Chris Hedges: Worthy and Unworthy Victims / Noam Chomsky: US Military Escalation Against Russia Would Have No Victors

By Dilip -

Chris Hedges: Worthy and Unworthy Victims    

Dividing the world into worthy and unworthy victims is a tactic used to justify our crimes and demonize our enemies. Conflicts will not be solved until all nations abide by international law and all victims are deemed worthy.   Rulers divide the world into worthy and unworthy victims, those we are allowed to pity, such as Ukrainians enduring the hell of modern warfare, and those whose suffering is minimized, dismissed, or ignored. The terror we and our allies carry out against Iraqi, Palestinian, Syrian, Libyan, Somali and Yemeni civilians is part of the regrettable cost of war. We, echoing the empty promises from Moscow, claim we do not target civilians. Rulers always paint their militaries as humane, there to serve and protect. Collateral damage happens, but it is regrettable. 

This lie can only be sustained among those who are unfamiliar with the explosive ordinance and large kill zones of missiles, iron fragmentation bombs, mortar, artillery and tank shells, and belt-fed machine guns. This bifurcation into worthy and unworthy victims, as Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky point out in “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media,” is a key component of propaganda, especially in war. The Russian-speaking population in Ukraine, to Moscow, are worthy victims. Russia is their savior: The 1.5 million refugees and the millions of Ukrainian families cowering in basements, car parks and subway stations, are unworthy “Nazis.” 

Worthy victims allow citizens to see themselves as empathetic, compassionate, and just. Worthy victims are an effective tool to demonize the aggressor. They are used to obliterate nuance and ambiguity. Mention the provocations carried out by the western alliance with the expansion of NATO beyond the borders of a unified Germany, a violation of promises made to Moscow in 1990; the stationing of of NATO troops and missile batteries in Eastern Europe; the U.S. involvement in the ouster in 2014 of Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych, which led to the civil war in the east of Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukraine’s army, a conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, and you are dismissed as a Putin apologist….

https://scheerpost.com/2022/03/07/chris-hedges-worthy-and-unworthy-victims/


Why we need a new spirit of internationalism. By EDWY PLENEL; March 4, 2022


Noam Chomsky: Internationalism or Extinction (Universalizing Resistance)


Noam Chomsky: US Military Escalation Against Russia Would Have No Victors

C.J. Polychroniou: Noam, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has taken most people by surprise, sending shockwaves throughout the world, although there were plenty of indications that Putin had become quite agitated by NATO’s expansion eastward and Washington’s refusal to take seriously his “red line” security demands regarding Ukraine. Why do you think he decided to launch an invasion at this point in time?

Noam Chomsky: Before turning to the question, we should settle a few facts that are uncontestable. The most crucial one is that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a major war crime, ranking alongside the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Hitler-Stalin invasion of Poland in September 1939, to take only two salient examples. It always makes sense to seek explanations, but there is no justification, no extenuation.

Turning now to the question, there are plenty of supremely confident outpourings about Putin’s mind. The usual story is that he is caught up in paranoid fantasies, acting alone, surrounded by groveling courtiers of the kind familiar here in what’s left of the Republican Party traipsing to Mar-a-Lago for the Leader’s blessing.

The flood of invective might be accurate, but perhaps other possibilities might be considered. Perhaps Putin meant what he and his associates have been saying loud and clear for years. It might be, for example, that, “Since Putin’s major demand is an assurance that NATO will take no further members, and specifically not Ukraine or Georgia, obviously there would have been no basis for the present crisis if there had been no expansion of the alliance following the end of the Cold War, or if the expansion had occurred in harmony with building a security structure in Europe that included Russia.” 

The author of these words is former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Jack Matlock, one of the few serious Russia specialists in the U.S. diplomatic corps, writing shortly before the invasion. He goes on to conclude that the crisis “can be easily resolved by the application of common sense…. By any common-sense standard it is in the interest of the United States to promote peace, not conflict. To try to detach Ukraine from Russian influence - the avowed aim of those who agitated for the ‘color revolutions’ - was a fool’s errand, and a dangerous one. Have we so soon forgotten the lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis?”…

https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-us-military-escalation-against-russia-would-have-no-victors/


Rebecca Solnit: It’s time to confront the Trump-Putin network / George Monbiot: We must confront Russian propaganda / Moscow police detain children for laying flowers at Ukrainian embassy


Rohini Hensman: The Historical Background to Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine


Sergey Faldin: Putin is digging his own grave in Ukraine / Berlin stands up against Putin at huge anti-war rally / Indian Student Killed In Shelling In Kharkiv


Nesrine Malik: Let the horror in Ukraine open our eyes to the suffering of war around the world




Vanessa Thorpe: MI 6, the coup in Iran that changed the Middle East


Victor Jara murder: ex-military officers sentenced in Chile for 1973 death


Andrew Bacevich: High Crimes and Misdemeanors of the Fading American Century


Lawrence Lifschultz: The assassination of Mujibur Rahman


Uki Goñi - A grandmother's 36-year hunt for the child stolen by the Argentinian junta


Zack Stanton: Violent Christian Extremism in the USA


Daniel J. Berrigan, Defiant Priest Who Preached Pacifism, Dies at 94


Mauritius formally challenges Britain’s ownership of Chagos Islands


Robert Reich - Beware of this deadly mix: oligarchic economics and racist, nationalist populism


TOM ENGELHARDT: A World at the Edge


Alfred McCoy: The crumbling delusion of Washington's endless world dominion


Mohammed Hanif: The rest of the world has had it with US presidents, Trump or otherwise



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