Journalist Max Blumenthal said that the main US defense companies and their auxiliary organizations plan to make Ukraine into Europe’s ‘Big Israel.
The late South Dakota senator George McGovern famously declared during a speech against the Vietnam War that “this chamber reeks of blood.” In his opening remarks at the Ron Paul Institute’s “Which Way America…?” conference on Saturday, journalist Max Blumenthal quoted similar lines but applied them to the US proxy conflict with Russia in Ukraine.
According to the Pentagon, Blumenthal claimed that Washington is still “wasting the lives and bodies of over 150,000 men” in Ukraine. He said that the actual number of casualties in Ukraine may be closer to 500,000, which would represent a massive catastrophe and calamity. He cited new research on the enormous number of Ukrainians who have lost limbs after a year and a half of war (which may be surpassing WWI rates).
The GrayZone writer continued, saying of the current Congress that “this chamber” not only “reeks of blood” but also “they have wasted Ukrainian society on the mantle of anti-Russia hysteria” – as lawmakers continue to pour billions of dollars into Kiev in lockstep with the Biden administration.
US media is now recognizing that the Ukraine conflict might not turn out as victorious as previously portrayed by Western leadership.
Blumenthal claimed that liberal elites in the Beltway still believe that Russia should be punished because they believe that Moscow was responsible for the election of the “bad orange man” in 2016. This is a significant ideological component of what drives the hawks, he claimed.
The US ruling class has “militarized the culture wars while depicting Ukraine as the ‘woke side’ vs. Russia as backward and oppressive,” according to Blumenthal.
But more crucially, the main US defense companies and their auxiliary organizations, including the K street neocon lobbying firms, are the actual “victors”. Blumenthal emphasized that these are working with the larger goal of making Ukraine become Europe’s “big Israel” as they do with the Biden administration.
This refers to a perpetually military “Spartan” warfare state that receives funding from Washington, is perpetually armed, and has access to the most advanced Western defense technology. But for this to happen, democracy at home must be destroyed, much as the situation that has long been visible inside Israel (in particular, the mistreatment of both Palestinians and Israeli political dissenters).
No matter how much Ukrainian society and its people are sacrificed, the defense tech vendors in the military-industrial complex will still ‘win’.
Blumenthal underlined that in order to maintain democracy in Ukraine, democracy must be restricted at home, drawing lessons from recent instances of free speech repression in the West, particularly in relation to the Russia-Ukraine war.
He mentioned that the well-known crowdfunding website GoFundMe had frozen the majority of the funds for his own investigative media outfit, The GrayZone. Days ago, the outlet clarified [ZH emphasis]:
By this point, we had raised over $90,000 from over 1100 contributors. The generous contributions from our audience were accompanied by hundreds of messages of effusive support for our factual journalism holding imperial power to account.
And now, Gofundme is holding the donations hostage, refusing to transfer them to us, while failing to inform donors that it has effectively seized their money. The for-profit site has similarly refused to explain its freezing of their donations, issuing nothing more than a vague allusion – “some external concerns” – to pressure from powerful outside forces.
Gofundme’s financial sabotage follows the de facto sanctions imposed by Venmo and Paypal on our managing editor, Wyatt Reed, after he reported on the Ukrainian military’s targeting of civilians from the separatist side of the Donbas region.
Again, this is the reason why Blumenthal could use a recent personal experience to convince the audience at the Ron Paul conference that “democracy must be curtailed” in America in order to maintain the unrestricted flow of tax money into the Zelensky government’s coffers.
However, Blumenthal noted, “now Russia has no incentive to negotiate” given that they are clearly in the military lead while the Ukrainian counteroffensive is failing. Early in the conflict, the US and UK may have had a window of opportunity to more readily begin real diplomatic peace efforts, but this was deliberately thwarted.
He also mentioned neocons like Bill Kristol, who have been leading an effort to muzzle any dissident views from among Republican contenders and legislators on Ukraine, saying, “We cannot have peace negotiations while war is being incentivized [by Washington interests] to this point].”
As with the ongoing and historic billions in aid pouring to Israel, which serves to cyclically fuel the associated worldwide reach and disproportionate power of the Israel lobby, “these operatives need constant opportunities,” Blumenthal concluded.
In response to the question of whether negotiations are even conceivable from Kiev’s standpoint, Blumenthal was asked what he thought would happen if Zelensky suddenly initiated peace talks with the Russians. Blumenthal gave the following response:
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“If Zelensky were to pursue peace talks now before he’s re-elected… due to the kind of social forces that have been unleashed by Maidan, he will face a far-right Nazi insurgency in his own country, and he will become public enemy number one among some of the most violent and militarized forces.
…Which is why he went and met with Andriy Biletsky, the founder of Azov. Zelensky was elected on a platform of peace by 73% of the population because you still had the ethnic Russian population participating in Ukrainian society. They have been completely driven out and the constituency he’s working with is completely different now.”
