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Amidst a constant sense of responsibility towards the city’s residents and amid combat tasks, it is difficult to recall what happened not long ago…
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Imagine a situation in which some residents of a skyscraper notice a fire that can spread to the entire building and ring the alarm bells.
However the manager of the building instead of taking urgent steps to extinguish the fire, throws even more inflammable things into the fire so that the flames start rising and spreading much further, spreading the risk of fire to the entire building.
When the alarmed people raise questions, the manager says—this particular floor is of my rival and I must destroy this. People shout that in the process he may destroy the entire building including his own floor, but the manager continues to escalate the fire instead of extinguishing it.
Most people will say that such an absurd situation is never likely to occur.
But take a more careful look at the situation of the entire planet during the last two years or so.
This is a time when senior scientists have been warning increasingly that threats to the life-nurturing conditions of the planet due to climate change, other environmental problems and very dangerous and destructive weapons have been escalating, and yet, despite these warnings, several of the world’s top leaders have gone ahead and created the conditions for several new and high-risk wars to start and escalate, so much so that the talk of the third world war and a nuclear war breaking out has been heard more during the last two years than during the last two decades.
Doesn’t this appear eerily close to the analogy of a building’s manager, when told about a fire, responding by throwing inflammable materials into it? Also any analysis of the present-day world situation would reveal that the most dangerous risk-escalations are being caused recklessly with the aim of maintaining dominance of the world, maintaining the number one position, regardless of the enormous harm caused to the safety of the entire world in the process.
This in face is where we are at the moment in early 2024, with thousands of people dying in most painful ways on daily basis in dangerous wars and other man-made disasters, and in addition the possibility of all this rising further due to the world leadership being too busy in escalation of risks rather than in remedial actions.
Anyone who doubts this should merely look up the information on how fast the military-industrial complex is growing,how other high-risk and high-hazard industries are growing, how decisions jeopardizing human life are being taken for monetary gains and how a small number of persons are accumulating increasing power which they unhesitatingly exercise in ways which increase their power and wealth further but also increasingly endanger the life of this and future generations.
In the process the gulf between what the world needs and what is actually happening has been becoming wider and wider.
This must be bridged before it is too late. This must be our topmost priority.
The most important issue of our times is that the basic life-nurturing conditions of our planet are badly threatened and this threat should be checked with a sense of the utmost urgency. This threat comes from two sides—firstly, various environmental crises and secondly, weapons of mass destruction.
To check these, the most obvious first step is to minimize the possibility of war, to eliminate (or curb in various significant ways) all weapons of mass destruction and check the overall arms race as well.
Ideally, the most powerful countries including the permanent members of the UN Security Council can get together and put their collective strength into securing a no-wars future for the world.
With no international wars and the weapons race curbed, the creative energies of the world’s people can be devoted to checking the environmental crisis while meeting the basic needs of all people. People display amazing creativity once the goals and tasks are set out clearly, the does and don’ts are clear and a system of encouragements and discouragements is in place too. There should be the political will to check powerful polluters, and in addition people should be motivated and educated enough to avoid luxurious, polluting lifestyles.
This would be the ideal situation, but this does not appear to be on the horizon at all just now, and with new wars breaking out the already dangerously perched world appears to be moving further and further away from the real solutions, with agencies like the United Nations looking on more or less helplessly.
The extremely unfortunate reality is of worsening wars and weapons race, increasing power of polluting industries, bigger spread of consumerist thinking and lifestyles related to this. Environment protection is being promoted in some ways but there is more rhetoric than reality, more lip service than real change, so that the basic factors which cause environmental ruin remain in place or may even be becoming stronger in some ways.
Where do we go from here?
Of course there are still some outstanding, brilliant, very well-intentioned political leaders in various countries of the world, but the overall record of world’s political leadership in recent times, particularly in some of the most powerful countries, does not inspire confidence that they will be able to give top priority to the challenge of protecting the life-nurturing conditions of our planet.
Increasingly, therefore, there must be greater role of people’s non-violent mobilization and actions for meeting this greatest challenge of our times, and of the next generations, although of course there will be constant need for engaging with the political leadership and world organizations like the United Nations, creating conditions in which they are sometimes encouraged, sometimes compelled to take bigger decisions for protecting the planet.
This means that people’s movements with understanding and deep concern for this crucial issue of protecting the life-nurturing conditions of our planet must get together in various countries, and then must get close to each other across various countries. They must create conditions for more democratic freedoms to be available to them in all parts of the world. They must work together to create a common, broad agenda of achieving the essential conditions of saving the planet and all its inhabitants in time, within a framework of justice, peace and democracy.
Even highly relevant tasks such as climate chance are sometimes hijacked to powerful interests to serve their narrow interests. This brings serious distortions, so that environmental agenda which will displace and harm poor people (while promoting and benefiting the interests of the super-rich) is promoted, something which must be resisted strongly by people.
It is therefore important to assert that the best way of tackling the survival crisis (S) is by walking on the path of justice (J), equality (E), protection of environment and bio-diversity (P) and of course peace (P). To be able to identify this path in one word, this writer has been calling this the JEPPS path. It is this combination of principles and policies which is our best hope for protecting the life-nurturing conditions of our planet while at the same time resolving and reducing several other serious problems as well.
This will not be easy. Apart from the formidable organizational challenges of creating a worldwide movement, there are the problems relating to reaching broad agreement on the basics of a common agenda. Reductionist and narrow thinking is also common in several movements, which are more concerned about rather narrowly defined aims. As against these problems and constraints, there is the strength that any movement dealing with the most relevant issues and mobilizing people sincerely and honestly on these issues acquires with the passage of time, and the fact that with the threats to life-nurturing conditions manifesting in more fierce ways, the younger generation may be more rapidly and more firmly drawn to such a worldwide movement. This movement is also likely to get increasing strength from women.
Despite several uncertainties remaining, there is no doubt that the coming together of the movements of peace, environment and biodiversity protection, justice and equality, women and youth movements, movements for child rights will be good for humanity and will help to create a better world. Even if this does not lead to spectacular success in checking and curbing life-threatening conditions, it will at least help to place the world on a safer path. Another reason for hope is that while the initial progress may be slow and cumbersome, if the efforts are sustained with continuity for a certain time, once the base has been prepared, there can also be perhaps very quick success then, even the kind of success which may appear far-fetched at present, even spectacular success.
These efforts necessarily involve a very big educational and mobilization effort at various levels. This necessarily involves trying to change prevailing human values in ways that are more in tune with the needs of a world based on protection of environment, peace, justice and equality. As a beginning in this direction, this writer has been proposing that the next decade should be observed as the decade for saving (the life-nurturing conditions of) earth, a decade when humanity learns to give this the highest priority within a framework of justice, peace and democracy. So another consideration of high value just now must be to get the UN to declare 2025-35 as the Decade for Saving the Earth, with many highly creative programs being crafted and planned around this basic theme, particularly at community level and at the level of schools, colleges and other educational institutions.
*
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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His latest books include Planet in Peril, Protecting Earth for Children, Earth without Borders and A Day in 2071. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Save Our Planet Save Our Future, Belgium, January 31, 2019. Photo: EuroNews/Twitter.
The original source of this article is Global Research
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Introduction by Michel Chossudovsky on America’s “Humanitarian Wars”, followed by an incisive and carefully documented article by Veteran War Correspodent Felicity Arbuthnot on The War on Iraq.
With the exception of the War on Afghanistan (October 2001) and the 1990-91 Gulf War, all major US-NATO and allied led military operations over a period of more than half a century –since the invasion of Vietnam by U.S. ground forces on March 8, 1965– have been initiated in the month of March.
The Ides of March (Idus Martiae) is a day in the Roman calendar which broadly corresponds to March 15. The Ides of March is also known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC.
March 2024 marks the 21st anniversary of the onslaught of the war on Iraq.
The US-NATO led invasion of Iraq started on 20 March 2003 on the pretext that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).
In March, we will also be commemorating the Vietnam War launched on March 8, 1965 following the adoption by the US Congress of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized President Lyndon Johnson to dispatch ground forces to Vietnam.
We will also be remembering NATO’s War on Yugoslavia which was launched on March 24, 1999 under Operation “Noble Anvil”.
All these wars, according to the media, are peace-making undertakings. They are tagged as “Humanitarian Wars” under the banner of “Responsibility to Protect (R2P).
January-February 2024, we commemorated the thirty-third anniversary of so-called Gulf War, namely the first genocidal attack against Iraq.
“In Geneva, on 9th January 1991, then Secretary of State James Baker –a “diplomat” who stated: “We will reduce Iraq to a pre-industrial age”– met Iraq’s Foreign Minister, Tareq Aziz, with a letter from Bush Snr., promising the destruction of Iraq, if Kuwait was not withdrawn from by 15th January. Tareq Aziz stated he would not deliver the letter.” (Felicity Arbuthnot)
Retreating Iraqi Troops, February 1991.
Sending Countries “Back to the Stone-Age”
Iraq
Secretary of State James Baker stated:
“We will reduce Iraq to a pre-industrial age”
During that first war [Gulf War], Secretary of State James Baker told the Iraqi foreign minister that “we will return you to the pre-industrial age.”
Baker’s words were prophetic. The American-led coalition delivered 88,000 tons of bombs, equivalent … to seven Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs.
The bombing unquestionably set out to destroy the civilian infrastructure, leveling oil refineries, electrical plants and transportation networks. (The Nation, May 28, 2007)
Vietnam
General Curtis LeMay is quoted as saying in relation to North Vietnam:
“they’ve got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression, or we’re going to bomb them back into the Stone Age.
( Curtis Lemay, 1965 autobiography (co-author with MacKinlay Kantor)
Pakistan
“The Bush administration threatened to bomb Pakistan “back to the stone age” after the September 11 attacks if the country did not cooperate with America’s war on Afghanistan,
… General Pervez Musharraf, said the threat was delivered by the assistant secretary of state, Richard Armitage, in conversations with Pakistan’s intelligence director … ‘Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the stone age’,”. … (The Guardian, September 22, 2006, emphasis added)
Israel
“We are fighting against animals”, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant
Genocide is Embedded in America’s ‘Humanitarian Wars”
Is this not what Israel –with the firm support of the Biden Administration– is carrying out in Palestine?
All U.S. led wars have targeted hospitals and schools.
I recall Twenty-five years ago in the early hours of March 24, 1999, when NATO began the bombing of Belgrade under Operation “Allied Force ”,
“the children’s hospital was the object of air attacks. It had been singled out by military planners as a strategic target”.
The conduct of war crimes and genocide is integral part of what is euphemistically call “US Foreign Policy”.
The history of US-led wars confirms that murdering millions of civilians is an integral part of America’s global war agenda.
From Dresden to Gaza (1945-2024): The Death of 40+ Million People
Germany–World War II: (several cities bombed by U.S. including Dresden, Nuremberg, Hamburg, Cologne); Number of people killed: 600,000 (according to Israeli official’s recent statement)
Dresden 1945, Gaza, 2023
Japan-World War II:442,000 civilians killed by U.S. and U.K. fire bombing.
The U.S.’ so-called “War on Terrorism” has killed up to 4.6 million people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Pakistan according to a Brown University report.
Pakistan 1971: Up to three million ethnic Bengalis killed by the Pakistan army (a U.S. proxy) in East Pakistan (the country’s biggest province). Due to this East Pakistan separated from Pakistan and became Bangladesh.
The invasion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by U.S. proxies Rwanda and Uganda beginning in 1998 has killed more than 6.9 million civilians. This genocide continues.
“The above is a partial list which does not include Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Indonesia, Angola, Mozambique and Latin America.
Also of relevance are deaths resulting from famines and mass poverty enforced by U.S. policies globally, especially by sanctions”. (Global Research)
The article below by Iraq veteran war correspondent and CRG Research Associate Felicity Arbuthnot was first published by Global Research in August 2010.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, March 10, 2024
***
The War on Iraq : Five US Presidents, Five British Prime Ministers,
More than Thirty Years of Duplicity, and Counting…
by
Felicity Arbuthnot
“Out of the mirror they stare, Imperialism’s face and the international wrong.” (W.H. Auden, 1907-1973, writing in 1939.)
Twenty years ago this August, with a green light from America, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. He had walked into possibly the biggest trap in modern history, unleashing Iraq’s two decade decimation, untold suffering, illegal bombings, return of diseases previously eradicated and what can also only be described as UN-sponsored infanticide.
The reason for the Kuwait invasion, has been air brushed out of the fact books by Britain and America, and been presented as the irrational and dangerous act of a belligerent tyrant who was a threat to his neighbours. He had, they pointed out piously, attacked, then fought an eight year war with Iran, and exactly two years to the month, after the 20th August 1988 ceasefire, invaded Kuwait, on 2nd August 1990.
It was, of course, not quite that simple. After the US engineered the fall of the democratic government of Mossadegh, in Iran, resultant from his nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP) in 1953. After two years of economically ravaging sanctions, The US installed Shah Reza Pahvlavi (whose savage state police, SAVAK, were trained by General Norman Schwartzkopf, Snr., father of General “Storming” Norman Schwartzopf of the 1991 Gulf war, who famously declared at the time of the ceasefire: “… no one left to kill ..” )
Under the Shah, oil arrangements satisfactory to the United States were, of course, restored.
Five years later, across the border in Iraq, the British installed monarchy was overthrown and the popular leader of the anti-British uprising, Abdel Karim Kassem, began nationalizing the country’s Western assets. It took the CIA just five more years to bring about his overthrow. They picked the wrong collaborators, the nascent Ba’ath Party, with Saddam Hussein as Vice President, embarked on nationalizing the oil industry. President Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger schemed with Iran to arm the Kurds and weaken the Iraqi government. Iraq was placed on list of supporters of terrorism.
Interestingly, Saddam, and the Shah quietly came to US-excluded, mutually beneficial agreement – and aid to the Kurds was cut.
In 1980, the year after the Shah was overthrown, to grass roots Iranian jubilation, President Jimmy Carter announced the “Carter Doctrine”, with breath taking political arrogance, granting the US the unilateral right to intervene in the Persian Gulf region to protect US oil demands. With (broadly) a US political nod and wink, Iraq invaded Iran – the US aiding both sides in a war where the million lives estimated lost equal that of Rwanda and Armenia, each which have been cited as a genocide.
Iraq was also perceived as a more secular buffer again fundamentalist tendencies in Iran, under Ayatollah Khomeni. (Ironically, now, Iraq is largely politically dominated by fundamentalist Iranian-backed factions, which came in with the invasion, due, seemingly, to blind ignorance of the region by the British and Americans, their useless “diplomats” and unemployable “Middle East experts.”)
Carter won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize. His Carter Center blurb informs: “President Carter has been committed to peace in the Middle East since his White House days (and) advancing human rights, accountability and the rule of law”, in the region. Devotion is to : “Peace with Justice”; “Waging Peace.”
In 1984, President Reagan ordered the sharing of top secret intelligence with Iraq – and also with Iran. The following year, Colonel Oliver North of Iran-Contra infamy, informed Iranian authorities that the US would help Iran overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Subsequently, when Iraq looked vulnerable in America’s (arguably) proxy bloodbath, US military hardware and other assistance was ratcheted up. Breathtaking duplicity being the order of the decade, General Norman Schwartzkopf, then head of CENTCOM quietly intervened by re-flagging Kuwaiti tankers (with US flags) thus if attacked, it would be deemed an attack on the United States. The US began bombing Iranian oil platforms.
The scales tipped for Iraq, and in August 1988 the ceasefire was signed – and the (US) Center for Strategic and International Studies immediately began a two years study on the outcome of a war between the United States and Iraq. The following year, with much of Iraq’s youth “stone dead ..”, terribly wounded or imprisoned in Iran, it’s Air Force near wiped out, and the country financially on its knees, the US renamed War Plan 1002 – dreamt up to counter a Soviet confrontation – War Plan 1002-90, designating Iraq the new threat.
Iraq, needing to recoup the $billions the war had cost, now addressed the problem of Kuwait’s alleged systematic “slant drilling” under the Iraq/Kuwait border, in to Iraq’s Rumeila oil field, syphoning off, claimed Iraq, millions of $’s worth of oil. Iraq wanted – and desparately needed – reparation. Not in dispute is that over the eight years of war, Kuwait had moved its borders northwards in to Iraq by some considerable distance, by establishing encroaching settlements. Iraq wanted its territory back. Kuwait and the Gulf states were also manipulating oil prices, to hard pressed Iraq’s disadvantage, with Washington’s backing, claimed Iraq, with some justification.
Iraq, additionally, wanted to negotiate to lease two islands, Warbah and Bubiyan, from Kuwait, for additional access to the Gulf, which would also have reduced residual tensions with Tehran.* Tiny Kuwait, population at the time, under two million – “an oil company masquerading as a country”, as one commentator remarked unkindly – confident of mighty Washington’s backing, refused negotiation – as it had in 1975 and 1980.
After two years of attempts to resolve the problems with Kuwait, in late July, 1990, Saddam Hussein met with US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie. With the border tensions mounting, she told him that:
“I have direct instruction from the President (Bush Snr.,) to seek better relations with Iraq.”
She even expressed the United States apology for a critical article on Iraq by the American Information Agency, designating resultant broadcasted comments: “..cheap and unjust.” Adding that :
“President Bush … is not going to declare an economic war against Iraq.”
She continued:
“I admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. I know you need funds. We understand that and out opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country.” (How arrogantly, patronisingly kind.)
Then:
“But we have no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border dispute with Kuwait.”
Her conversation followed on from a meeting the previous April, between Glaspie and President Saddam, with five US Senators, Robert Dole, Alan Simpson, Howard Metzenbaum, James McClure and Frank Murkowski, who had travelled to Iraq, with President Bush’s blessings, ostensibly to form better relations and trade relations with Iraq and to assure that President Bush would oppose any suggestion of sanctions on Iraq.
President Saddam commented later to Glaspie that anyway:
“There is nothing left for us to buy from America except wheat. Every time we want to buy something they say it is forbidden. I am afraid, one day, you will say ‘You are going to make gunpowder out of wheat.’ ” (1)
The response to the invasion of Kuwait, was, of course, an embargo of unique severity, imposed on Hiroshima Day (6th August) 1990 (UNSCR 661.) All overseas assets were frozen, as were oil sales, thus, effectively all imports in a country which imported two thirds of absolutely everything (on advice given by the United Nations via their UN Food and Agriculture Organization.) Iraq faced famine. Infant mortality doubled in just four months, by December 1990. Advice to any country when outside consultants counsel relinquishing self-sufficieny : Don’t do it. The day before the embargo was imposed, President H.W. Bush stated:
“What’s emerging is nobody seems to be showing up as willing to accept anything less than total withdrawal from Kuwait of the Iraqi forces, and no puppet regime. We’ve been down that road, and there will be no puppet regime that will be accepted by any countries that I’m familiar with. And there seems to be a united front out there that says Iraq, having committed brutal, naked aggression, ought to get out, and that this concept of their installing some puppet — leaving behind — will not be acceptable. … There is no intention on the part of any of these countries to accept a puppet government, and that signal is going out loud and clear to Iraq. I will not discuss with you what my options are or might be, but they’re wide open, I can assure you of that.”
Britain’s then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher – whose son, Mark, was allegedly doing arms deals across the Middle East, using his mother’s status – pitched in on Hiroshima Day :
” … I think it is quite different when you have a nation which has violated all rules of United Nations Charter, which has gone in with guns and tanks to take and invade another country, which would have far-reaching consequences if it were left like that for every other country in the world … ” (Given America’s British-backed, bombings, invasions, imposed, useless, corrupt, foreign passport holding puppet governments, imposed since the Balkans in 1999 alone, irony is redundant.)
Without Congressional approval, Bush ordered forty thousand US troops to “defend Saudi Arabia”, despite no sign of any intention by Iraq to attack the Kingdom. Washington lied that Iraq’s troops were massing on Saudi’s border. They were not.
Entirely forgotten, is that just ten days after the invasion, Saddam Hussein, a staunch supporter of Palestinian rights, announced that Iraq would with draw from Kuwait, if Israel withdrew from Israeli occupied Palestinian territories. The United States rejected the offer, out of hand. Subsequently Iraq proposed withdrawal without the stipulation relating to Palestine. Washington rejected it as “a complete nonstarter.” For Washington, seemingly, war, war, is ever preferable to jaw, jaw. Heaven forbid peace should ever reign, the military industrial complex’s billion $s munitions bonanza would dry up and the remnants of the US economy with it. (For graphic unravelling of the unholy conspiracy in this, between media, military and politics, see: “The Global Economic Crisis – The Great Depression of the XXI Century”,
The US having refused all negotiation, then dispatched an extra three hundred and sixty thousand US troops to the Gulf at the end of November, the UN Security Council passed UNSCR 678, threatening force of Iraq did not withdraw by January 15th – Iraq having offered to withdraw, albeit with conditions on August 12th., and without conditions a short time later.
In Geneva, on 9th January 1991, then Secretary of State James Baker (a “diplomat” who stated: “We will reduce Iraq to a pre-industrial age”) met Iraq’s Foreign Minister, Tareq Aziz, with a letter from Bush Snr., promising the destruction of Iraq, if Kuwait was not withdrawn from by 15th January. Tareq Aziz stated he would not deliver the letter.
On 17th January the forty two day assault on Iraq began, as now well documented, deliberately destroying all infrastructure necessary to sustain society, including the deliberate targeting of all water purification facilities, with an exact time line of how long it would take Iraq’s complex water system “to fully degrade” issued to all NATO Command Headquarters.(2) Somewhere in Iraq’s ashes lay all the painstakingly crafted legal Treaties, Conventions and Principles, on war crimes and treatment of civilians in conflict, never to surface again, as far as the US and UK were concerned, arguably now officially signed up to “rogue state” status.
On 21st February, the USSR stated that Iraq had agreed to a complete withdrawal, without conditions. The United States rejected unless they had left by mid-day on 23rd. Interestingly, on the rare occasions the US and UK moot a withdrawal, the public is told, ad nauseum, that this is a complicated process which takes time and can not be achieved overnight. The US ground assault, however, almost could be. It started on 23rd February. Three days later, when the Iraqi troops did withdraw, they with civilians, were strafed mercilessly from both ends of the road to Basra, resulting in a massacre, or for General Norman Schwartkopf, a seemingly psychologically disturbed individual : “A turkey shoot.”
The ceasefire was finally agreed by America on February 28th., five months and sixteen days of decimation, after Saddam Hussein had first offered to withdraw.
Two days later, the US killed thousands more, heading from the south, towards Baghdad. Another war crime of enormity, for which no one has ever faced trial.
In the light of the near-unprecented illegality of all which has happened to Iraq, before 1991 and subsequently, the thirteen years of bombings, the famine-style deprivation, and then the illegal invasion built on lie, upon lie, it is worth returning to Margaret Thatcher, who quoted the fine words of St Francis (“Where there is discord, may we bring harmony, where there is error, may we bring truth … and where there is despair, may we bring hope”) from the steps of Downing Street, on 4th May 1979, the day she took office.
Further, in Afghanistan’s invasion and ongoing massacres by the occupiers, a gate crashing daily more resembling the towering illegality of that of Iraq, here are more of the 1990 Hiroshima Day’s now laughable lauding of the values and integrity of the US and UK:
“The West is dealing with a person who, without warning, has gone into the territory of another state with tanks, aircraft and guns, has fought and taken that state against international law, against the will of that state, and has set up a puppet regime. That is the act of an aggressor which must be stopped. While a person who will take such action on one state will take it against another state if he is not stopped.”
“President Saddam Hussein and Iraq are aggressors. They have invaded another country, they have taken it by force—that is not the way we do things in this world. Other countries have rights, they have their right to their nationhood, they have the right to their territorial integrity. He has been rightly branded as an aggressor, contrary to international law, and it is not a question of taunting, it is a question of earning the condemnation of the world and the appropriate action which follows.” The “Iron lady” Thatcher, was as subservient to Bush Snr., as her slippery successor, Blair was to Clinton and baby Bush.
On the 21st August, Thatcher opined:
“I think it is as well to remind ourselves how this whole position started. It started because Saddam Hussein substituted the rule of force for the rule of law and invaded an independent country and that cannot be allowed to stand.”
This August, an estimated three million dead later, in Iraq, as the bell now tolls ever louder for Iran, with the near identical sleights of hand and word being played out, as were against Iraq. Farcical, were it not so sinisterly demented, Iran is (says the US and UK) hell bent on making “weapons of mass destruction”, remember them? The one’s the crazies are still searching for in Iraq? The ones Iraq accounted for not having in 11,800 pages, delivered to the UN in December 2002 and stolen by the US mission to the UN?
The substitution of “the rule of force for the rule of law”, seemingly imminent, are there governments, statesmen and women, world bodies and institutions, unions; is there enough people power to halt the juggernaut on the Armageddon highway?
With the United Nations, as ever, either complicit, or asleep at the wheel, can “We the people” finally “.. save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”, and the equivalent unimaginable horrors of the equivalent of multiple Hiroshimas and Nagasakis.
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President Biden’s State of the Union address made one thing clear: war, genocide, and militarism remains the Amercian way.
From Gaza to Ukraine, from the Middle East to the borders of our own nation, the toll of violence from militarism is immeasurable. Will we ever see an end to the cycle of destruction fueled by capitalism and U.S. imperialism?
Firstly, let’s address the white elephant in the war.
Before the speech started, Democratic women leaders were shown wearing white in honor of women and feminism.
But let’s be very clear, whether it’s women sending bombs or men, the result remains the same: women and children are being murdered, communities shattered, and futures erased.
There’s no feminism in complicity with war and genocide, nor is there honor in turning a blind eye to the cries of the oppressed who are very loudly asking us to quit sending the bombs that are murdering their people.
Biden started the speech with an appeal for more money to fund the War in Ukraine. Yet in the two years since Russia invaded Ukraine with over a hundred billion dollars spent and countless lives lost Ukrainians are no closer to peace. Peace cannot be found in the endless military packages but in the corridors of diplomacy and peace talks, where dialogue and negotiation pave the way for lasting solutions.
He then moved on to taunt the need to protect democracy yet the White House and Congress continuously ignore the majority of the country who want an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, specifically Biden’s own voter base. A true democracy happens not just at the ballot box but beyond it. Yet, Biden chooses to ignore the very people who put him in office.
Along with “protecting democracy,” Biden also vowed to protect the environment. However, the contribution to militarism cannot be ignored. The U.S. military ranks as one of the largest consumers of oil globally, contributing significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. Instead of investing in renewable energy and supporting a just transition, precious resources are squandered to war and conflicts that ravage the planet and accelerate climate change.
President Biden’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and occupation of Palestine is a stain on the moral fabric of our nation. And he leaned into that support in his address. Using lies and unsubstantiated claims he attempted to legitimize Israel’s genocidal response to Oct. 7. However no matter how he tries to spin it – the death and destruction that innocent people are enduring on a daily basis, mostly women and children, cannot be justified in the name of political alliances or strategic interests. Nothing, absolutely justifies genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Biden’s latest response to Israel’s countless war crimes is to build a “temporary” port off the shores of Gaza to allow for humanitarian aid to enter the besieged land. But a temporary port does nothing to stop the permanent death and destruction from U.S. made bombs. It’s time to halt the flow of weapons to Israel or quit pretending to care about the lives of Palestinians.
Biden made it clear that war, genocide, and militarism are all still on top of the U.S. agenda. This will cost us all dearly. He must heed the demands of the public: stop the bombs, stop the militarization of our borders, stop the inhumane blockades that are starving people to death. The media will paint Biden’s speech as strong and positive but make no mistake – a country that relies on the death and destruction of others is a weak one. We desperately need leaders who will prioritize diplomacy over destruction, compassion over conflict, and humanity over hubris. Only then can we truly claim to be a nation committed to justice, equality, and the pursuit of peace for all. Until then, we will continue to be a country committed to war and genocide and never find lasting peace.
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Melissa Garriga is the communications and media analysis manager for CODEPINK. She writes about the intersection of militarism and the human cost of war.
Featured image: I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream- by Mr. Fish
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In 2017, Phil Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive, made the establishment of a public, state-owned bank a centerpiece issue during his run for New Jersey governor. He regularly championed public banking in speeches, town halls and campaign commercials. He won the race, and the nation’s second state-owned bank following the stellar model of the Bank of North Dakota (BND) appeared to be in view.
Due to the priority of other economic-policy goals, the initiative was largely kept on the back burner until November 2019. Then, in an article titled “Murphy Takes First Key Step Toward Establishing a Public Bank,” the New Jersey Spotlight announced:
Gov. Phil Murphy is planning to sign an executive order Wednesday [Nov. 13] that will create a 14-member “implementation board” to advance his goal of establishing a public bank in New Jersey.
The basic premise of such an institution is to hold the millions of dollars in taxpayer deposits that are normally kept in commercial banks and leverage them instead to serve some sort of public purpose. … [Emphasis added.]
North Dakota currently is the only state that operates a public bank wholly backed by the deposit of government funds. [Emphasis added.] Founded a century ago to help insulate farmers from predatory out-of-state lenders, the Bank of North Dakota offers residents, businesses and students low-cost services like checking accounts and loans. It has also been used to advance projects that boost infrastructure and economic development, and has even produced revenue for the state budget’s general fund, according to the bank’s promotional materials, thanks to lending operations that regularly turn a profit.
Gov. Murphy signed Executive Order 91 on Nov. 13, 2019, and the Implementation Board worked diligently for the next 3-1/2 years to advance its goals. In June of 2023, the governor signed bill S3977/A5670 into law, creating the New Jersey Social Impact Investment Fund (SIIF) along with a $20 million appropriation for seed funding. The State engaged Next Street, a mission-driven advisory firm, to create a report with guidance and input from the Public Bank Implementation Board, and on Feb. 2, 2024, Next Street submitted its “Recommendations for Implementing a Public Bank in New Jersey” to the governor.
The report did a commendable job of identifying the extensive needs for increased financing by a wide variety of interests in New Jersey, including support for small business, affordable housing, home ownership, student loans, education, better infrastructure, and many others. Also commendable were its recommendation that the Community Advisory Board be constituted of local stakeholders that could most benefit from public bank funding, and its assurance of accountability to the State and the public through transparency, detailed annual public disclosure, and an independent annual audit.
When Is a Bank Not a Bank?
Public banking advocates have serious concerns, however, about other aspects of the report. Most concerning is its apparent attempt to redefine a “public bank.” The report recommends creation of a public bank as a successor to the SIIF but asserts that the public bank should not be a depository institution. This recommendation is repeated throughout the report.
Many authorities confirm that a financial institution is not a “bank” unless it takes deposits. See e.g. Investopedia:
“A bank is a financial institution licensed to receive deposits and make loans.”
“A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits … and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans.”
The Wikipedia definition highlights the stellar advantage of a “bank” over a “revolving fund” of the sort the Next Street report recommends: banks actually create money as deposits when they make loans. It is this authority that gives bankers their enormous power in the economy and in government, and it is a power backed by the credit of the people. It should therefore belong to the people; and as Governor Murphy recognized in 2017, it can be reclaimed by the people through their own publicly-owned banks.
The nation’s sole state-owned public bank, the Bank of North Dakota, takes deposits. Taking deposits is what makes it a “bank.” Being owned by the state is what makes it a “public bank.” Because it is a bank, BND can create new money in the amount of the loan when it extends credit; and it is permitted to make a profit through its loans. It can convert its profits or a portion of them quickly to new capital, which can generate new loans up to 10 times the bank’s capital base.
A New Jersey public bank on this model would be able to grow quickly, eventually reaching the size needed to fully fund the state’s large unmet needs. See for reference “Why a Sovereign State Bank Is Good for Tennessee” by Prof. Richard Werner, who proposes initial capitalization of $500 million for a Tennessee state-owned bank. A $20 million revolving fund would be barely sufficient to cover New Jersey’s startup costs. The Next Street proposal is to leverage this fund with private capital, but that approach has repeatedly been shown to be inadequate to fund infrastructure and other major public projects. In many states it is unlawful for a lending institution that does not take deposits to call itself a “bank.” Public banking advocates contend that such misuse of the term “bank” confuses public officials and the public and hinders the public banking movement. The Public Banking Institute definition of “public banks” is “banks with a depository bank charter (or equivalent direct license) that the public owns through their representative government and that work to benefit local communities.” The PBI website also features an infographic distinguishing various types of financial institutions, titled “U.S. Public Banks, Banks, and NonBanks At-A-Glance: How Public Banks Excel.”
A Bank Is Not a Charitable Revolving Fund
Among other concerns are the Next Street presumption that the New Jersey public bank would be making risky, unprofitable loans (e.g. loans to uncreditworthy businesses otherwise unable to get affordable credit), and the recommendation that the bank could be majority privately owned and operated. The BND is more profitable than some of the largest Wall Street banks; and to be a public bank, the institution must by definition be either majority or 100% publicly owned and operated.
On the BND model, the New Jersey bank would be run by professional bankers who prioritize safe lending. BND has been safely operated for 105 years, despite a majority of its board occasionally shifting political parties. Experienced bankers make its loans free from board or political influence and from conflicts of interest. BND’s principal depositor, the state of North Dakota, by law must keep its funds in the bank, thus protecting BND from a run on its deposits. The Standard & Poor’s credit rating for the BND is A+/stable. The S&P report states, “BND has one of the highest risk-adjusted capital (RAC) ratios for rated U.S. banks.”
BND’s profitability has helped strengthen community banks and credit unions in North Dakota by making loans in partnership rather than in competition with them. In the Great Recession, it also bought loans from stressed local banks to prevent bank failures and keep the economy running smoothly. BND operates with very low overhead and stresses productive and local lending rather than lending to buy existing assets. The latter is the sort of speculative, nonproductive, bubble-creating lending engaged in by the giant commercial banks from which Gov. Murphy originally sought to divest. North Dakota’s revenues are safer in its own bank than in the largest Wall Street banks, which “insure” their capital with interconnected derivatives backed by rehypothecated collateral, a practice that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has declared to be “unsafe and unsound.”
A Litany of Contrary Studies
In contrast to the conclusions of the Next Street report, other detailed studies have recommended establishing true public depository banks and have demonstrated that this can be done safely, profitably and sustainably. Here are a few:
Public Bank East Bay Viability Study (2022). “This Study and the accompanying financial projections show that the PBEB [Public Bank East Bay, California] can achieve [its] goals while operating in a conservative and secure way, minimizing the financial risk to its sponsor governments.”
White Paper: Public Banking in the Northeast and Midwest States. This 2019 report by The Northeast-Midwest Institute “recommends that all NEMW states adopt a public bank and do so with close attention to their circumstances and needs, tailoring the bank’s specifics to the nuances of the state.”
Why a Sovereign State Bank is Good for Tennessee (2023). Prof. Werner states, “Banking is one of the most profitable industries. The State Bank of Tennessee will be profitable and constitutes a sound investment for the State of Tennessee. However, the benefits abound and go beyond merely commercial attractiveness. The establishment of the State Bank of Tennessee is a crucial step that can be built upon in a variety of ways in order to be able to counter future possible threats to financial and economic stability and economic and political autonomy and freedoms.”
Whether the final stage of New Jersey’s efforts will be a true public bank, as advocated by Gov. Murphy in 2017, remains to be seen. Meanwhile other states and cities are making impressive progress toward that goal. For updates, see the Public Banking Institute newsletter.
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Introduction
This article by Gary Kohls was first published on March 15, 2008 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of My Lai
This week at the height of the Israel-U.S. genocide, we are commemorating the 56th Anniversary of the My Lai Massacre, March 15, 1968.
Since World War II, the targeting of innocent civilians has become the mainstay of U.S. atrocities. Remember General Curtis Lemay:
“After destroying North Korea’s 78 cities and thousands of her villages, and killing countless numbers of her civilians, [General] LeMay remarked,
“Over a period of three years or so we killed off – what – twenty percent of the population.”
It is now believed that the population north of the imposed 38th Parallel lost nearly a third its population of 8 – 9 million people during the 37-month long “hot” war, 1950 – 1953, perhaps an unprecedented percentage of mortality suffered by one nation due to the belligerance of another.” (Brian Willson)
Without exception, all US-NATO wars have targeted civilians in derogation of International Law. It’s what you call “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P)
America’s “Humanitarian Wars”
Criminality is embedded in America’s Foreign Policy.
The conduct of massacres of civilians are invariably rewarded. Colin Powell, who was responsible for the coverup of the My Lai massacre acceded to a “brilliant” career in the Armed Forces.
In 2001 he was appointed Secretary of State in the Bush administration. Although never indicted, Powell was also deeply implicated in the Iran-Contra affair.
It is worth noting that Colin Powell was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time of the Gulf War, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of retreating Iraqi soldiers in what British war correspondent and Global Research Associate Felicity Arbuthnot entitled “Operation Desert Slaughter”.
“The forty two day carpet bombing, enjoined by thirty two other countries, against a country of just twenty five million souls, with a youthful, conscript army, with broadly half the population under sixteen, and no air force, was just the beginning of a United Nations led, global siege of near mediaeval ferocity.”
In the words of General Norman Schwartzkopf who led Operation Desert Slaughter “‘There was no one left to kill’…
There have been many US sponsored My Lais since the Vietnam war. Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Palestine. Not to mention the “Dirty War” and military coups in Latin America.
In a bitter irony, in 2018, Vietnam became an “unofficial” military ally of the US against China
Michel Chossudovsky. Global Research, March 10, 2024
Fifty-six years ago this week, on March 16, 1968, a company of US Army combat soldiers from the America Division swept into the South Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai, rounded up the 500+ unarmed, non-combatant residents, all women, children, babies and a few old men, and executed them in cold blood, Nazi-style. No weapons were found in the village, and the whole operation took only 4 hours.
Although there was a serious attempt to cover-up this operation (which involved a young up-and-coming US Army Major named Colin Powell), those who orchestrated or participated in this “business-as-usual” war zone atrocity did not deny the details of the slaughter when the case came to trial several years later. But the story had filtered back to the Western news media, thanks to a couple of courageous eye-witnesses whose consciences were still intact. An Army court-marital trial eventually convened against a handful of the soldiers, including Lt. William Calley and Company C commanding officer, Ernest Medina.
According to many of the soldiers in Company C, Medina ordered the killing of “every living thing in My Lai,” including, obviously, innocent noncombatants – men, women, children and even farm animals. Lt. Calley was charged with the murder of 109 civilians. In his defense statement he stated that he had been taught to hate all Vietnamese, even children, who, he had been told, “were very good at planting mines.”
That a massacre had occurred was confirmed by many of Medina’s soldiers and recorded by photographers, but the Army still tried to cover it up. The cases were tried in military courts with juries of Army officers, who eventually either dropped the charges against all of the defendants (except Calley) or acquitted them. Medina and all the others who were among the killing soldiers that day went free, and only Calley was convicted of the murders of “at least 20 civilians.” He was sentenced to life imprisonment for his war crime, but, under pressure from patriotic pro-war Americans, President Nixon pardoned him within weeks of the verdict.
The trial stimulated a lot of interest because it occurred during the rising outcry of millions of Americans against the infamous undeclared war that was acknowledged by many observers as an “overwhelming atrocity.” Ethical Americans were sick of the killing. However, 79% of those that were polled strenuously objected to Calley’s conviction, some veteran’s groups even voicing the opinion that instead of condemnation, he and his comrades should have received medals of honor for killing “Commie Gooks.”
Just like the extermination camp atrocities of World War II, the realities of My Lai deserve to be revisited so that it will happen “never again.” The Vietnam War was an excruciating time for conscientious Americans because of the numerous moral issues surrounding the mass slaughter in a war that uselessly killed 58,000 American soldiers, caused the spiritual deaths of millions more, killed 3 million Vietnamese (mostly civilians) and psychologically traumatized countless others on both sides of the conflict.
Of course the Vietnam War was a thousand times worse for the innocent people of that doomed land than it was for the soldiers. The Vietnamese people were victims of an army of brutal young men from a foreign land who were taught that the “little yellow people” were pitiful sub-humans and deserved to be killed – with some GIs preferring to inflict torture first. “Kill-or-be-killed” is a reality that is standard operating procedure for military combat units of every nation of every era and of every ideology.
Vietnam veterans tell me that there were scores, maybe hundreds, of “My Lai-type massacres “ during that war. Not surprisingly, the Pentagon refuses to acknowledge that truth. Execution-style killings of “potential” Viet Cong sympathizers (i.e., anybody that wasn’t a US military supporter) were common. Many combat units “took no prisoners” (a euphemism for murdering captives, rather than having to follow the nuisance Geneva Conventions which requires humane treatment for prisoners of war). The only unusual thing about the My Lai Massacre was that it was eventually found out. The attempted Pentagon cover-up failed but justice was still not done.
Very few soldiers or their commanding officers have ever been punished for the many war crimes that occurred during that war because those in charge knew that killing (and torturing) of innocent civilians during war-time is simply the norm – excused as “collateral damage.” After all, as US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld later infamously proclaimed, “stuff happens.”
The torture was enjoyable for some – for awhile (witness Auschwitz yesterday and Abu Graib and Guantanamo Bay today). And wars are profitable for many – and still are (witness the Krupp family of Nazi-era infamy and Halliburton, the Blackwater mercenaries, et al. today).
The whole issue of the justification of war, with its inherent atrocities, never seems to be thoroughly examined in an atmosphere of openness and historical honesty. Full understanding of the realities of war and its spiritual, psychological and economic consequences for the victims is rarely attempted. If we who are non-soldiers ever truly experienced the horrors of combat, the effort to abolish war would suddenly be a top priority (perhaps even for the current crop of “Chicken Hawk” warmongers in the Bush Administration).
If we actually knew the gruesome realities of war (or even understood the immorality of spending trillions of dollars on war preparation while hundreds of millions of people are homeless and starving) we would refuse to cooperate with the things that make for war. But that wouldn’t be good for the war profiteers. So those “merchants of death” must hide the gruesome truths and try instead to make war seem patriotic and honorable, with flag-waving sloganeering like “Be All That You Can Be.” Or they might try to convince the soon-to-be-childless mothers of doomed, dead or dying soldiers that their child had died fighting for God, Country and Honor instead of domination of the Middle East’s oil reserves.
Let’s face it. The US military standing army system has been bankrupting America at $500+ billion year after year after year – even in times of so-called “peace.” The warmongering legacy of the Pentagon is still with us, particularly among those “patriots” including GOP presidential candidate John McCain, who wanted to “nuke the gooks” in Vietnam. A multitude of un-elected policy-makers of that ilk are still in charge of US foreign policy today, and they have been solidifying their power to continue America’s misbegotten, unaffordable and unsustainable militarism with the huge profits made off the deaths, screams, blood, guts and permanent disabilities of those hood-winked soldiers who were told that they were ”saving the world for democracy” when in fact they were making the world safe for exploitive capitalism and obscene profits for the few. And the politicians entrenched in both major political parties, who are all-too-often paid lapdogs for the war profiteers, don’t want the gravy train to be derailed.
Things haven’t changed much even from the World War II mentality that conveniently overlooked the monstrous evil that was perpetrated on tens of thousands of unarmed, innocent civilians at Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, a war crime so heinous that the psychological consequences, immune deficiency disorders and cancers from that nuclear holocaust are still being experienced in unimaginable suffering 6 decades later.
Things haven’t really changed when one witnesses the political mentality that allows the 500,000 deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians in the aftermath of the first Gulf War or the 1,000,000 civilian deaths in the current fiasco in Iraq.
So it appears that our military and political leaders haven’t learned anything since My Lai. The people sitting next to you at work are, like most unaware Americans, almost totally ignorant of the hellish realities of the war-zone, so they may continue to be blindly patriotic and indifferent to the plight of the “others” who suffer so much in war. They may think that some people are less than human, and, therefore, if necessary, can be justifiably killed “for Volk, Fuhrer und Vaterland.”
As long as most American citizens continue to glorify war and militarism and ignore or denigrate the peacemakers; as long as the American public endorses the current spirit of nationalism and ruthless global capitalism; and as long as the America’s political leadership remains prudently silent (and therefore consenting to the homicidal violence of war) we will not be able to effect a change away from the influence of conscienceless war-mongers and war profiteers. The prophets and peacemakers are never valued in militarized nations, especially in times of war; indeed, they are always marginalized, demeaned and even imprisoned as traitors. And one of the reasons is that there are no profits to be made in peacemaking, whereas there are trillions to be made in the biggest business going: the preparation for war, the execution of war and the highly profitable “re-building” efforts (“blow it up/build it up” economics), all the while ignoring the “inconvenient” but inevitable collateral damage to the creation and its creatures.
As long as we continue to be led by unapologetic and merciless war-makers and their wealthy business cronies and as long as the ethical infants in Washington, DC continue to be corrupted by the big money bribes, there is no chance America will ever obtain true peace.
And unless America stops the carnage, fully repents and offers compensation for the damage it has done, its turn as a recipient of retaliatory violence will surely come, and it will come from those foreign and domestic victims that our nation’s leaders have treated so shamefully over the past half-century.
March 2008 – Gary G. Kohls, MD, Duluth, MN
The original source of this article is Global Research
As the calendar barrels into another year and we tick away the days of February, notable anniversaries are marked off in sequence. It is now 2/22/2022 +2: two years since Putin’s address on the historic status of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, followed on 2/24/2022 by the commencement of the Special Military Operation and the spectacular resumption of history.
The nature of the war changed dramatically after a kinetic and mobile opening phase. With the collapse of the negotiation process (whether thanks to Boris Johnson or not), it became clear that the only way out of the conflict would be through the strategic defeat of one party by the other. Thanks to a pipeline of western support (in the form of material, financial aid, and ISR and targeting assistance) which allowed Ukraine to transcend its rapidly evaporating indigenous war economy, it became clear that this would be a war of industrial attrition, rather than rapid maneuver and annihilation. Russia began to mobilize resources for this sort of attritional war in the Autumn of 2022, and since then the war has attained its present quality – that of a firepower intensive but relatively static positional struggle.
The nature of this attritional-positional war lends itself to analytic ambiguity, because it denies the most attractive and obvious signs of victory and defeat in large territorial changes. Instead, a whole host of anecdotal, small scale positional analysis, and foggy data has to suffice, and this can be easily misconstrued or misunderstood. Ukraine’s supporters point to nominally small scale advances to support their notion that Russia is suffering cataclysmic casualties to capture small villages. This suggests that Russia is winning meaningless, pyrrhic victories which will lead to its exhaustion, so long as Ukraine receives everything it asks for from the west. At the same time, the Z-sphere points to these same battles as evidence that Ukraine can no longer hold even its most heavily defended fortress cities.
What I intend to argue here is that 2024 will be highly decisive for the war, as the year in which Ukrainian strategic exhaustion begins to show out at the same time that Russia’s strategic investments begin to pay off on the battlefield. This is the way of such an attritional conflict, which burdens armies with cumulative and constant stressors in a test of their recuperative powers. Wear and tear and the raging of the waters will erode and burden the dike until it bursts. And then the deluge comes.
Avdiivka: Tactical Overmatch
The signature operational development of 2024 is at this point clearly the complete Russian capture of Avdiivka. The strategic significance of Avdiivka has itself been subject to debate, with some dismissing it as little more than a dingy suburb of Donetsk, targeted to give Putin a symbolic victory on the eve of Russian elections.
In fact, Avdiivka is clearly a locale with great operational significance. A Ukrainian fortress since the beginning of the Donbass War in 2014, Avdiivka served as a keystone blocking position for the AFU on the doorstep of Donetsk, sitting on a major supply corridor. Its capture creates space for Russia to begin a multi-pronged advance on next-phase Ukrainian strongholds like Konstantinivka and Pokrovsk (more on that later) and pushes Ukrainian artillery away from Donetsk.
The subject that would seem to be of particular importance, however, was the manner in which Russia captured Avdiivka. The struggle amid the wreckage of an industrial city provided something of a Rorschach test for the war, with some seeing the battle as yet another application of Russian “meat assaults”, overwhelming the AFU defenders with mass amid horrific casualties
This story does not hold up to scrutiny, as I would like to demonstrate from a variety of angles. First, we can try to gauge casualties. This is always difficult to do with a high degree of accuracy, but it would be useful to look for abnormalities or spikes in Russian loss patterns. The most widely accepted source for this would be the Mediazona casualty tracker (an explicitly anti-Putinist media project operated out of the west).
When one goes to examine the Mediazona counts, an interesting discrepancy manifests itself. The summary text notes that a four-month battle for Avdiivka has recently concluded, and Mediazona states: “We are seeing significant growth of Russian casualties since mid-October.” This is actually quite odd, because their data shows the literal opposite. Since October 10 (the day of the first major Russian mechanized assault on Avdiivka), Mediazona has counted an average of 48 Russian casualties per day, which is actually significantly less than the burn rate earlier in the year. In contrast, Mediazona counted 80 casualties per day on average from January 1 to October 9. This period, of course, includes heavy fighting in Bakhmut, so if one takes the period between the end of the Battle of Bakhmut and the beginning of the Battle of Avdiivka (May 20 to October 9) one finds an average of 60 Russian casualties per day. A time series of Mediazona’s weekly confirmed casualties also shows a downward trend, making one wonder how they can feel comfortable claiming that the action in Avdiivka has raised the burn rate
Furthermore, Ukrainian sources on the ground emphasized that the Russian assault in Avdiivka was quite certainly not a mere function of mass, and noted effective Russian small unit tactics with a powerful fire support. One Ukrainian officer told Politico: “That’s how they work in Avdiivka — artillery levels everything to the ground, and then professional landing troops come in small groups.” Another officer described Russian small unit assaults (5 to 7 men) occurring at night. All of this is inconsistent with the trope about Russian “human wave” assaults – which, we should note, have never been caught on camera. Given the Ukrainian fondness for sharing combat footage, oughtn’t we expect to see some alleged evidence of these Russian waves being mowed down?
All this is to say, the claim that Russia (yet again) suffered catastrophic losses in Avdiivka is simply not supported. Like a previous analysis in which I showed that Russian armor losses were not rising or showing abnormal patterns, we yet again have a major Russian assault failing to cause a spike in the loss data. This is not to deny that Russia has suffered casualties. The operation at Avdiivka was a high intensity, four month battle. Men are killed and vehicles are destroyed in such affairs, but there is little evidence that this occurred at abnormal or alarming rates for the Russian Armed Forces.
Now, you’re certainly free to make your own judgements, and I have no doubt that the belief in massive Russian casualties and human wave assaults will endure. However, to believe this, you must make an epistemological leap of faith – believing that the wasteful human waves exist despite Ukrainian fighters testifying to the opposite, and that Russian casualties have risen in a way that is somehow invisible to trackers like Warspotting and Mediazona.
In contrast, Avdiivka stands out as the first major engagement of the war where Ukraine’s growing material shortages have been acutely felt. After burning through much of their accumulated stock (including the large batch of shells purchased from South Korea by the United States), the AFU felt a glaring and painful artillery shortage in Avdiivka. Complaints about “shell hunger” were a motif of the coverage of the battle. Of course, we’ve heard about the growing shell shortage for months (and it is known that Ukraine simply does not have enough tubes to cover the entire front), but Avdiivka stands out as a keystone position, important enough for Ukraine to scramble premier assets to reinforce it, where they simply could not provide an adequate base of fire
Avdiivka
In the absence of adequate artillery, Ukraine has increasingly tried to lean on FPV drones as a substitute. There is a certain strategic logic to this, in that small drones can be manufactured in distributed facilities and do not require the capital intensive production centers (vulnerable to Russian strike systems) that artillery shells do.
However, drones are clearly not a panacea to Ukraine’s problems. In the simple technical sense, the destructive power of an FPV drone (which usually carries the warhead of a rocket propelled grenade) pales in comparison to an artillery shell and is thus unsuitable for suppressive fire or the reduction of strongpoints. Drones are also subject to disruptions from weather and electronic warfare in ways that artillery is not. More importantly, however, Ukraine is simply losing the drone race. Ukraine’s achievements ramping up drone production in wartime are genuinely impressive, but the country’s industrial base is still far smaller and more vulnerable than Russia’s, and Russia’s drone production is starting to widely outstrip Ukraine’s. Ukraine’s weakness in other arms prompted them to be the first party to lean heavily on FPVs, but that early lead has been lost.
So, drones clearly offer a lethal and important battlefield expedient, but they are neither a genuine replacement for artillery nor an arm of clear advantage for Ukraine. The result was a Ukrainian defense in Avdiivka that was substantially outgunned. The problem was compounded by the rapid proliferation of Russian air dropped glide bombs, alongside the degradation of Ukraine’s air defense. This allowed the Russian air force to operate around Avdiivka with something approaching impunity, dropping hundreds of glide bombs with the power to – unlike artillery shells, let alone tiny FPV warheads – level the fortified concrete blocks that normally make Soviet vintage cities so durable in urban fighting.
Thus, Avdiivka unfolded along a pattern that is now becoming very familiar, and indicates the emerging Russian preference for assaulting cities, at least of this mid-sized fortress variety. Once again the operation focused in its preliminary phase on flaring out Russian control over the flanks, beginning with the large mechanized assault in early November which secured positions on the railway line to the north of the city. Again (as in the case of Bakhmut and Lysychansk-Severodonetsk) there was an expectation among some that Russia would attempt to encircle the city, but this still does not look feasible in the current operating environment under the nexus of fires and ISR. Instead, positions on the flank allowed the Russians to launch concentric attacks into the city, entering on multiple axes that compressed the Ukrainian defenders into a tight interior position, where Russian fire could be heavily concentrated
Concentric Attack on Avdiivka: February 7-14 (Base Map courtesy of Kalibrated Maps)
The particular combination of concentric attack and overwhelming Russian fires led to a very rapid end to the battle once the Russian push into the city proper began. While the creep around the flanks occurred in a sequence of on and off pushes through the winter, the concentric crush on the city lasted scarcely more than a week. On February 7-8 the Russians achieved breakthroughs in both the northern and southern suburbs, and by February 14 the Ukrainians were in retreat. A few pockets of resistance would linger for only a few days.
The issue for Ukraine now goes beyond the loss of Avdiivka and the opportunities that this will create for Russia. Ukraine now has proof of failure on both the attack and the defense in operations where they concentrated significant forces. Their counteroffensive on Russia’s Zaporhzia Line was a catastrophic failure, wasting much of the AFU’s carefully husbanded mechanized package, and now they have a failed defense on their hands in Avdiivka, despite fighting out of a well prepared fortress and scrambling reserves into the sector to reinforce the defense.
The question now becomes fairly simple: if Ukraine failed to attack successfully over the summer, if they could not defend Bakhmut, and if they cannot defend in Avdiivka, is there anywhere that they can find a battlefield success? The dam is leaking. Can Ukraine plug it before it collapses?
Russia’s Full Court Press
Ukraine’s force structure is always notoriously difficult to parse out, due to their propensity for ad-hoc battlegroups and their practice of piecemeal allocation of forces to resident brigade commands (turning brigade headquarters into the cups in a shell game). Truth be told, Ukrainian ORBAT and force allocation is in a class all its own – to try and get a handle on it, you can do no better than Matt Davies’ excellent work over on X dot com. This generally makes the AFU’s organization and force generation more opaque and more difficult to parse out than Russia’s, for example. While Russia employs conventional army level groupings, Ukraine does not, and indeed lacks any organic commands above the brigade level.
That being said, the basic picture is one of three Ukrainian “Operational Strategic Groupings”, which are vaguely akin to army groups. These are, from north to south, Operation Strategic Groupings (OSGs) Khortytsia, Tavriya, and Odessa. Against these are arrayed four Russian Army Groups – from north to south, these are Army Groups West, Center, East, and Dnieper. Assessing the total line strength is always difficult, largely because we do not always have good insight into the actual combat rating of these units. However, we can make estimates of paper strength. Based on deployment information from the Project Owl Ukraine Control Map and the Militaryland Deployment Map, we can estimate that the nominal strength in the theater right now is some 33 Division Equivalents for Ukraine against perhaps 50 DEs for Russia – a significant, but not utterly overwhelming Russian advantage. We get a picture something like this (Ukrainian Army level formations are absent because they do not exist)
Ukrainian Theater Army and Group Level Commands (Base Control Map provided by Kalibrated Maps)
At the moment, Russia is grinding slowly forward on almost every axis in the theater. This has both strategic/attritional implications, in that the Ukrainians are forced to continually burn reserves while being denied the ability to rotate and reconstitute units, but there is also a clear operational formulation occurring.
The Russian maneuver scheme must be held in reference to their minimum end state objectives – namely, the capture of the remaining Donbas urban agglomerations around Slovyansk and Kramatorsk (though we should not assume that the war or Russian ambitions end there). At the moment, there are several major axes of advance, which I am labelling as follows
Russian Axes of Attack (Base Control Map provided by Kalibrated Maps)
The intention of these thrusts is fairly obvious. In the center of the front, Russian advances on the Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar axes converge on the critical Ukrainian hub of Konstyantinivka, the capture of which is one of the absolute prerequisites for any serious attempt to move on the Kramatorsk agglomeration. Russian bases of control around Avdiivka and Bakhmut provide the necessary space to begin a two-pronged operation towards Konstyantinivka, bypassing and enveloping the strongly held Ukrainian fortress of Toretsk. (See the map below, which I made in December before the capture of Avdiivka)
Meanwhile, continued Russian pressure on the northern front (via a slow squeeze on the city of Kupyansk, at the top of the Oskil line as well as operations towards Lyman on the Zherebets axis) provide a base of progress towards the other operational perquisite for Kramatorsk, which is the Russian recapture of the north bank of the Donets River, up to the confluence of the Oskil at Izyum
Russia’s North Donetsk Campaign
Meanwhile, on the more southerly axes, Russia continues to expand its zone of control after the capture of Marinka, likely with the aim of developing momentum towards Kurakhove, which would put the Ukrainian fortress of Ugledar in a more severe salient. Ugledar remains a thorn in Russia’s side, in that it lies uncomfortable close to Russian rail lines into the land bridge. Russia is also attacking the Ukrainian held Robotyne salient (the sparse fruits of Ukraine’s counteroffensive). While these attacks have, as we have mentioned, attritional benefits by way of pinning Ukrainian forces in the line, it seems likely that Russia would aim to recapture the Robotyne salient to preempt any Ukrainian designs of using it as a springboard for a future attempt to restart operations towards Tokmak. Thus, these southern operations have both attritive effects and offer the potential of preventatively neutralizing useful Ukrainian staging points
Overall, the broad operational situation suggests that Russia is developing offensive momentum across the entire theater. This will have deleterious effects on Ukrainian combat power by preventing rotation, reconstitution, and lateral troop redeployment, while sucking in the dwindling Ukrainian reserves. Shoigu recently made an uncharacteristically bold statement that the AFU was committing much of its remaining reserves:
“After the collapse of the counteroffensive, the Ukrainian army command has been trying to stabilize the situation at the expense of the remaining reserves and prevent the collapse of the frontline.”
This is, if not totally verifiable, at least notable given his general reticence to make sweeping statements about the state of the war.
In the near term (meaning the spring and summer months) we should expect Russia to progress towards the following intermediate operational goals:
Developing a concentric offensive towards the Ukrainian agglomerations around Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, and Kontyantinivka
An offensive along the Zherebets-Oskil line towards Lyman, to capture or screen the Donetsk River line as a prerequisite for an operation against Kramatorsk
Continued assaults towards Kurakhove in preparation for the liqudiation of the Ugledar salient
Preventative attacks towards the Orakhiv axis to prevent future Ukrainian attempts to exploit the Robotyne salient
Farwell Zaluzhny
Against the backdrop of Ukraine’s defeat at Avidiivka, President Zelensky began a long expected command overhaul when he fired Commander in Chief Valery Zaluzhny and replaced him the the commander of the ground forces, Oleksandr Syrski.
There a variety of amusing ethnic and political subplots to this, particularly the longstanding tensions between Zelensky and Zaluzhny, the many ridiculous rumors that Zaluzhny had become a political rival to Zelensky and might be the lead figure in a military takeover of the government, and the rather ironic fact that the new top man, Syrski, is a Russian born less than fifty miles outside of Moscow, who ended up in Ukrainian service simply because his unit was posted near Kharkov when the Soviet Union fell, and he opted not to resign his command.
This is all very interesting, of course, and perhaps might help demonstrate that the relationship between these countries is far more convoluted and nuanced that most westerners assume. What matters for our purposes, however, is the military implications
Farewell, Sweet Prince
What we should say about Zaluzhny is that, while he was not really Ukraine’s biggest problem, he did not have the answers. Zaluzhny displayed a bizarre timidity, particularly throughout the Battle of Bakhmut and the Ukrainian Counteroffensive. We constantly heard about Zaluzhny’s reservations and opposition to Ukrainian plans – he was against the costly defense of Bakhmut, skeptical of the attack out of Orikhiv, and so forth. There was even a rumor that Zaluzhny told Zelensky that the counteroffensive had failed already in the opening weeks of the operation.
The problem with all of this is simple: Zaluzhny cannot have it both ways. He seemed to be positioning himself as a voice of caution and reason, distancing himself from operations on the ground, while allowing those operations to go forward anyway. Over the summer, supposedly at the same time that Zaluzhny had concluded that the counteroffensive was failing, he continued to push Ukrainian mechanized forces into the Russian defenses in small, company sized battlegroups.
Ultimately, Zaluzhny strikes one as a non-entity: skeptical of Ukrainian battle plans, but willing to implement them anyway without offering alternatives of his own. In particular, his hesitation led the Ukrainian counteroffensive to devolve into a sequence of wasteful probing attacks which lacked the mass to achieve a decisive result and inevitably spiraled into a slow motion trainwreck. A commander who complains about battleplans while implementing them anyway is begging an obvious question: what is it that you do around here, anyway?
In contrast, Syrski is a man who clearly exerts some will on the battlefield, for good or ill. His preference for commitment and combat has resulted in several of Ukraine’s ugliest defeats – he is, after all, the architect of the Bakhmut defense and the firebag at Lysychansk. But he’s also the showrunner for Ukraine’s signature military success to this point, in the 2022 Kharkov Counteroffensive, where he successfully exploited a badly hollowed out section of Russian front and recaptured important positions over the Oskil
Syrski (2nd from left) checks the situation map
Syrski may very well lead Ukraine to disaster. He has shown a tolerance for casualties that could easily break the AFU’s back, and a preference for generating horrible, grinding positional defense. But Syrski at least has a propensity to look for decision points, unlike Zaluzhny, who seemed content to slowly wither away in positional battle against a superior foe. Aggression could easily cause disaster for Ukraine, but time had clearly run out on Zaluzhny’s way of war.
Outgunned: Ukraine and the Arms Race
The Russo-Ukrainian War is one of industrial attrition. Despite a variety of theories about this or that game changing weapon, clever maneuver scheme, or superior western training, the reality of this war for the last 18 months has been one of grinding and laborious industrial war, battering through fixed defenses in a maelstrom of concrete, steel, and high explosives. The central problem for Ukraine is fairly simple: Russian force generation is reaching the liftoff point, which will interminably shift combat power in Russia’s favor.
As artillery shells have become the totem item in this war, a commentary on the state of the artillery race is certainly warranted. Ukraine managed to build a large inventory of shells in preparation for its 2023 summer offensive, partially through careful husbanding of resources and partially through the United States tapping a few remaining reservoirs, like South Korea. After expending much of that stockpile in high intensity operations through the summer, the artillery advantage has once again swung heavily in favor of Russia, and “shell hunger” has become a ubiquitous complaint for Kiev.
After burning through excess stocks, Ukraine’s long-term supply has increasingly come to hinge on attempts to expand production in Europe and the United States. However, this plan is foundering on three separate rocks: 1) industry has been much slower to ramp up than expected; 2) even the expanded production targets are too low to win the war for Ukraine; and 3) even if adequate ammunition could be procured, Ukraine would quickly run into problems with barrel availability.
Thus far, the United States has been much more successful ramping up production than has Europe. While American targets have been revised several times, it now looks like the United States will produce something like 500,000 shells in 2024, which is a good number given the state of the American industrial plant and issues with labor shortages. The European Union initially hoped to deliver 1 million shells on an annualized basis, but they appear to be far short of this number. Europe faces a variety of problems, like labor shortages, exorbitant energy costs, and a consensus driven decision making culture that is slow to allocate significant resources. The European practice of small orders placed by individual member states also leaves manufacturers hesitant to make large investments in new production lines. Or, as one Belgian general put it: “We’re in deep shit.”
Let’s say that the USA and Europe both fulfill their current targeted deliveries to Ukraine in their entirety. What would that amount to? A recent study from two German analysts at the European Council on Foreign Relations estimated that, in the optimist scenario, the USA and Europe can supply Ukraine with approximately 1.3 million rounds of ammunition on an annualized basis. That would give Ukraine a budget of about 3,600 shells per day – enough to sustain moderate intensity, but far below what they need
The primary means of physical destruction
Last year, Ukrainian Minister of Defense Reznikov said that Ukraine would require nearly 12,000 shells per day to “successfully execute battlefield tasks”, particularly offensive actions. That works out to more than 350,000 shells per month – more than three times what the NATO bloc is hoping to produce. Obviously that large number is unrealistic, but a recent study from the Estonian Ministry of Defense estimated that at minimum Ukraine will need 200,000 shells per month (Roughly 6,600 per day). At the estimated long-run availability of 3,600 per day, Ukraine can have some basic functionality, but they will find it difficult to accumulate a stockpile to allow higher intensity offensive operations.
This runs into an additional, follow on problem, which is that simply pumping shells into Ukraine is not enough. Solving the shell shortage will exacerbate the barrel shortage. Artillery barrels, needless to say, wear out from extended use. Using a rule of thumb number which says that a howitzer barrel has a lifespan of about 2,500 shots, this means that Ukraine would be wearing out somewhere between 125-150 guns per month, assuming they could actually shoot as much as Reznikov wants. This would create yet another sustainment bottleneck, complicated by the fact that Ukraine has at least 17 different platforms in use.
Meanwhile, what of the Russians? It’s clear that Russia’s pool of shells has been vastly underestimated. First we have the news that North Korean deliveries have been far larger than initially expected; instead of 1 million, it’s something more like 3 million with deliveries ongoing. This number is dampened by the fact that some of the North Korean shells are defective (from long stays in depots and cannibalization), but the sheer size of the delivery can’t be ignored. Meanwhile, indigenous Russian production has skyrocketed, with the Estonians estimating some 3.5 million shells produced in 2023 for the Russians, with a figure of 4.5 million expected in 2024. Including North Korean shells, it seems highly likely that Russian can easily sustain a firing rate of up to 12,000 shells per day, with surge capacity in reserve
The upshot of all this is essentially that, even if the European production surge occurs on schedule, there’s at least a 3-1 advantage (potentially 5-1) in Russian artillery fire that’s baked into the calculus of this war, occurring alongside a substantial western acknowledged ramp up in Russian production of strike systems like cruise missiles, Geran drones, Lancets, and glide bombs of both greater power and greater range. A recent publication from the Royal United Services Institute noted that Russia can deliver 1,500 tanks (both new build and retrofitted depot stocks) and 3,000 armored vehicles per year – the report also notes that Russian stocks of Iskander and Kalibr missiles have grown significantly over the last year.
The standard argument – the sort of “Theory of Ukrainian Victory” – rests on the idea of disproportionate, catastrophic Russian casualties, and both sides love to throw around that cherished word “loss ratios.” However, this rather tends to obfuscate the issue. The most important question is simple whether an army’s relative combat power is growing or shrinking over time – that is, whether its ability to generate forces is greater than its rate of burn – can it reconstitute attrited units in a timely manner, generate replacements, recover, repair, and replace broken equipment, and so forth. The prototypical example of this is of course the Nazi-Soviet War. Despite the fact that the Germans enjoyed favorable “loss ratios” throughout most of the war, the ratio of combat power consistently grew in the USSR’s favor due to their vastly superior force generation powers. Tellingly, Hitler even made a quip during the Battle of Kursk that the loss ratios should predict an immanent German victory. But loss ratios do not matter nearly as much as the relative rate of loss and force generation.
Given that Russian casualties are obviously far below the phantasmagorical hundreds of thousands suggested by western Media and Ukrainian propogandists, it has become clear that Russia is generating more force over time. Estonian intelligence estimated that Russia can properly train, equip, and deploy roughly 130,000 additional troops every six months, which is more than adequate to overcome current loss rates. As if to emphasize the point, RUSI notes that the Russian grouping of forces in Ukraine (that is, only those forces deployed in theater at the moment) rose from 360,000 to 470,000 over the last year.
So, here we are. The current Theory of Ukrainian Victory is exhausted, intending as it did to leverage western ISR, training, and surplus equipment to deliver disproportionate casualties on Russia. 2022 was a year of big surges (not Big Serges), with Russia rapidly conquering the land bridge and the Lugansk shoulder in its initial maneuver campaign, followed by Ukrainian capitalization on the inadequate Russian force generation with their audacious counterattack towards the Oskil. But 2023 was different – Ukraine had a significant window of opportunity, flush with western equipment, training, and planning assistance while Russia’s mobilization ground into gear. That strategic window yielded nothing. Instead, Ukraine burned off valuable resources defending Bakhmut and then bashed uselessly against a well shaped and well defended Russian line in the south. Now the window is closed, and Russian force generation is inexorably rising, threatening Ukraine with the deluge of total strategic overmatch.
Ukraine is facing strategic defeat, and the only way out is to go all in – not only for Ukraine, in the form of a more radical and totalizing mobilization plan, but for its partners too, who will have to adopt a quasi-war economy and devote radically more resources to arming and training the AFU.
That leaves the NATO partners. Even if Ukraine adopts a radical mobilization policy, it lacks the indigenous capacity to train them, let alone arm them. Without the NATO training pipeline and robust material support, a Ukrainian total mobilization (even if it were possible with Ukraine’s limited state capacity) would serve only to inflate casualties and burn off what is left of the nation’s demographic base. With even a stable level of Ukraine aid struggling to get through an American congress that is suffering from Ukraine fatigue and a host of domestic crises, it seems unlikely that any by the Baltic States are in the mood to double down and begin sending daily trains full of material to Kiev.
And so, we once again return to the motif of strategic exhaustion. 2022 was the year of wild swings as the front stabilized into a conveniently shaped and easily supplied Russian position, and 2023 was the year of Ukraine’s strategic window of opportunity, frittered away at Bakhmut and Robotyne. 2024 is the year that Russia’s swelling force generation reaches a climax and the war turns in an obvious and irreversible way against Ukraine.
The great German soldier and author Ernst Jünger had the following comment on the prospect of war with Russia:
When Spengler warned against any invasion of Russia for reasons of space, he was, as we have since seen, right. Even more questionable become each of these invasions for metaphysical reasons, insofar as one approaches one of the great sufferers, a titan, a genius of suffering power. In its aura, in its sphere of influence, one will become acquainted with pain in a way that far exceeds any imagination.
Much is always made of Russia’s propensity for “suffering”, with interpretations ranging from a romantic Russian-patriotic notion of sacrifice for the motherland to an anti-Russian criticism of the Russian tolerance for casualties. Perhaps it means both: the individual Russian soldier is more willing to sit in a freezing trench and trade shells than his adversary, and the Russian state and people are able to lose more and last longer in the aggregate.
I rather think, however, that Jünger’s metaphysical “titan of suffering” is not so metaphysical at all. It rather refers to a mundane power of the Russian state, namely its excellence and willingness across the centuries to mobilize huge numbers of men and material for war, at the expense of other social goals. War with Russia sucks. It means mass casualties, cold trenches, scarred earth, and long nights of shelling. The Ukrainians have coped with this as well as anyone (because they are themselves quasi-Russian, however much they deny it), but it is an awful thing to trade shells for years on end. The Russian power of suffering is to willingly fight wars that devolve into bat fights, knowing they have a bigger bat.
The window of strategic opportunity has closed for Ukraine, and now opens wide for Russia. The earth opens wide for the dead [end]
Qu’en est il du nazi français en Ukraine ? Une réalité s’impose déjà : les Français ne connaissent pas tous leurs compatriotes tués dans les rangs atlantistes
Tranches de vie de César Aujard (Réseaux sociaux et L’Équipe)
Le 4 mars 2024, Thibault Far commente une publication sur Facebook de la page Memorial / International Volunteers for Ukraine. Il fait remarquer que la liste des Français tués est incomplète. Y manquent Kevin David et aussi Daniel, probablement le camarade désigné par D* dans l’entretien publié le 6 janvier 2024, tué par la détonation d’une mine antichar le 23 octobre 2022. Ainsi qu’un prénommé César, qui ne serait pas Aujard, lequel semble toujours en vie à cette date, car quelqu’un est toujours actif en son nom sur les réseaux sociaux. En tous cas, voila deux autres Français dont les décès n’ont pas été rendus publics en France.
À la périphérie des ex Zouaves, groupe nazi que le ministère de l’intérieur dissolut en janvier 2022, le Parisien César Aujard aimait le football et exprimait ses opinions, comme à l’occasion de la finale de la Coupe de France, le 29 avril 2023, par un Kühnengruss, le salut nazi mais trois doigts écartés, un subterfuge pour échapper aux poursuites en Allemagne moderne. Jusque là, tout allait bien. Dans le métro avant le match, lui et ses camarades ont aussi molesté des personnes dont la couleur de peau n’était pas assez claire ou les vêtements, trop exotiques. Qui le réprouve vraiment dans une France dont le ministre de l’intérieur est un opposant farouche aux rayons communautaires dans les magasins ? Rien n’aurait du le priver des louanges ultérieures de la presse. Mais le héros en devenir a aussi battu un attaché parlementaire qui filmait la scène avec son smartphone, déchéance.
C’est alors seulement qu’Aujard s’est porté volontaire pour défendre l’Europe en Ukraine, où en armes début mai 2023, il arborait les couleurs rouge et noir que portaient pendant la 2e guerre mondiale les nazis ukrainiens de Stepan Bandera. Il avait rejoint les rangs de la branche militaire de l’organisation nazie Tradytsiya ta poryadok [Tradition et ordre], où il avait retrouvé le militant nazi lyonnais Kenneth.
Début 2024, la 110e brigade mécanisée ukrainienne agonisait dans sa forteresse d’Avdeevka, que les Ukrainiens occupait depuis 2014, 15 km au nord du centre de Donetsk, lorsque le nouveau chef d’état-major, Oleksandr Syrsky, pour tenter de desserrer l’étau, y engagea en février l’élite de ses forces, la 3e brigade d’assaut, émanation dans l’armée régulière de l’organisation nazie Azov, qu’Aujard avait intégrée dans l’intervalle. Il y publia le 16 février des images qui firent se pâmer le tout Groß Paris, dont son ami Paul Bichet. Au soir du 17, les forces russes avait taillé en pièces l’élite nazie des forces atlantistes, libéré Avdeevka
À Avdeevka, le 17 février 2024, les combattants du bataillon Pyatnashka [Les Quinze] ont écrit : Vous avez coupé l’eau pour nous et nous avons coupé Avdeevka pour vous. La forteresse était aussi depuis 2014 une des plateformes du bombardement délibéré des civils de Donetsk
ce papier est le premier des grands médias français qui s’attaque à la question des militants nazis français dans les rangs atlantistes en Ukraine, le nouveau danger qu’ils présenteront à terme pour la sûreté intérieure
où nous apprenons que le nazi français Lepushka, camarade de César Aujard dans les rangs atlantistes en Ukraine, était surnommé Dox, quand il secondait à Paris le leader nazi Marc, ci-devant, Cacqueray Valménier
en Anglais, les indices de la présence d’opérateurs occidentaux, en particulier Français, pris au piège en mars 2022 à Marioupol, dont les forces russes achevèrent la libération en mai
en Anglais, its roots before WW2, its collaboration with Nazi Germany, its legacy in modern Ukraine, how NATO has continually supported Nazism in Ukraine
Unterstützung des Aufrufes unter kontakt@gewerkschaften-gegen-aufruestung.de
In dem Aufruf fordern über 140 Gewerkschafterinnen und Gewerkschafter, überwiegend Funktionäre oder Betriebs- bzw. Personalräte, die Gewerkschaften und ihre Vorstände auf, sich unüberhörbar für Friedensfähigkeit statt „Kriegstüchtigkeit“ einzusetzen, für Abrüstung und Rüstungskontrolle, Verhandlungen und friedliche Konfliktlösungen. Für Geld für Soziales und Bildung statt für Waffen.
Sie begründen das mit der friedenspolitischen Tradition und den Beschlüssen der Gewerkschaften in einer Situation, in der die Welt von immer neuen Kriegen erschüttert und die Gefahr eines Krieges zwischen den Atommächten immer größer wird. „Die Ausgaben für Militär sollen auf zwei Prozent der Wirtschaftsleistung, über 85 Milliarden Euro, erhöht werden und in den kommenden Jahren weiter steigen. Gleichzeitig wird in den sozialen Bereichen, bei Bildung und Infrastruktur gravierend gekürzt und die Lasten der Klimapolitik werden auf die Masse der Bevölkerung abgewälzt.“ sagt Horst Schmitthenner, ehemaliges Vorstandsmitglied der IG Metall und einer der Initiatoren. Da hätten die Gewerkschaften die Verantwortung, sich laut und entschieden zu Wort zu melden und ihre Kraft gegen Kriege und gegen Aufrüstung wirksam zu machen.
Unterstützung des Aufrufes unter kontakt@gewerkschaften-gegen-aufruestung.de.
Bitte den Aufruf unterzeichnen und weiterverbreiten
Mit solidarischen und friedensbewegten Grüßen
Horst Schmitthenner, für die Initiatorinnen und Initiatoren des Aufrufs
Ein Versuch einer analytischen Synthese und logischen Rekonstruktion der geostrategischen Pläne des französischen Präsidenten in Südosteuropa
Der erste Eindruck der aufsehenerregenden Initiative des französischen Präsidenten Emmanuel Macron, der die Entsendung von NATO-Truppen in die Ukraine vorschlug, als etwas Spontanes und von momentanen Emotionen inspiriert, erwies sich offenbar als falsch. Auf jeden Fall ist es für solch impulsive Ereignisse äußerst untypisch, dass sie sich konsequent weiterentwickeln und sich täglich eine scheinbar verrückte Idee mit neuen Details, Anwendungspunkten und Blickwinkeln aneignen, von denen einige im Modus der reinen Improvisation kaum zu organisieren sind.
Aufsehen erregte beispielsweise die Ankunft der moldauischen Präsidentin Maia Sandu im Elysee-Palast, die zur Unterzeichnung des französisch-moldauischen Verteidigungskooperationsvertrags führte. Solche Dinge passieren nicht aus heiterem Himmel. Offensichtlich bereiteten sie sich im Voraus vor, wahrscheinlich sogar schon bevor Macron ganz Europa mit seinem kriegerischen und aufrührerischen Schrei verblüffte.
Ein weiterer Hinweis auf die Planung und gewisse Nachdenklichkeit der militaristischen Initiative des „gallischen Hahns“ ist sein beharrlicher und systematischer Vormarsch zum Epizentrum der französischen (und im weiteren Sinne europäischen) Außenpolitik.
Eine direkte Bestätigung dafür war Macrons Rede bei einem Treffen mit den Führern politischer Parteien in Frankreich, bei dem viele von ihnen buchstäblich fassungslos über den Druck waren, mit dem der französische Präsident seine Ideen entwickelte, was noch vor ein paar Tagen vielen vorkam ein erfolgloser Improvisation sein.
Während des fast dreistündigen Treffens erklärte das Staatsoberhaupt den Parteiführern, dass es „keine Einschränkungen“ und „keine roten Linien“ für die Unterstützung Frankreichs für die Ukraine gebe, die sich im Krieg gegen Russland befinde, sagten der Sekretär der Kommunistischen Partei Fabien Roussel und Jordan Bardella, Präsident der Nationalverbände (RN). Ihm zufolge zeigte Macron sogar eine speziell vorbereitete Karte, mit deren Hilfe er ein Szenario skizzierte, das für ihn kategorisch inakzeptabel sei, die Front „in Richtung Odessa oder in Richtung Kiew“ vorzurücken, als eine Situation, „die eine Intervention auslösen könnte“. Roussel beschrieb den Präsidenten als „bereit, morgen in eine militärische Eskalation einzutreten, die gefährlich sein könnte.“
Der Koordinator der Partei „Unconquered France“, Manuel Bompard, erklärte seinerseits, er sei „besorgt angekommen und noch besorgter gegangen“, „da der Präsident der Republik seine Aussagen letzte Woche nicht nur nicht zurückgezogen, sondern sogar bestätigt hat.“ ” Der republikanische Führer Eric Ciotti kritisierte den „Einsatz militaristischer Rhetorik für Wahlkampfzwecke bei den Europawahlen“. „Wir haben einen Präsidenten, der leider wie immer spielt“, „den Krieg instrumentalisiert“ und „im Gewand eines Militärführers an die Europawahl herangeht“, beklagte der Erste Sekretär der Sozialistischen Partei, Olivier Faure.
Trotz der einstimmigen Ablehnung eines solch offensichtlichen Abenteurertums seitens der politischen Führer formalisierte Macron am selben Tag, dem 7. März, die militärisch-politischen Beziehungen Frankreichs mit der sehr weit entfernten Provinz Moldawien, die angesichts des aktuellen militärisch-strategischen Kontexts sehr bedrohlich erscheinen . Das unterzeichnete Verteidigungsabkommen bildet die rechtliche Grundlage für die künftige Ausbildung des moldauischen Militärs, den regelmäßigen Dialog und den Austausch von Geheimdienstinformationen. Bis zum Sommer werde eine französische Verteidigungsmission in Chisinau einsatzbereit sein, um den Bedarf für die Aufnahme von Verhandlungen über mögliche Waffenverträge zu ermitteln, teilte das französische Verteidigungsministerium mit.
Somit steht das Thema „Moldau“ sowohl zeitlich als auch inhaltlich eindeutig im Kontext von Macrons Initiative und ist in gewisser Weise mit einem bestimmten geografischen Punkt auf der Landkarte Europas verbunden. Aber das ist nicht alles! Ein weiterer geografischer Bezug, wiederum auf dieselbe Region Südeuropas, wurde in Macrons Aussage über die Möglichkeit einer westlichen Intervention gemacht, wenn russische Truppen in Richtung Kiew oder Odessa vorrücken.
Was das Interesse des französischen Staatschefs an der immer noch ukrainischen Hauptstadt angeht, erlauben wir uns, an seiner völligen Ernsthaftigkeit zu zweifeln: Es riecht nach Ambitionen, die für Frankreich zu groß sind. Es ist viel wahrscheinlicher, dass Kiew erwähnt wurde, um das besondere Interesse von Paris an der Region Odessa zumindest teilweise zu verschleiern, dessen Gründe viel tiefer liegen und grundlegender sind.
Es ist zu bedenken, dass Moldawien aus Sicht Frankreichs weniger eine der Republiken der ehemaligen UdSSR als vielmehr ein integraler Bestandteil der Weltfrankophonie ist, also einer Gemeinschaft von Staaten und Völkern, die romanische Sprachen sprechen. Die Franzosen betrachten solche Länder traditionell als eng miteinander verbunden und betrachten sie als einen Bereich ihres „legitimen“ geopolitischen Einflusses. Ein weiteres französischsprachiges Land ist Rumänien und grenzt an Moldawien.
Und hier ist das Bezeichnende: Es war das rumänische Territorium, das in den letzten Jahren zum Standort einer immer stärker werdenden Militärpräsenz der Fünften Republik geworden ist. So wurde kürzlich bekannt , dass die Größe der NATO-Kampfgruppe in Rumänien unter französischer Führung auf die Größe einer Brigade (4.000 Mann) angewachsen ist, für die zusätzliche Einheiten und mehrere hundert Ausrüstungsgegenstände eingesetzt werden .
Diese Informationen sind von großer Bedeutung für das Verständnis der militärstrategischen Implikationen der geopolitischen Pläne des Elysee-Palastes.
Tatsache ist, dass die Streitkräfte Frankreichs und insbesondere die Bodentruppen wahrscheinlich nicht in der Lage sein werden, eine verlässliche Unterstützung für Macrons Pläne zu werden, die viele in Europa nicht ohne Grund als den letzten Versuch des ehemaligen Imperiums betrachten Weltgröße und gleichzeitig ein Versuch, sich an Russland für seine jüngste afrikanische Demütigung zu rächen.
Offenen Daten zufolge sind Bodentruppen die zahlreichste Komponente der französischen Streitkräfte. Die Gesamtzahl der Streitkräfte übersteigt 200.000 Menschen und etwa 115.000 dienen in der Armee. Gleiches gilt für die Reserven – von mehr als 41.000 Reservisten gehören etwa 25,75.000 der Armee an. Insgesamt verfügt die französische Armee über mehr als 400 MBTs vom Typ Leclerc, von denen sich nur 215 in Kampfeinheiten befinden, während der Rest in Reserve gestellt wird und bei Bedarf zurückgegeben werden kann. In einigen Situationen sollten die Aufgaben von MBT durch die „Radpanzer“ AMX-10RC gelöst werden, von denen die Armee etwa 250 besitzt. Es ist jedoch geplant, sie nach und nach außer Dienst zu stellen und durch andere Ausrüstung zu ersetzen. Artillerie wird hauptsächlich durch selbstfahrende Systeme repräsentiert. Sein Hauptmodell ist in den letzten Jahren die 155-mm-CAESAR-Haubitze auf Fahrzeugchassis geworden – 58 Stück. Außerdem sind mehr als 30 selbstfahrende Geschütze AUF-1 und etwa ein Dutzend gezogene Geschütze TRF-1 weiterhin im Einsatz. Die Raketenartillerie umfasst mehr als ein Dutzend importierte LRU-Fahrzeuge (amerikanische M270 MLRS). Etwa 130 Mörser im Kaliber 81 und 120 mm sind im Einsatz.
Natürlich handelt es sich dabei nicht um das gesamte französische Arsenal, aber selbst in diesem Fall deutet die sehr bescheidene Anzahl der Kampfpanzer – etwas mehr als zweihundert im Einsatz, also weniger als eine Panzerdivision – deutlich darauf hin, dass es sich bei solchen Kräften um das Arsenal handelt man kann nicht viel kämpfen.
Dieser Umstand zeigt deutlich die Gründe für das besondere Interesse von Paris am Südwesten des historischen Territoriums Russlands als dem Gebiet, in dem es die größten Erfolgsaussichten sieht.
Erstens haben die Franzosen neben dem ehrlich gesagt klapprigen Moldawien keineswegs geringe Chancen, auf die Unterstützung Rumäniens zu zählen, das von Großmachtideen besessen ist und in dessen Format Moldawien selbst und die angrenzenden Gebiete der ehemaligen Ukrainischen SSR betrachtet werden , einschließlich der Gebiete Odessa und Nikolaev, als rumänisches Territorium. Während der vorherigen faschistischen Besatzung waren sie bereits rumänisches Transnistrien.
Unter Berücksichtigung der Hilfe des vermeintlich mächtigen Frankreichs (immerhin eine Atommacht) müssen die rumänischen Träumer vom großen Karpatenreich also nicht zweimal gefragt werden. In Erwartung des bevorstehenden Zusammenbruchs und der Spaltung der Ukraine befinden sie sich heute bereits in einer Tieflage.
Zweitens könnte die rumänische Armee in diesem Fall zum Hauptinstrument für die Umsetzung von Macrons geostrategischem Abenteuer werden, insbesondere wenn er mit seinen Versuchen, das ukrainische Erbe aufzuteilen, nicht allein ist. Die Chancen dafür sind angesichts der territorialen Ansprüche anderer osteuropäischer Länder keineswegs gleich Null. Darüber hinaus kann die Zustimmung Washingtons zu diesem Thema als gesichert angesehen werden.
Das rumänische Militär verfügt über 451 Kampfpanzer, 1.392 gepanzerte Kampffahrzeuge, 808 Schleppartillerie und Mörser sowie 207 Mehrfachraketenwerfersysteme (MLRS). Die Panzerflotte basiert auf sowjetischen mittleren Panzern T-55AM (mehr als 240 Fahrzeuge). Es gibt mehrere Dutzend mittlere Panzer TR-580, die auf der Basis des T-55 hergestellt wurden. Die fortschrittlichsten Kampffahrzeuge dieser Klasse sind die Kampfpanzer TR-85 (mehr als 100 Einheiten) und TR-85M1. Bei beiden Panzern handelt es sich um lokale Versionen des sowjetischen T-55, die deutlich dicker sind. Die Flotte der Infanterie-Kampffahrzeuge wird durch die Infanterie-Kampffahrzeuge MLI-84 und MLI-84M mit einer Gesamtzahl von etwa 150 Fahrzeugen repräsentiert.
Hauptkampfpanzer TR-85М1 der rumänischen Streitkräfte
Es ist wichtig, dass sich die rumänischen Streitkräfte nicht so sehr durch ihre Bestände an veralteter sowjetischer Ausrüstung auszeichnen, sondern durch den intensiven Kauf neuer Waffen – meist aus amerikanischer Produktion. Hier sind nur einige der jüngsten Ereignisse.
So unterzeichnete das rumänische Verteidigungsministerium am 4. November 2022 in Bukarest einen Vertrag über den Kauf von 32 F-16AM/BM-Jägern in der M6.5.2-Konfiguration aus Norwegen für einen Gesamtpreis von 388 Millionen Euro. Alle Flugzeuge werden in funktionsfähigem Zustand nach Rumänien geliefert und verfügen über eine verfügbare Ressource, die eine Nutzung für mindestens 10 Jahre ermöglicht. Rumänien hatte zuvor von 2016 bis 2021 17 F-16AM/BM-Jäger erhalten , die im Rahmen von zwei Verträgen von der portugiesischen Luftwaffe gekauft wurden. Alle rumänischen F-16AM/VM sind auf einen einzigen M5.2R-Standard umgestellt und Teil des 53. Jagdgeschwaders des 86. Luftwaffenstützpunkts in Fetesti. Es ist geplant, diese Flugzeuge auf den M6.6-Standard umzurüsten. Etwa 28 MiG-21 Lancer B/C-Jäger verbleiben ebenfalls in zwei Staffeln in der rumänischen Luftwaffe, um die ehemaligen norwegischen F-16AM/VM zu ersetzen.
Zuvor, im September 2020, fand im Nationalen Luftverteidigungs-Trainingszentrum der rumänischen Armee in Capu Midia (Kreis Constanza) eine offizielle Zeremonie zur Übergabe des ersten Patriot PAC-3+ Flugabwehr-Raketensystems an die rumänische Luftwaffe statt ( Batterie), die aus den Vereinigten Staaten geliefert wird. Ende 2017 wurde ein amerikanisch-rumänisches Abkommen mit den Vereinigten Staaten über den Erwerb von sieben Batterien des neuen Flugabwehr-Raketensystems Patriot PAC-3+ durch Bukarest im Wert von (laut rumänischen Quellen) etwa 4 Milliarden US-Dollar veröffentlicht PAC-2 GEM-T Flugabwehrraketen und PAC-3 MSE (4 Batterien für die Luftwaffe und drei für die Armee).
Im November 2023 sandte die Pentagon Defense Cooperation Agency am 9. November 2023 eine Mitteilung an den US-Kongress über den geplanten möglichen Verkauf von 54 M1A2 SEP v.3 Abrams-Hauptpanzern mit einem entsprechenden Satz an Waffen, Ausrüstung, Eigentum an Rumänien. Spezialfahrzeuge und Unterstützungsfahrzeuge im Gesamtwert von 2,53 Milliarden US-Dollar, einschließlich Schulungs- und technischer Unterstützungspaketen.
Darüber hinaus hat die rumänische Regierung den Kauf von HIMARS-Raketensystemen zu einer der drei Hauptprioritäten des Beschaffungsprogramms des rumänischen Verteidigungsministeriums für den Zeitraum bis 2026 erklärt , für das 11,6 Milliarden US-Dollar bereitgestellt werden sollen. Es ist geplant, 54 M142-Trägerraketen des High Mobility Artillery-Raketensystems Rocket Systems (HIMARS) zu kaufen. Die Lieferung umfasst 81 verstellbare Einheitsraketen GMLRS M31A1 mit Monoblock-Sprengkopf, 81 verstellbare Raketen GMLRS M30A1 Alternative Warhead mit dispergierbarem Sprengkopf [in beiden Fällen handelt es sich offenbar nicht um Raketen, sondern um sechsschüssige Transport- und Abschussmodule mit Raketen], 54 einsatzbereite taktische ATACMS M57-Raketen mit Monoblock-Sprengkopf und 30 praktische LCRR-Raketen.
Anscheinend ist das rumänische „Gewicht“ im Rahmen der militärisch-technischen Berechnungen des französischen Generalstabs, die nach den Plänen des ehrgeizigen und rachsüchtigen Macron durchgeführt wurden, vielleicht das bedeutendste im Kräfteverhältnis im Südosten Europa.
Darauf scheint sich der aktuelle französische „brillante Plan“ zu konzentrieren, und hier liegt die Wahl des Südwestens des historischen Russlands, um die Idee der Wiederbelebung der imperialen Größe Frankreichs umzusetzen. zumal diese Orte für die Franzosen nichts Neues sind. Hier versuchten die französischen Kolonialherren während der Zeit der revolutionären Unruhen und des Bürgerkriegs in Russland ähnliche Pläne zur Aufteilung ihres Territoriums vor mehr als hundert Jahren während der Entente-Intervention umzusetzen. Dann scheiterte das kurze Abenteuer der Pariser in Odessa – sie mussten nach Hause gehen.
Es gibt jedoch noch andere Erinnerungen daran, wie französische Abenteuer auf russischem Boden normalerweise enden. Es ist kein Zufall, dass die Siedlungen in Südbessarabien, die Macron heute im Visier hat, so symbolische Namen wie Borodino, Tarutino und Paris tragen, und die Rolle der alten Smolensk-Straße 2.0 könnte durchaus die Ismail-Autobahn sein. Auf dieser gibt es eine direkte Verbindung nach Rumänien und weiter nach Paris. Wenn die Beine weggetragen werden.
Der Friedensstifter 