Tariq Saeedi
This is Déjà vu. —- As if we are still in 2002-2003 and the USA and its allies are diligently building false grounds to invade Iraq.
Why the Ukraine story of today is so similar to Iraq story of two decades ago?
Let’s recall briefly what happened in the run up to the Iraq war, a war that smashed a prosperous country, caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and left several million homeless or refugees.
It has been amply documented over the years that the Bush administration manufactured and sold the false claim that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). It was also claimed, falsely, that Iraq was harbouring and supporting Al-Qaeda. Subsequently, despite very thorough investigations, no stockpiles of WMDs or an active WMD program were ever found in Iraq.
The 2016 Chilcot Report, a British inquiry into the United Kingdom’s decision to go to war, concluded that not every peaceful alternative had been examined, that the UK and US had undermined the United Nations Security Council in the process of declaring war, that the process of identification for a legal basis of war was “far from satisfactory”, and that, taken together, the war was unnecessary.
This is happening all over again.
The USA and some its allies are spewing fiery statements on hourly basis that Russia is about to invade Ukraine.
A CNN story describes some of the American-led incitement for war.
Titled “Ukrainian official tells CNN Biden’s call with Ukrainian President ‘did not go well’ but White House disputes account,” and with byline of Matthew Chance and Jeremy Herb, the story published on 28 January 2022 has the following main points:
- Biden warned his Ukrainian counterpart that a Russian attack may be imminent, saying that an invasion was now virtually certain, once the ground had frozen later in February, according to the official.
- “We continue to see, including in the last 24 hours, more accumulation of credible combat forces arrayed by the Russians in, again, the western part of their country and in Belarus,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said at a press briefing.
- US officials have continued to emphasize they were prepared to act regardless of whether Russia pursues diplomacy or further aggression toward Ukraine, and on Thursday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that “nothing is off the table” when it comes to sanctions should Moscow invade — including killing the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany and removing Russia from SWIFT international payment system.
- Earlier this week, as many as 8,500 US troops were placed on heightened alert to prepare to deploy to Eastern Europe. Those troops include elements of the 82nd airborne division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, as well as elements of the 18th Airborne Corps, the 101st Airborne Division and the Fourth Infantry Division, Kirby said Thursday.
- CNN reported Wednesday that the US and a handful of allies are in discussions to deploy thousands more troops to Eastern European NATO countries before any potential Russian invasion of Ukraine as a show of support in the face of Moscow’s ongoing aggression, according to three US officials familiar with the discussions.
The complete CNN story can be found here: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/biden-zelensky-call/index.html
For what we know from the recent history, particularly from 2008 (Georgia) and 2014 (Crimea), if Russia wants to invade and annex a territory, it does so without much warning.
There could be any number of reasons for this deafening roar of the USA and its allies but one possible objective is to keep provoking Russia, forcing Putin to lose nerves and make a mistake. If this is the ambition, it could likely work the other way around.
The America of Joe Biden definitely wants war. Does the Ukraine of Zelensky also want war?
/// nCa, 31 January 2022
To be continued . . .