terça-feira, 10 de fevereiro de 2015

The Fallujah Option for East Ukraine





by MIKE WHITNEY



“I want to appeal to the Ukrainian people, to the mothers, the fathers, the
sisters and the grandparents. Stop sending your sons and brothers to this
pointless, merciless slaughter. The interests of the Ukrainian government are
not your interests. I beg of you: Come to your senses. You do not have to water
Donbass fields with Ukrainian blood. It’s not worth it.”

— Alexander Zakharchenko, Prime Minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic

Washington needs a war in Ukraine to achieve its strategic objectives. This
point cannot be overstated.

The US wants to push NATO to Russia’s western border. It wants a land-bridge to
Asia to spread US military bases across the continent. It wants to control the
pipeline corridors from Russia to Europe to monitor Moscow’s revenues and to
ensure that gas continues to be denominated in dollars. And it wants a weaker,
unstable Russia that is more prone to regime change, fragmentation and,
ultimately, foreign control. These objectives cannot be achieved peacefully,
indeed, if the fighting stopped tomorrow, the sanctions would be lifted shortly
after, and the Russian economy would begin to recover. How would that benefit
Washington?

It wouldn’t. It would undermine Washington’s broader plan to integrate China and
Russia into the prevailing economic system, the dollar system. Powerbrokers in
the US realize that the present system must either expand or collapse. Either
China and Russia are brought to heel and persuaded to accept a subordinate role
in the US-led global order or Washington’s tenure as global hegemon will come to
an end.

This is why hostilities in East Ukraine have escalated and will continue to
escalate. This is why the U.S. Congress approved a bill for tougher sanctions
on Russia’s energy sector and lethal aid for Ukraine’s military. This is why
Washington has sent military trainers to Ukraine and is preparing to provide $3
billion in “anti-armor missiles, reconnaissance drones, armored Humvees, and
radars that can determine the location of enemy rocket and artillery fire.” All
of Washington’s actions are designed with one purpose in mind, to intensify the
fighting and escalate the conflict. The heavy losses sustained by Ukraine’s
inexperienced army and the terrible suffering of the civilians in Lugansk and
Donetsk are of no interest to US war-planners. Their job is to make sure that
peace is avoided at all cost because peace would derail US plans to pivot to
Asia and remain the world’s only superpower. Here’s an except from an article in
the WSWS:


“The ultimate aim of the US and its allies is to reduce Russia to an
impoverished and semi-colonial status. Such a strategy, historically associated
with Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, is
again being openly promoted.

In a speech last year at the Wilson Center, Brzezinski called on Washington to
provide Kiev with “weapons designed particularly to permit the Ukrainians to
engage in effective urban warfare of resistance.” In line with the policies now
recommended in the report by the Brookings Institution and other think tanks
calling for US arms to the Kiev regime, Brzezinski called for providing
“anti-tank weapons…weapons capable for use in urban short-range fighting.”

While the strategy outlined by Brzezinski is politically criminal—trapping
Russia in an ethnic urban war in Ukraine that would threaten the deaths of
millions, if not billions of people—it is fully aligned with the policies he has
promoted against Russia for decades.” (“The US arming of Ukraine and the danger
of World War III“, World Socialist Web Site)

Non-lethal military aid will inevitably lead to lethal military aid,
sophisticated weaponry, no-fly zones, covert assistance, foreign contractors,
Special ops, and boots on the ground. We’ve seen it all before. There is no
popular opposition to the war in the US, no thriving antiwar movement that can
shut down cities, order a general strike or disrupt the status quo. So there’s
no way to stop the persistent drive to war. The media and the political class
have given Obama carte blanche, the authority to prosecute the conflict as he
sees fit. That increases the probability of a broader war by this summer
following the spring thaw.

While the possibility of a nuclear conflagration cannot be excluded, it won’t
effect US plans for the near future. No one thinks that Putin will launch a
nuclear war to protect the Donbass, so the deterrent value of the weapons is
lost.

And Washington isn’t worried about the costs either. Despite botched military
interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and half a dozen other countries
around the world; US stocks are still soaring, foreign investment in US
Treasuries is at record levels,, the US economy is growing at a faster pace than
any of its global competitors, and the dollar has risen an eye-watering 13
percent against a basket of foreign currencies since last June. America has paid
nothing for decimating vast swathes of the planet and killing more than a
million people. Why would they stop now?

They won’t, which is why the fighting in Ukraine is going to escalate. Check
this out from the WSWS:


“On Monday, the New York Times announced that the Obama administration is moving
to directly arm the Ukrainian army and the fascistic militias supporting the
NATO-backed regime in Kiev, after its recent setbacks in the offensive against
pro-Russian separatist forces in east Ukraine.

The article cites a joint report issued Monday by the Brookings Institution, the
Atlantic Council, and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and delivered to
President Obama, advising the White House and NATO on the best way to escalate
the war in Ukraine….

According to the Times, US officials are rapidly shifting to support the
report’s proposals. NATO military commander in Europe General Philip M.
Breedlove, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, US Secretary of State John Kerry, and
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey all supported
discussions on directly arming Kiev. National Security Advisor Susan Rice is
reconsidering her opposition to arming Kiev, paving the way for Obama’s
approval.” (“Washington moves toward arming Ukrainian regime“, World Socialist
Web Site)

See what’s going on? The die is already cast. There will be a war with Russia
because that’s what the political establishment wants. It’s that simple. And
while previous provocations failed to lure Putin into the Ukrainian cauldron,
this new surge of violence–a spring offensive– is bound to do the trick. Putin
is not going to sit on his hands while proxies armed with US weapons and US
logistical support pound the Donbass to Fallujah-type rubble. He’ll do what any
responsible leader would do. He’ll protect his people. That means war. (See the
vast damage that Obama’s proxy war has done to E. Ukraine here: “An overview of
the socio – humanitarian situation on the territory of Donetsk People’s Republic
as a consequence of military action from 17 to 23 January 2015“)

Asymmetrical Warfare: Falling Oil Prices

Keep in mind, that the Russian economy has already been battered by economic
sanctions, oil price manipulation, and a vicious attack of the ruble. Until this
week, the mainstream media dismissed the idea that the Saudis were deliberately
pushing down oil prices to hurt Russia. They said the Saudis were merely trying
to retain “market share” by maintaining current production levels and letting
prices fall naturally. But it was all bunkum as the New York Times finally
admitted on Tuesday in an article titled: “Saudi Oil Is Seen as Lever to Pry
Russian Support From Syria’s Assad”. Here’s a clip from the article:


“Saudi Arabia has been trying to pressure President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia
to abandon his support for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, using its
dominance of the global oil markets at a time when the Russian government is
reeling from the effects of plummeting oil prices…

Saudi officials say — and they have told the United States — that they think
they have some leverage over Mr. Putin because of their ability to reduce the
supply of oil and possibly drive up prices….Any weakening of Russian support for
Mr. Assad could be one of the first signs that the recent tumult in the oil
market is having an impact on global statecraft…..

Saudi Arabia’s leverage depends on how seriously Moscow views its declining oil
revenue. “If they are hurting so bad that they need the oil deal right away, the
Saudis are in a good position to make them pay a geopolitical price as well,”
said F. Gregory Gause III, a Middle East specialist at Texas A&M’s Bush School
of Government and Public Service (“Saudi Oil Is Seen as Lever to Pry Russian
Support From Syria’s Assad“, New York Times)

The Saudis “think they have some leverage over Mr. Putin because of their
ability” to manipulate prices?

That says it all, doesn’t it?

What’s interesting about this article is the way it conflicts with previous
pieces in the Times. For example, just two weeks ago, in an article titled “Who
Will Rule the Oil Market?” the author failed to see any political motive behind
the Saudi’s action. According to the narrative, the Saudis were just afraid
that “they would lose market share permanently” if they cut production and kept
prices high. Now the Times has done a 180 and joined the so called conspiracy
nuts who said that prices were manipulated for political reasons. In fact, the
sudden price plunge had nothing to do with deflationary pressures, supply-demand
dynamics, or any other mumbo-jumbo market forces. It was 100 percent politics.

The attack on the ruble was also politically motivated, although the details are
much more sketchy. There’s an interesting interview with Alistair Crooke that’s
worth a read for those who are curious about how the Pentagon’s “full spectrum
dominance” applies to financial warfare. According to Crooke:


“…with Ukraine, we have entered a new era: We have a substantial, geostrategic
conflict taking place, but it’s effectively a geo-financial war between the US
and Russia. We have the collapse in the oil prices; we have the currency wars;
we have the contrived “shorting” — selling short — of the ruble. We have a
geo-financial war, and what we are seeing as a consequence of this geo-financial
war is that first of all, it has brought about a close alliance between Russia
and China.

China understands that Russia constitutes the first domino; if Russia is to
fall, China will be next. These two states are together moving to create a
parallel financial system, disentangled from the Western financial system. ……

For some time, the international order was structured around the United Nations
and the corpus of international law, but more and more the West has tended to
bypass the UN as an institution designed to maintain the international order,
and instead relies on economic sanctions to pressure some countries. We have a
dollar-based financial system, and through instrumentalizing America’s position
as controller of all dollar transactions, the US has been able to bypass the old
tools of diplomacy and the UN — in order to further its aims.

But increasingly, this monopoly over the reserve currency has become the
unilateral tool of the United States — displacing multilateral action at the UN.
The US claims jurisdiction over any dollar-denominated transaction that takes
place anywhere in the world. And most business and trading transactions in the
world are denominated in dollars. This essentially constitutes the
financialization of the global order: The International Order depends more on
control by the US Treasury and Federal Reserve than on the UN as before.”
(“Turkey might become hostage to ISIL just like Pakistan did“, Today’s Zaman)

Financial warfare, asymmetrical warfare, Forth Generation warfare, space
warfare, information warfare, nuclear warfare, laser, chemical, and biological
warfare. The US has expanded its arsenal well beyond the traditional range of
conventional weaponry. The goal, of course, is to preserve the post-1991 world
order (The dissolution up of the Soviet Union) and maintain full spectrum
dominance. The emergence of a multi-polar world order spearheaded by Moscow
poses the greatest single threat to Washington’s plans for continued domination.
The first significant clash between these two competing world views will likely
take place sometime this summer in East Ukraine. God help us.

NOTE: The Novorussia Armed Forces (NAF) currently have 8,000 Ukrainian regulars
surrounded in Debaltsevo, East Ukraine. This is a very big deal although the
media has been (predictably) keeping the story out of the headlines.

Evacuation corridors have been opened to allow civilians to leave the area.
Fighting could break out at anytime. At present, it looks like a good part of
the Kiev’s Nazi army could be destroyed in one fell swoop. This is why Merkel
and Hollande have taken an emergency flight to Moscow to talk with Putin. They
are not interested in peace. They merely want to save their proxy army from
annihilation.

I expect Putin may intervene on behalf of the Ukrainian soldiers, but I think
commander Zakharchenko will resist. If he lets these troops go now, what
assurance does he have that they won’t be back in a month or so with
high-powered weaponry provided by our war-mongering congress and White House?

Tell me; what choice does Zakharchenko really have? If his comrades are killed
in future combat because he let Kiev’s army escape, who can he blame but
himself?

There are no good choices.

In
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/06/the-fallujah-option-for-east-ukraine/
Weekend Edition February 6-8, 2015

Em português
Resistir.info
http://www.resistir.info/ucrania/whitney_06fev15.html
10/2/2015

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