Go here to read the letter. Ukraine’s skirt was too short and she really had it coming basically sums it up. Oh, and a lot of blame America first, ever popular on the paleo right as an excuse to pretend that Fortress America can be untouched by anything beyond our shores, and that the world will be a utopia if the US simply becomes isolationist.
As it turns out, I also have concerns about how the Puppetmasters’ Administration has been cavalierly placing us on a path that may lead to an open war with a nuclear armed power. But such concerns do not change the hard facts that Russia invaded Ukraine and that Putin needs to be stopped now before his next target is a member of NATO, and that would mean immediate open war.
Remember the signatories for future reference, and to think twice before citing their opinions on anything requiring either honesty or common sense.
I’m out of the loop. I only recognize about a half-dozen names on the list and there’s just one (John Zmirak) whose writing I’ve actually read.
What values exactly are we defending these days anyways? Not freedom as we know it; that is, divine and natural rights given us by almighty God. The West has betrayed its heritage. It pushes abortion and population control, LGBTQ “rights”, and environmental zealotry on a world that isn’t all that anxious for it.
Some folks think we should do nothing until we’ve spent a very long time on our knees in repentance for what we’ve become. We have a huge plank in our own eye. Remove it first. Then maybe we’ll see clearly what needs to be done.
“Not freedom as we know it”
Rubbish. Putin is a dictator and an alien invader and the Ukrainians are indeed fighting for their freedom. The idea that KGB man Putin is a champion of traditional values, other than the traditional Russian values typified by Ivan the Terrible, is risible beyond belief.
Dictators always love if their victims decide not to fight against them. Ever and always a policy I will oppose.
In 1972 Nixon went to China and opened relations with Mao, a murderer of millions of his own and other people. This was helpful to our country against the USSR. Before that, we allied with the murderer Stalin against the murderer Hitler, because Hitler was the greater threat at the time. Trump wanted a good relationship with the murderer Putin as a bulwark against murdering China, but that became impossible with the “Russian Collusion” meme ginned up by Hilary Clinton and the left. Putin saw the weakness of the feeble-minded Biden and went for what he wanted “by any means necessary”. Our “woke” military & intelligence complex which lost Afghanistan and which can no longer seem to keep anything secret REVELS in telling the whole world all our intentions and plans in Ukraine. It seems to me that all THIS is a recipe for disaster–the Nuclear kind that there is no coming back from. I may not agree with everything in the letter, but I can escape a sense of foreboding that this is going to end badly. I would love to see the Ukrainians win this war, but I don’t see how that happens without Putin (who may be mad now) going “Me and mother Russia go down in blaze of glory!” (imagine Boris Badenov accent), before he starts pushing buttons.
a sense of foreboding that this is going to end badly.
It could BPS. Now Russia is threatening Sweden and Finland over their plans to join NATO. This would be a very good time for a traditional Russian assassination of a head of state.
Useful idiots is right. Given the list of things they have against what Biden has been involved in, they should be demanding he fix it, not telling him to back down and help Russia take over the country.
The idea that KGB man Putin is a champion of traditional values, other than the traditional Russian values typified by Ivan the Terrible, is risible beyond belief.
Several east European governments have been resistant to a degree to the agenda sometimes referred to as ‘globohomo’. You can appreciate that without approving of troublesome things these governments might do. Prior to 24 February 2022, I’d have put Putin in the same category as King Hussein of Jordan or Augusto Pinochet – abusive but dedicated to improvement in the quality of life in the context of democratic institutions having failed. Well, you get more data with time.
Now Russia is threatening Sweden and Finland over their plans to join NATO.
They had no such plans until Putin and Lavrov started making demands, issuing threats, and sending in troops. For about eight years now, Russia has behaved toward the Ukraine like a stalker ex-boyfriend. Now they’re enraged that the bitc* called the cops, got a concealed carry permit, and has been practicing at the firing range,. And they’re learning the hard way that little sister don’ miss when she aims her gun.
This would be a very good time for a traditional Russian assassination of a head of state.
I think since the end of the medieval period there have been five which were inside jobs, two of whom had been deposed some time earlier and one of whom was a familial imposter who had seized the throne when the country was in a state of insurrection. The other two had received the throne under Peter the Great’s odd and atraditional succession system. Be great, though, if VP were deported to Switzerland and the Swiss government put an ankle monitor on him and gave him a list of muncipalities he was permitted to visit and to which he’d better stick if he did not want to land in jail.
Useful idiots indeed. I fear is that this country’s continued descent into unreality (gender, marriage, sex, babies..) is a toxin affecting us all.
Unreality begets unreality.
I am familiar with some of the signatories and respect them highly. I also share their horror of escalation into a general/nuclear war.
But I’m more than a little tired of the standard-form refusal to acknowledge Yanukovich’s body count during the 2014 protests. That alone makes me dismiss the rest of the complaints about Ukraine’s successor and current governments. A genuine shame.
As to the biolabs, Russia did not cite such as a reason for their “special military operation.” And the idea that Russia’s various intelligence services were unaware of such does not warrant more than a derisive snort.
The invasion of Ukraine was unjustified but it’s also ridiculous to hold up Ukraine as a bastion of democracy. If Ukraine is a democracy despite its widespread corruption and willingness to ban opposition parties, then Russia is also a democracy. That doesn’t mean that they are equally morally culpable in this war; Russia is definitely the aggressor in an unjustified invasion. But it’s either a conflict between two democracies or two kleptocracies, depending on how you want to draw the line for corruption.
If Ukraine is a democracy despite its widespread corruption and willingness to ban opposition parties, then Russia is also a democracy.
The opposition parties were banned only after Russia invaded. They’ve been operating in the Ukraine for eight years. As for the corruption, if you’re living in the United States, you’re in a glass house. From 1990 to the present, the Ukraine has had a competitive multi-party political order. The current president advanced to the office by defeating the previous president in a fair contest. Russia has measures of pluralism, but it’s run by a political machine which can steal any election it cares to steal. All political parties represented in elected conciliar bodies have, to some degree, been suborned; it ceased to be a truly competitive system nearly 20 years ago.
They didn’t ban opposition parties.
They banned public statements and activities by those parties that actively promoted unification with the country who is currently invading them.
I should hope that the distinction doesn’t need to be explained beyond that point, and oh my goodness YES am I displeased with the various news outlets for not being familiar enough with the area to realize that such a thing was possible, and then go check.
For about eight years now, Russia has behaved toward the Ukraine like a stalker ex-boyfriend. Now they’re enraged that the bitc* called the cops, got a concealed carry permit, and has been practicing at the firing range
That is very well said.
I think since the end of the medieval period there have been five which were inside jobs, two of whom had been deposed some time earlier and one of whom was a familial imposter who had seized the throne when the country was in a state of insurrection.
Since 1800 three tsars were assassinated, Paul I, Alexander II and Nicholas II. Lenin was shot during an assassination attempt which led to the decline in his health which ultimately killed him. Stalin murdered lots of figures, most notably Trotsky, who were at the top level of the ruling Bolsheviks. Lavrenty Beria, who was well on his way to being Stalin’s successor, was executed by his colleagues on June 26, 1953. Well did a Russian nobleman remark to a Hanoverian diplomat after the assassination of Paul I, We have absolute monarchy tempered by assassination. That is our Magna Charta!
Russia needs to loot to survive.
Their current target is Ukraine.
The first looting worked– and they ground the area they took down, so now they need to loot some more.
This is not going to change.
This will never be enough.
Don’t be ridiculous. Yes, Russia initiated the war, but there’s no reason not to work for peace. Biden’s decision to escalate U.S. involvement in this conflict is reckless. The best course of action is to avoid U.S. intervention, stop funding Ukraine, and make any foreign aid contingent upon negotiations between the two sides. Russia should leave Ukraine, and Ukraine should be denied NATO membership. The fact that Russia is to blame for all this bloodshed doesn’t change the fact that the West needlessly escalated things by trying to expand NATO.
stop funding Ukraine
What would cause Putin to negotiate anything then?
Putin didn’t steamroll into Ukraine until Biden came into power- a weak and incompetent “leader”, his ill-health aside. A clown.
In all their good intentions, that open letter is as pointless and useful
as a wooden frypan.
Europe, particularly the likes of France and Germany are proving
to be utterly useless in their ability to stare down Russia (probably because Russia will turn off their energy supply). The only that Europe is providing is sanctuary to the many Ukrainian refugees fleeing into adjacent countries.
So as long as Biden is there expect this to be a long haul. Until Putin dies. Or, Trump or someone of his caliber gets back into power in the US.
Paul I, Alexander II and Nicholas II.
Alexander II was not killed in a palace operation. I mentioned Nicholas II. He and his family were slaughtered 16 months after he was deposed. One of the vectors influencing the sequence of events was the disposition of George V, who refused to house the Tsar and his family even though they were his own cousins and people he knew personally; both the cabinet and the king’s camarilla were influenced by politicians prepared to make a stink about this now powerless man and his family residing in one of his cousin’s ample homes.
Not persuaded by your other examples. There was a conference at the University of Maryland some years ago which included a paper by a physician from UCLA who had examined Lenin’s autopsy records &c. In his view, the salient factor was a familial disposition in favor of atherosclerosis being behind his strokes, with the possibility of poisoning. Trotsky had been in exile for a dozen years when he was murdered. Beria was an influential official, not the boss. He was arrested and removed from office but not executed until six months later.
Yes, Russia initiated the war, but there’s no reason not to work for peace.
If you want to work for peace, work for an equilibrium with which each side can live. The source of disequilibrium in this case would be the political ambitions of the Russian state, which in turn are the ambitions of Putin and his camarilla. Ambitions of this sort are seldom entertained by governments during the period since 1945. Restoring the equilibrium means amending the cost-benefit calculation animating the Russian government at this time.
Propping up Ukrainian bureaucrats isn’t going to keep Ukraine safe, nor is it going to deter Russia’s advance. Putting aside my own anti-interventionism, there’s little to be gained from sending an additional $40 billion overseas. If anything, continuing this proxy war further incentivizes Russia to keep fighting. Either bring things to the negotiating table or stay out of the conflict.
that actively promoted unification
Unless I’ve misunderstood, the two parties in question favored a Russophile foreign policy, not unification, which has almost no constituency in the Ukraine.
I used to participate in a discussion forum with a bunch of screwball Russian nationalists. Here’s their thinking: the notion that Ukrainians are a separate people is ‘fake and gay’; east Ukrainians are Russians and west Ukrainians are degenerate Poles. (2) They are stupid and incompetent and need to be ruled by Russians. (3) It doesn’t matter if they object to forced merger because they are stupid and incompetent (as well as fake and gay). (4) We can occupy east Ukraine (novorossiya or malorossiya in their parlance) in short order. (5) we can buy the public off with better pensions than they receive now, what we did in the Crimea.
You listen to those guys, and then you listen to Lavrov issuing a demand that all the countries who have (quite voluntarily) joined NATO since 1997 be summarily expelled and you’re reminded of Dr. Phil McGraw’s explanation of why he quit practicing psychotherapy and went into the jury consulting business. “I could usually get an idea of what their problem was in the first few sessions. I’d listen to them for six months and we weren’t getting anywhere and I just wanted to yell at them, ‘Look, here’s your problem. You’re a jerk.'” These people were outmaneuvered by the likes of Victorian Nuland.
It’s funny how the letter in question explicitly dismisses the notion that its signatories are pro-Putin. That’s exactly the line of attack this piece started with.
Propping up Ukrainian bureaucrats isn’t going to keep Ukraine safe, nor is it going to deter Russia’s advance.
What advance?
If anything, continuing this proxy war further incentivizes Russia to keep fighting. Either bring things to the negotiating table or stay out of the conflict.
The term ‘incentive’ does not mean what you fancy it means.
It’s funny how the letter in question explicitly dismisses the notion that its signatories are pro-Putin. That’s exactly the line of attack this piece started with.
No one here is obligated to take their guises and poses at face value.
The fact that Russia is to blame for all this bloodshed doesn’t change the fact that the West needlessly escalated things by trying to expand NATO.
Those cursed westerners, and their blasted war-mongering notion of not pre-emptively barring anybody that Putin wants to invade.
Is their no end to the sheer depravity of their behavior?
Beria was an influential official, not the boss.
He was Deputy Premier under Malenkov who was a complete tool. Beria came close to his goal.
Stalin left very few of the Old Bolsheviks alive who had been at the center of power following the Revolution. Being a non-entity helped, but even that was not a guarantee of survival during the purges. Trotsky was one of the last of the first rank of Old Bolsheviks still alive when Stalin had him murdered.
Lenin never fully recovered from the two bullets pumped into him, by a Ukrainian come to think of it. That had to have had an impact on any predisposition for strokes. I have not heard the theory that Lenin was poisoned.
“…doesn’t change the fact that the West needlessly escalated things by trying to expand NATO.”
I know of no reason for why we have any obligation to allow Putin/Russia or China to dictate peace terms.
I notice the letter mentions nothing about genuine, practical consequences that Putin will face if the invasion isn’t ended. I think Putin has been playing the West like a fiddle. He began this invasion; he CAN end it. I don’t think he will. From his point of view, …there’s no cause why he should.
In other news, COVID.
Benchmarks: 2 April 2020 to 24 March 2022.
Mean daily death toll (7-day moving averages): 8,400
Nadir: 4,885
Daily death toll (13 May 2022) is 1,600, about 80% below benchmark mean and 1/3 of the former nadir.
In the U.S., the daily death toll has fallen to 250 as of the most recent reading, quite near to the nadir of the period in question, which was reached on 8 July 2021.
If you look at the world’s affluent and high middle income countries (excluding Russia, the Ukraine, and ministates), you see some have had post-omicron waves and some have not. All countries have turned the corner except the United States, Canada, Australia, and Panama. Canada’s case counts are declining and their death counts have hit a plateau. Australia’s case counts are increasing yet again; death counts may have hit a plateau. The United States and Panama have had increasing case counts with no plateau in sight; however, there has been no increase in death counts. The situation in the U.S. is unique. The case counts have trebeled in the last six weeks, there has been no net change in the ICU census (it declined by 15% and increased by 20%), and the death counts have continued to decline. Note, both in 2020 and in 2021 we reached our nadir the 1st week of July. The 2d week of May and we’re already there. If previous experience holds, our best guess is that the summer wave will be at its peak in August.
Disappointed to see the Hicksons, Sammons and the LifeSite founders, Westen and Jalsevac, involved in this exercise. On the other hand, I am not at all surprised to see the Catholic Family News guys or Frank Walker. What do the authors and signers hope to accomplish by this?
The West contributed to this mess by trying to get Ukraine to join NATO, which is a Cold War relic. Maybe instead of worrying about Ukraine and parroting the same Bush era talking points that Karl Rove ran into the ground circa 2012, you folks could focus on our domestic problems and stop carrying water for the pro-war lobby that hates your values. Far be it from me to praise Trump, but his pleas for some sort of negotiated peace are far more rational than anything proposed in this article (or the comments that accompany it).
The West contributed to this mess by trying to get Ukraine to join NATO, which is a Cold War relic
NATO did no such thing. It was actually the other way around since 1992 with Ukrainian governments seeking NATO membership. Prior to the invasion there was zip chance that Ukraine was going to be in NATO in the immediate future. This whole crisis was manufactured in Russia by Putin with NATO membership a transparent pretext for the invasion.
The West contributed to this mess by trying to get Ukraine to join NATO, which is a Cold War relic.
You may fancy NATO is a Cold War relic, but the governments of Sweden and Finland do not. There’s a reason they do not. The reason is one that’s been evident since 24 February 2022.
And another example of what’s in the political kultursmog in Moscow:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russian-lawmaker-says-poland-next-line-de-nazification
In addition, the Trump negotiations had a strong implied negativity behind them if the resulting agreements were not honored. In the present situation with Ukraine, there seem to have been miscalculations all around to include a failure to understand Putin’s
lack of rational thinking. Of such is what brings on wars.
In addition, the Trump negotiations had a strong implied negativity behind them if the resulting agreements were not honored.
Ooor…. Russia just flat doesn’t honor agreements.
Since in general that is a long running issue, and in specific there are news stories going back years about them publicly stating (when caught violating it) that they aren’t party to the “cease fire” in the “Ukrainian civil war” after annexing Crimea, I know which way I’d bet. (Ignore the Russian troops shooting down a civilian airliner. Again.)
The purpose of negotiating with Russia isn’t to get them to actually keep faith with their agreements, only an utter fool or possibly an exceptionally idealistic idealist would actually expect that. The purpose is what you get as a side-effect of the negotiations or agreements.