WATCH: CN Live! — ‘Assange Appears as Mideast Burns’

 

WATCH: CN Live! — ‘Assange Appears as Mideast Burns’

Craig Murray and Richard Medhurst join CN Live! to discuss Julian Assange’s appearance in Strasbourg and to lend their expert analysis to the blow up in the Middle East. Read here...

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A Withering Tree of Peace

In Moscow, a birch tree that’s meant to symbolize U.S.-Russian friendship has several times failed to thrive, as Edward Lozansky recounts. But citizen diplomats keep trying. Read here...

In Moscow, a birch tree that’s meant to symbolize U.S.-Russian friendship has several times failed to thrive, as Edward Lozansky recounts. But citizen diplomats keep trying.

The latest peace-tree planting ceremony took place in Moscow on Monday.  (Tatiana I. Lozansky)

By Edward Lozansky

As the drums  of war beat louder and the warmongering rhetoric becomes shrill, a group of Russian and American activists assembled in downtown Moscow to replant yet again the symbolic U.S.-Russia friendship birch tree that was initially planted nine years ago.

It has had to be replaced several times as the trees have struggled to survive. Some say it’s because of the severe weather, and some, with a sense of humor, believe it’s because of a  toxic atmosphere between the two countries posioning the tree. 

[Related: War in Ukraine & the ‘Crisis of Western Civilization’]

The first one was planted on April 24, 2015, on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the historic “Elbe River” meeting of the American and Soviet military on April 25, 1945, which became symbolic of their joint victory over Nazi Germany. 

The ceremony took place with the active participation of the U.S. embassy in Moscow. Then Ambassador John F. Tefft was a diplomat of the old “search for compromise” school, which has since been replaced by “rules-based order” diplomacy, meaning U.S. world leadership, another word for “hegemony.”

Invoking the ‘Elbe Spirit’

His science and cultural attaché, Andrew McLean, had delivered a very emotional speech about the importance of the “Elbe Spirit” for future generations. He was followed by many other dignitaries and guests, including Raymond McGovern, former senior C.I.A. analyst during the Reagan and Bush, Sr. days, who read Russian poetry and sang with the crowd the famous military hit “Katyusha.”

Then, everyone got a shovel to plant the first U.S.-Russia friendship tree.

It was still alive the following year, when on April 25, 2016, next to this tree, the sculptural composition of three American and three Soviet soldiers shaking hands on the bridge of the Elbe River was installed. It was made by the famous Russian sculptor Aleksandr Burganov, whose statue of the greatest Russian poet, Aleksandr Pushkin, is installed on the campus of George Washington University, a few blocks away from the White House and State Department.

General Bruce McClintock, then acting military attache at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, on left side in blue uniform, shaking hands with Russian sculptor Alexander Burganov, who created the monument in background, on April 25, 2016. Also shown are General Peter Zwack, former military attache, and Russian officials and public figures. (Tatiana I. Lozansky)

Ambassador Tefft was still in Moscow in 2016, and at the ceremony. The embassy was represented by three U.S. generals who spoke:  military attaché Bruce McClintock and two former attaches, Kevin Ryan and Peter Zwack. 

McClintock shook hands with Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who, together with U.S. Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, was commander of the 1975 joint U.S.-U.S.S.R.  Apollo-Soyuz spacecraft.

McClintock at the 2016 event shaking hands with Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who was on the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission. (U.S. embassy)  

This  was the last time U.S.  diplomats took part in subsequent Elbe River ceremonies in the Moscow square that has became known, albeit unofficially, as the “American Corner.”

The U.S. embassy also ignored an invitation to again take part this year,  refusing to send even a low-level diplomat for the symbolic act honoring war veterans.

Glimmer of Hope

There had been a glimmer of hope things could be reversed in April 2020, when we decided to bypass the  diplomats and shoot for the top by inviting Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to participate. It was a long shot, but unexpectedly, we got a positive reply. No, they didn’t appear at the “American Corner” but did issue a joint statement.

Both presidents discussed the importance of the event and ended with encouraging words: 

“‘The Spirit of the Elbe’ is an example of how our countries can put aside differences, build trust, and cooperate in pursuit of a greater cause. As we work today to confront the most important challenges of the 21st century, we pay tribute to the valor and courage of all those who fought together to defeat fascism. Their heroic feat will never be forgotten.”

Trump’s critics saw this as additional proof that he was Putin’s stooge, and this was the last time any positive, high-level exchange happened between the two nations.

Nevertheless, in addition to officials, there are also the people’s “diplomats” who understand the critical urgency of the moment and who are trying to send a different message.

Peace rally in Kingston, New York, last Saturday, while Joe Lauria, Consortium News’ editor in chief, was speaking. (Corinna Barnard)

Two days before the tree planting on  Monday this week, in Kingston, New York, at the Four Corners of Freedom at Crown and John Streets, Roger Waters, founder of Pink Floyd [in video link]; Judge Andrew Napolitano, host of Judging Freedom podcast; Scott Ritter, former U.N. weapons inspector, columnist; Joe Lauria, editor-in-chief of Consortium News; Gerald Celente, founder of Occupy Peace, and publisher of the Trends Journal magazine; and Randy Credico, comedian, and WBAI radio host, delivered a peace message to the assembled crowd and via Zoom around the world.

In Moscow, Russian and American peace activists assembled at the “American Corner” to replant once again the birch “U.S.-Russia Friendship Tree” and send the same message of peace across the ocean. Passers-by couldn’t believe they saw American and Russian flags waving together as a sign of friendship between the peoples of both nations in these dangerous times.

As Paula Day, president of the Center for Citizen Initiatives, one of the observers of both the Kingston and Moscow events via Zoom, said:

“Given the tenor of our times, these meet-ups feel a bit like what I imagine early Christians experienced as they gathered in small, discrete groupings hoping to avoid being fed to the lions before a ravening crowd in the Coliseum; the more friends, the more strength and courage in numbers.”

Edward Lozansky is president and founder of the American University in Moscow and the U.S.-Russia Forum. He is also a professor at the Moscow State and National Research Nuclear Universities.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

Khamenei to US & Europe:
‘Get Lost’

The Iranian supreme leader told a gathering in Tehran that the region will enjoy peaceful coexistence only after the U.S. and Europe leave. Read here...

By Brett Wilkins
Common Dreams

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that the United States and some European nations are responsible for the turmoil in the Middle East, and that the people of the region will enjoy peaceful coexistence only after the interlopers leave.

Khamenei — who has led the Islamist theocracy since 1989 — spoke to a group of scientists and scholars in Tehran on Wednesday, one day after Iran retaliated for recent Israeli assassinations of Iranian, Hezbollah, and Hamas leaders by firing around 200 missiles into Israel.

“In our region, the root cause of problems, which leads to conflicts, wars, concerns and hostilities and such like, results from the presence of the same people who claim to advocate peace and tranquility in the region; that is America and some European countries,” the 85-year-old Shia cleric said, according to Iranian state broadcaster Press TV.

“If they get themselves out of this region, beyond a shadow of a doubt these conflicts, these wars, these clashes will come to a complete halt, and the countries of the region will be able to govern themselves, govern their region, and live together in peace, blessing, and prosperity,” Khamenei added.

Khamenei had two additional words of advice for U.S. and European meddlers: “Get lost.”

A History of Western Meddling

British intervention in what was then the Persian Empire started in the 19th century. In the 20th century, Britain and the United States engineered a coup in Iran that restored and perpetuated a monarchy that ruled until overthrown and replaced by the current regime in the late 1970s. Since then, the U.S. has also supported efforts to overthrow the Iranian government, including by training anti-regime militants.

Shah of Iran, left, with President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office, 1973.
(The Nixon library, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

Britain opened up Palestine for Zionist colonization, but later ended Jewish immigration as Jews usurped the local Arab population and carried out many deadly terror attacks against both British occupiers and Palestinians.

Following the establishment of the modern state of Israel — largely through ethnic cleansing of Arabs in the 1940s — the United States supported an expansionist Israel with hundreds of billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover, even as it now wages a war on the Gaza Strip for which it is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.

Funeral in Tehran on Jan. 6, 20202, of Iran’s General Qassem Soleimani, killed days earlier by a U.S. assassination. (Mehr News Agency, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)

The supreme leader’s speech came amid fears of a wider Middle East war.

While Iran and Hezbollah have shown restraint in responding to Israeli aggression, Israel has escalated its war, which has left more than 148,000 Palestinians dead, injured, or missing in Gaza, where millions more people have been forcibly displaced, starved, and sickened since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack.

Israeli forces have also killed or wounded thousands more people in Lebanon, which Israeli ground troops invaded this week.

The United States, as well as the United Kingdom and other European nations, have supported Israel with billions of dollars worth of weapons and, in the case of the U.S., diplomatic cover including multiple vetoes of United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolutions.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday condemned Israel’s assault on Gaza as “the most deadly and destructive military campaign” in his years of leading the world body.

Guterres, who was addressing the Security Council, also said that he “strongly” condemned Tuesday’s “massive missile attack by Iran on Israel,” adding that such action does not “seem to support the cause of the Palestinian people or reduce their suffering.”

Falsely claiming that Guterres failed to “mention Iran by name” or “unequivocally condemn” the Iranian attack, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday declared the U.N. leader “persona non grata” in Israel and banned him from entering the country. 

Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

This article is from Common Dreams.

Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

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