Talk given by John Parker at “People Speak Out to Stop Racism, Poverty and World War III” at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Harlem, New York, Jan. 13.
Almost a year ago, on Feb. 15, bombings by Ukraine were 70 bombs per day in the Donbass region. Then, to increase the provocation, it went up 20-fold to 1,400 a day by Feb. 22, with 150,000 Kiev troops at the border of the Donbass region ready to come in and commit genocide – that is undeniable. And the only thing that stopped that genocidal massacre was the Russian intervention that was requested by both Lugansk and Donetsk.
But, despite stopping a massacre — which is kind of important — we’re being told we should condemn Russia because perhaps it unified Europe. Regarding that, Thierry Meyssan – a political consultant for Syria and Libya, so an insider in geopolitics, and founder of the Voltaire Network, a very good news source out of France – wrote an interesting editorial titled The World Order Already Changed in 2022. He writes:
“Everyone is now beginning to think for themselves. We are not yet in the multipolar world that Russia and China are trying to bring about, but we are seeing it being built.
¨It all started with the Russian military operation to enforce Security Council Resolution 2202 and protect the entire Ukrainian population from its ‘integral nationalist’ government.”
Why is he saying that? He points to the unity being built, not destroyed.
Well, he goes on to mention the former European colonial African states that now want the Russian army to ensure their security. They reflect the view of much of the world that is fed up with the U.S. war on terrorism that is actually creating and supporting terrorists in their countries when it suits them. They are also concerned about the huge transfer of weapons destined for Ukraine but winding up on shopping sites for terrorists on the dark web, given the level of corruption in Kiev’s government.
And India and Iran are working hard with Russia to build a transport corridor that will allow them to trade despite the U.S. and Western European illegal economic sanctions. Already Mumbai is connected to Southern Russia and soon to Moscow and St. Petersburg. Beijing is building roads in Eurasia from East to West. None of these relationships are imperialist relationships – they are not exporting capital; they are helping developing countries build up their infrastructure for mutually beneficial economic interests, unlike the financial gangsters of the West – the IMF and World Bank.
See, if the glasses you wear only direct the light into your eyes from Europe, giving a Eurocentric view of the world, you don’t see the Global South. You don’t see that countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia have a different view and collectively can have more of an impact on the world than Europe.
But I don’t want to give the impression that Europe is united either. Back in August, veteran journalist and TV host Saeed Naqvi wrote in the Indian Observer about French President Macron’s leaked conversation displaying anything but unity, but, for once, honesty: He said basically that Western hegemony might be coming to an end to senior French diplomats.
Macron said France, Britain, and the USA contributed to the world in this way: France is culture, England is industry, and the U.S. is war. He then criticized the wrong choices made by a series of U.S. Presidents from Clinton on. He also said China and Russia had achieved great success over the years under different leadership styles, then mentioned how China lifted 700 million people out of poverty. But, in France, Macron said, the market economy is increasing income inequality at an unprecedented rate. Ouch.
Macron is no anti-imperialist; he refused to take down statues of colonialists and brags about France’s possession of French Guiana. So, he’s not cheering on an end of hegemony; he’s crying about its end and blaming the U.S. administrations, from Clinton to Biden, for ruining the party.
And did you hear what Biden said when Zelensky was in Washington? In response to a Ukrainian reporter’s question about why the U.S. isn’t arming Ukraine with even more advanced weaponry, he said: “The idea that we would give Ukraine material that is fundamentally different than is already going there would have a prospect of breaking up NATO and breaking up the European Union and the rest of the world.” And, Biden said, “I’ve spent several hundred hours face-to-face with our European allies and the heads of state of those countries, and making the case as to why it was overwhelmingly in their interest that they continue to support Ukraine.” Yikes.
He also said, “They’re not looking to go to war with Russia. They’re not looking for a third World War.”
Biden ended the questions with this: “There’s more to say, but I’ve probably already said too much.” Yep, he did.
Now, when you dig even deeper in Europe, you see the tens and maybe now hundreds of thousands demonstrating in Europe against their resources being squandered for a U.S. proxy war in Ukraine and upset about their gas prices and general inflation going up.
See, when we talk about unity, we also can’t give the impression that it’s just the ruling class dynamics that matter – more importantly, it’s what’s going on with the working class, which, like the non-European majority countries on the globe, is potentially much more impactful on our future.
But, perhaps instead of focusing on Russia, folks should look at the planners of this war.
The 2022 National Defense Strategy document from the U.S. Secretary of Defense is worth a look. This document was blessed by President Biden, who is quoted in the introduction.
Right out of the gate, it calls China, Russia, Iran, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea threats to U.S. national security. And this threat must be met by making NATO even more powerful and nuclear-capable, especially surrounding Russia.
But in terms of priorities, China is the number one target. The document even goes so far as to say that the U.S. should begin training and arming Taiwan in asymmetrical warfare (or guerrilla war) against China.
What should we learn from this document and the Pentagon think tank, the Rand Corporation’s strategy published four years ago, planning the provocations that started this war? First, it didn’t matter what Russia did – the imperialists had a plan of action that was determined to cause war by any means.
But, it’s understandable that there is confusion because censorship by the Pentagon and social media platforms controlled by the State Department keep vital information out.
Sometimes you just have to go there. In the city of Rubizhne in the Donbass region, I arrived at a shelter to interview folks who were housed there to escape the shelling of their apartments by tanks.
In fact, there was a story in one of the only media outlets allowed to exist in Ukraine today – the Euromaidan Press about the shelter in Rubizne I visited.
The Euromaidan Press is an NGO partly funded by the U.S. intelligence National Democratic Institute and the British Embassy in Kiev and indirectly by the Soros’ Open Society Foundation, which funded regime change efforts in Ukraine.
They had a heart-wrenching story about a person’s parents killed by Russian soldiers simply for bringing food and water to a shelter where people had escaped attacks by Russian soldiers. So Ukraine created this shelter in Rubizhne to keep people safe.
Well, I visited the shelter in Rubizne about three weeks after this supposed incident. But, the people there told me they were there because their apartment buildings were being bombed by Ukrainian tanks, not Russian tanks, and while the Ukrainians were bombing them, there were no Russian soldiers on site. And, they said it wasn’t the Ukrainian soldiers that provided them shelter; it was the Russian soldiers and the Lugansk Peoples Militia transporting them there and protecting them from the Ukrainian military.
When I first got to Lugansk, I participated in a conference of religious leaders, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian. The topic of discussion was how to defeat the Nazi ideology that was growing exponentially in Ukraine. Why is it growing so fast – well…
Let’s suppose that Biden tomorrow erects statues of Hitler’s collaborators all over the country, then loans buildings for free to a white supremacist organization to indoctrinate the youth into fascist politics, with libraries filled with books like Hitler’s Mein Kampf and a gift shop downstairs with cute little keychains with Nazi insignias on them. Then to add icing on the cake he abolishes every police department in the country and replaces them with the Klan or some other fascist-white supremacist organization.
In that analogy, I am exaggerating not by one iota regarding what is happening in Ukraine today.
I should mention that when I was in Krymskye, also in Donbass, we visited a tuberculosis hospital that had been retrofitted for war by the Ukrainian military. On the wall was a giant swastika painted on it, and next to it, the sonnenrad, a symbol appropriated by the Nazis in World War II and used today by the Ukrainian Azov Battalion.
When some people say that Ukraine’s Nazi problem is “minor,” they callously ignore the 10 Black people killed at the Tops Supermarket in Buffalo, New York, by an 18-year-old white supremacist. He was wearing the emblem of the Azov Battalion – the same sonnenrad I saw on the wall in Krymskoye.
This youth said he was inspired by New Zealander Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 Muslims in a mosque. In his manifesto, Tarrant wrote that he was in direct contact with the Azov Battalion and was planning to go to Ukraine for military training.
In 2019, Time Magazine interviewed a former FBI agent who admitted that 17,000 white supremacists worldwide had traveled to Ukraine for military training. Azov and its partners have used some of the billions of dollars Ukraine has received in funding and training from the U.S. since 2014 to build a very successful social media presence aimed at alienated youth.
Things are changing, and we must realize that we can no longer allow the U.S. ruling class the luxury of pushing us over the cliff of poverty, climate disaster, and World War III.
Dr. King said the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – is my own government. He was certainly talking about the most aggressive, violent military alliance in history – NATO. We have the power to end this war and stop the tens of billions stolen from us to fund a war that does nothing but create death, inflation, and misery. We just need to be clear on who the real enemy is – it’s not Russia, and it’s not China – it’s U.S. imperialism, and imperialism’s attack dog – NATO. It’s time to put that rabid dog down. Abolish NATO Now!
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