I just subscribed in order to comment - and it turns out that I also listen to the Jocko Wilink podcasts... In any case, after 10 minutes, you seem spot on, you're saying the same kinds of things I'm saying. At 35 minutes, in talking about the neocons/neolibs, you're saying the same kinds of things I was saying in a discussion club we ha…
I just subscribed in order to comment - and it turns out that I also listen to the Jocko Wilink podcasts... In any case, after 10 minutes, you seem spot on, you're saying the same kinds of things I'm saying. At 35 minutes, in talking about the neocons/neolibs, you're saying the same kinds of things I was saying in a discussion club we had in Kansas City in the 1990s - and the neoliberals have had a lock on the NatSecState since 1981 or so it seems, and the NatSecState sets policy. We need to have a real discussion about the role of the National Security State/Military Industrial Complex in the US - those are people who have formed what is essentially a secret double government in the US beyond the bounds of democratic and constitutional accountability, and it hasn't provided much in the way of security, national or otherwise. I'm sticking this up on my substack page, you're nailing it.
NATO and the US gave Putin lots and lots of reasons to get in this war - including the bioweapons/"public health" (your choice) labs, some on the Russian border (see https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/public-health-or-bioweapons-research)- sheer insanity given the past two years. What were they thinking? Were they thinking? And then there was the feigned prospect of NATO membership, a fake offer without the intent to follow through - conveyed not so much to Zelenskyy but as a threat to Putin. It's like Justin Trudeau going full CCP and installing PLA troops and missile batteries and the like in Ontario and British Columbia - what would the US response be? As regards Zelenskyy: https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/its-complicated-zelenskyy-turns-out
I can definitely see where Putin is coming from, and if he'd limited this to a counterforce strike, as it appears his original intention had been, my attitude would not have shifted in favor of the Ukrainian people defending themselves from indiscriminate attack by Russian forces, as it has unfortunately turned out to be. I've got to wonder how close that Russian missile strike at that maternity hospital in Mariupol was to the biological weapons lab there, same case for the bombardment at Kharkiv, essentially on the Russian border, with its labs, and at the over 20 other labs in the country...
The info on the biolabs predates the invasion by four years - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T9ktfz_FfA is a presentation made 3 years ago, the original article goes back to 2018. At the time I thought it was disinfo, but it has checked out from non-Russian sources - and yeah, I know about the Strategic Culture group of publications and their actual provenance.
And we could have wound them up in six months, brought the scientists back to universities in the US - they would have jumped at the chance as did so many others from Russia itself, and had the entire operation cleaned out in a year. 1992. There is *no* reason for *any* US-supported, financed, or aided bioweapons lab in Ukraine. None, period. So far as I'm concerned, biological or chemical warfare has no place in society, but that's just me. We should save insecticide for insects.
The worst thing about this is that we had credible intelligence since 2014 that the labs were an attractive nuisance for any invading Russian force - like the Russian Army forces that invaded Lugansk and Donetsk provinces in that year and who had been fighting Ukrainian Army units ever since. We could have cleaned them out long before the invasion this year and failed to do so - and wound up giving Putin a casus belli - and let it be known that Ukraine would *not* be joining NATO. Have a look at a map, with a ruler for distance scale, and that will tell you much about Putin's concerns, which in fact were quite legit.
There is a reason we didn’t do that. It’s the same reason we funded research that was little more than torture on dogs in Tunisia. The US public actually has really high standards and expectations for their scientists. Labs have to follow OSHA and EPA regulations. All proposed experiments at universities have to go through committees to receive permission and funding and they take such things as public health and needless suffering seriously. There are very few labs in the US that are rated to handle many of these pathogens (like Anthrax) and we aren’t particularly interested in creating more. So what do we do? We outsource our more questionable science to other countries that have lower standards for safety and suffering. Sometimes we just fund the science but other times we provide pretty much everything, it’s simply on foreign soil. A terrible accident on the Ukrainian/Russian border is much more manageable from a PR standpoint than the same terrible accident if it happens at UCLA. Certainly there is foreign collaborative research that doesn’t fall into this category, but it would be best to look skeptically at any science that America is involved in that takes place outside America. The only thing I’m not sure about is if leaving those labs completely unprotected was a blunder on par with arming the Taliban with our Afghanistan withdrawal or if it was purposeful. Frankly I’m not sure which reason is more concerning.
(inc ramble of thoughts , my best appologises for not writing the great way so many here do.)
It came to noone suprise that Putin wrote a "History of Russia" where he seeks to make solid foundation for the 3 unifying factors (church, language, leader was it right?) and I personally dislike the idea to motivate something, today, with history.
The reaon i grew tired of it was back in Kosovo 2001 (summer) when it seemed that the battle of the Kosovo Polje (in like 1380!!!!) was the real reason they had to fight now. Holy shit, all this suffering i saw, and it was because of that? Using history to legitimate your future claim don't work well. I cannot think of a single time that has played out well at all. Not even "ok".
So for me it is "simple". Ukraine is a sovereign country. We have lots of countries in Europe that are about as old as Ukraine. Sometimes there are changes, hopefully peaceful, i'd take crimea takeover as "peaceful" so the bar isn't set high. This might be one we lost the chance to have peaceful by greedy powerplays in the 90's .
But, Ukraine decide their affiliations themselves (yes ofc, in theory sadly enough). The idea that my country (sweden) would be horsetraded between the greater powers is simply put silly if you ask (a naive) me. Him (Putin) having any say over us in Sweden and Finland as it is in their "sphere of influence", essentially only because they "won"the world war 2, today should make anyone in our countries react. I couldn't be more grateful that we, probably by chance, gave up ideas of being a power again after 1790 ish. Nothing has served my country more! We "gave up" Finland that we had been one with (like russia ukraine) for 600 years+ and I am so thankful that we (to no credit to my anscestors, it just had to be chance really) didn't react the way we humans tend to do (I want revenge! respect me!)
I get that Russia has that idea of becomming "what it once was" (oh hi big serbia movement in the 90's). It is just not a good way to go forward. Am I dead set there should be no compromises (ie, denying russia the only warmwater port they have is bad imho) ? Nope, I'm for the resolving of that. After this episode so many questionmarks in my "knowledge" has popped up that I need to sleep on this, then listen again, sleep, listen. Then i might have a solid opinion again.
It's amazing how much facts vary though when it comes to east Ukraine. I heard stuff in this episode that made me halt and want to read up on the area's history and current history, appriciate the countless hours lost on that mr Cooper haha!
Most likely there never have been an objective truth when things are at this scale but it also makes you think about history and who wrote it. My first encounter with that was when I as a young teenager read three different books about Stalingrad. At times the experience made me think I had to be misstaken and accidently read about 3 separate world events instead of the very same one (and that was just a part of the war, not even the full campaign).
And if we can't even establish "what happened" 80 years ago, then exactly why do we humans still use some unconclusive battle on some slippery mud in Kosovo Polje over 600 years ago? It is fascinating how we humans work and was not this war so heartbreaking (of the european peace dream) to me, I'd study it with great interesst.
Actual reply to the post above !(sorry)
In Sweden we have had a long tradition (probably bc of our neutrality + swedish form of social democracy) ofmisstrust of Russia-Soviet-Russia's and NATO's benign nature. Esp to small countries like us. For me that grew up during the cold war this article don't say anything but how he wants us to think, wants us to think we know how he thinks. There is no end of dolls inside this one. We have just seen what actually happens.
sidenote to clarify: I lost trust in USA during the effects of 9/11 by the way, im in no way a fan of american (or the "old european planners") geopolitics. You want war against "terror"? yeah that is gonna play out well when you have legitimized that as a jailfree card to invade your neighbours...
But to anyone who still believes in Putins current "mask" (of which he has had about 3 as far as i remember) where he just corrects the wrongs commited, I guess this article really reads like Putin is reasonable. That Ukraine's politics comes out as a thin veneer of true Ukrainian belief in their own state, easily traded if only Putin "did a fast conquest of the Ukrainian leadership " like when he took Crimea. I have read diffferent takes on the "if the nazi groups made any impact" but I'm not surpised that it is a bat used by Putin to hammer Zelensky with, no matter the truth and actual importance. (cynic joke: hey another tv clown propped up with money got to be president?)
on the flip side: Putin is not a mad/rabbid dog either! He gives that impression with great sucess in terms of what he won with that play however.
In geopolitics I don't trust anyone. And if anything, im more reserved to Sweden
applying to NATO now than ever.
I don't think Russia (and i think Putin the is the word i should use) is entitled to anything at all when it comes to Ukraine. I still believe it can be discussed, with regards to compromises, though. He has worked long and hard with the patience of a true believer to hammer home the idea that Russia is "home" and alone (as in moving west) is to invite disaster.
I still believe there could be a peace amongst equals, but one faction's plundering in the 90's and then the other's current one really make it hard. We as a world could have ended the cold war so much better and it hurts my belief in humanity that the broader lessons from the world wars, were not heeded.
/ jonas
(sorry for wall of text , i tried to remove as much as possible but my dog is riverdancing at the doorstep now so I gotta go!)
By this logic Israel has no claim to Palestine. Ukraine may have been the rope in a tug of war between Russia and Poland for years, but it had been under control of the car for a good century before the communists partitioned it. I don't think Russia deserves the whole country, but that plebiscite on the east shows popular support for Donbass annexation.
Great recommendations, particularly the Glennon article. It would be interesting to think about ways to convey this information in the most efficient way possible. For instance-- Mr. Cooper noted that some people are skeptical about American involvement in the various color revolutions. If you have the time, you can gradually discover the evidence. What would be useful is something like a heavily-annotated/linked on-line timeline that would allow people to quickly assess the available evidence... and related evidence regarding the national security "double government..."
"If you have the time, you can gradually discover the evidence." I think I did that back in 2014, when I was informed of the actual provenance of the events unfolding in Maidan Square by a Kiev punk rocker - "It's not what you think it is, they're Nazis" and that set off a bunch of research. I really fell for the legend offered up, no doubt about that, hook, line, and sinker, but after a conversation over facebook - which booted me off at the beginning of February this year - I did the research. The trick is in finding it.
I just subscribed in order to comment - and it turns out that I also listen to the Jocko Wilink podcasts... In any case, after 10 minutes, you seem spot on, you're saying the same kinds of things I'm saying. At 35 minutes, in talking about the neocons/neolibs, you're saying the same kinds of things I was saying in a discussion club we had in Kansas City in the 1990s - and the neoliberals have had a lock on the NatSecState since 1981 or so it seems, and the NatSecState sets policy. We need to have a real discussion about the role of the National Security State/Military Industrial Complex in the US - those are people who have formed what is essentially a secret double government in the US beyond the bounds of democratic and constitutional accountability, and it hasn't provided much in the way of security, national or otherwise. I'm sticking this up on my substack page, you're nailing it.
NATO and the US gave Putin lots and lots of reasons to get in this war - including the bioweapons/"public health" (your choice) labs, some on the Russian border (see https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/public-health-or-bioweapons-research)- sheer insanity given the past two years. What were they thinking? Were they thinking? And then there was the feigned prospect of NATO membership, a fake offer without the intent to follow through - conveyed not so much to Zelenskyy but as a threat to Putin. It's like Justin Trudeau going full CCP and installing PLA troops and missile batteries and the like in Ontario and British Columbia - what would the US response be? As regards Zelenskyy: https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/its-complicated-zelenskyy-turns-out
I can definitely see where Putin is coming from, and if he'd limited this to a counterforce strike, as it appears his original intention had been, my attitude would not have shifted in favor of the Ukrainian people defending themselves from indiscriminate attack by Russian forces, as it has unfortunately turned out to be. I've got to wonder how close that Russian missile strike at that maternity hospital in Mariupol was to the biological weapons lab there, same case for the bombardment at Kharkiv, essentially on the Russian border, with its labs, and at the over 20 other labs in the country...
As to the US national security state and double government, two references - https://fletcher.tufts.edu/sites/default/files/pubs_glennon-michael-national-security-double-government.pdf and https://www.fff.org/2020/12/11/the-national-security-establishment-is-in-charge/
If you believe Putin wanted to invade Ukraine because of these labs, i feel sorry for you mate. Its just political propaganda for the russian people.
The info on the biolabs predates the invasion by four years - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T9ktfz_FfA is a presentation made 3 years ago, the original article goes back to 2018. At the time I thought it was disinfo, but it has checked out from non-Russian sources - and yeah, I know about the Strategic Culture group of publications and their actual provenance.
the info on the biolabs goes back to 1991. they were Soviet labs. of course a degenerate KGB agent knows about them.
And we could have wound them up in six months, brought the scientists back to universities in the US - they would have jumped at the chance as did so many others from Russia itself, and had the entire operation cleaned out in a year. 1992. There is *no* reason for *any* US-supported, financed, or aided bioweapons lab in Ukraine. None, period. So far as I'm concerned, biological or chemical warfare has no place in society, but that's just me. We should save insecticide for insects.
The worst thing about this is that we had credible intelligence since 2014 that the labs were an attractive nuisance for any invading Russian force - like the Russian Army forces that invaded Lugansk and Donetsk provinces in that year and who had been fighting Ukrainian Army units ever since. We could have cleaned them out long before the invasion this year and failed to do so - and wound up giving Putin a casus belli - and let it be known that Ukraine would *not* be joining NATO. Have a look at a map, with a ruler for distance scale, and that will tell you much about Putin's concerns, which in fact were quite legit.
There is a reason we didn’t do that. It’s the same reason we funded research that was little more than torture on dogs in Tunisia. The US public actually has really high standards and expectations for their scientists. Labs have to follow OSHA and EPA regulations. All proposed experiments at universities have to go through committees to receive permission and funding and they take such things as public health and needless suffering seriously. There are very few labs in the US that are rated to handle many of these pathogens (like Anthrax) and we aren’t particularly interested in creating more. So what do we do? We outsource our more questionable science to other countries that have lower standards for safety and suffering. Sometimes we just fund the science but other times we provide pretty much everything, it’s simply on foreign soil. A terrible accident on the Ukrainian/Russian border is much more manageable from a PR standpoint than the same terrible accident if it happens at UCLA. Certainly there is foreign collaborative research that doesn’t fall into this category, but it would be best to look skeptically at any science that America is involved in that takes place outside America. The only thing I’m not sure about is if leaving those labs completely unprotected was a blunder on par with arming the Taliban with our Afghanistan withdrawal or if it was purposeful. Frankly I’m not sure which reason is more concerning.
(inc ramble of thoughts , my best appologises for not writing the great way so many here do.)
It came to noone suprise that Putin wrote a "History of Russia" where he seeks to make solid foundation for the 3 unifying factors (church, language, leader was it right?) and I personally dislike the idea to motivate something, today, with history.
The reaon i grew tired of it was back in Kosovo 2001 (summer) when it seemed that the battle of the Kosovo Polje (in like 1380!!!!) was the real reason they had to fight now. Holy shit, all this suffering i saw, and it was because of that? Using history to legitimate your future claim don't work well. I cannot think of a single time that has played out well at all. Not even "ok".
So for me it is "simple". Ukraine is a sovereign country. We have lots of countries in Europe that are about as old as Ukraine. Sometimes there are changes, hopefully peaceful, i'd take crimea takeover as "peaceful" so the bar isn't set high. This might be one we lost the chance to have peaceful by greedy powerplays in the 90's .
But, Ukraine decide their affiliations themselves (yes ofc, in theory sadly enough). The idea that my country (sweden) would be horsetraded between the greater powers is simply put silly if you ask (a naive) me. Him (Putin) having any say over us in Sweden and Finland as it is in their "sphere of influence", essentially only because they "won"the world war 2, today should make anyone in our countries react. I couldn't be more grateful that we, probably by chance, gave up ideas of being a power again after 1790 ish. Nothing has served my country more! We "gave up" Finland that we had been one with (like russia ukraine) for 600 years+ and I am so thankful that we (to no credit to my anscestors, it just had to be chance really) didn't react the way we humans tend to do (I want revenge! respect me!)
I get that Russia has that idea of becomming "what it once was" (oh hi big serbia movement in the 90's). It is just not a good way to go forward. Am I dead set there should be no compromises (ie, denying russia the only warmwater port they have is bad imho) ? Nope, I'm for the resolving of that. After this episode so many questionmarks in my "knowledge" has popped up that I need to sleep on this, then listen again, sleep, listen. Then i might have a solid opinion again.
It's amazing how much facts vary though when it comes to east Ukraine. I heard stuff in this episode that made me halt and want to read up on the area's history and current history, appriciate the countless hours lost on that mr Cooper haha!
Most likely there never have been an objective truth when things are at this scale but it also makes you think about history and who wrote it. My first encounter with that was when I as a young teenager read three different books about Stalingrad. At times the experience made me think I had to be misstaken and accidently read about 3 separate world events instead of the very same one (and that was just a part of the war, not even the full campaign).
And if we can't even establish "what happened" 80 years ago, then exactly why do we humans still use some unconclusive battle on some slippery mud in Kosovo Polje over 600 years ago? It is fascinating how we humans work and was not this war so heartbreaking (of the european peace dream) to me, I'd study it with great interesst.
Actual reply to the post above !(sorry)
In Sweden we have had a long tradition (probably bc of our neutrality + swedish form of social democracy) ofmisstrust of Russia-Soviet-Russia's and NATO's benign nature. Esp to small countries like us. For me that grew up during the cold war this article don't say anything but how he wants us to think, wants us to think we know how he thinks. There is no end of dolls inside this one. We have just seen what actually happens.
sidenote to clarify: I lost trust in USA during the effects of 9/11 by the way, im in no way a fan of american (or the "old european planners") geopolitics. You want war against "terror"? yeah that is gonna play out well when you have legitimized that as a jailfree card to invade your neighbours...
But to anyone who still believes in Putins current "mask" (of which he has had about 3 as far as i remember) where he just corrects the wrongs commited, I guess this article really reads like Putin is reasonable. That Ukraine's politics comes out as a thin veneer of true Ukrainian belief in their own state, easily traded if only Putin "did a fast conquest of the Ukrainian leadership " like when he took Crimea. I have read diffferent takes on the "if the nazi groups made any impact" but I'm not surpised that it is a bat used by Putin to hammer Zelensky with, no matter the truth and actual importance. (cynic joke: hey another tv clown propped up with money got to be president?)
on the flip side: Putin is not a mad/rabbid dog either! He gives that impression with great sucess in terms of what he won with that play however.
In geopolitics I don't trust anyone. And if anything, im more reserved to Sweden
applying to NATO now than ever.
I don't think Russia (and i think Putin the is the word i should use) is entitled to anything at all when it comes to Ukraine. I still believe it can be discussed, with regards to compromises, though. He has worked long and hard with the patience of a true believer to hammer home the idea that Russia is "home" and alone (as in moving west) is to invite disaster.
I still believe there could be a peace amongst equals, but one faction's plundering in the 90's and then the other's current one really make it hard. We as a world could have ended the cold war so much better and it hurts my belief in humanity that the broader lessons from the world wars, were not heeded.
/ jonas
(sorry for wall of text , i tried to remove as much as possible but my dog is riverdancing at the doorstep now so I gotta go!)
By this logic Israel has no claim to Palestine. Ukraine may have been the rope in a tug of war between Russia and Poland for years, but it had been under control of the car for a good century before the communists partitioned it. I don't think Russia deserves the whole country, but that plebiscite on the east shows popular support for Donbass annexation.
Great recommendations, particularly the Glennon article. It would be interesting to think about ways to convey this information in the most efficient way possible. For instance-- Mr. Cooper noted that some people are skeptical about American involvement in the various color revolutions. If you have the time, you can gradually discover the evidence. What would be useful is something like a heavily-annotated/linked on-line timeline that would allow people to quickly assess the available evidence... and related evidence regarding the national security "double government..."
"If you have the time, you can gradually discover the evidence." I think I did that back in 2014, when I was informed of the actual provenance of the events unfolding in Maidan Square by a Kiev punk rocker - "It's not what you think it is, they're Nazis" and that set off a bunch of research. I really fell for the legend offered up, no doubt about that, hook, line, and sinker, but after a conversation over facebook - which booted me off at the beginning of February this year - I did the research. The trick is in finding it.
It's *really hard* to convey the information unless the person you're talking with has some sort of background information - that's a lot of reading and hard work. Here's something from the Russian point of view - https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/Hot%20Spots/Documents/Russia/Color-Revolutions-Brychkov-Nikonorov.pdf The translation is pretty good, except that the "Three Party Club" should be the Trilateral Commission and the "Roman Club" should be the Club of Rome. Here's a good article from the John Birch Society's New American website on the topic - https://thenewamerican.com/experts-trump-is-target-of-color-revolution/ And some good background on Ukraine from 2006 - https://original.antiwar.com/justin/2006/09/29/the-color-revolutions-fade-to-black/ And a piece from William Engdahl, who writes for a Duginist website - and so this is going to be probably a product of FSB and Russian-centric as well: http://williamengdahl.com/englishNEO16Jun2020.php And another source which I haven't checked out - https://geopoliticsandempire.com/2021/05/08/richard-poe-globalism-rooted-in-british-liberal-imperialism-not-american-empire/ Somewhere in there, the truth of the matter resides. Making it simple is another matter, and in all cases you have to consider the source and their motivations and their points of view.