Ukraine

[RichardB]

Don't think me rude, ff, if I don't respond to your questions, since I'm sure you can predict what my answers would be and I can predict that they wouldn't satisfy you. I would rather hear from S_A because I find the way quite a few people on the left have abandoned their usual critical stance towards NATO rather troubling.

[french frank]

Don't think me rude, ff, if I don't respond to your questions

I won't at all think you rude: thank you for your response - it's better than being totally ignored!

My own reservations about 'the left's' view of the current situation is that it focuses almost entirely on the misdeeds of Nato and the west, especially the US (on which there is much to agree). But in the current situation, I think that provides an unbalanced debate.

[Serial_Apologist]

I should add that my support for NATO supplying the Ukrainian resistance with armaments adequate to the situation which they would not otherwise have - meaning their country would otherwise in all probability by now have been totally overrun - is only in this particular instance. The Ukraininans have shown themselves incredibly brave and tenacious, possibly making better use of what arms they have had to master use of than NATO would have intended, if RichardB's contention is right. The same goes for critical support for Welensky, whose past form becomes ever more questionable if various snippets of information trickling through the leaky mainstream information outlets are to be believed - and I see no reason not to. I guess I am in a position akin to that of many working class East Enders in the 1950s and 1960s whose relationship with the Cray Brothers was symbiotic, when many of them would have fully known the ins and outs of their protection racket.

[Serial_Apologist]

I won't at all think you rude: thank you for your response - it's better than being totally ignored!

My own reservations about 'the left's' view of the current situation is that it focuses almost entirely on the misdeeds of Nato and the west, especially the US (on which there is much to agree). But in the current situation, I think that provides an unbalanced debate.

Those misdeeds aren't a mere matter of putative principles being transgressed by the West's armed umbrella, but stem from a cogent, long-held analysis of the rule and function of NATO. Anyone who saw the 2003 documentary Breaking the Silence will have seen every misattributed leftist "prejudice" confirmed by the brazen admissions by Neo-Cons in charge at the Pentagon in the 1980s about the role of NATO since WW2. Contrary to what we were repeatedly told the USSR had never been believed to be a threat to the West in NATO circles, and in this documentary we heard it straight from the horses' mouths.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJZxir00xjA

This by the way is an object lesson in how to get truths out of politicians - which you don't by interruptions or prompts.

Edit: This documentary from Adam Curtis in 2004, was also extremely revealing from those same horses' mouths - scroll along to 22 minutes in and follow on from there:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p088s5rv/the-power-of-nightmares-1-baby-its-cold-outside

[RichardB]

I don't think I'm focusing particularly on the misdeeds of NATO and the USA; I suppose that if I seem to be doing so that's because we in the west have at least some influence over our own rulers and none at all over Putin (as indeed neither do almost all Russians). I'm not saying that the US government or NATO (or Zelensky's supposed persecution of Russians in the east of Ukraine) is responsible for Putin's but that said invasion has handed US imperialism the opportunity of a lifetime, providing a proxy war with no US casualties which, together with sanctions (another weapon of war), they hope will eventually bring about the collapse of Russia as a world power so as to further isolate China. None of us can know how much effect this or that amount of weaponry sent to Ukraine will achieve, but what we do see is that the USA (and UK) are putting more effort into calling for Russia's defeat than they are into calling for a ceasefire followed by some kind of negotiated peace to bring all the death and destruction to an end. Anyway I keep saying the same thing so I'll take a break from this discussion until I have something new to say!

[Dave2002]

Those misdeeds aren't a mere matter of putative principles being transgressed by the West's armed umbrella, but stem from a cogent, long-held analysis of the rule and function of NATO. Anyone who saw the 2003 documentary Breaking the Silence will have seen every misattributed leftist "prejudice" confirmed by the brazen admissions by Neo-Cons in charge at the Pentagon in the 1980s about the role of NATO since WW2. Contrary to what we were repeatedly told the USSR had never been believed to be a threat to the West in NATO circles, and in this documentary we heard it straight from the horses' mouths.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJZxir00xjA

This by the way is an object lesson in how to get truths out of politicians - which you don't by interruptions or prompts.

Edit: This documentary from Adam Curtis in 2004, was also extremely revealing from those same horses' mouths - scroll along to 22 minutes in and follow on from there:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...s-cold-outside

Thanks for the links to the videos. Very interesting - things to think about!

[Serial_Apologist]

I don't think I'm focusing particularly on the misdeeds of NATO and the USA; I suppose that if I seem to be doing so that's because we in the west have at least some influence over our own rulers and none at all over Putin (as indeed neither do almost all Russians). I'm not saying that the US government or NATO (or Zelensky's supposed persecution of Russians in the east of Ukraine) is responsible for Putin's but that said invasion has handed US imperialism the opportunity of a lifetime, providing a proxy war with no US casualties which, together with sanctions (another weapon of war), they hope will eventually bring about the collapse of Russia as a world power so as to further isolate China. None of us can know how much effect this or that amount of weaponry sent to Ukraine will achieve, but what we do see is that the USA (and UK) are putting more effort into calling for Russia's defeat than they are into calling for a ceasefire followed by some kind of negotiated peace to bring all the death and destruction to an end. Anyway I keep saying the same thing so I'll take a break from this discussion until I have something new to say!

Given the record so far it could be that nothing will persuade Putin into any kind of negotiated peace without increasing fire power from the Ukrainian resistance.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for the links to the videos. Very interesting - things to think about!

I now see that the second link can lead to part 2 of that Adam Curtis series of 3 documentaries in which further frank self-revelations by top Neo-Cons are there for all to see. What their admissions demonstrate beyond doubt is that they concocted a whole scenario in which Russia would continue to be seen as global arch-villain until the Communist régime was finally brought down. The non-Stalinist left in the west had always argued that the rise of Stalin signalled (among much else) the end of socialist internationalism, namely the building of an international movement which would not leave post-capitalist states isolated. Stalin's alternative, which he tagged as "socialism in one country", developed another myth, that of the self-sufficient "socialist state", and from the 1930s on - namely the period when the Soviet bureaucracy consolidated its power - the policy became one of protecting the nascent "socialist state", for which read the bureaucracy, at all costs, including that of revolutionary struggle outside the USSR, in favour of "peaceful co-existence" with the West; and it imposed this new doctrine thereafter until the fall of the USSR on all the national Communist parties. Indeed it had been this that had led the Left Opposition inside the Comintern - the international support network - to split under Trotsky's leadership in 1938 to form the Fourth International. The Left, in the larger scheme of things, was now split broadly into 3 differing ideological positions: 1) Reformism, or gradualism - parliamentary roads to socialism as was advocated (nominally at any rate) in summary in Clause 4 of the Labour Party's constitution until Blair; 2) Stalinism, with its prioritising of securing the power and interests of the Soviet buraucracy, and by extension sister parties in the occupied East post WW2: and 3) revolutionary socialism as had been strategically laid out in Lenin's State and Revolution. Advocates for the third of these pathways would be divided as to whether the Soviet Union should be viewed as in suspended transition to socialism but blocked by the rise of the bureaucratic dictatorship, or that it had reverted to capitalism in a form known as "state capitalism", in which the bureaucracy had become a new ruling class equivalent to the bourgeoisie in the capitalist world; both wings of this disagreement remained largely agreed that the USSR had ceased to be of any threat to the west, military or ideological, from the time its leadership had ceased advocacy for global revolution in favour of peaceful co-existence, as above-described, and the truth is that the Neo-Cons in America, some of whom had themselves been Trotskyists in their youthful incarnations, knew this, along with being perfectly aware that their image of evil portrayal of the USSR was totally artificial and confected for the purpose of re-igniting the dying embers of American national pride by offering an external enemy against which to kindle a collective sense of self-worth amid growing disenchantment with conventional politics. It is not difficult to foresee the predictions of America going fascist foretold by the Neo-Con's critics in the documentary coming about with the advent of Trump, 15 years further down the line.

[french frank]

Given the record so far it could be that nothing will persuade Putin into any kind of negotiated peace without increasing fire power from the Ukrainian resistance.

That would have been one of my responses. In the prevailing circumstances, I don't even accept that is (primarily) for the west/the US/Nato or any body other than the elected Ukrainian government to negotiate with Russia and decide what they will or will not concede. They have it in their power to halt the war, suffering and destruction by surrendering and conceding what Russia is demanding. Should the west put pressure on Ukraine to make those concessions? Is that what the Chomskys of the world are saying?

'The west', whoever or whatever that may include, has chosen to support Ukraine in the way they have been asked to do, short of imposing a no-fly zone; that has meant supplying arms. Should they have granted the request for a no-fly zone when the Nato argument was that it would demand, when necessary that Nato shoot down Russian aircraft?

Could a Nato which includes Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark - and Turkey be considered the same organisation as the Nato of earlier conflicts?

[Frances_iom]

FF I wouldn't bother arguing with the antiNATO leftwing - they obviously have had no first hand experience of living under Soviet style "Socialism" or I suspect even visiting the countries away from the various Ptomkin sites set up for visiting Union members who might be useful to them (eg look at RMT today + check out its senior officials) - I'm certainly not claiming that there aren't numerous faults with the West esp those countries those that were infected by Regan/Thatcher style policies - there were good models for social democracy in Scandinavian but the UK with its unfair electoral system and the US with its rabid rightwing fed by propaganda not much better than Putin's state never really got down to sorting out the basics apart from the immediate postwar years.
As for Russia being a threat to the West - no it was obvious from the 70s it wasn't but it could do enormous local damage in Europe as seen in Ukraine

[Joseph K]

FF I wouldn't bother arguing with the antiNATO leftwing - they obviously have had no first hand experience of living under Soviet style "Socialism" or I suspect even visiting the countries away from the various Ptomkin sites set up for visiting Union members who might be useful to them

You seem so keen to equate being anti-NATO and left-wing with Stalinism. Why?

[Dave2002]

As for Russia being a threat to the West - no it was obvious from the 70s it wasn't but it could do enormous local damage in Europe as seen in Ukraine

Was it?

Sure the West and NATO have faults - and have had faults, but almost everyone I've met who has had anything to do with "Russia" - and that includes some Russians, detests the present and most of the previous regimes there.

[Bryn]

You seem so keen to equate being anti-NATO and left-wing with Stalinism. Why?

Fair point. The most prominent anti-NATO outlook is that of Vladimir Putin, who is anything but a left-winger, of any variety. Ill-informed conspiracy theorists are to be found on both left and right. Also, as it happens, those on the 'left' who I know personally and who espouse the "it's all down to NATO" theory, have considerable experience of living and studying in Soviet satellite regimes.

[french frank]

Fair point. The most prominent anti-NATO outlook is that of Vladimir Putin, who is anything but a left-winger, of any variety.

but:

[Dave2002]

Also, as it happens, " those on the 'left' who I know personally and who espouse the "it's all down to NATO" theory, have considerable experience of living and studying in Soviet satellite regimes.

Maybe, but like me you may be assuming that the people you know are representative of the whole and that their views, as passed on by you, should have greater weight. I know, or have known, personally many people who would not share the opinions you mention, though you have qualified your statement with a restrictive filter. You might also know people who "have considerable experience of living and studying in Soviet satellite regimes" who have not been filtered by the constraint of "those on the 'left'", but you have not stated that.