By Andrew Hiller
As American troops arrive in Poland, Russian troops mass along the Ukrainian border and practice war games. in Ukraine itself, we are seeing continuing violence. That reality comes against a backdrop of political rhetoric and threats.
Sara Flounders has been active with anti-war movements in the United States since the 1960’s. She’s a political writer and the principal leader of the International Action Center. She’s also been following the situation in Ukraine closely.
She worries that her home country is using Ukraine as a pawn for economic advantage, that it is provoking and seizing on strife to flex its muscle because it is losing market share and that by projecting power it will also build capital.
“Really, what’s at stake are US plans for encirclement of with military bases and with dire threats both Russia and China,” she said.
“And the purpose of President Obama’s visit to Asia, meetings in the Philippines, Korea, Japan is about the encirclement of China and at the very same time making dire threats, troop movements and sanctions against Russia.”
Flounders worries that this could mark the start of a “dangerous and ominous new Cold War.”
This strategy could fail, the anti-war activist believes, and even backfire because of the dependency of Europe and other areas of the world on Russian gas. Should the US lean too heavily its friends could balk. Instead, she argues that the US should allow Ukraine the right of self-determination.
“There are new elections promised in Ukraine in late May. It has to be up to the people of Ukraine,” she added.
“There’s no stability with this narrow ultra-right wing grouping that they have put in power that has the support of almost no one. The only solution is to step back from that and let the people of the Ukraine decide their own destiny.”
