Trump reneges on promise, ups the ante in Ukraine

   Reginald Johnson

 In a policy change that potentially has grave implications for the world, Donald Trump has reversed course on Ukraine.

The Financial Times is reporting that sources familiar with a phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky last month indicated that Trump is now in favor of sending long-range offensive missiles to Ukraine and encouraged the Ukrainian leader to use them to hit targets deep inside Russia.

In an interview with the BBC, the author of the Financial Times report, Christopher Miller, recounted the conversation as he heard it from the sources.

 Trump asked Zelensky that if the US provided long-range missiles to Ukraine, “Can you hit Moscow? Can you hit St. Petersburg, too?”

Zelensky replied, “Absolutely. We can if you give us the weapons.”

Trump said he supported the idea of sending the missiles so “Russia can feel the pain for its invasion” and also push them to the negotiating table.

 Trump’s comments backing the idea of sending long-range missiles to Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia represent a 360 degree shift in policy from what Trump had been saying throughout the 2024 presidential campaign and early in his administration this year following his reelection.

 Previously he said repeatedly that he wanted to settle the Ukraine war quickly and he had not indicated any willingness to send more lethal weaponry to Ukraine to perpetuate the conflict. Trump had criticized former President Joseph Biden for supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia and said the conflict never would’ve happened if he had been president.

Early this year after his inauguration, Trump promised to work out a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin on a peace deal. There have been several efforts to bring that about but there’s been no resolution. Trump had also refused to sign off on new weapons shipments being sent to Ukraine.

 But in recent weeks Trump has been vocally criticizing Putin saying that the Russian leader was not willing to settle on a peace agreement and had undermined the peace process by approving missile and drone strikes against Ukraine, including against the capital, Kiev.

On Monday, Trump had a long press conference at the White House sitting with the NATO general secretary in which he stated again that he was upset with Putin and was now prepared to send defensive Patriot missiles to Ukraine to protect that country against incoming Russian missile and drone attacks. He also announced that he would impose steep tariffs on Russia.

But he did not indicate during a press conference that he was prepared to send long-range missiles to Ukraine. Now the Financial Times report indicates that the president has adopted a position of being aggressive in the Ukraine war similar to the policy the Biden administration had taken, a policy which Trump and many conservative media voices had criticized. 

The shift by Trump is deeply troubling and his willingness to now send offensive weaponry to Ukraine puts the entire world at risk in the same way that Biden’s policy put the world at risk. The flip-flop by Trump exposes him (again) as an extremely dishonest person who apparently was simply playing politics during the 2024 campaign, trying to tap into antiwar sentiment among many voters.

 To the delight of many of his supporters during the campaign, Trump bragged about how he could settle the Ukraine war in short order, at one point saying that he could settle it with a phone call “in a half hour.” At no point during the campaign did he ever indicate that he would be willing to change his position and send more lethal weaponry to Ukraine to perpetuate the war.

Trump’s new and dangerous policy on Ukraine must be criticized widely by people on both the left and the right. It’s time for Democrats, in particular, to stop hemming and hawing about the Ukraine war and demand that it end. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps over a million people, have died. For what?

Trump’s remarks about “hitting Moscow” are provocative and undermine chances for peace.

  Those comments and a move to send more long-range missiles to Ukraine will be seen as an escalation of the war by Putin and Russian leaders.

  Donald Trump has just made the world a lot less safe.

Almost the unthinkable

  

    By Reginald Johnson

   A nuclear catastrophe was narrowly avoided in the Ukraine-Russia War last weekend.

  According to former intelligence officer and arms control expert Scott Ritter. Ukraine had been pressing Washington for permission to use long-range ballistic missiles to hit targets deep within Russia and it appeared that the US was about to greenlight this request. But President Biden backed off at the last minute after a stern warning from Russian President Vladimir Putin that the use of the missiles would be crossing the Rubicon.

 Putin had said that such strikes would be regarded as an attack by NATO against Russia and all bets would be off in terms of how Russia would respond. Ritter says that Ukraine, led by crazed leader Volodomyr Zelensky, was all set to use the missiles. Thank god Biden saw the light.  Otherwise, according to Ritter, none of us would be reading these words today. 

It is vital that negotiations bring this highly volatile conflict between Ukraine and Russia to an end as soon as possible, for the sake of humanity.

(Ritter's piece, "72 Hours" can be read at https://consortiumnews.com/category/u-n-security-council/)

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.

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

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.

 

 

  

 

                  

Why is the US spurning Ukraine peace deals?

 

    By Reginald Johnson

      Commentary 

 

      The question is arising now:  is the United States really interested in ending the war in Ukraine?

   Top US officials such as Secretary of State Anthony Blinken have always said that the US is interested in talks with Russia and arriving at some fair agreement that would end the terrible war.

  But you have to wonder.

 Tuesday night, in an interview with ABC news, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said in terms of creating a peace deal, he was open to the idea of Ukraine not being part of NATO and that he was also open to talking with Russian President Vladimir Putin about determining the future status of the breakaway republics in the Donbass part of Ukraine.

  The comments represented a possible breakthrough for resolving the dispute between Russia and Ukraine, as the US and Ukraine have always insisted that Ukraine should be part of NATO, which is something that the Russians had vehemently opposed. His comments about the Donbass area also presented a new basis for negotiation.

  However, the Biden administration has said nothing about Zelensky’s proposal.

  Biden officials were also quiet when Putin two weeks ago said that a peace plan could come about if Ukraine agreed to a status of neutrality and not accepting NATO arms.

  The American silence on Zelensky’s comments is disturbing given the horror that is taking place in Ukraine, as Russia continues its invasion. Hundreds if not thousands of civilians have been killed, infrastructure has been destroyed, and more than 1 million refugees have been sent out of the country to escape violence.

  Russia launched its invasion after years of talks with the US and Ukraine concerning the secessionist republics went nowhere and the US kept insisting that Ukraine be allowed to enter NATO, an anti-Russian military alliance that has bases throughout Europe and missile installations in countries close to Russia, such as Poland and Romania.

  Russia made clear that Ukraine being part of NATO was a red line for them, and that they would not tolerate having an enemy military alliance with armies and bases sitting on their long border with Ukraine.

 Continued bloodshed in Eastern Ukraine, where 14,000 thousand ethnic Russians were killed in attacks by Ukrainian forces in violation of the Minsk Accords covering the region, also angered Russia.

The Ukrainian military has received billions of dollars in support from the United States in the past eight years. (Photo from Wikimedia Commons)
 

Russians then launched their attack on Feb 24, claiming that they had to stabilize the region and also prevent an ongoing security threat from NATO.

However, the Russians have been harshly criticized --- and justifiably --- first for launching an invasion which had no legitimate basis under international law.

Russia has also been justifiably criticized for their brutal military tactics, hitting civilian targets, including the shelling of residential areas.

Meanwhile, the US has responded with sweeping economic sanctions against Russia and an embargo against Russian oil.             

Billions more in lethal aid is also being sent to Ukraine.    

There’s no question this invasion has to end, and the fighting must stop. Lives are being lost on a massive scale and all of Europe is being destabilized.

An agreement must be reached between the principal parties --- the US and its ally Ukraine, and Russia.

There has to be compromise on both sides. Russia must withdraw its forces. But in return there must be firm guarantees in writing that Ukraine will not be part of NATO and Ukraine can’t be an arsenal filled with US weapons. There should also be some degree of autonomy granted to Donetsk and Luhansk.

 These are a achievable goals. The Russians I think, would end their operation if they got those key guarantees. Now, the head of Ukraine says he’s willing to talk about those guarantees.

But is the US willing to talk about the guarantees and bring about an agreement?  Do they want the fighting to end?

 You have to be skeptical.

One leading political figure who’s saying the US wants the war to continue is former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.

 Speaking on the Laura Ingraham show on FOX TV Tuesday night, she praised Zelensky for offering a “window of opportunity” to build a peace deal.

 “Really, he’s sending an olive branch,” she said.

Then she asked, “Why isn’t the Biden-Harris administration charging forward to take advantage of and support President Zelensky in this opening he has created in trying to bring about an end to this conflict and bring about an end to the suffering that we are seeing every single day?

 She added, “Nothing that the Biden administration has done has helped to make this situation better, to help de-escalate the situation. Which is why the only conclusion I can draw about why they have been completely silent and not engaging at all on this window of opportunity President Zelensky opened last night is that what is happening before our eyes right now is exactly what they wanted to see continued.

 “Why is that? Because it’s good for the military industrial complex, it makes politicians look tough, and really, it allows them to have this proxy war with Russia, something that Hillary Clinton laid out just recently, what the aims are, this war machine, this power elite in Washington, they want to turn Ukraine into another Afghanistan …… bleed out and kill as many Russians as possible for who knows for how long,” Gabbard said.

  I agree with Gabbard and add that a continuance of the Ukraine war appears to be part of a long range regime change operation directed against Russia. Bleed ‘em dry and take ‘em down.

 Afterwards, a new Boris Yeltsin can be brought in, and western capitalists can have a field day.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian people are caught in the middle, suffering and dying.

Lending credence to the theory that the US is using the Ukraine conflict to trigger regime change in Russia is that the RAND Corporation --- a think-tank which has a long history of influencing American foreign policy --- produced a report for the Pentagon in 2019 called "Overextending and Unbalancing Russia." The study basically assessed ways of bringing Russia down.

  Specifically, the report said Russia could be weakened by having to respond to a greater NATO and US military presence directed at Russia and that "providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia's greatest point of external vulnerability."

  It’s up to peace-loving people everywhere to rise up and say they won’t be party to these deadly schemes. Demand that the US respond favorably to President Zelensky’s offer, forge a real peace agreement and end this disastrous war.

 

 

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Protesters: No war with Russia!

 

   By Reginald Johnson

   Opposition is growing to a potential war with Russia over Ukraine.

 In the last two weeks, there’s been a flurry of protests around the country with people demanding that the United States and NATO stop their aggressive military actions in Eastern Europe, stop sending military aid to Ukraine and seek a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis through the United Nations.

  Demonstrations began happening last week after a call was put out by a coalition of 12 antiwar organizations to mobilize against a war with Russia. The call was subsequently endorsed by another 200 peace groups.   

  Protests took place in 70 cities around the country on Saturday, followed by a national online rally, where peace activists spoke of the urgency of stopping the slide towards war. A webinar hosted by the United National AntiWar Coalition, with both national and international peace activists, took place on Sunday.

  More actions are taking place this week, such as one in Hartford, CT, where peace activists demonstrated outside the offices of US Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, who is supporting the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy.

  “This is a really important time because of the escalation of aggression by the US government towards Russia and the amount of misinformation in the corporate media,” said Margaret Flowers director of Popular Resistance, one of the groups which organized the online rally.

  “We’re being lied into another war. The whole, you know, ‘Russia has troops on its border’ is equivalent to the ‘Saddam has WMDs’ that lied us into a disastrous war with Iraq,” she said.

  Flowers added that nearly 1,000 people signed a petition to President Biden and to UN Secretary-General Anthony Guiterrez, calling on them to resolve the Ukraine conflict in compliance with international law using the United Nations Security Council, “rather than what the United States is doing, using NATO to perform its war, which is how the US engages in all these illegal wars, bypassing international law.”

 

A protest against a possible war with Russia outside the offices of U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn, in Hartford. Blumenthal has been supporting hawkish US policies in Ukraine. (Photo by Henry Lowendorf)

      

     The protests are taking place as the U.S., NATO and Russia are engaging in a tense military stand-off in eastern Ukraine. The US and its allies are charging that Russia is “massing troops on the Ukraine border” in preparation for a possible invasion of Ukraine. Russia has been supporting pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine ever since a US backed coup installed a pro-western and far-right regime in Kiev in 2014.

   Biden administration officials, backed by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, say that Ukraine’s “sovereignty” must be protected and that “Russian aggression” must be stopped.

 The US has been sending a steady stream of lethal aid to the Ukrainian regime over the past 8 years --- some $2.5 billion in arms and ammunition.

  US military advisors are on the ground in eastern Ukraine as are American mercenaries.  

Biden has threatened “severe consequences” for Russia --- including harsh economic sanctions --- if an invasion takes place.

 Russian officials maintain that they have no plans to invade, but say they are concerned about provocative US, NATO and Ukrainian military activity near their border and the US sending naval ships into the Black Sea, where Russia has a large naval port.

  The Russians are also concerned about the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, the western military alliance formed more than 70 years ago to deter aggression by the Soviet Union, a country that no longer exists. Most European countries, including former Soviet bloc nations, are now in NATO. The alliance has bases throughout the continent, including missile launchers in Poland and Romania.

 President Vladimir Putin has made clear that any plan for ending the crisis in Ukraine must include a guarantee that Ukraine not be allowed to join NATO.

 But the US has already rejected a Russian peace plan which includes that guarantee.

Joe Lombardo, co-coordinator of the United National AntiWar Coalition (UNAC), said at the webinar that Americans are getting a false picture from their leaders and the media about who is responsible for the crisis in eastern Europe.

 “Now there are 300,000 US troops throughout Europe. There are 150,000 Ukrainian troops with US advisors and modern US weapons, including predator drones which have been used in some of the areas in Donbass (eastern Ukraine).  So there are 150,000 troops with US advisors in and around Donbass, that is on the Russian border, but that is not said in the media,” he said.

   Lombardo added that NATO is conducting “what they call wargames, right on the border with Russia. But when Russia puts its troops on the other side of the border, on its side of these wargames, the US says that’s aggressive, not the wargames.”

  He continued, “So it’s a very dangerous situation and the actual aggression is on the side of the United States, which in the last couple of decades has been in one war after another, one invasion and one occupation after another, many of them based on false flag situations.”

  Another speaker at the UNAC webinar was Vladimir Kozin, correspondent member of the Russian Academy of Military Science.

  Kozin talked of the repeated violations of the Minsk II peace accords and arms control treaties by both the United States and Ukraine. Kozin said that all 13 provisions of the Minsk Accords have been violated, including the prohibition on sending foreign fighters into the conflict zone.

   Kozin said that Russia had no plans to attack Ukraine now, but if Ukrainian forces should launch a full attack on Donbass, “surely Russia will come to support the population of Donbass.”

   At the protest in Hartford on Tuesday, 18 people stood outside the offices of Senator Blumenthal, who has strongly supported America's militaristic Ukraine policy.

  “We were protesting Senator Blumenthal’s promoting war and war hysteria,  and defending the illegal and violent coup the US engineered in 2014 to kick out the constitutional government of Ukraine, said Henry Lowendorf, of the Greater New Haven Peace Council.

  The group attempted to deliver a letter to Blumenthal’s office demanding that “all belligerent threats” towards Russia stop, that there be a resumption of honest diplomacy to settle any differences between the US and Russia, and that NATO not be allowed to expand eastward. But a security guard would not grant the group access to the office.  Lowendorf said he then left messages with both the Hartford and Washington offices.

   Lowendorf said a Washington staff member called back on Wednesday and left a message, but did not include a return number.

  “I couldn’t call the individual back … Senator Blumenthal runs a very unwelcoming office. He places roadblocks before the public even to meeting his staff. The way he runs his office contradicts the image he tries to project as a people friendly official,” Lowendorf said.

  Nonetheless, Lowendorf and the other activists, members of the Connecticut Peace and Solidarity Coalition, passed out fliers urging people to call their legislators in Washington at 202-224-3132 and the White House at 202-456-1111, demanding no war with Russia.

  At the UNAC webinar, Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in space said that there is a unique danger that could unfold from a war in Ukraine. He said there are 15 nuclear power plants in the country.

 “Imagine what could happen, from an accident or otherwise, with those nuclear power plants. That’s frightening,” Gagnon said, pointing out that radiation contamination would spread globally.

  “It’s absolutely insane what the US and NATO are doing today,” he said.

Ajamu Baraka, national organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace, stressed that people have to understand the central role that imperialism plays in the wars that keep erupting around the globe.

  “For the Black Alliance for Peace, let me be clear, we say the common enemy is the US-EU-NATO axis of domination. We argue that we must center our analysis within the context of the global class struggle,” he said.

 “It is imperialism, led by the United States, that is the culprit.”

 

 

 

 

     

 

   

US playing with fire in Ukraine

 

      By Reginald Johnson

      Commentary

   With Congress and the media egging him on,  President Joe Biden continues to pursue a reckless policy in Ukraine, increasing the chances of a catastrophic war with Russia.

       Following a virtual summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, Biden administration officials indicated that the US will continue to provide lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine which is fighting a civil war against Russian separatists in the eastern part of the country.

    The US has given over $400 million in aid to Ukraine this year. Overall, $2.5 billion in aid has been given to Ukraine since 2014 to aid the Ukrainian government in the fighting, which has left 9,000 people dead.

  The American policy of militarily aiding Ukraine, together with statements by the United States and other Western countries that Ukraine should become part of the NATO military alliance, as well as the military activity by the US and NATO near  Russia’s border,  has alarmed Russian officials who believe their nation’s security is being threatened.

  In recent weeks, there have been reports of Russian troops gathering near the border with Ukraine, and there’s been speculation Russia might invade.

  At the summit,  Biden warned Putin not to attack Ukraine as the Russians would pay a “terrible price” --- most likely harsh economic sanctions.  But National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said later that military aid would also continue as the US wanted to ensure Ukraine’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

  Clearly the Russians are on edge over Ukraine and this was made clear by Putin following the summit.

  “The threat to our Western border really grows. We have talked about it repeatedly,” said Putin.  “Just look at how close to Russian borders come NATO’s military infrastructure. We take it more than seriously.”

   The Russian leader added, “Speaking to the United States and its allies, we would insist on reaching certain agreements that prevent any expanding of the NATO to the east and deploying weapon systems threatening us close to Russia.”

The US is giving millions of dollars in arms to the Ukrainian military in their fight against pro-Russian separatists. More than 9,000 people have been killed in the conflict. (Istock photo)

  Unfortunately, except for a few notable exceptions, members of Congress in both parties have been expressing support for the Biden’s aggressive policy, denouncing so-called threatening moves by the Russians and demanding that the US stand tough against Putin.

   Two Republican senators, Roger Wicker of Mississippi and James Inhofe of Oklahoma, suggested that Biden consider not only sending US troops to Ukraine but also making clear to the Russians that a first-use nuclear strike by America is not out of the question.

   Many media outlets as well are demanding an aggressive American policy, with pundits condemning Russia for “aggression” and saying that the US must “hold Russia accountable” and protect Ukraine from a Russian takeover.

  Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen said Biden was trying to “appease” Putin and was “channeling Neville Chamberlain,” the British leader who gave in to Adolf Hitler when Germany began invading a number of countries in the 1930s.

  The whole debate over Ukraine has taken on a thoroughly irrational tone and people both in the media and in Congress are talking in a very irresponsible way.

  One person who is sounding the alarm about the danger of the Ukraine situation is former congresswoman and presidential candidate, Tulsi Gabbard.

   Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii and a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Reserve, told Tucker Carlson of Fox News after the summit that the neo-con interventionists who dragged the US into wars in the recent past are now driving Biden’s Ukraine policy.

   “The same neocons in Washington that dragged our country into regime change wars in places like Iraq, Libya and Syria, they are the same ones pushing us very quickly into this war with Russia and never stating what is their objective, what are we trying to accomplish here and how does this serve this country’s national security interest?  Not a single one of them is pointing this out,” she said.

    Gabbard also condemned the wild comments by Wicker and Inhofe.

  She said of Wicker, “Anyone who would propose or consider what he is saying as an option must be insane, a sociopath or a sadist. Because what he’s saying here is, let’s go and launch a nuclear attack and start a war that would destroy the American people, the country, the world and also the Ukrainians so that we can save Ukraine’s democracy? It is literally insane.”

  But Gabbard noted that “Sen. Wicker is not an outlier. He is the number two Republican on the Armed Services Committee and you’re hearing the same kind of rhetoric coming from Democrats and Republicans in Congress and in the administration.”

   Katrina vanden Heuvel, editorial director and publisher of The Nation magazine, said in an interview on “Democracy Now” that the “one-sided narrative” about Ukraine presented by the media is preventing the American people from knowing the full story.

   “We have a one-sided narrative in this country which is a problem because we haven’t followed the growing mass of NATO troops on Ukraine’s Russia border. This escalation is neither in the United States national interest nor security interest at a time when politics, a political solution and diplomatic solution is the only way forward.”

  Vanden Heuvel said it was important to remember the history of the region and acknowledge that Russia may have reason for being suspicious about Western intentions in Ukraine. She pointed out that a previous pledge made over 30 years ago by former Secretary of State James Baker to Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev after the reunification of Germany that NATO would not bring in countries from the old Soviet bloc, was violated.

   “James Baker promised NATO would not expand ‘1 inch eastward.’ That promise, which is documented in the National Security Archives and in Condi Rice’s book and other materials was violated. I think that is the original sin of what we witnessed today,” she said.

   After Baker’s pledge, NATO absorbed several of the old Iron Curtain countries as members including Poland, Romania and the Baltic nations. Now there is talk about Ukraine entering the alliance..

   “It is hard for Americans to understand that NATO expansion and what it means to Russia having a mass of NATO troops on the border,” she said.

   While there has been a constant flow of stories in the mainstream press reporting “Russian troops massing along the border” with Ukraine in preparation for a possible invasion, there has been almost no coverage of activity by NATO troops near the border nor of US warships entering the Black Sea, which borders Russia. The Russian Navy is based at Sevastopol on the Black Sea. Reports of US and NATO  activity were found only in the military press.

   Obviously, the NATO and US military activity is highly provocative. As Democracy Now co-host Juan Gonzalez noted, the US navy going into the Black Sea  “is tantamount to a Chinese or Russian military ship buildup in the Gulf of Mexico.”

    Vanden Heuvel commented that the “undereporting of US involvement is a missed service and a disservice to the American people because they are getting everyday --- I picked up the papers this morning --- it’s Russian aggression, Russian aggression. There is Russian aggression, but there is US complicity with drones and non-letal weapons.”

  Another key element to the Ukraine story that has not been covered --- in fact it’s been covered up --- is how did Ukraine wind up with a government hostile to Russia and pro-US?  The previous, democratically-elected government, headed by Victor Yanukovych and pro-Russia, was overthrown in a violent coup in 2014. The putsch was aided and abetted by the CIA and the US National Endowment for Democracy.

  The incoming regime, whose members included a number of neo-fascists, subsequently began taking military aid from the US to assist in its fight to quell the rebellion by ethnic Russians in Donbas.

 

   

     

Losing Focus

                                                    

 By Reginald Johnson      

  It’s a shame that the important news coming out of the summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump about the US and Russia beginning to patch up their relationship and avoid nuclear catastrophe has been buried amid the furor over Trump’s comment doubting whether Russia was responsible for meddling in the 2016 election.

  After years of a declining relationship between Russia and the United States the leaders of the two countries met in Helsinki and had what they both said were constructive talks dealing with nuclear nonproliferation and other key geopolitical issues.

   Speaking at a press conference following the summit, Putin said that the talks had been “very successful and very useful.”

   He added, “The difficulties and tensions between the two countries do not have any objective grounds. The Cold War is over. The times of ideological confrontation are in the past and the situation in the world is drastically changed.”

   Putin continued that only by the US and Russia “standing together” can the world overcome issues of nuclear proliferation and regional conflicts.

   Trump said that the leaders had a “deeply open and productive dialogue and it went very well.”

  The president added, “The disagreements between our two countries are well known and President Putin and I discussed them at length today,” Trump said. “If we’re going to solve many of the problems we face in the world then we’re going to have to find ways to cooperate in pursuit of shared interests.”

  Together the US and Russia hold 90% of all the nuclear weapons in the world. According to the American Federation of Scientists, the United States has 4000 nuclear warheads and the Russian Federation has 4300.

  A nuclear conflict between Russia and the United States, should it ever break out, would be the ultimate catastrophe. There would be no winner. For those who might escape the immediate effects of a nuclear attack, they wouldn’t live long due to massive radiation fallout and nuclear winter. All life on the planet would be effectively ended.

  Negotiations between the US and Russia are imperative to avoid a potential Armageddon.

Hiroshima, Japan in August, 1945 after US dropped an atomic bomb. Today's nuclear warheads are far more powerful. (Photo- metro.co.UK)

  
Donald Trump did the right thing by going to Helsinki and meeting Putin. He followed in the footsteps of many presidents before him who have met with Russian leaders to work out agreements on arms control and conflict resolution.

   By the accounts of the two leaders, the summit went well and was a step towards improving US Russian relations and avoiding catastrophic conflict.

   But that important  news was all lost amid the furor --- really hysteria --- over an inept comment Trump made during the press conference when he was responding to a question about who was responsible for the alleged hacking  of Democratic Party emails during the 2016 election campaign.

   Trump said he wasn’t sure whether the US intelligence agencies were correct in their assessment that the Russians were responsible for the hacking, and not someone else. He seemed to indicate that he believed Putin’s firm denial that the Russian government had any role.

   Immediately, there was an avalanche of criticism. Political leaders on both sides of the aisle and many in the media blasted Trump for appearing to take sides with the Russians over the word of US intelligence.

   A number of Democratic politicians as well as some media pundits went so far as to call Trump’s performance “treasonous.”

   Former CIA Director John  Brennan said Trump’s performance “rises to and exceeds the threshold for high crimes and misdemeanors,” which under the Constitution justifies impeachment. “It was nothing short of treasonous,” he said.

  US Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn, said that the United States was now facing “a 9/11 type emergency” due to Trump’s performance at the summit.

   In truth, much of the criticism and comments about “treason” were way over the top and in the case of members of the media, totally unprofessional.

  There is no question President Trump said a really dumb thing. But it was more a political blunder than a factual misstatement.

   In point of fact, Trump has every reason to doubt the accuracy of the claims about Russian hacking and election meddling. To this date, nothing --- nothing --- has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Russians were behind the much-talked about hacking of Democratic National Committee emails in 2016.

   The main foundation for claims of Russian hacking came out of an Intelligence Community Assessment in early 2017 which blamed the Kremlin for directing the theft of the emails and then turning over the information to WikiLeaks for publication. The revelations about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, such as the effort by the DNC to undermine the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, was damaging to the Clinton campaign and helped Trump in the polls.

   The ICA, as it is known, authorized by then Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, used a “handpicked group” of analysts from the big three intelligence agencies, namely the CIA, FBI and NSA, to investigate the hacking claim. The ICA did not represent , as was erroneously reported at the time, a community-wide assessment by all 17 intelligence agencies.

   The assessment drew on the findings of an investigation by a private firm, CrowdStrike. The FBI itself did not do its own investigation of the hacking, after DNC officials first reported there had been an intrusion, as the agency was denied access to the email server by the DNC. Even though the agency clearly had the power to subpoena the email server, as this was a national security case, the FBI decided not to do so. Instead it agreed with the Democrats to let CrowdStrike do the inquiry.

 CrowdStrike’s founder is both friendly with the Democrats and also a member of the anti-Russian, neocon Atlantic Council.

  The CrowdStrike findings, which maintain that the email metadata showed evidence of hacking by Russian operatives, has been strongly disputed by cyber experts such as John McAfee and former intelligence officials from the NSA, FBI and CIA.   

  Critics of the report contend that instead of the emails being hacked,  there was actually a download of email information by a disgruntled Bernie Sanders supporter on the DNC staff who then turned over the information to WikiLeaks.

   It is disturbing that the email download scenario never got any attention from the FBI.

   Even the ICA report does not claim to be definitive in showing that the Russians committed hacking.

  “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information which is often incomplete or fragmentary as well as logic argumentation and precedents,” the report said.

 The recent indictment of 12 Russian military officials for their role in the hacking case also does not constitute firm evidence of Russian intrusion in the US election since these are allegations and have not been aired before a jury. There’s been no conviction. It also should be noted that the indictment document relies again in part on the disputed CrowdStrike findings.

   It is very dismaying that so many politicians and media types alike are waving the indictment around as if it’s final proof of Russian guilt. I saw Shepard Smith on Fox News the other day doing that, saying that Trump was wrong to express misgivings about who was responsible for the hacking because we now have "proof" of Russian involvement due to the indictment.

   Come on Mr. Smith, go back to the dictionary and find out what an indictment is.

  President Trump has every right to be skeptical about the intelligence community findings, due to the flawed ICA, together with the mounting evidence coming from a recent inspector general’s report and congressional testimony showing that FBI officials carried a heavy political bias against Donald Trump as they conducted their investigation of both the possible Russian hacking and collusion between the Trump campaign in Russia.

  It’s well known that both Clapper and Brennan disliked Trump and played a key role in drumming up support for an investigation of collusion which led to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. This has all been part of an effort to drive Trump from the presidency, either through impeachment or resignation. Pro-war neo cons and major press outlets have backed this campaign.

   So far, Mueller has not been able to charge anyone connected with Trump for conspiring with the Russians to influence the election.

   Politically, Trump made a very stupid mistake in openly questioning the intelligence agencies.  And he paid a dear price.

   Needless to say, the hyper controversy about Trump’s comment has totally overshadowed the much more significant development coming out of the summit, which is that nuclear-armed United States and nuclear-armed Russia have begun to start working cooperatively again on the issue of proliferation and resolving regional conflicts.

   This effort should be supported widely and not undermined by the continued blather about Trump-Russia collusion and Russian hacking.

  Endless repetition of unproven claims about collusion and mindless vilification of Russia just serves to impede the peace process and make the possibility of a catastrophic war more likely.

   It’s too bad many progressives and members of the Democratic Party have endorsed the Russia-gate narrative. But it’s time to change focus. Russia-gate is a waste of time and a distraction from dealing with the more central issues important to this country.

 There are plenty of very potent political issues upon which to wage a campaign to elect somebody better than Trump. Russia-gate is not one of them. A determined campaign centered around Medicare-for-all, establishing an equitable tax system, and slashing the bloated defense budget to provide money for education, new infrastructure and job training might well elect someone good.

   However flawed Donald Trump is as a president on a wide range of issues, he’s doing the right thing to try to broker better relations with the Russian Federation. The stakes are too high not to make the effort.

   Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at NYU and one of the leading scholars on Russia, told Tucker Carlson of Fox News this past week that he was stunned by what he called the “mob violence” atmosphere in the reaction to Trump’s comments at the summit press conference.

   Warning that relations between the US and Russia had hit a dangerous new low, Cohen said it’s imperative to get a better relationship going.

   He offered this question and comment: “Do you prefer to try to impeach Trump to trying to avoid war with nuclear Russia? That’s the bottom line. That’s where we’re at today.”

  

  

  

  

  

  

Blocking Detente

By Reginald Johnson

                                          

   There’s a possibility for making a better relationship between the United States and Russia, but the knives are out.

    U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met last week in Hamburg, Germany and had what appeared to be a very constructive meeting. The two discussed a range of issues including the war in Syria, the battle against terrorism, cyber security and the charges of Russian meddling in the US presidential election last year.

    The two leaders were able to strike an agreement for a cease-fire in a section of Syria and coordinate with each other in the battle against ISIS. They agreed to disagree on the claim of Russian hacking.

   According to Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University, the Trump-Putin  meeting may augur a new day in Russia-US relations.

  Cohen said the meeting represented a “potentially historic new détente, anti-Cold War partnership begun by Trump and Putin.”  He noted that the relations between the two nuclear-armed superpowers are at their lowest point in decades.

  “What we saw today was potentially the most fateful meeting between an American and Russian president since the wartime (World War II),"  said Cohen, who witnessed the Reagan-Gorbachev summit meetings in the 1980s.  “The reason is the relationship between the US and Russia is so dangerous.”

   But Cohen, speaking on the Tucker Carlson show on Fox television on Friday,  hours after the meeting, cautioned that the proposed new partnership will likely come under “vicious attack.”

   How right he was. Over the next few days there was a fierce pushback. On Sunday,  three longtime critics of Trump and Russia took to the airwaves to criticize Trump’s performance in Hamburg and blast the idea of a partnership.

  Neo-con senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham said it made no sense to forge a new agreement with Russia without punishing Russia first for the alleged cyber attacks in the US election last fall.

  They and others keep insisting that Russian responsibility for the hacking is flat fact, despite serious doubts raised by a number of cyber experts, the fact that the report on the hacking was done not by the FBI but by a company hired by the Democratic National Committee,  the fact that the company’s  chief technical officer is an anti-Putin Russian émigré and the fact that a full National Intelligence Estimate on the hacking,  involving all 17 intelligence agencies, was never done (contrary to assertions by many politicians and the media).

  Speaking on the NBC show “Meet the Press,” Graham said Trump gave a “terrific speech” in Poland earlier in the week on his European trip, but then had what he called a  “disastrous meeting” with Putin in Germany.   The senator said the president has a “blind spot” on Russia and his attitude that we should  “forgive and forget when it comes to Putin regarding cyber attacks is to empower Putin and that is exactly what he is doing.”

  McCain criticized Trump’s tweet over the weekend that he “looked forward to working constructively with the Russians” --- actually, a thoroughly laudable goal, in my view.

  But McCain demanded that Putin must pay a stiff price for the claimed hacking. “Otherwise he’ll be encouraged to do it again,” he said.

  John Brennan, former director of the CIA, also appeared on “Meet the Press” and made similar criticisms about the alleged hacking and Trump’s seeming soft attitude towards it.

   ( I have to digress a bit here. It’s amazing how discredited figures like Brennan can be trotted out by NBC to weigh in as esteemed authorities on issues of law and proper behavior. Under Brennan , the CIA conducted drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan that killed many civilians --- a breach of international law. The agency also used unlawful interrogation techniques, including torture, in dealing with prisoners in the years following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. When a Senate committee began investigating the torture claims, the CIA was reluctant to cooperate and in fact spied on the Senate staff investigators by hacking  (yes, hacking!)  into their computers. But now those days are over and Brennan is suddenly an expert analyst on TV, inveighing against hacking by Russia.)

 As typified by the “Meet the Press” show hosted by Chuck Todd --- who did not bring in a guest who offered a more favorable view of Trump’s Hamburg meeting – the media coverage of the Hamburg meeting, Putin and Russia in general has been decidedly negative.

   On Friday evening, NBC reporter Richard Engel hosted a show called “On Assignment” which presented a scathing, and very one-sided report on Putin and Russia. Basically, he and the guests on the show portrayed Russia as a criminal state where Putin operated as a Mafia boss working with wealthy oligarchs. The show described numerous mysterious killings that have taken place in Russia and outside, in which dissidents and government critics have been murdered. Some of the stories were chilling and had the ring of truth.

However, Engel presented little in the way of countervailing theories in his piece on  the various murders as well as the bombing of an apartment building which killed hundreds of people, and which critics say was ordered by Putin. Government officials were not given any chance to rebut the claims of illegality. Putin was painted from beginning to end as a brutal killer who can’t be trusted.

While some of the claims of Russian government criminality may be true, I have to be skeptical when a reporter is portraying a person or officials as having committed acts of gross illegality or murder but does not bother to give the accused a chance to respond.

 Given the one-sided presentation and the timing of the show --- aired on the evening of the day of the Trump-Putin meeting – the show came across as a hit piece designed to undermine any notion that working with Russia or Putin was a worthwhile goal.

  The avalanche of criticism of Trump and Putin from both Republicans and Democrats continued on Monday on shows like MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”  hosted by bitter Trump critics Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski.

So the demonization of Russia, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump goes on, undermining the prospects of a more positive and less dangerous relationship between the superpowers. Given the size of the two nations’ nuclear arsenals and the areas of the world that could be flashpoints for conflict between the U.S. and Russia, like Syria and Ukraine, that is a shame.