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This week on CounterSpin: You might think you’re not smart enough to talk about Ukraine. And, especially on US foreign policy, corporate media seem to suggest that any questions you have that fall outside their framework are not just dumb but traitorous, not earnest but dangerously naive. Peace? Diplomacy? The idea that US might have broken promises, might have material and not moral interests? Oh, so you love Putin then!
There is an interesting, relevant history to the state of tension between the US and Russia over Ukraine; but understanding it involves letting go of the storyline in which the US equals benevolent democracy and Russia equals craven imperialism.
We got some of that history from Bryce Greene, who wrote about Ukraine recently for FAIR.org. We’ll hear that conversation this week.
Transcript: In Ukraine, ‘No One Hears That There Is a Diplomatic Solution’
Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent media coverage of Afghanistan.
Oh boy Comrades, there is no such thing as fair elections with Putin running the show – wake up. You may not believe a Russian attack is about to occur but the reality of it is within the next couple of days Russia actually will ‘invade’ costing countless lives. Gotta love how this writer blames IMF terms, neo- nazism, racism, etc, etc and cherry picks obscure folks of zero note to back up this nonsense. Its war time for sure, thanks to Putin and guess what ? The IMF is not ordering 180,000 troops to attack – Putin is.
Do you call everyone that does not agree with you Comrade? Very mature. Nobody is saying that Russia will not invade. People are trying to look at it from different views here. And sadly, when you try to do that with your eyes open you find out that there is a bit of substance behind it.
Of course, you can stay very narrow minded and say everything is Putin’s fault. Sadly, reality might be different.
Everything is Putin’s fault… and Jose was correct.
I kinda agree with the above comment that the author is abetting a dictator who probably will launch the biggest war in Europe since World War II.
Then, pardon my French, but you’re a total moron. Have you actually read anything about this? I suggest starting here: https://fair.org/home/what-you-should-really-know-about-ukraine/
Oh, the WAR is on and its you – as the moron – Russian Bot trolling this portal. Really hope Putin is paying you in a crypto currency as the Russian Ruble has all ready dropped double digits.
“Portal”? That sounds like the language of a bot, “Tim”…
Here’s some further reading for you:
https://news.antiwar.com/2022/02/21/uncovered-document-reveals-soviet-union-was-promised-no-nato-expansion-at-end-of-cold-war/
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/02/22/perhaps-the-us-should-shut-the-f*ck-up-about-respecting-other-countries-sovereignty/
(replace the asterisk – do you know what that is? – with the letter “u”)
“The recognition of the DPR and LPR means Russia’s withdrawal from the Minsk agreements, which were signed in 2014 and 2015 to establish the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine,” writes Antiwar’s Dave Decamp. “Under the Minsk agreements, Ukraine agreed to cede some autonomy to the DPR and LPR. Russia has grown increasingly frustrated over the fact that Kyiv hasn’t fulfilled its end of the agreement.”
And who exactly is escalating the violence, Tim might wonder?
“DPR and LPR officials made a renewed request for recognition amid a spike of violence in eastern Ukraine. On February 19th, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) recorded 591 ceasefire violations in the Donetsk region and 975 ceasefire violations in the Luhansk region.”
and
The DPR and LPR first declared independence from Kyiv after the US-backed coup in 2014. Not long after the coup, the separatists asked to join the Russian Federation, but Putin said no.
Go back to Russia you stupid fucking not — the commentator above is dead on. Don’t need a dictator using doge coin to spread disinformation.
Wow, when did Fair become home to Putin’s useful idiots of the left, you are not helping anyone understand this conflict any better with your blanket distortions and mischaracterizations, the Ukrainian armed forces are not a organization run or controlled by Neo-nazis, they are insignificant contingent, the Azov and Donbas battalions make up 2k out of 450k people, that’s about 0.4% and that’s assuming they are all fascists and not people who signed up to fight Russian military incursions into the Ukraine.
Yeah if Russia sent high profile political figures to Canada to support a protest movement, the US would still have zero justification to invade Canada, was that really a point you were trying to make. Keep calling euromaiden a coup, maybe you’ll convince a few hacks. What were all those 10s of thousands of protestors just a psyop? I may as well be watching Russia Today at this point.
Why can’t the Ukrainians decide their own foreign policy why does this have to be seen as a negotiation between Putin and Biden. The Ukraine has been trying aggressively to get into NATO since at least 2014 and has been ignored, if NATO was so desperate to get the Ukraine entered they already would be.
Framing this as Putin vs the Fascists, what a sad joke!
Fascist violence isn’t like a GDP statistic. You can’t say getting burned alive in a locked building is only 30 people out of 7 billion on the planet. They died. We helped.
Your word salad amounts to a thorough misunderstanding of the situation.
But hey, if you want to support and glorify Nazis, you’re free to do so. Just don’t expect the outcome to be any different than in the past.
https://thesaker.is/alleged-azov-battalion-troopers-crucifying-a-separatist-supporter/
How much does NED or the Department of State pay you per comment?
How am I, glorifying Nazi’s, am I the one who’s ignoring the brutal suppression of the Crimean Tatars or trying to hand wave it away? Do I try to justify the invasion and annexation of the crimean republic by using the rhetoric of etho-nationalism like this author does, or if you want to talk about who is friendly to fascism in this conflict look at Putin who cozies up to Viktor Orban and Assad, but this author wants to exaggerate the insignificant amounts of far-right individuals in the Ukrainian army and government. Post-maidan all the fascists tanked during the 2014 election svoboda won 1 seat(which is absolutely 1 seat too many), still they have no role in Government
But hey believe whatever you want don’t let the facts get in the way, if Euromaidan was a fascist takeover, it was a spectacularly unsuccessful one.
Provide some evidence for the “brutal suppression of Crimean Tatars” if you can find any.
Then compare it to the brutal suppression and public murder of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers in Ukraine after the US-led Maidan coup of 2014.
Good piece Bryce. It is rare to see this kind of writing on Ukraine with all the context included so the reader can understand the whole picture. No wonder the usual drones are out trying to discredit it. Keep up the good work.
Just incredible, its as if this author is from some distance world with no mooring to reality. Here is what I know and similar to what Biden stated or alluded to. There are approx 180,000 soldiers who have completely surrounded Ukraine, on their Eastern boarder, from the sea, and North in Belarus. In Ukraine, there’s a quarter of a million Ukrainian soldiers that, if or rather when, there is a land war, are going to fight, probably to the end. This, if it goes the way it sounds like it, this will be the largest conventional war in Europe since 1939 and thousands will die. Crazy.
Revolts usually have economic issues. That was true for Ireland, also for Palestine. It’s so irresponsible for the news media to not include the whole story here in Ukraine, the systemic issues.
I don’t think this is really Washington trying to go to war now. They’re doing information warfare right now.
I also think there’s just way too much testosterone. How about some women in each country do the talks?
Framing the situation in Palestine as strictly about “economics” is a bit rich. Pun intended.
Revolts, economic and systemic issues, and then Washington next breath ?? Seriously ??? Its the wrong play book, perhaps a different article and certainly a different neighborhood. People, its clearly about Russia as the bully invading and going to war with Ukraine. Not much grey here. If this goes down – the way Putin intends – it will be the largest conventional war in Europe since WWII with many thousands dead. Any questions ??
“Don’t like comparisons to WWII but #Putin sure sounds a lot like Hitler justifying 1938 Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia’s German-speaking #Sudetenland. Europe and the USA must respond, steady and strong. This will be messy and scary,”
When CIA/NED have started contracting for comments on FAIR – we AND Russia are in big trouble.
Look no further than 2014 – They (we) canned the elected government of Ukraine that was friendly with Russia. Whether Putin is a dictator or not, the government of Russia would have to be comatose to ignore that.
Biden and co. cite nothing but secret intelligence – trust Us – and the gulls swallow. How many more times we gonna fall for that schtick?
Thanks for joining in so vociferously, Atlantic Council and state dept./pentagon minions:)
Your energetic responses to discredit an effort to balance the media narrative are highly entertaining-keep up the good (?) work!
Sad to see the number of un-critical believers of the US propaganda commenting here… guess they weren’t paying attention in 2003 when the US fabricated a rationale to invade Iraq and there was ‘incontrovertible’ evidence that Saddam had WMDs, and anybody who questioned it was a ‘Saddam sympathizer’. Remember how that worked out? The US went to the other side of the world, bombed the hell out of a smaller, sovereign country, and after at least 100K dead Iraqis and 4000+ US soldiers, found NO… repeat NO WMDs. And that was just the most blatant example of duplicity by our US government, there are plenty of others that can be found in numerous sources that I’m not even going to bother to cite since the ‘Kool-aid’ drinkers just want to see flag-waving, U-S-A chanting ‘news’. For those who are looking for a way-less nationalistic version of world events, I can recommend ConsortiumNews.com, who was one of the few news-sites who got it right back in 2003.
Who’s invading who here, we don’t swallow the Kremlin lie and we are the warmongers, I am not the one rationalizing a military invasion, you want to stand with putin, the real fascist go ahead, I thought american would be against pre-emptive warfare by now, how convenient it never seems to affect you,
-stay smug
You are what is known as “a stupid cunt”
I find it hilarious that you think there’s an equivalence between Iraq — a country which at the time had a dictator engaged in ethnic genocide of the Kurds using chemical weapons and Ukraine in 2022.
Like me one can say the Iraq war was an overly hawkish military exercise that was a total blunder without false equivalence here.
I’m sure you feel empowered now with the deaths of innocent civilians in Ukraine.
The U.S. Government and other European companies provided Saddam Hussein with his chemical and biological weapons and precursors.
Saddam Hussein was recruited as a CIA asset in 1959.
Saddam Hussein was trained as an assassin by the CIA, and was one of six members of the Iraqi military used to target the leader of Iraq in the 1960’s.
After it was proven that Saddam Hussein had used chemical and biological weapons against his own people and the Iranian military, the U.S. Government still continued to maintain diplomatic and economic relations with him.
Hope that clears up any confusion about the nature of the U.S. foreign policy.
I wonder how our mainstream media people can sleep at night. These are not people with 2 digit IQ’s, and must be aware of the incredible hypocrisy in virtually everything they report regarding US foreign policy. I’m not religious, but the Golden Rule [do unto others as you would have them do ..]is generally a good guideline to live one’s life. Our foreign policy seems to be the EXACT opposite of that rule, especially as it applies to certain nations. MLK certainly understood this.
Brilliant commentary — liberal democratic nations aren’t different at all from autocratic countries!
We just go into Iraq for oil (of course the war cost more than 10X any oil revenue and we get more oil from Canada).
How can the mainstream media sleep at night when they have Clarissa Ward on the ground in war zones giving us news that’s relevant to foreign policy!
Trust me bro the mainstream media is all wrong. How, why, who are the mainstream media? You should think about that — I haven’t.
I think I got you summarized man!
I don’t know if you were trying to astroturf a war, but if you were excellent job Bryce!
I know you complemented Mehdi Hasan, if you want someone who actually had some interesting critical analysis of the situation go there, your conclusions couldn’t be more different and also maybe next time do some fact checking from another source other than Sputnik News.
This isn’t coffee shop politics, this is real life and people are dying!
If FAIR ever decides they don’t want to be part of the RT, consortium news echo-chamber anymore, that will be grand, til then I’m done, you’ll never see another dollar from me.
Imperalism always bad, all the time, everywhere(Palestine, Yemen, Iraq, Ukraine, etc)
Bryce Greene thank you so much for your comprehensive illuminating understanding of the pieces of politics, threats, components of escalation, human action/inaction, ego and those who hold responsibility in actions and inactions/prevention…. ultimately bleeding humanity.
I too am but a mere mortal with limited trust in the media and listening to your understanding in interview brought light to convolution of man and his madness, greed and string of possibility to take the road less traveled in pave peace.