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Category: Ukraine

  • DSEI Japan: Lessons from Russian aggression in Ukraine dominate the Conference agenda on day two

    On day two of DSEI Japan the main conference agenda focussed on lessons that can be learned from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In a discussion chaired by Koichi Isobe, Former Commander of Eastern Army, Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, an analysis of the Russo-Ukrainian war and how future conflicts could be avoided featured prominently. The […]

    The post DSEI Japan: Lessons from Russian aggression in Ukraine dominate the Conference agenda on day two appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • How and Why Obama Downed the MH17 Passenger Plane on 17 July 2014

    Before the MH17 passenger plane was shot down over the civil-war zone in Ukraine on 17 July 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama needed to persuade 9 EU countries that were opposed to adding more sanctions against Russia — needed to force them to approve adding those sanctions. He needed to supply them with ‘evidence’ that Russia was doing heinous things in Ukraine’s civil war. On 15 July 2014, Russia’s RT headlined “9 EU countries ready to block economic sanctions against Russia,” and reported that:

    France, Germany, and Italy are among EU members who don’t want to follow the US lead and impose trade sanctions on Russia. US sanctions are seen as a push to promote its own multibillion free-trade pact with Europe.

    “France, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, Slovenia, and EU President Italy see no reason in the current environment for the introduction of sectorial trade and economic sanctions against Russia and at the summit, will block the measure,” a diplomatic source told ITAR-TASS.

    In order for a new wave of sanctions to pass, all 28 EU members must unanimously vote in favor. EU ministers plan to discuss new sanctions against Russia at their summit in Brussels on Wednesday, July 16. Even if only one country vetoed, sanctions would not be imposed. With heavyweights like France and Germany opposed to more sanctions the measure will likely again be stalled, the source said.

    After the plane was shot down, America, UK, and Ukraine immediately said that Russia and Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine did it, and then, within just a few weeks, all 9 of the EU hold-outs switched to approve the added anti-Russian sanctions that Obama wanted.

    On 5 March 2023, the independent investigative journalist Kit Klarenberg headlined “Meet the British intelligence-linked firm that warped MH17 news coverage,” and he reported how coordinated and pre-planned by British intelligence (which worked hand-in-glove with both Ukrainian and American Governments on this) the MH17 operation had been set up not just to shoot down the plane but to be backed up with faked ‘evidence’ that it had been done by Russia. (In his report, he uses undefined the acronym “JIT”: that refers to the official “Joint Investigative Team” on the downing of MH17.)

    On 7 October 2019, I had already headlined “Update on the MH17 case” and documented that Netherland’s Government had signed an “8 August 2014 agreement [never made public] with Ukraine, to find Ukraine not to have perpetrated the downing. But the families [of the 196 Dutch who had been murdered by the shoot-down] don’t know this,” and the Dutch court that was hearing the MH17 case refused to consider any other evidence, especially not from Russia, and refused to consider those families’ urgings for that court to consider any evidence that was being offered on the case — including from Russia, which the Dutch Government pre-emptively was alleging had done the shoot-down. That secret agreement was among the four members of the “Joint Investigative Team,” all four of which were ‘allies’ (vassal-nations) of the U.S. Government: “Netherlands, Ukraine, Belgium, and Australia.” They all agreed that the case would be tried in the Netherlands, because 196 of the 298 corpses came from there. My article links down to the evidence that Russia was wanting to present but was barred from presenting, and it also links down to evidence from the Government of Malaysia and the black boxes it had, and the MH17 pilots’ corpses that Malaysia had, all of which was likewise clear that the MH17 was shot down not by any BUK missile from Russia, but instead by a Ukrainian air force warplane that fired straight at the pilot, whose corpse was riddled with bullets. The Ukrainian warplane pilot, from whose plane those bullets were being fired, was under the command of the Ukrainian government that Obama had installed. In other words: Obama was the Commander-in-Chief of the entire operation. And it obtained its objective: on 31 July 2014, the 9 recalcitrant EU members all switched to approve the new sanctions against Russia.

    The post How and Why Obama Downed the MH17 Passenger Plane on 17 July 2014 first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • ICC Issues Arrest Warrant for Putin Over Alleged War Crimes in Ukraine



    The International Criminal Court on Friday issued international arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for allegedly abducting Ukrainian children and transporting them to Russia.

    The Hague-based ICC said that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that Putin and Lvova-Belova bear “individual criminal responsibility” for “the war crime of unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children “from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”

    ICC President Judge Piotr Hofmański said in a video statement announcing the warrant that “it is forbidden by international law for occupying powers to transfer civilians from the territory they live in to other territories. Children enjoy special protection under the Geneva Convention.”

    Ukrainian officials accuse Russian forces of taking around 14,000 children from Ukraine to Russia since Putin launched the invasion in February 2022.

    “They change their citizenship, give them up for adoption under guardianship, commit sexual violence and other crimes,” Daria Herasymchuk, the commissioner for children’s rights and rehabilitation for Ukraine, told Euronews.

    According to an Associated Press investigation published last month:

    Russian law prohibits the adoption of foreign children without consent of the home country, which Ukraine has not given. But in May, Putin signed a decree making it easier for Russia to adopt and give citizenship to Ukrainian children without parental care—and harder for Ukraine and surviving relatives to win them back.

    Russia also has prepared a register of suitable Russian families for Ukrainian children, and pays them for each child who gets citizenship—up to $1,000 for those with disabilities. It holds summer camps for Ukrainian orphans, offers “patriotic education” classes, and even runs a hotline to pair Russian families with children from Donbas.

    Lvova-Belova has defended the deportations as “saving” lost or orphaned children.

    The ICC warrants came one day after the United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine published a report detailing Russian war crimes against Ukrainians including “willful killings, attacks on civilians, unlawful confinement, torture, rape, and forced transfers and deportations of children.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Massive UK military spending hike does nothing for real security, experts warn

    The UK government have proposed a n £11bn defence spending boost. However, Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) have stated that the hike will not provide security. Meanwhile, the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) have said that the figure is outrageous in a cost-of-living crisis.

    Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced that the hike would come into play over the next five years. His aim is to take the UK’s percentage of GDP spent on defence higher, in order to align with NATO requirements.

    However, critics wasted no time attacking the new plans. Pacifist group PPU said ammunition and submarines did nothing for those in poverty:

    Much of the increase is expected to be spent on military equipment, all while millions struggle with the cost of living.

    Climate change

    PPU said that the news made Tory commitments on climate change look hollow:

    while successive government security reviews have all listed climate change as a security priority, ministers have continued to ignore this and increasingly equate security with preparations for war.

    PPU spokesperson Jonathon Maunder called for a “real budget for security”:

    The increasingly visible effects of climate change act as a reminder that weapons cannot keep us safe. The Covid-19 vaccine response showed up us what can happen when people around the world work together for common aims and the climate emergency should be no different.

    Defence budget

    Scientist campaigners from SGR listed reasons why the new budget would not deliver security particularly, in respect to Russia and Ukraine. They pointed out that NATO already had a bigger military budget than Russia. Additionally, only a small part of the budget would be going to help Ukraine’s war against Russian occupation.

    They also warned that current defence spending was at odds with the UK’s real needs. They said public services are breaking down, and real global security was about addressing climate change and poverty.

    SGR director Dr Stuart Parkinson said:

    In summary, the justifications for an increase in the UK’s military budget are weak – given the recent huge rises in funding for British armed forces, the lack of convincing military arguments, and the urgent, life-saving potential of alternative spending options in healthcare, overseas aid, and environmental protection.

    Clearly, rather than play to NATO or our allies in the US, the UK needs to take a serious approach to war and insecurity. This requires a clear-headed approach to defence spending whilst addressing people’s actual day-to-day needs. Most importantly, we need an approach that doesn’t just hand money to arms firms.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/MOD, cropped to 770 x 403, licenced under Open Government Licence.

    By Joe Glenton

  • Birth Again the Dream of Global Peace and Mutual Respect

    On 24 February 2023, the Chinese Foreign Ministry released a twelve-point plan entitled ‘China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis’. This ‘peace plan’, as it has been called, is anchored in the concept of sovereignty, building upon the well-established principles of the United Nations Charter (1945) and the Ten Principles from the Bandung Conference of African and Asian states held in 1955. The plan was released two days after China’s senior diplomat Wang Yi visited Moscow, where he met with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Russia’s interest in the plan was confirmed by Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov shortly after the visit: ‘Any attempt to produce a plan that would put the [Ukraine] conflict on a peace track deserves attention. We are considering the plan of our Chinese friends with great attention’.

    Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the plan hours after it was made public, saying that he would like to meet China’s President Xi Jinping as soon as possible to discuss a potential peace process. France’s President Emmanuel Macron echoed this sentiment, saying that he would visit Beijing in early April. There are many interesting aspects of this plan, notably a call to end all hostilities near nuclear power plants and a pledge by China to help fund the reconstruction of Ukraine. But perhaps the most interesting feature is that a peace plan did not come from any country in the West, but from Beijing.

    When I read ‘China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis’, I was reminded of ‘On the Pulse of Morning’, a poem published by Maya Angelou in 1993, the rubble of the Soviet Union before us, the terrible bombardment of Iraq by the United States still producing aftershocks, the tremors felt in Afghanistan and Bosnia. The title of this newsletter, ‘Birth Again the Dream of Global Peace and Mutual Respect’, sits at the heart of the poem. Angelou wrote alongside the rocks and the trees, those who outlive humans and watch us destroy the world. Two sections of the poem bear repeating:

    Each of you, a bordered country,
    Delicate and strangely made proud,
    Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
    Your armed struggles for profit
    Have left collars of waste upon
    My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
    Yet today I call you to my riverside,
    If you will study war no more. Come,
    Clad in peace, and I will sing the songs
    The Creator gave to me when I and the
    Tree and the rock were one.
    Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
    Brow and when you yet knew you still
    Knew nothing.
    The River sang and sings on.

    …

    History, despite its wrenching pain
    Cannot be unlived, but if faced
    With courage, need not be lived again.

    History cannot be forgotten, but it need not be repeated. That is the message of Angelou’s poem and the message of the study we released last week, Eight Contradictions of the Imperialist ‘Rules-Based Order’.

    In October 2022, Cuba’s Centre for International Policy Research (CIPI) held its 7th Conference on Strategic Studies, which studied the shifts taking place in international relations, with an emphasis on the declining power of the Western states and the emergence of a new confidence in the developing world. There is no doubt that the United States and its allies continue to exercise immense power over the world through military force and control over financial systems. But with the economic rise of several developing countries, with China at their head, a qualitative change can be felt on the world stage. An example of this trend is the ongoing dispute amongst the G20 countries, many of which have refused to line up against Moscow despite pressure by the United States and its European allies to firmly condemn Russia for the war in Ukraine. This change in the geopolitical atmosphere requires precise analysis based on the facts.

    To that end, our latest dossier, Sovereignty, Dignity, and Regionalism in the New International Order (March 2023), produced in collaboration with CIPI, brings together some of the thinking about the emergence of a new global dispensation that will follow the period of US hegemony. The text opens with a foreword by CIPI’s director, José R. Cabañas Rodríguez, who makes the point that the world is already at war, namely a war imposed on much of the world (including Cuba) by the United States and its allies through blockades and economic policies such as sanctions that strangle the possibilities for development. As Greece’s former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said, coups these days ‘do not need tanks. They achieve the same result with banks’.

    The US is attempting to maintain its position of ‘single master’ through an aggressive military and diplomatic push both in Ukraine and Taiwan, unconcerned about the great destabilisation this has inflicted upon the world. This approach was reflected in US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin’s admission that ‘We want to see Russia weakened’ and in US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul’s statement that ‘Ukraine today – it’s going to be Taiwan tomorrow’. It is a concern about this destabilisation and the declining fortunes of the West that has led most of the countries in the world to refuse to join efforts to isolate Russia.

    As some of the larger developing countries, such as China, Brazil, India, Mexico, Indonesia, and South Africa, pivot away from reliance upon the United States and its Western allies, they have begun to discuss a new architecture for a new world order. What is quite clear is that most of these countries – despite great differences in the political traditions of their respective governments – now recognise that the United States ‘rules-based international order’ is no longer able to exercise the authority it once had. The actual movement of history shows that the world order is moving from one anchored by US hegemony to one that is far more regional in character. US policymakers, as part of their fearmongering, suggest that China wants to take over the world, along the grain of the ‘Thucydides Trap’ argument that when a new aspirant to hegemony appears on the scene, it tends to result in war between the emerging power and existing great power. However, this argument is not based on facts.

    Rather than seek to generate additional poles of power – in the mould of the United States – and build a ‘multipolar’ world, developing countries are calling for a world order rooted in the UN Charter as well as strong regional trade and development systems. ‘This new internationalism can only be created – and a period of global Balkanisation avoided’, we write in our latest dossier, ‘by building upon a foundation of mutual respect and strength of regional trade systems, security organisations, and political formations’. Indicators of this new attitude are present in the discussions taking place in the Global South about the war in Ukraine and are reflected in the Chinese plan for peace.

    Our dossier analyses at some length this moment of fragility for US power and its ‘rules-based international order’. We trace the revival of multilateralism and regionalism, which are key concepts of the emerging world order. The growth of regionalism is reflected in the creation of a host of vital regional bodies, from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), alongside increasing regional trade (with the BRICS bloc being a kind of ‘regionalism plus’ for our period). Meanwhile, the emphasis on returning to international institutions for global decision-making, as evidenced by the formation of the Group of Friends in Defence of the UN Charter, for example, illustrates the reinvigorated desire for multilateralism.

    The United States remains a powerful country, but it has not come to terms with the immense changes taking place in the world order. It must temper its belief in its ‘manifest destiny’ and recognise that it is nothing more than another country amongst the 193 members states of the United Nations. The great powers – including the United States – will either find ways to accommodate and cooperate for the common good, or they will all collapse together.

    At the start of the pandemic, the head of the World Health Organisation, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, urged the countries of the world to be more collaborative and less confrontational, saying that ‘this is the time for solidarity, not stigma’ and repeating, in the years since, that nations must ‘work together across ideological divides to find common solutions to common problems’. These wise words must be heeded.

    The post Birth Again the Dream of Global Peace and Mutual Respect first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • ‘Really Scary Stuff’: US Drone Crashes During Encounter With Russian Fighter Jet



    Fears of an escalation between nuclear superpowers Russia and the United States mounted Tuesday after a U.S. Air Force Reaper drone went down in international waters in the Black Sea during an encounter with a Russian fighter jet, with both sides giving varying accounts of the incident.

    According to U.S. European Command (EUCOM):

    Two Russian Su-27 aircraft conducted an unsafe and unprofessional intercept with a U.S. Air Force intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance unmanned MQ-9 aircraft that was operating within international airspace over the Black Sea today. At approximately 7:03 am (CET), one of the Russian Su-27 aircraft struck the propeller of the MQ-9, causing U.S. forces to have to bring the MQ-9 down in international waters. Several times before the collision, the Su-27s dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound, and unprofessional manner. This incident demonstrates a lack of competence in addition to being unsafe and unprofessional.

    “This incident follows a pattern of dangerous actions by Russian pilots while interacting with U.S. and allied aircraft over international airspace, including over the Black Sea,” EUCOM added. “These aggressive actions by Russian aircrew are dangerous and could lead to miscalculation and unintended escalation. “

    U.S. Air Force Gen. James B. Hecker said in a statement that “U.S. and allied aircraft will continue to operate in international airspace and we call on the Russians to conduct themselves professionally and safely.”

    The Russian Ministry of Defense issued a statement on the incident claiming that the U.S. drone had its transponders turned off and denying that Russian aircraft came into contact with the MQ-9. The ministry said the U.S. aircraft “violated the boundaries” of an area demarcated by Moscow “for the purpose of conducting a special military operation”—an invasion—in Ukraine, and that the drone “went into uncontrolled flight with a loss of altitude and collided with the water surface” as “a result of sharp maneuvering.”

    An unnamed U.S. Air Force official told The War Zone that American officials do not believe the Russians deliberately tried to bring down the drone, but that the alleged collision “seems to be simple incompetence.”

    War Zone reporters Howard Altman and Joseph Trevithick wrote that “today’s incident does, of course, come amid long-standing concerns about the potential for the conflict in Ukraine to spill out more broadly in the region.”

    “Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, routinely issue nebulous threats to retaliate against the United States, other members of NATO, and other countries over military aid and other support for Ukraine,” the pair added. “How either side will react to the loss of the MQ-9 remains to be seen.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Daniel Ellsberg Is Calling on All of Us to Work to Avert Nuclear War

    The legendary Daniel Ellsberg has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In a March 1 email to friends, Dan wrote, “I’m sorry to report to you that my doctors have given me three to six months to live … it might be more, or less.” He will turn 92 on April 7. Dan displayed uncommon courage in 1971 when he publicized the 7,000-page top-secret Pentagon Papers while working at the Rand Corporation.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Blood Does Not Wash Away Blood

    The extraordinary March 10, 2023 announcement that China’s top diplomat, Mr. Wang Yi, helped broker a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran suggests that major powers can benefit from believing that, as Albert Camus once put it, “words are more powerful than munitions.”

    This concept was also acknowledged by General Mark Milley, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff who said on January 20, 2023, that he believes Russia’s war in Ukraine will conclude with negotiations rather than on the battlefield. In November of 2022, asked about prospects for diplomacy in Ukraine, Milley noted that the early refusal to negotiate in World War One compounded human suffering and led to millions more casualties.

    “So when there’s an opportunity to negotiate, when peace can be achieved … seize the moment,” Milley told the Economic Club of New York.

    Twenty years ago, in Baghdad, I shared quarters with Iraqis and internationals in a small hotel, the Al-Fanar, which had been home base for numerous Voices in the Wilderness delegations acting in open defiance of the economic sanctions against Iraq. U.S. government officials charged us as criminals for delivering medicines to Iraqi hospitals. In response, we told them we understood the penalties they threatened us with (twelve years in prison and a $1 million fine), but we couldn’t be governed by unjust laws primarily punishing children. And we invited government officials to join us. Instead, we were steadily joined by other peace groups longing to prevent a looming war.

    In late January 2003, I still hoped war could be averted. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s report was imminent. If it declared that Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction (WMD), U.S. allies might drop out of the attack plans, in spite of the massive military buildup we were witnessing on nightly television. Then came Secretary of State Colin Powell’s February 5, 2003, United Nations briefing, when he insisted that Iraq did indeed possess WMD. His presentation was eventually proven to be fraudulent on every count, but it tragically gave the United States enough credibility to proceed at full throttle with its “Shock and Awe” bombing campaign.

    Beginning in mid-March 2003, the ghastly aerial attacks pounded Iraq day and night. In our hotel, parents and grandparents prayed to survive ear-splitting blasts and sickening thuds. A lively, engaging nine-year-old girl completely lost control over her bladder. Toddlers devised games to mimic the sounds of bombs and pretended to use small flashlights as guns.

    Our team visited hospital wards where maimed children moaned as they recovered from surgeries. I remember sitting on a bench outside of an emergency room. Next to me, a woman convulsed in sobs asking, “How will I tell him? What will I say?” She needed to tell her nephew, who was undergoing emergency surgery, that he had not only lost both his arms but also that she was now his only surviving relative. A U.S. bomb had hit Ali Abbas’s family as they shared a lunch outside their home. A surgeon later reported that he had already told Ali that they had amputated both of his arms. “But,” Ali had asked him, “will I always be this way?”

    I returned to the Al-Fanar Hotel that evening feeling overwhelmed by anger and shame. Alone in my room, I pounded my pillow, tearfully murmuring, “Will we always be this way?”

    Throughout the Forever Wars of the past two decades, U.S. elites in the military-industrial-Congressional-media complex have manifested an insatiable appetite for war. They seldom heed the wreckage they have left behind after “ending” a war of choice.

    Following the 2003 “Shock and Awe” war in Iraq, Iraqi novelist Sinan Antoon created a main character, Jawad, in The Corpse Washer, who felt overwhelmed by the rising numbers of corpses for whom he must care.

    “I felt as if we had been struck by an earthquake which had changed everything,” Jawad reflects. “For decades to come, we would be groping our way around in the rubble it left behind. In the past there were streams between Sunnis and Shi͑ites, or this group and that, which could be easily crossed or were invisible at times. Now, after the earthquake, the earth had all these fissures and the streams had become rivers. The rivers became torrents filled with blood, and whoever tried to cross drowned. The images of those on the other side of the river had been inflated and disfigured . . . concrete walls rose to seal the tragedy.”

    “War is worse than an earthquake,” a surgeon, Saeed Abuhassan, told me during Israel’s 2008-2009 bombing of Gaza, called Operation Cast Lead. He pointed out that rescuers come from all over the world following an earthquake, but when wars are waged, governments send only more munitions, prolonging the agony.

    He explained the effects of weapons that had maimed patients undergoing surgery in Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital as the bombs continued to fall. Dense inert metal explosives lop off people’s limbs in ways that surgeons can’t repair. White phosphorus bomb fragments, embedded subcutaneously in human flesh, continue to burn when exposed to oxygen, asphyxiating the surgeons trying to remove the sinister material.

    “You know, the most important thing you can tell people in your country is that U.S. people paid for many of the weapons used to kill people in Gaza,” Abuhassan said. “And this also is why it’s worse than an earthquake.”

    As the world enters the second year of war between Ukraine and Russia, some say it’s unconscionable for peace activists to clamor for a cease-fire and immediate negotiations. Is it more honorable to watch the pile-up of body bags, the funerals, the grave digging, the towns becoming uninhabitable, and the escalation that could lead to a world war or even a nuclear war?

    U.S. mainstream media rarely engages with professor Noam Chomsky, whose wise and pragmatic analysis rests on indisputable facts. In June 2022, four months into the Russia-Ukraine war, Chomsky spoke of two options, one being a negotiated diplomatic settlement. “The other,” he said, “is just to drag it out and see how much everybody will suffer, how many Ukrainians will die, how much Russia will suffer, how many millions of people will starve to death in Asia and Africa, how much we’ll proceed toward heating the environment to the point where there will be no possibility for a livable human existence.”

    UNICEF reports how months of escalating devastation and displacement affect Ukrainian children: “Children continue to be killed, wounded, and deeply traumatized by violence that has sparked displacement on a scale and speed not seen since World War II. Schools, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure on which they depend continue to be damaged or destroyed. Families have been separated and lives torn apart.”

    Estimates of Russian and Ukrainian military casualties vary, but some have suggested that more than 200,000 soldiers on both sides have been killed or wounded.

    Gearing up for a major offensive before the spring thaw, Russia’s government announced it would pay a bonus to troops that destroy weapons used by Ukrainian soldiers which were sent from abroad. The blood money bonus is chilling, but on an exponentially greater level, major weapons manufacturers have accrued a steady bonanza of “bonuses” since the war began.
    In the last year alone, the United States sent $27.5 billion in military assistance to Ukraine, providing “armored vehicles, including Stryker armored personnel carriers, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, and High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled vehicles.” The package also included air defense support for Ukraine, night vision devices, and small arms ammunition.

    Shortly after Western countries agreed to send sophisticated Abrams and Leopard tanks to Ukraine, an adviser to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, Yuriy Sak, spoke confidently about getting F-16 fighter jets next. “They didn’t want to give us heavy artillery, then they did. They didn’t want to give us Himars systems, then they did. They didn’t want to give us tanks, now they’re giving us tanks. Apart from nuclear weapons, there is nothing left that we will not get,” he told Reuters.

    Ukraine isn’t likely to get nuclear weapons, but the danger of nuclear war was clarified in a Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists statement on January 24, which set the Doomsday Clock for 2023 to ninety seconds before the metaphorical “midnight.” The scientists warned that effects of the Russia-Ukraine war are not limited to an alarming increase in nuclear danger; they also undermine global efforts to combat climate change. “Countries dependent on Russian oil and gas have sought to diversify their supplies and suppliers,” the report notes, “leading to expanded investment in natural gas exactly when such investment should have been shrinking.”

    Mary Robinson, the former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, says the Doomsday Clock sounds an alarm for all humanity. “We are on the brink of a precipice,” she said. “But our leaders are not acting at sufficient speed or scale to secure a peaceful and livable planet. From cutting carbon emissions to strengthening arms control treaties and investing in pandemic preparedness, we know what needs to be done. The science is clear, but the political will is lacking. This must change in 2023 if we are to avert catastrophe. We are facing multiple existential crises. Leaders need a crisis mindset.”

    As do we all. The Doomsday Clock indicates we’re living on borrowed time. We needn’t “always be this way.”

    Over the past decade, I was fortunate to be hosted in dozens of trips to Kabul, Afghanistan, by young Afghans who fervently believed that words could be stronger than weapons. They espoused a simple, pragmatic proverb: “Blood does not wash away blood.”

    We owe to future generations every possible effort to renounce all war and protect the planet.

    The post Blood Does Not Wash Away Blood first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • US Increases Dominance as World’s Top Arms Exporter

    A Sweden-based research institute published a report Monday showing that the United States accounted for 40% of the world’s weapons exports in the years 2018-22, selling armaments to more than 100 countries while increasing its dominance of the global arms trade.

    The report—entitled Trends in International Arms Transfers, 2022—was published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and listed the United States, Russia, France, China, and Germany as the world’s top five arms exporters from 2018-22. The five nations accounted for 76% of worldwide weapons exports during that period.

    The five biggest arms importers over those five years were India, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Australia, and China.

    “The United States has much room for improvement.”

    The United States saw a 14% increase in arms exports over the previous five-year period analyzed by SIPRI. U.S. arms were delivered to 103 nations from 2018-22, with 41% going to the Middle East.

    “Even as arms transfers have declined globally, those to Europe have risen sharply due to the tensions between Russia and most other European states,” Pieter Wezeman, senior researcher at the SIPRI Arms Transfers Program, said in a statement. “Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European states want to import more arms, faster. Strategic competition also continues elsewhere: Arms imports to East Asia have increased and those to the Middle East remain at a high level.”

    According to the report, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine early last year “had only a limited impact on the total volume of arms transfers in 2018–22, but Ukraine did become a major importer of arms in 2022.”

    Ukraine was the 14th-largest arms importer from 2018-22 and the third-biggest last year.

    Wiliam Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote Monday that “the impacts of the global arms trade aren’t just about the volume of weapons delivered. The question is how those weapons are likely to be used, and the extent to which they promote stability versus fueling conflict or propping up repressive regimes with abysmal human rights records.”

    “On this score the United States has much room for improvement,” he continued. “Transfers to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for use at the peak of their brutal war in Yemen, and sales to major human rights violators from the Philippines, Egypt, and Nigeria are a few examples of how U.S. arms deliveries can make the world a more dangerous place.”

    “There are a number of promising steps that Congress can take—as articulated by a new coalition, the Arms Sales Accountability Project—that would mandate closer scrutiny of U.S. sales,” Hartung asserted.

    “There is also some useful language in the Biden administration’s new arms transfer policy directive, that, if implemented, would significantly rein in the most egregious sales,” he added. “Only time will tell if U.S. policy can be moved towards one based on arms sales restraint rather than arms sales promotion.”

  • Russia is accused of taking Ukrainian children, according to Human Rights Watch

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had “devastating” consequences for children in residential institutions. Thousands have been transferred to occupied territories or to Russia, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday 13 March.

    HRW’s Bill Van Esveld stated:

    This brutal war has starkly shown the need to end the perils faced by children who were institutionalised.

    Returning children who were illegally taken by Russian forces should be an international priority.

    At least several thousand children have been transferred to Russia or occupied territories, the report said. HRW called for a “concerted international effort” to return forcibly deported children and urged Russia to publish information on their whereabouts.

    Ukraine and human rights groups have spoke out against the forced transfer of thousands of children since the war began, with Russian families said to be fostering Ukrainian children.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week referred to the “kidnapping, forced adoption and re-education of Ukrainian children committed by Russia”, calling this “a war crime and a crime against humanity”.

    In May 2022, Russia’s parliament changed its law, allowing authorities to change Ukrainian children’s nationality to Russian, and in turn the adoption of children by Russian families in Russia.

    Ukraine’s institutionalised children

    HRW said the war highlighted the urgent need for reform in Ukraine, which had over 105,000 children in institutions before the war: the largest number in Europe after Russia. Nearly half were children with disabilities.

    Since 2005, the Ukrainian government has pledged to deinstitutionalise its children. It said that it would instead place them in family settings, but little was done. In fact, the number of children’s institutions actually grew. In 2015, there were 663 institutions, and this figure rose to 727 in 2022. 100 of those institutions – which housed over 32,000 children before 2022 – are now in territories under Russian occupation.

    Many more children will be left orphaned or separated from their parents as a result of the war. HRW stated:

    Children are being newly institutionalised, including children whose parents were killed and wounded, as well as whose parents experienced mental health crises due to the war.

    HRW’s 55-page report also highlighted other problems. These include mental trauma to the displaced children, and neglect and inadequate care due to lack of caregivers. The report stated:

    Many children in institutions had to shelter for weeks from bombardments in basements without electricity or running water, including children with disabilities.

    A group of children from an institution in Mariupol did not speak for four days after they were evacuated to Lviv, in March 2022.

    Task force

    HRW argues that a task force is needed to track down missing children. It said:

    The UN should establish an inter-agency task force dedicated to identifying the whereabouts and ensuring the welfare and return of unaccompanied and separated children who were forcibly transferred within Ukraine or deported to Russia, including children who were illegally adopted and naturalised.

    Ukraine’s children are just some of more than 400 million who live in countries where there is violent conflict. For as long as there is war, children will always be vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking. As nation states continue to use war to pursue power, children will always be the most strongly impacted victims.

    Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

    Featured image via Unicef / Creative Commons 2.0, resized to 770×403

    By The Canary

  • We Must Abolish Nuclear Weapons Before They Abolish Us

    As we pass the one-year anniversary of the Ukraine War, we are reminded of the pain and suffering of Ukrainian people whose country has been ravaged by war, Russian mothers whose sons will never return home, and all who have been affected deeply by the global food and energy crisis this war has engendered. While there is little room for optimism in the bleak picture, one possible silver lining is…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Battling Cancel Culture at Adelaide Writers’ Week

    Writing festivals are often tired, stilted affairs, but the 38th Adelaide Writers’ Week did not promise to be that run-of-the-mill gathering of yawn-inducing, life draining sessions. For one thing, social media vultures and public relations experts, awaiting the next freely explosive remark or unguarded comment, were at hand to stir the pot and exhort cancel culture.

    The fuss began with the festival organisers’ invitation of two Palestinian authors, Susan Abulhawa and Mohammed El-Kurd. Abulhawa was specifically targeted for critical comments on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, notably regarding NATO membership, and for being a mouthpiece of “Russian propaganda”, while El-Kurd has been singled out for social-media commentary on the Israeli state, calling it “sadistic”, “demonic” and “a death cult”.

    Righteously, the South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas showed his less than worldly view on such festivals by insisting on boycotting their talks and presentations. Ever the vote-getting politician, there were those constituents at the Association of Ukrainians in South Australia who had been making noise, notably through their president, Frank Fursenko. “We are very concerned that [the festival organisers] are giving a platform to people who are known apologists for the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” insisted Fursenko.

    Malinauskas even contemplated pulling government funding from the event, something he declared at his address opening Writers’ Week. (This was also the view of the South Australian opposition leader, David Speirs.) The premier, it should be noted, is less morally troubled when it comes to funding the LIV Golf tournament, backed by the obscurantist journalist-assassinating regime of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

    At the very least, he made some concession to maturity: refusing “to listen to someone’s viewpoint” also involved surrendering “the opportunity to challenge it, much less change their mind.” But for all that Abulhawa’s presence at the Writers’ Week had to be “actively” questioned.

    The Advertiser was less reserved, barking in childish condemnation and demanding, via a statement from editor Gemma Jones, that the Writers’ Week director Louise Adler resign. “The views of the two writers in question are repugnant.”

    Law firm MinterEllison also took up a tenancy in the land of black and white in their decision to withdraw sponsorship, citing concerns about “the potential for racist or antisemitic commentary.” It had decided “to remove our presence and involvement with this year’s Writers’ Festival program”. That’s branding for you.

    Consultancies hardly known for their principled stances on intellectual debate let alone the public good took to the podium of virtue even as they withdrew their support. PwC, which provides pro bono auditing for the Adelaide Festival Foundation, openly disassociated itself from the event by requesting that its logo be removed from the festival website. “We condemn in the strongest terms any antisemitic comments and any suggestion of support for Russia’s war against Ukraine,” the company stated in a memorandum. “We stand with the Jewish and Ukrainian communities who have been understandably hurt by this issue. In this respect, we have asked the chair of the Adelaide Foundation that any association with PwC with this aspect of the festival be removed.”

    In all these shallow, stubbornly ahistorical assessments, context is missing. The background, and sense of where such supposedly horrendous opinions sprung from, are dismissed. The culture of cancellation and erasure, as it has been previously, is the prerogative of the powerful and their PR offices. It is also insidious, stressing the trendy, appealing brand of the moment, the acceptable opinion which makes the acceptable person.

    El-Kurd, Palestinian poet and correspondent for The Nation, enraged since the day Jewish settlers made their way into his East Jerusalem home, has made no secret in adopting a more militant stance for Palestinians. It was, he stated, “not enough that I have lost my home to Israeli settlers, it’s not enough that I grew up and lived as a refugee under military occupation.” In his protest and suffering, he had been constantly told to be “polite” and “respectable”.

    Those years were behind him, times which featured a “failed strategy” that placed a heavy emphasis on humanising unacceptable tragedy: the focus on women and children (again, the branding that matters); the focus on “our inability to commit violence, our inability to feel rage”. “And we over-emphasise the victims whose qualifiers make them human.”

    In her response to the storm, Abulhawa expressed gratitude to Adler and the Board of the Adelaide Festival “for bravely ensuring that we do and will have space to speak and interact with readers on a cultural landscape.” She then moved to chart the fault lines that have made contrarian views – or at least views deemed undesirable by the anointed policing agents on the Ukrainian War – a matter of vengeful reaction. To be critical of the Ukrainian Saint was to somehow be a shill for Russia’s Vladimir Putin; to be a proponent for peace was somehow akin to encouraging genocide. “These assertions are false, absurd and libellous.”

    Specifically regarding Zelenskyy, his sins lay in “taking actions and provocations that would lead to foreseeable, even predictable, war, which has not only wrecked Ukraine and her people, but led to global insecurity and fuel shortages, affecting the most vulnerable among us.”

    Her views are not unusual, or astonishing. They are also echoed through the Global South, where the brands of the noble Ukrainian victim and the remorseless Russian monster have lesser currency. One can understand the dynamics, and sad perversions of power, without justifying their brutal manifestations. Abulhawa references John Mearsheimer’s warnings about US provocations against Russia, using Ukraine as a base and pretext. The Ukraine conflict, to that end, is not isolated or regional. It is a “global proxy war, the outcome of which may well determine the world order for generations to come.”

    Abulhawa would have also been well within her rights to cite the very figure who gave birth to the doctrine of Soviet containment at the start of the Cold War. The late diplomat and historian George Frost Kennan, eyeing the expansionist drive of NATO and US power eastwards towards the Russian border, could only issue this warning in 1997: “Such a decision may be expected to inflame nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.”

    To her estimable credit, Adler remained adamant and defiant in permitting the writers to attend their events. “Our business,” she told the ABC, “is to operate an open space, not a safe space, in which ideas that may be confronting, disturbing, provocative, are debated with civility, that’s the agenda.” Writers, she also explained to The Age, were not sought out “via their Twitter feeds. I do not think the social media space for a nuanced or reasoned analysis and discussion.” It never was such a place, but to the cancel culture footsoldiers, that is exactly where they feel most comfortable.

    The post Battling Cancel Culture at Adelaide Writers’ Week first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Pushing for Regime Change in Russia Implies an Embrace of Endless War in Ukraine

    Is it Russian imperialism or great-power politics that explains Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? And how likely is it that we could see regime change in Moscow? Moreover, do ideological labels matter in today’s political climate? C. J. Polychroniou tackles these questions in an interview with the French-Greek journalist Alexandra Boutri. He contends that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a major war crime but that the ongoing war is rooted in NATO’s eastward expansion and associated with the game of great-power politics. As for those who compare Putin to Hitler and call for regime change in Russia, Polychroniou argues that such claims and demands are both absurd and dangerous.

    Alexandra Boutri: Let me start by asking you to share with me your views about an international relations topic that has dominated headlines for the past year, namely, the Russia-Ukraine war. Does it have its roots on Russian imperialistic aggression, which is the general view among most mainstream pundits, including many on the Left, or is it something more complicated than that?

    C. J. Polychroniou: I think the best way to address your question is by putting this unnecessary tragedy, which, incidentally, could very well drag on for years to come, in historical context and thus realizing how easily it could have been avoided. Indeed, Putin’s decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, may have taken everyone by surprise but the seeds of this war had been sown long before. Now, Ukrainians tend to emphasize Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014 as the origin of the conflict between the two countries. This is not an accurate description because the great-power rivalry between the United States and Russia is left out of the equation.

    But let’s start with Crimea. For whatever reason, Crimea was gifted from Soviet Russia to Soviet Ukraine in 1954. Interestingly enough, the overwhelming majority of the population of Crimea in the 1950s was ethnic Russian and there was still an ethnic Russian majority of over 60 percent in 2014. It should also be pointed out that the Crimean Peninsula has always been a strategically vital location on the Black Sea. Indeed, Crimea’s position in the Black Sea holds such strategic importance that Zbigniew Brzezinski, the hawkish national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, made strong hints in a 1997 book titled The Grand Chessboard that the Crimean Peninsula could become a major source of instability in the territories of the former Soviet Union. Putting aside for now the legality of the Russian operation to annex Crimea, what is often ignored in the Ukrainian and western narrative is that it took place in the aftermath of NATO’s enlargement following the collapse of the Soviet Union. And it wasn’t just Putin who was wary of NATO’s eastward expansion. Gorbachev was also suspicious of the perpetuation of NATO following the end of the Cold War while Boris Yeltsin, in a letter sent to President Clinton in 1993, had strongly opposed NATO’s expansion to the east.

    It seems appropriate here to recall that Putin did not mince words when it came to giving his opinion about the eastward expansion of NATO at the Security Conference in Munich on February 2007:

    I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernisation of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: “the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.” Where are these guarantees?

    Each round of NATO expansion since the fall of the Berlin Wall (NATO grew from 16 countries at the peak of the Cold War to 30 today, several of which were part of the Warsaw Pact) was followed by loud complaints from Russia that such moves posed a threat to Russia’s national security. Moreover, the prospect of Georgia and Ukraine becoming members of the trans-Atlantic military alliance constituted a red line for Moscow. Yet pledges were made by NATO leaders at the Budapest Summit in April 2008 that Georgia and Ukraine would eventually become NATO member states. In fact, relations between NATO and Ukraine go back to the early 1990s and, after 2014, the level of military cooperation between the two intensified in critical areas.

    From the perspective of the Kremlin, what NATO (i.e., the US) was up to amounted to an “encirclement” of Russia. Indeed, it shouldn’t be difficult to understand why Russian leaders felt this way, and there is no doubt that US officials knew all along that they were crossing Russia’s red lines on NATO expansion.

    In this context, Russia’s invasion of the territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia in 2008, Crimea’s annexation in 2014, and the disastrous invasion of Ukraine in 2022 are all part of the game of great-power politics and have little to do with Putin’s alleged push for a new Russian empire.

    Alexandra Boutri: So, according to the analysis you just provided, the idea that Putin might want to invade countries in Europe is utter hogwash. But what about the suggestion that Putin is a tyrant, this generation’s Adolf Hitler, and therefore his regime must be overthrown?

    C. J. Polychroniou: The idea that Putin has plans to invade countries in Europe is so absurd and ridiculous as to be laughable. Indeed, the only serious question here is why so many refuse to acknowledge that NATO and the US bear responsibility for Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and are now failing to pursue a diplomatic path in order to put an end to this great tragedy, which is going to get much worse in the months to come as Ukraine keeps receiving more and more weapons from the west and Russia is preparing for a bigger fight. The losses on both sides are already staggering and Ukraine’s economy and infrastructure are on the verge of collapse. This is a completely senseless war that could have easily been avoided if U.S. and NATO had paid proper attention to Russia’s red lines. In fact, many top-level diplomats and academic experts had predicted that NATO’s provocative actions would lead to war.
    Having said that, it goes without saying of course that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is wrong, violates the UN Charter and cannot be justified under international law. Moreover, Russia could easily be charged with war crimes for the Ukraine invasion. Yet isn’t it interesting that the Kremlin’s legal justification for the invasion is based on the “pre-emptive principle” first argued by the US when it invaded Iraq in 2003? Of equal interest is to see how the western community has reacted to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in comparison to the way it reacted to the US invasion of Iraq. Most Americans still have no idea of the level of destruction that the invasion unleashed. The prestigious medical journal The Lancet estimated in a 2006 study that more than 600,000 Iraqis were killed during the first 40 months of war and occupation in Iraq. But the western community is king of the double standard.

    To address your question about Putin, he is no doubt a ruthless autocrat. Manipulation and repression are integral components of his regime. They have been so from the day he was sworn in as president of Russia, more than 20 years ago. Now he is also a war criminal, but we must be careful with crazy comparisons with Hitler. If Putin is the new Hitler because of his decision to invade Ukraine, why shouldn’t the same be said about George W. Bush when he invaded Iraq? However, such analogies are not only ludicrous but extremely offensive because they cheapen the memory of millions of innocent people killed by the Nazis. Hitler’s monstrous regime carried out various major genocides and countless of mass murders. This may run counter to how major segments of the media are portraying Putin these days, but he is a rational and strategic actor, though he badly miscalculated his military strength when he decided to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine as well as Ukrainian resistance. Furthermore, he has always been very popular with the Russian people and is even more popular today. In September 2022, his popularity level stood at 77 percent. After the invasion of Ukraine, the approval rating increased. In February 2023, Putin’s approval rating at home jumped up to 82 percent.

    So, when pundits and experts alike in the US and elsewhere speak of regime change in Russia, one really wonders what they may have in mind. Is regime change going to come from the inside, through a coup or revolution, or from the outside, through a foreign invasion? The security forces, which are the core and backbone of Putin’s regime, answer directly to Putin and they will surely protect him from any possible coup. On the other hand, his popularity is so great that simply precludes the possibility that he can be overthrown by his own people. A foreign invasion of Russia to overthrow Putin’s regime is sheer madness and totally out of the question, so all this talk about regime change in Moscow amounts to nothing more than dangerous political posturing. Why so? Because regime change seekers suspect, and they are probably right, that the most likely scenario for Putin to be removed from power is through the weakening of Russia. This means either Putin losing the war in Ukraine or witnessing the collapse of his own economy. In either case, achieving the goal of Putin’s removal from power mandates an indefinite continuation of the war regardless of what happens to Ukraine itself. But even so, what guarantee is there that Putin won’t be replaced by someone even more ruthless? A weakened and humiliated Russia will most likely lead to the emergence of an even more ruthless leader. After all, it was the economic collapse and humiliation of the 1990s that made Putin such a popular figure with the Russian people.

    Alexandra Boutri: The far-right seems to have sided with Putin in Russia’s war against Ukraine, while many of the left are defending Ukraine and even going so far as to support a stronger NATO. Do political labels matter in today’s world? Indeed, is the left-right political spectrum still valid today?
    C. J. Polychroniou: The situation with far-right groups and individuals supporting Putin in Russia’s war against Ukraine is a bit complicated. Some on the far-right in both the US and Europe seem to have sided with Putin simply because they see him as a white supremacist and the “savior” of western culture. But my own impression is that this is the case far more so with America’s far-right than it is with Europe’s far-right. Indeed, there has been a marked shift in the rhetoric of many extreme right-wingers in Europe since the war started. For instance, both Marine Le Pen in France and Matteo Salvini in Italy, both of them long-time admirers of Vladimir Putin, have condemned “Russian aggression.” They may have done so purely out of political opportunism, but there you have it. Anyway, ideological consistency is not the forte of the far-right. However, the same can be said nowadays about certain segments of the Left. Indeed, who would have thought 10 or even 5 years ago that the Left might one day be defending the enlargement of NATO? But we live in a time of interminable crises and perhaps political identity plight comes with the territory.

    Today, more than any other time in recent history, the traditional political terms “left” and “right” have become a bit redundant, though I am not suggesting by any stretch of the imagination of doing away with the distinction. But consider this: Some of today’s conservative governments in Europe are pursuing policies, such as trying to tame the market and using the state to support vulnerable populations, that are hardly representative of neoliberalism or even traditional conservatism. Greece and Poland come to mind, both countries governed by right-wing political parties. By the same token, so-called “left” parties have moved ever so closer to the right, pursuing even neoliberal policies when they are in power, to the point that blue collar workers have switched allegiances. And the Green parties of today bear no resemblance whatsoever to the Green Movement of the seventies. The German Green party, for instance, is now advocating for stronger U.S. militarism.

    In the United States, of course, the situation is in some ways quite different. The Republican Party has moved so far to the right that it has developed a serious extremism problem while the Democratic Party has drifted towards its progressive faction. However, both “left” and “right” in the US are involved in a growing “culture war” and both practice cancel culture. The mania over political correctness and identity politics, which are the last things that the Left should be embracing given its historical commitment to free speech and universality, is terrible business. It is in fact helping today to give shape and form to the reactionary politics and policies of Ron DeSantis, the rising star of America’s hard- right.

  • Total Worldwide Disarmament: Security Must Be for All Countries

    Read Parts 1, 2, and 3.

    A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed. We are one planet. One of the great revelations of the age of space exploration is the image of the earth finite and lonely, somehow vulnerable, bearing the entire human species through the oceans of space and time.

    — Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 1980

    All people opposed to war must be anti-imperialist. To not be anti-imperialist would render a declared antiwar position as a contradiction.

    Scott Ritter, steeped in military knowledge, has compellingly put forth the legal argument that Russia’s special military operation against the Ukrainian forces is legal. Ritter contends that the Russians are fighting the war with kid gloves, bending over backwards to limit civilian casualties. Ritter has gravitas since he was a US Marines intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector. Said Ritter,

    … the military imperative, the military necessity of shutting this [conflict] down is real, but Russia didn’t do it. Why? Because Russia isn’t viewing this as we viewed the war against the Iraqis. Russia is viewing this as a special military operation — people make fun of that word — but it’s not war because if it was war, Ukraine would be gone today, eliminated… [view from 49:16]

    To Rid the World of Warmaking, Target the Apex of Warmaking

    If one truly wants to rid the world of war, one needs to target the warmaker, the aggressor, the initiator of violence: the United States. The violence of the US even gave pause to the pacifist sentiments of Martin Luther King, Jr who said:

    … I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.

    Noted linguist Noam Chomsky ridiculed the Orwellian notion of a defense department in the US:

    … the Pentagon is in no sense a defense department. It has never defended the United States from anyone: it has only served to conduct aggression, and I think the American people would be better off without a Pentagon.

    The world would be better off without a Pentagon. To rid the world of war, as the preeminent superpower and rogue nation, the US has the moral obligation to seek a worldwide demilitarization. This will require full transparency verified through monitoring and compliance enforced by an independent and empowered body. After that, those entities and individuals responsible for US aggression and other war crimes should stand trial and be prosecuted, as should all responsible individuals in all nations that perpetrate war crimes.

    Of Course, War Should be Abolished

    Most people will distinguish between offensive warmaking and warring in self-defense. To draw an equivalency in criticism between an aggressor and and a war of resistance to attack is, palpably, wrongheaded. Worse, it provides succor to the aggressor since it fares no worse than its targeted enemy. Thus, a principled antiwar position would abjure scapegoating and falsely assessing equivalency in blame to a country that only seeks mutual security yet finds itself cornered by a hegemon. As T.P. Wilkinson compellingly argued:

    … the claim that Russia should not have violated Ukrainian sovereignty is based on the erroneous belief that Ukraine was invaded. This assertion is based on ignorance. Quite aside from the international-law issues posed by the sovereign claims of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), and hence whether they could exert sovereign rights to conclude treaties and hence invite military aid, there is the long-standing original threat and active aggression of NATO in and through Ukraine’s governments. The recognition of sovereignty does not outweigh the right of self-defense.

    Prominent antiwar activist David Swanson wrote, “But unless we get back to disarmament, the long-term prospects for humanity are grim.

    I agree with Swanson’s assessment. As for disarmament, that is what Russia is carrying out right now in Ukraine. Weapons companies won’t be happy about that. However, it is high time that the Kellogg-Briand Pact be adhered to.

    Swanson continues, “Of course, NATO and everyone else have always wanted a neutral Ukraine, so this shouldn’t be such a huge hurdle.”

    This is puzzling. If NATO had wanted a neutral Ukraine all along, then why did NATO say yes to future Ukraine membership, albeit without specifying a date for joining? NATO even recognized Ukraine as an “enhanced opportunity partner.” Moreover, if the US-financed military biological program in Ukraine becomes verified, then it puts an emphatic kibosh to any talk of NATO having wanted a neutral Ukraine.

    Regarding the Russian demands, Swanson writes, “Of course, it is a horrible precedent to meet the demands of a warmaker.”

    But Ukraine is also a “warmaker” according to Swanson’s definition because it also wages war with Russia. Question: Did Swanson ever call Ukraine a “warmaker” back in 2014 for shelling Donbass? And just who made the war in Ukraine? Why did Russia “invade” Ukraine? Was it not Ukraine’s shelling of Donbass that precipitated an exodus of ethnic Russians into Russia and Ukraine’s refusal to abide by the Minsk Agreements that caused Russia, exasperated at the infidelity of its negotiating partners, to recognize the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics? Was it not Ukraine that made war — specifically, that was the initiator of making war? Was Ukraine not undermining Russian state security by seeking NATO membership and being loaded up with NATO weaponry? Ukraine became a proxy of the US. In actuality, the initiator of warmaking is not Ukraine but the US. Swanson has failed to point this out.

    And why does a wide swath of antiwar types focus inordinately on Russia in Ukraine? Israel (an occupier of historical Palestine) has been aggressing Palestine, Syria, Iran, Lebanon for several years. The US is occupying a large chunk of Syria and stealing its oil and wheat. The US military refuses to remove its military from Iraq although ordered to do so by the Iraqi parliament — in essence, a de facto military occupation. Meanwhile the continental US sits in occupation of Indigenous nations territory, in occupation of Hawai’i, Puerto Rico, Guantánamo Bay, Guam, Saipan, the ethnically cleansed Chagos archipelago. How do Israel and the US escape sanctions and continual censure for their warmaking?

    Yet, by “invading” Ukraine, Russia is poised to very quickly become a war-ender. The timetable for the war from the Russian side is undisclosed, but it appears Russia has been proceeding slowly to ensure minimal civilian casualties. This is not a prediction, however, with Ukraine becoming militarily depleted, it is not out of the question that by summer Russia will have ended a war that has raged since 2014 between Ukraine and Donbass.

    Swanson’s final paragraph reads: “One way to negotiate peace would be for Ukraine to offer to meet all of Russia’s demands and, ideally, more, while making demands of its own for reparations and disarmament. If the war goes on and ends someday with a Ukrainian government and a human species still around, such negotiations will have to happen. Why not now?”

    Fine, peace now would be great. But what is the reasoning behind Swanson’s demand that Russia should pay for reparations and disarmament to Ukraine? Will Swanson also demand that Ukraine pay reparations to Donbass? Will Ukraine pay reparations to Russia for dragging it into the mess it created at the behest of the US?

    If Ukraine should be demanding reparations, then it should be demanding them from US-NATO that in an abjectly cowardly manner abandoned (and thank goodness it did) its prospective NATO member to face Russia alone. And Swanson would do well to argue that the US-NATO pay reparations to Ukraine, Donbass, and Russia. And then the US should be demanded to pay reparations to a historical list of countries that it has criminally devastated.

    Nonetheless, I find it strange that the US warmaker extraordinaire and a neo-Nazi-infiltrated Ukraine are glanced over while blame is laid on Russia.

    Although I may dissent on the facts and logic proffered on the warring, I am unequivocally in solidarity with worldwide disarmament and ending war forever. That day, unfortunately, has not arrived yet.

    A Principled Antiwar Coalition

    The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) appears to have reached a principled antiwar position. I posed some questions based on their statement of Principles:

    Kim Petersen: “UNAC holds that the U.S. government…” From this I understand that the US military-industrial-governmental-etc nexus is the primary obstacle to a world without war. Is this correct?

    UNAC: Yes, the US government is the main imperialist power in the world and the main cause of war. It has about 20 times the number of foreign military bases as all other countries in the world and has a military budget that represents about 45% of the total military budget of all other countries. It has militarily intervened in other countries over 65 times in the past several decades. It is the only country that has used nuclear weapons on people.

    KP: “We support the right of all oppressed peoples, including colonized and formerly colonized countries, to determine their own road to liberation.” Does this grant the oppressed peoples the right to violently resist (at least equivalent to) the violence of oppression to liberate themselves?

    UNAC: Yes, the countries that the US has attacked and provoked have the right to defend themselves against US/NATO military aggression. The problem is that the US military has been much stronger than the countries it attracted until now.  This time, however, Russia is winning the proxy war against the combined might of the US-NATO and countries around the world are seeing that the “West” can be defeated. Even with its strong military, the people of Vietnam and Afghanistan were about to defeat the US military. Today to avoid the people of the US turning against their wars, they conduct proxy wars where others fight the battles. This was true in Libya, Syria and now they are showing their willingness to fight the war in Ukraine to the last Ukrainian.

    KP: Since UNAC supports “Mutual self-defense” how does UNAC view the denial of mutual security sought by Russia as justification to gain security through a special military operation?

    UNAC: The denial of Russian security was a deliberate strategy on the part of the US to provoke the war we are seeing today. The US thought that the war and the sanctions would cause regime change and the break-up of Russia. It is proving to be a mistake. The US provoked them by moving NATO up to their border, despite pledges not to do so. They have conducted “war games” on the Russian border and put nuclear capable missiles close to their borders. They created a coup in Ukraine to get rid of a government that wanted good relations with its neighbor and built the Ukraine military to the strongest in Europe. They trained them, armed them, gave them logistic support and paid for their military, all to try and defeat the Russian military. The US has never been interested in stability in the region or in Russian security. This has led to the war in Ukraine.

    *****
    If there is a warmaker or warmakers, then there must be a war-ender or war-enders. If by resisting a warmaker that one ends a war, then that should be, if not applauded, then, at least, tolerated by antiwar types. This holds especially true in the case of serial warmakers like the US. They say the bigger they are, the harder they fall. It appears that the US warmaking colossus is tottering toward an ungraceful fall in Ukraine. If so, then the peacemakers worldwide can breathe easier.

    The Antiwar Costa Rican Example

    In 1946, the pacifist physicist Albert Einstein wrote in a letter: “You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. The very prevention of war requires more faith, courage and resolution than are needed to prepare for war. We must all do our share, that we may be equal to the task of peace.”

    In 1949, the Central American country of Costa Rica courageously embraced the logic expressed by Einstein. Costa Rica set the example for other genuinely antiwar countries to follow when it abolished its army.

    Worldwide disarmament is required. This will, undoubtedly, be a most difficult fight — dismantling the military-industrial complex in the US and disassembling other militaries abroad. Yet peace would be the glorious reward for people everywhere. Imagine what could be achieved with military spending redirected to job creation, healthcare, education, infrastructure construction and maintenance, social security, environmental protection and enhancement, space exploration, a living wage, etc. Is a perpetual state of spending on killing really what people should accept from their governments?

    The post Total Worldwide Disarmament: Security Must Be for All Countries first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Anonymous Sources Are Newsworthy—When They Talk to NYT, Not Seymour Hersh

     

    NYT: Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say

    When the New York Times (3/7/23) makes a claim based on anonymous US officials, other media take note—because everyone knows anonymous US officials wouldn’t lie to the New York Times.

    The New York Times (3/7/23) on Tuesday ended its month-long boycott of veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh’s February 8 story claiming the US destroyed the Nord Stream gas pipeline.

    The Times didn’t challenge Hersh’s story. It barely mentioned it. Instead, the Times reported “new intelligence” that “suggests” a pro-Ukrainian group was responsible.

    No firm details are provided, simply speculation, and the only sources cited are anonymous US officials.

    Hersh’s source also is unnamed, but is described as having “direct knowledge of the operational planning” of the operation. In contrast to the Times story’s lack of specifics, Hersh’s 5,000-word narrative provides extensive details of how US officials—at the direction of President Joe Biden—planned and executed the operation, using US Navy divers who used the cover of a NATO naval exercise in June to plant explosives, which were remotely detonated September 26.

    Strikingly different treatment

    The response of the nation’s major news organizations to the two stories also couldn’t have been more different.

    While big news internationally, Hersh’s story was not reported by any of the major US corporate broadcast networks—NBC, ABC and CBS—or the public broadcasters, PBS and NPR. Nor did the nation’s major cable outlets, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, cover the story (FAIR.org, 3/3/23).

    WaPo: Intelligence officials suspect Ukraine partisans behind Nord Stream bombings, rattling Kyiv’s allies

    The Washington Post (3/7/23) proves that it too is able to find government officials willing to promote the official line with no accountability.

    The Washington Post ignored Hersh’s story for two weeks, and then mentioned it (2/22/23) only after Russia cited Hersh’s story in calling for a UN investigation of the bombing. But the Post didn’t hesitate to follow the Times later Tuesday with its own story (3/7/23), headlined “Intelligence Officials Suspect Ukraine Partisans Behind Nord Stream Bombings, Rattling Kyiv’s Allies.” Like the Times, the Post relied solely on anonymous sources to attribute responsibility for the sabotage, who provided little in the way of details about how the bombing was accomplished.

    In a striking example of how differently the large corporate news outlets treat Hersh, the Post credited its rival newspaper for breaking the story, but did not mention Hersh at all.

    The Post story did add one significant development—that shortly after the Times story was published, German news media had reported that investigators in Europe “had identified a small team of saboteurs using a yacht rented from a company in Poland that was ‘apparently owned by two Ukrainians.’”

    ‘First significant lead’

    Fox News (3/7/23) also jumped on the Times story later Tuesday, but added nothing new. Hersh’s story was mentioned in two sentences at the end of the story and described as a “blog post” that “the White House last month dismissed….”

    CNN (3/8/23) also reported the Times story within 24 hours, but with a new element: “The German prosecutors’ office told CNN Wednesday they searched a boat in January that was suspected of carrying explosives.” The CNN story did not mention Hersh.

    MSNBC: Intelligence suggests pro-Ukrainian group sabotaged pipelines, US Officials Say

    If the New York Times says so, it’s news (MSNBC, 3/8/23).

    That same day, MSNBC ran a segment featuring NBC News reporter Molly Hunter (3/8/23), who repeated the Times’ claim that its story was “the first significant lead” in the investigation of the bombing. It also failed to mention Hersh.

    A statement from German officials confirming that investigators in January had searched a vessel suspected of carrying explosives used in the bombing was reported by NBC News (3/8/23) and the Associated Press. The AP dispatch was picked up by ABC News (3/8/23) and PBS (3/8/23). All credited the Times story; none mentioned Hersh.

    NPR did its own report Wednesday (3/8/23), which referenced a high Ukrainian government official “questioning recent reports that a pro-Ukraine group was behind the undersea bombings.” The official was quoted saying the reports by the Times and Germany’s Die Zeit newspaper (3/7/23), which first reported the suspected involvement of a yacht, “had ‘lots of assumptions and anonymous conjecture but not real facts.’”

    While giving voice to skepticism about the Times story, NPR did not discuss Hersh’s alternative take.

    Summarizing the scorecard, all three major cable news outlets—CNN, MSNBC and Fox News—publicized the Times story within a day of publication. Of the five major corporate and public broadcasters, NBC, ABC, PBS and NPR carried the story; only CBS remained silent.

    As for Hersh, the blackout remains, with the sole exception of the two sentences totaling 49 words shirt-tailed to the Fox News report.

    AP embarrasses itself

    AP: A global mystery: What’s known about Nord Stream explosions

    What’s not known about Nord Stream explosions (AP, 3/8/23): how to spell Seymour Hersch [sic].

    The Associated Press (3/8/23) finally mentioned Hersh’s reporting late Wednesday, in a round-up piece headlined “A Global Mystery: What’s Known About Nord Stream Explosions.” But the 176-year-old nonprofit cooperative news agency, which prides itself on unbiased reporting adhering to old-school journalistic standards of objectivity, managed to both disrespect Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize winner and one of the most famous investigative reporters in the nation, and embarrass itself by misspelling his name:

    After months of few developments in the probes, American investigative journalist Seymour Hersch, known for past exposes of US government malfeasance, self-published a lengthy report in February alleging that President Joe Biden had ordered the sabotage, which Hersch said was carried out by the CIA with Norwegian assistance.

    That report, based on a single, unidentified source, has been flatly denied by the White House, the CIA and the State Department, and no other news organization has been able to corroborate it. Russia, followed by China, however, leaped on Hersch’s reporting, saying it was grounds for a new and impartial investigation conducted by the United Nations.

    The misspelling was not corrected until the next day.

    Zero times any number is zero

    Snopes: Claim That US Blew up Nord Stream Pipelines Relies on Anonymous Source

    Snopes (2/10/23) has not yet run a piece criticizing the New York Times article (3/7/23) for relying on anonymous sourcing.

    AP wasn’t alone in casting doubt about Hersh’s story by stressing it is “based on a single, unidentified source,” while failing to note the Times piece also rested entirely on anonymous “US officials.”

    A Business Insider piece (2/9/23) published the day after Hersh posted his story, derided his account of the bombing as an “evidence-free theory,” noting his claims “appear to rely on a single unnamed source.”

    Republished by Yahoo! (2/9/23) and MSN (2/9/23), the Business Insider article was the primary source of an article by the factchecking site Snopes (2/10/23), with the headline “Claim That US Blew up Nord Stream Pipelines Relies on Anonymous Source.”

    It can be argued that the New York Times was exempted from such criticism because it didn’t rely on just one source; the plural “US officials” appears 16 times in the story.

    But if Hersh’s unnamed source has zero credibility, then so does each source included under the umbrella of “US officials” at the Times. The laws of mathematics should apply: Zero times any number is still zero.

     

    The post Anonymous Sources <i>Are</i> Newsworthy—When They Talk to NYT, Not Seymour Hersh appeared first on FAIR.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • “One Day Our Luck Will Run Out”: Ukraine Nuclear Plant Loses Power Again

    The largest nuclear energy plant in Europe, located in southern Ukraine, lost all off-site power for the sixth time in a year as Russian forces carried out a massive missile attack on Thursday, once again raising fears of a nuclear catastrophe with continent-wide implications. Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, expressed dismay over the repeated near-misses…

    Source

  • Energy Anxiety

    After more than half a century of dependence on Russian oil and gas, the war in Ukraine has forced German officials to reconsider their reliance on fossil fuels entirely.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • Attack Of The “Pro-Ukrainian Group”: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

    Listen to a reading of this article:

    ❖

    The latest New York Times report on the Nord Stream pipeline bombing is something else. According to NYT’s anonymous US government sources, the pipelines were blown up by a “pro-Ukrainian group” who had no known connections to any military or intelligence agency, but somehow had all the information, skills, diving equipment and military explosives necessary to carry out such an attack.

    It’s actually insulting how stupid it is. It reads like a small child lying about who broke the lamp in the living room; “Uhh, some bad guy came in and broke it, then he left. He was wearing a black cape and had a twirly mustache.” At least respect us enough to make up a better lie than “Yeah it turns out it was just some random people with a boat, man! It’s crazy I know!”

    They literally wrote an entire article without ever addressing how bizarre it is to just keep referring to the alleged perpetrators as just a “group”. Like that’s a thing. “Yeah you know, one of those Groups we’ve all been hearing about in the news. You know Groups, they sail around the world destroying international undersea energy infrastructure.”

    class=”twitter-tweet” data-width=”550″>

    Remember kids, Sy Hersh's Nord Stream report is untrustworthy because it is unproven and relies on anonymous sources. pic.twitter.com/vu3RjlxgFf

    — Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 7, 2023

    Imagine having to tell this Scooby Doo-esque tale about a yacht of Ukraine-loving mischief-makers who pranked Europe’s energy supply like it’s a real thing. Like, “Oh come on, who among us has not taken a boatload of military explosives to go blow up international pipelines for fun with their friends?”

    ❖

    I’m finding myself growing more and more enraged at the way war with China is being aggressively pushed in Australia. There’s nothing more evil than starting a completely needless war for power and profit. The people who are pushing this monstrous depravity should be afraid to go out in public.

    War is the worst thing in the world, and a war between China and the US alliance would be the worst of all wars. The people who are trying to inflict this incomprehensible horror upon humanity (all in the name of securing US unipolar hegemony, mind you) are enemies to our species.

    People who beat the drums of world war should be treated with the same revulsion and rejection as child rapists and serial killers. They should be afraid to show their faces outside, and in a remotely sane society, they would be. In a remotely sane society, people who even attempted to shove hot garbage like this down people’s throats would be driven out of every town they tried to enter. They’d die miserable, cold and alone in a cave somewhere, nibbling on bats and fungus.

    ❖

    Notice how there’s bipartisan support for escalations against Russia with the occasional voice of sanity permitted on the Republican side, and there’s bipartisan support for escalations against China with the occasional voice of sanity permitted on the Democrat side:

    class=”twitter-tweet” data-width=”550″>

    Has Washington's hawkish consensus on China created a more secure world for Americans and others?

    Or are we moving down a path that takes us toward decades of arms races, crises, perhaps even war?

    My take: pic.twitter.com/EVulU182Aw

    — Fareed Zakaria (@FareedZakaria) March 5, 2023

    The Democrats furiously promote escalations against Russia with Republicans playing a more passive accepting role, and Republicans furiously promote escalations against China with Democrats playing a more passive accepting role. Each carries forward different parts of the agenda.

    In this way the empire prevents partisans from arguing about if cold war escalations should occur, and gets them arguing instead about how and where they should occur. The debate isn’t “Should we militarize against a powerful country?” it’s “Should we militarize against Russia or against China?”

    ❖

    American exceptionalism means the rules apply to everyone except America.

    ❖

    The US is like one of those annoying dogs that’s always barking at the neighbors and at passersby on the street because it thinks they are trespassing on its property.

    ❖

    class=”twitter-tweet” data-width=”550″>

    Can someone please explain to me why @washingtonpost needs to give regular opinion columns to John Bolton, Max Boot, Jennifer Rubin AND Josh Rogin, when all four of them have the exact same warmongering neoconservative ideology and all the exact same opinions? pic.twitter.com/7IrGdZcgj3

    — Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 6, 2023

    ❖

    When lots of Russians are dying I get empire simps saying “Haha I bet you’re sad you evil bitch,” when lots of Ukrainians are dying I get empire simps saying “Ooh I bet you’re happy you evil bitch,” but really I’m just angry knowing the US empire could have prevented all this with a little diplomacy and a few low-cost concessions.

    ❖

    Don’t call it a “proxy war”. By calling it a proxy war you are denying Ukraine’s sovereignty as a sovereign US military asset and its agency to do whatever the US wants it to do.

    ❖

    Wikipedia is one of the most brilliant tools of imperial narrative management ever devised. The ways it’s stacked in favor of the empire are hidden behind the illusory alibi of being a people-driven information source, so its readers have no idea they’re consuming propaganda.

    class=”twitter-tweet” data-width=”550″>

    My Wikipedia page claims I “promote conspiracy theories” about Syria's Douma incident.

    In reality, I report on leaks from the OPCW investigation of Douma. Does reporting on leaked documents that happen to undermine pro-war NATO claims mean promoting "conspiracy theories" now? pic.twitter.com/r32ffvgGjr

    — Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) March 4, 2023

    Ben Norton had a great write-up with the Grayzone a few years ago on the way Wikipedia’s fraudulent narrative about itself as a free encyclopedia maintained by a community of volunteers through open collaboration masks a top-down control system slanted to favor the empire. Like all the best tools of imperial control, Wikipedia disguises itself as a populist instrument of the people while being owned and operated by individuals with deep ties to status quo power. But how many people who visit Wikipedia are familiar with articles like the above and the facts laid out therein? Almost none of them. It’s one of the most-visited websites in the world, and people don’t know this.

    Sometimes all you can do is stop and stare in slack-jawed marvel at how ingenious the empire is at manipulating the ways people think about their world. It’s depraved, it’s abusive, and it’s profoundly destructive, but by God is it brilliant.

    Just imagine what humanity could accomplish if our species was pouring all its innovation and ingenuity into coming up with ways to make the world a better place for everyone instead of figuring out the best ways to control people’s thoughts, reap massive profits, and wage wars.

    _________________

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, or buying an issue of my monthly zine. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

    Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

     

  • Reject the Left-Right Alliance Against Ukraine

    If American leftists take seriously their commitment to self-rule and loathing of foreign aggression, they should shed their ambivalence about supporting Ukraine.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • Zelenskiy vows to ‘find the murderers’ of PoW allegedly shot dead by Russians

    Ukrainian president’s comments come after video appears to show killing of unarmed combatant

    Volodymyr Zelenskiy has vowed to “find the murderers” of an unarmed Ukrainian prisoner of war apparently shot dead by Russian troops as the Ukrainian military named the man it said was in the footage that spread rapidly across social media on Monday.

    In the graphic 12-second clip that first circulated on Telegram and was widely shared on Twitter, a detained combatant, named by the Ukrainian military as Tymofiy Mykolayovych Shadura, is seen standing in a shallow trench smoking a cigarette. The soldier, in uniform with a Ukrainian flag insignia on his arm, says “Glory to Ukraine” and is then apparently shot with automatic weapons.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Ukraine urges ICC to investigate video appearing to show Russians killing PoW

    Graphic clip shows detained combatant standing in a shallow trench before being apparently shot

    Ukraine has urged the international criminal court to investigate footage circulating on social media that appeared to show Russian fighters killing a Ukrainian prisoner of war.

    In the graphic clip that first circulated on Telegram, a detained combatant is seen standing in a shallow trench and smoking a cigarette. The soldier says “Glory to Ukraine” and is then apparently shot with automatic weapons.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Commodity Speculators Reap Record-Shattering Profits Amid Global Hunger Crisis

    As much of the world reeled from high energy and food prices that left millions struggling to heat their homes and feed their families, commodity trading firms that benefit from extreme market volatility brought in record-breaking profits in 2022, capitalizing on chaos spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Citing new research from the consulting firm Oliver Wyman, the Financial Times reported…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • EU Fails to Comply with Grain-Export Deal

    On Saturday, March 4, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, at the G20 meeting in Delhi, announced that because the EU has refused to comply with its side of the U.N.-brokered 27 July 2022 “Grain [and fertilizer] Deal” that the U.N. brokered in Istanbul on 27 July 2022, Russia will likewise not comply with it, starting on March 18.

    On February 8, Reuters had headlined “Russia: EU not fulfilling promises on grain deal,” and reported that the deal was in jeopardy because of the EU’s continued violations of it that were supplying super-inexpensive food to the EU while continuing to block food going to Africa — for which latter purpose the deal had been mainly designed.

    Then, on Saturday March 4, Russia’s Tsargrad news site headlined “The Rejection of the Grain Deal Will Force Russia to Resolve the Issue of Odessa. And This is a Significant Event.” By implication, it was interpreting Lavrov’s statement to reflect that Ukraine’s main Black Sea port of Odessa (which has historically been overwhelmingly pro-Russian), which is the port through which Ukraine’s agricultural exports are shipped, might soon be taken over by Russia because the EU is using it to provide economic benefits to the EU and to Ukraine while starving and/or soaring food-cost inflation in Africa, will no longer continue to be tolerated by Russia. In other words: Africa and Russia were being cheated by the EU and Ukraine, and Russia will cease that starting March 18.

    On March 3, Tsargrad had bannered “Ammonia Instead of Wheat. What Will Russia Gain by Breaking the ‘Grain Deal’,” and it explained that:

    The grain deal, about the need for which “our Western partners” spoke so much, can be terminated without any possibility of renewal in the near future. If this happens, then Ukraine will lose the opportunity to earn money on dumped wheat exports, Turkey will lose a fair amount of profits from participating in the transit of this grain and a fair amount of political influence as an intermediary between Russia and its opponents. The European Union will lose a significant part of the grain in its market – the very one that it had promised the poorest African countries would be the deal’s primary beneficiaries, but which turned out to be much more necessary for EU bakers and confectioners, instead of gto Africans who need bread and fertilizers.

    In general, it will be bad for everyone. Except Russia. Russia will not lose anything, because it didn’t gain anything from the deal.

    If Russia takes over Odessa, then Ukraine could very well become an entirely land-locked country, without its only sea-access, which now is via Odessa. The EU and Ukraine would have — by their refusals to comply with the grain deal — considerably increased that likelihood (which would harm the longer-term interests both of Ukraine and the EU).

    In any case, the status of Odessa is now going to be a far more important issue in this war that it had been until now. It will no longer be an issue for Africa, because the July 27 deal didn’t benefit Africa at all (which it had been promised to do). Odessa will instead be purely an issue between Ukraine and Russia.

    The post EU Fails to Comply with Grain-Export Deal first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • All US Presidents are War Criminals

    This is a US war on Russia. Period.

    We have to be very clear, even to the point of being blunt. By ‘we’ I mean those of us involved who are conscious of being part of an Information War–the propaganda war that we are recipients of—on the receiving end of this tsunami of crap. We have to say things flat without fear and without compromise. This is a US war on Russia. Period. Now why do we have to say this? Why should we say it so bluntly?

    The propaganda matrix is so powerful that people, especially within the bubble–that is, within what people call NATOstan. This is the ‘civilized’ world, 15% of the human population. The West. People are so confused and so propagandized that it’s almost as if they have no sense of pattern recognition, or have never read a chapter book. This is a war, a US war against Russia. Why? Because the US is NATO. What is NATO? NATO is a Horribles Parade costume, it’s a Halloween mask. It’s just the US–the extension of the US military around the world by another name. Pure and simple.

    Now when you find all of these things that they’re finding, all the material, all of the connections and the proof that NATO is much more involved than they claim. This is to say that the US is involved. This is the extension of the US. Again: why? Because the US is at war with everybody. The US is involved in its forever war against every*body* and every*thing.* Sometimes the mask slips and people see it. But they hide behind proxies, they hide behind local conflicts, they make it seems like they are doing something else. But they are involved.

    Anglo-US Empire struggling to keep things as they are

    The United States Empire, the inheritors of the UK Empire–so the Anglo-US Empire is involved in a struggle to keep things as they are. They are in the very last throes the death throes I think–of a 500-year history of slaughter and plunder that has kept all of the wealth in the world funneling upwards to them. And the question is not it can they do it, but rather why can’t they see that it’s a completely impossible thing.

    US to send $100 million in additional military aid to Ukraine

    The US announced on 5 April that it would send up to $100 million in additional military aid to Ukraine.

    This is a war against time, against history. Think of the unimaginable arrogance it takes to think that you can freeze time. Why are they going to fail? Because no Empire has succeeded in freezing time. You’re done! It’s over–leave the stage politely, with a gracious bow and support what’s coming next. But no. The unspeakable hubris it takes not only to try to shape the development of life, but to stop it. and this is how you know that they are at work. They’re at work in Ukraine; but that’s not enough: while they’re doing that, they have to try to overthrow Imran Khan in Pakistan. They have to go and threaten Modi in India not to pay too much in Rubles with Russia. Not to have too much Rupee-Ruble shenanigans because we don’t like that, right?

    They try to threaten Orban in Hungary by having the EU accuse them of erosion of democracy. Orban’s great crime is to say he’s going to be closer to Russia. Same with Vuccic in Serbia. You know, these are people who are our increasingly not going to be cowed.

    I don’t know exactly why–within the bubble–why people are so malleable. I mean it’s really incredible how susceptible people are in the Western so-called democracies, where the news is so censored and so filtered that it’s a wonder that they know anything at all. They have this farce–they are pumping up support for this chapter of the Forever War (which they call the Ukraine War) by advertising it in an award show. They have Zelensky prost…ing himself by appearing at the Grammy’s! The National Gallery changes the title of Degas’ work to say Ukrainian Dancers instead of Russian Dancers. Then all the stuff I’ve talked about before, the boycott on Russian vodka, what have you. Whatever. And they are so deep in this–this is inside the bubble–that you cannot talk about any of the real things that are happening.

    Yes, there are Nazis! How do we know? Because the US has been working with them since the 1940s. And with their parents and their grandparents. There’s no secret about this. Even these liberal intellectuals and so-called politically conscious and aware types would have admitted this. This was not controversial even a year or two ago. There were articles everywhere about the Nazi problem in Ukraine, about using the Nazis. Again we come back the notion of pattern recognition. Why are they so surprised? Why is it such a shock?

    Somoza was a Nazi. In Chile Pinochet was a Nazi. They always use these people as their proxies. Why would Ukraine be any different? Maybe it’s because de-Nazification was never really finished in Germany to begin with. They didn’t really like it too much the first time around because defeating communism became more important. Meh. Nazi, schmazi. We took Werner Von Braun, which Tom Lehrer even wrote a song about. De-Nazification, say in Bavaria: 75% of the Nazis identified were rehabilitated. Then they formed the CSU which was part of the basis for Adenauer’s first government.

    Why the US attempted to topple Pakistan’s government

    The US attempted to topple the government of Pakistani PM Imran Khan because “he would not allow US military bases there and because he will not toe the line on Russia.”

    It was never taken seriously and there were always greater threats. Communism was a greater threat. Why is there a Red Scare in the US but the German Bund was allowed to have its Nazis twenty-five thousand strong at Madison Square Garden? We’ve always known which side they were on. They were never serious about it and they’re not serious now. So what is interesting is how the rest of the world thinks. Because they have never been stupid about any of this.

    The American Empire is in a war against humanity

    Europeans love to talk about the Cold War. Well, it wasn’t that cold—ask the people in Vietnam whether it was cold or hot. Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar. Or Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador? Argentina–the Dirty War. Chile—the disappeared. Algeria, Uganda, Rwanda with the divisions that were sown by the Empire. Angola, Mozambique, South Africa itself. The Congo with King Leopold’s murderous reign and NATO’s role in the killing of Lumumba. Palestine? I mean seriously? Are these people serious? The US president gets to call the Russian president a thug and a war criminal? All US presidents are war criminals! This is why when people asked why are we so confident not only when we say it’s a US war against Russia, US war against the world. Why then are we all so sanguine that they will lose, these forces that are trying to stop time?

    It comes back to all the same philosophers is that Dr. King quoted: William Cullen Bryant, the truth crushed to earth will rise again or Thomas Carlyle no lie can live forever. All these things are still true. Ukraine is NATO is the US. The Africans know it, the Indians know it, the Chinese know it, the South Americans and Central Americans know it. This is 85% of humanity. The American Empire is in a war against humanity.

    So how are we so sure, when I hear about the particulars–you have to zoom in every once in awhile. The Maternity Hospital in Mariupol being bombed? Well I don’t know how; I’ll wait and see. Then the model appears in an interview and says it was Ukrainians. The ghost of Kiev? Hmmm, I’m not sure…turns out to be a video game. The Snake Island Heroes who died so heroically yet wound up being videotaped later on having surrendered. The Russian bombing of the Zaporozhie power plant story which Russians were guarding turned out to be too risible to be true. Now this current massacre where bodies are sitting up and waving at the camera. You know, you have to wait because they’ve always use these tricks. It’s not new–pattern recognition! The next chapter–look ahead and sneak a peek at the cliff notes, if you want to stay sane and stay alive.

    And then you have the people involved who want us to feel guilty: the pressure! The pressure to be anti-Russia on the people inside the West… Now, outside people are a little bit freer, so it’s a push back against that that hubris, having been NATO’s victims. Having been subjects of the hot side of the Cold War, they will just tell NATO and the US, as my father said, to take a long walk off a short pier. It is absolutely clear, and we have to present it as such. Or, to quote an Afro-Russian poet, Alexander Pushkin: Для меня/ Так это ясно, как простая гамма. this is as clear to me as a simple sum. And we have to stay strong, and keep our eyes on the fight of our lives, the lives of humanity and the life of the whole world. History is on our side.

    The post All US Presidents are War Criminals first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Voices Against War

    Read Parts 1 and 2.

    The sooner the war in Ukraine is over, the sooner the U.S. and Russia can get down to the business of preserving arms control as a viable part of the relationship between the two nations.

    By seeking to extend the Ukraine conflict, however, the U.S. is in effect engaging in an act of self-immolation that threatens to engulf the world in a nuclear holocaust.

    — former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter

    It is an imperative, and it must be a universal principle of all morally conscious people that war is anathema and militaries should be abolished everywhere, at least on the national level. (I leave open space for the establishment and maintenance of a genuinely international military force under a nonaligned international command to uphold the disarmament and abolishment of national and extranational militaries.)

    In the article, “On the Left and Violence in Syria: The imperialist Violence in Syria, Part 7,” B.J. Sabri and I discussed violence in the context of mortal struggle between or inside nation states and the need to consider the factors that generated it. It is a given that every decent person in the world should decry the killing of kids, women, elderly, and civilians of all ages anywhere, and this includes men; there is no debate on this point. However, our rage, analysis, and criticism should be directed primarily and even exclusively on all those governments whose involvement in imperialism, warring, and killing that create death, destruction, and tragedies.

    However, the root causes of warring must be addressed, and not all warring must be considered as equivalent. Morality and principles must guide us in how we address warring.

    Earlier, I argued: “As a principle, resistance to oppression must be an inalienable right no matter what the type of resistance it may be. Blame for any violent resistance must never be laid on the oppressed but rather on the oppressor because oppression in itself is violent and when one suffers violence then violent resistance becomes justified as self-defense.”

    Numerous anti-imperialist writers from around the world are antiwar. Yet, not all clearly distinguish between the initiator of the violence, resistance to the initial violence, and machinations that corner a rival country which then fights it way out from the corner.

    Ted Glick, antiwar activist and author of Burglar for Peace, wrote on 24 February,

    The Ukraine/Russia war continues to be, at root, a battle for national self-determination by Ukraine against an imperialist power, Russia. Disturbingly, there continue to be leftist groups and individuals in the US who deny this fact.

    I demurred with his contention that it was “a battle for national self-determination by Ukraine against an imperialist power, Russia,” so I asked Ted Glick,

    How do you define NATO’s massive eastward encroachment to Russia’s border? Yet, you define Russia as an imperialist for defending its security after its proposal of a mutual security agreement was rejected by US-NATO-Ukraine. It sure seems to me that Russia asked for a win-win from all parties, and that the blame lies on those who rejected security for all.

    Glick replied,

    An invasion by 125,000 troops into a neighboring country isn’t ‘defending its security,’ it is imperialist aggression.

    Peace advocate Jan Oberg, co-founder of the The Transnational Foundation (a think tank dedicated to bringing about “peace by peaceful means”), wrote in an email missive on 8 April 2022:

    It’s time to say it clear and loud: Russia is responsible for its illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine. The West is responsible for its military, economic and political reaction to it and for NATO’s expansion before it. And Ukraine’s leaders are responsible for how they operated 2014-2022.

    And it is every social science intellectual’s duty to do comparative studies – to compare also this war with other wars over the last 30 years, the far majority of which conducted illegally and immorally by the US and NATO allies – and with many times worse consequences than the war on Ukraine has so far had.

    I asked Jan Oberg,

    My reading from the above is that Russia acted without provocation. So provocation (unless you reject that) based on a rejection of mutual security and knowing full well what US imperialism has wreaked over the years up to today only makes the West responsible for their reaction to Russia’s invasion? This strikes me as the onus being placed on Russia. Others argue that the SMO was legal (e.g., Scott Ritter). Immoral. Yes, killing in isolation is immoral, but killing in self-defense is not immoral. Allowing a serious threat to the lives and livelihoods of the Russian people to continue to encroach closer with an agenda to carve up Russia and siphon off its resources would be a dereliction of a government’s duty, no?

    Oberg replied,

    No, the invasion was by no means unprovoked – I would never use that stupid NATO phrase/lie.

    In terms of a bit of philosophy, each of us are responsible for how we choose to react to a provocation – and other acts.  There is no automaticity that legitimates violent actions – I am too much of a Gandhian to believe in that. And that what I said here, today a year ago:

    https://transnational.live/2022/02/25/there-were-alternatives-why-russia-should-not-have-bombed-ukraine/

    Secondly, all my arguments are written up here – but I admit it is a long one:

    https://transnational.live/2022/08/18/the-tff-abolish-nato-catalogue/

    It’s one long argument that NATO has made the mother of all blunders – in trying to getting Ukraine into NATO and NATO into Ukraine. A series of scholars – including I myself – warned that war would be the outcome. Nobody listened to us – not even to (now CIA’s) William Burns (see my latest article) and also not to any Russian leader for 30 years.

    Even so, I would argue, the invasion was not acceptable – although understandable/explainable.

    David Swanson of War Is A Crime.org, has been an unrelenting opponent of war — a principled sentiment. What sane and morally guided person doesn’t share this sentiment? Although opposition to warmaking is a unifying factor of antiwar types, there is room for dissent as to what constitutes warmaking and the legitimacy of different forms of warring. For instance, Swanson lumps together warmaking and the warring of a resistance, such that he criticizes all violence, even that in self-defense, as reprehensible. Not only is such lumping flawed but it is arguably a barrier to attaining a world in which there is no more war. If one fails to unequivocally differentiate between offensive violence (what I would define as “warmaking,” although an equally apt term may be “aggression.”) and the violence of self-defense or joint defense of an ally under attack (which is not “warmaking” – except in an Orwellian sense – but is more aptly defined as “resistance.”) George Orwell was scathing in his rejection of pacifism: “Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other.”1

    In response to a 3 September 2019 article, “Nonviolence Denial Is As Dangerous As Climate Denial” by Swanson, I interviewed him to discern how he could seemingly equate all actors in a war notwithstanding why the warring started and why the warring actors where engaged. I find some of his statements factually inaccurate, logically and ethically flawed, and evasive.

    For example, Swanson cited, by way of Stephen Zunes, “Mariupol became the largest city to be liberated from control by Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine…” This is propaganda for NATO. Another writer would have noted that the US engineered a coup in Ukraine to overthrow the elected government using neo-Nazis, to which a resistance arose in the east of Ukraine.

    In a similar vein to Oberg, Swanson presents as a successful passive resistance the Gandhian example in India. Of this, George Orwell wrote, “As an ex-Indian civil servant, it always makes me shout with laughter to hear, for instance, Gandhi named as an example of the success of non-violence. As long as twenty years ago it was cynically admitted in Anglo-Indian circles that Gandhi was very useful to the British government.”1 Those people who were subservient to British empire in the Indian subcontinent could be considered accomplices in a genocide that has been calculated to number 100 million.

    *****

    As for the problem with pacifism, to get at the core of the matter, I present a scenario from which readers can draw their own conclusions.

    Imagine that a person unfamiliar to you suddenly punches you in the face. You recoil from the blow and massage your sore jaw. Somehow you stifle any physical retaliation. Instead you try to understand why this stranger would assault you. He replies, “Just because I don’t like your face.”

    He comes at you again with his fist, and it lands in your solar plexus. You are bent over and winded by the blow. Then he kicks you in the side. At this point you fully understand that the attacker is going to continue to inflict physical violence against you.

    Two questions for readers to ponder:

    1) Seeing no other options, if you defend yourself physically, are you blameworthy for any part of the violence?

    2) Are you then a “violence-maker” along with the attacker who threw the first punches without any legitimate justification?

    *****

    While non-violent resistance sounds righteous. I submit that a violent attacker prefers nothing better than to target a passive “resistor”? What good is being self-righteous when you are hospitalized or dead, leaving behind your family and friends to fend for themselves and their potentially becoming the next targets for violence? I side with the logic proffered by the anti-racist revolutionary Malcolm X:

    I myself would go for nonviolence if it was consistent, if everybody was going to be nonviolent all the time. I’d say, okay, let’s get with it, we’ll all be nonviolent. But I don’t go along with any kind of nonviolence unless everybody’s going to be nonviolent…. But as long as you’ve got somebody else not being nonviolent, I don’t want anybody coming to me talking any nonviolent talk.2

    Readers ought to reach their own conclusions and consider the above scenario while reading the following interview with Swanson.

    *****

    Kim Petersen: I am thoroughly antiwar, and I’d like to see every nation disarm. However, I grant the victims of attack the right to defend against and resist attacks. This does not come through to me in your latest piece. So I pose the following questions.

    David Swanson: Because I disagree with it. 🙂

    KP: You wrote: “I severely criticized my fellow peace activists when some of them cheered for Russian bombings in Syria. I even went after Russia for its warmaking in Syria repeatedly on Russian television.”

    I agree that warmaking is a heinous crime. And as I understand it, you condemn all warring. Nonetheless, for warring to occur there has to be a starting point and, I submit that a war does not usually start simultaneously between/among combatants. Therefore, I ask if a party makes war against your country, how should you respond? Would you not defend your country?

    DS: Usually this is asked as “Do the Iraqis get to fight back?” since it’s the U.S. doing most of the aggression. The short answer to that question is that if the aggressor would have refrained, no defense would have been needed. Turning resistance to U.S. wars around into justification for further U.S. military spending is common on this topic, yet too twisted even for a K Street lobbyist.

    The slightly longer answer is that it’s generally not the proper role for someone born and living in the United States to advise people living under U.S. bombs that they should experiment with nonviolent resistance.

    But the right answer is a bit more difficult than either of those. It’s an answer that becomes clearer if we look at both foreign invasions and revolutions/civil wars. There are more of the latter to look at, and there are more strong examples to point to. But the purpose of theory, including Anti-Just-War theory, should be to help generate more real-world examples of superior outcomes, such as in the use of nonviolence against foreign invasions.

    Studies like Erica Chenoweth’s have established that nonviolent resistance to tyranny is far more likely to succeed, and the success far more likely to be lasting, than with violent resistance.3 So if we look at something like the nonviolent revolution in Tunisia in 2011, we might find that it meets as many criteria as any other situation for a Just War, except that it wasn’t a war at all. One wouldn’t go back in time and argue for a strategy less likely to succeed but likely to cause a lot more pain and death. Perhaps doing so might constitute a Just War argument. Perhaps a Just War argument could even be made, anachronistically, for a 2011 U.S. “intervention” to bring democracy to Tunisia (apart from the United States’ obvious inability to do such a thing, and the guaranteed catastrophe that would have resulted). But once you’ve done a revolution without all the killing and dying, it can no longer makes sense to propose all the killing and dying — not if a thousand new Geneva Conventions were created, and no matter the imperfections of the nonviolent success.

    Despite the relative scarcity of examples thus far of nonviolent resistance to foreign occupation, there are those already beginning to claim a pattern of success. Here’s Stephen Zunes:

    “Nonviolent resistance has also successfully challenged foreign military occupation. During the first Palestinian intifada in the 1980s, much of the subjugated population effectively became self-governing entities through massive noncooperation and the creation of alternative institutions, forcing Israel to allow for the creation of the Palestine Authority and self-governance for most of the urban areas of the West Bank. Nonviolent resistance in the occupied Western Sahara has forced Morocco to offer an autonomy proposal which — while still falling well short of Morocco’s obligation to grant the Sahrawis their right of self-determination — at least acknowledges that the territory is not simply another part of Morocco.

    “In the final years of German occupation of Denmark and Norway during WWII, the Nazis effectively no longer controlled the population. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia freed themselves from Soviet occupation through nonviolent resistance prior to the USSR’s collapse. In Lebanon, a nation ravaged by war for decades, thirty years of Syrian domination was ended through a large-scale, nonviolent uprising in 2005. And last year, Mariupol became the largest city to be liberated from control by Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine, not by bombings and artillery strikes by the Ukrainian military, but when thousands of unarmed steelworkers marched peacefully into occupied sections of its downtown area and drove out the armed separatists.”4

    One might look for potential in numerous examples of resistance to the Nazis, and in German resistance to the French invasion of the Ruhr in 1923, or perhaps in the one-time success of the Philippines and the ongoing success of Ecuador in evicting U.S. military bases, plus of course the Gandhian example from India. But the far more numerous examples of nonviolent success over domestic tyranny also provide a guide toward future action.

    To be morally right, nonviolent resistance to an actual attack need not appear more likely to succeed than violent. It only need appear somewhat close to as likely. Because if it succeeds it will do so with less harm, and its success will be more likely to last.

    KP: And if you and your allies engage in defense, does that mean that you are a “warmaker”?

    DS: That would depend on whether your defense uses war.

    KP: Sorry, I should have elaborated. If you use the physical violence characteristic of warring to defend against a war launched against you, does that make you a “warmaker”?

    DS: Yes, if you wage war you wage war.

    which does not mean Hitler = Roosevelt = Castro

    it just means if you wage war you wage war

    KP: In the case of Syria, the legitimate government (meaning that it governs the country and is recognized as the government by other countries) found itself under physical attack, (and for the sake of argument whether we agree or not on this point) is that government not allowed to defend itself from physical threat?

    DS: The simple answer of yes or no in a particular circumstance as well as the answer to “How much mass slaughter is acceptably characterized as defense”? is not empirically answerable by a scientist or a lawyer and, as you know, is answered by the U.S. and allied nations as they see fit. What I would consider a moral answer is of course a completely different one.

    KP: You wrote: “If the United States and Russia escalate a joint bombing campaign in Syria, things will go from very bad to even worse for those not killed in the process.”

    With all due respect, this comes across as an assertion; one could equally assert the opposite: if fanatical “insurgents,” “rebels,” “mercenaries,” etc. (whatever monikers one wishes to attach to the forces seeking to depose the government) are allowed to attack without resistance and depose the government then the situation will surely become a hell, and the evidence for this is the smoldering carcass of the formerly leading African nation of Libya.

    DS: It’s not an assertion. It’s a guarantee. But it’s not exclusive of your worry, as the U.S. is not setting aside overthrowing the government and throwing the region into chaos and likely putting ISIS in power. Clinton says Obama was wrong not to bomb and overthrow the government three years ago, and she intends to do so.

    KP: You wrote: “Of course the U.S. went ahead with arming and training and bombing on a much smaller scale. Of course Russia joined in, killing even more Syrians with its bombs than the United States was doing, and it was indeed deeply disturbing to see U.S. peace activists cheer for that. Of course the Syrian government went on with its bombings and other crimes, and of course it’s disturbing that some refuse to criticize those horrors, just as it’s disturbing that others refuse to criticize the U.S. or Russian horrors or both, or refuse to criticize Saudi Arabia or Turkey or Iran or Israel.”

    By trying to come across as evenhanded in your criticism, I submit a bias arises. Do you agree or disagree that if Saudi-, Qatari-, western-backed “rebels” had not launched/supported an attempted coup that there would have been no need for the Syrian government to defend the country (and, of course, the government) and there would have been no need to ask Russia to intervene or Iran or Hezbollah?

    DS: The Syrian government cracked down on a mostly Syrian opposition before it became such a proxy war — which excuses the ongoing mass murder by absolutely nobody. [This narrative by Swanson has been compellingly refuted by independent journalist Eva Bartlett who has often been on the ground in Syria during the fighting.5 ]

    KP: If my contention is factual, then why focus equal blame on the resistance to the “rebels”? The rebels made war, and this gave rise to resist the “rebels.”

    DS: Blaming everyone engaged in making a situation worse does not mean blaming them all equally, and I have certainly never tried to imply such a thing which would of course be ridiculous.

    Part 4: Ending war for once and all.

    1. George Orwell, “Pacifism and the War.”
    2. Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks (New York: Grove Press, 1965): 138.
    3. Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (Columbia University Press, 2012).
    4. Stephen Zunes, “Alternatives to War from the Bottom Up.”
    5. From Eva Bartlett, “Deconstructing the NATO Narrative on Syria,” Dissident Voice, 10 October 2015:

      Yet, it is known that from the beginning, in Dara’a and throughout Syria, armed protesters were firing upon, and butchering, security forces and civilians. Tim Anderson’s “Syria: how the violence began, in Daraa” pointed out that police were killed by snipers in the March 17/18 protests; the Syrian army was only brought to Dara’a following the murder of the policemen. Additionally, a storage of protesters’ weapons was found in Dara’a’s al-Omari mosque.

      Prem Shankar Jha’s, “Who Fired The First Shot?” described the slaughter of 20 Syrian soldiers outside Dara’a a month later, “by cutting their throats, and cutting off the head of one of the soldiers.” A very “moderate”-rebel practice.

      In “Syria: The Hidden Massacre” Sharmine Narwani investigated the early massacres of Syrian soldiers, noting that many of the murders occurred even after the Syrian government had abolished the state security courts, lifted the state of emergency, granted general amnesties, and recognized the right to peaceful protest.

      The April 10, 2011 murder of Banyas farmer Nidal Janoud was one of the first horrific murders of Syrian civilians by so-called “unarmed protesters.” Face gashed open, mutilated and bleeding, Janoud was paraded by an armed mob, who then hacked him to death.

      Father Frans Van der Ludt—the Dutch priest living in Syria for nearly 5 decades prior to his April 7, 2014 assassination by militants occupying the old city of Homs—wrote (repeatedly) of the “armed demonstrators” he saw in early protests, “who began to shoot at the police first.”

    The post Voices Against War first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Why Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 Was Legal

    Under international law, “aggression” (or “aggressive war”) has never yet been defined so as to separate it clearly from “defensive war” (or “defense”), and this murkiness is the U.N.’s most fundamental failure to-date, because the U.N. was supposed to have been formed in order to prevent a World War Three (WW III), which is impossible to do unless the meaning of “defense” is clear and defense is clearly legal, and the meaning of “aggression” is clear and aggression is clearly illegal; but, a definition is here employed in which “aggression” is anything that endangers a country’s existence or sovereignty over its legal territory, and “defense” is anything that is provoked by (i.e., in response to) “aggression” and that consequently has been forced upon a country as the only reasonable alternative to allowing itself to be taken over by an “aggressor” country. In this definition (a reasonable and practical definition — as opposed to the U.N.’s absence of any definition), “aggression” can be perpetrated by any means, not ONLY military, but also by such means as a coup, or international subversion, or illegal international sanctions — any means whatsoever that can be used in order to seize control over another country (i.e., over a different sovereign nation’s Government). The U.S. Government has always opposed any definition of “aggression” and has always refused even to consider any proposed definition of it that would include anything else than military aggression because America routinely uses non-military forms of aggression (such as coups, and sanctions) and demands to be always able to continue to do so without being called an “aggressor.” This is simply a fact and is the reason why the U.N. is nothing more than a talking-forum and a sump for refugees and any other problems that powerful countries intend to give only lip-service to addressing — it has no significant international power at all. (NOTE: Anyone who doubts that the U.N. has utterly failed to define “aggression” will see in the final paragraph here — which will be entirely in parentheses — a discussion of the U.N.’s absurd, even outright circular, latest formal proposal to deal with that matter.)

    The war in Ukraine is further complicated in international law because clearly Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 constitutes a danger to Ukraine’s sovereignty; but the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis established a fundamental case-law precedent thereafter, by means of which any major international power — in that instance the United States — has a right in international law to prevent any nearby nation from being able to be used by another major international power — in that instance the Soviet Union — to position military forces there that endanger the national security or sovereignty of a major power (in that instance of the United States); and, consequently, the U.S. Government was behaving defensively (against the Soviet Union), instead of aggressively (against Cuba), when it restricted Cuba’s Government from enabling the Soviet Government to position its forces (specifically its nuclear forces) on that island.

    What will be argued here is that that international legal precedent applies universally in international law and that the war in Ukraine was started by the U.S. Government by means of its coup in Ukraine, which replaced an authentically neutral Government there by a rabidly anti-Russian government there (that possessed and possesses no legitimacy even under Ukraine’s Constitution at that time), and that Russia’s Government consequently has an international-law right to take control over Ukraine’s Government in order for Russia to be able to protect itself against America’s Government — which is the aggressor here. Russia is the defender of its own sovereign territory; and Ukraine is merely the battlefield upon which this war between the aggressor America and the defender Russia is being waged.

    Since the topic here is international law, not any national law, only national Governments are involved; and this means that a civil war, or war within a country, is NOT even possibly a matter that the U.N. can reasonably become involved in or have any authority to make pronouncements about. (Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who invented the U.N., did it with that aim — clear separation of international law from national law — in mind, but his immediate successor, who designed the U.N., nullified that and some other aspects of FDR’s plan for the U.N. This is the reason why the U.N. fails. Truman was determined that the U.S. Government itself will ultimately take control over the entire world.)

    The documentation of each step in this case is immediately accessible to the reader simply by clicking onto the links in it at any point where the reader wants to see what the evidence for the given allegation there is:

    On 8 February 2010, Britain’s Guardian headlined “Yanukovych set to become president as observers say Ukraine election was fair.”

    On 12 April 2010 was reported in Ukraine that,

    The president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych met in Washington with the American counterpart Barack Obama.

    On the Ukrainian side, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Konstantin Grishchenko, Minister for fuel and Energy Yurii Boyko, head of the presidential administration Serhiy Lovochkin, deputies head of the administration Hanna Herman and Yuri Lacnyy were also taking part in the meeting.

    The American side represents Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, national security advisor to the U.S. President James Jones, senior director of the U.S. National Security Council on non-proliferation Laura Holgate.

    On 2 July 2010, Clinton again met privately with Yanukovych, this time in Kiev; and, on this occasion, spoke publicly about the meeting, and said that while the United States supported Ukraine’s independence, “the United States welcomes Ukrainian parliament’s decision to approve foreign military exercises on Ukrainian territory in 2010 and we thank Ukraine and the Ukrainian people for your important contributions to NATO and other international security operations.” This means that the U.S. Government actually did not support Ukraine’s independence but instead wanted Ukraine to join its NATO military alliance that had repeatedly rejected Russia’s requests to apply to join it. The U.S. wanted Russia’s bordering nations in NATO, but not Russia itself. Apparently, Yanukovych again said no. That doomed him.

    By no later than June 2011, the United States Government commenced its planning for the coup that occurred in Ukraine in February 2014.

    By no later than 1 March 2013, the U.S. Government in its Embassy in Ukraine, started training members of the far-right Svoboda and Right Sector political organizations in Ukraine how to use the internet in order to raise a crowd to demonstrate against Ukraine’s President, Viktor Yanukovych, to demand his removal from office.

    On 14 April 2014, an article was published in the Polish NIE investigative-journalism magazine saying that in the months prior to Yanukovych’s overthrow, especially during the spring of 2013, paramilitaries of Ukraine’s Right Sector organization were training secretly in Poland, under the direction of America’s CIA, and Poland’s Government.

    By no later than June 2013, the U.S. Government began soliciting for Pentagon-authorized U.S. contractors to convert a school in Sevastopol Crimea, in Ukraine, near Russia’s largest naval base, which is there. This was while Yanukovych was still in office, when the U.S. had no business in Crimea.

    On 19 November 2013, Yanukovych was informed the results by Ukraine’s Academy of Sciences, of its analysis which he had requested, of the EU’s offer to Ukraine to join the EU, which found that it required an up-front expenditure by Ukraine of $160 billion, which Ukraine did not have and the EU refused to supply. So, whomever designed the EU’s proposal knew, in advance, that Yanukovych would turn it down. That was to become the pretext for overthrowing him. It had been set up in advance.

    On 20 November 2013, the Maidan square anti-Yanukovych public demonstrations began. They were led by Andrei Parubiy (“the Commandant of Maidan”), one of the two co-founders of the Social-Nationalist Party of Ukraine, which the CIA had advised to change its name from that Nazi-inspired one, to the “Freedom” or Svoboda Party — which they did. Parubiy’s 2nd-in-command was the founder of the Right Sector Party, Dmitriy Yarosh, who organized the U.S.-backed paramilitaries there that had been trained in Ukraine and in Poland.

    The coup itself occurred during 20-27 February 2014; and here (and its transcript is here) is its smoking-gun evidence that it was a U.S. coup; and there is proof that even the EU’s Foreign Affairs Minister at the time, Catherine Ashton, did not know that it had been any coup at all until her investigator in Kiev reported back to her on 26 February 2014 that it had been. (Here is that phone-conversation, and here is its transcript.) So: Obama had kept the operation secret even from her. (In fact, Obama’s designer of the coup, Victoria Nuland, in that smoking-gun phone-call, said “Fuck the EU”: the EU were vassal-nations of the U.S. empire, and so didn’t need to understand what was happening.)

    At that time, and throughout the post-Soviet history of polling of Ukrainians regarding their attitudes toward the EU and especially toward NATO, that attitude was around two-to-one that NATO was an enemy of Ukrainians, and economic relations east of Ukraine were more important to Ukraine than economic relations west of Ukraine (the EU) were; but this situation reversed itself virtually overnight after America’s 20-27 February 2014 coup. Still, in Crimea and Ukraine’s southeast, NATO and the U.S. were viewed overwhelmingly as enemies, not friends — and the U.S. Government itself knew this because it had commissioned some of those polls. Nonetheless: the U.S. Government insisted that Ukraine must treat as “terrorists” and ethnically cleanse away any residents in those increasingly breakaway regions who refused to accept the U.S.-imposed rulers as being their rulers. And this was done, starting on 15 April 2014. The war against the breakaway-supporters was officially labeled, by the new coup-government, an “Anti-Terrorist Operation” or “ATO” for short. The voters for Yanukovich had to be cleared out, killed and/or escaped into adjoining Russia, so that anti-Russian politicians would win future Ukrainian elections, and the U.S. Government will continue to control Ukraine.

    The United States and its ‘allies’ (colonies, vassal-nations) insist upon having the right to place any weapons onto Russia’s borders especially in Ukraine, because ONLY Ukraine borders less than 800 miles from The Kremlin; it borders only 300 miles from it, and is therefore by far the best place for the U.S. Government ultimately to place its missiles, because that would be only five minutes of missile-flying-time away and would therefore constitute its checkmate of Russia’s Government — far too little time in which for The Kremlin to be certain that America had launched them and for the Kremlin thence to launch its retaliatory weapons. This is the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse and on steroids.

    On 17 December 2021, Russia submitted separately to the U.S. and to NATO extremely reasonable, even necessary, national-security proposals to discuss and negotiate with them, but instead got from both on 7 January 2022 resounding and contemptuous rejections of all of Russia’s national-security concerns. Since what were now clearly Russia’s mortal enemies were not approachable any other way than by means of Russia invading and taking control of Ukraine itself, that is what they did, on 24 February 2023. It was a self-protective act that America and its vassal nations had forced upon Russia, and which was done. This was, and is, essential self-defense, by Russia, against a long and consistent history of U.S.-and-allied aggression.

    The reason why the U.N., as presently constituted, is unable to define “aggression” (not only the military forms of it but also and especially the non-military forms, which precede the military forms) is that U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who invented and originally planned a U.N. that would have succeeded, died on 12 April 1945, and the U.N. that we have was instead designed by his immediate successor, Harry Truman, who despised him and wanted the U.S. Government itself to become the ultimate imperial Government — a global dictator — over the entire world, which was a direct contradiction of what FDR had so carefully planned and intended: the U.N. as a federal global democracy of nations, a democratic federal republic of nations, replacing all empires, and in possession of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial powers to do that.

    So: whereas we now have (as a direct result of what Truman did) no existing definition of “aggression” and of “defense,” and instead have a chaos in international laws of war, Russia is at least as much in the right, as America would have been in the Cuban Missile Crisis to launch an all-out invasion against Cuba and/or the Soviet Union if the Soviet Union had refused to remove its missiles from Cuba. Russia didn’t launch nuclear war against the U.S., but did launch a conventional war against Ukraine, which was forced upon Russia by the U.S. and NATO decisions to reject on 7 January 2022 Russia’s essential national security demands.

    (CLOSING NOTE: The U.N.’s latest formal proposal to address its lack of a definition of “aggression” was on 11 June 2010, and can be seen here. It pertains to the Rome Statute that controls the International Criminal Court (ICC) — a body to which the U.S. Government never joined, so it is immune to. It says: “Crime of aggression: 1. For the purpose of this Statute, “crime of aggression” means the planning, preparation, initiation or execution, by a person in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a State, of an act of aggression which, by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations. 2. For the purpose of paragraph 1, “act of aggression” means the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations. Any of the following acts, regardless of a declaration of war, shall, in accordance with United Nations General Assembly resolution 3314 (XXIX) of 14 December 1974, qualify as an act of aggression.” Number 1 there entails the phrase “an act of aggression,” and therefore this ‘defintion is circular: it defines “aggression” by relying upon a presumably already defined usage of the word “aggression,” and is therefore blatantly stupid. Number 2 there uses the phrase “inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations,” but the purpose here was supposed to be to give meaning to that term in the Charter. The U.N.’s Charter employs the word “aggression” 3 times: Articles Numbered 1, 39, and 53, but never defines it. That’s the problem here — not a solution to it. However, this definition of “aggression” does pertain to the U.N.-authorized ICC. And this definition does include as examples of “aggression”: Article 8, #2, paragraphs e and f: “(e) The use of armed forces of one State which are within the territory of another State with the agreement of the receiving State, in contravention of the conditions provided for in the agreement or any extension of their presence in such territory beyond the termination of the agreement; (f) The action of a State in allowing its territory, which it has placed at the disposal of another State, to be used by that other State for perpetrating an act of aggression against a third State.” Notice that (f) uses the word “aggression” in ‘defining’ “aggression” — yet again that shocking stupidity. However, ignoring that for a moment: (f) clearly describes “aggression” by Ukraine against Russia; (e) describes “aggression” that’s “The use of the armed forces of America which are within the territory of Ukraine with the agreement of Ukraine, in contravention of the conditions provided for in the agreement or any extension of their presence in Ukraine beyond the termination of the agreement” — except that no such “agreement” exists or is known to exist — and if it does exist, then who, precisely, are the “aggressor(s)” supposed to be? It doesn’t say. So: (e) is also stupid. But (f) describes Ukraine’s aggression against Russia (but entails circularity in doing so). Whether (f) also would be categorizing America as being an “aggressor” against Russia is unknown. However, beyond those problems: Nothing in that ICC ‘definition’ of “aggression” would have bearing upon America’s coup against Ukraine in 2014, which was the actual and precipitating initial act of aggression directly against Ukraine and indirectly (but also very powerfully) against Russia (and to which Russia then ultimately responded on 24 February 2022 by its invasion). Furthermore: None of the three nations — America, Russia, and Ukraine — have ratified the Rome Statute that authorizes the ICC; so, none of the three can be prosecuted by the ICC; so, there can be, under the sole entity that the U.N. has authorized to try cases in international criminal law, no prosecution of any of these three.

    In conclusion: It is clear that anyone who alleges that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an international war crime or in any other way a violation of international law is a mere anti-Russia propagandist; and, moreover, even if all three of these nations had ratified the Rome Statute, the only one that could be prosecuted for having committed an international war-crime, the crime of “aggression,” would be Ukraine, though the ambiguity of (e) might possibly then allow prosecution of America too; but no prosecution could be allowed against Russia, because even then there would be no rational way to interpret anything that Russia has done in this matter as constituting “aggression.” In the U.S.-and-allied countries, it’s all propaganda; and, unfortunately, publics are stupid enough to believe it, so it’s effective.)

    The post Why Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 Was Legal first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Why Biden Snubbed China’s Ukraine Peace Plan


    Photo credit: GlobelyNews

    There’s something irrational about President Biden’s knee-jerk dismissal of China’s 12-point peace proposal titled “China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis.”

    “Not rational” is how Biden described the plan that calls for de-escalation toward a ceasefire, respect for national sovereignty, establishment of humanitarian corridors and resumption of peace talks.

    “Dialogue and negotiation are the only viable solution to the Ukraine crisis,” reads the plan. “All efforts conducive to the peaceful settlement of the crisis must be encouraged and supported.”

    Biden turned thumbs down.

    “I’ve seen nothing in the plan that would indicate that there is something that would be beneficial to anyone other than Russia if the Chinese plan were followed,” Biden told the press.

    In a brutal conflict that has left thousands of dead Ukrainian civilians, hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers, eight million Ukrainians displaced from their homes, contamination of land, air and water, increased greenhouse gasses and disruption of the global food supply, China’s call for de-escalation would surely benefit someone in Ukraine.

    Other points in China’s plan, which is really more a set of principles rather than a detailed proposal, call for protection for prisoners of war, cessation of attacks on civilians, safeguards for nuclear power plants and facilitation of grain exports.

    “The idea that China is going to be negotiating the outcome of a war that’s a totally unjust war for Ukraine is just not rational,” said Biden.

    Instead of engaging China–a country of 1.45 billion people, the world’s largest exporter, the owner of a trillion dollars in US debt and an industrial giant–in negotiating an end to the crisis in Ukraine, the Biden administration prefers to wag its finger and bark at China, warning it not to arm Russia in the conflict.

    Psychologists might call this finger-wagging projection–the old pot calling the kettle black routine. It is the US, not China, that is fueling the conflict with at least $45 billion dollars in ammunition, drones, tanks and rockets in a proxy war that risks–with one miscalculation–turning the world to ash in a nuclear holocaust.

    It is the US, not China, that has provoked this crisis by encouraging Ukraine to join NATO, a hostile military alliance that targets Russia in mock nuclear strikes, and by backing a 2014 coup of Ukraine’s democratically elected Russia-friendly president Viktor Yanukovych, thus triggering a civil war between Ukrainian nationalists and ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, regions Russia has more recently annexed.

    Biden’s sour attitude toward the Chinese peace framework hardly comes as a surprise. After all, even former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett candidly acknowledged in a five-hour interview on YouTube that it was the West that last March blocked a near-peace deal he had mediated between Ukraine and Russia.

    Why did the US block a peace deal? Why won’t President Biden provide a serious response to the Chinese peace plan, let alone engage the Chinese at a negotiating table?

    President Biden and his coterie of neo-conservatives, among them Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland, have no interest in peace if it means the US concedes hegemonic power to a multi-polar world untethered from the all-mighty dollar.

    What may have gotten Biden unnerved—besides the possibility that China might emerge the hero in this bloody saga—is China’s call for the lifting of unilateral sanctions. The US imposes unilateral sanctions on officials and companies from Russia, China and Iran. It imposes sanctions on whole countries, too, like Cuba, where a cruel 60-year embargo, plus assignment to the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, made it difficult for Cuba to obtain syringes to administer its own vaccines during the COVID pandemic. Oh, and let’s not forget Syria, where after an earthquake killed tens of thousands and left hundreds of thousands homeless, the country struggles to receive medicine and blankets due to US sanctions that discourage humanitarian aid workers from operating inside Syria.

    Despite China’s insistence it is not considering weapons shipments to Russia, Reuters reports the Biden administration is taking the pulse of G-7 countries to see if they would approve new sanctions against China if that country provides Russia with military support.

    The idea that China could play a positive role was also dismissed by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who said, “China doesn’t have much credibility because they have not been able to condemn the illegal invasion of Ukraine.”

    Ditto from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who told ABC’s Good Morning America, “China has been trying to have it both ways: It’s on the one hand trying to present itself publicly as neutral and seeking peace, while at the same time it is talking up Russia’s false narrative about the war.”

    False narrative or different perspective?

    In August of 2022, China’s ambassador to Moscow charged that the United States was the “main instigator”of the Ukraine war, provoking Russia with NATO expansion to Russia’s borders.

    This is not an uncommon perspective and is one shared by economist Jeffrey Sachs who, in a February 25, 2023  video directed at thousands of anti-war protesters in Berlin, said the war in Ukraine did not start a year ago, but nine years ago when the US backed the coup that overthrew Yanukovych after he preferred Russia’s loan terms to the European Union’s offer.

    Shortly after China released its peace framework, the Kremlin responded cautiously, lauding the Chinese effort to help but adding that the details “need to be painstakingly analyzed taking into account the interests of all the different sides.” As for Ukraine, President Zelinsky hopes to meet soon with Chinese President Xi Jinping to explore China’s peace proposal and dissuade China from supplying weapons to Russia.

    The peace proposal garnered more positive response from countries neighboring the warring states. Putin’s ally in Belarus, leader Alexander Lukashenko, said his country “fully supports” the Beijing plan. Kazakhstan approved of China’s peace framework in a statement describing it as “worthy of support.” Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán–who wants his country to stay out of the war– also showed support for the proposal.

    China’s call for a peaceful solution stands in stark contrast to US warmongering this past year, when Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, a former Raytheon board member, said the US aims to weaken Russia, presumably for regime change–a strategy that failed miserably in Afghanistan where a near 20-year US occupation left the country broke and starving.

    China’s support for de-escalation is consistent with its long-standing opposition to US/NATO expansion, now extending into the Pacific with hundreds of US bases encircling China, including a new base in Guam to house 5,000 marines. From China’s perspective, US militarism jeopardizes the peaceful reunification of the People’s Republic of China with its break-away province of Taiwan. For China, Taiwan is unfinished business, left over from the civil war 70 years ago.

    In provocations reminiscent of US meddling in Ukraine, a hawkish Congress last year approved $10 billion in weapons and military training for Taiwan, while House leader Nancy Pelosi flew to Taipei – over protests from her constituents–to whip up tension in a move that brought US-China climate cooperation to a halt.

    A US willingness to work with China on a peace plan for Ukraine might not only help stop the daily loss of lives in Ukraine and prevent a nuclear confrontation, but also pave the way for cooperation with China on all kinds of other issues–from medicine to education to climate–that would benefit the entire globe.

    The post Why Biden Snubbed China’s Ukraine Peace Plan first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • US Exceptionalism and the Wars in Syria and Ukraine

    Syria has been at war since 2011. The conflict is in a stalemate. US troops control nearly a third of the country. The US finances the operation and a secessionist army with oil and wheat they take from the area. It funds them and deprives the Syrian government from their own resources. In the northern province of Idlib, the Syrian version of Al Qaeda is in control, receiving the majority of aid from Europe while the 90% of Syrians who live in government controlled areas go hungry and have electricity only three hours per day.

    Meanwhile in Ukraine, the bloodshed continues as Russian troops battle Ukrainian soldiers while the US and NATO pour in weapons. Russian troops have taken control of much of the eastern region, the Donbass.

    How did we get here and what is driving the process?

    The Rise of the US Exceptionalism

    After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, influential neoconservatives said it was time for US interests and priorities to be dominant. There was only one superpower. This was to be a New American Century with no challengers. This perspective went from being a fringe element to increasingly influential. Over the course of the 1990s, it took hold and became US foreign policy. They said it explicitly: The US should not permit any country to challenge US supremacy and dominance.

    With the Soviet Union gone and Russia in disarray, there was no counter-force in international organizations or the United Nations. The US manipulated existing agencies and created new institutions to its advantage. History and international agreements were rewritten. For example, with US and Israeli pressure, the UN resolution affirming that Zionism is a form of racism was overturned.

    US foreign policy became increasingly aggressive. Sanctions on Iraq, aimed to drive the country into total submission, led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Children were especially vulnerable to sickness from contaminated water. Chlorine for purification was prohibited while the US hailed itself a leader in gender equality with the first female Secretary of State, Madeline Albright.

    Recalcitrant countries were subject to attack. The multi-ethnic country of Yugoslavia was a prime target. Divisions were promoted while the CIA funded an extremist separatist army. NATO went on the attack, bombing Serbia without authorization from the UN Security Council. The plan was clear: divide and conquer.

    Simultaneously, the creation of the European Union in 1993 made it harder for individual countries to act in their own best interests and easier for the US to dominate the whole.

    The military alliance binding them together is NATO – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Although this is a military alliance, there is no doubt which country is paramount. The US spends more than all others combined.

    The September 11 attacks in 2001 were a watershed moment. The attacks provided a “Pearl Harbor” moment and justification for increased US aggression abroad. The official explanation of who carried out the attacks and why has been seriously challenged. Whoever perpetrated the attacks, neoconservatives used 9-11 to push their agenda. The US commenced their attack and occupation of Afghanistan.

    The next major violation of international law was the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Iraq was devastated, extremism and sectarianism exploded. Today, US troops remain there despite the Iraqi parliament and government requesting they leave.

    Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction as claimed by US “intelligence”. Instead, a form of chemical weapons was created in Iraq by the US military. Dust from depleted uranium bullets and missiles vaporized and mixed with the environment. Iraq has experienced a huge increase in birth defects and cancer.

    Russia Restabilizes

    While this was happening, Russia was starting to restabilize under the Putin administration. After a decade of chaos, corruption and the collapse of the communist safety net, Russia was getting back on its feet in the early 2000s. The standard of living and life expectancy started to increase. Western advisors were no longer in charge. Oligarchs were no longer able to rob at will.

    Even though the Warsaw Pact has ceased to exist, NATO refused to disband. On the contrary, despite promises to Russian leaders, NATO expanded in 1999, 2004 and 2009.

    When NATO invited Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO in 2008, Russia loudly said NO. They said that would cross a red line for them. NATO was clearly an OFFENSIVE alliance and to permit it on the Ukraine border less than 500 miles from Moscow would jeopardize Russian security. Russia kept asking that security for ALL be considered.

    War in Libya and Syria

    Unrest in Libya erupted in early 2011. Western media started propagating stories of pending massacres and the UN Security Council, with China and Russia abstaining, authorized a “no fly zone” and “necessary measures to protect civilians”. This became the pretext for the US plus NATO and other allies to attack Libyan government forces. They overthrew the Libyan government and unleashed a civil war that continues to today. Later evidence revealed the sensational claims of rape and pending massacre were falsehoods, just like in the past.

    At the same time, the West and allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey were funding, training and supporting extremists and foreigners travelling to Syria. After the overthrow of the Libyan government, the CIA took control of Libyan military arsenals and started sending weapons to jihadists in Syria.

    Extremists were trained in camps in Turkey on the Syrian border. Weapons were flown into Incirlik US Air Base in southern Turkey. Thus started the US war on Syria which continues to today.

    In the Fall of 2013, a sarin gas attack killed hundreds of civilians in outer Damascus. Neocons were itching to attack Syria as they had attacked Libya and Iraq. President Obama claimed, “We know the Assad regime was responsible.” He also said “I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional.”

    The US attack was deterred after Russia persuaded Syria to give up all their chemical weapons – which had been developed as a deterrent against Israel’s nuclear weapons. Russian Putin praised the agreement but cautioned, “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.”

    Later, Seymour Hersh revealed that the chemical attacks were not carried out by the Syrian government as claimed by Obama. Rather, they had been perpetrated by Syrian extremists with Turkish support. The purpose was to provide a pretext for US and NATO direct attacks on Syria.

    War in Ukraine

    Meanwhile, 1200 miles north of Damascus, protests in the Maidan main square of Kyiv Ukraine were growing in intensity. There was a combination of peaceful protesters and a small but violent faction of ultra nationalist extremists. Western billionaires and US agencies were instrumental in promoting pro-western organizations and the Ukraine protests. US politicians and officials such as Victoria Nuland and John McCain showed up to offer symbolic and tangible support.

    On February 7, 2014, Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador planned who would take leadership after the pending Ukraine coup. Nuland summed it up: “Yats is the guy” (Arseny Yatsenyuk). Referring to a compromise agreement preferred by European leaders, Nuland said, “Fuck the EU.” From the conversation, we also know that Jake Sullivan (current National Security Advisor) and then Vice President Biden were involved. US neoconservatives were not satisfied with a mixed Ukraine. They wanted an anti-Russia Ukraine.

    With the Winter Olympics in Sochi Russia drawing toward a close, someone decided to expedite the coup. Timing is important. On February 20, snipers killed over 50 protesters and police to ignite the events. Ukrainian-Canadian Professor Ivan Katchanovoski of the University of Ottawa has rigorously researched the events and shows that the shootings were by snipers located in opposition controlled buildings.

    On the first day of the coup government, on 27 February, they removed Russian as an official language despite 30% of the population having it as a first language. It would be comparable to a coup in Ottawa Canada with the coup government removing French as an official language of Canada. The new leader was the same Arseny Yatsenyuk as planned by Nuland weeks earlier.

    Opponents of the coup government were attacked with 42 killed in Odessa. In Crimea, they quickly organized a referendum on whether to secede from Ukraine. With 83% turnout, 97% of the population said they wanted to join the Russian Federation. In eastern Ukraine north of Crimea, called the Donbas, there was also a majority of the population deeply opposed to the coup and coup government. They confronted the authorities and many military units defected to join the secessionists. The regions were cut off by the Kiev government, with pensioners no longer receiving retirement checks and government services stopped. The Ukrainian Army attacked and thousands died. The regions were excluded from national elections. Eventually they organized themselves as the Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples Republics. Thus the war in Ukraine did not begin one year ago; it began nine years ago, in February 2014.

    In late 2014 and again in 2015, peace agreements to resolve the civil war in Ukraine were signed in Minsk. France and Germany were to help insure the implementation. Russia supported this as a way to resolve the conflict. The UN Security Council passed a resolution endorsing the agreement.

    Instead of implementing this, Kiev ignored their promises while the US and NATO began arming and training the Ukraine Army. In effect, Ukraine became an unofficial member. The arming and NATO-ization continued and escalated. First it was only “defensive” weapons. Then, under Trump, they began supplying “offensive” weapons.

    NATO plans to destabilize and weaken Russia were explicit. The Pentagon thinktank, the RAND Corporation, published reports discussing strategic options to weaken and destabilize Russia. The longer term goal: to break it up as plotted by Brzezinkski in his US foreign policy bible The Grand Chessboard.

    It has recently been revealed by the former Ukrainian, French and German leaders that the 2015 Minsk peace agreement was a ruse. By their own statements and admissions, it was never a genuine effort to peacefully resolve the civil war in eastern Ukraine. The goal was to stall for time while NATO trained and equipped the Ukrainian Army, to solidify the anti Russian attitude and crush those not in agreement.

    NeoCons do not want peace in Ukraine

    The neocons driving Washington’s foreign policy do not want to end the Ukraine war; they want to prolong it. They dream of repeating what happened in the 1980’s when Russian intervention in Afghanistan led to the weakening and ultimate breakup of the Soviet Union. The former boss of Jake Sullivan, Hillary Clinton, said explicitly in March “That [Afghanistan] is the model that people are now looking toward.”

    The immorality of US policy is breathtaking. Afghanistan went through hell beginning in 1979 as the US and Saudi Arabia supported and armed religious fanatics to destabilize Afghanistan and create trouble for the Soviet Union. Afghanistan has endured over four decades of conflict and extremism and is still suffering.

    Today, US neocons running foreign policy are sacrificing Ukraine with the same goal of undermining Russia. They could not live with a neutral Ukraine and have promoted and allied with ultra-nationalist and neo-Nazi Ukrainian elements. Previously Washington did not want anything to do with the neo-Nazis but this has changed.

    NeoCons and Syria

    The US has also allied with extremists in Syria. In late 2014 and early 2015, ISIS and Nusra (the Syrian Al Qaeda) made major assaults. Syrian and foreign extremists poured across the Turkish border. There were dozens of Canadians, hundreds of Brits, thousands of Europeans and North Africans. The Canadian and British secret services were well aware of the plans of their citizens who were being recruited by Al Qaeda and ISIS. They did nothing because, as Jake Sullivan said, “AQ [Al Qaeda] is on our side in Syria.”

    With weapons and training from western military and intelligence forces, the extremists were able to capture a large area of northern Syria and the outskirts of Damascus.

    In September 2015 Russia came to the assistance of the Damascus government. They provided airplanes and pilots to attack the advancing extremists. Uninvited, the US began also overflying Syria and then establishing US bases in the east and south. They rarely attacked ISIS but attacked Syrian troops at critical times. Then they began cultivating Kurdish secessionist elements. They rebranded them as the “Syrian Democratic Forces”. They are still there today – stealing the Syrian nation’s wealth in oil and wheat. The US has imposed draconian sanctions on the majority of the country. The dirty war on Syria continues.

    Neoconservative belief in US supremacy and impunity are exemplified by former Deputy Director of the CIA, Michael Morell. In an 2016 interview, he was outraged that Russia supported the Syrian government resisting extremist attacks. In a 2016 interview, Morell publicly suggested “covertly” killing Russians who are on the ground in Syria. “They got to pay a price for what they’re doing. Just like we made the Russians pay a price in Afghanistan …. We have to make them want to go home.”

    Russian Intervention in Ukraine

    One year ago, Russia troops went into Ukraine with the stated goal of de-nazifying and de-militarizing the country. Many Ukrainian civilians have fled the fighting with more that 3 million going to Russia, by far the most of any country.

    Did Russia have a choice? They could have continued waiting, hoping for a change in attitude by the US and NATO. They tried. In December 2021 Russia proposed peace treaties with the US and NATO. Instead of negotiating, the US and NATO dismissed the proposals out of hand.

    The US-Ukraine Stategic Partnership, signed in November 2021, made it clear there was no intention to respect the will of the overwhelming majority of people in Crimea or to implement the Minsk Agreement to resolve the eastern Ukraine conflict peacefully. On the contrary, Ukraine with US support was building its forces to attack the Donbass and perhaps Crimea.

    After 30 years of NATO provocations and escalating threats, Russia acted. While this has been condemned in the West, there is widespread understanding and support for their position in the Global South. A recent poll indicates that a big majority continue to feel positively about Russia.

    What happens in Ukraine will have a profound impact on the globe. The “New American Century” dreamed by US hawks has been challenged.

    It is high time to end US delusions of superiority and exceptionalism. The USA should become a normal nation.

    We need a multipolar world with respect for the UN Charter and international law.

    Let the people in Crimea and the Donbass choose their destinies. Let the war end and Ukrainians recover and prosper in an independent country which is neither a tool of the US or Russia. Let Syria rebuild and recover without the cruel US sanctions.

    Let the US turn from fomenting conflicts, undermining and attacking other countries to reforming and improving itself.

    The post US Exceptionalism and the Wars in Syria and Ukraine first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • Human rights defenders at the 52nd session of the UN Human Rights Council

    The 52nd session of the UN Human Rights Council started on27 February and will last until 4 April. Thanks to the Internationl Serrvice of Human Rights I am able to hightlight issues direclty affecting human rights defenders. For the full Alert to the session online, click here.  Stay up-to-date: Follow @ISHRglobal and #HRC52 on Twitter. See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2022/10/14/report-on-the-51st-session-of-the-human-rights-council/

    Thematic areas

    Protection of human rights defenders The mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders is to be renewed at the HRC’s March session through a resolution led by Norway.

    Reprisals

    ISHR remains deeply concerned about reprisals against civil society actors who engage or seek to engage with UN bodies and mechanisms. We call on all States and on the Council to do more to address the situation. General Debate Item 5 is a key opportunity for States to raise concerns about specific cases of reprisals and demand that Governments provide an update on any investigation or action taken toward accountability. An increasing number of States have raised concerns in recent Council sessions about individual cases of reprisals, including at HRC sessions 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, and 51.  

    ISHR believe that States raising cases is an important aspect of seeking accountability and ending impunity for acts of reprisal and intimidation against defenders engaging with the UN. In September 2022, ISHR ran a campaign regarding five specific cases of reprisals (#EndReprisals). We continue to urge perpetrator States to resolve these cases and other States to raise these cases in their statements: Ibrahim Metwally Hegazy (Egypt), the co-founder and coordinator of the Association of the Families of the Disappeared. Jiang Tianyong (China), a lawyer and legal rights activist working at grassroots level to defend land and housing rights, promote the rights of vulnerable social groups and expose root causes of systemic rights abuses. The Human Rights Center ‘Viasna’ (Belarus), which works towards the development of civil society and the promotion of human rights in Belarus and provides legal aid to people in defending their rights and public interests. Comité de Familiares de Víctimas del Caracazo (COFAVIC); Observatorio Venezolano de Conflictividad Social (OVCS); Centro de Justicia y Paz (CEPAZ); Control Ciudadano (and its director Ms. Rocío San Miguel); and Espacio Público (and its director Mr. Carlos Correa) (Venezuela): a group of five NGOs and two individuals working for the promotion of human rights in Venezuela and who have a history of cooperating with the UN, including the Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela. Human rights lawyers and defenders Armel Niyongere,Dieudonné Bashirahishize, Vital Nshimirimana and Lambert Nigarura (Burundi), four prominent and well-respected figures within Burundian civil society and their local communities.   In addition, we urge States to raise individual cases of reprisals in the country-specific debates taking place at this session: Nicaragua, Sudan, Israel and occupied Palestine, Myanmar, Iran, Venezuela, Belarus, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Further information on these cases can be found here or by contacting the ISHR team at s.hosseiny@ishr.ch.

    Other thematic debates At this 52nd session, the Council will discuss a range of economic, social and cultural rights in depth through dedicated debates with: The Special Rapporteur on the right to food The Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt The Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing The Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights The Council will discuss a range of civil and political rights through dedicated debates with: The Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief The Special Rapporteur on torture The Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy In addition, the Council will hold dedicated debates on the rights of specific groups including: The Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children The Special Representative of the Secretary-General on violence against children and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict The Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities The Special Rapporteur on minority issues The Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights of persons with albinism The Council will hold dedicated debates on the interrelation of human rights and thematic issues including: The Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism The Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment The High Commissioner’s report on access to COVID-19 vaccines  

    Country-specific developments

    Afghanistan: The mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan is a crucial mechanism for ongoing monitoring and documentation of the situation in the country, as well as enabling discussion and dialogue amongst States on its findings. It remains an important channel for communication between human rights defenders and survivors inside Afghanistan with the intergovernmental decision-making spaces. However, it falls short due to the overwhelming evidence of gross violations and abuses in Afghanistan. The HRC must respond to the calls from Afghan human rights defenders, especially women human rights defenders, and civil society and establish an independent accountability mechanism with a mandate and resources to investigate the full scope of violations abuses that continue to be committed in Afghanistan by all parties and to preserve evidence of these violations for future accountability. The Council will hold an interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on 6 March.

    China On 24 November 2022, the CERD issued an Urgent Action decision on Xinjiang stressing the ‘scale and nature’ of the repression of Uyghurs and Muslim minorities, as evidenced by the Xinjiang Police Files leaks. The Committee urged China to release all those arbitrarily detained, stop harassing Uyghurs abroad, and fully review its national security framework. For the first time ever, the Committee referred the matter to the Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Responsibility to Protect, while reminding ‘all States of their responsibility to cooperate to bring to an end through lawful means any serious breach of human rights obligations.’ States should ensure sustained visibility on the broader human rights situation across China, raising root causes of violations that commonly affect Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese human rights defenders, including the abuse of national security as documented by the OHCHR’s Xinjiang report and Special Procedures, and ask for the prompt release of human rights defenders, including feminist activists Huang Xueqin and Li Qiaochu, human rights lawyers Chang Weiping and Ding Jiaxi, legal scholar Xu Zhiyong, Uyghur doctor Gulshan Abbas, Hong Kong lawyer Chow Hang-tung, and Tibetan climate activist A-nya Sengdra.

    Mali. In 2020, Mali finally adopted its implementation decree for the HRD law. While it was a long awaited achievement, especially as it establishes the defenders protection mechanism within the National Human Rights Institution, the text also provides that in order to be recognised as such, any defender must carry a card or badge issued in advance by the Minister responsible for human rights. This provision was later reinforced by the decision adopted by the Malian government in September 2020, which establishes the characteristics and procedures for granting and withdrawing the professional card of human rights defenders. During the last presentation of the report of the independent expert on the human rights situation in Mali, ISHR delivered a statement asking the independent expert what support he planned to give to the Malian government to ensure the full implementation of the defenders law and its protection mechanism. The HRC must keep the scrutiny on Mali to ensure that defenders in the country are protected in line with the UN Declaration and not restricted by the limitation imposed by a card defining the status of defenders. The Council will hold an interactive dialogue with the independent expert on 30 March.

    DRC The DRC has noticeably improved the protection of human rights in the Kasaï region but progress remains slow and action is still needed towards transitional justice and the protection of defenders in this region. In December 2022, the national assembly of the DRC adopted the draft law for the protection and promotion of defenders. The last step is for the text to be adopted by the Senate, which would strengthen the protection of defenders at the national level after the adoption in February 2016 of an edict for the protection of human rights defenders and journalists in the South Kivu province and a similar text adopted in November 2019 on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders in the North Kivu Province. The United Nations Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO) must support the calls of civil society and ensure the protection and promotion of defenders is part of its support to the government of the DRC. The Council will consider oral updates and hold an enhanced interactive dialogue with the High Commissioner and the team of international experts on the DRC on 30 March.

    Egypt Notwithstanding the launch of a national human rights strategy, the fundamental purpose of which is to deflect international scrutiny rather than advance human rights, there has been no significant improvement in the human rights situation in Egypt since the joint statement delivered by States in March 2021. Since that time no consequential follow-up has occurred at the HRC, while the situation has further deteriorated on the ground. As witnessed by the world during COP27, the brutal crackdown on civil society in Egypt continues to intensify. Sustained, coordinated action on Egypt at the Council is more necessary than ever. Egypt continues to carry out widespread and systematic violations of human rights, including freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association. The Egyptian authorities have for years employed draconian laws, including laws on counterterrorism, cybercrimes, and civil society in order to subdue the civilian populations and stifle all forms of peaceful dissent and mobilisation. Under the current government, Egypt ranks among the worst three countries in the world in the numbers of jailed journalists and almost all independent media has been forced to shut down or threatened into silence. Hundreds of websites continue to be banned. Scores of civil society and media representatives continue to be disappeared, tortured and arbitrarily detained under the pretense of counter-terrorism and national security.

    While the release of a few select arbitrarily-detained activists is a sign that international pressure works, the number of releases pales in comparison to the vast numbers of individuals newly detained by the National Security Prosecution, or whose arbitrary detention was renewed in 2022. Between the reactivation of the Presidential Pardons Committee in April 2022 and the end of 2022, the authorities released around 900 people held for political reasons, but almost triple that number of suspected critics and opponents were interrogated by prosecutors and arbitrarily detained. ISHR reiterates the calls of more than 100 NGOs from around the world urging the HRC to create a monitoring and reporting mechanism on the ever-deteriorating human rights situation in Egypt.

    Israel / OPT This session will consider a number of resolutions associated with the human rights situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including with respect to the right of Palestinian’s to self-determination, as well as expanding and illegal Israeli settlements. Israeli policies and practices against Palestinian people have been found to constitute acts of apartheid by UN experts as well as by both international and national NGOs, while a HRC-mandated commission of inquiry has found that Israel’s permanent occupation and de facto annexation of Palestinian territory is likely unlawful. ISHR calls on all States to engage with these resolutions on their human rights merits, applying objective criteria in a principled and consistent way which upholds the right of self-determination as well as freedom from violence and discrimination. The Council will hold an interactive dialogue with the High Commissioner on ensuring accountability and justice in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem on 3 March.

    Nicaragua A year after the adoption of resolution 49/3, the UN system has continued to document a steady deterioration of the country’s multi-pronged human rights crisis: UN and IACHR documentation compiled by the Colectivo 46/2 point to the absence of any step taken to implement any of the 14 recommendations from resolution 49/3. Instead, the ruling party has seized absolute control over the country’s 153 municipalities in a 2022 electoral process characterised by ‘repression of dissenting voices and undue restriction of political rights and civil liberties,’ according to the OHCHR; canceled the legal status of more than 2500 civil society organisations; detained political prisoners in inhumane conditions; and allowed for the continuation of widespread attacks, including 32 killings since 2018, by armed settlers against indigenous peoples of the Northern Caribbean Coast. The Nicaraguan government has confirmed its diplomatic isolation by refusing to cooperate with six UN Treaty Bodies within a year prompting an unprecedented public condemnation by the UN’s two anti-torture committees. It has also retaliated against EMRIP member and Nicaraguan citizen Anexa Cunningham, by denying her entry into the country on July 9. We urge the Human Rights council to renew, for a period of two years, resolution 49/3 establishing the mandate of the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua, and the monitoring mandate of the OHCHR. We call on all governments to support such a resolution and reinforce its intersectional approach, by bringing particular attention to the situation of indigenous peoples and afro-descendants, migrants and forcibly displaced persons, those detained for political reasons and the families of victims.

    Saudi Arabia According to ALQST‘s 2022 annual report, the Saudi authorities’ unleashed a new wave of repression in 2022. Familiar patterns of abuse continued, including arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and harsh restrictions on prisoners of conscience released from prison, including travel bans. However from mid-year onwards in particular, the Saudi courts started imposing jail sentences of unprecedented severity for peaceful, legitimate activity on social media, further deepening the climate of fear in the kingdom. Use of the death penalty increased sharply after a lull during the COVID period, with the biggest mass execution in recent times (of 81 men in a single day), and executions for non-violent drugs-related offences made a dramatic comeback. This intensification of repression went hand in hand with the progressive diplomatic rehabilitation of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman. We call on the HRC to respond to the calls of NGOs from around the world to create monitoring and reporting mechanism on the ever-deteriorating human rights situation in Saudi Arabia.

    Sudan The Sudanese military and some political parties and civic groups signed a framework agreement to pave the way for a power transition to civilian forces in December 2022. But the agreement was not widely welcomed by local resistance movements, including resistance committees and some women’s groups. The protests continued across the country demanding a comprehensive transitional process that respects the people’s demands for accountability, peace, and justice. In the meantime, the security forces crackdown on protests is sustained, while the violations of freedoms of assembly, expression, and association continues. Following the political framework agreement, attacks on women human rights defenders (WHRDs) and women groups continued as the violence in conflict areas escalated. The HRC must ensure continued reporting on Sudan and to urge the international community to prioritise justice and accountability in any upcoming political solution. The Council will consider an oral update and hold an interactive dialogue with the High Commissioner and designated Expert on 3 March.

    Ukraine In the face of overwhelming evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity associated with Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, ISHR calls on the HRC to renew the mandate of the Commission of Inquiry on human rights in Ukraine associated with Russia’s war of aggression, including the mandate of the Commission to examine the root causes of the conflict such as the repression and criminalisation of human rights defenders and independent journalists in Russia. The Council will hold an interactive dialogue with the Commission of Inquiry on 20 March. The Council will also hold an interactive dialogue on the OHCHR report on Ukraine on 31 March.

    Venezuela ISHR joins Venezuelan and international organisations in urging states to speak out against the NGO bill currently passing through the National Assembly in Venezuela. The ‘Law of Supervision, Regularization, Performance and Financing of Non-Governmental and Related Organizations’ seeks to criminalise and further restrict the work of NGOs in the country. During the HRC session, there will be two agenda items specifically focusing on Venezuela: the update from the High Commissioner on 21 March, and an oral update by the UN fact-finding mission on 23 March, which will be their first since their mandate was renewed by the Council, last September. The High Commissioner’s update will no doubt include impressions and recommendations drawn from his recently concluded first visit to Venezuela. These updates will take place at a time of ongoing political flux in the country, upcoming elections and – critically – further threats to civic space. During the interactive dialogues on Venezuela, States must continue to express concern at ongoing human rights and humanitarian crises in the country, at the introduction of the NGO bill and call for the release of the arbitrarily detained including human rights defender Javier Tarazona who has now been held for almost 600 days, wholly without justification.

    Yemen ISHR joins civil society organisations from Yemen and around the world in urging the HRC to establish an independent international criminally focused investigative mechanism on Yemen. Before its untimely dissolution in 2021, the UN Group of Eminent Experts (GEE), established by the HRC in 2017, recommended that UN member States refer the situation in Yemen to the International Criminal Court (ICC), support the establishment of an international criminally focused investigative mechanism, and stressed the need to realise victims’ right to reparation. In late 2021, HRC members narrowly rejected a resolution that would have renewed the GEE’s mandate following lobbying by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In September 2022, Saudi Arabia and Yemen rejected attempts by States to ensure continued discussion at the HRC of the ongoing human rights crises in Yemen. The international community should not stand by and allow the vote to disband the GEE to be the HRC’s last word on the situation, nor should they allow warring parties to continue to block formal discussions of large-scale human rights abuses, war crimes and the urgent need for accountability. A new, HRC-mandated mechanism is required to ensure that potential avenues of criminal accountability and reparative justice are effectively explored for Yemen and may be pursued now and in the future to address impunity and provide effective redress to victims.

    Guatemala Guatemala’s recent UPR put a spotlight on the fast deterioration of democratic spaces in the country. Over twenty States raised attacks against indigenous, environmental, and other human rights defenders, and journalists. There has been a  steady increase in attacks, with a record high of 1000 attacks by 2021 according to local groups. The government, meanwhile, made no reference to the issue during the review. States also shared concern about the erosion of judicial independence, an issue repeatedly highlighted by UN experts and officials. Over the past years, UN experts have exposed interference or blocking in the appointment of high level court judges. High Commissioner Volker Türk recently condemned a 70% increase in cases of intimidation and criminal charges against justice officials fighting impunity and corruption. A growing number of judges and legal professionals have fled the country since the government closed the UN’s International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) in 2019. In 2021, UN and OAS experts denounced a ‘choking’ law that gave the government ‘wide scope to control NGOs’. In this context, space for Guatemalan civil society to safely advocate for human rights and expose violations, and for the judicial authorities to respond to abuses and uphold the rule of law has become dangerously narrow. These patterns create serious risks of further deterioration – in a trend that is also seen in neighbouring Central American countries –  in the lead-up to the June 2023 presidential elections. High Commissioner Türk’s presentation of his Office’s report on Guatemala to the HRC in March will provide a critical window of opportunity for States to collectively urge Guatemala to engage with the OHCHR to meaningfully address and put an end to attacks against human rights defenders and justice officials, ensure judicial independence, and review laws and policies that restrict civil society space.

    Other country situations

    The High Commissioner will provide an oral update to the Council on 7 March. The Council will consider updates, reports and is expected to consider resolutions addressing a range of country situations, in some instances involving the renewal of the relevant expert mandates. These include: Enhanced interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Eritrea Oral briefing and interactive dialogue with the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia ID with the Special Rapporteur on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and a presentation of the report of the High Commissioner Interactive Dialogue with the High Commissioner on Belarus Interactive dialogue with the High Commissioner, and interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Iran Interactive Dialogue with the Commission of Inquiry on Syria Enhanced interactive dialogue with the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan with the participation of the High Commissioner,  and an interactive Dialogue on the OHCHR report on South Sudan High-level Dialogue with the Independent Expert on the Central African Republic Interactive dialogue with the Fact-Finding Mission on Libya   #HRC52 | Council programme, appointments and resolutions During the organisational meeting for the 52nd session, held on 13 February, the President of the Human Rights Council presented the programme of work. It includes 7 panel discussions. States also announced at least 39 proposed resolutions.

    Adoption of Universal Periodic Review (UPR) reports

    During this session, the Council will adopt the UPR working group reports on Bahrain, Ecuador, Tunisia, Morocco, Indonesia, Finland, the United Kingdom, India, Algeria, Philippines, Brazil, Poland, the Netherlands, and South Africa.

    Panel Discussions:

    During each Council session, panel discussions are held to provide member States and NGOs with opportunities to hear from subject-matter experts and raise questions. 7 panel discussions are scheduled for this upcoming session: Biennial high-level panel discussion on the question of the death penalty. Theme: Human rights violations relating to the use of the death penalty, in particular with respect to limiting the death penalty to the most serious crimes High-level meeting commemorating the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to DevelopmentHigh-level panel discussion on UPR Voluntary Funds: achievements, good practices and lessons learned over the past 15 years and optimized support to States in the implementation of recommendations emanating from the fourth cycle Annual full-day meeting on the rights of the child [two accessible meetings]. Theme: Rights of the child and the digital environment Annual interactive debate on the rights of persons with disabilities. Theme: Support systems to ensure community inclusion of persons with disabilities, including as a means of building forward better after the COVID-19 pandemic Debate in commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Theme: The urgency of combating racism and racial discrimination 75 years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights​ Annual high-level panel discussion on human rights mainstreaming. Theme: A reflection on five years of the United Nations Youth Strategy (Youth 2030): mapping a blueprint for the next steps
    Read here the three-year programme of work of the Council with supplementary information.

    Read here ISHR’s recommendations on the key issues that are or should be on the agenda of the UN Human Rights Council in 2023.

    https://mailchi.mp/ishr/alert-to-the-human-rights-councils-35th-session-33793?e=d1945ebb90

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.