I have a neighbor and friend and we were talking about Ukraine. We do not usually discuss politics or international affairs. He is of the opinion that Ukraine was a corrupt country run by oligarch criminals and they are responsible for lots of computer crimes, and he is concerned about much money the US is spending to help Ukraine. I told him my opinion about how Ukraine is a free country, they want to escape Russian domination and want to join the community of nations and the rest of Europe and thus they very much need our help. In thinking about our conversation, I am thinking that he fell for Russian propaganda that has been spread for over a decade. How do we counter this?
Putin blocked negotiations when he attacked Ukraine. Up until that point, everything was up for discussion. Granted some of the things Putin wanted, assuming he wasn't just posturing, were non-starters, but they could still be discussed. Once he invaded Ukraine, he thought perhaps he could negotiate at gunpoint or perhaps he thought he could get away with his smash and grab operation. Things don't work that way.
It's really quite simple. All the blood and all of the other damages from this war are on Putin.
Negotiations started three days after the invasion.
Negotiations at gunpoint in a highly fluid situation=non-starter. It might have looked good for Russia for a bit but then Ukraine found her footing. And then Putin let his orcs commit war crimes.
Putin bet the ranch on a fast, decisive smash and grab.
The blood is on Putin and, by extension, his apologists.
Here's a reasonable proposal to stop the shedding of blood, but look who's against it.
An Indonesian defence minister has floated a peace plan for Ukraine, triggering fierce criticism from western security officials but praise from China and highlighting the deep divide between the west and global south over Russia’s invasion of its neighbour.
In a speech on Saturday at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual defence conference in Singapore, Prabowo Subianto proposed a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, followed by the creation of a demilitarised zone between current front lines, a UN mission and referendums in “disputed territories”.
The pitch from Prabowo, a former special forces commander who is a leading candidate for Indonesia’s presidential election next year, comes as the US and Europe struggle to persuade many developing countries to criticise Russia’s assault on Ukraine.
Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine’s defence minister, scoffed at the proposal. “I will try to be polite,” he said on a separate panel at the conference. “It sounds like a Russian plan.” He added that “we don’t need these mediators suggesting such a strange plan” before Russia was driven out of Ukraine.
EU high representative for foreign policy Josep Borrell, speaking directly after the Indonesian defence chief, said there must be “just peace”, not “a peace of surrender”.
Although Indonesia, south-east Asia’s largest economy, has officially condemned Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Prabowo’s comments underscore the growing ambivalence by countries outside the west towards the conflict.
While Prabowo emphasised that he did not “equate the invader and invaded”, he said some reactions to the war were “too emotional”.
“We in Asia have our share of conflict and war, maybe more disastrous, more bloody than what has been experienced in Ukraine,” Prabowo said. “Ask Vietnam, ask Cambodia, ask Indonesians how many times we’ve been invaded.”
African and Latin American countries have increasingly been opposed to framing the conflict as a global, rather than European war.
Several nations in south-east Asia have abstained or even voted against draft resolutions in support of Kyiv at the UN. Other developing countries have been reluctant to impose sanctions against Russia.
Brazil’s top foreign policy adviser criticised the west’s tough stance against Moscow, telling the Financial Times that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s security concerns had to be taken “into account” by western powers.
In May, a diplomatic spat between South Africa and the US erupted after Washington’s ambassador alleged that armaments had been loaded on to a ship docked in Cape Town that was bound for Russia.
Kajsa Ollongren, the Dutch defence minister, insisted that in this conflict, “neutrality is not an option. All countries here expect their sovereignty to be respected,” she said at the conference. “But Ukraine’s sovereignty is not being respected.”
Delegates from China, whose mediation efforts were greeted with deep scepticism in the west, lauded Prabowo’s plan and chided Europe for its criticism.
“I appreciate very much efforts from our friends in the region, like Indonesia and South Africa,” said Cui Tiankai, China’s former ambassador to the US.
“With all due respect to our Euro-Atlantic friends: I don’t think you are managing effectively your own security situation. Maybe mismanaging is better word.”
Bennet doesn't confirm "sabotage of the agreement". He does confirm that the discovery of Russian atrocities around the same time complicated any prospects for an agreement.
"I said it was over" -- was Bennet's opinion about how he thought the negotiations would go.
But it wasn't over in the real world until the West "blocked" the negotiations because they wanted to strike Putin. "Blocking" negotiations is sabotaging negotiations (which had reached an interim/tentative agreement according to Hill and Stent, as well as Bennet). Bennet's rendition is consistent with the reporting in Ukrainska Pravda. Three sources unambiguously clear that the West blocked/sabotaged the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and the interim/tentative agreement that had been reached.
You're "citing" Bennett and then ignoring what he actually said.
The Bucha atrocities were discovered April 1. "In the real world", as you say, that's when it effectively was "over" according to Bennett. The efforts of negotiators couldn't change that.
That's even acknowledged in one of the articles you look to for support - "The first thing was the revelation of the atrocities, rapes, murders, massacres, looting, indiscriminate bombings and hundreds and thousands of other war crimes committed by Russian troops in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories"
This only makes sense if you don't read further when Bennet says the negotiations ended because the West "blocked them" in order to "strike" Putin.
Earlier, when Bennet says "It's over" he's expressing his reaction to the horrific stories of Bucha, assuming that the West and Ukraine would likely use them as a pretext to break off negotiations.
Pravda Ukrainska describes how Johnson invoked that pretext in the context of telling Zelensky the West would not support the deal because they wanted to "press" Russia (Bennet says "strike" UP says "press").
The bottom line is that the West chose war over peace and Zelensky went along with them.
The deal that was on the table was the same thing Russia demanded before it invaded, which the West refused to accept.
Putin is hell bent on dividing the world, either you’re with him or against him. When will Africa ever learn from their mistakes? If slavery was horrific then they have no idea what they’re getting themselves into kissing Putin’s sun starved a$$.
This is normally the place where @nohero jumps in to criticize a white suburban guy for telling black Africans how to think.
But he won't because this thread is a game where the clique members don't speak against their own.
This is normally the place where @nohero jumps in to criticize a white suburban guy for telling black Africans how to think.
But he won't because this thread is a game where the clique members don't speak against their own.
maybe you are familiar with all the Africans on twitter and Facebook who support Putin…because he supplies them with the grains he has stolen from Ukrainians. You’re all in the same cult.
If no one found your arguments convincing the first dozen times, why would the next be different? And if you haven't found the responses convincing any of those times, what could I or anyone else say now that we haven't already?
If you’re here to win arguments, you’re motivated to keep repeating them until others concede. If you’re here to discuss, troubleshoot or simply absorb, once is usually enough.
I think if you and @PVW look at the instances where I "repeated" my arguments, you'll find that it was in response to a criticism of the argument where in my view my argument had been misrepresented, and the "repetition" addressed that misrepresentation. As I just did with @nohero on the matter of Bennet's statement.
And I've seen instances where you and @PVW have made repeated efforts to "win" arguments.
This is normally the place where @nohero jumps in to criticize a white suburban guy for telling black Africans how to think.
But he won't because this thread is a game where the clique members don't speak against their own.
maybe you are familiar with all the Africans on twitter and Facebook who support Putin…because he supplies them with the grains he has stolen from Ukrainians. You’re all in the same cult.
In October 2022, about eight months after the war in Ukraine started, the University of Cambridge in the UK harmonized surveys conducted in 137 countries about their attitudes towards the West and towards Russia and China.
The findings in the study, while not free of a margin of error, are robust enough to take seriously.
These are:
+ For the 6.3 billion people who live outside of the West, 66 percent feel positively towards Russia and 70 percent feel positively towards China, and,
+ Among the 66 percent who feel positively about Russia the breakdown is 75 percent in South Asia, 68 percent in Francophone Africa, and 62 percent in Southeast Asia.
+ Public opinion of Russia remains positive in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, and Vietnam.
Sentiments of this nature have caused some ire, surprise, and even anger in the West. It is difficult for them to believe that two-thirds of the world’s population is not siding with the West.
What are some of the reasons or causes for this? I believe there are five reasons as explained in this brief essay.
1. The Global South does not believe that the West understands or empathizes with their problems.
India’s foreign minister, S. Jaishankar, summed it up succinctly in a recent interview: “Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.” He is referring to the many challenges that developing countries face whether they relate to the aftermath of the pandemic, the high cost of debt service, the climate crisis that is ravaging their lives, the pain of poverty, food shortages, droughts, and high energy prices. The West has barely given lip service to the Global South on many of these problems. Yet the West is insisting that the Global South join it in sanctioning Russia.
The Covid pandemic is a perfect example—despite the Global South’s repeated pleas to share intellectual property on the vaccines, with the goal of saving lives, no Western nation was willing to do so. Africa remains to this day the most unvaccinated continent in the world. Africa had the capability to make the vaccines but without the intellectual property they could not do it.
But help did come from Russia, China, and India. Algeria launched a vaccination program in January 2021 after it received its first batch of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines. Egypt started vaccinations after it got China’s Sinopharm vaccine at about the same time. South Africa procured a million doses of AstraZeneca from the Serum Institute of India. In Argentina, Sputnik became the backbone of their vaccine program. All of this was happening while the West was using its financial resources to buy millions of doses in advance, and often destroying them when they became outdated. The message to the Global South was clear—your problems are your problems, they are not our problems.
2. History Matters: Who stood where during colonialism and after independence?
Many countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia view the war in Ukraine through a different lens than the West. Many of them see their former colonial powers regrouped as members of the Western alliance. The countries that have sanctioned Russia are either members of the European Union and NATO or the closest allies of the United States in the Asia Pacific region. By contrast, many countries in Asia, and almost all countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America have tried to remain on good terms with both Russia and the West, and to shun sanctions against Russia. Could it be because they remember their history at the receiving end of the West’s colonial policies, a trauma that they still live with but which the West has mostly forgotten.
Nelson Mandela often said that it was the Soviet Union’s support, both moral and material, that helped inspire Southern Africans to overthrow the Apartheid regime. It is because of this that Russia is still viewed in a favorable light by many African countries. And once Independence came for these countries, it was the Soviet Union that supported them even though it had limited resources itself. The Aswan Dam in Egypt which took 11 years to build, from 1960 to 1971, was designed by the Moscow based Hydro project Institute and financed in large part by the Soviet Union. The Bhilai Steel Plant in India, one of the first large infrastructure projects in a newly independent India, was set up by the USSR in 1959. Other countries also benefited from the support provided by the former Soviet Union, both political and economic, including Ghana, Mali, Sudan, Angola, Benin, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Mozambique.
On February 18, 2023, at the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the foreign minister of Uganda, Jeje Odongo, had this to say, “We were colonized and forgave those who colonized us. Now the colonizers are asking us to be enemies of Russia, who never colonized us. Is that fair? Not for us. Their enemies are their enemies. Our friends are our friends.”
Rightly or wrongly, present day Russia is seen by many countries in the Global South as an ideological successor to the former Soviet Union. These countries have a long memory that makes them view Russia in a somewhat different light. Given the history, can we blame them?
3. The war in Ukraine is seen by the Global South as mainly about the future of Europe rather than the future of the entire world.
The history of the Cold War has taught developing countries that getting embroiled in great power conflicts generates few benefits for them yet carries enormous risks. And they view the Ukraine proxy war as one that is more about the future of European security than the future of the entire world. Furthermore, the war is seen by the Global South as an expensive distraction from the most pressing issues that they are dealing with. These include higher fuel prices, food prices, higher debt service costs, and more inflation, all of which have become more aggravated because of the Western sanctions that have been imposed on Russia.
A recent survey published by Nature Energy states that up to 140 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty due to the higher energy prices that have come about over the past year.
Soaring energy prices not only directly impact energy bills, but they also lead to upward price pressures on all supply chains and consumer items, including food and other necessities. This hurts the developing countries even more than it hurts the West.
The West can sustain the war “as long as it takes” since they have the financial resources and the capital markets to do so. But the Global South does not have the same luxury. A war for the future of European security has the potential of devastating the security of the entire world.
The Global South is also alarmed that the West is not pursuing negotiations that could bring this war to an early end. There were missed opportunities in December 2021 when Russia proposed revised security treaties for Europe that could have prevented the war and which were rejected by the West. The peace negotiations of April 2022 in Istanbul were also rejected by the West in part to “weaken” Russia. And now the entire world is paying the price for an invasion that the Western media like to call “unprovoked” and which could have been avoided.
4. The world economy is no longer American dominated or Western led and the Global South does have other options.
Several countries in the Global South increasingly see their future tied to countries that are no longer in the Western sphere of influence. Whether this is their perception of how the power balance is shifting away from the West, or wishful thinking as part of their colonial legacy, let us look at some metrics that may be relevant.
The U.S. share of global output declined from 21 percent in 1991 to 15 percent in 2021, while China’s share rose from 4 percent to 19 percent during the same period. China is the largest trading partner for most of the world, and its GDP in purchasing power parity already exceeds that of the United States. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, China, India, and South Africa) had a combined GDP in 2021 of $42 trillion compared with $41 trillion in the G7. Their population of 3.2 billion is more than 4.5 times the combined population of the G7 countries, at 700 million.
The BRICS are not imposing sanctions on Russia nor supplying arms to the opposing side. While Russia is the biggest supplier of energy and foodgrains for the Global South, China remains the biggest supplier of financing and infrastructure projects to them through the Belt and Road Initiative. And now Russia and China are closer than ever before because of the war. What does it all mean for developing countries?
It means that when it comes to financing, food, energy, and infrastructure, the Global South must rely more on China and Russia more than on the West. The Global South is also seeing the Shanghai Cooperation Organization expanding, more countries wanting to join the BRICS, and many countries now trading in currencies that move them away from the dollar, the Euro, or the West. They also see a deindustrialization taking place in some countries in Europe because of higher energy costs, along with higher inflation. This makes quite apparent an economic vulnerability in the West that was not so evident before the war. With developing countries having an obligation to put the interests of their own citizens first, is it any wonder that they see their future tied more to countries that are not Western led or American dominated?
5. The “rule based international order” is lacking in credibility and is in decline.
The “rule based international order” is a concept that is seen by many countries in the Global South as one that has been conceived by the West and imposed unilaterally on other countries. Few if any non-Western countries ever signed on to this order. The South is not opposed to a rule-based order, but rather to the present content of these rules as conceived by the West.
But one must also ask, does the rule based international order apply even to the West?
For decades now, for many in the Global South, the West is seen to have had its way with the world without regard to anyone else’s views. Several countries were invaded at will, mostly without Security Council authorization. These include the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria. Under what “rules” were those countries attacked or devastated, and were those wars provoked or unprovoked? Julian Assange is languishing in prison, and Ed Snowden is in exile, for having the courage (or perhaps the audacity) to expose the truths behind these actions.
Sanctions imposed on over 40 countries by the West impose considerable hardship and suffering. Under what international law or “rules-based order” did the West use its economic strength to impose these sanctions? Why are the assets of Afghanistan still frozen in Western banks while the country is facing starvation and famine? Why is Venezuelan gold still held hostage in the UK while the people of Venezuela are living at subsistence levels? And if Sy Hersh’s expose is true, under what “rules-based order” did the West destroy the Nord Stream pipelines?
There appears to be a paradigm shift that is taking place away from a Western dominated world and into a more multipolar world. And the war in Ukraine has made more evident those differences or chasms that are part of this paradigm shift. Partly because of its own history, and partly because of the economic realities that are emerging, the Global South sees a multipolar world as a preferable outcome in which their voices are more likely to be heard.
President Kennedy ended his American University speech in 1963 with the following words: “We must do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless for its success. Confident and unafraid, we must labor on towards a strategy of peace.”
That strategy of peace was the challenge before us in 1963 and they remain a challenge for us today. And the voices for peace, including those of the Global South, need to be heard.
I think if you and @PVW look at the instances where I "repeated" my arguments, you'll find that it was in response to a criticism of the argument where in my view my argument had been misrepresented, and the "repetition" addressed that misrepresentation. As I just did with @nohero on the matter of Bennet's statement.
And I've seen instances where you and @PVW have made repeated efforts to "win" arguments.
Phony issue.
Don't worry Paul, whenever you start to repeat yourself going forward, if I bother replying at all it'll just be to link to previous instances.
I have a neighbor and friend and we were talking about Ukraine. We do not usually discuss politics or international affairs. He is of the opinion that Ukraine was a corrupt country run by oligarch criminals and they are responsible for lots of computer crimes, and he is concerned about much money the US is spending to help Ukraine. I told him my opinion about how Ukraine is a free country, they want to escape Russian domination and want to join the community of nations and the rest of Europe and thus they very much need our help. In thinking about our conversation, I am thinking that he fell for Russian propaganda that has been spread for over a decade. How do we counter this?
Russian victory means Ukraine sinks to the same depths of corruption and criminality that exists in Russia. Ukraine succeeding means integration into Europe and bringing Ukraine further into a culture of democracy and the rule of law. If US resources can make the latter outcome more likely, it's money well spent.
Don't worry Paul, whenever you start to repeat yourself going forward, if I bother replying at all it'll just be to link to previous instances.
Well, I’ll just add for the record that if, after I reply to any questions or challenges, Paul or any of my clique mates still disagree with me I can live with it.
Don't worry Paul, whenever you start to repeat yourself going forward, if I bother replying at all it'll just be to link to previous instances.
Well, I’ll just add for the record that if, after I reply to any questions or challenges, Paul or any of my clique mates still disagree with me I can live with it.
Just for the record, disagreeing with you is among the most agreeable occurrences on MOL, as it's generally a good way to learn something new.
You're "citing" Bennett and then ignoring what he actually said.
The Bucha atrocities were discovered April 1. "In the real world", as you say, that's when it effectively was "over" according to Bennett. The efforts of negotiators couldn't change that.
That's even acknowledged in one of the articles you look to for support - "The first thing was the revelation of the atrocities, rapes, murders, massacres, looting, indiscriminate bombings and hundreds and thousands of other war crimes committed by Russian troops in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories"
This only makes sense if you don't read further when Bennet says the negotiations ended because the West "blocked them" in order to "strike" Putin.
Earlier, when Bennet says "It's over" he's expressing his reaction to the horrific stories of Bucha, assuming that the West and Ukraine would likely use them as a pretext to break off negotiations.
You're making that up out of whole cloth. You're ascribing claims to Bennett that he did not make. Bennett isn't saying that he's "assuming that the West and Ukraine would likely use them as a pretext to break off negotiations.". He's acknowledging that Russian atrocities killed the deal that was being discussed. His response to Elon, around the same time that interview was being used to make the claim that US/UK killed the deal, points to that -
2. It’s not sure such a deal was desirable. At the time I thought so, but only time will tell. (I can see pros and cons for each approach. Especially regarding reflection on other global theaters of conflict).
There's other indicia that your claim that "Ukraine would likely use them [atrocities] as a pretext" is not supported by what Bennett said. But for this morning I'll stick with the above and see if it's addressed or if there's another misrepresentation that I "misrepresented" what Paul said.
I think if you and @PVW look at the instances where I "repeated" my arguments, you'll find that it was in response to a criticism of the argument where in my view my argument had been misrepresented, and the "repetition" addressed that misrepresentation. As I just did with @nohero on the matter of Bennet's statement.
Putin is hell bent on dividing the world, either you’re with him or against him. When will Africa ever learn from their mistakes? If slavery was horrific then they have no idea what they’re getting themselves into kissing Putin’s sun starved a$$.
This is normally the place where @nohero jumps in to criticize a white suburban guy for telling black Africans how to think.
But he won't because this thread is a game where the clique members don't speak against their own.
There's that "tell" again, where the responses get a little nastier like that if he's floundering. Personally, I think that's a personal attack, especially since it's another lie about what I've posted.
This is normally the place where @nohero jumps in to criticize a white suburban guy for telling black Africans how to think.
This is another version of "every accusation is a confession". Back when there was discussion of Venezuela, and the U.S. supporting the National Assembly against Maduro, there was discussion about the government there. Paul was defending the recognition of the "Constituent Assembly" that Maduro had convened to take power from the existing National Assembly.
Paul made the argument that "white supremacy" was behind the recognition of the National Assembly over the Constituent Assembly and Maduro. In support of that, he used two pictures, one of the members of each body, standing on the steps of the legislative building. Paul pushed the argument that the Maduro supporters were "darker", and the U.S. was supporting the "whiter" people, and used the pictures to support that claim.
At the time, I responded, "Take a closer look at your two pictures of the groups of people. Both photos were taken on the same set of stairs. In the one with the 'darker' people, the pillars are also darker, the back walls are also darker, and the gold of the crest on the back wall is also darker. It's almost as if the whole picture was reproduced so that the subjects looked darker than in the other one."
Paul's criticism of my statement, in response: "Denial that a group of elected officials are predominantly people of color vs another group that is predominantly white is such a white suburban American thing to do"
This is normally the place where @nohero jumps in to criticize a white suburban guy for telling black Africans how to think.
This is another version of "every accusation is a confession". Back when there was discussion of Venezuela, and the U.S. supporting the National Assembly against Maduro, there was discussion about the government there. Paul was defending the recognition of the "Constituent Assembly" that Maduro had convened to take power from the existing National Assembly.
Paul made the argument that "white supremacy" was behind the recognition of the National Assembly over the Constituent Assembly and Maduro. In support of that, he used two pictures, one of the members of each body, standing on the steps of the legislative building. Paul pushed the argument that the Maduro supporters were "darker", and the U.S. was supporting the "whiter" people, and used the pictures to support that claim.
At the time, I responded, "Take a closer look at your two pictures of the groups of people. Both photos were taken on the same set of stairs. In the one with the 'darker' people, the pillars are also darker, the back walls are also darker, and the gold of the crest on the back wall is also darker. It's almost as if the whole picture was reproduced so that the subjects looked darker than in the other one."
Paul's criticism of my statement, in response: "Denial that a group of elected officials are predominantly people of color vs another group that is predominantly white is such a white suburban American thing to do"
A few points:
(1) This is pure deflection using whataboutism. But you confirm my point by evading what @Jaytee said.
(2) With regard to my assertion that Maduro supporters tend to be darker than the (former) Guaido supporters, it's not controversial that Maduro's political base of Chavismo (the legacy of former president Chavez) was in general primarily from the poorer classes, while Guaido represented the rich and middle classes.
“And if you look at the upper socio-economic levels of the country,” Acosta-Alzuru said, “they tend to be whiter than on the lower socio-economic levels. That is something that is very apparent to everybody.”
(3) Finally, let's revisit your insistence that Guaido was the real president of Venezuela:
Estamos vivendo um momento histórico. Depois de 8 anos, o presidente @NicolasMaduro volta a visitar o Brasil e nós recuperamos o direito de fazer política de relações internacionais com a seriedade que sempre fizemos, sobretudo com os países que fazem fronteira com o Brasil.
You're "citing" Bennett and then ignoring what he actually said.
The Bucha atrocities were discovered April 1. "In the real world", as you say, that's when it effectively was "over" according to Bennett. The efforts of negotiators couldn't change that.
That's even acknowledged in one of the articles you look to for support - "The first thing was the revelation of the atrocities, rapes, murders, massacres, looting, indiscriminate bombings and hundreds and thousands of other war crimes committed by Russian troops in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories"
This only makes sense if you don't read further when Bennet says the negotiations ended because the West "blocked them" in order to "strike" Putin.
Earlier, when Bennet says "It's over" he's expressing his reaction to the horrific stories of Bucha, assuming that the West and Ukraine would likely use them as a pretext to break off negotiations.
You're making that up out of whole cloth. You're ascribing claims to Bennett that he did not make. Bennett isn't saying that he's "assuming that the West and Ukraine would likely use them as a pretext to break off negotiations.". He's acknowledging that Russian atrocities killed the deal that was being discussed. His response to Elon, around the same time that interview was being used to make the claim that US/UK killed the deal, points to that -
There's other indicia that your claim that "Ukraine would likely use them [atrocities] as a pretext" is not supported by what Bennett said. But for this morning I'll stick with the above and see if it's addressed or if there's another misrepresentation that I "misrepresented" what Paul said.
I think if you and @PVW look at the instances where I "repeated" my arguments, you'll find that it was in response to a criticism of the argument where in my view my argument had been misrepresented, and the "repetition" addressed that misrepresentation. As I just did with @nohero on the matter of Bennet's statement.
Yes, I'm stating my opinion that what Bennet meant when he said "It's over" was that he thought the West and Ukraine would use Bucha as a pretext to stop the negotiations. And in fact the negotiations weren't over until Boris Johnson went to Kyiv to tell Zelensky to end them. And if you look at the sequence in Bennet's interview, he doesn't say "Bucha blocked the negotiations" he says "the West blocked the negotiations because they wanted to strike Putin".
And besides, your argument that Russian atrocities "killed the deal" implies that can never be a deal, because of Bucha. Atrocities are always part of war and deals to end wars happen despite the atrocities.
In Bennet's tweet that you post, he opines on whether the deal -- which he discusses in the interview and which Hill and Fiona say was a "tentative" deal -- would have actually been finalized. And he further opines that he thought the potential deal "was desirable". This is irrelevant to what you are trying to obfuscate -- that a tenative deal was reached but that it was blocked by the West because they saw an opportunity to "strike" Putin. Correct me if I'm wrong, but have you ever acknowledged that Bennet said that the West "blocked" the deal?
@PVW -- now you can complain that I'm repeating myself and ignore the fact that I'm responding to what I consider to be a misrepresentation of the facts.
I don't buy this line of crap that the West wanted war with Russia. Refusing to negotiate at gunpoint does not equal "wants war".
You missed the point that the negotiations were already taking place and had reached a tentative agreement "at gunpoint" but the West blocked them because they saw an opportunity, in the words of Defense Secretary Austin, to "weaken Russia".
Does he say that Ritter isn't lying? Not much to debate there.
yes - because he's so deep into the Kremlin propaganda - that he actually believes what he's saying. Which is pretty disturbing that anyone is using this guy as their "expert".
@PVW -- now you can complain that I'm repeating myself and ignore the fact that I'm responding to what I consider to be a misrepresentation of the facts.
The energy put forth in proving the Putin's war is the fault of the US is bizarre. It's a perpetual free pass for Vlad. And no energy put forth to the annihilation of a sovereign nation. Who's top reason - (by Vlad) was to stop the nazi scourge which is just as bad or worse as the last time they had to destroy them when Hitler was in power.
Again - everything Paul posts are merely "what ifs" - mostly rhetorical. I could write a big article showing how Vlad has claimed ownership of Ukraine and wants it back. Why hasn't paul address this possibility?
Paul - do you think Utkin has any nazi leanings - or do those tatts symbolize something else? Do you think Vlad knows he may have hired NAZIS to denazify a country?
I don't buy this line of crap that the West wanted war with Russia. Refusing to negotiate at gunpoint does not equal "wants war".
You missed the point that the negotiations were already taking place and had reached a tentative agreement "at gunpoint" but the West blocked them because they saw an opportunity, in the words of Defense Secretary Austin, to "weaken Russia".
Let's shorten this a bit. I believe Ukraine can speak for itself and that if Russia put forth a deal that seemed attractive, Ukraine would have considered it. I really can't understand why Russia doesn't have any friends among the countries bordering Russia.
But then again, I attach great weight to the assessments of Russia's neighbors (Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) of Russia whereas you think they are U.S. lackeys.
I have a neighbor and friend and we were talking about Ukraine. We do not usually discuss politics or international affairs. He is of the opinion that Ukraine was a corrupt country run by oligarch criminals and they are responsible for lots of computer crimes, and he is concerned about much money the US is spending to help Ukraine. I told him my opinion about how Ukraine is a free country, they want to escape Russian domination and want to join the community of nations and the rest of Europe and thus they very much need our help. In thinking about our conversation, I am thinking that he fell for Russian propaganda that has been spread for over a decade. How do we counter this?