Canada tramples on free speech

 

     By Reginald Johnson

        Commentary

   A stanza in the Canadian national anthem, ‘O, Canada’ goes like this:

‘From far and wide,

 ‘O, Canada! we stand on guard for thee!’

 ‘God keep our land glorious and free!’

‘O, Canada, we stand on guard for thee!’

  Unfortunately, based on events of the last few weeks, the word ‘free’ in that song may not apply anymore. And ‘glorious’ may not apply either.

 The Canadian government disgraced itself in brutally cracking down on a group of truckers, known as the ‘Freedom Convoy,’ who were protesting long-running vaccine mandates. The government acted more like a dictatorship run by Augusto Pinochet rather than a democracy that accommodates the expression of different points of view.

 Driving in from different parts of the country, the truckers had taken their rigs into Ottawa, the capital of Canada, blocked streets and blared their horns. Some other truckers for a time blocked the Ambassador Bridge, which links Windsor, Ontario, with Detroit, Michigan.

   No question, these protests were annoying and clearly interrupted daily life and regular business in Canada. But there was no significant violence during this period --- nobody burned down buildings, nobody robbed stores and nobody assaulted police.  As with any large protest group, some people behaved poorly and authorities made some arrests for alleged hate crimes, though few specifics have emerged.

  By and large, the demonstrators were peaceful and respectful. By blocking roads and bridges, the truckers were engaged in civil disobedience, a cherished tradition in democracies.

   But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau laced into the truckers, calling them hateful and violent. Instead of meeting with the group and trying to understand their grievances, Trudeau and local officials ordered the police to break up the protest, and break it up they did --- violently.

  Swinging batons, the police smashed the windows on trucks where truckers were refusing to leave. Another protester was thrown on the ground, and a video showed an officer kneeing the person repeatedly. Police rode horses into a crowd of people and a woman singing “Peace, Love and Freedom” was knocked to the ground and trampled.

   But the worst aspect of the government’s crackdown on the truckers was the move to essentially freeze their bank accounts. Trudeau, invoking Canada’s never-used “Emergencies Act,” had his government order a freeze on millions of dollars raised on social media accounts.

  This was an incredible attack on people’s rights of free speech and the right to protest. It has a fascistic ring to it --- a government attacking peoples’ finances simply because they don’t like their views or their acts of civil disobedience.

Parliament building, Ottawa, Canada. The government of Canada recently ordered a brutal crackdown on truckers protesting vaccine mandates, denying them free speech rights. 

 The Supreme Court of Canada approved the bank freeze in what Georgetown University Professor of Law Jonathan Turley called “a major blow to free speech and associational rights in Canada.”

  The Canadian Civil Liberties Association criticized Trudeau, saying the government’s use of emergency powers infringes on the basic rights of the truckers guaranteed to Canadians under the nation’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Amnesty International also criticized the Canadian government for its actions.

  It has been disturbing that members of the liberal-left and liberal media in the United States --- who years ago would have decried a government viciously cracking down on protesters --- seem to be supporting Trudeau’s martial-law tactics.

  CNN correspondent Paula Newton, for instance, said the truckers’ act of civil disobedience was nothing less than a “threat to democracy. An insurrection, sedition.”

  Turley said,  “Blocking streets, occupying buildings and shutting down bridges have long been tactics of protesters. Yet what constitutes a protest or an insurrection often seems to depend on the cause involved. When rioters caused billions of dollars of damages, burned police stations and occupied sections of American cities in the summer of 2020, for example, few in the media declared them to be terrorists or a threat to democracy.”

  The fundraising site, GofundMe, which previously helped in the funding of the Black Lives Matter protesters, froze more than $10 million raised for Canadian truckers to prevent it from being used to support them, Turley said.

  The attorney added, “The freezing of funds supporting the truckers laid bare the anti-free-speech trend sweeping the world, including in the US. There is no principled basis for cutting off the ability of citizens to support other citizens in a campaign of civil disobedience.”

  You get the feeling that most liberals and people on the left dismiss the truckers as a bunch of uneducated, white working-class racists who are probably admirers of Donald Trump. So in their view, these people are not worthy of being granted traditional rights of free speech and if they get slapped around by the police, then so be it.

  This, of course, is totally wrong. People have the right to free speech and the right to protest even if a majority of other people in the society don’t like what they’re saying. The right of free speech and the right of association cannot be selective.

  There is a concern that what happened in Canada to the Freedom Convoy could be a preview of coming attractions in the United States.

  The people in the United States have to be ever vigilant in protecting our core rights set forth in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. We cannot allow what happened in Canada to happen here.

  

 

 

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.”

 

 

 

 

     

 

   

Neocons have new home on MSNBC, slandering critics of Biden Ukraine policy

 

 By Reginald Johnson

     Commentary

  The same people who arrogantly pushed for the disastrous Iraq War (1 million Iraqi dead, 6,000 American dead) are back on MSNBC and CNN to push for war with Russia.

 These neo-con hawks have been rehabilitated by the so-called liberal channels to peddle their lies. And they're using the same slimey, McCarthyite tactics to get an edge --- calling people who oppose US involvement in Ukraine as stooges of the Kremlin.

 Discredited warmongers like Bill Kristol and David Frum talk of the urgency of confronting the Russians militarily and slam people like Tucker Carlson of FOX as “apologists” for Vladimir Putin. To his credit, Carlson has had several shows raising questions about the Biden administration’s irrational Ukraine policy.

 But the neocons have no shame.

 It brings to mind attorney Joseph Welch's famous rebuke of Senator Joseph McCarthy who was leading the communist witchhunt in the 1950s. McCarthy was making a career out of calling people communist and ruining their lives.

 At a congressional hearing in 1954 where McCarthy was trying to impugn the patriotism of one of Welch’s young law firm partners, Welch turned and confronted the senator:

  "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

 The fine writer Glenn Greenwald has written an excellent piece on the subject of the neocons, their tactics and their alliance with liberal media, called  “The Neocon’s Primary War Tactic: Branding Opponents of U.S. Intervention as Traitors.”  The article can be found on Substack and I highly recommend it.

 

Tulsi Gabbard calls out the warmongers

 

       By Reginald Johnson

   Tulsi Gabbard says it’s time for the American people to stand up to the military- industrial complex and reject the idea of war in Ukraine.

   “We will not be sheep, allowing these warmongers in Washington to lead us down this very, very dangerous and quite costly path,” she told Tucker Carlson on Fox News Channel a few days ago.

  Asked to comment by Carlson on the growing crisis in Ukraine, which could develop into a major war between Russia and the United States, the former congresswoman said that the problem in Washington is that Democrats, Republicans and others are “in the pocket of the military-industrial complex.”

  Rather than looking out for what’s in the best interest the American people, our national security or country, she said, “they see dollar signs when they look at Ukraine, they see how they can line their pockets, see how they can look tough and see how they can posture themselves in a position where they personally, politically or financially benefit.”

  Carlson, one of the only mainstream news commentators raising questions about US policy in Ukraine, has had several shows recently exploring the dangers of war with Russia. (The interview with Gabbard can be found at video.foxnews.com)

  President Joseph Biden, supported by members of both parties in Congress, has been threatening Russia with harsh economic sanctions should Russia invade Ukraine on behalf of pro-Russian separatists in the eastern part of the country. The insurgents have been fighting the pro-western, far right-wing government in Kiev for eight years, following a violent coup which ousted the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yankanovych. The putsch was engineered by the US, using the CIA and the National Endowment for Democracy.

 Biden administration officials have said it is critical to “protect the sovereignty of Ukraine” and “hold Russia accountable for any acts of aggression.”

 The US has poured $2.5 billion of military aid into Ukraine since 2014, and both US and NATO forces have been engaged in military exercises near Russia in recent months.

  The Russians have complained about this and statements by US officials that Ukraine might join NATO, an anti-Russian military alliance formed in 1949.

  US and Russian officials have been negotiating in recent weeks to try to de-escalate tensions and head off any possible military clash.

 Russian President Vladimir Putin said that any peace agreement must include a guarantee from the US that Ukraine will not be given NATO membership. Since 1990, NATO has moved eastward towards Russia, picking up all of the old Soviet-bloc countries.

  Carlson asked Gabbard if there was a chance that the people in charge of US policy “may talk themselves into getting us into war inadvertently.”

  “I’m deeply worried about that because that’s very much the direction we’re headed in,” replied Gabbard.

   “You know, Tucker, I look back to early 2017 when then President Trump said ‘Hey, it would be good if we got along with Russia.’ You remember the reaction to that --- everyone from Democratic leaders, Republican leaders, people in the mainstream media, they said ‘Absolutely no way!’ There were people in Trump’s own administration, warmongers like John Bolton, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, outright rejected it and went on their own agenda and now we’re seeing the results of this, seeing the results of how we have continued to have these war mongers escalating tensions, putting us in this disastrous position today, leaving us, the American people with frankly the responsibility to stand up and say we will not accept this.”

 

 

Yale scientist: early treatment could have averted hundreds of thousands of COVID deaths

 

 

   By Reginald Johnson

    A prominent epidemiologist from Yale University believes that a majority of the deaths from COVID-19 in the United States could have been prevented through the use of therapeutic treatments.

   Dr. Harvey Risch, a professor at the Yale School of Public Health, said in an interview with Mark Levin on the FOX News Channel that if the drugs hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin and others had been allowed by the federal government and used at an early stage on COVID patients, “80 or 85 percent” of the fatalities could have been prevented.

  In the interview on Dec. 26, Levin asked Risch if therapeutics had been used to treat COVID patients, “Do you think we could have saved a lot more people?”

   Risch responded, “Absolutely. If the number of deaths that’s been reported of 700,000 Americans is an accurate count, we could have saved 80 or 85%, at least of those, by early and aggressive treatment.”

  In addition to hydroxychorloquine and Ivermectin, Risch said the following drugs were useful in treating the Coronavirus: fluvoxamine, budesonide, colchicine, antibiotics and aspirin.

  The Yale professor, also an MD, is well known in the field of epidemiology. He is the author of more than 300 peer-reviewed publications and currently holds senior positions on the editorial boards of several leading scientific journals.

  Since the pandemic began in early 2020, Risch is one of a small number of medical doctors and epidemiologists who have been questioning the approach of the federal government in dealing with COVID.  That policy has seen top government officials such as National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci push vaccines almost exclusively as the best way of dealing with the outbreak ---- to safeguard people from getting the disease and ultimately to stamp out the scourge. So far, about 63% of all Americans have been fully vaccinated.

   Nonetheless, 700,000 to 800,000 Americans have perished from Covid, with the exact count determined by the data being used. The consensus view of government officials and many in the medical establishment is that that level of fatalities --- about three-quarters of a million people --- would be a lot higher if it were not for the vaccination program.

  

A roadside poster in Bridgeport, CT promoting vaccinations. The federal government has authorized giving the Pfizer vaccine to children 5-11 years old. 

 .

  Doctors like Risch have been roundly criticized for supporting drugs like hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin, neither of which the FDA has authorized for use in treating COVID. Critics have pointed out that with hydroxychloroquine, for instance, studies have shown the drug is not effective and in some cases poses a cardiac risk. 

   Some 20 faculty members at the Yale School of Public Health took Risch to task for his stand in a statement released in the Medium on August 4, 2020, according to the Yale Daily News.

   “As his colleagues, we defend the right of Dr. Risch, a respected cancer epidemiologist, to voice his opinions,” the letter states. “But he is not an expert in infectious disease epidemiology and he has not been swayed by the body of scientific evidence from rigorously conducted clinical trials, which refute the plausibility of his belief and arguments.”

  The college newspaper said that Risch had no comment on the letter.

Other doctors agree with Risch on the use of drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin, but their views for the most part have gotten little play in the mainstream media but instead have been reported only by small websites on the Internet. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have actively censored posts offering alternative views on how to deal with the pandemic.

   In general, doctors and scientists who have offered alternative views on dealing with COVID have been attacked as spreading “misinformation.”  For example, Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of the RMna vaccine --- and a critic of the government's vaccine centered approach --- has been banned from Twitter.

 ( Editor's note: When a link to this story was posted on Twitter, it was removed.)

 Dissident doctors maintain that there’s been misinformation spread from the other side, as well, against the value of therapeutics. They note, for instance, two of the studies criticizing the use of hydroxychloroquine and cited widely by critics --- one by the prestigious medical journal Lancet and the other in the New England Journal of Medicine --- were later found to be flawed and their findings retracted. They also say that a number of other studies have found hydroxychloroquine to be beneficial with few side effects, and news of those studies has received little attention.

  In the interview with Levin, Risch reported that “What we know is across the country, I’ve surveyed telemedicine groups and large group practices most recently, and it totaled more than a 150,000 people who have been treated early as outpatients with hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin and other medications, extremely successfully, less than two dozen deaths out of that large number of people who been treated early. So they’re the ones who have the knowledge of how to treat patients. However, the government doesn’t want any of that to be known publicly, so it’s an open secret that I talk about it and others talk about it, but the government denies that it exists and pretends these medications are harmful.”

  On other topics related to the government’s response to the pandemic, the Yale professor said it made no sense to be vaccinating healthy children. The FDA in October authorized giving the Pfizer vaccine to kids aged 5-11.

  “ This is a risk benefit analysis. From what I understand, the adverse events occurring from COVID itself in 5-11 year-olds are so infrequent, that the hazards from the vaccines are likely to be greater than the hazards from the illness,” Risch said.  “So the benefit is against vaccination for almost all that age group except children with chronic conditions like obesity, diabetes, asthma and respiratory diseases. There you have more of an equation to balance.”

   In general, Risch said the whole emphasis by the government during the pandemic has been to sell vaccines.

  “Well you know, the real bottom line and everything that comes out and every decision that is made in every pronouncement from Dr. Fauci and the government, is to sell vaccines. There is nothing that I have heard that ever takes a step back and says, maybe the vaccines are not indicated for such and such person. Everything in every direction has always been to sell vaccines. That includes the suppression of early treatment.”

   

 

 

 

 

 

Peace groups urged to take action on Ukraine

 

 

 By Reginald Johnson

 

      As the crisis in Ukraine escalates, a national peace organization is calling on all peace and anti-war groups to pressure the Biden administration to change its “dangerous belligerent policy against Russia” to head off disaster.

  “If the armed standoff between the Ukrainian military and the Russian-supported separatist forces in eastern Ukraine becomes --- by miscalculation or design --- a conventional war between Russia and NATO, it could escalate into nuclear war,” said a statement issued by the U.S. Peace Council this week.  “We must act urgently to push for immediate de-escalation of this NATO-created crisis before it is too late.”

  The U.S. Peace Council, one of the oldest peace and disarmament organizations and affiliated with the World Peace Council, said the peace movement must demand that a negotiated settlement be achieved to defuse the crisis, using the Minsk II agreement as a framework; that the “US and its allies cease unnecessary provocations including increased arms sales to Ukraine and suggested NATO membership;”  and that  “potential threats to international peace be taken up by the United Nations and subjected to the provisions of the UN charter and other elements of international law instead of arbitrary and illegal actions by any state or regional formation.”

  Other groups in the peace movement, the council urged, should “reject demonization of Russian leaders,” such as Russian President Vladimir Putin.  The villification of Putin and Russia in the media “is an integral part of (a) policy of inventing imaginary enemies as has been done to a long list of foreign leaders and nations” who have attempted to pursue an independent foreign policy, the statement said.

   The peace council took their position as the situation in Ukraine grows worse by the day. NATO warplanes in recent months have been conducting exercises near the Russian border and the US has led military exercises involving 30,000 NATO troops in the region stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Last month the US staged simulation bombing raids within 12 miles of Russian airspace and US warships have entered both the Baltic and Black seas, which border the Russian Federation.

   In response, Russia has stationed thousands of troops near the Ukrainian border.

The United States has given $2.5 billion in military aid to the Ukrainian regime to help in its fight against Russian-backed separatists. The US has warned Russia not to invade Ukraine, triggering a diplomatic crisis. (Istock photo)

   There’s been considerable talk in the American press that Russia is getting set to invade Ukraine since it is “massing troops” along its border with Ukraine. No mention is made in the reports about US and NATO activity in the area.

    Meanwhile, President Joseph Biden --- citing the need to protect Ukraine’s “sovereignty” ---- has threatened Russia with harsh economic sanctions, if an invasion takes place.

    Media pundits and members of Congress --- from both parties --- have been denouncing Russia and prodding Biden to act “tough” towards Putin to stop “Russian aggression.” The rhetoric from some lawmakers is getting reckless, with one senator suggesting the US consider launching a first strike nuclear attack if Russia invades Ukraine.

   Since 2014, when the US engineered a coup in Ukraine to establish an anti-Russian government, America has given Ukraine $2.5 billion worth of military aid. In 2021 alone, the US has given $275 million in aid.

  The Russians clearly see these developments --- the continued flow of lethal aid to a neighboring country, the NATO military activity and talk of Ukraine joining NATO, as constituting a security threat.

  Russian officials have made clear that the idea of Ukraine joining NATO is a nonstarter for any diplomatic solution to Ukraine crisis. The Russians are bitter that the United States reneged on its pledge made by Secretary of State James Baker in 1991 to Soviet leader Mikhael Gorbachev that NATO would not expand its membership by taking in any of the old Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe. In fact, by the late ‘90s almost all of the old so-called Iron Curtain countries --- East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and the Baltic states were all allowed to join NATO.

   At a December 23 press conference, Putin stressed that “Further movement of NATO eastward is unacceptable. They are on the threshold of our house. Is it an excessive demand – no more attack weapon systems near our home? Is there something unusual about this?”

   Henry Lowendorf, a member of the US Peace Council, commented that “One need not be an unqualified admirer of the politics of Vladimir Putin to acknowledge that the Russian leader has legitimate security concerns.”

  The council statement said that recently-announced security proposals by Russia, together with the steps outlined in the Minsk agreement, could form the basis of a diplomatic solution to Ukraine crisis.

  The Russian proposals given to the US include a promise for each side to refrain from carrying out activities affecting each other’s security, preventing NATO’s expansion further eastward to include Ukraine, and abandoning any NATO military activities in all of Eastern Europe, Transcaucasia and Central Asia.

   The Minsk II Accords signed in 2015 by France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine and endorsed unanimously by the UN Security Council, including the United States, provide for the demilitarization of eastern Ukraine, restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty over the eastern regions and full autonomy for the Donbass region.

  U.S. Peace Council officials said it is a welcome development that the United States will participate in talks in Geneva on Monday, January 10 on the new Russian proposals and it is also a good sign that on December 30 President Biden had another phone conversation with President Putin.

  But the council statement noted that, “ Despite these diplomatic efforts, powerful institutional and economic forces in the US – the military-industrial complex, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and others – are eager for a new Cold War with Russia which would provide them with boundless opportunities for profitable contracts.” 

 

   

 

      

      

 

   

 

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.