Someone sold you the lie that Ukraine is near 100% united, and it penetrates your whole narrative.
Ukraine was always very different in its eastern and western parts. Over the past 30 years the country has been moving toward values of the western Ukraine, largely due heavy anti-Russian bias in education. So, if you only talk to people under 30 present on social media sites, who chose to stay in Ukraine, I can see how one can come away with the impression that there's a unanimous opposition to Russia. Tons of people left even before the war. Many are in Russia, but a lot are also in Europe.
But there are still tons of people in eastern Ukraine over the age of 30-40 who are hoping that Russia takes over, tons of people in the Donbass that volunteered to fight since 2014, etc.
During the Euromaidan, the young people in Kiev were overwhelmingly against Yanukovich, but it doesn't make what happened one bit democratic. Whether U.S. helped that particular violent overthrowing of the government is really not that relevant.
Dismissing that NATO is a threat to Russia is also quite a claim. When USA renamed the Department of War to DoD, it did not suddenly became a peace-keeping organization. Just because Russia's nukes are enough of a deterrent today, doesn't mean they will be tomorrow. Russia has a recent painful history of Europeans invading by land. Dismissing it just hurts your own credibility.
I could go on. I think Tucker's take is a lot closer to a well-reasoned position that this post.
Ukraine is no modern democracy that Russian citizens want for themselves. It is correctly perceived in Russia as a cesspit of corruption that makes Russian oligarchs look like angels of mercy. Ukranians themselves are so fed up of it that they want to join the EU because they have no hope on their own politicians.
What sort of civilised country outlaws an entire language? A country in which minorities Russians, Hungarians, etc are treated as second class citizens. Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk had legitimate referenda on independence and deserve the right to be independent of their Ukronationalist tormentors.
"If you ask the Ukranians" is a recurrant echo throughout this article. Maybe you should think a bit more about "If you ask the Russian speakers in Donbass" ... and "if you ask those who celebrate Stepan Bandera and other pro-Nazi untranationalists" ... just saying.
All one needs to know about this war is to see the "people" in DC who support it. The only people worse than Zelensky and his henchmen are the "people" like Pelosi, Cornyn, Linda Graham, Turtlehead, et al. I didn't think you could be so wrong.
Wow! I’m Ukrainian and that’s such an incredibly one-sided and disgusting work of fiction you just wrote. Unsubscribed and unfollowed you on twitter. I’ll try to come back here later with a more thorough rebuttal when I have the time.
Your take, in my opinion, is very one sided and frankly pretty much sums up the Western take with a minor concession or two (which you also walk back). I do have some knowledge on this matter - I was born in Soviet Ukraine, I still hold a Ukrainian citizenship (even though I lived out of Ukraine since the 90s) and still have some family left in Ukraine and visited Ukraine once every few years before C19 hit. I speak Russian natively and understand Ukrainian, and occasionally watch both Russian and Ukrainian news, videos and Telegram channels. Also living in the West for 25+ years I am ver familiar with the Western and Russian narratives.
You general idea is that Ukraine and Ukrainians are united in they fight against the evil Putin horde while on the way to become a Western style democracy. This is simply not true. This conflict, in addition to a fight between Russia and NATO, is also an internal civil war that was ongoing since 2014, not just in Donbass (where a lot of Ukrainian were fighting), but also in all of Ukraine. The Ukrainian nationalist government has been purging Ukraine from anything Russian for 8 years. Russian channels have been banned, teaching in Russian in schools was banned, streets named after Soviet themes were renamed after Ukrainian nationalists (some of them quite vile), people sympathetic to Russia were taken by the SBU and either disappeared or were "re-educated", the Ukrainian military attacked civilians on multiple occasions in Donetsk and Lugansk. So no, Ukraine was not on the path of switching from Mordor to a beautiful functioning democracy. It was on the path of switching from a neutral, maybe somewhat pro Russian, Mordor to a much worse but pro Western Mordor, and the West was willing to ignore the Mordor part, as long as they stay pro Western.
Please try to hear people from the other side. Maybe talk to someone from DNR or LNR. Seriously - you are smart and you can do better. Intellectual honesty, right?
“I just don’t buy that “NATO is a security threat to Russia” as a serious argument”
Tell me what you think the US response would be to Mexico joining a Chinese led “Pacific Nato “ and China setting up bases in Mexico
Every power has their Red Lines. With the US its pretty much anyplace in the Western Hemisphere. With China it was/is Hong Kong and Taiwan, and with Russia it is its Western borders, especially Ukraine. We would do well to respect these Red Lines even if we do not agree.
After the Cuban Missile Crisis the Soviets pulled their missiles out of Cuba and we did the same in Turkey (reluctantly).
Avoiding war is always a priority, especially between two nuclear powers.
You fail to mention Ukraine not following the Minsk Agreement and Ukraines shelling of the Donbas into civilian areas for 8 years killing many
Crimea has always been considered part of Russia. The Soviets in 1954 decided for some reason to add it to the Soviet Ukraine sphere of influence. Its almost entirely Russian speaking and identifies as Russian and the voted overwhelmingly to leave Ukraine (Ukraine banned Russian language )
While numerically the Nazis are small in number, they are over represented at the level of the security forces leadership. When Hitler took over German the Nazis were a minority politically. Hitler lost the election
The Nationalists and Nazis are also targeting Russian language and ethnic Russians for discrimination.Lawmakers in 2019 passed legislation ordering middle schools that taught in Russian and other minority languages to make the switch to Ukrainian and mandating Ukrainian versions of online stores.
It requires shops, restaurants and the service industry to engage customers in Ukrainian unless clients specifically ask to switch.
Anyone caught violating the new legislation twice within one year could be fined 200 euros ($235), almost half of the average salary in the country.
Imagine fining a Mexican or Chinese shop owner in a Hispanic or Chinese neighborhood for not using English unless his customers specifically request it
A country that was subject to a coup to throw out a Democratically elected President is a phony Democracy. Ukraine went from being the wealthiest among the FSU after the breakup to the poorest. The impoverishment of Ukraine accelerated following the first Color Revolution in 2004 and declined rapidly after the Maidan Coup
As for the biolabs, the labs which Russia has control of were decontaminated in advance of their control. They have released documents that have been ignored by MSM. Its too early to write this off.
Less than one year after President Donald Trump informally announced that the United States would withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the State Department announced on Aug. 2 2019 that the move was officially complete. I’d call that a provocation
Especially when you are getting ready to deploy this in Europe
I asked my friend, who is originally from Donetsk, how his family was doing back there. He said it was the same as it has been since 2014-2015. Non-stop aggression by the central Ukranian government and the battalions.
You considered all arguments that supported your bias. You shoot down all others as Putin’s narrative. But Ocam’s razor points to Putin’s narrative as possibly the closest to the truth but you won’t even explore it. Obviously you are blinded by generational trauma. I’ll be back when you tackle another subject that is not so close to your heart that blinds your judgement.
Not to justify clear Russian war crimes. I think the left doesn't acknowledge how reasonable Russian initial demands were. The eastern provinces and Crimea are filled with people that don't want to be ruled by the west and were pushed.
I don't think there's any solution other than a Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia style breakup.
All the war crimes in the world don't cover up the solution.
I am sorry to say, but I think this post is wrong is many ways.
A couple of points here.
An underlying theme here is that Ukraine is one united country, all working together opposing those evil no-good Russkies. gummibear737 says "I talked to this Ukrainian, I talked to that Ukrainian, etc." I guess these Ukrainians were western-minded (ethnic ?) Ukrainians. This is like asking a white supremacist red-neck "what do you think of the Mexicans?" In fact, Ukraine is a deeply split country. There is a territorial entity called Ukraine, but there is a spectrum of people, the two ends of which don't think they live in the same country. Take the map of Ukraine and draw a line from northwest to southeast. Northwest is ethnic Ukrainian; as you go towards the southwest Ukraine becomes more and more Russian. When you get to southwest (Crimea, Donbass) the people are Russian - they speak Russian and they live in Russian cultural world.
If you asked people in Crimea "what do you think of yourselves? how do you self-identify?" they would say "we are Russian". Not Ukrainian. Not Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Just Russian. If you asked the same in Lvov, they would say "of course Ukrainian". If you asked the people in the middle, they would say "Russian-speaking Ukrainians". Do you see the differences?
South and southeast of Ukraine has never been ethnically Ukrainian. Never ever. I remember reading (a few years ago) an article by a young Ukrainian lady from Lvov who had decided to take a trip to Crimea - first trip in her life (Ukraine is a big country). She was shocked. She was Ukrainian-speaking (nationalist you could say). She was shocked that Crimea was full of these Russkies. hahaha. Her attitude was like "how dear they???? don't they know this is Ukraine???" For her, the people of Crimea were like a bunch of foreigners.
wrt "Ukrainian nationalists (neo-Nazis) are just a tiny minority". Let me just provide this one data point. There is this guy by the name Roman Shukhevych. He was a biggest racist mass killing sociopath in Europe until Hitler came along. Go ahead google him. There is a wikipedia page on him - read it (this page goes easy on him). For extra coverage, check out this Jewish perspective
Now here comes my point. Roman Shukhevych is a national hero of Ukraine. The majority of Ukrainian parliament voted to name him a hero; the president of Ukraine signed the decree declaring him a hero. So don't come telling "Ukrainian nationalists (neo-Nazis) are just a tiny minority"; minority my ass. For Ukraine to declare Roman Shukhevych a hero is like for Germany to declare Adolf Hitler a national hero. Think about that.
I cannot believe how many people fell for this russian propaganda! I’m also from from Eastern Europe, and it might be cause of that, that I can see it too - but ever since this war started, I found myself in a very lonely place to be. A lot of my friends, family members even, people online that I shared same views, about everything, cannot see and even want to consider this point of view. They have turned into to the very closed minded and hostile commentators about this particular subject, that they won’t even consider the possibility of this scenario- to not even consider it (??!)- what if it all is Russian propaganda? And even if you don’t want to take into account any of the things you wrote (which I personally agree), but even if you don’t agree with any of this- you people know that a war is a bloody misery, awful and it takes lives, and people die! Can you honestly say that you are ready to look at yourself, sometime in the future-and to know that while the innocent children were being murdered, just like they are in any war, and while all of that was happening- that you blindly denied it, defended it? A child blown into pieces, that had nothing to do with any of this-only for the fact it was born in a wrong place, at a wrong time? A child blown into pieces! What is wrong with you people?! You cannot defend such a thing, you just cannot… it’s so sad to read this kind of stuff - I’m heartbroken and beyond disappointed, and people have lost their goddamn minds! This is something you cannot justify! No child is guilty in any war, and everyone knows that! Yet their death is very certain! People have gone completely mad, some even have children themselves- and they are parroting this bullshit like it’s some kind of righteous truth, and not a russian propaganda! Can you honestly look at yourself in the mirror and lie to yourself forever? Cause that’s what you’re in for… You are gloating over dead children, all of you!
If Russia is so worried about the Nato, why doesn’t it attack US? Why attack a country that cannot defend itself? Why not attack someone of your own size? Why go for a smallest person on a playground? People have lost their minds! Seriously- just fucking stop it, before you go somewhere, where you cannot come back from - it’s a dark place, you’re already at 🙁
Gummi, thanks for this, even though I’m going to largely disagree. I really wanted to read a deep and thoughtful analysis that goes against my instincts on this, and you helped me see some elements of this differently.
Here’s where I am - from the beginning I’ve felt like those of us that are laypeople in the US can’t possibly understand what is actually going on. There are so many layers of history and culture, along with decades of corruption and geopolitical manipulation. And it’s just so far away from us, so we have little direct understanding.
What I do feel like I understand is this - we’ve had a foreign policy establishment in the US that has been so wrong for so long, they are deeply hard to trust. They haven’t just made little errors - they’ve made gigantic ones. Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, etc all in recent years plus Vietnam and much of Cold War history. That establishment is tied hand in glove to a “permanent war” crowd that wants conflict around the globe. They make gobs of money from it, as well as the usual prestige and human qualities that come from being “in charge.”
In addition, it’s been obvious to anyone with eyes open in recent years that we no longer have anything resembling a trustworthy media. They are bought and paid for ideologically, tribally and monetarily. It’s no coincidence that the major story censored in the last two years is Hunter Biden and the Bidens seedy relationships all over the world, especially in Ukraine. What else is part of that story, that only the spooks know?
So who are we to trust, and what to believe?
I believe Putin is absolutely a bad guy, and wants to restore some of the Russian prestige from the Cold War. I also believe that doesn’t make him insane or completely irrational. Russia has been invaded from the west so many times, to such devastating effect (we Americans can’t possibly imagine) that it’s not crazy to worry about what happens in Ukraine. And, to want to control it. It’s also true that Ukraine itself has been brutalized by the Russians many times in their history. And of course, there’s a long and terrible history of anti-Semitism and pogroms in the region.
At the end of it all, my feeling is we should stay the hell out of it. We’d be wise to keep a very close eye on the situation, and be clear in our minds of what a red line is for the Russians. They certainly don’t respect weakness, and we are weak now with our leadership. But wars escalate very quickly and dangerously, and Ukraine is not worth WWIII. I absolutely do believe some of our leadership class wants it, and thinks they can pull it off without nukes being used. They are utopianists, obviously incompetent and full of American naïveté. And they work for a President that is as unpopular as any we’ve had in decades, who’s party is about to get their ass handed to them in November. Don’t tell me that’s not a factor in what is going on - of course it is.
You have a deep history and knowledge of the region. So that helps you understand a lot, but probably also biases you towards action against the Russians. For me, I just don’t see the American interest in intervening in any way, including all the provocation we’ve been doing so far. There’s so much more for us to lose than gain as a country.
Someone sold you the lie that Ukraine is near 100% united, and it penetrates your whole narrative.
Ukraine was always very different in its eastern and western parts. Over the past 30 years the country has been moving toward values of the western Ukraine, largely due heavy anti-Russian bias in education. So, if you only talk to people under 30 present on social media sites, who chose to stay in Ukraine, I can see how one can come away with the impression that there's a unanimous opposition to Russia. Tons of people left even before the war. Many are in Russia, but a lot are also in Europe.
But there are still tons of people in eastern Ukraine over the age of 30-40 who are hoping that Russia takes over, tons of people in the Donbass that volunteered to fight since 2014, etc.
During the Euromaidan, the young people in Kiev were overwhelmingly against Yanukovich, but it doesn't make what happened one bit democratic. Whether U.S. helped that particular violent overthrowing of the government is really not that relevant.
Dismissing that NATO is a threat to Russia is also quite a claim. When USA renamed the Department of War to DoD, it did not suddenly became a peace-keeping organization. Just because Russia's nukes are enough of a deterrent today, doesn't mean they will be tomorrow. Russia has a recent painful history of Europeans invading by land. Dismissing it just hurts your own credibility.
I could go on. I think Tucker's take is a lot closer to a well-reasoned position that this post.
Ukraine is no modern democracy that Russian citizens want for themselves. It is correctly perceived in Russia as a cesspit of corruption that makes Russian oligarchs look like angels of mercy. Ukranians themselves are so fed up of it that they want to join the EU because they have no hope on their own politicians.
What sort of civilised country outlaws an entire language? A country in which minorities Russians, Hungarians, etc are treated as second class citizens. Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk had legitimate referenda on independence and deserve the right to be independent of their Ukronationalist tormentors.
"If you ask the Ukranians" is a recurrant echo throughout this article. Maybe you should think a bit more about "If you ask the Russian speakers in Donbass" ... and "if you ask those who celebrate Stepan Bandera and other pro-Nazi untranationalists" ... just saying.
All one needs to know about this war is to see the "people" in DC who support it. The only people worse than Zelensky and his henchmen are the "people" like Pelosi, Cornyn, Linda Graham, Turtlehead, et al. I didn't think you could be so wrong.
Wow! I’m Ukrainian and that’s such an incredibly one-sided and disgusting work of fiction you just wrote. Unsubscribed and unfollowed you on twitter. I’ll try to come back here later with a more thorough rebuttal when I have the time.
Your take, in my opinion, is very one sided and frankly pretty much sums up the Western take with a minor concession or two (which you also walk back). I do have some knowledge on this matter - I was born in Soviet Ukraine, I still hold a Ukrainian citizenship (even though I lived out of Ukraine since the 90s) and still have some family left in Ukraine and visited Ukraine once every few years before C19 hit. I speak Russian natively and understand Ukrainian, and occasionally watch both Russian and Ukrainian news, videos and Telegram channels. Also living in the West for 25+ years I am ver familiar with the Western and Russian narratives.
You general idea is that Ukraine and Ukrainians are united in they fight against the evil Putin horde while on the way to become a Western style democracy. This is simply not true. This conflict, in addition to a fight between Russia and NATO, is also an internal civil war that was ongoing since 2014, not just in Donbass (where a lot of Ukrainian were fighting), but also in all of Ukraine. The Ukrainian nationalist government has been purging Ukraine from anything Russian for 8 years. Russian channels have been banned, teaching in Russian in schools was banned, streets named after Soviet themes were renamed after Ukrainian nationalists (some of them quite vile), people sympathetic to Russia were taken by the SBU and either disappeared or were "re-educated", the Ukrainian military attacked civilians on multiple occasions in Donetsk and Lugansk. So no, Ukraine was not on the path of switching from Mordor to a beautiful functioning democracy. It was on the path of switching from a neutral, maybe somewhat pro Russian, Mordor to a much worse but pro Western Mordor, and the West was willing to ignore the Mordor part, as long as they stay pro Western.
Please try to hear people from the other side. Maybe talk to someone from DNR or LNR. Seriously - you are smart and you can do better. Intellectual honesty, right?
“I just don’t buy that “NATO is a security threat to Russia” as a serious argument”
Tell me what you think the US response would be to Mexico joining a Chinese led “Pacific Nato “ and China setting up bases in Mexico
Every power has their Red Lines. With the US its pretty much anyplace in the Western Hemisphere. With China it was/is Hong Kong and Taiwan, and with Russia it is its Western borders, especially Ukraine. We would do well to respect these Red Lines even if we do not agree.
After the Cuban Missile Crisis the Soviets pulled their missiles out of Cuba and we did the same in Turkey (reluctantly).
Avoiding war is always a priority, especially between two nuclear powers.
You fail to mention Ukraine not following the Minsk Agreement and Ukraines shelling of the Donbas into civilian areas for 8 years killing many
Crimea has always been considered part of Russia. The Soviets in 1954 decided for some reason to add it to the Soviet Ukraine sphere of influence. Its almost entirely Russian speaking and identifies as Russian and the voted overwhelmingly to leave Ukraine (Ukraine banned Russian language )
While numerically the Nazis are small in number, they are over represented at the level of the security forces leadership. When Hitler took over German the Nazis were a minority politically. Hitler lost the election
The Nationalists and Nazis are also targeting Russian language and ethnic Russians for discrimination.Lawmakers in 2019 passed legislation ordering middle schools that taught in Russian and other minority languages to make the switch to Ukrainian and mandating Ukrainian versions of online stores.
It requires shops, restaurants and the service industry to engage customers in Ukrainian unless clients specifically ask to switch.
Anyone caught violating the new legislation twice within one year could be fined 200 euros ($235), almost half of the average salary in the country.
Imagine fining a Mexican or Chinese shop owner in a Hispanic or Chinese neighborhood for not using English unless his customers specifically request it
A country that was subject to a coup to throw out a Democratically elected President is a phony Democracy. Ukraine went from being the wealthiest among the FSU after the breakup to the poorest. The impoverishment of Ukraine accelerated following the first Color Revolution in 2004 and declined rapidly after the Maidan Coup
As for the biolabs, the labs which Russia has control of were decontaminated in advance of their control. They have released documents that have been ignored by MSM. Its too early to write this off.
Less than one year after President Donald Trump informally announced that the United States would withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the State Department announced on Aug. 2 2019 that the move was officially complete. I’d call that a provocation
Especially when you are getting ready to deploy this in Europe
https://pete843.substack.com/p/was-dark-eagle-one-factor-in-putins?s=w
As for the history
https://pete843.substack.com/p/the-road-to-war-in-ukraine?s=w
I updated the post Soviet time here
https://pete843.substack.com/p/ukraine-post-cold-war-timeline?s=w
The US has had a long history supporting Nazi elements in Ukraine during the Cold War
https://pete843.substack.com/p/100-year-battle-for-ukraine-and-role?s=w
I asked my friend, who is originally from Donetsk, how his family was doing back there. He said it was the same as it has been since 2014-2015. Non-stop aggression by the central Ukranian government and the battalions.
You considered all arguments that supported your bias. You shoot down all others as Putin’s narrative. But Ocam’s razor points to Putin’s narrative as possibly the closest to the truth but you won’t even explore it. Obviously you are blinded by generational trauma. I’ll be back when you tackle another subject that is not so close to your heart that blinds your judgement.
A good thread outlining the atrocities of Ukraine and The West in it's relentless pursuit of endless war.
https://www.farsightprime.com/forums/general/55562-america-s-war-in-ukraine
So if NATO is a purely defensive alliance would it be alright if Russia joined NATO?
Yes, there are US labs there doing research. It’s part of a larger US program that extends outside of just Ukraine. They are not making bioweapons.
-----------
Are they doing research which could result in bioweapons if they called it something different?
This is exactly like us calling torture 'enhanced interrogation' so we can say we don't torture. But we do.
Good post.
Not to justify clear Russian war crimes. I think the left doesn't acknowledge how reasonable Russian initial demands were. The eastern provinces and Crimea are filled with people that don't want to be ruled by the west and were pushed.
I don't think there's any solution other than a Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia style breakup.
All the war crimes in the world don't cover up the solution.
I am sorry to say, but I think this post is wrong is many ways.
A couple of points here.
An underlying theme here is that Ukraine is one united country, all working together opposing those evil no-good Russkies. gummibear737 says "I talked to this Ukrainian, I talked to that Ukrainian, etc." I guess these Ukrainians were western-minded (ethnic ?) Ukrainians. This is like asking a white supremacist red-neck "what do you think of the Mexicans?" In fact, Ukraine is a deeply split country. There is a territorial entity called Ukraine, but there is a spectrum of people, the two ends of which don't think they live in the same country. Take the map of Ukraine and draw a line from northwest to southeast. Northwest is ethnic Ukrainian; as you go towards the southwest Ukraine becomes more and more Russian. When you get to southwest (Crimea, Donbass) the people are Russian - they speak Russian and they live in Russian cultural world.
If you asked people in Crimea "what do you think of yourselves? how do you self-identify?" they would say "we are Russian". Not Ukrainian. Not Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Just Russian. If you asked the same in Lvov, they would say "of course Ukrainian". If you asked the people in the middle, they would say "Russian-speaking Ukrainians". Do you see the differences?
South and southeast of Ukraine has never been ethnically Ukrainian. Never ever. I remember reading (a few years ago) an article by a young Ukrainian lady from Lvov who had decided to take a trip to Crimea - first trip in her life (Ukraine is a big country). She was shocked. She was Ukrainian-speaking (nationalist you could say). She was shocked that Crimea was full of these Russkies. hahaha. Her attitude was like "how dear they???? don't they know this is Ukraine???" For her, the people of Crimea were like a bunch of foreigners.
wrt "Ukrainian nationalists (neo-Nazis) are just a tiny minority". Let me just provide this one data point. There is this guy by the name Roman Shukhevych. He was a biggest racist mass killing sociopath in Europe until Hitler came along. Go ahead google him. There is a wikipedia page on him - read it (this page goes easy on him). For extra coverage, check out this Jewish perspective
https://forward.com/news/462916/nazi-collaborator-monuments-in-ukraine/
Roman Shukhevych is scum on Earth.
Now here comes my point. Roman Shukhevych is a national hero of Ukraine. The majority of Ukrainian parliament voted to name him a hero; the president of Ukraine signed the decree declaring him a hero. So don't come telling "Ukrainian nationalists (neo-Nazis) are just a tiny minority"; minority my ass. For Ukraine to declare Roman Shukhevych a hero is like for Germany to declare Adolf Hitler a national hero. Think about that.
I cannot believe how many people fell for this russian propaganda! I’m also from from Eastern Europe, and it might be cause of that, that I can see it too - but ever since this war started, I found myself in a very lonely place to be. A lot of my friends, family members even, people online that I shared same views, about everything, cannot see and even want to consider this point of view. They have turned into to the very closed minded and hostile commentators about this particular subject, that they won’t even consider the possibility of this scenario- to not even consider it (??!)- what if it all is Russian propaganda? And even if you don’t want to take into account any of the things you wrote (which I personally agree), but even if you don’t agree with any of this- you people know that a war is a bloody misery, awful and it takes lives, and people die! Can you honestly say that you are ready to look at yourself, sometime in the future-and to know that while the innocent children were being murdered, just like they are in any war, and while all of that was happening- that you blindly denied it, defended it? A child blown into pieces, that had nothing to do with any of this-only for the fact it was born in a wrong place, at a wrong time? A child blown into pieces! What is wrong with you people?! You cannot defend such a thing, you just cannot… it’s so sad to read this kind of stuff - I’m heartbroken and beyond disappointed, and people have lost their goddamn minds! This is something you cannot justify! No child is guilty in any war, and everyone knows that! Yet their death is very certain! People have gone completely mad, some even have children themselves- and they are parroting this bullshit like it’s some kind of righteous truth, and not a russian propaganda! Can you honestly look at yourself in the mirror and lie to yourself forever? Cause that’s what you’re in for… You are gloating over dead children, all of you!
If Russia is so worried about the Nato, why doesn’t it attack US? Why attack a country that cannot defend itself? Why not attack someone of your own size? Why go for a smallest person on a playground? People have lost their minds! Seriously- just fucking stop it, before you go somewhere, where you cannot come back from - it’s a dark place, you’re already at 🙁
Gummi, thanks for this, even though I’m going to largely disagree. I really wanted to read a deep and thoughtful analysis that goes against my instincts on this, and you helped me see some elements of this differently.
Here’s where I am - from the beginning I’ve felt like those of us that are laypeople in the US can’t possibly understand what is actually going on. There are so many layers of history and culture, along with decades of corruption and geopolitical manipulation. And it’s just so far away from us, so we have little direct understanding.
What I do feel like I understand is this - we’ve had a foreign policy establishment in the US that has been so wrong for so long, they are deeply hard to trust. They haven’t just made little errors - they’ve made gigantic ones. Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, etc all in recent years plus Vietnam and much of Cold War history. That establishment is tied hand in glove to a “permanent war” crowd that wants conflict around the globe. They make gobs of money from it, as well as the usual prestige and human qualities that come from being “in charge.”
In addition, it’s been obvious to anyone with eyes open in recent years that we no longer have anything resembling a trustworthy media. They are bought and paid for ideologically, tribally and monetarily. It’s no coincidence that the major story censored in the last two years is Hunter Biden and the Bidens seedy relationships all over the world, especially in Ukraine. What else is part of that story, that only the spooks know?
So who are we to trust, and what to believe?
I believe Putin is absolutely a bad guy, and wants to restore some of the Russian prestige from the Cold War. I also believe that doesn’t make him insane or completely irrational. Russia has been invaded from the west so many times, to such devastating effect (we Americans can’t possibly imagine) that it’s not crazy to worry about what happens in Ukraine. And, to want to control it. It’s also true that Ukraine itself has been brutalized by the Russians many times in their history. And of course, there’s a long and terrible history of anti-Semitism and pogroms in the region.
At the end of it all, my feeling is we should stay the hell out of it. We’d be wise to keep a very close eye on the situation, and be clear in our minds of what a red line is for the Russians. They certainly don’t respect weakness, and we are weak now with our leadership. But wars escalate very quickly and dangerously, and Ukraine is not worth WWIII. I absolutely do believe some of our leadership class wants it, and thinks they can pull it off without nukes being used. They are utopianists, obviously incompetent and full of American naïveté. And they work for a President that is as unpopular as any we’ve had in decades, who’s party is about to get their ass handed to them in November. Don’t tell me that’s not a factor in what is going on - of course it is.
You have a deep history and knowledge of the region. So that helps you understand a lot, but probably also biases you towards action against the Russians. For me, I just don’t see the American interest in intervening in any way, including all the provocation we’ve been doing so far. There’s so much more for us to lose than gain as a country.