Anti War: Thread

[grarpamp]

This Proxy War Has No Exit Strategy

https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/this-proxy-war-has-no-exit-strategy-37038f008e11

by Caitlin Johnstone

The International Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America
has released a statement opposing the US government’s ongoing proxy
war in Ukraine, saying the billions being funneled into the
military-industrial complex “at a time when ordinary Americans are
struggling to pay for housing, groceries, and fuel” is “a slap in the
face for working people.” The statement advocates a negotiated
settlement for peace, saying continuing to pour weapons into the
country will “needlessly prolong the war, resulting in more civilian
deaths” and that it “risks escalating and widening the war — up to and
including nuclear war.”

In response to this entirely reasonable and moderate position, the DSA
is currently being raked over the coals with accusations of Kremlin
loyalty and facilitation of murder and bloodshed by blue-checkmarked
narrative managers on Twitter. This is because the only acceptable
positions for anyone of significant influence to have about this war
range from supporting continuing current proxy warfare operations to
initiating a direct hot war between NATO and Russia.

That’s how narrow the permissible spectrum of debate has been shrunk
regarding this conflict: status quo hawkish to omnicidal hawkish.
Anything outside that spectrum gets framed as radical extremism. As
Noam Chomsky said: “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient
is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow
very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more
critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s
free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the
system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the
debate.”

    The DSA is once again getting viciously attacked for making the
extremely controversial recommendation that the US pursue a diplomatic
settlement instead of endless weapons shipments. Never ceases to be
amazing that this is now considered a crazed, radical, radioactive
position: https://t.co/d2YKS9C7Xx
    — Michael Tracey (@mtracey) July 13, 2022

This spectrum of debate has been shrunk on the one hand by imperial
spinmeisters continually hammering home the message that any support
for de-escalation and diplomatic solutions is “appeasement” and
indicative of Russian sympathies, and on the other by hawkish pundits
and politicians pushing for the most freakishly aggressive responses
to this war possible. By forbidding the spectrum of acceptable debate
to move toward peace while shoving it as hard as possible in the
direction of warmongering extremism, imperial narrative managers have
successfully created an Overton window wherein the only debate
permitted is over how directly and forcefully Russia should be
confronted, with calls for peace now falling far outside that window.

Which is a problem, because both direct NATO hot war with Russia and
continuing along the empire’s current course of action in Ukraine are
stupid. Direct conflict between nuclear powers likely means a very
fast and very radioactive third world war, and the status quo proxy
warfare approach isn’t stopping Russia as more and more territory is
taken in the east in cool defiance of western claims that Ukraine is
bravely vanquishing its evil invaders. Biden administration officials
have told the press that they doubt Ukraine will even be able to
reclaim the territory it has lost already. Unless and until something
significant changes, Ukraine has no apparent path to victory in this
war anytime soon.

In short, there is no exit strategy to this proxy war. There are no
plans in place to deliver Putin a swift defeat, and the Biden
administration remains steadfastly dismissive of even the slightest
gestures toward diplomacy with Moscow. Boris Johnson has reportedly
been buzzing around admonishing Ukraine’s President Zelensky, France’s
President Macron and who knows who else not to work toward peace in
Ukraine. The doors to ending this war quickly by either winning it or
negotiating a peace settlement are both bolted shut, all but
guaranteeing a long and bloody slog.

Which as it turns out suits Washington just fine. Biden administration
officials have stated that the goal is to use the Ukraine war to
“weaken” Russia, and the US already has an established pattern of
working to draw Moscow into costly military quagmires as we saw in
both Afghanistan and Syria. Continuing to pour weapons and military
intelligence into Ukraine while working to cut Russia off from the
world stands no chance of ending the war in a timely manner, but it
does stand a pretty good chance of bleeding and weakening Moscow.

And since this is the course of action that has been taken by the
empire, we can only assume that this is its desired outcome: not
victory, not peace, but a long and gruelling war.

    Confirms that Ukrainian Pravda story from a couple of months ago.
Angloid political elites don't want this war to end until they're
satisfied enough Russians are killed to kneecap Russia as a rival—no
matter how many dead Ukrainians it takes to do
so.https://t.co/alKLzwy7DF
    — Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) June 27, 2022

One of the major recurring criticisms of the Iraq invasion was that
Bush rushed into it without an exit strategy, without a plan for
ending the war once it had been started. This proxy war with Russia
not only lacks a strategy for ending the war, it apparently only has
strategies for not ending the war. No exit strategy is the strategy.

Whenever you point out the insanity of this approach you’ll get useful
idiots of the empire objecting that by criticizing US proxy warfare
and supporting a negotiated settlement you are guilty of “appeasement”
and exactly the same as Neville Chamberlain, because the only argument
empire apologists ever have is to compare every US-targeted government
to Nazi Germany.

According to these propaganda-addled empire automatons, having the
story of not compromising with Putin-Hitler and not committing the sin
of “appeasement” is worth sacrificing everyone in the entire nation of
Ukraine for. They will happily throw every Ukrainian life into the
gears of this war while they sit safe at home eating Funyuns and
tweeting, just so they can have that “we didn’t compromise with Putin”
story hanging on their mental mantlepiece.

How many more lives are such people prepared to feed into an
unwinnable war which the west knowingly provoked? How many more of
other people’s children are they prepared to sacrifice? How long does
the bloodshed need to drag on before their “no appeasement” story
loses value to them? How long until people wake up from their
propaganda-induced comas and realize we’ve been manipulated into
supporting a proxy war which benefits ordinary people in no real way,
and in fact impoverishes us and threatens our very lives?

There is no morally consistent argument for continuing this proxy war
in the way it has been going. If you actually value life and peace,
the only way out is through negotiation and compromise. I point this
out not because I believe it will happen, but to hopefully help a few
more people open their eyes to the fact that we are being deceived.