alanjjohnstone
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As the Russians retreat or re-deploy (choose whichever narrative you wish) stories are emerging of numerous dead civilians.
Time should clarify whether they were collateral damage, deliberately targeted or executed.
My first thought, however, was how many were those civilians urged to make petrol bombs and to throw them at the Russians?
From BBC website “A senior Chinese diplomat has dismissed the notion that his country is working around sanctions on Russia, a day after EU leaders warned China against doing so. Wang Lutong, from China’s foreign ministry, said Beijing was helping the global economy through continued trade with Russia. But Western nations have expressed concerns about Beijing’s reluctance to condemn Russia’s invasion – and have fears Beijing could offer support to Russia to lessen the impact of the sanctions. On Friday, European Commission chief Ursual von der Leyen warned the business sector in Europe was watching China’s actions closely.”
This is not the first occasion that China has been accused of circumventing the sanctions and warned off.
Is a two-front war really unimaginable? A proxy war against Russia and a trade war against China?
Is it too suicidal to contemplate?
Nothing now can surprise me as reason seems to have been jettisoned from diplomacy.
A mystery unfolds
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/zelensky-strips-two-ukrainian-generals-100423182.html
Zelensky has sacked two senior members of the Ukrainian national security service, labelling them as traitors and antiheroes.
Zelensky said he had fired Naumov Andriy Olehovych, the chief of the main department of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and Kryvoruchko Serhiy Oleksandrovych, the head of the SBU in Kherson, the first major city that fell to the Russians.
“Something prevented them from determining where their homeland was” and they “violated their military oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people”, the president said.
“Today another decision was made regarding anti-heroes,” he said. “I do not have time to deal with all the traitors, but they will gradually all be punished.”
He issued a wider warning to the Ukrainian forces, saying those “who break the military oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people… will inevitably be deprived of high military ranks”.
When it comes to an analysis I do not think there are many who would go down the route of ourselves when it comes to invasion or sovereignty as explained in today’s SOYMB blog-post.
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2022/04/humanity-is-my-family-world-is-my.html
“If Russia wants to occupy and run Britain, they may have it as far as the Socialist Party is concerned…It matters nothing that Britain may be peopled by Russians, or by any other nationality on the capitalist globe. That would make no difference to the movement of the working class towards the world-embracing cooperative commonwealth. The workers of all nations make common causes against the common or capitalist exploiter. If an invasion is coming, let it come…”
Yes, as it has been pointed out, socialists would prefer the limited liberties that exist rather than an authoritarian regime but are to be wage-slaves, no matter the length of the chain and how gently it shackles us worth the lives of family and friends?
Ours is a tough truth to get across but it seems we are the only ones honest enough to say it. Let all the old boys of Eton such as Boris fight for what they own.
Is it better to be a dead citizen of Ukraine than a live subject of Russia? I think the latter. There are no death camps under annexation awaiting those of Ukrainian heritage.
I applaud those who seek sanctuary by becoming refugees in foreign lands rather than risk life and limb for the “nation”.
As a retiree ex-pat, a polite term for an economic migrant, I have already chosen where my allegiance lies despite being legally obliged to carry a particular passport, that just recently changed colour.
Our purpose is to present unpleasant facts no matter how unwelcomed they are by prevailing popular sentiment. The truth hurts.
An article on Eleanor
“Women are the creatures of an organized tyranny of men,” she wrote, “as workers are the creatures of an organized tyranny of idlers.”
I think what we are witnessing is the very same old story being re-played once again with a slightly different script plus different actors, who happen to be far more photogenic than your average brown- or black-skinned victims in the media war for ratings.
We must always try to place events in full context and not as isolated a-historical phenomena.
China should not become “too closely aligned” with Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, Sir Jeremy Fleming, the head of UK cyber-intelligence GCHQ has warned.
He said China’s long-term interests are not served by an alliance with Moscow. China’s aspirations to become a leading player on the global stage were “not well served by close alliance with a regime that wilfully and illegally ignores” international rules.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60936056
Where he made this assessment is of interest – in Australia
An unnecessary preventable avoidable war
“Much of what Russia says that it has gained was obtainable without an invasion. Ukraine was unlikely to join Nato and the Nato powers said that none of their soldiers would fight in Ukraine. Russian demands for ‘de-Nazification’, and an end to the genocide of Russian speakers, will be easy to meet because neither allegation was true, but Putin could claim to have averted them.”
Once again we witness how war is a great accelerator for capitalism.
The anti-Russian economic policies are radical and drastic, involving the urgency that climate change measures have been lacking in.
Billions have now been found for more weaponry but were never available for installation of renewable energy.
In fact, much of the embargo on trade with Russia will undo the switch from fossil fuels.
A few months ago, pre-invasion, I had an exchange with a proponent of Stephen Pinker, that capitalism had reduced wars. How wrong he was. Time always bears our analysis out
Australian media magnate says, “Australia must be willing to invade the Solomon Islands and topple its government if that’s what is necessary to stop a proposed security pact between China and the Pacific nation going ahead”
It is “Australia’s Cuban missile crisis” and warns a Chinese naval base in the Solomons would be “the effective end of our sovereignty and democracy”
“China will have parked an enormous stationary aircraft carrier within direct striking distance of every eastern Australian city”
Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare has dismissed foreign criticism of the country’s security negotiations with China
“We find it very insulting, Mr Speaker, to be branded as unfit to manage our sovereign affairs,” Sogavare saidMS, the left democrat progressives are probably secretly welcoming the war as Biden’s bellicose policy is their only hope for success in the mid-terms.
Although they now have a new tax the billionaire to promote.
Stephen and others, if you haven’t seen the movie Pentagon Wars on the development of the Bradley armoured vehicle, you should
Bernie Sanders said Biden’s request for an $813.3 billion military budget in the next fiscal year was excessive, noting that the United States already spends more on national security than “the next 11 countries combined.”
Biden’s military spending request for 2023 represents a $31 billion increase over the current level of $782 billion, which is already unprecedented.
Biden’s proposed budget is “substantially more—adjusted for inflation—than spending at the height of the Korean or Vietnam wars, and over $100 billion more than peak spending during the Cold War.”
“The Pentagon’s FY 2023 budget will be a boon to defense contractors,” Hartung continued, “with a proposed $276 billion for weapons procurement and R&D combined, over $30 billion more than the department’s 2022 proposal.”
If approved by Congress, Biden’s latest budget would put the U.S. on track to spend more than $8 trillion on its military over the next decade.
By contrast, Biden is asking Congress for just $44.9 billion in total funding to fight the climate emergency in 2023
Did the Ukraine war influence this colossal investment? Many would doubt it. It was already a trend. But only for the USA. It took the Russian invasion to spur many European nations to increase their defence budgets.
Most Americans fully approve of this huge militarist spending and any suggestion of cutting the defence budget has dire consequences for any political candidate.
American exceptionalism again at work.
