Should we speak for peace on Saturday 25th or support war to the last Ukrainian? Andrew Murray

Andrew Murray draws attention to a demonstration on Saturday 25th demanding peace talks – “as important as any the anti-war movement has ever organised”

He points out that, during the last year, the likeliest estimate of military casualties on both sides is around 300,000. Millions have been made refugees and the destruction across Ukraine has been immense; it will cost billions of dollars to rebuild. Civilian casualties are running at around 20,000, with more than 7,000 dead. (Above: mourners at a funeral for a Ukrainian soldier)

A small minority, including a few in the anti-war movement, find all this a price worth paying for Russia standing up to NATO’s eastward expansion.

Most of the world has refrained from criticising Russia, or from joining in NATO’s economic sanctions, which have caused a whole other level of misery without bringing the conflict any nearer an end.Murray believes that the global majority wants peace and that, a year on, it is time for serious negotiations to open towards that end.

That case is now being made in surprising places, like the ultra-conservative Wall Street Journal, one of Rupert Murdoch’s media properties, columnist Gerard Baker, the former editor of that paper.

Peace talks now should recognise that neither side can attain their maximum objectives militarily without endless years of conflict and that they have both already lost a great deal.

These perspectives are not yet heard in Westminster. Backing for a war to the bitter end is the only voiced opinion allowed. Murray (right) notes that when Rishi Sunak expresses reservations about pouring arms into Ukraine, his two predecessors in Downing condemn them.

The nominal opposition under Keir Starmer is treating the slaughter in Ukraine “as just another box to be ticked” writes Murray, “all the better to establish his embrace of the Establishment’s outlook and the fact that he is not Jeremy Corbyn . . . NATO and war, together with big business and Israel, are the issues on which no difference of view is permitted in today’s Labour Party – its better traditions have been silenced by Starmer:

”The withdrawal of the whip and consequent likely loss of employment hangs as a threat over the head of any Labour MP who may believe the course of continuing conflict set in Ukraine could be improved upon”.

Yet, Murray points out, many in Britain and elsewhere have resisted “the Westminster war psychosis”.  A search finds:

• 55% of Germans are in favour of Ukraine beginning peace talks with Russia now, with just 27% saying it is not the right time for peace talks,
• In the UK’s 16 to 34 age-group, 55% did not support Britain’s role in the war.
• A new Pan-European survey shows that 59% of surveyed Spaniards think that the war in Ukraine should end as soon as possible, even if Ukrainians have to sacrifice some territory to Russia and make concessions to Moscow.

Andrew Murray believes that people want a democratic peace that brings an end to the war on grounds that respect the self-determination of both Ukraine and its minority peoples. That is the only peace that would last.

Like UN Secretary-General António Guterres, he – and others – see parliamentary Britain sleepwalking into escalating war (Armageddon) with hardly a peep of dissent and concludes that only the streets can speak for peace today and the development of mass pressure outside Parliament is the only way to advance the cause of peace, ending:

“The parliamentary silence is the silence of the tomb, perhaps literally so”

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He invites all to join the Stop the War In Ukraine national demonstration, 12.00pm Saturday February 25, meet outside BBC Broadcasting House, London W1A

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Broken Britain 39: the British government accepts the nuclear first use policy

Rae Street, a tireless campaigner for peace and freedom from the threat of nuclear weapons, recently wrote “From the start NATO has had a policy of holding nuclear weapons and a policy of first use of nuclear weapons. 

A shocked reader searched for verification. She found out that not only do the United States and NATO refuse to adopt a no first use policy, but until 1967 they maintained a nuclear doctrine of “massive retaliation” in which nuclear weapons would explicitly be used to defend North America or Western Europe against a conventional attack. See  “NATO’s Nuclear Weapons: The Rationale for ‘No First Use’ | Arms Control Association”.

One would expect that the first use of nuclear weapons would be contrary to international law – and a search leads to the UN General Assembly’s General Assembly Resolution 1653 (1961)  (page 2)

Declaration on the prohibition of the use of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons, which:

In 2008 five of the west’s most senior military officers and strategists presented to the Pentagon their “radical manifesto for a new NATO” saying that the west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the “imminent” spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.

Many years ago the German government raised the issue of a nuclear no-first-use policy at a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting and in the intervening years, concern has strengthened.

Last November Parliamentarians from twelve NATO member countries urged President Biden to consider adopting a policy of no-first-use

In November 2021, No First Use Global reported that NATO parliamentarians wrote to President Biden and Leaders of the US Congress saying that he should give high priority to adopting a policy of no-first-use (or sole purpose) of nuclear weapons in the current U.S. nuclear posture review.

Parliamentarians endorsing the letter came from Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Slovenia, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

China, the only nuclear-weapon state with a no-first-use policy, was the first nation to propose and pledge NFU policy when it gained nuclear capabilities in 1964, undertaking “not to be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time or under any circumstances”.

China has frequently re-affirmed its no-first-use policy in 2005, 2008, 2009, 2011 and again in 2021. It has also consistently called on the United States to adopt a no-first-use policy, to reach an NFU agreement bilaterally with China, and to conclude an NFU agreement among the five nuclear weapon states. The United States has repeatedly refused these calls.

 

 

 

 

 

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The British government should, in future, honour its agreements and pay its debts

If Britain had honoured its debt Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (right) and her family would have been spared six years of suffering.

After Britain finally agreed to pay its outstanding debt of £400mn for 1,500 Chieftain tanks ordered by Iran in the 1970s but never delivered, Nazanin, a charity worker at the Thomson Reuters Foundation which works ‘to advance media freedom, foster more inclusive economies, and promote human rights’, was released.

Sequestering Venezuela’s gold, needed to fund coronavirus health care

Venezuela – unwisely it seems – entrusted its gold reserves to the Bank of England which will not release them to the the UNDP, as proposed, to enable the country to cope with the pandemic and its consequences. British-based lawyer Sarosh Zaiwalla, a successful International arbitrator, said that the UK central bank’s actions are “depriving the Central Bank of Venezuela of access to its gold reserves at a time of national and global emergency, and so preventing BCV and the United Nations Development Programme from addressing that emergency”.

Ukraine-Russia: historian Klaus Wiegrefe records that NATO members broke no treaties but did renege on promises, assurances, defaulting on ‘iron-clad guarantees’

In Der Spiegel, Wiegrefe records the poisoning of the relationship between the West and Moscow in recent decades. In January 1990 German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Gensche proposed that NATO issue a statement saying: “Whatever happens to the Warsaw Pact, there will be no expansion of NATO territory to the east and closer to the borders of the Soviet Union.” His speech was well received by the allied governments in Britain, the U.S., France and Italy.

In early February, with his American counterpart James Baker, Gensche (left) assured the Kremlin that: “For us, it is a certainty that NATO will not expand to the east. James Baker offered “ironclad guarantees that NATO’s jurisdiction or forces would not move eastward.” America’s National Archives confirm that when Gorbachev said that NATO expansion was “unacceptable,” Baker responded: “We agree with that.”

Documents further record that Britain, the U.S. and Germany signalled to the Kremlin that NATO membership of countries like Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic was out of the question.

In March 1991, British Prime Minister John Major promised, during a visit to Moscow, that “nothing of the sort will happen.”

Klaus Wiegrefe comments. “Given the documents available, some even speculate that the West intentionally misled the Soviets from the very beginning”.

Had the British government and its NATO allies honoured their earlier agreement, the ongoing deaths and destruction in Ukraine and the economic turmoil affecting many other countries, may well not have happened.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Understanding the Ukraine crisis – and how to resolve it

MAW chair Tim Devereux  (left) and vice-president Colin Archer (right) offer a way forward on the conflict in the Ukraine

Military confrontation between nuclear superpowers is the ultimate contemporary nightmare, as we are all too aware after the alarming escalation of the situation in the Ukraine.

How did it come to this?

NATO saw Russia again threatening a democratic and sovereign state, while Russia saw NATO relentlessly expanding up to its frontiers. Furthermore, the US established anti-ballistic missile batteries in Poland and Romania, ostensibly protecting the West from rockets launched by “rogue states” such as Iran. But these installations could easily be used to attack Russia itself.

In the famous words of Robert Burns…“O, wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us”.

Consider – how would the USA view Russian missile launchers in Mexico, Canada (or Cuba!). Or for the UK, in Ireland or France?

But similarly, how would we feel if we lived in the Ukraine, surrounded by Russia’s tanks on several borders and with their troops threatening to invade?

Now this long-dreaded scenario has come to pass, with all the consequences in terms of death, suffering and human misery that war always entails.

Consider too the position of other ex-Soviet states. It is not unreasonable for them too to feel anxious about Moscow deciding that their independence isn’t “real” either.

The problem is that neither Russia, still humiliated by the collapse of its empire, nor the USA, smarting from its Afghan and Iraqi debacles, are in the best frame of mind to engage in the sustained, give-and-take diplomacy that durable solutions require. They each think the other “understands best the language of force”.

Reliance on such a belief could be suicidal, since the slope that leads to a nuclear confrontation is a slippery one.

We recognise that the taproot of this multiple conflict is a militarist nationalist culture on all sides which, when brought into confrontation by glory seeking politicians, creates a toxic mix. The result is appalling violence, compounded by all manner of fake news, cyber-attacks, economic sabotage and generalised instability.

Clearly, NATO represents the dominant formation in today’s world and wishes to remain so. But it has waged aggressive wars in recent years, undermining the UN and international law.

However, the militarism of the underdog can be threatening too, especially to those caught in between.

The ramifications of this war are enormous: across political, economic, humanitarian and other fields. This is a historic turning point akin to 9/11.

Our government needs to change tack. While targeted sanctions clearly play a role in getting Putin to rethink, it should, rather than banging the war drums, focus on persuading its NATO and EU partners to work to get all sides back to diplomacy.

This is not caving into a bully, it is the path away from a terrifying conflagration.

Regardless of our views on the balance of blame, we urge all friends of peace to raise their voices in favour of creative non-military solutions. Given the grave risks, nothing is more urgent right now.

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Recommended:
Analysis and statements by groups such as International Peace Bureau, CND, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons; World Beyond War, War Resisters International.

Anatol Lieven: It’s time to ask: what would a Ukraine-Russia peace deal look like?

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Experienced players move to create stable non-aligned states in the space between NATO and Russia

Stuart Richardson (NEU & STWC) draws attention to a recent article by Lindsey German (below right) which opens:

“It’s a remarkable sight to see the British government in righteous mode about someone else going to war. This is after all a government grossly complicit in all the modern wars, most recently the failed interventions on Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

“It sells arms and provides aircraft and personnel to help the Saudi-led coalition prosecute its war in Yemen, which has led to one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, and which was responsible only last week for the bombing of a detention centre which killed nearly a hundred and injured hundreds more”.

She asks if Boris Johnson is trying to raise Britain’s profile in the warmongering stakes, in order to distract from his domestic travails:

“What could be better from his point of view than some flag waving and sabre rattling as an alternative to votes of no confidence, reports on parties, and stories of Tory whips blackmailing MPs?”

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is being portrayed as a plucky democratic David versus an evil totalitarian Goliath, despite the far larger combined power of NATO, UK, US and EU supporting Ukraine, writes German:

“ NATO was a product of the Cold War, as was its East European counterpart, the Warsaw Pact. the latter was disbanded, but NATO embarked on a process of military intervention in three major wars – Kosovo, Afghanistan and Libya.

“Despite assurances given to Russian leaders after 1989 (see classified documents released from the National Security Archives in Washington) that NATO would not expand eastwards of the borders of what was then East Germany, NATO ls stationing troops and conducting military exercises on Russia’s borders”.

The claim made by MI6 over the weekend that Putin plans to install a puppet regime in Kyiv following a war has been treated with derision by the ‘puppet’, Yevhen Murayev, a former Ukrainian MP, who is the subject of Russian sanctions:

“My family’s assets there have been seized. How do the UK secret services and the Foreign Office square that with Russia supposedly wanting to make me the head of an occupation government — that’s a question for Mr Bean?”) Financial Times)

Lindsey German stresses that the risk of war is ever present and we must be clear that there is no justification for it and find a diplomatic solution which recognises reality on both sides. 

Experienced ‘players’ are doing just that: see February’s Briefing Paper No.90 by Dr. Ian Davis (below):

The answer lies in developing a European security architecture that includes a more prominent place for militarily non-aligned and neutral states and that promotes common security (as championed by the OSCE) rather than collective security (as championed by NATO) – the creation of stable and successful non-aligned states in the space between NATO and Russia—building on established thinking.

 

 

 

 

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How to end the Ukraine crisis and redirect military spending towards climate, health and prosperity

Briefing Paper No.90 1 February 2022: Dr. Ian Davis

Europe needs to form its own Non-Aligned Movement

Extracts

This briefing argues for the creation of a European grouping of stable and successful militarily non-aligned states in the space between NATO and Russia, that would include both Ukraine and Georgia. It calls on leading neutral states, like Ireland and Austria, to begin such a process.

Behind the diplomatic deadlock between Russia and the West is President Vladimir Putin’s key demand—a guarantee that Ukraine will never be allowed to join NATO. Putin stated at a news conference in December that “You promised us in the 1990s that [NATO] would not move an inch to the East. You cheated us shamelessly”. The United States insists that neither President George H.W. Bush nor any other Western leader made such a promise. The wound was left open to fester.

(T)he answer lies in developing a European security architecture that includes a more prominent place for militarily non-aligned and neutral states, and that promotes common security (as championed by the OSCE) rather than collective security (as championed by NATO).

This idea—of creating stable and successful non-aligned states in the space between NATO and Russia—builds on established thinking.

A small, closed-door working group of former American and British ambassadors and experts on Russia and Ukraine convened by the Quincy Institute on 17 January, proposed offering Ukraine a treaty of neutrality, while Michael O’Hanlon at the Brookings Institution has also argued for a new concept for future European security in Eastern Europe that would involve permanent neutrality for Ukraine and Georgia.

To facilitate a period of negotiation to such an end, another suggestion at the Quincy Institute meeting was that NATO could offer a moratorium on further expansion for a period sufficiently long (10-20 years) to reassure Russia. Although Russia has indicated that a temporary moratorium would be unacceptable, if it were to be provided within the context of a broader European security re-alignment, it is likely to be more tolerable. Additional military de-escalation and arms control proposals that have been suggested by the European Leadership Network, among others, could be developed in parallel within the OSCE.

However, this new thinking will not materialise without states, commentators and civil society activists being willing to champion it. being willing to champion it. I am therefore calling for a meeting of interested parties to discuss the idea further.

 

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Read the briefing here: https://natowatch.org//sites/default/files/2022-02/briefing_90_towards_a_european_nam.pdf

 

 

 

 

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Ukraine: sensation-obsessed BBC fails to report these truths

The BBC and most British media outlets are ignoring or casting doubt on the existence of assurances that NATO would not expand after Russia withdrew forces from Eastern Europe.

In 2017, classified documents were released from the National Security Archives in Washington, confirming that in 1991 President Gorbachev received assurances from German, French, British and American leaders, the CIA director and NATO secretary-general Manfred Woerner, that NATO would not expand.

However, as Simon Jenkins writes in the Guardian, “The west blatantly derided the advice. NATO leaders feasted on victory, recruiting members eastwards through Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Baltic states”.

When he visited Moscow in 1992 after the fall of the Soviet Union, every Russian expert said the west may have won the cold war, but above all don’t humiliate Russia. Don’t do what was done to Germany in 1919 and devastate morale. He continued:

“Pleas from Russian moderates were ignored, while London opened its doors to Russia’s stolen wealth”

Later, accords between Russia and Ukraine, approved by Russian, Ukrainian and French presidents and the German chancellor, were signed in Minsk (2015). They included guaranteeing the breakaway areas’ autonomy within Ukraine, but Kiev has declined to implement this.

Simon Jenkins comments that analysis of this deal by Anatol Lieven of Washington’s Quincy Institute frames it as a perfectly equitable way out of the conflict: “It involves Kyiv granting extensive domestic autonomy to the Russian-speaking regions of eastern Ukraine, the west backing down on Bush’s proposed eastwards expansion of NATO, and Russia pulling its troops back from a border restored to Ukraine”.

Our admirable politicians spring into action

Britain’s foreign secretary Liz Truss sits on a tank and warns Putin not to make a “strategic mistake”; the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, sends destroyers to patrol the Crimean coast, closely monitored and ‘buzzed’ by Russian aircraft (US Naval Institute video) and Boris Johnson – escaping ‘partygate’ interrogation – sends Ukraine a few anti-tank missiles and a bellicose warning:

“If President Putin were to choose the path of bloodshed and destruction, he must realise that it would be both tragic and futile, and nor should we allow him to believe that he could easily take some smaller portion of Ukraine, to salami slice, because the resistance will be ferocious”.

Sorting out our own rogue leader would be a big step towards helping Ukraine said a Sunday Times journalist.  He commented that it is ‘dangerously shallow’ to be debating whether a few civil servants had a drink or two at a time on international tension.

Jenkins ends by advising the anti-war movement to fight the ‘inane warmongering’ of the British government, oppose NATO’s further expansion, demand de-escalation of the crisis, a halt to arms sales and campaign for ‘an inclusive European security architecture under no-one’s hegemony’.

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“Afghanistan: Some of us did know”: a 2009 prophecy

In 2009 Birmingham’s Stirrer, edited by Adrian Goldberg, published So now you know, by partner in crime Andy Goff – known to the Stirrer community as “webmaster”. The text follows:

President Obama has decided what to do about Afghanistan: “I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan,” But…. “After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.”

What messages does this send?

• First to the Taliban: Keep your heads down, work away with quiet threats to the local population about what will happen to them after NATO pull out if they don’t behave. Minimise losses of arms and fighters and look forward to regaining power sometime in 2011/12.
• Second to the NATO troops in place and about to be deployed: The losses of life and limb you may suffer will be pointless as, in a couple of years, we will have pulled out and left the place no better off than it was when we went in originally. Therefore, keep your heads down and minimise losses of arms and fighters. Whatever good that may be done will be undone post NATOs departure.
• Third to the members of Hamid Karzai’s corrupt regime: Ensure that your bank accounts in tax havens are stuffed full to the gunnels and your escape method is on standby as you will surely need them in 2011 or before. Oh! And watch your back. Remember President Diệm.
• Fourth to the member states of NATO: Better to keep your troops well away from the activities of the US Military. They shoot first and ask questions later. Friendly Fire incidents will increase and they don’t play well with the folks back home.
• Fifth to the good people of Afghanistan: You are stuffed. Get out now while you can. Do deals, in writing, with the Americans and you could end up with a nice place in Florida. Remember how those South Vietnamese did so well when they got the timing right. Going into Afghanistan originally, post September 11^th, was understandable given the attitude of the Bush Administration but did nothing to address the reasons why the USA and then other countries were targeted by Islamo-fascists. Doing nothing was not an option but doing war was the easy option for those in power.

Sending more invading troops to Afghanistan will not cause the downfall of the Taliban or make us any ‘safer’ in the West – in fact probably the reverse. It will alienate more of the population and waste more lives of our servicemen and woman in addition to those innocent civilians who invariably suffer the most in conflict.

 

 

 

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Britain’s shame: supplying a crucial component enabling Turkey to bomb its own citizens

In March, after a break of 17 months of relative peace, a Turkish fighter jet struck military positions of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Saida village in Ain Issa countryside … causing loud explosions (Arab News).

The Jerusalem Post reports that Turkish forces destroyed a church and several buildings in a bombing raid on a Christian village in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region and at least three villages have been abandoned due to the incessant bombing, with the last four families leaving Edine on Tuesday.

It records that Turkey’s bombardments have badly damaged at least 610 acres of land and green space in Duhok province so far this year. More than 152,000 acres of forest have been burnt in Iraqi Kurdistan Region in the past 10 years, with at least 35 per cent of the destruction due to aerial bombing by the Turkish and Iranian militaries, according to the authorities.

Kurdish leaders have appealed to the international community to speak out against Turkey’s military action, which the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) insists is backed by NATO, the United States and the European Union.

Steve Sweeney points out that Turkey is the only country to use drones on its own citizens, with missile strikes from UAVs having claimed the lives of at least 400 people in south-east Turkey since 2016.

He spent eight days in the Makhmur refugee camp, abandoned by the UN and targeted by the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) because a large number of its residents are supporters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)

“It was an almost daily noise hovering over the camp, loud enough to stir me from my sleep in the early hours of the morning, the time that Turkey usually likes to open fire”.

Turkey’s fleet of armed drones has been supplied with British components that enable it to fire precision missiles, made with the support of the British government and British-based arms development companies.

The development of its TB2 Bayraktar armed drone is said to be one of the world’s most advanced UAV systems in its class. It incorporates the Hornet missile rack (left) devised and supplied by EDO MBM Technology, located on the outskirts of Brighton. This “intelligent hand” ensures that the missiles fired from an armed drone reach its target co-ordinates.

An article in Jane’s Defence Review from May 2016 shows that the Hornet was supplied to the Bayraktar TB2’s manufacturer Baykar at the crucial initial development stage.

Though company director Selcuk Bayraktar, tweeted that Baykar no longer uses the British bomb rack, having manufactured this component in Turkey, his tweet was removed after a November 2020 report by the Armenian National Council of America (ANCA) showed photographs of the Hornet bomb rack attached to a Turkish drone downed in the conflict.

The British government should immediately prohibit these and all other ‘defence’ exports to countries using imported armaments to attack.

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Media 116: ignoring serious global chemical & biological security threats to focus on Harry and Meghan trivia

In the Financial Times, the former commander of the UK’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment  and NATO’s Rapid Reaction CBRN Battalion, writes:

“Pre-pandemic, health security was low on the security agenda. Before December 2019, the focus of security services was elsewhere. I’m pretty certain they’re taking this matter extremely seriously now.”

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon has been highlighting the threat caused by highly-infectious viruses, many of which are being studied or stored in facilities around the world with inadequate security protocols.

He points out that chemical facilities are closely monitored by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons but there is no such designated body to police biological labs: “The opportunity for theft, accident or leakage is high. Now that we’ve seen how quickly a pathogen can spread . . . we need our security to be absolutely watertight.”

The most dangerous pathogens such as Anthrax and Ebola are kept in maximum containment Bio Security Level 4 labs (BSL4), of which there are nearly 50 around the world according to a 2017 WHO study. BSL-4 labs are usually subject to high national security regulations and WHO biosecurity guidelines, but standards are not enforced or monitored at an international level.

Mandatory inspections occur only at the two labs which contain the last remaining stocks of the smallpox virus: Russia’s Vector Institute in Siberia (below) and the US Center for Disease Control in Georgia. Those facilities are visited every two years by the WHO to ensure safe storage and research procedures.

Professor Gregory Koblentz, a biodefence expert at George Mason University in Virginia is working with Dr Filippa Lentzos, an expert in biological threats at King’s College London, to compile an unofficial database of BSL-4 labs which they will present at the World Health Assembly in May. They hope to extend the project to cover BSL-3 labs too. The WHO told the FT it took the issue of lab biosecurity “very seriously” and that it was “aware of the growing demand and interest in BSL-4 labs”.

Bretton-Gordon concludes: “Laboratories working on novel viruses and other dangerous pathogens must be more tightly controlled to prevent accidents or terrorism causing another pandemic . . . I think we need to see biological hazards as an existential threat to the 21st century in the same way that atomic science was to the 20th century.”

 

 

 

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