War is hell, as the saying goes. And it’s hell regardless of where it’s taking place. You might therefore expect that wars in different parts of the world would generate similar levels of coverage. But that would be naïve: some wars generate far more coverage than others.
At the present time, the BBC has an entire section of its website devoted to the war in Ukraine. And if you watch the BBC News channel, you’ll get updates about the conflict every hour. This makes sense: the war in Ukraine is very serious, and the public ought to be informed about it (though the BBC isn’t always the best source).
Another conflict, which you hear even less about, is the Tigray war in Ethiopia. This conflict has ‘only’ been going for a year and a half, but some sources say that half a million people have died. What’s more, there are numerous reports of war crimes and even crimes against humanity. (The latter are war crimes perpetrated against specific ethnic groups.)
In April of this year, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch published a report, which found evidence of “murder, torture, forcible transfer, rape, sexual slavery and other forms of sexual violence, persecution, enforced disappearances, widespread pillage, imprisonment, possible extermination, and other inhumane acts”.
While all sides in the conflict are believed to have carried out war crimes, the main victims appear to be the ethnic Tigrayans, who inhabit the region where the conflict centres. And a recent article in the Nation claims they are being subjected to “genocide”.
So why is the war in Ukraine getting so much more attention than the Tigray war? Some reasons are obvious: Ukraine is in Europe; Russia is a nuclear power; and both countries are major exporters. But are these the only reasons?
The author of the Nation article suggests that Westerners just don’t care as much about conflicts in other parts of the world. He quotes Tedros Ghebreyesus, head of the WHO, who earlier this year said, “The whole attention to Ukraine is very important … but even a fraction of it is not being given to Tigray, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria.”
He continued, “I need to be blunt and honest that the world is not treating the human race the same way: some are more equal than others.” (Ghebreyesus happens to be Tigrayan himself.)
The man has a point here. Indeed, one is reminded of the “Black Lives Matter” activists who spend more time talking about black representation in Hollywood than about abject poverty and brutal wars in Africa.
Another possible reason why the war in Ukraine has garnered so much attention, relative to other recent conflicts, is that large parts of the left still blame Vladimir Putin for Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. (Before the war in Ukraine, it was people sceptical of those claims who were accused of being “Kremlin stooges”.)
In a recent video (go to 40:25), the journalist Glenn Greenwald argues this is why every single Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives – including those who’ve spent their careers fighting the “military industrial complex” – voted to send billions of dollars of weapons to Ukraine.
Whatever the reasons, the lack of attention on the Tigray War is deeply troubling. A resolution is urgently needed, before the world has another Rwanda on its hands.
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Ask the ever so non racist BBC to explain
They are too busy kiddy fiddling.
Or gaslighting rape victims…..
I checked the BBC, and saw that their most recent news appearance to Tigray was on 10 May.
Before that, there was a reference on 3 April; after a long delay when I’m pleased to report that nothing newsworthy happened at all, following a report of “ethnic cleansing” on 24 July 2021.
Don’t black lives matter to the BBC?
I did and they gave me this.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-61661813
Caption competition
‘Local youths’ prepare to force their way into The Stad de France
Caption competition
‘It’s Putin wot dunnit’
No, I think Assad did this one. her had my cat murdered back in 2013.
Caption:
“This isn’t a war, it’s just a mostly peaceful protest!”
Caption competition
‘Let’s Go Brandon’
They’re obviously “liverpool fans” in black face you total bigot!
Black Lives Matter
Caption competition
Biden! Send us billions of dollars worth of weapons
The Biased Brainwashing Cult running its own fifth column political agenda of lies and deceit, “isn;t always the best source”. LOL
If that is your level of critical analysis, the rest of the article is a waste of time.
I understood:
“the BBC isn’t always the best source”
to be a complete putdown by way of quiet, but ironically massive, understatement.
You can’t blame inflation, gas shortages, petrol prices, supply chain issues, food shortages, planes crashing into food factories, climate change, covid, destruction of perfectly good Bio Labs, Biden’s dementia, Hunter’s laptop and *dodgy vaccinations on people of colour, that would be racist.
*Oh, it’s coming.
I read an article on the BBC yesterday regarding an anti Russian Ukrainian Chap who told the BBC that he had been captured by the Russians and tortured by having a rope put round his neck and then having his legs kicked away from under him. I was initially suspicious because the photos showed no neck injuries at all
But they had some other ukranians ( also anti Russian) who collaborated the story so it was totally true.
It’s no wonder the BBC has such a great reputation worldwide.
They tortured him, then let him go for an urgent interview with the BBC.
Totally believable.
I know it’s seems unlikely but the BBC fact checkers are very thorough regarding disinformation
The head of the Ukrainian Human Rights Commission – a woman called Denisova – was fired earlier thsi week because she kept circulating increasingly lurid stories of Russian gang rapes.
Some western NGOs concerned with helping rape victims went to Ukraine to find the victims in order to help, but couldn’t find them. They asked Kiev for help in locating them and it emerged that the stories were all horse manure.
What I find amazing is the BBC has weak evidence that Russia is kidnapping people , torturing them and imprisoning them indefinitely. They then go on to say how awful it is and yet it seems they are quite happy with Guantanamo bay and extraordinary rendition.
Quote an example.
You are hilarious, twinky is pointing out the BBC etc do not cover extraordinary rendition and you want a quote
Here’s the BBC page on it:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/torture/current/rendition.shtml
.
oh yeah…
I think you’ll find that’s called ‘reporting’.
The BBC (which I do actually read) is overall critical of Guantanamo and extraordinary rendition.
usual nonsense from you, it’s called selective reporting, aka lying by omision.
You’ve given one example, which consists of the BBC reporting on someone’s views. And that’s your evidence.
It’s more than you ever provide.
How about you provide some evidence for a change before demanding it from others.
Looks like the great majority of stories about Russian atrocities and Ukrainian military victories coming from Kiev is debunked eventually. Wondering if the public will request back their consent for the proxy war
I can’t imagine what strange version of the world you live in, to come to that conclusion.
And you believe Ukraine is winning the war?
Clearly you live in a different space time continuum never mind a different planet.
When you’re on a diet of the ghost of Kiev and heroes of snake island, real world can feel strange, that’s for sure.
Was it Jussie Smollett in whiteface?
Noah Carl continues with his impersonation of Seamus Milne, Corbyn’s key adviser and lifelong devotee of Russia. Noah must be wishing that Corbyn was in power today.
He might also ask why Russia’s Wagner Group, which has been actively fighting in half a dozen African conflicts for years, has received virtually no attention. But this doesn’t fit Noah’s pro Russian agenda.
Besides the fact that it’s in Europe, from a world point of.view Ukraine is the most economically significant war since WW2. It’s having very, very widespread consequences.
Evidence lite Fingers making shit up again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group
Gosh, Wikipedia. The ‘source’ condemned as left wing propaganda by one of its former founders.
As bad as the BBC.
I posted the link for information only. I make no comment on its veracity. I welcome any other informative links.
Then why bother posting it?
Please post a better one.
Why?
Why not? It is good to get more information to aid our understanding. I would like to know more about the subject, which you appear to know more about. Please share.
I just told you. Wikipedia, like Fingers, just makes shit up.
Maybe. Maybe not. Can you explain how you know it’s made up? I am being open minded and would like to know the truth please.
Because it’s Wikipedia.
Obviously no further information to support your opinion is forthcoming. That’s disappointing as I was hoping to learn more. But clearly there is no more.
Can anyone else enlighten us please?
Duly supplied. Unlike you I took the time to read it so couldn’t respond to you immediately.
Your apology will, of course, be forthcoming.
Duly supplied? No link though.
Look up young man……
Or down, depending on the timeline you choose for your reading…….
I have. No link to any other information about Wagner Group. As I said, I never made any claim for the veracity of the Wikipedia information. I asked for more information in order to learn but that request appears to have angered you. I am sorry about that.
You are indeed red hot!
I didn’t link to anything about the Wagner Group because there is no credible source for them.
I did destroy your Wikipedia entry though, which you have totally ignored.
Haven’t you Fingal.
Like I said, I posted it for info. Nothing else. But thank you for your abuse. That, at least, is enlightening.
Then you have learned something, namely, Wikipedia is not a reliable source.
And kindly point me to abuse that you endured.
Whilst your apology is still strangely absent.
Isn’t it Fingal…….
“reportedly after the German composer Richard Wagner”
(No supporting evidence)
“which he is said [sic] to have chosen due to his passion for the Third Reich”
(‘Evidence’ is an article making the same allegations with no supporting evidence)
“with The Economist reporting that Utkin has several Nazi tattoos”.
(Link to Economist article, which links to a Times article. Media chasing its tail)
“In August 2017, the Turkish newspaper Yeni Şafak speculated that Utkin was possibly a figurehead for the company”
(And Elvis is alive and well)
“and Wagner members have left neo-Nazi graffiti on the battlefield.”
(Links to more links in media articles. Media still chasing its tail.)
I could go on, and on, and on and on…….
Try reading the shit you post before posting it. The rest of the Wikipedia entry is similarly obscure.
What you might want to look for is the author of the entry and his/her credential. (Don’t bother, you wont find anyone).
Wikipedia is a source that can be contributed to by anyone with any old bile to spew, even Fingal.
Maybe no information is better than false information.
Wagner Group is just Russia’s answer to the US Blackwater mercenary group. The latter proved extremely useful to US regimes, allowing them add military force where it was not convenient or politically expedient to use official US troops. Russia saw that, and allowed its own version to be established.
Learn about Blackwater, and you’ll understand Wagner. The rest is just propagandists like Fingal trying to pretend there’s some dark unique evil about Russia’s mercenaries or that they are some kind of equivalent of Ukraine’s extremist militias (there isn’t and they aren’t).
It’s all but impossible to find a simple neutral source about any of these topics. You could start with this 2007 Brookings piece to understand the roots of the modern use of mercenaries:
The Dark Truth about Blackwater
I suppose a link to an article about a different group is better than no link at all.
So far, all you have produced is a Wikipedia article full of speculation and media links.
In other words, nothing, Fingers.
OK. Thanks for the informative, enlightening discussion.
You’re welcome, as ever, Fingal…….
Definitely not. tom171uk has been around here for ages and as far as I can tell is a strongly libertarian leaning, intelligent and informed general commenter. He’s one of many familiar “handles” I usually expect worthwhile content from when I see it.
Fingal, on the other hand, reads as a conventional leftist, and only started posting here regularly to push the mainstream agenda on Ukraine and against Russia
Thanks Mark. Much appreciated.
NP, tom, I can only say it as I see it….
Actually I joined well before the Ukraine war, when this site was purely about covid. I was interested to see contrarian views on the pandemic.
Much to my surprise this site morphed into a general contrarian site. I was then very surprised to discover that so many people who were sceptical about covid, also turned out to be hugely into what I would call conspiracy theories (I get it that you wouldn’t). I absolutely did not expect that.
For similar reasons, I was previously a member of a major Muslim forum (although I’m not religious) in order to learn more about their response to the rise of ISIS/Islamic State. In the process I learned a lot about Islam which was extremely interesting.
Some of the conversations I’m having now about Russia’s military progress in Ukraine are very reminiscent of those I had about IS – in other words, those members were much more willing to believe news coming out of IS than ‘MSM’.
I don’t think it’s very surprising that once people see how dishonest and manipulative the mainstream media sources can be on one issue, they tend to question it on all issues, and look for alternative sources of information. What is actually remarkable is the degree to which many people fail to do that.
“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
― Michael Crichton”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you
The trouble is, too many of those same people go to quote from blatant fake news sites (eg pro Russia propaganda units if discussing Ukraine).
Name them Fingers, don’t be shy.
I’ve always thought politicians lied constantly, but never really thought they could possibly lie so hugely until I started looking into the covid scam, prompted by my own hypochondria and a concern about my liberty being taken away in an unprecedented fashion. Having concluded that so many people in authority have lied so egregiously about covid, it is hard not to wonder what else they are lying about hugely.
Prior to covid, were you already refusing to read ‘MSM’? And did you subscribe to any other what I would call conspiracy theory?
(I’m sure you won’t like the name, but I can’t think of another term that would be immediately understandable).
No, and no.
Then fair enough. Do you subscribe to any now?
None of your business Fingers.
Covid in so far as I am not sure it was pre-planned and co-ordinated to the extent some here believe, but the size of the lies amounts to a conspiracy.
I am sceptical about climate change “orthodoxy”, not because I understand much about the science but because of the rabid nature of the way the debate is controlled.
Regarding the other “hot” topic, the conflict in Ukraine, I am not sure if I would call this a conspiracy theory as it seems to be pretty much in plain sight that the US is jockeying in the global power stakes and doesn’t care two hoots for the welfare of the Ukrainian people (or anyone else for that matter, except to the extent that they need to keep their voters on side somehow).
I’d accept questions about the efficacy of lockdown and vaccines as wholly reasonable (not any question, obviously, but the principle). But when people start straying into global conspiracies and great resets or whatever, that’s bonkers.
Climate change is also capable of being argued.
I don’t agree that the US doesn’t care about Ukrainians. I think that applies to Putin. There’s long history of conspiracy theories around Putin, including Litvinenko, Skripal, any number of Russian opposition figures and journalists, as well as the shooting down of MA17. There’s also the terrific history of alleged false flag ops (which extends to other areas like Sandy Hook). Most of these have very strong evidence trails and I don’t accept that it’s reasonable, when taken cumulatively, to continue to believe Putin (a KGB professional who can’t even admit he has a war on).
“But when people start straying into global conspiracies and great resets or whatever, that’s bonkers.”
Well the “great reset” is spoken about openly. World leaders in politics and other fields network a lot, and often seem to think alike. However I believe the covid scam was opportunistic, and different bodies saw different opportunities, but I am convinced that they knowingly lied either from the start or soon after (some I am sure from the start, given that I think the accidental leak followed by panic and cover-up is the most plausible) and THAT is a conspiracy.
Accidental leak, as in covid from a Wuhan lab?
No, as in what’s left of your brain dribbling down your chin.
“accidental leak followed by panic”
I’d agree with accidental leak because:
1) It’s so feeble they had to get deaths up by miscategorising, refusing to treat and euthanasia; and
2) They hadn’t got all of the necessary legislation in place.
I disagree that there was panic, again because it was so obviously feeble from the start. Their drunken partying was not the behaviour of scared men.
Posting shit as usual.
The term “Great Reset” has been uttered variously by both Biden and Bozo Johnston. As well as “Build back Better” using climate change as cover for what’s actually happening, a clandestine global financial effort to force investors away from fossil fuels. This was all yet another ‘conspiracy’ Until Larry Fink, the head of Blackrock came right out and said that’s what’s happening.
How does any of this conform to a conspiracy theory when it’s expressed by the leaders of two of the most influential countries in the world and the head of the biggest investment firm in the world?
Then there’s Klaus Schwab, he’s written a bloody book on the subject.
Your dribbling is incessant.
Followed swiftly by:
So your conspiracy theories are fine, just no one else’s.
What a toss pot. You can’t even post a comment without contradicting yourself.
No wonder you’re such an easy target, you are a congenital idiot.
The Great Reset and Build Back Better have both been articulated by Biden and BoJo. Klaus Schwab has written a book on The Great Reset, but they are conspiracy theories.

Sure thing, Fingers.
Sorry Mark, but I have been around blogs like this for 20+ years and am familiar with the trolls swapping identities at will.
Perhaps tom171uk isn’t Fingal however, rushing to Fingal’s defence, when Fingal completely disappears following his post is really, really suspicious and I’m not inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt these days.
Fingal and I had a confrontation just yesterday when responses were almost minute by minute from each of us.
Fingal posts his nonsense on this thread, I challenge him and….tom171uk mysteriously appears from nowhere engaging in precisely the same manner as Fingal did yesterday. Not a squeak from Fingal.
Then there’s the familiar little barbed remark that Fingal is wont to use about not being so “red hot” or similar.
Now Fingal reappears with more made up bullshit about contributing to a Muslim forum to illustrate how barbaric DS contributors are because we adopt similar practices to ISIS supporters.
I may be wrong about many things, but my head doesn’t zip up the back.
I can certainly understand having a hair trigger for these issues – I’ve done the same in the past myself, but I think you and tom got off on the wrong foot here.
If it matters enough, you can go back through tom’s past posts here. He’s very different from Fingal. You might well disagree with him on many issues (he’s quite orthodox libertarian in his positions here as far as I recall, whereas my impression is you’re more freedom/conservative generally), but like us he’s a genuine sceptic who questions mainstream positions, and he hasn’t particularly pushed the anti-Russian line as Fingal has, doggedly and dogmatically.
Oh come on Mark. I’m hardly any more dogmatically critical of Russia than others are in reverse.
The difference is Fingers, most of us here are critically analysing both sides of the argument.
What those with a balanced perspective have concluded is that whilst neither side in the Ukrainian conflict is right, on the balance of probabilities, and assuming for a moment neither side were lying to us, there is good reason to believe Putin is not the war criminal we have been told he is.
And to be fair to absolutely everyone here, our democracy (what’s left of it) is only viable if we interrogate it more vigorously than we do any other.
We have no control over Russia or Putin, we only have control over our country and our government.
On that basis alone, Boris and his cabinet have been revealed on a consistent basis, not least over Covid, to have lied to us on the most enormous scale imaginable.
Just give me some reasonable arguments as to why we should trust them, because I can’t find any from the rest of the world many of whom support Putin.
Why is that?
I’m afraid he thinks you’re me (because you said something he disagrees with).
The trouble is, Fingal, I didn’t actually say anything. I posted a link but stupidly failed to add a few words explaining that it was just a link and not an opinion. I didn’t post anything to suggest that I agreed or disagreed with yourself or anyone else.
But… …it shouldn’t matter if I had. I respect other people even if I disagree with their opinions. So please feel free to post yours. If I disagree I may tell you, but I won’t abuse you.
Totally agree.
Of course you do.
You posted a link without reading it first. You imagined, foolishly, that it would be a killer blow.
Next time perhaps take more care when you cite something.
Like I said, you’re unlikely find any simple single piece about this kind of topic that does not have a manipulative agenda. If you want to understand the particular manifestation you need to understand the wider background, and imo that’s best served by learning about the background to the modern use of mercenaries by major powers, which Wagner is very much part of, that began (on a large scale) with Blackwater.
If you aren’t interested in learning about the topic and just want to be propagandised, or like Fingal just want to try to propagandise others, that’s your prerogative.
RedhotScot’s right about using Wikipedia in this kind of case. It’s fine for checking uncontroversial facts, but on any issue like this it will always be systematically biased. That said, it can still be used as a starting point for further research and links to sources etc, but doing that is risky if you don’t already have enough knowledge to recognise when you are being misled on the topic.
No point. It’s Fingal.
Excellent advice. Thank you. And, for the record, I posted the Wikipedia link as a starting point. I genuinely hoped for more information on the subject, which seems to be much wider than just this one group.
Thanks again for being constructive.
You expect people to respond with information when you post articles from Wikipedia?
Even your Fingal persona isn’t as stupid as that.
The only thing I’d take issue with here is the certainty of ‘uncontroversial facts’.
These days, one never knows what might be subjected to the ‘fact checkers’ at places like Twitter, Facebook and the BBC, who will remove anything that goes against their current narrative… use all sources with care, particularly those you agree with!
But in this forum, no-one wants accept that the Wagner Group even exists.
“But in this forum, no-one wants accept that the Wagner Group even exists.”
What you mean is people here generally aren’t interested in your attempt to use them for your openly propagandist purposes.
As a matter of interest, can you produce even one case of anybody here claiming that Wagner “doesn’t exist”?
In the threads I read, I was the first person to mention the Wagner Group.
In contrast, there’s been huge coverage of the Azov Battalion.
If you want an example of extreme bias in reporting, you just found it.
Obviously that’s false, because you are comparing apples to oranges.
As previously noted, Wagner is just Russia’s version of the useful and successful (from government’s perspective, obviously) Blackwater precedent.
Whereas Azov is an organisation of political fanatics like ISIS, given a veneer of respectability by being loosely incorporated into the official state military. More like a smaller version of Iran’s Republican Guard than it is like Wagner and Blackwater.
Nobody was mentioning Wagner because it had no significance to the issues under discussion – it’s just an addition to Russian government forces.
But it seems we’ve established that your previous assertion (“no-one wants accept that the Wagner Group even exists“) was false, anyway. We can just put it down to hyperbole on your part, unless you want to double down?
It is hyperbole. If you want to be pedantic.
More accurately, I should say that members want to a) deny its Nazi associations b) not mention it if possible c) in some cases – step forward LukeWarm – make out that it has nothing to do with Putin!
Prove it has something to do with Putin. Indeed, prove its existence.
tom171uk tried that one with a Wikipedia article, which is the only attempt at proving their existence I have ever seen, and it was a damp squib.
But you don’t read many threads Fingers, by your own admission.
I have posted my climate change calculation on numerous DS climate articles, yet you have, once again, missed it, every, single, time…..
As usual.
Really?
Fingers making shit up as usual.
quote an example
see, two can play at that game
Fingers never proves anything. He brings no evidence, ever, of anything other than of his own personal bias, cognitive dissonance, and made up shit.
And why is no one talking about the vicious war in Yemen? Answer on a postcard.
It’s not fashionable.
Because the US and UK are involved in funding the war and coordinating its prosecution.
He did ask for your answer on a postcard.
It’s black people slaughtering other black people. So hard for the woke brigade to identify saintly victims and wicked aggressors. Easier to just ignore it.
You mean like an average Saturday night in Chicago?
Where would the arms manufacturers be without wars, ditto pharma, climate change…..
“Where would the arms manufacturers be”
Indeed.
US to Send “Game-Changer” HIMARS to Ukraine: The Rest of the Story
“Will HIMARS make a difference in Ukraine? No.
Will it make a lot of money for Lockheed Martin? Yes.”
HIMARS. LOL.
Six months training required, but no matter, the Ukrainians are an adaptable bunch.
Tedros Adhanom: WHO chief may face genocide charges | World | The Times
From 2020.
The warlord is still in post.
Hasn’t Democrat Tulsi Gabbard spoken out against sending billions of dollars of weapons to Ukraine?
Interestingly for someone who was in the military, she’s pretty non-interventionist.
She’s quite conservative for a Democrat, God knows how she could bring herself to support Biden given her stated positions on a lot of issues.
She’s what decent Democrats should be. Were there more like her, and fewer like Pelosi they might be a credible political organisation.
As it is, they are a joke party and Gabbard is showing them up as such.
There’s a case to be made, I think, that we should be hearing less about the Ukraine war, rather than more about other wars.
Does it really benefit us to have constant emotionally manipulative news about remote horrors that have little direct effect upon us, except by virtue of our own governments interfering in them (driven by consent manufactured by that very media coverage)?
The Ukraine war is only happening because of US, UK and EU interference in the Ukraine, that was enabled and driven by media coverage of past events in the Ukraine. Such coverage drives the false impression that who runs the Ukraine should matter to us. It only matters because of the globalist interventionism that we are part of. Address that, and we could begin to think about going back to minding our own business, for the first time in centuries.
If we are going to stop our elites abusing their positions and misusing our wealth to posture and interfere around the world, perhaps we need to learn a rather more detached attitude to distant world events.
More broadly, perhaps if coverage of shock crimes like mass shootings in the US were not so heavy, our elites would find it harder to exploit those events to impose new tyrannies.
^^^^^^^^^^ This.
Yes it is clearly an aim of destabilisation to continually provide ‘fear’ stories on a 365/24/7 basis. A fearful population is much easier to control and herd into certain behaviour.
And so much better if the fear is always pointing in the direction that is required for those societal changes required to advance wealth and power from those holding the means to indoctrinate.
This is the reason I have not watched a mainstream news channel on any TV network for years. I read some press , as wide a range as possible, to keep abreast of the latest attempt to influence thinking. But never, ever take anything written on face value.
It is difficult not to just read stuff that confirms your own prejudices, but its imperative that enough people continually test their own understanding as well as others. That is the positive side of scepticism , otherwise it can descend into bigotry.
In the same way a real scientist always tests his own theories to death, sceptics should test their own beliefs continually or we end up as warped as the forces we are sceptical about.
“This is the reason I have not watched a mainstream news channel on any TV network for years. I read some press , as wide a range as possible, to keep abreast of the latest attempt to influence thinking. But never, ever take anything written on face value.
It is difficult not to just read stuff that confirms your own prejudices, but its imperative that enough people continually test their own understanding as well as others. That is the positive side of scepticism , otherwise it can descend into bigotry.”
One of the reasons I don’t have a problem with the presence here of those putting the mainstream case below the line (even if I think some of them are brighter than others, and some more honest than others).
Only genuinely free discussion and debate can give us any hope that our opinions on a topic have any real validity.
Sean Gabb’s Reviews > On Liberty
“During the libertarian rebirth of the past generation, it has become fashionable to sneer at the essay On Liberty. It is, I admit, a flawed work, and I will shortly try to explain why this is so. Before then, however, I will put a case for the defence – to show why, despite its flaws, the essay remains a valuable weapon in the libertarian arsenal, and will remain one when Rand and Nozick will chiefly be names found in histories of twentieth century thought.
Mill is at his very best in Chapter II, “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion”. This contains the best argument for freedom of speech that I have ever found. Briefly stated, it goes thus:
We have no means of knowing with complete certainty the truth or falsity of any proposition. Therefore, to prohibit its being advanced is to make a wholly unfounded assumption of infallibility. Moreover, if a prohibition is made, one of two consequences will follow:
First, if the proposition is true, humanity will lose whatever benefit might follow from an addition to the stock of existing truths;
Second, if it is false, we shall lose what little assurance we can have of the truth of the other proposition denied by it. Establish even the plainest truth by law, and it will dwindle from the status of a truth acknowledged by reason to the status of a prejudice that can be embarrassed by the feeblest opposing show of reason.
When putting this argument, I have sometimes been called a racist, and was once pelted with beer glasses. But I have yet to hear or read a reply to it that I feel worth considering.”
My exact reason for being a member here, albeit in reverse.
So many members seem to be avoiding any source that even mildly challenges their views.
Well, you have an opportunity to learn stuff. Though there are none so blind as those who will not see.
Fingers isn’t blind. You could beat him over the head with a baseball bat of facts and he simply refuses to accept any of them.
Fingal making shit up again.
It’s thanks to trolls like you that I have clearly thought through the Ukrainian conflict and reached the logical, and factual conclusion that most of the world refuses to condemn Russia for their intervention in Ukraine. That is indisputable.
It’s also coincident with many of the same countries refusing to have their health policies presided over by the WHO’s latest grab at power the west so willingly engaged with.
I have also learned, more from personal contact, that Russians do not live under an oppressive regime any longer, and haven’t done since the wall came down. They have been free to explore the world, as westerners have been free to explore Russia, yet somehow they haven’t all run away and, coincidentally, Putin has an approval rating of 83%.
Kindly show me where, in living memory, a western leader has even approached that level of support. Biden is currently in the low 30’s.
I have also learned that you have no intention of learning anything from your presence here.
You simply refuse to accept the fact, and I emphasise, fact, that most of the world supports Putin over Ukraine, including the largest democracy in the world, India.
You also refuse to accept that, perhaps the west is in the wrong, not for the first time, and continue to peddle the narrative that Putin is a demonic tyrant.
I’m happy to concede that he’s made his own mistakes in the past although I’m not prepared to conform to the MSM narrative. I personally can’t find, for example, where Putin has actually used the term ‘nuclear weapons’ when he’s warned the west to back off from Ukraine. Yet it’s all over our media that he’s threatening us with nuclear war.
Why would I believe anything else they print when they perpetrate such obvious, dangerous untruthful rhetoric?
I have been at pains to point out to you that western Ukraine moved weapons of war (artillery) to the Donbas border and engaged in an exchange of fire with eastern forces defending their region.
This was an act of aggression. Consequently, after seven days of this exchange, Russia intervened, entirely in accordance with UN Article 51 which it delivered to the UN Security Council. What the Security Council does with that notice following its delivery is inconsequential, it was delivered legally.
Russia, being a UN member, came to the aid of another UN member nation/region (there is no distinction in the Article) that was under attack, which is the principle purpose of Article 51.
The west has not put boots on the ground in Ukraine because it would be seen as an act of aggression, principally by the nations that represent most of the world, e.g. China, India, Africa and Latin America, not to mention Russia itself, by aiding an aggressor.
It is also clear that Russia doesn’t, and never did have any ambition to occupy Ukraine as a whole. Putin has vocalised his intention to support ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine against insurgency from western Ukraine.
I did have my doubts about this when Putin pushed onto Kiev until I read some informed analysis on the situation. Putin chased the Ukrainian heavy armour to their natural home (Kiev) and destroyed them. He’s since withdrawn to the east and is now engaged in battles with western Ukrainians who have violated the eastern border in yet more acts of aggression.
It’s also true to say that with 2,000,000 troops at his disposal, had Putin wanted to occupy Ukraine he could have. It’s also true that had he wanted to lay waste to Kiev, or any other city, he could easily have done so with conventional warheads mounted on hypersonic missiles.
What we have been assured of by our government is of the west’s heroic efforts to supply arms to western Ukraine. It began with 200,000 helmets from Germany……
Then we were assured the war would be won with Javelin anti tank and Stinger anti aircraft missiles. Unfortunately no one mentioned training. These weapons were as much a danger to the Ukrainians using them as they were to the Russians they were targeting.
We got images of video games and lies about a heroic Ukrainian pilot who had supposedly shot down innumerable Russian aircraft.
And so the announcements of Ukrainian victories and Russian atrocities rolled in through government propaganda and media misinformation, whilst Silicon Valley was employed to vigorously censor any dissenting information.
Meanwhile, Boris has incessantly lied his way through the last two years or more, and Biden is revealed as an infantile, raging, demented old man who contrived to literally steal an election.
Yet we are expected to believe that Putin is, variously, a demonic despot with ambitions to take over the world, colluding with Trump to steal the 2016 election (impeachment disproved that one), prepared to unleash nuclear war when he hasn’t mentioned nuclear weapons, and is terminally ill and about to croak it from cancer.
As if that’s not bad enough, the WEF and Claus Schwab have on numerous occasions stated their intention to invoke a one world government and our own financial institutions are nefariously engaged in ensuring funding for gas and oil are cut off so we face already announced blackouts this winter, and summer in the US.
But Vlad the Mad is the bad guy for likely stopping what was turning into a genocidal event in eastern Ukraine. The familiar old signals the west has ignored on frequent occasions are all there, but you utterly refuse to acknowledge them.
So just what have you learned?
‘So just what have you learned?’
Not sure if your nemeses learned owt, but I really did. So thanks for that.
You’re welcome mate.
The Ukraine war is only happening because of US, UK and EU interference in the Ukraine
Did that US, UK and EU ‘interference’ take the form of sending nearly 200,000 troops into Ukraine?
that was enabled and driven by media coverage of past events in the Ukraine
Has the (state-controlled) Russian media’s coverage of past and current events in Ukraine challenged or ‘enabled’ the undeniable interference of their government in that country, ie through initiating the war you blame on the US, UK and EU via its 24 February invasion?
Mind you it would be unrealistic to expect much Russian media dissent on this matter when challenging the Putin regime on any aspect of its naked military aggression can now result in a 15 year jail sentence (and would always have resulted in being fired from your post at best).
That’s a sudden jump from the original claim of 150,000 troops.
Did the US, UK and EU ‘interference’ include stopping the civil war that’s been raging in the country for the last 8 years?
Were NATO troops deployed to defend the border between east and west Ukraine where 8 years of insurgency by western Ukraine has been perpetrated?
Would the west have stood by and watched the genocide of eastern Ukrainians?
Why yes, of course they would have, they have a rich history of doing so.
Most of the world supports Russias intervention in Ukraine. Why is the US/UK and EU right?
I genuinely haven’t seen this reliably supported anywhere so would be interested in your evidence for it.
The overall question is why there is allegedly little attention being paid to the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia (certainly in comparison to the Ukraine war) in the UK, with the proposed answers including racism and left-wing political bitterness against the Putin regime.
A) The left-leaning Guardian has several thousand articles about this one and a half year old civil war, The Telegraph around 600, and the BBC website twenty nine pages of results when you search on Tigray.
Hardly a lack of attention (due to racist, selfishly politically motivated or any other reasons).
B) Britain and the US have direct military and other responsibilities toward Ukraine due to their joint signing (with the Russian Federation) of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances in 1994.
Since 2014 Russia has of course progressively torn up its Budapest commitments toward Ukraine, and now shredded them.
France and China also offered separate security assurances, with the latter doing nothing to live up to its promises; indeed quite the opposite, it has refused to condemn the invasion and said that Russia’s ‘legitimate security concerns’ should be taken into consideration.
C) Further to the above Tigray is a civil war and thus lacks the obligation (or at least right) for UN Members (again including the UK) to come to the assistance of fellow Member states (such as Ukraine) being attacked under Article 51 of the UN Treaty.
D) Ethiopia has not been making near daily humanicidal threats to initiate nuclear armageddon through a first strike if anyone dares to directly intervene in Ukraine.
With the UK itself being a prime target of these revolting attempts at intimidation, one whose excuses include Finland simply joining NATO.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1610242/Russian-nuclear-threat-UK-warning-Satan-2-missile-US-Aleksey-Zhuravlyov-Vladimir-Putin.
E) There are all the massive negative economic consequences for the whole world, and especially Europe (including the UK), of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including vital grain and fuel shortages.
F) This article itself show absolutely no genuine interest in the Tigray conflict.
There is not even the barest outline of its background and causes, and no attempt to suggest how the desperate resolution called for at the end could actually be brought about.
The suffering of the people there is clearly purely being exploited for pro-Russian propagandist purposes.
The vast majority of them reproductions of a few original guardian.ng and tv.guardian.ng (Guardian Nigeria) repeated across the numerous national versions of the Guardian.
The Budapest memorandum committed Washington, Moscow and London, among other things, to “respect the independence and sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine” and to “refrain from the threat or use of force” against that country.
Notably, no mention of civil war and the obligation by UN members to intervene in ethnic cleansing or genocide of eastern Ukrainian, ethnic Russians.
Wikipedia: The ‘source’ for information – which can be edited by anyone with a PC, from anywhere in the world, whilst providing no information on the author or their credentials, having been condemned by one of its former founders as the origin of much left wing propaganda.
That would be China, India, Africa and Latin America which have refused to condemn Russia for its intervention in Ukraine. Well over half the population of the world, but the warmongering US (NATO), UK and EU are in the right.
Had you even a fleeting interest in the concept of democracy, you might stop for a moment and wonder why most of the world doesn’t agree with the UN and western condemnation of Russia.
Bollox. There is nothing in article 51 stopping a UN ally intervening in a civil war indeed, it’s an obligation for the UN to intervene in ethnic cleansing, genocide or the threat thereof, which is precisely what eastern Ukraine was facing after eight years of western Ukraine insurgency.
Western Ukraine conducted an artillery barrage across the border to the Donbas reginn for seven days before Russia crossed the Russian/Ukraine border to intervene.
Would you rather they didn’t and eastern Ukraine faced ethnic cleansing and/or genocide? It appears Russia wasn’t willing to watch a massacre as the west and UN stood by and witnessed in Rwanda and Bosnia, amongst many other atrocities.
Yet more utter BS. The US/UK/EU hasn’t engaged in Ukraine because UN Article 51 was legally delivered to the Security Council upon Russia intervening in Ukraine to resist the insurgency of western Ukraine (the aggressor) on eastern Ukraine.
Were the west to engage in Ukraine they would be assisting an aggressor, which is why they haven’t done it.
Putin himself has never mentioned nuclear weapons. A statement from him was cited as:
“If someone intends to interfere in what is going on from the outside they must know that constitutes an unacceptable strategic threat to Russia.
“They must know that our response to counterstrikes will be lightning fast.
“We have all the weapons we need for this. No one else can brag about these weapons, and we won’t brag about them.
“But we will use them.”
That very well could be conventionally armed hypersonic missiles which no other country has available.
I’ll simply ignore your reference to the Express article. Our MSM has little credibility.
More bollox. Most of these conditions were caused by Biden’s insane restrictions on domestic oil and gas production to promote the climate agenda. The supply chain was in trouble long before Russia intervened in Ukraine.
According to you there is no need for this article to pay any attention to Tigray as there are “thousands” of Guardian and BBC articles on the subject.
I can’t comment as I never read the Guardian nor watch the BBC as they are rabid, destructive, left wing propaganda.
Alternatively, you are exploiting them for anti Russia propagandist purposes, unsupported by most of the world.
Had you even a fleeting interest in democracy you wouldn’t be backing Putin.
The vast majority of the world backs him. What makes the US/UK and EU so right?
Never got close to this under Trump, 18 months into Biden’s tenure the world has gone to shit.
That’s your left for you Fingers, in love with war and killing.
You didn’t produce any evidence. You posted some numbers with no attribution.
You can quote the Budapest agreement until you’re blue in the face. The fact remains that Russia legally invoked UN Article 51 when it intervened in the Ukrainian conflict. Under its terms it supersedes any previous agreement when a UN member state is under attack another member state is entitled to help. There is no distinction between regions in the Article.
Just more of your utter bollox.
Article 51
of the Charter of the United Nations
24 Oct. 1945 -|Last updated: 01 Oct. 2009 15:42
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security. (my emphasis)
There is nothing in Article 51 which precludes intervention in a civil war, and nowhere is “entire nation states” mentioned.
Not a single boot on the ground. Which would be illegal of course because it would be in support of an aggressor.
This is now getting funny.
Whilst Russia had 150,000 troops on the Russian Ukraine border, there was an artillery exchange between western Ukrainian forces, who had transported said artillery to the border, and eastern Ukrainian forces for seven days prior to Russia crossing the border.
Being that there has been 8 years of insurgency by the west into the east, this can only be considered an act of aggression by western Ukraine as artillery is almost always a prelude to mobilisation of heavy armour and troops.
We have seen this before and the calm before the storm is usually indicative of an invasion and, frequently, ethnic cleansing/genocide.
Following the seven days of artillery activity, Russia finally moved across the border to intervene and delivered notice by way of Article 51 to the Security Council.
None of this is in dispute.
Your rambling passage beginning with the vote taken by the Security Council is entirely academic. The Council can vote on what it wants. Russia delivered notice of their actions entirely in accordance with Article 51 and no one can do anything about it unless they care to take the side of the aggressor.
Utter crap.
The OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine has details on every shot fired. That’s what they were there for.
Did they turn up on a surprise inspection? Of course not, they knew precisely what was happening which meant they had to be forearmed with information on the movement of western Ukrainian artillery. Which meant everyone else knew what was going on.
Strange no one’s done anything about it, don’t you think?
Blah, blah, blah. None of us like war but, tough shit, they happen, get used to it. Announcing it doesn’t make you any more virtuous that anyone else.
Your FT article is yet another distortion of what was, or wasn’t said by Putin. Has Putin actually stated anywhere that he was prepared to use nuclear weapons. And I emphasis, did he use the word nuclear?
To the best of my knowledge, no.
The fact is, he doesn’t need them. Just one of his hypersonic missiles, conventionally armed, launched from an aircraft standing off 500 to 1,000 miles (from memory) for which there is no defence, could destroy an aircraft carrier, or any other naval vessel.
The US has 20 aircraft carriers in total. That’s 20 missiles at, say, several million dollars each, obliterating all of America’s fighting platforms in an afternoon worth, probably, trillions of dollars.
Who the hell needs nuclear weapons?
America’s head of their hypersonic missile project was recently interrogated in Congress as to why the US military didn’t yet have what Russia has.
Pompous ass. You’re just fantasising in your head whilst the facts are in plain sight.
At least we agree on something, but not quite in the way you think.
Putin has stated his expectation that events in Ukraine will have the coincidental effect of bursting the globalisation by climate change bubble. That’s precisely what’s happening.
The American public are now aware there will be power cuts this summer. We Brits have been told to expect them this winter. Irrespective of who, or what caused wildly escalating fuel prices (it was Biden’s war on FF’s that started it all) the chickens are coming home to roost as the public are now wondering what’s happened to all these wonderful windmills we are supposed to rely on for cheap electricity.
Now we have Stuart Kirk of HSBC announcing to the financial world that green investments are a waste of time and money. More surprisingly, following his suspension, a number of other influential financiers either agreed with him or agreed that he had the right to express himself without being sanctioned.
The public are rebelling against high energy prices and rampant inflation. Our governments can blame them on Covid and Putin all they wan’t but when power cuts are invoked, and people can’t even buy electricity no matter how wealthy they are, the world will turn on the greens.
Biden created this, Putin just lit the blue touchpaper.
I fail to see any meaningful pro-Russian sentiment in this article. You are reading it whilst invoking your own personal prejudices.
First of all please click on ‘read more’ at the foot of this post to put the formatting back, must be a length thing. In any case: You didn’t produce any evidence. Yes I did You posted some numbers That was the evidence. with no attribution. If by attribution you mean a source and a link the same can be said for the overwhelming majority of factual claims being made on this site, including your own. That is just as well, as excessive linkage in any single post triggers manual checking by moderators, and the Daily Sceptic would grind to a standstill. You can quote the Budapest agreement until you’re blue in the face. The fact remains that Russia legally invoked UN Article 51 when it intervened in the Ukrainian conflict. Under its terms it supersedes any previous agreement when a UN member state is under attack another member state is entitled to help [my bold]. President Putin invoked Article 51 as an excuse to invade the UN Member state of Ukraine based on a claim that the two Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk had come under attack. A couple of days before the invasion we all witnessed the televised signing of his own unilateral declaration that these two relatively small regions in the east of Ukraine were now independent states. But no amount of elaborate calligraphy or grandeur of setting (the Kremlin does have some magnificent spaces) makes this anything other than a completely illegal attempt to dismantle another nation state. The idea that the Putin regime genuinely believed that their unilateral declaration of independence of two Ukrainian provinces had automatically and immediately transformed them into Member states of the UN (a long and complicated process involving very strict legal criteria) – hence an alleged attack on them could be used as an excuse to invoke Article 51 – is laughable. Indeed so ridiculous and obviously self-contradictory is this excuse for the invasion of a Member of the UN that it simply looks like some sort of strange attempt at black comedy. There is no distinction between regions in the Article. The Article does not mention regions but rather UN Members (ie nation states), as you yourself cited (and I highlighted in bold above) I did not say that Article 51 prevented anything, merely that it does not apply to civil wars because it explicitly and solely refers to Members of the UN (ie entire nation states, not sections of them). (my emphasis) Just more of your utter bollox. Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations 24 Oct. 1945 -|Last updated: 01 Oct. 2009 15:42 Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security. (my emphasis) Every time you cite this Article you prove the point that it solely refers to attacks on Members (ie fully recognised nation-states, not regions or anything else). See my bolding of your post above, and again here: Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations. There is nothing in Article 51 which precludes intervention in a civil war Article 51 has precisely zero to do with civil wars, for all the reasons set out above and elsewhere. Furthermore if you were living in Russia you would now be in danger of invoking the wrath of the state, because you are repeatedly contradicting President Putin’s own rational for utilising Article 51 – that Russia was going to the assistance of the two (illegally and unilaterally created) states of Luhansk and Donetsk (whose ‘independence’ he had conjured up in his head and through a few strokes of a pen). Not intervening in a civil war. and nowhere is “entire nation states” mentioned. Again, if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations All the Members of the United Nations (my bold) are entire nation states. Not regions, counties, provinces, districts etc etc. The west is highly engaged in Ukraine and assisting them against the self-evident Russian aggression. Not a single boot on the ground. That is correct, the assistance has taken the form of military logistics, humanitarian aid, verbal support etc. The reason for a lack of direct intervention is primarily the moral one of not wishing to extend the horrific suffering of war into a much wider conflict. This includes a determination not to to give the Putin regime and its Russian media cheerleaders the excuse to initiate the humanicidal nuclear exchange that they keep threatening everyone with and seem to strongly desire. Which would be illegal of course because it would be in support of an aggressor. You could make a claim that the US and UK (and to a lesser extent China) are acting illegally by not directly intervening as this could be seen to contradict their commitments to Ukrainian security under the Budapest memorandum of 1994. That is a by-the-by, eternal spiritual moral standards always trump man-made laws / treaties etc. On your other point, there was nothing remotely like ethnic cleansing or genocide taking place in the civil conflict in Donbas prior to invasion (which of course involved pro-Russian separatists with at least some Russian assistance as well as the Ukrainian armed forces).A conflict which had died down so much that 7 civilians died through direct military action (by both sides) in the whole of 2021, the very year the Putin regime began to amass its gigantic invasion force on Ukraine’s borders. This is now getting funny. Whilst Russia had 150,000 troops on the Russian Ukraine border, there was an artillery exchange between western Ukrainian forces, who had transported said artillery to the border, and eastern Ukrainian forces for seven days prior to Russia crossing the border. Being that there has been 8 years of insurgency by the west into the east, this can only be considered an act of aggression by western Ukraine as artillery is almost always a prelude to mobilisation of heavy armour and troops. We have seen this before and the calm before the storm is usually indicative of an invasion and, frequently, ethnic cleansing/genocide. You are saying two main things here: A) One nation amasses an invasion force on the borders of another, the one being threatened brings some of its own forces (in this case you specify artillery) closer to the same border, and this act of normal military defensiveness makes them the aggressor rather than defender. I can only disagree B) At the same time you are suggesting that movements of forces, including artillery, are almost always preludes to attack (not defence) and hence inherently aggressive; But not when Russia does this en masse on the Ukrainian border by building up a massive invasion force over a period of months (all the time lying about its intentions). Again, I can only disagree. Your rambling passage beginning with the vote taken by the Security Council is entirely academic. The Council can vote on what it wants. Russia delivered notice of their actions entirely in accordance with Article 51 I have no idea why you wish to use (in Russia’s case misuse) UN regulations such as Article 51 as some sort of attempted justification for an invasion, at the same time as completely dismissing the entire legal structure and decision-making process of the UN as ‘academic’. and no one can do anything about it unless they care to take the side of the aggressor. Well in this case (self-evidently and as decided by a massive majority in the UN) Russia was and is the aggressor, but at least that position is more straightforward than all the previous ‘legal’ smoke screening – Might is Right. The exact nature of these barrages is not known, the overwhelming likelihood is that the increase in that short period consisted of Ukrainian defensive reaction in the run up to a much predicted invasion, false flag (eg internal shots falling short in unmanned areas) or a combination of the two. Utter crap. The OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine has details on every shot fired. As a representative example the 22 February daily OSCE report stated that in Luhansk region their monitors recorded 1,224 ceasefire violations, including 1,149 explosions (108 outgoing, 103 impacts and 938 undetermined [my bold]). https://www.osce.org/files/2022-02-22%20Daily%20Report_ENG.pdf?itok=63057 It is a self-evident fact that these monitors neither could nor did usually have certain knowledge of the direction of any shells; and even those that they did determine the direction of could have been fired from within the separatist region and made to fall short in unmanned parts of their own territory (or ordinance exploded on the ground) for false flag purposes. The more likely explanation, however, was that the increased artillery exchanges in the week prior to invasion was aggressive on the separatist / Russian side and defensive on the Ukrainian one. The Kremlin propagandist claim that Ukraine was planning to ‘invade’ its own eastern provinces just as their own forces were about to (genuinely) invade using the now largely calmed (other than the brief period just discussed) conflict in Donbass as an excuse is utterly absurd. Did they turn up on a surprise inspection? Of course not, No surprise at all, the OSCE team had been monitoring military activities (of both sides) in Donbass since 21 March 2014 they knew precisely what was happening which meant they had to be forearmed with information on the movement of western Ukrainian artillery. Which meant everyone else knew what was going on. Please point me to OSCE knowledge of Ukrainian artillery movements in the pre-invasion period, or indeed any other sources of this information. Regardless of that, and again, it would be extremely strange and a dereliction of all normal defensive military duties if any nation did not move large amounts of its forces closer to its borders when threatened with invasion. Incidentally I will repeat my own opposition to all military activity by all sides in conflicts and desire for ceasefires asap then moves towards worldwide peaceful (ie de-militarised) structures. Blah, blah, blah. None of us like war but, tough shit, they happen, get used to it. Wars are entirely manufactured and preventable (through the exercise of the conscience), and should no more be reacted to with ‘tough shit, they happen’ than rape, arson and serial murders. Your FT article is yet another distortion of what was, or wasn’t said by Putin. Has Putin actually stated anywhere that he was prepared to use nuclear weapons. And I emphasis, did he use the word nuclear? To the best of my knowledge, no. Yes, he said he was putting his nuclear forces on ‘special alert’. You seem to be saying that he both did not and did specify nuclear weapons. In any case the ‘putting nuclear forces on special alert’ statement is on the public record, plus all the other media and general commentators threatening to wipe out humanity (with the UK being a primary target of this wrath) on a near daily basis clearly have been doing so with at least a lack of disapproval (which would lead to sacking or worse) of the totalitarian Kremlin regime The fact is, he doesn’t need them. Just one of his hypersonic missiles, conventionally armed, launched from an aircraft standing off 500 to 1,000 miles (from memory) for which there is no defence, could destroy an aircraft carrier, or any other naval vessel. The US has 20 aircraft carriers… Read more »
The vast majority of them reproductions of a few original guardian.ng and tv.guardian.ng (Guardian Nigeria) repeated across the numerous national versions of the Guardian.
Again all the evidence (which you haven’t directly refuted, just made a vague and unenumerated claim about article repetition in a single publication) proves that any allegation of a lack of substantial coverage in UK media of the conflict in Tigray is incorrect.
The Budapest memorandum committed Washington, Moscow and London, among other things, to “respect the independence and sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine” and to “refrain from the threat or use of force” against that country.
Notably, no mention of civil war and the obligation by UN members to intervene in ethnic cleansing or genocide of eastern Ukrainian, ethnic Russians
Wikipedia: The ‘source’ for information – which can be edited by anyone with a PC, from anywhere in the world, whilst providing no information on the author or their credentials, having been condemned by one of its former founders as the origin of much left wing propaganda.
This long-lasting Wikipedia article was setting out factual data about one of the most pressing geopolitical issues of the day, ones which if false would self-evidently have been challenged and changed almost immediately.
In any case:
UN official document ‘Treaties and international agreements registered or filed and recorded with the Secretariat of the United Nations I. Nos. 52234-52254 VOLUME 3007 2014’
No. 52241 Ukraine, Russian Federation, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and United States of America Memorandum on security assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Budapest, 5 December 1994
Please see pages 169 and 170 for the three formally agreed terms of the Budapest Memorandum I cited above
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/v3007.pdf
That would be China, India, Africa and Latin America which have refused to condemn Russia for its intervention in Ukraine. Well over half the population of the world, but the warmongering US (NATO), UK and EU are in the right.
Had you even a fleeting interest in the concept of democracy, you might stop for a moment and wonder why most of the world doesn’t agree with the UN and western condemnation of Russia.
None of the other countries or regions were formally committed by treaty to defending Ukraine from attack or invasion as China was.
Plus none of the official stances of these countries and regions concerning the Russian invasion can be taken as necessarily reflective of the views of their populations, beyond that morality is not derived from statistics (eg a higher number support position x over y) but rather via the universal spiritual knowledge of right and wrong we each possess via our consciences.
Bollox. There is nothing in article 51 stopping a UN ally intervening in a civil war indeed, it’s an obligation for the UN to intervene in ethnic cleansing, genocide or the threat thereof, which is precisely what eastern Ukraine was facing after eight years of western Ukraine insurgency.
I did not say that Article 51 prevented anything, merely that it does not apply to civil wars because it explicitly and solely refers to Members of the UN (ie entire nation states, not sections of them).
On your other point, there was nothing remotely like ethnic cleansing or genocide taking place in the civil conflict in Donbas prior to invasion (which of course involved pro-Russian separatists with at least some Russian assistance as well as the Ukrainian armed forces).
A conflict which had died down so much that 7 civilians died through direct military action (by both sides) in the whole of 2021, the very year the Putin regime began to amass its gigantic invasion force on Ukraine’s borders.
Some genocide and ethnic cleansing, neither of which was declared by the UN as either taking place / about to take place, or as any sort of excuse for the Russian invasion.
Quite the opposite, in the UN Emergency Session of 02 March 2022 it was condemned by 141 nations out of 193. 35 abstained, and only 5 voted in support.
Western Ukraine conducted an artillery barrage across the border to the Donbas reginn for seven days before Russia crossed the Russian/Ukraine border to intervene.
Would you rather they didn’t and eastern Ukraine faced ethnic cleansing and/or genocide? It appears Russia wasn’t willing to watch a massacre as the west and UN stood by and witnessed in Rwanda and Bosnia, amongst many other atrocities.
The exact nature of these barrages is not known, the overwhelming likelihood is that the increase in that short period consisted of Ukrainian defensive reaction in the run up to a much predicted invasion, false flag (eg internal shots falling short in unmanned areas) or a combination of the two.
The idea that the Ukraine regime decided to massively escalate a near dormant conflict at precisely the same time as its aggressive and substantially larger neighbour was threatening to invade using the exact same conflict as one of its many pretexts is simply non-credible.
Yet more utter BS. The US/UK/EU hasn’t engaged in Ukraine because UN Article 51 was legally delivered to the Security Council upon Russia intervening in Ukraine to resist the insurgency of western Ukraine (the aggressor) on eastern Ukraine.
Not only did the UN not accept Russia’s attempt to use Article 51 as a pretext for this invasion, its personnel must have been shaking their heads at the sheer temerity of trying to use the clause – precisely designed to ward of invasions of its member states through calling for mutual assistance if any were so attacked – as an excuse for an invasion.
It is one of the most Orwellian inversions of language for malign political purposes in all of human history
Were the west to engage in Ukraine they would be assisting an aggressor, which is why they haven’t done it.
The west is highly engaged in Ukraine and assisting them against the self-evident Russian aggression.
Incidentally I will repeat my own opposition to all military activity by all sides in conflicts and desire for ceasefires asap then moves towards worldwide peaceful (ie de-militarised) structures.
As always here I am challenging the false propaganda being spread by the much more militaristic and war-mongering (as well as internally oppressive) party to this conflict.
Putin himself has never mentioned nuclear weapons. A statement from him was cited as:
“If someone intends to interfere in what is going on from the outside they must know that constitutes an unacceptable strategic threat to Russia.
“They must know that our response to counterstrikes will be lightning fast.
“We have all the weapons we need for this. No one else can brag about these weapons, and we won’t brag about them.
“But we will use them.”
That very well could be conventionally armed hypersonic missiles which no other country has available.
See for example
Vladimir Putin sparked menacing echoes of the Cuban Missile Crisis last weekend by putting his nuclear forces on high alert, triggering concern about a very dangerous escalation in the Ukraine conflict.
https://www.ft.com/content/6d236d2d-26c6-40f1-8d12-e6cc2a3aacf0
Beyond that not a single one of the near daily direct threats of nuclear first use being put out by Russian media and other political / military commentators can or will be being carried out without the express approval (or at least lack of disapproval) of the Kremlin.
More bollox. Most of these conditions were caused by Biden’s insane restrictions on domestic oil and gas production to promote the climate agenda. The supply chain was in trouble long before Russia intervened in Ukraine.
I agree that most of the current fundamental economic problems in the West are being cause by environmentalism as a whole (including its Climate Change pseudo-scientific threat), but they are also being hugely exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine.
The latter is certainly the perception of the media, which is the subject at hand.
According to you there is no need for this article to pay any attention to Tigray as there are “thousands” of Guardian and BBC articles on the subject.
I can’t comment as I never read the Guardian nor watch the BBC as they are rabid, destructive, left wing propaganda.
The article was not about the Tigray conflict at all, as I said there was no analysis of its causes or proposals for solutions, it was merely being used and exploited to promote a pro-Russian agenda.
Beyond that I was not promoting any of the media organs cited, merely using them to prove that the allegation of a lack of converge of Tigray in eg the UK was untrue.
Apologies. I replied to this post but somehow clicked to reply to a post by Fingal.
An addendum to my above, re redhotscot’s
That would be China, India, Africa and Latin America which have refused to condemn Russia for its intervention in Ukraine. Well over half the population of the world, but the warmongering US (NATO), UK and EU are in the right.
Had you even a fleeting interest in the concept of democracy, you might stop for a moment and wonder why most of the world doesn’t agree with the UN and western condemnation of Russia.
I accepted this claim without checking, here is the reality in visual form (note especially Africa and Latin America):
141 countries vote to condemn Russia at UNHow countries voted on UN resolution condemning Russia
https://www.axios.com/2022/03/02/united-nations-ukraine-russia-141
If we don’t see other races in prominent positions from the greatest propaganda machine on the planet then people won’t feel empathy when people of those races are in war or conflict.
it’s hard to feel empathy for others that don’t look like you and live a long way away.
case in point is Vietnam, Americans cared less about the Vietnamese who had more tonnage of bombs dropped on them by the Americans than all the bombs dropped in WWII, there was little empathy for the Vietnamese more consternation that the US lost.
I don’t want to be manipulated into feeling empathy for foreigners, thanks. I want them to stop manipulating and try just providing honest information for a change.
Ethiopia is even more complicated than Ukraine, corruption is rife, it has been at war with it’s self since the 70’s, when they had a Marxist government, somebody armed the Tigray People’s Liberation Front to fight for independance, and overthrow the marxists, the TPLF have been in power ever since, until relatively recently.
Since Ethiopia got a US approved head of state, who has decided to throw out all the TPLF from government, postpone elections so he can stay in power etc. it’s kicked off again. Their army has been pretty ineffective against the TPLF (now an amalgamation of different PLFs) until it started recieving drones and other modern weapons from Turkey & Saudi
It’s much more complicated than I have time to lay out, but it all sounds very familiar, external influence arming rebels that eventually turn on heads of state in cahoots with the outside influence that indirectly armed the rebels.
“Ethiopia is even more complicated than Ukraine”
One of the reasons why I don’t think more mainstream coverage is the answer here (though I do get Noah’s very valid general point).
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
A Member of the Leftist Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
Name sound familiar?
He’s the head of the World Health Organisation.
Imagine that, a Marxist proposing to impose health requirements on every country in the world.
Fortunately that was stopped by the intervention of, amongst others, Russia, China and India.
Strangely enough, China and India, amongst others, refuse to condemn Russia for their intervention in Ukraine.
Even more strangely, the UN has been exposed as the criminal empire it has evolved into by none other than Russia.
Whilst itching to get involved with the Ukrainian conflict by putting boots on the ground, no UN nation dare to, because Russia legally delivered UN Article 51 to the Security Council to intervene in a civil war in a fellow UN nation which carries with it the inevitability of ethnic cleansing and genocide in eastern Ukraine.
Supporting western Ukraine would see the US/UK and EU in violation of international law by aiding an aggressor.
I get so annoyed by the virtue signalling, and the rather sickly sympathy given to Ukrainians, as if they were Romanian puppies from a kill shelter looking for a new home (“aah, look at the poor things, we’ll give one a home”). When I said to someone, rather crossly, that I don’t see anyone rushing to help Ethiopians, Afghans etc, even if it was just food and clothing being sent, I was met with a blank stare and was told “but there is no war in Ethiopia, is there!”. To me the ‘sympathy’ has been happily fed and generated by the media, and the fact that Ukraine is closer to us, and the population is white adds to feelings of virtue. I have no doubt if the population of the Ukraine was black, this war would be largely ignored.
Hmm, with you till the last sentence. If Russia had gone into a black-populated country, I suspect that nuclear destruction of Russia would be on the cards despite the terrifying consequences.
‘the BBC isn’t always the best source’ Could I re-write that, please?
‘the BBC is always one of the worst sources, along with Sky, ITV etc’.
I thought the lady running Interpol had it right the other day. After Bosnia/Serbia etc there were thousands of examples of armaments falling into the hands of criminal and terrorist hands. She was very fearful of the same happening again with the US/UK flooding Ukraine with advanced weaponry. Let us not forget that if Russia is viewed as a corrupt society, Ukraine is equally corrupt.
I have absolutely no emotional ties to either country. I have read with interest several views on the rights and wrongs of this conflict from both points of view.
My concern is the same as the Interpol one. I worry where it will all end. I have no confidence that some Ukrainian forces will not launch long range missiles into Russian territory with either US and/or UK markings on them. I have no confidence that madness will then take over and Russia will repond with its own longer range missiles and they may be nuclear tipped. Even if this doesn’t happen, and I now put at 50/50 chance, this lethal weaponry will fall into the hands of criminals and terrorists, that is a given.
Germany is being criticised for not rushing to pour fuel on the flames, on the contrary all governments should be following their path. Somebody has to stop this before it engulfs us all. And stopping it does not mean destruction of Russia or overthrow of Putin, that would inevitably lead to mutual destruction.
There are not enough people in power in the West who remember what a real war looks like, and don’t realise how out of control it can suddenly become. This is not appeasement, its application of common sense, something sadly lacking in today’s world.
Don’t fall for the hype about a nuclear conflict.
One of Putins statements was something along the lines a ‘swift’ response.
There’s a clue if ever there was one. Russia is the only country in the world with hypersonic missiles. They can reach about Mach 9 and carry conventional or nuclear warheads however, more importantly, were one of these to hit, say, a US aircraft carrier even without a warhead, it would probably punch a hole in it the size of a house.
Add a conventional warhead and at the very best, the carrier would be completely out of commission, if not sunk very quickly.
As there is no defence to them, an entire carrier fleet could be destroyed by 20 or 30 Russian bombers standing off 500 to 1,000 miles, as there is no defence to them once they are launched.
With that kind of firepower, who needs nuclear weapons?
That response is as irresponsible as those of the Sontal and Fingal.
I do not care who has the biggest willy ( most lethal missile). I want it to stop. Period.
Go and stop it then. Until then we deal with reality, not your fantasy.
Fantasy? So wanting a peace settlement is now a ‘fantasy’?
Your position as stated is nothing to do with scepticism, its as bigoted as the unthinking supporters of the US sending long range missiles etc.
If nations more closely followed the German position and went further by spelling out how financial rebuilding, and lifting of sanctions was dependent on a ceasefire and negotiated settlement there could be peace. The alternative is the world edging to armageddon.
The war in Yemen, perpetrated by America’s great ally Saudi Arabia, has produced massive numbers of deaths, and is still producing famine that will kill hundreds of thousands more (if not millions) in the years to come. Inflation and the economic collapse of many poor nations will just exacerbate the misery and carnage. But, yes, most people don’t even know about what’s happening in Yemen. Out of sight; out of mind. No media coverage = no moral outrage. The world’s compassion for people living in unfathomable misery, is kind of selective.
I am waiting for Bob and his friends to visit Ethiopia again.
That would be good if Sir Bob took himself off to Ethiopia. It would be many times better if he stayed there.
Exactly.
The estimated over one million excess deaths from western military interventions across various countries in the past couple of decades rarely get discussed either.
I think this is not really linked to racism. It is simply that some western governments want to attack Russia and so have orchestrated a propaganda narrative on Ukraine. Information war waged by the CIA and MI6.
They have no such incentive to highlight these other tragedies and so called independent legacy journalists cannot make money by covering them. QED.
Gun industry is the best business in the world. They never had a claiming. The rifle do not work, the personal or vehicle shell went off: nobody complains. The second best business is pharmaceutics.
The same reason why precious few have been talking about Saudi Arabia’s relentless bombardment of Yemen, i.e. concern for victims of war is and for as long as I can remember has been a matter geopolitical expediency.
It is quite simply the well-known formula for selling papers. 1,000 dead in India/Africa = 100 dead in the Middle East = 10 dead in Italy = 1 dead in Scotland = 1 injured in London (if you live in London).
People are interested in what happens near to them, or where they known about or have been. If it happens somewhere where they have to look it up on a map (or Wikipedia) then their interest in it is near zero.
It may not be right, but it is how it is.
You hit the nail on the head. BLM protests were about???? Who knows. I didn’t see the Nation of Islam’s leader Louis Farrakhan and his followers out with the BLM protestors. No, his message to his community is pull up your socks people. Get a job, provide for your family, a dad in every home with children, education, healthy living in general. Can anyone argue with him. Perhaps BLM should spend a little more time and effort fighting for the People in Ethiopia suffering such severe conditions and bring those conditions to the attention
of the world. If the flipping leader of the WHO won’t stand up for his own people, perhaps BLM funded by, well you know who, should fight for those in dire need!!!!