Showing posts with label NATO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NATO. Show all posts

Thursday, February 03, 2022

GOOD OL' UKRAINE

THE ABSURD TIMES

 

 


 

UKRAINE AND GETTING TIRED

BY

HONEST CHARLIE

As I've said, this is long enough by itself without my adding quips to it. I am, however, fed up with this bi-polar world, perhaps tri-polar, and all in search of profits. I do like the part of disbanding NATO, however (see below).

Security Council. Meanwhile, U.S. senators are preparing to unveil a bill that would target Russian The United States and Russia sparred on Monday over the crisis in Ukraine at the United Nations President Vladimir Putin, Russian banks and other entities with sanctions. To discuss the Ukraine crisis, we're joined by the co-founder of CodePink, Medea Benjamin, who says "we need the voice of the American people" to oppose U.S. escalation and also calls on U.S. progressives to vocalize their opposition to fueling a war in Europe. We also speak with Ukrainian sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko, who says Ukrainian intelligence does not see a Russian invasion as likely or economically wise for Russia.


Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: The United States and Russia sparred Monday over the crisis in Ukraine at the United Nations Security Council. The United States accused Russia of preparing to invade Ukraine by amassing more than 100,000 troops on its border, but Russia rejected the charge, claiming it's the United States and NATO who are trying to push Russia into a war. Last week, President Biden ordered 8,500 U.S. troops to be on high alert. The U.S. and NATO allies are also shipping weapons to Ukraine. This is Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD: The threats of aggression on the border of Ukraine — yes, on its border — is provocative. Our recognition of the facts on the ground is not provocative. The threats of action if Russia's security demands aren't met is provocative. Our encouraging diplomacy is not provocative. The provocation is from Russia, not from us or other members of this council. … Russia has assembled a massive military force of more than 100,000 troops along the Ukraine's — along Ukraine's border. These are combat forces and special forces prepared to conduct offensive actions into Ukraine. This is the largest — this is the largest, hear me clearly — mobilization of troops in Europe in decades.

AMY GOODMAN: And this is Russia's ambassador to the United Nations addressing the U.N. Security Council.

VASILY NEBENZYA: [translated] The deployment of Russian troops within our own territory has frequently occurred on varying scales before and has not caused any hysterics whatsoever. Troops and servicemen who are in their own areas of deployment and barracks, where they were before, they were not actually on the border. This deployment of Russian troops in our own territory is getting our Western and U.S. colleagues to say that there's going to be a planned military action and even an act of aggression. But the U.S. ambassador speaks as if that act of aggression has already taken place. I very carefully listened to her statement: the military action of Russia against Ukraine that they're all assuring us is going to take place in just a few weeks' time, if not a few days' time. There, however, is no proof of confirming such serious accusation whatsoever being put forward. However, it is not preventing people from whipping up hysteria to such an extent that an actual economic impact is already being felt by our Ukrainian neighbors.

AMY GOODMAN: The U.N. Security Council adjourned Monday without the body taking any action on the crisis in Ukraine. On the diplomatic front, U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken is speaking with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov by phone today. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte are both expected to visit Kyiv today. Meanwhile, the Hungarian President Viktor Orbán is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin today and hold a news conference with him. In Washington, U.S. senators are preparing to unveil a bill imposing what Senator Robert Menendez described as "the mother of all sanctions" targeting Vladimir Putin, Russia banks and other entities.

Today we're spending the hour talking to those we are rarely hearing from: voices around the world calling for peace. We begin today's show with two guests. Volodymyr Ishchenko is a Ukrainian sociologist, a research associate at the Institute for East European Studies at the Free University of Berlin. He's joining us from the German city of Dresden. Also with us, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CodePink. CodePink is one of 100 U.S. groups that released a statement today urging President Biden to end what they call the U.S. role in escalating the Ukraine crisis.

Medea Benjamin, let's begin with you. As these talks are happening at the highest levels, and Russia is amassing troops on the border with Ukraine, and the U.S. and NATO countries are sending weapons to Ukraine, can you talk about if you hold out hope for peace and what you think that could look like?

MEDEA BENJAMIN: I certainly hold out hope for peace, but I think it's going to take the people of the NATO countries, and especially the United States, to make their voices heard. We can't rely on the Democrats or Republicans. We have them falling over each other to see who will be the toughest on Russia, with the Democrat bill calling for $500 million of lethal aid to be expedited, and Nancy Pelosi saying she's going to fast-track this legislation, and these crushing sanctions that we've seen the U.S. impose on other countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, that only hurt the ordinary people.

So we have to make our voices heard, which is why we're calling for people to get out on Saturday, February 5th, in front of their federal buildings, statehouses, offices of their congressional representatives or anywhere to say no to this escalation. And we say every day should be a day of action, calling and writing your congressional representatives and the White House. That's the only way they're going to hear that the American people do not want a war with Russia. And we have to be — recognize this moment of history is one where we need the voice of the American people — not a peace movement, the American people in general — because we are all against going to war.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Medea, I wanted to ask you — we've been hearing now for weeks the same story repeated in almost every newscast: 100,000 Russian troops on the Ukrainian border. No one talks about the fact that there are 320,000 American troops still in Europe, 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet bloc. And those troops are somehow not considered a problem or a threat. Who are they there for, those 320,000 troops?

MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, that's right, Juan. I think this is a moment to educate the American people about all of the bases that the U.S. has surrounding Russia. What if Russia had bases in Mexico and Canada with missiles that were pointed at the United States? This is an educational moment, too, and I'm glad you're spending the hour on it, talking about NATO and how NATO has expanded from 16 members at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union to 30 members, including members that were part of the Soviet Republic, and how Ukraine has a 1,300-mile border with Russia. And of course this is extremely intimidating.

And so, I go back to saying the American people have to recognize how the U.S. is the expansionist country that has bases all over the world and that NATO is antagonizing not only Russia, but it's antagonizing China. It says that China is a threat to NATO's security. That's the North American Treaty Organization. China is in the Pacific. So, it is a moment to say not only do we want Ukraine not to be part of NATO, but we want NATO disbanded. And you can go to the CodePink website and see all kinds of ways that you can get involved in this peace movement right now.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Medea, do you have contact with peace movements either in the Ukraine or Russia that are — what are they telling you about their concerns about this growing drumbeat for war?

MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, we are part of a movement that is called "No to NATO," and we have reached out to groups in Russia, in Ukraine, and they are all saying the same thing. Nobody wants to go to war. There are many people in Ukraine that are worried about Russia, but they say war is not the answer. We know that the only ones who benefit from war are the military-industrial complex, the media, that has been so sensationalist and increases its ratings. And that's why people in Ukraine itself are saying slow down, step back — and, of course, the people of Russia saying the same thing.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let's bring in Volodymyr Ishchenko, the Ukrainian sociologist with the Institute for East European Studies. If you can talk about the response right now of Ukraine? What has been very interesting is, last weekend, when Biden, President Biden, spoke with the Ukrainian president, it was reported that that call did not go well and that Zelensky was saying, "You are blowing this up. You're going to lead us to war." I mean, he pulled back on that when he was asked, you know, about it, had to put out another statement, but that was the report behind the scenes. Can you talk about what's happening in Ukraine right now and where the peace movement there stands?

VOLODYMYR ISHCHENKO: Good morning.

Yeah, there is quite consolidated position of the Ukrainian government right now that tries to — contextually, yeah, goes against this mainstream narrative about an imminent invasion. And Zelensky, but not only Zelensky, the minister of defense, the secretary of the National Security Council, they all tell that, according to Ukrainian data, according to Ukrainian intelligence, they don't see the massive invasion to Ukraine, with occupation of the large territory, of the big cities, as likely, not only in the coming weeks, but maybe all, like, in this year at least. So, that's what the Ukrainian intelligence says. And, I mean, some people might say that, like, Ukrainian government might be lying and might be hiding the truth. And, yeah, we usually hear these conspiracy theories. But, I mean, at the same time, there are no, like, patriotic dissenting officers from military or intelligence saying that, "OK, we have some traitors in the government that are just lying to the public, and, yeah, we need to be prepared to invasion, like tomorrow or next week."

So, it looks like that there is some kind of, indeed, discrepancy over the interpretation, and there isn't a — so, that pushes us to a conclusion that, on the one side, there is this course of diplomacy by Russia that involves military buildups, involves their diplomatic action, diplomatic demands to NATO and the United States, but, on the other side, there is a media campaign driven by U.S. officials and media, but also now by the U.K. officials and media, that is developing by its own logic and is kind of like in a mutual reinforcement with the Russian course of diplomacy.

And for Ukraine, it already means quite serious economic risks. It destabilizes the national currency. The investors, for example, at the real estate market, are starting to move away, taking their money from Ukraine. And, of course, the government feels that this panic may have probably the serious economic consequences right here, right now, even before Russia actually did anything particularly aggressive this year. And finally, the government might feel — and again, that's quite — that's at a speculative level so far — that the West might try to force Ukraine to — in order to implement the Minsk accords, the peace accords that the Ukrainian government actually doesn't want to implement for various reasons. One of them is that you might fear for the violent revolt from the nationalist civil society, that perceives the peaceful accords as a capitulation of Ukraine, although they are speaking on behalf of just one part of Ukraine, not of the whole country.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Mr. Ishchenko, I wanted to ask you particularly about that, the right wing within Ukraine. President Putin has alleged that there are — there's a significant Nazi and ultra-right movement within Ukraine. Could you talk about groups like the Freedom Party, Svoboda? How big are they? How influential are they within the Ukrainian government?

VOLODYMYR ISHCHENKO: They are not relevant electorally at this moment. So, Svoboda was able to get into the parliament during one election campaign, and it was like 10 years ago; however, since that time, they were losing elections. But some of the people connected to the far right were present on the lists of nominally non-far-right parties. But the real strength of extreme right in Ukraine is on the streets. They are probably the most mobilized, the most organized, the most politically articulated and actually armed part of Ukrainian civil society. The problem is that they also have quite significant legitimacy from other parts of the civil society and of the political society who are like nominally non-far-right; however, they systematically don't play the extremism of that far-right segment, don't play their strengths, don't play their danger. And it's kind of like a whitewashing of Ukrainian civil society, which is specifically directed to the West in order not to — in order to sustain all the support, all the sanctions against Russia, and so on and so forth.

So, the Ukraine far right are strong on the streets, not really strong so much at the electoral level. However, also due to their strength, they are capable to influence the policies of the government, and particularly about the implementation of the Minsk accords. The far-right activists who blew a grenade near the parliament in 2015, they basically stalled the implementation of the Minsk accords right after they were signed. And in 2019, when Zelensky had a huge support from the society, over 70% of trust, just winning in a landslide against Poroshenko at the presidential elections, winning a single-party majority at the parliamentarian elections, he was not able to make progress with implementation of the Minsk accords, although even supported by France and Germany, because of a quite small but very voiceful so-called anti-capitulation campaign led by the nationalist civil society, not only by the nominally far-right party but also by professional NGOs perceived by liberal, however, in close connections and in close cooperation with the far-right segment, and at the same time supported by the Western donors, by the Western governments.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask Medea Benjamin about the role of military contractors here and what they have to gain right now. Several executives for U.S. military contractors have boasted that the worsening conflict in Ukraine is boosting their profits. This is Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes speaking last week during an earnings conference call with investors.

GREGORY HAYES: The answer is obviously we are seeing, I would say, opportunities for international sales. We just have to look to the last week, where we saw the drone attack in the UAE, which attacked some of their other facilities, and of course the tensions in Eastern Europe, the tensions in the South China Sea. All of those things are putting pressure on some of the defense spending over there. So, I fully expect we're going to see some benefit from it.

AMY GOODMAN: Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics all fund the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an influential think tank that's supported U.S. military action in response to a Russian invasion. And, of course, you go back to the famous promise that then-Secretary of State James Baker made to Gorbachev — when was it? in 1990 — saying "not one inch eastward," that promise that NATO would not expand to Russia's border. Medea Benjamin, if you can talk about what we hear in the United States on the corporate networks, the lack of presence of those who are opposed to a war with Russia?

MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, first, I think it's very important that you bring out who in these defense contractors — or military contractors, more accurately — are benefiting from this. We have given over $3 billion in, quote, "lethal aid" to Ukraine since the 2014 coup. And the NATO alliance itself — you know, there are some organizations that come together to do things like reduce poverty or greenhouse gases. The NATO alliance has a goal of increasing the percentage of the GDP that countries spend on the military. It's actually a goal. Only 10 of the 30 so far have reached that goal, and there is pressure on those deadbeat countries that prefer to put money into education and healthcare instead of buying fighter jets and bombs. So NATO itself is really doing the bidding of the military-industrial complex.

And so, the media is another winner in this. Their ratings go up. They have sensationalized this. And as you said, they don't put voices of the peace movement. And I do want to say that we need the progressives in Congress to speak out more, because they have more access to the media than we do. There is a statement that was put out by Pramila Jayapal, the head of the Progressive Caucus, and Barbara Lee, but it wasn't signed by the whole Progressive Caucus. It was just the two of them. Where are the rest of the over 100 members of Congress that call themselves progressives? We need to hear their voices, and we need to hear them on the media, loud and clear, representing us, saying, "Stop this escalation of war. We need the money not to be spent on more bombs, but that money to be spent here at home to improve people's lives."

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Medea, I wanted to ask you — the U.S. government has not only had trouble rallying the government in Ukraine behind its current posture toward Russia, but also among its own NATO allies. I'm wondering, in your talks with other peace groups around Europe, what the hope is for whether any of the major European powers will put the brakes on the drumbeat for war that is going on now.

MEDEA BENJAMIN: Certainly, the government of Germany and France have been better than the United States, but there is so much pressure from the U.S. on NATO to come out in unity on this. And that's why it's so important to hear from the peace groups that are very active in the European countries, particularly in places like Germany and France. And it's civil society in those countries that are forcing their governments to try to take a stance that is not as aggressive as the United States. Unfortunately, we don't have that same kind of pressure on our government, which is what we need to do right now. It is our moment now to show our European allies, the civil society in those countries, that we, too, can put that kind of pressure on our government.

AMY GOODMAN: And the day of action, Peace with Russia Day of Action, that you have planned for February 5th, what is that?

MEDEA BENJAMIN: It was just called. You can go on the CodePink.org website and register your own protest. You only need yourself and a group of friends to do that, but we need people all over the country. And then we're really saying that every day is a day of protest. Our friends the CodePink group in San Francisco is going to the home of Nancy Pelosi, because she's supposed to represent us, and yet she is calling for expediting of this legislation that would send more weapons to Ukraine. And so, I think it's fair to go not only to the offices of our representatives, but, if necessary, to go to their homes. They are not doing their job. Of course, Antony Blinken, who is supposed to be the top diplomat in the United States as secretary of state, is not doing his job. But neither are all of those who are supposed to be our representatives. They are not doing their job of calling on the Biden administration to stop this drumbeat for war. And so it really is up to us, February 5th, the time to get out. But call, write, and not only the Congress, but also the media, to tell them that we want to hear the other side in this conflict, the side that is calling for deescalation, negotiations, no war.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you for being with us, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink, and Volodymyr Ishchenko, the Ukrainian sociologist, Institute for East European Studies at the Free University of Berlin.

When we come back, we are going to look at the peace movement in Germany and also in Belgium, the home of NATO. Stay with us.

Germany's new coalition government is refusing to send lethal weapons to Ukraine but has offered to send over 5,000 combat helmets to protect Ukrainian soldiers in case of a Russian attack. The move has been ridiculed as the U.S. and other NATO countries continue to send military support to Ukraine. In response, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has promised his country will stay in tune with European Union and NATO policies toward Russia. To speak more about Germany's stance toward Ukraine, we're joined by German peace activist and executive director of the International Peace Bureau Reiner Braun, who calls on the European Union to establish a more "common politics with Russia" to prevent a war in Central Europe. He also says war in the region could result in use of nuclear weapons that would lead to "the end of Europe."


Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.orgThe War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, with Juan González, as we continue look at voices for peace amidst the tensions over Ukraine as we go now to Germany, where the new coalition government has refused to send weapons to Ukraine, even as the United States and other European nations have sent military support. Germany also banned Estonia from supplying German-origin howitzer weapons to Ukraine. Germany did send Ukraine 5,000 combat helmets last week to help protect soldiers in case of an attack by Russia. Germany's defense minister said the move was a signal to Ukraine that, quote, "We are on your side." But the move was ridiculed by others calling for a stronger stance, sending active military weapons. This comes as the head of the German Navy resigned this month after he made comments that downplayed the crisis, saying Russian President Vladimir Putin deserved respect. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has promised his country is in tune with EU and NATO policies towards Russia, but insisted, quote, "We don't provide any lethal weapons." Scholz spoke earlier this month at the World Economic Forum.

CHANCELLOR OLAF SCHOLZ: The Russian side is aware of our determination. I hope they also realize that the gains of cooperation outweigh the price of further confrontation. This is the basis on which we are engaging, because we are strongly — we strongly believe that global public goods can only be preserved through international cooperation, and peace is the most important one of them.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we're going to Berlin, Germany, to speak with Reiner Braun, the executive director of the International Peace Bureau. He is a German peace activist, an historian and author who has campaigned against the U.S. air base in Ramstein and against NATO. Also with us, in Belgium, where NATO is based, is Ludo De Brabander, spokesperson for a peace organization based in Belgium which works with the global coalition No to War — No to NATO, which organizes an annual NATO counter-summit.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Reiner Braun, let's begin with you. You know, we're looking now at a post-Angela Merkel Germany at this moment in time with this escalation of militarism in — towards Russia in regards to Ukraine. Talk about the German peace movement and where it stands right now, and what this new government is about, which is in coalition with the Greens.

REINER BRAUN: You know, the new German government has two parties, which are totally anti-Russian parties. These are the Greens and the liberals. And both are trying to push the German politics more against aggressive behavior to Russia. This includes no to the pipeline. This includes the stop of sending military equipment to Ukraine. This means more confrontation.

And the German peace movement is campaigning for peaceful relations to Russia, for a politics of common security, for negotiations and for fulfilling the obligations of the Minsk II agreement. For us, the Minsk II agreement — which first said we need a new constitution in Ukraine, which make the country much more federal; we need negotiations between the two parts of Ukraine; we need elections in the Ukraine; and then come also a new border control — is the key point for a peaceful solution of the conflict.

And the Ukraine government is doing the opposite of this. They're always trying to put more troops, more weapons to the borders, more maneuvers, 2.5 billion of U.S. dollars in the support from the U.S., for this aggressive U.S. government. So, what is the peace movement doing is to looking for a policy of common security, for negotiations and for mobilizing the people for peace against a very intensive war-oriented media campaign in our country.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I'd like to ask you, Reiner Braun, in terms — you mentioned the Minsk II agreement. To what degree is that agreement basically a threat to the hegemony of the United States, seeing as it was Europe trying to solve its own problems?

REINER BRAUN: It was the try of Europe to solve the problem with a Normandy discussion forum, which includes Russia and the two parts of Ukraine and France and Germany, and which excludes the United States, because the United States has very specific aggressive interests in Ukraine and in opposite to a policy of common security and negotiations in Europe. Russia was always trying to negotiate with the Europeans. It is one of the biggest mistakes of the European countries to deny these negotiations and go to the support of the U.S. confrontational politics.

And we hope that with a movement of the people, we come again to a more inclusive European politics, which is continuing the politics of the OSCE of the period of the '80s and the '90s, where we have a common politics with Russia in many points, and this was a peaceful part of German and European history. And we have to come back to that, because the opposition is war in Central Europe. Can you imagine what a war in Central Europe, with the high-technology development of all this, means? This means the destroyment of Central Europe. And I cannot imagine that this war will be, in the end, working without nuclear weapons. And this means really the end of Europe. So, the key point is: Are we coming back to a more peaceful European politics, or are we coming together in supporting the U.S. confrontational politics to more aggressions and more war-oriented against Ukraine and against Russia?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in terms of the — there's been much made of the Nord 2 pipeline, that has been completed but not yet certified for operation, in terms of the influence that that has on Germany. Could you talk about that in relationship to this crisis?

REINER BRAUN: You know, the pipeline is an open question. I have many ecological problems with these pipelines. But in reality, these pipelines saved the energy security for Europe, above all, in these times, where energy becomes much more expensive. We had 50 years relations of energy to Russia and to the former Soviet Union, and always Soviet Union or Russia was fulfilling all their obligations to provide good prices. So we need these pipelines as an element of cooperation in opposition to the confrontation.

Let me say one example for the confrontation. It is always said that the Russian troops are nearer to the border to Ukraine. They are 350 kilometers far away from the border to Ukraine. But the NATO troops, including German troops, including U.S., Canada and British troops, they are 150 kilometers far away from St. Petersburg, a historical city of Russia. Who is in aggression to whom, when you are looking to these faces? And again, NATO is spending $1.1 trillion for military purposes. Russia is spending $65 billion for military purposes. Can you imagine that the country whose military budget is one-fourteenth of the budget of the other will be the aggressor? These are stupid stories which only show that the aggression comes from the NATO.

AMY GOODMAN: Reiner Braun, if you could talk about the assessment that the U.S. analysts in the corporate media often give of this post-Merkel government: They're just trying to get their feet on the ground; they're very wishy-washy, but they'll get it together, and finally they will join with United States; they've been very wishy-washy until this point? Would you assess them in that way, or would you say they're taking a completely different approach because they don't want to send active military weapons to or be involved with a real military incursion?

REINER BRAUN: You know, in reality, all these countries are a part of NATO. And the NATO enlargement is the background of the crisis and the aggressions of the Western countries to the East. So, there are differently differences between the U.S. and the European countries, but there are many common points. And one main common point is that they want to include the Ukraine in the Western system, on the European Union level and also on the NATO level. And these are geostrategic regions — geostrategic arguments and facts. Ukraine is a very important part in the whole Eurasia game. Who are the main influences in Eurasia? Brzezinski was writing, who has Ukraine under control is, on the one side, controlling the way between Europe and Asia, and, on the other side, is weakening Russia. And there's a common interest of the U.S. and Europeans. That is to weaken Russia and not to accept the Russian military and the Russian national interest. And that is the background of this deep, deep crisis. So, there are differences, but there are also many common points between the U.S. and Europeans.

To speak about the key role NATO is playing in the Ukraine crisis, we speak with Ludo De Brabander, spokesperson of the peace organization Vrede vzw in Belgium, where NATO is headquartered. De Brabander says NATO has outlived its purpose, and touches on how activists in NATO countries like Belgium are pushing against narratives in the media that war with Russia is necessary.


Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to bring — in addition to Reiner Braun, go to Belgium, where we're joined by Ludo De Brabander, who is with the group Vrede, which is the Flemish word for "peace." You are the country that is the home base of NATO. Talk about the response there.

LUDO DE BRABANDER: Well, as you said, Belgium is hosting in Brussels the headquarters of NATO and also is the capital, let's say, from the European Union, with the commission, for example, its headquarters in Brussels. So, well, let's say it's similar to what Reiner said concerning Germany. You know, the first thing that our government says — and they're also Greens and social democrats in the government — is that we need to fulfill our obligations towards NATO. So, and if NATO asks us to deploy troops, for example, towards the Russian border, towards the east of Europe, then Belgium will do this. This is the message we are given.

And maybe to give you an example how the Ukraine crisis is playing also into the — let's say, into the interests of the military-industrial complex and is used, just recently, last Friday, our government decided to increase military budgets, referring to the crisis with Russia, to 1.54% of the gross domestic product, which is an increase from 1.1 today. So, it's about, in eight years' time, 14 billion euros, which is a lot of money, especially with the health crisis and the energy crisis now today. And you see there is almost no debate in media. It seems like to be almost the political consensus that this one is needed. And I think this is due to the NATO policy and also to the propaganda, almost, we read in press. The voices that are standing for peace and trying to give alternatives to military confrontation are almost not heard. So, this is a little bit the atmosphere in Belgium.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ludo De Brabander, I wanted to ask you: For those listeners here who may not be familiar with the origins and evolution of NATO, could you talk a little bit about the original reason why NATO was created, and especially why it chose, following the collapse of the Soviet bloc, to expand eastward?

LUDO DE BRABANDER: Well, NATO has — you know, when it was first created in '49, it was to keep the Russians out, the Russians — the Germans down and the United States in. That's the very famous phrase that is often used. And, of course, the Warsaw Pact has been established six years later, but it was in the middle of, let's say, when Truman gave his speech in '47, let's say, that made the difference, that started the Cold War. It was like, yeah, always with accompanying what I call the propaganda of "We have to be careful for Russia. Russia will invade us," like similar — that time similar to what happens now.

And after, you know — it has already been said, I think, in the program today, but going further on in the '90s, when the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, and the Soviet Union also became dissolved, with 10 states coming out of it, many in even mainstream politics thought NATO is not needed anymore. But NATO — just the opposite happened. NATO, let's say, reinvented itself. It started, in late '90s, to expand its territory to the east. It's changed, let's say, its policy of a pure defense organization, through Article 5 — you know, when one country is attacked, all countries will help and support the country attacked. This is the central, let's say, task of the NATO. Suddenly, there was talk about non-Article 5 tasks, which became intervention policy of NATO. And third, it started to be global by making a lot of cooperation agreements with countries and regions worldwide.

So, NATO reestablished itself as a global actor now, more and more, as a global force. And as Reiner said, NATO, half — more than half of military spending is done by NATO. And now you see a big push towards all NATO countries, because this was decided in Wales in 2014, to increase their defense military budgets, and it will become even, in a few years, 60, 65% of all military expenditures in the world. And so it became a very important military force, and, I think, mainly to defend geostrategical interests. It's not about security. If it would be about security, let's say, the relationship with Russia would be treated differently. As Reiner said before, then it would be more cooperative. We would look for what is called common security, because security is indivisible. Security of the other is in the interest of the security of the one. So, it is — but this policy is undermined by NATO, this principle.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And to what degree is there an opportunity for the peace movement to be able to affect the policies of some of the key players, European players, within NATO?

LUDO DE BRABANDER: Well, it's very difficult. As I said, I mean, there is not much coverage of the positions of a peace movement. What we try to do, we have also, as Medea announced already in the United States on the 5th of December — 5th, sorry, of February, so next Saturday, a vigil in Brussels. And what we try to emphasize is that NATO is not in our interest, not in the interest of security and peace, but also not in the interest of, let's say, the needs of people. This announcement of military spending, to increase it, this is what we try to use, you know, because at the same time there's a huge discussion in government — or, we had a huge discussion in government, how to solve the bills of the — you know, they go up two, three, four times up for energy.

AMY GOODMAN: Ludo, we have 10 seconds.

LUDO DE BRABANDER: OK, for energy, and how to solve that. So, we want to oppose that military spending to what — the real needs of the people.

AMY GOODMAN: Ludo De Brabander is with the peace group Vrede, which is based in Belgium, where NATO is based. And thank you to Reiner Braun, who is with the International Peace Bureau, speaking to us from Berlin. Both will be involved with peace vigils as the escalation of militarism continues between Ukraine and Russia and the United States and NATO.

I'm Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Remember, wearing a mask is an act of love.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

 

Friday, September 05, 2014

Isis and NATO: Really stupid activity





  THE ABSURD TIMES






Illustration: Saladin




Ok, now things are getting too weird.  Looking for a way to defeat the Caliphate by air?  Do what Biden says: Follow them to the gates of hell where they will have to watch a Joan Rivers Marathon eternally.  Or everyone could apply for a job with Al Baghdadi, Calif, IS, (sorry, zip code unknown) 

Everyone seems to think they have a perverted interpretation of Islam.  Actually, they have a hero in Saladin, not Mohammed, and they have him wrong too.

Yet, who was Saladin?  His history has been ignored in the West.  In fact, I did not even know of him until my senior year when I took a course in Spenser.  He wrote the third longest poem in the English language, and it was only 25% completed.  It was published in 1595.  The poem itself has this reputation: "Only 5 people have read it from cover to cover and three of them are still asleep."  Keats thought it was great.  No, I'm not going into telling you who Keats was. 

Saladin was the great warrior in the mid to late medieval period (ca. 1187, esp. or so) who rid the Mideast from the pillagers known as the "crusaders".  The Crusades were just another series of invasions and rapine disguised as "Holy Wars".  It is a hallmark of monotheism that war is carried out in "God's" name.  The ancient Greeks had a lot of wars and a lot of gods, but they just called upon their god's for assistance from time to time, much to their regret.  In fact, I believe it was Homer who said "When the Gods wish to laugh at us, they grant our wishes."  Anyway, Saladin put an end to the crusades or at least started the liberation of Palestine.  Today, Palestinians are basically secular.  Leave it to George Bush to resurrect the term "Crusades", much to our regret.

Putin also comes into this.  The Caliphate threatened him because he supports Assad.  Now, they have made a big mistake.  Remember the pirates off of Somalia?  They were getting one ship after antoher until they captured a Russian one.  That was it.  They never even looked at another Russian ship because of the response.

Also, if this group is such a threat, why not join Assad and Iran, its natural enemies, and work together?  Another example of stupidity.

The next issue is Ukraine.  The two interviews sum up the situation very well, so there is no point in further elaborating.  You might also want to consult the article in the Nation.  The point about Neo-McCarthyism is well-taken.

Well, here are two interiews on Russia, one with Stephen Cohen and the other with a former Ambassador to Russia.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

Ukraine Ceasefire Takes Hold, but an Expanding NATO on Russia’s Borders Raises Threat of Nuclear War

The Ukrainian government and pro-Russian rebels are reportedly set to sign a ceasefire today aimed at ending over six months of fighting that has killed at least 2,600 people and displaced over a million. The deal is expected this morning in the Belarusian capital of Minsk as President Obama and European leaders meet in Wales for a major NATO summit. The ceasefire comes at a time when the Ukrainian military has suffered a number of defeats at the hands of the Russian-backed rebels. In the hours leading up to the reported ceasefire, pro-Russian rebels launched another offensive to take the port city of Mariupol, which stands about halfway between Russia and the Crimea region. The Ukrainian government and NATO have accused Russia of sending forces into Ukraine, a claim Moscow denies. The new developments in Ukraine come as NATO has announced plans to create a new rapid reaction force in response to the Ukraine crisis. We are joined by Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University, and the author of numerous books on Russia and the Soviet Union.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, now to international news.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian rebels are reportedly set to sign a ceasefire today aimed at ending over six months of fighting in eastern Ukraine that has killed at least 2,600 people and displaced over one million. The deal is expected to be signed in the Belarusian capital Minsk as President Obama and European leaders meet in Wales for a major NATO summit. The ceasefire comes at a time when the Ukrainian military has suffered a number of defeats at the hands of the Russian-backed rebels.
A new dispatch from The New York Review of Books reveals the remnants of at least 68 Ukrainian military vehicles, tanks, armored personnel carriers, pickups, buses and trucks are littered along one 16-mile stretch in eastern Ukraine where the rebels launched an offensive last week. The reporter, Tim Judah, writes, quote, "The scale of the devastation suffered by Ukrainian forces in southeastern Ukraine over the last week has to be seen to be believed. It amounts to a catastrophic defeat and will long be remembered by embittered Ukrainians as among the darkest days of their history."
In the hours leading up to the ceasefire, pro-Russian rebels launched another offensive to take the port city of Mariupol, which stands about halfway between Russia and the Crimea region. The Ukrainian government and NATO have accused Russia of sending forces into Ukraine, a claim that Moscow continues to deny.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile in Wales, NATO has announced plans to create a new rapid reaction force in response to the Ukraine crisis. British Prime Minister David Cameron said the new force could be deployed anywhere in the world in two to five days.
PRIME MINISTER DAVID CAMERON: So we must be able to act more swiftly. In 2002, NATO stood down its high-readiness force. I hope that today we can agree a multinational spearhead force, deployable anywhere in the world in just two to five days. This would be part of a reformed NATO response force, with headquarters in Poland, forward units in the eastern allies, and pre-positioned equipment and infrastructure to allow more exercises and, if necessary, rapid reinforcement. If we can agree this, the United Kingdom will contribute 3,500 personnel to this multinational force.
AMY GOODMAN: In another development, the Pentagon has announced 200 U.S. troops will be sent to Ukraine later this month for a multinational military exercise dubbed Rapid Trident. Another 280 U.S. troops will work with Ukrainian forces next week for a military exercise aboard the USS Ross in the Black Sea.
To talk more about the crisis in Ukraine and the NATO summit, we’re joined by Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University, also the author of a number of books on Russia and the Soviet Union. His latest piece in The Nation is headlined "Patriotic Heresy vs. the New Cold War: Neo-McCarthyites Have Stifled Democratic Debate on Russia and Ukraine."
So, welcome to Democracy Now!, Professor Cohen. Talk about the latest developments, both the decisions out of NATO and what’s happening on the ground in Ukraine.
STEPHEN COHEN: One latest development is related to what Juan just said about New York kids. There are about a million refugees from eastern Ukraine, most of them having fled to Russia, a lot of kids. Traditionally in Ukraine and Russia, the first day of school is September 1. There are about 50,000 to 70,000 kids who needed to have started school. The Russians have made every effort to get them in school, but there are a lot of little Ukrainian kids who won’t be going to school this September yet, because they’re living in refugee camps. And that’s the story, of course.
This is a horrific, tragic, completely unnecessary war in eastern Ukraine. In my own judgment, we have contributed mightily to this tragedy. I would say that historians one day will look back and say that America has blood on its hands. Three thousand people have died, most of them civilians who couldn’t move quickly. That’s women with small children, older women. A million refugees. Talk of a ceasefire that might go into place today, which would be wonderful, because nobody else should die for absolutely no reason.
But what’s driving the new developments, and partially the NATO meeting in Wales, but this stunning development, that Juan mentioned, reported in The New York Review of Books, though a handful of us in this country have been trying to get it into the media for nearly two weeks, is that it appeared that the Ukrainian army would conquer eastern Ukraine. But what they were doing is sitting outside the cities, bombarding these cities with aircraft, rockets, heavy artillery. That’s what caused the 3,000 deaths and the refugees. They’ve seriously damaged the entire infrastructure, industrial infrastructure, of Ukraine, which is in these eastern cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, the so-called Donbas region.
It turned out, though, that the Ukrainian army didn’t want to enter these cities, where the rebels were embedded, ensconced. It’s their homes; these fighters are mainly from these cities. And while this killing was going on, the rebels were regrouping. Now, there’s an argument: How much help did they get from Russia? Some people are saying Russia invaded. Others say, no, Russia just gave them some technical and organizational support. But whatever happened in the last 10 days, there’s been one of the most remarkable military turnarounds we’ve witnessed in many years, and the Ukrainian army is not only being defeated, but it’s on the run. It’s fleeing. It wants no more of this. It’s leaving its heavy equipment behind. It’s really in full-scale retreat, except in one place, the city Juan mentioned, Mariupol, where there’s a fight going on as we talk now. The rebels have the city encircled. Whether that fighting will stop if the ceasefire is announced in the next couple hours, we don’t know. It’s a very important city. But everything has now changed. If there’s negotiation, the government of Ukraine, Poroshenko, the president, our President Obama and NATOthought that when negotiations began, the West would dictate the terms to Putin because they won the war in Ukraine. Now it’s the reverse.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now, what about this whole issue of United States forces now actually being introduced, the exercises in Ukraine? To what degree do you see the Obama administration being drawn more and more into the conflict?
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, we have to ask ourselves, because we don’t fully know, because Obama is a kind of aloof figure who disappears in moments like this, then reappears and says kind of ignomatic things. But are we being drawn into it, or are we driving these events? It has been true, ever since NATO was created, that the United States controlled NATO. Now, it is also true now that there—that NATO is deeply divided on the Ukrainian issue. There’s a war party. And the war party is led by Poland, the three Baltic states, to a certain extent Romania but not so much, and Britain. Then there’s a party that wants to accommodate Russia, that thinks that this is not entirely Russia’s fault. And moreover, these people—the Germans, the French, the Spanish, the Italians—depend on Russia, in many ways, for their economic prosperity. They want to negotiate, not punish Russia. Where is Obama in this? It would appear nowhere, except occasionally he comes in, as he did in Estonia—was it yesterday or the day before?—and seem to give a speech that favors the war party.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to the comments of President Obama when he was in the former Soviet republic of Estonia blaming Russia for the fighting and vowing to defend the Baltic states.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: It was not the government of Kiev that destabilized eastern Ukraine. It’s been the pro-Russian separatists, who are encouraged by Russia, financed by Russia, trained by Russia, supplied by Russia and armed by Russia. And the Russian forces that have now moved into Ukraine are not on a humanitarian or peacekeeping mission. They are Russian combat forces with Russian weapons in Russian tanks.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s President Obama. Professor Stephen Cohen?
STEPHEN COHEN: Yeah, it is. It certainly is President Obama. Look, here’s the underlying problem. What Obama just said implies, if not asserts, that if it wasn’t for Russia, Ukraine would be stable, that Russia has destabilized Ukraine. No serious person would believe that to be the case. Ukraine is in the throes of a civil war, which was precipitated by the political crisis that occurred in Ukraine last November and then this February, when the elected president of Ukraine was overthrown by a street mob, and that set off a civil war, primarily between the west, including Kiev, and the east, but not only. There’s a central Ukraine that’s here and there. This civil war then became, as I said it would or might when we first started talking earlier this year, a proxy war between the United States and Russia.
Now, it’s absolutely true that Russia has made the destabilization of Ukraine worse. It’s also absolutely true that the United States has contributed to the destabilization of Ukraine. But if tomorrow the United States would go away and Russia would go away, Ukraine would still be in a civil war. And we know what civil wars are. We had one in our country. Russia had one. There were many civil wars around the world in the 20th century and elsewhere today. The point is, the only way you can end a civil war, either the one side completely conquers and the other side gives up, as happened with the Confederacy in the United States, or there’s a stalemate or somebody says, "Enough killing, because these are brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers, they’re part of the same family," and you negotiate.
So we will see later today, perhaps, or tomorrow whether this ceasefire comes and if it holds. Now, negotiating a civil war is terribly complex. In some ways, we’re still arguing about the American Civil War. I grew up in Kentucky, segregated Kentucky, and in my childhood, people were still claiming we, the South, won. So, this isn’t going to end if the United States and Russia goes way. But both sides have the capacity to get these negotiations going. But when Obama says that Russia destabilized Ukraine, it’s a half-truth.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Stephen Cohen, I wanted to ask you—you’ve come under some criticism by other Russia experts in the U.S. as being an apologist for the Russian intervention in Ukraine, I think in Forbes magazine. Op-ed piece there claimed that you were questioning whether Ukraine had the right to exercise control over its own territory, that it was plotting to seize its own territory. I’m wondering your response to that criticism.
STEPHEN COHEN: Yeah, I mean, many very harsh and unpleasant, probably libelous and slanderous things have been said about me, which suggests to me that they have no factual response to me. Rather than call me a toady and an apologist and a paid hiring of the Kremlin, I’d like to hear what factual mistakes I’ve made. And I haven’t seen any, because I’m a scholar and I try not to make factual mistakes.
It’s not about whether Ukraine has the right to take back its territory. The problem is, as I just said, that a civil war began when we, the United States, and Europe backed a street coup that overthrew an elected president. When you overthrow a constitution and when you overthrow a president, you’re likely to get a civil war. It usually happens. Now, when you have a civil war, the country is divided. And in this case, the government in Kiev is trying to conquer where the rebels, so to speak, are located. The problem is that the rebel provinces do not recognize the legitimacy of the government in Kiev. The United States recognizes the legitimacy, but that doesn’t make it legitimate.
Now, let’s go to what’s going on in Kiev now. I mean, Obama also said—and I kind of chuckled and cried—that we are helping Ukraine build a democracy. What kind of democracy is unfolding in Kiev? All right, they had a presidential election. About a fifth of the country couldn’t vote. Now, Poroshenko has called a parliamentary election in October, a month from now. But where the war is, in the south and the east, they won’t vote. So you’re going to end up with a rump country, further dividing the country. Meanwhile, they’re shutting down democracy in Kiev. Communist Party is being banned. Another party that represents the east is being banned. People are being arrested. There’s censorship kicking in. There’s no democracy in Kiev, because it’s a wartime government. You just don’t get democracy. So, these assertions by the United States that we’re democracy builders, we’re virtuous, and it’s all Putin’s fault, this is—it’s worse than a half-truth; it’s actually a falsehood.
AMY GOODMAN: The possibility of Ukraine in NATO and what that means and what—
STEPHEN COHEN: Nuclear war.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain.
STEPHEN COHEN: Next question. I mean, it’s clear. It’s clear. First of all, by NATO’s own rules, Ukraine cannot join NATO, a country that does not control its own territory. In this case, Kiev controls less and less by the day. It’s lost Crimea. It’s losing the Donbas—I just described why—to the war. A country that does not control its own territory cannot join Ukraine [sic]. Those are the rules.
AMY GOODMAN: Cannot join—
STEPHEN COHEN: I mean, NATO. Secondly, you have to meet certain economic, political and military criteria to join NATO. Ukraine meets none of them. Thirdly, and most importantly, Ukraine is linked to Russia not only in terms of being Russia’s essential security zone, but it’s linked conjugally, so to speak, intermarriage. There are millions, if not tens of millions, of Russian and Ukrainians married together. Put it inNATO, and you’re going to put a barricade through millions of families. Russia will react militarily.
In fact, Russia is already reacting militarily, because look what they’re doing in Wales today. They’re going to create a so-called rapid deployment force of 4,000 fighters. What is 4,000 fighters? Fifteen thousand or less rebels in Ukraine are crushing a 50,000-member Ukrainian army. Four thousand against a million-man Russian army, it’s nonsense. The real reason for creating the so-called rapid deployment force is they say it needs infrastructure. And the infrastructure—that is, in plain language is military bases—need to be on Russia’s borders. And they’ve said where they’re going to put them: in the Baltic republic, Poland and Romania.
Now, why is this important? Because NATO has expanded for 20 years, but it’s been primarily a political expansion, bringing these countries of eastern Europe into our sphere of political influence; now it’s becoming a military expansion. So, within a short period of time, we will have a new—well, we have a new Cold War, but here’s the difference. The last Cold War, the military confrontation was in Berlin, far from Russia. Now it will be, if they go ahead with this NATO decision, right plunk on Russia’s borders. Russia will then leave the historic nuclear agreement that Reagan and Gorbachev signed in 1987 to abolish short-range nuclear missiles. It was the first time nuclear—a category of nuclear weapons had ever been abolished. Where are, by the way, the nuclear abolitionists today? Where is the grassroots movement, you know, FREEZE, SANE? Where have these people gone to? Because we’re looking at a new nuclear arms race. Russia moves these intermediate missiles now to protect its own borders, as the West comes toward Russia. And the tripwire for using these weapons is enormous.
One other thing. Russia has about, I think, 10,000 tactical nuclear weapons, sometimes called battlefield nuclear weapons. You use these for short distances. They can be fired; you don’t need an airplane or a missile to fly them. They can be fired from artillery. But they’re nuclear. They’re radioactive. They’ve never been used. Russia has about 10,000. We have about 500. Russia’s military doctrine clearly says that if Russia is threatened by overwhelming conventional forces, we will use tactical nuclear weapons. So when Obama boasts, as he has on two occasions, that our conventional weapons are vastly superior to Russia, he’s feeding into this argument by the Russian hawks that we have to get our tactical nuclear weapons ready. So, bring NATO—I mean, bring Ukraine into NATO, and all this stuff will be up and ready. And then it will just take the shootdown of a Malaysian aircraft, about which everybody has forgotten. Still nobody knows who did it. There seems to have been an agreement among the major powers not to tell us who did it. Was suggested wasn’t the rebels, wasn’t Russia, after all. But it would take something like that, which can happen in these circumstances, to launch something that was unthinkable.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean there seems to be an agreement between the major countries?
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, in addition to the insurance company for the airplane, which technically has legal responsibility, the major countries that are doing it, Britain has the black boxes, the Netherlands are involved. There was a report the other day that these parties, these states, have agreed that they would not divulge individually what they have discovered. Now, they’ve had plenty of time to interpret the black boxes. There are reports from Germany that the White House version of what happened is not true, therefore you have to look elsewhere for the culprit who did the shooting down. They’re sitting on satellite intercepts. They have the images. They won’t release the air controller’s conversations in Kiev with the doomed aircraft. Why not? Did the pilot say—let me speculate—"Oh, my god, we’re being fired on by a jet fighter next to us! What’s going on?" Because we know there were two Ukrainian jet fighters. We don’t know, but somebody knows. You might ask—you might get somebody on who’s been investigating this to find out what they actually know.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you very much—
STEPHEN COHEN: That’s a digression. I apologize.
AMY GOODMAN: No, that was very interesting. Thank you very much, Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton, author of a number of books on Russia and the Soviet Union. His latestpiece in The Nation, we’ll link to, "Patriotic Heresy vs. the New Cold War: Neo-McCarthyites Have Stifled Democratic Debate on Russia and Ukraine."
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.
The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.


WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

Fmr. U.S. Ambassador: To Resolve Ukraine Crisis, Address Internal Divisions & Russian Fears of NATO

Ukraine has retracted an earlier claim to have reached a ceasefire with Russia. The office of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko initially said he agreed with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on steps toward a ceasefire with pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. But the Kremlin then denied a ceasefire agreement, saying it is in no position to make a deal because it is not a party to the fighting. Ukraine has accused Russia of direct involvement in the violence amidst a recent escalation. The confusion comes as President Obama visits the former Soviet republic of Estonia ahead of a major NATO summit in Wales. On Tuesday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest outlined NATO’s plans to expand its presence in eastern Europe. Ukraine and NATO have accused Russia of sending armored columns of troops into Ukraine, but Russia has denied its troops are involved in fighting on the ground. We are joined by Jack Matlock, U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the crisis in Ukraine, where more than 2,600 people have been killed since April. Earlier today, Ukraine said its president had agreed with Russia’s Vladimir Putin on steps towards a ceasefire with pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine, but the Kremlin denied any actual truce deal had been formalized. Initially, the Ukrainian presidential website had claimed a permanent ceasefire had been reached, but then the statement was retracted.
The confusion comes as President Obama visits the former Soviet republic of Estonia ahead of a major NATO summit in Wales. On Tuesday, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest outlined NATO’s plans to expand its presence in eastern Europe.
PRESS SECRETARY JOSH EARNEST: The United States, in cooperation with our allies, plans to significantly increase the readiness of a NATO response force to ensure that the alliance is prepared to respond to threats in a timely fashion. This will involved training, exercises and discussions about what kinds of infrastructure will be required in the Baltics, in Poland, in Romania and other states on the eastern frontier to deal with the world in which they face new concerns about Russian intentions.
AMY GOODMAN: Ukraine and NATO have accused Russia of sending armored columns of troops into Ukraine, but Russia has denied its troops are involved in fighting on the ground. Over the past week, the Russian-backed rebels have made a number of advances in eastern Ukraine. On Monday, rebels took control of the airport in the city of Luhansk. Now they’re storming the airport in Donetsk, the biggest city under their control. On Tuesday, an Italian newspaper reported Putin had told outgoing European Commission President José Manuel Barroso that he could take Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, within two weeks, if he wanted to. The Kremlin said the remark was taken out of context.
Joining us now is Jack Matlock, served as U.S. ambassador to the former Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991, author of several books, including Superpower Illusions: How Myths and False Ideologies Led America Astray—And How to Return to Reality, as well as Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended.
Ambassador Matlock, we welcome you to Democracy Now! What do you think is most important to understand what’s happening in Ukraine today?
JACK MATLOCK: Well, I think one of the most important things to understand is that, practically speaking, the Ukrainians and the Russians have to agree on what would be an acceptable way to proceed within Ukraine. That is the fact of the matter. And one can, you know, talk all one wishes about how impermissible it is for Russia to intervene, but the fact is they are going to intervene until they are certain that there is no prospect of Ukraine becoming a member of NATO. And all of the threats by NATO and so on to sort of increase defenses elsewhere is simply provocative to the Russians. Now, I’m not saying that’s right, but I am saying that’s the way Russia is going to react. And frankly, this is all predictable. And those of us who helped negotiate the end of the Cold War almost unanimously said in the 1990s, "Do not expand NATO eastward. Find a different way to protect eastern Europe, a way that includes Russia. Otherwise, eventually there’s going to be a confrontation, because there is a red line, as far as any Russian government is concerned, when it comes to Ukraine and Georgia and other former republics of the Soviet Union."
AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday—
JACK MATLOCK: I would say, with the exception of the three Baltic states. They were a special case.
AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for immediate negotiations on the statehood of southern and eastern Ukraine. On Monday, Putin blamed Kiev’s leadership for declining to participate in direct political talks with the separatists. This is what he said.
PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: [translated] What is the essence of the tragedy that is happening in Ukraine right now? I think the main reason for that is that the current Kiev leadership does not want to carry out a substantive political dialogue with the east of its country. And so, right now, in my opinion, a very important process, a process of direct talks, starts. We have been working on it for a long time, and we agreed upon that with President Poroshenko in Minsk. We start to have—or renew, to be precise—this sort of contact.
AMY GOODMAN: Ambassador Matlock, the significance of what President Putin is saying?
JACK MATLOCK: Well, it does seem to me that, practically speaking, there needs to be an understanding between Russia and the Ukrainians as to how to solve this problem. It is not going to be solved militarily. So the idea that we should be giving more help to the Ukrainian government in a military sense simply exacerbates the problem. And the basic problem is Ukraine is a deeply divided country. And as long as one side tries to impose its will on the other—and that is what has happened since February, the Ukrainian nationalists in the west have been trying to impose their will on the east, and the Russians aren’t going to permit that. And that is the fact of the matter. So, yes, there simply needs to be an agreement.
And most of the—I would say, the influence of the West in trying to help the Ukrainians by, I would say, defending them against the Russians tends to be provocative, because—you know, Putin is right: If he decided, he could take Kiev. Russia is a nuclear power. And Russia feels that we have ignored that, that we have insulted them time and time again, and that we are out to turn Ukraine into an American puppet that surrounds them. And, you know, with that sort of psychology, by resisting that, in Russian eyes, he has gained unprecedented popularity. So, it seems to me that we have to understand that, like it or not, the Ukrainians are going to have to make an agreement that’s acceptable to them, if they keep their unity.
AMY GOODMAN: Speaking to reporters Thursday, President Obama said the U.S. will collaborate with its NATO allies in dealing with the Ukraine crisis, but he ruled out military action against Russia.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We will continue to stand firm with our allies and partners that what is happening is wrong, that there is a solution that allows Ukraine and Russia to live peacefully. But it is not in the cards for us to see a military confrontation between Russia and the United States in this region. Keep in mind, however, that I’m about to go to a NATO conference. Ukraine is not a member of NATO, but a number of those states that are close by are. And we take our Article 5 commitments to defend each other very seriously.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s President Obama. Ambassador Jack Matlock, you say, you know, Russia is very threatened by the possibility Ukraine would join NATO. Most people in the United States, I don’t think, understand the politics of NATO. It’s not on people’s radar. Why is NATO such a threat? And what was the agreement that was originally worked out around NATO, with Ukraine and also in the Baltics, in Lithuania and Latvia and Estonia—Estonia, where President Obama is right now?
JACK MATLOCK: Well, they are members of NATO. They will be defended. Russia is not threatening them militarily. Of course we will defend them, because they are members of NATO. Ukraine is not a member of NATO. And why we react as if it is and has any claim on our cooperation in defending them from Russia, this is simply not the case. These are different cases. And, you know, by saying we have to increase our military presence in the Baltic states, this just reinforced the Russian perception that they must, and at all costs, keep Ukraine from that happening, or else they’ll have American bases in Ukraine, they’ll have American naval bases on the Black Sea. This is the fear. And it seems to me that it is not necessary to protect the Baltics, which are not being threatened by Russia, and it is apt to make the Russians even more demanding toward the Ukrainians when it comes to Ukraine. However, you know, we’re on that course, clearly. The Estonians and others feel that they could be threatened. But I think there is no question that as members of NATO, they would be defended by the United States, and Russia is not going to present a military challenge to them. But they are going to do whatever they consider necessary to make sure this doesn’t happen in Ukraine.
AMY GOODMAN: What about NATO officials saying they plan to approve a NATOrapid reaction force that would, what, be a 4,000-member force that could be rapidly deployed to eastern Europe in response to what they called Russia’s aggressive behavior?
JACK MATLOCK: Well, I’m not aware of what that aggressive behavior in regard to the Baltic states is. And again, I think that’s unnecessary, and it tends to make the Russians even more demanding when it comes to Ukraine.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about the original understanding of NATO and Russia. Go back a ways to understand what the deal was worked out between Russia andNATO allies.
JACK MATLOCK: Well, when the Berlin Wall came down, when eastern Europe began to try to free itself from the Communist rule, the first President Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush, met with Gorbachev in Malta, and they made a very important statement. One was we were no longer enemies. The second was the Soviet Union would not intervene in eastern Europe to keep Communist rule there. And in response, the United States would not take advantage of that.
Now, this was a—you might say, a gentlemen’s agreement between Gorbachev and President Bush. It was one which was echoed by the other Western leaders—the British prime minister, the German chancellor, the French president. As we negotiated German unity, there the question was: Could a united Germany stay inNATO? At first, Gorbachev said, "No, if they unite, they have to leave NATO." And we said, "Look, let them unite. Let them stay in NATO. But we will not extend NATO to the territory of East Germany." Well, it turned out that legally you couldn’t do it that way, so in the final agreement it was that all of Germany would stay in NATO, but that the territory of East Germany would be special, in that there would be no foreign troops—that is, no non-German troops—and no nuclear weapons. Now, later—at that time, the Warsaw Pact was still in place. We weren’t talking about eastern Europe. But the statements made were very general. At one point, Secretary Baker told Gorbachev NATO jurisdiction would not move one inch to the east. Well, he had the GDR in mind, but that’s not what he said specifically.
So, yes, if I had been asked when I was ambassador of the United States in Moscow in 1991, "Is there an understanding that NATO won’t move to the east?" I would have said, "Yes, there is." However, it was not a legal commitment, and one could say that once the Soviet Union collapsed, any agreement then maybe didn’t hold, except that when you think about it, if there was no reason to expand NATO when the Soviet Union existed, there was even less reason when the Soviet Union collapsed and you were talking about Russia. And the reason many of us—myself, George Kennan, many of us—argued against NATO expansion in the '90s was precisely to avoid the sort of situation we have today. It was totally predictable. If we start expandingNATO, as we get closer to the Russian border, they are going to consider this a hostile act. And at some point, they will draw a line, and they will do anything within their power to keep it from going any further. That's what we’re seeing today.
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