Ukraine and Nuclear War: A Brief Essay on Preventing Armageddon
--
Give Peace a Chance
Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has been largely beaten back. Now is the time to negotiate a settlement. Continued escalation means more death, maiming, trauma, dislocation, and destruction. And the ever-increasing likelihood that hostilities will spiral out of control into a nuclear apocalypse. We will never know if negotiations can succeed unless they are tried.
Yes, it’s great to see an underdog like Ukraine kicking the ass of a bully like Russia. But this is not a Hollywood movie. Many thousands of real people are dying. And the fate of the world is at stake.
Most people are ill-informed about the history and possible solutions to this conflict. They hear only pro-war cheerleading from a corporate media that profits from sensationalism and functions — wittingly or unwittingly — as the propaganda arm of the military/industrial complex.
Even so-called liberal outlets, like CNN and MSNBC, produce a steady stream of pro-war talking heads — ex-generals, think-tank military experts, and ex-government officials, many of them on the payroll of the defense industry.
Where are the voices of dissent, of peace, of sanity? Where are Noam Chomsky, Medea Benjamin, Norm Solomon, Chris Hedges, and Caitlin Johnstone? Oh, that’s right, there’s no money in airing peace-mongers who question the existing power structures. And besides, truth speakers make the corporate media extremely nervous. So they are banned.
Early in the war, negotiations brokered by Turkey between Ukraine and Russia were torpedoed by the U.K. and the U.S. because the U.S. wants to consolidate economic, political, and military power in the region by weakening Russia. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin came right out and said the U.S. wants to see Russia weakened. The same type of militaristic fools that brought us Vietnam and the invasion of Iraq are now playing Russian roulette — with all of our lives!
Joe Biden recently said that the risk of nuclear Armageddon is at the highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. This is in response to Putin’s repeated thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons. “We’ve got a guy I know fairly well,” Biden said, referring to Putin. “He’s…
