BY DAVE GUTKNECHT
The editor invited my comment on the recent advocacy by the UK prime minister and several former defense ministers of missile attacks into Russia, a threat that was avoided thanks to U.S. military voices of sanity.
First, give credit to publishers who uphold the First Amendment and allow antiwar and radical voices in the face of increasing censorship and narrative control. Already, other voices are banned or punished simply for using terms contradicting the official narrative, such as “Russiagate fraud,” “Israeli genocide,” or “Ukraine collapse.” The source of the first of these, a warmongering former Presidential candidate [Hillary Clinton], recently suggested civil and criminal charges be laid on people accused of “election interference and boosting Trump” if these citizens advocate something that agrees with statements from a designated enemy! (People like her do know about election interference.)
Pro-Russian does not mean anti-Western, and pro-Western does not mean anti-Russian. Elementary dissent is being criminalized by state powers and denounced with moralistic certainty—a condition that prevents clear thinking.
Perhaps from a recent heat wave in the UK, its fourth prime minister in four years has revived “mad dogs and Englishmen” by advocating for mid-range missiles targeting Russia. (Actually, he is reviving the Crimean War of 170 years ago, with the same aim of preventing a Russian base in the Black Sea.) What you may have missed in this story, buried by our media, are (1) the UK and US missile systems require technicians from those nations to operate them from Ukraine; (2) the U.S. admits it cannot supply enough such missiles to make a significant difference anyway.
Nevertheless, escalating threats and terrorist acts serve to maintain public fear and to generate more funding for the military-industrial [complex], approved by otherwise disempowered legislators.
The bottom lines, usually unmentioned:
– Militarily, U.S./NATO is losing in Ukraine and is trying to hang on until after the November U.S. election.
– Despite endless fearmongering in the West, Russia has given no evidence of intent to occupy all of Ukraine, much less other European territory.
– As stated by top officials, the U.S. agenda since 1991 (really since WWII) has been NATO expansion and war on Russia, with an aim to weaken it as a strategic adversary and to encourage regime change. Millions of Ukrainians have been sacrificed for this dead-end vision.
– U.S. financial sanctions have failed; they have weakened Europe more than Russia and have led to the breakdown of global payment systems built over decades—to the disadvantage of the West and its dollar dominance.
The U.S. persists in this destructive international behavior because of the stakes: the overriding dynamic is from U.S. rulers resisting their loss of unipolar dominance—a futile and adolescent outlook. They are pushing us to ever wider war and further breakdown of international collaboration. Boris Johnson, UK clown and former prime minister, recently flatly stated that the West must defeat Russia to protect Western hegemony. Reader, pay attention!
The war in Ukraine has been fought on two fronts: (1) military confrontation and (2) narrative control. The U.S. and Western media are so skilled at narrative control that the massive ongoing Ukrainian losses and unfolding defeat are disguised by one after another weapons upgrade, which proves ineffective in reversing the ongoing losses, followed by more emergency billions of dollars to prop up Ukraine. This act will continue until after the November U.S. election, the winner of which will have to deal with Ukraine collapse.
The recent Kursk attack, planned with U.S. support, is a huge failure and is accelerating Ukrainian exhaustion. This desperate diversion has been narrated as Ukraine daring and a turning point, despite its resulting in many more thousands of Ukrainian casualties and no significant gains, while Russian forces in the east are rapidly advancing.
The only objective achieved by the Kursk incursion was a brief propaganda bump. U.S. and Ukraine couldn’t even come up with a consistent reason for provoking this expanded slaughter. Its cruelty shows again that public figureheads are insulated from the consequences of their pronouncements.
They believe: the West is good, Russia is evil, we are democratic, they are autocratic. People who can be taught to speak in cliches can be taught to think in cliches. And when creating propaganda, leaders often end up deceiving themselves. Here we have deluded Western figureheads seeking world domination—for humanitarian reasons, of course.
As two top Chinese diplomats recently and explicitly warned, if the U.S. doesn’t apply the brakes to its international behavior, the situation will go off the rails. That might well mean nuclear war. The U.S. has unilaterally dropped out of several nuclear arms treaties, and numerous officials have advocated a “preventive” first nuclear strike against Russia. In the good old days, we had major antiwar movements, not just one unified war party.
Editor’s Note:
I disagree that the Ukraine incursion into Russia was a bust.
I had hoped you would comment on my proposal last month for an immediate cease fire and referendum in the disputed territories.
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Following up on your other idea, the key issue for ending the war is Ukraine neutrality, which Kiev and its Western minders do not accept and never have. So, they will continue into more loss and further retreat and more death, all that is denied in their stories right to the end. Vietnam only worse. Afghanistan only much worse. Etc.
You could send your referendum idea to the “acting” president, Biden, who is criminally corrupt in Ukraine and even bragged about it before a Council on Foreign Relations audience. But it is already many months too late to limit the scope of what you describe as “disputed territories.” I myself tried to forecast this outcome in your pages. But the war-making institutional inertia is still too great. Now the question is how many oblasts will agree to either join Russia or a join neutral Ukraine with economic relations in multiple directions.
Dave
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I don’t think Ukraine should be neutral. Everything west of the Dnipro is Euro-centric and everything east is Keivan Rus, Mongol or Russian. I think we need to respect those cultural histories.
Ed
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Fine, but west Ukraine cannot be a NATO outpost with hundreds of missiles pointed at Russia. That is not its cultural history.
Dave
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I think, as a matter of fact, that is precisely the cultural and social history of that meeting of East and West. Yes, I agree there must be a disarmament on both sides, but first I think we have to agree on cultural perimeters.
Ed
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But the “we” who have to agree does not include the likes of you and me. “Disarmament on both sides” — what in the world are you talking about?
And what are the “cultural perimeters” of the U.S.? Rather than multi-polar and multi-ethnic international relations, in historical context yours is the disingenuous and opportunist argument of the empire exploiting “cultural perimeters” in Laos, Afghanistan, Serbia, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, while threatening future resumption of hostilities.
Dave
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Dave Gutknecht was politically motivated and a skeptic from an early age, sharing MLK’s 1967 conclusion that the US is the chief source of violence in the world. An anti-draft leader, he won an important case at the US Supreme Court (1970), but his continued resistance earned him another conviction and sentence, after which he spent 1972-73 in hiding, in county jail, in federal prison and in a halfway house. This was followed by a 50-year career focused on strengthening food cooperatives and local food economies.
