Zelensky or Putin?

These sorts of threads remind me of the meme that says something along the lines of “All the medical experts are now foreign policy experts.”

Why is it so hard for people to say “I don’t know”? International relations and foreign policy is incredibly complex. The top most knowledgeable people in the world don’t agree on it quite often.

It is entirely possible that Putin is an evil aggressor and so is Zelensky. It is possible that both Ukraine and Russia have done wrong things. It is possible that NATO acted wrongly or sent wrong messages. There are so many possibilities. My guess is that anyone who actually knows or has a reasonable claim to a well-thought out position isn’t posting on SI.

We can all condemn war and the targeting and killing of civilians while acknowledging there is much that we don’t know. Why is that hard for people?

[dgszweda]

As a side note, American Thinker is considered a far-right or hyper-partisan right leaning news site…

While it may be true that American Thinker is a hyper-partisan right-leaning site, I certainly would not take any advice from Politifact, or in fact, most other internet “fact checking” sites on that point. That site is hardly an unbiased fact checker itself. Plenty of sites that years ago used to be relatively (in internet terms) reliable, like, e.g. Snopes or Wikipedia, have since showed themselves to be everything other than unbiased.

As a blog-type site that mostly if not always publishes opinion pieces, rather than hard fact, I expect American Thinker to be biased, as should everyone. It’s a good deal more insidious when such partisanship comes from sites that purport themselves to be either hard news or “fact checkers.”

[dcbii]

dgszweda wrote:

As a side note, American Thinker is considered a far-right or hyper-partisan right leaning news site…

While it may be true that American Thinker is a hyper-partisan right-leaning site, I certainly would not take any advice from Politifact, or in fact, most other internet “fact checking” sites on that point. That site is hardly an unbiased fact checker itself. Plenty of sites that years ago used to be relatively (in internet terms) reliable, like, e.g. Snopes or Wikipedia, have since showed themselves to be everything other than unbiased.

As a blog-type site that mostly if not always publishes opinion pieces, rather than hard fact, I expect American Thinker to be biased, as should everyone. It’s a good deal more insidious when such partisanship comes from sites that purport themselves to be either hard news or “fact checkers.”

That is why it is good to look across many sources, why I included Brookings which is more centrist. For those of us who are older and have been through the Republican party that individuals like Reagan solidified, it is utterly shocking to see the right (such as American Thinker and Candace Owen) praise Russia, Putin, decry NATO….. To be utterly fair, it is not everyone on the Right, but the cry is much louder than I would have expected and growing. I can’t tell if this is the new Right or just a fringe part of the Right that has gained momentum under Trump. I can’t tell if Trump is articulating something that is already there, or if Trump is the element that is creating this.

There are points where anyone who reads the papers, biased though they are, ought to take a look at that American Thinker article and say “Huh, he seems to be neglecting some important points here.”

Start with “who is on whose land?”, and then go to the justification—that somehow, a country with a Jewish President needed to be “de-nazified”, and that point had somehow escaped not only Mr. Zelenskyy, but also Israel, Germany, and the United States. For that matter, it escaped Putin until he actually invaded—and so we are left to believe (ha ha) that a guy as smart as he is had no diplomats who could present evidence and work to resolve those elements peacefully.

Then, to take the “American Thinker” article seriously, I’ve got to ignore the obvious attacks on residential areas, hospitals, and the like. Look at the pictures. It resembles little so much as the Blitz of London in 1940. Hard to defend that as “minimal” impact on civilians when so many obvious war crimes are being committed by Russia here.

And of course, per Cato, Putin delenda est.

It has fascinated me over recent years how communists and communist sympathizers have labeled their opponents as Nazis. We saw it with leftists in this country falsely labeling many republicans as Nazis. There is evidence that there are Nazi elements in Ukraine, but that is not the same as suggesting it is a Nazi country, but it is an accusation that has worked well for communists for so long that I tend to be skeptical when I hear it from them yet again. What is interesting to me is that this is one of the first times that I have seen so many people on the left skeptical of a Nazi accusation coming from a communist. All I can figure out is that they do not think Putin is a communist and is actually a Trump supporter (sic). We live in some very strange times when people are so easily influenced by existing bias.

I have no idea how many Nazis are in Ukraine, but the left leaning site Vice did an expose on it a few years ago and the NYT has also reported on it in the past. Based on the bias of both those sources, I do not put much credibility in such reports. What makes me scratch my head is how the left has changed its tune so quickly. I am glad that left and right have finally found something they can agree on in their condemnation of Putin. It just surprises me that the left isn’t defending Putin when they generally defend people with similar political positions such as Stalin, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara.

From the article:

Now that we have President Potted Plant in office,

[JD Miller]

It just surprises me that the left isn’t defending Putin when they generally defend people with similar political positions such as Stalin, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara.

And it equally surprises me that the Right is defending Putin. Not sure if there is a flip that is taking place between parties.

…Russia and China are enemies of the United States. We don’t know if Ukraine is a good or bad guy, but they are being attacked by one of our enemies so we will support them in some fashion because it serves our purpose to weaken our enemy. Just about everyone agrees the line drawn in support stops with boots on the ground and endangering our men in the air.

So, I’m not sure why this debate over how pure is Unkraine. Whether Ukraine is clean or corrupt, to me, doesn’t change how the US should respond.

And it equally surprises me that the Right is defending Putin.

Do you have any evidence for this? I have seen this. I am curious as to who you are talking about.

[Craig Toliver]

From the article:

Now that we have President Potted Plant in office,

Where in Kevin’s article do those words appear?

[Joe Whalen]

Craig Toliver wrote:

From the article:

Now that we have President Potted Plant in office,

Where in Kevin’s article do those words appear?

The attribution wasn’t clear. Those words are from the “American Thinker” post referenced above.

[Barry L.]

So, I’m not sure why this debate over how pure is Unkraine. Whether Ukraine is clean or corrupt, to me, doesn’t change how the US should respond.

Well, as I posted above, how the US responds and handles countries with, shall we say, less-than-pure governments is at issue. We can send humanitarian aid, of course. However, how much military aid we send and how we support the war effort and the Ukrainian government is a legitimate question if the government we want to help takes questionable actions itself. We don’t really want this to be the Contras and Sandinistas all over again. Stopping aggression from our enemies is a great goal. If we end up propping up a corrupt or dictatorial government to do so, the results may not be worth the cost. I’m not saying the Ukrainian government must be any of those things. History should teach us a bit of caution however, especially given recent actions by Zelenskyy.

And of course, as Christians, while we want to help people who have been displaced, wounded and otherwise affected by this conflict, that doesn’t mean we need to wholeheartedly support the government of either side if neither is on the side of righteousness or even “good” government.

And it equally surprises me that the Right is defending Putin.

I did find a Newsweek article about Candice Owens saying that Russia created Ukraine. Although that has an element of truth to it, that is no justification for Putin to invade them. I looked in the article to see if they were saying that Ownes that, but I could not find it. What I did find was a quote from Owens that I cannot totally disagree with, where she says:

“I stand by every word of my tweet pertaining to the treatment of Russian citizens abroad,” Owens tweeted on Monday. “Those calling for [R] ussian students, opera singers, etc to be banned are the kind of scum who would have demanded the Japanese internment.”

Earlier a comment was made that we need to hold the Russian people accountable, not just Putin. I fear this sort of thought is why so many on the left are still open to communism and oppressive governments. The people of Russia do not have the freedom to stand up to Putin the way the people in the US can stand up to Biden or like they stood up to Trump. They can be shot, poisoned or disappeared very easily in Russia. Sure Russia has elections, but only the most extreme leftist believes such elections are fair. For a Russian to stand up to Putin can be very costly, yet many are still doing just that. Those in Russia who are supporting Ukraine are very telling about how extreme this action by Putin is.

As far as the right supporting Putin, the reporting about those who support Putin has been very distorted. For example, Talsi Gabbord, a democrat, simply pointed out that we need to be concerned about bio labs in Ukraine and Mitt Romney, a republican, then accused her of supporting Putin. We would be a lot better off if honest discussions could be had about policy without others jumping to “if you don’t agree with my policy then you support Putin.”

[JD Miller]

We would be a lot better off if honest discussions could be had about policy without others jumping to “if you don’t agree with my policy then you support Putin.”

No kidding.

It seems to me that Putin is calling all Ukrainian nationalists Nazis not just the ultra-nationalists who are documented as being such.