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Medea Benjamin puts Russia first in her Nonsensical Book on the Ukraine War
October book drop continues to smolder in confused “anti-war” campist circles like a misfired Scud missile.
She was influential in antiwar activism after the 2003 invasion of Baghdad, but Medea Benjamin has fallen from grace into a maelstrom of disinformation, misinformation and rank propaganda on behalf of the worst actors on the international stage. She is now gallivanting around the country, carrying water for Vladimir Putin and all right-thinking people should be concerned at how she and others like her set the stage for global domination by tyrants of the worst order.
War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict (Authors: Benjamin, Medea, Davies, Nicolas J.S October 2022) is a morass of nonsense.
Medea contends that “the West’s reneging on promises to halt eastward expansion of NATO played a major part in prompting Putin to act. ”
That is debunked. In “The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century” Angela Stent argues that the perceived broken promise by the United States not to expand NATO eastward was a significant factor in Russia’s opposition to NATO enlargement in the region. She notes that some Russian officials have claimed that Baker made a verbal agreement with then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not expand beyond its current borders.
The quid pro quo was supposedly Soviet acquiescence to the reunification of Germany. This was never put in writing, which renders it meaningless. Anyone who ever rented an apartment or bought a car knows that what goes on the contract is what matters. To be engaging in this game of claiming “James Baker said something” is beyond ludicrous.
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Stent suggests that there is little concrete evidence to support the claim that such a promise was made. She argues that any informal understanding between Baker and Gorbachev would not have been legally binding and that subsequent U.S. administrations did not feel constrained by it.
In “The New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West” by Edward Lucas, the author discusses the controversy surrounding the alleged promise made by James Baker to Russia not to expand NATO into Eastern Europe. Lucas notes that while some Russian officials have claimed that such a promise was made, there is little concrete evidence to support the claim.
Lucas argues that the controversy over the supposed promise has been used by Russian leaders to justify their own aggressive actions, including the annexation of Crimea and the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine. He notes that NATO expansion has been driven by a desire to promote stability and democracy in the region, and that it has been seen by many as a necessary step to prevent a resurgence of Russian aggression.
An off-the-cuff remark by James Baker does not rise to the level of an institutional commitment of the US government. Nor does it excuse the brutal, bloody invasion. This is exactly like claiming that “she prompted Jack the Ripper by walking alone in the London fog…”
So did the U.S. involvement in the 2014 Ukraine coup and Ukraine’s failure to implement the Minsk peace agreements.
Her other central thesis is just recycled propaganda.
She excuses military aggressions based on “U.S. involvement in the 2014 Ukraine coup”. The US certainly had diplomats in Kiev at the time, as did Moscow and every other nation; those diplomats had opinions, hopes and preferences. Kremlin ideologists have vastly inflated any influence on of the US State Department on the Revolution of Hope and ignored the yearnings of the Ukrainian people to be free of the shackles of the Moscow State.
The same Moscow state which sponsored the Czar’s Ochrana. The people who brought you Josef Stalin, the Holomodor, polonium assassinations in the UK and the uncanny prevalence of disfavored government operatives falling out of windows.
Finally, she whines about Ukraine’s alleged failure to implement the Minsk peace agreements, but actually it was Russia’s aggression in and around the eastern provinces of Ukraine has made it impossible for Minsk to work.
There are many cogent, timely and insightful books on Ukraine. Ms. Bejamin’s tankie propaganda from the Russian camp is not one of them.
