Secret files said to link CIA to JFK assassination

 

      By Reginald Johnson

 

   In an astonishing newscast last week dealing with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, FOX’s Tucker Carlson said a source who has access to still-unreleased CIA files on the case stated “unequivocally” that the agency “was involved” with Kennedy’s murder.

 “We spoke to someone who had access to these still hidden CIA documents, a person who was deeply familiar with what they contained,” said Carlson. “We asked this person directly,  ‘did the CIA have a hand in the murder of John F. Kennedy, an American president?’ And here’s the reply we received, verbatim: ‘The answer is yes. I believe they were involved. It’s a whole different country from what we thought it was. It’s all fake.’ “

   “It’s hard to imagine a more jarring response than that,” Carlson said. “Again, this is not a conspiracy theorist that we spoke to. Not even close. This is someone with direct knowledge of the information that once again is being withheld from the American public. And the answer we received was unequivocal --- ‘yes. the CIA was involved in the assassination of the president.’ ”

  Carlson’s show ran the same day that the Biden administration opted to release some of the secret CIA files dealing with the assassination ----- but not all.  Some of the most sensitive documents are still hidden, despite the fact that a congressional act was passed more than 30 years ago mandating that all the records relating to Kennedy’s assassination should be made public by the year 2017. That has not taken place, with successive administrations, Republican and Democrat, slow-walking the process.

  It’s long been speculated that the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) was involved with the JFK assassination, which took place on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Tex. Thousands of books and articles and been written about the case, and many authors have either speculated about the CIA’s responsibility, or in some cases pointed the finger directly at the CIA. Kennedy had a bad relationship with the agency, after he faulted the CIA for the botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.

  Oliver Stone’s film, “JFK,” also told a story about FBI, CIA and military officers being involved in the murder, in what was portrayed as a coup d’etat.

   However, no one in the mainstream press, in Congress or in the government bureaucracy has ever dared to come out and say that the CIA might have been tied to the president’s killing. The establishment view on the assassination for years has remained that the Warren Commission --- which reviewed Kennedy’s murder in 1964 --- was correct in concluding that the 35^th president was murdered by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, and there was no conspiracy involving other actors or government officials.

  Carlson’s show therefore was unusual --- a highly rated commentator on a mainstream channel voicing the strong possibility that a branch of the United States government was involved in the murder of a sitting president.

 The FOX commentator also said if what the source is saying is true, it confirms the belief held by many over the years --- that the US has a democracy in name only.

  “It means that within the US government, there are forces wholly beyond democratic control. These forces are more powerful than the elected officials that supposedly oversee them,” Carlson said. “These forces can affect election outcomes. They can even hide their complicity in the murder of an American president. In other words, they can do pretty much anything they want. They constitute a government within a government, mocking by their very existence the idea of democracy. As cynical as we have become after 30 years of watching government officials ignore the voters who employ them, we were shocked to learn of this. It’s not acceptable,” Carlson stated.

  Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy who, like his brother, was also assassinated, called the Carlson show,  “The most courageous newscast in 60 years. The CIA’s murder of my uncle was a successful coup d’état from which our democracy has never recovered.”

  Sen. Kennedy was killed in 1968, also allegedly by a lone gunman, Sirhan Sirhan. Sirhan, now in his late 70s, is serving a life sentence.

 Robert Kennedy Jr. has said previously that he believed that neither Oswald nor Sirhan acted alone in the two murders.

  In a follow-up show on the JFK case on Dec. 16, a lawyer who is pushing for the full release of the CIA files on Kennedy, told Carlson the Biden administration’s decision to only release part of the files was “very disappointing, frustrating and infuriating.”

  New York Law School Adjunct Prof. Lawrence Schnapf said, “Essentially what we got yesterday was old wine packaged in new bottles. The 13,000 records released yesterday were basically records that had already been released and maybe with less redactions.”

  He added “the spin that the CIA is doing is unfortunately (something) that the New York Times and the Washington Post have taken hook, line and sinker … this is a big nothing burger.”

  The Mary Ferrell Foundation, the nation’s largest nonprofit repository of the assassination records has sued the administration to make all the documents public. The foundation says the CIA is withholding most of the records at issue.

 The Assassination Records Review Board that was established under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 has also tried to obtain more Kennedy files from NBC that it says the company is holding,  according to Schnapf.

 “To show you the level of obstruction in our government, the review board prepared a subpoena to serve on NBC and the Department of Justice refused to serve it,” Schnapf said.

  The attorney urged Carlson and his listeners to pressure leaders of the new incoming Congress to hold hearings and subpoena CIA officials to come and testify why they are not turning over the Kennedy files as required by law.

  The last few years have seen more calls for Congress to set up a new "Church Committee" to investigate abuses by the intelligence community, including the CIA, FBI and NSA.

  In the 1970s, a Senate committee headed by Sen. Frank Church of Idaho conducted a sweeping investigation of irregularities at the agencies and that triggered a number of reforms.

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

  

 

 

"Christmas Truce" in Ukraine?

 

     By Reginald Johnson

       Commentary

 

    For two wonderful days in December, 1914 during World War I, the guns fell silent and tired soldiers on both sides of the conflict crawled out of their trenches to shake hands with combatants on the other side and celebrate Christmas.

  English, French, and  German soldiers came together in a spontaneous moment to eat dinner, sing Christmas carols and even play soccer.

  The informal cease-fire was dubbed “The Christmas Truce.”

 Though the truce didn’t last long ---  the war resumed and dragged on for another four years --- the Christmas Truce is long remembered as a special moment in history, when the killing stopped and there was a glimmer of hope that a brutal conflict could somehow be brought to an end.

  Now, peace advocates are urging that a “Christmas Truce” be called in the Ukraine War, also a brutal conflict that has left 200,000 Ukrainian and Russian soldiers killed or injured in just nine months.

“The Christmas Truce of 1914 was a symbol of hope and courage, when the people of warring countries organized an armistice on their own authority and joined in a spontaneous act of reconciliation and fraternization,” said a statement by CODE Pink, an anti-war organization.

  “In this same spirit, we ask you to join us in urging President Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and congressional representatives to support the International Peace Bureau’s call for a Christmas Truce in Ukraine,” the statement said. 

“A truce --- a moment of holiday peace --- could pave the way for negotiations to reach a lasting security agreement to end the bloodshed once and for all.”

  A petition has been set up on the CODE Pink website for people to sign and indicate their support. https://www.codepink.org/christmas_truce_in_ukraine_gen

   The peace group and other organizations such as the Fellowship of Reconciliation have also been urging leaders of the faith community and social justice movements to support the campaign.  Dr. Cornel West and the Rev. Jesse Jackson have gotten behind the effort.

 The Ukraine War began in February when Russia invaded Ukraine in what Russia called a “Special Military Operation.”  US and Ukrainian officials called the invasion an act of naked aggression --- completely unjustified and illegal under international law.  Russian officials maintained, however, they acted after a series of provocations by Ukraine and the US-led military alliance, NATO, which has bases in many countries close to Russia.

  The US has supplied over $100 billion in military aid to help Ukraine to fight the war.

 Negotiations to end the war have stalled, with Biden administration officials indicating little interest in peace talks. A tentative plan to end the war last April --- agreed to by Russia and Ukraine --- fell apart after the US rejected the deal.

  The possibility the war could turn nuclear arose after Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky suggested preemptive strikes against Russia to prevent the Russians from using nuclear weapons. Russian officials said they interpreted Zelensky's remarks as suggesting that NATO should launch a nuclear first strike against Russia.

. Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country would not fire a nuclear first strike at Ukraine, but said Russia would use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack.

 Noam Chomsky,  the world renown intellectual and long-time foreign policy critic, warned recently that there could be dire consequences for the human race if the war is not brought to a close in the near future.

  Chomsky foresees possible catastrophe in two ways --- first by the possibility of a nuclear war starting in Ukraine; and second, by the environmental consequences of more widespread use of highly-polluting liquid natural gas, as the flow of Russian gas has been stopped. He said the world only has limited time to shut down high-carbon fossil fuel usage and control global warming, and the wider use now of dirty fuel will hasten the arrival of a total climate collapse.

  “Every possible path to a diplomatic settlement should be pursued,” Chomsky told an audience at The Peoples Forum. “There is no time for delay.”

  The International Peace Bureau is calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine for Christmas 2022/2023 from Dec. 25^th to January 7^th  “as a sign of our shared humanity, reconciliation and peace.”  https://www.ipb.org/ipb-christmas-peace-appeal/

To ask for a Christmas Truce in Ukraine, call the White House at 202-456-1111 and your members of Congress, at 202-224-3121.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

'A state beyond insanity'

      

    By Reginald Johnson

     World renown intellectual and social critic Noam Chomsky is warning of catastrophe if the Ukraine War continues.

  The MIT professor emeritus of linguistics and longtime anti-war activist told an audience at the Peoples Forum in New York City recently that the war creates the potential for disaster in two ways – first by triggering a sharp increase in the use of highly polluting fossil fuels at a time when the world has only limited time left to avoid a climate collapse, and second, by creating the real possibility of nuclear war between the United States and Russia.

 “The longer the war continues the greater will be the toll, reaching very fast perhaps, to the end of organized human life, speak of the vast number of species we are wantonly destroying,” Chomsky said.

 “And that of course is assuming we can ward off the option of destroying ourselves more expeditiously with nuclear war, a possibility that is casually being discussed, as if it were an option – it’s an indescribable descent to a state beyond insanity.”

  “Sorry if these remarks seem hyperbolic. They are not,” Chomsky said. “All of this tells us that every possible path to a diplomatic settlement should be pursued in accord with the wishes of almost the entire world, including the core of Europe… There is no time for delay,” he said.

  Chomsky delivered his sobering message during a panel discussion entitled “The Real Path to Peace in Ukraine.” The event, co-sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition, was designed to discuss ways to develop a wider protest movement aimed at stopping the war.

  Among those joining Chomsky was peace activist Medea Benjamin of Code Pink; Dr. Jill Stein, former Green Party presidential candidate and historian and commentator Vijay Prashad.

  The discussion took place as the Ukraine-Russia war is now in its ninth month and shows little signs of letting up. Approximately 100,000 casualties have been reported and there’s been widespread damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure. Leaders of both Ukraine and Russia have said the use of nuclear weapons is not out of the question.

 Meanwhile, the Biden administration has shown no interest in promoting peace talks to end the conflict; in fact, a tentative deal to end the war last April was rejected by the White House.

 Administration officials as well as leaders in both political parties in Congress maintain that continued aid is needed to help Ukraine win back its freedom, resist “Russian aggression” and stop a claimed “threat” posed to the rest of Europe.

  Critics charge however, that the real goal of the United States in funding the war is a geopolitical one: weaken Russia and eventually spark regime change in that country; Ukraine is simply being used in that process.

  So far the United States has given nearly $100 billion --- much of it lethal military hardware --- to help Ukraine fight Russia.

                                                          

The Ukrainian military has gotten billions of dollars in aid from the US to fight Russia.

  “We’re saying ‘no’ to this proxy war, we’re saying ‘no’ to the US government policy of bleeding Russia through the lives of countless Ukrainians,” said Manolo De Los Santos, co-director of the People’s Forum, in introductory remarks.  “We are not going to wait for nuclear war.  We are not going to wait for global famine. We are not going to wait for a further energy crisis…We will not allow them to sacrifice either  Ukrainian or Russian people or better yet we will not allow them to sacrifice the planet for their new war of greed.”

  Benjamin said it will take a broad-based grassroots movement to force a change in US policy on the war, which is supported even by so-called “progressive Democrats” in Congress.

  “It’s important to gather up our forces and to extend them to get the people in the environmental movement to recognize that this war has only led to production of more dirty energy, giving a green light to the oil and gas and coal and nuclear weapons and power producers,” Benjamin said, adding, “we have to get the environmental movement to work with us to say that this war and all wars are so destructive of the environment and they have to stand with us for peace.”

  The Code Pink founder continued, “We also call on the faith-based movement to say war is immoral, all wars are immoral and they need to come with us and call for a ‘Christmas Truce’ like the one that happened during World War I… We are calling on faith-based leaders around the country to join the Pope, who has said we must get all sides to the table.”

Noam Chomsky

     In her remarks, Stein said the war represented “end-stage capitalism” in which only the elites are benefitting from war --- through arms sales and oil profits – while the vast majority of people around the country and the world are seeing a decline in their quality of life.

  “The chickens have come home to roost back here in the seat of the Empire,” she said. “The chickens have come home to roost in the struggles of the poor and the working poor who are growing by the millions in the US and around the world. Hundreds have joined the ranks of the billionaire class while hundreds of millions have joined the ranks of poverty.

  “So the system just doesn’t last,” Stein said. “And we’re all in the crossfire – not just the people of Ukraine who are being set up to the last person, man, woman and child --- their lives are being expended --- we are all part of this vast exercise of unaccountable and abusive power on the part of economic elites. We are saying no more. The buck stops,” she said.

  The 2016 presidential candidate said there is a disconnect between how members of Congress see the nation’s priorities and how regular people see them. She said that Gallup polls indicate that economic priorities --- such as inflation and cost-of-living issues relating to housing and healthcare are at the top of the list of concerns cited by working people.

  Stein said “70,000 people in the United States are dying for lack of health insurance every year and housing is an acute crisis with 11 million people facing eviction.” But Congress is not targeting funding to deal with these problems.

“If you look at Congress it’s very clear and explicit that it’s funding for a new generation of nuclear weapons and more tanks for Ukraine and armaments that is their number one priority,” she said.

  Santos said about the panel discussion, “This is not “a one-off event. This the beginning of a movement to fully challenge NATO and US imperialism.”

  A series of actions and anti-war protests are planned for January, he said.

    

 

 

 

Connecticut's congress members: all in for war

     By Reginald Johnson

  

         Commentary

  

   (I recently read a nice summary in the Connecticut Examiner presenting statements by all the candidates running for Congress in Connecticut on where they stand on the Ukraine War. I would highly recommend that everybody take a look at this article if you’re concerned about this war and the need for peace. It is at https://ctexaminer.com/2022/10/26/connecticuts-candidates-for-congress-weigh-in-on-continued-aid-for-ukraine/) 

  If you’d like to see the Ukraine War war brought to an end as I do, you’ll be distressed to learn that all the Democratic Party incumbents in the state’s five congressional districts back the war wholeheartedly.

 They have no problems with the vast sums of money being expended to allegedly defend Ukraine. And they stand foursquare for continuing the conflict, despite the fact that if it goes on much longer nuclear weapons could be used and that would be a possible world-ending event. There’s no mention by any of them of the need for peace talks to end the war and stop the slaughter.

 One of the hawks is one-time liberal Rosa DeLauro, the incumbent Congresswoman from the Third Congressional District. DeLauro said she’s proud of chairing of the House Appropriations Committee which steered $66 billion in “emergency funding” (much of that for lethal weaponry)  “to support the Ukrainian people and defend global democracy in the wake of Russia’s unprovoked and malicious attack.”

 She added, “We will continue demonstrating to the Ukrainian people that in the face of ongoing Russian aggression we will not let them down.”

  Jim Himes, the incumbent congress member from the Fourth Congressional District, sounded a similar theme. He said that as a member of the House Intelligence Committee he and others met with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky and other top Ukrainian officials “to reassure them of continued US military and nonmilitary aid. Ukraine is fighting our and the world’s fight for democracy, the rule of law and basic human decency.”

  DeLauro and Himes make it sound like the US involvement in Ukraine is based on the idea that Russia is similar to Nazi Germany in 1939 and the Russians, if allowed to take Ukraine, will sweep over Europe crushing all the democracies and then ultimately threatening the United States.

 This is patently absurd. The fact of the matter is that Russia was in large part provoked into launching the invasion of Ukraine because of the eastward advance of the Western military alliance known as NATO, in violation of a pledge by US leaders to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 that that exact same thing would never take place; by the violation of the Minsk peace accords by the present Ukrainian regime which saw Ukrainian forces attack the ethnic Russian provinces in the eastern part of Ukraine, states which were supposed to be given autonomy and self-governance under the agreement; and the continued demand by the US that Ukraine be allowed to join NATO, something which the Russians have opposed --- and understandably so --- for years.  

  The Russians saw a security threat developing in Ukraine and they took action to stop it --- just the way the US took action 60 years ago when the Soviet Union put missiles into Cuba only 90 miles from our shores.

 The claims by the incumbent House members that America is defending democracy in Ukraine are bogus. The Zelensky regime has shut down newspapers, locked up dissidents and officially recognizes a holiday for a World War II Nazi collaborator who helped the Germans carry out pogroms against Ukrainian Jews. Democracy??

 The other Democrats in Congress in Connecticut, Jahana Hayes in the Fifth District, John Larson in the First District and Joe Courtney in the Second District also took hard-line positions in supporting Ukraine.

  Republican challengers were hardly any better in their responses to the survey. One or two did take issue with the high cost of the war to the United States --- not in human terms, of course --- but in terms of the high dollar amounts.

 The only candidates in the Examiner survey that took progressive positions on the war were two Green Party candidates, Mary Sanders, running in the First District against Larson and Justin Pagliano, running in the Third District against DeLauro. Another good anti-war candidate running is Dr. Amy Chai of New Haven who is challenging DeLauro.

  Sanders had the best position of all. She said in part, “The US government has supported the expansion of NATO east to the border of Russia, steering the region into war in order to feed the military-industrial intelligence complex like they have done so many times before.

  “I would work for an immediate cease-fire and relief for the victims while stopping the export of arms to Ukraine. Humanitarian and economic development is needed not more weapons! I support a UN Security Council guarantee of neutrality and security for Ukraine and a UN mediated solution to the questions of the Donbass and Crimea with its warm water port Sebastopol,” Sanders said.

  While the Green Party and independent candidates probably won’t get much support in the election, they deserve a lot of credit for taking principled and humanitarian positions on this disastrous war which has already cost so much and threatens to spark a worldwide catastrophe.

  Thank you to those candidates and shame on the Democrats and Republicans for their belligerent and dangerous views.

 

Ukraine War protestors: "Negotiations Now!"

 

By Reginald Johnson

 

 

    MIDDLETOWN, CT ---   Peace activists took to the streets here on Saturday to protest the war in Ukraine and warn people that the conflict threatens to become a nuclear holocaust.

Gathering on the corner of Main and Washington, the demonstrators held signs and passed out fliers which said “Prevent Nuclear War” and “Negotiations Now.”

“We’ve gotten a number of horn honks and people have taken leaflets,” said Steve Krevisky, one of the organizers.

  As parents walked by with their children dressed up in halloween costumes, Krevisky added, “We know there’s a halloween celebration down the street and you don’t want to spoil a good mood, but the threat of nuclear war should bother people. So considering, we’ve had a pretty good response.”

 The Middletown protest was one of more than 70 actions that took place around the country and Canada in the past week sponsored by an umbrella peace group, the United National Anti-war Coalition (UNAC).

 “We did not expect such an overwhelming response from our movement, but we learned people are ready to hit the streets and build a strong unified antiwar movement,” a UNAC official said.

 The protests erupted as the Ukraine-Russia war, now seven months old, has reached a more dangerous phase. Neither side seems to have the upper hand in the war and leaders of both nations have talked of the possibility of using nuclear weapons.

 NATO, the US-led military alliance which is aiding Ukraine, recently began nuclear war training exercises in eastern Europe and Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country may do the same.

Protestors in Middletown warn of nuclear war danger in Ukraine.

 Over the months, the US and NATO have pumped billions of dollars in lethal aid into Ukraine and military observers believe the weaponry has allowed Ukraine to launch effective counter attacks against Russian forces and prolong the war. Thousands of combatants have died in the conflict and there’s been massive damage to civilian infrastructure.

 Meanwhile, there is no movement towards negotiations to achieve a peaceful settlement. While several European leaders including France’s Emanuel Macron as well as Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodomyr Zelensky have indicated at different times that they were open to peace negotiations, the United States has been a roadblock.

  The administration of President Joseph Biden has rebuffed the idea of peace talks several times, including in April shortly after the war began when a tentative settlement was on the table, but the US rejected it.

 Recently, Biden reaffirmed American opposition to negotiations when he told CNN that he had no interest in meeting with Putin at an upcoming G20 summit and he was not interested in negotiations to end the war.

  Nonetheless, Biden himself commented recently on the gravity of the present situation. He said the risk of a nuclear “Armageddon” was higher now than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

 The US refusal to get behind peace talks is a sore point for activists like Krevisky.

  “I feel from my own perspective that I have to be critical of the Biden administration not only because they still refuse to negotiate, but in fact they seem to be upping the ante,” he said.

  A member of the Connecticut Peace and Solidarity Coalition, Krevisky said that he and others in the group are also trying to make people understand the “connections” between US war policy and military spending and the fact that domestic needs are not being met at home.

   “One of my favorite slogans is,  ‘money for jobs and education, not war and occupation.’ So we wanted to connect issues and get people to recognize the danger of the situation especially since a lot of us think that the corporate media is brainwashing people to go along with a war that many of us think the West wanted a long time ago,” he said.

                                        

Congressional candidate Dr. Amy Chai takes a stand on the Ukraine War.

  Also protesting the war --- at the same time she was campaigning --- was Dr. Amy Chai of New Haven who is running for Congress as an independent against long-time Democratic incumbent Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro in the Third Congressional District. DeLauro has, like other Democrats, fully backed the massive military aid packages being sent to Ukraine.

 “I’m against all proxy wars --- the war in North Africa, sending arms to Yemen and sending arms to Ukraine,” said Chai. “I’m against the US being the arms dealer for the world and I’m against that because I don’t want people using my tax dollars to kill people --- that goes against everything I believe in as a doctor.”

  Asked about the administration’s claim that the American support for Ukraine was about defending Ukrainian democracy and freedom, she said, “That’s baloney. That’s baloney. It’s about corruption and money --- making money for the arms dealers. It’s a corrupt scheme that serves some people’s interest but not ours,” she said.

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Protests target Ukraine War

By Reginald Johnson 

    Peace activists will take to the streets in the coming days to demand that the Biden administration pursue a negotiated settlement to end the war in Ukraine and avert a nuclear confrontation with Russia.

 The United National Anti-war Coalition said more than 40 actions will take place around the country from Oct. 15-21 as  part of a campaign to bring about a cease-fire in Ukraine and end the war, which has cost tens of thousands of lives so far.

 In Connecticut, a protest against the war will take in Middletown on Saturday, October 22. The demonstration will be held at the corner of Main and Washington Streets and run from 12 noon to 2 pm.

  The possibility of the war going nuclear has been growing as Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said his nation might be forced at a certain point to use nuclear weapons and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky has suggested bluntly that the West should fire nuclear missiles at Russia right now.

  A flier announcing the Middletown protest quotes President Biden’s recent comment that for the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, “we have a direct threat of the use of nuclear weapon...there is no ability to use a tactical weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”

  But the flier notes, “Yet the US government intends to prolong the war in Ukraine as long as it takes to weaken and ultimately destroy Russia, a country with thousands of nuclear weapons. This is madness!”

  The Middletown action is sponsored by the Connecticut Peace and Solidarity Coalition and the Greater New Haven Peace Council, among others.

  For further information contact Steve in Middletown at  Skrevisky@mxcc.commnet.edu; Alex in Hartford at koskinasa175@gmail.com; or Henry in New Haven at grnhpeacecouncil@gmail.com.

 

 

 

Nuclear Brink?

   By Reginald Johnson

 

                  Commentary

 

 

                  The eastern world, it is explodin’

                  Violence flarin’ bullets loadin’

                   You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’

                  You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin?

                  And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’

                  But you tell me, over and over again and over again, my friend

                 Ah, you don’t believe

                  We’re on the eve of destruction.’

                      (Barry McGuire, The Eve of Destruction, 1965)

 

   The spirit of this song, sadly, is so apt today.

  We’ve reached a very dangerous point in the war in Ukraine, where there’s a real chance of a direct confrontation between Russia and US-NATO forces. And if such a confrontation takes place, nuclear weapons will likely be used.

 Humanity cannot survive a nuclear war.

 Russian President Vladimir Putin has said not once, but twice recently that if Russia feels its territory is threatened by NATO, then they may resort to using nuclear weapons. In the beginning, that might mean using only short-range tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

  But how will the West respond to that? NATO may in turn fire tactical nukes at Russian forces.

  Can the field of combat be limited to tactical weapons? It's doubtful. Russia might well say at a certain point --- particularly since it has a larger arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons than NATO --- that it was time to go all the way and win what they perceive as an existential conflict with the West by firing long-range nuclear missiles at the US and NATO countries. Then, all bets are off and it's full-out nuclear war.

  Whole cities would be leveled during nuclear strikes and tens of millions of people would be instantly killed. Just multiply the devastation of Nagasaki and Hiroshima by 50 times. Those who were able to survive in rural areas would eventually die of radiation poisoning and cancer.

Armageddon.

Tens of millions of people will die instantly in a nuclear attack.

 Now I know, many people are likely to reject this dark, apocalyptic scenario and say,  ‘Come on, it’ll never get to that point. They’ll stop it.’

 But will they?

 The Biden administration has been resisting getting behind negotiations between Ukraine and Russia to bring an end to this war right from the start. In April, Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France agreed on a framework for a tentative peace agreement and it was rebuffed by Washington. US officials, using former UK leader Boris Johnson as their intermediary in talks with Ukraine’s president Volodomyr Zelensky said they had no interest in a negotiated settlement.

 Right now there is absolutely no evidence of any push for negotiations by Washington. And billions more in military aid keeps being sent to Ukraine to prolong the war.

 It’s clear to everyone with eyes to see that the US does not want peace in Ukraine and instead is using the Ukraine war as a means of weakening Russia and eventually bringing about regime change in Moscow. The Ukrainians are being used as cannon fodder in a US proxy war. Biden and other officials are apparently willing to engage in nuclear brinksmanship ---- and put the world at risk --- while they pursue this wild and morally reprehensible geopolitical objective.

  Biden this week went off script in a speech to donors and warned that the situation in Ukraine presented the greatest risk of nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. He was right. But the question needs to be asked, just who put the world in this situation?

  It’s a little bit like an arsonist that runs into a dry forest, lights a match, starts a fire and then runs out and yells, 'Fire! Fire! Hurry, call the fire department!

  It is troublesome that so many in the media have not been taking the situation in Ukraine as seriously as they should and have done little in recent months to question US policy in Ukraine and ask why the United States and NATO continue to pump weapons into Ukraine, without any corresponding push for negotiations, while the danger of an all-out war with Russia continues to grow.

 One commentator who has been sounding the alarm about the Ukraine policy is Tucker Carlson of FOX who since the beginning of the war has sharply criticized American policy.

  On a recent show --- after reporting Zelensky’s rash comment that it was time for the West to nuke Russia --- Carlson said: "If there was a moment for the Biden administration to shut this whole thing down and force negotiated peace, which they could do in an instant, that moment is right now before huge numbers of people die." 

  "But that’s not what the Biden administration is doing. They are moving in the other direction at high speed and doing all they can to bring the West to the brink of destruction,” he said.

  Scott Ritter, a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet union implementing arms control treaties and also oversaw the disarmament of WMDs in Iraq, wrote recently in Consortium News that the situation in Ukraine is dire and it is absolutely necessary for both President Biden and President Putin to step up to the plate and engage in serious talks to make sure that the war in Ukraine doesn’t become a nuclear holocaust.

  “We are, literally, on the eve of destruction," he wrote. "Now is the time for the kind of political maturity leaders rarely demonstrate. The onus is on Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin to make sure that even while events on the ground in Europe devolve into chaos and violence, the leaders of the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals do not allow emotion to get the better of reason.  The consequences of failure in this regard are, for humanity, terminal,” 

  It's clear we are heading in a deadly direction and everyone who cares about the fate of the planet needs to step up. Call your senators and congress people and demand that they push the administration to stop fueling the war with more weapons and instead work for a negotiated peace settlement. The Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121. Call the White House line at 202-456-1111 and tell them you don't want nuclear war and you want the administration to help bring an end to the Ukraine war. You can also write a letter to the local newspaper and demand peace. 

   Also, various peace and anti-war groups are planning events to protest the US policy in Ukraine. Check them out. One is CODE Pink and another is the United National Anti-war Coalition (UNAC).

 In Connecticut, the Connecticut Peace and Solidarity Coalition and the Greater New Haven Peace Council are also taking actions to build support for peace in Ukraine.

  About 20 years ago, I attended an anti-war rally in Times Square in New York City just before a congressional vote on authorizing an American invasion of Iraq --- something that led to the disastrous Iraq War, which killed over 1 million people. Ramsey Clark, the former Attorney General and noted peace activist, was urging people to raise their voice in opposition to war.

  "Your life may depend on it... believe me," he said.

So it is today. Speak out against prolonging the Ukraine War  and demand peace. 

 Your life may depend on it.

 

 

  

 

                  

Joe Biden the divider

   

By Reginald Johnson

Commentary

   Prior to last Thursday night’s speech by President Biden at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, entitled “A Battle for the Soul of America,”  administration officials promised that the address would be high-minded and non-political.

 Well, it was anything but that. In fact, Joe Biden delivered one of the most divisive and irresponsible speeches ever given by a President during an official address.

 Speaking in dark lighting with two Marines standing guard in the background, Biden lashed into Donald Trump and his supporters --- that’s about 75 million people ---and effectively called them enemies of the state.

“Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal,” Biden said. “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent in extremism that threatens the very foundation of our republic.”

 Since most of the Republican Party are Trump supporters, Biden was calling Republicans traitors.

 Joe McCarthy couldn’t have done it better.

 Remember, this is the same Joe Biden who urged Americans during his Inaugural Address on Jan. 20, 2021 to “lower the temperature” and work with him to “unite” the country. What hypocrisy.

Instead of bringing the country together, Biden’s speech --- together with other recent comments where he called Trump supporters “semi-fascists” ----  deepens the polarization in our land, already severe.

For someone who voted for Biden, this is a deep disappointment.

It appears that Biden and the Democrats --- looking at low poll numbers heading into the 2022 congressional elections and probably weak prospects in terms of retaining the presidency in 2024 --- have decided to go all out with a vitriolic campaign demonizing the Republicans and the likely 2024 GOP nominee,  Donald Trump.

As pollster and political analyst Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics said on Thursday night, the Democrats are going “scorched-earth.”

This approach is in no way uplifting and will not help to move our country forward.

Biden condemned the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots perpetrated by Trump supporters which caused a great amount of damage, a lot of injuries and clearly interrupted the electoral process from going forward as provided for in the Constitution. On this one, Biden is right.  The violent behavior of Trump supporters at that incident was a disgrace and the prosecution of people who were involved in that is entirely proper and I certainly favor a continuing and objective investigation of what happened that day.

 But the implication that since some Trump backers were involved in that sorry chapter and Republicans in general hold objectionable views, means all Trump supporters and Republicans represent a “unique threat” to American democracy is flat-out dishonest.

President Joe Biden (Wikimedia commons)

 The fact of the matter is that some Democrats and their allies in the administrative state have also worked in recent years to subvert  the democratic process. As facts now amply demonstrate, the charge made in 2016 and 2017 that Trump was somehow colluding with Russia and that Russia was aiding him in getting elected was based on lies and fabrications made up in large part by operatives in the Hillary Clinton campaign.

  Democratic allies in the Federal Bureau of Investigation then aided and abetted this phony campaign first by trying to thwart Trump’s election chances and then trying to undermine his presidency after the New York businessman beat Clinton in the 2016 election. This was a coup attempt.

  As we all know, the Mueller investigation, after spending some $40 million and turning over every rock, found out that the claims about Trump Russia collusion were baseless.

  A Department of Justice Inspector General’s report and other investigations showed that many FBI and DOJ officials acted illegally during this period, lying to investigators and signing false affidavits, among other things.

  We also now know from whistleblowers stepping forward that FBI operatives worked behind the scenes to downplay the seriousness of the Hunter Biden corruption investigation in 2020 and tried to make sure that the media would not publicize any information about Hunter Biden’s alleged wrongdoing prior to the 2020 election.

 Playing the Russia card again, FBI officials along with other intelligence leaders, spread the false claim that what was in the Hunter Biden laptop was “Russian disinformation.” According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, FBI officials told Facebook officials that the negative information coming out of Biden’s laptop was likely from Russia and could not be trusted. As a result, Facebook and other media censored stories alleging illegal activity by Hunter Biden in his business dealings overseas --- and Joe Biden’s possible links to that corruption.

  The FBI suppression tactics clearly benefited Joe Biden in his presidential bid. Recent polls have shown that many Americans who voted for Biden now say that if they had known about the Hunter Biden laptop and what was in it prior to the election, they wouldn’t have voted for Joe Biden.

So this was clearly election interference and an attack on American democracy, perpetrated by Democrats and their allies in the intelligence community and media.

In in another case, Democrats and abortion rights activists launched an irresponsible campaign against a sacred institution in our government when they engaged in illegal protests outside the homes of Supreme Court justices prior to the decision on overturning Roe v. Wade. The protests, combined with the arrest of a man bent on killing Justice Kavanaugh, were intimidating and represented an attack on the work of the court.

The upshot of all this is that Democrats as well as Republicans have engaged in or condoned improper and undemocratic activities in the past. Neither side is pure.

As a friend of mine in Bridgeport would say, ‘there’s been shit on both sides.’

What we need in this country are leaders who can rise above the fray, not pander to their bases and not engage in the politics of demonization. It would be helpful as well, if the media would do the same.

It’s going to take all of us, or at least a good majority of us --- and that includes Republicans --- to really move this country forward. The nation is plagued by a number of serious crises related to the economy and how we spend our budget dollars. On that last point alone, do we want to spend billions and billions of dollars on pointless and destructive wars overseas, or spend them on addressing critical needs at home? I think there’s common ground there.

 But it’s going to take real leaders to find those areas of agreement, to nurture them and move forward.

Joe Biden, instead of sounding like a demagogue villifying an opposition group, would do well to follow the words he spoke at his Inauguration: “We can see each other not as adversaries but as neighbors. We can treat each other with dignity and respect. We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature. For without unity there is no peace, only bitterness and fury. No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos… We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal. We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts. If we show a little tolerance and humility.”

 Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

Peace group calls for cease-fire in Ukraine

   By Reginald Johnson 

  The Connecticut Peace and Solidarity Coalition, a group which opposes wars of intervention and advocates for cuts in military spending, has taken out a full-page ad in the New Haven Register, demanding an end to the war in Ukraine.

  “The war in Ukraine is costing thousands of lives, generating millions of refugees and causing the destruction of billions in infrastructure.  We demand it quickly end,” the ad began. “The only way it can end is through honest negotiations, not actions that lead to the escalation of violence.”

“We call on Ukraine, Russia the United States and its NATO allies to immediately agree on a prompt cease-fire, stop pouring weapons, trainers and troops into Ukraine and quickly negotiate steps towards peace and common security for all parties.”

  The statement also said that “The longer the war lasts the greater chance that nuclear weapons will be used, creating global catastrophe.”

 The Peace and Solidarity Coalition, composed of activists from around the state, has been fighting a lonely battle to try to stop the Ukraine war since it began five months ago after the Russian invasion. Ukraine’s request for military aid has won almost blanket support in Congress and in the media. Support for the war among the public has been more evenly divided.

 Just this year the US has sent over $50 billion in support to Ukraine. Even so-called progressive Democrats have joined in backing the military assistance.

Negotiations to end the conflict are at a standstill and the Biden administration has said almost nothing about the need to settle the war, despite calls for peace talks by several European leaders such as France’s Emanuel Macron.

The Ukrainian army has been given billions of dollars in military hardware by the United States.

Few questions are asked in Congress or in the media about the US and NATO’s role in provoking the conflict, by pouring billions of dollars in weaponry into Ukraine over the years as well as to other eastern European countries that are close to Russia; allowing for the eastward expansion of NATO toward Russia; allowing Ukraine to attack the Russian-speaking, separatist Donbas region and violating the Minsk Agreement in the process.

 The coalition ad blasted the press for its role in supporting the war.

 “We reject mainstream media’s ongoing cheerleading for the war, similar to what we saw when the US prepared to invade Iraq.”

  The coalition statement urged people to call Congress at 202-224-3121 and the White House at 202-456-1111 and ask that United States push for a cease-fire and negotiations to end the war.

  To contact the Connecticut Peace and Solidarity Coalition email the group at CTPeaceAndSolidarity@gmail.com.

  To take more action on this issue, go to: https://tinyurl.com/NegotiatePeace

 

 

Taliban at Cornell: Cancelling Lincoln

By Reginald Johnson 

    Commentary

  One of the things I am getting increasingly tired of is “Cancel Culture.”

   This is the trend in recent years of blotting out, erasing or cancelling the legacy of some great person in history due to concern about some moral shortcomings or some specific thing they did wrong or possibly some comments, now deemed inappropriate, they might have made.

  The whole thing is really out of hand. We’re in danger of  “Talibanizing” this nation. The living and the dead must hold the correct views --- or else.

 There’s a totalitarian ring to this and it’s deeply troubling.

 You recall the Taliban, the Islamic extremists who run Afghanistan. In 2001, they decided to blow up the ancient Buddhist sculptures at Bamiyan, because, they said, the monuments represented “idols” to the wrong religion. Heresy will not be tolerated.

  In a few seconds, one of the great works of art in world history was destroyed.

  The attacks on heresy are strong in this country also, particularly at universities. Our greatest leaders are being denounced to the point where demands are being made that names be removed from buildings and statues taken down.

  Even Abraham Lincoln, probably our greatest president --- a man who kept the union together through a brutal civil war and ended slavery in the process --- is being attacked.

  At Cornell University, officials recently decided to remove a bust of Lincoln and a plaque of the immortal Gettysburg Address from the library. It’s not entirely clear why this happened --- university officials are being evasive --- but the action was taken after “a complaint was made.” 

  So that’s all it takes today.  Some unnamed person makes a “complaint” and weakling university officials --- apparently scared of being cancelled themselves --- cave in and remove whatever is deemed “inappropriate.”

   Shame on Cornell. Not only was Lincoln a great president but the Gettysburg Address is one of the great speeches of all time. Lincoln made the speech after the decisive battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania in which thousands of men died. He honored those who “gave their lives that the nation might live.”

   Lincoln then said: “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us --- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain --- that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom --- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

More schools, less bombs

 

By Reginald Johnson

  Peace activists in Connecticut are spreading the word that the United States has to spend less money on the military and wars abroad and more money on addressing domestic needs.

 Members of the Connecticut Peace and Solidarity Coalition recently passed out flyers in Middletown and New Haven urging that the country needs to “Fund Human Needs, Not Killing Machines.”

  They did so at the same time as the “Mass Poor Peoples and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly” gathered in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Poor Peoples Campaign.

  That event drew thousands of people demanding that the United States take steps to end poverty and close the enormous wealth divide.

  Coalition member Henry Lowendorf said in Middletown the peace group passed out 50-75 flyers to passersby at the corner of Main Street and Washington Avenue  and engaged a number of people in conversation about the need to reorder the nation’s priorities.

   “Basically what we said was the Poor Peoples Campaign in Washington is having an assembly, trying to change the priorities of this country and trying to focus on people and what people need and one of the planks in the peoples campaign is cutting the military budget. So we support that,” Lowendorf said.

  One of the flyers said that despite a multitude of crises plaguing the country --- including record inflation, lack of affordable housing,  poor health coverage and underfunded schools --- “Washington has no problem proposing a record $813 billion on wars and weapons, half of federal spending.”

 The flyer added, “That’s more than the next 12 countries, including 10 allies, combined. Or finding $53 billion to prolong the war in Ukraine...Spend your tax dollars on human needs, not endless wars!”

  The information sheet pointed out that “Not building just one F-35 nuclear bomber would provide FOOD for over 21,000 3-person families for 1 year”  and “Not funding the new Space Force for 2021 would provide 2.2 million families with MEDICAL CARE for 1 year.”

   The peace and solidarity coalition is also speaking out against the Ukraine war and supporting negotiations to bring peace. The conflict has cost thousands of lives, including civilians and soldiers for both Ukraine and Russia. The United States and other nations in NATO have sent tens of billions of dollars in weaponry to Ukraine.

 The policy of aiding Ukraine has had wide support in Congress and in the media. Generally the American people have backed the effort, as well. But the winds may be shifting as the war drags on, Lowendorf said.

 “I hear more people saying, ‘Where is Ukraine, and why are we sending so much aid. over there?’ ’’ he said.

  Lowendorf  maintained the war in Ukraine is actually a proxy war by the US against Russia, and more people are waking up to this fact. “This not about defending Ukraine’s freedom,” he said.

 Coalition member Steve Krevisky said the group is planning more actions in the coming months.

 

  

 

 

 

  

We must head off a wider war in Ukraine

 

(I recently submitted the following opinion piece to the Connecticut Post, advocating for a cease-fire and negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. The Post published the piece in full on June 16.)

 

 

 Recently both the United States and United Kingdom shipped more lethal aid to Ukraine, to help that nation in its war with Russia.

 The US sent Harpoon anti-ship missiles and howitzers; the British sent long-range missiles which can hit targets with high precision 50 miles away.

 The weapons shipments ramp up an already deadly conflict, which has cost thousands of lives of both civilians and military personnel.

Where is all this headed? Nowhere good.

With each passing day, the chances increase that this regional war could erupt into a global war between the nuclear-armed United States and its NATO allies and nuclear armed Russia, with potentially catastrophic consequences. It’s safe to say that the world as we know it would not survive a nuclear war between the US and Russia.

There is a pressing need for a cease-fire and negotiations to end this brutal conflict.

The Ukrainian army has been given billions of dollars in weaponry by the US

 The basic outline of a settlement is clear: Russian forces must totally withdraw from Ukraine; Ukraine must agree to be neutral and not join NATO; Russia must provide humanitarian aid to help Ukraine rebuild; and there must be self-governance for Ukraine’s eastern provinces, as agreed to previously in the Minsk Accords.

This is all achievable. But there has to be a desire for it.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have both been encouraging negotiations to end the war. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he is open to talks. Ukraine President Vlodomyr Zelenskyy has said at different times there needs to be negotiations.

 But the United States has been silent on talks to end the war.

That’s because officials in the State Department, the Pentagon and others in the Biden administration don’t want a quick end to this war. They are using the Ukraine conflict to wage a proxy war against Russia --- keep Russia bogged down in a long draining war that will eventually trigger regime change in Moscow.

 But that scenario means many more Ukrainians and Russians will die in the process and billions more in American treasure will be wasted.

 This is not an acceptable policy and it must be stopped.

 To prevent further bloodshed and head off a much wider and catastrophic conflict, there must be an immediate cease-fire and negotiations to end the brutal war in Ukraine.

 

Reginald Johnson

Bridgeport