The genocide in Palestine continues and Ukraine is losing its war against Russia. The US House just passed a foreign aid bill of 95 billion in American taxpayer's money. Israel will receive 26.9 billion and Ukraine will receive 60.8 billion from the American people. Also, in this foreign aid package is tucked a bill to make a social media app illegal to use for US citizens (which is a terrible precedent to set as banning any social media apps in the future will become easier and could depend on the whims of whichever political party is in power). Israel will use this money to continue its war crimes against the people of Palestine and the Ukrainians will use this money to help it fight for its survival. These are facts. But before I get into the book review let's have a quick little historical review.
It took two devastating world wars for the US to go from a country with regional powers to a global empire (or superpower if you prefer the term). What allowed America to turn into an empire was the luck of geography (neither world war took place anywhere near it), and after those wars, Europe was for the most part devastated by its fight against fascism. America itself sustained none of that damage and was able to fill the holes left by the Europeans (and Japanese).
The US did this through neo colonialism and was able to put their military bases around the world while also installing governments that were friendly to them (regardless if those governments were good or bad to their own people). Above all, the most important aspect was the protection of American corporate interests and profits. That is why some call it the American corporate empire. With the fall of the Soviet Union the US became the absolute dominant power in the world, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Reader you know that's a fact.
This is not the case anymore with the rise of China and Russia this century as America went on ill advised adventures around the world, most prominently in Iraq and Afghanistan, which cost its taxpayers trillions of dollars while also losing the goodwill of pretty much the entire world. Only the rich won anything in these wars as corruption set into the core of American politics in terms of defense spending.
This has led to the current animosity between the American elites who run the empire, and the vast majority of people who live in the country of America and whose taxes pay for the maintenance of the empire abroad. This unspoken arrangement between the wealthy one percent of the US and the rest of its citizens is breaking down rapidly as the country has turned into a shitty place where people are forced to live shitty lives.
You cannot say you have to cut benefits that help Americans every time they do their bullshit show of avoiding a government shutdown to pass a domestic budget, while the people see you can conjure up 95 billion out of thin air to fund the empire's proxy wars. The game of the elites is so see through at this point it is embarrassing to everyone involved, though the most embarrassing is the part played now by corporate media. But the profit margins are of such magnitude that no level of public shame seems to affect them.
Now that we are all caught up historically reader let's turn to ‘Our Enemies Will Vanish’ by Yaroslov Trofinov. This book is essentially a recap of the first year of the Ukrainian War. It is mostly based on facts but those facts are skewed to the point that they just become tools of propaganda. The first problem is that the author works for the Wall Street Journal. The genocide happening now in Palestine has stripped cable news and legacy media completely of their legitimacy.
They have been untrustworthy for many years, with the younger generations seeing through the charade earlier than many of us who belong to older generations. I was educated to believe these publications were reliable sources of information. If you wrote a paper it was acceptable to cite sources like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Time, Newsweek, Foreign Affairs, the Economist, Rolling Stone, etc. Now that is not true. And to write for them meant you were decent as a journalist or writer. Now it is an embarrassment. It is a drastic shift in a few decades but a shift nevertheless.
None of the above mentioned publications are reliable narrators in explaining what is happening in the world in words anymore. To give just a few simple recent examples of what has happened with corporate media are laid out perfectly in a recent NYTimes leaked memo which bars writers from using the words genocide, ethnic cleansing, and occupied territories when it comes to describing what is going on in Palestine. As well, recently an “expose” by the NYTimes concerning the war in Palestine was found to be mostly made up and was debunked embarrassingly. It is also a fact that American cable news channels like CNN must have coverage of Palestine run past the Israeli Defense Force to censor what the cable news channel can show its American viewers. And you know it is all of them not just CNN. And you know it is just the tip of the iceberg.
So when a writer like Taroslav Trofimov seems to have no shame in admitting he works for the WSJ, it is hard to take anything they write seriously. There is also a WSJ journalist being held in a Moscow prison right now with compelling evidence that they are a spy. I can't say whether it is true or not, only that you should be cautious, to the point of assuming from the first that you are being lied to or manipulated, when you read anything from any writer who works for corporate media.
But back to the book. The real reason Ukraine is losing the war right now has little to do with funding and everything to do with a lack of Ukrainians wanting to join the military. I’m going to pick this point and finish my thoughts about this book in a part two.