daniel chigunwe
Petre Humfreys-Correspondent
The war in Ukraine has ushered heightened danger in world politics and the threat of a global conflict that would devastate humanity.
But in all this, the United States is the chief culprit, the rest of the opposition to Russia are either followers or mere pawns.
Socialists and people who want peace need to recognise that the entire United States foreign policy and military establishment is now organised around great power conflict against Russia and China as the defining strategy for decades to come.
It is, therefore, essential to recognise that Russia is not being targeted fundamentally because of human rights abuses, or this or that military action, but because it no longer accepts a US-dominated world order.
In the run-up to the Russian special military operation in Ukraine and ever since, the media in the United States and its allies has been working overtime to spread misinformation and confusion. Lies packaged as truths. But on the ground in Ukraine, the effects of the war are telling and Ukriane is collapsing by each bomb.
But for US President Joe Biden, his support for Ukraine is more based on the need to protect his corruption, that involves himself and his son, Hunter.
A change in Government in Ukraine will spell disaster for Biden as a lid will be lifted on the case that he does not want to continue.
It is an open secret that the current Government in Ukraine has been protecting Biden in the corruption case that he is very desperate to cover up.
We all know how Biden used a military co-operation threat carrot stick to get his son jobs in Ukraine and the current Russian special military operation has set his stomach rumbling. Fear is the word.
Therefore, we are not surprised that he is pushing in a lot of military equipment to serve Ukraine from imminent collapse and subsequently get a new government.
So, for Biden, it is more of life and death for his political career than Russia being morally wrong and lacking sanity.
Biden is on the cross.
Biden is desperate to see Russia fail in Ukraine.
The logic of sanctions will only produce severe economic pain, climate disaster, and ultimately catastrophic war. The working class, the poor have no interest in being dragged into such a conflict in the name of preserving the dominance of Wall Street and the Pentagon.
The rabid Western media hopes that inundating people with non-stop anti-Russian content will manufacture the consent necessary not just for a short-term military escalation in Eastern Europe, but so as to sign people up for a whole new Cold War.
Clearly, there’s need for increased unity for those who oppose US imperialism and support peace. NATO provoked the war between Russia and Ukraine.
US must stop trying to be the world’s policeman and godfather. It does not work.
The United States government has been intentionally escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine for years. From continuing NATO’s eastward expansion, despite promises not to, to supporting the pro-Western coup in Ukraine in 2014, to heavily arming the Ukrainian government, NATO’s aggressive actions set the stage for the war.
The US was determined to bring Ukraine into a Western sphere of influence, and so refused to acknowledge Russia’s legitimate security concerns about NATO expansion and advanced missiles being placed on its borders.
Russia’s “red lines” were well known for decades and NATO did all of this knowing it could potentially lead to intervention. In some respects, it appears NATO set a deliberate trap that Russia fell into.
NATO is a relic of the Cold War, and needs to be dissolved; its only purpose is to maintain United States military hegemony.
NATO’s drive to turn Europe into a staging ground for its military threats against Russia means that not only is Ukraine militarised, but that all of Europe is.
Currently, the principal obstacle to establishing a peaceful Europe is the polarisation of the continent around NATO as a de facto anti-Russian alliance.
The only way to have discussions about the many issues causing conflict between European nations — borders, languages, economic relations, etc — without raising the possibility of war is through the dissolution of NATO, the demilitarisation of Europe, and the removal of United States troops, missiles, and nuclear weapons. Russia should follow suit with their own demilitarisation, step by step.
The UN Charter of 1945 was written, and agreed to, to protect against a “might makes right” world order where stronger, more powerful countries can do whatever they want while smaller, less powerful nations have no guaranteed rights.
This sovereignty-based international system has never been fully realised, and in many ways has masked the imperialist reality and deep power imbalances of the global order.
The UN Security Council, the only body empowered to authorise sanctions and military action against another country, functions in a completely undemocratic way by concentrating power into the hands of just five permanent members that can veto any resolutions.
The Security Council should be abolished. What should be defended, however, is that the UN Charter creates a legal and political baseline to counteract abuses of power perpetrated by more powerful nations against lesser powers — and insists on the sovereignty and independence of formerly colonised nations in particular.
While the whole world is crying out for an end to the United States-dominated unipolar world order, “multipolarity” would not be progressive if it means becoming simply a competition of “unilateral” initiatives.
Many left-wing and anti-imperialist governments believe that adherence to the UN Charter is an instrument to defend what is positive about “multi-polarity” — the space for counter-hegemonic projects to grow.
For decades politicians and the corporate media, liberal and conservative alike, have pushed a false equivalency between fascists and communists. At the end of the day, this anti-communist slander is also a sleight of hand that lets fascists in through the back door.
In Ukraine, where the Communist Party is banned, the rapid and dangerous normalisation of Nazi Germany and its collaborators has taken place. Ukraine has integrated outright Nazis and Nazi-adjacent forces into the armed services and police.
Now the United States media, which just a few years ago noted the neo-Nazi presence in Ukraine, assists in their rebranding as “patriots”.
Humanity is calling out for an alternative to capitalism, and we cannot allow the idea of socialism — of working-class power and international unity — to be taken off the table.
The underlying cause of this conflict, beyond NATO, is that we still live in a world that is divided into states run by capitalist elites who prioritise their own wealth and power above all else. The only way to build a world that allows for global co-operation and peace between all peoples, the elimination of poverty, the abolition of nuclear weapons, and the implementation of real democracy that puts the power in the hands of the people, is through socialism.
Petre Humfreys is a political analyst with the East Asia Political Think Tank
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