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Cowards all the way down

Ordinary Russians are being forced to take a stance on the war in Ukraine. We should make the choice terrifyingly simple.

By Buck HardcastlePublished 2 years ago 3 min read
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Tucker Carlson is a rambling nincompoop and bootlicker to dictators. He recently did another bad take on the war in Ukraine. He explained that Ukraine had no hope of winning (lie) that Russia was just too big, with a "relatively huge economy" (lie) and that there would have been peace between Ukraine and Russia already except that USA had vetoed a peace deal back in April--this is such bullshit it's hard to know where to begin.

Carlson claims Foreign Policy magazine as the source of this claim, but I think he meant this article from Foreign Affairs magazine. I say I think, because the magazine drew fairly different conclusions than Carlson did.

April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement: Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries. But as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated in a July interview with his country’s state media, this compromise is no longer an option. Even giving Russia all of the Donbas is not enough.

The whole of the article makes clear that Putin seeks the total annihilation of the Ukrainian identity.

Carlson concedes that yes, Putin is bad in the same snarky way you might expect him to concede that yes, rap is music. The thrust of his argument is that America is nuts for helping Ukraine because Russia has nuclear weapons. What does Biden want to do, start a nuclear war?

The chance that Russia might use nuclear weapons is not zero. However, if we follow Carlson's logic then Russia can do whatever wants, not just seize Ukrainian territory but even American territory because to try and stop it would risk nuclear war.

Putin places his self preservation fairly high, he doesn't want a nuclear war. Besides, serious threats usually don't have to be clarified that this is "not a bluff" --which Putin has had to do because he has been bluffing since February.

What about Russia's annexation of the Donbas? They consider that part of Russian territory now! Yeah, what about it? Russia has considered Crimea part of its territory since 2014, they didn't do shit when Ukraine hit it with missiles

I know, I know, I'm always saying now is the time to drink the blood of our enemies. But this may really be the time to drink the blood of our enemies. Specifically I mean the Russian State--let's drink all of it's blood.

Ukraine has delt a powerful blow to the Russian army. In his response, Putin has tried to split the difference by calling up a "partial" mobilization of 300,000 men-- which is nothing partial, that's a full on draft. Thus the social contract of Russia--don't resist the state and we'll largely leave you alone--has been broken. Russians are subsequently running for the hills.

I had questions when I first heard about Russia's mobilization. How were they going to train soldiers when they'd already sent their training units into battle? The answer seems to be that the men are just being sent to the front with no training. How were they going to be armed when staggering amounts of Russia's best kit has been captured by Ukraine? The answer seems to be that the men are getting rusty antiques.

This would be comical if it weren't a death sentence for many ordinary men. Such an untrained, ill-armed force would have little chance against the highly motivated Ukrainians. Its no wonder so many of them want to flee.

Yet my sympathy for Russians is limited. Right up until the call for mobilization support for the war stood at 80%. Russians haven't been good neighbors to places they now seek asylum; there's a 10 mile line of cars trying to get into Georgia, a country Russia invaded in 2008. Fleeing the draft doesn't necessarily mean their support for the war has evaporated--smaller countries particularly risk being filled with a fifth column of Russians.

Hence I support countries that are banning fleeing Russians. I also support sending as many HIMARS to Ukraine as it wants so they can vaporize any trespassing Russians. This was never just Putin's war, Russians wanted this because they thought they could seize any territory that they wanted. Now they must face the consequences of their actions. I suggest the men who do not like the hand they've been delt to emulate the actions of some of their women:

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About the Creator

Buck Hardcastle

Viscount of Hyrkania and private cartographer to the house of Beifong.

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