Yup, this finally puts to bed the whole narrative that NATO expansion was not the reason for the invasion. We now know that this was literally the reason directly from a top NATO official.
The tone in the quoted material is so condescending too. I’m not even sympathetic to Putin, I think he’s basically a shit human, but I can also understand that in many ways he’s absolutely correct to have his assessment and demands from NATO. Given their continued rejection, which really spans back at least 30 years since the non-dissolution of NATO following the dissolution of the USSR, and then repeated rejections from NATO for the resulting Russian state to join, he had only two choices: accept the expansion of western interests in the form of NATO expansion and the continuing isolation and push to irrelevancy of his country/people or put his foot down and invade. It seems now we have absolute proof that NATO knew exactly what they were doing, although this was plainly obvious before. Only in the minds of imperialists and victim blamers would this make Putin some sort of evil orc-man. Only if one thinks NATO and Western nations have an absolute inherent right to coerce countries like Russia would they think they did everything right and it was Putin who ultimately violated morality. It’s the mentality of someone who beats a dog and then gets even more mad and confused when the dog finally bites back, as if they did nothing wrong and the dog’s escalation is the only relevant action to consider.
It’s also a classic, for thousands of years, political tactic to enable “legal, justifiable” wars of domination aka “lawfare” that the Romans famously practiced (basically doing NATO type tactics of provocation then retaliation under “they attacked first!”) and now the US/NATO also engage in. To an extent this could be argued was the case in Iraq (first war) and Afghanistan (although bin Laden was not their leader they suffered consequences on his behalf. And he was very popular in any case for his soviet and then US resistance). We tried it with Cuba and the USSR stepped in with nuclear missiles which escalated but ultimately diffused the war drums from the US.
It’s ironic but surely purposeful that the US has framed this conflict around an imperialist goal of stealing land and resources and completely neglects to highlight the inherent imperialist goals of NATO and of course the US as the chief imperialist nation. Even if Americans really in their hearts believe Putin is doing this to loot Ukraine, which I don’t doubt he would/will benefit from this personally, that’s kind of his thing, doesn’t that just make him a Russian Dick Cheney or countless other high ranked US officials that have clear, undeniable ties to corporations and such that benefited directly from 20 years of war in Middle East? I dunno, the NATO guys get really ass-mad when you tie literally anything back to anything. And for the record, Dick Cheney and George Bush are FAR worse than Putin. The day Putin completely destabilizes Ukraine and another nation and kills a couple million people in those countries, then we can talk seriously about how Putin is the worst person ever. Until then we still have two men living free happy lives here after killing definitely over a million Iraqis and Afghans. I don’t recall any warrants put out for Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, or Powell, etc. for Fallujah or Abu Ghraib (just to name two atrocities). NATO, the UN and of course the US have many sins to atone for and most of them haven’t even been admitted to.
So with all that in mind, I don’t agree necessarily with Putin’s actions, but I understand them and I place the majority of the blame on NATO and the US specifically for all the history that led to Putin even being there instead of some Soviet premier and for pushing him to have to choose between irrelevancy and further plunder of his home country or war. I think many humans would make the same choice in the end as terrible as that choice is.
Basically, the key part is that the adult position is to recognize what both sides are doing, and what led to the conditions that created the conflict. This is the only way to resolve the conflict and to prevent future conflicts of this nature from occurring. The reductive position of the liberals where they want to paint a narrative of good versus evil completely ignores the reality of the situation, and only helps fuel the conflict.
Yup, this finally puts to bed the whole narrative that NATO expansion was not the reason for the invasion. We now know that this was literally the reason directly from a top NATO official.
The tone in the quoted material is so condescending too. I’m not even sympathetic to Putin, I think he’s basically a shit human, but I can also understand that in many ways he’s absolutely correct to have his assessment and demands from NATO. Given their continued rejection, which really spans back at least 30 years since the non-dissolution of NATO following the dissolution of the USSR, and then repeated rejections from NATO for the resulting Russian state to join, he had only two choices: accept the expansion of western interests in the form of NATO expansion and the continuing isolation and push to irrelevancy of his country/people or put his foot down and invade. It seems now we have absolute proof that NATO knew exactly what they were doing, although this was plainly obvious before. Only in the minds of imperialists and victim blamers would this make Putin some sort of evil orc-man. Only if one thinks NATO and Western nations have an absolute inherent right to coerce countries like Russia would they think they did everything right and it was Putin who ultimately violated morality. It’s the mentality of someone who beats a dog and then gets even more mad and confused when the dog finally bites back, as if they did nothing wrong and the dog’s escalation is the only relevant action to consider.
It’s also a classic, for thousands of years, political tactic to enable “legal, justifiable” wars of domination aka “lawfare” that the Romans famously practiced (basically doing NATO type tactics of provocation then retaliation under “they attacked first!”) and now the US/NATO also engage in. To an extent this could be argued was the case in Iraq (first war) and Afghanistan (although bin Laden was not their leader they suffered consequences on his behalf. And he was very popular in any case for his soviet and then US resistance). We tried it with Cuba and the USSR stepped in with nuclear missiles which escalated but ultimately diffused the war drums from the US.
It’s ironic but surely purposeful that the US has framed this conflict around an imperialist goal of stealing land and resources and completely neglects to highlight the inherent imperialist goals of NATO and of course the US as the chief imperialist nation. Even if Americans really in their hearts believe Putin is doing this to loot Ukraine, which I don’t doubt he would/will benefit from this personally, that’s kind of his thing, doesn’t that just make him a Russian Dick Cheney or countless other high ranked US officials that have clear, undeniable ties to corporations and such that benefited directly from 20 years of war in Middle East? I dunno, the NATO guys get really ass-mad when you tie literally anything back to anything. And for the record, Dick Cheney and George Bush are FAR worse than Putin. The day Putin completely destabilizes Ukraine and another nation and kills a couple million people in those countries, then we can talk seriously about how Putin is the worst person ever. Until then we still have two men living free happy lives here after killing definitely over a million Iraqis and Afghans. I don’t recall any warrants put out for Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, or Powell, etc. for Fallujah or Abu Ghraib (just to name two atrocities). NATO, the UN and of course the US have many sins to atone for and most of them haven’t even been admitted to.
So with all that in mind, I don’t agree necessarily with Putin’s actions, but I understand them and I place the majority of the blame on NATO and the US specifically for all the history that led to Putin even being there instead of some Soviet premier and for pushing him to have to choose between irrelevancy and further plunder of his home country or war. I think many humans would make the same choice in the end as terrible as that choice is.
Basically, the key part is that the adult position is to recognize what both sides are doing, and what led to the conditions that created the conflict. This is the only way to resolve the conflict and to prevent future conflicts of this nature from occurring. The reductive position of the liberals where they want to paint a narrative of good versus evil completely ignores the reality of the situation, and only helps fuel the conflict.