Wishing Peace, Preferring War
Attempted Assassination of Trump
I am reluctant to get too much into the details of this because other analysts, better qualified, are pursuing it and there are many matters more central to the core aims of this column to which I have to attend.
Suffice to say, I am greatly suspicious of the circumstances in which the shooting occurred - that is to say, mounting to an extraordinary display of incompetence on the part of the Secret Service, whose Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned earlier this week. I note that respected former CIA analyst Larry Johnson has expressly told Judge Napolitano that he believes this goes beyond incompetence into evidence of an organized plot - his words - leading into the government itself. I follow reports that are suggestive of more than one shooter, as in the case of that tragic JFK forerunner of US political assassinations. I listened with interest to Alexander Mercouris this week advocating investigation of any interlinkage between the failed assassination attempt and the sudden decision of Joe Biden (under great pressure anyway, of course, from within his party) last weekend to stand down as a presidential candidate in November.
The Democratic Party is at war with itself, even as it feels under existential threat from Donald Trump, exacerbated perhaps by the authority and means with which Trump, as president, can elicit to establish clearer answers to the mysteries of the events of July 13 at Butler, PA. As President, Trump can weaponize this incident not only to wreak vengeance on his immediate political opponents but also to intensify the rapid drift to an authoritarian rewrite of US security machineries that already endangers ordinary Americans, as illustrated by the hundreds of police killings of innocents each year.
Ukraine’s Desperate Pleas for Peace
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, resorted to Guangzhou this week for a meeting with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi. His message that Ukraine seeks peace was critically received by Wang, who concluded that the time is not yet right while demonstrating China’s willingness to act as a mediator. The meeting occurred in the very same week as China mediated a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah that may ultimately smooth the way towards a peace settlement between Hamas and Tel Aviv, although I do not believe this is going to happen any time soon. But I note with great interest, and recalling China’s success in bring Saudi Arabia and Iran together (these two countries have reestablished diplomatic relations and are also bonded through the BRICS), this further demonstration of China as a global leader in diplomacy, a status recently vacated by the US and its former vassal imperialists, Britain and France.
As Kuleba’s efforts are rewarded meagerly in China, Zelenskiy has turned for advice to the Vatican, which has told him that his terms for peace are unachievable.
Ukraine’s readiness for negotiation with Russia would be more practically demonstrated (as Kremlin spokesman, Peskov has said) were Zelenskiy to withdraw his own law that still makes it illegal for Ukrainians to enter into peace negotiations with the current Moscow government. This presumably should have been done before Zelensky recently said he would invite Russia to participate in a second peace conference before the US presidential election in November. It would also help were Ukraine to retreat from its maximalist demands that Russia withdraw to 1991 boundaries and pay reparations.
Contrary to the usual western mirror propaganda (its methodology - ‘you say this about us, on good evidence, so we will say this about you, without evidence”), Russia has demonstrated far greater seriousness and good faith than has Ukraine in offering a ceasefire on condition only that Ukraine withdraw its troops from the Donbass (incl. Kherson and Zapporizhzhia), commit to neutrality and then begin negotiation on the other matters.
Putin has not withdrawn this rather generous offer which, if accepted, would leave intact a fairly robust if rump Ukraine. If offered in good faith, then my own fear and one that I have expressed in earlier posts, is that this would (1) forego an historic opportunity to return Kharkiv and Odessa to where they rightly belong (Russia), if Russian security interests are to be properly consolidated and equally (2) forgo an opportunity to broaden the range of participants in any negotiation to something truly appropriate to the far more important and long term task of devising a new global security order. Putin has possibly concluded, probably correctly, that the key figures of the regime in Kiev cannot countenance an end to a war whose continuance helps preserve their own power, perceived legitimacy and safety. With that in mind, Dima of the Military Summary channel reported yesterday that Zelenskiy, with the consent of the RADA, is planning to formally extend the period of martial law for a further 90 days. This would give him cover for legitimizing his currently illegal hold on the presidency. Dima rightly also questions the legitimacy of the RADA itself whose continuance in power has not been tested by recent, or timely elections. For my part, I do not believe there has been any kind of political legitimacy in Kiev since 2014.
Propaganda Wars
Zelenskiy’s desperation will not have been helped by what were recent rumors to the effect that his top general ,Oleksandr Stanislavovych Syrskyi (A Russian by birth) had advised Zelenskiy to surrender. Some confirmation as to the likely truth of these rumors comes in today’s Guardian interview with the general (Guardian Syrski).
He maintains a facade of determination to achieve ultimate victory while actually providing reasons for why this would be impossible. He talks of Russia’s relentless advances, as in the threat Russia now poses to Pohres, most of which it controls, and in its move towards the important logistics hub of Pokrovsk, with Russian troops now only 15 miles away. He talks of Russia’s weapons superiority (1:2 to 1:3 in many if not all categories of weapons). Syrski notes the growth over two years in the size of Russia’s invasion force from 100,000 to 520,000 currently and, very soon, to reach 6,900,000 (while Ukraine resorts increasingly to the conscription of prisoners), the trippling in its artillery and near doubling of its armored personnel vehicles. He describes the growth during the SMO in the number of Russian tanks from 1,700 to 3,500 (compare to Britain’s 150 of which only 40 are said to be operational). (As for the alleged rate of destruction of Russian tanks, a competent source cited today by Alexander Mercouris, notes that 70% of these are retrieved, and of these, 90% are repaired, many of them within a day).
Directly supporting Syrskyi is the Reuters investigation, a link to which I have recently provided here, of a stunning inability of either Europe or of the US to produce sufficient numbers of artillery shells or to catch up with Russia’s expanding production capabilities. This and some other recent Reuters’ stories have made me wonder whether this classic imperial news agency (once British, now Canadian) - perhaps in deference to the needs of its financial clients for realistic appraisals - is leading a plodding shift of mainstream western media away from their semi-conscious absorption within a balloon of prevailing neocon ideology towards a truly more independent journalism.
If so, they have yet to be emulated by some standard bearers of neocon journalism, as illustrated recently by an article in the Economist (Economist) that essentially repeats the well-worn and long disproven shibboleths of how Russia is exhausted, its Soviet-era tanks running out and its economy faltering. The piece makes the extraordinary claim that Russia has only one suitable forge and that this can only replace 100 artillery barrels a year, whereas a private source cited today by Alexander Mercouris puts the number at around 10,500, produced by a large number of forges - as one would expect of a foremost oil and gas producer that needs huge stocks of pipes.
The article is the work of a Russian-born “expert on Russian military capacity” at the Washington-based Centre for European Policy Analysis, and who was once associated with none other than Alexei Navalny, and who has written previous assessments of this kind. Such analyses support a form of delusional thinking that is further illustrated this week by a letter resulting from a meeting of finance ministers from a number of the EU’s smaller, northerly countries. This claims that the Russian economy is in dire trouble, subordinated, the letter claims, to the inflationary exertions of war (actually the economy is growing at over 5%, with an enviable budget deficit of only 0.5%), that its people are suffering (no sign of this is reported by numerous recent visitors to Moscow and Saint Petersburg who are struck by the calm and normality of these cities, while across the country workers actually earn over 5% more in real terms than at the start of the war, they spend more and they save more, amidst growing equality of prosperity across the different regions of the country - see Kurbangaleeva [Carnegie Endowment], and that Western sanctions on Russia are working (see this New York Times assessment from earlier this year as to why they are not! - Sanctions Not).