I have lost a lot of respect for Barnes over this. One can be concerned about the US getting involved in the Ukraine, and some of the over the top Ukrainian hype in this country is by anti-Trump adherents of the Russian hoax, carrying on bitter partisan politics. An intellectually respectable case can be made for caution. What is not intellectually respectable is to retweet uncritically Russian propaganda, which is what Barnes has repeatedly done. His latest excusing of the murder of Ukrainian civilians as Ukrainian false flag operations is contemptible and flies in the face of massive evidence to the contrary. Barnes is a acting like a desperate defense attorney trying a whatever sticks defense for a manifestly guilty client. He should know better.
Thursday, May 16, AD 2024 1:20pm
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Barnes is a dumb boomer who spends too much time online (and who screwed over Kyle Rittenhouse). But we need more skepticism of the official narrative. Over forty Republican senators (including supposed maverick Josh Hawley) signed a letter demanding that Biden send more fighter jets to Ukraine. At a certain point, we need somebody to advocate unapologetically for American non-interventionism.
Sorry Don, you are quite incorrect. The propaganda started when Soros, Schwab, Gates, etc., and all the vile miscreants sang in unison about the evil of Putin and the innocence of the Ukraine.
I just published a comment that did not in any way go against your comments code of conduct. Could you please email me and explain why it was deleted?
Because all first time comments are held in moderation until I, or another member of the blog, can approve them. Stops drive by trolls. As to the substance of your comment, Putin is an evil autocrat and he has invaded the Ukraine, and all the blarney in the world can’t get around those two facts.
I, like many people, don’t like being on the same side as the likes of Soros, Schwab and Gates … I just keep reminding myself that they don’t really care one way or the other, they’re just happy for the distraction while their plans go ahead unreported.
I think I used the word “like” way too often in that comment … filling coffee mug now … 🙂
There is no monopoly on thoughtlessly circulating and repeating “propaganda”. There is plenty to go around on all sides. After the past two years, why should anything from any source be taken at face value?
At a certain point, we need somebody to advocate unapologetically for American non-interventionism.
Ron Paul will happily do that for you. Of course, Ron Paul has a habit of amiably and cluelessly damaging the prospects of any perspective he embraces, perhaps because he’s like flies on sh!t for any bad idea on a certain map.
One thing the last half-dozen years have taught us is that a great many people vociferous about public affairs have as their top priority defending what they said yesterday (when they were defending what they said the day before).
Barnes is a dumb boomer who spends too much time online (and who screwed over Kyle Rittenhouse).
Barnes was born in 1974. Even if he’d been born in 1954, that would be pretty irrelevant to the quality of his arguments. He was associated with Kyle’s defense team at one point, but he was never the lead counsel and was eventually ejected by the man in charge. How could he have ‘screwed-over’ Kyle Rittenhouse?
Thanks, Art. We boomers have enough to live down without having to take the blame for Barnes, too. He once seemed so…rational. 🤷🏻♂️
Lord knows they insist on immolating their moral integrity trying, though.
Sad about Barnes. It’s a little like Sydney Powell, only worse. She is a fraud, but at least she’s not an apologist for murder and ethnic cleansing..
I can’t confirm the source (because apparently all social media has to be bad at searching) but in some twitter replies we have:
https://twitter.com/MetalRhino42/status/1512238722342739970
He stated before on locals that he’s not a fan of the conflict and thinks Russia made the wrong move with violent intervention.
https://twitter.com/knows_he_doesnt/status/1512251044616716288
He said it on the Viva and Barnes YouTube show too…
His position is nuanced, but he has been clear that he is against what Russia is doing.
https://twitter.com/nuancedreport/status/1512251477099970561
I don’t think Barnes justified the killing of civilians in any form. His point from what I’ve seen is, in a court setting, Putin would have the better case for invasion from the precedents set by US et al. Plus dispelling NPC media narratives, myths and legends.
^That one there would also fit with what I’ve listened to on the Baris & Barnes show.
In my search I also found this thread which explained a lot and would fit with my own experience with Russians in our family.
https://twitter.com/MarinaMedvin/status/1505193028985798663
“Putin would have the better case for invasion from the precedents set by US et al. ”
Which is a complete and utter crap argument. This is the clearest case of naked aggression on the European continent since the Soviets invaded Finland in 1939. Barnes is arguing a bad case with bad arguments which would never hold up in court.
For the record, there was a chance to provide stability in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet government. President Bush spoke of a “new world order” but did little to promote it. Russia settled, by default, on an incompetent leader in Yeltsin instead of getting a true technocrat. The result was an easy pathway up for an obscure KGB Colonel. While it is too late to do much about past mistakes, a good bit could have been done to accomplish to establish more stability in the area by the west. The war in Ukraine will not be brief and much worse is probably to come as civilized behavior by our definition has never been a hallmark in the east and especially in Russia and the ‘Stans.
Putin would have the better case for invasion from the precedents set by US et al.
What precedent did he have in mind? I’d be fascinated to know why Barnes fancies the governments of North Korea and North VietNam should have been given a franchise to unify those respective countries forcibly and on the terms the Communists favored. In the Dominican Republic, our troops separated two contending parties, were involved in little combat, and never left the capital. In Grenada and Panama, our troops ejected governments that had no legitimacy and remained for a period measured in days. (In Grenada, there was also concern Hudson Austin would take American medical students hostage). In Kuwait, we ejected the military of the most horrible country in the world (bar North Korea) from the harmless oil principality it had conquered. In Afghanistan, we ejected a government which was complicit in a horrendous casus belli. In Iraq, we faced a trilemma which the detractors seldom acknowledge – take the sanctions off, leave them on, or eject the government. The Ukraine’s government is infested with people who extort bribes and had an interest in joining NATO. Neither is a casus belli.
While it is too late to do much about past mistakes, a good bit could have been done to accomplish to establish more stability in the area by the west.
Show your work.
“While it is too late to do much about past mistakes, a good bit could have been done to accomplish to establish more stability in the area by the west.”
I really doubt that. One of the strong themes in Russian history is attraction to/and hatred of the West. Westernizers like Peter the Great encountered great resistance within Russia. Western interventions in Russian affairs never have a happy ending. Economically the West has always been eager to trade with Russia. Anything beyond such economic ties I think would have been counterproductive to the cause of democracy in Russia. Russians throughout their history are always searching for a Vozhd (dictator) because their history has told them that in Russia anarchy is worse than rule by a strong man. Putin, or someone like him, was probably inevitable in Russia.
It’s highly problematic when two of the three countries that launder your grift money go to war with each other.
What do Putin and Xi have on Barnes, Klain, Quisling in Diapers, and Rice?
Garbage western leadership.
This has been desultory and flagrant for centuries.
At Fatima in 1917, Our Lady warned about the evils of Russia. I thought that evil ended when the USSR fell.
Evidently, I was wrong.
Of course, the crazy KGB thug [who made his bones teaching Saddam’s thugs table saw interrogation techniques] will chirp about nukes and the West will quail.
N.B. Putin didn’t do this between January 2017 and January 2021. Trump told him we would bomb Moscow.
Russians throughout their history are always searching for a Vozhd (dictator) because their history has told them that in Russia anarchy is worse than rule by a strong man. Putin, or someone like him, was probably inevitable in Russia.
I would tend to demur about that. The thing is, pretty much all of the post-communist states suffered a severe economic depression and it took 16 years for most of them to break even. Russia had an additional problem in the explosion of criminal violence. Jeffrey Sachs takes a great deal of flak for the advice he gave Eastern European countries and has been accused of self-dealing as well (by people you shouldn’t trust, like Barkley Rosser). There were better and worse ways to proceed with the economic reconstruction of the command economies. Retrospectively, we can get an idea of what they were. Retrospectively. The way I can see it might have worked out better for Russia would be if the intramural bureaucratic pinball had yielded someone with Putin’s talents but uninterested in rebuilding the Soviet Union and its satellite network and not given to having the security services poison people.
Of course, the crazy KGB thug [who made his bones teaching Saddam’s thugs table saw interrogation techniques] will chirp about nukes and the West will quail.
I think Putin was stationed in Germany when posted abroad. Saddam Hussein was already in command of Iraq on the day he graduated from his KGB training program in 1974. Saddam was not the first to run a terror regime in Iraq but we may hope he’s the last.
One thing that would have benefited both the West and the post-Soviet countries was more favorable trade arrangements which would have provided reliable sources of hard currency for the East and given the West assured supplies of raw materials, especially those not available in quantity in the West. The trade arrangements up to the Ukraine fiasco have been more of a MAD policy on trade writ large. Thousand of pages of regulations and restrictions that hampered rather than encouraged free trade. That aberration known as the EU is a good example of the ossification of what passes for thought in the West on economic policy. Politicos in the Western democracies are not the only ones that need a primer on international trade and economics. Finally, historically, countries with good trade policies, a reasonable level of individual financial security, and stable government have not generally been military aggressors.
The trade arrangements up to the Ukraine fiasco have been more of a MAD policy on trade writ large. Thousand of pages of regulations and restrictions that hampered rather than encouraged free trade.
See Jagdish Baghwati on contemporary trade agreements. That’s what they’re like. There’s nothing peculiar to trade relations with eastern Europe about that.
Any extreme position is going to attract loopy people as well as those who arrive at it by sound thinking. Any person holding an extreme position is at a risk of losing his grounding by being disconnected from convention. Therefore, any extreme position (including extreme patriotism and religious fervor) is going to be held by nutters, sound thinkers, and sound thinkers who could go nutter. I’ve never listened to Barnes, so I don’t know where he falls, but I’m not hearing anything encouraging.
U.S. has been invading, bombing and occupying nations, assasinating leaders at least since I participated in a few of them in the ’80’s when I was in my younger military service days. Who else has drone striked, bombed, occupied and toppled governments like the U.S? Oh sure, we had reasons. Right.
Looking back on it all, now, from the current perspective … I am not necessarily ashamed of my service, but I do see it in a different perspective, now. And lecturing other nations for doing precisely the same thing as we’ve been doing for decades – at least since Vietnam – it doesn’t cut it for me.
I see more reasons for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than I do for most of ours … or at least some level of equivalence.
There needs to be some acknowledgement of that, at least.
Art Deco: That may well be what they are like but trade relations are both commercial and statecraft. There is little reason to continue the nonsense of the past that has been brought into the present.
Fascinating string of comments. I have no wisdom to add. I just wish both tyrannical Putin and pro-abort, pro-sodomy Zelenskyy would be deposed, and no more Ukrainian civilians or conscript Russian soldiers would die.
Aqua – I’d say China, Iran, and USSR/Russia have had their hands in as many things as we have. But let’s not forget that our purpose (whether we succeed each time or not) is to make a people’s lives better, not dominate them or convert them to Islam. We make South Koreas, they make North Koreas.
U.S. has been invading, bombing and occupying nations, assasinating leaders at least since I participated in a few of them in the ’80’s when I was in my younger military service days.
Nobody knows you’re a pig on the internet. By the way, the bill for renewing your subscription to The Nation has arrived.
I see more reasons for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than I do for most of ours … or at least some level of equivalence.
You think in caricatures. There’s no value in that.
Art Deco: “You think in caricatures …”
That’s rather humorous.
“… nobody knows you’re a pig …”
“ … my Nation subscription has arrived …”
Two posts to say nothing.
I’ll say something. Remember the vial of something Colin Powell assured the assembly was evidence of extensive bio-weapons network in Iraq? So we travelled, not across our own border, but to the other side of the world, bombed the living you-know-what out of the Iraqis, killed their leader, toppled their government, occupied their nation and gave them a government more suited to their culture than what they had before – Democracy. Oh yeah … bio-weapons? Still looking. They say there might some in Ukraine, I don’t know.
Now, I realize nation states act in their own interests for their own reasons and legality and morality is open for debate. Ultimately war is part of human history and we do what we do, as do the rest of the world. I am not, nor have I ever criticized our wars – I have in fact strongly supported them, served in a war zone, truth be told. But to say our reasons were great and Russia’s are evil. Sorry, that’s just not honest; nor is it realistic. Best understand, also, war is hell and this one promises to be a bad one in many ways beyond just military. Count the costs … all of you calling for war against Russia and whatever alliances form against us. Be careful, crossing that line.
Aqua (and others): do not commit a fundamental moral fallacy by arguing that one immoral act by A justifies an entirely evil act by B. substitute for A and B what you will.
killed their
leadertyrantFixed that for you.
“Killed their tyrant”.
You emphasize “tyrant”.
I emphasize “their”.
You hi-light my point.
I’ll say something. Remember the vial of something Colin Powell assured the assembly was evidence of extensive bio-weapons network in Iraq? So we travelled, not across our own border, but to the other side of the world, bombed the living you-know-what out of the Iraqis, killed their leader, toppled their government, occupied their nation and gave them a government more suited to their culture than what they had before – Democracy. Oh yeah … bio-weapons? Still looking. They say there might some in Ukraine, I don’t know.
Bioweapons were not the only reason cited nor the only motivator. The Iraqi government was not at that point maintaining large stockpiles of bioweapons, which is not the same as having no infrastructure to manufacture them.
No, they did not have the ‘you know what’ bombed out of them. About 30,000 civilian deaths are attributable to the acts of coalition forces in Iraq. The bulk of these were accrued in counter-insurgency operations.
In Iraq, the Bush Administration faced a trilemma. You can take the sanctions off, leave the sanctions on, or eject the government. Each course of action had potential costs. You only have palpable evidence of the paths you choose.
By the way, Saddam was hanged after a judicial proceeding run by Iraqis, not Americans.
But to say our reasons were great and Russia’s are evil. Sorry, that’s just not honest;
That’s satisfactorily honest. It just incorporates a normative judgment you dislike. The Ukraine wasn’t a problem country, it just has a lot of crooks among its politicians, civil servants, &c. Iraq actually was a problem country for its neighbors and a totalitarian hell hole to boot. Russia is not attempting to conquer the Ukraine because it has been causing trouble; the only trouble in the vicinity is that generated by Russia itself. Russia is attempting to reassemble the Soviet Union (not, perhaps in toto) and the network of satrapies adjacent to it. Yes, that’s a lousy cause.
You emphasize “tyrant”.
I emphasize “their”.
The only people to whom he was ‘theirs’ was his lineage around Tikrit.
If you think Saddam didn’t have bioweapons– which is at least a slightly less common claim than the “didn’t have WMDs” one– then you need to get angry at UNSCOM, not the American feds.
https://2001-2009.state.gov/s/d/former/armitage/remarks/17094.htm
Of course, that would draw attention to why we knew he had the stuff, which would rather gut the preening about abandoning people to those monsters.
Hillary Clinton celebrated drone striking Khaddafi (we came, we saw, he died).
Lindsey Graham spoke for many when he called for the assassination of Putin. Biden in his unguarded moments called for something much the same.
Don’t like the leader? Kill him. Our government is saying this. I am appalled.
The last I will say on this is just a reminder about the nature of war, once the line is crossed. There is no guarantee that America must win. Imagine a war against great powers in which we are utterly defeated and at their mercy – Russia, China, India (etc). Recall our withdrawl ftom Afghanistan. Do you not think our current civilian and military leadership, not to mention our decimated and demoralized troops and sailors, is fully capable of collapse in the face of a foe beyond the skill set of Mujahideen?
I see that outcome, under current conditions. We should always respect war and count the costs of war – but now? It terrifies me – especially the excessive confidence of the vast majority of Americans who have never experienced combat, and especially don’t even consider the implications of defeat on that scale.
Thank you for offering space for a counter opinion, sir. Respect to you.
Don’t like the leader? Kill him. Our government is saying this. I am appalled.
Your stance against Guys Who Shove Little Old Ladies– applied equally against those who shove them in front of buses, and out of the way of buses– is noted.
Hillary Clinton celebrated drone striking Khaddafi (we came, we saw, he died).
He was actually dragged out of his hiding place in a sewer tunnel by Libyan insurrectionists, beaten, then shot to death. No drones used.
Lindsey Graham spoke for many when he called for the assassination of Putin. Biden in his unguarded moments called for something much the same.
Joey Soft-Serve hardly knows whether he’s coming or going; in any case, he did not say that. Lindsey Graham is one of 541 members of Congress. What he actually said was, ““Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military? The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out,”
The last I will say on this is just a reminder about the nature of war, once the line is crossed. There is no guarantee that America must win. Imagine a war against great powers in which we are utterly defeated and at their mercy – Russia, China, India (etc). Recall our withdrawl ftom Afghanistan. Do you not think our current civilian and military leadership, not to mention our decimated and demoralized troops and sailors, is fully capable of collapse in the face of a foe beyond the skill set of Mujahideen?
We are not at war. This statement is non sequitur.
Art Deco:
News item: “In an interview on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends,” Graham said he hopes someone in Russia will understand that Putin is “destroying Russia and you need to take this guy out by any means possible.”
Comment: Imagine Putin calling out directly for BLM and Antifa to assasinate Trump, perhaps covertly supply them the means. Does that make it better, in your mind?
News item: “The 100 or so followers in the 45-vehicle convoy manage to cross Sirte, after being hit by a failed shot from an American Predator drone. ”
“Around 11 a.m., two bombs dropped by French jets cause carnage in the convoy, destroying about 15 vehicles and killing more than half of Gaddafi’s followers. There is panic. The Guide is hit in the head by a piece of shrapnel, but manages to escape on foot with Abou Bakr Younès and Mansour Dou. They walk 140 meters and enter the sewage pipes below the road.”
“Confusion follows the capture of the Guide as he is surrounded by a dozen men who are hysterical at the idea of capturing the one who had presided over their destiny. Gaddafi is beaten, receives “bayonet blows to the buttocks, resulting in new wounds and bleeding,”
Comment: A Predator drone took the first shot and missed. French jets dropped bombs and missed. A mob cornered him, presumably ours (CIA) and the “bayonet blows to the buttocks” were not, technically speaking, in the buttocks but a more intimate and degrading part.
Art Deco: “We are not at war.”
Comment: Obviously. And I, for one, hope it stays that way.
There is no question that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction as he used them to kill thousands of Kurds.
http://www.institutkurde.org/en/info/latest/when-saddam-gassed-thousands-of-kurds-at-halabja-7942.html
Comment: Imagine Putin calling out directly for BLM and Antifa to assasinate Trump, perhaps covertly supply them the means. Does that make it better, in your mind?
When Trump renders himself impregnable to constitutional process and launches an invasion of Canada, get back to me. When you can distinguish between Putin and some rando in the State Duma, get back to me.
A mob cornered him, presumably ours (CIA)
Why presumably?
Goodness, seems like a lot of vitriol going around concerning which side you take (if any) in the Russia – Ukraine War. Regardless of which side is just, I subscribe to the statement of John Quincy Adams concerning what should be our overriding determinative which is basically the United States does not go abroad seeking monsters to destroy (plenty out there). With the deeply felt emotions on both sides, I will offer two points and exit. Surely one can favor, in good faith, either position without being automatically labeled a propagandist (though some undoubtedly are). In view of that ancient idea called the Monroe Doctrine, what would our reaction be if Russia and Mexico announced the signing of a mutual defense treaty (similar to NATO). That is not to say Russia’s invasion is just. Just asking.
When someone is throwing out not just lies, but stupid lies that my pre-teen could debunk— yes, things do get “acrimonious.”
Likewise, when someone proposes what boils down to people being objects owned by their rulers, which can be abused at will and without objection.
In addition to his policies on abortion, Biden has plenty of blood on his hands for the botched retreat from Afghanistan and his stall on armaments for Ukraine before Putin invaded. We cringe when the president discusses material that’s obviously classified.
It is terrifying to hear some of our lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and media urge the president to order boots on the ground and our aircraft in the skies above Ukraine. Too much emotional saber rattling and ignorance. No rational thought. There are no real winners in a nuclear war when both sides have the bombs.
Regarding Iraq’s bioweapons it was revealed that they were quietly transported across the porous Syrian border along with lots of cash/gold carried by members of Saddam’s remaining family. Heard it once and then the news suddenly vanished.
The caravans were shown crossing into Syria. Later found, empty, in (under) Iraq’s desert.
With the drivers still in them.
Was about the time that the Progs decided they didn’t like the Iraq war, and suddenly even though we had disabled vets still being treated for WMD damage, the chant became no WMDs.
(The unusual thing is that Chemical and Biological are part of WMD, but the argument required pretending WMD meant functional nuke.)
Message to Aqua: Thank you for your great posts, but I believe you are wasting your time trying to inform other individuals in the comments section. I don’t see any difference between the anti-Trumpers who despise Trump and the anti-Putins who despise Putin. If Trump were to find a cure for cancer, the anti-Trumpers would still dislike him and consider him a tyrant. If Putin cleanses Ukraine of its deep state, destabilizes the NWO, and exposes US politicians that benefitted from a corrupt Ukraine, the anti-Putins will still only see Putin as a tyrant. We are in a Spiritual war. It is worldwide. It is against God, the Lord, and Christians. We must stand united and pray for discernment.
…. And I thought Putin’s nonsense with reusing Stalin’s notes about everyone who opposed him being a right-wing Nazi, for a Jewish guy, was lame.
Rhetoric works better if you reality check it a bit.
I don’t see any difference between the anti-Trumpers who despise Trump and the anti-Putins who despise Putin.
You’re not looking with any care. The issue with Putin is that he’s invaded a neighboring country in an attempt to conquer it and take the first step toward reassembling the Soviet Union and its satellite pool.
The issue with Trump was that he said rude things, told the media to get stuffed, proposed to seal the southern border and enforce the immigration laws, and didn’t speak and behave as if non-exotic Americans w/o post-baccalaureate degrees were some sort of lesser caste deserving of abuse by teachers, school administrators, social workers, mental health tradesmen, HR twits, and the media. There was also a contingent of evangelicals (leavened with suburban prissies like Mona Charen) who found Trump’s history of sexual misconduct disqualifying. That’s a legitimate point, though something they were willing to overlook in re John McCain and (in the case of Charen) Joseph Biden (along with everything else she overlooked about Biden).