As Ukraine Death Toll Spirals, NATO Demands More Must Be Willing to Die
The Socialist Program with Brian Becker
The Socialist Program
4.7 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 31 August 2023
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the much-hyped Ukrainian counter-offensive fails to produce major military breakthroughs, officials in the West are becoming concerned that their proxy war against Russia is not going according to plan. But instead of negotiating a lasting peace, the instinct of the war makers is the opposite – double down on massive arms shipments, and insist that Ukrainians die in even larger numbers.
Brian Becker is joined by Walter Smolarek, the editor of Liberation News.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today, we will talk about the Ukrainian military counteroffensive, now in its 80th day. |
| 0:08.8 | It has not produced major breakthroughs. |
| 0:12.7 | And Ukrainians, according to U.S. government officials, may be becoming casualty averse, |
| 0:19.4 | meaning not wanting to die in such record numbers. |
| 0:23.9 | We need a new system. We need a new society. We need to demand that which may have sounded |
| 0:30.1 | impossible even a few weeks ago, but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. |
| 1:02.6 | Thank you. only realizable, but an imperative necessity. Welcome to this week's episode of the Socialist Program. I'm your host, Brian Becker. |
| 1:05.1 | Today we're talking with Walter Smolerick. |
| 1:07.1 | Walter is the editor of Liberation News. |
| 1:10.2 | Walter, welcome back. Thank you very much for having me. |
| 1:13.4 | Well, Walter, a lot's going on. As I mentioned in the introduction, the much-vaunted |
| 1:18.3 | counter-offensive by the Ukrainian armed forces is in its 80th day. You can see from the media |
| 1:25.0 | reports and the statements of U.S. government officials that what they |
| 1:29.1 | had hoped for has not been accomplished. There are no major breakthroughs. At the same time, |
| 1:34.6 | the U.S. media is reporting that the number of people killed or wounded in the Ukraine war in the last |
| 1:41.4 | 18 months may be more than a half a million, more than 500,000, |
| 1:46.8 | and that the Ukrainian war dead now have surpassed all of those who died on the U.S. side |
| 1:53.9 | in the Vietnam War over a 10-year period. I'm not talking about the 2 million Vietnamese |
| 1:59.6 | who died, but more than 58,000 Americans |
| 2:02.9 | died during the Vietnam War. At that time, that provoked a huge anti-war movement in the United |
| 2:09.7 | States. People said, what is this war for? Why are we sending our sons to kill and be killed? |
| 2:16.5 | What's it all about? |
... |
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