What's the Endgame?
The media is docile, which is bad for Ukraine and for the world and for us.
“We have to find some way to break through the propaganda bubble before it’s too late.”
See my previous pieces about the war in Ukraine:
“Is US Policy Killing Ukrainians?” (17 March 2022)
“Where’s the Diplomacy?” (26 March 2022)
“Are We in a Propaganda Bubble?” (31 March 2022)
“What Can WE Affect?” (4 April 2022)
“‘To the Last Ukrainian’?” (11 April 2022)
“Thinking About Atrocities” (17 April 2022)
“Do We Want Peace?” (21 April 2022)
The media is submissive regarding the war in Ukraine—it’s horrifying to witness.
And it’s sad to see a situation where people believe that they’re helping Ukraine when they’re actually harming Ukraine and actually harming the world—I see well-meaning people who are immersed in the propaganda bubble who don’t know how bad what we’re doing is for Ukraine and for the world and for us.
We have to find some way to break through the propaganda bubble before it’s too late.
Dan Froomkin
Dan Froomkin has a must-read piece on the war in Ukraine:
“The American media is failing us on Ukraine” (28 April 2022)
Froomkin’s 28 April 2022 piece examines the media’s failures—I took the following notes:
we’re seeing “U.S. leaders speak more openly about their geopolitical goals”
we’re seeing “Russian leaders warn of the risk of nuclear war”
“there are essential questions that journalists should be raising in their coverage of the war in Ukraine that they are not”
journalists should ask the following: “Is escalating what has clearly emerged as a proxy war between the United States and Russia hastening or prolonging the carnage in Ukraine?”
journalists should also ask the following: “What’s the best way to minimize the risk of a nuclear conflict?”
journalists should “talk and write about at what point the goal of punishing Russia could diverge from the goal of bringing peace to the Ukrainian people as expediently as possible—and what the West should do if and when that happens”
journalists should ask this question: “If there’s a way for Vladimir Putin to save face and end the war more quickly, would that be palatable to U.S. officials who are now committed to a weakened Russia, if not to regime change?”
journalists should ask in an open manner “about how to make sure this conflict doesn’t go nuclear”
“There is, of course, plenty of precedent for the media failing to ask the right questions at a time of war. The reflexive commitment to the more-weapons view at our major news outlets is, unfortunately, reminiscent of their gullibility and culpability in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.”
“There’s no excuse for journalists to relinquish their skepticism—not to mention howl for war.”
“U.S. government officials have made a persuasive case that weapons and sanctions are punishing Russia. But they haven’t been sufficiently pressed to explain why they think this is the fastest path to peace.”
“In fact, it’s becoming clearer that they have other things on their mind.”
“The one thing we know for sure is that, eventually, there has to be some kind of peace treaty. But the mainstream media has paid little attention to the on-again off-again peace talks—or to what an eventual peace deal could look like.”
“Anatol Lieven wrote for Responsible Statecraft that if ‘what is meant by victory is Ukrainian reconquest—with Western help—of all the areas lost to Russia and Russian-backed separatists since 2014, then this is a recipe for perpetual war, and monstrous losses and suffering for Ukrainians.’”
“And, he noted: ‘A U.S. strategy of using the war in Ukraine to weaken Russia is also of course completely incompatible with the search for a ceasefire and even a provisional peace settlement.’”
“Reporters should be demanding of U.S. officials how they see the war ending. Do they anticipate the Russians being driven out of Ukraine entirely? Partly? What end game best serves Ukraine, and spares the most Ukrainian lives?”
I agree with Froomkin—I think that it would be wonderful if journalists would start to ask the following questions:
Does it hasten or prolong the carnage in Ukraine if we escalate what has clearly emerged as a proxy war between the US and Russia?
What’s the best way to minimize the risk of a nuclear conflict?
At what point might the goal of punishing Russia diverge from the goal of bringing peace to the Ukrainian people?
What should the West do if and when the goal of punishing Russia diverges from the goal of bringing peace to the Ukrainian people?
Are US officials who are committed to a weakened Russia—or who are committed to regime change—OK with allowing Putin to save face and end the war more quickly?
How can we make sure that this conflict doesn’t go nuclear?
What endgame do you see for this war?
Regarding this war’s endgame, to what extent—partly? entirely?—will the Russians be driven out of Ukraine?
Which endgame best serves Ukraine?
Which endgame spares the most Ukrainian lives?
But we don’t get these questions and we instead get ridiculous hawkish questions—my left-wing friend put it nicely:
When the state beats war drums, the media patriotically leap to their task and funnel uncritically whatever they’re being fed. Happens routinely.
The media is normally highly constrained on foreign policy, so it’s terrifying to witness the wartime media’s additional constraints.
Does Refusing to Learn About Ourselves Help Ukraine?
Noam Chomsky has an excellent new interview:
Chomsky says the following in the interview:
it is de rigueur to refer to Putin’s criminal aggression in Ukraine as his “unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.” A Google search for this phrase finds “About 2,430,000 results” (in 0.42 seconds).
Out of curiosity, we might search for “unprovoked invasion of Iraq.” The search yields “About 11,700 results” (in 0.35 seconds)—apparently from antiwar sources, a brief search suggests.
The example is interesting not only in itself, but because of its sharp reversal of the facts. The Iraq War was totally unprovoked: Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had to struggle hard, even to resort to torture, to try to find some particle of evidence to tie Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda. The famous disappearing weapons of mass destruction wouldn’t have been a provocation for aggression even if there had been some reason to believe that they existed.
In contrast, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was most definitely provoked—though in today’s climate, it is necessary to add the truism that provocation provides no justification for the invasion.
A host of high-level U.S. diplomats and policy analysts have been warning Washington for 30 years that it was reckless and needlessly provocative to ignore Russia’s security concerns, particularly its red lines: No NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, in Russia’s geostrategic heartland.
In full understanding of what it was doing, since 2014, NATO (meaning basically the U.S.), has “provided significant support [to Ukraine] with equipment, with training, 10s of 1000s of Ukrainian soldiers have been trained, and then when we saw the intelligence indicating a highly likely invasion Allies stepped up last autumn and this winter,” before the invasion, according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
The U.S. commitment to integrate Ukraine within the NATO command was also stepped up in fall 2021 with the official policy statements we have already discussed—kept from the bewildered herd by the “free press,” but surely read carefully by Russian intelligence. Russian intelligence did not have to be informed that “prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States made no effort to address one of Vladimir Putin’s most often stated top security concerns—the possibility of Ukraine’s membership into NATO,” as the State Department conceded, with little notice here.
Without going into any further details, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was clearly provoked while the U.S. invasion of Iraq was clearly unprovoked. That is exactly the opposite of standard commentary and reporting. But it is also exactly the norm of wartime propaganda, not just in the U.S., though it is more instructive to observe the process in free societies.
Many feel that it is wrong to bring up such matters, even a form of pro-Putin propaganda: we should, rather, focus laser-like on Russia’s ongoing crimes. Contrary to their beliefs, that stand does not help Ukrainians. It harms them. If we are barred, by dictate, from learning about ourselves, we will not be able to develop policies that will benefit others, Ukrainians among them. That seems elementary.
Let me emphasize Chomsky’s following interesting comment:
Many feel that it is wrong to bring up such matters, even a form of pro-Putin propaganda: we should, rather, focus laser-like on Russia’s ongoing crimes. Contrary to their beliefs, that stand does not help Ukrainians. It harms them. If we are barred, by dictate, from learning about ourselves, we will not be able to develop policies that will benefit others, Ukrainians among them. That seems elementary.
So Chomsky is saying the following in that interesting comment:
(1) our actions matter—our actions have effects
(2) our actions have had awful effects including regarding Ukraine
(3) there’s every reason to expect further awful effects—including regarding Ukraine—if we refuse to learn about what we do and if we refuse to learn about why we do what we do
And it’s unfortunate that many “feel that it is wrong to bring up such matters, even a form of pro-Putin propaganda”—you can understand the desire to “focus laser-like on Russia’s ongoing crimes”, but a West that’s blind and ignorant and indoctrinated isn’t good for Ukraine or for the world or for us.