Tag: US Foreign Policy

Israeli Forces Use Palestinian Girl as a Human Shield in Jenin

The organization known as Defense for Children International, Palestine monitors the abuse of Palestinian children in the Occupied Territories (Gaza and the West Bank.)

They recently posted a horrifying story about a teenage girl being used as a

Ahed-Mohammad-Rida-Mereb. She was made a human shield by Israeli soldiers, made to stand in front of their Jeep, in the middle of a crossfire.

“human shield” by Israeli forces in the northern, West Bank refugee camp of Jenin.

The Israeli military often refers to itself as “the most moral army in the world.” But you must understand the ideology of political Zionism in order to understand the meaning of this slogan.

To the average westerner, being called “the most moral army in the world” means that Israeli soldiers always obey international law, will never commit war crimes, and will always fight justly and fairly.

Don’t believe it.

This phrase is actually another Zionist word game. But you won’t get the joke if you don’t understand what makes political Zionism tick. In the Zionist world, the most moral thing any Jewish person can do is to defend the Jewish state.

Thus, the “morality” of the Israeli military is not measured by international law or humanitarian standards of fair play or just war theory. These concerns have no bearing whatsoever on the truth or falsehood of Israel’s military proposition.

Instead, Israel’s military is supremely moral because they are “defending” the Jewish nation-state. And THAT, by definition, is the apex of military morality.

Consequently, I am not surprised to read this heartbreaking story of life-threatening child abuse committed by Israeli forces.

By the way, also notice the example of another war crime mentioned briefly at the end of this story. Because the teenager’s older brother was a wanted man, the army fire-bombed her family home.

This form of collective punishment is also a war crime regularly performed by Israel forces against Palestinian families. Imagine if your cousin had committed a crime but law enforcement came to destroy your home simply because you were family.

Israel does this, and so much more, all the time.

Read Ahed’s story below:

Ramallah, May 19, 2022—Israeli soldiers used a 16-year-old Palestinian girl as a human shield in front of an Israeli military vehicle while deployed in the northern occupied West Bank city of Jenin last week.

Israeli soldiers forced Ahed Mohammad Rida Mereb, 16, to stand in front of an Israeli military vehicle on May 13 around 8 a.m. in the Al Hadaf neighborhood of Jenin as Palestinian gunmen shot heavily toward the Israeli forces’ position, according to information collected by Defense for Children International – Palestine. Israeli forces ordered Ahed to stand outside the military vehicle for around two hours while they sat inside.

“International law is explicit and absolutely prohibits the use of children as human shields by armed forces or armed groups,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, Accountability Program director at Defense for Children International – Palestine. “Israeli forces intentionally putting a child in grave danger in order to shield themselves constitutes a war crime.”

Israeli forces besieged Ahed’s home around 6 a.m. on May 13 in order to arrest her 20-year-old brother, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Israeli forces ordered Ahed, her parents, and her two younger brothers out of the house and to move to a yard across the street. Israeli forces exchanged fire with Ahed’s older brother, who remained in the house. Around 8 a.m., Palestinian gunmen shot heavily toward an Israeli military vehicle, which is when Israeli forces ordered Ahed to stand outside the military vehicle.

“Bullets were being fired at the military vehicle from all directions,” Ahed told DCIP. “I was trembling and crying and shouting to the soldiers to remove me because the bullets were passing over my head, but one of them ordered me in Arabic through a small window in the military vehicle, ‘Stay where you are and don’t move. You’re a terrorist. Stand in your place until you say goodbye to your brother.’”

Ahed tried to tilt her head to the side to dodge the bullets, but one of the Israeli soldiers ordered her to stand up straight, according to information collected by DCIP. Ahed stood in front of the Israeli military vehicle for about two hours before running to a nearby tree and collapsing on the ground, according to documentation collected by DCIP.

Around two hours later, Israeli forces evacuated Ahed’s two-story house, where she lived with her parents, three brothers, grandparents, two uncles and their wives, and their eight children ranging in age from one to 11 years old, according to information collected by DCIP. After the family evacuated, Israeli forces bombed the house with rocket-propelled grenades, which caused the house to catch on fire. Israeli forces also shot live ammunition at the house, according to documentation collected by DCIP.

Israeli forces withdrew from Ahed’s neighborhood around 11 a.m. She learned that Israeli forces arrested her older brother and that neighborhood residents posted on social media that she was being used as a human shield by Israeli forces, which led the Palestinian gunmen to stop shooting at the Israeli military vehicle.

Ahed was transferred by private vehicle to Jenin Hospital and was treated for intense mental stress and a severe lack of oxygen, according to documentation collected by DCIP.

The use of civilians as human shields, wherein civilians are forced to directly assist military operations or used to shield armed forces or armed groups or objects from attack, is prohibited under international law. The practice is also prohibited under Israeli law based on a 2005 ruling by the Israeli High Court of Justice.

Since 2000, DCIP has documented at least 26 cases involving Palestinian children being used as human shields by the Israeli army. All except one case have occurred after the Israeli High Court of Justice ruling. Only one of those cases led to the conviction of two soldiers for “inappropriate behavior” and “overstepping authority.” Both were demoted in rank and given three-month suspended sentences.

Chris Hedges: No Way Out but War

Chris Hedges’ most recent editorial at Scheerpost is titled “No Way Out But War.”

As thorough and prescient as ever, Mr. Hedges catalogues the many ways in

Chris Hedges

which the American political-corporate-industrial establishment — a thoroughly bipartisan, insatiable behemoth — is destroying our country through the pursuit of endless wars.

None of our wars are “wars of necessity,” as if there has ever been such an ugly but cuddly beast. No. American wars are unnecessary wars of imperial aggression, pure and simple.

And this includes the current war in Ukraine, for which the US bears a sizeable load of responsibility.

Below is an excerpt from Mr. Hedges’ article. All emphasis is mine:

Permanent war has cannibalized the country. It has created a social, political, and economic morass. Each new military debacle is another nail in the coffin of Pax Americana.

The United States, as the near unanimous vote to provide nearly $40 billion in aid to Ukraine illustrates, is trapped in the death spiral of unchecked militarism. No high speed trains. No universal health care. No viable Covid relief program. No respite from 8.3 percent inflation. No infrastructure programs to repair decaying roads and bridges, which require $41.8 billion to fix the 43,586 structurally deficient bridges, on average 68 years old. No forgiveness of $1.7 trillion in student debt. No addressing income inequality. No program to feed the 17 million children who go to bed each night hungry. No rational gun control or curbing of the epidemic of nihilistic violence and mass shootings. No help for the 100,000 Americans who die each year of drug overdoses. No minimum wage of $15 an hour to counter 44 years of wage stagnation. No respite from gas prices that are projected to hit $6 a gallon.

The permanent war economy, implanted since the end of World War II, has destroyed the private economy, bankrupted the nation, and squandered trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. The monopolization of capital by the military has driven the US debt to $30 trillion, $ 6 trillion more than the US GDP of $ 24 trillion. Servicing this debt costs $300 billion a year. We spent more on the military, $ 813 billion for fiscal year 2023, than the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined.

We are paying a heavy social, political, and economic cost for our militarism. Washington watches passively as the U.S. rots, morally, politically, economically, and physically, while China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, and other countries extract themselves from the tyranny of the U.S. dollar and the international Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a messaging network banks and other financial institutions use to send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions. Once the U.S. dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency, once there is an alternative to SWIFT, it will precipitate an internal economic collapse. It will force the immediate contraction of the U.S. empire shuttering most of its nearly 800 overseas military installations. It will signal the death of Pax Americana.

Democrat or Republican. It does not matter. War is the raison d’état of the state. Extravagant military expenditures are justified in the name of “national security.” The nearly $40 billion allocated for Ukraine, most of it going into the hands of weapons manufacturers such as Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, is only the beginning. Military strategists, who say the war will be long and protracted, are talking about infusions of $4 or $5 billion in military aid a month to Ukraine. We face existential threats. But these do not count. The proposed budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in fiscal year 2023 is $10.675 billion. The proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is $11.881 billion. Ukraine alone gets more than double that amount. Pandemics and the climate emergency are afterthoughts. War is all that matters. This is a recipe for collective suicide. . .

. . .The 57 Republicans who refused to support the $40 billion aid package to Ukraine, along with many of the 19 bills that included an earlier $13.6 billion in aid for Ukraine, come out of the kooky conspiratorial world of Trump. They, like Trump, repeat this heresy. They too are attacked and censored. But the longer Biden and the ruling class continue to pour resources into war at our expense, the more these proto fascists, already set to wipe out Democratic gains in the House and the Senate this fall, will be ascendant. Marjorie Taylor Greene, during the debate on the aid package to Ukraine, which most members were not given time to closely examine, said: “$40 billion dollars but there’s no baby formula for American mothers and babies.”

“An unknown amount of money to the CIA and Ukraine supplemental bill but there’s no formula for American babies,” she added. “Stop funding regime change and money laundering scams. A US politician covers up their crimes in countries like Ukraine.”

Democrat Jamie Raskin immediately attacked Greene for parroting the propaganda of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Greene, like Trump, spoke a truth that resonates with a beleaguered public. The opposition to permanent war should have come from the tiny progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which unfortunately sold out to the craven Democratic Party leadership to save their political careers. Greene is demented, but Raskin and the Democrats peddle their own brand of lunacy. We are going to pay a very steep price for this burlesque.

You can read the entire article here.

The Israeli Army Murders Another Palestinian Journalist

Al Jazeera reporter, Shireen Abu Akleh

Today an Israeli army sniper shot and killed the Palestinian-American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh. She was covering the most recent Israeli military attacks against the Jenin refugee camp for Al Jazeera.

Ms. Abu Akleh was unarmed. She was wearing a clearly visible, blue “Press” jacket when she was murdered.

Israeli soldiers shoot, wound, and murder unarmed Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank on a regular, perhaps even a weekly, basis.

But Ms. Abu Akleh’s murder is receiving noticeably more attention than the regular victims because she has been a high profile figure among Palestinians for decades.

As always, the Israeli press and military leaders are claiming that she was shot accidentally by a Palestinian gunman. After all, isn’t the Israeli army the “most moral army in the world,” as they say?

Watch this news panel of chattering dunderheads, otherwise known as “experts,” blather on about the impossibility of anyone in the Israeli army ever doing such a horrible thing!

The propagandistic i24 News, pearl-clutching is disgusting to watch, for none of these so-called experts has obviously taken the time to give their attention to the eye-witness accounts of the other journalists who were also being shot at.

Watch the video clip below to see those interviews yourself.

At least 4 Al Jazeera reporters came under repeated rifle fire for a sustained period of time. The shootings were obviously not an accident. They were deliberately targeting this group of journalists, all of whom were wearing blue Press jackets.

The shooting was deliberate, pre-meditated murder, pure and simple.

Two journalists were hit by this rifle fire. One was hit in the back and survived. The other, Ms. Abu Akleh, was fatally hit in the head/face.

This is not unusual. Israeli soldiers commonly aim for the victim’s face and head.

A third journalist drew repeated rifle fire whenever she tried to move in any direction. The shots aimed at her clearly demonstrate that the shootings, and the resulting murder, were intentional.

The journalists reported that there were no Palestinian fighters anywhere near them.

The Israeli military and its state propaganda machine specialize in two things: killing Palestinians and lying to the world about the horrible things they do.

The cold-blooded murder of a middle-aged, Palestinian Christian woman, who was doing her job reporting on Israeli violence in the West Bank, is only the most recent public instance of the continuing war crimes that Israel commits week in and week out in the Occupied Territories.

We cannot allow them to continue to get away with this!

Call your elected representatives and tell them that all American support and foreign aid to Israel must stop now.

Tell them that you do not want your tax dollars given to a racist, apartheid state that uses US weaponry to commit crimes against humanity.

“The US Could Have Prevented This War,” by Caitlin Johnstone

Naturally, the American media continue to pump out false information about the origins and continuation of the war in Ukraine.

Remembering and reminding people of recent history does not make anyone a “Putin-puppet.” In fact, such facile and feeble accusations are a principle indicator that the accuser, without anything more substantive to say, is actually another US government stooge furthering the American party line.

Below is an excerpt from a recent post by the Australian journalist/blogger Caitlin Johnstone. She nails all the relevant issues with precision and accuracy.

Everything she says and documents has been maligned by one US news outlet or another as “Russian propaganda.” That, my friends, is a lie.

But, then, lies are a mainstay of all propaganda, including American propaganda, which is being manufactured fast and furious by the corporate media these days.

A few members of the Nazi Azov battalion which is now part of the Ukrainian military. They have successfully battled the Russian-Ukrainian population of the eastern Donbas region to a standstill. Much of the destruction presented by American media as the result of Russian actions is actually the work of these Russia hating neo-Nazis, who have always been violent ethic-nationalists fighting for a “pure” Ukraine.

The article is entitled “The US Could Have Prevented This War Just by Protecting Kyiv From Nazis.” I encourage you to click on the title above, read the entire article including the highlighted links for background and source information.

Here is the excerpt:

As we hydroplane toward the brink of nuclear armageddon while Bono and the Edge play U2 songs in Kyiv, it’s probably worth taking a moment to highlight the fact that this entire war could have been avoided if the US had simply pledged military protection for Zelensky against the far right extremists who were threatening to lynch him if he enacted the peacemaking policies he was elected to enact.

To be clear, what we are indulging in here is entirely an act of fantasy. In imagining what would have happened if the US had pledged to protect the Ukrainian government from an undemocratic violent overthrow at the hands of fascists instead of waging a horrific proxy war, we are imagining a world in which the US government acts in the highest interest of all instead of working continuously to dominate the planet no matter how much madness and cruelty it needs to inflict upon humanity. A world in which the US hadn’t been taking steps toward the orchestration of this proxy war for many years.

With that out of the way, it’s just a simple fact that for a fraction of the military firepower the US is pouring into Ukraine right now, it could have prevented the entire war by simply protecting Ukrainian democracy from the undemocratic impulses of the worst people in that country.

When he was asked by The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel last month what he thinks is preventing Kyiv from signing a peace agreement with Russia, John Mearsheimer, whose analysis of this conflict has been prophetic for many years, replied as follows:

I think that when Zelensky ran for president he made it very clear that he wanted to work out an arrangement with Russia that ended the crisis in Ukraine, and he won. And what he then tried to do was move toward implementing the Minsk II agreement. If you were going to shut down the conflict in Ukraine, you had to implement Minsk II. And Minsk II meant giving the Russian-speaking and the ethnic Russian population in the easternmost part of Ukraine, the Donbas region, a significant amount of autonomy, and you had to make the Russian language an official language of Ukraine.

I think Zelensky found out very quickly that because of the Ukrainian right, it was impossible to implement Minsk II. Therefore even though the French and the Germans, and of course the Russians were very interested in making Minsk II work, because they wanted to shut down the crisis, they couldn’t do it. In other words, the Ukrainian right was able to stymie Zelensky on that front.

When Mearsheimer says that the Ukrainian right was able to stymie Zelensky, he doesn’t mean by votes or by democratic processes, he means by threats and violence. In an article last month titled “Siding with Ukraine’s far-right, US sabotaged Zelensky’s mandate for peace,” journalist Aaron Maté wrote the following:

In April 2019, Zelensky was elected with an overwhelming 73% of the vote on a promise to turn the tide. In his inaugural address the next month, Zelensky declared that he was “not afraid to lose my own popularity, my ratings,” and was “prepared to give up my own position – as long as peace arrives.”

But Ukraine’s powerful far-right and neo-Nazi militias made clear to Zelensky that reaching peace in the Donbas would have a much higher cost.

“No, he would lose his life,” Right Sector co-founder Dmytro Anatoliyovych Yarosh, then the commander of the Ukrainian Volunteer Army, responded one week after Zelensky’s inaugural speech. “He will hang on some tree on Khreshchatyk – if he betrays Ukraine and those people who died in the Revolution and the War.”

The US Has Thrown Ukraine Under the Russian Bus, Just as It Did to Afghanistan

The Carter administration was very candid about its intentions for the people of Afghanistan in 1979: Draw the Soviet Union into its own Vietnam-like quagmire in order to drain its resources just as the war in Indo-China had drained America.

During a candid interview with a French newspaper in 1998, president Carter’s national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski explained the American strategy (emphasis mine):

Brzezinski revealed the truth to the French paper Le Nouvel Observateur in 1998: “According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on Dec. 24, 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was on July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”

Asked by the interviewer if he now regretted anything, Brzezinski replied, “Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it?” (Le Nouvel Observateur, Jan. 15-21, 1998)

Caitlin Johnstone explains how and why current US actions suggest that the Biden administration has been manipulating Ukraine in the same ways the US previously manipulated Afghanistan.

Her article is entitled “More Evidence that the US is Trying to Prolong this War.” I have excerpted the article below. You can read the entire piece by clicking on the title above (all emphasis in mine):

The Washington Post has a new article out bemoaning the fact that Russian military commanders are declining calls from the Pentagon to discuss their operations in Ukraine (I dunno guys, might have something to do with the fact that the US is sharing extensive military intelligence on exactly those operations directly with the Ukrainian government). Tucked all the way down in the eighteenth paragraph of the article, we find a much more interesting revelation: that Washington’s top diplomat has made no attempt to contact his counterpart in Moscow since the war began on the 24th of February.

“Secretary of State Antony Blinken has not attempted any conversations with his counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, since the start of the conflict, according to U.S. officials,” The Washington Post reports.

So the US government is continuing its policy of refusing to attempt any high-level diplomatic resolutions to this war despite its public hand-wringing about the horrific violence that’s being inflicted upon the people of Ukraine. This revelation fits nicely with a recent report by Bloomberg’s Niall Ferguson that sources in the US and UK governments have told him the real goal of western powers in this conflict is not to negotiate peace or end the war quickly, but to prolong it in order “bleed Putin” and achieve regime change in Moscow.

Building on an earlier report from The New York Times that the Biden administration “seeks to help Ukraine lock Russia in a quagmire,” Ferguson writes that he has reached the conclusion that “the U.S. intends to keep this war going,” and says he has other sources to corroborate this. . . 

. . . The US empire doesn’t care about Ukrainian lives, and it’s insulting that its operatives continually pretend to. The empire will happily feed every man, woman and child in the entire nation into the mouth of this war if it means unseating a disobedient leader from a nuclear-armed seat of power which has become unacceptably cozy with Beijing and intolerably comfortable with intervening against US imperial agendas. . . 

See the Image of God Shine Brightly in Abby Martin

Our current American moment offers an glaring example of the corporate media’s power to generate, manipulate. and circumscribe public opinion.

If it’s not broadcast on the news, then it does not exist. Corporate editors at CNN, Fox, or whichever newsroom decide what we will care about today.

They only show us what they want us to see, knowing full well that the average American will never look any further than the edited images her favorite news channel shows to her.

The network news room also decides how we will think and feel about the events they have selected for us to see that day. We are all constantly being manipulated by the big business arms of major media outlets.

Tragically, the conservative wing of the Christian church is among the most  easily manipulated because we confine ourselves to the most narrow, like-minded sources of information — Fox News and whichever “Christian” TV and/or radio stations we prefer, all of which are promotional arms of the Republican party.

Thus are we manicured, buffed, groomed, trimmed, and made to fit into the preconstructed box of conventional, American nationalism — including Christian nationalism.

This box guarantees that America always wears the white hat while America’s enemies (as defined by the American government and its communication stooges) always wear the black hats.

Yet, that brand of patriotic, nationalistic identity is as far removed from life in the kingdom of God as is the east from the west, or as far as heaven is removed from hell.

Yet, the wisdom available by way of God’s Image within us, an Image with which every human being is equally endowed, still shines brightly in many.

Anyone who has followed this blog knows how much I admire the investigative journalism of Abby Martin. Her program The Empire Files has long provided a wide-ranging, independent, internationalist perspective on world events. The very perspective that US corporate media will never provide.

Abby was recently interviewed by The Real News Network — another independent outlet I highly recommend — to discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as the role played by the US and NATO in fostering this conflict.

I suspect that Abby is an atheist or agnostic, although I don’t know for sure. However, her humanistic moral compass points to true north. The following excerpt from her interview provides the most “Christian” analysis that I have yet to hear about America’s relationship to the war in Ukraine.

Abby begins by reminding everyone of the many bombs dropped regularly by the US and our allies around the world every day. The map below was drawn up yesterday. How many Americans are mourning for the brown and black bombing victims in Syria, Yemen, or Somalia?

I’ll tell you:  few, if any.

The media ensures that our national heartache is very narrowly circumscribed, limited to only the “worthy victims” that the US government identifies as the victims of “our enemies.”

It also should be noted that these worthy victims are also white Europeans. People who look like us. That is a large part of what makes them “worthy.”

Ukrainians are not like the brown and black “hoards” fleeing as displaced refugees from the homelands that the US and its allies have demolished in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Those poor people are “unworthy victims” who deserve to be turned away at the border.

What condemnable, wicked rubbish is fed to us by our corporate masters under the label “news.”

And oh how completely we condemn ourselves by surrendering our loyalty to the deceitful siren songs of national pride and foreign policy preferences.

Now, please watch as Abby Martin reflects more of the mind of Christ regarding world affairs than I have ever heard from the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aUFTsnbvSA

The Full Story on Ukraine is Being Withheld From the American People, Part 1

I once read that Americans are the most heavily propagandized people in the world. That may not be true, but I suspect that we rank very high, along side the various authoritarian regimes we pretend to hate.

Propaganda not only involves the spread of false information, it also withholds any information that conflicts with or complicates the establishment, party line.

US news media have been using these methods of disinformation for many years. War always offers a banquet of salacious, opportunities for effective propaganda.

Investigative journalist, Max Blumenthal

This is why you probably have never heard of either Max Blumenthal or Aaron Mate.  They are rarely, if ever, invited to appear on mainstream, network, or cable news channels. Their problem is that they are not propagandists for the establishment.

Yet, for my money, Max and Aaron are two of the most important

Investigative journalist, Aaron Mate

independent, investigative journalists working today.

This the first of three posts where I will feature their reporting on the current war in Ukraine. No, neither of them are reporting from the front lines. But I know that Max has been to Ukraine for past investigations, and they both have personal contacts with people in Ukraine today.

They are both also well informed about the modern history of the region, Ukrainian-Russian relations, and the lead up to the current conflict.

Jimmy Dore has been offering them a platform for extended commentary. It’s the best coverage that I have found explaining the US role in sparking this war, and the provocations effected by the fascist, neo-Nazi wing of the Ukrainian military and national government, including the crucial effects of the Ukrainian civil war in the eastern part of the country.

Jimmy will not be to everyone’s taste. But I encourage you to stay put and listen to everything Max and Aaron have to say.

In this first video, Aaron Mate explains “What the Media is Hiding About Ukraine/Russia.”

 

 

More Absurd Propaganda from the Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN has a journalist reporting from Ukraine. Here is the conclusion of his most recent report. CBN labels the clip, “Who is going to stand up for freedom and democracy?”:

Is this man a propagandist stooge? Is he ignorant about recent European history? Or is he so heavily invested in American Christian nationalism that he cannot think outside of his tiny American box?

Returning to the ridiculous propaganda created by George W. Bush is not only ignorant but dangerous. Remember when president Bush justified his absurd “war on terror” by declaring that the “terrorists” (whoever they might be) “hated us because of our freedom.”?

That was not true then, and it is not true today.

Explaining Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by saying that “Russia hates Ukrainian democracy and freedom” is merely a lazy conservative’s way of saying, “I don’t know what in the world is happening here.”

Remember, this is the news network that has never seen an American invasion of another sovereign country, or an American led coup overturning a foreign government, that it didn’t approve of.

CBN cheered for America’s criminal destruction of Iraq.

They have applauded the American demolition of Syria.

The list could go on and on…

And now they condemn Russia for invading Ukraine?

This report is a dangerous example of Christian nationalist propaganda. It is dangerous because the obvious tragedy of war is manipulated to serve the interests of imperial America in eastern Europe.

The reporter’s tearful, closing rhetorical question is an obvious appeal to American sympathies. Humanitarian sympathies that will then be corrupted by US politicians and military recruiters who will justify another round of warfare by happily sacrificing the next generation of “freedom fighters” on the altar of imperialistic, American self-righteousness.

Millions of uninformed, patriotic, nationalistic, evangelical American Christians will watch this CBN report and naïvely swallow it all hook, line, and sinker. America wears the shining white hat of freedom. Russia wears the  malicious black hat of tyranny.

Such manipulation works best among the uninformed. And, sadly, American evangelicals are among the most uninformed.

The average listener will not know anything about the recent history of American-Russian-Ukrainian relations.

They won’t know about Russia’s protests against NATO expansion, or that the US broke it’s promise to Russia that NATO would not be expanded.

They won’t know about the various proposals for a unified European military arrangement that would have included Russia, all of which were negated by the US.

They won’t know that Russia asked to join NATO several times over the years. Mikhail Gorbachev proposed the idea in 1990. Vladimir Putin asked president Clinton for Russia’s admission to NATO.

They won’t know that the US was deeply involved in the 2014 coup that overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych who was replaced by a hand-picked, America-friendly politician.

So, please, it is the height of hypocrisy for anyone to pretend that this current crisis is about the defense of democracy.

The US has always needed its Russian boogeyman. NATO preferred to maintain its “defense profile” as an anti-Russian organization and so rejected or ignored Russia’s requests for membership. Consequently, Russia was deliberately isolated as it watched NATO forces march further and further east, until they now sit cheek-to-jowl on the Russian border.

How many times can you poke a bear with a sharp stick before it turns on you?

We are now witnessing the answer to that question in Ukraine. Yes, Putin’s aggression must be condemned. He and he alone started this war. He is the premier warmonger of the moment.

But the United States as well as every NATO member state must share responsibility for the looming Ukrainian death toll. We too are guilty. We have used and abused Ukraine as a pawn in our psychotic phobia to hate Russia.

Watching a “Christian” journalist wallow in this phobia as he propagates the damnable heresy of Christian nationalism is both pathetic and heartbreaking.

Didn’t he, or anyone else at CBN, ever have a pastor or a professor or a good friend explain to them that as followers of Jesus we are always citizens of God’s kingdom, first, last, and always?

Allegiance to Jesus leaves no room for anyone’s nationalism. Neither does it allow for narrow mindedness, ignorance, or the deliberate exploitation of misinformation. War is too serious a matter.

Caitlin Johnstone: 12 Thoughts on Ukraine

First, a few words from Stephen Cohen, now deceased, on the absurdity and of our current situation in Ukraine, which could have been avoided. Cohen was a professor of Russian history and p0litics at Princeton and NYU.

Caitlin Johnstone has another good article detailing what the US ought to be doing right now. I’ll give you a hint: it’s nothing at all like what is actually happening.

The article is entitled “12 Thoughts on Ukraine.”

Here is an excerpt:

The U.S. power alliance has a choice between escalating aggressions against Russia to world-threatening levels or doing what anti-imperialists have been begging them to do for years and pursue detente.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the goal of which he claims is not to occupy the country but to “demilitarize” and “de-Nazify” it. We’ve no reason to put blind faith in any of those claims. Only time will tell.

As of this writing dozens have reportedly been killed. All war is horrific. We can only hope that this one winds up being the least horrific a war can be.

Some thoughts:

  1. This whole thing could very easily have been avoided with a little bit of diplomacy. The only reason that didn’t happen was it would have meant the U.S. empire taking a teensy, weensy step back from its agenda of total planetary domination. I’ve seen people call it “sad” or “unfortunate” that Western powers didn’t make basic low-cost, high-yield concessions like guaranteeing no NATO membership for Ukraine and having Kiev honor the Minsk agreements, but it’s not sad, and it’s not unfortunate. It’s enraging. That they did this deserves nothing but pure, unadulterated, white hot rage.
  1. Narrative managers have been working furiously to quash all discussion of No. 1, however. Like our good friend Michael McFaul here:

This is one of the most influential Russia “experts” in the Western world decrying propaganda while demanding media outlets enact propaganda. Saying what your government wants said instead of objective reporting the truth is the thing that propaganda is.

Please don’t report facts on your media platforms. Don’t let anyone talk about the known actions by NATO powers and Kiev, which experts have long warned would lead to this situation. You’re not allowed to talk about the known U.S./NATO/Ukraine actions which demonstrably led us to where we’re at. You’re only allowed to say Putin attacked Ukraine completely unprovoked, in a vacuum, solely because he is evil and hates freedom. Your loyalty is to the U.S. empire, not to truth. . . 

The primary risk of nuclear war is not that anyone will choose to start one, it’s that one could be triggered by miscommunication, malfunction or misunderstanding amid the chaos and confusion of escalating Cold War tensions. This nearly happened, repeatedly, in the last Cold War. Cold War brinkmanship has far too many small, unpredictable moving parts for anyone to feel confident that they can ramp up aggressions without triggering a nuclear exchange. Nobody who feels safe with these games of nuclear chicken understands what they really are. We survived the last Cold War by sheer, dumb luck. We were never once in control. We just got lucky. There’s no reason to trust that we’ll get lucky again. We need to abandon this madness and pursue detente immediately. . .

8. It would now seem the U.S. power alliance has a choice between either (A) escalating aggressions against Russia to world-threatening levels or (B) doing what anti-imperialists have been begging them to do for years and pursuing detente. This is exactly where anti-imperialists have been warning we could wind up if the U.S. didn’t work toward detente with Russia. . . 

You can read the entire article here.

As a follower of Jesus, I am a staunch anti-imperialist, as I believe every Christian should be.

Whether or not we all agree on that issue, I am convinced that every Christian must be committed to:

  • Insisting that our government avoid military escalation and conflict by pursuing rigorous diplomacy. It is wiser to be called “weak” by a warmonger than to enter a potentially nuclear conflict through foolish bluster.
  • Recognizing that we are not the only group of people with legitimate, national security interests. We must recognize that Russia has its own security concerns that have been seriously magnified by NATO, western forces arrayed along its western border. Who is the aggressor here? Seeing issues from the other’s perspective is an essential, Christian virtue.
  • Closing our eyes and ears to the patriotic, nationalistic, pro-America chanting that accompanies every new military excursion. We are citizens of God’s kingdom first and foremost.  Christ’s kingdom is always a peaceable kingdom that never calls anyone to war and never justifies anyone else’s bloody conflict. Do not be deceived by the heresy, idolatry, and blood-lust now bombarding America’s airwaves.

“We Are Engaged in Another March of Folly”

President Biden claims that Russian ground troops have moved into eastern Ukraine, others say that Russian forces remain stationed along the border with orders to remain on alert.

Which story is true? I don’t know, but one thing is certain. The events unfolding along the Russia-Ukraine border are very, very dangerous for all of Europe and the United States.

As a Christian, I believe avoiding war and expanding peace is always the best option. So, once again, as the US media continues the spew the establishment, anti-Russia, anti-Putin party-line, I encourage us all to expand our information horizons.

Below are three analyses of the current crisis going well beyond, and contrary to, the pro-American narrative. Since we may well be looking at another war in Europe, it is imperative for every citizen to be as well-informed as possible.

I hope you’ll take the time to listen to these reports:

The first is by a journalist with the Socialist Workers Party. Ignore the political ad at the end of his report if you choose, but his description of the situation on the ground is very good.

Below is an interview with Ben Aris who was once the Moscow bureau chief for the British newspaper, the Daily Telegraph. He offers an excellent historical overview and current perspective:

Finally, even though this next interview is 43 minutes long, it is well worth every minute of your time. Aaron Mate interviews Richard Sakwa, professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent.

If only US news media would offer the analysis of people like Aris and Sakwa. But then, mainstream news outlets don’t try to inform us. Their primary purpose is to manipulate us.