I rather like Major General Tim Cross. He doesn’t seem to be caught up in the delirium of propaganda which most of the Western media and their ‘experts’ seem to be.
Before I highlight some of Major General Tim Cross’ points – I want to note that this piece does appear in Western media. This supports my view of the media that, contrary to Chomsky in Manufacturing Consent, there is room for non-official narratives. Tim Cross here is doing more than expressing an “elite tactical disagreement” which is the only kind of opposition which Chomsky allows occurs in Western media.
The cold water points I want to highlight are the following. Firstly, that the Western equipment given to Ukraine is not a huge amount. Just one example; I have seen more than once commentators, “experts”, talking along the lines of “just wait till the Chieftain tanks get into action”. There are 14. I don’t think I am going out on a limb as a non-military expert if I say that this is not going to be decisive.
He also points out that Ukraine does not have air supremacy, not even air superiority. Even when the allies had air supremacy they still took a long time to break out of their beachhead after the Normandy landings. The West is asking rather a lot of the Ukrainians.
Major General Tim Cross also breaks another rule of the propaganda. We hear endless stories about how Russia is struggling with conscription. But, there are signs that Ukraine too has problems, with people not being that keen to sign up. Tim Cross speaks about this directly. He also says that the recent success – in fact the capture of a village – is not, in his estimation, a strategically significant event. But at least some sections of Western media are trying to trail it as exactly this. Finally, Tim Cross mentions that Ukraine is suffering huge casualties.
In a previous interview with Times Radio Major General Tim Cross also made another very off-message point. He suggested that it was possibly a mistake to raise the war crimes case against Russia as a tactic, because, it might well be when the dust settles, that Ukraine, will also be found to have engaged in, unwholesome activities. This, he said, was based on his experience in the Balkans in the 90s, when, all sides, it turned out, had done some pretty horrible things.
The most telling point that Tim Cross makes is that in his view Biden is not providing Ukraine with sufficient weapons to drive Russia out of Donbas and Crimea, and this is deliberate. Tim Cross says that he thinks there are significant numbers of people on the American side who do not want Ukraine to do this. I think this may well be true. The US strategic interest here seems to be to bleed Russia. (I suspect their original idea was an Afghan model; they expected to be supporting a Ukrainian partisan campaign; cheap for the US and debilitating for Russia; they did not expect Kiev to fight off the initial Russian campaign and did not expect Ukraine, and thus themselves, to be in a full-scale war). But were they to arm Kiev to drive Russia out of Crimea that would lead to an escalation of the war which could well draw the US in. If this analysis is correct then we can say that this is a foul policy; letting tens of thousands of people die simply to inflict economic pain on a perceived geopolitical rival. It would at least be more honourable to fully arm Ukraine, albeit dangerous. But, and Tim Cross alludes to this, as long as the strategy is to bleed the Russian economy with the costs of war (and sanctions) there is a corollary here; Ukrainian lives. Isn’t this going to give at some point?
Meanwhile – the propaganda continues (and most of Western media is propaganda). This is an interview with a writer on global affairs. The speaker, Michael Bociurkiw, is a Ukrainian and hails from the Western think-tank world, notably the NATO linked Atlantic Council. Watch from 25.00 to the end. This is the key lie. Russia’s motivation for launching their military intervention in Ukraine was a “thirst for territorial expansion”. He also “firmly believes, Kate” that if Putin succeeds in Ukraine he will move on to try to retake all the other former countries of the USSR. Notice how the journalist looks at him with her deep, believing eyes, and says, “Is that what most Ukrainians believe, the same as you do?” It would be a miracle if any journalist ever asked someone who put forward the line that Russia was motivated by “a thirst for territorial expansion” to justify it. [1] Or, even more difficult to answer; to raise the question of the strategic threat posed by NATO expansion right up to Russia’s borders, in a country which is especially sensitive for Russia. But, no. The Atlantic Council expert, whose brief involvement with the OSCE is floated by Times Radio to give an air of objectivity, is allowed to promulgate this core piece of Ukrainian propaganda without question. I would hazard a guess that all Ukrainians political actors who promote this line know perfectly well, (probably better than most Western journalists), that it is not what is actually going on.
Notes
- Of course someone will soon quote Putin’s regrets about the breakup of the USSR – but as always will omit to give the full context, for which we have to turn to academics: “He [Putin] reiterated that view in April 2005 when he characterized the break-up of the Soviet Union as ‘the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century’ but promptly added that it was impossible to fantasize about resurrecting the old Soviet state.” Freeze, Gregory L.. Russia: A History (p. 495). OUP Oxford. Kindle Edition.
