Three Commenters and a Funeral

I thought this thread in the comments to STRANGE DAZE: “And the wind began to howl.” was worth bringing forward at Ye Olde American Digest and here at The New American Digest. It touches upon many of my thoughts and feelings about the Ukraine war. It also refers to a number of sources that I watch hoping for useful . . . well, if not insights, then information about the war on the ground.

Initially, I got a lot of information about the Ukraine “war on the ground” via the Telegram app which sees censorship as system damage and routes around it. Of course by routing around Western propaganda one finds oneself immersed in Russian and Ukraine propaganda.  The other "feature" of Telegram is that soldiers can post their own videos of the conflict. And they do with one side posting pocket videos of death and torture  and massacres of/by "the other side." Alas, I can see only so many young men’s bodies with canoes carved into their heads or their limbs torn and burned until I must turn away. And so I do with such residual revulsion against all war that my soul is permanently stained.

What is really happening in Ukraine now is at the center of such a gigantic army of lies. The aftermath of this army of lies will persist for decades. Now I despair of learning anything true about Ukraine. What I do know is that every day the warmongers of the world drag us ever closer to an abyss for which civilization will find no bottom. In my life, I’ve been either for or against wars since Korea, but Ukraine is the first war that I loathe from all sides.

With this one, I’m done.

And yet I still persist. Trusting my commenters to enlighten me when they are not driving me crazy of course.

Mike Austin -- In the main, I rely upon the Duran and Gonzalo Lira. Tucker as well, but only as a confirmation. Many of my conclusions rely upon my understanding 6000 years of History and how collapsing empires have acted over time. Please remember that both Biden and Nuland months ago threatened to destroy Nord Stream 2.

“Even Brandon isn’t this stupid.” The fate of empires was decided throughout time by stupidity, arrogance and hubris. Biden has never been compared to Einstein.

azlibertarian -- In the main, I rely upon the Duran and Gonzalo Lira….”

Sigh. The Duran and Gonzalo.

I started listening to Gonzalo years ago (like maybe 12-15?) back when he wrote to an old blogspot blog (my bookmark for Gonzalo now goes to an “invited readers only” list, so I guess I should remove him). It was mostly economic and monetary stuff back then, which I agreed with, but I just sorta moved on. I was also a daily reader of Zero Hedge and Karl Denninger back then too. Again, I just moved on…..theirs weren’t the only views I wanted to see.

And the Duran came to me via my youtube attachment to Robert Barnes and his sidekick Viva Frei. About 80% of Barnes is great. His views on Trump, Trump’s cabinet and court picks, the problems with the elections, the Rittenhouse trial were all quite prescient, IMO. But the remainder of Barnes….his Anti-War-at-Any-Cost just soured on me. Every time he goes off on Ukraine, I am reminded of the old Leon Trotsky quote: “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” He fails to understand that second clause.

And I’m sorry, but I just can’t watch the Duran on any topic. The one Alex’s tremoring vocalizations just remind me of listening to Diane Rehm on NPR (whose has a medical condition causing her tremor). It is just awful, no matter what they’re saying. And I especially just don’t agree with their views on the Ukraine War. They just seem to be Russian apologists more than fair observers of what is going on. YMMV.

I’m not pro-war here at all. I am the son of a Vietnam veteran, a veteran myself and the very worried father-in-law whose son-in-law just last week deployed to a close-enough-to-the-potential-action assignment to put him in great harm. I’m afraid that war may be coming to many of us, and it won’t be good. There won’t be a winner and a loser. There will only be a lesser loser and a bigger loser.

Nor am I apologizing for Ukraine. They’re not just corrupt…..they’re corrupt as HELL. They’re Joe-Biden-corrupt. I have no love for Ukraine…none at all.

But the difference here is that corrupt-though-they-may-be, Ukraine didn’t roll their tanks over their borders. Oh, “borders” you say? Which borders would those be? Do the people of Luhansk and Donetsk (not to mention Crimea and one other…I forget the name) have the right to declare themselves to be Russian and fold themselves into the Russian Federation? I see that as the central question here.

And I think they don’t. Much like our Civil War was as much about preventing the succession of the Rebel states as it was about slavery, I think that Ukraine is right to prevent the LPR and DPR from joining Russia. That land is Ukraine’s. If the people of Russian descent in those areas want to move to Russia, that’s fine….let’em go. But Russia can’t offer their benevolence to those people by moving into Ukraine. JMO, and again, YMMV.

And the Duran and Barnes just can’t understand that another view of the matter exists. They just refuse. I admit to my own biases, as we all must….there are only so many hours in a day, and I just can’t look at each opposing view to test my own. But I do look at enough, and still find that Russia brought an unjust war to Ukraine. It is right that they’re getting their asses handed to them. And I’m just guessing here, based on no evidence whatsoever, but I’d put $10 of my soon-to-be-worthless greenbacks that says that Russia blew up their own pipelines as a way of telling Europe “That cold winter that you’re about to experience? Get used to it.”

FWIW, the recent places I find informative related to the war in Ukraine are twofold:
* Trent Trelenko’s Twitter thread. I don’t tweet, but I do read the threadreader versions when they show up. Trent was the first (to my eye) guy who spoke of the horribly inefficient logistics which are dooming everything the Russians are trying to do.

*And the Youtube videos put out by an Australian guy who goes by Perun. He is very non-partisan here, and if our senior military aren’t listening to him, they’re missing it.

Mike Austin -- I’ve gotten used to Alexander Mercouris’ strange speech patterns. It took a while though. Denninger is a bit of a madman, but I do read him.

To call someone “a Russia apologist” or “a Ukraine apologist” is to fall into the logical fallacy of “ad hominem”. Either what a man says is true or it is not and has nothing to do with his thoughts on Putin or Zelenskyy.

Any nation can claim any land it wants. The problem is enforcing that claim. The Native Americans claimed the entirety of North America. That did not work out very well for them. It worked superbly for the White Man, as he had the power to enforce his claim. Likewise with Ukraine. She can claim the Donbass, Crimea and so on, but to enforce that claim is beyond her power. Those who state that all national borders are somehow sacred and inviolable are innocent of History. Ukraine’s borders are as inviolable as she can make them. So are those of the US.

After Biden and Nuland made public threats to shut down Nord Stream 2—and made these threats months ago—it would be odd to somehow blame Putin for that pipeline’s destruction. Putin has become the “go to” for all blame for anything, anywhere, all the time—our own Emmanuel Goldstein. He performs in the international arena the same thing that “climate change” does domestically. The US now blames Putin for inflation and the energy crisis. He is quite the guy!

Both of the World Wars began in Eastern Europe. This new world war is beginning there as well. Even the antagonists are the same: France, Germany, England, Italy, Russia and the US. This is an odd thing, but History is full of odd things.

John A. Fleming -- I think that countries do not have a right to exist. If you can’t or won’t defend your country, somebody will come along and take it from you. As you said, it’s been that way since the dawn. So small countries collect allies to protect themselves from the big countries.

I think it has been a fundamental policy of the USA since the end of WWII, after bailing out those war-crazy Euros twice, that there should be stable borders in Europe. Perhaps the 1947 Paris Peace Treaties? As in please, let’s not have any more Eurowars. It worked more or less until the USSR collapsed. First the Yugos decided to settle old scores, and now Russia wants back Crimea and some of the Ukraine. The USA foreign policy says “No, the borders stay as they are, only the alliances can change. And there ain’t nobody that wants a piece of Russia. Been there, tried that, doesn’t work.” The feckless USA no longer has any credibility with Russia.

It seems like the people that run the big powers have forgotten the horrors of the past, don’t care anyway, aren’t that smart, can’t see the future, are too Dunning-Kreuger grasping, and have decided in their folly it’s time to play the Great Game again. This will not end well.