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{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org\/","@id":"https:\/\/theanalysis.news\/why-the-media-is-now-supporting-julian-assange-paul-jay-pt-2-2\/#arve-youtube-kgph4egejjc63c14a1ed5d41012001228","type":"VideoObject","embedURL":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kGph4EgEjjc?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Ftheanalysis.news&iv_load_policy=3&modestbranding=1&rel=0&autohide=1&playsinline=0&autoplay=1","name":"Why the Media is Now Supporting Julian Assange? - Paul Jay pt 2\/2","thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/theanalysis.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/julian-assange-act.jpg","uploadDate":"2022-12-16T13:07:03+00:00","author":"theAnalysis-news","description":"In part 2 of our conversation with award-winning documentary filmmaker and editor-in-chief of theAnalysis.news Paul Jay, we talk about the situation in Iran and why the U.S. is no longer seeking a nuclear agreement. We also talk about why the mainstream media is now coming out in support of WikiLeak"} In part 2 of our conversation with award-winning documentary filmmaker and editor-in-chief of theAnalysis.news Paul Jay, we talk about the situation in Iran and why the U.S. is no longer seeking a nuclear agreement. We also talk about why the mainstream media is now coming out in support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The interview was conducted by Zain Raza for acTVism Munich. .kt-post-loop_f47ac3-8b .kadence-post-image{padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;}.kt-post-loop_f47ac3-8b .kt-post-grid-wrap{gap:30px 6px;}.kt-post-loop_f47ac3-8b .kt-blocks-post-grid-item{border-top-width:0px;border-right-width:0px;border-bottom-width:0px;border-left-width:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-left-radius:0px;border-top-left-radius:0px;}.kt-post-loop_f47ac3-8b .kt-blocks-post-grid-item .kt-blocks-post-grid-item-inner{padding-top:10px;padding-right:25px;padding-bottom:25px;padding-left:9px;}.kt-post-loop_f47ac3-8b .kt-blocks-post-grid-item header{padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;}.kt-post-loop_f47ac3-8b .kt-blocks-post-grid-item .entry-title{padding-top:5px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:10px;padding-left:0px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;font-size:16px;line-height:17px;}.kt-post-loop_f47ac3-8b .entry-content{padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;}.kt-post-loop_f47ac3-8b .kt-blocks-post-footer{border-top-width:0px;border-right-width:0px;border-bottom-width:0px;border-left-width:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;}.kt-post-loop_f47ac3-8b .entry-content:after{height:0px;}.kt-post-loop_f47ac3-8b .kb-filter-item{border-top-width:0px;border-right-width:0px;border-bottom-width:2px;border-left-width:0px;padding-top:5px;padding-right:8px;padding-bottom:5px;padding-left:8px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;} 9/11 Redux – Pt 1/3 9/11 Redux – Pt 2/3 9/11 Redux – Pt 3/3 Bradley Manning, the Nuremberg Charter and Refusing to Collaborate with War Crimes – Prashad Pt 3/4 Ex CIA Analyst on Snowden and Calling Journalists Terrorists – Ray McGovern Pt 1/2 The Doomsday Machine: The Big Lie of the Cold War – Daniel Ellsberg on RAI Pt 1/13 U.S. Refuses to Adopt a Nuclear Weapon No First Use Pledge – Daniel Ellsberg on RAI 7/13 “The Most Dangerous Man” Turns 90 – Peter Kuznick on Daniel Ellsberg Daniel Ellsberg at 90 – “It’s Still Possible to Save Humanity” Bill Black pt 7/9 -The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One From 9/11 to Mass Surveillance, The Man Who Knew Too Much – Thomas Drake on RAI Pt 2/6 From 9/11 to Mass Surveillance, The Man Who Knew Too Much – Thomas Drake on RAI Pt 3/6 From 9/11 to Mass Surveillance, The Man Who Knew Too Much – Thomas Drake on RAI Pt 4/6 From 9/11 to Mass Surveillance, The Man Who Knew Too Much – Thomas Drake on RAI Pt 5/6 From 9/11 to Mass Surveillance, The Man Who Knew Too Much – Thomas Drake on RAI Pt 6/6 Intelligence on Bin Laden, 9/11 Targets Withheld from Congress’ Probe 9/11 Lies and the National Security State – Thomas Drake Paul Jay on Assange Extradition Hearing Julian Assange & the National Security State | Interview with Paul Jay – Part 2 Chris Hedges, Edward Snowden, Noam Chomsky, Paul Jay and Daniel Ellsberg on Assange Drone Whistleblower Hale is a Hero – Ellsberg and Chomsky Why the Media is Now Supporting Julian Assange? – Paul Jay pt 2/2 Mini Doc: Gore Vidal’s History of the National Security State Transcript Spanish Transcript Listen Donate Subscribe Music Zain Raza Thank you, guys, for tuning in for part two of our discussion with Paul Jay. Paul Jay is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, and the founder of theAnalysis.news. Paul, welcome to part two again. Paul Jay Thank you very much. Zain Raza Let us begin with Iran, a topic that you have been covering for many, many, many years. There was a lot of hope when President Biden came into office, when he was voted in, that the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] would be revived. Now we are seeing the situation in Iran, the state turning toward its people. There are a lot of human rights violations happening. There are a lot of conflicting reports as well because a lot of the mainstream media is exaggerating the figures and the numbers. We don’t know the exact situation, but what we do know is that the people are rising up. They’re fed up with the authoritarian, religious, theological regime of Iran, of the Iranian state. Now certain reforms are coming into place as well. The U.S. is stating that the sanctions that it is imposing and also the moratorium on the JCPOA are due to the fact that it’s concerned about the human rights situation. Are you convinced with the State Department’s justification? Are they really concerned about human rights? And how do you assess the stalemate concern with JCPOA way? Paul Jay I’m not sure there’s a way to characterize the question because you know how much I think the State Department is concerned about humans. If they’re concerned about human rights– I lived in Baltimore for almost ten years. If they’re concerned about human rights, how about starting with their own cities? The Department of Justice investigated the Baltimore police force and, in their report, stated: “that the constitutional rights of ordinary black Baltimoreans are violated every single day of the week in Baltimore.” Poor black people, Hispanic people, and white people in many parts of the United States, but particularly black people, have no democratic rights in the United States, next to none. Arrested without probable cause, thrown in jail, beaten to shit, murdered, and tortured. So if the United States government actually cares about democratic rights, you would think they would at least start at home, and they don’t do that. Of course, they couldn’t give a damn about democratic rights in Iran, and the obvious, if they cared, they wouldn’t be kissing the a-holes of the Saudis. The United States will never have an iota of credibility about democratic rights in the world as long as they’re in an alliance with Saudi Arabia, with the Saudis, and they wouldn’t anyway. I mean, this is a country that supports dictatorships all over the place, so of course, it has nothing to do with that. Why isn’t the nuclear agreement being reinstituted? Well, my understanding is when the agreement was being negotiated and when [Barack] Obama was fighting for this agreement, which is one of the few things I give credit to Obama for. In fact, when he was elected, I never drank the Obama Kool-Aid. I was very critical right from the beginning that this was just another center, even center-right, Democrat. I would say center, center-right is not fair, a centrist Democrat. I had one hope for Obama that he would be rational on Iran, and he was, and so was Biden. [Col.] Larry Wilkerson tells me that when they were fighting to get this–  Zain Raza Larry Wilkerson, can you just briefly– Paul Jay Larry, who I interview all the time, and you just interviewed recently, was the former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell. He says that when they were getting ratification for that treaty and support for the treaty in Congress, that Biden fought for that and was a real proponent of that, the nuclear treaty with Iran. I remember even in the vice presidential debates in the election, Biden was very rational about Iran, but not now. So why? I think because the real objection to that treaty from the American hawks, certainly from Israel, and certainly from the Saudis who maybe even at least were, I don’t know, it somewhat changes a little bit, but the Saudis were the most provocative about wanting the Americans to attack Iran– is not the nuclear missiles. Not the potential nuclear weapons in Iran, of which there’s no evidence they were ever building any anyway. I mean, zero. The National Security, I can’t remember the name of it. Zain Raza National Security Intelligence estimates. Paul Jay Yeah, they said the Iranians had stopped any attempt at building a nuclear bomb prior; what was it, 2003? There’s not even hard evidence they were even doing it then. Even if they were enriching in uranium, it looked more like just some threatened leverage. But all that being said, everyone knew that if Iran had a nuclear weapon, it would only be for defense, like for North Korea. Why aren’t they being more aggressive against the West, against North Korea? Well, because they got nuclear weapons. There’s evidence. I mean, if Ukraine had a nuclear weapon, would Russia have invaded? Not very likely. I mean, the truth is there is a deterrence to having a nuclear weapon or two. So if it wasn’t really about Iran having a nuclear weapon, which they’re not throwing– why would Iran send a nuclear weapon to Israel? It’s insane. The Americans would take Iran out the next day, and so would the Israelis. It’s nuts. It was only for defense. So what, do they really work– Zain Raza And Pakistan has nuclear weapons. The country that I’m from. Paul Jay Yeah. Nobody’s sending nuclear weapons aggressively right now because anyone you’d send them to, the only place where there really is a threat is against a non-nuclear state. We can talk about that as a separate subject matter because that’s the problem with the development of tactical nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, and that is a real threat. Let’s back up here. So what’s really holding this up? The Americans’ real opposition, the Israelis and the Saudis, are the Iranian ballistic missiles non-nuclear, but they now have very sophisticated ballistic missiles that can strike targets very smartly, as they did after the killing of the Iranian General. They threw one missile near an American base, and that’s just to show what they got. So they want ballistic missiles to be included in any agreement. But why should Iran include their ballistic missiles? They’re non-nuclear. Iran, according to the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], almost entirely, if not entirely, has lived up to the non-proliferation agreements. But non-nuclear ballistic missiles have nothing to do with it. Iran has a right to arm itself every bit as much as any other state has, and there’s no evidence that Iranians are using their military might aggressively. Yeah, okay, maybe they have some presence in Iraq, but nothing compared to what the Americans did in Iraq. Maybe the Iranians have something going on in Syria. Alright, well, it’s in their damn neighborhood, and whatever the Iranians have done in Syria is nothing compared to what the Americans did in Syria and the Saudis and the Qataris and the Turks and the Russians. It goes on and on. So that’s what’s holding up that agreement, and it’s BS because the original agreement should simply be lived up to. It was the Americans that screwed it up, not the Iranians. The Americans should simply do what they agreed to do. Just because [Donald] Trump was a maniac doesn’t mean they have to continue in a maniacal way. The pressure is coming from the right-wing hawks in the U.S., the Saudis, the Israelis, and so on. They just want to drag this out. Now, the whole thing is nuts. If, in fact, and this comes back a bit to the Ukraine conversation, too, if your primary geopolitical adversary– I love the term– is China, then why the hell are you pushing Russia into China’s arms? Why are you pushing Iran into the Russia-Chinese orbit? It’s insane from an American geopolitical perspective. If you really believe China is your adversary, and I think that’s a stupid equation anyway, but that’s how they’re pivoting and positioning, why are you strengthening all these allies with China? It’s clear because– and this is the most important thing to get about all of these questions. Monopoly capitalism is not a rational thing. It’s rife with internal contradictions and competing interests. Like, I’ll give you an example, Boeing. Taiwan is not one of Boeing’s top ten customers, but it might be in the top 20 for military sales; they’re an important customer. Guess who’s number one, at least in 2020? Now, I don’t know. Guess who’s the biggest purchaser of Boeing domestic aircraft? China. One company is completely schizophrenic on whether to boost tensions with Taiwan or be friendly and sell to the Chinese domestic aircraft market. One company. Now, extend that out. The tech industry, they want to squash Chinese competition, and they want access to the Chinese market. It goes on and on, even between Germany and the United States. I happened to be in Albania during and just after the fall of the Communist government there. There was fierce contention between Germany and the United States on who would become the dominant Western power in Albania. I knew a guy who was a secretary to the Central Committee of the Party of Labor, not the secretary but a secretary. He said there was a meeting with [Former President of Albania] Ramiz Aliya and an undersecretary of state from the United States just after the PLA won the first open election, which they didn’t win the first one. The Americans said to the PLA, to Ramiz Aliya, and the guy I knew was in the meeting, that “listen, we will recognize your election victory. We’ll even work with you” because they were starting to do some market reforms and things like that, “but on one condition. Only us, not the Germans.” So even within the NATO alliance, there was fierce contention. Look at that submarine deal with Australia. The French had a deal, and then the British and the Americans stabbed them in the back and took out their legs to get this submarine deal. Capitalism is a vicious competitive system of concentrated pocket states and is fundamentally about concentrated private ownership. It’s not so beautifully rational. So when it comes to Iran, of course, from a strategic point of view, they should suck the Iranian theocracy into the American sphere as they have the Saudis. But if you did that, not only would it piss off the Saudi and Israeli elites, but you would love this Iranian threat. It justifies anti-ballistic missile systems in Europe supposedly directed against Iran. Of course, the same thing goes for Russia. Why wouldn’t you suck the Russian elite into the Western sphere of orbit rather than push them to become what they’ve practically become– a satellite of China. It makes money for the military-industrial complex in the short term way, because of this tension, even though, in terms of the grand chessboard, it’s pure stupidity. There’s no great smart central planning brain here. It’s a bunch of contending interests, mostly focused on short-term profit, willing to risk even nuclear war. I mean, they don’t want nuclear war, but they’re willing to come right up to the edge of risk, and completely– they even know climate change is coming. It’s not like they don’t know the science or don’t believe the science. They’re so in a bubble of profit-making orgy and all the internalized geopolitical nationalist narratives that they won’t deal with this. It’s like a herd of cattle coming to destroy your town. They’re on a stampede, but you’re more worried about am I going to make money for my little store today or not. The system is nuts.  The monopoly capitalist system is out of solutions, but we’re not in a position as progressives to deal with that fundamental problem, which is this concentration of private ownership. We’re just not there right now. So while we need to educate people and talk about this all the time, we also have to look at some short-term demands to at least mitigate the risk.  One of the things I’ve noticed when we talk about the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which was the Iran deal that was scuttled by Trump, and now it’s put on pause, is that none of the media analysts or articles written for example, that we’re asking somebody not to produce nuclear weapons while we are improving our nuclear arsenal every year and modernizing it. It’s similar to somebody who told me, Zain; it’s like asking somebody to quit smoking while you’re smoking yourself. How come our media does not address one of the most important issues, which is the military-industrial complex, the entire nuclear arsenal that’s being modernized and improved, and submarines, and we’re talking about new jets, F-35s? Why is there so little critical coverage regarding the military-industrial complex and the way we conduct ourselves in the world diplomatically asking others to disarm while we are arming ourselves to the teeth? Paul Jay Well, let me speak to the United States. It’s harder for me to talk about Europe, although somewhat similar, I’m guessing, but in the U.S. and Canada, to a large extent, it goes back well, even to the coverage of the use of nuclear weapons in Japan. The anti-Japanese, anticommunist propaganda was at such a level during World War II, towards the end of World War II particularly, and then as the Cold War began, the mentality of hating the other and the fear of being called a traitor, the power of patriotism and nationalism, this is what mobilizes people for war, and it was certainly done during World War II. They have to justify the use of the atomic bomb, which was totally unjustified and unnecessary. The official American narrative of both the Democratic and Republican parties– and let’s remember, it was the Democratic Party that dropped the nuclear bomb– is that that was necessary, and it was the beginning of the defense of democracy. So it’s very much at the core of the American identity. Next is the Cold War. Meaning McCarthyism and the House of Un-American Activities Committee that purged the American institutions, the trade unions. Hollywood gets the most profile, but not just the American government. It purged the progressive Left and greatly weakened the Left in American society. Again, you’re a commie, you’re associated with the party, you’re a traitor, blah, blah, blah, and people went to jail. Thousands and thousands of people lost their jobs. Maybe there wasn’t a Siberia to send people to, but it was as bad, almost as bad, at least as any purge that happened in the Soviet Union. It puts a tremendous chill in the media. Also, in terms of the way the media hired people, they were very careful to hire people that would stay within the lines of what was considered patriotic. Jumping ahead, this takes a leap in intensity after the 9/11 attacks. There’s a quote from [American journalist] Dan Rathers. Unfortunately, it’s a quote he gave to BBC and didn’t say, “in the United States,” but he should have. When he was the host of CBS News, he said: “that after 9/11, to critique the White House would have been akin to being called a traitor in a South African township and having a flaming tire of patriotism put around your neck.” Now, Dan Rathers says that. So 9/11 created this atmosphere in American journalism and newsrooms and was very explicitly said in newspaper editorials and by Bush, “you’re either with us, or you’re against us.” It was very specific. If you try to attach the attacks on 9/11 to U.S. foreign policy, you’re blaming the victims meaning the people in the Twin Towers, and you’re supporting terrorism. That was imbued. The newspaper editorials in the whole western world said that. I remember it explicitly because I was running the main political debate show on CBC in Canada, and we went on air the day those editorials hit, and I wrote an introduction for our host which said, “if George Bush had gone on air a few days ago and asked us to grieve for the people in the Twin Towers, we wouldn’t do the show tonight. But he asked us to go to war, and he says, you’re with us, or you’re against us. So we have a right to debate whether we’re going to this war or not.” We had a real debate about U.S. foreign policy in spite of all the attempts to intimidate us not to. In fact, Canada didn’t enter the Iraq war later, and I think it’s partly because of our efforts; we were on national television. But it intimidated American newsrooms, and anybody who diverged both 9/11 coverage and then leading up to the Iraq stuff was diminished, fired, and not hired. Then the other thing happens over this time period, over the last 20 years. A tremendous concentration of ownership takes place, especially ’07-08, where you have these big asset management firms like BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard is one of the biggest. Go look up who owns the media listed on the stock exchange. It’s Wall Street. I mean, 93% of the New York Times is owned by financial institutions. Who owns the companies that make nuclear weapons? Aha, same financial institutions. Aha, who owns Lockheed Martin? Aha, same financial institutions. These big index funds buy the whole index, the whole S&P 500, and they have discretionary money they put in. Who owns the fossil fuel companies? Aha, same big financial institutions. So the media is now owned in a way– there’s always been this kind of inter-monopoly stuff, but it’s at a level now that’s never happened before, such concentration of ownership. So it’s not that anyone has to even go and say to a journalist, “don’t do this, do this.” People know how to self-censor. They know the lines to stay within. Now you get journalists who are just on the ground reporting, whether it’s the Washington Post or New York Times, who often do quite a good job. They see something, they report it, and it gets printed often enough. But when there’s ever opinion pieces and especially editorial pieces, the overall approach to an issue, the editorial boards shape it. So the overall coverage winds up being like stenographers for the State Department. So why aren’t we on the nuclear issue, which is maybe the most taboo issue of them all? Where is there any serious, real serious discussion? You get a report– like they were just going to do a nuclear posture review as part of this new defense authorization, and the woman that was leading it dared to raise the issue, one, should we really have first strike as a possibility? Why don’t we at least consider taking first strike off the table, which the Americans have never done? Two, do we really need such a massive new modernization? Well, within, I don’t know, within a few weeks, she was gone. They got her fired from that position. There was reporting on it, but why not headlines? Why not– listen, why isn’t there a public debate about American nuclear war strategy? Because it’s taboo. You’re not supposed to talk about the fact that ICBMs are useless. They’re not in any way a deterrent. In fact, what they are– this is amazing. In this film I’m doing with Ellsberg on nuclear war, I’m going to go to Montana, and I’m going to talk to farmers that live near ICBM missile silos. Do you know what the hawks call these ICBM missile silos? Nuclear sponges. There’s another phrase they have; it’s just escaping me now. The point is they want them to be targets because they think if Russian missiles go after the ICBMs, there’ll be less Russian missiles to hit cities. So I want to say to some of these farmers living next to these silos, do you know that part of American strategy is to make you a target? Of course, the same thing goes for the Russian farmers living next to– there’s absolutely no reason to have ICBMs. The deterrent is in the submarines. ICBMs are absolutely bullshit. What are they? They’re part of the trillion-dollar new expenditure on a whole new generation of ICBMs, so they can be better nuclear targets. It’s madness. Whether it’s climate, whether it’s nuclear, or issues of war and peace, capitalism is irrational and mad. Within this madness, we need to get ordinary people to see through this stuff. One, start electing people who stand for a real climate program, who stand for, at least, mitigation of the nuclear risk, that stand against an aggressive foreign policy. In the streets, in terms of mass movement and protests, in 1982 or ’83, a million people protested in New York against nuclear weapons. We need to merge the climate movement and the anti-war and anti-nuclear weapon movements. It has to become one, and it needs to be in the streets, and it needs to have an electoral expression. One more quick note on Iran. The Iranian people have a right to democracy, and I don’t mean BS democracy, but still, even BS democracy is better than none. I have to say there’s more democracy in Iran than there is in Saudi Arabia. So at least, there are some kinds of elections in Iran that have some competition. Iran is more democratic than Saudi Arabia. That being said, the people of Iran have a right to rebel. They have a right to overthrow this theocracy if that’s what they want, and the Americans should stay the hell out of it. Any support the Americans give to it is only because they want to manipulate it. I’m hoping the Iranians, the people, wherever this goes, see through the American BS and don’t allow the Americans to interfere in it. Now, of course, the Iranian theocracy is going to blame the Americans for everything. I saw this morning they just hung an Iranian protester. They’re starting to actually execute. It’s a vicious regime. If you talk to most of the activists I’ve talked to, most of the people that hate the theocracy, they’ll start with denouncing the sanctions, the American sanctions against Iran. They’ll denounce American interference in Iran. They want the Americans to stay the hell out of this whole conflict, but the Iranian people have a right to rebel. Zain Raza Major media outlets like the Guardian, the New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El País have finally come together and publicly condemned the U.S. persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. I quote here a statement in the release. “This indictment sets a dangerous precedent and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press.” Although the major media outlets have finally come after 12 years to release a statement like this, when we go online every day on their media outlets, they don’t, for example, provide the same frequency of coverage, for example, when it comes to Alexei Navalny [Russian opposition leader, lawyer, and anti-corruption activist] or other activists, for example, in Iran. I think it’s good to provide people who stand up against the government some coverage, but when it comes to our own dissidents, our media does not provide the same frequency and quality of coverage. Why do you think it took so long for the media, for these media networks to band together? And why is there so little frequency of coverage when it comes to the case of Julian Assange? Paul Jay Well, there are certain issues, as I was talking about before, there are certain lines that are drawn that you need to stay within if you want to keep your job in most of the mainstream media. It’s under this kind of rubric of patriotism, nationalism, and all this, but even now, for the longest time, you couldn’t even talk about the Saudi role in 9/11, never mind the Bush-Cheney role. You know this story because I’ve told you before. I interviewed Senator Bob Graham, who out and out directly accused Bush and Cheney of facilitating the 9/11 attacks. Now, whether he’s right or wrong, Bob Graham is the former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee. I mean, this is a serious guy. I’ve got him on camera saying this. I offered it to every news organization in the U.S., and nobody would take it. Well, there are certain lines you don’t go beyond, or you’re looked at having your quote-unquote, “own agenda.” You’re outside the official agenda, and you’ll lose your job. Julian Assange is now that. In the beginning, when he first released stuff, WikiLeaks released stuff to these major papers, and the major papers printed all that; he was within the realm. The big major publications wouldn’t have worked with WikiLeaks if they didn’t consider it credible at the time. Whatever happened afterward, right or wrongly, there was certainly a campaign to discredit Assange because he kept releasing stuff– the Clinton stuff and other materials. He keeps poking the American eagle in the eye, and it’s not like they’re not going to fight back. I don’t know the truth or not, the truth of his relationship with– what’s his name? [Roger] Stone [American conservative political consultant and lobbyist], the Trump guy. There are some emails between the Trump camp, supposed emails. There’s supposedly something to do with the Russians. I don’t know if any of that’s real or if it’s all bullshit. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter because that isn’t why they’re trying to keep Assange in jail, hoping he dies there. Now, I think the last time you and I talked, I think I said this, but I’ll say it again. Obama had decided not to prosecute Assange because if you prosecute Assange, how can you possibly not prosecute the New York Times, McClatchy, and all the other publications that cooperated with WikiLeaks? It’s the same principle. I know they’re trying to say that Assange was more implicated because he told Chelsea Manning how to make copies of it, but I don’t think they even have any evidence of that. Obama looked at it, his administration looked at it and said, “look, we can’t go after Assange without going after the New York Times,” and so on and dropped it. So when Trump starts the prosecution again, and Biden continues, if you take the Obama logic, then it actually is a threat against these mainstream publications. It is saying to them, “you be careful because, yeah, we’re going after Assange today, but if you work with someone like a Chelsea Manning again and you start digging in around the real classified files of the state, nothing’s going to stop us coming after you too.” It took years, but finally, some of these big publications finally realized that it was getting closer to maybe actually the deportation of Assange and this trial actually happening, and they released a statement because the Obama logic holds. If you can convict Assange, then what if it’s [Ron] DeSantis and some Republican– I don’t know if the Democrats would go after the New York Times, but a Republican might. So finally, they issue such a statement saying, “okay, enough is enough.” I believe the Australian prime minister just said, “enough is enough.” I also think, do the Americans– I think I said this last time. Do they really want Assange on a public trial in the United States? Assange’s defense is going to be to condemn U.S. foreign policy. My defense is your crimes and the people’s right to know. Even if a judge tries to limit that and say, “that’s not a legitimate defense,” because that’s what they did against the Chicago Seven in the 1968 trial. Again, when they had this protest against the Democratic Party convention, they tried to make U.S. foreign policy the issue, but the judge wouldn’t let them. It didn’t matter. That’s all anyone talked about was U.S. foreign policy. The same thing would happen with an Assange trial. Everyone’s going to go back and revisit the war crimes that WikiLeaks and Chelsea Manning exposed. Do they really want that? I don’t know. The Biden administration may want some of this pressure to build and not deport Assange. What the Biden administration– I shouldn’t say Biden administration, it’s the whole American state. I’m concerned the Republicans are even more gung-ho. I mean, there’s the story of [Mike] Pompeo and Trump talking about finding a way to kill Assange. They want Assange to die in jail. That’s what they want. But it may be the legal processes are getting to a point that they’re going to have to put up or shut up and either bring him and put him on trial because he’s not dying yet. So maybe things are converging that maybe they will, at this point, drop it. Maybe. I don’t know. But you’re asking why it took so long. It took so long because the Americans were hoping he’d be dead by now. Zain Raza Yeah, the other point is that they’ve already punished him. I mean, it’s not like the process has not punished him for 12 years, plus we’re talking about no sunlight, with no interaction with his family outside of the Embassy and then later at Belmarsh prison. To the other point that you made, as far as I know, he will be tried in a district court in Virginia, and you’re not allowed to make a public defense. So you’re not allowed to raise, for example, the importance his work had for the public interest. That might be a problem. I’ve also heard that specific court– I can’t recall it– has like a 99% rate against whistleblowers, against investigative journalists, and always in favor of the military and stuff. Let’s see what’s going to happen with that trial. There is some movement happening right now in Latin America. The Brazilian parliament, I think, has just come out in favor of the Australian Prime Minister, as you just mentioned. The major media outlets have just released the statement. So there is some public opinion changing on this matter. To close this interview, I would like to just ask you about what we talked about off camera, your documentary that you were just recently producing with Daniel Ellsberg. Can you tell our viewers a little bit more about that? Paul Jay Yeah, a little bit. It’s called, How to Stop a Nuclear War. It starts with Daniel’s history of the madness and complete irrationality driven by the profit-making of nuclear American war strategy and plans right from the end of World War II on. The big lies. The missile gap was a complete lie. In 1960-61 [John F.] Kennedy was talking about how the Soviets were surpassing the U.S. in ICBMs and claimed they had 1,000 ICBMs when it turned out they had four, count them, four. This is part of what led to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is going to be part of the film. The structure of the film is about what needs to be done now. For example, eliminating ICBMs, which are just extremely dangerous. I just remembered the name. They call them nuclear sinkholes. In other words, they’re meant to attract, if there’s a nuclear war, Russian missiles, meaning wiping out whole sections of Montana, I think, North Dakota, and Nevada. Montana is one of the biggest and is right near the Canadian border. Any Canadians listening to this, Winnipeg’s gone. One of these nuclear sinkholes, maybe it will take missiles away from cities, but some major Canadian cities are toast. Literally, toast, and so are the rest of us. It’s all going to wind up a nuclear winter anyway. There is no winner in a nuclear war. ICBMs are a total boondoggle for Lockheed Martin, which just got another multibillion-dollar contract to build these new ones. So, one, get rid of ICBMs completely. Americans don’t even have to negotiate it. They have enough capacity in the submarines to have a deterrent. I mean, that’s the fundamental thesis of what needs to be done. Every country should get to a level where the nuclear capacity is at the bare minimum for a deterrent. Yes, we’d like to get rid of them completely. It’s beyond imagination that in this kind of world, we can get rid of them. But let’s focus on the issue of actual deterrence, not first-strike capability. Pakistan and India are way beyond deterrents in terms of the number of weapons they have. What’s the point? The same thing goes for Russia and for the U.S. China was the one, until recently, that had stayed at the level of deterrence. I think they were under 200 missiles, and even that’s probably significantly more than necessary to be a deterrent. Now, because of this massive new buildup by the Russians and the Americans, China is now starting to expand again. And, of course, China has its own military-industrial complex. You know, it’s not like there are any benign players here, but the Chinese were more rational about this until recently, and it looks mostly under U.S. and Russian pressure. Let’s not forget as much as Russia is being pushed into the Chinese orbit, there’s contention between Russia and China in many parts of the world for influence. This goes back to this interim imperialist complication. The film is structured around the need for renewed negotiations. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in Ukraine. There should be a treaty negotiated. In two years, there will be no nuclear arms treaty at all. Zip. Unlimited ability. The previous treaties actually did work. The mutual inspections between Russia and the U.S., even today, apparently, the inspections are still going on. So the nuclear treaties actually were effective. The number of weapons there was reduced. So we need to demand the elimination of ICBMs. We need to get first strike off the table. We need to get rid of first strike weaponry off the tables, like anti-ballistic missile systems or this new thing the Americans just announced a few days ago. A new B-21 stealth bomber with nuclear weapons capacity. So imagine that. They could take a new ultra hyperspeed stealth that can’t be seen on radars with nuclear weapons. What does that do? Now, forget Ukraine; that would be terrifying sitting in Moscow. Now you’re starting to talk about existential threats, not NATO and Ukraine. The B-21 is an existential threat. Now, of course, when Putin was asked if there was a nuclear strike on Russia, and you were deciding whether to have a second strike, knowing it would be the end of the world– mind you, so would the first strike, but anyway. He was asked, “would you launch the second strike knowing the world would come to an end?” And his answer was, “what’s the point of a world without a Russia?” Well, the Americans think the same way. It’s insanity, man. So the film is about demands that people should make that are even within the realm of what could be accomplished in today’s world. The truth is, as much as there’s a lot of money-making driving nuclear war plans, it’s actually not that much money. When you look at BlackRock and the big financial companies that, as I said, were the big owners, the amount of money that goes to their bottom line from the manufacturers of nuclear weapons is actually very small. So if there’s any rationality left in capitalism– in some areas, there’s some because their own asses are on the line, even for pure self-preservation, there are steps that could be taken. It goes back to another point you made. There is so little public debate about nuclear war planning. It’s like, I don’t know, in the Catholic Church, you can’t question the Pope. I don’t know. You can’t talk about it. So this film is meant to be– and we have actually, I’ll tell you because it hasn’t gone public yet, but I’ll tell you. We have our narrator now. It’s going to be Emma Thompson. So it’s a big name. So the film is going to have a lot of profile, and if people want to support the film, they can donate to theAnalysis.news because theAnalysis.news is driving this film. Zain Raza We will put a link in the description of this video, Paul. Paul Jay I got to say one more thing. You got to donate to these guys, acTVism. You got to donate to these guys because they do great work. They’re doing interviews that a lot of people aren’t doing. As much as I want you to support the film and whatever, first, give Zain support. Zain Raza Paul Jay, award-winning documentary filmmaker and founder of theAnalysis.news. Thank you so much for your time today. Paul Jay Thank you, Zain. Zain Raza Thank you, guys, for joining us in our discussion with Paul Jay. Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and our alternative channels on Rumble and Telegram and donate to our current crowdfunding campaign. Without your support, we cannot continue our journalism going forward in 2023. I’m your host Zain Raza; see you guys next time. Announcement  These are the building blocks that make up our organization and the goals we would like to achieve in order to continue our journalism and realize these values fundamental to our democracy. We need 1,000 supporters in our crowdfunding campaign, donating only €5 or dollars per month via Patreon or bank account. Right now, we have only 200 supporters and are not able to take the next step. Our future is in your hands. Strengthen independent journalism and be part of meaningful change. Zain Raza  Gracias por acompañarnos en la segunda parte de nuestra discusión con Paul Jay. Paul Jay es un documentalista galardonado, periodista y fundador de theAnalysis.news.  Paul, bienvenido a la segunda parte.  Paul Jay  Muchas gracias.  Zain Raza  Comencemos con Irán, un tema que has estado cubriendo durante muchos muchos muchos años. Hubo mucha esperanza, cuando el presidente Biden asumió el cargo, cuando fue votado, de que el PAIC [Plan de Acción Integral Conjunto] sería revivido. Ahora estamos viendo la situación en Irán, el Estado se vuelve contra su pueblo. Se están dando muchas violaciones de los derechos humanos. También hay muchos informes contradictorios porque muchos de los principales medios de comunicación están exagerando las cifras y los números.  No conocemos la situación exacta, pero lo que sí sabemos es que el pueblo se está rebelando. Están hartos del régimen autoritario, religioso y teológico de Irán, del Estado iraní.  Ahora también se están introduciendo ciertas reformas. Estados Unidos afirma que las sanciones que está imponiendo y también la moratoria al PAIC se deben a su preocupación por la situación de los derechos humanos. ¿Te convence la justificación del Departamento de Estado? ¿Están realmente preocupados por los derechos humanos? ¿Y cómo evalúas el punto muerto con respecto al PAIC?  Paul Jay  No estoy seguro de que haya una manera de caracterizar la pregunta porque sabes lo que pienso de que el Departamento de Estado está preocupado por los derechos humanos. Si les preocupan los derechos humanos… Viví en Baltimore durante casi diez años. Si les preocupan los derechos humanos, ¿por qué no empiezan por sus propias ciudades? El Departamento de Justicia investigó a la policía de Baltimore y en su informe afirmó que “los derechos constitucionales de los habitantes negros de Baltimore son violados a diario en Baltimore”. Los negros, hispanos y blancos pobres en muchas partes de los Estados Unidos, pero particularmente negros, no tienen derechos democráticos en los Estados Unidos, o muy pocos. Detenidos sin causa probable, encarcelados, apaleados, asesinados y torturados.  Entonces, si el Gobierno de los Estados Unidos realmente se preocupa por los derechos democráticos, uno pensaría que al menos comenzarían en casa, y no lo hacen. Por supuesto que no les importan un comino los derechos democráticos en Irán y, lo obvio, si les importara, no estarían lamiéndoles las botas a los saudíes. Estados Unidos nunca tendrá un ápice de credibilidad sobre los derechos democráticos en el mundo mientras tenga una alianza con Arabia Saudita, con los saudíes, y de todos modos no lo harían.  Este es un país que apoya dictaduras por todas partes. Así que por supuesto, no tiene nada que ver con eso. ¿Por qué no se restablece el acuerdo nuclear? Bueno, según tengo entendido, cuando se estaba negociando el acuerdo, y cuando [Barack] Obama estaba luchando por este acuerdo, que es una de las pocas cosas por las que le doy crédito a Obama… De hecho, cuando fue elegido, nunca me dejé hipnotizar por Obama. Fui muy crítico desde el principio de que era solo un demócrata de centro, incluso de centro-derecha. Diría que de centro, de centro-derecha no es justo, un demócrata de centro.  Esperaba que Obama fuera racional con respecto a Irán, y lo fue, al igual que Biden. [Col.] Larry Wilkerson me dijo que, cuando luchaban por conseguir esto…  Zain Raza  Larry Wilkerson, ¿puedes brevemente…?  Paul Jay  Larry, a quien entrevisto todo el tiempo, y tú acabas de entrevistarlo recientemente, fue el exjefe de gabinete de Colin Powell. Dice que cuando iban a conseguir la ratificación de ese tratado y apoyo al tratado en el Congreso, Biden luchó por eso y fue un verdadero defensor del tratado nuclear con Irán. Recuerdo incluso que en los debates vicepresidenciales en las elecciones, Biden fue muy racional sobre Irán, pero no ahora.  Entonces, ¿por qué? Creo que porque la verdadera objeción a ese tratado por parte de los halcones estadounidenses –y ciertamente de Israel, y ciertamente de los saudíes, que quizá al menos eran, no sé, algo cambia un poco, pero los saudíes fueron los más insistentes en exigir que los estadounidenses ataquen a Irán–, no son los misiles nucleares, no son las armas nucleares potenciales en Irán, que de todos modos no hay evidencia de que alguna vez estuvieran fabricando. Quiero decir, cero. Las estimaciones… No recuerdo el nombre.  Zain Raza  Estimaciones de inteligencia de seguridad nacional.  Paul Jay  Sí. Mostraron que los iraníes habían cejado en cualquier intento de construir una bomba nuclear antes de… ¿qué fue, 2003? Ni siquiera hay pruebas contundentes de que lo estuvieran haciendo entonces. Aunque estuvieran enriqueciendo uranio, parecía más una simple amenaza y poder de negociación.  Pero dicho todo esto, todos sabían que si Irán tuviera un arma nuclear, sería solo para defensa, como Corea del Norte. ¿Por qué Occidente no es más agresivo contra Corea del Norte? Porque tienen armas nucleares. Hay pruebas. Quiero decir, si Ucrania tuviera un arma nuclear, ¿Rusia habría invadido? No es muy probable. Quiero decir, la verdad es que existe una disuasión por tener un arma nuclear o dos.  Entonces, si no se trataba realmente de que Irán tenga un arma nuclear… No van a lanzar… ¿Por qué enviaría Irán un arma nuclear a Israel? Es una locura. Los estadounidenses eliminarían a Irán al día siguiente, al igual que los israelíes. Es una locura. Era solo defensiva. ¿Y qué si realmente fueran…?  Zain Raza  Y Pakistán tiene armas nucleares. Mi país de origen.  Paul Jay  Sí. Nadie está usando armas nucleares agresivamente en este momento porque los países a los que atacaras… El único lugar donde realmente existe una amenaza es contra un Estado no nuclear. Podemos hablar de eso como un tema separado. Ese es el problema, el desarrollo de armas nucleares tácticas contra Estados no nucleares, y eso es una amenaza real.  Pero retrocedamos. Entonces, ¿qué es lo que realmente está retrasando esto? La verdadera oposición de los estadounidenses, los israelíes y los saudíes son los misiles balísticos iraníes, no nucleares. Ahora tienen misiles balísticos muy sofisticados que pueden alcanzar objetivos con gran precisión, como hicieron después del asesinato del general iraní. Lanzaron un misil cerca de una base estadounidense, y eso es solo para mostrar lo que tienen. Entonces, quieren que los misiles balísticos se incluyan en cualquier acuerdo. Pero ¿por qué Irán debería incluir sus misiles balísticos? No son nucleares. Irán, según la AIEA [Agencia Internacional de Energía Atómica], casi en su totalidad, si no en su totalidad, ha cumplido los acuerdos de no proliferación. Pero los misiles balísticos no nucleares no tienen nada que ver con eso. Irán tiene derecho a armarse tanto como cualquier otro Estado, y no hay pruebas de que los iraníes estén usando su poderío militar de manera agresiva. Sí, quizá tengan alguna presencia en Irak, pero nada comparado con lo que hicieron los estadounidenses en Irak. Quizá los iraníes tengan algo en Siria. Bueno, está en su vecindario, y todo lo que han hecho los iraníes en Siria no es nada en comparación con lo que hicieron los estadounidenses en Siria y los saudíes y los qataríes y los turcos y los rusos. Es una larga lista.  Entonces, eso es lo que está retrasando ese acuerdo, y es estúpido, porque el acuerdo original simplemente debe cumplirse. Fueron los estadounidenses los que lo estropearon, no los iraníes. Los estadounidenses deberían simplemente hacer lo que acordaron hacer. Solo porque [Donald] Trump era un maníaco no significa que tengan que continuar de una manera maníaca. Pero los halcones de derecha en los EE. UU., los saudíes, los israelíes, etc., están presionando. Solo quieren alargar esto.  Todo el asunto es una locura. Si, de hecho… Y esto también se relaciona un poco con la conversación sobre Ucrania. Si tu principal adversario geopolítico –me encanta el término– es China, entonces, ¿por qué diablos empujas a Rusia a una alianza con China? ¿Por qué empujas a Irán a la órbita Ruso-China? Es una locura desde una perspectiva geopolítica estadounidense. Si realmente crees que China es tu adversario, y creo que es una ecuación estúpida de todos modos, pero así es como están actuando, ¿por qué fortaleces todas estas alianzas con China?  Está claro porque… Y esto es lo más importante de todas estas preguntas. El capitalismo monopolista no es algo racional. Está plagado de contradicciones internas e intereses contrapuestos. Te daré un ejemplo: Boeing. Taiwán no es uno de los diez principales clientes de Boeing, pero podría estar entre los 20 primeros en ventas militares, son un cliente importante. ¿Adivina quién es el número uno, al menos en 2020? Ahora, no sé. ¿Adivina quién es el mayor comprador de aviones comerciales de Boeing? China. Una empresa que tiene un dilema esquizofrénico sobre si aumentar las tensiones con Taiwán o ser amigable y vender al mercado de aviones comerciales chinos.  Una compañía. Pero es algo generalizado. La industria tecnológica quiere aplastar a la competencia china, y quieren acceder al mercado chino. Es una larga lista, incluso entre Alemania y los Estados Unidos.  Me encontraba en Albania durante y justo después de la caída del Gobierno comunista allí. Hubo una feroz disputa entre Alemania y los Estados Unidos sobre quién se convertiría en la potencia occidental dominante en Albania. Conocí a un tipo que era secretario en el Comité Central del Partido del Trabajo, no el secretario, sino que trabajaba como secretario. Dijo que hubo una reunión con [el expresidente de Albania] Ramiz Alia y un subsecretario de Estado de los Estados Unidos justo después de que el PLA [Parti

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Risking the Apocalypse for Money and God Nationalism, Imperialism, Smoke and Fire The Invasion has Inflamed Eastern European Opinion Ukraine and the Doomsday Machine – Larry Wilkerson and Paul Jay Sovereignty and War – Yuliya Yurchenko Daniel Ellsberg on Nuclear War and Ukraine Putin’s War Driven by Domestic Politics – Boris Kagarlitsky Russia Started War, Capitalists on All Sides Fuel the Fire – Boris Kagarlitsky pt 2 Russia, Climate Crisis, and the War in Ukraine – Boris Kagarlitsky pt 3 “Answering Criticism of our Ukraine Coverage with Paul Jay” (pt 1/3) Answering Criticism of our Ukraine Coverage with Paul Jay (pt 2/3) Answering Criticism of our Ukraine Coverage with Paul Jay (pt 3/3) A Warning From Chomsky and Ellsberg For Humanity’s Sake, Ukraine War Must End – Wilkerson Risking Nuclear War to Avoid Humiliation – Ellsberg (pt 1/2) Retired US Army Colonel on Ukraine, Iran & the State of the US Empire Class and the War in Ukraine – Paul Jay pt 1/2 Debatte über den Krieg in der Ukraine mit preisgekrönten Journalisten Transcript Spanish Transcript Listen Donate Subscribe Music Zain Raza Thank you, guys, for tuning in today, and welcome to another episode of The Source. I’m your host, Zain Raza, and today we’ll be talking to award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, and the founder of theAnalysis.news, Paul Jay. Paul, welcome back to the show. Paul Jay Thanks very much, Zain. Zain Raza Let us begin this segment with Ukraine. When the war started, the initial goals of Russia were the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine so that it poses no existential threat to the state of Russia. What do you think about this justification? Are you convinced? Let’s just start there. Paul Jay Okay, well, let me just say clearly, I think the objective of denazification was nonsense. If you want to denazify, start with your own country. There are lots of nazis, racists, and horrible Russian nationalists, including the Russian orthodox church, even the Russian communist party, and of course, [Vladimir] Putin’s party. There was no existential threat to Russia. The whole thing was a concoction. Ukraine was never going to be a member of NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization]. It was very clear there was no consensus in NATO to allow it into NATO. There’s already Estonia, which is on Russia’s border and is a member of NATO. If being in NATO makes a country an existential threat, then there already is one. There was no one about to invade Russia. The fundamental principle is you do not have a right to invade another country unless you are under imminent threat, and your invasion will prevent the imminent threat. There was no imminent threat to Russia, period. That’s international law. If it is an invasion that isn’t based on imminent threat, then it’s a war of aggression, which is, by the Nuremberg Trials and international law, considered one of the highest crimes a state can commit. It’s why states always concoct threats, as the United States did in Iraq. They concocted weapons of mass destruction to create an argument about an imminent threat, even though everyone on earth knew it was bullshit– every state, including [Adolf] Hitler. Hitler created excuses for invasions. Nobody invades without an excuse. There was no existential threat. If anything, the invasion of Ukraine has created a threat. If the objective was to stop NATO, the invasion simply strengthened NATO. It added Finland, another long border with Russia. Instead of now having just Estonia, now Finland is going to be in NATO with an enormous border with Russia. It’s a ridiculous notion that this was a war of self-defense, but let’s step back a bit. Zain Raza Let me just ask and play devil’s advocate on the denazification part before we take a step back. We do know that Congress, U.S. Congress, passed a law that listed the Azov Battalion, and thousands of soldiers or armed personnel were part of the Azov Battalion, which is part of the Ukraine Armed Forces. The law that they passed banned any armed sales to them. We do know that Stepan Bandera– there were a lot of people that joined around him. How can you not see that Ukraine had a Nazi problem? Especially, also given– Paul Jay I never said that. Zain Raza Okay, let me rephrase that. How could you not see that the Russian justification had some premise at least to address that? Paul Jay They have no right to go denazify anybody. They only have a right to defend if they are under imminent threat, full stop. Of course, there’s a significant Nazi presence in Ukraine. The Ukrainian oligarchy is rotten to the core. The only issue with the Ukrainian oligarchy is some of them want to be pro-west. Some of the Ukrainian oligarchies, although they were greatly weakened, wanted to be part of the Russian sphere. They’re corrupt from beginning to end, but so is the Russian oligarchy. So is the American oligarchy. So is the Canadian oligarchy. We’re dealing with a system of global capitalism, a system of global imperialism. It has many faces. The most dominant face, without any question, is the American face and its allies. No form of imperialism has more blood on its hands than the Americans do. Look at the situation in the lead-up to World War II. Up until the late ’30s, right up until the beginning of Hitler’s invasions in Poland and such, the greatest war criminal on the planet was not Hitler; it was the British Empire. No one on earth, I think, maybe ever, has killed as many people as the British Empire. I know one Indian historian estimated over the 300-plus years of the British Empire, they may have killed directly or indirectly– indirectly, meaning deliberately created famines, maybe 1.5 billion people. Hitler’s worst crimes don’t rise to the level of the British Empire. Does that mean the people of the world didn’t need to fight against Hitler? Because the Hitler form of imperialism at that time of history was the greatest danger certainly to the European peoples, to the Soviets, and to the British. The issue is the people. The elites are the ones responsible for the British Empire. The elites are the ones responsible for global– they’re the ones that benefit from global imperialism. There are no good guys in the Ukrainian conflict except for one, and that’s the Ukrainian people who have been invaded and are getting killed by the hundreds of thousands. Other victims include Russian soldiers who are being marched to war to benefit the Russian oligarchy, not the Russian people. The Russian people don’t gain anything from this war. I just want to say, just to really drive home this point, our enemy is global imperialism and global capitalism. At different points in time, one is more aggressive, and we do need to stand up for international law, even though, of course, there’s no one on earth that can make the Americans come under international law, but at least there’s some pretense. If we, as progressives, don’t fight against wars of aggression, no matter who it is, then who the hell is going to stand up for any kind of principles? Zain Raza I wanted to touch upon the second point about demilitarization. Moscow has been voicing concerns since, at least, when Putin came into power. Even William Burns, who is the current CIA director who was stationed in Moscow, a WikiLeaks document reveals that– I’m paraphrasing here– that Ukraine is a very sensitive issue and if we keep on peddling this line of NATO, then a civil war will break out, and Russia will be forced to intervene. The planners of Washington apparently recognized that. We saw that NATO offered Ukraine in April 2008– John Mearsheimer talked about this, that NATO offered Ukraine to become part of NATO. Then we saw the U.S. getting involved in 2014 with its CIA-backed coup and supporting right-wing forces. Even as late as of December 2, 2021, Russia was asking for reassurances about [Joe] Biden rejecting NATO, but no response was given by Washington. At what point does it become justifiable that, poking NATO in the nose– and we know NATO has not had a defensive history. It’s been anything, according to Noam Chomsky, an offensive force led by a rogue state, the United States. Don’t you think there’s any sort of justification or any sort of legitimization when Ukraine openly invites NATO and asks it to station military equipment and starts to become part of that alliance? Don’t you think it poses any sort of existential threat to the Russians? Paul Jay No. None. There’s not a single piece of evidence of it. As I said, there are already NATO states on the border of Russia. NATO has no plans to invade Russia. There’s no imminent threat to Russia. Most of the arming of Ukraine prior to the Russian invasion was domestic Ukrainian-produced arms. The big shipments of U.S. arms didn’t come until just before and mostly after the Russian invasion. Ukraine was one of the largest arms exporters in the world. They were in the top ten, nine or ten, of the biggest arms exporters up until about 2018. After 2018, they dropped out of the top ten. Why? Because they were building arms for their own army. They were doing domestic military production. They have a right to do that. They were not going to invade Russia. They have a right to build up their arms. I hate the Ukrainian oligarchy every bit as much as I hate the Russian oligarchy and all the other oligarchies, including the Canadian, where I happen to be right now. They’re all part of the same global monopoly, capitalist, and imperialist system. They are all rotten to the core, and none of them care how many tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people die. Yes, the Americans tried to provoke this, no doubt. Even entertaining the idea of Ukraine in NATO when they knew it couldn’t be done, when the Americans knew that there was no way they would get consensus to have Ukraine in NATO, they kept talking about it anyway. The same thing goes through the Ukrainian oligarchy. There were Ukrainians, prior to the invasion screaming at Zelenskyy, “take NATO off the table, declare the obvious, withdraw any application to NATO,” and he wouldn’t do it. Why? Because he represents sections of the Ukrainian oligarchy that knew they were going to make money out of all these arms coming into Ukraine. Zelenskyy could have maybe– I can’t guarantee this because it’s not the only factor– but if Zelenskyy had simply declared Ukraine would never join NATO, at least in terms of Russian public opinion, it would have made a big difference. Now, I don’t even think that’s why Putin invaded. I don’t think there’s any real threat from NATO. I think it’s more of a propaganda exercise. But it’s an important piece of the Russian nationalist narrative domestically that NATO is a threat. It’s the same way for the Americans. For decades and decades, the Americans were talking about the Soviet threat. “They’re going to come bomb us. The Russians are coming.” It was all bullshit. The Soviets were never a threat to the United States, not for a single day. But it was a critical piece of the American nationalist narrative, the same way it is in Russia. How does Putin justify it? Outside of the major cities of Russia, poverty is terrible. Education, health care, everything is terrible. It is at the worst standards. Now, Moscow itself is, I think, was one of the third or fourth wealthiest cities in the world, but not in the countryside. So how do you justify such a massive military-industrial complex in Russia without a serious external threat? And, of course, the same game is played by the Americans. Russia is no threat to NATO countries. It’s no threat to Western Europe. It’s total nonsense that Russia forms some kind of existential enemy, but it justifies an even more massive military expenditure by the Americans. It’s a morbid dance of death. Both powers have military-industrial complexes. Both profit from all this. Of course, stepping back a bit, yes, the Americans want to be the global hegemon. That means you got to be the hegemon in every region. You can’t be a global hegemon in the abstract. You got to be a hegemon in Europe. You got to be a hegemon in Asia. You got to be a hegemon everywhere, or you ain’t the global hegemon. The real question comes down to why didn’t they allow, after the fall of the Soviet Union, why didn’t they seriously incorporate Russia into Western capitalism? Some attempts and some moves, but two things. One, they couldn’t seize the Russian banking system. The Russian oligarchy, a lot came out of the Russian Communist Party, they grabbed the assets, and the Americans couldn’t just come and scoop everything for themselves. Second thing, once you have an independent, rising, capitalist Russia, if it was in Europe, because of the size of the population, the education, the history of sophisticated manufacturing, and the productive military base, Russia in a Europe would contend with Germany for what would be the leading power of Europe.  Imagine if there’d been a German-Russian alliance of some kind within that Europe. Where would the Americans be? So, of course, from very early on, because they wanted to be the global imperialist, the global hegemon, they did everything they could to make sure Russia didn’t integrate into Europe, certainly not into NATO, even though there was talk about that, although it’s so ridiculous. What the hell’s the point of NATO with a Russia in it? Although let’s put that aside because your reference to Chomsky is correct. NATO’s– I don’t know if I would call NATO so much an aggressive alliance as it is an alliance to maintain the American hegemony in Europe and suppress socialism. That is maybe even the most important part. The history of NATO and the American coordination in Western Europe is to make sure that post-war Europe, the socialist and communist parties didn’t come to power because there was enormous enthusiasm for socialism in Europe after World War II. They support the dictators in Greece, and they support [Gen. Francisco, former Caudillo of Spain] Franco in Spain. All this bullshit of NATO as a defense of democracy, it’s quite the opposite. NATO was a defense of various forms of fascism in Europe. The NATO alliance now, perhaps its most important part, is to make sure Europe stays within the Western American sphere of arms sales. What is the Ukraine war really about? Let’s jump to that now. One, keep Russia weak so it can’t contend in Europe. Two, keep Ukraine within a Western sphere of capitalism rather than a Russian sphere of capitalism. That’s the fight. Russia has no right to invade Ukraine, to keep Ukraine in a Russian sphere of capitalism any more than America, the United States, has a right to invade somewhere, which they do all the time, of course. But the bottom line here is the Ukrainian people are getting slaughtered, and we should defend their right to defend themselves. Zain Raza No, you make a good point about when we look at the people suffering. I think this is the first and foremost thing as progressives is to support the people that are suffering, whether it’s the Russian soldiers or whether it’s the Ukrainian people. These are young people. They are not some intellectuals fighting on the ground of politicians. We’re talking about young as up to 18 to 23 years old. But we have to also analyze and find out the reasons of why certain states act in a certain way. Trying to compare the Iraq war, I think, where the U.S. lied about weapons of mass destruction, which was an open lie. Even George Bush had a recent Freudian slip where he was trying to talk about Putin starting an illegal war in Ukraine. By mistake, he said Iraq. I’ll try to play that clip in right after this. George W. Bush And the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq, I mean of Ukraine– Iraq, anyway. [Laughter]  Zain Raza When we look at the history of the United States since the ’90s, the beginning of the 2000s, we saw them throwing out important arms control treaties. Look at the ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] Treaty, ICBM [Intercontinental Ballistic Missile] Treaty in 2003, Open Skies Treaty, and INF [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty. The START Treaty is now being put in question, and one has to ask themselves if it locates itself in Ukraine then throwing out all these treaties gives Ukraine and NATO a military advantage. For example, missiles can be– Paul Jay No, that’s nonsense. You can throw a missile from Poland just as easily as Ukraine. It makes no difference. Zain Raza But you know, in the Ukraine– Paul Jay I interviewed Daniel Ellsberg, who’s a real expert on these issues. He says it’s complete nonsense that there’s some strategic advantage of being in Ukraine versus Estonia, which is closer to Moscow or Poland. There’s no attack coming on Russia anyway. The whole thing is nonsense. Do you think they’re going to start a nuclear war? Zain Raza I don’t think it was about attacking Russia from there, but I think it was expanding even further despite all the promises made. At some point, for example, you and I know what happened in the Cuban Missile Crisis when Russia wasn’t even thinking about stationing there. I mean, obviously, Cuba was not going to invade the United States; we both know that. But it was from the perspective of the planners of Washington, it was just to have that as leverage in diplomatic talks on the international level. It was something that the U.S. couldn’t fathom. What my point– Paul Jay Watch my interview with Ellsberg on this point. Zain Raza We’ll link that in the thing. My point is just having that perception or having that thing is what Russian elites probably got scared of. This is the limit to where you encroach into our hemisphere, and therefore, we need to now intervene. I’m not trying to justify them. Don’t you think the way we’ve seen nation-states act– I’m not saying they’ve acted rightly, but realpolitik is conducted this way. You can’t go into Canada, station, and make a military alliance with them when the United States is across the borders. Don’t you think for the United States, NATO, and Ukraine to go that far and even entertain talks– Zelenskyy was saying, I think, a week before the invasion he was saying that we are now going to throw away the agreement that we have with Russia about our neutrality. Don’t you think that there’s at some point a line that one crosses that justifies in the eyes of the Russian elite, “that’s about it, we are going in now.” Paul Jay Obviously, there was a line because they did it. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a complete violation of international law. It’s not a war of aggression. The American blockade of Cuba was illegal and unjustified. There was no threat to the United States by even nuclear weapons in Cuba. It was all BS, and they knew it. There’s a quote from [Robert] McNamara where he says– and he said it later publicly, but at the time, he said it privately, but it’s been recorded in both ways– “that there was no threat from the nuclear weapons in Cuba to the United States.” It was a political threat to the [John F.] Kennedy administration to look weak because the Republicans were hammering Kennedy and so were the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They wanted an invasion of Cuba, and they were furious that Kennedy wasn’t, quote-unquote, “standing up to the Russians enough.” The Kennedys certainly played with the idea of invading Cuba and had full-scale plans for the invasion of Cuba. There was no strategic military threat from Cuba to the United States. Why? Because nothing changed. There were already Russian submarines that had nuclear weapons that could have taken out Washington, New York, anytime they wanted to. Having these weapons in Cuba changed nothing. So, as McNamara says, “this isn’t a strategic military threat to the United States; this is a political threat to the Kennedy administration,” meaning a domestic political problem. The blockade was to deal with that. In other words, “to avoid the look of humiliation,” I’m quoting Ellsberg now, “for Kennedy not to look humiliated,” because these things went into Cuba even after [Nikita] Khrushchev said he wasn’t going to, “they were willing to risk nuclear war with the blockade.” It’s beyond insanity. For domestic politics, they were willing to risk nuclear war. So it’s the same story going on here in Ukraine. There was no imminent threat to Russia, but because of Russian domestic politics– Putin’s party did very badly in the last election. As I said, outside of some of the major, two or three of the major cities, the situation for people is terrible. The disillusionment and disenchantment with the Russian oligarchy are very profound. The way the Americans fight this in the United States and the way the Russians fight it, and you can add many, many countries, is nationalism. You distract people with a good war. You make money out of the war. Certainly, Putin and the Russians never expected this to go on this long. I think he’s even admitted it now. They thought it’d be another Crimea. Zain Raza Do you think if NATO was off the table, according to what I’ve heard from you, Russia would have still invaded Ukraine? Paul Jay I don’t know the answer. I know there were strong domestic things driving this. Donbas is a very wealthy industrialized area. At least, it was before the war. It’s a prize. The Ukrainian oligarchy, as I said, was split. Part of the oligarchy that really was rooted in the industrial areas of Donbas and very much depended on cheap energy from Russia, they wanted to maintain this kind of Russian alliance. Of course, the Russian oligarchy wanted this within the sphere of Russian capitalism more so than Western. The vulnerability disenchantment, as I say, with the Putin administration– I interviewed Boris Kagarlitsky, I’m not sure if you have yet, but he’s very clear, and so are others. The Russian people were very furious at the Russian oligarchy for the incredible gap between the rich and the poor. Russian people saw the Russian oligarchs with their ridiculous yachts, lifestyle, and investments. The wealth was in the hands of this little circle of oligarchs, and people were furious at that. Yeah, Putin did step on some of the oligarchs, but any oligarchs that were loyal to the Russian state and didn’t get involved in politics continued making ridiculous amounts of money. So there are a lot of domestic reasons why this war took place. Yes, they thought it would be an easy cakewalk. I don’t know why. I guess because of Crimea. They never expected this long, drawn-out thing. But if NATO had been taken off the table, in terms of Russian public opinion, it would have looked like a win for Putin. It would have gotten rid of any excuse for NATO. While I say it wasn’t objectively a threat, subjectively, it felt like one. The way you framed it earlier, I think it’s true in a sense. In terms of perception, you already screwed with us in 2014 in Ukraine. We had a pro– we had a president there who tried to make a deal with the EU and didn’t like the deal. Ukraine was gravitating more to our Russian sphere. This was a popular revolt in 2014, hijacked by the far-right and backed by the U.S. Embassy. It’s not as simple as just some American-organized coup, but it’s a factor there for sure. Yeah, that pissed the Russians off. You’re playing in our backyard, and you’re manipulating Ukrainian politics. Our next-door neighbors, many of whom are Russian speaking– in fact, what is it? I think the majority of the Ukrainian army speaks Russian. I mean, the whole ethnic situation is very complicated in Ukraine. It’s not like you’ve got all Ukrainian speakers fighting Russian speakers. It’s all mixed up. When the 2014 coup took place in Donbas, when they created these independent, autonomous areas, they weren’t looking to join Russia. They wanted some kind of– I’m in Canada right now. They wanted some kind of Quebec-style federalism where there was autonomy and they had the right to defend their language and culture. It had quite a progressive leadership, as I’ve been told, in the early stages. But that’s all a Ukrainian domestic affair, first of all, and none of that complicated the Ukrainian situation, including the Nazis, who are there and have undue influence. They certainly did, but I’m not so sure they still do, actually, but they certainly did. None of that justifies the killing of hundreds of thousands of people. We got to keep putting at the center of this conversation the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people because this conversation gets into the realm of being a sociopath. The number of people that are talking about this as if they’re playing a board game. They’re back to [Zbigniew] Brzezinski’s chessboard. No, this isn’t a goddamn board game. This is hundreds of thousands of people being slaughtered for bullshit. Zain Raza So let us talk about solutions. What do you think would be the approach to get out of this crisis? We saw that the NATO countries like the UK under Boris Johnson derailed certain talks that were going to take place just before the summer was beginning. I think there were talks in Istanbul that were set to take place, and Boris Johnson, and I’m paraphrasing here, said, “the West is not ready for peace.” We’ve seen German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock say, “Russia has to be ruined,” I’m quoting her here. It has to be completely– Paul Jay The last Ukrainian, right. Zain Raza A lot of hawkish talk over these times. On the other side, we also see the political pressure boiling under Putin to make sure that they’ve come out victorious, and now we’re here. There have been some rumors that the U.S. military, the Pentagon, is split on this issue and that since the Poland crisis came where a missile was mistakenly launched or purposely launched, we don’t know, launched by the Ukrainians into Poland, that kind of awakens certain military figures in the United States to now start diplomatic initiatives. So if the West pursues diplomatic initiatives, what do you think should be the most important factors? And if we don’t pursue peace, what is at stake here? Paul Jay What should we, as progressive people, demand? First of all, we barely get listened to by the people that actually have power. The level of mass movements in all of our countries is rather low in every respect. It’s a whole other conversation why, but it is. We need a broad international mass anti-war movement. We need a movement against nuclear weapons to mitigate and reduce the threat of nuclear war, which is the number one point of analysis here. How do we avoid nuclear war? We need to start from there. The second point of analysis. How do we get to some effective policy on the climate crisis? Then you start looking at everything else. So I say when I’ve interviewed, I talk to Ukrainian friends, and I interview Ukrainian Left who are as nationalist and furious with the Russians as almost anybody in Ukraine– some of the leftists are even talking about the necessity of liberating even Crimea, which to me is nuts, but anyway. I’ve said to them I’m worried about nuclear war because there won’t be a Ukraine if there’s nuclear war. I’m worried about the climate crisis because there won’t be a Ukraine if we don’t– there won’t be anybody. We’re looking at the end of organized human society, and we’ve got maybe a decade or less not to cross the 1.5-degree mark, which is kind of already– I shouldn’t even say that because the way life is going, we are crossing 1.5° and we are getting to 2°. Are we going to do anything serious or transformative, so we don’t head to 3° and 4°? Imagine by 2050-2060, if we’re already into 3-4 degree warming, say 3°, even say 2°, two-plus, most, much, most of the Southern hemisphere becomes unlivable. So where are those tens, hundreds of millions of people going? North. What are you, Europeans, what are us, North Americans, what are we going to do when hundreds of millions of people are heading north, and they have no choice but to fight for their survival? We’re not even talking about that. So when I say to Ukrainians, yes, you damn well better make a deal, because even if it offends your national identity, your national sovereignty, yeah, maybe it looks like you’re having some gains on the field, a battle. One, the sacrifices you’re making are for what? I said this to one of them directly in an interview. Let’s say you liberate Donbas. Let’s say. For what? So the Ukrainian oligarchs can take power in Donbas again? You’re fighting with all your lives, everything you have, and you’re just going to hand it all back to the Ukrainian oligarchy. How about you get organized and, at some point, turn your guns on the Ukrainian oligarchy? Use this moment the way the Soviets did, even though maybe, in the end, it didn’t work out, but still. Use this moment and overthrow the Ukrainian oligarchy. Declare no NATO. Now, it’s easy for me to say, sitting here in the comfort of and safety of Toronto. I have no idea if the conditions exist for this in Ukraine, but ideally, as a progressive, I would love to see this turn into a Ukrainian revolution. Tell the Russians, “get the hell out. You want denazification? Great. We want it, too, and we’ll do it, not you.” Ukrainian people will denazify. We’ll get rid of the Ukrainian oligarchs. We’ll declare no NATO. We’ll declare neutrality. I mean, as a progressive, that’s what I want to see. But none of that happens with the Russians continuing to slaughter people. So the Russians need to get the hell out, go back to the borders as they were– what is it, February 23, if I got the date right. Yes, Ukrainians should declare no NATO. The goddamn Americans should declare no NATO, but that’s never going to happen, especially with the Republicans controlling the House. That doesn’t matter; the hawks around Biden are just as bad. But at least the Ukrainians should say, okay– Zelenskyy actually even said this once. He said, “look, we’re never getting in anyway, so we might as well just say so.” And then the Americans and whoever else told him to shut up. Zelenskyy and his crowd, as an individual, he’s played a pretty interesting role. You got to give the guy some credit for the way he’s acted both as an actor and as a leader. He represents the Ukrainian oligarchy that are making out like thieves as they are bandits. The tons of money that are paying for weapons, most of it, of course, goes to American arms companies who love this and would like it to go on forever. But I’m sure the Ukrainian oligarchy is getting their taste of all this money. But what should happen? Yeah, immediate ceasefire, an absolute declaration that Ukraine never joins NATO, and back to the 23rd border. Then UN supervised referendums in Donbas and in Crimea. Although I have to say, I do think Russia might win the Crimea referendum because the polling I saw, at least prior to the invasion, western polling firms said a majority of people of Crimea wanted to be in Russia. I’ve seen no evidence of that anywhere else. It may be maybe they haven’t done the polling, but even in Crimea, let’s legitimatize it. If the people of Crimea, even after the invasion, if they want to be part of Russia, then great, have a proper referendum, let it be so, and then let it be done. There needs to be democratic– the will of the Ukrainian people, including, I have to say, just to emphasize it, I think the people of Donbas, especially those areas that declared autonomy and independence, they have a right to self-determination, and so does Crimea. It has a right to self-determination, which the Ukrainian state must recognize. But there needs to be a referendum on how they want to exercise that. Like in Canada, Quebec has a right to self-determination. Even the Canadian Supreme Court recognized it, and there are at least, what is it, three referendums that were very close, but they decided to stay in Canada with very specific rights. So whatever the people want in that region should have. And then Putin better deal with his own domestic problems. Now, here’s the grave danger. The grave danger is that the hawks in the American foreign policy elite, in both parties, as I said earlier, they do not want Russia to take up its place as a powerful capitalist entity in Europe and towards Asia. They see there may be a possibility here not just of some kind of defeat in Ukraine but a fracturing of the whole Russian state. It’s called a Russian federation. Well, in that federation are many ethnicities, many, many languages, and many places that might want independence from Moscow. Many of these areas are doing terribly within the Russian Federation. You know, Siberia, the poverty in Siberia apparently is terrible, and the climate crisis hit is hitting Siberia in serious ways. Methane is leaking from the ground as the permafrost thaws, and pipelines are starting to crack. There’s a lot of very serious problems, and the Americans, some of these hawks see this as, “oh, let’s take advantage of this, and maybe we can break this whole bloody Russian Federation up.” That’s where you really start looking at the possibility of nuclear war. If Putin’s government, if the Russian state, which does seem very centralized around Putin, according to everyone I talk to. If they start seeing the Americans really fishing in domestic Russian troubled waters and really trying to encourage a breakup of the Russian Federation, that starts becoming an existential threat to the Russian state itself. That is where even the Chinese have said, “you better be careful what you wish for,” because if the Russian state, Putin starts seeing their own existence, meaning their own lives at threat, because if the Russian Federation looks like it’s starting to come apart, then Putin’s life might be on the line.  Then two, and I read this. This is a very interesting quote from a Chinese publication. Global Times did a commentary, and one of their chief people wrote, “if the Russian people start to see that their own country might be starting to come apart, they may see the Ukraine war as a great patriotic war, as was the last World War II.” This no longer becomes, quote-unquote, “Putin’s special military operation and now becomes a threat to the whole Russian society, then Putin might actually have full-scale Russian support for a massive, much more massive involvement in Ukraine.” That’s where I don’t think deliberate use of nuclear weapons happens, but the tension gets so high that that missile that landed in Poland, that turned out to be Ukrainian, but what happens the next time some missile goes astray and is on its way into the Russian Federation and they don’t know what kind of missile it is? Zain Raza Let’s close this segment here and talk about other issues, such as Iran and the case of Julian Assange in another segment. Thank you so much for your time in this segment. Paul Jay Okay, thanks for inviting me. Zain Raza Thank you, guys, for tuning in today. Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube, Rumble, and Telegram channels so you can watch part two of our discussion with Paul Jay. Also, don’t forget to take part in our current crowdfunding campaign. We need your support in order to continue for 2023. I’m your host Zain Raza, see you guys next time. Announcement  These are the building blocks that make up our organization and the goals we would like to achieve in order to continue our journalism and realize these values fundamental to our democracy. We need 1,000 supporters in our crowdfunding campaign donating only €5 or dollars per month via Patreon or bank account. Right now, we have only 200 supporters and are not able to take the next step. Our future is in your hands. Strengthen independent journalism and be part of meaningful change. Zain Raza Gracias a todos por estar con nosotros hoy y bienvenidos a otro episodio de The Source.  Soy su anfitrión, Zain Raza, y hoy hablaremos con el galardonado documentalista, periodista, y fundador de theAnalysis.news, Paul Jay.  Paul, bienvenido de nuevo al programa.  Paul Jay Muchas gracias, Zain.  Zain Raza Comencemos este segmento con Ucrania. Cuando empezó la guerra, los objetivos iniciales de Rusia eran la desnazificación y desmilitarización de Ucrania para que no represente una amenaza existencial para el Estado ruso. ¿Qué opinas sobre esta justificación? ¿Estás convencido? Empecemos por ahí.  Paul Jay Bien, bueno. Permíteme decir claramente que creo que el objetivo de la desnazificación no tenía sentido. Si quieres desnazificar, comienza con tu propio país. Hay muchos nazis, racistas, y horribles nacionalistas rusos, incluida la iglesia ortodoxa rusa, incluso el partido comunista ruso y, por supuesto, el partido de [Vladimir] Putin.  No había ninguna amenaza existencial para Rusia. Todo fue una invención. Ucrania nunca iba a ser miembro de la OTAN [Organización del Tratado del Atlántico Norte]. Estaba muy claro que no había consenso en la OTAN para permitirle entrar en la OTAN. Ya está Estonia, que está en la frontera con Rusia y es miembro de la OTAN. Si estar en la OTAN convierte a un país en una amenaza existencial, ya existe. No había nadie que estuviera a punto de invadir Rusia.  El principio fundamental es que no tienes derecho a invadir otro país a menos que esté bajo una amenaza inminente y tu invasión evite la amenaza inminente. No había una amenaza inminente para Rusia, punto. Eso es derecho internacional. Si es una invasión que no se basa en una amenaza inminente, entonces, es una guerra de agresión, que es, según los Juicios de Nuremberg y el derecho internacional, considerada uno de los crímenes más altos que un Estado puede cometer.  Es por eso que los Estados siempre inventan amenazas, como lo hizo Estados Unidos en Irak. Ellos inventaron armas de destrucción masiva para crear un argumento sobre una amenaza inminente, a pesar de que todo el mundo sabía que era mentira. Todos los Estados… Incluido [Adolf] Hitler. Hitler creó excusas para las invasiones. Nadie invade sin una excusa. No había ninguna amenaza existencial. En todo caso, la invasión de Ucrania ha creado una amenaza. Si el objetivo era detener a la OTAN, la invasión simplemente fortaleció a la OTAN. Agregó Finlandia, otra larga frontera con Rusia. En lugar de tener solo Estonia, ahora Finlandia va a estar en la OTAN, con una enorme frontera con Rusia.  Es una idea ridícula que esto fuera una guerra de autodefensa, pero retrocedamos un poco.  Zain Raza Déjame preguntar y hacer de abogado del diablo. En la parte de desnazificación, antes de dar un paso atrás.  Sabemos que el Congreso, el Congreso de los Estados Unidos, aprobó una ley que incluía al Batallón Azov, y miles de soldados o personal armado formaban parte del Batallón Azov, que es parte de las Fuerzas Armadas de Ucrania… La ley que aprobaron les prohibía cualquier venta de armas. Sabemos que Stepan Bandera… Hay mucha gente que lo apoya. ¿Cómo no puedes ver que Ucrania tenía un problema nazi? Especialmente, también dado…  Paul Jay No he dicho eso.  Zain Raza Bueno, lo reformularé. ¿Cómo no ver que la justificación rusa tenía alguna base al menos para abordar eso?  Paul Jay No tienen derecho a ir a desnazificar a nadie. Solo tienen derecho a defenderse si están bajo una amenaza inminente, punto final. Por supuesto, hay una importante presencia nazi en Ucrania. La oligarquía ucraniana está podrida hasta la médula. El único problema con la oligarquía ucraniana es que algunos de ellos quieren ser prooccidentales. Algunas de las oligarquías ucranianas, aunque estaban muy debilitadas, querían ser parte de la esfera rusa. Son corruptos de principio a fin, pero también lo es la oligarquía rusa. También lo es la oligarquía estadounidense. También lo es la oligarquía canadiense.  Nos enfrentamos a un sistema de capitalismo global, un sistema de imperialismo global. Tiene muchas caras. El rostro más dominante, sin duda, es el rostro estadounidense y sus aliados. Ninguna forma de imperialismo tiene más sangre en las manos que los estadounidenses. Considera la situación en el periodo previo a la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Hasta finales de los años 30, hasta el comienzo de las invasiones de Hitler en Polonia y todo lo demás, el mayor criminal de guerra del planeta no fue Hitler, sino el Imperio Británico. Nadie en la tierra, seguramente nunca, ha matado a tantas personas como el Imperio Británico. Sé que un historiador indio estimó que, durante los más de 300 años del Imperio Británico, mataron directa o indirectamente, con “indirectamente” me refiero a hambrunas creadas deliberadamente, quizá 1500 millones de personas.  Los peores crímenes de Hitler no alcanzan el nivel de los del Imperio Británico. ¿Significa eso que la gente de todo el mundo no debía luchar contra Hitler? Porque la forma hitleriana de imperialismo en ese momento de la historia era el mayor peligro, ciertamente para los pueblos europeos, los soviéticos y los británicos.  El tema son los pueblos. Las élites son las responsables del Imperio Británico. Las élites son las r

The arrest of Peru's leftist President Pedro Castillo represents the latest and most serious twist in the country's ongoing systemic political crisis, says Peruvian Ph.D. student and columnist Francesca Emanuele.

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TranscriptList"} From fintech to food systems and social media to all domains essential for society and the economy, the State of Big Tech compendium of fifteen essays offers a vision and blueprint for the 99% to break out of privatized status-quoist enclosures. This video was produced by GPEnewsdocs. .kt-post-loop_6122b8-ec .kadence-post-image{padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;}.kt-post-loop_6122b8-ec .kt-post-grid-wrap{gap:30px 6px;}.kt-post-loop_6122b8-ec .kt-blocks-post-grid-item{border-top-width:0px;border-right-width:0px;border-bottom-width:0px;border-left-width:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-left-radius:0px;border-top-left-radius:0px;}.kt-post-loop_6122b8-ec .kt-blocks-post-grid-item .kt-blocks-post-grid-item-inner{padding-top:10px;padding-right:25px;padding-bottom:25px;padding-left:9px;}.kt-post-loop_6122b8-ec .kt-blocks-post-grid-item header{padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;}.kt-post-loop_6122b8-ec .kt-blocks-post-grid-item .entry-title{padding-top:5px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:10px;padding-left:0px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;font-size:16px;line-height:17px;}.kt-post-loop_6122b8-ec .entry-content{padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;}.kt-post-loop_6122b8-ec .kt-blocks-post-footer{border-top-width:0px;border-right-width:0px;border-bottom-width:0px;border-left-width:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;}.kt-post-loop_6122b8-ec .entry-content:after{height:0px;}.kt-post-loop_6122b8-ec .kb-filter-item{border-top-width:0px;border-right-width:0px;border-bottom-width:2px;border-left-width:0px;padding-top:5px;padding-right:8px;padding-bottom:5px;padding-left:8px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;} Artificial Intelligence in Whose Interests? – RAI with Rana Foroohar Pt 6/6 Cold War Radar System a Trillion-Dollar Fraud – Lester Earnest on RAI Pt 1/5 DOD Criterion for Success Spend all Your Money by Year-End – Lester Earnest on RAI Pt 3/5 Billionaires Shouldn’t Control Artificial Intelligence – Lester Earnest on RAI Pt 4/5 AI Should Improve Quality of Life, Not Make Capitalists Rich – Lester Earnest on RAI Pt 5/5 Military-Industrial Congressional Frauds – Lester Earnest on RAI Pt 2/5 Big Tech Goes For the Kill at the World Trade Organization Big Tech Censorship or Deal with the Real Problems? – Thomas Frank Big Tech Censorship and Defying Offical Narratives – Paul Jay and Joe Lauria at the World Ethical Data Forum YouTube Censorship & the Threat of Nuclear War With Paul Jay Hedges on Ukraine Capitalism’s Structural Crisis and the Global Revolt State of Big Tech 2022: Dismantling National & Global Digital Enclosures Transcript Listen Donate Subscribe Music LYNN FRIES: Hello and welcome. I’m Lynn Fries producer of Global Political Economy or GPEnewsdocs. Capitalism in the Age of Intellectual Monopoly authored by Cecilia Rikap and Cedric Durand, Centering Society in Big Tech Reform by Richard Hill, Rigging the Rules: How Big Tech Uses Stealth “Trade” Agreements and How We Can Stop Them by Deborah James, When Big Tech Came for the Farm: A Blueprint of Resistance from Asia’s Small Farmers by GRAIN. Those are a sampling of essays that are part of a compendium of fifteen essays published in the 2022 edition of the State of Big Tech. The State of Big Tech is a research project at IT for Change. It is supported by the Fair, Green and Global Alliance. This is an eight member alliance that aims to power voices of peoples and communities all over the world and that is collaborating with over a thousand partner organisations in countries where people and nature are under constant pressure. Under the theme of ‘Dismantling Digital Enclosures’ and at the invitation of IT for Change, scholars and activists alike representing a broad spectrum of fields and experience have contributed to this   inaugural edition of the State of Big Tech. As stated by IT for Change: “The essays break down various phenomenon such as the creeping onslaught of edtech into public education, the digital capture of food systems; Big Tech’s attempts to monopolize research and corner innovation networks, to their Trojan-Horse proposals for instituting their power in multilateral spaces, to the questions raised by Web 3.0. But going beyond detailing the problem statement, our contributors also capture attempts at popular mobilization, and bold visions for alternative digital futures that attempt to break out of the privatized status-quoist enclosures.” Today’s video short will feature clips of three of these contributors talking about their respective essays. Those essays include: Milford Bateman’s The Investor-Driven Fintech Model and Its Discontents, Michael Kwet’s Building a Socialist Social Media Commons and Sofia Monsalve Suárez and Philip Seufert’s The Big Tech Takeover of Food Systems in Latin America: Elements for a Human Rights-based alternative. We go now to our featured clips. MILFORD BATEMAN, visiting professor of economics at Juraj Dobrila University at Pula in Croatia:  My interest in preparing the chapter in this book is FINTECH, short for financial technology. It’s something that is being widely celebrated across the world but particularly in the Global South. Because many see it as a way that will bring development to local communities and facilitate poverty reduction and many other benefits. The evidence so far is that there are some benefits for communities in terms of easier access to credit, easier access to savings , better access to remittance, cheaper payments. But when you start to look into the long term and how these trends develop, you actually see that there are many downside appearing, And they are now at risk of swamping any of the initial upsides to FINTECH. So that’s what I tried to look at. It is still research at an early stage. But it certainly is very worrying that so many of the initial upsides are now being completely obliterated by these downsides. And that FINTECH is now turning into a new way of extracting value from the Global South along the lines of the old colonial project. And so I have documented some issues of that and other disbenefits I can find. And at the end of the chapter I point to a new type of model, a people-centered FINTECH model. Which is about local communities using FINTECH platforms as a way of directly benefiting the community. And not having to interact with Big Tech or international investors but doing it themselves. And promoting FINTECH and adopting and adapting FINTECH in ways that help local communities in the Global South. MICHAEL KWET, visiting fellow Yale Information Society Project: Today I am going to be discussing an article I wrote for IT for Change about social media. It is called Building a Socialist Social Media Commons. And it is about how to transform the social media landscape so that it is truly democratic, bottom up and egalitarian and environmentally sustainable at a global level. So right now over the last few years, the antitrust community has proposed a solution for social media that force big social media networks to interoperate with smaller ones. So that smaller networks have a real chance of growing their user bases. However in their solution. There is a commitment to competitive capitalism and the private ownership of social media networks that pursue profit growth expansion and try to maximize their user bases in a war of all against all for a finite user base in order to maximize revenues and profits. So I think that the harms that we see in big social media, digital privacy violations and user manipulations as well as a consumerist model built around advertising that threatens the environment – these things are going to remain intact under their model. I argue in the paper that instead we should take this further and try to build a truly bottom up, community owned and controlled social media ecosystem, one that is free and open source and decentralized. So that we don’t run into these harms. And so that people are in control of their social media experience. I offer as a model the fediverse which began development over a decade ago. And is a set of interoperable social media networks that already exist in the real world today with over several million users. I also discuss other alternatives to further decentralize the already existing interoperable social media landscape. And I explain how this works in the article. And then I close the article out by discussing some legal solutions. Because it is one thing to have an alternative that exists in the real world that is functional and doing quite well but it is another thing to scale it up. Because the big social media networks already have cornered the market. So I have a set of legal solutions that I think could be put into place that would actually transform social media into a socialist commons. In order to make this work obviously we would need a big grassroots movement because you can’t destroy trillion dollar corporations without pushback and attempts to stop it from happening.  SOFÍA MONSALVE SUÁREZ , Secretary General of FIAN International: Big Tech is trying to control all domains essential for life. Food is one of those. In alliance with  Big Food and Agribusiness, Big Tech is a major factor in potentially increasing the corporate capture of our food systems. But agribusiness is not the only entry point for Big Tech in agriculture. Big Tech is also trying to penetrate and control small scale farming. How is it doing so? It is providing digital infrastructure to rural areas as well as digital platforms for accessing markets, digital advisory extension services, agri-digital financial services and access to ‘smart farming’ for small scale food producers. Why is this a problem? By controlling digital infrastructure Big Tech is in a comfortable position to illegitimately appropriate small scale farmer data. Big Tech attempts to organize food production in a manner that will deepen the subordination of the small holder farming interests to global capital. Capturing peasant and indigenous collective knowledge and monopolizing those rents that can be generated from it is a central piece in these endeavors. Big Tech jeopardizes the rights of peasants and of indigenous peoples. Defending our food sovereignty is a crucial element in today’s struggle against Big Tech. FRIES: All of the essays in the State of Big Tech compendium can be found online at itforchange.net. The direct link is as follows: projects.itforchange.net/state-of-big-tech/. As well as the essays mentioned in today’s short, the compendium’s other published titles include:  Rise of the Platform Economy: Implications for Labor and Sustainable Development in Developing Countries, Taming Big Technification? The European Digital Markets Act; Big Tech and Digital Hype Against Covid-19, Can Data Save Lives: The Right to Health in the Digital Era, Web3 and the Metaverse: Which Way for the Web?, Big Tech and the Smartification of Agriculture, Taxing Big Tech: Policy Options for Developing Countries, Changing Dynamics of Labor and Capital Many thanks to IT for Change for putting this content into the public domain and to all the supporters and contributors to this research project. And thank you for joining us.  Select one or choose any amount to donate whatever you like any amount $5 $15 $25 $50 $100 $500 $1,000 Custom Amount $ Make this donation each month (optional) Donate with Credit Card var gform;gform||(document.addEventListener("gform_main_scripts_loaded",function(){gform.scriptsLoaded=!0}),window.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",function(){gform.domLoaded=!0}),gform={domLoaded:!1,scriptsLoaded:!1,initializeOnLoaded:function(o){gform.domLoaded&&gform.scriptsLoaded?o():!gform.domLoaded&&gform.scriptsLoaded?window.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",o):document.addEventListener("gform_main_scripts_loaded",o)},hooks:{action:{},filter:{}},addAction:function(o,n,r,t){gform.addHook("action",o,n,r,t)},addFilter:function(o,n,r,t){gform.addHook("filter",o,n,r,t)},doAction:function(o){gform.doHook("action",o,arguments)},applyFilters:function(o){return gform.doHook("filter",o,arguments)},removeAction:function(o,n){gform.removeHook("action",o,n)},removeFilter:function(o,n,r){gform.removeHook("filter",o,n,r)},addHook:function(o,n,r,t,i){null==gform.hooks[o][n]&&(gform.hooks[o][n]=[]);var e=gform.hooks[o][n];null==i&&(i=n+"_"+e.length),gform.hooks[o][n].push({tag:i,callable:r,priority:t=null==t?10:t})},doHook:function(n,o,r){var t;if(r=Array.prototype.slice.call(r,1),null!=gform.hooks[n][o]&&((o=gform.hooks[n][o]).sort(function(o,n){return o.priority-n.priority}),o.forEach(function(o){"function"!=typeof(t=o.callable)&&(t=window[t]),"action"==n?t.apply(null,r):r[0]=t.apply(null,r)})),"filter"==n)return r[0]},removeHook:function(o,n,t,i){var r;null!=gform.hooks[o][n]&&(r=(r=gform.hooks[o][n]).filter(function(o,n,r){return!!(null!=i&&i!=o.tag||null!=t&&t!=o.priority)}),gform.hooks[o][n]=r)}}); Never miss another story Subscribe to theAnalysis.news - Newsletter Email(Required) Name(Required) First Last Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); theAnalysis.news theme music written by Slim Williams for Paul Jay’s documentary film “Never-Endum-Referendum“.   Never-Endum-Referendum Artist Website Paul Jay’s Documentaries

{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org\/","@id":"https:\/\/theanalysis.news\/retired-us-army-colonel-on-ukraine-iran-the-state-of-the-us-empire\/#arve-youtube-xnojl8o2lno638652cde36cd264115787","type":"VideoObject","embedURL":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XNojL8o2lNo?feature=oembed&iv_load_policy=3&modestbranding=1&rel=0&autohide=1&playsinline=0&autoplay=1&enablejsapi=1","name":"Retired US Army Colonel on Ukraine, Iran & the State of the US Empire","thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/XNojL8o2lNo\/hqdefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2022-11-29T13:41:19+00:00","author":"theAnalysis-news","description":"In this episode of The Source, we talk with Lawrence Wilkerson, retired Army Colonel and former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, about foreign policy with a focus on North Korea, Iran, and Ukraine. 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This interview was produced by acTVism Munich. .kt-post-loop_e7d495-07 .kadence-post-image{padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;}.kt-post-loop_e7d495-07 .kt-post-grid-wrap{gap:30px 6px;}.kt-post-loop_e7d495-07 .kt-blocks-post-grid-item{border-top-width:0px;border-right-width:0px;border-bottom-width:0px;border-left-width:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-left-radius:0px;border-top-left-radius:0px;}.kt-post-loop_e7d495-07 .kt-blocks-post-grid-item .kt-blocks-post-grid-item-inner{padding-top:10px;padding-right:25px;padding-bottom:25px;padding-left:9px;}.kt-post-loop_e7d495-07 .kt-blocks-post-grid-item header{padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;}.kt-post-loop_e7d495-07 .kt-blocks-post-grid-item .entry-title{padding-top:5px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:10px;padding-left:0px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;font-size:16px;line-height:17px;}.kt-post-loop_e7d495-07 .entry-content{padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;}.kt-post-loop_e7d495-07 .kt-blocks-post-footer{border-top-width:0px;border-right-width:0px;border-bottom-width:0px;border-left-width:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;}.kt-post-loop_e7d495-07 .entry-content:after{height:0px;}.kt-post-loop_e7d495-07 .kb-filter-item{border-top-width:0px;border-right-width:0px;border-bottom-width:2px;border-left-width:0px;padding-top:5px;padding-right:8px;padding-bottom:5px;padding-left:8px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;} Retired US Army Colonel on Ukraine, Iran & the State of the US Empire Risking Nuclear War to Avoid Humiliation – Ellsberg (pt 1/2) Is Russian War in Ukraine “Similar” to 1962 U.S. Blockade of Cuba? – Daniel Ellsberg (pt 2/2) For Humanity’s Sake, Ukraine War Must End – Wilkerson A Warning From Chomsky and Ellsberg “Answering Criticism of our Ukraine Coverage with Paul Jay” (pt 1/3) Answering Criticism of our Ukraine Coverage with Paul Jay (pt 3/3) Russia, Climate Crisis, and the War in Ukraine – Boris Kagarlitsky pt 3 Answering Criticism of our Ukraine Coverage with Paul Jay (pt 2/3) Russia Started War, Capitalists on All Sides Fuel the Fire – Boris Kagarlitsky pt 2 Identity, Nationalism and Climate Change – Paul Jay Putin’s War Driven by Domestic Politics – Boris Kagarlitsky Daniel Ellsberg on Nuclear War and Ukraine Weaponized National Identity, War and an Orgy of Profits – Paul Jay pt 2/3 Sovereignty and War – Yuliya Yurchenko On Conspiracy and War – Paul Jay pt 1/3 Ukraine and the Doomsday Machine – Larry Wilkerson and Paul Jay The Invasion has Inflamed Eastern European Opinion Nationalism, Imperialism, Smoke and Fire Risking the Apocalypse for Money and God Who Benefits From a Protracted Ukrainian War? Hedges on Ukraine Russian Chauvinism and an American Global Monroe Doctrine – Vijay Prashad pt 2 Ukraine a Pawn in a Larger Struggle – Vijay Prashad pt 1 Putin’s War Crimes Follow in the Steps of American War Crimes – Denis Pilash pt 2/2 Ukraine and the Oligarchs – Denis Pilash pt 1/2 Ukrainian Left: Fight Russian Invasion & Say No to NATO – Denys Gorbach pt 2/2 The IMF Connection with the Ukraine Crisis Ukrainian Left: Fight Russian Invasion and Say No to NATO – pt 1/2 Matt Taibbi on Putin the Apostate Ukraine From Crisis to Catastrophe – Gerald Horne  Ukraine: Russian Crimes, American Hypocrisy – Wilkerson and Jay From Jim Crow Kentucky to Red Square – RAI Stephen Cohen (4/5) Ukrainian Buzarov and Russian Buzgalin on the Conflict in Ukraine Is Trump for Detente With Russia and Militarism With China and Iran – RAI Stephen Cohen (2/5) U.S. Hoped Putin Would be a ‘Sober Yelstin’ – RAI Stephen Cohen (3/5) What is the Way Forward for the Ukrainian People in the Midst of International Tensions? – Andrey Buzarov pt 2/2 Is ‘Russia Meddling’ an Attack on America – RAI Stephen Cohen (1/5) What U.S. Foreign Policy and Pro Wrestling Have in Common – Paul Jay Part 2: A Progressive Russian on Ukraine – Aleksandr Buzgalin A Progressive Russian on Ukraine – Aleksandr Buzgalin pt 1/2 Massive Escalation in Donbas or a New Propaganda Campaign? – Andrey Buzarov pt 1/2 It’s Time to Roll Back NATO Itself – Larry Wilkerson Ukraine: Dangerous Dance of Military-Industrial Complex – Paul Jay Russian Political Scientist: “The Russian Public has no Appetite for War” – Stanislav Byshok Pt 1 Why is Biden Pushing Putin on Ukraine? – Larry Wilkerson Ukraine and the Battle of the Oligarchs – pt 2/2 Why Are Tensions Rising in Ukraine? – pt 1/2 Understanding U.S. Foreign Policy w/ Paul Jay Pt 1/2 Transcript Listen Donate Subscribe Guest Music A transcript will be arriving shortly. Select one or choose any amount to donate whatever you like any amount $5 $15 $25 $50 $100 $500 $1,000 Custom Amount $ Make this donation each month (optional) Donate with Credit Card Never miss another story Subscribe to theAnalysis.news - Newsletter Email(Required) Name(Required) First Last Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); “Lawrence B. Wilkerson is a retired United States Army Colonel and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell.” theAnalysis.news theme music written by Slim Williams for Paul Jay’s documentary film “Never-Endum-Referendum“.   Never-Endum-Referendum Artist Website Paul Jay’s Documentaries

Rich fossil fuel states blocked real solutions at COP27, but what needs to be done is well known. People need to organize and elect candidates with a green agenda. Robert Pollin joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news.

Economist Bob Pollin says government stimulus and higher wages are not the primary drivers of today's inflation. Higher interest rates are not the solution. Bob joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news.

Was the ‘62 U.S. blockade of Cuba justified? Is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine justified by the potential of nuclear weapons on Ukrainian territory? Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov says the situations are “similar“. On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Daniel Ellsberg joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news.

The Ukrainian missile that hit Poland and was first attributed to Russia was one of the most dangerous moments since the Russian invasion. Daniel Ellsberg says as it was for Kennedy in 1962 in Cuba, so it is now for Putin in Ukraine. There is no actual national security threat, only a threat to the leader's domestic political survival. That does not mean the danger isn’t real.

Why did Corporate Democrats “cede” the economic argument? Are they really fighting inflation or trying to weaken worker’s bargaining power? Tom Ferguson joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news.