It is sad that Common Dreams, a prominent American aggregator of progressive news and opinion, repeatedly publishes campist columns on the war in Ukraine from the likes of the neoliberal shock therapist Jeffrey Sachs, the Code Pink pacifists Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J. S. Davies, and here again Robert Freeman, the author of The Best One Hour History series of very short books on historical events written for high school readers. If Freeman writes one of his one-hour histories about Ukraine, I think we already know the campist narrative it will present from reading his Common Dreams opinion columns on Ukraine.
This column was full of misinformation: "[Biden] lost the U.S.’ proxy war against Russia in Ukraine." Here we have two Kremlin talking points in one short sentence. (1) Ukraine has lost the war, but (2) it is actually a U.S. proxy war against Russia that the U.S losing. Ukrainians, whose own actions have repeatedly defied the expectations of both U.S. and Russian imperialists, are absent from the campist perspective. Only the opposing imperialist camps are present. "The Democrats began menacing Russia in 1994, when former President Bill Clinton announced the eastward expansion of NATO to include formerly Soviet-bloc countries." The implication being that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is justified self-defense. "They continued it with the U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine, in 2014, overthrowing a Russia-leaning government and installing a Western-leaning neo-fascist state. Biden was the Obama administration’s quarterback on that coup." This coup assertion is constantly made by campists as if it is uncontested fact. Calling the Maidan revolution a U.S.-backed coup treats the Ukrainian people as pawns of the U.S. rather than actors with their own reasons for opposing the kleptocratic oligarchs and repressive thugs around the then-president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. Calling it a coup, which normally refers to a government takeover by an armed force, is refuted by the reality that the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove Yanukovych and hold elections for a new president in three months. Calling Biden the quarterback of the "coup" is a favorite Kremlin trope on the Trumpist far right. Ukraine can be criticized as a neoliberal state, but the neofascist state in this conflict ( https://tempestmag.org/2022/04/from-managed-democracy-to-fascism/ ) is repressive militarized Russia. "Biden, on the brink of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, refused to even discuss Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer of a European-wide security framework." Not true. The centerpiece of Putin’s “offer” of December 15, 2021, made as 100,000 Russian troops had amassed on Ukraine’s borders, was a demand that NATO withdraw its military footprint from all the countries that joined had NATO after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russia and the U.S. discussed Putin’s proposals at a specially called meeting of the NATO-Russia Council on January 12, 2022. The U.S. and NATO followed up with a written joint response on January 26, 2022. The US/NATO response reaffirmed their open door policy, but also said they wanted to negotiate over other security matters the Russian documents had raised, such as intermediate-range nuclear missiles. Russia’s response to the US/NATO response was the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Both sides' documents are here ( https://www.memri.org/reports/confidential-nato-us-responses-russian-demand-security-guarantees-known-putins-ultimatum#_edn1https://www.memri.org/reports/confidential-nato-us-responses-russian-demand-security-guarantees-known-putins-ultimatum%23_edn1 ). "And it was the Biden administration that made colossal miscalculations about Russia’s military weakness, the U.S.’ military prowess, and the likely efficacy of economic sanctions. More than 500,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed, and almost $200 billion squandered, for that mistake.” Freeman is either confused here or inflating numbers to support his contentions. There was a NY Times report ( https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/us/politics/ukraine-russia-war-casualties.html ) last August that U.S. officials estimated that the combined casualties of Ukrainians and Russians was approaching 500,000. The estimated Rissan casualties were about 300,000, with 120,000 deaths and 170,000-180,000 wounded. For the Ukrainians, the estimates were approaching 200,000 causualties, including 70,000 killed and 100,000-120,000 wounded. Rightwing U.S. politicians and commentators have been falsely asserting the $200 billion figure for two years ( https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-have-us-taxpayers-sent-200-billion-ukraine-1796322 ). Or maybe Freeman got confused about U.S. defense secretary Lloyd Austin's statement ( https://kyivindependent.com/russia-has-spent-200-billion-on-full-scale-war-in-ukraine-suffered-700-000-casualties-austin-says/ ) in December that Russia had spent more than $200 billion on its war on Ukraine (and had suffered 700,000 casualties). Or maybe Freeman got it from Trump speaking ( https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/02/02/trump_calls_on_europe_to_shoulder_equal_ukraine_burden_150421.html ) at his Las Vegas rally the day after the inauguration. The U.S. State Department tally reported as of January 20, 2025 is $65.9 billion ( https://www.state.gov/bureau-of-political-military-affairs/releases/2025/01/u-s-security-cooperation-with-ukraine ) in military assistance to Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. "But most of the world’s nations are happy to have seen Russia bloody the U.S.’s nose.” Most of the world’s nations have voted to condemn Russia’s invasion in the UN. On March 2, 2022, the UN General Assembly voted 141 for, 5 against, and 35 abstentions to reprimand Russia’s invasion and demand its immediate withdrawal from Ukraine. A year later on February 23, 2023, the UN General Assembly vote for an immediate, complete, and unconditional withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine was 141 for, 7 against, and 32 abstentions. Michael Karadjis’ review of polling data ( https://newlinesmag.com/argument/the-global-souths-views-on-ukraine-are-more-complex-than-you-may-think/ ) in the Global South indicates that it is actually Russia’s nose that has been bloodied in popular opinion. Freeman’s column was right to indict Biden and the Democratic leadership for delaying prosecution of Trump for his 2020 coup attempt and for making the U.S. a full partner in Israel’a genocidal war in Gaza. He was right to call on his fellow Democrats to now support a new progressive party. But he undermined his case for that with his hypocritical support for human rights, democracy, and international law for Gaza but not for Ukraine. That kind of inconsistency would alienate most progressives from a new left party. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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