Speaking to the No2Nato meeting on Saturday, I had the challenge of telling a packed and highly motivated audience some things that they very much instinctively disagreed with, from a very different viewpoint to much of what they had heard from some excellent speakers all day.
I had to follow a really effective rabble rousing performance from Chris Williamson which had raised the rafters.
On top of which, I was outlining facts and arguments which have had no discernible place in the public discourse on Ukraine on any “side” and were new to most people there.
I appealed at the start for the audience to listen with an open mind, and I think largely they did.
So here is me, with no notes and no visuals, just talking, giving people my own perspective.
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Well said! I enjoyed that speech. The only part I would see as missing is the aggressivity of the US towards Russia. Much of this has happened because of the US continuing the cold war after the dissolution of the USSR – it’s all pretty well known by now. The degree to which Ukraine is a tool of the US is not brought up, which it should have been in my view.
And now the US is going loony over China as well. Balloons and new accusations over Wuhan – the latter brought up again for no reason other than to demonise China. The US is becoming a real problem.
Sorry if this is a tangent, but Ben Studebaker has put up a couple of good pieces up on the US recently. You might find them interesting,
https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2023/02/21/nord-stream-deflections/
https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2023/02/22/infrastructure-dreams-and-living-nightmares/
Outwardly meddling in foreign democracies (where have we heard that before?) and inwardly paralysed in the face of material, social and political decay. Effective discourse rendered impossible by the monstrous convergence of social media dogpiling, culture wars and TINA orthodoxy. What does political engagement for the left even look like in such an age, be we marxists, socialists or even just social democrats? His comparison to Don Quixote, dreaming romantic dreams of a bygone era, seems apt.
Why does this Dr. Studebaker require a publicity boost? I couldn’t see anything exceptional in his writing.
Just passing along some reading I thought was interesting. Carry on as you were if you don’t agree ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“becoming” Laguerre. I think the US has been a problem for a very long time.
Laguerre,
” The US is becoming a real problem.”
“…is becoming”?
Has been for a very long time.
The emphasis in my head was on the word ‘real’, not on problem, the latter of which everyone knows about. Perhaps I should have reworded. In any case, my point was that the central role of the US, even primordial role, does not occur in Craig’s speech, only peripheral references.
Not sure I got it right, please tell me if I heard Mr. Galloway (I guess it is him, a man in a hat) said His Excellency The Honorable Craig Murray? Mr. Murray? Are you Excellency? Or, was it like showing respect? Or, what?
It’s a title of respect for an ambassador.
I listened to the end and I want to say a huge thank you, Mr. Murray, for such a great speech in defense of Peace!
I disagree, of course, about the Crimea and the Tatars, but I see no reason to remind again and again that the population of Crimea changed its ethnic composition long before the Stalin’s deportations.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, due to defeats in the Russian-Turkish wars, the Tatars migrated en masse to Turkey.
https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/dinamika-chislennosti-i-rasseleniya-russkih-kryma-v-xviii-xix-vekah#:~:text=X%20%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%8F%2C%20%D0%BF%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BD%D1%8F%D1%8F%20%D0%B2%20%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B8,%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%BB.
Well, it’s probably worth recalling that the basis of the economy of the Crimean Khanate was the slave trade, which, by the way, was stopped by that defeat in that series of Russian-Turkish wars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Khanate
The Crimea Tartar is one of those exaggerated myths in the media that won’t go away unfortunately.
Like the idea that a dozen little green men that acted as body guards to the parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea were an invasion or that a Crimean request to join the Russian Federation counts as an annexation.
Strangely enough there were millions of these mythical deported Tatars in Uzbekistan. I knew quite a lot of these mythical people personally. My brother married one. Another mythical deported Tatar, now living in Turkey, is one of my best friends.
Undoubtedly, the Crimean Tatars were deported by Stalin from the Crimea. They were accused of collaborating with Hitler. About 150 thousand people were deported to Uzbekistan. After the end of the war, in 1945-1946 even more came to Uzbekistan, those who fought in the Red Army and who were forbidden to return to the Crimea.
I’m not sure about the millions, Mr. Murray. The 1939 census says:
The population of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic amounted to 1 million 126 thousand 429 people.
79 etnithities, largest are: Russians (558 thousand people), Tatars (218 thousand), Ukrainians (154 thousand), Jews (65 thousand) and Germans (51 thousand).
The deportations, including those of the Crimean Tatars, are another tragedy of my country, another injustice, and this injustice is now being fixed.
So Craig’s millions are mythical!?!
J lowrie
Perhaps some exaggeration or another sort of error.
The whole population of Uzbekistan back in 1939 was 6.3 million people, 4 million Uzbek, 700 thousand Russian, other ethnicities, by the way, 147 thousand Tatars, regular Tatars, not Crimean.
Deportation from Crimea started summer 1941. In June Hitler and his allies attacked USSR, in August Stalin deported Germans (Russian Germans, those who live in Russia) from Crimea, fearing of treason I think. Crimea was seized by Hitler and only liberated in 1944, that is why cases of collaboration became obvious and Stalin deported Crimean Tatars. He didn’t punish only those who collaborated, but instead deported all the Crimean Tatars.
Historians say, that perhaps Stalin considered it a necessary means, because there was war, you know, long before the 1945 victory. USSR then was suffering great loss, modern figures estimate around 27 million USSR people killed in that war.
Anyway, what was done is unfair and unjust.
Wikipedia claims the present day Crimean Tatar population is about 243,400 in Crimea, 239,000 in Uzbekistan, and an “official” figure of 150,000 in Turkey. The article also lists a figure of 150,000 Central Asian exiles, “mainly in Uzbekistan.” There is no explanation for the differing figures of 150,000 and 239,000 for Uzbekistan.
The article mentions an unofficial estimate of “millions”, but this is for Turkey, not Uzbekistan. It also mentions that Crimean Tatars have had a full right of return to Crimea since 1989.
“”Unfair and unjust” says Tatyana. Frankly, such a comment is simply a platitude. During the War the US incarcerated its Japanese residents in concentration camps. Years ago I met a man who was in one. He said his mother was dragged off by her hair. But otherwise the treatment was relatively benign, though certainly unfair and unjust.After all, the US mainland was hardly affected by war. Crimea is an altogether different case. How was Stalin supposed in the middle of a genocidal war to round up the collaborators from among the Tatar population? We can see from the Palestine situation that when the Zionists go after “terrorists”” and their supposed “collaborators”” such involves the destruction of homes, schools, hospitals and other civic buildings, and the much greater massacre of ordinary people who get in the way than of “militants.” Stalin took the more humane policy of exiling the Tatars as a community, whose numbers demonstrate that they have flourished. No doubt Uzbekistan was not so benign as a US concentration camp, but hardly as deadly as being besieged in Leningrad. Those who deem themselves historians should offer analysis and not offer facile ‘moral’ comparisons of situations that have nothing in common: the Chagos islanders were living peacefully , harming no one; the Tatars were collaborating with the Nazi genocidal war machine.
@Tatyana, what happened in regard to legally-defined official secrets of the Soviet Union when it dissolved into constituent republics in or around 1991? I read somewhere that official archivists in these republics kept to a 30-year release mandate. If so, I suppose theoretically there are no Soviet archives left, but if UK Official Secrecy is anything to go by, there will have been deliberately ‘lost’ archives, weeding, redactions, obstruction, misdirection and official/unofficial/secret suppressed categories. But today, if you were granted access to a modern archive in each successor republic, would you find the same or similar sets of records from Soviet times, or would they tell significantly different stories?
For clarity, I am also interested in what would happen if Scotland became independent of the UK and how long Scottish citizens who signed the UK Official Secrets Act would be kept to their oaths of silence.
Sleeping Dog
One of my cousins works in a citizen register agency, and another is a professional librarian. I’ll ask their opinion on archives and secrecy.
@Tatyana, thanks, much appreciated.
Craig doesn’t appreciate the Scottish involvement with Crimea. Rear Admiral Thomas McKenzie founded Sevastopol on behalf of the Russian navy in the 18th Century. His family fled Scotland after the union with England. Sevastopol is key to control of the black sea and Mariupol the fresh water supply for which the Ukrainians cut in 2014. Next the Greeks and Romans will be staking a claim on Crimea.
I always wondered why the Russian Navy bears the Scottish (blue cross on a white background) flag.
FYI it is not a Scottish as such, it is St.Andrew flag. In Russia St.Andrew is believed to be heavenly protector of seafearers and fishermen so his flag became the flag of Russian navy. Apparently St.Andrew had some significance for Scotland as well, that’s why his flag is choosen as the national flag.
The more I look into the history, I find more and more similarities between UK and Russia, and it grieves me deeply that present UK political class decided to go to war with Russia. Unfortunately it seems like it is their habit
But the Russian navy was founded by a Scotsman so the colour scheme may have had the Scottish ensign in mind particularly since the Russian Scots were jacobites who detested union with England in much the same way as Crimea doesnt want to be Ukrainian and probably would have wished to be independent from both Russia and Ukraine but has been forced to choose who she would prefer to align with.
@M biyd
I’m afraid I have to disappoint you, Russian navy wasn’t founded by a Scotsman. Perhaps there were some Scotsmen but predominantly it were Datch and French expats, as we would call them now
“Excellency” is the proper formal title of an ambassador; Craig is no longer an ambassador, so the man in the hat was indulging in an excess of formality. That kind of rhetorical flourish is typical of Galloway, so I suspect you’re right: the man in the hat is Galloway.
Jimmeh a good observation about GG, His pomposity, while adding to the mirth of the Nation, is becoming a hindrance to serious discourse. Maybe he should tone it down. The message is in danger of being obscured by the extravagant posturing, hinting at an unhealthy narcissism. There are few enough individuals speaking out against the current shambolic states of nations and the oligarchical 1% driving the destruction of our planet . GG has a formidable record in debate and facing down the powers that choose war. Shame to lose any of those few voices through grandstanding.
CM’s speech was an excellent one and addressed the hypocrisy and misinformation propagated through out the west, but while I follow the process that has led to it, there is little doubt in my mind that the invasion of Ukraine was an immense strategic blunder by Putin.
Points well made, but to take a different perspective, perhaps it is that theatricality that allows him to persist as a voice the media (mainstream or otherwise) considers worth indulging. A more sober and less outlandish personality might not command attention, for better or for worse.
It’s hard to know whether GG sees himself purely as some sort of entertainment act i.e. it’s all a bit of a lark. His commitment to the UK union offers clues to his superficiality. Given how the big two parties he claims to deplore, are going nowhere. And the erosion of civil liberties, subservience to the US, in the form of the ‘special relationship’ and neoliberal orthodoxies, are, if anything, being reaffirmed and further strengthened under the vile Starmer. If Scotland ends up with Humza Yousaf vs Anas Sarwar, then elites in London will be rightfully toasting ‘mission accomplished,’ having killed independence stone-dead.
Galloway has always been the same. He first came to public prominence slobbering all over Saddam Hussein: “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability, and I want you to know that we are with you.”
I think to be credible you need to acknowledge that in most conflicts neither side have the angels on their side. The international community (US/UK,Israel) may end up attacking Iran over its nuclear activities. Which will be highly hypocritical whilst ignoring Israel’s stockpiles. But that doesn’t mean the theocratic rulers of Iran are an admirable lot. Too many in the west fall into the trap of defending regimes, autocrats and systems, we wouldn’t want to live under ourselves.
“But that doesn’t mean the theocratic rulers of Iran are an admirable lot. Too many in the west fall into the trap of defending regimes, autocrats and systems, we wouldn’t want to live under ourselves.”
That’s only because pointing out that propaganda against those regimes is lies is seen as defence of them. A lie is a lie, no matter to whom or what it refers. Otherwise you end up having to judge at what point a regime becomes so despicable that it is OK to tell lies about it.
Goose
“defending regimes, autocrats and systems, we wouldn’t want to live under ourselves.”
Like Ukraine? 🙂 massive support I see, from many in the West, while few would love to live there.
Recently I learned that transgender people in Finland must undergo sterilisation if they want their identity changed. I think it makes Finland regime undesirable for transgender people, right?
I also learned that only true Jews can legally get married in Israel. Other people get their ‘union’ registered for stats, but ‘real’ marriage is for Jews only. Nonetheless, many find these theocratic rulers an admirable lot.
As to Iran, I think it’s up to Iranians to decide what sort of state they prefer, and I dare say they didn’t invite you to consider their country as your possible place of living, and most probably they think of their country to be a cozy place for themselves, not for you ?
> It’s hard to know whether GG sees himself purely as some sort of entertainment act i.e. it’s all a bit of a lark.
Yeah, that’s a quote from Goose, downthread; but this seems to be the last post about The Man In The Hat that doesn’t have “Reply” suppressed.
I just wanted to say that I don’t think GG is a clown; I think he is a fascist. I’m shocked that there are people that admire him. He’s a shit-stirrer and a sort of amateur wannabe demagogue..
I’m not even against stirring shit; our “Eminent” host is a shit-stirrer, and just as well. We need shit-stirrers. But GG *loves* dictators, and I think he’d *love* to be a dictator.
OTOH, There is little doubt in my mind that Mr Putins special military operation has saved the lives of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Russian speaking Ukrainians and strategically increased Russia’s fortunes: economically, militarily and politically whilst decreasing the West’s malign dominance. This is a good thing for the welfare of most of the world’s populations, but it does mean the people of the Ukraine will continue to be sacrificed by the west to maintain the Hegemons fantasies of exceptionalism.
Love him or hate him, Mr Putin exhibits all the attributes of a real leader unlike the mentally deficient clowns running the western regimes.
It’s also without doubt killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians not to mention hundreds of thousands of military personnel on both sides. How is it that their lives are less important?
Rather than increasing Russian standing, the failure of its armed forces to crush an impoverished country a fraction of its size has made it a laughing stock. Real leaders don’t drag their countries into illegal wars and send their young men to die simply for their own glory.
“Real leaders don’t drag their countries into illegal wars and send their young men to die simply for their own glory.”
No, they drag their countries into illegal wars and send their young men to die simply to make the rich richer still. So much a better cause to die for.
Come on, Bayard! Pears was being sarcastic describing Ze, who sent young people to die instead of implementing the Minsk agreement. If implemented, today we would have a Ukraine Federation, like Russia, or Germany, or US – and no war with many casualties and destruction (that enriches the rich even more).
hinting at an unhealthy narcissism
Perish the thought!
Indeed.
How could anyone think that of the self-described Gorgeous George?
If only people would listen to those like you who actually have some background in what they are talking about, but, alas, the MSM are spreading the propaganda given to them. Trying to inform the general public about the truth is a thankless task but thank you for making the effort on our behalf.
Excellent stuff, shame about gorgeous George though. He’s the same George Galloway that popped up in Dumfries a couple of years ago and campaigned alongside the Tory candidate and was busy telling Scottish folk to vote Tory. Unforgivable. (That’s the polite word, I was going to use another but Galloway has a habit of dragging people to court, especially if they’re a Scottish independence supporter).
Thanks for reminding me of all that. GG belongs to that cohort of independence(SNP) loathing leftist labourite fundamentalists who regard the SNP as Tories in kilty drag but worse even than Tories because of their pretensions at otherwiseness and dishonesty, Hard to believe I know but even regular Tories can be the lesser of two evils. Recent events around the SNP kind of bear out that sullen, jaundiced assessment.
GG isn’t wrong about the Snats though, is he?
Under the more honest, collegial leadership of Alex Salmond, George Gallloway was absolutely wrong about the SNP.
Autocrat Nicola Sturgeon, and her petty vindictiveness have ruined the SNP. She promoted toadies in place of the most able, and basic probity seems to fallen by the wayside alongside the desire to achieve independence.
“She promoted toadies in place of the most able…”
========
But only if they aligned with her identarian ideology. 50% of the cabinet women, irrespective of abilities: guy with ONC accountancy made finance secretary because he was gay: a serial failure in at least three cabinet posts now favoured to succeed her because he is a Muslim of Asian heritage.
Had there been a TRANS member of the Scottish Parliament then (s)he would have been a shoo-in for a post in Sturgeon’s government.
Agree with most of your views, and thank you for expressing them so succinctly and forcefully. I have argued for years that NATO should have been dismantled following the collapse/dissolution of the USSR. It would have made more sense to have a Eurasian Treaty Organisation, that included Russia.
I think you are wrong to equate the US military industrial complex with the Russian arms industry – the former worth ten times more in actual annual expenditure, but enormously more when you take into account the vast reach of the US hegemony. You mentioned the order book of BAE of £10/18 billion; this is dwarfed in comparison with what Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing and Northrop Grumman and the rest have on their books.
You did not touch on the extraordinary betrayal of German interests (and indeed those of the population of the UK) by the US in pursuing their desperate need to hold onto their “empire”. What bastardry to destroy one of your principal “allies” in Europe to prevent them becoming closer to Russia and on the process moving to number two position behind Norway in the export of liquid gas. Never was self interest so transparently obvious. One cannot help wondering how many of the weak and elderly living on the breadline on the Continent and in the UK have not made it through the Winter because of the price of energy. But the little people, as you do rightly say, do not figure in the Grand Game of Monopoly played by the 1%.
PS – I hope they didn’t turn the heating down in poor Julian Assange’s cell. That’s two things Biden could have done: settled the issues in Ukraine by diplomatic discourse with Russia, and dropped the disgraceful charges against Julian!
Yes in the grand scheme of things the blowing up of western Europe’s critical infrastructure by the Freedom & Democracy guys is much more significant — esp to west Europeans — than anything Russia has done. (Namely responding militarily to a hostile Nato coup regime oppressing and bombarding Russian speakers right on its border).
Very surprised the near-unprecedented, world-historic Nord Stream attack was not item number one in Craig’s address.
I do find it striking how little outcry there has been, anywhere in Europe, at the damage the destruction of Nordstream will bring to the continent (and has no doubt, as you say, brought already). In material terms, it seems that our ‘ally’ has committed an attack of a far greater magnitude than any declared enemy could dream, and it seems to have drawn essentially no comment or response. From the commentariat in the mainstream media this is unsurprising, but public figures in the EU? France, Germany? Bearing the wound without so much as a stir is remarkable.
” In material terms, it seems that our ‘ally’ has committed an attack of a far greater magnitude than any declared enemy could dream,”
Oh come on, the Russians did it, in fact I expect that it will soon transpire that Vladimir Putin planted the explosives personally. If you doubt this, there are a couple of commenters on this blog who’d only be delighted to put your mind at rest with quotes from our ever-trustworthy media.
I think at the time of sabotage NS1 was in very limited use and NS2 nil use. Of course the action was about future potential.
I have not seen reference to what is being done to contain or fix the damage nor by whom nor how long it might take. Presumably this is being pursued since fruther sabotage is applicable to all energy pipelines
Well no. The Russians will sell their gas to their low-profile ally China instead. Europe will be paying a premium for LNG for the foreseeable future and must invest in lots of storage to compensate for inflexible deliveries. US gas producers coining it and their manufacturers given a competitive edge against Europe will express their gratitude with political donations. For US consumers, the period of glut and ultra low gas prices is no more.
Yes but Nord Stream 2 is a major infrastructure undertaking of benefit to Russia and its partners Germany and (I think) Holland. Whilst I am aware of the current political stupidity and perhaps the impossibility of accessing the area during the conflict I find it hard to believe that it is to be left to rot in the long term – surely somebody with influence somewhere is saying ‘F*ck the US’
Thank you for your stand for the oft-forgotten Crimean Tatars.
It’s also worth mentioning that Ukrainians and Russians are two deeply interwoven peoples linked by history and marriage, and this war is wrenching families apart much as the essentially civil and sectarian war in Yugoslavia did 3 decades ago. The damage and fallout will last for generations.
That said I also remember Bosnia being placed under an arms embargo, allowing Serbia to pummel it unfettered, and emboldened all the way to genocide. People like Milosevic or Putin are not deterred by law or words alone.
The judges at the Hague would have acquitted Milosevic if he had lived. Then again you only get tried if your black or Serbian/Russian.
I wonder if you have read Chossudovsky, ´The Globalisation of Poverty‘ or Diane Johnstone, ´ Circle in the Darkness‘ or William Engdahl on the US and the West‘s breakup of Yugoslavia. Their accounts are extremely disturbing and there’s no coming back from them to an easy place. However, on balance I would say it’s better to be enlightened than not. Living with uncomfortable truths goes hand in hand with wishing for a better world.
This MSM faux history is just another example of the BS we are fed to justify the West’s war mongering. Bosnia was just a patsy set-up to allow The USA/NATO/EU to undermine and destroy Serbia and minimise Russia’s influence within Europe. And the story continues to this very day, the axis of evil’s appetite is never sated by the blood of it’s innocent victims.
Fazal Majid
‘That said I also remember Bosnia being placed under an arms embargo, allowing Serbia to pummel it unfettered, and emboldened all the way to genocide. People like Milosevic or Putin are not deterred by law or words alone.’
The Bosnian war of the 90s was driven by the US led western powers providing military support for the ‘Bosniaks’ and arming and training islamist fundamentalist former Mudjahadeen. Their task was to murder and drive out the Serbian population in an act of ethnic cleansing which they persued without restraint. The Serbs under Milosovic/Karadzic were the most restrained given the provocations. You seem to have fallen for the western bullshit hook, line and sinker.
Good on you. If everyone disagrees with you, you are probably doing something right. I have strong opinions on this topic but anyone who in good faith attempts to break the false binary has my complete support..
A good contextualising talk. The problem is that while the general context of the corruption of the elites and the shifting of empires is correct, the more immediate contexts of imminent treat to the lives of the people in Donbass and the threat to the integrity of Russia from NATO expansion plus the rejection of overtures from Putin to create a security framework that can peacefully address such issues, is not considered. It is contradictory to talk about something being illegal where an agreed framework of law does not exist or is not respected by power. Iraq, Libya and Syria are only three examples that show that the Western powers do not recognise the existence of international law with respect to their own actions. Clearly we should be aiming at the institution of frameworks of law based on the rights of individuals to life and liberty and the rights of peoples to self determination but in the absence of such frameworks I cannot condemn Russia equally with its opponents for responding to clear threats in that absence.
2 points that ought to be pushed much harder by an antiwar movement:
– highlighting the destructive nature of the Ukrainian government elite since 2014
(sabotaging peaceful solutions suggested by their own and from outsiders / the violent-fascist nature of its right-wing forces / pure and popularized anti-Russian racism, e.g. in the case of mis-management of Covid crisis)
– highlighting to the public the extraordinary danger that stems from the strategy of US nuclear forces directed against Russia. Their trust in successful first-strike.
PEOPLE DON`T KNOW THIS. That´s why they think Putin is crazy. Well, alas, he isn´t.
Absolutely. The only reservation I have is about COVID19, which managed properly or improperly had similar outcomes in Europe, and when not similar, it is still not explained why. It is clear that health services in Ukraine were reformed with pitiful consequences, other “reforms” impoverishing the population. But for war/peace issue, this does not have central importance. Ukraine’s elite was destructive and corrupt in so many ways that it is hard to make succinct points about it.
And here is Not The Andrew Marr Show’s wider coverage of the event:
The anti-Nato event they tried to stop – YouTube, 33m 31s
Of course the claim to Crimea of the Tartars would have been much more sympathetically listened to had they not joined up with the Nazis in WW2.
Indeed if only the Nazi Galicians of what is now W Ukraine had been deported to Siberia, the world would be a much safer place (and so would all remaining Ukrainians).
Having lived in Poland you ought also to have had a clear idea of what these Galician Nazis did.
(You call the exit of Poles from Lvov as a shift in population – many would call it a genocide by the Galician Nazis – of Poles and Jews).
“The answer to none of these things is to kill people” FFS have you paid zero attention to the 9 years of killing civilians in Donbas?
I stopped just before half way in disgust. You seem to be obsesses with the E/W Ukraine civil war. You need to concentrate on the US/Nato vs Russia war which has been open since Georgia in 2008 and which as UK Ambassador to Kazakhstan to 2004 you are surely very aware of. And of course the big story the real issue is the US/China war (often described fairly as a US vs Germany war) where the whole point of Ukraine is to detach Europe from any future trade links with China or its partners.
The slaughter of Ukrainians right now is pure evil and causes solely because Biden and puppeteers are unable to admit defeat.
Monty Python and the Black Knight.
(I see that so far all the other comments have been supportive. My suspicions will be allayed if this gets through though).
Michael Droy,
“ You need to concentrate on the US/Nato vs Russia war…”
Your comment/observation above is the nub of the problem which has unfolded on Ukrainian soil. If NATO’S conduct – the scheming behind Minsk 1 and 11 and the war profiteering taking place are focused on – still all of Murray’s points remain relevant on the level of humanitarian appeal ( which logically would have to include the 8/9 year civil war in Donbass – a very solid point I see you having made). You hit the nail on the head, for the 8/9 years war in the Donbass region preceding Russia invading Ukraine – cannot be ignored as having been a catalyst.
When it comes to NATO – US – Russia – war in Ukraine – who is/was the prime mover in this war ?
Any answers?
It has been plain from Day 1 to anybody watching closely that this is not an imperial war of aggression perpetrated by Russia against Ukraine but an imperial war of regime change perpetrated by America against Russia, with the unfortunate and tragic Ukraine used as a proxy.
Colonel Douglas McGregor laid it out pretty straight speaking to Galloway last night. Watch from 1:08:30 :
George Galloway: FOG OF WAR – MOATS Episode 217 (1 Mar 2023) – YouTube, 2h 9m 19s
Yes Courtney, and this is why I questioned not-so-‘gorgeous’ George Galloway’s short term reminder that this all started in 2014.
Because it started right after in the late 1940s and in the early 1950s when those who fled Ukraine, mainly to get away from the Banderists/OUN’s jewish progrom and from the hardship in eastern Galicia and Liev, settled in Canada and the US, started to lobby politicians to develop a policy of undermining Ukraine, as outlined in CIA papers on ‘project aerodynamic’.
That the US encouraged the right wing leaning forces in Ukraine over those who governed it, with soft interventions, rock concerts for young people, with training to fight, and the support of the right sector/Asov brigade.
There has been a slow storm against Russian influences blowing for a long time.
I would like to thank all speakers for their efforts to bring understanding to NATO and its morphing from a defensive framework to a global attack dog for US MIC interest, currently exemplified, by the triad of Nuland, Blinken and Biden, all of whom have personal interests in the continuance of madness, lies and violence to further the hegemonic self-interest globally.
We are sleepwalking into Armageddon. Say No2NATO No2WAR. It is encouraging that moves for peace are being mirrored in the US, Germany, the UK and Denmark; it has been long coming.
“… Because it started right after in the late 1940s and in the early 1950s when those who fled Ukraine, mainly to get away from the Banderists/OUN’s jewish progrom and from the hardship in eastern Galicia and Liev, settled in Canada and the US, started to lobby politicians to develop a policy of undermining Ukraine, as outlined in CIA papers on ‘project aerodynamic’ …”
Many if not most of those Ukrainian nationalists who were given refuge in Canada and the US were actually aligned with Stepan Bandera and his faction of the OUN, Canadian deputy prime minister / finance minister Chrystia Freeland’s grandfather Myhailo Chomiak being an example. Bandera himself and fellow OUN-B colleague Yaroslav Stetsko were given refuge in West Germany, and at least Bandera worked with the CIA and British intelligence until he was killed by KGB agents in Munich in 1959. Bandera’s family then moved to Toronto in Canada.
Right on Michael. Our good host has a well known blind spot when it comes to Russia – hear no good, see no good, say no good – but we don’t have to agree on everything !
IMO, getting tied up in the minutiae of the law leads to an inability to see what is actually happening and the fact that your enemies control the legal process and don’t give a toss about the law unless it helps their agenda.
“Our good host has a well known blind spot when it comes to Russia – hear no good, see no good, say no good”
It is really alarming how prevalent this is and, if you look back into history, how long it has been going on for, from well before the Crimean War.
I recently read Orlando Figes’s history of the Crimean War, and I was struck by how Russophobic the British press was in the run-up to that war..
Amazing that Britain could become the equivalent of an ally of Russia before 1914, but I guess German economic competition was regarded as a greater threat.
” The US is becoming a real problem.”
“…is becoming”?
“Has been for a very long time”.
Wise words from Courtney Barnett.
The best way to understand what is going on is to remind ourselves that by 1946 the US had completed it’s longterm aim of replacing the British Empire with the US Empire.
The Great Game then continued with the Anglo-American establishment, Wall Street and the Military Industrial Security complex taking over both the US and Western Europe for the purpose of plunder.
Having subdued and occupied Germany, Russia was next on the list.
Iran and China will be next.
I inadvertently omitted the City of London from the above list of rogues who profit from war, death and misery.
It could be argued that it all started before 1946. After all it was the USA and GB that allowed and supported the rearming of Germany that allowed Hitler to grab power and it was the USA and GB that were happy to sit back and prevent Russia initially joining them to fight Hitler, which led to the pact and eventual invasion of Russia by the Nazis.
If Russia fails in the Ukraine then, yes, China will be next – via Taiwan.
Absolutely correct Stevie. That’s why I wrote:
“by 1946 the US had completed it’s longterm aim of replacing the British Empire with the US Empire”.
That campaign began before 1914. Versailles was set-up precisely to undermine any recovery by Germany, and to plunder it through the Dawes and Young processes – leading directly to the rise of Hilter.
Companies in which Roosevelt had personal interests profited from Dawes and hyperinflation.
And the AngloAmerican Establishment overall had business and financial interests in German Industry and these continued throughout WWII.
So when Craig says that the present war in Ukraine is being made to profit the 1% – he is merely acknowledging a process that has been continuous for over 100 years.
As someone once said: War is a racket.
“leading directly to the rise of Hilter”
I don´t mean to make fun
but as of your typo, one of my favs:
Monty Python, 1969, “Mr. Hilter” episode: (“You wouldn´t have much fun in Stalingrad, would you”)
8 min., “Hilter” enter at about 1:20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWIyVRNAxCg
Excellent speech with a very valid pacifist point of view which I fully subscribe to. And in an ideal world it all makes sense. But sadly we do not live in an ideal world.
It is always difficult to take sides when both parties are wrong or use a wrong method to tackle a wrong. But in this case the wrong is heavily weighed on the west but perhaps mainly the US. This arises because since the end of the second world war and particularly since the fall of the Soviet Union, the behavior of America as a hegemon has been that of ‘winner takes all’ with no regards for enemy, rival or even friends and allies.
To describe Russia as an empire in the broad sense is also open to some problems as the Russian empire grew from expansion to neighboring states and in its later reincarnation as the Soviet Union, attempted to look after individuals. The original idea of Lenin was that socialism can only succeed if all the world becomes communist and rivalry stops to exists. The various republics were treated with some equanimity and not as colonies and it is notable that Stalin was a Georgian, there was no bar to progression being a member of the other republics.
There are also other issues. Despite the major corrupt nature of Ukraine, its army was being prepared from 2014 onwards and trained to NATO standards. There is no question of this and even Merkel and Hollande admitted so much in saying that Minsk 1 and 2 were just used as a cover for rearming Ukraine against Russia.
Then there is the question of corruption in Russia. A major fostering of this corruption came from the west, in particular from the US when the Chicago school helped execute the shock therapy that led to the rise of oligarchs during the extremely corrupt Yeltsin years, where the west found Russia’s rulers very willing collaborators to do trade with in order to exploit the resources and corner the markets. Seen from those chaotic days when the Russian Mafia ruled and the life expectancy of Russians plummeted, The rising of Putin ameliorated some but not all of the corruption and decline and this was not to the west’s liking.
Putin has consistently requested for Russia to be respected and treated as equals in Europe and the world but was consistently rebuffed. It was a deliberate policy by the victors of the cold war who have now decided that hegemony is complete and irreversible. This hegemony was not only military but economic, financial, and cultural. The use of the dollar as a reserve currency has led to an equally corrupt financial dominance. The wars in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya and Syria and other places have shown the blueprint for this imperial hegemony.
In advocating pacifism, we run into very practical problems. How can this situation be stopped or reversed? How can the aim of a decent world with respect for sovereignty of all nations be observed? Is this possible by only one side withdrawing from this competition? The answer is no it can’t.
It therefore seems that mankind is doomed to fight wars for liberation against hegemony and for multipolarity. Unless the monopoly of the hegemon is broken, and unless there is a deterrence against impunity, this will not be achieved.
The Ukraine war is the war to determine the future of world politics. It is sad that the people of Ukraine have been the subject of this war but I think Russia had no alternative but to go ahead with this war designed in Washington, and to which Europe has been forcefully drawn against their own long term interest.
I have a couple of disagreement with Craig.
He states that Russia and Nato are fuelling this war for their military industrial complex to make money.
If that was the case why is it that Russia under Putin have only been involved in 2 conflicts whilst the US since 1991 have been involved in 251?
“Since President Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, apart from the most recent crisis in Ukraine, Russia has been involved in just two major conflicts: The Chechen War between 1999 and 2009 and the so-called Five Day War with Georgia in 2008. In both of these events, it can be argued with some certainty that Russia did not instigate the conflict and was in fact acting defensively. The Chechnya conflict began after the Invasion of Dagestan, when the Chechnya-based Islamic International Brigade (IIB), an Islamist militia [covertly supported by the CIA], led by warlords Shamil Basayev and Ibn al-Khattab, invaded the neighbouring Russian republic of Dagestan on August 2, 1999, in support of the Shura of Dagestan separatist rebels. Russia was left with little choice but to enter Chechnya on 1st October. The campaign ended the de facto independence of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and restored Russian federal control over the territory. It is even debatable to even consider this as a “foreign” conflict, as it is quite plausible to argue that this crisis was an internal one.
The conflict with Georgia follows a similar line of events as with Chechnya. During the night of 7th to 8th August 2008, Georgia launched a large-scale military offensive against South Ossetia, in an attempt to reclaim the territory. This move was completely unprovoked. The Georgian attack caused casualties among Russian peacekeepers, who resisted the assault along with Ossetian militia. Russia rightfully reacted by deploying units of the Russian 58th Army and Russian Airborne Troops into South Ossetia one day later and launched airstrikes against Georgian forces in South Ossetia and military and logistical targets in Georgia proper. It is now well established that the majority of experts, monitors and ambassadors agreed that the war was started by Georgia.”
Alexander Clackson is the founder of Global Political Insight, a political media and research organisation. He has a Master’s degree in International Relations.
The United States launched at least 251 military interventions between 1991 and 2022.
This is according to a report by the Congressional Research Service, a US government institution that compiles information on behalf of Congress.
It is important to stress that all of these numbers are conservative estimates, because they do not include US special operations, covert actions, or domestic deployments.
The Military Intervention Project added: “With the end of the Cold War era, we would expect the US to decrease its military interventions abroad, assuming lower threats and interests at stake. But these patterns reveal the opposite – the US has increased its military involvements abroad.”
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/09/13/us-251-military-interventions-1991/
Craig also states that Putin is not interested in the plight of the people of the Donbass and Russia are in Ukraine for resources.
Russia has an abundance of it’s own resources and doesn’t need any more.
At the beginning of 2022, Ukraine amassed 150,000 troops on the borders of Donbass. They were getting ready for a final assault to take over the Donbass region. Their confidence was backed up by the NATO and the US military equipment and training and assurances of the USA intelligence that they control all Russian plans. That, combined with previous statements of Ukrainian authorities about intentions to enter NATO and develop weapons of mass destruction, was crossing the red line for the Russian Federation.
If genocide hadn’t yet happened it certainly would have happened if those 150,000 Ukrainian soldiers and the might of their airforce and artillery (Ukrainian shelling dramatically increased days prior to the SMO) were allowed to ethnically cleanse the ethnic Russians from the Donbass.
Fortunately, Russia stopped the genocide with their SMO and in that respect Russia’s actions were “justified”.
In a discussion under another blog on this site, commentator AG provided links. This is how events developed between NATO and Russia before the war began
“On Dec. 15, Karen Donfried, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, met Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who transmitted two draft agreements outlining political and military security guarantees Moscow wants from the United States and NATO. They include demands that NATO renounce any expansion eastward into states of the former Soviet bloc, including Ukraine, and limit troop and weapons deployments and military drills on NATO’s eastern flank.
Two days later, Russia published its proposals, one between Russia and the United States and another between Russia and NATO. “We hope that the United States will enter into serious talks with Russia in the near future regarding this matter, which has critical importance for maintaining peace and stability, using the Russian draft treaty and agreement as a starting point,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2022-01/news/us-russia-broaden-strategic-dialogue
Security proposals
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2022-03/news/russia-us-nato-security-proposals
So, I think that Mr. Murray is correct saying ‘killing people doesn’t solve the problems”. Just I’d be happy if he mentioned the steps which Russia made to avoid the war, including the above Ru-NATO security proposals, and also the Minsk agreements.
A lot I can agree with or is beyond my knowledge, but the speech misses out the impact of war and the militarisation of global politics on non-human life on Planet Earth. The exceptions for fossil-fuelled military climate-altering emissions from COP26, the direct devastation of ecosystems, the great Ecocide we are all just apparently minutes away from by nuclear weapons in an arms race driven (many times to the brink) by NATO. The specific damages and threats of the Russian war in Ukraine go far beyond its borders and far beyond the human species. That and the deliberate use of hot war to blood troops (especially special forces, conscripts are more expendable) and test/advertise weapons systems.
You are 90% right and 100% on the morally right side, I would say. It is certainly true that Russia does not dream of conquering Europe and is far from having the capacity to do so. However, the difficulties it has in imposing its will on Ukraine do not show that it cannot even defeat a weak neighbour. Without extensive nato aid, Ukraine would have been devastated long ago. Nevertheless, it will eventually end up there because the logistical advantages Russia has over nato in this case will eventually tip the balance.
And that’s where my main disagreement with you comes in – in essential areas Russia is now superior to the West in terms of military technology. There are the hypersonic guided missiles, against which there is no Western cure, there is the more efficient air defence and there are, according to u.s. military officials, other areas as well. This superiority is not enough to conquer states, but it is enough to cause massive damage to the West and, in the worst case, to tempt the west to seek refuge in the final escalation, in nuclear weapons.
Big nuclear states are invincible, at least near their borders. But out of reality-negation the West is trying in Ukraine.
Here are the real reasons for the Ukraine war. American General Jack Keane honestly admitted today on the Fox News channel: “For just $66 billion, we got Ukraine at war with Russia.”
According to him, the United States has invested about $66 billion in the Kyiv regime since February of this year, which helped arm Ukraine and set up local society for war with Russia. The old warrior said that “investments in Ukraine today are very profitable, because for relatively little money in the interests of the United States, not Americans die in the war with Russia, but Ukrainians.”
The confessions of the former chief of staff of the US Army are so cynical and frank that they knock the ground out of all pacifists and supporters of a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine. The questions of who attacked first and why this is necessary disappear by themselves. You just need to carefully listen to the words of the general:
“Some Republicans doubt the correctness of our spending today, including on Ukraine. But we have a budget of 6 trillion dollars, and, in fact, it is several hundred billion more. We invested crumbs in Ukraine – only 66 billion a year. This is 1.1% of the budget. And we get disproportionately large benefits.
https://mailbd.net/news/confession-of-us-general-we-paid-only-66-billion-for-ukrainians-to-die-for-us-interests-in-the-war-with-russia-7407/
Thanks Harry, that’s certainly illuminating. Here’s a link to the video for anyone who is interested:
https://video.foxbusiness.com/v/6313258525112#sp=show-clips
I don’t doubt for a moment that the US is participating enthusiastically in Ukraine as a proxy war to meet their strategic aim of depleting Russia militarily. And the cynicism of using Ukranian lives to do so is, as you say, breathtaking. I suppose the only objection I would have with your comment is that these are, as General Keane presents them, the reasons for the *continuation* of the war. I appreciate the arguments that the west acted to provoke, perhaps even to engineer the conflict. But Putin still made the decision to invade, and I have to agree with Craig that this makes him complicit in all of its terrible outcomes; just as Bush and Blair were, in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thanks for the link Roger, in that link Jack Keane repeated the lie that Putin wanted to recreate the Soviet Union.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plans to resuscitate the Soviet Union, the breakup of which he stated was “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the twentieth century”
He also said it would be an even worse tragedy to try to re-create it, so leaving that bit out seems a tad dishonest
Yes, there is definitely a problem with selective quoting. For example, people tend to overlook this quote from Angela Merkel about the Minsk agreements in the notorious ZEIT interview:
“Or look at my policy on Russia and Ukraine. I come to the conclusion that I made my decisions at that time in a way that is still comprehensible to me today. It was an attempt to prevent just such a war. The fact that this did not succeed does not mean that the attempts were therefore wrong.”
It comes just prior to the little soundbite about “an attempt to give Ukraine time” which is repeatedly rolled out in support of the exculpatory myth that the Minsk agreements were a deceptive sham from the outset. Merkel makes clear in the interview that the agreements were intended to achieve peace (see above). Any stretched interpretation of her words cherry-picked from another part of the interview needs to be consistent with that unambiguous statement – and very few allusions to it here are.
Merkel was well aware that Putin had designs on eastern Ukraine, following his annexation of Crimea, and the negotiated settlement allowed the West time to prepare in order to repel a (quite predictable) Russian invasion of the Donbass. There’s a fairly sensible interpretation on MoA – “What did Merkel say?“
“Merkel was well aware that Putin had designs on eastern Ukraine, following his annexation of Crimea, and the negotiated settlement allowed the West time to prepare in order to repel a (quite predictable) Russian invasion of the Donbass.”
Only in Western MSMworld. If you follow the link to MoA link you find this,
“However, the Ukrainian president Poroshenko did not have the will and the political backing to fulfill the agreement. There was no chance that, under him, a federalization law would pass the Ukrainian parliament. Moreover the U.S., the only party who could have really pressured him, told him not to follow up on the agreement. But then came Zelensky who was elected by a large majority on the promise to fulfill Minsk II. He even made attempts to do that. But he soon found out that his own life was in serious danger if he continued to try. There was also U.S. pressure as it which did not want Minsk fulfilled. Merkel however can not say that out loud. ”
This agrees with what I have always thought, which was that Merkel realised that the Minsk agreements were an attempt to buy time later because the US was never going to let them be ratified, not that she went into the negotiations in bad faith. Hollande said more or less the same. However, as the MoA article points out, they have to keep quiet about the true cause of their failure.
RogerDodger False equivalence: Iraq and Afghanistan are not on the borders of the UK or US, where as Ukraine is on the borders of Russia. “Putin still made the decision” but not to”invade” rather to make the next move in the war started by the US and NATO. Facts are stubborn. The war in Ukraine was caused by the violations of Ukrainian sovereignty in 2004 and 2014. These violations were followed by an eight-year civil war.
War is not illegal under international law. The UN Charter does not prohibit the use of war. The Security Council even has the possibility of declaring war (articles 39 to 51). Russia co-signed the Minsk Agreements to end the civil war. However, not having been born yesterday, it understood from the start that the West did not want peace, but war. So five days after their conclusion Russia had the Minsk Agreements endorsed by Security Council Resolution 2202. It attached to the resolution a statement by the presidents of France, Ukraine and Russia, as well as the German chancellor, guaranteeing the implementation of these texts. These four signatories committed their countries.
• Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko declared in the following days that there was no question of giving anything up, but rather of punishing the inhabitants of Donbass.
• Former Chancellor Angela Merkel told Die Zeit that she only wanted to buy time so that NATO could arm the authorities in Kiev. She unknowingly clarified her statement in a discussion with a provocateur she believed to be former President Poroshenko.
• Former President Francois Hollande confirmed in Kyiv Independent the words of Mrs. Merkel.
That left Russia, which implemented a special military operation on February 24, 2022 under its “responsibility to protect”. To say that its intervention is illegal is to say, for example, that France’s intervention during the genocide in Rwanda was also illegal and that the massacre should have been allowed to continue.
Russian people invited the Russians Federation to protect them under UN resolution 2202 where as Bush and Blair invaded Iraq to steal its fossil fuels NOT save the existence of the US or UK.
https://www.voltairenet.org/article218935.html
Natasha, good history thanks. The legalese is important. As is language.
Sometimes Truth gets Lost in Translation.
So it is absolutely delightful that the Great Communicator Lavrov , in India for G20 , is for once speaking in English to that audience which speaks it as a native language after 300 years of British imperial indoctrination of it.
Just so that his Indian interlocutors don’t get an edge over him in a live q&a with the Indians. Brilliant! Brilliant Lavrov.
English as a weapon of imperialism? Well he makes sure it is a ‘double edged’ one and cuts both ways.
?
Ps @GeromanAT is BACK on Twitter – why he was cancelled is unknown.
The best jumping off platform to many truth tellers. That’s where I found Lavrovs clips.
Brilliant Brilliant Lavrov used his fluency in English to entertain his audience in Delhi:
Crowd erupts in laughter at Russia’s top diplomat after he claimed the Ukraine war ‘was launched against us’
Comedy as a weapon of imperialism. Was it double-edged? More like holding a sword by the wrong end.
DunGroanin,
Language is certainly important. For example, I’m automatically suspicious of people who very conspicuously choose to insist on pet euphemisms for things which everyone else is able to describe in very plain terms. It tends to indicate that they consider a more straightforward description shameful, inconvenient, or cognitively dissonant. So we have ‘no-fly zones’ instead of ‘bombing campaigns’, chemicals ‘of a type manufactured in Russia’ rather than ‘of a type that can be manufactured anywhere’, and now ‘special military operations’ instead of ‘invasions’.
This Russian campaign not only looks like a duck, and walks like a duck. It swims, flies, quacks and shits like a special waterfowl of the Anatidae family as well.
And to think that the American people, time and again, say they want a public health service, but must endorse instead the spending of billions on war in the name of the American empire and its hypocritical championing of “freedom and democracy”. Meanwhile an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians voted for Zelensky because he offered them peace and a positive relationship with Russia, while all the time he was a puppet of the Nazi war mongers who were using the Minsk agreements to mask the American build up of the Ukrainian military. This is what democracy has come to mean in the West – lies told to get power regardless of the needs of the people, who are manipulated into supporting the very policies which immiserate them.
I seem to be missing something here. On Feb 24 2022 Russian forces began airstrikes and artillery barrages of Ukraine not the other way round. They dropped paratroopers on Kyiv airport so they could begin the large scale military invasion of Ukraine not the other way round. What, Mr. Murray, would you recommend that the Ukrainians should have done? What they did was fight back and ask for help. Those countries that had previously had Russian forces ruling them have been amongst the most vocal in their support and the ones providing the most practical support.and the most humanitarian support. How many Ukrainians should we accept the Russians slaughtering once we have allowed them to walk in unopposed? Of course ‘war is all hell’ but the alternative for Ukraine was Russian domination for the foreseeable future. A million Ukrainians have not volunteered to fight for Putin; they have done so to keep their country free.
Put it in proper perspective though. Russia is a nation that has been invaded from the West, and almost conquered and destroyed, on numerous occasions. For 30 years it has watched an avowedly hostile military alliance build up in its near abroad, contravening promises made at the end of the Cold War. All stripes of geopolitical expert agreed that the reddest of red lines for Russia was Ukraine. That was very well known in Washington. Yet in 2014 the Americans abetted a violent neo-Nazi-influenced coup in Kiev, an ocean and thousands of miles away from US borders.
Since then the US-installed regime has been tormenting ethnic Russians, against the wishes of most Ukrainians. The latest coup leader was elected on a promise of reconciliation and peace but reneged immediately in office and installed NATO camps within Ukraine’s borders.
Russia had negotiated the Minsk accords in good faith. What else would the Americans/ NATO have to have done before the Russians finally kicked back? How long would the USA have tolerated such deiberately threatening, hostile and provocative antics on its borders?
Well said Xavi, Both Poreshenko and recently Angela Merkel have agreed the Minsk accords were designed to buy time in order to build up NATO forces in Ukraine, and to deceive Putin for 9 years. France and Germany had no intention of negotiating the Minsk agreements Merkel said so.This perfidy will cost the West enormously, how can Russia believe anything the West say, they have proven to be agreement incapable.
I don’t believe you actually listened to the speech, Leslie. Of course Ukraine had the right of self defence. But now we are in a long war of stalemate which is helping nobody except the arms industry and jingoistic politicians,
Not a stalemate, a dynamic equilibrium, same as on the Western Front January 1915 – December 1917. The Ukronazi means to maintain the equilibrium was exhausted in weeks; depleting the US ability to maintain it is taking months.
Hi Craig
I did listen to the speech. I have admired your work viz a viz Alex Salmond and respect your position on Scottish Independence but here we disagree. It is not that Putin had no choice but to invade. He did. He had economic influence and channels of communication to ensure Russian sovereignty was secure. Did he really think that Nato was ever going to invade Russia?
Your point below may be correct in it’s future prediction
But now we are in a long war of stalemate which is helping nobody except the arms industry and jingoistic politicians,
but still, if we had not helped, Ukraine would have been overrun. Kyiv would have looked like Bakmut does now. Please let me know how many Ukrainians you would be prepared to sacrifice in an unaided hopeless defence of their free will, 1,000, 10,000, 100,000. Would you say the same things if Kyiv was spelt Edinburgh?
we didn’t “help”:. we created this war, to achieve the goal of dismembering Russia. of course Putin was worried about NATO invading Russia, that’s the goal. to weaken and take Russia apart.
Leslie, with all due respect, one does not extinguish a fire by continuously pouring petrol on it.
Its time that our media realises that the danger in such undertaking might spread the fire further.
How dare do global hegemonist’s play out their war games here in Europe, threatening and terrorising fellow NATO members, destroying their economic manufacturing base, to make a fat profit on the back of this unecessarry war.
If England, in a paddy over losing natural harbors and their nuclear navy interests, as well as natural resources from an independent Scotland, shoots up the borders killing some 14.000 Scots, you would not want the US arming Westminster’s generals with more arms, would you?
You should read some of the previous comments, and links, before posting naive statements based on a standard western media perspective on what’s actually been going on in Ukraine for virtually the last decade. There is no excuse for such levels of ignorance
“they have done so to keep their country free.”
In what sense are they freer in Ukraine under the current regime than they would be in Russia? At least Russia’s government is not under the influence of another state thousands of miles away.
Self determination. They’d have a puppet government under a Quisling once Russia took over and no say in how they were ruled just like in Soviet Union days. Would you say Scotland was better off as part of the UK rather than an independent state under the influence of Brussels?
They already have a puppet government under the Quisling Zelensky, who will be spirited away to the West like so many Nazis before him.
I’d like to live in your world, where every government is free, independent and under no foreign influence, except those under the malign influence of Russia. Unfortunately I have to live in the real world.
Addressed to Leslie Halls
I seem to be missing something here. On 20 February 2014 NATO forces began sniper strikes of Ukraine, not the other way around. The democratically elected president fled for his life. NATO’s Nazis took over the country and declared war on ethnic Russians. Over nine years NATO’s Nazis murdered about fifteen thousand known civilians.
You do know all of that, don’t you? Or could that be the something you are missing?
Thank you John –
‘democratically elected’
“I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how. But what is extaordinarily important is this -Who will count the vote and how”. –
Joseph Stalin
The US didn’t bother counting votes when it instigated the coup that turned Ukraine into a catspaw on the border of Russia.
Of course, no government of which the US disapproves could possibly be democratically elected:
“They’ve got to be protected,
All their rights respected,
Until someone we like can get elected.”
Hello Leslie
It’s not clear whether you consider all elections suspect, or whether there is a whiff of racism involved here.
Here is what the famously Communist Wikipedia has to say about the matter:
“I seem to be missing something here. On Feb 24 2022 Russian forces began airstrikes and artillery barrages of Ukraine not the other way round.”
Attacks on Russians in Ukraine following a US assisted neo-nazi coup stand at the beginning of this chain of events.
“How many Ukrainians should we accept the Russians slaughtering once we have allowed them to walk in unopposed?”
Why would there be any slaughter if the Russians were unopposed?
” A million Ukrainians have not volunteered to fight for Putin”
Many Russian speaking citizens of Ukraine have volunteered to fight in the break away republics and now that those places are part of Russia no doubt some will volunteer for the russian army. Certainly millions in those areas support Russia. The CIA determined which parts of The Ukraine were pro-russian in 1957 for the purpose of making trouble there. The parts that were Russian then are Russian now.
https://twitter.com/Kanthan2030/status/1631245503647326209/photo/1
This man from the NBC went to the Crimea and ‘discovered’ (bless) that they want to be Russian.
https://twitter.com/Kanthan2030/status/1631245503647326209/photo/1
Now he’s on an online death list run by Ukranian neo-nazis.
In this article article referring to the “Annexation of Crimea” In 2014, the West called Crimea’s secession from Ukraine and its annexation to Russia an annexation and began an aggressive anti-Russian policy. But was it annexation from a legal point of view? The author of the article, Wolfgang Bittner, proves that there is not, referring, among other things, to the lawyer and legal philosopher Reinhard Merkel. It was not Russia that violated international law, but Ukraine. https://mickestenssononrussia.wordpress.com/2021/12/24/was-the-annexation-of-crimea-to-russia-an-illegal-annexation/
This is how lawyer Reinhard Merkel sees the situation. In his article linked above , he came to the conclusion that the secession of Crimea and the subsequent referendum were held quite in accordance with international law, and not at all in violation of it, as most countries claim. However, Merkel makes a reservation: both the secession and the referendum were violations of the Ukrainian Constitution. However, this is not a matter of international law, and since the Ukrainian constitution does not apply in Russia, Russia had the right to agree to the entry of Crimea into its composition.
That International Law i.e. the right of all peoples to self determination trumps the constitution of Ukraine was ruled correct by the ICJ in its Kosova judgement. It could be said the Ukrainian constitution was breached by the US instigated coup led by the US state deparmentt [Victoria Nuland] admitted by her to the tune of $6 billion dollars.
HARRY LAW
thx for reminding of Reinhard Merkel.
The Reinhard Merkel case was highly debated then.
A discussion ensued that would foreshadow what would come. I didn´t realize its significance back then.
(I am just thinking of the embarassing discussion going on in the German Parliament just yesterday about Nordstream sabotage, a disgrace. No one wants to know the truth.)
There was a long discussion panel by the Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung / Hamburg Institute for Social Research, 2014 after Crimea.
participants:
Jan Philipp Reemtsma (scholar, director of Hamburg Institute for Social Research) / Reinhard Merkel (lawyer) / Gerd Hankel (intern. law) / Klaas Voss (historian) / Klaus Naumann (historian) / Bernd Greiner (historian) / Nikola Tietze (historian) / Claudia Weber (historian) / Ulrike Jureit (historian)
here:
https://www.eurozine.com/von-nachbarn-tochtern-und-pistolen/#
Its in German. I won´t post the translation here as I assume it´s too long for this site. But it´worth the labour.
And deepl.com would do it.
However two of the linked sources are still intact (8 years old by now)
1) PEW Research Centre re: Crimea question, with interesting numbers.
“Despite Concerns about Governance, Ukrainians Want to Remain One Country”
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2014/05/08/despite-concerns-about-governance-ukrainians-want-to-remain-one-country/
2) UN General Assembly, Oct. 25th 1970 re: the question of sovereignty
“2625 (XXV). Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations ”
http://www.un-documents.net/a25r2625.htm
the Declaration is quoted in the Merkel discussion by one panelist in response to Merkel:
“(…)It seems important to me, however, that in 1970 a UN resolution on friendly relations between states was passed which, on the one hand, with reference to the right of peoples to self-determination, states once again that all peoples have the right “to decide freely and without outside interference on their political status and to shape their economic, social and cultural development”. But it also says, on the other hand, that “the preceding paragraphs shall not be construed as authorizing or encouraging measures which would wholly or partly dissolve or impair the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent States […].”
The problem here – and for that I would point back to Nicolai Petro´s research – Crimea has always been a very special case within Ukraine and Russia from 1991 on.
They people there even risked military confrontation with Kiev to reach a certain degree of autonomy.
Btw under Yelzin, Moscow put pressure onto Crimea so they would cut short on their ambitions, at the same time hoping for Kiev to resolve the problem in adult manner.
There were attempts but then disrupted by the 2004 situation and even more acute 2014.
Eventually the threat to the Black Sea Fleet would eventually neutralize all civic discussion of self-determination which the Russians were willing to handle in respect to Kiev´s interests up until then, because the Black Sea Fleet would concern national security. And that was top priority.
The US and any other state would rank those military issues (WMDs and access to the sea) on the top as well.
Kiev wanted to cancel the Black Sea Fleet Treaty. Most likely they would do so under the influence of the US (there is no other reason since there was no problem with it. In fact US Navy had already started to look for two new sites on Crimea before Russia unexpectedly annexed.)
Imagine Scapa Flow would have been occupied by Scottish forces handing them over to German Navy in 1910.
AG thanks for the link to the 1970 debate in Germany regarding sovereignty and self determination.
The issue of Kosovo was well put by Goldbach on skwarkbox there he said…….When the KLA started its campaign to secede from Yugoslavia (as it was still called) the matter was taken to the ICJ by Yugoslavia (Serbia). They argued that, in international law, the right to secure borders meant that Kosove did not have the right to secede. The Kosovan argument was that, in international law, the right to self-determination meant that Kosovo did have the right to secede The ICJ agreed that the two were contradictory and they would need to rule on which had precedence. They ruled that self-determination was more important than secure borders.
N.B. The administration of Kosovo declared independence without going to a referendum but the ICJ ruled that, since they were a regional government, they could be said to be expressing the will of the people of Kosovo. [are the SNP listening?]
Applying the, now, established principle to Ukraine would mean that Crimea had the right to secede and ask to join Russia (even if they hadn’t bothered with a referendum), and that Lugansk and Donetsk had the right to declare independence ……. and later to apply to join Russia.[
I have always been against Kosovo independence and would consider it illegal.
And 2008 It was clearly not a legal issue but a political one, pushed by the EU and the US to finalize what 1999 had started.
Thus it was not about what Kosovars wanted or did not want. (US couldn´t care less.)
It was about setting a precedent to weaken the UN-Charta and in the long run replace it with the US rule-based order – and hurting Serbia (and Europe for that matter but Brussels wouldn´t get it).
If Crimea was later on considered as a backfiring example I don´t know but I doubt its significance for the US.
I could well imagine the US Senate would care little about Crimea.
The sanction regime againt Russia had well been under way by 2012 with the ominous Magnitsky Act and the beginning of setting up Russiagate with some hair-raising discussions in the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Russia as a new threat.
Those sessions were incredibly orchestrated and obvious had the US media just cared enough to report on them.
But as one of those Senate reports alone is 200 pages long + Hundreds of footnotes – who has the time to read that stuff and check how much rubbish it contains?
They would set the anti-Russia agenda completely detached from any Kosovo or Crimea quarrel but in reference to the bigger plan. That is: 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest.
Whether Crimea would take place or not, whether it was legitimate based on the Kosovo precedent, was miniscule – I think – for the strategic shift against Russia itself.
Russian territory is prone to interference with many soft spots where US intervention could take effect.
Ukraine turned out the best choice but there would have been alternatives.
Well said Craig.
Can’t disagree with a word you spoke. Your nuanced and principled approach is so different from the simplistic, barely disguised propaganda fed to us through the MSN. Well said.
Craig seems to place extraordinary faith in International law i.e. the agreement in 1949 by the 5 permanent members with veto power, the US found this arrangement inconvenient because other permanent members could stop US aggression with their veto’s. The US realizing this invented “The rules based order” [ Putin, Lavrov and others have been denied access to this document, the reason is obvious the US want to by-pass International law and embark on aggression anywhere in the world as and when they please, accompanied by their vassals of course [called a coalition of the willing],
] Christopher Black an International Lawyer argues that all US wars since Korea have been illegal under International Law, he goes on to say….
“When one takes account of all the factors that governed the Russian decision to send its forces into Ukraine it is clear that in law they had the legal right to do so whereas the United States continues its illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq and Syria to this day and the NATO media powers and governments say nothing, because they are all complicit in those invasions.
If the United States and the NATO alliance had complied with international law in the first place as set out in the UN Charter, the world would not be in this mess. They caused this, not Russia. The responsibility is entirely theirs and they will be judged for it”.
https://journal-neo.org/2022/03/08/the-legality-of-war/
Thanks for the speech and for a nuanced view. I totally get the Smedley Butler ‘War is a Racket Approach’ argument. Just one thought though, Edward Wilson, a novelist of cold war spy novels, has a bit of a running theme in his novels that left leaning British spooks may have exaggerated Russian military in particular nuclear potential (as we had ours) to dissuade the US from an attack because UK had in effect already become Orwell’s immobile aircraft carrier.
I have to disagree with the idea the settlement would be the same… Russia will demand MUCH MORE, and would be in their rights to do so. They can point to the perfidious nature of NATO in their dealings and won’t allow that again.
Following remarks if I may:
1) I recommend to watch following conversation between Nicolai Petro, Professor for Intern. Relations and Ukraine/Russia history at the Rhode Island University and author of the excellent study “THE TRAGEDY OF UKRAINE” and Anatol Lieven, senior editor responsible for Eurasia at Responsible Statecraft.
Among (many) other things Petro stipulates:
If Russia were to immediately retreat all its forces and end the war today, most problems in Ukraine would remain.
60 minutes:
“Nicolai Petro on ‘The Tragedy of Ukraine’ and Conflict Resolution”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwwuPkFophc
2) Given we had believeable evidence that AFU was about to launch a major attack on Donbas late February/early March 2022, in how far would that change the assessment of the war/legal situation?
3) What would international law suggest/offer, had the RF Forces NOT attacked and the AFU instead. Also considering the hierarchy of national borders vs. inner-state borders (Donbas secession status) and sovereignty of state power in terms of the use of force.
Would the “West” have THEN accepted Russian “interference”? I doubt it.
Would the “West” have suggested meaningful solutions to resolve the conflict?
4) We know from public quotes as documented by public record several years back that the Ukrainian government had no intention to implement Minsk I&II.
This is no interpretation. This is a fact.
Confirmed eventually by the statements of Merkel & Holland – Whether some details in their statements true or invented after the fact is irrelevant at the moment since their comments from 2022 only confirmed what is known about the EU´s position towards Minsk I&II in general.
e.g.: Sanctioning Russia for NOT implementing Minsk, and deny the same “punishment” of Kiev for doing the same – double standard.
BREAKING: NBC News / MSNBC concedes that Zelensky’s goal of retaking Crimea is unrealistic and dangerous.
Max Blumenthal reports
NBC told Americans the truth about Crimea for the first time and its reporter wound up on the Ukrainian government’s kill list alongside several other US citizens, journos, clergy and even children. Will NBC now report on this list? Will “press freedom” groups denounce it?
NBC News journalist Keir Simmons recently went to Crimea and reported that most Crimeans are pro-Russia. Now, Ukraine has put him on its hit list website for reporting this fact. What does the U.S. government think about Ukraine adding an NBC journalist to its hit lists?
Sacks also says regarding NBC clearly conceding that Zelensky’s goal of retaking Crimea remains unrealistic and dangerous…
This is a huge admission because it means that Biden’s policy of “only the Ukrainians can decide” the objectives of the war makes no sense. We’re effectively delegating our foreign policy to Zelensky, who is pursuing objectives that we don’t agree with.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/msnbc-reporter-goes-crimea-shocks-viewers-telling-truth
” NBC News journalist Keir Simmons recently went to Crimea and reported that most Crimeans are pro-Russia. ”
Well as the trip only took place with Russia’s connivance and with Simmons and his crew being accompanied everywhere by Russian minders that’s hardly surprising.
” Now, Ukraine has put him on its hit list website ” Which is entirely unofficial.
“Well as the trip only took place with Russia’s connivance and with Simmons and his crew being accompanied everywhere by Russian minders that’s hardly surprising.”
Well, as Simmons didn’t speak Russian, he wouldn’t have got very far without those “minders” (or “interpreters” as most people call them). Oh, and official permission is “connivance” when it comes from Russia? Are you suggesting that he should have been secretly landed from a submarine, accompanied by some US special forces bodyguards?
Anyhow, predictably, you miss the point entirely, which is not that NBC sent a reporter to Crimea and found that everyone he talked to supported Russia, but that they published the fact that they had done so and the results.
He could’ve taken his own interpreters but ‘fixers’ would be a better description.
So they published. Reading the article they only mention talking to three people, two of whom were pro-Russian and one seemingly neutral.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/inside-crimea-russian-military-annexed-ukraine-retake-putin-rcna72606
So you are a journalist visiting a foreign country. Do you 1) take along your own staff, who are as clueless about how the country works as you are or 2) hire some local people to show you around? Most people call the second category “guides”.
“Reading the article they only mention talking to three people, two of whom were pro-Russian and one seemingly neutral.”
It does seem odd that they didn’t interview more people, but it also seems likely in that case that they couldn’t find anyone who was anti-Russian.
HARRY LAW
“This is a huge admission”
if so, whose messenger is NBC? The Pentagon? The WH? SoS?
I didn´t read the transcript of William Burns´ latest TV-interview a few days ago.
But perhaps there is a connection?
“Transcript: CIA director William Burns on “Face the Nation,” Feb. 26, 2023”
https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2023/02/transcript-cia-director-william-burns-on-face-the-nation-feb-26-2023/
Someone suggested that this report was ‘just a random act of journalism’.
of course, could very well be the case
William Burns’ full interview is here (I haven’t had time to watch it):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN4bgqKq2MU
He is of course exactly the same William Burns who as US Ambassador to Russia in 2008 sent the famous “Nyet Means Nyet” (No Means No) memo to the then Bush administration warning them that exactly what has since transpired over the last twelve months would transpire.
Oh, but of course, butter wouldn’t melt …
You can see the memo here courtesy of Wikileaks:
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html?fbclid=IwAR1jDNK2x8BSUDrreYPFB_IE9MKldHoruP9Ex2JYBm0JLmvdcMAHdEORulQ#efmBTnBfi
Well, well, well.
That link worked fine when I posted it yesterday but now appears somewhat scrambled, though you can just about read the original if you can be bothered to struggle through continuous, un-paragraphed text further down the page.
Fortunately a more straight forward version can be read here, also courtesy of Wikileaks:
https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html
To reprise, this is a memo sent by the current chief of the CIA when he was US ambassador to Russia in 2008 outlining Russia’s fears of Nato expansion and warning of what might happen if the west sought to progress Ukrainian Nato membership – which is, of course, exactly what has transpired over the last nine years.
From the 2008 memo:
“1. (C) Summary. Following a muted first reaction to Ukraine’s intent to seek a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the Bucharest summit (ref A), Foreign Minister Lavrov and other senior officials have reiterated strong opposition, stressing that Russia would view further eastward expansion as a potential military threat. NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains “an emotional and neuralgic” issue for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene.”
for some odd reason my firefox liked your first wiki link only
here the one that has been working without any interruption the entire war:
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html
But one cannot post these things often enough 😉
Thanks Peter, I read the cable and watched the interview with great interest.
You have to wonder what kind of message you can expect to be approved for release from the director of the CIA to the American public, and by extension the entire world. It does feel like very much like an official gloss or spin of the events; an interpretation that serves American interests.
Burns gave a good performance. As an ex-ambassador he is clearly a comfortable political operator, although in truth he wasn’t offered any difficult questions, aside from perhaps a probing of the CIA’s espionage capacity in Beijing which he deflected with a very straight bat. He reminded me of Blair, affecting earnestness and affability, and giving answers that seemed considered and meaningful, even ‘honest’, albeit with an inescapable slant.
With all the misinformation thrown about by every side, I wouldn’t pretend to be well enough informed to detect any outright lies. I did almost choke on a reference to ‘our allies willingness to endure some economic pain to inflict more on Russia’, which seemed darkly euphemistic reference not just to sanctions but perhaps also to NS1 and 2.
There was a great deal of psychoanalysing Putin and his underlings in order to give the official interpretation of the war’s motivation, this I found a little too pat and convenient even if it made a kind of sense. As Craig says, we should beware any interpretation of a war that tries to make it as simple as good guys vs bad, and indeed the cables you mention recast subsequent events in a different light regarding both the Russian perspective and America’s understanding thereof. Perhaps these competing Burnsian worldviews are not wholly incompatible, but it’s certainly worth keeping in mind their points of difference.
Craig, You changed the way I look at the war in Ukraine with this talk. I’ve been reading your blog for a couple of years and keep meaning to subscribe, but I finally actually did it. By the way, I’ve been wondering for years how a terrible person like Nicola Sturgeon could be popular in Scotland. I’m so happy to see her go! I hope the change will advance the cause of Scottish independence. Curt
That is an immense speech.
CM, sir, as usual you make me think.
It’s like the fact that there is much supposed oil tanker employment to deliver the same resources to the same consumers. With added profit, because of the sanctions. The big players are coining it from ‘both sides’ as usual.
The nasty ever daily increasing death through the year is sickening. The machinations over the years to create such hatred is obvious.
I do see and feel the destruction of our European disposable income and public services we have taken for granted. It is hurting people I know.
I will need to think further. The good/evil narrative IS too simplistic.
Thank you, the monthly subscription is worth it.
I enjoyed the beginning part about migration – very instructive.
Then at about 9 minutes you point out that the Russian military is not that strong and you suggest without quite saying it that the Ukraine could easily fend of the Russians without military aid from Europe and the USA. You produce no evidence for this. Are you saying Ukraine would have survived the Russian onslaught without military aid?
I think you evade this question and also evade the question : should the west just leave Ukraine to be taken over by Russia?
You keep going on about how Russia is not going to attack London. I have never heard anyone suggest that it would. The reason Western countries are beefing up their military is because they are alarmed at the unpredictability of the Russians.
It is the Americans who have attacked them not Russia. How have they responded to that? Just craven silence and denial.
Conjunction
” they are alarmed at the unpredictability of the Russians.”
Russia has only ever done what it said it was going to do.
What? Like not invade Ukraine??
When I read or listen to you on Ukraine and Russia it leaves me shaking my head. You are all over the place in that speech and it is not what you say but the things you don’t say that trouble me the most.
This is such a highly charged topic and the propaganda war against Russia and Putin has been non-stop for well over a decade now. And it has been effective, I am continually shocked at how indoctrinated many (normally very savvy) fellow independence supporters are. So I have found it is better simply not to say anything. Being called a traitor or agent of Putin is par for the course…
But I have eyes in my head and I have seen what has unfolded in Ukraine and I find your analysis very weird at times. I would say there is a very clear aggressor here but it is not Russia. We will just have to leave at that for here.
I am putting this down to a mild case of…’you can take the boy out of the foreign office but not the foreign office out of the boy’.
Anyway can’t agree on everything Craig and on this one we will definitely have to agree to disagree.