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John Pilger’s 2014 Warning About Ukraine

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Originally published by The Guardian, May 13, 2014
In Ukraine, the US is dragging us towards war with Russia
Washington’s role in Ukraine, and its backing for the regime’s neo-Nazis, has huge implications for the rest of the world
By John Pilger

Republished by Consortium News, September 24, 2022

In an article on May 13, 2014 in The Guardian, republished here, John Pilger warned the “U.S. is threatening to take the world to war” over Ukraine, words that have taken on new meaning.

Why do we tolerate the threat of another world war in our name? Why do we allow lies that justify this risk? The scale of our indoctrination, wrote Harold Pinter, is a “brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis”, as if the truth “never happened even while it was happening”.

Every year the American historian William Blum publishes his “updated summary of the record of U.S. foreign policy” which shows that, since 1945, the U.S. has tried to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democratically elected; grossly interfered in elections in 30 countries; bombed the civilian populations of 30 countries; used chemical and biological weapons; and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders.

In many cases Britain has been a collaborator. The degree of human suffering, let alone criminality, is little acknowledged in the west, despite the presence of the world’s most advanced communications and nominally most free journalism. That the most numerous victims of terrorism – “our” terrorism – are Muslims, is unsayable. That extreme jihadism, which led to 9/11, was nurtured as a weapon of Anglo-American policy (Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan) is suppressed. In April the U.S. state department noted that, following Nato’s campaign in 2011, “Libya has become a terrorist safe haven“.

The name of “our” enemy has changed over the years, from communism to Islamism, but generally it is any society independent of western power and occupying strategically useful or resource-rich territory, or merely offering an alternative to U.S. domination.

The leaders of these obstructive nations are usually violently shoved aside, such as the democrats Muhammad Mossedeq in Iran, Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and Salvador Allende in Chile, or they are murdered like Patrice Lumumba in the Democratic Republic of Congo. All are subjected to a western media campaign of vilification – think Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez, now Vladimir Putin.

“If Putin can be provoked into coming to their aid, his pre-ordained ‘pariah’ role will justify a Nato-run guerrilla war that is likely to spill into Russia itself.”

Washington’s role in Ukraine is different only in its implications for the rest of us. For the first time since the Reagan years, the U.S. is threatening to take the world to war. With eastern Europe and the Balkans now military outposts of Nato, the last “buffer state” bordering Russia – Ukraine – is being torn apart by fascist forces unleashed by the U.S. and the EU. We in the west are now backing neo-Nazis in a country where Ukrainian Nazis backed Hitler.

Having masterminded the coup in February against the democratically elected government in Kiev, Washington’s planned seizure of Russia’s historic, legitimate warm-water naval base in Crimea failed. The Russians defended themselves, as they have done against every threat and invasion from the west for almost a century.

But Nato’s military encirclement has accelerated, along with U.S.-orchestrated attacks on ethnic Russians in Ukraine. If Putin can be provoked into coming to their aid, his pre-ordained “pariah” role will justify a Nato-run guerrilla war that is likely to spill into Russia itself.

Instead, Putin has confounded the war party by seeking an accommodation with Washington and the EU, by withdrawing Russian troops from the Ukrainian border and urging ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine to abandon the weekend’s provocative referendum.

These Russian-speaking and bilingual people – a third of Ukraine’s population – have long sought a democratic federation that reflects the country’s ethnic diversity and is both autonomous of Kiev and independent of Moscow. Most are neither “separatists” nor “rebels”, as the western media calls them, but citizens who want to live securely in their homeland.

Like the ruins of Iraq and Afghanistan, Ukraine has been turned into a C.I.A. theme park – run personally by C.I.A. director John Brennan in Kiev, with dozens of “special units” from the C.I.A. and F.B.I. setting up a “security structure” that oversees savage attacks on those who opposed the February coup. Watch the videos, read the eye-witness reports from the massacre in Odessa this month. Bussed fascist thugs burned the trade union headquarters, killing 41 people trapped inside. Watch the police standing by.

A doctor described trying to rescue people, “but I was stopped by pro-Ukrainian Nazi radicals. One of them pushed me away rudely, promising that soon me and other Jews of Odessa are going to meet the same fate. What occurred yesterday didn’t even take place during the fascist occupation in my town in world war two. I wonder, why the whole world is keeping silent.” [see footnote]

Russian-speaking Ukrainians are fighting for survival. When Putin announced the withdrawal of Russian troops from the border, the Kiev junta’s defence secretary, Andriy Parubiy – a founding member of the fascist Svoboda party – boasted that attacks on “insurgents” would continue. In Orwellian style, propaganda in the west has inverted this to Moscow “trying to orchestrate conflict and provocation“, according to William Hague. His cynicism is matched by Obama’s grotesque congratulations to the coup junta on its “remarkable restraint” after the Odessa massacre. The junta, says Obama, is “duly elected”. As Henry Kissinger once said: “It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but what is perceived to be true.”

In the U.S. media the Odessa atrocity has been played down as “murky” and a “tragedy” in which “nationalists” (neo-Nazis) attacked “separatists” (people collecting signatures for a referendum on a federal Ukraine). Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal damned the victims – “Deadly Ukraine Fire Likely Sparked by Rebels, Government Says“. Propaganda in Germany has been pure cold war, with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung warning its readers of Russia’s “undeclared war”. For the Germans, it is a poignant irony that Putin is the only leader to condemn the rise of fascism in 21st-century Europe.

A popular truism is that “the world changed” following 9/11. But what has changed? According to the great whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, a silent coup has taken place in Washington and rampant militarism now rules. The Pentagon currently runs “special operations” – secret wars – in 124 countries. At home, rising poverty and a loss of liberty are the historic corollary of a perpetual war state. Add the risk of nuclear war, and the question is: why do we tolerate this?_______________

FOOTNOTE: The Guardian attached the following footnote to Pilger’s story, which Pilger says suggests “that a quote of a witness to the Odessa atrocity is unverified. This appeared only in the last edition. In fact, the quote didn’t come from a Facebook entry, but from a Voice of America broadcast and was verified.” This is The Guardian‘s footnote: ” The following footnote was appended on 16 May 2014: The quotation from a doctor who says he was ‘stopped by pro-Ukrainian Nazi radicals’ was from an account on a Facebook page that has subsequently been removed.”

John Pilger has twice won Britain’s highest award for journalism and has been International Reporter of the Year, News Reporter of the Year and Descriptive Writer of the Year. He has made 61 documentary films and has won an Emmy, a BAFTA and the Royal Television Society prize. His ‘Cambodia Year Zero’ is named as one of the ten most important films of the 20th century. He can be contacted at www.johnpilger.com

[John Pilger died December 30, 2023]

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/09/24/john-pilgers-2014-warning-about-ukraine/

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/13/ukraine-us-war-russia-john-pilger

Citizens Tribunal Finds Top U.S. Weapons Contractors Guilty of Participation in Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide

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From Covert Action Magazine
January 28, 2025
By Jeremy Kuzmarov

The verdict is in: GUILTY.

On January 15, after a year-long trial, ten jurors found four major U.S. military contractors—Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed and General Atomics—guilty on charges of willfully participating in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

The prosecution of the “merchants of death” was coordinated by Brad Wolf, a former Pennsylvania-based prosecutor, and fellow peace activists Kathy Kelly and Nick Mottern.

Over the past year, the three assembled video testimony by military and academic experts and eyewitnesses who observed first hand how weapons produced by the four major military contractors were used to slaughter innocent civilians and destroy vital infrastructure and the environment across the Middle East and in the Russo-Ukraine War.

When Wolf, Kelly and Mottern tried to visit with corporate executives to get their perspective as to why they were producing weapons of death, the executives refused to meet with them and failed to respond to subpoenas and other requests by Tribunal staff for information.

The same was true of 150 members of Congress to whom Tribunal staff sent questionnaires by mail which went unanswered—unsurprisingly, in light of their close ties to the war industry and complicity in U.S. war crimes.

The senators and congresspeople included some of the most prominent politicians in control of military spending and policy: Senators Jack Reed (D-RI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Susan Collins (R-ME), and House members Mike Rogers (R-AL), Mike Turner (R-OH) and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), who spurned numerous direct outreach efforts after the original questionnaires were ignored.

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Documentary report: Israeli war crimes in South Lebanon — IDF violated withdrawal; killed 24 civilians, wounded 132, including children; looted and demolished homes (VIDEO)

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Craig Murray
January 27, 2025

Ceaseless Fire

Israel massacred 24 civilians attempting to return to their homes on the agreed date for the IDF to leave Lebanon, and shot and wounded 132 more. 

This our sixth short documentary looks at that day and at the wider effects of the Israeli occupation. 

 I am very proud of it. I think the team have done a remarkable job, and I am confident you will too. News you will not get anywhere else.

~ Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010.

In the rubble of one house

Detonated homes and buildings

Assassination of Igor Kirillov, Commander of the Russian Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defense Forces

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From RT
December 17, 2024

Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defense Forces (RChBZ), has died in a blast together with his aide. According to investigators, an explosive device hidden in a scooter was detonated on Tuesday morning near the entrance of a residential building in Moscow’s south-east.

Here’s what is known about Kirillov:

  • From September 2014 to April 2017, he served as the head of the Military Academy of the RChBZ named after Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Timoshenko.
  • In April 2017, Kirillov became the chief of the RChBZ troops.
  • Kirillov dealt with anti-terrorism both domestically and abroad. He exposed the provocations of the controversial White Helmets volunteer organization in Syria, and participated in mitigating the consequences of natural and man-made disasters.
  • Since the beginning of the military operation against Ukraine in February 2022, Kirillov has spoken at briefings held by the Ministry of Defense, where he shared information about Ukrainian developments in the areas of radiological, chemical, and biological weapons. In March 2022, he announced that Ukrainian biolaboratories were studying the potential for transferring highly dangerous infections through migratory birds.
  • The same month, Kirillov presented copies of documents that, according to him, confirmed the Pentagon’s funding of biological laboratories in Ukraine.
  • In June 2024, Kirillov stated that spent nuclear fuel and hazardous chemical waste were being imported into Ukraine for a potential “dirty bomb” creation. He added that radiochemical substances were still being brought into Ukraine for disposal. According to him, these supplies were overseen by Andrey Yermak, Vladimir Zelensky’s right-hand man, with primary routes passing through Poland and Romania.
  • In October 2024, the UK slapped Kirillov with sanctions after he accused Ukraine of preparing a false-flag chemical weapons attack with the aim of framing Russia and undermining its position at the OPCW. Kirillov noted that NATO had provided Ukraine with a much larger amount of chemical protective equipment than the country actually needs, calling it further evidence of an impending plot.
  • In November 2024, Kirillov said that Ukraine planned to seize a nuclear power plant during its large-scale incursion into the Kursk Region.
  • Kirillov was killed in the blast one day after Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) formally declared him a suspect in the alleged use of chemical weapons against Kiev’s military. The general rejected claims that Russia had been attacking Ukraine with riot control agents and chemical weapons, recalling that the OPCW had confirmed the complete destruction of all Russian chemical weapons stockpiles in 2017.

Russian Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who, along with his assistant, was killed on Tuesday in a Moscow assassination allegedly carried out by Ukraine, was the Russian military’s top official on the hazards posed by weapons of mass destruction.  

Kirillov commanded the military branch responsible for protecting troops and civilians from chemical and biological weapons, and from the radioactive fallout of a nuclear strike or ‘dirty bomb’ attack. He was also in charge of military investigations into numerous high-profile cases directly and indirectly involving Russia.   

He delivered over 40 briefings about the findings made by specialists under his command since being appointed in 2017. He also regularly offered his expert opinion to Russian officials and the media. His work came as allegations of chemical weapons use became an increasingly frequent tool in Western foreign policy over the past decade. 

Syria
A turning point was arguably the war in Syria and claims by then-US President Barack Obama that Damascus had deployed chemical weapons against opposition forces, thus crossing an alleged ‘red line’. In a Russia-mediated attempt to deflate tensions, the Syrian government agreed in 2013 to destroy all of its declared stockpiles of such weapons.  

However, more incidents followed, which the West blamed on government forces, alleging that Damascus never actually fulfilled its obligations. Moscow, meanwhile, maintained that anti-government groups were conducting false flag operations, while foreign-funded organizations, such as the notorious White Helmets, were providing media support.  

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which has the mandate to investigate such allegations, was compromised by Western influence, Russia believes.  

“Syrian authorities demanded on numerous occasions that the OPCW deploy specialists on the ground [for investigation], but received refusals that cited lack of security,” Kirillov said during a briefing in 2018, as he detailed cases of alleged manufacturing of chemical weapons by militant groups.  

The same year, the OPCW faced what was arguably its worst internal crisis while investigating a chemical attack in the city of Douma.  

According to whistleblowers, its top management suppressed findings by field investigators and manipulated testimony to implicate Damascus. Dissenting scientists argued behind closed doors that the evidence contradicted such a claim, only to be dismissed as disgruntled employees when they went public.  

Kirillov reported in 2019 that Russian troops deployed in Syria conducted hundreds of tests for traces of chemical weapons as part of their monitoring mission.

Novichok
Moscow was accused of deploying a chemical weapon in 2018, after Andrey Skripal, a Russian intelligence defector, and his daughter fell ill in Salisbury, Great Britain. London and Western media claimed that they were poisoned with Novichok, a toxic chemical allegedly developed exclusively by the Soviet military. 

Although civilian officials were responsible for Moscow’s messaging over the incident, Kirillov was called in to set the record straight about Novichok’s “Russian” nature. Western nations, including the UK, have chemical weapons programs of their own with enough expertise to synthesize highly lethal compounds, he pointed out.  

The US and its allies had an opportunity to gain insight into Soviet research, including from chemists involved in it, he added during a briefing in 2018. A scientist named Vil Mirzayanov was the first person to discuss the program dubbed Novichok publicly after moving to the US. 

He went as far as to publish a formula for one of the chemicals developed by the USSR, which Kirillov said was deeply irresponsible and posed a proliferation threat.  

Ukraine and US-led biolabs
A significant part of Kirillov’s reports in the media focused on the Ukraine conflict after it escalated into open hostilities with Russia in 2022. Some of them documented alleged use of chemical agents by Ukrainian troops on the battlefield or warned of possible provocations by Kiev.  

Others dealt with a network of US-backed microbiological labs, which have been a source of major concern for Russia and other countries. Washington claims that the Pentagon-funded activities by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency are merely meant to detect and identify naturally emerging threats. Critics, however, believe the program pursued more sinister aims.  

Kirillov claimed that the US evacuated some 16,000 relevant samples from Ukraine while other pieces of evidence were destroyed. But some materials were captured by the Russian military, giving Moscow a glimpse into the clandestine research, the late general claimed.  

With his visor up
In October, the UK placed personal sanctions on Kirillov, along with the entire Russian military branch under his command. London cited Kiev’s claims that the general was responsible for using chemical weapons in the Ukraine conflict. Moscow has consistently denied such accusations, insisting it destroyed such materials back in 2017.  

The Ukrainian security service (SBU) announced formal charges against Kirillov hours before his murder. A source in the agency told the media that the assassination was its operation against a “war criminal.”  

Kirillov spent years “exposing the crimes of the Anglo-Americans,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, commenting on his death.  

“He worked without fear. Did not hide behind anyone’s back. Walked with his visor up. For the motherland and the truth,” she added.

Italians protest Ukraine’s terrorist killing of Russian general (VIDEO)

Demonstrators in the city of Genoa have accused the EU and NATO of supporting Kiev’s terrorism

December 22, 2024

Dozens of people took to streets in the Italian city of Genoa to pay tribute to Russian General Igor Kirillov and to condemn the EU and NATO for backing Kiev during the conflict with Russia. Kirillov was killed in a Ukrainian terrorist attack earlier this week.

Kirillov, who headed Russia’s Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Protection Forces, and his aide, Lieutenant Colonel Ilya Polikarpov, were assassinated by an improvised explosive device planted on an electric scooter parked outside a residential building in Moscow on Tuesday morning.

The next day, a man from Uzbekistan was arrested for allegedly carrying out the attack. According to the Russian Investigative Committee, the suspect admitted that he had been recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services to kill the general in exchange for a $100,000 reward and an exit route to a European country.

Footage made during the rally in Genoa captured the demonstrators tossing EU and NATO flags on the pavement and trampling on them.

They displayed banners declaring, among other things, that Italy is grateful to Kirillov for his service and remembers the Russian general, who became “a victim of terrorism by Ukraine and NATO.”

Many also carried the Italian and Russian national flags. A replica of the Victory Banner, which is a symbol of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany during the Second World War, was also seen on display.

During his tenure, Kirillov had frequently accused the US of conducting secretive biological research under the guise of humanitarian aid and military cooperation in Ukraine and other countries. He also blamed Kiev for using banned chemical weapons on the battlefield amid the conflict with Moscow.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin described Kirillov’s killing as a terrorist attack perpetrated through “publicly dangerous” means.

“The regime in Kiev has repeatedly committed such crimes – terrorist attacks against many citizens of Russia,” Putin said, adding that “we have never heard condemnation of such terrorist attacks” in the West.

https://www.rt.com/russia/609471-kirillov-explosive-blast-key-takeaways/
https://www.rt.com/russia/609490-general-kirillov-investigations-recap/

https://www.rt.com/news/609767-italy-kirillov-nato-eu/

Study on children in Gaza: 96% feel death is imminent; 49% want to die

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For children in Gaza, nowhere is safe.

From the War Child Alliance

NEW STUDY:
GAZA’S CHILDREN FACE SEVERE PSYCHOLOGICAL TOLL AMID CATASTROPHIC WAR
December 11, 2024

A new report out of Gaza lays bare the profound psychological impact of the ongoing war, particularly on children who are injured, disabled, separated from their families, or unaccompanied.

Summary https://www.warchild.net/documents/339/20241205_WCA_OPT_Gaza_NAS_FINAL.pdf

The study, Needs Assessment Study of Children with Disabilities, Injured and Separated or Unaccompanied, was conducted by the Community Training Centre for Crisis Management (CTCCM) with support from the War Child Alliance. It paints a harrowing picture of children’s mental health under Israeli bombardment and blockade.

“We met with injured, separated, and disabled children and their caregivers to hear from them about the toll of war on their lives. What they shared was devastating – but sadly, not surprising. This study reinforces what we have seen, heard and witnessed over more than a year. Children are traumatised by this war, and we must respond,” says a spokesperson and Project Technical Coordinator from CTCCM in Gaza.

The findings in this study are stark. Caregivers report that 96% of children feel death is imminent, and nearly half believe they will die because of the war. Many children exhibit symptoms of aggression, fear, withdrawal, and severe anxiety, alongside a pervasive sense of hopelessness. Years of displacement, loss, and relentless bombing have left children psychologically scarred and their families in dire circumstances.

The survey of 504 households reveals that 88% of families have been displaced multiple times, with 21% forced to move six or more times. Most families live on less than €122 a month, grappling with soaring prices for food and essentials due to the ongoing blockade and restrictions on humanitarian aid. Meanwhile, 80% of breadwinners are unemployed, reflecting the devastating economic consequences of the war.

“For children in Gaza, nowhere is safe. They have seen homes destroyed, loved ones killed, and schools turned to rubble. Even so-called evacuation zones are not spared from bombing. The mental health of Gaza’s children is under constant attack,” says Rob Williams, War Child Alliance CEO.

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Palestine solidarity event outside L. L. Bean, Maine

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from Global Network Against Nuclear Power and Weapons in Space
Organizing Notes, December 21, 2024
By Bruce Gagnon

Forty of us gathered in Freeport, Maine today (a holiday shopping mecca in our state) right in front of the famous L.L. Bean store. This was our monthly protest that we’ve been doing for a couple of years in different busy traffic areas across the state.

It was 28 degrees out and a bit windy but we braved the cold for 90 minutes due to the huge crowds on the main road thru town and the busy foot traffic on the sidewalks.

We lined up along both sides of the street in the center of the shopping district for about forty minutes and then walked slowly, single-file, down both sides of the street for several blocks and then each side of us crossed to the opposite sidewalk and walked back to the starting point. 

Along the way we handed out hundreds of BDS flyers asking the public to boycott major corporations in the US that have shown big support for the zionist wars in the Middle East aimed at Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen and more recently Syria.

Is Iran the next Israel-US target for ‘regime change’? The zionists must be careful because Iran can actually fight back.

When we passed by the Starbucks coffee shop we chanted ‘Boycott Starbucks’ repeatedly as people paused at the door and didn’t enter until we passed by. I wonder how their drink tasted after that?

We closed the protest with strong words from Palestinian human rights activist Faisal Khan. (See some of his recent writings that I will put on this blog the day after Christmas.)

Our next monthly statewide protest will be in Camden, Maine (along the coast on Hwy 1) sometime in January. We don’t have a date yet but will send out info soon.

Thanks to all for helping to make this a great action. We must keep coming together to call for an end to these insane genocidal zionist war$.

More photos of protest and artwork at
https://space4peace.blogspot.com/2024/12/palestine-solidarity-event-amidst.html

Report from Donbas / Bearing witness

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Posted by The Floutist
May 11, 2024

“As far as the locals were concerned, there is no doubt that the Ukrainians were trying to kill as many civilians as possible. My guide explained that they always fired HIMARS rockets in groups of three—the first rocket to pierce the roof and structures, the second to kill the occupants, and, 20 to 25 minutes later, a third strike to kill as many firefighters, rescue workers, relatives, policemen, friends, and neighbours who had come to help the victims as possible.”

—

When I first read Guy Mettan’s report from Donbas I felt as if he had transported me to an antipodean universe of some kind. You can take this, as I do, as a measure of how prevalently, as in wall-to-wall, Western media have systematically misrepresented the Donbas region—when they represent it at all, this is to say. I was at once astonished and voraciously curious to read Mettan’s account of his travels to the two republics of the formerly Ukrainian region, which voted in referenda in September 2022 to join the Russian Federation.

Mettan is based in Geneva and travels often, a little in the way of what the French call le grand rapporteur—the accomplished correspondent who has established his authority in the course of a long career. When I met Mettan at a Geneva café the other day to discuss publication of his Donbas report I asked, “What did you expect to find?” It seemed an important question. Mettan immediately smiled. “Nothing,” he said. “I had no expectations whatsoever.”

Good, I recall thinking. A blank slate. A project so counter to the orthodoxy as this would not otherwise work.   

This is a very rare account, rare for its objectivity, a look at a place and a people we are not supposed to see from a journalist of long experience. We at The Floutist are pleased to welcome Guy Mettan into our pages.

This is the first of a two-part series. The second part of Mettan’s report will appear shortly.

—P. L., 11 May.

Guy Mettan

DONESTK—How could they do this to us? Why does Kiev want to destroy us?

These are the questions that the people of Donbas have been asking themselves for the past 10 years. Considered from Switzerland or France, they may seem incongruous, as we are so used to believing that only Ukrainians are suffering from the war with Russia. We don’t want to know that the battle has been going on for a decade and has primarily affected the civilian population of Donbas.

For a week in April, I was able to criss-cross the two provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk, visiting towns that had been destroyed and those that were being rebuilt, meeting refugees, and talking to people. This is my report.

I have no doubt that this piece will offend many people who are used to seeing the world in black and white. To them I would say what John Steinbeck and Robert Capa said to their detractors when they visited Stalin’s Russia in 1947, at the beginning of the Cold War: I am simply bearing witness, reporting what I saw and heard on the other side of the front. Then it’s up to everyone to form an opinion.

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December 7: “No Nuclear War – A Call to Reason” at the National Press Club; moderated by Scott Ritter and Medea Benjamin (VIDEO)

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From Consortium News
December 8, 2024

Video starts at 00:14:50

Watch panel discussions moderated by Scott Ritter and Medea Benjamin December 7 on the threat and danger of nuclear war today, how to persuade the Biden administration to act responsibly, and how to mobilize the population to become involved in opposing nuclear war.

Participants: Max Blumenthal, Margaret Kimberley, Dan Kovalik, Wilmer Leon, Garland Nixon, Anya Parampil, Theodore Postol, Jose Vega, Mel Goodman and Larry Wilkerson.

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/12/07/watch-no-nuclear-war-a-call-to-reason/

U.S. Congressman Clay Higgins’ new bill to block ATACMS transfers to Ukraine

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“The United States has to stop attacking Russian soil with American-made ATACMS missiles. Even though we use a Ukrainian cutout, it’s American provided, American targets and American intelligence. It’s the Americans attacking Russia. From the Russian perspective, the United States is at war with Russia … which has triggered their nuclear doctrine.” — Scott Ritter

This bill is co-sponsored by Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna.

H.R. 10218 – To prohibit the transfer of Army Tactical Missile Systems to Ukraine, and for other purposes.

Introduced in House (11/21/2024)

118th CONGRESS
2d Session

H. R. 10218

To prohibit the transfer of Army Tactical Missile Systems to Ukraine, and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

November 21, 2024

Mr. Higgins of Louisiana introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

A BILL

To prohibit the transfer of Army Tactical Missile Systems to Ukraine, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. PROHIBITION ON TRANSFER OF ARMY TACTICAL MISSILE SYSTEMS TO UKRAINE.

(a) Prohibition.—For the period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act and ending at the close of January 20, 2025, notwithstanding any other provision of law, during any period for which a state of conflict exists between Ukraine and the Russian Federation—

(1) no Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) may be transferred to Ukraine; and

(2) U.S. Military Services or intelligence agencies may not provide support to Ukrainian units operating High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HMARS) platforms utilizing ATACMS munitions to strike outside of internationally recognized Ukrainian territorial borders—

(A) targeting intelligence support;

(B) mission planning support; and

(C) any other type of support.

congress[dot]gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/10218/text

From Consortium News

A bill introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) would prohibit the U.S. from sending long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine to be fired into Russia.

As U.S. personnel and satellites are required to fire the missiles from Ukrainian territory, Moscow considers it a direct U.S. attack on Russia putting it in a state of war with the U.S. which could lead to nuclear conflict. 

…Several members of Congress and their staff said they were taken off guard by President Joe Biden’s reversal of his previous decision not to allow the use of ATACMS to be fired into Russia from Ukraine.

The  members and their staff made these remarks during meetings on Thursday on Capitol Hill with former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter and activists of Code Pink, led by Medea Benjamin. 

Biden Breaks With Realists

Biden had twice before sided with the Pentagon to avoid direct war with Russia. In March 2022 he overruled his Secretary of State Antony Blinken to scotch plans for a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine, which could have lead to direct conflict with Russia.

Biden opposed the no-fly zone, he said at the time, because “that’s called World War III, okay? Let’s get it straight here, guys. We will not fight the third world war in Ukraine.”

Then in September Biden deferred to the realists in the Pentagon to oppose long-range British Storm Shadow missiles from being fired by Ukraine deep into Russia out of fear it would also lead to a direct NATO-Russia military confrontation with all that that entails.

Putin warned at the time that because British soldiers on the ground in Ukraine would actually launch the British missiles into Russia with U.S. geostrategic support, it “will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.” 

That was a clear warning that British and U.S. targets could be hit. Biden thus wisely backed off. 

But after he was driven from the race and his party lost the White House last month, Biden suddenly switched gears allowing not only British, but also U.S. long-range ATACMS missiles to be fired into Russia. It’s not clear that the White House ever informed the Pentagon in advance.

Higgin’s bill was introduced as H.R. 10218 on Nov. 21, but none of the other House members that Ritter and Benjamin met with on Capitol Hill had heard of it. Nor was it reported in the mainstream media.

“We found that commonsense is actually alive and living here in the halls of Congress,” Ritter told Consortium News. “Members of Congress and their staffs understand the danger of nuclear war.  We found that there was a bill already written … that sought to achieve what we were trying to get them to do.”   

Benjamin said: “We are excited to push this bill, which we just found out about. … It will not pass, but the idea is to get momentum for it so that message is coming out there that there are members of Congress who want to see this reversed and that in the next Congress, they will introduce it again with a lot more momentum.”

“To stop a nuclear war comes down to one issue,” Ritter said:

“The United States has to stop attacking Russian soil with American-made ATACMS missiles. Even though we use a Ukrainian cutout, it’s American provided, American targets and American intelligence. It’s the Americans attacking Russia. From the Russian perspective, the United States is at war with Russia … which has triggered their nuclear doctrine.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/12/07/us-bill-would-reverse-atacms-order/