[Peace-discuss] Pretty good stance for a try anti-imperialist left

Fri Apr 8 21:25:24 UTC 2022

https://twitter.com/ARmckay82/status/1512428417622454273?t=Iq78IEfpkBP_gq8S2WGkJw&s=19


On Fri, Apr 8, 2022, 3:56 PM Morton K. Brussel <mkb0029 at gmail.com> wrote:

> A rather (over) sanguine view from Pepe Escobar. Whether Russia can
> overcome its internal obstacles/problems and fulfill the scenario described
> is debatable. Expertise of the internal conditions in Russia is needed!
>
> Mar Slebota’s piece was not available at the link given. Curious.
>
> On Apr 8, 2022, at 11:23 AM, karen aram <karenaram at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Scott Ridder
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdM5Pkyl0_8
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdM5Pkyl0_8__;!!DZ3fjg!v-X0NH-ci7-SPP-X04Sg5f_m3d9H0BFZwUIMJldYydZkYfjklCM44eZihsxjxqc-3g$>
>
> Mark Sleboda
> https://thegrayzone.com/.../04/war-ukraine-unipolar-world/
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https*3A*2F*2Fthegrayzone.com*2F...*2F04*2Fwar-ukraine-unipolar-world*2F*3Ffbclid*3DIwAR081Tftf0-jNFkFvTDn7r_T-XbFOt5tnEDSpCtD-TOWTHAqDd1PaGpZGXU&h=AT3AEW__kRzPEsVGPwvWXlkz0tRJHghPI3VPGqhVecS2CnW1ROBzAdMI_vkaMcJ41dDBVXvZBvOzQPefLhrUdvcDgUu2jYjvsjENcyCYHVBX-DhuwsR188fy1F6Rl8r73esJs0E&__tn__=-UK-R&c*5B0*5D=AT1H40ifLxHQ8JyoABXzHaw7U10TKnTpmpDae_M_Yos7VGk1FrioKdQ4oGNqS45Q1IUUwu-aHFpFesVXi6F3hIlBChnehK9TJs8wuUH_ykrK3XOZUV0wt4ham9eNkbROGLK-jFqJQOLm4uiNJIVXBVhUF2Q__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSU!!DZ3fjg!v-X0NH-ci7-SPP-X04Sg5f_m3d9H0BFZwUIMJldYydZkYfjklCM44eZihswIplyp4A$>
>
> and Pepe Escobar
> *offer similar assessments of what has taken place and what’s to come.*
> *Pepe not a military analyst, as are Scott and Mark, is a geopolitical
> journalist and has been predicting for seven years now, what’s to come.*
>
> From Pepe:
>
> UKRAINE AFTER THE WAR
> Mariupol was battered by Ukraine’s right-wing Azov battalion well before
> Moscow launched its military ops. In Russian hands, this strategic
> steelworks port can transform into a hub of Eurasian connectivity.
> Mariupol, the strategic Sea of Azov port, remains in the eye of the storm
> in Ukraine.
> The NATO narrative is that Azovstal – one of Europe’s biggest iron and
> steel works – was nearly destroyed by the Russian Army and its allied
> Donetsk forces who “lay siege” to Mariupol.
> The true story is that the neo-Nazi Azov batallion took scores of Mariupol
> civilians as human shields since the start of the Russian military
> operation in Ukraine, and retreated to Azovstal as a last stand. After an
> ultimatum delivered last week, they are now being completely exterminated
> by the Russian and Donetsk forces and Chechen Spetsnaz.
> Azovstal, part of the Metinvest group controlled by Ukraine’s wealthiest
> oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov, is indeed one of the biggest metallurgic plants
> in Europe, self-described as a “high-performance integrated metallurgical
> enterprise that produces coke and sinter, steel as well as high-quality
> rolled products, bars and shapes.”
> Amidst a flurry of testimonials detailing the horrors inflicted by the
> Azov neo-Nazis on Mariupol’s civilian population, a way more auspicious,
> invisible story bodes well for the immediate future.
> Russia is the world’s fifth largest steel producer, apart from holding
> huge iron and coal deposits. Mariupol – a steel Mecca – used to source coal
> from Donbass, but under de facto neo-Nazi rule since the 2014 Maidan
> events, was turned into an importer. Iron, for instance, started to be
> supplied from Krivbas in Ukraine, over 200 kilometers away.
> After Donetsk solidifies itself as an independent republic or, via
> referendum, chooses to become part of the Russian Federation, this
> situation is bound to change.
> Azovstal is invested in a broad product line of very useful stuff:
> structural steel, rail for railroads, hardened steel for chains, mining
> equipment, rolled steel used in factory apparatus, trucks and railroad
> cars. Parts of the factory complex are quite modern while some, decades
> old, are badly in need of upgrading, which Russian industry can certainly
> provide.
> Strategically, this is a huge complex, right at the Sea of Azov – which is
> now, for all practical purposes, incorporated into the Donetsk People’s
> Republic, and close to the Black Sea. That implies a short trip to the
> Eastern Mediterranean, including many potential customers in West Asia. And
> crossing Suez and reaching the Indian Ocean, customers all across South and
> Southeast Asia.
> So the Donetsk People’s Republic, possibly part of the future Novorossiya,
> and even part of Russia, will be in control of a lot of steel-making
> capacity for southern Europe, West Asia and beyond.
> One of the inevitable consequences is that it will be able to supply a
> real freight railroad construction boom in Russia, China and the Central
> Asian ‘stans.’ Railroad construction happens to be the privileged
> connectivity mode for Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
> And, crucially, of the increasingly turbo-charged International North South
> Transportation Corridor (INSTC).
> So, mid-term, Mariupol should expect to become one of the key hubs of a
> boom in north-south routes – INSTC across Russia and linking with the
> ‘stans’ – as well as major BRI upgrades east-west as well as sub-BRI
> corridors.
> Interlocked Eurasia
> The INSTC’s main players are Russia, Iran and India – which are now,
> pos-NATO sanctions, in advanced interconnection mode, complete with
> devising mechanisms to bypass the US dollar in their trade. Azerbaijan is
> another important INSTC player, yet more volatile because it privileges
> Turkey’s connectivity designs in the Caucasus.
> The INSTC network will be progressively interconnecting also with Pakistan
> – and that means the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a key BRI
> hub, which is slowly but surely expanding to Afghanistan. Foreign Minister
> Wang Yi’s impromptu visit to Kabul late last week was to advance the
> incorporation of Afghanistan to the New Silk Roads.
> All that is happening as Moscow – extremely close to New Delhi – is
> simultaneously expanding trade relations with Islamabad. All three,
> crucially, are Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members.
> So the grand North-South design spells out fluent connectivity from the
> Russian mainland to the Caucasus (Azerbaijan), to West Asia (Iran) all the
> way to South Asia (India and Pakistan). None of these key players have
> demonized or sanctioned Russia despite ongoing US pressures to do so.
> Strategically, that represents the Russian multipolar concept of Greater
> Eurasian Partnership in action in terms of trade and connectivity – in
> parallel and complimentary with BRI because India, eager to install a
> rupee-ruble mechanism to buy energy, in this case is an absolutely crucial
> Russia partner, matching China’s reported $400 billion strategic deal with
> Iran. In practice, the Greater Eurasia Partnership will facilitate smoother
> connectivity between Russia, Iran, Pakistan and India.
> The NATO universe, meanwhile, is congenitally incapable of even
> recognizing the complexity of the alignment, not to mention analyze its
> implications. What we have is the interlocking of BRI, INTSC and the
> Greater Eurasia Partnership on the ground – all notions that are regarded
> as anathema in the Washington Beltway.
> All that of course is being designed amidst a game-changing geoeconomic
> moment, as Russia, starting this Thursday, will only accept payment for its
> gas in rubles from “unfriendly” nations.
> Parallel to the Geater Eurasia Partnership, BRI, since it was launched in
> 2013, is also progressively weaving a complex, integrated Eurasian network
> of partnerships – financial/economic, connectivity, physical infrastructure
> building, economic/trade corridors. BRI’s role as a co-shaper of
> institutions of global governance, including normative foundations, has
> also been crucial, much to the despair of the NATO alliance.
> Time to de-westernize
> Yet only now the Global South, especially, will start to observe the full
> spectrum of the China-Russia play across the Eurasian sphere. Moscow and
> Beijing are deeply involved in a joint drive to de-westernize globalist
> governance, if not shatter it altogether.
> Russia from now on will be even more meticulous in its
> institution-building, coalescing the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the SCO
> and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) – a Eurasian
> military alliance of select post-Soviet states – in a geopolitical context
> of irreversible institutional and normative divide between Russia and the
> West.
> At the same time, the Greater Eurasia Partnership will be solidifying
> Russia as the ultimate Eurasian bridge, creating a common space across
> Eurasia which could even ignore vassalized Europe.
> Meanwhile in real life, BRI, as much as the INSTC, will be increasingly
> plugged into the Black Sea (hello, Mariupol). And BRI itself may be even
> prone to re-evaluation in its emphasis of linking western China to western
> Europe’s shrinking industrial base.
> There will be no point in privileging the northern BRI corridors –
> China-Mongolia-Russia via the Trans-Siberian, and the Eurasian land bridge
> via Kazakhstan – when you have Europe descending into medieval dementia.
> BRI’s renewed focus will be on gaining access to irreplaceable commodities
> – and that means Russia – as well as securing essential supplies for
> Chinese production. Commodity-rich nations such as Kazakhstan, and many
> players in Africa, shall become the top future markets for China.
> In a pre-Covid loop across Central Asia, one constantly heard that China
> builds plants and high-speed railways while Europe at best writes white
> papers. It can always get worse. The EU as occupied American territory is
> now descending, fast, from center of global power to the status of
> inconsequential peripheral player, a mere struggling market in the far
> periphery” of China’s “community of shared destiny.”
>
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 8, 2022 at 6:54 AM karen aram via Peace-discuss <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
>> To be clear in my statement below, I’m not suggesting we do nothing, I’m
>> suggesting just focusing on anti-war is a lost cause.
>>
>> It’s time we recognize the many issues in relation to imperialism,
>> poverty, racism etc., require structural system change. We can’t rely upon
>> our elected officials to represent us.
>>
>> The end of the petrodollar is here, the violence and chaos that we saw in
>> Portland, O. will be seen across the nation when people take to the streets
>> because they are starving.
>>
>> On Apr 7, 2022, at 6:12 PM, karen aram <karenaram at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Mort
>>
>> An excellent article, one with which I couldn’t agree more. Only one
>> statement is questionable,
>>
>> *"the politicians in the US are very, very concerned about what we may
>> think – our words do have an effect, albeit limited one. That is the reason
>> the US has no draft.” *
>>
>> I don’t believe our politicians are concerned about what we may think,
>> that was the case in the sixties and seventies, but no longer. The invasion
>> of Iraq, went ahead in spite of over 100,000 people in the streets
>> protesting at the time. We’ve had how many wars and interventions since?
>>
>> I’ve come to the conclusion that unless a Republican is in the WH, we
>> won’t see a viable anti-war movement in the US.
>>
>> Sorry, I know I’m not offering hope, but maybe I’m wrong.
>>
>> On Apr 7, 2022, at 4:56 PM, Morton K. Brussel <mkb0029 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> This article gives one some hope. Meanwhile, so-called anti-war groups
>> including CodePink, DemocracyNow(?)(disgusting treatment), fail to see the
>> forest through the trees (or don’t want to). .
>>
>>
>> https://original.antiwar.com/john-v-walsh/2022/04/06/an-antidote-to-the-split-in-the-us-peace-movement-anti-interventionism/
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://original.antiwar.com/john-v-walsh/2022/04/06/an-antidote-to-the-split-in-the-us-peace-movement-anti-interventionism/__;!!DZ3fjg!v-X0NH-ci7-SPP-X04Sg5f_m3d9H0BFZwUIMJldYydZkYfjklCM44eZihsyzht5WQw$>
>>
>> Most of the  commentary for Walsh’s piece is also useful (on Antiwar.com
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://antiwar.com/__;!!DZ3fjg!v-X0NH-ci7-SPP-X04Sg5f_m3d9H0BFZwUIMJldYydZkYfjklCM44eZihsyTzo0wMg$>
>> .)
>>
>> —mkb
>>
>>
>>
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>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss__;!!DZ3fjg!v-X0NH-ci7-SPP-X04Sg5f_m3d9H0BFZwUIMJldYydZkYfjklCM44eZihsx4w_BV7w$>
>>
>
>
>
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