Editors’ note: Below is an exchange between Frontpage contributors Robert Spencer and Joseph Puder on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and what America and the West must do about it. We hope our readers will find this dialogue/debate between two of Frontpage’s finest to be thought-provoking and enlightening.
Joseph Puder: The West Has Not Learned The Lessons of World War II.
We need a Churchill in the White House, not a feeble Chamberlain.
The scenes of the Russian invasion into Ukraine are reminiscent of 81 years ago when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in what was called “Operation Barbarossa.” Nazi troops stormed the Ukraine fields with thousands of tanks and Stuka dive bombers. Behind them was Hitler’s Einsatzgruppen, SS murderers set out to murder every Jew in the territories of Ukraine that the Nazi army occupied.
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s President, has copied the same tactics. Claiming his armies were merely on military maneuvers and that he had no intention of invading Ukraine, on February 24, 2022, he ordered his armies with thousands of soldiers, tanks, and jets to invade Ukraine. In 1939, Adolf Hitler, who had committed Germany not to attack the Soviet Union under the Treaty of Non-Aggression known as the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement, broke the treaty and invaded the Soviet Union with massive force. And, like the murderous Nazi Einsatzgruppen, Putin sent a similar group of Chechen murderers to assassinate Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, and members of his government.
Hitler, in the summer of 1941, already had Europe almost entirely under his brutal boot, but his “lebensraum” or living space concept, which he specified in his book, “Mein Kampf,” and speeches, required him, in his mind to remove the Slavic and other so-called non-Aryan peoples in Eastern Europe from their land and populate them with German people. So naturally, Hitler was not going to stop anywhere ‘while the going was good.’
Let us be clear, Putin is not Hitler, he is not the sadist, and antisemitic murderer that Hitler was. Nevertheless, he too has a dream of restoring to Russia the title of the super-power that the Soviet Union became after World War II. He is a Russian nationalist whose formative years in the Soviet Union were spent absorbing Soviet propaganda, and subsequently becoming a KGB officer. It made him a staunch believer in Russian power. His father fought with the Red Army in WWII, and his native Leningrad suffered enormously during World War II. He also learned from the example that Hitler had provided, that when your potential enemies are weak, it is time to strike.
Hitler had British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to deal with. An appeaser who desperately wanted to avoid war at all costs, and indeed, the costs were much higher for Britain and the world for not recognizing that evil can only be stopped by force and not by appeasement. Had the allies stopped Hitler early on in 1936 when he occupied the Rhineland, World War II would never have occurred. Even in 1938, before Hitler annexed by force the Czechoslovakian territory of the Sudetenland under the 1938 Munich Agreement, in which Chamberlain sold out the Czechs, and got in return World War II. Had the western powers used the military option, the German military High Command (the Wehrmacht) would have removed Hitler from power, as was revealed in later years.
Putin, like Hitler, views US President Joe Biden as weak and feeble, just as Hitler saw Chamberlain. A person who refuses to use the military option with the radical regime of the Ayatollahs in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and would certainly not dare to challenge Russia’s military might. Putin figures that Biden and the Western leaders would scream ‘bloody murder,’ but won’t challenge him militarily, not even using a ‘no-fly zone’ over the Ukrainian civilian population, for fear of entanglement with Russia. Putin doesn’t want a nuclear war any more than Biden, Johnson, or Macron. He knows, however, that he is dealing with Chamberlains, not with Churchills.
It is apparent to Putin that President Biden and the other major western leaders fear him enough not to challenge his actions other than with words and economic sanctions that hitherto have had little impact on Putin and his regime. He took Crimea in March, 2014 from Ukraine, and the Obama administration’s reaction was so anemic that it only encouraged him to go further and initiate the separatist violent rebellion against the Ukrainian government in the Donbas region of southeastern Ukraine (Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts of Ukraine), less than a month later. As the case of the US imposed sanctions on Iran has proven, sanctions cannot alter the behavior of a radical authoritarian regime, and only the unpleasant choice of a credible threat of Military action will make Russia or Iran change its course.
There was a time when the US did just that, used the military option. President John F. Kennedy did it during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis; he took military action after diplomacy failed. True, the Soviet missiles in Cuba posed an existential threat to the US… And yet, President Lyndon Johnson did it in the Middle East, when the Soviet Union threatened to send its troops to aid Syria against Israel during the Six Day War of June 1967.
Uri Bar-Noi, in a report for the Wilson Center dealing with the Soviet Union and the Six Day War had written his article based on revelations from the Polish government archives, “The Soviet Union military took practical steps to assist Syria in stopping the advance of Israeli troops into Syrian territory toward the end of the war. These steps included a naval landing, airborne reinforcement, and air support for ground operations. Military operations were, however, eventually aborted for fear of American retaliation.” President Johnson responded by putting American forces on standby, ready to respond to the Soviet’s moves.
In today’s climate of near pacifism in the US and the western world, there are no Churchills to be found. There is however one inspiring Churchill-like person and that is the leader of Ukraine – President Volodymyr Zelensky. He alone has stood up to the bullying of Vladimir Putin with the determination of David facing Goliath, and that in spite of the odds facing him. He inspired his people and the world by taking on a nuclear superpower with its enormous military machine and an abundance of natural resources, particularly oil and gas. He alone put into deeds what it means to fight for freedom, and human dignity.
While Biden and others filled the airwaves with platitudes, they fear facing the Russian bear. Fortunately for Winston Churchill, he was able to, after Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) enjoy the benefits of the “Arsenal of Democracy,” Zelensky and Ukraine remain alone in fighting an unrestrained aggressor. Sadly, never has America needed a Churchill more in the White House than now. Instead, we have a feeble Chamberlain.
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Robert Spencer Responds: What Are the Real Lessons of World War II?
It’s true: we need a Churchill, but we don’t need a world war.
It’s interesting that Joseph Puder begins his article calling for the U.S. to stand up much more firmly to Putin than it is doing now by likening the Russian army’s actions in Ukraine to the German army’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Puder doesn’t mention the fact that many Ukrainians fought tenaciously on the side of the Nazis in that conflict; nor does he mention that fighting in Ukraine now against the Russians is the Azov Battalion, a gang of actual neo-Nazis, not the kind the establishment media sees whenever a guy goes out wearing a MAGA hat. Nor are they some outliers: in 2014, then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called them “our best warriors.”
This is not to say that Russia’s invasion is justified, or that Americans should not support Ukraine’s resistance; it’s only meant to illustrate that sometimes matters are much more complicated than meets the eye, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict is a quintessential example of that.
Puder is correct that Neville Chamberlain “desperately wanted to avoid war at all costs,” and appeasement failed before World War II and will fail to stop Putin. He is also correct that Putin, like everyone else on the face of the earth, sees Old Joe Biden as “weak and feeble, just as Hitler saw Chamberlain.” According to Puder, Putin “figures that Biden and the Western leaders would scream ‘bloody murder,’ but won’t challenge him militarily, not even using a ‘no-fly zone’ over the Ukrainian civilian population, for fear of entanglement with Russia.” He sees Putin’s statement that this would be considered an act of war as an empty threat: “Putin doesn’t want a nuclear war any more than Biden, Johnson, or Macron. He knows, however, that he is dealing with Chamberlains, not with Churchills.”
It is undoubtedly true that Putin sees Biden as weak. It is less certain that if the U.S. sets up a no-fly zone in Ukraine, the Russians will not see it as a casus belli and start World War III. And as odious as Putin’s actions in Ukraine are, they aren’t our fight. Volodymyr Zelensky, for all his heroism, is tied into the World Economic Forum cabal. Ukraine is a corrupt kleptocracy with still-unexplained ties to the Biden family; it was a Ukrainian energy firm that gave Hunter Biden a high-paying job for which he was completely unqualified, in an obvious case of buying influence. Except for brief periods, Ukraine was part of Russia for a thousand years, until 1991. Putin may go on from Ukraine to menace NATO states, and that could be a legitimate casus belli, but Ukraine is no hill to die on, or to start a world war on. It is not actually the United States’ responsibility to solve the problems of all the people in the world, and there will always be tyrants, and invasions, and occupations. We can’t fix them all, especially with our woke military spending time on gender theory that it could be spending on learning to fight.
In this connection it is important to recall that even as the Nazis stormed across Europe in 1939, 1940, and 1941, swiftly conquering Poland, Norway, France and more, the United States did not enter the war. President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted very much to get into the war, but he could not sell to the American people the idea that it was the responsibility of the American people to fight for Poland, or Norway, or France. It was much more widely understood then than it is now that the United States of America is not the world’s policeman or repair man, and will only expend its resources fruitlessly when it tries to act as such (see, for example, Iraq and Afghanistan).
Roosevelt didn’t enter the war, in fact, until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States on December 11. It was at that point, and not before then, that World War II became our fight. Roosevelt had given all manner of aid to the British before Pearl Harbor was bombed, and Biden’s handlers, if they have any spine at all, should do the same in this case, but the idea that, as Puder says, “only the unpleasant choice of a credible threat of Military action will make Russia or Iran change its course” runs the risk of provoking a real war, one that could be far more catastrophic than any war the planet has seen up to now.
There is no doubt that Puder is right: America needs a Churchill in the White House. But when Churchill became prime minister of Great Britain, the war in Europe had already been raging for eight months. He didn’t start the war by reckless actions in a conflict that did not involve his country. We need a prudent leader of his type now, one who will know how much is enough and how much is too much in dealing with Putin. As it is, our feckless State Department and dementia-ridden president are foolishly writing checks their woke military can’t cash.
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Joseph Puder Responds: Evil, If Not Stopped, Will Swallow Us All.
If Vladimir Putin wants a global nuclear war, he could choose multiple reasons to serve as a casus belli and wage war. If pressed hard by western sanctions, including the cutting off of his oil and gas revenues, he is as likely to consider it a casus belli, and turn against the NATO allies. Putin, I have no doubt, feels just as intensely about his economic strangulation as he does about a no-fly zone in and around Lviv, to protect the fleeing Ukrainian refugees, should the US and NATO allies consider imposing it.
Robert Spencer is correct about Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazis, and I should add the rabid antisemitism on the part of many Ukrainians during WWII, and even to some extent today. Naturally, there were some Ukrainians who saved Jews as well. My own parents escaped being murdered by Ukrainians during WWII. My mother’s courage and Russian troops nearby saved them from certain death. Modern Ukraine is different, it seeks to be democratic, and share western values, and Volodymyr Zelensky is not Petro Poroshenko. In the late 1930’s or 1940’s, the thought of a Jewish president in Ukraine would have been impossible. Today, Ukraine looks to the west – not to the east, and it should be embraced.
Spencer isn’t exactly accurate when asserting that “the Ukraine was part of Russia for 1,000 years.” In fact, Russia, as we know it today has its roots in Kiev – Ukraine’s capital. The Kievan state existed until the year 1240, when the Mongol hordes crushed it. Actually, Putin has claimed Ukraine for historical and religious (Russian Orthodoxy) reasons. He forgets however that Kiev was the cradle of what we know as Russia. Kiev originated the Cyrillic alphabet, and Russian Orthodoxy.
Let’s be clear, I am not advocating a military and possibly a nuclear confrontation with Putin’s Russia; understandably, such a conflict could lead to World War III and an end to life as we know it. We must however understand that Putin is not some crazy monster who is set on incinerating the west, and his Mother Russia. He is though, succeeding in intimidating the west. When he took Crimea and effectively tore the Donbas region out of Ukraine, the Obama administration and its western allies whimpered, and condemned, but did nothing. And when Obama set up a “red line” against the Syrian dictator upon his use of chemical weapons on his people, he pathetically let it slide…President Joe Biden’s responses to foreign aggression is even more pathetic, as we have seen last year in the Afghanistan debacle.
Putin believes that Russia has some justified reasons to fear the expansion of NATO eastward, and at the same time, he seeks to recreate the former Soviet Union. A child of Soviet propaganda, Putin envisions a superpower Russia with all the natural resources of its former republics such as Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc. In a 2014 interview with the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, he (Gorbachev) stated that he thought that the NATO enlargement and incorporation of former Warsaw Pact countries was a “big mistake,” and a “violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made in 1990.”
All of the above notwithstanding, Ukraine held democratic elections, and elected Volodymyr Zelensky as president. The Ukrainian people, moreover, have the right to determine their future, a right Putin does not have. And, if the people of Ukraine choose to join NATO, or the EU, as a sovereign state they have the right to do so.
The real question is where will Putin stop? Will he be satisfied with subjugating Ukraine against the will of most of its people? Poland, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary, all of them border Ukraine; will he push further into these states to punish them for supporting Ukraine? Putin is obviously not deterred by the likes of Joe Biden, Boris Johnson, Emanuel Macron, or Olaf Scholz. He recognizes the near pacifism in the western world, and he is not frightened by western economic sanctions, since they have not hitherto impacted him personally, or for that matter, Russia.
Spencer is correct about FDR wanting to fight Nazi Germany but he could not sell the American people on entering the war to save Poland, France, or other conquered nations. There is a difference however this time around. Article 5 of the NATO charter specifies that the US is committed to fight against any aggression committed against a fellow NATO member. True, Ukraine is not yet a NATO member, and therefore the US has no legal obligation to protect it. But the American people today are far less isolationist than in the 1930’s or the period just before Pearl Harbor. Most Americans see it as a moral obligation to defend innocent civilians, and they are aghast by Russia’s naked aggression. I agree with Spencer that “America is not the world’s policeman,” but we must also realize that evil, if not stopped will swallow us all.
While acknowledging Joe Biden’s desire for world peace and avoidance of war is understandable, warning Putin with a credible military option against further Russian expansion is essential. At some point a no-fly-zone will become an imperative. Sadly, America needs a Churchill in the White House right now. Instead, it seems, we have a Chamberlain.
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Robert Spencer Responds: There’s a Fine Line Between Strength and Provocation.
Joseph Puder is certainly correct that if Vladimir Putin wants war with the United States, he could start it now, trumpeting any number of actions by the U.S. and its allies, from expanding NATO ever eastward to arming Ukraine and more, as the reasons why he had no choice but to declare war. It is clear by now that he doesn’t want a world war, which would almost certainly be a nuclear war of unimaginable devastation, any more than Joe Biden and his handlers do. But Puder believes, not without reason, that Biden’s handlers can and should present a much stronger front to Putin, and that doing so would deter the Russian from continuing to pursue his expansionist goals. While strength is always to be preferred to appeasement of a tyrant, however, the current regime of socialist internationalists and spineless dreamers cannot be trusted to know what constitute a reasonable show of strength and what constitutes an unwarranted provocation.
Take, for example, that expansion of NATO. In his February 24 speech announcing the invasion of Ukraine, Putin said: “In December 2021 we once again made an attempt to agree with the United States and its allies on the principles of ensuring security in Europe and on the non-expansion of NATO. Everything was in vain. The US position did not change. They did not consider it necessary to negotiate with Russia on this important issue for us, continuing to pursue their own goals and disregarding our interests.”
If this is true, it is not hard to imagine Antony Blinken and his team too concerned with making sure the State Department had the right number of racial minorities and proper instruction in Critical Race Theory to concern themselves with Putin’s overtures. They could have and should have known that Russia considers the expansion of NATO into former Soviet republics to be an unacceptable attempt to encircle Russia, as Putin explained in his speech: “I am referring to the expansion of the NATO to the east, moving its military infrastructure closer to Russian borders. It is well known that for 30 years we have persistently and patiently tried to reach an agreement with the leading NATO countries on the principles of equal and inviolable security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we constantly faced either cynical deception and lies, or attempts to pressure and blackmail, while NATO, despite all our protests and concerns, continued to steadily expand. The war machine is moving and, I repeat, it is coming close to our borders.”
One doesn’t have to accept Putin’s argument or consider his invasion of Ukraine justified to see that his characterization of Biden’s imperious, elitist State Department is entirely plausible. It is important to point this out now, after the invasion, because the same ham-handed, blinkered, pseudo-intellectual Leftists whose short-sightedness and wrongheadedness let the invasion happen in the first place are still in charge. If a show of strength to Putin can be bungled, they can be counted upon to bungle it.
As for Puder’s claim that it is not accurate to say that “Ukraine was part of Russia for 1,000 years,” he actually demonstrates that it is accurate by noting that “Russia, as we know it today has its roots in Kiev – Ukraine’s capital.” One may quibble over whether Kievan Rus was Russian or Ukrainian, but the telling fact is that it was both, and that throughout history the two have been more one people than two. The fact that, as Puder claims I forgot but which was actually the basis of my argument, it is true that “Kiev was the cradle of what we know as Russia,” and that is precisely why Putin believes he has a claim to it. This is not to say that Ukraine should not be independent, unless one wishes also to argue that Austria and Germany should be one state, a proposition I am not at all disposed to favor.
Puder says that he is “not advocating a military and possibly a nuclear confrontation with Putin’s Russia,” but the weak and feckless socialist policy wonks who inhabit Biden’s State Department and entire administration have never demonstrated anything comparable to the judiciousness and wisdom of Churchill or anyone else who ever brought a major war to a successful conclusion. Puder is in effect asking that Biden’s gang of arrogant, miseducated children, with no understanding of history, culture, religion, or economics stand up to a canny, unscrupulous, utterly ruthless authoritarian. The consequences of their miscalculation, and the hopeless Blinken is certain to miscalculate, would be, as Puder says “World War III and an end to life as we know it.” Putin may not be, as Puder says, “some crazy monster who is set on incinerating the west,” but the foreign policy establishment is a bunch of self-infatuated grad students with no understanding of how the world works; he can and would take advantage of their attempts to draw some “red line” that both he and they would know from the outset was spurious.
Ukraine, meanwhile, is a corrupt kleptocracy that gave Hunter Biden a high-paying job in a field in which he had no experience, in an obvious attempt to curry favor with Joe Biden. It was a phone call with Zelensky that got Trump impeached, in an obvious partisan witch-hunt, the first time. This is not to say that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was justified, or that Putin is not a scoundrel, or that the Ukrainians are not noble in resistance, or that Zelensky is not courageous. But once again, this is not our fight, and making it our fight could so easily spiral out of control that it is imperative that we keep a cool head amid all the prevailing war fever. Haven’t we learned the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan yet?
Puder admits that Ukraine is not in NATO and so we have no obligation to defend it, but thinks that we should anyway, for “we must also realize that evil, if not stopped will swallow us all.” Well, yes. But that’s why NATO has members and non-members. We are bound, for better or worse, to defend NATO’s members. If this means that we have an obligation to fight evil anywhere else in the world that it may appear, we might as well bring every country in the world into NATO, so that it is clear that we are obligated to fight for them all and to combat evil wherever and whenever it may break out.
That may be a wonderful sentiment, but it is utterly impracticable. Our resources are not infinite, and our self-serving, corrupt leaders are already pouring out our substance for all manner of boondoggles that benefit the American people not a whit. At some point, the gravy train is going to run out. What we really need is a strong America-First president, who would have made clear to Putin from the outset that his adventurism would have terrible consequences, and who would have always acted in the best interests of the American people. If only there were someone on the scene like that.
Frank Anderson says
“People far away; about whom we know little.” (Paraphrased) Neville Chamberlain, 1938.
“Those who cannot remember the lessons of the past are condemned to repeat them.” Jorge Santayana, The Life of Reason (1905)
gravenimage says
Grim but very salient quotes here, Frank.
CogitoErgoSum says
We can compare Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to Hitler’s invasion of Poland and the breaking of his treaty with the Soviets. Then too we can also compare Putin with Kennedy threatening nuclear war if nuclear missiles are placed in an area he calls forbidden. There is also another comparison: the one where a country may attack another on the basis of the fear that another country may possess weapons of mass destruction with the intention to attack your own country. What about the Russian assertion that the Ukraine was working on developing biological weapons – weapons of mass destruction? It was the justification the U.S. used in invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam Hussein.
This is the problem with deciding guilt without any evidence that proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Bush never proved it. Putin is making claims but I’m still waiting for the proof. Based of the number of lies that have come from Joe Biden and his followers over the past few years – I no longer believe him. I don’t know who to believe anymore.
Peter35 says
“Based on the number of lies that have come from Joe Biden and his followers over the past few years, I no longer believe him.”
Seriously, you actually believed Biden? The man lies faster than a horse can gallop–faster and more than Schiff even. But at least you touched on the fact that for some reason western media keeps insisting that Putin has no reason whatsoever to invade Ukraine, while in fact he has exactly the same reason as Kennedy had with the missiles in Cuba.
Infidel says
Today, Putin actually fact-checked Biden on his claim that the current inflation pains that we are experiencing are due to Putin. He rightly pointed out that those pains are due to mistakes Biden had made, pointing out to the inflation that was already there before this invasion of Ukraine
CogitoErgoSum says
I’ve been around a while and I’m sorry to say that when I was much younger, although I thought of myself as being an Independent, I did tend to vote Democratic more often than not. So yes, there was a time a long time ago when I thought Joe Biden and other Democrats spoke the truth … but I’m older (by a lot) and wiser (by a little) now. I’ve made some mistakes in my past voting but I am proud to say that I never voted for Joe Biden. I realized he was a bad choice for President quite a while back. I still can’t believe that such a liar as he is legitimately won the 2020 election.
Melc says
Yes right. There is so much fake news and propaganda. I agree with Robert Spencer though and it is a very complex issue.
I am now listening to the BBC and I can’t believe how biased it has become. There is no difference between the political parties.
I think Prof John Mearsheimer has analysed the situation very well and who caused this conflict.
A political peace settlement has to be found after this letting of bad blood.
gregbeetham says
I think it is false to say America invaded Iraq based on false information about WMD because it is a fact that Saddam Hussein did use WMD on the Kurds and on Iran and he suspiciously refused to give the UN inspector access to places he wanted to inspect to verify that the snake in the grass was clean.
And you have to remember it took some time to gear up for the invasion (the second one as well as the first partial one), so in that space of time the desert is a big place to lose stuff in.
Just because no WMD were ultimately found sitting conveniently in plain view in a warehouse means very little when it comes to establishing the truth of the matter.
PMK says
“Our resources are not infinite, and our self-serving, corrupt leaders are already pouring out our substance for all manner of boondoggles that benefit the American people not a whit. At some point, the gravy train is going to run out. ”
Thank you, Robert Spencer. I read this earlier on FrontPage and I thank you for your clarity. The American people cannot save the world. Let the BIdens, who were paid off by the Ukraine government, save Ukraine all by themselves. This is not our fight.
Infidel says
I’m actually rooting for an end to our currency being the world’s reserve currency. Once that happens, our debt will come due, and Congress will no longer be able to fund all their fantasies that puts it at $30 Trillion!
Melc says
The only winners will be the military industrial complex.
gravenimage says
How Much Should We Get Involved in Ukraine?
………….
This is a tough one. I do *not* want a war with Russia, God knows.
But if we did nothing (and sanctions already in place are not nothing) then we embolden this kind of thuggery. I think the weakness of the West in general and the US in particular under Biden *already* emboldened Putin to invade.
Then there are all the thugs watching–China, North Korea, Turkey, Iran, and the rest of the Muslim world to see if the civilized world rolls over for this. So far much of the world, especially the civilized West, has been morally supportive of Ukraine.
Together with Ukrainian resistance, I *hope* this is enough.
Infidel says
On a different note, Russia is said to be now looking at getting Syrian troops to fight in Ukraine. Good luck: those troops are used to the hot desert climate, and are looking at moving to the European winter to fight in totally unfamiliar territory. The Russian ground troops there are already like fish out of water, and they expect the Syrians to fare better? They’re out of their mind, and only throwing willing bodies at the issue
gravenimage says
I saw that myself, Infidel–first sending in Chechen Jihadists, then Syrian Jihadists. Horrible.
As for climate, though, some of Syria is indeed desert. But much of it is not–there are temperate areas, there is often snow in places during the winters. Mt. Hermon has a skiiing area. I checked the temperature there now–it is colder in Syria right now (36 degrees F) than it is here in northern California. Average nightime temperature in March in Kviv is only ten degrees colder.
Whatever the logistics, though, just the threat of sending more Jihadists to Ukraine is pretty appalling.
Frank Anderson says
GI, no sane person WANTS war. But also, no sane person wants slavery. Given the choice, war must be accepted. If Ukraine is allowed to be taken, after so much of it has been taken earlier, it is a clear signal to encourage taking other countries. Where does it stop? Why was Hitler allowed through gross cowardice to violate the terms of the treaty to take piece after piece of country after country until the message finally hit home that his appetite was endless?
NOW we are not facing ONE person with an appetite, we are facing many, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Belarus, Venezuela, Hamas, Hezbollah, Isis, Boko Haram. . . . When do we stand? When they are killing here in the US? Oh wait; I forgot. If you combine all the deaths and injuries and looting in the US today it would compare with any other invasion in history.
gravenimage says
Frank, I agree. I have said before that if this unprovoked aggression is not vigorously opposed that it will much embolden thugs all over the world–including Jihadists. I hope this doesn’t mean going to war, but it eventually may.
Infidel says
The above exchange was interesting, and while I in summation agree more w/ RS than w/ Puder, there are some things that RS said that are actually tangential to the issues at hand:
‣ I agree w/ RS that Ukraine is not our fight. In fact, I’d argue that neither is Europe: over the decades, they’ve pretty much given up on war spending, and NATO is a fantastic deal for every country except one: the US. We are needed more in the Indo-Pacific region, given China’s attempts to do there what Imperial Japan did before WWII
‣ One might point out that we are a member of NATO, and so Article 5 applies. My point: we shouldn’t be. In fact, I’ll argue that had we wound up NATO after the Cold War, we wouldn’t be in this conflict today. The issue is the defense of the frontier states next to Russia, and that could have been arranged like Trump did it bilaterally w/ Ukraine
‣ While Vladimir Putin may use it as a pretext, the history of Ukraine is irrelevant to the question of whether or not Ukraine should be independent. It got its identity in 1914 after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and actual independence in 1992. Countries don’t get to be cancelled simply b’cos they don’t have a history that dates back as long as the ones claiming them
‣ Similarly, Ukraine’s role in WWII, or even the presence of Nazis in Ukraine today is irrelevant to the question of whether Russia has a right to move in. The Azov regiment – whatever be its ideology – operates legally in Ukraine, and that doesn’t give Russia a legal pretext to invade except for one unique scenario: if the Azov regiment threatened to attack any part of Russia. Similarly, the corruption in Ukraine, deplorable as it may be, doesn’t give Russia a pretext to invade that country either. Essentially, both Ukraine’s history as well as its current shortcomings are tangential, if not irrelevant to the question of whether it ought to be invaded by Russia
‣ I also disagree w/ RS seemingly conflating all Ukrainian presidents together. It was President Poroshenko who colluded w/ Hillary Clinton in the Trump-Russia hoax, and it was his successor Zelanskyy who tried to clean all that up w/ Trump. Also, Zelanskyy’s membership of the WEF, like above, too is irrelevant to the question of whether Russia is justified in invading. Essentially, those facts are not germane to the topic, even if Putin invokes them
Having said all that, there are a couple of things that do involve Russia that are worth noting:
‣ The former president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovich was legitimately elected President of Ukraine (as legitimate as Ukrainian standards go), and was removed in one of those color revolutions by mob rule, as opposed to a military coup. That was a justification for Russia intervening and occupying Crimea. It would have been one thing had Yanukovich lost an election in Ukraine and then gotten replaced, but since he was replaced in what amounted to a coup, the Russians did have a right to assess the security implications of what happened. It also turns out that Victoria Nuland – the current Under Secretary of State – was behind that coup, and also controlling who succeeded Yanukovich
‣ The reason the Russians annexed Crimea in 2014, aside from the fact of ethnic Russians supporting it and Ukrainian being made the sole official language of Ukraine, was that NATO was expanding eastwards and a State Department engineered coup that removed Yanukovich also resulted in a government which would have accepted NATO membership. Had that happened, Russia would have lost Sevastopol – the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet, and that port would have gone to NATO. Since there were 5 expansions of NATO post Cold War, w/ Russia never being eligible itself to join – Moscow had every reason to be leery of such moves
‣ Once President Zelanskyy got elected, there was the potential for relations w/ Russia to improve. Although Zelanskyy wasn’t as pro-Russia as Yanukovich, he was not as anti-Russian as Poroshenko. So there was an opportunity for him to go to Moscow, meet w/ Putin and sort things out in 2019-2020, but b’cos of the Trump-Russia hoax, it was feared that if he did that, it would be seen as him acting at the behest of Trump, making things even more untenable. And once Trump was gone, Victoria Nuland started manipulating things again
Last night, on Newsmax, there was a segment where Rob Schmitt delved into the recent history in 2014 w/ Hans Mahncke on what exactly happened, and the circumstances surrounding it: it corroborates what I described above. Start from 29:30 and continue until 37:00
https://www.newsmaxtv.com/Shows/Rob-Schmitt-Tonight/vid/1_orn9mrwv
So if the US State Department was busy playing President-maker in Kyiv, it was no longer something that the Kremlin could ignore. It’s one thing if Ukrainians themselves vote out a president favorable to Moscow: in that scenario, there ain’t much that the Kremlin should do. But once Ukrainian leaders unfavorable to Washington are secretly tossed out, it’s no longer something that one can claim is solely the internal matter of Ukraine
Westman says
The US should have informed the EU, at its inception, that it had 5 years to create its own military instead of the US continuing as a poorly paid bodyguard.
Infidel says
Absolutely! Or, as a part of the ‘Peace Dividend’ after 1992, just leave NATO, and let it be an all-European defense force. (Yeah, Canada could have chosen whether to stay or leave)
OLD GUY says
When did the the US get paid for this. We tax payers have been picking up the bill for NATO protecting Europe since the beginning. Funny how we will spend billions and have a military presence over in Europe to protect their borders, but fail to protect our own borders.
Westman says
Well, a paltry contribution to NATO while using the US as the bodyguard does look like paying poorly from, say, the German government’s perspective. Everyone knows the US runs NATO and that’s from where the bulk of war expenditures and troops will come.
The US helped rebuild Europe and then forgot to stop. Imagine how much the German economy benefitted from not paying the full cost of defense.
bill says
I get quite tired of the constant disparaging of Chamberlain in this kind of comment page. Chamberlain was not the only one, the French PM Deladier appeased Hitler also with the Munich pact. One has to look at the zeitgeist of the time. WWI memories were still fresh. People were still grieving the loss of their loved ones. UK had lost many thousands of young men. The maimed were still in hospital, too horribly disfigured to be seen in public. Many of the current politicians had served in the war as young men. My father was one and he was a pacifist. The horrors of the ‘war to end all wars’ were too fresh. The politicians would do almost anything to avoid another war. Have the people of USA forgotten 9/11 when ‘only’ 3000 died? That was just over 20 years ago too. In WW1 millions died. Sixteen million comabatants and a total of 37 million in all.
The UK and French politicians believed in diplomacy, they did not understand that Hitler was a
dissembling scoundrel who in fact wanted war all along. WW1 was the formative period of his life. Hitler was literally a failure until then. He wanted to restore the ‘honour’ of Germany as did many Germans, and he lusted for revenge. Munich was just to buy time, he had no intention of honouring it. Hitler could also be very chraming when he chose to be, a factor usually forgotten.There also was in UK (also in USA) a substantial body of opinion particularly among the upper class
against another war and many of them in fact admired Hitler for his achievemnets in bringing back Germany from the dire straits it was in in the post WW1 period. The Duke of Windsor was one of them; of course they did not know the real conditions in Nazi Germany; just as the Socialists who visited Soviet Russia did not knw the reality there either.
The staging in !936 of the Olympics in Berlin was pure propaganda for the Nazis.
The French and British were quick to honour their treaty with Poland and declare war on Germany; and I have always believed that if they had attacked Germany in response to the invasion of Poland, WW2 might have been avoided, as what was needed was for other countries to stand up to Hitler. Hitler and his generals were able to practice their tactics on a militarily weak Poland and the lack of action in the West emboldened Hitler to subsequently invade France and the low countries.
PMK says
bill,
Europe had every opportunity to learn what Hitler’s rise to power would mean to Germany and the rest of Europe. They just didn’t want to hear it. As early as 1930, Winston Churchill was trying to sound the alarm about Hitler.
Like it or not, Neville Chamberlain is the symbol of appeasement in that era. He (along with others) agreed to sacrifice other people’s freedom in order to get Hitler to back off. Of course, it didn’t work.
You wanted other countries to stand up to Hitler? Look at Russia. The Soviets didn’t ‘save’ Europe from Hitler. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact allowed Russia to consolidate its own territories and to sit back and watch as Britain under Churchill battled alone. The Soviets were not heroes, though some point to all the suffering endured by the Russian people under Hitler. Stalin might have prevented that, but he didn’t. Instead he and Hitler divvied up Poland between them.
Maybe if the US had not involved itself in WWI, things might have been different. It might have ended in a stalemate, with no victors to bring down the hammer on Germany. We’ll never know.
Americans still remember 9/11. (It’s insulting to say ‘only’ 3,000 people died. It’s thirty times what we lost in a single day at the height of the Vietnam War.) But again, our leaders didn’t want to face the facts about the enemy that attacked us. We all believe in ‘diplomacy’, but those who oppose us do not. Now we are forced to keep silent about the truth of Islam and what it represents, lest we offend someone. We are told the ‘extremists’ of Islam don’t represent the rest, who are just so good and ‘peaceful’.
Now it turns out that those ‘peaceful’ Muslims in the Middle East might provide mercenaries to Putin to fight in Ukraine. Jihad in Ukraine is in the offing. Europeans fought against Islamic invaders for hundreds of years. Today, we all kowtow to them. Doing otherwise is ‘Islamophobic’. What will historians of the future write about this era, assuming we survive it.
Infidel says
Actually, in all the conversations about Chamberlains and Churchills, one thing that is always lost: Germany, post WWI, was totally reduced and humiliated, and had it followed the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, they would have been on their knees for some 50+ years. Given that sort of treatment, it was inevitable that if not Hitler, someone else would have replaced the Wehrmacht Republic and put Germany back at loggerheads w/ the West. At the Treaty of Versailles, the Allies told the Germans that the terms of the treaty were more generous to Germany than what the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was to Russia. Except that Germany didn’t put Russia on a debt plan for 50+ years: they just forced them to cede territory, grant independence to Ukraine and so on
After 1993, we started to treat Russia in a similar manner. While NATO was not only not abolished following the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact: it kept getting expanded eastwards. The Russians too wanted to join, but were rebuffed, and all that was saying to Moscow was that Russia was little more than the replacement enemy of the Soviet Union for the West, which was too intellectually lazy to review the changed ground realities of the world and make the appropriate bureaucratic adjustments. End result was Putin becoming more hostile to the West, especially after the misadventure in Kosovo, and ultimately, we are where we are today
And I’ve not even started on how the decades of a Sino-Soviet split was undone, and now, we have a Russo-Chinese-Islamic alliance against the rest of the world
gravenimage says
Actually, Infidel, by Hitler’s rise the power the Treaty of Versailles was hardly being enforced. The idea that Germany had to invade and conquer much of Europe because it felt “humiliated” is mistaken.
So is the idea that Putin just had to brutally invade his neighbor because Russia was not invited into NATO is just not the case.
Putin has always wanted to seize any land once under the Russian heel–he has threatened Georgia and Ukraine previously. He just believed the rest of the world–the West, especially–was weak enough that they would say nothing. Grimly Biden fits the bill perfectly.
Infidel says
Graven
That wasn’t my point. My point was that the Treaty of Versailles had such onerous obligations that Germany was gonna be pretty crushed for a while. I specifically said that had there never been a Hitler, another person would likely have come to power in Berlin, and definitely reoccupied the Rheinland and militarized much of Germany to defend it had British or French troops reinvaded to try and force Germany to pay up
Again, I never justified Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. But one can’t say that what goes on in Ukraine is its internal affairs, if its leadership is getting installed by State Department bureaucrats like Victoria Nuland. That was something we used to do in places like El Salvador in the 80s, but we never tried that stuff in Russia’s frontyard. And like I pointed out above, had Ukraine become a part of NATO, Russia would have lost Sevastopol – a crown jewel that they lost in the Crimean War and which is the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet
gravenimage says
Dear Infidel,
Allied troops left the Rhineland in 1929–Germany didn’t have to reoccupy the Rhineland, they already had it. What Hitler did in 1936 was not take the Rhineland as part of Germany, but *remilitarize* the Rhineland, a very different matter.
As I have noted, the supposedly onerous Treaty of Versailles was not being adherred to nor enforced long before Hitler seized power. The only ones even calling for aspects like reparations to the Allies still continuing were the French, and this was pro-forma. Churchill and FDR called for non-enforcent. Neither British nor French troops had any interest in re-invading Germany to ensure payments of reparations, and Germany knew it.
The idea that Hitler or someone like him had to rise to defend Germany’s honor is simply not the case.
As for Ukraine, all the Nuland phone call proves is that the US preferred some candidates to others–this is true in every nation re the politics of every other nation. Having a preference is not an indication that the US is installing a puppet government in Ukraine. For instance, I preferred Boris Johnson to Jeremy Corbyn in the last election in Britain, and Stephen Harper to Justin Trudeau in Canada–but I was not of course actually involved in the outcome of either election.
Then, Russia seized the Crimea from Ukraine back in 2014. There is no indication even if Ukraine had joined NATO–something not in the immediate offing, in any case–that they planned to go to war with Russia to retake Crimea for Ukraine. I have never seen any indication of this at all, not even from Russia itself. Citations?
gregbeetham says
It’s looking more like as time goes on that Putin has received inaccurate intel about the situation in Ukraine or that he judged the majority feeling in Ukraine to be similar to that which existed in Crimea which was pro Russia and the current illegal government (his view) had hijacked the people and the country and courtesy of that government membership in the EU and NATO was a possibility, big mistake. There are lots of things wrong with that assessment but now he is stuck with it and the only way to ‘win’ is to convert Ukraine into a pile of rubble, which is not what he had in mind.
Fundamentally Putin made a mistake from the beginning by keeping his KGB cronies around as a shield but doing that not only put himself into a bubble but it converted a proxy democratic government into a mafia organization run by a collection of gangsters operating outside the law and now he is susceptible to receiving incorrect information or assessing things incorrectly and nobody is willing to tell him differently, and that could even be deliberate for all we know (and how would he know one way or the other?)
Such is the life of a dictator but then what does one do with a bunch of assassins at the beginning of his takeover? Keep them onside or attempt to get rid of them?
Deano says
Putin is getting old and as his days on earth are getting shorter. His reticence in starting WW3 will become less strong and he may very well push the button. I’m not even sure that should Putin go after a NATO member nation that the Biden idiots would honor our obligation. The dye was cast in the last election when through skirting election laws and outright cheating a dementia addled octogenarian and his clueless VP were “elected” to office. Quite frankly, I don’t like our chances!
tim gallagher says
I think that the response of countries all around the world, with tough sanctions, could bury the Russian economy, so I believe that is the way to go. It is exactly what Putin and his regime deserve. Then again, a scumbag like Putin, if he isn’t dumped from power by forces in Russia, might even use nuclear weapons as he sees Russia’s economy going down the toilet. What a nightmare that would be.
Infidel says
Tim
The only problem w/ that is that the sanctions are having a counter effect. I am reminded of the 80s, when conservative leaders in the West used to oppose sanctions on South Africa, arguing that it would hurt that country and have the opposite effect. They actually had it right! That’s precisely what’s happening now in Russia. Before this invasion, Putin’s popularity was something near 60%, but since the sanctions, it’s shot up 70%. Here’s an interview by Tucker Carlson of a Russia policy analyst Clint Ehrlich, who notes that some of the people he knows, who are pretty anti-Putin and pro-West, but have become anti-West as a result of the sanctions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZJMc0hhTrE
I noted this in some of the previous threads about companies like Visa and Mastercard pulling out of Russia, and now, several more brand names following suit. What is the effect of that? The Kremlin is not using credit cards to finance this war, and nor is it using Paypal or Apple Pay to do it. For all these companies pulling out, all it does is hurt ordinary Russians who’ve been using them. Also note that these are conveniences: Russians don’t get a salary from any of them for using them: all it does is make their money more fluid, enabling them to shop anywhere either online or in person in stores. Something they can no longer do as easily as a result of this withdrawal
Similarly, all the brand names pulling out – McDonalds, Nestle, Sony, Netflix – how is any of that hurting the current Russian military operation in Ukraine? All that these companies are doing are writing off the Russian market, and whenever things return to normal, how likely is it that average Russians will want to reengage w/ them? I’m not sure what, if any sales tax is applied to them, but even if they are, that’s not the bulk of what is financing this war
The only thing that would financially hurt Russia is a ban on oil sales, and so far, only the US has done that. It’s something we could have more credibly done had we not shut down our own oil drilling and exploration: I’m forgetting the numbers, but I saw in one news program that our reserves would exceed what’s produced by both Russia and Saudi Arabia. Otoh, had we not sabotaged our own oil production in the name of this new woke religion known as Climate Change, chances are that Russia would not have moved, since they’d have known that we won’t be hurt by cutting off their oil
The other aspect to this is that we’re watching Russia getting cancelled by the woke Corporate West in the same way the conservatives nowadays are often cancelled by them. Whether it is advertizers pulling out of Conservative shows, companies like Paypal or GoFundMe cancelling the accounts of right wing groups or causes, social media companies like YouTube shadowbanning or completely shutting down right leaning channels and so on. For instance, both Facebook and Twitter, which would ban one for calling for the assassination of, say, Ayatollah Khamenei or any jihad activist in the West, has relaxed that policy so that their users can call for the assassination of Putin.
I’m no fan of either, but I think I’m on more solid ground if I’m in principle opposed to companies engaging in political thought and dedicated amorally to one thing and one thing alone: the pursuit of profit. To that end, while I don’t like companies having their manufacturing operations in China, if they were just doing that – pursuing profit, I’d give them a pass for being amoral. But when they turn around, virtue-signal and lecture the rest of us about things like fighting racism, then it’s fair to ourselves turn around and demand from them what the f? are they doing in China
It’s fine for nations to impose sanctions on other nations whose activities they disapprove of, and then companies incorporated in those nations acting accordingly w/ those laws. But when companies decide to act like nations on their own and impose their own sanctions, then we are getting into a world where we’ll have to have several parallel economies in order to survive, let alone thrive
gravenimage says
Infidel–with all respect–the idea that it is best to do *more* business with a nation when they brutally invade their neighbor is very questionable. I think that cutting business ties with Nazi Germany and Iran under the Mullahs is actually a good idea. Ad I believe you are mistaken in thinking that all Russians support this aggress and hate the West for taking any steps to stem it–I don’t actually think this is the case from what we have seen.
Infidel says
One doesn’t have to do more business, but snapping all business ties w/ the people of a country is something you only do when you are preparing to go to war w/ them. And my point in this case is also that this cancellation of Russia is being done by companies, rather than countries, and is likely to be resented by average Russians who might otherwise be opposed to Putin as well as the war. Imagine a Russian citizen in, say Khabarovsk, who is opposed to the war and participates in anti Putin demonstrations. Then he tries to buy something w/ Apple Pay – won’t work! Tries to make a VOIP call to a relative in Seattle – gets an automated message cussing him. One key thing about this war is that a lot of people in the West assume exactly the opposite of what you assert – that the bulk of Russians do support this war
And then go on to treat them like they were conservatives
gravenimage says
Actually, I believe that companies have to right to decide who they want to do business with.
And the idea that Russians would oppose Putin but for Western companies pulling out of Russia is very questinable. In fact, despite protesting any government policy being so dangerous in Russia, there *are* those Russians demonstrating against the invasion of Ukraine.
Then, pulling business is a *tactic*–its morality depends on who it is aimed at. If the targets are peaceful citizens with a different political stance than the adinistration in power–conservatives, in this case–this is wrong–when the target is an aggressive regime invading its neighbors, it is something else.
In the same way, arrest and detention is a tactic–if aimed at peaceful protesters, this is wrong–if aimed at violent criminals it is a differet matter.
tim gallagher says
Thanks for the information, Infidel. I suppose that I have been sickened by what I am seeing this maggot, Putin, and his minions doing in Ukraine. Maybe it will take time and plenty of pain in Russia, from having their economy destroyed, for the people there to become really pissed off with what Putin’s invasion has brought down on them. I have been worried that somehow this invasion will set off some really major war in Europe and drag other countries into the conflict. These are worrying times, but, being far, far away in Australia, I have to say that it is China that is our worry and what is happening between Russia ans Ukraine is a very distant conflict.
Frank Anderson says
T.G., I understand how close China is to where you are. I BEG you to remember the words of Chamberlain. When tyrants SEE weakness, they get hungry. The alliance that keeps China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea in check must never lose sight that history shows this is one world, that distance is growing smaller and has little to do with who is next on the menu. Mussolini made his moves in Africa, Japan made their moves in China, showing Hitler it was his time to move in Europe.
If Russia is allowed to take Ukraine, more will follow; and some will be close to you. “A two-fold cord is strong. But a three-fold cord is not easily broken.” “Am I my brother’s Keeper?” “Who is my brother?” “Who do I hope will keep me if I am in danger?”
gravenimage says
Grimly true, Frank. I worry that other thugs will become emboldened. But taking Ukraine is not the walk in the park Putin thought–I think he has been shocked at the opprobrium from most of the rest of the world, too.
tim gallagher says
Thanks for the comment, Frank. You are right. Australia has certainly involved itself in the sanctions against Russia as we should and I think sent some aid to Ukraine. Australia has always been involved in the big scale wars against the tyrants. People out here are appalled by the viciousness of the Russian forces in Ukraine and deeply admire the brave fight the Ukrainians are putting up. Of course, as you say, the actions of one of these tyrants, such as Putin, encourages the other and so there is plenty of concern about whether China will attack Taiwan soon. Although, as gravenimage says, this invasion of Ukraine hasn’t gone as easily as Putin was expecting, so maybe China will also think that they had better not act, at least, not right now..
Frank Anderson says
T.G., for many reasons Australia has EARNED the respect and admiration of free people around the world for its sacrifices to protect that freedom, It is a shame how it has lost some of its own freedom by surrendering to its own totalitarian liberals. Of course I refer to its disarmament of individuals because it has no Constitution with a Second Amendment as does the US. I have had the great pleasure of an Australian friend who worked here to help build and establish a shipyard. A high school classmate who had a long and extremely successful career in shipbuilding is helping Australia, both here and there, to improve its industry.
For most of a decade I had to confront a corrupt and powerful state by myself. Then a few lawyers decided to help. As a consequence, I was able to fight to the finish instead of being crushed. If you want to see the story, or at least my side of it, contact the Law Library of Congress, Duplication Services, for a copy of the 102 page Petition for Writ of Certiorari, Anderson v. Mississippi, case 96-501. Alone, I could never have produced that document, much less done all the things required to get to that step and make a permanent record of the outrage, corruption and incompetence that I suffered. Allies help.
gravenimage says
Hear, hear, Tim and Frank!
tim gallagher says
Thanks for the comment, Frank, and also gravenimage. I remember you mentioning that fight you had against corrupt forces before. A fight like that would take a heavy toll. As you say, having allies certainly helps. To counteract China’s growing belligerence the USA, Japan, India and Australia have formed the QUAD alliance. Australia has sent troops to Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern conflicts, to Vietnam, etc, but i was talking to a friend recently about Russia invading Ukraine (just before it happened) and he was saying that, if it happened, we’d probably send troops. Of course, if a huge war broke out in Europe I am sure that Australia would send troops, as they did in WWI and WWII, but I said that I think it is unlikely we’d send troops to Europe these days, except in a huge war, because it is simply not our part of the world these days. However, as you say, we certainly all do need to fight the tyrannous, evil regimes whether China, Russia or the regimes in Islamic countries.
Frank Anderson says
T.G., the toll included years of unemployment, more years of literally digging ditches, feeding cows, sweeping floors and removing waste from a furniture production line, cashiering at a convenience store, and loss of adopted mother, ex-wife and son. The “extended family” said, “We’re old. We have our own families and problems; and we didn’t want you in the first place.” Those are the kind of fair-weather and bought friends who are useless as allies when they are needed.
What kind of ally do WE WANT TO BE? The US record in many places leaves MUCH to fear. There is a fight ahead. Postponing it today is just as derelict of duty as Chamberlain and Daladier postponing the fight against Hitler. If Czechoslovakia, Poland, France and the UK had stood together in 1938, Germany would have been crushed in weeks instead of years.
Walter Sieruk says
About Russia and Ukraine, this current situation is obviously very serious.
Nevertheless, Joe Biden using his de facto Presidential powers over in those foreign nations then he will make this current Ukraine, Russia conflict even worse.
The reason why this is so clearly seen by all the many disasters he has already caused in both the national level, in America, as with crime which terribly increased, added by porous borders and likewise on the international level, as in the Afghanistan disaster and his supporting and upholding both the Taliban and that “mullah regime” of Iran are three example just how harmful and damaging Biden actually is.
The list of his harm can go further, but this should be enough to prove that if Biden ‘s meddling in this Ukraine/Russia problem he will make things in those lands far worse than they would be if he had not interfered in the first place.
Pseudo President Biden occupying the Oval Office of the White House, as stated above, is nothing but a national and international catastrophe.
Walter Sieruk says
If Joe Biden takes further action on this terrible situation, he will only make things more awful just as he further harms, damages and wreaks everything else he touches.
Biden is a disaster magnifier and a calamity maker. In this specific case, the former of the two applies to him.
Walter Sieruk says
Let’s hope that Joe Biden doesn’t keep on interfering with this awful foreign overseas conflict because Biden only harms anything he become involved with.
If US “President” pretender Joe Biden gets involved in this current terrible Russia /Ukraine problem, Biden’s interference in this situation will only increase the chaos and mayhem in those lands.
So much so that Biden’s meddling will lead to much human bloodshed and death.
This is so because everything he “touches” is made worse, wrecked or is completely ruined.
Joe Biden is a curse to America as well as upon all the other nations of the world.
Aussie Infidel says
The main catalyst for this conflict is the decades of pushing NATO influence further and further eastward – in defiance of treaties forbidding it. Some of our own Prime Ministers (on both sides of the political divide), warned years ago that such behavior would inevitably lead to war. Another reason is the continued fighting by the Azov (Nazi) battalion against the Russian speaking regions in the East, which voted democratically to separate from Ukraine. One of the reasons Putin himself gave, was that he was going to “de-nazify Ukraine”; but that should not be his business per se.
However, the final reason for Putin’s bravado, is the political weakness he perceives in the current woke American administration, that also has its corrupt fingers in the Ukrainian cookie jar. And the Americans need to remember the Cuban missile crisis, when JFK confronted Khrushchev over a similar situation close to home.
I don’t like Putin – he’s an old KGB agent and has ‘eliminated’ many political opponents in his climb to the top; he also has dreams of returning Russia to more influential times – with himself at the helm. I’m sure that most Westerners see Zelensky as the hero and Putin as the villain in this conflict. But at times, even your enemy can be right, and I believe that Zelensky must accommodate some if not all of Putin’s demands, and stop being manipulated by some of the more radical elements in his own country – or he might just lose it all. The important thing now is to stop the fighting, and negotiate a sensible peace accord – AND STICK TO IT. This hopefully will buy time for social and political reform within Russia – if that is ever possible.
gravenimage says
It is not actually “radical” not to want your country invaded and taken over by a brutal thug.
Aussie Infidel says
Agreed Gi, But the Azov battalion IS a radical militia group made up mostly or even exclusively of Nazis who have been fighting the separatists for many years.
gravenimage says
I am *no* fan of neo-Nazis. But Russia itself has more neo-Nazis than does Ukraine–I guess Putin is going to have to invade Russia, as Biden claims…
And Putin has given about ten different ostensible reasons for invading Ukraine at this point.
Aussie Infidel says
Gi, Yes, isn’t it ironic? I’ve always believed that the real problem is totalitarianism – whether they are Nazis, Communists, Fascists or Islamists – they all believe that their particular ideology is the only way to go, and they are born to rule everyone else. I only hope that in the US, you manage to hang on to your First Amendment. Freedom is a precious right, and once lost (like it is here virtually), it will be difficult to ever get it back.
gregbeetham says
I think without a Bill of Rights in our constitution like the USA has we never really had guaranteed freedom in the first place. Actually all it takes in reality to bypass even the Bill of Rights is for Congress or a State Governor in the USA or here a state Premier to proclaim a state of emergency and ‘poof’ no more rights and freedom is what they say it is, as we have had graphically demonstrated to us at length over the past two years.
And we had decided to become even more subjugated culturally than the USA because we never had a 2nd amendment thus we were easy to boss around after losing our liberty without any possible recourse and those doing the bossing knew we had none, and it is entirely our own fault.
Aussie Infidel says
Greg, Spot on! Apparently our founding fathers thought that we would never need protections such as a Bill of Rights, as they would be safeguarded by the Monarchy – and look how that has worked out!!
We must get rid of Section 18C – and all the other pernicious impediments to our freedoms.
gregbeetham says
It just shows how gullible and complacent we are, once you allow the government to legislate about discrimination it can only be a law that is functionally discriminatory in itself and as a result some faction has rights that supersede the rights of others, total humbug in effect and 18C is probably in conflict with the constitution.
gravenimage says
Thanks, Aussie Infidel. I want to see the whole of the West hold onto our rights and freedoms. You are right that our Constitution and Bill of Rights makes it harder–not impossible but much harder–to strip the people of their rights.
The most important thing *everywhere* is for patriots to take a stand upholding our values.