Russell Brand on the Ukraine crisis
27 Mar 2022, 4:52 am
magz wrote:
2. What, in your opinion, "managing the crisis properly" would look like?
Firstly letting Putin meddle with the US elections and not taking any action, Putin must think Americans are so corrupt they wouldn't be able to muster any sort of reaction if he took over Ukraine. He's partly correct, but the Ukrainians are holding up so far.
The longer this fiasco drags on the worse the outcomes for everyone's economy.
27 Mar 2022, 4:57 am
You're right about Western corruption and indecisive responses to previous crises being encouraging to Putin but that wasn't an answer to my question.
BTW, dealing with corruption is hard in real life. My country has done a lot in the right direction for the last 30 years but after decades of hard work, it's still not perfect.
It's not like that someone says "let there not be corruption" and corruption disappears, unfortunately.
_________________
Let's not confuse being normal with being mentally healthy.
<not moderating PPR stuff concerning East Europe>
27 Mar 2022, 5:10 am
cyberdad wrote:
Firstly letting Putin meddle with the US elections and not taking any action, Putin must think Americans are so corrupt they wouldn't be able to muster any sort of reaction if he took over Ukraine.
In the US the claim that Putin meddled in elections is widely viewed as a baseless conspiracy theory.
27 Mar 2022, 5:26 am
magz wrote:
BTW, dealing with corruption is hard in real life.
Regardless of procedural justice, Xi has had fairly successful results in this regard.
_________________
With the help of translation software.
Cover your eyes, if you like. It will serve no purpose.
You might expect to be able to crush them in your hand, into wolf-bone fragments.
Dance with me, funeralxempire. Into night's circle we fly, until the fire enjoys us.
27 Mar 2022, 5:29 am
SkinnedWolf wrote:
magz wrote:
BTW, dealing with corruption is hard in real life.
Regardless of procedural justice, Xi has had fairly successful results in this regard._________________
Let's not confuse being normal with being mentally healthy.
<not moderating PPR stuff concerning East Europe>
27 Mar 2022, 5:38 am
MaxE wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
Firstly letting Putin meddle with the US elections and not taking any action, Putin must think Americans are so corrupt they wouldn't be able to muster any sort of reaction if he took over Ukraine.
In the US the claim that Putin meddled in elections is widely viewed as a baseless conspiracy theory.
Putin may not share that view
27 Mar 2022, 5:43 am
magz wrote:
SkinnedWolf wrote:
magz wrote:
BTW, dealing with corruption is hard in real life.
Regardless of procedural justice, Xi has had fairly successful results in this regard.distinct.
There has been a marked improvement in the service of the civil service to civilians.
The gray income of the public service system has been reduced.
_________________
With the help of translation software.
Cover your eyes, if you like. It will serve no purpose.
You might expect to be able to crush them in your hand, into wolf-bone fragments.
Dance with me, funeralxempire. Into night's circle we fly, until the fire enjoys us.
27 Mar 2022, 5:45 am
The_Walrus wrote:
No, no reasonable person would conclude that NATO's expansion is the "cause" of the war.
George Kennan in 1998 on NATO expansion:
“I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the founding fathers of this country turn over in their graves.
“We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a lighthearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs. What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was. I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe.
“Don’t people understand? Our differences in the Cold War were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime. And Russia’s democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we’ve just signed up to defend from Russia. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are — but this is just wrong.”
The Times Commentary after a Kennan intervention:
[Clinton's policy of NATO expansion] is the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era
...
...Europe lives under the liberty he [Kennan] predicted then. When such a man declares so starkly that Nato expansion would destabilise Russian democracy and "restore the atmosphere of the Cold War", it should send a warning to all. When he asks why East-West relations should "become centred on the question of who would be allied with whom and by implication against whom in some fanciful, totally unforeseeable and most improbable future military conflict", that demands a convincing answer.’
As Mr Kennan correctly notes, at some moment over the past 12 months, with no real warning, this radical redesign of Nato's role moved from general proposition to the edge of policy. It did so despite little public deliberation in this continent and virtually none at all in North America. Mr Clinton's conversion seems to have been inspired more by the desire to please voters of Polish descent in Michigan than any serious military calculation.
...
[NATO expansion] risks undermining the credibility of Nato, weakening the hand of reformers in Russia, and reducing - not enhancing - the real security of the countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
William Burns, diplomat and Russia expert, now Biden's CIA director in 1995:
Hostility to early NATO expansion is almost universally felt across the domestic political spectrum here [in Russia].
and in 2008, in a memo to Condoleezza Rice:
Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players . . . I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.
June 1997, an open letter to Bill Clinton from 50 foreign policy experts:
We, the undersigned, believe that the current U.S.led effort to expand NATO, the focus of the recent Helsinki and Paris Summits, is a policy error of historic proportions. We believe that NATO expansion will decrease allied security and unsettle European stability for the following reasons:
In Russia, NATO expansion, which continues to be opposed across the entire political spectrum, will strengthen the nondemocratic opposition, undercut those who favor reform and cooperation with the West, bring the Russians to question the entire post-Cold War settlement, and galvanize resistance in the Duma to the START II and III treaties; In Europe, NATO expansion will draw a new line of division between the "ins" and the "outs," foster instability, and ultimately diminish the sense of security of those countries which are not included;
In NATO, expansion, which the Alliance has indicated is open-ended, will inevitably degrade NATO's ability to carry out its primary mission and will involve U.S. security guarantees to countries with serious border and national minority problems, and unevenly developed systems of democratic government;
In the U.S., NATO expansion will trigger an extended debate over its indeterminate, but certainly high, cost and will call into question the U.S. commitment to the Alliance, traditionally and rightly regarded as a centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy.
Because of these serious objections, and in the absence of any reason for rapid decision, we strongly urge that the NATO expansion process be suspended while alternative actions are pursued.
Here's a nice round up from the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ia-ukraine
Many predicted Nato expansion would lead to war. Those warnings were ignored
...
Moscow’s patience with Nato’s ever more intrusive behavior was wearing thin. The last reasonably friendly warning from Russia that the alliance needed to back off came in March 2007, when Putin addressed the annual Munich security conference. “Nato has put its frontline forces on our borders,” Putin complained. Nato expansion “represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact?”
In his memoir, Duty, Robert M Gates, who served as secretary of defense in the administrations of both George W Bush and Barack Obama, stated his belief that “the relationship with Russia had been badly mismanaged after [George HW] Bush left office in 1993”. Among other missteps, “US agreements with the Romanian and Bulgarian governments to rotate troops through bases in those countries was a needless provocation.” In an implicit rebuke to the younger Bush, Gates asserted that “trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into Nato was truly overreaching”. That move, he contended, was a case of “recklessly ignoring what the Russians considered their own vital national interests”.
The following year, the Kremlin demonstrated that its discontent with Nato’s continuing incursions into Russia’s security zone had moved beyond verbal objections. Moscow exploited a foolish provocation by Georgia’s pro‐western government to launch a military offensive that brought Russian troops to the outskirts of the capital. Thereafter, Russia permanently detached two secessionist‐minded Georgian regions and put them under effective Russian control.
Western (especially US) leaders continued to blow through red warning light after a red warning light, however. The Obama administration’s shockingly arrogant meddling in Ukraine’s internal political affairs in 2013 and 2014 to help demonstrators overthrow Ukraine’s elected, pro‐Russia president was the single most brazen provocation, and it caused tensions to spike. Moscow immediately responded by seizing and annexing Crimea, and a new cold war was underway with a vengeance.
No reasonable person. Feck off.
_________________
Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory, Farewell!
27 Mar 2022, 5:49 am
SkinnedWolf wrote:
magz wrote:
SkinnedWolf wrote:
magz wrote:
BTW, dealing with corruption is hard in real life.
Regardless of procedural justice, Xi has had fairly successful results in this regard.distinct.
There has been a marked improvement in the service of the civil service to civilians.
The gray income of the public service system has been reduced.
That's good. Reduced corruption is always improved quality of life, regardless of the system.
_________________
Let's not confuse being normal with being mentally healthy.
<not moderating PPR stuff concerning East Europe>
27 Mar 2022, 6:25 am
magz wrote:
SkinnedWolf wrote:
magz wrote:
SkinnedWolf wrote:
magz wrote:
BTW, dealing with corruption is hard in real life.
Regardless of procedural justice, Xi has had fairly successful results in this regard.distinct.
There has been a marked improvement in the service of the civil service to civilians.
The gray income of the public service system has been reduced.
That's good. Reduced corruption is always improved quality of life, regardless of the system.
This brings up some good points. At the risk of being labelled an apologist for Xi, I have come to believe that he has some valid reasons for his recent policies and that although Westerners react to them as anti-democratic, they make sense from a Chinese perspective — as I have said Westerners should consider the Chinese perspective before condemning China and the CCP. This doesn't mean that Westerners should adopt the Chinese point-of-view, just to understand that it exists and is fundamentally different from the West. When considering any Chinese policy you might personally find abhorrent, ask yourself "does it benefit China?" and if so, then don't expect China to give in to Western disapproval. I think I can confidently say that China does not believe itself beholden to Western popular opinion.
27 Mar 2022, 6:36 am
MaxE wrote:
I think I can confidently say that China does not believe itself beholden to Western popular opinion.
A clear trend is. After Xi came to power, he gradually gave up external propaganda and focused on internal propaganda.Perhaps he does not think that investing too much in external publicity can achieve results.
_________________
With the help of translation software.
Cover your eyes, if you like. It will serve no purpose.
You might expect to be able to crush them in your hand, into wolf-bone fragments.
Dance with me, funeralxempire. Into night's circle we fly, until the fire enjoys us.
27 Mar 2022, 7:00 am
SkinnedWolf wrote:
MaxE wrote:
I think I can confidently say that China does not believe itself beholden to Western popular opinion.
A clear trend is. After Xi came to power, he gradually gave up external propaganda and focused on internal propaganda.Perhaps he does not think that investing too much in external publicity can achieve results.
"Interesting."
ASPartOfMe
Veteran
Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,478
Location: Long Island, New York
27 Mar 2022, 9:02 pm
Mikah wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
No, no reasonable person would conclude that NATO's expansion is the "cause" of the war.
George Kennan in 1998 on NATO expansion:
“I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the founding fathers of this country turn over in their graves.
“We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a lighthearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs. What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was. I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe.
“Don’t people understand? Our differences in the Cold War were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime. And Russia’s democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we’ve just signed up to defend from Russia. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are — but this is just wrong.”
The Times Commentary after a Kennan intervention:
[Clinton's policy of NATO expansion] is the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era
...
...Europe lives under the liberty he [Kennan] predicted then. When such a man declares so starkly that Nato expansion would destabilise Russian democracy and "restore the atmosphere of the Cold War", it should send a warning to all. When he asks why East-West relations should "become centred on the question of who would be allied with whom and by implication against whom in some fanciful, totally unforeseeable and most improbable future military conflict", that demands a convincing answer.’
As Mr Kennan correctly notes, at some moment over the past 12 months, with no real warning, this radical redesign of Nato's role moved from general proposition to the edge of policy. It did so despite little public deliberation in this continent and virtually none at all in North America. Mr Clinton's conversion seems to have been inspired more by the desire to please voters of Polish descent in Michigan than any serious military calculation.
...
[NATO expansion] risks undermining the credibility of Nato, weakening the hand of reformers in Russia, and reducing - not enhancing - the real security of the countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
William Burns, diplomat and Russia expert, now Biden's CIA director in 1995:
Hostility to early NATO expansion is almost universally felt across the domestic political spectrum here [in Russia].
and in 2008, in a memo to Condoleezza Rice:
Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players . . . I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.
June 1997, an open letter to Bill Clinton from 50 foreign policy experts:
We, the undersigned, believe that the current U.S.led effort to expand NATO, the focus of the recent Helsinki and Paris Summits, is a policy error of historic proportions. We believe that NATO expansion will decrease allied security and unsettle European stability for the following reasons:
In Russia, NATO expansion, which continues to be opposed across the entire political spectrum, will strengthen the nondemocratic opposition, undercut those who favor reform and cooperation with the West, bring the Russians to question the entire post-Cold War settlement, and galvanize resistance in the Duma to the START II and III treaties; In Europe, NATO expansion will draw a new line of division between the "ins" and the "outs," foster instability, and ultimately diminish the sense of security of those countries which are not included;
In NATO, expansion, which the Alliance has indicated is open-ended, will inevitably degrade NATO's ability to carry out its primary mission and will involve U.S. security guarantees to countries with serious border and national minority problems, and unevenly developed systems of democratic government;
In the U.S., NATO expansion will trigger an extended debate over its indeterminate, but certainly high, cost and will call into question the U.S. commitment to the Alliance, traditionally and rightly regarded as a centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy.
Because of these serious objections, and in the absence of any reason for rapid decision, we strongly urge that the NATO expansion process be suspended while alternative actions are pursued.
Here's a nice round up from the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ia-ukraine
Many predicted Nato expansion would lead to war. Those warnings were ignored
...
Moscow’s patience with Nato’s ever more intrusive behavior was wearing thin. The last reasonably friendly warning from Russia that the alliance needed to back off came in March 2007, when Putin addressed the annual Munich security conference. “Nato has put its frontline forces on our borders,” Putin complained. Nato expansion “represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact?”
In his memoir, Duty, Robert M Gates, who served as secretary of defense in the administrations of both George W Bush and Barack Obama, stated his belief that “the relationship with Russia had been badly mismanaged after [George HW] Bush left office in 1993”. Among other missteps, “US agreements with the Romanian and Bulgarian governments to rotate troops through bases in those countries was a needless provocation.” In an implicit rebuke to the younger Bush, Gates asserted that “trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into Nato was truly overreaching”. That move, he contended, was a case of “recklessly ignoring what the Russians considered their own vital national interests”.
The following year, the Kremlin demonstrated that its discontent with Nato’s continuing incursions into Russia’s security zone had moved beyond verbal objections. Moscow exploited a foolish provocation by Georgia’s pro‐western government to launch a military offensive that brought Russian troops to the outskirts of the capital. Thereafter, Russia permanently detached two secessionist‐minded Georgian regions and put them under effective Russian control.
Western (especially US) leaders continued to blow through red warning light after a red warning light, however. The Obama administration’s shockingly arrogant meddling in Ukraine’s internal political affairs in 2013 and 2014 to help demonstrators overthrow Ukraine’s elected, pro‐Russia president was the single most brazen provocation, and it caused tensions to spike. Moscow immediately responded by seizing and annexing Crimea, and a new cold war was underway with a vengeance.
No reasonable person. Feck off.
Now that you established that the west rubbing in their victory in Cold War 1 as a major factor in the war what now? The West is not going to try and undo the mistake by saying sorry we was wrong you can try and get Soviet Union back and maybe the Warsaw pack also without interference from us, nor should they as that would be very bad for people who live in the old Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact through little fault of their own.
_________________
Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
It is Autism Acceptance Month
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
28 Mar 2022, 2:23 am
ASPartOfMe wrote:
Now that you established that the west rubbing in their victory in Cold War 1 as a major factor in the war what now? The West is not going to try and undo the mistake by saying sorry we was wrong you can try and get Soviet Union back and maybe the Warsaw pack also without interference from us, nor should they as that would be very bad for people who live in the old Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact through little fault of their own.
From the point of view of a former Warsaw Pact member now being part of "the West"?
No. Freaking. Way. We. Ever. Agree. To. This.
I'd send everyone proposing such a "solution" to the magic place where the Russian Warship should go.
_________________
Let's not confuse being normal with being mentally healthy.
<not moderating PPR stuff concerning East Europe>
28 Mar 2022, 3:06 am
Mikah wrote:
No reasonable person. Feck off.
All of these people are commenting in a different time. I believe all of their commentary deprives Russia of any agency. Nobody forced them to invade Ukraine - they did that off their own bat. Responsibility for the war sits solely with Russia.
28 Mar 2022, 5:43 am
ASPartOfMe wrote:
Now that you established that the west rubbing in their victory in Cold War 1 as a major factor in the war what now?
Our descendents learn from our mistakes? They probably won't, but Truth is still a good in and of itself.
ASPartOfMe wrote:
The West is not going to try and undo the mistake by saying sorry we was wrong you can try and get Soviet Union back and maybe the Warsaw pack also without interference from us, nor should they as that would be very bad for people who live in the old Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact through little fault of their own.
I do not suggest that. Really, there isn't much that can be done now, besides reminisce about the lost opportunities to prevent this war, prevent Russia from falling into the Chinese camp and the consequential acceleration of our own decline.
The_Walrus wrote:
All of these people are commenting in a different time. I believe all of their commentary deprives Russia of any agency. Nobody forced them to invade Ukraine - they did that off their own bat. Responsibility for the war sits solely with Russia.
Yeah and nobody forced the man I yelled at, threatened to punch and pissed on for good measure to fight back. He threw the first punch after giving me 10 warnings so he is in the wrong. This is what has become of our politics and the civil service. Stupid, blind, borderline solipsistic diplomacy barely at the level found in a school playground.
_________________
Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory, Farewell!
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