Author: Walt Zlotow

Reading the Chicago Tribune’s November 21^st editorial ‘Memo to the new Congress: Ukraine needs your help, not your grandstanding’, one might surmise Ukraine is winning the Russo-Ukraine war. As proof the Trib offers “Ukraine just carried out one of the most significant battlefield victories in the nearly nine-month war, with its triumph in the southern city of Kherson. Russia’s defeat in Kherson added strong evidence to the notion that Ukraine has the upper hand against Putin’s illegal, ruinous invasion.”

The reverse is true. Ukraine is being systematically annihilated by the Russian military. Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson is primarily tactical. Kherson will be reversed as Ukraine collapses. It is being grasped by the Trib, and all promoters of current US weapons support, as proof of eventual Ukraine victory.

The Trib does allude to the destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure which has plunged much of the country into cold and darkness on the cusp of winter. But then the Trib reverts to its feelgood delusion that “What will assist Ukraine through this perilous period is an unwavering commitment from the U.S. and Europe to provide military and economic aid.” Let’s see, upwards of $100 billion in weapons aid with the upcoming $37 billion from the Lame Duck Congress, has done nothing but extend Ukraine’s death and destruction for 9 months now. Much of the destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure did not occur till US weapons needlessly prolonged the war. Had the US signed on to fellow NATO member Turkey’s brokered 15-point peace agreement in March, the war would have ended by April. US torpedoing that peace agreement was a dastardly betrayal of Ukraine’s people. With the exception of the Iraq-Iran war of 1980-88, the US has always worked to end foreign conflict thru diplomacy, not prolonging it with endless weapons.

Instead of castigating conservative Republicans, some of whom plan to end the US weapons transfers in the 118^th Congress in January, the Trib should be supporting their efforts to curtail more weapons which will set the stage for sensible negotiations.

The Trib should also cease telling its readership Ukraine is winning this war. Doing so congers up the ghost of Baghdad Bob, the infamous Iraqi Minister of Information, who popped up daily on TV to tell the world that Iraq was vanquishing Great Satan America in its criminal 2003 US war there.

After an errant Ukraine defense missile killed 2 in neighboring Poland, Ukraine’s unhinged President Zelensky said this to the world Tuesday. “Hitting NATO territory with missiles. … This is a Russian missile attack on collective security! This is a really significant escalation. Action is needed,”

The action Zelensky referred to starts WWIII if the US and NATO do what he wants…attack Russia. US and NATO officials immediately called out Zelensky’s lies that Russia fired the missile, careful not to directly call him a war mongering liar. Unfazed, Zelensky double downed on his false flag Wednesday saying, “I have no doubt that it was not our rocket. I believe that it was a Russian missile based on the credibility of the reports of the military.”

Tiring of Zelensky’s recklessness, a NATO diplomate lowered the boom on the guy trying to lower the boom on all of us. “This is getting ridiculous. The Ukrainians are destroying [our] confidence in them. Nobody is blaming Ukraine and they are openly lying. This is more destructive than the missile,”

Once again Ukraine President Zelensky wildly overplayed his hand. The next time he tries to provoke WWIII, we all may not be so lucky. Time to cut he weapons gravy train to Zelensky and put him on the peace train to the negotiating table. We can only dodge so many nuclear bullets before one finds the mark.

Reports by both Poland and the US indicate the missile strike that killed 2 in Poland was likely an errant Ukraine missile fired to intercept a Russian missile over Ukraine.

Both US President Biden and Polish President Andrzej Duda spoke cautiously regarding a potential tripwire setting off possible all out war between NATO and Russia. Biden said “There is preliminary information that contests Russia fired the missile. I don’t want to say until we completely investigate but it’s unlikely in the minds of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia.” Duda told reporters that “There’s no clear evidence of who fired the missile. An investigation is ongoing.”

But firebrand Ukraine President Zelensky, who tirelessly promotes direct NATO intervention, including strikes on Russia and an No-Fly Zone over Ukraine, likely triggering WWIII, remains undaunted. He took to Twitter on his talk with Polish President Duda, expressing “condolences over the death of Polish citizens from Russian missile terror.”

I’ve said before that President Zelensky is trying to get us all killed. Unless the US and NATO escorts him to the negotiating table to end a war he cannot win, he may succeed.

Walt Zlotow became involved in antiwar activities upon entering University of Chicago in 1963. He is current president of the West Suburban Peace Coalition based in the Chicago western suburbs. He blogs daily on antiwar and other issues at www.heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com.

Daniel DePetris, fellow at national security think tank Defense Priorities, in his November 7 Chicago Tribune op-ed, “Despite Russia’s abhorrent actions, the US has to take a thoughtful path toward resolution,” took nearly a thousand words to admit the obvious: It’s only negotiations, not endless weapons, that will end the Russo-Ukraine war.

DePetris continues to place all the blame for the war on Russia, totally ignoring 14 years of US/NATO provocations of possible NATO membership and NATO missiles on Russia’s Ukraine borders. But he then makes this astonishingly false statement: “U.S. and Russian officials are slowly coming to grips with the reality that an outright severing of communication links wouldn’t be prudent.”

Continue reading “Chicago Tribune Meekly Hints Negotiations Only Way To End Russo-Ukraine War”

Storer Rowley, former foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, gets a lot wrong on his Trib op-ed “America must stand firm against Russia. This is no time to go wobbly.”

He’s right to call Russia’s war brutal and criminal. But calling it “unprovoked” is ludicrous. He omits from his analysis US/NATO plans to extend NATO through Ukraine up to Russia’s borders, allowing nuclear weapons to be minutes away from Moscow. That is provocation on steroids. He ignores US support, encouragement of the 2014 coup that ousted Russian leaning Ukraine president Victor Yanukovych, setting off civil war with Russian speaking Ukrainians in the Donbas. Together, these provocations made Russia’s war, while illegal and criminal, inevitable.

Storer’s lauding President Biden’s diplomacy in the war is preposterous as Biden has explicitly prohibited diplomacy to negotiate a ceasefire and eventual peace settlement. Storer apparently considers diplomacy to include sending top UK and US officials to Kiev in March to instruct, demand actually, Ukraine President Zelensky cease negotiation with Russia and Turkey for a quick end to the war.

Continue reading “Actually, It’s a Good Time To Go Wobbly on Ukraine”