Who Wants War in Ukraine? And Who Doesn't?
By William Boardman -- Reader Supported News [2.9.15]
"Russian aggression" -- the bad faith mantra of dishonest brokers
Just as NATO allies Germany and France were undertaking a peace initiative with Russia and Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry turned up in Kiev at the same time, seeking to poison the talks before they started by spouting yet again the ritual U.S. accusation of "Russian aggression." The incantation is meaningless without context. Its purpose is mesmerize a false consciousness. "Russian aggression" may or may not exist in the events of the past year, just like "Russian self-defense." Reporting on the ground has been too unreliable to support any firm analysis, never mind the provocative "Russian aggression" the U.S. brandishes as a virtual call for war.
Western aggression, political and diplomatic more than military, is a cold reality and has been for two decades. The West, and especially the U.S. has yet to accept responsibility for 20 years of anti-Russian aggression, much less pull back from such perennial hostility. The Obama administration (parts of it at least, given the incoherence of the "administration") has acted as if its pulling off an only-slightly-violent coup in Kiev in 2014 was a grand triumph. Worse, having grabbed a government on Russia's borders, the Obama hawks carry on as if the only reasonable choice for Russia is to accept the success of this Western aggression.
Rarely is this context acknowledged in discussions of the natural fissures in Ukraine that feed sectarian civil war. Rather the issues are over-simplified -- falsified -- by the U.S. Secretary of State, consistent with a hidden agenda of provoking a military confrontation (at the very least) with Russia and eastern Ukrainians. That's the subtext that makes sense of Kerry's otherwise seeming blithering in Kiev on February 5:
"We talked about the largest threat that Ukraine faces today, and that is Russia's continued aggression in the east. There's no other way to call it. We're not seeking a conflict with Russia. No one is. " The president is reviewing all of his options. Among those options, obviously, is the possibility of providing defensive -- defensive -- assistance to Ukraine. And those discussions are going on. The president will make his decision, I am confident, soon."
Note the lie: "We're not seeking a conflict with Russia. No one is."
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