By Frances O’Neill Zimmerman
No question Senator Bernie Sanders did a national service by writing this piece for the Guardian. The American press and radio/TV are beating the drums of war with no explanation about past history, so Sanders goes to a British journal to lay out the risks we are taking.
I haven’t seen one word of explanation about NATO’s USA-backed expansion in recent years to the borders of Russia itself.
Instead we hear only that Putin is having a nostalgic fever dream about restoring Russian greatness by reconstituting the old Soviet union.
No mention of any tacit agreement between the USA and Russia in 1990-91 for Russia to accept the reunification of Germany in return for our keeping Ukraine out of NATO.
No mention either of USA’s subsequent support for overthrowing the Russia-friendly head of corrupt Ukraine and installing the present stand-up comic as president. (I too was shocked to read elsewhere that overthrow-instigator Victoria Newland is working for Biden.)
In 2014 Putin reclaimed Crimea, the port part of Ukraine, and has armies fighting in another district of that country where Russian is commonly spoken. Putin is said to have spent a fortune recently to beef up Russia’s military and navy and has bought new weaponry. We see video now of Russian forces amassed on the many borders of Ukraine.
“Spheres of influence” still exist — we nearly went to war with the USSR after its missiles were placed briefly in Cuba. We may not like Putin, but like us, he’s smart enough not to want neighboring countries to be part of an armed mutual assistance club.
Somebody pointed out recently that Finland, another country bordering Russia, deliberately remains independent of NATO. So peaceful co-existence is possible. But you have to want it.
I’m hoping that smart and cool Emmanuel Macron of France will save our bacon.
The above was left as a comment on February 9, 2022
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
The “Manifest Destiny” USA is in no position to call Putin’s pot black. We live on land taken by conquest from the Republic of Mexico. Loco Poco Polk set up an incident to start the Texas slave state war and kept on coming until he had all the coast from Alta California to San Francisco.
Russia has always controlled the Ukraine. In the past we have helped Russia take it from the Turks by lending Catherine the Great our naval hero John Paul Jones.
Let’s assume that the Ukraine folks do not want to be part of the new Russian Union; again the USA has a civil war example for Russia to shake in our face.
I do not why we all can’t get along; but it seems like there may be some Biden Dog Wagging going on
Ah, you like my movie poster.
Yes I liked the movie and the B Sander’s speech at the Senate, on this subject
We live on land taken from Native Americans. The Mexicans took it from them. And native people have been taking each other’s land for centuries. It is what we are.
Amen, Brother. The Anthropocene can’t happen too soon. I hope Gaia’s next experiment is better
For general purposes…
“The Anthropocene defines Earth’s most recent geologic time period as being human-influenced, or anthropogenic, based on overwhelming global evidence that atmospheric, geologic, hydrologic, biospheric and other earth system processes are now altered by humans.”
http://www.anthropocene.info
I detest Putin and all his dictatorial machinations, not to mention how he manipulated trump, but I have no beef with the Russian people or Russia.
Let me put it another way: we have no beef with the Russian people or Russia, or maybe I should say we have no potato with them.
Great that you give “Wag the Dog” a little ink, Frank. A truly great movie. That and “Primary Colors.”
I hope all OB Rag readers also will look at the op-ed columns from the LA Times yesterday, 2/10/22: “We haven’t closed the book on America’s torture program” by Nicholas Goldberg and “Biden’s border surveillance empire should scare you” by Jean Guerrero. (She talks about headless robot dogs
to scare migrants.)
These aren’t American crimes from the distant past, folks, and they are very bipartisan crimes. We’re talking about various inexcusable present-day American practices that are only related to current U.S. brinkmanship with Russia over Ukraine because they are so heinous. And so under-reported.
Frank, I detest Putin but I also detest the Oligarchs in the US who are just as bad or worse because they pretend to be what they aren’t; nice people with ‘de-mock-racy’ and ‘free-dumb’ for all on their little weasel minds.
60 million Russian vs 331 million United States-ers, $60 billion in war spending vs $1 trillion. 2 bases in two countries (Syria and Crimea) vs 800 bases in 120 countries. Missiles on the borders in former Soviet-Block countries that are closer to Moscow than the ones that were put in Cuba to Florida.
Who is the aggressor here?
How Can the US Accuse Any Nation of Violating ‘Rules-Based International Order’?
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/10/how-can-the-us-accuse-any-nation-of-violating-rules-based-international-order/
sealintheSelkirks