by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 11, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/11 ... e_achieved
AMY GOODMAN: ... Medea Benjamin is co-founder of the antiwar group CodePink, author of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict. CodePink is calling on U.S. lawmakers, push for a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine instead of sending more weapons. Last week, 11 members of CodePink were arrested as they occupied the office in D.C. of Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders to call for peace talks.MEDEA BENJAMIN: “So let’s sit down. Let’s negotiate. And let’s come up with a diplomatic solution.” That is the good Bernie. That’s the Bernie we want, not the other Bernie who is OK’ing billions and billions of dollars in weapons and says you can’t talk to Putin. And we have a one-word answer to Bernie when he says you can’t talk to Putin, because he’s said that to us. We say, “Try.” Right? Try. We want to see what the result of Biden talking to Putin is, right?...
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Medea Benjamin, could you talk about why you have been persistently now calling for peace negotiations in Ukraine and also why you oppose the funding of further weapons to Ukraine? Of course, much of that money is being spent to pay for U.S. weapons, basically for the defense industry. But there are reports now that President Biden is going to increase his request for Ukraine from the initial $24 billion additional he was asking to as much as another $100 billion that he is going to request from Congress.
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Especially after your last segment, Juan, in hearing about the atrocities in Palestine and Israel, I just feel such a heavy heart about this military madness. There is no military solution in the case of Palestine. There is no military solution in the case of Ukraine. I think the sanest voices are coming from the global majority around the world that are calling for peaceful solutions to both of these crises. In fact, the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, at the United Nations, before this latest round of violence in Palestine, came out and said that the U.N. needs two urgent peace conferences — one to deal with Ukraine and one to deal with Palestine — because the world needs to come together to deal with what he called the mother of all crises, which is climate change. We have to get off this treadmill of military madness that only benefits the weapons companies and brings horror, suffering, death, destruction to people who are the victims of militarism.
So, as progressives, I think we have to come together and say to the Democrats, like Bernie Sanders, like to the Squad, you know in your heart of hearts — in fact, Bernie Sanders, we read his own words right before the Ukraine invasion saying there needs to be negotiations. There are no military solutions to these crises. And I think for all progressives — and I’m happy to be on with you, Barbara, about this, but I think you know in your heart of hearts that we have to find diplomatic solutions to these crises. And in the case of Ukraine, we have seen from Pentagon documents, we’ve seen from this latest counteroffensive, that the Ukrainians are not, quote, “winning” this war. They are losing so many of their soldiers, of their civilians. And that’s why we formed this Peace in Ukraine Coalition, to bring groups together, from veterans’ groups like Veterans for Peace, World Beyond War, Progressive Democrats of America, DSA International, to build more of a movement in the United States to force the Democrats to join with those in the right wing of the Republican Party who are saying, “Enough is enough. Stop funding and fueling this war. Let’s find a solution.”
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Medea, I wanted to ask you — we never hear — we almost always, when the war in Ukraine is referred to, the Russian invasion as an unprovoked invasion. We’re hearing the same now about the Hamas attack on Israel, that it was unprovoked. You have a clear stand on this issue.
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, absolutely. It’s ridiculous to say it’s unprovoked. And let’s remember, unprovoked doesn’t mean that it’s justified. We say that this is a provoked invasion that the United States and NATO, whether it’s from violating their agreement not to expand NATO eastward and now surrounding Ukraine, whether it’s the U.S. involvement in the internal affairs to be supporting a coup in 2014 that overthrew a democratically elected government that had good relations with Russia, and put one in that was anti-Russia, or whether it was the funding of anti-Russian groups that Victoria Nuland, the undersecretary of state, crowed about the U.S. spending $5 billion to create this kind of civil society — the U.S. has been heavily involved in trying to shape Ukraine to be a pro-Western, anti-Russian government.
And, of course, the U.S. would never tolerate having an anti-U.S. military alliance on its borders. We saw what happened in the 1962 Russian missile crisis. And there, we should learn from the lessons of JFK, who negotiated and came up with a compromise with Khrushchev, and also said, “When you’re in a conflict with a nuclear-armed country, never leave them with the option of either a humiliating retreat or the use of a nuclear weapon.” And that’s exactly what we are setting up in the case of Ukraine.
We should be very, very concerned about more funding of this, because it is so dangerous. We’ve already sent in cluster bombs. We’ve sent in depleted uranium. We’re sending in longer-range missiles. It will be inevitable, if this keeps going, that it will affect directly a NATO country, which will invoke Article 5 of all of NATO countries getting more directly involved, U.S. troops getting involved, and increase the likelihood of the use of nuclear weapons. We must stop the military madness....
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Medea, I’m wondering if I can ask you: What do you say to those who are alleging that in your position to demand negotiations, you’re, in essence, being a stooge for Putin and Putin’s invasion?
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, I think that in terms of negotiations, we saw, in the first month after the war started, there were negotiations, and they were going very well, mediated by the president of Turkey. And a 15-point plan was drawn up that included Russian troops out. It included neutrality for Ukraine, with support from outside powerful countries. It included a internationally monitored referendum in the Donbas. This was all being worked out, until the U.S. came in and said, “No, we would rather you keep fighting.” And this has become more and more of a proxy war.
So I think it’s important to recognize that the U.S. is taking the position to try to stop negotiations, and not listening to all of the efforts of the global community, that range from the seven African nations, led by South Africa, to the pope, to the leaders in Latin American progressive countries, to China, that have put forth ideas for a peace proposal that have been squashed by the United States. So I think we have to recognize the role that our government has played not only in setting the context for this war, but in keeping this war going.
And anybody who supports now a new huge tranche of money, whether it’s $70 billion or $100 billion that they’re now talking about, I find it hard to call those people progressive. I think if you’re a progressive, you have to be looking for solutions, not a way to keep a war going that will just mean more slaughter of the soldiers on both sides, more harm to civilian, more destruction of Ukraine. It’s very cruel to keep a war going, especially when we know there is no winning on the battlefield.
AMY GOODMAN: Medea, can you respond to the Republican Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Greene shocking many last week when she came to your protest at Senator Sanders’ office, sharing a photo of herself with CodePink members and tweeting, “The war in Ukraine must END! Today, I met brave @codepink activists who protested for peace in Bernie Sanders’ office. He had 11 of them arrested! Peace & free speech shouldn’t be a partisan issue. We don’t agree on most things, but we do agree Congress should stop fueling the war in Ukraine!”? If you can respond to Taylor Greene, and also talk about what President Biden is attempting to do right now? I mean, it’s a crippled House of Representatives, but he is trying to link increased funding for Israel, increased military funding, with increased funding for Ukraine. Your thoughts? Start with the congressmember.
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Yes, she’s — her staff opportunistically snapped a picture with a couple of our volunteers. We don’t support Marjorie Taylor Greene, but I think it’s very sad that she has one of the most sane voices when it comes to Ukraine. Why aren’t the progressive Democrats, like Bernie Sanders and the Squad, standing up? Because they’ve been told by the leadership of their party that they must follow the line of Biden. That’s why 30 of them, after they signed a letter that called for negotiations over a year ago, and were stomped down by their party and rescinded that letter within 24 hours, have not been talking ever since. And we talk with them personally. We know that they agree that there have to be negotiations. And yet they’re not courageous enough to stand up.
And so, with Biden now calling for, it looks like, a new huge package — and they’re talking about combining it with a package of more money for weapons for Israel — the weapons for Israel combination is designed to get some of those right-wing Republicans, who want to support Israel but are against the weapons for Ukraine, to get them on board. And we feel that now is the time to stand up for and push our congresspeople, especially the progressive ones, to say no to any new package of weapons, whether it’s for Israel or whether it’s for Ukraine.
AMY GOODMAN: ... Finally, Medea Benjamin, your response to the linking of those two funding — of the funding of Ukraine and of Israel?
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, it’s very opportunistic and cynical on the part of the Biden administration to try to link those. And we don’t know if, in the end, they’re going to be linked. As I said, one of the reasons is to try to get those Republicans who wouldn’t vote for Ukraine aid to vote for it, if it’s in a package with Israel money. And there are some progressive Democrats who might well vote against money going to Israel, if they’re brave enough to do that, but would vote in favor of money to Ukraine. So, it’s trying to mix those things up to get as many people on board for more militarism, more weapons.
And I just also want to say, Amy, something that Barbara mentioned about public opinion. One, in the United States, public opinion is now the majority against sending more weapons to Ukraine. And in Ukraine, where I’ve been this summer — so, I want to say that, Barbara, when you say we don’t listen to Ukrainians, not only do we — are we in touch with them on a daily basis, but I was there this summer. And the opinion polls there show — The opinion polls there show that more and more, despite censorship of the government, that there are more Ukrainians who are saying there needs to be a negotiated solution. And the most support for a negotiated solution comes from the area where most of the fighting is happening. It’s been a year and a half. People are exhausted. We have to find a negotiated solution, which is why we are pressing, and we will continue to press this week, the members of Congress to vote no on any more money to either Ukraine or to Israel....
Well, there’s a new Gallup poll that just came out that showed it’s down to 60%. And it’s been decreasing, the ones who want to fight until victory.
And one thing I do want to say is that there has been a Republican amendment, that is now a bill, that is asking three very critical questions to the Biden administration: What is your definition of victory? Is it going back to the 1991 borders, to the 2014 borders, to the 2022 border? What is your diplomatic path? And how much is this going to cost the American people? And we feel it’s important to make that a bipartisan bill and to force our government to tell us what is the end game, because, as far as we see, there is no end game except more suffering, more death, more destruction....
if the war continues, there will be slaughter every day that that war continues, which is why we say cut off the weapons and move from the battlefield to the peace table. And also, just think of what we are doing to Ukraine in terms of the depleted uranium, the cluster bombs, the destruction of the environment. We want to preserve Ukraine as a country. And I think we we should think of it being cruel to continue this war, to put another $100 billion in to guarantee that this war will go on for another year, every day knowing that there are hundreds of people who are dying and being wounded.
There is no military solution. And I think you should think about that, Barbara. Where will we be in a year from now? If we’re not in a nuclear war or in a World War III, we will be in the same position where we have to go to the negotiating table again with Ukraine in an actually worse position than now to come up with pretty much the same things that they came up with back in April of last year — neutrality for Ukraine, Russian troops out, international supervised referendum in the Donbas, and the issue of Crimea being put off, because the government in Ukraine understands that the majority of people in Crimea do not want to be part of Ukraine....
I would ask you to look at the interviews of the Russians and the Ukrainians that we had at our peace conference that was — took place in Austria, in Vienna, this summer. And they came together, along with people from 32 different countries, to all say we must find a diplomatic solution. Unfortunately, both the Ukrainians and the Russians then, consequently, had problems with their own governments, because there is censorship in both places. People in Ukraine who are calling for an end to the fighting are considered treasonous. And so, yes, we can listen to the Ukrainians and the Russians that we want to listen to, but I think it’s important to listen to those who say, “Help us find a diplomatic solution. Stop your countries from turning this into what has become now a proxy war and keeping this war going because they want to weaken Russia, so they can then turn their sights on China.” This is insanity. It must end.
AMY GOODMAN: Medea, let me ask you something. Let me ask you a quick question. What would diplomacy look like? How do you see it taking place? Who would come to the table?
MEDEA BENJAMIN: There are many options. Of course, it has to be the governments of Ukraine and Russia. Who would push them both to the table? I think that we should be calling upon the Chinese to put pressure on Putin, because they have a lot of leverage because of the tremendous economic ties now. And I think we should be putting the pressure on Biden to put — to get Zelensky to the table. I think what Colombian President Petro put forward is a very good idea, to have an urgent U.N. peace summit on Ukraine, to get the parties to the table.
There has to be a way that Ukraine would be a neutral country, not part of NATO, but it does need security guarantees from powerful countries. And that will come up in the negotiating process. And we see from whether it’s the 15-point peace plan that they were negotiating or the Minsk agreements that came up in 2015 dealing with Donbas and autonomy for that region, there are solutions that are available. I mean, this war hopefully will end with a negotiated solution. But why not do it sooner than later, so that more people are not killed?...
-- Excerpt from "Can Peace in Ukraine Be Achieved Without War? Extended Debate Between Medea Benjamin & Barbara Smith," hosted by Amy Goodman, DemocracyNow, October 11, 2023