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The daughter of ‘Putin’s Brain’ has been killed in a car bomb explosion outside Moscow. It is an event that can only further inflame personal hatreds and ideological tensions around the war in Ukraine.
Darya Platonova Dugina (above with her father), 30, was the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the chief ideologue behind the very influential ultra-nationalist doctrine of Neo-Eurasianism. This ideology (see ‘Eurasianism, Putin’s new world order‘, Quadrant Online) and earlier articles) provides the rationale for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It asserts there is an epoch-shaping ‘clash of civilisations’ underway between the globalism of Western Liberal Democracy, led by the United States, and the ‘multi-polarism’ of Eurasian authoritarianism, led by Russia. It is this ideology that has provided the philosophical and political rationale for the Russian assault on its neighbour.
Darya Platonova was a prominent journalist, a devoted follower of her father, served as his media secretary and as a political commentator for the International Eurasian movement. She openly supported the Russian invasion and was sanctioned by the UK government last month for being a “frequent and high-profile contributor of disinformation in relation to Ukraine and the Russian invasion of Ukraine on various online platforms”, and for promoting “policies or actions that destabilize Ukraine”.
It appears Ms Dugina and her father were due to leave a literary festival together on Saturday evening, but that her father changed his mind at the last moment, leaving Ms Dugina alone in Dugin’s Toyota Land Cruiser. This vehicle then exploded as it departed, was engulfed in flames, left the road, and crashed into a building, killing Ms Dugina. Alerted by the explosion and emergency vehicle sirens, Dugin apparently watched the car burn. It appears certain that he was the primary target of the bomb.
Darya Platonova was steeped in her father’s theories. She graduated in the history of philosophy from the Faculty of Philosophy at Moscow State University. Her research focused on the arcane political philosophy of late Neo-Platonism, arguing that there is an homology between the individual soul and the State considered as the supreme corporate entity, i.e., that there is a fundamental connection between psychic and political processes, a major tenet of neo-fascism.
This means, for example, that decadence at the individual level manifests itself at the political level and vice versa. It is this type of theory that has convinced Dugin, Putin and Russia’s political and military establishment that the West is in sharp decline, that its people and its leadership lack confidence, courage and resolve, and that it will ultimately prove to not have the will to block the Russian takeover of Ukraine or the advance of Eurasianism.
In a recent interview with Russia’s Geopolitika News, Ms Dugina explained that she was an activist in the International Eurasianist Movement promoted by her father, focusing on the analysis of European politics and geopolitics. She began by affirming the basic premise of Neo-Eurasianism, i.e., “that the Globalist moment is over, the end of Liberalism has come, [and] the end of liberal history.” (“Darya Platonova: The War in Ukraine [is] a Clash of Globalist and Eurasianist Civilizations”, geopolitika.ru, 27/5/2022)
She explained how, in a desperate attempt to protect itself in its death-throes, the West is seeking to gain hegemony over Ukraine which, according to Neo-Eurasianist theory, is an “intermediate zone” between these two civilisational blocs, a geopolitical space where conflict is inevitable:
The situation in Ukraine is really an example of a clash of civilisations; it can be seen as a clash between Globalist and Eurasian civilisation. After the ‘great geopolitical catastrophe’ (as the Russian president [Putin] called the collapse of the USSR), the territories of the once united country have become ‘borders’ (intermediate zones) – those spaces on which the attention of neighbours has increased, with NATO and especially the United States interested in destabilising the situation on Russia’s borders.
As the leading Eurasianist power through history, Russia’s task is to (re)build the internal structure of the traditional Eurasianist power bloc. She had an important role here, as she explained:
In this [ideological] capacity, I appear on Russian, Pakistani, Turkish, Chinese and Indian television channels, presenting a multipolar world view of political processes. My areas of interest are both the space of European civilisation and the Middle East, where a kind of Conservative Revolution is taking place – from Iran’s constant confrontation with American hegemony or Syria’s struggle against Western imperialism to Turkey, which is now showing interesting tendencies to move away from NATO and the Anglo-Saxon geopolitical bloc and is trying to build its foreign policy on a multipolar basis, in dialogue with the Eurasian civilisation.
Ms Dugin went on to deny that Western sanctions were isolating Russia. Indeed, she insisted that Russia had the support of many countries seeking to escape from the hegemony of the Globalist West, and she cited Hungary in Europe, Turkey and other countries in the Middle East, as well as China, India, Venezuela, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Syria, Mali, Sudan, Zimbabwe, the Republic of Congo, and Eritrea. “These reactions indicate the end of the myth of a ‘one world space’”, i.e., of the US-led liberal world order. Indeed,
Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine accelerated the formation of a multipolar world and catalysed many geopolitical processes.
Therefore,
Russia was thus not a victim of isolation, but a pioneer of a multipolar world order.
Such a triumphalist outlook illustrates the massive scope of the geopolitical ambitions of the Neo-Eurasianists, led ideologically by Aleksandr Dugin for over three decades, and more recently at the political level by Putin and his coterie.
The attempted assassination of Dugin and the death of his daughter will undoubtedly serve to galvanise these forces. The war in Ukraine will now move to another level of savagery and we will soon see whether Dugin’s analysis of the decadence, weakness, and ultimate cowardice of the West is accurate, as the Neo-Eurasianists pursue their grand scheme to commandeer and re-direct the course of world history from liberal democracy and towards political authoritarianism on a continental scale.
This is more than insane politics, it’s a weird religion — just going to prove that humans need something to believe in, beyond their own, ordinary existence. And, being a religion, it will be impossible to argue against rationally. Putin’s following such thinking, and his hubristic attack on Ukraine, merely confirms his diagnosis of extreme narcissistic psychopathy. Being the world’s richest person is not enough; he now desperately needs to leave his mark on history, and this idiocy offers him a “clear” pathway. True megalomania.
I’ve just read Bill Browder’s “Freezing Order”, a spine-chilling (no pun intended) account of his dealings with the totally corrupt Russian mafia state, of which Putin is the capo primo (and which makes the Italian mafias look like a kindergarten playground). Like Browder’s earlier “Red Notice”, this true ripping yarn should be essential reading for anyone at all interested in world current affairs. But it also offer revealing insights into the shortcomings of the US judicial system, which the Russians have quickly learnt to exploit.
Beyond anything else, money seems to be the god driving events in Russia today; this crazy religion stuff is possibly a mere diversion, as might be the war on Ukraine, both being contrived by Putin to deflect attention from his grand national theft — but it’s hard not to take his self-comparison with Peter the Great as indicative of seriously delusional thinking.
A number of Russian commentators have argued that Dugin’s influence in Russia is extremely overstated in the West. They assert that he actually has a higher profile in Ukraine, where he has become a hate figure. In the Russian view, this suggests that the SBU was behind the bombing.
For instance:
https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1561105070674120706
Oleksandr Nakonechny was a fairly high up bloke in the SBU and supposedly topped himself the other evening so the SBU probably blamed the Russian FSB for the FSB have some expertise in arranging accidents. The SBU probably decided to get “square” and the daughter was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She is a far cry form the Moscow University student audience of May 31 1988.
This was when the soviet sphere had already collapsed and Gorbachev and Ronald Regan were discussing nuclear disarmament.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3q_T5yZV-U
Creating a martyr was a good idea. But whose?
You know ‘the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians’.
All we hear about is that oligarchs that oppose Putin die in mysterious accidents or with heart attacks.
Not good stuff for the kiddies.
Wonder why Dad changed his mind at the last minute and left the doomed vehicle?
Random fate or planned by the KGB?
Eurasianism? Really. Sounds like an academic theory. Maybe Putin attacked Ukriane because Ukriane joining NATO was a bridge too far. Who knows? What does seem likely to be true is that “the West is in sharp decline, that its people and its leadership lack confidence, courage and resolve.” You only have to look at people still cowering in masks and voting in politicians who favour green dreams and mutilating teenage girls who’ve been deluding into thinking they’re boys. And how about fighting a war by proxy; by providing billions upon billions of dollars of high tech weapons while studiously avoiding boots on the ground. Millions of Ukrianians and Russians might die but, hey, not our doing; we’re safe as houses. Talk about decadence.
Peter, I am also wary of the ‘Eurasianism’ explanation for the Ukraine war.
It’s really not that complicated, in my humble opinion. Russia and Ukraine have deep ties stretching back to Kievan Rus’. Modern Ukraine includes historically Russian lands inhabited by Russian-speaking people. The Kremlin, fearful of Western encirclement, made it clear that it would not tolerate a hostile, NATO-aligned Ukraine. But Western leaders failed to take Russian warnings seriously (or maybe they did but actually wanted a war). The breakdown of the Minsk II agreement paved the way for a widening of the conflict.
Christopher Caldwell has an excellent piece on Ukraine in the most recent edition of the Claremont Review of Books. He refers to a memo written by former U.S. ambassador to Russia William Burns which warned:
“Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests. NATO would be seen as throwing down the strategic gauntlet. Today’s Russia will respond. Russian-Ukrainian relations will go into a deep freeze. It will create fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.”
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/why-are-we-in-ukraine/
And yes, Western elites are indeed decadent and morally bankrupt.
Lewis P Buckingham: “This was when the soviet sphere had already collapsed and Gorbachev and Ronald Regan were discussing nuclear disarmament.”
Gorbachev’s role needs to be fully appreciated. He gave up Eastern Europe. He allowed the Warsaw Pact states to go their own way (the so-called ‘Sinatra doctrine’). Germans today love Gorbachev for allowing Erich Honecker to fall and allowing reunification to occur. Russians loathe him for giving up too much in return for too little from the West.
There was possibly a chance in the early 1990s to forge a new pan-European order which included Russia. But that opportunity was sadly squandered.
Why in Australia do we have so many defenders of Russia? What has Russia ever done for the benefit of any country? You could probably claim that their efforts in WWII were of benefit in defeating Germany but until then the Soviets were an active participant in dismembering and invading neighbouring countries who were of no threat, ie Finland and Poland. Not wanting to get into a debate about history but no one seriously disputes the existence or causes of the soviet instigated Holodomor in Ukraine. The motivations for some like Botswana can be found in their personal life, but I am struggling to recognise the intellectual basis for the defence of Russia during the current circumstances. We all like playing the devils advocate and challenging the zeitgeist but really I am quite perplexed by this attitude, particularly from erstwhile conservatives. Peter Smith, previously you have seem to have opposed, on the basis of real politick, the involvement of Western democracies in the current war. Now you claim arming and supporting Ukraine is a sure sign of “decadence”. If you ever get attacked by someone stronger than yourself remember not to ask for help, because you will be encouraging decadence in those who come to your aid.
Farnswort you go on about Russia’s needs or desires but what of Ukraines, Polands, Romania’s, Latvias , in fact every subjugated and threatened former Soviet republic. They would all join NATO tomorrow, at least those who haven’t already, and why? The answer is for three hundred years now Russia has failed to be a reasonable state. That is a large neighbour which can cultivate good relations with smaller neighbouring cultures and ethnicities and not be a constant source of threat. Gorbachov gave nothing away, he simply ran out of the power to keep subjugating the groups that made up the Soviet Union. I mean Russia could disappear tomorrow and the world would be none the worse. It is a malign state (more so even than North Korea), run by cleptocrats, whose major manufactured export is death in the form of cheap weapons. When it is not exporting all manner of weapons it is using them haphazardly to assassinate political enemies of Putin. Russia will go on, it will keep threatening all and sundry with its nuclear weapons for the next hundred years, but that is still no rational basis to support its invasion of Ukraine.
“Indeed, she insisted that Russia had the support of many countries seeking to escape from the hegemony of the Globalist West, and she cited Hungary in Europe, Turkey and other countries in the Middle East, as well as China, India, Venezuela, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Syria, Mali, Sudan, Zimbabwe, the Republic of Congo, and Eritrea.”
Irony was not her strong suit.
@ occidental, why is there so much support for Russia in Australia? There isn’t really, thank goodness, just quite a bit at this site, and among conspiracy theorists and the far right generally. The intelligent founders of Quadrant would be dumbfounded. Anyway, not wanting to provoke the usual mind-numbingly long screeds pushing crackpots like Mearsheimer, Baud et al, but in many cases it seems to derive from deep and justifiable dismay about the destruction of the west’s political and cultural achievements and ideals. Putin can’t be all bad; doesn’t he champion traditional values? – a preposterous proposition, of course, unless traditional values encompass theft on a cosmological scale, murder and warmongering. My enemy’s enemy must be my friend. Hitler provoked exactly the same reaction in the 30s from a certain kind of conservative, until he started a war.
Peter, I’m struggling to work out your position. You think it’s ‘decadent’ to to arm a weaker nation that is the victim of naked aggression, unless you’re prepared to fight yourself? If you not prepared to “put boots on the ground”, is it moral just to leave that country to its fate? Come off it. Should Roosevelt not have lifted a finger to help Britain in 1940 and 1941?
‘I mean Russia could disappear tomorrow and the world would be none the worse’ – except it would because the world would just have sanctioned Occidentals genocidal predisposition. No irony there hey Sindri!
‘Putin can’t be all bad; doesn’t he champion traditional values? – a preposterous proposition, of course, unless traditional values encompass theft on a cosmological scale, murder and warmongering.’ – Whether justifiable or not, this sounds equally like a charge that the postmodernist Left lays on Western colonialism spanning 2000 years – which should be evidence enough that it is a simplistic and ill considered comment.
It is beyond doubt that the final catalyst for Putins’ regrettable war, was the Ukraines tilt to NATO. How dare those Russians have a sense of a historical cultural tradition and ethnography that might view the very real threat of a elitist hegemonic globalism as not in their national interest. But of course if it were Israel defending and asserting its cultural heritage – well that would be a different matter.
Australia is about to enshrine a race based ethnographic world view into the constitution that is antithetical to millennial western values (ergo Globalism) that Sindri seems so impassioned to defend, yet somehow this is to be celebrated by all those same masses who double as Russian haters. So there you go Peter Smith. Its so simple and black and white you see. Elitist Globalists= Goodies. Russians = Baddies. Know your place !
P.S. Sindri, It is usually best to actually know the name of a person one is invoking to support or debunk an argument. Baud is in fact Baudrillard. But what’s in a name?
“millennial western values (ergo Globalism) that Sindri seems so impassioned to defend”
¿Que?
What’s a “millenial western value”?
PS “But what’s in a name?” Quite. He’s still a crackpot, who thinks the Skripals had a case of food poisoning.
Intriguing to note that Eurasia was one of the three fictional superstates in Orwell’s 1949 dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, the other two being Eastasia and Oceania.
For Orwell, Eurasia comprised “the whole of the northern part of the European and Asiatic landmass from Portugal to the Bering Strait.” It was formed after the Soviet Union annexed continental Europe. Its ideology: Neo-Bolshevism.
Eastasia consisted of “China and the countries south to it, the Japanese islands, and a large but fluctuating portion of Manchuria, Mongolia and Tibet.”
If the Neo-Eurasianists read Orwell, they probably see his book as evidence of the West’s decline and triumph of totalitarianism.
‘’He is still a crackpot…..’ well you must know, after all you do know him by a name that was hitherto hidden from the rest of us, including the man in question. Maybe that’s the post truth definition of an ‘expert’’ .
Sindri, you say: “Peter, I’m struggling to work out your position.” I am too. But I am not in the camp which puts all the blame on Russia. It isn’t black and white, in my view. Some simple-minded people think that’s being pro-Russian. Can’t help that or them. I think the idea of Ukraine joining NATO was perceived as a threat by Russia. Why not?. We are worried about Chinese bases in the Solomon Islands 2000 kms away.
And, so far as arming Ukraine, when does it stop – until the last man standing? Being provided with a continuous supply of high tech weapons means, maybe, that Ukraine can hold out indefinitely yet be unable to win against a more powerful enemy. There is no incentive for the weapons suppliers, basically all, powerful, western nations, to make peace because they are suffering no casulaties. It is a hopeless situation; and one which, in my view, we have not quite seen before. I’d like to see western nations putting as much effort into mediating peace as they are in supplying missiles. Instead, they’re all in for war by proxy. Defeating Russia by proxy at any cost to Ukrainian and Russian lives.
@citizen Kane: he calls himself “Jaques Baud”. Not hidden from us at all. Cheers, S.
https://www.thepostil.com/the-latest-on-ukraine-from-jacques-baud/
Thanks Peter.
Thanks Mervyn & beautifully argued Peter.
@Peter Smith, you say it is not black and white, what is? You say that you are struggling to work out your position, as a christian you shouldn’t be. Whilst there maybe some foundation for concern in the minds of some russians about the expansion of NATO ( and also hope, in the minds of many other russians), do the facts, as we are presently aware, justify the bombing and killing of Ukrainians today? It is actually very simple. If you were on a jury knowing the facts as we know them today, would you excuse an accused (Putin) charged with unlawful killing on the reasons proffered by Putin in his speech of February 24. The dead include children probably in their hundreds. You must find justification to excuse that killing. IF you are happy for those children to die today, on the basis of the rambling justification set out in Putins speech, then in my view either your facilities of reasoning have deteriorated, or you are employing a morality or ethical position foreign to what I am familiar with. You see it is one thing to look back on past events say WWII, and like AJP Taylor point out the historical elements that explain (as opposed to justify) why Hitler had the support he got from Germans, but entirely another, to support or excuse contemporaeneous warfare which results in the killing of innocent children. People are dying today, Russians are in Ukraine, not vice versa, do the facts (as we know them) support those deaths?
>”Defeating Russia by proxy at any cost to Ukrainian and Russian lives.”< [Comment above, Peter Smith]
Except that Germany and it's EU satellites are now very close to existential crisis over energy supply and affordability. The UK is in a similar position. This is not down to Putin, it is caused by Merkel and successors being too green (bloody-minded, actually) to frack-mine Germany's own gas deposits. Putin (a thug, but not necessarily stupid) simply used the opportunity she gave him.
This will cost EU/UK lives. The German Interior Minister a few days ago is recorded as saying that the German police forces are being well equipped to deal with the coming winter riots. When asked point-blank if the German police would fire live on demonstrators, he went crab-walking.
Reading some of the waffle comments above, I expect the response to this to be that energy supply is irrelevant to the Ukraine situation. My reply: "Putin (a thug, but not necessarily stupid) simply used the opportunity she gave him." EU hypocrisy contributed to Ukraine's agony and the EU will sustain considerable losses over the next 7-8 months.
The Australian accused of the mosque shootings, Christchurch, published a manifesto featuring Duginism as his main theoretical basis. The media don’t mention that fact in this new context of the attack on Dugina (most likely intended for Dugin himself). They are thus providing a free extension of Te Empress’s ban on passing along that manifesto.
Occidental, comments like “Russia could disappear tomorrow and the world would be none the worse” suggest a nasty animus and really don’t help your case at all. And since when did trying to understand the Russian perspective equate to supporting the invasion? I don’t support this war and I wish a ceasefire agreement could be reached tomorrow. Tragically, there are too many people in high places who seek to keep pouring fuel on the fire.
By the way, I hate to break it to you but Ukraine is also run by kleptocrats.
@Farnswort I was referring to Russia, not russians. Just as the Austro hungarian empire no longer exists, no one mourns its disappearance, likewise no one pines for the return of Swabia. Germany, guilty of the most heinous crimes known to humanity, nonetheless has its proponents (though I am not one) probably because of the multitude of contributions it has made in almost every intellectual sphere. Russias contribution to the human condition is miniscule in comparison. My own view is that the unfortunate history of that country, ruled by autocrats from dynastic monarchy, revolutionary communists, or present day kleptocrats has held back its human capital. My point though is given its small contributions to humanity, and its significant poor behaviour which anyone passingly interested in 20th century european history should be aware of, why does it have any support, particularly in these pages. I will tell you when trying to understand the Russian perspective equates to supporting the invasion. When you repeat the so called Kremlin argument as you did earlier without qualification. That is you stated that “The Kremlin, fearful of Western encirclement, made it clear that it would not tolerate a hostile, NATO-aligned Ukraine.” In that post you set forth all manner of “reasons” or arguments as to why Russia launched this war. You said that western leaders failed to take the warnings seriously. If that is not pushing the Russian justification for its invasion then what is it, I would like to know. And by the way do tell about the theft of public Ukrainian assets by Zelensky and his government, I am all ears.
I agree with occidental, Peter. Can’t see as a Christian any conceivable justification for Putin’s invasion, the more so when he must know of the revolting lawlessness and brutality of his wretched forces (all of a piece with his own conduct).
Let’s assume for the sake of the argument that he is concerned about ‘encirclement’ or nato encroachment (which I don’t). Even if Putin does fear nato, the reality is that nato doesn’t threaten Russia – it’s absurd to suggest that it does – and Putin’s unleashing of a brutal war of aggression against a sovereign country is not justified because of his (improbable) misconceptions. The argument confuses cause with justification. And to argue from the premise that, had nato firmly rejected at all times any eventual admission to membership of Ukraine, the invasion wouldn’t have happened, presents its own conundrums. First, what’s the basis for that suggestion? Secondly, even accepting that, had nato been firmly off the table, none of this would have happened, why is that position (no nato membership for Ukraine, ever) morally right, when based on the ill-founded threats of a bully nation? And how can it possibly mean that there is any moral justification for this invasion?
@ Occidental, – ‘I’m referring to Russia not Russians” is a nonsensical comment. Imagine saying I wish to see the expunging of Australia as if that would not concurrently expunge the notion of Australians.
“Germany, guilty of the most heinous crimes known to humanity, nonetheless has its proponents (though I am not one) probably because of the multitude of contributions it has made in almost every intellectual sphere. Russia’s contribution to the human condition is miniscule in comparison.’ – The Russian literary, art and classical music canon is the equal if not superior to anything that emanated out of Germany that only confederated in 1815 to then subsequently induce two world wars within 150 years of that federation. Even then the notion that Germany’s crimes are the ‘most heinous’ known to humanity is incredibly ignorant of the vast sweep of humanities heinous crimes throughout the sweep of history rendering the entire comment as ignorant.
@ Sindri – ‘Can’t see as a Christian any conceivable justification for Putin’s invasion” is nothing but a straw man argument. Most Russians are Christian. What kind of christian are you referring to – Cromwellian Puritans who actively promoted genocide of Roman Catholics? Or are you referring to the Spanish conquistadors?
The argument that NATO is not a valid perceived threat to Russia -‘it’s absurd to suggest that it does’ – is laughable. And China’s expansion to the South Pacific is no threat to Australia right? A more muddled line of reasoning I have not encountered.
Citizen Kane: You keep on attributing views to me which I don’t hold and have never expressed.
As for your not having encountered such muddled reasoning before, I suggest you re-read your own posts.
The many colourful and fantastical theories about why this war is happening in Ukraine generally ignore two decades of historical data. Needs must no doubt.
There does not have to be anything complicated or metaphysical about the decision the Russians made to defend their borders in the face of the US/Nato creep. It is well documented that the Russians had been saying for a decade this would be the outcome if the US/Nato aggression did not stop. One presumes the CIA coup in Ukraine in 2014 was the final straw which saw military plans put in motion.
Is it not odd that there was no talk of Dugin until his daughter was murdered. If he was such a powerful force then why was this not talked about before? Probably because it is just another useful retrofit, another mad Rasputin-like Russian, to feel the pot of vitriol bubbling on the Western stove, about the insane Russians.
The tragic death of Dugin’s daughter is just another opportunity to brew up some more ‘let’s hate Russia’ borscht.
@ Occidental,
You asked: Why in Australia do we have so many defenders of Russia?
We don’t. But we do seem to have higher levels of people capable of doing the research, understanding the history and forming balanced and substantive views about why this war has happened.
Perhaps Australians, or Quadrant readers, are more intelligent and open-minded and can identify propaganda and Russophobia and find it offensive.
Anyone, and I mean anyone, even you, who takes the time to read the histories of both Russia and Ukraine, paying particular attention to the past 30 years, and the incompetence and betrayal of the Americans in their treatment of Russia, can be left in no doubt that the Russians invaded for some very valid reasons. That does not mean people promote or support the war, but that they understand why it happened.
As the noted American political analyst John Mearshimer warned nearly a decade ago, Ukraine would be destroyed if it continued down the garden path with the US which would ‘fight to the last Ukrainian’ in its deranged goal of damaging Russia. If the Americans can threaten nuclear war when Russian missiles might be set up in Cuba, logic and common sense decree that the Russians are going to act to prevent US missiles on their actual border, barely 100k. from Moscow.
This war is of American design or incompetence, Nato cowardice and complicity and Ukrainian stupidity. All those dead children so many like to cite are not the fault of the Russians but those who made sure this war would happen.
@Occidental,
Why would it be surprising that some, perhaps many Germans, supported Hitler? Again, read the prior history of Germany to understand what brought the Nazis to power. No-one gets it all wrong and people tend to be self-serving. Many things worked in their world and the excesses of the concentration camps were not truly known until the war ended. Just as we are unlikely to know the full truth of the Jab effects until we get to the other side of the Covid madness. Truly decent people, doctors and nurses, have been and continue to play a part in something which can increasingly be called evil. Why would they do that? For the same reasons the Germans did what they did. A heady soup of fear, denial, misinformation, desperation and wanting to be ‘good.’
Americans were generally supportive of their Government attacking Iraq, when a million innocent people were killed, some 10 million maimed or injured and many millions more turned into refugees. I am sure there were some who gave little thought to the suffering of ‘ragheads’ as they were common called, just as the average German gave little thought to Slavs or Gypsies let alone followers of Judaism in a highly Christian country.
Where we humans get it wrong is believing that there was something exceptional about 1930’s Germany. There was not. We all have the same capacity for evil and we saw that emerge with the fascist approach from Governments to the Covid farce, including in Australia. For all the finger-pointing at Russia and China for their lack of freedoms we were prepared to give up all of ours,. Well, most were, in the name of a new Flu.
What cannot be surrendered then in the name of a good life and national pride. Unfortunately the Nazi excesses were not the first, not the worst and certainly not the last. To pretend they were somehow exceptional is to deny the part human nature plays in such evil.
Well I must be a simple minded person because all I see is that Russia invaded Ukraine. To suggest otherwise is like a thug who protests that his fist was hit with (the victims) jaw.
@Brian Boru, it is certainly a simplistic approach to life but depending on your level of objectivity it does not mean you are simple-minded. However, prejudice and ignorance does diminish the capacity for rational thinking.
By your criteria we could claim that Britain declared war on Germany and was to blame for all that followed. Except of course we look at the history and events prior to British declaration of war in order to understand why it happened. As a matter of principle, the same approach is advised for everyone.
As to your analogy, because you have it so wrong from the start, that is also wrong. The thug in this instance has been the US/Nato in league with Ukraine, ensuring that fist and jaw would connect.
“prejudice and ignorance does diminish the capacity for rational thinking’ I agree.
Well at least Brian Boru you are aware of your flaws so perhaps there is hope yet.
Some people say that all they see is New Holland was illegally and immorally invaded by the British.All those who disagree are nothing more than Russians..Simple- Really?
Rosross, I shouldn’t bite, but you persist in this idea that there are parallels between the Cuban Missile Crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I have pointed this out to you before.
First, at the time of the crisis, Cuba was already in a formal military alliance with the USSR; Ukraine is not a member of NATO. There was nothing the US could do about Cuba being in a military alliance with the USSR. What changed was that Krushchev actually secreted nukes into Cuba.
More fundamentally, there are no nukes in any NATO country bordering Russia, nor have there ever been, and none bordering the USSR since they were removed form Turkey in the early 60s. It’s absurd to think that if Ukraine joins NATO, its border with Russia will suddenly bristle with nukes. So there’s no comparison. I notice you fudge it by using the word “missiles”, not “nuclear missiles”, but if that’s what you meant, that again destroys your comparison. Cheers, S
PS Rosross, on a completely different topic, I was reminded when reading something you wrote recently of a Samuel Johnson bon mot, and thought you might enjoy it. When Boswell was blathering on about the idyllic lives of the South Sea Islanders, Johnson cut him off with: “Don’t cant, Sir, about savages.”
@Sindri,
You said: you persist in this idea that there are parallels between the Cuban Missile Crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I have pointed this out to you before.
And you were and are wrong. Of course there were parallels. Because of the Monroe Doctrine the Americans think they have a right to dictate what happens anywhere in the Americas. And for that matter, much of the world.
In the Russian version of such a ‘Doctrine’ it has been made clear for decades, as more than one noted American political analyst and diplomat have pointed out, that Ukraine was a Nato military base too far. Make of it what you will but just as the Americans took a stand over Cuba, so the Russians have done the same over Ukraine. The principles at work are exactly the same which means you cannot condemn the Russians for doing what the Americans have done more than once.
You said: What changed was that Krushchev actually secreted nukes into Cuba.
That bit made me laugh. And you are telling me that hands on heart, the Americans would have promised once Ukraine joined Nato that there would NEVER be any of their nukes in Ukraine or on the Russian border. Get real. More relevant is that still today most wars are fought conventionally and having nukes in Ukraine was not the point. Having missile launchers on the Russian/Ukraine border was the point. Neither side is going to resort to nukes because of mutually assure destruction. But, as history clearly reveals, the Americans have a tendency to go off half-cocked and launch conventional wars. The Russians have seen enough of that to want to protect their borders at critical points.
As I have said before, if you think the Americans would allow Chinese missile launchers on the Canadian or Mexican borders then you don’t understand the Americans or global power dynamics.
You said: that again destroys your comparison.
Since you got all of it wrong through misunderstanding or an inability to process the written word the only thing destroyed is your credibility.
You said: Rosross, on a completely different topic, I was reminded when reading something you wrote recently of a Samuel Johnson bon mot, and thought you might enjoy it. When Boswell was blathering on about the idyllic lives of the South Sea Islanders, Johnson cut him off with: “Don’t cant, Sir, about savages.”
Another indicator of your inability to judge relevance. A bon mot which without context is meaningless. But then it is clear that you do not do context in regard to Russia so perhaps context and perspective remain qualities you have yet to grasp.
Sindri; as rosross says, it’s about context. She believes if America is involved it must be bad. It doesn’t matter that countless American lives have been given in the pursuit of peace and democracy throughout the world.
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It doesn’t matter that Ukrainian cities are being obliterated and innocent people killed by an aggressor. It’s the victim’s fault.
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To say that NATO was ever a threat to Russia is to deny the reason for it’s existence in the first place. It exists for the very reason that Russia does not like it. That’s context.
@Brian Boru,
Never let facts get in the way of propaganda. I would thank you for not imputing words to me I have never said.
You said: She believes if America is involved it must be bad.
Not at all, but as history so clearly records, generally it is. The litany of assassinations, coups and wars bred in the USA are long indeed. You should read Barbara Tuchmann.
You said: It doesn’t matter that countless American lives have been given in the pursuit of peace and democracy throughout the world.
Beyond the Second World War American lives have not been given in pursuit of peace or democracy, just American military and economic hegemony. Ask the millions who died in Vietnam, Korea, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Palestine, Syria, Yemen, various South American and African countries subjected to the American drive for power if they found much peace or democracy in those Yankee boots and guns.
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You said: It doesn’t matter that Ukrainian cities are being obliterated and innocent people killed by an aggressor. It’s the victim’s fault.
Not at all. It is the fault of those who created the war, American aggression, Nato cowardice and Ukrainian stupidity.
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You said: To say that NATO was ever a threat to Russia is to deny the reason for it’s existence in the first place. It exists for the very reason that Russia does not like it. That’s context.
Yes, that is context, in terms of official propaganda, lacking of course historical facts but needs must. Nato when founded was never needed and has long exceeded its ‘use by’ date. It was created as an American tool/weapon of aggression and maintained as such. It is almost sweet how many are gullible enough to believe the American spin about spreading peace and democracy. Most Americans believe it also but they tend to be poorly educated and liable to brainwashing. However, with friends and family in the US I have great sympathy for them. They cannot help it. Australians should know better.
The fact that some are incapable of recognising American aggression hardly negates its reality.
Quote: In a moment of candor, Joe Biden has revealed why the U.S. needed the Russian invasion and why it needs it to continue, writes Joe Lauria.
The U.S. got its war in Ukraine. Without it, Washington could not attempt to destroy Russia’s economy, orchestrate worldwide condemnation and lead an insurgency to bleed Russia, all part of an attempt to bring down its government. Joe Biden has now left no doubt that it’s true.
The president of the United States has confirmed what Consortium News and others have been reporting since the beginnings of Russsiagate in 2016, that the ultimate U.S. aim is to overthrow the government of Vladimir Putin.
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said on Saturday at the Royal Castle in Warsaw. The White House and the State Dept. have been scrambling to explain away Biden’s remark.
But it is too late.
“The President’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region,” a White House official said. “He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.”
On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “As you know, and as you have heard us say repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia, or anywhere else, for that matter,” the last words inserted for comic relief.
Biden first gave the game away at his Feb. 24 White House press conference — the first day of the invasion. He was asked why he thought new sanctions would work when the earlier sanctions had not prevented Russia’s invasion. Biden said the sanctions were never designed to prevent Russia’s intervention but to punish it afterward. Therefore the U.S. needed Russia to invade.
“No one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening,” Biden said. “That has to sh- — this is going to take time. And we have to show resolve so he knows what’s coming and so the people of Russia know what he’s brought on them. That’s what this is all about.” It is all about the Russian people turning on Putin to overthrow him, which would explain Russia’s crackdown on anti-war protestors and the media.
It was no slip of the tongue. Biden repeated himself in Brussels on Thursday: “Let’s get something straight … I did not say that in fact the sanctions would deter him. Sanctions never deter. You keep talking about that. Sanctions never deter. The maintenance of sanctions — the maintenance of sanctions, the increasing the pain … we will sustain what we’re doing not just next month, the following month, but for the remainder of this entire year. That’s what will stop him.”
It was the second time that Biden confirmed that the purpose of the draconian U.S. sanctions on Russia was never to prevent the invasion of Ukraine, which the U.S. desperately needed to activate its plans, but to punish Russia and get its people to rise up against Putin and ultimately restore a Yeltsin-like puppet to Moscow. Without a cause those sanctions could never have been imposed. The cause was Russia’s invasion.
Regime Change in Moscow
Biden’s speech in Warsaw. (Office of the President/Wikimedia Commons)
Once hidden in studies such as this 2019 RAND study, the desire to overthrow the government in Moscow is now out in the open.
One of the earliest threats came from Carl Gersham, the long-time director of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Gershman, wrote in 2013, before the Kiev coup: “Ukraine is the biggest prize.” If it could be pulled away from Russia and into the West, then “Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”
David Ignatius wrote in The Washington Post in 1999 that the NED could now practice regime change out in the open, rather than covertly as the C.I.A. had done.
Rosross, re the Johnson quote, you obviously thought I was having a go – understandable I suppose but I wasn’t. We don’t agree with much of what each other writes, and that goes for most of your piece a few weeks ago, but you are absolutely, perfectly entitled to express your opinions, and I thought the Johnson quote was interesting on a number of levels – including that such a thing could be said in the eighteenth century without fear of legal consequences! Anyway, wasn’t having a go.
rosross; You have now agreed that you believe that generally it is bad if America is involved. Your comment thereafter confirmed your belief. That’s the context in which your comments must be read.
@Brian Boru,
You don’t read much history then do you? My comment merely reflects historical facts. Use whatever context you like. I will stick with factual reality.
@Sindri,
I did not think you were having a go. I had no idea what you were trying to say in essence. I could not see the point or relevance of it as I said. It seemed totally out of context but, as I also said, that seems par for the course.
Agreement is never required. Respect is however useful. We can agree to disagree. None of it is personal and the medium is cryptic.
rosross: The facts don’t change, what changes is the interpretation people deduce from the facts. When you say you are sticking with factual reality you are actually sticking with your interpretation of the facts.
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I hope that as a learned person, as you obviously are, that you can understand that.
@Brian Boru,
Yes, interpretations can change but they must be supported by historical facts. My position is supported by historical facts and yours is not. We have decades of clearly detailed records regarding US/Nato actions/aggression toward Russia and the Russian responses toward them. These have been clearly articulated by the world’s top political analysts, including American and by some senior diplomats, including American. Yes, prejudice can lead to distorted interpretation of the facts but they will be easily overturned because they are not supported by facts.
I hope as a reasonably intelligent, if poorly informed individual, you can understand that.
Srdja Trifkovic on Dugin’s influence within Russia:
“Dugin’s mystical brand of millenarian Eurasianism is not, and has never been, appreciated by Putin or by the boneheaded security forces around him. They regard Dugin as an eccentric whose ideas are neither useful nor even interesting.
The same can be said of the rest of the Russian society—left, right, or center. Liberals abhor Dugin’s critique of the deformed, self-hating West, while nationalists dislike his notable streak of Soviet nostalgia. Arguably, Dugin is better known among the media consumers in the West than among those in his own country..”
http://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/russias-strawman-svengali-feels-the-wests-wrath/
Quite a bit has been written about Dugin in Quadrant over the years, and (as might be expected) never more perceptively than by Mervyn Bendle, and by reference to Dugin’s own output:
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2022/02/eurasianism-putins-new-world-order/
Quote: Even from a blinkered American perspective, the whole Western plan was a dangerous game of bluff, enacted for reasons that are hard to fathom. Ukraine is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a vital security interest of the United States. In fact, Ukraine hardly matters at all…. In contrast, for Russia—with its 1,200-mile shared border and its history of three major land-route invasions from the West, the most recent of which, during World War II, caused the death of roughly 13 percent of the entire Russian population—Ukraine is the most vital of national interests. (pp. 60–61, emphasis removed)
The underlying cause of the war lies not in an unbridled expansionism of Mr. Putin, or in paranoid delusions of military planners in the Kremlin, but in a 30-year history of Western provocations, directed at Russia, that began during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and continued to the start of the war. These provocations placed Russia in an untenable situation, for which war seemed, to Mr. Putin and his military staff, the only workable solution. (p. 7)
Abelow documents his thesis to the hilt, placing great emphasis on the promise of the United States to refrain from expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders. Supporters of current US policy have countered by pointing out that the United States made no written commitment to this effect, but this is a mere technicality, and the weight of the evidence supports the Russian view of the question.
In describing this episode, I am not suggesting that Western assurances were legally binding, or that the violation of these assurances fully explains Russia’s invasion of Ukraine … I simply want to note that the West acted in a way calculated to deceive Moscow, and this episode laid the foundation for the evolving Russian sense that NATO, and the United States in particular, could not be trusted. (p. 12)
In the years since this broken promise, the US has continued a policy of provocation and hostility.
In late 2013 and early 2014, anti-government protests occurred in Independence Square in Kiev. These protests, which were supported by the United States, were subverted by violent provocateurs. The violence culminated in a coup in which armed, far-right Ukrainian ultra-nationalists took over government buildings and forced the democratically-elected pro-Russian president to flee the country. (p. 15)
It soon afterward came to light that Virginia Nuland, a neoconservative warmonger of long standing, and some of her colleagues had a hand in these developments.
As if this were not enough, the United States has again and again stated an intention to admit the Ukraine to NATO, in the face of Putin’s repeated declarations that this would be an intolerable state of affairs for Russia.
It would be a serious mistake to discount Abelow as unduly pro-Russian in his sympathies. The efforts he supports to secure a peaceful settlement by making concessions to Russia are in the best interests of the Ukrainians themselves, even those hostile to Russia. True friends of Ukraine should not send vast amounts of military aid to the intransigent Zelensky regime: that is the way to what Kant in another context aptly calls the peace of the graveyard.
Mises Institute. How The West Brought War to Ukraine.
https://mises.org/wire/review-how-west-brought-war-ukraine
rosross, having read your comments above, and the many responses, with much interest but growing concern, I can no longer hold back. As you say, it’s important to know history, but also to understand the array of lenses and filters through which it can be distorted and interpreted. With parents from that part of the world, and relatives still living there, I’m intensely interested in what’s going in between Russia and Ukraine — and, having been an ultra-leftist for the first half of my life, am fully cognisant of just how ideology can twist one’s interpretations of history. Affirmation bias is powerful, in recent years hugely amplified in the echo chambers of the internet and social media. It’s all too easy to fall for conspiracy theories, especially when they agree with your worldview.
Let me address just a few of your beliefs, as reflected by your claims, above.
Yes, there are many ignorant folk in the USA, but of all the people in the world, But there are also many smart and altruistic people there as well. I’d guess every one of them has the easiest and widest access to all sorts of information and opinions anywhere, from around the world. And they don’t run the risk of being officially imprisoned or killed for expressing their beliefs, so they don’t have to hold back. Just compare their situation with that of their peers in Russia, or China, say.
Russia does have big borders, with many countries, as only to be expected for a such a big land mass (by way of contrast, we in Oz are uniquely endowed by living on the world’s biggest neighbourless island). Why is Russia so huge? Only because its previous rulers indulged in incessant land-grabs from their neighbours, over many centuries; the country comprises numerous ethnic minorities, many of whom resent having Russian as their official language, and have even fought against it; it’s not a natural agglomeration. We hear constantly that the USA is almost always at war somewhere. That applies to Russia’s history as well.
Sure, the USA did horrible things during the Cold War — but so did the USSR, and it was all for ideology, brutal and insane, looking back, but justifiable for each side at the time. After all, they were involved in a war, albeit a “cold” one (although the suffering denizens of the affected countries might not have agreed).
It’s natural for nations to act in their own interests, but the motives need not not always be mercenary. As others have mentioned, look at Roosevelt supporting the UK prior to the Pearl Harbour attack, acting out of goodwill while carefully trying not to provoke his own citizens (many of whom supported Germany) into pulling out completely. The Japanese simply made in easier for him to jump in, boots and all. Can you imagine what sort of world we’d now inhabit had the USA not entered WW11 (or WW1, even)? Had not given the USSR all that Lend Lease support? You say:” Ukraine is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a vital security interest of the United States.” True, but that could just mean that many American a driven by goodwill, being incensed by what Putin’s doing to people who are little different from themselves (indeed, could even be close relatives), with absolutely no rational justification. Hell, were I much younger, there’s a good chance I’d be over there, fighting — and i’m delighted that our government has expressed at least token support, by sending Ukraine some military equipment. I’m
sure a lot of Australians feel the same way, without demanding that we only act out of national interest.
Now, NATO: you claim it has demonstrated aggressive behaviour to Russia. Please provide just one good example. From my observations over the decades, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a toothless pussycat, all talk, little action. Were it looking for excuses to attack Russia, surely it couldn’t ask for a better one than this Ukraine fiasco offers. NATO was set up as, and has always remained, a purely defensive alliance, serving mainly as a deterrent for Russian aggression. Its infrastructure does not involve nuclear missile bases along Russia’s borders. But it’s a most convenient scapegoat.
Next, Putin. This street thug has set up the world’s biggest, most efficient mafia state, specialising in national resource grand theft. Just on those resources alone, the Russian people per capita would have to be the world’s wealthiest, yet most live in third world conditions (once you leave the big cities). You might ask, why is it so? No doubt you’ve heard of the oligarchs, Putin’s puppets, who manage the wealth extraction, and siphon off a large share into Putin’s and their own international bank accounts and real estate (oh, and the yachts, aircraft and luxury cars etc.). if the West had been so hostile to Russia, how come it freely allows Putin and his cronies to invest there, spend their holidays there, and send their kids there for schooling and university education? And why is Putin’s gang now so mad about all the Magnitsky acts being implemented, not just in the USA, but in a growing list of other countries?
It’s the height of hypocrisy to preach antagonism to the West at home, while spending most of your cultural life (and national wealth) abroad.
Given Putin’s control of the national media, the FSB, the local police services, the military etc., and his propaganda, Russia is no different from Nazi Germany — in fact, it is unquestionably a fascist state. It’s bizarre to think he might actually believe there were Nazis in Ukraine, to justify his war. If you think the American shock-jocks are vile, you should have a look at those on Russian TV; they’d run rings around Goebbels.
Of course most Russians support Putin, because they’ve been fed his propaganda, and cannot find alternative views easily. Anyone who tries to gets locked up, or worse. Given Russia’s warped history, not just over the last century, but almost from its inception, it’s no surprise that its people suffer from a form of chronic, societal PTSD, or endless “intergenerational trauma” — they’d give anything for just of a bit of peace and quiet (although many are privately disturbed by what’s being done to their Ukrainian relatives), but they’re also highly susceptible to paranoia, seeing without it you could not survive in that place. It serves Putin’s purpose to feed them bullshit about how the West has been out to destroy Russia from the beginning (why? envy?), whereas the evidence shows otherwise. When the USSR collapsed, there was genuine relief throughout the West that maybe now we could all get on well together (remember “The End of History”?). Many westerners travelled there, for job and business opportunities, mainly out of goodwill but also opportunism. The reasons it didn’t work out quite so well are mainly intrinsic to Russian society at the time, to the pervasive anarchy, but certainly not to CIA conniving. And to blame the CIA for mass demonstrations in Ukraine is to deny the local people their own grounds for discontent, and organisational capability.
Putin has openly stated that his purpose in attacking Ukraine was to “de-Nazify” it. But that’s all a smokescreen. There was no indication it was about to join NATO, but he gives that excuse in retrospect (and is capitalising on the Western help Ukraine is now receiving, as if this only confirms his earlier suspicions). Had he negotiated with its government, in good faith, things might have worked out satisfactorily, but his resort to the big stick indicates ulterior motives. I’m pretty sure he’s done it to deflect attention from his mass kleptocracy. Most people in Russia are fully aware of where their national wealth has gone, and discontent has grown hugely recently, especially amongst the young, who expected more, and are not so attuned to their history. As every demagogue knows, the best way to distract unwelcome public attention, and divert it to a “noble” common purpose, is to keep pointing out external enemies, real or imagined, then start a war, if really pushed. Putin must have been feeling pushed. And his useful idiots in the West agree, although for the wrong reasons.
pmprociv; “affirmation bias” is spot on about rosross.
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I started some of this by commenting that she believes American involvement is bad. She confirmed that she thinks this is generally the case.
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We then had an interchange about facts and the (I said different) conclusions that can be drawn from facts. She believes only one conclusion can be drawn. Of course she does, that’s what I claimed about her at the start .
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Your comment about “echo chambers of the internet and social media” is most appropriate. I think that’s where rosross spends a lot of time looking for justification of her bias.
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pmprociv; thank you for your comment.
# pmprociv. So many words with so little to say. Although I did perceive some pop psychology in the mix, ‘it’s no surprise that its people suffer from a form of chronic, societal PTSD, or endless “intergenerational trauma”.’ However, I do find it passing strange, that an ardent Ukrainian sympathizer (nee national) – ‘Hell, were I much younger, there’s a good chance I’d be over there, fighting..’ would be in a position to accuse another of being subject to affirmation bias. I think they call that projection psychology. (another shining example above is #Brian Boru comment: pmprociv; “affirmation bias” is spot on about rosross. ‘ followed by; ‘Your comment about “echo chambers of the internet and social media” is most appropriate. – almost a comedy skit -Someone buy that man a mirror!)
You say you are all about History, #pmprociv, well here is some recent history – Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Zelensky & Burisma. Check it out. Ukraine is known to be a hotbed of international corruption. Trump was impeached for trying to point this out against the powerful interests in the west who sought to cover their tracks (the Biden, Burisma, Zelensky story has a long way to play out yet). I for one, don’t need to be convinced that Putin is largely undesirable and sure Putin and his cronies are Kleptocrats, but maybe its just one set of Kleptocrats protecting their turf against another. And please, we all know that Russian media is full of propaganda but to suggest that the western media is anything other than the fifth column for Biden’s and Zelensky’s interests is naive in the extreme or perhaps just tainted by a severe case of ‘affirmation bias’. It would seem that Bidens elitist – Globalist cabal has as many useful idiots as Putin’s Russia.
“Elitist” is a moronic term of abuse used by leftists to describe anything that they resent or envy, and the shadows they box at, usually something fine or admirable. How ironic, and slightly dispiriting, to see it used as a term of abuse by the conspiracy-minded right to describe what they resent or envy, and the shadows they box at.
Oh” so the Hunter Biden/Joe Biden/ Zelensky/ Burisma story is a right wing conspiracy theory now is it? And I suppose the Trump-Russiagate story is hard hitting factual journalism?
‘”Elitist” is a moronic term of abuse used by leftists to describe anything that they resent or envy, and the shadows they box at, usually something fine or admirable.’ – The Globalist Elites is a subject of discussion at the upcoming CPAC conference in Sydney – so it must be a ‘leftist’ term coming from that group of hard core socialists and progressives! Or perhaps the ascribing of elitist as a leftist term is just a moronic subjective appraisal with no evidence to support it by someone with nothing substantive to add.
It might be affirmation bias but I just can’t find any justification for Putin (and his kleptocrats?) bombing and killing innocent people, destroying their towns and causing millions to flee.
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I don’t care about kleptocrats, all I see is unnecessary suffering. It amazes me that some could see otherwise.
That’s all some people saw in Afghanistan, Vietnam, Dresden etc etc…..
Citizen Kane, so that’s your justification for Russia’s actions is it?
Not justifying anything, just appreciating it for the complex, multifaceted situation (with a multitude of duplicitous agendas an all sides ) that it is – rather than a simplistic black & white, goodies v baddies appraisal that seems to satisfy many.
Citizen Kane; I am pleased to read that you are not justifying Russia’s actions.
Citizen Kane, calm down old chap; you’ll do yourself a mischief. My point was that labels like “elitist” are just that, labels. Whether used by the right or left, they are just a lazy substitute for precise thought; though for laziness and stupidity, the left are the main offenders: “classical music is elitist’, “2+2=4 is elitist”. Don’t laugh; some lowbrow academic claimed last year that 2+2=4 “reeks of white supremacist patriarchy”:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/math-professor-claims-equation-2-2-4-reeks-of-white-supremacist-patriarchy
Citizen Kane: your comment of 31st August begs and answer. My verbosity was in response to rosross’s also-big comment. I agree with much of her writing, and so have great respect for her views, and articulateness. It’s just that, on this subject, she is sadly misguided — as are a lot of otherwise intelligent observers, explaining my painstaking response to her main points of contention. At the end of the day, it boils down to justifying a completely inexplicable and inexcusable (except with bizarre “rationalization”), senselessly brutal attack on an innocuous neighbour who posed no threat (and had been a close friend and relative to that point). And this was by a nation that endlessly pleads historical victimhood and “love of peace”, a nation you’d think would be more aware than any other of the dangers of starting big wars in this day and age. Now, just who is it that keeps alluding to bringing on WW3 if things don’t go their way? Clearly, Putin assumed Ukraine would be a pushover, a sad reflection on both his military capabilities, and intelligence sources (inexcusable for a former KGB, and now FSB, boss), not to mention his own, personal intelligence. It’s so sad for me to find that so many in the West still can’t see this, and get side-tracked by talk of NATO, Biden’s son, corruption and Nazis; ideology can be a pretty murky prism through which to interpret the world.