{"id":213839,"date":"2022-05-30T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2022-05-30T11:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=213839"},"modified":"2024-11-26T21:25:27","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T21:25:27","slug":"we-need-a-real-debate-about-the-ukraine-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/05\/we-need-a-real-debate-about-the-ukraine-war\/","title":{"rendered":"We Need a Real Debate about the Ukraine War"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bringing the war in Ukraine to an end will demand new thinking and challenges to the orthodoxies of this time. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

President Volodymyr Zelensky speaking at a news conference in Kyiv on April 23. [manhhai \/ CC BY-NC 2.0]<\/p><\/div>\n

24 May 2022 – <\/em>It\u2019s time to challenge the orthodox view on the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

As Russia\u2019s illegal and brutal assault enters its fourth month, the impact on Europe, the Global South and the world is already profound. We are witnessing the emergence of a new political\/military world order. Climate action is being sidelined as reliance on fossil fuels increases;\u00a0food scarcity<\/a>\u00a0and other resource demands are pushing prices upward and causing widespread global hunger; and the worldwide\u00a0refugee crisis<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 with more international refugees and internally displaced people than at any time since the end of World War II \u2014 poses a massive challenge.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the more protracted the war in Ukraine, the greater the risk of a nuclear accident or incident. And with the Biden administration\u2019s strategy to \u201cweaken\u201d Russia with the scale of weapons shipments, including anti-ship missiles, and revelations of U.S. intelligence assistance to Ukraine, it is clear that the United States and NATO are in a proxy war with Russia.<\/p>\n

Shouldn\u2019t the ramifications, perils and multifaceted costs of this proxy war be a central topic of media coverage \u2014 as well as informed analysis, discussion and debate? Yet what we have in the media and political establishment is, for the most part, a one-sided, even nonexistent, public discussion and debate. It\u2019s as if we live with what journalist Matt Taibbi has dubbed an\u00a0\u201cintellectual no-fly zone.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Those who have departed from the orthodox line on Ukraine are regularly excluded from or marginalized \u2014 certainly rarely seen \u2014 on big corporate media. The result is that alternative and countervailing views and voices seem nonexistent. Wouldn\u2019t it be healthy to have more diversity of views, history and context rather than \u201cconfirmation bias\u201d?<\/p>\n

Those who speak of history and offer context about the West\u2019s precipitating role in the Ukraine tragedy are\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0excusing Russia\u2019s criminal attack. It is a measure of such thinking, and the rhetorical or intellectual no-fly zone, that prominent figures such as Noam Chomsky, University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer and former U.S. ambassador Chas Freeman, among others, have been demonized or slurred for raising cogent arguments and providing much-needed context and history to explain the background of this war.<\/p>\n

In our fragile democracy, the cost of dissent is comparatively low. Why, then, aren\u2019t more individuals at think tanks or in academia, media or politics challenging the orthodox U.S. political-media narrative? Is it not worth asking whether sending ever-more weapons to the Ukrainians is the wisest course? Is it too much to ask for more questioning and discussion about how best to diminish the danger of nuclear conflict? Why are nonconformists smeared for noting, even bolstered with reputable facts and history, the\u00a0role of nationalist, far-right and, yes, neo-Nazi forces<\/a>\u00a0in Ukraine?\u00a0Fascist or neo-Nazi revivalism<\/a>\u00a0is a toxic factor in many countries today, from European nations to the United States. Why is Ukraine\u2019s history too often ignored, even denied?<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, as a former Marine Corps general noted, \u201cWar is a racket.\u201d U.S. weapons conglomerates are lining up to feed at the trough. Before the war ends, many Ukrainians and Russians will die while\u00a0Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman make fortunes<\/a>. At the same time, network and cable news is replete with\u00a0pundits and \u201cexperts\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 or more accurately, military officials turned consultants \u2014 whose current jobs and clients are not disclosed to viewers.<\/p>\n

What is barely reflected on our TVs or Internet screens, or in Congress, are alternate views \u2014 voices of restraint, who disagree with the tendency to see compromise in negotiations as appeasement, who seek persistent and tough diplomacy to attain an effective cease-fire and a negotiated resolution, one designed to ensure that Ukraine emerges as a sovereign, independent, reconstructed and prosperous country.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell me how this ends,\u201d Gen. David Petraeus asked Post writer Rick Atkinson a few months into the nearly decade-long Iraq War. Bringing this current war to an end will demand new thinking and challenges to the orthodoxies of this time. As the venerable American journalist Walter Lippmann\u00a0once observed<\/a>, \u201cWhen all think alike, no one thinks very much.\u201d<\/p>\n

_____________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Katrina vanden Heuvel <\/em>is editorial director and publisher of <\/em>The Nation and<\/em> served as editor of the magazine from 1995 to 2019.<\/em> She has edited or co-edited several books, including<\/em> The Change I Believe In: Fighting for Progress in the Age of Obama (2011) and<\/em> Meltdown: How Greed and Corruption Shattered Our Financial System and How We Can Recover (2009).<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 washingtonpost.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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