There can be few safer indicators of the views of the globalist “liberal” Establishment than reports of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, which prefers to be known as Chatham House.
Chatham House’s principal funding comes from the UK, US, Canadian, German, Swiss, Japanese, Swedish and Norwegian governments, the World Bank and the EU, and from corporate “philanthropists” including IKEA, Bill Gates, George Soros, Carnegie Foundation, Ford Foundation, BP, Chevron, Shell, and ExxonMobil. I could go on.
In other words, Chatham House is absolutely rolling in the dosh controlled by states and the super wealthy. It is headquartered in the palatial residence of the imperial expansionist Prime Minister William Pitt, and has expanded out over time into two great adjoining mansions.
(In 2022 it also, despite all the petroleum bungs, received its largest grant from the MAVA Foundation, a Swiss environmental charity, which was that year closing down and disbursing all its funds).
So Chatham House is a pretty infallible guide as to what those who control western “democracies” are thinking. And when it comes to Ukraine, what they are thinking is terrifying.
Chatham House has released a report which “makes the case for dramatically increased Western military assistance to Ukraine, and argues against concessions to Russia”.
The report is organised as a list of nine “fallacies” which the authors are concerned that Russian propagandists have successfully insinuated into Western thinking, and sets out to refute each of them.
This is rather a high risk approach as, taken together, the nine “fallacies” on the face of it make a cogent and convincing argument against the escalation of the war.
But, convinced of the protection of their amulets of invincible self-righteousness, the authors plunge right in to their refutations.
I do not intend to go through them all. I merely seek to illustrate the intellectual paucity of this lavishly funded enterprise.
The task of debunking the first “fallacy”, that all wars end in negotiation, is given to James Sherr OBE, an American careerist Russophobe who is currently Head of Vilification at the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute (I definitely got the Institute right but I may have mistranslated his title a bit).
Estonia has of course much in common with Ukraine. It gained its national freedom on the collapse of the Soviet Union and it has subsequently put state resources into honouring Nazi Holocaust participants.
Two of the three Estonian Waffen SS officers in this photo have had official plaques to them unveiled in modern Estonia, reported with approval and no sense of controversy in the state media.
I thought I might mention this in case anyone thinks it unfair that Ukrainian Nazis were spotlighted by another Waffen SS member being given a standing ovation by the Canadian parliament. It is only fair to point out that a lot of Ukraine’s closest supporters are riddled with Nazi sympathy also.
Anyway, what does Estonian state employee and US citizen Dr James Sherr, Officer of the Order of the British Empire, former Fellow of the UK Defence Academy, have to tell us about the “fallacy” that all wars end in negotiation?
The first problem is that they don’t. It is true that the majority of wars do not end in absolute victory. Ceasefire, armistice and stalemate terminate most conflicts, even if the ‘peace’ is infirm or short-lived. But where the stakes are absolute, as they were in the Napoleonic wars, the US Civil War and the Second World War, armed conflict usually ends in the victory of one side and the defeat of the other. Negotiation, compromise and reconciliation are undertaken with new regimes only after old regimes are defeated and removed. The Franco-German reconciliation invoked by Emmanuel Macron would have been inconceivable had the Nazis remained in power.
Sherr goes on to argue that the stakes in this war are absolute. It is an existential war for Ukraine because Russia seeks to destroy it entirely, and it is an existential war for Russia because, he argues, Putin believes that Kiev is the cradle of the Russian soul.
Having defined it as an existential war, he says that it follows that it must be escalated up to total war and total victory.
It is very plainly an argument to escalate the war to achieve regime change in Russia:
Negotiation, compromise and reconciliation are undertaken with new regimes only after old regimes are defeated and removed.
Sherr is perfectly happy to contemplate millions of deaths. Look at his comparisons; the Napoleonic Wars entailed 3 million combat deaths, the US civil war about 700,000 combat deaths and the Second World War about 15 million. In each case you can probably more than double that for total civilian deaths caused by those wars.
Let me be absolutely plain: Sherr is saying this is the kind of total war he wants against Russia, rather than a more limited one.
Strangely enough Sherr does not reference those more recent great western wars for regime change, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, which also resulted in the deaths of millions. Possibly even he realises the end results have not been entirely desirable.
But is this war really existential for either Ukraine or Russia? The truth is that ever since Ukraine became independent in 1991 it has been unstable, deeply divided over whether to look west to the EU or look east to Russia. The political and linguistic division broadly at the Dnieper runs deep into history.
Modern Ukraine is a failed state that collapsed into civil war in 2014 after twenty years of political tension between openly pro-Western and pro-Russian political forces which were remarkably evenly balanced.
Up to and including 2014, both the Western powers and Russia engaged in all forms of political interference, espionage and chicanery to try to win Ukraine. Back in 1996 when I was First Secretary in the British Embassy in Warsaw, I helped author a paper for the Cabinet Office which said that Poland was now secured to the West, but the hinge of history would be the Ukraine. I discussed it with George Soros in person (he bought me a pizza).
I cannot share the outrage of many on the left at the “colour revolution” of 2014. Both Russia and the West had been playing a dirty game. Yanukovych was more or less kidnapped by Moscow to disavow the EU Association agreement. The ensuing 2014 coup was just the US being more adept at winning the dirty game, of which I as a former player well know the rules, or lack of them.
The subsequent annexation of Crimea and reinforcement of the Donbass was the Russian counter-move. That ended the hope that a united Ukraine would ever be pro-Russian. The civil war rumbled on ever since until the larger Russian invasion. The extreme discriminatory measures against the Russian speaking population post-2014 ended the hope that a united Ukraine would ever be possible.
Chatham House itself illustrates that Ukraine was nothing but this East/West conflict playground. In 2023 the “Chatham House Prize” for international relations was awarded to Ukrainian President Zelensky. In 2005 the inaugural “Chatham House Prize” had been awarded to President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine, openly for turning Ukraine from a pro-Russian to a pro-EU foreign policy.
A country where it is a prize-winning achievement to win a narrow majority for pro-western policies, against the wishes of the other half of the country which wants a pro-Russian foreign policy, is not a viable long term political entity.
At no stage in this post-Soviet story did Ukraine ever become a viable state. It was a poor, undeveloped and undeveloping, east-west power game venue. Both sides were rigging elections and the oligarchs and their pet politicians oversaw massive corruption, on a mind boggling scale.
Which corruption has no way lessened, and has battened on vast flows of “assistance” from the west.
There has never been a Ukraine under the rule of law and proper democratic government, to which to now return. What does Sherr think will be the attitude of the Russian speaking half of the Ukrainian population if his massive, blood-drenched, total war does bring about the total defeat of Russia?
Ukraine has now banned Russian as an official language, banned all Russian speaking newspapers, banned the pro-Russian political parties, banned teaching in Russian in schools, banned Russian books in libraries and banned the Russian Orthodox Church. Yet Russian is the first language of about 40% of the population.
Is the plan that the total war will result in such genocide that Russian speakers in Ukraine will be no more? Will they all be ethnically cleansed? Or after so much death and destruction, will they just quietly live as second class citizens, and abandon resistance? Is that the plan?
In truth, the best opportunity for a functioning and more efficient Ukrainian state is, now we are in this hot war, for it to lose the Russia-leaning areas and become a more homogeneous and unified entity, with a much greater chance of being at peace with itself and of sorting out its colossal governance problems.
A smaller, better, Ukraine that quickly finds its way into the EU would benefit the great majority of pro-Ukrainians and provide a more stable future for Eastern Europe. In time, it would come to be seen as a blessing.
A negotiated land-for-peace deal, with genuinely free referenda conducted under UN supervision to determine borders, has always been possible and is now essential.
That is what diplomacy is. Yes, mankind can conduct its affairs through total war, inflicting death, maiming, rape, hunger, disease and long term poverty on a massive scale. Or compromise can be reached. That there are those who argue for the former over Eastern Ukraine is sickening to me.
The other problem with a total war is of course that it might be your side which loses. If Sherr wants total war and no negotiation, he is of course accepting the possibility that Russia will conquer all of Ukraine – and would have no right at all to complain of that outcome.
In which case what would become of the Ukrainians? One thing is for certain, a massive wave of refugees would be launched right across Europe.
The practical problem with Sherr’s call for total war is that Ukraine really does not have the population numbers to sustain to victory a total war against Russia. It is just going to run out of people, as indeed the much trumpeted counteroffensive appears to have done.
The extreme escalation of western weaponry which Chatham House proposes, might indeed get round the population problem and tip the balance by inflicting simply massive casualties on Russia, but it is an incredible gamble to believe that so much hurt could be inflicted on Russia without risking nuclear annihilation.
It is improbable that China will permit these lunatic western warhawks to risk the entire future of humankind. Sherr is not of course alone – each section of the report has a different author, and some of them are even more unhinged. Please feel free to discuss further in the comments.
A diplomatic settlement to the Ukraine war terrifies western power structures because it will underline the decline of western hegemony and the increasing influence of BRICS and other non-western voices.
The actual destruction of Russia as an independent power has become essential to the apostles of empire, as a means of maintaining a psychological ascendancy for a few more years. They really do not care how many die for that. Do we really want to follow Dr Sherrangelove and his fellow Chatham House ideologues down this path?
Remember that list above of who pays for Chatham House and who wants all this death. I can see how it benefits them. But, dear reader, how does it benefit you?
An independent Ukraine, shorn of the Eastern provinces that have never wished to look westward, is in the long term much more feasible and viable than some kind of military Valhalla created by an epic war of conquest.
A negotiated and equitable end to this conflict is perfectly viable. It always has been so. The people of Europe have to reject the military industrial complex, the war profiteers and the blazing-eyed ideologues – and look for a fair peace.
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Sigh, how will these warmongering people go on with their lives after the war is settled, at the negogiation table that is? Everything they repeated ad naseum that Ukraine could win this on the front was a lie.
The perhaps oldest fallacy of solving a war is just precisely this zero sum-game approach to it. ‘One side must win and the other side must lose’. But that is not how wars are solved and have not almost 2 years of fighting proved that the only solution is at the negogiation table? There was an article the other day in New Yok Times which said that Russia have taken more land than Ukraine during 2023. So much for the hyped-up counter-offensive….
Russia Has Gained More Territory This Year Than Ukraine
https://news.antiwar.com/2023/09/28/russia-has-gained-more-territory-this-year-than-ukraine/
This war was not out of the blue, it was not unprovoked and it certainly have a long history leading up to it. But the warmongering in charge still refuse to admit this, they are too deep in their own brainwashing.
And the public are not as keen to support this war anymore. 41% of americans support further arms to Ukraine, down from 65%, among Democrats the decline is about the same percentage.
Americans souring on military aid to Ukraine – poll
https://swentr.site/news/584136-americans-ukraine-aid-poll/
EU, Nato could not care less about Ukraine, they only use it as a proxy, it is so cynical, every now and then the reality pours out:
Key EU state opposes fast-tracking Ukrainian membership
Outgoing Dutch PM Mark Rutte insists Kiev still has to meet “thousands of conditions” before joining the bloc
https://swentr.site/news/584146-rutte-oppose-ukraine-eu/
No way that a heavily corrupt Ukraine would join EU anytime soon, no way that Ukraine would join Nato anytime soon, but that is what the warmongering tease Ukraine with.
Also, tommorow Putin is having his birthday, last year Ukraine bombed the Crimean bridge, there could be one of those escalations tommorow too.
There cannot and will not be any negotiation. See, among many other sources, https://steemit.com/news/@roguemoney/the-not-agreement-capable-americans-and-the-great-rt-russian-facebook-ads-panic
‘”Not Agreement Capable” (недоговороспособны) is a term Russian diplomats came up with to describe their American counterparts, after each deal in Syria seemingly fell apart during the Obama Administration’s lame duck phase’.
That was written 6 years ago, and every intervening month has piled up additional evidence of the faithless, cynical lying of the US government. (And its various hirelings masquerading as Western governments).
Would you negotiate with someone whom you know to be so dishonest that neither their spoken nor their written word is worth spit?
The Lithuanians were the most murderous and unscrupulous of all the Nazis during world war two and today honour the SS even more brazenly than Estonia, Ukraine and Canada do.
https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1669729870283440128?s=20
It is probably why Vilnius was selected to host the last NATO summit. A calculated eff you to Russia.
Hello Craig, I am aware that the eastern regions of Ukraine are mostly inhabited by ethnic Russians and people whose first language is Russian. One hears conflicting versions of the nature and extent of discrimination. Although I agree that Ukraine was corrupt, Zelensky was elected to try to do something about it. I also find it hard to believe the 2014 revolt did not enjoy popular support rather than being something cooked up by the cia. Finally, one question I would like to see answered is whether the ethnic Russians and Russian speakers in Eastern Ukraine would actually like to be in Russia. This is far from certain, though a referendum could resolve this.
“Finally, one question I would like to see answered is whether the ethnic Russians and Russian speakers in Eastern Ukraine would actually like to be in Russia. This is far from certain, though a referendum could resolve this”.
Referenda held in Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhia, and Kherson last year all resulted in very large majorities in favour of rejoining Russia. (Crimea had done so back in 2014).
https://theduran.com/putins-historic-speech-finalizes-referenda-infuriates-collective-west/
thank you, he lost me when he kept insisting that Ukraine was equally a victim of Russia and the US. false equivalence. the people that want to dismember Russia took over Ukraine. that made it an existential threat to Russia.
The Duran is headed by Alexander Mercouris, a struck off Barrister. He was a regular on RT Russia Today.
The post 2022 referendum results in Donetsk and Luhansk were 99.23% and 98.24% respectively with a reported turnout in the high 90s.
The Russians did not control the whole of either oblast (region) ; many inhabitants had fled and it was reported that in some areas, armed men would turn up at the door and insist on the residents filling in the form in front of them. One presumes that was to minimise abstention!
The UN condemned the exercise and the only state to formally accept the results was North Korea.
The 2014 referendum in Crimea was 97%. Some time last year? Craig Murray pointed out Yulia Timoshenko had secured 20+% of the vote in the region in the previous election. The Tatar leadership condemned the takeover and they had many reasons to be against it. They make up 20% of the population.
You can make up your own mind.
Try to do some research,
https://www.wikispooks.com/wiki/2014_Ukraine_coup
“and it was reported that in some areas, armed men would turn up at the door and insist on the residents filling in the form in front of them.”
It was reported, eh? Must be true, then.
“The 2014 referendum in Crimea was 97%. Some time last year? Craig Murray pointed out Yulia Timoshenko had secured 20+% of the vote in the region in the previous election. The Tatar leadership condemned the takeover and they had many reasons to be against it. They make up 20% of the population.
You can make up your own mind.”
You want to rig an referendum result. Do you
a) have it as 52:48 – a majority is a majority, no point in overdoing it.
b) have it as 60:40 – a healthy majority that still looks plausible, or
c) have it as 97:3 – gotta show them who’s boss?
The Ukrainian regime, dominated by its neo-fascist wing, specifically rejected any recognition of Russian language. They have thereby forfeited any right to rule over speakers of this language (not to mention shelling their own citizens in Donetsk).
Aside from the Ukraine problem, your observation that, ‘a country where it is a prize-winning achievement to win a narrow majority……… against the wishes of the other half of the country……. is not a viable long term political entity’ is applicable to problems closer to home.
¡Well observed sir!
Sure.
And if partition is good enough for Ukraine, then it’s good enough for Scotland too.
Passing strange how every time the idea is brought up, for example, Orkney & Shetland going back to Norway, or the solid Tory voting Borders regions sticking with England, it’s vociferously shouted down.
World-class hypocrisy is what I call it.
And what about Dal Riata? Eh? Fergus Mor demands recognition. And Fib, and Moray, and Cait?
As I wrote, it’s vociferously shouted down, usually by somebody raising a straw man argument about their garden or some farmer’s byre.
The examples I gave, The Northern Isles and The Borders, have distinctive history, different cultures, feck, even a different language.
But ultimately that’s not the point. Any geographical area that strongly wants independence, for whatever reason, can’t morally be denied indefinitely. Accept that, or give up on Scottish Indy. Your choice.
Odd that you didn’t notice that my comment was actually supporting your previous one. You asked why independence should stop at the level of Scotland; I took your argument a little further to the regional level.
‘I cannot share the outrage of many on the left at the “colour revolution” of 2014’.
I cannot understand what all this “left” and “right” is about. Surely the seating arrangements of the French national assembly in 1789 have little to do with a war in Europe in 2023?
Once upon a time, I was taught at school – along with many other fairy stories – “left wing” referred to those politicians who favoured “reform”, and “right wing” meant those who preferred the status quo. Today I cannot see that those terms mean anything at all. Virtually all Western politicians are in conspiracy with business corporations against their own citizens. Labour, Conservative, Liberal, Democrat, Republican – those labels mean nothing at all except rival gangs.
Surely anyone honest must feel upset and angry when the government of one nation goes around deliberately stirring up violent revolution and coups d’état in other countries.
‘I cannot share the outrage of many on the left at the “colour revolution” of 2014’.
1. It was violent
2. It was un-constitutional
3. It was driven by extreme far-right violent groups
4. It was supported from abroad by US/Nato/EU, even reps. from respective nations were in Kiev protesting urging regime change, urging the ukrainian leaders to sign only their deal or else.
5. The so-called revolution was not representing the majority of ukrainians and the so called revolution had a nasty anti-russian bent.
6. Look where the “revolution” took us today….
Thus, there are plenty of reason why many to the left did not like the event back in 2013-2014.
Jack, let me encourage you to read my comment to which you appear to be replying. What you have actually done is to launch an attack on Mr Murray’s remark which I began by citing.
Yes I know that Craig wrote that, since you brought up that particular quote I thought it was good to give a reply to it here. I agree with your comment.
Sorry to be stroppy, Jack. Some of the comments here tend to raise one’s blood pressure.
In case it needs saying, of course I agree with everything you wrote.
Jack, Tom, others
May be one could suggest the Maidan consisted of two phases:
1st phase: the „in part genuine protest by everyday people“ from November 2013-Febr. 2014 with escalatory steps on both sides during that period, which eventually paved the ground for the Fascists – snipers conspiracy etc.)
2nd phase: the coup and ousting of the protesters + government (paradoxically both)
Both phases separated by the “summit” in February as described by Richard Sakwa back in 2015 or so in his “Frontline Ukraine”:
“(…)With violence spreading, on the night of 20–21 February the foreign ministers of Germany (Frank-Walter Steinmeier), Poland (Radosław Sikorski) and France (Laurent Fabius, who soon left for a visit to China), together with the head of the continental European department of the French foreign ministry, Eric Fournier, flew to Kiev and brokered a deal with Yanukovych. At 4 p.m. on 21 February in the building of the presidential administration the agreement was signed by Yanukovych, Yatsenyuk, Klitschko and Tyagnybok, and witnessed by the three EU ministers and Vladimir Lukin, Russia’s former ambassador to the US and then human-rights ombudsman, who was now Putin’s special representative. There were six key provisions:
within 48 hours Yanukovych was to sign a bill to return the country to the 2004 constitution, which would allow the Rada to form a ‘government of national unity’ within ten days;
the unity government was to draft a new constitution by the end of spring 2014 that would further limit presidential powers;
early presidential elections were to be held as soon as the new constitution was adopted, no later than December 2014, with a new electoral law and electoral commission;
an investigation was to be conducted into the recent bout of violence, to be overseen by the authorities, the opposition and the Council of Europe;
the authorities would not introduce a state of emergency and all sides would renounce the use of force accompanied by the withdrawal of government forces from the Maidan and the disarming of the Kiev street militias;
the various foreign ministers and representatives called for an immediate ceasefire.
These were significant concessions and offered a peaceful and constitutional way out of the crisis. The security services melted away and Yanukovych was left defenceless.(…)”
The protesters who had grown to a unsettling lot of 500,000 i think, rejected this. How this came about in detail and what the personae Yatsenyuk, Klitschko and Tyagnybok were possibly dealing behind the scenes could be another matter.
I am pretty sure this account is not definitive as the Maidan history is still being written and will be.
(I might comment more later. But as an entry to not repeat ourselves and, perhaps, expand on our knowledge of these events. )
p.s. brand new and I have yet to listen:
Maté&Halper with a new video podcast:
“Ukraine’s Inconvenient Truth
The myth of Ukrainian sovereignty unravels as western officials leak the much darker truth”
https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/ukraines-inconvenient-truth#details
“I cannot understand what all this “left” and “right” is about.”
If the seating arrangements of the French national assembly put those who supported the rights of the poor against the interests of the rich on the left then there’s your definition of left wing. I don’t suppose you’d be taught that in school. By this definition there are no more left wing parties in the West; by accident or by design.
“I don’t suppose you’d be taught that in school”.
Actually I was – very much so. I also learned how progressively more extreme radicals took power, usually executing those who had preceded them, until even Robespierre was guillotined. Not quite clear how that – or renaming the months and the days of the week – helped the poor.
“By this definition there are no more left wing parties in the West; by accident or by design”.
Which was the point I wanted to make. Since “left” and “right” have never made much sense, and none at all for about the past 50 years, why do people keep dragging them in? My hunch is that it’s because they need to identify some organised “enemy” to disparage and blame for all the evils of the world. The “left” blame the “right”, and vice-versa, while completely failing to noticing who is the real enemy.
“My hunch is that it’s because they need to identify some organised “enemy” to disparage and blame for all the evils of the world.”
I think is more because of the need to divide the world into two, friends and enemies, them and us, goodies and baddies, labels to allow us to know who we should like and who we should hate without any inconvenient thinking being required.
The problem of talking about left and right in the current prevailing system is that the whole current system is what one would call ‘right’ and this political system applies to most of the world except for perhaps North Korea and Cuba and also in a more limited way, to China. So referring to the left within this political system means that these are the least right wing of a right wing lot.
Sadly there is no current meaningful left parties or political organizations that genuinely seek to revive true socialism with predominant state control of resources for the benefit of the many.
Although quite how conservative are ruling parties that want to tear down civilisation to avoid non-existent “global warming”, submit to injections of artificial concoctions of RNA, wear masks, remove the distinctions between men and women, children and adults, etc., force us all to carry electronic ID, abolish cash, drastically limit travel, forbid the eating of meat, etc.?
It all seems to me just as radical (and just as batty) as the French revolutionaries.
Tom
This is probably not the place to start a discussion on man made climate change and covid denial – there are other places to do so. However the relevance of these two “talking points” are typically more the concern of the right under the banner of individual freedoms.
Yes indeed the French Revolution ended in an extreme absolute emperor, and the Russian revolution ended in another one: Stalin.
Let us be clear, socialism cannot exist within a dominant capitalist system and your diversions do not help.
‘However the relevance of these two “talking points” are typically more the concern of the right under the banner of individual freedoms’.
Let me be clear: I am not “left” or “right” or “middle” or “up” or “down”; not am I any kind of national, religious, or racial chauvinist. I am a human being with the good of my species at heart, and I tend to be in favour of good people, reliable facts and figures, and logical reasoning. On the other hand I am biased against selfish, cynical, murderous, lying, cheating people, and I find stupidity, ignorance, and misinformation unhelpful.
‘Let us be clear, socialism cannot exist within a dominant capitalist system and your diversions do not help’.
Rather large claims without the slightest trace of evidence. If socialism cannot exist within a dominant capitalist system, maybe we should consider toning down the capitalism until it becomes possible to take into account the welfare of everyone rather than the insane selfishness of the super-rich.
And while you may believe that my “diversions” do not help you, I do not think that you can speak for everyone. I didn’t find your contribution very helpful, but I would not dream of saying so.
“Yes indeed the French Revolution ended in an extreme absolute emperor, and the Russian revolution ended in another one: Stalin.”
Indeed and it was pointed out to me at school that one revolution of a wheel brings all parts of it back into the same place relative to the road, just a little bit further along it.
Oh dear we have upset Tom
“And while you may believe that my “diversions” do not help you, I do not think that you can speak for everyone.”
I have never claimed to speak for everyone, however I am guided by the rules of our host re diversions.
“ I didn’t find your contribution very helpful, but I would not dream of saying so.”
Of course you didn’t but you did.
If you are so concerned about those things that you said you are concerned about and listen to only good people and agreeable statistics then that sounds to me that you feel that your opinions are of great interest, importance and intrinsic truth, and of course other opinions are not helpful.😀
Sadly, the psychopaths have taken over the planet.
Whether many many millions will die before those who hang onto their coat tails for large pay packets and index linked pensions, will come to their sense and discover the consciences they were born with, is debatable.
All we can do is continue to point out the need for organisations such as Chatham House to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act, and hope we are not ‘removed’ as enemies of the state, by the ruling enemies of the world.
Sadly, I believe that in the last 10 years millions have already died at the hands of the western psychopaths. But it’s okay because they were mainly Old, Disabled or Foreign. The coming together of governments with the corporate world is one definition of Fascism, and that’s where we are now, I believe – the new world order.
“Sadly, the psychopaths have taken over the planet”.
As Hari Seldon might well have predicted when an intelligent ape invents technology, expands its numbers to over 8 billion, and starts to push other species to the edge of extinction. We evolved to live in groups of less than 200 at the very most – we are not equipped to live in communities numbering millions.
The bigger and more anonymous the community, the greater the advantage psychopaths enjoy. When it gets to hundreds of millions, they inevitably wind up running the show. All the normal people are preoccupied doing normal things, leaving the psychopaths free to do their thing.
As we see every day.
Tom Welsh:”we are not equipped to live in communities numbering millions”.
but then we don’t, do we. Individuals belong to a group or network of some modest but uncertain number. called family and friends. 200 seems about right but I am sure it varies depending on access to technology and status. Audience might be a more useful concept. Some people have audiences of millions but their interactions with the majority of these are at best ephemeral and so shallow as to be meaningless.
Tom Welsh:
“tear down civilisation to avoid non-existent “global warming”, submit to injections of artificial concoctions of RNA, wear masks, remove the distinctions between men and women, children and adults, etc.
Are you able to support your belief about climate change or are you just frustrated by the complexity of the subject and cannot come to a settled judgement?I don’t have the time or resources to take a fully analytic approach to this difficult question. Like most people I have to arrive at the ‘most likely’ conclusion. I have very modest experience but I did work on ecology projects where we detected subtle
changes in distribution and range of small animals ,mainly arthropods.I have also tramped a lot around upland environments monitoring plants, range, altitude, and abundance.It was very difficult to arrive at hard and fast conclusions. The results were subtle and subject to a variety of possible causal factors but I was left with the firm impression that climate conditions were changing, indicated by the changes in the data.
Covid RNA Vaccination: “artificial concoctions” traditional vaccines are are of course ‘natural’ consisting of heat treated or radiated antigens /viral material extracted from ‘natural’ substances Going back to natural basics, would you prefer to be injected with a Covid victims snot? I don’t know ‘much’ about the detail of vaccine technology but I am prepared to accept that the experience and knowledge gained by specialists in molecular biology is worth something. The first ‘natural’ vaccines long pre-dated even knowledge of ‘germs’= (micro-organisms) and Jenner’s vaccine consisted of the pus extracted from the scabs of cow pox victims,prepared with crude equipment and without any knowledge of sterile technique.The response to uncertainty brings to mind the “Johnson remedy’ -‘Herd immunity-let it rip’but nice to know you are a fan of Boris bollotocracy
Like you,I find it uncomfortable to have no choice but to go along with the uncertainties that technology creates.None of us have the capacity to deconstruct the technology that defines our lives in this era.I guess 90% of the population don’t even know the broad principles of how their mobile phones work.
We are all a bit like the punter trying to pick a winner at the bookies by reading the form stats of the Racing Post. I have absolute knowledge that betting odds are or have been rigged and the ‘game’ for those in control of racehorses is to create form ‘distractors’ or ‘work the odds’ by manipulating factors ,such as fitness/strength/ stamina to create a pattern of wins/losses known only to a select few.ie a conspitracy
I have a sense that nowadatys we are living in a world defined by uncertainty. Trying to unpack the uncertainty is futile and leads to the impression that, like horse racing, the odds are rigged which leads to conspiracy theorising.
The “Chatham report” with its fallacious fallacy list reminded me of following big piece by Stephen Cohen in THE NATION in 2014, albeit of course totally contradictory.
Cohen had a short list of fallacy vs. fact of his own.
“The New Cold War and the Necessity of Patriotic Heresy
US fallacies may be leading to war with Russia.
Stephen F. Cohen, August 14th 2014”
complete:
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/new-cold-war-and-necessity-patriotic-heresy/
“I turn now, in my capacity as a historian, to that orthodoxy. The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not to his own facts.” The new cold war orthodoxy rests almost entirely on fallacious opinions. Five of those fallacies are particularly important today:
—Fallacy No. 1: Ever since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, Washington has treated post-Communist Russia generously as a desired friend and partner, making every effort to help it become a democratic, prosperous member of the Western system of international security. Unwilling or unable, Russia rejected this American altruism, emphatically under Putin.
Fact: Beginning in the 1990s, again with the Clinton administration, every American president and congress has treated post-Soviet Russia as a defeated nation with inferior legitimate rights at home and abroad. This triumphalist, winner-take-all approach has been spearheaded by the expansion of NATO—accompanied by non-reciprocal negotiations and now missile defense—into Russia’s traditional zones of national security, while in reality excluding it from Europe’s security system. Early on, Ukraine, and to a lesser extent Georgia, were the ultimate goals. As an influential Washington Post columnist explained in 2004, “The West wants to finish the job begun with the fall of the Berlin Wall and continue Europe’s march to the east.… The great prize is Ukraine.”
—Fallacy No. 2: There exists a nation called “Ukraine” and a “Ukrainian people” who yearn to escape centuries of Russian influence and to join the West.
Fact: As every informed person knows, Ukraine is a country long divided by ethnic, linguistic, religious, cultural, economic and political differences—particularly its western and eastern regions, but not only. When the current crisis began in 2013, Ukraine had one state, but it was not a single people or a united nation. Some of these divisions were made worse after 1991 by corrupt elite, but most of them had developed over centuries.
—Fallacy No. 3: In November 2013, the European Union, backed by Washington, offered Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych a benign association with European democracy prosperity. Yanukovych was prepared to sign the agreement, but Putin bullied and bribed him into rejecting it. Thus began Kiev’s Maidan protests and all that has since followed.
Fact: The EU proposal was a reckless provocation compelling the democratically elected president of a deeply divided country to choose between Russia and the West. So too was the EU’s rejection of Putin’s counter-proposal of a Russian-European-American plan to save Ukraine from financial collapse. On its own, the EU proposal was not economically feasible. Offering little financial assistance, it required the Ukrainian government to enact harsh austerity measures and to sharply curtail is longstanding economic relations with Russia. Nor was the EU proposal entirely benign. It included protocols requiring Ukraine to adhere to Europe’s “military and security” policies, which meant in effect, without mentioning the alliance, NATO. In short, it was not Putin’s alleged “aggression” that initiated today’s crisis but instead a kind of velvet aggression by Brussels and Washington to bring all of Ukraine into the West, including (in the fine print) into NATO.
—Fallacy No. 4: Today’s unfolding civil war in Ukraine was caused by Putin’s aggressive response to Maidan’s peaceful protests against Yanukovych’s decision.
Fact: In February 2014, radicalized Maidan protests, strongly influenced by extreme nationalist and even semi-fascist street forces, turned violent. Hoping for a peaceful resolution, European foreign ministers brokered a compromise between Maidan’s parliamentary representatives and Yanukovych. It would have left him as president of a coalition, reconciliation government until new elections in December 2014. Within hours, violent street fighters aborted the agreement. Europe and Washington did not defend their own diplomatic accord. Yanukovych fled to Russia. Minority parliamentary parties representing Maidan and predominantly western Ukraine, among them Svoboda, an ultra-nationalist movement previously anathematized by the European Parliament as incompatible with European values, formed a new government. They also nullified the existing constitution. Washington and Brussels endorsed the coup, and have supported the outcome ever since. Everything that followed, from Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the spread of rebellion in southeastern Ukraine to the civil war and Kiev’s “anti-terrorist operation,” was triggered by the February coup. Putin’s actions have been mostly reactive.
—Fallacy No. 5: The only way out of the crisis is for Putin to end his “aggression” and call off his agents in southeastern Ukraine.
Fact: The underlying causes of the crisis are Ukraine’s own internal divisions, not primarily Putin’s actions. The primary factor escalating the crisis since May has been Kiev’s “anti-terrorist” military campaign against its own citizens, now mainly in the Donbass cities of Luhansk and Donetsk. Putin influences and no doubt aids the Donbass “self-defenders.” Considering the pressure on him in Moscow, he is likely to continue to do so, perhaps even more, but he does not control them. If Kiev’s assault ends, Putin probably can compel the rebels to negotiate. But only the Obama administration can compel Kiev to stop, and it has not done so.
In short, twenty years of US policy have led to this fateful American-Russian confrontation. Putin may have contributed to it along the way, but his role during his fourteen years in power has been almost entirely reactive—indeed, a complaint frequently lodged against him by hawks in Moscow. “
Thanks AG, it is good to see that rationality still lives, both your own and Cohen’s.
Your comment is very sad, especially when I consider the date Cohen wrote these refutations. I can imagine a person with a reputation who made these points in this modern media moment, would very quickly be trashed and their reputation would be rubbled. The shadowy forces that are pushing this agenda of mass slaughter are the very apogee of wickedness. They are telling us we can’t have peace and war is a necessity.
To quote Judge Death – (Judge Death – a cartoon character in the comic 2000AD)
“The crime is life. The sentence is death”
I feel Death’s dictum would be better applied to the death-profitting MIC and it’s depraved boosters and clueless enablers
The MIC is a Death Cult – spread the word.
I will oppose it, in thought and in action until my last breath.
Chatham House is a training ground for middle-class, establishment apparatchiks who can be seeded into the growing number of QUANGOs with dubious mission statements.
One such is Beyond Borders Scotland.
Its Deputy Director (Chef de mission), Jessica Forsythe is ex-Chatham House, Operations Manager – Middle East & North Africa Programme. Forsythe has an MA in International Relations from the spook infested, School of International Relations, University of St. Andrews.
Projects Officer, Robyn Harris has an MSc in Applied Gender Studies from the University of Strathclyde (oh how my alma mater, the old Technical College has fallen).
Fellowship Programme Intern, Leyre Cuesta Jiminez has an MA in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh, with research focused on “Gender and Queer Studies”.
Having read the straplines and mission statements for Beyond Borders Scotland, I’m none the wiser as to what it purports to achieve.
Never mind, it’s funded by the Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office, ScotGov, the London School of Economics and the UN International Labour Organisation.
Heaven forfend the notion that its primary function is as a vehicle for providing comfortable sinecures for middle-class parasites. Did I mention the distinctly sapphic atmosphere it projects? Oh, and Nicola’s a big fan.
“what it purports to achieve.”
Closely related to gender ideology seems to be the replacement and/or removal of ethnic identities. Independence movements are dependent on the solidarity of an oppressed ethnic group. Hence actions reducing the numbers of that ethnic group means the momentum for independence also reduces proportionately.
There appears to be a connection here with the processes of genocide whereby ethnic peoples/identities are intentionally reduced through various means, e.g.: lack of affordable housing and poor pay coupled with dubious educational policies on families/gender etc and related laws which means far fewer Scots are bringing up families – Scotland today has its lowest birth rate on record and is the lowest of all UK nations. At the same time, the housing, higher education and higher paid jobs markets are mostly geared towards higher social status immigrants resulting in Scotland’s population only growing (over the past two decades or more) via in-migration, according to census records. The inevitable consequence of this is that the number of ethnic Scots remains in decline. Experts on genocide from Scottish universities were known to be part of the Scottish Gov gender advisory group, which should raise concerns.
We know from other instances (e.g. New Caledonia) that the self-determination independence of ‘a people’, the latter dependent on ethnic group solidarity, becomes less likely once the indigenous ethnic-identifying group falls below 50% of the overall population. Scotland appears to be moving ever closer to this point, which is no doubt why the British state and its ‘colonial administration’ has been delaying any further referendum for as long as possible, i.e. until the ethic Scottish population becomes a minority in Scotland. This process also appears to be carried out under the ‘guise’ of multiculturalism and state promotion of in-migration to Scotland, though its real effects on constraining support for independence are fairly obvious. Tied to this is also the use of an irregular ‘local government’ franchise rather than a national franchise that would protect the rights of an indigenous people seeking self-determination/decolonization.
Thank you for your piece on this. It’s the first sensible thing I’ve read in such a long time.
I can understand Zelensky wanting the further involvement of other countries to boost what Ukraine can do. He’d be happy if just ONE NATO country became party to the war. Any attack on that country would necessitate NATO’s involvement therefore. Thus we’d have a de facto WW3. It worries me that the US and UK don’t seem to be as worried by that prospect as I’d hope. Perhaps the US shutdown is just what’s needed to temporarily release a little pressure for now. I can’t see where this is going and that frightens me..
“It worries me that the US and UK don’t seem to be as worried by that prospect as I’d hope”.
Karl Rove’s little outburst a few years back might help you to see that in context.
“The aide [Rove] said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'”
By their own admission, those people are systematically delusional. They have left reality as we know it behind, and are happy to have done so.
Could Mr Murray please give some more details on what a negotiated settlement might look like.? There is a distinct possibility Russian military advances & a free referendum will leave the rump Ukraine landlocked & without most of its natural resources. Russia will be happy to offload responsibility for such rump state on the EU. Will the EU be willing & able to accept it? What leverage can the US/NATO/EU bring to bear on Russia to forestall this outcome? Mr Murray is the only one here who is a professional diplomat. His further thoughts on this (if not the military side) would be invaluable. (Also, genuinely, the story about Russia kidnapping Yanukovych to “persuade” him to switch from the EU deal to a Russian alternative “offer” would be very much appreciate.)
“Could Mr Murray please give some more details on what a negotiated settlement might look like?”
Clue #1: It will feature nothing that the Russians don’t want. So it will be indistinguishable from an unconditional surrender by the West.
Every time the Russians make a reasonable offer and it is rejected (or ignored) the terms get a little more adverse to the West. That has happened quite a few times by now.
I’d say that the USA is calling the shots on the West’s side in the Ukraine/Russia conflict. I can only see an escalation in hostilities as Nato floods Ukraine with more and more weapons and personnel, along with ever more potent and longer ranging weapons. Once we reach a tipping point I can see Russia attacking sites outside Ukraine, where weapons destined for the conflict are created or stored, from there is just a hop and a skip into a wider more deadlier conflict in Europe, what will the bigwigs in the US care if Europe is razed to the ground once again, they’ll be thousands of miles away feeding the supply lines with weapons and supplies whilst Europeans will be in a world of hurt.
Some sort of peace negotiations need to come about before this conflict spills out of Ukraine/Russia.
I think we can totally rule out strikes outside of Ukraine: Russia is obviously, for unknown reasons, not prepared to strike targets inside of Ukraine to the fullest, I still wonder why Russia never take out critical bridges, airstrips, railways, arms supplies coming from the very western side of Ukraine.
“I think we can totally rule out strikes outside of Ukraine…”
If I were you, I wouldn’t rule out anything at all. The Russian government, fully aware (unlike many of its Western “partners”) of the delicate balance of terror and the potential for everyone to die very suddenly, has been proceeding with great care.
That absolutely does not mean that they will not take whatever steps are necessary and appropriate in response to Western actions. Living as I do in southern England – a small part of a small country crammed with military establishments and bases – I am acutely aware of the whereabouts and distance of such places as Portsmouth, Aldershot, Farnborough, Aldermaston, Porton Down, and the various air bases where US aircraft are held ready to fly bombing missions against Russia. I just hope that, if Russia does feel it necessary to strike the UK, it will do so with the painstaking precision it has used so far in Ukraine.
There is absolutely no building or bunker anywhere in the world that is out of reach of Russian strikes.
RepublicofScotland
You say that “NATO floods Ukraine with more and more weapons and personnel, along with ever more potent and longer ranging weapons”.
Surely Russia is doing (or attempting to do) the same.
Is the former bad and the latter good?
“Is the former bad and the latter good?”
Short answer: yes.
Slightly longer answer: Russia is fighting in Ukraine to suppress a ruthless, cynical regime whose principal raison d’etre is to harm Russia. Don’t take my word for it: NATO, EU, US and UK leaders are saying as much almost every day. Russia sees the current Kiev regime, together with its NATO backers, as what is nowadays called an “existential threat”. Therefore Russia, most reluctantly, resorted to force, and now will follow through until all its objectives are fully met. Namely:
* the denazification of Ukraine;
* the demilitarisation of Ukraine;
* the absolute certainty that Ukraine will be permanently neutral as between Russia and the West.
That’s essentially all they want, and they will not stop until they get it.
What are the West’s goals in Ukraine? Quite simply, to cause as much harm to Russia as they can.
Which side do you think is justified?
I feel I have to support Michael Droy’s assessment of what I would call “NATOs Unprovoked Attack on Russia”. The Russians tried, over and over, to negotiate peace, and now they are on the second part of the proverb: “Russians are slow to saddle up, but when they do, they ride hard.”
In other words the West has provoked a sleeping giant and its military has been shown to be obsolescent, expensive junk. BTW Chatham House had an earlier 2022 paper where they analysed the West’s lack of industrial military capacity and realised that the West would lost.
FYI, Craig, hapless Ukrainian conscripts* are being slaughtered on a horrific scale – now the Russians are targeting individuals with FPV (video) drones, so you see the expression on the person’s face just before they are blown up. *Yes, I know there’s lots of Nazis, but I think most are just victims.
The responsibility for this lies wholly at the feet of the imperialist western warmongers. Not Russia. Craig is a really outstanding individual, but he does have this Foreign Office blindspot where anything Russian is concerned.
The West made it clear they now are tolerant to Nazism.
It’s voting in UN against the resolution about glorifying nazis; Mr Murray made article on this. It’s whitewashing Hitler’s collaborators in Ukraine; Mr Murray also wrote an article on this. It’s different statements by different Western officials on how they see neo-nazis in Ukraine.
And I think the biggest traitor of all the victims of nazism is Israel, with their position on supporting Ukraine regardless of their ideology. Everyone in Europe figuratively points out at Israel and says ‘hey, even the Jews see no problem here’.
Please correct me if I’m wrong in some details, it was Brodsky, the ambassador of Israel in Ukraine, who said literally: ‘we don’t like nazis who are currently the heroes of Ukraine, but what can we do, after all Ukraine needs national heroes’.
I wish Brodsky commented today on that standing ovation in Canadian parliament, to a ‘hero of Ukraine and hero of Canada’.
“Everyone in Europe figuratively points out at Israel and says ‘hey, even the Jews see no problem here’.”
That’s making the mistake of thinking that Nazism has to be anti-semitic, whereas in reality, any race can serve as the sub-humans, the point is to have an untermensch to focus hatred on.
+1
Hungary is the only sane nation in the west regarding the war:
World baffled by EU’s stance on Ukraine – Hungarian FM
Countries outside of Europe want the conflict between Moscow and Kiev to end, Peter Szijjarto believes
Brussels doesn’t even provide a platform for meaningful dialogue on the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, as “anyone who speaks of peace is immediately stigmatized,” the FM said
https://swentr.site/news/583972-hungary-szijjarto-eu-ukraine/
Also here is Putin’s latest speech at Valdai meeting, speaking amongst other things the Ukraine war
https://swentr.site/russia/584154-putin-valdai-club-speech/
– What long-winded tosh.
Judge Napolitano: “Deliberate Stupidity” (6 Oct 2023) – YouTube, 0m 49s
I first read of the Chatham House report on “X”, took a brief look from the link and immediately labelled it “junk” and blocked any more advertising. The flawed approach whereby it starts by telling you that you must be wrong to adopt a certain perspective and then to proceed to show you why you are wrong forecloses any discussion or debate and was clearly propagandist.
The irony is that there is supposed to be something called “Chatham House Rules”, which were invented by this worthy body to stimulate wide ranging debate without fear of attribution. The methodology of these reports completely negate any rational evidence based dialectical approach, which could be expected from any respect for these rules.
Nevertheless I have the greatest respect for our host to take the time and trouble to show what I had intuitively decided was junk.
Wow, reading those Chatham House diatribes makes me glad NATO and particularly the UK is a paper-tiger, when it comes to actually fighting anyone who can fight back.
The West doesn’t have those super-dooper mass-produced Wunderwaffen and Ukraine doesn’t have the men left to wield them. Russia’s population vs Ukraine’s actual population is between 5 & 6 to 1. The edge being even greater than that in military-age men Given the actual details of Ukrainian demographics.
That doesn’t even take into account Ukraine’s much greater losses & economic collapse. Resulting in a zombie polity completely kept in an undead state by massive transfusions of outside treasure & moderate amounts of blood.
The Euro-NATO militaries “march on paper” and the USA cannot these days, replenish the ranks of its imperial expeditionary forces. Without recourse to the draft all in all a good thing.
I’ll end with what a little poem dedicated to Chatham House.
We don’t have ships.
We don’t have the men.
We’re in debt too.
We want to go to war.
But by JINGO if we do!
Chatham House is an unelected private club.
Chatham House Rules a protocol whereby they don’t have to tell anyone,especially the public,any truth whatsoever about their agendas.
Sherr sounds like yet another psychopathic desk jockey happy to send millions of others into disastrous wars-as he waits for the tea trolley and his favourite French fancy.
It’s all just a remote game to these types.
Keir Giles who wrote that pro-SS article for Politico last week is also from the Chatham House stable. Senior Consulting Fellow.
https://www.politico.eu/article/fight-against-ussr-nazi-waffen-ss-trooper-yaroslav-hunka-world-war-ii-soviet-union-germany/
I saw that too, truly horrible, they are sanitizing everything. I mean if you are going to defend warcriminal nazis, what could possibly be the next step be? Is there even a next step?
Also, Keir was (is?) a member of the “Integrity initiative” influence op. group exposed some years ago.
A very good article.
I suppose we can overlook the fact that the Russian speaking areas of Ukraine are being shelled flat by their Russian-speaking “liberators”. The Russian-speaking inhabitants are being killed by Russia as I write.
I suppose we better overlook the fact that France provided plenty of willing volunteers for the SS. Plenty of assistance too with the rounding up of Jews. Maybes Russia should invade France and clear out their nests of Nazi apologists.
It seems very likely to me that any partition of Ukraine will simply provide Putin with the breathing space, personnel, natural resources, and staging grounds for his next, emboldened push West in a few years’ time.
The intervening period will be used to set the scene that the next invasion will be justified because of hostile armies and weapons on the expanded Russia’s borders, and why should Russia put up with that, etc. Just as with the last invented excuses, plenty in the West will be happy to parrot that line.
John Main
The areas that Russia hold are obviously not shelled by Russia: they are, and have been, shelled by Ukraine for years.
France? You still do not get it after almost 10 years of this conflict. In France they are not having Waffen SS monuments, they do not hail nazi/holocaust warcriminals as heroes like Ukraine do right at this moment, they do not have neo-nazi brigades committing warcrimes in their army. That is what is going on in Ukraine.
If it was not for the coup 10 years ago in Ukraine, there would be no war today. Thus why are you implying that Russia have bigger plots prepared? Nonsense.
Russia doesn’t occupy all the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine. Aside from the death, injury and destruction caused by shelling Russia has seeded the area with millions of mines, in belts reputed to be 10km deep in places, which will indiscriminately kill and maim civilians long after the conflict is over.
Are war crimes committed by neo-Nazi brigades worse than war crimes committed by non neo-Nazi brigades or is it only neo-Nazi brigades who commit war crimes?
Obviously Russia doesn’t occupy all of the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine; that would be pretty much the whole country. Some Ukrainians may choose to speak other languages, but I think you will find that alnmost everyone is fluent in Russian if they choose (and dare) to speak it.
You write about “the death, injury and destruction caused by shelling”; it is not clear from the context whether you mean “shelling” in the proper technical sense, or include in that vague term bombardment by drones, missiles or gravity bombs. If you mean literally “shelling” (i.e. by tube artillery or, perhaps, rocket launchers) your statement is exactly the opposite of the case. The Russians have been scrupulously careful not to bombard civilians, even civilians who are violently hostile to Russia. That is one of the main reasons the SMO has gone on for so long, and will probably last a good deal longer yet.
The Ukrainian armed forces have disgraced themselves ever since 2014 by quite deliberately bombarding civilians in Donbas, Crimea, and elsewhere – wherever they could get at them, in fact. We can be sure of that because their missiles and rockets keep striking precisely major civilian structures and assembly areas, often at times when civilians are sure to be gathering there. Given a choice, they obviously prefer to kill civilians rather than Russian soldiers.
The Russians bombard only military targets, whether on the front lines where civilians have long been evacuated, or in the Ukrainian rear areas when their strikes are meticulously accurate, destroying buildings used by Ukrainian and NATO armed forces while leaving surrounding civilian areas unharmed.
As one has come to expect, Kiev and Western sources deliberately invert the facts, accusing the Russians of all the foul war crimes that they themselves commit.
As for the minefields, you can be sure that civilians are kept strictly away from them. Moreover Russian mines are usually equipped with circuits to disable them after a given time or on a broadcast signal; and the Russians have always carefully removed all mines when the fighting has moved on. Again, it is the Kiev forces that have deliberately littered cities and towns with the hideous “butterfly” mines and other types of cluster bomb (forbidden by various international treaties, but now favoured by NATO as it runs out of proper ammunition).
It would appear that John Main has swallowed the NATO propaganda manual whole.
We heard all this stuff soon after the invasion started in 2022; that if Russia was not stopped asap, they would soon overrun the Baltic States and then Poland. I suppose it worked as far as Finland and Sweden were concerned, and so the western psychopaths must believe that giving the story another airing will not do any harm.
I doubt that any of the people telling us what Putin’s future moves might be, have ever been to Russia – let alone met the man himself.
Are we to assume that you have then?
Do you think he’d be honest about his future plans? Given that he lied about his attitude and intentions to Ukraine.
i dont think he lied. i think the facts on the ground changed, and it became clear NATO would require that Ukraine continue provoking the war by shelling Donbas.
@Pears Morgaine “Are we to assume that you have then?”
No, because I have not posted comments which make any suggestions as to what Putin is thinking, or is going to do next.
Would Putin be honest about his future plans? I doubt it, but then has NATO ever been honest about their future plans?
Remember ‘not one inch further east than the German border’ back in the late 1980s?
Why should we in the west demand the opposition be honest when lies are our stock-in trade?
Nah.
I swallowed the copious posts of the Putin apologists on here whole.
Those apologists who said that Putin was justified in annexing Ukraine because it hosted hostile weapons pointed at Russia.
When or if Putin annexes Ukraine, or half of it, Russia’s expanded borders will be with various countries, all hosting even more hostile weapons pointed at Russia and the Russian annexes.
And this place will be hoaching with Putin apologists claiming he will be even more entitled to invade these other countries, because “what would the USA do if hostile weapons were on the other side of the Mexican border” and other such guff.
‘”what would the USA do if hostile weapons were on the other side of the Mexican border” and other such guff’
Please explain why such reasoning is ‘guff’
Well, one glaringly obvious difference is that missiles in Mexico would be nearly 2,000 km away from Washington and New York, whereas missiles in Ukraine could be as close as 500 km to Moscow.
Missiles based on the Canadian border would be only a little over 500 km from Washington, and closer to New York, so that would be a better comparison. You also need to imagine a heavily armed modern army of at least 500,000 massed right on the Canadian border ready to drive straight to New York and Washington, and several dozen state of the art biolabs working night and day on diseases designed to kill Americans selectively, and vectors to spread them.
Oh, and Trudeau shooting his mouth off about war against the USA and his plans to use nuclear weapons.
“When or if Putin annexes Ukraine, or half of it, Russia’s expanded borders will be with various countries, all hosting even more hostile weapons pointed at Russia and the Russian annexes.”
Perhaps the answer would be some sort of nuclear arms limitation treaty of the kind the West walked away from.
“I swallowed the copious posts of the Putin apologists on here whole.
Those apologists who said that Putin was justified in annexing Ukraine because it hosted hostile weapons pointed at Russia.”
Which “apologists” were those? Quite apart from the fact that “Putin” has not actually annexed Ukraine, not even half of it, by a long way, you clearly haven’t read all of Craig’s post nor any of the comments except to dismiss them as the products of “Putin apologists”. Russia has never stated any intention of annexing Ukraine. What it wants is to have a demilitarised, neutral Ukraine on its borders, so they wont “be with various countries, all hosting even more hostile weapons pointed at Russia”.
Perhaps in your haste to come on here and apologise for NATO, you missed that point.
I don’t wish to muddy the water or be dishonourable to the victims of the war. But let me insert my thoughts on the ongoing war in Ukraine. I feel that fundamentally this war is no different from gang warfare or armed conflicts between the warlords in the medieval time. Throughout the history we sometimes fight over resources. There is no good side or bad side except subjectively. Some are good at being bad and for this reason they may call themselves good. There are heroes on both sides. But what makes the West-initiated wars in general and the Ukrainian war in particular unique is that they are emphatically packaged as a good war, a just war, a crusade – for the sake of freedom, democracy, sovereignty, the values, etc.
And, by the way, it’s definitely not about territory or resources. In fact, what is significant about the Ukrainian conflict is that it coincides with the readjustment of the power balance between the substructure (land, raw material, technology, etc.) and the superstructure (ideology, politics, law, religion, morality, media, etc.) in the global society. Perhaps, Putin being a martial art expert, saw the signs of the times? Marxism is largely outdated, but his claim: “the substructure determines the superstructure and the superstructure influences the base” is correct, in my opinion. The decline of the West is manifested in the saturated, top heavy, overripe culture, the shift from the class struggle to identity politics in the Left is one of the major symptoms, or simply, look at the public places like a train carriage, virtually everyone is staring at the smartphone handset and sucked into the 16 inches distant void. Like homeostasis, the rising of the nations with the robust substructure is a sign that the global society is struggling to heal themselves. We need a sensitivity of a giant and a disinterestedness of an alien to think like that, but the only consolation of this war is to imagine that this is a birth pang of the new world order that is fairer, more sustainable, and more peaceful.
non-provoked Russian attack – really?
4 weeks ago NATO General Secretary Stoltenberg himself made clear in his speech to NATO that Russia had been provoked into going to war by NATO.
Branko Marcetic in this piece for Responible Statecraft pointedly reported:
“(…)From the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we’ve been told that the issue of NATO expansion is irrelevant to the war, and that anyone bringing it up is, at best, unwittingly parroting Kremlin propaganda, at worst, apologizing for or justifying the war.
So it was curious to see NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg earlier this month say explicitly that Russian president Vladimir Putin launched his criminal war as a reaction to the possibility of NATO expanding into Ukraine, and the alliance’s refusal to swear it off — not once or twice, but three separate times.
“President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement,” Stoltenberg told a joint committee meeting of the European Parliament on September 7. “That was what he sent us. And [that] was a pre-condition for not invade [sic] Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.”
“He went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite,” Stoltenberg reiterated, referring to the accession of Sweden and Finland into the alliance in response to Putin’s invasion. Their entry, he later insisted, “demonstrates that when President Putin invaded a European country to prevent more NATO, he’s getting the exact opposite.”
It’s not clear if Stoltenberg was referring to the draft treaty Putin put forward in December 2021 and simply mixed up the seasons (the provisions of each are the same), or if he’s referring to an earlier, as-yet-unreported incident. In any case, what Stoltenberg claims here — that Putin viewed Ukraine’s NATO entry as so unacceptable he was willing to invade to stop it, and put forward a negotiating bid that might have prevented it, only for NATO to reject it — has been repeatedly made by those trying to explain the causes of the war and how it could be ended, only to be dismissed as propaganda.
The only logical conclusion, if we’re to listen to the hawks, is that the man in charge of the very alliance helping Ukraine defend itself from Putin is, in fact, working for the Russian leader and spreading his propaganda.(…)”
Stoltenberg´s oiginal speech (I love NATO they keep the public records, so far, since they couldn´t care less with indoctrinated allies like Chatham):
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_218172.htm
Complete Marcetic see here:
“When officials say the quiet part about Russia and NATO out loud – Was the invasion about the alliance’s expansion to Moscow’s doorstep? Depends on who’s telling the story.”
Sept.19th 2023
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/russia-ukraine-nato-expansion/
It is noteworthy that almost all points of criticism coming from anti-NATO voices are first denounced and then, when escalation has been set in motion those same views are confirmed by pro-NATO voices.
-NATO expansion provoked the war
-Ukrainian forces had been trained and equipped by NATO
-Europe/the West are at war with Russia
-bringing down the Russian government and make Russian defenseless, which comes down to a quasi declaration of war
Stoltenberg is a liar.
I remember well that case with proposals and draft treaties, because I tried to bring it here to Mr. Murray’s attention as it felt like very dangerous development.
There were 2 things in question : the draft treaty on collective security in Europe and demand on Russia ‘s security. The latter was explained by Lavrov – we asked NATO to give us verified written guarantee that their activities in Ukraine are not against us. Simply, please do say directly you’re not building an attack platform in Ukraine.
Stoltenberg and others ridiculed that demand and started their ‘teaser advertising campaign’ like, ‘our intelligence says Russia will invade’. They changed supposed invasion date several times, so Maria Zakharova joked like ‘may I see our invasion schedule for this year please, I need to plan my vacation’.
And now Stoltenberg says what? Bastard.
«Stoltenberg is a liar»
Oh please, he is a salesman, he is just doing his jobs as the PR front of standard “home front morale” psyops. International affairs are not discussed with the servant classes of most states, they are only discussed among masters.
A lot of people do not quite understand the difference between lies and salestalk…
George Orwell “Looking Back on the Spanish War”, June 1943
“Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie.
I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened.”
thx, I had forgotten about that paragraph. I think that’s one of the most famous lines in it.
But remarkably even now his statement is powerful because the trust in established news media with the insignia of responsibility and professionalism is so inoculated into the educated classes that it should be no surprise it’s those educated who read the Post (“Democracy Dies in Darkness”) or the NYT (“All The News That’s Fit To Print”) who are simply not willing to change their view if facts do not correspond with what their papers are reporting.
“«Stoltenberg is a liar»
“Oh please, he is a salesman”.
Redundancy alert!
I would add that he is a rich, successful, well-respected salesman. Mind you, in the spirit of Proverbs 15:17*, I would rather be poor and able to look in the mirror without wincing.
* “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, Than a stalled ox and hatred therewith”.
this is part 1 of short 2-part interview with Anatol Lieven.
https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2023/10/neocon-hate-for-russia-makes-a-european-settlement-with-moscow-impossible-interview-with-dr-anatol-lieven-1-2/
On the occasion of Nicolas Sarkozy´s comments on negotiations being the only way.
(This we have discussed in this blog back then)
p.s.
In the 3 min. Lieven however says this within his longer introduction:
“on the assumption that we will not be able to destroy Russia as a state”
– I assume he is not fully aware of the meaning of this particular phrase.
But expressing this idea without noticing what it actually MEANS – by someone we would consider a “dove” and reasonable in the US establishment – is quite remarkable.
It tells you A LOT about the malignant nature of the establishment and those people pushing NATO against Russia getting Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians killed (Senator Graham). Becaus this idea of actually destroying Russia has become a just element in our intellectual “culture”.
pps. interviewer Pascal Lottaz is interesting but he has to work on his online performance
I find it ominous. It shows that people like Lieven have come to assume that everyone who matters shares their views about destroying Russia, so there can be no harm in talking about it openly.
Mind you, I would quite like to watch them try. “You and what army?”
Is it really lying? I would classify it as some mental derangement at this stage, just take this:
Germany’s Bild tries to link Putin to Hamas assault on Israel
The leading German daily has appeared to make a far-fetched assertion about Russian president’s birthday
https://swentr.site/news/584274-bild-putin-gaza-link/
This is not about lying, this is a severe unhinged, conspiratorial mental plague.
Yes, severe delusional impairment has become more apparent in many people over the last decade. The thing is they actually believe the BS and lies. You won’t change their beliefs with rational arguments, and this mental impairment is not specific to class, education, age, race or religion. People have surrendered their ability to independently think to believing what they are told by the establishment.
There is no ‘benefit of doubt ‘, they are completely mad, don’t waste your time arguing with them.
“The thing is they actually believe the BS and lies. You won’t change their beliefs with rational arguments, and this mental impairment is not specific to class, education, age, race or religion”.
The root of the problem is that the great mass of citizens acquire and cling to such opinions when they buy into narratives that they find attractive and plausible. The narratives about Ukraine, for example, appeal powerfully to beliefs that *some people somewhere* must be thoroughly rotten, evil, scheming, yet also somehow grossly incompetent. Let’s call them Russians! We don’t know any Russians personally, nor do any of our family and friends. Our government says the Russians are wicked, so let’s go along with that. Now we can feel effortlessly superior to 140 million human beings, and know that we are on the side of the angels. The most ironic thing is that none of those people would subscribe to the idea that white people are superior to black people – but rather than having given up racism altogether, they have merely switched to being racist about a rather safer set of targets.
The fundamental problem is that those people lack facts, so they go with myths that make them feel good. And our governments and media do their level best to make sure the citizens continue to be disinformed, in the interests of the corporations that own them (the governments and media)..
As Jonathan Swift warned 300 years ago, “Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired”. (“A Letter to a Young Gentleman, Lately Enter’d Into Holy Orders by a Person of Quality”)
A little more ominously, but clearly on the same page: “As his intuition could not be faulted with logic because it [had] a visionary origin and lacked any basis of logic, he considered them to be fault-finders and pedants and eventually he cast them aside”. (Christa Schroeder, “He Was My Chief; The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler’s Secretary”, p.5)
Good points both Stevie Boy and Tom Welsh
Another factor is “groupthink” and a general attitude amongst humans to adhere to the same view the majority of people have in society, not understanding that the majority might be wrong.
Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness, in a group may produce a tendency among its members to agree at all costs.[1] This causes the group to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink
Not even during the far more dangerous time during the Cold war people were this moronic, stubbornly one-sided and uncritical about foreign policy topics as people are today.
That in turn really show what power the MSM have even though everyone have internet and can find out what is actually going on in the world.
Decidedly odd, since 80 years ago it was the Germans who simultaneously set out to exterminate the Russians (and all the other Soviet peoples) and the Jews.
Today the Germans are still doing their level best to harm the Russians, but are trying to con us that they are on the side of the Jews. It seems unlikely.
For Bild = the Sun, the blood and guts tabloids who permiate the whole society with their biased editorials, Jack, defending the march backwards into the 1930’s by following NATO in lockstep whilst Governments are pumping billions into buying arms.
The terror sabotage of NS 2 and the discussion around it do not appear in the mass media, self denial of facts run paralell with the acceptance of a fascist regime in Ukraine, as well as in the middle east.
The Bild Zeitung is so bad that people physically attacked it in the past. One would not even use it to wipe one’s backside.
BILD is the major item of SPRINGER press.
Any reporter working for a Springer press outlet (BILD, WELT, N24 News TV, POLITICO) has to sign a contract which includes a couple of political positions, among them, to defend atlanticist friendship and Israel.
You have to sign it. It’s not a rumour. It’s part of a proper contract.
(I posted the Engl. version of it here some time last year…)
This is a misunderstanding: “leading” here simply means having the largest sales. “Bild” (a.k.a. “Blödzeitung”) is a notorious yellow-press rag. Barely a day goes by without it publishing propaganda lies. (And by the way, its publisher, the Axel Springer Verlag, has an official requirement that its publications take a pro-Israel position.)
“They changed supposed invasion date several times, so Maria Zakharova joked like ‘may I see our invasion schedule for this year please, I need to plan my vacation’”.
I do so love Russian humour.
«non-provoked Russian attack – really? 4 weeks ago NATO General Secretary Stoltenberg himself made clear in his speech to NATO that Russia had been provoked into going to war by NATO.»
USA psyops are very powerful, and this bit of USA propaganda is one of the many proofs: it is based on the entirely imagine idea that the war was started by Russia in 2022 whether provoked or unprovoked, which is not the main point.
The war was actually started by Poroshenko and Obama in 2014 with the unprovoked attack against the Novorossya (“ukraine”) regions, in 2022 those regions counter-attacked after securing RF help, which had been denied to them for 8 years.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/05/10/ukra-m10.html
«10 May 2014
With the open support of Washington and its European allies, the regime installed by Washington and Berlin in last February’s fascist-led putsch is now extending its reign of terror against all popular resistance in Ukraine. That is the significance of the events in the major eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol yesterday. After tanks, armoured personnel carriers and heavily armed troops were unleashed on unarmed civilians in the city, the Kiev regime claimed to have killed some 20 people. The Obama administration immediately blamed the violent repression on “pro-Russian separatists.”»
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/least-among-us-war-donbas-terrorizing-ukraines-most-vulnerable-citizens/
«The deep anger toward both Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (I was told by one young woman, a native of Donetsk, that “this is Poroshenko’s war”) and an equally deep sense of alienation from the Ukrainian state in Kiev are equally unmistakable.
One young mother told us “there is no ‘back’ to Ukraine for Donbas.” If Poroshenko and his cheerleaders in the Obama administration and the US Congress believe that an economic blockade, Kiev’s deployment of snipers, the shelling of Donbas’s civilians and a proposal to send American weapons with which to facilitate the shelling is the recipe for winning eastern Ukrainian “hearts and minds” they couldn’t be more wrong.
Yet, tellingly, this is the strategy Poroshenko himself laid out last November in a speech in which he declared: “Our children will go to schools and kindergartens, theirs will be holed up in the basements. Because they are not able to do a thing. This is exactly how we will win this war!” Well, he may have half the job done. The little children we saw are indeed cowering in filthy conditions in underground Soviet-era bomb shelters.»
To white-out the 8 years of attacks and massacres by the ukrainian fascist militias and government against the people of Donbas, Crimea, Zapo Odessa, etc. is to concede the main thesis of those fascist militias, that the Donbas, Crimea, Zapo, Odessa do not belong to the people who live there, but to the people who hundreds of miles away in Galicia and Volhynia and their accomplices in Kiev.
>To white-out the 8 years of attacks and massacres by the ukrainian fascist militias and government against the people of Donbas, Crimea, Zapo Odessa, etc. is to concede the main thesis of those fascist militias, that the Donbas, Crimea, Zapo, Odessa do not belong to the people who live there, but to the people who hundreds of miles away in Galicia and Volhynia and their accomplices in Kiev.
Really makes me stop and wonder how much of history been re-written this way? Thanks!
«makes me stop and wonder how much of history been re-written this way?»
Well, according to George Orwell, quite a lot…
George Orwell “Looking Back on the Spanish War”, June 1943
«Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie.
I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines’»
George Orwell “As I Please”, 4 February 1944: “During the Spanish civil war I found myself feeling very strongly that a true history of this war never would or could be written. Accurate figures, objective accounts of what was happening, simply did not exist. And if I felt that even in 1937, when the Spanish Government was still in being, and the lies which the various Republican factions were telling about each other and about the enemy were relatively small ones, how does the case stand now? Even if Franco is overthrown, what kind of records will the future historian have to go upon? And if Franco or anyone at all resembling him remains in power, the history of the war will consist quite largely of “facts” which millions of people now living know to be lies.
[…] During part of 1941 and 1942, when the Luftwaffe was busy in Russia, the German radio regaled its home audience with stories of devastating air raids on London. Now, we are aware that those raids did not happen. But what use would our knowledge be if the Germans conquered Britain? For the purpose of a future historian, did those raids happen, or didn’t they? The answer is: If Hitler survives, they happened, and if he falls they didn’t happen.
So with innumerable other events of the past ten or twenty years. Is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion a genuine document? Did Trotsky plot with the Nazis? How many German aeroplanes were shot down in the Battle of Britain? Does Europe welcome the New Order? In no case do you get one answer which is universally accepted because it is true: in each case you get a number of totally incompatible answers, one of which is finally adopted as the result of a physical struggle. History is written by the winners.”
When reading the following, please keep in mind that Murray is a career diplomat and I am an armchair reader, so my astonishment at how naive are some his calls of judgement are probably wrong…
«So Chatham House is a pretty infallible guide as to what those who control western “democracies” are thinking. And when it comes to Ukraine, what they are thinking is terrifying.»
Their *private* briefings to people who matter are probably a “guide as to what those who control western “democracies” are thinking”, their unrestricted publications seem to me just “home front morale” propaganda, leveraging the credentials and reputations of the institute to sound authoritative. My guess is that their “expert opinions”, like the equally extreme propaganda of Simon Tisdall and Luke Harding and so many others, are meant to shift the Overton Window, not to be take literally. If some prestigious sounding people were to argue that all russians are monstrous orcs to exterminate, and other argue that most are simply evil people that should be locked up in lagers, the second argued suddenly becomes the “moderate”, “sensible” opinion…
«Sherr is perfectly happy to contemplate millions of deaths. Look at his comparisons; the Napoleonic Wars entailed 3 million combat deaths, the US civil war about 700,000 combat deaths and the Second World War about 15 million. In each case you can probably more than double that for total civilian deaths caused by those wars. […] Strangely enough Sherr does not reference those more recent great western wars for regime change, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, which also resulted in the deaths of millions.»
How many million affluent middle class usians died in those wars? That is the metric that matters to affluent middle class usians, whose principles are usually “Winners do whatever it takes” and “Fuck YOU! I got mine” even with regard to other lower class usians, never mind people in far away places.
«It is improbable that China will permit these lunatic western warhawks to risk the entire future of humankind.»
My guess is that for the USA oligarchs and their far-from-lunatic strategists the whole point of the anti-russian operations is regime change, so that the CIA and the DOD be “invited” to setup a chain of biolabs and bases on the chinese borders (including the khazak one) from which to fund, train and arm many battalions of “freedom fighters” inside the PRC, as as the DOD and CIA funded, trained and armed many “freedom fighters” within the USSR and near its borders.
This corruption of the mind within the elite is no new phenomenon of course.
The genocidal behaviour of the West (+ Japan) towards its colonies was only possible with that caste of “elite” to concur.
OK, I agree with most of it, but let’s don’t fool ourselves that the US military and political leadership get their insight from Chatham House papers. No sane political leader in the US plans for a total destruction of Russia or eastern Ukraine; quite the opposite, as can be seen from several political decisions, starting with a refusal to block Russian exports and money flow, against Ukrainian demands.
Chatham House only voices the interests of the Western military-industrial complex. However, political decision makers (with an exception of GW Bush perhaps) normally take several other elements of the puzzle into consideration – other lobby groups so as to say. I’m quite sure that behind-the-scene negotiations between Russia and the US are already taking place to establish a new post-war order and divide spheres of influence (just as it’s happening with China now).
By the way, waving a neo-Nazi flag does rather poorly to the perception of your objectivity, as it’s a manipulation technique. During WW2, nations in Eastern Europe were forced to choose their enemies, and sometimes opted to align with the less immediate threat at the time. Will you also criticise, say, the Indian independence movement for supporting Hitler as they did during WW2? Subhash Chandra Bose sought alliance with the Third Reich and travelled to Germany for this, and yet he’s a national hero in today’s India. See, argumentum ad Hitlerum, the signpost of Soviet propaganda, is not usually considered a well-thought-through argument.
Eighty percent of Ukrainians aligned with the USSR and the Red Army during WWII. The only Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazis and massacred Poles, Jews, communists etc were the western Ukrainians.
Coincidentally the west was the only part of Ukraine that did not vote for Zelensky in 2019 when he was pledging to end the Nazi bombardment of anti-coup ethnic Russians in Donbas. Unfortunately that Nazi element threatened to kill Zelensky if he followed through with his headline election pledge and that (following on from the US-Nazi coup and the outbreak of war in 2014) is why the Russian invasion happened.
«the west was the only part of Ukraine that did not vote for Zelensky in 2019 when he was pledging to end the Nazi bombardment of anti-coup ethnic Russians in Donbas. Unfortunately that Nazi element threatened to kill Zelensky if he followed through»
Indeed that is the second defining moment of post-1991 ukrainian history (the first defining moment of post-1991 ukrainian history is the Mariupol Massacre of 9 may 2014, when ukrainian government troops invaded and attacked Mariupol to massacre its civilians, something that prokremlin propaganda does not talk about because it shames them).
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/6652
«‘I’m not a loser’: Zelensky clashes with veterans over Donbas disengagement (VIDEO)»
https://www.unian.info/war/10732674-i-m-not-some-loser-zelensky-to-volunteer-during-visit-to-disengagement-area.html
«”Listen, I’m the president of this state. I’m 42. I’m not some loser. I came here to you, telling you ‘take away your weapons’.”»
“Nazi bombardment of anti-coup ethnic Russians in Donbass”. What a heap of horseshit.
(1) There was no “Nazi troops” in Ukraine, and definitely none that would have heavy artillery or air force.
(2) Donbass was never majority Russian. Even at the peak of Soviet rule and in Moscow-run statistics, ethnic Russians only constituted a minority in Donbass.
(3) It’s fairly normal for countries to fight secession, including by military force. All countries in the world do it. Russia did it in Chechnya, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. Spain is willing to do it in Catalonia, just as it did it in the Basque province. China is willing to recapture Taiwan, India is trying to keep Kashmir. Iran, Turkey and Iraq try to prevent the emergence of free Kurdistan. Ukraine’s attempts to hold Donetsk and Luhansk by military force are nothing out of ordinary for normal states.
Of course, Kremlin propaganda you are peddling always blames Ukraine for fighting (unsuccessfully) against country’s breakup.
“(2) Donbass was never majority Russian. Even at the peak of Soviet rule and in Moscow-run statistics, ethnic Russians only constituted a minority in Donbass.”
That’s total crap.
Are you seriously ignorant enough to equate having “Ukrainian” written in a person’s Soviet passport with their being ethnically Ukrainian and not Russian? Because if so you need to learn that millions of Russians – people who viewed themselves as Russian and not Ukrainian – had “Ukrainian” recorded as their official nationality (национальность). And not just in the Ukraine but all over the USSR.
I hope you don’t go the whole hog and say Crimea too was mostly “ethnic Ukrainian” in 2014.
” In the 1991 referendum on Ukrainian independence, 83.9% of voters in Donetsk Oblast and 83.6% in Luhansk Oblast supported independence from the Soviet Union.
According to the 2001 census, ethnic Ukrainians form 58% of the population of Luhansk Oblast and 56.9% of Donetsk Oblast. Ethnic Russians form the largest minority, accounting for 39% and 38.2% of the two oblasts respectively. “
“” In the 1991 referendum on Ukrainian independence, 83.9% of voters in Donetsk Oblast and 83.6% in Luhansk Oblast supported independence from the Soviet Union.”
From the Soviet Union, not from Russia, the same Soviet Union that was collapsing economically. They did not, thereby,
vote to become part of C21st Ukraine, because C21st Ukraine lay in the future.
“According to the 2001 census, ethnic Ukrainians form 58% of the population of Luhansk Oblast and 56.9% of Donetsk Oblast. Ethnic Russians form the largest minority, accounting for 39% and 38.2% of the two oblasts respectively. “
That’s, of course, if you believe there is actually any ethnic difference between a Ukranian and a Russian, which seems unlikely since Ukraine as a state has only existed since 1922. You might as well talk about the ethnic difference between a lowland and a highland Scot.
Kacper
Chatham and other similar think-tanks are the very foundation of western foreign policy thought.
And no, waving with nazi flags, hailing nazi war criminals, including neo-nazi brigades in their national army, having nazi tattoos, chevrons, statues etc is not a “manipulation” technique.
Re. “I’m quite sure that behind-the-scene negotiations between Russia and the US are already taking place to establish a new post-war order and divide spheres of influence (just as it’s happening with China now).”
I’m quite sure you are wrong !
Firstly, The USA has shown time and time again that they are ‘agreement averse’, and Russia and China are well aware of this. The new post-war order will be BRICS and dedollarisation. This will happen regardless of what the USA and its lap dogs pretends to do. They can join the grown ups or they can whither away.
Secondly, the days of the ‘great powers’ sitting down and drawing lines on maps and dividing up the planet into their spheres of influence has gone, hopefully forever. Consider President Putin’s recent speech at the Valdai Discussion Club outlining his vision for the New World Order, also read “A Global Community of Shared Future China’s Proposals and Actions”. The future will not be based on hegemonic domination but rather on mutual respect and collaboration to better the planet for everyone, rather than for an elite few. Although, I admit I may be being a tad optimistic !
Whether we in the west see this in our lifetime is debatable, but the rest of the world will move forward regardless.
“No sane political leader in the US plans for a total destruction of Russia or eastern Ukraine”
Maybe, but are there any sane political leaders in the US these days?
You might care to name them?
The US has been playing carefully to weaken Russia but not to get itself dragged into an open conflict. Nothing insane about this policy, successful to date. The US did not encourage Russia to try a military solution to what essentially was a political conflict; Russia did it on its own, based on a miscalculation, and is now getting hurt. Mind you, it’s Russian Vice President who keeps threatening the world with a nuclear war; the US made all efforts to avoid such rhetoric, while quietly reaping fruit of Russian incompetency. I see nothing mad about it – I rather see that Russian diplomacy failed after Lavrov, one of most effective Russian diplomats, was castrated by the siloviki in Kremlin who went on to fulfil Putin’s long-standing dream of becoming a new tsar Alexander II.
Kacper
Well said.
In fact people forget that Biden said, just before the invasion, the US and NATO troops would not intervene in Ukraine.
Which they have not done.
I often wonder why Biden said it. To encourage Putin to think that he could act with impunity?
@JK redux “In fact people forget that Biden said, just before the invasion, the US and NATO troops would not intervene in Ukraine.
Which they have not done.”
Weasel words.
Their troops may not have interfered in Ukraine, but their money and military equipment certainly have.
Fat Jon
You missed my point:
I often wonder why Biden said it. To encourage Putin to think that he could act with impunity?
> ” essentially was a political conflict;”
Yes, the kind of “political conflict” which you resolve by sending in the army and neo-Nazi militias and killing many thousands of people for several years before the Russian Federation intervened.
regarding Chatham´s last point “Conclusion: Assuring the future of Europe”
The complete delusion and true purpose of this becomes evident if one takes a look at the Granada EU summit and the Financial Times reporting that only a substantial recalibration of the structure of financial aid flowing from the rich (Germany, Netherlands, France) to the poor countries could offer any viable UKR membership.
According to EU rules UKR would be entitled to 186 billion Euros. Which would of course be fought by those countries. Or as Scholz said “a new financial model would be necessary”.
And then just two days ago Juncker confirmed skeptics that this is no realistic plan. Of course anything is possible but unless EU governments won’t find a way to take over far right parties and totally destroy the remnants of the meaningful left and create a US-like one-party system this domestic resistance won’t be easily overcome.
So if you look at the hard facts (like the course of the war) this Chatham memo is incompetent, irresponsible and delusional on every level and laughable were it not so serious a matter. It’s full of omissions and the fine print offers well-made and well-selected propaganda.
Sherr/Zelenskii, spot the commonality
Another european defense minister begin to understand the facts….after almost 2 years of war:
Military solution to Ukraine conflict unlikely – Italian defense minister
Guido Crosetto also noted that Rome cannot be expected to support Kiev indefinitely as its own stocks are limited
https://swentr.site/news/584340-italian-defense-minister-ukraine/
I have no idea how all these western ministers, journalists etc are going to climb down and suddenly sell to the public that diplomacy, not war, is the only solution? It is going to be some Copernicus moment.
” He also revealed that Rome is considering ways to bring the two sides to the negotiating table, while continuing to arm Kiev.
According to the official, the “situation in Ukraine is getting worse,” with Kiev having “great difficulty in regaining lost ground,” and Moscow being unable to “conquer” the nation.
He concluded by claiming that if Russia prevails in Ukraine, its tanks will be rolling toward European borders, making the prospect of World War III more likely. ”
A bit different from the surrender/appeasement some seem to want.
Ukraine itself wanted to cut a deal 18 months ago. That’s because they are rather more impacted than the bloodthirsty chickenhawks clucking away in the UK. (Unless I’m doing you a disservice and you are actually commenting from the frontline down in the wild field?)
There’s some people who’ve never encountered a war they wouldn’t encourage others to fight.
This malign Chatham House report keeps reappearing as an ad on my X no matter how many times I block it. Clearly there is a concerted effort to embed this madness in people’s minds.
Exactly to embed it into people’s mind.
And the goal is to inspire people to join volunteer battalions.
Isn’t it wonderful to serve in the Chosen Company?
https://www.businessinsider.com/helmet-cam-us-fighters-in-ukraines-chosen-company-rush-russian-trench-2023-9
Have you ever dreamed to be a Chosen and to fight for (here is a standard set of stamps, choose which one you like best)?
Well, those who don’t know how to hold a weapon in their hands can simply open their wallets and continue to sponsor this entire war. Or, at least support the war movement with words, thereby becoming an inspiration for the new “chosen ones”.
Tatyana
I think that Russia has recruited (or at least attempted to recruit) foreign fighters (from Syria for example).
Surely fighters from Russia’s Global South friends such as India, South Africa & China have also volunteered?
(OK apologies Mods, that was sarcasm.)
Whatever of the nine fallacies, history comes down to a simple syllogism, that Great Powers continually ignore: all empires eventually face the war they are trying to avoid; everyone wants to avoid WW III; therefore, that is the fate that awaits humanity. Paradoxically, the only way of averting that fate is to accept it. I am a small voice, banned from Twitter (X) and other sites for publicising this. Then, it is always easier to banish the small voices – but not the truth. That is why I am asking people to share the below link to my free ebook if they agree with my arguments – thank you.
https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/