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Vladophilia
From the head of a think-tank, recent thoughts on Ukraine’s disinclination to be absorbed:
This is not an uncommon view, also expressed the other day by Noam Chomsky: it was unwise for Ukraine to resist invasion. If Russia wants your territory, you assume a supine position while gesturing broadly towards everything that was once yours, and is now theirs to control. If Russia is required to kill your people and level your neighborhoods to get what it believes is theirs, that’s on you.
Freedom is nice and all that I guess, but economic growth is the true metric of a society’s health. Really, those idiots in the tractors, do they care who the boss is? The tech sector of Ukraine – does it matter if they’re making West-facing consumer products, or working for the FSB? What counts is the end-of-the-year balance sheet.
Previously from the same account:
The means by which you add those 44 million are irrelevant. What counts is the world historical accomplishment.
The population of France in 1940 was 41 million, and I suppose absorbing it into the Reich was a world historical accomplishment, but history doesn’t seem to regard it with any particular affection. On the other hand, France did surrender, and while that made things difficult for the eventual defeat of the militaristic statists in Berlin, France was spared additional physical trauma. Except for the Jews, of course, but (bored continental hand-waving gesture)
Another earlier sentiment:
Men of a certain age of Ricochet: did you find a spring in your step after the invasion? Perhaps a sudden urge to make changes, act boldly? Did you feel a strange charge in the older-dude zeitgeist, as though men around the world about to walk over the border of 70 suddenly felt empowered and revivified?
Perhaps, because that Putin guy is a strong leader, and cares for his nation, unlike our guys. Granted, he’s presided over the wholesale transfer of wealth from his people to a select group of elites, and the craptacular state of his military suggests that he was either ignorant of the true state of his capabilities or uninterested in the human cost of shoving his shambolic forces into the meat grinder, and hey maybe the Defender of Christendom shouldn’t have lost a purported piece of the True Cross because his flagship wasn’t refitted because they were broke but the oligarch’s yachts had 5G and Roombas in the master suite. But at least he’s not woke. And it’s ridiculous to think he’s not strong. Just you wait. He’s going to kill a lot of people.
That’s what leaders do.
Published in General
I don’t think we should play the role of colonialists, deciding that Ukraine shouldn’t defend its independence.
Same thing with my uncle. He was back in the States after VE Day and got a 30-day leave before reporting to the West Coast for training in preparation for Operation Downfall when the bombs were dropped.
Not sure what you are talking about- at least on this article, everyone seems to be dunking on one or two Russian apologists.
Think of the opportunity for art. Hanania must be looking forward to bid on “The Rape of the Ukraine Women”.
The former probably is. Joining NATO is not existential as long as Ukraine has the freedom to decide whether or not to join NATO or some other alliance. A treaty by which it agreed not to join any such an alliance would be an existential threat.
I mean, they’re still using the Purple Heart medals produced in anticipation of the casualties expected from the invasion of Japan. At this point there must be millions who wouldn’t be here if their fathers had been sent to invade Japan.
You can ask, but I would not try to answer that question for the Ukrainians.
Putin’s televised rant a few hours before he started the war (which was consistent with everything he said about Ukraine before that) showed that he was not interested in just the provinces he had already invaded. If people believe Putin about his “concerns” why don’t they believe what he has said about Ukraine?
Do you really think this is a “pro-Putin website”? Based on the comments from two or three members?
Fr Miscamble has both written about this topic and has talks on YouTube which are worthwhile. His a priest and a history professor at Notre Dame.
https://the-american-catholic.com/2012/07/24/father-wison-miscamble-defends-bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/
Maybe that means the British shouldn’t have pressed it when the colonists refused to pay?
Meaning the Ukrainians should just abandon the “regions” and go somewhere else, so Russia can have them?
It seems like you are a troll arguing in bad faith.
People who can’t make distinctions or handle complexity should not have Twitter accounts or otherwise be encouraged to oversimplify and live in false binaries.
Remember the idiots who could not simply oppose US Vietnam policy but had to cheer for the Viet Cong? There is a similar cognitively challenged process at work in the Ukraine issue: The reasonable position of opposition to direct US involvement must instead mutate into a dialog about Ukrainian corruption, Russian national identity yearnings, and even overt support of Putin along with obligatory observations about Ukrainian corruption. Either we drift into WWIII or assuage Putin’s feelings.
IIRC, one of Sun Tzu’s maxims is, in part, “Know thy Enemy.” Seems to me that trying to understand Russia’s concerns and goals is part of that and should be reasoned out. Especially if there’s hope to end the war without an absolute victory by either side. And honestly, that’s how I see this ending. IMHO Ukraine should explore a settlement while they (ostensibly) hold the advantage.
But there’s no reason to claim that saying this means one is a “Putin stooge” or a “Putin supporter.”
“Know thy enemy” is indeed of the highest importance. But don’t forget Putin’s nostalgia for the Soviet Union and the Russian empire before it: Ukraine, Poland, et al have very good reasons to fear, even hate, Russia.
I think I have the letters from our parents’ exchanges during that time . . in which Mother responds emotionally to her deep concern about his returning after his Omaha Beach experience.
I’ve talked to a POW (or war criminal as he was called) who was in Tokyo at the time. He was very pleased with how things were brought to a hasty conclusion.
And then do a map of Canada. If the folks in Ottawa tried to outlaw the French language in Quebec, it would get ugly fast. That said, I am a fan of having a national language, but not a fan of outlawing languages.
Pretty much everybody was. I cannot recommend enough Hornfischers book The Fleet At Flood Tide, about the last year of the war in the Pacific. It is, in my opinion, impossible to read that book and its account of the bloody fighting on Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and come away unconvinced that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not only justified but necessary to end the war as quickly as possible.
Even leaving that aside, if Truman had NOT used the bomb once it was available, and the war had dragged on for months (or even a few weeks) longer than it did, once news came out that we could have ended the war sooner, Truman would have been impeached.
No, meaning the Ukrainians will have to decide when the price of retaining the territories is too high. I’m not here to say that’s now, just that there is always a point at which that’s the case. Maybe they never get there and drive the Russians out. We can hope.
Accusations and no specifics are….not helpful?
What about the 30% of Ukraine that speaks Russian? Different culture? How to accommodate within Ukraine in a way that satisfies the majority as well as the minority?
The evidence suggests that it wasn’t a big deal until Putin tried to make it one.
No, the evidence suggests the opposite. Just wiki, but a good write up:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_Ukraine
Where is this push for the US to go to war with Russia? I haven’t seen it.
Senator Chris Coons is calling for Biden to send US troops to Ukraine.
Every call for a no-fly-zone is a call for war with Russia.
And as I’ve been saying, we might think that supplying weapons keeps our hands clean, but it doesn’t matter what we think. What matters is what Vlad thinks. And he’s already saying that if NATO allies keep supplying Ukraine, he’ll consider it an act of war and respond Nuclearly.
It also doesn’t help that there’s a senile old man wandering around yapping about genocide and war crimes and calling for regime change.
As for me, I think we’ve already done enough damage to Ukraine over the last decade, and I think it’s high time we got out.
Of course, I also think it’s time for a new isolationism. And yes, I used the I-word to trigger everyone. But I’m really tired of America sending billions of dollars to NGOs overseas, laying out the welcome mat for everyone and his nine wives to flood into the country, sending manufacturing abroad and killing our workforce, . . . and then blaming Americans for being upset about it.
Close the borders to everyone. Pull up the drawbridges. Focus on the homeland.
You mentioned that conservatives don’t listen to black Americans and made fun of two black Americans Diamond and Silk. Also, Thomas Sowell is practically a saint among conservatives.
You often talk like conservatives don’t care about different kinds of folks and it rubs me the wrong way. I wish you would say, “I think your a bit wrong about this and here is why. What do you think about it?”
But you are quick to mention when someone is white or had a comfortable childhood.
For example, someone posted a long scholarly article about how Winston Churchill was not responsible for the famine in India at the time. You responded by saying something to the effect that, “Would you say that about the Irish famine?” And you ignored the arguments in the long article from Hillsdale. It irks me.
You aren’t triggering me, brother. I’m on board.
Works for me.