War Without Mercy

Ukraine’s President-Elect Petro Poroshenko ordered it straightaway. He wants Eastern freedom fighters crushed.

He calls them “terrorists.” He declared war without mercy. More on this below.

A 1990s board game is called War Without Mercy. It’s surreal. It’s a game. Warmaking is play-acting. No one dies.

Opposing forces are rated for offense, defense and movement. Armor against infantry warrants bonus rolls.

One side may attack en masse. With overwhelming force. For quick conquest. Or do it incrementally.

Air combat lets players launch fighters, bombers and transports. Naval operations wage war at sea.

Weather rules introduce harsh conditions. Both sides have strategic option choices. Winning requires choosing the right ones.

It’s fun and games. It’s fast-paced. It’s just a game. Ukrainian war without mercy is real.

Obama support it. He called Poroshenko. He congratulated him. He promised US help.

Poroshenko wants US military aid. He wants decisive quick victory. He wants freedom entirely crushed. 

Democratic rights eliminated. Hardline rule instituted. Putschist power enforced. Real war without mercy rages. 

On May 27, RT International headlined “Alarm in Donetsk as people brace for Ukrainian forces attack.”

Residential areas are attacked. Homes are destroyed. Shop shelves are emptied.

Residents fear “full-scale storming. Fighter jets are buzzing overhead…as self-defense prepares for a fight in the occupied administrative buildings.”

People expect longterm fighting. Many shops, banks, restaurants and cafes closed. Streets are mostly empty. Residents are too scared to go out.

Schools were evacuated. Bomb shelter addresses were distributed. Kiev forces blocked most roads.

Self-defense forces withdrew from most surrounding areas. They’re in Donetsk’s city center. 

They’re barricaded inside administrative buildings. They’re braced for a fight.

No one feels safe in Donetsk. In Slavyansk, apartment buildings were shelled. At least three civilian deaths were reported.

A Twitter campaign was launched. Under the hashtag #SaveDonbassPeople. Hundreds of tweets showed civilians killed.

Some images are too disturbing to view. Skochinskogo, Abakumova, Chelyuskintsev, Trudovskaya miners walked out. 

They’re protesting putschist aggression. “People have been standing by the entrances, not wanting to go underground,” they said. 

They’re “having rallies demanding the suspension of military action.”

On Sunday, hundreds of Donetsk residents rallied outside oligarch Rinat Akhmetov’s home.

He’s one of Ukraine’s richest and most powerful. His net worth exceeds $11 billion. 

He’s involved with organized crime. He deplores democracy. He supports Kiev putschists. He helped bankroll Maidan militants.

He “owns much of Ukraine’s industrial companies,” said RT. He pressured his employees to participate in what he calls “anti-separatist” rallies.

Threatened with “losing their jobs” if not, said RT. He supports war without mercy.

Bodies are piling up in Donetsk morgues. Poroshenko wants operations continued.

Civilians are attacked without mercy. Anything that moves is vulnerable. It’s part of Poroshenko’s plan.

A Slavyansk resident told RT:

“We came up to look at the man but he was already dead. A shell had fallen right next to a nine-story apartment block, all the glass was out. The man’s head was bleeding, his arms and legs were broken.”

 

“When we went further, we found a dead woman near a teachers college. A shell hit there too.” 

Another body was found nearby. Mortar fire targeted Donetsk residential areas.

Coup-appointed vice premier Vitaly Yaryoma said operations will continue until no self-defense fighters are “left on the territory of Ukraine.”

“We saw the results yesterday,” he said. Expect more of the same, he stressed.

Kiev putschists blamed freedom fighters for their crimes. So-called “anti-terror operation” head Vladislav Selezniov said:

“To discredit Ukrainian security agencies engaged in the anti-terror operation…the self-propelled artillery vehicle NONA, seized by the militants, was shelling residential districts of Slovyansk and Semenivka.” 

 

“There is a casualty among civilians and wounded in the aftermath of the gunfire…Today terrorists are shelling residential districts of Slovyansk anew.”

He lied claiming “Ukrainian security (forces) do not subject residential districts to fire even when militants’ firing positions are located there.”

He said reports otherwise are untrue. He turned verifiable evidence on its head saying so. Bald-faced lying is official putschist policy.

Sergey Lavrov wants all hostilities stopped. He wants crisis conditions resolved diplomatically.

He’s gone all-out to achieve it. He lacks a reliable peace partner. Obama wants war without mercy. So does John Kerry.

Russia is repeatedly blamed for Western crimes. “We perceive philosophically the fact that we are blamed for nearly each and every conflict that occurs in the world,” said Lavrov.

Attempts to pressure Russia won’t work, he stressed. “People are busy looking for whatever pretext can be found for putting pressure on us is just ridiculous.”

Doing so “never yielded results…As for Western sanctions, had it not been Ukraine, it would have been something else.” 

“Long before the tragic events in Maidan, before radicals had seized Maidan, there had been lots of complaints about Russia in connection with Syria or Iran, or why we hosted the Olympics, and so on.” 

 

“This is a sign of deep-lying problems in the West,” Lavrov stressed. 

It’s decadent. It’s lawless. It’s ruthless. It’s belligerent. It’s waging a losing battle.

It brought China and Russia closer together. It makes more enemies than friends.

It calls aggressive wars democratic ones. Lavrov called “(s)topping the use of the Armed Forces against the civilian population of Ukraine…an ‘endurance test’ for the Kiev authorities.”

He wants hostilities stopped immediately. “We firmly insist on it,” he said.

They continue. They show no signs of ending. Washington’s dirty hands are involved.

Obama bears full responsibility. He’s America’s latest warrior president. He deplores peace. 

He exceeds the worst of his predecessors. His rap sheet is blood-drenched. He’s got new targets in mind.

Wars segue to new ones. An endless cycle of mass slaughter, destruction and human suffering follow.

The business of America is war. It’s the national pastime. It’s heading America for full-blown tyranny and ruin.

Neocons run things. They’re ideologically over-the-top. They make peace impossible. 

What’s ahead bears close watching. Signs suggest plenty of reasons to worry.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”