I have quoted from and linked to articles in the mainstream media which clearly back my position on this.
My ‘facts’ are there in black and white.
Do you dispute these?
Ukraine Watch...
Moderator: Peak Moderation
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UndercoverElephant
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Re: Ukraine Watch...
Yep. Somebody round here has swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
Re: Ukraine Watch...
Simon Whistler - a media personality.
If it's all Russian disinformation you should be able to debunk each point, not just post a cheap sensationalist video.
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Default0ptions
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Re: Ukraine Watch...
Perhaps you might address the points I actually made - and tell me which of the sources I quoted from that you disagree with and why.
I was replying to Ralph’s “Your facts are not there” post.
Do try to dispute the facts rather than just linking to a cheap shot dumbed down Russia = Bad video.
I posted and quoted from four separate mainstream news sources. Do tell me why you think they got it wrong and why.
Here are the four sources that I quoted. Where are they wrong and why do you think so?
“When I was a journalist for The Times (London) in Moscow in December 1992, I saw a print-out of a speech by the then Russian foreign minister, Andrei Kozyrev, warning that if the West continued to attack vital Russian interests and ignore Russian protests, there would one day be a dangerous backlash. A British journalist had scrawled on it a note to an American colleague, “Here are more of Kozyrev’s ravings.”
Andrei Kozyrev was the most liberal and pro-Western foreign minister Russia has ever had. As he stated in his speech, his anxiety about Western behavior was rooted in fear that the resulting backlash would destroy liberalism in Russia and Russian co-operation with the West. He was proved right as we see today. Yet when he expressed this fear, in entirely moderate and rational terms, he was instinctively dismissed by western observers as virtually insane.
The point about this history is that the existing crisis with Russia has origins that go far beyond Putin.”
https://time.com/6141806/russia-ukraine-threats/
“John Mearsheimer on why the West is principally responsible for the Ukrainian crisis
The political scientist believes the reckless expansion of NATO provoked Russia”
https://www.economist.com/by-invitation ... ian-crisis
“Nato’s arrogant, tone‐deaf policy toward Russia over the past quarter‐century deserves a large share as well. Analysts committed to a US foreign policy of realism and restraint have warned for more than a quarter‐century that continuing to expand the most powerful military alliance in history toward another major power would not end well. The war in Ukraine provides definitive confirmation that it did not.
“It would be extraordinarily difficult to expand Nato eastward without that action’s being viewed by Russia as unfriendly. Even the most modest schemes would bring the alliance to the borders of the old Soviet Union. Some of the more ambitious versions would have the alliance virtually surround the Russian Federation itself.” I wrote those words in 1994, in my book Beyond Nato: Staying Out of Europe’s Wars, at a time when expansion proposals merely constituted occasional speculation in foreign policy seminars in New York and Washington. I added that expansion “would constitute a needless provocation of Russia”.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ia-ukraine
“It has become especially fashionable in such circles to insist that NATO's expansion to Russia's border was in no way responsible for the current Ukraine crisis. Many dismiss all arguments to the contrary as "echoing Putin's talking points," "siding with Putin," or circulating Russian propaganda and "disinformation." Leaving aside the ugly miasma of McCarthyism enveloping such allegations, the underlying argument is factually wrong.
Russian leaders and several Western policy experts were warning more than two decades ago that NATO expansion would turn out badly—ending in a new cold war with Russia at best, and a hot one at worst.”
https://www.newsweek.com/us-nato-helped ... on-1685554
I was replying to Ralph’s “Your facts are not there” post.
Do try to dispute the facts rather than just linking to a cheap shot dumbed down Russia = Bad video.
I posted and quoted from four separate mainstream news sources. Do tell me why you think they got it wrong and why.
Here are the four sources that I quoted. Where are they wrong and why do you think so?
“When I was a journalist for The Times (London) in Moscow in December 1992, I saw a print-out of a speech by the then Russian foreign minister, Andrei Kozyrev, warning that if the West continued to attack vital Russian interests and ignore Russian protests, there would one day be a dangerous backlash. A British journalist had scrawled on it a note to an American colleague, “Here are more of Kozyrev’s ravings.”
Andrei Kozyrev was the most liberal and pro-Western foreign minister Russia has ever had. As he stated in his speech, his anxiety about Western behavior was rooted in fear that the resulting backlash would destroy liberalism in Russia and Russian co-operation with the West. He was proved right as we see today. Yet when he expressed this fear, in entirely moderate and rational terms, he was instinctively dismissed by western observers as virtually insane.
The point about this history is that the existing crisis with Russia has origins that go far beyond Putin.”
https://time.com/6141806/russia-ukraine-threats/
“John Mearsheimer on why the West is principally responsible for the Ukrainian crisis
The political scientist believes the reckless expansion of NATO provoked Russia”
https://www.economist.com/by-invitation ... ian-crisis
“Nato’s arrogant, tone‐deaf policy toward Russia over the past quarter‐century deserves a large share as well. Analysts committed to a US foreign policy of realism and restraint have warned for more than a quarter‐century that continuing to expand the most powerful military alliance in history toward another major power would not end well. The war in Ukraine provides definitive confirmation that it did not.
“It would be extraordinarily difficult to expand Nato eastward without that action’s being viewed by Russia as unfriendly. Even the most modest schemes would bring the alliance to the borders of the old Soviet Union. Some of the more ambitious versions would have the alliance virtually surround the Russian Federation itself.” I wrote those words in 1994, in my book Beyond Nato: Staying Out of Europe’s Wars, at a time when expansion proposals merely constituted occasional speculation in foreign policy seminars in New York and Washington. I added that expansion “would constitute a needless provocation of Russia”.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ia-ukraine
“It has become especially fashionable in such circles to insist that NATO's expansion to Russia's border was in no way responsible for the current Ukraine crisis. Many dismiss all arguments to the contrary as "echoing Putin's talking points," "siding with Putin," or circulating Russian propaganda and "disinformation." Leaving aside the ugly miasma of McCarthyism enveloping such allegations, the underlying argument is factually wrong.
Russian leaders and several Western policy experts were warning more than two decades ago that NATO expansion would turn out badly—ending in a new cold war with Russia at best, and a hot one at worst.”
https://www.newsweek.com/us-nato-helped ... on-1685554
Last edited by Default0ptions on 19 May 2024, 16:54, edited 1 time in total.
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UndercoverElephant
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Re: Ukraine Watch...
Hook, line and sinker.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
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Default0ptions
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Re: Ukraine Watch...
Do tell us which points you disagree with and why UE. I know you’re not unintelligent Geoff. ‘Hook, line and sinker.’ leaves the points that I raised unaddressed.
Are you unable to refute them, unwilling to even try to refute them, or what?
Last edited by Default0ptions on 19 May 2024, 19:57, edited 3 times in total.
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Default0ptions
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Re: Ukraine Watch...
From The Times (hardly a pro Russian source) in 2008:
“Any strategic decision, such as the goading of Moscow, must plan for its response. Nato's bureaucracy, lacking coherence and leadership, has been searching for a role since the end of the cold war. That role is apparently now to play with fire.
Western strategy is dealing with a resurgent, rich and potent Russia. It has played fast and loose with Moscow's age-old sensitivity and forgotten the message of George Kennan, the American statesman: that Russia must be understood and contained rather than confronted. The naive remarks welcoming Georgia to Nato by David Miliband, the foreign secretary, show a West far detached from such analytical truths.
Any student of McCain or Obama, of Russia's Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, or of the leaders of Britain, France and Germany, might conclude that these are not people likely to go to war. They are surely the children of peace. Yet history shows that "going to war" is never an intention. It is rather the result of weak, shortsighted leaders entrapped by a series of mistakes. For the West's leaders at present, mistake has become second nature.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/we-t ... fq6mt63q9b
“Any strategic decision, such as the goading of Moscow, must plan for its response. Nato's bureaucracy, lacking coherence and leadership, has been searching for a role since the end of the cold war. That role is apparently now to play with fire.
Western strategy is dealing with a resurgent, rich and potent Russia. It has played fast and loose with Moscow's age-old sensitivity and forgotten the message of George Kennan, the American statesman: that Russia must be understood and contained rather than confronted. The naive remarks welcoming Georgia to Nato by David Miliband, the foreign secretary, show a West far detached from such analytical truths.
Any student of McCain or Obama, of Russia's Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, or of the leaders of Britain, France and Germany, might conclude that these are not people likely to go to war. They are surely the children of peace. Yet history shows that "going to war" is never an intention. It is rather the result of weak, shortsighted leaders entrapped by a series of mistakes. For the West's leaders at present, mistake has become second nature.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/we-t ... fq6mt63q9b
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UndercoverElephant
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Re: Ukraine Watch...
I think I'll let Ralph deal with you. He has more patience than me.Default0ptions wrote: ↑19 May 2024, 16:37Do tell us which points you disagree with and why. I know you’re not unintelligent Geoff. ‘Hook, line and sinker.’ leaves the points that I raised unaddressed.
Are you unable to refute them, unwilling to even try to refute them, or what?
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
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Default0ptions
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- Joined: 20 Mar 2020, 22:20
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Re: Ukraine Watch...
Surely if my points are wrong it should be trivial for you to debunk them UE.
I notice that you don’t even try.
Is that because you can’t refute me point by point?
UE: “I think I'll let Ralph deal with you. He has more patience than me.”
Why are you unable to deal with the points I’ve raised? These were in response to Ralph saying Russia did this [Ukraine] unprovoked.
1) “Andrei Kozyrev was the most liberal and pro-Western foreign minister Russia has ever had. As he stated in his speech, his anxiety about Western behavior was rooted in fear that the resulting backlash would destroy liberalism in Russia and Russian co-operation with the West. He was proved right as we see today. Yet when he expressed this fear, in entirely moderate and rational terms, he was instinctively dismissed by western observers as virtually insane.
The point about this history is that the existing crisis with Russia has origins that go far beyond Putin.”
https://time.com/6141806/russia-ukraine-threats/
Do you dispute this, and if so - on what grounds?
2) “John Mearsheimer on why the West is principally responsible for the Ukrainian crisis
The political scientist believes the reckless expansion of NATO provoked Russia”
https://www.economist.com/by-invitation ... ian-crisis
Do you dispute this, and if so - on what grounds?
3) “Nato’s arrogant, tone‐deaf policy toward Russia over the past quarter‐century deserves a large share as well. Analysts committed to a US foreign policy of realism and restraint have warned for more than a quarter‐century that continuing to expand the most powerful military alliance in history toward another major power would not end well. The war in Ukraine provides definitive confirmation that it did not.
“It would be extraordinarily difficult to expand Nato eastward without that action’s being viewed by Russia as unfriendly. Even the most modest schemes would bring the alliance to the borders of the old Soviet Union. Some of the more ambitious versions would have the alliance virtually surround the Russian Federation itself.” I wrote those words in 1994, in my book Beyond Nato: Staying Out of Europe’s Wars, at a time when expansion proposals merely constituted occasional speculation in foreign policy seminars in New York and Washington. I added that expansion “would constitute a needless provocation of Russia”.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ia-ukraine
Do you dispute this, and if so - on what grounds?
4) “It has become especially fashionable in such circles to insist that NATO's expansion to Russia's border was in no way responsible for the current Ukraine crisis. Many dismiss all arguments to the contrary as "echoing Putin's talking points," "siding with Putin," or circulating Russian propaganda and "disinformation." Leaving aside the ugly miasma of McCarthyism enveloping such allegations, the underlying argument is factually wrong.
Russian leaders and several Western policy experts were warning more than two decades ago that NATO expansion would turn out badly—ending in a new cold war with Russia at best, and a hot one at worst.”
https://www.newsweek.com/us-nato-helped ... on-1685554
Do you dispute this, and if so - on what grounds?
Okay - what do you dispute about each of these four points?
I notice that you don’t even try.
Is that because you can’t refute me point by point?
UE: “I think I'll let Ralph deal with you. He has more patience than me.”
Why are you unable to deal with the points I’ve raised? These were in response to Ralph saying Russia did this [Ukraine] unprovoked.
1) “Andrei Kozyrev was the most liberal and pro-Western foreign minister Russia has ever had. As he stated in his speech, his anxiety about Western behavior was rooted in fear that the resulting backlash would destroy liberalism in Russia and Russian co-operation with the West. He was proved right as we see today. Yet when he expressed this fear, in entirely moderate and rational terms, he was instinctively dismissed by western observers as virtually insane.
The point about this history is that the existing crisis with Russia has origins that go far beyond Putin.”
https://time.com/6141806/russia-ukraine-threats/
Do you dispute this, and if so - on what grounds?
2) “John Mearsheimer on why the West is principally responsible for the Ukrainian crisis
The political scientist believes the reckless expansion of NATO provoked Russia”
https://www.economist.com/by-invitation ... ian-crisis
Do you dispute this, and if so - on what grounds?
3) “Nato’s arrogant, tone‐deaf policy toward Russia over the past quarter‐century deserves a large share as well. Analysts committed to a US foreign policy of realism and restraint have warned for more than a quarter‐century that continuing to expand the most powerful military alliance in history toward another major power would not end well. The war in Ukraine provides definitive confirmation that it did not.
“It would be extraordinarily difficult to expand Nato eastward without that action’s being viewed by Russia as unfriendly. Even the most modest schemes would bring the alliance to the borders of the old Soviet Union. Some of the more ambitious versions would have the alliance virtually surround the Russian Federation itself.” I wrote those words in 1994, in my book Beyond Nato: Staying Out of Europe’s Wars, at a time when expansion proposals merely constituted occasional speculation in foreign policy seminars in New York and Washington. I added that expansion “would constitute a needless provocation of Russia”.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ia-ukraine
Do you dispute this, and if so - on what grounds?
4) “It has become especially fashionable in such circles to insist that NATO's expansion to Russia's border was in no way responsible for the current Ukraine crisis. Many dismiss all arguments to the contrary as "echoing Putin's talking points," "siding with Putin," or circulating Russian propaganda and "disinformation." Leaving aside the ugly miasma of McCarthyism enveloping such allegations, the underlying argument is factually wrong.
Russian leaders and several Western policy experts were warning more than two decades ago that NATO expansion would turn out badly—ending in a new cold war with Russia at best, and a hot one at worst.”
https://www.newsweek.com/us-nato-helped ... on-1685554
Do you dispute this, and if so - on what grounds?
Okay - what do you dispute about each of these four points?
Last edited by Default0ptions on 19 May 2024, 19:55, edited 2 times in total.
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Default0ptions
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Re: Ukraine Watch...
We can revisit this one once we’ve addressed the four points above but just to remind readers about NATO in Ukraine:
Ralph: “nato was not and will not be in ukraine”
Well Ralph, er <cough>
“Emmanuel Macron broke the taboo in February. NATO already assists Ukraine in virtually every possible aspect, from supplying weaponry and intelligence on Russian targets and the positions of enemy bombers”
“Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told a conference in Warsaw on March 8 that there were already representatives of the Atlantic Alliance in Ukraine. “NATO soldiers are already present in Ukraine. And I would like to thank the ambassadors of those countries who have taken that risk.”
“NATO personnel already in Ukraine for arms control, intelligence operations and military training
The French proposal not to rule out sending soldiers to fight against Russia opened a debate that confirms there are soldiers from the Atlantic Alliance on the ground”
https://english.elpais.com/internationa ... ining.html
“US and Nato troops begin Ukraine military exercise
Published 15 September 2014”
“About 1,300 troops from 15 countries - including the US and other Nato members - have begun a military exercise near Lviv in western Ukraine.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29204505
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/of ... s_8443.htm
“Issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Bucharest on 3 April 2008”
Point 23:
“NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.”
2014 again - nato in Ukraine
“Hodges, now retired, oversaw the expansion of U.S. military cooperation with Ukraine after 2014, when Russia seized Crimea and backed an armed insurgency in eastern Ukraine that has cost more than 13,000 lives. Since then, the United States has provided $1.5 billion in security assistance, including everything from Humvees and patrol boats to counterartillery radar and lethal weaponry such as Javelin antitank missiles.
"First and foremost, U.S. military aid represents a physical manifestation of American support, which is essential,"
https://www.npr.org/2019/12/18/78887484 ... since-2014
And direct US ‘meddling’ in the Maidan in 2014:
“Nuland also assessed the political skills of Ukrainian opposition figures with unusual candor and, along with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, debated strategy for their cause, laying bare a deep degree of U.S. involvement in affairs that Washington officially says are Ukraine’s to resolve.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/na ... story.html
Do you dispute this, and if so - on what grounds?
Ralph: “nato was not and will not be in ukraine”!!!
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Default0ptions
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Re: Ukraine Watch...
Failure to answer concedes the point, you know
Re: Ukraine Watch...
My answer is that you have just wasted (hopefully) several hours of your life reacting exactly as I expected to my post which took ten seconds.
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Default0ptions
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Re: Ukraine Watch...
But your ten second post totally failed to address the points I’m making - as it shows.
Are you unable to answer my post?
If so, you have conceded the point as any reader can plainly see.
I hold no grudge against you Ralph - why do you think it’s somehow clever to try to waste my time instead of just making the case for your point of view?
Unless you directly address my points you are conceding the argument.
Are you unable to address my points?
I’m genuinely interested in why you can’t answer. I enjoy a good debate but you’re really not even trying to defend your position here - and I wonder why.
My points and questions still stand uncontested and unanswered.
Re: Ukraine Watch...
All that I concede is that you are doing me more honour than I deserve wasting your time on this. This web site is read by a very tiny number of people (although I think they are mostly a very select bunch) and all of them have many months ago made up their minds on the rights or wrongs of Putin's invasion. I have no illusions that Ukraine was all sweetness and light, but they are a nation who have been changing their culture the last 30 years and have clearly decided that western style democracy is a better bet than returning to the Russian sphere of influence, and I mean by that the vast majority of the people who live there.
We live in a very imperfect world, and the West has wreaked havoc over the centuries in all areas of the globe, not least the NeoCon influence in Russia under the inebriated Yeltsin. I can understand KGB agent Putin developing a deep seated hatred of all things Western, but that does not justify a brutal war of conquest to capture a country that left their imperial domination decades ago. Of course, all empires and imperial forces have wreaked havoc all over the world right back into prehistory.
Nato is an alliance of nations, a mutual defence pact. It is NOT an imperial army. It is national forces coordinated under a central command to provide a cohesive military unit that has been used in some military interventions as well as many genuine peace keeping roles. I know the intervention in Serbia was particularly riling to the Russians, but a lot of innocent people were getting murdered. I remember the news reports very clearly.
I DO NOT CARE about any Russian cultural history or sense of grievance at the loss of control of territory or shared ethnic history. It is history and is just used as propaganda and rabble rousing, as has always been done.
Anyway, I have not bothered reading any of your links. I am glad you wasted time writing them. You dont deserve any more of my time , and I have more pressing concerns right now. My brother is dying of cancer.
We live in a very imperfect world, and the West has wreaked havoc over the centuries in all areas of the globe, not least the NeoCon influence in Russia under the inebriated Yeltsin. I can understand KGB agent Putin developing a deep seated hatred of all things Western, but that does not justify a brutal war of conquest to capture a country that left their imperial domination decades ago. Of course, all empires and imperial forces have wreaked havoc all over the world right back into prehistory.
Nato is an alliance of nations, a mutual defence pact. It is NOT an imperial army. It is national forces coordinated under a central command to provide a cohesive military unit that has been used in some military interventions as well as many genuine peace keeping roles. I know the intervention in Serbia was particularly riling to the Russians, but a lot of innocent people were getting murdered. I remember the news reports very clearly.
I DO NOT CARE about any Russian cultural history or sense of grievance at the loss of control of territory or shared ethnic history. It is history and is just used as propaganda and rabble rousing, as has always been done.
Anyway, I have not bothered reading any of your links. I am glad you wasted time writing them. You dont deserve any more of my time , and I have more pressing concerns right now. My brother is dying of cancer.