CPI member Rachel W originally published this piece to her personal blog here, responding to an acquaintance whose views on the Ukraine conflict disappointed her. Article reposted with permission of author.

Dear _____,

I was very interested in your course offered on civilian resistance to war. But then I saw the picture of Ukrainians with flags amidst Russian tanks, supposedly depicting civilian “resistance” to the Russian “invasion”.

I am so disappointed to see this picture. Ukraine’s government gave up hundreds of thousands of men to slaughter for nothing but money. This war did not have to happen. Yet you include a picture of civilians waving blue and yellow flags around Russian tanks, with the implication that western Ukrainian “civilian resistance” was the correct approach.

How many eastern Ukrainians had to be murdered by Kiev before you cared about them? Kiev killed eastern Ukrainians (ethnic Russians) for eight years, yet the West ignored it. Showing this pic within the first minute of your program tells me that the platform has taken the wrong side on the greatest conflict of our time.

Maybe you could have instead used a picture from 2014 of Kiev Nazis murdering eastern Ukrainians alive in the trade union building?

Or maybe the 14,000 dead ethnic Russians who lived in the Donbass who were killed by Kiev for being pro-Russian?  The people of Ukraine voted in a president who wanted to look to BOTH east and west. Then Victoria Nuland came in with cookies and paramilitary fighters to depose the democratically elected Ukrainian president and install a puppet for the USA.

I truly do not understand why so many in the West ignore the eight years of history that led up to this “invasion”. The US almost started a nuclear war when a nuclear weapon was simply headed for stationing in the waters between Cuba and Florida. How do you expect a sovereign nation to respond when you line their borders with nuclear missiles? When Western leaders broke every single promise to Russia?

Imagine if a country lined Mexico and Canada with nuclear missiles pointed at American cities. Imagine they opened up numerous spy bases in Mexico and Canada. If the US invaded Mexico, would that not be defensive? Is it not an act of defense, when a hostile power points missiles at you within kilometers of your people, to attempt to turn those missiles off?

The Soviet Union voluntarily dissolved their country for the West. Gorbachev was (obviously) incredibly naive to believe the US had any intention of keeping its word.

“Not one inch to the east”

“Nyet means nyet”

Yet somehow, after the US-led NATO alliance moved a million billion inches to the east, broke every nuclear treaty, broke the Minsk accords that were meant to protect those eastern Ukrainians from their own Ukrainian government that was murdering them- somehow after all that, Russia is the aggressor?

What about the Kiev government that rejected countless peace treaties to end this war?

What about the fact that the war would end today if Kiev pledged to NOT join NATO?  That is all Russia wants- a neutral border state. One pledge of neutrality by Kiev would have saved 400,000 Ukrainian lives.

Yet somehow, Americans do not know that. Perhaps because no NYT, Wapo, Intercept, Axios, NBC, fill-in-the-blank article ever tells them the truth. They tell the people the American government’s lies about the world. No criticism, no analysis of their own.  Journalists used to be working class, speaking truth to power. Look at any footage of the White House correspondents’ dinner and you see with your own eyes who these journalists are: a royal court. They are the royal court, the mouthpieces of empire. Often referred to as stenographers for the deep state/ruling elite/whatever your preferred term for the entity that actually runs this country.

What short of a memory! Even for people who pride themselves in their grasp of world politics!  That is what disappoints me most. I was once headed to academia. I was once in a PhD program in social psychology at UCSB.  I was in it to learn truths and discover new truths. In order to learn new truths, one has to consider the world from all people’s perspectives. You cannot know truth by only reading one side.

It is astonishing to see academics swallow US government propaganda (NYT, WAPO) as truth, and make no effort to learn the other side’s argument.  How can a truth seeker know truth if they refuse to consult the opponent’s argument, in the opponent’s own words?

No offense, I understand life is precarious for everybody now. I left graduate school with a masters because I was only 23, and could not imagine dedicating my life to one single subject. Funny, I look back and think, had I continued in academia, there was no security there either. Monopoly capitalism (i.e. imperialism) has erased those opportunities.

The Western imperialist war against the world and the propaganda machine is strong. Gaza has definitely exposed it, but only in that one area.

When Americans learn that their cheers for Ukraine got 400,000 young men killed, will they realize they were misled? Will anybody ever acknowledge this war could have been stopped years ago, had Ukraine pledged to remain neutral? Will anybody in the mainstream, or in academia, ever realize that a sincere pledge of Ukrainian neutrality would stop the war immediately?

I do hope this letter encourages you to consult anti-imperialist publications- to step out of the Western mindset and look at this without your biases.

As the contradictions become more and more obvious, more and more people will figure out who the real enemy is.

Sincerely,

Rachel

 

Rachel is a farmer, writer, and new CPI member passionate about bringing the American people together for a brighter future. Her Substack blog is viewable here.