They don't want nuclear war. You and many others might draw principled stands against appeasement, but escalation would be a messy and chaotic endeavor. I'm trying to find a success in the last 30 years where our direct military intervention drew a net gain for those foreign lands and ours. Compare that scoreboard to Chomsky's where our embedded industrial complexes profited off billions and trillions of American coffers down the drain for that "investment". Yeah, I'd say he's justified only out of consistency, if not overall accuracy. But to your point, I agree we should debate off of what "these talks" would bring...what Putin and Ukraine's established bottom lines are. It's hardly set in stone while fighting is still intense, but if O&G starts piping down for the winter if Ukraine gave away Crimea, would that be acceptable for Americans? More likely than the government accepting, who has interests exporting LNG and restarting their oil investments. Europe is different as they crave authority by taking a principled stand, but their economy is extremely fragile because of these embargos. At this point, I feel EU leadership is more concerned about credibility than whatever Ukraine wants. Hopefully they're not deluded into thinking they'd "own" Ukraine with a victory.
Thanks for posting this. These are the people I was talking about earlier, when some people claimed such people don't even exist on the left.
Elon should STFU about some things. Like rescue divers in Thailand, and this. Still, Elon >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> @SamFisher
Like Trump, Musk thinks because he greatly succeeded at one thing that his opinion on everything else is also worth people's time. Regarding the UN-supervised referendum he suggests, Luhansk and Donetsk might still vote for Russia because they've been capturing and shipping off Ukrainians in the occupied territory to russify it. But just because they commit a cultural genocide in eastern Ukraine to achieve support from a legitimate majority of the remaining residents doesn't mean annexation is therefore itself legitimate.
The other question is why would anyone trust Russia? Ukraine already gave up their nuclear weapons in exchange for Russia agreeing to leave them alone. Look how well that worked out for them?
https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-di...last-elon-musks-russia-peace-proposal-1748488 Under Musk's peace deal, Crimea, a region Russia annexed in 2014, would formally become part of Russia, with Ukraine no longer laying claim to the territory and that water supply to Crimea would be "assured." He also proposed that Ukraine would remain neutral in global affairs under his peace deal. Ukraine's diplomatic relationship with the West, including the U.S., has long been a point of tension with Russia. Ukraine on Friday announced it submitted an application to accelerate its effort to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). If Ukraine joins NATO, it would be seen as a massive blow to Russia's efforts to prevent Ukraine from becoming tied to the West. Melnyk, who serves as Ukraine's ambassador to Germany, hit back at the proposal in a tweet. "F**k off is my very diplomatic reply to you @elonmusk," Melnyk tweeted.
If they were - fine. Nord Stream was basically the tool to keep funding Russia's imperialistic war machine. Destroying it was the right thing to do. Even if it means Germany suffers. Germany put themselves into that situation. Never listened to the warnings by US officials, even ridiculed them.
I guess you're more inclined to trust Russians if you believe Trump would've handled the situation better since they're besties (or more). My personal hope and bias would be that Americans would still support Ukraine through the long haul despite the economic (serious to Europe) and nuclear (non-zero) risks. Some still might if they believe they have a choice in the matter. Folks like Tucker capitalize upon cynicism and distrust. I don't know whether playing out these "simple questions/concerns" would quell their followers or whether they'd latch onto the next thing. It's not really something politicians had to deal with at this speed and scope 3-4 decades ago. I personally believe the deadline for appeasement (and a EU "soft landing") is over. At this point, it's either we cut Putin's balls off or he strangles the EU to the point of breaking them up.
Right I mean you speak to the complexities here yourself. It's not just a cut and dry talking point which is my point ultimately. What is lost all together is why this all started to begin with. It was a dumb war to begin with which adds to the notion that a simple solution certainly won't be the answer. Russia as a holistic country didn't want this IMO. Yes alot of people convinced themselves that Putin knows what he's doing, and they'll come out the backend with a more powerful economic trade relationship with Europe, but few people woke up and said let's start WW3 just because of some historic Nordic prophecy or whatever BS Putin was ranting about before the war. It seems like the Biden admin and the other NATO leaders are really just simply... taking this war one day at a time, and doing what they can to help out Kyiv defend itself. What NATO has done is deter other countries like China with Taiwan, and Iran with whomever from doing what Putin has done which I think is the right thing to do. Because I see the globe entering into a Nationalist push to reshuffle the decks on trade and resources for everyone to better rely on themselves or get in a better leveraged position for what is to come....which is the affects of climate change, energy resources, and the issues that were shown to have happened with a pandemic. The reason why Russian citizens thought "well maybe Pappa Putin has a plan" was they were all probably selfishly thought there's something to be gained by aggressively taking a country that has access to key trade ports to Europe. Little did they know that Putin really doesn't care about that, and obviously is more concerned with being hailed as Alexander the Great 2.0... when in reality he's put himself on the mount rushmore of evil men next to Hitler, Stalin, etc. So basically yeah... This war is a bunch of BullSh$t from one giant a$$hole, but of course there are some surrounding geopolitical elements that make it important to execute a complicated long term strategy that involves day to day diplomatic, and military decisions.
I also want to point out that many of the "Democracy Now" folks previously were contributors to the RT network. RT was involved in courting folks from the left years ago when Russia wasn't the pariah state it was pre Crimea. Those folks all jumped ship and contribute to networks like Free Speech TV who provide good content, but some folks are still very much still programmed with RT bullsh$t. Young Turks, Thom Hartmann, Dave Pakman, etc. who also contribute to Free Speech use pretty common sense, and normal positions you'll find on the left. Amy Goodman's program for whatever reason still has some RT residue left over. I don't find Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky, etc. as mainstream "leftists" by any stretch, and certainly not Democratic party normalized thought leaders. This would be the Jill Stein wing of the left... not even the Bernie wing of the left. So keep that in context when thinking this is a whataboutism to the MAGA right which runs the GOP, and whose "Jill Stein" is the leading candidate for president. There is NO equivalence.
