"A Carthagenian Peace is one like where the Romans utterly destroyed than ancient rival city. But Russia is not doing that. It only is destroying cities, such as Mariupol, where the resistance refuses to surrender and fights to the last man."
Wow. Reasonable people can disagree on whether and to what extent the West should aid Ukraine, but, with all due respect, you undermine your case against VDH by so glibly minimizing the brutality of the Russian siege of Mariupol. Because the Ukrainians are resisting an unprovoked war of aggression against their country, it is A-OK for the Putin regime to deliberately target civilians? To commit atrocities?
Also, I think your faith in an inevitable Russian victory is misplaced. If the West abandons the Ukrainians to the tender mercies of the brute in the Kremlin, perhaps. I hope not.
We probably are getting views from different places. I'm listening to The Duran, Col. Douglas Macgregor and Scott Ritter, who tell a different story from CNN and Fox News (except Tucker). And please see my previous post on the Azov Battalion Nazis: https://johnseiler.substack.com/p/biden-sides-with-neo-nazis?s=w
I don't think there's any dispute about the reality of Russian atrocities (with the primary exception of Russian-controlled media). The Azov Battalion is despicable, but their existence and actions don't justify the Russian invasion. I imagine Zelensky has bigger things on his mind at the moment than the Azov Battalion.
We allied with the USSR in World War II - a regime whose crimes make the Azov Battalion look like Boy Scouts. The Soviets could not have waged their long offensive against the Nazis without Allied military and industrial support. And as the Soviet armies entered Germany, their soldiers engaged in mass rape. Did that make the US and UK morally culpable because Red Army soldiers were advancing in Ford trucks or flying US-made planes or fighting in US-made tanks?
You made fair criticisms of VDH's over-broad assertion that Russian armies have never performed well in military operations abroad. But, objectively speaking, the Russian Army is performing miserably in Ukraine. Their logistics are a mess. The war has exposed weaknesses such as an undeveloped NCO corps, inflexibility, and lack of initiative at the lower command level (that's why so many Russian flag officers are being killed - they have to go to the frontlines to sort out the mess). Morale is low: Russian conscripts don't want to fight this war. The Ukrainians are getting the better of them because following their humiliation when Russia seized Crimea, they engaged in top-to-bottom military reform that emphasized initiative by lower echelons of command.
So now the Russians are trying to win by just killing Ukrainians without regard to whether they are soldiers or civilians, adults or children.
Wars always produce atrocity stories that have to be checked out later, esp. when promoted by Biden and the Neocons. The one with the rocket hitting the train, the rocket turned out to be a Ukrainian one. I also don't think the Russians are losing. The Russians seized Crimea after the 2014 Obama-Biden coup against the legitimate, democratically elected government in Kiyv, and the Russians didn't want their naval bases there to fall into NATO's hands. Then there was an electin in 70% Russian Crimea, which chose to rejoin Russia. Trump would have cut deals with Putin to resolve all this, but they wouldn't let him. See the Durham investigation.
Of course stories have to be checked out. But it strains credulity to believe the scores of atrocities being committed in Russian-held areas are somehow being staged by the Ukrainians.
The Russians haven't lost, but if you follow the ground situation, they are losing (unless you think they are "advancing" back to Russia and their Belorussian satellite). Their losses have been appalling. Putin appears to be falling back on a Plan B of seizing more territory in Eastern Ukraine. But again, they are waging an illegal, unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation. That is incontrovertible.
Calling the Maidan Revolution an "Obama-Biden" coup has no basis. Whether you want to call it a civil war or a revolution, a significant portion of the Ukrainian population wanted Yanukovich out after he killed entry into the EU. Yanukovich ultimately resigned and decamped for exile in Russia.
And there are manifold ways Putin's alleged fear of NATO taking over the Russian naval base could have been resolved without carving territory from a sovereign country.
I don't think Putin would have launched this current invasion if Trump were still in office - not because Trump would have cut a deal. Trump was arming the Ukrainians, and sending advisors to train their troops. And that aid would have continued into a second term. And U.S. oil and gas production would have continued to flow, depressing Russian revenues. Plus, Trump is unpredictable. He certainly wouldn't be drawing Putin a diagram of what we will and won't do to help Kyiv.
I respect the reasons of those who want to steer clear of this conflict, but I confess to being a bit disturbed by a tendency among at least some on the anti-war Right to go further and attempt to justify Putin's aggression.
I have written here and elsewhere that I am against this war, opposed Putin's invasion and thought he should wait to get a better US president to negotiate. I am not pro-Russian, or pro-Ukrainian, but pro-American. See my earlier article on going back to GW Washington's foreign policy of non-intervention in European quagmires. As to the double-headed eagle for The Duran, turns out it's the one for the Greek Orthodox Church, whose Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople currently is in schism with the Russian Orthodox Patriarch. Greece also is a NATO member and supporting it in Ukraine. The Duran guys both are of Greek family background, one an American, one a Brit. From what I can tell, they objective.
I haven't listened to enough of it to know if their analysis is correct. Tucker Carlson is my favorite on cable news, and I think he has been pretty reasonable in his coverage (although he has some kooky guests). I don't put much stock in MacGregor: a month ago he declared Ukraine's military had been "ground to bits" and the nation had all but lost the war - a judgment that has been proven in error, to be charitable. Plus, he accepts Kremlin claims at face value and seems much more interested in getting along with Putin than in the efforts of the Ukrainians to defend their country against an unprovoked invasion - it reminds me of liberals during the Cold War who wrung their hands over Reagan's "provocations" of the USSR.
"A Carthagenian Peace is one like where the Romans utterly destroyed than ancient rival city. But Russia is not doing that. It only is destroying cities, such as Mariupol, where the resistance refuses to surrender and fights to the last man."
Wow. Reasonable people can disagree on whether and to what extent the West should aid Ukraine, but, with all due respect, you undermine your case against VDH by so glibly minimizing the brutality of the Russian siege of Mariupol. Because the Ukrainians are resisting an unprovoked war of aggression against their country, it is A-OK for the Putin regime to deliberately target civilians? To commit atrocities?
Also, I think your faith in an inevitable Russian victory is misplaced. If the West abandons the Ukrainians to the tender mercies of the brute in the Kremlin, perhaps. I hope not.
We probably are getting views from different places. I'm listening to The Duran, Col. Douglas Macgregor and Scott Ritter, who tell a different story from CNN and Fox News (except Tucker). And please see my previous post on the Azov Battalion Nazis: https://johnseiler.substack.com/p/biden-sides-with-neo-nazis?s=w
I don't think there's any dispute about the reality of Russian atrocities (with the primary exception of Russian-controlled media). The Azov Battalion is despicable, but their existence and actions don't justify the Russian invasion. I imagine Zelensky has bigger things on his mind at the moment than the Azov Battalion.
We allied with the USSR in World War II - a regime whose crimes make the Azov Battalion look like Boy Scouts. The Soviets could not have waged their long offensive against the Nazis without Allied military and industrial support. And as the Soviet armies entered Germany, their soldiers engaged in mass rape. Did that make the US and UK morally culpable because Red Army soldiers were advancing in Ford trucks or flying US-made planes or fighting in US-made tanks?
You made fair criticisms of VDH's over-broad assertion that Russian armies have never performed well in military operations abroad. But, objectively speaking, the Russian Army is performing miserably in Ukraine. Their logistics are a mess. The war has exposed weaknesses such as an undeveloped NCO corps, inflexibility, and lack of initiative at the lower command level (that's why so many Russian flag officers are being killed - they have to go to the frontlines to sort out the mess). Morale is low: Russian conscripts don't want to fight this war. The Ukrainians are getting the better of them because following their humiliation when Russia seized Crimea, they engaged in top-to-bottom military reform that emphasized initiative by lower echelons of command.
So now the Russians are trying to win by just killing Ukrainians without regard to whether they are soldiers or civilians, adults or children.
Wars always produce atrocity stories that have to be checked out later, esp. when promoted by Biden and the Neocons. The one with the rocket hitting the train, the rocket turned out to be a Ukrainian one. I also don't think the Russians are losing. The Russians seized Crimea after the 2014 Obama-Biden coup against the legitimate, democratically elected government in Kiyv, and the Russians didn't want their naval bases there to fall into NATO's hands. Then there was an electin in 70% Russian Crimea, which chose to rejoin Russia. Trump would have cut deals with Putin to resolve all this, but they wouldn't let him. See the Durham investigation.
Of course stories have to be checked out. But it strains credulity to believe the scores of atrocities being committed in Russian-held areas are somehow being staged by the Ukrainians.
The Russians haven't lost, but if you follow the ground situation, they are losing (unless you think they are "advancing" back to Russia and their Belorussian satellite). Their losses have been appalling. Putin appears to be falling back on a Plan B of seizing more territory in Eastern Ukraine. But again, they are waging an illegal, unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation. That is incontrovertible.
Calling the Maidan Revolution an "Obama-Biden" coup has no basis. Whether you want to call it a civil war or a revolution, a significant portion of the Ukrainian population wanted Yanukovich out after he killed entry into the EU. Yanukovich ultimately resigned and decamped for exile in Russia.
And there are manifold ways Putin's alleged fear of NATO taking over the Russian naval base could have been resolved without carving territory from a sovereign country.
I don't think Putin would have launched this current invasion if Trump were still in office - not because Trump would have cut a deal. Trump was arming the Ukrainians, and sending advisors to train their troops. And that aid would have continued into a second term. And U.S. oil and gas production would have continued to flow, depressing Russian revenues. Plus, Trump is unpredictable. He certainly wouldn't be drawing Putin a diagram of what we will and won't do to help Kyiv.
I respect the reasons of those who want to steer clear of this conflict, but I confess to being a bit disturbed by a tendency among at least some on the anti-war Right to go further and attempt to justify Putin's aggression.
I have written here and elsewhere that I am against this war, opposed Putin's invasion and thought he should wait to get a better US president to negotiate. I am not pro-Russian, or pro-Ukrainian, but pro-American. See my earlier article on going back to GW Washington's foreign policy of non-intervention in European quagmires. As to the double-headed eagle for The Duran, turns out it's the one for the Greek Orthodox Church, whose Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople currently is in schism with the Russian Orthodox Patriarch. Greece also is a NATO member and supporting it in Ukraine. The Duran guys both are of Greek family background, one an American, one a Brit. From what I can tell, they objective.
John - I don't believe you're pro-Russian and it wasn't my intent to imply you are. And I apologize if my comment came off that way.
I just checked out The Duran. Their logo is a stylized double-headed imperial eagle - which was used as an emblem of state by the Russian Empire.
But their analysis has been right. Ok, then check Scott Ritter, or Col. Macgregor. Or Tucker Carlson.
I haven't listened to enough of it to know if their analysis is correct. Tucker Carlson is my favorite on cable news, and I think he has been pretty reasonable in his coverage (although he has some kooky guests). I don't put much stock in MacGregor: a month ago he declared Ukraine's military had been "ground to bits" and the nation had all but lost the war - a judgment that has been proven in error, to be charitable. Plus, he accepts Kremlin claims at face value and seems much more interested in getting along with Putin than in the efforts of the Ukrainians to defend their country against an unprovoked invasion - it reminds me of liberals during the Cold War who wrung their hands over Reagan's "provocations" of the USSR.