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 same argument could be applied to any military conflict, where it could be held that the military defeat of an enemy can, morally, be accomplished as soon as the aggressor is able to inflict sufficient harm on the populace of its enemy such as to render it ‘immoral’ for the defender to continue without accepting the loss of life as its responsibility.
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.”
This line of argumentation needs to emphasise particular kinds of hardship – those suffered during a war – while minimising others. The value of freedom and dignity to the people at the receiving end becomes a ‘preference’ – something like a subjective value judgement – rather than an absolute moral right, and the hardships entailed by the loss of that freedom and having to live under a tyranny imposed by a foreign pariah state for – perhaps – generations is some far-off future imponderable not needing to be addressed.
But let’s consider for a moment the hardship of all those Russian tankers in their T-72s with those quick-detach turrets getting burnt to cinders by our N-LAWs. It must be absolutely terrifying for them. I feel sorry for the Russian conscripts who were apparently forced to sign contracts just before the invasion, making it then ‘legal’ for Putin to send them off to a foreign war. But should Ukraine lose this war, in the coming years those could be Ukrainian conscripts, forced against their will to fight in some foreign land. That’s just one obvious consequence of living under Putin.
But freedom is much more than just politically and personally advantageous. Much has been said about that topic in relation to Covid, but there’s a reason that freedom is the one thing that humans are consistently willing to fight to the death to hold on to, or to win back. The phrase “win back” is apposite: freedom – the freedom to think, to speak and to choose for oneself – is the ultimate right that, deep down, everyone knows to be inalienable. Slaves know it is secretly still theirs. To the atheist, it is as an inextinguishable divine spark.
Freedom can only be temporarily mislaid, never truly lost; even the choice to oppose that belief (in the comments section, perhaps) is merely an expression thereof. All dictators know this, necessitating elaborate countermeasures as part of an extensive state security apparatus, and in this case a bloody war of aggression that it is not only right but noble to oppose.
Noah quotes a figure of 400,000 deaths in the Syrian Civil War, or roughly 2% of the population. That is a tragedy, but to paraphrase another Russian dictator it is also a statistic telling us how those people value their freedom, that they are willing to pay so much in blood to achieve it. There were similar numbers killed in the U.S. Civil War. And while this current war isn’t technically a civil war, even were they equipped with only their own unguided and wire-guided missiles to fight against waves of Russian armour, I have no doubt the Ukrainians would still have fought what could well have been a much more protracted and bloody affair. At least it could easily have been much more costly in Ukrainian lives. Ukraine is not like the Syrian rebels, in that it already had enough weapons to fight an extended war, and in fact had and still has a large army with which to do so. So while I may only be a newly-fledged military analyst (adding to my credentials as a virologist), I wouldn’t concede that supplying sophisticated weaponry is likely to increase the final death toll or general hardship, except probably on the Russian side of the slate.
Noah goes on to criticise those who support a Western strategy of making this war so costly for Russia that it leads to a collapse of the Putin government and possibly the entire state, saying effectively ‘better the devil you know’ and also citing the danger of nuclear proliferation in that scenario. Nuclear proliferation didn’t happen in 1991, and neither was Yeltsin a worse leader on a geo-political level, but these are both risks, sure. However, there’s also a risk that Putin will try to use battlefield nukes if it looks like he’s losing badly in Ukraine, which could well escalate into a full-scale nuclear exchange. He’s also been helping the dangerously millenarian Islamo-fascist Iranian state in its nuclear proliferation efforts, so it seems like we’re already living in the world that Noah fears might come to pass as a result of a regime collapse in Moscow.
In fact, we probably haven’t been this close to a nuclear war since 1983. But what’s worse, and where I do have serious qualms about all this, is that so many apparently quite young people aren’t as concerned as they should be about nuclear war. They’re either too young to remember or aren’t able to imagine that Cold War feeling of always being a few terrifying moments away from obliteration or – if you’re unlucky – surviving, for a ghastly but probably quite brief time, a nuclear exchange. These people are still trying to insist that NATO should start a shooting match with Russia in the air, and I can’t help but feel this idiocy is psychologically just an expression of ‘cancel culture’. The youthful Ukrainian Government – absurdly, while under attack – also called for Russia to be banned from Twitter. To paraphrase Wellington, I don’t know what effect this has on the enemy, but it terrifies me.
Noah goes on to offer some possible counterarguments to his main theme, such as that supplying weaponry makes a quick Ukrainian victory more likely. I’d say that it makes any kind of victory more likely, which is clearly what the Ukrainian people want and which is really the ultimate point. But Noah questions which, or how many, Ukrainian people want to fight, and which of them would be willing to suffer through an extended war. I don’t disagree that this has, in some sense, the seed of a valid argument. For instance, I think the Nazis should have given up much sooner, when they knew they couldn’t win; that many Germans, including German soldiers, lost the will to fight, and that their failure to surrender until they did resulted in huge and unnecessary loss of life and property on both sides. But when it comes to Ukraine, when and on what terms it chooses to cease hostilities in a defensive war are fundamentally matters for its people to decide collectively (although the Russian army also has a say, sadly), and not for us to second-guess, especially when it’s clear that there’s overwhelming support for the war amongst ordinary Ukrainians.
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. We can’t fail them so badly as to base our decisions to offer lethal assistance on a speculative critique of their will and courage to resist this evil, and the truth is that the Ukrainians do, collectively, want to fight for their freedom. And when they lit the beacon to call for aid, we rightly answered, honouring the promise we made them in 1994.
Ian Rons is the IT Director of the Daily Sceptic.
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These popular modern movements seem to attract people with small brains who are completely blind to the consequences of their actions.
Nail…on…head…
Bravo..!
When reality bites…That is one hell of a rude awakening, but thank the gods she survived and her kids are OK. I hope she’s now a lot wiser for this experience.
Wiser? Unlikely, she’ll be looking around for a white supremacist to blame.
“Now she’s fairly changed her tune”… but not enough to admit she was in error before.
No sympathy whatsoever for the trauma suffered by this woman. She and her kind pose a huge threat to civil society. .
Sorry, couldn’t help it!
And for the downtickers,
I bet this young lady wished the police had been there to kneel on her assailants necks no matter what colour those necks were!
she wouldn’t have give a toss so long as her and her kids where safe! Convince me otherwise instead of cowardly downticking!
I read a comment elsewhere which questioned the authenticity of the blood pattern on her face and which posited that the blood had been mixed with water to create a more extensive and gruesome flow. In any case, and bearing in mind her political allegiances and stated goals, as her fellow knee taking anti white racist traveller has said, it’s all part and parcel of living in a big city. Sorry, not sorry.
I would query the fact that her lippy and eye makeup are intact, neither of which would survive the experience of being roughed up and dragged around – hell, I’ve only got to sneeze to smudge my eye make-up.
Edited to add, why are her earrings still in place too?
All we need is a report of a noose and her masked attackers shouting “this is MAGA Country” for the picture to be complete. And didn’t George Floyd hold a pregnant woman up at gun point during a home invasion?
She may well of been cleaned up in hospital immediately after the attack then used a bit of fake blood to recreate an injury for her post but I don’t think there’s any doubt she was attacked. The big question is what colour were her attackers? There’s a good chance they were one of her black siblings she’s so desperate to be an ally with. If this is the case no doubt the attack was a result of slavery, systemic inequalities and white dominance. There’s no chance black attackers could of been people with free will who chose to do it.
Exactly – and no way is that red stuff blood. She’s up to something.
Fancy chain round her neck in the bigger picture in the daily email. Her top ;looks unruffled too.
Nevertheless, it was a terrible thing to happen to her. Hopefully she’ll change her mind about dismantling the police.
Looks like raspberry juice to me
The full picture shows the top she is wearing has quite a damp patch like it’s been poured on. Her hair looks untouched as does her face except for the splatters.
Are there any reports of what the neighbours did after the attackers left? I couldn’t find any except the neighbours “wanting to help” while the attack was in-progress. I would have thought it newsworthy to report how they came to assist once the attackers had gone.
Yes, I’ve just had a closer look at the picture – eye make-up perfect, no smudges so no obvious attempt to wipe her face, ditto lippy. Her appearance is fake. Was her make-up done specifically for a photo shoot and some blood applied, carefully mind, just before the shutter was pressed?
So if the piccie is fake what about the story? I suspect some minor argy-bargy which she has blown up out of all proportion.
Might have been better to show a picture of her supposedly broken leg.
Some speculation in the Telegraph article about the colour of the assailants, but if they had been white it would have been trumpeted loud and clear, as is normally the case in the media.
That’s what immediately sprung to my mind, HP. If I had been savagely beaten, so much so that blood ran down my face, I don’t think the first thing I would have done would be to take a selfie. I would have been worried for my children. There is no obvious bruising, no – as you say – smudging of make-up, no blood-shot eyes, no swelling or other cuts. It looks like raspberry juice and not blood which doesn’t dry like that. You tend to mop up blood that is running with a tissue or cloth which smears it. This looks like it was squirted on to be honest. Call me a sceptic and of course I may be wrong but something about this doesn’t add up.
Entirely agree Aethelred and:
“You tend to mop up blood that is running with a tissue or cloth which smears it.”
This is increasingly becoming a Democrat story.
(I am sure the euphemism is obvious.)
Seen a lot of bloody and beaten people and she looks faked. Glad I’m not the only one who has spotted it.
Yes, agreed. It does resemble a joke shop, Halloween effect type of effort. However, it’s a lot harder to fake a broken leg. Plus, call me soft as clarts, but I don’t care who you are or what you’ve done, I draw the line at somebody’s attempted murder/serious assault being witnessed by their own children. I’m just relieved everyone concerned is alive, being America and all..
While I agree about the children witnessing the ‘attack’ if the blood is being faked then how much else is being faked. There is no pallor, no ‘pain face’, no fear or anxiety, nothing. Having broken bones and been ‘duffed up’ (I won, but it did not feel like it, I had more boo-boos than my two assailants), and having also seen a lot ot ‘stuff’ in the Army, I can assure you that her body will react like any other persons body. You just cannot help it, adrenaline rush shows and I am not seeing anything.
I have net zero sympathy. In fact these thugs did all right-minded people a favour because unless others like this woman suffer that which they are happy to see visited on others the de-fund the police madness will not cease.
Suck it up lady.
The lovely Julie Birchill nailed it when she called them ‘luxury beliefs’….amazing how easily they crumple in the face of reality!!?
…not the same State I know, but oh the irony!!
https://themessenger.com/news/walmart-is-building-a-police-station-inside-its-new-atlanta-store-to-deter-shoplifting
Walmart announced plans to build a police station inside one of its stores in Georgia, local news outlet Rough Draft Atlanta reported.
The Vine City Walmart Supercenter closed last year after sustaining fire and water damage in a suspected arson case. Walmart executives and Atlanta officials announced on August 29 that it’s slated to reopen next May — with the addition of a police substation meant to deter shoplifters.
LOL!
Or this:
Instead of giving thumbs down why don’t those commentators have the b*lls to express their opinions so that we can see where they are coming from? Can they be BLM supporters?
The only ones with downticks seem to be the posts that are enjoying her misfortune. She may well be a left-wing Dem fk-wit but that doesn’t mean everyone appreciates kicking someone when they are down. And no, it wasn’t me that down ticked.
Not at all. See Mogwai.
Oh I can tell you exactly why, based on personal experience and my experimentation. Apparently there’s a correlation between being a tight-wad and a coward. All you have to do is mention a small, furry children’s pet and it’s even smaller appendage and you’ll trigger the feck out of them. But you still won’t get an actual reply though.
Minneapolis were all for defunded the police. How did that turn out.
Instant karma!
LMFAO
So there IS a God.
Trying hard not to laugh but it’s difficult
“Let’s hope other wokesters can change their views on the police without being assaulted.”
Hopefully but doubtful.