Listen to a reading of this article: ❖ "You're denying the agency of Ukrainians!" This is a line you've probably had bleated at you by propagandized empire livestock if you've engaged in online debate about the role western powers have played in paving the way to this war.
From a non-Australian the most despicable thing that country has done is complete abandonment of Julian Assange. Prime example of brown-nosing the US and the UK demand. And Australia delivers.
... what will ultimately kill off this American Imperialism will be the death of the petro-dollar - until the ability to fund such adventurism is ended, the status quo will continue to pervade... we await...
Ukraine would be better off with 100 enemies than one friend like the US. And they make bad enemies too, if you are defenceless, as were Iraq and Libya. When it comes to law, they wing it, make it up as the situation demands. They want Putin charged with war crimes while the very suggestion they be tried with much more cause, sends shock waves around the world. Julian Assange is a martyr to that cause, a living monument to monumental, lies, treachery and hypocrisy. But the truly astonishing thing is how Zelensky is seen as a patriot: a man with $5.5 billion, and no visible means of support other than as a figurehead who asks Ukrainians to die to the last man, or woman, or child. He goes thousands of miles seeking NATO interference, and is either too ignorant or too callous to consider what his request means: it means, if granted, we are brought to the edge of a deep abyss whose edge is about to crumble. This is not the CV of someone I would normally put my trust in.
Perhaps one becomes so brainwashed by US mainstream media propaganda that one can't see the forest for the trees... One can't see that Ukrainians are being used as cannon fodder in a US proxy war against Russia because to do so might make one finally realize how used by the oligarchy Americans have been all along. (It takes cannon fodder to know fellow cannon fodder.)
As an ordinary American, I don't feel like I have much agency to stop the monstrous oligarchs in charge here. It's intensely frustrating watching all these impending train wrecks and not be able to do anything.
Not being on Twitter, the “Ukrainian agency” remark immediately strikes me as odd. The implication is that the Ukrainians chose to be in this conflict. You know people are brainwashed when they start arguing that the citizens of a country want to be invaded and at war.
> “When you’re at war, you’re at war,” the saying goes, and if so, you have to accept the implications. So too in the present circumstance. The United States and its NATO allies are engaged in a proxy war with Russia.
Eliot A. Cohen wrote in The Atlantic March 14 2022.
My only sorrows for this whole sordid mess lies with Ukrainian citizenry whose lives had been irrevocably destroyed by the west firstly, and then Russia that sees Ukraine and the neo-Nazis that the US has installed to draw out, indefinitely , a manufactured civil war. Set up in the US launched coup back in 2014 under Obama, Biden, Clinton, Neuland, et al. It's always the civilians that pay the most. Even here in the US a manufactured increase of inflation has made life much harder for our poor. And the Ukrainians are caught in a quagmire by the west, and a Russia that's fighting for their nation to not be totally encircled by US/NATO hegemony, including the toxic ideology of the neo-Nazis.
There is a proposal from Russia on the table that lets Ukrainian leadership stay in place. The west pretends that this is folly, or doesn't, if fact, exist at all. The west could end this tomorrow if they accept Putin's terms. Any guess as to where this leads? I'm still hoping that this can end peacefully between the two big powers, Russia, and Empire, led by the US. All bets are off though as to what actually occurs. Peace
I agree 100%. This is one of Caitlin's best! And it address the #1 objection of my friends. "But Ukrainians wanted NATO protection. Why deny them of a right to that?" (Actually, in polls in 2012 only 28% of Ukrainians wanted Ukraine to join NATO. And NATO Article 5 membership is not a "right" but a "privilege" requiring the approval of a consensus of members. And NATO itself is a warmongering abomination of the cold war which should not ever have existed, and most definitely not after 1991.)
Whenever I hear people say "Ukrainians want ..." I think to myself "which Ukrainians, and after how many billions of western propaganda, organizing, weapons and two (2004,2014) coups?"
A lot of "Ukrainians" wanted Novorossiya instead of Ukraine in 1991...most of the ones that lived in that region at the time, and later in 2014, which most international institutions recognize today as "east Ukraine." Why did Novorossiya not happen?
"Hey there, Ukrainian citizens. You have no agency, because CIA. Ignore Putin's tanks and bombs, because, you know, again, CIA. Remember how I told you those tanks on the border were just western propaganda? Yeah, well. No price for being 100% wrong about that. For me, I mean." Seems being cannon fodder works both ways.
America bad, everyone else good? Why don't you just admit that. If arguments about Ukrainian agency bug you so much, maybe it is because there is actual legitimacy to them? Beyond just NATO, Ukrainians overwhelming support joining the EU---a political organization that at least theoretically stands to create along with the US and China a multi-polar world. Denying that Ukrainians see themselves more as Europeans than Russians is on you, they are ENTIRELY free to align with the EU vs. Putin et al. Honestly, this screed of a post carries a lot of water for authoritarian governments and does very little for actual on the ground people facing Russian invaders and bombs on a daily basis. If you actually care about Ukrainians you would feature their stories and interests vs. the nebulous aims of US foreign policy goals which you cannot actually nail down concretely because guess what they are constantly changing and it is a moving target. Your desire to paint America as bad and Russia as "Good" only reveals your ideological biases and utter incompetence at understanding these complicated times.
From a non-Australian the most despicable thing that country has done is complete abandonment of Julian Assange. Prime example of brown-nosing the US and the UK demand. And Australia delivers.
... what will ultimately kill off this American Imperialism will be the death of the petro-dollar - until the ability to fund such adventurism is ended, the status quo will continue to pervade... we await...
Ukraine would be better off with 100 enemies than one friend like the US. And they make bad enemies too, if you are defenceless, as were Iraq and Libya. When it comes to law, they wing it, make it up as the situation demands. They want Putin charged with war crimes while the very suggestion they be tried with much more cause, sends shock waves around the world. Julian Assange is a martyr to that cause, a living monument to monumental, lies, treachery and hypocrisy. But the truly astonishing thing is how Zelensky is seen as a patriot: a man with $5.5 billion, and no visible means of support other than as a figurehead who asks Ukrainians to die to the last man, or woman, or child. He goes thousands of miles seeking NATO interference, and is either too ignorant or too callous to consider what his request means: it means, if granted, we are brought to the edge of a deep abyss whose edge is about to crumble. This is not the CV of someone I would normally put my trust in.
Perhaps one becomes so brainwashed by US mainstream media propaganda that one can't see the forest for the trees... One can't see that Ukrainians are being used as cannon fodder in a US proxy war against Russia because to do so might make one finally realize how used by the oligarchy Americans have been all along. (It takes cannon fodder to know fellow cannon fodder.)
As an ordinary American, I don't feel like I have much agency to stop the monstrous oligarchs in charge here. It's intensely frustrating watching all these impending train wrecks and not be able to do anything.
So many opposing views can be held and be true at the same time.
This is a proxy war
Ukraine is a puppet state (currently for the US, previously for Russia)
Zelensky is a puppet leader
Ukraine is full of corruption
Putin should not invade another country
Deaths of civilians and soldiers is tragic when it is all down to politics
The list goes on and on but this isn't black and white as many would want you to believe.
Excellent article.
Not being on Twitter, the “Ukrainian agency” remark immediately strikes me as odd. The implication is that the Ukrainians chose to be in this conflict. You know people are brainwashed when they start arguing that the citizens of a country want to be invaded and at war.
> “When you’re at war, you’re at war,” the saying goes, and if so, you have to accept the implications. So too in the present circumstance. The United States and its NATO allies are engaged in a proxy war with Russia.
Eliot A. Cohen wrote in The Atlantic March 14 2022.
My only sorrows for this whole sordid mess lies with Ukrainian citizenry whose lives had been irrevocably destroyed by the west firstly, and then Russia that sees Ukraine and the neo-Nazis that the US has installed to draw out, indefinitely , a manufactured civil war. Set up in the US launched coup back in 2014 under Obama, Biden, Clinton, Neuland, et al. It's always the civilians that pay the most. Even here in the US a manufactured increase of inflation has made life much harder for our poor. And the Ukrainians are caught in a quagmire by the west, and a Russia that's fighting for their nation to not be totally encircled by US/NATO hegemony, including the toxic ideology of the neo-Nazis.
There is a proposal from Russia on the table that lets Ukrainian leadership stay in place. The west pretends that this is folly, or doesn't, if fact, exist at all. The west could end this tomorrow if they accept Putin's terms. Any guess as to where this leads? I'm still hoping that this can end peacefully between the two big powers, Russia, and Empire, led by the US. All bets are off though as to what actually occurs. Peace
I agree 100%. This is one of Caitlin's best! And it address the #1 objection of my friends. "But Ukrainians wanted NATO protection. Why deny them of a right to that?" (Actually, in polls in 2012 only 28% of Ukrainians wanted Ukraine to join NATO. And NATO Article 5 membership is not a "right" but a "privilege" requiring the approval of a consensus of members. And NATO itself is a warmongering abomination of the cold war which should not ever have existed, and most definitely not after 1991.)
Whenever I hear people say "Ukrainians want ..." I think to myself "which Ukrainians, and after how many billions of western propaganda, organizing, weapons and two (2004,2014) coups?"
A lot of "Ukrainians" wanted Novorossiya instead of Ukraine in 1991...most of the ones that lived in that region at the time, and later in 2014, which most international institutions recognize today as "east Ukraine." Why did Novorossiya not happen?
"Hey there, Ukrainian citizens. You have no agency, because CIA. Ignore Putin's tanks and bombs, because, you know, again, CIA. Remember how I told you those tanks on the border were just western propaganda? Yeah, well. No price for being 100% wrong about that. For me, I mean." Seems being cannon fodder works both ways.
America bad, everyone else good? Why don't you just admit that. If arguments about Ukrainian agency bug you so much, maybe it is because there is actual legitimacy to them? Beyond just NATO, Ukrainians overwhelming support joining the EU---a political organization that at least theoretically stands to create along with the US and China a multi-polar world. Denying that Ukrainians see themselves more as Europeans than Russians is on you, they are ENTIRELY free to align with the EU vs. Putin et al. Honestly, this screed of a post carries a lot of water for authoritarian governments and does very little for actual on the ground people facing Russian invaders and bombs on a daily basis. If you actually care about Ukrainians you would feature their stories and interests vs. the nebulous aims of US foreign policy goals which you cannot actually nail down concretely because guess what they are constantly changing and it is a moving target. Your desire to paint America as bad and Russia as "Good" only reveals your ideological biases and utter incompetence at understanding these complicated times.
Thank you for this
the Australian submarine deal was a giveaway to the agenda
Who uses "agency" this way except Mormons? Is this a Mormon war?