Are We Heading Toward WWIII and Nuclear War?
Alice Slater / InDepthNews
(March 9, 2022) — It has become unbearable to observe the western media, in the grip of corrupt military contractors, wielding their undue influence on the unknowing victims of the media “news” reports as they publicly and shamelessly celebrate their enormous profits this year from the billions of dollars in weapons they are selling to keep the Ukraine war going.
The drumbeat of demonization and excoriation of Putin by the western media, as the sole provocative cause of all the current havoc and evil, with hardly a word devoted to the historical context that brought us to this tragic turn of events is unconscionable.
There is barely any reporting in the western press of the events leading up to this violence, resulting from the corrupt path the western neoliberal corporate corrupters followed, ever since the blessed ending of the Cold War when Gorbachev ended the Soviet occupation, dissolving the Warsaw Pact, without a shot.
The US promised him, in a host of documents and testimonies that are surfacing recently, including from Reagan’s Ambassador Jack Matlock, that if Russia didn’t object to a unified Germany joining NATO, it would not expand one inch to the East.
Since Russia lost 27 million people to the Nazi onslaught, they had good reason to be fearful of an expanded western military alliance.
Yet the arrogance of the United States has been breathtaking over these years. Not only did the US expand NATO taking in 14 countries from Poland to Montenegro, it bombed Kosovo over Russia’s Security Council objection, breaking its treaty obligation with the UN never to commit a war of aggression without Security Council approval unless under imminent threat of attack, which was certainly not the case with Kosovo.
Further, it walked out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, left the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty as well as the carefully negotiated deal with Iran to preclude their enriching uranium to bomb grade. Shockingly, the US keeps nuclear weapons in five NATO states: Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Turkey.
The current media drumbeat for war, the glee expressed by reporters and commentators at the prospect of all the devastating economic sanctions we are inflicting on the Russian people, in retribution for what they describe as Putin’s provocative invasion of Ukraine, and the constant drumbeat of how evil and crazy Putin is, may indeed be putting us on the path to World War and nuclear war at that.
It’s as though we are all living in some nightmare scenario, like the movie Don’t Look Up, with greed-driven military contractors controlling our lamestream media and fanning the flames of war! Look up people! How would we feel if Russia took Canada or Mexico into their military alliance?
The US went berserk when the USSR put weapons in Cuba! So why don’t we urge Ukraine to back off and stop sending them even one more bullet to fuel a senseless war?
Let Ukraine agree to be neutral like Finland and Austria instead of insisting they have a right to be part of our military alliance which Putin has been pleading with us for years to stop expanding.
It was perfectly reasonable for Putin to require that Ukraine not become a member of NATO and we should take him up on it and save the world from the scourge of war with new programs of cooperation to end the plague, abolish nuclear weapons, and save our Mother Earth from looming catastrophic climate destruction.
Let us usher in a new era of cooperation to deal with the real threats.
The writer serves on the Boards of World Beyond War, the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. She is also the UN NGO representative for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
IDN is the flagship agency of the Nonprofit International Press Syndicate. We believe in the free flow of information. Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, except for articles that are republished with permission. Visit us on Facebook and Twitter.
1997 Video: Joe Biden Warns of
Russian Hostility if NATO Expands Eastward
(March 8, 2022) — A video of Joe Biden speaking about the dangers of NATO expanding in 1997 has resurfaced and gone viral on social media.
In the video, Joe Biden warns that the Baltic states, namely Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, joining NATO could result in hostility from Russia. He did insist that he did not mean military retaliation, however.
The clip has so far amassed over 1.8 million views since it was posted on Twitter on Monday.
The clip was from a speech Joe Biden made at the Atlantic Council of the US on June 18, 1997.
“I think the one place where the greatest consternation would be caused in the short-term for admission [to NATO], having nothing to do with the merit and preparedness of the country to come in, would be to admit Baltic states now in terms of NATO-Russian, US-Russian relations,” Biden said in his speech.
“If there was ever anything that was going to tip the balance, were it to be tipped, in terms of a vigorous and hostile reaction in Russia, I don’t mean military, it would be that.”
Biden went on to admit that he was an optimist and said he believed the issue would be resolved eventually.
Despite the warning of an ill reaction from Russia, he claimed that he was optimistic that Russia would eventually see the expansion of NATO was actually also in their interest, regarding security.
“I once was told to be in this business you must be an optimist, some would suggest it is too optimistic a view,” Biden continued.
“I believe with time, time meaning in the next several years, we will solve this.
“[We will solve this] to the degree in which Russia becomes comfortable with and it has demonstrated that the enlargement of NATO is ultimately in its interest in expanding stability.
He closed his speech by predicting when the Baltic states could become a part of NATO.
“It is my expectation as well as my hope that in the near term, meaning by the end of this century or shortly thereafter, the [Baltic states] will be admitted to NATO,” Biden continued.
“This is if they still are seeking admission to NATO, I expect they will be.”
Biden’s prediction eventually came true as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all joined NATO in 2004.
Ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin repeatedly warned about NATO expansion.
While the conflict between the two nations continues, on Monday Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was prepared to stop their military action if their demands are met.
“We really are finishing the demilitarization of Ukraine,” Peskov told Reuters.
“We will finish it. But the main thing is that Ukraine ceases its military action. They should stop their military action and then no one will shoot.
“We have also spoken about how they should recognize that Crimea is Russian territory and that they need to recognize that Donetsk and Luhansk are independent states. That’s it. It will stop in a moment.”
He also said Kyiv had to give guarantees that it would not join NATO.
These terms have been rejected by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and insisted Russia’s demands amounted to an ultimatum. The full speech can be viewed here.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
