I shouldn’t bother, but I wanted to put a comment on the Guardian, (which would probably have been blocked by their censors anyway), but comments were closed. Just a few comments on this delusional spewing of sick.
- The premise seems to be that Putin rejected Trump’s 28 point plan. The journalist seems uniformed. Putin indicated broad acceptance. But – Europe intervened, the liberal media, including Tisdall’s Guardian, ran a smear story about how the Kremlin had drafted the plan, and the plan was cancelled. The premise of the article is wrong.
- The author lists some of the pain factors which the Russian economy is experiencing. Leaving aside the fake news about queues at petrol stations, (there may be occasional local supply disruptions, but no nationwide problem), this part of the article seems approximately correct. But there the reason stops. This war is strategic for Russia. They believe they have no alternative. No amount of economic pain is going to stop them.
- Leaving aside the bigoted and ignorant reference to Russians drowning their sorrows in vodka, (in reality levels of alcohol consumption have been falling significantly for a long time in Russia. [1]), it is not the case that Russians are about to rise up against their ‘dictator’ Putin. This is an enduring liberal phantasy. It hasn’t been true for the last 24 years and probably won’t be true in the future.
- “plummeting geopolitical influence”. Not so. Putin remains welcomed and treated with honour in China, the world’s second biggest economy, and in all the other BRICS countries. More members have recently joined BRICs. The claimed drop in Chinese and Indian purchase of Russian oil is true, but some analysts seem this as a temporary phenomenon, while traders find new ways to get round sanctions. Moscow is confident they will find ways to circumvent the latest sanctions, as they have others. [2] Russia may be a junior partner in the Chinese relationship, but what is important is that China is a reliable purchaser of their energy exports.
- “How much longer will the Russian people tolerate their mass-murderer dictator-president – the Salisbury poisoner, the indicted war criminal”. Just for clarity; there is no concrete evidence that Putin personally ordered the Salisbury poisoning. Just because a retired British judge said he did does not mean he did! (On the wider point; so the Russians do sometimes try to assassinate agents who betray them. Britain still hasn’t shaken off its habit of machine gunning brown natives – as recent interventions in Iraq and Libya show. All nations have their faults). “Indicted war criminal”. Well – he has been charged by the ICC, (a dubious court not supported by the US, Russia or China, with an uneven record of cases, not Blair or Bush for the illegal Iraq war, but a host of African despots), with crimes relating to forcible transfer of children. Even if legally valid, this relates to the transfer of children from orphanages in the occupied territories to safety in Russia – from Russia’s point of view, not a cross-border transfer. Hardly a war crime in the usual sense of the word. (Think our ally Israel’s mass starvation of a civilian population. forced displacement of a civilian population, attacks on hospitals, bombings which kill 15 civilians for every 16 people, and so on). Just slinging “indicted war criminal” at people doesn’t really do anything other than show your own tendency towards histrionics. And anyway it should be “indicted for war crimes”. For people other than Tisdall, the principle of innocent before proven guilty still holds. Ah, liberals!
- “now threatening war with Europe”. Jesus. This is the fake news story that Putin threatened war with Europe. In reality, in the context of discussing Europe’s hostile acts towards Russia, Putin expressed a readiness to defend Russia. This is what he meant by “ready”. Tisdall is just mouthing words which have become detached from reality. No attempt to study the transcripts, consider what was meant. report it honestly. Just screaming untruths.
- “who, refusing all peace overtures”. Jesus, again! Well – yes, Ukraine and Europe keep cooking up plans which will end the war on Ukraine’s terms. Lo and behold, Russia, is rejecting them. This is not “refusing peace overtures” in the world of anyone who is still capable of reason.
- It is the vulgarity of some of these people which amazes: “The Russian nation is too big to fail. Its proud history of struggle shows it cannot be beaten. But Putin can. He’s losing, not winning. And sooner or later, like the tsars and totalitarians of old, that same eternal Russia whose name he glorifies will chew him up and spit him out.”. I doubt it. While a lot of Russians are tired of the war, conscious of the economic pain and damage, and the losses; there is a widespread view that accepts, in general terms, at least, the Kremlin’s rationale for the war; Russia is under attack from the West which was using Ukraine to try to set up a bulwark against Russia, on their doorstep. These are eternal liberal dreams, which are not made any more credible by the vulgarity of their expression.
This piece in the Guardian is disturbed, unhooked from reality, lacking totally in rationality, and vulgar and crude to the point of being disturbing. It isn’t journalism. It seems that Tisdall, who is capable of quite intelligent writing on any other topic of international affairs, just has an intrinsic hatred for Russians and Putin. In as much as he reflects British thinking, and, while he is at the extreme fringe, he probably does to some extent, we can see the problem. Wild, irrational, hate, is not likely to end the war. In trying to understand this hatred of liberals for Russia, I read somewhere the suggestion that the issue is that, after the fall of the USSR and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, liberals believed that Russia was going to join them in one big liberal party. They just can’t forgive Putin, or Russians, (who they basically mock – vodka, but who they occasionally call on to carry out a sort of liberal coup), for not joining them.
Notes