For Humanity’s Sake, Ukraine War Must End – Wilkerson

Paul Jay

Hi, I’m Paul Jay. Welcome to theAnalysis.news. In a few seconds, I’ll be back with Larry Wilkerson to talk about the current and very dangerous situation in the Russian-Ukrainian war. Please join me. Please also don’t forget this is only possible because of donations from people like you. The donate button is– best to just come over to the website, theAnalysis.news or .com works too. Hit the donate button and also get on our email list. It’s critical that we have a direct way of communicating with you because if you are mostly a YouTube viewer, you may never know whether you’re going to get messages or communication from us, given the way YouTube has treated us. I’ll be back in just a few seconds.

 Hu Xijin is the former editor-in-chief of Global Times. Global Times is an online paper that’s essentially an English publication that’s an extension of People’s Daily, which essentially is the publication of the Chinese Communist Party. This is an important role, meaning a fairly senior role in the Chinese Communist Party, at the very least, a direct line to the CCP propaganda leadership.

Here’s what he wrote in a recent opinion piece in Global Times. To some extent, it must reflect the thinking of the party leadership, or at the very least, an important opinion within the party leadership. It’s not necessarily monolithic. Here’s an excerpt from that article:

Excerpt

“Shortly after the breakout of the Ukraine war, some Western analysts cautioned not to push Putin and Russia into a dead end….”

Paul Jay

In brackets, this is me talking, and I would include Larry Wilkerson in those pundits. He’ll be joining us soon. Here I go back to the article:

Excerpt

“…push Putin and Russia into a dead end because Russia is a nuclear power. This view may be unpopular in Western politics, but it does reflect a kind of rationality. Just imagine, when Putin and Russian soldiers believe that losing the war may lead to a collapse of the government…”

Paul Jay

That means the Russian government.

Excerpt

“…and a purge on them…”

Paul Jay

That means, this is me adding, that means Putin and the people around him in which their lives cannot be guaranteed. In other words, this is me again– the possibility of a violent coup in Moscow. I’ll continue:

Excerpt

“…when the Russian people believe that defeat in the war would mean that their country would disintegrate again and there will be a series of fighting surrounding the new regime, they will take the Ukraine war as a new “Great Patriotic War” to fight it to the end.”

Paul Jay

He goes on a little further down:

Excerpt

“The Ukrainian armed forces equipped by the West have become stronger, but their counteroffensive doesn’t mean they can reshape the outcome of the war. When the war turns to a life-and-death struggle, if the West wants to win the final victory, it needs to transcend the confidence and strength that nuclear weapons have given to Russia.”

Paul Jay

Let me read that again.

Excerpt

“…If the West wants to win the final victory…”

Paul Jay

Which I assume means the downfall of Putin. Back to reading what he wrote:

Excerpt

“…it needs to transcend the confidence and strength that nuclear weapons have given to Russia.”

Paul Jay

This is me again, meaning don’t fear this use of tactical nuclear weapons and continue to push this until Putin falls. Back to the article:

Excerpt

“Undoubtedly, in terms of morality and the actual interests of mankind, the Russia-Ukraine conflict should not be escalated into a nuclear war at any point. That would open a Pandora’s Box, and would inevitably lead to a series of unimaginable consequences. 

“An emergency brake needs to be put on the situation in Ukraine at a time when the scale of the war is still manageable. There needs to be a ceasefire and negotiations rather than an ever-increasing showdown between Russia and NATO. Please don’t forget that there will be no absolute winner or loser in a military conflict between nuclear powers. Whoever tries to completely overwhelm the other side must be crazy.”

Paul Jay

I don’t know if this is President Xi [Jinping] speaking or an opinion within the party, but it certainly is a message to President Biden and others; be careful what you wish for. This comes at a time when President Putin has called up 300,000 reserves, called for a referendum that would lead to Russia annexing Donbass, and again hinted at the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons if the situation threatens Russian sovereignty.

Now joining us is Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to the Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Thanks for joining us again, Larry.

Larry Wilkerson

Good to be with you, Paul.

Paul Jay

So, Larry, what do you make of that opinion piece from Global Times?

Larry Wilkerson

I think it’s an aspect, as you pointed out, of the [inaudible 00:05:44] bureau’s propaganda. Sometimes propaganda needs to be listened to. In this case, I think that’s the case. It needs to be listened to because it happens to be accurate, I think, as far as it goes. Let me just add that the challenge right now is that Zelenskyy, Biden, and other NATO leaders– and let me tell you right now that these NATO leaders do not represent their people. They do not. They’re a group of leaders who we have put in place over the last 20 years, who do our bidding more or less, including Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO.

These are people who don’t necessarily reflect the majority opinion in France, German, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, or any place else, really. Check out Slovakia’s leaders’ [inaudible 00:06:36], who has been speaking the truth about the things that are going on that they don’t like. For example, the extension of this war. People understand that this war is being extended because the West is making money. Who’s making money? Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Grumman, you name it. These people are making money. They’re influencing the White House to keep the war going. They’re influencing Congress, which is influencing the White House to keep the war going.

Then you’ve got people like [Lindsey] Graham from South Carolina, my state, who really hate Russia and want to do something to Russia. There are other people in Congress like that, too. They’re dumb. They truly are dumb. This is a serious war in the heart of Europe that needs to have stopped yesterday. The pope’s right. Making money off of it is not a reason to keep it going.

On the other hand, bringing Putin down, to which some of these neoconservatives, in particular, objected, like John Bolton, is not viable either. For the very reasons that the Global Times piece you quoted points out, plus more, you do not want this war to lead to the collapse of Russia. That’s what we’re looking at. That’s what some people want in addition to moneymaking. You put that together, and Pope Francis is absolutely correct to excoriate the West, NATO, Washington, London, Berlin, and the whole group of us because it should stop. The only way you get it to stop is if you have a lose-lose situation, if you will. If you want to put a positive turn on it, call it a win-win. That is to say, we give up some stuff and eat a little crow, Putin gives up some stuff and eats a little crow, and we meet in the middle, and we stop this dang conflict.

It’s nonsense that Putin covets Lithuania, Estonia, or whatever. He is doing what anyone would do, I think, realistically and strategically, given what we’ve done with NATO and what Ukraine presented to him as a potential threat. I’m not excusing him. I don’t like him at all. He’s an autocrat. He’s a dictator. He gets worse every day. Let’s face it, you sometimes have to deal with these kinds of people in order to stop something that’s going to be a lot worse than Putin being a dictator. That’s a nuclear war.

We need to negotiate. We need to sit down. We need to talk. We need to end this conflict. We’re not going to do it because of all these influences in all the Western capitals that seem to think we should keep it going. Let me repeat, they do not represent their people. When winter comes, we will find that out big time.

Paul Jay

When I talk to Ukrainians, including Ukrainians that actually supported the idea of neutrality before the invasion and who was against Ukraine– thought Ukraine should declare they won’t join NATO, who are very critical of the Ukrainian oligarchy and have been organizing in Ukraine against the Ukrainian oligarchy prior to the invasion. Those of them, and I have no idea how broad this represents the Ukrainian Left, do not want an end in a way that ends with Russia controlling Donbass and perhaps even some other sections of Ukraine, Eastern Ukraine. They say too many Ukrainians have died fighting this criminal and brutal invasion. I think it is a criminal and brutal invasion and I don’t in any way disagree with everything you said up until this point. I agree with everything you said. Some of my Ukrainian people– not mine– people, I was going to say my friends, but they’re not my friends. I just know them because I interview them. I think very much underestimate the role of NATO and the Americans in helping provoke and instigate this.

I also agree with Boris Kagarlitsky and other Russians I’ve talked to that this really was Putin’s agenda, Putin’s decision, Putin’s miscalculation, and there was no need for this invasion whatsoever.

Anyway, all that being said, when we’re talking about how to resolve this and negotiate this, you can’t leave the Ukrainians out of this. So far, I’m not sure the Ukrainians want to negotiate this in a way that leaves Russia in control of a significant part of Ukraine.

Larry Wilkerson

I’m not willing to sacrifice the world for Ukraine. I’m not willing to sacrifice the world for those people you just talked about. Now, I understand when you’ve been attacked, when your family has been threatened, when your cities have been bombed, when your streets are full of enemy tanks, when artillery rounds are falling on you, when rockets are hitting you, you are going to change your mind. You’re not going to be a peacenik, as it were. Not the normal person anyway. I understand their feelings, but I’m not going to sacrifice Europe and certainly not the world for them. It’s that simple. Let’s get to the table, and let’s talk. I don’t give a hang if you don’t want to give up some of your country; turn around and look at Poland. Poland has been marched over by armies for God knows how many centuries. They’ve lost this and lost that. Everybody in that part of Europe has been marched over. Father Árpád of the Hungarians, they have a joke in Budapest. He should have kept going to the English Channel and not stopped where he did because Hungary is in such an untenable geographic position.

Well, they’re all in untenable geographic positions. I’m sorry you live there, and the rest of the world does not need to sacrifice its existence because of you. Get to the negotiating table, start talking, and get some kind of deal. Get the best deal you can, but you are not going to get Crimea back. I’ll bet you on that. You might get the eastern oblast back. You might be able to achieve some sort of integrity as Ukraine looks like without Crimea. Other than that, you’re probably going to have to sacrifice a little bit. Realize that Putin’s going to be sacrificing in terms of his wishes, something too. Not least of which is he started this brutal war, got all these Russians killed, and doesn’t have a whole lot to show for it.

Paul Jay

Well, that’s actually what I said to my quote-unquote Ukrainian friends. I said the same thing. I said, “Are you fighting and dying? Even if you win, the way things are, you’re going to hand Ukraine back to the Ukrainian oligarchs. Thousands and thousands of people are going to die to defend that kind of sovereignty.” It makes no sense to me. Make your deal. If the people in Donbass don’t want to be part of Russia, even if the referendum that’s coming is a crock and the pro-Russian forces win, well, then the people of Donbass can organize against Russia and wage their own kind of fight. Tens of thousands more people don’t have to die, and we don’t have to risk global world annihilation. I think what you just said and also the quote from the Global Times guy, I think this is very possible. I thought one of the most important things he said, imagine if Putin does think his government regime, I think, he used the word regime, is going to fall, then his life could be at risk. Anything’s possible. Why on earth would anyone want to corner him that way?

Larry Wilkerson

Absolutely. Let’s look at the military situation again, too. I keep pointing this out to my general officer friends who are part of the mega media propaganda machine in the West, most of them getting paid too from that media to do that. Someone said to me today, “Look what the Ukrainians have done. Look!” While they walked over several miles of empty territory. “Look what they’ve done. The Russians are now on the defensive. They’re on the defensive. Completely on the defensive.” I said, “Yes, and he’s calling up 300,000 more.” You know what Russia did to Germany on the defensive. You know what Russia did to Napoleon on the defensive. This is Russia’s strength. If he thinks he’s going to cross that border and actually bring harm to Russia, he is going to be engulfed and beaten to a pulp. So, where are we going from here? It’s nonsense.

Paul Jay

Yeah. I read accounts of what’s going on on the ground. The Ukrainians are doing really well. The Ukrainians aren’t doing as well as Western media says they are. I have no idea what the hell’s going on on the ground. In some ways, in terms of what we just talked about, it doesn’t matter. This is not going to end in a complete Russian defeat in Donbass. If it does, then we’re probably into a more dangerous situation, and it’s actually worse. Make the damn deal. Which means, in terms of U.S. policy, what? So Biden says, okay, I’m listening to this interview with you and that crazy person Paul Jay, and I can’t tell anyone I’m talking to Wilkerson because they’ll think I’m out of my mind. Larry, what the hell are you saying I should do here?

Larry Wilkerson

Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken, I’m going to give you a directive. You are to go meet with Sergey Lavrov. Whatever you have to do to convince him that you are sincere, do it. Whatever you have to do to convince him that you speak directly from me, do it. Whatever you have to do to convince him to meet in Geneva or in Timbuktu, do it. Let’s do it within 48 to 96 hours. Let’s have our negotiating team sit down with his negotiating team. The Ukrainians can be observers if they want to. Other members of NATO can be observers if they want to. We’re going to have a direct talk. We’re going to end this conflict. Now–

Paul Jay

How can you do it without the Ukrainians there as full participants?

Larry Wilkerson

Easy. They aren’t going to be anything without you. If they haven’t figured that out by now, they aren’t going to wage one more second of effective warfare without us. They simply honor. You’ve got real leverage, just like we’ve had leverage over the Israelis for years and years and never used it. Here, we need to loot to use the leverage that we have. If anybody objects in a serious way, we need to threaten to leave. We need to really bring some exquisite, as I call it, diplomacy to these talks. Not only the talks that result with the Russians, but the talks with all the people we have led into this mess.

Paul Jay

Well, I agree with you on most of this, but I wouldn’t agree with that. I think the Ukrainians have to be at the table. I can’t imagine how they wouldn’t be if the Americans were serious about saying you come to the table and make a deal that’s within reason, or the arms–

Larry Wilkerson

They would eventually be there, of course. You’re not going to sit down with Sergey now. You’re not going to sit down with him and some Ukrainian. I don’t care who it is; Zelenskyy can sit there. You need to talk, Tony, with Sergey. Sergey needs to talk to you. You need to come away from this one-on-one, one hour, two hours, three hours; Russians like to talk, so probably four or five hours– conversation with both of you, at least trusting that what you have said is achievable. Then you bring the other people in to complicate the discussion. 

Paul Jay

What do you think that looks like then? What do they come away with? Where is there a possible agreement? What does it look like?

Larry Wilkerson

I think it’s Ukrainian territorial integrity, with the exception of the question, perhaps, of a portion that is most Russian of the eastern region, that then would be under some sort of independently monitored– the OSCE, the United States, I mean, whoever might do it, that would do it best and be accepted by all parties– a referendum. The referendum is about what they want to do and what they want to be. You get in the negotiated deal that both sides, all sides, will accept the results of that referendum. Especially if the United States, the OSCE, or whoever attests to its fairness and its validity. That’s how you settle that particular region. Everything else is a done deal.

Paul Jay

Just quickly. The OSCE, I believe, has about 50 or 60 countries that have representatives. This is quite a multilateral thing essentially of the United Nations. In theory, it is not controlled by either the Americans, Russians, or anybody else.

Larry Wilkerson

As a matter of fact, they have a reputation for pissing us off. When you do this, you have to have in mind the aftermath and what you’re trying to achieve. By aftermath, I mean Russia has to be as it is geographically. Rand McNally’s maps show it as part of Europe. They are a part of Europe, certainly from the Euros end. Now, I think they’re a part of Europe and have aspired to be a part of Europe for centuries from Moscow all the way and even further than that. Now you could say, well, Vladivostok is not a part of Europe. Okay, I’ll buy that. They are multi parts. The part is more Asian than it is European and vice versa. That part of Russia which is always long and yearned from the Tsar’s time on to be a part of Europe. I mean, they spoke French at Catherine’s Court. That needs to be recognized, and they need to be brought into Europe.

Paul Jay

They used to intermarry with Europe aristocracy all the time.

Larry Wilkerson

Yes, and it needs to be a successful attempt this time. We tried in the early ’90s. I was listening to [Bill] Clinton interviewed by [inaudible 00:21:41]. Not [inaudible 00:21:42]. He was interviewed by Fareed [Zakaria] the other day. I’m listening to this guy talking about what he did. He’s very articulate. He was into it. He was very studied and analytical, which is not like Bill Clinton, but he was. What he said was very persuasive. What he said was an angle that was wrong because he was defending his expansion of NATO, and he was giving excuses that made the Russians guilty. He was saying things like we offered them NATO membership. We offered them all manner of participation in the alliance. We offered them all manner of economic participation and such, a member of the E.U. Bullshit, Mr. President! You might have whispered in somebody’s ear that you were going to do that, but you’ve never whispered in a Russian ear. Any Russian will tell you that. If [Boris] Yeltsin was the one he was whispering into the ear of, that’s like whispering at a goose. Yeltsin was drunk 90% of the time. It’s one of the reasons that so much happened on his watch that was negative for Russia.

You need to get out of this attitude that Russia needs to be an internal enemy of Europe. It is a part of Europe. How can you have a stable, economically successful– look at the E.U. now. The E.U. is 740-750 billion people with a GDP the equivalent to ours. They can’t get their political act together. That’s part of why we’re doing this, too. We don’t want that GDP that’s the equivalent of ours to be competitive with us. We want to be hegemonic with respect to it. We don’t want this to happen. That’s why we’ve seen all this mess in part over the last few years. That’s why H.W. Bush, Colin Powell, and Jim Baker started out with this attitude. Then it got morphed into, “oh, no. We can’t make peace with Russia.” What if we make peace with Russia, and they really do become a part of Europe? We add another 150 million people to that 740 million. We add Russia’s gas and oil to that trillion dollars already– what, 18-19 trillion dollar GDP?

Paul Jay

Well, also nuclear weapons.

Larry Wilkerson

Yeah, and nuclear weapons, too. This is not what Washington wants in terms of the people who think about these sorts of things in these ways.

Paul Jay

Which are only a few who think.

Larry Wilkerson

We have no empathy, Paul. We cannot empathize with Tehran. We cannot empathize with Havana. We cannot empathize with Moscow. We don’t know how to empathize. We cannot put ourselves in other people’s shoes and say, “Okay, now I’m sitting here. How do I feel about this? How do I feel about a president going to Tbilisi and announcing to all in sundry in public that Georgia will be a member of NATO?”

Paul Jay

Well, let me just add to that a nuance, which is this. First of all, the American state is a rogue state. International law means absolutely nothing unless it serves the particular context to start worrying about international law. Bush and Cheney should have been– you and I have talked about this because you were there then. They should have been charged with war crimes. Obama actually, by not charging them with war crimes, actually committed one. My understanding is Obama had a responsibility under international law to prosecute Bush and Cheney.

All that being said, it doesn’t mean that this Russian state isn’t also another rogue state, to a large extent, because of the way Russia’s been treated. Hitler rose, to some extent, large extent, because of the Versailles Treaty and the way Germany was humiliated. Even if it’s true that not only is the U.S. essentially a rogue state and Russia is a rogue state now, we have to live with that, and we have to demand that these two states had better not blow up the world.

Larry Wilkerson

I agree. That’s the reason I say find a neutral city and sit down. We have to end this conflict. There’s another reason we need to. You know what I’m going to say. We have to end this conflict because we have two other challenges that are staring us in the face like a roaring freight train. The first one, no nuclear arms control, no treaties, not even a conventional forces in Europe treaty anymore. We have abandoned all arms control. The second, of course, is what’s coming at us with regard to the changing climate. We need to focus on these two threats. We need to focus badly. We needed to yesterday– 15-20 years ago. They’re going to eat our lunch if we don’t. Here we are throwing away money, lives, and power in Ukraine. It just doesn’t make any sense.

Paul Jay

Well, the only sense that makes is, as you started this interview with, the money being made by gun manufacturers. I did an interview with Boris Kagarlitsky. We talked about a lot of things. One of the things we talked about is the extent to which Russia is being savaged by climate change already.

Larry Wilkerson

Yes.

Paul Jay

It is a fundamental existential threat to the entire Russian society and economy. It’s already in a fairly advanced state in certain areas like Siberia and others.

Larry Wilkerson

The methane released in Siberia and Alaska now–

Paul Jay

Yeah, a grand deal here to save humanity is so necessary and so obvious. The fossil fuel companies and the arms manufacturers would rather play this out even though it leads to a complete shit show.

Larry Wilkerson

We’re the first human civilization, in, as far as I know, 5,000 years of history, perhaps all of human history, to have the technological know-how to save ourselves in a situation where we could be existentially threatened. Do we have the wisdom to do it? So far, the answer is no.

Paul Jay

Well, I’ve got a quote, Osama bin Laden, which I don’t normally do, but I thought he had one pretty good line. He wrote this thing called A Letter to Americans, which doesn’t get quoted very much. In it, he says, “You say we fight you because we hate your freedom and democracy.” He says, “if that was true, we would have attacked Sweden.” He had another line in which he said, “You Americans, you vote for these policies, so you’re not innocent in this picture.”

Larry Wilkerson

That’s one of the things my few Iranian colleagues who still talk to me are constantly saying. “We don’t hate the American people. We hate your government.” I look back at them, and I say, “Our government is the people.”

Paul Jay

Well, that’s further than I would go. I think the situation is so manipulated. That said, in these coming elections in 2022 and 2024, people better understand that as bad as the Biden foreign policy is, and the extent to which many of the neocons that used to be in the Republican Party are now in the Democratic Party and have a lot to say about U.S. foreign policy. The Christian nationalists could wind up controlling the House and maybe the Senate. They seem to already have a majority on the Supreme Court. If they get a president in 2024, it’s, I think, more dangerous. These elections are very critical, and people better avoid sectarian positions here. It’s a complicated balance because these Biden forces are very dangerous and playing with fire in Ukraine and Taiwan.

Larry Wilkerson

If you go back and look at the arguments that people– and look at the literature. Look at the literature that came out of that region of Europe, particularly Germany at that time, and particularly from Jewish writers, actually, playwrights and others. You see the arguments that they had in ’33, ’34, and ’35 about what they could do with the Nazis if they gained real power. How they could neutralize them. How this party was this way. How the Reds were the Reds. All this argument was for nothing because the man had the idea, and he had the populace behind him once he expressed that idea in some really, very hateful ways, to be sure. The persecution of the Jews was the most hateful of all. He expressed them in ways that caught the attention of all those who were on the fence, as it were, and it turned out to be the majority of the German people. We’re talking about Ron DeSantis coming in. Trump is not going to run. He may try to run, but he’s not going to run. DeSantis is going to run. If he gets elected, he will be much smarter than Trump. What you’re saying is very likely to come true. We may indeed have a national religion and an armed force that protects that religion. We may have a religious test for the office. I mean, we’ve got representatives who are saying the Constitution needs to be rewritten in that regard. People just disregard it. So did the people in Germany. “No, this can’t happen. No, it could never happen.”

Paul Jay

It happened quickly. You had a time when Hitler was first elected as chancellor of Germany. If I get my history right, there was enormous opposition to Hitler. There were workers in the streets. The workers’ movement was almost at a height. In a matter of very few years, there’s an out-and-out fascist dictatorship. Go ahead.

Larry Wilkerson

 You still have people, especially the old Prussian aristocracy and that portion that was in the military in the [inaudible 00:32:25]. You still have people who are saying, “Oh, we can handle it. We can handle it.” As they sip their cognac and smoke their cigars.

Paul Jay

Well, let me end this with one chilling piece of documentary footage. People might have seen this, but I’m going to play it again anyway. I think in 1938 or nine, there was a rally of Americans, essentially fascists, at Madison Square Gardens. They filled the place. Over 20,000 people doing an American-style Sieg Heil with a big picture of George Washington on the stage using the words “Make America Great Again,” essentially. Here’s that footage I mentioned. You can watch that for a chilling ending for the interview.

Footage

“Undivided allegiance to the flag of the United States of America as the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Americans, American patriots, I’m sure I do not come before you tonight as a complete stranger. You all have heard of me through the Jewish-controlled press as a creature with horns, a cloven hoof, and a long tail. We, with American ideals, demand that our government shall be returned to the American people who founded it.

“If you ask what we are actively fighting for under our cherubim, first, a social just Right, gentile ruled United States. Second, gentile-controlled labor union, free from Jewish Moscow-directed domination.

[Singing U.S. National Anthem 00:38:22]