Solidarity and compassion should come first for the left

An honest and empathetic social science should be able to endorse all of the following statements:

The desire of Western governments to push NATO and EU membership as far east as possible contributed to Vladimir Putin’s paranoid sense of encirclement.

Putin’s decision to go to war was an inhuman, inexcusable violation of international law.

Putin is personally responsible for this decision, regardless of his paranoia and sense of isolation.

Timothy Scriven @ 3

Perhaps a better question on the policy table might be “to what degree are we willing to open borders and ensure safe transit for refugees, in pursuit of minimising the casualties and offering safe harbour to people who need it?”

@3 “the big question on the policy table”

I rather think, the big question right now is to what extent are we willing to pay higher energy prices/reduce our energy consumption in order to stop Putin’s war machine. The frightening prospect is that our governments might, for once, do the right thing, only to be punished in the next election by the SUV lobby who couldn’t care less about the humantiarian crisis in Mariupol as long as they have access to cheap energy; with the very real possibility, in the US at least, of a full scale fascist takeover with the prospect of a new Trump-Putin axis.

Granted there are other frightening possibilities. Russian behavior around Ukrainian nuclear installations has been reckless to say the least.

If we are stumbling around on the edge of an abyss, it seems necessary to ask how we got here, even if the answers are inconvenient or uncomfortable for a lot of people. If only to figure out where we are to keep from stepping entirely off the edge.

If “we” matter.

@2 I’d add a number of recent wars by other countries that weakened international law, gave the impression that if you were strong enough you’d get away with anything. It’s similar to how before WW II Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia and Japan of Korea and China weakened League of Nations.

@5 Condeming Putin is easy and justified, but it won’t solve the current crisis. To do that you have to look at all factors that caused the crisis, and NATO-expansion is certainly one of them. Putin probably wanted to incoroprate Ukraine in any case, but without the deadline of NATO-membership gave it could have been a problem that could wait until next year forever.

I’d rephrase Chris´final statement as: of course we have to think about how we got here, but our first thought has to be how to end the war and stop the killing and destruction, if that is even possible at this point when no one can accept looking weak by agreeing to a painful compromise.

Agreed on all points.

One other thing people sometimes forget when people talk about these counterfactuals: NATO expansion has already bought Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Chechia, the Baltics and Germany 30 years free of Russian domination. That is, NATO expansion isn’t necessarily a bad idea even if 30 years on, some schmuck uses it as as excuse to start a brutal war.

IRL, after Eastern Europe spent nearly two generations under Russian domination, being invaded (Hungary ’56, Czechoslovakia ’68, Poland ’80) any time they tried to elect a government a little less dominated by Russia, there was no way on Earth that those countries wouldn’t beg to be in NATO after 1989, and no way that NATO would refuse them. That’s reality: for 45 years, avoiding a nuclear war meant that no NATO military assistance could go to Eastern Europeans while Russian troops were present. So, when they finally had an opening, the Eastern Europeans would do anything to get NATO troops stationed in Eastern Europe, and that’s what happened.

I like to think of myself as “left” and also as “realist.” So, a month ago I would have said (did say, in several conversations) that probably anybody who could plausibly be in Putin’s job would never have ambitions for Russia to INVADE Ukraine, and if Russia -(and NOT ‘Putin’) wanted it bad enough there would be nothing the Ukrainian People could do to stop them. For this reason I would (did) advocate that it would be a bad idea for Ukraine to join NATO, because – what for.

But one of the things about being a realist is that you have to recognize when reality changes. And being a realist this week involves acknowledging that the whole world seems determined to resist a Brutal War Criminal who tries to kill innocent people. Heaven is opening, with even the Swiss promising to surrender the bank accounts of the oligarchs and the Swedes sending weapons in order to help the Ukrainians.

Or in other words Solidarity and compassion should come from everybody – ‘Human’!

Aargh, “sense of encirclement.”

My comment actually makes more sense with “sense of encirclement,” I think “Putin’s paranoid sense of encirclement” is the complete invention, not real in any meaningful way. Putin cares about his invasion choice set being restricted, not having NATO forces in this place or that place. (He has a lot of nukes, as is being pointed out in other contexts).

“Sense of entitlement” he maybe has, but who doesn’t?

I don’t know whether to suggest deleting “Turkey” from my earlier comment, or suggesting I did it intentionally to make a larger point about EU expansion having a similar effect to NATO’s. I’ll just say “editing error” and imply I had more to say that actually made sense regarding Turkey but deleted it.

@11
“Reality” didn’t “change.” You were simply wrong in your assumptions. A perfect realist with perfect information would have made no such mistake. Unfortunately, there are no perfect realists only imperfect ones that reality hasn’t gotten around to correcting yet.p

What Chris said. Thanks, Chris.

BUT
on the other hand
‘Solidarity and compassion ALWAYS should come first from the Worlds Media
AND
this time –
with the exception of a few Right-Wing Racist Science Denying FOXes -(and the Propaganda of the few Authoritarian Regimes) the Worlds Media has… delievered
being AGAINST
‘the War Fever of the Worst War Criminal of our Century’.

Even if a confused poster on another thread of CT just wrote:
‘Having seen the Western media and government response, and the pressure being applied to universities who haven’t fallen in line with the war fever, I can now well understand how the simple phrase ‘plucky little Belgium’ was used to send so many to their deaths in WWI.

WHAT?

So WHY are there
STILL –
especially on the Internet –
so many confused people, who “leave” reactions to the war – which are NOT focused on ‘solidarity and compassion’ but on a ‘rather alienated discourse of great power politics’, some of which masquerade as “anti-imperialism” – usually with a pro-forma declaration that Putin’s aggression is “criminal”, but then a rather abstracted discussion of whether it is nevertheless understandable in some way’.
Perhaps, because of one of the Internets favourite theories that some ‘supreme strategists in the White House and Pentagon are those truly responsible and have sought to provoke or ensnare Putin into a disastrous war.
With milder versions of this thesis abound, shared across a wider gamut of politics, asking whether NATO expansion was a mistake.
Well maybe?-
though to be honest I lack the capacity to run the counterfactuals in my head and work out how history would have run if this or that decision had been taken differently in nineteen-ninety something.
I suspect that most of those writing glib pieces of grand strategy from a “left” -(or especially a ‘right’) perspective also lack that capacity, but somehow the urge to play toy soldiers takes over anyway. In any case, none of these strategic calculations could justify maiming a single child, let alone the unburied bodies on the streets of Mariupol’.

and can I say that I actually wanted to write –
too –
what Fake Dave wrote
BUT as I’m NOT in Laguna YET –
(but soon will be)
AND I need this spirit of driving down the Coast Hwy to ‘Little Corona’ in order to get into
‘the mood’ being able to write:
The whole approach — simultaneously callous and sanctimonious and driven by the contrarian inertia of habitual critics with no solutions of their own — is morally repugnant and intellectually indefensible. It is a tumor on the left — craven appeasement with an anarcho- pacifist gloss. It’s the very opposite of a responsible and respectable peace movement holding all belligerents accountable and is utterly corrosive to their stated goals of strengthening international norms of diplomacy and respect for human rights’.

I will be soon – there –
too

Serious question: Has the Biden administration’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine been about right given the circumstances, or is there something that the US government should be doing differently?

and about:
‘I don’t get this take, at all. Its a regurgitation of a well trodden media theme from a week ago, trying to paint the “left” as Putin shills, but you’ve wrapped it in some sort of moral truism about how we on the left should be emotionally responding, with no evidence that its not happening’.

BUT I already tried to tell everybody here it’s NOT ‘the left’.

The Idiot ‘Whataboutists’ who – mainly in America -(and on the Internet) try to divert and
deflect from Putins War Crimes might ‘once upon a time’ have been on ‘the left’
but now –
very obviously –
by saying what the are saying
and writing what there writing
can’t be ‘on the left’ as only Right-Wing Racist Science Denying Idiots
say and write what the
WHATABOUTIST
are saying and writing.

Right?
(Winky-Winky)

It’s possible to be nauseated by Putin at the same time as one is nauseated by the people suddenly deciding they’re against aggressive war based on lies. (See the people who voted for the Iraq War, of course.)

Some of us have decided that compassion and solidarity require pacifism. Most everybody else’s mileage on that varies. Fine. But don’t get all moral about solidarity and compassion if what you want to do is burn Russian conscripts to death with Molotov cocktails. If may be morally right, but it’s not compassion.

Here’s one truth. The right will get it almost entirely wrong and be welcomed in liberal public spaces, like the NY Times Op-Ed page, as if nothing happened. Any leftist who fails to cross their “t”s or dot their “i”s, will be denounced by everyone from Democrats to actual fascists.

It’s nauseating, in a somewhat different way.

Ray@25 “It’s bad, whatever it is.”

Is it as bad as the century-ago hot takes that claimed because Belgium was invaded on the Kaiser’s way to go attack the French, everyone had to go off and die for the British, German, Russian empires etc? There are less-worse responses than war fever against the Russians, than heaving in entirely with the madder corners of NATO and advocating for all-out shooting war between nuclear powers.

Well said, Chris, and I wholly agree. The one positive thing about this awful crime is that the response seems to be driven by outrage among the policy-makers nearly as much as among the populace. There’s a general sense that Putin has crossed a moral as well as a political line, and that every kind of retaliation short of direct military confrontation should be applied.

It’s shameful that it took a war in Europe, involving people who can’t be dismissed as ‘tribal’ (as Bosnian Muslims were) or somehow lesser, to arouse this response, but I’m glad it’s there.

and on a more serious note about:

‘It’s possible to be nauseated by Putin at the same time as one is nauseated by the people suddenly deciding they’re against aggressive war based on lies. (See the people who voted for the Iraq War, of course.)’

BUT
‘yet as I read around reactions to the war I find that some are focused not on ‘solidarity or compassion but on rather alienated discourses of great power politics, some of which masquerade as “anti-imperialism”. Usually we have a pro-forma declaration that Putin’s aggression is “criminal”, but then a rather abstracted discussion of whether it is nevertheless understandable in some way. Perhaps, even, the supposedly supreme strategists in the White House and Pentagon are those truly responsible and have sought to provoke or ensnare Putin into a disastrous war. Milder versions of this thesis abound, shared across a wider gamut of politics, asking whether NATO expansion was a mistake. Well maybe, though to be honest I lack the capacity to run the counterfactuals in my head and work out how history would have run if this or that decision had been taken differently in nineteen-ninety something. I suspect that most of those writing glib pieces of grand strategy from a “left” perspective also lack that capacity, but somehow the urge to play toy soldiers takes over anyway. In any case, none of these strategic calculations could justify maiming a single child, let alone the unburied bodies on the streets of Mariupol’.

Right?

Y’all?!

@31
Of course Russia was intimately involved in what happened to Douma and Aleppo as well. Mosul and Raqqa meanwhile, were conquered twice, with significant damage done by IS during their last stands in addition to the devastation caused by returning ground forces and US airstrikes. There’s really no one but “the west” to blame for Gaza, but then most of the actual peace movement has been consistently anti-occupation. That’s why the hypocrisy from people who support the Palestinians but won’t condemn Putin has been just as maddening as the AIPAC Democrats who suddenly care about sovereignty and self-determination of nations.

At least the “humanitarian” chickenhawks are consistently inconsistent. For me personally, it’s so much more infuriating to see the language of the peace movement I grew up in being cynically co-opted by people who seem more interested in excusing aggression than punishing it. When even non-violent responses like sanctions and diplomatic isolation are deemed too confrontational, what option is there besides accepting the unacceptable? Pacifists prevail by being more creative and courageous than the cowards and bullies who rely on violence. People who preach inaction or hide behind a collapsing status quo are displaying neither virtue and are unworthy of the name.

@33
You’re right, of course. It’s a conditional with a compound verb. I got thrown off by the slightly unusual “does blow up” construction. The “does” appears to be redundant with the “if” but I suppose she was trying to emphasize the uncertainty of it all. I was hoping to highlight the apparent victim-blaming of talking about Ukraine blowing up rather than Russia invading, but there’s no excuse for bad grammar. Good catch!

@35

Chomsky is a brilliant theorist, but he’s also the person who praised the Khmer Rouge as anti-imperialist freedom fighters and dismissed the reports of their genocide a western propaganda, so he’s not without his blind spots. A lot of the current crop of “anti-imperialists” strike me as Chomsky wannabes with all of his outspokenness and none of his insight.

Therefore spake he unto them a parable, saying: A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
And after the priest came two Levites, and likewise saw the man lying half dead.
Then said the one Levite to the other: Surely it is for this that the priest passed by on the other side, when he saw this man lying there.
And his companion answered him, saying: Shall we not give aid to the man, and bind up his wounds, forasmuch as he be half dead?
And that Levite who had spoken first also returned answer to him, saying: If the priest passed by on the other side when he saw this man, is it not even this same priest that beareth the moral responsibility?
When the twelve heard this parable, Philip, being one of the twelve, did say, What then should these Levites do, when they saw the man that lay half dead after the priest passed by?
And Conservative Jesus did even give answer to Philip, and to other of the twelve, who questioned him likewise, saying: Ye ask of the deeds that men should do, when they see the ills that are suffered by many in this world; but verily, verily, I say unto you, ye should rather ask who beareth the blame and the moral responsibility for these ills, and occupy yourselves with the like questions day and night; for unless ye do even so, ye shall never pass through the gates into Conservative Heaven.

Did you try to find out about Syria when it happened? Because what the OP is talking about here happened then with the left and it was very disturbing.

It started similarly—political awakening in young people in modern cities, regular life with Internet cafes, ice cream shops, university. Then protest, reasonable arguments about corruption, an awakening political consciousness and solidarity, a hope for a better life by the young, who felt connection to each other as Syrians.

Very quickly after absolute terror and destruction. Everyone’s life utterly destroyed or gone. The whole civil society-gone. A whole world shattered with all the ordinary citizens reduced to unthinkable desperation. For years. Millions of refugees.

But it was hard to know what was really happening in detail inside Syria.

In normal circumstances I think I have an OK method for non-expert provisional info to some understanding of events in countries I don’t know much about. You look at regular media, alternative media and academic sources. You can read books, etc.

The whole information sphere about Syria was blanketed with contradictory information. It was impossible to understand how some on the left were throwing in with Assad. If you asked questions, they yammered crazy faux expertise or chased you off. (One of the leftists who chased me off is a right wing shill now in my opinion but I won’t name names as they’re not very famous. I don’t know if every one of these ‘brave voices of truth’ lives off the fat of the land over there in conspiracyville but there’s fewer of these people now I’ve noticed,)

US news was paltry and every story on the left contradicted those in mainstream sources even in reputable outlets. Of course I know how naive people can be about their favorite dictators and how a certain kind of leftist will morally equivocate to avoid complexity but used to be you could read through this—and it’s not so Byzantine as in the last 8 or so years.

Maybe was my first time seeing ‘flood the zone’ so I didn’t have a strategy. I still probably don’t.

The US government as you know is not transparent about US intervention to put it mildly so this is why lying propaganda works so well here in part I think.

Now we can find out a lot about what happened in Syria and how and it’s an unthinkable horror. 7 million people fled. So many died. People lived under siege and died of starvation. Punishment for complaining about a dictator, for not liking him enough, for posing a threat.

This could happen to Ukraine soon if the war does not stop. Their whole world burnt to cinders. This could be what Russia will do to them.

And the US won’t take refugees from Syria!

I only mention this because some of the total disabling flood of contradictory information gets less uptake online when it comes to Ukraine…not that one knows the details but it’s not as easy to do the ‘up is down, down is up’ thing at the moment and be believed by every so-called left Twitter account though new techniques for online persuasion will likely evolve.

Why aren’t more people talking about Afghanistan. The US is leaving most of the population to starve to death. We barely knew what the hell was going on in that place. Remember that?

JQ 21: Confused what your point is. I’m not saying that everything published in Jacobin is garbage – there are obviously a range of athors and views represented – but I believe that the antiliberal nihilism I described is a dominant tendency, which can be observed in the magazine’s pro-Putin coverage but also for example in its often cynical coverage of the 2016 election and Trumpism, Murc’s Law, authors praising Tucker Carlson, stuff like that.

The specific evidence I cited regarding Putin and Russia speaks for itself I think, or do you disagree with my assessment? “Western governments who chose to make war inevitable by refusing to compromise”, pure cynical propaganda, and from the same guy who earlier kept insisting everybody knew that there would be no war. Has Jacobin at least admitted having been wrong?

I hear the plea in the OP, but not sure I can detect who its really aimed at. The first casualty of war is leftism, it makes neo-fascists of anyone who seeks a quick solution. Wars normally run out of fuel before they run out of hate.

So far the American response has been textbook – there have been almost no worthwhile conflicts anytime in the last 100 years that the American solution isn’t to first try to stay out and impose ‘sanctions’, second try to aid the underdog before ultimately third deciding that the only way to address force is with more force. I hope we never get to stage 3, but fear it will eventually be inevitable.

The European response has been somewhat more determined than usual as far as sanctions and willingness to supply war materials but it is also circumscribed by the fact that no EU country really has any material military throw-weight to do anything more than what they are doing. NATO is nothing more than economies of scale applied to doing what American wants to do and the EU agrees with. If the EU doesn’t agree, the US does it on its own.

The fact is Sweden and Switzerland (or most any EU country) would be far more impactful to announce that any refugee from either Russia or Ukraine will be welcomed and given all they need to start a new life rather than send guns or something. Yet none will even vaguely consider doing so. Far easier to send some ammunitions and call out some crooks than risk to the domestic politics of something impactful.

TM @43 My apologies. I somehow missed the links in your comment. I don’t know if Jacobin has admitted to being wrong, but its current articles certainly can’t be described as pro-Putin

@Trader Joe 48

Actually the official EU policy is that every resident in Ukraine has the right to go in the EU for at least 12 months (for some reason excluding Denmark):

https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/stronger-europe-world/eu-solidarity-ukraine/eu-assistance-ukraine/information-people-fleeing-war-ukraine_en

This is in stark contrast with how the EU treats refugees from other countries, but well let’s look at the bright side and say that at least with Ukrainians the EU is doing the right thing.

@51
Yeah, Cohen was a fairly consistent Russia apologist always quick to shift the blame onto Western actions, question the legitimacy of other post-Soviet governments, and chastise less indulgent pundits for wanting a “New Cold War.” His wife has tended to be more oblique by ficusing on the power of diplomacy and criticizing the rush to war, but she doesn’t seem capable of admitting that careful, well-intentioned diplomacy can still fail, or even backfire (Munich, Oslo, now Minsk. You can’t just slap a bandaid on a bullet hole and call it peacemaking.). She has no answers for a war NATO didn’t want, so I think she’s convinced herself that they must have wanted it after all. I don’t know if there’s any conflict of interest or quid quo pro between between them and Putin’s people (though a certain amount of Manafort-style schmoozing seems plausible), but there’s a long affinity between The Nation and Russia that goes back to their role as sanctuary for wayward Trotskyites and other Communist intellectuals seeking refuge from the agonies of Stalinism and McCarthyism. There’s also a fairly strong “enemy-of-my-enemy” logic at play based on mutual animosity towards their neo-con arch-rivals (polar opposites in terms of disillusioned post-Communism), mainstream liberal hawks (some people will never get over the contradictions of the Bush years), and a reckless and hypocritical “Washington consensus.” None of their critiques of American exceptionalism seem remotely consistent with their apparent Russian exceptionalism. Their neo-imperialist language about spheres of influence and legitimate security concerns would see them excommunicated from the movement if they applied it to a NATO power, but unfortunately far too many of their peers are accustomed to seeing the CIA’s hand in every international crisis or are obsessed with preventing the next Vietnam/Iraq and can see nothing but hypocrisy or the rush for war when western liberals criticize state actor outside the Atlantic “camp.”

Most of these people aren’t apparently corrupt, malicious, or particularly stupid. There does, however, seem to be a certain personality that is combative, self-righteous, and manichaean in its approach to politics and prone to drawing ideological battle lines across every international news story. These people might be powerful progressive allies who say all the right things about Palestine or police brutality, but in the wrong situation they can do a lot of damage. Not everyone in the movement can see the difference between real pacifists/humanists/anti-imperialists and people who just want to see the American empire taken down a peg. More often than not. Our goals align and the distinction feels academic. This isn’t one of those moments.

JQ 50. I somehow don’t feel like digging too deep into Jacobinite cynicism right now but I’m gonna repeat that the statement that “Western governments … chose to make war inevitable by refusing to compromise” was published after Putin’s invasion. Similarly, consider this statement from the Democratic Socialists of America dated February 26 (https://www.dsausa.org/statements/on-russias-invasion-of-ukraine/). After condemning Russia’s invasion, it goes on to repeat that the real culprit is US and NATO’s “imperialist expansionism that set the stage for this conflict.” It doesn’t even occur to these armchair antiimperialists that it is Putin and nobody else who is engaging in text book “imperialist expansionism”.

Almost everybody, including many of Putin’s former supporters both on the right and left, now condemns Russia’s aggression. Which is a good thing. But many still repeat Putin’s tired talking points and continue to make excuses. For the left, I think it’s essential to honestly confront the widespread ideological openness to pro-Putin demagoguery. It’s not enough to just add a “condemnation of Russia”-disclaimer.

As Peter T says @36, accurately characterizing the general reaction of governments and publics, Putin has crossed a moral as well as a political line. This is an immoral and illegal war of aggression, and it has already caused a humanitarian catastrophe. The targeting of hospitals and residential areas and other civilian targets is inexcusable.

Some people, in addition to saying this, have also gone on to engage in what Chris Bertram in the OP calls “rather alienated discourses of great power politics….” But unless those “discourses” aim to make excuses for the aggression, those discourses are not particularly part of the problem. The problem arises only when they are used to make excuses.

In addition to saying that Putin’s actions are immoral and illegal, one might hazard the suggestion (although it’s early to be making it), that he has miscalculated, doing not only untold harm and damage to Ukrainians but also, in the end, harm to his own country. In other words, one might, in addition to moral condemnation, make a descriptive statement. Perhaps this might count as a discourse of great power politics, but I don’t think the statement does any particular harm.

The academic field of international relations, even more perhaps than the discipline of political science of which, at least in the U.S., International Relations is usually seen as a subdivision, is not a science in any robust sense of that word. (E.H. Carr once wrote that “the science of international politics is in its infancy,” implying that it would progress. Whether it has progressed much is probably doubtful.) That said, if people who claim to have some particular knowledge, either by virtue of having written books or having spent time reading others’ books or having some special knowledge of the region, choose to engage in “discourses of great power politics,” or just discourses period, I don’t see how that is doing much or any active harm, as I said. Maybe all such discussion should be put off for later, but I don’t see it as being inherently incompatible with expressions of solidarity, compassion, and outrage.

After condemning Russia’s invasion, it goes on to repeat that the real culprit is US and NATO’s “imperialist expansionism that set the stage for this conflict.”

Of course, the phrase “real culprit” doesn’t appear in the link you provided. Instead, as you admit, they condemn Putin fully, and your problem is they don’t engage in your Will-You-Condemn-A-Thon in precisely the language you demand.

Because whatever the language used, it’s never enough. Ultimately, every time a new war breaks out, there’s a certain type of centre-left commentator who either 1) feels a psychological need to hippy-punch those to his left, to make the conflict all about intra-left factionalism (rather than any concern for those on the ground) and thereby feel superior in their sober judgement/patriotism and try to justify their “I’m not like THEM” plea to watching centrist/right-wing associates, or 2) wants to cover up their own apologism of/skepticism towards the whole concept of US/NATO imperialism that they deflect by pretending that the left is insufficiently critical of Russian imperialism.

It doesn’t even occur to these armchair antiimperialists that it is Putin and nobody else who is engaging in text book “imperialist expansionism”.

And are we supposed to believe you’re on the frontlines in Ukraine, and not hammering at the keyboard from the comfort of some form of reclining furniture?

And only Putin is engaging in imperial expansion? Am I supposed to believe that a policymaker like Boris Johnson truly cares about the welfare of random Latvians he’s never met and who have nothing to offer a man like him? The same guy with a 6-figure death count, who’s busy criminalising protests, attacking GRT folk, and brutalising Yemenis and Afghans (abroad and at the border)? Come on.

We live in an ‘anarchic’ world system, where a few big dogs dominate over the rest. So sure, I can understand why a small businessman would seek the protection of the Corleones from the Barzinis. But don’t sit there and tell me the Corleones aren’t the f***ing Corleones.

And if you want to defeat the Barzinis, you need to defeat the mafia as a whole. Violence is a cycle. None of us are free until we’re all free. Cliche, but true.

AND
Please –
Copyright?

Could you PLEASE stop all of this – being NOT

‘focused on such solidarity but on a rather alienated discourses of great power politics, some of which masquerade as “anti-imperialism”. Usually with the pro-forma declaration that Putin’s aggression is “criminal”, but then a rather abstracted discussion of whether it is nevertheless understandable in some way’.
AS
‘Perhaps, even, the supposedly supreme strategists in the White House and Pentagon are those truly responsible and have sought to provoke or ensnare Putin into a disastrous war. Milder versions of this thesis abound, shared across a wider gamut of politics, asking whether NATO expansion was a mistake. Well maybe, though to be honest I lack the capacity to run the counterfactuals in my head and work out how history would have run if this or that decision had been taken differently in nineteen-ninety something. I suspect that most of those writing glib pieces of grand strategy from a “left” perspective also lack that capacity, but somehow the urge to play toy soldiers takes over anyway. In any case, none of these strategic calculations could justify maiming a single child, let alone the unburied bodies on the streets of Mariupol’.

PLEASE!

PEACE!