OpEds / Antiwar
By Murray Polner
The area under attack by Kiev’s forces has long been a part of Russia (as the Ukraine itself); some of these territories, forming “New Russia” (Novorossiya) were captured from the Ottoman Empire centuries ago.
“It’s the worst mess since the 1930s” William Pfaff, one of our shrewdest commentators, wrote early on in the International Herald Tribune. “No one wants war, wrote Pfaff, but “there are people in Moscow just like the people in Washington who say “if we don’t follow through—if we don’t stand our ground—we’ll lose our ‘credibility’” the pet word of our bellicose neocon and think tank Chicken Hawks and their Moscow counterparts. In Washington we may one day hear accusatory cries of Who Lost Ukraine?” as if, like China in 1949, it was ever ours to lose.
As a book review editor for another publication I receive lots of books. In the past few months many have dealt with the one hundredth anniversary of World War I. If they have a common denominator it is that the war which cost millions of lives and led to WWII, was entirely unnecessary and could have been avoided if one or more leaders and countries had had any awareness of the calamity awaiting them snd were not blinded by excessive nationalism and militarism. Geoffrey Wawro’s appropriately named A Mad Catastrophe, for example, is a perfect fit for our chaotic times while Sean McMeekin’s July 1914: Countdown to War excuses no nation , no leader, no special interest.
Warning: Important People on all sides, Be careful. You’re being egged on to join in a “game of chicken on the edge of the nuclear cliff,” as historian Arno Mayer, late of Princeton, recently put it.
![ssdkjksjkd](https://www.greanvillepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/mccain-john_pareene.jpg)
Why is it considered normal by the media and Western opinion that an ugly warmongering creature like John McCain be allowed to meddle in Ukrainian affairs, worsening an already dangerous situation, while Russia and the Donbass people are harshly criticized for far less provocative acts?
Russians, by an overwhelming majority, apparently support Putin, at least for now, unless things take a turn for the worse. In the U.S., the elite consensus is solidly behind the Ukrainian government, no matter who they are or represent. The government in Kiev is broke and corrupt with some in the government tied to extremists and anti-Semites. But in the U.S. the issue has been successfully framed in very simple Manichean terms: No to Russian aggression. A New York Times editorial urged the U.S. and its “trans-Atlantic partners” — really, only the U.S. counts—to be “prepared to be tough with Russia” whatever that means. No mention that Russia, too, may have [legitimate] national interests.
The perceptive anti-neoconservative and genuinely conservative magazine American Conservative warned that if NATO continues moving eastward next to Russia proper then trouble is inevitable. A follow-up piece described Obama’s strategy of containing Russia, whatever that means. But buried in the story is that the Russians can bite back, and hard. US. troops and war materials still move through Russian territory to and from Afghanistan. The two nations are now in orbit at the international Space Station, the agreement between the two to decommission aged Russian nukes continues. And they need one another to work out agreements aimed at deactivating Syria’s chemical arsenal and getting Iran to curb its nuclear agenda.
So, I ask: Is western Ukraine, bankrupt and corrupt, engaged in its old, historic conflict with Russia, worth another war? And a nuclear war at that? What, exactly, is the U.S. up to? Why was John Brennan, the CIA director sent to Kiev? Why are Vice President Joe Biden and Senator John McCain frequent visitors? Can you imagine the uproar in the U.S. if the Russians sent the boss of their top secret agency or their VIPs to eastern Ukraine? As with Bush’s Middle Eastern wars, it was initially hard to find skeptical pundits and editorial writers in the print media or TV. Remember when the Bush people planted retired Pentagon generals on TV’s “serious” discussion shows. “Call the nearest golf course,” went the old joke when the booking producers called. “We need someone to back us up on TV.”
Who, then, are the Deciders? Who’s running the show in Washington? Does the neocon Victoria Nuland, ostensibly Kerry’s subordinate, speak for Obama? If not, who does? Putin is certainly no angel but he’s no “Hitler”as Hillary remarked, pitching for as much money and votes as she and Bill can collect. Does anyone know what the United States wants in this region, beyond the unacceptable ambition it has since Communism’s collapse—and which has now exploded in it face—of shoving NATO and Western missile installations right up to Russia’s western borders. An American guided-missile destroyer has patrolled the Black Sea. NATO, dominated by the U.S., has held military maneuvers in the Baltic region.
Back to William Pfaff, whose IHT columns the New York Times (owners of the IHT) will not publish as they do Roger Cohen, his fellow IHT columnist: “One might think that this is the moment to talk with Russia about compromise and neutralization of the Russian-Ukrainian border.” It’s also past time that President Obama should stand up to the hardliners in his administration “who seem to have been behind all this. Enough people have already purposelessly been murdered.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Murray Polner has published in the New York Times, Washington Monthly, Commonweal, The Nation, The New Republic and antiwar. com. His books include No Victory Parades: The Return of the Vietnam Veteran, and co-author of Disarmed & Dangerous, a dual biography of Daniel & Philip Berrigan and We Who Dared Say No To War.
NOTE TO OUR READERS
The publication of an article does not signify that The Greanville Post editors endorse every single statement and assumption made by the author(s). Articles are posted for their overall value and importance to the ongoing debate on matters of policy, and especially in questions of peace and war.