Dear Moderator

[Paul Brancato]

54 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Paul,

This is the crux of our disagreement:

You view American imperial interests as central to the eastward expansion of NATO.

I view American imperial interests as incidental to the eastward expansion of NATO.

Exactly  -  thanks for putting it so succinctly. 

[John Cotter]

3 hours ago, Paul Rigby said:

I rather suspect John doesn't, not least because he's not dumb enough to fall for such an obviously invented attribution. Stalin never said or wrote anything of the sort. The quotation in fact comes from a 1932 work on French humour by Kurt Tucholsky, a German satirist:

Thanks for that, Paul.

I won’t reply in detail to William and Michael here because these issues have been already debated ad nauseam.

I would just say that the claim that eastern European countries willingly joining NATO legitimizes NATO’s eastward expansion is disingenuous, because NATO is an instrument of the US foreign policy of global domination.

Therefore, by definition, the actions of these countries in joining NATO are not neutral or innocent vis-à-vis Russia – they clearly constitute an existential threat.

Since this is simple logic, the relentless efforts by Russophobic US imperialists (effectively a tautology) to deny or obfuscate it are utterly perverse.

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, John Cotter said:

Thanks for that, Paul.

I won’t reply in detail to William and Michael here because these issues have been already debated ad nauseam.

I would just say that the claim that eastern European countries willingly joining NATO legitimizes NATO’s eastward expansion is disingenuous, because NATO is an instrument of the US foreign policy of global domination.

The same US foreign policy which resulted in Yanks getting kicked out of Cuba, Vietnam, Iran, Nicaragua, Lebanon in ‘82, Iraq and Afghanistan.  Hardly hegemonic.

1 hour ago, John Cotter said:

Therefore, by definition, the actions of these countries in joining NATO are not neutral or innocent vis-à-vis Russia – they clearly constitute an existential threat.

Russia had a chance to join NATO in the late 90’s  I was rooting for it — maybe the bloated US defense budget could be cut absent a threat from Russia.  Not to be alas.

To claim that the peoples of the former Soviet Bloc had no right to join the rest of Europe reflects Great Power arrogance at its worst

.

[W. Niederhut]

4 hours ago, Paul Rigby said:

I rather suspect John doesn't, not least because he's not dumb enough to fall for such an obviously invented attribution. Stalin never said or wrote anything of the sort. The quotation in fact comes from a 1932 work on French humour by Kurt Tucholsky, a German satirist:

Lame deflection on specious grounds, Rigby.  Geez...  No wonder you and John Cotter are Putin-adoring pen pals.

The issue that John Cotter was posting redundant nonsense about has to do with his denial that a mass murderer of Russian journalists, critics, Ukrainians, and Russian conscripts is "evil."

Cotter argues, instead, that 2+2=5.   He views such old-fashioned moral judgments about trifles like mass murder as "perverse" Jungian "shadow projections."

Sophistry at its worst.

Perhaps you share his derangement.

As for Stalin, it is by no means clear that the quote I referenced-- or some variation thereof-- has not been correctly attributed to Stalin.

A Single Death Is a Tragedy; A Million Deaths Is a Statistic – Quote Investigator®

More importantly, how many million Soviet citizens did Stalin murder?

Do you and Cotter have the foggiest notion?

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by W. Niederhut

[John Cotter]

2 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

The same US foreign policy which resulted in Yanks getting kicked out of Cuba, Vietnam, Iran, Nicaragua, Lebanon in ‘82, Iraq and Afghanistan.  Hardly hegemonic.

Russia had a chance to join NATO in the late 90’s  I was rooting for it — maybe the bloated US defense budget could be cut absent a threat from Russia.  Not to be alas.

To claim that the peoples of the former Soviet Bloc had no right to join the rest of Europe reflects Great Power arrogance at its worst

.

Do you agree with the statement that the core tenet of US foreign policy is global domination?

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, John Cotter said:

Do you agree with the statement that the core tenet of US foreign policy is global domination?

Given the failure of the US to exert such hegemonic domination, I can’t take such a “core tenet” seriously.

You ignore:

The 2014 negotiation between Obama and Putin for the removal and destruction of Syrian chemical weapons.

The 2015 Iran nuke deal.

The 2016 opening to Cuba.

The 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.

American Neo-Cons opposed each of those.

[John Cotter]

44 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Given the failure of the US to exert such hegemonic domination, I can’t take such a “core tenet” seriously.

You ignore:

The 2014 negotiation between Obama and Putin for the removal and destruction of Syrian chemical weapons.

The 2015 Iran nuke deal.

The 2016 opening to Cuba.

The 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.

American Neo-Cons opposed each of those.

Your evasive response to my question validates everything I said in my penultimate post.

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, John Cotter said:

Your evasive response to my question validates everything I said in my penultimate post.

It’s a nuanced response to which you have no answer.

[James DiEugenio]

Can you imagine this?  Really hard to understand.

 

“Russia is part of European culture. And I cannot imagine my own country in isolation from Europe and what we often call the civilised world. So it is hard for me to visualise NATO as an enemy,” said Putin, the country’s acting president in 2000, three weeks before the election, which made him president. 

At the time, Putin’s words were interpreted as extending an olive branch to the West. Since then, Putin has been in power, rising to the occasion and becoming the sole decision-maker of the country. 

The same year, according to the then-NATO chief George Robertson, Putin bluntly asked: “When are you going to invite us to join Nato?” Robertson advised the Russian president that he needs to “apply to join NATO” and not expect an invitation. 

Edited June 15, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

BTW, i liked what Bobby said about JFK and his attempt to gain detente with the USSR.

He told Oliver that the triumvirate was a way for them to sidestep the fact that they were trapped by hawks in Moscow and D.C. So this was a method of getting around that problem, through a back channel which also included the pope.

And I do not think it is unimportant to add that Nikita encouraged Castro in his attempt to do likewise by saying Kennedy was someone they could deal with.

Let us never forget how Castro was so shocked when he got the news Kennedy was dead.  And how he tried so hard to keep up the back channel with LBJ, to no avail.

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Let us never forget how Castro was so shocked when he got the news Kennedy was dead.  And how he tried so hard to keep up the back channel with LBJ, to no avail.

So Fidel started moving his Red Chinese donated heroin thru George Bush-owned Zapata Off-Shore — and the US left him alone thereafter.

[John Cotter]

6 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

It’s a nuanced response to which you have no answer.

"Nuanced" is a euphemism.

[Cliff Varnell]

2 hours ago, John Cotter said:

"Nuanced" is a euphemism.

You appear to suffer from an impression American foreign policy is monolithic and hegemonic.

Do American Neo-Cons seek global domination?  You bet.  Do they dominate American foreign policy.  No, they don’t.

The US national security state is faction ridden.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Cliff Varnell

[Denny Zartman]

20 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

When you say "your thread" you mean some of the things said by others, once the thread was hijacked from its original purpose.  Which I tried unsuccessfully to stop and remains a distinct problem here..

.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Denny Zartman

[John Cotter]

1 hour ago, Cliff Varnell said:

You appear to suffer from an impression American foreign policy is monolithic and hegemonic.

Do American Neo-Cons seek global domination?  You bet.  Do they dominate American foreign policy.  No, they don’t.

The US national security state is faction ridden.

So NATO expansion in eastern Europe is only my subjective “impression” rather than an objective fact?

Are you trying to gaslight me?

The same could be said for your “faction ridden” argument. Have you ever heard of Spenlow and Jorkins?

Please stop playing these silly games.