Why a No-Fly Zone over Ukraine is a bad idea – (lead to World War 3)
No-Fly Zone in Ukraine Would Be “Direct Involvement in the War,” Experts Warn, Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, March 16, 2022 , Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to demand the U.S. and NATO allies impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, an idea that President Biden has rejected even as a growing number of Republicans embrace the idea despite the risk it could draw the U.S. directly into the war against Russia and possibly spark a nuclear confrontation.
Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, co-authored an open letter signed by foreign policy experts who oppose a no-fly zone over Ukraine. It urges leaders to continue diplomatic and economic measures to end the conflict. “As you start thinking about how a no-fly zone would actually unfold, it becomes very obvious this would be direct involvement in the war against Russia, and rather than end the war, a no-fly zone would enlarge the war and escalate the war,” says Wertheim.
TRANSCRIPT……………………
STEPHEN WERTHEIM:………. what it means is that the United States and NATO forces would commit to shoot down enemy planes, any enemy plane that enters the zone. It’s quite clear Russia would not voluntarily comply with our verbal declaration of a no-fly zone, so we’d have to shoot those planes down. ………..
as you start thinking about how a no-fly zone would actually unfold, it becomes very obvious this would be direct involvement in the war against Russia. And rather than end the war, a no-fly zone would enlarge the war and escalate the war. And that’s why the Biden administration has, rightly, been very clear throughout this conflict that a no-fly zone would be escalatory and is not something that it wants to do………..
there is no really limited no-fly zone. A no-fly zone means a commitment not just to declare something, but to enforce it, by making sure that Russian planes cannot fly within that zone. And so, it would clearly be viewed as an act of war and an escalation by Russia………… What it really would be is an intermediate step toward a much wider war.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to ask you about the state of negotiations to end this war. The Ukrainian President Zelensky suggested earlier today that Russian demands are becoming more realistic. ………….. Zelensky’s remarks came a day after he acknowledged he doesn’t expect Ukraine to join NATO anytime soon, which is very significant.
………… STEPHEN WERTHEIM:……….. there are also some encouraging words coming out of the Biden administration, as well. Secretary of State Tony Blinken just recently suggested that the sanctions that have been imposed on Russia were not intended to be permanent. And what that signals is perhaps a willingness on the part of the United States to drop some of the most draconian sanctions on Russia if that becomes necessary in order to secure a peace settlement that the legitimate government of Ukraine, led by Zelensky, would desire. ………………………………………….. https://truthout.org/video/no-fly-zone-in-ukraine-would-be-direct-involvement-in-the-war-experts-warn/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=6141299d-bdd4-4062
Safety fears, as Chernobyl nuclear staff tired and stressed.
As Russian troops hold staff at the Chernobyl nuclear plant ‘hostage’,
the mayor of a nearby town warns ‘complete catastrophe’ could be round
the corner. Yuri Fomichev says fuel is running out at the site, including
for back-up generators supplying its safety systems. With the plant being
besieged for three weeks now, food supplies are also becoming scarce, and
the stress of being held at gunpoint could lead to ‘a new accident’, he
adds. His concerns were echoed by the official in charge of a 19-mile
Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl who warned staff were ‘on the edge of
their human capabilities due to physical and emotional exhaustion’.
Metro 16th March 2022
Mirror 16th March 2022
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/fears-chernobyl-in-danger-nuclear-26478660
Chilling warnings that Chernobyl is in danger of a new nuclear accident
because the 100 staff at the stricken plant being kept ‘hostage at
gunpoint’ by the Russians are on the edge of collapse.
Daily Mail 15th March 2022
What next for Ukraine’s nuclearsites and Wylfa and Trawsfynydd?
Dylan Morgan, on behalf of CADNO a PAWB. What next for Ukraine’s nuclear
sites and Wylfa and Trawsfynydd? The war in Ukraine has highlighted the
danger of the rush to build new nuclear power stations in Wales.
Russia’s miltiary attacks on Ukraine have been terrible. However, there is one
frightening fact about this conflict that isn’t mentioned in the press.
This is the first war to be fought on the land of a country that has
operational nuclear reactors.
In fact, Ukraine gets about 52% of its
electricity from 15 nuclear reactors. During the first days of the Russian
invasion, their chosen path into Ukraine to the south from Belarus was
through the exclusion zone around Chernobyl’s old nuclear reactors.
Higher levels of radioactivity have been reported in the area because
Russia’s heavy military vehicles have stirred up dust and mud releasing
radioactivity in to the environment.
Russian forces succeeded to gain
control of the site. Reports are reaching us suggesting that Ukrainian
workers trying to keep the site as safe as possible are under great strain.
It was reported that about 200 of them had to stay there without rest
facilities for the first fortnight after the arrival of the Russian forces.
Within days, we heard about Russian forces attacking the Zaporizhzhia
nuclear site in south east Ukraine. This is the largest nuclear site in
Europe and is the home to six Soviet 950MW reactors. That is, six Wylfa
size stations alongside each other. Luckily, neither the reactors nor the
waste stores there were hit. But great damage was caused to a training
building on the site. Russian soldiers have also captured this site. It is
logical to presume that work conditions there are very difficult for
Ukrainian workers in trying to run three of the six reactors with movement
to and from the site controlled by the Russians. It appears that the 3
other reactors there are not in operation at the moment.
We can only hope
that the names of the other nuclear sites, Rovno (4 reactors), South
Ukraine (3 reactors) and Khmeinitski (2 reactors) don’t become well known
as military targets hit by Russia over the next weeks. Dr Jim Green from
Friends of the Earth Australia warns us about dangers apart from the
reactors themselves in an article in the Ecologist two weeks ago:-
“radioactive reactor cores whether kept in situ or removed from the
reactors – would remain vulnerable, as would nuclear waste stores. Spent
fuel cooling ponds and dry stores often contain more radioactivity than the
reactors themselves, but without the multiple engineered layers of
containment thar reactors typically have.”
Nation Cymru 15th March 2022
Zelensky Says He’s ‘Cooled’ on Joining NATO, Ready for Talks With Russia on Crimea, Donbas
Russia wants Ukraine to declare neutrality, recognize Crimea as Russian, and recognize the independence of the breakaway Donbas republics. https://news.antiwar.com/2022/03/08/zelensky-says-hes-cooled-on-joining-nato-ready-for-talks-with-russia-on-crimea-donbas/ by Dave DeCamp
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told ABC News in an interview that aired Monday night that he had “cooled down” on the idea of Ukraine joining NATO and is open to talks with Russia about the future of the Donbas and Crimea.
“Regarding NATO, I have cooled down regarding this question long ago after we understood that NATO is not prepared to accept Ukraine,” Zelensky said. “The alliance is afraid of controversial things and confrontation with Russia. I never wanted to be a country which is begging something on its knees. We are not going to be that country, and I don’t want to be that president.”
Regarding Crimea and the Donbas, Zelensky said Ukraine is not prepared for Russian “ultimatums” but is ready to discuss the status of the territories. “The people who elected me are not ready to surrender. We are not ready for ultimatums,” he said. “But we can discuss with Russia the future of Crimea and Donbas.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told ABC News in an interview that aired Monday night that he had “cooled down” on the idea of Ukraine joining NATO and is open to talks with Russia about the future of the Donbas and Crimea.
“Regarding NATO, I have cooled down regarding this question long ago after we understood that NATO is not prepared to accept Ukraine,” Zelensky said. “The alliance is afraid of controversial things and confrontation with Russia. I never wanted to be a country which is begging something on its knees. We are not going to be that country, and I don’t want to be that president.”
Regarding Crimea and the Donbas, Zelensky said Ukraine is not prepared for Russian “ultimatums” but is ready to discuss the status of the territories. “The people who elected me are not ready to surrender. We are not ready for ultimatums,” he said. “But we can discuss with Russia the future of Crimea and Donbas.”
HELEN CALDICOTT: Russia’s war could spell worldwide nuclear disaster
The U.S., as always, standing on its self-righteous dignity, is retaliating with economic sanctions and arming NATO neighbours with murderous weapons. It has rejected outright Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plea to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and to remove the missiles pointed at Russia in NATO countries that were liberated from the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War after Secretary of State James Baker promised that the U.S. would not enlarge NATO inch to the east.
HELEN CALDICOTT: Russia’s war could spell worldwide nuclear disaster https://independentaustralia.net/article-display/helen-caldicott-russias-war-could-spell-worldwide-nuclear-disaster,16149
By Helen Caldicott | 14 March 2022, Boasting the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal, Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine could spell catastrophe on a global scale, writes Dr Helen Caldicott.
The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe” ~ Albert Einstein
How right he was. Now laced with thousands of nuclear weapons, some on hair-trigger alert, with a
determined leader invading a neighbouring country and threatening to use his nuclear arsenal, planetary life is hovering on the edge of obliteration.
After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world witnessed the dreadful human tragedy of atomic bombs:
‘People exposed within half a mile of the Little Boy fireball, that is, were seared to bundles of smoking black char in a fraction of a second as their internal organs boiled away. The small black bundles now stuck to the streets and bridges and sidewalks of Hiroshima numbered in the thousands.’
Knowing man’s propensity to fight, why in God’s name did the U.S. Government and Soviet Union authorise the brilliant scientists and weapons makers to construct thousands of nuclear weapons during and after the Cold War, culminating in more than 70,000 nuclear weapons during the ’70s and ’80s?
About 40 per cent of all U.S. scientists, engineers and technical professionals are engaged in weapons construction and design. And currently, Russia has 6,255 nuclear weapons, the U.S. has 5,550 and China, 350.
I am a physician, so let me describe the medical effects of a single bomb dropping on a city, be it New York or Boston. A Russian 20-megaton bomb would enter at 20 times the speed of sound exploding with the heat of the sun, digging a hole three-quarters of a mile (1.27 kilometres) wide and 88 feet (26.8 metres) deep, converting all buildings, people and earth shot up into the air as a mushroom cloud.
Twenty miles (32.2 kilometres) from the epicentre, all humans would be killed or lethally injured, some converted to charcoal statues. Winds of 500 mph (804 km/h) turn people into missiles travelling at 100 mph (161 km/h). A massive conflagration would follow covering 300 square miles (776.9 km2) and the fires would coalesce across the nation
As cities burn across the world, a massive cloud of toxic black smoke will elevate into the stratosphere blocking out the sun for ten years inducing a short ice age nuclear winter when all humans and most plants and animals will perish.
But the war in Ukraine is more than dangerous, hosting Chernobyl which contaminated 40 per cent of the European land mass with radioactive isotopes, together with 15 nuclear reactors and which could suffer meltdowns during wartime activities, causing unbelievable injury and death to people across Europe.
And a plant with six reactors was recently under attack.
God help us all.
The U.S., as always, standing on its self-righteous dignity, is retaliating with economic sanctions and arming NATO neighbours with murderous weapons. It has rejected outright Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plea to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and to remove the missiles pointed at Russia in NATO countries that were liberated from the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War after Secretary of State James Baker promised that the U.S. would not enlarge NATO one inch to the east.
Chernobyl nuclear plant lacking external power supply
Ukraine’s state nuclear power regulator said on Friday the electricity
supply to the Chernobyl nuclear power station had not yet been restored,
despite Russia’s energy ministry saying it was restored by Belarusian
specialists on Thursday. Ukraine has warned of an increased risk of a
radiation leak if the high-voltage power line, damaged in fighting, is not
repaired to the plant, which is occupied by Russian forces.
Reuters 11th March 2022
Video analysis reveals Russian attack on Ukrainian nuclear plant veered near disaster.
NPR, March 11, 2022: Last week’s assault by Russian forces on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was far more dangerous than initial assessments suggested, according to an analysis by NPR of video and photographs of the attack and its aftermath.
A thorough review of a four-hour, 21-minute security camera video of the attack reveals that Russian forces repeatedly fired heavy weapons in the direction of the plant’s massive reactor buildings, which housed dangerous nuclear fuel. Photos show that an administrative building directly in front of the reactor complex was shredded by Russian fire. And a video from inside the plant shows damage and a possible Russian shell that landed less than 250 feet from the Unit 2 reactor building.
The security camera footage also shows Russian troops haphazardly firing rocket-propelled grenades into the main administrative building at the plant and turning away Ukrainian firefighters even as a fire raged out of control in a nearby training building.
The evidence stands in stark contrast to early comments by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which while acknowledging the seriousness of the assault, emphasized that the action took place away from the reactors. In a news conference immediately after the attack, IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi made reference to only a single projectile hitting a training building adjacent to the reactor complex.
“All the safety systems of the six reactors at the plant were not affected at all,” Grossi told reporters at the March 4 briefing.
In fact, the training building took multiple strikes, and it was hardly the only part of the site to take fire from Russian forces. The security footage supports claims by Ukraine’s nuclear regulator of damage at three other locations: the Unit 1 reactor building, the transformer at the Unit 6 reactor and the spent fuel pad, which is used to store nuclear waste. It also shows ordnance striking a high-voltage line outside the plant. The IAEA says two such lines were damaged in the attack.
“This video is very disturbing,” says Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists. While the types of reactors used at the plant are far safer than the one that exploded
n Chernobyl in 1986, the Russian attack could have triggered a meltdown similar to the kind that struck Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011, he warns.”It’s completely insane to subject a nuclear plant to this kind of an assault,” Lyman says.
In a news conference on Thursday, Grossi said that he had met with Ukrainian and Russian officials but failed to reach an agreement to avoid future attacks on Ukraine’s other nuclear plants. “I’m aiming at having something relatively soon,” he told reporters in Vienna.
The assault
On March 3, the nuclear plant was preparing for a fight. A news release posted to its website just hours before the assault described the facility as operating normally, with its assigned Ukrainian military unit ready for combat.
The Russian decision to move on the plant was clearly premeditated, according to Leone Hadavi, an open-source analyst with the Centre for Information Resilience, who helped NPR review the video.”It was planned,” Hadavi says, and it involved around 10 armored vehicles as well as two tanks. That is far more firepower than would have been carried by, say, a reconnaissance mission that might have stumbled across the plant by chance.
Just before 11:30 p.m. local time, someone began livestreaming the plant’s security footage on its YouTube channel. The livestream rolled on as Russian forces began a slow and methodical advance on the plant. The column of armored vehicles, led by the tanks, used spotlights to cautiously approach the plant from the southeast along the main service road to the facility.
Around an hour and 20 minutes later, one of the two tanks that led the column was struck by a missile from Ukrainian forces and was disabled.
That marked the beginning of a fierce firefight that lasted for roughly two hours at the plant. Immediately after the tank was disabled, Russian forces returning fire appeared to hit a transmission line connected to the plant’s main electrical substation. The IAEA says two of four high-voltage lines were damaged in the attack. Lyman says that these lines are essential to safe operations at the plant……..
Based on photos and damage assessments by Ukrainian officials and the IAEA, Lyman says that the damage appears to have been to some of the less hardened points within the nuclear plant. Unlike office buildings and elevated walkways, the reactors themselves and their spent fuel are sealed within a thick steel containment vessel that would withstand a great deal of damage.
But he also says that the host of systems required to keep the reactors safe are not hardened against attack. Cooling systems rely on exterior pipework; backup generators are kept in relatively ordinary buildings; vital electrical yards are out in the open; and the plant’s control rooms are not designed to operate in a war zone……………. https://www.npr.org/2022/03/11/1085427380/ukraine-nuclear-power-plant-zaporizhzhia
IAEA doubts that the attack on Kharkiv Institute was a serious radiation hazard.
Russia has reportedly bombed a site in Ukraine which houses an
“experimental nuclear reactor”. The attack on the National Science Centre
Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology was reported in the early hours
of this morning. “
The State Inspectorate for Nuclear Regulation of Ukraine
announced that the facility was struck, damaging the exterior and possibly
numerous labs throughout the building,” reported the Kyiv Independent via
Twitter. The Kyiv Independent is an English language media outlet created
by journalists who say they were “fired from the Kyiv Post for defending
editorial independence”.
However, doubts have been expressed about the
amount of nuclear materials at the site. The International Atomic Energy
Agency IAEE has previously said the site’s “inventory of radioactive
material is very low” and kept at a “subcritical” state.
Lincolnshire Live 11th March 2022
Chernobyl’s radiation monitoring system has stopped sending readings to IAEA
Systems that broadcast radiation levels from Chernobyl stop sending
signals: Atomic energy chiefs issue warning over site seized by Russian
troops two weeks ago as Ukraine says staff trapped there need to be allowed
out. The International Atomic Energy Agency said the safeguards system shut
down. The safeguarding system keeps track of nuclear material and waste
products. But it the system today stopped sending readings to the UNs
nuclear watchdog. The IAEA also urged Russian forces to allow 210 staff
trapped at the site to leave.
Daily Mail 9th March 2022
Chernobyl nuclear workers ”exhausted and desperate”
Chernobyl workers are reportedly “exhausted and desperate” and surviving
on one meal of bread and porridge a day, sparking fears over their ability
to look after the nuclear plant safely.
The plant, where the world’s worst nuclear disaster happened in 1986, was taken by Russian forces at the start of the invasion of Ukraine. Hundreds of workers and guards have been
trapped for nearly two weeks, having not been able to leave since Feb 23.
The plant is not configured for workers living there, and they are sleeping
on floors, tables and camp beds. Communication with the Chernobyl workers
is currently limited to emails. Rafael Grossi, director general of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), called on Russia to allow
Chernobyl staff to be relieved by colleagues. Mr Grossi has offered to
travel to the Chernobyl plant where 200-plus staff have been on-site for 12
days straight.
Telegraph 8th March 2022
Research reactor in Kharkiv has been completely destroyed
| A Ukrainian nuclear facility and research reactor in Kharkiv that was reportedly damaged by Russian shelling has, in fact, been completely destroyed, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a briefing late Monday. IAEA head Rafael Grossi said that the relatively new the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, which had been built with the help of the United States, was considered “subcritical” and had “a very small inventory of material ,” and added that there had been no release of radiation. Bellona 8th March 2022 https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2022-03-ukrainian-research-reactor-reported-as-damaged-actually-destroyed-iaea-says |
Chernobyl workers still stranded at the power station
More than 210 workers remain trapped at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
as all its facilities continue to be controlled by the Russian military
troops. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that it has been
informed by Ukraine’s nuclear regulator that the shift of around 210
technical staff and guards has still not been able to rotate as of Monday
7th February. That means that the same staff have been on the site for 12
days.
Energy Live News 8th March 2022
The dangers of uncontrolled releases of the vast amounts of radioactivity contained in the Ukrainian reactors and their unprotected fuel stores should not be underestimated.
CND’s scientific adviser Dr Ian Fairlie writes a guest blog on the
dangers presented by Ukraine’s nuclear power stations: “For many years,
NGOs and nuclear critics have warned that nuclear power stations pose
dangerous threats during wars, as they provide tempting targets for
military attacks.
These concerns were routinely fobbed off by the
government as being unrealistic and unthinkable. But now the unthinkable
has actually happened. On March 3 and 4, Russian troops shelled and
occupied the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
Apparently,little damage was done to the reactors as, thankfully, radioactivity levels
were not increased. The shelling caused a fire in a nearby administrative
building that was later extinguished. Two people were reported injured.
The dangers of uncontrolled releases of the vast amounts of radioactivity
contained in the Ukrainian reactors and their unprotected fuel stores
should not be underestimated. The explosion and 10-day fire at Chernobyl in
1986 resulted many thousands of cancer deaths and in 42% of the land area
of Western Europe (including most of the UK) being contaminated with
radioactivity. Although Ukraine’s reactors are dissimilar in type to the
RBMK reactors at Chernobyl, this is of little comfort in view of the quite
different threats of indiscriminate shelling, aerial bombardment (including
by nuclear weapons), and sabotage that may occur during the current war in
Ukraine. CND 8th March 2022
Ukraine is a sacrificial pawn on the imperial chessboard.
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No meaningful diplomatic effort is being made by Washington to end the violence. Ukrainian lives are being spent like pennies to facilitate the agenda of US planetary domination by whipping up international support for the strangulation of Russia while pouring vast fortunes into the military-industrial complex rather than taking even the tiniest step toward de-escalation, diplomacy and detente.
Ukraine Is A Sacrificial Pawn On The Imperial Chessboard, https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/03/06/ukraine-is-a-sacrificial-pawn-on-the-imperial-chessboard/ Caitlin Johnstone, The war is not going well for Kyiv, and it would be unreasonable to expect that to change. As a vastly superior military force overwhelms the US client state, reality is in the process of crashing down hard in the face of western liberals who bought into the war propaganda that the brave, sexy comedian was leading an upset victory to kick Putin’s ass out of Ukraine.
Zelensky is now raging at NATO powers for refusing to intervene militarily against Russia, apparently having previously been given the impression that the US-centralized empire might risk its very existence defending its dear friends the Ukrainians from an invasion.
“Unfortunately, today there is a complete impression that it is time to give a funeral repast for something else: security guarantees and promises, determination of alliances, values that seem to be dead for someone,” Zelensky said Friday.
“All the people who will die starting from this day will also die because of you,” Ukraine’s president added. “Because of your weakness, because of your disunity.”
It must be hard, the process of learning that you were never actually a valued partner in western civilization’s fight for freedom and democracy. That you were always just one more sacrificial pawn on the imperial chessboard.
In a new article titled “U.S. and allies quietly prepare for a Ukrainian government-in-exile and a long insurgency“, The Washington Post reports that US officials anticipate Russia will reverse its early losses and successfully drive the Zelensky regime out of the country, after which “a long, bloody insurgency” is planned against the invaders backed by billions of dollars in US funding.
The US has a history of working to draw Moscow into gruelling, costly military quagmires which monopolize its military firepower while leaching it of blood and treasure. Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, author of US hegemonic manifesto The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, openly bragged about having lured Russia into its own Vietnam fighting the US-backed mujahideen in Afghanistan for a decade.
Just two years ago then-US Special Representative for Syria engagement said during a video event hosted by the Hudson Institute that his job was to make Syria “a quagmire for the Russians”.
So this isn’t something new or out of the blue, and what it means is that all the self-righteous posturing by the western political/media class about the need to pour weapons into Ukraine is not really about saving Ukrainian lives (only negotiating a ceasefire can do that), but about seizing this golden opportunity to hurt Russia’s geostrategic interests as much as possible. Ukraine on its own is powerless to stop Russia from taking Kyiv no matter how many weapons are sent, but those weapons can be used to fight a “long, bloody insurgency” after that happens which costs many more lives, keeps Moscow militarily preoccupied and hemorrhaging money, and ultimately hurts Putin’s popularity at home.
This by itself would do a great deal to advance US interests, but on top of that you’ve got the even greater benefit of manufacturing international consent for unprecedented acts of economic warfare against the entire nation of Russia, as well as killing Nord Stream 2 and rallying immense support for NATO and the imperial military/intelligence machine. The western world is now a united front against the Sauron-like menace of Vladimir Putin in much the same way it united against the threat of global terrorism after 9/11, and we’re probably only seeing the beginnings of the agendas this will be used to roll out.
We can expect these agendas to be used in an attempt to impoverish, undermine, agitate, and ultimately collapse and balkanize Russia, as the CIA and Washington swamp monsters have wanted to do since the fall of the Soviet Union.
This would leave China standing alone without its nuclear superpower guard bear and much more vulnerable to imperial operations geared toward thwarting the emergence of a true multipolar world, a goal US imperialists have had in writing for three decades.
That’s a whole lot of potential benefit to the US empire just for losing Ukraine. Kind of like sacrificing a pawn to get the queen in chess.
I think a big part of why I and others wrongly underestimated the likelihood of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine was that the cost-to-benefit math never made sense; on paper Moscow stands so much more to lose by this action in the long term than it stood to gain. There was also a bit of an assumption that the empire would rather Russia not take Ukraine, preferring to gradually encroach with NATO salami slicing tactics than give up a useful client state on Russia’s border, and would adjust its actions accordingly.
But chess is all about out-maneuvering your opponent to leave them nothing but bad options to choose from, and in the end leaving the king with no safe moves. The drivers of empire would have known that, as the late Justin Raimondo explained all the way back in 2014 for Antiwar, Putin could not afford to lose Ukraine to the west without losing crucial support in Russia. Combine that with increased attacks on Donbas separatists and the west’s adamant refusal to make even the most meaningless concessions like guaranteeing they wouldn’t add a nation to NATO who they had no intention of adding anyway, and you can understand if not support Putin’s drastic course of action.
No meaningful diplomatic effort is being made by Washington to end the violence. Ukrainian lives are being spent like pennies to facilitate the agenda of US planetary domination by whipping up international support for the strangulation of Russia while pouring vast fortunes into the military-industrial complex rather than taking even the tiniest step toward de-escalation, diplomacy and detente.
And it’s entirely possible that this was all planned years in advance.
Is it a coincidence that before this started we were bombarded with shrieking anti-Russia narratives for five years, all of which were initiated by secretive and unaccountable intelligence agencies and none of which have ever been substantiated with hard evidence? The discredited conspiracy theories that there was a Kremlin asset in the Oval Office had nothing to do with Ukraine. Neither did the plot hole–riddled and still completely unproven claim that Russian hackers intervened in the US election, or the baseless claim that St Petersburg trolls did the same. Neither did the claim that Russia was paying Taliban-linked fighters to kill US troops in Afghanistan, which was eventually walked back by the same intelligence cartel that made it.
All these hysterical anti-Russia narratives were shoved in everyone’s face day after day, year after year, with nothing really uniting them apart from the fact that they drove up general anxiety about Russia and that they were initiated by the US intelligence cartel. Even the empty Ukrainegate scandal which led to Trump’s unsuccessful impeachment was initiated by a CIA officer who just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
And while all those shrill narratives about a Putin puppet serving as America’s commander-in-chief were being aggressively hammered into public consciousness, Trump’s actual policies toward Moscow were extremely hawkish and aggressive. Beneath the narratives about Kremlin servitude, a new cold war was being dangerously escalated.
And now, lubricated years in advance by these mass-scale anti-Russia narratives, I’ve got western liberals in my social media notifications with blue and yellow profile pictures calling me a Russian propagandist and a Kremlin shill all day, every day. Because of that mass-scale propaganda campaign, we were paced to this point all the way from where we were at a few years ago when Obama was mocking Mitt Romney for his then-outlandish Russia hawkishness.
So we’re looking at increasingly aggressive confrontations between the US power alliance and the China-Russia bloc for the foreseeable future in a struggle which has already erupted in hot war and could easily get infinitely worse. All because a few manipulators in high places convinced the US establishment that global unipolar domination would be a good thing. Many of these unipolarist empire architects were involved in the murderous and influential Project for a New American Century (PNAC), whose founding members are now providing expert punditry on what should be done about the war in Ukraine.
Michael Parenti saw this all coming long ago:
The PNAC plan envisions a strategic confrontation with China, and a still greater permanent military presence in every corner of the world. The objective is not just power for its own sake but power to control the world’s natural resources and markets, power to privatize and deregulate the economies of every nation in the world, and power to hoist upon the backs of peoples everywhere — including North America — the blessings of an untrammeled global “free market.” The end goal is to ensure not merely the supremacy of global capitalism as such, but the supremacy of American global capitalism by preventing the emergence of any other potentially competing superpower.
We should not have to live this way. We should not have to see the horrors of war inflicted upon humanity with the risk of total nuclear annihilation hanging over our heads every minute of every day, all for some dopey grand chessboard maneuverings of a few sociopaths who can’t just let humanity be.
There is no good reason why nations cannot simply collaborate with each other for everyone’s benefit. There is no good reason we should accept these omnicidal games of planetary conquest as inevitable, normal, or fine. If our minds weren’t so pervasively locked down by mass-scale psychological manipulation, there is no way we would stand for this madness.
I don’t know if the US will succeed in this grand strategic confrontation to prevent the rise of a multipolar world. From where I’m sitting it depends on which side of the conflict has more tricks up their sleeve, and that could easily be the emerging China-centralized alliance of which Russia is a key player. But I do think it’s far too early for anyone to declare that the US-led world order is over and a true multipolar world has solidified.
There are many moves on the chessboard still to be played.
Ukrainian military to blow up experimental nuclear reactor at Kharkov Institute
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[Ed. This may or may not be true. So much distortion, so many lies, on both sides of this war.]
Ukrainian military to blow up experimental nuclear reactor at Kharkov Institute — ministry, https://tass.com/defense/1418059?utm_source=m.facebook.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=m.facebook.com&utm_referrer=m.facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR1eAxJ5Sa2Zm9gizbshjRjeqzJWDl4SLnpEjstcw_3X5lo0-HLT9l9bK6c
The Russian Defense Ministry noted that “on March 6, foreign journalists arrived in Kharkov to register the consequences of the provocation, followed by accusing Russia of creating an environmental disaster”
MOSCOW, March 7. /TASS/. The Ukrainian Security Forces and the nationalist Azov battalion are planning to blow up a reactor at the National Research Center of the Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology and accuse the Russian Armed Forces of launching projectiles at an experimental nuclear reactor, says Russia’s Defense Ministry on Monday.
“The Security Forces of Ukraine along with the militants of the Azov battalion are plotting a provocation with possible radioactive contamination of the area near the city of Kharkov. Nationalists mined a reactor at an experimental nuclear system located at the [National Research Center of] Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology. The Ukrainian military and the Azov battalion militants are planning to blow up the reactor and accuse the Russian Armed Forces of allegedly launching a missile strike on an experimental nuclear system,” the statement says.
The Russian Defense Ministry noted that “on March 6, foreign journalists arrived in Kharkov to register the consequences of the provocation, followed by accusing Russia of creating an environmental disaster.”.
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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