Walden Bello on U.S. Motives in Ukraine War, by Amy Goodman

[admin]

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?

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.

[admin]

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.

[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

[admin]

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.

[admin]

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.

[admin]

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.”

[admin]

“Russia & China, Together at Last”: Historian Al McCoy Predicts Ukraine War to Birth New World Order
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
MARCH 21, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/21/ ... a_alliance

GUESTS
Alfred McCoy: author and professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
LINKS
"To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change"
"Russia and China, Together at Last"

President Biden reportedly warned Chinese President Xi Jinping via video call Friday that China would face “consequences” if it provided material support to Russia amid the war in Ukraine. The call was part of U.S. efforts to minimize an emerging Sino-Russian alliance, which threatens U.S. influence over the Eurasian landmass, says Alfred McCoy, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As U.S. global power declines, China and Russia “are going to emerge as the new centers of global power on the planet,” he adds.

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.

President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke for nearly two hours Friday, with much of the discussion focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Biden reportedly warned Xi that China will face “consequences” if it provides material support to Russia. It was the first call between the two leaders of the world’s two largest economies in four months.

In February, Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Beijing for talks with Xi ahead of the invasion. Earlier this month, China joined India, Iran, Pakistan and 32 other nations from the Global South in abstaining from a United Nations vote condemning Russia’s war in Ukraine. On Saturday, China’s vice foreign minister criticized NATO as a, quote, “Cold War vestige” and criticized Western sanctions on Russia, saying globalization is being used as a weapon.

To look more at China’s evolving relations with both Russia and the United States, we’re joined by Alfred McCoy, professor of history at University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of numerous books, most recently, To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change. His recent article for The Nation is headlined “Russia and China, Together at Last.”

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Professor McCoy.

ALFRED McCOY: Thank you for having me.

AMY GOODMAN: Why don’t you start off by responding to the talk that President Biden and Xi Jinping had on Friday, what we learned of what they said?

ALFRED McCOY: Apparently, what President Biden was hoping to accomplish in his phone conversation with Xi Jinping was to draw on their successful video meeting last November and kind of encourage or even pressure President Xi to back away from China’s strong support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And that did not happen. President Xi’s quote, the most memorable, the most important quote, was he wanted the United States to “untie the knot” of Ukrainian and Russian security. And that was a kind oblique reference to the idea that the United States and NATO are responsible for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by expanding NATO right up to the borders of Russia and threatening Russian security. And that’s also a reference to the historic meeting between Putin and Xi Jinping on February 4th of this year, when the two met during the Winter Olympics and they issued an historic 5,300-word declaration that laid claim to establishing a kind of new global order to attacking U.S. global hegemony and to build upon their strong bilateral alliance, their very close economic integration in the field of energy, and to simultaneously block NATO from threatening Russia and block the United States from supporting Taiwan against China’s legitimate claims to Taiwan. And so, in effect, what that meeting failed to accomplish was it simply failed to break this emerging alliance between China and Russia, which is literally shaking the current world order.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to Qin Gang, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday. He was questioned by Margaret Brennan.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Has Xi Jinping, your president, told Vladimir Putin to stop the invasion? Do you condemn it?

QIN GANG: Actually, on the second day of Russia’s military operation, President Xi Jinping did talk to President Putin —

MARGARET BRENNAN: Was that their last phone call?

QIN GANG: — asking President Putin to think about resuming peace talks with Ukraine. And President Putin listened to it, and we have seen four rounds of peace talks have happened. Let me continue. China’s trusted relations with Russia is not a liability. Actually, it’s an asset in the international efforts to solve the crisis in a peaceful way. And China is part of the solution. It’s not part of the problem.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor McCoy, can you respond to the significance of what the Chinese ambassador to the United States said?

ALFRED McCOY: Of course. He is again kind of affirming what President Xi said in that meeting last Friday with President Biden — in essence, that China is not going to rupture its relations with Russia, it’s not going to apply pressure on Russia, it’s not going to blame Russia, it’s not going to call the Russian invasion of Ukraine an invasion, and it is going to affirm that Russia has legitimate security concerns in Ukraine that must be met, and that if China is going to do anything, it is going to apply its considerable international power and prestige to support Russia in establishing its security in Eastern Europe.

I think what’s going on more broadly is that we’re saying a sense of extraordinary confidence from Moscow and Beijing that, literally, history — and, more importantly, geopolitics — is on their side. They believe that their alliance gives them such dominance, such power on the massive Eurasian landmass, that they can prevail, that they can not only dominate the landmass, they can dominate international politics. In essence, they are pursuing a geopolitical strategy to break U.S. control over the Eurasian landmass, and thereby break U.S. global power. They think that they are witnessing the birth, the historic birth, of a new world order in which the great global hegemon, the United States, which has dominated the world for the past 70 years — in which its global power is broken, and its dominance over Eurasia, something the United States has maintained since the start of the Cold War in the early 1950s, but that is coming also to an end.

AMY GOODMAN: This is the White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki talking about Biden’s meeting with Xi Jinping on video phone call.

PRESS SECRETARY JEN PSAKI: The movement of China to align with Russia or to — yeah, the movement of them to align with Russia or their proximity of moving closer together is certainly of great concern to us, as we have expressed, and we are not the only country that has expressed that concern, including many other members of the G7 have expressed exactly that concern. So this is part of the discussion, has been an ongoing part of the discussion, expect it certainly would be when the president goes to Europe next week. But we’re not in a place at this point to outline the specifics. We’re still discussing.

AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can talk more about, Professor McCoy, what Biden threatened, if it has an effect? You know, he is going to Europe this week. He’s speaking with a lot of European nations today, then meeting in Brussels with other NATO members, then going to Poland to hold bilateral talks Friday and Saturday. What this means for Russia, and then for Russia and China?

ALFRED McCOY: The United States is concerned, I think, in two areas — one, that China will provide weaponry and financial support, and, in fact, China can break the financial embargo that the United States is trying to impose upon Russia in order to restrain them in their invasion of Ukraine. And so, what Washington is monitoring is flows of weapon and flows of financial support from China to Russia. That’s what the United States is trying to restrain. And that, the weapons may have a short-term impact; the financial flows, a medium-term impact. That’s the U.S. concern.

But I think we need to sort of analyze the situation in dual tracks — one, focus on the diplomacy, the military activity in Ukraine, the course of the war on the battlefield. OK? And that may or may not go Putin’s way. But underlying that, there is this extraordinary confidence in Moscow and Beijing that the geopolitics of Eurasia are on their side, that because of their alliance and their dominant position in this great landmass that comprises 70% of the world’s population and productivity, that it almost inevitably — that they are going to emerge as the new centers of global power on the planet. And that, I think, is underlying their boldness and their resistance to Washington’s pressure.

So, we can — from their perspective, we can provide weapons, we can mount financial pressure, we can even impact the situation on the battlefield by providing anti-tank missiles and handheld weapons that can bring — Stinger missiles that can bring down Russian helicopters and aircraft. We can do all, that but that is not material. That’s not what’s going to matter. They believe, because of the theory of geopolitics, that being the dominant powers in this great Eurasian landmass, that they can slowly break the controls that the United States has imposed over Eurasia since the start of the Cold War, and they can break U.S. global power, and they, together, can construct a new global order.

Every global hegemon — and that’s the word that Beijing and Moscow use — every global hegemon for the last 500 years, from the Portuguese to the Spanish, the Dutch, the British, the United States, and now the Chinese, have done one thing in common: They have all dominated Eurasia. Their rise to global power, including the U.S. rise to global power after World War II, was accompanied by dominance over Eurasia. And decline of all of these global powers, including the United States, has been marked by their declining control over Eurasia.

And together, Beijing and Moscow are pursuing a strategy that I call, you know, push, push, punch. So, they are pushing at these great chains of geopolitical control that the United States has ringed around Eurasia since the Cold War — naval fleets, air bases, mutual defense pacts — they’re pushing slowly at the east and west ends of Eurasia, hoping to strain and break those chains of control that the United States has imposed over Eurasia, until, in the succession of these punches, those chains of control snap, U.S. dominance over Eurasia comes to an end, and, correspondingly, in the theory of geopolitics, U.S. global power also declines.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Professor McCoy, one of the key reasons binding Russia to China, in addition to what you’ve been talking about, is that Russia is a major energy exporter. China is one of the world’s leading energy importers. Put that together with, The Wall Street Journal reporting last week, Saudi Arabia is in active talks with Beijing to price some of its oil sales to China in yuan, a move that would dent the U.S. dollar’s dominance of the global petroleum market. China buys more than a quarter of the oil that Saudi Arabia exports. If priced in yuan, those sales would boost the standing of China’s currency. Can you talk about the significance of both the currency and energy politics?

ALFRED McCOY: Sure. One of the foundations of U.S. global powers, right since the end of World War II, has been that the dollar has been the functional global reserve currency. That was set at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944. And in 1971, when President Nixon ended the automatic convertibility of dollars to gold, Saudi Arabia announced that they would keep conducting their petroleum transactions in dollars. And since oil is the most negotiated of all international commodities, if the world is doing its oil business in dollars, that means the dollar has that continuing support as global reserve currency.

Since 2015, the Chinese currency has become a part of the international basket of currencies recognized by the International Monetary Fund. And as China’s dominance over the global economy grows and it becomes the world’s largest economy, the Chinese currency’s role in that international economy is going to increase. And once the dollar declines — that is the most negotiable, the most visible part of U.S. global dominance — that global dominance will follow the decline of the dollar downward.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you see all of this playing out, Professor McCoy?

ALFRED McCOY: Short term, I think that what we’re looking at is a kind of a parallel of what happened with the last time China and Russia were aligned. In the early 1950s, Mao Zedong went to Moscow. He was a supplicant. He formed an alliance with Joseph Stalin. And Joseph Stalin cashed in that alliance very quickly by using China to enter the Korean War. China fought in Korea for three years. It cost them about 40% of China’s budget, 200,000 dead Chinese soldiers. What we’re looking at is kind of a reprise of that. You know, Putin comes to Beijing in February in the Winter Olympics. He’s now the supplicant. He needs China’s diplomatic and economic support for his Ukraine invasion. And so, at the moment of this very strong alliance again, this time Putin attacks. He’s sacrificing his budget, his soldiers, in this strategy of pushing and pushing and breaking the U.S. dominance over Eurasia.

I see, long term, the growing power of China over the Eurasian continent. Their Belt and Road Initiative, this trillion-dollar development program that now incorporates around 70 nations in Eurasia and Africa, laying down infrastructure — pipelines, railroads and roads — across the whole Eurasian landmass, if this development project succeeds — and it’s 10 times the size of the Marshall Plan that the United States used to rebuild Europe after World War II; it’s the biggest development scheme in human history — if this scheme works in laying down infrastructure of rails, pipelines and roads across the Eurasian landmass, and that draws the commerce of Eurasia, home to 70% of the world’s population, towards Beijing, then, almost as if by natural law, power and prestige and global leadership will flow towards Beijing.

And so, what we’re witnessing is the violent eruptions of a great tectonic shift in global power. As U.S. global power declines, China ascends. Power shifts from the West — Europe and the United States — towards Asia. And what we’re witnessing then, an historic change that is for the — I’d say, by 2030, by the end of this decade, it will become clear that U.S. global power has eclipsed, that power has shifted to Beijing on the Eurasian landmass, and they are the new global hegemon, constructing a new kind of world order, far less concerned with human rights, far less concerned with law, a kind of transactional world order of mutual convenience.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to leave it there, but it’s certainly a discussion that we will continue. Alfred McCoy, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of numerous books, most recently, To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change. We’ll link to your piece in The Nation, “Russia and China, Together at Last.”

[admin]

“U.S. Hypocrisy on Ukraine”: Biden Admin Remains Silent on Morocco’s Occupation of Western Sahara
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
March 21, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/21/ ... occupation

GUESTS
Stephen Zunes: professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco.
LINKS
Stephen Zunes on Twitter
"The U.S. Hypocrisy on Ukraine"
"Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution"

While the Biden administration has condemned the Russian invasion of a sovereign, independent Ukraine, it has refused to similarly recognize or support Western Sahara, which has been occupied by Morocco since 1975. Human rights groups have documented brutal suppression of pro-independence activists and the Indigenous population, known as Sahrawis. The disparity between U.S. treatment of the two countries reveals Western hypocrisy and discrimination when it comes to countries that are not white, Christian and European, says Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco. He adds that U.S. policy on Western Sahara emboldens Putin’s claims on Ukraine, as it shows the U.S. lacks principled opposition to illegal territorial expansion. “When Biden says that Russia has no right to unilaterally change international boundaries, that countries cannot expand their territory by force, he’s certainly correct. But he seems to think it’s OK if you’re a U.S. ally like Morocco.”

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.

As we continue to look at the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we’re joined by professor Stephen Zunes of the University of San Francisco. He recently published an article in The Progressive headlined “The U.S. Hypocrisy on Ukraine.” Zunes condemns the Russian invasion but criticizes what he sees as President Biden’s hypocrisy. He writes, “If Biden really believed that countries have a right self-determination he would not refuse to recognize this right for Western Sahara, as the International Court of Justice and virtually every country on Earth has called for, nor would he refuse to support Palestinian self-determination outside of the parameters agreed to by their Israeli occupiers.” That’s Professor Zunes’s words. He’s written extensively on Western Sahara, which has been occupied by Morocco since 1975.

In a few minutes, we’re going to turn to an interview I did with a leading Sahrawi human rights defender on Friday who’s been under de facto house arrest since November 2020. But first we turn to Professor Zunes. His books include Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution.

Welcome back to Democracy Now! As we see the Russian invasion of Ukraine play out, Stephen Zunes, talk about why you’re talking about Western Sahara.

STEPHEN ZUNES: Well, Trump recognized, formally recognized, Morocco’s illegal annexation of Western Sahara during his final weeks of his presidency. And like a number of impetuous Trump decisions, it was assumed that Biden would reverse it as soon as he came to office, particularly since a bipartisan group of congresspeople, career State Department officials and allied governments were encouraging him to do so. He has refused to do so, however.

The United States is virtually the only country in the world, the only country, to formally recognize Morocco’s illegal annexation. If you look at maps from the United Nations, from Google, from Rand McNally, National Geographic, whatever, they’re depicted as two separate countries. U.S. government maps, by contrast, show Western Sahara as part of Morocco, no demarcation between them. So, when Biden says that Russia has no right to unilaterally change international boundaries, that countries cannot expand their territory by force, he’s certainly correct. But he seems to think it’s OK if you’re a U.S. ally like Morocco.

AMY GOODMAN: So, for those who aren’t familiar with Africa’s last colony, if you can explain, very quickly, how Morocco occupied Western Sahara?

STEPHEN ZUNES: Morocco seized the territory in 1975 on the verge of its independence from Spain. And Western Sahara — its formal name is the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic — has been recognized by well over 80 countries. It’s a full member state of the African Union. So, what Biden is doing is he’s essentially recognizing the conquest of one recognized African state by another at a time when he’s speaking sanctimoniously about how the world must unite against Russian aggression because it violates long-standing international legal norms. The International Court of Justice, the United Nations Security Council, United Nations General Assembly, the Organization for African Unity all called for the withdrawal of Moroccan forces and an act of self-determination such as a referendum. But the United States has quietly supported the occupation ever since ’75, and in 2020 made the recognition official.

AMY GOODMAN: And talk about why you also, in the same articles, talk about both Palestine and Western Sahara. And then there’s a link with Trump pushing Morocco and accepting their power over Western Sahara.

STEPHEN ZUNES: Well, the United States is also the only country in the world that has formally recognized Israel’s illegal annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights. We’ve made a de facto recognition of Israel’s annexation of greater East Jerusalem. And since the Trump administration, we have considered the illegal settlements as part of Israel. And so there’s a link there. But in regard — but we’re talking about a whole nation when we’re talking about Western Sahara.

And what’s interesting — and this development just happened last week — we had thought we had scored a great victory when Congress blocked U.S. military cooperation with the repressive Armed Forces of Morocco until Morocco agreed to find a mutually acceptable political solution to Western Sahara, but the Biden administration just recently claimed that Morocco had done so via their dubious autonomy plan, which denies the people their right to self-determination, as the United Nations and World Court has demanded. It rules out independence and makes permanent the occupation. I mean, if Russia conquered 80% of Ukraine and offered some vague form of autonomy under Russian sovereignty, would Biden find that it constituted a mutually acceptable political solution? But this is what U.S. policy is. And again, we are a big outlier here, just as we’re trying to lead the world in upholding these international legal norms against the expansion of territory by force.