Listen to a reading of this article: On a recent interview with the Useful Idiots podcast, Noam Chomsky repeated his argument that the only reason we hear the word "unprovoked" every time anyone mentions Russia's invasion of Ukraine in the mainstream news media is because it absolutely
"Empire apologists will also argue that saying Russia was provoked into invading by the US empire is like saying a rape victim provoked her rapist by wearing a tight skirt, or a battered wife provoked her abuser by disobeying him. "
More like "take these weapons and threaten your neighbor and abuse your children by him. We totally have your back and when you're done, we might let you join our gang!"
To say the Russian presence in Ukraine was unprovoked is ludicrous, absurd, but to claim it was "unjustified' is not much better. It's like saying as they did before the laws on marital rape and spousal abuse that there was no such thing as the former, and the latter was a private matter under the "it takes two to tango" principle. The tango principle also figures in the "stand your ground" laws: no one is completely innocent of anything. But that is patently untrue there are lines, there are qualitative difference and quantitative differences that qualify as qualitative. Russia took too many hits from encirclement by NATO along with policy statements proposing the division of Russia into three states by the West for their control and pillage. No country in the world would not draw the line there, and certainly not the US. Britain made a huge fuss over the distant Falklands not long ago. What utter hypocritical obscurantism.
Anyone paying attention in the build up to the war saw NATO and the US state department make fun of Putin's and Lavrov's attempts to negotiate peace. They publicly said that the peace process was a joke and that the Minsk accords from 2015 are unenforceable yet they never even tried. It is incredibly obvious that this war was provoked.
I also remember Zelensky saying Ukraine should have nuclear weapons about a week before the invasion. The fact then was they absolutely had the infrastructure to make good on this threat. I think that was a major contributing factor to the start of the war. Jimmy Dore had a good segment on the money side of all this yesterday also. The elites have been using the Ukraine as a supremely huge money laundering scheme. It's basically cui Bono? Why are all these EU countries torturing their citizens for the most corrupt country in Europe? How do billions of dollars appear over and over again for Ukraine for the last 8 years?How is the media 100% on board with the narrative and never the truth? $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
The most damning evidence that this war was planned is the 2016 video that has surfaced of two US senators speaking to a group of Ukrainian soldiers, apparently in Ukraine, saying something like: "2017 is the year we help you defeat Putin. We will provide whatever assistance as necessary. Putin must be stopped." It seems something unexpected happened in November 2016 that delayed those plans. Putin may have seen the build-up of troops on the separatist's border and the increased attacks in early 2022 as indication the troops were starting to advance.
Nothing demonstrates the murderous insanity of the US Empire better than the Russo-Ukie conflict. Orchestrated by a cabal of demented psychopaths (how is it that these clinically insane "people" remain in power?). Yes, people warned of this, but nearly all of them are in on it and the plan all along was to kick off this insanity when needed to divert attention from Amerikan criminality.
Like my husband says, "You poke the sleeping Russian bear in the cold of winter, you'd better expect to be mauled when he awakens." I've noticed the over-usage of the word "unprovoked" in the MSM since the start of this whole mess, too. It just shows how much conscious effort is being put into the propaganda spin. So much energy to perpetuate the lies, so much so that eventually someone or something is going to implode or crack open and reveal the truth unwittingly to the world. That day can't come soon enough!
The Ukrainian/Russia war could have been avoided by going back to the table and enforcing the Minsk agreements. Biden never talked about peaceful negotiations between these two neighbors. “Unprovoked” was his and the msm echo. In the beginning, Russia tried to respell the terms regarding an 8 year mess in the Donbass region and the Asov battalions, but there was silence on the Nato/USA side. And After all, our elite administration has painted Russia at fault for all it’s failing. I call it the “Russiagate explosion.” Too bad the propaganda news failed to show two sides, though many of us have gotten more independent news sources from the front lines. The tragedy is, like in all wars, regular Ukrainians and Russians people like myself had to die. It could have been avoided.
Good post, thanks. It seems we knew what most all people around the world likely should have guessed long ago. Just a bit of healthy skepticism would tell any reasonable person that the globalists have been bent on destabilizing the USA for a very long while. Those in charge of the US government and most other nations are followers of the WEF, Bilderberg, "globalists'. These are people who profit from wars, arms sales, etc and who find it easiest to gain and keep power when nations not 100% cowed are effectively destabilized. No self-respecting kleptocrat likes a stable Democracy.
Except 'provoking' Russia involved the murder of Russian speaking civilians, including over 130 children and when Russia eventually intervened, it very likely prevented the wholesale ethnic cleansing by the ultra-nationalist battalions something they had been openly threatening for years. It was Kiev that started shelling the Donbas, breaking a ceasefire on the 16th February...it took the dove Putin a week to react. After waiting 8 years of fruitless and duplicitous negotiations on the part of the western powers and 14,000 lives, he finally moved to stop the war on the Don Basin once and for all and Ukraine sealed its own fate.
Trying to say Russia was 'wrong' to invade despite being provoked is perversely absurd. Wrong in what way? In a Bible conscientious objection way? Mathew 26:52? No, I didn't think so. In what way then? International law? Putin followed international law to the letter. He waited for the Republics to invite him to help, just as he did in Syria. The fact that the corrupt west doesn't recognise the Republics in their new 'Rules' based world order is a joke. Whose rules? Their ever changing rules of convenience. Which is the road to world chaos which in their hubris, they are now forcing us all down.
"This is to say nothing of the US empire actively fomenting a violent uprising in 2014 which ousted Kyiv's sitting government . . . "
Or, to be precise, " . . . actively fomenting a violent uprising in 2014 which ousted Kyiv's democratically elected sitting government "
"Empire apologists will also argue that saying Russia was provoked into invading by the US empire is like saying a rape victim provoked her rapist by wearing a tight skirt, or a battered wife provoked her abuser by disobeying him. "
More like "take these weapons and threaten your neighbor and abuse your children by him. We totally have your back and when you're done, we might let you join our gang!"
To say the Russian presence in Ukraine was unprovoked is ludicrous, absurd, but to claim it was "unjustified' is not much better. It's like saying as they did before the laws on marital rape and spousal abuse that there was no such thing as the former, and the latter was a private matter under the "it takes two to tango" principle. The tango principle also figures in the "stand your ground" laws: no one is completely innocent of anything. But that is patently untrue there are lines, there are qualitative difference and quantitative differences that qualify as qualitative. Russia took too many hits from encirclement by NATO along with policy statements proposing the division of Russia into three states by the West for their control and pillage. No country in the world would not draw the line there, and certainly not the US. Britain made a huge fuss over the distant Falklands not long ago. What utter hypocritical obscurantism.
It is the “obligatory qualifier”.
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
Pure gold, Caitlin. Americans who have spent their entire lives up to their nostril in BS will deny, deny, deny. The documentation is hugely valuable.
Anyone paying attention in the build up to the war saw NATO and the US state department make fun of Putin's and Lavrov's attempts to negotiate peace. They publicly said that the peace process was a joke and that the Minsk accords from 2015 are unenforceable yet they never even tried. It is incredibly obvious that this war was provoked.
I also remember Zelensky saying Ukraine should have nuclear weapons about a week before the invasion. The fact then was they absolutely had the infrastructure to make good on this threat. I think that was a major contributing factor to the start of the war. Jimmy Dore had a good segment on the money side of all this yesterday also. The elites have been using the Ukraine as a supremely huge money laundering scheme. It's basically cui Bono? Why are all these EU countries torturing their citizens for the most corrupt country in Europe? How do billions of dollars appear over and over again for Ukraine for the last 8 years?How is the media 100% on board with the narrative and never the truth? $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
The most damning evidence that this war was planned is the 2016 video that has surfaced of two US senators speaking to a group of Ukrainian soldiers, apparently in Ukraine, saying something like: "2017 is the year we help you defeat Putin. We will provide whatever assistance as necessary. Putin must be stopped." It seems something unexpected happened in November 2016 that delayed those plans. Putin may have seen the build-up of troops on the separatist's border and the increased attacks in early 2022 as indication the troops were starting to advance.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html
The White Paper so accurate, they had to put a disclaimer on it.
n.b. RAND is very close to the neocon faction.
Nothing demonstrates the murderous insanity of the US Empire better than the Russo-Ukie conflict. Orchestrated by a cabal of demented psychopaths (how is it that these clinically insane "people" remain in power?). Yes, people warned of this, but nearly all of them are in on it and the plan all along was to kick off this insanity when needed to divert attention from Amerikan criminality.
excellent piece thankyou!
Like my husband says, "You poke the sleeping Russian bear in the cold of winter, you'd better expect to be mauled when he awakens." I've noticed the over-usage of the word "unprovoked" in the MSM since the start of this whole mess, too. It just shows how much conscious effort is being put into the propaganda spin. So much energy to perpetuate the lies, so much so that eventually someone or something is going to implode or crack open and reveal the truth unwittingly to the world. That day can't come soon enough!
The Ukrainian/Russia war could have been avoided by going back to the table and enforcing the Minsk agreements. Biden never talked about peaceful negotiations between these two neighbors. “Unprovoked” was his and the msm echo. In the beginning, Russia tried to respell the terms regarding an 8 year mess in the Donbass region and the Asov battalions, but there was silence on the Nato/USA side. And After all, our elite administration has painted Russia at fault for all it’s failing. I call it the “Russiagate explosion.” Too bad the propaganda news failed to show two sides, though many of us have gotten more independent news sources from the front lines. The tragedy is, like in all wars, regular Ukrainians and Russians people like myself had to die. It could have been avoided.
Good post, thanks. It seems we knew what most all people around the world likely should have guessed long ago. Just a bit of healthy skepticism would tell any reasonable person that the globalists have been bent on destabilizing the USA for a very long while. Those in charge of the US government and most other nations are followers of the WEF, Bilderberg, "globalists'. These are people who profit from wars, arms sales, etc and who find it easiest to gain and keep power when nations not 100% cowed are effectively destabilized. No self-respecting kleptocrat likes a stable Democracy.
Except 'provoking' Russia involved the murder of Russian speaking civilians, including over 130 children and when Russia eventually intervened, it very likely prevented the wholesale ethnic cleansing by the ultra-nationalist battalions something they had been openly threatening for years. It was Kiev that started shelling the Donbas, breaking a ceasefire on the 16th February...it took the dove Putin a week to react. After waiting 8 years of fruitless and duplicitous negotiations on the part of the western powers and 14,000 lives, he finally moved to stop the war on the Don Basin once and for all and Ukraine sealed its own fate.
Trying to say Russia was 'wrong' to invade despite being provoked is perversely absurd. Wrong in what way? In a Bible conscientious objection way? Mathew 26:52? No, I didn't think so. In what way then? International law? Putin followed international law to the letter. He waited for the Republics to invite him to help, just as he did in Syria. The fact that the corrupt west doesn't recognise the Republics in their new 'Rules' based world order is a joke. Whose rules? Their ever changing rules of convenience. Which is the road to world chaos which in their hubris, they are now forcing us all down.
"Nobody has ever walked out of Shakespeare's Othello thinking that maybe Iago was just an innocent bystander who was trying to help out his friends."
Great line, encapsulates the essay's theme.