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Ukraine as a pawn in the “Great Game”

March 22, 2022 By Bob Kinsey

United National Antiwar Coalition Statement on Ukraine

3/19/22

The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) remains steadfast in its opposition to the United States/NATO imperialist project. The people of Ukraine are now suffering in a war zone because of the actions of the United States, beginning with the 2014 coup which violently ousted an elected president. The goal then as now was to use Ukraine as a weapon to target Russia militarily. We point out that the current conflict is not the first for Ukraine. More than 14,000 people living in the eastern Donbas region have died in an eight-year long war because they refused to accept the coup government imposed by the U.S.

There have been many opportunities to peacefully resolve this conflict. The US could have announced that Ukraine would not be admitted into NATO, but it would not. The Minsk II Agreement signed in 2015 by Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France was unanimously approved by the United Nations Security Council. Minsk II called for the end of hostilities between Ukraine and the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics in Donbas. Ukraine was required to engage in negotiations and provide constitutional recognition for this region. But far right forces prevented implementation and three American presidents saw an advantage in not implementing the agreement.

The result was a continuation of bloodshed and the strengthening of right wing and neo-Nazi forces. Ukraine is now a haven for white supremacist groups and has invited mercenaries from across Europe, the United States, and other nations. This use of the right wing is by design and is yet another means of maintaining a dangerous status quo. It is both naive and dangerous to deny the existence of these far-right forces and to ignore the hold they have on Ukrainian politics. They will not only unleash violence in Ukraine, but they will inevitably bring racist violence back to their home countries.

The Biden administration sends weapons and prolongs the conflict. The U.S. further enriches the military industrial complex with its actions with money that should be used for the good of the people. The promised Build Back Better bill is in limbo and the monies promised for renewing the Child Tax Credit and providing covid relief instead are used to stoke the conflict in Ukraine.

UNAC calls on the antiwar community to join in opposing NATO plans to expand further eastward. Not only should NATO cease integrating new members, but it should be dismantled altogether. It is not the defensive force that it claims to be and has wrought destruction from Ukraine to Libya to Afghanistan. NATO is the expression of U.S. global dominance and can only do great harm around the world.

Congress and the Biden administration approved $15 billion to fund militarism in Ukraine in the same week that providers of free covid testing, vaccination, and treatment for the uninsured were informed their services would no longer be reimbursed. The military industrial complex gets billions of dollars while the people’s needs go unmet. The uninsured and unhoused go without help while the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion gets money with the blessings of Congress.

The calls for a so-called “no-fly zone” would in fact create an air war that would heighten the risk of nuclear conflict. Sanctions are war by other means and should be universally condemned by all in the antiwar movement.

The displacement of millions of people in Ukraine is a repeat of what the US and NATO have wrought elsewhere. UNAC appeals to antiwar forces in this country to join in making consistent demands for peace in Ukraine, an end to the NATO imperialist structure, and a system which meets public needs and not those of defense contractors.

We demand:

US/NATO hands off Ukraine: No weapons, No military “advisors,” No mercenaries.

Humanitarian aid to Ukraine and resettlement of all refugees and displaced persons

Keep Ukraine out of NATO and Stop NATO expansion.

Expulsion of all foreign white supremacist and neo-Nazi forces from Ukraine

Reparations to civilians in Ukraine and the Donbas independent regions

Dismantle NATO and establish a military neutral zone from Western Russia through Ukraine and the Baltic states

U.S. government renounce doctrine of Full Spectrum Dominance

 For a more comprehensive background statement from UNAC, please click here

 

Statement from Sanctions Kill Coalition, March 17, 2022

The SanctionsKill Campaign is a broad coalition of social justice, solidarity, and peace forces focused on exposing the devastating impact of US sanctions on civilian populations globally.

To add you name to this  statement, click here

Sanctions are not a substitute for war

The current regime of sanctions against Russia is not a substitute for war, but a form of warfare. Sanctions kill many thousands just as bombs do. Sanctions create hyperinflation, artificial famines, social upheavals, and health crises that punish civilian populations. As US President Biden said, the sanctions are intended “to inflict further pain.”

Sanctions are collective punishment and illegal under international law.

Nor are the sanctions by the US and its allies against Russia a deterrent to war.  They will not reduce hostilities, but are an escalation of the current conflict.
[read more]

 

Read the UNAC Blog

https://unac.notowar.net/

Some recent posts:

  • Shock and Awe, Then and Now
    • Dee Knight, Covert Action Magazine
  • The Ominous Omnibus: Pentagon Wins, Workers Lose
    • Editorial, Workers World
  • Many Africans Reject Washington’s Position on Ukraine Crisis
    • Abyome Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report
  • Call for Workers to Rally on Saturday 19 at the Pisa Airport !
    • Labor Today
  • U.S. Threatens Nuclear War or Sanctions
    • Sara Flounders, Workers World
  • Veterans Warn Against “No-Fly-Zone” in Ukraine
    • Veterans For Peace, Statement
  • What is Happening In and Around Ukraine
    • Communist Party of Russia (Opposition Party to Putin’s United Russia)
  • #SanctionsKill Campaign Statement on Ukraine Conflict
    • Sanctions Kill, Statement
  • Meeting between Venezuela and the US: What’s Behind the Scenes?
    • Gustavo A. Maranges, Resumen
  • ‘The Mouse Kills the Cat’: Augusto Cesar Sandino’s Rebellion Against the United States
    • Dan Kovalik, MLToday
  • Russia-Ukraine War Began in 2014, not 2022
    • Vijay Prashad, Globetrotter
  • Navigating our Humanity: The Four Lessons from Ukraine
    • Ilan Pappe, Palestine Chronicle
  • Documents Expose US Biological Experiments on Allied Soldiers in Ukraine and Georgia
    • Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, Dilyana.bg
  • Zelensky Rubbishes Biden’s war on Russia
    • M.K. Bhadrakumar, Indian Punchline
  • In Praise of “Whataboutism”
    • Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report
  • As US Renews Support for Saudi War on Yemen, Civilian Death Toll Nearly Doubles
    • Ahmed Abdulkareem, MintPress News
  • Sanctions, a Sanctimonious Word For Economic Warfare and Outright Theft
    • Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report
  • Pity the Nation
    • Scott Ritter, Consortium News
  • The American Empire Self Destructs
    • Michael Hudson, Michael-Hudson.com
  • Ukraine: The US & NATO Created This Mess
    • Statement, Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War
  • Western Anti-Russian Agenda Threatens UN’s Existence
    • Lucas Leiroz, InfoBRICS
  • Global South Rejects U.S./NATO Aggression
    • Betsy Piette, Workers World
  • No Coup, No Nazis in Ukraine?
    • Bruce Gagnon, Organizing Notes
  • Ukraine: A Conflict Soaked in Contradictions and New Patterns in War and Media
    • Vijay Prashad, Globetrotter
  • Without Even Realizing How We Were Being Played, Could This Be Russiagates Checkmate
    • Jacqueline Luqman, Black Agenda Report

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Disarmament Quotes

It is my fervent goal and hope…that we will some day no longer have to rely on nuclear weapons to deter aggression and assure world peace. To that end the United States is now engaged in a serious and sustained effort to negotiate major reductions in levels of offensive nuclear weapons with the ultimate goal of eliminating these weapons from the face of the earth. 

Ronald Reagan, October 20, 1986

We endorse setting the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and working energetically on the actions required to achieve that goal ... 

George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn, January 4, 2007

It is my firm belief that the infinite and uncontrollable fury of nuclear weapons should never be held in the hands of any mere mortal ever again, for any reason. 

Mikhail Gorbachev, 1995

“Everything I did at Kings Bay was a result of my faith and my commitment to challenge the idols whose only purpose is to destroy human life on an unimaginable scale. I went to Kings Bay to use my body to refuse to bow down to these idols. I went to try to bring attention to the idolatry that it is requiring of our nation and its people. I went in a spirit of prayer and repentance. I went in hope that this witness might invite other people to reflect on the obscenity and on the idolatry that it is before God.”

Liz McAlister Kings Bay Protestor 2019

We are prone to self-righteousness if we call ourselves peacemakers, and yet do not perceive how the peace issue cuts through all the economic and social issues that we often try to keep separate. If the race for nuclear arms is encouraged by our fear of losing the affluent ways of life that we have taken for granted, then we must see how our fears and desires have left so many other human beings naked and hungry.

Malsolm Warford "The Church's Role in a Nuclear Age

[T]he use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. . . . [I]n being the first to use it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.

5-Star Admiral William D. Leahy Chief of Staff to President's Roosevelt and Truman, leader of Combined US-UK Chiefs of Staff during WWII

We seek the elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth. 

Ronald Reagan, Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985

So far as I can see, the atomic bomb has deadened the finest feeling that has sustained for ages. There used to be so-called laws of war, which made it tolerable. Now we know the truth. War knows no law except that of might. The atomic bomb brought an empty victory but it resulted for the time being in destroying the soul of Japan. What has happened to the soul of the destroying nation is yet too early to see... 

Mahatma Gandhi from The Essential Gandhi, Louis Fisher, ed.

A world free of the threat of nuclear weapons is necessarily a world devoid of nuclear weapons…. Nuclear weapons pose an intolerable threat to humanity and our habitat…. Others subscribe to Churchill’s assertion ‘Peace is the sturdy child of terror.’ For me, such a peace is a wretched offspring, a peace that condemns us to live under a dark cloud of perpetual anxiety, a peace that codifies mankind’s most murderous instincts….The beast must be chained, its soul expunged, its lair laid waste.

General Lee Butler Former Commander, Strategic Air Command, April 28, 1996

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending he sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children...This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron." --spoken to the American Society of Newspaper Editors 1953

Dwight Eisenhower US President 1953-1961

Through the release of atomic energy, our generation has brought into the world the most revolutionary force since prehistoric man's discovery of fire. This basic force of the universe cannot be fitted into the outmoded concept of narrow nationalisms. For there is no secret and there is no defense; there is no possibility of control except through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world. We scientists recognise our inescapable responsibility to carry to our fellow citizens an understanding of atomic energy and its implication for society. In this lies our only security and our only hope - we believe that an informed citizenry will act for life and not for death. 

Albert Einstein, January 22, 1947

Elimination of nuclear weapons, so naive, so simplistic, and so idealistic as to be quixotic? Some may think so. But as human beings, citizens of nations with power to influence events in the world, can we be at peace with ourselves if we strive for less? I think not. 

Robert McNamara Former U.S. Secretary of Defense

Now, understand, this matters to people everywhere. One nuclear weapon exploded in one city -– be it New York or Moscow, Islamabad or Mumbai, Tokyo or Tel Aviv, Paris or Prague –- could kill hundreds of thousands of people. And no matter where it happens, there is no end to what the consequences might be -– for our global safety, our security, our society, our economy, to our ultimate survival. 

Former President Barack Obama, April 5, 2009

Viewing Trinity Test July 16,1945: "Now we are all Sons of Bitches"

Kenneth Bainbridge Deputy Director

Over the past 15 years, the goal of elimination of nuclear weapons has been so much on the back burner that it will take a true political breakthrough and a major intellectual effort to achieve success in this endeavor.

Mikhail Gorbachev, January 31, 2007

There are still thousands of warheads loaded on operational systems and standing on high states of alert on virtually hair-trigger posture. And you have to ask yourself: Why is that? Who is the enemy? What is the threat? 

U.S. General Lee Butler Former Commander in Chief, U.S. Strategic Air Command in 1991-92

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