My bad review for a Ukraine Medea Benjamin book bad review
From: <m.mk@...>
Between 1900 and 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts.
Study:
This near-conclusion first paragraph below (marked "Reviewer says:") is the only time the word negotiations comes up in his review.He is ignorant of:Art. 2(3) of the UN Charter already obliges all States to settle disputes by peaceful means. This obligation to negotiate means good faith dialogue with the goal to reach a compromise, a quid pro quo. There is no right to intransigence in the UN Charter. If one party refuses to talk, it is violating article 2(3) and actually provoking the other to the use of force. Moreover, this constitutes a potential threat to international peace and security for purposes of article 39 of the UN Charter. It is bad faith in contravention of article 26 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
Similarly, once an armed conflict has broken out, the obligation to negotiate in good faith persists. The refusal to negotiate peace, the deliberate prolongation of a war, expecting victory or unconditional surrender is obsolete in the nuclear world, incompatible with the UN Charter and constitutes both a crime against peace and a crime against humanity.
Also skimming his review, I don't see he addresses that before resorting to invasion, Putin had reasonable demands which were entirely ignored (see here: https://davidswanson.org/russias-demands-have-changed/ ); he seems to not seriously consider that Putin was provoked (2014 coup, NATO expansion, Putin's demands entirely ignored).Reviewer says:...Reading Benjamin and Davies leaves one with the simple, straightforward analysis, dominant in some corners of the Left, that this is an easily understood proxy war between NATO and Russia. Seen through this distorted lens, one could understand why some on the Left call for an end to the war via “peace negotiations” (and dismembering of Ukraine) and oppose sending vital weapons to those fighting the Russian invaders.
However, a serious examination of the war and its many dimensions leads to the very different conclusion that Ukraine has been invaded by an aggressive sub-imperial state, which also happens to be the traditional colonial power in the region, and that resistance to such aggression is not only justified, but a prerequisite for the survival of the people of Ukraine and the defense of their right to self-determination. In fact, such an analysis leads to the logical conclusion that opposing Ukraine’s right to defend itself and eject its invaders is an abandonment of every principle of internationalism, solidarity, and anti-colonial and anti-imperialist politics.
Some Concluding Thoughts
While I don’t know Davies, it is truly a shame to see Benjamin, whose work I’ve often found valuable and whom I’ve hosted on my podcast, degrade herself with such an embarrassing distortion of an extremely complex and exceedingly dangerous war.
Benjamin and Davies, like Noam Chomsky and Katrina vanden Heuvel (who contributed the preface to this book), are correct that the threat of nuclear war still looms over everything happening in Ukraine, and everyone globally should be concerned about that. They are also correct that U.S.-NATO imperialism is critical to understanding the invasion. Unfortunately, the book they’ve produced misinforms more than it informs and distorts more than it clarifies.
Benjamin and Davies have done a tremendous disservice to the people of Ukraine resisting an invasion, the people of Russia living under (especially those resisting) a criminal regime, and the international Left as a whole. And in so doing, they provide left cover for Putin’s war machine. Echoing Gupta, even if the Left in the United States lacks effective power at the moment, we must at the very least provide a serious analysis, based on historical truths as well as current political realities. Anything less fails all those suffering under the guns of imperial aggressors—in this case, the forces led by Vladimir Putin.
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