Yes, well written and entirely on point. Pathetic??? Please.
It is excruciatingly difficult to watch the news and see the death and destruction which the Russian military are inflicting on the Ukrainians. Like most Americans, I feel powerless and angry, and guilty that am living comfortably while thousands of Ukrainians are suffering, without food, on the run. On yesterday’s news there were interviews with Ukrainian women whose husbands were executed by Russian soldiers who then raped the widows and threatened to kill their children. One woman showed the Russian graffiti painted on the wall of her home, which stated, “We will feed our children with your bones.” What kind of people are these? What are they gaining? If Putin could be captured, would any of us oppose his being drawn and quartered, without a trial? Not me.
sorry, but "pathetic" is to post his comment as an anonymous instead of vouching with his name.
... but I wonder how this endless loop of the same arguments of the so-called "old left" can be so resistant to reality? It looks like a Pavlovian reflex in thinking.
There are two separate questions here -- connected, but still separate.
One is: what moral/political attitude should one take toward Putin/Russia and his/its actions? On that, Green is completely right.
The second is: What policy should the U.S., and 'the West' more broadly, adopt? Green seems to think there are two mutually exclusive alternatives: either give the Ukrainians weapons to help them defend themselves, or become more directly involved, as Lears apparently advocates, in negotiations/diplomacy.
I'm not sure these choices are mutually exclusive, however. I fully support giving the Ukrainians weapons and other support to bolster their capacity to defend themselves. At the same time, I wonder whether it might not be a good idea -- if only from the standpoint of trying to minimize the death and suffering of innocent people -- for the U.S. to take a more active, possibly behind-the-scenes, role in the diplomacy/negotiations that are ongoing in Turkey (whether the Russians are negotiating in "good faith" is open to doubt, but there is a process of negotiation, at least in name, going on).
As a commenter at Leiter's blog using the moniker 'Peaceful IR Realist' has argued, the Ukrainian position in negotiations seems to be that it will accede to certain Russian demands in return for security guarantees -- but the exact nature of those guarantees has to involve the U.S. in the discussions, since it would presumably be the main guarantor of Ukrainian security in any such arrangement.
That does not mean the U.S. shd go over the heads of the Ukrainian govt and disregard what Zelensky's position is (nor shd it disregard the eventual necessity of submitting any peace settlement to a Ukrainian referendum). But it does mean the U.S. shd take a more active role in the negotiations than it apparently has to date. Maybe the U.S. is participating privately and quietly in the negotiations, but somehow I doubt it.
In short, there is no reason the U.S. and Europe cannot both support the Ukrainians militarily (and otherwise) and also take a more active role in trying to bring the conflict to a resolution. This war is likely going to end, when it does, by some sort of negotiated settlement. In the interest of bringing it to an end sooner rather than later -- and under conditions that the Ukrainian leadership and a majority of Ukrainians will find acceptable -- it seems to me there is a good case for this two-pronged approach on the part of the U.S. and its allies.
Green's take is troubling on a couple of counts. For one thing, he seems to insist that the level of destruction in this war is unique in "our" experience, but anyone who followed even casually the Syrian war, and e.g. the virtually complete destruction of Aleppo, will find that position peculiar. Second, he offers no apparent way out of the conflict. The latter, again under terms acceptable to the Ukrainians, is mandatory if the suffering is to be brought to an end. The longer the war goes on, the more destruction, refugees, etc. Even a fully armed Ukrainian military may not be able to inflict a decisive defeat on the Russians, and the Russians, now apparently regrouping and preparing for a new offensive in the east, show no signs of withdrawing or giving in. This is a recipe for a long conflict that actually could turn into something like the 'total war' to which Green refers.
However bad Lears's piece was (I didn't read it), a better response to it would have tried to sketch some possible way out of the current horrific situation. Green, at least as I read him, didn't do that.
There have been reports which, as I understand them, indicate that there have been behind the scenes overtures by the U.S. at the Iran negotiation talks in Turkey. There was a report, for example, that someone from the State Dept. approached a Russian negotiator, who grew up in Ukraine, and inquire how his family, still in Ukraine,a was doing. Reports indicated that the general got flustered and left the room.
Regarding negotiating a cease fire in which both sides make concessions, it seems to me that the recent accusations by Biden that Putin is a war criminal, and the opening of a war crimes investigation in the World Court could hamper such negotiations, since Putin will in all likelihood demand as a condition of a cease fire/armistice that those proceedings cease. I cannot see Ukraine agreeing to that.
LFC is entirely right: the United States is going to have to enter into the peace negotiation process in order to end the war. As Varoufakis suggests, using Sun Tzu's Art of War as a source, they are going to have to offer Putin "a golden bridge", that is, a face-saving way out of the mess he got himself into and obviously promise him that no regime change in Russia is on the U.S. agenda.
As for Zelensky, without U.S.support at this point, he's dead and he is going to have to accept whatever deal the U.S. and the NATO powers offer him. Sorry. I'm sure that neither JFK nor Khruschev paid much attention to Fidel Castro's opinion in their agreement to end the Cuban missile crisis.
1) that's interesting, but that's not the sort of thing I had in mind. (The Iran nuclear negotiations are obvs a separate thing.)
2) I don't know, but my guess is Putin is not too concerned about the Intl Criminal Court -- to which the U.S. btw never became a signatory (the U.S. never signed the Rome statute setting up the court). I don't think the ICC is likely ever to get jurisdiction of Putin himself, at least not while he's in power.
I shd make clear that, if I had any influence on policy - which I don't obvs - I wd advocate doing this *with* Zelensky, not ignoring him or seeming to ride roughshod over his preferences.
This is a delicate balancing act and it really requires a consummate master of diplomacy to pull it off properly, itsm. I know v little about Blinken and I don't know whether he and his deputies cd do this even if they wanted to. On second thought there's prob enough diplomatic talent in the Biden admin but they'd really have to be at the top of their game. Much as I don't like Kissinger, he was very good at face to face negotiation. Not that he always succeeded in getting what he wanted, for sure, and not that he had very admirable values, but he was v good at the art of face to face negotiation -- he pretty much met his match in Le Duc Tho, but that was one of the rare times. But he's too old now to be called in as a special envoy here.
And I suppose the Kissinger detested Mao Tse Tung or Chu En Lai as much as Blinken and Biden detest Putin, but in spite of that animadversion and undoubted sense of moral superiority (whether merited or not), Kissinger was able to sit down and deal with the Chinese.
Anon, what's pathetic is that those elements of the Russian Navy on the Azov and Black Seas are not resting on the beds of those seas. I see that BJ promised Harpoons so maybe that will change.
Good article. It's clear from this recent Telegram piece from Medvedev that Russia has plans for Europe that are not to Europe's advantage:
""The goal is for the sake of the peace of future generations of Ukrainians themselves and the opportunity to finally build an open Eurasia - from Lisbon to Vladivostok."
We don't need yet another Munich. The proper analogy is perhaps that Russia needs another Tsushima. This needs to end with a clear, humiliating defeat for Putin. Our contributions to the negotiation need to go bang. 1905 shook up Imperial Russia, WWI led to revolution, civil war, and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union didn't survive Afghanistan.
While we certainly don't want NATO forces engaging Russian aircraft in the combat zone, Ukraine is a sovereign entity and as such has certain rights. If Russia can bogart areas in eastern Ukraine then it hardly seems unreasonable for Ukraine itself to draw a line from some point on the Belarusian/Ukraine border south to the Black Sea somewhere east of Odessa and invite NATO in. Fair is fair and we will get nowhere allowing Putin to define everything.
Perhaps we should have been serious about that red line in Syria.
Who cares if someone signs comments with their real names? That's a funny little obsession in this blog.
I wouldn't myself say that the article is pathetic (or not quite), but taking individual sentences and paragraphs from another article, and then snidely commenting these excerpts out of context, supposedly to refute them, is a very poor showing indeed (very well written, says the ever comical MS above). Not to mention the constant, and equally snide, mentions of the 'alt-left', whatever that is (or is it the old left?) - is Chomsky to be included in this group, given that he too has mentioned the role of Nato expansion and the presence of American nuclear weapons in Turkey and in a few other countries in Europe in these events? It is quite frankly unbelievable how these factors are simply downplayed so often, and how some in the left are mocked for it.
It would, after all, be rather a dereliction of duty for those governing the US not to have an eye to how to engage with the Russia-Ukraine war in a way that benefitted them and their notion of US national interests in the long as well as in the short term. Wasn't it Harry Truman who urged prior to Pearl Harbor that the US do what it could to get the USSR and Germany to maximally kill each other? Likewise, wouldn't it be a dereliction of duty for the left not to countenance the possibility, as it did in the case of Vietnam (and so many other instances), that the US might now be acting in ways other than those Green is moralising about? This does not preclude people from simultaneously condemning the actions of the Russian governing elite. rm
Richard Falk’s article is the kind of left-wing rubbish that Philip Green was denouncing. It is rife with sophistry and specious observations. To start with, he refers to atrocities committed in Ukraine, “seemingly” by Russian attacking forces. Seemingly?? Can he identify any atrocities committed by the Ukrainians whose homes have been demolished, their hospitals demolished, their schools demolished, their men executed and their women raped, a train station full of civilians bombed, and hundreds – women and children – killed? But the atrocities are only “seemingly” caused by the Russians.
He then proceeds to make the idiotic claim (yes, I know he is a professor emeritus of International Law at Princeton, but his credentials cannot conceal his fatuousness), he states that the Allied forces were hypocrites for prosecuting the German and Japanese war criminals while ignoring the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He states. “The essence of law is to treat equals equally.” But the roles of Germany and Japan in WWII was not equal to that of the Allies – Germany and Japan were the aggressors; the Allies were the defenders, opposing their effort to impose fascism on the world The use of the atomic bomb under those circumstances was a defensive measure to end the war which was precipitated by the aggression of Germany and Japan, and was intended to minimize the fatalities on the side of the Allies. How is that hypocrisy? This guy claims to be an expert on International Law?
Then he plays the race card, stating that the reason Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has gotten so much attention, compared to the conflict in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Palestine (i.e., Israel), as if they are all equivalent. They are not. Russia has committed the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation because he wants to annex part of it. It is killing and wounding civilians by the thousands as a tactical weapon to force them to succumb. In Syria, the President of that country is complicit with Russia in slaughtering is own people. How is that comparable to Zelensky’s resistance to Russia’s aggression? How does the racial difference between primarily Muslim Syrians and white European Ukranians supposed to account for the difference in condemnation when the circumstantial differences are entirely unequal? The same is true of each of the other counter-examples he offers – there are circumstantial differences which account for the outrage over Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine that have nothing to do with the difference in the respective population’s complexion.
He then states, “[I]t becomes crucial to understand that in the geopolitical war the U.S. is the aggressor as much as in the traditional war Russia is the aggressor.” “As much as”??? There is a big difference – Russia’s aggression in the form of traditional military tactics is killing and maiming thousands of innocent civilians. The geopolitical “aggression” of the U.S. and its Allies is not slaughtering and maiming thousands of people. And Falk’s equating the two exposes him for the fool and charlatan that he is, regardless his status as a Professor Emeritus at Princeton.
Anon, this guy is well past his sell by date. He writes:
"The U.S. approach, while mindful of escalation dangers and taking steps to avoid direct military involvement on behalf of Ukraine, shows no rush to end the fighting, apparently believing that Russia already suffering the consequences of greatly underestimating Ukrainian will and capability to resist, will be forced to acknowledge a humiliating defeat if the war goes on, which would have the strategic benefit additional to other incentives, to discourage China from aligning with Russia in the future."
I'm sure the PRC would be thrilled with a weakened and humiliated Russia. China wants a junior partner, not a superior or equal. For one thing China sees a fat hog to cut in the Arctic, while Russia has opposed Chinese involvement. Also the Chinese have long memories and there are beefs dating back to the Century of Humiliation.
I don't intend, at least not right now, to read the Falk piece, nor to enter this debate, at least not now. It's too late in the evening, for one thing.
Richard Falk has been around a long time. (I'm not going to look up his age at the moment, but he's prob roughly a contemporary of Philip Green (and RPW).) I hope he hasn't written something he'll later regret, but as I say, it's too late in the evening to read it and I may not be able to get to it in the next several days either.
As for the U.S. "national interest", I don't know how the Biden admin sees it exactly. But I think U.S. national interests would not be well served by a long conflict. A negotiated settlement that took the Ukrainians' interests and positions into account, and which they'd have to sign off on, would not be "another Munich" (aaall's phrase) for reasons that have prob been sufficiently debated and laid out here previously.
"I wish there were some Dantean hell on earth they could all be dumped into." --Phil Green
I believe there already exists many hells here on Earth & throughout the universe at large. --But is it wrong to live in the Matrix & be surrounded by it instead of warlike ruin? Is ignorance bliss? I think it may be. --In the movie: Born on the 4th of July, Tom Cruise's character volunteers to go fight in Vietnam. Later on in the movie, the audience wonders if Cruise's character would have just been happier if he would initially had stayed content living in the Matrix of the good old U.S. of A.
[A patriotic U.S. version of Kierkegaard would probably say: "Go fight in Vietnam and you will regret it, but don't go fight there and you'll regret that too."]
I believe we should add up our potential future happiness based on probability and not just possibility alone. That's how I believe we rid ourselves of the nagging fallacy of "false equivalency". People may say that not fighting in Vietnam was a "no brainer". But I think that's all in hindsight. People may have realized the futility & pointlessness of fighting & dying in Vietnam in '65 and afterwards, but did they really know that in the early 1960s? It really wasn't until February of '68 that news journalist Walter Cronkite thought Vietnam would end in an uncertain stalemate & President Johnson believed him. Protests against the war in hundreds of thousands didn't really spring up until after the Tet festival & offensive of '68. If politicians say we've evolved in war strategy policy or that civilians are more patriotic since Vietnam then I don't believe it. The reason why there have been no giant mass protests since the Vietnam War is I believe because of the U.S. policy of an "all-volunteer" military & a backdoor draft.
I don't know why the comments of Green and Falk can't both be true. Russia and the US are both imperialist powers, with the US being far more imperialist as a superpower. The fact that Putin/Russian military is quasi if not fully genocidal does not negate the fact that the US, as was the case vis-a-vis the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, has an interest in continuing the war so as to diminish Russia straight into regime change, suffering in Ukraine notwithstanding. To wit,"the Pentagon will host leaders from the top eight US weapons makers to discuss the industry’s capacity to produce arms for Ukraine if the war lasts years."
I must be misreading the claim by Green regarding the US and negotiations (The U.S....has nothing to say about a “cease-fire,” which is up to the actual combatants) because it seems to me to be ludicrous - as if the gazillions of dollars in weapons handed over to Ukraine not to mention real time intelligence comes with no strings attached.
Finally - and changing subjects, I must confess that the Anonymous question is an issue with me. Apart from never knowing with whom one is having an exchange with given the number of Anonymi that pop up in a single comment section, the practice reeks of cowardice. MLK named the struggle in Birmingham "Project Confrontation." The notion was that it was necessary to confront the segregationist so that he would make his racism explicit in the broad light of day. So regarding our commentary, who is the repressor that our Anonymi fear? And what might the consequence be should each or any of them bravely attach their name to their thoughts? When one pauses to think of the courage of those around the world actually risking their lives and the lives of their loved ones to be who they must be in order to challenge repression, I feel as though this Anonymous business, commenting in a rather tame corner of the blogosphere, rips away the rose of inspirational acts of articulation, particularly among intellectuals, and sets a blister there. Your practice, Mr or MS Anonymous, forces me to play your game. It doesn't insite in me a "funny obsession," it degrades and tarnishes,for me, a beautiful thing.
As a parallel to my above post, Obi-Wan Kenobi asked young Luke Skywalker to fight the Empire, in the 1977 Star Wars movie, which was directed by famous storyteller George Lucas. Now Obi-Wan didn't force Luke to join him in that fight. This I believe endeared the post-Vietnam audience to the SW's Rebellion that was then fighting against the Empire in the first SW movie. The Empire supposedly used the Death Star (& later Death Star 2) as terror weapons to forcefully draft the eligible human populations, living inside various star systems, to serve inside the infamous but orderly Imperial Fleet. (This is probably why, at the end of third SW movie, every fictional character celebrated the Rebellion's freedom from the exploded Death Star 2, which movie goes by the title of: Return of the Jedi. Even the little Ewok creatures volunteered to fight the Empire & were not instead forced to fight them.) Lucas probably adopted this historical fact & message of freewill from the legacy of the post-Vietnam War for also use in his famous, epic Sci-fi movie anthology.
Anonymi? Oh dear. The word "anonymous" is technically only an adjective, not a noun (apart from when it is turned into a proper noun, as in the hacker group Anonymous), so it doesn't inflect in English (ie, it has no plural).
And I don't think any anonymous contributors to this blog are actually afraid of anything (why is this the only possibility people can come with?); I suspect that in most cases these people just don't want to have a public presence on the internet, as is my case. It would certainly be better if blogger.com generated a unique anonymous ID in each case to tease people apart, though (Anonymous 1, 2, etc.).
It's easy enough to invent an internet alias so that other commentators can tell the folks who comment as Anonymous apart. For example, someone here comments as Marcel Proust, another as That Dude Diogenes, etc.
As you would expect, I do not agree with you. The United States is a “far more imperialist” power than Russia? What is your evidence for this? The Vietnam War; the Gulf War; the invasion of Afghanistan; the Iraq war? I expect your bias against the U.S., but on what basis do you claim that these conflicts demonstrate that the U.S. is a “far more imperialist” power than Russia, when compared to Russia’s aggression in Afghanistan; Chechnya; Syria; Crimea; and now its brutal invasion of Ukraine? How do you justify your use of the superlative “far more”?
They were examples of people who wished to break away from the dominance of their countries by American corporations such as United fruit and by CIA-trained right-wing militias.
The US not an imperialist power? How about the fact that the US has hundreds of military bases in hundreds of countries all over the world, many of these imposed by force (including in Europe right after the Second World War, and through NATO since then)? Not to mention the many wars, invasions, and coups that derived therefrom. And there's also the little discussed, but equally true, fact that the the vast majority of international payments have to be conducted via American banks and in US dollars, giving the US immense leverage (e.g., in imposing financial sanctions; the LRB reviewed a book on this issue recently), and this too was imposed on the rest of the world rather agreed upon consensually.
One atrocity that people seem to forget is the Indonesian genocide carried out by the army against leftist president Sukarno and the Indonesian left in 1965 and fully supported by, yes, the U.S., good old beloved LBJ and ranked with the Nazi Holocaust, the Stalinist and Maoist purges among the major genocides of the 20th century. Of course, life in the Orient is cheap, unlike in Ukraine.
I don't think it's accurate to refer to the hundreds of military bases around the world as "imposed by force." Force indeed was the case in the years immediately following WWII in both Germany and Japan, but that has not been the case for decades. US bases are there by treaty--because the Germans and the Japanese governments want them to be there. The same is true of Korea. The same is true of the the others scattered throughout Africa. That's not to say that all or any of these are needed, that they are not the result of military bureaucracy expanding its mission--in large part, apart from NATO, Japan, and Korea, I believe, they are all the result of the military-industrial complex expanding its mission. But "imposed"? C'mon. In the mid-1960s, I was stationed temporarily in France. Shortly thereafter, DeGaulle took France out of the unified NATO command, the US troops left, and NATO headquarters were moved to Brussels.
But I had six wonderful weeks in Paris. It was tough duty, but someone had to do it.
I did say 'many of these bases' were imposed by force (or by fiat, as it were), I did not say that all of them were - and in this sense my comment is certainly true, and fair, especially regarding Western Europe and Asia after WW2, let alone in all those countries the US has been militarily involved with since then (France is certainly an outlier in Europe). And you do know that Western Germany and Japan were NOT sovereign countries after the war, right? I mean, Japan was invaded by the US!
You may have read my post too quickly. I did note that bases were "imposed" on both WWII enemies, but once occupation ended the continued presence of those bases was the result of treaties, and remain so to this day. In fact, both Japan and Germany welcomed the American presence as a guard against the Soviet Union. Things had not gone too well for their newly liberated neighbors in North Korea, Poland, Hungary et al. Germany was not even a member of NATO until 1955. In fact, NATO's smaller predecessors were aimed--at the insistence of the British and French--at Germany. They were understandably wary of a repeat of what happened after WWI. Even NATO, in 1949, was said to be for the purpose keeping the the Germans down, the Russians out, and the Americans in.
So--apart from the occupation of the defeated WWII enemies, what other countries host bases that they do not want but that we have "imposed" on them?
There is no point in continuing this back-and-forth dialogue regarding which country is more imperialistic than the other, the United States or Russia. I will concede, for the sake of argument, to Jerry Fresia, s. wallerstein, Anonymous and all the other Usual Suspects that the United States has engaged in objectionable foreign escapades, and has killed and injured innocent civilians in the process, just as Russia has. As I see it, however, it comes down this - when the chips are down, given the form of domestic governance of each of these countries, if you had to pick one country to prevail over the other in world domination, which would your select? Under which form of government would you rather live – the United States or Russia. During the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has jailed hundreds (thousands?) of anti-war protesters, without trial. There is no saying how long they will wallow in Russia’s prisons. All protest by the media has been squashed. In Cuba, there are thousands of political prisoners who have been jailed without a trial. During the Vietnam War, thousands of people were allowed to protest in the United States. Some were arrested; some were beaten. Most were not. And even those who were arrested were afforded trials, in which they were presumed innocent, were allowed to request a jury of their peers, and the prosecution was required to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Remember the Chicago Seven? None of the protesters currently jailed in Russia will enjoy such rights. One of the main topics on this blog is the concern about what might happen to our democracy if Trump gets re-elected. Why are we concerned if our form of government, as it is presently constituted, is basically no better than that in Russia. Because we all believe, when the chips are down, with all its flaws, that our current form of government is better than Russia’s. So, if you had to choose which country you want to prevail in this struggle for world dominance, which would it be – the United States or Russia. I bet 10 to 1 most of you, if not all, would choose the United States, blemishes and all. I rest my case. And it is no rejoinder to say that if the United States did prevail, then it would no longer be the country it currently is – that the Constitution would be abrogated; that the First Amendment right to free speech would be gutted; that the right to trial by jury would be stripped; and that the Bill of Rights would be shreddrd. That is highly unlikely to happen, unless those of you who find the Untied States so objectionable that you refuse to vote in elections in which you must choose between evil and the lesser evil, and forfeit the election to the likes of Trump and his surrogates.
Germany and Japan welcomed the bases as a bulwark against the Soviet Union? When was that, because on my account those bases (and it bears emphasising that it was West Germany only) were already there, at least in embryo, by the time the Cold War started? Both West Germany and Japan were invaded by the US (and other countries) in the war, so there was already a military presence there, and it would be an exemplar of a slightly twisted logic to assume that the requests to have bases in their countries was entirely unbiased, or entirely a free choice, in this respect. A treaty can be imposed, let's not be flippant about this.
Oh, and I only talked about bases being imposed, I did not say anything about bases being imposed but not being wanted, the latter of which is your own addition.
Great question: the US has 900 military installations around the world and is actively involved in covert activity in well over 100 countries. Further, the US has either invaded or has had covert military activity in 98% of the world's countries (only 2 haven't been invaded or acted in). I would provide you with links but to be honest I just don't feel like digging them up at this point.
Further, the US, the dominant/hegemonic power post WWII divided the world into 5 regions (perhaps four, can't remember right now) for European/US material access and exploitation (read white supremacist). Further, the US has killed close to 20 million people in these imperialist activities since WWII.
The USSR has "imperialized" countries on its borders but I think today (Russia) has only 5 military installations outside of its borders. Moreover, I would defy anyone reading this to tell me of a product in their house today that says "made in Russia."
Now, before the patriots jump down my throat and accuse me of some terrible sin, I would like to add the following: 1. my grandfather died from poison gas in WWI; 2) my father saw combat in WWII and won the purple heart and was seriously mentally wounded from the experience. I graduated from the Virginia Military Institution in 1969 with a degree in electrical engineering. I then spent 4 years as an "air intelligence officer" from 1971 through 1974, serving about 800 days overseas during the Vietnam war. I had a top secret plus clearance. And I'm still angry about what I saw and learned.
So when learned people jump up to tell us how bad we are if we believe that the US incorporates the Russian invasion of Ukraine into its hegemonic plans to control the resources on earth, I get depressed.
I would encourage you to go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89sziYfmhYg&ab_channel=ChannelB%26b It is the film on the Vietnam war called "Hearts and Minds;" at precisely, 1:38:58 you will see the North Vietnamese, at night, defending the city of Hanoi, more precisely, Bac Mach Mai Hospital. The Vietnamese only had WWII surface to air missiles and artillery to defend themselves from B-52 dropping 500 lb bombs.
I was at SAC HQ, 6 floors underground. I held in my hands the "frag orders" of the "December bombings of 1972 - orders which identify on each line such things as "platform" (aircraft), target, time over target, ordinance and so on. So I held a copy of the orders...probably 25 lines per page; there were 25 pages. The US had pulled together every single B-52 in its arsenal, over 700, so that for 18 days, there was a steady reign of bombs dropping on a large city.....one after the other.
I saw the orders 4 days before the actual bombing. I was a Captain; I was 24. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to blow the whistle but how? to whom? where? All I knew was that horror would soon be visited upon the Vietnamese people whose only crime, it seems, is that they wanted independence from European and American power. 3 to 5 million Indochinese were killed during the war; tens of thousands more each year as they still haven't been provided with maps identifying areas where a variety of weapons were dropped in their fields including cluster bombs. So kids, picking up colorful bomblets are blown up.
What the Russians are doing is horrible, criminal, no question. But is any of you going to claim that the US is innocent in this? and not manipulating Ukraine to advance its own hegemonic interests? As the professor has said before, governments are not are people with feelings. They only have interests.
I am not going to quibble with you regarding which country, the United States or Russia, or the former Soviet Union, has more blood on its hands. I believe that some of your statistics regarding the United States are highly exaggerated, and some of your historical characterizations are inaccurate. That said, you have not answered the question in my prior comment. In the geopolitical tug of war between the United States and Russia, if there were to be a winner, with one of the two countries exercising dominion over the entire world, which of two forms of government would you prefer to live under> This is not a love-it-or-leave it challenge. It is a legitimate question as to which government, conceding that both have committed atrocities and violated the sovereignty of other nations, would you prefer to ultimately prevail?
The NY Times is reporting that Finland and Sweden are considering applying to NATO for membership. If one or both does, would there be any moral basis for refusing?
First of all, the real geopolitical tug of war today is between China and the U.S., not Russia and the U.S. As is evident in his failure to conquer Ukraine or even Donbas, Putin is a second-rate power and probably will end up as China's very junior partner.
Second, I suppose that those who value their autonomy will resist the power which threatens it. In Ukraine they will resist Russia and in Hong Kong they will resist China.
People throughout Latin America who have been subject to U.S. hegemony, military interventions, coups sponsored or backed by the CIA and domination since the Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed will resist the United States. Here in Chile we see that the Chinese are busy buying up mining resources and the electrical power system and maybe some day we'll have to concentrate our energies on resisting Chinese imperialism rather than U.S. imperialism. Russia is far away from Latin America and only concerns us insofar as we feel solidarity with the people of Ukraine, but is certainly no threat to our autonomy.
A small correction to "your favourite [etc.]" This has no bearing really on the underlying argument but is a question of language.
"Your favourite..." has said a couple of times that the U.S. invaded -- note the verb: "invaded" -- Japan. In fact the U.S. did not launch a ground invasion of the Japanese home islands, as they were referred to. One of the main official U.S. justifications for the use of the atomic bombs was that they would remove the necessity for a ground invasion of Japan and thereby save many lives of U.S. soldiers. To be clear, I am not justifying use of the atomic bombs (or the fire bombing of Tokyo for that matter); I'm just noting that that was one of the main stated justifications. The U.S. and Japan fought an all-out war that ended in the latter's defeat and occupation, but the U.S. never invaded -- as that word is commonly understood -- Japan. It "invaded" one cd say Japanese-held territories and islands that Japan had taken, but not the "home islands."
You miss my point. I don’t care if the greatest adversary to so-called United States geopolitical hegemony is Russia, or China, or North Korea, or Cuba etc.or all of them taken together, you, Jerry Fresia, Anonymous, etc., routinely criticize the United States (where you do not live) in comparison to all of the aforementioned, so, my question is, if you had to choose as between the United States on the one hand and Russia-China-North Korea-Cuba cumulatively on the other, which would you prefer prevailed in the ultimate struggle for world hegemony? Which form of government, blemishes and all, would provide, given the current form of their governments, the greatest protection to your right of free speech; your right to trial before a jury; your right to travel from country to country; your right of association with the gender of your choice; your right …. etc. Why are you, and Jerry Fresia, reluctant to answer the question?
people killed by the US since WWII: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2018/03/u-s-regime-has-killed-20-30-million-people-since-world-war-ii/
deaths in Indochina: see above
countries invaded by the US: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2018/03/u-s-regime-has-killed-20-30-million-people-since-world-war-ii/
Regarding which of the two countries would I choose to live in? If I were a white male born in 1948 to a working class family, I would prefer the US - largely because of the changes brought about by resistance over the decades and the amount of wealth that fell into my lap by virtue of the massive extraction of wealth that the US system extracted from others at home and around the world - but certainly not because of the design of the system, which has has begot an unspeakable toll of human suffering. FYI: I left the US in 2004.
I take ten minutes or so out of my fairly busy afternoon to politely answer your question as I see fit. My manner of seeing the world is not yours, so I don't exactly answer it within your parameters.
Instead of recognizing that fact, which is part of the give and take of conversation, you press me to answer the question in your terms as if I were on the witness stand or accused of some crime. You do that again and again. That does not contribute to a fruitful dialogue in which each partner learns from the other.
At the risk of jumping on Marc's post, I note that he listed a group of countries--N.Korea, China, Russia, Cuba or the US to have world hegemony which would you pick? (I'd prefer a world in which no single country had hegemony, but that wasn't one of his options; if one country has to have it, I'd prefer that it be the one I live in.)
IIRC from earlier posts, you moved to Italy. Not exactly China, Cuba, Russia or N. Korea. Those four don't seem to have an immigrant problem.
“If the reigning political-economic order remains in place, it is difficult to see this ramping up of military expenditures not coming at the cost of what little remains of social safety nets. Neoliberal security states will trade growth for still more missiles and razor wire. It is hard not to see parallels here with the twilight of the Belle Epoque. Then as now, inter-imperial tensions fed a headlong arms race. Then as now, too, public opinion readily rallied behind national governments. In 1914 the parliamentary parties of the left followed suit, voting for war credits in their national legislatures and thus enabling the bloodbath they had pledged to avert two years earlier. This is, of course, another century, and the left is in a far weaker position, with far less influence on the course of events. By the same token, it is much more vulnerable to being swept along or swept aside by a militarized great-power confrontation it played no role in creating. Some of the old tools—internationalism, class solidarity, a fierce and uncompromising analytical clarity—will be needed to rearm the left against this new round of inter-imperial contention: against the powerful, against both their wars and their peace.”
Because of the defective electoral college you would prefer to live in Russia, China, North Korea or Cuba, where you only get to vote for the country’s leader once every 10 or so years, and even then your vote does not count. Now, I really question your judgment.
s. wallerstein,
What witness stand? Your refusal to answer the question speaks for itself.
Anonymous,
It is not a “spurious” question. It is a real question. And your refusal to answer it, expect with a spurious answer, speaks for itself. I prefer the imperialist system of the United States, without hesitiation.
It really depends on who you are. If you ask me, white, middle class, educated, intellectual, English-speaking, I'll probably give you one answer, but..
Patricio Fernandez, Chilean author, far from a radical leftist, wrote a book "Cuba, un viaje al fin de la revolución", Cuba, a voyage to the end of the revolution, which while not the anti-communist rant that some who comment here would love to read, is very critical of the Cuban system and sees the so-called "Cuban revolution" as passé, over, a system that no one in Cuba really believes in any more.
However, I listened to him in a forum where to my surprise, Fernandez, always a bright and surprising figure, affirmed that when all is said and done, a dark-skinned child born to poor parents in Latin America might well be better off in Cuba than in any other Latin American country because in Cuba he or she would have the same healthcare, the same education as everyone else, and the Cuban public healthcare and educational systems are of good quality, because they would not grow up among the gang violence and drug culture so common in most poor neighborhood in Latin America and because in Cuba they would have the possibility to become a doctor or an engineer, not condemned to life of menial labor or gang violence by the rigid class system so prevalent in the rest of Latin America, etc.
The preference to live in the United States is not limited to white, middle class individuals, because they do not have to remain poor and uneducated. Ask Katanji Brown Jackson, who was just appointed to the United States Supreme Court. Or Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defense Or Deb Haaland, the Secretary of the Interior and an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo. Or Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security, whose parents escaped to the United States from Communist Cuba; Or Peter Buttigieg, the openly gay Secretary of Transportation. Or me, whose great-grandparents emigrated from Poland and Romania to avoid the rampant anti-Semitism, and raised children who worked hard, started their own businesses and joined the middle class. Or the hundreds of thousands of 1st generation Americans who parents emigrated to the United States from hundreds of other countries, virtually penniless, but made a life for themselves, where they can express their displeasure with the United States government without being arrested and jailed without a trial. And the Cuban child you refer to, he may be able to get a free education and health care in Cuba, but dare he criticize the Cuban government, he find himself in a dark prison cell without any hope of a trial. But if he had the good fortune of being raised in the U.S., if he learned to read and studied hard, he could still get a free public education, and emergency health care, and his parents could obtain health care under Obamacare. Now, he might not grow up to be as wealthy as Jeff Bezos, or Bill Gates, or Mark Zuckerberg, but, like millions of Americans who are not billionaires, or even millionaires, he could still live a comfortable life and afford a large screen t.v. and a smart phone, and have access to hundreds of media outlets which would tell him about the lack of free speech in Russia and China, and the absence of a free press, and the persecution of people who are gay, where I am sure you would prefer to live rather than in Chile.
Then please, Marc, since you here identify yourself as an American imperialist, don't ever pretend you're on the left. I second s. wallerstein's previous complaint that you regularly set up false oppositions and demand responses on your terms--hence the spriousness. rm
"The NY Times is reporting that Finland and Sweden are considering applying to NATO for membership. If one or both does, would there be any moral basis for refusing?"
No and they should be admitted ASAP as it seems Russia is setting up a border dispute with Finland in an attempt to monkey wrench the process.
"Russian Bastion Anti-Ship missile unit on the move west of Vyborg. That road leads to Finland along the Saimaa Canal. It's about 26km from the Finnish border and 7km from the lowest lock of the canal that is rented to Finland."
Simo Häyhä (1095-2002) was a Finnish sniper. He is reported to have killed 500 Russian soldiers during the Winter War of 1939-1940. He was given the name “White Death” because of his white winter uniform.
They can provide you with the details. In a nutshell, you will need to buy yourself some basic kit (uniform, weapons, ammo) all of it readily available in American stores. Military training/experience are preferable, but I'm sure you can pay someone to train you. A donation to the war effort may help as well.
Age and gender are no barrier. If 79-year old women can be trained to fire AK-47s and children can be trained into manufacturing IEDs and booby traps, why couldn't you?
As usual, you change the terms of debate to suit yourself.
Your original challenge was whether one would prefer to live under U.S hegemony or under that of Russia.
I answered that it depends on who you are. For a poor, dark-skinned Latin American it would be better to live in Cuba (ally of Russia and of the ex Soviet Union) than in the rest of Latin America which is under U.S. hegemony and has huge class inequalities with formal representative democracy.
Instead of recognizing my point, you slam a conclusion, that it is better to live in the U.S. than in Cuba. Maybe, but we were originally discussing (and it was your challenge) whether it was better to live under U.S. or Russian domination, not whether it was better to live in the U.S. itself than under Russian domination.
You don't play fair. I lose too much time lost in your cheap tricks. It's over.
No, it is you who have changed the terms of the dialogue. My original question was, given your, Fresia’s, Anonymous’s, and others’ routine criticisms of the United States vs. other world powers, if you had to choose which of those powers would prevail in their geopolitical struggle, and under whose governance you and they would prefer to live, which would you choose? Implicit in the question was that all the countries which came into the victor’s zone of hegemony would be governed by that country’s current form of governance. Contrary to your skewed vision of the United State, it does not currently exercise hegemony over Central or Latin America. It does have influence over these countries, but hegemony? Hardly. It is you who are changing the terms by claiming that the U.S. currently exercises hegemony over Central and Latin America. It does not. It certainly does not dictate how their elections are conducted and who get elected; or whether their populations enjoy the rights which Americans are guaranteed under the Bill of Rights.
It's not "routine criticisms of the United States vs. other world powers," Marc, it's criticism of the United States AND--AND, I emphasise again--other world powers. As s. w. has tried to tell you to the point of exhaustion, it's you, a self-confessed American imperialist, who keeps turning it into an either / or issue. That may be your way of looking at the world but it isn't necessarily ours. rm
Perhaps we should lose, or at least tighten, terms like "hegemony" and "domination" and stop fighting the battles of our youth? Currently Russia seems driven to create Eurasia, employing military force as well as its agents and assets in Europe and the United States. We are one election away in France and two in the United States from that being a possible outcome. Meanwhile, China licks its lips .
Also, it seems that Black folks from Africa and South America do just fine in the United States.
On a happier note this will be the largest navel vessel lost in combat since the Belgrano in the Falklands War: Russian sources have acknowledged that the Moskva has sunk.
Trigger warning for sensitive souls but perhaps there's more to matters then the bloodless IR "realism" about hegemony, great powers, and Putin not feeling humiliated, As Michael said, "they could win":
Russian casualties in this conflict so far are "staggering," to quote an April 9 WaPo article. NATO estimates that 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed so far. One of them, according to the article, was a 19-year-old gunner who was trapped inside his APC and burned, or so the Russian military told his mother, who never received her son's body. (I'll try to link to the piece later.)
While the main concern is properly for the Ukrainian civilians who have been killed, injured or made refugees (and the Ukrainian military personnel who have been killed), it's worth reminding oneself that there are losses, albeit not of civilians, on the Russian side also. Some Russian soldiers have committed war crimes; others, presumably, have not. A 19-year-old who died in his armored personnel carrier is not, presumptively, a war criminal himself, though he was participating in an unlawful war of aggression.
The performance of the Russ ian military in this war so far has been sub-par to put it mildly. Bad logistics, bad strategy, ill-disciplined soldiers, indiscriminate targeting of civilians (though the last may be roughly SOP for the Russian military).
On this showing the question whether Russia can "create Eurasia" (whatever that means exactly) seems less pertinent than whether it can find a face-saving way out of this disaster.
Currently Russia seems driven to create Eurasia, employing military force as well as its agents and assets in Europe and the United States. We are one election away in France and two in the United States from that being a possible outcome. Meanwhile, China licks its lips.
I can't really understand how the Russians can be driven to create an already existing landmass (should Bolsonaro and Modi start pulling ropes until their countries join into Bradia or Indbra? Just by closing the Atlantic Ocean we could form USUK!), but never mind that.
For the sake of the argument, let's assume that makes sense. How can Russia still be a threat? Haven't they already had their asses kicked out of Northern Ukraine? They just lost even their Black Sea flagship, either due to incompetence or to Ukrainian martial prowess or both.
Zemmour is out of the race and even his and Marine Le Pen's numbers combined aren't enough to win.
True, there's always China, that so far has not blackballed Russia. Come to think of it, India and Turkey and Israel haven't either.
PS,
By the by, maybe you and Marc should both volunteer. From Lviv all the way to Beijing, brief stops at Istanbul, Tel Aviv and New Delhi.
"On this showing the question whether Russia can "create Eurasia" (whatever that means exactly) seems less pertinent than whether it can find a face-saving way out of this disaster."
1. Given where he died I wouldn't be inclined to give any Russian soldier, absent positive evidence, the benefit of doubt as to his being a war criminal or not (maybe a sort of felony murder rule should apply in these cases). Recall that with My Lai there were American soldiers who acted honorably and Eddie Gallagher was turned in by members of his own Seal team.
2. This recent Telegram post by Medvedev (translated) is interesting:
" And they will be decided not only on the battlefields. To change the bloody and full of false myths consciousness of a part of today's Ukrainians is the most important goal. The goal is for the sake of the peace of future generations of Ukrainians themselves and the opportunity to finally build an open Eurasia - from Lisbon to Vladivostok."
Orwell's Eurasia and Demetri's actually seem to match up so I'll go with it. Now, we know that Putin and his crew aren't happy with the EU and as going from Lisbon to Russia's western border is EU territory, this "open Eurasia" building talk seems ominous for Europe as we know it.
3. Re: This "face saving." If we ponder our experiences with the American Civil War, Germany et al in WWI, and Germany and Japan in WWII we find that handling the peace is as important as prosecuting the war. Whiffing on Reconstruction led to decades of reaction and state sponsored terrorism in this nation and still may well end us. WWI - duh! After WWII we didn't worry about the feelings of the folks running Germany and Japan. After flattening both nations they were occupied and the leaders tried, imprisoned, and a few executed. The MacArthur Shogunate cut the Emperor some slack for reasons but the "devine" thing was out. Both nations have turned out well after those "humiliations".
Putin and his crew have internalized a way fakakta ideology around Russian identity and religion that crowds out the possibility of Russia actually developing into a mature nation. The ideal would be a thorough purge (hey, I can dream) but the last thing we need is for Putin to skate on this. Even a little humiliation is better then none.
If the Ukrainians actually get enough self-propelled 155s and counter-battery radar, Russian towed artillery becomes useless. I see the Russian Navy has retreated out of Neptune range but is still within Harpoon range.
It's a shame the old fella didn't follow through with his promise to start barring comments. There's enough apologetics of (the right kind of) imperialism, invasions, occupations, and military bases, not to mention the proposed conviction of Russian soldiers for war crimes by default (presumption of innocence be damned!), to turn one's stomach.
I feel as though I’ve moved into a terrible parallel universe. I understand that there’s room for differences of opinion in (the perhaps too often tangential) responses to Prof. Wollf’s postings, but I thought the blog elicited responses from people roughly sharing the same moral and political universe. But it seems I was wrong.
Did the person who wrote “Perhaps we should lose, or at least tighten, terms like "hegemony" and "domination" and stop fighting the battles of our youth?” have any connection with those who rejected the notion (by Feuer, was it?) that opposition to the barbarism of Vietnam was nothing more thsn a rebellion of the younger generation against thier parents? Besides, hegemony and domination are surely still useful, albeit essentially contestable, terms for analysing and understanding how the world works. (I am, of course, responding to and rejecting the sarcasm of aaall’s comment.)
And in what world is someone living who believes “that Black folks from Africa and South America do just fine in the United States.”? Has the Russian invasion of Ukraine eradicated all memory of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter? (And so much much more?)
And is it really “on a happier note” that we celebrate the sinking of the largest naval vessel since the Brlgrano was sunk during the Falklands war. I seem to recall many people in Britain being a bit appalled when the Belgrano was sunk. But perhaps we inhabit more brutal times where we celebrate violent death? Or perhaps I’m just a too “sensative soul” who finds all deaths in war regrettable?
Or as DJL put it, some comments just turn one's stomach. rm
I agree that we were wrong to assume that this blog elicits responses from people roughly sharing the same political and ethical universe. At least we all agree that Trump is bad, Le Pen is bad and that gay marriage is good.
I woke up in the middle of the night, checked my email, saw aaall's comment, was going to answer, but decided to go back to sleep.
Not only do I count myself among the "sensitive souls", but also I was going to point out that Putin has nuclear weapons, that invading Russia has never worked out well for anyone and that while imposing democracy worked well in Japan and Germany, it didn't in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
However, I'm not Sir Galahad. I can't right every wrong on the internet.
As the writer Grace Paley says in a story, I don't argue when there's a real disagreement.
That's going to be my policy from now on. If one of our liberal hawks/neocons badly distorts what I say, I'm probably going to point out that he or she is distorting what I say as usual, but no more.
I quit smoking, I quit drinking, I stopped eating meating and I guess I can kick the habit of automatically responding to all provocative comments from liberal hawks/neocons here.
Golly! Don't see why merely pointing out that history, Russian military doctrine, location, and duration might mitigate against an informal presumption of innocence should be stomach turning but whatever. BTW, there's a reason why German troops went to great lengths to surrender to the US/UK forces (on the other hand, Lyudmila Pavlichenko (Ukrainian, BTW) is still a hero https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHKjOl9ocR0).
s.w.. I am aware that Russia has nukes and I'll agree that invading that nation doesn't seem to ever work out well but I've never advocated doing that so why mention it? OTOH, giving into intimidation usually guarantees future remorse. An actual analysis of all aspects of warring on Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya would have led to an abandonment of the projects well before beginning them. Lumping them with how Europe and Japan were handled post WWII is inapt. Also those Nader Wars of the aughts are a good example of why third parties in a FPTP polity are a bad idea.
Actual conditions matter. The Russian ruling class is in thrall to as fictional and poisonous an ideology as any Nazi ever dreamed up. Ukrainian resolve and skill as well as Russian ineptitude provides an opportunity. What's the problem?
Anon, I know statistics are often inconvenient but still you might check them out. GF and BLM has nothing to do with the points MS, s.w., and moi are making. You keep waving that bloody shirt though.
And yes, sinking a guided missile cruiser and forcing the rest of the Russian Navy to stand off is a happy event if one puts oneself in the place of a resident of Odessa or south eastern Ukraine, which I do. Equal opportunity heart bleeding is a moral aberration. The size issue is a mere statistic which I found interesting.
The "liberal hawk" meme is a red herring. Sometimes a given war isn't the worst choice. No Civil War would have likely led to a series of wars down the line. WWII, of course, was no choice. We were to young for WWII and we grew up with the ridiculous anti-communist hysteria of the late 1940s on that too often ignored the legitimate aspirations of folks in the third world and poisoned our internal politics. Today the problem is a resurgent herrenvolk nationalism and fascism. Times change.
BTW, B.L., I don't think a couple of folks well into their seventies would be of much use.
Since my remark was directly attached to something you, aaall, wrote which I quoted, I fail to see the point of your objection. I'll repeat it:
And in what world is someone living who believes “that Black folks from Africa and South America do just fine in the United States.”? Has the Russian invasion of Ukraine eradicated all memory of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter? (And so much much more?) rm
anon, actually I did but you missed it. Google a little and check the stats for immigrants from Africa, etc. That is an entirely separate issue from the problems around policing in the United States re: people of color. As long as we pretend its still the frontier times and insist on thousands of jurisdictions for matters like policing and education as well as maintaining the fiction of the laboratories of democracy these problems will persist. POST should be graduate level, not community college.
Fixing what seems to bother you would require a new Constitution (or a new electorate) among other things. Meanwhile, letting dictators run wild in Europe hasn't worked out well in the past and that can be helped with the stroke of a pen.
Thank you for that link to Woody Guthrie’s song paying tribute to Lyudmila Pavlichenko. I had never heard of that song, nor of her. Interesting to hear Guthrie refer to the Nazis as “the Hun.” Pavlichenko was given the nickname “Lady Death.”
According to the Wikipedia article about her, Pavlichenko toured the United States after the war and met with Eleanor Roosevelt and Justice Robert Jackson (who was the chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremburg trials). She was injured by shrapnel in 1942 and was evacuated to Moscow. She completed her education at Kyiv University after the war, and became an historian. (Wonder if Russia’s bombs have hit Kyiv University.)
Regarding your comment, as you point out, some people suffer from a serious affliction of moral relativism, compounded by moral equivalence.
I don't think a couple of folks well into their seventies would be of much use.
Don't underestimate yourself or Marc, my dear aaall. Like I pointed out to Marc, even 79-yo Ukrainian babushkas and middle school kiddies were learning to shoot AK47s and making booby traps and IEDs. If they can, so can you, surely?
Your suggestion that I am a hypocrite for not being willing to travel to Ukraine to take up arms against the Russian invaders is the kind of smear that I am sure you would resent were it directed at you. I currently have ten lawsuits pending in federal and Michigan state courts. As repulsed as I am by the Russian aggression, and impressed by the heroic defiance of the Ukrainian people, I cannot, either morally or professionally, abandon my clients in order to prove the authenticity of my disgust with Russia’s brutal invasion, or the sincerity of my support for the Ukrainian people. My clients have the right to expect me to represent them diligently and unswervingly. What commitments, however, prevent you from traveling to Ukraine to support the Russian invaders whose cause you have suggested is more legitimate than the media is letting on. Your snarkiness is typical of your lack of cogent thought, as well as lack of moral fiber.
Well, that's quite the hatchet job, to be honest - not that Lears's piece isn't terrible, but this juvenile comment piece is pathetic.
ReplyDeleteYes, well written and entirely on point. Pathetic??? Please.
ReplyDeleteIt is excruciatingly difficult to watch the news and see the death and destruction which the Russian military are inflicting on the Ukrainians. Like most Americans, I feel powerless and angry, and guilty that am living comfortably while thousands of Ukrainians are suffering, without food, on the run. On yesterday’s news there were interviews with Ukrainian women whose husbands were executed by Russian soldiers who then raped the widows and threatened to kill their children. One woman showed the Russian graffiti painted on the wall of her home, which stated, “We will feed our children with your bones.” What kind of people are these? What are they gaining? If Putin could be captured, would any of us oppose his being drawn and quartered, without a trial? Not me.
sorry, but "pathetic" is to post his comment as an anonymous instead of vouching with his name.
ReplyDelete... but I wonder how this endless loop of the same arguments of the so-called "old left" can be so resistant to reality? It looks like a Pavlovian reflex in thinking.
There are two separate questions here -- connected, but still separate.
ReplyDeleteOne is: what moral/political attitude should one take toward Putin/Russia and his/its actions? On that, Green is completely right.
The second is: What policy should the U.S., and 'the West' more broadly, adopt? Green seems to think there are two mutually exclusive alternatives: either give the Ukrainians weapons to help them defend themselves, or become more directly involved, as Lears apparently advocates, in negotiations/diplomacy.
I'm not sure these choices are mutually exclusive, however. I fully support giving the Ukrainians weapons and other support to bolster their capacity to defend themselves. At the same time, I wonder whether it might not be a good idea -- if only from the standpoint of trying to minimize the death and suffering of innocent people -- for the U.S. to take a more active, possibly behind-the-scenes, role in the diplomacy/negotiations that are ongoing in Turkey (whether the Russians are negotiating in "good faith" is open to doubt, but there is a process of negotiation, at least in name, going on).
As a commenter at Leiter's blog using the moniker 'Peaceful IR Realist' has argued, the Ukrainian position in negotiations seems to be that it will accede to certain Russian demands in return for security guarantees -- but the exact nature of those guarantees has to involve the U.S. in the discussions, since it would presumably be the main guarantor of Ukrainian security in any such arrangement.
That does not mean the U.S. shd go over the heads of the Ukrainian govt and disregard what Zelensky's position is (nor shd it disregard the eventual necessity of submitting any peace settlement to a Ukrainian referendum). But it does mean the U.S. shd take a more active role in the negotiations than it apparently has to date. Maybe the U.S. is participating privately and quietly in the negotiations, but somehow I doubt it.
In short, there is no reason the U.S. and Europe cannot both support the Ukrainians militarily (and otherwise) and also take a more active role in trying to bring the conflict to a resolution. This war is likely going to end, when it does, by some sort of negotiated settlement. In the interest of bringing it to an end sooner rather than later -- and under conditions that the Ukrainian leadership and a majority of Ukrainians will find acceptable -- it seems to me there is a good case for this two-pronged approach on the part of the U.S. and its allies.
Green's take is troubling on a couple of counts. For one thing, he seems to insist that the level of destruction in this war is unique in "our" experience, but anyone who followed even casually the Syrian war, and e.g. the virtually complete destruction of Aleppo, will find that position peculiar. Second, he offers no apparent way out of the conflict. The latter, again under terms acceptable to the Ukrainians, is mandatory if the suffering is to be brought to an end. The longer the war goes on, the more destruction, refugees, etc. Even a fully armed Ukrainian military may not be able to inflict a decisive defeat on the Russians, and the Russians, now apparently regrouping and preparing for a new offensive in the east, show no signs of withdrawing or giving in. This is a recipe for a long conflict that actually could turn into something like the 'total war' to which Green refers.
However bad Lears's piece was (I didn't read it), a better response to it would have tried to sketch some possible way out of the current horrific situation. Green, at least as I read him, didn't do that.
LFC.
ReplyDeleteThere have been reports which, as I understand them, indicate that there have been behind the scenes overtures by the U.S. at the Iran negotiation talks in Turkey. There was a report, for example, that someone from the State Dept. approached a Russian negotiator, who grew up in Ukraine, and inquire how his family, still in Ukraine,a was doing. Reports indicated that the general got flustered and left the room.
Regarding negotiating a cease fire in which both sides make concessions, it seems to me that the recent accusations by Biden that Putin is a war criminal, and the opening of a war crimes investigation in the World Court could hamper such negotiations, since Putin will in all likelihood demand as a condition of a cease fire/armistice that those proceedings cease. I cannot see Ukraine agreeing to that.
LFC is entirely right: the United States is going to have to enter into the peace negotiation process in order to end the war. As Varoufakis suggests, using Sun Tzu's
ReplyDeleteArt of War as a source, they are going to have to offer Putin "a golden bridge", that is, a face-saving way out of the mess he got himself into and obviously promise him that no regime change in Russia is on the U.S. agenda.
As for Zelensky, without U.S.support at this point, he's dead and he is going to have to
accept whatever deal the U.S. and the NATO powers offer him. Sorry. I'm sure that neither JFK nor Khruschev paid much attention to Fidel Castro's opinion in their agreement to end the Cuban missile crisis.
Marc
ReplyDelete1) that's interesting, but that's not the sort of thing I had in mind. (The Iran nuclear negotiations are obvs a separate thing.)
2) I don't know, but my guess is Putin is not too concerned about the Intl Criminal Court -- to which the U.S. btw never became a signatory (the U.S. never signed the Rome statute setting up the court). I don't think the ICC is likely ever to get jurisdiction of Putin himself, at least not while he's in power.
s.w.
ReplyDeleteI shd make clear that, if I had any influence on policy - which I don't obvs - I wd advocate doing this *with* Zelensky, not ignoring him or seeming to ride roughshod over his preferences.
This is a delicate balancing act and it really requires a consummate master of diplomacy to pull it off properly, itsm. I know v little about Blinken and I don't know whether he and his deputies cd do this even if they wanted to. On second thought there's prob enough diplomatic talent in the Biden admin but they'd really have to be at the top of their game. Much as I don't like Kissinger, he was very good at face to face negotiation. Not that he always succeeded in getting what he wanted, for sure, and not that he had very admirable values, but he was v good at the art of face to face negotiation -- he pretty much met his match in Le Duc Tho, but that was one of the rare times. But he's too old now to be called in as a special envoy here.
LFC,
ReplyDeleteAnd I suppose the Kissinger detested Mao Tse Tung or Chu En Lai as much as Blinken and Biden detest Putin, but in spite of that animadversion and undoubted sense of moral superiority (whether merited or not), Kissinger was able to sit down and deal with the Chinese.
Anon, what's pathetic is that those elements of the Russian Navy on the Azov and Black Seas are not resting on the beds of those seas. I see that BJ promised Harpoons so maybe that will change.
ReplyDeleteGood article. It's clear from this recent Telegram piece from Medvedev that Russia has plans for Europe that are not to Europe's advantage:
""The goal is for the sake of the peace of future generations of Ukrainians themselves and the opportunity to finally build an open Eurasia - from Lisbon to Vladivostok."
We don't need yet another Munich. The proper analogy is perhaps that Russia needs another Tsushima. This needs to end with a clear, humiliating defeat for Putin. Our contributions to the negotiation need to go bang. 1905 shook up Imperial Russia, WWI led to revolution, civil war, and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union didn't survive Afghanistan.
While we certainly don't want NATO forces engaging Russian aircraft in the combat zone, Ukraine is a sovereign entity and as such has certain rights. If Russia can bogart areas in eastern Ukraine then it hardly seems unreasonable for Ukraine itself to draw a line from some point on the Belarusian/Ukraine border south to the Black Sea somewhere east of Odessa and invite NATO in. Fair is fair and we will get nowhere allowing Putin to define everything.
Perhaps we should have been serious about that red line in Syria.
Who cares if someone signs comments with their real names? That's a funny little obsession in this blog.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't myself say that the article is pathetic (or not quite), but taking individual sentences and paragraphs from another article, and then snidely commenting these excerpts out of context, supposedly to refute them, is a very poor showing indeed (very well written, says the ever comical MS above). Not to mention the constant, and equally snide, mentions of the 'alt-left', whatever that is (or is it the old left?) - is Chomsky to be included in this group, given that he too has mentioned the role of Nato expansion and the presence of American nuclear weapons in Turkey and in a few other countries in Europe in these events? It is quite frankly unbelievable how these factors are simply downplayed so often, and how some in the left are mocked for it.
Anonymous
ReplyDelete"Comical MS"? You'd better smile when you call me that, hombre.
I think Richard Falk makes a lot more sense than Philip Green in trying to understand what's (perhaps) going on wrt Ukraine.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/08/why-ukraine/
It would, after all, be rather a dereliction of duty for those governing the US not to have an eye to how to engage with the Russia-Ukraine war in a way that benefitted them and their notion of US national interests in the long as well as in the short term. Wasn't it Harry Truman who urged prior to Pearl Harbor that the US do what it could to get the USSR and Germany to maximally kill each other? Likewise, wouldn't it be a dereliction of duty for the left not to countenance the possibility, as it did in the case of Vietnam (and so many other instances), that the US might now be acting in ways other than those Green is moralising about? This does not preclude people from simultaneously condemning the actions of the Russian governing elite. rm
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteRichard Falk’s article is the kind of left-wing rubbish that Philip Green was denouncing. It is rife with sophistry and specious observations. To start with, he refers to atrocities committed in Ukraine, “seemingly” by Russian attacking forces. Seemingly?? Can he identify any atrocities committed by the Ukrainians whose homes have been demolished, their hospitals demolished, their schools demolished, their men executed and their women raped, a train station full of civilians bombed, and hundreds – women and children – killed? But the atrocities are only “seemingly” caused by the Russians.
He then proceeds to make the idiotic claim (yes, I know he is a professor emeritus of International Law at Princeton, but his credentials cannot conceal his fatuousness), he states that the Allied forces were hypocrites for prosecuting the German and Japanese war criminals while ignoring the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He states. “The essence of law is to treat equals equally.” But the roles of Germany and Japan in WWII was not equal to that of the Allies – Germany and Japan were the aggressors; the Allies were the defenders, opposing their effort to impose fascism on the world The use of the atomic bomb under those circumstances was a defensive measure to end the war which was precipitated by the aggression of Germany and Japan, and was intended to minimize the fatalities on the side of the Allies. How is that hypocrisy? This guy claims to be an expert on International Law?
Then he plays the race card, stating that the reason Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has gotten so much attention, compared to the conflict in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Palestine (i.e., Israel), as if they are all equivalent. They are not. Russia has committed the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation because he wants to annex part of it. It is killing and wounding civilians by the thousands as a tactical weapon to force them to succumb. In Syria, the President of that country is complicit with Russia in slaughtering is own people. How is that comparable to Zelensky’s resistance to Russia’s aggression? How does the racial difference between primarily Muslim Syrians and white European Ukranians supposed to account for the difference in condemnation when the circumstantial differences are entirely unequal? The same is true of each of the other counter-examples he offers – there are circumstantial differences which account for the outrage over Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine that have nothing to do with the difference in the respective population’s complexion.
He then states, “[I]t becomes crucial to understand that in the geopolitical war the U.S. is the aggressor as much as in the traditional war Russia is the aggressor.” “As much as”??? There is a big difference – Russia’s aggression in the form of traditional military tactics is killing and maiming thousands of innocent civilians. The geopolitical “aggression” of the U.S. and its Allies is not slaughtering and maiming thousands of people. And Falk’s equating the two exposes him for the fool and charlatan that he is, regardless his status as a Professor Emeritus at Princeton.
Anon, this guy is well past his sell by date. He writes:
ReplyDelete"The U.S. approach, while mindful of escalation dangers and taking steps to avoid direct military involvement on behalf of Ukraine, shows no rush to end the fighting, apparently believing that Russia already suffering the consequences of greatly underestimating Ukrainian will and capability to resist, will be forced to acknowledge a humiliating defeat if the war goes on, which would have the strategic benefit additional to other incentives, to discourage China from aligning with Russia in the future."
I'm sure the PRC would be thrilled with a weakened and humiliated Russia. China wants a junior partner, not a superior or equal. For one thing China sees a fat hog to cut in the Arctic, while Russia has opposed Chinese involvement. Also the Chinese have long memories and there are beefs dating back to the Century of Humiliation.
I don't intend, at least not right now, to read the Falk piece, nor to enter this debate, at least not now. It's too late in the evening, for one thing.
ReplyDeleteRichard Falk has been around a long time. (I'm not going to look up his age at the moment, but he's prob roughly a contemporary of Philip Green (and RPW).) I hope he hasn't written something he'll later regret, but as I say, it's too late in the evening to read it and I may not be able to get to it in the next several days either.
As for the U.S. "national interest", I don't know how the Biden admin sees it exactly. But I think U.S. national interests would not be well served by a long conflict. A negotiated settlement that took the Ukrainians' interests and positions into account, and which they'd have to sign off on, would not be "another Munich" (aaall's phrase) for reasons that have prob been sufficiently debated and laid out here previously.
"I wish there were some Dantean hell on earth they could all be dumped into." --Phil Green
ReplyDeleteI believe there already exists many hells here on Earth & throughout the universe at large. --But is it wrong to live in the Matrix & be surrounded by it instead of warlike ruin? Is ignorance bliss? I think it may be. --In the movie: Born on the 4th of July, Tom Cruise's character volunteers to go fight in Vietnam. Later on in the movie, the audience wonders if Cruise's character would have just been happier if he would initially had stayed content living in the Matrix of the good old U.S. of A.
[A patriotic U.S. version of Kierkegaard would probably say: "Go fight in Vietnam and you will regret it, but don't go fight there and you'll regret that too."]
I believe we should add up our potential future happiness based on probability and not just possibility alone. That's how I believe we rid ourselves of the nagging fallacy of "false equivalency". People may say that not fighting in Vietnam was a "no brainer". But I think that's all in hindsight. People may have realized the futility & pointlessness of fighting & dying in Vietnam in '65 and afterwards, but did they really know that in the early 1960s? It really wasn't until February of '68 that news journalist Walter Cronkite thought Vietnam would end in an uncertain stalemate & President Johnson believed him. Protests against the war in hundreds of thousands didn't really spring up until after the Tet festival & offensive of '68. If politicians say we've evolved in war strategy policy or that civilians are more patriotic since Vietnam then I don't believe it. The reason why there have been no giant mass protests since the Vietnam War is I believe because of the U.S. policy of an "all-volunteer" military & a backdoor draft.
I don't know why the comments of Green and Falk can't both be true. Russia and the US are both imperialist powers, with the US being far more imperialist as a superpower. The fact that Putin/Russian military is quasi if not fully genocidal does not negate the fact that the US, as was the case vis-a-vis the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, has an interest in continuing the war so as to diminish Russia straight into regime change, suffering in Ukraine notwithstanding. To wit,"the Pentagon will host leaders from the top eight US weapons makers to discuss the industry’s capacity to produce arms for Ukraine if the war lasts years."
ReplyDeleteI must be misreading the claim by Green regarding the US and negotiations (The U.S....has nothing to say about a “cease-fire,” which is up to the actual combatants) because it seems to me to be ludicrous - as if the gazillions of dollars in weapons handed over to Ukraine not to mention real time intelligence comes with no strings attached.
Finally - and changing subjects, I must confess that the Anonymous question is an issue with me. Apart from never knowing with whom one is having an exchange with given the number of Anonymi that pop up in a single comment section, the practice reeks of cowardice. MLK named the struggle in Birmingham "Project Confrontation." The notion was that it was necessary to confront the segregationist so that he would make his racism explicit in the broad light of day. So regarding our commentary, who is the repressor that our Anonymi fear? And what might the consequence be should each or any of them bravely attach their name to their thoughts? When one pauses to think of the courage of those around the world actually risking their lives and the lives of their loved ones to be who they must be in order to challenge repression, I feel as though this Anonymous business, commenting in a rather tame corner of the blogosphere, rips away the rose of inspirational acts of articulation, particularly among intellectuals, and sets a blister there. Your practice, Mr or MS Anonymous, forces me to play your game. It doesn't insite in me a "funny obsession," it degrades and tarnishes,for me, a beautiful thing.
As a parallel to my above post, Obi-Wan Kenobi asked young Luke Skywalker to fight the Empire, in the 1977 Star Wars movie, which was directed by famous storyteller George Lucas. Now Obi-Wan didn't force Luke to join him in that fight. This I believe endeared the post-Vietnam audience to the SW's Rebellion that was then fighting against the Empire in the first SW movie. The Empire supposedly used the Death Star (& later Death Star 2) as terror weapons to forcefully draft the eligible human populations, living inside various star systems, to serve inside the infamous but orderly Imperial Fleet. (This is probably why, at the end of third SW movie, every fictional character celebrated the Rebellion's freedom from the exploded Death Star 2, which movie goes by the title of: Return of the Jedi. Even the little Ewok creatures volunteered to fight the Empire & were not instead forced to fight them.) Lucas probably adopted this historical fact & message of freewill from the legacy of the post-Vietnam War for also use in his famous, epic Sci-fi movie anthology.
ReplyDeleteAnonymi? Oh dear. The word "anonymous" is technically only an adjective, not a noun (apart from when it is turned into a proper noun, as in the hacker group Anonymous), so it doesn't inflect in English (ie, it has no plural).
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't think any anonymous contributors to this blog are actually afraid of anything (why is this the only possibility people can come with?); I suspect that in most cases these people just don't want to have a public presence on the internet, as is my case. It would certainly be better if blogger.com generated a unique anonymous ID in each case to tease people apart, though (Anonymous 1, 2, etc.).
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteIt's easy enough to invent an internet alias so that other commentators can tell the folks who comment as Anonymous apart. For example, someone here comments as Marcel Proust, another as That Dude Diogenes, etc.
Jerry,
ReplyDeleteAs you would expect, I do not agree with you. The United States is a “far more imperialist” power than Russia? What is your evidence for this? The Vietnam War; the Gulf War; the invasion of Afghanistan; the Iraq war? I expect your bias against the U.S., but on what basis do you claim that these conflicts demonstrate that the U.S. is a “far more imperialist” power than Russia, when compared to Russia’s aggression in Afghanistan; Chechnya; Syria; Crimea; and now its brutal invasion of Ukraine? How do you justify your use of the superlative “far more”?
s. wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteAll the examples you cite are examples in which the Soviet Union was seeking to expand its imperialist influence into the Western Hemisphere.
To Susselman:
ReplyDeleteThey were examples of people who wished to break away from the dominance of their countries by American corporations such as United fruit and by CIA-trained right-wing militias.
The US not an imperialist power? How about the fact that the US has hundreds of military bases in hundreds of countries all over the world, many of these imposed by force (including in Europe right after the Second World War, and through NATO since then)? Not to mention the many wars, invasions, and coups that derived therefrom. And there's also the little discussed, but equally true, fact that the the vast majority of international payments have to be conducted via American banks and in US dollars, giving the US immense leverage (e.g., in imposing financial sanctions; the LRB reviewed a book on this issue recently), and this too was imposed on the rest of the world rather agreed upon consensually.
ReplyDeleteOne atrocity that people seem to forget is the Indonesian genocide carried out by the army against leftist president Sukarno and the Indonesian left in 1965 and fully supported by, yes, the U.S., good old beloved LBJ and ranked with the Nazi Holocaust, the Stalinist and Maoist purges among the major genocides of the 20th century. Of course, life in the Orient is cheap, unlike in Ukraine.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_1965%E2%80%931966
I don't think it's accurate to refer to the hundreds of military bases around the world as "imposed by force." Force indeed was the case in the years immediately following WWII in both Germany and Japan, but that has not been the case for decades. US bases are there by treaty--because the Germans and the Japanese governments want them to be there. The same is true of Korea. The same is true of the the others scattered throughout Africa. That's not to say that all or any of these are needed, that they are not the result of military bureaucracy expanding its mission--in large part, apart from NATO, Japan, and Korea, I believe, they are all the result of the military-industrial complex expanding its mission. But "imposed"? C'mon. In the mid-1960s, I was stationed temporarily in France. Shortly thereafter, DeGaulle took France out of the unified NATO command, the US troops left, and NATO headquarters were moved to Brussels.
ReplyDeleteBut I had six wonderful weeks in Paris. It was tough duty, but someone had to do it.
I did say 'many of these bases' were imposed by force (or by fiat, as it were), I did not say that all of them were - and in this sense my comment is certainly true, and fair, especially regarding Western Europe and Asia after WW2, let alone in all those countries the US has been militarily involved with since then (France is certainly an outlier in Europe). And you do know that Western Germany and Japan were NOT sovereign countries after the war, right? I mean, Japan was invaded by the US!
ReplyDeleteYou may have read my post too quickly. I did note that bases were "imposed" on both WWII enemies, but once occupation ended the continued presence of those bases was the result of treaties, and remain so to this day. In fact, both Japan and Germany welcomed the American presence as a guard against the Soviet Union. Things had not gone too well for their newly liberated neighbors in North Korea, Poland, Hungary et al. Germany was not even a member of NATO until 1955. In fact, NATO's smaller predecessors were aimed--at the insistence of the British and French--at Germany. They were understandably wary of a repeat of what happened after WWI. Even NATO, in 1949, was said to be for the purpose keeping the the Germans down, the Russians out, and the Americans in.
ReplyDeleteSo--apart from the occupation of the defeated WWII enemies, what other countries host bases that they do not want but that we have "imposed" on them?
The U.S. has a military base in Guantanamo, Cuba which the Cuban government clearly does not want and was imposed on them.
ReplyDeleteThere is no point in continuing this back-and-forth dialogue regarding which country is more imperialistic than the other, the United States or Russia. I will concede, for the sake of argument, to Jerry Fresia, s. wallerstein, Anonymous and all the other Usual Suspects that the United States has engaged in objectionable foreign escapades, and has killed and injured innocent civilians in the process, just as Russia has. As I see it, however, it comes down this - when the chips are down, given the form of domestic governance of each of these countries, if you had to pick one country to prevail over the other in world domination, which would your select? Under which form of government would you rather live – the United States or Russia. During the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has jailed hundreds (thousands?) of anti-war protesters, without trial. There is no saying how long they will wallow in Russia’s prisons. All protest by the media has been squashed. In Cuba, there are thousands of political prisoners who have been jailed without a trial. During the Vietnam War, thousands of people were allowed to protest in the United States. Some were arrested; some were beaten. Most were not. And even those who were arrested were afforded trials, in which they were presumed innocent, were allowed to request a jury of their peers, and the prosecution was required to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Remember the Chicago Seven? None of the protesters currently jailed in Russia will enjoy such rights. One of the main topics on this blog is the concern about what might happen to our democracy if Trump gets re-elected. Why are we concerned if our form of government, as it is presently constituted, is basically no better than that in Russia. Because we all believe, when the chips are down, with all its flaws, that our current form of government is better than Russia’s. So, if you had to choose which country you want to prevail in this struggle for world dominance, which would it be – the United States or Russia. I bet 10 to 1 most of you, if not all, would choose the United States, blemishes and all. I rest my case. And it is no rejoinder to say that if the United States did prevail, then it would no longer be the country it currently is – that the Constitution would be abrogated; that the First Amendment right to free speech would be gutted; that the right to trial by jury would be stripped; and that the Bill of Rights would be shreddrd. That is highly unlikely to happen, unless those of you who find the Untied States so objectionable that you refuse to vote in elections in which you must choose between evil and the lesser evil, and forfeit the election to the likes of Trump and his surrogates.
ReplyDeleteGermany and Japan welcomed the bases as a bulwark against the Soviet Union? When was that, because on my account those bases (and it bears emphasising that it was West Germany only) were already there, at least in embryo, by the time the Cold War started? Both West Germany and Japan were invaded by the US (and other countries) in the war, so there was already a military presence there, and it would be an exemplar of a slightly twisted logic to assume that the requests to have bases in their countries was entirely unbiased, or entirely a free choice, in this respect. A treaty can be imposed, let's not be flippant about this.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I only talked about bases being imposed, I did not say anything about bases being imposed but not being wanted, the latter of which is your own addition.
And what other countries?
Marc Susselman,
ReplyDeleteGreat question: the US has 900 military installations around the world and is actively involved in covert activity in well over 100 countries. Further, the US has either invaded or has had covert military activity in 98% of the world's countries (only 2 haven't been invaded or acted in). I would provide you with links but to be honest I just don't feel like digging them up at this point.
Further, the US, the dominant/hegemonic power post WWII divided the world into 5 regions (perhaps four, can't remember right now) for European/US material access and exploitation (read white supremacist). Further, the US has killed close to 20 million people in these imperialist activities since WWII.
The USSR has "imperialized" countries on its borders but I think today (Russia) has only 5 military installations outside of its borders. Moreover, I would defy anyone reading this to tell me of a product in their house today that says "made in Russia."
Now, before the patriots jump down my throat and accuse me of some terrible sin, I would like to add the following: 1. my grandfather died from poison gas in WWI; 2) my father saw combat in WWII and won the purple heart and was seriously mentally wounded from the experience. I graduated from the Virginia Military Institution in 1969 with a degree in electrical engineering. I then spent 4 years as an "air intelligence officer" from 1971 through 1974, serving about 800 days overseas during the Vietnam war. I had a top secret plus clearance. And I'm still angry about what I saw and learned.
So when learned people jump up to tell us how bad we are if we believe that the US incorporates the Russian invasion of Ukraine into its hegemonic plans to control the resources on earth, I get depressed.
I would encourage you to go here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89sziYfmhYg&ab_channel=ChannelB%26b
It is the film on the Vietnam war called "Hearts and Minds;" at precisely, 1:38:58 you will see the North Vietnamese, at night, defending the city of Hanoi, more precisely, Bac Mach Mai Hospital. The Vietnamese only had WWII surface to air missiles and artillery to defend themselves from B-52 dropping 500 lb bombs.
I was at SAC HQ, 6 floors underground. I held in my hands the "frag orders" of the "December bombings of 1972 - orders which identify on each line such things as "platform" (aircraft), target, time over target, ordinance and so on. So I held a copy of the orders...probably 25 lines per page; there were 25 pages. The US had pulled together every single B-52 in its arsenal, over 700, so that for 18 days, there was a steady reign of bombs dropping on a large city.....one after the other.
I saw the orders 4 days before the actual bombing. I was a Captain; I was 24. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to blow the whistle but how? to whom? where? All I knew was that horror would soon be visited upon the Vietnamese people whose only crime, it seems, is that they wanted independence from European and American power. 3 to 5 million Indochinese were killed during the war; tens of thousands more each year as they still haven't been provided with maps identifying areas where a variety of weapons were dropped in their fields including cluster bombs. So kids, picking up colorful bomblets are blown up.
What the Russians are doing is horrible, criminal, no question. But is any of you going to claim that the US is innocent in this? and not manipulating Ukraine to advance its own hegemonic interests? As the professor has said before, governments are not are people with feelings. They only have interests.
"Impose: forcibly compel compliance with." NSOED
ReplyDeleteJerry Fresia,
ReplyDeleteWhat you write about your personal story is very moving. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Jerry Fresia,
ReplyDeleteI am not going to quibble with you regarding which country, the United States or Russia, or the former Soviet Union, has more blood on its hands. I believe that some of your statistics regarding the United States are highly exaggerated, and some of your historical characterizations are inaccurate. That said, you have not answered the question in my prior comment. In the geopolitical tug of war between the United States and Russia, if there were to be a winner, with one of the two countries exercising dominion over the entire world, which of two forms of government would you prefer to live under> This is not a love-it-or-leave it challenge. It is a legitimate question as to which government, conceding that both have committed atrocities and violated the sovereignty of other nations, would you prefer to ultimately prevail?
The NY Times is reporting that Finland and Sweden are considering applying to NATO for membership. If one or both does, would there be any moral basis for refusing?
ReplyDeleteMarc,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, the real geopolitical tug of war today is between China and the U.S., not Russia and the U.S. As is evident in his failure to conquer Ukraine or even Donbas, Putin is a second-rate power and probably will end up as China's very junior partner.
Second, I suppose that those who value their autonomy will resist the power which threatens it. In Ukraine they will resist Russia and in Hong Kong they will resist China.
People throughout Latin America who have been subject to U.S. hegemony, military interventions, coups sponsored or backed by the CIA and domination since the Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed will resist the United States. Here in Chile we see that the Chinese are busy buying up mining resources and the electrical power system and maybe some day we'll have to concentrate our energies on resisting Chinese imperialism rather than U.S. imperialism. Russia is far away from Latin America and only concerns us insofar as we feel solidarity with the people of Ukraine, but is certainly no threat to our autonomy.
A small correction to "your favourite [etc.]" This has no bearing really on the underlying argument but is a question of language.
ReplyDelete"Your favourite..." has said a couple of times that the U.S. invaded -- note the verb: "invaded" -- Japan. In fact the U.S. did not launch a ground invasion of the Japanese home islands, as they were referred to. One of the main official U.S. justifications for the use of the atomic bombs was that they would remove the necessity for a ground invasion of Japan and thereby save many lives of U.S. soldiers. To be clear, I am not justifying use of the atomic bombs (or the fire bombing of Tokyo for that matter); I'm just noting that that was one of the main stated justifications. The U.S. and Japan fought an all-out war that ended in the latter's defeat and occupation, but the U.S. never invaded -- as that word is commonly understood -- Japan. It "invaded" one cd say Japanese-held territories and islands that Japan had taken, but not the "home islands."
s. wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteYou miss my point. I don’t care if the greatest adversary to so-called United States geopolitical hegemony is Russia, or China, or North Korea, or Cuba etc.or all of them taken together, you, Jerry Fresia, Anonymous, etc., routinely criticize the United States (where you do not live) in comparison to all of the aforementioned, so, my question is, if you had to choose as between the United States on the one hand and Russia-China-North Korea-Cuba cumulatively on the other, which would you prefer prevailed in the ultimate struggle for world hegemony? Which form of government, blemishes and all, would provide, given the current form of their governments, the greatest protection to your right of free speech; your right to trial before a jury; your right to travel from country to country; your right of association with the gender of your choice; your right …. etc. Why are you, and Jerry Fresia, reluctant to answer the question?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMarc S:
ReplyDeletepeople killed by the US since WWII:
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2018/03/u-s-regime-has-killed-20-30-million-people-since-world-war-ii/
deaths in Indochina: see above
countries invaded by the US:
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2018/03/u-s-regime-has-killed-20-30-million-people-since-world-war-ii/
Regarding which of the two countries would I choose to live in? If I were a white male born in 1948 to a working class family, I would prefer the US - largely because of the changes brought about by resistance over the decades and the amount of wealth that fell into my lap by virtue of the massive extraction of wealth that the US system extracted from others at home and around the world - but certainly not because of the design of the system, which has has begot an unspeakable toll of human suffering. FYI: I left the US in 2004.
Marc,
ReplyDeleteI take ten minutes or so out of my fairly busy afternoon to politely answer your question as I see fit. My manner of seeing the world is not yours, so I don't exactly answer it within your parameters.
Instead of recognizing that fact, which is part of the give and take of conversation, you press me to answer the question in your terms as if I were on the witness stand or accused of some crime. You do that again and again. That does not contribute to a fruitful dialogue in which each partner learns from the other.
Jerry,
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of jumping on Marc's post, I note that he listed a group of countries--N.Korea, China, Russia, Cuba or the US to have world hegemony which would you pick? (I'd prefer a world in which no single country had hegemony, but that wasn't one of his options; if one country has to have it, I'd prefer that it be the one I live in.)
IIRC from earlier posts, you moved to Italy. Not exactly China, Cuba, Russia or N. Korea. Those four don't seem to have an immigrant problem.
“If the reigning political-economic order remains in place, it is difficult to see this ramping up of military expenditures not coming at the cost of what little remains of social safety nets. Neoliberal security states will trade growth for still more missiles and razor wire. It is hard not to see parallels here with the twilight of the Belle Epoque. Then as now, inter-imperial tensions fed a headlong arms race. Then as now, too, public opinion readily rallied behind national governments. In 1914 the parliamentary parties of the left followed suit, voting for war credits in their national legislatures and thus enabling the bloodbath they had pledged to avert two years earlier. This is, of course, another century, and the left is in a far weaker position, with far less influence on the course of events. By the same token, it is much more vulnerable to being swept along or swept aside by a militarized great-power confrontation it played no role in creating. Some of the old tools—internationalism, class solidarity, a fierce and uncompromising analytical clarity—will be needed to rearm the left against this new round of inter-imperial contention: against the powerful, against both their wars and their peace.”
ReplyDeletehttps://newleftreview.org/issues/ii133/articles/tony-wood-matrix-of-war
A sort of answer to the spurious question, which imperialist system would you prefer to belong to? rm
Jerry,
ReplyDeleteBecause of the defective electoral college you would prefer to live in Russia, China, North Korea or Cuba, where you only get to vote for the country’s leader once every 10 or so years, and even then your vote does not count. Now, I really question your judgment.
s. wallerstein,
What witness stand? Your refusal to answer the question speaks for itself.
Anonymous,
It is not a “spurious” question. It is a real question. And your refusal to answer it, expect with a spurious answer, speaks for itself. I prefer the imperialist system of the United States, without hesitiation.
Another answer to the same spurious question.
ReplyDeleteIt really depends on who you are. If you ask me, white, middle class, educated, intellectual, English-speaking, I'll probably give you one answer, but..
Patricio Fernandez, Chilean author, far from a radical leftist, wrote a book "Cuba, un viaje al fin de la revolución", Cuba, a voyage to the end of the revolution, which while not the anti-communist rant that some who comment here would love to read, is very critical of the Cuban system and sees the so-called "Cuban revolution" as passé, over, a system that no one in Cuba really believes in any more.
However, I listened to him in a forum where to my surprise, Fernandez, always a bright and surprising figure, affirmed that when all is said and done, a dark-skinned child born to poor parents in Latin America might well be better off in Cuba than in any other Latin American country because in Cuba he or she would have the same healthcare, the same education as everyone else, and the Cuban public healthcare and educational systems are
of good quality, because they would not grow up among the gang violence and drug culture so common in most poor neighborhood in Latin America and because in Cuba they would have the possibility to become a doctor or an engineer, not condemned to life of menial labor or gang violence by the rigid class system so prevalent in the rest of Latin America, etc.
s. wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteThe preference to live in the United States is not limited to white, middle class individuals, because they do not have to remain poor and uneducated. Ask Katanji Brown Jackson, who was just appointed to the United States Supreme Court. Or Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defense Or Deb Haaland, the Secretary of the Interior and an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo. Or Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security, whose parents escaped to the United States from Communist Cuba; Or Peter Buttigieg, the openly gay Secretary of Transportation. Or me, whose great-grandparents emigrated from Poland and Romania to avoid the rampant anti-Semitism, and raised children who worked hard, started their own businesses and joined the middle class. Or the hundreds of thousands of 1st generation Americans who parents emigrated to the United States from hundreds of other countries, virtually penniless, but made a life for themselves, where they can express their displeasure with the United States government without being arrested and jailed without a trial. And the Cuban child you refer to, he may be able to get a free education and health care in Cuba, but dare he criticize the Cuban government, he find himself in a dark prison cell without any hope of a trial. But if he had the good fortune of being raised in the U.S., if he learned to read and studied hard, he could still get a free public education, and emergency health care, and his parents could obtain health care under Obamacare. Now, he might not grow up to be as wealthy as Jeff Bezos, or Bill Gates, or Mark Zuckerberg, but, like millions of Americans who are not billionaires, or even millionaires, he could still live a comfortable life and afford a large screen t.v. and a smart phone, and have access to hundreds of media outlets which would tell him about the lack of free speech in Russia and China, and the absence of a free press, and the persecution of people who are gay, where I am sure you would prefer to live rather than in Chile.
Then please, Marc, since you here identify yourself as an American imperialist, don't ever pretend you're on the left. I second s. wallerstein's previous complaint that you regularly set up false oppositions and demand responses on your terms--hence the spriousness. rm
ReplyDelete"The NY Times is reporting that Finland and Sweden are considering applying to NATO for membership. If one or both does, would there be any moral basis for refusing?"
ReplyDeleteNo and they should be admitted ASAP as it seems Russia is setting up a border dispute with Finland in an attempt to monkey wrench the process.
"Russian Bastion Anti-Ship missile unit on the move west of Vyborg.
That road leads to Finland along the Saimaa Canal. It's about 26km from the Finnish border and 7km from the lowest lock of the canal that is rented to Finland."
https://twitter.com/pmakela1/status/1513562763431448577
Nice sentiments:
https://twitter.com/pmakela1/status/1511798811445940239
s.w. we should keep in mind that the Monroe Doctrine was about who not if.
Jerry, went to the list. Korea caught my eye. I believe China invaded so maybe shouldn't be on the list and the M-16 is a rifle not a submachine gun.
Simo Häyhä (1095-2002) was a Finnish sniper. He is reported to have killed 500 Russian soldiers during the Winter War of 1939-1940. He was given the name “White Death” because of his white winter uniform.
ReplyDeleteNo, he was not over 900 years old.
ReplyDelete(1905-2002)
Good news. Ukraine claims it has hit the Cruiser Moskva with two missiles - way overdue. Crew evacuated.
ReplyDelete@Marc Susselman
ReplyDeleteNo need to feel powerless. You can help. Particularly as an American (upper middle class, maybe?), you are in a good position to help.
Join the International Legion of Defence of Ukraine!
They can provide you with the details. In a nutshell, you will need to buy yourself some basic kit (uniform, weapons, ammo) all of it readily available in American stores. Military training/experience are preferable, but I'm sure you can pay someone to train you. A donation to the war effort may help as well.
Age and gender are no barrier. If 79-year old women can be trained to fire AK-47s and children can be trained into manufacturing IEDs and booby traps, why couldn't you?
Why Is This AK-47-Toting Ukrainian Grandma Being Trained by Neo-Nazis?
B.L. Zebub:
ReplyDeleteWell blessed be!
Marc,
ReplyDeleteI give up.
As usual, you change the terms of debate to suit yourself.
Your original challenge was whether one would prefer to live under U.S hegemony or under that of Russia.
I answered that it depends on who you are. For a poor, dark-skinned Latin American it would be better to live in Cuba (ally of Russia and of the ex Soviet Union) than in the rest of Latin America which is under U.S. hegemony and has huge class inequalities with
formal representative democracy.
Instead of recognizing my point, you slam a conclusion, that it is better to live in the U.S. than in Cuba. Maybe, but we were originally discussing (and it was your challenge) whether it was better to live under U.S. or Russian domination, not whether it was better to live in the U.S. itself than under Russian domination.
You don't play fair. I lose too much time lost in your cheap tricks. It's over.
No, it is you who have changed the terms of the dialogue. My original question was, given your, Fresia’s, Anonymous’s, and others’ routine criticisms of the United States vs. other world powers, if you had to choose which of those powers would prevail in their geopolitical struggle, and under whose governance you and they would prefer to live, which would you choose? Implicit in the question was that all the countries which came into the victor’s zone of hegemony would be governed by that country’s current form of governance. Contrary to your skewed vision of the United State, it does not currently exercise hegemony over Central or Latin America. It does have influence over these countries, but hegemony? Hardly. It is you who are changing the terms by claiming that the U.S. currently exercises hegemony over Central and Latin America. It does not. It certainly does not dictate how their elections are conducted and who get elected; or whether their populations enjoy the rights which Americans are guaranteed under the Bill of Rights.
ReplyDeleteIt's not "routine criticisms of the United States vs. other world powers," Marc, it's criticism of the United States AND--AND, I emphasise again--other world powers. As s. w. has tried to tell you to the point of exhaustion, it's you, a self-confessed American imperialist, who keeps turning it into an either / or issue. That may be your way of looking at the world but it isn't necessarily ours. rm
ReplyDeletePerhaps we should lose, or at least tighten, terms like "hegemony" and "domination" and stop fighting the battles of our youth? Currently Russia seems driven to create Eurasia, employing military force as well as its agents and assets in Europe and the United States. We are one election away in France and two in the United States from that being a possible outcome. Meanwhile, China licks its lips .
ReplyDeleteAlso, it seems that Black folks from Africa and South America do just fine in the United States.
On a happier note this will be the largest navel vessel lost in combat since the Belgrano in the Falklands War: Russian sources have acknowledged that the Moskva has sunk.
Trigger warning for sensitive souls but perhaps there's more to matters then the bloodless IR "realism" about hegemony, great powers, and Putin not feeling humiliated, As Michael said, "they could win":
https://twitter.com/i/status/1513131559834079234
Ukrainian Twitter-pulse is interesting.
Ukrainians don't fool around it seems.
Russian casualties in this conflict so far are "staggering," to quote an April 9 WaPo article. NATO estimates that 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed so far. One of them, according to the article, was a 19-year-old gunner who was trapped inside his APC and burned, or so the Russian military told his mother, who never received her son's body. (I'll try to link to the piece later.)
ReplyDeleteWhile the main concern is properly for the Ukrainian civilians who have been killed, injured or made refugees (and the Ukrainian military personnel who have been killed), it's worth reminding oneself that there are losses, albeit not of civilians, on the Russian side also. Some Russian soldiers have committed war crimes; others, presumably, have not. A 19-year-old who died in his armored personnel carrier is not, presumptively, a war criminal himself, though he was participating in an unlawful war of aggression.
The performance of the Russ
ian military in this war so far has been sub-par to put it mildly. Bad logistics, bad strategy, ill-disciplined soldiers, indiscriminate targeting of civilians (though the last may be roughly SOP for the Russian military).
On this showing the question whether Russia can "create Eurasia" (whatever that means exactly) seems less pertinent than whether it can find a face-saving way out of this disaster.
The link to the WaPo article:
ReplyDeletehere
@aaall,
ReplyDeleteCurrently Russia seems driven to create Eurasia, employing military force as well as its agents and assets in Europe and the United States. We are one election away in France and two in the United States from that being a possible outcome. Meanwhile, China licks its lips.
I can't really understand how the Russians can be driven to create an already existing landmass (should Bolsonaro and Modi start pulling ropes until their countries join into Bradia or Indbra? Just by closing the Atlantic Ocean we could form USUK!), but never mind that.
For the sake of the argument, let's assume that makes sense. How can Russia still be a threat? Haven't they already had their asses kicked out of Northern Ukraine? They just lost even their Black Sea flagship, either due to incompetence or to Ukrainian martial prowess or both.
Zemmour is out of the race and even his and Marine Le Pen's numbers combined aren't enough to win.
True, there's always China, that so far has not blackballed Russia. Come to think of it, India and Turkey and Israel haven't either.
PS,
By the by, maybe you and Marc should both volunteer. From Lviv all the way to Beijing, brief stops at Istanbul, Tel Aviv and New Delhi.
"On this showing the question whether Russia can "create Eurasia" (whatever that means exactly) seems less pertinent than whether it can find a face-saving way out of this disaster."
ReplyDelete1. Given where he died I wouldn't be inclined to give any Russian soldier, absent positive evidence, the benefit of doubt as to his being a war criminal or not (maybe a sort of felony murder rule should apply in these cases). Recall that with My Lai there were American soldiers who acted honorably and Eddie Gallagher was turned in by members of his own Seal team.
2. This recent Telegram post by Medvedev (translated) is interesting:
" And they will be decided not only on the battlefields. To change the bloody and full of false myths consciousness of a part of today's Ukrainians is the most important goal. The goal is for the sake of the peace of future generations of Ukrainians themselves and the opportunity to finally build an open Eurasia - from Lisbon to Vladivostok."
Orwell's Eurasia and Demetri's actually seem to match up so I'll go with it. Now, we know that Putin and his crew aren't happy with the EU and as going from Lisbon to Russia's western border is EU territory, this "open Eurasia" building talk seems ominous for Europe as we know it.
3. Re: This "face saving." If we ponder our experiences with the American Civil War, Germany et al in WWI, and Germany and Japan in WWII we find that handling the peace is as important as prosecuting the war. Whiffing on Reconstruction led to decades of reaction and state sponsored terrorism in this nation and still may well end us. WWI - duh! After WWII we didn't worry about the feelings of the folks running Germany and Japan. After flattening both nations they were occupied and the leaders tried, imprisoned, and a few executed. The MacArthur Shogunate cut the Emperor some slack for reasons but the "devine" thing was out. Both nations have turned out well after those "humiliations".
Putin and his crew have internalized a way fakakta ideology around Russian identity and religion that crowds out the possibility of Russia actually developing into a mature nation. The ideal would be a thorough purge (hey, I can dream) but the last thing we need is for Putin to skate on this. Even a little humiliation is better then none.
If the Ukrainians actually get enough self-propelled 155s and counter-battery radar, Russian towed artillery becomes useless. I see the Russian Navy has retreated out of Neptune range but is still within Harpoon range.
It's a shame the old fella didn't follow through with his promise to start barring comments. There's enough apologetics of (the right kind of) imperialism, invasions, occupations, and military bases, not to mention the proposed conviction of Russian soldiers for war crimes by default (presumption of innocence be damned!), to turn one's stomach.
ReplyDeleteI feel as though I’ve moved into a terrible parallel universe. I understand that there’s room for differences of opinion in (the perhaps too often tangential) responses to Prof. Wollf’s postings, but I thought the blog elicited responses from people roughly sharing the same moral and political universe. But it seems I was wrong.
ReplyDeleteDid the person who wrote “Perhaps we should lose, or at least tighten, terms like "hegemony" and "domination" and stop fighting the battles of our youth?” have any connection with those who rejected the notion (by Feuer, was it?) that opposition to the barbarism of Vietnam was nothing more thsn a rebellion of the younger generation against thier parents? Besides, hegemony and domination are surely still useful, albeit essentially contestable, terms for analysing and understanding how the world works. (I am, of course, responding to and rejecting the sarcasm of aaall’s comment.)
And in what world is someone living who believes “that Black folks from Africa and South America do just fine in the United States.”? Has the Russian invasion of Ukraine eradicated all memory of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter? (And so much much more?)
And is it really “on a happier note” that we celebrate the sinking of the largest naval vessel since the Brlgrano was sunk during the Falklands war. I seem to recall many people in Britain being a bit appalled when the Belgrano was sunk. But perhaps we inhabit more brutal times where we celebrate violent death? Or perhaps I’m just a too “sensative soul” who finds all deaths in war regrettable?
Or as DJL put it, some comments just turn one's stomach. rm
Anonymous and DJL,
ReplyDeleteI agree that we were wrong to assume that this blog elicits responses from people roughly sharing the same political and ethical universe. At least we all agree that Trump is bad, Le Pen is bad and that gay marriage is good.
I woke up in the middle of the night, checked my email, saw aaall's comment, was going to answer, but decided to go back to sleep.
Not only do I count myself among the "sensitive souls", but also I was going to point out that Putin has nuclear weapons, that invading Russia has never worked out well for anyone and that while imposing democracy worked well in Japan and Germany, it didn't in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
However, I'm not Sir Galahad. I can't right every wrong on the internet.
As the writer Grace Paley says in a story, I don't argue when there's a real disagreement.
That's going to be my policy from now on. If one of our liberal hawks/neocons badly distorts what I say, I'm probably going to point out that he or she is distorting what I say as usual, but no more.
I quit smoking, I quit drinking, I stopped eating meating and I guess I can kick the habit of automatically responding to all provocative comments from liberal hawks/neocons here.
Golly! Don't see why merely pointing out that history, Russian military doctrine, location, and duration might mitigate against an informal presumption of innocence should be stomach turning but whatever. BTW, there's a reason why German troops went to great lengths to surrender to the US/UK forces (on the other hand, Lyudmila Pavlichenko (Ukrainian, BTW) is still a hero https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHKjOl9ocR0).
ReplyDeletes.w.. I am aware that Russia has nukes and I'll agree that invading that nation doesn't seem to ever work out well but I've never advocated doing that so why mention it? OTOH, giving into intimidation usually guarantees future remorse. An actual analysis of all aspects of warring on Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya would have led to an abandonment of the projects well before beginning them. Lumping them with how Europe and Japan were handled post WWII is inapt. Also those Nader Wars of the aughts are a good example of why third parties in a FPTP polity are a bad idea.
Actual conditions matter. The Russian ruling class is in thrall to as fictional and poisonous an ideology as any Nazi ever dreamed up. Ukrainian resolve and skill as well as Russian ineptitude provides an opportunity. What's the problem?
Anon, I know statistics are often inconvenient but still you might check them out. GF and BLM has nothing to do with the points MS, s.w., and moi are making. You keep waving that bloody shirt though.
And yes, sinking a guided missile cruiser and forcing the rest of the Russian Navy to stand off is a happy event if one puts oneself in the place of a resident of Odessa or south eastern Ukraine, which I do. Equal opportunity heart bleeding is a moral aberration. The size issue is a mere statistic which I found interesting.
The "liberal hawk" meme is a red herring. Sometimes a given war isn't the worst choice. No Civil War would have likely led to a series of wars down the line. WWII, of course, was no choice. We were to young for WWII and we grew up with the ridiculous anti-communist hysteria of the late 1940s on that too often ignored the legitimate aspirations of folks in the third world and poisoned our internal politics. Today the problem is a resurgent herrenvolk nationalism and fascism. Times change.
BTW, B.L., I don't think a couple of folks well into their seventies would be of much use.
Since my remark was directly attached to something you, aaall, wrote which I quoted, I fail to see the point of your objection. I'll repeat it:
ReplyDeleteAnd in what world is someone living who believes “that Black folks from Africa and South America do just fine in the United States.”? Has the Russian invasion of Ukraine eradicated all memory of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter? (And so much much more?) rm
anon, actually I did but you missed it. Google a little and check the stats for immigrants from Africa, etc. That is an entirely separate issue from the problems around policing in the United States re: people of color. As long as we pretend its still the frontier times and insist on thousands of jurisdictions for matters like policing and education as well as maintaining the fiction of the laboratories of democracy these problems will persist. POST should be graduate level, not community college.
ReplyDeleteFixing what seems to bother you would require a new Constitution (or a new electorate) among other things. Meanwhile, letting dictators run wild in Europe hasn't worked out well in the past and that can be helped with the stroke of a pen.
aaall,
ReplyDeleteThank you for that link to Woody Guthrie’s song paying tribute to Lyudmila Pavlichenko. I had never heard of that song, nor of her. Interesting to hear Guthrie refer to the Nazis as “the Hun.” Pavlichenko was given the nickname “Lady Death.”
According to the Wikipedia article about her, Pavlichenko toured the United States after the war and met with Eleanor Roosevelt and Justice Robert Jackson (who was the chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremburg trials). She was injured by shrapnel in 1942 and was evacuated to Moscow. She completed her education at Kyiv University after the war, and became an historian. (Wonder if Russia’s bombs have hit Kyiv University.)
Regarding your comment, as you point out, some people suffer from a serious affliction of moral relativism, compounded by moral equivalence.
@aaall
ReplyDeleteI don't think a couple of folks well into their seventies would be of much use.
Don't underestimate yourself or Marc, my dear aaall. Like I pointed out to Marc, even 79-yo Ukrainian babushkas and middle school kiddies were learning to shoot AK47s and making booby traps and IEDs. If they can, so can you, surely?
Don't choose to be helpless :-)
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteYour suggestion that I am a hypocrite for not being willing to travel to Ukraine to take up arms against the Russian invaders is the kind of smear that I am sure you would resent were it directed at you. I currently have ten lawsuits pending in federal and Michigan state courts. As repulsed as I am by the Russian aggression, and impressed by the heroic defiance of the Ukrainian people, I cannot, either morally or professionally, abandon my clients in order to prove the authenticity of my disgust with Russia’s brutal invasion, or the sincerity of my support for the Ukrainian people. My clients have the right to expect me to represent them diligently and unswervingly. What commitments, however, prevent you from traveling to Ukraine to support the Russian invaders whose cause you have suggested is more legitimate than the media is letting on. Your snarkiness is typical of your lack of cogent thought, as well as lack of moral fiber.
To aaall:
ReplyDeleteThe expression is "militate against," not "mitigate against."
DZ, thanks, must proof better.
ReplyDeleteTo aaall:
ReplyDeleteSorry for the pedantry.
Thanks for your gracious response.