All of the worst atrocities in human history have been perpetrated by people convinced they were in the right. People act according to the mores of their era and group. There is nothing more dangerous that the inability to see that it is reasonable for others to have a different view or interest.
The Guardian has been publishing calls for NATO to declare war on Russia. Twitter is awash with fanatic “liberals” arguing there can be no negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine, and the war must only end with Ukraine recovering all territory including Crimea.
The most crazed sometimes go further and suggest the war may only end with regime change in Russia.
It does not require any special degree of intelligence to see the dangers of insisting on the unconditional surrender, and the personal incarceration or death, of those with their finger on the big red button, in a war against a nuclear power.
The 20th century saw two terrible “world wars”. The first was the result of Imperial rivalries and dynastic power, and it is difficult to discern any morality in it at all (though the propaganda fabrications about Germans bayonetting Belgian babies are a template that has been, with slight variations, repeated by western media in every war right up until today).
The Second World War, however, was as close to a justified war as can ever be found. Fascism and Nazism were truly evil doctrines, while the Western forces that opposed them were on the brink of a golden but short-lived era of social democracy and meaningful working class empowerment.
The problem is that this has become the template for thinking about war in the West – that we are always the “goodies” and the opponents are truly evil, and that total war must be fought leading to unconditional surrender, with even the most horrendous atrocities (Dresden, Hiroshima) justified within the overarching moral imperative.
We have seen straightforward imperial wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, each of which the media has tried to manipulate to fit that thought pattern. It also drives the continual propaganda that the war in Ukraine comes from an invasion by an evil Russian regime and was “illegal and unprovoked”.
Now as you know, I hold that Russian incursion or invasion was illegal, both in 2014 and 2022. But unprovoked it most certainly was not.
It is interesting to return to the World War II precedent here, because it has never been understood to detract from acceptance of the evil of Nazism, to attempt to understand how it happened.
Every schoolchild of my age was taught the “Causes of World War II”, and the first cause was always the extremely punitive Treaty of Versailles.
The insistence on unconditional surrender in World War I, the entirely unfounded claim the whole conflict of World War I was Germany’s fault, the annexations, cruel financial reparations and blow to national pride of military suppression, were all universally acknowledged by historians as mistakes that were of great help to Hitler.
Interestingly, today’s history school curricula in the UK spend much more time on World War II than we used to, and are much less nuanced. The causes of the war feature much less if at all, and heroic Britnat tales of a brave struggling people (which are not of course untrue) feature much more.
With Ukraine, we are not allowed to acknowledge any of the factors that provoked Russia. Not NATO expansion and forward positioning of missiles, not glorification of Nazism, not suppression of Russian language and political parties, not shelling of Russian civilian areas.
In fact it is apparently traitorous to mention any of these things: a crime against the overarching goal of total victory.
This establishment and media narrative is countered on social media by others who take an opposite and equally uncompromising view. They believe Russia must fight to a total victory in Ukraine, depose Zelensky, and humiliate and weaken NATO, thus dealing a blow to US Imperialism.
While a much smaller group, the pro-Russian extremists can be every bit as bloodthirsty as the NATO hawks.
The problem is that all these people on both sides, fuelled by the righteousness of their own belief, are blind to the immense human suffering of the war. They don’t seem to care that many times the amount of suffering so far would be required in order for either side to achieve total victory.
Whereas in the real world both sides are bogged down in a barely moving battle of attrition. The idea of “total victory” is impractical nonsense.
As for those actually making the decisions, for Western politicians a continuing war is a win-win. It drains Russia, their designated enemy. More importantly, it provides the massive opportunities for concentrated political power and super-profits from the public purse that only war can bring.
So far the UK has provided £4.1 billion of weaponry to Ukraine, without a mainstream political dissenting voice. If total victory is the aim, that is just an appetiser.
Yet we have the pretend opposition Labour Party stating that £1.2 billion a year cannot possibly be found to lift the two-child benefit cap and relieve child poverty.
That is one reason wars are so good for the wealthy who control us. Weapons expenditure is beyond control or criticism. To date £5 billion has been spent on the Ajax light armoured vehicle project without a single vehicle ready to enter service having been produced.
There is no telling how much Trident is eventually going to cost, though at least 125 billion. The war in Ukraine provides yet more evidence that our nuclear deterrent does not actually deter anything.
Though I suppose the Ukraine war does radically improve the chances that at least we might get our money’s worth from Trident by blowing the whole world to pieces.
I can see no logical refutation to my constantly repeated argument that the war in Ukraine has shown that Russia cannot speedily defeat a much smaller, weaker and extremely corrupt neighbouring state, so the incredibly high expenditure on “defence” by NATO is not really needed.
The idea that Russia, which is taking a long while to defeat Ukraine, could be a serious threat to the entire NATO alliance is plainly utter nonsense.
But Russia can of course eventually defeat its much weaker and smaller neighbour. Ultimately Ukraine cannot win this war, and somehow the West has to come to terms with that. Ukraine is quite simply going to run out of people able and willing to fight.
Ukraine’s use of US cluster weapons was perhaps the first major dent in the blue and yellow public opinion so carefully manufactured in the West. As the horrible war continues on with no real Ukrainian victories to cheer, the “who started it” question will fade in the public mind.
I still think it was unwise of Putin to start this war, as well as illegal. If his goals are limited, then this is a good time to move to cash in his gains.
You may be surprised to know that I have a certain degree of admiration for Bismarck. Apart from a genuine claim to have invented the foundations of a welfare state, Bismarck’s use of war was brilliant.
Bismarck stuck to defined and limited objectives, and did not allow spectacular military success to lead him to expand those objectives.
The purpose of his two wars against Austria and France was to unify Germany, and he succeeded in very quick wars, immediately ended. Humiliating or punishing France or Austria played no significant part in his thinking. Bismarck had limited goals, achieved them and stopped the fighting immediately.
This horrible war will end with Russia retaining Crimea. There is no point in arguing about it. Whether the Donbass remains theoretically part of Ukraine remains to be seen, but de facto Russian autonomy there will be established. I suspect that more important to Putin than the Donbass would be territory further south which secures the approaches to Crimea.
There has to be a territorial settlement. That is what diplomacy is for. The total war options are in themselves terrible and bring massive nuclear risk.
The idea of either side fighting through to total victory is, quite simply, madness. Sanity must be imposed on those who seek to profit from continuing war, or seek to engulf the world in the flames of ideology and righteousness.
Ask this one question of those who insist on total victory for one side or the other. “How many dead people is that worth?”. Insist on an actual number. For total victory either way, anything less than 1 million is utterly unrealistic. It could be much, much worse. Do you really want that?
————————————————
Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a
Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.
Hi Craig
I’ve not seen anyone outline what Putin could have done other than recognise the republics and intervene militarily. Minsk had been broken and the European Security framework he suggested was dismissed without consideration. Meanwhile OSCE observers saw a huge increase in shelling from the Ukrainian side, a precursor to a possible invasion. What were his other options?
He was in a very strong diplomatic position. The UN had just passed overwhelmingly the resolution on the glorification of Nazism. It was not, of course, Russian territory that was being shelled and there was not a “huge increase”, though there was some increase. I published the OSCE reports at the time.
If an intervention was thought essential, reinforcing the Donbass militias would have been much less escalating. The initial Russian attack on Kiev was an effort to depose the Ukrainian government. The attempt to pretend it didn’t happen/wasn’t serious is risible.
From what I remember, the provocations were building up and Ukranian forces appeared to be massing for a push into the Donbass. The west was actively supporting the build ups and provocations, probably with the aim of creating a Vietnam for Russia, which to an extent has happened. Diplomacy was not going to work and was actively undermined by the West. The OCSE was and is in the pockets of the West, their reporting was biased towards the western agenda, ie. Russia bad.
Russia had no other choice than to intervene or sit back and watch the bloodshed and have NATO on its border. Ukraine had many, many chances to stop this but the West will not allow it, still.
If Russia had used “shock and awe” on Kiev, it would have been theirs for the taking. But they aren’t American and/or stupid.
There were still a naval blockade on grain shipments, shutting down the pipelines, cutting the electricity, embargoes on exports of essential raw materials to the West… i think options were plenty.
I don’t fault Putin’s logic completely: he may have believed personally that invading was his only choice when the shelling intensified. But he could have stopped it before things came to a head. Or at least built a better case for the inevitability of the invasion. That he believed otherwise may have stemmed from simple power creep – anyone who holds power for so long ends up surrounded by yes-men who say what one wants to hear.
> and Ukranian forces appeared to be massing for a push into the Donbass.
Um, the Donbas was/is Ukrainian territory; they’re entitled to occupy their own territory.
@ Jimmeh,
No, Luhansk and Donetsk had declared independence. They had seceded from Ukraine as is allowed under international law. *they had done this the same way as Kosovo seceded from Serbia*
Under international law any independent country can ask for other countries to assist and defend them. Russia recognised them the day before they went in. I do not view the ‘SMO’ as an aggressive invasion as Craig claims.
I was however surprised that Russia went in, they had a huge army on the border and anyone should have seen that Russia was not pissing about in negotiations. I am of the opinion that this war was actively pursued and provoked by the neocons. Now they have come unstuck.
This conflict is now just piles of dead bodies. A ceasefire is needed immediately. Followed by peace negotiations…_
Come on, Jimmeh, why speaking in snippets? Your phrase without context looks like an excellent neutral and truthful argument. So why do I smell a lie in it?
Let’s elaborate on your idea, shall we? Indeed, I don’t see why it couldn’t be done on such a pleasant Friday night, by a glass of gin and tonic, on the eve of a wonderful summer weekend, when two Ukrainian missiles were shot down today in the city four hours away by car.
So you say ‘they’re entitled to occupy their own territory’ 🙂 Sure, any citizen of any country is entitled to occupy any territory within their country, as far as they are civilians coming with bags, and pets, and other belongings. But what if they come with weapons and with loudly declared intention to kill? Are they entitled to occupy the land?
If so, what can I say, it a bad bad law, it should be changed right now, with no hesitation. Because the laws, they are written by people, to coerce other people, or, to kill other people without punishment. There are also laws written to please people, or to make people’s life easier. That is how we tell bad laws from good laws.
Anyway, law or not law, people they usually don’t like someone going with weapons to kill them. People often resist, despite of law. In my opinion, what makes the existence of such cruel laws possible is that people from outside express support and justification for those killers. Don’t stop them. Encourage them. Or, even bring more sofisticated weapons, so that the killing is more impressive.
Well they could have honoured the signed Minsk agreement. It appears Putin’s use of his military (SMO) for political achievement is wrong, but Ukraine’s use of its military (ATO) for political achievement since 2014 is accepted.
Today’s news: the US request Nigeria ‘ensure the full restoration of its constitution’ and ‘unflagging support’ to its leader. Such a shame they didn’t say the same in Ukraine 2014; would’ve saved all this sadness.
DiggerUK
This conflict is now just piles of dead bodies. A ceasefire is needed immediately. Followed by peace negotiations
Indeed but the only nation that raise this alternative is Hungary, today they raised the issue once again:
No better time for Ukraine peace talks than now – NATO member
The conflict between Moscow and Kiev cannot be resolved on the battlefield, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said
https://swentr.site/news/580517-ukraine-peace-talks-now-nato/
But the crazies in charge like Von der Leyen, Borell etc wont let peace happen anyime soon. Their own children is of course not involved in the military.
During an interview Ursula von der Leyen is asked,
“are your own children in the military?”
Ursula, “No, ha ha ha”
Do as i say, not as i do…..
https://twitter.com/ricwe123/status/1660366719389429763
I want to see chicken hawks like von Der Leyen and Borell on the battlfield and they should bring their adult offsprings with them.
Russia did exactly that with Chechnya and the death toll was in the tens of thousands. The example there, and in Georgia and in Syria, would be known to the Ukrainians. Many of them can read the Russian media and they had a reason for observing their larger neighbour.
One may r not, disregard the comments by the author of this but the quotes from Prigozhin I have seen elsewhere.
So was he indulging in propaganda or being honest? He doesn’t back the impending attack story believed by many commenting here.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2023/07/29/the-british-public-is-fully-behind-ambitious-green-growth/
Even conceding that you are right, Jimmeh, would you feel happy if the US government sent most of its armed forces to attack, say, Texas or Alaska with no holds barred? Soldiers against civilians?
No, the putsch regime was not the legitimate government of Ukraine, the resistance in Donbas and elsewhere were/are loyal to the legitimate Ukrainian government and state.
Thanks, Stevie, for providing a comment that says more or less what my much longer subsequent comment does – but far more pithy and concise. Mine is probably TL:DR. 😎
Mr. Murray, I hope that you know that I respect you, and therefore you will not perceive my disagreement as nothing more than just arguments. Also, it’s important to apologize for having to make such a disclaimer, but in fact, your reactions are sometimes umm, too emotional. On the one hand, I am glad about this, for me it is a sign that you are conducting a dialogue on an equal footing. On the other hand, in today’s difficult realities, this would be unwelcome stress, which I’d like to avoid if possible. Thank you.
Imo, the reason for the war was NATO’s refusal to discuss security guarantees for Russia.
At that time, Ukraine had already written into its Constitution the desire to get into NATO, had already trained its soldiers with NATO instructors and rebuilt its infrastructure to NATO standards. Since there are several treaties regulating the security of countries in the region, the change in configuration required a revision of those treaties. NATO’s refusal to pay any attention to Russia’s concerns – I believe that this was the trigger.
And this is how I perceive this whole war on a large scale – NATO has refused to cooperate. What we here saw is I would describe it as ‘inability to negotiate’, or, an ‘unannounced ultimatum’. Now Russia is pushing NATO away from its borders. The fact that this is happening on the territory of Ukraine is, I’m sorry, a concomitant circumstance and is not the fact that Russia is trying to conquer Ukraine.
Imo, Putin quite clearly outlined what would make it possible to achieve security: demilitarization, that is, the state of Ukraine should not pose a military threat. And denazification, that is, the ideology of Nazism, must be destroyed.
NATO is resisting, supporting Ukraine with weapons, covering up and whitewashing the ideology of Nazism.
The unexpectedly canceled peace talks in Istanbul and the Ukrainian member of the delegation killed in Ukraine by the Ukrainian KGB speak in favor of my point of view. I don’t even mention the Minsk agreements.
Position of the West is ‘no negotiations’ all the time, and I hardly see what else one could expect. It’s security after all.
the security guarantees demanded by Russia was for the new members of NATO to disarm and not be covered by article 5. The new members were all ex-Warsaw Pact countries or former Soviet Republics (the Baltic states). They were were much more vocal than Germany or France is resisting the “guarantees’.
Could it be they have a clearer idea of the nature of the present Russian regime and see it as a threat?
There were no NATO troop deployments in those states other than training missions. Training missions are not set up for offensive action. They are entitled to modernise their defences. Following the annexation of Crimea in 2014 NATO deployed a few brigade strength multi-national units. More of a gesture than a serious military force.
Putin has been talking about Ukraine (all of it) as not being a real country but as part of Russia. One only has to look at the Novesti website published following the invasion (and taken down when it was obvious it was not going to be over in a week as the invading forces were told). It spoke of Ukraine returning to Russia. He also backed Lukashenko’s crackdown on protest following the rigged election of 2020.
There is another view on this. It would be useful to hear more Eastern European voices.
Craig Murray believes what he believes and that is that.
Ben Wallace, UK defence minister, is recorded saying that he wants Russia ‘destroyed’. Destroyed! Can you imagine anyone saying that out loud in the cold light of day? All of the West was dreaming of Russia’s demise, and the Russian people again facing hardship. Murray talks of legal this and legal not. It’s a one-sided conversation. He doesn’t like Russia, he probably hates Russia. Stay clear, Tatyana, there is no need whatsoever to tip-toe around him, none at all.
🙂 Annie O’Hara, I agree that Mr. Murray’s worldview is ‘legalized’ to a large extent, sometimes to the point of absurdity in my opinion. But please, do not stop me from worshiping my hero 🙂 I once appointed him to this role for his position on freedom of speech, and I am such a type of person ‘однолюб’ that means ‘one love’ or ‘monogamous’ figuratevely – it means that if you once saw something precious in a person, then you stay with him for a long time.
I built myself a whole palette of reasons why my hero does not want to talk to me. There you would find things like “his wife objects” or “he does this on purpose so as not to draw too much unkind attention to me” or “my level of knowledge is too primitive for a former British diplomat”. But what I for sure don’t consider is that Mr. Murray might just hate me because I’m Russian.
“Ben Wallace, UK defence minister, is recorded saying that he wants Russia ‘destroyed’”. That’s not just Ben Wallace – he was merely repeating what he had heard from the Washington elite. Here is a brief overview: https://www.veteranstoday.com/2022/10/28/washingtons-plan-to-break-up-russia/ For the impatient, here is the map of the proposed “successor states” – none of them powerful enough to resist US encorachment, penetration, and plundering. https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BrokenUpRussiaMW-1024×555.png
I think almost all the fighting was done by militias for the first 4 months with the exception of Mariupol.
Tim, I believe there were enough Russians from Russia there, perhaps as volunteers or whatever their legal status might be. You probably don’t imagine the magnitude of the connection between Ukraine and Russia, if you refer to the militia.
These two countries were not only the one country just 30 years ago, but ethnically and culturally and religiously and linguistically and historically they are simply one people. If I say that I’m a Russian from Krasnodar, and my great-grandfathers were Zaporozhye Cossacks, my grandparents spoke mixed Ukrainian-Russian dialect, my father worked in the Donbass mine, and my cousin studied at a college in Donetsk, will that convince you?
The modern border declaring that we are very different, is artificial. It’s like drawing the border between Scotland and England today and claiming that these are two completely different peoples, absolutely without ties, speaking oh so differing languages, accepting oh so different religions, having oh so different history etc. And giving to the one a weapon to kill the other.
No one enjoys it here, be sure. Maybe only some truly radical formations, both sides.
Dear Tatyana, I don’t doubt you for a moment. It was my belief that Russia wanted to minimise official Russian casualties for political reasons, so although there were Russians there, most of the heavy fighting was done by the Donbass Militias who were not part of the official army. But I may be wrong.
Oh, I don’t mind, Tim. I’m just explaining that here in Russia we have a slightly different view of things – if your relative is under the threat of destruction, then you rush to the rescue, either with your own gun, if you are confident in your skills, or with a rescue team on an active call. Anyway, you take active action. Legal status, or being in the army is the least trouble that concerns you at the moment.
In any case, remaining indifferent, waiting to see who wins, watching which side is winning, etc., is regarded as a traitor’s / conformist’s behavior. Never respected, as you let your family to be destroyed for the best personal benefit. Worst behavior ever, as to me.
We still have strong echoes of a great war here, so if someone says that the destruction of a part of us will bring good to us, we do not believe and resist.
Hello Tatyana, I always find your comments so interesting and this one abut the connections between Russia and Ukraine was especially enlightening.. I think the analogy between Scotland and England is helpful. I can see what you mean.
Putin shouldn’t have invaded when he did, T – he should have gone in much earlier. He must have known what the Americans were up to since the putsch in Feb 2014, why wait until the Ukrainian forces got fully trained and equipped by NATO ready to strike at the two breakaway Republics? This was a bad error of judgement of his; it’s costing now many more lives – not just Ukrainian but Russian lives also – than would have been the case had he decided to hit the American colony much earlier.
“It’s like drawing the border between Scotland and England today and claiming that these are two completely different peoples, absolutely without ties, speaking oh so differing languages, accepting oh so different religions, having oh so different history etc.”
Funny you should choose that example, Tatyana, as I suspect it’s actually rather close to what Mr Murray and some readers of his blog would like to happen.
As for speaking different languages, have you ever been to Glasgow? Not only do they speak a different language from you, or Londoners; they are often incomprehensible to the inhabitants of Edinburgh, less than 80 km away!
‘The initial Russian attack on Kiev was an effort to depose the Ukrainian government.’
No, it wasn’t. Russia wouldn’t be so stupid to get bogged down taking a huge city particularly with a relatively small force. The move was diversionary
yes it was. They expected little resistance. We know that from captured soldiers and documents. The force included internal security forces the Rosvgardiya who are separate from the army. This tells us they saw it as an occupation and they would be used – as their news agencies told us – to de-Nazify the country.
If they had surrounded the city, they could have soon caused it to fall, especially as they thought they would be well received by many.
The attack by paratroopers on one of Kyiv’s airports was poorly supported and defeated. Even Russian generals would make sure the tactics were different it they expected serious resistance.
How could they have surrounded the city with such a small force? And expecting they would be well received by many.is not part of realistic military strategy. I don’t beleve they were set o taking Kiev
I suspect that the attack on Kiev was speculative. Many Russian leaders would have expected that the Ukrainians would be delighted at the prospect of getting rid of the ghastly neo-Nazis of the Kiev regime. If so, they would have risen up and done the job themselves. The Russian troops could have stood by quietly outside the city, just like the “polite men in green” when Crimea decided to rejoin Russia.
I must admit to being at a loss to understand why so many Ukrainians prefer to fight to the death (their death, of course) against overwhelming force in defence of a regime that frankly makes the original German Nazis look good. Human nature is imponderable.
Capturing Kiev would have been easy, holding it not so. Look what happens when the Seppoes invade somewhere – spectacular advances, victory declared then an unseemly scuttle a couple of decades later.
How could they surround the city?
Put tanks on the roads and stop people and goods going in or out.
It is a valid military strategy. If the invading force has what is seen as overwhelming power and a population thinks there is no point in continuing, the city will fall. Many examples in history.
And they did think many Ukrainians would welcome them.
Lots of Ukrainians welcomed the Russians but the Ukronazis murdered many of them as soon as they got the chance.
Given the rule of thumb about the number of troops needed to hold down a given civilian population, the Russians never intended to capture Kiev, they diverted the US_Ukronazis while they concentrated on the central front, the area where the war is being decided.
The reason for the Kiev attack was a distraction for Kiev and force them to the negotiation table.
Good old Boris persuaded Kiev not to negotiate with Russia.
Boris made his trips to Kiev (maybe to pick up his bank card).
I have often wondered how he found the monies to pay for his Oxfordshire Country home.
Respectfully : In regards to Russia / Ukraine – it doesn’t seem like Putin is ever really in an international politically strong position, from my point of view – the system is way too biased and stacked against enemies of the ‘West’. Putin should have acted sooner some say; he should have given things longer than the 8 years some others say. The ‘West’ would’ve never backed off or stepped back in my opinion. I think he saw 2 choices: submit or fight, a sad position to be in.
When you are cornered by a rabid wolf, your options are limited.
A war like this was inevitable as soon as the Seppoes realised that Putin wasn’t a sober version of Yeltsin. The Russians have played a weak hand well, they managed to thwart the Seppoes in Syria and have fought their war of survival on their doorstep, not on the wrong side of the ocean. The US is fighting Russia with a colonial gendarmerie and empty magazines while the free world cheers Russia on.
A serious „What if“ question:
Had RU done nothing militarily and stood by while NATO would incorporate Ukraine (and Georgia) –
this is a hypothetical scenario –
while NATO would establish military bases there, further military integration, increase conventional military presence and eventually station missiles –
what would have been the possible dangers and threats to RU?
Why was the Russian government against this?
I haven´t found any detailed military analysis that would game this out in earnest, even though those papers are sure out there.
One commentator in Moon of Alabama pointed out the geographical weakness for Russia to defend the borderland to Ukraine in case of a conventional military attack.
That is one case in point that would make pre-emptive military action sound.
I see no real way how the UN could have prevented any NATO expansion once NATO had put its mind on it.
A vote by NATO alliance can be bought as we have seen with Turkey.
So that part of decision-making can be corrupted.
German government could easily be blackmailed via sabotage of energy supplies.
There are also ways to bully the French.
So the “pro-Russian” parties in NATO (parties of MINSK accords) could be held under control to create such a geopolitical shift.
I see no enforceable diplomacy, no checks and balances there. It would be force as supreme power.
Which doesn´t mean to say that I personally believe the Russians tried everything re: peaceful solutions.
.
But I wonder what other country would have gone to more length in terms of diplomacy.
What other country would ever hold up to the high moral standards of the UN Charter?
“I published the OSCE reports at the time”.
The OSCE, like most international and UN organisations, is thoroughly corrupt and dances to Washington’s tune. Photographs have appeared online of OSCE staff fraternising and smoking with the crews of Ukrainian tanks which, by agreements to which OSCE was party, should never have left their depots many miles away.
Yes
His Excellency, the former British Ambassador: [Putin] was in a very strong diplomatic position. The UN had just passed overwhelmingly the resolution on the glorification of Nazism.
In support of his contention that Russia had promising diplomatic avenues to explore, Craig serves up an argument about as compelling as the Bush administration did for WMD in Iraq. In what world has a sternly worded letter from the UN warded off any existential threat whatsoever?
The US was giving Russia the finger with one hand and ostentatiously reaching into its waistband with the other:
“High five!”
smack
“Down low!”
whiff
“Too slow!”
The concept illustrated: https://xkcd.com/2779/
Prancing around on a target’s red line, while behaving like this, is an unambiguous expression of contempt.
Below are two selectively edited readouts from the Kremlin’s website. US deployment of strike weapons systems on the territory of Ukraine (h/t Ray McGovern https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuU1J4jpHso&t=11m ) is the ball.
Keep your eye on the ball. Emphasis below is mine, and meant to make this easier for you.
31 December 2021, Telephone conversations with US President Joseph Biden
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67487
High Five
Down low…
12 February 2022, Briefing by Aide to the President Yury Ushakov following a telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Joseph Biden
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67761
…Too slow
“Precursor to an invasion.”
Indeed. The US was broadcasting its predictions of a Russian invasion which is pretty easy to interpret as a prediction of the standard false flag that precedes every US war.
The shelling. The 8 years of Nato Supervised building of defence positions in front of Donbas preparing for an attack on Donbas.
The best way to understand the SMO is as Pre-empting the attack on Donbas expected by Ukraine – Russia called the CIA bluff and actually carried out the planned false flag itself.
As we know Ukraine’s forces were not protecting Ukraine’s borders with Russia – Russia just walked in.
The simple reason why analyst but the CIA predicted the SMO is because everyone thought that the Russian forces were there to discourage or react to a Ukrainian first move (as promised repeatedly by Zelensky throughout 2021).
> which is pretty easy to interpret as a prediction of the standard false flag that precedes every US war.
What the US did was to share information about the Russian military build-up on the borders of Ukraine. The build-up was real, and there was no false-flag operation.
The USA was, and remains, deeply conflicted about getting involved in Ukraine. The last President (and possibly the next) was a self-declared admirer of Putin.
I regret that USA has supplied Ukraine with cluster munitions. However (some) cluster munitions have improved since the days when the ban was introduced; modern (expensive) cluster-bombs have timers and so on, to reduce the likelihood of persistent anti-personnel submunitions surviving. I understand that what the USA has supplied is those modern systems.
They supplied them because they didn’t have adequate stockpiles of 155mm artillery shells. Lesson: modern warfare is artillery warfare, and it’s not enough to have lots of guns. You also need stockpiles of shells and replacement gun-barrels.
You know when you make the case for the ‘good’ cluster bomb that you’ve probably fallen down the ‘good war’ rabbit hole trap. See WW1 as referenced by Craig, it’s very necessary, it’s going to be great fun and it’ll be over in a few short weeks etc etc ad Infinitum.
let’s see the whole picture
Russia has been using cluster bombs
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/05/29/cluster-munition-use-russia-ukraine-war
But if so is it a ‘good’ one or a ‘bad’ one that they are using?
Stevenson
“Russia has been using cluster bombs” is contested.
HRW is well-known as a US government element at arms length, financed by the US.
The evidence in that paper is nearly all both Ukraine and Russia use these weapons, and the evidence is being sourced from Ukraine. When it’s supposedly a Russia-only weapon, somehow it’s not confirmed. and always only from Ukrainian sources.
Jimmeh: “I regret that USA has supplied Ukraine with cluster munitions.” Personally, I regret the USA has played such a crucial role in this catastrophe it helped create in the first place. I also regret that so many Americans and Europeans – seemingly educated – continue to try and justify their regimes’ involvement in all this by supporting “some munitions”, “advanced munitions”, or any munitions at all. This war has nothing to do with defending Ukraine and it has everything to do with hobbling Russia, which happens to be Ukraine’s immediate neighbor and with which Ukraine has no choice but to at least co-exist. You know it as well as I do (whether you admit it is a different matter), except coming from Ukraine, I also happen to know first-hand what this “help” has accomplished. Your munitions – advanced or outdated – destroy real lives, cities, and countries (and historically have) no matter the side. The world does not need such “help”, so keep it to yourself. Americans and Europeans alike would be a lot more helpful petitioning their regimes to work for real solutions instead of feeding bloodshed worldwide for the sake of asserting hegemony, supremacy, or whatever it is that drives them.
> so keep it to yourself
I do not possess any munitions, and I’ve long been opposed to my country’s munitions industry.
> Your munitions – advanced or outdated – destroy real lives, cities, and countries (and historically have) no matter the side
The destruction of cities appears to be a very one-sided matter, in this war. It seems there may have been a number of cross-border attacks by Ukraine on Russian military emplacements, ammunition and fuel dumps; but I would be very interested to read your accounts of cities in Russia that have been flattened like Melitopol (to name just one) has been flattened.
Melitopol has fared quite well as far as destruction goes. (Yes, I understand that news through osmosis can make things muddled a bit.) You must have meant Mariupol, Jimmeh. The best thing I can suggest is for you talk to people who live in Mariupol (and I don’t mean seeking out interviews on YouTube – with all its bias and censorship – to confirm what you believe; I mean talking to people – not the ones who left, but those who actually stayed and went through the horror) to find out how it was getting flattened, and you may discover a lot of accounts that will simply blow away a typical westerner’s echo chamber. While at it, talk to people living in Donetsk, Gorlovka (Horlivka), Yasinovataya (Yasynuvata), who have seen death and destruction since as far back as 2014, when the Ukrainian military, in breach of the constitution, was ordered by the Kyiv regime to move into Donbas and started using artillery against densely populated areas, mostly inhabited, ironically, by ethnic Ukrainians. They must not say it wherever you are, as it doesn’t fit the Western narrative, but the war – with destruction of civilian lives and infrastructure – started then, in 2014, and both the United States and the European Union had played a very active role in that. Only in a highly propagandized society can people on such a massive scale believe that the civilian toll is a one-sided matter in this war or that this is a “bad guy versus a valiant underdog” fight, where “the Russians” maliciously destroy cities and “the Ukrainians” only target “military emplacements, ammunition and fuel dumps”. Ukrainians getting killed and maimed for almost a decade by Ukrainian (as well as American, British, and French now) shells – which side should these casualties be counted on? They clearly weren’t (and aren’t) even talked about where you are. Russians and Ukrainians killing each other was unthinkable (and, having been born to a Ukrainian mother and a Russian father, I most definitely know that) all the way until early 2014, when Nuland infamously blurted out to the US ambassador in Ukraine Pyatt how it was “time to midwife” this thing (talk about interference in another country’s internal affairs). Well, they have surely midwifed it… No Ukrainian or Russian deserves to die in this war, intentionally provoked by outside forces and started against their will, just like no Americans, Canadians, Germans, or Brits deserve to be lied about all this, while getting robbed for the sake of yet another atrocity, in which those cheering for it are also complicit.
“I do not possess any munitions, and I’ve long been opposed to my country’s munitions industry”.
But if you live in a nation whose government proclaims itself a “democracy”, you DO possess munitions, and you ARE responsible for supplying them to Kiev.
Unless you disagree that you live in a democracy.
I also found all the talk in the Western Medusa about an imminent Russian invasion , ( just prior to the actual invasion) to be strange…but I couldn’t work out why I had those misgivings, your explanation hadn’t occurred to me, but now I think you might be right.
What happened to the “Responsibility to Protect” concept the West always championed when invading sovereign nations?
It was always an intellectually ludicrous justification for imperialist conquest and I have written numerous articles on this blog calling it out as such. Thankfully it never became accepted as international law.
If you look through the British conquest of India, (in 37 successive annexations of local states) each one was always to “protect” a population.
It was wrong when the West did it and it as wrong when Russia does it.
Unfortunately ROP is presented as a great thing in the Oxford Handbook of Diplomacy. One of the authors/editors is very proud of his part in coming up with it.
Is that the idiot Robert Cooper?
No serious diplomat ever read the Oxford Handbook of Diplomacy.
Can’t argue you with on that one Craig.
That was the ladder system , helping a weaker tribe against their rivals , allowing the tribes to massacre eachother and then occupying the land. In Ukraine the US is helping the weaker tribe, the poor , misunderstood , Banderite Azov Nazis , against the bully tribe , big bad Russia.
Unfortunately your twisting it round that US ” protection ” is looking after Nato’s interests contradicts your argument. The US is trying to colonise Russia, having run out of other colonies in the Middle East and Europe. And somehow it is illegal for Russia to defend itself from US colonial aggression.
Our problem here in Europe is that our Atlantacist leaders are supporting US ” protection ” of Ukraine, which has brought war to Europe and war has no benefit whatsoever to Europe , except to make the Atlantacist chieftains feel important and rich.
All I can say is that Maggie must have got you well brainwashed to see Russia as the illegal aggressor when the US and its yapping EU poodles are trying, very unconvincingly imho, to claim that they are only there to help. Jesus pbuh wept.
The Russians didn’t “do it” they retaliated to the “Seppoes doing it”.
Can only be sanctioned by genuinely caring people like Samantha Power and Josep Borrell.
“Russia cannot speedily defeat a much smaller, weaker and extremely corrupt neighbouring state….”
Consider that conversely, Russia could have not worn the gloves and, instead, just punched the lights out of Ukraine at the outset in one swift round, but then given NATO the ammunition to say that the West was provoked.
If Russia was provoked it can be said that NATO and the CIA engineered and therefore ignited ie. started this war. My view.
My thoughts exactly on reading Craig’s appraisal of this awful war (is there any other type of war? No there isn’t). Given the track record (read what should be a charge sheet followed swiftly by indictment and trial at The Hague) of the US/UK/NATO “alliance” (read countries willing hostages to US hegemonic belief in their right to rule the world), does any rational person think a body like the UN would curb the crazies in Washington? (Wtf are the UN doing about Nordstream? Nothing). Can we all imagine what would happen if Putin gave orders to blow up a US pipeline?
I obviously don’t know Putin; don’t think he’s a nice human being, but he could have thrown everything in his arsenal at Ukraine, but he clearly hasn’t, I like to think because he’s more rational and a bit more human than the crazies I’ve already referred to.
They’re my thoughts.
And, of course, Ukraine’s armed forces at the start of 2022 were by far the most powerful in Europe outside Russia. There really aren’t any that could be compared – apart from possession of thermonuclear weapons, of course. Ukraine was the wealthiest and most productive part of the USSR, which makes it all the more amazing that Russia was willing to let it go in 1991.
If we accept that the Russian ‘invasion’ was technically illegal then is there any ‘invasion’ that isn’t illegal ?
D-Day comes to mind, who determined it was legal, not the vichy government, not the UN. So I guess it was the UK, US and their allies then. Who determined Russia’a ‘invasion’ was illegal, hmmm.
Of course I’m probably talking total bollox, but you’ll let know wont you.
> D-Day comes to mind
D-Day precedes the establishment of the principle that wars of territorial conquest are illegal. Having said that, the UK originally came to France (Expeditionary Force) before Vichy was established, in defence of France pre-Vichy. D-Day wasn’t an invasion in the sense of territorial conquest, evidenced by the fact that no new conquered territories were established.
“D-Day precedes the establishment of the principle that wars of territorial conquest are illegal”.
Yes, how convenient. At the very moment when we have gained everything we want by the exercise of naked violence, we solemnly declare violence to be illegal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellogg%E2%80%93Briand_Pact#Parties
1928
Stevie Boy, let me re-introduce the Melian Dialogue:
“[Y]ou know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”.
Exactly as true today as it was in 416 BC. Equals in power are, for example, the USA, Russia, and China; which is why it is appropriate for them to negotiate with one another and draw up and observe treaties and international laws. When dealing with nations less powerful than Russia and China, the USA always insists on the letter of the law when that is to its advantage, and ignores it completely when it is not.
I studied history for 8 years at school and university, and have taken a serious interest in it ever since. (Discovering, incidentally, that many things I was taught are quite untrue).
I think the Melian Dialogue pretty well covers all the history I know about. The Confederate States of America, for instance, thought they had a strong legal case for secession, following the precedent of the War of Independence and the authority of the Declaration of Independence. But Abraham Lincoln ignored their arguments and resorted to force. The CSA had failed to take into account that they were not the USA’s equals in power.
That’s why Mr Putin delayed the SMO until he had made sure Russia was equipped with weapons that can defeat the USA and all its allies.
> The idea that Russia, which is taking a long while to defeat Ukraine, could be a serious threat to the entire NATO alliance is plainly utter nonsense.
Nonetheless, that is the objective that Putin has declared to be his goal.
> The idea of “total victory” is impractical nonsense.
Of course it is; neither Ukraine nor NATO is going to march into Moscow. However it is possible for Russia to be defeated militarily, so they cannot again attack their neighbours for a long time.
> This horrible war will end with Russia retaining Crimea. There is no point in arguing about it.
Well, don’t argue about it, then!
If Ukraine can fight to the shores of the Azov Sea, then they will be able to shoot missiles at the Kerch Strait Bridge. It is a very exposed target. Also, if they reach the Azov, they will have cut the land-bridge. Crimea will then be incapable of resupply, except by sea. That resupply will have to cross the Azov Sea, and so will be exposed to attack.
It’s not about “total victory” or “total surrender”. It’s about total defeat; Putin’s imperial project needs to be defeated on the ground, and I believe that’s what is going to happen. If Putin retains Crimea, that is a huge failure; allowing imperialist armies to seize and annexe the territories of their neighbours is NOT a step closer to peace, it is a huge leap closer to more war.
Russia has had imperial ambitions for 300 years. Apparently a majority of Russians share those ambitions. These yearnings for empire have survived multiple revolutions and world wars. We can’t “destroy Russia”, nor should we want to; but I’m convinced that Ukraine can destroy their army. After that, it’s a matter for Russians what happens to their leaders and their “political system”, such as it is.
> Not NATO expansion and forward positioning of missiles, not glorification of Nazism, not suppression of Russian language and political parties, not shelling of Russian civilian areas.
It’s totally reasonable for countries like Poland and Lithuania to want to join a military alliance to defend against Russia; ideologues that Putin follows want those countries re-integrated into the Russian empire. As far as “forward positioning” is concerned, what do you think Estonians feel about the border they share wirh Russia? Russia has missiles on their border, and Ukraine has Russian missiles INSIDE their border.
More on your double standards: this “glorification of Nazism” is anachronistic. The Russian nationalist sentiment is clearly fascist. It is far from clear that Ukraine is fascist, although (like most countries) it has a fascist minority. There might even be fascists in the Ukrainian government. It’s not reasonable to chastise a country for its nationalism, when it is fighting-off a protracted territorial invasion.
And banning the political parties of your invader from operating in your country is simply sane policy; if you are at war, you ban your enemy’s organisations from operating in your territory. You’re implying that this is some kind of discrimination; it is exactly that – to win a war, you have to discriminate against your enemy.
Glorifying WW2 Nazis is not the point, although Ukraine was regarded as one of the world’s worst in that respect. More germane to today’s war is that 21st century Ukrainian Nazis overthrew the country’s elected president in 2014 (with US encouragement). The same elements later forced Zelensky to renege on his election vow to pursue peace. Nazis are absolutely at the core of how we got here.
Indeed Reza, I sense Jimmeh has ‘imperial’ saturation..
In the last election Svoboda, the Far right coalition, saw its vote drop to about 3%. The majority voted for pro-EU parties and they know the requirements of EU membership – even if they have not achieved them in full.
The Ukrainians have been been able to travel and even work in the West for 30 years. We have a few in the rural West Country.
They have the internet and are quite capable of thinking for themselves. Some of the comments one reads suggest that the US have only got to wish something and it happens, like the Maidan protests. Or Yanukovych fleeing the country. The Russian Federation has been issuing propaganda about Ukraine for over 20 years and attempting to interfere in their internal politics. A common theme is that the country is run by Nazis, despite the Jewish Zelensky. Nazis vary between cultures – ultra-nationalism is at the core of it. But many characteristics of it are found in Russia – oligarchs with great power, a rubber stamp Duma, state control of media, prison for people who dissent publicly from the war (or accident involving open windows) a private militia etc.
The EU is also the target of the propaganda. It promotes homosexuality and denigrates national values and religion. Reminds me of the right wing of the US Republican party.
Being Jewish is no barrier to embracing fascism. There were even Jewish citizens who voted for Hitler in the early days of his regime. The present day Israeli parliament has a fair smattering of fascists as any Palestinian could confirm. Zelensky himself, when addressing the Knesset, paid tribute to the apartheid system within Israel and saw it as a template for his vision of Ukraine. This was echoed when he spoke of driving the Russians out of Crimea, an area where most identify as being Russian. Such visions of ethnic cleansing usually result in a standing ovation within EU parliaments.
The notion that oligarchs rule Russia is a form of projection, one whereby the ruling elites in the West assume all countries are organised on similar structures as their own. Here’s one obvious difference: in Russia an oligarch is likely to end up in prison. In the USA he often ends up in the Senate, and in the UK in the House of Lords. He never goes to prison.
I agree re Israel but the Russian Oligarchs depend on Putin for their position but he also gains from them and legislates on their behalf. Their interests seem to come before those of the ordinary people – yes, there are parallels with the West and also differences.
We have to recognise that speaking Russian does not mean the speaker wants to be in Russia. Lots of Irish speak English. Indeed some Scots deny they are British.
The referendums would not pass scrutiny by any international organisation. The one in Crimea gave 97% in favour. The Tartars make up over 20% of the population and would not vote for being Russian.
Ian Stevenson
They are not only speaking russian but are ethnic russians, if there is a conflict in Ukraine where ethnic ukrainians vs ethnic russians you do understand that it goes without saying that the ethnic russians would seek support by Russia? This issue is long overdue I do not know why people keep bring up the Crimea referendum.
And actually the referendum have been supported multiple times by polls and surveys.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum#Post-referendum_polls
Why would Crimea vote be rejected when Nato backed Kosovars voted with some 99% in their referendum?
Being Jewish is, being zionist isn’t, the one being antithetical to the other.
Your description of Russia is a description of Britain, you should be careful with your analogies.
I think we need to be a bit more discerning and honest with ourselves that common or garden wartime nationalism is not the same as peacetime Nazism even if you think it helps your case and calling Russia the thing that killed 20 million of its people is just fuelling the whole problem. You wouldn’t dare do it with Israel. You can keep making excuses for the ongoing pumping of this two way imperial powers war but at the end of the day Russia cannot loose what with being a huge nuclear power. Going back to the peace table speedily will save an awful lot of lives. Otherwise you will just give yet more power to Putin by keeping the despotism and destruction going on both sides.
> You wouldn’t dare do it with Israel.
Why not? For fear that I might get kicked out of my political party? I’ve never joined a political party.
> Russia cannot lose what with being a huge nuclear power
If Russia starts popping nukes they will lose the few friends they still have left. And they can’t use nukes to win their land-war in Ukraine; they seem to be under-equipped even for a conventional war. I forsee a lot more mutinies, if Russia requires its soldiers to fight on a radioactive battlefield.
Loving the way you’re still doing itty bitty theoretical battlefield strategic analysis after the nuclear apocalypse. It tells us all we need to know about your rather dangerous lack of reality and perspective.
> Loving the way you’re still doing itty bitty theoretical battlefield strategic analysis after the nuclear apocalypse.
Apparently you’re not averse to strategic analysis:
> at the end of the day Russia cannot loose
> after the nuclear apocalypse
Would that be “apocalypse” as in the end of civilisation worldwide? Russian doctrine is that nukes are ordinary weapons, that you use as part of a conventional conflict. Russia is losing; or at least, it has failed to win. So why has it not popped a nuke? I suggest that the Russian leadership knows that it wouldn’t help, and would most likely be seriously counterproductive.
Russia knows (from long past experience) that large quantities of TNT, delivered by bomb and shell, work very well for flattening cities. Popping nukes, on the other hand, carries serious diplomatic and military risks, especially since their nuclear battlefield doctrine has never been tested anywhere, by anyone.
‘There might even be fascists in the Ukrainian government.’
I realize that there is now censorship inside western media but the fascist elements within Ukraine political and security services were being reported on prior to 2022. It was no secret then, and the subsequent banning of all opposition within Ukraine’s parliament has been recognised as well.
If fascism was present in Russia then the Ukrainians inside the country along with citizens of hostile states like me (UK) would have been interned just as the Italians were inside the UK at the beginning of WW2. Despite the best efforts of NATO propaganda, no mass graves of citizens or death camps have been confirmed. The Boucha claim seems to have vanished as swiftly as it appeared.
Crimea has identified itself as an area of Russia whenever votes have taken place. The same is true of the Donbas area as well. Odessa might well fall into the same category. The idea that citizens who identify as Russian in these areas are clamouring for the return of the Azov battalions to be liberated is delusional.
To argue that Ukraine has the sovereign right to stuff itself full of NATO weaponry in order to defend itself is as misguided as was Cuba’s desire to do likewise with Soviet warheads in 1962. Fortunately then, wiser heads prevailed.
Jimmeh, it seems that today you are our duty officer for the whitewashing of Nazism?
You write the phrase ‘glorification of Nazism’ in quotation marks as if it doesn’t exist and ridicule it as an anachronism. In that case, let me ask you:
imagine that in Germany in 2021 the final of the football championship is held at the Goebbels stadium located on Hitler Avenue.
Would you consider this a glorification of Nazism?
Would such an example be modern enough?
And why is the Shukhevych Stadium on Bandera Avenue in the city of Ternopil, Ukraine is not ‘glorification of Nazism’ or anachronistic?
You may agree that some people in Germany might believe that Hitler and Goebbels were national heroes who did a lot for their nation, right? So why not making something important to that people?
What is your opinion, why can’t you find such toponyms in probably no European country, if anywhere else?
Tatyana,
Stepan Bandera was primarily a nationalist. From what I’ve read he collaborated with the nazis, because they were the only force available to oppose the occupation of his homeland. But note that he spent most of WWII in a nazi concentration camp.
Bandera was not Goebbels.
Of course not. Forget the pogroms. The thousands of Polish and Jewish villagers his gang brutally tortured and murdered. Their only crime was loving Ukrainegood lads unfairly maligned.
fonso
They use this as an argument that Bandera was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen while his organization massacred Poles and Jews in Volhynia. It is served with the sauce that Bandera personally did not kill anyone there.
If we let this hypocrisy continue then it opens the gates for Hitler, who also hardly personally executed all those millions of people in World War II, why not make a monument to Hitler then? Pay tribute to the man who so passionately wanted to make his nation great again.
In fact, he was a real Nazi, who hates democracy and Jews. The organization of Ukrainian nationalists, of which he was the head, collaborated with the Abwehr and the Gestapo, was financed and trained by them. You can read about Abwherstelle Krakow.
And it was the Ukrainian nationalists who entered the Brandenburg 800 Abwehr regiment, and you can also read what Roland or Nachtigall did under the leadership of Shukhevych.
Bandera was imprisoned not because he opposed the Nazis, but because he wanted to use the power of the Wehrmacht for his plans. It’s just that the big Nazis did not appreciate the initiative of the little Nazis to claim independency. Couldn’t agree on which of them would become the head of the fascist Ukrainian state.
Bandera’s organisation stated this:
“In times of chaos and turmoil, one can afford to liquidate undesirable Polish, Muscovite and Jewish figures, especially supporters of Bolshevik-Moscow imperialism;
national minorities are divided into:
a) loyal to us, actually members of all still oppressed peoples;
b) hostile to us – Muscovites, Poles and Jews.
a) they have the same rights as Ukrainians…,
b) to be destroyed in the struggle, in particular those who will defend the regime:
resettle them in their lands, destroy them, mainly, the intelligentsia, which should not be allowed into any governing bodies, make creating intelligentsia impossible at all, restrict access to schools, etc. Destroy the leaders… The assimilation of the Jews is excluded.”
Says the document of the OUN adopted as a result of the Great Congress in 1941. (c) Institute of History of Ukraine.
You can educate yourself, the book ISBN 966-02-2535-0
Like many a Nazi, Bandera found his way to Munich eventually.
The USA funded his anti- Soviet antics post war until it dawned on them that Bandera contemplated nuclear exchange as a price worth paying for his vision of an independent Ukraine. I assume his assassination in 1959 by Soviet agents was of little consequence to the USA by then.
> You can educate yourself
I’m grateful to you for drawing attention to my ignorance.
I’m struck, however, by the extraordinarily chaotic situation in Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states during the 1920s and 1930s. These countries were invaded by fascist imperialists from both the East and the West, and both invaders engaged in mass-murder, population transfers, and appalling oppression. If both of your neighbours are horrible tyrants, it’s not crazy to choose the less-horrible tyrant as your ally.
I confess I don’t know a lot about Bandera, but I don’t think I’ll learn much by reading texts published during the heat of WWII while Bandera was in prison.
Have you read Bloodlands by Tim Snyder, Tatyana?
Has it ever crossed your mind to put on Russian shoes and wonder how it feels to be Russia and have neighbors like Poland, Ukraine or the Baltics?
If you’re struck by the 20-30s of the last century, then try imagine yourself with the fascist imperialists attacking you from the West (Germany) and from the East (Japan), while your good little neighbors join foreign forces to hit you more destructively. These kind little frightened neighbors will then shed crocodile tears, mourning the destroyed fences and trying to quickly delete from the history books those facts where they themselves tore off pieces from the neighbouring states.
I do not see any difference with the current situation, where Western imperialism invites our kind little frightened neighbors into their war machine, perhaps Poland was again promised a piece of Belarus and Western Ukraine, and Russian Kaliningrad is an eyesore to the Balts?
I don’t know, never tried being a scared little neighbor and being in a Godzilla vs King Kong fight. But I think that at that moment even my little frightened brains would have realized that foreign forces come and go, but neighbors are here for a long time.
Jimmeh
Stepan Bandera was involved in genocide against jews, poles, russians. Why? Because he wanted to create a ethnically clean state. Bandera did what Hitler did on a smaller scale. No need to whitewash him.
Not only he wanted an ethnically clean state, but also an ethnically clean little nazi fascist state, independent of big nazis. Of all these concept, modern banderistas pick out the “independent’ part and try to not voice loudly the rest, so far.
But still their actions such as
suppressing opposition political parties and media,
ethnic cleansing including paramilitary and state military,
sticking to the idea that Ukraine is an unitary state so cannot let it’s region to have a government,
oppressing dissenters,
killing dissident activists,
glorifying nazis,
allowing nazis into power and into military,
coercing people to change their ethnic identity,
attacks on non-ukrainian language speakers,
creating new church and new education standards,
militarization of every aspect of civilian life,
close control of every thought a person might express etc etc – speaks volumes.
Zelenski just banned elections, by the way.
No Bandera was not Goebbels, he was far worse, as a cursory look at his crimes will demonstrate.
“‘The idea that Russia, which is taking a long while to defeat Ukraine, could be a serious threat to the entire NATO alliance is plainly utter nonsense’.
“Nonetheless, that is the objective that Putin has declared to be his goal”.
Your language is insufficiently precise. Russia has no wish to be a threat to NATO or its members. But it does refuse to be bullied by them.
The Americans and their admirers are illogical. If anyone is not as powerful as they are, the Americans take advantage of them. But if anyone is powerful enough to resist American military power, they proclaim that the very ability to resist is a deadly threat!
Russia has taken care to make itself strong enough to defeat any attack by NATO. No reasonable person would see that as a threat to NATO – but NATO chooses to do so. For them, there are only two kinds of foreigners: slaves and deadly threats.
I emphatically agree. There is nothing to add in terms of content, everything essential has been said.
What I find tragic is the complete failure of those who see themselves as leftists in Europe. Unfortunately, with only very, very few exceptions. And yet it would be quite simple. If it says nato on it, I don’t buy it.
Yes, even at the time of the Iraq invasion some “leftists” I know were gung ho for invasion. Opposing war nowadays s is on the border between treason and insanity.
For about two days, I was gung-ho for the invasion. I’m ashamed to admit I fell for the mainstream propaganda.
For many months prior to the invasion, I stuck by my pacifist principles; and a couple of days after the invasion, I recovered my senses. It’s a good thing that my instincts at that time had zero influence on UK foreign policy.
When dealing with human beings in the mass, it is sometimes very hard to decide whether one is witnessing insanity or just mob psychology.
Sigmund Freud’s “Civilisation and its Discontents” was published in 1930. It is often said to express his feelings of despair, following the Great War, as to whether human beings could ever be well governed. After all, the powerful subconscious drives of aggression and sex militate against any form of subordination, even to laws and customs. He concluded that human beings can be made to cooperate and even treat one another decently; but only when they are given an external, alien enemy (such as Emmanuel Goldstein in Orwell’s “1984”, published 18 years later) on whom to vent their aggression. This conclusion could have come straight out of “Mein Kampf”, yet as of 2023 it is very difficult to argue with. Just look around! “Western” governments are never without their “Hitler du jour”, whether it is Mr Milosovich, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Colonel Qadafi, Mr Maduro, Mr Assad, Mr Xi, or Mr Putin. The only good people in charge of governments are those in NATO capitals.
Craig is more or less right about the causes of the war.
He seems completely in the dark about its progress,
350k Ukrainian military dead to about 50-60K Russian and Russian allies.
The 700k initial Ukraine army defeated, the similar size army from Summer 2022 armed with every spare former soviet piece of equipment in E Europe (which at least they knew how to use and repair), and half of the current Nato supplied army with 5 weeks of very varied training from varied Nato countries.
I hope people have seen what conscription in Ukraine means – it is dragging people off the streets and out of their homes. Youths and men in their fifties.
The old joke about US being willing to fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian has very nearly come true.
Michael, your stupid repetitions of extreme propaganda and entirely laughable casualty figures is very tiring.
Similar casualty figures were (allegedly) leaked from Mossad documents. AFAIK, Mossad has not issued a disclaimer.
The 5:1 ratio of Ukrainian casualties in respect of Russian casualties has been widely reported.
Ukraine has, perhaps wisely, refused to issue any casualty figures for its own military from the outset.
So what are the correct figures?
As is the norm, both sides have lost heavily while attacking and less so when defending. The figures put out by either side are mirror image. Both sides are of course lying.
That’s another myth, the Germans suffered 25,000 casualties in the first ten days of Verdun and 40,000 on the Somme; compare German casualties in Normandy with Allied….
Mossad never released or leaked any casualty figures, the report originated from a Turkish source.
A lie oft repeated is still a lie, neither side has released accurate or reliable casualty figures so we won’t know for certain until long after this sorry business is over.
These casualty figures are probably about right, and can be arrived at by different means.1. After 6 months of fighting Von de Leyen put Ukrainian dead at 100 thousand. We are now at 18 months 2. Kiev claimed to have a 700,000 man army. After multiple mobilisations they now claim to have around 250,000 (with many wounded or fled). 3. Kiev claimed to have 80000 men in Bakhmut alone. They fought to the death – and were defeated. There are other arguments too which put the number of Ukrainian dead around 300K. Meanwhile the BBC did an extensive investigation which put Russian dead at 20k. Double it and add 10k to be on the safe side.
There are an enormous number of “missing” Russians. Going by the figures for the Moskva – the only detailed ones Russia has yet released – if there are 20k Russian dead there are 460k Russians missing.
Well you have to explain why your figures are more accurate than the detailed investigation by the BBC
Blue Dotterell: The Moscow Times’ figures were taken from Russian announced deaths – internet memorials, funeral notices etc. Obviously not a complete record, so their alleged bias is irrelevant youthinks.
Instead of bandying telephone numbers, compare the means being used to replace losses in the RF army with those of the US-Ukronazi/NATO army.
You don’t give a source for “the detailed investigation by the BBC”. Are you thinking of Moscow Times, which in April reported “Verified Russian Military Deaths in Ukraine Now Exceed 20,000”. which was reported on the BBC? These deaths were only those of people identified in the media, not a total.
As I said. my estimate derives from official Russian reports. The only one I know of which gave actual figures was the sinking of the Moskva. I understand the Russian claim is that there is still one death and twenty three missing. I applied those ratios to your claim that there are “20k Russian dead”
The sinking of the Moskva may not be quite as you imagine it. Simplicius the thinker did an article on it sometime ago and if I recall correctly the ship was under-tow several hours before it actually sank. He raised serious doubts about whether or not it had actually been hit by Ukrainian missiles as the photos released by Ukraine of the missile launch did not correspond with the time frame that they announced. That is, it was hit in the middle of the night yet there were images of the missile launch in daylight. He thought that the Moskva may have been sabotaged from within or caught fire by accident which would account for the low number of casualties.
You do realize that the Moscow Times is a pro-Western outfit publishing from the Netherlands. Hardly supports your position methinks.
Wee Jim
Michael Droy.
Have to agree.
To point out, as Craig does, the attackers lose more than defenders, is too superficial.
NATO chief of staff Cavoli personally said on the SHAPE summit in January 2023 that this war is new to NATO.
They are not used to it:
“(…)Scale. Scale, scale, scale, scale. The magnitude of this war is incredible. The Ukrainians have 37 front line brigades, 37. Plus dozens more territorial brigades. The Russians have lost almost 2,000 tanks, the Russians alone 2000 tanks, lost. If we average out since the beginning of the war, slow days and fast days, the Russians have expended on average well over 20,000 artillery rounds per day. The scale of this war is out of proportion with all of our recent thinking but it is real and we must contend with it.(…)”
To me this sounds like a guy way in over his head.
And these people advise the AFU? Not the other way around.
The number 20.000 artillery shells per day sticks. All military bloggers say the same thing: It is a war of artillery.
If Russia has more shells per day by a magnitude – what everyone would agree by now – then in a positional war as this, the other side, Ukraine, will have much higher casualties in relation.
So I don´t see why Michael Droy´s numbers of 50k v. 300k are “propaganda”. What figures would not be propaganda?
Even British mediazona doesn´t agree with extreme casualty numbers:
https://en.zona.media/article/2022/05/11/casualties_eng
The site Wartears about casualties on the Ukainian side:
https://wartears.org/en/
Maybe we should say goodbye to the image of the Russian Army that is sacrificing its men senselessly.
Swiss fomer intelligence military analyst Jacques Baud reminded that Ukraine at the eve of the war had the second largest army in Europe.
This army is gone. As are the other armies. Why?
Again NATO-General Cavoli, this time at the US House Armed Services Committee in April 2023:
“The Russian ground force has been degenerated somewhat by this conflict, although it is bigger today than it was at the beginning of the conflict, (…) The Air Force has lost very little, they’ve lost 80 planes. They have another 1,000 fighters and fighter bombers (…) The Navy has lost one ship.”
If this is the stuff officially admitted what are the things discussed internally?!
Military bottom-line: the Russian Armed Forces are stronger now than before 24/2/22.
This has apparently not yet reached the minds of enough government officials in Europe.
Wee Jim: where do I get the figures?
Google is very helpful in some ways
https://en.zona.media/article/2023/07/10/stats
ZimZum: whether the Moskva sank as the result of a Ukrainian missile attack or Russian incompetence is irrelevant here, which is why I said nothing about it. What is relevant is that it is one of the few times – perhaps the only time – that the Russians gave a breakdown of casualties.
Tim: it looks as if Mediazona and Moscow Times have used the same sources. They certainly come out with very similar figures and exclude those already in Ukraine when the war began and Wagnerians who are said to have taken the heaviest casualties.
On Telegram I have seen many videos of a squad of men in military uniform ambushing and attacking civilian men apparently going about their business, shopping and so on. The civilians then get pushed into vans. If this is not forced conscription then it’s hard to find an alternative explanation.
I have similarly seen plenty of Telegram videos showing captured Ukraine soldiers. Some of them are indeed too old (for soldiering) or very young.
Of course videos can be faked. But on this scale? How can these things be propaganda?
Mr Murray, there will certainly come a time when you are compelled to admit that Mr Droy’s claims are fairly accurate. Personally, I would put the Ukraine casualties rather higher, and the Russian ones lower.
Being honest, you’ll live to revise that comment, unlike thousands of Ukrainians dragged off the streets like the 1944-45 mobilisations in Germany.
“The old joke about US being willing to fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian has very nearly come true”.
That’s because it’s not a joke. It’s precisely correct. In fact, the higher Ukrainian casualties and the more destruction that is wreaked, the happier they are. Washington creatures love nothing more than seeing their designated enemies killing one another over a pack of lies cooked up by the Washington creatures.
The end game has already been stated by Putin in February 2022.
The denazification and demilitarisation of Ukraine.
If there are a million Nazis in Ukraine, which is quite conceivable, then Russia will destroy them.
Russia and Putin have a keen sense of history and a pathological hatred of Nazis which the US fostered in Ukraine since WW2 specifically to harm Russia.
Most of them hail from western Ukraine so there is no reason why Russia should halt their advance at the Donbass borders or even the Dneiper River.
Senior Russian politicians have already stated that Russia should push west all the way to the Polish border.
So there is your answer, a million dead Nazis and the total subjugation of Ukraine as a buffer against further Nato expansion.
Anything less will be a defeat of Russian objectives and kicking the can down the road until the US produce another new threat in Ukraine against Russia.
Russia want to stop any future threats NOW however long it takes.
> Anything less will be a defeat of Russian objectives.
This is correct; Russia’s aim is the total subjugation of Ukraine. It’s not just about the Donbas, or Crimea. “De-militarisation” of Ukraine means destroying their ability to defend themselves, i.e. conquest.
And it’s not about the border with Poland either; what Putin stated in 2022 is that Ukraine is not a country; and Ukrainians are not a people. By the same measure, Poland is not a country. Nor is Estonia, or Lithuania. These countries’ borders have changed repeatedly in the last century. All of them have ethnic Russians within their borders, that can be “rescued” by invading Russian tanks. Even if they’d prefer not to be rescued.
Putin’s anachronistic reasoning is that they were once part of a Russian “empire”, and that they’re entitled to reclaim their historic territories. That sounds like the Israeli government relying on the Bible to justify their claim to hold and occupy the entire West Bank. Dudin, Putin’s ideological mentor, envisages an empire reaching from Vladivostok to Lisbon.
Still, Russia were ready to sign the Minsk agreements that were not exactly “total subjugation of Ukraine”. Far from it actually.
Marc T,
as we know from Nuland’s “fuck the EU” together with Macron and Merkel admitting they were negotiating Minsk2 in bad faith for no other reason than to give Kyiev more arms and to prepare to push forward with their “War Against Terrorism”…_
https://jamesburrillangell.substack.com/p/strange-diplomacy-victoria-fck-the
I think it was Francois Hollande who negotiated the Minsk accords with Merkel. Both said the purpose of the Minsk accords for the West was to allow Ukraine to build up its military.
https://www.voltairenet.org/article218584.html
@ FranzB,
I’ve always interpreted Macron as reneging on Minsk2 and Hollande as probably reneging on Minsk1. This is the first time I have known of any evidence to show Hollande did the deed.
Merkel gets first prize for two in the hole it seems. I cannot believe Russias spooks were completely in the dark.
The truth will eventually see the light of day. Seems there are some more unknown unknowns to come…_
the Nuland call was months before the Minsk agreements. The first was signed in Sept 2014
The call was in Feb 2014
Yanukovych had agreed to share power and the call (we don’t have it all) as discussing who the US would back as a deputy PM. The new govt would need international recognition. They rejected Klitschko – the Mayor and ex-boxer, and the Head of Svoboda, the Far Right coalition, – in favour of Yatseniuk who had been in govt. before and was a banker (there were loans being made). (If it had been a Nazi coup, would Yatseniuk have been chosen?) Yanukovych agreed with not just the Americans but the Foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland. They all signed a document but the Russian representative would not. Days later Yanukovych fled to Russia.
Elections followed afterwards for a new President. And there were elections in the autumn for the parliament. Most coups are not followed by elections. The results were that the pro-EU parties got the majority of votes. Pro-Russian groups had control of Crimea and the Donbas by the late summer so elections could not be held there.
‘ Most coups are not followed by elections.’
The whole point of a coup is to later legitimise the seizure of power through an election. Even Hitler grasped that truth.
The Russians are fully aware that they are dealing with a pack of lying, cynical crooks. (Washington is particularly strong on crooked lawyers, as has been particularly noticeable of late).
So every time they offer to negotiate, they state their conditions. Every time the West refuses or ignores an offer, the price goes up. The reason Mr Putin has said that Ukraine cannot survive in its present form is that it has demonstrated that it is irreconcilably hostile to Russia and hopelessly dishonest.
And, of course, “Ukraine” means “borderland” in Russian. That’s all it has ever been – the borderland of Russia. That’s why every single Ukrainian citizen is fluent in Russian, even those (such as Mr Zelezny) who struggle with Ukrainian.
If Poland, Estonia or Lithuania persecuted, shelled and killed ethnic Russian civilians as Ukraine did then Russia would have every right to respond under a Responsibility to Protect.
These countries won’t do that and you’re creating a strawman argument.
Putin sees Ukrainians as their Slavic brothers and sisters so again you are wrong.
Russia has no desire on other countries.
Russia is self-sufficient in almost every resource and already has enough land.
Why would they need a few more coal mines and sunflower fields?
They entered Ukraine to stop the persecution, shelling and death of the millions of ethnic Russians living there after the US led Maidan coup of 2014.
They will continue with their SMO until all threats on their border have been neutralised.
> then Russia would have every right to respond under a Responsibility to Protect.
This notion of a “responsibility to protect” members of your own ethnic group residing in foreign countries is a disastrous idea. It amounts to a licence to cross borders with tanks, and to unseat governments with which you disagree.
The modern world is very mixed-up; cheap air travel means that *every* nation has citizens living in every other nation, and every ethnicity has minorities living as citizens in all foreign countries. In particular, invading a country to protect an ethnic minority that you consider to be somehow “your own”, even if they are citizens of that foreign country, and subject to their laws, not yours, is a disastrous policy that can only lead to uncontrolled cross-border wars.
> Putin sees Ukrainians as their Slavic brothers and sisters so again you are wrong.
Well, that’s what he says; but his treatment of Ukrainians falls short of “brotherly love”.
> They entered Ukraine to stop the persecution, shelling and death of the millions of ethnic Russians living there after the US led Maidan coup of 2014.
1. You imply that “millions” of “ethnic Russians” were killed in the Donbas prior to the invasion. Evidence? That would have left the Donbas largely depopulated.
2. This phrase “ethnic Russians” is bandied about a lot. It seems to mean “Ukrainians who prefer to speak Russian”. They are not Russians.
3. If the US “led” the Maidan, then no doubt you can name the US citizens that were in a leadership role?
Jimmeh
You are incorrect on so many points.
1. No Russia’s aim is not the “total subjugation” of Ukraine,
2. No Russia have not the independence of Ukraine, if you read the speech Putin gave just before the war he makes clear what the goals were, it was not about occupy whole of Ukraine, it was not to topple their leader.
3. Yes if baltics keep discriminate against ethnic russians of course Russia would try to keep that from happen. Baltics should mature up and include ethnic russians in their state and thus remove any threats against them. One cannot have the cake and eat it too.
What is your view on the Falklands by the way? Claimed by the “empire” even to this day. Do you support british ownership over Falklands but not the same for Russia on Crimea?
I always chortle over the story about a British colonel landing in China. Directed to the channel marked “Foreigners”, he bristles and protests indignantly, “But I’m not foreign! I’m British!”
What are these Nazis doing exactly?
I haven’t heard about any kind of pogrom or murder of minorities of any kind going on in Ukraine (and I doubt Ukraine’s Jewish president would allow such a thing) so it seems fair to assume that the neo-Nazis in Ukraine are like the neo-Nazis in the West: hateful and repugnant people with hateful and repugnant beliefs, but with limited capacity to actually do harm.
Don’t get me wrong, I am half-Jewish and I certainly don’t want more murders of Jews or other minorities, but I also believe that people are in general entitled to their beliefs.
I think you’ll find that ukraine’s Jewish president does exactly as he’s told on pain of death from his Nazi supporters. Whether he is Jewish or not , I don’t know, I haven’t seen him playing the piano !
Also, being Jewish doesn’t automatically preclude fascist views as the Palestinians will attest.
“Whether he is Jewish or not , I don’t know, I haven’t seen him playing the piano”
Hahaha! I would like to nominate you for thread winner.
Likewise! Brilliant. (Although I, for one, am very grateful to have been denied that privilege).
There is a very strong case that the German Nazis copied many of their techniques directly from the Old Testament. Taking over other people’s land, ethnic cleansing, racial purity, utter mercilessness… it’s all there. except that the Jews claimed that God made them do it, whereas the Nazis had their own quasi-religious doctrines. The Israelis have returned the compliment by copying the Third Reich’s military, intelligence, and secret police tactics.
If anyone has the guts to read “The Kindly Ones” by Jonathan Littell (who I believe is Jewish), they will find a claim by the Jewish eminence grise Dr Mandelbaum, who reigns supreme in Nazi Berlin, that the Nazis have recognised the Jews as the only people on Earth playing the same game, and decided that “there can only be one”. (In other words, they had to exterminate the Jews before the Jews could exterminate them). Although the Nazis had some early successes, they ended up losing the war very conclusively.
You’ll find that the nazi exterminations were as motivated by utilitarianism (liberalism) as they were by antisemitism. Had there not been 3 million people considered to be Jews by the nazis in former Poland, they would have murdered 3 million other people in Aktion Reinhard. Non-Jewish Poles, people with learning difficulties, people with troubled mental health, epilepsy, alocholism, non-Jewish Red Army prisoners, severely wounded German army troops, homosexuals etc blah were not murdered because of antisemitism but because of liberalism.
What are these Nazis doing exactly?
They are tooled up and going off to kill people. Their capacity to do harm does not look limited.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FN5lBBAXoAQ_d0p.jpg
They’d be better off wearing boots rather than trainers, some of the trenches were pretty wet last winter.
Maybe they’re for running if someone shouts “Nyet!”. (after W. Burns, 2008, courtesy Wikileaks)
Hyolobrika
Strange that you do not know this but there are plenty of nazi-groups and pro-nazi politician in high places in Ukraine, here you have in the west, glorified commander in chief of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny posing with the, now deceased, neo-nazi Right sektor member Dmytro Kotsyubaylo plus on the wall behind them (or in front of them as busts), you have the Stepan Bandera which was involved in genocide against jews but also Roman Shukhevych that was the leader of a SS unit:
https://www.wsws.org/asset/01c03054-efc0-4f9d-9301-c4dd1851f75b?rendition=image1280
Besides the german nazis did not only hunt for jews, but a whole lot of slavs, russians was killed, millions.
No-one can be “half-Jewish”, you follow the religion or you don’t. Zelensky is a secular who is posing as a born-again Jew for show.
> No-one can be “half-Jewish”, you follow the religion or you don’t.
Goodness, that means that the majority of Jews in Israel are not Jews, because they are secular. Your definition of Jewishness is – ah – idiosyncratic.
Disclaimer: I don’t know much about the war and geopolitics in general (I originally followed you for domestic UK reporting) but this is what I think based on the facts I have heard
I don’t agree that losing your independence and freedom (which you seem to be admitting will happen to Ukraine if Russia gets their way) is necessarily worth saving lives over.
Suppose someone pulled a knife on you, and said they would kill you if you didn’t agree to be ruled by them in all aspects of your life. Would you just comply in order to save your life or would you fight? Personally, I would rather fight, and I imagine many Ukrainians feel the same (although I don’t know the number). It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees. And I don’t think I am a zealot for thinking that, as you seem to be implying.
This, however, doesn’t, on it’s own, mean we (the UK) should spend loads of money helping them. Although, you support spending taxpayer money against their will for other ethical reasons (welfare state), so why not this? Do you just not see freedom and independence as an ethical value like you do equality or alleviating poverty?
I’m not saying that the welfare state is bad BTW.
Ethical values are not the reason military aid is being sent to Ukraine!
How do we know that? Well here are two global maps, one marking the countries sending weapons to the Ukraine; the other marking countries that recognise the State of Palestine. You will note there is no overlap.
https://twitter.com/kishineff/status/1639497720934330369?s=20
The Ukrainians voted in Zelensky to take forward Minsk and bring about peace. The West and their Nazis thwarted that attempt. Now Zelensky, the pet Jew, has cancelled all elections and outlawed opposition parties, so we will never know what the actual Ukrainian people actually want just what their fascist leaders say they want !
Why Zelensky suddenly became a Jew? He was a Russian when he was in Russia, then he was an Ukrainian, but why a Jew? Does he live in Israel, or what? Is he an Orthodox Jew? His wife maybe? Parents? No?
Belonging (even very diluted) to Jewish ethnicity does not guarantee rejection of Nazism. It’s just that it depends on the worldview and not on the set of genes in your chromosomes.
As, according to genetics, chimpanzees are closest to humans, 96% of common genes. With cats, we are united by 90% of hereditary material, and with mice – 85%. We share 65% of our genes with fruit flies and 60% with bananas! But that doesn’t mean we have to be 60% yellow-skinned, does it?
So, Zelensky, less then a quarter Jew by genes, never a Jew by religion, never a Jew by being a citizen of Israel – what’s that a magic thing that makes him a Jew more than what could make me a banana?
You are spot on, T, saying that ‘the Jewish ethnicity does not guarantee rejection of Nazism”, there were plenty of Jews in the Wehrmacht and other military services fighting for the Nazis on the Eastern and Western fronts, see here:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/ellen-feldman-nazi-germany
What not many understand is that the number of those holding Nazi views is not as important as is the number of positions of power these people hold, Ukraine is a case in point, there’s enough of them in positions of power to have control over the decision making particularly as the Americans are ignoring, if not encouraging them, there existed a video (now removed) of Zelensky talking to the Ukrainian fighters of the Svoboda party in Donbas before his election for President, ‘I will make sure the war ends as soon as possible’, said Zelensky, ‘certainly in months rather than ….’ when one of the accompanying boys of the Svoboda party interrupted saying ‘you will not live if you do it’, there was awkward silence, everyone froze in embarrassment, the journalists looked puzzled, Zelensky didn’t say anything began walking slowly away from the group.
re. positions in power. It’s true.
Anatoly Shariy, a Ukrainian blogger who covered the rise of Nazism there, commenting on “a small number” said: a couple of men with machine guns can control an entire village of civilians.
Yehven Karas was certainly confident of the force multiplier of C14’s ideological imperative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6bKivSjoAg
Shame that his assessment of the Javelin’s usefulness hasn’t been confirmed.
Anyone heard from him recently?
> It’s just that it depends on the worldview and not on the set of genes in your chromosomes.
Tatyana, there are different views of what makes someone Jewish. Israel stands itself up as the home for Jews; according to Israel, maternal descent or conversion to the Jewish religion are the two grounds for claims of Jewishness. Those are disjoint; people without Jewish descent can still follow the religion, and many people of Jewish descent are secular.
I understand that Zelyinsky is Jewish by descent, and secular in terms of his faith.
“Tatyana, there are different views of what makes someone Jewish”.
Interesting, and maybe unique. Is there any other group of people who are defined by genetics, or by religion, or by culture, or by something else – and nobody knows which?
Except that membership of the group does seem to have very concrete advantages for some.
Genetics have nothing to do with religion, either you follow a religion or you don’t; ask the Falashas.
To be fair to Zelensky, I don’t think he is really in charge in Ukraine. There is footage on You Tube of him going to the front line with Donbass, soon after his election on a peace ticket, telling the Azovs there to cease shelling the Donbass and being told by the nazis to piss off in so many words. So he might have been quite sincere as a peace candidate but has had a gun to his head since then.
As regards partition of Ukraine it looks like there are parts in the east and south that want to be russian and parts in the north and east that do not. They should have done like the Czechs and Slovaks did on day one of independence.
There is talk of Poland annexing part of the Ukraine around Lviv, which wouldn’t end well since the people there probably have no more desire to be poles than they have to be Russian. And would the real Poles want to share a country with them?
As for draining Russia out, the counter strategy would involve a bit of slowly-slowly and all the time Russia is draining out so is the West.
> To be fair to Zelensky, I don’t think he is really in charge in Ukraine.
I agree.
I also don’t think that Sunak is in charge of the UK, nor that Biden is in charge of the USA, nor that Putin is in charge of Russia.
Hyolobrika
” It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees. “
Is that the Masada martyrdom you are talking about? Well, if you support sacrificing lives you should sacrifice your own in the mix, full stop. Go to Ukraine and fight. But you are not doing that of course: other people should die though for a war that cannot be won. Heinous.
“To date £5 billion has been spent on the Ajax light armoured vehicle project without a single vehicle ready to enter service having been produced.
There is no telling how much Trident is eventually going to cost, though at least 125 billion.”
My friends who work in Engineering on Dreadnought submarine project (which is over-spending) were told recently by their management that they had a £10 billion “extension”. I really loved that “extension” bit. God knows the value of the initial budget.
And the carriers. And the destroyers. And the F35s. Didn’t Ben Wallace do well with our taxes ?
Moreover, current events in Ukraine are demonstrating that “light armoured vehicles” have no military value whatsoever. They can ferry people around, but due to the armour and weapons they can carry many fewer people than far cheaper buses. Yet if they venture anywhere near the fighting they wind up as fiercely burning piles of cinders.
The whole idea of the armoured vehicle is obsolete. It’s all about detecting the enemy and directing missiles at him.
The Treaty of Versailles was not “punitive”. The land Germany lost was French, Polish and Danish territory invaded and occupied in the preceding century and an overseas empire where the natives were so badly treated even other imperialists noticed.
If you favour territorial settlements based on the current territorial status quo, I take it you hold a similar view with Israel and Palestine.
Yes, but then there’s the reparations which I think was the real punative bit.
The reparations were supposed to be punitive. However they were paid in enormously devalued marks.
“The reparations were supposed to be punitive. However they were paid in enormously devalued marks”.
Which caused the highly predictable hyperinflation, which caused the Nazis, who brought on WW2 through their naivete and insufficient awareness of FDR’s (and Stalin’s) deviousness. Who knew that a sick old man in a wheelchair could cause so much devastation and death?
If you don’t realise how FDR caused WW2, have a look at Ron Unz’s site. (FDR’s wealth, incidentally, came from his grandfather Delano who made a pile by illegally trading drugs into China).
Hyperinflation was a matter of choice not necessity, part of an attempt to negotiate from weakness, hence the end of the hyperinflation in 1923. The Nazis were jobbed into office in 1933 by the respectable boss class. When the coalition deal was done, Papen said “We’ve bought him”. Oops.
Tom Welsh: Thanks for the suggestion. The stuff at Unz’s site is even more insane than I remember it. No. Germany and Japan started the war they ardently desired. “The Jews” did not conspire to cause the war, though of course “they” wanted the US to enter the war to defend their relatives in Europe against Hitler’s murder. FDR did nearly as much as possible to avoid war, more than anyone else. One of the few things he can be blamed for is not supporting Spain against Franco- a mistake he publicly acknowledged before the war.
Wee Jim: The WWI reparations were not paid in devalued marks, but hard currency, which could only be purchased with increasing amounts of marks, which caused the inflation.
Dear Craig, thank you so much for this article, which I wholeheartedly agree with. I would like to pick up on one point though
“I can see no logical refutation to my constantly repeated argument that the war in Ukraine has shown that Russia cannot speedily defeat a much smaller, weaker and extremely corrupt neighbouring state…”
Well Russia DID defeat the Ukrainian army in the few 4 months. Almost the entire airforce, and most of the 2000 tanks were gone. It took that long because Russia was very careful not to harm civilians (whom it regards as its own citizens), and to minimise casualties in the Russian army. The war continued because this army was replaced by a NATO army of armour, artillery and ammo from former Warsaw Pact countries – because this was compatible with Ukrainian repairs, spares and expertise. This second army was destroyed over the next 6 months.
For the last 6 months Russia have been fighting a third army, of NATO proper – western equipment, western missiles, western intelligence and western mercenaries. This final army will be destroyed by October.
Of course, before the war Russia negotiated a peaceful settlement in Minsk which was signed by France, Germany, Ukraine and the newly independent Donbass. But Kiev attacked Donbass again. Russia then sent in tanks to surround Kiev and asked Ukraine if they would like to return to negotiations in Istanbul. Kiev agreed, and Russia withdrew its tanks. But Kiev broke this agreement too.
Fool me once – fool me twice – I am afraid there will not be a third negotiated settlement. Once the third NATO army has been smashed Russia will almost surely go the the Dneiper and perhaps as far as Poland. It will be unconditional surrender.
Total fantasy. Putin has denied that Ukraine exists as a separate state so why would he be interested in negotiating with an entity he claims doesn’t exist?
The invasion was planned to be over and done with in ten days, before western aid could be mobilised, it wasn’t expected that Ukraine would put up much if any resistance so when they did it completely wrong footed the Russian forces.
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/how-Putin-lost-in-10-days
‘ Russia was very careful not to harm civilians ‘ Yeah sure. Tell that to the residents of Mariupol. If you can find any still alive.
hey, I can find those still alive and they say they didn’t enjoy Azov batallion raping and killing, at all. Yet they say they are happy those nazi guys surrended en masse.
This would be voxpop by the ever reliable Partick Lancasterrrr and others of his ilk?
you mean people who tell the truth?
I think you need to go back and check this. Actually Putin refused to accept the independence of Donbass and insisted that it was part of Ukraine for 8 years. He only recognised their independence when they were attacked.
Your link suggests Putin planned to take Ukraine in 10 days. On what basis is that claim made? Certainly not the statements of Russian officials or the actions of the army. Suppose I claimed that Zelensky wanted to set up a base on Arcturus. Does that prove he has failed? Critical reasoning insists that claims are backed up by evidence and reason.
Tim, have you seen the website they advertise? I start with the ‘contact us’ section usually, in the footnote. Theirs says: Commercial Services
Media Sales & Licensing
Brand Licensing
Publishing
Retail Opportunities
Venue Hire
Filming & Photography
So you may contact re: “Resistance: Media Sales & Licensing”, or “Western aid: brand licensing”. Doesn’t mean you get a proper image on what is going on here, but for sure make some money. The Venue Hire option poses a question, doesn’t it? The Retail Opportunities made me think of, well, some handmade souvenier items.
Putin has refused to accept the independence of Donbas, despite that being what the inhabitants want (or so we’re told) instead he’s installed a puppet regime and annexed the area into Russia. Clearly has the same plan for Ukraine.
We know from captured documents and intelligence that Russia planned to have the invasion done and dusted in 10 days.
https://rusi.org/news-and-comment/in-the-news/ukraine-war-captured-russian-documents-reveal-moscows-10-day-plan-take-over-country-and-kill-its
Of course after this failed the propagandists came crawling out of the woodwork to claim that was never the plan at all. I don’t think many were taken in though.
You reckon, Pears Morgaine, that RUSI is telling the truth? Arghhh
Putin never ever wanted Ukraine as a part of Russia, when Yanukovych was President he offered Putin a loose federation something akin to the Belarus tie-up. Putin’s advisor in Ukraine backed the idea; Putin recalled the advisor back to Moscow, and said no to Yanukovych.
What would Putin do with Ukraine? The country has been always split into two parts, the east and south leaning towards Russia because most of the inhabitants are Russian, the west a mix of smaller tribes that pretend to be more Western orientated yet in the WW2 behaved abominably. Governing such a country is nothing but trouble, unless one imposes the structures of a dictatorship like the Bolshevik nightmare.
You can never find Putin saying that Ukraine should be a part of the Russian Federation. What he did say is that the Ukrainian and Russian peoples have a shared history, which is true, and therefore should be friends. He would be more than happy with Ukraine returning to her sovereign status she lost in the Feb 24 2014 violent coup orchestrated by the Americans.
Just yesterday Mr Putin made it perfectly clear that he does not take military decisions, whether tactical, operational, or strategic. Instead, he speaks to Stavka and they give him options. The professionals are in control of the fighting.
“Suppose I claimed that Zelensky wanted to set up a base on Arcturus”.
Spooky! Tim, have you by any chance been reading “What Mad Universe?” by Fredric Brown? https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Mad-Universe-Fredric-Brown/dp/0553103369/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1690735247&sr=8-1
Rubbish PM! Well said Tim.
“Putin has denied that Ukraine exists as a separate state so why would he be interested in negotiating with an entity he claims doesn’t exist?”
He isn’t. He has repeatedly made it clear in public speeches that he is not interested in talking to the monkey – and that includes all the Europeans as well as the penis artiste. He is also not interested in talking to the organ-grinder, because they insist on hiding behind that senile old criminal who is masquerading as president of the USA.
Tim – “But Kiev broke this agreement too.”
I think it was more that Kiev’s western backers vetoed the peace deal. Johnson went to Kiev in April 2022 to tell Zelensky that the US didn’t want a peace deal. Presumably Biden’s arms manufacturering backers wanted the war to continue.
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/02/06/israeli-bennett-us-russia-ukraine-peace/
What Tim said. Absolutely correct in every detail.
Fascinating to hear about the crazed state of British media. Thanks.
At least Russian govt doesn’t seem hell bent on total victory. Although now is probably not their favourite point to negotiate as they mount an offensive having mobilised 750k soldiers, according to Col. McGregor. We need China to create peace. But why would West ever honour their part of the deal? (See: Minsk deals; Boris Johnson deal; grain deal; gold theft, etc)
“We need China to create peace. But why would West ever honour their part of the deal?”
They wouldn’t. So we don’t need China; what we need is a conclusive Russian victory. Why do people have such difficulty in accepting that? The Russians will win – as they did in WW2, while the Americans and British jumped about on the edges, posturing and pretending – and impose whatever conditions they think best.
As to the question: Did the Russians have other options – geopolitics vs. intern. law
4 excerpts quoted from pieces by:
Nicolai Petro
Hans von Sponeck
Geoffrey Roberts
Ray McGovern:
* * *
East coast scholar Nicolai Petro, author of the landmark study „The Tragedy of Ukraine“ with a revealing grain of skepticism in a text on 24/2/23:
„(…)
All this hints at the existence of a long term U.S. foreign policy strategy that outside observers can only guess at. I would not be at all surprised if, thirty years from now, future historians learned of the existence of a new NSC-68—America’s 1950 blueprint for conducting the Cold War—cooked up within the Biden administration in anticipation of just such a confrontation. After all, the contents of NSC-68 itself, although rumored about for years, were only revealed in 1975.
(…)“
see:
https://usrussiaaccord.org/nicolai-n-petro-cold-war-realism-lessons-for-ukraine/#more-6601
* * *
German frm. long-time UN diplomat Hans von Sponeck (who fought against Madeleine Albright´s Iraq sanctions fiercly) in an antiwar speech held at a peace rally in the German city of Kassel on 11/12/22:
„(…)
The UN’s political headquarters is in New York; the UN’s specialized agencies, funds, and programs have their headquarters, without exception, in the West; the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, two UN agencies headquartered in Washington, are clearly subject to Western interests.
You will question the weight of such an account. That was how I felt until I spent many months examining the annual voting results of the UN General Assembly. What I found revealed a staggering testimony to the powerlessness of the majority of states. Mainly Western countries, especially the United States with its enforced neo-liberal unilateralism, have systematically tried year after year to suppress any attempt to promote human rights and human security for all wherever they live.
(…)“
See German original speech (worthwhile to translate and read in its entirety):
https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=92023
* * *
Irish Russia historian Geoffrey Roberts in a fine interview by journalist-writer Natylie Baldwin:
„(…)
When the West stonewalled his security proposals, Putin had a choice — continue with what I call his militarised diplomacy, or take military action to force acceptance of his demands. He chose war because diplomacy didn’t seem to be working and because he thought it was better to fight now rather than later — hence my characterisation of the invasion decision as a choice for preventative war.
I disagreed with his decision for three reasons: (1) notwithstanding Ukraine’s progressive military build-up, a dire existential threat to Russia was emergent rather than imminent; (2) the chance of diplomacy succeeding was slim but not non-existent; and (3) going to war was an enormously dangerous and destructive step to take, not just for Russia and Ukraine but for Europe and the rest of the world.
(…)
Had the Istanbul peace negotiations succeeded and war come to an end in spring 2022, those who argue Putin’s decision for war was right at the time he took it, would have a much stronger case to argue. But the prolonged nature of the war, the extent of its death and devastation, the real and continuing threat of nuclear catastrophe, and the prospect of an endless conflict, leave me unconvinced that it was the right thing to do.
(…)“
see:
https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2023/07/from-stalinism-to-the-most-avoidable-war-in-history-my-interview-with-prof-geoffrey-roberts/
* * *
Ray MacGovern, frm CIA Russia analyst in his conversation with Judge Napolitano about: „did the RUs have other options?“
24/5/23:
Most important I find his statement (I hope it is correct) that Putin called Biden Dec. 2021.
Putin wanted the US to guarantee in writing that the US would not put missiles in Ukraine.
Biden said he would tell the US negotiating team for Geneva negotiations early Jan. 2022.
When those negotiations did take place this particular paramount request by Putin re: no missiles, had been disposed of by the US team.
see 2:40 – 7:30 min.
https://raymcgovern.com/2023/05/25/putins-plan-for-ukraine-now-ray-with-judge-napolitano/
So whenever RU came to the zest of the matter – like RU´s demands from NATO Dec. 2021 – the US evaded.
see (that´s my own 2 cents now):
For comparison: the Russia, U.S., NATO Security Proposals:
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2022-03/news/russia-us-nato-security-proposals
Besides Ray McGovern blog entries on this issue:
concerning the open letter in the NYT in May, calling for peace, by the Eisenhower Network:
„Did Putin Have ‘Other Options’ on Ukraine?“
22/5/23
https://raymcgovern.com/2023/05/22/did-putin-have-other-options-on-ukraine/
And in depth look at the missile issue:
https://raymcgovern.com/2023/05/03/if-the-missile-fits-beware/
I would disagree with a few things regarding McGovern and Mearsheimer in general (who is briefly mentioned by McGovern), but I leave that away now.
I would like to add:
Regardless of the quotations I chose, the entire source texts would rather support criticism of the RU´s decision to go to war.
Only McGovern believes it was necessary:
I recommend reading/watching the entire originals.
It’s not about any options, AG, it’s all written in the Wolfowitz doctrine, google for it, the Americans must do everything to prevent another power akin to the former USSR to emerge, that’s what the boys and girls in Ukraine are dying for, the best opportunity ever for the American Governing Elite, and the topping on the cake? A Slavonic tribe killing another Slavonic tribe, the hope is that will collapse Russia, the NATO powers will then balkanise her, seven or nine little Russias would be much easier to control than Putin’s 11-time zones bear, the next target will be the land of the Mandarin speakers, again just as the Wolfowitz doctrine demands it, simples really.
“(3) going to war was an enormously dangerous and destructive step to take, not just for Russia and Ukraine but for Europe and the rest of the world”.
It wasn’t dangerous for Russia, unless the lunatics in Washington start a thermonuclear war – in which case it’s a draw and we all die. But there’s no way to prevent that, so we needn’t depress ourselves by dwelling on how our lives and those of our loved ones depend on the whims of a bunch of psychopathic morons.
As for “Europe and the rest of the world”, why would Russia care? What have Europe and the rest of the world ever done for Russia? As Mr Putin put it, “who would want to live in a world without Russia?”
Well, actually, I for one would – but I won’t have the option.
Tom Welsh
I assume Roberts eventually refers to the danger that you name, however triggered by the invasion: “unless the lunatics in Washington start a thermonuclear war”.
G. Roberts in his trust and reliance on historical documents and records also becomes victim of a certain naivité via scholarly positivist thinking, which by design can falsify or verify events only after the fact.
So e.g. Roberts was in favour of NATO expansion in the early 1990s. Until the Clinton madness started. Only afterwards did he critcize it.
Now thats not an option in a world full of hawks.
And now he does it again: Putin should have negotiated more he says, even though Roberts himself then admits that Putin might have been right had the April negotiatiosn worked out.
Thats a problematic pattern of historical research operating in the field of current affairs.
But a war reporter like Chris Hedges could have told you already 30 years ago where that NATO thing would lead to knowing about East European governments and hotel venues and arms manufacturers´ parties in Budapest and Prague.
The informal stuff.
Because none of these countries wanted NATO right away. (What they wanted was EU. Just like Ukraine.
They were half bullied, half lured into this financial trap, which EU membership would then pay for.
One pocket money in, the other out.
Brings to mind the well know aphorism: The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
The road to peace is paved with destroyed NATO hardware.
Stevie Boy, I am now a confirmed fan.
Oooooh! Where have you found a single good intention?
Point of information. The Allied Powers didn’t insist on unconditional surrender in 1918. There was an armistice, and then a negotiated peace settlement (Treaties of Versailles, Trianon etc). The fact that the “negotiations” were so one-sided (“vae victis”), leading to German resentment and the rise of Hitler was a large part of the reason why the Allies went for “unconditional surrender” in WW2.
Yah. The Allied blockade, which caused a lot of Germans to die of actual starvation every day, continued until the German representatives signed the treaty. “One-sided” is a ridiculous understatement. Especially since the Germans weren’t guilty of starting the war – just of losing it. Which happened because American bankers decided they could make more money that way.
This war is driven by the neocons in Washington.
When you ask them “How many dead people is that worth?” their answer is that there are no dead people so far, because non-Americans don’t count. It may seem possible to them that Russia can be defeated, broken up, and the pieces absorbed into the American hegemony at no cost at all in people who count – merely a bunch of foreigners. That really is how they think.
Yes. As Madeleine Albright clarified, half a million dead Iraqi children didn’t matter. They may have to create a new circle of Hell for her.
American history is a long chain of broken promises, war after war after war, the surrounding of “enemies” with military bases, false flags to create wars, sanctions imposed on millions of innocent civilians, theft of land, funds and assets of various kinds, overthrow of non cooperative governments, etc etc etc.
To ignore all that and to suddenly see the US as “good guys”, with honorable intentions, in any manner shape or form, is to idiotically forget history.
It always amazes me that, despite nearly every U.S. war exposed in hindsight as concocted on lies, the American public somehow thinks that the latest war is a righteous one.
“ American history is a long chain of broken promises, war after war after war, the surrounding of “enemies” with military bases, false flags to create wars, sanctions imposed on millions of innocent civilians, theft of land, funds and assets…..”
=======
How very British!
Or, if you want to generalise, how very imperialist!
Babylon, Persia, Macedonia, Rome….all the way to the British Empire and neocon USA you will find the same pattern you describe.
Uh…. the war was over in March 2022 when Ukraine and Russia had a draft agreement in place to settle all of Russia’s grievances and end the fighting. But then guess who showed up? Boris Johnson. So now we have hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers and no end in sight.
Good job, Britain!
Correct statement of what happened, but Boris deserves no credit – he was just the messenger-boy, the orders came from Washington. By the way, Starmer will be no better: they own him too.
Townsman
I agree wholeheartedly with what you say.
Ukraine as a sovereign state is over, ended, kaput!!
If they were to prevail in the war their new masters would be far harsher and bleed the country much harder than their old. Should have done a deal with their neighbors before 2014.
The Ukrainian (e.g. Ukraine Pravda) reports of the Turkey meeting, are that the Russians weren’t interested in negotiation. Their agenda was described as ‘surrender terms’. The collapse of the attack on Kyiv meant the Ukrainians and world media re-occupied areas like Bucha and the Ukrainians demanded assurances that this wouldn’t happen again. They denied it happened but weren’t believed.
Of course, history is a matter of interpretation and many will claim that Russia is subject to lies and disinformation. Others will claim Russia is doing just that. Certainly at Minsk, Putin denied there were Russian soldiers in the Donbas. He was meeting with European leaders and there was TV news footage of the event.
Poroshenko the Ukrainian president said his forces had captured Russian soldiers. No, said Putin.
We have their army ID and telephoned their families and they confirm the information.
They must have got lost.
The Western leaders suggested a cease fire and Putin said he had no contact with the Separatists. (I saw this on the BBC tv Putin and the West) Part of the agreement was a cease fire. The Separatists did not keep to it.
We hear Merkel lied and signed the accord to gain time for Ukraine to re-arm. It looks like that is not the whole story.
It’s a strange state of affairs, when the leaders of our two top political parties and those iof Germany and France have joined the spectrum of Nazism by supporting the US nazification of Ukraine, and its somehow illegal for Russia to oppose that nazism.
Why bewail the collapse of social welfare by the extreme right in Europe, and yet complain about Russia finally saying this has gone too far and opposing this fascism and nazism when it manifests itself in genocide in Ukraine?
The US declared war on Europe by blowing up NS2. The intelligent way for Britain and Europe to respond to that was to oppose the US.
The Empire 2 Atlanticists want to give free rein to US fascism.
If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out. If thy right hand offend thee cut it off.
Better to enter paradise halt or maim.
Christ’s pbuh take on righteousness. Don’t compromise with the devil, because you give an inch and he takes a mile.
Cakum non possum mangere et tenere.
Chamberlain potus sole urinatio bonum.
If you get my drift.
We need the Simon Tisdalls, the Paul Masons, the McFauls & Sean Penns to be dropped into a Donbass minefield & ordered to advance to Moscow & complete victory.
I propose to capture Nuland, Blinken and Hillary Clinton, and also Lloyd Austin. Put them in a minefield and broadcast a reality show from a drone. You can make good money taking bets on which of them will lose a leg first.
You can also catch Scholz, Macron, Borrell, Von der Leyen, and that dude who is now in Britain in charge of supplying weapons. This team should be placed in a neighboring field under artillery fire, and broadcast how they are hiding from explosions, continuing to ask to send more shells there.
Not a bad idea, huh? There is a chance that at one point Borrell will get tired and maybe remember that he is the head of European DIPLOMACY.
I would also make such a show more spectacular by dressing the team in promotional costumes!
Yellow vest for Macron. Garden watering can and rake for Borrell. Der Leyen can take all her children with her, after all, children also die in the war for which she is so actively campaigning. Well, Scholz can be put into the Leopard life-size puppet, it will entertain Ursula’s kids a little before they die.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP95nNuTEjk
And if you bring a piano to the field and add Zelensky to the team … It seems to me that such a show would beat all the top ratings, huh? Great chance of success, and I expect Elon Musk agrees to provide Starlink for broadcasting.
Tatyana
Yes, I saw that video where Ursula burst out laughing when a reporter asked if her children were in the military. The idea was so preposterous to her she could not help herself.
There cannot be any winner in a war and especially not in this war. Both sides have already lost too much on every aspect. Most likely it will end with new borders being drawn.
Russia have conducted somewhat of a strategic defeat on themselves, they did not expect the West to go to such lengths as they have done and not even the West themselves believed they would go this far and the reason for that all falls back on Russia’s exposed weakness:
“Russia’s war has been brutal, but Putin has shown some restraint. Why?”
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/05/04/world/russia-ukraine-war-putin-nato/
And US recently said just this:
“US is ready to “take risks” in the issue of supplying new weapons to Ukraine, but take into account the reaction of the Russian Federation when making decisions – White House”
https://t.me/intelslava/50098
So basically, if Russia never up the ante and respond to the constant western provocations: the western provocations will continue.
If Russia is simply too afraid of escalating the war or if they are incompetent I do not know, but they pay the price now by their weakness on the battlefield.
To your question at the bottom:
The pro-Ukrainian West do not care how lives being lost on either side; this is a west that did not even know where Ukraine was on a global world map before the war occured. They have no relations to these people and just see it as a strategic war against Russia itself, because that is what they are fed with 24/7 in the media.
“To the last Ukrainian” is their pathological motto along with the “Slava ukraini” chant which they have of course no idea that that chant stems from nazi/fascists ukrainian nationalists in the 20s, 30s. Sigh.
34% of Americans Can Find Ukraine on a Map. They’re More Likely to Support an Aggressive Posture Against Russia
https://pro.morningconsult.com/instant-intel/can-americans-find-ukraine-on-a-map
The US is already a big winner and stands to gain even more. The EU is almost eliminated as a competitor to US industry: the destruction of the Nordstream 2 pipeline means that Germany’s energy costs are now more than twice as much as its US rivals. Moreover, it now buys LNG from US companies, increasing their profits at the same time. The EU’s combined GDP was bigger than the USA’s, that was a problem that needed to be fixed.
Pollution from “depleted uranium” ammunition, or better yet, radioactive fallout from “limited nuclear exchanges” limited to Europe, would just be icing on the cake.
Well summarized, Blinken (which in turn have family ties to Ukraine just like Nuland) had the aim set for the russian/soviet pipelines for a long time…
The year: 1987. The president: Ronald Reagan. The dilemma: What to do about the new gas pipeline that Europe was building to Russia, one of America’s key foreign policy rivals. Blinken’s first book, Ally Versus Ally: America, Europe, and the Siberian Pipeline Crisis, was published by a then-unknown young writer in 1987.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/03/blinken-secretary-state-alliances-nato-ally-versus-ally/
And the stupid pro-american lackeys in europe just tagged along and made it all happen for their masters in the White House by destryoing the Nordstreams’!
Bingo.
Jack
the restraint goes both ways of course.
Online military blogger Simplicius pointed out last year that the US – which has over 10,000 fighter jets – could easily spare 3,000 and dispatch them to Ukraine. Finding pilots is of course not easy. But that aside – even the best RU air defense would have difficulties.
Naturally that would be a big, big, big world war. And guess what? No side wants that. For selling arms, you don’t kill your customer.
On the other hand the Russian Army has done nothing of the kind NATO did in Kosovo or in Syria or the US in Iraq, in terms of Air warfare.
Which is the dominant form of war-making of the West. For obvious reasons. No Russian carpet bombing in Ukraine so far.
Newsweek brought early in spring 2022, NYT and WaPo followed in early autumn 2022, pieces with US military personnel commenting, who stressed that the Russian army indeed tried to not hit people indiscriminately and tried to limit the war, in the way the US/UK forces were not used to do. They just know total war.
Apparently some in the Western military community initially did not understand why the RUs were not doing that kind of thing.
Well if you bomb your neighbours of 300 years, and millions of them are your own family, it´s just not the same as bombing Arabs whose names you can´t even pronounce. (See your comment with the map.)
See also my link below. USA Today reported that some US official said Russia never intended to conquer this place. Which is not news if you kept your eyes open. But it’s good if at least one official says so publicly.
AG
That is true, but I am not calling for bombing civilians here, I am talking about hitting critical centers in Ukraine but Russia have not done that yet and from what I reckon, if they do not take that step, they will not suceed with this invasion.
Critical centers for target should first and foremost be the constant unhindered freeway of western arms coming into Ukraine.
It is one thing to smuggle in light arms unnoticeable to Ukraine but when Ukraine recieve big physical items like tanks or other vehicles I wonder why Russia never strike these items as soon as they reach ukrainian soil. After all it is the western weapons that keep the war alive.
This issue was noted by the west early on in the war:
“Russia has yet to slow a Western arms express into Ukraine”
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-nato-europe-e335d774954f6403c38e88a3a6bfbcff
Jack
no, of course you did not suggest bombing civilians.
I intended to write and my post as usually turned out different while writing.
As far as I understand it is an ominous mixture of hitting stuff in the West of Ukraine (those various explosions never really explained by either side), luring the NATO transports up to a point where they are put and then bomb those places.
So they don´t change locations and routes the RUs already know.
The RUs might not want their capabilities of tracking and identifying made known.
(Remember the “Imitation Game” and Turing´s explanation why Ultra would mean to sacrifice own troops?)
A tiny bit like that. Covering intelligence.
Apparently they operate the same way on the level of bombing anti-air defense positions and electricity. Not destroying “only” weakening. So the position will be re-supplied and the RU attack again and destroy again. There you have the attrition regarding gear.
Eventually you don’t want to kill to many NATO personnel and you don’t want to escalate in the open public (think that idiot debris of a rocket in Poland when – was it not AP reporting? – PR went mad about Art. 5)
So I assume both sides are playing this in a way of half-blind, half-trusting the “enemy”.
It´s all sad and absurd.
But all of this is merely online lecture from my side.
“There cannot be any winner in a war and especially not in this war”.
Sorry, Jack, but whatever can have possessed you to make such an inane statement? Anyone but the wilfully blind can plainly see that people have been profiting from wars since before the beginning of history.
You have something nice that I want. I stick a spear through you and take it. I am the Winnah! How can you dispute that?
If you have a spear and a shield, and maybe some friends similarly equipped, I am likely to move on.
Nothing wrong with the Treaty of Versailles. It was about as punitive as such things tended to be at that time. Look at Brest Litovsk that Germany would have imposed if they’d won. Significantly worse. For their own reasons, It suited both sides to buy into Keynes’s pips squeak claim. Ludendorf knew the jig was up in August, so he handed power to the civilian government to get the blame for the November armistice. That got the military off the hook and allowed the stab-in-the-back myth to begin. And Germany ducked all their payments anyway – http://www.orgonelab.org/SallyMarksGermanReparations.pdf
Keynes remark about squeezing Germany until the pips squeaked was only concerned with the economic effects (which were evaded anyway), not the political amd territorial aspects.
that was Lloyd George, not Keynes.
Keynes’ short book “The Economic Consequences of the Peace” (freely available online) explains in great detail everything that was wrong with Versailles. History proved him correct in every way.
And how about this corker?
“The blockade of Russia, lately proclaimed by the Allies, is therefore a foolish and short-sighted proceeding; we are blockading not so much Russia as ourselves… The more successful we are in snapping economic relations between Germany and Russia, the more we shall depress the level of our own economic standards and increase the gravity of our own domestic problems”.
– John Maynard Keynes (Economic Consequences of the Peace, Chapter VII (though equally true and appropriate in 2022).
Compare with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89tienne_Mantoux
“The Carthaginian Peace, or the Economic Consequences of Mr. Keynes” (1946)
(Potentially poorly maintained*) Russian nuclear arsenal aside, the argument that NATO missiles being positioned on their doorstep would have provoked Russia *sounds* plausible, particularly when you consider the US’ hypocritical response to the CMC**…until you realise that it was pretty clear Putin’s attempt to take all of Ukraine at the start of the war would have resulted in a then-extended Russia still having NATO missiles positioned on its doorstep, just in another country like Sweden.
*not that that means a single well maintained nuke wouldn’t have impact…
**which was a response to the US positioning its nukes in Turkey
Actually, the Cuban Missile Crisis really gives the lie to the “nukes on their doorstep” excuse; if Putin was really serious about them then he would repeat the CMC and show the World that the US still doesn’t like having Russia’s nukes on their doorstep, rather than start a war in Ukraine.
In some sense, yes debating “who started it” might get so bogged down that people almost ignore the blood cost of the war but then all this blood wouldn’t be being spilled in the first place if someone hadn’t started it. People have agency. Ukraine didn’t get in those Russian tanks and drive them over the border to invade their own country. Ukraine didn’t get in those launcher cabs, enter the target coords and flick the trigger on missiles that struck Kyiv, and even further West.
It started with a US engineered coup in 2014 and ensuing attacks by fascists on ethnic Russians in eastern and southern Ukraine, supported by NATO. Escalation became inevitable once Russia learned that the Minsk peace accords were a sham that hadn’t been negotiated in good faith.
BTW the Tories are but one cheek of the establishment’s neolib-NeoCon backside.
Reading the thread it is a joy to see so many people share my interpretation of events. In the real world they seem desperately few and far between.
Although he sometimes seems a little out of touch, Mr Murray’s sheer intelligence, honesty, and good will attract a very superior class of commenter.
Having worked for HMG for so long is a great handicap to seeing the world as it really is. I can appreciate that, as I dodged the same bullet in 1971. (The Civil Service Commission gave me a grade of “E” for suitability for appointment – roughly equivalent to “we wouldn’t hire you if you were the last sentient being in the galaxy”. I take that as one of the nicest compliments I have ever received).
Well said Craig, though I don’t see the war ending any time soon, with the politicians, MSM, and MIC, and fanatics all calling for it to continue until total victory has been achieved; and at what cost to the citizens of the entire planet, I wonder.
Nato needed a remit to be seen as still a viable body, and the MIC needed Nato countries to up their weapons spending in this scenario the war. All wars have been profitable for them and their corporate buddies, regardless of Russia. China was always there as back-up bad guy so if Russia collapsed and Nato succeeded in its goal. China was always waiting in the wings to make Nato viable again in their eyes, and if they succeeded there, then North Korea would come into Nato’s crosshairs. There’s always a bad guy to defeat in Nato eyes.
This is not to say that both Russia and China are paragons of democracy and freedom. They’re not.
a new piece by Seymour Hersh called: “Opera Buffa in Ukraine”
https://scheerpost.com/2023/07/29/seymour-hersh-opera-buffa-in-ukraine/
a rather disgruntled anonymous US offical and intelligence source of Hersh´s says:
“(…)
“At this point, with the Ukraine counteroffensive against Russia thwarted, the official said, “Zelensky has no plan, except to hang on. It’s as if he’s an orphan—a poor waif in his underwear—and we have no real idea of what Zelensky and his crowd are thinking. Ukraine is the most corrupt and dumbest government in the world, outside of Nigeria, and Biden’s support of Zelensky can only come from Zelensky’s knowledge of Biden, and not just because he was taking care of Biden’s son.”
“The reality,” the official said, “is that the balance of power in the war is settled. Putin has what he wants”: access to Crimea and the four Ukrainian oblasts—Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia—that were annexed by Russia last September 30. “Ukraine does not have them and cannot get them back.” Meanwhile, Putin’s end game in Odessa, if there is one, is not known.
Despite all the unknowns, the official said, President Biden “should have told Zelensky that he was on his own when it came to the counteroffensive. The balance of power”—against the out-gunned, out-trained, and out-manned Ukrainian forces—“was a settled issue.”
(…)”
Hersh´s own assessment:
“On Sunday during a televised interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Blinken turned recent history on its head, declaring that in terms of what Putin “sought to achieve” in the war with Ukraine, he had “already lost.” “The objective was to erase Ukraine from the map, to eliminate its independence, its sovereignty, to subsume it into Russia. That failed a long time ago. Now Ukraine is in a battle to get back more of the land that Russia seized from it. . . . It is tough. The Russians have put in place strong defenses. . . . The Ukrainians are fighting for their land, for their future, for their country, for their freedom. I think that is the decisive element and that’s going to play out.” In fact, any future settlement with Russia, if one is negotiated, will almost certainly include new leadership in Kiev and also acknowledge Russian control over the four annexed oblasts. Zelensky, if he survives, is known to own a house in Forte di Marmi, a beach town in Tuscany, which he purchased for $4.2 million in 2015, four years before he became president.”
As far as I’m aware AG, ‘poor waif in his underwear’ isn’t an American expression. Maybe Hersch’s disgruntled anonymous US intelligence source has picked it up from a Russian-born spouse – or maybe Hersch should proof-read his round robin GRU briefings after he’s run them through Google Translate.
LA
Since I am not a native speaker I would rather not judge any such case.
From the German language I know that there are many many words not used, sometimes not even indexed by the majority of dictionaries any more but they exist and there are knowledgeable people, mostly of older age of course, who use them.
Language after all is alive. And one never knows all the secrets of anything living.
Having said that, this is, I would argue even more true for English, which has so many half twins and siblings and is a linguistic beast compared to the very benign and limited German.
So, who knows, may be in Chicago where Hersh grew up in a not so rich part of town there were folks using this word.
To me it would sound of Welsh or Irish origin.
But most likely I am absolutely wrong.
And may be you are right and its a slip of keyboad typing
(Even though Hersh does have proof readers as used to be in any decent paper.)
And even if its an invention or a mistake. To me the sound and what I believe the words could mean made sense. And that´s what´s language is all about.
Sometimes chance is the greatest poet of all.
Long post for not so very much
sry.
Lapsed Agnostic is saying Seymour Hersch is a Putin puppet.
er… I got that.
But I enjoy the exchanges with LA also learning this and that over the months.
Regardless of the fact that we might not agree on everything.
And the language thing I meant seriously.
And since I happen to know people who know Hersh personally I can sort of “vouch” for Hersh.
Which doesn´t mean scrutiny is not to be demanded.
But Hersh would be the first one to sign that demand.
He is his own fiercest personal censor in terms of quality.
I can assure you of that. Its called work ethic.
However: think he has been in this business for over 65 years. (He started very young I believe as they used to in the news business in the old days.)
So you develope your routines.
One must understand the contradictory position of his as a reporter from the intelligence services of all things.
And it goes without saying that that very same CIA he has been reporting on threatened him and his family/friends in the past.
I mean, it´s not difficult to figure that out.
So it might be adivseable to look under the many various layers of things. And judge then.
(By this I mean Hersh´s critics in general who have been out there basically since the 1960s.)
Re: ‘I enjoy the exchanges with LA’
I’m glad someone does. It is, of course, entirely possibly that Hersch has been duped by a Russian intelligence agent pretending to be a disgruntled US one. After all, he is getting on a bit.
oh, AG, no need to go into such lengthy excuses. As a certified linguist, I can assure you that your understanding of how languages work is absolutely correct.
We pass pieces of sense to each other, this process is called communication. I pass to you a chain of ‘semes’ aka grains of sense. You decipher it to the best of your knowledge. The principle of communication is that it not necessarily must be a language, simple signals (visual, audial or tactile, or…) are enough. Simply, the transmitting and receiving parties must correctly interpret them. Then the communication act is successful. Do not mix it with the supposed purpose of the communication, it’s another step.
In any communication you can find “redundancy”, that is, concomitant circumstances that cut off some possible interpretations. In German it may be endings, or other grammar. In English endings system is poor, so it mostly is the context. That is, based on the context, you are very likely to CORRECTLY understand the meaning.
So it’s all right with you.
Context is truly important. Let’s imagine a communication act – a girl sends you a selfie in the bed, the text says ‘could you please drop by the pharmacy?’ If you’re in romantic relations with the girl, you most probably think of condoms. If you’re in the friendzone, you may think she’s got flue and it’s about Coldrex.
Context, it’s important. The tricky part is that interpreting the context may be more important than logically deciphering the communication 🙂
And now to the Lapsed Agnostic position, I may disappoint you, but I agree with them. I have no idea what was the context, aka the circumstances under which Mr. Hersh received the information. Also, I don’t know what was the purpose of the communication action when Mr. Hersh got info, nor am I aware what is the purpose of Mr. Hersh’s own communication action either. I can only rely on the fact that he is a recognized authority in the field of journalism, he knows what he is doing, therefore he knows how to check the authenticity of the facts and also how to check his own communications for ‘noise’. But at the same time, I keep the idea that Mr. Hersh could be deliberately and skillfully misinformed.
“If you’re in romantic relations with the girl, you most probably think of condoms. If you’re in the friendzone, you may think she’s got flue and it’s about Coldrex”.
If she knows anything about men, she probably wouldn’t consider the second possibility. Unless she is literally dying.
“… I keep the idea that Mr. Hersh could be deliberately and skillfully misinformed”.
He’s a famous US journalist, so of course he is deliberately and skillfully misinformed.
USA Today spoke with a bunch of US experts 2 day ago (Of course you never know whether they truly ARE experts but that´s part of this business):
“‘Zelenskyy is in a box’: Some experts say Ukraine won’t win the war: Updates”
John Bacon , Jorge L. Ortiz USA TODAY
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/ukraine/2023/07/27/ukraine-russia-war-live-updates/70475598007/
among several various comments by these experts who are also contradicting each other in ways (the dark truth is never spelled out in its entirety however.)
“(…)
Steven Myers, an Air Force veteran who served on the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy under two secretaries of State, told USA TODAY that one of the West’s narratives is that Putin planned to conquer Ukraine and continue west if not stopped. But Myers argues that Russia’s military tactics have been “completely inconsistent with conquest.” The agenda was, is and will always be to keep Ukraine out of NATO at all costs, he said.
(…)”
AG
thank you very much for bringing news from different sources and quoting passages! In the current situation where I cannot freely access a large number of them, this is important to me and I really appreciate your time and efforts to keep us updated.
No access sucks, if you wanna engage in discussions with Western audiences like us.
It’s like I would try to comment on Russian blogs. Wouldn´t work. Not the same info. Of course I don’t know how difficult it is to get by valuable stuff where you are.
I know what I know here thanks only to the alternative media reporters or activists who keep you updated or tip you off on something meaningful in the non-alternative sources.
But the times when you just got a couple of papers and it’s solved are long gone. TV and radio forget it. But I assume that’s true all over the planet.
Getting proper political info has become a strenuous task in the age of information.
Ha-Ha!
Well, yes, there are alternative reporters. I don’t know where else I could get any reliable info.
The big problem with the official media is that they retell foreign sources. Like today’s article “This neo-Nazism belongs to the right people: in Europe they sing odes to Bandera and Azov” refers to Le Figaro and Laure Mandeville. The article claims that the French publication no longer supports the myth that the Maidan in 2014 were unarmed students and peaceful protest. It speaks directly about armed stormtroopers, about the role of Ukrainian nationalists, about Azov and the Right Sector, and about how they prepared for war with Russia and nurtured hatred. It is also said that Le Figaro equates Nazism with nationalism and further with patriotism, blurring the difference.
I perfectly understand how one can distort any thought, so I would prefer to read the original. But unfortunately, Le Figaro is unavailable. I only see the first para and then it says ‘for subscribers only’ and I have no means to pay for foreign media, as PayPal etc are unavailable too.
You folks should know you’re now in the unique place on the Internet! Mr. Murray lets you read for free, and also comment for free, and in general, only few restrictions on commenting – you can say whatever you need to say, only don’t offend other people.
I also am very much grateful to those who can subscribe or donate to keep this website running.
only footnote:
at least the Berlin based “film museum” Arsenal, which is the country´s leading film museum, will feature a complete Tarkovski film retrospective this August.
Accompanied by some other works by Serhij Rachmanin (German spelling), Roman Balajan or Jurij Iljenko.
I had feared they had axed him too again (after 2022).
program:
https://www.arsenal-berlin.de/kalender/?tx_solr%5Bfilter%5D%5B0%5D=&tx_solr%5Bpage%5D=4
however the tone is more stately and stiff if you read the accompanying text.
Unfortunately, most artists and for that matter critics of art, know almost nothing serious about politics here.
Accompanying text would be here:
“Tarkovskij Revisited”
https://www.arsenal-berlin.de/kino/filmreihe/tarkovskij-revisited/
Since this cinema is a pet project by the government and the Tarkovski retrospective (which takes place every year) is state-funded, I assume some rules apply.
But still, the very same “intellectuals” who now are very harsh and proud of their values, would have NEVER demanded to stop a showcase of films by Classic American Hollywood directors like John Ford or Sydney Pollack 20 year ago, 10 year ago, 2 years ago.
never.
The film historian, Barbara Wurm (Austrian?) writing the text mentions several Russian elite artists and thus complains about their lack of criticism.
What I find funny, that director Andrei Konchalovsky is put into the same group as his half-brother Nikita Mikhalkov (who is mostly a persona non grata in Germany) even though they both don´t talk with each other, precisely because Konchalovsky found Mikhalkov way too nationalistic.
(Konchalovsky mostly lived in Paris anyway. Above that he is like, I dont know, 200 year old by now.)
Well now the half-brothers are members of the same sanctioned club.
Ukrainians get free tickets btw.
I never heard that regarding Iraqi refugees, or from Syria, or Colombia … whose lives here are mostly rotten in comparison (I have worked with refugees here so I know the realities)…and I will never witness that I am sure.
Special treatment solely for Russians, now and forever.
well anyway. My post was intended as a positive message since I like movies. What is probably known by now 😉
Darn.
It’s about racism, AG. People from Africa say we didn’t notice several hundred thousands massacred in Hutu vs Tutsi war. And we all are oh so much concerned when the white people suffer.
We have a summit of African countries in St. Petersburg going on right now. As an ordinary person from Russia, I had little contact with people from Africa. I communicated more with African-Americans through the Internet, and even then we only crossed paths because I’m busy in the creative field and they had an upsurge in celebrating their own cultural identity. Well, I also had a couple of encounters with the radical BLM on social media, which was also a very interesting and educational experience. It gave me a big impetus to delve into what is going on in the souls of these people.
What I want to say is that there is (finally!) a change in people’s minds on the African continent! They are increasingly eager not to fall into the “worthy person” slots accepted by the “master race”, but simply to reject this division and be valuable in their own eyes and take pride in it. For example, I dislike a black girl dressed in a European dress
https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2022/07/08/01/17/mother-7308238_1280.jpg
Because they are absolutely beautiful and unique in its own rich, colorful cultural setting. We can catch the echoes of this here: The colors of Africa fashion show
https://youtu.be/Gon-XrsFWNU
I’m f*cking proud about the fact that some black people ordered my dreadlocks jewelry! I hope with all my heart, that black people can unite into some powerful Union of States and just make white people stop looking down on them.
This special sort of racism is smelled in every exaggeratedly emotional message about Ukraine, and in every unnoticed message about the problems of people of color. I suspect this is why in Britain the Jews are preferred before the Palestinians. Racism embedded in the skin.
just quickly;
keep in mind the former colonies (thats what we are mainly talking about) lost dozens of millions in their stuggle for freedom. May be more.
So I would question the notion, that finally there is a change of mind.
This change is not necessary.
The attempts for emancipation were always there.
But they were simply killed off and were unreported here apart from a little 1960s/70s break-out phase.
Only now there is a re-discovery of the close ties between Black liberation and Socialism.
MLKs socialist views were aptly suppressed in the WASP US history.
Its now beginning to reemerge.
Same about Fred Hampton´s rainbow coalition.
African nations in the USSR is another such unknown subject.
We have had that in East Germany.
But here it so far has been treated as an anomaly.
So as the narrative goes today, Western view focuses solely on East German racism towards immigrants.
Best example is a new miniseries made by German TV for I think Disney streaming service. Based on true events.
It tells the story about an African immigrant´s son who became the first black police-officer in the East German police force shortly before the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
He later on would become an idol for the new unified progressive Germany and then turn to crime after his business went broke and end up in prison.
today he is working as writer and streetworker.
The story sure is interesting but it focuses almost completely on everybody around the hero being racist.
It’s tiring after a while since it operates with such a limited gamut of social realities.
Well anyway. Complex subject.
The core of the problem why there are no peace efforts by the west is the constant dehumanization of not (only) Russia but of Russians in every inch of society.
The other day a Russian (not even competing under the Russian flag) and a Ukrainian woman competed in fencing. The Russian woman won the game after the Ukrainian woman refused to shake hands and threw a tantrum because she became disqualified because of the breach of good sportsman conduct rules.
She later cried out that the rules must be changed. And voila! Today the organization changed the rules: now the Ukrainians do not have to touch the ethnic Russians physically….
“following discussions between FIE and the International Olympic Committee (IOC). “The traditional handshake at the end of the bout will be replaced with immediate effect by a distance greeting, which will allow Ukrainians not to approach the Russians, even if they compete as neutrals,””
https://swentr.site/russia/580504-sport-fencing-rules-handshake/
Russian sports star ‘getting death threats’ over snub from Ukrainian
https://swentr.site/russia/580425-ukraine-russia-fencing-handshake/
Could you imagine if it was Palestine or Iran vs Israel here? “Oh you do not have to shake hands with the jew after the game.”
But with russians you can say whatever you want. You could stand on any western capital square today screaming you want all Russians killed and authorities would not do anything. This is sickening racism.
I mean, how is this pathological racism accepted? Why are so few people protesting?
All this proves Putin is right, West have a grudge against not only Russia but Russians itself.
It is like West over and over again just strengthen him without realizing it!
Jack
Recall also how many US or British sports people or teams were banned or ostracised after the unprovoked invasion of Iraq — a nation lest we forget that is thousands of miles away from the borders of USA and Britain?
The rules and principles surrounding these issues are quite hard to keep up with.
Jay
Yes very weird how the west flip flopping regarding discrimination against athletes from certain… nation(s)…
IOC warns against discrimination against israeli athletes
https://www.espn.co.uk/olympics/story/_/id/8026246/ioc-says-discrimination-serious-breach
Olympics Judo-Algerian Nourine suspended, sent home for withdrawing to avoid Israeli
https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/olympics-judo-algerian-nourine-suspended-sent-home-withdrawing-avoid-israeli-2021-07-24/
IOC remind Malaysia over stance on political discrimination after country extends ban on Israeli athletes
https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1074358/ioc-remind-malaysia-over-stance-on-political-discrimination-after-country-extends-ban-on-israeli-athletes
Unsporting Behavior: A Call to End Arab Discrimination Against Israeli Athletes
https://www.thetower.org/4040-unsporting-behavior-a-call-to-end-arab-discrimination-against-israeli-athletes/
The IOC is, of course, the world’s standard-bearer for justice, freedom and fairness. /s
My understanding is that the Ukrainian won the match, the Russian approached her with an outstretched hand, which was rejected by the Ukrainian. The Russian had previously given triumphalist nationalist interviews to RT. So the officials took away the Ukrainian’s title; but to say she lost is the opposite of the truth.
FWIW, I have the same level of respect for Sett Platter and FIFA as I do for the IOC: zero. They are self-appointing, not answerable, and protected from criminal prosecution, because both organisations are “international organisations” under UN auspices. They are pigs at the trough.
Jimmeh
Of course they are, western led IOC that one day claim politics should stay out of sports and then next day forbid russians and even belarussians equal right to join the sports competition.
Why should these ethnic groups be treated what they think of political views when it has never been a principle before? Just absurd ethnic discrimation which again just bolster russian nationalism among the banned athletes.
wow. Didn´t follow that one.
Yeah, anything goes…
“That is one reason wars are so good for the wealthy who control us.”
There is another reason why wars, or high military spending, are so popular with wealthy elites:
Military spending stimulates the economy but it does not produce anything useful that would benefit ordinary people. As a consequence, there is no redistribution of wealth. This point was made very clearly by US business magazines at the time of President Truman’s war scare back in 1948.
The US aircraft industry was now too big for the post-war period. Commercial orders were insufficient to keep it going at the wartime level. And so, a war scare was deliberately launched in order to rescue the oversized aircraft industry with military orders.
Very cynical and very dangerous.
Tony. There is a redistribution of wealth but the problem is it’s upwards, to the rich, and not downwards, to the poor.
The MIC is making obscene profits at the expense of the ordinary tax payer.