The editorial board of the Washington Post published an editorial, with which I agree:
Twice recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin has raised the prospect of using nuclear weapons in the war he launched to destroy Ukraine. With Russian forces retreating in Ukraine’s Donbas region, Mr. Putin’s threats amount to desperate saber-rattling intended to frighten all. But his threats must not be brushed off completely, given Mr. Putin’s record of folly and recklessness.
What weapons are we talking about? Not the nuclear warheads carried by continent-spanning intercontinental ballistic missiles, capable of city-busting strikes with limited warning, which defined the Cold War. Rather, according to the authoritative Nuclear Notebook in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, by Hans M. Kristensen and Matt Korda, Russia possesses 1,912 nonstrategic or tactical nuclear weapons, designed to be launched from ground-based missiles, airplanes or naval vessels. This total might include warheads that are retired or awaiting dismantlement, so the actual deployable force might be smaller. No treaty has ever limited these weapons, although in 1991, President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to voluntarily pull many of them back to warehouses.
The Russian warheads are kept in storage under the custody of the defense ministry’s 12th Main Directorate. If Mr. Putin were to deploy them, his order would be transmitted to units. Then the weapons would be released from storage onto transport by trucks or helicopters. Once deployed on delivery vehicles — say, missiles or airplanes — Mr. Putin would have to issue a direct order to use them. Each step might be detected and provide the United States and its allies time to react. Early warning would — and should — trigger intense diplomatic and other pressure on Mr. Putin to stop before setting off a nuclear catastrophe. Preparing to exploit this warning is the best defense against disaster. No doubt, Mr. Putin might want to play out such a deployment to ratchet up the pressure. But in so doing, he would escalate the risk of error or miscalculation. Nuclear gamesmanship toys with existential danger.
A nuclear blast in Ukraine, even low-yield, would kill civilians as well as soldiers and contaminate Russia, Ukraine and beyond. President Biden has properly warned of severe consequences, and Mr. Putin would be wise to listen. Former CIA director and retired Gen. David H. Petraeus suggested incautiously on Sunday that NATO should launch a massive conventional — that is, nonnuclear — military response, including sinking Russia’s Black Sea fleet, if the Kremlin used a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine. This appears to be a recipe for wider war with Russia. Far better to stop Mr. Putin before the cataclysm.
In 1962, the world stood at the brink when the Soviet Union deployed nuclear warheads on missiles in Cuba, then stood down and took them home. Mr. Putin is getting closer to the peril of those momentous days. He flirts with a dance of death. The only sane thing to do is stand down and end this needless war.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Cuban Missile Crisis was not ended because the U.S. belligerently yelled at the Soviet Union to back down or else. It was not ended because we threatened or scared them into anything. It was not ended with a display of macho bravado.
It was ended because Kennedy and Khrushchev spoke directly, diplomatically and secretly. It was ended because both men agreed to withdrawal of the weapons that the other found offensive. It was ended through diplomacy and detente. https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/10/05/we-survived-the-last-nuclear-standoff-through-compromise-and-de-escalation/
You cannot back anyone into a corner and expect a surrender. When an entity, a person, or an animal perceives an existential threat with nothing left to lose, they will attack, not retreat. We cannot win this war with threats and intimidation, only by recognizing Russia’s security concerns. And please don’t dismiss those concerns when you have John Bolton openly calling for regime change, Poland eagerly volunteering to host U.S. nukes and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Elensky calling for a nuclear first strike. Do you think Biden would (or should) back down if positions were reversed?
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Putin should never have invaded Ukraine. This will not end well for the aggressor. Ukraine never threatened Russia’s security. Neither did NATO.
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You can’t seriously believe that Russia was “unprovoked”. How do you not see how shallow and juvenile that is? The history is documented (and I’ve been over it numerous times before with dozens of different sources (all western including many mainstream sources), so I won’t rehash it). Denying it is as foolish as denying slavery or COVID – the kind of denial that is typically associated with the right-wing. If it were actually unprovoked, I doubt the media would feel the constant need to always use the word “unprovoked”. The constant drumbeat of propaganda should tell you something.
Again, as I’ve said before, we can reasonably debate whether or not the provocation justified the invasion. But to categorically deny any provocation at all is simply denying reality.
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The invasion was completely unprovoked. The fact you find asricles written by defenders of Putin’s unprovoked brutal attack on a sovereign nation is of no significance. How can you continue to try to justify the deaths of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers and Ukrainians, as well as the scorched earth attacks on Ukrainian cities, villages, schools, hospitals, residences, the elderly,women and children?
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You live in a different universe, I guess. The truth is out there. History will judge (assuming there is future history, which will not happen unless this game of nuclear chicken ends now).
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Funny that the UN, the EU, and Putin’s neighbors see the “truth” very differently from him and you.
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Funny that China, India, Africa and South America see it very differently than you do.
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The only countries that actively support Putin are North Korea and Iran. The ones you mention have been neutral. .
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Diane – have you ever had to care for more than one child at a time? If you heard them fighting in a different room, and when you come in to see what’s going on, and one of them immediately says, “He hit me for no reason at all!”, would you believe them? Or might you think that the one saying it did indeed do something to provoke the other?
Now, certainly that provocation probably doesn’t justify the hitting. But if you only address/punish the kid who did the hitting without dealing with the provocation, what do you think is going to happen? The provacateur is going to continue to provoke. The provoked is going to continue to react violently. The situation will continue to escalate. The situation will not resolve and there will be no peace in the house until both sides feel like their side has been heard and fairly addressed.
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Dienne, this is not two children being mean. This war is a mighty power trying to seize control of a neighboring nation, meanwhile killing thousands and thousands of people on both sides
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FYI, the police who shoot unarmed Black victims always claim that they were “provoked”.
Those with very strong pro-police, racist biases who believe the police can do no wrong when it comes to policing people of color jump through hoops to examine every action of the unarmed Black victim to “prove” that the poor victimized police officer felt in danger and had to act.
And yet somehow the police and those supporting the police are almost never provoked into killing an unarmed white person. Unless that unarmed white person seems too progressive.
It’s too easy to justify a murderous killing as the fault of the victim when the victim lacks power. “The victim provoked me” is a typical excuse, regardless of how outrageous it was that people who would have never accepted that excuse if it was a Black person killing a white person immediately grasped onto it when the victim didn’t matter to them and they preferred the murderer. It takes a very good judge and open-minded jury not to be propagandized by it.
Putin-defenders don’t want to closely examine the nuance of the “provocation” and whether that even remotely justifies the mass murder that follows it. It’s no different from those who excused Hitler’s actions (and did not want to lift a finger to stop them as long as they weren’t hurt by them directly) by pointing out the problems with the post-war treatment of Germany.
Everyone gets “provoked”. That isn’t license to kill.
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You nailed it, Diane. Thank you.
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Dienne77 reveals her ignorance about Putin’s motivations/goals. To erase that ignorance, she must learn about what Putin did in Chechnya (1999 – 2000) first.
She should also learn as much as possible about Putin’s brain. To do that let’s return to 2014, to discover the brain behind Putin’s goals to turn Russia back into a global super power instead of just a large gas station with one of the biggest standing armies (or should we say drunken stumbling armies) in the world.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2014-03-31/putins-brain
Next, watch and listen to more about Putin’s brain from this video posted on YouTube about a month ago.
“Vladimir Putin’s name is known throughout the world. Alexander Dugin’s name, not so much. But to people in the know, Alexander Dugin is a very important name, as the Russian public intellectual says what Putin thinks. The Agenda examines the man who has been called ‘Putin’s brain.'”
Once we have learned about Putin’s brain and how long Putin has been listening to Dugin’s BS, then we know that Putin was not provoked by anything Ukraine’s current president did, the US did, NATO did or the EU or any other country. The war in Ukraine was supposed to be one more domino falling in Putin’s long-term goals to rebuilt the Soviet Empire with him as its dear leader for life.
Back in 2014, the BBC reported:
“Vladimir Putin: The rebuilding of ‘Soviet’ Russia”
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26769481
The first domino to fall was Chechnya in 1999-2000.
“The obvious place to start his campaign was in Chechnya, symbol of Russia’s collapse. … In Chechnya, hundreds of soldiers and thousands of Chechens died. Hundreds of thousands of Chechens fled to claim asylum outside Russia, but Russia’s territorial integrity was secured, and Putin had begun his task of restoring Russian prestige.”
What was missing was an ideology for Putin’s long-term goals to build himself a global empire
That’s why “Putin restored some Soviet symbols. He brought back the Soviet national anthem and Soviet emblems, and praised the Soviet triumph in World War Two. But he embraced pre-Soviet themes too. He befriended the Russian Orthodox Church, and name-checked anti-Soviet philosophers like Ivan Ilyin, whose remains he had repatriated to Russia and buried with honour.”
The second domino to fall was Georgia – In Georgia in 2008, he sent in the troops without even pretending to consult with the (UN) Security Council.”
The third domino: “Russian President Vladimir Putin signs the treaty of accession (annexation) with Crimean leaders in Moscow, 18 March 2014. Russian masked troops invaded and occupied key Crimean locations, including airports and military bases, following Putin’s orders.”
Fourth The Donbas. A few months later, “Russia abandoned its hybrid approach and began a conventional invasion of the Donbas. Following reports of Ukrainian positions being shelled from the Russian side of the border, between 22 and 25 August 2014, Russian artillery, personnel, and what Russia called a ‘humanitarian convoy’ crossed the border.”
There is no valid argument that President Volodymyr Zelensky provoked Putin to invaded Ukraine in 2014.
Because Zelensky wasn’t elected president until
21 April 2019, when he received 73 per cent of the vote to Poroshenko’s 25 per cent, and was elected President of Ukraine.
Is it possible that Putin’s cancer motivated him to speed up his plan to rebuild the Soviet Empire, explaining why he abandoned his hybrid, one domino at a time, approach?
It’s apparent that Putin now wants to achieve his goal to rebuild the powerful Soviet Empire before he dies and now he’s desperately afraid he might not live long, so now RasPutin the Terrible is willing to risk starting WWIII with nukes.
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Lloyd, thanks for the reality check.
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There is something wrong with someone who defends the murderous, anti-democratic, anti-progressive, anti-trans Putin by pretending that the YEARS of diplomatic talking with Putin did not happen after Crimea. Cherry-picking history to make such a privileged and murderous leader look like the victim. (It’s the same thing they did with Trump, by the way).
It’s similar to the type of propaganda you saw from pro-Hitler folks in the US – not just early on, but AFTER Hitler had already invaded European countries and was mass murdering Jews.
They gave the same type of false, curated histories that our resident Putin-defender (and Fox News fanboy favorite Caitlin Johnstone) give when it comes to Putin.
All about how we hadn’t yet tried enough appeasement of Hitler because it would work – because Hitler’s history of rejecting appeasement is erased.
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DETECTIVE: So, you admit that you broke into Ms. Ukraini’s house, killed her children, and stole her jewelry and cash. You are aware, of course, that this is all illegal. The breaking and entering, the murdering, the stealing.
THUG: Yeah, but I was provoked.
DETECTIVE: You were provoked? In what way?
THUG: Ms. Ukraini had a burglar alarm. And one of those porch doorbell security cameras. And she owned a pistol. And she was a member of the Neighborhood Crime Watch. These are all provocations aimed directly at slimy little murderous criminals.
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Apparently our resident Putin-lover would argue that no one must criticize that the US dropped atomic bombs on 2 cities in Japan because our resident Putin-lover believes that Pearl Harbor “provoked” the US.
Or maybe she has a double standard — one for her beloved Putin, and another for democratic countries she hates who just happen to be willing to acknowledge their own shortcomings.
Remember, Putin has never done any wrong in our resident Putin-defender’s view. It’s like how the only negative thing she ever says about Trump is to mention Trump’s “orange hair” and Trump speaking in an uncouth manner while she rabidly defends Trump from those who criticize his truly reprehensible and dangerous actions. Her posts were always about how Trump was always being unfairly victimized by his critics. Just like her posts are always about how Putin is being unfairly victimized by his critics.
It’s like someone constantly defending Hitler as being “victimized” by his critics. They deny that they believe that Hitler is perfect because they criticize his looks or say maybe he was a little mean while they constantly defend Hitler’s worst atrocities as being the fault of someone else who “provoked” him.
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Poor wittle Vladimir was pwovoked!!! So mean. Somebody, tell Mommy!
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Peter Greene has often said that people will continue to talk louder and louder as long as they don’t feel heard. Putin is shouting now. How much louder do you want him to yell before you listen? Maybe you’re right and he’s a monster, but is that going to be comforting as you slowly waste away from radiation poisoning?
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If Putin thinks the only way he will be heard is to destroy Europe and Russia with nukes, he’s nuts.
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What else would you suggest he do? What would be the best way to communicate his message?
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Putin could bring his troops home. He’s killing more of them every day. What message has he sent the West? The Russian military is incompetent, weak, and bolstered by mercenaries.
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So, you admit that this person might well use nuclear weapons. And yet at the same time you proclaim him sane.
Speechless, here. That’s just freaking CRAZY.
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Again
PUTIN: Russia and Ukraine are one people. They have always been one people.
HISTORIANS: Uh, no.
UKRAINIANS: Hell, no.
I have equal right to annex British Columbia to Boblandia.
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So, going back a few months, you were telling us that there was no way that Putin was going to invade Ukraine, that this was just Biden administration and NATO propaganda. And since then you have been telling us that the pretexts given by Putin–that Ukraine is a Nazi state, that the Ukrainians WANT to be Russians, that NATO is a threat to Russia–obviously batshit crazy stuff–is all true. But it doesn’t matter how crazy it gets, you swallow it all, like a cultist. I’m curious about how far this goes. If this madman does use nuclear weapons, will you be cheering him on–go, Tsar Vladimir!–and posting about how this was all Biden’s fault? Or the fault of “you people”? Just how far will you go?
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Hitler just “wanted to be heard”, too.
What a convenient excuse to excuse a murderous dictator with a lot of power committing atrocities. They just “want to be heard”.
And our resident Putin-defender isn’t just saying that Putin wants to be heard. She is telling us to shut up and LET him do whatever he wants to do to appease him. Because allowing Putin to continue his murderous rampage on the Ukraine and shutting up is the way to “listen” to a man who just wants to be heard.
Anti-trans BULLIES who put trans teens in hospitals after beating them up “just want to be heard”, too.
The folks who said “Jews will not replace us” just want to be heard, too.
FYI, violently attacking someone less powerful than you who is clearly of no physical threat to you is not justified because you don’t feel “listened to”.
Anyone who tries to justify the atrocities of right wing sociopaths by claiming “they just want to be heard” is simply someone who wants those sociopaths right wing agenda to continue. There is no other reason for taking such a completely immoral stance in which they jump through hoops to demonize the people trying to stop the right wing sociopath and refuse to be critical of the sociopath’s actions no matter how immoral and depraved they are.
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Who is this elensky that D-77 keeps referring to? She doesn’t know the name of the president of Ukraine? Huh? Zelensky or Zelenskyy or even Zelenski, not “elensky.” Does D-77 lack the “z” key on her computer?
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Dienne is convinced that the Nazi government of Ukraine acted in an authoritarian way when it banned, temporarily, the public display of the Z symbol. They did this, of course, because the barbarians are using the Z and V symbols to identify their vehicles to prevent friendly fire. She’s clueless about what it means to ordinary Ukrainians to have these monsters trashing their cultural monuments, bombing their civilians as they sleep or try to board a train, shooting or bombing civilians trying to flee the violence, etc. So, the “elensky” idiocy is Dienne thinking she’s being clever. This is not a joke.
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She seems to be clueless that in the middle of a defensive war, when the symbol is being used in this way, it’s display is not only an affront to those who are suffering or have suffered horrifically (which is almost everyone) AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, because whatever is flying a “Z” is a potential target. So, if someone thought it funny, for example, to put a “Z” on your windshield in downtown Kiev, . . . that stupid prank could be disastrous.
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cx: its display, not it’s display, ofc
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And again, Dienne is blaming the victim. Ukraine didn’t turn the Z into a war SIGN meaning “this belongs to the Russian military forces.” Russia did.
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Oh, stop. Russia says they were provoked? Just for perspective, Putin also claims that Ukraine’s government, with a Jewish president, are “Nazis.” He has less than zero credibility.
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Exactly. The notion that the NATO DEFENSIVE alliance is a threat to Russia is delusional. Here’s what NATO is actual a threat to: Putin’s imperial ambitions, his desire to build a “New Greater Russia.” He has been quite straightforward about that desire, which requires, ofc, subjugating other peoples, as the Soviet Union did.
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The U.S./NATO made documented promises to Russia about not moving east of Germany in exchange for the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the re-unification of Germany (https://original.antiwar.com/Ted_Snider/2022/08/22/what-did-the-west-promise-russia-on-nato-expansion/). Within a decade NATO broke that promise and they’ve been moving east ever since to the point they are now literally on Russia’s border. If you were Russia/Putin, would you consider that to be “defensive”? Especially in light of events like Iraq, Libya, Serbia, etc.? The U.S. and NATO are responsible for obscene levels of death and destruction in the past couple decades. Only a hopeless partisan would fail to see how other countries might not view that as “defensive”.
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Former Soviet satellites asked —ASKED—to join NATO for protection against Putin. NATO did not pressure any of them to join. NATO did not break any promise. How could little nations like Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania defend themselves against an aggressive Russia without joining NATO? Putin chose war, with the result that neutral Finland and Sweden asked to join NATO. Now Russia has a longer border with NATO than before its invasion of Ukraine.
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What if Mexico asked to join BRICS? Cool with you? And, y’know, the Donbass asked to join Russia….
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What if Texas voted to join Mexico or Canada? Maybe a good idea if they take Abbott and Cruz.
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You know good and well, or should, Diane, that all this is highly debated, and at any rate whether a country is going to apply to become a NATO member IS UP TO THAAT COUNTRY, not to your idol Vladimir.
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NATO is responsible for obscene levels of death and destruction? In what universe, Dienne? NATO is a defensive alliance.
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Please see my essay “On the Historical Unity of British Columbians and Boblandians,” which presents the definitive argument for why Canada must immediately cede British Columbia to me.
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CX: You know good and well, or should, Dienne, that all this is highly debated, and at any rate whether a country is going to apply to become a NATO member IS UP TO THAAT COUNTRY, not to your idol Vladimir.
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Dienne– Whole lot of water under the bridge since Gorbachev/ Baker 1990 talks. Many more factors have to be taken into account, which include the shifting political and trade and philosophical alliances between and among reunited Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and differences with Russia, over the first decade after collapse of USSR. You can’t just hang your hat on verbal assurances made between US & Russian immediately post-USSR collapse.
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So you’re saying the word of the U.S. is not to be trusted? Gorby should have looked at First Nations’ history and figured that out and saved himself and his successors a lot of trouble. In which case, the Berlin Wall would still be there and the Warsaw Pact would be intact.
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Russia violated the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.
Ukraine had a large arsenal of nuclear weapons. It gave up its nukes in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the U.S., and the UK.
Wikipedia summary:
“The memoranda, signed in Patria Hall at the Budapest Convention Center with US Ambassador Donald M. Blinken amongst others in attendance,[2] prohibited the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, “except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.” As a result of other agreements and the memorandum, between 1993 and 1996, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons.”
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Dienne, your response suggests the peoples of the Eastern Bloc’s central and eastern European members had no agency in the unraveling of the Warsaw Pact and the fall of the Berlin Wall, nor Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost policies.
As to the facts about the Gorbachev/ Baker talks, Gorbachev makes clear in a 2014 interview here that the Baker cite was taken out of context and related solely to steps to be taken in the GDR: “[Gorbachev:] “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years… Not a singe Eastern European country raised the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist in 1991. Western leaders didn’t bring it up, either.” He finds the concept insulting, implying Russia was wrapped around the West’s little finger, and indicates the issue of expansion should have been immediately addressed [by Russia] when it surfaced some years later. https://www.rbth.com/international/2014/10/16/mikhail_gorbachev_i_am_against_all_walls_40673.html
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How is the leader of a country of 144 million souls someone with “nothing left to lose”?
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Team Biden recognizes Putin is a barbarian. And, the American people who value NATO and democracy support Biden.
Media is in the process of exposing the warnings that the FBI ignored regarding Jan. 6. People like Trump-appointed Christopher Wray who is a member of the Federalist Society should be forced out of government employment.
America’s promise was/is to upend privilege in favor of competence and belief in democracy. Wray attended the Buckley school (tuition-$55,500), Philips Academy (tuition- $ 57,800) and Yale. The case is being made that his management led to a sitting on their hands at the FBI during the time of one of the most significant threats to democracy.
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Putin’s INSANE threat should be a wake-up call to the world. We cannot have a situation in when one madman can bring about nuclear annihilation. The UN should answer this threat by immediately authorizing an overwhelming force to drive the marauders, the rapists and murderers of grandmothers and little children, from Ukraine.
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Ironically, in the Cold War era Soviet military officers actively prevented nuclear war twice.
Vasili Arkhipov, in 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/27/vasili-arkhipov-soviet-submarine-captain-who-averted-nuclear-war-awarded-future-of-life-prize
AND
Stanislav Petrov in 1983:
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Thanks for the reminder about this, Lenny! A great man passes!
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When Russia illegally, in violation of International Law, invaded Crimea and the Donbas, and when it held its sham, illegal election in Crimea, the world stood idly by and said, “That’s just not nice.” And this encouraged Putin to rinse and repeat. NO MORE PLACATING THESE INTERNATIONAL BULLIES. Ukraine should not give a nanometer of ground to the Russian invaders.
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And that’s not just Ukraine’s war; it’s the entire international community’s, for the sanctity of national boundaries is LITERALLY ONE OF THE FOUNDATIONAL IDEAS behind the United Nations.
UN Charter, Article 2(4):
“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”
Russia must withdraw and cede back the illegally annexed territories of the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.
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Bob,
That inconvenient fact is always left out of our resident Putin-lover’s version of history, in which the US just hasn’t appeased Putin enough.
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Thank you. Yes
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D-77, the resident Putin apologist and spewer of Russian talking points. Phew, you can’t make this stuff up, totally unreal. Putin is a mass murderer, serial liar and slimy propagandist who wouldn’t know the truth if it hit him in the head with a sledgehammer. One can only hope that the Russians tire of him and remove him from office and off to a psychiatric ward in Siberia.
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And then there is the potential for contamination of land in this, one of the bread baskets of the world.
But Putin doesn’t give a microbe on a hair on a rat’s tushy about the lives of Russians, clearly. Witness the recent mobilization. Throwing more bodies after the tens of thousands of dead and wounded ones. Not surprising from the guy who started his career bombing innocent Russians in the apartments while they were sleeping and then blaming this on Chechen terrorists. He’s a psychopathic criminal. Always was.
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So I guess Newsweek is Russian propaganda. Whodathunkit?
https://www.newsweek.com/us-needs-change-course-right-now-ukraine-opinion-1749740
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Dienne, why do you waste your time defending Putin’s invasion of Ukraine?
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Diane, why don’t you read anything I post? This article has very little to do with the invasion and to the extent it does, the author agrees with you.
Seriously ask yourself why you think the only reason I’d be opposed to escalation between two nuclear armed powers is because I love some foreign leader halfway around the world? Why does that make sense to you? Why is that constantly your only response? You’re plenty smart enough to understand better than that.
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Dienne,
You have never once condemned Putin’s invasion of a neighbor. Never once decried the insanity of launching the first ground war in Europe since 1945. Never once said simply “Stop the war!” Only one man can do that. He’s willing to kill hundreds of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians for the sake of his ego.
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No, Diane, it takes two to tango. Or, in this case, three, since ukraine is only a proxy for the U.S.
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Russia invaded Ukraine. This war will end when Putin withdraws or is ousted by the military.
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Ukraine is a proxy for the U.S.? Then, why did the U.S. offer Zelensky “a ride” out of Ukraine at the beginning of Putin’s attack? Without Zelensky, Ukraine would have fallen like Crimea.
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This Putin defender is justifying her rabidly pro-Putin views by linking to a Newsweek OPINION by a far right winger who claims that Justice Clarence Thomas is “the single greatest living American.”
This Putin defender justifies her rabidly pro-Putin views by linking to an anti-trans far right wing opinion columnist who writes columns encouraging Republicans to lean into the culture war issues because fomenting more hatred of the LGBTQ folks supposedly teaching our 5 year old kids to be gay and trans is good politics.
WTH??
This person has lost all credibility. We need to stop pretending she is or has ever been anything but a far right winger who happens to (supposedly) support public schools. Her (supposed) support of public schools means as much as some neo-Nazi’s support of public schools.
And I don’t care if some racist neo-Nazi or self-described leftist spewing hate and violence against powerless people happens to support raising the minimum wage or happens to support public schools. I would never cite them as credible sources when they write something that supports public schools or raising the minimum wage. That gives their entire agenda a dangerous credibility that we used to understand.
In decades past, no one parsed all of David Duke’s hateful rhetoric to find some point of progressive policy agreement they could use to present him as a guy with some “good ideas.” Today I suspect that would happen. People who spew hateful rhetoric should not be credible on anything — they should simply be marginalized.
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It’s an opinion piece by an avowedly conservative talking head. I am supposed to bow at his feet why?
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exactly
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Even WaPo admits it’s a proxy war: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/russia-is-right-the-us-is-waging-aproxy-war-in-ukraine/2022/05/10/2c8058a4-d051-11ec-886b-df76183d233f_story.html
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If it’s a proxy war, so what?
Without the help of other nations, Putin would have seized all of Ukraine in a week.
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That’s not what a proxy war is. It’s a proxy war because the U.S. is using ukraine to weaken Russia. This has nothing to do with saving ukraine. The U.S. will happily sacrifice every single ukrainian (and the rest of Europe) and then they’ll strip whatever assets are left.
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Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia invaded Ukraine.
If Hitler had been stopped when he invaded Czechoslovakia, there would not have been a world war.
Aggressive dictators should not be appeased.
Russia invaded Ukraine.
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Putin must be a proxy for the U.S. He’s got his countrymen
fleeing to avoid conscription. Putin’s unforced error has shown the world that Russia’s military is rather pathetic (ignoring the nuclear threat). Putin’s tactical planning resulted in the Wagner group of mercenaries turning on Russian soldiers or vice versa. Finland, Norway and Ukraine all want to be part of NATO- when the first two hadn’t been interested before. And, evidently, the U.S. isn’t
expediting Ukraine’s admittance.
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Newsweek used to be a reliable news source. For some time now, however, it has been a source of extremist rightwing propaganda and a BIG supporter of Jabba the Trump. So, this is no more surprising than was the idiocy you posted from Pat Buchanan’s American Conservative saying that Russia was winning the war that is not a war.
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Exactly, Diane. Putin and Putin alone started this unprovoked and ILLEGAL war that he is not allowing to be called a war, and he could end it right now, this very moment. But his ego is more important than are all those lives, so he will have to be driven out.
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This is how CLUELESS the author of this Newsweek piece is. His very first sentence is
We are now more than seven months removed from Vladimir Putin’s regrettable incursion into eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
News flash, Mr. Hammer. Russia invaded Crimea with its little green men early in 2014 and then annexed it in a sham “election.”
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Perhaps Mr. Hammer was Hammered when he wrote this.
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An extreme rightwinger from the Federalist Society, Mr. Hammer simply doesn’t get it. This conflict is existential FOR ALL UN MEMBER NATIONS. It is about whether UN members must abide by the international law, fundamental to the UN Charter, that members cannot violate the territorial sanctity of other UN member states EXCEPT for very limited times and purposes outlined in various conventions, NONE OF WHICH APPLY TO THE WAR IN UKRAINE. Which goes to show you that one can be both a) clueless and b) an officer of the Federalist Society. I suspect that a certain amount of willful blindness, in fact, is a requirement.
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I do not that Mr. Hammered does, toward the end of the piece, talk about when Putin FIRST INVADED Crimea. But February of this year was not a time of an “incursion into Crimea.”
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D77: thanks for the Newsweek editorial. Hamer makes an argument for Realpolitik, looking at this from immediate US interests. I do not see his point without treating the larger context of international law and world peace.
Those of us who opposed the 03 US incursion into Iraq did not do so from the standpoint of whether Sadam was good or evil. We felt that the entry into Iraq without widespread UN support would erode international norms. Ten years later, Putin’s entry into Crimea proved we were correct. We had no solid ground to stand on and oppose his meddling.
Hamer suggests that Gallup polls justify Russian action in Crimea. Have we become an international community of polls? The borders drawn after the Soviet Union collapsed might have been improperly drawn, but sending troops to Crimea disguised as motorcycle thugs was a violation of international law. There must be norms to have peace.
Zelensky is no doubt a bit different from his perceived image. Such is the nature of political figures and other beings with a public image. Ukraine is certainly going to have to spend a century to crawl out from under the corruption caused by war. That is the nature of war itself: War causes the moral breakdown of society. Successful war causes the moral breakdown of the victor. But allowing leaders to arbitrarily attack other countries without reason spreads war and its corruption worst of all.
Hamer argues that the American taxpayer has no interest in supporting Ukraine. He ignores the economic ties with Western Europe that are important to us. He ignores the good of the stability NATO brought during the Cold War. He seems to look no farther than the immediate.
We may be going down a dark path. We may be doing the wrong thing. But doing nothing is often worse. When the nation is powerful, doing nothing is doing a lot.
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Roy, thank you for reading the article and your respectful response. You make some valid points. I am heading out for now, but I will try to respond later.
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Just a few points, Roy. First. ukraine’s corruption is not just “the corruption of war”. Long before February 2022, western media was full of pieces about ukraine’s corruption. It was widely acknowledged to be the most corrupt country in Europe. It’s only been this year that western media have changed their tune to pretend that ukraine is some kind of noble bastion of freedom and democracy.
Second, if we’re worried about economic ties with western Europe, we probably should have thought about that before putting sanctions on Russia that we knew would lead to Russia withholding needed fuel supplies from Western Europe and before we (or one of our vassal states) blew up Nord Stream to force Europe into dependence on U.S. LNG supplies and other pipelines routed through Poland and ukraine that add exorbitant transit fees. It is widely acknowledged that Europe, especially Germany, will be facing such severe fuel shortages and high prices that people are likely to freeze and businesses are even likely to close, causing widespread de-industrialization and suffering.
Third, in the case of the U.S., doing nothing nearly always would have been better. What if we hadn’t dropped the nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? What if we hadn’t gone into Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos? What if we hadn’t invaded Panama and backed the right wing death squads in places like Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras? What if we hadn’t overthrow Salvador Allende, President Sukarno and Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh? What if we hadn’t instigated and supported dirty wars in Chile and Argentina? What if we hadn’t invaded Iraq (twice)? What if we hadn’t turned Libya into a literal slave state? Tell me one time since WWII that U.S. intervention has been a good thing. Tell me why we should believe what we’re being told this time?
Anyway, thank you again for your thoughtful and respectful reply. If you would like the last word, it is all yours.
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Dienne,
What if we had not interfered in Europe or Asia in 1941? All of Europe would have been controlled by the Nazi party. All of Asia would have been controlled by the Japanese Imperialist regime.
Let me remind you of a simple but obvious fact: Putin invaded Ukraine without provocation.
Another fact: Zelensky is a Jew. He is not a fascist.
Another fact: All of Europe–except for Putin’s satellite states like Belarus–have united against Putin’s aggression.
No more posts spouting Putin propaganda, please.
The West should have reacted when he grabbed Ukrainian territory in 2008 and 2014. Our inaction emboldened him to think he could seize the whole country and no one would care.
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I am not sure the Cuban Missile Crisis is a good historical thing to consider here. Neither the Soviets nor the Americans, the only two super powers left standing at the end of the Second World War, had actually invaded sovereign territory at that time.
There is one possible parallel. Khrushchev was, at that time, attempting de-Stalinization. This process angered many old Stalinists, and K was eager to look strong in front of the old boys. Putin also finds himself opposed by a pair of forces, one very violent and the other moderate. This second group seems to be spreading anti-war sentiment almost as fast as cars can get out of Russia.
Khrushchev lost power after the Cuban Missile crisis. His replacement was faithful to the old guard of the Revolution, even while the US tried to pursue detente.
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Well, as I’m sure you know, Roy, that isn’t exactly the case:
The Soviets annexed their first territories in eastern Poland on September 17, 1939, under the terms of the Non-Aggression Pact made with Nazi Germany. Soon after, the Red Army went to war with Finland in order to secure a buffer zone of protection for Leningrad (St. Petersburg). When the war was over, Finland ceded the territories demanded by the Soviets plus Karelia. The Soviet Union subsequently annexed the Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Moldova in 1940. Several other territories (modern-day Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Armenia) had been annexed prior to 1939.
In addition to the Republics, several countries in Eastern Europe operated as Soviet satellite states. These countries were not officially part of the USSR, but their governments were loyal Stalinists, and therefore looked to and aligned themselves with the Soviet Union politically and militarily via the Warsaw Pact.
–Center for European Studies, UNC Chapel Hill
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Germany captured the Baltic states from Russia. Then, Russia recaptured them (these states that they had already annexed back in 1940).
A lot of countries of Europe had experience of Russian annexation. And of course, as they rushed to join NATO in the 1990s, they remembered the Russian tanks rolling into Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
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Bob: you obviously relate the history succinctly. My reference to neither the Soviets nor the US invading sovereign territory reverts to the Cuban Middle as an analogous situation.
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Refers, not reverts
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