Monday. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, "One of the US's goals in Ukraine is to see a weakened Russia." He also said, "The U.S. is ready to move heaven and earth to help Ukraine win the war against Russia."
The first statement contains no goal of saving Ukrainian lives. That is because saving Ukrainians is not a major focus of US war aims in Ukraine. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called out America's disregard of the staggering death and destruction there saying "There are countries within NATO who want the war to continue. They want Russia to become weaker."
Apparently "heaven and earth" in the second statement includes billions in weaponry, but not a single pair of US boots on the ground. Nor does it include American war planes; even a no-fly zone to counter Russian air superiority. That telegraphs America does not consider the Ukraine war critical to America's national self-interests that risks a single American life. US policy boils down to: Ukraine does the dying; America does the supplying.
The US has never once offered negotiations as a path toward peace. For the US to enter negotiations, they would have to cease denying the provocative history of the US, NATO, and ultra nationalist Ukrainians' actions toward Russia's borders, including the killing of 14,000 Russian speaking Ukrainians in the Donbas.
Refusing to address that long, tortured history, makes a negotiated settlement virtually impossible. That leaves endless weaponry provoking even stronger Russian warfare, guaranteeing the killing goes on throughout 2022, per Secretary of State Antony Blinken, or even several years, according to Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley.
But endless war and deaths is just one of several calamities facing the world by using weapons, and its less violent policy mate, sanctions, instead of negotiations. Worldwide recession may be now more likely than not. Flowing from worldwide recession, and sanctions crippling supply chains, millions in poor countries may be doomed to starvation and death from policies proclaimed as life savers.
But the worst possible consequence of proxy war by the US and NATO against Russia is all out nuclear war between the 2 major nuclear powers possessing over 13,000 nuclear weapons.
Sixty-four days into war, every day brings new potential for miscalculation, blunder, simple misunderstanding, to trigger warfare not seen since World War II, 77 years ago. If that happens, the catastrophe will not be limited to two Japanese cities.
It is counterproductive for the US to substitute weapons and sanctions for diplomacy if it is truly interested in peace. Last week Blinken counselor Derek Chollet advised that Blinken's negotiating team refused to even consider Russia's security concerns regarding NATO's membership for Ukraine, a red line to Russia they've been warning us about for 2 decades.
Chollet spilled the beans on Blinken saying "We made clear to the Russians that we were willing to talk to them on issues that we thought were genuine concerns to them in some way. But the future of Ukraine was a non-issue."
As a result, Secretary of State Blinken hasn't spoken to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov since February 15, nine days before war began. That abrogation of simple diplomacy that could have avoided war was inexcusable and unacceptable.
America and its fervent media supporters should be supporting, demanding even, that our government use negotiations, the only means of bringing this horrific war to a prompt conclusion. Endless demonizing of Russian President Putin also makes even starting such necessary negotiations difficult, if not impossible.
That leads to a fair question many in the peace movement and others are asking: Is the U.S. supplying endless weapons but no negotiations simply to wage proxy war fought by Ukrainians, primarily to isolate, weaken, even effect regime change in Russia, rather than to save Ukrainian lives?
We need every media organization in America to begin asking the tough questions that could provide an off ramp from endless war, worldwide recession and starvation, and most importantly, possible nuclear war
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