Timothy Birdnow

My friend from Down Under, the inestimable James Doogue, was unhappy with me for defending the Russians in this Ukraine war. Here is the debate: I observe:

They keep referring to Russian attacks on infrastructure as "war crimes" as if the U.S. didn't do that repeatedly over the years. We did much worse; the firebombing of Tokyo or Dresden come to mind. The hypocrisy is galling. Infrastructure was an is fair game in war. I get tired of always defending Russia, and being accused of being a Putin stooge, but I only do that because of the horrendous one-sidedness of the mainstream media about this war and total refusal to explain why the Russian invaded or how this could end in any way other than the total surrender of Russia and end of Putin. It's the worst reporting I've seen since Vietnam (and I was a young boy back then.)

James Doogue says:

I think there's no doubt there has been some one-sidedness in the reporting on Russia's invasion. But sometimes an event just can't be cast in an even light.

It seems to me that justifying the reasons for Russia's invasion would be like justifying the terrorist's attack on Charlie Hebdo. In that case people would say what do you expect when you insult Mohammed? They warned the West what would happen etc.

Sure there are reasons Putin felt he needed to invade Ukraine, but they aren't valid. Russia was never under threat of attack from Ukraine or NATO, Putin just didn't like the fact he was losing control of the corrupt Ukraine.

Since the end of the Soviet era NATO has not attacked Russia or any former Soviet country. In contrast, Russia has annexed part of Georgia and Ukraine and Putin has made no secret of his desire to expand the Russian Federation.

It's not surprising that former Soviet countries would fear Russia. They also want to improve their economy. Membership of the EU and NATO are seen as avenues to further their economic and security goals and Putin has absolutely no right to stop them.

As for comparing what is happening today to what the allies did in WWII, I thought you were against applying the standards which existed historically to today's society? But even if we forget that issue, and other justifications for Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden, we need to understand that the military of WWII did not have the option of accurate guided missiles and artillery. Today, there is no excuse for taking out non-military targets except as unavoidable collateral damage and the occasional operator or equipment error.

When they didn't get their easy military victory, Putin and his generals made a considered decision to terrorise the population of Ukraine by destroying the civilian infrastructure miles from any military battle front.

Propaganda is a legitimate tool of war, but that doesn't mean that the mainstream and social media must support it. They still have an obligation to investigate and corroborate. But sadly that role of journalism was lost years ago.

BTW, there isn’t any moral equivalency between Ukraine and Russia in this conflict; Ukraine is clearly the victim of horrific aggression by Russia – a stunning violation of jus ad bellum (the law governing resort to war).

However, we must keep in mind that a different body of law – jus in bello – governs the lawfulness of belligerent activity during the war. It is important to keep these two legal regimes separate.

Electric power stations are generally recognized to be of sufficient importance to a State’s capacity to meet its wartime needs of communication, transport, and industry so as usually to qualify as military objectives during armed conflicts.

Other infrastructure which assists Ukraine's ability to wage war, such as factories, ports, railway etc, would also be legitimate targets and not war crimes.

What is most certainly a war crime is any indiscriminate or deliberate attacks in civilian residences which we have seen far too much of.

Finally, we must not forget that Russia has been – and continues to be – the aggressor in this illicit war against Ukraine. The Ukrainian people have suffered intensely due to the rapacious and profoundly misguided attempt by Putin to multiply his perceived fiefdom.

While we might discuss whether specific incidents amount to actual war crimes, no one can debate the horrors this war has inflicted on Ukrainians who continue to be under malicious attack. People huddled for days in basements with no windows. Soldiers and volunteers who stepped up, killed and maimed. Historical and art treasures lost. Homes and cities decimated.

Putin is to blame. And there should be no debate about that. Talk of 'NATO aggression' simply serves to legitimise this despicable individual.

I reply:

James, I do agree Putin is mostly to blame for this and I would agree Russia is the villain in no small part. BUT Ukraine is in no way clean and pure in this, nor the U.S. and NATO. The media does little to explain the genesis of this, or the long term historical realities which inform the Russia People in supporting war with Ukraine. I do not agree there is no way you can be even handed just because one side may be more guilty than the other. That is what we call propaganda.

James, the Russians are looking at this quite differently than you or I do here in the West.

First, while nothing was written they do believe NATO promised to stay out of the old Warsaw Pact. Is that true? Hard to say, but they would never have let East Germany go if they hadn't had that impression. They particularly wouldn't have if they knew NATO would be looking at moving into the old Soviet republics themselves. So, while there is no evidence either way I would say there is at least indirect reason to suspect they believed this to be the case.

And one must ask, why is NATO expanding into the region in the first place? That isn't much of a question to us, but it's a HUGE question to the Russians. They see it as an attempt to encircle them. Add to that the fact we are busily deploying advanced missile defense systems in former Warsaw Pact countries, and if Ukraine joins NATO probably will do so there, that is disturbing. The Russians need a buffer zone to feel safe. It's always been so. Theyve been invaded so very many times. NOT a military zone, but a buffer that does not pose an immanent threat.

A basic student of Russian culture and history should know this. The West's policies toward Russia have all been to bait them.

But what of Ukraine itself? The Russians seized and annexed Crimea, unquestionably. But why?

Because the United States (and I take no pleasure in pointing a finger at my own country) fomented the Orange Revolution to kick out the pro-Russian President Viktor Yushchenko. While there were charges of fraud, the fact is Yushchenko was elected and overthrown by people supported by the CIA. It was a black op. So the U.S. installed a puppet government in a former Soviet republic and this same puppet government began putting the screws to Russian-loyal easterners in Crimea and Dombas. Crimea wanted out of Ukraine - they had only been given to Ukraine by Stalin, after all.

Do I condone it? No. Do I understand it? Yes.

Ukrainians were understandably angry about this and they shelled the region regularly -an act of war. This went on for years. They also damed up the Dneiper and cut off water to Crimea, causing a a permanent drought there.

There was considerable economic fighting too. The Russians would raise the price of oil and gas and the Ukrainians would, they claimed, tap into "free" fuel by diverting oil and gas being sent to Europe and not paying for it.

This went on for a long time.

I would add that the United States worked dilligently over the last couple of decades to find a way to bipass Russia with pipelines so as to cut the Russians out. The BTC pipeline, for instance, went through Georgia. It was this scheme that led to the Russian invasion of Georgia in '08. Ukraine was the ideal place for any pipeline to Europe and it was why NATO wanted to expand there - and the U.S. wanted Ukraine in the family. Russia understood this; it was a case of economic warfare.

There are other things too. Labs in Ukraine designed originally to destroy old Soviet biological weapons are still running and, after what happened in Wuhan, no doubt frightened Russian analysts as they have no reason to still be running - at American expense.

The Ukrainian government had embarked on a policy of "deRussification" and was working to suppress the use of the Russian language and culture in the east.

And for the first time the Ukrainian polls showed a majority of people ready to vote for NATO membership, so Putin felt he had to act. And with Joe Biden in power that action seemed an acceptable risk.

Again, I do not think it a good thing or justified, but I see their point.

"Putin felt he needed to invade Ukraine, but they aren't valid. Russia was never under threat of attack from Ukraine or NATO"

No? They were under attack from UKRAINE. There was constant shelling by the Ukrainians of Russian-held territory. And NATO simply replaced the Ukrainian government when it became inconvenient (well, the CIA did.)

I agree; Putin wants to restore at least the old Tsarist empire. As such he is taking steps here to do so. I do not say there are pure motives. BUT I am saying he can do this because of at least tacit support from the Russian People, and that support is out of fear of an ever-growing NATO. Why does NATO even still exist? The whole reason for it's existence was to contain the Soviet Union, a country now long gone.

Putin is using this to his advantage, of that there is no question.

James, I would argue this has a lot to do with the rising power of the elitist Davos types and their plans for where they wish to take the world. Putin and Russia are a bit of a throwback and standing in the way of their overarching plans. That is why the U.S. keeps poking and prodding Russia, through Ukraine as well as other Eastern European countries. There is little doubt in my mind this is a proxy war, one desired by the West. It could have been negotiated before it began. It could have ended with an Israeli proposal which both sides pretty much agreed to but the Biden Administration rejected. There has been no effort to find a negotiated settlement. The message from America is clear - Russia loses and they know full well this will lead to regime change, with the hope that a puppet government will take power there, one subservient to the Western elites.

So they West may not have attacked Russia directly, but they were encirling them, certainly.

"thought you were against applying the standards which existed historically to today's society?"

James, there are differences and there are similarities. But the point is we can't simply claim innocence when we've done it ourselves in the past. How many countries has the U.S. invaded in the last 20 years, if you don't like going back to WWII? Did Saddam Hussein do any more to us than Ukraine did to Russia? (For the record I supported the Iraq war and am one of the few who still do.)

The point is war is war, and as William Tecumseh Sherman said, war is hell. Do I like it? No. But infrastructure was and is part of the viccissitudes of war. You state we can now make surgical strikes. That is true. And how did that work out for the Americans in Iraq? In Afghanistan? War requires that the enemy FEEL defeated. They must know there is no point in resisting. We understood that in WWII, but since have fought these limited, surgical wars that drag on and on forever. They drag on because there is no effort to find victory, and the enemy believes they can out last us. From a tactical standpoint destroying Ukraine's infrastructure is a logical tactic, and in fact it has always been considered so. I fear you are applying modern thinking to warfare here.

Is it nice? Not at all. But is it a war crime? It COULD be, especially if targeting civilians for the sake of doing so. But taking out bridges and electric plants and the like is hardly a war crime. That's how wars have always been fought.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked precisely to cause human death. Truman had been offered military targets but he understood (rightly) that there had to be horrific human carnage to end the war. Just nuking a naval base wouldn't do it.

Again, I find that regretable in the extreme. But I find the double standard galling.

"Propaganda is a legitimate tool of war, but that doesn't mean that the mainstream and social media must support it. "

That is precisely what the mainstream and social media are doing with this war.

I agree; attacking civilians just for the sake of terrorizing them is evil and wrong. But I do wonder how much of that is actually happening and how much of that is propaganda pushed by Ukraine and their allies in the West's ruling class?

Again James, I do not in any way condone Russia's activities or it's abuses. I would like to see them forced out. But it's not going to happen without something terrible. Putin isn't going to a spider hole like Saddam Hussein. He's got terrible weapons at his disposal. I think he'll use them.

"People huddled for days in basements with no windows. Soldiers and volunteers who stepped up, killed and maimed. Historical and art treasures lost. Homes and cities decimated."

Sounds like pretty much every major war in history. War aint pretty and it ain't nice. It is why it should be a last resort. And it's why there should be negotiations to end it.

But Russia must be thrown a bone so Putin can tell his people he won. As Sun Tzu said, you must leave the enemy a golden road of retreat. Right now, at the behest of the West, Ukraine is refusing to negotiate and the demand is basically the surrender of Russia. That won't happen. It would spell the end of Putin and he knows it. He'll fight to the last man, being the amoral bastared that he is.

Frankly, the easiest way to get this war to come to an end is to get the price of oil and gas down. Restore drilling in the U.S., for instance. This war is a biproduct of the Green dreams of Europe and the Biden Administration. Putin would never have launched this war had oil remained cheap; he wouldn't have been able to afford it. If oil and gas prices tanked he'd quickly run out of money. So where is Biden? There is no effort at all being made to restart drilling and exploration and get prices down (and yes, prices drop even if not one single drop of oil comes out of the ground; it's just a matter of investor confidence and the promise of good times to come.)

Putin IS to blame, but there is in no small part blame to be had in capitals of Europe and America.

At any rate, I think this is a far more subtle issue than the media leads us to believe, and than most people understand.

BTW I was studying to be a Russian expert back in the '80's, but the fall of the Soviet Union derailed my career plans; a pox upon them!) So I do have a fair understanding of the Russian mind. Few Westerners really get them.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:58 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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