Why care about Ukraine?
About a month ago, commenter “BrianB” had this to say. I think it represents one not uncommon point of view on the right:
On the personal and emotional level I sympathize with Ukraine. But personal emotions are how our “leaders” manipulate us and they are nothing to base a foreign policy on.
For 30 years we have had “leaders” of both parties jerking us one way then another over humanitarian and democratic appeals for why we should spend trillions and kill thousands and all it has done is spend trillions and kill thousands for no purpose other than to strengthen our “leaders” and weaken the US.
Russia is corrupt and concerned with its near abroad and is no particular threat to me. Ukraine is corrupt and is also no threat to me.
The Dems and and the GOPe and the progs and the globalists and Soros and Schwab are all mortal and immediate threats to me and America. Realpolitik is cold blooded but we have seen what sentimentality and nation building has gotten us so which school is truly cold blooded?
The question realpolitik demands is what is in our, America’s, interests; a sentimental, underdog Ukraine win or a Russian one? A Ukraine win strengthens our true enemies and will launch them on ever more meddling and nation building and adventurism. It also strengthens them politically at home. A Russian win damages the neocon/neolib/globalist project.
I believe this view is incorrect, although somewhat understandable.
As Russia takes on more territory – Ukraine in particular, with all its resources – it acquires more sources of income and more influence. Russia also has made Europe dependent on it, and that’s worrisome and has (until the recent war, anyway) greatly affected Europe’s decisions on foreign policy and trade. That and Russia’s alliances with China and other third-world countries have the goal of creating a countervailing power to the West. They’re playing for big stakes (the article is from a few weeks before the Ukraine invasion):
The two leading authoritarians of our time have declared unprecedented common cause, perhaps even a de facto security alliance, with aspirations of shaping a new world order to replace the one fashioned by the United States and its partners after World War II.
So, they publicly released the entirety of their audacious, 5,300-word joint statement in English this weekend, declaring that “a trend has emerged towards redistribution of power in the world” – namely toward them and away from the U.S. and its democratic partners and allies.
There’s a lot in the statement worth reading and digesting, but here’s my rough executive summary: Russia and China are throwing in their lot in a gesture of cooperation that exceeds even Stalin’s partnership with Mao, in each other’s regions and around the world. For the first time, Beijing has joined Moscow in opposing NATO enlargement and embracing Putin’s vision for a new European security order. Russia returned the favor by opposing the new Australia-U.S.-U.K. security agreement, endorsing its One China Policy, embracing the Russia-India-China cooperation format, and blessing its Arctic role.
In addition, there is evidence that Putin has been influenced by the work of Aleksandr Dugin, something I wrote about in this previous post. Here’s an excerpt in which I quoted this article:
Dugin gave Putin the ideology he needed to reject the tainted European strain of Soviet communism while rehabilitating it as a great patriotic people’s movement, including the rehabilitation of Stalin in his role as wartime champion against Hitler. This ideology also enabled Putin to make what is to him a coherent argument that, while the Soviet communist regime will never be restored, the Slavophilic populism that was its true lifeblood can be—a national tribalism extending to all Slavic peoples including Ukraine, Poland, and the Balkans, who must be gathered back into the Russian fold.
And here’s a description of a book on Dugin’s philosophy, written in 2014:
A new ideology—Eurasianism—is being advanced by those who dream of a new empire and revenge on the Western powers which brought about the collapse of the Soviet empire. Aleksandr Dugin, the father of Eurasianism, was recently described by Foreign Affairs as “Putin’s Brain.” For Dugin, the battle between Russia and the West is an epic struggle to fulfill ancient myths: a battle between the mystical forces of the mythical land of ‘Arctogaia’ and a decadent, materialistic America. “The American Empire should be destroyed,” Dugin declares, “And at one point, it will be.”
Russia’s performance in Ukraine so far doesn’t make achievement of this goal seem likely through military means. But it still appears to be a goal – and Russia has been more successful in undermining the US and the West through non-military strategies. BrianB expresses the idea that “A Russian win damages the neocon/neolib/globalist project,” but I disagree. Russia wants the West to be as weak as possible, and it sees that so-called “neocon/neolib/globalist project” as a mechanism further encouraging Western weakness. To that purpose, Russia has encouraged some aspects of it rather than discouraging it – but only for the West, not for Russia. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that a Russian victory in Ukraine would reduce that strategy; rather, there is every reason to believe Russia would continue it.
To take one example, Russia has been instrumental in spreading and supporting climate change and Green propaganda in the US, in particular opposition to fracking and drilling for fossil fuels in this country:
In 2014 – the same year Russia annexed Crimea – then-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned that Russia was covertly working to undermine European and U.S. fossil fuel production.
Three years later, in 2017, Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Randy Weber (R-Texas) sent a lengthy letter to then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin making a similar accusation. Importantly, their letter connected some of the dots highlighting Russia’s covert efforts to fund various environmental organizations that were trying to limit or end U.S. hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for shale gas and oil…
In 2014 – the same year Russia annexed Crimea – then-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned that Russia was covertly working to undermine European and U.S. fossil fuel production.
Three years later, in 2017, Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Randy Weber (R-Texas) sent a lengthy letter to then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin making a similar accusation. Importantly, their letter connected some of the dots highlighting Russia’s covert efforts to fund various environmental organizations that were trying to limit or end U.S. hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for shale gas and oil.
The media and Democrats mostly shrugged their collective shoulders at these allegations. They were far too busy trying to prove the now-discredited Russian-Trump election collusion to be bothered with a more plausible Russian-environmental activist collusion….
In hindsight, it is increasingly apparent that Putin has been preparing for his Ukrainian invasion for years. Dominating the global energy market by covertly working to limit U.S. production would have been a huge coup — in more ways than one.
So it seems to me to be a good idea to rethink that business about who a Russian win benefits and who it hurts. The Russian interest is in sowing chaos and division in the US through propaganda, and handicapping our economy (especially in the energy field but also in every respect), and I think it can count some successes there.
In addition, there is the more general principle of not looking the other way when an imperialistic country invades another country with the purpose of annexing all or part of it, such as Russia did with Ukraine. If successful, Putin would not be likely to stop at Ukraine. The only thing that will stop him from going forward into other countries is exhaustion and depletion of military resources, and that depletion can only occur if we continue to help Ukraine by supplying armaments to fight Russia. What’s more, a Russian victory in Ukraine might embolden other countries to do the same around the world. Does anyone think that wouldn’t affect the US, at least economically, and probably in many other ways?
but we have seen what sentimentality and nation building has gotten us so which school is truly cold blooded?
And would he rather have Uday or Qusay?
well he stopped in georgia, after 12 days, and there was really neglible real resistance there, the last eight years after the initial crimean breakout was a slow burn, of course the administration then, didn’t send any heavy weapons to ukraine, until trump, the irony of irony, this course of action was recommended by fiona hill, who of course was danchenko’s protege,
now if gazprom hadn’t greased the wheels in washington, shutting down all the pipelines, for a mere 750 k this probably would not have happened, and the people who pushed all of these self inflicted actions are now making policy, making food and fuel prohibitively expensive,
The entity harming the economy, the culture, and the morale of the USA is the progressive movement controlling the catastrophic policies of the Biden administration.
We all know that Xi has been gazing longingly at Taiwan for quite some time. Now, I can’t at all say how realistic an actual invasion of Taiwan by China might be, what it might look like, and how sucessful it might be. But I for one am not eager to find out.
And while Ukraine may not be super vital to us personally in terms of resources and trade, Taiwan certainly is. Everyone knows the aphorism “Don’t put your eggs in one basket”. We foolishly allowed the vast majority of our semiconductor production “eggs” to be put into the single “basket” of Taiwan evidently in the name of Globablism.
@miguel cervantes
He largely stopped in Georgia because he had claimed his stated objectives and above all the US put in a tripwire force around Tbilisi, meaning that if he went any further he would risk war with the West. He wisely decided to take his winnings and pull back from the table, especially since Russian nationalism does not have anything like as huge a hangup recognizing Georgia’s existence as an independent and distinct nation compared to doing so with Ukraine.
Agreed. Though part of the reason it was a slow burn was due to the terrain in the Donbas Rust Belt as well as stubborn resistance. That meant that pacing on that front was glacial. Indeed, it still is relative to the other fronts.
Yup, absolutely agreed.
I can see the complaint about foreign involvement to a certain extent. I can remember Christiane Amanpour, on CNN, showing us video of problems in Somalia, which led the US public to think we should “do something” to help. And I remember the argument about how we should “protect” the people of Libya from their dictator, which actions resulted in a far worse situation. Ukraine is different. I still oppose direct US troop involvement or air support. But standing back and allowing imperialists to annex neighboring countries would come at a cost to be paid in the future.
Not to be a nitpicker, but Europe decided all by its lonesome to become dependent upon Russian energy; Russia simply obliged them.
I wonder to what degree the European (esp. German) decision to become dependent upon Russian energy was motivated by their dislike / resentment of the USA.
The Dugin / Putin philosophy sure sounds a lot like Hitler’s Lebensraum.
Dugin’s remark that the American Empire will be destroyed is dead-on correct.
It won’t be Russia or China that destroys our Constitutional Republic, it will be our own, home-grown liberal progressives, socialists and communists; basically the ideologies that guide and are embraced by the democrat party.
Obama was not joking when he said he would fundamentally transform America and Joe Bidet is doing his best to see that it happens.
Ironically, while the Dugin / Putin political ideology rejects communism, Obama /Bidet and the democrat party, more or less, can’t wait to impose it here in the USA.
Putin need not worry about destroying the USA; it will happen without his help.
He would not be too out of line if he awarded some sort of Russian medal of merit to Obama, Biden, et. al. for advancing the cause of Russia (by diminishing / harming the economic, political and military power of the USA).
which actions resulted in a far worse situation
You mean Libya should have had a fruit-loop totalitarian in charge forever?
Was what followed better than the fruit-loop who had surrendered his WMD? It would not likely have been forever.
Dugin’s remark that the American Empire will be destroyed is dead-on correct.
1. There is no ‘American Empire’ and there never was. (IR theorists invent terms like ‘informal empire’ and fancy that’s something with a reality outside their imagination.
2. No prediction is ‘dead on correct’ except by chance, especially in political life.
Obama was not joking when he said he would fundamentally transform America and Joe Bidet is doing his best to see that it happens.
He didn’t. He is inconsequential.
Was what followed better than the fruit-loop who had surrendered his WMD? It would not likely have been forever.
You had 42 years of the man, he had a life expectancy of about 15 years, and he had children. If you recall, by the way, there was an insurgency in progress when we intervened. You’re assuming that the Qadafi’s disappear at some future point and there is no violent conflict or settling of scores. Why is that your assumption?
If you’re concerned about a Russia/China alliance, I don’t really understand how you can be supporting the very political/policy class that has done everything possible to make that alliance happen.
That’s kind of where I am on this stuff and whether Ukraine should matter to us or not. I don’t support Russian revanchism. I think Ukraine has every right to defend its territory and have no problem with the U.S. helping them, as long as it doesn’t lead to a larger conflict. What I can’t understand it looking at the people who’ve been running U.S. foreign policy for the last…well, forever…and thinking “Yep! These people really know what they’re doing! We should totally trust that they’ll handle Russia/Ukraine better than anything else they’ve done in the last 50+ years!”
Mike
What is not clear to me is why an insurgency in Libya, or its governance by a dictator, called for American intervention.
“You’re assuming that the Qadafi’s disappear at some future point and there is no violent conflict or settling of scores. Why is that your assumption?”
A reverse-Pollyanish view that some alternate version of events MIGHT be worse than what actually happened is way too childish for your shtick.
Mike
@BrianB
Neo largely imitates many of my points but I think I’d touch on some here.
On that we agree.
I disagree, particularly since I have read through some of the releases (admittedly filtered through our “leaders”) of Osama’s Abbotabad Documents and the like. I’ll be far from someone who uncritically praises our “leadership” but we have accomplished more.
This i think is where the calculus goes wrong. Ukraine is a threat to us, albeit indirectly, particularly from their often-stated role as a trough for corruption by the globalist left among others (such as the CCP, Putin’s Russia, and assorted Islamists). We saw this in the role the Bidens have had there and the involvement in Steele’s Hoax Dossier.
But in the meantime, I do think Russia is a great threat to us, albeit mostly secondary and indirect. Mark Steyn and VDH have been cautioning for decades that Russia (or at least Russian leadership at present) is reflexively anti-American and favors supporting the pole in what they think is a bipolar war that is not us. Which is one reason why attempts at rapprochement have failed.
But in particular the Kremlin is disturbingly happy to play as enabler and junior partner to many of our enemies, both directly and indirectly. The fact that he is having his diplomatic staff working to midwife another abomination of an Iran Nuclear Deal (with Biden) at this very time should be more than enough reason to raise eyebrows about that, as do the arms deals to try and protect those reactors like the S-400 sales. And I could go on, ranging from patronage to the Marxist Narco-Terrorists ruling Venezuela to the Moscow-Beijing Axis.
But at least as important as all that- and I think it is big- is the role he plays as an acceptable boogeyman for our Deep State. A cudgel with which to demonize and beat us while justifying repression. Discrediting him that will I think not only be beneficial for the international balance of power, but also help defang that argument and make it harder for the left to justify such repression.
of course, I’m not naive enough to think they WON’T try to pivot to something else (I forget who made a good comment about it being to Green Energy, etc) to try and do the same. But it’s going to be at least somewhat inconvenient for them and buy us time.
Besides that, there is the useful tool this provides in showing the value of a nation at arms and a weapons-bearing citizenry against even a modern military, as well as the value of nationalism and national independence in preserving freedom. That’ll be an awkward bone for our internal enemies and the Globalists elsewhere to swallow.
Agreed there.
A fair point, though I’ll note nation building has a better track record than just the immediate past shows.
Agreed.
Honestly I disagree, for a few different reasons. For starters the US is not in much shape for nation building and adventurism, especially after Kabul and the internal purge. Nor do I think the left is particularly focused on that compared to trying domestic social engineering in the Great Reset.
Secondly: I also do not thin a Ukrainian victory benefits our enemies nearly as much as you argue and I think it can serve to undermine them, particularly by neutering the “Putin Putin Putin/Russia Russia Russia” boogeyman they’ve weaponized for so long. Mentioned that earlier.
Thirdly: Putin is nowhere near the kind of stalwart enemy of the globalists or our other enemies as this posits, since he will happily walk hand in glove with them, much like rival mob bosses coming to a deal there.
I would say assuming that it WILL or MUST happen because of the “long arc of history” is ahistorical, but it is a possibility.
This is absolutely true, and well worth considering (with the slight caveat that Nicholas was replaced first by a Wishy Washy Provisional Republic and then by the Bolsheviks and the Shah by a socialist Republic that lasted a few months before the Mullahs overthrew it)..
However, it doesn’t always happen like that. To be sure, Chiang/Jiang gave way to Mao, Nicholas (eventually) to Lenin and the Bolsheviks, and the Shah (eventually) with the Mullahs. But the Kaiser and Ludendorff were replaced by Ebert and Germany’s first real democratic republic, Mussolini by an awkward alliance between the Royal government and anti-Fascist opposition, Ortega by a Christian Democratic government, and so on.
Not all of those lasted and Mussolini was in part due to direct Western Allied intervention, but it should be the other side of the coin.
But there’s another thing worth factoring in: For all of their many, MANY flaws and atrocities, the Tsar, the Shah, and Jiang were *on our side*, at least for the most part. Putin- as Steyn and others have pointed out- IS NOT.
So I think the threshold is different. That doesn’t mean an enemy will always be replaced by something BETTER, but I do think it means that there is more reasons to hope they are gone.
Agreed.
I see this pop up at various points in varying degrees of seriousness, and it is an understandable reaction. Particularly since it works Oh So Well in most cases.
But that doesn’t make it wise.
For instance, there is an organization- very much an underdog one- that managed to unite Obama, Biden, Soros, Schwab, Macron, the UN, the EU, Bernie Sanders, and the like in opposing.
That group was the Islamic State.
Which I might add was also opposed by Putin, Baathist Syria, the PRC, most Sunni Autocracies, the Iranian Mullahcracy, and a host of others.
Now, if we are doing the opposite of what our retarded, corrupt, and evil leaders are doing, does that mean we start getting out black and white flags and rah rahing Baghadi’s successors?
I think not.
This is also why I think we need to resist the urge to let the left and the MSM dominate our thinking. And instinctively doing the opposite of them is just another form of letting them control you.
Fair, but I think it is a speculation that is at least strongly defensible.
Possible, but I’m skeptical. The leading destabilizing feature in this region since the end of the Cold War has been Russian military misadventures and divide-and-conquer politics. It isn’t the ONLY one by a long shot (just ask Armenia and Azerbaijan), but it plays a direct role in most of the region’s flashpoints. Transnistria. Abkhazia/South Ossetia. Belarus. The Donbas and Crimea. Chechnya.
These have been infected wounds on Eastern European politics for years, the longest ones for longer than I’m alive. They also make it harder for the people to try and move on. Particularly since Putin’s particular flavor of regime means that he is adverse to governance or the like getting TOO good, since that makes it harder to do things like rig elections or hold out the trough for foreign and domestic corruption (plus the leverage it gets).
Of course removing him will not fix everything, and it might lead to other problems like another threat out of Russia, a resurgent Neo-Ottomanist Islamist Turkey, and so on. But I think it is worth a try to destabilize him.
Absolutely agreed. Which is why I think the grounds for opposing him on policy are for other reasons.
Understandable.
Again, I think this misunderstands both Putin’s agenda (and how opposed it is to our ruling class) and the costs.
You know what would really weaken our ruling classes? Global Islamic Caliphate Daesh style. Now, would that really be something you’d support? I think not, and for good reason. Because in addition to being a thoroughly evil hell hole, Daesh in fact replicates many of the worst aspects of our ruling powers- unaccountability, contempt for freedom, totalitarianism, globalist orientations- with a spin so old it’s new in Current Year.
That does not mean we SHOULDN’T oppose the Globalists. But we should be careful on how to do so.
Fair enough, and I submit my post here.
PS: Dear God, am I and Neo the only ones who still use the old, tattered label of “Neocon”? Well, only ones who have not gone over to the globalist enemy?
Technically he seized two chunks of Georgia, Crimea, a decent chunk of the Donbas, and cemented Russian defacto occupation of Transnistria. Which is a baleful enough effect for a nation with dwindling resources and the Chinese at the door.
He’s also been trying to seal the deal for a formal union with Belarus, which is more than his military conquests put together.
Agreed.
I think it depends on how we look at his empire. Modern empire building rarely involves direct annexation and coming up with a creative new emblem with some novel design in the canton while your nation’s flag is in the corner. The new wave of imperialism is informal, and Putin has happily built on that as we’ve seen in Syria, Venezuela, and Cuba. He’s generally acted as the junior partner to the Chinese (more on that later) but it’s still worth noting.
Agreed, that is the Euro’s faults. But while the liquor store (usually) does not make the alcoholic they are often happy to weaponize it. Moreover, the Drug Pusher and Pimp often make the addict, and the Kremlin has been very happy to corrupt European politics more, as Germany and France show. Especially the disgrace both the SPD and CDU have turned into in Germany.
Agreed with caveats, but it’s a far more natural enemy of Us than it is of Russia, and Steyn and others pointed out back during the Bush years that a cornerstone of Putin’s foreign policy would be trying to hitch his star to the biggest anti-American and anti-Western power he could find, in this case China. In no small part because he views it as necessary to keep good relations with the Dragon due to shared interests and beliefs and to prevent the Chinese from trying to swallow Siberia.
As much as I hate to quote video games- especially forgotten ones- I do think that one forgettable shooter said it well:
Well, I was even younger then.
Which brings us to the nature of Russian foreign policy and its particular brand of psychosis in regards to its Near Abroad, as well as its perfidy in stated goals like the Astana Agreement. The agreement that stated that it was an “inherent right” of nations to choose their alliance or none at all. It also ignores the degree to which this was caused by those four nations trying to cross the red line themselves. Even Yanukovych- who was not an enemy of Putin’s- and in fact was Putin’s man in Ukraine- saw it as beneficial to try and negotiate an association agreement with the EU to try and help revive the Ukrainian economy and get better deals in the perennial tariff wars. Which Putin responded badly to, thus sparking Euromaidan.
Ultimately, I think this is largely a Them problem, and I do not think humoring the Kremlin will get us much.
Yah, yah I do think it was far less supported by and instigated by us than those. For starters, the US generally takes pains to keep on good terms with the Kazakhstani government for a whole host of reasons going back to the Afghan War at least. We don’t actually want whatever differences we have with Nazarbayev and Tokayev to come to the surface and view them as more trustworthy and valuable partners. Certainly moreso and more flexible than Lukashenko the literal KGB Kingpin.
This is in contrast to our efforts in Ukraine and Belarus, where Western support and leanings have NOT been secretive for years.
And frankly the mythos of the “color revolution” as instigated by “us” I think is a very convenient ability for the Kremlin and its friendly governments to dodge responsibility. Soros poured millions upon millions of dollars- along with Foggy Bottom doing it with some of ours- into Ukraine and they generally had modest effect at best until/unless the Kremlin-supported blues shat the bed in a spectacular fashion. It’s sort of like the simplified narrative that “the CIA and MI6” overthrew “the Democratically Elected” PM Mossadegh. Which is kind of true but ignores Mossadegh’s unconstitutional power grabs and the massive pro-royalist civil discontent (as well as the CIA and MI6’s Keystone Cops initial plan).
I agree, but the same applies to Russia.
There are consequences for thuggishly arm-twisting your chosen vassal to walk back on his stated promises in exchange for token concessions that alienated much of his political base. There are consequences to being unable or unwilling to sort out trade arguments that have been around longer than most people today have been. There are consequences for brutality and a high handed my way or the highway mentality and blaming foreign enemies for any outbreak of dissent.
I still remember when the Kremlin vilified Memorial as “Foreign Agents.”
In any case, the Kremlin has been unwilling to adjust and treat seriously with the people and governments in its Near Abroad for a very long time. it’s not surprising they saw it as a change.
Well, that and we have quite a lot more appealing than the Kremlin and even the CCP, or the same.
Moreover, we seem to be SOMEWHAT better at applying the lessons of our foreign affairs to our near abroad and recognizing that “even pawns can make moves of their own.” That rambling about Color Revolutions and the CIA is often a convenient out to avoid grappling with the fact that those don’t come out of the blue.
Not sure I’d go that far, and even if I did there’s a lot more similarities with the PRC and Russians there than people would like to admit. One Child Policy, anyone?
I agree. The issue is we remain divided on how best to do that.
I cannot agree. Putin has tried to keep just about everybody outside of his aspiring colonies in the “near abroad” at arms length, but he has pretty consistently favored an anti-Western and pro-Chinese policy going back decades. At least as far back as when he was told that Russia would not get to cheat and skip out on the NATO requirements everybody else had to do. And it’s not like this is for lack of TRYING; pretty much every US Administration since Clinton has gone into office promising to fix relations with Russia (and particularly Putin) that were supposedly ruined by the blundering of the last administration and came out embittered and angry at Putin’s backstabbing.
Not to say that US Policy towards Russia hasn’t often been wrongheaded or damaging, but at this rate I think the simplest explanation is the best, and the one offered by the near-Cassandra tier prophetic Mark Steyn. That Putin’s Russia can’t be coaxed into neutrality or alliance against China is because Putin fundamentally does not wish it, and that putting too much blame even on our own “esteemed” goons at home is ultimately misreading the situation.
You think that seems to be a joke?
Kremlin support for anti-nuker and Red-Greens in the West is rather well known and has been painstakingly documented, in keeping with the proud tradition of Soviet support for those entities back in the Worse Old Days.
http://caseforconsumers.org/2018/03/18/is-the-kremlin-funding-u-s-environmental-groups/
https://thenewamerican.com/congress-kremlin-used-green-propaganda-to-undercut-u-s-energy/
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2022/03/10/lawmakers-demand-answers-from-leftist-environmental-groups-over-possible-collusio-n2604397
The damage is quite real.
This strikes me as a bit wrongheaded, or trying to force an either/or. The reality is that the homegrown green lunatics are exactly the people the Kremlin- in first Soviet and now Putinist guise- has been financing for decades, many of whom have later wormed their way into US Government.
(If you want to murder your blood pressure, start going through a list of Environmental Tsars and their histories.).
… which they’re doing with Putin’s express and large scale support.
This is an interrelated problem, and while ours would be around even without Putin it’s making it worse and indeed has inherited the legacy that made this problem as large as it is.
In particular it’s a major reason why German and other European politics and environmental policy are as dysfunctional as they are. See Schroeder in Germany about that.
Sure, but they were at least fair weather allies of Al Qaeda, who killed nearly 3,000 of us on one day. An organization also being tacitly supported by Iran as we now know.
Offhand, it thoroughly gutted Al Qaeda and its ilk and removed a nasty dictator and terrorist sponsor. It also made Iran fight for us and helped cement Kurdish independence in the North. In spite of all the problems (and particularly Obama’s squandering of what achievements we had made) that is nothing to sneeze at, even if it was not worth the cost.
On this much we absolutely agree, and you have phrased that beautifully, if sickeningly because it’s where we are. What we disagree on, then, is how to manage this problem. I think for various reasons that supporting Ukraine and repulsing the Kremlin will be better for us, in part because it will undermine the Gang of Rogues’ attempts to use this as a tool to demonize and persecute us. Maybe I’m wrong and I’m happy to field objections to it, but at least making them search for a new boogeyman other than Putin is worth it.
I absolutely agree. Which is why my argument is not that we should support Ukraine for IDEALZ or the like (though I think that is a legitimate component), but because up to a point such furthers our interests. Not just as a nation but also politically. It can help take the wind out of the sails of some very, Very bad people, and not just those directly allied with Putin and the PRC but also our own globalists. Whether it’s the Deep Green Quasi-State that’s emerged with Soviet and Russian support over the past half century or the runaway Security State leviathan keeping protestors in quasi-Gulag conditions, they all benefit from Putin’s power, either directly or indirectly. At least for now.
Maybe a more powerful Putin will turn more firmly and consistently against them, but I think that’s a risk greater than and less worthwhile than hoping that defanging him will undercut their ability to use him.
Which has a problem like I mentioned, since that would mean we’d be best to sign up alongside IS in order to hurt them.
I mostly agree with your values and assessments, but where I disagree is the path evaluation and where the risks lie.
Anyway, sorry for the ramble.
@MBunge
Honestly our political and policy class is full of suck at the best of times but they tried earnestly to woo Putin away from China. Even outsiders like Trump did. That it failed I think points to a fundamental series of issues that can’t be laid at the feet of even our Swamp. Or certainly not entirely at its feet.
Understandable.
That is my stance too, on a major level.
That’s the thing. I absolutely don’t trust those mofos. Indeed, I’ve written at length about what they’ve done and how they’ve screwed up, and part of me even wonders if this invasion escalated like it did now because of how they fucked up since the 2020 Steal.
But it’s sort of like learning about hating Wilson’s racism and authoritarianism in 1916 while learning about stuff like the Germans blowing up US munitions factories in the homeland and funding anti-American bandits in Mexico in 1916. I don’t have to like or trust our leadership to think the other side has issues with us that dissolving our current evil idiocracy and replacing it with a parliament of saints would fix.
“Russia has been instrumental in spreading and supporting climate change and Green propaganda in the US, in particular opposition to fracking and drilling for fossil fuels in this country…”
Russia?
Sounds like “Biden” actually.
Sure that’s not a typo?
@Barry Meislin
Biden’s an opportunistic puppet now and a useful back benching idiot back then, so I’d be hard pressed to say he was “instrumental” in that (as opposed to the people puppeteering him).
A reverse-Pollyanish view that some alternate version of events MIGHT be worse than what actually happened is way too childish for your shtick.
The term ‘childish’ doesn’t mean what you fancy it means.
That aside Bunge, neither she nor you explain why the factional rivalries that erupted coincident with Qadafi’s removal (and, more saliently, three years later) just go away with another decade or two or three of Qadafi.
What is not clear to me is why an insurgency in Libya, or its governance by a dictator, called for American intervention.
I’m not clear why that’s the salient issue for you.
I notice you didn’t answer the question.
Why care about Ukraine?
Knew too many “-enkos” to not care. Such as a fair number in my NE hometown. From workplaces during my undergrad days knew a Ukrainian couple who had gotten out courtesy of slave labor in Germany during WW2. As I was told they didn’t like to talk about the old country, I never asked about the Holodomor or such.
A long time neighbor here in TX, who died several years ago, told me that his parents had left Ukraine but returned to Ukraine for several years in the ’20s. Fortunately they got out and got back to the US before the border got shut down. He told me that several of his uncles in Ukraine lost their lives in Partisan fighting during WW2.
I have no idea what would have happened in Libya if Qadafi had not been removed, nor was that the point of what I said, which was, I don’t see why American intervention was called for. Hillary Clinton and Obama thought there was some purpose essential to American security to that action, which I still don’t see.
all of these people biden kerry clinton obama, six of one half a dozen of another, have never had our interests at heart, and yet they are screaming ‘traitor’ like donald sutherland, at anyone who is skeptical about a war on the Russian steppes, with nuclear release as a real possibility, same for that fatuous windbag Mitt Romney, or soft shelled McConnell, who seem to have a frisson about enabling this regime’s dismantling of this country,
Armenia is largely Iran’s catspaw, Azerbaijan is allied with Israel sometimes with Turkey, Kazakhstan is the Clinton and Biden’s honey pot,
I don’t see why American intervention was called for.
You mean you’d have preferred intramural violence to continue in Libya?
Gringo:
Glad to have you back commenting, although it may have been that you weren’t away; I miss things from time to time …
kadaffi had gone along with dismantling his nuclear program (he was caught read handed but still) as late as 2009, the british french and italian were all copacetic with him, then suddenly there was a jail break at Ali Salem, and the revolution was on, we later discovered this was largely a Turkish and Qatari sponsored affair, and that at least one of the trainers for the rebels, was a former Gitmo terrorist, who was likely on site, with Benghazi, where Victoria Nuland coincidentally wrote the talking points, shazzam, which covered up the assasination of a US Ambassador by Al Queda, she moved over to Ukraine, the following year,
You don’t think that rebellion was spontaneous, do you, the consequences were bloody all the way to the Niger river, a great victory for Al Queda all around, just like General Flynn had warned about the consequences in Syria, but they were whistling dixie,
“The Dems and and the GOPe and the progs and the globalists and Soros and Schwab are all mortal and immediate threats to me and America.”
Far more of a threat than whatever Putin’s territorial ambitions may be and arguably more of a threat than China’s global ambitions.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.” Marcus Tullius Cicero
“As Russia takes on more territory – Ukraine in particular, with all its resources – it acquires more sources of income and more influence. Russia also has made Europe dependent on it…” neo
Russia is not going to attack NATO member States. They pose a strategic restraint upon Russia’s teritorial expansion.
Even if Russia were to seize full control over the Ukraine and Moldova, it would not greatly expand Russia’s resources and sources of income; 2020 GDP in millions (IMF): Russia – 1,829,050 / Ukraine – 198,316 / Moldava – 13,811. Complete absorption of the Ukraine & Moldavan economies would result in just over a 10% increase for Russia. As has been pointed out before, Russia hasn’t any proficiency in increasing national GDP and war degrades the national output of conquered nations. So the increase in income for Russia would be even less.
Western and Central Europe’s dependence upon Russia can be easily addressed by the widespread adoption of nuclear electrical generation. As is so often the case, it’s the Left that enables Russia and China to be a threat. In the main, Europeans are voting for a seriously hard encounter with reality.
“The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of (their) folly, is to fill the world with fools.” Herbert Spencer
“Russia’s alliances with China and other third-world countries have the goal of creating a countervailing power to the West.” neo
Until the Western Left is fully neutered, a countervailing power to the West is arguably necessary. See Cicero’s quote above as to why.
Dugin’s regional provincialism prevents him from seeing the flaws in his own theory.
It is not Russia’s propaganda that is responsible for the handicapping of our economy but the American Left. The amount of Russia’s “influence” in America’s cultural, political and economic divide is greatly exaggerated.
No, I mean no coherent reasons were presented for why America was called on to stop intramural violence in Libya.
Why care about Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, …? Why care? You may not care for war but war cares for you.
https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/04/26/putin-decides-to-widen-the-war-with-ukraine-to-achieve-his-objectives-n556254
If only the west had done or not done X, or Y or Z then Putin wouldn’t have done (what he is doing now, and threatens to do in the future).
this crew of pirates is busy destroying this country, but trust them to do the right thing, 4,000 miles away even though they pretty much set up every step to this sad affair, I don’t get that, after 20 years i’m tired of buying open ended promises of results of military intervention, since they do not even pretend to apologize for their past misjudgements,
I think Romania – a NATO member – would have some strong objections to a Russian absorption of Moldova. It’s worth keeping in mind that absent Russian meddling, there’s a good chance that Moldova will voluntarily rejoin Romania
After what we did to Gaddafi, why would any government ever give up a nuclear weapons program?
From om’s link; “Instead, the objective, he claimed, was to take all of Ukraine’s coastline, seize control of Odesa, and establish road and rail connections with the Russian AstroTurfed state of “Transnistria.”
Morally repugnant, while strategically defensible given that Russia believes that the West’s political leadership’s intentions are covertly hostile toward Russia. I think it entirely possible that has been the objective all along.
“absent Russian meddling, there’s a good chance that Moldova will voluntarily rejoin Romania” junior
If Moldova moves to voluntarily rejoin Romania, a NATO member, it is unlikely that the Transnistria region, having had de facto independence from Moldova since 1992, will go along with it.
Creating another possible vector for conflict arising between Russia and NATO.
I am a simple soul. Although somewhat educated in foreign affairs, thanks to the U.S. taxpayer, I find that in later years I tend toward skepticism of the opinions of the Thinkers. I have my own opinions, although I acknowledge they may be faulty, even trite.
I care little for what Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Stalin, GHW Bush, Clinton, Obama, et al did that may have precipitated the attack on Ukraine by Putin. Irrelevant.
Like his role model, the Furhrer, Putin cloaks his nefarious intent with lies and meaningless rhetoric. Apparently, some buy it. As our own President said,(paraphrasing) ‘a limited incursion may be acceptable.’
Russia vs Ukraine to me presents the world with a fairly straight forward issue. It is not, as some would suggest, a humanitarian one. It is Geo political, Realpolitical, or whatever label suits you. Never mind who is corrupt; or what Putin’s ultimate aims may be. (We cannot know what his present aims are, nor how they will be shaped as events unfold.) His naked aggression is an attack on civilization. (I repeat this thought from a former post.) IMO if civilized countries do not oppose this with necessary vigor, it invites further attacks on civilization. And we need only look at the streets of some of our formerly great cities for examples of how fragile civilization can be.
With regard to a challenge such as Putin presents (as Hitler once did), I happen to believe that a vigorous multi-national response at the earliest stage, one credibly backed by the threat of force, would likely obviate the necessity for military action. On the other hand, if military action is required to put an end to a blatant challenge to every precept of modern statecraft, so be it. The stakes are high. Parenthetically, the world somehow understood that in Korea in 1950; as in Kuwait in 1991.
Geoffrey ignores the actions of Putin’s “Little Green Men” in Transnistria and predicts a Putin pretext that would justify that aggression in Moldova. Wow, how prescient, except that others (Turtler) and even Wickedmedia have info on Vlad’s antics (that naughty boy Vlad) in Moldova. Those poor Roosians in Transnistria must be protected from Moldovan oppression and genocide?
That Vlad lackey in Belarus spilled those beans (regarding Moldova) in early March IIRC. At that time it was all NATOs doing that forced poor Vlad to get frisky. Another case of just the possibility of Moldova doing something, eh?
Is Moldova 16 minutes from Moscow Geoffrey? Existential or exponential threats?
News flash! Recognizing strategic aims is not offering moral support, nor is it justifying them. Our bombing of Dresden was morally wrong and in lowering the enemy public’s morale, strategically defensible. Which leaves the question of motivation in those who fail to acknowledge that distinction, obtuseness or intellectual dishonesty? In this case, I vote for the former.
Funny Geoofrey but that has been your back up bleat since Vlad’s little adventure started, but “that dog don’t hunt.”
Yes, but Dresden! Pathetic misdirection.
}}} the Slavophilic populism that was its true lifeblood can be—a national tribalism extending to all Slavic peoples including Ukraine, Poland, and the Balkans, who must be gathered back into the Russian fold.
I hate to tell you this, Doogie, baby, but if you have to invade the fucking place, what you are achieving isn’t “populism”.
Jus’ Sayin’
}}} You mean you’d have preferred intramural violence to continue in Libya?
No, I mean no coherent reasons were presented for why America was called on to stop intramural violence in Libya.
THINK OF THE CHILDREN.
Isn’t that reason enough ?
Always!?!?
/sarc off
😀
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLZZZZzzzzzzz….
These Ukraine/Russia threads are like watching NASCAR.
The only reason you tune in is for the eventual debris & detritus strewn about the track & the recriminations that follow.
Beyond that it’s all “go fast & turn left.”
Why care about Ukraine?…
Why care about Transnistria?…as recent “incidents” there suggest that the standard script for triggering (and justifying) Russian intervention—to “protect” Russian-speaking population who are “under attack”—has just been deployed:
“Multiple Attacks In Moldova’s Breakaway Region Of Transnistria As Fears Of Russian Takeover Grow”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/multiple-attacks-moldovas-breakaway-region-transnistria-fears-grow-russian-takeover
Somebody commented that Ukraine, albeit indirectly, is a threat to the USA. The commentator cited Ukraine’s role with the Bidens, with Trump/Russia/Christopher Steele, etc.
Seems to me the threat is DIRECTLY from elements / individuals who are home grown USA citizens and reside in powerful positions with the US govt or are individuals who have access to those in power.
It is these individual Americans, who either solicit or accept bribes, etc ., from Ukraine (and if not from Ukraine, they will not hesitate to do likewise with some other nation, which they probably have done, but nothing about it has been made public) that are the real threat.
The threat to the USA is from within.
Those Yanks engaging in nefarious deeds with Ukriane are not drug addled street vermin who cannot refuse their next hit of crack cocaine; whose sole purpose in life is seeking their next drug induced high.
They are well connected, very well off people, Yanks all, who are hate-America-firsters (e.g. pretty much the entire demokrat party) or who have no compunction about lining their own pocket with cash and/or willing to pretty much do anything in the pursuit of power and influence.
The threat to the USA is from within.
The USA may not be an Empire, ok, fine, it’s not.
But if the 20th century was the American Century, the 21st Century will certainly not be another American Century.
With the likes of Bidet and his puppet master, Obama running the show, along with the demokrat party, the media and what appears to be the entire Federal bureaucracy (which is addicted to govt. largess courtesy of the US taxpayer) no nation need worry about the USA.
The USA can manage its rapid decline all by its lonesome.
“We do not have to invade the United States, we will destroy you from within.”
Nikita Khrushchev
Khruschev (one of Stalin’s favorites) almost got it right; turns out that there are more than enough home-grown Yanks that are willing (with copious quantities of help from the voters) to destroy the USA without any assistance of foreign nations.
Yes, the USA should send to Ukraine whatever military material it needs.
Not sure that’s entirely fair.
Why does “Biden” wish to destroy the US?
“He” has “his” reasons and they go like this:
“Biden” wishes to destroy the country simply
because Trump wanted (and wants) to save it. And strengthen it. And see it flourish. And see its citizens flourish.
One problem, however: it turns out that Trump is the DEVIL.
(We know this because it’s what “Biden” and “his” pals have been telling us “ad nauseum”….)
Actually, they’ve been hammering the message home for all it’s worth (and if you think it’s been bad until now, just wait until the campaigning starts for the mid-term “elections”….).
News flash! Recognizing strategic aims is not offering moral support,
Their ‘strategic aims’ are a function of objects not entertained by any but the most deviant actors in regional state systems. The number of examples you can name since Hitler, Mussolini, and Adm. Tojo bit the dust can be enumerated on your fingers, and all those examples are significantly different from the one under review.
There seems to be a theme of the “the threat to the U.S. is from within” as though that is somehow relevant to what is happening in the Ukraine. I have no objection to believing that the threat to the U.S. is from within. It is manifest in our politics, our education system and several other sources, such as BLM and widespread abandonment of standards. But, that is a separate issue. There will be a world order of some kind or another; whether it is the “old world order”, the “new world order”, or the “dog eat dog world order”. Challenges such as we see in Ukraine will help define it.
Geoffrey Britain, I really don’t understand why you buy the “strategically defensible” argument. Putin knows why NATO was born; and he knows that his threats against the Baltic States, for instance, explain why countries near his border still seek its protection. I sincerely doubt that he believes his own arguments in justification for ravaging Ukraine. But, if he does it is a sign of paranoia, not rational strategic thinking.
The Libyan Spring was a Western backed coup against a regime that had given up nuclear ambitions, compensated parties for past terrorism, cooperated with Western government to combat progressive terrorism, and rejuvenated the national economy and infrastructure for the benefit the native people — a deplorable, was about securing oil resources for Europe. The Syrian Spring was about a pipeline and payment to Iran. The second Iraq war (Obama’s war), was about oil, and Iranian expansion. The Slavic Spring, eight years ago in Kiev, was intended as a gateway to Russian natural resources, and a regime installed a la Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, empathetic to their special and peculiar interests, which has been waging war by a Kiev-aligned military, paramilitary axis, on Ukrainians who were disenfranchised, denied essential services, and under threat of a progressive program that has left thousands dead. This is similar to the apartheid mischaracterization, for mineral resources, of South Africans’ effort to mitigate the progress of a tribal conflict between Mandela’s Xhosa and Zulu, that threatened the viability of the native government, economy, and people. The same as similar apartheid claims in Israel. The same as the Diversity [dogma] (e.g. racism, sexism), Inequity, and Exclusion program, including the establishment of the Pro-Choice “ethical” (e.g. wicked solution) religion, executed here over decades through choice, Choice, and force. The illicit funding and operation of Wuhan-style biohazardous labs was a bonus.
yes, that has been very clear ‘for those who hath understanding’ what was the first step the regime undertook, to attempt a purge of those dreaded would be ‘insurrectionists’ in ways they never did with actual terrorist sympathizers, like major hasan, have those practices ended, no they just used other means, the vaccine mandate for instant,
the closest equivalent to kal 007 was the dutch airliner over ukrainein 2015 there were some perfunctory sanctions, but there were no png of diplomats, nothing of note, that I can recall,
The Libyan Spring was a Western backed coup
It was an insurgency which ran on for months.
You mean to say that Roosians (Vlad) shot down another civilian airliner (MH17) in 2014? Shocked! NATO must be to blame.
Art Deco on April 26, 2022 at 12:46 pm said:
but we have seen what sentimentality and nation building has gotten us so which school is truly cold blooded?
And would he rather have Uday or Qusay?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So…. you’re actually saying that the 2003 Irag invasion… was a “success” ??
The sure seems to be what you’re saying. We spent trillions, killed thousands of our own young men, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, created ISIS in the process, and because Uday and Qusay Hussein will never rule Iraq, therefore it was worth it ?
That really does make it clear, doesn’t it ?
And, bottom line, I continue to assert with absolutely no consideration of retreating – not one american boot on the ground in Ukraine. Not one.
If Europe wants to actively fight Russia, they’re welcome to it.
Everyone can continue to spill gallons and gallons of virtual ink trying to convince me that the US has a vital interest in Ukraine. We don’t. The end.
deadrody:
Would a fly over and mooning of Vlad be allowed? Or maybe farting in the general direction of Moscow be permissible?
You really should get out of the hose a bit more often.
So…. you’re actually saying that the 2003 Irag invasion… was a “success” ??
Are you going to answer my question?
You tell me art what did we win, with the 3500 dead and countless wounded?
Do we care about Ukraine? Or do we care about the outcome of the war? It would be possible to not care much about the Ukes but still be concerned about the result of a Russian win, or an easy Russian win.
yes we got rid of saddam, but we ended up with a revolving door of prime ministers, that reached it’s zenith with maliki, selected by general suleimani, liz cheney’s client at foggy bottom, the one they didn’t touch for 16 years, despite being responsible for the deaths of hundreds of american and other coalition personnel,
@n.n.
That’s overstating it to say the least. The civil war was Libyan born and made, largely by the combination of Gaddafi’s inflexibility in power and ruthlessness in contending with challenges to it, which turned what might’ve been a flash in the pan like what happened in Morocco or a quick turmoil like Tunisia into a hellish civil war.
The West rode in later to be sure, but it was taking advantage of the situations.
That’s overstating the matter, as the way Gaddafi systematically screwed the South and Cyrenacia out of it. But in any case it was a bad action to set.
Unfortunately since Europe does not much use it.
And here I thought it had something to do with Syrian politics. I mean, it’s not like Syria hasn’t exploded into incredibly nasty Sectarian war before like during the Muslim Brotherhood v Baathist war that led to Hama getting burned down the first time. Iran and pipelines played a role in Western intervention but it’s also not a coincidence that the Arab Spring/Winter was at its nastiest with the most ruthless and terrorist-sponsoring regimes North of the Saudis.
Also, you’ll note that Iran generally LIKES Assad, while prior to the rise of IS the US generally clashed with the Baathist government more than any other faction (and even after IS we still had things like Khamsin).
Define “Second Iraq War.”
As well as Ukrainian natural resources.
Oh yah, and persistent Ukrainian frustration with a tariff war with Russia that’s lasted longer than I’ve been alive.
I’m sorry, but this is Grade A Horseshit.
Yanukovych came to power promising to simultaneously re-align Ukraine with Putin’s Russia but also pursue deeper economic trade with the EU, complete with an EU Association Agreement. After the collapse of the Globalist-supported Yuschenko’s Orange Coalition in infighting and corruption, this seemed like a very appealing mixture to both disillusioned Orangists and Blues tired of living in a perennial Rust Belt.
But it did not meet Putin’s satisfaction, so not long after Putin put the screws to his client, and essentially forced Yanukovych to back down in exchange for concessions that were (rightfully or wrongly) viewed as being insultingly inadequate by the Ukrainian public on the whole. Which was the spark for Euromaidan, and the defection of some minority but sizable Blues to the protests apparently shocked both Yanu and Putin.
Which led to them cracking down increasingly rashly.
Which resulted in a bunch of screwups like alienating the “Rent a Protestor” mob in Kyiv by cracking down on free assembly (and thus their ability to earn a living). Which of course allowed opponents of Yanukovych ranging from Soros to myself, Nuland to Musk openings.
Eventually, the duly elected Ukrainian Rada- which I might add was elected alongside Yanukovych and dominated by his party- got wind that Yanukovych had tried to tell the military to open fire on all protestors, only to be refused. The Rada called Yanukovych to appear before him in order to justify his actions and his cabinet’s conduct.
Which was completely within the Rada’s constitutional power.
Yanukovych responded to this by doing a runner, stealing a bunch of stuff from Presidential properties and his own assets before fleeing to Russia.
When the Rada recognized this, it entered into a vote to remove Yanukovych and his cabinet from power. Notably, while the vote was spearheaded by the opposition parties and delegates in the Rada, Yanukovych’s own party representatives voted either to remove him or (more typically) to abstain from the vote.
There was no “regime” to be “installed”- short of a Provisional President- before the war started, because the snap elections caused by removing Yanukovych would not happen until after the Russian invasions of Crimea and the Donbas.
And even in regards to the Brotherhood in Egypt, there’s not too much doubt that the MB won the Egyptian elections more or less freely; the problem is the Brothers were never going to settle for half measures and so alienated the public with their corruption, brutality, and ludditism. Sort of like Yanu.
Oh god fucking Give me Strength.
No, that is NOT what happened.
What HAPPENED was that Russian military forces invaded both Crimea and the Donbas within the span of a few weeks. We know this because Putin has since openly admitted that he sent Spetznaz into Crimea while denying their nature at the time of the invasion. We also know that the invasion of the Donbas followed a similar pattern and we have had a number of intel leaks (including in internal Russian judicial proceedings) that Russian Regular units have been fighting in the Donbas since 2014.
Oh and “Ukrainians who were disenfranchised, denied essential services”?
Bullshit. Even Ukraine’s resident Neo-Fascists- like the Azov Battalion- include Ethnic Russians and Russophones in their ranks.
Simply put, without the Russian invasion, there would have been no war in the Donbas. And we know this because of the basic chronology, especially since fighting began before the Ukrainian elections in 2014, and particularly before the “new regime” was seated.
It’s victim blaming, and quite stupid and repulsive at that.
Sure, though South Africa did acknowledge it was Apartheid.
And again, relatively few countries invaded South Africa.
Sure, but none of this addresses the key point. There’s something ludicrous about trying to make every conflict about external political actors or resources. That’s usually a major part of it, but if personnel is policy (as we KNOW it is thanks to the likes of Nuland) then people do manage. The fundamental matter is that without Putin’s overreach on the EU Association Agreement, there would have been no Euromaidan and no war playing out like this. And all of that was largely a result of an inability of multiple Russian and Ukrainian governments to finally end the tariff wars.
It might flatter your agenda to act like Gaddafi and Yanukovych didn’t do nothing wrong when it comes to handling internal discontent or that Kyiv is really a borderline apartheid government for fighting an un-flagged foreign invasion, but that doesn’t make it the truth. Nor does one have to trust Hunter Biden’s Business Buddies in Kyiv and elsewhere to recognize that the role of Russian regulars in 2014 were among the worst kept secrets in human history.
@deadrody
The invasion was unquestionably a success, the post-invasion attempts at nation building were not. But as far as eliminating Saddam’s dynasty and their crimes and denying Al Qaeda support from them or a safe haven in Iraq, it was successful.
Indeed, a bitter testament to this is the fact that the Islamist Goons who have gained power through Iraq after we started phoning it in were predominantly Shiite Nutjobs that were Saddam’s greatest internal rivals.
Does that make it worth it? I guess it depends on how you calculate, but it certainly was nowhere near as successful as it SHOULD Have.
*Sigh.*
The people who killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were overwhelmingly the people we were fighting, who after about 2006 or so were not majority Iraqi. And we didn’t create IS, Zarqawi and his disciples like Baghdadi did. The invasion and occupation affected their careers and how they played out but it did not create them.
And as far as destroying an ally of Al Qaeda in the form of a Sunni supremacist terrorist sponsor with a long list of beefs between us and then it again was successful.
That doesn’t mean it was worth it (I’d argue the invasion was but the attempts at nation-building were not) or that it should have been done in the first place; reasonable people can differ on that. But the Hussein Regime is gone and not coming back, nor is Zarqawi and a host of others.
Which goes back to the fact that we are superb war fighters but lukewarm (at best )peace setters, and that’s been one of our great weaknesses in the Sandbox to the cost of countless people.
The Iraq War One Note Charlies always find a way of dragging out their hobby horse, pouting, and stomping their feet. Well, they will always have clouds to shout at when they get to Brandon’s state.
You tell me art what did we win, with the 3500 dead and countless wounded?
Is your preferred flavor Uday or Qusay?
“Is your preferred flavor Uday or Qusay?”
Does everybody understand this is ol’ Art’s way of waving the white flag? I don’t know why a guy who so loves demonstrating his level of knowledge on so many subjects turns into an infant on others, but it is what it is.
And just in case anyone was thinking “giving Ukraine whatever it wants to fight Russia” was some no-cost position:
https://www.defenseone.com/business/2022/04/it-will-be-years-raytheon-can-build-new-stinger-missiles/366105/
Mike
You understand this country is being torn apart 1000 different while we look at ukraine, being carved by our own oligarchs who made out like bandits in the lockdowns
Speak of the “Iraq War One Note Charlie’s” and “Shazam!” guess who pops up?
Bunge.
Too predictable.
Do try to be civil Bunge; the topic is Ukraine and Roosia.
Can the Roosians go back to making T-34s and reverse engineer a Studabaker truck?
https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/04/27/sanctions-force-closure-of-russian-tank-and-truck-factories-and-hamper-production-of-precision-munitions-n556950
They are fighting Nazis after all. (sarc)
Just like ghost of kyev and snake island streiff used to be more discriminating
Well, just as Tucker Carlson or Sundance at ConservativeTreehouse or Jim Hoff at GatewayPundit; none are close to omniceint IMO.
Fog of war.
A followup from my friend brian b
It continues to amaze me how many conservatives remain suckers for the CIA/State department/Ruling Class agitprop re the Ukraine war.
Putin isn’t a threat to me so why should I want to stick it to him? Neither is Zelensky. Joe Biden and the CIA and the Deep State and Foggy Bottom and the WEF and the globalists and Big Tech and the DNC and the Ruling Class and China and the corporate prog players and progs in general are all not only threats to me they’re my enemies.
More importantly they are the mortal enemies of the same dingbat conservatives who know what corrupt, manipulative liars they are in every other area of life and politics but for some reason swallow hook, line and sinker the manufactured distraction by those very same liars regarding this war.
Pathetic. Wake up. Ukraine is the laser pointer and you saps are the cats, while our would be rulers accrete power and rob you blind.
Miguel:
Thanks for sharing, Good to know there is the only non- dingbat conservative in the world here to guide us. We are not worthy,
Squirrel!
Does everybody understand this is ol’ Art’s way of waving the white flag?
No, it’s Art’s way of asking you to state a preferred alternative scenario. Which you and Kate refuse to do.
MIguel. Your list of enemies on this side of our border may be largely correct. This does not mean Putin and Zelensky automatically are not a threat.
There was a place presumed not to be worth the bones of a single British grenadier. Not too much later, I suspect a number of British grenadiers might have wondered if perhaps they should have volunteered their bones. After all, they were going to leave their bones someplace….
Edward Luttwak haz thoughts: https://unherd.com/2022/04/how-the-ukraine-war-must-end/
Not impressed with Luttwak, he has more faith in pleblicites to straighten out the Donbas problem A(created by Vlad) and gives an example of pleblicites that “worked” after WWI, but not all the pleblicites that gave the USSR control after WWII (IIRC). It seems he is citing an infamous “victory lobby” and claiming that Vlad must have some sort of a win in order tobagree to a peace settlement (how big a piece of Ukraine, you ask? And will it be the last piece Vlad needs?) or he will nuke somebody.
Not impressed at all.
@Miguel Cervantes
Yes, I do. That is a major reason I have consistently stated that no commitment to Ukraine should overshadow our focus at home. And one reason I am supportive of Ukraine is because I hope it can help defang many of the common propaganda tropes and justifications for repression our domestic enemies use.
As for your reference to BrianB, I think I addressed much of what he wrote earlier.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2022/04/26/why-care-about-ukraine/#comment-2620565
@om
Largely agreed. Luttwak is a good read but plebiscites only work when you have two sides more or less willing to abide by the results and unable to seriously overturn them.
And some external force to guarantee the results are honest.
Zelenskyy proposed that and was ignored in regards to the Donbas so I do not think that applies.
Moreover, most of the “successful” post-WWI plebiscites were between exhausted and burnt out countries and communities in Central and Eastern Europe and were violently overturned within a decade or two by the likes of the Nazis and Soviets.
See Independent Eastern Europe by Macartney and Palmer. Has to do with post WWI.
Lots going on and you understand Clemenceau’s observation, “Must every little language have its own country?”
Plus an awful lot of names with almost no vowels.
Turtler:
History is inconvienient isn’t it? 🙂
But things will work this time! 🙂
Richard Aubrey:
I worked with a Kurdish immigrant in the oil patch of ND. His name had no vowells
om. That’s why we invented “Bud”.