Whatever. I am as upset about war as you are. Every war
upsets me, no matter where in the world and when in the past or
present (e.g., the "civilised western world's" war against
Yugoslavia, in 1999, admitted to have been illegal by our former
chancellor, Mr Schroeder). War must not be the "continuation of politics with other means".
Diplomacy, negotiation, balancing interests, must be the only
way of settling conflicts. But what if one party to a conflict
stubbornly refuses to oblige? Of course, war is the "ultima irratio", madness if you like.
But wars have prehistories and contexts, they do not start out
of the blue. Prehistories and contexts should be carefully
studied in order to fairly put the blame on those involved. In
particular, putting the blame on one person is imho always too
great a simplification. For what it is worth: Hegel would
certainly not agree to that kind of oversimplification.
(Jokingly calling Napoleon the"world's
spirit on horseback" he actually points out that the
self-declared French "emperor" is an embodiment (of potentially
many) of something much bigger, transcending the individual, and
underlying the dialectic challenge and response dynamics of
interacting and evolving societies.)
Regarding the current war in eastern Europe there is a
long prehistory, and the (geopolitical) context has been the
subject of numerous academic and semi-academic treatises among
which Mr Brzezinski´s seminal
text "The Grand Chessboard" stands
out. Another academic commentator is John Mearsheimer who discusses
the
current
situation with - inter alia - Ray McGovern, a former CIA
analyst, on Consortium News. As to the prehistory I'd recommend
watching "Ukraine on Fire", a documentary
produced by Oliver Stone that covers a large ground, practically
beginning with the end of the Austro-Hungarian empire and then
focusing on the civil war that broke out in late 2013, early
2014, and that since took some 14000 lives in the two eastern
break-away provinces around Donezk and Lugansk. What struck me
most when I began reading about the Ukraine-complex was the
extent of Ukrainians' support of and collaboration with the Nazi
invaders in 1941- 1945. They greatly contributed - of their own
accord - to the Holocaust in that part of Europe. These people's
descendants are just as crazy and dangerous. They had their
hands strengthened in the course of the Maidan events and
aftermath. They were the ones who inflicted the most pain and
suffering on their fellow-countrymen in Donezk and Lugansk (of
which little was reported in our standard media because it was
not considered opportune).
Much has been written and put online, about the run-up
to the current tragic situation. Facts are: In late autumn last
year the Russian government probed into the US-Americans´ and NATO's willingness to stop
luring (or goading) the Ukraine into formally joining the
Alliance. It already had become clear that the Ukrainian
powers-that-be (backed by the US) obviously had no intention
whatsoever to comply with the so called Minsk2 agreement. In
their démarche the Russians defined their lines. They wanted to
negotiate (they even met their counterparts in Geneva, Vienna
and elsewhere - Brussels, I think) and their demands were not
unreasonable and transparently laid out: non-alignment of
Ukraine with either NATO or Russia, yet guaranteeing Ukraine's
independence and sovereignty by all parties concerned, Donbass
autonomy. These demands were pooh-poohed and dismissed.
To wit, there was even a precedent of sorts: the Cuban
crisis of 1962, when the Soviet Union, responding to the
deployment of US missiles in Turkey, shipped missiles with
nuclear warheads to Cuba. We all remember what happened (I was
fifteen at the time). Razor´s
edge. We do not want this to happen again.
So far, reactions in the "West" were way off the mark.
Germany has finally joined the warriors - big time. Up until now
there were only skirmishes (like in Mali, Kosovo, Afghanistan -
bad enough). Now it's getting serious. Now they are supplying
weapons to war parties ignoring past pledges, and set aside an
extra 100 billion to beef up the military; German neo-nazis (of
which there are and were many in our so called Bundeswehr) join
the newly established Ukrainian "légion". Ugly, ugly. May they be happy
with cutting all economic ties, sanctioning to their heart's
content, sawing off the branch they are sitting on, boosting gas
and oil prices no end. One of the ugliest reactions, however, is
the dismissal of Valéry Gergiev, chief conductor of the Munich
Philharmonic, whose employers were probably bowing to their US
masters who forbade Anna Netrebko to keep singing at the NY Met.
Back to the middle ages while the language gets more and more
Orwellian. It´s inquisition time.
("I renounce
Satan and all his work and ways, and surrender myself to You, O triune
Dollar, US, NATO, and our western values, in belief, obedience, and
the earnest resolution to remain faithful to You until my end. Amen.")
That upsets me too. Greatly. I do not succumb to pressure to
conform, even at the risk of not belonging any more.
Well, I hope I did not upset you, trying to present my
perspective gained from many sources that seemed sufficiently
plausible. Whatever we know of the wider world, we know it
through some variant of hearsay. That´s
what makes me deeply mistrust our media and keeps me open to
changing my mind. Never trust war reporting, including
photographic (that's the worst). But: there are limits to this
openness to changing my mind, fundamental principles, axioms, as
it were, like in mathematics. One of them is "audiatur et
altera pars", well known in Roman jurisprudence.
31 March 2022
I am not surprised you are shocked by Germany's
newfound warmongering. But this time we are on the side of the
good guys in the trenches, aren't we?. Hurray! Jane and I are
also shocked, appalled and disgusted.
I am attaching an e-version (pdf) of Brzezinski´s ominous "Grand
Chessboard", subtitled "American
Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives". I think it
is an interesting read. To get the gist of it scanning the
Conclusion chapter probably suffices. It is strangely abstract
as there is practically no mention in it of real human beings.
There are nations, states, countries, neatly distributed
around the globe, with Eurasia, the biggest and most
resourceful land mass, and hence the biggest and most
important turf of the game. Strangely enough, in Brz's world,
nations (etc.) - not people - seem to have desires, volition
and interests.
I had always assumed that only people, individuals, could
desire or be interested in whatever. Egon Bahr, a respected
West-German politician (in the late sixties and early
seventies he negotiated, as you may remember, key treaties
with Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko and Valentin Falin
who later became the Soviet ambassador to Germany) famously
told a bunch of high school students: "International
politics is never about democracy or human rights. It is
about the interests of states.
Remember that, no matter what you are told in history class." Although his
intention was laudable and what he said is basically correct,
I think he chose the wrong word. He should have chosen "power"
instead of "interests" (which is way too diplomatic a term and
too fuzzy). And he should have specified what or - rather -
who he means by "state".
In the same vein, Brz does not specify who is
responsible for moving the pieces on his fantastic chessboard.
Instead he uses a convenient but obscuring "façon de parler".
Who is in power? In the old days (say a couple of hundred
years ago) the answer was still relatively easy. Nowadays it
has obviously become more complex as power can assume so many
more shades of grey. Yet, in my humble opinion there is such a
thing as a "power class" whose members (assisted by willing
servants) jointly determine the fate of their societies, for
better or for worse. Mostly for worse: the more those in power
own or are in charge of, the more powerful they become, the
more they want to control and be in charge of (aided and
abetted by the big media). "The people's rule" ("democracy")
has always been, and will remain, a perhaps well-intentioned
illusion. A long time ago rulers legitimised their power as
god-given. Then a new axiom emerged: "All state power emanates
from the people" as postulated (for example) by the German
constitution. Unfortunately this is wrong as "All state power
emanates from the moneyed class". I guess that's the class
someone like Brz really means when he talks about states,
nations and countries. Shorthand for the moneyed classes (aka
the 1% - or less).
The subtitle is Brz's book's leitmotif:
how to preserve US primacy through control of the rest of the
human world. The US has the right to do so as they are the
most powerful (in several dimensions) and hence most
exceptional and indispensable nation. Only they can keep the
world in check (and in order!). While written in a suave and
matter-of-fact style the arrogance underlying this book is
breathtaking. Brz was an influential man, "security" adviser
to President Carter and counselling behind the scenes as one
of the top US strategists, well into Obama´s tenure. He still has a strong
presence on the Internet.
In his book (actually, this is only one of many he wrote) he
recommends that Russia should break up into a loose
confederation of a "European Russia, a Siberian Republic, and
a Far Eastern Republic", assisted by America pursuing
"the second
imperative strand of its strategy toward Russia: namely,
reinforcing the prevailing
geopolitical pluralism in the post-Soviet space. Such
reinforcement will serve to
discourage any imperial temptations". That was
written when Yeltsin was at the helm, happily supported by US
neoliberal economists, all sorts of advisers, including CIA
agents with offices in the Kremlin. It was Mr Yeltsin's
successor, one Vladimir Putin (hand-picked by Mr Yeltsin, as
the story goes) who slowly but surely with the help of his
supporters managed to thwart the US attempt on Russia's
sovereignty and also curbed the influence of the so called
oligarchs (post soviet) who - in cahoots with fellow oligarchs
in the west - had been appropriating the spoils of the cold
war.
It is equally breathtaking to see how in our days a strategy
conceived almost thirty years ago (and more - a strategy which
I think is insane) prevails and in fact, is gaining momentum.
Consortium News is
a non-"mainstream" website that is beyond reproach as far as
being "pro-Russian" is concerned. Its founder, Robert Parry, was
a journalist who uncovered the machinations behind the
Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan presidency and who later
left the "mainstream" to become independent. The current editor
of the site, one Joe Lauria, also wrote for beyond suspicion
papers such as the Sunday Times, the Boston Globe and Wall
Street Journal. He recently published a piece entitled "Biden Confirms
Why the US Needed This War" which rather
convincingly outlines the conflation of the old geostrategy and
the current "geotactics" in Ukraine. (It should go without
saying that facts and figures about the goings-on in Ukraine and
their interpretation, published by either of the two sides in
the conflict, are - as usual - propaganda sensu strictu and can safely be
ignored.)
As you can imagine, I am very concerned about the double
standards apparent in the "Western" reactions to the
intensification of the Ukraine conflict, especially in Germany
with its horrific history. Did you know that well-known German
conductors (e.g. Eugen Jochum, Herbert von Karajan, Karl Böhm)
who were more than Nazi sympathisers were not asked to denounce
the Nazi regime after the war? Not at all. Jochum was even
invited to St. Petersburg when it was still called Leningrad,
the city that had been under a deadly German siege for hundreds
of days, to conduct a concert enthusiastically applauded by a
Russian audience. German research societies (DFG, MPG and tutti
quanti) cut all ties with Russian partners. The anti-Russian
hysteria in German media is deafening. If only they had been as
hysterical in the past, in their response to the endless US wars
of aggression that took an estimated 20 million lives since the
end of WW2.
A Ukrainian flag is now waving on the tower of a nearby
castle and this morning when we went to register in the local
town hall we saw yellow-blue all around us. Even in shop
windows. Even so called "Russlanddeutsche",
ethnic
Germans who had lived in Russia and other post-soviet states and
been "repatriated", get the brunt of this deliberately sparked
russophobia. Unlike you and me nobody seems to know any more
about Babi Yar and all the
other atrocities Ukrainian and German fascists jointly commited
in WW2. Hypocrisy is in the air. Unreflected, blunt. In the
political and media arenas name-calling has become almost the
norm, nonsensical comments are being made by all and sundry. Our
president (a certain Mr Steinmeier who - as foreign minister -
cowardly did not prevent the 2014 Maidan putsch from happening)
now tells us "Our solidarity and
support, our steadfastness, even our willingness to bear
with restrictions will be required for a
long time to come". "Don't buy
from Russians", does
that ring a bell? "Freeze for freedom",
as one former German president, a certain ex-DDR-pastor named
Gauck, had the barefaced cheek to tell his former "subjects".
Another bell ringing? Old.patterns, believed to be forgotten,
are reemerging. The ugly grimace of German fascism is rising
again.
Don't get me wrong. I do not condone violence, no matter
who does it or is behind it, but neither do I condone
one-sidedness and the deliberate abandonment of an honest and
comprehensive assessment of what is happening in our world
(quite independently of current events). Fortunately, there
still seem to be people who do make an effort to suppress bias
and prejudice, who escape indoctrination, who do dissent, who
investigate in depth (!) all aspects of what is going on. But it
is an endangered species, given the increasing zealousness of
censorship. Belonging to that species can even be life
threatening as Julian Assange's fate clearly shows (the kind of
case that would have had the entire western media world up in
arms had it happened to a dissident in the former Soviet Union).
Enough of that. It is too depressing. On to another
topic, albeit - on closer inspection - it may be linked to the
moral and intellectual decay of our societies (as also apparent
in ongoing events), but in any case it is linked to Hannah
Arendt: Günther Anders, HA's first husband. I am looking forward
to reading two books of his that I have ordered and received,
but have not yet started reading because of the rather small
print. I am waiting for my new glasses to be made, which would
make reading easier. The two books I have in mind are "Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen" Vol
1 and 2. French translations exist: "L'Obsolescence
de l'homme, t. 1 : Sur l'âme à l'époque de
la deuxième révolution
industrielle" and "L'Obsolescence
de l'homme, t. 2 : Sur la destruction
de la vie à l'époque de la troisième révolution
industrielle". A quote from Vol 1 made me curious: "The three main theses: that we are no match for the perfection of our products;
that we produce more than we can
visualize and take responsibility for; and that we believe,
that, what we can do, are
allowed to do, no: should do, no: must do – these three basic
theses, in light of the environmental
threats emerging over the last quarter century, have become more prevailing and
urgent than they were then." I thought I found a
kindred spirit as these questions have been on my mind for a
long time. Of course, like many other texts, it all has to do
with the rude awakening from the dreams of the Enlightenment.
Anders wrote the first volume in the mid-fifties and now, almost
seventy years later, it is more topical than ever. Another book
that is on my list is Horkheimer's "Eclipse
of Reason", first published in
1947, the year I was born.
The ignorance he addresses may well also be related to
US policy documents that clearly and unambiguously spell out the
strategic goals of US foreign policy. For example: In early
1992, not long after the demise of the Soviet Union, the US DoD
drafted a document entitled "Defense Planning Guidance, FY 1994-1999".
This document lists the objectives in no uncertain terms: Here
is Number One:
"Our first objective is to prevent the
reemergence of a rival that poses a threat on the territory of the
former Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration… and requires
that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region
whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient
to generate global power… Our strategy must now refocus on
precluding the emergence of any potential future global
competitor."
That's it. 1992, 30 years ago! The draft was (three
months) later revised, yes, but only to mitigate the wording
somewhat, not in essence. Given these objectives one must admit
that the US powers-that-be, regardless of who was (and is)
heading the administration (it can be a buffoon or an old guy
suffering from dementia or a smart, good looking slim figured
Afro-American) have done a superb job. Or so at least it seems.
Mr Brzezinski's treatise was but an academically more
respectable wrapping of something that had for a long time been
in the planning and the making. Keeping Russia down has been and
is a number one goal of US foreign policy (with China now in the
same bracket). The heinous machinations in the Ukraine plus NATO
enlargement have been but means to advance this agenda. I don't
even dare to think about the damage this agenda has the
potential of inflicting on the whole of Europe. What gives the
US power "elites" the right to devise and maintain such an
agenda in the first place? Nothing.
Well, I guess, unfortunately you are right. Again this
is an end to our peaceful world. (There have been many endings
before.) Thank goodness, the worlds immediately around us (our
own small worlds) are still quite peaceful, and maybe if we
simply ignore (like the infamous ostrich - or "Vogel Strauss" in
German) all the bad news from the rest of the world we may still
live in peace.
9 September 2022
Do you remember a man named Jeffrey Sachs? In the early nineties
he taught the Russians how to run their economy the American way.
Naomi Klein called this “Shock Therapy”.
Jeffrey’s
shock therapy did not quite work as he admitted later. (We
all heard of what it was like in Russia in the Jeltsin years.) He
has had a certain public presence since. For instance, he was the
Reith lecturer 2007. His theme was "
Bursting at the
Seams”. Recently he gained some prominence through an
article he published on a site called “
Other-News”
which was re-published on numerous - what I would call -
“complementary sites” but for obvious reasons not in the -
what I would call - standard media. It is, imho, one of the most
honest texts on the current conflicts. Succinct and clear. (He is
68 now and probably doesn't care much about his career …)
HGS, June/September 2022
Addendum 1:
On "Nuclear
War
with Russia?‘A Wall of Fire that Encompasses Everything
Around Us at the Temperature of the Center of the Sun.’"
(Scheerpost 25 March
2022).
Reading this frightening interview, I remembered a letter to a
friend about two years ago in which I wrote him the following:
"Why must geopolitics be
played out at the expense of 'ordinary people' and their
desire to live decently in peace? Why do so many unserious,
irresponsible, incompetent, corrupt, devious, lying, morally
corrupt and possibly insane people, intellectual dwarfs to
boot, have a free hand in international politics? One might
add: Sleepwalkers, the title of a best-selling book by an
Australian historian on the outbreak of World War I."
Obviously, our "democratic" system (including its "fourth
estate", the media) fails when it comes to putting the most
capable, responsible and honest in positions of power.
Why is no one standing up and saying "Stop it", just "Stop
it"? Where are the people? Where are "the people's
representatives"? (who are supposed to look after the
interests of the people - which are certainly not directed
towards destruction and chaos)? Questions like these must have
been asked millions of times. Obviously in vain.
Again, the A380 pilot comes to mind. If he or she were
incompetent (etc.), that would endanger up to 800 lives at a
time. The incompetence (etc.) of our politicians endangers the
lives of billions.
In the publicly perceived discussion of the Ukraine conflict,
at best people occasionally refer to the short story, such as
that told by a commentator on the Scheer website:
A very long discussion. It
is the wrong discussion. Consider how this emergency
happened. NATO refused to talk to the Russians about their
security concerns. The US engineered a coup d'etat removing
a democratically elected Ukrainian leader, which caused a
civil war. This eventually led to the invasion which to my
mind could have been easily avoided. Instead the West is
brandishing swords; everybody wants to fight Putin who is
the enemy du jour. NATO is mobilizing troops. Everyone is
committed to this zero sum game. What should be done and
done immediately is to force the Ukrainian leader to deal
with the Russians. Instead the West is encouraging him to
fight on. The longer this thing drags on the worse it
becomes. Consider the wheat fields.
But even this narrative, correct as it is (especially in its
conclusion), falls short. The question is: "Why on earth did
the US - using NATO - maintain the encirclement of Russia
after the end of the Soviet Union and tighten the noose? Why
are they trying to strangle Russia?"
An answer to this question must refer to the desires of the
"West" (more precisely: Western capitalism) with regard to the
immeasurable treasures of Eurasia: the "new gold mines", after
the old ones between the Atlantic and the Pacific have been
largely exploited.
A danger allegedly emanating from Russia (and formerly the
Soviet Union) certainly plays no role in this encirclement
(see, for example, the article "NATO:
The
Founding Lie" by Werner Rügemer on Nachdenkseiten).
(See also "Chris
Hedges: NATO — Most Dangerous Military Alliance on Planet".)
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Addendum 2:
On the article "European
failure and the Ukraine war" by Walther Bücklers (Nachdenkseiten 7
May 2022)
War must not be the "continuation of politics by other means".
Diplomacy, negotiations, reconciliation of interests must be
the only way to settle conflicts. But what if one party to the
conflict stubbornly refuses to cooperate in this?
War is the "ultima irratio", madness, if you will. That is
true. But wars have a prehistory and a background, they do not
arise out of the blue. The antecedents and the contexts should
be carefully examined in order to fairly apportion the blame
of those involved.
Mr Bücklers has certainly presented this antecedent history
essentially correctly, if not necessarily completely. The
conflict (US/UK vs Russia) did not start in 2014, not in 2008,
not in 1991 and not in 1945. It has a prehistory that goes
back more than a hundred years, and one should be aware of
that too. (See also the much-cited "Grand Chessboard" by
Zbginiev Brzezinski, in which he promotes an agenda whose
ultimate goal is the break-up of the Russian Federation into
three independent states, an agenda based on the also
well-known "Heartland Theory" by a British geographer named
Mackinder).
The author writes: "There
is no doubt that Russia shares the blame for the Ukrainian
war. The Russian attack is a violation of the UN ban on
violence, a violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and a blatant
breach of international law."
The first of these statements basically contradicts everything
else Mr Bückler writes. Of course, it is undisputed that the
Russian government took the final step and crossed the border.
In this respect, the second statement is probably formally
correct, but must be seen against the background of previous
violations of the ban on violence (even if "only"
domestically) and blatant violations of international law by
the "other side" - as the author himself admits in connection
with the Maidan. (How does violence actually begin? With the
delivery of weapons, for example? With the delivery of heavy
weapons?) And finally, the question arises: is international
law "case law" (judgement according to precedent) or
"statutory law" (judgement according to the code)? Opinions
differ on Russia's "special military operation". According to
"case law", Russia would not be in as bad a position as some
would like (ten fingers are not enough for the number of
acquittals of the only superpower). And "statutory law"? What
do we extraordinary and indispensable human beings care about
our chatter from 1945 in San Francisco (UN General Assembly)?
Also interesting in this context: "On
humiliation and the Ukraine War" by Michael Brenner,
Professor Emeritus of International Affairs at the University
of Pittsburgh.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)