VIRTUALUNIV

The war in Ukraine is entering a new phase. NATO leaders are meeting and are clearly worried that the Zelenskyy government might agree to a negotiated end to the war. Brian Becker and Dr. Gabriel Rockhill discuss the internal politics in Ukraine with a focus on the role of the far right, fascists and neo-Nazis. Brian is joined by Dr. Gabriel Rockhill, Founding Director of the Critical Theory Workshop and Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University. You can check out his latest article on today’s subject at LiberationNews.org, titled, “Nazis in Ukraine: Seeing through the fog of the information war” CORRECTION: The far-right Ukrainian militant shown at 17:15 in this episode is actually Evgeney Karas, not Andriy Biletsky.

MIKE WHITNEY—The news of Ritter’s reversal sent shockwaves across the internet, especially among the people who follow events in Ukraine closely and who greatly admire his even-handed analysis. Some of these people clearly felt betrayed by Ritter’s comments and blasted him as a “concern troll” which refers to a person who feigns sympathy while actually feeling the opposite. This is a terrible way to treat a guy who’s devoted so much of his time to informing people about an issue of which they might know very little without his research. Besides, Ritter is no hypocrite. Quite the contrary.

WERNER RUGEMER—The Biden administration accompanies its military buildup with diplomatic campaigns. State Department’s Antony Blinken wants to “upgrade” Taiwan at the UN. The most subservient U.S. vassal in the EU, the impoverished and at the same time highly digitalized small state of Lithuania with three million inhabitants, was the first to answer the call and inaugurated the “representation of Taiwan” in the capital Vilnius on Nov. 18, 2021 – the first of its kind. Until now, due to the diplomatic non-recognition of Taiwan, its representations abroad are called “Taipei Representation” (Taipei = capital of Taiwan).

WERNER RUGEMER—For NATO, the founding was not about defeating “communism”, that was only a preliminary stage. It was and is about the U.S.-led conquest and exploitation of Europe, especially Russia, that is, all of Eurasia from Lisbon to Vladivostok (according to U.S. presidential adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski) and regardless of whether it is communist or capitalist.

NATO has been and continues to be an alliance that has principally and permanently violated the UN Charter, Article 1 “Self-Determination of Nations,” from its inception. NATO members – and also associate members such as Switzerland and Austria – joined in various ways in the numerous U.S.-led wars of the wrongly so-called “Cold War,” beginning with the Korean War and most recently, for example, for two decades in Afghanistan, leaving behind impoverished, devastated countries, with high profits for the arms, energy, supply and private military services industries.

Among the many lies circulated by the Western disinformation machine, this is particularly vile: “With his back against the wall, Putin will resort to chemical warfare, just like in Syria”
Russia did not use chemical weapons in Syria. Russia negotiated Syrian stockpiles to be destroyed or removed. The chemical attacks in Syria were done by rebels supported by Saudi Arabia and the U.S. [7] If anyone has their back against the wall, it is the Ukrainians and neo-Nazis who are trained in false-flag tactics by the CIA. Like in Syria, the U.S. media are falsely blaming the Russians with no evidence whatsoever. Like in Syria, any chemicals released in Ukraine will probably be the work of opponents of Russia to blame Russia.