CREATING CONSENSUS ON UKRAINE

                                                                             

     

The antiwar community has fractured at a time when it most needs to speak with one voice to end the war in Ukraine. About all we can agree on is that the war is a terrible thing that needs to be stopped. Beyond that, reasonable people disagree about messaging, and unreasonable people demonize those who disagree. The result is that average Americans who don’t usually follow politics, let alone international affairs, form opinions based on emotional responses to what they hear in mainstream media rather than what may be most likely to promote peace. This is true despite the fact that most would say that peace is what they want.

The ability to influence American thinking through emotional appeals is what those with the power to manipulate the media count on to serve imperialism’s aims.  If we can at least agree that how we frame our response is important, people who sincerely want to do something to end the war might be able to agree on what message would most effectively sway public opinion in a way that might influence our government to act in the interest of peace.

The most fundamental disagreement is over whether it’s necessary to call Russia out as solely or even primarily at fault for the war, or whether it is important to provide the context needed to understand the US role in creating the conditions that led it to decide that it had no choice but to respond to Ukrainian actions in Donbass with military force.

Given that our goal is to influence public opinion, it’s understandable that most peace groups have opted to follow the lead of politicians and mainstream commentators and preface every statement with a condemnation of Russia. After all, since they believe these accusations are justified, they fear being seen as supportive of Russia if they only focus on what the US has done that promotes war and what it hasn’t done that might have prevented it. Some peace groups go so far as to ignore clear US provocations as unimportant. Since it was Russia that invaded, they believe that their proper job is to wave Ukrainian flags and protest Russia’s actions, despite the reality that this will have no beneficial effect on the course of the war.

Other peace activists feel that either approach absolves the US of responsibility for creating conditions that led to the conflict. Believing the US actually initiated the conflict, they argue that dating its onset as February 24 is not only misleading, but false. They see the conflict as having started long before the Russian invasion and argue that knowing what choices Putin had is relevant to assigning blame.

The truth is that we don’t have to agree on who is at fault if we don’t make that an issue. As a psychotherapist with training in family therapy, I know from experience that focusing on who is responsible for a problem almost never leads to a satisfactory solution. And from a practical standpoint, placing sole blame on Russia is counterproductive not only because it splits the antiwar movement, but because to much of the public it provides a justification for an aggressive US response. Avoiding a conflict over whether Russia should be characterized as the sole aggressor is why many want to limit the message to demanding that the US 1) stop arming Ukraine, 2) declare it will never support Ukraine joining NATO, and 3) push Ukraine to negotiate without preconditions.

From a family therapy perspective, trying to keep the discussion focused on a solution would certainly be the approach to take if the US actually wanted to end the conflict. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. The effect of sending increasingly lethal weapons and imposing sanctions that primarily harm civilians is to prolong the war and increase casualties of both soldiers and civilians on both sides.

Recent reports indicate that the effort to help a depleted Ukrainian military drive Russia out of Donbass is futile. However, this approach is very profitable for a weapons industry that generously funds the elections of members of Congress willing to serve its interests, which is no doubt why any debate about how the US should proceed assumes that it will involve continuing a strategy that has proven to result in arming extremists when used in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. And yes, there are extremists with significant influence in Ukraine despite media denials.

Clearly, the focus on providing weapons has redirected the public’s attention from the question of how to end the war to how best to punish Russia, regardless of how US strategy affect Ukrainian civilians. This is not by accident, but by design. That’s why it is necessary to challenge the distortions, omissions and outright lies that are used to influence public opinion to conform with the goals of American imperialism. Unfortunately, the inability to agree on the facts is what has led to the stark divisions among those wanting to do something to make the war to end. That is we have to put aside our pride and listen to each other to understand why a minority firmly believes that the consensus opinion of the majority is based on misplaced trust in mainstream media.

Most Americans think they are informed if they read mainstream media and watch a variety of TV news sources. Antiwar activists know differently, because we know we have been lied into war repeatedly, at least from Vietnam through Syria. Unfortunately, like the general public, many peace proponents have no idea how information that challenges the government’s narrative is being  systematically suppressed in unprecedented ways.  

It's always been true that truth is the first casualty of war. In today’s hybrid warfare, it is more critical than ever to control the information domain. The way news is presented by government officials and approved media frames the way most people think about US foreign policy. This is why the idea of sending ever more powerful weapons to prolong a military conflict that cannot be won is never challenged. While the ultimate outcome of Russia’s invasion cannot be predicted with certainty, the one thing we know for sure is that providing increasingly lethal weaponry will lead to more death on both sides and do nothing to promote stability in the region.

Of course, there is much more that could be said about the tremendous amount of disinformation in the mainstream media regarding Ukraine. While much of it is relevant to understanding the situation, it is far beyond the scope of this essay. I can only recommend that those who are inclined to believe what they read or hear in government-approved media look at any of the credible alternative sources that present evidence of critical facts that are being withheld from them.

A good way to find them is to look at the list of websites that Prop or Not, a shadowy group that claims to be the arbiter of “reliable sources,” claims should not be trusted. Interspersed among many dubious websites listed are some of the most informative sources of information contradicting the mainstream narrative. These are sites with authors that include prominent investigative journalists and veterans of the CIA, NSA, State Department, high ranking White House positions and military intelligence.  They cite their sources, which gives their articles far more credibility than the mostly anonymous sources favored by the New York Times and Washington Post when reporting on many of the same stories.

I urge anyone interested in finding a common message to present to the public to read the statement released by the US Peace Council.

 

UNDERSTANDING UKRAINE

                                                                             
                                                                 
On Wednesday, Ukrainian forces intensified ongoing shelling of Donbass, lending apparent credibility to Biden's repeated claims over recent weeks that an invasion is "imminent." However, the news raises a number of questions about what we have been told by politicians and the mainstream western media since the beginning of the crisis. We need to take these claims into account in order to understand the significance of current events.

Let's break down the propaganda to figure out how this increase in violence fits into the NATO narrative:

First, the US has given several reasons for why they expect Russia to invade over the last few weeks. That alone should give us pause, given the certainty with which the US has been making these claims. Since they have cited no evidence for most of them, you have to wonder why the secret "evidence" keeps changing. If you've been keeping track, they are, in order:

- "Putin wants to restore the Empire." This has been repeated ad nauseum since the outbreak of the crisis, most recently by Blinken on Wednesday.

- Unsourced "evidence" indicated Russia will stage a false flag attack on Donbass as a pretext for invasion

- Unsourced evidence indicated Russia will fake a false flag in Donbass, using staged video.

- Officials stated that Russia will use its promise to protect Russian citizens and ethnic Russians in Donbass as a "pretext" for crossing the border.

Of these, only the last is a plausible reason that Russia would trigger massive sanctions by invading. If there is any validity to the US doctrine of Responsibility to Protect. That's the pseudo-legal argument that was cited as the reason for violent US interventions in Libya and Syria in contravention of international law. If there is a time when it was justified, this would be it. More properly, it would be an example of using force to prevent genocide (see below for more on this).

As the situation evolves, the propaganda gets more convoluted:

- Thursday, it was reported that Russia was going to invade in respond to a Ukrainian attack on Donbass. By Friday, media were reporting it was unclear who attacked first, even though it makes no sense to imagine that the residents of Donbass were trying to goad the Ukrainian military into attacking, as it was clearly prepared to do (again, more on this below).
- In responding to reports of the increased shelling, Biden stated that the attack on Donbass was a "false flag" operation by Russia, claiming that Russia had fired the first shots in order to provoke a Ukrainian response that would create a "pretext" for an invasion. Interestingly, a reporter on the scene in the same televised report categorically stated that Russia had not fired the first shots.
- A day later, explosions rocked downtown Donetsk and Luhansk, the two principal cities of the breakaway Donbass region. At the time of this writing, I am awaiting the announcement that this was the long-awaited Russian false flag.

It's worth noting that over time, more responsible news sources have begun explaining the Russian security concerns detailed in their response to US demands to withdraw from their own border. At the same time, western media continued to describe these red lines only as "demands," as if Russia explaining its red lines in the face of US threats is unreasonable. Not surprisingly, US officials simply dismissed the most important of these arguments without acknowledging that they had any validity, while claiming to want to negotiate peace (on US terms, of course).

If one accepts that the only plausible reason for a Russian incursion was to protect Russian citizens and ethnic Russians in Ukraine, and that the US must have known, why did Biden suddenly predict before the shelling that it was going to happen within 24-48 hours, again with no evidence? It's reasonable to suspect that the US knew Ukraine was going to attack because it was behind it.

The US government had been trying to talk Ukraine's President Zelensky into escalating the conflict since last spring. Zelensky responded to Washington's lead with threats to residents of the breakaway Republics, but by January he lost his nerve and began to openly dispute US claims of "imminent" war that would serve no one's interest but that of the US weapons industry.

The increase in shelling thus raises a very important point: Since Zelesnky had repeatedly denied that he believed Russia had any intent to invade, why would he suddenly provide a pretext? It's reasonable to suspect that he didn't. The more likely culprits are embedded pro-US fascists in the army acting on their own. If that's the case, Zelensky can't deny ordering the attack if he values his life. We all saw how violent the US-backed Right Sector fascists were willing to get in over to overthrow the elected government and seize power in 2014. There is no reason to think that they would not do the same to Zelensky if he stood in the way of the plan.

The brownshirts of Right Sector are now dispersed throughout the military, including their Azov battalion. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops have been massed on the borders of Donbass since before the Russian buildup (which might reasonably be assumed to be the original reason for Russia's massing its own troops on the border last spring). Since some of these neo-Nazis have openly called for genocide of ethnic Russians, it seems likely that they would be perfectly willing to provoke a conflict that will result in horrendous bloodshed, regardless of who "wins" the war in Donbass. Of course, if Russia doesn't take the bait, the US can still score propaganda points by saying that it prevented the invasion that would have otherwise occurred.

In view of Friday's bombing, it appears that the US may have gotten tired of waiting for Russia to respond to the escalation in violence by the Ukrainian neo-Nazis and taken matters into their own hands, using CIA-trained Ukrainian special forces in place in Donbass.

It will be interesting to see how Putin takes advantage of a situation which he surely anticipated, given the lack of imagination of the neocons who have clearly engineered the crisis.

 

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF PROPAGANDA

                                                          

Respect for national sovereignty has been the basis of international law designed to prevent preemptive warfare since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 ended the 30 Years War.  The idea was to prevent wars by agreeing that empires and international alliances would not interfere with the internal affairs of any nation. The idea was rejected by later Empire builders, leading to two world wars largely brought on by the British Empire’s machinations. This policy of ignoring international law has been followed by the US ever since and now poses a risk to peace and national sovereignty everywhere.

Americans are taught that Hitler’s attempt at creating a fascist New World Order was the result of  his insane personal ambition alone. We are not told that since the Allies defeated Germany, the US has been working to create its own Empire, one that is fast coming to resemble Hitler’s.  Despite the obvious signs of a police state being created in the US with the passage of the Patriot Act, the 2012 NDAA authorizing Presidents to arrest and indefinitely imprison without charge Americans he or she deem enemies of the state and the NSA program of unlimited domestic surveillance, most Americans refuse to see it. The bellicose nationalism that so many decried when Bush was in office continues largely unopposed. The Bush Doctrine of preemptive war has been replaced by use of terrorists to fight proxy wars in the name of “responsibility to protect,” a doctrine that exists nowhere in international law. There is a good reason for that. It is a direct violation of the UN charter and of the Kellogg-Briand treaty that made war illegal except in self-defense.

If we are ever going to see the end of war, it is imperative to understand the systematic way in which generations of Americans have been indoctrinated to accept the idea that it is inevitable.  The explanation is not that complicated. The problem is that so few people are working to educate Americans about their real history since WWII, leaving them to allow their leaders to repeat the same mistakes that lead to the downfall of all empires.

As detailed in The Irregulars, the British Intelligence Service was very active in the United States prior to and after its entry into WWII. Given the prevalence of American isolationist sentiment prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, its main mission was to promote pro-war propaganda and to discredit anti-interventionists. It worked tacitly with the Roosevelt government and later with the Office of Strategic Services to carry out this mission. Given the long British experience with subversion and espionage, the fledgling OSS was quite dependent on the BIS, forging personal bonds between the principals that continued after the CIA was created to serve US industrialists after the war. At that time, the head of BIS in America successfully lobbied to have OSS chief Wild Bill Donovan to head the new post-war US spy service. 

The CIA was established by the National Security Act of 1947 that completely restructured the US military and intelligence agencies to reflect a new imperialist agenda. The war profiteers had assumed so much influence over the US government and the media by that time that they saw a huge potential to profit from building a sprawling military-industrial-government complex under the guise of fighting communism. In addition to creating the first peacetime intelligence service in the history of the US, it established the position of Secretary of “Defense,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the “National Security” Council. In the aftermath of the war, a consensus was forged that “American interests” were synonymous with those of corporate powers that have essentially dictated foreign policy ever since. This assumption is best summarized in a statement by Cold war architect George Kennan of the State Department in 1948:

“…we have about 50 percent of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population…In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task…is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security…We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction…We should cease to talk about vague and — for the Far East — unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”

That year, a turning point in US and world history had occurred. On Kennan’s advice, Truman signed a National Security Directive authorizing the CIA to conduct covert operations in such manner that the US government could plausibly deny them if uncovered. The decision to extend the actions of the CIA beyond intelligence gathering for the president would prove to have fateful consequences. From NSC Directive 10/2:

"…covert operations" are… all activities…conducted or sponsored by this Government against hostile foreign states or groups or in support of friendly foreign states or groups but which are so planned and executed that any US Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons and that if uncovered the US Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them. “

“…such operations shall include any covert activities related to: propaganda, economic warfare ; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures ; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world. Such operations shall not include armed conflict by recognized military forces, espionage, counter-espionage, and cover and deception for military operations.”

The importance of propaganda in waging the Cold War cannot be overstated. Without it, American military intervention would never have been tolerated by a public that since prior to WWI had largely heeded Washington’s advice to “avoid foreign entanglements.” The CIA role in creating propaganda was well established by the early 1950’s when the CIA Director of Office of Policy Coordination (the covert branch of the CIA at that time) established Operation Mockingbird This program explicitly authorized the CIA to carry out propaganda operations in foreign media, including that of US allies in Europe. Building on relationships established by the BIS and OSS with friendly journalists and publishers, the CIA created an elaborate network of news sources that disseminated propaganda that not only spread disinformation to citizens of other nations that was picked up by US media, but also directly to Americans.

Although the CIA was only officially authorized to operate outside the US, it has been used since the early Cold War to indoctrinate Americans with the idea that communist threats are everywhere. CIA-vetted propaganda provided the rationale for creating a military–industrial complex so vast that Eisenhower was compelled to warn Americans about it as one of his last acts as President. The CIA's propaganda function is now carried out overseas by the government-funded National Endowment for Democracy, which bills itself as an NGO. In the US, the media, corporate think tanks and official sources such as the CIA, State Department and the military coordinate to create an atmosphere that maintain an exaggerated fear of terrorism (and now Russia and China) that is used to justify both imperial wars abroad and suspension of civil liberties at home.

The list of ways this control of the corporate media has influenced American history is too extensive to list here. It has led to coverups of criminal CIA activities overseas and at home, the creation of a fear-based foreign policy and a bias toward war that has completely transformed American attitudes toward war and other foreign interventions, most of which remain unknown to them. Only now have the war profiteers become so obvious in their plans for corporate world domination that Americans are beginning to appreciate the true costs of war.  In stridently opposing US strikes on Iran and Syria, the traditional American reluctance to go to war for corporate Empire is beginning to reassert itself.

It is possible to end war. That day will only come when enough people reject the self-fulfilling prophecy that it is inevitable.

This post was updated on 1/20/22