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I remember back in 2014 arguing with friends that there was no evidence that the Americans caused the 2014 Kiev revolution. There is not but their activities might very well have been decisive. What on earth were they doing?
In 2014 I pointed out the billions America admitted spending in Ukraine to a British diplomat who replied by asking how much were the Russians spending there.
l should have told him that the Russians were supporting the legal government of Ukraine.
Esprit d'esclalier.
Certainly the Americans had no right try to replace the Ukrainian government.
Certainly that is why the current war is happening, although American folly does not justify the Russian invasion.
Please watch this short clip. I found it on Twitter along with this tweet.
I was certainly right to decide that Obama would make a better president than McCain.In December 2013 John McCain, live from Kyiv, tells CNN the US delegation in Ukraine is seeking to "bring about" a "transition" in the country (remove the government) and declares how "pleased" he is that Victoria Nuland is with him on the scene, attempting to achieve this goal.
A friend of mine who worked with her says 'Toria' Nuland like all other intelligent people has for many years believed that Putin wanted to restore the Soviet or Czarist empire.
If she thought that she was unfit to be employed by State.
I don't think she is evil, a word so much bandied about. She is a misguided ideologue, though I don't understand what her ideology is.
It's not patriotism as Americans understood the word in Coolidge's day. It's liberal imperialism, I suppose.
This is from the New York Times. Anonymous senior US officials are frustrated that Ukrainians won't sacrifice enough of their soldiers. For US interests or Ukrainian ones?
A really great American foreign policy analyst says this. Why don't the papers or TV stations report views like his?
This is a rather dumb comment the offensive has far from failed, it has barely started. While Ukraine is building a modern weapons inventory the Russians are reduced to using repurposed washing machine rf suppresors as anti EI on dumb bombs, half of which do not explode. The myth of Soviet overwhelming force is truly busted. As for your NATO naysaying, the greatest evidence of it’s deterrence is the Baltic states. Militarily a far far weaker target for Moscow strategically as a link to Baltic and as a power flex far more important; Not a an overt russian toe over a border.
ReplyDeleteThis is the reason Colin Powell supported Obama and not anything to do with color, contrary to a statement once made here. Despite his missteps in Libya, Obama was always against the war in Iraq and overcommitting American troops. He did not make rash McCain-type provocations about overthrows and Powell preferred that approach.
ReplyDeleteTo their great credit Barak Obama and Donald Trump opposed the invasion of Iraq, which was easy as they were political nobodies in 2003. Mr Biden's and Mrs Clinton's backing for it should disqualify them from being taken seriously about foreign policy. Old Man Biden began his career opposing the Vietnam War, which was a just one, though not wise on the part of America.
DeleteHas he been wrong on every foreign policy issue?
He was right to leave Afghanistan but not wise in the way he did it.
Would the war have happened with another US President? Not had Trump won a second term but another Democrat would probably have been as bad. Trump was the greatest fear of the American left made flesh and from his victory Democrats became passionately anti Putin.
It was obvious that the Kremlin did not make Trump president but the bipartisan American political establishment genuinely believed that it had. The American establishment is prone to bouts of mass hysteria. Look at prohibition, the Cold War, the bizarre race reactions obsession, BLM, the other hashtags. etc, etc.
DeleteBLM has fizzled out. Obsessions don’t last as long as they used to.
DeleteI can give Hillary and Biden a break for backing the Iraq War. George Bush lied to them about the intelligence. The United States had come off a long series of conflicts from which it had emerged the victor. And the US public was demanding a response to 9/11 — as it turned out, the wrong one.
Not the best judgment in hindsight, but understandable how they got there.
No. The Americans had sated their blood lust in Afghanistan. Weapons of mass destruction were an unanswerable argument against an invasion. The Americans are now the people we trust to bring a good outcome via a vis Ukraine, Russia and China. As people say in the East End of London, do me a favour!
DeleteBLM has left a very poisonous legacy in America's most submissive satellite, England, though what business the death of that passer of counterfeit notes was of the English I cannot say. As a direct result we have the current Coutts scandal.
DeleteI hope the Ukrainian offensive has not failed though I suspected it would before it began. Today I read in the belligerent Daily Telegraph Colonel Richard Kemp saying "With no significant breakthrough after six weeks, it is worth asking whether Ukraine’s counter-offensive can ever succeed, for it certainly doesn’t look to be succeeding now...."
ReplyDeleteThe headline above his article was: Ukraine’s counter-offensive is failing, with no easy fixes
ReplyDelete