Right, and Russia is NOT a "tyrannical dictatorship and an enemy of the US". Okay
No country in eastern Europe joined the Russian Commonwealth(CIS) vs the EU. There are good financial and historic reasons.
Posted on 02/09/2024 5:28:32 AM PST by jacknhoo
Tucker proves people have a hunger for information
In a hotly anticipated interview that began with a history lesson for Americans on the founding of Russia, President Vladimir Putin told Tucker Carlson that NATO expansion eastward and a 2014 coup that installed an anti-Russian government in Ukraine forced his country into war in 2022.
“In 2008… the doors of NATO were opened for Ukraine,” Putin said to Carlson in a sweeping conversation posted to X on Thursday, February 8. The former Fox News host has become the focus of intense vitriol within big-box media and political circles for traveling to Moscow to speak with the Russian leader.
“In 2014, there was a coup (and) they started persecuting those who did not accept the coup,” Putin stated. “They created the threat to Crimea, which we had to take under our protection. They launched the war in Donbas in 2014 with the use of aircraft and artillery against civilians. This is when it all started.”
Carlson: A Puppet for Putin? Carlson has been pilloried by establishment political and media figures for talking with Putin. Hillary Clinton garnered headlines by calling him a “useful idiot.” Never-Trumper Steve Schmidt, who worked on presidential campaigns for John McCain and George W. Bush, was even more harsh in his assessment.
“He is a vessel for foreign poison to reach our free society, in which he seems to delight, undermining with lies, omissions and utter nonsense,” Schmidt wrote on his Substack account. “It is important to remember that Tucker Carlson is not engaged in an act of dissent or speech. He is a propagandist carrying water for a Russian war criminal who hates the United States, and is committed to conflict with the west.”
The New York Times took a unique approach in its attacks on Carlson, warning that his new form of independent journalism makes him easy prey to be manipulated.
“Russia has defined impartiality as hewing to its official line, deviation from which risks the decidedly censorious penalty of jail time. That goes against traditional journalistic standards — standards that Mr. Carlson does not have to concern himself with at X,” The Times caustically observed in a February 8 “Media Memo” feature article. The paper stated that Carlson’s “self-produced interviews on X – which lack the slick production values he once enjoyed on cable TV – have not had the same obvious influence on the national debate that he wielded on Fox News.”
“His waning power seemed to be at least part of the reason that Fox had not done more to stop his new endeavor even though Fox said it violated the terms of his contract,” The Times added.
So, what was it about the interview that so incensed the Fourth Estate?
‘We Were Promised No NATO to the East’ “They launched a large-scale military operation,” Putin said of Ukraine. “Then another one. When they failed, they started to prepare for the next one. All this against the background of military development of this territory and opening of NATO’s doors.”
“How could we not express concern over what was happening? From our side, this would have been a culpable negligence,” Putin stressed. “It’s just that the US political leadership pushed us to the line we could not cross because doing so could have ruined Russia itself. Besides, we could not leave our brothers in faith, in fact, a part of Russian people, in the face of this war machine.”
Putin is referring to the citizens in Ukraine’s disputed eastern territories, who he asserts see themselves as Russian. Putin emphasized as part of his argument that Ukrainians as a whole are spiritually Russian, with Ukrainization being a creation of Soviet Union founder Vladimir Lenin.
Putin declared the Ukrainian government headed by President Volodymyr Zelensky is nothing more than a proxy for the United States and its foreign policy interests. “Ukraine is obviously a satellite state of the US,” he said. “It is evident. I do not want you to take it as if I am looking for a strong word or an insult. But we both understand what is happening. The financial support. Seventy-two billion US dollars was provided…. Dozens of billions of US dollars are going to Ukraine. There’s a huge influx of weapons. In this case, you should tell the current Ukrainian leadership to stop and come to a negotiating table.”
He warned about the dangers of wide-scale war due to this monolithic antipathy for Russia. “It goes against common sense to get involved in some kind of a global war and a global war will bring all humanity to the brink of destruction.”
A Media Reaction
Putin himself told Carlson that he realizes the entire dominant establishment media apparatus in the West is aligned against Russia. “It is very difficult to defeat the United States because the United States controls all the world’s media and many European media,” Putin said.
And while Putin is clearly trying to paint himself and his war efforts in the most positive light, the reaction of the Fourth Estate is one that many readers and viewers might find confusing. Of course Vladimir Putin will try to propagandize his access to foreign media, but that doesn’t mean the American people don’t want to know his rationale or even his plans for the future. In fact, some would argue that such knowledge is a necessity. The Putin interview has amassed more than 85 million views since Carlson posted it to X last night; the appetite for information is strong, and it seems the big-box media is unwilling to satiate.
Democrats ( and RINOs ) stance: We stand for NOTHING in principle except money and power for us, which is why we can change positions so easily.
Darth Putin @DarthPutinKGB
OTD in 1918 the Brest-Litovsk treaty was signed between Ukraine, Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Hungary.
Which is odd cos Ukraine didn’t exist until Lenin made it as a WMD to be used against Russia.
Those are illegal migrants trying to desperately get into the EU, Why?
Have you actually traveled to the EU and to Russia? There is NO comparison to the standard of living.
LOL, funny, you DO NOT compare EU standard of living vs Russia. Why?
Europe and North America generally have higher living standards compared to Russia. Countries in these regions often have higher GDP per capita, better healthcare systems, higher levels of education, and more developed infrastructure.
The EU is the Fourth Reich. It is a tyrannical dictatorship and an enemy of the US. Just look at how the EU Stormtroopers are violently persecuting Hungary, just because Orban was brave enough to refuse Muslim invaders from destroying Hungary.
The EU needs to go.
See Tagline.
Right, and Russia is NOT a "tyrannical dictatorship and an enemy of the US". Okay
No country in eastern Europe joined the Russian Commonwealth(CIS) vs the EU. There are good financial and historic reasons.
Sacajaweau, That is an accurate assessment. He was however a magic negro that could do no wrong... Tool for those behind the curtain.
Regards
Don't let clever confusion clutter a debate.
"The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria), by which Russia withdrew from World War I."
Additionally, "The terms of the Brest-Litovsk treaty, signed on March 3, 1918, were very onerous: Russia lost territories inhabited by more than one-quarter of its citizens and providing more than one-third of its grain harvest. It also exempted citizens and corporations of the Central Powers from Soviet nationalization decrees. But the treaty saved the Bolshevik regime: for the next eight months it received critical diplomatic and financial support from Germany that enabled it to beat back political opponents."
Brest-Litovsk of Soviet Union Britannica
After the collapse of the USSR, there is no longer a "Soviet Russia," in the verbiage of the Wiki, and moreover, today there is no "Austria-Hungary," no "Ottoman Empire," and no sense in referring to today's governments, as if governments a century ago which no longer exist have relevance. That particular treaty from 1918 is so invalid as to make using its as a "legal" argument specious.
But notice the supposedly clever word game. The Ottoman Empire is no more, though Erdoğan dreams his inane dreams. The German government of that time under Kaiser Wilhelm II is also wiped away. So the treaty is interesting history, and utterly invalid for the governments which made it are also gone.
Apples are not oranges. Unless one really, really, really wants them to be....
DISCLAIMER: Zelensky, Putin, von der Leyen and Biden are all corrupt.
Gosh and golly, I'd forgotten that verbiage, spun off from a film before that. Our lovely American liberals managed to amplify the phrase....
Opinion: Barack the magic negro Los Angeles Times, 30 December 2008
But then again, why not? After all, they also managed to turn Obama into a conservative.
Barack Obama, conservative Washington Post, 22 November 2019
There's almost nothing an American Leftist cannot twist into seeming like something else.
Obsession with NATO expansion: a deeply ideological move inevitable in provoking conflicts
By James Smith
Published: Apr 02, 2022
“NATO and the EU’s attempts to subsequently encroach Russia’s own periphery would prove to be the decisive straws which “broke the camel’s back” and provoked conflict. It is a logical feature of international relations theory, as reiterated by leading scholar John Mearsheimer, that attempting to ensnare and encircle one country with a hostile military alliance is a straight route to conflict. The West makes no apology for it, believing that it is their ideological right and destiny to do so, as the “end of history” logic goes. Western expansion soon provoked in the Euromaidan crisis of 2013 in Ukraine, sparking a tidal wave of anti-Russian nationalism which then opened up a geopolitical struggle over the future of Ukraine. The West in turn failed to acknowledge how the ultra-nationalist assault on Russian identity and language in the country has also been humiliating to Moscow.
The US and its allies in their hubris refused to compromise, setting off a chain reaction of events leading to the present day. Russia’s reactions to this context are branded as aggression and zero-sum moral evil. However, they are in the strategic sense necessary for Moscow to safeguard its own national security and offset military and political domination by an adversarial military alliance.
This whole scenario was ultimately preventable. But Western governments and media continue to gravely mislead the public about its causes.”
Source:
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202204/1257438.shtml
And related:
Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer
29,665,594 views Sep 25, 2015 #UChicago
UnCommon Core: The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine Crisis
John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in Political Science and Co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, assesses the causes of the present Ukraine crisis, the best way to end it, and its consequences for all of the main actors. A key assumption is that in order to come up with the optimum plan for ending the crisis, it is essential to know what caused the crisis. Regarding the all-important question of causes, the key issue is whether Russia or the West bears primary responsibility.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
And, we have Zeepers siding with the Biden regime, Deep State, Hillary, the most vile Never Trumpers and globalists, all of which corrupt, rotten the core and enemies of the MAGA movement and anyone that loves the country.
Their only defense for uniting with this kind of evil is that ridiculous notion that modern-day Russia and Putin are somehow the equivalent of the old Soviet Union, which they aren't.
The political establishment, big money behind it and "liberal world order" are infinitely greater threat to the citizens of this country than the Russians, who would be no threat whatsoever if had gone out of our way to make them our enemy.
This after Hillary tried to frame Russia for helping Trump win in 2016?
Or after the Biden regime has done everything it could to start and continue a proxy war with Russia?
Rent a brain and come up with an argument that makes a little bit of sense.
LOL, but Putin in his interview said he WAS NOT fearful of a NATO attack.
At the beginning of the interview, Carlson asserted that Putin "had come to the conclusion that the United States, through NATO, might initiate a 'surprise attack'" on Russia.
"To American ears, that sounds paranoid," Carlson continued. "Tell us why you believe the United States might strike Russia out of the blue. How did you conclude that?"
"It's not that America, the United States was going to launch a surprise strike on Russia," Putin responded. "I didn't say that. Are we having a talk show or a serious conversation?"
Carlson reacted by laughing and offering to read the Russian president his own quote. Putin ignored him and instead began an extended explanation of the "historical background" of Russia and Ukraine, before arguing that Moscow was justified in claiming parts of Ukrainian territory.
I always saw the Fourth Reich as the Modern Unified German state and their command over the EU. Nothing to fear from them—heck they couldn’t protect their own Nordstream pipeline. I do fear the Fifth Reich, the Anti-American German state that will dominate Germany (and much of Europe) in the future.
You’re so full of crap.
LOL, Mearsheimer?
John Mearsheimer’s lecture on Ukraine: Why he is wrong and what are the consequences
Mearsheimer’s main point is that the United States and its allies are to blame for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine since they allegedly pushed for Ukraine’s NATO membership, the prospect of which Russia has seen as an existential threat. There are at least four reasons why this account is wanting.
First, it ignores the fact that Ukrainians – like other Eastern Europeans – have been actively seeking NATO membership to protect themselves from the Russian threat. They did not need to be pushed, they have desperately wanted to join. They first officially applied for membership in 2008 and repeatedly declared it a policy priority after 2014. However, in Mearsheimer’s account, Ukrainians appear only as victims of Russia’s invasion, deprived of any agency. Ascribing to them a uniquely passive role is an analytical shortcoming that turns the blame game on its head, and an illustration of how condescendingly some Western academics and pundits regard Central and Eastern Europeans: as clueless pawns in a geopolitical game played by the “great” powers.
Second, Mearsheimer’s account is at least partially incomplete since, in isolation, it cannot satisfactorily explain the timing of the invasion or why other pro-Western countries in Russia’s immediate neighbourhood have avoided a similar fate. When Russia’s invasion started, it still appeared extremely unlikely that Ukraine would join NATO in the foreseeable future. What is more, the prospect that NATO, in the implausible scenario of Ukrainian membership, would launch an attack against a nuclear power is foolish. Indeed, Ukraine joining NATO would hardly be a credible military threat to Russia and, if Crimea remained in Russian hands, Russia’s key strategic interests would be largely preserved. All this suggests that any serious explanation of the invasion needs to consider additional factors such as Russia’s domestic political situation; the ideological and symbolic threat a democratic and prosperous Ukraine would represent to Russia’s incumbent political regime; and the potential desire of an ageing dictator to conquer immortality through territorial expansion. Without considering these factors and assessing them against solid empirical evidence, we will never understand what triggered the invasion.
Third, Mearsheimer’s explanation draws on his own version of the realist theory of international relations, offensive realism, which is not an overly reliable guide to the behaviour of contemporary states. Offensive realism holds that great powers such as Russia cannot tolerate perceived security threats in their neighbourhoods. However, here as elsewhere, offensive realism often fails on empirical grounds. The breakup of the Soviet Bloc, the post-Cold War military weakness of Germany, and peace among major European powers are just a few examples of such failures. Even if Russia really considered the prospect of Ukraine’s accession to NATO as an existential threat, which is far from certain despite Russia’s official rhetoric, there was absolutely no certainty that it would react in the way it did to Ukraine’s sovereign decision to seek joining the alliance. It is not by accident that the invasion took many members of Russia’s political establishment by surprise. Given the variety of alternative scenarios that could unfold, blaming the United States, NATO, or even Ukraine – if we acknowledge its active pursuit of NATO membership – for the war is not only morally wrong (i.e., wars are always started by those who pull the trigger, not those who join a defensive military alliance), but it is also intellectually unsatisfactory.
Fourth, one would hope that such a controversial thesis would be borne out by strong empirical evidence. Yet, the evidence presented during the lecture largely boils down to an uncritical reading of selective official statements made by the Russian leadership. Furthermore, the justification of the use of this “evidence”, referring to the alleged sincerity of Russia’s president, reveals further cracks in the credibility and scientific value of the central argument.
https://euideas.eui.eu/2022/07/11/john-mearsheimers-lecture-on-ukraine-why-he-is-wrong-and-what-are-the-consequences/
Figures you would quote a fascist.
“Similarly, Europe’s democracy will always be sensitive to the outcomes of the US and French presidential elections. If another Trump-style politician occupied the Oval Office, or a ‘Lepeniste’ candidate took over the Élysée Palace and commanded a majority in the National Assembly, European democrats would be in troubled waters.”
https://www.eurozine.com/is-europes-democracy-in-crisis/
I agree with everything you said.
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