The following commentary is submitted by Charles Landis
Among the other things which are not much discussed or understood is the reasoning behind Putin/ Russian aggression iin the Ukraine. The why of it all. Talking heads and media pundits incessantly speak of the bravery, the heartbreaking stories, and the determination of the Ukraine in the fight for independence. But this is all about what is happening and the why is dismissed as the evil of off Putin. One needs only to look at a map of eastern Europe and understand the history of NATO after the break up of the USSR at the end of the cold war to understand the why.
When the Soviet domination of eastern Europe collapsed and the eastern European states regained their independence from Russia, there was an agreement that NATO would not expand into these countries: Poland, Romania, Hungary, Lithuania …et al. Russia remembered that Germany had twice invaded Russia and more than 25 million Russians perished by the atrocities committed against civilians. But of course NATO did expand and troops and missiles were moved in along the entire Eastern front, from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The threat of the Ukraine joining NATO reduces the distance of NATO members to Moscow by two thirds. Russia would not tolerate.
Professor Steven F. Cohen (Princeton/NYU and among most distinguished scholars of Russian history and relations with America) argues there have been three periods of détente since the end of World War II: beginning under presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, and Regan. Détente (meaning avoidance of actions that may provoke war) w as possible because Rusia perceived Republicans were more pragmatic and more interested in getting things done and doing business an democrats were more ideological as in President Wilson’s “making the world safe for democracy.”
When Trump was elected, he said he believed we could be friends with Russia… meaning detente was possible.. Democrats declared Russia was America’s greatest threat and the Clinton cabal fabricated the Russiagate hoax. Predictably the elites of the Washinton swamp (media and deep state) jumped in with charges that Trunp was a traitor, under the control of Putin, and Russia interfered with the election which caused Trump to win election. For his entire term of office, Trump was harassed by Russiagate and wholly partisan efforts to remove him from office. Thus Trump and Putin were demonized and detent not possible.
It is not possible to predict the future course of events or outcome of the Ukraine war but it is reasonable to assume resolution must include a détente which assures Ukraine’s independence with, possibly, the Switzerland neutrality model.
Why are you defending a murderer? Putin is not the innocent victim here. The innocent people are the ones who were just living their lives, no threat to anyone, who are now being slaughtered in the name of denazification – what??? An absurdity beyond belief. (And made more ridiculous when the Ukranian Leader is Jewish whose family suffered, died in the Holocaust) Putin bombs hospitals, takes out innocent people -families, children, pregnant women – trying to flee a brutal attack of their homeland, hits nuclear sites and threatens nuclear war. Leveling cities because his military is losing to a strong-willed, people who want to live free and not under his thumb. If he is oh, so innocent why did this dictator shut down the free press that was combating his propaganda lies with the truth? Why does he have protesters of his war beaten, arrested, and told they will receive 15 years in jail and have no employment etc… There is NO defense for the carnage Putin continues to rage. That we would stoop to making him out as a victim in an attempt to score political points for “our team” is to celebrate the suffering of fellow human beings.
The poster is not defending him he is suggesting we understand the reasons behind the invasion. You, with your parroting of easily debunked propaganda, are likely unable to appreciate that point and should just continue watching the View.
I offer no defense of Putin. The issue I raise is the why, we all know the what. My commentary is largely based o n analysis of Dr. Stephen F Cohen , among the most respected scholars of Russian history and relations with America,
If Putin, by American standards, is such a bad person, then what in hell was Bill Clinton, as notorious a Democrat as they come, doing in bed with him when he was president?
And what were Hussein Obama and Joe Biden doing in bed with him when Hussein was the president?
Empowering him, weren’t they?
There is no humane rational defense of this brutality. And yes, when you support “reasons” for invasion by Russian leadership that is exactly what you are doing. And Bill Clinton? Love him, hate him there is no comparison to Putin’s savage attack on a free people. Innocent people being slaughtered – if you think that’s propaganda your heart can not be reached.
Note: If you are wondering why Russia chose to invade at this moment, well here you go genius: https://twitter.com/jessicahodlr/status/1503556754168242186
Stop with your fallacies. There are a multitude of reasons for the invasion. Your unwillingness or inability to grasp the rationale does not make it unreasonable on the other’s part. And understanding the other side is a pretty basic method for dealing with people and groups. Heck, do lae enforcement criminal profilers support criminality because they seek to understand the behavior? By your argument, yes.
For an easily digestible explanation of Ukraine events, search for a video of Prof. John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago discussing the subject. Even his fantastic speech leaves so much more history and events unsaid. Oh, and this video is 6 years old. So clearly there were a number of well educated professionals who saw this eventuality. Maybe you can write him to explain how wrong he was/is?
Your hearts can’t be reached when all you see is a chance to take shots at your political rivals, rather than see Russia’s leadership slaughter the innocents. It is why I don’t ever comment here. But there are times one must point to the truth regardless that there are those who refuse to see it. Your hearts are hardened. Throw all the crap and the lies at me you want. I will instead pray than read anymore. бог благословить українську
What do you see us doing, Donna – running over there to Ukraine, the lot of us, and laying down in the roads like we were all members of BLM to block Putin’s tanks from being able to roll through?
Or maybe we could all go over there with first basemen’s mitts to catch the artillery rounds before they hit the ground.
People like you, Donna, are incredible, because you think you can screech about how bad Putin is, and he is going to feel bad about himself as a result, and hey, maybe he’ll get to depressed he’ll jump off a bridge into the Volga and be swept away forever.
And my heart is hardly hard, but I’m also a twice-wounded combat veteran of DEMOCRAT LBJ’s campaign to crush the life out of the Vietnamese people simply because DEMOCRAT LBJ saw their lives as worthless and it made him sexually aroused, they say, when he could score some high daily body count against them, but you want us to love LBJ and hate Putin.
WHY?
There is no difference between them, afterall.
Thank you. It’s good to know that only our wars are sanctioned by God. I won’t reply any further and disrupt you posting cat memes.
You nailed it, Pasquale, when it is us killing women and children, which the Democrats salivate to do, being bullies, them, who like to pick on those who can’t defend themselves or fight back, those are not war crimes, it is us doing god’s work.
Those are righteous killings, because god likes us, and he gave us those people to kill to keep the bloodlust of the Democrats fulfilled, so they don’t kill us, instead, because they worship a god https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWQCInBK7Ts that needs the blood of innocents in copious amounts.
Your slip is showing.
What hypocritical hysteria, as if Putin were the only monster on the face of the earth!
What do you think good old America was doing in VEET NAM -giving out hugs by shelling “enemy” villages full of women and children in what was called:
The Violence Program
A theoretical basis for the violence program (of the USA in Viet Nam), consistent both internally and with objective conditions, was never articulated, despite the number of lives it consumed daily.
The basis of using violence was a residue of military doctrines developed to deal with friendly military units operating on hostile foreign territory, or on friendly territory against a foreign military force, and typified by the foregoing testimony of General (Harold) Johnson.
When asked to explain the purpose of military operations in Long An (a province in Viet Nam), for example, both Vietnamese and American officers gave the textbook answer, “to close with and destroy the enemy,” and considered that sufficient.
It may be useful to analyze the differing goals, assumptions, and means of conventional and revolutionary war in order to discern the implications when doctrines valid for the former, such as the answer just given, are applied to the latter.
– p.227, War Comes To Long An – Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Province by Jeffrey Race
How many people in VEET NAM did America kill?
Let’s take a look:
Preface to Dereliction of Duty – Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster, copyright 1997.
Despite scores of books on the subject, the WHY and HOW of direct U.S. intervention in the Vietnam War remains unclear.
The war continues to capture the public interest in part because, looking back, its cost seems exorbitant – and would seem so even if the United States had “won”.
The war took the lives of fifty-eight thousand Americans and well over one million Vietnamese.
It left Vietnam in ruins and consumed billions of American dollars, nearly wrecking the American economy.
Vietnam divided American society and inflicted upon the United States one of the greatest political traumas since the Civil War.
Indeed, the war’s legacies proved to be as profound as the war was traumatic.
IT LED AMERICANS TO QUESTION THE INTEGRITY OF THEIR GOVERNMENT AS NEVER BEFORE.
Thirty years later, after the end of the Cold War, the shadow of the American experience in Vietnam still hangs heavy over American foreign and military policy, and over American society.
end quotes
So, a million Vietnamese!
And what about the Highway of Death in Kuwait where America was killing bus loads of women and children with air strikes?
A friend of mine was an Army Renger on the ground there and he saw those burned bodies, dubbed “krispy critters” by Americans, close up and the sight still makes him sick today, because that is what America is – a country that is a ******* bully that makes war on women and children because they can’t fight back, and here you are, lecturing us about Putin as if he were the only monster on the face of the earth, and Lyndon Baines Johnson, Barack Hussein Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton are not.
Nice try, but no cigar for you!
What about My Lai?
What about Fallujah?
What about Syria?
Or don’t you care about them when it is Americans doing the killing?
As to war, here is “Stonewall” Jackson on the subject, and if squeamish Americans don’t like reaping the fruits of war, my advice is that they stop starting them in the first place, and by the way, there is no humane rational defense of any brutality by anyone, including Barack Obama and Joe Biden:
War means fighting.
The business of the soldier is to fight.
Armies are not called out to dig trenches, to throw up breastworks, to live in camps, but to find the enemy and strike him; to invade his country, and do him all possible damage in the shortest possible time.
This will involve great destruction of life and property while it lasts; but such a war will of necessity be of brief continuance, and so would be an economy of life and property in the end.
— Stonewall Jackson
And speaking about monsters up from hell walking the earth and crimes against humanity, this looming disaster which will make Joe Stalin’s Holodomor look like the piddling efforts of a bungler by comparison, is square on the shoulders of the sociopaths Joe Biden, Karmela Harris, Tony Blinken, Jake Sullivan with his thin head and goofy look, Janet “TOODLES” Yellen, and Wally Adeyemo, all of whom think nothing of destroying human lives to achieve their political goals, to wit:
UNITED NATIONS
“Ukraine: ‘We need peace now’ declares Guterres, warning of global hunger meltdown”
14 March 2022
Besides the hour-to-hour devastation inside Ukraine, the UN chief said the war was reaching far beyond its borders, with a Sword of Damocles now hanging over the global economy – “especially the developing world”.
Russia and Ukraine represent more than half of the world’s supply of sunflower oil and about 30 percent of the world’s wheat, he added, noting that Ukraine alone provides more than half of the World Food Programme’s (WFP) wheat supply.
“Food, fuel and fertilizer prices are skyrocketing.”
” Supply chains are being disrupted.”
“And the costs and delays of transportation of imported goods – when available – are at record levels.”
“All of this is hitting the poorest the hardest and planting the seeds for political instability and unrest around the globe.”
He said 45 African and least developed countries import at least a third of their wheat from Ukraine or Russia, with 18 of those, import at least 50 percent.
“We must do everything possible to avert a hurricane of hunger and a meltdown of the global food system.”
“In addition, we are seeing clear evidence of this war draining resources and attention from other trouble-spots in desperate need.”