The column beginning just below, from Consortium News, is followed by links to several news reports and other items related to the war in Ukraine. — MCM
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Imperial Infantilism
It’s getting downright difficult to keep track of all the epithets American statesmen, stateswomen, political leaders and legislators use to tell us just who Vladimir Putin is — and with what bottomless contempt we should regard the Russian president.
I long for the days when he was simply “Hitler.” Such as when Hillary Clinton compared him with der Führer after Moscow re-annexed Crimea in response to the coup the U.S. had just engineered in Kiev. That was back in 2014. There were few complications then: All we needed to do was hate him.
Now the names we have for Putin roll around . . . like pinballs. “Hitler” has fallen somewhat out of fashion, the hyperbole having proven too silly, or maybe because NATO is now arming a Nazi-infested regime.
He’s all sorts of other things too, keeping us well on the side of repugnance and hostility, and safely away from a serious, adult understanding of the man, the nation and what the man and the nation are doing — in Ukraine and elsewhere.
In an encounter with reporters last week, President Joe Biden described the Russian leader as “a war criminal.” This came as demands for direct U.S. intervention in Ukraine grow shriller. You have to love The New York Times, and especially its national-security clerk, David Sanger. He added that Biden “was speaking from the heart, his aides said.” A man of humane passions, our president.
One would have thought . . . READ MORE . . .
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Ukraine retakes key Kyiv suburb; battle for Mariupol rages, by Nebi Qena and Kara Anna | The Associated Press | KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine said it retook a strategically important suburb of Kyivearly Tuesday, as Russian forces squeezed other areas near the capital and their attack on the embattled southern port of Mariupol raged unabated. Explosions and bursts of gunfire shook Kyiv, and black smoke rose from a spot in the north. Intensified artillery fire could be heard from the northwest, where Russia has sought to encircle and capture several suburban areas of the capital, a crucial target. . . . Russian forces also pressed their siege of Mariupol after the southern port city’s defenders refused demands to surrender, with fleeing civilians describing relentless bombardments and corpses lying in the streets. But the Kremlin’s ground offensive in other parts of the country advanced slowly or not at all, knocked back by lethal hit-and-run attacks by the Ukrainians. READ MORE . . .
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Ukraine pleads for help as more bombs hit besieged Mariupol, by Natalia Zinets and Patel Polityuk | Reuters * Ukrainian generals expect more indiscriminate bombing * Ukraine says ‘no question of surrender’ in Mariupol * 96-year-old Holocaust survivors killed in shelling | LVIV/KYIV, Ukraine – Russia is pounding the besieged Ukrainian port of Mariupol into the “ashes of a dead land”, its local council said on Tuesday, describing two more huge bombs that fell on the city that has been sealed off for weeks. Ukraine’s military warned the public on Tuesday of more indiscriminate Russian shelling from bogged-down Russian troops, and U.S. President Joe Biden issued his strongest warning yet that Russia is considering using chemical weapons. Amid the devastation caused by Russia’s unceasing bombardment of Ukrainian cities, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy highlighted the death of a 96-year-old survivor of Nazi concentration camps, killed in his flat by shelling in Kharkiv. READ MORE . . .
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Ukraine Would Discuss Crimea, Donbas with Russia. From TeleSUR President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky said he would be ready to discuss the issues of Crimea and the recognition of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics with Russia after the Ukrainian side receives security guarantees. “This is a very difficult situation for everyone,” he said in an interview with TV companies from European countries and Ukraine. “For Crimea, Donbass, and for everyone. In order to find a way out, you have to take this first step, which I have mentioned: security guarantees, the end of the war.” According to Zelensky, he is ready to discuss these issues at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I am ready to raise these issues at the first meeting with the President of Russia, they are relevant, they are important for us,” he said. READ MORE . . .
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Bits of interest from the war, by Moon of Alabama | Educate! * Zelensky says ‘western’ leaders said no to Ukrainian NATO membership, but rejected to do so publicly * U.S. supported ‘activist’ commits publicly to war crimes * CNN promotes leader of neo-Nazi Azov Battalion * Arch Zionists are pissed off by Zelensky’s holocaust revisionism * Destroyed Kiev shopping mall was used as weapon and ammunition depot * Despite a hopeless situation the government in Kiev rejects to end war in Mariupol * Unconfirmed: Zelensky rejects Ukrainian military request for retreat from the Donbas front | In two draft treaties, which Russia had sent to the U.S. and EU in December, it demanded written declarations that the Ukraine would never join NATO. The U.S. and the EU publicly rejected that demand. It was a major reason for Russia to start its intervention. Consider that in light of this interview Zelensky gave yesterday to CNN. He said: “I requested them personally to say directly that we are going to accept you into NATO in a year or two or five. Just say it directly and clearly or just say no the response was very clear, you are not going to be a NATO or E.U. member, but publicly the doors will remain open.” READ MORE . . .