Last week, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies discussed their book, War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, here in NYC. This week, things further worsened as the U.S. moves more and more into direct conflict.

This past week, Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of NATO (the U.S.-led military coalition) warned that the war in Ukraine could at any moment "become a full-fledged war that spreads into a major war between NATO and Russia."

The U.S. war "of" terror laid bare the unlimited ambitions of the U.S. to wage war unlimited by national boundaries or time, going to the "dark side" per Dick Cheney.   The world was outraged, and we should never forget.

But the U.S. empire is maintained on the backbone of the world's largest military, with truly a global imprint. This is what people living here largely don't see. The global system of production is protected by a network of 876 identified U.S. bases, by secret operations, by the new forms of warfare including drone and cyber.

This is all important to know.

It seems months of negotiations took place for 30 U.S. House members (not including Bernie Sanders) to produce and submit a very mild request to Biden to negotiate an end to the U.S. proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. But Democratic Party leaders weren't having it and, within hours, forced the House members to withdraw the letter, as if it never happened, and to back off and apologize.

It's outrageous that this very polite request got slapped down so harshly. But it's also frankly criminal that the "progressive" people in Congress took 8 months to even raise questions about - much less opposition to - the apparent determination of the U.S. to fund and instigate a long-term slaughter and apparently to block negotiations by Ukraine.

Debra Sweet | October 20, 2022

I am deeply saddened by the new and ongoing challenges to humanity; I had hoped not to be passing on to my children/grandchildren such a desperate state of affairs. Here is my quick, not very well thought out response to your question. You may well be right that the U.S. should be a pariah. Despite having been disillusioned many times by the U.S.'s ill-informed and cynical, even criminal, approach to world problems, I still cling to hope. (That, despite its many original sins, beginning with annihilation of its first inhabitants, alas.) ...

The New York Times and people who speak in the interests of Western imperialism say Putin won't use nukes against Ukraine because "his country could become an international pariah."

The United States did use nukes on HIroshima & Nagasaki in 1945. Every major politician in the "Western" bloc has justified the unthinkable because it "saved lives" and "ended" World War II. This is not true: the Japanese were ready to surrender, but the U.S. wanted to project power at the Soviet Union and other rivals and sacrificed hundreds of thousands of humans for it.

QUESTION: Why isn't the U.S. a pariah? Biden, leader of what I like to call the War Party, claiming the banner of "democracy," is pouring tens of $billions into the U.S. arms industry to ship arms to Ukraine. Because he cares about people there? No. To strengthen the U.S./NATO interests for global exploitation against Russia and China, who have their own global empires.

Official 9/11 commemorations, again, reminded those listening to never forget how "we" were attacked while pursuing the "just cause" of U.S. dominance of the globe. Let's just put that aside as the propaganda it is.

You're reading this newsletter because you will never forget that 9/11 was instantly used to launch global war crimes. Rumsfeld bragged the U.S. military would "go massive" and Dick Cheney vowed the U.S. would go to the "dark side" in war that would last generations.

From the U.S. Secretary of "Defense" Lloyd Austin:  

"Protecting civilians from harm in connection with military operations is not only a moral imperative, it is also critical to achieving long-term success on the battlefield."

This, on Friday, as Austin announced the new DoD plan to "mitigate civilian harm and achieve strategic success across the full spectrum of conflict."

Was this from a sudden recognition that European colonizers began systematically slaughtering native inhabitants across the "new world" about 400 years ago? Or that the hundreds of military interventions by the U.S. resulted in uncounted millions of deaths? Or an acknowledgement of specific global atrocities such as the carpet bombing of Dresden? The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki? Napalm and Agent Orange on the people of southeast Asia? The massacre at Nisour Square in Baghdad or the carnage of the battle of Fallujah?

I read a lot of commentary and condemnation in the liberal press of Biden's fist bump with MBS, who runs the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Most of the criticism, which is justified, centered on the hypocrisy of Biden saying he would make Saudi Arabia a pariah for the brutal killing of Jamal Khashoggi and then looking jovial while meeting with MBS to get on with business.

With heightened moves towards nuclear war and the ever-increasing climate and ecological crises, we demand: No nuclear war! No nuclear weapons! These are totally incompatible and intolerable for the existence of humanity and our planet.

Join us on Tuesday August 2, gathering at noon at the Isaiah Wall on First Avenue and 43rd Street in Manhattan and then marching to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations at 45th Street where there will be a non-violent sit-in accompanied by vigiling, picketing and leafleting by those unable to risk arrest. Please register here. And, do visit the Facebook Event Page and help spread the word.

As we considered how to approach the contradictory aspects and on-going frightening prospects of the current war in Ukraine that could lead to nuclear war ending life on earth, we read Nan Levinson's most recent article in TomDispatch. We quote from Tom Engelhardt's introduction:

During the month of April We Are Not Your Soldiers traveled remotely to educational institutions in three states: New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Our speakers – Joy Damiani, Miles Megaciph and John Burns – also were located in three different states but all our “voyages” worked well via Zoom.