Can we really know about the war in Ukraine?
Toyin Falola
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Cornelius Hamelberg
The reports about Russia's special military operation in Ukraine are very one-sided; there’s a dearth of information about what’s going on, from the Russian side, for example, these days Facebook does not allow https://www.rt.com/
It’s like having to depend on all the lies and war propaganda from the devil himself, and only from him, even after he has already told us that “ In war, truth is the first casualty”, which means that we should never expect any truth for him, and when you bear that in mind, you are then in a better position to understand what Jesus meant, when he said, (John 8:44)
“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. “
At the time – on 18th February 2022, when Joe Biden was asked why he was convinced that President Putin was going to invade Ukraine, he replied, “ We have a significant intelligence capability. Thank you very much.” At the same press conference, Biden said, “the Ukrainian forces have shown great judgment and, I might add, restraint. They’ve refused to allow the Russians to bait them into war.” Once again, what Joe Biden was saying was very far the tru
We now know why Biden was so sure that The Bear was going to go on the attack and this kind of information was never trumpeted from the White House, CNN or even Fox News:
"On 17 February, President Joe Biden announced that Russia would attack Ukraine in the next few days. How did he know this? It is a mystery. But since the 16th, the artillery shelling of the population of Donbass had increased dramatically, as the daily reports of the OSCE observers show. Naturally, neither the media, nor the European Union, nor NATO, nor any Western government reacted or intervened. It would be said later that this was Russian disinformation. In fact, it seems that the European Union and some countries have deliberately kept silent about the massacre of the Donbass population, knowing that this would provoke a Russian intervention.
At
the same time, there were reports of sabotage in the Donbass. On 18
January, Donbass fighters intercepted saboteurs, who spoke Polish and
were equipped with Western equipment and who
were seeking to create chemical incidents in Gorlivka.
They could have been CIA
mercenaries,
led or "advised" by Americans and composed of Ukrainian or
European fighters, to carry out sabotage actions in the Donbass
Republics.
In fact, as early as February 16, Joe Biden knew that the Ukrainians had begun intense shelling the civilian population of Donbass, forcing Vladimir Putin to make a difficult choice: to help Donbass militarily and create an international problem, or to stand by and watch the Russian-speaking people of Donbass being crushed.
If
he decided to intervene, Putin could invoke the international
obligation of "Responsibility To Protect" (R2P). But he
knew that whatever its nature or scale, the intervention would
trigger a storm of sanctions. Therefore, whether
Russian intervention were limited to the Donbass or went further to
put pressure on the West over the status of the Ukraine, the
price to pay would be the same.
This is what he explained in his speech on February 21. On that day,
he agreed to the request of the Duma and recognized the independence
of the two Donbass Republics and, at the same time, he signed
friendship and assistance treaties with them.
The
Ukrainian artillery bombardment of the Donbass population continued,
and, on 23 February, the two Republics asked for military assistance
from Russia. On 24 February, Vladimir Putin invoked Article
51 of the United Nations Charter, which
provides for mutual military assistance in the framework of a
defensive alliance.
In
order to make the Russian intervention seem totally illegal in the
eyes of the public, Western
powers deliberately hid the
fact that the war actually started on February 16. The
Ukrainian army was preparing to attack the Donbass as early as
2021, as
some Russian and European intelligence services were well aware.
“
To complement the article ( for balance) this kind of thrust, Biden’s Weakness on the Ukraine-Russia War is a Threat to America promotes the other question, would all this have happened if Trump had been re-elected? Biden has been taking some flak for shooting his mouth about regime change in Russia...
What you refer to as "the full complexity” begins to unravel and to un-complicate when you look at the ethnolinguistic map of Ukraine in the context of this article
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, re- your question, “But, if Putin was moved to act simply bxs of the situations in Donbass and Dontesk, why did he not limit himself to those regions from the beginning? “ -
We don’t know how the military operation is going to end nor should we take any consolation in Thomas Stearns Eliot’s eschatological nightmare that results in The Hollow Men that ends
“This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
Once Russia has established control of the Donbas, Luhansk, Donetsk region Mister Zelensky acting as NATO’s chief lapdog in Ukraine should be hard-pressed to not go for the Nobel Prize for Peace by actively seeking peace and pursuing it by acceding to President Putin’s demands – all of them – which if he had had the good sense to have accepted from early February would have saved humanity so much unnecessary death and destruction. I’m still asking, what the hell is Zelensky fighting for?
By the way, I suppose that you’d be interested in this:
Rose Cross Over the Baltic: The Spread of Rosicrucianism in Northern Europe by Susanna Åkerman
Harrow, Kenneth
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2022 5:33 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Can we really know about the war in Ukraine?
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/BL1PR12MB5191BF1D455346516FD9BCCFDAEA9%40BL1PR12MB5191.namprd12.prod.outlook.com.
Harrow, Kenneth
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2022 1:10 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Toyin Falola
Ken:
In that case, why are we talking about Ukraine every day and not about:
Ethiopia
Central Africa
Algerian-Morocco cold war?
There is a focus area.
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Kenneth
Shalom!
Please! I am not your heartless beast of Ephesus
This poem of Allen Polite was read by an African-American actor Wilson D. Michael at the vernissage of Allen's posthumous art exhibition at the National Gallery, in Stockholm, on the 13th of January, 2001. I was there: it's entitled “US” and it illustrates the spirit of winning...of victory. Allen was my friend, we lived on the same street – I lived at 23, Upplandsgatan ( for 24 years) he lived at 75 Upplandsgatan ( and Eric Bibb lived at 17 Upplandsgatan ) I visited Allen often, went out on some nocturnal prowls with him, sometimes, and I listened to him often. Somehow, he would always introduce me as a “ poet” – he was so generous and would introduce me like that to big me up, a little.
He did his active military service in Korea, moved to Japan and later settled down in Greenwich Village. Studied philosophy at Columbia, worked in an Oriental bookshop and later on worked as a code-breaker at the UN. In his autobiography, Amiri Baraka mentions Allen as one of his mentors,
Here is the poem:
US
U.S./ US
US, we got everything, US
Cars, bars
Shoes, jewels,
Us
houses, louses
and in God we trust
US we gonna make it
or bust
We got banks, tanks,
cranks
Diggers, jiggers
Fright, blight, plight
and
might
We plow boys & cowboys
got chores, boors,
whores
big stores, sharp claws
& tough jaws
But we ain't got the freedom that
we talk about
And we
ain't got the culture
that we like to flout
That's why war is our passion
and we love a bout
Cause
there is nothing like a real knockout. “
Allen Polite
I know all about Gustavus Adolphus, much about The Thirty Years War, the Gates of Vienna, the American War of Independence, the US Civil War, the Second World War, the Holocaust, the Korea War, the Vietnam War, the Arab – Israel Wars.
It’s the Universal Soldier - Zelensky, the commander-in-chief of all the armed Ukrainian divisions that must be addressed, not Cornelius Agrippa. Zelensky should have sued for peace long before the 24th of February this year., but even as Russia prepares to take out all his teeth with pliers, he’s still dreaming of defending “ every inch” of God’s precious earth that he believes belongs to him. It’s easy to see without looking too far ahead, that at the end of the day, Crimea will remain de facto Russian, and the so-called separatist republics in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, will not be military wrested from Russia. So what is Zelensky fighting for?
He says that he’s ready to give his life for his country. I wonder what he thinks of the young men from Ukraine deserting to Moldova.
Over here in Sweden, Nyamko Sabuni resigned as leader of the Liberal party less than 24 hours after making this politically incorrect statement that if Sweden was attacked she would take cover in Norway. If she had said that like Jah Lion / fearless Jah lioness or like Yaa Asantewaa she would lead the Swedish Resistance and the Russians would pay a terrible price, she would have oared in the opinion polls...
In the days of the beatniks and the peaceniks, all those protest marches, poetry readings and sit-ins,
you do remember the main theme of The Temptations which in the name of mama summarised the grammar of being, the meaning of the word’s umbilical cord, the theory of everything?
Back then
wasn’t silent
were many
if you were honest and
had an ear to hear
the plaintive cry was
Does
anybody give a damn
About
the fellas in Vietnam?
Stop
the war, oh, now
Right now, the lyrics are still sung in the present continuous: What’s Going On
For Juicy Lucy & Truthy Ruthy, the most important line in the big bag of mess being stirred by the Che Zelensky cigar that Uncle Sam imported from Habana has to be: Stop The War NOW
As you said somewhere near the beginning of the waltz towards the abyss, you hope that it will not be a long war. Long or short, can you foresee, Zelensky taking over Crimea, Eastern Ukraine and after defeating Russia and maybe taking Moscow too, then joining NATO – which he has a right to do?
Harrow, Kenneth
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2022 8:41 AM
Cornelius Hamelberg
Cornelius Hamelberg
https://www.facebook.com/watch/2064147433830888/717693402738304/
NATO and the Russia-Ukraine WarIn this era of subliminal advertising, fake news, duplicity, holocaust denial and war propaganda, Ken has only graded the political leanings of his esteemed New York Times and Washington Post journalists on his scale of from left to right, but he has not graded their veracity or verifiability. I read the daily briefing of the New York Times, every day, and know that when it comes to reporting about Ukraine the fact is like the rest of the big guns in the American media, they are among Zelensky’s major cheerleaders. They see themselves as patriotic Americans and would not like to be seen as in any way giving succour to Uncle Sam & Mister Zelensky’s enemy.
This matter of veracity in reporting from the war zone is not to be taken for granted. If certain disbelieving elements earning their daily bread writing for such papers don’t take the Bible stories – such as the virgin birth of Jesus, his crucifixion said to be “The Supreme Moment in Human History”- and his resurrection, all presented as Gospel Truth’s at surface value, why should we believe that the New York Times and Washington Post are better than the apostles or the storytellers in the so-called Old Testament? Paul says that “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” The New York Times and others who certainly do not claim to be writing scripture, fall far below that standard. And just see what’s happening to Julius Assange! And where are Iraq’s mass weapons of destruction? Weren’t New York Rimes, Washington Post etc. all blowing hot and cold about them? Should we have believed them then? As for CNN (Clinton National Network), I stopped giving them any attention after the last US Presidential Elections.
What about the conspiracy of silence from the Western Press about the genocide of Russians and Russian -speaking folks in Eastern Ukraine – the last straw that caused Vladimir Putin to come to the rescue of his people, just as he has explained here.
Let’s take the simple matter of the massacres and war crimes that are alleged to have been perpetrated in Bucha.
Here is some of the Russian version:
Putin Comments on Bucha Massacre
Harrow, Kenneth
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/BL1PR12MB51914F912238DDC1F201C88CDAED9%40BL1PR12MB5191.namprd12.prod.outlook.com.
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Professor Kenneth Harrow,
Shalom!
On the positive side: Nice Picture of Putin and Modi hugging and smiling
They say that NATO should fear Russia's TOR Air Defense System, not to mention Russia's Armageddon Weapon.
Therefore, this question for you, a possibility, that I’m sure, you would find unpleasant, maybe, think is an abomination. Perish the thought?
True: Everybody wants to go to Heaven (if there is a Heaven) and nobody wants to die or to go to hell. That’s why we should only feel at ease when peace is concluded, hopefully, as soon as possible, certainly by the 10th of May this year...
Re – Your Parthian shot, “but could you imagine listening to a nazi point of view with an open mind? “
You remember Fela Kuti’s general appeal
“You
Africans, please listen to me as Africans
And
you non-Africans, listen to me with an open mind
“
This only goes to show that we can, may do, and should talk, intelligibly, about an African/ Pan- African perspective – maybe to your consternation (all things considered) for instance there are African Perspectives on Ukraine - beginning with the stance taken by Museveni’s son on the Russia – Ukraine issue
Africa - and here to some extent we have to distinguish North Africa from Africa South of the Sahara when it comes to perspectives on Nazism - since from the time of Nasser and maybe even before the birth of Pan-Arabism, certain elements saw an ally in the Nazis, elements such as Hitler’s Mufti
We know that the Nazi point of view has its own criminal perspectives, which is why Gloria In Excelsis Emeagwali is outraged that Jewish President Zelensky could have the nerve or is it verve, to integrate the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion into Ukraine’s national army:
“As for Zelenskyy, well he is not a
role model for me. The moment he
incorporated the Azov Battalion
of neo - Nazis into the national army
of Ukraine, he lost that honor.
The neo- Nazis and the KKK are
one and the same, in their hatred
of Black people, so I would be ill -
advised to consider him a hero. “( Professor Gloria Emeagwali)
Problem: The Fog Of Information War In Ukraine
Journalism good and bad contributes to shaping public opinion. We know from experience that whether it’s about Saddam’s alleged weapons of mass destruction or it’s the assassination of Qasem Soleimani the mainstream US media and the semi-official outlets such as Foreign Affairs, like to project and/or peddle the official positions of the White House, with the occasional exceptions such as Bob Woodward and the once upon a time Norman Mailer, in his time ( thinking of his war novel The Naked and the Dead -. and of course during Trump’s reign, in the land of the free , far from mainstream there was Alex Jones with his InfoWars, and another Trump mouthpiece, Breitbart
Facebook deems Russia’s semi-official media such as https://www.rt.com/ and https://tass.com/
“may be partially or wholly under the editorial control of the Russian government”
Enough to make one wonder what Edward Snowdon is doing in Russia….
Over here in homeland Sweden, we have a reliable reporter Michael Winiarski
Over here, to join or not to join NATO, that is the question
The tension could influence our next general election slotted for the 11th of September
NATO membership could also be left for a referendum to decide. Non-experts to decide over our collective future. Russia has warned both Finland and Sweden not to join.
I leave it to you to imagine what Baba Kadiri is feeling about this issue…
Why Africa is neutral on Ukraine
Please pray for us...
Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
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