{"id":101808,"date":"2021-12-25T07:34:19","date_gmt":"2021-12-25T11:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=101808"},"modified":"2021-12-25T07:34:19","modified_gmt":"2021-12-25T11:34:19","slug":"neocon-zionists-setting-up-another-war-in-ukraine-against-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=101808","title":{"rendered":"Neocon Zionists Setting Up Another War in Ukraine Against Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"

How Do We Stop the Neocons from Starting Another Disaster in Ukraine<\/strong><\/h1>\n

By James W Carden
\nGlobal Research
\nScoop News<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n

If anything, Washington\u2019s neoconservatives have an unerring instinct for survival. Having brought about multiple disasters in the two decades since 9\/11\u2014from the Iraq War to the twin debacles in Libya and Syria\u2014the neoconservatives seem to have perfected the art of failing up.<\/em><\/p>\n

Harvard University\u2019s\u00a0Stephen Walt<\/strong>\u00a0once\u00a0quipped<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cBeing a Neocon Means Never Having to Say You\u2019re Sorry.\u201d And in this regard, the story of the Kagan family is instructive. Robert Kagan, a contributing columnist for the Washington Post, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and author of pseudohistories such as\u00a0The Jungle Grows Back<\/i>, has for years been a leading advocate of American militarism.<\/p>\n

His brother, Frederick, is a resident scholar at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute. Writing in the Hill on December 7, Frederick Kagan\u00a0claimed<\/a>\u00a0that Russian control of Ukraine, \u201cwould create an existential threat to Poland and even to Romania\u2014one that could be met only by major deployments of U.S. and European ground and air forces to what could become a new Iron Curtain.\u201d He and his wife, Kimberly, who heads the Institute for the Study of War\u2014another pro-war Washington think tank\u2014were close\u00a0advisers<\/a>\u00a0to the\u00a0disgraced<\/a>\u00a0General and former CIA Director David Petraeus. Indeed, both Frederick and his wife are frequently cited as the brains behind the surge strategy pursued by George W. Bush\u2019s administration in 2007-2008.<\/p>\n

But the most powerful member of the Kagan clan is\u00a0Victoria Nuland<\/strong>, who is the wife of Robert and is the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs. Under Obama, Nuland served as the State Department spokesperson, a position for which she was manifestly overqualified (and that becomes especially clear if one takes the qualifications of the\u00a0current spokesman<\/a>\u00a0into consideration), before assuming the role of the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. It was in this role that Nuland helped orchestrate the overthrow of a democratically elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, in\u00a0February 2014<\/a>\u00a0that led to a civil war in Ukraine, in which more than 13,000\u00a0people<\/a> have died, according to the United Nations.<\/p>\n

Part of the reason the U.S. is at grave risk of a war with Russia\u2014and there is precious little debate about the policies that have brought us to this point\u2014is that foreign policy in Washington is conducted by a virtually closed circle.<\/p>\n

And that circle is dominated by people like the Kagans.<\/p>\n

Washington\u2019s legacy media organizations play their part in perpetuating these foreign policies as well by functioning as the permanent bureaucracy\u2019s echo chamber. For proof, look no further than the Washington Post editorial page, which from the very start of the Ukraine crisis has been cavalierly dismissing calls for diplomacy and engagement and, instead, has been calling for outright war.<\/p>\n

An example of this is the Washington Post view\u00a0published<\/a>\u00a0on their editorial page on August 21, 2014:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026it is tempting to look for a cease-fire or some kind of time out that would lead to a period of diplomatic negotiation. But what would a pause and diplomacy accomplish? Any negotiations that leave this blight festering in Ukraine must be avoided. The only acceptable solution is for Mr. Putin\u2019s aggression to be reversed.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Jacob Heilbrunn, the editor of the National Interest, and I\u00a0commented<\/a> at the time, \u201cAlmost as bad as the callousness on display is the lack of candor. At no point did the [Washington] Post actually explain how it would propose to go about reversing Putin\u2019s aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n

This remains the case even today. At no point do the armchair warriors braying for war with Russia over Ukraine discuss how such a \u201creversal\u201d might be carried out, or, even more tellingly, what the odds might be of a successful outcome of a war between the U.S. and Russia.<\/p>\n

Not much has changed since the start of the Ukrainian crisis nearly eight years ago. Consider for a moment the testimony on \u201cUpdate on U.S.-Russia Policy\u201d by Nuland made before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) on December 7.<\/p>\n

Nuland testified<\/a> that:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know whether Russian President [Vladimir] Putin has made a decision to attack Ukraine or overthrow its government but we do know he is building the capacity to do so. Much of this comes right out of Putin\u2019s 2014 playbook but this time, it is on a much larger and more lethal scale. So despite our uncertainty about exact intentions and timing, we must prepare for all contingencies, even as we push Russia to reverse course.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nuland went on to note that the U.S. government has\u00a0given\u00a0<\/a>$2.4 billion to Ukraine since 2014 \u201cin security assistance,\u201d which included $450 million that was given in 2021 alone.<\/p>\n

What, one wonders, has been the United States\u2019 return on this massive investment?<\/p>\n

SFRC Chairman Bob Menendez, who, in 2015, was indicted on federal corruption charges, seems to be under the impression that Russians do not have the overwhelming military advantage on their own border. Likewise, Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD)\u00a0intoned\u00a0<\/a>that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would \u201crequire us [the U.S.] to escalate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senator Todd Young (R-IN), meanwhile,\u00a0pressed<\/a> Nuland on \u201cwhat measures are being considered by the administration to counter Russian aggression,\u201d while Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)\u00a0indicated<\/a> that during her conversations with members of parliament (MP) from Estonia, they spoke about the importance of \u201cEuropean unity with respect to Ukraine.\u201d Also, the MPs from Estonia along with Poland and other Eastern European countries expressed anxiousness about \u201cwhether or not to station more troops in the Baltic nations,\u201d Senator Shaheen said.<\/p>\n

The most astute comment of the day came from Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), who was clearly proud that the committee had achieved a rare bipartisan agreement for a change. He further emphasized that the U.S. stands \u201cunited\u201d in support of Ukraine and against Russia.<\/p>\n

And Johnson was absolutely correct: The committee was completely united in its desire for conflict over Ukraine, with whom the U.S. has no treaty obligations whatsoever.<\/p>\n

Indeed, both Nuland and the SFRC seem to see U.S. national interests where none exist. More worrying still, they seem to possess a kind of blind faith in America\u2019s ability, indeed duty, to shape outcomes of conflicts that are taking place thousands of miles from our shores through a combination of sanctions and military threats.<\/p>\n

The SFRC hearing showed, if nothing else, that American foreign policy is held hostage by a venal, avaricious and, above all, reckless claque of elites: From the members of the SFRC to the high U.S. government officials who testify before them; from the staffers who brief them to the scholars and policy hands on whom the staffers rely; right down to the reporters and journalists who uncritically regurgitate what they are told by their \u2018anonymous\u2019 administration sources.<\/p>\n

As such, one of the most urgent questions before us is: How do Americans of good conscience finally break their stranglehold on power before it\u2019s too late?<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

This article was produced by\u00a0<\/i>Globetrotter\u00a0<\/i><\/a>in partnership with the\u00a0<\/i>American Committee for U.S.-Russia Accord<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

\n
The original source of this article is\u00a0Scoop News<\/a><\/div>\n
Copyright \u00a9\u00a0James W Carden<\/a>,\u00a0Scoop News<\/a>, 2021<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

___
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How Do We Stop the Neocons from Starting Another Disaster in Ukraine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=101808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=101808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=101808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=101808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}