American Committee for US-Russia Accord

Today we mark the tragic anniversary of the 2003 Iraq War with several articles which take a look back and which note the current rejuvenation (if not celebration) of several of the neoconservatives who helped pave the way for Mr. Bush’s disastrous war of choice.

From journalist Norman Solomon:  “War Made Easy,” produced in 2007 by the Media Education Foundation at the height of the Iraq war, takes a blistering look at how U.S. media outlets from Fox News to MSNBC enthusiastically disseminated Bush administration propaganda and helped sell a war that would kill thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, most of them innocent civilians.

Eliot Cohen’s radical failings extend beyond the Iraq War to much of his intellectual record as a military historian and analyst in recent years. They are not open to serious question, since they are amply documented in his own published writings and recorded interviews.

As Kagan has long understood, liberals and neoconservatives in the last half-century have tended to agree on foreign policy more than their intermittent bickering implied. It now looks as if the Iraq imbroglio drove them apart only briefly. Both are now getting back to the militarization of the globe under U.S. auspices that their representatives have defended, petty squabbling aside. If there was a chance to put either or both in their place in our time, it was missed.

Smart U.S. leadership and international pressure on Russia can prevent an unconstrained global nuclear arms race.

To some degree, this is the result of the lack of agreement about a new European security architecture to replace the bipolar architecture that existed during the Cold War…

The Biden administration has committed nearly $13 billion worth of military assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded six months ago.

Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh charges the US military was behind the explosion. Ned Price dismisses claims despite US government statements.

A Maine state senator’s statehouse remarks on Friday about the Ukraine war have made a big noise outside the Pine Tree State, particularly on Twitter. Eric Brakey, a self-described libertarian Republican, took advantage of a vote on a joint resolution, “Expressing Support for the People of Ukraine on the One-Year Anniversary of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine,” to criticize the current Biden policy in Washington as eschewing diplomacy to prolong the war, which he said is ultimately the worst thing to happen for the people of Ukraine, and the world.

James W. Carden speaks with progressive media figure RJ Eskow on the current state of the war and how strategic empathy might point a way towards peace.

The Ukraine War is seen in the moral terms advocated by Tony Blair. Emotion is the order of the day, realpolitik is out of favour, and the political and media consensus is that this is again a fight between good and evil. The danger is of over-simplification. It is not hard to identify an evil, but good is a much less clearcut phenomenon. “War is an imperfect instrument for righting humanitarian distress,” conceded Blair. More than that, it brings unintended consequences, which can amount to evils.

This weekend’s Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles will undoubtedly be occasion for discussion on the merits of the Bellingcat co-produced documentary ‘Navalny.’  Today we feature two reviews, one glowing from the New York Times, one not-so-much, courtesy of award-winning investigative journalist Lucy Komisar.-Ed.

The movie is, as Navalny ordered, a thriller, culminating with a suspenseful recap of Navalny’s post-recovery return to Russia in January 2021, when his plane was diverted from the airport where his supporters had gathered.

The official Ukrainian narrative about the war goes more or less like this: In an effort to end Ukraine’s existence as a state, Russia launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine. Testing the waters, before that, Russia annexed Crimea and invaded Eastern Ukraine. Thus, the sole reason for today’s conflict is Moscow’s military intervention, which is part of a larger effort by Russian President Vladimir Putin to reconstitute the USSR.

The next conflict in the former Soviet Union may be brewing in Transdniestria, the unrecognized breakaway region of Moldova.