Variants have been one of the hallmarks of this pandemic, with ever more infectious forms of the virus apparently mutating themselves into existence at regular intervals. However. it is easy to forget that prior to 2021 variants were a rarity and the only sign of our variant ridden future was the emergence of the scarily named Kent variant (later renamed Alpha) late in 2020. The UKHSA Vaccine Surveillance Report started mentioning variants in May of 2021, but only in passing. However, as 2021 wore on new variants started appearing more frequently, and in recent reports there are 10 times more references to ‘variants’ compared to their debut. (To be fair, there used to be an entirely different vaccine report devoted to ‘variants of concern’, the Technical Briefings.)
But ‘variants’ weren’t simply a natural process of viral evolution – not when there were people to blame. By summer 2022 there had been multiple articles published explaining that it was the unvaccinated that created these variants, adding to the cries for (mandated) universal vaccination. I believe that the idea that it was the unvaccinated that were causing the problem arose due to a misunderstanding of the role of the mechanisms that drive viral evolution. While it is true that for many vaccines the main source of vaccine escape variants is the unvaccinated, this is only true for sterilising vaccines (which stop any viral load on infection), and isn’t the case for non-sterilising vaccines such as the COVID-19 ones. To explain this effect further we need to delve into the evolutionary process.
Evolution is a natural process that explains how organisms become better at surviving within a given environment. It occurs when certain differences between otherwise similar organisms are favoured for some reason, resulting in that particular difference becoming more prevalent in the organism’s population. Evolution requires two things to occur – a population of the organism with heritable diversity and selective pressure. The ‘population’ part refers to how many of the organisms in question exist; selective pressure refers to the ‘strength’ of the drive of the evolutionary process, which might be described as ‘survival of the fittest’, i.e., those specific organisms that happen to be better at surviving and reproducing will be more likely to pass on their genes to future generations, thus on average making the future species better at surviving and reproducing.
At first glance the ‘population’ part appears obvious as clearly there can’t be evolution without anything to evolve. However, it is a little more complex than this. When it comes to cuddly mammals it is generally fairly easy to see what ‘population’ means (you can count them). However, when it comes to viruses there are two factors: the viral load in any given infected host and the incidence of infection across a population. Evolution ‘cares’ about both factors, and it is important to consider these two ‘populations’ in the discussion that follows.
Most vaccines given to humans are fairly sterilising, that is, they stop any meaningful quantity of the virus developing in a vaccinated individual. Thus it is clear that by vaccinating a very high proportion of the population with a sterilising vaccine the evolution of that particular virus can be slowed to a crawl. No one vaccinated will have any meaningful viral load, and there will be only few in the population where evolution could occur (the unvaccinated). Note that there is still selective pressure for the virus to evolve to escape the vaccine-derived immunity – as soon as a viral mutation emerges that offers the virus a better chance of thriving within a vaccinated individual or infecting other vaccinated individuals it will soon take over as the predominant viral variant even in a largely vaccinated population. Indeed, the very fact that large numbers of people are vaccinated will become the predominant selective pressure for that virus – if the main thing ‘holding back’ the virus from thriving is vaccine derived immunity then that’s what evolution will ‘try to overcome’. However, with sterilising vaccines the only people with meaningful viral loads are the unvaccinated, and thus evolution towards vaccine escape largely occurs within the unvaccinated population. Moreover, because there is no selective pressure within unvaccinated individuals for vaccine escape (there is no vaccine-derived immunity in these individuals), the evolution towards vaccine escape will be muted.
However, the Covid vaccines aren’t sterilising: vaccinated people can still get infected and will have high viral loads when this occurs. We didn’t know this, way back in December 2020 when vaccination started. Arguably this should have been identified before the vaccines were approved, but it was considered a public emergency and normal vaccine development processes weren’t followed. However, it soon became clear that this was going to be a problem – I first became aware of the potential for trouble in March 2021 with the publication of a paper out of Israel. This team found far higher viral loads than expected in the vaccinated-and-infected; certainly enough viral load to allow viral evolution towards vaccine escape. Unfortunately, our authorities ignored this and other emerging evidence and continued to jab their populations indiscriminately.
At the point that it was clear the vaccines weren’t sterilising, the theory behind what might be the ‘correct’ level of vaccination changes completely. With non-sterilising vaccines, ‘herd immunity’ becomes impossible and this goal should have been dropped immediately. But worse than that, the fact that the vaccines weren’t sterilising meant there was a large selective pressure for evolution and a sufficiently high viral ‘population’ in vaccinated individuals, and so this also meant that the virus could more effectively evolve vaccine escape.
Also note that viral evolution to ‘get around’ vaccine protection in non-sterilising vaccines isn’t as simple as the vaccines ceasing to offer protection. There are instances of so-called ‘leaky vaccines’ that have evolved increased pathogenicity (severity) as a result of their evolutionary journey to escape vaccine protection. Perhaps the most famous example of a vaccine driving increased pathogen virulence is the vaccine for Marek’s disease. Marek’s disease was an inconvenience for the poultry industry when the vaccine for it was introduced into chicken farms in the early 1970s. From that point it has evolved to become significantly more pathogenic, requiring widespread vaccination to protect against the disease. The virus responsible for Marek’s disease continues to evolve vaccine escape and the risk of future problems is very real. Fortunately, there’s little evidence that this has occurred with Covid; hopefully this will remain the case.
Another relevant aspect of Covid evolution is the matter of how mutations appear to target the spike protein. Mutations in the viral RNA occur at random during each viral replication, and there is little preference in the RNA of the virus where mutations might occur. However, the proteins that they encode aren’t equally able to remain viable after a mutation in the RNA that encodes them. This means that while a mutation in the part of the viral RNA that encodes a given protein is as likely as anywhere else, the virus won’t survive a mutation in an unfavoured location and thus that particular mutation won’t even have a chance to exist. On the other hand, the Covid spike protein happens to be very tolerant of mutations in the RNA that encodes it, remaining viable even with relatively large numbers of mutations. As mutations in the spike protein change its shape and make-up slightly, this makes it look slightly different to antibodies that have been created by the body’s immune system to neutralise it, resulting in a reduced ability of the body’s immune system to deal with an infection. It is likely that through vaccination we exposed the immune systems of many millions of people worldwide to an identical spike protein, and the virus has responded by evolving rapidly through the introduction of changes in its spike protein which has allowed it to thrive in this new highly-vaccinated world.
There’s also a complication of viral evolution that you don’t find in evolution in most plants and animals, namely that the selective pressure that drives evolution in viruses occurs both between infected individuals and within infected individuals, and this is particularly relevant for vaccine escape. With normal vaccines there is no meaningful viral presence in vaccinated individuals, thus mutations occur within unvaccinated individuals. Sometimes these mutations happen to lead to partial escape of vaccine protection, but before evolution can select for this mutation it has to leave the unvaccinated individual and try to infect a vaccinated person – it is only then that the mutation is ‘tested’. However, if the vaccine escape mutation offers no selective advantage in an unvaccinated individual it won’t thrive before it gets a chance to try its higher infectivity in other, vaccinated individuals. The fact that the virus ‘doesn’t know’ if a given mutation that occurs in an unvaccinated individual actually achieves vaccine escape until the virus is transmitted to a vaccinated individual slows down the effective rate of viral evolution towards vaccine escape significantly.
On the plus side, as the virus has had such a very strong selective pressure to overcome the immunity offered by antibodies to the original (Wuhan) spike protein, this could have made it less likely to mutate to overcome the diverse range of antibodies (and other immune responses) generated after natural infection (i.e., after exposure to all of the proteins in the whole Covid virus).
There’s an additional nuance to this effect. The interplay between mutations and viral fitness is complex, and it is possible that a mutation might result in a virus that achieves some escape of vaccine-derived immunity (positive for the virus) but which also has a slightly inferior ability to infect upper respiratory tract cells (negative for the virus) compared with the variant then prevalent in the population. In a community with low vaccination levels the fact that the mutation resulted in an inferior infectivity would probably result in that mutation dying out, because the vaccine escape mutation wouldn’t offer much benefit if few individuals were vaccinated. However, if a community has high vaccination levels then the escape of vaccine derived immunity will give the mutated virus a selective advantage even with lower infectivity in non-vaccinated individuals and the mutated variant could take over as the dominant variant in that outbreak. Furthermore, once that mutation has become established it might be possible for a further mutation to occur that regained the original virus’s infectivity, so that it has both high infectivity and vaccine escape. It is for this reason that it can in some circumstances be advantageous to only vaccinate the most vulnerable in circumstances where sterilising immunity is not obtained and where the vaccine targets mutable parts of the virus’s genetic code (particularly for RNA viruses, which mutate much faster than DNA viruses). Too late for that now, though.
One more minor point of note about the Covid variants. Back in 2021, the World Health Organisation decided that it should name each new variant using the Greek alphabet. It is likely that this response arose due to media news organisations being keen on naming variants from the area of the world where they were first discovered. The WHO had enough problems insisting that people didn’t refer to Covid as the ‘Chinese Virus’, although it is a bit weird that it was so passionate about this relatively irrelevant aspect of a worldwide public health emergency. (To be fair, the avoidance of ‘stigmatising’ names for new diseases has been WHO policy since 2015.) The strange thing is, there have been no more Covid variants named by the WHO since Omicron came along. Omicron is rather highly mutated compared with the original Wuhan strain and all prior variants. Indeed, there is an argument that the Omicron variant really should have been called COVID-21 given the evolutionary distance from and clinical differences with COVID-19. All of the major subvariants of Omicron are at least as valid as ‘new variants’ as the variants that came prior to Omicron, and so the WHO stopping at Omicron is odd. Then again, if the WHO had continued to name new variants it would probably have run out of Greek letters by summer 2022 (they were even two short, as they decided to not use Nu or Xi for some strange reason). Anyway, I imagine that the succession of complex named variants (XBB!, BA2.75.2! etc.) suggests to many that the evolution of Covid has become a scientific curiosity and doesn’t reflect an ever increasing rate of viral mutation compared with the Greek letters of 2021. Perhaps this is of convenience to some parties.
Amanuensis is an ex-academic and senior Government scientist. He blogs at Bartram’s Folly – subscribe here.
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We piss about and covertly do no good whilst acting holier than thou. At least Vlad owns his rascality
Perhaps Johnson can stand outside Number 10 and read Kipling before he leads the clapping this time.
Who f***ing invented nuclear weapons? Who f***ing dropped them on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? They did it because they loved the world, universal suffrage, and every last chip-eating prole in existence, did they?
The Fat Boy, having splurged his stuff over Russia.will just be waiting for his next ‘command’ from his friend Gates!
> Who f***ing invented nuclear weapons?
The British did that! Sir James Chadwick found the way to enrich common Uranium using gas centrifuges at Liverpool university in 1941, he did it at a village in north Wales near Mold, called Rhydymwyn. This was the main hurdle to get Nuclear bombs, the rest was all packaging, his project was called Tube Alloys, and it was given to America who renamed the project to Manhattan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_Alloys
They dropped them to frighten Stalin….he wasn’t frightened.
Bollox, but then a standard Moscow Centre/Pravda/FSB trope which you lap up with alacrity.
In case you had not noticed, the US were only engaged in WWII, in the face of very determined isolationist mindsets across all sections of US society, because of Pearl Harbour; even keeping this country going with certain vital supplies was in the face of fierce anti war sentiment; Bombs were dropped to save casualties, if main land Japan had to be invaded, variously estimated at 1 million + US Marines/Army soldiers – the cost of bringing a then intransigent Japan to their senses because the Japanese military and “government” refused to back down.
What is your point?
I’d hold off judgement until you’ve familiarised yourself with the events that lead up to this incursion. Putin’s only a rascal, to use your word, if war can never be legitimate. That might be so, but it seems to me that defending your compatriots from indiscriminate shelling, preventing hostile foreign actors from installing WMDs and manufacturing chemical and biological weapons on your doorstep and removing Nazis from a neighbouring country are relatively good justifications for war. One things for certain, massive numbers of Russian people don’t consider him a ‘rascal’, maybe we need to try a bit harder to understand why this is?
Calling everyone one happens to disapprove a Nazi isn’t a good justifaction for anything. Coining another term, it’s habitual second-world-wary. That’s long over, guys. Time to update your terms a little.
Do a simple immage search for “Nazi Ukraine” and read about those involved in the 2014 coup, sponsored by the west. You’ll find the cap fits.
But the West did not bomb Ukraine, and if the presence of so-called Nazis is a legitimate casus belli, then perhaps everyone should declare war on China, which is not only totalitarian but racist (the Party considers the Chinese a superior race, the Uighurs and Tibetans inferior).
The West has bombed other countries, and in particular instances I would not wish to defend the action any more than I think Russia’s action now is justifiable.
What? RW accused people of calling them Nazis, as if it was just a regular slur, I correct him, it’s an accurate discription, even reported by the BBC in 2014.
Nobody said anything about the west bombing Ukraine, and nobody said them just being Nazis is the reason for the surrent situation.
Nobody is justifying anything going on here. I have no idea where you’re comming from witht he “so-called” nonsense either, when you can do the same research very easily.
‘Nazi’ refers to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, which ceased to exist in 1945. The use of the phrase ‘so-called’ is with this in mind. You might spell-check your contributions before posting.
so you’re not even willing to do the image search, see the Nazi salutes and flags, and you want to nit pick about that and my shit old handicapped keyboard skills….
what are you, some kind of confusing diversionary concern troll?
Read RWs post, and my response, and then tell me how your diatrible replying to it relates in any way to that conversation.
Ignore the comment about spell checking, it’s beneath you. Besides, he’ll drop the ball one day and you can crucify him for it.
Unless the ball is a bomb…
…just saying…
Yes and the runic emblems used by the SS reflected their “mission” of conquest for that party – the same “mission” declared by Bandera supporters and Azov brigade supporters in Ukraine who use the SS 2nd Panzer ‘Division Das’ Reich emblem – the “Wofsangel” on their uniforms and flags – their “mission” is the ethnic cleansing of Russians in Eastern Ukraine.
I’m getting déjà vu again.
“Yugoslavia will cease to function as a federal state within a year, and will probably dissolve within two. Economic reform will not stave off the breakup…
My emphasise.
A full-scale interrepublic war is unlikely, but serious intercommunal conflict will accompany the breakup and will continue afterward. The violence will be intractable and bitter. There is little the United States and its European allies can do to preserve Yugoslav unity.”
Source: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/breakup-yugoslavia
Not the most reliable of sources, I grant you, but this made me chuckle…
NOTE TO READERS
“Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations” has been retired and is no longer maintained. For more information, please see the full notice.”
So, they’re making it up as they go along, after one failed international policy, after another…
Where does it end ?
in order to be a nazi one did, does, not have to be a paying member of a, no longer existent, party.
most nazi’s were not a member of the NSDAP.
it suffices to adhere to the doctrine that was propagated by the party.
and in that sense there always have been and still are lots of nazi’s around.
Nazi has become commoditised.
Hoover, a specific brand of vaccuum cleaner – I am going to hoover the carpet.
Biro, a specific brand of ball point pen – I have lost my biro
Google, a specifc internet search engine – why don’t you google it?
The followers of Bandera all have a vicious racial hatred of The Other and have no qualms about killing them. Just like SS, who they frequently collaborated with (eg Stepan Bandera). The SS and nationalist groups like Bandera’s OUN formed formal collaborations during WWII. Various national forms served in SS uinits.
This site is FULL of garbage posts excusing the invasion and allocating the blame to anyone but Russia…
I don’t read that happening here. I read that social and the legacy media are blaming only Russia and people here are pointing out that this is failing to see the bigger and more nuanced picture, the hypocrisy and the real dangers of doing this.
So why bother trolling us?
You come here with your drivebey nonsense refusing to read any of the factual information you’ve been shown multiple times, and sit there with your fingers in your ears going lalalalalala like a little child.
Then you come back with more trolling as if you have any relevance at all, it’s laughable.
You come across as a typical cluster B personality type that thinks the world revolves around them, you have zero credibility without even realising it, it’s hilarious really.
So you support the NATO position??? Bully for you.
Shut up, appeaser – the only bully here is in Moscow.
Oh, all right, I’ll shut up. You sound so hard, I wouldn’t want to incur your wrath.
Not garbage per se but garbage disguised as unadulterated propaganda courtesy of Moscow Centre/Pravda/FSB psyops manipulation. Some of these comments if made in reverse from Russians would result in a one way trip to a Siberian Holiday Camp, entertainment free and including cultural re-education ….they do not fool anyone.
Th Chinese are not Nazis – a little history might help.
David, dear David, words are just words.
Actions speak volumns.
Look at China today, and Germany in 1938 – tell me the difference, and insert Euigars for Jews…?
please define nazi….
True, the West did not bomb Ukraine.
On the other hand, it did finance and organise a coup against a democratically elected leader (however corrupt) and replace him with a succession of (equally corrupt) pro-Western appointees who immediately launched a genocidal war against the Russian minority population, a majority in the East and Crimea where the main assault took place, killing 14,000 people, by UN estimates, the vast majority civilians.
Putin, by contrast, has (finally) retaliated with predominantly precision strikes against military targets. Civilian deaths, depending on which Ukrainian source is used, are between 20 and 200. Terrible, yes, but compare that with US and NATO caused civilian deaths in Serbia, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria etc etc etc. Putin has also stopped his advance, whilst being within a shout of gaining complete victory, to organise humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to leave conflict areas – I can’t remember anything similar being done by NATO. The corridors for Kiev and Mariupol were unsuccessful because the Ukrainian side refused to allow civilians to leave, keeping them as a human shield and, no doubt, the Sun and Express will carry heart-wretching photos of injured and killed children and demand war crimes trials against Putin, while praising the brave defenders who actually caused the situation.
Does that all mean that I am pro-Putin, anti-NATO, and support his intervention?
Well, actually, yes to all three. I am English born and bred, but with a Russian ex-wife, speak (pretty basic and badly accented) Russian, converted to the Russian Orthodox Church and have several Russian friends in the UK; it is amazing how far you can go to keep a wife happy. But I am yet to meet a Russian who is not, to a greater or lesser extent, a Putin supporter, and I myself am very much a convert to his position. I only wish that the UK had a politician half as honest or hard working as him.
So yes, I am a Russian supporter (but not a Russian mole, or, if I am, the pay is lousy) and I am ashamed of the actions of ‘my’ country and the words of ‘my’ Prime Minister over Ukraine, and think that the Russian action is 100% justified, and the absolute minimum that they could have done.
I also think that our sanctions, warmongering and censorship will backfire on us, big time, as Russia moves closer and closer to China.
I would disagree with the statement that Russia is a declining power – rather she is a repositioning power, moving away from global Sovietism to a dominant regional power, dominating Northern and Central Asia, into Eastern Europe and much of the Middle East, but combined with China and her New Silk Road strategy , this adds up to 95% of the world outside of North America, EU and UK. It seems to me that it is the NATO countries that are in decline, as well as denial!
OK, rant over, time to walk the dogs!
Glad to hear of another open minded UK citizen. Do you think we should form a 21st century ‘Moonies sect’ whereby we arrange marriages between British and Russian folks to cock a snook at the warmongers in NATO?!
it is not a Uk citizen.
he is a russian working in st petersburg in the “kgb”cyber warfare department.
together with david beaton, another russian agent in this thread.
you russian agents sure have gotten a lot better lately….
but next time bring in the nazi’s again, seems to work quite well.
or is that restricted to another department?
as always: remember flight MH17
Good for you; now finish the job off and move to the Mother Russia so you can be feted in the same way as all the other Brits blinded by these arch criminals (and yes I do understand that “The West” has cases to answer, for sure) – you realise what the Russians do to foreign useful idiots despite the vital part they played in providing help to “the Russian Cause”? Isolation, a shitty flat in Moscow and Vodka on tap.
The one eye you have needs to be treated by a skilled Oculist if only to enable you to see who has invaded who?
But then, that is a shade inconvenient, is it not, Tovarich?
Why do 2/3 of people disapprove of a post for pure undeniable fact?
Answer………… they don’t like facts, can’t understand them or reason of any kind.
more trolling LOL grow up.
It would simply spoil his propaganda pitch to do that!
In a world where Gates spends millions to fake himself as a smiling “philanthropist” “saving” the world and where ‘keeping you safe’ means isolating you from family loved-ones and friends by locking you up in your own house and filling you with experimental injections “truth” has lost all meaning.
No they are Nazis. I wasn’t using it figuratively.
A generation that has abusively used the terms ‘Fascist’ and ‘Nazi’ to childishly abuse and ‘cancel’ people they disagree with are now having to get used to confronting the real deal!
“Growing up” time!
nothing wrong with being a nazi.
lots of so called world leaders are.
turdea,arden,macron to name just a couple.
for it is the adhering to the ideology that makes a nazi, not the waving of swastika flag.
and speaking about not tolerating fringe minorities with unacceptable views sounds a lot like nazi to me.
as is building “quarantine camps” in australia.
Those in the Azov brigade who wear 2nd SS Panzer Division “Das Reich” emblems are self-declared “Nazis” – you have a problem with that?
I think calling self-declared Nazis, Nazis is just fine!
If you still have any queries , check out their publicity videos their uniforms and their flags. their emblem is called the “Wolfsangel”.
Fuck me, you’re a 77th dissillusioned dick head.
Nice to know where our taxes are being diverted.
Oops, now I’m on their fucking list. Thank fuck for VPNs…..
I should’ve twigged ages ago…David Beaton…the most English sounding of middle England…
Yeah, far to inconveniently bland to be anything else; who in their right mind would reveal this as a “real” name..?
so the democrats in the usa are really that?
and the communists in china are really that?
and the Indians are really that?
so you are what you say you are?
and you are what you dress like?
so batman can really fly and superman hater kryptonite?
really?
i would make a case for the fact that justin turdeau of canada is by far a greater nazi than any of those ukrainian hooligans with their ss insignia.
Not necessarily, Trudeau is merely a Himmler as compared to a communal garden SS orderly tasked with bumping off undesirables.
that sir, is an insult to Himmler.
Himmler was a convinced nazi of his own free accord, turdeau is a second rate actor that does not even realise that he is a nazi.
it is not fair to compare a man with principles, however those may be refutable, to a spineless piece of shit.
Not so . The fake Nazis and Fascists invented by the screaming left are mere fake attempts to crush all oppositional views – we are talking about real Nazis with a genocidal agenda in te Ukraine as hours of video footage and reportage clearly shows .
Ever heard of the “Wolfsangel”?
The real Nazis were always of the Left anyway. – check out Ernst Röhm the SA and the 25 point socialist-nationalist plan of the NSDAP.
Hitler trimmed to the right – to the Banker-Capitalists to gain their support for full dictatorial power. ( all nicely illustrated in Visconti’s classic Film ‘the Damned”)
Yawn….have you not heard , your “Lord and Master” Vladimir considers Ukrainians are Russian and have been since the get go; so driving hundreds and thousands, soon to be 1,000,000+,of his “own people” out of their own territory into a foreign territory is either A) a gross misread by him of what proper ethnic cleansing looks like, and he doesn’t realise he should only do it to proper foreigners, or B) he is hustling these “Russian” onto foreign territory to enable a launch a glorious rescue mission, thus protecting “his’ people from the rampaging aggression of NATO/EU/reactionary elements?
You utter fool.
What has been severely missing in Western media, politics, and culture in general is the age old Latin phrase “audiatur et altera pars” – LISTEN TO THE OTHER SIDE. This was painfully evidenced by Western diplomats walking out of the room upon Lavrov’s speech. Their jobs were diplomacy and dialogue, and by walking out in emotionally fuelled protest they demonstrated clearly that they were all unfit for their roles.
This isn’t a recent phenomenon. The last two years the establishment class and media was consistently failing to listen to the other side to report and make policy in a balanced way. Even before then our institutions and government have been questionable at best. This childish covering of ears and pretending not to hear is characteristic of our media and politicians.
So what is the perspective of the “other side” in this case? Russia doesn’t want US nukes on its doorstep. To my view this is a perfectly legitimate concern. Would the US mind if (hypothetically) Russian nukes were to be stationed in Mexico? Of course the US would mind, and would do everything in its power to make sure it doesn’t happen.
Why did Western diplomats snub Russia’s very real concern? Why will they not hold talks and negotiations? Why did the EU reject a sensible tri-lateral agreement between Russia, Ukraine, and EU? Why the ratcheting up of Russophobia and war rhetoric? Why is there no scrutiny of broken NATO promises that “not an inch of NATO’s military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction” (US Secretary of State James Baker, 1990).
AUDIATUR ET ALTERA PARS
“What has been severely missing in Western media, politics, and culture in general is the age old Latin phrase “audiatur et altera pars” – LISTEN TO THE OTHER SIDE. “
The same omission so characteristic of the woke, cancel culture that has become dominant throughout the US sphere in our internal affairs, applies also to foreign affairs.
We mustn’t allow the Russian point of view to be expressed because it’s not just wrong, it’s evil, just like racists, homophobes etc..
“Missing” – yes, because they have been cancelled and censored by our newly tyrannical Globalist directed rulers.
if you really think that ANY speech given at conferences and the likes is not handed out on paper and nowadays as a file , you must be living in the 19th century.
they may walk out, but that does not mean they will not have knowledge of the content of the speech.
That is not the point, they are projecting contempt for all things Russian to their own domestic audiences, saying to everyone that it is alright to be rude, insulting and disrespectful.
walking out on someone talking shit is not rude and insulting.
but talking shit to an audience is.
someone talking shit to an audience deserves no respect, so yes it is disrespectful, and for good reasons so.
why did chamberlain and daladier in 1938 did not speak to mr hitler about the sudetenland and poland and danzig and the threat of war?
but they did, now didn’t they?
and what came of that?
so russia does not want us nukes on their doorstep.
fair enough.
now tell us when and where these nukes were placed in ukraine.?
and what keeps putin form invading estonia, latvia and lithuania to make sure there will be no us nukes placed in those countries?
for those countries are as much a threat to putin as ukraine.
not that there are any us nukes in western europe.
and as always: remember flight mh17!
Well, you ask the USA to give up the Monroe doctrine and have unfriendly nuclear powers pointing bazookas at them. It doesn’t matter precisely which country, RUssia/China must have a dozen options and have already built the launchpads equivalent to those already built by the USA in Poland, Romania and Bulgaria.
I agree, and I would add the question; why are the US, and specifically the CIA, funding, training, and arming an overt neo-nazi para military battalion, with clear global links, especially to the Californian NG, when the Biden administration is pushing for tighter controls on ‘domestic terrorists’ ?
The whole thing fucking stinks to high Heaven, especially the timing…
And what’s happened to the ‘global scandemic’, especially Pfizer’s forced publication of ‘material that may effect their share price’ ?
Wall-to-wall, 24-7 MSM coverage of Ukraine has effectively brushed, kicked, nuked it under the carpet.
you claim to hold off judgement yet you display the fact that you believe every word putin says.
you russian agents have gotten a lot better at hiding your true colours lately.
and as always: remember flight MH 17
You are just repeating Putin’s propaganda and the 80 people who approve of your comment must be in favour of the war waged by Russia.
Are those 80 people (plus you) ashamed?
Also worth noting, Putin’s had 25 years to demonstrate his crazed bloodthirsty warmongering. See if you can list the countries or territories he’s brutalised in that time.
Whilst the west (NATO) brutalised the middle east on the pretext of ‘the war on terror’ which has been an abject failure.
Stopping homeland terror attacks is an internal matter. Razing the middle east only encourages resentment and encourages more homeland terror.
Our security services are, by their accounts, immensely successful at keeping terror off our streets. Perhaps their job would have been easier had Blair not encouraged it by prosecuting illegal overseas wars.
I suggest you read Terror on The Tube, by Nicholas Kollerstrom, or view some of the alt media video on the subject.
I know of it although I haven’t read it.
My first sentence might have alerted you to the fact that I’m not entirely convinced 9/11 was a terrorist attack (being the blue touch paper for the war on terror).
I’m not convinced it wasn’t, so my jury is still out.
It’s worth getting into any of the big ones to really see the bricks behind the theater wall, but because it’s so tedious and frustrating since you can’t do anything about it, it’s not really worth it in the long run, you can’t ‘unsee’ that shit. A bit of research into ‘Operation Gladio’ including the court documents from Italy and Belgium would give the bigger picture since it’s a matter of record.
Cui bono is the logical sceptical question, since no terrorist bombing anywhere ever helped the “terrorists” in any way shape or form, it leaves one with the obvious conclusion, only the deep state machine benefits.
“You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The
reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the
Italian public to turn to the State to ask for greater security. This
was precisely the role of the right in Italy. It placed itself at the
service of the State which created a strategy aptly called the ‘Strategy
of Tension’ in so far as they had to get ordinary people to accept that
at any moment over a period of 30 years, from 1960 to the mid eighties a State of emergency could be declared. So, people would willingly trade
part of their freedom for the security of being able to walk the
streets, go on trains or enter a bank. This is the political logic
behind all the bombings. They remain unpunished because the state cannot condemn itself.”
The Paul Williams book is one of the better ones for the full story, though Iain Davis (who I quoted from) gives us a good overview post here for a primer https://in-this-together.com/operation-gladio-false-flag-evidence/
“since no terrorist bombing anywhere ever helped the “terrorists” in any way shape or form”
the absolute truth there.
as long as you define terrorists as the ones that lost that is….
graf von stauffenberg, the man that tried to kill hitler with a bomb, surely was a terrorist and was shot as such.
yet in modern germany his name is given to streets, bridges etc……
for 68 years terrorists in my home country have bombed the spanish conquistadores until they finally left.
come again with anywhere ever?
One mans terorist is another man freedom fighter.
Without getting into a long discussion about who’s a real terrorist, and who’s a real freedom fighter, I take your point.
I was really referring to the multiple “false flag terrorism” events, of which there is a very long list, and even that would get into grey areas if we include faked events rather than real explosions.
It’s not worth getting into detail though, although many people are sceptics here, without years of research emotional triggers are too set too near the hair end of sensitivity
Go to Amazon Prime and watch 7, it talks about the collapse of WTC7. After which, you’ll be in no doubt that it wasn’t external terrorists that took down the WTC buildings.
Well, if it WAS a terrorist attack, it wasn’t due to planes hitting the WTC buildings. The evidence is IN that the destruction of two WTC towers was NOT due to plane impacts. The evidence is IN that WTC7 was deliberately collapsed using explosives.
The evidence is IN that several hundred first responders and witnesses heard multiple explosions prior to the WTC towers collapsing. That is historical fact, it’s not opinion.
The evidence is IN that the evidence of the crime scene was removed by the US Govt and shipped to China to prevent forensic examinations taking place.
The evidence is IN that traces of nanothermite were detected in the rubble dust of the WTC towers, something which should only be present after demolition of a building using thermite-style explosives.
The evidence is IN that the Pentagon was NOT hit by an aeroplane, rather by a missile.
Try watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCzy9i4tIHU
It may start to make you question the official narrative….
I see where you are coming from; I have it on very good authority that the plane that crashed into the Empire State Building was a dress rehearsal for 2001; the crew was made of dissidents whose descendants came from a swathe of ethnic east europeans who fled persecution from the churches of The Trust in the aftermath of the second Russian revolution. The settled in Utah to become Mormons and disliked the attitude of “Americans” towards their version of marriage, hence their hostile reaction.
Can let you have a link to the source, if your interest is pricked.
I see Serbia ( bombed by Blair and Nato ) has enthusiastically supported Russia with popular demonstrations in the street! ( as not seen on the BBC – now banned in Russia for some reason!)
remember srebrenica?
the list of victims is 8,372 names long.
unarmed civilians slaughtered by the serbs.
there are reasons why serbia will never be allowed to become a member of the eu……
the reason why they hide the demonstrations is to not give the eu members another reason to not grant eu membership to serbia.
and putin would love to have a pro russian member in the eu…
and as always: remember flight mh17
my memory is not what it used to be, but straight out of the back of my head:
georgia, chechnya, ukraine, syria, kazakhstan.
as i said my memory is not what it used to be so i might have forgotten some.
so please be a good chap and be so kind and add those that i have forgotten to the list?
oh dang, i forgot, as it comes to putin and warmongering you have complete amnesia….
He was invited into Syria and Kazakhstan by the leaders of those countries. He didn’t invade or brutalise, he provided a service requested by the leaders of those countries.
Here’s a list of where the USA is brutalising people the past 21 years:
Yemen – oh, yes, freedom fighting going on there. There is a genocide going on there, using the Iraq template.
Syria – the USA is stealing Syrian oil in breach of international law and is arming terrorists, as it has done for well over a decade.
Libya – the most prosperous nation in Africa, providing child support services for young mothers that put the USA to shame. Bombed to a pulp for threatening to sell oil and gas in non-dollar denominated countries. Zero military threat to the USA, merely engaging in Free Trade, something the USA will murder and commit genocides to prevent.
Iraq: the textbook operation of how to kill and maim on a false pretext. No WMDs existed, the whole lead up to war was stage managed with never ending lying from start to finish. They left a parting gift of depleted uranium to mutilate foetuses inside their mothers’ tummies. Lovely….
Afghanistan – the trigger for that was the Taliban eliminating the heroin trade. Go look at the figures for poppy harvests for 20 years before and after the Taliban’s actions. The USA went there to re-establish the global heroin trade to fund the CIA’s black ops.
Etc etc.
no reaction on georgia, chechnya, ukraine?
so i take it you do agree with those?
invited into syria?
sure enough they were, they actually wrote the letter of invitation themselves…
i cannot recall the invitation sent by the ukrainian leaders to putin….
and if you are referring to the separatists inviting putin,so was hitler in sudetenland and poland and austria ….
and what does the fact that the usa are a fascist imperialist villainous state has to do with anything regarding russia invading ukraine?
are you claiming that because the usa are murderers the russians are entitled to murder also?
and as always: remember flight mh 17, 298 civilians murdered by russian military in ukraine.
JAR, you keep sticking that truth to these fuck**s; the points you make are disturbingly apposite to all but the Moscow Centre useful idiots who would try to swallow an elephant if they were told it is in the interests of the oppressed “Russian People”. ( As the try to escape westwards….another f**ki**g inconvenient fact )
Some of these world class gullible fools don’t appreciate that “swastkia” is Sanskrit for “well being”; so if it is good enough for them to suggest it has been , effectively, “hijacked” by these Avoz Ukrainians, what on this earth do they think the NSDAP did the 1930’s – and why do they not see the immoral equivalence of the use of the same symbol.
I hope these apologies for “people” get to speak to those Poles and others who, circa 1941 onwards are trampled by the Nazis and then by the Russians, especially those Poles whose families were wiped out by the glorious Russian Army liberating the world of the Nazi invaders; funny that, liberating a population from the tyranny of the Nazi invasion by….murdering them – “GOT AN OPINION ON THAT, CRETINS?”
They are as devoid of any humanity as a slab of pig iron; they defend the actions of a person hell bent on inflicting death and destruction on innocent – civilian – people and they see this as some twisted form of justified “payback” for the alleged illegal aggressive actions of NATO/the West – who , unlike Putin, have not fired one shell or bullet – unlike Putrid Putin.
Errr, bombing Syrian citizens in Syria for one…yu remember that, where the Russian puppet Assad used chemical weapons on his own population or was that, blow ,me, ANOTHER CIA black ops even ? Chechnya for two, Georgia for a third, and blow me I reckon there was a fourth, Afghanistan was it….. thing that one did not go toooo well if I remember correctly..
An invading force dropping cluster bombs on civilians and opening fire in the vicinity of nuclear power stations is completely unjustifiable and utterly reckless. As if this isn’t enough, Putin is also tyrannising those Russians who dare to dissent. And I don’t think he’s owning it, he’s spreading propaganda about his actions at home.
Whatever one might think about the current Ukrainian government or about the circumstances around their coming to power in 2014, they were democratically elected in 2019, and it is absolutely clear from the response to this invasion that the vast majority of ordinary Ukrainians don’t want Russian tanks rolling in. Regime change is rotten when the Western powers do it, and rotten when Putin does it.
If anyone wants to say that western leaders are corrupt, morally bankrupt authoritarians, after the past 2 years, I’ll gladly agree. But I’m not making excuses for a corrupt, morally bankrupt authoritarian from elsewhere on that account.
You didn’t mention the 15000 or so ethnic Russians killed by Ukraine since the bloody revolution in 2014. You seem to have selective myopia.
I’m aware of the fighting between Russian backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces and the deaths that have been caused. It’s not selective myopia in the least, as I’m not defending either the Ukrainian regime or the interference in their support by the US and NATO in Ukraine. I just am not willing to defend Putin’s current actions either. And I don’t believe that he’s acting simply to protect innocent lives, with no expansionist ambitions, any more than I accept that the invasion of Iraq was carried out out of pure and humanitarian motives.
In short, I think this war is an unjust one, and a destructive solution to the pre existing problems in the region, like all the other disasterous wars over the past 20 years.
You’re happy having nukes pointed at your children from Calais, are you? (Or next door to wherever you rest your head?)
It’s all so easy being sanctimonious when no-one’s sticking bazookas up OUR backsides.
Our attitudes would be the same as Putin if Eire bought hypersonic weapons to target London and Joe Biden was backing them in doing so…
you seem to attach rather a lot of importance to where the nuclear missiles are placed.
let me ask you: does it matter if the water is 10 meters deep or 1000 meters deep as regard to the risk of drowning?
no matter where the nuclear missiles are placed, using them will ALWAYS result in the destruction of both the targeted country and the country that is firing them.
for there will always be enough time and missiles left for a retaliatory strike.
if adolf would have had the nuclear launch codes handed to him on april 30st 1945 the whole world would have gone up in flames.
and putin is as much a sociopath as hitler was.
(with apologies to hitler for comparing a self serving opportunist like putin to him.)
OH FFS you world class cretin, how many nukes are pointed “from the East” at you, or are you ensconced east of Novosibirsk?
But by all means keep ejecting the bollox from the amorphous blob that doubles as your brain – it is good for a laugh if nothing else.
They never do mention this – neither did the BBC!
RT does – and this is of course the principal reason it has been ‘banned’ in the west!
RT is just another media source.
One of it’s paid commentators was Alex Salmond. Now there’s a propagandist.
Yes, it is just another media source. One which gives different opinions to CNN, which lies for a living about almost everything.
Why is CNN still allowed to broadcast in Europe, other than the USA is Europe’s mafia Godfather?
It certainly isn’t due to its attention to the truth….
does RT mention the millions of ukrainians murdered by the russians in the holodomor?
or does RT mention flight MF 17?
especially the fact that three russian army officials have been convicted of the murders?
i thought so….
you forgot to mention the couple of million ukrainians murdered by the russians during the holodomor.
you seem to have selective amnesia…
“dropping cluster bombs on civilians”
Evidence?
None – untrue!
You don’t know that.
It’s like the Syrian propaganda all over again. This group used these kinds of weapons, and that group did that thing over there, etc, etc. How much of it is really carried out by agent provocateurs?
or the Ukranian government it’s self:
French journalist criticized for reporting Kiev’s shelling of Eastern Ukraine
https://odysee.com/@RT:fd/french-journalist-criticized-for:5
Yes Alison, indeed that would be ” unjustifiable” – were it the case ….but if you read the real accounts of the events – even (amazingly!) covered by some UK media – that is not what happened, just hysteria mongering Ukrainian propaganda sponsored ( like their President) by the Biden Regime that you are, very sadly. unthinkingly repeating.
I always feel a bit uneasy when someone tries to take the moral high ground that the other side is doing something unspeakable, and that ‘their side’ wouldn’t stoop to such behaviour. Rather like Labour moaning about the ‘lies’ of the Tories, as if Labour’s every utterance isn’t also a lie. Or pointing out Russian donations, when their pockets jingle from Chinese cash. Our politicians are corrupt and influenced, if not by the Russians or the Chinese, then by the WEF. or Soros. Politics is a dirty game, played by people with dirty hands. There are no rights and wrongs, only power and money. Believe nothing. Question everything.
You need to appreciate that the west is as subject to propaganda as Russia.
Was a nuclear power station being shot at? And where did you get that information from? The BBC? or online? Both are unreliable sources.
There is the thought that the Russians wouldn’t recklessly make such a move due to the atmospheric winds in the region. They blow from west towards the east and would carry any fallout over the Russian mainland.
The West may act holier than thou, which of course it isn’t. An excellent analysis linked here explains why the sanctions the West has imposed may be little more than pissing about. https://asiatimes.com/2022/03/the-gaping-hole-in-western-sanctions-on-russia/.
Western sanctions on Russia are nothing more than propaganda for the west. Besides, sanctions don’t affect government officials or the wealthy elite, they affect ordinary citizens.
The theory behind them being that when sanctions bite the populace will rise up (politically or physically) and revolt against their government.
I mean, this is a serious western tactic? By the time sanctions kick in, and if the populace of Russia could rise up without being crushed by the Russian military, Ukraine would be under Russian rule anyway.
Yes, in my view the so called sanctions and military aid are counter productive and could be construed as a declaration of war.
The rise of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky?
Ihor Kolomoyskyi is a high-status gangster in Ukraine. He’s barred from the US for crimes and is under investigation by Israel. Kolomoyskyi was at one time a governor of a regional area in Ukraine, but was dismissed or ousted from this position in 2014.
Ihor Kolomoyskyi wanted revenge for this ousting and got it through his ownership of a television station in Ukraine. He ran the TV show, Servant of the People, starring Volodymyr Zelenskyy – in this TV show Zelenskyy played the role of president of Ukraine.
It seems certain that this two-bit TV show was astroturfed, that is, its viewing ratings were artificially increased to make it seem a very popular show.
Then Ihor Kolomoyskyi steered Volodymyr Zelenskyy into politics. This is where the astroturfed ratings for the TV show probably came in. If election fraud was needed to get Zelenskyy past the post, people would be less suspicious because the TV show had already shown that Zelenskyy was very popular in Ukraine.
The legally elected president of Ukraine moved in 2014 to align his country with Russia, who he correctly viewed as being a lesser bully for Ukraine to align with than the gangster-controlled and Schwab/Soros NGO West.
The crooked Western Cabal couldn’t countenance that, so they fomented a coup d’état and now we have the bent corrupt little Zelenskyy attempting to coerce women and children to go out on the streets and attack Russian tanks with Molotov cocktails.
The moral of the story for Ukrainians is that if they opened their eyes 8-years ago and fought their crooked oligarchs and Schwab’s/Soros’ NGOs, and told the gangster-controlled West to fu*k-off, they would not now have an invading Russian army rolling across their countryside.
There’s also a moral in this story for people in the West: if they don’t get off their butts and dispose of the gangster oligarchs that rule them, they are going to also pay dearly for it.
Top class.
Thereby making them military targets. And not forgetting Zelensky handing out AK47s to anyone with a Ukraine passport. All too predictably (by accounts) most of these have ended up in the hands of criminals, organised or otherwise, with no intemdtion of facing off against Russian tanks. Madness or deliberate?
Good summary FW.
Zelenskyy is also offering to arm foreigners that go to Ukraine, as long as they claim that they are there to fight the Russians. Take this in correlation with fanatics in the Middle East calling for their brethren in Europe to take advantage of the conflict in Ukraine to do jihad against White Europeans. All the jihadists have to do is go to Ukraine and Zelenskyy will give them weapons with which to carry out their attacks.
Liz Truss, the UK Foreign Secretary who probably couldn’t find Russia on a map, fully supported British citizens going to fight in Ukraine.
So far Zelenskyy has handed out over 10,000 AK 47’s to Ukrainian citizens – and possibly foreigners. These are citizens that have absolutely no training or experience in using automatic weapons like this.
The Russian army, or any army, is trained when fighting a war to return fire on anyone that shoots at them. Likewise, when advancing through the Ukraine, Russian soldiers are trained to fire on anyone in the distance carrying weapons and presumed to be enemy combatants who pose a threat to them.
Armed citizens will be cut down by the combat psyched-up Russian army, and that’s what Zelenskyy wants. Lots of dead citizens will make for good photo ops for the Western media, and turn Western populations against Russia in the hope that NATO gets involved.
President Zelenskyy? He’s a disgusting and vile little basta*d. He’s right down there in the sewer with Trudeau in Canada.
He does have his weak points too.
“(…) in the hope that NATO gets involved”
…meaning that nuclear war then ensues
…and not just in Ukraine but with the destruction of many cities across both Russia and the west.
Some find it hard to believe, because it is so evil, but there are forces that are consciously pushing for this outcome and clearly Zelensky is in that party.
Zelensky is no planner. He is simply a pawn of US/NATO elites in their never ending war against Russia.
Zelensky is a pawn, yes. But although those such as Kolomoyskyy have an abiding hatred of Russia, they don’t care whether the US and other NATO countries get nuked to smithereens along with Russia.
More importantly perhaps, Nuland hates Russia – and sadly she has calls all the shots!
Excellent points made.
you russian agents have become a lot better in posing as westerners.
next time do not forget to mention the 14.000 dead russians.
or is that another department of your bureau in st petersburg?
and as always: remember flight mh 17, 293 foreigners murdered by russian troops on ukrainian territory on the 17th july 2014.
“All too predictably (by accounts) most of these have ended up in the hands of criminals, organised or otherwise, with no intemdtion of facing off against Russian tanks.”
An extremely good point.
How do we imagine Afghanistan was found impossible to suppress.
The US supplied the Mujahideen with weapons to fight the Russians, only to have them turned on them when they decided to invade the country.
Spot on again.
Bit harsh on Liz Truss, I thought. She’s probably reasonably map-savvy; it’s just she doesn’t know who controls which bits.
Not harsh enough – she is supposed to be ‘Foreign Secretary” it used to be be an important post held by a serious, well educated and experience diplomat.
She is a disgrace to the Office.
Its the new game of ‘Which Oxford PPE Graduate can we give this desk to.?’. Ministers with portfolio that they know inside out and can make a real contribution to..? Gone in the 1960-‘s sorry to say…
Name a Cabinet Minister who isn’t.
A potentially very dangerous Foreign Secretary, she’s still ramping up the idiotic tough talking rhetoric without betraying even the slightest hint of understanding the big picture, all while backed up by Bozo the delusional quack quack clown as he clumsily transitions from the fake war on covid to the potentially very real war with Russia.
When writing to my MP about things, I referred to her as ‘the most ignorant f***wit to hold senior office in my lifetime’.
Is that harsh enough for you?
Zelensky is winning the PR war hands down aided and abetted by a compliant western media. Only yesterday he was exaggerating the risk of attacking a nuclear facility when it was clear that the Russians had only targeted to administrative block. Even after the nuclear watchdog made it clear that there was no radioactivity being released, the press continued to parrot his warning to the Russian people.
And yet the day before that he appeared in public visibly half-cut, either drunk or coked up. Give it time, I’m sure we’ll eventually see him eating his tie.
Along with spineless happy-clappy Western politicians everywhere and a suitably credulous population hanging on the MSM’s every word. Even this afternoon’s football commentaries were shot through with propaganda.
On this site there are those who still haven’t grasped (or don’t want to grasp) that Ukraine is an anti-democratic (it outlawed a main political party) US puppet regime with Nazi ideology deeply embedded at all levels of its government, military and administration. A country that following a military coup in 2014 has relentlessly shelled its own people in the Donbass using quasi-autonomous Nazi Battalions. The info is there, the West doesn’t want to know.
This type of wall to wall propaganda psy-op worked with Covid (the dumb asses old and young are still wearing face masks in the supermarket) so why not with Ukraine?
I wonder if the hysteria would have been quite so shrill had Russia invaded Germany in 1949, or thereabouts?
russia invaded germany?
but it had, in 1945 that is.
and the world was quite satisfied it did.
mind you the same russians had invaded, along with their allies, the germans, poland in 1939.
so history has proved that russia cannot be trusted.
Talking about supermarkets, Sainsbury’s is encouraging shoppers to donate their nectar points to Comic Relief (!) to show support and solidarity with the people of the Ukraine.
military coup in 2014?
i sure would like to see some evidence for the military part of that…
the separation of donbas could be called a military coup, wouldn’t you agree?
and even one with foreign military interference, wouldn’t you agree?
and even one that murdered 293 passengers of flight mh 17 flying through ukrainian airspace, shot down by a russian buk missile, surely you must agree?
next time do not forget to mention the 14.000 dead russians.
we do not want to disappoint your boss alex, now do we?
He is winning only because we are fed only crude Nato propaganda for the gullible to swallow and the Russian view is banned for fear of people being exposed to it – what kind of ‘victory’ is that?
I suspect Russia’s view will turn out not to be far from the truth. The fact is that countries representing 41% of the World population support Russia. regardless of the hysterical lies and False Fag events coming from and staged by the former clown andNato stooge Zelensky.
you did not get the memo?
you have been identified as one of putin’s agents and are supposed to change the blog.
another agent already has entered the thread.
so you can go.
as always: remember flight mh17, where 293 foreign passengers were murdered by russian military in ukrainian airspace.
I don’t think he is, the Western media doesn’t do journalism any more, they run with what they are told to run with. Zelensky only need the support of Biden and Nuland and the whole of the West was in his palm.
Again, an eerie parallel with our own state of play.
A national TV service run by a shadowy elite puts a scruffy, bumbling journo-turned-politician into a panel show on a number of occasions. Then he runs for Mayor of London and manages to be elected (twice) despite numerous instances of wasting money and chumocracy. On his return to Parliament, he is elevated to Foreign Secretary to much amusement worldwide (or so it seemed). Following the downfall of the useless PM who’d elevated him, he succeeds to the top post, only to oversee the biggest cancelling of citizen freedoms in living memory. His determination to jab every last citizen is only thwarted by the likelihood that the Health Service would tank and the economy take a further dive.
And, as a coup de grace, he agrees to knight a prat who ballsed up UK Education for a while.
Did that Ukrainian gangster just rewrite our script a little?
You could be describing London Mayor Khan in that post…………..
The order banning Kolomoyskyy from the US was signed a year ago today:
https://www.state.gov/public-designation-of-oligarch-and-former-ukrainian-public-official-ihor-kolomoyskyy-due-to-involvement-in-significant-corruption/
How’s the Israeli investigation going? Israeli policy is never to extradite any Israeli citizen (such as Kolomoyskyy) for an alleged crime committed before they “became a national”.
If Kolomoyskyy runs to Israeli-held territory I wouldn’t bet on him standing trial in a Ukrainian court.
There is no doubt that this man has played a highly significant role in dragging Ukraine, the country where he was born, into the sh*t such that
EDIT: surprise, surprise – Kolomoyskyy is well connected with the Chabad organisation (formerly often known as “the Lubavitchers”), being a business associate of Mordechai Korf.
I do appreciate your ‘moral’ conclusion – spot on comment .
Sadly, Victoria Nuland and the CIA had other plans for the Ukraine back in 2014.
Humanity has lived with ambitious gangster oligarchs for thousands of years.
They keep failing.
in 2014 the legally elected president of the ukraine refused to sign the treaty of affiliation with the eu.
the very treaty he had negotiated with the eu.
in stead he wanted to sell ukraine to russia after putin had offered him more money than the eu would give to ukraine.
so the people revolted and chased off the president who fled to russia and was taken in by his friend putin.
not one western soldier was on ukrainian soil.
after that putin sent russian soldiers into ukrainian territory to help the revolting russians.
so who is the bully of the ukrainian people the west or putin?
and as always: remember flight mh 17, 293 foreign civilians murdered by russian troops in ukraine.
“The West has responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in three main ways: pouring arms into Ukraine to buttress the country’s defence; imposing heavy sanctions on Russia to cripple its economy; and essentially ‘cancelling’ Russia by shutting down its foreign media, censoring its cultural exports, and banning its athletes from international competitions”.
May sound over the top but it does feel like we are either in a prelude or in world war 3, other countries selling arms to ukraine has dragged those countries in even though physical boots by armies of the west are not officially on the ground, banning Russian goods in supermarkets and shutting RT is certainly actions that look like a start of something worse to come.
I heard somewhere that a theory and speculation was that putin thought the west would do very little after russian aggression in the past, i.e the novichok attacks etc, makes me wonder if the plan was to bide time, get Russian comfortable with flaring up with ukraine, and then this pincers Russia and potentially collapses the country. Afterall, on one side you could have the west wanting to march into russia, on the other end you could get china potentially a threat marching into russias backdoor while being preoccupied with ukraine.
Then there is the nuclear threat which is not out the realms of possibilities which after the last few yrs, is not an absurd statement.
“the novichok attacks“
Let’s try to keep some semblance of reality to the discussion. The “novichok attacks” were about as credible as those videos of people walking along streets in China and dropping down dead from “covid” in early 2020.
Made up basically by the same people who fabricated the “Russiagate” hogwash, and for similar reasons.
And thereby illustrating your mindset.
My “mindset” being scepticism about absurdly implausible stories that just happen to serve the goals of very powerful established liars?
What’s your “mindset”?
And did you even notice the Russiagate fabrications?
Troll leek only notices what he is paid to notice.
scepticism about absurdly implausible stories….
so you do not believe the stories as they are so implausible.
you are not a scepticus.
you just do not believe certain stories and call that scepticism.
true scepticism specifically addresses the stories you do believe….
au contraire! You comment indicates the low pressure vaccume inside you mind that can easily be filled with whatever mainstream narrative wafts past it.
The Russians used the worlds most deadly neuro toxin, that didn’t kill it’s victim, or the tens of policemen that went in the house unprotected to search it, the victim fell ill in the street just as the top bioweapons nurse from Porton Down was passing…
Some people can be dumb as rocks.
The down voters got it right this time.
I have a real problem with three buildings in the 9/11 attacks falling as though in a controlled demolition, the twin towers, and the UN building which wasn’t hit by anything.
One building, yes, I accept that; two of precisely the same design? there is an argument however unlikely. But three buildings, one of a different design, hit by nothing?
What is my mindset? Curious?
Seek the opinion of leading US demolitions company former executives – you’ll find them on video in the ether….
You are right over the target. The 77th Brigade down voters are clearly nervous.
There is obviously no solution that is good for all. We are not in a zero sum situation, but we are not in a no conflict situation either.
The closest to an overall best solution would be to accept that Russia’s war is a legitimate policy response to US policy and the situation it has created, let them get on with sorting out the situation in the Ukraine, and look to change those US policies for the future.
In particular we need to decide whether the UN era dream of a world in which war is not used as a tool of state policy is retrievable or not, after it was essentially destroyed by the US wars of choice in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria etc.
Because the pretence of a rule of law is worse imo than honest recognition of hard reality.
It’s that pretence that has given rise to all the deluded or dishonest squeals about a supposed “rules based order” that Russia supposedly breached by doing something just as illegal as, and so far much less bloody than, the US’s regular actions, which they had barely sniffed at. It fuels the mass hysteria that has driven the self-harming response to the Ukraine as it drove the self-harming response to covid.
In the age of social media, we cannot afford these dishonest, virtue signalling delusions.
‘The closest to an overall best solution…
… would be to keep out if it, mind our own business and put our own house in order starting with State sponsored child abuse to ‘protect granny’.
Excellent article and I agree with your analysis.
I still cannot remove the depopulation thesis from my thinking. Are the Davos Deviants behind this war? If they are not then the likelihood is that this war could seriously disrupt their Agenda 2030 plans. By the same token this could enhance said plans. The potential for major cockups is self evident. For all their planning I doubt the DD’s have factored in all potential ‘mistakes.’
On a straightforward interpretation the short term for us and the West is rampaging inflation and food and fuel rationing. China appears to have stockpiled already so Putin gave Xi the nod. Is China going to take Taiwan?
Certainly, at the moment there is no sign of leadership in the West so our likely outcome is poor. There is no gain available to the West if we stay on our current course.
The West has screwed up big time. Has this been the intention all the time?
There is no leadership in the West because our current western leaders are nothing more than puppets of the unelected W.E.F. Putin is neither mad nor stupid, it wasn’t as if we weren’t warned about our actions but we have ignored him, now the world is on the brink of war because of the insanity of those in the West.
Indeed.
Short concise and accurate. Thank you.
Schwab has boasted that he owns half the Cabinets of the world rulers he owns too! The “Russia Hating” Mayor of Kiev is one of Schwab’s creatures!
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/war/is-war-the-ploy-for-the-great-reset/
‘is davos/wef behind this war?’ :
Did Russia made the covid 19 pandemic their most important topic in the last 2 years? Did they produce a mighty vaccine which was pushed on everyone?
I think you can answer these questions and you will see where putin stands. Right next to schwab.
Putin was a KGB operative …does that answer your concerns?
You could easily argue that Putin created a ‘Sputnik Vaccine’ to ensure that no Russians had to receive the time bombs from the West.
If the vaccines really are bioweapons, then protecting your own people is the only way to go.
I don’t know the truth on that one, but be open to that possibility….
protecting your people from a disease that kills people at a rate of less than 1 in 1000, and with the dead being over 82 on average, and all having severe comorbidities.?
i do not think that putin, nor any other leader in the world is actually concerned about that disease.
this never was about a disease…
Russia on the Gold Standard and half the world interested in escaping Dollar Tyranny before the Digital take-over has been formulated? India wanting Ruppee trading with Russia?
Has “Darth Vader’ Schwab ‘gamed that one?
Putin committed the ultimate Davos crime of joining the Holy Order then excommunicating himself and calling the rest of them a bunch of insane f***wits.
There is no crime worse than that.
“The Syrian civil war has dragged on for more than ten years and claimed more than 400,000 lives, in part thanks to external arming of rebel groups.”
Remember all those solemn assertions that “Assad is doomed”, from much the same people as are now declaring “Putin is doomed”?
They were wrong because they were based on a fundamentally dishonest misrepresentation of the situation on the ground in Syria, just as the current anti-Russian hysteria dominating the US sphere media and political elites is based on a dishonest misrepresentation of the situation in the Ukraine and its causes
“If there’s a good chance the Ukrainians can win, supplying them with arms certainly makes sense. But if they’re unlikely to prevail, why would we want to prolong the conflict?”
There is not and has never been any chance that the Ukrainian military can militarily defeat Russia in a conventional war, however long. The only possibility of any kind of defeat is the one the US neocon warmongers fantasise about, of an Afghan insurgency style long drawn out war in the Ukraine. Whether that’s a possibility or just another neocon pipe-dream is uncertain, but what is certain is that the costs to Ukrainians would be infinitely greater than the costs of complete surrender to the Russians now.
That would represent the US basically imposing the “Vietnam village” solution on the Ukraine.
The US and the CIA wanted endless chaos and blood in Syria and now want the same in Ukraine. This is the only way the Neo-Cons believe that America can still rule.’ “Create chaos” divide and rule’ – could be their motto.
Correct – Assad has always retained the support of the majority of his people, as has Putin thus far.
The West’s fundamental problem is that is always framing Hollywood movies then asking for evidence to make them credible to the credulous.
Hopefully people will start finding out for themselves the real reasons Russia entered Ukraine.
They only have to listen to what Putin and Lavrov have said and then look up the alternative media to counter the msm lies and propaganda.
Let’s hope for a swift Russian victory to minimize civilian casualties and for the US, EU and NATO to finally leave Ukraine alone so that Russia and Ukraine can live side by side peacefully without foreign interference.
Another who relishes the Russian brutality..
Will you cheer when they invade Latvia, or Finland too??
Is Russian brutality in the Ukraine somehow fundamentally different from US brutality in Iraq or British brutality in Libya?
All wars fought to achieve policy goals.
Exactly, and they’re all three unjustifiable. I don’t understand why so many people who are happy to call out the first two think that Putin has some kind of unique right to topple unpleasant regimes he doesn’t like in order to advance his policy goals, at the cost of the lives of ordinary civilians (not to mention the casualties among his own military).
“Exactly, and they’re all three unjustifiable. “
OK and now what?
Russian is preventing a determined Nazi genocide in Donbass – has that truth escaped you?
There are hours of validated ‘vox pop’ video materials and the bodies of dead Russian civilians killed by Ukrainian shelling since 2014.
But I suppose you will claim they are all “fake’!
Tiresome really.
the only thing fake is your indignation.
besides the fact that you are a russian operative in st petersburg of course.
as always: remember flight mh17….
no it is no different, and that makes it okay?
so there are no rules?
Were you cheering Ukrainian neo-Nazis killing Russian civilians in the Donbass?
No doubt he was.
Russian brutality?
According to the UN there has been just 351 civilian casualties.
Obviously 351 too many but Russia has been deliberately trying to protect civilian casualties at the expense of their own troops safety.
Latvia and Finland are not the same as a NATO armed fascist Ukraine who have killed thousands of civilians in the Donbass and have no reason to fear Russia.
so either you are a russian agent or you are too ignorant to tie your shoelaces in the morning?
which is it?
as always: remember flight mh17
MH17 was shot down by the Ukrainian army as determined by the manufacturers of BUK missiles.
sure buddy, whatever proof was needed for you being a russian agent you just provided it.
You silly Allium.
Did you enjoy your enforced CIA 2 year bioexperiment?
Read widely do you? The Grauniad, The New Statesman?
Stay on top of world news with a real time feed from the BBC, Sky News, Channel 4 heaven forefend …..
Still making friends leek, you can’t help yourself can you?
Interesting that you folk will object to absolutely everything, that is covered on MSM.
Don’t you realise this?
I for one seek out sources which are not shot-through with prior hatred for Putin. You have your predigested tractarianism. To each his own.
Interesting that you will parrot absolutely everything, that is covered on MSM without questioning any of it, or doing any research, even when it’s laid out on a plate for you.
Don’t you realise this?
Troll leek is paid not to realise.
That’s because the msm is full of lies and propaganda.
One example is the BBC report “Why is Russia invading Ukraine and what does Putin want?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56720589
In there they say “There has been no genocide in Ukraine” totally ignoring the thousands of ethnic Russian citizens killed in The Donbass by the fascist paramilitaries.
In there they say “How could I be a Nazi?” said Volodymyr Zelensky.
It has been shown that Zelensky is controlled by the fascist nazi loving paramilitaries in this article.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/ukraine-jewish-president-zelensky-made-peace-neo-nazi-paramilitaries/279862/?fbclid=IwAR23iLerjc2kU045zjjILge1EsNnrmjtXe312KI_HnN79Bv3fhixQVucjrE
In their article the BBC say “Russia then retaliated by seizing the southern region of Crimea and triggering a rebellion in the east, backing separatists who have fought Ukrainian forces in a war that has claimed 14,000 lives.”
No mention of the referendum in Crimea who voted 96.7% in favour of Russia.
The BBC also say “Then Mr Putin scrapped a 2015 peace deal for the east and recognised areas under rebel control as independent.”
The “peace deal” was being totally ignored by the fascist Ukrainian paramilitaries and Putin needed to protect the ethnic Russians.
The BBC say “he has shown he is prepared to bomb civilian areas to fulfil his goals.”
Putin hasn’t used his airforce or any bombs yet. It has been military shelling and missiles avoiding as many civilian casualties as possible.
It’s the corrupt BBC, we can never expect anything resembling the truth from it.
No mention of the referendum in Crimea who voted 96.7% in favour of Russia.
Like the elections Putin and his party hold in Russia to get themselves elected. Autocrats are always very popular.
That was the result of the referendum by ordinary people.
Why is it so difficult for you to understand that most ethnic Russians in Ukraine would rather have ties with Mother Russia than a US vassal state?
I think you will find more political parties in the Duma than you have in Congress in the USA.
Do you think that ‘free and fair’ elections deliver less diversity than ‘rigged ones’?
i wonder what would be the usa equivalent of alexander navalny?
as putin said: i do not care who votes as long as i count the votes…
96,7% in a referendum that had only three possibilities to vote for:
1 in favour of russia
2 in favour of russia
3 in favour of russia
in fact it is quite remarkable that the outcome was not 100% in favour of russia.
but then again putin knows how that 100% is not that plausible…
so those planes shot down by the ukrainians aren’t russian?
so whose are they?
so we have found another russian agent.
but you better stick to the story!
it is not 14,000 lives claimed in a war but 14,000 russians killed by the ukrainians.
and we do not want to get your boss vladimir mad or do we?
Pathetic.
i expected that you would not be happy to be found out.
was wlad angry with you?
Only been around since Jan 1st I see….
Lonely in the barracks is it?
Whoops, yet more down votes.
Most will never see this – like most have still never heard of Mike Yeadon!
Mike Yeadon occasionally comes on here if it is the same Mike Yeadon of Covid fame.
Our friends
Saudis – brutal Monarchy that oppesses their population, been bombing the snot out of Yemen for years – our response sell them more bombs
China – brutal autocracy the oppress their population, committing a genocide, still occupying Tibet – our response sell off the UK to them ASAP.
I would appear that Putin has failed to make sufficent donations to the Tory party.
£250 000 per game of tennis simply wasn’t enough.
All brands suddenly feel very responsible for the war and ignore Russian market.
Meanwhile licking china’s ass to the shiniest… And if one of the brand’s ambassador dare to say Taiwan is a country then said ambassador will be under restrictions not China…
In a store today when I overheard the woman behind the till ask a female colleague how she was feeling today? The woman replied that she was feeling a bit better after her therapy yesterday.
‘Oh? What is the therapy for?’ came the reply.
‘The situation in Ukraine ‘- she said.
Perhaps its me, maybe I just don’t understand and maybe I’m being a bit cold-hearted here – but why is this woman having therapy over a conflict thousands of miles away and so far as I can see is having little or no affect of our daily lives here in Britain – I simply don’t get it? I don’t recall needing therapy for both the Gulf Wars and I don’t recall my parents telling me that they needed therapy because of the Vietnam War or the Korean War – my grandfather served in the Navy during world war 2 escorting merchant naval vessels which meant he was always under constant threat of being torpedoed by German U-Boats – but I don’t recall him having therapy when he was back in civvy street.
I dunno? As I say – perhaps its me.
“why is this woman having therapy over a conflict thousands of miles away“?
Hysteria.
It’s probably just a made up story about the woman…
Perhaps, I don’t know and neither do you, but the evidence of such hysteria is all around us.
Starting with the widespread targeting of entirely innocent Russians for collective punishment for their government’s perceived misbehaviour.
Well you’d know all about that.
Or the price of petrol has gone up again?
Or in new money – mass formation psychosis
Lot of it about, especially over the last two years.
Worth reading this article in Spiked for some insight into this phenomenon:
‘Ukraine is not all about you.’
Yes it was a good article highlighting how weak and silly western humanity has become.
Therapy for something that is happening thousands of miles away? That in a nutshell is why the world is in the state it is. Idiocracy on steroids!
COVID showed that wall-to-wall propganda 24 hour creates its own reality: the suicides, the alcohol abuse, the children with nothing to live for – none of it produced by a virus, some by the restrictions, but most by being at home watching Fauci’s false prophecies of Armageddon.
Maybe that’s the difference from the genuine nuclear crises of the cold war – it was in the newspapaer, and described on the TV, but people then went and wrote comic songs about it. Now, you’d have expert after expert telling you just where Castro’s missiles would target were they deployed, how you’d die, how Kruschev was not listening to Kennedy, etc etc.
Now that covid’s not such a worry, she’s noticed a bit of a vacuum in her anxiety quota?
Therapy and counselling both fabulous growth opportunities.
And in a nutshell this typifies the Western mindset – shutting the stable door etc. Resolution of this conflict has nothing to do with the moment Putin’s tanks rolled into the Donbass and Ukraine, but the years and events leading up that.
The moment Putin signed an offical (“long overdue” – his words) recognition of the self declared (in 2014) Donetsk and Luhansk republics (that had suffered Ukrainian state sanctioned shelling over the last 8 years) was perhaps the last possible moment for meaningful diplomacy. Instead the USA provacateur puppet Zelensky was still demanding Nukes and NATO membership!
Maybe a sober analysis would also take into account the Maidan ‘revolution’ and subsequent US interference in a corrupt state (Hunter Biden anyone) that has encouraged the rise of a quasi autonomous fascist paramilitary (that itself has been heavily involved in the shelling of Russian speakers?
And until the wrongly described ‘liberal democracies’ in the West take their WEF blinkers off this is not going to happen, as the last two years have proven beyond any doubt. Any article that again starts with the premise of Russia BAD West GOOD will soon come unstuck – as this one quickly does. If this is the best sceptical analysis available, then we are in deep, deep trouble.
okay let me start: russia BAD west BAD.
can we now agree that any country , be it west or russia, that starts a war against another country per definition is bad?
if not, what is your definition of bad and of good?
Of course we the UK would never invade another country for no reason would we! Oh sorry forgot about Iraq and Blairs illegal war and the WMDs that could be deployed in 45 minutes (they couldn’t tell us what type of WMDs they were Chemical, Biological or Nuclear but they had WMDs).
I lost what little belief and trust I had left in politicians in 2003 due to the Iraq war and have been cynical and sceptical ever since.
And that justifies Putin’s invasion …. How???
You obviously do not know what led up to the Ukrainian ‘invasion’ do you? Putin’s hand was forced by the West whilst the Iraq war was entirely fabricated by Blair and Bush, both of whom got away with it!
First part utter bollox, latter less so, tovarichiva…
Maybe you should change your monika to urinestream instead of leak.
I’ve re-read his post and it seems that he didn’t claim that Putin’s invasion was justified. Were you perhaps reading between the lines?
or maybe you should not interfere with a conversation you are not a part of but wait for the response to be given?
No confiscation of private funds during the middle east conflicts
Because US Billionaires were the beneficiares!
This is something I wrote on GETTR, and thought I’d share here:
America and its lapdogs like to talk about and implement ‘regime change’ in countries whose governments they regard as ‘illegitimate’. So here’s a thought experiment. Let’s say Putin wanted to implement ‘regime change’ in America, or the UK. Let’s say he cites ‘Western decadence’ in abandoning traditional values, objective truth, biological facts, traditional marriage, learning, in abusing children by denying biology/telling them they can mutilate their bodies (thus normalising mental illness), etc, etc. Let’s say Putin seeks to overthrow these ‘illegitimate regimes’ and put in their place more traditional administrations so the people in those countries can be free to live better lives. By what objective standard would we be able to say he is wrong and out of line?
‘Objective standards’ tend not to do well within politics. Wrong type of soil, or something.
Which is precisely a point the thought experiment is intended to make apparent.
Because he might string up and execute the people who currently control the UK and the USA?!
With respect, that misses the point. By what objective standard would the regimes of the US and UK object?
simpe: by the exact same standards as that the usa et al are wrong.
the fact that the usa et al do not adhere to standards does not mean putin gets an exemption from those very standards.
to be precise: always wrong no matter what!
And what ‘standards’ are these, exactly? If it’s so simple then why have you not articulated these standards?
Again, by what objective standard would the US and UK be able to say he is wrong and out of line?
what part of : “always” is unclear as a objective standard?
there are NO circumstances that he would not be wrong.
the standard is “WRONG and there are NO exceptions.
That’s not an objective standard; it’s an assertion. Are you dense?
According to whom? On what authority would he be ‘wrong’ given the hypothetical?
Good grief. What is ‘wrong’ and why?
Go back and reread the thought experiment before you reply, lest you continue to make a berk of yourself.
” What is ‘wrong’ and why “
and thus you reformulate your question….
you can appreciate the difference, i may hope?
i predict you will die not having found the answer.
or do you really think you are the first one in the history of mankind to have put forward the question?
und ansonsten kannst du mich kreuzweise, du bloedes arschloch.
Oh my. Yes, I had to dumb it down for someone who didn’t understand a very basic thought experiment. You tacitly admit you’re dense.
Yes, the original formulation was something any average adult could grasp, and it had to be dumbed down to accommodate a below average adult. It’s the same question formulated differently for someone struggling to grasp the problem.
Good heavens. Not a clever prediction. Once again you tacitly concede you are utterly ignorant. The answer is obvious to any philosophically minded, honest person.
Not at all, but it appears you are one of the relative few to have misunderstood the question.
Now now, you’re hurting my feelings.
Calm down. Take a breath and think.
have you ever been diagnosed as being a narcissist?
probably not, as you are quite convinced that it is not you that is dysfunctioning, so why see a shrink?
on top of that you do have a strongly expressed superiority complex.
the two usually go together so there is nothing to worry about.
i expect you do have trouble to stay in longer lasting personal relationships. that of course is their loss not yours.
keeping your job, which you are convinced is far beneath your abilities anyway, has proved to be troublesome.
it must be really hard to live in a world where all people are so very inferior to you.
from my, fairly large, professional, experience i have learned that there is absolutely no sense in arguing with a person like you.
i also know from experience that there is only the flimsiest of possibilities that a professional can alleviate your condition.
the world will just have to endure your presence.
so i bid you a good day.
leck mich….
No, dear. Why do you ask? Have you?
Oh how marvellous, an armchair diagnosis! I like these. This should be fun.
Please explain, dear. You are aware you are just asserting stuff, aren’t you? Go deeper, dear. This is fascinating, and I’m all lug’oles.
Why would I worry, dear? Are you worried that I might be worried?
Quite the opposite, actually, but do go on, dear. You’re doing great, champ.
Are we engaging in projection, dear?
Oh my. Wrong again, dear. But do continue, things can only get better from here.
Oh my. Me and my big mouth! Are we addressing a mirror, dear?
1. Fascinating stuff. Tell me all about your ‘professional experience’, dear. You like to talk about yourself don’t you, champ?
2. You are running from the discussion because you have made a complete fool of yourself, dear, and now you’re looking for an out, hence the stupidity above. But do keep on, because I could run rings round you all day without getting bored.
Bless. You’re easily intimidated aren’t you, dear? What else could explain why you have resorted to such an absurd response?
Bless. You’re not a happy bunny are you?
No you don’t, dear.
See? You can’t stand me. I’ve really got under your skin. You’re seething.
Stay classy, dear.
Now, because I’m generous, I’ll give you another shot. Go back and reread the thought experiment, try to grasp the philosophical argument lurking behind the text, and see if you can salvage some dignity.
One glimmer of positivity is the relatively muted response from the likes of DeSantis regarding Ukraine.
This was a guy who was prepared to look at the bigger picture in relation to Covid and showed the courage and intelligence to go against the crowd.
It’s far more delicate this time because he’s already been called “unpatriotic” just because he hasn’t yet unreservedly condemned Putin in any meaningful way.
But nevertheless, if alternative views are presented by mainstream politicians going against the current totalitarian consensus, then the narrative will shift a bit.
I don’t hold much hope for the UK though. Unlike Covid where we at least had a cluster of Tory backbenchers sceptical about measures from the start, has any UK MP actually hinted at an alternative perspective over Ukraine?
Then again, the UK is just a US/WEF puppet anyway so probably not terribly important.
We can only hope the US let the adults back into the room sooner rather than later.
Lots of Ruskies in Florida…..
Lots of ex Eastern European types in flyover rust belt US….
DeSantis has played a blinder by keeping his powder dry unlike the Twatter population and Prog Dems/Uniparty who shot their collective spaff the minute Russia walked over the border.
“There’s already evidence that Western media coverage is perceived as racist – that we care less about Middle Eastern deaths because the people there don’t look like us.”
An understandable interpretation of the sheer dishonesty and irrationality of US sphere coverage and commentary. The only credible explanations of all those hysterics in our media, politics and social media ranting about “unprecedented”, “shocking” “threats to rules based order”, when they essentially couldn’t be bothered to get excited much about repeated equivalently illegal and in some cases infinitely more mass murderous US/NATO crimes of aggression in places like Iraq and Libya, would be dishonesty, stupidity or sheer ignorance.
With most, as with Lionel Shriver, it’s hard to buy dishonesty or stupidity, so we are left with ignorance – the most likely explanation imo. But if you live outside the US elite blob, malice is probably a more plausible general interpretation than a level of ignorance that must seem genuinely inexplicable to most.
we should have no problem to admit that we do care more about our own kind.
it is just human nature and there is nothing wrong with it.
it is evolution at work.
racism is completely natural and is in essence not different from nationalism or being a fan of a baseball club.
Troll alert – leek.
77th Brigade probably.
Only been here since 1st Jan.
It’s a tad weak for 77th. Doesn’t even sealion….
‘Twinned with Potato’.
We are led into ruin by the sentiments of children.
Why war? Because…….
> Macron has an election to win, and Biden has mid-terms. The WEF needs these two need to remain in place. All of the leaders of the West are now in an exclusive club. Brexit and Trump spoiled this……neither instances of populism will be allowed to happen again. The attitudes of Trudeau and Ardern tell us this plainly – democracy is already in it death throes.
> the news about the great harms that the jabs have done, are doing and will continue to do is emerging…….something is needed to keep this out of the news, and so they can tidy it all up on the quiet.
> the West want Ukraine’s natural resources and labour
> there is every chance that the West wants to blame the impending global financial collapse on Putin
> in fact, the West wants to make Putin a patsy for everything
If there’s anyone here who’s on board with the West’s response to the Ukraine crisis – please help me out as I’m confused as to what I’m supposed to think. . .
During the Brexit ‘debate’ – both before and after the referendum – as a brexiteer I was accused of being xenophobic (amongst many other things). Xenophobia is bad; ergo I must be a bad person. Now, I’m told that Russia is bad and anything Russian has be sanctioned, censored and cancelled. No more ads with Meercats, no more Russian vodka and no more bed time stories by Dostoevsky. I get it, anything Russian is verboten. But hold on a minute, isn’t this just naked xenophobia?
Like I say, I’m confused. In the meantime, being the bad person that I am, I’m looking forward to a plate of this for supper . . .
“Xenophobia is bad; ergo I must be a bad person. Now, I’m told that Russia is bad and anything Russian has be sanctioned, censored and cancelled. No more ads with Meercats, no more Russian vodka and no more bed time stories by Dostoevsky. I get it, anything Russian is verboten. But hold on a minute, isn’t this just naked xenophobia?“
We’ve always been at war with Eastasia, citizen. Report to your nearest education centre for adjustment.
Ensalada Rusa…… Ooooh
I thought it was Creamed Tripe with Basil Sprinkles.
xenophobia is not bad.
it is perfectly natural to want to be amongst one’s peers.
that is why birds of a feather flock together…
it actually is evolution at work.
Err, xenophobia and birds of a feather are not mutually exclusive, jan’! It’s entirely possible to be amongst one’s peers without having a dislike of – or prejudice against – people from other countries.
not mutually exclusive?
where did i claim they were?
John Mearsheimer has it right in terms of the balance of aggression.
One of the advantages of being a “realist” is that you don’t get as easily taken in by the touchy feely nonsense that most people are manipulated by…
They need a distraction from Covid and the vaccines – NATO/CIA etc have been goading Putin for years. They will enjoy all the social chaos they are creating in the West. Sadly, we are dealing with racketeers, and I don’t think we can interpret any fall out as purely accidental, although there are going to be elements of unpredictability.
Retired US Army colonel invited on mainstream US media and shocks host by telling hard truths. Hilarious.
“Maajid أبو عمّار
@MaajidNawaz
“Oh I think Zelensky is a puppet & he is putting huge numbers of his own population at unnecessary risk… and quite frankly what comes out of Ukraine is debunked as lies within 24-48 hours” Retired US Army colonel Douglas MacGregor on Fox News”
https://twitter.com/MaajidNawaz/status/1500057329097707521
“Thanks for being with us, sir. We’ll see you again soon.”
I rather doubt it….
https://gettr.com/post/pybi759e47
Part of a speech just made by Putin allegedly
The second any country attempts to establish a no fly zone over Ukraine, even if from their own territory — to Russia, you are now a part of the conflict, endangering russian troops. And we don’t care which alliance you’re a member of at that point (NATO) The consequences will be catastrophic not just for Europe, but for the entire world – Putin
Source
https://mobile.twitter.com/ASBMilitary
it is about time someone brought an end to that madman.
he clearly is threatening the world with nuclear war if he does not get his way.
in view of the situation in the world i would say fuck him and we call his bluff.
but with a demented mummy in the white house and spineless worms in the capitols of the western world i doubt it will happen.
To more than just a little extent, the West has actually been imposing sanctions on Russia ever since the fall of the Soviet Union.
The gangster Cabal that controls the West wants two blocs in Europe, the London/Washington dominated Western bloc, and the Kremlin dominated Eastern bloc – both blocs have lines of control running to the Cabal’s headquarters in the City of London and Wall Street.
The Kremlin bloc was intended to be kept weak and controllable, hence NATO’s expansion up against Russia’s borders, and tight control of its economy by the City of London and Wall Street.
Two blocs like this make the populations from the Atlantic to the Bering Straits easier to control. If say the people in the Western bloc started getting uppity and made sounds about throwing-off the Cabal’s chains, the Cabal could instigate a crisis with the Eastern bloc, and in this way give the people in the Western bloc an external enemy to focus on and thereby distract them – the Cabal don’t like patriotism, but they’ll use it to keep populations in line when it suits them.
Putin rose to power in Russia with the help and assistance of the Cabal, but knowledgeable sources are now saying that he has thrown-off the Cabal’s yoke and isn’t prepared to be their stooge any longer.
This greatly alarms the Cabal because losing Russia denigrates their power a good deal. But worse than this, they are terrified Russia may forge a tight relationship with China. If Russia were to do this it would greatly diminish the Cabal’s global power structure. As it was prior to the Ukrainian war, any trade China did with Russia meant the Cabal in London and Wall Street got a cut.
But with a stand-alone Russian empire, the Cabal loses one of its blocs and the associated power and profits. And with Russia in a trade partnership with China that’s free of Cabal interference, London and Wall Street lose another valuable source of profit and power.
Albeit, the Kremlin would also be aware that if it became tight with China, it would be in very real danger of eventually becoming nothing more than a Chinese poodle. Then there’s powerful elements within Russia that are pro-Cabal and in favour of Schwab’s New World Order.
The real danger is that the Cabal might escalate this to a nuclear conflict if they think they’ll lose control over Russia. There’s a risk that the Satanists in the City of London and Wall Street would take a risk on a limited nuclear exchange in expectation it would mainly stay confined to Eastern Europe and Russia.
The United States’ legacy media have lately started telling Americans how much this regional conflict in Ukraine should matter to them. The US media are basically laying the groundwork to get Americans psyched up for military intervention in Eastern Europe.
“Why Russia’s Ukraine invasion should matter to Americans”, informs NBC. And Fox News’ resident fool, Sean Hannity, has come out with some very dumb plans from assassinating Putin to God only knows what.
When the American legacy media start pushing for the US to go to war, they are reading from a script which has been authored by the Cabal. And when the Cabal push for war they are serious.
Western people have tolerated disgustingly corrupt and incompetent governance for decades. It’s probably getting near the time when we in the West are going to pay dearly for our toleration of the gangsters that rule us.
As the German army retreated back into Germany towards the end of WWII, Hitler gave orders to his generals that they were to utterly destroy everything on German soil as they fell back. The POS Hitler was of the type that if he couldn’t have it, he’d destroy it so nobody else could have it.
The POS Cabal are of the same ilk, if they can’t have it, they’d be very likely to completely destroy it so nobody else could have it. Putin knows this, and this may be why he’s made clear statements about his willingness to use nuclear weapons.
I See no difference betweent the West cabal/NWO and the BRICs cabal/NWO, they all pay the same piper IMO, it’sa false dichotomy.
Corbett makes this point better than I could:
https://corbettreport.substack.com/p/the-ukraine-crisis-what-you-need
Very interesting assessment!
as the russian army in 1941 retreated further into russia, stalin gave orders that they were to completely destroy it so the germans could not have it.
the germans learned it from the russians…..
and the rest of your piece just shows that you are about halfway down the rabbit hole.
Ukraine and the west have brought this on themselves. All Ukraine had to do was agree to remain neutral and not join NATO or the EU and all this could have been avoided. While war is truly awful Russia has been backed into a corner and is defending it’s interests. If the situation were reversed and Russia laid claim to Canada or Mexico or Ireland do you think the USA and U.K. would just shrug their shoulders and do nothing?
Exactly.
stay neutral and join EU, like Finland (I think Putin would agree to save some ties with the west). Why Finland is OK to stay neutral but Ukraine is suddenly not?
because ukraine is run by nazis, don’t you know?
or maybe because finland kicked the russian asses in the winter war?
but that was with the help of the nazis, to be fair.
for some reason the finnish were friendly with the germans.
might it have been because the germans were the only nation to help them when they were attacked by the predecessors of putin?
all of the present brain farts revolve about the daft idea that Ukraine is it the north Atlantic region, that NATO is meaNT to be restricted to
One good thing about Covid is that the west’s reaction to it taught me among other things:-
1) there is no free press in the west
2) there is no freedom in the west
3) governments and core institutions from the civil service to universities and schools to the media are rotten to the core
4) governments and media lie
5) governments do not act for the people or have their best interests at heart
6) voting is a waste of time
7) always do your own research and do not believe anything the media or the government tell you
If we had no had Covid and my belief in my county and it’s institutions had not been shown to the core I would probably have bought the media line about Ukraine I.e big nasty bully Putin suddenly and for no reason decided to pick on poor innocent defenceless Ukraine. As it is I have done my own research and understand how the west has been expanding it’s influence into Russia’s sphere and destabilising the fine balance of power which has ensured peace since the Cold War. What Russia is doing is the inevitable consequence of this and Zelensky is the west’s useful idiot.
Great post
Well, I am with you, but I have been there ever since the days of Bliar. {Mind you, I am now a golden(-ish) oldie!}
We should be inserting the IMF into the equation when we talk about who’s useful idiot the main players act for.
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2014/5/1/ukraine-to-get-17bn-in-imf-loans
This deal was stuck on the 1st May 2014, it was conditional on the Ukranian government quelling the protests by seperatists who refused to recognise the legitimacy of the puppet government installed after the coup. “Pro-Moscow” is inaccurate, they voted over 97% in favour of becomming an independant republic.
The horrors of the Trade Union House, where demonstrators were encouraged inside by agent-provocateurs of the far right nationalists, to be tortured, raped, and set on fire, happened on the 2nd May 2014. Eye witnesses claimed over 100 people were murdered, media reports lower numbers, but nobody really knows the total because there was never an investigation, and nobody was held responsible.
The IMF loan subsiquently went though. It is reported Zelensky has accumulated $1.2 billion in the Dresdner Bank Lateinamerika in Costa Rica during the two and a half years of his presidency.
All wars are Bankers wars, All warmongers are Bankers puppets.
it is reported that you are a gullible fool.
proof?
there never was a vote for an independent republic…..
and as always: remember flight mh17.were on july 17th 2014, 293 foreign air travellers were murdered by russian troops acting from ukrainian territory.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has criticised NATO for failing to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine. “Starting from today everyone who dies will die because of you as well, because of your weakness, because of your disunity.” Leaving aside the tone of ingratitude, this statement also suggests Zelenskyy is quite happy to start WWIII. Quite simply, this man is dangerous and Johnson needs to be very careful who he cozies up to – for all our sakes.
Yeap Zelenskyy is an attention seeking warmonger who had a hand in starting this whole thing by costing up to the west.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is understandably upset to see his fellow Ukrainians invaded and murdered, while the west does nothing that will make much of a difference. Sure sanctions will eventually have some impact on the key figures in Russia and the economy, but that won’t stop the missiles and tanks.
Interesting that you would not allocate blame for WW3 to the person threatening the nukes.
Sounds like the policy of mutually assured destruction, which we followed for 50 years during the Cold War. The threat of nuclear weapons is (I learned as a child) the ultimate deterrent to war.
The West has done enough all ready since it’s aggressive move eastwards is the cause of Putin’s invasion.
As for Zelenskyy, he hasn’t looked that upset during the last eight years while his forces shelled and killed his fellow Ukrainians – perhaps because the were Russian speakers?
So many Ukrainians are Russian speakers!
as are you…
Are you still fuck here?
Well, as John Lydon once said: no one is innocent. It is naive to think that the appalling situation in Ukraine is entirely of Putin’s making.
Leek, please get some perspective
9 facts that prove the U S is behind Ukraine crisis (2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZiJRnaom_E
GRAPHIC WARNING (NSFW) but Leek needs to see it, since his recalcitrance condones it.
https://uprootedpalestinians.wordpress.com/2014/05/11/neo-nazi-executions-of-unarmed-civilians-in-odessa-graphic-warning/
Superficial in the extreme.
Not even a convincing presentation of the Stooge CIA-Nuland Ukrainan Government’s ‘position’.
Tell us all about the Azov battalion
Groundhog Above Day, yawn yawn; Pavlov’s Dogs to a brain neutered apologist of a genocidal gangster. Tell everyone of the provenance of the “swastika”….do something useful before you medication kicks in.
“Unintended consequencies”
At the start of the covid ‘pandemic’, I tended towards the opinion that actions were mistaken. Gradually, as time went by and it was clear that there was no pandemic, a plan seemed to emerge. The censoring of alternative views and the propaganda of government and mainstream media showed that there was intention behind it. It all pointed towards jabs and jab passports, aka digital IDs. It was the plan of Mr Global and the WEF.
I poo-pooed all that at the beginning as conspiracy theory, but now I see the same agenda. I do not trust what we are being told about Ukraine. However, the narrative increases angst in the population and will cause food and energy sources. This will lead to rationing and rationing cards, aka digital IDs. Exactly the same intention is easy to see from exactly the same perpetrators – those ‘perpetual traitors’ that have no interest in the welfare of the population.
The goal is to move to a digital banking system using digital IDs and total control. We see this in the plan for NHSX, where the NHS is moving to an online system without the usual GPs. The plan is available to read here.
We really need to wake up to this. Implementation of these plans are already well advanced.
I agree, this is just the next step in the financial reset and the WEF’s plans.
Having created an international emergency, again pumped up by lying media reports, they will find it easy to get compliance for severe curtailments of our liberties.
It is a progression of steps in the fear campaign In the context of hysterical media reports it is difficult to remember that we are not at war with Russia and Ukraine is not an ally, or in NATO. There is no national security issue here.
Also that Russia has limited goals in its incursion into Ukraine which it expressed clearly prior to moving in.
It will be very hard to get people to realise what is happening to them and see through the fearmongering, the tactic is to keep us destabilised and in a state of shock.
Deadly virus – nuclear attack!
Alien invasion from space – is that next?
This is really a covert attack by the elites on the West and its freedoms, concealed under the guise of “Russian aggression”
Whether it is ‘global warning’, a ‘virus’, a ‘foreign enemy’, the action taken is always to the detriment of the people, their health, rights and freedoms.
The pattern is clear.
I applaud your article. Very considered.
I have just listened to 2 hours of Thomas Roeper, the German living in Russia for over 20 years and author of the blog Anti-Spiegel (anti-mirror, but referring to The Spiegel political Magazine), who gave a history, again, of the situation since 2008, and who has better insights into what has and is happening by eye witness reports and who translates a lot of speeches given by Russian politicians. He is often accused of being a “Putin friend”, but I find his reports quite neutral and analytical.
There is not much point now arguing about what happened in the last years.
The question in the interview was, as well, what happened in the days before, to drive him over the edge. With the knowledge I have gathered over the last 2 weeks or so, I agree that the Nato/the West has all the cards in their hands to end this – peacefully. Ukraine needs to be neutral, Nato needs to stay within it’s boundaries. Sanctions are only hurting the West. As a German who has lived in Britain for 25 years, I am appalled that Germany is promising weapons to Ukraine. And these weapons are ancient and mostly of old Russian stock left behind. The German press is reporting on this and is appalled. Sadly they are not appalled that Germany, who after WW2 promised never to get involved in armed conflicts and never supply weapons to an active armed conflict, is doing it now and even the Green party, which really should re-name itself to the Brown party, is the loudest advocate for supplying arms!
Personally I believe that this warmongering from the West is another opportunity to continue to destroy the economy which started with the covid policies.
https://gettr.com/post/pyc01ec8c0
“Criticised” only by the Fascist Globalists who we are apparently supposed to support while they censor RT broadcasts.
Ah yes. “Self determination for me, but not for thee”. I never knew DS had a Tankie following that believes so rigidly in Putin’s concept of “Spheres of Influence/Great Powers” to which all other nations must by necessity subsume their own interests. Should Canada and Western Europe now take orders from the Washington elite just because the US is the Great Power/Hegemon of the Western Sphere of Influence? Should we tell the Baltic States, Poles, Hungarians, etc “Sorry you have to leave NATO and the EU; you’re in Russia’s SOI”? What about Finland and Norway? Both of which share a land border with Russia.
“Tankie following that believes so rigidly in Putin’s concept of “Spheres of Influence/Great Powers” “
Are you really so ignorant of reality and of history that you think geopolitics 101 is “Putin’s concept”?
That’s about on the level of insisting that gravity was a communist theory because Soviet bombs used to fall downwards!
We do already take orders from the Washington elite.
“even, incredibly, the use of nuclear weapons.”
I sometimes wonder whether our decadent West can now only be cured by cutting out our cancered state as, for instance, with nuclear weapons. I have never felt so despairing about the prognosis for man’s future.
i’m with you. It may mean my death, but life without freedom is not life, it’s just existing: and I would die knowing a lot of the rotters in our society had been excised too. And isn’t it a marvel that suddenly those who destroyed our freedom and those noisome individuals in our midst who supported it, now suddenly are all for freedom – but for others, not us?
‘You might say that it’s worth it to halt Putin’s invasion.’
Worth what to whom?
I am paying via my taxes for the weapons being sent to Ukraine, and in the higher prices on energy and goods the sanctions are causing, so what am I getting for my money?
I’m still paying for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria and I haven’t seen a penny return on my ‘investment’. (Investment bring the term used to describe Government squandering of tax plunder.)
Of course the people not paying are the political slime responsible for this mess.
So back to WIIFM – what’s in it for me? And never mind getting freedom back for the people of Ukraine, because I’m still waiting to get mine back.
It’s good we have some realist writers on DS. TY has quite quickly crumbled into kneejerk old school emotional war propaganda.
A couple issues that you hinted at but didn’t directly point out have to do with the unintended consequences for the global economy. As Ice age farmer points out, the already skyrocketing costs of fertiliser (a petrochemical product) and the effective cessation of 40% of the worlds grain supply from Ukraine and Russia will not just lead to high petrol/gas and food prices but to actual shortages. These will affect as usual the 1 billion poor primarily in Africa, perhaps like never seen in modern history.
Hungary and Korea are already preventing exports of foodstuffs, China gas been stockpiling for this event for years. But the goal appears to be purposeful policy of supply shortages to create the “solution” of government (EU in particular) seizure of food output for control and redistribution and rationing.
https://youtu.be/Ctso1KVzL7o
All of the financial messures are having a real effect on currencies as well. Alternatives by the global south will be sought after destabilising Western currencies and creating the crisis for the CBDC solution.
That this whole crisis wasn’t a confection (again) by very sinister forces is becoming difficult to support.
https://www.goldmoney.com/research/goldmoney-insights/when-normality-is-exposed-as-a-ponzi
Or that they are taking advantage of the opportunity to further their agenda. Same result either way. The only difference is if Putin is an anti- WEF good guy or not.
I’m pretty sure this was cooked up years ago. Whitney Webb has a good piece on this in Unz.
https://www.unz.com/wwebb/ukraine-and-the-new-al-qaeda/
As the conflict between Ukraine and Russia continues to escalate and dominate the world’s attention, the increasing evidence that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is and has been working to create and arm an insurgency in the country has received considerably little attention considering its likely consequences. This is particularly true given that former CIA officials and a former Secretary of State are now openly saying that the CIA is following the “models” of past CIA-backed insurgencies in Afghanistan and Syria for its plans in Ukraine. Given that those countries have been ravaged by war as a direct result of those insurgencies, this bodes poorly for Ukraine.
Yet, this insurgency is poised to have consequences that reach far beyond Ukraine. It increasingly appears that the CIA sees the insurgency it is creating as more than an opportunity to take its hybrid war against Russia ever closer to its borders. As this report will show, it appears the CIA is determined to manifest a prophecy propagated by its own ranks over the past two years. This prediction from former and current intelligence officials dates from at least early 2020 and holds that a “transnational white supremacist network” with alleged ties to the Ukraine conflict will be the next global catastrophe to befall the world as the threat of Covid-19 recedes.
Per these “predictions”, this global network of white supremacists – allegedly with a group linked to the conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine at its core – is to become the new Islamic State-style threat and will undoubtedly be used as the pretext to launch the still-dormant infrastructure set up last year by the US government under President Biden for an Orwellian “War on Domestic Terror.”
Yes I fear this article is right, Ukraine will be the next Syria, unless Russia can block the CIA funded import of arms
the US war and intelligence apparatus has long seen Ukraine as the “next” on its list of proxy wars.
If the history of CIA-backed insurgencies is any indicator, it heralds significantly more destruction and more suffering for its people than the current Russian military campaign.
Ukraine will become a failed state and a killing field.
Those in the West cheering on their governments’ support for the Ukrainian side of the conflict would do well to realize this, as it will only lead to the escalation of yet another deadly proxy war.
What makes you say that?
I get a different impression:
https://www.corbettreport.com/phoney-opposition-the-truth-about-the-brics/
“That this whole crisis wasn’t a confection (again) by very sinister forces is becoming difficult to support.”
That has been my suspicion from the start. If Putin is working unilaterally then he could potentially still throw a spanner in the works. Digital ID and CBDC look inevitable now though.
Putin won’t stop until he has achieved his aims which could be a stumbling block.
Absolutely criminal what’s going on.
A lot of deaths and for what?
It serves multiple power centres interests. CIA MIC look like this has been cooking for a while, This also plays into white supremicist narratives which will be a pretext against domestic deemed terrorists.
See the W Webb article I linked below for Libertarianist.
But I agree these things look inevitable now.
Very, very worrying – they will indeed be looking for the excuse for introducing rationing – this falls into line with the whole Great Reset project.
Control what people think, where they live, what injections they have, whether they are ill or not, what gender they are, how they use their money ( which can be taken off them) what heating they use, what cars they drive and now what they eat….and how long they live!
So much “waking-up” still to be done – so many evil people working against the people.
Just think, this is what our ‘elected politicians’ ( with their ‘duty of care’) are spending their days plotting!
David. I think and hope you are preparing gains this.
I am. Right now. I’m removing funds from my bank while I can, amongst other things.
Another downside (from NATO/western point of view) is that a suffering russian public might pull together and increase Putin’s popularity, much like mass bombing in the second world war had the opposite effect, it didn’t demoralise at all.
Quite astonishing to see the extent that the vast majority of comments are in favour of the invasion of Ukraine and the mass murder it involves…
Why do you say this stuff??? Well quite simply because you feel compelled to disbelieve absolutely everything mainstream channels tell you.
It’s quite a pathetic way to arrive at your damaging and offensive opinions.
The only positive thing is that there are so few of you and no sane people take you seriously.
Offensive?
How long have you been in the offence mob?
What are you doing here?
Does disagreeing with the simplistic propaganda of the West mean you support violence?
So you admit you just disagree with what you are told.
Your colleagues tell you what to think and you go along with it.
Just have a look at the comments.. you all just repeat each other over and over again.
And you repeat the inane ramblings of Biden, Harris and that fat owl, Bunter Johnson.
Again, you just reject everything.. It’s what your tribe does.
My “tribe”? Are you some kind of racist? Hey, if you are then the Azov Battalion has a place for you in its ranks.
Oh yes, let’s see if we can rustle up his fare.
You are mixing up the meaning of different words. Tribe and race are different you know. Go and look them up..
Well he would, wouldn’t he? He’s paid to do that, but it’s hard to get decent staff, clearly.
You will find that I don’t repeat anything.
Perhaps you are saying the invasion hasn’t happened.
What is the difference between what you state immediately above and your regurgitation of the Lavrov School of Ethics…?
What you are all saying is it’s not Putin’s fault. It is that simple!
Obviously he has started an invasion and is killing and planning to kill many more and acquire another country…..
It’s the fault of the West, what don’t you understand. Do you blame Churchill for D Day?
Everything is either black or white to you, there is no in-between. BBC GOOD, Guardian GOOD, everything else BAD.
By the way, why do you end your sentences with an inordinate series of periods, such as this: Obviously he has started an invasion and is killing and planning to kill many more and acquire another country…..
I know from experience that people who pepper their scribblings with random periods are apt to suffer from personality disorders. Why do you do it?
Are these five needless periods supposed to make your comment look intellectual, or are they simply decorative?
Sometimes people see this in a text […] and whilst not knowing what it stands for, thinks it looks cool. Is this you? Do you think that a random series of full-stops makes you look cool?
Glad I annoy you……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
blatant lie that russian forces target civilian objects and nuclear plants is making this conflict much worse. It feeds hysteria.
Blatant lie by who??
100% of commenters deny that russian forces target civilian objects and nuclear plants.
14/17 in support the invasion.
Judging by the comments, it seem most excuse the violence, using Kremlin Rhetoric. Some might call this Russian propaganda.
i don’t think anyone here is in favour. but in order to stop this you need to see the full picture including how it started. Western MSM is failing people once again.
How it started is not difficult to understand. Putin decided to attach a country that is not threatening Russia. The pathetic reasoning he stated is nonsense, but all you idiots swallow it, and blame not-Russia.
Who is doing the invading??????? Blame that party.
Ukraine was behaving like a de facto NATO member with a lot of weapons sent by the west and taking part in joint missions (there are plenty of evidence if you bother looking beside BBC). this weaponry is wreaking havoc in the eastern breakaway regions (although kind of artificial and created by Russia). The fact how disappointed Zelensky sounds about NATO non involvement tells you a lot. It tells you he considered Ukaraine to be a part of it. Also, Putin’s claim about nazi ideology infiltrating Ukrainian forces is supported by independent analysis here (and elsewhere) for example
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/04/how-zelensky-made-peace-with-neo-nazis/
look, no one is saying invasion is good. I pray for Ukrainians and I pray for Russians and I pray for stupid young european idiots to go there to fight and die. And I’m scared that there is no end game in site but only hysteria and headless chicken mode actions
What do you think should happen next?
Oh dear, your knowledge and understanding of the crisis in the Ukraine is no better that Kamala Harris’s. “So, Ukraine is a country in Europe, it exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So, basically, that’s wrong, and it goes against everything that we stand for.” Lol!
Are you saying it is right?
nothing “lol”about it.
it is , in short, the exact situation.
or do you want to deny there are russian soldiers in ukraine?
Which country is being attached?
You must have just graduated from a former Polytechnic not knowing how to spell ‘attacked”.
and you just graduated from the “how to be an asshole “school i guess.
You misconstrue criticism of NATO, the EU, the US and the West in general for it’s aggressive move eastwards, with support for Putin’s reaction those moves. You might find many of the opinions expressed here offensive, but if one thing is certain, they are better informed than yours.
Consider that the massive delusion is all yours!
Unless of course you have a paid job to do.
Yes he’s probably works in the troll boiler room, but they can’t get decent staff only paying minimum wage. They get leek instead, poor old NATO.
like your job in st petersburg you mean?
31 / 25 in favour of the Ukraine invasion by Russia.
How come there is not a single rational voice in the UK parliament to actually come up with a feasible plan to stop this madness asap. All have fallen to hysteria based on fake and half fake stories about bad Russians and good Ukrainians. Invasion is bad and the most blame is on Putin, but It started long ago (with NATOs/west involvement as well) and ended with a horrible war in the heart of Europe.
Who invaded????
When and where? Are we talking about 6th June 1944? Or 22 June 1941?
February 2022..
none so blind than those that will not see?
you know damn well when and were.
but you do not like the answer, now do you?
11 out of 13 in favour of the invasion.
you can ask but you will never get an answer….
Ever wondered why the vast majority of Ukrainian refugees are heading west rather than into Russia?
Same reason African and Middle Eastern refugees are fleeing France and crossing the Channel in rubber dinghies? Do I get a prize?
Ever wondered why hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have left Donbas for Russia since 2014?
any proof for that?
Leek’s learnt to sealion
Give it a medal
Ah, the resident single down-ticker that used to call him-/her-/it-self “rational” has reappeared with its new handle, “leek”.
How long will this bout of ineffectual trolling last until you get frustrated enough to change your handle yet again and retry under a new pseudonym?
For anyone that’s interested, leek isn’t your regular type troll, this poor fool actually wants to be taken seriously. He’s highly narcissistic to the point of having a personality disorder, I’d reckon he’s of the type that suffers from a paraphilia and attempts hide it under the guise of being transgender.
He really does, though, want to convert people on here to what he assumes are the correct beliefs. His narcissism can’t handle it when he inevitably fails and he then slinks off and creates a new pseudonym for himself. You can tell by the simplistic way he rationalises and responds that he is mentally underdeveloped.
Anyway, for you to have been on here as “rational” making an utter idiot of yourself and now to be back as “leek” engaging in the same idiocy? It seems you don’t have one shred of dignity or shame.
Keep going… perhaps you will overheat and self-combust..
well, it takes one to notice one?
you sir, are a narcissist pur sang.
with a touch of megalomania sprinkled in.
in short: a royal pain in the ass.
what you do not seem to get, is that leek is not trying to convince you.
he probably knows that is an impossibility. your narcissism…
what he does do is to expose you for the sorry excuse for a human being that you are.
and i have decided to spend him a helping hand in doing so.
Refugees normally go in a direction away from the battlefront and advancing forces.
Because they don’t know you are here.
An interesting parallel between our half-arsed response to the ‘pandemic’ and this one to Russia’s aggressive move. One conclusion might be that our ‘leaders’ are mostly half-arsed.
I would appreciate your definition of “half-arsed.”
If it’s nothing else, this business serves as a superb smokescreen for various nefarious acts. Information from “eugyppius” in Germany, is that Lauterbach, the Health Minister there, is preparing to rush and push a draconian Covid “containment” law through their parliament, with a 70 minute guillotine on the debate of it.
lauterbach , the corrupt nutcase. ( both designations being quite accurate)
and with the state germany is in, and that has nothing to do with ukraine, he might even succeed.
but then again, germany, the country were nazism was invented…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH_2ts68bUE&ab_channel=TheDuran
Russia’s strategy in Ukraine follows Syria model
Latest instalment from the Duran on the ukraine crisis.
No Russia Today – cut off.
Anyone able to find a link for me?
https://odysee.com/@RT:fd?view=content
Wow thanks, I could not bear having my information blocked. I felt outraged!!!!
The declining powers, in this order, are:
The West needs to remove its obsession with GDP as a measure of prosperity – anyone who has ever analysed restructuring of loss-making conglomerates into profitable organisations turning over 30-50% of previous revenues knows that economic health is not primarily tied to GDP.
I don’t find this article particularly compelling, apart from the suggestion that the West doesn’t necessarily know what it is doing.
Agreed about GDP and prosperity, but the following comparison is useful:
And which is the currency of choice for – lets say a good proportion – of non US populations?
Your figures for Russian debt:GDP are out of date, and getting worse, as soon as you type your financially illiterate tripe.
2 Europe’s banking system is the most out of balance in the planet. It won’t take much of a slide in corporate yields, which are all but inevitable with the rise in inout prices, the capitalisation of these banks will require bailouts and bail ins.
The Euro is probably going to be one of the shortest experiments in a multinational currency ever seen.
The following statement is absolutely cretinous:
The same idea appears in the scribbling in the Independent by my top nomination for the 2022 Idiot of the Year prize, Ahmed Aboudouh:
That kind of idiocy can only be written by a person who doesn’t understand the meaning of the term “information war”, or, for that matter, “war” – the kind of person who lives on Sh*tter and Faecebook, as most journalists do nowadays.
The home population in A is not keen on the leadership in B. Ooh-er! So the f*** what? Would you expect them to be? That doesn’t mean B has lost either in the information war or in any other domain of warfare. Was Russia dependent on support from Twitter users in the west?
Mr Aboudouh’s Sh*tter and Faecebook friends think Putin is an a*sehole. Putin won’t be invited to Ascot this year. No address to the Commons for him. No invitation for a slap-up dinner at an Oxford college will ever be winging its way to Putin now. I bet Putin is miffed about all of that, eh, Mr Aboudouh.
This is what a lot of creeps and snobs don’t understand: many people don’t want what they want.
The same observation can also be made when British foreign-desk journalists cover China and come out with stuff about China “saving face” in the west, as if they’re really sophisticated for understanding about the role of “face” in eastern Asia and China in particular. In the given context, usually the Chinese leadership couldn’t care less about photo opportunities with the British royal family or whatever the supposed story is – and Chinese government analysts must think the British analysts are infantile fools for thinking so. A Chinese government minister doesn’t think the same way about meeting a member of the British royal family as some dimwitted creep of a western journalist does.
The Russian prosecution of this war isn’t to do with getting likes on Twitter. Twitter is a CIA asset and always has been. Nobody in the Russian high command gives a toss whether Russia gets lots of likes on Twitter or not. Of course it’s not going to get lots of likes on Twitter when it’s at war in the Ukraine. That’s not “losing the information war”; it’s just an observation of a largely irrelevant fact, a fact that is exactly what you’d expect.
Incidentally, Mr Aboudouh receives “Atlanticist” money, as a non-resident fellow with the Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council, an organisation that exists to promote NATO.
Even though there is a good case for saying that Western policy towards Russia and in Ukraine, has been a mess, and has contributed to the current situation, even if, pre-invasion, there is a fair case for saying that Russia’s view that Ukrainian NATO membership posed a threat is legitimate, the proposed solution here goes too far in simply conceding that tanks can strategically roll into neighbouring sovereign territory with more or less complete impunity.
Completely agree that no fly zone talk is extremely dangerous and stupid, as is much of the excitable tub thumping and nuclear fearmongering on the broadcast news. But I think the current response is, in a very difficult situation, a reasonable one. I don’t think there’s any reason to suppose that Ukraine would have agreed to the suggested terms – it seemed pretty clear beforehand that they were determined to resist, as is their right. I also don’t think that there’s any reason to suppose that Putin would have been happy to stop at three regions – his rambling speech shortly before the war began and his national destiny nonsense about Russians and Ukrainians being one people (a proposition most Ukrainians plainly don’t agree with) suggests that even if he stopped there for now, tanks would have been rolling into Kiev sooner or later in any event. I just don’t think his own words bear the interpretation that this is purely defensively strategic for him. And handwringing whilst watching expansionist authoritarians violate territorial integrity just doesn’t strike me as the way to promote peace.
So you’re suggesting Putin should have done nothing? Just let Ukraine – a corrupt, volatile state full of neo-Nazi paramilitaries and a puppet leader – join NATO and potentially have nuclear weapons on the border?
And that would have been the way to promote peace….?
“simply conceding that tanks can strategically roll into neighbouring sovereign territory with more or less complete impunity.”
The point that you miss here is that the established international position is precisely that tanks can strategically roll into [or bombers and missiles can strategically attack] neighbouring [or otherwise within reach] sovereign territory with more or less complete impunity. “Complete impunity” is exactly what was achieved by Blair and Clinton in Yugoslavia, Bush and Blair in Iraq, Cameron and Obama in Libya and in Syria etc.
Those actions established that there would be no practical consequences for waging aggressive, illegal wars of choice provided you were acting in alignment with the interests of the dominant power.
That’s unacceptable for anyone not prepared to kowtow to said dominant power.
By claiming to be standing up for a law (or supposed moral code) which there is not even a pretence of the dominant power following, you are in practice not standing up for a law or code in any sense, merely for another tool of domination for said dominant power.
The Russians quite rightly have said: ok we’ve been complaining about you ignoring the rules for decades and you’ve ignored both us and the rules. So it’s clear the rules have no force as far as you’re concerned. Now we aren’t going to follow those rules either.
In a realist world where the use of force is an accepted tool of policy, there can be no real criticism of Russia for using that tool in the situation it found itself, of facing an existential threat from a power with a track record of waging aggressive wars and a culture of hatred of Russia.
They satisfied the just war demands of trying every possible alternative, but were basically dismissed with contempt by the US and its European satellite states, who said in effect: “we’re going to continue arming the Ukraine and integrating it into NATO, and there’s nothing you can do about it”.
That’s the reality, not the fluffy fantasy of heroic goodies and evil baddies you seem to have bought from the manipulative liars of our media and political elites.
(And as a matter of observable fact,.Russia is not waging any kind of mass bombing or brutish civilian-slaughtering campaign, but in fact has been extremely careful to as far as possible target only the military and their means of continuing the fight. Again, contrary to the obvious propaganda you seem to have swallowed whole.)
A world in which war is not a legitimate tool of state policy is a worthy aspiration (whether it’s realistic I’m not sure), but in order to appeal to it you first need to make it a real thing. If we had it in the immediate post-Soviet years, it was destroyed by the actions of the US in its satellite states, in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria etc.
The’s the issue you should be addressing – first holding to full account Clinton, Blair, Bush, Cameron, Obama and the rest to show the rules are real, before you try to apply them to others.
Class.
You are shit at spelling too…
The only thing this really shows is that there’s no qualitative difference between people agitating for and against Corona politics: This article is exactly the same kind of fear-mongering whatiffery about the unknown future which used to be used for justifying lockdowns etc. It’s also just another repetition of Let’s give the Russians what they want by ethnically cleansing Ukraine! Ukrainians don’t matter. If we tell them to stop fighting and just suck up to it, they surely will!
That’s the same breath-taking arrogance the head harpyie of New Zealand also shows towards people who get in her way. The Ukrainian government may – with considerable support from the population – have decided that it wants to fight the Russian invasion. But Big Nanny USA thinks that’s just not good for them.
It’s being widely reported in alt media Zelensky has fled, taking up refuge in the US embassy in Poland:
https://thewarsan.com/ukrainian-president-zelensky-flees-to-poland/
Ukrainian MP Ilya Kiva says Zelensky has left Ukraine and is at the US embassy in Poland.
https://odysee.com/@ChangingTimes:4/ZELENSKY-HAS-LEFT-UKRAINE-AND-IS-AT-THE-US-EMBASSY-IN-POLAND:3
Ilya Kiva picture seems to match on image search, but can’t confirm the translation, can anyone translate?
ITV: “Putin threatens war on any third party creating Ukraine no-fly zone“.
What a choice of phrase “third party” is, for a power that flies its war planes to defend A’s airspace when A is at war with B!
Nobody should forget: a NATO NFZ in Ukraine means NATO bombing air bases in Russia – assuming the NATO planes manage to get into the sky before their own bases are bombed.
According to what I could gather from the web, the NATO has 22 planes in the area. That’s not exactly much to establish air superiority over a territory about 2.5 times as large as the UK, hence, it’s inconceivable that there’ll be any left for entirely pointless bombing tourism in Russia.
And then, armchair strategists who still haven’t learnt that strategic bombing doesn’t work (it’s the military equivalent of car drivers honking their horns to express their anger) don’t get to make such decisions.
Riddle for advanced thinkers: How come the NATO maintains a no fly zone for Russian war planes over the territory of its member statement without bombing Russia?
It certainly is a serious situation. Russia is a nuclear superpower, whilst America is a nucular superpower. I have never understood the difference in the two weapon sets, it is probably a state secret anyway. If I was forced to guess, I would surmise that whilst a nuclear bomb unleashes death, destruction and nuclear winter, a nucular bomb does all the above but also unleashes an impenetrable cloud of ideology and malapropism.
And missing letters.
Appreciating these articles. Even more than ever, Daily Sceptic and Off-Guardian first ports of call for thoughtful commentary on world events.
Don’t forget TCW Defending Freedom and the always excellent UK Column News.
The Deplatforming of A Nation State
https://news.gab.com/2022/03/04/the-deplatforming-of-a-nation-state/
MARCH 4, 2022
The entire nation state of Russia is getting the “Gab treatment” by Big Tech and the globalist regime.
By that I mean they are being systematically purged from the internet all within the span of about a week.
Yesterday Gab engineers discovered a massive anti-Russian botnet on our platform, which we immediately banned. There were hundreds of newly created accounts all sharing the same dozen or so IP addresses. They were reposting, commenting, and liking anti-Russian fake news to the Gab Explore page. Our bot detection systems caught them quickly and we removed them from the platform.
This type of activity is eerily similar to CENTCOM’s Operation Earnest Voice. We have no proof who was behind this activity, all we know is what their agenda was: promoting anti-Putin and anti-Russian propaganda. Gab is not a platform for state-backed PSYOP campaigns. We’re not going to allow this coordinated inauthentic activity to take place in our community, not from foreign state actors and not from our own government.
We also aren’t going to ban a foreign news outlet or Russian citizens for no reason. RT News has been on Gab for over a year now and has never once even come close to violating our terms of service. Gab is now the one place on the internet where you can find RT News and you can do so by clicking here.
Russia just criminalized “disinformation” about the “special operation” violators face up to 15 year prison terms.
https://odysee.com/@RT:fd/russian-military-offensive-in-ukraine-4:7
Back in the day, electric typewriters in the USSR had special circuitry in them to communicate what was typed on them to the KGB. In today’s world they call this “the internet”.
How did they do that without some sort of WiFi network?
With ingenuity. The used typewriter ribbons were collected and sent to the KGB which painstakingly reconstructed everything typed using that ribbon. Great job.
Pathetic!
Russia has just stuffed ‘the West’ by going onto the Gold Standard -India will trade with Russia using rupees – the dollar is now on borrowed time. The Bovine stupidity of Woke Western Leadership and Media is exposed – Parvenu Featherweight Truss lectures veteran Lavrov ( probably the most experienced Foreign Minister in the world ) and tells him (priceless moment) Rostov is in Ukraine – the World laughs!
All the sanctions ( aka economic warfare) against Russia we will be paying dearly for and have started to already – it seems our “leaders” are more interested in suppressing us and ruining our lives to serve the Great Reset than they are in ‘standing off’ Russia.
41% of the world’s population are represented by countries that supported Russia over the Ukraine (not seen on the BBC!). Chew on that one- Barry, Sleepy Joe and Donna Pelosi
According to Truss, the Russians didn’t like what she had to say. More likely, they wished the British had sent someone a bit less dense.
Dunno what parvenu has got to do with it. Non-parvenu hereditary peer Peter Carrington once spoke about Bucharest as if it were the capital of Hungary.
Any idea what that painting is that Lavrov and Truss gave their press conference standing in front of?
Is Zelensky the worst head of government in a European country in recent times?
He has complained that he is Russia’s number 1 target. That may or may not be true, but the sooner this wretch is removed from office the better – for Ukraine, Russia, Europe, and the world.
“Is Zelensky the worst head of government in a European country in recent times?”
Possibly but the class is already full.
Zelensky has spoken to 280 US congressmen (of both parties) asking the US to send warplanes and drones for use against the Russian armed forces.
Is this what happens next – if Joseph Biden and Antony Blinken drag their feet, a phone call gets made and Congress is told to put a boot up them?
There are a number of ongoing indications that certain forces are pushing for nuclear war.
These include the combination of media talk of “offering Putin a golden bridge” with twisting every damned thing he says as if it’s a threat to unleash nukes. In itself – in what’s actually written – this wouldn’t be a window on much, and it wouldn’t be paid great attention by Russian analysts. It’s only what the rulers of the west say to their sheeple. But insofar as that’s what it is, it looks very much like preparing the said sheeple for nuclear war, all to be blamed on wicked Vladimir “Bond film” Putin. Not to put pressure on Putin (because it doesn’t do that), but in reality.
And this would explain a lot of what the past two years have been about, from lockdown to the lowering of expectations of giving family members a “good send-off”, from changes at schools to the installation of “Nightingale hospitals”, not forgetting the acquainting of local authorities (and managers at supermarkets, hospitals, etc.) with the lines of command to be used during a state of emergency. Has a lot of this essentially been a DRILL?
“As soon as Putin’s tanks rolled across the border, why didn’t we suggest ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine, and recognising the three breakaway regions, on the condition that Russia immediately withdraw its forces. ‘Then we’d be rewarding Russia’s aggression,’ comes the reply. And I suppose that’s true.”
That makes Russia sound like a spoiled child who keeps demanding sweets.
In the case of Donetsk and Luhansk there has been military conflict in those areas for several years. The “contact” line is a long way inside them in both cases. Sanctions against the Ukrainian government would be in order.
In the case of Crimea, the annexation (which came after a legitimate referendum) should have been recognised years ago and could be recognised now, unconditionally, and a serious antiwar opposition in any current NATO member state would make this point.
I wonder why Toby himself decided to distance himself from such appalling one-sidedness of British media
PART 2.“Thanks Tom. While you’re at it, could you also put someeconomic pressure on the village these thugs have come from. Make sure that they struggle to finance and feed these bandits. It might not make much a difference in the long run, but it will make it harder for them. Who knows, maybe the rest of their village will have second thoughts about their aggression? We know their Mayor isn’t the most popular guy, and maybe they’ll turn on him.”
That didn’t seem an unreasonable request. It would mean a little hardship for us, but nothing we can’t handle. After all, a neighbour in need is a Neigbour indeed!
As Bob hung up, he left me with some parting words. “Every little bit of help and hope helps Tom. We are just not willing to roll over and let these bastards win. Frankly we’d rather die defending our home and our honor.”
It was hard to argue with that, although I was sure some of others in our neighbourhood watch group would still play armchair quarterback. Hindsight is a wonderful luxury to have, but Bob and his family were under attack and had asked for our help. They knew the risk and wanted to take it. So we started getting some arms over the fence and had everyone else in our group boycott the village down the road.
As we sit here today there doesn’t seem to be any sign of the attackers retreating. Indeed, the signs are ominous. Yet Bob’s family are defending their home valiantly. Despite the minority of naysayers, we stand ready to do what we can, short of actually putting our own families in harm’s way.
What has surprised me most are the keyboard warriors who want to undermine not just our efforts to help, but are dismissive of the spirit and will of Bob and his family. Not to mention that their willingness to subjugate Bob’s home while giving the thugs a propaganda boost.
Apart from rehashing all the mistakes that we made in the build up to this attack on our neighbour, they are also questioning why, if we’re helping our immediate neighbour why we aren’t also being equally supportive and magnanimous to people under attack on the other side of the world. Personally I don’t think ‘whataboutism’ is appropriate when your next-door neighbour is under attack.
There will be a time and a place for such Monday morning analysis. Now is not that time.
I have no idea how this will play out and I fear that Bob and his family will not prevail. However, it was their decision to defend their home with everything they have. Who are we to second guess that decision? Especially as we too have been so vocal in establishing our right to self-determination during the pandemicand taking back our sovereignty during the Brexit row.
Whatever happens, we will know that we didn’t just look the other way during Bob’s time of need. Nor did we give the thugs from the village down the road and their despotic Mayor any succor, nor excuse their violent aggression.
Once this is over perhaps we can come up with a better strategy for dealing with the neighbouring village.
We’ll also still be standing ready to help when the time comes to help Bob and his family rebuild their home.
And that time will come!
Pitiful stuff.
Not sure why you bother with this, well written as it is, in itself.
Basically, you craft a scenario that incorporates all your misconceptions about reality and then seem to think there’s some significance in the fact that it makes your preferred course of action seem the only decent thing possible.
Here’s the thing. The Russians are not expansionist bad guys, they are just a country seeking security just as we would if we were in their shoes, dealing with a problem that has been imposed upon them by a far more powerful rival exploiting and promoting old hatreds together with greed for the greater wealth that rival has.
That’s the reality you would probably grasp if you had actually been closely watching events unfold over the past couple of decades, rather than getting your ideas fed to you by a grossly biased and dishonest mass media and social media, manipulated by a ruling elite and intel agency “deep state” that is heavily corrupt and invested in pushing confrontation (see for instance the extremely well resourced and connected Russiagate and novichok propaganda operations).
“What has surprised me most are the keyboard warriors who want to undermine not just our efforts to help, but are dismissive of the spirit and will of Bob and his family. Not to mention that their willingness to subjugate Bob’s home while giving the thugs a propaganda boost.”
They are right and you are wrong, as a matter of objective fact, on the history and context of this war, and also on your frankly delusional ideas about Russia if you seriously think it’s a threat to us or to the massively wealthier and more militarily and economically powerful US. It’s a bizarre inversion of reality that US propagandists seem to have managed to impose upon the gullible, that the superpower is “threatened” by a far, far weaker state. A testament to the sheer power of propaganda and money. I suppose it reflects the distortion of our culture into one that worships victimhood.
It’s noticeable that the response of the mass hysteria side on this, as it was on covid and on previous war pushes, in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yugoslavia, is to evade discussion of the actual facts and concentrate on insults and on emotional and moral manipulation.
That in itself should be a clue to you that you are on the wrong side.
A response to you in the spirit of your own sanctimony here would be to shout at you about how heartless and evil you are to condemn Ukrainians to the mass death and suffering that will result from your empty “support”, pushing them, from a safe distance of course, to fight a war against overwhelming odds that they could only “win” at the cost of far more than the win could ever be worth. But I’d rather refer you to the hard facts, and the realist analysis of John Mearsheimer and others.
We can all chip in for your ticket over there to fight if you like Clive, you’ll get a free AK, and if you live through it we’ll get you an “I’m not a hypocrite” plaque to put on the wall.
Make sure to head off to the Eastern Boarder so you can see the kind of people you’ll be fighting with, though I doubt you’d really want to wear their insignia, also talk to the people who’ve been experiencing the artillery raining down on their children for the last 8 years and see how they feel about this “invasion”, that’s the people you’ll be shooting at, and on the way back visit Odessa to talk to the people who witnessed the massacre in The Trade Union House since you seem unable to comprehend anything that happened prior to two weeks ago, you’d be shooting at them too.
in short: Don’t be like Bob.
You are wrong about the “keyboard warriors”.. They are actually cheerleaders for the Mayor and the thugs. According to them Bob has it coming and will happily see the next house attacked also.
All this because they teach each other what to believe, suspend reason abandon morals and shout from a place of hiding..
A Friend In Need Is A Friend Indeed.
PART ONE. A few days ago I was sitting at home breathing a sigh of relief that it looked like our village had put Covid behind us when I saw something alarming on our neighbourhood watch RING video security system. There was a gang of men surrounding our next-door neighbour’s house.
Then the phone rang. It was my neighbour Bob. “High Tom, you might have noticed we have a problem” he said. “A heavily armed group of thugs from the village down the road have surrounded us and demanded we hand over our home to them.They say they used to own the home and now want it back! We are short on guns and ammo, so would you mind sending some over?”
It occurred to me that this threat had been with us for a while, and that maybe we had been short sighted in not building better relations with the village these guys came from. Indeed, we may have miscalculated and been over aggressive in expanding our own village boundary.
Still, when a neighbour is under attack, don’t we have a moral duty to help out?
“Sure Bob” I replied. “Of course we’ll do what we can, but are you sure fighting back is a smart idea? They have more men who are better trained. Even if we send you some weapons, the strong likelihood is you’re still going to get your ass whipped and maybe even all get killed in the process. Maybe you’d be better off capitulating and trying to work out a settlement? You know, maybe give them the bottom part of your garden that leads down to the river?”
Bob replied, quickly and assertively. “Tom, I appreciate your concern for our welfare, but I’m buggered if we are going to give up without a fight and let these violent thugs take everything we have built up over the last decade. My home is my castle. Having fought so hard to get away from the shitsdown the road, we aren’t going to surrender.”
Bob was resolute and firm. “Alright Bob, we’re on it” I replied.
Did your neighbour enjoy the company of Nazis?
Did your neighbour let the Nazis kill and terrorise his annoying step kids?
Did your neighbor rule his household with an iron fist, putting his wife in a locked room so she didn’t argue with him?
Did your neighbour run drugs and traffic women through his house?
Did the gang that came to his house armed ever try to negotiate?
Did your neighbour invite his friends who had nukes to come and live them threatening the armed thugs?
Nonsensical isn’t it?
Do some research.
All three predictions will not happen at all.
What most people don’t know is that international jewry has planned a WW3 back in the 19th century; what we are seeing is a deliberate engineered ‘crisis’ illusion in order to continue to prepare the right conditions to unleash that WW3.
And no, I’m not making things up, Lenin also mentioned that 19th plan to engineer 3 world wars – google it.
Understand that nation’s leaders are only puppets who obey a script given to them by characters well above their heads, characters which are intermediaries between the jewish bankers and nation’s leaders.
I got enough quotations to prove all the above…
Is it Mental Health Week, or something?
Yep, I understand – the truth is stranger than fiction.
Maybe you should read “The Hidden Tyranny” with Harold Rosenthal… or even the “protocols of the Elders of Zion”… or “The Jewish Utopia”…
Gen. Albert Pike, American Freemasonic Pontifex, vision received in 15th August, 1871:
– “ The First World War must be brought about in order to permit the Illuminati to overthrow the power of the Czars in Russia and of making that country a fortress of atheistic Communism. The divergences caused by the “agentur” [agents] of the Illuminati between the British and Germanic Empires will be used to foment this war. At the end of the war, Communism will be built and used in order to destroy the other governments and in order to weaken the religions…
– ” The Second World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences between the Fascists and the political Zionists. This war must be brought about so that Nazism is destroyed and that the political Zionism be strong enough to institute a sovereign state of Israel in Palestine. During the Second World War, International Communism must become strong enough in order to balance Christendom, which would be then restrained and held in check until the time when we would need it for the final social cataclysm…
– ” The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the “agentur” of the “Illuminati” between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam [Moslem Arabic World] and political Zionism [the State of Israel] mutually destroy each other. Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral , spiritual and economical exhaustion…We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity, whose deistic spirits will from that moment be without compass or direction, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer ,brought finally out in the public view. This manifestation will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time.”
so let’s hand ukraine to putin.
and why stop there?
latvia, lithuania,estonia?
but why stop there?
poland, ?
but why stop there?
all of western europe?
we do not know what would have happened if chamberlain and daladier hadn’t given sudetenland to hitler.
we do know what happened after they did though…
and as always: remember flight MH 17 !
Supplying weapons to Ukraine would be pointless if the Ukrainians were not prepared to risk their lives using them. But (and this must seem incomprehensible to Noah) the Ukrainians are actually really keen to fight for the continued existence of their homeland.
And that’s the whole point that Noah and all the Putin appeasers and apologists don’t get. It’s up to the Ukrainians to decide. Not Putin.
You really are clueless.
This is true, but ~1/2 of them are native Russian by heritage, the puppet government have been systematically waging a sectraian war againt them for 8 years, using actual Nazis to do it.
It’s not as simple as your little MSM programmed mind thinks it is.
No: you are really clueless. You assume that a Ukrainian of Russian heritage will automatically side with Putin. That is not the case – as proved by Zelensky.
That’s not what I said.
So, do you approve of Russia’s invasion?
YES or NO?
No.
Do you aprove of US and NATO instigating a coup, installing a puppet governement, provocong Russia into invading, instigating a sectrarian attack on it’s own population, murdering it’s own citizens for 8 years, murdering opposing journalists, censoring opposing TV stations, arresting politicians, banning the main oppersition political party, and funding Nazis, YES or NO?
Does that mean you condemn the invasion, or just abstain?
Does that mean you condemn US and NATO instigating a coup, installing a puppet governement, provocong Russia into invading, instigating a sectrarian attack on it’s own population, murdering it’s own citizens for 8 years, murdering opposing journalists, censoring opposing TV stations, arresting politicians, banning the main oppersition political party, and funding Nazis, YES or NO?
you seem to not appreciate that the russian invasion of ukraine is a fact that even you do accept as such.
while all you bring forward is not factual unless you do provide proof.
so you prove all the allegations you made and then you might demand an answer…
and in the meantime: remember mh 17
You say no….
But you blame the west for the invasion and also Russia censoring it’s journalists, arresting politicians, banning opposition political parties.
So can you explain why the Ukrainians are fighting so hard against Russian annexation?
Having a Russian heritage doesn’t mean they don’t like democracy, freedom and prosperity.
So keep to your principles of objection,,,
They’re fighting for their homeland, that doesn’t mean they support a puppet government, a government that is supporting Nazis that want to exterminate them. They voted againt NATO membership remember. They want democracy, Zelensky won’t let them have it.
It’s not black and white.
Stop telling me what my priciples of objection are, it’s arrogent and unbecomming.
@Leek @ AHotston Read and learn:
United Nation Forum on Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law
Written statement on violations of human rights by Ukrainian Parliament.
https://www.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/WopiFrame.aspx?sourcedoc=/Documents/Issues/Democracy/Forum2018/UspishnaVarta_2.pdf&action=default&DefaultItemOpen=1
Do you back the Russian invasion yes or no?
No answer – he loves Putin.
you replied to him 3 mins after the post, don’t be a dick, I’m not here 24/7 like you paid trolls…
is that how long it took you to change screen names? BUSTED
Idiot. You can’t conceive that there might be two people who independently reach the conclusion that you are a contemptible appeasing maggot?
It’s a complex task, not taught at sceptics school.
Ever looked at zelensky’s election results?
and whom are they fighting against for their homeland?
i believe it to be the russians….
when did they vote against nato membership?
and even if they did, so what?
sure the nazis want to exterminate the ukrainians……….
how is the weather in st petersburg?
comrad, go ask your boss wladimir for a new assignment…
This article presumes that Russia is bad and Putin is evil. Putin was democratically elected twice and then again for a third time. Putin delivered a respectful speech to his citizens explaining why Russia had to carry out an incursion into Ukraine and the history leading up to this. Russia has tried to deal with the West for neatly 15 years regarding its concerns. All the Western leaders have mocked and belittled Putin and his beloved country.
Enter President Trump who understood the Russian concerns and also knew exactly that the Ukraine was corrupted by Obama and Clinton. The Laptop from Hell was released and then covered up by the Democrats and CIA. UK was deeply involved as was EU. To have such a large body of people determined to destroy your country in the way they destroyed Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, etc etc etc would make the you extremely angry. To insult your country by refusing to listen and then offer NATO membership to corrupt cartels whilst belittling your proud nation would drive anyone to war.
I am deeply ashamed that the West had bern hijacked by such evil people as Blair, Clinton, Obama, Bush, Cameron , Johnson and the marxists sitting in Brussels. I am saddened that many Europeans have taken the cool aid yet again. But we are where we are. President Putin is not mad or bad. He lives his country and its people and he wants to protect them. Western leaders live themselves and the money they can make from their citizens. Wouldn’t it have been better if we stopped the hate and jealousy of other countries and started to trade with them, respect their cultures instead of trying to impose a central banking system that benefitted the Globalists cartel and learned how to live with our differences instead of crushing anything that went against the narrative of control.
“Putin was democratically elected twice and then again for a third time. “
WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM?
“I am deeply ashamed”
Well you should be…
What a disgustingly mendacious comment, made whilst Ukrainians (and Russian cannon-fodder) are dying. The Daily Sceptic is becoming The Daily Cesspit, a propaganda outlet for Putin fans.
and a paid troll like you, under both names.
As a matter of interest, what is my other name? And why am I being paid when it’s you that’s supporting your idol (& boss) Putin?
The word troll is one of the first they teach sceptics. It is to be used when someone asks for some justification, reason, truth or decent behaviour.
But really it just means you have a weak case and know it.
What exactly is disgusting about it? It is possible to not support the invasion but at the same understand the role the west has played in provoking it. That does not logically make someone a Putin lover.
The disgusting bit is describing Putin’s speech to the Russians as “respectful”. There’s nothing respectful about lying to your country in order to justify the unprovoked invasion of a neighbouring country, claiming that it was essential. Nothing bad would have happened if Russia hadn’t invaded.
It is possible to not support the invasion and understand. But that is not what the vast majority here are doing.
I challenge you to find posts, where someone says this invasion is wrong and appalling. BTW ” I don’t support” falls far short of condemning.
Secondly, when people universally reject MSM information, and just accepts the opposite, there can be no credibility.
Thirdly, it is becoming commonplace to attribute the blame for subsequent russian more brutal actions on Ukrainians putting up a defence.
We’ll put.
“his beloved country..”
that is where you broke character, comrad.
how is the weather in st petersburg?
better ask ÿour boss vladimir for another assignment.
and as always: remember flight mh 17.
Not often on this bit – what a load of cows’ hit!
Surely it makes sense to stop the bloodshed and negotiate a settlement where Russia is not seen to lose and the pro-Russian Ukrainians can again be part of Russia. That would be to redraw the eastern border of Ukraine further to the west and ensure all parties agreed the new border position in perpetuity. This could in my opinion have been negotiated before the fighting started and although probably what neither party wanted at the time, but the Ukrainians now I’m pretty certain would have taken it, instead of the destruction of their country and killing of innocent civillians which is happening now and Putin’s popularity cannot be improved by the significant number of his soldiers going home in body bags.
In any event it would be best if the Americans made a better attempt to live alongside Russia. Part of the problem in America is that they are driven by arms companies chasing profits at any expense to the world. War, the heavier the better in Europe suits them so they can sell more armaments and encourage their government and others that they need more of them.
This situation is similar to the big pharma companies chasing their profits by shutting down everything but the extreme distorted reports and computer models about Covid to drive governments to buy all the billions of pounds of products associated with it. Look what damage that has done to the world. Its a shame that many people now are only starting to realise it.
It seems to me that these enormous companies are running the world with absolutely no regard to the impact they have, providing they can make massive profits. The American Government is corrupted by their political donations and our government are probably not far behind that situation.
Reluctantly, I increasingly agree that the US Military Industrial Complex is no doubt playing a role to drive an aggressive US policy.
Eisenhower predicted precisely this back in the 50s and he argued that an informed citizenry was the only answer.
Instead, the government has got better at propagandising the citizenry as much of the commentary here suggests.
Did you notice the “negotiations” before the invasion? Perhaps you could look at the Russian demands. They never intended to negotiate.
you do appreciate that russia guaranteed the “old” border when ukraine left the soviet union?
and that russia once before in 2014 already had invaded ukraine?
as always: remember flight mh 17
I do not support the invasion.
However, it is super clear that the west has provoked this by manipulating Ukrainian politics, arming the country and emboldening Zelensky to poke the bear. There has also been a civil war in place over the past eight years in which I believe 8,000 people already died, no doubt enabled with western arms too. The Minsk Accords were never implemented either.
The possibility of Ukraine acquiring nuclear weapons that was raised at the Munich Security Conference and not repudiated by the western powers may have been the final tipping point.
Russia really does see NATO as an aggressive alliance. We may disagree but the US led western alliance has a track record of waging aggressive war far from home: for example in Serbia, Libya, Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria and Iraq. All of these have led to serious losses of civilian lives and Great Britain provides the arms too for the Saudis to keep bombing Yemen. We may say these “interventions” were all justified but a less sympathetic party may disagree. Putin has had his share of interventions too but there is no absolute good and absolute evil here.
In an ideal world Ukraine could choose the alliances she joins with total freedom. It would be nice. But the world does not work that way. She is right next door to Russia (unlike the countries we have chosen to attack) and provides an ideal invasion path across the flat steppes. We all know too how Kennedy responded to Cuba aligning itself to the Soviet Union in 1962. The sanctions are still in place, 60 years later. The US does not allow Cuba freedom to align with whomever she may choose and the US still applies the Monroe Doctrine that expressly forbids any involvement by an overseas power in the Americas. Consider the scenario of China arming Mexico and her joining a Sino Mexico military alliance. Does anyone think America would allow this?
The west is deeply culpable for this war, is being hypocritical and frankly needs to calm down. Creating a false narrative that Putin is some form of Hitler would be laughable if it were not so dangerous. If he were bent on world conquest then he has taken a long time to get going in earnest given he has already been in power twenty years. He leads a multi ethnic state and there is no evidence of any leanings toward genocide. I have studied the Third Reich in detail and there is no comparison with todays Russia.
India and China both refused to support sanctions. They get what is really going on. India is also a genuine democracy, of course.
Promising to fight to the last Ukrainian (which effectively is what our evil politicians are saying) will not exactly help. Fermenting an insurgency with western support and money will lead to yet another quagmire. All they are achieving is to stoke up Ukrainian resistance (much of which seems to be posing on social media – not sure what is happening with respect to actual fighting) rather than driving to a settlement.
Why are western politicians not seeking to negotiate an end to this conflict? Instead they are escalating the tension and making it personal rather than figuring out how to end it. Says to me that they have an agenda and actually welcome the current situation.
So, do you disapprove of the invasion?
i do not think that you can expect a russian agent to answer that question.
i must say is has become a lot harder to spot the russian operatives like stephensceptic.
they are getting quite good at wrapping their message in benign sounding wordings.
I do not approve of the invasion.
I am not a Russian operative.
I did study Russian History at Oxford under an eminent Sovietologist.
Many years ago.
Painting people who disagree with you and use logic as enemy agents is quite infantile.
exactly what a russian operative would claim now isn’t it?
i recall the cuban missile crisis.
ships carrying the missiles were actually on their way to cuba in the atlantic and where in fact quite near cuba.
now where are the missiles that are supposed to be placed in ukraine?
on a ship in the atlantic?
maybe even on a truck driving across europe on its way to ukraine?
where are they?
you have studied the third reich in detail?
and you can see no comparison?
let me help you .
both hitler and putin are sociopaths.
both hitler and putin do see no harm in betraying the given word.
hitler betrayed the english and the french and putin betrayed the ukrainians.
hitler invaded sovereign countries and putin invaded sovereign countries.
how is the weather in st petersburg?
you better go tell your boss wladimir that you need another assignment….
how is the weather in st petersburg?
you better go ask your boss wladimir for a new assignment.
What about Russia army advancing ‘cautiously’ to minimize impact on civilians and then get the Ukraine, as a whole or partially, back in their arms?
Considering the mediocre policy of the international coalition in Libya, Afghanistan, ex-Jugoslavia, I think it’s time to re-evaluate the criteria for wage war against a sovereign state.