Would you be okay if it was your kids in uniform going off to a shooting war with the Russians over Ukraine? The whole idea seems fantastic, ridiculous. We tend to dismiss it as unimaginable but giving it short shrift can be lethal. Earlier this week three words caught my
Continue readingTag: Ukraine
The Disaffected Lib: Vlad Putin – NATO’s Essential Enemy
Vlad Putin has given NATO – well, nothing less than a reason to exist a little longer. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO was a headless chicken, running around aimlessly, still on its feet but just. The North Atlantic alliance pretty much took whatever gig it could get.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Obama Comes Clean. Putin Didn’t Plot to Seize Crimea.
Go Ahead, Pick One. Oh my, my, what comes out of the mouth of that man! The Western narrative we’ve been force fed by liars like Harper and his collaborators on the other side of the aisle, is that Vlad Putin plotted to use the unrest in Ukraine to seize
Continue readingArt Threat: Maidan: one of the most honest depictions of popular protest ever filmed
Sergei Loznitsa’s latest film, Maidan, falls firmly in the tradition of documentaries that use the real to question the possibilities of cinema. Those expecting a more activist documentary like Jehane Noujaim’s The Square might come away dissatisfied with Maidan, but this shouldn’t stop filmgoers from experiencing what is ultimately one of the most
Continue readingdrive-by planet: Risk of ‘accidental’ nuclear war: Chomsky on the ‘worst case scenario’
It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which any world power would deliberately start a nuclear war given the dire consequence for the planet. Rational thinking and the will to survive prevents us from believing that any nation… any leader… could be crazy enough to intentionally unleash what could wind up being a terminal war of reciprocal destruction. But what is often overlooked is the increasing likelihood that a nuclear war might well be started by accident.
During a recent RT interview Noam Chomsky addressed this possibility:
The worst-case scenario, of course, would be a nuclear war, which would be terrible. Both states that initiate it will be wiped out by the consequences. That’s the worst-case. And it’s come ominously close several times in the past, dramatically close. And it could happen again, but not planned, but just by the accidental interactions that take place – that has almost happened. It’s worth remembering that just one century ago, the First World War broke out through a series of such accidental interchanges. The First World War was horrifying enough, but the current reenactment of it means the end of the human race.
Chomsky’s reference to a nuclear war begun ‘by accident’ makes sense when you look at how this might come about. An escalation factor might be faulty intelligence, leading for example to a mistaken belief that the other side is planning an imminent nuclear strike. The decision may then be taken to use tactical nuclear weapons in order to seize first-strike advantage. Underlying intelligence failure of this sort could be a more general strategic misreading of the enemies’ intent and other communications failures that fuel a pattern of escalation.
A report entitled Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership lays out a new vision for the NATO alliance. It contains a number of statements that confirm the importance of nuclear weapons “in the quiver of escalation”… ostensibly to prevent “existential dangers.” But in fact their use is also clearly about maintaining a winning edge however couched in the language of prevention, as this statement from the report suggests: “What is needed is a policy of deterrence by proactive denial, in which preemption is a form of reaction when a threat is imminent, and prevention is the attempt to regain the initiative in order to end the conflict.” Tactical nuclear weapons are very much a part of any so-called “proportional” response. This scenario opens the door for all kinds of potential disaster.
Tactical or non-strategic nuclear weapons are now part of the toolkit of the world’s major militaries. These weapons can be calibrated to suit the challenges on hand. Variable yield allows operators to set the weapons’ explosive power in consideration of target and conditions. Small-yield tactical nukes might encourage preemptive strikes especially if a conventional force is facing defeat. They may be used in other ways to seize the advantage. Under war conditions the step from tactical to strategic nuclear weapons might not be such a huge leap, especially on the part of a military staring down the barrel of defeat.
Bottom line, our continued use of these weapons raises the ante when it comes to the prospects of large scale nuclear war. Chomsky sums up the stark choice we face in this paragraph:
We can think back as far as 1955, when Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein produced an appeal, a joint appeal to the people of the world, in which they said to all of us, you have a choice that is stark, unavoidable, the question is, will you eliminate war or will you eliminate human race? These are your choices.
Right now we are making bad choices. The provocations of the West in Eastern Europe and the expansion of NATO’s reach to the borders of Russia is fraught with risks that can’t be taken lightly. Chomsky rightly characterizes NATO as a “US-run intervention force.”
The official mission of NATO became to control the international, the global energy system, pipelines. That means, to control the world. Of course, its [a] U.S.-run intervention force, as in Kosovo and Serbia in 1999 – it was a U.S.-run intervention force. That’s the new NATO and it did expand to Russian borders…
The demonization of Russia in Western media and the toxic cold war-like environment that is being whipped up is driven by geopolitical ambitions, energy and resource considerations and a very particular animus toward a major global power that is unwilling to alter its long held values and traditions. This offends some people, who over and above the larger geopolitical considerations, appear willing to risk heightening an already tense situation in the course of pressing a Western-centric rights agenda.
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Six things we all need to think about when Canadians volunteer to fight for the Kurds
The Kurds: They should have had a country of their own, but since they don’t, and since Canada is allied by treaty to one of their principal enemies, letting Canadians join their fight isn’t a simple matter. We need clarity on just what Canada’s position is from the Canadian government.
Continue readingPaul S. Graham: Canada continues to occupy stage right
Canada’s position on the world stage continues to embarrass and disturb. On Nov. 4, Canada, along with Ukraine and United States, voted against a draft resolution entitled “Combating glorification of Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.” It’s a
Continue readingdrive-by planet: Some Ukrainian films at Cottbus 24 festival convey ‘a thoroughly dishonest presentation of conditions in the east’
An article in World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) – Distortion and dishonesty: Ukrainian films at the Cottbus Film Festival – critiques some of the Ukrainian films that made it to the screen at this years festival held in Cottbus. This is a city 125 kms southeast of Berlin, close to
Continue readingParliamANT Hill: PM to Putant: ‘Get out of Ukriant’
Satire inspired by this headline: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/stephen-harper-at-g20-tells-vladimir-putin-to-get-out-of-ukraine-1.2836382
Continue readingParliamANT Hill: PM to Putant: ‘Get out of Ukriant’
Satire inspired by this headline: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/stephen-harper-at-g20-tells-vladimir-putin-to-get-out-of-ukraine-1.2836382
Continue readingParliamANT Hill: PM to Putant: ‘Get out of Ukriant’
Satire inspired by this headline: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/stephen-harper-at-g20-tells-vladimir-putin-to-get-out-of-ukraine-1.2836382
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Alberta’s big problem is the same as Russia’s – so what’s Stephen Harper doing about it?
Keep those wells a-pumpin! Keep those oil prices low! Squeeze those Russkies! Uh … just a minute. … isn’t that bad for Alberta’s many varieties of Conservative? Below: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Mr. Harper’s hero, Margaret Thatcher. The Globe and Mail, tireless cheerleader for
Continue readingdrive-by planet: Risk of ‘accidental’ nuclear war: Chomsky on the ‘worst case scenario’
It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which any world power would deliberately start a nuclear war given the dire consequence for the planet. Rational thinking and the will to survive prevents us from believing that any nation… any leader… could be crazy enough to intentionally unleash what could well
Continue readingdrive-by planet: Video doc ‘MH-17 The Untold Story’ makes strong case while controversy over crash continues
MH-17: The Untold Story is a recently released investigative documentary on the circumstances surrounding the crash of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing over eastern Ukraine. It calls into question the oft cited belief in mainstream Western media that a Russian separatist BUK missile was behind the downing of the plane. The
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Harper’s Experiment to Wrap Canadians in "Protective Stupidity" Mission Accomplished?
The Tyee’s Murray Dobbins laments the success Stephen Harper has had, with the powerful support of a shamelessly collaborative media, at manipulating the Canadian public. Harper’s amoral political calculations about who and when to bomb people has little to do with any genuine consideration of the geopolitical situation or what
Continue readingdrive-by planet: The Oliver Stone Rossiyskaya Gazeta interview: Ukraine, US media bias, Putin, MH-17 and more
American film director, Oliver Stone, recently gave a lengthy interview to the Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta. He is in the region helping to produce a documentary with the title Ukraine on Fire. Excerpts from the interview showed up in various online publications but I just recently came across an English
Continue readingPaul S. Graham: Video: The war in Eastern Ukraine and the New Cold War
In April 2014, the government that had come into power two months earlier in Ukraine launched what it termed an “anti-terrorist operation” against the people of Eastern Ukraine. The easterners were opposed to the government’s plans for economic association with Western Europe and were demanding a greater voice in central
Continue readingdrive-by planet: Frans Timmermans oxygen mask revelation raises questions about MH-17 missile strike scenario
Bottom right – Dutch Foreign Affairs minister Frans Timmermans Earlier posts on this blog followed the story of Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17 – the passenger plane brought down over Eastern Ukraine. Accusations that pro-Russian self-defence forces targeted the plane with a BUK type ground-to-air missile have been made repeatedly by
Continue readingdrive-by planet: Kiev’s crimes in Eastern Ukraine includes reports of torture, execution and mass graves
Mass graves uncovered in Eastern Ukraine When Ukrainian government forces were raining hell-on-earth on the people of Eastern Ukraine there were many well substantiated claims of atrocities that were routinely underreported or outright ignored by Western media. In addition to shelling and airstrikes directed at civilian areas in Eastern Ukraine
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Be careful what you ask for! Jim Prentice walks away with the Wildrose political play book
Premier Jim Prentice. Below: Wildrose Party Leader Danielle Smith and former party strategist Tom Flanagan, this time on the button. As the expression goes: be careful what you ask for! You might just get it. There is irony – perhaps even bitter irony – in what newly minted Alberta Premier
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