March 7, 2022
The brazenly biased western media is giving us the impression that the Ukraine fighting is some sort of sports competition. Russia’s media, now shamefully silenced in the west by the banning of Russia Today and Sputnik News, portrays the so far modest war in Ukraine as a renewed struggle against WWII fascism. Both views are totally wrong.
In reality, Moscow has been complaining about the West’s meddling in Ukraine for over 14 years. Russian forces are now waging a slow-motion offensive against parts of Ukraine and, so far, trying to keep down casualties. Compare this strategy to the utter devastation inflicted by Russia (with some US help) on secessionist Chechnya in 1990. Compare this to the wide-scale US destruction of Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Palestine. Where was CNN when these threadbare nations were being bombed back into the Stone Age? Or Yemen, poorest of Mideast nations, which is being turned to rubble by US and British bombing?
At least $4 billion of mostly US and British-made arms poured into Ukraine before Russia invaded – and continue to do so now. Some western leaders actually seemed to believe that Moscow would do nothing in response to their intervention in Ukraine.
Imagine that Florida’s crackpot Republicans declared independence from the United States and began importing Russian or Chinese war material?
But far crazier than this has been growing calls by Ukraine’s leadership and many US legislators for old MiG-29 fighters stored in Poland to be refurbished and handed over to Ukrainian pilots for use against Russian targets. It seems America is ready to fight to the last Ukrainian.
This is crazy business. The minute Polish-supplied MiG’s go into action against Russian forces in Ukraine we will go from a minor regional conflict to a real war. Russia will riposte with strikes by their very accurate Iskander missiles against Polish air bases, government centers and logistic hubs. The outgunned Poles will call for military help from Washington – in an election year in which the deflated Democrats will need every ethnic Polish vote in the Midwest.
In any event, air wars have no neat boundaries. The politically powerful US Air Force will demand permission to strike Russian air bases, Black Sea ports and army bases in Crimea. US naval forces in the Black Sea will be choice targets.
US bases in Romania and Bulgaria will quickly join Moscow’s target list. Add NATO bases in Scandinavia. Russian forces are merely a taxi ride from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
NATO’s eastern bulwark is in reality a house of cards. Fortunately, Moscow is too weak to re-invade the whole Eastern front. Moscow spends only one tenth as much on its military as does the US. Stalin’s once seemingly endless armies are now enfeebled. Yet they must defend a mammoth nation of 11 times zones stretching from the Baltic shores to North Korea. Before invading Ukraine, Moscow actually had to bring military units from Vladivostok on the Pacific which is a key potential target for attacks by the US Navy.
The best, fastest way to end the Ukrainian civil war is to partition off its Russian-speaking eastern regions, quench its surging nationalism, and promise Russia it will not join NATO or any other foreign alliance for 20 years. And tell CNN to refocus its hysteria on surging crime in New York City and Chicago.
So far, one of the few American politicians to get this right is Donald Trump.
Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2022
For better or worse, President Trump is now considered beyond the pale. I suspect America will devolve into some form of civil war within the next few years, most likely after the next presidential election.
I am outraged at the shutting down of RT, I am sure you once said America once gave us news and Russia propaganda, now America gives us propaganda and the Russians give us news RT is shut down and their crime was telling the truth.
Biased western reporting is an understatement, our media is now The Ministry of Truth and the reaction to their propaganda is horrifying. The Russian conductor of the London symphony orchestra was basically forced to publically swear an oath of loyalty to the West, anything Russian is being attacked. Lee Camp had all his videos pulled from Spotify shadowbanned from Facebook and YouTube, long before this happened all for opposing the American Corporate Empire and the war machine.
Anyone refusing to believe the lies is branded a traitor, I am on 30 days suspension from Facebook for posting a picture of Hitler with his dog when someone said Biden was a great guy because he has a dog. Chances are when I get back on I will be permanently shut down like I was when I dared say Israeli Apartheid.
To top it all our prime minister Justin Trudeau is the modern version of Henri Phillipe Petain sidleing up to the Nazis in Ukraine and playing the role of America’s obedient little lapdog, worse is all the European leaders lining up to lick Uncle Joe’s feet. The world has gone completely mad.
Frightening times are here and the American Corporate Empire will use it to profit because being richer than the kings of legend isn’t enough.
Maybe a good sign that Putin should retire to the senior citizen’s villa and take up moose hunting is all the cunning opportunities he’s missed over the years.
For starters, it’s escaped so many people’s notice that Pooty-Poot had actually acquired a small fan base of sorts in the West over the years, generally among some elements of what might be called conservatives and “anti-globalists”. If he had the slightest sense of modern PR he could have leveraged that into real influence. Dropped the ball on that one.
This next point is a contentious one, but did he miss the Mamma of all big opportunities re: any Ukrainian entry into Western institutions, like the chance to have his very own Trojan Horse? You hear from everyone that the Ukrainian establishment is corrupt and eminently corruptible. It is said that a Ukrainian official can be bought for the price of a blini. Would it be that hard for Russian intelligence to pay for some plants in any Ukrainian delegations to NATO or the EU? His very own boys on the inside, with diplomatic immunity yet. OK, this might sound like pulp spy fiction stuff, but it’s not totally improbable.
Vlad, you might have just flunked Machiavelli U.