Russia is holding a huge publicly announced training exercise with Belarus, but insiders fear the military hardware transported to the region could now slip over the border.
— Read on www.thedailybeast.com/belarus-russia-military-exercises-feared-to-be-cover-for-putins-secret-weapons-plan
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Books on Ukraine Crisis:
- “Putin’s War against Ukraine.” By Taras Kuzio
- “War with Russia?” By Stephen F. Cohen.
https://www.amazon.com/b/?ie=UTF8&node=11552285011&ref_=sv_kstore_6
Review of “War with Russia?” From Irish Times
- Cohen has been called “Putin’s No 1 American apologist.”
- Also, “…a fellow traveller of an authoritarian rogue state and an implacable opponent of western efforts to contain Russian aggression and expansionism.”
- Cohen thinks “Putin is a potential partner in a revived Russo-American détente. The greatest threat to American security, argues Cohen, is not Putin’s foreign policy but international terrorism, nuclear proliferation and instability in the Middle East.”
- Cohen “was also an ardent supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev’s efforts to democratise Soviet socialism.”
- “…after the collapse of the communist system in 1991, Cohen became a dissident of a new type – a severe critic of the US’s crusade to reinvent Russia as a liberal, free-market democracy.”
- “Cohen felt the US shared responsibility for the so-called economic shock therapy that impoverished the Russian people, created an elite of super-rich oligarchs and corrupted the country’s politics.”
- “As Cohen never tires of reminding us, you can’t understand Putin and contemporary Russia without reference to the country’s historical memory of the 1990s.”
- Cohen argues that you cannot understand Russia without understanding their collective memory of the 1990s. “Central to that memory is the disdain with which a triumphalist West treated post-Soviet Russia…”
- According to Cohen: “It was not Putin who caused what Cohen calls the new cold war, but Nato’s expansion to Russia’s borders; US and EU meddling in Ukraine; and western regime-change wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.”
- Cohen is evidently one of those people who believes against all evidence that the corporate media made up “russiagate” even though every other person in Trump’s world is Russian and mafia connected. He maintains that “Russiagate has been accompanied by a pernicious Russophobia that demonises not just Putin but the Russian people.” I have seen no evidence or mention that comes anywhere near demonizing the Russian people.
- As Cohen argues: “The resultant hysteria has been ramped up by US media, by grandstanding politicians, and by blatantly self-serving military and industrial interests.”
- According to Cohen (and others) American elites seem to have lost their fear of atomic warfare, while there is little or no mainstream political opposition to current hawkish policies aimed at Russia. As Cohen points out, even at the height of the Soviet-American cold war – an existential struggle between capitalism and communism – there were many mainstream advocates of détente with the USSR. During the old cold war the communist bloc acted as a buffer between the two sides. The new cold war is being fought directly along Russia’s borders, most dangerously in a proxy civil war being battled out in Ukraine.”
- “Among Cohen’s many controversial claims is that the greatest scandal in American politics is not Russiagate but Intelgate – the myth propagated by elements of the US intelligence community that Putin is attempting to subvert American democracy. The reverence with which some liberals greet pronouncements made by today’s intelligence chiefs is in sharp contrast to their past critiques of the malevolence and misinformation spread by the CIA, the FBI and other agencies.” Note: This is a frequent argument used by the likes of Glenn Greenwald.
- “Another Cohen target is the hallowed institutions of the American media, especially the New York Times and the Washington Post, whose reporting on Russia he sees as not merely tendentious but actively mendacious. The narrative of the new cold war is driven by stories published by these newspapers that are based on unverified, anonymous intelligence.”
- Cohen maintains that even though Hillary Clinton may have compared Putin to Hitler, the Russian president is actually a moderate.
- “Although the book focuses on current affairs, Cohen brings to bear a much-needed historical perspective. The first post-Soviet Russian-Western clash occurred in 1998-1999 when Nato sponsored the secession of Kosovo and bombed Russia’s ally, Serbia – an intervention that Moscow later used to justify its takeover of Crimea. If the past is any guide, western sanctions against Russia will achieve nothing, except to bolster support for Putin at home. Notwithstanding the accusations of treason that greeted Trump’s summit with Putin in Helsinki, he is not the first US President to favour détente with Russia. That was the policy of Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan too.”
- “Cohen is by no means an uncritical supporter of the Putin regime. While he sympathises with Moscow’s foreign policy he characterises its domestic polity as a “soft authoritarianism” and sees Russia as a society in transition to a better democracy. What he fears is that western isolation of Russia will blow the country off the democratic path. Waiting in the wings to replace Putin are not pro-western liberal democrats – who have little support in Russia – but truly authoritarian ultra-nationalists.”
- “Cohen gives the impression that he is a lone voice opposing the spurious narratives created by the new cold war warriors. He is disappointed by what he calls the “silence of the doves”. In fact, the new cold war has many critics, not least among Russia experts. In Europe, if not in the United States, there is a strong undercurrent of what the Germans call Putinverstehers – those who urge understanding of the Russian point of view. Liberal elites may wax hysterical about the Russian threat, but common sense about Putin prevails among the general public.”
- “The title of Cohen’s book is intended not as a prophecy but a warning. In the overexcited debate about Putin and Trump, Cohen chooses to eschew moderation because he believes that in practice that results in conformity with an anti-Russia narrative that is not only wrong but dangerous. This book will delight his supporters and enrage his opponents, while readers of a moderate persuasion will be able to admire the passion and tenacity of his resistance to the trend towards provoking war with Russia.”
- Geoffrey Roberts is emeritus professor of history at University College Cork and a member of the Royal Irish Academy
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Taras Kuzio is a professor in the Department of Political Science at National University Kyiv Mohyla Academy and author of Putin’s War Against Ukraine: Revolution, Nationalism, and Crime (2017) and co-author with Paul D’Anieri of The Sources of Russia’s Great Power Politics: Ukraine and the Challenge to the European Order (2018).
Note: This book is free if you have a Kindle Account
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Blog Draft: News
The federal hate crimes trial of the men who murdered Ahmaud Arbery began in Georgia today. This trial would never have come about had it not been for the courage of Arbery’s mother. She first demanded that the case be taken out of the hands of local officials in Glynn County, Georgia so that a prosecution for murder could take place. Then, she had to go before a judge and demand that Ahmaud Arbery’s killers not be allowed to take a plea deal for hate crimes and spend the first of their sentence in a federal prison. It is outrageous that Arbery’s mother has had to push through legal action against her son’s killers.
Notes:
- The judge in the case is US. District Court judge Lisa Godey Wood.
- Jurors were questioned outside the courtroom where reporters and the public were allowed to listen.
- After this questioning, the judge dismissed nine of the panelists leaving 16 remaining in the jury pool.
- I cannot for the life of me understand why the media continues to call the neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, using his nickname.
- One of the potential jurors was dismissed after telling the judge that she had known Bryan and that she felt “sorry for him.”
- The prosecutors in the state murder trial almost completely left race out of the discussion.
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Reading the Western press, one is under the impression that nothing is happening. Westerners do not seem to understand what is at stake. They think that only the fate of Ukraine is being decided
— Read on en.desk-russie.eu/2021/12/30/what-does-the-russian-ultimatum.html -
Russia’s plans for Ukraine include options including full-scale invasion to redraw the European security map. The West has limited response options.
— Read on cepa.org/time-is-running-out-in-ukraine/ -
America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan added moral injury to military failure. But a group of soldiers, veterans, and ordinary citizens came together to try to save Afghan lives and salvage some American honor.
— Read on www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/03/biden-afghanistan-exit-american-allies-abandoned/621307/ -
House Democrats’ New Anti-Progressive PAC is Funded by Corporate Lobbyists and PACs – Sludge
— Read on readsludge.com/2022/02/01/house-democrats-new-anti-progressive-pac-is-funded-by-corporate-lobbyists-and-pacs/ -
The United States convened a meeting on Monday of the UN Security Council to discuss the potential invasion of Ukraine. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Vasily Nebenzya, Representative to the UN from the Russian Federation exchanged views. The Chinese and the Russians tried to make the discussion private, but this move was opposed by the rest of the members.
With the support of only China, the Russians forced a vote at the beginning of the U.S.-called meeting on whether to hold the session behind closed doors. “What we urgently need now is quiet diplomacy, but not microphone diplomacy,” Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun said.
But, microphone diplomacy was what we got.
The exchange between Thomas-Greenfield and Nebenzya was described by the New York Times as a “bitter diplomatic brawl.” Nebenzia portrayed the Americans as the provocateurs. “You are almost pulling for this,” he said, looking at Mrs. Thomas-Greenfield. “You want it to happen. You’re waiting for it to happen, as if you want to make your words become a reality.”
“Changing the situation, improving it can only be done through Kyiv implementing the already mentioned Minsk agreement that stipulates primarily direct dialogue with Donetsk and Luhansk. There is no other option. If our Western partners push Kyiv to sabotage the Minsk agreement, something that Ukrainian authorities are willing to use, then that might end in the absolute worst way for Ukraine,” he said.
As far as I can tell, only the Washington Post is reporting what I consider to be the most important of the statements Nebenzya made.
Nebenzya accused the West of bringing “pure Nazis” to power on Russia’s borders, and “making heroes out of those peoples who fought on the side of Hitler.” The U.S. aim, he said, is “to weaken Russia and create an arc of instability around it.”
The Nazi references were not just hyperbole. They are part of a line of argument the Russian government has been pursuing since Ukrainian independence. According to Russia, every person who supports Ukrainian independence is a Nazi. This is the line they have been using to try to mobilize their population behind an invasion of Ukraine.
According to a book by Ukrainian specialist Taras Kuzio, for decades, Russia has been pushing a sentimental and warped narrative about the “Great Patriotic War” (WWII) and trying to convince the population that any moves toward independence from the Russian sphere of influence, or toward the West, is a betrayal and a sign of fascism.
Putin is trying to convince the Russian people that what they will be fighting in Ukraine is Nazis, Nazi sympathizers, and fascists. Ukraine is part of Russia and the people in the current Ukrainian government are traitors that must be defeated just as they were defeated in WWII.
Now, this is patent nonsense, crazy talk, but the important thing is that today, the crazy talk went from being something pumped out for internal consumption to declarations in front of the United Nations. It’s saying the crazy part out loud.
I can’t help but think this is important.
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The Court’s new death penalty order is almost too cruel to be believed.
— Read on www.vox.com/22906309/supreme-court-death-penalty-alabama-intellectually-disabled-hamm-reeves -
As the Kremlin attempts to reassert control over its neighbours, Ukrainian historian Serhii Plokhy uncovers the deep roots of the crisis
— Read on www.ft.com/content/0cbbd590-8e48-4687-a302-e74b6f0c905d
Law, Power, and Justice 