Why the world needs Ukrainian victory

Thinking About ^ | 1/23/23 | Timothy Snyder

[Sunsong]

"Why does the world need a Ukrainian victory?

1. To halt atrocity. Russia's occupation is genocidal. Wherever the Ukrainians recover territory, they save lives, and re-establish the principle that people have a right not to be tortured, deported, and murdered.

2. To preserve the international legal order. Its basis is that one country may not invade another and annex its territory, as Russia seeks to do. Russia's war of aggression is obviously illegal, but the legal order does not defend itself.

3. To end an era of empire. This could be the last war fought on the colonial logic that another state and people do not exist. But this turning point is reached only if Russia loses.

4. To defend the peace project of the European Union. Russia's war is not directed only against Ukraine, but against the larger idea that European states can peacefully cooperate. If empire prevails, integration fails.

5. To give the rule of law a chance in Russia. So long as Russia fights imperial wars, it is trapped in repressive domestic politics. Coming generations of Russians could live better and freer lives, but only if Russia loses this war.

6. To weaken the prestige of tyrants. In this century, the trend has been towards authoritarianism, with Putinism as a force and a model. Its defeat by a democracy reverses that trend. Fascism is about force, and is discredited by defeat.

7. To remind us that democracy is the better system. Ukrainians have internalized the idea that they choose their own leaders. In taking risks to protect their democracy, they remind us that we all must act to protect ours..."

[Cronos]

Are you sure Polish?

I can tell you for a fact that there are no Polish soldiers in Ukraine

[yuleeyahoo]

Uncle Klaus approves. You will own nothing and be happy.

P.S. Eat ze bugs.

[dfwgator]

What the world needs now is another Frank Sinatra.

[nathanbedford]

I found a Tagliavini report but it doesn't seem to help one side or the other or, rather, it seems to help both sides:

"That was the headline of the report, which of course the Russian government seized upon. But there was also the very damaging (for Russia) context of what happened before August 7 and what happened when Russian troops entered South Ossetia on August 8, threw out the Georgians and then marched on Gori. Dozens of pages set out in detail Russia’s multiple violations of international law before, during and after the conflict.

Of course the report had its flaws. Its multiple authorship made for some awkward reading. It would have benefited from more information about what was happening in South Ossetia prior to the conflict. The behind-the-scenes role of the United States was signally missing—Saakashvili’s decision to attack was shaped by a perception of how the George W. Bush administration in Washington would or would not react.

But the Tagliavini Report laid down an important baseline of facts about the war and set a precedent that recent controversial events could be examined in a short time-frame and not just left to historians.

Unfortunately, those lessons are now being buried under the rubble of the new conflict in Ukraine and many people are busy rewriting the history of 2008 in the light of Ukraine.

On the anniversary of the conflict in Georgia in August this year, the Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets published three commentaries drawing direct parallels between the war in South Ossetia and the fighting in Donbas.

Mikhail Alexandrov declared, in highly provocative fashion, that Russia’s “mistake” had been in not finishing the Saakashvili government off and this had emboldened the Ukrainians in 2014:

The Saakashvili regime survived, it was not punished. What is happening in Ukraine is a direct result of the fact that in 2008 we did not pursue things in Georgia to the end. The junta in Kiev feels that it has absolute impunity, it is confident that Russia will not overthrow and punish it. That is why it is so brazen. And the West, seeing that Russia did not stick it out to the end, decided that it can do what it wants in Ukraine.

At the other extreme, many people never wanted to accept that the former Georgian government bore any culpability for the 2008 tragedy.

After what was effectively Part 2 of the 2008 conflict—the brutal Russian military intervention in Georgia and Moscow’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states—the Georgian government began to re-write the whole post-Soviet history of its conflicts with its minorities.

Georgia’s 2012 National Security Concept was much more explicit than the 2005 document it replaced in blaming Russia for the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia of the early 1990s. It talks of “political and economic instability caused by the Russian Federation.”

A new narrative emerged which, either naively or cynically, seeks to ignore the grievances that Abkhaz and Ossetians felt against Tbilisi and argues that the only problem is “Russian occupation.”

Some Georgians have now used the Ukraine crisis to gild their own version of history. In the first place of course this applies to the new governor of Odessa, Saakashvili, who is trying to start again in Ukraine and rebuild his tarnished reputation.

Yulia Latynina, a neoconservative Russian commentator, who always idealized Saakashvili, has waged a furious campaign over the years against the Tagliavini Report. She even compared it to the 1938 “Munich Agreement.”

More recently, as Heidi Tagliavini herself took on the role of negotiating between Kiev and Moscow on behalf of the OSCE, she has come under attack again for allegedly selling out Ukraine, as she had allegedly sold out Georgia. Latynina called her a “Euro-bureaucrat,” who had somehow facilitated “an open betrayal of Ukraine and the capitulation of Europe before Russia.”

https://carnegiemoscow.org/commentary/61451

[winslow]

Here is the interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE8TcBjhgk4

[BroJoeK]

"Is this unique to the ‘orcs’ or other soldiers from other countries deserve the same?
Are US Marines illegally present in Syria deserve killing? "

Curiously, I know very little about Syria, so I'll ask you, did the U.S. invade Syria in order to annex large parts and make them part of the United States? I hadn't heard.
Is the U.S. working to overthrow a duly elected government and replace it with our own puppets?

Is the U.S. carpet bombing civilian targets in Syria?
Is the U.S. terrorizing Syrian civilians by wanton murders and kidnappings?
Does the entire world condemn the U.S. "invasion" of Syria?

No? Well then there is no moral equivalent with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, is there?

[BroJoeK]

Alberta's Child: " It's comical to hear these complaints about a Russian "invasion" from people who live in a country that has invaded more foreign nations in my adult lifetime than I can count on two hands. "

Oh, is that so?
And how many of those did the U.S. annex and make US territories?
How many did the U.S. replace duly elected governments with our own puppet dictators?
How many did the U.S. deliberately carpet bomb civilian targets?
How many did the U.S. terrorize civilian populations with wanton murders and kidnappings?
How many did the U.S. "invade" with no serious provocation?

That's why there is no, zero, "moral equivalent" with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

[winslow]

If the US had previously shared a state with parts of Canada so that in some areas the US population outweighed the Canadian, and then the Canadian government started attacking and killing the US citizens in their thousands there would be an outcry and undoubtedly military action.

The US carpet bombed Serbia in 1999.

The US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan under false pretences, having blamed them for 9/11.

US did install a puppet government in Ukraine in 2014 after they helped topple Yanukovych. See Victoria Nuland “F*ck the EU” video where they decided who would make up the new government.

[BroJoeK]

ExTxMarine: " Most of the corruption I am talking about is AMERICAN CORRUPTION interfering in foreign affairs!!
We would not have half the world’s wars and conflicts if the corrupt western politicians would keep their hands out of the pockets of dummy government puppets!! "

Nonsense, the opposite is true -- it is the vision of American military power which keeps the world's two-bit tin-horn dictators in check.
Take away American power and every little Hitler wannabe will be making preparations to invade their weaker neighbors.
Vlad the Pute wants to rebuild the old Russian Empire.
The Xi-snake wants Taiwan, parts of India and even some of Russia!
Every little dictator will concoct reasons to absorb his neighbors and the world -- even assuming no nuclear war -- will return to 19th century-like empires.
The American experiment in democratic self determination will be tossed in the ash-can of history.

And I guarantee that neither you nor your grandchildren will like the world that results.

ExTxMarine: "Holy Mother Of God are you all completely STUPID or just WILLFULLY IGNORANT?!?"

You sound very stupid and willfully ignorant to me, FRiend.

ExTxMarine: "What amazes me is, all you bleeding heart jack-wads who were okay with Zelensky bombing and killing the people of Donbas, but you are willing to spend my money to not allow Putin to kill those same people?"

I think you are willfully lying here.
There was never, not even for one day, a "civil war" in Ukraine.
There was only ever an unprovoked Russian invasion in which Russians enlisted treasonous Ukrainians to wage war against their own country.

ExTxMarine: " Do me a favor, and get down off your cross...I’m sure the wood could be better used elsewhere!! "

Those have to be the stupidest words I've ever seen posted on Free Republic.
Where were you when they issued brains, marine??
AWOL for sure, probably entirely deserted.
So, first, marine, take your head and remove it from your rectum, then go see where they put the brain that was supposed to be for you.
Your stupidity will not make a better world.

[ansel12]

Russia is invading Ukraine to keep it, forever.

[Bulwyf]

Ouch. So many factually incorrect statements in there. No time to deal with them nor would anyone care. Good luck with your easily manipulated mind. If I was you, I’d focus on reading the Bible.

[dennisw]

Good book! And a quick read.

[Sunsong]

“CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHY YOUR ACCOUNT WENT DARK YEARS”

I came back specifically to advocate for Ukraine.

I left during the Obama years. All I was doing was arguing about the right way to kill baby seals. I found blogs at that time.

[BroJoeK]

winslow: "If the US had previously shared a state with parts of Canada so that in some areas the US population outweighed the Canadian, and then the Canadian government started attacking and killing the US citizens in their thousands there would be an outcry and undoubtedly military action."

Total nonsense, because, first, there are around 38 MILLION U.S. expats worldwide, and when they get in trouble with local governments, the U.S. works diplomatically to resolve issues. We don't invade countries for mistreating our expats.

Second, none, zero, abuse you claim Russians received in Ukraine happened before Vlad the Pute invaded, and the reason is obvious, because until that moment, Russians ruled in Ukraine.
Once Vlad invaded, Russians in Ukraine who supported the invasion became, by definition, treasonous and were subject to police or military action.

winslow: "The US carpet bombed Serbia in 1999. "

Rubbish. Precision air strikes with "smart bombs" do not equate to the Russians' indiscriminate bombings of Ukrainian civilian targets, or the kidnapping & killing of Ukrainian civilians.

winslow: " The US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan under false pretences, having blamed them for 9/11. "

That's more nonsense.
The U.S. rightly held the Afghan Taliban responsible for harboring and abetting al Qaeda in launching 9/11/01.
In Iraq the U.S. rightly feared the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam believed he had and threatened his neighbors with.
Nobody has ever admitted they knew ahead of time that Saddam had no such weapons.

winslow: "US did install a puppet government in Ukraine in 2014 after they helped topple Yanukovych.
See Victoria Nuland “F*ck the EU” video where they decided who would make up the new government. "

I cannot defend our Democrats.
I can defend the fact that in 2014 most Ukrainians believed their elections were rigged to put Russians in power in Ukraine.
And I can defend the fact that Ukraine has held multiple lawful elections since 2014, never returning Russians to power.

Indeed, as I understand, the vast majority of Russian speaking Ukrainians oppose Russia's invasion.

[Grzegorz 246]

“There are reports of large numbers of Polish military fighting in Ukraine.”

Sources ?

[Paal Gulli]

What's best for the world is that they both lose.

[NorseViking]

Tagliavini report is anti-Russian in nature for obvious reasons but it fails tobobstruct the fact that Georgia was the aggressor. Genocide or not.

Three days prior “Russian invasion” Georgia started the operation “Clear Field” with the idea to restore control of two rebel territories. It was widely covered by media.

The operation included the bombing of the Russian barracks. The troops weren’t “Russian invaders” but the peacekeeping force under OSCE jurisdiction. Dozens were killed. The Georgian rampage in breakaway republics is on video as well. It may be not a genocide but pretty indiscriminate towards civilians and very ugly.

It took Russia a couple day to react.

Then the media forgot its own prior reports and began to cover it as “Russian invasion”.

Georgia made a ton of claims of how the Clear Field was a reaction to it, but it was a flat out lie.

[NorseViking]

I asked you simple question.

Yes, the US bombed the hell out of Syria and want to impose the goverent Syrians do not want.

Regarding annexation, I don’t get this point at all. If you bomb the hell out of the country and turn it into rubble in is only fair to annex it. Then you are obliged to bring it up to your own standards by spending a ton of money, and then they have a right to representation to rule over you.

Once again, should the USMC be killed under the same standards you apply to the Russians?

The rules are same for everyone or there are no rules.

[Allegra]

Post 4. Spot on.

I don’t understand why more people don’t see it. It’s so obvious.

[Cronos]

Thank you. I watched the video and it is hilariously false

1. “Poland collapsing” - err.. nope.
2. “Poland has the largest contingent of soldiers” - definitely false as I said above.
3. “Mike Krupa” — https://twitter.com/mikekrupa —> this guy seems to be American and an LGBT supporter
4. “Votum TV” - this is some nonexistent twitter channel

This isn’t real - it’s the equivalent of interviewing some Antifa guy and his views are “reality”