Hour
February 12, 2022
https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/ukr ... oondoggle/
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 414 TRANSCRIPT
Steve Skrovan: Does anyone actually wanna go to war over Ukraine right now? The United States doesn't. We have no real national interest in Ukraine worth dying for. Russia doesn't. Economic sanctions and military mobilization could cripple them. Europe doesn't. Many European countries are dependent on Russian gas. Ukraine certainly doesn't. They would undoubtedly suffer the most casualties and highest economic costs. So why is [Vladimir] Putin sending troops to Russia's border with Ukraine? Why is [Joe] Biden moving troops into Europe under NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] and threatening to impose sanctions on Russia?
Our guest today will be Katrina vanden Heuvel, publisher and an editorial director of the Nation magazine and now columnist for the Washington Post. In three of her recent columns, “What a Sensible Ukraine Policy Would Look Like,” “Stop the Stumble Toward War with Russia,” and “The Exit From the Ukraine Crisis That's Hiding in Plain Sight”, she lays out the facts of our current Ukraine crisis and makes a case for peace....
David Feldman: Katrina vanden Heuvel has been visiting Moscow for 40 years, written a book about [Mikhail] Gorbachev and his reformers. She is also the editorial director and publisher of the Nation magazine and writes a weekly column for the Washington Post. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Katrina vanden Heuvel.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Thank you.
Ralph Nader: Welcome indeed, Katrina. We have a very serious audience who is quite skeptical of what the Western nations are now doing about Ukraine. And I think they also need to be aware, if they're not, that Napoleon invaded Russia; the German regimes invaded Russia in World War I and World War II, generating maybe 50 million deaths and untold devastation. And then the Western nations led by the United States created a military Alliance confronting the Soviet Union called NATO and also created a huge market for US corporate arms sales. So that's why the dictator Putin can think that he has a good deal of Russian worry behind him. So with that background, what is your take right now on Ukraine?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Thank you, Ralph. You know, it's interesting because we talk a lot about Putin and his authoritarianism, but it's across the establishment, the political establishment, Putin's blob that there is opposition to what you were talking about, which is the North American treaty alliance, NATO. [Boris] Yeltsin’s government opposed. Let me give what I think is the original sin as we look out at the very, very dangerous Ukraine crisis, perhaps as dangerous US-Russian confrontation since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. In 1990, he and [Ronald] Reagan ended the cold war. And in Germany, when there was German reunification in 1990, Gorbachev was promised by George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker that NATO would not move “one inch eastward.” And if people doubt that, the National Security Archives in Washington has primary documents and has confirmed this, though it hasn't been covered in our newspapers of record.
NATO began to move eastward immediately. In three or four years, it had gobbled up more than 15, 20 countries; it's now 30 countries. And the epicenter of the new cold war is no longer in Berlin. It's on Russia's borders. NATO, as you pointed out, Ralph, is not a coffee klatch. It's not like the AARP. I used to say, it's not like a tea party. You can't say that anymore. This is a military alliance that was designed to counter the Soviet East European military alliance, the Warsaw Pact. When the Soviet Union ended, the Warsaw Pact ended. So the purpose of NATO has always been not clear except to those who are raking in the dollars, because you have to have military equipment compatible with the US and others. It's a big lobby group.
Now, in 1997, when [Bill] Clinton decided to keep expanding, you know, there was a debate in this country, Ralph, you may remember it. George Kennan, an esteemed diplomat, warned Thomas Friedman that this would be the gravest error, continue the Cold War. There was a debate in the Senate. Now Biden didn't vote against, but Senator [Bill] Bradley did. You had hardliners like Paul Nitze and [Edward] Teller opposing NATO expansion, but Clinton moved ahead. Yeltsin was a weak read and acceded to a lot of what Washington wanted.
So we are now here with NATO on Russia's borders. And I think the Russians said, we've been communicating to you for years and years.
[Ari Melber] I want to play a little bit of Putin. This was in an older interview. This is before the invasion, but goes to the mindset that you may understand. This was with our own NBC colleague Keir Simmons where he tries to make the argument that really he has to respond to NATO, that Russia is constantly on the defense, as he puts it. Take a look.
[President Vladimir Putin] What was the point of expanding NATO to the east and bringing this infrastructure to our borders? And all of this before saying that we're the ones who have been acting aggressively? Why? On what basis did Russia after the USSR collapsed present any threat to the United States or European countries? We voluntarily withdrew our troops from eastern Europe, and what did we get in response? We got in response infrastructure [inaudible] wars. And now you're saying that we're threatening to somebody.
[Ari Melber] You're an expert at getting to the roots of things, not taking it all at face value. Can you share with us your view from your time there, does he in any way believe some of this stuff, because he's closed off as you described, or when you get to these international issues is it still his version of propaganda, baiting, what in America we sometimes call trolling and constantly making it out as if he must respond because of what the West is doing?
[Andre Kozyrev] It's both....
-- Kremlin Vet: They’ll Overthrow Putin Before Giving Him ‘Bad News’ About Russian Setbacks In Ukraine, by Ari Melber, 3/9/22
And the final straw was 2008 when [George H. W.] Bush worked to fast track Ukraine and Georgia. And I think it's the Ukraine piece. I don't wanna allocate blame, but you know, there's blame to go around right now [with] the Russian troops massing. But this is not a new situation, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: When you say NATO expansion, this was not a military invasion of Eastern Europe. By expansion they went to Hungary and Poland, Czechoslovakia and others, and signed them up, right?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Here's the thing. People ask why shouldn't Ukraine as a sovereign nation be allowed to join NATO? Well, first of all, because of the territorial fighting in Ukraine. Right now, according to NATO's own charter, Ukraine couldn't join NATO. But NATO is a military alliance, Ralph. And, you know, in 1990, for a split second, there was an alternative security architecture on offer. George H. W.[and] Baker tamped it down pretty quickly, but someone I greatly admire, Gorbachev, had a vision, which is not unheard of that other institutions in Europe lead the way – not a military one. Because what we've done is militarize relations with Russia, which were already militarized.
And so I think one has to be very aware. NATO, for many people, sounds like a feudal organization. You've talked about this, Ralph. There is a kind of amnesia and a failure to remember history. And I think in that, there was a CNN reporter the other day who called one of our writers, Anatol Lieven, very good writer. And they were talking about the warm water port in Crimea, Sevastopol, and the reporter said, “Which side did the Soviet Union fight on in World War II?” It's kind of like, I understand why we don't get the full range of views, which is needed because there's a history hole here.
Ralph Nader: Well, in your Washington Post piece, you say, “Is there any way out of the exceedingly dangerous crisis?” I think it's more dangerous than most people have been writing about it. Because when Biden said only one man is gonna decide whether Russia is gonna invade Ukraine and that is Vladimir Putin. Well, the corollary to that is if Putin is humiliated, he may just flip and one man has got his finger on the nuclear trigger. We're playing Russian roulette here.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: It is very dangerous. We published a piece by the former head of Physicians for Social Responsibility about the nuclear. You have two nuclear powers involved here. I have to say, though, that this country, it's all Putin, Putin, Putin. Do not forget, I mean, there is a blob in Russia, there are political forces, even if it is an authoritarian country. A major general published a letter in Moscow two days ago, signed on by 15 colonels and generals, protesting Putin's lack of decisiveness. This is very dangerous. We see it in this country. The hawks are ascended. Diplomacy is the only way out, Ralph. And the offer in 2015 was called the Minsk Agreement. And it was agreed to for a brief period; there was a cease fire. The parties attached to it are Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany. The UN [United Nations] endorsed it. The OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] endorsed it. Samantha Power then at the UN thought it was the best option as did Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State. What it entails essentially is that the Donbas region and the Eastern part of Ukraine, the Russian speaking region where there are Russian troops or separatists, be given autonomous status within a federated society, language protection, the borders of Ukraine are sovereign, that Ukraine become a non-aligned country, almost like the Finland or Austrian State Treaty in 1955. And I think this provides for sovereign borders, independence, but not in NATO. There is an offer though, this idea, that there'd be a moratorium on NATO expansion, maybe in 15 years. And what's interesting about this, Ralph, I'll say just briefly, is that you do have three new leaders involved. Because when it last came up, it was [François] Hollande in France, [Angela] Merkel in Germany, and the chocolate oligarch, [Petro] Poroshenko in Ukraine. You do have a new leader in Ukraine, [Volodymyr] Zelensky, who at one point last week said enough with all this hot talk in Washington; it’s hurting the Ukrainian economy. You have [Emmanuel] Macron who is on his way out as French president, who's channeling his own [Charles] de Gaulle. And the new government in Germany, I think, is hopeful in terms of not being corrupt the way so many in this country say is because of the pipeline. That is a factor, but they've done business with Russia and they've had relations with Russia as a European power that are different than ours. So I think this agreement, the Minsk Agreement, the parties who had met in Paris two weeks ago, are meeting in Berlin this coming week; it's a possibility, but it needs space and it needs patience. And I think that is lack of supply in our political culture.
Ralph Nader: And why did it fall apart after 2015?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: It fell apart partly because there was a disagreement about what would happen first. Would the Russian separatists leave before the Ukrainian Kiev troops in that part of Ukraine, that region, leave? And then there was a disagreement about simple things but important like language protection. Because this is a Russian speaking part of Ukraine, Ralph. And one of the first things the new Kiev government did in 2014 was begin to impose language restrictions, that you couldn't study in Russian, or those kinds of things, which are very unsettling for people. But it did not last long, which is a problem, but it is back on offer. It is more of a crisis moment. So I think there are possibilities if there's a will and a persistence.
Ralph Nader: Well, there are other factors involved. Biden doesn't wanna appear weak. Putin doesn't wanna appear that he has to back down and be humiliated in front of the Russian people. And Biden wants to send a signal to China about not invading Taiwan. So there are a lot of other things going on. This reminds me of how World War I started with the assassination of Archduke in Sarajevo and Serbia. And then it went like lightning through a bunch of egos who all knew each other – the Czar, the Kaiser in Germany, France, England. They all knew each other. They had intermarriage with each other's families. But they had their egos involved. And, you know, 25 million people were killed in World War I.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: But you know, Ralph, it's so true. It is more reminiscent. I'm glad you brought up World War I or not. But there's often this misguided historical analogy to Munich, right? Diplomacy is appeasement. In fact, this is much more reminiscent of World War I, which is kind of the sleepwalking into war. And the war in Ukraine is in the trenches for now. I mean, it could escalate to tactical nuclear weapons, but it is trenches. It's similar to World War I. And people know each other, the intermarriage between Russia and Ukraine and the family relationships is why it's so deeply asymmetrical. The United States has no vital – not to be callous, but no vital national security interest in Ukraine. What we do need to remember is 15,000 civilians have already perished in the fighting. What I'm really worried about, Ralph, is not so much the sending of US and NATO troops to Eastern European countries ringing Ukraine, but we've already sent $3 billion worth of weapons into Ukraine in the last years. And there are at least a few thousand US advisors there to assist Ukrainians now with this equipment. And what if some, US soldiers are killed on the battlefield, the escalation –
Ralph Nader: That's right. That's part of the rumble to war. Then it becomes support to troops. Shut up, Americans, and keep shopping, which is what George W. Bush told us when he and [Dick] Cheney engaged in the criminal war and destruction of Iraq in 2003. I wanna quote a sentence from your article in the Washington Post. You say, “Minsk II is a compromise. As such, it requires hard choices on all sides. Ideally, the agreement would be accompanied by a treaty between Russian and United States and Europe guaranteeing neutrality for Ukraine similar to the enforced neutrality of Austria since the cold war’s early years.” And that raises a question we got from one of our listeners recently, who asked, “Why can't NATO declare Ukraine a neutral buffer zone?” It seems maybe that could be a compromise for all three parties involved.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: That is a very interesting question because I do think Ukraine's role, if it could be a stable, peaceful, and prosperous country, would be as a bridge between east and west. There's a history here that the protest in Ukraine 2013 began when the EU [European Union] had on offer to the then president an economic agreement. Putin had put in that why not Ukraine as a member of both the European association involved with Russia, but also the EU, a kind of tripartite. That was rejected by EU, by the then president.
That or the moratorium on NATO expansion vis-à-vis Ukraine. But I'm serious about the fact that there is a NATO charter, as you well know, Ralph, that Article V is that members would come to the defense of a NATO member under attack. But it's also the fact that you need to be territorially whole, which Ukraine is not now, to join.
Ralph Nader: That NATO provision is subject to the US Constitution. And if the Congress declares war, that NATO provision is inoperative. Congress here is like an inkblot. They're watching Biden threaten the harshest sanctions ever imposed by the United States on Russia and all the terrible impacts on the Russian people. Well, that happens to be illegal under international law, Katrina. You can't impose sanctions on the country with a disproportionate impact on the civilian population. And the civilian population would take the lion’s share of the brunt here. It wouldn't be Putin and his entourage. And there's no one saying to Biden, Hey, do you understand international law? Do you understand treaties? Do you understand Geneva conventions, which we’re a signatory to?” It's the same kind of a runaway rumble to war without knowing what the consequences are. It's as if they just want to humiliate Putin.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: So the [Congressional] Progressive Caucus is thinking hard about sanctions. It's maybe late, but sanctions are an act of war in many ways and counterproductive. They've been both illegal, counterproductive and lead to humanitarian catastrophe in most parts. But there's also another side of sanctions. It is a race to the bottom. You're right. In the Congress and the Senate right now, between Democrats, who just wanna wait if the war begins before sanctioning, and the Republicans, who are gung ho to start now, there is discussion about the authority to use military force and using the Constitution's war powers, because this is illegal in the sense of sending American men and women, even as special advisors. But sanctions play in different ways, Ralph, I mean, inside Russia, I've seen this. It has brought people together and made them more anti-American. It has strengthened Putin in some ways, because they have a $650 billion reserve. They've started producing things they didn't. And so it's counterproductive. I agree with you that they try to target Putin or his associates, but that's very tough. Very tough.
Ralph Nader: Well, the New York Times today reports that it's likely to be a long delayed standoff between the Western countries, US and Russia. What does that mean?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Well, it could be a game of bluff. I mean, I continue to think the more time that elapses, the more possibility for diplomacy and the more possibility for face-saving maneuvers. I mean, I think the fact – I was gonna say, Thom Friedman, who is a barometer for not much, but he gave an interview the other day where he believes that the Finland, Austria nonaligned proposal is a good one.
I think people are looking out and seeing – first of all, I think it's not a bad thing because I think we should not be a unipolar world. But you got China and Russia coming closer in different ways. They will continue to compete, but our policies are pushing them closer. Certainly, the National Security Strategy, Ralph, which came out about a year ago, right? It named Russia and China as our challenges, enemies. We are in a new world. We haven't even talked pandemic, Ralph. Think of the money that's being squandered. And famous bipartisanship in Washington, you think about this all the time, is betrayed through votes on this defense budget, which they added 25% to or something. Anyway…
Ralph Nader: With Democrats supporting it, they added $24 billion to the bloated, wasteful military budget--more than Biden and the Pentagon asked for. This is totally reckless.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: It's totally reckless.
Ralph Nader: Reckless behavior.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: And for people who think it's a jobs program, you could use that money in far more effective, productive ways, because it has been a jobs program. And you heard about this shareholder call with the big four defense companies. You know, they're salivating. And NATO, by the way, is part of that. But I think that you got the pandemic, you have climate crisis, you have global inequality, you have issues which need to be addressed, I will say, in this country, Ralph, the demonization, I have no brief for Putin. I've worked in Russia with women's groups, independent media. I've seen the suppression/repression of groups like Memorial. But what's happened is it's all Putin all the time. And we fail to understand that it's a country, where you can't understand Russia right now without understanding the ascendants of the Russian Orthodox Church or the fact that 40% of Putin’s edicts are not fulfilled. It's Putin, but it's also a country which has a lot of forces in it. The demonization of Putin is not a policy. It's an alibi for a policy. And it has also led to the ability to think about war. If you demonize something or someone or a country, it's easier to see why one would go to war. So I simply suggest we should understand that cold wars are not good for any progressives, any people who believe in the rule of law, because the space for dissent, for reimagining a different kind of foreign policy closes down in militarization.
Ralph Nader: Well, you have in your article a little light at the end of the tunnel here, when you say – it just came out a few days ago, listeners. You say, “In Paris last week, seven years after the Minsk II agreement, Ukraine and Russia held marathon eight-hour talks mediated by Germany and France. A new round of Minsk talks will be held in Berlin in the second week of February. “As we confront the worst US-Russian confrontation in decades, isn't it time for the United States to join with its allies to revive a path to a settlement that might lead to a stable peace.” What do you think now of these talks?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: I don't think anything very specific will come out of these talks in Berlin. The hope is that they continue in short order. Not delayed, delayed, delayed. But I do think there should be thought given to continuing the nuclear security process. And, you know, it's not sexy, but a new security architecture in Europe could be on the agenda. Because Gorbachev in 1987 gave one of the most remarkable speeches at the UN, talking about a common European home from Vladivostok in the east of Russia to Lisbon. And, you know, that's not farfetched, if there was a different – less militarized. Because NATO has militarized it. And again, I come back to that's not the way to move forward right now. But I do take hope that talks continue, and people know that this could be one of the great cataclysmic, catastrophic military actions. So the hope is no accidental shooting, no stumble into war and no hotheads,
Ralph Nader: There's none of that caution in the Biden regime. They've just sent several thousand US soldiers to various countries, Romania, Poland.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: I know.
Ralph Nader: They've got an Air Force squadron in Estonia. They're not letting Putin save face if he decides to back off because he's gonna lose a lot if he invades Ukraine. What kind of nonsense diplomacy is this when you don't show the adversary a way out?
Katrina vanden Heuvel: I think there may be talks to find a way for Putin to climb down. And I think there is a mixed – there's not a great balance, but they keep talking deterrence and diplomacy. They don't stop talking diplomacy, but the balance between deterrence and diplomacy does seem off. But there's an element of showing power with these troops. As I said, Ralph, I'm more worried about the weapons going into Ukraine and the special ops. I think the troops around ringing are kind of a show of power to get Putin to take seriously the diplomacy. But it is the case that this is not an administration… this is an administration that has been very – I would use the word – aggressive toward Ukraine. That was Biden's project, by the way, in the [Barack] Obama White House. He was considered the proconsul to Ukraine. We gotta have some new thinking about how to ensure that Ukraine become a sovereign, prosperous, stable country. And it's not gonna be through a war where they are conscripting or seeking troops up to 57 years old for men and there was a story about women fighting up to 60. That's inhumane in addition to the failure of military responses.
Ralph Nader: Well, if the shoe was on the other foot, you always have to do that in foreign policy.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Absolutely.
Ralph Nader: If we were invaded from the north in two wars and 50 million Americans were killed and there was a hostile power north and it surrounded us with a military alliance and it put soldiers in Cuba and Nicaragua, what do you think we would do? I mean…
Katrina vanden Heuvel: We would shout to the rooftop and what have we done, Ralph? You can see it. The Monroe Doctrine, the way we've policed our neighborhood over years is from Allan Nairn…
Ralph Nader: Yeah. We're about to blow up the world on the Cuban missiles crisis.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: And look at how we're handling Cuba now. We're decimating a small country for reasons not fully clear at all, and we're treating it like our backyard. And, I think what if you had Russian troops on the Canadian border or Russian troops in Mexico, that has been kind of put out there, there is an expression of strategic empathy. Putting yourself in the other’s shoes is not condoning, it's understanding. But I think there's been a degradation of diplomacy, Ralph, because it's viewed too often as appeasement and that is a very dangerous equivalence.
Ralph Nader: Empires know how to wage wars. They don't know how to wage peace. Proposals by then Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and before he was a Congressman Jim McGovern to have a Department of Peace to countervail this kind of rush to reckless increase in the risk of war. I wanna leave our listeners with this suggestion. Obama was gonna go into Syria. He thought that was a little bit of a stretch. So he said, “I want to go to Congress to get authority.” When that was publicized, millions of emails came in from left, right, conservative, liberal to their members of Congress saying, “Don't you dare.” I think it was 98-2 in terms of the predominant opposition. And I think, listeners, do your part, get to your senators and representatives and tell them, assert the constitutional authority of Congress, which is supreme over NATO's treaty, and which is much more likely to result in public hearings and a larger perspective on what's going on here before it's too late. Thank you very much, Katrina.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Thank you, Ralph.
**************
[Ari Melber] I want to play a little bit of Putin. This was in an older interview. This is before the invasion, but goes to the mindset that you may understand. This was with our own NBC colleague Keir Simmons where he tries to make the argument that really he has to respond to NATO, that Russia is constantly on the defense, as he puts it. Take a look.
[President Vladimir Putin] What was the point of expanding NATO to the east and bringing this infrastructure to our borders? And all of this before saying that we're the ones who have been acting aggressively? Why? On what basis did Russia after the USSR collapsed present any threat to the United States or European countries? We voluntarily withdrew our troops from eastern Europe, and what did we get in response? We got in response infrastructure [inaudible] wars. And now you're saying that we're threatening to somebody?
[Ari Melber] You're an expert at getting to the roots of things, not taking it all at face value. Can you share with us your view from your time there, does he in any way believe some of this stuff, because he's closed off as you described, or when you get to these international issues is it still his version of propaganda, baiting, what in America we sometimes call trolling and constantly making it out as if he must respond because of what the West is doing?
[Andre Kozyrev] It's both....
-- Kremlin Vet: They’ll Overthrow Putin Before Giving Him ‘Bad News’ About Russian Setbacks In Ukraine, by Ari Melber, 3/9/22
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Re: Walden Bello on U.S. Motives in Ukraine War, by Amy Good
by admin » Mon Mar 21, 2022 12:28 am
A Tale of Two Wars: Biden Decries Russian Atrocities in Ukraine While Backing Saudi/UAE War in Yemen
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
MARCH 16, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/16/ ... manitarian
GUESTS
Sarah Leah Whitson: executive director of the human rights organization Democracy for the Arab World Now.
As the U.S. and U.K. push for Saudi Arabia to increase oil production to offset a rise in global energy prices amid sanctions on Russia, the kingdom on Saturday announced it had executed 81 people — the country’s largest mass execution in decades. Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, says the muted criticism of Saudi abuses reveals a double standard when it comes to how Western countries deal with the absolute monarchy, which has been waging a brutal assault on neighboring Yemen for almost seven years with U.S. support. If the U.S. wants the world to oppose Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine, “then it’s got to stop supporting the war in Yemen,” says Whitson, who adds that disparate coverage of the wars in Ukraine and Yemen point to “inherent racism” in Western media.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman.
Today, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to hold talks on energy security, even as critics raise concerns about the countries’ human rights records. This comes as U.S. officials are also reportedly talking to Saudi officials about President Biden visiting to Saudi Arabia to discuss global oil supply, while the U.S. refuses to directly condemn Saudi Arabia for executing 81 men on Saturday — its largest mass execution ever. Efforts to negotiate with the Saudis to increase oil and sanctions on Russian oil come as much of the world is horrified by the atrocities in the war in Ukraine. UNICEF reports the Ukraine war is creating a child refugee almost every second in Ukraine.
At the same time, we’re hearing very little about the world’s worst humanitarian crisis unfolding in Yemen, which is now seven years into the Saudi-led war and blockade, backed by arms sales and technical assistance from the United States and its allies, including the United Kingdom. The United Nations warns acute cases of hunger in Yemen have reached an unprecedented level, with over 160,000 people likely to experience famine in the next half-year. More than 17 million people in Yemen are in need of food assistance, with high levels of acute malnutrition among children under the age of 5.
This was the focus of Part 2 of my conversation with Sarah Leah Whitson. She’s the executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, or DAWN. We spoke to her Tuesday about DAWN’s civil lawsuit against the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, who was assassinated in the Saudi Consulate in Turkey in 2018 and was DAWN’s founder. I asked Sarah Leah Whitson: How is it possible that the U.S. is continuing to support the Saudi-led war and blockade of Yemen?
SARAH LEAH WHITSON: It’s mind-boggling. And it’s mind-boggling that Mohammed bin Salman has actually said that he will not increase oil production unless the U.S. increases its support for the war in Yemen. Basically, the Biden administration is bargaining to do more to save the children of Ukraine by massacring more children in Yemen. That is the formula. And that’s why it’s just — it’s so discombobulating to see Secretary Blinken and President Biden falling over themselves to decry Russian atrocities in Ukraine while they support very similar, if not worse — certainly, to date, worse — atrocities by Saudi Arabia and the UAE in Yemen.
We have to be very clear: Saudi and UAE are starving the people of Yemen with a seven-year air, land and sea blockade that has eviscerated the country’s ability to import food, medicine and fuel. Yemen is a country that imports over 90% of its food. Of course people are starving when Saudi and UAE impose a total blockade on the country. Of course people are starving when sanctions continue to be in place. They haven’t entirely been lifted. The U.S. just redesignated so-called Houthi financiers, that will further debilitate the ability of the country to import even legitimate products like fuel and food and medicine imports.
What the Biden administration has now done is what even the Trump administration refused to do, which is reengage as a party of the conflict, putting American troops on the line as part of the fighting effort, as part of the war, making them legitimate military targets in the UAE, where U.S. forces from the military base in the UAE have actively participated in firing Patriot missiles against the Houthis in Yemen, ostensibly to defend the UAE from incoming Houthi missiles. But really the best way for the UAE to protect itself is to stop supporting proxy forces, to stop arming and funding proxy forces, which it dramatically increased in doing in the beginning of this year, and to end its blockade of Yemen. Same goes for Saudi Arabia. This is a dead-end war.
Best news I heard this morning: Reportedly, the Saudis have invited Houthi representatives for talks to Riyadh. I don’t know if the Houthis will trust this offer. There have been prior offers like this. But the whole world knows that the Saudis and the Emiratis are not going to win this war. It’s been seven years. They thought it was going to take weeks. What a joke. They have decimated this country.
And if the United States expects the entire world, which has not gone along, to sanction Russia, to buy what it’s selling in terms of defending Ukraine, then it’s got to stop supporting the war in Yemen, because the world sees this. The world sees that when the United States talks about sovereignty and violence and not attempting to extract concessions by force, it’s got to follow, to talk the talk in Yemen, not just tell the world what to do in Ukraine, because the world is not buying it. This is why there is not more support for the war against Russia in Ukraine.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, maybe that’s where you’ve got it wrong, when you say the world sees. I think the world doesn’t see the way it sees what’s happening in Ukraine right now. I want to read a tweet from CodePink. “Why is there such a disparity between coverage of the war on Ukraine vs. the war on Yemen? Coverage of Yemen reveals the US and UK’s complicity in creating the humanitarian crisis. Coverage of Ukraine constructs the US, the UK, & their allies as the 'saviors of democracy.'” So, let’s talk about the difference. I mean, you have for example, CNN anchors — and this is not wrong. Perhaps it should be a model of coverage of war in so many different cities, in Ukraine, so you see the real effects of what war looks like, feels like, smells like, the destruction of hospitals, the bombing of schools, and people feel it viscerally. Could you imagine if you had those same hosts in Sana’a, in Aden, in other places in Yemen each day to feel this humanitarian catastrophe, the worst in the world? Can you talk about that, the actual lack of coverage of what’s happening on the ground in Yemen, so the world doesn’t respond, right? As Noam Chomsky says, the media manufactures consent for war, and lets people know what’s happening so they can respond.
SARAH LEAH WHITSON: There are three elements to this, Amy. The first is the lack of coverage is not an accident. It is by design. Saudi and the UAE have done everything they can to block international media, block international human rights investigators, including myself, from traveling to Yemen. When the war started, we — when I was at Human Rights Watch, we were on the ground in Yemen. We were able to travel to Yemen to document what was happening, to document the destruction, to interview victims. The Saudis made that increasingly difficult, including banning, forcibly banning, by threatening to withdraw funds from U.N. planes that were still traveling to Yemen and taking in humanitarian organizations. So, the Saudis, they understand the power of the media. They understand the power of the coverage that you described. And that’s why they have done everything they can to make it impossible. It is so difficult for international media to get anywhere near the fighting in Yemen. Aden remains accessible, but you have to take a boat from Djibouti to get there. It’s virtually impossible to fly into the country. So, the restrictions on getting in for international media are tremendous, versus, of course, Ukraine, where anybody can go in freely to document what’s happening.
The second is just the factor of time. The media jumps from one crisis to another. The Ukraine crisis is new. The Yemen crisis is old. It’s been seven years. And we have seen, time and again, how the media loses interest and has to move on to the next thing. So there’s an attention span issue.
And finally, there is the inherent racism that we see and that we’ve seen on such grotesque display by the Western media, talking about the white and blue-eyed, blond-haired Ukrainians who are somehow different. Their refugee status is different. Their suffering is different. They’re civilized people. They’re European people. And so there is an inherent bias in the Western media, in particular, who are the bulk of those present in Ukraine, to sympathize with, to feel compassion and suffering for Ukrainians under bombardment, but not the same suffering, not the same pain for Yemenis under bombardment, for Yemenis who are literally being starved to death. And I think this is a good moment for everyone in the media to check their biases, to really think about why that is and what they can do to fix it. I would hope that the international media uses this as an opportunity to redouble its efforts to travel to Yemen and see for itself. When they have shown up, as the BBC did last year in some unbelievable footage, unbelievable coverage, it did make a difference. And I really think and hope and I wish that the international media spends just a fraction of the effort they’re making now to cover Ukraine to get into Yemen, to show the world what’s happening. This is a good moment to draw out the comparisons, the strong, strong parallels between what’s happening in Yemen and what’s happening in Ukraine.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Sarah Leah Whitson, I wanted to ask you about Congress and what it’s doing about Yemen right now, because this isn’t just the Saudi-UAE-led attack on Yemen. It is supplied militarily and helped in its funding by the United States. Can you talk about what’s happening in Congress?
SARAH LEAH WHITSON: Sure. So, while, under the Trump administration, the U.S. Congress, in a remarkable show of bipartisan support, Republican and Democrat, voted three times to ban U.S. support for the war in Yemen and ban arms sales to Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen, under the Biden administration they approved arms sales to Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen, using the handy fig leaf of calling them defensive weapons. It’s quite disappointing, if not disgusting, that even members of Congress, like Chris Murphy, who have been so vocal in condemning the war in Yemen and so vocal in condemning arms sales to Yemen, and even vowing that he would not support arms sales to Yemen, voted in support of arms sales to Yemen that the Biden administration put forward.
I think, unfortunately, it reveals a great deal about the conflict of interest within the U.S. government that is so beholden to the defense industry and defense industry profits and defense industry employment, both before and after — they are part of the government — but as well as the notion that we must continue to cajole the Saudi Arabians for acquiescence to a new arms deal with Iran, or now for increasing oil production, by doing what they want and sacrificing Yemen and the Yemeni people if we have to. There are efforts to introduce a new war powers resolution, led by, among others, Representative Ro Khanna, that would resubmit the renewed, reengaged American fighting in the Yemen war to a congressional war powers resolution and war powers approval. But I’m not entirely confident that that will pass.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you explain exactly what is the U.S. role in the attack, the decimation of Yemen?
SARAH LEAH WHITSON: Sure, it’s multifold. Number one, of course, is the provision of American weapons. They are the bulk of the weapons purchased by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and those are the weapons that are landing on the heads of Yemeni children, Yemeni women, Yemeni homes, Yemeni farms, Yemeni schools, Yemeni universities. This is how this country is being destroyed, with American weapons. In addition, there has been years of so-called intelligence support — I should say dumbness support — in supposedly helping the Saudis carry out their targeting and decimation and bombardment, which of course has been wildly indiscriminate, because the Saudis insist on flying their planes so high, to avoid being shot, that they really can’t target anything with any sort of precision. And now we have the direct engagement of U.S. forces, as I was mentioning, in the UAE to support Emirati forces to fire missiles back at incoming Houthi missiles. So the United States is directly a party to this conflict again, and its troops are at risk in the UAE as parties to the war. And it’s just remarkable to me that President Biden would endanger Americans this way.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, or DAWN, which was founded by Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered by Saudi agents in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
MARCH 16, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/16/ ... manitarian
GUESTS
Sarah Leah Whitson: executive director of the human rights organization Democracy for the Arab World Now.
As the U.S. and U.K. push for Saudi Arabia to increase oil production to offset a rise in global energy prices amid sanctions on Russia, the kingdom on Saturday announced it had executed 81 people — the country’s largest mass execution in decades. Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, says the muted criticism of Saudi abuses reveals a double standard when it comes to how Western countries deal with the absolute monarchy, which has been waging a brutal assault on neighboring Yemen for almost seven years with U.S. support. If the U.S. wants the world to oppose Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine, “then it’s got to stop supporting the war in Yemen,” says Whitson, who adds that disparate coverage of the wars in Ukraine and Yemen point to “inherent racism” in Western media.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman.
Today, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to hold talks on energy security, even as critics raise concerns about the countries’ human rights records. This comes as U.S. officials are also reportedly talking to Saudi officials about President Biden visiting to Saudi Arabia to discuss global oil supply, while the U.S. refuses to directly condemn Saudi Arabia for executing 81 men on Saturday — its largest mass execution ever. Efforts to negotiate with the Saudis to increase oil and sanctions on Russian oil come as much of the world is horrified by the atrocities in the war in Ukraine. UNICEF reports the Ukraine war is creating a child refugee almost every second in Ukraine.
At the same time, we’re hearing very little about the world’s worst humanitarian crisis unfolding in Yemen, which is now seven years into the Saudi-led war and blockade, backed by arms sales and technical assistance from the United States and its allies, including the United Kingdom. The United Nations warns acute cases of hunger in Yemen have reached an unprecedented level, with over 160,000 people likely to experience famine in the next half-year. More than 17 million people in Yemen are in need of food assistance, with high levels of acute malnutrition among children under the age of 5.
This was the focus of Part 2 of my conversation with Sarah Leah Whitson. She’s the executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, or DAWN. We spoke to her Tuesday about DAWN’s civil lawsuit against the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, who was assassinated in the Saudi Consulate in Turkey in 2018 and was DAWN’s founder. I asked Sarah Leah Whitson: How is it possible that the U.S. is continuing to support the Saudi-led war and blockade of Yemen?
SARAH LEAH WHITSON: It’s mind-boggling. And it’s mind-boggling that Mohammed bin Salman has actually said that he will not increase oil production unless the U.S. increases its support for the war in Yemen. Basically, the Biden administration is bargaining to do more to save the children of Ukraine by massacring more children in Yemen. That is the formula. And that’s why it’s just — it’s so discombobulating to see Secretary Blinken and President Biden falling over themselves to decry Russian atrocities in Ukraine while they support very similar, if not worse — certainly, to date, worse — atrocities by Saudi Arabia and the UAE in Yemen.
We have to be very clear: Saudi and UAE are starving the people of Yemen with a seven-year air, land and sea blockade that has eviscerated the country’s ability to import food, medicine and fuel. Yemen is a country that imports over 90% of its food. Of course people are starving when Saudi and UAE impose a total blockade on the country. Of course people are starving when sanctions continue to be in place. They haven’t entirely been lifted. The U.S. just redesignated so-called Houthi financiers, that will further debilitate the ability of the country to import even legitimate products like fuel and food and medicine imports.
What the Biden administration has now done is what even the Trump administration refused to do, which is reengage as a party of the conflict, putting American troops on the line as part of the fighting effort, as part of the war, making them legitimate military targets in the UAE, where U.S. forces from the military base in the UAE have actively participated in firing Patriot missiles against the Houthis in Yemen, ostensibly to defend the UAE from incoming Houthi missiles. But really the best way for the UAE to protect itself is to stop supporting proxy forces, to stop arming and funding proxy forces, which it dramatically increased in doing in the beginning of this year, and to end its blockade of Yemen. Same goes for Saudi Arabia. This is a dead-end war.
Best news I heard this morning: Reportedly, the Saudis have invited Houthi representatives for talks to Riyadh. I don’t know if the Houthis will trust this offer. There have been prior offers like this. But the whole world knows that the Saudis and the Emiratis are not going to win this war. It’s been seven years. They thought it was going to take weeks. What a joke. They have decimated this country.
And if the United States expects the entire world, which has not gone along, to sanction Russia, to buy what it’s selling in terms of defending Ukraine, then it’s got to stop supporting the war in Yemen, because the world sees this. The world sees that when the United States talks about sovereignty and violence and not attempting to extract concessions by force, it’s got to follow, to talk the talk in Yemen, not just tell the world what to do in Ukraine, because the world is not buying it. This is why there is not more support for the war against Russia in Ukraine.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, maybe that’s where you’ve got it wrong, when you say the world sees. I think the world doesn’t see the way it sees what’s happening in Ukraine right now. I want to read a tweet from CodePink. “Why is there such a disparity between coverage of the war on Ukraine vs. the war on Yemen? Coverage of Yemen reveals the US and UK’s complicity in creating the humanitarian crisis. Coverage of Ukraine constructs the US, the UK, & their allies as the 'saviors of democracy.'” So, let’s talk about the difference. I mean, you have for example, CNN anchors — and this is not wrong. Perhaps it should be a model of coverage of war in so many different cities, in Ukraine, so you see the real effects of what war looks like, feels like, smells like, the destruction of hospitals, the bombing of schools, and people feel it viscerally. Could you imagine if you had those same hosts in Sana’a, in Aden, in other places in Yemen each day to feel this humanitarian catastrophe, the worst in the world? Can you talk about that, the actual lack of coverage of what’s happening on the ground in Yemen, so the world doesn’t respond, right? As Noam Chomsky says, the media manufactures consent for war, and lets people know what’s happening so they can respond.
SARAH LEAH WHITSON: There are three elements to this, Amy. The first is the lack of coverage is not an accident. It is by design. Saudi and the UAE have done everything they can to block international media, block international human rights investigators, including myself, from traveling to Yemen. When the war started, we — when I was at Human Rights Watch, we were on the ground in Yemen. We were able to travel to Yemen to document what was happening, to document the destruction, to interview victims. The Saudis made that increasingly difficult, including banning, forcibly banning, by threatening to withdraw funds from U.N. planes that were still traveling to Yemen and taking in humanitarian organizations. So, the Saudis, they understand the power of the media. They understand the power of the coverage that you described. And that’s why they have done everything they can to make it impossible. It is so difficult for international media to get anywhere near the fighting in Yemen. Aden remains accessible, but you have to take a boat from Djibouti to get there. It’s virtually impossible to fly into the country. So, the restrictions on getting in for international media are tremendous, versus, of course, Ukraine, where anybody can go in freely to document what’s happening.
The second is just the factor of time. The media jumps from one crisis to another. The Ukraine crisis is new. The Yemen crisis is old. It’s been seven years. And we have seen, time and again, how the media loses interest and has to move on to the next thing. So there’s an attention span issue.
And finally, there is the inherent racism that we see and that we’ve seen on such grotesque display by the Western media, talking about the white and blue-eyed, blond-haired Ukrainians who are somehow different. Their refugee status is different. Their suffering is different. They’re civilized people. They’re European people. And so there is an inherent bias in the Western media, in particular, who are the bulk of those present in Ukraine, to sympathize with, to feel compassion and suffering for Ukrainians under bombardment, but not the same suffering, not the same pain for Yemenis under bombardment, for Yemenis who are literally being starved to death. And I think this is a good moment for everyone in the media to check their biases, to really think about why that is and what they can do to fix it. I would hope that the international media uses this as an opportunity to redouble its efforts to travel to Yemen and see for itself. When they have shown up, as the BBC did last year in some unbelievable footage, unbelievable coverage, it did make a difference. And I really think and hope and I wish that the international media spends just a fraction of the effort they’re making now to cover Ukraine to get into Yemen, to show the world what’s happening. This is a good moment to draw out the comparisons, the strong, strong parallels between what’s happening in Yemen and what’s happening in Ukraine.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Sarah Leah Whitson, I wanted to ask you about Congress and what it’s doing about Yemen right now, because this isn’t just the Saudi-UAE-led attack on Yemen. It is supplied militarily and helped in its funding by the United States. Can you talk about what’s happening in Congress?
SARAH LEAH WHITSON: Sure. So, while, under the Trump administration, the U.S. Congress, in a remarkable show of bipartisan support, Republican and Democrat, voted three times to ban U.S. support for the war in Yemen and ban arms sales to Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen, under the Biden administration they approved arms sales to Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen, using the handy fig leaf of calling them defensive weapons. It’s quite disappointing, if not disgusting, that even members of Congress, like Chris Murphy, who have been so vocal in condemning the war in Yemen and so vocal in condemning arms sales to Yemen, and even vowing that he would not support arms sales to Yemen, voted in support of arms sales to Yemen that the Biden administration put forward.
I think, unfortunately, it reveals a great deal about the conflict of interest within the U.S. government that is so beholden to the defense industry and defense industry profits and defense industry employment, both before and after — they are part of the government — but as well as the notion that we must continue to cajole the Saudi Arabians for acquiescence to a new arms deal with Iran, or now for increasing oil production, by doing what they want and sacrificing Yemen and the Yemeni people if we have to. There are efforts to introduce a new war powers resolution, led by, among others, Representative Ro Khanna, that would resubmit the renewed, reengaged American fighting in the Yemen war to a congressional war powers resolution and war powers approval. But I’m not entirely confident that that will pass.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you explain exactly what is the U.S. role in the attack, the decimation of Yemen?
SARAH LEAH WHITSON: Sure, it’s multifold. Number one, of course, is the provision of American weapons. They are the bulk of the weapons purchased by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and those are the weapons that are landing on the heads of Yemeni children, Yemeni women, Yemeni homes, Yemeni farms, Yemeni schools, Yemeni universities. This is how this country is being destroyed, with American weapons. In addition, there has been years of so-called intelligence support — I should say dumbness support — in supposedly helping the Saudis carry out their targeting and decimation and bombardment, which of course has been wildly indiscriminate, because the Saudis insist on flying their planes so high, to avoid being shot, that they really can’t target anything with any sort of precision. And now we have the direct engagement of U.S. forces, as I was mentioning, in the UAE to support Emirati forces to fire missiles back at incoming Houthi missiles. So the United States is directly a party to this conflict again, and its troops are at risk in the UAE as parties to the war. And it’s just remarkable to me that President Biden would endanger Americans this way.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, or DAWN, which was founded by Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered by Saudi agents in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
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Re: Walden Bello on U.S. Motives in Ukraine War, by Amy Good
by admin » Mon Mar 21, 2022 12:30 am
A NATO No-Fly Zone in Ukraine Would Be “Direct Involvement in the War Against Russia,” Experts Warn
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
MARCH 16, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/16/ ... o_fly_zone
GUESTS
Stephen Wertheim: senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
LINKS
"We call on Biden to reject reckless demands for a no-fly zone"
"Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy"
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to demand the U.S. and NATO allies impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, an idea that President Biden has rejected even as a growing number of Republicans embrace the idea despite the risk it could draw the U.S. directly into the war against Russia and possibly spark a nuclear confrontation. Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, co-authored an open letter signed by foreign policy experts who oppose a no-fly zone over Ukraine. It urges leaders to continue diplomatic and economic measures to end the conflict. “As you start thinking about how a no-fly zone would actually unfold, it becomes very obvious this would be direct involvement in the war against Russia, and rather than end the war, a no-fly zone would enlarge the war and escalate the war,” says Wertheim.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is giving a virtual address to both chambers of the U.S. Congress today. He is expected to repeat his call for NATO to impose a no-fly zone. President Biden has so far rejected his request, but some in Congress and former officials have embraced the idea.
Meanwhile, a group of foreign policy experts have signed on to an open letter opposing a no-fly zone. The letter was co-written by our next guest, Stephen Wertheim. He’s senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of the book Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy.
Stephen, welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. Talk about what it means to impose a no-fly zone and why you’re opposed, what this letter is all about.
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: Well, a no-fly zone strikes many people as a humanitarian measure or a technical measure. Our experience with no-fly zones comes from the last three decades, in which a small number of no-fly zones have been imposed against much weaker enemies than Russia. But what it means is that the United States and NATO forces would commit to shoot down enemy planes, any enemy plane that enters the zone. It’s quite clear Russia would not voluntarily comply with our verbal declaration of a no-fly zone, so we’d have to shoot those planes down. And to do that, we’d have to patrol the area with our own planes to gain supremacy in the skies over Ukraine. And to do that safely, we would have to destroy the enemy’s air defense systems on the ground, as well. Many of those are located in Belarus, and some potentially may be located in Russia. Indeed, Russians could fire at U.S. and NATO forces from Russia.
And then the question would become: Would we go to war, go to war and exchange fire with Russians who are located inside Russian territory? So, as you start thinking about how a no-fly zone would actually unfold, it becomes very obvious this would be direct involvement in the war against Russia. And rather than end the war, a no-fly zone would enlarge the war and escalate the war. And that’s why the Biden administration has, rightly, been very clear throughout this conflict that a no-fly zone would be escalatory and is not something that it wants to do.
AMY GOODMAN: And we’re talking about a war between nuclear powers, and what Putin has said is clearly suggesting people should be very careful about moving forward — threatening, in fact.
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: And as President Obama himself noted as he prepared to leave office, that with respect to Ukraine, Russia would have escalation dominance, meaning because the value of Ukraine to Russia is so much higher than it is to the West, that Putin would be prepared to go much further. This would be a kind of existential struggle for him. And now it is even more so than when he initially invaded, given the sanctions that have been imposed on Russia.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you —
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: So, he may resort to nuclear use.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you address the suggestion of a, quote-unquote, “limited” no-fly zone?
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: It’s hard to know what that would mean exactly. One has to specify where a limited no-fly zone would be imposed. But, again, there is no really limited no-fly zone. A no-fly zone means a commitment not just to declare something, but to enforce it, by making sure that Russian planes cannot fly within that zone. And so, it would clearly be viewed as an act of war and an escalation by Russia. Russia wouldn’t be wrong to view it that way. And in every case, the basically three cases in which no-fly zones have been imposed in recent decades — and again, imposed against enemies much, much weaker than Russia — the mission has expanded.
For example, if we impose a no-fly zone, whether it’s called limited or not, and our pilots actually do gain superiority in the air, and they’re watching Russians inflict terrible violence on Ukrainians below them, then we’re faced with a question: Should we actually attack Russian forces on the ground? And if not, what was the point of establishing a no-fly zone, if it’s making little difference in the war itself? So, a no-fly zone would not, in and of itself, do very much to alleviate the suffering that Ukrainians are experiencing at the hands of Russian aggression. What it really would be is an intermediate step toward a much wider war.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to ask you about the state of negotiations to end this war. The Ukrainian President Zelensky suggested earlier today that Russian demands are becoming more realistic.
PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: [translated] Everyone should work, including our representatives, our delegation, for negotiations with the Russian Federation. It is difficult but important, as any war ends with an agreement. The meetings continue, and I am informed the positions during the negotiations already sound more realistic. But time is still needed for the decisions to be in the interests of Ukraine.
AMY GOODMAN: Zelensky’s remarks came a day after he acknowledged he doesn’t expect Ukraine to join NATO anytime soon, which is very significant. And during a news conference yesterday, The Intercept’s Ryan Grim asked White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki what the U.S. is doing to advance peace negotiations and whether the U.S. would lift its sanctions on Russia if it reached a peace deal with Ukraine. This is just a small part of what she said.
RYAN GRIM: Aside from the request for weapons, President Zelensky has also requested that the U.S. be more involved in negotiations toward a peaceful resolution to the war. What is the U.S. doing to push those negotiations forward?
PRESS SECRETARY JEN PSAKI: Well, one of the steps we’ve taken, a significant one, is to be the largest provider of military and humanitarian and economic assistance in the world, to put them in a greater position of strength as they go into these negotiations.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s a part of what Jen Psaki — that’s a part of what Jen Psaki said. Your response to this, Stephen?
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: Well, it is encouraging that President Zelensky is now being even more explicit, continuing a string of remarks over the past week or so in which he has expressed a real openness to making a settlement to the war, suggesting that he’s open to committing to neutrality for Ukraine with respect to NATO. And that has been a core demand of Russia, a consistent demand going back a long time.
And there are also some encouraging words coming out of the Biden administration, as well. Secretary of State Tony Blinken just recently suggested that the sanctions that have been imposed on Russia were not intended to be permanent. And what that signals is perhaps a willingness on the part of the United States to drop some of the most draconian sanctions on Russia if that becomes necessary in order to secure a peace settlement that the legitimate government of Ukraine, led by Zelensky, would desire. And so, that’s the key. If the Zelensky government believes it’s in the interest of Ukraine to stop the bloodshed, accept what will surely be some painful concessions, but nevertheless preserve the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine in a peaceful way, what I think will be important from the United States and its allies is to be able to be part of those negotiations and make certain concessions with respect to sanctions, that would be surely necessary to reach a peaceful resolution to the war.
AMY GOODMAN: One of —
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: Whether —
AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: Whether we’re at the point where in fact Russia is willing to make an agreement, that is hard to judge. But we may get there in the coming weeks.
AMY GOODMAN: One of the key demands from Russia so far has been no intermediate- or shorter-range missiles deployed close enough to hit the territory of the other side. Explain this. And we just have 30 seconds.
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: Actually, prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion several weeks ago, it seemed as though the United States and Russia were making some progress in diplomacy on issues like the one you mentioned, on arms control agreements, which would involve reciprocal measures whereby NATO forces in the east of NATO and Russia would both seek to revive the kinds of limitations on their armaments, that were built up actually during the Cold War, were built up a little bit after the Cold War, but have atrophied over the last several decades. So this is also —
AMY GOODMAN: We just have 10 seconds.
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: This is also something that could be part of an ultimate peace agreement.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Stephen Wertheim, we’re going to do Part 2 of our conversation with you and post it online at democracynow.org. Stephen Wertheim is senior fellow at the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He’s a visiting fellow at Yale Law School and author of the book Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
MARCH 16, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/16/ ... o_fly_zone
GUESTS
Stephen Wertheim: senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
LINKS
"We call on Biden to reject reckless demands for a no-fly zone"
"Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy"
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to demand the U.S. and NATO allies impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, an idea that President Biden has rejected even as a growing number of Republicans embrace the idea despite the risk it could draw the U.S. directly into the war against Russia and possibly spark a nuclear confrontation. Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, co-authored an open letter signed by foreign policy experts who oppose a no-fly zone over Ukraine. It urges leaders to continue diplomatic and economic measures to end the conflict. “As you start thinking about how a no-fly zone would actually unfold, it becomes very obvious this would be direct involvement in the war against Russia, and rather than end the war, a no-fly zone would enlarge the war and escalate the war,” says Wertheim.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is giving a virtual address to both chambers of the U.S. Congress today. He is expected to repeat his call for NATO to impose a no-fly zone. President Biden has so far rejected his request, but some in Congress and former officials have embraced the idea.
Meanwhile, a group of foreign policy experts have signed on to an open letter opposing a no-fly zone. The letter was co-written by our next guest, Stephen Wertheim. He’s senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of the book Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy.
Stephen, welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. Talk about what it means to impose a no-fly zone and why you’re opposed, what this letter is all about.
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: Well, a no-fly zone strikes many people as a humanitarian measure or a technical measure. Our experience with no-fly zones comes from the last three decades, in which a small number of no-fly zones have been imposed against much weaker enemies than Russia. But what it means is that the United States and NATO forces would commit to shoot down enemy planes, any enemy plane that enters the zone. It’s quite clear Russia would not voluntarily comply with our verbal declaration of a no-fly zone, so we’d have to shoot those planes down. And to do that, we’d have to patrol the area with our own planes to gain supremacy in the skies over Ukraine. And to do that safely, we would have to destroy the enemy’s air defense systems on the ground, as well. Many of those are located in Belarus, and some potentially may be located in Russia. Indeed, Russians could fire at U.S. and NATO forces from Russia.
And then the question would become: Would we go to war, go to war and exchange fire with Russians who are located inside Russian territory? So, as you start thinking about how a no-fly zone would actually unfold, it becomes very obvious this would be direct involvement in the war against Russia. And rather than end the war, a no-fly zone would enlarge the war and escalate the war. And that’s why the Biden administration has, rightly, been very clear throughout this conflict that a no-fly zone would be escalatory and is not something that it wants to do.
AMY GOODMAN: And we’re talking about a war between nuclear powers, and what Putin has said is clearly suggesting people should be very careful about moving forward — threatening, in fact.
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: And as President Obama himself noted as he prepared to leave office, that with respect to Ukraine, Russia would have escalation dominance, meaning because the value of Ukraine to Russia is so much higher than it is to the West, that Putin would be prepared to go much further. This would be a kind of existential struggle for him. And now it is even more so than when he initially invaded, given the sanctions that have been imposed on Russia.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you —
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: So, he may resort to nuclear use.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you address the suggestion of a, quote-unquote, “limited” no-fly zone?
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: It’s hard to know what that would mean exactly. One has to specify where a limited no-fly zone would be imposed. But, again, there is no really limited no-fly zone. A no-fly zone means a commitment not just to declare something, but to enforce it, by making sure that Russian planes cannot fly within that zone. And so, it would clearly be viewed as an act of war and an escalation by Russia. Russia wouldn’t be wrong to view it that way. And in every case, the basically three cases in which no-fly zones have been imposed in recent decades — and again, imposed against enemies much, much weaker than Russia — the mission has expanded.
For example, if we impose a no-fly zone, whether it’s called limited or not, and our pilots actually do gain superiority in the air, and they’re watching Russians inflict terrible violence on Ukrainians below them, then we’re faced with a question: Should we actually attack Russian forces on the ground? And if not, what was the point of establishing a no-fly zone, if it’s making little difference in the war itself? So, a no-fly zone would not, in and of itself, do very much to alleviate the suffering that Ukrainians are experiencing at the hands of Russian aggression. What it really would be is an intermediate step toward a much wider war.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to ask you about the state of negotiations to end this war. The Ukrainian President Zelensky suggested earlier today that Russian demands are becoming more realistic.
PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: [translated] Everyone should work, including our representatives, our delegation, for negotiations with the Russian Federation. It is difficult but important, as any war ends with an agreement. The meetings continue, and I am informed the positions during the negotiations already sound more realistic. But time is still needed for the decisions to be in the interests of Ukraine.
AMY GOODMAN: Zelensky’s remarks came a day after he acknowledged he doesn’t expect Ukraine to join NATO anytime soon, which is very significant. And during a news conference yesterday, The Intercept’s Ryan Grim asked White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki what the U.S. is doing to advance peace negotiations and whether the U.S. would lift its sanctions on Russia if it reached a peace deal with Ukraine. This is just a small part of what she said.
RYAN GRIM: Aside from the request for weapons, President Zelensky has also requested that the U.S. be more involved in negotiations toward a peaceful resolution to the war. What is the U.S. doing to push those negotiations forward?
PRESS SECRETARY JEN PSAKI: Well, one of the steps we’ve taken, a significant one, is to be the largest provider of military and humanitarian and economic assistance in the world, to put them in a greater position of strength as they go into these negotiations.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s a part of what Jen Psaki — that’s a part of what Jen Psaki said. Your response to this, Stephen?
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: Well, it is encouraging that President Zelensky is now being even more explicit, continuing a string of remarks over the past week or so in which he has expressed a real openness to making a settlement to the war, suggesting that he’s open to committing to neutrality for Ukraine with respect to NATO. And that has been a core demand of Russia, a consistent demand going back a long time.
And there are also some encouraging words coming out of the Biden administration, as well. Secretary of State Tony Blinken just recently suggested that the sanctions that have been imposed on Russia were not intended to be permanent. And what that signals is perhaps a willingness on the part of the United States to drop some of the most draconian sanctions on Russia if that becomes necessary in order to secure a peace settlement that the legitimate government of Ukraine, led by Zelensky, would desire. And so, that’s the key. If the Zelensky government believes it’s in the interest of Ukraine to stop the bloodshed, accept what will surely be some painful concessions, but nevertheless preserve the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine in a peaceful way, what I think will be important from the United States and its allies is to be able to be part of those negotiations and make certain concessions with respect to sanctions, that would be surely necessary to reach a peaceful resolution to the war.
AMY GOODMAN: One of —
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: Whether —
AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: Whether we’re at the point where in fact Russia is willing to make an agreement, that is hard to judge. But we may get there in the coming weeks.
AMY GOODMAN: One of the key demands from Russia so far has been no intermediate- or shorter-range missiles deployed close enough to hit the territory of the other side. Explain this. And we just have 30 seconds.
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: Actually, prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion several weeks ago, it seemed as though the United States and Russia were making some progress in diplomacy on issues like the one you mentioned, on arms control agreements, which would involve reciprocal measures whereby NATO forces in the east of NATO and Russia would both seek to revive the kinds of limitations on their armaments, that were built up actually during the Cold War, were built up a little bit after the Cold War, but have atrophied over the last several decades. So this is also —
AMY GOODMAN: We just have 10 seconds.
STEPHEN WERTHEIM: This is also something that could be part of an ultimate peace agreement.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Stephen Wertheim, we’re going to do Part 2 of our conversation with you and post it online at democracynow.org. Stephen Wertheim is senior fellow at the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He’s a visiting fellow at Yale Law School and author of the book Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy.
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Re: Walden Bello on U.S. Motives in Ukraine War, by Amy Good
by admin » Mon Mar 21, 2022 12:34 am
Phyllis Bennis: The Best Way to Help Ukraine Is Diplomacy, Not War & Increased Militarization
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
MARCH 17, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/17/ ... ine_drones
GUESTS
Phyllis Bennis: author and fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.
LINKS
"The Best Way to Help Ukraine Is Diplomacy, Not War"
President Biden announced $800 million in new military aid for Ukraine on Wednesday, just days after Congress cleared a $1.5 trillion spending bill that included nearly $14 billion for Ukrainian humanitarian aid and security assistance. Experts warn that sending more lethal weapons could escalate war and result in more losses for Ukraine. “The cost on civilian lives is horrific,” says Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, who says increasing military aid in Ukraine could thwart peace talks between Russia and Ukraine — which appeared to be making progress in the past few days. Her latest piece is headlined “The Best Way to Help Ukraine Is Diplomacy, Not War.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its fourth week, President Biden has announced $800 million in new military aid for Ukraine. According to the White House, the package will include over 20 million rounds of ammunition, 100 unmanned drones, 2,000 Javelin anti-armor missiles and 800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems. Biden spoke at the White House Wednesday.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Our new assistance package also includes 9,000 anti-armor systems. These are portable, high — high accurately — high-accuracy shoulder-mounted missiles that the Ukrainian forces have been using with great effect to destroy invading tanks and armored vehicles. It’ll include 7,000 small arms — machine guns, shotguns, grenade launchers — to equip the Ukrainians, including the brave women and men who are defending their cities as civilians, and they’re on the countryside, as well. And as well as the ammunition, artillery and mortar rounds to go with small arms, 20 million rounds in total. Twenty million rounds. And this will include drones, which — which demonstrates our commitment to sending our most cutting-edge systems to Ukraine for its defense.
AMY GOODMAN: Biden’s remarks came hours after the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, gave a virtual address to Congress. While repeating his call for a NATO no-fly zone, Zelensky invoked the attacks on 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. While most of Zelensky’s speech was in Ukrainian, he delivered part in English directly to President Biden.
PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: As the leader of my nation, I am addressing the President Biden. You are the leader of the nation, of your great nation. I wish you to be the leader of the world. Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.
AMY GOODMAN: While the Biden administration has so far rejected calls for a no-fly zone, more details are emerging of how the U.S. has covertly aided Ukraine. Yahoo News is reporting a small group of veteran CIA paramilitaries helped train Ukrainian special forces prepare for fighting against Russian forces.
As the United States is pouring arms into Ukraine, there are signs that progress is being made on the diplomatic front to end the war. The Financial Times is reporting that Ukrainian and Russian delegates have discussed a 15-point deal under which Russia would withdraw troops in exchange for Ukraine renouncing its ambitions to join NATO and agreeing not to host foreign military bases or weapons — to remain neutral.
To talk more about these latest developments, we’re joined by Phyllis Bennis, author and fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, her recent piece headlined “The Best Way to Help Ukraine Is Diplomacy, Not War.”
So, Phyllis, thanks so much for rejoining Democracy Now! to talk about this issue now. Can you respond to what’s happening on the ground in Ukraine and what President Biden announced yesterday, the massive infusion of weapons to Ukraine?
PHYLLIS BENNIS: Well, you know, Amy — and good morning to you both — the $800 million that was just announced in new weapons comes on top of an almost $15 billion aid package that has — much of which will go to Ukraine for a combination of humanitarian and military support. So this is something that’s been going on for several months now, the massive arming of Ukraine in this war.
And I think that what we’re seeing in terms of the diplomatic possibilities is very much a way to see what — the term they like to use is an “off-ramp,” an off-ramp for Russia, but also an off-ramp for the Ukrainian authorities to get out from under this constant escalation that we’re seeing, that the cost on civilian lives is horrific. And although we don’t have good numbers, it does seem clear that the numbers of Russian troops that are being killed is also rising at a very, very fast rate. And both of these leaders are going to have a hard time continuing that level of casualties. So the question of whether this will be the beginning of an actual diplomatic solution becomes very, very important.
The new weapons obviously could shift somewhat the conditions on the ground. As we’ve all seen, the Russian military assault has not played out the way Biden — sorry, the way Putin presumably intended it to. The Russian troops have been bogged down, partly physically bogged down in a number of parts of the convoys trying to get to take over Kyiv. But, on the other hand, the attacks, the continuing bombings, missile attacks, has created enormous civilian casualties, and the ability of the Ukrainian forces, both the military and the volunteer forces, to protect civilians is somewhat limited in that context. So the deal becomes very, very important.
What we’re hearing about this deal is not different than what has been anticipated in recent days, that a deal would have to include a Russian withdrawal and, of course, a ceasefire, that Ukraine would have to give up its claim to be intending to join NATO. The language that we’re hearing now may be included is some definition of a separate protection, a Ukrainian protection alliance, which would essentially allow an official legal treaty to be signed between Ukraine and a number of other countries, probably including the U.S., the U.K., Turkey, maybe a couple of other European countries, who would agree that if Ukraine were to be invaded or threatened again, they would come directly to the aid of Ukraine. So it would almost be like a sort of NATO countries lite, without the official political consequences of being an official member of NATO. And the theory is — and this may well work — that for the political goals that Putin has had, he would be able to say, “I won. I got what I wanted. I got what I wanted when I sent in the troops. This is what they were sent in for, to be sure that Ukraine does not join NATO and that it emerges as a neutral country.”
So, the question of Ukraine being neutral is apparently on the agenda. It’s not one of the items that at least the initial reporting is saying Ukraine has already agreed to, but it’s a likely possibility. There are different versions of neutrality. There’s the existing European versions in Finland, Switzerland, Norway, and they all differ somewhat in what kind of militaries they can have, what kind of relationships they can have with other military forces. The Ukrainian authorities who have been involved in the diplomacy have said that the issue of maintaining a separate, independent military is not up for grabs, that that’s a definite commitment that they will have, that they will have a Ukrainian military, and that the question of not allowing any foreign bases or foreign troops to be stationed in the country is not an issue because those are already prohibited under the Ukrainian Constitution. So, what’s changed is not so much the terms of a possible agreement, but the fact that both sides — and most notably Russia, which has been much more resistant to a diplomatic solution — appears to be moving closer to that possibility.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Phyllis, could you respond specifically — to go back to the question of the U.S. sending arms to Ukraine — the provision, in particular, of these 100 so-called killer drones, Switchblade drones? This is the first time since the Russian invasion that the U.S. will be providing drones, though Ukraine has been using, apparently to great effect, Turkish — armed drones provided by Turkey. Could you speak specifically about these drones that the U.S. is going to supply?
PHYLLIS BENNIS: Yeah, this is a serious escalation of what the U.S. is sending. As you say, Nermeen, the Turkish drones have been in use by the Ukrainians for some time now. But these drones are significantly more powerful, and the expectation is that they would be used against groupings of Russian soldiers on the ground. And they could result in the deaths of large numbers of soldiers if they were used effectively.
The question of drone extension, where drones are being used, is a very serious global question as we look at the militarization that is increasing in the context of this war. Countries across Europe are talking about remilitarizing. Germany, in particular, is saying they are going to spend a lot more money on their military, that they’re going to start spending 2% of their GDP on military forces, something that has been a goal of NATO, that has so far has only been reached by about 10 European countries, not including Germany, which is of course the wealthiest country in Europe. So, this is a very serious level of escalation. Whether it will have a qualitative shift in the battlefield situation in terms of the balance of forces, I don’t think we know yet, but it does represent a serious U.S. commitment.
It’s important, I think, to keep it in the context of what we’re so far seeing as a continued commitment by the Biden administration to say no to the continued call for a no-fly zone. And this is important, because after President Zelensky’s speech yesterday at the joint session of Congress — that was a major focus of his demand, although his language, I think, indicated some recognition that he’s really not likely to get that. But it is something that he has called for continuously, and I think he, presumably, felt that he had to continue to call for this kind of support, for a no-fly zone, because it’s such a popular demand inside Ukraine. And that’s absolutely understandable. People in Ukraine are desperate with these attacks from the air. Most of the attacks so far have not come from Russian planes. Some have. And a no-fly zone, in theory, would be able to stop some of that. But most of the air attacks are coming from missiles and rockets that are coming from other ground-launched and other Russian military forces.
The other thing that we have to keep in mind here is what the cost would be of a no-fly zone. This is something that I think sounds so intriguing. It sounds like such a great idea. It sounds like something out of Star Wars, that it’s sort of a magical shield that will protect people on the ground. And it leaves out the reality of: How does a no-fly zone start? We can remember back a decade ago in the Libya crisis when U.S. diplomats — it was centered in the State Department. There was a call for a no-fly zone. The opposition came from the secretary of defense, came from the Pentagon, ironically enough, saying — and this was Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who said, “We should be clear that a no-fly zone in Libya starts with attacking Libya.” It starts with, you have to take out the anti-aircraft forces on the ground; you have to take out the Russian, in this case, planes that are flying around, potentially dropping bombs. So it’s a major attack by the United States directly on Russia: the two most powerful nuclear-armed countries going to war with each other. That’s the beginning. That’s just the beginning of a no-fly zone.
So, it’s very, very important that the pressure remain on the Biden administration to maintain the opposition to a no-fly zone. It’s going to be increasingly difficult, I think, because in Congress there is — there’s certainly not a majority, thankfully, but there are increasing members of Congress that are calling for a no-fly zone. Some of that is presumably political posturing. But if that rises and if there’s a public call because there’s this sense of, “Well, let’s just do that, let’s just have a no-fly zone,” as if it was this magical shield, I think that it will become increasingly difficult for the Biden administration. So that becomes increasingly important.
It’s taking place, this debate is taking place, in the context of what I mentioned earlier, the increasing militarization that is one of the consequences of this war. We’re seeing that certainly across Europe, but we’re also seeing it in the United States — the new $800 billion [sic], parts of the $14.5 billion — sorry, the $800 million for the new package, the $14.5 billion package that has already been underway for Ukraine. The arms dealers are the ones who are thrilled with this war. They’re the ones that are making a killing. And that will continue. That will continue with a newly militarized Europe in the aftermath of this war. So the consequences are going to be very, very severe.
And the potential, if there is anything remotely resembling a no-fly zone, not only holds the threat of escalation, up to and including a nuclear exchange — not something that I think the main forces on either side want, but is something that might be impossible to prevent if there were to be an escalation in a direct conflict between the U.S. and Russia. And in that context, again, the call may return for European countries to want U.S. nuclear arms in their countries. Right now there are five NATO nations that host nuclear weapons, that are under the control of the United States. That’s in complete violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. None of the nonproliferation and abolition treaties across Europe are working right now. There needs to be new arms control treaties. And right now the trajectory is in the opposite direction.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Phyllis, on the question of, you said, increasing pressure, that there may be increasing pressure on the U.S. to impose a no-fly zone, one question: Is it possible for the U.S. to become involved in imposing a no-fly zone without the consent of NATO countries? Because so far it’s not just the U.S., the Biden administration, that’s ruled that out, but also the EU, also NATO countries. And then, second, despite the fact that there may have been progress in these negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, there’s been a simultaneous escalation of rhetoric, with Biden calling Putin a war criminal, and Putin, in a televised speech yesterday, talking about scum and traitors in Russia, those who are pro-Western, who are not patriots, and rooting them out. Could you talk about both these issues?
PHYLLIS BENNIS: Yeah. On your first point, Nermeen, you know, the question of “Could the U.S. do something that the other NATO members don’t like?” the answer is, of course, they could. They are by far the most powerful part of NATO, and the notion that NATO members are somehow equal within NATO is almost as absurd as the notion that members of the U.N. Security Council are somehow all equal, or members of the General Assembly are all equal. The realities of world politics, that includes military strength, economic clout, all of those things, obviously play a role here.
Now, the question of “Would the U.S. engage in creation of a no-fly zone with the significant opposition of their allies?” I think is unlikely, but I think it’s unlikely the U.S. wants to do it anyway. I think that people in Washington, particularly in the Pentagon, recognize what the dangers might be of this. But it’s also — it’s certainly possible that the U.S. could move unilaterally to engage in Ukraine. Ironically, it would presumably have the permission, or even a request, as it’s already had, from the government of Ukraine. So, the governments of surrounding countries would not be in that position, unless they were prepared to say that they were going to deny their airspace to the United States, which is simply not a reasonable thing to anticipate. So I don’t think that NATO opposition in the face of a U.S. determination is likely to work. But again, I don’t think that the U.S., at this stage at least, is intending to move towards a no-fly zone.
I’m sorry, and I’m forgetting what the second question was.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: [inaudible] negotiations to succeed, given the escalating rhetoric.
PHYLLIS BENNIS: Yeah. On the one hand, you know, this would not be the first time that escalations, both, unfortunately, on the ground, as we’re seeing in this horrific attack on the theater in Ukraine — escalation in force before negotiations succeed is a common reality. Escalation in rhetoric before negotiations succeed is even more common. So, on a certain perverse level, this might actually be a good sign.
One of the challenges that we’re facing here is that these negotiations that are underway are direct bilateral talks between the two major parties, Russia and Ukraine. The U.S. has not engaged yet and said explicitly what would they be willing to accept in a deal, what would they be willing to give up. The U.S. has said, in the past, that it wants Ukraine to be a member of NATO. It has also said — government officials have also said, quietly, privately, that they have no intention of allowing Ukraine to become a member of NATO, because they know what a provocation that would be on Russia. But they have not said explicitly, “We are taking that off the table.” Are they prepared to do that? Are they prepared to back a Ukrainian concession on that issue? That would be very important for the Biden administration to make clear, what the U.S. is prepared to give up in its own positioning and, crucially, what it’s prepared to accept from Ukraine. Is it prepared to accept all concessions that are made by Ukraine, whether it involves Ukraine as a neutral country, Ukraine permanently staying out of NATO?
The possibility — the two tricky issues, I would say, that are not yet — there’s not even a report that they might be resolved — they might be put off — is the recognition of Crimea as belonging to Russia, something that Russia says it’s insisting on — in the past, the Ukrainian government has said that’s not acceptable — and also the question of the status, whether independence, autonomy or something else, of the eastern provinces in Donbas. Both of those seem to be unresolved, but there is an indication that they might agree to put those off and not resolve those in the midst of a broader — this 15-point agreement that we’re hearing about being underway, that would, crucially, begin with a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian forces. So those remain uncertain, but they may not ultimately prevent some kind of an agreement from being reached, hopefully soon.
AMY GOODMAN: Phyllis Bennis, we want to thank you for being with us, author and fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. We’ll link to your piece, “The Best Way to Help Ukraine Is Diplomacy, Not War.”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
MARCH 17, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/17/ ... ine_drones
GUESTS
Phyllis Bennis: author and fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.
LINKS
"The Best Way to Help Ukraine Is Diplomacy, Not War"
President Biden announced $800 million in new military aid for Ukraine on Wednesday, just days after Congress cleared a $1.5 trillion spending bill that included nearly $14 billion for Ukrainian humanitarian aid and security assistance. Experts warn that sending more lethal weapons could escalate war and result in more losses for Ukraine. “The cost on civilian lives is horrific,” says Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, who says increasing military aid in Ukraine could thwart peace talks between Russia and Ukraine — which appeared to be making progress in the past few days. Her latest piece is headlined “The Best Way to Help Ukraine Is Diplomacy, Not War.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its fourth week, President Biden has announced $800 million in new military aid for Ukraine. According to the White House, the package will include over 20 million rounds of ammunition, 100 unmanned drones, 2,000 Javelin anti-armor missiles and 800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems. Biden spoke at the White House Wednesday.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Our new assistance package also includes 9,000 anti-armor systems. These are portable, high — high accurately — high-accuracy shoulder-mounted missiles that the Ukrainian forces have been using with great effect to destroy invading tanks and armored vehicles. It’ll include 7,000 small arms — machine guns, shotguns, grenade launchers — to equip the Ukrainians, including the brave women and men who are defending their cities as civilians, and they’re on the countryside, as well. And as well as the ammunition, artillery and mortar rounds to go with small arms, 20 million rounds in total. Twenty million rounds. And this will include drones, which — which demonstrates our commitment to sending our most cutting-edge systems to Ukraine for its defense.
AMY GOODMAN: Biden’s remarks came hours after the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, gave a virtual address to Congress. While repeating his call for a NATO no-fly zone, Zelensky invoked the attacks on 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. While most of Zelensky’s speech was in Ukrainian, he delivered part in English directly to President Biden.
PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: As the leader of my nation, I am addressing the President Biden. You are the leader of the nation, of your great nation. I wish you to be the leader of the world. Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.
AMY GOODMAN: While the Biden administration has so far rejected calls for a no-fly zone, more details are emerging of how the U.S. has covertly aided Ukraine. Yahoo News is reporting a small group of veteran CIA paramilitaries helped train Ukrainian special forces prepare for fighting against Russian forces.
As the United States is pouring arms into Ukraine, there are signs that progress is being made on the diplomatic front to end the war. The Financial Times is reporting that Ukrainian and Russian delegates have discussed a 15-point deal under which Russia would withdraw troops in exchange for Ukraine renouncing its ambitions to join NATO and agreeing not to host foreign military bases or weapons — to remain neutral.
To talk more about these latest developments, we’re joined by Phyllis Bennis, author and fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, her recent piece headlined “The Best Way to Help Ukraine Is Diplomacy, Not War.”
So, Phyllis, thanks so much for rejoining Democracy Now! to talk about this issue now. Can you respond to what’s happening on the ground in Ukraine and what President Biden announced yesterday, the massive infusion of weapons to Ukraine?
PHYLLIS BENNIS: Well, you know, Amy — and good morning to you both — the $800 million that was just announced in new weapons comes on top of an almost $15 billion aid package that has — much of which will go to Ukraine for a combination of humanitarian and military support. So this is something that’s been going on for several months now, the massive arming of Ukraine in this war.
And I think that what we’re seeing in terms of the diplomatic possibilities is very much a way to see what — the term they like to use is an “off-ramp,” an off-ramp for Russia, but also an off-ramp for the Ukrainian authorities to get out from under this constant escalation that we’re seeing, that the cost on civilian lives is horrific. And although we don’t have good numbers, it does seem clear that the numbers of Russian troops that are being killed is also rising at a very, very fast rate. And both of these leaders are going to have a hard time continuing that level of casualties. So the question of whether this will be the beginning of an actual diplomatic solution becomes very, very important.
The new weapons obviously could shift somewhat the conditions on the ground. As we’ve all seen, the Russian military assault has not played out the way Biden — sorry, the way Putin presumably intended it to. The Russian troops have been bogged down, partly physically bogged down in a number of parts of the convoys trying to get to take over Kyiv. But, on the other hand, the attacks, the continuing bombings, missile attacks, has created enormous civilian casualties, and the ability of the Ukrainian forces, both the military and the volunteer forces, to protect civilians is somewhat limited in that context. So the deal becomes very, very important.
What we’re hearing about this deal is not different than what has been anticipated in recent days, that a deal would have to include a Russian withdrawal and, of course, a ceasefire, that Ukraine would have to give up its claim to be intending to join NATO. The language that we’re hearing now may be included is some definition of a separate protection, a Ukrainian protection alliance, which would essentially allow an official legal treaty to be signed between Ukraine and a number of other countries, probably including the U.S., the U.K., Turkey, maybe a couple of other European countries, who would agree that if Ukraine were to be invaded or threatened again, they would come directly to the aid of Ukraine. So it would almost be like a sort of NATO countries lite, without the official political consequences of being an official member of NATO. And the theory is — and this may well work — that for the political goals that Putin has had, he would be able to say, “I won. I got what I wanted. I got what I wanted when I sent in the troops. This is what they were sent in for, to be sure that Ukraine does not join NATO and that it emerges as a neutral country.”
So, the question of Ukraine being neutral is apparently on the agenda. It’s not one of the items that at least the initial reporting is saying Ukraine has already agreed to, but it’s a likely possibility. There are different versions of neutrality. There’s the existing European versions in Finland, Switzerland, Norway, and they all differ somewhat in what kind of militaries they can have, what kind of relationships they can have with other military forces. The Ukrainian authorities who have been involved in the diplomacy have said that the issue of maintaining a separate, independent military is not up for grabs, that that’s a definite commitment that they will have, that they will have a Ukrainian military, and that the question of not allowing any foreign bases or foreign troops to be stationed in the country is not an issue because those are already prohibited under the Ukrainian Constitution. So, what’s changed is not so much the terms of a possible agreement, but the fact that both sides — and most notably Russia, which has been much more resistant to a diplomatic solution — appears to be moving closer to that possibility.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Phyllis, could you respond specifically — to go back to the question of the U.S. sending arms to Ukraine — the provision, in particular, of these 100 so-called killer drones, Switchblade drones? This is the first time since the Russian invasion that the U.S. will be providing drones, though Ukraine has been using, apparently to great effect, Turkish — armed drones provided by Turkey. Could you speak specifically about these drones that the U.S. is going to supply?
PHYLLIS BENNIS: Yeah, this is a serious escalation of what the U.S. is sending. As you say, Nermeen, the Turkish drones have been in use by the Ukrainians for some time now. But these drones are significantly more powerful, and the expectation is that they would be used against groupings of Russian soldiers on the ground. And they could result in the deaths of large numbers of soldiers if they were used effectively.
The question of drone extension, where drones are being used, is a very serious global question as we look at the militarization that is increasing in the context of this war. Countries across Europe are talking about remilitarizing. Germany, in particular, is saying they are going to spend a lot more money on their military, that they’re going to start spending 2% of their GDP on military forces, something that has been a goal of NATO, that has so far has only been reached by about 10 European countries, not including Germany, which is of course the wealthiest country in Europe. So, this is a very serious level of escalation. Whether it will have a qualitative shift in the battlefield situation in terms of the balance of forces, I don’t think we know yet, but it does represent a serious U.S. commitment.
It’s important, I think, to keep it in the context of what we’re so far seeing as a continued commitment by the Biden administration to say no to the continued call for a no-fly zone. And this is important, because after President Zelensky’s speech yesterday at the joint session of Congress — that was a major focus of his demand, although his language, I think, indicated some recognition that he’s really not likely to get that. But it is something that he has called for continuously, and I think he, presumably, felt that he had to continue to call for this kind of support, for a no-fly zone, because it’s such a popular demand inside Ukraine. And that’s absolutely understandable. People in Ukraine are desperate with these attacks from the air. Most of the attacks so far have not come from Russian planes. Some have. And a no-fly zone, in theory, would be able to stop some of that. But most of the air attacks are coming from missiles and rockets that are coming from other ground-launched and other Russian military forces.
The other thing that we have to keep in mind here is what the cost would be of a no-fly zone. This is something that I think sounds so intriguing. It sounds like such a great idea. It sounds like something out of Star Wars, that it’s sort of a magical shield that will protect people on the ground. And it leaves out the reality of: How does a no-fly zone start? We can remember back a decade ago in the Libya crisis when U.S. diplomats — it was centered in the State Department. There was a call for a no-fly zone. The opposition came from the secretary of defense, came from the Pentagon, ironically enough, saying — and this was Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who said, “We should be clear that a no-fly zone in Libya starts with attacking Libya.” It starts with, you have to take out the anti-aircraft forces on the ground; you have to take out the Russian, in this case, planes that are flying around, potentially dropping bombs. So it’s a major attack by the United States directly on Russia: the two most powerful nuclear-armed countries going to war with each other. That’s the beginning. That’s just the beginning of a no-fly zone.
So, it’s very, very important that the pressure remain on the Biden administration to maintain the opposition to a no-fly zone. It’s going to be increasingly difficult, I think, because in Congress there is — there’s certainly not a majority, thankfully, but there are increasing members of Congress that are calling for a no-fly zone. Some of that is presumably political posturing. But if that rises and if there’s a public call because there’s this sense of, “Well, let’s just do that, let’s just have a no-fly zone,” as if it was this magical shield, I think that it will become increasingly difficult for the Biden administration. So that becomes increasingly important.
It’s taking place, this debate is taking place, in the context of what I mentioned earlier, the increasing militarization that is one of the consequences of this war. We’re seeing that certainly across Europe, but we’re also seeing it in the United States — the new $800 billion [sic], parts of the $14.5 billion — sorry, the $800 million for the new package, the $14.5 billion package that has already been underway for Ukraine. The arms dealers are the ones who are thrilled with this war. They’re the ones that are making a killing. And that will continue. That will continue with a newly militarized Europe in the aftermath of this war. So the consequences are going to be very, very severe.
And the potential, if there is anything remotely resembling a no-fly zone, not only holds the threat of escalation, up to and including a nuclear exchange — not something that I think the main forces on either side want, but is something that might be impossible to prevent if there were to be an escalation in a direct conflict between the U.S. and Russia. And in that context, again, the call may return for European countries to want U.S. nuclear arms in their countries. Right now there are five NATO nations that host nuclear weapons, that are under the control of the United States. That’s in complete violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. None of the nonproliferation and abolition treaties across Europe are working right now. There needs to be new arms control treaties. And right now the trajectory is in the opposite direction.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Phyllis, on the question of, you said, increasing pressure, that there may be increasing pressure on the U.S. to impose a no-fly zone, one question: Is it possible for the U.S. to become involved in imposing a no-fly zone without the consent of NATO countries? Because so far it’s not just the U.S., the Biden administration, that’s ruled that out, but also the EU, also NATO countries. And then, second, despite the fact that there may have been progress in these negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, there’s been a simultaneous escalation of rhetoric, with Biden calling Putin a war criminal, and Putin, in a televised speech yesterday, talking about scum and traitors in Russia, those who are pro-Western, who are not patriots, and rooting them out. Could you talk about both these issues?
PHYLLIS BENNIS: Yeah. On your first point, Nermeen, you know, the question of “Could the U.S. do something that the other NATO members don’t like?” the answer is, of course, they could. They are by far the most powerful part of NATO, and the notion that NATO members are somehow equal within NATO is almost as absurd as the notion that members of the U.N. Security Council are somehow all equal, or members of the General Assembly are all equal. The realities of world politics, that includes military strength, economic clout, all of those things, obviously play a role here.
Now, the question of “Would the U.S. engage in creation of a no-fly zone with the significant opposition of their allies?” I think is unlikely, but I think it’s unlikely the U.S. wants to do it anyway. I think that people in Washington, particularly in the Pentagon, recognize what the dangers might be of this. But it’s also — it’s certainly possible that the U.S. could move unilaterally to engage in Ukraine. Ironically, it would presumably have the permission, or even a request, as it’s already had, from the government of Ukraine. So, the governments of surrounding countries would not be in that position, unless they were prepared to say that they were going to deny their airspace to the United States, which is simply not a reasonable thing to anticipate. So I don’t think that NATO opposition in the face of a U.S. determination is likely to work. But again, I don’t think that the U.S., at this stage at least, is intending to move towards a no-fly zone.
I’m sorry, and I’m forgetting what the second question was.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: [inaudible] negotiations to succeed, given the escalating rhetoric.
PHYLLIS BENNIS: Yeah. On the one hand, you know, this would not be the first time that escalations, both, unfortunately, on the ground, as we’re seeing in this horrific attack on the theater in Ukraine — escalation in force before negotiations succeed is a common reality. Escalation in rhetoric before negotiations succeed is even more common. So, on a certain perverse level, this might actually be a good sign.
One of the challenges that we’re facing here is that these negotiations that are underway are direct bilateral talks between the two major parties, Russia and Ukraine. The U.S. has not engaged yet and said explicitly what would they be willing to accept in a deal, what would they be willing to give up. The U.S. has said, in the past, that it wants Ukraine to be a member of NATO. It has also said — government officials have also said, quietly, privately, that they have no intention of allowing Ukraine to become a member of NATO, because they know what a provocation that would be on Russia. But they have not said explicitly, “We are taking that off the table.” Are they prepared to do that? Are they prepared to back a Ukrainian concession on that issue? That would be very important for the Biden administration to make clear, what the U.S. is prepared to give up in its own positioning and, crucially, what it’s prepared to accept from Ukraine. Is it prepared to accept all concessions that are made by Ukraine, whether it involves Ukraine as a neutral country, Ukraine permanently staying out of NATO?
The possibility — the two tricky issues, I would say, that are not yet — there’s not even a report that they might be resolved — they might be put off — is the recognition of Crimea as belonging to Russia, something that Russia says it’s insisting on — in the past, the Ukrainian government has said that’s not acceptable — and also the question of the status, whether independence, autonomy or something else, of the eastern provinces in Donbas. Both of those seem to be unresolved, but there is an indication that they might agree to put those off and not resolve those in the midst of a broader — this 15-point agreement that we’re hearing about being underway, that would, crucially, begin with a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian forces. So those remain uncertain, but they may not ultimately prevent some kind of an agreement from being reached, hopefully soon.
AMY GOODMAN: Phyllis Bennis, we want to thank you for being with us, author and fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. We’ll link to your piece, “The Best Way to Help Ukraine Is Diplomacy, Not War.”
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