On 14 August 2008 the Independent newspaper published together three comments on the Russian invasion of South Ossetia. They were by John McCain, Mikhail Gorbachev and (checks notes) Craig Murray.
I am proud of my comments all these years later, both by their prescience and by my consistency of view until today. This is what I said:
Craig Murray
Russia’s actions are illegal but the US and UK, who launched an equally illegal and much more devastating invasion of Iraq, are ill-placed to be outraged. A de facto Russia annexatioin of South Ossetia must not be permitted, unless we eventually want a war of Eastern Ukraine.
NATO is part of the cause of the problem, not the solution. By encircling and humiliating Russia, NATO has created the climate in Russia so favourable to Putin.
If you wonder what the two other gentlemen said:
John McCain
I’m not saying we are reigniting the Cold War but this is an act of aggression which we didn’t think we would see in the 21st Century. Of course we have to deal with Russia and deal with Putin. But it has to be on a realistic basis.
I think that it’s very clear that Russian ambitions are to restore the old Russian Empire. Not the Soviet Union, but the Russian Empire. Russia no longer share any of the values and principles of the G8, so they should be excluded.
Mikhail Gorbachev
By declaring the Caucasus – a region that is thousands of miles from the American continent – a sphere of its “national interest”, the United States made a serious blunder.
Of course, peace in the Caucasus is in the interest of everyone. But it is simply common sense to recognise that Russia is rooted in the region by common geography and centuries of history.
Russia is not seeking territorial expansion, but it has legitimate interests in the region.
I have spent the last two weeks writing a lengthy and very considered piece about Ukraine. I hope I might finally publish it today.
Yurp you dem man. Nicky Sturgeon must be the only Scot who misses John McCain.
Sturgeon makes mad dog Bolton look like a monk, Sturgeon a friend of warhawk Hillary Clinton called for on several occasions for Nato to create a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which could’ve ended in a wider scaled conflict and even possibly the use of nukes.
I suppose Sturgeon relies on her own insignificance and Scotland’s to avoid any retribution for her overbearing bloviation.
Surely Gorby got it right and in this rare case, Craig got it wrong.
Georgia, heavily armed by the US, attacked peacekeepers (there because Georgia regularly threatened S Ossetia and Abkhazia).
14 years on South Ossetia is still independent, still dependent on Russia for its dependence.
Unusually the BBC reported the story of how the fake story of Russian aggression in Georgia was created.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02sbq12
The PR battle for the Caucasus
The Documentary Podcast
The South Ossetian conflict not only sparked a military war between Russia and Georgia, but a propaganda battle. James Rodgers examines this ongoing media war between Georgia and Russia – featuring archive clips of key events and interviews.
Release date:03 November 2008
23 minutes
“Georgia started war with Russia: EU-backed report”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-georgia-russia-report-idUSTRE58T4MO20090930
“Georgia, heavily armed by the US…”
And Israel. Don’t forget Israel. The story was that the primitive Russians would have no chance against sophisticated “Western” technology.
I’m afraid that the West is, as usual, demonising shoplifters and letting murderers and rapists get away with it.
Because of its obsession with Russophobia, it is fast and loose with who it considers suitable to rule Ukraine. It turns an absolute blind eye to the Ukrainian mafia and sees Ukraine as a place to do bioweapons research.
I’m not sure how Mr Murray would feel about some enemy of Scotland carrying out Yersinia research in the Cheviots, nor would he be too keen on such enemies collecting Scottish DNA for the purpose of targeting weapons solely against the Scottish genetics.
Mr Murray would do well to think about what kind of a leader, softer than Putin, would survive six months in Russia, particularly with the US looking to loot Russia, break it up as part of its never-ending rampaging, murdering, looting and enslaving is the absolute characteristics of its national DNA.
Putin is hated because he won’t hand Russia over to the USA.
Yeltsin was loved because in his alcoholic stupor, he condemned tens of millions of Russians to an early grave, let the US ‘financiers’ destroy the lives of half of Russia and preside over the worst non-military genocide of modern times.
Unless Mr Murray calls for $30trn of US assets to be stolen from its richest criminals, bankers and politicians, he is really in no position to claim that Russia needs to lose all its Forex reserves. The UK, the USA, several other members of NATO need precisely that doing to them due to five genocides since 1991.
Until Russia is tried on an equal footing with US genocidal murderers, all moralising is bunk.
Rhys, quite right. I’m glad you haven’t been brainwashed by the Bullshitters Broadcasting Crap.
He is right and so are you.
Was this story – from Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal via RT – available over there?
“German chancellor Olaf Scholz had offered Volodymyr Zelensky a chance for peace just days before the launch of the Russian military offensive, but the Ukrainian president turned it down, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has reported.
“Scholz had made what the US outlet described as “one last push for a settlement between Moscow and Kiev” less than a week before the Russian forces were sent into Ukraine on February 24.
“The chancellor told Zelensky in Munich on February 19 “that Ukraine should renounce its NATO aspirations and declare neutrality as part of a wider European security deal between the West and Russia,” the paper writes. The daily also claims that “the pact would be signed by Mr. Putin and Mr. Biden, who would jointly guarantee Ukraine’s security.”
“However, Zelensky rejected the offer to make the concession and avoid confrontation, saying that “[Russia’s President Vladimir] Putin couldn’t be trusted to uphold such an agreement and that most Ukrainians wanted to join NATO,” the WSJ reports, without revealing its sources for the information…”
I would say “excusing murderous muggers and criminalising those who defend themselves using reasonable force”. Which is, of course, what you would do if the muggers were your footsoldiers and you wanted them to murder their intended victims without meeting with any resistance.
The problem with Ukraine is how do you define it. The city of Lviv in the 19th century was Lemberg and fron 1919 Lwow until 1945. Ukraine is a construct of post war settlements.
The settlement terms are fairly simple: the Donbass secedes, as does Mariupol, and Ukraine recognises the secession of these territories as well as Crimea.
It’s really surprising how much the West were suckered in by the Russians. Kiev was always a false flag. The Russians always wanted the south for the Steel and fresh water of Mariupol. Kiev and Kharkov were to draw the Ukrainians in. It is classic Russian strategy which I can’t understand why the Ukrainians fell for. It was a smaller scale operation Uranus and Mars.
Thomas McKenzie the Scottish jacobite who founded Sevastopol must be turning in his grave with the chaos he fomented.
By the same token, in the late 19th century there was scarcely such a nation as Poland. It had been divided up between Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Germany. Yet it sprang back to life, and by 1939 Polish generals were speaking about “marching on Berlin”.
It is important to differentiate clearly between countries, nations, states, peoples, and governments. A nation that corresponds to one people (or maybe a few closely-linked ones) will persist. Artificial nations, such as those created at Versailles 1919, are much more fragile. Perhaps that was the intention of the Versailles negotiators. A fragile artificial nation is easily cracked open to yield future wars.
I doubt the West was “suckered”. It knew perfectly well this was feint – dividing Ukraine’s forces, which had to pay attention to the column looming near Kiev rather than sending reinforcements to the south east. But by pretending that this was a genuine attempt to take the capital they could portray Putin and the Russian army as manic, blundering, incompetent and bogged down – the usual propaganda portrayal of Russia. While I will always think the “military action” a mistake (never give your enemy what it wants, and the USA desperately wanted this to happen so it could crush the EU and tighten its grip on the so-called Free World through NATO), it never looked like a full-scale invasion to me – far too few troops committed to the enterprise. But enough to liberate the Donbass and secure all Russia’s Black Sea and Sea of Azov ports. The actual objective.
John McCain the Billionaire chip magnate and war criminal who was shot down while bombing children. Current location, burning in Hell.
Meanwhile we have J, L, and S all franticly planning to emigrate. Run, run as fast as you can women, you’ll not escape the noose.
Killed many in his own aircraft carrier too! Turned up like a Angel of doom as Biden did and Nuland and Kayan do now.
They should burn here on Earth first for a few years before whatever hell they believe in claims them back as their demons.
Chip magnate is a joke? Right?
The Ossetians aren’t ethnic Russians yet they chose to side with Russia rather than Georgia.
The folk of the Donbass object to being told to speak Ukrainian at the point of a gun. “Aye, all they Ukrainians are Nazis” is gross exaggeration. “Aye, all they Ukrainians are fascist” is exaggeration. There’s no doubt however that since 2014, they do have an issue with ethnic Ukrainian nationalism as mainstream sentiment.
Kyiv could easily have implemented federation / devolution (even Madrid manages this) and respected that not all the population they inherited from a Soviet administrative unit were culturally Ukrainian, but this was too much to ask from our moderate, democracy loving allies.
The Minsk accords were torched by Ukrainian, ethnic fascists.
I read somewhere recently that South Ossetia has been asking to join the RF for some time and has recently repeated the request.
A quick search produces a number of results, here’s one.
The separatist leader of Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia says the Moscow-backed territory is planning to take steps in the near future to become part of Russia.
Russia recognised South Ossetia as an independent state in 2008 after fighting a short war with Georgia. It has provided the separatist region with extensive financial support, offered Russian citizenship to its population and stationed thousands of Russian troops there.
“I believe that unification with Russia is our strategic goal, our path, the aspiration of the people,” Anatoly Bibilov, the separatist leader of South Ossetia, was quoted as saying by the press service of the United Russia party.
“We will take the relevant legislative steps shortly. The republic of South Ossetia will be part of its historical homeland – Russia.”
Meanwhile, Abkhazia, another Russian-backed breakaway region of Georgia, said on Wednesday it had no plans to join Russia.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/georgia-e2-80-99s-south-ossetia-plans-to-take-steps-to-join-russia/ar-AAVHHrj
There is a North Ossetia that has been part of Russia without any controversy since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
I rather think that if the UK had been run by the sort of people who have ruled Ukraine since 2014, an awful lot of British people would self-identify as Nazis, wave Ukrainian and Azov flags, chant mechanically “Slava Ukrainia”, and express violent opposition to anyone who tried to free them.
Once the Nazis and their Western pals have been got rid of, and the Ukrainian people are given back civil government, the rule of law, decent jobs, pensions, and other civic rights, I think we will find that a very large proportion of them find that they feel Russian.
That has already happened in many of the liberated regions.
Tom.
Some of us feel that we have been run by the sort of people who currently run Ukraine.
Bozo the clown is ‘in charge’. The angel of death runs the home office, Bankers control the economy, the media are a corrupt state propaganda machine, Police are a misogynistic, racist para military outfit and underneath it all pulling the strings is the USA. And, ‘the people’ think this is all acceptable and good.
Who will rid us of the Davos shills and their ‘Western pals’ ?
You are right, but do not underestimate the virulence of the ‘nationalism’ there. In Canada, one of its sources and government-sponsored, it is very much in evidence.
The extreme Ukrainian nationalism – which is undoubtedly a virulent form of fascist ideology – dates from the 90s, when massive amounts of money were sent to Ukraine from both private and governmental sources, to re-shape the education system along Bandera lines. After the Orange Revolution (coup Mark 1) in 2004 the state education system was revised to teach kids that Russia had always been their enemy, that the OUN were patriots and that Russians are an inferior race whose members must be eradicated from the land.
An entire generation has been educated in this way, for at least 18 years, compare and contrast with Nazi indoctrination of youth in Germany over little more than a decade.
South American states ‘welcomed’ Nazi refugees after WW2 and that led directly to extremist regimes in places like Chile and Argentina.
Operation Paperclip delivered Nazi technology and people to the USA which ultimately led to Big Pharma, the MIC, Torture and extremist governments.
Canada did the same with Ukranians and that has led to openly right wing extremism in certain places and good aryan stock like Chrystia Freeland (Victoria Nuland’s evil twin) in Government.
Though it’s not the Nazi’s fault because it’s actually in the West’s makeup.
The history of US involvement in Ukraine goes back to the end of the 2nd WW:
“Ukraine Insurgency (1944-1956)-Not all Ukrainians welcomed the Soviets back as the Germans retreated. For over a decade, Ukrainian nationalist guerrilla groups fought against Soviet authorities. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), actively aided and supplied these anti-Soviet guerrilla groups. Most major combat ended around 1949 as the Soviets killed off more rebels and undertook harsh methods of control in the countryside. Sporadic violence continued until 1956, when the last rebels were captured, killed, or gave up. With the CIA involvement, this insurgency could be considered one part of the larger Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.”
https://historyguy.com/Wars_and_Conflicts_of_Ukraine.htm
This is indeed turning out to be an epochal time, comparable perhaps with 1917/18 and 1945.
The ruling elite in the USA are certainly getting a “New World Order”, however it may not be the one they bargained on!
Putin is the Hitler of the 21st century. In the successive invasions of Ossetia, Crimea and then Ukraine, I see the parellel to Hitler’s invasion of Austria, Czechoslovakia and then Poland. In both cases the third stage goaded the free world into action.
Just today we have an article on Russian torture of a free Ukrainian journalist, Oleh Baturin:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/03/they-said-theyd-mutilate-and-kill-me-says-kidnapped-ukrainian-journalist
The big difference between the invasions of Iraq and Ukraine is this: Iraq was ruled by an evil dictator who postured in a way that created the suspicion of having atomic weapons (a deadly mistake, as it turned out). Whether the West should have invaded Iraq is at least debatable.
Ukraine is a democracy. Russians know the difference, as shown by the censored cartoon, episode 160 of Masyanya:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzx_N8AJiKw
Слава Україні !
Adolf Hitler goaded Russia into a defensive reaction, so too the 21C psychos in DC and Brussels.
“The big difference between the invasions of Iraq and Ukraine is this: Iraq was ruled by an evil dictator who postured in a way that created the suspicion of having atomic weapons “
That’s got to be the finest piece of victim-blaming I have seen all year. “Now look what you’ve made me do!”
Bayard,
” The big difference between the invasions of Iraq and Ukraine is this: Iraq was ruled by an evil dictator who postured in a way that created the suspicion of having atomic weapons “
From a legal perspective I know that you are wrong. Read the UN Charter Article 2 (4) and just as then US Security General Kofi Annan stated that there was violation relative to the US invasion of Iraq; likewise the incumbent Secretary General Guteres has made the same observation relative to Russia in Ukraine.
But who cares about the truth?
1. Did the then Chief UN Investigation presiding over WMD searches not say more than once that there were no WMDs in Iraq before the US illegal invasion. His name was Hans Blix?
2. Did Hans Blix not formally request for him to have a further six(6) weeks extended if more investigation might convince the US that there were no WMDs in Iraq before the US took place?
3. Was it not Colin Powell who staged allegations of WMDs before the UN Security Council?
Is it not really the US narrative which drove the war – or maybe the Iraqis themselves are to blame in a situation where for an extended period of time the US/CIA were very comfortable with Saddam ( recall the eight year war with Iran)? So – suddenly the US discovered that Saddam was a dictator and then had a duty to slaughter over a million Iraqis. Right?
CFRB, I think you missed my use of quotation marks. ‘Twas not me that was wrong, but MJ whom I was quoting.
There are 2 clips I remember, interviewing people in Iraq before and after the regime change. The first interviewed schoolboys, who said, Saddam Hussein is a bad man. Britain is our friend. America is our friend. I want to study in Britain. I want to work in America. The BBC then retired to the ringside seat to film shock and awe decimate the city of Baghdad. Four years later an interview with a garage owner asked him if things were better now. He said Saddam Hussein was a bad man, but petrol was cheap and plentiful, food was subsidised, water came out of the tap, and electricity worked for more than an hour a day. I had four sons before the war. Now I have none.
War is for investors, not for saving civilians from bad leaders.
Look at the new Pentagon budget. It is not for the benefit of Ukraine.
If torture porn is your thing, there are plenty of videos of Russian POWs being tortured and killed. There are also newsclips from Kiev state outlets calling for 1/ The castration of Russian prisoners and 2/ (using Eichmann as a source) the importance of killing Russian-speaking children.
In fact, Russia’s campaign has been studiously careful to avoid civilian casualties.
Let’s just go through your story again: Ossetia was invaded by Georgia, Russia defended the enclave and drove the Georgian puppet forces back to Tiflis.
2/ Crimea is part of Russia – as are incidentally most of the eastern Ukrainian territories allotted to the SSR by Stalin in 1945 – Russia did not invade Crimea, where it had a naval base and 15,000 troops. They assisted the people to resist an attempt from the Maidan murderers to take the region over by another coup.
3/ As to the invasion of Ukraine: it was necessitated by Kiev’s refusal, in accordance with US strategy, of making the tiny compromises that Russia was requesting. One of which, honouring of the Minsk Accords, it had pledged itself to do.
4/ You define democracy in a peculiar way. Ukraine is dominated by Nazi sects that cannot garner more than 5% of the vote. Its President was elected on the basis of promises to agree to Minsk and make peace with Russia. His largest majorities came from the Russian-speaking east. Whether he is a prisoner of the Nazis or simply a corrupt drug addict in the employ of the oligarchs looting his country, history will decide. Posterity will laugh at the notion that he was a democrat.
Heil die Ukraine, die Helden Heil! And by the way we don’t have Nazis…
“Iraq was ruled by an evil dictator who postured in a way that created the suspicion of having atomic weapons “
Quite wrong. He was accused of having WMDs in the form of chemical weapons, not nuclear. And it’s well known that he didn’t have them (the chemical weapons) – they’d been destroyed. But the invasion went ahead anyway. That’s certainly worse than the Ukrainian invasion, in terms of numbers of dead civilians. The nuclear weapon development, if it ever existed, was destroyed by the Israeli raid in 1981, twenty years before.
Israel has always been ruled by an evil oligarchy that has actually had nuclear weapons for about 50 years, in open defiance of the NPT. We can be fairly sure that it also has chemical and biological weapons.
Yet somehow, that’s fine.
“It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest”.
– Harold Pinter, Nobel Prize lecture 2005.
[ MOD :Caught in spam-filter]
___
That’s what western propaganda machine would like everyone to believe. Historical comparisons are inherently tricky business – if one looks harder, there are just as many differences between events today and 70 years or so ago. What is undoubtedly true is that Western propaganda machine tries its best to white-wash Ukrainian nazis.
As to Oleh Baturin, he was questionioned, fed, watered and released alive – in a war-time, despite being a pro-Ukrainian journalist (some may say a brainwashed journo). Pro-russian journalists and legislators in Ukraine are usually killed or disappeared, even in times of peace (see Oles Buzina). It does not take much to be included into Myrotvorets database.
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2019/8/27/peacemaker-the-ukrainian-website-shaming-pro-russia-voices
Here’s an updated joke for the New Soviet era:
Putin and Napoleon meet in the next world. “If we only had such a brilliant commander as yourself’, says P, ‘we would never have heard about Hitler crossing our border.’ ‘And if I had news channels like RT,’ says N, ‘no-one would have heard about Waterloo.’
Ukraine was a free country, a democracy, which a dastardly dictatorshp has tried to take into slavery. Heaven willing, they will fail, as they did in Finland and end up witrh a bloodier nose than they did then. It will be the end of Putin. Afghanistan led to end of the Old Guard in the USSR and brought in Gorbachev. Now Putin has bitten off more than he could chew and a newer generation led by democrats like Navalny will take over.
Слава Україні ! It feels so good to be on the RIGHT side! As for the lunatics who support Russia in this war, they’ll be void of respect in this world and the next.
You are Stepan Bandera and I claim my £5!
Ukraine wasn’t free or democratic for anyone who had opinions and guts to disagree with the official line, certainly not after events of 2013-2014. Zelensky closed TV stations and jailed journalists, while far-right groups policed the plebs – is this is what you call a “free country”?
BTW, “Hail Ukraine!” message you keep adding to your posts was the rallying cry of Ukrainian nazi collaborators from WWII. It tells us all we need to know about your “right side of the history”
Ukraine de facto has never been a democracy so all the rest of your nazi bs falls at the first hurdle, you’re also obviously delusional like most Ukraines. slava ukraina is your country’s version of seig heil and we all know it, which is why at the last FIFA european championships the team were told to remove it from their football strip. Youre on the right side of nothing and Ukraine will soon no longer exist in any real sense which will be a good thing for the world. Ukraine has always been someones toy and has achieved nothing in history without a guiding hand of a more stable sensible people. De nazification is not only the correct process it needs to be thorough, we didn’t go through WWII just to allow a comeback from a third rate post soviet corrupt oligarchy whose only real claim to fame is that it is the worlds number 1 country for child prostitution and sexual exploitation. Its that bad it even has its own Wikipedia page.
Ukraine is a poor joke. The moment it was given its freedom by the Soviets it descended into hell, losing 60% of its GDP and 20 million people who left, never to return, as 4 million will leave now and never return. The green screen queen Zelensky is despised by all Ukrainians and hiding in a basement in Poland for the last 5 weeks hasn’t made him any more likeable to anyone other than the dumb westerners who gullibly accept the manure shovelled into their mouths by the MSM. You live with false hope which will be crushed and leave you bitter and spiteful, the natural characteristics of most Ukrainians I have ever met. Russia has given the world many, many great things, culturally, the sciences, militarily, literature; Ukraine has given the world Nazism 2.0 and nothing else. The arrogance of you chumps is breathtaking, all the more so because it is backed by nothing but a genocidal death wish. Maybe your idea of success for ukraine is dragging us all into WWIII.
My perception of Ukraine as a “democracy” is that envisaged by Bandera in the Ukraine State Bible, “Struggles and Activities”. you can have free speech as long as it promotes the national interest. Make sure you end each sentence or statement with the fascist Слава Україні ! preferably accompanied by a fascist salute (first practised at one of Bandera’s trials in 1936). Or else – watch your back.
A twitter thread referencing “the sheer number of top strategic thinkers who warned for years that it was coming if we continued down the same path.” Small compilation of these warnings, from Kissinger to Mearsheimer.
https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1498491107902062592
A quote from George Kennan, American diplomat and historian. He was best known as an advocate of a policy of containment of Soviet expansion during the Cold War. In an interview in 1998 he said:
”I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don’t people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.”
The whole interview here:
https://eldyrin.livejournal.com/23389.html?nojs=1
“Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime.”
or so we were led to believe. Of course, we now know differently.
A word to the wise. The USA has no “top strategic thinkers”. It never has.
You can’t be a strategic thinker when your horizon is about five years.
I think the success of the USA would suggest otherwise Tom. It can be just as debilitating to view everything USA bad as it is to view everything Russia bad. Some of these guys were intimately instrumental to USA foreign policy with regards to Soviet Russia and they all advised against NATO expansion post collapse of the Soviet Union. Credit where credit is due.
George Kennan for one. even Henry K, “nobel peace prize winner”, didn’t want NATO expansion.
Looking forward to reading your aforementioned lengthy and very considered piece about Ukraine, Craig.
I am too. But I very much fear that it will be built on sand like his previous efforts.
McCain and Saakashvili were both to reappear in Ukraine. Just a coincidence I’m sure.
Awaiting your Ukraine piece with bated breath.
You’re seldom wrong – and were not in this case – but when you are you are willing to reconsider and learn. The mark of true intellect.
The coming battle of Donetsk will be a disaster for Ukraine. Zelensky, who has no power, will see thousands of his young men killed for no reason, but to do Nato bidding.
They are not Zelensky’s young men. He is a vicious, unprincipled psychopath who does whatever he is told to do by his masters in Washington.
At the moment his orders are most likely to drag the fighting out as long as possible, maximise casualties and damage, and blacken the name of Russia as much as possible. Then he will fly out – like those who fled Saigon and Kabul – to enjoy his huge fortune, his luxurious villas, and a pampered life in the USA.
Are you sure he’s not “flown out” already?
There’s a wee touch of “Green Screen” about his appearances – he could be anywhere.
Right, Tom. zero will possibly head for Israel, possibly followed by the previous pres & maybe kolomisky etc too.
Anybody else seen the video on youtube – still – of zero with his trousers down while playing the keyboard with his pen**?
Exactly the kind of person the CIA loves to see running a US “subsidiary”. Imagine how they laugh.
Ralph – there is video of Z throwing sieg heil salutes as he entertains the Banderists who smile knowingly back.
There’s even one of him entertaining Putin a long time ago as an effete young entertainer.
Putin appeared to be highly amused.
The guy is just an actor. Everyone knows it. He churns out loads of green screen autocued speeches in his smelly t-shirt!
And he is besties with a lot of Nazis whilst claiming they are what they are, a few days ago!
His latest video begging for some relevance to the Grammies has been met with a mass chorus of wtf! By the American public.
It is game over for the ingenue; he is old and can’t live by his charm and talent as an actor. His sugar daddy will be planning to have him suicided in his ‘bunker’ and his body burnt to ashes if he is lucky. Otherwise…
In the international trials to come as the SCO demands a true international court without any exceptions he will be seen to be a minor sockpuppet – some billionaires will be the main criminals. Quite a few will have at least two passports and they will scream Blue Moider as they claim religious persecution.
DunGroanin, I’m glad that you, too, are aware of the monster behind the ‘angel of light’, as portayed by the complicit Western govts & goebbels propaganda – or simply lying – machine, which makes them all complicit.
Per my previous comment,
“Biggest Lie in World History”
https://www.globalresearch.ca/biggest-lie-in-world-history-the-data-base-is-flawed-there-never-was-a-pandemic-the-covid-mandates-including-the-vaccine-are-invalid/5772008
Written by a profesor of economics.
From a global perspective seen through the kaleidoscope of shifting alliances and trade relations, the economic support of China and India for Russian aggression suggests this crisis is the most powerful threat to American-led Western hegemony since the 1950s. And inevitably the West, in order to unite to meet the threat, must overcome historical fractures typified in the splits between the Anglo American and Continental European. To do this America and Britain need to recognise that the unipolar world order asserted by Bush, Blair and Brown underpinning the Iraq wars needs modification to recognise the true multipolar nature of the world. This would also clear the decks for urgent integrated efforts to control climate change.
While Biden is showing his quality as a leader who might be willing to rise to this challenge, the fault line is whether American voters can view this major shift as positive, and again the appeal for American 1st is nationalism. One world is, however, an unarguable fact.
Gosh, Mike, you really do rack up the points!
1. The Ukraine operation, if that’s what you mean, is not “Russian aggression”. It is a premptive Russian move to prevent very dangerous threats to Russia – nuclear and biological at least – just like the US naval blockade of Cuba in 1962. The Pentagon was gung-ho to invade Cuba, which John Kennedy forbade and which would have been a Bad Thing. Turns out that, unknown to anyone in the USA, Soviet missiles with nuclear warheads were already installed in Cuba and might have been fired in the event of an invasion. This time Russia moved into Ukraine before it acquired nuclear missiles, reducing the risk of thermonuclear world war.
2. What is “American-led Western hegemony” of which you speak?
“hegemony n noun leadership or dominance, especially by one state or social group over others” (COED).
Why on earth should the USA or “the West” (which essentially means the white colonialist/imperialist nations) have leadership or dominance over the rest of the world? For instance China, whose civilisation was thousands of years old before the first white man set foot on American soil. And wouldn’t the world be a far better and safer place without this arrogant self-serving “hegemony”?
3. “The West” should certainly recognise the “true multipolar nature of the world”: that is exactly what China and Russia are aiming at. But not in order to maintain their death grip on the throats of everyone else.
4. The global climate has been very gradually warming for over 20,000 years, as the world entered a mild interglacial period. That has nothing to do with any human activity.
you’re right about most of 1, and 2 and 3, but 4 is garbage. also Kennedy was a gung-ho cold warrior. He was the one who ok’ed the very dangerous blockade even though he knew the US had done the same thing in Turkey.
Please don’t describe my comments as “garbage” without giving a shred of evidence. And “everyone knows…” isn’t evidence.
As for JFK, he had actually ordered the removal of the missiles in Turkey months before. The Pentagon simply disobeyed him. When he learned (from Khrushchev!) that the missiles were still there, he insisted that they be removed – but after a discreet delay so it didn’t look as if he had weakly given way to Soviet pressure.
JFK was most decidedly not a “gung-ho cold warrior”. Like many men who had actually been to war, he was very pacific in his intentions. That was perhaps what got him killed, as Washington is very dangerous for senior officials who do not support the MIC.
“Please don’t describe my comments as “garbage” without giving a shred of evidence.”
Who needs evidence when you have faith?
The CIA and the UK were well ahead of the game by about 70 years.
I recommend this excellent piece about the coup in Iran:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/iran-us-uk-oil-friends-fall-apart-cia-coup
In 1962 J F Kennedy declared the construction of Soviet bases with missiles in Cuba as an existential threat to the US mainland, so he took steps to stop it, by use of an air and sea blockade, many experts thought this was the closest we have been to a nuclear exchange. What is the difference between bases and nuclear missiles on Russia’s doorstep and those in Cuba? I argue there is not much difference other than Zelenski has already mooted having his own nuclear weapons, not forgetting those bio labs. The ‘Rand Report [2019 on Ukraine] https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/blog/rand-report-prescribed-us-provocations-against-russia-predic listed many provocations NATO had in store for Russia. The US refused to consider Russia’s legitimate requests for security for all states in Europe, hence why we are in so much trouble now. It must be remembered that the US claim in the Monroe doctrine amounts to 36 million square miles the whole of the Western hemisphere including most of Africa, plus they want to sit on Russia’s doorstep armed to the hilt and causing trouble as outlined in the Rand report above. Russia is right to feel threatened and to take action as JFK did in 1962.
Below is an e-mail I sent to the Russian Ambassador to the UK on 24th March 2022 with my own suggestions.
His Excellency the Honorable Andrey Kelin.
The United States has the Monroe doctrine by which in 1823 U.S. President James Monroe proclaimed the U.S. protector of the Western Hemisphere by forbidding European powers from colonizing additional territories in the Americas. In return, Monroe committed to not interfere in the affairs, conflicts, and extant colonial enterprises of European states.
During the Cold War era, President John F. Kennedy invoked the Monroe Doctrine during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when he ordered a naval and air quarantine of Cuba after the Soviet Union began building missile-launching sites there. Ronald Regan was the last President to Use it.
Now we have the “Masters of the Universe” saying their sphere of influence covers the whole of the Western hemisphere from the tip of South America Tierro del Fuego to the United States which is well over 6,000 miles away and anywhere North, East and West of the United states including the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and that European powers or any peer nation who challengers that doctrine [as Biden’s National Security advisor said recently] will be dealt with decisively.
In view of the above, the United States insist on the right of Ukraine to join NATO, Ukraine has a large border with Russia and historically has been the gateway for hostile armies to attack Russia, Nazi Germany was the latest to try and in defending themselves the Soviet Union lost 10.s of millions of citizens.
But it is worse than that NATO would put in bases with Nuclear tipped missiles as they have done with Poland and Romania with a flight time of just 5 minutes to Moscow, just recently President Zelensky has mooted the acquisition of nuclear weapons.
George Kennan US statesman foresaw the dangers when he said in 1998 the expansion of NATO would be an ‘epic fateful mistake’ and a “strategic blunder of potentially epic proportions” he was right. Individuals as diverse as Henry Kissinger, John Mearsheimer and Noam Chomsky have indicated the provocative nature of Ukraine joining NATO. In my last paragraph I propose a solution to the immediate security problem.
Quite clearly and rightly Russia views the entry of Ukraine into NATO as an existential threat to its existence, a threat the United States has taken no heed of and ignores with contempt, this is a red line which Russians say will not be crossed and as a nation with huge self respect are prepared to fight anyone who threatens its existence.
I now propose a new doctrine I think it should be called the ‘Putin doctrine’ it will mirror the Monroe doctrine but will not encompass an area the size of the Western Hemisphere which is approx 36 million sq miles as claimed by the USA, it will be far more reasonable and will only be applicable to encompass Russia’s National security requirements [to be negotiated] These requirements have already been proposed by the Russian side and will involved all members of NATO and all other European states with an interest in the security architecture of the region, with the intention of making the security of all stakeholders indivisible. I look forward to hearing your remarks on this proposal.
NATO has deployed nuclear warheads in Europe but not in the post 1991 members.
The ‘NATO missiles ‘are anti-missile devices.
Ukraine has signed the non-proliferation treaty. Ukraine is years away from NATO membership although a western assurance about nuclear weapons not being deployed could have improved the whole situation. It would not have meant giving anything away.
It is true all that could change but I am sceptical that it is a serious enough threat to invade, flatten whole cities and alienate much of the world. I suspect Putin thought, like Leopoldo Galtieri of Argentina some forty years ago, there was a swift victory to be had which would increase his reputation as a leader, impress the Russian voters and humiliate the West, against whom there are justified resentments because of the transition to capitalism.
If we look a bit wider we see that the Maidan revolution was the result of the President trying to reverse the decision of the parliament to have closer links with Europe, confirmed in subsequent elections.
To the north we have the Russian speaking Belarus where the elections of 2020 were obviously rigged. The dissent was crushed by force with the public approval of Putin. Both states prefer to have closer ties to the West, not to the authoritarian restrictive Russian federation.
Because of their historic linguistic and family links with Russia, information can flow easily. The Russian people will start to learn of an alternative to current regime . I suspect that is much more of an immediate threat to Putin and his paranoid style of government, than a future membership of NATO and an unlikely deployment of nuclear weapons on its borders.
“To the north we have the Russian speaking Belarus where the elections of 2020 were obviously rigged.”
It’s funny how every election result of which the US disapproves is “obviously rigged” and that “free and fair” elections always return a government friendly to the USA.
Yes, and also how the 2020 presidential election in the USA, which was obviously rigged, was also perfectly free and fair and legitimate. A perfect example of doublethink.
“If we look a bit wider we see that the Maidan revolution was the result of the President trying to reverse the decision of the parliament to have closer links with Europe, confirmed in subsequent elections”
Those subsequent elections were illegal under the Ukrainian constitution since they were brought about by a coup set in motion by Victoria [F**k the EU] Nuland and the US state Dept, who had previously spent $5 Billion dollars on NGO’s etc to achieve it. [See intercepted phone call between Nuland and G Pyatt where they discuss who will be in Ukraine’s cabinet, here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV9J6sxCs5k
The American attempts to influence the result doesn’t mean millions of Ukrainians were unable to exercise their own opinion. They continued to vote for pro Europe parties in 2019. It is telling that come the invasion the overwhelming majority fled from the Russians and there don’t seem to have been the welcoming crowds they were alleged to expect. If there has been, we might be seeing them on Nosesti news
Yeah, and the spin-off of this is “voting in the presence of Russian soldiers”, like the referendum in Crimea. As if voting in Iraq or Afghanistan under the American occupation were any different.
What happens elsewhere is not relevant. Lukashenko claimed 79% of the vote. The sheer size of the demonstrations showed it was not so. There is other evidence.
“What happens elsewhere is not relevant”
I think you’ll find it is. Belarus is not the only election of which the US has disapproved recently.
“Lukashenko claimed 79% of the vote. The sheer size of the demonstrations showed it was not so.”
The electorate of Belarus in 2020 was 7,105,766. 5,130,557 people voted for Lukashenko, so nearly 2M people didn’t get the result they wanted.. Just how large were these demonstrations?
“The ‘NATO missiles ‘are anti-missile devices”.
Strictly speaking, they are missile launching equipment which originally was loaded with SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) for defensive purposes. But they can be adapted within days (perhaps even hours) to fire cruise missiles with nuclear warheads. Mr Putin pointed this out publicly a couple of years ago. He either stated explicitly or strongly implied that if Russia sees that this is about to happen, the sites will be destroyed.
Ukraine’s army is fully trained and equipped and integrated into the NATO command structure, has been trained since 2016; it has even been on training missions and war games outside of its homeland. It has been quite an eye opener for the west to see how a NATO army of 600,000 has faired against a Russian army 1/6th of the size. Not very impressively. Secondly apart from all the biowarfare lab discoveries (something that has appalled Russians universally) were reason enough to invade on its own. Nato have been building infrastructure and docks – all now destroyed – and the former foreign minister of Ukraine admitted that NATO had plans for full integration including 4 nuclear bomber squadrons in the process of being implemented, so you see, more western lies. If I know all this, just think what Putin knows. The British are still heavily involved in Odessa and trying to hang on to it: thus Bojo the clown continuing to send weapons to that area in the hope of maintaining a grip on under construction port bases there. I suspect he will be violently disappointed as Odessa will be the last piece of the Special Operation jigsaw by sea invasion. Anyway, my main point is this: Putin was correct to use the phrase “the Empire of Lies” – and at one time or another we all fell for it.
Ukraine’s army has trained with NATO as is their right as a sovereign nation. Their army is mainly made of reservists and national guard and face an army of 200,000. The independent military analysts like RUSI don’t rate the Russian performance very highly.
However, we can all change our minds if new evidence comes to light. Can you give sources for these nuclear bomber squadrons and naval infrastructure?
The Ukrainian army has been pretty universally absent from the fight, it’s only amateurs and home guard equivalents who are fighting, in spite of Ukraine having the second largest army in Europe. It’s never explained why this is. Perhaps the truth will come out in the next few weeks.
“Ukraine’s army has trained with NATO as is their right as a sovereign nation.”
Except that we’re not disputing rights here, we’re talking about appearances, causes and effects.
Looking forward to your piece on Ukraine. Lots of fog to disperse.
WSJ reported today how Zelensky rejected peace just days before the war started. Germany tried to persuade Zelensky to give up Nato membership, becoming a fully neutral nation but Zelensky refused such a deal. Instead Zelensky “picked” the war instead. Why is this man is glorified in the west I do not comprehend..
https://goodwordnews.com/zelensky-rejected-peace-offer-days-before-russian-offensive-wsj-rt-world-news/
And today western media/politicians condemned the incident in Buchma and blame it on Russia while no report whatsoever have been done!
When people died in Donetsk by ukranian forces, militias and so on, the west were and are silent!
“Why is this man is glorified in the west I do not comprehend..”
It is fairly obvious that the propaganda war in Ukraine is the product of many years of planning. Zelensky, or whoever held his post when the shit hit the fan, was always going to be hero, regardless of how repellent a human being they were, or not.
Funny, how the latest video showing “corpses” in the streets of Bucha, a Kiev suburb, tanked. One of the “corpses” is seen lifting his hand and couple seconds later, after the car with the woman who’s taking the video passed him, you can see in the right rear view mirror how the “corps” sits up.
I don’t know why they would have to fake the corpses. The Ukrainian nazis have tortured and killed plenty of people, recently including captured Russian prisoners of war and members of the Donbass militias. No doubt some of those bodies will be blamed on the Russians.
The “funny” thing is that some people are so desperate to discredit the Ukrainian videos of Russian carnage that they’re perceiving things through their imagination. The phenomena you mention are only light refraction artifacts in a very low-res video. At a higher resolution it’s obvious that the apparent hand movement coincides with a drop of rainwater that’s trickling along the windscreen just as the vehicle passes the body. And the few moving pixels that seem to suggest a corpse sitting up appear at the wide-angled edge of the mirror as the camera pans sideways, and the background is distorted in the same way. People who see moving corpses have an over-active imagination.
The “discrediting” of the video makes no difference, we still don’t know which side the civilians were killed by.
It is even funnier that some people take everything the Ukrainian side says for granted while everything the Russian side says is dismissed as “propaganda”. You can watch this video https://youtu.be/9MNuMJNIS64 taken by Ukrainian forces as they re-entered Bucha on April 2nd. This is the same street, albeit half a mile to the east, and there are no corpses. The locals who talked in this video did not mention any killings or any other repressions by the Russians. One guy says he was detained briefly but then they let him go.
There you go again! The video you’re referring to was published by the National Police of Ukraine on April 2, a day after the troops had begun clearing the streets, and 12 hours after the press were allowed in. More tellingly, it was clearly filmed on a different section of the street, as the buildings don’t match. As it happens, the full version of the video shows local people greeting and thanking the Ukrainian forces for liberating the town, and recounting atrocities they observed under Russian occupation. Which rather undermines your disinformation.
It’s clear enough that you’re twisting anything you can find to fit an anti-Ukraine narrative and misusing this blog as a propaganda posterboard.
I do not have a FB account so I saw the shorter version on youtube. Still your full version adds nothing. There are still no corpses in the street and civilians who talk add nothing new.
Yes appeasement. That’s always been effective at stopping aggressors in their tracks. It wouldn’t have satisfied Putin’s desire to ‘de-Nazify’ and ‘de-militarise’ Ukraine anyway.
BBC report from Donetsk. June 2021.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYbY4xxHF40
The aggressors that have been most “appeased” since 1945 have been the USA and NATO. They have bullied, chivvied, and often actually attacked or invaded foreign countries. If you are able to ignore that fact you are a hopeless case.
The USA has been far more aggressive since 1945 than Nazi Germany was, although it has not killed as many people because no one has stood up to it in a full-scale war as the USSR and Britain did.
I think you’ll find the USA has been responsible, either directly or indirectly, for more deaths than Nazi Germany – with the possible exclusion of the six million Roma, criminals, dissidents, disabled and Jews.
In the case of Crimea and the two regions of Dombas all voted by huge majorities 1/ Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine and only when that vote [approx 95% in favour] was accomplished did they apply for membership of the Russian Federation, [granted]. 2/ The two regions of Dombas who were similarly unhappy with the US coup in 2014 decided to vote to secede and to be independent states only recently. Russia recognized the two as independent states in their own right. Crimea and the two regions of Dombas could be said to be claiming their right to self determination as set out in the UN charter. Unfortunately the UN charter only declares all peoples have the right to self determination without saying ‘which’ people. Do the Scots, N Irish and Welsh people have that right? Yes, because the state of which those entities belong has granted them that right. However do the Catalonian or Basques peoples have that right? In theory yes, but in practice No, because the Spanish state refuses to relinquish control over those areas.
It would seem those areas would need to secede from the Spanish state, the state has in turn indicated that they are willing to fight a civil war to stop them seceding.
Craig Murray has indicated in the past Scotland could declare UDI, fortunately the UK State unlike Spain has given the Scots the right to independence provided a majority vote to do so via a referendum, thus avoiding a civil war.
There are many regions in Europe which could claim self determination, it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to decide what was meant by ‘All Peoples,’ Does Cornwall qualify? It was probably why the EU was so conflicted on the Catalonian question, afraid of opening a can of worms elsewhere.
The US Declaration of Independence unequivocally asserts that any people, if it sees fit, can declare itself independent and secede from the nation to which it has previously belonged.
Abraham Lincoln, 71 years later, pragmatically modified that formula.
“Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world”.
Note the key new phrase “… and having the power”. This completely neuters the whole principle. If the people have the power to assert their independence, who cares whether they have the right? On the other hand, if they don’t have the power, the right does them no good at all. The Confederate States of America learned this lesson the hard way. Having relied on the precedent of the Declaration of Independence to secede – they believed legally – from the USA, they discovered that they did not have the power to win the five-year war that Lincoln imposed on them at the cost of 750,000 lives.
Were the Russians not there as peacekeepers? Ossetians and Georgians were going at each other, with Georgians insisting anyone part of a Georgian state had better do as Georgians required. Georgia launched an attack on Ossetians and Russian peacekeepers. Russia responded. Military logic dictated that the response “neutralise” the Georgian rear and command posts. Russia has tried to manage the awkward outcome of the break-up of the Soviet Union with as little bloodshed as possible. The US has tried to stir up as much conflict as possible. If any of this is remotely accurate, Mr Murray’s assessment surely has to be revised. Similarly, given the imminence of a Ukrainian attack on Donetsk and Lugansk, surely the legality of the Russia action in Ukraine should be reappraised (never mind the hint at confirmation by President Zelensky of Russian intelligence about nuclear rearmament (even if in the form of dirty bombs) and the bioweapon labs which Russia presumably knew about, and the full extent of Ukraine’s willingness to act as a forward base for US offensive weaponry).
Imagine what would happen if a foreign power invaded a neighbour and deliberately killed US “peacekeepers”. I don’t think the USA would withdraw after a week, and I don’t think it would refrain from bombing the aggressor’s capital city to ruins.
It is quite revealing how selective the British liberals always are in their feelings toward small nations, so their hearts always bleed in the right direction. In the XIX century, Poland was their darling; Oh, that poor Poland, occupied by brutal Muscovites! Their hearts never bled for the other parts of Poland, occupied by Prussia (later Germany) or Austro-Hungary. Their hearts never bled for Hungarians, and, in fact, Palmerston welcomed the suppression of the 1848 Hungarian rebellion by Nikolas I. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was not a global rival because it lacked ports and colonies, but it was an important counterbalance to Russia in Europe. Thus, it was important to keep all those Poles, Hungarians, Serbs, Czechs, Slovaks and so on suppressed in Austro-Hungary to keep it stable. Their hearts never bled for the Southern Slavs who lived in semi-slavery under the Ottoman Turks, and the defeat of Russia in the Crimean War delayed the liberation of Bulgaria and the rest of them by at least 25 years. The trade and financial interests of the British Empire in the Ottoman Turkey were so important that the British Government tried to sustain Turkey alive and well for the whole century. And, in fact, although Lord Byron and some others had joined the fight for the Greek independence, the Government initially did not want an independent Greece. They were sympathetic, of course, to the Greeks because of the public outcry, but they wanted Greece to be a protectorate, similar to Walachia. Only after the Russian army under general Dybich defeated the Turks and stood at the gates of Constantinople in the war of 1929, the Greeks dream of independence came true (the Brits, of course, try to present themselves as the real liberators by claiming the turning point was the Battle of Navarrine, which, however, was a pure accident). And after the war or 1877-8 the British did their best to minimize the results.
So this tradition of the highly selective bleadingheartism is alive and well today, and the well-under-control media plays a helping hand. No journalists from BBC, CNN and so on had ever visited Ossetia and Abkhazia and ask people, what is it that they want. No journalists from BBC, CNN and so on visited the East Ukrainian separatist republics in 2014-2022 and asked, what is it you people want? When some neocon shill like Anne Applebaum writes about Crimea, she does not travel to Crimea. She knows what’s going on in Crimea while visiting Lviv. This is an absolute taboo, for a Western journalist to report from these forbidden territories and, unfortunately, you, Craig, are no exception. So, I take your opinion for what it is. You are good in reporting on Assange and Scotland and so on, this is your familiar territory and I respect that. But I do not believe you really understand what’s going on in the Caucasus, sorry.
Yuri K
One thing is clear from the comments so far, that US and British political misinterpretation of events in the light of their own interests have clouded history. The new narrative of the superiority of Western Liberal democracy is funded by the illegal colonisation of countries like Libya and Iraq and theft of oil and cash.
Of course the illusion of Liberal capitalism , founded on colonial plunder and Sport PR, is going to catch the imaginations of the young, but the vast majority of Ukranians would prefer the certainties of Russian post-communism education, housing , employment , to the un- subsidised Western economic ideas.
So I ask a simple question, how could any of us Westerners here , who collectively enjoy the luxury of a country awash with the loot of stolen oil and the arrogance of having superior military hardware, possibly understand the life choices and lifestyles elsewhere?
When somebody reaches out a hand to another person’s life and situation, it isn’t nice to bite it. And since we in the West see our own governments supporting Nazist racist hatred in Ukraine, and a very mild Socialist , Jeremy Corbyn, trampled on by our media and deep-state , we genuinely want to know what the alternative role-models to British and American Fascism are.
Please kindly explain to us how your system works, because socialism is completely censored here. Pompeo told us that Corbyn would be forced out of office , if elected. We are not free, despite the slogans of freedom, to differ from or even disagree with the Western lunatics in power. So explain to us please , in simple terms, what is the situation where you are. We need an alternative tobthe madness of where we are.
Giyane,
I do not have an easy answer for you, sorry. It is tempting to say “Do not let them fool you!” but too many people are only happy to be fooled. Just read MJ’s comments in Craig’s blog, this is a classic example of “I am always with the majority” type, eager to be fooled and manipulated. Bread and circus, Giyane, circus and bread.
Socrates argued against democracy because masses are ignorant and elect demagogues. To his reasoning, I can add a 2nd argument against democracy. That is, people are not goodwilling in their hearts. In our world, everybody hates somebody. Sure, they all want our world to be a perfect place where everyone is happy, except for the Russians, Jews, Albanians, “Lefties”, “Trumpists”, “faggots” etc (fill in the blank) who must burn in Hell.
Not all the British thought the same. The Hungarian leader Kossuth was hailed as a hero in London.
Gladstone, who became the Liberal party leader, was very much against Turkish atrocities on the Bulgarians and Armenians.
Sure, but did it matter? Whoever wants Assange to go free — does their opinion have any weight at all?
i dont know about the legality, but the US was not threatened by Iraq; Russia was threatened by a US/NATO base, whether formalized on not, in Ukraine. the biolabs show the Russians had excellent reason to be concerned.
The closest we have in legality of pre emptive action is NATO on Kosovo.
If we compare all aspects then Russia has more reasons to act than NATO ever did.
The difference also is this war was already in progress from 2014, and the people of the republics largely thought themselves as Russian. If not all of them then, they certainly do now.
I can’t stand war but this is just an escalation of what has been happening these last years in the Donbass with no one caring at all. Odessa, Mariupol, Slavyansk, Severodonetsk, Donetsk and Lugansk, all with people ignored by the wider community not to mention lied about by Ukraine and the Whitehouse especially.
The clear upturn in shelling from the Ukraine side around the 18th February as reported by OSCE was also ignored.
Even the Tochka U strike on Donetsk city centre was blamed on Russia and the DPR. The footage was appalling.
Neo-Nazis welcomed in the US Senate and armed to the teeth in their own country.
Simply put, this is not a war of imperial aggression by Russia on Ukraine. It is a war of imperial aggression by America on Russia – with the Ukrainians tragically serving as cannon fodder for the Americans.
It’s a war against anyone who threatens the USA’s global hegemony. Today it’s Russia, tomorrow It’s China, next week it could be India.
The USA has two choices: war or peace. It has chosen war and that choice is based on the fallacy that war will not affect the American homeland.
Whilst we expect CM’s take on Ukraine – I still hope to see his take on Afghanistan, happened while he was jailed. All the more now that the Dominant Empires move against Captain Khan.
Is this a poke at the Dragon now? Expecting a response?
Sabotaging NS2 (it hasn’t been dismantled and is pressurised and ready to roll – the Germans will be taking delivery by next winter) is one thing, trying the same with the BRI through Pakistan is a whole other level.
Xi can move millions of military.
Is this now existential for the holder of the poking stick? Am I being over dramatic?
The US are to blame for all the wars and disruption going on at present, because they were not happy having to rely on uncertain UNSC resolutions [which they supported] passing without all veto wielding members agreeing with them, they decided to change the rules, instead of International Law, we now have ‘the rules based International order’ i.e. We [the US] make the rules and you, usually EU vassals or small countries intimidated to follow its orders.
Now they have met their match, independent countries like Russia, China, India and Iran plus many others now falling outside US control are rebelling and back Russia.
Chairman Mao once said “Power grows out the barrel of a gun”. He was almost right. I would suggest he might rephrase that today to….
Those who have large natural gas, oil reserves and other natural resources which the world needs to survive, along with Mach 10 hyper- sonic nuclear missiles, has the power to make the rules. We shall see. https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/german-retailers-increase-food-prices-20-50-monday
“The US are to blame for all the wars and disruption going on at present”
Yes of course they are, because they are the US and by inference Russia is utterly blameless. Echoes back to what Craig said about “fuckwits” back in June.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/06/warmongering-british-actions-in-the-black-sea/comment-page-2/#comment-994653
craig
June 25, 2021 at 09:29
“I am thinking of a new policy of permanent lifetime bans for the scores of fuckwits on this blog who argue that because the West does things that are wrong, Russia is perfect and never does anything wrong.”
The British and American governments have a problem with hypocrisy regarding Iraq and Ukraine but the “fuckwits” have a bigger problem in that having (rightly) condemned the illegal invasion of Iraq they now have to employ some twisted logic to justify the equally illegal invasion of Ukraine. Oh it’s Russia, and Russia is perfect and never does anything wrong.
It must also be increasingly hard to keep up the delusion that the ‘special military operation’ is still going to plan. Was the retreat from Kyiv and the lines of burnt out tanks all part of the plan then? The failure to take Mariupol after 40 days? Even if only a fraction of the reports of murders, rapes and looting are true it makes a lie out of claims that Russia is going out of its way to prevent civilian casualties. But then it’s Russia, and Russia is perfect and never does anything wrong.
That is the perspective of a tiny number of contributors on here. So what? More significant is the fact that the entire western media is pumping out a message that Nato and Western leaders are perfect, despite them having gone to the far corner of Europe deliberately to provoke this. The MSM has played you so hard you don’t know if it’s night or day.
And that a minority of Nazi thugs in the establishment and military is perfectly normal and healthy!
Morons – the privileged, over-promoted, PR wonks who would never have got a job without their mates!
Whilst there may be “fuckwits on this blog who argue that because the West does things that are wrong, Russia is perfect and never does anything wrong.” it is still the case that tarring anyone who suggests that the USA might have just be a teeny bit to blame for what has happened in Ukraine with the same brush is of the same order of fuckwittery, if not greater. Pointing out hypocrisy, defective logic, unsupported assertions and falsehoods in one side’s arguments is just that. It doesn’t automatically constitute any support for the other side. Both sides can be wrong. I know that the idea that if you aren’t with us you are against us is part of the accepted dogma of the West, but that doesn’t make it correct or even true.
“Was the retreat from Kyiv and the lines of burnt out tanks all part of the plan then? The failure to take Mariupol after 40 days? “
What burnt out tanks, what failure to take Mariupol? Were you there? Did you see them? How do you know how long the Russians allowed to take Mariupol? “I have arbitrarily assigned objectives to the enemy and they have failed to achieve them” is not a very convincing argument.
“Even if only a fraction of the reports of murders, rapes and looting are true…”
“Reports” cost nothing and can be manufactured in practically infinite quantities from nothing, so it is perfectly possible that none of them are true.
I see your reasoning, however, as a dedicated “fuckwit”, I have to say that you got it all wrong. The unreasoned invasions of Iraq and so on do not “justify” Russia’s action; they simply meant that that there are no rules anymore except that whoever is strong enough makes his own rules. Hence, the only justification Russia needs to invade Ukraine is “because she can.” So unless you have guts to stop Russia by force, stop moralizing and shut up.
“there are no rules anymore except that whoever is strong enough makes his own rules. Hence, the only justification Russia needs to invade Ukraine is “because she can.”
How interesting. Your ‘might is right’ doctrine reveals you to be a fascist. Craig has declared that people who advocate fascism aren’t welcome to post here. So either stop posting, or stop being a fascist.
So unless you have the guts to stop Russia by force, stop moralizing and shut up.
People don’t have to be able to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in order to post comments here. But, as noted above, they do have to stop advocating fascist doctrine.
I am not advocating the “might is right doctrine”, this is just an observation of how our world operates now. And it works like this because of people like you, Dawg.
“The first casualty of war is the truth, the second its communication” may easily have been said many times before, and if the following hyperlinked RT news is more the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, rather than carefully contrived and cynical perverse criminalising misinformation, …….
Zelensky rejected peace offer days before Russian offensive – WSJ (RT News, 3 Apr 2022)
……..does the tale paint another altogether different picture for the Western narratives to support/spin with other directions/media productions/future presentations which are obvious corrupt and crooked?
Great, obvious, point by Scott Ritter, still western world do not care for evidence what happend in Bucha, it is used as a means to justify more sanctions or even military involvement, typical war propaganda:
“Kiev needs to provide forensic data to sustain its accusations — ex-UN inspector
According to Scott Ritter, “at a time when Western public opinion is being shaped by an intense information warfare operation exclusively designed to paint Russia in a negative light, one would think objective observers would wait for the forensics before screaming ‘guilty’”
https://tass.com/world/1431843
Who killed these people and who are they? Killed by whom? When? Have they been moved onto the streets? etc. So many obvious questions western world should pose but pin the blame instead instantly on Russia.
Meanwhile Zelensky participated in the…american music Grammy Award show, sending a prerecorded video.
What have Zelensky done to stop the fighting? It seems like the only thing he do is posting selfies for the western world, fitting him nicely though, the actor that he is.
Jack
It seems strange to me that you credit Jhelensky with feelings. Like a Punch and Judy puppet, and like Condoleesa Rice and Victoria Nuland in other wars he is just an actor, paid to promote the narrative of ‘ cancelling ‘ Russia. In a million years nobody’s going to think about giving a real Nazi a real nuclear bomb. Ever.
Nuland supported Al Qaida bulldozing the border between Iraq and Syria, on the historical pretext that it did not exist under the Ottoman Caliphate. This is just US hegemony porn based on fantasy. The Nazis in Ukraine are just a Western construct to illegally change borders and plunder.
Viking terror and Turkic terror have been friends for over 1000 years, both intensely nationalistic and fond of war. I don’t see either Ukraine or Syria as anything other than illegal proxy wars to save USUK the embarrassment of being condemned for breaking international law. Their method of war is terror, followed by Doomsday Book subjugation.
I know one thing for sure, that if Russia loses in Ukraine, the EU and the US will have completed their national transformation into Fascism, controlling our lives as completely as we are told China already controls its people. Russia ironically is fighting for our freedom, our civilisation , our social democratic values, against the Messianic delusions of 3 powers, the US, Islamism and China, each of whom are probably as bad as each other.
“NATO has created the climate in Russia so favourable to Putin.”
And quite deliberately so. Where would we be without our daily five minutes hate?
Yes. Isn’t it terrible how much NATO propaganda those poor Russian citizens are exposed to every day?
Never mind the bloody Russkis, what about us, here in the west/
You can think about that what you like, but Ronny was talking about “the climate in Russia” (and I don’t think he meant the snow). Hence my surprise.
What is absurd is that Russia and Nato agree that Ukraine should not be a Nato member, so the war could have been stopped from happening altogether! However Nato cannot bear to officially admit that stance, instead they “picked” this war. For what?
For Ukranian national sovereignty to decide for itself which international organisations it does or does not want to belong to?
Funnily how many pronouncements on “Ukranian national sovereignty” seem to come from the other side of the Atlantic.
…which, incidentally, opposes the Chinese national integrity and sovereignty as vehemently, as they support the Ukraine’s…
“encircling”? Really?