@DemocracyNow & @CodePink demand Biden make Ukraine surrender territory to Russia

In recent months, the armed forces of Ukraine has been waging a successful counter-offensive against Russian occupied territories in both the country's East and South, routing the badly demoralized Russian troops, and liberating an increasing number of Ukrainian cities, towns, and villages. To compensate for these battlefield loses, Putin has quickly annexed four additional Ukrainian Oblasts, including territory Russia doesn't occupy, as well as territory it's losing. He also could use a ceasefire right about now. So, he's calling for negotiations on his terms—acceptance of the Russian annexations—and threatening to go nuclear if he doesn't get his way. 

After Russia claimed a truck bomb coming out of Russia damaged the Kerch Bridge on Saturday, Putin used that as an excuse to target dozens of Ukrainian cities with missile attacks. This is the context in which Democracy Now began today's segment on Ukraine with its core complaint:

The Biden administration has ruled out the idea of pushing Ukraine to negotiate with Russia to end the war...

Amy Goodman lost no time in revealing her propaganda bias by uncritically quoting Putin calling the destruction of a key part of his military supply-line a "terrorist act," but failing to quote the dozens of prominent people that have called out Putin's massive terror campaign against Ukraine for what it is. Then, to seal the deal, she brings on Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies of Code Pink. They have a long history of promoting the Kremlin's outward-facing narrative on Ukraine.

They play a video in which Biden makes clear his position on negotiations with Putin about Ukraine, "Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine." I take this to mean, he won't go behind Ukraine's back, and make a deal with Russia about Ukraine without Ukraine, the way the imperialists always do, the Sykes-Picot way!  I think that is the proper position for the United States to take. We should support Ukraine's fight against the Russian invasion, including with weapons—that is our internationalist humanitarian duty—but we shouldn't be telling them how to fight, what to settle for, and certainly not when to give up. The Vietnamese had to fight for thirty years—against the Japanese, the French, and finally the Americans, but they won their independence! DN is so opposed to this stance, they get it backwards in their transcript ( "nothing about Ukraine with Ukraine" ) I had to roll the tape again to make sure I heard it right the first time:

"Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine"

Goodman goes on, "Despite Biden’s comments, there are growing calls for the U.S. to push for negotiations." Like, from Democracy Now and Code Pink, and other prominent members of this "peace" caucus, for example. What they don't say out loud is that if Zelensky continues to win victories, and refuses to meet Putin's tyrannical terms of negotiation, including Ukrainian recognition of the newly annexed "Russian" territory, and Crimea, they think Biden should make a unilateral deal with Putin, and enforce it by cutting off support to Ukraine. You see, things just aren't working out all that well for Putin on the battlefield. He needs their help.

It's a strange thing to see so-called anti-imperialists demand that an imperialist country bully an oppressed nation into submitting to its will. 

It's easy enough to understand why Henry Kissinger, Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump, and the other overt right-wing cheerleaders of imperialism take this position, but Democracy Now and Code Pink are suppose to be Left voices. 

Benjamin peddles her new book promoting Putin's narrative: western-back coup in 2014, Nazis attacked Donbas, Crimea was a mistake, NATO expansion, etc., etc., all the way up to the current fable about Boris Johnson and the "torpedoed" negotiations. Never mind all the fables about Nazis running Ukraine, or the allegiances of the Russian speakers, have been disproved by the realities on the ground. Just as is the notion that Putin has been motivated by fear of NATO invasion. If he really feared that, he never would have committed so much of Russia's reserves to subjugating Ukraine.

It's that goal of subjugating and erasing Ukraine from existence that the Code Pink - Democracy Now "anti-imperialists" want desperately to hide from view. They ignore all of Putin's speeches and writings that claim Ukraine has no right to exist. Ukraine was Lenin's creation and Lenin's mistake. Ukraine was created on stolen Russian land, etc., etc. All of that amount to arguments for genocide, which explains why Putin takes down the Ukraine flag, and puts up the Russian one wherever he can, why he deports, and puts Ukrainian children up for adoption to Russian parents, why he is removing Ukraine from Russian history, and why he has no problem slaughtering Ukrainians en masse. These so-called peace activists hide all that and try to sell us the Kremlin front page that they were "forced" to do these things to Ukraine because of Nazis inside of Ukraine, and NATO expansion outside of Ukraine. They've even written a whole book about it, and if you try to follow their logic, it is, indeed, a senseless conflict. 

Finally, Medea Benjamin says what they're all implying, that Ukraine must be forced to allow parts of Ukraine to to be converted to Russia:

So, I don’t think that it is realistic to think that there is going to be a clear victory by the Ukrainians that are going to be able to get back every inch of territory like they’re now saying, including Crimea and all of Donbas. There has to be compromises on both sides.

Is the Russian compromise not getting all of Ukraine, while the Ukrainian compromise is not keeping all of Ukraine? Somehow, that doesn't seem fair. It's like the courts allowing the thief to keep half of what he stole from you in the name of "compromise." Putin's goal for Ukraine is nothing short of genocide. What compromise would Medea Benjamin have them make with genocide? How many Ukrainians is she willing to surrender? Those demanding such a "compromise" must stop claiming they are fighting for social justice.

So, that's the situation. Russia is losing the territory its trying to steal from Ukraine. It's trying to force more Russian conscripts into its trenches, in the hope that more cannon fodder can turn things around. In the meantime, it badly needs a timeout, or ceasefire, NOW! It needs a cut-off of weapons and support to Ukraine, and it badly needs the other imperialist powers to united around a "compromise" that gives it the pieces of Ukraine it's having a problem stealing outright.

No Way!

Slava Ukraini,

Clay Claiborne

12 October 2022

My new Ukraine "Conspiracy Theory" concerns Elon Musk

 

Some say Elon Musk is the new Henry Ford.

When it comes to conspiracy theories related to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, why should the Nord Stream crowd have all the fun? So, I'd like to propose a brand new one, and it implicates the richest man on Earth.

Elon Musk thinks he's so rich, he can buy Twitter for a snack—until he realized that he had swindled himself. He bid the share price at $54.20, haha. What was he smoking? Since then, lawyers have been paying to send their kids to law school with what he's been paying them to try to weasel out of the deal.

He also must think that being the richest man on Earth, he must be the smartest man on Earth, because in addition to running Tesla and SpaceX, and looking for bots on Twitter, he obviously has time to become knowledgeable enough to mouthoff about Ukraine—on Twitter, naturally.

On Monday, he put forward his own proposal for a "Ukraine-Russia Peace" deal, in a poll, on Twitter, naturally.

These were the terms:

- Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people.

So, redo the elections under conditions of Russian occupation, but with UN supervision. Good, I'm sure that will eliminate the intimidation factor. The people still left in the occupied regions (those that haven't fled) can feel secure in the knowledge that the Russian troops probably won't take revenge until the UN supervisors have left. And who will they be supervising? The same pro-Russian forces that conducted the last election? And exactly who will make the Russian leave, if they decide to renege, and Musk-up the deal?

- Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake).

Khrushchev’s mistake! I'm glad Elon settled that one for us. Putin thinks that accepting that Ukraine was its own nation, with its own Soviet Socialist Republic, within the Union, with a Right of Self-Determination was Lenin's mistake—corrected by Stalin. I would like to know if Elon agrees with that.

- Water supply to Crimea assured.

Of, course nothing about Ukraine's borders being secured, Ukraine's Black Sea access being assured, Ukraine's people being protected from a Russian leader bent on their complete destruction as an independent nation. I just learned, a few hours ago from Timothy Snyder, that Putin is even having the word "Ukraine" removed from Russian history books!

- Ukraine remains neutral.

Neutral with regards to a country that has just invaded and raped it. Neutral with regards to a country bent on its destruction. Very good. Notice that the only thing Putin has to do to hold up his end of Musk's "Piece Deal" is allow some UN Supervisors in for an afternoon.

He has over 100 million followers on Twitter, but only 2,748,378 people voted in Musk's very pro-Putin poll, and almost 60% gave it the thumbs👎down!

Elon Musk fumed. He blamed it on the bots.

On Wednesday, after months of fighting it, Elon Musk says he is ready to buy Twitter again, at original $44 billion price. What made him change his mind? Did he suddenly feel the need to have more control over the platform?

And today, on Friday, we have this most troubling BREAKING NEWS from Yahoo News and others:

Frontline Ukraine troops are reportedly enduring Starlink outages

Kris Holt·Contributing Reporter

Fri, 7 October 2022 at 10:39 am

Ukrainian forces have reportedly been dealing with Starlink outages as they try to take back Russian-occupied areas. Some of the outages, which are said to have caused a severe loss of communication over the last several weeks, occurred as troops broke through the frontline into territory controlled by Russia as well as during battles, a Ukraine government official told The Financial Times.

The cause of the apparent outages are not yet known. Engadget has contacted Starlink owner SpaceX for comment.

Starlink outages were reported in the four regions that Russia annexed last month following referendums, the legitimacy of which have been disputed. As the Financial Times notes, there's a significant Ukrainian counteroffensive in those areas.

As the article says, Starlink is run by SpaceX, which is owned by Elon Musk. Musk got a pro-Ukrainian reputation, and a lot of good press, by floating the idea that Starlink was his $80 million gift to Ukraine, but this week it also came out that the whole thing was bankrolled by the US government. Elon Musk didn't become the richest man on Earth by giving stuff away. This might be another reason to be ticked-off about the whole Ukraine thing right now.

He may not be losing money on it, but his company still runs it, and now we know he's not quite as pro-Ukrainian as we may have been led to believe. There's an old cop saying: Never believe in coincidences. So, the question has to be asked: Is there a connection between Elon Musk's pro-Putin views and Starlink's outages in the combat zone?

Unlike the attacks on the already shutdown Nord Streams 1 & 2, these communication outages in the areas where Ukraine is rapidly liberating its territory, are probably costing lives right now.

Anyway, that's my conspiracy theory, and I think it bears more investigation, because it may turnout to be more than just a theory.

More, later....

Clay Claiborne

7 October 2022

Meet Code Pink's new allies

Recently, the Ukrainian armed forces have been liberating Ukrainian cities and towns at a rapid rate as a result of their very successful counter-offensive against the Russian invaders. Their soldiers have been cheered as liberators.and the war crimes evidence left behind by the fleeing Russians tells us why. 

First visit to the liberated territories east of Kharkiv. Hrakove, 70 km from Izyum, was deoccupied two days ago. Today Kharkiv police is documenting Russian war crimes there. Territory still heavily mined. Hope to see other strategic cities in Kharkiv region liberated soon. pic.twitter.com/6TE03Lr4km

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) September 9, 2022

While Ukraine, with the help of western arms, has been making great progress in turning the tide of the Russian invasion, Code Pink and others in the misnamed "Peace in Ukraine Coalition" hope to put a stop to that. They just wrapped up a week of actions around these demands:

CEASEFIRE Now.
DIPLOMACY to End the War in Ukraine
$$$ for Climate, Jobs, Healthcare, & Housing
NOT Weapons for Endless War
DO NOT RISK NUCLEAR WAR! 

They are demanding a ceasefire in place so that the current Ukrainian counter-offensive has to stop and no more Ukrainian lands will be liberated, except through negotiations. Elsewhere they make clear that by DIPLOMACY, they mean Biden should overrule Zelenskyy and make a deal directly with Putin. They also oppose any weapons or military support for Ukraine, and they amplify Putin's nuclear saber-rattling at every opportunity. Others in this white Left coalition include Veterans for Peace, Democratic Socialists of America IC, and United National Antiwar Coalition. They should more aptly be called the "Piece of Ukraine Coalition" because not one member envisions a peace agreement that doesn't involve Ukraine making some territorial concessions to Russian, and not necessarily limited to Crimea and the Donbas.

Well, they should be embarrassed to know they have many notable allies on the extreme right. Most prominent among them is probably Fox New's Tucker Carlson. The Friday before Ukraine kicked off the current counter-offensive, Carlson had on his show military "expert" Doug MacGregor who said the Russians were clearly winning, and predicted that by the end of September, 

"this entire war may be over. Right now things are going very, very badly, which is why Ukrainians are so desperate...But this desperation is very dangerous right now because they're losing once again just south of Kharkiv, and people in Washington are talking about "What else can we do?"

He sure got that wrong! But Carlson used that false picture to argue against the Biden administration funding the Ukrainian liberation effort, asking:

"Where's all this money going? Where are the weapons going? Why are we doing this?"

Before introducing MacGregor to explain how it was all so futile.  Tucker Carlson, like Code Pink, opposes any weapons shipments to Ukraine, and wants Biden to step in and enforce a DIPLOMATIC solution. He says, 

"Why not settle this war, return energy prices to normal, and stop the economic catastrophe we're facing?"

The Heritage Foundation also opposes weapons for Ukraine and echos these coalition demands: "money for climate, jobs, healthcare, & housing not weapons for endless war" Executive director Jessica Anderson put it this way:

“America is struggling with record-setting inflation, debt, a porous border, crime and energy depletion, yet progressives in Washington are prioritizing a $40 billion aid package to Ukraine.”

Even among Republican Senators, only eleven took the Code Pink position on the Ukrainian aid package, but they are among the most Trumpyist and include Josh Hawley "What America needs is not nation-building, but nationalism." (Mo.), Rand Paul (Ky), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Mike Lee (Utah), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.), and Mike Braun (Ind). All of them Putin supporters and white supremacists to the core. Is it any surprise that they support great Russian chauvinism in Ukraine?

The same can be said of the 69 Republic Congressional representatives that, like Code Pink et al. oppose US military aid to Ukraine. Is it any wonder that they include the most extreme election deniers and Trump supporters, and include Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Ken Buck (R-CO), Louis Gohmert (R-TX), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Lee Zeldin (R-NY)?

The Proud Boys also support the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with many member pretending they were going there to fight along side Russian troops. Oathkeepers also parrot Putin's line on Ukraine by republishing ZeroHedge, a known Putin mouthpiece. 

Code Pink—It's said that you are known by the company you keep. These are your new allies.

Clay Claiborne

20 September 2022

 

UPDATED: As Putin's position in Ukraine collapses, Code Pink rides to his rescue

On Background

200 days ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his "Special Military Operation" to complete the conquest of Ukraine he started in 2014 with the occupation of Crimea, and the militarization of much of the Donbas region in the East. It has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and its people. Russia has targeted civilian structures with long range weapons, and murdered civilians up close and personal, dumping  their bodies into mass graves, or just leaving them to rot on the streets. It has deported millions of Ukrainians to unknown fates inside of Russia, while it burns the Ukrainian wheat it can't steal. All of this is part of a program to liquidate Ukraine as an independence nation, and annex its territory and people into a new Russian empire, just as Putin outlined more than a year ago.  For Russia, it is a war of genocide.

This war hasn't gone well for the Russians either. The very Ukrainian nationalism Putin claimed had no right to exist, and the Ukrainian unity, he claimed could never exist, have risen up as a mighty fist to smack him down! Much of the world, especially its European neighbors, have rallied to its defense as well. 

The Russians started out with a grand scheme to conquer the whole country by taking and occupying its capital—until their 40-mile long armored column got decimated on the road to Kyiv. Then Putin claimed they had more limited goals all along—just parts of Ukraine in the South and the East—leaving what remains of Ukraine—for now—a land-locked country—if possible. So, they abandoned the attempt to take Kyiv and concreted their forces in the South and East, where they have managed to gain very little ground in return for great loss of life on both sides. Frustrated by  their lack of success against the Ukrainian armed forces over these many months, Russia has take to pounding Ukrainian civilians with every available asset, threatening the world food supply, and now even using a Ukrainian nuclear power plant to threaten Europe.

Kharkiv Oblast residents welcoming Ukrainian troops. in recaptured territories.

This is true liberation. Instead of a handful of professional citizens speaking in front of the cameras for propaganda purposes, whole households take to the streets to wave hands the military. https://t.co/h51EV2Vkac

— Hiro's gallery (@HiroGallery) September 8, 2022

Current Events: The Russian position is collapsing on several fronts 

Recently, Ukrainian armed forces have launched its biggest counter-offensive against the Russian occupation. They have met with great success both in the South where the Ukrainian forces are posed to retake Kherson, the only major Ukrainian city taken by Russia, and in the East, north of Kharkiv, where they have pushed panicked Russian soldiers more than 50 miles in two days. They have driven the occupiers from dozens of towns and villages, and liberated over a thousand square kilometers of Ukrainian soil. At that rate, they will have pushed the Russians back across their border north of Kharkiv. Also, two Russian troop concentrations, one north of Kherson, and one centered on Izyum are threatened. [Update: Izyum has fallen! Russians fled without a fight.]

Recon troops of the 25th Airborne brigade of AFU and 3rd regiment UASOF in Izyum pic.twitter.com/SJPsnMaRyl

— 0_0 (@_Th3_Sp3ctr3_) September 10, 2022

These dynamic Ukrainian advances have been possible because millions of Ukrainians have rallied to the defense of their nation. Many have volunteered for quick training to join the fight, even as Russia tries to forcibly conscript Ukrainians in the occupied territories who were foolish enough to accept Russian passports earlier.

These breakthroughs are also possible because the Ukrainians have benefited from a steady supply of advanced weaponry from the West, especially from the US. While the Ukrainians have done much with the supplies they had accumulated before the war, and with those they have captured from the Russians [which is quite a lot in the current counter-offensive😀], this current reversal would not be possible, in what Russia has turned into a big artillery war, without a steady supply of weapons to Ukraine to meet the challenge. At the same time, sanctions against Russia are denying them the chips & technology they need to build new weapons to support its occupation.

At what is looking more and more like a turning point in a war that many told the Ukrainians was unwinnable, Russia badly needs three things:

1. A time-out so its forces can regroup and stop losing territory.
2. An end to weapons supplies to Ukraine.
3. An end to sanctions against Russia.

Putin can see this, and so can his minions in the West. Hence, Code Pink's newest "Peace" campaign.

On Friday, Amy Goodman, on Democracy Now, announced the campaign with the headline:

Antiwar Groups Plan Week of Protests Demanding Diplomatic End to War in Ukraine

On Monday, a coalition of peace activists will kick off a nationwide week of action on Ukraine, demanding a ceasefire and diplomatic solutions to the crisis. CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin said in a statement, “The White House and Congress are fueling this war with a steady stream of weapons instead of pushing for talks to end the conflict. That’s why we, the people, have to rise up with a demand of negotiations, not escalation.”

The world saw in Bucha and Mariupol just how the Russians treat the Ukrainians they have conquered. Now that the Russians are fleeing, the people are cheering the return of their soldiers and the Ukrainian flag—now that Ukraine is winning, these "antiwar" groups are calling for a timeout, a ceasefire, and an end to weapons shipments to Ukraine—all items on Putin's wish list.

They talk as if only they want a "diplomatic" end to this war. Ukrainians, more than anyone else, wants an end to this war.  The question is: on what terms? Ukrainians are fighting to expel these invaders from their land.  Others, like Code Pink, favor giving Russia an even bigger piece of Ukraine, if it will buy "Peace" in Europe for a while. They want Biden & NATO to step in and force Ukraine to accept such a rotten deal. Their demand is that the West stop supporting this war of national liberation, and force Ukraine to give Putin the victory, through "diplomatic" means, that he can't win on the battlefield.

Because Ukraine is now winning this war on its 200th day, Code Pink is launching its own four day campaign to help Putin out. They are calling on activists to contact Congress, the White House & State Department, and the Media, to demand:

1. "Freeze the weapons shipments!"
2. "that President Biden engage in direct talks with Russia"

This is their two-pronged approach to "peace" in Ukraine. Biden & Putin should divide up Ukraine in the imperialist spirit of Sykes-Picot, and force it down the Ukrainian's throats by cutting off their supply of weapons, because it has become clear that there's no way the Russians can beat the Ukrainian spirit as long as it receives adequate material support.

This is war, and very much a war of logistics and supply lines. So, just to be clear about what is going on here: Ukrainians have been able to advance, in large part, because they have been able to use the HIMARS, and other advanced artillery systems to go after Russian supply lines. Russia is using Code Pink, and these other less "advanced" antiwar groups, to go after Ukrainian supply lines. Code Pink is like Putin's HIMARS, except they keep missing the point.

Clay Claiborne

10 September 2022

UPDATE: 9/10 22:10 PST: I just received an email from the Democratic Socialists of America International Committee:

What you can do now:

1. Sign our letter demanding your own members of Congress oppose weapons shipments to Ukraine.

2. Join an action happening in your area or organize your own:

So, apparently now DSA is joining this desperate, last ditch, effort to cut Ukraine's supply lines just as they are engaged in a historic roll-back of the Russian invasion and liberating dozens of Ukrainian cities and towns every day. I would ask: "Which side are you on?," but they have made that very obvious. They are on the side of the Russian imperialists/ 

Threadbare: A talk with some tankies about the war in Ukraine

These are some notes from my input to a Veterans for Peace list-serve discussion sparked by Katrina vanden Heuvel's "We Need a Real Debate About the Ukraine War." That Washington Post opinion seeks a re-hearing of Russian propaganda talking points about Ukraine after they have been thoroughly discredited with Putin's invasion of Ukraine. "Those who provide history and context around the conflict should not be silenced or smeared," says one who occasionally appears on network news shows, and has been published by the Post five times since that May 24th article. 

Many in this discussion blamed Biden and NATO for the conflict, and promote Putin's propaganda about his need to respond to NATO expansion and demilitarize and denazify Ukraine. I was never sure how much was sincere, and how much was gas lighting. I tried to use the twin powers of logic and facts to prove my arguments. Sometimes that isn't enough. All to often, I've found that there is an emotional component to the person's belief system that ignores facts, and is impervious to logic. With some anti-war Vietnam veterans I suspect it stems from having been so badly used, and in the case of ex-Marines—duped—by US imperialism, that they carry an emotional vendetta that sees only it. 

Nevertheless, I persisted. I begin by responding to a comparison of events in Europe today with those that proceeded World War II: 

Shades of 1939???  is right! "History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes." 

Even 1936. When Hitler sent his very real Nazis to occupy the Rhineland in 1936, his first territorial expansion, he blamed it on the newly signed Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Defense, just as Putin, and his fanboys, blame his terror campaign against Ukrainians on "NATO expansion."

Is the Russian "Special Military Operation" a proxy war?

If you are my proxy, you are expected to vote the way I tell you to vote, regardless of your personal opinion. You aren't my proxy just because I give you a ride to the meeting. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not a proxy war. Russia invaded Ukraine itself. Ukrainians are acting in their own self-interest. 44 countries, and countless other organizations and individuals, are supporting their efforts. That doesn't make Ukrainians proxies of any of them.

Katrina is right about one thing—every country has its ultra-rightists, neo-Nazis & fascists. (In truth, a "Nazi" is a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party, which doesn't exist anymore. Putin insists on that term, rather than the more accurate ones I listed, because of its deep propaganda value for Russians that suffered so much in WWII. His fanboys parrot it because he uses it.)  In its last national election (2019), the Ukrainian ultra-right got 2.5% of the vote, and didn't win a single parliament seat. The US has a greater percent of neo-Nazis than that. So, does Putin reserve the "right" to invade any country and "denazify" it, because it has neo-Nazi parties?

If you look at how the Russian state defines "Nazi," it is any Ukrainian that self-identifies as a Ukrainian, and not a Russian. Putin uses "Ukrainian Nazi" and "Ukrainian nationalist" interchangeably because he sees any Ukrainian nationalist as a "Nazi." The nationalism of imperialist powers is the problem, not the nationalism of oppressed nations, like Ukraine.

Putin claimed he was forced to invade Ukraine because of the "genocide" against ethnic Russians in the east. The devastation, and massive loss of life. which he has visited on the ethnic Russian cities of Mariupol and Kharkiv, once he saw how heroically they opposed his aggression, put the lie to that grotesque claim. Newsweek  reported that Russia has fired more missiles into Ukraine (in just 90 days!) than have been fired in any conflict since WWII!

Should Ukrainians be forced to give up a piece of Ukraine for peace in Ukraine?

Those that think Russia should be allowed to keep parts of Ukraine must consider the long-term consequences of supporting the annexation of another country's land by force. That, most certainly, is not the road to world peace.

Those, like Noam Chomsky, Katrina vanden Heuvel, and Henry Kissinger, that demand Zelenskyy cede Ukrainian territory to Putin, in an effort to buy "Peace in our time." need to answer the following questions:

1. How many millions of Ukrainians should we allow Putin to put in his "filtration" camps in the name of Peace?
2. How many should he be allowed to deport to inclement parts of Russia in the name of Peace?
3. How many should he be allowed to consign to body bags, including Russian conscripts?
4. How many should he be allowed to disappear with his mobile incinerators because you fear his nuclear blackmail?

All of those who argue that Ukraine should be forced by the US & NATO to cede some of its territory to Russia need to understand what they are arguing for. Because this is happening now, they, and that includes some on this list, aren't just genocide deniers, they are genocide enablers.

Russia is depopulating parts of eastern Ukraine, forcibly removing thousands into remote parts of Russia CNN Thu May 26, 2022

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been processed through a series of Russian “filtration camps” in Eastern Ukraine and sent into Russia as part of a systematized program of forced removal, according to four sources familiar with the latest Western intelligence – an estimate far higher than US officials have publicly disclosed.

 Video shows Russian ‘filtration camp,’ Mariupol mayor’s office says   Washington Post May 6, 2022

 4,000 civilians are being tortured in 'filtration camps': Day 88 of Russian war against Ukraine

Horrors of Russian filtration camps for Ukrainians: fingerprints, searches in phones, interrogations

U.S. Believes Russia Has Sent Thousands To 'Filtration Camps' In Ukraine, Says Ambassador

Wikipedia has an article on how these camps were used against Chechens:

Filtration camp system in Chechnya

According to the Russian human rights group Memorial, "by the most modest estimations", the overall number of those having passed through the established and ad hoc "filtration points" reaches at least 200,000 people (out of Chechnya's population of less than one million), of whom "practically all" were subjected to beatings and torture, and some were summarily executed.

---

Brian,

Ukraine was expected to fall in 3 days, not only by Putin, but also by many in the West. They now have not only held out for more than 90 [now 138!] days against a nuclear armed superpower, but have managed to push back Russia's early success around Kivi and Kharkiv. By doing this, they have shown an incredible level of national unity and resolve that Americans could only hope for. In the face of the overwhelming odds it faces, the Ukrainian government has shown itself to be extremely competent in leading its people's war. It has also shown more humanity than our own government, even more humanity towards its fallen enemy than the Russian government has shown to its own dead soldiers. It has also demonstrated a very high level of support among its people, including the ethnic Russians in the East. Putin, on the other hand, has waged an extremely brutal, and unprovoked, war against Ukrainian civilians. He has said many times that he believes Ukraine has no right to exist, its land was stolen from Russia, and must be destroyed as an independent nation. He has gone out of his way to destroy Ukrainian industry, and agriculture, an agriculture much of the Middle East and Africa depend on for its very existence. He has actively destroyed symbols of Ukrainian culture and history, deported hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians far from their homeland, with a view towards replacing them with Russians, and he has filled many mass graves with Ukrainian civilians.

I would think that this past 90 days lived experience should cause all to question the Putin/Stone narrative about what really happened in 2014, because it demonstrates these important points: 

1. The Ukrainian people are nobody's fool, nobody's dupes.
2. The current Ukrainian government is supported by, and representative, of the Ukrainian people, and is nobody's puppet regime. 
3. Falling under Russian domination, i.e. being in the Russian "sphere of influence," represents an existential threat both to Ukrainian lives and Ukraine's existence as a nation. Remember the Ukrainian genocide under Stalin. Putin is a fan of Stalin, but not Lenin.

In 2013, when Yanukovych refused the popular accord for closer integration with the EU, in favor of closer ties with Moscow, he wasn't just making a president's decision about who was offering Ukraine a better deal on paper, he was delivering his nation to an imperialist power bent on its destruction. The Ukrainians understood this. That is why the masses came out in The Maidan, and forced him to flee to Moscow. 

No doubt, US imperialists, as always, tried to gain influence and advantage from this turn of events, and pumped billions of dollars into the effort, but it wasn't the main force behind what you regard as the destabilization of Ukraine. That was accomplished by Yanukovych, and his backers in Moscow, when they attempted to deliver Ukraine to a power bent on its destruction. The people knew that, and they were having none of it!

True, Nuland and Pyatt were caught on tape discussing who they would like to see in power. US diplomats do this all the time, but spinning that into a massive plot to replace a legitimate government against the people's will is the stuff of conspiracy theory. This is a theory promoted by Putin, and his followers. It completely takes away the Ukrainian's agency, but then Putin believes they have no independent agency, or even an independent right to exist. 

Whatever basis this 'coup' thesis may seemed to have had in the past, it has been completely debunked by the courage and unity of the Ukrainian people, including the ethnic Russians, in the current struggle.

---

Brian,

"On 7 March 1936, using the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance as a pretext, Chancellor and Führer Adolf Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to march 20,000 German troops into the Rhineland" according to Wikipedia. Hitler claimed that as a result of that treaty, Germany was threatened with encirclement. At the time, I'm sure many sympathetic to the Nazis accept that justification for the invasion, but it began a wave of expansion of Nazi military occupation that eventually went west to the English Channel, and East to the gates of Stalingrad, and had to be put down with tremendous loss of life and resources by the Allies.

Today, Putin is using "NATO expansion" as the major pretext for his invasion of Ukraine. If you've read his 12 July 2021 paper on Russia and Ukraine, you know that he doesn't think Ukraine has a right to an independent existence, he wants to recreate the old Czarist Russian Empire, and his expansion plans don't stop at Ukraine, but proceed west to include Moldova, and parts of Poland, and north to include the Baltic States. In that ~7000 word document, he doesn't even get to NATO until ~ word 6500, still he has made "NATO expansion" the headline in his bid to dominate Ukraine, and many in the west have echoed that refrain. In view of this, it deserves our serious scrutiny.

Many point to Baker's supposed promise in 1991 that NATO would not expand East 1 inch if the Soviet Union would agree to German reunification. At the time Russia and Ukraine were the 2 biggest countries in the USSR. In 1994, Ukraine gave up its nukes in return to security guarantees from both the US, and Russia. It wouldn't surprise me if some in Ukraine regret that decision, in view of current events. I, for one, do not, because it would mean that the current conflict would be one between two nuclear powers, and we all could be in a world of hurt—but it also means that the US, not NATO—who was not a party to that agreement, has a moral obligation to honor that commitment, and defend Ukrainian sovereignty, even if it involves US boots on the ground. Most who repeat Putin's complaint about a non-NATO expansion promise being broken, conveniently forget about the Budapest Memorandum, but unlike whatever Baker, or Bush, said in 1991, that agreement was in writing.

There are many reasons I believe the complaint about a 1991 promise not to expand NATO being broken is wrong. Let me briefly enumerate them:

1. There are serious questions about whether such a promise was ever made.
2. That promise, if it was made, was made to the USSR, which a little while later ceased to exist. It was never made to Russia independently, and obviously didn't consider the fate of the former Soviet republics, once they sought freedom from Russia.
3. Bush and Baker had no authority to speak for NATO, which is an organization that, while clearly dominated by the US, makes decisions by country votes, and has its own agency. The USSR, let alone Russia, shouldn't have relied on those US promises either. They should have said, fine, that's your policy, then take it to NATO, and bring back something in writing. NATO expanded because, after the fall of the Soviet Union. many of the former Soviet republics sought its protection from Russian domination, and now we can all see why. If Putin doesn't invade Poland, it will be because Poland is in NATO. Ditto the Baltic republics. Those countries petitioned, even begged, to be in NATO, and the European members wanted it. Far from ramrodding "NATO expansion," many US leaders opposed it, which is why you can now quote them saying as much. They didn't want the US to be obligated to defend small countries with little economic value to the US, but the US could hardly veto membership when the European states supported it, given all the US rhetoric about human rights and self-determination.
4. Finally, Ukraine hadn't moved "one inch" closer to NATO membership now, or in the years before Russia's invasion.

For all these reasons, I believe Putin's claim that his hand was forced by "NATO expansion" is as bogus as Hitler's claims that his hand was forced by the Franco-Soviet treaty of 1935.

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Brian,

In my last response to you, I failed to address your claim that "Ukraine’s east has Russian history and culture." I think that is pro-Russian, one-sided, and leaves a lot out. So, here I'll just quote what Wikipedia has to say about the history of Donbass:

According to the Russian Imperial Census of 1897, Ukrainians ("Little Russians", in the official imperial language) accounted for 52.4% of the population of the region, whilst ethnic Russians constituted 28.7%.[21] Ethnic Greeks, Germans, Jews and Tatars also had a significant presence in the Donbas, particularly in the district of Mariupol, where they constituted 36.7% of the population.[22] Despite this, Russians constituted the majority of the industrial workforce. Ukrainians dominated rural areas, but cities were often inhabited solely by Russians who had come seeking work in the region's heavy industries.[23] Those Ukrainians who did move to the cities for work were quickly assimilated into the Russian-speaking worker class.[24]

Also, in that email, talking about Hitler's remilitarization of the Rhineland, I said " At the time, I'm sure many sympathetic to the Nazis accept that justification for the invasion." I was right. On further reading, I found this from Wikipedia:

David Lloyd George, a pro-German member of the British House of Commons, stated in that body that Hitler's actions in the wake of the pact had been fully justified to protect his country and that he would have been a traitor to Germany if he had failed to act.[3]

Based on that history, I want to suggest that all those who seek to justify Putin's invasion of Ukraine by using his "NATO expansion" excuse, adopt Lloyd George as their patron saint.

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Greg,

I never said, or even implied, that Russia has no "legitimate security concerns over NATO expansionism." My critique is reserved for those that attempt to justify Putin's invasion of Ukraine based on those concerns. For example, I may have "legitimate security concerns" if a neighbor with whom I've had disputes, has bought a gun. That in no way justifies my preemptively taking him out.

It's not that Hitler didn't have "legitimate security concerns" about the Franco-Soviet Treaty. The problem was he intended to gobble up much more than just the Rhineland.

Russia (Putin) also has illegitimate concerns about NATO expansion because countries it intends to gobble up are flocking to NATO for protection. NATO is a barrier to Russian imperialist expansion. That is his real problem with NATO. I'm sure he knows NATO has no plans to invade Russia as long as he doesn't invade any NATO countries. But he does want to invade NATO countries. That is his NATO problem.

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Brian,

You say Putin's invasion was wrong, and yet you make your support for it obvious by the way you cycle through Russian talking points on the war. Your latest being "the Global South view" as you interpret it:

Today, the Global South almost universally refuses to follow US wishes to sanction Russia. Instead, the South calls the US hypocritical for sanctioning a Russian invasion. For, the Global South points out, the US has long done the same thing. That means the Global South sees US leaders as depraved.

Yet within the US, some people differ from that Global South view. Those US people, rather than being accurate, are missing something. For, how could a human not see this track record as depraved?

The ability to support sanctions, like boycotts, is often a sign of privilege. The first boycott I was involved in was the UFW grape boycott. That was easy for me because I had many other fruits to choose from. It was not so easy for a winery, or a winery worker. The UFW was wise to ask people to boycott grapes. Had they asked us to boycott corn, it would have been much harder, and had they asked us to boycott all farm-raised food, their boycott would have failed out the gate.

Germany certainly isn't part of the Global South, it's one of the richest countries in Europe. It certainly supports Ukraine in this war, even sending them lethal weapons, and yet Germany refuses to sanction Russian gas. The reason is well known. They can't afford to. They are too dependent on Russian gas, and won't let their people freeze, or their basic industries grind to a halt. Few countries in the Global South can afford to boycott Russian wheat, especially when Russia is taking Ukrainian wheat off the market. Enough of their people will starve already because of that. Yet, you choose to interpret that as support for Russia's war against Ukraine. Egypt has refused Russian shiploads of stolen Ukrainian wheat time and again. Those ships then docked in Syria. I'll leave it to you to decide which course is the most honorable.

You see the request for Russian sanctions as "US wishes." Isn't it first,and foremost, a demand of the Ukrainian government. Why do you ignore that? Everything is not about US.

The two biggest "influencers" in the Global South are the authoritarian leaders of China and India. They have very specific geo-political or economic reasons for not supporting sanctions against Russia. The same could be said for the leaders of countries like Venezuela and Syria, who are economically or militarily dependent on Russia. Israel has its reasons too. But you present this as some sort of wisdom coming from the people of the Global South. That is Putin propaganda.

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Brian,

More thoughts on the Global South and Russia's war against Ukraine...

As part of its genocidal war effort, Russia is doing everything it can to destroy Ukrainian agriculture. These actions range from destroying or stealing farm equipment, to bombing and mining Ukrainian farms, to destroying or stealing Ukrainian wheat, to destroying grain silos and storage facilities, and blockading Ukrainian ports so they can't export grain,

Since 400 million people in the Global South depend on Ukrainian agriculture, it is quite possible, I think even likely, that more people will die in the Global South from Russia's war on Ukraine than will die in Ukraine itself. They will die of starvation and famine, but since those deaths are bloodless, they will die in small villages in the Global South with little notice from the world's media.

But I guarantee you one thing. None of the leaders you see as fairly representing the Global South in refusing Russian sanctions, none of them will go hungry.

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Skip,

When you wrote "I find your incendiary lingo very unhelpful," I went over all my posts to this thread to try and figure out what you were talking about. The only thing I could come up with was when I warned that many in the US Left, including some on this list, weren't just genocide deniers, they are genocide enablers. Is that what you were referring to? If not, please tell me. If it was, that was not meant to be incendiary lingo, it was meant to be a statement of fact, and a warning.

Propaganda that demonizes the victims of genocide is essential to every genocide. Examples include Goebbels describing Jews as vermin or rats, and the Rwandan radio station that described the Tutsis as cockroaches. For some years now, many in the US Left, including some VFP members, have repeated, and continue to promote, Putin's lie that the Maidan revolution was a US orchestrated Nazi-led coup against a legitimate Ukrainian government. That was the beginning of a whole "alternative" narrative that has been applauded by the Kremlin. This set the stage for Russia's current campaign of genocide against the Ukrainian nation under the banner of denazification and demilitarization. We will forever wonder if Putin would have even proceeded without his supporters in the West. Did this echo chamber encourage his delusions?

US imperialism has done some wicked things. I know. I have documented some of them. I am one of its victims. But, too many on the American Left have allowed their hatred of US imperialism, and all too often, sentimental feelings for what the Soviet Union once was, to blind them to the fact that the United States is no longer "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world." Today, that infamous title clearly belongs to Putin's Russia. Even as the US was extracting itself from Iraq and Afghanistan, Putin's Russia multiplied the bloodshed in the Middle East by backing the thug Assad, and using his air force to bomb Syrian cities like Aleppo [and Idlib] into rubble. Putin has used his state power to become the leader of a worldwide white supremacist movement. The most recent, and possible future, POTUS is one of his followers. He has visions of a Eurasian dominated by Slavs of the Great Russian persuasion, but first he must unite those Slavs under his banner, by force if necessary. Just like Hitler before him, except for Adoph, it was the Aryans that were a whiter shade of white. So, now he begins his European "special military operation" starting with the bloody genocide of Ukraine, and the absorption of its remaining people, and broken territory, into his Great Russian Empire. While he massacres civilians, and threatens nuclear holocaust if anyone tries to stop him, the US Left wavers between supportive and "neutral."

This is sad. The Left is missing an unprecedented opportunity to build the movement because support for the Ukrainian people is strong. I know because I fly the Ukrainian colors on my bike and balcony. People naturally support a little country invaded by an imperialist superpower when their judgement isn't clouded by "patriotism." They rightly look with disgust at "anti-imperialists" that promote Putin's propaganda, and fail to condemn or "demonize" the side that is dropping cluster bombs on apartment buildings, By and large, the people stand with Ukraine. This can be seen by the international fighters that have come to Ukraine since the Russian invasion, reminiscent of those that fought the fascists in Spain before WWII. It can also be seen among the Russian soldiers that have deserted, and even formed a Russian legion to fight alongside the Ukrainians. (Yes, that is a thing.)

To whom it may concern: By your actions you are pretty much assuring that VFP will die when your generation of veterans die, and, for all the good work it has done over many years, it will be remembered for its support of Putin's fascism and white supremacy. For all your claims about Putin's support from the authoritarians of the Global South, you stand alone and isolated. You dare not protest with the Russian flag, the way you once marched with the flag of the Assad regime in Syria. Too many people are paying attention to this struggle and understand it. At long last, you have come over to the side of the war criminal Henry Kissinger, You have my sympathy.

Slava Ukraini!

Clay Claiborne