1). “Mobilization in Ukraine: Zelensky government on a manhunt”, July 6, 2023, Maxim Goldarb, World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), at < https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/07/07/hxfo-j07.html >.
2). “Ukrainian youth speak on war, social catastrophe: ‘The military is grabbing draft evaders everywhere’ ”, June 15, 2023, Clara Weiss, WSWS,
at < https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/06/15/duwn-j15.html >.
3). “U.S. Cluster Bombs to Ukraine: An Act of Desperation”, July 12, 2023, Melvin Goodman, CounterPunch, at <https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/07/12/u-s-cluster-bombs-to-ukraine-an-act-of-desperation/>.
4). “NATO Expands, Again. Will the Ukraine War Spread? w/ Vijay Prashad”, July 13, 2023, Brian Becker interviews Vijay Prashad, The Socialist Program with Brian Becker, duration of podcast 53 minutes, at <https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nato-expands-again-will-the-ukraine-war-spread-w/id1539214532?i=1000621014596>.Note: This is a podcast of an interview of Vijay Prashad by Brian Becker. There is no transcript, no direct text.
5). “Biden To CNN, USA Is Running Out Of Ammo”, July 11, 2023, Alexander Mercouris & Alex Cristoforou, The Duran Podcast, duration of podcast 32 minutes, at <https://www.audacy.com/podcast/the-duran-podcast-59b34/episodes/biden-to-cnn-usa-is-running-out-of-ammo-ba6e9> Note: This is a podcast of a discussion by Alexander Mercouris & Alex Cristoforou. There is no transcript, no direct text.
6). “Neocons warn Biden White House, Don’t Let Ukraine Join NATO”,
July 7, 2023, Alexander Mercouris & Alex Cristoforou, The Duran Podcast duration of
podcast 44 minutes, at
<https://www.audacy.com/podcast/the-duran-podcast-59b34/episodes/neocons-warn-
biden-white-house-dont-let-ukraine-join-nato-2b66e> Note: This is a podcast of a discussion by Alexander Mercouris & Alex Cristoforou. There is no transcript, no direct text.
Introduction: The Corporate Controlled Media in the U.S. has been trumpeting a
rosy propaganda scenario in which the U.S. and NATO grow ever stronger as formerly reluctant Neutral Countries in Europe join the U.S. led alliance (Sweden and Finland). Furthermore the troop recruitment, logistics and weaponry situations are all either glossed over and ignored or are portrayed in the most favorable light possible Meanwhile a large number of alternative websites, scholars, and commentators point out that the Ukrainian situation is desperate and the Ukrainian military is on the ropes. Obviously, both positions cannot be true.
Just in terms of basic “realism” we would have to expect that Russia, with a population of nearly 145 million,would have far less trouble recruiting and training troops for this war than would Ukraine with its far smaller population base. The actual population of Ukraine is an area of some dispute. Basic U.N. demographic figures indicated a pre-war Ukrainian population of a bit less than 43 million. However, even conservative estimates are that 7 million people have left Ukraine, most of them permanently; and another 5.3 million are internally displace. And we must also subtract the populations of Crimea (about 2.4 million) and the DonBas area (the DonBas province alone was Ukraine’s most populous with 4.1 million inhabitants) and some other Ethnic Russians and Russian-Speaking areas of Eastern and Southern Ukraine. Luhansk province has a population of around 2.1 million and Kharkhiv around 2.5 million. Two other Eastern Ukraine regions with large Ethnic Russian and Russian-Speaking populations, Dnipro with over 3 million and Zaporizhzhia with around 1.7 million, are hardly good troop recruitment areas for the Coup Regime in Kiev. This leaves a “loyalist population base” of something under 25 million. Articles 1, “Mobilization in Ukraine: Zelensky government on a manhunt”, & 2, “Ukrainian youth speak on war, social catastrophe: ‘The military is grabbing draft evaders everywhere’ ”, both from the WSWS, discuss the predictable and expected ongoing harsh press-ganging of young men and older men in the Ukrainian Heartland. The Corporate Controlled Media in the U.S. provided a lot of coverage of Russian young men fleeing Russia, during the early months of the war; but the shortage of men eligible for use as cannon fodder is clearly much more severe in Ukraine than it is in Russia.
Another major issue has been the American plan to make Cluster Bomb munitions available to the Coup Regime military. Melvin Goodman criticizes this in Article 3 “U.S. Cluster Bombs to Ukraine: An Act of Desperation”. Goodman notes that the U.S. will : “... supply Ukraine with cluster munitions, weapons that more than 120 countries have pledged not to use because of the threat to innocent civilians. Most NATO members favor the banning of cluster munitions. A huge area of Ukraine is already contaminated with explosive objects.
“The United Nations convention that banned the use of cluster munitions was signed in 2008, but three of the most militarized nations in the world refused to sign: the United States, Russia, and Israel.” Goodman further writes that the cluster bombs: “... will not have any real effect on the current stalemate that exists in eastern and southern Ukraine. The much-vaunted Ukrainian counteroffensive has been unsuccessful, and no amount of cluster munitions will have an impact. Having failed to seize the initiative in their offensive operations, the Russians have dug in for the long run in the Donbas. Cluster munitions would have some utility against an advancing army, but little against an entrenched one.”
Alexander Mercouris and Alex Cristoforou criticize the munitions situation from a somewhat different perspective in the interview posted in Item 5, “Biden To CNN, USA Is Running Out Of Ammo”. Mercouris and Cristoforou point out that the U.S. has managed to double its output of 155 mm artillery shells from 15,000 to 30,000 a month; while the European states that are members of NATO can only produce 4,000 of the 155 mm shells per month. This is not enough to supply the Ukrainian military, that tries to use the same intensive artillery methods as the Russians do. The difference being that the Russians maintained enough of their industrial base to produce the weapons and munitions needed to prosecute a WW 1 style military operation. The NATO nations, led by the U.S., are much weaker than they were 50, or even 20 years ago. They cannot produce needed munitions in the amounts the Ukrainians use in their operations, and it will take 5 years to build up the capacity. Even that depends on the profit levels American MIC companies expect to garner.
In Item 4, “NATO Expands, Again. Will the Ukraine War Spread? w/ Vijay Prashad”, Vijay Prashad provides some excellent background information and analysis of just what is going on in Ukraine. The discussion with Brian Becker, the host of The Socialist Program with Brian Becker, ranges over a wide variety of topics. Prashad points out that the U.S. has lost most of its previous economic dominance and dynamism and is no longer able to provide economic carrots to client states, merely the constant threat of violent military intervention. But he says that most of the U.S. ruling class has not realized this change to a much weaker global position and the increasing dominance in economic, social, and political power of other places, especially China.
Finally, Mercouris and Cristoforou look at some of the cracks beginning to form in the War Party’s various factions in their Interview in Item 6, “Neocons warn Biden White House, Don’t Let Ukraine Join NATO”. They note that NeoCons, who infest the State Department and other institutions of the U.S. Government, are starting to get seriously worried about a looming disaster in Ukraine.
(NB Note... I regret that I was unable to post copies of the articles here. For some reason, they all bleed over to the right and are unreadable. I invite you to click on the links at the top here to access the articles and podcasts.)
No comments:
Post a Comment