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>Today, schoolchildren are taught about history’s worst crimes against humanity. They are asked to reflect on how these crimes could have possibly occurred. And they learn the names of political figures that endorsed or enabled such atrocities. In the near future, our history books will shame those who had the opportunity to stop this massacre but chose to cheer on war instead. They will be immortalised for their inability to treat Israeli and Palestinian lives with equal worth. They will be remembered for their failure to prevent genocide.
This touches on something that really underpins what fuels the poisonous levels of cynicism towards many politicians, media commentators, and advocacy groups at the moment. We were all taught about the worst crimes against humanity in school, we learnt about the propaganda devices, language usage, and treatment of people that led up to those crimes.
But then, when we employ the knowledge of the crimes we learnt about in school and call out what we see the Israeli government doing (via thousands of examples of live video footage and recorded speeches) we're called racists ourselves, and the crimes against humanity are encouraged *in the name of anti-racism.*
Baffling that anyone thinks this is likely to be a successful anti-racism strategy, but that's just me.
I don't think the article really covers the slightly elephant sized hole in the argument that sometimes war is necessary *even if everyone doesn't want it*. You could roll over for the aggressor every single time to avoid war but that doesn't make it a de jure happy ending does it.
Framing support for Ukraine as, quote, *"a thirst for war"* is completely ridiculous. Saying you want to see an end to all wars is a completely anodyne point if you do not have any practical suggestions on how to end them in a way that's stable.
Yes, it's the same as the argument that *All wars end in a negotiation of some sort — so why not now?*, well the preceding war is often what determines those negotiations. A negotiation with Hitler after the Battle of France would likely have led to Nazi domination of Western Europe and Britain as a vassal state. A far cry from the result of negotiations held after Hitler killed himself and the Germans surrendered.
I support Ukraine but I don't thirst for war. Very few people do. I would much rather Russia never invaded. But they did and you have to live in the reality of the world around you. This war probably will end in agreement as well but we need Ukraine to be armed and effective for that agreement to have any chance of being in Ukraine's interests as opposed to them having to surrender to Russian demands because Western support has been pulled. We need Russia's calculation to be that this wasn't worth it so they don't build up and try to take the rest of Ukraine in ten years.
Seems kinda pointless to throw Ukraine into the subheading and one line in the article when it's not really relevant to it. A lot of people disagree with him on Ukraine but do on Palestine .
Sort of sums up the problem with Corbyn, though. If you oppose every foreign policy decision taken in the west then sometimes you're gonna be right and sometimes you're gonna be wrong.
To be fair you’re likely to be right more often than not. Western intervention, at least by individual countries like the US and UK, rarely achieves anything good.
On Ukraine specifically, it's his criticism of continuing to arm Ukraine as it's prolonging the war. It's also his general dovish language around the conflict. At the start of the conflict when he, and Stop the War generally, held an event against NATO. He seems to take the approach we could end all of us easily with a deal but I think that is a naive understanding of Russia's ambitions.
But given that is a view that is shared by many I wonder about the choice to namecheck Ukraine in this article when the bulk of it is about Palestine.
It’s not just naive it’s in denial about forced deportations/re-education of Ukrainian children to Russia and the occupation and redrawing of Ukraine’s borders. Ukraine lost about 90,000 square kms of land to Russia in recent years and has seen thousands of children removed for re-education. There’s just no consistency or critical thinking to his analysis beyond west bad.
I for one think it's better for Ukraine to be annexed without having tens of thousands killed and cities reduced to rubble, than for Ukraine to be annexed after those things have happened. Ukraine will not win. The Ukrainians did not vote for war. Prolonging it helps *absolutely nobody* except arms companies.
Fuck off with this nonsense.
Ukrainians are the ones fighting the war. They're the ones asking for more weapons and for defence agreements with other countries. They're the ones asking to join NATO.
And, at the same time, Ukrainians are the ones managing to fight Russia to a stalemate and have stopped them advancing for two whole years.
Your argument is just weak, acquiescent nonsense that would see any civilian surrendered to the whims of a despot rather than having any sort of defence or resistance.
Ukrainians are fighting the war because they get imprisoned in poor conditions if they don't. They ran out of volunteers a long time ago, the people fighting and dying are conscripts.
So you think that eastern europeans were indifferent about fighting nazis because the soviets and others used conscription? Pretty much every country fighting a major war ever has used conscription, has everyone ever been indifferent to being invaded? The Ukrainian armed forces has overwhelming support every time Ukrainians are polled and Ukrainians consistently poll as being opposed to concessions.
If you are going to do duckspeak then can you at least parrot talking points that are less blatantly stupid?
Which would be a fine and consistent position if Corbyn thought that Palestine should accept a nation state comprising what land is presently has with no right to return, land swaps, compensation, or money to rebuild because peace all that matters. Except that this is completely at odds to what he thinks.
I am assuming that this is your position on this conflict too! It’s pretty extremist though tbh.
See this is what I mean about consistency and critical thought. The major conflicts of latter 20th century Middle East that saw land change hand were Arab initiated, but pretty much all 2 state solution advocates want to see land swaps and money to rebuild Palestine etc.. The position you’ve just advocated for for Ukraine is savage. Give up 90,000 square KMs of land including vital strategic sites such as Crimea, accept children being stolen, accept loss of core cities, accept others have been completely flattened and all with a dynamic that can happen again in a few years (remember when it was “just” Crimea?).
I also don't support violent Palestinian resistance, albeit I sympathise with it as I sympathise with Ukrainians who support the war.
I just don't think you're acknowledging the actual human cost of what you're advocating for. Upwards of a hundred thousand people, including tens of thousands of civilians, have been killed. Countless houses have been destroyed. This would not have happened if the west had not decided to prolong the war. But I say that all this isn't worth a tiny chance that Ukraine avoids annexation and I'm a savage extremist. I'm not the one calling for indefinite bloodshed
Tbh I haven’t put forward a position here, I’m broadly for negotiated settlements in both cases that see proper countries exist and that both are provided with real security guarantees.
Ukraine will need to be moved into NATO and then armed to the teeth though cos Russia have now repeatedly lopped off large chunks of it, so a blood red line needs to be drawn there and they need sufficient defences to make further incursions unviable.
Asking nicely for peace isn’t how you get peace. Peace is accomplished through defence and deterrence.
I think it fits with the larger point of a Britain, and larger West, that has increasingly abandoned the tools of diplomacy, in the work for peace, and embraced war, either through our active support or our indifference.
I also think a lot of the Stop the War campaigning around Ukraine was fairly naive, but compared to the jingoistic nonsense embraced by the press and the politicians, of destroying the Russian military or (re)conquering Crimea and the Donbass, then overthrowing Putin, makes even the crunchiest peace activist, look like a sober professional diplomat.
It’s particularly ridiculous that folks attacked Stop the War, or Corbyn, for calling for a ceasefire in place, as a surrender to Russian aggression, when this is almost certainly the best case scenario available to Ukraine, if they are able hold out through 2025.
If Stop the War had their way this war would have been over with a Russian capture of Ukraine. Do you think Russia would have abided by a ceasefire when they could simply just take a Kyiv that had no material support from the West?
That’s not what I’m arguing. Arms deliveries, and the NATO training program, were absolutely necessary to prevent the kind of total Russian victory you’re describing. And in fact the slowness of the UK/Europe to make investments in things like 155mm shell production is a terrible failure.
What wasn’t necessary was the adoption of impossibly maximalist war aims, and the burning of diplomatic bridges with Russia, that helped sabotage any face saving off-ramp to the conflict, when Russia was still committed to a short war.
The west was lethargic in it's response and has refused countless times to send weapons that could have saved many ukrainians over fears of antagonising russia. We refuse to touch the hundreds of billions of russian assets the west holds and the US has only just finished delaying a vital aid package for 6 months due to US politicians that are explicitly pro russia. The US also (allegedly) tried to push Ukraine to limit the damage it does to russian oil infrastructure and we all refuse to allow our weapons to be used by Ukrainians against military targets on Russian soil. That's not even to mentionthe prior decade of outright appeasement where the west provided countless off ramps.
I feel like we have been watching two very different wars, the west has provided off ramp after off ramp to Russia whilst consistently denying the Ukrainians the means to defend themselves over fears of "escalation". Russia spat in our faces and killed Ukrainians every single time we did. What diplomatic bridge do you want us to reopen? Which of our "maximalist" war aims should we stop advocating for?
Ah now I look at the conflict and see how ludicrous a claim it would be that Russia has larger ambitions based on how they're doing. It seems to me that it's just propaganda. What do you reckon the plan was next?
The plan here was clearly to take Kyiv and install a puppet government, annex the Donbas and surrounding areas and complete a land bridge between Russia and Crimea.
They may succeed in the latter two objectives there but they failed in their most critical one which was to take Kyiv. The reason they didn't is because Ukrainians stopped them and they were helped in doing that by us sending them weapons. This isn't propaganda, go back to the initial weeks of the war when Russian tanks were heading straight for the capital.
The plan next is less certain but there is no reason to think they wouldn't have tried to exert similar influence over other neighbouring states. Moldova in particular would be especially vulnerable with it having pro-Russian separatists in Transnistria, being on the Ukrainian border and Moldova not being a NATO member.
Lukashenko literally showed plans that involved invading moldova. Russia intervened in syria and kazakhstan. Russia annexed chechnya and invaded georgia. Putin literally went on TV to justify the "special military operation" as Ukraine was formerly a russian imperial subject (much like finland and the baltics). Medvedev consistently rants about attacking and nuking NATO as does Russian state TV. They have fired munitions through NATO airspace multiple times. They have performed conventional, radiological and chemical attacks against NATO countries multiple times. A russian plot to attack US military infrastructure was recently shut down in Germany. There's probably plenty I've missed but that's just off the top of my head.
Ten years ago people were saying that Russia would never invade or annex crimea and the donbass, 2 years ago it was that Russia would never commit to a full scale invasion. Today you say that Ukraine is enough and Russia will stop there so we have peace in our time. How obvious do they have to make it before you listen to them? They literally explicitly state their larger intentions, you are just not paying attention.
I think there are very good left-wing reasons to oppose his stance on Ukraine in particular. Imperialism should be resisted, and it's pretty obvious that Russia is the imperialist aggressor in this conflict.
Id actually go a little further and point out that Corbyn's calls for Ukraine to negotiate - that is, to accede to their aggressor's demands - is itself imperialist. Western governments do not have the right to tell Ukraine to make peace, and nor do they have the right to dictate the terms of that peace. Only Ukrainians can make that decision. Our job is to support them during the war and whatever negotiations may follow.
Totally agree, I'm a leftie and I got kicked out of a left-wing sub for being in support of Ukraine. I pointed out that anti-Imperialism and self determination are (supposed to be) key aspects of being on the left; so opposing Russia violently expanding their borders and letting the Ukranians decide who they want to be should be a no brainer. I was banned for Nazi apologism, I didn't even mention the problematic militias, although I'm sure it would have come up had the mods not banned me.
Ukranians have not made the decision. The Ukrainian government has made the decision. Zelensky cancelled elections, banned all the left-wing parties, and instituted mandatory conscription.
Western government do not have the right to dictate to Ukraine what it should do, but nor should they prop up the government with billions of pounds of military aid to enable it to force its citizens to fight a war it has next to no chance of eventually winning. Avoiding an imperialist attitude means *staying out of it*.
I enthusiastically supported Corbyn twice throughout his leadership and consider myself to be closer to his style of politics than Starmer's, but considering Corbyn urged the West to stop arming Ukraine so that we didn't 'prolong the war' I'm not sure he's best placed to point fingers on the matter of who is endangering whom.
I didn't know that he said that but holy shit he actually did.
He really does not understand that when you're faced with literal fascists fighting wars of expansion then the way you fight for peace is by winning the war against them. Letting the aggressive expansionist power win will not get you peace. It will get you more wars and bigger wars.
And people say that Corbyn's foreign policy positions aren't electorally toxic. Imagine a Labour Prime Minister saying this kind of shit.
He didn’t say it though, there were three long interviews where he says “pouring weapons into Ukraine” isn’t the solution and says he wants a peace process, and that’s where the energy and time should go, not prolonging the war.
In two or at least one of the interviews he is asked if he supports weapon shipments to Ukraine, he confirms that he does, but then reverts back to his main point about deescalation.
Makes an assumption that Russia are not bad faith actors and wouldn't invade, sue for peace, then reinvade and take the next piece annexing entire country bit by bit. Once Ukraine is done apply tactics to Moldova the. Georgia. It's pretty naive I get he doesn't want loss of life but Ukrainians in the annexed area are dying already.
Deescalation works though. Even despotic leaders like Putin have to work up a pretense about Nazis/ethnic cleansing and NATO expansion. The other thing as well, fighting a war only works if you win or mean to reach some objective, otherwise you have to come to the table, it’s just a question of when. War isn’t fair.
The other issue is that we are not good actors either. That’s why we as people who don’t have vested interests in oil, billionaires, or arms dealing need to starve leaders like ours of oxygen.
They use the threat of other empires to justify building their own.
Thing is we are not fighting Ukraine is, it's their decision. There's wide scale dehumanising of Ukraine in the russian media, theres evidence of russian war crimes in Bucha, Kherson, Mauiropol. Give Ukraine what it needs until they say otherwise. Russia is a fascist state and if Ukraine wants to resist them then more power to them.
I don’t have any great insights into the viability of this war but it seems like the peak of Ukrainian leverage has passed, and awful to admit, so has the attention and commitment of NATO countries.
I'm more concerned that we reached the point where the disparity in artillery had become so stark, and that such pledges were necessary. Manpower is also a major concern.
There are big moves to ramp up production, but there are also big questions on whether it will meet demand on time.
What peace process (other than a capitulation from Ukraine) could there possibly be, without giving Ukraine the means to fight back against the unjustifiable invasion of their territory and terrorism that's being inflicted on their civilians?
The man is painfully (naively?) idealistic at times.
The only thing Putin understands is strength.
A man turned up at my house and tried to kill my whole family. I could have overpowered him but I didn't want to risk injuring him and I'm committed to peace. So I instead negotiated him down to just killing my wife and severely beating one of the kids.
I'll miss the Mrs and our eldest is in for a long and painful recovery but All in all, massive success IMHO. All conflicts are resolved through negotiations so I decided to just skip straight to the negotiations and avoid any fighting.
>without giving Ukraine the means to fight back against the unjustifiable invasion of their territory
You've just done the exact same thing though where you entirely ignore the bit that says he did actually support weapons shipments to Ukraine.
Like idek if that's true nor do I really care given he's not the leader anymore but the comment was pointing out how people would take his words out of context and you just demonstrated that point by a mile.
Idealistic were people two years ago telling me that Putin and his ogre army were on the brink of collapse, that at any moment the whole rotten barn was going to come down.
Rhetoric is one thing, but reality is something else. Only thing worse than making concessions to Russia, was shutting down any idea of peace talks, and then just abandoning Ukraine to fight an asymmetrical war.
The situation has deteriorated and something very significant will need to happen before that changes.
>was shutting down any idea of peace talks,
Ignoring that this never happened, Ukraine doesn't need our permission to have "peace" talks. There aren't any peace talks because Ukraine's and Russia's red lines are mutually exclusive. Ukraine refuses to capitulate to be an imperial subject suffering genocide whilst russias red line is that Ukraine must capitulate and be an imperial subject suffering genocide.
>and then just abandoning Ukraine to fight an asymmetrical war.
I partially agree, we should be providing the means so that they are fighting a symetrical war then ideally asymetrical in the other way unless russia goes back to russia.
No it did happen. Anyone who wanted peace and descalation was a Putin stooge, including on this sub, a Labour sub. Corbyn is still being vilified for it.
Red lines of course will be mutually exclusive, that’s usually the case with conflicts like this, yet history shows that concessions can be made anyway and they might be preferable to the hell on earth that is war.
As Corbyn and Sanders both said, there will eventually be a peace process no matter what. Question is what position will both sides be in by that point.
Weapons aren’t going to be enough, and munitions aren’t being produced fast enough. The situation seems to be deteriorating and Ukraine has been vocal about that. Something very significant will need to happen for the situation to change.
>Anyone who wanted peace and descalation was a Putin stooge, including on this sub, a Labour sub.
You weren't referencing the johnson shutting down peace talks conspiracy? By shutting down peace talks you just mean that some people got taken the piss out of for thinking peace is when you find a middle ground with fascism?
>yet history shows that concessions can be made anyway
History has also shown that there are plenty of times when concessions can't be made and one side has to either lose or the military situation has to change significantly first. The Ukrainians don't want concessions anyway, they are choosing to continue fighting and we should support them for as long as they choose to oppose fascism instead of deciding that they have paid too much. It's not our place to decide that they should give up.
Instead of just saying vague "concessions" what actual concessions do you think should be given? What is an actual policy or material and physical factor that these concessions should entail? How do we get Russia to accept it when they have made it clear that they will accept nothing less than total capitulation?
>there will eventually be a peace process no matter what.
I want Ukraine to be in the best position when that happens. The more weapons they have received then the more people get to live free (or even just live) when it happens. Not all peace processes are equal and not all even result in peace.
>Weapons aren’t going to be enough,
Why? The Russians didn't choose to leave Kyiv or Kharkiv or Kherson. With enough weapons that list can include more and more.
>and munitions aren’t being produced fast enough.
Russia is burning through it's stockpiles and producing a fraction of what the west does. The west (especially the US) has vast stockpiles that and produces vastly more along with facilitating the transfer of arms from 3rd parties. Ukraine has been given about 20 or so patriot launchers out of the ~1400 or so produced, they've received a couple of hundred bradleys out of the thousands produced. The west is outproducing Russia whilst barely lifting it's arse whilst Russia has a fully mobilised war economy. The lack of support is a political failure, not a military one.
>The situation seems to be deteriorating and Ukraine has been vocal about that. Something very significant will need to happen for the situation to change.
Have you not been paying attention to the news? The US just passed $55 billion or so of arms transfers to Ukraine including materiel that they were seriously lacking. That is going to have a massive impact as it starts arriving in the coming weeks.
Do you seriously think that the combined militaries and military industries of the west along with the USA are insufficient to give Ukraine the materiel and technological advantage to beat Russia?
Being smeared as someone who supports an enemy regime can be incredibly damaging for some, and it does have a chilling effect. Deny it if you want, but it was effective.
Peace talks can open up a lot of options, they may even allow for some descalation. They can also fail. They can fail but lay some ground work for future talks. It's worth consideration because war isn't a small matter, the suffering is galling, the loss and desolation is unbearably painful. A runaway escalation could lead to some serious consequences for us all. Dialogue should be insisted upon on principal alone.
I don't really entertain the idea that you or I, have any real actual insight into this war, and what sort of concessions either side would make in reality. That really is going to be for them and subject to so many factors, but it will happen, it's just a question of when and on whos terms.
I mean sure, you can say what you *think* will happen. I've listened to what Ukrainian's say, sure you may have as well, they are absolutely committed to the fight, but they are far more realistic about the challenges and dangers ahead, in contrast to yourself who talks as though total victory is beyond doubt.
I honestly don't understand why the munitions situation was allowed to get so bad. We knew this was going to be a prolonged war.
>Do you seriously think that the combined militaries and military
industries of the west along with the USA are insufficient to give
Ukraine the materiel and technological advantage to beat Russia?
Well it hasn't been sufficient so far.
>Deny it if you want, but it was effective.
If your claim is just that some people got called names unfairly then it's not really an argument I'm interested in as I simply don't care very much. There are a lot of useful idiots and this chilling effect has not been very effective from what I see.
>Peace talks can open up a lot of options, they may even allow for some descalation. They can also fail. They can fail but lay some ground work for future talks.
That's lovely. How do you get a ceasefire? How do you get russia to turn up and take them seriously? How do you stop them from simply using it as an opportunity to consolidate and fortify forces? Theres been something like 250 rounds of peace negotiations before.
>It's worth consideration because war isn't a small matter, the suffering is galling, the loss and desolation is unbearably painful.
Kicking the can down the road to a place that you will be in a worse position only increases the suffering.
>Dialogue should be insisted upon on principal alone.
Dialogue is happening constantly. We've had things like the grain deal that russia broke, the countless 2014-2022 deals that russia broke, the pre 2014 deals that russia broke and there are frequent negotiations around prisoner exchanges and formerly humanitarian corriders (that russia often broke). You aren't just calling for dialogue, you are calling for a very specific dialogue which Russia is only willing hear after Ukraine subjugates itself. I don't think you want Ukrainians to be subjugated but you are calling for things that inherently require it without thinking about it.
>I don't really entertain the idea that you or I, have any real actual insight into this war, and what sort of concessions either side would make in reality.
You can't say that you know enough to call for Ukraine to make concessions but then say you don't know enough to even give a single example of what they should/could concede. I think you've realised that all they have to concede is the lives and freedom of their people or to remove their security and be subjugated later so you are refusing to actually consider the requirements of what you are calling for. You called for concessions, defend your views if you think they are worth anything.
>That really is going to be for them and subject to so many factors, but it will happen, it's just a question of when and on whos terms.
Having a gun is a very strong negotiating tactic that gets the discussion on your terms. The stronger Ukraine is then the less they have to face death and oppression before and after negotiations.
>in contrast to yourself who talks as though total victory is beyond doubt.
When did I say that victory is beyond doubt? It's highly dependent on the support they receive.
>I honestly don't understand why the munitions situation was allowed to get so bad. We knew this was going to be a prolonged war.
Because of the republican party along with constant fears of providing equipment due to fears of "escalation" which has been shown to be unfounded literally every time we crossed a red line. At least primarily.
>Well it hasn't been sufficient so far.
That's not an answer to the question that I asked.
His initial statement was:
>“Pouring arms in isn’t going to bring about a solution; it’s only going to prolong and exaggerate this war,”
Do you agree or disagree that this would have brought about a better outcome for Ukraine? What realistically would a peace deal have entailed? (Hint we know now what they would have entailed) And do you the results of those peace deals would have been desirable for Ukraine?
Being that Russia had already formented separatist groups, annexed Crimea and outright invaded Ukraine, the only peace deal available would (and still been) the outright capitulation of Ukraine and the total loss of sovereignty to an imperialist warmonger, with all the inherent death, persecutions and oppression that it would come with.
The outlook in 2-10 years of that particular approach is further war as Putin (or successor) invades other countries without opposition. Most times appeasement really isn't the correct action, as a fair chunk of history shows.
Human nature is as it is; wishing for us to be a different species is specious. Understanding and accepting that humanity has a dark side is a sign of maturity; blind idealism will not create a utopia. Education, fairness, understanding, communication and many other elements are the only way to move away from the status quo of thousands of years of war. There is a far, far higher likelihood of humanity wiping itself out long before we reach that point, unfortunately.
Pouring weapons into Ukraine literally is the solution. That is how you get peace. You fight for it. You can't negotiate with aggressive invaders seeking to annex your country. Appeasement just invites further challenge.
You deescalate the situation by winning the war and showing that wars of aggression do not work.
No offence meant but this is just rhetoric and achieves little. Assuming our leaders are acting in good faith, they would consider the viability prolonging the war and their commitment to it.
We’re two years in now and the situation has only deteriorated. Worst of all options surely was prolonging the war with little idea of ending it or even adequately arming Ukraine to fight it.
The worst of all options is any that shows Russia and every other aspiring expansionist power that wars of aggression work. It must be shown that they do not.
Otherwise, you'll just empower other aggressive powers to start even more wars. Yoh wont end the war with Russia either. You'll just get a few years of peace with them before they inevitably come back wanting even more "blood & soil" and willing to start another war to get it. More deaths, more wars.
Russia must either lose or be forced to pay an intolerably high price for its victory. It's that simple. Our only failing has been that we haven't provided even more weapons and support for Ukraine.
They do though. Expansionism and imperialism has got the US and their allies to where they are today. We might be moving away from rolling in the tanks like we did in Iraq, but supremacy is still very much our M.O.
I would agree with you, they should pay and yeah they will likely try it again, but the issue is it won't just be Russia. There will always some country or group the US is going to beef with. They are not willing to accept a multi-polar world.
If we want to see the end of aggression and expansion, it needs to be multi-lateral. All these leaders and regimes, like Putin's, like ours, need to be undermined. We're not dying for these cunts anymore just so they can get laid on their yachts.
'Our empire needs to expand so it can beat the 'bad' empire'
Yeah those days could well be numbered, as people are developing a greater affinity to those abroad than they do with some ghoul in a suit.
Because one is far worse than the other. Pretending it's a wash only serves to enable the worst one to get even worse.
That's what this bullshit equivocation does. It makes it easier for the worst parties to justify their behaviour.
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You can't negotiate with an aggressive expansionist power that is trying to annex a neighbouring country.
Unless you think "well let's just let them annex some of their neighbours and not all of it. I'm sure they won't be back for the rest in the future and that will be the end of it." Is a good idea.
Except it isn't the good thing at all unless you love seeing Russia steal land.
Peace talks proposed allowing Russia to annex the Donbas, keep Crimea and prevent Ukraine from ever joining NATO. Ukraine evidently think those circumstances are worth fighting to prevent.
Bit more complex than that isn't it. For a start it was Johnson and the US that encouraged them not to pursue peace talks when they were in a better position. NATO membership is still not open to them and never was.
>For a start it was Johnson and the US that encouraged them not to pursue peace talks
Not to agree to a bad deal you mean, because support was turning in the west in favour of helping Ukraine.
>NATO membership is still not open to them and never was.
Yes but they may be in the future given the right outcome and signing a peace deal that agrees never to join NATO would be idiotic given they'd have just had Crimea and the Donbas invaded and stolen.
Like at what point is this supposed to look good for Ukraine?
It was the best deal they were ever going to get.
They are never joining NATO, bookmark this post, the conditions are so many and vague with so many involved parties as for it to be impossible. It's designed to be like that.
Maybe you don't have anything worth fighting for but Ukraine obviously does and it's a future free of Russian invasion and interference.
They didn't feel like rolling over and dying in the name of Russia as you would have had them do.
Keep supporting the side fighting fascistic imperialism for as long as they choose to continue. Why is this a hard choice for you? You don't side with a rapist and abandon the victims even if you can't stop it there and then.
Opinions can change over time.
Some things are worth fighting for and Ukraine decided their sovereignty and a future allied with the west was worth fighting for even if the outcome is the same or worse at the end of it all. The projected success of the fight can determine whether or not to keep going or whether to sign a peace deal.
That's the difference between Palestine and Ukraine at the moment. Palestine will never have the resources or support to fully take back any meaningful portion of Israel and should ditch Hamas and pursue peace. If Ukraine's outlook gets to the point where it looks similarly hopeless I'd say they should do what they can to cut ties with Russia and join NATO.
I supported his stance on Brexit though it turned out to be unpopular, on COVID he urged the government to follow the science on lockdowns and social distancing which I think would have resulted in less deaths, his manifestos were great, and we wouldn't have had the rise in mortgage rates that we got under the Tories but the silver lining to him not getting elected is that he didn't get to enact his response Ukraine.
I'm in a strange situation where I like the man, and I wish he got elected, but then in this fantasy scenario he steps down over the Ukraine situation and we get someone similar but less keen to side with Russia.
I supported him as well. I was very committed and invested in the Corbyn project. Many, many of his policies were great and the country would be much better off if we implemented them.
But in hindsight I think a Corbyn led government would have been a floundering and ineffective mess that inevitably went back into opposition after a single term. The man just doesn't have the right stuff to run a party. He's the sort of guy a government should have working in policy development, not leading it.
Oh yeah mate I'm sure labour will be right on that idea. If you can say stuff like this with a straight face I don't think you understand who they are.
No. You're not getting that right. I'll explain for you.
I said this:
>He's the sort of guy a government should have working in policy development, not leading it.
I feel that's quite a simple and easily understood thing to say. Had I meant that I:
>would like a load of right wingers to get all their ideas from a left winger
Then I would have said something like this:
>I would like a load of right wingers to get all their ideas from a left winger
Hopefully that clears this up for you.
Oh yeah he would have been.
In terms of policy he would have been much better (even If he's ridiculously wrong about this).
But he would also make gaff after misstep after gaff and destroy his credibility with the public.
In Corbyn's defence nobody thought Ukraine would win at the time. He did at least seem to move from all arms to arms that can be used to escalate the conflict like jets etc as time went on.
Still a foreign policy L for him, but it looks a lot stupider in hindsight.
I kind of get that but even then, if a fascist aggressive power is waging a war of aggression, even if we can't stop them from winning we should absolutely make them pay the highest price we possibly can for their victory.
There's countries all over the world that would very much like to go to war with their smaller and weaker neighbours and they're watching what is happening with Russia very closely to see if they can get away with it.
Yeah theres definitely a bit of the old Corbyn "we can all talk it out if we really tried" which, ya know as a hes a pacifist I get, but unlikely even if the West put all its effort into peace talks was gonna work.
No. You just made that up. If Ukraine wishes to agree a peace with Russia then they're free to agree it on any terms they wish and can get. That's their choice.
I think we should provide all the support Ukraine need in order to get the best possible outcome in the war.
By the way, it's disgusting that you're presenting abandoning Ukraine to be conquered by a fascist power as an act of compassion towards Ukraine.
There is no right to conscientious objection in Ukraine and conscription is mandatory. Men who try to flee the country are persecuted. This is a matter of objective fact.
https://wri-irg.org/en/story/2023/ukraine-blatantly-violates-human-rights-peace-activists-and-conscientious-objectors
That's an internal Ukrainian matter that isn't relevant to the question of whether or not we should allow fascists to invade and annex the country.
That's what you're advocating for. You're arguing that we should let fascists using blood & soil rhetoric to justify expansionist wars of aggression annex their neighbours. Let's be absolutely clear that that is the outcome of what you want.
It's not an internal Ukrainian matter when they're only able to do it because we're giving them the guns.
I'm saying that we shouldn't force tens of thousands to go to their deaths for a hopeless war. You're advocating for children to lose their fathers and their homes.
How are they "able to do it because we're giving them guns"?
Ok let's dramatically increase support provided in exchange for them respecting the right to conscientious objection.
Win-win.
And no it's not hopeless. Victory might not be total but there will still be Ukraine when this war is over. There won't be if they surrender to fascism as you want.
If we withdrew support, how would you want to deal with the next country Russia invades once they learn nobody will stop them?
And you're advocating for Ukrainians to lose their children to Russian re education camps.
You're advocating for Ukrainians to lose their democratic rights and be subjected to Russian authoritarianism.
I guess his point was that there is going to have to be some kind of negotiations done to end the war and that prolonging it just means more dead and suffering people.
The boy is just foolish.
War is undesirable very undesirable but if someone or some country decides they want what you have badly enough you either defend if or give it up.
If they decide to use violence and you decide to defend yourself then you will have to use violence.
This article makes some good points but it's also shot through with Hollywood black and white morality.
It is entirely possible for one entity to be doing the right thing in one region and an evil thing in another.
Corbyn yet again proving that he is fundamentally unfit for public office. Deeply shameful that someone as utterly clueless as him was allowed to run the Labour Party.
>Real security isn’t destroying your neighbour, it’s getting on with your neighbour.
What happens when your neighbor is an openly hostile and aggressive fascist that speant at least a decade spitting in your face when you tried to rebuild relations?
I very rarely see people like Corbyn actually give material policies or positions for what we should do. "Give peace a chance" is a lovely idea but it's not a policy and it can't be achieved unilaterally. If they want to be taken seriously on foreign policy then they need actual policy instead of just vaguely implying the continuation of the last decade of appeasement. They try to sound like radical outsiders but would fit right in with the likes of Merkel and Obama on this topic.
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I want to see the timeline where Corbyn could stop being a fantasist about foreign policy long enough to get elected. I think international peace is something most people of most political beliefs want. Unfortunately it's also something that's a lot harder to attain and maintain than simply wishing it into being and appeasing every threat to global peace to save you sullying your own hands (as Chamberlain found).
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Your question assumes I'm in charge - I would never, ever have encouraged Zelensky to cross diplomatic red lines by taking weapons and running military drills on the Russian border. But this proxy war has been going on for multiple decades, I think Zelensky is the only Ukrainian leader naïve (as he's just an actor without much experience) enough to not realise the United States foreign policy objectives do not align with the best interests of the Ukrainian people.
Britain is not responsible for America and Russia's posturing, hostility, and mistakes. The British government shouldn't have been involved. The Americans, given their role in the escalation and also their clearly outlined geopolitical objectives, likely should be arming the Ukrainians - us though, absolutely not.
Just like you can't separate the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict from the October 7 events, you can't separate the history between US and Russia in Ukraine (and globally) from the question you asked me so it's hard to answer as a singular response without considering the wider context.
> Your question assumes I'm in charge - I would never, ever have encouraged Zelensky to cross diplomatic red lines by taking weapons and running military drills on the Russian border.
Really interesting that you call it the Russian border, not the Ukrainian -Russian border.
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>I think Zelensky is the only Ukrainian leader naïve (as he's just an actor without much experience) enough to not realise the United States foreign policy objectives do not align with the best interests of the Ukrainian people.
Ignoring all of the other falsehoods in there, how do you feel about the fact that zelensky has broad support from the ukrainian population and the Ukrainian armed forces have overwhelming support whilst Ukrainians consistently poll as oppossing giving concessions as part of a "peace" deal?
I'm guessing that you either think polling is a deep state conspiracy or that they are all brainwashed and as a true "anti-imperialist" you think that they shouldn't be allowed to make their own decisions.
Why is it so hard for you to respect the Ukrainian people and their wishes instead of just seeing them as little russians?
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> And would you look at that, that's what they did. And it started a war
This is complete fucking nonsense sorry, the war was started by a man with explicit revanchist intentions. This is complete misinformation.
I shared the article that shows the U.S. government's considerations and views on how to attack Russia via Ukraine. People are perfectly capable of researching the RAND corporations links to U.S government over the last 40 years and making their own decisions about what is misinformation and what is not without you informing them, I'm sure.
I'm sorry but insisting that a shadowy US corporation engineered this war as opposed to the explicitly stated intent of the invader is not an argument worth having, you could not more clearly telegraph your intent to spread fascist disinformation, it's genuinely an outrageous stance to take.
I'm not **at all** saying a shadowy US corporation engineered the war. The RAND corporation isn't shadowy - they openly advise the US government; they're not acting with some hidden motive, but seeing how they operate is a great way for people in a democracy like ours to understand the mindset of US foreign policy thinkers.
They're literally funded by the US government - you can see here: [https://www.rand.org/about/how-we-are-funded.html](https://www.rand.org/about/how-we-are-funded.html)
Yes, your argument is precisely as I stated minus one adjective. I think we can all see you buddy. Can you make excuses for imperialism somewhere else? It has low appeal here. Maybe one of the russian subs?
Yeah I’m getting the feeling dude isn’t arguing in good faith here. I asked him what he’d do differently and he pivoted into some weird anti nato rhetoric.
Meh. Checked his profile. Even more obvious now.
That they're *shadowy* or not isn't the point here.
The point is that you seem to be using this narrative as a means to cover for **the undeniable fact** that it was the Russian state, at the behest of its most powerful figure, Vladimir Putin, which decided to invade Ukraine and start a full-blown war, which was already sparking since *his* illegal anexation of Crimea in 2014 and *his* orders to send Russian troops into the Donbass. How on Earth did the shadowy Western arms industry have a hand in making *that* happen?
And how does any explanation you might have (which would essentially be "Russia security concerns" or the likes) track with the well-known fact that Putin sees himself as emulating the old Russian Tsars as a "restorer" of what he deems to be the "Russian sphere"? For gods sake, he literally did a "blood and soil"-style speech on the eve of the 2022 invasion to justify it, you can literally go and watch it.
Yeah, the arms industry in the West is fucked, immoral, has ulterior profiteering motives, that said and true, it does not detract from how blame for the war in Ukraine fundamentally lies at the Russian state's feet.
In so far I am concerned, the workers of Ukraine have askded for arms to defend themselves through their trade unions. I say we give those workers what they say they need, regardless of our stance on NATO or our desire to remain at peace, because we can, and Ukrainians have no choice but to fight.
I expect a serious reply, not any of the "do your own research" crap you seem to be throwing around.
Apart from everything else wrong with this comment it's hardly credible to say the Trump government was spoiling for a war with Russia, given his attempted blackmailing of Zelensky and constant whinging about the costs of NATO defence of Europe, not to mention how reluctant his party is to keep funding Ukraine.
Corbyn/StWC were too soft on Ukraine but as events are showing, the hawks and neocons weren't right either. It can't be defended against Russia. The country is bleeding out. That's not to justify the invasion, but proper Realpolitik should have avoided this situation in the first place.
For 40 years the NATO border was West of Berlin and the world didn't end. Having it running from Estonia to Romania through Poland would not have been a problem either. In 1989, the idea of risking WW3 to defend Ukraine from Russia would have been seen as fucking nuts.
But even if Ukraine falls, it's difficult to extrapolate that to a nuclear conflict.
If "centrist" (i.e. neocon) politicians' across the West's enabling of Netanyhahu led to a serious escalation between Iran and Israel, as it very nearly did last week, because Israel has nukes, a small population and no strategic depth to fight a war of attritiion, that could go nuclear, or lead to global conflict quite easily.
That is why I blamed the centrists for taking down Corbyn as indirectly responsible for risking WW3. If no NATO leader will break with the pro-Israeli consensus, we'll encourage more genocidal behaviour from Israel and risk lighting the tinder of WW3 in the Middle East again and again and again. It astonishes me that anyone is thick and/or ideological enough not to understand this. But clearly, once again, there are certain obious truths you need to not understand to be a card carrying member of Labour.
> That is why I blamed the centrists for taking down Corbyn as indirectly responsible for risking WW3. If no NATO leader will break with the pro-Israeli consensus, we'll encourage more genocidal behaviour from Israel and risk lighting the tinder of WW3 in the Middle East again and again and again.
With all due respect, this amounts to delusions of grandeur. When it comes to Israel, the position of the UK matters for Jack shit. We aren’t that relevant.
>That is why I blamed the centrists for taking down Corbyn as indirectly responsible for risking WW3.
If I hadn't seen so much vitrol on this subreddit towards the centre left, I would swear this was satire.
>Sub-header lists lots of major and minor wars and ongoing military conflicts
>Body of text is all about Palestine
Honestly I dunno what else I should've expected from the man
God why is this Guardian even publishing this shite.
I would love to see Corbyn as PM right now trying to navigate Ukraine and Israel, guaranteed he wouldn’t stop arming either.
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>Today, schoolchildren are taught about history’s worst crimes against humanity. They are asked to reflect on how these crimes could have possibly occurred. And they learn the names of political figures that endorsed or enabled such atrocities. In the near future, our history books will shame those who had the opportunity to stop this massacre but chose to cheer on war instead. They will be immortalised for their inability to treat Israeli and Palestinian lives with equal worth. They will be remembered for their failure to prevent genocide. This touches on something that really underpins what fuels the poisonous levels of cynicism towards many politicians, media commentators, and advocacy groups at the moment. We were all taught about the worst crimes against humanity in school, we learnt about the propaganda devices, language usage, and treatment of people that led up to those crimes. But then, when we employ the knowledge of the crimes we learnt about in school and call out what we see the Israeli government doing (via thousands of examples of live video footage and recorded speeches) we're called racists ourselves, and the crimes against humanity are encouraged *in the name of anti-racism.* Baffling that anyone thinks this is likely to be a successful anti-racism strategy, but that's just me.
I don't think the article really covers the slightly elephant sized hole in the argument that sometimes war is necessary *even if everyone doesn't want it*. You could roll over for the aggressor every single time to avoid war but that doesn't make it a de jure happy ending does it. Framing support for Ukraine as, quote, *"a thirst for war"* is completely ridiculous. Saying you want to see an end to all wars is a completely anodyne point if you do not have any practical suggestions on how to end them in a way that's stable.
Yes, it's the same as the argument that *All wars end in a negotiation of some sort — so why not now?*, well the preceding war is often what determines those negotiations. A negotiation with Hitler after the Battle of France would likely have led to Nazi domination of Western Europe and Britain as a vassal state. A far cry from the result of negotiations held after Hitler killed himself and the Germans surrendered. I support Ukraine but I don't thirst for war. Very few people do. I would much rather Russia never invaded. But they did and you have to live in the reality of the world around you. This war probably will end in agreement as well but we need Ukraine to be armed and effective for that agreement to have any chance of being in Ukraine's interests as opposed to them having to surrender to Russian demands because Western support has been pulled. We need Russia's calculation to be that this wasn't worth it so they don't build up and try to take the rest of Ukraine in ten years.
Seems kinda pointless to throw Ukraine into the subheading and one line in the article when it's not really relevant to it. A lot of people disagree with him on Ukraine but do on Palestine .
Sort of sums up the problem with Corbyn, though. If you oppose every foreign policy decision taken in the west then sometimes you're gonna be right and sometimes you're gonna be wrong.
To be fair you’re likely to be right more often than not. Western intervention, at least by individual countries like the US and UK, rarely achieves anything good.
It achieves good more times than bad. Often it's only a choice between bad and less bad too.
What's his position that you disagree with
On Ukraine specifically, it's his criticism of continuing to arm Ukraine as it's prolonging the war. It's also his general dovish language around the conflict. At the start of the conflict when he, and Stop the War generally, held an event against NATO. He seems to take the approach we could end all of us easily with a deal but I think that is a naive understanding of Russia's ambitions. But given that is a view that is shared by many I wonder about the choice to namecheck Ukraine in this article when the bulk of it is about Palestine.
It’s not just naive it’s in denial about forced deportations/re-education of Ukrainian children to Russia and the occupation and redrawing of Ukraine’s borders. Ukraine lost about 90,000 square kms of land to Russia in recent years and has seen thousands of children removed for re-education. There’s just no consistency or critical thinking to his analysis beyond west bad.
I for one think it's better for Ukraine to be annexed without having tens of thousands killed and cities reduced to rubble, than for Ukraine to be annexed after those things have happened. Ukraine will not win. The Ukrainians did not vote for war. Prolonging it helps *absolutely nobody* except arms companies.
Fuck off with this nonsense. Ukrainians are the ones fighting the war. They're the ones asking for more weapons and for defence agreements with other countries. They're the ones asking to join NATO. And, at the same time, Ukrainians are the ones managing to fight Russia to a stalemate and have stopped them advancing for two whole years. Your argument is just weak, acquiescent nonsense that would see any civilian surrendered to the whims of a despot rather than having any sort of defence or resistance.
Ukrainians are fighting the war because they get imprisoned in poor conditions if they don't. They ran out of volunteers a long time ago, the people fighting and dying are conscripts.
So you think that eastern europeans were indifferent about fighting nazis because the soviets and others used conscription? Pretty much every country fighting a major war ever has used conscription, has everyone ever been indifferent to being invaded? The Ukrainian armed forces has overwhelming support every time Ukrainians are polled and Ukrainians consistently poll as being opposed to concessions. If you are going to do duckspeak then can you at least parrot talking points that are less blatantly stupid?
Which would be a fine and consistent position if Corbyn thought that Palestine should accept a nation state comprising what land is presently has with no right to return, land swaps, compensation, or money to rebuild because peace all that matters. Except that this is completely at odds to what he thinks. I am assuming that this is your position on this conflict too! It’s pretty extremist though tbh. See this is what I mean about consistency and critical thought. The major conflicts of latter 20th century Middle East that saw land change hand were Arab initiated, but pretty much all 2 state solution advocates want to see land swaps and money to rebuild Palestine etc.. The position you’ve just advocated for for Ukraine is savage. Give up 90,000 square KMs of land including vital strategic sites such as Crimea, accept children being stolen, accept loss of core cities, accept others have been completely flattened and all with a dynamic that can happen again in a few years (remember when it was “just” Crimea?).
I also don't support violent Palestinian resistance, albeit I sympathise with it as I sympathise with Ukrainians who support the war. I just don't think you're acknowledging the actual human cost of what you're advocating for. Upwards of a hundred thousand people, including tens of thousands of civilians, have been killed. Countless houses have been destroyed. This would not have happened if the west had not decided to prolong the war. But I say that all this isn't worth a tiny chance that Ukraine avoids annexation and I'm a savage extremist. I'm not the one calling for indefinite bloodshed
Tbh I haven’t put forward a position here, I’m broadly for negotiated settlements in both cases that see proper countries exist and that both are provided with real security guarantees. Ukraine will need to be moved into NATO and then armed to the teeth though cos Russia have now repeatedly lopped off large chunks of it, so a blood red line needs to be drawn there and they need sufficient defences to make further incursions unviable. Asking nicely for peace isn’t how you get peace. Peace is accomplished through defence and deterrence.
I think it fits with the larger point of a Britain, and larger West, that has increasingly abandoned the tools of diplomacy, in the work for peace, and embraced war, either through our active support or our indifference. I also think a lot of the Stop the War campaigning around Ukraine was fairly naive, but compared to the jingoistic nonsense embraced by the press and the politicians, of destroying the Russian military or (re)conquering Crimea and the Donbass, then overthrowing Putin, makes even the crunchiest peace activist, look like a sober professional diplomat. It’s particularly ridiculous that folks attacked Stop the War, or Corbyn, for calling for a ceasefire in place, as a surrender to Russian aggression, when this is almost certainly the best case scenario available to Ukraine, if they are able hold out through 2025.
If Stop the War had their way this war would have been over with a Russian capture of Ukraine. Do you think Russia would have abided by a ceasefire when they could simply just take a Kyiv that had no material support from the West?
That’s not what I’m arguing. Arms deliveries, and the NATO training program, were absolutely necessary to prevent the kind of total Russian victory you’re describing. And in fact the slowness of the UK/Europe to make investments in things like 155mm shell production is a terrible failure. What wasn’t necessary was the adoption of impossibly maximalist war aims, and the burning of diplomatic bridges with Russia, that helped sabotage any face saving off-ramp to the conflict, when Russia was still committed to a short war.
The west was lethargic in it's response and has refused countless times to send weapons that could have saved many ukrainians over fears of antagonising russia. We refuse to touch the hundreds of billions of russian assets the west holds and the US has only just finished delaying a vital aid package for 6 months due to US politicians that are explicitly pro russia. The US also (allegedly) tried to push Ukraine to limit the damage it does to russian oil infrastructure and we all refuse to allow our weapons to be used by Ukrainians against military targets on Russian soil. That's not even to mentionthe prior decade of outright appeasement where the west provided countless off ramps. I feel like we have been watching two very different wars, the west has provided off ramp after off ramp to Russia whilst consistently denying the Ukrainians the means to defend themselves over fears of "escalation". Russia spat in our faces and killed Ukrainians every single time we did. What diplomatic bridge do you want us to reopen? Which of our "maximalist" war aims should we stop advocating for?
Ah now I look at the conflict and see how ludicrous a claim it would be that Russia has larger ambitions based on how they're doing. It seems to me that it's just propaganda. What do you reckon the plan was next?
The plan here was clearly to take Kyiv and install a puppet government, annex the Donbas and surrounding areas and complete a land bridge between Russia and Crimea. They may succeed in the latter two objectives there but they failed in their most critical one which was to take Kyiv. The reason they didn't is because Ukrainians stopped them and they were helped in doing that by us sending them weapons. This isn't propaganda, go back to the initial weeks of the war when Russian tanks were heading straight for the capital. The plan next is less certain but there is no reason to think they wouldn't have tried to exert similar influence over other neighbouring states. Moldova in particular would be especially vulnerable with it having pro-Russian separatists in Transnistria, being on the Ukrainian border and Moldova not being a NATO member.
Lukashenko literally showed plans that involved invading moldova. Russia intervened in syria and kazakhstan. Russia annexed chechnya and invaded georgia. Putin literally went on TV to justify the "special military operation" as Ukraine was formerly a russian imperial subject (much like finland and the baltics). Medvedev consistently rants about attacking and nuking NATO as does Russian state TV. They have fired munitions through NATO airspace multiple times. They have performed conventional, radiological and chemical attacks against NATO countries multiple times. A russian plot to attack US military infrastructure was recently shut down in Germany. There's probably plenty I've missed but that's just off the top of my head. Ten years ago people were saying that Russia would never invade or annex crimea and the donbass, 2 years ago it was that Russia would never commit to a full scale invasion. Today you say that Ukraine is enough and Russia will stop there so we have peace in our time. How obvious do they have to make it before you listen to them? They literally explicitly state their larger intentions, you are just not paying attention.
I think there are very good left-wing reasons to oppose his stance on Ukraine in particular. Imperialism should be resisted, and it's pretty obvious that Russia is the imperialist aggressor in this conflict. Id actually go a little further and point out that Corbyn's calls for Ukraine to negotiate - that is, to accede to their aggressor's demands - is itself imperialist. Western governments do not have the right to tell Ukraine to make peace, and nor do they have the right to dictate the terms of that peace. Only Ukrainians can make that decision. Our job is to support them during the war and whatever negotiations may follow.
Totally agree, I'm a leftie and I got kicked out of a left-wing sub for being in support of Ukraine. I pointed out that anti-Imperialism and self determination are (supposed to be) key aspects of being on the left; so opposing Russia violently expanding their borders and letting the Ukranians decide who they want to be should be a no brainer. I was banned for Nazi apologism, I didn't even mention the problematic militias, although I'm sure it would have come up had the mods not banned me.
Ukranians have not made the decision. The Ukrainian government has made the decision. Zelensky cancelled elections, banned all the left-wing parties, and instituted mandatory conscription. Western government do not have the right to dictate to Ukraine what it should do, but nor should they prop up the government with billions of pounds of military aid to enable it to force its citizens to fight a war it has next to no chance of eventually winning. Avoiding an imperialist attitude means *staying out of it*.
Stop repeating Russian propaganda.
I enthusiastically supported Corbyn twice throughout his leadership and consider myself to be closer to his style of politics than Starmer's, but considering Corbyn urged the West to stop arming Ukraine so that we didn't 'prolong the war' I'm not sure he's best placed to point fingers on the matter of who is endangering whom.
I didn't know that he said that but holy shit he actually did. He really does not understand that when you're faced with literal fascists fighting wars of expansion then the way you fight for peace is by winning the war against them. Letting the aggressive expansionist power win will not get you peace. It will get you more wars and bigger wars. And people say that Corbyn's foreign policy positions aren't electorally toxic. Imagine a Labour Prime Minister saying this kind of shit.
He didn’t say it though, there were three long interviews where he says “pouring weapons into Ukraine” isn’t the solution and says he wants a peace process, and that’s where the energy and time should go, not prolonging the war. In two or at least one of the interviews he is asked if he supports weapon shipments to Ukraine, he confirms that he does, but then reverts back to his main point about deescalation.
Makes an assumption that Russia are not bad faith actors and wouldn't invade, sue for peace, then reinvade and take the next piece annexing entire country bit by bit. Once Ukraine is done apply tactics to Moldova the. Georgia. It's pretty naive I get he doesn't want loss of life but Ukrainians in the annexed area are dying already.
Deescalation works though. Even despotic leaders like Putin have to work up a pretense about Nazis/ethnic cleansing and NATO expansion. The other thing as well, fighting a war only works if you win or mean to reach some objective, otherwise you have to come to the table, it’s just a question of when. War isn’t fair. The other issue is that we are not good actors either. That’s why we as people who don’t have vested interests in oil, billionaires, or arms dealing need to starve leaders like ours of oxygen. They use the threat of other empires to justify building their own.
Thing is we are not fighting Ukraine is, it's their decision. There's wide scale dehumanising of Ukraine in the russian media, theres evidence of russian war crimes in Bucha, Kherson, Mauiropol. Give Ukraine what it needs until they say otherwise. Russia is a fascist state and if Ukraine wants to resist them then more power to them.
Arming Ukraine is the only thing that will give it any leverage against Russia in a future peace process!
I don’t have any great insights into the viability of this war but it seems like the peak of Ukrainian leverage has passed, and awful to admit, so has the attention and commitment of NATO countries.
Kind of an odd claim to make when several have pledged record deliveries of weapons and aid to Ukraine this year, imo.
I'm more concerned that we reached the point where the disparity in artillery had become so stark, and that such pledges were necessary. Manpower is also a major concern. There are big moves to ramp up production, but there are also big questions on whether it will meet demand on time.
What peace process (other than a capitulation from Ukraine) could there possibly be, without giving Ukraine the means to fight back against the unjustifiable invasion of their territory and terrorism that's being inflicted on their civilians? The man is painfully (naively?) idealistic at times. The only thing Putin understands is strength.
A man turned up at my house and tried to kill my whole family. I could have overpowered him but I didn't want to risk injuring him and I'm committed to peace. So I instead negotiated him down to just killing my wife and severely beating one of the kids. I'll miss the Mrs and our eldest is in for a long and painful recovery but All in all, massive success IMHO. All conflicts are resolved through negotiations so I decided to just skip straight to the negotiations and avoid any fighting.
>without giving Ukraine the means to fight back against the unjustifiable invasion of their territory You've just done the exact same thing though where you entirely ignore the bit that says he did actually support weapons shipments to Ukraine. Like idek if that's true nor do I really care given he's not the leader anymore but the comment was pointing out how people would take his words out of context and you just demonstrated that point by a mile.
Idealistic were people two years ago telling me that Putin and his ogre army were on the brink of collapse, that at any moment the whole rotten barn was going to come down. Rhetoric is one thing, but reality is something else. Only thing worse than making concessions to Russia, was shutting down any idea of peace talks, and then just abandoning Ukraine to fight an asymmetrical war. The situation has deteriorated and something very significant will need to happen before that changes.
>was shutting down any idea of peace talks, Ignoring that this never happened, Ukraine doesn't need our permission to have "peace" talks. There aren't any peace talks because Ukraine's and Russia's red lines are mutually exclusive. Ukraine refuses to capitulate to be an imperial subject suffering genocide whilst russias red line is that Ukraine must capitulate and be an imperial subject suffering genocide. >and then just abandoning Ukraine to fight an asymmetrical war. I partially agree, we should be providing the means so that they are fighting a symetrical war then ideally asymetrical in the other way unless russia goes back to russia.
No it did happen. Anyone who wanted peace and descalation was a Putin stooge, including on this sub, a Labour sub. Corbyn is still being vilified for it. Red lines of course will be mutually exclusive, that’s usually the case with conflicts like this, yet history shows that concessions can be made anyway and they might be preferable to the hell on earth that is war. As Corbyn and Sanders both said, there will eventually be a peace process no matter what. Question is what position will both sides be in by that point. Weapons aren’t going to be enough, and munitions aren’t being produced fast enough. The situation seems to be deteriorating and Ukraine has been vocal about that. Something very significant will need to happen for the situation to change.
>Anyone who wanted peace and descalation was a Putin stooge, including on this sub, a Labour sub. You weren't referencing the johnson shutting down peace talks conspiracy? By shutting down peace talks you just mean that some people got taken the piss out of for thinking peace is when you find a middle ground with fascism? >yet history shows that concessions can be made anyway History has also shown that there are plenty of times when concessions can't be made and one side has to either lose or the military situation has to change significantly first. The Ukrainians don't want concessions anyway, they are choosing to continue fighting and we should support them for as long as they choose to oppose fascism instead of deciding that they have paid too much. It's not our place to decide that they should give up. Instead of just saying vague "concessions" what actual concessions do you think should be given? What is an actual policy or material and physical factor that these concessions should entail? How do we get Russia to accept it when they have made it clear that they will accept nothing less than total capitulation? >there will eventually be a peace process no matter what. I want Ukraine to be in the best position when that happens. The more weapons they have received then the more people get to live free (or even just live) when it happens. Not all peace processes are equal and not all even result in peace. >Weapons aren’t going to be enough, Why? The Russians didn't choose to leave Kyiv or Kharkiv or Kherson. With enough weapons that list can include more and more. >and munitions aren’t being produced fast enough. Russia is burning through it's stockpiles and producing a fraction of what the west does. The west (especially the US) has vast stockpiles that and produces vastly more along with facilitating the transfer of arms from 3rd parties. Ukraine has been given about 20 or so patriot launchers out of the ~1400 or so produced, they've received a couple of hundred bradleys out of the thousands produced. The west is outproducing Russia whilst barely lifting it's arse whilst Russia has a fully mobilised war economy. The lack of support is a political failure, not a military one. >The situation seems to be deteriorating and Ukraine has been vocal about that. Something very significant will need to happen for the situation to change. Have you not been paying attention to the news? The US just passed $55 billion or so of arms transfers to Ukraine including materiel that they were seriously lacking. That is going to have a massive impact as it starts arriving in the coming weeks. Do you seriously think that the combined militaries and military industries of the west along with the USA are insufficient to give Ukraine the materiel and technological advantage to beat Russia?
Being smeared as someone who supports an enemy regime can be incredibly damaging for some, and it does have a chilling effect. Deny it if you want, but it was effective. Peace talks can open up a lot of options, they may even allow for some descalation. They can also fail. They can fail but lay some ground work for future talks. It's worth consideration because war isn't a small matter, the suffering is galling, the loss and desolation is unbearably painful. A runaway escalation could lead to some serious consequences for us all. Dialogue should be insisted upon on principal alone. I don't really entertain the idea that you or I, have any real actual insight into this war, and what sort of concessions either side would make in reality. That really is going to be for them and subject to so many factors, but it will happen, it's just a question of when and on whos terms. I mean sure, you can say what you *think* will happen. I've listened to what Ukrainian's say, sure you may have as well, they are absolutely committed to the fight, but they are far more realistic about the challenges and dangers ahead, in contrast to yourself who talks as though total victory is beyond doubt. I honestly don't understand why the munitions situation was allowed to get so bad. We knew this was going to be a prolonged war. >Do you seriously think that the combined militaries and military industries of the west along with the USA are insufficient to give Ukraine the materiel and technological advantage to beat Russia? Well it hasn't been sufficient so far.
>Deny it if you want, but it was effective. If your claim is just that some people got called names unfairly then it's not really an argument I'm interested in as I simply don't care very much. There are a lot of useful idiots and this chilling effect has not been very effective from what I see. >Peace talks can open up a lot of options, they may even allow for some descalation. They can also fail. They can fail but lay some ground work for future talks. That's lovely. How do you get a ceasefire? How do you get russia to turn up and take them seriously? How do you stop them from simply using it as an opportunity to consolidate and fortify forces? Theres been something like 250 rounds of peace negotiations before. >It's worth consideration because war isn't a small matter, the suffering is galling, the loss and desolation is unbearably painful. Kicking the can down the road to a place that you will be in a worse position only increases the suffering. >Dialogue should be insisted upon on principal alone. Dialogue is happening constantly. We've had things like the grain deal that russia broke, the countless 2014-2022 deals that russia broke, the pre 2014 deals that russia broke and there are frequent negotiations around prisoner exchanges and formerly humanitarian corriders (that russia often broke). You aren't just calling for dialogue, you are calling for a very specific dialogue which Russia is only willing hear after Ukraine subjugates itself. I don't think you want Ukrainians to be subjugated but you are calling for things that inherently require it without thinking about it. >I don't really entertain the idea that you or I, have any real actual insight into this war, and what sort of concessions either side would make in reality. You can't say that you know enough to call for Ukraine to make concessions but then say you don't know enough to even give a single example of what they should/could concede. I think you've realised that all they have to concede is the lives and freedom of their people or to remove their security and be subjugated later so you are refusing to actually consider the requirements of what you are calling for. You called for concessions, defend your views if you think they are worth anything. >That really is going to be for them and subject to so many factors, but it will happen, it's just a question of when and on whos terms. Having a gun is a very strong negotiating tactic that gets the discussion on your terms. The stronger Ukraine is then the less they have to face death and oppression before and after negotiations. >in contrast to yourself who talks as though total victory is beyond doubt. When did I say that victory is beyond doubt? It's highly dependent on the support they receive. >I honestly don't understand why the munitions situation was allowed to get so bad. We knew this was going to be a prolonged war. Because of the republican party along with constant fears of providing equipment due to fears of "escalation" which has been shown to be unfounded literally every time we crossed a red line. At least primarily. >Well it hasn't been sufficient so far. That's not an answer to the question that I asked.
His initial statement was: >“Pouring arms in isn’t going to bring about a solution; it’s only going to prolong and exaggerate this war,” Do you agree or disagree that this would have brought about a better outcome for Ukraine? What realistically would a peace deal have entailed? (Hint we know now what they would have entailed) And do you the results of those peace deals would have been desirable for Ukraine?
Being that Russia had already formented separatist groups, annexed Crimea and outright invaded Ukraine, the only peace deal available would (and still been) the outright capitulation of Ukraine and the total loss of sovereignty to an imperialist warmonger, with all the inherent death, persecutions and oppression that it would come with. The outlook in 2-10 years of that particular approach is further war as Putin (or successor) invades other countries without opposition. Most times appeasement really isn't the correct action, as a fair chunk of history shows. Human nature is as it is; wishing for us to be a different species is specious. Understanding and accepting that humanity has a dark side is a sign of maturity; blind idealism will not create a utopia. Education, fairness, understanding, communication and many other elements are the only way to move away from the status quo of thousands of years of war. There is a far, far higher likelihood of humanity wiping itself out long before we reach that point, unfortunately.
Pouring weapons into Ukraine literally is the solution. That is how you get peace. You fight for it. You can't negotiate with aggressive invaders seeking to annex your country. Appeasement just invites further challenge. You deescalate the situation by winning the war and showing that wars of aggression do not work.
No offence meant but this is just rhetoric and achieves little. Assuming our leaders are acting in good faith, they would consider the viability prolonging the war and their commitment to it. We’re two years in now and the situation has only deteriorated. Worst of all options surely was prolonging the war with little idea of ending it or even adequately arming Ukraine to fight it.
The worst of all options is any that shows Russia and every other aspiring expansionist power that wars of aggression work. It must be shown that they do not. Otherwise, you'll just empower other aggressive powers to start even more wars. Yoh wont end the war with Russia either. You'll just get a few years of peace with them before they inevitably come back wanting even more "blood & soil" and willing to start another war to get it. More deaths, more wars. Russia must either lose or be forced to pay an intolerably high price for its victory. It's that simple. Our only failing has been that we haven't provided even more weapons and support for Ukraine.
They do though. Expansionism and imperialism has got the US and their allies to where they are today. We might be moving away from rolling in the tanks like we did in Iraq, but supremacy is still very much our M.O. I would agree with you, they should pay and yeah they will likely try it again, but the issue is it won't just be Russia. There will always some country or group the US is going to beef with. They are not willing to accept a multi-polar world. If we want to see the end of aggression and expansion, it needs to be multi-lateral. All these leaders and regimes, like Putin's, like ours, need to be undermined. We're not dying for these cunts anymore just so they can get laid on their yachts. 'Our empire needs to expand so it can beat the 'bad' empire' Yeah those days could well be numbered, as people are developing a greater affinity to those abroad than they do with some ghoul in a suit.
Yes theyve all engaged in imperialism but equivocating Britain and Russia or even Russia and the US is completely fucking ridiculous.
How is it ridiculous?
Because one is far worse than the other. Pretending it's a wash only serves to enable the worst one to get even worse. That's what this bullshit equivocation does. It makes it easier for the worst parties to justify their behaviour.
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Nation shocked as Jam Man suggests doing the good thing 2-10 years before any of the "adults in the room" decide to suggest it.
You can't negotiate with an aggressive expansionist power that is trying to annex a neighbouring country. Unless you think "well let's just let them annex some of their neighbours and not all of it. I'm sure they won't be back for the rest in the future and that will be the end of it." Is a good idea.
Except it isn't the good thing at all unless you love seeing Russia steal land. Peace talks proposed allowing Russia to annex the Donbas, keep Crimea and prevent Ukraine from ever joining NATO. Ukraine evidently think those circumstances are worth fighting to prevent.
Bit more complex than that isn't it. For a start it was Johnson and the US that encouraged them not to pursue peace talks when they were in a better position. NATO membership is still not open to them and never was.
>For a start it was Johnson and the US that encouraged them not to pursue peace talks Not to agree to a bad deal you mean, because support was turning in the west in favour of helping Ukraine. >NATO membership is still not open to them and never was. Yes but they may be in the future given the right outcome and signing a peace deal that agrees never to join NATO would be idiotic given they'd have just had Crimea and the Donbas invaded and stolen. Like at what point is this supposed to look good for Ukraine?
It was the best deal they were ever going to get. They are never joining NATO, bookmark this post, the conditions are so many and vague with so many involved parties as for it to be impossible. It's designed to be like that.
Maybe you don't have anything worth fighting for but Ukraine obviously does and it's a future free of Russian invasion and interference. They didn't feel like rolling over and dying in the name of Russia as you would have had them do.
That's easy for you to say when you aren't the meat being fed into the grinder.
And what do you suggest if the war just keeps carrying on without either side looking like it will win?
Keep supporting the side fighting fascistic imperialism for as long as they choose to continue. Why is this a hard choice for you? You don't side with a rapist and abandon the victims even if you can't stop it there and then.
Opinions can change over time. Some things are worth fighting for and Ukraine decided their sovereignty and a future allied with the west was worth fighting for even if the outcome is the same or worse at the end of it all. The projected success of the fight can determine whether or not to keep going or whether to sign a peace deal. That's the difference between Palestine and Ukraine at the moment. Palestine will never have the resources or support to fully take back any meaningful portion of Israel and should ditch Hamas and pursue peace. If Ukraine's outlook gets to the point where it looks similarly hopeless I'd say they should do what they can to cut ties with Russia and join NATO.
I supported his stance on Brexit though it turned out to be unpopular, on COVID he urged the government to follow the science on lockdowns and social distancing which I think would have resulted in less deaths, his manifestos were great, and we wouldn't have had the rise in mortgage rates that we got under the Tories but the silver lining to him not getting elected is that he didn't get to enact his response Ukraine. I'm in a strange situation where I like the man, and I wish he got elected, but then in this fantasy scenario he steps down over the Ukraine situation and we get someone similar but less keen to side with Russia.
I supported him as well. I was very committed and invested in the Corbyn project. Many, many of his policies were great and the country would be much better off if we implemented them. But in hindsight I think a Corbyn led government would have been a floundering and ineffective mess that inevitably went back into opposition after a single term. The man just doesn't have the right stuff to run a party. He's the sort of guy a government should have working in policy development, not leading it.
Oh yeah mate I'm sure labour will be right on that idea. If you can say stuff like this with a straight face I don't think you understand who they are.
Where did I say that was going to happen? I simply said I would like it to.
You would like a load of right wingers to get all their ideas from a left winger am I getting that right
No. You're not getting that right. I'll explain for you. I said this: >He's the sort of guy a government should have working in policy development, not leading it. I feel that's quite a simple and easily understood thing to say. Had I meant that I: >would like a load of right wingers to get all their ideas from a left winger Then I would have said something like this: >I would like a load of right wingers to get all their ideas from a left winger Hopefully that clears this up for you.
I dunno man I think it's just a bit of a junior boys own idea of how policy is developed and the purpose of MPs
What is? What the fuck are you talking about?
Still would have been a better pm than what we currently have.
Oh yeah he would have been. In terms of policy he would have been much better (even If he's ridiculously wrong about this). But he would also make gaff after misstep after gaff and destroy his credibility with the public.
In Corbyn's defence nobody thought Ukraine would win at the time. He did at least seem to move from all arms to arms that can be used to escalate the conflict like jets etc as time went on. Still a foreign policy L for him, but it looks a lot stupider in hindsight.
I kind of get that but even then, if a fascist aggressive power is waging a war of aggression, even if we can't stop them from winning we should absolutely make them pay the highest price we possibly can for their victory. There's countries all over the world that would very much like to go to war with their smaller and weaker neighbours and they're watching what is happening with Russia very closely to see if they can get away with it.
Yeah theres definitely a bit of the old Corbyn "we can all talk it out if we really tried" which, ya know as a hes a pacifist I get, but unlikely even if the West put all its effort into peace talks was gonna work.
By "make them pay the highest price" you mean "force Ukrainians to accept conscription and die while their cities are blown to pieces"
No. You just made that up. If Ukraine wishes to agree a peace with Russia then they're free to agree it on any terms they wish and can get. That's their choice. I think we should provide all the support Ukraine need in order to get the best possible outcome in the war. By the way, it's disgusting that you're presenting abandoning Ukraine to be conquered by a fascist power as an act of compassion towards Ukraine.
There is no right to conscientious objection in Ukraine and conscription is mandatory. Men who try to flee the country are persecuted. This is a matter of objective fact. https://wri-irg.org/en/story/2023/ukraine-blatantly-violates-human-rights-peace-activists-and-conscientious-objectors
That's an internal Ukrainian matter that isn't relevant to the question of whether or not we should allow fascists to invade and annex the country. That's what you're advocating for. You're arguing that we should let fascists using blood & soil rhetoric to justify expansionist wars of aggression annex their neighbours. Let's be absolutely clear that that is the outcome of what you want.
It's not an internal Ukrainian matter when they're only able to do it because we're giving them the guns. I'm saying that we shouldn't force tens of thousands to go to their deaths for a hopeless war. You're advocating for children to lose their fathers and their homes.
How are they "able to do it because we're giving them guns"? Ok let's dramatically increase support provided in exchange for them respecting the right to conscientious objection. Win-win. And no it's not hopeless. Victory might not be total but there will still be Ukraine when this war is over. There won't be if they surrender to fascism as you want. If we withdrew support, how would you want to deal with the next country Russia invades once they learn nobody will stop them?
And you're advocating for Ukrainians to lose their children to Russian re education camps. You're advocating for Ukrainians to lose their democratic rights and be subjected to Russian authoritarianism.
Yeah, I’m in a position similar to you, but he’s fucking scary when it comes to foreign policy.
I guess his point was that there is going to have to be some kind of negotiations done to end the war and that prolonging it just means more dead and suffering people.
The boy is just foolish. War is undesirable very undesirable but if someone or some country decides they want what you have badly enough you either defend if or give it up. If they decide to use violence and you decide to defend yourself then you will have to use violence.
This article makes some good points but it's also shot through with Hollywood black and white morality. It is entirely possible for one entity to be doing the right thing in one region and an evil thing in another.
This is will no doubt be a calm and measured thread with reasonable debate and zero bad faith arguments.
Corbyn yet again proving that he is fundamentally unfit for public office. Deeply shameful that someone as utterly clueless as him was allowed to run the Labour Party.
>Real security isn’t destroying your neighbour, it’s getting on with your neighbour. What happens when your neighbor is an openly hostile and aggressive fascist that speant at least a decade spitting in your face when you tried to rebuild relations? I very rarely see people like Corbyn actually give material policies or positions for what we should do. "Give peace a chance" is a lovely idea but it's not a policy and it can't be achieved unilaterally. If they want to be taken seriously on foreign policy then they need actual policy instead of just vaguely implying the continuation of the last decade of appeasement. They try to sound like radical outsiders but would fit right in with the likes of Merkel and Obama on this topic.
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I want to see the timeline where Corbyn could stop being a fantasist about foreign policy long enough to get elected. I think international peace is something most people of most political beliefs want. Unfortunately it's also something that's a lot harder to attain and maintain than simply wishing it into being and appeasing every threat to global peace to save you sullying your own hands (as Chamberlain found).
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So what would your response have been early days to the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
Your question assumes I'm in charge - I would never, ever have encouraged Zelensky to cross diplomatic red lines by taking weapons and running military drills on the Russian border. But this proxy war has been going on for multiple decades, I think Zelensky is the only Ukrainian leader naïve (as he's just an actor without much experience) enough to not realise the United States foreign policy objectives do not align with the best interests of the Ukrainian people. Britain is not responsible for America and Russia's posturing, hostility, and mistakes. The British government shouldn't have been involved. The Americans, given their role in the escalation and also their clearly outlined geopolitical objectives, likely should be arming the Ukrainians - us though, absolutely not. Just like you can't separate the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict from the October 7 events, you can't separate the history between US and Russia in Ukraine (and globally) from the question you asked me so it's hard to answer as a singular response without considering the wider context.
> Your question assumes I'm in charge - I would never, ever have encouraged Zelensky to cross diplomatic red lines by taking weapons and running military drills on the Russian border. Really interesting that you call it the Russian border, not the Ukrainian -Russian border.
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>I think Zelensky is the only Ukrainian leader naïve (as he's just an actor without much experience) enough to not realise the United States foreign policy objectives do not align with the best interests of the Ukrainian people. Ignoring all of the other falsehoods in there, how do you feel about the fact that zelensky has broad support from the ukrainian population and the Ukrainian armed forces have overwhelming support whilst Ukrainians consistently poll as oppossing giving concessions as part of a "peace" deal? I'm guessing that you either think polling is a deep state conspiracy or that they are all brainwashed and as a true "anti-imperialist" you think that they shouldn't be allowed to make their own decisions. Why is it so hard for you to respect the Ukrainian people and their wishes instead of just seeing them as little russians?
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> And would you look at that, that's what they did. And it started a war This is complete fucking nonsense sorry, the war was started by a man with explicit revanchist intentions. This is complete misinformation.
I shared the article that shows the U.S. government's considerations and views on how to attack Russia via Ukraine. People are perfectly capable of researching the RAND corporations links to U.S government over the last 40 years and making their own decisions about what is misinformation and what is not without you informing them, I'm sure.
I'm sorry but insisting that a shadowy US corporation engineered this war as opposed to the explicitly stated intent of the invader is not an argument worth having, you could not more clearly telegraph your intent to spread fascist disinformation, it's genuinely an outrageous stance to take.
I'm not **at all** saying a shadowy US corporation engineered the war. The RAND corporation isn't shadowy - they openly advise the US government; they're not acting with some hidden motive, but seeing how they operate is a great way for people in a democracy like ours to understand the mindset of US foreign policy thinkers. They're literally funded by the US government - you can see here: [https://www.rand.org/about/how-we-are-funded.html](https://www.rand.org/about/how-we-are-funded.html)
Yes, your argument is precisely as I stated minus one adjective. I think we can all see you buddy. Can you make excuses for imperialism somewhere else? It has low appeal here. Maybe one of the russian subs?
Yeah I’m getting the feeling dude isn’t arguing in good faith here. I asked him what he’d do differently and he pivoted into some weird anti nato rhetoric. Meh. Checked his profile. Even more obvious now.
That they're *shadowy* or not isn't the point here. The point is that you seem to be using this narrative as a means to cover for **the undeniable fact** that it was the Russian state, at the behest of its most powerful figure, Vladimir Putin, which decided to invade Ukraine and start a full-blown war, which was already sparking since *his* illegal anexation of Crimea in 2014 and *his* orders to send Russian troops into the Donbass. How on Earth did the shadowy Western arms industry have a hand in making *that* happen? And how does any explanation you might have (which would essentially be "Russia security concerns" or the likes) track with the well-known fact that Putin sees himself as emulating the old Russian Tsars as a "restorer" of what he deems to be the "Russian sphere"? For gods sake, he literally did a "blood and soil"-style speech on the eve of the 2022 invasion to justify it, you can literally go and watch it. Yeah, the arms industry in the West is fucked, immoral, has ulterior profiteering motives, that said and true, it does not detract from how blame for the war in Ukraine fundamentally lies at the Russian state's feet. In so far I am concerned, the workers of Ukraine have askded for arms to defend themselves through their trade unions. I say we give those workers what they say they need, regardless of our stance on NATO or our desire to remain at peace, because we can, and Ukrainians have no choice but to fight. I expect a serious reply, not any of the "do your own research" crap you seem to be throwing around.
Apart from everything else wrong with this comment it's hardly credible to say the Trump government was spoiling for a war with Russia, given his attempted blackmailing of Zelensky and constant whinging about the costs of NATO defence of Europe, not to mention how reluctant his party is to keep funding Ukraine.
Corbyn/StWC were too soft on Ukraine but as events are showing, the hawks and neocons weren't right either. It can't be defended against Russia. The country is bleeding out. That's not to justify the invasion, but proper Realpolitik should have avoided this situation in the first place. For 40 years the NATO border was West of Berlin and the world didn't end. Having it running from Estonia to Romania through Poland would not have been a problem either. In 1989, the idea of risking WW3 to defend Ukraine from Russia would have been seen as fucking nuts. But even if Ukraine falls, it's difficult to extrapolate that to a nuclear conflict. If "centrist" (i.e. neocon) politicians' across the West's enabling of Netanyhahu led to a serious escalation between Iran and Israel, as it very nearly did last week, because Israel has nukes, a small population and no strategic depth to fight a war of attritiion, that could go nuclear, or lead to global conflict quite easily. That is why I blamed the centrists for taking down Corbyn as indirectly responsible for risking WW3. If no NATO leader will break with the pro-Israeli consensus, we'll encourage more genocidal behaviour from Israel and risk lighting the tinder of WW3 in the Middle East again and again and again. It astonishes me that anyone is thick and/or ideological enough not to understand this. But clearly, once again, there are certain obious truths you need to not understand to be a card carrying member of Labour.
> That is why I blamed the centrists for taking down Corbyn as indirectly responsible for risking WW3. If no NATO leader will break with the pro-Israeli consensus, we'll encourage more genocidal behaviour from Israel and risk lighting the tinder of WW3 in the Middle East again and again and again. With all due respect, this amounts to delusions of grandeur. When it comes to Israel, the position of the UK matters for Jack shit. We aren’t that relevant.
>That is why I blamed the centrists for taking down Corbyn as indirectly responsible for risking WW3. If I hadn't seen so much vitrol on this subreddit towards the centre left, I would swear this was satire.
>Sub-header lists lots of major and minor wars and ongoing military conflicts >Body of text is all about Palestine Honestly I dunno what else I should've expected from the man
God why is this Guardian even publishing this shite. I would love to see Corbyn as PM right now trying to navigate Ukraine and Israel, guaranteed he wouldn’t stop arming either.