Vladimir Zelensky’s message to the New Zealand Parliament will be delivered in the last week before Christmas, in the bury-it time-slot. That seems appropriate, for much has changed since the heady days when our Parliament went straight for sanctions on Russia without discussion.
The sanctions have proved to be worse than a failure. Not only have they not collapsed the rouble or the Russian economy, the blowback on Europe has been severe. It has been forced by sabotage of the NS2 pipeline (by persons unknown???) to pay 4 times more for US liquefied gas than for Russian gas, with the result that industries are decimated and families are freezing.
Ukraine is a story of two wars, the propaganda war and the proxy war.
The US and NATO are winning the propaganda war in the west, but not in the rest of the world. Western mainstream media, including ours in New Zealand, spin Russian tactical withdrawals into Ukrainian victories, along with an endless diet of alleged and unverified atrocities. We are led to believe that Russia’s incursion was unprovoked, despite NATO’s encroachment to Russia’s border, training the Ukrainian army.
In the proxy war, Ukrainian soldiers are losing the shooting war between US/NATO and Russia, a curtain-raiser for their real war with China. They are being massacred, as poorly trained conscripts are pushed forward to face well-aimed Russian artillery barrages. European Union Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen let the cat out of the bag last week when she talked of 100,000 officer casualties in Ukrainian forces.
The underlying cause of this war is the same as it has always been for war – looting and plunder. The US and the UK are financialised bubble economies who covet the real resources of Russia and China. We are seeing the Opium wars redux as the 19th century maritime empires are threatened by the rise of Eurasia. Lord Palmerston who was the British Prime Minister in the first Opium war that forced the cession of Hong Kong to Britain, also wanted Britain to take the whole of Russia in the Crimean War. The British press was as rabid then as it is now.
And Britain must bear some blame for the fact this war was not stopped in April. Negotiations brokered by Turkey were heading for agreement, when the egregious Boris Johnson was sent to Kiev to tell Zelensky that Britain and the United States would not agree to any settlement. Escalation is the result.
And now the fear is of further escalation, as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warns that things could get out of hand. And escalation is what Zelensky needs as Ukraine is losing the war. A few more trainers, a few more dollars, a few more short-range cannons will not do the job. His task here is to cut off any backsliding among the NATO-supporting West, which currently includes New Zealand. This was probably also the job of Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin in her recent visit, as Finland which also borders Russia has recently applied to join NATO. The Australian media got closer to the truth than the local focus on trivialities.
What exactly is New Zealand’s role in Ukraine? What is our end-game? Is it the weakening of Russia, as the ex-Raytheon US Defense Secretary states? Is is the containment of China, as NATO set as an objective from the faraway perspective of the North Atlantic?
I find it impossible to see how any of this is in our interest. As it is mostly Ukrainians who are dying, I find it hard to see how any of that is in their interest either.
On this issue, our Parliament is convergent, as is the case in the United States Congress. This means that there is no debate or discussion, as our parliamentarians behave like lemmings and our media lose their critical faculties. The Russian ambassador is ‘sent to Coventry.’
Truth is the first casualty in war, goes the saying. One of the extraordinary features of this war is the way in which the activities of Ukraine’s extreme nationalists have been white-washed in the white western media. Groups such as the AZOV battalion, condemned as terrorists only four years ago, are now lionised. One of the few voices raised against this part of the propaganda war is the Socialist Equality group at Victoria University, who are protesting against a touring exhibition provided by an anti-Russian NGO based in the United States. Trotsky didn’t get it all wrong.
Zelensky will no doubt ask the New Zealand Parliament to provide more support, moral and lethal, to continue this disastrous war. This should be resisted. Hopefully the Christmas period of goodwill will provide time for much-needed reflection. We should be calling for an end to the war and negotiations to recommence.
For further information on the issues and the recommendation, I offer this excellent short video by Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the US feminist peace campaigners ‘CODE PINK.’
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress