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?
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It is not so simple. Concessions in Ukraine could just whet Putin’s appetite for further expansion, for example into the baltic states. Fighting in Ukraine increases the costs to Russia of bullying, threatening and attacking its neighbours.
No one wants Russia. No one. Not Ukraine. Not Bulgaria. Not Lithuania. Not Poland. Not Latvia. There is a reason they all broke away. Fears of Russian revanchism are entirely justified. For peace to be possible, there needs to be a leader in Russia who keeps his or her word. Putin is not that person.
More likely to provoke more US aggression, if the opportunity is left to them.
James Chater
That is the mistake many make, believing this has something to do with Putin personally. No Russian leader would accept the coup in Ukraine and the unfolding events, threats against ethnic Russians in Ukraine prior to the Russian invasion.
You should remember that even Navalny supported the Crimea accession.
Yes that goes for the hawkish Baltics too, there are discrimination against Russians there since the independence of these states (thus issue that came along way before Putin even got to power); besides, if they are so scared of Russia they should begin to respect the lives of ethnic Russians in their own nations. It is their choice.
Good points, Jack.
According to newspaper reports in the Observer from a few years ago, Skripal was generally supportive of Putin’s foreign policy.
That is just one reason to seriously doubt that Putin wanted to kill him
> if they are so scared of Russia they should begin to respect the lives of ethnic Russians in their own nations
Again, this confounding of Russians (Russian citizens) with “ethnic russians” (people who speak Russian, and are used by Russia as an excuse for military intervention).
Presumably some proportion of “ethnic russians” who are citizens of Baltic states are in fact allied with Russia against their home nation. It would be surprising if that were not so. And it would equally be unsurprising, under the circumstances, if Balts didn’t trust those of their countrymen who persist in speaking Russian, even as Russia is invading their neighbour.
I have read no accounts of pogroms, or even of discrimination, against “ethnic russians” who are citizens of Baltic states. If you have, perhaps you would be so good as to point me at even one such account.
Jimmeh
It is not only a question of someone speaking russian, it is being an ethnic russian that is considered an issue in the baltic states.
I have not spoken of “pogroms”, that is your strawman, I have spoken of discrimation, they, are non-citizens, are forbidden to work in the government. Their right to speak their own language is being suppressed.
So instead of being so scared of Russia, make peace and welcome the ethnic russians inside of Baltics, instead they are pushing ethnic russians to become more nationalistic by keeping them at bay. So again, it is the choice of the Baltic states themselves, treat your minority right or of course you are going to get attention by Russia..
You say it is logical to be suspicious of russians for the Baltics. Could you imagine the UK government see jews living in the UK with suspicion when Israel invade their neighbours? Curtailing jews equal rights, refusing them to speak their own language? That is what is going on for many russians in the baltics, the reason why you not see this is a problem is probably because you are racist against russians yourself.
“No one wants Russia.” Really? The most resource-rich country on the planet. Think again.
No one is going to invade Russia, whether for her resources or any other reason. The place is simply too vast, as Hitler and Napoléon learnt to their cost. Plus, there is the nuclear bomb.
No, they wouldn’t invade. Just destabilise, then aim to get their multinationals installed there during the period of chaos. They came close in the 90’s but somehow fumbled it so the oligarchs grabbed the lion’s share. Not a mistake they’d repeat. But it seems that the sanctions and the propaganda claiming vast Russian military casualties have failed to do the destabilisation trick.
James Chater :
Why would Putin want further expansion?
What is the evidence for Putin wanting further expansion?
How could he invade a nato country and have a 31 vs 1?
Putin has said the collapse of the soviet union was a major disaster. The former members who broke away, plus the former ussr sattelites, obviously think differently.
It was a disaster for the “balance of power”in the world.The exceptionalist believe the earth and it’s resources belong to them.Fact “Russia is too big and has too much resources” DJ Trump,president of the USA.Having seen what was said and is being done in and to Syria to this day,with the oil of the Syrian people,should VVP be concerned? “We are in Syria for the oil”,now who said that! Salaam
there has already been a discussion about this statementб руку here on this website. The problem is that you are quoting only a part, and the phrase has a continuation: it was the biggest disaster, because thousands and millions of citizens suddenly found themselves abroad.
So if you consider what Putin actually said, and if you take the trouble to study how extreme nationalism arose in the newly independent former republics of the USSR, and what exactly the authorities of these republics did to the Russians, then perhaps you will understand in a completely different way why these the republics are afraid of Putin’s possible “revanchism”.
> what exactly the authorities of these republics did to the Russians
What did they do, in fact? Did they really do these things to real Russians, or were they citizens of states that are not Russia?
> how extreme nationalism arose in the newly independent former republics of the USSR
Apparently you think there is no “extreme nationalism” in Russia. For the sake of clarity, is it your opinion that Estonia, for example, is proposing to invade and dismantle Russia?
To the extent there’s “extreme nationalism” in the Baltic states (and I don’t doubt there is), could it be that extreme nationalism was the common dogma in the USSR, before they ceceded? And in the Russian empire, before that?
James Chater:
In 2005 Putin said ‘it was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century’ in regards to the collapse of the Soviet Union; if you see what happened after its collapse there is evidence to support his opinion. His words don’t show evidence for current day imperialistic ambitions. There needs to be more evidence than that (if Russia recited some minor/misquote as evidence of US imperialism or imperialist ambition, it would be ridiculed). Putin has also said ‘Who doesn’t miss the Soviet Union is heartless; who ever wants it reformed is brainless’.
before this war, back in 2021 Putin wrote on Ukraine-Russia relations:
“Of course, inside the USSR, borders between republics were never seen as state borders; they were nominal within a single country… But in 1991, all those territories, and, which is more important, people, found themselves abroad overnight, taken away, this time indeed, from their historical motherland.
What can be said to this? Things change: countries and communities are no exception. Of course, some part of a people in the process of its development, influenced by a number of reasons and historical circumstances, can become aware of itself as a separate nation at a certain moment. How should we treat that? There is only one answer: with respect!”
People like James Chater don’t like quotes like this one above. Because there’s continuation:
“You want to establish a state of your own: you are welcome! But what are the terms?
…
the situation in Ukraine today is completely different because it involves a forced change of identity. And the most despicable thing is that the Russians in Ukraine are being forced not only to deny their roots, generations of their ancestors but also to believe that Russia is their enemy. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the path of forced assimilation, the formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia, is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us.
…
the representatives of Ukraine over and over again vote against the UN General Assembly resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism. Marches and torchlit processions in honor of remaining war criminals from the SS units take place under the protection of the official authorities. Mazepa, who betrayed everyone, Petliura, who paid for Polish patronage with Ukrainian lands, and Bandera, who collaborated with the Nazis, are ranked as national heroes.
…
The anti-Russia project has been rejected by millions of Ukrainians. The people of Crimea and residents of Sevastopol made their historic choice. And people in the southeast peacefully tried to defend their stance. Yet, all of them, including children, were labeled as separatists and terrorists. They were threatened with ethnic cleansing and the use of military force. And the residents of Donetsk and Lugansk took up arms to defend their home, their language and their lives. Were they left any other choice after the riots that swept through the cities of Ukraine, after the horror and tragedy of 2 May 2014 in Odessa where Ukrainian neo-Nazis burned people alive making a new Khatyn out of it?”
And these are facts, and you can find SS veterans marches in Lithuania, and Estonia, and Latvia, and opression of Russian-speakers, and Poland being ethnically clean denying the Jews their right to return pre-war property, and many other things that are banned from public space.
So, I absolutely understand fears of those states. They have long had the opportunity to cultivate a rather toxic kind of nationalism, now perhaps they are afraid of retribution. They know what their fault is.
And the West also knows about it.
Hence the complete ban on any Russian media, the complete expulsion of any public Russian persons, and the suppression of Russian accounts on social networks. This has nothing to do with fighting propaganda or defending freedom of speech. This is direct suppression, because the facts are absolutely obvious and indisputable, so they are simply removed from view.
For those who’d like to read Putin’s article in whole
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
a lot of historical information about the region, relationships, migrations of peoples, borders, moods and political ideas – you can get a good idea of the background of current events.
Beware, official Kremlin website, your state may punish you for reading 🙂
James Chater
People ignorant of Russia/Putin always bring up this quote by Putin without realizing the context:
Yes it was a major disaster and it was proven 100% in Ukraine and to lesser extent for the ethnic russians in the baltics.
Putin also said this:
“Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.”
Thanks, Jack. I wanted to quote that but couldn’t remember it well enough. It needed to be said.
The whole world needs Russia. Africa needs Russia for grain, fertilizer, technical development and political support for further decolonization. Europe needs Russia for supply of energy, raw materials, technical cooperation and trade. The US and Asia need Russia to stabilize security in the Middle East and Asia. And you cannot fight climate change without the cooperation of the biggest country on earth, bordering the arctic, and reaching from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean. These are just examples. You just cannot wipe the biggest country on earth with 140 million intelligent people off the map. And, honestly, I do not want to.
Nor do I. But the Russian state is captive to a number of outdated concepts which make it very difficult for other countries in the region and beyond to have peaceful relations with it. The chief of these is realpolitik, the idea that might is right and that the larger countries have the right to lord it over the smaller ones. Russia’s attitude has not changed since Hitler and Stalin colluded to carve up Poland, or since in the 19th century Poland was partitioned between Russia and Prussia. The greater the degree of democracy in a country, the likelier they are to play nice. Until Russia become more democratic it is unlikely its relationship with the rest of the world will improve. The west is going to have to wait it out.
James Chater :
Please name a Russian outdated concept as an example please
James Chater :
And please example a promise Putin has broken
🙂 if I’m allowed to offer my opinion.
‘Nazis are bad guys’ is an outdated concept.
I’ve seen recently Laima Vaikule, she is a singer, native of some of the Baltic states, Latvia I guess, was rather popular here in Russia. She said it clearly – “why are you so obsessed with the Victory (over nazis)? My relative was an SS soldier, so what, why cannot you respect his choice?’
” please example a promise Putin has broken ”
To respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and not to invade?
Comes to mind:
But they asked — and rightly so — what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Beyond Vietnam April 4, 1967
I did name an example, namely the might is right mentality as opposed to respect for the rule of law. Ukraine gave up the nuclear weapons on its territory in exchange for territorial guarantees that Russia violated. However aggrieved Russia feels against Ukraine, this does not justify invasion let alone targeting of non-combatants, rape, kidnapping, destruction of church and government buildings etc. etc. Russia is behaving like someone who has been rejected by a woman so he decides to rape her. I would have more sympathy with Russia if some sort of moral code had been followed. 2 wrongs don’t make a right.
James Chater
You have west and Ukraine admitting that they were never to follow the Minsk 1 and 2 agreements, you have west refusing to respect its pledge not to move one inch closer to Russia with Nato.
Besides read the fine print of the Budapest memorandum:
“except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”
=if russians are threatened in Ukraine = Russia is going to aid and protect this group.
James Chater. Three of the greatest proponents of realpolitik are USA, U.K. and France. US management of the UN in rubber stamping its wars and those of its proxies against Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Iran and Palestine is evidence of that. There is no democratic example of a security arrangement for the Russian civilisation to aspire to. They tried that by seeking to join NATO and were spurned. The idea that Russia is not able to form relationships with other countries round the world is both myopic and partisan. Have you not heard of CIS, SCO, BRICS, the current partnerships developing with the majority of African countries?
The world is heading for multi polarity whether the West and its partners like it or not. Russia and China will be two important additional poles, Africa too probably. All based on fairer trading terms than the colonial basis the West has enjoyed up until now. Open your eyes to reality!
“The chief of these is realpolitik, the idea that might is right and that the larger countries have the right to lord it over the smaller ones”.
I could almost persuade myself that you said that as a joke.
Ever since 1945 the USA has considered itself the world’s most important country (exceptional? indispensable?) and has given itself the right to lord it over everyone. Including much more populous nations such as China and India.
And if one government has indulged in realpolitik, almost ever since its inception, it’s that of the USA.
Whether Russia needs to become more democratic, more “democratic”, or indeed less “democratic” is hard to say. The nations whose governments most congratulate themselves on being “democratic” – the USA, UK, the EU countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand – are all flagrant plutocracies, run by the flunkeys of the rich for the rich.
China and Russia are distinctly more democratic than any NATO nation, from the point of view of the ordinary people.
> The west is going to have to wait it out.
And it’s going to be a long wait. I believe the Levada polls that show widespread support in Russia for Putin’s foreign and domestic policy.
As far as I can see, most Russians don’t yearn for democracy (whatever that is). Older Russians apparently yearn for their pension cheques. I don’t know what younger Russians yearn for (I mean, the ones that haven’t already emigrated); I assume they yearn for glory on the frontline.
This isn’t going to change quickly; it’ll take a generation or two, if it starts now (and I don’t see signs of it starting). Russian dreams of empire have been a thing for half a millennium.
Salaam James,are you for real? You are not being honest, Putin not keeping his word,oh yeah! Give two objective examples when the collective west kept the word! Not Minsk or the JCPOA. “Not one inch to the east”, please with empirical evidence when did Russia show any aggression toward another state?
Oh, come on. You don’t need me to tell you; but since you ask, here’s a few: invasion of Georgia, invasion of Afghanistan, invasion of Syria, and that’s just the last 20 years.
That’s total rubbish. Invented and fed by the empire to prevent any solution and peace and to keep the money flowing to the MIC instead. Everyone knows how difficult if not impossible it is to occupy a hostile country and population. For sure Putin does. There is also no resource gain, nor a security gain for Russia if they went there, to the contrary. Russia was, is and will always be driven here by it seeing itself as a protector of the large Russian minorities in these countries. If these countries want to live in eternal peace with Russia, all they have to do is refrain from discriminating against them and keep the traffic between Kaliningrad and Russia flowing. But apparently, they are either incapable of understanding that basic truth or trying to deliberately bring about a conflict, possibly egged on by their master.
> Everyone knows how difficult if not impossible it is to occupy a hostile country and population.
But apparently not Russia, who tried to occupy and subdue Afghanistan for over a decade, and then failed.
Whatever concessions the Russians will have, they will have cost plenty. It isn’t obvious it will repeat the dirty deal.
There is a reasonable guide to how one deals with issues like that: Robert Axelrod’s computer tournament in the 70s about the best strategy, i.e. most profitable strategy, in case the parties meet again.
And that is 1. Treat the other party as he treats you. If he gets along, don’t cheat. If he cheats, break the interaction. And 2. If the other party proposes to go along anew, accept. There is always the chance he has learnt something from the disasters following from cheating. And if not, there is always another round.
Robert Axelrod: The evolution of cooperation, Basic Books 1984
The Russian special military operation is defensive (obviously).
“For peace to be possible, there needs to be a leader in Russia who keeps his or her word. Putin is not that person”.
Please name one promise that Mr Putin has broken.
> Please name one promise that Mr Putin has broken.
He signed a treaty, pledging to respect Ukraine’s borders, in exchange (roughly) for Ukraine surrendering their nuclear weapons. Will that do?
Putin was not the signatory of a memorandum signed in 94, besides read the fine print:
“except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”
After the anti-russian Maidan-coup hostility grew against russians that were attacked both on the streets but also by military means in Donbas, so Russia moved in.
Again, what promise have Putin broken? Ukraine itself along with west broke the Minsk agreements and regarding Nato enlargement promise.
Funnily enough when all those states/Soviet republics were part of the WTO/U.S.S.R. They parroted Moscow’s line with unerring consistency most of the time too.
They’ve done much the same thing for 30 years vis-a-vis Washington DC/NATO. Whilst spewing endless vitriol at Russia and treating it as a revanchest enemy at times when it *clearly* wasn’t and wanted peaceful relations.
Well that message got through, and we see the bloody results…
The Guardian and the rest of the righteous will abandon Ukraine the instant Washington signals it’s time to move on to Taiwan. We’ve seen it repeated over and over: incessant bleating and pearl clutching about DC’s designated victim group of the day, be it “Afghan Women”, “the Iraqi People”, “the Libyan People”, “the Syrian People”…. All forgotten forever as soon as the neocons give the nod. It will be sooner than we think I suspect with the Ukrainians as BBC and Guardian consumers obediently transfer their compassion to Chinese Muslims, Taiwanese and select victims of “Chinese Imperialism” in the “Indo-Pacific”. Xi – the latest Hitler who must be stopped at all costs. Britain of all countries at the very forefront with the most ostentatious yapping and posturing of all.
There is not the slightest sign that the Chinese will start a row over Taiwan. Why should they risk everything over Taiwan when the whole Central Asia and Africa invite them to do business?
The strongest asset the Chinese have is the economy, the productive machinery. Not war. Why should they use violence when they can have everything they want and pay for it?
Be calm, Frankywiggles! War hysteria will get you nowhere – except perhaps to a war cemetery if enough people listen to you!
You’re responding to a comment that exists only in your imagination.
Thanks Mr. Murray. My opinion about war, having watched it come and go throughout my 60+ years, is very simply that it sucks, and nobody ever wins, not even the supposed winners. If wars were truly won, we wouldn’t constantly be re-fighting them for similar reasons (WW1 leading to WW2 leading to the Cold War, etc.). Nobody will win this one either. Not even weapons manufacturers and their CEOs, who of course still have to live in the world they crapified with the rest of us.
War is the worst, nastiest, most destructive, most evil thing the human animal gets up to.
A quibble, where I disagree slightly on the mechanics of this war; that is, without NATO support, Ukraine would have already lost. Twice. And I don’t think that Russia is moving slowly because they can’t move faster. I just don’t think they are the “shock and awe” subscribers that the west has been in the past. But I don’t really know for sure.
“I just don’t think they are the “shock and awe” subscribers that the west has been in the past”
aye, I needed dozen of phrases to say the same thing.
thx 😉
Yes, America has never understood that “Shock and Awe” may win the battle but it won’t win the war.
well, one have to be completely dumb to think that shock or awe may convince someone of anything other than that this particular power is “shocking and aweing”
In any case, “shock and awe” is just American marketing-speak for “Blitzkrieg”. I can’t imagine why they didn’t use the proper word that already existed.
“Shock and awe” was the USA’s name for the bombardment of Baghdad. “Blitzkrieg” refers to a very rapid ground assault, supported by air, avoiding strong points, and aiming for the rapid control of territory.
As Orwell suggested in 1984: the point of a war is not to win it, but to be in a better position to fight the next one.
Had NATO succeeded in bleeding Russia’s military and financial capability then the next war- already unofficially declared against China- would have been made easier. Now, according to the Daily Express today, the war with China has been put back two years.
since you mention China:
Branko Marcetic on JACOBIN MAG about NATO´s future in Asia:
“NATO’s Expansion Into Asia Is the Mother of Bad Ideas
By Branko Marcetic
29/7/23
US lawmakers say the alliance’s movement into Asia is “inevitable.” It’s actually a completely avoidable, completely bad idea.”
https://jacobin.com/2023/07/nato-asia-expansion-us-military-china-conflict
But there is a fun fact to this, one senator who supports the idea is:
Senator Duckworth
There you have a telling name.
Does Senator Duckworth have a bunker in her backyard, I wonder.
One, never march on Moscow;
Two, never get in a land war in Asia;
Three, never march on Moscow.
– Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery’s Three Laws of War
Patton hated Monty but both had their way with words.
A couple of thoughts from North America:
1. IDK about the UK, but here in the USA, there is absolutely nothing “righteous” about support for the Ukraine. The rabid Russia-hating Mittle European diaspora is in full cry on the “Russia bad!” theme, spearheaded by neo-con fanatics, who maneuvered themselves, yet again!, into decision-making posts, probably taking advantage of a weak president and VP, as well as knowing details of Biden’s past and his family’s corruption — the pitiful junkie, Hunter, would have been offered important-seeming posts for the purpose of obtaining blackmail material.
2. The president is frail and fading fast, I doubt he will live to see another term. Three of the four men most likely to replace him, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Trump and Mr. Christie are likely to seek a negotiated settlement the month after one of them takes the oath. Mr. DeSantis has not so far appealed to voters.
3. The Ukrainian so-called refugees who have reached us have not endeared themselves. Well supported, nice cars, clothing and housing provided by who-knows-what organizations, low level PMC jobs arranged for them, no sweeping floors for these folks. All this while one can hardly leave one’s home without encountering at least one person in distress. Even Republican office holders and candidates are beginning to make the connection between money sent to Ukraine and the far lower figure that would be needed to house our own homeless population.
“Democracies” know that you need a visible population in great distress to ensure the majority keep their heads down and toe the line. All deliberate: a political decision to foster and even justify (they are spongers and slackers!) poverty. Though, given human nature and its addiction to power, wealth and the acquisition of status symbols (yes the NHS supplies functional spectacles, but nobody wants to wear them because that means they are advertising the fact that they are poor), I don’t think democracy is attainable.
I take your point, but North America is not Europe nor is it Asia. Myself, I don’t think monarchy can flourish here. Even with the faults you detailed, and many more, I think some form of representative republic is what we will retain.
> The rabid Russia-hating Mittle European diaspora is in full cry on the “Russia bad!” theme
I wonder who the “Mittle” (I think you mean Mittel) European diaspora is? If they are a diaspora, then they presumably are dispersed, and not located in Mittel Europa. But I don’t think you mean “diaspora” at all; you mean people from Europe.
Well, it’s all very well for the USA to say they need their money to look after their own homeless; that’s a reasonable position, especially since the USA is not threatened by Russian territorial expansionism (although I have heard recently that some Russian commentators are advocating the invasion of Alaska). As the USA has been saying for decades, Europe needs to pony-up for its own defense, and stop relying on the USA.
It would be cool, of course, if the USA gave a flying f*** about its homeless people. But that’s none of my business; I’ve completely given up on the USA. Half the country seems to want another civil war.
When I read Craig’s great post I remember two books everyone should pick up:
“Why Are We The Good Guys?: Reclaiming Your Mind From The Delusions Of Propaganda”
“One of the unspoken assumptions of the Western world is that we are great defenders of human rights,
a free press and the benefits of market economics. Mistakes might be made along the way, perhaps even
tragic errors of judgement such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But the prevailing view is that the West is
essentially a force for good in the wider world. Why Are We The Good Guys? “
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Are-Good-Guys-Reclaiming/dp/178099365X
And also this book below, dealing with the times on the eve of WW1, same idiocy today:
“To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918”
World War I was supposed to be the “war to end all wars.” Over four long years, nations around the globe were sucked into the tempest, and millions of men died on the battlefields. To this day, the war stands as one of history’s most senseless spasms of carnage, defying rational explanation.
To End All Wars focuses on the long-ignored moral drama of the war’s critics, alongside its generals and heroes. Many of these dissenters were thrown in jail for their opposition to the war, from a future Nobel Prize winner to an editor behind bars who distributed a clandestine newspaper on toilet paper
https://www.amazon.com/End-All-Wars-Rebellion-1914-1918/dp/0547750315
““One of the unspoken assumptions of the Western world is that we are great defenders of human rights,
a free press and the benefits of market economics. ”
These are the assumptions of Western government propaganda. Western governments are the enemy of those things because those things stand in the way of profit, that includes market economics since there is more profit in getting the state to help you towards a monopoly. Human rights, a free press and the benefits of market economics were the product of the age of revolutions which supported the rights of the poor against interests of the rich and which ended in a draw. So western governments continue to support the interests of the rich over the rights of the poor but they have to lie about it.
“One of the unspoken assumptions of the Western world is that we are great defenders of human rights, a free press and the benefits of market economics.”
there is a joke that goes well with it 🙂
An elderly man at the doctor’s office says:
– Doctor, there’s a problem. My neighbor is 75 years old and often boasts that he has sex three times a week. I’m still only 70 years old, but hardly once a month. What are your recommendations?
The doctor replies:
– Please allow me to examine you. Please open your mouth. Fine. Now show me your tongue. Great. Please say “Aaah”. Amazing.
Well, I don’t see any reason preventing you from saying the same.
Superb!
Thank you for you balanced view of the Ukraine war. The almost completely slanted story in the media makes me concerned what else they are hiding.
“The almost completely slanted story in the media makes me concerned what else they are hiding”.
Well, everything that matters. Why are you still exposing yourself to the legacy media? I’d as soon eat plutonium dust.
Re: the claim that Russia was bent on conquering Kiev/Ukraine.
Was it not rather the goal to coerce the ukrainians to come to the peace table? Because Russia quickly moved out of Kiev after signals that talks between and Russia and Ukraine would begin.
And here is Mearsheimer’s take on it:
When I meet Mearsheimer, I am keen to focus on what we have learned since the February invasion began. I want to know how can he still maintain that there is “no evidence” that Russia had ambitions to conquer Ukraine?
Mearsheimer: “The Russians invaded Ukraine with 190,000 troops at the very most,” he replies. “They made no effort to conquer all of Ukraine. They didn’t even come close. There is no way they could have conquered Ukraine with 190,000 troops. And they didn’t have the troops in reserve to do that. When the Germans invaded Poland, in 1939, they invaded with 1.5 million troops. That’s the size army you need to conquer a country like Ukraine, occupy it and then incorporate it into a greater Russia. You need a massive army. This was a limited aim strategy.”
https://unherd.com/2022/11/john-mearsheimer-were-playing-russian-roulette/
Sometime in the early 1990ies, just as the Warshaw Pact, the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia all crumbled, a late friend voiced his opinion that lasting peace in Europe will not be achieved until the remaining two multiethnic empires, created by conquest, i.e. Russian Federation and Serbia, finally wither away.
Since then Serbia had to shed Montenegro and Kosovo and is now probably neutralised (despite hanging on to some Bulgarian, Romanian, Hungarian, Albanian and Croatian enclaves).
There remains just the Russian Federation. I am no student of Russian affairs, but I know there are umpteen nationalities uneasily stuck there, e.g. Chechens, Tatars, Chuwashs, Finns and dozens of others. Time will tell how this works out.
Will you liberate the Cherokees and give Georgia etc back to them?
oooooh, embarrassing.
Although you can’t deny that the “indigenous people problem” is much easier to handle when you’ve left so few of them alive.
The Arapaho are on the phone too, they want Colorado back; no Tasmanians though, there aren’t any.
(a) Two wrongs do not make a right.
(b) My comment was more in the nature of a forecast about the outlook for peace in Europe.
Defending the Ukrainian loyalists isn’t a wrong.
I belive Europe is more than just those who reside in the east, time to break out the atlas ?
I have no interest in military operations but I can’t avoid thinking that the conduct of this war by Ukraine and its collective west sponsors is totally bizarre. From the time that it didn’t seem to be going well, the strategy seems to have consisted of Zelenski with his begging bowl conning successive rounds of weaponry much of which Russia duly disposes either pre-emptively with its missile strikes or operationally on the battlefield. Zelenski asks for more to remedy the deficiencies, his sponsors duly obliges without demur and so it goes on.
To disguise its obvious losses and to boost its fading morale Ukraine announces a counter offensive to take place some time in the future giving Russia more than enough time to prepare impenetrable defences. The counter offensive fails and Ukraine denies that it has really begun, asks for more weapons and the tragic farce goes on without reference to the human cost.
Leadership is also totally bizarre. One of the most sickening photos I have seen was of arch con artist Zelenski at the recent G7 summit appearing totally unconcerned at what seemed like a vicar’s tea party with other “world leaders” at exactly the same time that Bakhmut, which was supposed to be defended at all costs, was falling into Russian hands. Then there has been the bizarre disappearance and reappearance of the bloke who is supposed to be in charge of the whole Ukraine military operation, who put a stamp on his leadership by waving his hands from what seemed a sort of box room.
They get away with their madness in large part because the media of the collective west colludes and reinforces it and these inept political leaders are confident that the atrocities that they are actually perpetrating will never be reported as such.
> I have no interest in military operations but
> much of which Russia duly disposes either pre-emptively with its missile strikes or operationally on the battlefield.
Evidently you have opinions about military operations; you seem to know what’s happening on the ground, even though hardly anyone else does.
I have been pondering this idea that “the Second World War was as close to a justified war as can ever be found. Fascism and Nazism were truly evil.” I believe that the great majority of the actual fighting – and certainly the dying – was between the Germans &c and the Soviets and between the Japanese and the Chinese. I’m not sure that the contrast between good and evil was so obvious on those fronts. And 10 years after the firebombing of Tokyo &c and the atom-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US airforce general responsible was boasting that in the Korean War the USAF had killed 20 per cent of the population of northern Korea. I think we in the West give ourselves much too much credit for being “good guys”.
Damn straight.
thank you! and the undending wars and regime changes carried by the US in particular since then reinforces your point.
Spot on Huw.
What’s interesting, to me, is that Germany’s industrial and military build up after WW1 was aided and supported by the West: the industrial USA in particular. It seems obvious, with hindsight, that diplomacy could have prevented war but profit, as usual, was king.
I’m not sure that the contrast between good and evil was so obvious on those fronts.
Murray’s statement is entirely correct and justified. I suggest reading histories carefully. You would then be sure that the contrast between good and evil was very obvious – If anything it was more obvious on those fronts than anywhere else.
RF can throw more manpower at this and, ultimately ‘win’. But Ukraine’s young male population will be decimated. Even if Ukraine were to ‘win’ they still lose. If I recall correctly, they were told prior to the invasion they could not join EU unless they defended their borders. Thus what had been a deal in the making was reneged on. They are putting all their stock in future membership of EU and NATO which certainly won’t happen whilst war is ongoing and will be doubtful afterwards..
Ukraine’s young male population has already been more than decimated, why do you think they are snatching old guys off the streets to press gang into the army? Someone thinks it’s a good idea to use east European men as cannon fodder to goad the Russians. I’m with Craig there ought to be a negotiated peace settlement to stop the killing but there won’t be as it doesn’t suit any of the agendas of the participants as yet. It will only end when the Russians achieve their goals, the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine and the removal of offensive US missile bases in Poland and Romania. It seems to be beyond the wit of NATO to negotiate something on these lines. I suspect after Minsk 1 and 2 the Russians would not believe anything NATO says anyway.
” I’m with Craig there ought to be a negotiated peace settlement to stop the killing…”
How can there be a negotiated peace settlement when the West lies every time it speaks? The Russians have been there and done that, eaten the snack and got the t shirt.
They have now got the message that it’s futile and self-defeating to negotiate with people who never keep their word.
> But Ukraine’s young male population will be decimated.
It has been claimed that Russia has illegally deported as many as 400,000 Ukrainians to Russia, including some 40,000 children. I gsather that Russia has a demographic crisis. Coincidence?
But is there any proof they didn’t go voluntarily or, on the other hand, were in fact Ukrainian fatalities in the conflict, which are being covered up? I wouldn’t trust our media in giving the true picture, whatever it is.
Salaam Craig,and all the others at this site.Great work.Sir, Ukraine was defeat as a military force by mid April ‘2022. Since then Russia has been in a hybrid witl “All” of the west illegal sanctions and all. Diplomacy is needed but who does VVP talk too? Who will guarantee the final out come of those talks- taking into consideration the outcomes of JCPOA and “Open Skies or NPT. Would the western countries be sincere this time- honour the final document? Look at Minsk 1&2 recent history says no! History repeats itself first as tragedy,secondly as farce,you Craig being a historian,, ,,!. Not lecturing you eh,just saying! Yes the war mongers need war,it’s good for business,coffins and crematoria and all.That being so Russia will secure her security,she lost over eighteen million civilian souls, in the great patriotic war, this SMO ,is for her very existence.The west being non agreement capable.They west won’t eat humble pie,it is up to their honest citizens,truth seekers like yourself to see to it that we don’t all collectively go out with a big bang or whimper.Where are the John Lennon types- to give peace a chance.Sir, “only in an environment of truth and transparency, can a sincere and sustainable universal peace exist.Salaam
There was no need for inverted commas around liberals. That is precisely who most of those people are. Regime change in Moscow has been a pillar of their faith (liberal fundamentalism) for decades now, long before most of them ever heard the word Ukraine. They will not relent until they get an Olaf Scholz-type figure in the Kremlin – a latter day Yeltsin – who will put US corporate profit and hegemony above the living standards of the Russian population.
King´s College researcher Anna Matveeva for Russia Studies with a text about the Russian mothers supporting RU soldiers at the front.
Since these things are hardly being reported in Europe:
” Ukraine war: how Russians are rallying on the home front to support ‘their boys’
Published: July 25, 2023 ”
https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-how-russians-are-rallying-on-the-home-front-to-support-their-boys-207696
Horne, John N.; Kramer, Alan (2001). German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial. Newhaven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-08975-2. Has 6,000 civilians killed by the Germans.
“The Second World War, however, was as close to a justified war as can ever be found.”
Three European slave empires and one extra-European slave empire fought a new slave empire, to stop it from consolidating power in central and eastern Europe. The nazis gave the war against the central European Grossraum a veneer of morality, because they committed their atrocities against fellow-Europeans instead of non-European Aboriginals. Note that the definition of European was/is a moveable feast depending on the expediency of killing Irish people and dropping bombs.
95% from me, Squeeth. Excellent work!
The Kaiser got heavily criticised for invading “poor little Belgium”. In the past 20 years the Belgians had murdered several million Africans, but nobody cared because Africans just weren’t people. (Arguably Patrice Lumumba wasn’t considered “people”. One good reason why Africans tend to see Russia’s side of the current fracas).
Eythenkew!
“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.”
WW2 was never a war against Fascism or Nazism. It began as a war to revoke Versailles and then dragged in more and more countries by chain reaction. This was a war for domination in Europe and the whole world, just like WW1, and only after the war the legend of Good vs Evil was created.
“I still think it was unwise of Putin to start this war, as well as illegal.”
Agree on the 1st half, but what does “legality” really mean in a unipolar world? Bush-43 legalized preventive wars, so it looks like Putin’s sin was to break the US monopoly of violence. Note, that contemporary Western rhetoric mentions “rules”, not “laws” in international relations. They never explain where these rules are written and who makes these rules. So apparently Putin broke the “rules”.
“The idea of either side fighting through to total victory is, quite simply, madness.”
Agree on this one.
“While a much smaller group, the pro-Russian extremists can be every bit as bloodthirsty as the NATO hawks.”
I am not sure who do you mean by “pro-Russian extremists”. I know the Ukrainian and pro-Ukrainian extremists but not a single pro-Russian one.
“I am not sure who do you mean by “pro-Russian extremists”. I know the Ukrainian and pro-Ukrainian extremists but not a single pro-Russian one.”
If people talk about a pro-Russian extremist but you can’t see one, they’re referring to you. A Putin apologist and Holodomor denier. Your political centre is already at the extreme.
What you actually mean is that you don’t know any pro-Russian who takes a more extreme position than you. Which is hardly surprising.
I have no doubt that you signed me up as a Russian extremist, as well (probaly with a side note on nicier tits, than Patrick Lancaster’s 🙂
I want to step in in defence of Yuri on your accusation.
The evacuation of children, especially orphans under the care of the state, from the war zone is the reason why Putin was declared a criminal by the ICC. I do not doubt for a minute that these children placed in a boarding school suddenly were claimed by their legitimate parents. It’s a common practice here in Russia that alcoholic, drug addicted, unemployed and disabled parents place their children in boarding schools under the care of the state. That the evacuation of children from the war zone was later presented as kidnapping/deportation, I see more than one reason for this.
You, using this, accuse Yuri of being justifying Putin. This is unfair and downright stupid.
And along comes another apologist offering another justification for Putin’s (internationally condemned) abduction of children, after also speaking up for Russia’s illegal downing of the US drone. Who also circulated a video falsely claimed to be of Ukrainians kneeling at Taras Bobanich’s funeral, and falsely claimed that Zalusky had been photographed wearing a bracelet with a swastika. Who also, iirc, claimed that the atrocities by Russian forces in the early days of the war were staged false flags, and joined Yuri K in denying the genocidal Holodomor.
Just so we know what kind of extremists we’re dealing with. (Extremely biased or extremely delusional, it amounts to much the same.)
Oh, I’ve been here since about the time of the Skripal poisoning, which is roughly 7 years, which is roughly 2550 days, and this is my favorite place to get DAILY political news, and I speak out very often, sometimes 20 or 30 comments on a page. And you managed to mark only three? So why are you unhappy?
here, a meme from the Ru-net would do well, that one describing a fantastic story about the Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible getting by chance into modern times and responding to a coquette’s complaint about the playboy’s reluctance to marry her – ‘The young lady is beautiful and you like her, so why are you unhappy, dog?’
Rejoice, you have a natural Russian person in front of you and you can ask me absolutely any question and count on a crystal-clear honest answer. I even leave a link under my nickname so that anyone can contact me via e-mail or phone if they wish to make clarifications. And you sit here making bookmarks and sorting commentors into ‘good’ or ‘bad’ lists? Well, good luck, hope you get what you want from your activity.
Thank you for such a kind-hearted and positive message, Tatyana. It does precisely nothing to counter the examples of you being caught pumping preposterous pro-Putin propaganda onto Mr Murray’s blog. I’m sure there are many more, but it takes a lot of time to search for them. People are welcome to use a search engine to locate more examples. Or they could just accept that your comments are biased and unreliable.
I don’t doubt your sincerity in what you say but it’s still radically biased in favour of Putin’s position, and demonstrably false in many cases.
dawg speaks with forked tongue. As Murray notes, the propaganda lies about Germans bayonetting babies in Belgium persist, with slight updates to fit.
So you’re accusing me of speaking with a forked tongue because I didn’t mention bayonetting Belgian babies in a discussion of Russian propaganda about Ukraine?
It seems your brain is totally forked.
no, Dawg, no matter how you personally interpret my motives, but you are wrong in essence.
You claim in the comments below that you are one of the witnesses. And I have to either trust you on your word, or the testimony of my own grandparents.
And if the choice is between people whom I knew personally and who had no reason to lie to me, and between you, unknown person typing something for unknown reasons, then I will probably attach myself to my relatives.
bad dawg. no. for repeating the updated lie about Germans bayoneting babies and applying it to Russians, who you claim abducted children. they didn’t. just another lie dawgy.
I’m not taking issue with your personal motives, Tatyana, nor your background – which I imagine is fairly typical for Russians in your area. Anyway I pointed out in that earlier thread that we know how Stalin erased the story from history books and the collective consciousness; nonetheless, the damning evidence was locked away in his official archives, which only became public decades after his death. So it’s of little consequence to me what bedtime stories your grandparents told you.
I bolstered my argument by citing official resources in books, videos, websites, academic articles, and statements by the UN and other international organisations. The fact that they agree on Stalin’s demographical selection policy of deliberate starvation is quite powerful. To explain it away as anything other than the truth, you’d have to invent a huge globe-spanning multi-agency conspiracy. On the word of your grandparents. Fine.
I know whom I’d believe.
Thanks for poking your nose in, Pretzelattack. You seem to be implying that I’m circulating some kind of baseless rumour. I don’t have to bear the burden of justification: that falls on the UN. See their summary news article about the international arrest warrant for V.V. Putin: https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/03/1134732
“The crimes were allegedly committed in Ukrainian occupied territory at least from 24 February 2022,” the ICC detailed. “There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Putin and Ms. Lvova-Belova bear individual criminal responsibility.”
— Russia: International Criminal Court issues arrest warrant for Putin
You did take issue with my personal motives, Dawg, by calling me a Putin’s apologist and a famine denier. Please do not step back of your own words.
I’m not a famine denier and please stop calling it a word that hints to Holocaust.
it’s not the same and it’s not similar, and it was not about Jews and please do kindly let Jewish people honor their history with no spicy additions of yours. I interpret this behaviour as appropriating the great work that Jews have done on recognising their tragedy. Do not hesitate to bring here the links on my comments on Israel, Jews, Holocaust etc. There’s nothing that I could feel shame about.
yeah dawg it’s not just a baseless rumor, it’s a designed lie like the lies about german soldiers bayonetting kids in Belgium, it didn’t happen. and here’s you pretending the UN hasn’t lied regularly, for example about the alleged gas attack by Syrian forces that turned out to be a propaganda op by the western backed White Helmets. you’ll probably like about that long refuted bit of theater, too.
I didn’t suggest you were a famine denier, Tatyana. Nobody, afaik, says there was no famine in Ukraine in 1932-33. The point is that Ukrainian farmers were disproportionately targeted by a deliberate Soviet policy, as their own official records show.
I was talking about a historical event internationally known as the Holodomor, which was orchestrated by the USSR, not about the subsequent genocidal policies by the Nazis in Germany which sparked WWII. They are different atrocities, very different in motive, action and consequence. I didn’t spice it up, nor did I bring religion into it. Your whataboutery deflections are looking increasingly desperate.
There you go again, pretzelattack: what about bayonetting babies in Belgium?? What about the White Helmets in Syria?? You’re like a bluebottle buzzing up against the window.
Arguing that a source must be lying if they’ve been known to distort the truth in some other cases, is a dangerous line to take for anyone who is trying to defend a counternarrative asserted only by Russia. Don’t you think that Russia has also been known to lie? They’re the world leaders in controlling historical narratives.
“Soviet and Russian history
See also: Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet war crimes, and Holodomor denial
During the existence of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1917–1991) and the Soviet Union (1922–1991), the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) attempted to ideologically and politically control the writing of both academic and popular history. These attempts were most successful in the 1934–1952 period. According to Klaus Mehnert, writing in 1952, the Soviet government attempted to control academic historiography (the writing of history by academic historians) to promote ideological and ethno-racial imperialism by Russians. During the 1928–1956 period, modern and contemporary history was generally composed according to the wishes of the CPSU, not the requirements of accepted historiographic method.”
— ‘Historical negationism‘ (Wikipedia)
oh, really? you commented on other person that they are Putin apologist and famine denier, and on me you commented as ‘along comes another apologist offering another justification’
Dawg, I am not a native English speaker, still I learned linguistics and can see clearly what the context is. So please state clearly and firmly you don’t see me as a Putin apologist or famine denier, or, please state clearly I am a Putin apologist and famine denier, or any combination af that above, or nothing of that above. Just rid me of you ‘I didn’t mean exactly this’
Dawg : Check out zelensky meeting the pope around may this year , he’s wearing a black jumper with a Ukrainian sign on it , there are 2 types of Ukraine signs that are similar , the one he displays is the oun ( it has like a dagger in the center ) msm display the meeting , zoom in
still speaking with that forked toungue, doggy, repeating lies. liars are annoyed when their lies are exposed. the Russians didn’t abduct children, the germans didn’t bayonet Belgian babies. keep pretending you don’t understand.
bad dawgy. im saying you’re lying about the abduction of children because it didn’t happen. i bring up the history of lies and you argue, yeah but but they could be telling the truth this time, provide some evdence from objective sources, not more propaganda, please.
> It’s a common practice here in Russia that alcoholic, drug addicted, unemployed and disabled parents place their children in boarding schools under the care of the state.
That’s sort of fine; like, if it’s Russian law that the state takes over the care of the children of criminals and degenerates, that’s none of my business.
But these people have been kidnapped in the territory of a foreign country that Russia has militarily occupied. An announcement that this territory has now been annexed doesn’t make it Russian territory, and about three countries, all the usual suspects, have acknowledged these annexations.
I’m not that keen on the idea of charging individuals under “international law”; but I think it’s good that the international community disapproves of transporting children across the borders of warring parties, within a warzone. If Russia wants to save its “ethnic russians”, it should deport those adult people in Donetsk and Luhansk that claim to be persecuted Russians.
If you follow the myth that the famine of 1932-33 was deliberate, who do you blame for the famines of 1922 and 1892?
The 1932-33 famine was the only one that was demographically targeted, as discussed on the page I linked to, if you’d care to read it: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/03/truth-and-ukraine/comment-page-3/#comment-10357628
It was directly relevant in that thread, less so here. A lot of other facile objections are covered there too. If you want to squabble, go to the discussion forums.
If you’re British how do you imagine you are perceived when trying to affect moral superiority on the subject of deliberate famines?
What are you wittering on about? It looks like you’re another one who didn’t bother to consult the argument you’re criticising. For the record, I linked to evidence in the form of newspaper reports from that period, video and written testimony of survivors, accounts of historians, encyclopaedia entries, and declarations by diverse nations, not to mention a detailed statistical study of the Russian archives.
We can go over it all again on special thread in the discussion forum, if you like, but we shouldn’t clog this one up with lazy and misguided questions about the Holodomor when they’ve already been answered on a previous thread.
You know exactly what I’m talking about. An Gorta Mor and all the famines deliberately engineered by the British in India. (Not least the one Churchill inflicted the Bengalis a decade after the one you’re obsessed with). Deliberate famine is the very last subject any British person should be trying to affect moral authority on. So wind your neck in.
What a load of waffling whataboutery! I agree the British Empire was brutal to an extent not yet fully acknowledged. But that’s not what I was talking about.
I was explaining that people who deny the Holodomor and post fake news in support of Putin’s assault on Ukraine are already taking an extreme position; so if they claim that they can’t see anyone more extreme on their side of the debate, it means they’re the real extremists.
Talking about those other events would dilate the discussion – which of course is the aim of the whataboutery tactic.
If your response to being reminded your own country deliberately starved the Irish, Punjabis, Bengalis et al is .. “whataboutery!” who do you think you’re fooling pretending to care about Ukrainians? Not even the furthest right Ukrainians would be convinced by you. How could they be?
Why were there famines in Caucasus, Soviet Central Asia and outside the USSR then?
Squeeth, as I mentioned earlier, all of those lazy objections have already been considered at length, and covering the same ground would be repetitive and distracting. The only useful purpose it serves here is to flush out the Holodomor deniers.
Dawg how does your Holodomor narrative stack up with the fact that Central Asia, particularly Kazakhstan was hit hardest by the famine in proportional terms?
Also how is modern Russia responsible for Bolshevik class warfare? Given that Marxism-Leninism was predicated on ideas that were deeply hostile to Russian nationalism & historic culture as such.
To say nothing of the fact that the ruling regime was a multi-ethnic gang of terrorists (in which Ukrainians were highly represented) who seized power by deceit & violence not popular suffrage.
Any good history of agriculture will admit that massive famines have occurred regularly in almost all regions ever since the adoption of agriculture. Nothing to do with politics.
Even Yuval Noah Harari admitted it, in “Sapiens”. Growing crops allowed people to have more children to tend the crops, who needed more food but had yet more children…
And that’s another of the facile objections that I answered on the previous thread. The Ukrainian famine was demographically targeted, as shown by the USSR’s own records.
If you’re another Holodomor denialist then make your strongest case in the discussion forum, and I’ll see you there.
exactly so, though the propagandist you are debating will never admit it.
What records?
Mark Tauger wrote an interesting review of “Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine” by Anne Applebaum a while back which contradicts your claims.
Do you mean the Anne Applebaum the wife of Poland Parliament speaker? Not the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Iraq?
For your information, Squeeth, the Soviet administrative archives were opened up to researchers in the 1990s, and they include a vast amount of documented information (initially only in paper form, more recently digitised) including population censuses and death records, along with quantification of grain harvests and transportation, and crime reports. New methods for the compilation and statistical analysis of huge aggregates of data permit very detailed comparisons of the various contributory factors.
The most detailed study of the compiled data relating to the famine in Ukraine, the Volga region and Belarus, was outlined in the paper “The Political-Economic Causes of the Soviet Great Famine, 1932-33” by Markevich, Maumento & Qian. (If reading ain’t your thing, there is a video presentation by one of the co-authors.) We had a discussion about it in the previous thread, which became very tedious when some people came up with simplistic objections that they assumed the study must have overlooked, without checking the paper to see whether and how those questions were actually addressed. Critiquing a paper without reading any of it, as certain commenters did repeatedly, should disqualify people from intelligent debate.
As that discussion about the Holodomor was quite extensive, and this one is going increasingly off topic, I suggest once again that if any self-professed genius reading this thinks they can somehow spot a fatal omission in the paper without actually reading it, then post the immaculate insight in the discussion forum where it’s easier to keep linear arguments on track and allow time for consulting complex references as well as thinking about what you post.
Absolutely. The famines in Ireland and Scotland caused by Potato blight comes to mind.
conspicuously marked incomplete. doesn’t look like a peer reviewed paper, dawgy.
pretzelattack, that version is a pre-print which was circulated widely and extensively peer-reviewed. The published version is paywalled, like most academic papers. I have a copy, and as far as I can tell there were only minor tweaks to the wording and some rearrangement of tables and figures. The point of citing the paper is to show how the excuses and misdirection regularly offered by Soviet apologists for the Holodomor don’t stand up to rational scrutiny. Attention should be on the data analysis, methodology, and conclusions; focusing on the authors or publisher just dodges the core issue.
If you have other questions about this paper or the wider issue of the Holodomor, I’ll answer them in the discussion forum. But please read the thing first.
One can also argue that there was famine in Bessarabia (then part of Romania) at the same time, but to no avail. The holodomor/genocide trick and a similar trick of blaming Hitler and Stalin equally for WW2 are propaganda stints used to demonize contemporary Russia. One may wonder how holodomor justified the Volhynia massacre of Poles or participation of OUN in Holocaust; or in which way Putin bears responsibility for Stalin’s deeds (whatever these deeds were); or why all of a sudden European Parliament decides who’s to blame for WW2, disagreeing with most professional historians (maybe the next thing they decide will be if there’s life on Mars or whether eating butter is healthy), but these are the realities of out world.
Come off it Dawg, Tauger knows those sources too, compare what he writes.
Utter rubbish, Squeeth! “Tauger knows those sources too” – really? Tauger wrote his review of Applebaum’s book in 2018, and the results of the study (published in 2021) weren’t available then.
“For seven years, Qian’s coauthors, Naumenko, who was a Ph.D. student at Northwestern at the time, and Markevich, spent their days in basement libraries in Moscow, paging through these records and coding them into the largest dataset ever complied of economic, political, historical, geographic, and climatic factors from the years 1922 to 1940. They even found secret police reports about peasant resistance to the regime to better understand the political ramifications of Soviet policies.”
— Why Did So Many Ukrainians Die in the Soviet Great Famine?
Are you suggesting Tauger compiled all that data and analysed it statistically before they did, without telling anybody about it? Because that’s the only way the detailed disaggregated findings could have influenced his review of somebody else’s book, published a few years earlier.
Click the link above to read a summary of their study before embarrassing yourself with more facile pontificating.
I am an extremist only to your taste. But I wonder, if, for example, a Japanese historian working in US wrote a paper, arguing that there is not enough evidence to conclude that the famine of 1932 was (a) intentional, and (b) targeted Ukrainians, this will make Hiroaki Kuromiya an “extremist” too? Yet this is exactly what he concluded (Kuromiya H, The Soviet Famine of 1932-1933 Reconsidered, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 60, No. 4, pp. 663-675 (2008).
Our discussion about Holodomor that you’ve quoted convinced me that you are immune to rational arguments, so I won’t even try again.
“I am an extremist only to your taste. “
Sorry, Yuri – most people in the West and on most English language forums would indeed consider you an extremist, given your endorsements of Putin’s military assault on Ukraine and defence of his views and thought processes, not to mention your ongoing denial of the Holodomor (one of the most shameful atrocities in European history). Congratulations on finding a site where your pro-Putin extremist views chime with the deep resentment that many fanatical blog readers harbour towards Western governments. But don’t get too comfortable, because the blog host is no fan of Putin and thinks people who support the Russian “SMO” in Ukraine are just as bad as the warhawks in NATO and the US.
“I wonder, if, for example, a Japanese historian working in US wrote a paper, arguing that there is not enough evidence to conclude that the famine of 1932 was (a) intentional, and (b) targeted Ukrainians, this will make Hiroaki Kuromiya an “extremist” too? Yet this is exactly what he concluded “
In his 2008 paper Kuromiya explained that he did not have the requisite data available to decide one way or the other. And you know what changed the situation for the authors I cited? They found the evidence – in bulk records from the Soviet archives (ironically). Digitisation allowed them to run complex statistical comparisons at a fine resolution, so they could compare how the native Ukrainians were treated against how the Russians were treated in the same oblasts. (Kuromiya didn’t have anything approaching that amount of data available.) The findings in the 2021 paper supported a conclusion that you tried hard to escape (by not actually consulting the paper): that there was indeed gross, quantifiable, discrimination against the native Ukrainians that caused a much higher death rate. But I have to concede that it may not be worth your while to read the paper after all, because I doubt whether you have the intellectual capacity to understand their methodology.
“Our discussion about Holodomor that you’ve quoted convinced me that you are immune to rational arguments, so I won’t even try again.”
I think the evidence is quite conclusive that you’re the one who’s immune to rational arguments, because you were continually dodging them. In the most tedious part of our previous discussion of the Holodomor, you repeatedly raised issues that you thought would debunk their conclusions – only to be told that the paper explicitly considered each of them and explained how they related to the conclusions. I had to keep citing parts of the paper at you, like reading a bedtime story to a child (which is why I used that analogy towards the end of the discussion). It’s a bit like trying to teach a child who puts his fingers in his ears. You may have been a lost cause from the outset.
Dawg
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Are you one of the righteous Craig mentioned?
The Markievich paper that you liked so much is rubbish, indeed, for a very simple reason: in Soviet Union, the ethnicity was based not as much on self identification but on the place of birth. Thus, my grandfather, born in Poltava region in Ukraine, was “Ukrainian” despite the fact that his family moved to Kostroma on Volga river when he was 5 years old and he did not speak Ukrainian. There were some exceptions to the rule, for example, when the father was Russian and the mother was Ukrainian or vice versa, their kids could pick up either one. Small ethnicities such as Tatars or Greeks could also be listed as such. But in 1932 if a village was in Ukraine everyone in this village was Ukrainian unless they just moved there from Russia. So the authors could not have an accurate record of who was who.
Oh dear. Here we go again, Yuri K! Once again, you think of a simple blunder you might make in your own naïve approach to the question, then condemn somebody else’s study on the assumption they probably did the same thing, without showing any sign of checking whether they did or not. (Previously you stupidly assumed they failed to consider other regions outside of Ukraine that were also hit by famine, or different ethnic ratios in different regions, despite those being core factors of their research which are mentioned in every report and presentation of the findings.)
The story about your grandad’s birthplace says nothing about the study methodology, much less invalidate the whole project. To critique a paper you have to be explicit about what you think went wrong in the actual study methods, not just gesture toward a complication that you might overlook in your own kindergarten version. You say “in Soviet Union, the ethnicity was based not as much on self identification but on the place of birth” – although “not as much” is too vague to sustain any objection. Offer some proof of exactly how the Soviet Union compiled their records, then point out what the researchers did that was different and why you think they were wrong. Are you even aware of why the Soviets introduced the distinction between ethnicity and place of birth?
Dawg,
“(Previously you stupidly assumed they failed to consider other regions outside of Ukraine that were also hit by famine, or different ethnic ratios in different regions, despite those being core factors of their research which are mentioned in every report and presentation of the findings.”
There is nothing stupid in this argument and you simply ignored it.
Here, again, you are trying to ignore the fact that in Soviet realities of the day ethnicity of peasants could not be verified accurately.
PS No idea why my name here has been modified.
” … you simply ignored it.”
And now you’re lying too.
I explained to you several times in that earlier thread that the study didn’t just look at Ukraine. In the fourth of my responses – March 12, 2023 at 13:45 – I pointed out that the project incorporated data from other regions of the Soviet Union and even used the distance to the border on both sides as a statistical variable. In my sixth reply, I quoted a passage from the introduction to the paper which stated: “The data include the three largest and most populous Soviet republics: Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.” Now, unless your grasp of geography is as poor as your knowledge of history, you’ll concede that as the Volga region is in Russia, data for that region was incorporated in the study too.
My replies 3, 4, 5 & 6 each addressed the ethnic population share in the various regions, and I pointed out that the detailed ethnicity data was sourced from Soviet archives. My fifth reply to your increasingly inane objections tackled your false assertion that the researchers had failed to account for the 1892 famine, while the sixth explained that it was the earlier famine which prompted them to disaggregate all the data by ethnicity at a very fine-grained (pardon the pun) level so they could compare the effects of the respective policies. By that stage, it was obvious you were making no effort to read the paper, nor to engage with my answers. I summed up:
“The same ethnicity effect was not observed in previous famines: Ukrainians did not die at a higher rate (i.e. percentage relative to population) than other ethnicities in the 1892 famine; nor did Russians, for that matter, inside or outside the Volga region. Do you get the point now? That should be plain enough even for an idiot to grasp.”
So as you can see, I pointed out that the study included the Volga and took account of relative ethnic distributions as well as the 1892 famine – but yet here you are, once again ludicrously alleging that each of those factors was ignored both by the researchers and by me.
It isn’t reasonable for anybody to be quite so ignorant with sincerity, which implies that the stupidity is being feigned. You should take note that such time-wasting tactics are regarded as a form of trolling, which isn’t allowed here. You ignored my exhortations above to stop raising such daft objections and to post any questions about this off-topic tangent in the discussion forum, which would help to jog your selective memory by keeping the topic all on one thread. But of course that would assume you were actually being sincere, which I have reason to doubt.
Asshole Blinken again categorically rejected dropping the case against Assange.
Joe Lauria reporting:
“Blinken Slams Door on Australian Bid for Assange”
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/07/30/blinken-slams-door-on-australian-bid-for-assange/
Blinky´s asshole statement opens Lauria´s piece:
“I really do understand and can certainly confirm what Penny said about the fact that this matter was raised with us, as it has been in the past. And I understand the sensitivities. I understand the concerns and views of Australians. I think it’s very important that our friends here understand our concerns about this matter.
What our Department of Justice has already said repeatedly, publicly, is this: Mr Assange was charged with very serious criminal conduct in the United States in connection with his alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of our country.
The actions that he is alleged to have committed risked very serious harm to our national security, to the benefit of our adversaries, and put named human sources at grave risk of physical harm, grave risk of detention.
So I say that only because just as we understand sensitivities here, it’s important that our friends understand sensitivities in the United States.”
Well, fuck you Tony.
“But Russia can of course eventually defeat it’s much weaker and smaller neighbour.”
Errant apostrophe. [ Mod: Fixed ]
The Russians might as well use the time to defeat the US empire, as it defeated the US-Ukronazi putsch regime in 48 hours. The point about wars of attrition (US Civil War, First and Second World wars, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) is that they don’t move much except at the start and the end. Oh and if you think Russia intervened illegally in 2014 and 2022 (in support of the Ukrainian loyalists), do you agree that the Seppoes did it in 2004 and 2014?
The Treaty of Versailles was a canny balancing act which bought off the most urgent demands of the winning side (reparations to pay war debts) and a democratic franchise in a Germany (shorn of the areas most densely populated by non-Germans) to hamstring the German boss class with a working-class veto over bourgeois nationalism-imperialism. Reparations were not fixed, as the Dawes and Young plans and the Lausanne conference of 1932 demonstrate. To assume that German workers and peasants gave a tuppenny damn about Versailles is to confuse them with Daily Express readers. The democratic franchise worked a treat, the German electorate never electing Hitler to anything and defeating the NSDAP, even in the half-bent election of March 1933. There has been no need of anything as vulgar as the NSDAP in the west European and extra-European slave empires, because they have fascist electoral franchises that Mussolini would swoon at. Abstain or collude, there’s no other choice.
“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”.
If I did not admire and respect Mr Murray so much, I would reply simply, “Wrong!” Since I do, I shall content myself with Niven and Pournelle’s diplomatic formula, “That turns out not to be the case”.
I myself am one of those who believe that “Russia must fight to a total victory in Ukraine, depose Zelensky, and humiliate and weaken NATO, thus dealing a blow to US Imperialism”.
Why? Because those in power in Washington – and hence also NATO, the EU, and the whole “golden billion” – have shown themselves to be ruthless, amoral, and insatiably greedy for the wealth, resources, and land of others. Between 1991 and 2014 they worked steadily and methodically to build up Ukraine as an advanced military base against Russia. In 2014 they struck hard, organising and carrying out what George Friedman, director of Stratfor, called “a coup d’etat organized by the United States. And it truly was the most blatant coup in history”. https://newcoldwar.org/stratfor-chiefs-most-blatant-coup-in-history-interview-from-dec-2014/ (and elsewhere). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratfor Stratfor, “an American strategic intelligence publishing company”, is about as gung-ho and “America First” a source as one could hope to find.
Why must Russia, objectively, “fight to a total victory in Ukraine, depose Zelensky, and humiliate and weaken NATO, thus dealing a blow to US Imperialism”?
Simply because no agreement can be trusted – neither with the Kiev regime, nor with Washington or London, nor with the EU, nor with NATO. “Not one inch east” of the German border: that was the promised made to Mr Gorbachev when he agreed to the reunification of Germany. It was cynically made, without the slightest intention of fulfilling it, and it was cynically broken the moment it suited Washington to do so. This year, Mr Poroshenko and Frau Merkel have publicly admitted that they entered into the two Minsk Agreements without the slightest intention of carrying them out, just to gain some more years to arm Ukraine. There is not the slightest reason for the Russians to believe or trust a single word the Western leaders utter, including “a” and “the”. (Which Russians seem never to have needed, anyway).
It is public knowledge that the West carried out “the most blatant coup in history” in 2014 to install a puppet regime run by neo-Nazis and sadistic murderers who, like their masters, lie almost every time they speak or write. Between 2014 and 2020 they ordered the Ukrainian armed forces to bombard the civilians of Donbas with every military weapon at their disposal, from rifles and machine guns through mortars and heavy artillery to missiles and bombers. They killed many thousands of civilians – all Ukrainian citizens – and destroyed a huge number of buildings including schools, hospitals, and administrative offices. They publicly described Russians and people who aligned with Russia as “cockroaches” who should be exterminated.
Meanwhile the US government had provided missiles and other heavy weapons that could be used to attack Russia itself, and set up literally scores of biological research labs in which scientists paid for by Washington studied the most lethal of pathogens, with emphasis on those judged most likely to attack Russians preferentially. (They also studied the use of insects to carry such pathorens to their targets). All this is thoroughly documented, e.g. https://journal-neo.org/2022/03/03/russia-prevents-washington-from-unleashing-biological-warfare/
When Mr Zelezny started making open threats, hinting that Kiev would acquire nuclear weapons to use against Russia, Moscow had to act. At the same time, it became known that Kiev was amassing enormous forces ready for a crushing assault on Donbass and possibly even into Russia itself. It became clear, even to the most pacifically inclined, that Russia had to push the compound threats to its safety as far back as possible. hence the Special Military Operation, which combined the need to defang the Kiev gang with the desirability of luring NATO into disarming itself and Washington into giving up the supremacy of the dollar.
“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”.
There are three kinds of people involved. The first are the people who control the West, whose declared and open goal is to defeat Russia and break it up into smaller, manageable states that can be plundered and exploited at leisure. See https://www.veteranstoday.com/2022/10/28/washingtons-plan-to-break-up-russia/, for one of many accounts online. It’s exactly the same plan that was implemented in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and other countries, and that is currently stalled in Syria. Those people will do anything to harm Russia, and couldn’t care less what happens to Ukraine and its people – or Europe and its people – or indeed anyone except themselves. The more Ukrainian soldiers die banging their heads against Russian defences, the happier they are. After all, it’s essentially a civil war and every soldier who dies is Russian – or at least a Russian speaker.
The second type of people are the Ukrainians who have submitted to the Kiev regime. Their insensate hatred of Russia, or at least their utter refusal to question their leaders, is getting them killed in heaps. That is not the fault of the Russians whom they are attacking. It’s an amazing exhibition of mass stupidity, but after the similar behaviour of the German people and their submission to the Nazis, we can’t be too astonished. The Russians, of course, are quite familiar with the experience of being attacked by hordes of Nazis indoctrinated with blind hatred of everything Russian.
The third type of people are the Russians, who see themselves quite openly hated and attacked by everyone who follows the lead of Washington. Since the West is dedicated to destroying Russia as a state and as a nation, there is no room for negotiation. As in 1941-5, only absolute victory and unconditional surrender will do.
“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”.
That is where Mr Murray’s ignorance of military science and history is his undoing. The “barely moving battle of attrition” is a carefully calculated strategy in which the Ukrainians are losing at least 10 men for every Russian – probably more – and will soon have run through almost all of their vaunted Western weapons. Russia could easily have swept through Ukraine in March 2022 and won hands down; but that would have required all-out war. Far more civilians would have died, the infrastructure would have been seriously damaged (taking years and vast wealth to repair), and the Americans and British would have laughed heartily – because, remember, they don’t care about Ukraine and all the damage, on both sides, is damage to Russia.
That’s why it is called a Special Military Operation, not a war. It is like a neaurosurgeon operating to remove a clot of a tumour from a patient’s brain. The skull is cracked open, the surgeon and his team proceed with infinite care and caution. perhaps, having looked closely, they dare not remove the offending tissue but must close up and hope for the best. if they do cut, they must avoid every vein and artery, every vital nerve fibre… it’s exhausting work demanding the greatest concentration, but it is best for the patient. And Russia does not want to cause any unnecessary harm to Ukraine and its people – just to dissarm and neutralise them so that they are no longer a deadly threat.
Tom, you wrote a big piece. First of all thanks for expressing your thoughts. I mostly agree. Secondly, please take no offence, when reading your comment I felt the same slight pokes here or there, as is usual while watching different Western reporters. I do in no way argue your view on the things, just in case you’re interested:
“Simply because no agreement can be trusted – neither with the Kiev regime, nor with Washington or London, nor with the EU, nor with NATO”
this is true and a Russian person like me (seems like we are allowed to write Russian with capital letter here on this website) will quickly fall into a different conclusion than yours. A Russian would recall there was a time our troops were stationed everywhere in the Europe and thus prevented any possible attack on our security. Just like NATO troops do these days.
And, a Russian person would think “we don’t want to be an evil occupying force”. And also a Russian person would think “so, what are the other options then?” – and find no answer, so far.
Another point is
“The second type of people are the Ukrainians who have submitted to the Kiev regime. Their insensate hatred of Russia, or at least their utter refusal to question their leaders, is getting them killed in heaps.”
As far as I know, many Ukrainians submitted to the Kiev regime on promise to enter the EU and to be recognised “true Europeans”. I may now touch some slight and tender and never spoken out loud things, bit it is true.
The dream to belong to the ‘elite’ or ‘chosen’ or ‘superior’ people is something that is long-living among many new-eurpean nations. You just have it as it is. People know there some countries populated with truly worthy people, privileged people, so they think of getting a status as of one their dearest dreams. Status, privilege, oppotunity to look down on your less successful neighbours. It’s very long-living stereotype.
Being a European is considered prestigious, even if you work as a Polish plumber, but you have a EU passport with a Schengen visa, then this is considered a great success in your life. This is not an exclusively Ukrainian topic, but in principle, I think Indians, Africans and new Europeans could confirm (if recognition of this fact did not hurt their pride too much).
This behavior is seen as self-humiliating for another number of Ukrainians, who think that they need to raise the prestige of their own country, like be proud of what you really are.
That’s all the simple division in between the pro-EU and anti-EU. Because Ukrainians, in principle, are not stupider than others and are well aware that, for example, Turkey has been a candidate for a very long time, but is still not a EU member.
Then propaganda constantly feeds their aspiration that Ukraine will definitely be accepted into the Union, literally tomorrow, because they, unlike Turkey, are white, blue-eyed, live on the Eurasian continent and share a common European hatred of Russia. I guess theis why they jump out of their pants to prove they do hate Russia, they are ‘white worthy people’ to the best of their knowlege. Their knowlege is somehow limited by their historic experience, so that is why their masters have to ‘smooth’ the most extreme manifestations of their behaviour.
Re: ‘It is public knowledge that the West carried out “the most blatant coup in history” in 2014 to install a puppet regime run by neo-Nazis and sadistic murderers’
This is what a blatant coup looks like, Tom – in all its International Klein Blue-blazered brilliance:
https://nitter.net/pic/orig/media%2FF1_7FR1XwAEg19R.jpg
(There’s something not quite right about your man on the far right. Do you think that after unwisely repeatedly dissing the progress of the Special Military Operation on Telegram, Igor ‘Strelkov’ Girkin could have escaped custody, fled Russia, done a Rachel Dolezal and then somehow inveigled himself into the Nigerien Army’s top brass? Anyway, I’ve no idea why the Nigerien coup was the top story on Beeb News a couple days ago, when recent coups in Mali, Guinea & Burkina Faso barely got a mention.)
As for your contention that Ukraine is losing over ten soldiers for every Russian one, the ratio of German to Soviet losses was nowhere near that figure when the Wehrmacht was firmly on the back foot and losing vast tracts of territory with each passing month in 1944/5.
P.S. (Jan) Zelezny is a Czech gold medal-winning former javelin thrower (who has held the world record for over 25 years) and not the president of Ukraine.
Splendid article and summary. Ex UN ASG Michael von der Schulenburg has similar expertise and a similar viewpoint on this like you, worth reading on his webpage.
https://michael-von-der-schulenburg.com
There is only one thing I object to – that humiliating France was beyond Bismarck’s aims. After all, he added French-speaking areas in Lorraine to the German empire, which kept the French enraged for fifty years. A wiser Bismarck wouldn’t have done that. A wiser Bismarck wouldn’t even have attached Alsace, at least not without having got some kind of acclaim from the Alsatians. Snatching territory didn’t favour German unity any.
Were the French really that enraged? Was there a single-issue revanchist political party before 1914?
I think the primary reference of the term “revanchism” is the French attitude to the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine.
Bismarck didn’t want to keep Alsace-Lorraine. Unfortunately he listened to generals who insisted on their great strategeristic importance to the defense of Germany. Something a wiser Bismarck would have noted that if you go by what generals say, they had that in common with every square inch on Earth.
More escalation coming up..
UK training elite Ukrainian force to seize part of Russia – media
About 2,000 ‘commandos’ would enter the fray in a bid to recapture the Crimean Peninsula “before Christmas,” Sunday Express claims
https://swentr.site/russia/580553-uk-training-ukraine-crimea-attack/
Russia should quit their passivity, they should begin to openly arm iraqis, syrians so they can rid US out of their soil. They should build military bases in places like Cuba, Venezuela because the west will not stop this escalation if Russia never respond with equal measure.
But isnt´t that exactly what NATO wants?
.
Jesus
Nuclear war no worse than climate change – Blinken
Warmer temperatures are the number one “existential threat” to the world, the US’ top diplomat has claimed
https://swentr.site/news/580573-nuclear-war-blinken/
No wonder the west keep escalating against Russia.
During the cold war millions of people demonstrated and was scared of nuclear war. Today westerners seems to take a possible nuclear war with a childish whateva-shrug.
Intriguing, Blinken seems to totally discount even the remotest possibility that the drunken ramblings of Mel Gibson during his DUI stop of a few years ago, might be used by the more waspy elements of the American establishment.
Hah, that isn’t a lie, an exaggeration or a half-truth, it’s just flat out bullshit.
This notion is more unworkable than Operation Sealion. Just how are those 2000 “commandos” with their small-arms going to stand up to mechanized forces, air-power and the Black Sea Fleet? And that’s before you can even *try* to resupply the poor buggers.
They’ll never be Sardukar no matter how much (abridged) “training” they get.
Who was going to protect the Russian speakers in the east & south of Ukraine, if not Putin?
Was Obama, Trump, Biden going to lift a self-righteous finger?
Not a chance.
Putin is not empire-building. If he had any global ambitions, then all his gas pipelines would have been headed towards China and he would have let the West slide into depression.
latest issue of the political journal “Russian Politics”, June 2023
“Special Issue: Russia, Ukraine, and the West: Looking to the Future, edited by Nicolai Petro ”
Every article free to access:
https://brill.com/view/journals/rupo/8/2/rupo.8.issue-2.xml
8 essays by known scholars (since we have all turned into experts of Russian history here):
1.Introduction: Russia, Ukraine, and the West: Looking to the Future, Nicolai Petro
2. The Minsk Accords and the Political Weakness of the “Other Ukraine”, by Volodymyr Ishchenko
3. Russia’s Policy towards Donbas Since 2014: The Nation-Building Process and Its Ideology, by Denys Kiryukhin
4. Ukrainian Discourses on NATO: Securitization, Otherness, and Their Effects on Russo-Ukrainian Relations,
by Iryna Zhyrun
5. The Maidan Massacre Trial and Investigation Revelations: Implications for the Ukraine-Russia War and Relations, by Ivan Katchanovski
6. Cheering and Jeering on the Escalator to Hell: One Year of UK Media Coverage on the War in Ukraine, by Matthew Blackburn
7. Between War and Peace: Russian Visions of Future Relations with Ukraine and the West, by Andrei P Tsygankov
8. The Russian-Ukrainian Conflict and the Future World Order, by Andrey Kortunov
9. Power Transition, Cold War II and International Politics, by Richard Sakwa
Thank you for the link, very helpful.
recommended reading for everyone:
“War and Theft – The Takeover of Ukraine´s Agriculture”
Study by the Oakland Insitute 2023
Its the kind of study where you could quote every page, 33 pages (including the many footnotes)
https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/takeover-ukraine-agricultural-land.pdf
a bunch of excerpts (sry for the formatting, couldn´t fix it):
“(…)
With 33 million hectares of arable land, Ukraine has large swaths of the most fertile farmland in the world. Misguided privatization and corrupt governance since the early 1990s have concentrated land in the hands of a new oligarchic class. Around 4.3 million hectares are under large-scale agriculture, with the bulk, three million hectares, in the hands of just a dozen large agribusiness firms.
In addition, according to the government, about five million hectares – the size of two Crimea – have been “stolen” by private interests from the state of Ukraine. The total amount of land controlled by oligarchs, corrupt individuals, and large agribusinesses is thus over nine million hectares, exceeding 28 percent of the country’s arable land. The rest is used by over eight million Ukrainian farmers.
(…)
The largest landholders are a mix of oligarchs and a variety of foreign interests – mostly European and North American, including a US-based private equity fund and the sovereign fund of Saudi Arabia. All but one of the ten largest landholding firms are registered overseas, mainly in tax havens such as Cyprus or Luxembourg.
Even when run and still largely controlled by an oligarch founder,
a number of firms have gone public with Western banks and investment funds now controlling a significant amount of their shares.
The report identifies many prominent investors, including Vanguard Group, Kopernik Global Investors, BNP Asset Management Holding, Goldman Sachs-owned NN Investment Partners Holdings, and Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages Norway’s sovereign wealth fund. A number of large US pension funds, foundations, and university endowments are also invested in Ukrainian land through NCH Capital – a US-based private equity fund, which is the fifth largest landholder in the country.
Most of these firms are substantially indebted to Western financial institutions, in particular the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – the private sector arm of the World Bank. Together, these institutions have been major lenders to Ukrainian agribusinesses, with close to US$1.7 billion lent to just six of Ukraine’s largest landholding firms in recent years.
(…)
The report details how Western aid has been conditioned to a drastic structural adjustment program, which includes austerity measures, cuts in social safety nets, and the privatization of key sectors of the economy. A central condition has been the creation of a land market, put into law in 2020 under President Zelenskyy, despite opposition from a majority of Ukrainians fearing that it will exacerbate corruption in the agricultural sector and reinforce its control by powerful interests.
(…)
In December 2022, a coalition of farmers, academics, and NGOs called on the Ukrainian government to suspend the 2020 land reform law and all market transactions of land during the war and postwar period, “in order to guarantee the national security and preservation of territorial integrity of the country in wartime and post-war reconstruction period.” As explained by Prof. Olena Borodina of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU), “Today, thousands of rural boys and girls, farmers, are fighting and dying in the war. They have lost everything. The processes of free land sale and purchase are increasingly liberalized and advertised. This really threatens the rights of Ukrainians to their land, for which they give their lives.”
(…)
Some of this land has been seized by other agribusinesses, who are taking advantage of the conflict to accumulate more land. For instance, 100,000 acres (40,500 hectares) of the land lost by HarvEast has allegedly been seized by the Russian agribusiness Agrocomplex, which controls over 800,000 hectares of land in Russia and is headed by oligarch Alexander Tkachev, a former Russian agriculture minister. Agrocomplex has been accused of taking over 400,000 acres (161,874 hectares) of Ukrainian farmland.186 In addition to the HarvEast’s holdings, this includes 250,000 acres held by Agroton, and 50,000 acres held by Nibulon.
(…)
By breaking down supply chains, the war has severely disrupted the activities of agribusinesses, causing certain large firms to cease functioning, operate at a loss, or go bankrupt. In the face of this, it is “small farmers that have been left to pick up the pieces.” As they do not rely as heavily on industrial supply chains, they have proven to be more resilient, flexible, and mobile. However, small farmers have had to operate with very limited amount of land and financing, while agribusinesses continue to receive the bulk of the Ukrainian government and international financial institutions’
support.
(…)
Ukraine’s rural population is now suffering from poverty, with 44 percent living below the poverty line and seven percent suffering from malnutrition.
(…)”
wow! Alexander Tkachev was the governor of my region. I know his company and visit frequently to Agrocomplex dairy/chiken shops. I’m surprised to know he may have seized land in Ukraine.
I visited the HarvEast website, it’s Rinat Akhmetov’s company
https://harveast.com/en/page/harveast-today
HarvEast – Ukrainian company, which manages agricultural assets SC «ILYICH AGRO DONBAS» (Donetsk region), AGRO-HOLDING MC LLC (Kyiv, Zhytomyr region), “HARVEAST TRADING” and «HARVEAST ASSETS».
So, I suppose they mean the lands they’ve lost in Donetsk. The famous Azovsteel plant in Mariupol also belonged to Rinat Akhmetov.
that ´s a nice treat of a tiny piece of info. thx.
How the big and the small are connected.
Of course the sell-out of land is the same all over the place.
And true as much for the US, as someone pointed out on these pages I believe, a while ago.
I went to see Oppenheimer yesterday. It wasn’t as good a film as was lauded by so many – too long, overwrought and over-artful. There were two subjects, first the atom bomb which didn’t need anything so dramatically filmic, and second Robert Oppenheimer himself, his time during the Manhattan project and his subsequent “trial” from his previous communist sympathies (but more realistically his more pacifist views and his opposition to the development of the thermonuclear bomb) which excluded him from his academic work and public acclaim and activism. . I suppose the film was supposed to be a salutary reminder in regard to nuclear armageddon. I get this, but the biggest thing I learned is that our leadership lie and manipulate all the time, the more important the matter, the bigger the lie. So should we worry about Ukraine and nuclear war? The major lesson I took from this film was not the danger of nuclear warfare (how can we be in danger when it’s obviously perfectly safe for the West to be fighting a proxy war with a nuclear armed Russia – irony alert) but it’s the danger of the murderous duplicity of power and government, and how apposite that is to our times. We’d do well not to trust a thing anyone in power ever says at any time about anything at all.
The ‘Big Picture’ ?
The USA enjoyed some 20 or 30 years of total hegemony following 1991, and during that time showed itself to be as rotten and corrupt as any other hegemonic entity, all power corrupts and all that.
The USA now finds that the geopolitical landscape is changing, and that all of the guff about a PNAC and such was just so much brain farting designed to enrich a domestic elite, or even oligarchy.
The crowd that run the USA at this time are largely the sponsored placemen of the oligarchy that sprang from the brief period of hegemony.
Faced with a collapsing dream of American world dominance, those running the USA have, in the interests of saving face, little option but to bring up from the basement the old and worn, but still rideable, hobby horse of the Cold War days, the tired old nag of Russophobia.
It’s well and good, but it turns out that hegemonic America is a giant with feet of clay with the only real influence that it could bring to bear being that of monetarily corrupting the nations it wished to see transformed into supplicants.
The result we have before us is that the Ukraine has been turned into a Death Star for Ukrainians, helped along by the American co-opting of a group that have as their patron saint, the leader of a faction that was a prime enabler of the ‘Holocaust’ or ‘Shoa’.
As if this was not bizarre enough, we now have the spectacle of, as CM points out, so called liberals crying out for an expansion of the war by a group, NATO, that has clearly shot its bolt.
Zelensky has sealed his own fate by unconstitutionally cancelling elections. He could have taken his defeat and disappeared off into obscurity with his loot. However this is a man addicted to the limelight and adulation. He has cornered himself now and will be eliminated in due course either by the neo-nazis who threatened his life for promising peace or by his western benefactors because he knows too much. Silly man.
I have read that the historiographical trades have done an about turn on the subject of German outrages in Belgium in 1914.
Apparently they weren’t inventions after all. Historians, eh?