Transcription of Ray’s Feb 11 Comments on Sy Hersh

By a Volunteer, Feb. 12, 2023

A thoughtful listener to a recent posting on Sy Hersh’s bombshell piece on who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline has transcribed the interview for those who prefer to read rather than listen.

TRANSCRIPT: Ray [McGovern] on Sy Hersh’s Article on Blowing Up Nord Stream
Interviewed by Garland Nixon on Sputnik Radio’s The Critical Hour, Feb. 10, 2023 (19 minutes)
LISTEN: https://raymcgovern.com/2023/02/10/ray-on-sy-hershs-article-on-blowing-up-nord-stream/

Garland Nixon

Sy Hersh has a piece at his Substack account entitled How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline. The New York Times called it a, quote unquote mystery. But the United States executed a covert CIA operation that was kept secret until now. For insight into this, let’s turn to our first guest. He works with Tell the World, The publishing arm of the Ecumenical Church of the Savior in inner city Washington; has 27 year career as a CIA analyst, serving as chief of the Soviet foreign policy branch and preparing the president’s daily brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, and he is, of course, Ray McGovern. As always, Ray, welcome back.

Ray McGovern

Thanks for having me.

Garland Nixon

So Sy Hersh writes, last June, the Navy divers operating under the cover of a widely publicized midsummer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that three months later destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines. This is according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning. 

What I’ll say, Ray, is usually when we hear of unknown sources, we tend to question the veracity or validity of the piece.

But if it’s Sy Hersh, I got to give it its due. Ray McGovern.

Ray McGovern

I know Sy Hersh.

Garland Nixon

I know you do.

Ray McGovern

I know him to be a meticulous reporter, winner of five Polk Awards, Pulitzer Prize, you name it. Back in the day when honest reporters were so honored. This piece has all the earmarks of Sy’s meticulous approach, and he clearly has a very good source who felt a, well, he felt a constitutional obligation to honor his or her oath to the Constitution of the United States, which is the supreme oath any of us take. And that is to make sure that you tell the truth, especially when the Constitution is being violated. 

Now, this was an act of war, pure and simple. Curiously enough, it was against Germany. And curiously enough, President Joseph Biden, at a press conference in the presence of the chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, said this is going to happen if Russia invaded Ukraine. And, of course, he was asked, well, how do you do this? I mean, how can you how can you be so confident that Nordstrom will be killed and Biden said, well, just, you know, trust me, it’s going to happen. 

And so she, bilingual, the Reuters reporter, turned to Scholz – and this is not widely available now for obvious reasons – and she said, well, I mean, do you agree with that? I mean, hello, how do you feel about this? And this hack, this political hack said: we do everything together. We do everything together. We will be together on this now. So that’s available now. It’s available. Not Sy Hersh’s piece yet, but that interview is available in Germany.

You know, I describe Olaf Scholz as kind of the epitome of the abused spouse. Stands there and is abused not only by his master, Joe Biden, but also by this hack that he has as foreign minister. Her name is Baerbock. She is the the most vociferous of all the people saying that we are at war. That’s what she said. We are at war with Russia. 

So the question will be: it has been 90 years, count them, nine zero years since the Nazis were making a push for power in Germany. What happened? The Reichstag, the German parliament building was burned down at the end of January, 1933. What happened? The Germans caved. The Nazis didn’t have a majority, but they scared the living daylights out of German citizens.

First of all, Social Democrats gave in. Next to fall, the Zentrum party, the Catholic Party. No one spoke up. We know the rest of the story. All right. Now, sometimes history is replete with ironies. Here it is exactly to the month, 90 years later. Will the German people acquiesce in their industry, and then their bodies being frozen out this winter? Or will they rise up and say: “Look, Mr Scholz, you don’t know what the hell you’re doing, and neither does Baerbock. Get out of here!”, and replace that government? 

Now, the key to all this, of course, is the fact I have already mentioned. Sy Hersh’s piece has not been published in Germany. The New York Times hasn’t published it. The major media haven’t published. Where did Sy have to publish this? On Substack. Now, at one point he had a friend at the German newspaper, Die Welt, and they published an incredible exposé on Syria. It turned out to be true, but Sy couldn’t get it published anywhere else. He used to publish in the New York Times, then in The New Yorker. He has been banned. 

So the question is, will it be possible to inform not only the American people, but more important, the German people that they’ve been had? Okay? This is depriving them of livelihoods and industry. Will they, unlike 90 years ago, act like adults, stand up and say: “Now we’ve had it. Blowing up our our gas pipeline, that’s too far. We’re going to look at things differently. First and foremost, our involvement in Ukraine.”

Garland Nixon

Ray, domestically. Here. In this piece, if it is to be believed – which, I believe it and it certainly warrants an internal investigation here – the Biden administration admitted that what they were doing was an act of war, which means they understood that only Congress could, in fact, constitutionally clear that action. And they, with malice and aforethought, took action to mitigate their accountability to the Constitution and Congress.

And Joe Biden was the head guy there. He was the man that… eventually they decided rather than just put explosives on it, apparently Biden wanted to give the word for when it was done. This is an impeachable offense. This is a requirement of Congress, to act on it. Your thoughts on Congress not acting on it? I don’t suspect they will. And if there will be ultimately in the long term, any ramifications for that? Your thoughts on that anyway Ray.

Ray McGovern

Well, again, if the big tree falls in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it fall, does it make a sound? It is incredible how The New York Times – actually I’ve taken to calling The New York Times The New Yellow Times, after yellow journalism, which as most people know is what you do when you exaggerate or slant things beyond the truth.

The New Yellow Times can prevent this from being heard, and more important now, prevent corroboration from being a voice. We have corroboration now from Gil Doctorow in Brussels, Larry Johnson in Tampa, it’s coming in. And so I applaud the source that told Sy Hersh all this information. I believe it implicitly. Sy has never been wrong on really important issues like this. As I say, he’s meticulous, and he was distraught – and I know this personally – distraught at all this stuff about Russiagate.

He and Bob Parry used to – my mentor, Robert Parry, Consortium News – used to commiserate on the phone and, you know, what’s happened to the to the media? So here again, we have the media right in the middle of this thing. Only Tucker Carlson has had the cajones so far to play this story. Will it go further? I suspect… well, I don’t know but I like to try to be the optimist. Can The New York Times and the major media suppress this indefinitely? Well, I suppose they can. They’ve suppressed other stories, equally important, like the fact that the Russians are proven not to have hacked into the DNC, and that the ‘Russian offensive’ there with Facebook amounted to nothing.

So if they can deceive the American people, as the American people are willing to be deceived, then you know this will not have its desired effect. The fact that that Sy had to go on Substack to do this is really a lurid manifestation of the fact that not even the most prized, the most meticulous investigative reporter in the United States, could not get this published elsewhere.

That speaks volumes.

Garland Nixon

Part of this piece, Sy discusses meetings that Victoria Nuland and Anthony Blinken and Jake Sullivan held in the executive office of the President, where they debated options for an attack on the pipeline. And he writes that the CIA argued that whatever was done, it would have to be covert. And at the time, the CIA was directed by Bill Burns, as Sy describes him, a mild mannered former ambassador to Russia. I know you know Burns well. He says that Burns quickly authorized a CIA working group whose ad hoc members included someone who was familiar with the capacity of these Navy deep sea divers. Your thoughts on Burns’s involvement in this?

Ray McGovern

I do know Burns. He let me, well, in effect shame James Clapper by pointing out to an audience that Clapper had admitted that he fudged the evidence on weapons of mass destruction before the attack on Iraq. Burns was, some of us hoped, that he might be the adult in the room, but Burns is the epitome of a cog in the wheels of the system. He’s a state Department type. He got to be number two in the State Department and you don’t get to be number two in the State Department unless you salute. Whether it’s a harebrained scheme or not you salute. Well, here you have the epitome of a harebrained scheme. Did did Burns salute? Yes, as soon as the president said do it. He turned to his people and he said, Do it.

And they they rubbed their hands and said: Oh, man, this is going to be fun! We can do this. We can work with the Navy. We can do it. Okay. Now, what do the analysts say? Well, Burns didn’t give a rat’s patootie about what his analysts say, but Sy Hersh includes the notion that some of them said: You know, this is really crazy, this is really stupid. This is going to come back to bite us. 

That’s what we always used to say on cockamamie schemes like this. What’s the point here? The point here is that the operations people at CIA get all the money, get all the attention and get all the influence over whatever director comes in and another side lesson here is that if you’re going to pick a director for the CIA, don’t go to the State Department for a yes man. You don’t go to the Congress for somebody who compromises, for God’s sake. You find somebody like Admiral Stansfield Turner, four star, who had made his own his own mark on life and was not going to take any crap from nobody else, is going to tell the truth. He’s the last guy we had like that. God forbid we keep having these, well, these bureaucrats that salute when the president says jump.

Garland Nixon

One thing I did want to ask you, I had some thoughts. You know, the last – interesting – the last sentence where, you know, whoever the source is says, Oh, yeah, they did this thing. It was a brilliant operation, blah, blah, blah. He says the only flaw was the decision to do it. Here’s what it seems to me. I’m guessing it seemed like it came from somebody in the Pentagon, based on the knowledge. They basically said: You know, these idiots in the executive department, they have not a good move.

And CIA was not real smart. State Department, bad move. The Pentagon wasn’t mentioned. And there are generally, I have heard recently, there are some pragmatists. It almost seems like there may. Well, anyway, your thoughts on the origins of this, if you have any?

Ray McGovern

Well, all I can say is that Sy Hersh has proven for about 40 years now that he is a trusted journalist. And when someone – and I suspect it aptly pertained to this particular source – when someone sees that an act of war has been has been committed by our government against all the… well, against the Constitution, maybe not against the U.S. designed “rules based order,” but, you know, we all swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Now this guy took that seriously. I suspect he went to that little corner in that bar where Sy meets his – I know where that is – meets his sources and told him this whole story. Sy said it only took him three months. I believe that. And American people… it’s eminently believable. The question is the fallout and whether the mass media can prevent this story from sneaking into the consciousness of Americans who have been taught, who have been brainwashed over the last seven years. Okay? Seven years now, to hate Russia. 

Okay. Will Rogers had that wonderful aphorism, the comedian way back a century or two ago. Will Rogers put it this way. He said: “The problem is this: it’s not what people know. It’s what people know that ain’t so.” That’s the problem. And the people think that the Russians are just evil to the core. That Putin… Here’s an example. Okay? At the time when Sy Hersh’s story is going out, here’s The New York Times on February ninth. A yellow journalism piece by a fellow named Constant Méheut – a Frenchman, apparently – and it shows that Vladimir Putin was personally responsible for killing the 298 aboard Malaysian Airlines MH 17 over Ukraine in July of 2014. Now it says that in the title; it says that in the first paragraph; and third paragraph it says: Well, we can’t prove that Putin was really… Give me a break! Okay. So this is a day when they should have been featuring Sy’s research. They’re still at it. Blackening Putin, first and foremost, the rest of the Russians, and, you know, this was consequential. 

Let me remind you that after the coup in Kiev, after the annexation of Crimea, the U.S. could still not get the Europeans to shoot themselves in the foot by sanctions. It was only after Malaysian Airlines MH 17 was downed – according to The New York Times, by Vladimir Putin himself – that they could get real sanctions that bit the Europeans more than they bit anyone, including the Russians. So this was consequential. This was the beginning of really strict sanctions. And I just wonder if the West Europeans and the East Europeans will wake up and say: “You know, this is a this is a bad deal to get involved with, what the U.S. wants, because they want war with Russia. And this is going to come to, as the Chinese used to call it, a no good end.”

Garland Nixon

Ray McGovern, as always, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate that analysis and we look forward to having you back.

Ray McGovern

Aye and most welcome.

Nonbraking, Tiresome “New Yellow Times”

NONBRAKING (TIRESOME): ‘New Yellow Times’ Blames Putin for killing 298 on KH17

Investigators say Putin likely approved the supply of the missile system that brought down Flight MH17
By Constant Meheut, February 8, 2023
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/world/europe/putin-flight-mh17-missile.html

The New Yellow Times is depending on readers to read only the title and first para. There is some risk that those who get down to paragraph three may be somewhat confused. Meheut begins:

There are strong indications that President Vladimir V. Putin decided to supply the antiaircraft missile system that Russia-backed separatists used to shoot down a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet above eastern Ukraine in 2014, a Dutch-led international team found. [Emphasis added.]

But the team said on Wednesday that it had suspended its criminal investigation because of insufficient evidence and immunity privileges that prevent new prosecutions in the crash of Flight MH17, which killed all 298 people aboard.

The investigators noted that no evidence suggested that Mr. Putin ordered the downing of the aircraft and that he was, in any case, protected from prosecution under Dutch law because he enjoys immunity as a head of state. …

Previous reporting by Constant Meheut:

France to Make Condoms Free for Young People

New Yellow Times, December 9, 2022

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/09/world/europe/france-free-condoms.html

Did Kerry Lie About Evidence re Shootdown of MH17?

“We picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing. And it was exactly at the time that this aircraft disappeared from the radar.”

Secretary of State John Kerryto NBC, July 20, 2014 (three days after the shootdown).

The unwillingness to release that ‘evidence’ is a strong indication that it is as bogus as the evidence of WMD in Iraq. This time, though, Kerry (unlike Secretary of State Colin Powell) was not even able to get malleable intelligence analysts to go along.

As for lemmings wearing wooden shoes, here is more on the sniveling Dutch:
https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2022/11/21/dutch-genuflect-to-us-convict-russians-for-downing-mh17/

Anatomy of US/Dutch Duplicity on MH17
Kerry Pressed for MH-17 Evidence

“Know Where You Stand, and Stand There”

By Ray McGovern (channeling Dan Berrigan)

February 4, 2023 (14 minutes)

Asked to include in a recent talk some personal examples of nonviolent “intervention”, I dug out a couple of photos in which I “Stand There” in witness and am “taken to ground” (as the Capitol police put it). Then came a 2-minute video showing me asking former House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff for proof that Russia “hacked” the DNC.

(Spoiler: he said he could not share it with me. Those of us paying attention know that this was NOT because it was classified, but rather because it was “non-existent” – just as “non-existent” as the evidence of WMD in Iraq before the U.S./UK attack 20 years ago.)

There was not enough time to show my favorite “intervention” – the mini-debate I had with Donald Rumsfeld in Atlanta on May 4, 2006.

To inject humanity into why we are called to Stand There, I recited a short poem by Fr. Dan Berrigan:

SOME

Some stood and stood and stood.
They were taken for fools
They were taken for being taken in.

Some walked and walked and walked
They walked the earth
They walked the waters
They walked the air.

Why do you stand they were asked and
Why do you walk?

Because of the children, they said, and
Because of the heart, and
Because of the bread,
Because
The cause
Is the heart’s beat
And the children born
And the risen Bread.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Because of the children

The conference addressed “How Nuclear War Can Be Avoided” and was organized by the Schiller Institute. It can be viewed in its entirety at https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2023/02/03/conference-the-age-of-reason-or-the-annihilation-of-humanity/  My segment comes between minutes 56 and 74.

ANIMAL CRACKERS: What’s With Those Germans?

By Victor Grossman , February 5, 2023

(For full flavor, click on the live links, including the one above about the author.)

“Hey”, squeaked one furry lemming to another (in lemming-lingo, of course). “I saw you trying to slip away from the crowd! Do you want to betray us good lemmings. Maybe you’re a fox-lover, even a wolf-lover. You’d better keep in line till we reach our proper goal.”  As lemming-lovers sadly know, that goal could be over the cliff into the sea. And I don’t think lemmings can swim!

Is such a cliff perhaps near the Black Sea? Or along the Dnieper? And are there any today who – like lemmings – keep in the crowd?

No, Germany’s foreign minister, Annelina Baerbock, is no lemming! She must see herself more like a leader of those African buffalos who join horns and hooves to repulse a predator’s attack. “We are not fighting against each other,” she told European deputies, and then declared openly what the media, less directly, has been plugging for years: “We are fighting a war against Russia!” But this all too truthful taboo-breaker had to be diluted; her deputy quickly corrected: “We support Ukraine, but under international law. Germany is not a party to the war.”

No German foreign minister since 1945 has been so openly bellistic as this Green party leader. And she has been one of the loudest in pushing for tougher European Union sanctions: “We are hitting the Putin system where it needs to be hit, not just economically and financially but in its center of power.“ – “That will ruin Russia. ”

Four Trends in Today’s Germany

Four main trends in Germany affect policy towards Russia and the Ukraine. [Here is the first]:

The Baerbock blusterers seem eager to oblige the Boeing-Northrup-Lockheed-Raytheon herd, aptly symbolized by the bronze Wall Street bull, seeking ever bigger fork loads of that $800-900 billion “Defense Authorization” hey, over ten times the size of Russia’s military budget. It’s not easy to grasp what is defensive about it; of over 200 conflicts since 1945, the great majority by far were led by the USA and  all of them (except for Cuba) were far distant from US shores.

This bellicose German trend group is also chummy with the US monopolies who have pressured Germany for years to stop buying  Russian oil or gas instead of their own ocean-crossing fracking products. When years of pressure and even the Ukraine war failed to totally sever Russian imports, some skillful underwater experts mysteriously blasted the pipeline under the Baltic Sea. [Live link above over “pipeline” is added re. who blew it up. Ed.] After weak attempts to blame Russia for destroying its own pipeline such clumsy stabbing around in this murky but not all too opaque sea-bottom whodunnit was abruptly abandoned; even President Biden,  well in advance, had  boasted of its elimination! 

A second trend in Germany fully applauds all USA-NATO policies and actions to keep this war going until Russia is beaten but differs insofar as it opposes a role as subservient junior partner to Washington or Wall Street. It wants more German power to be felt, at least in Europe but hopefully further!  The tone of its advocates (even, I sometimes feel, their steely eyes) bring back fearful old memories I still recall with a shudder.

In those days it was not Leopards but Panther and Tiger tanks lumbering out to defeat the Russians, as in the 900-day siege of Leningrad, with an estimated million and a half deaths [including Putin’s older brother Viktor – Ed.], mostly civilians, mostly from starvation and extreme cold – more deaths in one city than in the bombing of Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Somehow the tank-makers like to misuse the names of predators, also Puma, Gepard (Cheetah), Luchs (Lynx). The names of their predatory manufacturers remain the same; Krupp, Rheinmetall, Maffei-Kraus are now amassing not Reich-Marks but euros.

Of course, motivations and strategies have changed greatly, yet for many advocates  of this trend, I fear, basic expansive intentions may not be so totally different. These forces are strong in both “Christian parties,” now in opposition, but also in the Free Democratic Party, a member of the government coalition.

A third, more complicated trend is based in the Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Many of its leaders are just as bellicose as their coalition partners. Party Chairman Lars Klingbeil, after praising the Ukrainians’ great military successes, boasted that they were due in part to military equipment supplied by Europe, also Germany, which had “broken with its decades-long taboo against sending any weapons into conflict areas.” 

The aid would be continued, he stressed, while praising the Howitzer 2000, supplied by Germany, as “one of the most successful weapon systems thus far deployed in the Ukraine.“  It would also supply missile launchers and the Gepard anti-aircraft gun tank. “That must be continued. That will be continued,” Klingbeil pledged. “We will consistently continue to support the Ukraine.”

But while including the accepted formula, ”Putin is a war criminal, he started a brutal war of aggression,” he also stated, ”A Third World War must be prevented.” These pacific words could be another repetition of the formula, “Ukraine can and must not be forced to give up any of its sovereign territory so the only possible conclusion of this war is the defeat of Russia, no matter how much of the Ukraine is destroyed and how many Ukrainians  – and Russians – are killed or crippled.  This position is full of contradictions, but basically ends up in accord with the mass media. [Emphasis added.]

But while Klingbeil’s words clearly aimed at deflecting accusations that Germany has dragged its feet about sending Leopard tanks and giving Zelensky the bigger and faster weapons he wants, like jet planes or maybe submarines, they also reflect a certain division within the party. A few of its leaders (and many of its members) lack enthusiasm about more and more billions in the war budget and sending ever bigger, stronger weapons to Zelensky. Scholz, too, sometimes seemed to hear faintly the voices of those, much more numerous in former East German areas, who are unwilling to support a war which hits German working people hard and could explode in all Europe or the  world.

This wobbly third position avoids analysis about any share of Washington and its NATO marionettes in responsibility for the war. It plays down or ignores any mention of  the promise-breaking push of NATO (or its “east flank”) right up to Russian borders, rumbling its annihilation-weaponry to ever closer shooting distance from St. Petersburg and Moscow, tightening its noose around Russian trade routes in the Baltic and, with Georgia and Ukraine, in the Black Sea, while Kyiv, in battering all counterforces in the Donbas since 2014, was helping to create a trap for Russia. Its goal, sometimes expressed explicitly, was to repeat the pro-Western, pro-NATO, Washington-led  putsch in Maidan Square in 2014 – but the next time in Moscow‘s Red Square – and finally concluded in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

Even raising such tough questions was labeled “old-left Russophile” nostalgia or “Putin-love”. But, happily or not, Scholz, with or without inner reservations about expanding the war, seems to have bowed to the giant pressure for uniformity.

The fourth trend in German thought or action regarding the Ukraine opposes weapons shipments and calls for every possible effort to achieve a cease fire and then, finally, some peace agreement. Not all the voices in this group come from the left. Retired General Harald Kujat, from 2000 to 2002 top man in the  German armed forces, the Bundeswehr,  and then chairman of the NATO Military Committee, offered some surprising conclusions in an interview for the little-known Swiss publication,  Zeitgeschehen im Fokus (Jan. 18, 2023). Here  are some of them: 

              “The longer the war lasts, the more difficult it becomes to achieve a negotiated peace. …. That is why I found it so regrettable that negotiations in Istanbul in March were broken off despite  great progress and a thoroughly positive outcome for Ukraine. In the Istanbul negotiations, Russia had apparently agreed to withdraw its forces to the level of February 23, i.e. before the attack on Ukraine began. Now the complete withdrawal is repeatedly demanded as a prerequisite for negotiations… Ukraine had pledged to renounce NATO membership and not allow the stationing of any foreign troops or military installations. In return it would receive security guarantees from any states of its choice. The future of the occupied territories was to be resolved diplomatically within 15 years, with the explicit renunciation of military force. … 

              “According to reliable information, then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson intervened in Kiev on April 9th and prevented a signing. His reasoning was that the West was not ready for an end to the war…

               “It is outrageous that the gullible citizen has no idea about what was being played here. The negotiations in Istanbul were well known publicly, also that an agreement was on the verge of signing; but from one day to the next not another word was heard about it…

              “Ukraine is fighting for its freedom, for its sovereignty and for the territorial integrity of the country. But the two main actors in this war are Russia and the US. Ukraine is also fighting for US geopolitical interests, whose declared goal is to weaken Russia politically, economically and militarily to such an degree that they can then turn to their geopolitical rival, the only one capable of endangering their supremacy as a world power: China. ….

              “No, this war is not about our freedom. The core problems causing the war to begin and still to continue today, although it could have ended long ago, are quite different… Russia wants to prevent its geopolitical rival USA from gaining a strategic superiority that threatens Russia’s security. Be it through Ukraine’s membership in US-led NATO, be it through the stationing of American troops, the relocation of military infrastructure or joint NATO maneuvers. The deployment of American systems of NATO’s ballistic missile defense system in Poland and Romania is also a thorn in Russia’s side, because Russia is convinced that the US could also eliminate Russian intercontinental strategic systems from these launch facilities and thus endanger the nuclear strategic balance.

              “The longer the war lasts, the greater the risk of expansion or escalation… Both warring parties are currently in a stalemate again… So now would be the right time to resume the broken negotiations. But the arms shipments mean the opposite, namely that the war is senselessly prolonged, with even more deaths on both sides and the continuation of the destruction of the country. But also with the consequence that we are drawn even deeper into this war. Even the NATO Secretary General recently warned against an escalation of the fighting into a war between NATO and Russia. And according to the US Joint Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley, Ukraine has achieved what it could achieve militarily. More is not possible. That is why diplomatic efforts should be made now to achieve a negotiated peace. I share this view….

               “What Mrs. Merkel said in an interview is clear. The Minsk II agreement was negotiated only to buy time  for Ukraine. And Ukraine also used the time to rearm militarily. …  Russia understandably calls this fraud. And Merkel confirms that Russia was deliberately deceived. You can judge that any way you like, but it is a blatant breach of trust and a question of political predictability.

              “It cannot be disputed that the refusal of the Ukrainian government – aware of this intended deception – to implement the agreement, just a few days before the start of the war, was one of the triggers for the war.

              “It was … a breach of international law, that is clear. The damage is immense. You have to imagine the situation today. The people who wanted to wage war from the beginning and still want to do so have taken the view that you cannot negotiate with Putin. No matter what, he does not comply with agreements. But now it turns out that we are the ones who do not comply with international agreements…

              “As far as I know, the Russians are keeping to their treaties… I have had many negotiations with Russia … They are tough negotiating partners, but if you come to a common result, then that stands and applies. “

Kujat’s views, despite his top-notch resumé, were either ignored by the mass media or buried with a few ambiguous words.

Die Linke

In Germany, as elsewhere, leftists have been divided, even split, about the Ukraine war, and this includes the LINKE party. Its ”reform” wing,  with about a 60-40 majority at its June congress, joins the official main stream in angrily denouncing Putin, accusing Russia of imperialism and, if at all, only weakly criticizing USA, NATO or European Union policies leading up to the war. Some in the LINKE support weapons sales to Zelensky and use terms like “Putin-lovers” to condemn their opponents. Do they fit into the analogy comparing foreign minister Baerbock’s policy to defensive buffalos against a ravening lion? Or have they joined in a kind of the lemming crowd?

Others in the LINKE would prefer a picture of a large bear defending itself against a pack of attacking wolves – and hitting out hard against whichever wolf  gets closest. Bears can also be very brutal, and many in this party wing avoid expressing any love for it. But they see it, all the same, as being on the defensive – even if it is the first to hit out and draw blood. Or are such analogies too flippant in the face of the terrible events now taking place.

At the moment the split in the LINKE seems briefly on hold; elections are due in Berlin next Sunday and I cannot imagine any genuine leftist who wants right-wing politicians to gain strength. In fact, even local “reformer” leaders who had grown less enthusiastic about the campaign to confiscate huge real estate ownings in Berlin, which won over a million-votes (56.4%) in a referendum in 2021, have now recovered their one-time militancy, making them the only member of the three-party city-state coalition to support this demand, while Greens and the Social Democratic mayor have  discovered new tolerance for the big realtors.

Foreign policy questions are not so visible in a city election, but it seems as if the “reformer” Berlin LINKE leaders are refraining, at least until Sunday, from sharp words against the popular, always highly controversial Sahra Wagenknecht, who sticks by her slogans of “No weapons export” and “Home heating, bread, peace!” With the party now down to a measly 11% in the Berlin polls, a patched-up unity is viewed as a chance, with a militant, fighting posture, to save it from a Humpty-Dumpty fate after all! With a small hope for a good surprise on February 12th, many in the LINKE are holding their breath.

Truth to tell, following the news these days provides anything but pure pleasure.  Recently, however,  I was given a rare chance for a smile.

Innocent Abroad

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, after bowing – or kneeling – to belligerent pressures and trying to rejuvenate  fading laurels for himself and Germany, flew off on his first official trip to Latin America. After brief, uneventful courtesy visits to Chile and Argentina he landed in Brasilia, hoping to wean the Latin giant into the NATO and European cradle – and away from those Russian and Chinese rivals.

The closing press conference with Lula was full of smiles and back-slapping . At first! “We are all happy that Brazil is back on the world stage,” Scholz assured. But then, suddenly, he got the happiness kicked out from under him. No, Brazil would not send over to Ukraine the desired parts of the German-made Gepard air defense tanks and no ammo either, Lula said: “Brazil has no interest in handing over munitions that can be used in the war between Ukraine and Russia. We are a country committed to peace.”

His next words asked almost heretical questions hitherto energetically smothered  by western media:

“I think the reason for the war between Russia and Ukraine also needs to be clearer. Is it because of NATO? Is it because of territorial claims? Is it because of entry into Europe? The world has little information about that,” Lula added.

While he agreed with his German visitor that Russia committed “a classic mistake” by invading Ukraine’s territory, he criticized that neither side showed sufficient willingness to resolve the war via negotiation: “No one wants to back down a millimeter,” he said. That was definitely not what Scholz wanted to hear. And when, almost visibly nervous, he insisted that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was not just a European problem, but “a blatant violation of international law” and that it undermined “the basis for our cooperation in the world and also for peace.” Lula , always smiling, insisted : “Until now, I sincerely haven’t heard very much about how to reach peace in this war.”

Then came Lula’s surprising proposal: a peace-oriented club of nonaligned countries like China, Brazil, India and Indonesia, which had none of them been included in discussions on the war. Such a club would mean down-playing  Germany and all its European allies or underlings – basically the opposite of what Scholz’s whole southern tour had aimed at. It was very hard to “keep smiling”!

It was hardly surprising that the press conference and the whole visit were given little more attention in most German media than, say, a minor earth tremor in Minas Gerais. Until now, the only positive echo I have  heard was from  the co-chair of the LINKE, Martin Schirdewan. But while calls for an end to the fighting  and for non-European mediation from him, from Wagenknecht or even from a retired top general could be minimized or ignored, this may prove not so easy when the voice is that of the president of the world’s fifth largest nation. Will his position on peace – or his proposal – shape world events more than many desire?

Watching Scholz‘ brave attempts to “keep smiling” despite his obvious anger gave me an all too rare chance to smile while watching the news. I admit it, it was largely based on Schadenfreude – that unfriendly joy at someone else’s discomfort. But also – perhaps – because it offered a new little ray of hope? Of new directions – even for lemmings?