History

By Matthew Pauly, Michigan State University | – This is not the first time residents of Kyiv have fought to defend the city from an encroaching, larger army. On Jan. 30, 1918, a force made up primarily of military cadets and hastily armed students took up positions at Kruty, a railway stop northeast of Kyiv, […]

Far Right

No Pasaran: Ukraine 2022 – Why We must Stand against Putin’s Fascism

John Feffer

Vladimir Putin is the Franco of today, and Ukraine must become the graveyard of Putinism. By John Feffer | – The last surviving member of the International Brigades that fought the fascists in Spain in the 1930s died last year at the age of 101. Josep Almudéver Mateu, born in France, remembered going into battle […]

Antisemitism

Why Putin’s claim to rid Ukraine of Nazis is especially Absurd given its History

The Conversation

By Jeffrey Veidlinger | – Russian President Vladimir Putin justifies his war on Ukraine as a peacekeeping mission, a “denazification” of the country. In his address to the Russian people on Feb. 24, 2022, Putin said the purpose was to “protect people” who had been “subjected to bullying and genocide … for the last eight […]

History

Russia in Ukraine: Basing Land Claims on Ethnicity/History rather than Int’l Law always leads to Bloody Conflict

Ronald Suny

From: The Conversation: The first casualty of war, says historian Ronald Suny, is not just the truth. Often, he says, “it is what is left out.” Russian President Vladimir Putin began a full-scale attack on Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022 and many in the world are now getting a crash course in the complex and […]

Colonialism

Why Putin’s Denial of Ukrainian Statehood and Israel’s Denial of Palestinian Statehood are Crimes against History

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In his incendiary speech on Ukraine on Monday, Vladimir Putin alleged that Ukraine does not really exist, that it is an artificial construct of the Communist period, crafted by Vladimir Lenin. He declared, “Ukraine never had a tradition of genuine statehood.” When I heard that, it reminded me of the […]

Cold War

America’s Disastrous 60-Year War: Three Generations of Conspicuous Destruction by the Military-Industrial Complex

William J. Astore

( Tomdispatch.com ) – In my lifetime of nearly 60 years, America has waged five major wars, winning one decisively, then throwing that victory away, while losing the other four disastrously. Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, as well as the Global War on Terror, were the losses, of course; the Cold War being the solitary win […]

censorship

Banning ‘Maus’ only exposes the significance of this searing graphic novel about the Holocaust

The Conversation

By Biz Nijdam | – A school board in Tennessee voted unanimously in favour of removing the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman from its Grade 8 language arts curriculum in January. Maus is based on interviews with Spiegelman’s father, Vladek Spiegelman, a Polish Jew and Auschwitz survivor, and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 […]

censorship

The Real Obscenity is that anti-Nazi Books like “Maus” are banned by McMinn County, TN

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment) – Objection to teaching Critical Race Theory (which is anyway not taught at the K-12 level) and school boards banning books are evil Siamese Twins. Both arise from fear of knowledge, truth and candid assessment. Both are motivated by a desperation to preserve an old order and suppress the […]

Archaeology

Israeli Archeologists find Christian Ring with Image of Christ as Shepherd in Shipwreck from era of Constantine

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A marine unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority diving off the ruins of the ancient city of Caesarea Maritima has announced two spectacular finds in the form of two shipwrecks. One was from the Muslim Mamluk era, around 1400. The other was an early fourth-century Roman ship from Italy. The […]