De schrijfster en wetenschapper Shailja Patel, die door CNN ‘the face of globalization as a people-centered phenomenon of migration and exchange’ werd genoemd wees op de belangrijkste vraag van dit moment, een vraag die niet aan de orde wordt gesteld door politiek en journalistiek, temidden van het oorlogszuchtige kabaal van de zogeheten vrije pers:
Is retaining control of the Donbas really so important that we should roll the dice on the existence of the entire human species on it? Is maintaining a hostile client state on Russia's border truly worth gambling the life of every terrestrial organism for?
De vraag is uiterst actueel: wat denken de westerse politici te bereiken met hun weigering om Rusland te garanderen dat Oekraïne geen lid zal worden van de NAVO, waardoor Moskou niet bedreigd kan worden door kernraketten die in vijf minuten Moskou van de kaart kan vegen? Waarom kon president John Kennedy in 1962 de Sovjet Unie wel beloven kernraketten uit Italië en Turkije te zullen terug trekken, wanneer de Sovjet-leiders hun schepen met kernwapens, op weg naar lanceerinstallaties in Cuba, zouden laten omkeren, en weigert op dit moment president Biden Moskou te garanderen dat Oekraïne geen NAVO-lid zal worden. Dit is de ware inzet van het huidige conflict dat door de hysterische mainstream-media in het Westen angstvallig wordt verzwegen. Een nucleaire grootmacht zal trachten te voorkomen dat kernwapens van een andere grootmacht langs hun grenzen worden gestationeerd. Vandaar dat Kennedy eiste dat Sovjet-schepen met kernraketten onmiddellijk rechtsomkeer zouden maken, daarmee het risico van een nucleaire oorlog lopend. De situatie nu is vergelijkbaar. Rusland wil voorkomen dat Oekraïne — dichter bij Moskou dan Cuba van Washington — NAVO-lid wordt. Maar tijdens ‘the Bucharest Summit,’ in april 2008 ‘NATO Allies welcomed Ukraine's and Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership and agreed that these countries will become members of NATO. They also agreed that both nations have made valuable contributions to Alliance operations,’ terwijl toch een jaar eerder president Poetin had gewaarschuwd dat aangezien de ‘NATO has put its front-line forces on our borders,’ en haar militaire bases, tegen de afspraken in, steeds verder oostwaarts uitbreidde, Rusland zich steeds meer bedreigd voelde.
Dat was en is nog steeds een legitiem argument. Wanneer de Russische Federatie nucleaire raketten in het noorden van Mexico zou plaatsten dan zou de VS niet 15 jaar vergeefs wachten voordat Washington zijn strijdkrachten opdracht zou geven het land van de zuiderbuur binnen te vallen, maar zou binnen hooguit een paar maanden een aanval beginnen. Het feit dat de ‘corporate press’ dit verzwijgt demonstreert hoe intens gecorrumpeerd mijn mainstream-collega’s zijn. En hoe gevaarlijk zij zijn. Het westerse journaille controleert de macht niet meer, maar is het verlengstuk ervan, zoals wetenschappelijke onderzoeken aantonen. Het feit dat zij daarmee het gevaar van een nucleaire holocaust dermate hebben vergroot dat 21 januari 2022 bekend werd dat ‘One hundred seconds to midnight’ de ‘latest setting’ is van ‘the Doomsday Clock,’ aldus ‘the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.’ Maar zelfs deze actuele waarschuwing bracht de Amerikaanse president niet op andere gedachten, waardoor hij de Russen uitlokte Oekraïne aan te vallen. En omdat de VS de machtigste natie is binnen de NAVO durfden de Europese satellieten geen eigen koers te varen, terwijl zij wisten dat in geval van oorlog Europa als eerste zal worden verwoest.
https://www.nato.int/docu/update/2008/04-april/e0403h.html
https://www.vox.com/22893594/doomsday-clock-nuclear-war-climate-change-risk
Zo mogelijk nog absurder is het feit dat het Nederlandse kabinet met zijn wapenzendingen naar Oekraïne (in opdracht van de VS) reageert alsof het autistisch is door volstrekt geen rekening te houden met de mogelijkheid dat dit conflict gruwelijk kan aflopen. Gemakshalve wordt vergeten dat een Amerikaans nucleair arsenaal in zowel Nederland als nabij de Belgisch Nederlandse grens ligt, Kleine Brogel in België en Volkel in Nederland, waardoor ons land meteen getroffen zal worden wanneer de Russen vrezen te worden aangevallen en een first-strike aanval starten. Of de huidige D’66 minister van Defensie Ollongren hier rekening mee houdt is twijfelachtig, niet alleen omdat deze politieke brekebeen nauwelijks iets weet van Defensie, maar ook omdat generaals in geval van een crisis de tactiek en strategie zullen bepalen. Dit alles maakt de volgende kwestie zo urgent:
Is retaining control of the Donbas really so important that we should roll the dice on the existence of the entire human species on it? Is maintaining a hostile client state on Russia's border truly worth gambling the life of every terrestrial organism for?
De Volkskrant noemt president Poetin kortweg ‘Poetler,’ een samentrekking van Poetin en Hitler. Volgens de krant dreigt ‘Poetler’ met ‘de inzet van kernwapens’ en suggereren westerse politici en pers dat de Russische president niet meer ‘compos mentis’ is, oftewel ‘bij zijn verstand’ is. Stel dat dit geen propaganda is, dan is de klemmende vraag: welk zinnig mens provoceert een leider van een nucleaire grootmacht, die lijdt aan een psychische stoornis? Alleen een gek. Met andere woorden, niet alleen Poetin is gek maar ook de voltallige NAVO, polderpers, en de democratisch gekozen politici in Den Haag. Wordt het niet tijd om tegen deze gekken publiekelijk te protesteren. Misschien wel het allergekste is dat dit alles zich voor de ogen voltrekt van de bevolking in zogeheten democratieën, zonder dat er een discussie daarover plaatsvindt. Wie is er nu gek? Alleen de gek of eveneens degenen die erbij staan en hun eigen overlevingskansen vernietigen.
Ter lering en niet vermaak: hoe volkomen apathisch en gehersenspoeld het merendeel van ook de huidige Nederlandse bevolking is, blijkt uit de veronderstelling dat politici het goed met haar voorheeft. Nu de werkelijkheid:
when the war was over, a demand was made that the German pilots who had bombed London be brought to trial as war criminals. The British Air Ministry protested. Trials of that sort 'would be placing a noose round the necks of our airmen in future wars.' Since the aim of the British air attacks against German cities had been 'to weaken the morale of civilian inhabitants (and thereby their 'will to win') by persistent bomb attacks which would both destroy life (civilian and otherwise) and if possible originate a conflagration (een vuurzee. svh) which should reduce to ashes the whole town,' the application of the Hague Convention in these cases would defeat the very purpose of bombardment.
This was top secret. Publicly the air force continued to say something quite different, just as the navy had done throughout the 19th century. This was the best tack to take, wrote the air staff in 1921: 'It may be thought better, in view of the allegations of the “barbarity” of air attacks, to preserve appearances by formulating milder rules and by still nominally confining bombardment to targets which are strictly military in character... to avoid emphasizing the truth that air warfare has made such restrictions obsolete and impossible.'
Volkskrant-propaganda om een Derde Wereldoorlog te legitimeren.
Vandaag, maandag 28 februari 2022, wijst de onafhankelijke Australische journaliste Caitlin Johnstone op het volgende:
There is one question today that is more important than any other question that could possibly be asked, and it's this:
"Is what the US and its allies are trying to accomplish in Ukraine worth continually risking nuclear armageddon for?"
Russian state media have confirmed that Vladimir Putin's orders to move the nation's nuclear deterrent forces into 'special combat duty mode' have been carried out, citing 'aggressive statements from NATO related to the Russian military operation in Ukraine.'
'Russia's ground, air and submarine-based nuclear deterrent forces have begun standby alert duty with reinforced personnel, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has informed President Putin,' Sputnik reports.
This comes days after Putin issued a thinly veiled threat of an immediate nuclear strike should western powers interfere in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, saying, 'Whoever tries to hinder us, and even more so, to create threats to our country, to our people, should know that Russia's response will be immediate. And it will lead you to such consequences that you have never encountered in your history.'
Twitter avatar for @scharap
Samuel Charap
so... the implications of an isolated, angry Putin presiding over a grinding, existential conventional war and an economy devastated by sanctions are really terrifying. The chances of his accepting "defeat" are far lower than the chances he escalates dramatically.
February 27th 2022
This also comes as the US and EU countries commit to sending fighter jets and stinger missiles to assist Ukraine in fighting an unwinnable war against a longtime target of the US empire, perhaps with the hope of dragging Moscow into a costly military quagmire like it deliberately worked to do in Afghanistan and in Syria.
This also comes as the ruble crashes following crushing sanctions and the banning of Russian banks from the international money transfer system SWIFT by the US and its allies. The economic hardship that follows will hurt ordinary people and may foment unrest, and it is here worth noting that in 2019 then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo admitted that the goal of brutal sanctions on Iran was to push people to rise up and overthrow their government.
We're also seeing the all-too-familiar phrase 'regime change' used in reference to Putin by prominent western narrative managers like Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haas, European Council on Foreign Relations Co-Chair Carl Bildt, Benjamin Wittes of the Brookings Institute and Hoover Institution, as well as USA Today.
Twitter avatar
Michael Tracey
"This is the most dangerous situation since the Cuban Missile Crisis. How can we reduce the risk of catastrophic escalation?"
"Send in fighter jets and Stinger missiles"
February 28th 2022
All of this has made nuclear war in the near term a whole lot more likely than it was just a few days ago... which is a really strange thing to type.
As I'm always saying, the primary risk of nuclear war is not that anyone will choose to start one, it’s that one could be triggered by any combination of miscommunication, miscalculation, misunderstanding or technical malfunction amid the chaos and confusion of escalating cold war tensions. This nearly happened, repeatedly, in the last cold war. The more tense things get, the greater the likelihood of an unthinkable chain of events from which there is no coming back.
Cold war brinkmanship has far too many small, unpredictable moving parts for anyone to feel confident that they can ramp up aggressions without triggering a nuclear exchange. Anyone who feels safe with these games of nuclear chicken simply does not understand them.
To get some insight into how easily an unpredictable scenario can lead to nuclear war I recommend watching this hour-long documentary or reading this article about Vasili Arkhipov, the Soviet submariner who single-handedly saved the world from obliteration during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was one of three senior officers aboard a nuclear-armed sub that was cornered near Cuba by US war ships who did not know the sub had a nuclear weapon on board.
The US navy was dropping explosives onto the sub to get it to surface, and the Soviets didn't know what they were doing as they had cut off all communications. It took all three senior officers to launch the nuke their ship was armed with, and two of them, thinking this was the beginning of World War 3, saw it as their duty to use it. Only Arkhipov, who had witnessed the horrific effects that radiation can have on the human body during a nuclear-powered submarine meltdown years earlier, refused.
You, and everyone you know, exist because Arkhipov made that decision. Had his personal history and conditioning been a little bit different, or had another officer been on board that particular ship on that particular day, nothing around you right now would be there. We got lucky. So lucky it's uncomfortable to even think about it. But it's important to.
This again is just one of the many nuclear close calls we've experienced since our species began its insane practice of stockpiling armageddon weapons around the world. We survived the last cold war by sheer, dumb luck. We were never in control. Not once. And there's no reason to believe we'll get lucky again.
Twitter avatar for @Chinchillazllla
i bless the rains down in castamere
one thing that's worryingly different now as opposed to during the cold war (as I understand it) is that thousands of people are just confidently yelling that Russia will never use nukes and therefore we should make aggressive moves against them
February 28th 2022
So I repeat again the world's most important question: is what the US and its allies are trying to accomplish in Ukraine worth continually risking nuclear armageddon for?
Well? Is it?
It's not really a question you can just compartmentalize away from if you have integrity. It demands to be answered.
Is it worth it to continue along this trajectory? Is it? Is it really? Perhaps there might be some things that would be worth risking the life of every creature on earth to obtain, but is refusing to concede to Moscow's demands in Ukraine one of them?
Whatever your values are, whatever your analysis is, whatever beliefs you've been holding to justify your support for the west's side of this conflict, will you still proudly stand by them if you look outside and see a mushroom cloud growing in the distance?
Well? Will you?
Here's a hint: if your answer to this question is premised on the assumption that nuclear war can't or will never happen, then you don't have a position that's grounded in reality, because you're not accounting for real possibilities. You're justifying your position with fantasy.
Twitter avatar for @PaulSonne
Paul Sonne
For those on this platform giddy about the plummet of the ruble, a word of caution: the severity of this will create forces beyond everyone's control. It could get very scary and not have the outcome you suspect.
February 27th 2022
I understand the argument that if we let tyrants do whatever they want just because they have nukes they'll just do whatever they want. I understand the argument that if we don't stop Putin now he's going to take over all of Europe because he's literally Hitler and blah blah blah. I understand why people ask "Well if we don't stand up to him now, then when? Where is your line??" I really do.
But the US has been making risk-to-benefit calculations based on the fact that Russia has nuclear weapons every single day since Stalin got the bomb. There are things Russia has been permitted to do that weaker nations would have been forcefully stopped from doing, like annexing Crimea and intervening in Syria, exactly because they have nukes. If those weren't the line, why specifically does Ukraine have to be? Surely there's a line somewhere, but it would have to exist at a point where it would be worth risking the life of every living creature for.
So is it? Is keeping the possibility of NATO membership open and retaining control of the Donbas really so important that we should roll the dice on the existence of the entire human species on it? Is maintaining a hostile client state on Russia's border truly worth gambling the life of every terrestrial organism for? Are the desperate unipolarist grand chessboard maneuverings of a few powerful people in Washington, Langley and Arlington really worth risking the life of everyone you know and love?
If the answer is no, then building some opposition to what we're seeing here becomes a very urgent matter. Very urgent indeed.
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-single-most-important-question?utm_source=url
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