Stop All Wars from Ukraine to the Middle East & Stop WWIII
It is self evident that we must call for a stop to Russia’s invasion, and all the ongoing Western invasions across the Middle East as well. The Russian invasion is arguably a war crime, just as the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a war crime, as were the dozens of US invasions and bombings of millions of mostly non-white people over the last several decades.
As you know, mainstream media is bombarding the public with endless stories about Russian invasion, but have never done the same for endless & ongoing Western invasions of the Middle East. The same week as the Russian invasion, the U.S. carried out bombings in Somalia, the U.S.-backed Saudi dictatorship launched dozens of airstrikes in Yemen, and the U.S.-backed Israeli government bombed Syria.
The U.S. has dropped 337,000 bombs, an average of 46 bombs per day, on the Middle East for the last 20 years, but mainstream media barely covered the horror of it. As the Monthly Review reported, “In the (last week of February), Fox News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC ran almost 1,300 separate stories on the Ukraine invasion, two stories on the Syria attack, one on Somalia, and none at all on the Saudi-led war on Yemen.”
Mainstream Western media never encourages mass public sympathy for victims of Western wars, and never encourages people to wave flags for Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia or Palestine. Despite what our media tells us, we must condemn all this illegal invasion of sovereignty as well, in addition to Russia’s.
You might ask yourself why the discrepancy in media coverage? We have the answer. In numerous recent instances, mainstream Western media has explained their racist justification. A great example is when a CBS news reporter said about the Russian invasion, “This isn’t a place…like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European city where you wouldn’t expect that…to happen.”
An NBC News reporter said “these are not refugees from Syria, these are refugees from Ukraine…They’re Christian, they’re white, they’re very similar.” Speaking of refugees, we must also recognize how Western nations are appropriately welcoming in Ukrainian war refugees, but in many cases are building walls or other severe barriers to the 37 million refugees that Western nations have created via their endless invasions of the Middle East. This racist double standard is not lost on the millions of suffering non-white people.
The media is also stoking excessive hatred toward Russians, reminiscent of the pro-war propaganda run up to the Iraq War. They are using initial sympathy for Ukrainians, and twisting it into anti-Russia war fervor. Scores of individuals and organizations are sounding increasingly bellicose, strongly supporting various forms of warfare against Russia. Due to this, Russian artists and athletes are being unfairly punished for things their government did, being banned from participation in film festivals, sporting events, and so forth.
But most importantly, we must recognize the strong possibility of this war escalating into a nuclear World War 3. Indeed, the Russian invasion has vastly increased the probability of world war, and the Western response has compounded that probability. Instead of vigorously seeking serious peace talks and an understanding of Russian grievances, the West is waging wholesale economic warfare, trying to collapse most of the Russian economy, which will harm poor civilians most. The West is also continuing to send massive arms shipments to Ukraine, and has been working on sending warplanes to the Ukrainian government. Many top governmental officials are calling for a No Fly Zone and to kill Putin. All this is a massive escalation toward nuclear world war and is stark raving insanity of the highest order!
As we speak, and I say this without hyperbole, we are at the most dangerous moment in human history. Even during the height of the previous Cold War, all the leaders and public understood the extreme danger of nuclear war. Today, it seems like far too many suffer from total ignorance or amnesia, and act as if going to war against Russia is acceptable. Nobody wins nuclear war!
We must recognize that there is an easy way to Stop the War, which starts by understanding what really provoked the war. If we’re honest, we must accept that this conflict started when the US broke its promise not to expand NATO forces “one inch” Eastward beyond West Germany, after the fall of USSR. Many of our nation’s foremost Russia and foreign policy experts, George Kennan, Stephen Cohen, John Mearsheimer, and many others warned us precisely about NATO expansion leading to this very conflict. Russia also explicitly warned the West for many years that there would be a severe problem if they continued pushing NATO to their doorstep, especially in Ukraine. How did the USA feel when Soviets put missiles in Cuba?
If we are serious about peace, we also must tell the truth about the violent U.S.-backed Ukraine coup in 2014, when Senator John McCain and others went to coup protests in Ukraine and proclaimed U.S. support for overthrowing Ukrainian democracy. And following that coup, the U.S. armed and supported a proxy war in that nation, including working with neo-Nazis as they waged war on ethnic minority Russians in the East, killing around 14,000 people. Interestingly, the very credible independent media watchdog journal Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) gave a great summary of what mainstream media is not telling the public. This war did not start last week.
If we’re serious about peace and avoiding nuclear war, we must acknowledge the Western role in provoking the conflict, and call for peace negotiations for Ukraine to remain neutral in terms of NATO, and for U.S. and Russian forces and weapons to be withdrawn from Ukraine. Peace is simpler than pro-war profiteer media would like us to comprehend.
Abel Tomlinson 