U.S.-NATO imperialism pushes Ukraine to the front line, AMERICA RETURN FORCES HOME! Ere Fathers of America Awake and See!

 Italy, 2018.

 

By Manuel Raposo 

Raposo is the editor of the Portuguese Marxist web magazine jornalmudardevida.net and was a key organizer of the 2004 Portuguese session of the People’s Tribunal on the crimes of imperialism during the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Translation: John Catalinotto.



Italy, 2018.

March 4 – In the deluge of propaganda regarding Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, the people of the U.S. and the European Union have the opportunity to see, in a mirror, the actions of their governments during the last few decades. The same goes for the Portuguese authorities and each of the European governments, which have never raised any objection to the military interventions, sanctions and threats of all kinds, originating in the U.S. or the EU itself against countries such as Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Iran or Cuba — all of which are as sovereign as Ukraine.

At the point where events have reached, moral judgments that justify Russian self-defense or condemn Russian aggression are of little importance; what matters is to understand the reasons that led to such an outcome and why it was not avoided. If this is ignored, national and world public opinion will be corralled by a deluge of irrational propaganda with no idea what it is leading to.

Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! when thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee.
Isaiah:33:1

If the Western imperialist powers really wanted to avoid war, the measures were there: Abide by the Minsk agreements of 2014-15 with regard to the Eastern Ukrainian regions and declare that Ukraine would never join NATO. It was this path that the U.S. and EU refused.

What really irritates the leaders of the imperialist West is that this time it is Russia that is ignoring international law in the name of its strategic interests. Law that the U.S. and the EU have trampled on at will — unpunished — since the end of the Cold War gave them unchallenged supremacy over the world. 

In 30 years of free rein, the West has invoked at will the right to “preventively defend itself” against alleged threats to its security. That this was not defense is proven by the U.S. military doctrine, adopted since George W. Bush’s mandate, of using its nuclear arsenal, not as a mere means of response or deterrence but as an instrument of first strike.

U.S. supremacy now in question

Invoking the “moral superiority” of its democracies, the West has imposed wars, expanded its military alliances, promoted changes in political regimes, organized “color revolutions” and coups d’état, assassinated leaders, surrounded its main competitors with military bases and naval squadrons, and threatened the world with space warfare. It was not law that guided the West: It was the unchallenged strength at its disposal for years. It is this supremacy that is now in question.

Since the USA got rid of the USSR, the international organizations that were born out of the relative balance imposed by the East-West confrontation — starting with the U.N. — have been devalued, torpedoed and annulled by Yankee arrogance, with the collaboration or passivity of the EU. Instead of rules accepted by the community of countries, the imperialist triad USA-EU-Japan imposed on the world the law of the strongest, shielded by U.S. military power. And in recent years it has done its utmost to replace the formally democratic norms contained in the U.N. Charter by “rules” and “values” it dictated, which the rest of the world would have to obey.

In the case of Ukraine, therefore — considering the confrontational logic that the West has put into play in international relations — Russia has more right to invoke the right to its security than the U.S. or the EU ever did. 

Confronted with its own decadence, U.S. imperialism has set in motion a new Cold War: Russia and China are its main targets. It is in this framework that the Ukrainian question has to be evaluated. 

U.S. turns Ukrainians into cannon fodder

The West has turned the Ukrainians into cannon fodder. It brought about regime change in 2014 through a coup d’état, planned the country’s integration into NATO, took confrontation with Russia to an extreme by disregarding all its complaints, closed diplomatic channels and instigated military confrontation. And now it seeks to take dividends with public opinion, pointing to Russia and Putin as intractable. 

Europe, even with some feeble attempts at mediation, ended up submitting to the hard line defined from Washington. Still barely recovered from the pandemic devastation, it will bear the brunt of the predictable losses of the war: a new wave of refugees, a general increase in prices, a drop in energy reserves, worsening economic stagnation, greater dependence on the U.S. And instead of seeking ways to appease, it is adding fuel to the Ukrainian fire and going down the path of its own militarization, as Chancellor [Olaf] Scholz’s announcement of a “new era” in German defense policy showed. 

European generosity in receiving refugees goes hand in hand with the supply of arms to the Kiev regime. The glorification of Ukrainian patriotism is accompanied by miraculous predictions of a Russian military defeat. All this is a thin smoke screen to hide the unwillingness of the U.S. and the EU to avoid war and their gamble of throwing Ukraine into the conflict, knowing perfectly well that the country would have no chance to resist. 

All the aid now given to [Volodymyr] Zelensky is only meant to prolong the war to wear Russia down as much as possible at the expense of the Ukrainian population’s sacrifices.

The voices bemoaning the lack of muscle in NATO and the West and making irresponsible calls to arms are the direct result of the same confrontational policy that pushed the Ukrainians to the front. They aim to create conditions for world public opinion to accept the escalation of the conflict with Russia — in a climate of a new Cold War — in a primary logic of either-us-or-them, of reasonableness versus madness. 

The demonization campaigns of Saddam Hussein, of Moammar Gadhafi, of Islam, of the Arab world, the theories about the “clash of civilizations,” the lies set up by the secret services — and the role that all this played in preparing public opinion for the wars that followed — show the path that is being opened when insulting Putin, the Russian regime and Russia itself in the most unabashed way.

To see in the Ukrainian conflict a struggle between two world views, between autocracy and democracy, between tyranny and freedom, is a mystification. What is being disputed is the space that the loss of hegemony by the imperialist West leaves to the new powers that yesterday were in the shadows and were therefore sidelined and that are now asserting themselves with the capacity to compete on the world stage. 

It is unclear what form the new order heralded by the conflict will take. But it is certain that it will reflect the irremediable change in the world balance of power. Those forces that align with the U.S. and EU camps — on the pretext that they represent “Democracy” and “Freedom” — are in fact once again capitulating to imperialism — and this time their surrender is no longer to a rising force, but to an old world that is sinking.



a guest author

History Analysis from book The Perils of The Republic of The United States of America by Percy Magan Tilson

The parallel or analogy between that war “solely for humanity” and the one through which the United States has just passed, is quite complete. The little republics of Southern Greece stood related to Philip of Macedon much the same as Cuba, Porto Rico, and other places stood related to Spain at the time when this nation, “solely in the cause of humanity,” declared war in their behalf. And, moreover, it may not be out of the way to compare “the barbarous tribes on the north and west of Macedonia,” who were led to join the confederacy, and whose irruptions served to distract the councils and forces of Philip,-it may not be out of the way to compare-these to Aguinaldo and his “barbarous” hordes of Negritos, who, by a United States consul and a commodore of the United States navy, were led to “join the confederacy,” and whose “irruptions served to distract the councils and forces of Spain.”

At the battle of Cynocephale, in 197 b. c., Philip was signally defeated, his country was exposed to invasion, “and he was reduced to accept peace on such terms as the Romans thought proper to dictate.”

“These, as usual, tended to cripple the power of the vanquished party, and at the same time to increase the reputation of the Romans, by appearing more favorable to their allies than to themselves.

“Philip was obliged to give up every Greek city that he possessed beyond the limits of Macedonia, both in Europe and in Asia; a stipulation which deprived him of Thessaly, Achaia, Phthiotis, Perrhæbia, and Magnesia, and particularly of the three important towns of Corinth, Chalcis, and Demetrias, which he used to call the fetters of Greece.” In other words, Philip of Macedon lost all his outlying dependencies; and this is just about what happened to Spain at the treaty of Paris. Both alike were stripped of by far the greater part of their territory outside of the home land.

“All these states were declared free and independent, except that the Romans (pretending that Antiochus, king of Syria, threatened the safety of Greece) retained, for the present, the strong places of Chalcis and Demetrias in their own hands.”

The war had been waged by Rome at an infinite cost of blood and treasure to herself. Freely she had sacrificed the blood of her sons, and caused the tears of her daughters to be shed, in this war, “solely for humanity.” She had marshaled her armies, and mobilized her fleets, put the former in the field, and the latter in the sea, solely and only for the purpose of bringing liberty to these small and distressed dependencies, the little sister republics, who were struggling for their freedom. She asked no money nor land for all this; her cup of joy was full to the overflowing, because she had done such a great act of disinterested kindness “in the cause of humanity.” In a striking proclamation she published to the world the liberty of these people, won by her valor at arms, and freely given to them:—

“The senate and people of Rome, and Titus Quintius the general, having conquered Philip and the Macedonians, do set at liberty from all garrisons, imposts, and taxes, the Corinthians, the Locrians, the Phocians, the Phthiot-Achaians, the Messenians, the Thessalians, and the Perrhebians, declare them free! and ordain that they shall be governed by their respective customs and usages.

“Then followed the memorable scene at the Isthmian games, when it was announced to all the multitude assembled on that occasion, that the Romans bestowed entire freedom upon all those states of Greece which had been subject to the kings of Macedonia. The Greeks, unable to read the future, and having as yet had no experience of the ambition of Rome, received this act with the warmest gratitude; and seemed to acknowledge the Romans in the character they assumed, of protectors and deliverers of Greece.”

Further Reading: https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/1619.730#730

“Nothing could be more gentle and equitable than the conduct of the Romans in the beginning. They acted with the utmost moderation toward such states and nations as addressed them for protection; they succored them against their enemies, took the utmost pains in terminating their differences, and in suppressing all commotions which arose among them, and did not demand the least recompence from their allies for all these services. By this means their authority gained strength daily, and prepared the nations for entire subjection. PRUS 152.3

“And, indeed, upon pretense of offering them their good offices, of entering into their interests, and of reconciling them, they rendered themselves the sovereign arbiters of those whom they had restored to liberty, and whom they now considered, in some measure, as their freedmen. They used to depute commissioners to them, to inquire into their complaints, to weigh and examine the reasons on both sides, and to decide their quarrels; but when the articles were of such a nature that there was no possibility of reconciling them on the spot, they invited them to send their deputies to Rome. Afterward, they used, with plenary authority, to summon those who refused to be reconciled, obliged them to plead their cause before the senate, and even to appear in person there. From arbiters and mediators being become supreme judges, they soon assumed a magisterial tone, looked upon their decrees as irrevocable decisions, were greatly offended when the most implicit obedience was not paid to them, and gave the name of rebellion to a second resistance; thus there arose, in the Roman senate, a tribunal which judged all nations and kings, from which there was no appeal. This tribunal, at the end of every war, determined the rewards and punishments due to all parties. They dispossessed the vanquished nations of part of their territories, in order to bestow them on their allies, by which they did two things from which they reaped a double advantage; for they thereby engaged in the interest of Rome such kings as were in no way formidable to them, and from whom they had something to hope; and weakened others, whose friendship the Romans could not expect, and whose arms they had reason to dread. 

“But be this as it will, we see by the event, to what this so much boasted lenity and moderation of the Romans was confined. Enemies to the liberty of all nations, having the utmost contempt for kings and monarchy, looking upon the whole universe as their prey, they grasped, with insatiable ambition, the conquest of the whole world; they seized indiscriminately all provinces and kingdoms, and extended their empire over all nations; in a word, they prescribed no other limits to their vast projects, than those which deserts and seas made it impossible to pass.”

The expansion fever which laid such firm hold upon the people of the Roman republic has come upon the people of the republic of the United States. In both cases the game of the despoliation of nations and peoples has opened with a war “solely in the cause of humanity.” In the former instance, the Romans did declare the people of the small Greek republics free and independent. The United States has not yet even done this much. The republics of Greece never became free. The “war for humanity” never gave them their liberty. They soon found, and that to their bitter disappointment, that they had only exchanged masters, and that the little finger of Rome was thicker than the loins of Philip of Macedon, and that if the king had chastised them with whips, the republic chastised them with scorpions. They soon found to their intense sorrow that in the “war for humanity” there had been a transfer made, and that they had been the subject of barter. It did not take them long to discover that they had only acquired a slavery more abject and complete than that which they had endured under their previous ruler. It was as much more complete as Rome was more powerful than Macedon.

The principles of Protestantism are the true principles of Christianity,-the Christianity of the Bible. The principles of Republicanism are also the principles of God and the Bible in things civil.

But it is said concerning the beast which symbolizes the United States in the Bible that “he had two horns like a lamb, and spake as a dragon.” Here are two things happening together, at the same time, and totally incompatible with one another,-that which is lamblike speaking as a dragon. Now a thing that is lamblike can not possibly speak as a dragon, and still retain its lamblike disposition. It therefore follows that the Scriptures have portrayed that the United States will in name retain its lamblike principles of Protestantism and Republicanism, but in nature and in practise it will deny them. This is national hypocrisy; yea, it is national apostasy. There may never in these United States exist, openly, avowedly, and in name, a union of church and state, which constitutes in itself the abandonment of Protestantism; but the thing itself will be, and even now is, here. We may never have an emperor with a crown upon his brow; but Rome was imperial, and an empire for long years, while still retaining the image and name of a republic.

Now the “first beast” was Rome, once a republic, but apostatized into an imperial monarchy, degenerated into a military despotism; united with a church once Protestant in principle, but apostatized into the papacy. The union of these two was, I say, the “first beast.”

Now when in the prophecy the image of the beast is to be made, it is said “to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast.” This shows that it is a government of the people where the image is made. And it is said to them that they shall make a union of church and state. This shows that this is all done in a place where there is no union of church and state. That is true of the United States at its formation, and it is not true of any other nation that was ever on earth.