Imperial
Business-As-Usual… Biden-Zelenksy Meeting Shows U.S. Learned
Nothing From Afghanistan
Editorial
September 07, 2021 -- "Information
Clearing House
- "
SCF"
American militarism,
war-making and imperial “nation-building” will continue. Because
that is endemic to U.S. capitalism and its hegemonic addiction.
There was a
staggering display of double-think this week from U.S. President
Joe Biden. In reverse order, Biden hosted Ukrainian President
Vladimir Zelensky at the White House on Wednesday and
announced that the United
States was to provide an additional $60 million in military
support to the Kiev regime “in the face of Russian aggression”.
The day before,
however, Biden
delivered a solemn address to
the nation in which he declared “the era of wars for
nation-building was over”. The U.S. president was marking the
final end to the 20-year war in Afghanistan when the last
American military plane took off from Kabul at midnight on
Monday. The departure capped the shambolic and shameful defeat
of the United States by the Taliban insurgents who have returned
to power almost two decades after they were ousted by a U.S.
military invasion of the Central Asian country in October 2001.
The longest war was for nothing.
In his nationwide
address, Biden reiterated his belief that he took the right
decision to wind down the trillion-dollar military occupation.
He said the United States must learn from its mistakes in
Afghanistan and not become involved again in wars for
“nation-building”. He added that the U.S. withdrawal was not
just about Afghanistan. This was a strategic watershed in
Washington’s foreign policy whereby there must be an end to
“major military operations to remake other countries”.
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If Biden’s address
appeared to signal a major curb in U.S. imperialism, that notion
was quickly disabused within only a few hours when he
subsequently hosted the Ukrainian president.
The Biden
administration notified Congress it was boosting military
support to the Kiev regime because of the increasing “threat
from Russia”. The additional supply of $60 million worth of
equipment includes Javelin anti-tank missiles “to defend Ukraine
against a Russian incursion”.
“Ukraine’s significant
capability gaps must be urgently addressed to reinforce
deterrence in light of the current Russian threat,” claimed the
Biden administration in its notification to Congress which duly
rubber-stamped the additional inventory of lethal military
firepower.
This
brings the total U.S. military
supply to Ukraine this year alone to $400 million. Since the
Washington-backed coup d’état in Kiev against an elected
government in 2014, the U.S. has supplied Ukraine with over $2
billion in military support. That has fueled a seven-year war
against the ethnic Russian population in Eastern Ukraine who do
not recognize the 2014 coup as legitimate. It is the NATO-backed
Ukrainian forces under Kiev’s command that continually
violate a nominal ceasefire by
attacking civilian centers in the Donetsk and Luhansk
self-declared autonomous regions. Yet Washington and its puppet
regime in Kiev accuse Russia of aggression.
The alleged
“annexation” of Crimea by Russia is another red-herring that
Washington keeps flogging despite a legal referendum in 2014
held by the ethnic Russian people of Crimea to secede from
Ukraine and to join the Russian Federation. They also repudiated
the U.S.-backed coup in 2014 in Kiev which brought Neo-Nazis to
power. Historically, Crimea has centuries of shared history and
culture with Russia. The U.S.-installed regime in Kiev has
sinister antecedents as collaborators with the Nazi Third Reich
in assisting the genocide during the Second World War against
Slavic peoples. How about that for historical denouement on the
real nature of Washington’s power and what it associates with
despite all the pious, self-preening platitudes of democratic
virtue?
Moscow this week
condemned the increase in U.S. military hardware being sent to
Ukraine. Together with provocative rhetoric from Biden about
“defending Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression” the
development is deeply destabilizing for the country which shares
a border with Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov
said the new military aid
“could potentially cause unpredictable actions by the Ukrainian
side in terms of attempting to resolve the Ukrainian conflict by
force,” adding, “this is very dangerous.”
Meanwhile, Denis
Pushilin, president of the self-declared Donetsk People’s
Republic,
commented that the meeting
between Biden and Zelensky showed “not a single hint of peace
settlement”.
Indeed, Biden’s meeting
at the White House was a recapitulation of false accusations
against Russia over Ukraine and a brazen distortion of who the
aggressor party is. There was no mention by the U.S. president
of the Kiev regime’s obligations to implement the Minsk Peace
Accord which was mediated by France, Germany and Russia in 2015.
Still, it was reported
that Zelensky was not entirely satisfied by the additional
disbursement of American military aid. He wants much more from
Washington as well as immediate acceptance into the NATO
military alliance, a move that Moscow has repeatedly warned
against as being a threat too far to its national security.
Other U.S.
analysts were also advocating the Biden administration to ramp
up supplies of “big-ticket” weapons to the Kiev regime.
Alexander Vershbow, a former ambassador to Russia who is now
with the Atlantic Council think-tank in Washington DC,
urged the White House to deploy
anti-aircraft missile systems in Ukraine. Such people – who are
quoted in U.S. media as supposedly intelligent commentators –
are in reality nothing more than war-mongering lunatics of Dr
Strangelove ilk who drool and fantasize about “l-l-l… luvving”
bombs.
The year-on-year
funneling of military power into Ukraine by Washington is
exacerbating the conflict in that country and stoking explosive
tensions with Russia. If the Kiev regime escalates its
aggression towards the eastern Donbas region, thereby further
endangering ethnic Russian civilian populations, then Moscow’s
hand may be forced to defend its national security interests.
Washington’s ignorant, or cynical, support for the Kiev regime
and its intensely hostile Russophobia, has created powder-keg
conditions.
What’s more, Washington
maintains that its military backing for Ukraine is conditioned
on improvements in the Kiev regime’s record on human rights,
anti-corruption measures, reforms to its judicial system and
adopting U.S.-approved economic policies. In short, that sounds
a lot like nation-building by Washington decree.
That shows the United
States’ rulers have learned absolutely nothing from their
unmitigated disaster in Afghanistan. American militarism,
war-making and imperial “nation-building” will continue. Because
that is endemic to U.S. capitalism and its hegemonic addiction.
Thus, Biden’s words of
solemnity about ending wars are just a sop to a nation that is
chronically sick of destructive U.S. imperialistic violence. In
the rawness of Afghanistan and the festering wounds of that
catastrophe, Biden is obliged to console a war-weary nation. But
his words are empty.
As his next meeting on
Ukraine would quickly demonstrate, it’s imperial
business-as-usual.
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