I strongly recommend this article by Gawain Towler about the unedifying case of traitor Nathan Gill.
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I strongly recommend this article by Gawain Towler about the unedifying case of traitor Nathan Gill. The Telegraph reports,
The part I have put in bold type looks alarming. On the other hand, the British press, most definitely including the Telegraph, continually tries to make Trump look as bad as possible. In the first few months after Putin invaded, Ukraine’s resolute defence against the odds saved the country from annihilation – but as the war drags on its position seems to be gradually weakening. What do you think? Is this the best deal Ukraine is likely to get? Let me say this upfront: I was not Charlie Kirk’s biggest fan, nor was I a bitter detractor. I saw him in cynical terms and still do, as an ally of convenience on some issues, an opponent on others. As I am very much in favour of free speech, I am perfectly happy to see his image raised as a political icon, a literal free speech martyr. Being a family man with much to live for, I venture with confidence Charlie Kirk would have rather not been assassinated. But nevertheless having been murdered by some trans-fixated politically motivated lunatic, Kirk is perhaps looking down from the heaven he believed in feeling vindicated, pleased that at least his death mightily serves a cause he strongly believed in. I do find it interesting to see this AI generated meme appearing, showing political activist Charlie Kirk and Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska… ![]() Both were murdered whilst on video. Iryna Zarutska was stabbed by a racially motivated serial-offender a couple weeks before Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Kirk spoke out about her murder, horrified by the vile senseless crime captured in slow motion for all to see. And of course he cared, Iryna was murdered by a US national in the United States of America. But Kirk was not keen on supporting Ukraine against mass-murderous Russia, which was what had driven Iryna to become a refugee in the USA. Had she died in Ukraine in a Russian missile strike on an apartment block, her passing would not warrant a mention, just another nameless victim of the Russian imperialism Kirk would rather not see a single US cent spent opposing. Charlie Kirk was deeply religious, claiming this was his strongest motivation, which was probably true. He was also a nationalist, and in that particular Gott mit uns strain of American Christianity, maybe Charlie Kirk did not see the tension between his indifference to the victims of the war in Ukraine and his Christianity, possibly seeing the narrow interests of the USA and God as being one and the same. But perhaps my own aggressively secular sensibilities are showing. So, I am happy to see him exploited as a free speech martyr, even though I did not particularly like the man, and I am confident Charlie Kirk would have been perfectly ok with that too. It has almost become a feature of the English sporting calendar, like the Epsom Derby and the FA Cup final, to watch a local heavyweight lose to Oleksandr Usyk in a packed football stadium or on prime-time television. Five Englishmen, on eight separate occasions, have tried and failed across two different weight divisions to beat the Ukrainian champion. None has succeeded. When Daniel Dubois was knocked out in the fifth round on Saturday night, before a sold-out crowd of 90,000 people at Wembley Stadium, it seemed like a sporting affirmation of Einstein’s definition of stupidity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Also this is amusing. “This will be in textbooks”, writes Maria Avdeeva.
In one sense, of course, it has been done before. The military history of the twentieth century contains many examples of large numbers of planes being destroyed on their airfields – by the Japanese at Pearl Harbour, by the Germans at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, and by the Israelis in the first hours of the Six Day War, to name but three. But such damage being done by itty bitty little drones that were considered little more than toys a few years ago is new. My point is: to anyone who understands the reality of Putin’s regime, the idea that he has “gone CRAZY” and is killing people is… well, CRAZY. Vladimir Putin is in power and retains power precisely because he has always been someone who is prepared to lie, manipulate and kill to achieve his objectives. That is literally what the KGB trained him to do. In his post criticising Putin, Trump went on to add: “I’ve always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right”. Finally, it seems, our American friends are beginning to understand who they are dealing with. – Konstantin Kisin (£) The Guardian, 6th December 2024: Romanian court annuls first round of presidential election The Guardian, 9th March 2025: Pro-Russia Călin Georgescu barred from Romanian presidential election re-run The Guardian, 15th May 2025: Romania might be about to make a Trump-admiring former football hooligan its president. This is why Georgescu sounds a nasty piece of work, and Simion not much better, but the “election interference” that might truly kill off Romanians’ faith in democracy is not coming from them.
– William Pitt the Elder, speaking in the House of Lords on 18th November 1777 in opposition to the war against the rebellious American colonists. There are some things about the views of supporters of President Trump, and of Americans in general, about the situation in Ukraine that I understand very well. Consider this Bloomberg clip from the President’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 25th September 2018. The caption to the video says gleefully, “Watch the German delegation’s response at UNGA when Trump says “Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course.” The German delegation had a good laugh at the American rube and his silly ideas about not being dependent on Vladimir Putin, and all the sophisticated people on both sides of the Atlantic laughed with them. They are not laughing now. They are still asking for money, though. In the face of such arrogance, it is no surprise that President Trump and a great many of his countrymen are saying, “We tried to warn you about Russia but you laughed. It’s nice that you ‘stand with Ukraine’ now, but you can do it with your own money. Bye.” That, I get. I don’t agree with the view that the conquest of a country in Europe by Russia can safely be ignored by the US, but I can understand it. What I do not get is how many Americans whose views I normally admire have moved from saying, “This war is sad, but it’s none of our business” to speaking as if Ukraine were morally in the wrong for continuing to fight. To take one example, here is a recent tweet from Elon Musk:
Similar impassioned pleas for “peace” are being made by many accounts that I follow on X that belong to Americans who are proud supporters of the right to bear arms, people who would until recently have considered themselves spiritual descendants of those unconquerable Americans praised by Pitt. It seems to me that the position of the Ukrainians now is very like that of the Americans then, right down to the invaders of their country being reinforced by wretched hirelings from far away who have been sold by their leaders and sent to die in a the shambles of a foreign war of which they know nothing. Were the Americans of December 1776 culpable for not laying down their arms when all seemed lost? Should the famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware be covered up in shame?
Washington not caring about the meat-grinder Wittingly or otherwise, the MAGA online right started to absorb Russia’s narrative on Ukraine: that it isn’t a real country, that the Ukrainians aren’t a real people, that if they are a real people then they are uniquely corrupt. On and on it went: that Ukrainian soldiers are ‘literal’ Nazis, that Zelensky is constantly buying villas and yachts in the south of France, that the whole war is one big money-laundering operation, that Ukraine’s war to push the Russians back is unwinnable because of the great might of the Russian army – and that the whole thing is a giant waste of US taxpayers’ money. – Douglas Murray (£) To all the people holding a vitriolic hated, anger & haranguing Zelenskyy, Whom remain completely silent over Putin, as if he doesn’t exist – despite the fact that he’s the tyrant that started this invasion & could stop it whenever he wanted to – you’re a pro-Kremlin shill. Then there is one other thought. If you are getting praise from the Kremlin, you aren’t on the right side of the argument. Much of what I’ve heard from people with whom I usually align politically has been Kremlin propaganda without a hint of nuance or consideration that invading another country is morally repugnant and indefensible. An internal conflict is not a justification. The popular uprising that overthrew Yanukovych, which some attribute to the CIA—as if they have that level of power (they don’t)—does not justify an invasion. There was never a justification. The deal on the table is a shitty one for Ukraine and a good one for Russia. I always felt that the least bad outcome would be the one that would have to happen, but sucking up to Putin and pretty much rewarding him for his invasion is going to backfire. The accusations of NATO expanding eastwards begs the question, why do those countries want to join if Russia is such a peaceful neighbour? Zelensky’s point, clumsily and inappropriately made, is that diplomacy hasn’t worked so far and he is right. Moldova, Estonia, Finland and Sweden are getting twitchy and with good reason, they know how this is likely to pan out, hence the point Zelensky was making about security. Without that, no deal is worth signing, for the bloodshed will merely be delayed. |
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