Amid tough talk from European and American leaders, a new MintPress study of our nation’s most influential media outlets reveals that it is the press that is driving the charge towards war with Russia over Ukraine. Ninety percent of recent opinion articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have taken a hawkish view on conflict, with anti-war voices few and far between. Opinion columns have overwhelmingly expressed support for sending U.S. weapons and troops to the region. Russia has universally been presented as the aggressor in this dispute, with media glossing over NATO’s role in amping tensions while barely mentioning the U.S. collaboration with Neo-Nazi elements within the Ukrainian ruling coalition.
by Alan Macleod
by Alan Macleod
Part 5 - Pipeline politics and cracks in the NATO alliance
Last week, Washington Post columnist Daniel Drezner proclaimed that “Putin has succeeded in creating his worst strategic outcome: unifying NATO.” Yet this seems wishful thinking. Germany and France, the most powerful nations in Western Europe, have both openly expressed reluctance to escalate the situation. The German government did not allow British warplanes carrying weapons to Ukraine to pass over its airspace, and it blocked shipments of German-made arms from the Baltic States to Ukraine. Even more significantly, Kay-Achim Schönbach, vice-admiral of the German Navy, publicly condemned what he saw as a reckless buildup of tensions. Schönbach stated that the West was refusing to give Putin even a modicum of respect and that we should accept the Crimea annexation as a fait accompli. For this outburst, he was forced to resign.
Across the border in France, President Emmanuel Macron is so alarmed by the U.S./U.K. push to escalate tensions that he has called on the EU to start its own negotiations with Russia – negotiations that exclude the U.S. and U.K. Germany and France were written off as “appeasers” of a dictator by The Washington Post, and as puppets of Putin and of Chinese premier Xi Jinping by The Wall Street Journal.
Across the border in France, President Emmanuel Macron is so alarmed by the U.S./U.K. push to escalate tensions that he has called on the EU to start its own negotiations with Russia – negotiations that exclude the U.S. and U.K. Germany and France were written off as “appeasers” of a dictator by The Washington Post, and as puppets of Putin and of Chinese premier Xi Jinping by The Wall Street Journal.
Much of the EU’s reluctance to get behind an American-led war on Russia is attributable to their energy dependence on Moscow. Currently, Russia supplies nearly half of the EU’s gas and around one-quarter of its oil. This is likely only to increase with the imminent completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which runs undersea from Russia’s Baltic coast directly to northern Germany. The United States has repeatedly demanded Europe cancel this project, insisting that Europe service its energy needs from Middle Eastern dictatorships under U.S. control or directly from the U.S., at around four times the price of Russian gas. The U.S. is currently considering placing sanctions on German companies involved in Nord Stream 2.
“If Biden can’t stand up to Germany, how can he stand up to Putin?,” asked one Washington Post columnist last week, the same article demanding that Germany be “punished” with the removal of U.S. troops from its territories. “Why should Germany…continue to be rewarded with the economic benefit of U.S. bases?” the writer asked, framing the American occupation in a light that some readers might not share.
“If Biden can’t stand up to Germany, how can he stand up to Putin?,” asked one Washington Post columnist last week, the same article demanding that Germany be “punished” with the removal of U.S. troops from its territories. “Why should Germany…continue to be rewarded with the economic benefit of U.S. bases?” the writer asked, framing the American occupation in a light that some readers might not share.
Meanwhile, the climate change skeptic board of The Wall Street Journal took the opportunity to assert that Russia had infiltrated the European environmental movement, convicing the movement to take up stupid positions like being against fracking or coal plants. This was, they claimed, all part of a successful effort to keep Europe dependent on Russian gas.
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