The US and Russia, faded relics of the Cold War, unable to accept their terminal decline, launch futile and self-defeating wars to reclaim their lost imperial power.
Let me be a bit of a Fact Check pest: Are there really conscripts in Ukraine after Putin forbade them and when conscripts were sent when OPutin found out he ordered them withdrawn? Do they therefore really suffer from disorganization, ineptitude and low morale?
Apparently conquest of Kiev was *never* an objective for Russia... the presence of troops around Kiev was pressure to force Zelensky to negotiate which his Azov Nazi and US Nato overlords would not permit. So they were withdrawn and repositioned, considered a Great Patriotic Victory of Zelensky!
Russia has encircled the 2/3 of ALL Ukrainian forces positioned just outside Donetsk and Luhansk -- they were poised for an invasion of Donbass which Russia *successfully foiled* -- and the Ukrainian forces vastly outnumber Russian troops committed so far ANYWAY. This "Special Operation" NOT a Germany-Thru-Belgium strategy and never was and you err in assuming it was.
Ukrainian troops have PLENTY of training from the US and Nato, ***NOT*** "little or no training" and Ukie forces are *NOT* poorly equipped (since 2014) NOR are they a numerically inferior force. Where do you get this shit?!
But you are right that Russia poses no threat to the NATO alliance or the United States, barring a nuclear attack ... EXCEPT the nuclear attack would be PROVOKED by the US and Nato, lets have the accurate chain of causality here, please Chris.
Other than those corrections to your reporting -- which you presumably got from the US Military CIA State media propaganda ministries, Great Essay.
You have also *totally missed* the *Clash of Christianities* involved here. The Roman Catholic Church has never ceased wanting to control the Eastern Orthodox Church and it is clear that the so-called East/West divide accurately follows the borders of the1054 schism. Plus the Crusades were as much to crush the Eastern Orthodox Church as they were to crush Muslims in the Holy Land. Count the Crusades as an invasion -- the first invasion -- from the West prior to Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler. Long Orthodox and Russian memories of the sack of Constantinople.
Perhaps you should read more of The Saker and Moon of Alabama, links here.
Gonzalo Lira, the War Correspondent like you, Chris, who is on the ground in Ukraine but has one upped you by being disappeared for a week by the Zelensky Ukraine KGB, Recaps the War in Ukraine on Moon of Alabama:
Another fine Chris Hedges kind of reporter and analyst, Pepe Escobar in The Saker also writes about the Clash of Christianities:
Clash of Christianities: Why Europe cannot understand Russia
Western Europeans see the Orthodox and eastern Christians as satraps and a bunch of smugglers, while the Orthodox regard the Crusaders as barbarian usurpers bent on world conquest. By Pepe Escobar, Christianity, once again, at the heart of a civilizational battle – this time among Christians themselves.
EXCERPT: "Under an ubiquitous, toxic atmosphere of cognitive dissonance drenched in Russophobia, it’s absolutely impossible to have a meaningful discussion on finer points of Russian history and culture across the NATO space – a phenomenon I’m experiencing back in Paris right now, fresh from a long stint in Istanbul.
At best, in a semblance of civilized dialogue, Russia is pigeonholed in the reductionist view of a threatening, irrational, ever-expanding empire – a way more wicked version of Ancient Rome, Achaemenid Persia, Ottoman Turkey or Mughal India.
The fall of the USSR a little over three decades ago did hurl Russia back three centuries – to its borders in the 17th century. Russia, historically, had been interpreted as a secular empire – immense, multiple and multinational. This is all informed by history, very much alive even today in the Russian collective unconscious.
But the focus and thrust of your essay is both accurate and correct.
I never understood the religious zealotry against Russia by the US as I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s -- how could a competing economic system fuel such hatred starting w Woodrow WIlson and his Palmer Raids thru McCarthy/Nixon/Hoover and then NO peace dividend after Reagan/Gorbachev and now anti-Russia FURY unleashed once again starting in 2016 and before.
It has a religious character and a religious base to it. Ther Schism. The US and Nato are following the supposed injunction of Jesus to ...
"Go therefore and conquer all nations, baptizing them in the name of the petrodollar, the free market and the rules-based international order."
one of the most difficult things for me, being born as i was in 1952, is seeing the united states going from creating the national highway system, beautiful and lasting state capitals, and a commitment (however wobbly it was) to the constitution and bill of rights to a country whose government is incapable of simple reasoning. Highway systems filled with potholes, ramshackle court houses often made from doublewides, a homeless surge, the selling of state capitals to make up budget shortfalls due to lowering taxes on the rich, and foreign policy run by people whose belt size and IQ are roughly similar. Intelligent foreign policy is not rocket surgery, it is a very slow chess game that should be played by grandmasters whose ultimate goal is a world without war. It is embarrassing. And frightening. And I don't see how the collapse can be stopped. the founders I think never envisioned an entire congress and government bureaucracy filled with incompetents who had no desire to serve the country and its people.
Meanwhile Noam Chomsky is recently quoted as saying there is only one US statesman that has come out with a reasonable recommendation for dealing with Russia - Donald J. Trump.
"Noam Chomsky, in an interview this week, says "fortunately" there is "one Western statesman of stature" who is pushing for a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine rather than looking for ways to fuel and prolong it.
"Russia has been unable to overwhelm a poorly equipped and numerically inferior force in Ukraine, many of whose troops have little or no military training."
From what I read, the US and NATO, for over a decade, have pumped billions of dollars of military equipment into Ukraine and trained Ukraine military to NATO standards. The Russian forces were numerically FAR less than Ukrainian forces. The ration contradicts the 3/1 ratio of offense versus defense, as Scott Ritter has explained.
Why has Hedges accepted the mainstream US military analysis?
This might be there first time I've ever taken issue with the art of Mr. Fish. Shame on him for equating US Imperialism with the current Russian bear. Hedges share this flawed premise.
“NATO has been revitalized, the United States has reclaimed a mantle of leadership that some feared had vanished in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the European Union has found a unity and purpose that eluded it for most of its existence,”
This ie exactly the revanchism that US accuses Russia of and its implicit in both the art and premise of this piece.
bs, russia is not in decline, let alone terminal, it's on it's way up. but I guess you have to sell it to your primarily american audience like "it's okay we're doomed, at least russia is too" #vomit
My take on this essay, while it is correct in so many aspects, is really driven by Hedges' fear of being banned and is part of his defensive strategy to avoid being portrayed as a Russian tool (i.e the prior RT false attacks). I've never seen Hedges blink like this before, particularly on the Nazi and military aspects. The truth is a seamless whole, and sadly, both Hedges and Mr. Fish, give us only partial truths.
Why is there no mention - none at all - of various cultural, political, and military dimensions of the NAZI's in Ukraine, the history of Nazi's in current Ukrainian nationalists movements, and the military aspects of Nazi militia's?
"Russia’s forty-mile long convoy of stalled tanks and trucks, broken down and out of fuel, on the muddy road to Kyiv was not an image of cutting-edge military prowess."
Is this true, or US propaganda?
Scott Ritter claims that the Russian forces directed towards Kyiv were never intended as offensive forces seeking to capture Kyic and were basically scarified to create a diversion to shape the battlefield.
The war in Ukraine is very much like Vietnam. No matter how big and strong your army is, if it isn't protecting it's home and family, it has very little skin in the game and has no will to win.
The real winners in this war are the arms industry and the fossil fuel industry.
Let me be a bit of a Fact Check pest: Are there really conscripts in Ukraine after Putin forbade them and when conscripts were sent when OPutin found out he ordered them withdrawn? Do they therefore really suffer from disorganization, ineptitude and low morale?
Apparently conquest of Kiev was *never* an objective for Russia... the presence of troops around Kiev was pressure to force Zelensky to negotiate which his Azov Nazi and US Nato overlords would not permit. So they were withdrawn and repositioned, considered a Great Patriotic Victory of Zelensky!
Russia has encircled the 2/3 of ALL Ukrainian forces positioned just outside Donetsk and Luhansk -- they were poised for an invasion of Donbass which Russia *successfully foiled* -- and the Ukrainian forces vastly outnumber Russian troops committed so far ANYWAY. This "Special Operation" NOT a Germany-Thru-Belgium strategy and never was and you err in assuming it was.
Ukrainian troops have PLENTY of training from the US and Nato, ***NOT*** "little or no training" and Ukie forces are *NOT* poorly equipped (since 2014) NOR are they a numerically inferior force. Where do you get this shit?!
But you are right that Russia poses no threat to the NATO alliance or the United States, barring a nuclear attack ... EXCEPT the nuclear attack would be PROVOKED by the US and Nato, lets have the accurate chain of causality here, please Chris.
Other than those corrections to your reporting -- which you presumably got from the US Military CIA State media propaganda ministries, Great Essay.
You have also *totally missed* the *Clash of Christianities* involved here. The Roman Catholic Church has never ceased wanting to control the Eastern Orthodox Church and it is clear that the so-called East/West divide accurately follows the borders of the1054 schism. Plus the Crusades were as much to crush the Eastern Orthodox Church as they were to crush Muslims in the Holy Land. Count the Crusades as an invasion -- the first invasion -- from the West prior to Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler. Long Orthodox and Russian memories of the sack of Constantinople.
Perhaps you should read more of The Saker and Moon of Alabama, links here.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/
Gonzalo Lira, the War Correspondent like you, Chris, who is on the ground in Ukraine but has one upped you by being disappeared for a week by the Zelensky Ukraine KGB, Recaps the War in Ukraine on Moon of Alabama:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/04/a-recap-of-the-war-in-ukraine-by-gonzalo-lira.html#more
And The Saker
https://thesaker.is/
Another fine Chris Hedges kind of reporter and analyst, Pepe Escobar in The Saker also writes about the Clash of Christianities:
Clash of Christianities: Why Europe cannot understand Russia
Western Europeans see the Orthodox and eastern Christians as satraps and a bunch of smugglers, while the Orthodox regard the Crusaders as barbarian usurpers bent on world conquest. By Pepe Escobar, Christianity, once again, at the heart of a civilizational battle – this time among Christians themselves.
EXCERPT: "Under an ubiquitous, toxic atmosphere of cognitive dissonance drenched in Russophobia, it’s absolutely impossible to have a meaningful discussion on finer points of Russian history and culture across the NATO space – a phenomenon I’m experiencing back in Paris right now, fresh from a long stint in Istanbul.
At best, in a semblance of civilized dialogue, Russia is pigeonholed in the reductionist view of a threatening, irrational, ever-expanding empire – a way more wicked version of Ancient Rome, Achaemenid Persia, Ottoman Turkey or Mughal India.
The fall of the USSR a little over three decades ago did hurl Russia back three centuries – to its borders in the 17th century. Russia, historically, had been interpreted as a secular empire – immense, multiple and multinational. This is all informed by history, very much alive even today in the Russian collective unconscious.
https://thesaker.is/clash-of-christianities-why-europe-cannot-understand-russia/
And The Saker has its own article on the Clash of Christianities by Walt Garlington:
The Two Poles of Post-Schism Western Religion
https://thesaker.is/clash-of-christianities-why-europe-cannot-understand-russia/
But the focus and thrust of your essay is both accurate and correct.
I never understood the religious zealotry against Russia by the US as I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s -- how could a competing economic system fuel such hatred starting w Woodrow WIlson and his Palmer Raids thru McCarthy/Nixon/Hoover and then NO peace dividend after Reagan/Gorbachev and now anti-Russia FURY unleashed once again starting in 2016 and before.
It has a religious character and a religious base to it. Ther Schism. The US and Nato are following the supposed injunction of Jesus to ...
"Go therefore and conquer all nations, baptizing them in the name of the petrodollar, the free market and the rules-based international order."
N'est pas?
Another great essay.
one of the most difficult things for me, being born as i was in 1952, is seeing the united states going from creating the national highway system, beautiful and lasting state capitals, and a commitment (however wobbly it was) to the constitution and bill of rights to a country whose government is incapable of simple reasoning. Highway systems filled with potholes, ramshackle court houses often made from doublewides, a homeless surge, the selling of state capitals to make up budget shortfalls due to lowering taxes on the rich, and foreign policy run by people whose belt size and IQ are roughly similar. Intelligent foreign policy is not rocket surgery, it is a very slow chess game that should be played by grandmasters whose ultimate goal is a world without war. It is embarrassing. And frightening. And I don't see how the collapse can be stopped. the founders I think never envisioned an entire congress and government bureaucracy filled with incompetents who had no desire to serve the country and its people.
Meanwhile Noam Chomsky is recently quoted as saying there is only one US statesman that has come out with a reasonable recommendation for dealing with Russia - Donald J. Trump.
"Noam Chomsky, in an interview this week, says "fortunately" there is "one Western statesman of stature" who is pushing for a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine rather than looking for ways to fuel and prolong it.
"His name is Donald J. Trump," Chomsky says.
This is not true:
"Russia has been unable to overwhelm a poorly equipped and numerically inferior force in Ukraine, many of whose troops have little or no military training."
From what I read, the US and NATO, for over a decade, have pumped billions of dollars of military equipment into Ukraine and trained Ukraine military to NATO standards. The Russian forces were numerically FAR less than Ukrainian forces. The ration contradicts the 3/1 ratio of offense versus defense, as Scott Ritter has explained.
Why has Hedges accepted the mainstream US military analysis?
This is false a premise. There is no evidence that Putin is pursuing revanchist or imperial objectives.
"Putin’s revanchism is matched by our own."
This might be there first time I've ever taken issue with the art of Mr. Fish. Shame on him for equating US Imperialism with the current Russian bear. Hedges share this flawed premise.
“NATO has been revitalized, the United States has reclaimed a mantle of leadership that some feared had vanished in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the European Union has found a unity and purpose that eluded it for most of its existence,”
This ie exactly the revanchism that US accuses Russia of and its implicit in both the art and premise of this piece.
bs, russia is not in decline, let alone terminal, it's on it's way up. but I guess you have to sell it to your primarily american audience like "it's okay we're doomed, at least russia is too" #vomit
My take on this essay, while it is correct in so many aspects, is really driven by Hedges' fear of being banned and is part of his defensive strategy to avoid being portrayed as a Russian tool (i.e the prior RT false attacks). I've never seen Hedges blink like this before, particularly on the Nazi and military aspects. The truth is a seamless whole, and sadly, both Hedges and Mr. Fish, give us only partial truths.
Why is there no mention - none at all - of various cultural, political, and military dimensions of the NAZI's in Ukraine, the history of Nazi's in current Ukrainian nationalists movements, and the military aspects of Nazi militia's?
This is ALL on the U$A, Chris! Are you being cute as to NOT be censored everywhere, or permanently?
“The masters of war require an enemy. When an enemy cannot be found, as George Orwell understood in Nineteen Eighty-Four, an enemy is manufactured.”
https://youtu.be/nUDoGuLpirc
So grateful to read the words written by an honest journalist.
"Russia’s forty-mile long convoy of stalled tanks and trucks, broken down and out of fuel, on the muddy road to Kyiv was not an image of cutting-edge military prowess."
Is this true, or US propaganda?
Scott Ritter claims that the Russian forces directed towards Kyiv were never intended as offensive forces seeking to capture Kyic and were basically scarified to create a diversion to shape the battlefield.
The war in Ukraine is very much like Vietnam. No matter how big and strong your army is, if it isn't protecting it's home and family, it has very little skin in the game and has no will to win.