{"id":207864,"date":"2022-03-28T12:00:40","date_gmt":"2022-03-28T11:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=207864"},"modified":"2022-03-27T11:55:50","modified_gmt":"2022-03-27T10:55:50","slug":"more-evidence-that-the-u-s-is-trying-to-prolong-this-ukrainian-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/03\/more-evidence-that-the-u-s-is-trying-to-prolong-this-ukrainian-war\/","title":{"rendered":"More Evidence That the U.S. Is Trying to Prolong This Ukrainian War"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>25 Mar 2022 &#8211; <\/em>The Washington Post has <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/mL9LY\" >a new article out<\/a> bemoaning the fact that Russian military commanders are declining calls from the Pentagon to discuss their operations in Ukraine (I dunno guys, might have something to do with the fact that the US is <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/LC0KQ\" >sharing extensive military intelligence<\/a>\u00a0on exactly those operations directly with the Ukrainian government). Tucked all the way down in the eighteenth paragraph of the article, we find a much more interesting revelation: that Washington\u2019s top diplomat has made no attempt to contact his counterpart in Moscow since the war began on the 24th of February.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSecretary of State Antony Blinken has not attempted any conversations with his counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, since the start of the conflict, according to U.S. officials,\u201d The Washington Post reports.<\/p>\n<p>So the US government is continuing <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2022\/03\/10\/the-us-is-still-not-trying-diplomacy-with-putin-to-stop-fighting-in-ukraine\/\" >its policy<\/a> of refusing to attempt any high-level diplomatic resolutions to this war despite its public hand-wringing about the horrific violence that\u2019s being inflicted upon the people of Ukraine. This revelation fits nicely with a recent <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/WvWeP\" >report by Bloomberg\u2019s Niall Ferguson<\/a> that sources in the US and UK governments have told him the real goal of western powers in this conflict is not to negotiate peace or end the war quickly, but to prolong it in order \u201cbleed Putin\u201d and achieve regime change in Moscow.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The amazing part of this column is that U.S. officials are saying out loud that they want the war to last in order to &quot;bleed Putin&quot;. They don&#39;t care a fig about Ukraine. It stands completely alone (and Zelenskiy knows it, btw). <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NBOKvmT63K\" >https:\/\/t.co\/NBOKvmT63K<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Leonid Bershidskiy (@Bershidsky) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Bershidsky\/status\/1506329273262563328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" >March 22, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Building on an <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/6jaY0#selection-643.81-643.128\" >earlier report<\/a> from The New York Times that the Biden administration \u201cseeks to help Ukraine lock Russia in a quagmire,\u201d Ferguson writes that he has reached the conclusion that \u201cthe U.S. intends to keep this war going,\u201d and says he has other sources to corroborate this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThe only end game now,\u201d a senior administration official was heard to say at a private event earlier this month, \u201cis the end of Putin regime. Until then, all the time Putin stays, [Russia] will be a pariah state that will never be welcomed back into the community of nations. China has made a huge error in thinking Putin will get away with it. Seeing Russia get cut off will not look like a good vector and they\u2019ll have to re-evaluate the Sino-Russia axis. All this is to say that democracy and the West may well look back on this as a pivotal strengthening moment.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I gather that senior British figures are talking in similar terms. There is a belief that \u201cthe U.K.\u2019s No. 1 option is for the conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin.\u201d Again and again, I hear such language. It helps explain, among other things, the lack of any diplomatic effort by the U.S. to secure a cease-fire.\u00a0 It also explains the readiness of President Joe Biden to call Putin a war criminal.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Earlier this month when The Intercept\u2019s Ryan Grim was able to get a word in edgewise at a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/press-briefings\/2022\/03\/15\/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-15-2022\/\" >White House press briefing<\/a> amid the throngs of mass media reporters demanding to know why Biden <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ryangrim\/status\/1503923776207175680?s=20&amp;t=Kxj79FPdzFZVhn8mpIo5SA\" >still hasn\u2019t started World War 3<\/a>, Press Secretary Jen Psaki gave a very revealing answer.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cSo, aside from the request for weapons, President Zelensky has also requested that the US be more involved in negotiations toward a peaceful resolution to the war. What is the U.S. doing to push those negotiations forward?\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>asked Grim.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cWell, one of the steps we\u2019ve taken \u2014 a significant one \u2014 is to be the largest provider of military and humanitarian and economic assistance in the world, to put them in a greater position of strength as they go into these negotiations,\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Psaki answered, completely dodging the question of whether the US was actually doing anything to help negotiate peace.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This is wild <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/CNZZ1wVzcz\" >pic.twitter.com\/CNZZ1wVzcz<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ryangrim\/status\/1503923776207175680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" >March 16, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>As we\u2019ve <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.substack.com\/p\/ukraine-is-a-sacrificial-pawn-on?s=w\" >discussed previously<\/a>, the US government has a well-documented history of working to draw Moscow into costly military quagmires with the goal of preoccupying its military forces and draining its coffers. Former US officials are on record publicly boasting about having done so in both <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2003\/4\/23\/afghanistan-the-soviet-unions-vietnam\" >Afghanistan<\/a> and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/aaronjmate\/status\/1327710965274710017\" >Syria<\/a>. This is an agenda geared toward sapping the Russian government, manufacturing international consent for unprecedented acts of economic warfare designed (though <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/suidaila.substack.com\/p\/what-if-putin-had-outplayed-us-all?s=r\" >perhaps ineptly<\/a>) to crush the Russian economy, to foment discord and rebellion, and ultimately to effect regime change in Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>The US empire doesn\u2019t care about Ukrainian lives, and it\u2019s insulting that its operatives continually pretend to. The empire will happily feed every man, woman and child in the entire nation into the mouth of this war if it means\u00a0unseating a disobedient leader from a nuclear-armed seat of power which has become unacceptably cozy with Beijing and intolerably comfortable with intervening against US imperial agendas. And all the Ukrainian-flag-waving propagandized westerners with their #StandWithUkraine Instagram activism and blue and yellow profile pics will cheer for it every step of the way.<\/p>\n<p>I hope this brutal proxy war ends and peace comes to Ukraine very quickly. But from what we\u2019re seeing today there appears to be an immense globe-spanning power structure holding its foot against the door of the only exit from this horror.<\/p>\n<p>_________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Caitlin-Johnstone.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-180156\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Caitlin-Johnstone.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a>\u00a0 <em>Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@caityjohnstone\" >at <\/a><\/em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@caityjohnstone\" >Medium<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/2022\/03\/25\/more-evidence-that-the-us-is-trying-to-prolong-this-war\/\" >Go to Original \u2013 caitlinjohnstone.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>25 Mar 2022 &#8211; \u201cSecretary of State Antony Blinken has not attempted any conversations with his counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, since the start of the conflict. So the US government is continuing its policy of refusing to attempt any high-level diplomatic resolutions to this war despite its public hand-wringing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":180156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2009,2197,1035,1268,91,818,253,278,254,961,70,92,481],"class_list":["post-207864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","tag-anti-war","tag-biden","tag-eastern-europe","tag-european-union","tag-nato","tag-proxy-war","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-security","tag-ukraine","tag-usa","tag-violent-conflict","tag-warfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}