'Barking At Putin's Door': Pope Francis Suggests NATO Started War In Ukraine By Provoking Russia

IBT ^ | Nicholas Morgan

[escapefromboston]

Lol

[BroJoeK]

Tupelo: "I agree that NATO “barking at Russia's door” probably provoked Putin to strike out by invading Ukraine...
we should look at the the West's rhetoric and actions since the collapse of the Soviet Union."

Sorry, but that's pure rubbish -- "barking at Russia's door"?? -- barking?!
How insane do you have to be to think that "barking" is a casus belli to invade your neighbor?

Here's the real truth -- Putin's invasion had nothing to do with "barking" and everything to do with Joe Biden's weakness on full display in his skedaddle from Afghanistan.
Clearly Puting realized that now is the best chance he'll ever have to begin reconstituting the old Russian Empire.

"Barking" means nothing, it's perceived weakness that provokes.

[JJBookman]

...yeah, really

[WellyP]

The Spanish word for potato is “papa”, the Pope is referred to in Spanish as “Papa”... they got it right!

[Chickensoup]

Don’t like him.

However in this instance he is correct.

This is our FDR egging on th Japanese moment.

https://chroniclesmagazine.org/view/warren-harding-and-fdr/

[vespa300]

The Pope is a left wing radical. The left love those they fear. He fears Putin and China and Islam. He’s a coward like all Leftists.

It takes no courage to attack the west and the USA.

[jacknhoo]

Yeah, expansionist Russia is spoken about, but the truth is the US expansion clandestined in NATO expansion.

[nicollo]

Russia may have started the war, but the West did nothing to stop it. Biden, actually, encouraged it.

[BroJoeK]

Nextrush: "In 2014 a coup was staged in Ukraine by outside forces the US and allied elements to overthrow the pro-Russian government there beginning this provocative policy that led to this moment."

Non-nuclear Ukraine was never a threat to nuclear-armed Russia -- Russia with 30 times the land area and three times the population.
A change in Ukraine's government is no more a casus belli than would be a change in Mexico's or Canada's governments.
Further, Ukraine has had eight presidential elections, including two since the events of 2014.
Ukraine's current government is not the result of a western-engineered coup.

Nextrush: "...blame Obama for 2014 and Biden in 2022 say it was the Democrats fault."

Of course it's the Democrats' fault -- it always is.
Both Obama and Biden were/are weak and weakness provokes rulers like Putin.
But that is no reason to say Ukrainians, Europeans or Americans must now lay down, roll over and do whatever the Russian dictator demands.
Regardless of our Democrats' provocative weakness, the West must stand strong against Putin, or in very short order the world will be ruled over by such men as Putin & Xi.

Freedom is not free.

[BroJoeK]

"NATO, which is run by the United States, did provoke the war."

The only provocation was Biden's weakness, in full display in our skedaddle from Afghanistan.
Our weakness convinced Putin that he'd never have a better opportunity to begin reconstituting the old Russian Empire.

And if we stand by and let him, then the world will soon enough be ruled over by the likes of Putin & Xi.

[Justa]

“He’s not wrong.”

Oh, yes he is.

Ukraine did not join NATO and was not threatening to join NATO. It’s last request was rejected in 2008 by France and Germany.

This is about Russia invading and annexing Ukraine and killing its people.

-Russia invaded and annexed Chechnya.
-Russia invaded and annexed Georgia.
-Russia invaded and annexed Crimea.
-Russia invaded and is attempting to annex Ukraine.
-Russia invaded and annexed LPR.
-Russia invaded and annexed DPR.
-Russia has declared its intention to invade and annex Moldova.
-Russia has declared its intention to invade and annex the Baltic states -NATO members.

NATO is correct to arm Ukrainians to fight Russia in Ukraine to avoid a nuclear war when Russia attacks the Baltic States.

Red Pope coming thru again for communist tyranny.

[BroJoeK]

"Pope Francis is right. NATO provoked this war."

Sure, by it's weakness and Biden's fickle skedaddle from Afghanistan, we convinced Putin that he'd never have a better opportunity to begin reconstitution the old Russian Empire.

Our weakness is the strongest provocation possible.

[Czech_Occidentalist]

This type of thinking doesn’t make any sense. The Soviet Union was a huge threat to the civilized world. Before the Soviet Union came into existence, the Russian Empire was a despotic imperialist state that oppressed many Eastern Europen nations. In other words, there has been no tradition of friendly Russia.

Suddenly, just because the Russians claimed they weren’t bad guys anymore, you are saying that we should have given them a huge benefit of the doubt. This would have been extremely unwise. We should have given Russia 20 years to prove it has become a civilized and de-communized country.

I am asking again: Why such a huge benefit of the doubt for Russia? They didn’t even try to de-communize. The Lenin Mausoleum is sill in the Red Square. There are thousands of Lenin statues in public places in Russia. In my country and in other former Communist countries we removed the statues of our Commie criminals. The Russians still worship them.

[BroJoeK]

"In the 1990s, the organization extended its activities into political and humanitarian situations that had not formerly been NATO concerns."

And this has what, exactly, to do with Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022?

[delta7]

There has always been a good reason Ukraine was never admitted to the EU or NATO by the West since their young statehood in 1991. CORRUPTION.

If being rejected repeatedly since 1991, why the 180 degree turn today?
Again, corruption, severe corruption at the highest levels….there is no hope for redemption.

[joma89]

We are already being ruled over by the likes of communists. It is called the democrat party and they stole an election to install biden into the presidency.

[joma89]

Even asking that question shows you are unable to connect the strategic dots that caused russia to respond with its military in 2022.

[tlozo]

'Barking At Putin's Door': Pope Francis Suggests NATO Started War In Ukraine By Provoking Russia

LOL, who listens to the commie Pope?

In Fiery Speeches, Francis Excoriates Global Capitalism

His speeches can blend biblical fury with apocalyptic doom. Pope Francis does not just criticize the excesses of global capitalism. He compares them to the “dung of the devil.” He does not simply argue that systemic “greed for money” is a bad thing. He calls it a “subtle dictatorship” that “condemns and enslaves men and women.

Having returned to his native Latin America, Francis has renewed his left-leaning critiques on the inequalities of capitalism, describing it as an underlying cause of global injustice, and a prime cause of climate change. Francis escalated that line last week when he made a historic apology for the crimes of the Roman Catholic Church during the period of Spanish colonialism — even as he called for a global movement against a “new colonialism” rooted in an inequitable economic order.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/world/americas/in-fiery-speeches-francis-excoriates-global-capitalism.html

[Uncle Lonny]

No fool like an old fool. Wonder if he thinks that Poland provoked Hitler?

[tlozo]

Even asking that question shows you are unable to connect the strategic dots that caused russia to respond with its military in 2022.

Its silly to 'connect the strategic dots that caused russia to respond' when Putin has clearly stated and written that Ukraine is not and should not be an independent country. Root cause of this invasion is Putin's imperial ambition, denying its neighbor Ukraine, the right to exist. Obviously, Ukrainians strongly disagree.

Vladimir Putin reportedly claimed that “Ukraine is not even a state! What is Ukraine? A part of its territory is [in] Eastern Europe, but a[nother] part, a considerable one, was a gift from us!” In his March 18, 2014 speech marking the annexation of Crimea, Putin declared that Russians and Ukrainians “are one people. Kiev is the mother of Russian cities. Ancient Rus’ is our common source and we cannot live without each other.” As recently as February 2020, he once again stated in an interview that Ukrainians and Russians “are one and the same people”, and he insinuated that Ukrainian national identity had emerged as a product of foreign interference. Similarly, Russia’s then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told a perplexed apparatchik in April 2016 that there has been “no state” in Ukraine, neither before nor after the 2014 crisis.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lseih/2020/07/01/there-is-no-ukraine-fact-checking-the-kremlins-version-of-ukrainian-history/