This is mainstream journalist Piers Morgan talking with John Mearsheimer. Morgan is a war-monger and like other Western war-mongers will lie and distort in order to prolong their lovely war.
Mearsheimer puts his view; the moral thing to do at this stage is to stop providing Kiev with weapons and push them to make peace, so they don’t lose more land and people. Morgan asks “how can it be morally right to allow a ruthless dictator, to illegally invade a sovereign democratic European country, help himself to vast swathes of its land, and murder enormous numbers of its people”. Journalists are supposed to ask questions. This purported question actually contains 5 claims. None of these claims is in fact true! Putin is not a dictator. He has widespread popular support in Russia. Ukraine prior to 2022 was not a “democracy”. There was a coup in 2014 which was backed by the West which saw a legitimately elected President driven from office. Since then there were two Presidential elections which somewhat restores legitimacy but we can note that the most recent administration banned political parties and media to an extent which is not compatible with being a “democracy”. Putin (actually Russia) has not “helped himself to vast swathes of land”; many people in the now occupied territories do indeed see themselves as having been liberated by Russia. Kiev could have implemented an internationally backed agreement and given them autonomy within Ukraine. They decided not and this was one factor which forced the present situation. And, finally, “murder”, is an emotive term. Putin is no more “murdering” people than, say the US did when it invaded Iraq in 2003 or NATO did in Libya in 2011.
Furthermore; Morgan simply doesn’t answer Mearsheimer’s point that continuing the losing war is immoral. He demands Mearsheimer explain how “letting Putin win” is morally right. But, no answer, to the actual point about the morality of prolonging Ukraine’s losses. We know why; Morgan, like most of the Western political-media classes, simply don’t care how many Ukrainians die, if Russia is hurting.
There is then a little segment when Morgan tries to bamboozle Mearsheimer because he picks up on how Mearsheimer uses his (Morgan’s) word “murder” and says he doesn’t know exactly how many. We then have “I am not being funny” and repeated interrupting. This is just an attempt to stop Mearsheimer thinking. It is the tactics of a barrister, not a journalist. We can of course point out that Morgan holds Putin morally accountable but himself cannot put a figure beyond “enormous” on the numbers ‘murdered’. This shows that Morgan’s point here has zero substance and his little game here has nothing to do with the “morality” he claims to be representing. He too is “guessing”, as he accuses Mearsheimer of. He makes me sick.
Morgan then says “the Ukrainian people want to fight to the end”. This is another false claim. Firstly; even within Ukraine many are beginning to think about negotiations. [1] Secondly, by “the Ukrainian people” Morgan is of course excluding anyone in Ukraine who is (loosely speaking) “pro-Russian”. This is the standard mental genocide which forms part of the Western narrative on Ukraine. Morgan then does this little emotive trick about how he “has been to Kiev and everyone I met wants to fight”. Well; that would depend on who he arranged to meet. More to the point; this is emotive. It doesn’t matter whether or not you have been to Kiev in order to assess the situation and follow its logic. This is really very low-grade stuff from Morgan. Morgan then tells one of his direct lies. Mearsheimer points out that opinion polls say that not all Ukrainians want to fight to the end. Morgan says he didn’t say that they do. But, in fact, he did – a little bit before his showy bit about his trip to Kiev.
It is interesting to note how Morgan’s (entirely fictitious) moral position seems to focus around how a Russian dictator cannot be allowed to win. Would he have the same objections if it was say, a Saudi dictator? He seems to have a particular problem with Russian.
Morgan’s next contestable, (to be polite), claim is that Mearsheimer is wrong that there is nothing that can be done to turn the tide in Ukraine’s favour. Morgan claims that giving Ukraine more missiles, (and presumably, permission to strike inside Russia proper with them), will “turn the tide”. But even Western experts admit that this is not the case. [2] He has no answer to Mearsheimer pointing this out.
We next have another false claim from Morgan. This is the standard one. Putin does not mean it when he threatens nuclear retaliation because the West has already crossed multiple red-lines and nothing happened. But this is not true. These supposed “red-lines” were in the mind of the West. True; Russia expressed displeasure when the West gave Ukraine tanks and jets – but this was not of the order as the red-line expressed about the West facilitating attacks on Russian territory with strategic weapons. Those who actually pay attention can see a significant change in Putin’s rhetoric on this point.
In the end, Mearsheimer keeps his cool and Morgan loses his and admits that he is ready to “fight to the last Ukrainian” despite having admitted that not all Ukrainians want this and that Ukraine is probably losing. But that is just a debating victory for Mearsheimer. Morgan has not changed his view because at any point when his narrative was threatened he lied or obfuscated.
I don’t know what to say. Morgan is illogical. He avoids the substantive arguments. He uses questions to make attributions. He lies. He stoops to gutter tactics, trying, for example, to bamboozle Mearsheimer by repeatedly interrupting him and trying to trick him into thinking he has made a mistake, (barrister tactics). It is interesting; most mainstream media won’t engage with Mearsheimer. When they do, as here, the only way they can maintain the pro-war position is by these gutter tactics. To be honest this journalist makes me want to throw up.
Notes
- https://www.wsj.com/world/more-ukrainians-want-to-negotiate-an-end-to-the-war-soldiers-dont-agree-47d26af1
- https://as.cornell.edu/news/freeing-ukraine-hit-targets-deep-russia-likely-wont-change-tide-war