Marx on Authority

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm

American Hegemonism

 A short but very detailed and accurate denunciation of American Hegemony,  published by China.

Nazis in Ukraine

 Na'omi addresses this with a timeline of interesting information.

Not Russiagate, Israelgate

We now know as a fact that longtime Trump associate Roger Stone was feeding information about future Wikileaks releases to Trump which came to him from an Israeli spy.  Though it was redacted from everything that was made public from other investigations, it has become clear from a recent FBI indictment.

A long article in The Nation parses this out, but that article also makes the erroneous assumption (still short of any evidence) that this was because Israeli intelligence had hacked into an alleged Russian operation.

MoonOfAlabama turns this around for what looks like the correct interpretation.  Israeli intelligence knew what Wikileaks was going to be releasing for the simple reason that THEY (Israeli intelligence) were the ones releasing it to Wikileaks!  The timeline and other details from this theory fit known facts perfectly.

Israel had and got a clear quid pro quo from helping Trump...moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.  Also terminating the JPCOA--which had been a sore point for Israel ever since Obama launched it.  (There was detectable antagonism between Israel and Obama.)  Also recognizing the Israeli seizure of the Golan Heights.  In contrast, Russia did not get any quid pro quo from helping Trump.  Trump kept a lot of anti-Russian operations going (in Afghanistan, Syria, and Ukraine).

There has also never been any true evidence that the original emails were hacked.  We can't be sure of how Israel would have gotten them...except they could well have been given to an Israeli spook by Seth Rich before he was killed.  Seth Rich might either have been full involved in this plot all along, or not.  (That he was killed suggests to me he was not a mole all along, or he would anticipated and/or been protected from this.  Someone could have just offered to "get the information out" for him, and likely without even admitting to be connected to Israeli intelligence.  Rich would probably not have been in Netanyahu's camp.  He would have been trying to get the info to Wikileaks in a physical handoff somehow to avoid NSA detection, and someone whose Israeli connection was unknown to him offered to do that for him.*  Which is another way the "Russia hacking" story makes no sense.  If Russia had obtained the information over the internet, NSA would know of it.  Anyone savvy at all would know there would have to be a physical transfer.  As well as the VIPS story about the timestamps, and the fact that the servers were never examined by other than a commercial firm connected to the DNC itself--Crowdstrike.)

(*According to one story, Guccifer 2.0 once even admitted to being part of Israeli intelligence.  It has never been proven to be part of Russian intelligence, especially GRU which is military intelligence.  Assange himself has denied Russians were involved, which is more than he says about any other sourcing.  Assange refuses to say more, that part being consistent with Wikileaks principles, though this case could be considered exceptional.  I doubt he'd be asked by any American or British prosecutor however, since Russiaphobia is official policy, universally obeyed, richly rewarded, and it's opposite punished as much as possible--see Assange...)

(That the media and Seth Rich's family have tried to axe this story should be ignored.  Here's an impressive list of people who have advanced the theory that Seth Rich was the leaker.  Kim Dotcom, for one, claims to have known Rich from a long series of online conversations (about "the Internet Party"), and also says he also knows Rich was the leaker, but would provide more details to investigators only.  Craig Murray is another well known person advancing this theory.)

One way or another, we now KNOW that Israel was involved, and that this fact has been covered up for years.

What to do about Both Side rhetoric

Chris Hedges has written another excellent (if not perfect) essay about the War in Iraq and how the "Pimps" of that war need to be held accountable.

Chris brings it up to the present by calling the war in Ukraine another Proxy War, and calling the expansion of NATO both provocative and unnecessary (with links to other articles backing up those points).  Bravo!

But then he follows the convention of nearly all antiwar voices.  He equates the crimes of Bush, Cheney, and their ilk with Putin.  He says it would be fine if Putin were in prison for war crimes, but only alongside Bush, Cheney, and the others.

Fairly well informed and tireless commenter Feral Finster (so tireless on a wide variety of blogs you wonder if it's just one person) refuses to call out Hedges for this both-sides rhetoric, but clearly states what is also my opinion on the matter:

As I said, the war is entirely intentional on the part of the United States.

The idea was to put Russia in a situation in which it had no choice but to react. Ukrainians were the patsies.

(Not that I always agree with Feral Finster either.) 

I liked the essay by Chris anyway.  It's not like I have a spectrum of people like Chris Hedges to choose from.   There are many commenters like me (in a vast world) but relatively few qualified journalists and leading commentators who say what I say.  I can't demand or expect 100% agreement.  I seek whatever level of useful agreement I can get, and IMO Chris' essay is near perfect (except the one both-sidesing sentence).

It's true that those who don't do the both-sidesing thing include some of my most valued sources.  But there aren't many of them to choose from:

Scott Ritter (who may differ from me on a number of social issues he doesn't publicly talk about anymore--he's basically a conservative guy who happens to agree with me completely on issues of war and peace, which makes it clear to me that my ideas of war and peace are both intuitive and correct)

MoonOfAlabama "b" (who is also a conservative guy fundamentally, but not into the latest "conservative" con jobs like anti-masking and anti-vaxxing (which he unsuccessfully attempted to keep his comments section clear from) though he's not the most friendly towards LGBTQ+ either, judging from a few occasional asides he makes as it's something he doesn't write essays about).

And a number of others I had little patience with on other issues, but noted their rectitude on war and imperialism, including;

TheSaker (now retired, and a tireless supporter of anti-woke etc, and obviously pro-Russian)

Will Schriver and numerous blogger/tweeters like him

I can't think of one commentator I agree with 100%.   Which is why I must write this blog.

Censorship in Germany

It seems certain antiwar sentiments, especially those that "justify" the actions of "the enemy [ie Russia]" are illegal in Germany.  (Individual expression might be ok, but not organization, if I understand correctly.)

German antiwar organizers have to a person avoided such "justification," always condemning the actions of Russia (but nonetheless calling for a cease fire, no armaments to Ukraine, and ending NATO).

Nevertheless German media and authorities disparaged (if not more) protestors as having violated these rules.

If free speech means you can only defend "our" side it isn't very free.

Western Media loves to call out censorship in Russia.  But similar censorship can be found in lots of places in "free" countries.

The first step to peace, that does not involve "victory" by subjugating the "enemy," is understanding.

It's clear to me that the "enemy" needs a good lawyer, and wagon of advocates too, if we're ever going to go towards peace.

The Grand Plan

Simplicius has written a masterful essay on the the rise and goals of the Neocons, how they got a world full of toys with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and how they rode all them all to disaster.

He also introduces a concept going further back called the Heartland...in which the Soviet Union is located in the Heartland of all humanity (by proximity, resources, connections, etc).  The Neocon strategy all along has been to drive a wedge into this Heartland, break it apart, and take it over.  After the dissolution, there were convenient and now fully freed wedges all over.  But somehow none had the intended effect.

China is right there too, with a number of vulnerable areas as well.

Even Fukuyama disavowed the Neocons in 2006.  But they still own and operate US foreign policy.

The Inevitable (but Improvised) War in Ukraine

I previously listed 9 things done by The West which made the War in Ukraine inevitable.  It is why I see The West (that is to say, primarily and basically the USA, as the rest of The West have now proven to be little other than vassal states) as responsible for the war, with Russia merely responding to it (as in, they had no choice).  In short, the War was engineered by The West and forced upon Russia, rather than the reverse which is often claimed in US media (as "the unprovoked Russian invasion," phrase often repeated).  

There is a middle ground here, which many people I respect are taking (including Chomsky, Mearsheimer, Aaron Mate, and many legitimate Peace groups--just not the ones asking to give war a chance--those aren't peace groups at all).  The middle group position was that the War *was* provoked, but that the Russians (somehow) did not *have* to invade (but I fail to see the alternative).  Of course, the 9 things I listed are most often called Russian Propaganda in the west, if they are not simply ignored.

Number 9 on my list was the declared intention of Ukraine to launch an all out attack on Donbas and Crimean in March 2022, and to that end the accelerating artillery attacks by the AFU on Donbas starting in February 16, which finally pushed the Russians into taking emergency actions including recognizing the independence of Donbas and launching the SMO.

This is a claim which western media don't call Russian Propaganda very much because most often they don't mention it at all.  Supporters of the fascist dictatorship of Ukraine will only let someone make these claims (if they can't stop them somehow, such as by pulling their Twitter account) and then, while not even restating or recognizing the claim in any other way, will simply call it Russian Propaganda (as has happened to me).

Anyway, I continue to stand by my claim #9.  I read the whole story extensively documented by MoonOfAlabama (an award winning journalist and one of the best of our times) as it was happening, and then reiterated in a wonderful recap series a year later (which I intended to link here, but have not gotten around to it because there are so many other things to read about and comment on).

But MoonOfAlabama was not alone in this.  None other than filmmaker Oliver Stone described it in an interview in mid 2022.  And I have seen others.  The latest I've seen is an excellent account by a Swiss journalist and author:

Inevitable because since Zelensky’s declaration of his intention to retake Crimea by force in April 2021, Ukrainians and Americans had decided to trigger the war no later than early this year.

The concentration of Ukrainian troops in the Donbass since last summer, the massive arms deliveries by NATO in recent months, the accelerated combat training of Azov regiments and the army, the intensive shelling of Donetsk and Lugansk by the Ukrainians from 16 February onwards (all this was ignored by the Western media, of course), prove that Kiev had planned a large-scale military operation for the end of this winter.

The aim was to repeat the “Operation Storm” launched by Croatia against the Serbian Krajina in August 1995 and to take the Donbass in a lightning offensive, without giving the Russians time to react, in order to gain control over the entire Ukrainian territory and enable the country to join NATO and the EU quickly. Incidentally, this also explains why the USA has repeatedly announced a Russian attack since the autumn: they knew that, one way or another, it would come to war.

Improvised because the Russian response was made under time pressure. When the Russians realised that NATO’s diplomatic moves – no US response to their proposals, Blinken-Lavrov meetings in Geneva in January, Zelensky’s call for calm and Macron-Scholz mediation in February – did not clarify the situation and amounted to a classic stalling tactic, the Russians reacted in a masterful and at the same time very risky way. Within ten days (recognition of the republics, cooperation agreement and start of the military operation), they decided to attack first in order to pre-empt the Ukrainians.

Prior to reading this account, there was something troubling about my point #9 which this account resolves.  And that was, "If Ukraine was going to attack Donbas, why did it not do more than just ramp up artillery fire?"

The answer is that the Ukrainian plan to retake Donbas was modeled after American style "Shock and Awe" or "Blitzkrieg" campaign, not the "Slow Grind" that Russia has been doing ever since (which is actually intended to reduce civilian casualties--it is fighting war the "old fashioned way").

If Russia had waited much longer, Donbas would already have been taken and the only way for Russia to push back would be with massive casualties of their ethnic brothers in Donbas.

So more and more, the story is easier to see.  Russia had no choice.

From a somewhat less impeccable source, I have found the story about the "NATO laptop" found in Donbas, reportedly left behind by someone from Right Sector, including battle plans.  I'm not sure how much to believe this story, but I suspect the Kremlin did know more about Ukrainian plans to retake Donbas than observers like me (let alone the brainwashed western masses).

One commentator to that article makes the following point, worthy of mention if not to my mind conclusive:

"Is it still a war crime if you don't wait for the other side to attack but come first to protect your own population?"

Yes. This is a pre-emptive strike. According to the traditional reading, this is contrary to international law. NATO has already done so, but that doesn't justify such an approach.

But: military attacks by the Ukrainian armed forces have been going on for 6 years. This was, formally, an internal matter of Ukraine before the recognition of Donbass and Lugansk as independent republics.

With the recognition of the republics and their request for military help, this was - formally - impeccable under international law.

Incidentally, NATO has never bothered to make it look legal under international law.

This is not a moral, but a purely international legal assessment.

In short, we need not labor the question of whether a pre-emptive attack by Russia would have been legal.  Because it was not a pre-emptive attack, but a response to an escalating conflict which had been going on since 2014.  (No wonder the western response is to just call anything improper about the 2014 Revolution to be Russian Disinformation)

In my version, even the accelerating artillery attacks starting of February 16 2022 would have meant it was not merely a 'pre-emptive' attack.  Either this commenter didn't know about that or chose not to highlight it to simplify his analysis here, that in fact the war had been ongoing since 2014.

My belief is that Putin has the case for Justified War made here several different ways, both in the ongoing war since 2014, also in the accelerating attacks on February 16, 2022, and in other ways, such as what I'd call "belligerent encirclement" (Russia was not only seeing it's former republics coup'd and loaded with military bases with their guns pointed at Russia, but there had in fact been a history of US provoked conflicts as well, such as Afghanistan), and many calls for negotiations rebuffed by the US.

Whereas usually the west (in NATO wars such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria) doesn't even have a good case for Justified War made in one way.

 

ICC theater

One of the better takes on the recent ICC arrest warrant.

Of course it's meaningless political theatre, as neither US, Russia, nor Ukraine recognize the ICC.

It's mainly aimed smearing Putin as a distraction from recent Western unrest.  That is to say, it's a distraction aimed at western audiences.

The reality is that Putin has done all he could to save civilian lives in Donbas.  Including evacuations to take civilians out of harm's way.

Meanwhile, the US backed fascist (Banderaist) dictatorship called Ukraine has done everything possible to terrorize, kill, use as human shields, use for false flag claims, and drive out ethnic Russians.

An update with an Indian view.  This post gives the essential context of how western people are brainwashed by their media, yet fiercely believe they are independent and served by a "free press."

"Russian Propaganda"

Though I try to argue that the Russian Invasion of Ukraine was not only provoked but forced, and the US empire actively worked on this project, to destroy and dismantle Russia (and it's predecessor, USSR, for the same real reasons--competition) for decades, going back to at least 1944 when we started supporting Ukrainian nationalists (and Nazis), and you don't even have to believe my story on the Maidan for there to be sufficient evidence because the case is over-determined, it is a much easier case to make if you accept all the facts I do, which most in West probably don't, thanks to endless programming by western media, instead calling them "Russian Propaganda."

1)  The 2014 Maidan Revolution was actively supported if not planned and orchestrated by US.  (My actual belief is that it was yet another Color Revolution--orchestrated by NED, CIA and State Department.  But you don't have to believe all that for the war still to have been provoked.)

2) The snipers who shot on protestors were neonazies (and who were actually firing on a group of pro-Russian protestor/counter-protestors).  They were NOT government troops.  (For one thing, Yanukovich would not be that stupid, nor would his "friend" Putin, both of which well knew the Color Revolution script.  But even if they were that stupid, the typical response would be investigation not regime change.  How many times have US officers or troops killed Americans without causing regime change in USA?)

3) The anti-Maidan sentiments in majority or plurality pro-Russian regions (Donbas and Crimea) was organic.  Russia gave minimal security assistance (to hold back the neonazis) but was not forcing people to vote for autonomy or re-unification with Russia.  In fact, both in Donbas and Crimea by that point, the sentiment was already for re-unification with Russia.  But (oppositional to western prejudices about him) Putin held back that option from Donbas.  They were only allowed to vote for autonomy within a Ukrainian federation...the view later demanded by Minsk and Minsk II aggrements (and Russia's official position today...basically no NATO and no armed Nazis in Ukraine).

4) Even if he headline numbers of the Crimean Referendum were a bit overstated (and it's not hard to estimate by how much...even assuming all non-participants would have voted against re-unification it still gets over 80%), re-unificiation with Russia did and still does represent the vast majority preference in Crimea.  The reason the Referendum is considered faulty in the west is precisely because all the agencies which could have made it official are controlled by the US and fundamentally opposed to the idea.  US wants that port in Crimea, and to deny Russians from it.

5) The deaths in the trade union building in Odessa were caused deliberately or accidentally by Neonazis.  (But this is not actually material to the question, only perhaps to the widespread anti-Maidan sentiments among most in Donbas, which is also caused by other things, such as the banning of Russian language--the first act of the post-Maidan regime--, the banning of pro-Russian political candidates and parties, and the elevation of Banderites as heroes.  So that feeling is actually over-determined.)

6) Neonazis (or perhaps more correctly, Banderites) effectively control the Ukrainian government by being the 'Deep State' behind it, which answers to it's key backer...the USA.  'Elections' are a sham in virtually all countries, and mostly of all in Ukraine, one of the most corrupt countries on earth.  When given the choice, people voted for the self-declared 'Peace' candidate Zelenskyy who said he would seek peace with Russia, and then did the opposite.

7) The Ideology of Banderites is explicitly to drive out Russians from Ukraine.  Despite having lived in Donbas for hundreds of years...and as long as Ukrainians have (!)...Russians are seen as inherently inferior.

8) The Ukrainian Civil War was essentially ethnic cleansing and killed 14,000 people, mostly ethnic Russians in Donbas, 2014-2022.

9) Ukraine had planned a major attack on Donbas and Crimea in March 2022, and had already started softening Donbas targets with increased artillery attacks starting before Russia started emergency procedures, including later the SMO.  Russia gave numerous warnings and sought negotiations to resolve the issue without success at that time, as they had done for decades prior (!).

Anyway, this and dozens of other things which I believe to be true are called 'Russian Propaganda' by people brainwashed by western media.  Here's a great article on this, written in early 2022!

http://steelcityscribblings.uk/wp/2022/03/05/is-this-russian-propaganda/

US and Allies seek regime change in Russia

A masterful history and highly linked essay by Eric Zuesse.

https://southfront.org/u-s-allies-seek-regime-change-in-russia

ANSWER Coalition Anti-war Rally in DC March 18, 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP4IEXwJPbk

Here's the Teach-In.

Post-Maidan education in Ukraine

Deborah Armstrong has a series on the education of children in Ukraine.  Of course the well known Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera who murdered thousands of Jews and Russians is glorified as a national hero.  Also children are often hears shouting "Death to Moskals."  Moskal is a slur for people of Russian ethnicity.  It gets worse.  And that was before 2022.

Analysis of Prospects for WW3

Alecks gives a very very deep analysis, showing decision points and options.  I cannot recommend this highly enough.  Some may feel he shows pro-Russian bias.  In the case of this article, IMO it's only because such supposed 'bias' is closer to the truth in these matters.  And unlike the now retired The Saker, whom he admires, Alecks manages to keep peripheral religious and political matters, and Clash of Civilizations rhetoric, out of his discussion and focus on the facts as he sees them.

Although you must consider the other possibilities he also evaluates (a terrible 5% chance of nuclear annihilation, for example), Alecks feels WW3 will not be fought for Ukraine.  It will be settled in some fashion this year, he predicts, because it can't go on and nobody else is willing to get that seriously involved to continue the sham service to the US Oligarchy any longer.  It's really all about how the US holds countries and trade routes hostage to enforce its economic dominance, and everyone knows it now, he says [that's not what I hear from most of my friends, they're still talking about 'unprovoked aggression' which must be stopped as a moral issue--ie give war a chance*].  However, there is 10% chance of this not happening, either because of one possible outcome from 'the Odessa Moment,' or US attack from Romania (which probably leads to nuclear annihilation), as he outlines.

The real WW3 is China vs US, and will result in US being kicked out of it's position of Eastern Pacific Dominance.  China has been preparing for this, building the largest army the world has ever seen, as only they can do, to be fully operational by 2030.  Alecks predicts war by 2027.

*Sadly, the more the war continues, enabled by over $100B of military assistance, and intelligence and much else, the more it will be necessary for Russia to occupy.  The original possibility negotiated in Italy in early 2022 was much like Minsk II, now analysts like Alecks say it will be necessary to take Kyiv, since it is essentially impossible and useless anyway to negotiate with the endlessly aggressive and deal-breaking west.  Although the Russians haven't even taken the whole Donbas yet, once the Ukrainian army collapses, which Alecks predicts this year, there will be nothing stopping Russia from advancing to Kyiv, at least at 90%, with 5% nuclear annihilation and 5% some kind of direct western involvement.  Here I share MoonOfAlabama's analysis that no kind of western option short of nuclear could stop Russia from taking Kyiv.  NATO's thing is air power, quite often administered with troop carrying helicopters, which Russia could easily defeat.  (NATO was eventually defeated by Afghanistan too.)

Gladio, Gladio B

One has to conclude this is the US/CIA/NATO modus operandi since WWII.  Fund fascist terror groups for political purposes, to prevent anything but a manichean view (us vs Russia/China/etc) from prevailing.  In the early days after WWII, there was now well known (but sometimes incorrectly apologized) Operation Gladio.  By 1999 this had become Gladio B.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-nafeez-mosaddeq-ahmed/whistleblower-alqaeda-chi_b_3305954.html

(Operation Gladio was mainly focused on Italy, a supposed ally after the WWII.  Ukraine had Operation Aerodynamic intended to subvert the Soviet governance of Ukraine.)

Apologists for US Hegemony (including one Bernie supporter I've been arguing with on Facebook...btw I supported Bernie during 2016 and 2000 primaries also...but sadly this guy sounds more like Bernie himself when it comes to WW3) seem incapable of looking at US neocolonialism and seeing anything more than a few 'mistakes.'

More fundamentally, they seem incapable of seeing things as others might see them, such as Russians and Chinese.

Vladimir Putin is a great man

I agree with this amazing video with Scott Ritter chock full of amazing information (if not always the easiest to listen to).

Vladimir Putin is only human, but he is also the only adult in the room compared to western leaders (Ritter characterizes each one).  All except for western countries see this.  He pulled his country out of the ashes created by the US-subservient Yeltsin.  The US would either like another Yeltsin or to break apart Russia and grab its resources, which is what the US does with all countries that follow our "Rules".

Putin did indeed regret the dissolution of the Soviet Union sometime in the mid 2000's.  He then said he would protect "stateless" Russians created by the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

I would call them extraterritorial, but in either case, it was a reasonable assertion, and one the US has made numerous times ("right to protect") with far less to no validity.

Putin was indeed KGB intelligence.  But Ritter reminds us he was Marine Corps intelligence officer.  He was doing his job, and proud of it.  Being intelligence officer does not necessarily mean a bad person.  Putin was the man in the room listening to how Yeltsin was being yanked around and Russia destroyed by the west.

The fighting in Chechnya was caused by [another] US attempt to overthrow the Russia-friendly government using terrorists.

Ritter asserts there is no fixing the anti-Russian racism and xenophobia that has been inculcated into Americans any time soon.  Two generations will have to die off, but if kids meet Russians and feel their compassion, we could have peace.

The American position is to do nothing except further advance 'American Interests' at the cost of everyone else.  "We don't care about anyone else," Ritter says.  "That's the problem."  Russians do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZuw8RYAXIc

Debunking Pro War Claims

One of the biggest pipes in the War Wurlitzer of western media is the well known Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and their publication Foreign Affairs.  (I was once invited to join the CFR, but only as some kind of  associate member and not one of the big dogs, so it would primarily be a high priced magazine subscription, though I might get invited to a lecture or two, and there might be the potential of upgrading my membership except that there was never any hope of that, since I have no relevant qualifications, and have no plan to get any.  I was tempted anyway.)  Pretty much every member of Congress becomes a member of CFR, etc.

Another is the more consumer oriented magazine The Atlantic.  As you might guess from the name, it invariably sides with US/NATO.

In the past couple months, both have published seemingly out-of-place articles critical of the US role in Ukraine.  (Which to me is further evidence of what I speculated a couple months ago, the US/NATO is now looking for a face saving out.)

There was much in both of these articles that I strongly agreed with, along with a few points that I wouldn't agree with.  

The importance of these articles to me is that they put a much more authoritative imprimateur on points I've been making before with support mainly from sources you might not trust as much as I do (MoA, ConsortiumNews, Aaron Mate, Caitlyn Johnstone, John Mearsheimer, and dozens more like them). 

I've tried to make at least one point the newest The Atlantic article makes many times, but a friend tends to quote a few words from a speech Putin made in the 1990's (rather than anything from the past decade)  to discredit my point.  The article in The Atlantic addresses this very issue.

QUOTE

Why did Russia invade Ukraine?

Perhaps because they view NATO as a benign—even benevolent—force in the world, many Western commentators argue that Russia was primarily motivated to conquer Ukraine for offensive purposes as part of its “colonial venture” to reconstitute the Soviet Union. The controversial international-relations luminary John Mearsheimer overstates the case that there is “no evidence” of Russian imperial ambitions to gobble up Ukraine. But his work on “offensive realism” suggests that NATO enlargement eastward since the Iron Curtain fell has indeed been viewed by Russian leaders as inherently threatening, and played a significant role in the invasion.

END QUOTE 

This section continues, and is followed by another section debunking the analogy with Munich, but you can read the original for all that.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/russia-ukraine-war-pundits-history-international-relations/673293/

AI is Evil

AI is Evil.

On the other hand, I've seen a sort of impartial response from ChatGPT regarding the war in Ukraine that makes much more sense than I've heard from any elected US official.* 

That's because elected US officials are even more evil.

*Basically it called for negotiations to start now.  It also categorically refused to make any prediction about the outcome of a war.  I often feel like that when people are asking me to predict the outcome of an election I am participating in.

Daniel Ellsberg, Amy Goodman, and Both-Sidesing

Daniel Ellsberg displayed a great deal of courage in leaking and getting the Pentagon Papers published.  As a person, I have done nothing that rises to that level.

Similar things could be said about Amy Goodman, who was beaten by Indonesian thugs while covering East Timor.

I don't fault either of these people much.  Everyone makes errors in judgement, and my reasoning could be wrong too.

But the reason they have remained leading 'Antiwar' icons in the US (and not been assassinated, discredited, etc) is probably this: they both have a talent for both-sidesing.  Many of the same people I knew who were demanding that we fight the Taliban, Saddam, or Gaddafi, or Maduro were also big fans of Ellsberg.  Whatever they learned in reading the Pentagon Papers somehow didn't generalize much beyond Vietnam.

In a recent message delivering the sad news that he has cancer and will not be treating it, Ellsberg chooses to deploy both-sidesing with regards to the war in Ukraine.

Russia is making monstrous threats to initiate nuclear war to maintain its control over Crimea and the Donbas–like the dozens of equally illegitimate first-use threats that the U.S. government has made in the past to maintain its military presence in South Korea, Taiwan, South Vietnam,

Russia was merely stating Russian nuclear policy, which is essentially defensive, as compared with US nuclear policy, which is aggressive.   Russia says it will use nukes to defend its existence as a state.  US says it will US nukes whenever its interests are threatened.

Crimea and Donbas were part of Russia for over 200 years.  They are populated by a majority or near majority of ethnic Russians who speak Russian.  After the illegal US sponsored coup in Ukraine in 2014, the post-coup 'Ukrainian' government dominated by Banderite fascists made the Russian language illegal.  Crimea then had a referendum in which the vast majority of Crimeans voted to join Russia.  That result has since been verified by a large number of western-sponsored polls.

In 2014, Russia strongly discouraged a re-unification referendum in Donbas.  Instead, a vote was taken on independence from Ukraine, which got a solid majority.  That was 2014.  In 2022 a vast majority of those in Donbas voted to join Russia.

These are nothing like US designs on Korea, Vietnam, and Taiwan.  The US suppressed a vote on re-unification in Vietnam.  The US was fighting in South Vietnam for a government most South Vietnamese hated and wanted to overthrow.

Western governments refuse to recognize these clear results, claiming that they were not monitored by official international monitors.  But that was the choice of the 'International Monitors' who are, like the UN itself, largely dominated by US.  They are simply never going to monitor a referendum that goes against US interests.

Daniel Ellsberg did not scoop the Mai Lai Massacre, Seymour Hersh did.

Daniel Ellsberg did not reveal the Gulf of Tonkin fabrication.

No one has ever given me a simple answer of what the Pentagon Papers revealed that should not already have been known to a thoughtful person.  Of course the US was meddling in Vietnam against the will of most of the Vietnamese!  Many if not most Americans did not need the Pentagon Papers to reveal what a catastrophic sham the Vietnam War was.

Gain of Function Research

 I am 100% in favor of the sentiment expressed by long time leading science reporter Nicholas Wade when he says:

From the hindsight of 2021, one can say that the value of gain-of-function studies in preventing the SARS2 epidemic was zero. The risk was catastrophic, if indeed the SARS2 virus was generated in a gain-of-function experiment.

I agree with b of MoonOfAlabama where he points out the newest 'Blame China' now occurring in US media, and how this is following the general pattern for manufacturing consent for war with China.  And this.

But where the blame rests is a question separate from whether it was man-made or not.

Even if the virus had been released from Wuhan Institute of Virology, 300 meters from the meat market most often fingered as the natural connection point, it would not mean that the Chinese were entirely responsible.  It is well known that the Chinese were doing contract research for universities in the USA, who had been pursuing GoF experiments for some time and decided to outsource some of this work to China.  What could go wrong?

It could also have been spread by US soldiers and other guests attending the World Military Games in Wuhan in 2019.  The US team had it's worst showing ever, placing 38th.   There were many reports of US team members being sick.  Also it appears that the best were not sent.

And there are both 'accidental release' and 'deliberate contagion' theories.  In addition to sending sick soldiers (who themselves might only have contracted the virus accidentally, from a release from the notorious Fort Detrick) as one possible plan, there could simply have been some kind of leaky package sent.

With almost any kind of accidental release scenario, the Chinese would only be partially culpable.  The blame should also be shared with the US universities and authorities which had authorized, funded, and outsourced this risky research in the first place.

With a 'deliberate contagion' theory, it would be almost certain that the US that was responsible, because the virus was planted in China in such a way it could be blamed on China.

In general I either completely oppose or greatly disparage research that could be dual use.   As well as (theoretically) leading to better strategies for combating natural disease, GoF research could be used to create racially targeted bioweapons.  In 1999, the Project for a New American Century recommended this kind of development for fighting Russia and China.

In the case of virological GoF research, I completely oppose it.  IMO it diverges too much from First Do No Harm.