- “Sunak says emergency law will ensure legal action can’t delay Rwanda migrant flights” – Rishi Sunak has announced an ‘emergency’ law to overcome the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling that his plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful, reports Reuters.
- “Rishi Sunak’s new Rwanda plan does not go far enough, say Tory rebels” – Tory rebels have warned that Rishi Sunak’s emergency law to declare Rwanda safe does not go far enough and could still be obstructed by the European Court of Human Rights, says the Telegraph.
- “Suella Braverman’s allies threaten ‘grid of sh**’ to topple Rishi” – A former minister has claimed that six more Tory MPs are joining her in submitting a letter of no confidence in Rishi Sunak amid the fallout from the Rwanda flight decision, reports the Mail.
- “The Tories’ calamitous failure to control our borders has driven them to the verge of oblivion” – Sunak’s Rwanda fightback will fail unless he explicitly rejects anachronistic international conventions, writes Allister Heath in the Telegraph.
- “Don’t blame ‘lefty lawyers’ for the Rwanda debacle” – Rishi Sunak promised to do “whatever it takes” to stop the boats and yet has failed to do so, says Patrick O’Flynn in the Spectator.
- “We can’t let unelected judges dictate our border policy” – The Supreme Court’s Rwanda decision is an affront to democracy, writess Luke Gittos in Spiked.
- “Starmer suffers biggest revolt of leadership over Gaza ceasefire” – Sir Keir Starmer suffered the largest rebellion of his leadership as nearly a third of his MPs, including Jess Phillips, defied him to back a ceasefire in Gaza, reports the Times.
- “Khamenei told Hamas chief Iran will not directly enter war” – Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has reportedly told Hamas that since Tehran was not given prior notice of the October 7th attacks it would not join the war against Israel, according to the Times of Israel.
- “Turkey’s President Erdogan declares Israel a terrorist state” – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said Israel is a “terror state” committing war crimes and violating international law, reports the Mail.
- “On the ground inside Gaza, where Israel is trying to save civilians from Hamas” – In the NY Post, Douglas Murray reports from the frontline in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
- “Israel ‘concrete’ evidence Hamas used Gaza hospital as terrorist base” – Israel has claimed to have found “concrete” evidence that Gaza’s biggest hospital was being used as a terrorist base after hundreds of commandos raided it, reports the Mail.
- “Senior Walsall Labour councillor quits after investigation into ‘abhorrent’ Hitler post” – A senior Labour councillor has quit the party after he was suspended for an “abhorrent” social media post comparing Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler, according to GB News.
- “The struggle for black freedom has nothing to do with Israel” – The belief that Israel is analogous to apartheid South Africa or Jim Crow America has no basis in history, says Coleman Hughes in the Free Press.
- “Orthodox Jews aren’t safe in New York” – In UnHerd, Kelsey Osgood writes that Jews are walking around the city with targets on their backs.
- “Gargling with salt water really can ward off Covid, new study suggests” – In a recent study, researchers found Covid patients who gargled water mixed with saline had up to 40% lower hospitalisation rates, says the Mail.
- “How to make Covid vaccines appear to be ‘safe for pregnancy’” – A recent study on Covid vaccine safety for women aiming to conceive seems to deliberately omit those at a higher risk of miscarriage, specifically within the vaccinated group, writes Igor Chudov on Substack.
- “Mayo Clinic is sued for suspending doctor over online posts on Covid and transgenderism” – Dr. Michael Joyner is suing the Mayo Clinic over disciplinary actions related to his public comments on gender differences in athletic performance and COVID-19 treatment, according to Reclaim The Net.
- “Whatever happened to the AstraZeneca FOI?” – HART provides an update on its Freedom of Information request regarding AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
- “The return of moderniser Dave completes the Tory cycle of self-destruction” – David Cameron, Britain’s new Foreign Secretary, was the leader who first set the Conservative party on the road to ruin, writes Gerald Warner in Reaction.
- “Charities ‘debanked’: Regulators blast banks for closing accounts” – The U.K.’s three charity regulators have criticised big banks for “suddenly closing or suspending” charities’ bank accounts, according to This is Money.
- “Why are so many young people single?” – In the Spectator, John Mac Ghlionn explores the reasons why an increasing number of young Brits are single.
- “Bill Gates is buying up land, threatening farms, new book claims” – A new book claims to reveal how billionaires like Gates, Jeff Bezos, George Soros and Mark Zuckerberg plan to control every aspect of daily life, says the Mail.
- “Glasgow City Council makes almost £500,000 from LEZ” – New figures have revealed that Glasgow City Council made £478,560 from the Low Emission Zone in the four months from June to the end of September, reports the BBC.
- “Activists shut down Edinburgh Castle smashing open the case holding the Stone of Destiny” – Edinburgh Castle was partially locked down after eco-activists smashed a glass case containing the Stone of Scone, says the Independent.
- “Scholz Government in crisis after budgetary manoeuvre to fund Green climate fantasies with unused Covid funds is declared unconstitutional” – On Substack, Eugyppius discusses the latest financial crisis in Germany after a court invalidated a 2021 budget redirecting pandemic funds to climate initiatives.
- “Woman’s Hour presenter Emma Barnett clashes with transgender CEO” – The transgender CEO of an endometriosis charity had to be pressed into using the word ‘woman’ in a car crash BBC interview, reports the Mail.
- “Scotland’s ‘Read Woke’ scheme will have Shakespeare turning in his grave” – The Scottish Government is treating literature as a tool for political indoctrination, says Joanna Williams in CapX.
- “Female boxer withdraws from competition after being matched against male fighter” – A female boxer withdrew from a provincial championship in Quebec after learning that her opponent was biologically male, leading to him winning the competition by default, reports Reduxx.
- “Awful scenes – pro-Palestinian protestors climbing all over the Royal Artillery Memorial” – IncMonocle on X records the desecration of a military memorial in London by the protestors who were outside Parliament earlier in the day.
— Inc.Monocle (@IncMonocle) November 15, 2023
AWFUL SCENES: Protesters climbing all over the Royal Artillery Memorial – the police make zero arrests. The level of disrespect is incredible. Look at where they climb on to at the end. I feel sad for my country. This needs to stop now. Police do nothing
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Regarding “the promise we made to them in 1994”, who’s “we”, asked Tonto ?
“We” are the representatives of Her Britannic Majesty’s Government of Her Majesty’s United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, who travelled at taxpaying plebs’ expense (first class) to Budapest to sign the “Budapest Memorandum” with a jolly expensive pen in December 1994, having shown inherited skills at negotiation, at drafting documents, and at making everybody like us – skills that we honed on the playing-fields and in the showers at Eton. God bless us!
And don’t tell anyone that the Vulgar Types from the USA don’t even trust us to decide when to launch “our own” nukes.
I would point out that they aren’t even too concerned about us launching trident since it was revealed when a test firing went wrong, that NORAD actually controls where trident goes.
Minor correction: United Kingdom of Great Britain.
Northern Ireland was annexed by The Imperial Franco-German Hegemony of Europe – much the same as Ukraine may be annexed by Russia, but in the case of NI without a shot being fired.
The United Kingdom is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, no NI no UK, just GB.
Here’s what “we” promised in 1994. See if you can find anything that requires us to aid the Ukraine in a conventional war (clue: you won’t):
1. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to
Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on
Security and Cooperation in Europe, to respect the independence and sovereignty
and the existing borders of Ukraine;
2. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their obligation to
refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or
political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be
used against Ukraine except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the
Charter of the United Nations;
3. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to
Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on
Security and Cooperation in Europe, to refrain from economic coercion designed
to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights
inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind;
4. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to
seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to
Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon State party to the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an
act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear
weapons are used;
5. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm, in the case of
Ukraine, their commitment not to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear weapon State party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,
except in the case of an attack on themselves, their territories or dependent
territories, their armed forces, or their allies, by such a State in association
or alliance with a nuclear-weapon State;
6. Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland and the United States of America will consult in the event
a situation arises that raises a question concerning these commitments.
Prior to the above various promises were made to the Soviets:
“Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner
Slavic Studies Panel Addresses “Who Promised What to Whom on NATO Expansion?”
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early
But that’s just propaganda aka a lie. Google the subject and you will find a myriad of independent articles that debunk it. The West and NATO made commitments over the employment of troops in the former GDR that they kept scrupulously, but that was all.
Jeez, you still use Google?
You will only ever find what Google deems appropriate.
https://www.corbettreport.com/solutionswatch-presearch/
I’m afraid you’re the one who’s spreading propaganda, aka a lie.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early
NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard
Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner
In your defence, you would no doubt argue that there was no written pledge not to expand NATO east of Germany, and you would be correct. In this Gorbachev was a fool, a trusting fool. He should have insisted — and could have insisted — on a formal treaty ending the Cold War and neutralizing all of Eastern Europe, just as Austria was neutralized when the occupying powers withdrew in 1955 and signed the Austrian State Treaty.
The NATO-Russia Founding Act (1997) declared that “Nato and Russia do not consider each other as adversaries”, and that Nato transformation is “a process that will continue”.
Slam dunk.
What’s the end fans here?
Russia invaded, they won’t stop till they get what they want. The west won’t step in to stop them but are sending old weapons to Ukraine.
we see the devastation on tv 24/7, either step in or butt out.
if we left Russia to get on with what she’s doing we could then still apply the sanctions we are applying and do literally everything we are currently doing apart from not send arms to Ukraine.
normally we should help the invaded but clearly our “help” is limited and Russia will eventually prevail.
EU nations are still funding Putin by buying Russian fuel!!!!
STOP the war, STOP sending arms to Ukraine
STOP buying Russian fuel!! Impose proper meaningful sanctions on Russia.
the west has a history of prolonging wars longer than needed.
korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan are just 3 places that saw many hundreds of thousands needlessly die for no good reason, Ukraine should not need see the same number of dead.
The West is determined to fight with Russia to the last Ukrainian.
That’s the problem
The globalists are determined to distract via Russia to the last Ukrainian.
Doubtless you think the Apollo landings did not take place because the Moon is made of cheese.
And pray tell, what is this oh-so-terrible thing that Russia wants from Ukraine? Hint: it is not annexing the whole country, nor is it bombing it into oblivion.
A so called neutral buffer with no military presence within; given he invaded Ukraine he is going to struggle to sell that to anyone. He could, if he was sincere and with the land space at his disposal within the Russian Federation, claim the high moral high ground and demilitarise a zone wholly within Russia ‘s eastern border from the Baltic to the Black Sea. But no, he wants to retain all his military hardware, nuclear and non nuclear, tanks planes and cruise missiles and force the “buffer on some one else – “you have to do way with your ability to defend yourself because we are threatened by you, so we will not disarm even if you do so because we have invaded you”. And that’s all NATO’s/US/UK/EU’s “fault”?
That is naked aggression – exactly what some one eyed folks here accuse sovereign nations of doing – except there is nil evidence of intent, NATO nations have reduced their armed forces whilst Putin has done the exact opposite.
“Hint: it is not annexing the whole country, nor is it bombing it into oblivion.”
The most stupid, blindly ignorant, statement I have read about the last 3 weeks; so the fact that they have only annexed a “bit” of the Ukraine to date, and only bombed a “bit’ of Ukrainian towns and cities makes Putin’s actions legitimate?
How much “annexation” and oblivion bombing will it take before you decide it is “oh so terrible” ..in your comfy armchair with no air raid sirens going off?
The invasion was a defensive measure to stop NATO getting into Ukraine, and to end the slaughter of ethnic Russians. Years of attempting to negotiate with the West simply failed.
Bullying of ethnic Russians ? Possibly or possibly not given the extent of cross-community partnerships (ie marriage) making it difficult for some to decide which community represents their interests more closely.
As for the rest, exactly: a watered down version of Stalins Ring of Steel, the Warsaw Pact, which he created in an attempt to keep NATO at a distance from his doorstep.
I’m in the unhappy position of believing neither side in this dogfight. As many others have pointed out, it does seem to have worked very well in distracting attention away from the utter horlicks that most governments have managed in their fight against ‘The Pandemic’.
The powers that be would need to be truly evil to seek to distract us by having people killed, and I wish that possibility could be dismissed out of hand.
However… since their efforts at ‘keeping people alive’ over the last 2 years have proved so unsuccessful, one wonders whether deaths among the hoi polloi are really of much concern.
Two years ago the whole world would have dismissed that idea (creating war to dovert attention from ones own governments failures) out of hand.
Perhaps now we are not so sure.
Additionally, it’s unwise to put your hand into the middle of a dog fight and try and separate the combatants.
“The powers that be would need to be truly evil to seek to distract us by having people killed, and I wish that possibility could be dismissed out of hand.”
Death by artillery is the perfect distraction from death by experimental injection, especially when the MSM whores are instructed to exclusively cover the former.
The simple truth …not much of it about.
Yes, and the wonderful thing abut this invasion is that Putin has invented bombs that only hit evil Ukrainian speakers and avoid all the nice ethnic Russians.
You morally bankrupt Putin sycophant – deliberate targeting of civilian areas and the killing of civilians is a “defensive measure”? – and do not bother to reply that this is somehow all the fault of “the West” – I hope you are entirely comfortable living in your fantasy world where a despotic gangster who poisons those who DARE to act/speak out against him, foments separatists, allies himself with benign governments such as those led by Bashir Assad – and he is “threatened” by having numerical superiority in nuclear weapons, tanks, aircraft and Army boots? – facing NATO some members of which until last month were skewered by the US for not spending their dues on their capacity to defend themselves – one of whom , Germany, initially sent 5,000 helmets to the Ukraine?
Pull the other one.
You go first.
Vietnam and Afghanistan the US (west) pulled out after great loss of life on all sides. If they pulled out earlier would have been the same bet result But less death.
There was no great loss of American lives in Afghanistan and not much in the great scheme of things in Vietnam.
But those few were televised every night into every living room just as Covid mortality was decades later.
58,220 American deaths in Vietnam seems a lot to me.
Over how many years ?
If they pulled out earlier would have been the same bet result But less death
Amazing thing hindsight.
Funny how these criticisms are “hindsight” when there were many wise advisers at the time who said “don’t do this, it’s foolish”, but were ignored. Usually shouted down by people using exactly the kind of emotive nonsense we are hearing over Ukraine today – it’s “weak”, “treasonous”, “immoral” etc not to get involved.
This point came up in relation to Vietnam in yesterday’s interview of Col Macgregor:
“I think Biden’s in a position that’s not very different from Lyndon Johnson in this sense. Lyndon Johnson wanted to end the war in Vietnam. In fact there’s a lot of evidence that he didn’t want to go there at all, but it didn’t make any difference because he was afraid that if he didn’t do those things that he would be outed as “soft on communism” and “a friend of the reds” and so forth. And so Johnson found it impossible to simply cut his losses and get out. Which was the right thing to do in 1968/69. All the generals privately said: “this is a waste of time. We’re not going to win it, let’s go.”
Former top Pentagon advisor Col. Doug Macgregor on Russia-Ukraine war
The war in Vietnam started in the mid 1950’s with the French, as I believe Vietnam was part of French Indochina. Note that the USSR helped create the Peoples Republic of China after the Second World War by providing support to the Red Chinese against the White Chinese government.
Try immediately after WWII as a war of liberation…..
It appears that you think the Vietnam war started with the US sending in “advisers”…..try again after you have become better informed.
Start with the Pentagon Papers and then progress to “A Bright Shining Lie” for context.
Our media keep boasting about the crippling economic sanctions imposed on Russia but they are not the reason for her failure to obtain her stated objectives.
I expect every European and American motorist is reminded of those crippling Russian sanctions when they visit filling stations, and householders too when their energy bills arrive.
Still not the reason for Russian failure to achieve objectives.
Russia is outvoted on the UN Security Council 4 to 1. China usually abstains on everything, which leaves 3 Western votes (USA, UK, France) to win the motion.
Doesn’t matter what the vote is, Russia has a veto and has used it.
Sounds like an Ununited Nations Security Council to me.
“Most of the West-backed wars were also UN wars, which means Russia also consented.“
You tried this falsehood yesterday, and it was refuted then:
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/03/16/the-morality-of-supplying-arms-to-ukraine/#comment-756157
“Yugoslavia was flat illegal. Never any possibility of a UN resolution. Both China and Russia said (correctly) that force was not needed or justified and stated they would veto any resolution authorising it. NATO just ignored it, because “they don’t need no stinking law”.
Iraq was flat illegal. No UN authorisation because the French said outright that they did not consider war necessary and would veto any such resolution, leading to Blair’s disgraceful “unreasonable veto” lawlessness. Blair and Bush ignored it because “they don’t need no stinking law”.
On Libya the US sphere shamelessly exploited a resolution allowing for protection of civilians to enact regime change. So no, their action was not authorised by the UN.
In Syria there was no authorisation for the use of force when it was initiated and all kinds of dishonest, spurious “self defence” rationalisations were used.
So you are 0 for 4, basically.“
Russia has veto power at the UN and has used it many times. In the case of the Yugoslav wars, NATO did not intervene in the Bosnian or Croatian wars – not even supplying arms – and then had to watch Serbia (which had taken most of the military kit on the break up of Yugoslavia) bomb the crap out of Sarajevo and massacre refugees in Srebrenica. This was painful and it was the reason they did intervene in the Kosovo war, despite another Russian veto. They did not send it ground forces however.
The first Iraq war was UN sanctioned. The second was insufficiently UN sanctioned.
Libya was UN sanctioned but Russia argues they exceeded their brief.
In Syria the Russian veto rendered the UN useless again. There was no NATO involvement. The US took no military action against Assad and largely avoided boots on the ground in Syria (instead relying on the Kurds and the Free Syrian Army). Syria ceased to exist as a coherent country during the war. The western war was entirely against Islamic State, while Russia/Assad largely fought Syrian rebel groups.
You have of course missed out other UN actions from the list altogether.
In contrast, none of Russia’s wars had UN support. Most of them involved Russia trying to take territory.
So let’s see, you admit that the Yugoslav war was illegal but make excuses for it.
You admit that the attack on Iraq in 2003 was illegal.
You raise no contest to the point that the Libya attack was illegal.
On Syria you admit that there was no UN authorisation but pretend that all the money the US poured into supporting armed insurrectionists never happened and the direct cruise missile attack on Syria never happened either, while making excuses for them nevertheless.
Still 0 for 4.
Gosh, Fingal, I wish I was as clever as you.
You’ve taken the first step – keep working at it, and who knows what you might achieve.
What’s the end
fansgame here?As we speak ferries in the UK are being boarded by men in black balaclavas! Let’s hope the crews put up a good fight with those who are determined to replace them!
Will the Government send in the army? Or are they getting backhanders from this too? Did members of the Government know this was going to happen today?
andother nail in the supply chains coffin then, seems they’re determined to starve us into rationing, where that old chestnut digital ID may be required to get food!
Or alternatively mind our own business and fix our attention on clearing up the mess called our society and economy at home, and bring to trial our rulers who caused it and intend us more harm.
The author would do well to consider that many of those Ukrainian people currently “fighting for their freedom” are in the same category as the Russian conscripts – simply not allowed to leave their country by a despotic “freedom fighter” who denies the freedom of choice to others. Lately Zelensky promised a bullet in the head for those who “collaborate” with the Russians. Some freedom lover, is he?
Also – see Ukrainians fleeing the country – if freedom is so ingrained and un-put-downable, the promise of a warm bed in Poland or Bognor Regis seems to be a mild sedative at least.
Most of the fleers shown on our telly lies bulletins are young women with children.
In contrast to those fleeing war torn Syria.
Yes agree, but women are not women or something (need to check with Sir Keir) so by the thrust of the article they should be staying to fight.
Only because men are not allowed to leave the country. Something which seems to be very under-reported by the freedom loving and gender equality promoting media for some strange reason.
It was reported strongly, when the the law was made.
I would presume that UK young men were not allowed to leave the country during WWs1 & 2, except on Active Service.
It it mandatory to disbelieve what is reported on the news?
Who said ‘I believe’?
He’s a lot of things that the MSM neglect to talk about. I doubt he’s even in Ukraine, with every video of him indoors and wearing a T-shirt while his tan enhances every day. Apparently he’s a duel national with Israel.
He got visited by three moronic heads of state yesterday, so rest assured he is sitting in a bunker in Kiev. And as for the t-shirt, it is just a populist trick to show his idiot supporters how very much of a “common man hero” he is – just like them, ya know. It’s just strange that he is not running through the streets with molotov cocktails he warmly recommended to the citizens whose life and future he cares so much about… must not be so “equal” after all..
His bunker in Kiev must be warm – so warm it progressively gives him a tan. They must also have stashed a load of that expensive presidential decor down there just for the cameras to catch his regular freedom fighting John Conner speeches to the world.
Further to the point about him probably being in Israel (dual citizen – hot climate), interesting that Abramovich is also a dual citizen with Israel and also made a beeline for that country recently.
According to this photographic essay the meeting was faked up in Przemysl on the other side of the Polish border http://johnhelmer.net/the-zelensky-summit-meeting-in-kiev-on-march-15-with-polish-czech-and-slovenian-prime-ministers-was-a-fake-devised-in-warsaw-the-meeting-was-at-przemysl-poland-zelensky-also/
Reminiscent of Biden getting jabbed in a White House mock up film studio.
We see so many fake things and most often they don’t try too hard even to cover up the inconsistencies – they know you can see it’s a fake if you have the critical resources – but trying it on is part of the thrill or something. They may even do I deliberately. There’s this picture of the 7/7 bombers arriving at Paddington – the figure at the back is in part in front of some railings, part behind. What you are looking at is seemingly impossible but they put the picture out all the same. It’s like O’Brien’s fingers in 1984.You have to deny the evidence of your own eyes. And if you point it out you are mad or worse.
Who is he fighting for freedom from?
Why is that bad?
Why does he have such a strong following in Ukraine?
Dear Toby Young,
Why does Ian Rons get a ‘right of reply’ to the other article arguing the opposite, and yet Dr Sam Bailey is denied hers to the (IMHO) hit piece by Dr Roger Watson last week?
How is THAT free speech, from the head of the so-called ‘Free Speech Union’?
Hear! Hear!
She’s already delivered a scathing rebuttal on her website … https://drsambailey.com/covid-19/the-covid-sceptics-who-spread-viral-dogma/
Thanks so much for this. As i don’t check the Sceptic every day, i missed the hit piece.
enjoyed that, she was fully entitled to right of reply – a bit disappointed the editorial team accepted the ad hominem riddled watson paper anyway.
Still, she deserves to respond here with the same level of coverage that Dr Watson had, in order for Toby and his team to be seen to be fair and impartial. Until you gave that link, I’d bet good money most members here didn’t know about her article on her website. Many thanks for publicising it.
Until I emailed her (via her website) the day of the article, she may not have known about Dr Watson’s piece for some while, and thus significant reputational damage would’ve been done.
I think it’s sad and disappointing that Tobey or any of his colleagues have not officially responded to give their reason(s) why they have, in my eyes, not lived up to their free speech label. There’s no way that anyone can legitamtely call Dr Bailey (or her also Doctor husband) as being ‘quacks’.
IMHO them being one-sided in this harms their credibility in the free speech movement.
I should add that I was laughing throughout when I read Dr Bailey’s response article on her website – not because it was rubbish – quite the opposite in fact, because she doesn’t pull her punches in dismantling every one of Dr Wtson’s arguments, but does so in a very disarming way.
No wonder Dr Watson et al never want to either publicly debate Dr Bailey or allow her a right of reply on the outlets they write for.
I have read Bailey’s rebuttal to Dr. Watson and it is nonsense.
“Watson has not provided any evidence for the existence of viruses here: his argument seems to be that other people believe in viruses, therefore viruses exist. Some people also believe in the tooth fairy.”
Childish comparison.
“Dr Stefan Lanka has also outlined the fallacies of “bio-weapons,” including fabricated “viruses” and how they have been used to drive fear into the public for many decades.”
So Bailey is another one who thinks that the hundreds of bio-labs around the world are not working on deadly viruses and her “faith” that “viruses do not exist” will save her from a horrible death.
“Like Watson, Kirsch rapidly retreated when the Baileys, Dr Tom Cowan, Dr Andy Kaufman, and Dr Stefan Lanka all offered to participate in a live debate with his chosen “experts”.”
These people are very good at promoting themselves on video particularly Kaufman who is also a psychiatrist and understands Neuro Linguistic Programming. It is no wonder busy “real” scientists don’t want to debate with them on video. The way Kaufman hijacked a video conference and abused Dr Judy Mikovits was disgraceful.
“How is a PCR result that “diagnoses” a disease on the basis that a positive result means you have the disease, falsifiable?”
No scientist has ever said a PCR test can diagnose a disease, it has always been known that it can detect a virus but not a disease.
“the appetite for the content we produce seems very healthy …. the audience still grows every week.”
And here we have the main reason for Bailey and others to abandon what was left of their careers in main stream science and medicine. It is more profitable to hold outlandish views as it brings in more money from the gullible.
I can hardly blame the likes of Lanka and Bailey for abandoning the killing fields, AKA: healthcare.
You mean going to the dark side.
Don’t know about U.K., but in the US, healthcare is almost certainly the leading cause of death. Heart disease and cancer cry, “What about us ?”
Lanka was an obscure marine biologist and thankfully has nothing to do with healthcare.
Lanka lives YUGELY, in your head, rent-free.
Anyone who believes that viruses do not exist are an irrelevance.
You missed the link to your website.
Thanks for reminding me.
I’ve updated it with mention of her ridiculous reply to the Dr Watson article.
https://classicrecords1.wixsite.com/the-sceptic/post/sam-bailey-is-another-one-who-has-a-book-about-viruses-not-existing-to-sell-to-the-gullible
“It appears to be more profitable to be a quack than a real doctor these days as shown by her co-conspirator Tom Cowan an ex doctor who handed in his license due to malpractice.”
Translation: Cowan transgressed and was excommunicated from the Cult of Pharmakeia.
The Medical Board of California complained about Cowan for giving an unlicensed drug to a cancer patient without seeing them or reading their notes in 2017 and told Cowan to either surrender his license as there was a disciplinary action against him or be put on probation for 5 years with extra training and banning him from treating cancer patients.
In other words he was “struck off” and is no longer a doctor and now makes a living peddling nonsense to the gullible.
https://quackwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2021/02/cowan_license_surrender_2021.pdf
He folded and decided to comply … https://www.bitchute.com/video/P1QpCIkwF0Zr/
How would you know that without actually reading the book? You sound more like a paid-for troll to me.
Then pretend I’m a “virus.”
Misinformation is like a virus and needs to be corrected.
Your blog is misnamed. It should be named “The Believer.”
As I “believe” in evidence based science you could be right.
Where do you get that ‘fact’ from?
You are completely wrong on all counts there GHF. For one, the medical profession has specifically USED the PCR to ‘diagnose’ illness in ‘COVID-19’, despite all it being a lab tool to amplify certain (as yet conclusively identified) genetic sequences 40x. Ta-da – then you ‘have ‘ COVID according to doctors.
You are also doubly wrong on that last point – Dr Bailey was fired from her very lucrative TV job because she said she wasn’t going to take the COVID jab – nothing more. I suspect she has a FAR lower income now compared to before.
She has offered to debate these people, including on any platform, not just her own, but they always refuse. I’m sure she would debate Dr Wtson on Delingpod, or GB News, but I’d put good money on Watson saying no.
As she also states in her response, that NZ non-clincian Watson refers to had to back-peddle all her claims because they were shown to be ALL incorrect when challenged by Dr Bailey and others.
Now who’s the gullible one for believing the other side so blindly with ‘evidence’ that cannot stand up to more than a little scrutiny? I have also yet to see ANY evidence from you, just personal opinions.
Every scientist knows that the PCR test can detect a virus but cannot test for disease.
It has been misused by governments to prolong the draconian measures for the Global Elite Reset.
Being a media whore is very lucrative these days.
As I’ve said they are very good in front of the camera where academics are probably not.
What they don’t do is put their ideas in a scientific paper for academics to scrutinize but they refuse to do it.
The NZ non-clinician you refer to is a highly respected scientist at Waikato University and has not “back-peddled” at all.
I agree with all her condemnations of Bailey but I disagree with her faith in vaccines as I have no faith in them whatsoever.
I will post my “evidence” as it is my stock reply to people like you who do not understand modern virology or “quacks” like Bailey in a separate reply.
“I love the doctors—they are dears;
But must they spend such years and years
Investigating such a lot
Of illnesses which no one’s got,
When everybody, young and old,
Is frantic with the common cold?
And I will eat my only hat
If they know anything of that!”
Herbert AP. The common cold. In: Look back and laugh. Methuen; London: 1960. pp. 115–117.
The facts showing that viruses exist ……
Viruses are a quirk of nature and there is scientific debate on whether they are living organisms or not. It has always been know that it is impossible to “isolate” a virus in the dictionary sense. (A similar concept to the quirk of nature in Quantum Mechanics whereby light can be a particle or a waveform).
Viruses have been proved to exist by modern virology through experiments with a living isolated single human cell infected with a virus and shown to infect a different living healthy human cell without the virus. (Modern Virologists have always known that viruses cannot be “isolated” or “purified” in the dictionary sense of the word as viruses are only evident when attached to a living cell). Mock controls are done in almost every case using the same known liquid suspension or substrate. The experiment is written up in a scientific paper for peer review. Just search the internet for “virus cell culture paper” for thousands of these papers. No paper has had to be retracted.
Viruses have been proved to exist via modern electron microscopy and photographed showing the virus which is similar but different to an exosome. Just search the internet for “virus cell culture paper”, Images. Again no paper has been retracted.
Viruses have been proved to exist via modern whole gene sequencing (which is the preferred method of identification) of all of the base pairs. SARS-CoV-2 and it’s variants have 29,903 base pairs which have been laboriously whole gene sequenced (it takes 4 to 5 days and NOT computer generated) and uploaded to the GISAID Initiative over 6 million times. Again no paper has been retracted.
Viruses have been proved to exist via PCR tests which are highly specific and accurate in detecting a unique long gene sequence fragment of the virus you want to detect (if done properly). It is not so good at diagnosing infection as the virus detected maybe dead fragments and not viable which can only be done by cell culture in a wet lab. However, the CT rate if low is an indication of infectability. (Although PCR tests are incredibly accurate it all depends on the Quality Control measures in the labs. The Lighthouse labs for mass testing in the UK have poor Quality Control and produce many “false positives”). Again no paper has been retracted.
Viruses have been proved to exist in the German courts in the infamous Lanka v Bardens case where all the judges and experts agreed that the measles virus was real. (Lanka weaseled himself out of paying the 100,000euro bet by persuading the court that it was proved by “six” scientific papers and not “one” that he had asked for).
There has been no scientific paper, even a pre-print or one not peer reviewed, that has ever suggested that viruses do not exist.
Unlike thousands of sceptical climate scientists questioning man made global warming there has been no retired virologist or otherwise with nothing to lose in coming forward with any doubts about “viruses existing”.
There have been no death bed confessions from modern virologists. There have been no scientific papers suggesting viruses do not exist. This indicates that viruses are real and do exist as has been proved by the methods already stated.
The US has over 200 bioweapons labs around the world, there are many others. They are all working on viruses. If there is a biological accident or attack your semi-religious belief that “viruses do not exist” will not save you from sickness and/or death.
Some Charlatans with a failed scientific/medical background with books to sell, websites to fund and pills, lotions and potions to sell to the gullible have seen the profit potential of abandoning mainstream medicine in favour of the 19th century Terrain Theory and “viruses do not exist” quackery. People like Stefan Lanka, Andrew Kaufman, Tom Cowan, Sam Bailey etc.
These people have seduced others in the alternative media without a medical or scientific background but who also have books to sell and websites to fund to support their spurious 19th century claims and that “viruses do not exist”. People like David Icke, Jon Rappaport, Mike Adams etc.
They keep appearing on each others platforms, including Alex Jones Infowars, and keep quoting each other and operate in an echo chamber of lies and deceit to illicit money from the gullible. ALL their claims about “viruses not existing” have been debunked.
Facts are facts and viruses have been proved to exist.
These people may be right when they say Covid, lockdowns, masks, vaccines, global warming, controlling the masses and many other subjects are a scam but on “viruses not existing” they are totally wrong, out of date and have been proved to be wrong.
You may be a follower of these people and want to believe they are right 100% of the time but on “viruses not existing” they are just plain wrong, out of date and have been proved to be wrong.
VIRUSES EXIST.
Viruses cannot be isolated so they had to redefine the term, necessarily, because VIRUSES EXIST. Exosomes and viruses are similar, but exosomes are not viruses because VIRUSES EXIST. Stained artifacts are identified as viruses, via electron microscopy, because VIRUSES EXIST. Genome sequences are, in reality, mental constructs, but are not characterized as such because VIRUSES EXIST.
Whole genome sequences are precise scientific entities and are certainly NOT “mental constructs”.
Please stop saying ‘science.’ It’s nothing more than a shut-term these days. A genome sequence is a figment used to prove a figment.
The supposed ‘genome’ of COVID-19 was based on a soup of different material and then guessed by people using computer programmes.
They DID NOT isolate one tiny particle, extract its DNA/RNA from the nucleus and only THEN seuqnce it for its entire genetic code.
We in the West also used (and put our faith in) that ‘information’ coming from the Chinese, who have a long history of making stuff up on an industrial scale (even more than in the West).
And NOT ONE proven, verified scientific clinical experiment to prove that said ‘virus’ caused illness in people.
Otherwise that $100k prize would’ve had to be paid, and it wasn’t, WAS IT? Nice try at the smoke and mirrors, GHF. Maybe should be working for Putin or Biden as their PR person – currently they both need a LOT of help.
I wonder if you’d be up for a debate with Dr Bailey? You appear to say you are some kind of expert – but it’s far more difficult hiding behind anonymity on a forum.
I’m just a humble engineer who can spot BS a mile away and has a keen, inquizative mind. It seems people on your side of the fence don’t like people like me and Dr Bailey asking questions and asking you to back up your assertions.
I’m also a qualified engineer with an enquiring mind.
I spent 18 months on the David Icke forum arguing with people like you who do not understand modern virology and modern “whole” gene sequencing (NOT computer generated) until the moderators decided that my exposure that the “emperor has no clothes” was too much and was harming the credibility of David Icke.
I am willing to go through all my archives and answer any questions you may have.
I hope you are not like the others who have to cling onto fringe views just to make themselves feel important and be a member of a small but elite club of fellow devotees.
I won’t ever be visiting a forum by the (IMHO) tinfoil hat-wearing actual nutbag that is David Icke. This site/forum is supposed to be about questioning things and finding answers, not smeraing people you just disagree with about issues that are in dispute.
You, like Dr Watson, eagerly lumps Dr Bailey and her colleagues into the same group as Icke by virtue of something that they in some way both believe, but that rather like saying ‘we both believe tomorrow is Saturday’ and then saying because I do then you’re a nutbag.
Sorry, but that doesn’t cut it. That’s a smear campaign.
If you went on a ‘mainstream’ medical forum, it would be you being called the nutbag by most there.
The difference here is that I’m not calling you one – I’m saying, as Dr Bailey does, that the evidence in our opinion (and hers and her colleagues is far more important than mine given their own medical background) is far from compelling. It doesn’t mean your’re wrong, but we don’t think the methods you cite show what you say it does.
If you want this ‘debate’ to end, I’d suggest you contact Dr Bailey and debate her in person. If you can prove everything you say and you think the evidence is so overwhelming, then it would be an easy win for you.
Then there are those people who cling to cough and kill grandma.
Oh dear. Not ONE fact there – otherwise you’d cite the papers (not newspapers, but scientific ones) that back up your opinions. Note that when those trying (and failing) to debunk people like Dr Bailey, she and her colleagues easily show their ‘facts’ – including references to ‘experiements’ to be complete rubbish, often using the very ‘scientific methods’ they claim to cherish.
The difference between people like me, Dr Bailey and your good self is that we are actual sceptics – we’re aren’t saying this never exists, but that the methods virologists and others refer to that ‘say’ they do and more importantly do harm via certain person-to-person transmission has yet to be properly proven, because the ‘methods’ used are not valid to do so conclusively.
You yourself actually admit that in one of your ‘comments’ (more a rant, heavy on bluster and light on factual information and logic). That you then admit that a German court found in favour of Dr Lanka because those saying they had ‘proved’ the existence of COVID-19 had in fact not done so, but then you appear to pretend it was all some ‘technicality’.
Either it was proven or it wasn’t. And the court said NO. That doesn’t mean viruses don’t exist or that they don’t cause illness – it’s just that thus far, no-one has properly done so, as Dr Bailey prove in both her articles and her videos, which show how the experiments are not worth the paper they are published on.
The only reason why ‘mainstream’ science has not debunked such experiments and literature is that there’s way too much money and power/politics invested in the status quo. Many people would almost instanteously lose all credibility (e.g. Fauci, Whitty, etc), what power and political influence they currently have and huge numbers of people and business would be essentially done for.
As many of the other articles here show, the lies and mismanagment of the ‘pandemic’ by so-called ‘experts’ – scientists, clincians, civil servants (and their union leaders), business leaders working for Big Pharms/Tech in addition to the mainstream (especially legacy) media and politicians of all hues are slowly but surely being shown up as time goes on.
There are thousands upon thousands of papers proving the existence of viruses that’s why I gave you the phrase to look for in an internet search.
Scientists are always doing mock control experiments. For example, this experiment finds cytopathic effects specific to SARS-CoV-2 in human cell lines and, of course, includes a mock control with the same culturing conditions that just doesn’t have the virus added. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17796-z
I’m with true sceptics with gravitas like Mike Yeadon, Judy Mikovits, Dr Andrew Wakefield etc.
You’re with cranks like Lanka, Kaufman, Cowan and Bailey.
That’s your opinion – something you have yet to prove. Dr Bailey has debunked what you’ve been saying. Again, would you be happy to personally debate her? I’m sure you could agree a neutral place to do so.
Unlike you, I’m not saying I’m going to be 100% until the heat death of the universe. I’m mainly asking questions and critiquing what you and others say.
That you call me and Dr Bailey ‘cranks’ just because we have a different (but considered) opinion based on actual information rather than Chinese whispers is essentially the same argument Dr Watson gave. I note that he also was too scared to debate Dr Bailey.
Fortunately, the REAL enquiring minds don’t have to pour over “thousands and thousands” of papers to disabuse themselves the modern equivalent of demonology. Once you’ve peruses a dozen or so you realize the methods are similar and that “isolation”, for the virologist, is a six weeks old bowl of clam chowder.
“No scientist has ever said a PCR test can diagnose a disease, it has always been known that it can detect a virus but not a disease.”
I think you need to do more research; I think you will find that Kary Mullis pointed out , more than once, that a PCR cannot detect a virus, only a small segment of genetic code depending how the test is set up; I seem to remember that he stated it was impossible for a PCR test to detect a whole virus, or an infectious virus and cannot distinguish between a live or dead particle. But don’t take my word for it, I am not a scientist.
I’ve done the research.
The PCR test is highly specific at detecting a virus via a unique fragment of the genetic code.
Kary Mullis has been misquoted and quoted out of context many times.
He was never going to rubbish the test he invented and for which he won the Nobel Prize.
It is governments who have misused the results of the PCR test.
‘Misquoted’ – sure, in a video wher HE himself said it was not a diagnostic tool and should NOT be used as such.
It wasn’t just government who have used them to do bad things, e.g. justify lockdowns, school closures, working from home when not needed (especially in the under65 age group) but scientists and clinicians who said they ‘discovered/ or ‘confirmed’ the existence of COVID-19 and the variants.
As Dr Bailey says, its using circular reasoning to ‘prove’ something.
Sounds like you need to brush up on your ‘research’. Presumably that’s why you won’t debate Dr Bailey yourself, because you know it’ll be found out in 5 minutes flat.
Scientists have always known it is not a “diagnostic” tool and I have never said it was.
Governments appoint their scientific advisers and there were plenty to choose from who would have used the PCR tests in a more nuanced way (if at all). Therefore the blame lies squarely with the government and the scientific advisers they chose to listen to.
You really need to research Bailey as she is talking rubbish.
It is a very fringe theory with her and a handful of others who are making a fortune from the gullible.
There is no scientific basis for their claims and they are regarded as an irrelevance.
You may think you are in this special small group who have discovered something very profound but you are not.
The scientific community, even the sceptical one’s, laugh at them.
Oh dear. If you may recall, many scientific discoveries followed theories that were often considered ‘heresy’ by the peers of the person advocating for them. Just because someone is in ‘the majority’ doesn’t mean they are also in the right on an issue.
I would remind you that your own opinions on part of the ‘sceptic’ issues is at present thought of by the ‘mainstream’ in science in medicine exactly as heretical.
The difference is that I’m not mocking you for holding such an opinion (I and others just think it’s incorrect or not proven), but I am criticisng how you respond to people who DO disagree and put forward alternative opinions or ask questions.
Frankly you’re no better than the devoted Fauciites who want to cancel everyone who critiques their so-called ‘facts’, because you don’t even entertain being wrong, probably because your ego won’t allow it.
That you don’t actually cite anything to back up your claims rather adds credence to Dr Bailey’s line of questioning / reasoning, plus you, Dr Watson or anyone else don’t have the courage to debate Dr Bailey in person – and I would suspect she’d agree for it all to be on neutral terms.
I would finally add that you may ‘laugh’ now, but those who laugh last, laugh the longest. Anyway, I think this back and forth has gone on long enough. Onto different things.
Lanka, Kaufman, Cowan and Bailey all gave up their original careers, or were sacked, as it is more lucrative to their egos to become media whores selling nonsense to the gullible.
They are in a minority because they are plain wrong and no they are not in the vanguard of some new enlightening discovery.
They have been proved to be wrong on many occasions.
Busy medics and scientists don’t have the time to critique their outlandish claims and when they do the “viruses do not exist” mob abuse them as was seen on the academics website in Waikato University.
Fortunately a researcher who also is a psychiatrist with an ear to the scientific and medical community has debunked all their wild claims in this series of articles ……
Frank Visser, The Corona Conspiracy: Combatting Disinformation about the Coronavirus
Part 1: Corona, Oxygen, 5G: The Paranoid Worldview of David Icke, April 2020
Part 2: Debunking Andrew Kaufman’s Virus Equals Exosome Hypothesis, May 2020
Part 3: We Need to Talk about Exosomes, May 2020
Part 4: Why Viruses Are Not Exosomes, June 2020
Part 5: The Alternative Facts of Virus Denialism, June 2020
Part 6: The Subtle Science of Whole Genome Sequencing, June 2020
Part 7: Stefan Lanka’s Vanishing Virus Act, July 2020
Part 8: Coping with Corona: The Cautious vs. The Reckless, July 2020
Part 9: Andrew Kaufman’s Take on the Pandemic That Wasn’t, July 2020
Part 10: Between Alarmism and Denialism, August 2020
Part 11: David Icke and the Method in the Madness, August 2020
Part 12: How the Coronavirus Conquered the World, August 2020
Part 13: To Test or Not to Test, That’s the Question, August 2020
Part 14: Pandemic, Infodemic, Scamdemic, Plandemic?, August 2020
Part 15: The Chromosome 8 Bombshell Evidence Canard, August 2020
Part 16: What’s Up With These Koch’s Postulates?, September 2020
Part 17: Was the SARS-CoV-2 virus created in a lab?, September 2020
Part 18: QAnon, When Conspirituality Meets Politics, September 2020
Part 19: Thomas Cowan and “The Myth of Contagion”, October 2020
Part 20: PCR-Gate: A Storm in a Petri Dish, December 2020
Part 21: David Icke: ‘QAnon is a Psy-Op, a Scam!’, January 2021
Part 22: The Million-Dollar Question About COVID-19, January 2021
Part 23: ‘The SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus Has Never Been Isolated’, February 2020
Part 24: PCR-Gate 2: When Lockdown Skeptics Pose as Expert Scientists, February 2021
Part 25: The Unholy Alliance of Corona Conspiracy Theorists, March 2021
Part 26: Twitter Review of the “COVID-19 Myths” Webinar, May 2021
Part 27: David Icke Shouts Out: ‘There Is No Bloody Virus!’, June 2021
Part 28: Stefan Lanka’s Counterfeit “Control Experiments”, June 2021
Part 29: Where Are All These PCR ‘False Positives’ Anyways?, June 2021
Part 30: Is SARS-CoV-2 the Phantom of the COVID-19 Opera?, June 2021
Part 31: Andrew Kaufman and the “Fake Delta Variant”, July 2021
Part 32: Where’s the Control Experiment Protocol, Stefan?, September 2021
Part 33: PCR-Gate 3: The Debate About PCR That Never Really Happened, October 2021
Part 34: Thomas Cowan and the Spell of Corona, November 2021
Part 35: Samantha Bailey and ‘The COVID-19 Fraud’, December 2021
Part 36: SARS-CoV-2: Lab Leak or Natural Origin?, December 2021
Part 37: Jorn Luka Goes ‘Seriously In-Depth with David Icke’, December 2021
Appendix 1: Fifteen Facets of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus, June 2021
Appendix 2: Who’s Who in Corona Conspiracy Country, June 2021
Appendix 3: My Corona Conspiracy Twitter Contacts, July 2021
https://www.integralworld.net/
Toby should feel equally embarrassed when reading her rebuttal, since every quotation she uses also provides the source DS.
Damn. Dr Watson. I wonder if Toby will provide you a platform to respond?
Sam takes no prisoners.
It’s a reasonable question…
I’m a bit baffled by what the main thrust of this argument is, because it jumps about a lot.
Is it that supplying weapons won’t prolong the war, and won’t make it more liable to spread?
Or is it that it will have one (or both) of those effects, but that the consequent deaths are ‘worth it’ for freedom? If so, is this argument relying on an assumption that all those who die (in the prolonged or extended war) will have freely chosen to die (or risk death) for what they consider to be freedom? (It certainly seems to be implying that those killed in Syria chose to die for freedom.)
Or, is it that supplying weapons will prolong or extend the war (or both), and that innocent people will die as a result, against their will and without choosing to sacrifice their lives for freedom – but that the extended duration of the war will deter future aggressors? In other words, that Ukrainians must die to make the world safer for others in future? So our supply of weapons is entirely selfish?
Any one of these arguments is possible but it’s not at all clear which is being proposed. Which makes the article impossible to engage with in a constructive way.
Yup, the author believes that it is “the Ukrainians” who have chosen to fight. In reality it is “president Zelensky” who made this choice for them – and refuses to make any other choice and even goes as far as threatening his own citizens should they not comply. I really don’t see much difference in his methods from those of the aggressor.
He is waging war as he was elected to do.
No, he is just totally out of his depth here. You can hear it in any of his speeches.
You should say chosen to defend.
And in relation to Iran…haven’t we just paid them £400 million pounds? Presumably for mentioning this I’m an ‘oik’?
What really makes the article hard to engage with (and the Noah Carl one too) is this extremely childish idea of trying to establish what is morally right and wrong, as if the top priority is making extra sure we are the good guys.
We aren’t anything. Most people aren’t anything. Except for a handful of psychos running things (and we really don’t know who they are), none of us make any decisions, have no say and are simply being dragged along for the ride by these “decision makers” having a pissing match.
The moral implications of sending weapons to Ukrainians is for those who will make the decision. I refuse to be lumped in with them in any way. And I’m not going to engage in a debate about whether this particular one thing is a moral or immoral. What about all the rest of it? The meddling by both west and Russia in Ukrainian politics for years if not decades. Is that moral or immoral? What about the inability to reach a diplomatic solution, moral or immoral?
Give me a freakin break.
Correct, the moral indignation should be against the so called “leaders”, and should come from those who are are “led”. But it never is.
Instead it always one “leader” inciting “his” people against another group while looking for enemies to cover his own psychopathic ass and convincing them that it is “in their own interest”.
This arbitrage game of a psychopathic minority against the normal majority has worked throughout history and there are no slightest signs that it is ever going to change.
Not while we fall for debates like this one about whether it’s morally right or wrong to arm Ukrainians.
I suppose people get into it because it gives them a false sense of agency. Yes, yes, we should arm Ukrainian because it’s the morally right thing.
Yeah, right. “We” ain’t going to do shit. Everything is getting done to us, mostly shafting. But hey, we should consider ourselves happy, because we are being defended from Putin who is a horrible mad, dictator who would shaft us even harder.
Yep, the good old false dichotomy trick. Just like “either we vaccinate everyone by force or we will have to impose lockdowns again next winter”. Once you see through it once, you notice the same shitty tactic used everywhere. The trouble is, it works.
We should arm Ukraine because their defeat would severely undermine European security. OK, it’s morally positive too, but that’s not sufficient reason by itself.
Thank you Ian for this! Trully a joy to read and finally a bit more balanced view on DS. Now lets see how many dislikes I am going to get from the Crew of pro-putin ‘opinion formers’, who seem to be investing lot of time on those forums in the last three weeks. If they think its working even a tiny bit, they must … missinformed themselves!
Why would anyone downvote you. You are allowed to have an opinion, everyone is entited to get it wrong.
‘… allowed to have an opinion…’
That is what down votes are.
A down vote is seen as disagreeing or not approving.
Many use it when only facts are presented, just because it is from the other side.
There is no justification, but they do it anyway.
Well it woul appear that 27 out of 37 did downvote. Kristina’s assesment of this group would appear to be correct
I don’t know what you’ve been reading but I haven’t read a single ‘pro-Putin’ word anywhere on this site. Not a word. What I have seen is attempts to contextualise the conflict and gain an understanding of how things got to this point. That is not ‘pro-Putin’ unless you’re an editorial in The Sun. Why is it not OK to discuss things objectively?
The entire argument that conquest by Putin is preferable to freedom is itself a pro Putin position.
And who is making that argument?
It would seem most people on here.
Straw man.
Ah, but you should have learned from the pandemic that “everyone who is not with us is against us” – the principle lives on.
You’re not wrong. You’re right. There is no in between.
Same principle reversed.. sceptics are against mainstream.
Go and look for a comment saying the invasion was wrong. See how many you find.
Now see how many say it is all the west’s fault.
Look no further – the invasion was wrong. And yes, the West (NATO/EU/UK/USA) are largely responsible.
Yes, in the same sort of way that women are responsible for getting raped. They take ridiculous chances.
The two opposing factions are Putin and his government, their backers, and their objectives against Zelensky and his government, their backers, and their objectives. It is unrealistic to say it is a government leader against the people of another country, as wars don’t happen that way. Until one analyses these governments’ agendas, with arguments pro and anti on both sides, one isn’t addressing the matter in any real way. I am afraid both sides will produce emotive propaganda. That’s what happens in war time, and why diplomats are not journalists.
And all deaths are too many. That of course would include putative mass death and illness caused by any chemical weapons spread by migratory birds or other means, specifically adapted to be deadly to the Slavs, should they exist. Assessing whether they did exist, with arguments pro and contra would be a worthy journalistic exercise.
re: This is an aggressors’ charter that is, in itself, utterly immoral. Simplified, it says: “Because I can hurt your people, you must surrender, or else you will be causing them harm.” Or, “Don’t stand up to bullies: they might hurt you.”
i cannot see how it is in our interests to have a hostile group of Americans, i.e. NATO, out east trying to intimidate Russia.
Unless you are Putin’s priest, Morality of lack thereof is immaterial for a nation pursuing her interests. It is simply Russia’s duty to do that.That’s how Russia grew so big, by pursuing her interests.As Lord Palmerston said: We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.
House of Commons, 1 March 1848
What sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,
it’s far too soon to know if Russia’s acts are good or bad, we may never know? If Russia is still the biggest country in the world in 30 years we may conclude they were good.
As we know from all previous wars, it will only depend on who is doing the concluding.
Have you worked out if Hitler was wrong yet? I guess because he lost, you’d say wrong. But what if he’d won?
If you want to understand this war, you should not be thinking of what “the people” want, you should be thinking about what Zelensky and Putin do not want. These amiable fellows both do not want to end up in prison or dead by actions of “the people” as a reward what what they have done so far. This is fully sufficient to explain why they behave as they do.
There seems to be a lot of supposition on behalf of the author about the views of the Ukrainian people. He does need to consider the inhabitants of the East of the country whose wishes have been ignored for years.
Many of those ‘inhabitants of the East‘ were placed there by Stalin partly to fill the gaps left after the Holdomore (sp? Ukrainian interwar famine created by Stalin) but mostly to Russify the zone for his political benefit.
That doesn’t change the situation now. Blaming Stalin is futile.
Will Putin ask the Ukranians?
So the argument here:
A lovely piece for The Guardian though.
You could add: Further damage the economy you already wrecked, by self-harming sanctions in pursuit of…. what?
What is tte the benefit, if Russia ‘loses’, to the British people you are impoverishing?
Asking what the West should do is a bit like asking what the Yorkshire Ripper or Myra Hindley should have done.
Great for seminars.
“The bravery and self-sacrifice shown by every strata of the Ukrainian military and civilian population has at times brought me to tears, and the nobility of their cause (apart their, ahem, surrender to the EU) shines brightly through the fog of war.”
Crap poetry rocks!
But the singular remains “stratum” regardless.
Young girl walking across the dark and drizzly moor with Ian Brady says.
“Is it far to go? it’s really cold and spooky”.
Brady replies
“You think this is spooky?”
“I’ll have to walk back on me own”.
I was brought to tears by the bravery and self-sacrifice show by the British population cowering under their beds for two years.
Putins actions over the past decade are reminding me of Bismark in 19thC
Germany with his limited war here:Grorgia instead of Audtria: small war there Chea/Denmark followed by a larger war against a powerful entity:France/newy armed Ukraine for the purpose of a major land grab (Alsace Lorraine/East Ukraine).
Copied as if following a school textbook.
Top of my head stuff, badly expressed and constrained by edit time limit on DS.
I’m sorry but this article is just so out of touch with reality. Putting aside the horrors of war for a moment (if that is allowed in this media fuelled emotional hate frenzy), this conflict is happening as a direct result of western interference in Ukraine’s affairs.
There is no inherent reason why Russia should be at war with its neighbour. Talk about Russian imperial ambitions is for the birds – silly unfounded guesswork. Whether you like it or not, Russia has attacked because western powers have decided to use the country as a battering ram (and biological weapons lab), to fulfil their own corporate interests. The US and NATO need enemies, and they have worked very hard for 30 years to make Russia just that. The 2014 coup was a Western-backed coup, and anyone who says otherwise is naive and silly – they were caught red-handed.
Russia for its part has been crystal clear about what they want and their demands have been reasonable. No NATO expansion to their border. The argument Putin has made in countless speeches and statements is that this upsets the balance of nuclear powers that kept the peace for decades after WW2. This has been ignored, treaties have been torn up by almost every US president post Soviet collapse and finally, they said their red line was Ukraine. The war is horrific, like any war, but you can’t view it in a vacuum and discount history. This is a very stupid approach. If you want Putin/Russia to be your ideological enemy, then go for it, but it’s prudent to know your enemy, not put your fingers in your ears and just repeating how awful they are. Grow up.
Now on to arming Ukraine. Or rather continuing to arm Ukraine. Whether you like it or not, a large military power has attacked a minnow of a country in order to disarm it and stop it from being used as a potential launchpad for attack. Whether you like it or not, this is rational on the part of the Russians. It might be ugly, brutal, cruel and morally indefensible, if you like, but it’s rational and the fact is, it will ultimately get what it wants. It is very stupid indeed to believe that Russians don’t understand what’s at stake just because you’ve seen a few partisan laughably biased news reports about protests in Russia. Listen to what Putin says, if you can bear to listen to your new hate figure.
Russia’s objectives have been clearly stated and are underway. By pouring more weapons in, when you’ve caused the problem in the first place, is indefensible. is that the best we can come up with in the West. Oh shit look, we’ve helped to foment some terrible violence – what shall we do? Send more weapons!
The Anglo American sphere of influence has proven itself over the last 60 years to be short-sighted, violent, selfish, irrational, greedy, incompetent, stupid, ignorant and brutal actors on the world stage. Should they get involved? No, they should shut the fuck up.
I am no expert but I don’t think Russia has used anything like the amount of fire power it could have……arming the Ukrainians will continue the conflict until they eventually stop and come to an agreement…but millions of civilians will have died in the process…..and you will have the same outcome….
For a sceptic, you’re amazingly trusting of a man who has yet to admit there’s actually a war going on.
Putin has repeatedly said he regards Ukrainian people as Russian, and that Ukraine is ‘indivisible’ from Russia.
Up until the revolution, Ukraine was ruled by a Putin stooge. It was the loss of that control that provoked seizure of the Crimea etc. In neighbouring Belarus, Putin still controls a proxy government which has no meaningful independence.
The moment Russia’s neighbours try to move away from a Russian proxy government, Putin intervenes.
Well considered argument but which ‘revolution’ do you refer ?
Maidan
The Maidan was a violent western-backed coup against a democratically elected president within which we have the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs caught on tape naming the State Department’s preferred puppet government.
It took 8 years for Russia to recognise the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk; How does that fit with your ideas about expansionist Imperialist Russia?
To repeat what I’ve said elsewhere, I’m not trying to claim this war is moral and right; I’m simply arguing that in cold geopolitical terms, it’s understandable, rational and was entirely predictable to anyone who has been paying attention.
The recognition was to establish a pretext for the invasion. Couldn’t be more blatant.
The tape shows that Maidan was not a US/EU coup. All it shows it that the US had a preference for who should be the new president and was trying by persuasion to make it happen.
You know, I am willing to accept that argument. I have no doubt Russia meddles in the politics of it’s neighbours. No doubt whatsoever. As does the US. Both with mixed results. (Remember how Obama campaigned in favour of Remain?)
The question that needs to be answered is in which way is Russia different from the US in considering it a matter of national security to keep its strategic rivals away from its borders?
Yes the US does meddle. Sometimes that meddling is welcome. Sometimes not. I’m struggling to think of any meddling from Russia that was desirable.
I don’t accept Russia’s right to regard all its neighbours as mere ‘buffer’ states, with Russian control over their military capacity and foreign policy.
For NATO to attack Russia (against its own constitution) 30 democracies would have to vote for it. I’m willing to bet a very, very large amount of money that could never happen.
But for Putin, there was a fair chance NATO would have disbanded of its own accord in a few years.
The removal of Ukraine does not create a buffer between Russia and NATO – it removes it.
‘I’m struggling to think of any meddling from Russia that was desirable.’
I’m struggling to think of any meddling from Russia that wasn’t made up by Hilary Clinton or Rachel Maddow.
Think harder.
‘Up until the revolution, Ukraine was ruled by a Putin stooge.’
Cartoonish analysis that (a) Robs the Ukrainian population of agency to elect whomever they want democratically and (b) Mischaracterises a US backed coup which Victoria Nuland was caught on tape orchestrating.
Go back and have another listen. If this was her coup, it’s funny she never says so.
What she does talk about is her preferred candidate as to replace by persuasion a president who has already gone.
“Yats is the guy”
I believe there are four senior Democrats whose children have decidedly shady business interests in Ukraine. Clearly the Americans have been using as their own little playground since at least 2014. This is an outrageous and disgusting abuse of state power.
Putin is possibly the most obscenely rich man in the world, and he got there by ripping off the Russian people on their own hydrocarbons. In the time that he controlled Ukraine, he did it through massive bribes linked to the transit of Russian gas across Ukraine. Anything else pales in comparison.
Putin endorsed Russian action in Eastern Ukraine is justified in the same way as Hitler taking the Sudetenland as a prelude to WW2.
Bringing joint nationals into the warm embrace of the motherland.
We have all heard or read about The Wandering Jew, so take a look at the Wandering Russian ( not actually wandering, forcibly relocated would be more acurate).
Really? So which do you think is more likely:
(a) This is just the start and Putin intends to invade the rest of Europe, or at the very least sizeable bit of it.
(b) He’s defending a red line which he has warned for years is a red line he was going to defend no matter what.
This kind of false dichotomy argument is poor. Offering a completely implausible position (i.e. ‘that Putin intends to invade the rest of Europe’) doesn’t make your other position more likely. It might also be implausible.
Indeed, quite stupid to reduce to a multiple choice question.
Putin will only attack non NATO members. He already has Belarus, and is trying for Ukraine.
You took the words right out of my mouth. Sums it up perfectly. I regard the Ukrainian flag as the new face nappy i.e. a virtual signalling rag co-opted by evil manipulators. Zelensky is a coke-addled puppet leading “his” country to doom knowing full well he can escape to his Florida mansion any time it suits.
The important thing is to have an opinion. If COVID taught us anything, it’s that everyone is their own best expert. Never mind whether you can spell epidemiology or not, or find Ukraine on a map, that’s not the point, the point is you have social media, and you are terrifically important. So, come on, what’s your opinion on the War? Who should do what? Who’s right? Who’s wrong? The local primary school has blue and yellow balloons tied to the fence. Hooray, they support Ukraine! That’s the spirit. Now children, what about climate change? Ooooh, we’re against that. Very good! Racism? Bad. Well done. Back to the war. So you’re in favour of the thing, and against the other thing? Well done you, although IN MY OPINION you’re overlooking something else. Well, I’m off to strut around with my chest puffed out down on social media and make sure everybody knows which side I’m on.
Best thing I’ve read this year loopDloop, thank you so very much.
Saved prosperity.
The “moral necessity” will escalate to Russian counter measures which will possibly result in the annihilation of many millions or billions, including Ukrainians.
If there is a moral necessity to do anything, it is to negotiate and seek peace, which Moscow has been seeking to do for many years.
This is an existential matter for Russia, so it would be foolish for western armchair generals to conclude that Russia is bluffing.
‘If there is a moral necessity to do anything, it is to negotiate and seek peace, which Moscow has been seeking to do for many years.’
Agree 100%.
“. . . seek peace, which Moscow has been seeking for many years”.
By invading Chechnia, Georgia and eleswhere first ?
Why would 5 people disapprove of these actual facts. They are facts, for goodness sake.
Given that the West won’t even impose a no fly zone, there’s no chance it would be first-user in a nuclear war. Can you say the same for Putin?
Well we can all speculate.
But what we do know for a fact is that only one country has ever been a first user of nuclear weapons. And it sure wasn’t Russia.
Possibly not the best argument – only the US had them at the time and they rightly or wrongly believed they shorten a war that was killing millions. If the Japanese had equivalent weapons to launch at the US do you believe they would still have bomber Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Correct analysis.
Nevertheless what Stewart said was true and you have previously expressed your support of unnuanced facts.
You can’t have mutually assured destruction when only one side has weapons.
Russia has lots of battlefield nuclear weapons. These aren’t for strategic deterrence.
The US sphere won’t impose a no fly zone because it has no sufficient interests at stake in the Ukraine to justify risking escalation potentially to nuclear war. For Russia, the stakes are existential, which is precisely when a state is likely to resort to nuclear weapons, if pushed
We already know that the US will use nukes if it’s safe for it to do so, because it’s the only state that has already done so.
Why is failing to acquire Ukraine an existential threat to Russia?
NATO Ukraine, the likely result of a Russian defeat there, is a clear existential threat to Russia. So is regime change by colour revolution, the option the US sphere is probably expecting now.
When did NATO attack a country?
LOL! As though it hasn’t already been pointed out to you repeatedly here over the past couple of days!
Yes, Ukraine matters more to Russia than the US. But it’s not existential for either party. Russia has the option to become like any other European state which exercises no control over its neighbours.
The US has fought many states that don’t have nuclear weapons so your statement is plain wrong. The moral prohibition against nuclear weapons only came about as a result of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Whoever developed the weapons first was always going to use them.
“But it’s not existential for either party. Russia has the option to become like any other European state which exercises no control over its neighbours.”
Yes, Russia has the option to become another serf state for the US sphere elites, but my impression is they don’t much like what they see here. Obviously some do – there are always greedy people willing to sacrifice their culture and liberty for material gains, but as a whole the country does not, and certainly the rulers do not, mostly, so far, or they would have kowtowed before now. (By the way, don’t bother with that laughable nonsense about “not exercising control over its neighbours” – that’s exactly what the EU is all about. Go and ask in Hungary and Poland about that.)
“The US has fought many states that don’t have nuclear weapons so your statement is plain wrong. The moral prohibition against nuclear weapons only came about as a result of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Whoever developed the weapons first was always going to use them.”
Make excuses all you want, but the reality is that the US had no compunction about destroying German and Japanese cities full of women and children by firebombing. The only reason they’ve never used them since is because they’ve never fought a near peer competitor since then, and it’s never been worth the global opprobrium to do so – though we know they were tempted in Korea and in Vietnam.
‘Given that the West won’t even impose a no fly zone’
Even? Listen to what you’re saying – do you know how no-fly zones work?
Clearly not. “Try to impose a no fly zone” would be more apt.
Russia does have first strike capability which it may regard as its only defence against the overwhelmingly superior fire power of NATO regardless of nuclear power.
BBC and ITV Daily Lies still warning that Russia may, might, could launch first strike chemical attacks?
it isn’t much of a stretch..remember Syria…
Proved to be lies.
Ha ha! Douma? Oh yes of course.
Yeah..Russia is well known for the peaceful nature.
You’re right; everyone knows they are genetically predisposed to savagery.
The state certainly is.
No, it’s an existential matter for Ukraine.
Ok, and maybe Putin too.
I wonder how the USA would respond if Canada or Mexico wanted to enter into a defensive military alliance with Russia or China?
Mexico had an interesting relationship with France along those lines in the late 19th Century.
I had to check Noah’s article, because I thought I must have misread it after reading this one from Ian.
But no, I read Noah’s correctly.
Noah’s main thrust was , unless there is a good argument otherwise, the sensible , pragmatic approach to Ukraine prior to the guns being fired, was to recognise the concerns of its neighbour, apply something akin to the Munrow principle , and negotiate a neutral status and something like Corsica’s request of France for autonomy for the ‘russian’ easterly states ( and Crimea’s historical status).
Of course the western civilisation had other plans, the fact that these were/are diametrically different to its plans in the Saudi/Yemen war is a detail best ignored.
West is good, East is bad. Whatever long winded moral excuses are produced, this is the reality of the situation in the minds of most.
I keep coming back to the same thing. Its ‘five eyes’/EU/Japan/S Korea/Singapore. Most of the populous states in the world are not taking the same moral position nor imposing sanctions. This is a ‘civilisation versus civilisation’ issue, not good versus evil, not Gandalf versus Sauron which is about the level of most of the media comments.
“I keep coming back to the same thing. Its ‘five eyes’/EU/Japan/S Korea/Singapore. Most of the populous states in the world are not taking the same moral position nor imposing sanctions. This is a ‘civilisation versus civilisation’ issue, not good versus evil, not Gandalf versus Sauron which is about the level of most of the media comments.”
Myself, I think ‘civilisation versus civilisation’ is not quite correct (though it’s mostly just a matter of semantics).
What we are seeing is the dominant superpower (the US) making a grab for yet greater global power, along with its satellite states.
“Civilisation v civilisation” rather over-dignifies it, imo.
Indeed. Racket vs. Racket.
How cute, when this was precisely the LS editorial policy last year when TY refused to counter the government’s murderous vaxx policy, despite the damning stats coming from VAERS, MHRA and ONS. It hid away from taking any principled stand, lest Toby offend his idiot chum Boris – and somehow prejudice his ownchances of favours in future years. Meanwhile hundreds of school kids were lined up and jabbed – while TweedleTobe frolicked in the countryside (and elsewhere) with TweedleDel.
So before DS does a high and mighty op-ed, let’s get back to statecraft for beginners. The Ukrainian government is the main party to blame for this mess, not Putin. His main fault, arguably, was to not go in earlier and help save some of the thousands being slaughtered by the gung-ho neo Ukrainian Nazi brigades in the two Russian speaking Donbass republics.
Zelensky is not a clown, for even that calling requires a degree of skill that he does not possess, he is a stooge. A stooge that countless video clips show to have been afraid of confronting the genocide being committed by his own forces in East Ukraine – but still sanctioning it. A stooge that manifestly failed to appreciate the first rule of executive government is to protect one’s people and secure one’s national borders. It is this very principle that Putin is following to the letter.
Instead Zelensky plays fast and loose with his own responsibilities while poking Russia – reneging on key agreements. He called for a NATO no fly zone (as Sturgeon also stupidly did last week, before being shown the error of her limited ways) regardless of the potential carnage, and on 19 Feb 2022 called for an end to the Budapest Memorandum and allow USA Nukes to be placed on Ukrainian soil. Did Zelensky really think he would be given the codes? Was it any wonder that Putin felt he had to act?
Time and again Zelensky has avoided the negotiating table and given out utterly conflicting messages; because he is only a puppet – doing what puppets do. He couldn’t give a f**k about the loss of Ukrainian lives, or European lives or any lives in the end – only his. Hence the Bio-labs.
Ironically Putin does care about lives, because he does understand statecraft. This has lead to a hand-tied- behind-back form of warfare that has caused thousands of Russian deaths). Had Putin been the bad guy, as successive writers in this rag like to portray him, he would have (Bush & Blair or Obama & Cameron style) flattened the main cities in week one – then mopped up.
Finally, the ignorance that Ian Rons displays over Syria and violent and illegal role of USA proxies (such as ISIL) in the the attempted coup, ongoing insurrection and continued theft of sovereign assets is straight from the Tory Party playbook. Thankfully, again, Putin saw what was going on through the staged false flags.
On the subject of which, look out for more White Helmet Hollywood productions from the Ukraine in the coming weeks.
Superb response, thank you. In the midst of the Hollywood scripted media storm of moral outrage, it is a continual comfort to find such comments.
When you elect a literal clown with no prior political experience as your president, there is no wonder that he keeps behaving like a clown in crisis (or maybe like a teenager who’s watched a few too many war movies).
What’s more appalling is that supposedly clever people in the West are letting this clown influence their own politics and spending budgets.
Well, actually, they are more probably just using this golden opportunity to fill the coffers of their own corrupt military lobbyists while not really doing all that much in terms of real support for the clown’s efforts to trigger WW3 for the sake of saving his own sorry ass.
But this is a dangerous game to play to manipulate public opinion like that, with very bad long term consequences for everyone – except those who are now siphoning out public funds into their pockets. It reminds a lot of the manipulation that has been done to spread hate against the “unvaccinated” and enable money grab of the century for the pharma industry.
Could it be intentional – is Zelensky in control any more than senile Joe in the USA? The dangerous people are the globalists behind these puppets.
The trouble with Zelensky is that because of not being a professional politician he possibly genuinely believes that he is in control.
Hitler’s getting his country invaded. We’re the bad guys in this one. The guy is literally leading a Nazi army. Not neo nazi – actual Nazis that go back to the beginning.
Doesn’t matter if he’s some Jewish comedy actor and has more puppet strings coming out of his government than a muppet Nazi special.
I’ll bet there were plenty of Nazi sympathisers that were moved to tears when Russians rolled into Berlin and apparently there are some around now. A lot of civilian casualties then and a lot less now. Read your history to understand the mass rape and destruction of Nazis back then. You don’t shed tears for Nazis. They’ve been bombing the crap out of those Russian parts of Ukraine for longer than the Second World War. Where were your tears for those people?
But this time we’re on the Nazi side. We’re so stupid the Jewish Comedy Hitler can come to our Parliament and quote Churchill to us and get a standing ovation and lots of tears shed.
If you think I’m being callous please put me in my place. It isn’t even slightly uncertain for me. I’ll always be on the other side to Nazis.
And if they have bio labs with race specific bio weapons in them… well let’s get some independent inspectors in there to find out. I think we may come to realise that there are worse things than Nazis, people that think there’s too many people in the world and they have a plan for it – and we may well be on their side too.
I wish Ian, and others who are over simplifying things, would do some research before jumping in with both feet. You’re like the child in the schoolyard who goads other kids into fighting “the bully” while you hold his coat and watch him get battered, ignoring the fact “the bully” was goaded into action in the first place.
Naohs article is just as bad, justified by a lack of historical context and nuance, to give us a this or that choice as if that’s the only option.
On an intellectual level it’s a failure of diplomacy, but we know this is baked in the pie already, the wests politicians goaded into startng it by arms manufacturers and the banks that profit from the debt, meddling in other countries internal politics, an army of policy makers in “think tanks” funded by the same bankers who have followed the same power game script for hundreds of years.
The Best Enemies Money Can Buy: An Interview with Prof. Antony C. Sutton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTDvLmEBESY
Listen to Andrew Cockburn (Author of Spoils of war) Interviewed by the Grey Zone
From Ukraine to Yemen, US arms industry reaps the spoils of war
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0DLNDAgAwU
Putin is in it for Putin, if we could see into his bank accounts we’d find out who backed him to start this just as the wheels fell off the globalists Covid Narrative (note they’re still pushing along with the same agenda even tho the Narrative crumbled) Why didn’t he do it in 2014? Why now, at such a convinient time for the globalist powers?
Cockburn misses the detail of the funding and profit motive when he blames “Politics” but it’s still a valid point, someone is funding the commies & Far right who are Putins main opposition, probably the same families funding the US arms trade (see Sutton) Also see Sutton for his expose of how that “Nuclear Proliferation” you’re blathering about occured, because the same funders were (provably) secretly sending nuclear technology to the Soviets with the backing of the US State department.
Putin’s Private Passion
https://spoilsofwar.substack.com/p/putins-private-passion?s=r
This quote from your article just makes me piss…
What about the value of freedom to the 15000 people Ukranians shelled to death in the Donbass, what about the value of freedom to the 350,000 Poles & Jews who were slaughtered to make way for what is now Western Ukraine by the Banderites, who is still worshipped as a National Hero in Ukraine?
You have a faux pity for Russian conscripts, but you don’t even seem to know how Zelensky got his mandate, by claiming he’d be a peacemaker in Donass because so many mothers were screaming for justice for their conscripted sons (or face 15 yrs in goal) slaughted in the Donbass, something he renaged on when the Azov thugs refused to stop shelling, he then pinned medals on them instead and increased the slaughter.
Freedom is worthless to a corpse.
War will continue globally, freedoms will be lost globally, until we have complete global transparancy of the global banking system. Unitl then, we’ll be set against each other time and time again until the same groups of financier families that have held power for >800 years will have us all in digital chains, or culled like the useless eaters they believe us to be.
Stick all those “leaders” gobbing off on the news, this way or that, into a room together and don’t let them out until they agree to a peacful solution they can all agree on, seriously.
This is supposed to be what the UN is about, but it’s not is it, because it was set up by puppets of the same controlling interests pushing everyone to fight for their profit margins.
Get off your high horse about “Freedom” bought with other peoples blood.
My own proposal would be that each “leader” (without exceptions) should be, as a matter of course, subjected to regular personal punishment (non-lethal, no weapons allowed, a boxing match would do) by those whose his or her stupid decisions have harmed. Imagine having a boxing match with a thousand people. And yes, I’m aware that such arrangement would cause a very quick elimination of people who wish to be “leaders”. And yes, the potentially “leaderless” world would be a much better place for it.
But then you’d have Mike Tyson/MMA style proxy leaders, and a dozen factions claiming they were harmed by any policy. We’re supposed to be a civilized species, supposed being the opperative word there I guess.
Putting aside the controlling influence behind the IRA to make a point, it should be more akin to what Mo Mowlam did during the N.Ireland Good Friday Agreement negotiations.
Given enough rounds from worthy opponents, even Mike Tyson would not last very long. The key idea would be not to piss off people, to not give them a reason to fight you. As for the pessimistic assumption that there would always be people pissed off – or pretending so to oust the leader… notice that they would be subjected to the same treatment after taking his place. So maybe not the best idea to work like this after all?
The key point is that the leader should be personally responsible for screwing up, to provide sufficient “motivation” for not doing so – and the very same motivation would also guide the wannabe competitors to watch what they are bringing upon themselves.
Everyone should be held personally responsible for their actions, but instead we get closed ranks in Parliment, corporations covering their ass, foxes guarding the hen house (current Covid enquiry case in point) and the sneaky bastards always have some false flag, or plausible deniability style excuse. We have international laws, disregarded at will, and no equal enforcement.
Stick them all in a room and come to a publically transparent agreement, or they’re not allowed to come out, it shouldn’t be about who has the biggest guns, who has the most blood to spill. Never happen tho.
Really, are we driven by honorable ethics and sound reasoning or rather to justify arm trade deals ?
Are we sure we’re arming who we think we’re arming?
I guess the argument against arming one side or the other is the same as the argument against capital punishment – what if you convict someone innocent, and is it really a deterrent?
Who is we? I don’t know about you, but I’m not arming anybody.
If they’d asked me, I’d have reached a deal with Putin not to offer Ukraine NATO or EU membership in exchange for no invasion.
If he invades anyway, then nothing lost. And if he doesn’t, well, I don’t particular care if Ukraine was in NATO or the EU in the first place, so also nothing lost there either.
But no one asked me.
Arguing for the correctness of one side or the other in Ukraine misses the larger point that the war is being used to accelerate the collapse of the supply chains. This is really Plandemic 2.0
Hundreds of companies suspend work in Russia as global grain shortages loom
Yes, the domestic vaccine/ID passports will soon make a grand comeback globally as a “protective measure” against the “new” threat of “biological warfare” … and also to identify potential “terrorists”. How lucky that we’ve already invested in the infrastructure and technology which is going to “protect” us!
Just one problem with arming the Ukrainians: it’s no different from ‘boots on the ground’, and ‘no-fly zone’. It is, in fact, just the same: an act of war. The Russians aren’t calling it that at the moment, but, if they start seriously losing, they will. What do we do then?
The Russians haven’t acknowledged the invasion, they are undertaking.
poor punctuation
Comment before reading: Please shelf your morals. This isn’t a sunday school discussion of some abstract issue of guilt and innocence but a war, ie, an armed conflict between states with conflicting interests. And the people who are still discussing if strategic air warfare, ie, mass-killing of non-combatants and wanton destruction of non-military targets, can’t somehow be made to work as they’re so much in love with the concept have no moral leg to stand on, anyway.
“I don’t know” is a valid argument either way and should be deployed far more liberally than we do.
Indeed.. most around here profess to “know” with absolute certainty. And to absolutely reject any mainstream source of information.
as yourself does
what I find quite weird is that the ukrainian leader zelensky is been on video calls and giving speeches in government houses i.e. house of commons and the US senate etc etc asking for weapons and money and also apparently no fly zones etc. Does this not seem to be political interference and meddling in another countries affairs? in the era of the west complaining of Russian and Chinese political hacking and interference, the spectacle of a leader of another country is actively giving demands to politicians in other countries by video call, the optics of this is quite odd.
I thought Zelensky was in the trenches on the front line? Perhaps he found them difficult to negotiate in high heels.
he’s in Colorado
This is an aggressors’ charter that is, in itself, utterly immoral….has at times brought me to tears,
Warfare is a serious business, and emotions pay no part in it. If you cannot win, you should surrender to save lives. If you will lose, but can make continuing to fight costly for your enemy, you should fight to extract better surrender terms, which is where the Ukraine is now. If your enemy can wield irresistible conventional force, you should surrender your conventional army, and move to guerrilla warfare. For every move, there is an appropriate counter-move. Crying is not one of them.
if you’re unlucky – surviving, for a ghastly but probably quite brief time, a nuclear exchange.
Nuclear war was quite survivable at the height of the Cold War – no matter what slogans CND spouted. It is far more survivable now, with much smaller but precisely targeted weapons.
Not that anyone would want it to happen – but if it did, it is perfectly reasonable to want to survive it.
My main problem with this kind of argument is that it is so emotive, which imo makes it manipulative rather than persuasive. This is another manifestation of the poison in our society and culture that has allowed us to be so easily manipulated.
It’s mostly based upon a spurious category difference between the two parties to this conflict (neither of whom we are allied with or owe anything to, beyond minding our own business).
The category difference is set up in two ways here, both flawed. First, there is the pretence that Ukraine is “free” and Russia is “unfree”. In fact there’s no real overall difference of any substance. Freedom is not about being allowed to choose between corrupt party apparatchiks answering to oligarchs and ideologues very few years – something we in this country are beginning to learn.
The second is based upon the fact that Russia are the initiators of the war, and the Ukraine are not. That’s a technical legal point, but not particularly morally significant one here, given that the Ukraine has been assaulting Russian separatists on the borders for years and clearly intended to launch a full scale attack upon them, and in a more strategic sense, the Ukraine has deliberately aligned itself with a menacing enemy military alliance that is a clear existential threat to Russia. We know that initiating a war, legal or otherwise, is secondary to the other aspects, because our leaders have done so repeatedly without repercussions or any loss of status.
Contrary to Rons’ assertions, we as a nation owe zero duty to the Ukraine. He refers to the 1994 Bucharest memorandum but apparently has not read it. There is no commitment in that agreement to aid the Ukraine in any conflict except one in which nuclear weapons are used or threatened (against Ukraine), which is not the situation here. Even then the commitment is only to seek Security Council assistance.
Clearly people disagree about whether it is in our interest to aid the Ukraine, and that is the discussion we should be having, rather than the festival of emotional manipulation that we are actually experiencing and to which this piece contributes. I would say it is not in our interests – our interests are best served by the conflict being settled as quickly as possible broadly in Russia’s favour, so we can get back to trying to run our lives reasonably normally. We have huge problems of our own that urgently need to be addressed. including, significantly, rooting out and excluding from positions of power the people and groups that have been pushing NATO expansion and Russia-hatred, via outright fabrications such as the Russiagate frauds.
That is where we ought to be looking, not across the seas and over on the other side of the continent.
This is something I’ve come to despise about our Western “democracies” – the constant appeal to emotion and shaming of any critical opposition.
But as a way to get the majority of people to go along with any diabolical strategy you can come up with it’s entirely appropriate. I’m reminded of the old Myers-Briggs tests that divide personality types into Extrovert/Introvert, Sensory/Intuitive, Thinking/Feeling and Perceptive/Judgmental.
We are ruled over by ENTJ psychopaths and their allies that manipulate the feelings of weaker emotional types through mass media. Anyone that doesn’t go along with the torrential flow of feelings is either hateful or a conspiracy theorist if they try to engage your brain over your all-important feelings.
It’s actually painfully easy. So easy they’ve gotten used to their privileged position and are completely unaccountable and driving society off a cliff.
We are ruled over by ENTJ psychopaths and their allies that manipulate the feelings of weaker emotional types through mass media. Anyone that doesn’t go along with the torrential flow of feelings is either hateful or a conspiracy theorist if they try to engage your brain over your all-important feelings.
This describes the situation in China and Russia just as well. I’ve spent plenty of time in both those places to know this from personal experience.
Sorry, but this article by Ian Rons is puerile nonsense.
“The bravery and self-sacrifice shown by every strata of the Ukrainian military and civilian population has at times brought me to tears”.
Anyone who states this proves they have been receiving all their information from a blatantly biased main stream media.
I have been studying world affairs for 40 years and I soon learnt to obtain the facts from a variety of sources.
The images on our screens are straight from the play book of the Western trained terrorists in Syria.
Empty a hospital, employ artillery in it’s grounds and empty buildings, shell opposing civilians, garner a response from those defending those opposing civilians, use human shields and/or actors, video the carnage and send it to the Western media hungry for a so-called atrocity.
How convenient that a pregnant social media star was snapped by a top Ukrainian photographer with state of the art equipment and not a first responder with their mobile phone descending the ruins of a hospital that Russian officials had told the UN was empty only days before which is what they were told by Ukraine.
We are being played by the US presstitutes in the msm and only those willing to find the alternative facts will have a true understanding of what is really going on.
Indeed. It all looks very reminiscent of the Syrian playbook.
So when Russian media tell you there’s no war on, you believe them?
There has been a war for the last 8 years with the neo-Nazi’s ethnic cleansing the Russian speaking citizens in the east of Ukraine forcing them into the Donbass killing thousands.
Putin has instigated an incursion to “de-Nazify and de-militarise” Ukraine so that ethnic Russians can live peacefully and Russia is not threatened by a US backed Ukraine on their doorstep.
Given the same circumstances most countries would have done the same.
Yes, there’s been a Russian proxy war on in the Donbass for the last 8 years, supplied by Russia and with Russian troops on the ground. Just because Putin says something, it might not be true.
(‘There is no war in Ukraine’ – Putin)
Hurry up someone and put a piece of lead between Putin’s ears
Six putin supporters so far.
Were you George W Bush’s speech writer?
12 Putin supporters now
it can’t count
and one dense forest
did you see the Ukrainian balaklava-faced police drag the fired employees away?
Off Subject
Eight hundred P&O staff are about to feel the real effect of the so called lockdown
“So while I may only be a newly-fledged military analyst (adding to my credentials as a virologist)”
Very obviously newly-fledged, not fully fledged -so the tentative flight path looks like leading to a deservedly humiliating crash landing.
A little advice:
Don’t give up the day job and if you are going to persist in this kind of ill- informed and dangerous encouragement to western war mongers to increase the Russian death toll in Ukraine, do try to find sources other than the UK/ Western media ‘fake propaganda’ news-( fresh from its success in lying to the people for 18 months over the Covid Scamdemic )- before penning such a dangerously misleading piece of partisan support for a potentially disastrous policy, designed to extend the war and sustain the corrupt CIA/ Neo-con run regime in Kiev (with its Azov Nazi Wolfsangel wearing supporters), who openly advocate genocide against Russians.
It appears that the writer knows nothing about the Ukraine conflict other than what the BBC has told him and yet by seeking to reduce it to a binary conflct between “Good and Evil” seeks to encourage more pointless deaths among its population.
Not really..the only rational analysis is what happens from this point forward.
The endless stream of sceptics repeating each other in justifying Ukraine’s demise is somewhat distressing to see… And why..because they feel duty bound to object to the dominant view.
I know they all say it is not just god’s vs. bad and you need to look at both sides. Funny how they nearly all fall on one side, after claiming to be objective.
Not difficult to see why, as they reject all information from the other side outright.
And yet here you are again. What would you like to see happen in Ukraine, tree?
I would like Russia to depart.
Would I be in the minority in wishing that.
No I think that’s what everyone wants, including the Russians. You’re not big on nuance are you?
So why are all the folk on here lining up to justify the invasion and speed Ukrainian’s defeat.
Regardless of the background, this is not a nuanced situation. It is binary..either the Russians are invading, killing destroying or they are not.
or the Azov Brigade clusterbombing civilians.
you’re eastern European with bad Google translate.
‘But freedom is much more than just politically and personally advantageous..’
So the moral necessity for arming the British citizenry is clear or is freedom only for Ukrainians?
i am having difficulty seeing the difference between the ruling luvlies in the laughably called free West and Putin or Xi, although I concede Kim Jong-un might be leading the pack by a nose.
Screw the Ukraine, what’s the UK government (joke of) doing about protecting our borders?
Overflowing with compassion.
Why do you hate the British so much?
Why would you ask that. I am British. Why would I hate the British?
I don’t have a worry about borders, don’t mind immigration. In general it is a very good thing, especially European immigration.
I am unlikely to be agreed with by right wing people, but so be it.
your English is very suspect. No natural shortening of verbs.
And you’ve only been here since 4th Jan.
Bog off
Brimming with 1-dimensional gibberish.
Hillary Clinton seems to want Ukraine to follow the proxy war pattern used in Afghanistan in the 1980s (perhaps as many as 2 million dead) and Syria (400 thousand dead).
https://twitter.censors.us/ggreenwald/status/1498658078232920069#m
To me the main issue is should we be actively involved at all? There has been a civil war going on in Ukraine since 2014 with estimates varying between 14,000-20,000 civilians killed in Eastern Ukraine by their fellow countrymen.
However bad one perceives the Russian regime to be, the Ukrainian government and military are infiltrated at all levels by far right extremists, a situation so serious it has been subject to investigation at UN level over concerns that Ukrainian fascists have been training far right extremists in the USA.
I also held the view that the west was justified in condemning and sanctioning Russia until someone asked me a question – how is Russia’s intervention to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine different to the west intervening in the Balkans to stop that genocide? I didn’t have an immediate answer and was prompted to investigate further. In the US at least, the same people now railing against Russia are those who shouted loudest for the West to intervene in the Balkans.
It could be suggested that Russia has gone way beyond protecting ethnic Eastern Ukrainians, but without regime change in Kiev the ethnic cleansing through Ukrainian state sanctioned guerilla action would continue. Would those saying we should fight Russia also condemn the West which has been guilty of attempting to instigate regime change, often with disastrous consequences such as seen in Libya.
It has also been said that Putin’s invasion is nothing to do with protecting ethnic Russian Ukrainians, but an attempt to reestablish the Soviet Union and must be resisted. This is speculation without foundation and does not take account of Russia’s experience with the Wests failure to honour its commitment to maintain Ukraine’s non aligned status. Ukraine is strategically important on the frontline between east and west and dominance by either block entails perceived risk to the other.
To use a Biblical reference – let him that is without guilt cast the first stone. The West has blood on its hands in so many areas I think we need to be careful that we don’t look at the Ukraine conflict as a good versus evil issue. Both sides are have major faults, so we need to examine the issues in far greater depth rather than simply reacting.
Who cast the first stone?
What is a stone in this context?
bloggers – this is a 77th sealion
It engages, then asks a lot of leading questions on a conservative blog. Ignore the tr0ll.
AKA leek; rational.
In the Yugoslav wars, the west not only declined to intervene, but also imposed an arms embargo on all sides. In effect this gave the Serbs a huge advantage because they took the great majority of the military kit with them after the break up. So, this was not a neutral decision, it greatly favoured the Serbs.
We then had a grandstand seat while the Serbs bombed the crap out of Sarajevo and massacred civilians at Srebrenica.
In the Donbass, the situation is very different. The rebellion has from the first been heavily supplied by one of the world’s military superpowers. Russian military equipment and indeed manpower not only started the rebellion, but has sustained it for all these years.
This is the exact reverse of western policy over Bosnia and Croatia.
Why would the world suddenly decide to annihilate itself? MAD has been very successful. Nobody is going to respond to non-nuclear attack with nukes unless they have nothing they care about in the world.
Battlefield nukes may be an edge case. But I think that it is suicidal for Putin. He would be signing up for a world war personally targeting him.
The way it would happen would be by step by step escalation.
Russia (legitimately) targets with cruise missiles a Polish base, say, used to supply weapons into Ukraine. Amid the hysterical pandemonium of sanctimonious outrage we are now used to in the modern US sphere, whoever in the US regime is responsible for changing Biden’s nappies authorises some kind of demonstrative punitive strike. Russian authorities get a mistaken warning that they are facing a possible first strike, with seconds to decide how to respond…..
Add in as many steps as you need.
Likely? Probably not very. But how likely are you comfortable with?
Why would your first step be legitimate?
Because bases providing active military support to enemy forces are legitimate targets in war. You can’t claim neutrality as a defence if you aren’t neutral.
Though on reflection that’s too sweeping – to give legal as opposed to moral legitimacy the assistance would probably have to be more than just passing weapons along. Allowing Ukrainian pilots to operate from it would do, as there have been (doubtful imo) rumours might be happening in Rumania.
But there isn’t a war. Russia says so.
How do you know what Russia says? The Russian media have been cancelled by the freedom loving, democratic West.
This is absolutely not the way things work. Every single conflict since WW2 has been funded and supplied by outside players – the SU/Russia being prominent among them.
Under Putin, Russia has no moral objection to the use of battlefield nukes or chemical weapons. Yes, he is cautious of using them for fear of retaliation.
Unfortunately Putin has decided that the west lacks the courage to actually use their own nukes. At this point MAD breaks down.
If the US were putting gain of function biolabs in Ukraine, then it is very much the same situation as the USSR putting missiles in Cuba. So, the idea that Russia is necessarily in the wrong is far from clear.
Be careful about believing russian propaganda.
Er, its not Russian propaganda.
Nuland who admitted the US were doing so is a US official.
Be careful about believing MSM / Soros funded propaganda.
These were Soviet bio labs which the US agreed to part fund after the break up of the SU, in order to safely decommission them as weapons centres. They also funded aspects of Eastern Europe’s nuclear industry, for fear that the nuclear plants would fall into disrepair. All this has been entirely in the public eye for many decades.
you’re trolling doesn’t work here
leektree, most people actually research the subjects before gobbing off, I know that’s an alien concept for you, but still…https://armswatch.com/author/dilyana-gaytandzhieva/
Be careful about believing anything without checking it for yourself from sources you trust. Be especially careful of people who claim that propaganda only comes from one side.
Ukrainian flag flying atop a (new) flagpole in the centre of town today. I regard it with the same contempt as prior Covid visual propaganda. Which is sad and confounding; I have nothing against Ukraine at all and wish the fighting would come to an end and those affected be left to get on with their lives. But I will not be told how to think by a morally bankrupt government /media complex seeking to manipulate my emotions for what can only be nefarious reasons.
If we are going to talk about things that are morally wrong – using the authorities, symbols and tax resources of the nation to virtue signal on behalf of causes favoured by sections of the nation, regardless of how big the section is.
Especially wrong when it is local government, whose concerns should be roads and sewers, and certainly not foreign affairs!
With the public just as adept at identifying propaganda as they have been for the last two years.
Just a normal continuation of the Spanish Inquisition style of governance firmly established throughout the pandemic.
Yes. The question is, is this realpolitik or Phase 2 of a globalist coup? Answers on a non fungible blockchain postcard.
By thinking the exact opposite of what your are told by “gov/media complex” you are not actually having your own thoughts. You are just rebelling.
and having you point out the “disconnect” you parrot the narrative of Govt.
Go away woody.
The article is right to counter the Noah Carl viewpoint, which says “look the other way” to speed Ukraine’s annexation by Russia, rewarding the aggressor.
It is possible to extend Carl’s logic and get NATO to also attack Ukrain, to speed their defeat. After all, it would be for their own good!
There are only two outcomes from agression, one side wins or both sides lose. I would say it is odds on for the latter. An early end means losing less.
go away woody
“To the atheist, it is as an inextinguishable divine spark.”
This one sentence bears testimony to a very muddled article. To the atheist, there is no inextinguishable divine spark because to the atheist there is no such thing as the divine.
And morality is neither absolute nor relative, it is either ontologically objective or subjective and it can only be ontologically objective if God exists. The Church has long considered what might be necessary for a just war and one requirement is that there must be a serious prospect of success. Is there a serious chance of victory by the Ukraine?
Freedom has been a rarity in human history. The West is currently in the process of abolishing it, which is why it is impossible to get a balanced account of how the war is going. We’re told the Ukraine is doing well, but we’ve only got the BBCs word for that and the BBCs word is worthless. And let’s face it, the conduct of the West, the US, the EU and NATO is what has brought us to this conflict.
I said, “To the atheist, it is _as_ an inextinguishable divine spark.” That is to say, like a divine spark. I choose my words carefully.
The line doing the rounds today:
“The United States intends to fight Russia right down to the last Ukrainian”
In the world of international relations, might is right, and Russia intends that the border nation of Ukraine will remain neutral.
That’s just like the US preventing Russia putting missiles in Cuba, Mexico or Canada.
Russia will neutralise Ukraine, and Russia will succeed in doing so. The only question is how many people will die doing it.
Because when it boils down to it, the West isn’t prepared to send sons, fathers and brothers to their death in Ukraine. No boots on the ground means the war is already lost.
Bringing people to tears implies emotionalism is at work here – pushed by the propaganda of the Western media. That won’t do in international diplomatic relations where Realism is the only way of avoid endless more casualties.
Once again our country is racked with hysteria amongst people who let feelings cloud their judgement. And that is leading to poor decisions.
At this point, it looks very unlikely that Putin will capture Kyiv, let alone the rest of the country. He may not even get Kharkiv, which is right on the border with a supposed pro Russia majority. They aren’t pro Russia now.
“Luxury department stores have been blasted for continuing to sell Russian goods after MailOnline revealed Harrods was offering £90 Beluga vodka bottles ‘under the counter’ and Selfridges proudly stocked £150 pariah state’s spirits.”
“Sanction Harrods.”
“TUI the holiday company frequented by brits has ties to Russians are you all going to now cancel your holidays to Benidorm?”
“Everyone is still buying Russian oil so banning the sale of Russian vodka is meaningless and pathetic.”
£90 Beluga vodka bottles ‘under the counter’
reading that made me laugh, its now got to parody levels, imagine if the state had to give back all the russian investment they had taken over the last say decade.
There is no “moral necessity” to take sides in any conflict.
All conflicts are the result of failures on both sides to resolved the root causes of the conflict. It is mever crystal clear that one side is utterly blameless.
Conflicts are exacerbated and prolonged, not diminished or shortened, by foreign interference.
Let them fight it out amongst themselves.
And the next country invaded?
Well there are a lot of chaps from France invading England in rubber dinghies. Do I get a prize?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2133804/Brazil-helped-Argentina-Falklands-War-supplying-aeroplanes-bombs-ammunition-fight-British-forces.html
So, Brazil covertly assisted Argentina.
Imagine the outcome if they had decided it was a “moral necessity” to overtly ally with Argentina!
“Moral necessity” isn’t so clear now, is it?
Wars are a moral jungle.
“Moral necessity” is mere propaganda for political determination to get involved.
In fact there is a difference between invading a country in order to wipe it off the map, versus intervening on behalf of either the government or rebel group who are more legitimate/ less vicious than the other side.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A0DeNDirbI&ab_channel=TheDuran
Zelensky’s speech to US Congress. Putin’s speech to the Russian people
Incidentally there are no Russian conscripts fighting in Ukraine despite what the Western MSM says.
What does Russian MSM say?
Do you believe them?
Who knows? The Russian MSM has been censored here in the freedom loving West.
Rubbish, you can watch it any time you like.
Amongst other things they have claimed: we won’t invade/there is no war/we’ve had no casualties/Ukrainian people are delighted to be invaded.
This is supposed to be a forum for sceptics.
How about the moral necessity of allowing Dr. Sam Bailey the right of reply?
Ian Rons is a globalist apologist plank end of
Yes. All Noah Carl’s arguments amount to appeasement of aggression and blaming of victims and their allies. No amount of clever-dick sophistry alters that basic fact.
stick to IT
History has shown that the western powers are not entirely blameless in the current mess, ignoble perhaps. Whilst Russia may have been trying to influence Ukranian politics for some time to achieve their aims, the west has been doing very much the same and then some. So, this “freedom” being fought for is what exactly? Autonomy, clearly not quite, “freedom” to be swayed by the western powers to signing up to an EU flavour of liberalism and “western values” through their society?
We’ve seen throughout the pandemic exactly how the EU treats the concept of “freedom” and it doesn’t look good. Look at the propaganda and censorship right now, is this “freedom”?
I support the argument that going full neutral (ala Mearsheimer plan) was the better idea, rather than being where we are now – feeding in more armaments and bringing about more death and destruction whilst further backing Russia into a corner. Perhaps this would have been a better pursuit of “freedom”, it might seem like the ship has sailed on this one but I think there is probably still time.
Putin is after swallowing up a next door sovereign state. Hardly anybody else has tried this since WW2 (Saddam Hussein being a notable exception).
When a dictator is deposed, with out without Western support, some form of government has to take over. The Western approach is that this should be a democracy.
Is that so wrong? What would you suggest instead?
This is a great example of “road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Military aid, in weapons and especially volunteers, will be the destruction of Ukraine as it was the decision making, since 2014, which was done outside of Ukraine. I know, first hand, what outside forces do to a conflict, with their noble intentions. Let’s call those noble men the way we should, mercenaries. Their noble intentions don’t matter. They come from somewhere else and they will kill indiscriminately (because this is not their home ground) and selfishly (because their life is important, not some country or its people). Weird things in all this is that only parts under Russian control can have any hope of some type or order in next few years. When everything is settled and people from outside are no longer interested in Ukraine, whoever is left will have to pick up the pieces.
Note to the author: just because certain armies and their military and political leaders haven’t set foot in prisons of war tribunals, it doesn’t mean they are not by any moral standard responsible for genocide and war crimes. Do some learning of recent history, but not just through msm headlines.
Under Russian proxy governments, Ukraine was as corrupt as Belarus. Since Euromaidan it has been on a slow, painful climb towards success. Ukraine was on a path to win. If Putin gets control back, that’s over.
“The recent article by Noah Carl about moral concerns regarding weapons deliveries to Ukraine is wrong on every level. The main argument goes that, by providing weaponry, the West might prolong a war, and thus prolong hardship. ”
The writer has missed out a key part of the argument: If the West wants to defeat the aggressor, then pouring in arms is insufficient. The victims are given more weapons, but only the victims suffer – the West loses money but that is it. Noah Carl’s argument is not that helping the invaded country is pointless, but if you want to help, then you have to suffer as well. In this case, leaving the Ukrainians to fight, suffer and die is not fair/moral/whatever. That will prolong the war, increase the devastation and suffering – but the West only suffers monetary loss. That is not fair.
Biden said that implementing a no-fly zone would bring the West into the war (WWIII!) but that is exactly what the Ukrainians need – people to fight by their side, not over the border in safety.
BTW Since Biden said it, it is almost definitely wrong. So those who want to supply arms to the Ukrainians should get their boots on the ground and join in.