Tag: ceasefires

By giving Ukraine cluster bombs, the US is admitting that it’s OK to kill civilians

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

By giving Ukraine cluster bombs, the US is admitting that it’s OK to kill civilians

The estimated dud rate is disputable. According to the Congressional Research Service, “There appear to be significant discrepancies among failure rate estimates. Some manufacturers claim a submunition failure rate of 2% to 5%, whereas mine clearance specialists have frequently reported failure rates of 10% to 30%. A number of factors influence submunition reliability. These include delivery technique, age of the submunition, air temperature, landing in soft or muddy ground, getting caught in trees and vegetation, and submunitions being damaged after dispersal, or landing in such a manner that their impact fuzes fail to initiate.”

The United States has a huge stockpile of cluster munitions — 4.7 million containing hundreds of millions of bomblets — that it is dusting off to deliver to Ukraine after a “difficult decision” by President Joe Biden.

The U.S. last used these munitions in its military excursion in Afghanistan. Trouble was that the little bombs resembled in color and shape the humanitarian aid packets that the U.S. dropped from planes. This confusion, which obviously left many civilians maimed or dead, led to the curtailment of cluster bombs for our next military adventure.

This did not stop Israel from using cluster bombs in its 2006 campaign against Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. According to a March 2022 Congressional Research Service report, Israel used them in the “last 3 days of the 34-day war after a U.N. cease-fire deal had been agreed to — resulting in almost 1 million unexploded cluster bomblets to which the U.N. attributed 14 deaths during the conflict.” Israel’s use of the bombs “supposedly affected 26% of southern Lebanon’s arable land and contaminated about 13 square miles with unexploded submunitions. One report states that there was a failure rate of upward of 70% of Israel’s cluster weapons,” the agency said.

Related:

The Packaging Color for Air-Dropped Humanitarian Rations was Changed from Yellow to Salmon Since Yellow was the Same Color as Air-Dropped Cluster Bombs.

Stop Biden From Sending Cluster Bombs to Ukraine

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
“CODEPINK’s action alert requesting House representatives co-sponsor the amendment to ban the export license for cluster munitions.”

President Biden may have crossed a new red line for the Democratic Party when he announced he would send banned cluster munitions to shore up Ukraine’s slow counter-offensive against Russian troops.

Stop Biden From Sending Cluster Bombs to Ukraine

Related:

Rep. Gaetz Says He Will Co-Sponsor Amendment to Block Cluster Bombs to Ukraine

Gaetz said that the NDAA will be voted on this week in the House. “We have an opportunity with bipartisanship to stand against the war-mongering Bidens,” he said.

Here’s why supplying Ukraine with cluster munitions would be a terrible mistake

Democrats Denounce Biden’s Decision to Send Cluster Munitions to Ukraine

NBC Claims Former US Officials Held Secret Talks With Russians

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Update: Russia‘s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman called the report “disinformation”

Report: Former Senior US Officials Held Secret Talks With Russians

Regarding OSCE, they’ve done that, before, and they don’t seem so neutral.

Related:

Former U.S. officials have held secret Ukraine talks with prominent Russians

“A neutral organization — either the UN or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe — would send in observers to monitor and enforce the cease-fire and pullback,” the former U.S. officials wrote. “Assuming a cease-fire holds, peace talks should follow.”

The West Needs a New Strategy in Ukraine

NBC ‘spreading disinfo’ on Ukraine talks – Moscow

‘Why are we tempting nuclear annihilation?’ — Transcript of Max Blumenthal’s address UN Security Council

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal addressed the UN Security Council on the role of US military aid to Ukraine in escalating the conflict with Russia and the real motives behind Washington’s support for Kiev’s proxy war.

‘Why are we tempting nuclear annihilation?’ Watch Max Blumenthal address UN Security Council

Previously:

All aboard the gravy train: an independent audit of US funding for Ukraine

More Details: Putin Shows African Leaders Draft Treaty on Ukrainian Neutrality from March 2022

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Putin Shows African Leaders Draft Treaty on Ukrainian Neutrality from March 2022

Putin’s claim reflects an article published in Foreign Affairs last year that cited multiple former senior US officials who said Russia and Ukraine tentatively agreed on a peace deal in April 2022. They said the agreement would have involved a Ukrainian promise not to join NATO in exchange for a Russian withdrawal to the pre-invasion lines, and Ukraine would have received security guarantees from several countries.

Russian and Ukrainian officials met face-to-face in Istanbul on March 29, 2022, which was followed up with virtual consultations. After the meeting, Russia’s lead negotiator described the talks as “constructive,” and the Russian Defense Ministry announced it would “drastically” reduce military activity near the northern cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv, which led to a full Russian withdrawal from the north.

Putin said after the Russian withdrawal, Ukraine abandoned the treaty. “After we pulled our troops away from Kiev — as we had promised to do — the Kiev authorities … tossed [their commitments] into the dustbin of history,” he said. “They abandoned everything.”

Ukraine accused Russian troops of intentionally killing civilians in the northern areas it withdrew from, most notably in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. But if Putin’s account is true, Western pressure could have also led to Ukraine scuttling the treaty.

Then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Kyiv on April 9, 2022, a few days after Russia completed its withdrawal from the north. According to a report from Ukrainska Pravda, Johnson urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky not to negotiate with Russia and that even if Ukraine was ready to sign a deal with Putin, Kyiv’s Western backers were not.

The Ukrainska Pravda report said at the time, Russia was ready for a Putin-Zelensky meeting, but two factors stopped it from happening: the discovery of dead Ukrainian civilians* and Johnson’s visit.

Then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet was trying to mediate between Putin and Zelensky in March 2022 and gave a similar account of the West’s position. He said the US and its allies “blocked” his mediation effort and that he thought there was a “legitimate decision by the West to keep striking Putin” and not negotiate.

After peace talks were scuttled in April 2022, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he expected the conflict to end after the Istanbul talks but then realized some countries in NATO wanted to prolong the war to “weaken” Russia. A few days after Cavusoglu’s comments, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin admitted that one of the US’s goals in supporting Ukraine is to see Russia “weakened.”

As the war has dragged on, the Biden administration has come out explicitly against a ceasefire. Secretary of State Antony Blinken outlined the position earlier this month and said the US would continue building up Ukraine’s military rather than push for peace.

Related:

President Putin reveals details of draft treaty on Ukraine’s neutrality

*Bucha, Kramatorsk & Kremenchuk

Bucha was staged to sabotage the peace talks!

Zelensky Slams Trump for Saying He Would End the War in Ukraine

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Zelensky Slams Trump for Saying He Would End the War in Ukraine

Zelensky went on to slam Trump, claiming he was unable to end the war in Ukraine while he was in office. “Why didn’t he do that earlier? He was president when the war was going on here,” he explained. “I think he couldn’t do that. I think there are no people today in the world who could just have a word with Putin and end the war.”

The statement appears to be an admission from Zelensky that the war in Ukraine began before the Russian invasion in 2022. Prior to the Russian invasion, Ukraine was embroiled in an eight-year-long civil war. Washington and NATO justify their support for Kiev by saying the Russian invasion was “unprovoked.”