Britain: Washington’s Convenient Pawn
It bears repeating what other articles stressed. ISIL is the pretext. Syria is the target. Regime change is the objective.
“The last people who should be returning to the scene of their former crimes are Britain, France and the United States of America.”
The Great Balts: The Russian factor, NATO, European “prosperity”
A personal assessment.
PLEASE CLICK ON THE BAR BELOW TO READ A SPECIAL PREFATORY NOTE BY THE MANAGING EDITOR OF THE RUSSIA DESK
[learn_more caption=”PREFATORY NOTE”] The saga of the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on the shores of the Baltic Sea is an ancient story, intersecting at various historical moments of what we refer to in a general way as “Europe”. Since 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, those small states—formerly part of both the Russian Empire and the USSR —have been independent. “Back in the European fold,” delighted Western spokesmen declared in 1991. “Back in the heart of Europe.” During the Cold War, the question of the Baltic States was one of the most disputed and controversial issues between East and West.
Unlike Ukraine today, the Baltic States then exited apparently easily from a Russia in disarray. They joined both the European Union and NATO and today even host NATO military bases right on Russia’s borders, even though remaining dependent on Russia for energy and despite their large ethnic Russian populations who do not want to leave their homes and move to Russia.
Approximately 30% of the six million total population of the three states are ethnic Russian. Although Russian economic sanctions have hit the Balts hard, Latvia for example asks for an even greater NATO/EU/US presence. On the one hand, the USA promises more military presence there, while on the other, Russia continually issues warnings against increased NATO presence in East Europe. Though there is a tendency to generalize and toss all three Baltic states into the same pot, they are in fact very diverse one from the other. Estonian is a Finnic language and the country’s people consider themselves Nordic. Latvian and Lithuanian are Indo-European languages, though the countries’ histories are vastly different: Lithuania was part of a major European empire for many centuries, while Latvia and Estonia farther north were united for many centuries. The three countries became part of the Russian empire in the 18th century, then became independent after WWI. They were occupied (according to the Baltic States) or voluntarily joined the USSR in the 1940s. They have again existed as sovereign states for now fifty years. But they are poor, while the diaspora of these peoples is worldwide, from Poland and Sweden to the USA and also to neighboring Russia. —Gaither Stewart [/learn_more]
The Great Balts: The Russian factor, NATO, European “prosperity”
A personal assessment.
By Alevtina Rea
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he subject of Russia in the Baltic countries is definitely a sore one. The ghost of former co-existence and lingering insecurity still haunts Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, even if they became independent entities 23 years ago, in September 1991. And even, as experts note, they left the USSR on very favorable terms: no debts and keeping ownership of companies that were part of all-Union property. Despite this noble gesture on the part of Russia, as far as I heard, these three states are obsessed with their Soviet past and hostile to their former partner.
In fact, the question of the so-called Soviet occupation has been elevated in the Baltic countries to the status of one of the main principles of construction of a new national identity. As a result, discrimination toward ethnic Russians and paranoid Russophobia are a common practice in all three. What’s more, egged on by the West, they have turned into barking mongrels attacking an imposingly serene giant bear, who quietly goes about his business without paying much attention to these small and occasionally mean attacks.
SIDEBAR
Obama reassures the Baltics of protection against “Russian aggression.”
(Continued from above the sidebar)
After joining the European Union, the Baltic countries began to receive substantial financial assistance for the development of certain areas of their economy within the Brussels framework of leveling regional development. Thus, in 2004-2006 Lithuania received from various European funds 1.7 billion Euros, Latvia – 1 billion Euros, and Estonia – 800 million Euros. The planned allocation for 2007-2013 was, respectively, 6.8 billion Euros, 4.6 billion Euros, and 3.4 billion Euros.
Thus, these three overgrown “kids” were never weaned from the accustomed donation/external support scheme, with the only difference that now they began to receive subsidies not from Moscow but from Brussels. However, there was and is a very significant difference between the Soviet Union and the European Union. EU membership not only provides a multimillion dollar infusion; it also imposes severe restrictions on the economies of the member states, which led to the destruction of many of the competitive enterprises in the Baltic States. This same pattern is currently being imposed on Ukraine, with the EU calling for a virtual dismantlement of the nation’s industrial base. In the Balts, a well-developed sugar industry in Latvia has been eliminated, in keeping with the onset of 2006 EU reforms – under the pretext of opening the market to third countries and declining sugar prices.
RUSSIA DESK
Gaither Stewart Managing Editor
Alevtina Rea Deputy Editor • Paul Carline Deputy Editor
ANTI-RUSSIAN PARANOIA
Being so paranoid about anything Russian, the Baltic States turned their backs on their comfortable past in the former Soviet Union, snubbed Russia on the way to their supposedly prosperous European development “future”, ruined their industrial base and agriculture at the first order of the EU brass, and, basically, found themselves in the demeaning position of cheap laborers of their idol – western capitalism. Deceived and manipulated!
Discrimination of the Russians as a linguistic minority in the Baltic countries—a silly, self-wounding notion catering to cheap chauvinism— is expressed in a gradual narrowing of the scope of the Russian language. According to Wikipedia, “As of 2011, there are 1,052,520 ethnic Russians in the Baltic States (Latvia 556,422, Estonia 321,198, Lithuania 174,900), having declined from 1,726,000 in 1989.” Although the Russians and Russian-speakers make up a large part of Baltic States population, they are deprived of the right to appeal in Russian through the administrative channels, they have limited opportunities for education in Russian, and they are denied the right to receive official information in Russian. According to historian W. Shnirelman, Latvia and Estonia especially are guilty of political discrimination. Most of the ethnic Russians didn’t receive respective citizenship of these countries and have been excluded from the political process.
Russia, once again, is being forced to divert precious income to defense expenditures. Fortunately, the nation has a strong scientific and technological base to build on and remains highly original in its weapons designs.
CLICK TO EXPAND IMAGE
Given the latest demonization of Russia by Western media scoundrels, I was curious to investigate the Russian barometer as far as the Baltic States are concerned. I was interested in three simple questions: 1. What do the Balts think about Russia nowadays? 2. What is their relationship toward ethnic Russians who live in Baltic States? 3. What is their relationship toward NATO? Olga, our source in Moscow, has the following to report:
“The Baltic countries present a very complex question. I communicate with the Lithuanians and Latvians who live and work in Moscow. But I have not been there myself for a while, and there are less and less of my friends who stay in these countries. Some of them went to Europe, but the majority went to Russia.
“The positions of those who came to live in Russia are diametrically different. Some people, quite successfully, combine their work with volunteering at the embassy and with the Diaspora, but, at the same time, they harbor a negative attitude toward the country where they found shelter and a loaf of bread, so to speak. One such friend has a farm in Lithuania; she goes there to sow, plow and harvest, but right now she cannot do anything with the fruits of her labor. According to EU legal restrictions, she has no right to sell her produce in (Western) European countries. Hence, her harvest is rotting. As she says, mice are eating it.
Position of the Balts in Europe
“Many Balts who live in Russia are obsessed with a strange feeling that they are spied on by the KGB all the time (KGB is long gone, but they are still paranoid about it), and, basically, they look ridiculous and pathetic. Of course, we do not say anything to them – and what could you say, really, when they open their eyes wide and whisper that someone is shadowing them? Who instilled this paranoia in them? Because of this nonsense, we try to cut our communication with them to a minimum.
“Once upon a time, in the Soviet Union, the Baltic republics were considered almost an island of Europe and freedom, and now they are some poor excuse … There are, of course, some very successful people from over there who are internally free and totally adapted to their life in Russia, and they have tons of friends! These people are of what one might call “a normal psychology.” But those who, for whatever reasons, are easily influenced and clearly manipulated – ended up zombified to such a degree that even many years of residence in Russia cannot teach them anything. Sometimes I think that they are secretly gathering in some undisclosed hangout and singing either Lithuanian or Latvian songs. Who needs them with their fears and hatred?
“Occasionally, I ask those zombified, ‘Why did you come here, if you hate Russia so much?’ They say, ‘And where could we go?’ So strange! For example, if I hate America, never in my life will I go there! Some double standards are at play, nothing else! In my opinion, having double standards is immoral.
“The situation with NATO is definitely a tricky question. It is not just black and white … On the one hand, some people welcome them but complain that the country should feed them. Quite often, NATO officials behave impudently toward the local residents. The situation has sort of calmed down a bit, but still, they are disliked because of their rudeness and arrogance.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CounterPunch, a leading left journal of fact and opinion. Ms. Rea is currently a deputy editor with The Greanville Post’s Russia Desk, and a contributing author to CounterPunch, Cyrano’s Journal Today, Uncommon Thought Journal, and the International Journal of Baudrillard Studies. She can be reached at rea.alya@gmail.com.
Syria, the Latest Crusade
[T]he West is striking again; it is stabbing the very center, the heart of the Arab World.
This time it is targeting the group – ISIS – which it created itself, and which it had been arming, feeding and pampering until just very recently.
Airplanes and missiles are flying, and bombs are falling. The war has begun.
But is it really a war, or just a brutal game, a gigantic PlayStation operated by thousands of hooked-up maniacs in the Pentagon and all over Washington, Brussels and some servile capitals in the Middle East?
A war is, after all, when two sides are facing each other, when two sides fight, when two sides are risking their lives.
The main purpose of ISIS —a creature of the West—was to destabilize and destroy Bashar al-Assad’s Government in Damascus. Now ISIS itself has become the pretext.
In this surreal and post-modern ‘war’, the only victims will be the people of the Middle East, most likely civilians. Their lives will be risked by those who are sitting, in safety, on their destroyers and in control rooms, hundreds and thousands of miles away, drinking coffee and cracking jokes.
NATO fighter jet taking off on a sortie over Syrian targets. (Click to enlarge)
The Übermenschen of the West will not descend from the sky, in order to fight, – man to man – in order to minimize the casualties of a peaceful population. The killing will be done by Tomahawks and F22’s (at least those have real pilots), and by drones.
This is actually not a war but a massacre, a mass murder.
Another massacre. This one may last very long and take millions of human lives in the most brutal circumstances.
Western leaders are ready… to sacrifice the lives of the “others”; the regime is ready. You can read it on Obama’s face, and on the face of Cameron.
***
Click to enlarge.
I have covered those border camps for more than two years, often risking my life, occasionally being harassed and detained by Turkish intelligence.
In 2012 and 2013, I visited the areas around the Turkish city of Hatay, and camps like Apaydin, where various ISIS fighters were being trained by Western and Turkish intelligence. I investigated the situation at the border and also around Incirlik air-force base near Adana, which both the RAF and USAF use. And I worked in Jordan, at the camps that are openly utilized for the training of the ‘Syrian opposition’, a fact that is not concealed, even by the regional press.
I thought that my reports, and the reports by Serkan Koc, Huseyin Guler and others, dispersed the myth of a ‘spontaneous uprising against the President al-Assad’.
But obviously our efforts could not match the tremendous propaganda and brainwashing campaign unleashed by Western corporate media.
In a totally irrational, logically bizarre pirouette, the US accused Syria of not destroying Islamic State, that unsavory offspring of Western imperialist policy.
As reported by Reuters:
“In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power wrote, “The Syrian regime has shown that it cannot and will not confront these safe-havens effectively itself.”
The strikes were needed to eliminate a threat to Iraq, the United States and its allies, she wrote, citing Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which covers an individual or collective right to self-defense against armed attack.”
To interpret what was written above: ‘Bashar al-Assad, we helped to create ISIS in order to overthrow you… Now we hold you responsible for not managing to destroy our offspring… Therefore, we are going to bomb your country, kill thousands of your people, and possibly overthrow you in the process.’
Advanced-design ships with the highest lethality, capable of inflicting great damage on their remote targets constitute the NATO armada against Syria. A war by cowardly means. (Image: USS Zumwalt class destroyer firing missile. (Click t enlarge)
The Western public is fully ignorant; it is indoctrinated and brainwashed, otherwise hundreds of millions of European and North American citizens would be now rolling around all over the streets, many dying of laughter.
The statements made by Obama and Power are so absurd and philosophically foul, that they would make even Orwell and Huxley blush in embarrassment. Even the most brilliant of novelists could not invent such twists of logic!
The Middle East is well informed, it is aware of the game, but people in so many countries here are too scared to protest, or even to speak up. The West overthrew progressive and truly patriotic governments, and upheld the most oppressive tyrannies.
There is some commonsense left, of course. In Lebanon, Hezbollah snapped back, most likely expressing the feelings of a great number of the people living in the Middle East. In its televised address, the leader of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, clearly stated his position:
“The U.S. isn’t qualified morally to lead an anti-terrorist coalition. In our view, America is the mother of terrorism and the cause of terrorism in the world… Everyone knows that Hezbollah is against ISIS and Takfiri groups and is fighting them… However, that doesn’t mean we support U.S military intervention in the region. Hezbollah is against any US-led coalition that uses terrorism as an excuse for a military intervention in Syria and Iraq.”
And one could add: and most likely, one day, in Iran…
It is clear that in this region; almost nobody is fooled by empty clichés and the twisting of language. ISIS is a multi-purpose, flexible stick in the hands of the West. It is also ‘helpful’ when it operates on its own, when it ‘gets out of control’. It served as a weapon against Mr. al-Assad and now it is turning into a perfect scarecrow, a justification for the direct invasion of Syria, for redeployment, or more precisely for an increase of the Western military might in the region, for the creation of a pro-Western puppet Kurdish state, and quite likely, for deposing the government in Damascus.
The trigger-happy Turkish government is already making noises, promising to get involved, militarily, but only if the goal is defined concretely and openly: to overthrow Mr. al-Assad.
To overthrow the government in Damascus is, of course, the main goal of Washington, as well, but Mr. Obama is not as honest and open as his counterpart and ally in Ankara.
***
All this can be, of course, only the beginning of something truly horrendous. One should never forget that the Empire and its Saudi, Qatari and Israeli allies are always ‘thinking big’.
There is always more to destabilize, to ruin, and to conquer – there is Iran on the horizon, and much more.
To them – to the Empire – places like Syria or Iran do not constitute some of the oldest and greatest cultures on Earth, inhabited by gentle and peaceful people. To the Empire, these places are only booty, consisting of natural resources and strategic locations.
People mean nothing. If one million die, if two or three millions vanish, it makes absolutely no difference. Cultures mean nothing, as they are not Western, as they are not Christian ones, as they are not ‘white’.
In a pointed jab, Vladimir Putin made a plaintive plea for Obama to take more time to consider the full implications of a strike on Syria, appealing, he said, not to another world leader, but to a Nobel Peace laureate. (Reuters) [Click to enlarge]
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There is Bahrain, where a Shia majority is immobilized by fear, Yemen once socialist but now repressive, ‘extremist’ and miserable. In places like UAE there are pockets of luxury for the rich and hell on earth plus humiliation for the migrant workers who built the place but are left with almost no rights.
.
Palestine is bleeding from its wounds, as it has been, for countless decades. Israel and its backers are blocking all solutions for full Palestinian independence. Almost the entire world votes in support of Palestinian state, almost the entire world condemns Israel. But it clearly shows, who are in charge of the planet and the region: the Empire determinedly vetoes all resolutions and blocks anything that could lead to justice for the Palestinian people.
.
Jordan has become something of a huge refugee camp for Palestinians, Syrians and Iraqis, as well as the service station for Western interests, from the military ones to those of the ‘development agencies’.
.
Lebanon, once the jewel of the region, is suffering from spillovers of various conflicts, as well as from Israeli incursions. It has basically no functioning government, and the socially-oriented and anti-Western Hezbollah has been placed on the “terrorist list” by the US and that of several European countries. This is of course consistent with the twisted logic of the Western regime: caring for the welfare of one’s people is seen as the worst imaginable crime, punishable by death.
***
This is all consistent with the legacy of colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism.
The Empire has entered its final gaga stage. In the youngest and the mightiest part of it – a nation that came to life through people like Jefferson and Lincoln (not saints, but at least giants), has now ended up by being controlled by the souk, by the market vendors. And it shows.
If one were detached, it all seems so comical, so grotesque.
It is also tremendously vulgar.
One feels like laughing, like cracking sarcastic jokes.
But then, laughter freezes in our thoughts. It does, when we suddenly realize that all this is actually for real! Missiles are flying towards Syria, and so are the bombers.
And children are howling in horror. And bodies are torn to pieces. Millions of refugees are on the move. Millions of men, women and children have lost their homes. Women are being raped. Entire communities have ceased to exist.
There used to be countries like Iraq, like Libya, like Syria. True, Iraq was shaped by British colonialism, and so was Kuwait, but it was there for decades. It is no more. Now Western imperialism is reshaping the region again, at a horrendous cost to the local population.
The Empire is ‘experimenting’. It uses ‘trial and error’ tactics. ‘We created the Syrian opposition and now let us see what will happen. The ‘opposition’ mutates into a militant regional force, which dares to cross our interests? Let’s bomb it and let’s also arm the Kurds so they can form their own, pro-Western state, in the middle of the region. Let’s see how it goes… Once we are on the move, we can also, perhaps, overthrow al-Assad… And who knows, maybe we can also find a reason to invade Iran.’
The Empire is using people as if they were guinea pigs. There is no consideration for the well being of the Arab population, there is no respect for human lives. All basic human rights chapters are being violated; most of the Geneva Convention clauses are spat on.
The world is so conditioned, so shackled, that this latest attack is being accepted without any major protests or debates.
If questions are being asked, publicly, then there are no essential questions. Entire debate is twisted. It is presumed that the West is doing right thing, that it is defending the world against terrorism.
It is also accepted by a great majority of people and countries, that the Empire enjoys absolute impunity, that it is above the law, that there is no international body that can challenge it, or to make it reverse its devastating and destructive course.
The West has finally reached the highest level of ‘freedom’. It is a freedom for itself – a terrible freedom to play with the world as if it were a ball, a cheap and insignificant thing.
***
As al-Qaeda is derived from the US-backed Mujahedin fighters in Afghanistan, so ISIS was a part of the anti-Assad ‘opposition’ supported by the West and its regional allies. The West played masterfully on local intolerances: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is generally secular, but belongs to the Alawite sect, which is considered to be heretical in some Sunni Muslim circles, especially in the most radical ones. That helped to mobilize and recruit extreme religious cadres. And religious cadres historically, are very determined fighters.
The Empire groomed both al-Qaeda (or more precisely, its predecessors) and ISIS as true ‘multi-purpose’ groups. One helped to destroy the Soviet Union and the other mortally wounded Syria and then, they became the justification for the ‘Global War on Terror’ and in the latest case, for an attack against Syria.
Both could be described as the 5th columns of the West in the Arab world. Just like the West, they care nothing about the welfare of the people in this region. The true socially-oriented groups here, like Hezbollah, are actually fighting against ISIS, but are designated by the West as ‘terrorist organizations’.
And so the Kafkaesque destruction of the region by Western lunatics continues.
Of course all this is nothing new. This is how, for centuries, the European and later North American colonial terror functioned: divide and rule, destroy all that stands on your way. Sacrifice millions of people for your economic and geopolitical goals, even if you are not yet fully certain exactly what your goals are.
Without the Western gaga/racist/PlayStation/genocidal realm, there would be no al-Qaedas and no ISISs. There would be, however, several authoritarian but rich and socially-balanced countries like Iraq and Libya, as well as well-educated and secular Syria. If the West had not battered the region with its invasions and coup d’états after WWII, there would have been at least two powerful and socialist countries here: Egypt and Iran. In fact, most likely, entire region would be by now socialist.
ISIS is an implant, which is now serving as the justification for an invasion.
It is so obvious. Not to see it requires great discipline. But the world, or at least both Europe and the United States, appears to be increasingly disciplined, obedient, even submissive.
And so the Western crusaders are again, as they had for centuries, riding their horses, spreading devastation and fear wherever they pass.
But now, there is no brave, enlightened and compassionate Sultan – no modern-day Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn – to stop them: in the name of life itself, in the name of justice and of our entire humanity.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andre Vltchek is a novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. The result is his latest book: “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. ‘Pluto’ published his discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. His critically acclaimed political novel Point of No Return is re-edited and available. Oceania is his book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about post-Suharto Indonesia and the market-fundamentalist model is called “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. His feature documentary, “Rwanda Gambit” is about Rwandan history and the plunder of DR Congo. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and Africa. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.
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NATO’s new Cold War redraws left, liberal views on imperialism and war
ROGER ANNIS, RABBLE.CA
RUSSIA DESK
Alya Rea, Deputy Editor
Petro Poroshenko speaks to joint session of Canadian Parliament on Sept 17, 2014. (Ukrainian government photo) [click to enlarge]
[J]ust under 25 years ago, the Cold War ended with a capitalist triumph. The nationalized economies and political structures of the Soviet Union and eastern Europe collapsed and a transition to a harsh, anti-social capitalism began.
In the years that followed, an eastward expansion was undertaken by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the military alliance of the imperialist countries of Europe and North America. Many of the countries of eastern Europe joined the alliance, in explicit defiance of agreements by NATO with post-Soviet Russia not to expand in this way.
A generation later, the world finds itself at the outset of a new Cold War. It is directed by the same, NATO military powers and its aim is similar — to stop any advance of anti-capitalist social revolution and to constrict and contain Russia.
The difference from the conditions of today to those of post-1990-91 is a large one. Russia is no longer offered a pretense of partnership in capitalist Europe. On the contrary, the Russian Federation is being vilified and sanctioned with a goal to its subordination, marginalization and eventual dismantling.
There are several reasons for this shift in attitude to Russia from the end of one cold war to the beginning of another. For one, capitalism’s ongoing economic and financial instability requires new sources of investment and plunder. The vast territories and resources of the Russian Federation are enticing targets for capitalist investors. There is less tolerance by the big imperialist countries for middle-power competitors such as Russia, China and Brazil.
For another, social and political conditions in Europe and eastern Europe are more explosive than they were 25 years ago. Reliable policemen are needed to keep rebellious workers, farmers and youth in check as they resist the harsh, economic austerity policies or violations of national sovereignty by imperialist countries. [1] Events in Ukraine have soured whatever cooperative attitudes that may have existed toward Russia’s leaders, particularly over its decision to facilitate the secession vote in Crimea in March that saw the region opt for political association with Russia.
The imperialists expect Russia’s leaders to act in the fashion of Egypt’s military rulers, who faithfully police the Palestinian rebellion. But Russian leaders are cut from different cloth and are prepared to stand up for the country’s capitalist interests and elite. They do not control the rebellion in eastern Ukraine. While they are willing to keep it in check, as evidenced by the recent ceasefire agreement that robbed rebels of a better outcome, they are not prepared to stand by while the rebellion goes down to bloody defeat.
Progressive forces in the world must say “No to war and austerity in Ukraine!,” and “No to sanctions and other threats against the people of Russia.”
There is an intense, new-Cold-War propaganda drive by NATO that irrationally demonizes all things Russia and aims to win backing for economic and military aggression. The crude rationale for this drive was recently expressed by Ukraine Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk when he told an audience in Kyiv on Sept 13, “[Russian President Vladimir Putin’s] aim is not just to take Donetsk and Lugansk. His goal is to take the entire Ukraine…Russia is a threat to the global order and to the security of Europe.”[2]
Left and liberal opinion in the world is ceding to the NATO drive, agreeing that, yes, there really is a “problem” with Russia. The consequences of this bowing to imperialist pressure can be far-reaching. Three newly-published articles show the vastly differing ways in which left and liberal opinion is reshaping.
Downplaying and justification for the Nazi past
The vital article among the three is an essay by Daniel Lazare published in Jacobin magazine on September 9. Much of it is an analysis of the 2010 book by author Timothy Snyder, “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.”
Lazare describes Snyder’s book as part of a rising “double genocide” movement that equates the Holocaust and other atrocities of Nazi Germany with the violent repressions of the Stalin regime in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. He argues that a flawed conflation by contemporary writers of these two distinct, historical experiences is serving to downplay or even justifyNazi atrocities. These are presented as unfortunate but understandable responses to the repressions of the Soviet Union under Stalin. An added twist by Nazi apologists is to slyly observe that many of the Stalin regime’s henchmen were of Jewish origin, the message being that left-wing Jews in the Soviet Union bear responsibility for the rise of Nazism.
Lazare tackles Snyder’s writings on Ukraine which began to be widely published in November 2013. He says they are part of the political and intellectual wave that is downplaying or dismissing the ascendance of right wing nationalism and fascism in Ukraine. He writes:
Contrary to Snyder, the problem is not a Russian push to the west, but an American drive to the east that has only intensified since Euromaidan. While the State Department argues that a democratic wave is sweeping across Eastern Europe, the claim is belied by the mass disenfranchisement of Russian-speaking minorities, the growing Baltic identification with the Third Reich, and the exaltation of [WW2-era Ukraine fascist Stepan] Bandera in places like Lviv and Kiev.
He relates this to the 2010 book, saying, “The rapturous reception that [Bloodlands] received in the mainstream media is a sign that intellectual resistance to America’s drive to the east [beginning with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991] has all but collapsed.”
With only a few exceptions, mainstream English language media in Europe and North America has been silent on the rise of extreme, right-wing nationalism in Ukraine, including the role of the extreme right militias that are fighting alongside the Ukraine army in the east of the country. The horrific humanitarian consequences of Kyiv’s war have likewise received scant attention.
“Anti-Ukrainian, pro-Kremlin stooges”
A second, recent article is “On the left or in Russia? The strange case of foreign, pro-Kremlin, radical leftists.” Written by Toronto academic Stephen Velychenko and published on the multilingual website “Thinking Ukraine,” the article sharply criticizes various left-wing publications for publishing articles critical of the Kyiv government.
The reader of Velychenko’s article will note its silence on the war being waged by Kyiv in southeast Ukraine with NATO’s active backing. Velychenko reveals his sympathy with Kyiv’s war and its sharp turn to austerity association with Europe. He writes:
Ukrainians might prefer the EU to the Russian variant of neoliberal capitalism because experience has shown them the latter is more destructive and rapacious than the former. Russian-style neo-soviet capitalism as exists in Ukraine is not tempered by a strong left opposition, trade unions, independent political parties and rule of law — what Marx considered the “bourgeois rights and liberties” established in Europe between 1789 and 1914.
Velychenko’s claimed benefits of western European capitalism will be news to the peoples of Greece and elsewhere in southern Europe who are struggling against harsh austerity regimes or the people of Scotland where the “yes” side of the September 18 referendum is propelled by anti-austerity sentiment.
The idea of a benevolent, capitalist order in Europe that can offer a modicum of progress for the people of Ukraine was at the heart of the now dormant EuroMaidan movement. It’s a cruel deception. [3]
Velychenko denounces a list of publications or organizations that he calls “pro-Kremlin” and “anti-Ukrainian,” including Borotba, Liva, Counterpunch, Green Left Weekly, Links, The Bullet, Stopimperialism.com, Left/East and Canadian Dimension. He could have added a lot more names to his list of renegades, such is the impressive list of publications that see through NATO’s propaganda war. These include Jacobin, Truthout, Democracy Now!, The Real News Network, Consortium News (Robert Parry), Code Pink (Medea Benjamin), The Nation, Common Dreams and occasionally the London Review of Books, New York Review of Books and The Guardian (Seamus Milne’s columns).
Velychenko refers to a “newly elected government in Ukraine” under attack by Russia. But there is nothing newly elected about the Kyiv regime. The president of the country was elected in May, but the country’s Parliament is the same group of representatives of Ukraine’s economic elite that was in power when the previous, elected president was overthrown in February of this year. The only change has been the banning of the large Communist Party contingent. This is one of the many, new measures against freedom of expression (inspired by Europe!) that have accompanied the war in the east, including the new law which authorizes police to shoot on sight anyone suspected of conducting “separatist” activity, killings of journalists and harassment of news outlets.
The “Thinking Ukraine” website features reports from a conference held in Kyiv in May 2014 at which Timothy Snyder was a featured speaker. Coincidentally, Daniel Lazare writes about this conference in his article. He says:
The high-water mark [of Snyder’s acclaimed writings on the Ukraine crisis] came in mid-May when Leon Wieseltier of the New Republic (owned since 2012 by Facebook billionaire Chris Hughes) tapped Snyder to serve as the lead speaker at a five-day conference it was hosting in Kiev. Entitled “Ukraine: Thinking Together,” the conference featured such luminaries as Paul Berman, Timothy Garton Ash, Bernard Kouchner, and the irrepressible Bernard-Henri Lévy lecturing on “la résistible ascension d’Arturo Poutine.” The Yale historian had emerged as intellectual leader of the war party.
The slippery slope of anti-Russia prejudice
The Fourth International association has recently provided us, albeit inadvertently, with a timely warning against embarking upon the slippery slope of New Cold War, anti-Russia propaganda and prejudice. It comes in the form of a short interview with Zbigniew Marcin Kowalewski, editor of the Polish edition of Le Monde diplomatique. Kowalewski is a frequent source of analysis on Ukraine for the Fourth International. [3] This latest interview appears in the Sept. 4 edition of the bimonthly, Swiss FI publication ‘solidaritéS‘ and is reprinted in other Fourth International sites, including the website of the Nouveau parti anti-capitaliste(NPA), the French affiliate of the group.
For Kowalewski, the pro-autonomy, self-defense movement in southeast Ukraine is nothing but an “armed, separatist movement led by extreme, right-wing Russians.” In a lengthy article published on June 29, like the aforementioned Velychenko more recently, Kowalewski uttered barely a word of Kyiv’s war and NATO’s threats and ambitions in eastern Europe. [4]
Here is a translation of the third of three questions in the September 4 interview with Kowalewski:
Do events in Ukraine confirm the views of the internationalist left which favours forming an antiwar alliance?
The war is, on one side, an armed rebellion by a section of the Ukrainian oligarchy combined with a war of aggression, more and more direct and massive, by Russian imperialism. On the other side is a war of national defense and national unity (defense of national independence won just 23 years ago) by a people desperately seeking a way out of their long standing national oppression.
It’s not possible to find a way out in a bourgeois regime subordinated to western imperialism. Ukraine has an urgent need for a socialist program of national defense. The international left has done nothing to contribute to the elaboration of such a program. On the contrary, we have seen a neo-Stalinist and neo-campist degeneration of an important part of this left that has passed over to the side of Russian imperialism.
If we could have an alliance against the imperialist war of Putin, then yes. But an alliance against the war of national defense of the Ukrainian people would be an alliance of support to Russian imperialism and the separatist rebellion of the oligarchs.
Reminders of NATO aggression
Signs of NATO’s renewed sense of purpose in eastern Europe are all around us. A gala event to raise money for “humanitarian relief” in Ukraine took place in Toronto, Canada on September 11. The keynote speaker was Prime Minister Stephen Harper. His speech was an occasion to beat the drums of war, including likening the self-defense fighters in eastern Ukraine to the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. Harper said, “In the 13 years since the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93 were attacked, we have confronted terrorism in one failed state, only to have it surface in yet another [Ukraine].”
The Toronto event was attended by the cream of the Conservative Party political elite. Also on hand was retired hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky, who has a distant lineage to Ukraine. Harper announced that Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko would pay a state visit to Ottawa on Sept 17. That visit will see Canada formalize more military and financial assistance to Poroshenko’s regime.
Last month, Harper’s minister of multiculturalism, Chris Alexander, was among the Ontario political elite attending a “Ukraine Independence Day” celebration in Toronto that featured a fundraising booth of the Right Sector fascist organization of Ukraine. Alexander rebuffed a journalist questioning his presence at a fundraising event for fascism and war in Ukraine. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne delivered an aggressive speech to the event in favour of the war in eastern Ukraine, then in full swing.
Contrary to NATO pseudo-denials, the Ukraine government is affirming that NATO countries are proceeding with replenishing it with arms. Australia, too, is boosting military equipping to Ukraine.
The political left has not sufficiently analyzed the expansion of globalized capitalism and how this it contributed to the conclusion of the first Cold War and dismantling of the Soviet Union. Now there is a new cold war upon us and we must play catch up to fully grasp the events of the past 25 years.
Russia has emerged as a capitalist power. It aggressively defends its commercial and territorial interests. But it is not an imperialist country and its foreign policy reflects this fact. The actual course of Russian foreign policy during the post-Soviet period is consistent with a second-rank capitalist power acting defensively, with caution and restraint, in the face of heavy pressures and provocations by the imperialist powers.
The forms of the national oppression of the Ukrainian people have shifted since 1990. Whereas they suffered a deep oppression historically at the hands of the Russian empire then the Soviet Union, the main source of that oppression now emanates from Europe and North America. This year’s brutal war has divided the country unlike anything during the past 70 years and the austerity policies that underlie the war are deepening. Meanwhile, the country’s post-Soviet economic elite have utterly failed to protect and promote Ukrainian language and culture or fashion a meaningful national project.
There is an urgency for progressive forces in the world to understand the origin of the New Cold War and act to oppose it. Key themes of a solidarity movement should be “No to war and austerity in Ukraine!,” “No to sanctions and other threats against the people of Russia.”
Notes:
[1] Poroshenko spiced up the message when he spoke to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Sept. 18. He said: “Hybrid proxy wars, terrorism, national radical and extremist movements, the erosion of international agreements, the blurring, and even erasing, of national identities: all of these threats now challenge Europe. If they are not stopped now, they will cross European borders and spread throughout the globe.”
[2] On Sept. 16, Ukraine’s Parliament approved the economic association agreement with Europe proposed by Ukraine’s billionaire class. An analysis of the loan agreements and austerity measures that accompany this agreement is penned by U.S. economist Michael Hudson.
[3] There are dozens of Marxist or quasi-Marxist groups in the world claiming the title of ‘Fourth International’. The Fourth International was an international association founded in 1938 in an effort to create a stronger foundation for those Marxists who survived and opposed the rise to power of the Stalinist dictatorship in the Soviet Union. The ‘Fourth International’ referred to in this present article is the remnant, centered in Europe, of the Fourth International groups that reunified in 1963 under the positive impulse of the Cuban Revolution of 1959.
[4] An article by Fourth International leader Murray Smith making similar arguments to Kowalewski is published in the online journal of ‘The Left’ party in Luxembourg. The articleis reprinted in the Quebec, online weekly, Presse-toi à gauche on Sept 2. Smith writes forcefully that the rise of fascism and right-wing extremism in Ukraine is greatly exaggerated. Meanwhile in Sweden, to name only one European country, the far right made huge gains in the national election of Sept 14. The ‘Sweden Democrats’ scored 13.2 per cent, up from 5.7 per cent in 2010. It is now the third largest party in the Swedish Parliament.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Roger Annis is a longtime socialist and trade union activist. He began his political activism with the Young Socialists of the day in Nova Scotia while at university. Since then, he has lived in most regions of Canada, including in Montreal where he became fluent in French. He is a retired aerospace worker living in Vancouver. Roger writes regularly on topics of social justice, peace, and on issues concerning Haiti. His personal blog can be found at http://www.rogerannis.com/. Roger is also an editor of the Canada Haiti Action Network website canadahaitiaction.ca. The group campaigns for Canada to break from the neo-colonial policies it has been practicing in Haiti with its U.S. and European allies and instead provide meaningful assistance for human development.
First published on Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, Sept 19, 2014. Roger Annis’ writings on Ukraine are compiled on his website, ‘A Socialist in Canada’.
Why Novorussia will never again accept Kiev’s rule (REVISED)
RUSSIA DESK
A dispatch from The Saker
[O]ver the past couple of days I have spend a lot (too lot) of time dealing with the immediate issues such as the dying (or already defunct?) ceasefire agreement. Whatever importance one can give to this document and its meaning (or lack thereof), it is important not go get bogged down and do what the French call “avoir le nez dans le guidon” (to “have your nose in the handlebars” of a bike – not to see where the road is leading you). Whenever I look at where our road is leading us I always come to the very same conclusion: it is my belief that Novorussia will never accept anything less than de-facto independence from Kiev. Sure, this independence might be piously ‘concealed’ behind a thin layer of symbolic Ukrainian unity, but there is simply no way that Kiev will ever have real, effective, authority over Novorussia again. I think that even Russia will have to accept that, however reluctantly. Now I heard that Poroshenko has made a major political statement today and that he declared that the Donbass might have some “special status”, but that this would most definitely NOT be any type of federalization and that no DPR (Donetsk People’s Republic) or LPR (Lugansk People’s Republic) will ever be recognized by Kiev. I applaud Poroshenko for making that unambiguously clear statement as this only reinforces my deeply held conviction that both Novorussia and Russia proper have no other solution that regime change in Kiev. Although as this point in time this might appear an impossible task to complete, the Ukraine must be (and will be!) completely de-Nazified before any form of peace can return. NOTICE TO OUR READERS I want to share just one example of why I believe that total de-Nazification is an absolute prerequisite for peace. Check out the kind of “packages” mothers in Donetsk have been sent by one of the terror battalions paid for, and subordinated to, Igor Kolomoiski: These are the severed heads of Novorussian soldiers captured by the Ukie death squads near Donetsk. The Ukies, of course, blamed this latest atrocity on some unidentified “Chechens” fighting on, of all things, the Novorussian side, but everybody got the message loud and clear anyway: leave before we kill you. So when I speak of Nazi freaks or “Ukie Interahamwe” I am not being over the top at all. One the key aspects of the Junta’s strategy is to empty the Donbass of its population, ethnic cleansing if you prefer. Some have left temporarily, and others have probably left forever, but just as in Gaza, those committing these atrocities are deluding themselves if they think everybody whom they will not kill will leave. The human spirit is always stronger than terror, at least in the long run, and unless a true genocide is a real option (and in this case it is not), this terror will not achieve it’s intended result. In fact, it will only strengthen the determination of these people to fight. At any cost. Poroshenko can lie to his people and/or even delude himself. Putin might hope that some kind of unitary Ukraine can still be preserved, but I am personally convinced that 1) Novorussia will never return under Kiev’s rule and 2) that the war will continue until regime change occurs and the Ukraine de-Nazified. Finally, I believe that even if regime change occurs in Kiev and the rump-Ukraine is de-Nazified, Novorussia will still not accept anything short of de-facto independence from Kiev. The wisdom for the future non-Nazi regime in Kiev will be to accept the inevitability of this and make the best of it: the rest of the Ukraine will be much better of rebuilding itself from the smoking rubble than to try to persuade Novorossia to come back, nevermind force it to do so. I understand that we are still very far from this, maybe a year away or, more likely, many years away. But just like the liberation of Palestine is a historical inevitability so is the independence of Novorussia. The price to pay for this outcome might be huge, and the wait very long. But this does not make this outcome less inevitable. I think that it is important to keep this in mind, especially through the tragic and often discouraging times we are currently going through. The Saker
Due to new information reaching us concerning the facts contained in this piece, we are cautioning our audience about the claims made in the rest of the article. In the near future we will try to confirm or deny specific parts of this narrative.
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