[Note: I put single apostrophes around the word Cowardice because none of the US officials mentioned below used that exact word, and because I didn't want anyone to think that I was actually calling the Ukrainians cowards.]
Caitlin Johnstone wrote a brilliant piece describing the loathsome intellectual and moral failing of the USA's imperialist oligarchy. "Big Brave Western Proxy Warriors Keep Whining That Ukrainian Troops are Cowards."
Here's the quotes from her essay:
“American officials are worried that Ukraine’s adjustments will race through precious ammunition supplies, which could benefit President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and disadvantage Ukraine in a war of attrition. But Ukrainian commanders decided the pivot reduced casualties and preserved their frontline fighting force.
“American officials say they fear that Ukraine has become casualty averse, one reason it has been cautious about pressing ahead with the counteroffensive. Almost any big push against dug-in Russian defenders protected by minefields would result in huge numbers of losses.”
In an article published last month titled “U.S. Cluster Munitions Arrive in Ukraine, but Impact on Battlefield Remains Unclear,” The New York Times reported unnamed senior US officials had “privately expressed frustration” that Ukrainian commanders “fearing increased casualties among their ranks” were switching to artillery barrages, “rather than sticking with the Western tactics and pressing harder to breach the Russian defenses.”
Can you believe it?!? Johnstone's response to this sickening arrogance and hypocrisy is eloquent and suitably enraged. I can't do better.
I only want to say that all NATO assistance to Ukraine (to help them fight a war instigated by the USA through Ukrainian nazis, in the same way that the Syrian protest movement was taken over by US and Saudi-backed Jihaadist psychopaths) has been delivered in politically timed stages. The war is being fought to achieve USA/NATO goals, NOT Ukrainian goals. Ukraine is being discouraged from attacking targets in Russia because Russia will eventually grow tired of respecting the fiction that it is Ukraine and not NATO that is attacking them. If Russia finds itself under direct attack, it will, sooner or later, retaliate against the actual source of these attacks, bringing death and destruction to the NATO European countries' own populations (which populations are already hotly divided on this conflict). From there it isn't a great leap to nuclear war.
Ukraine is also being managed according to Biden's domestic political timetable and not in accordance with Ukraine's military realities. This shows how unimportant Ukrainian lives are to the Washington oligarchy.
The gradual elevation of armed assistance to Ukraine has been due to political fears of Russian retaliation. The Neo-cons are seeing how far they can push Putin before raising the stakes. Another factor though is the fear that NATO's weapons systems are overpriced, and ineffective, designed and produced to maximize the profits of weapons manufacturers and not to make things easier for the troops using them. This was acceptable to NATO politicians so long as they were going up against third-tier militaries with antiquated equipment. But Russia's weapons systems are at least the peer of NATO's and the demonstrated failure of NATO weapons against Russian alternatives will have grievous commercial consequences. [Remember the failure of US missile-defense systems in Saudi Arabia against Houthi drones from 2019.] There are, obviously, unavoidable delays in training Ukrainian soldiers to operate NATO equipment, including the promised F-16's. But Russia has said that the fact that F-16s can carry nuclear weapons means that any F-16's they see on Ukrainian territory will be regarded as such a threat and they will be destroyed regardless of who is piloting them. Finally, if F-16's go up against Russian fighters and air-defense systems and are found wanting this will be another black eye for US-American weapons makers.
Ukraine is being encouraged to fight despite all these limitations and provisos, and according to domestic USA political timetables. The "counter-offensive" was pushed on the Ukrainians despite a lack of weapons. Zelensky demanded more weapons and the Russians worked on their defensive lines as NATO begrudgingly got the demanded weapons delivered. But even so, Ukraine's air-force is almost non-existent. It is a simple, long-known fact of modern warfare that air-equality is essential to avoid the slaughter of one side in a conflict. Victory requires air-superiority. The Ukrainians had nothing. So they got slaughtered. The casualties from this counter-offensive no doubt number in the tens of thousands.
One US imperialist goes on the record for a quote. (I'd read this before, but I'm just going to point out that Johnstone discusses it in her essay.):
Last month The Washington Post’s David Ignatius wrote an article explaining why westerners shouldn’t “feel gloomy” about how things are going in Ukraine, writing the following about how much this war is doing to benefit US interests overseas:
“Meanwhile, for the United States and its NATO allies, these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians). The West’s most reckless antagonist has been rocked. NATO has grown much stronger with the additions of Sweden and Finland. Germany has weaned itself from dependence on Russian energy and, in many ways, rediscovered its sense of values. NATO squabbles make headlines, but overall, this has been a triumphal summer for the alliance.”
“Other than for the Ukrainians” he says, as a parenthetical aside.
I'm not going to belittle the very real trauma of those US-Americans who lost loved ones on 9-11 or in Vietnam. Nor will I belittle the sufferings of traumatized US-American survivors of those tragedies. But I do have to point out the sickening narcissism of the US propaganda system that weeps piteously about these US-American losses while completely ignoring the MILLIONS killed and maimed and tortured and driven mad by their own rampaging around the world. In the Midde East, in Ukraine, in Latin America, in South-East Asia, ... the death and despair brought by scumbags like Kissinger, Reagan, Rumsfeld, the Clintons, and more and now Biden, ... it is disgusting how they can only whine about their own (tiny in comparison) sufferings.
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