USA and Canada

US Hypocrisy over Ukraine and ‘Spheres of Influence’

Viewpoint by Katrina vanden Heuvel

NEW YORK (IDN) — The Russian invasion of Ukraine “is in many ways bigger than Russia, it’s bigger than Ukraine,” State Department spokesman Ned Price recently declared. “There are principles that are at stake here … Each and every country has a sovereign right to determine its own foreign policy, has a sovereign right to determine for itself with whom it will choose to associate in terms of its alliances, its partnerships and what orientation it wishes to direct its gaze.”

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 16 April 2022

Photo: Senior Airman Cameron Manson inspects cargo netting on palletized ammunition, weapons and other equipment bound for Ukraine during a Foreign Military Sales mission at Dover Air Force Base, Del., on Jan. 24, 2022. (Roland Balik/U.S. Air Force)

A Staggering Array of US Arms to Ukraine Pales in Comparison with Russia's Nuclear Weapons

By Thalif Deen

NEW YORK (IDN) — As the devastating war in Ukraine continues—with thousands of civilian killings and entire cities reduced to rubble—the United States has accelerated an unprecedented flow of weapons to the besieged nation.

If Ukraine loses the ongoing war, battling one of the world’s major military and nuclear powers, it is certainly not for want of weapons.

: Thalif Deen; THE WORLD; Russia; 15 April 2022

Image: Meeting of the NATO Russia Council, 12 January 2022 | NATO/Flickr

Putin’s Actions in Ukraine are Vile, But Russia was Sorely Provoked by NATO

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished with their permission.

Viewpoint by Ramesh Thakur

CANBERRA, Australia (IDN) — Resorting to what President Barack Obama called the Washington Playbook of militarised response to a foreign policy crisis, Arta Moeini writes, the ruling elites in the West collude with the mainstream media in a Manichean framing that ‘redirects a natural reaction of sympathy felt by all into a moral outrage that insists on certain retaliation’.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 11 April 2022

Image: A demonstrator holds a sign during a peaceful stand for Ukraine rally in Boston. Demonstrator came together in downtown Boston to protest against the increasing tension and violence following President Vladimir Putin's attack days prior. Source: CounterCurrents.org

If The US Wants, It Can Solve the Ukraine Crisis Tomorrow

This article was originally published by CommonDreams.org under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Viewpoint by Robert Freeman

LIVERMORE, CA USA (IDN) — Russia's assault on Ukraine is an unambiguously bad thing. But it didn't happen in a vacuum. In order to solve the problem, we have to first understand the context in which it occurred, and the part that the U.S. played in its happening.

[The U.S.] can attain that end with two simple moves: declare that Ukraine will not be admitted into NATO; and remove its offensive nuclear missiles from Russia's borders.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 10 April 2022

Photo: A woman rummages through a pile of clothes at the Polish border as migrants from Africa, the Middle East and India flee to Poland and other neighbouring countries. Source: NEW FRAME | Wojtek Radwanski

Racial Bias Against Blacks Fleeing Ukraine

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — As the US prepares to welcome tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing war, scores of African and Caribbean refugees are being sent back to unstable and violent homelands where they face rape, torture, arbitrary arrest and other abuses. Racial bias? An African refugee thinks so.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; EU & Europe; 09 April 2022

Photo: Danielle Twum statue raised for Ghanaian woman based in the US for her contribution to stem. Credit: Briefly

Statue For Ghanaian Cancer Scientist Is Erected in U.S.

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — Danielle Twum, a cancer immunologist from Ghana, West Africa, has been honoured in the United States with a life-size statue for her research contributions.

Twum was one of over a hundred women honoured by the Smithsonian during Women’s History Month. The Smithsonian’s “#IfThenSheCan—The Exhibit,” features 120 orange life-size 3D statues of women who have excelled in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 04 April 2022

Image: Senator Joseph McCarthy, namesake of McCarthyism. Credit: United Press Library of Congress

The Red Scare

Viewpoint by Alice Slater

The writer serves on the Boards of World Beyond War, the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. She is also the UN NGO representative for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

NEW YORK (IDN) — In 1954 I attended Queens College during the years before Senator Joseph McCarthy finally met his comeuppance at the Army-McCarthy hearings after terrorizing Americans for years with accusations of disloyal communists, waving lists of blacklisted citizens, threatening their lives, their employment, their ability to function in society because of their political affiliations.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 02 April 2022

Avoiding Nuclear War Over Ukraine

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN) — In the Cold War days, some of us used to say, “Better red than dead”—to rebuff those who believed in “role-the-dice” nuclear deterrence as a way of political life that gave them security. Now those of us who are frightened that Vladimir Putin could start a nuclear war over Ukraine should coin a new phrase. How about: “Better alive than going to the grave with Vladimir Putin”?

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 29 March 2022

Photo credit: The Nation: Hiroshima - It’s time to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons

The MADness of the Resurgent U.S. Cold War With Russia

Viewpoint by Nicolas J.S. Davies*

NEW YORK (IDN) — The war in Ukraine has placed U.S. and NATO policy toward Russia under a spotlight, highlighting how the United States and its allies have expanded NATO right up to Russia’s borders, backed a coup and now a proxy war in Ukraine, imposed waves of economic sanctions, and launched a debilitating trillion-dollar arms race. The explicit goal is to pressure, weaken and ultimately eliminate Russia, or a Russia-China partnership, as a strategic competitor to U.S. imperial power.

: Opinion Editor; THE WORLD; Russia; 29 March 2022

Photo: In Warsaw Joe Biden warned Russia not to move on an "inch" of NATO territory. Credit: NDTV / afp

Biden’s Unhinged Call for Regime Change in Russia

Viewpoint by Norman Solomon

SAN FRANCISCO, USA (IDN) — Ever since Joe Biden ended his speech in Poland on Saturday (March 26) night by making one of the most dangerous statements ever uttered by a U.S. president in the nuclear age, efforts to clean up after him have been profuse.

Administration officials scurried to assert that Biden didn’t mean what he said. Yet no amount of trying to “walk back” his unhinged comment at the end of his speech in front of Warsaw’s Royal Castle can change the fact that Biden had called for regime change in Russia.