Jeffrey Sachs talks about the CIA, JFKA and the Church Committee

[W. Niederhut]

16 hours ago, John Cotter said:

I’ve already addressed your red herring question, which was a deflection from my question to Kirk, which he has never answered (There are over 350 billion reasons – as well as the ones I’ve since given – why the Ukraine war is a proxy war and not a war of independence.)

Roger Odisio also cogently explained why it’s a proxy war, but you "hand-waved" that factual account away by claiming it was Russian propaganda. By your warped logic everything you post about the Ukraine war is UN/NATO propaganda. That’s the nonsensical corner you’ve boxed yourself into.

Now you’re claiming you know more about Irish history than I do. Are there any limits to your delusional omniscience?

Your point about “high-tech modern missiles” is likewise nonsensical. Does the fact that the ancient Romans didn’t have such missiles make any significant difference to the preponderance of military power that they had over the nations they conquered?

Fortunately for Ukraine, the Russians have refrained from the kind of indiscriminate bombing perpetrated by the US in places such as Germany, Japan, South East Asia, Yugoslavia and Iraq during the past 80 years.

As for psychiatry, I’ve previously explained to you the fraudulent nature of mainstream psychiatry, by reference to, inter alia, the writings of Professor Thomas Szasz and Dr Terry Lynch.

Typical of your ad hominem approach, you failed to rebut any of these writings and instead defamed Prof Szasz. Needless to say, you didn’t dare defame Dr Lynch, presumably because you know that, unlike Prof Szasz, Dr Lynch is still alive and could sue you.

LOL, John.

I'm still waiting for Roger to tell us when Ukraine ceased being a sovereign nation and UN member, and why a 328-0 parliamentary vote deposing Putin's puppet Yanukovych constituted legitimate grounds for Putin's illegal seizure of Ukrainian territory.

You, Rigby, and Roger, obviously, drank that Kremlin kool aid.

As for Putin's use of modern missiles to commit war crimes against Ukraine's civilian population, I mentioned that in reference to your bizarre whining about U.S. and NATO funding of Ukrainian defense forces. 

Meanwhile, your sophomoric Thomas Szasz reference is genuinely amusing.

Dr. Robert Freedman, our UCHSC department chairman here, and editor of the prestigious American Journal of Psychiatry, always referred to Thomas Szasz as a "gadfly"-- an apt description of your erroneous Education Forum buzz.

 

 

Edited September 10 by W. Niederhut

[Benjamin Cole]

11 hours ago, John Cotter said:

You’re right about the Ukraine war being a US proxy war, Ben.

The claims about the damaging effects it’s having on Russia may be somewhat exaggerated however.

JC--

Would it not be better for all concerned if Putin was deposed, the Russians pulled back to 2014 borders and everybody set about rebuilding damaged territories?

The Russians are fortunate in one sense, that no one wants to perpetuate a war against them. They have the option of peace.

Other nations are not so lucky.

---

Add on: I forgot to mention that both Sweden and Finland have joined Nato, post Ukraine war. Finland right on the Russian border, of course.

Even from a pro-Russian perspective, how is this a good result?

And why would those two two nations, not considered bellicose actors, join Nato? Were they not reasonably concerned about a Russian incursion, given the Ukraine story?

Even if Russia holds on to the Donbas...the expression "pyrrhic  victory" surely applies.  

If the war goes onto another two years (as appears possible) the Russians will have lost 1 million men, and even more equipment, and will have more refineries and bridges, etc. destroyed. 

Ukraine makes Russia's Afghanistan expedition look tiny in comparison. 

Side note: The numbers of deaths become incomprehensible, and thus lack impact. As humans, we can understand one dead, or five dead. Maybe numbers like 100, 200, and feel the human consequences of such tragedies. 

But when 20,000 are killed in a month and a million in a war...the numbers, unfortunately, become abstractions. 

But one million dead Russians there will be. Maybe half that in Ukrainians. For what? 

 

 

 

Edited September 10 by Benjamin Cole

[John Cotter]

11 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

JC--

Would it not be better for all concerned if Putin was deposed, the Russians pulled back to 2014 borders and everybody set about rebuilding damaged territories?

The Russians are fortunate in one sense, that no one wants to perpetuate a war against them. They have the option of peace.

Other nations are not so lucky.

---

Add on: I forgot to mention that both Sweden and Finland have joined Nato, post Ukraine war. Finland right on the Russian border, of course.

Even from a pro-Russian perspective, how is this a good result?

And why would those two two nations, not considered bellicose actors, join Nato? Were they not reasonably concerned about a Russian incursion, given the Ukraine story?

Even if Russia holds on to the Donbas...the expression "pyrrhic  victory" surely applies.  

If the war goes onto another two years (as appears possible) the Russians will have lost 1 million men, and even more equipment, and will have more refineries and bridges, etc. destroyed. 

Ukraine makes Russia's Afghanistan expedition look tiny in comparison. 

Side note: The numbers of deaths become incomprehensible, and thus lack impact. As humans, we can understand one dead, or five dead. Maybe numbers like 100, 200, and feel the human consequences of such tragedies. 

But when 20,000 are killed in a month and a million in a war...the numbers, unfortunately, become abstractions. 

But one million dead Russians there will be. Maybe half that in Ukrainians. For what? 

 

 

 

Yes, Benjamin, it’s a damned nuisance when regime changing doesn’t go as planned.

Anyway, I’ve said all I want to say here for now at least.

“Níl frith, ní fuighbhither, breithemh bus firiu cathráe. (There has not been found, nor will there be found, a fairer judge than the field of battle.) (Laurence Flanagan, Irish Proverbs, page 31)

[W. Niederhut]

9 minutes ago, John Cotter said:

Yes, Benjamin, it’s a damned nuisance when regime changing doesn’t go as planned.

Anyway, I’ve said all I want to say here for now at least.

“Níl frith, ní fuighbhither, breithemh bus firiu cathráe. (There has not been found, nor will there be found, a fairer judge than the field of battle.) (Laurence Flanagan, Irish Proverbs, page 31)

Translation:  "Might is right" ???

Putin and his KGB goons would probably love John Cotter's Irish proverb.

Edited September 10 by W. Niederhut

[John Cotter]

2 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Translation:  "Might is right" ???

Putin and his KGB goons would probably love John Cotter's Irish proverb.

Only when it comes to that, which it has in Ukraine, because Ukraine is being used by the US in its proxy war against Russia, and the US seems determined to "fight to the last Ukrainian".

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, John Cotter said:

Only when it comes to that, which it has in Ukraine, because Ukraine is being used by the US in its proxy war against Russia, and the US seems determined to "fight to the last Ukrainian".

Where are the Ukrainian people in your grossly flawed paradigm, John?

Didn't the Ukrainian parliament vote 328-0 to depose Putin's corrupt puppet in 2014, when the people freed Yulia Tymoshenko from prison?

For a guy who is, understandably, a fiery Irish patriot, you have an odd blind spot for the predicament of the Ukrainian people-- who resent being manipulated and murdered by their brutal, imperialist neighbor.

One would think that the Irish, of all people, would sympathize with the plight of the Ukrainians.

And this is an old conflict, similar to events in Kyiv in 1918, as described in Bolshakov's novel, White Guard.

[Greg Doudna]

On 9/9/2024 at 8:21 AM, W. Niederhut said:

Paul,

     Have you even listened to your own video clip here, in which the nefarious Ms. Nuland explains why the Brits and the U.S. advised the Ukrainians that this was a bad deal for Ukraine?

      One of Putin's conditions would have rendered Ukraine essentially defenseless against a future Putin invasion.

Wait a minute. First of all, I preface this comment by saying Putin is the aggressor in that war, full stop.

But I listened to the Victoria Nuland clip. Then I checked and what I found is the KIND of weapons Ukraine was agreeing (in the near-agreement that the major powers advised Ukraine not to sign): nuclear weapons and WMD. 

Unbelievable—THAT is a reason Nuland says the US and UK advised Ukraine not to sign a deal ending the war right then and there. THAT is the reason? Worth hundreds of thousands of lives and casualties to preserve the right to have nukes?

Do you find that a reasonable chief reason to kill a deal that was otherwise roughly acceptable to both sides to end a war? 

And I’ll bet that advice was more than simple elder statesman counsel to naive Ukrainian negotiators. If Ukraine didn’t follow that advice, they would risk losing support of US/UK as allies, which would be catastrophic.

And why would US/UK care if Ukraine agreed to remain nuclear-weapons-free? Well maybe because US/UK interest is larger than Ukraine, as in deterrence against invasion of others such as Poland or whatever. But that then goes into matters larger than Ukraine and sounds like the proxy war description is right. 

Again, Putin is wrong, Ukraine wasn’t in the start of this war. But it’s come down to a CHOICE in response to that invasion to NOT end the horrific holocaust of destruction for basically two reasons: (a) the option to install nukes on Ukrainian soil; and (b) refusal to ratify Russian occupation of territories in which a majority of the people want to be part of Russia.

Is that worth the devastation to an entire nation for the next two years, unimaginable and massive horror and suffering that we cannot imagine as Americans, in order to stand for those two moral principles—the right to install nukes, and the right to maintain control of territory where a majority of the people don’t want your control? 
 

 

[W. Niederhut]

45 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

Wait a minute. First of all, I preface this comment by saying Putin is the aggressor in that war, full stop.

But I listened to the Victoria Nuland clip. Then I checked and what I found is the KIND of weapons Ukraine was agreeing (in the near-agreement that the major powers advised Ukraine not to sign): nuclear weapons and WMD. 

Unbelievable—THAT is a reason Nuland says the US and UK advised Ukraine not to sign a deal ending the war right then and there. THAT is the reason? Worth hundreds of thousands of lives and casualties to preserve the right to have nukes?

Do you find that a reasonable chief reason to kill a deal that was otherwise roughly acceptable to both sides to end a war? 

And I’ll bet that advice was more than simple elder statesman counsel to naive Ukrainian negotiators. If Ukraine didn’t follow that advice, they would risk losing support of US/UK as allies, which would be catastrophic.

And why would US/UK care if Ukraine agreed to remain nuclear-weapons-free? Well maybe because US/UK interest is larger than Ukraine, as in deterrence against invasion of others such as Poland or whatever. But that then goes into matters larger than Ukraine and sounds like the proxy war description is right. 

Again, Putin is wrong, Ukraine wasn’t in the start of this war. But it’s come down to a CHOICE in response to that invasion to NOT end the horrific holocaust of destruction for basically two reasons: (a) the option to install nukes on Ukrainian soil; and (b) refusal to ratify Russian occupation of territories in which a majority of the people want to be part of Russia.

Is that worth the devastation to an entire nation for the next two years, unimaginable and massive horror and suffering that we cannot imagine as Americans, in order to stand for those two moral principles—the right to install nukes, and the right to maintain control of territory where a majority of the people don’t want your control? 
 

 

Greg,

     Hadn't Ukraine already given their nukes to the Russian Federation, years ago, in exchange for an agreement that Russia would not invade their country?

     As for the specific details of the British and U.S. advice about Ukraine not signing the 2022 peace agreement, do you have a reference link for us?

     I would like to study the specific details.

     In the interview clip, (above) Nuland stated the deal would have left Ukraine essentially defenseless against a later Russian invasion.

Edited September 10 by W. Niederhut

[Roger Odisio]

23 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

LOL, John.

I'm still waiting for Roger to tell us when Ukraine ceased being a sovereign nation and UN member, and why a 328-0 parliamentary vote deposing Putin's puppet Yanukovych constituted legitimate grounds for Putin's illegal seizure of Ukrainian territory.

You, Rigby, and Roger, obviously, drank that Kremlin kool aid.

As for Putin's use of modern missiles to commit war crimes against Ukraine's civilian population, I mentioned that in reference to your bizarre whining about U.S. and NATO funding of Ukrainian defense forces. 

Meanwhile, your sophomoric Thomas Szasz reference is genuinely amusing.

Dr. Robert Freedman, our UCHSC department chairman here, and editor of the prestigious American Journal of Psychiatry, always referred to Thomas Szasz as a "gadfly"-- an apt description of your erroneous Education Forum buzz.

 

 

I explained what I meant in my original post.  For you to claim everything I said in that post, fact and analysis, is me simply repeating Russian propaganda is particularly out of line.  That sort of insult, instead  confronting the substance, should be beneath you.  It's particularly egregious coming from a moderator of the forum.

Let's get the facts and time line straight.  On Feb 21, after much violence all around Kiev, Yanukovych fled the city.  The next day Parliament had a vote, in abstentia, meaning Yanukovych wasn't there, to ratify the fact that Ukraine was without a president. And to replace him with the Chairman of the Verkhovna, Rada Turchynov, who serves as acting president when the office is vacant.  The Parliament vote you keep bringing up did *not* depose Yanukovych.  The coup did.

At the same time, the Nuland call two weeks before the coup establishes that the neocons in Washington were preparing to control the country afterwards.  Much like they do in Washington no matter who voters put in the oval office.  The popular mayor of Kiev and former heavyweight boxing champ Vitali Klitschko was a bad choice, said Nuland.  They settled on another fellow more likely to do their bidding.

Off they went to the war with Russia they had always wanted.  Starting with the fake Minsk Accords they never intended to implement as they bought time to build up the Ukrainian army.  As Merkel later unashamedly admitted. 

To the agreement to end the fighting Zelensky initialed a couple months after the war started, only to be scuttled by the neocons.  Ask yourself, why did Zelensky do that?  After about half a million Ukrainians were dead in a war in which they had no chance to prevail, it seems to have been his last, pathetic attempt to break free of the neocons.

Any semblance of Ukrainian sovereignty has long since vanished. 

[W. Niederhut]

4 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Greg,

     Hadn't Ukraine already given their nukes to the Russian Federation, years ago, in exchange for an agreement that Russia would not invade their country?

     As for the specific details of the British and U.S. advice about Ukraine not signing the 2022 peace agreement, do you have a reference link for us?

     I would like to study the specific details.

     In the interview clip, (above) Nuland stated the deal would have left Ukraine essentially defenseless against a later Russian invasion.

Greg,

    I'm still trying to get the specific facts about the unsuccessful 2022 peace deal.

    According to an NPR interview of two academic experts, at the time, there were significant disagreements about the extent of Ukrainian de-militarization required for the deal, which Putin pursued only after the failure of his blitzkrieg on Kyiv.

    There were also significant doubts about whether Putin was negotiating in good faith.

    The two academicians said nothing about your claim that negotiations broke down over the issue of nukes and WMDs.

P.S. There's so much Russian-funded disinformation circulating in Europe and the U.S. that we should all evaluate our sources carefully.

Edited September 10 by W. Niederhut

[Kirk Gallaway]

Yes I've never heard the assertion that the talks broke up over nukes. I've heard what you heard W. that there were about 7 or 8 major issues, with a   couple of concessions made on both sides, and the conditions changed depending on the success of either side in the war.

Roger said this about the Nuland phone call.  "They work out who she wants to replace Yanukovych,  once they remove him in the coup."

I wasn't  familiar with all  the names that were tossed around, but nobody I've heard  has said that Nuland was talking directly about a replacement for Yanukovych in that phone call. .

[W. Niederhut]

46 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Yes I've never heard the assertion that the talks broke up over nukes. I've heard what you heard W. that there were about 7 or 8 major issues, with a   couple of concessions made on both sides, and the conditions changed depending on the success of either side in the war.

Roger said this about the Nuland phone call.  "They work out who she wants to replace Yanukovych,  once they remove him in the coup."

I wasn't  familiar with all  the names that were tossed around, but nobody I've heard  has said that Nuland was talking directly about a replacement for Yanukovych in that phone call. .

Kirk,

    Frankly, I suspect that Nuland has been used by Putin and his clever propagandists in the Western media as a scapegoat for Putin's black ops in Ukraine.  She's a Kremlin disinformazia boogeywoman, as it were.

     Notice that these Nuland narratives always ignore the mass outrage in Ukraine about Yanukovych's blatant corruption, and his incarceration (and hunger strike) of Yulia Tymoshenko.

     Instead, the pretence is that the mass protests against Putin's puppet were entirely the work of the notorious Victoria Nuland-- and that Putin and his imperialist mastermind, Alexander Dugin, were treated unfairly.

    And these Nuland narratives have persisted even after Putin started bombing residential communities in Ukraine.  Putin's war crimes and mass casualties were blamed on the nefarious Nuland, NATO, and the U.S.

Edited September 11 by W. Niederhut

[Greg Doudna]

W., I got my information from this NPR story, "The story behind 2022's secret Ukraine-Russia peace negotiations" https://www.nprillinois.org/2024-05-06/the-story-behind-2022s-secret-ukraine-russia-peace-negotiations. Featured guest interviews with Sergey Radcenko, Johns Hopkins University, and Samuel Charp, RAND Corporation, doing the analysis. So far as I can tell, the two guests combined mainstream credentials and expertise, point of view roughly (my sense) mainstream West position while attempting to be objective. The host of the program is Meghna Chakrabarti.

I read this article after I listened to the Victoria Nuland interview in which she was asked about the story that Ukraine and Russia were close to an agreement but Boris Johnson, UK, advised against it and basically the US/UK thwarted it. The interviewer asked Nuland to say what happened, what about that. Nuland's answer was the critical starting point for me. Nuland basically confirmed the close to agreement business. Nuland then said (this is her version or account of what happened), at a late stage Ukraine had sought US advice. The US looked at the proposed agreement and found buried in the fine print in one of the annexes, or something like that, a poison pill (I don't remember if that was Nuland's exact term for it, but was her sense).

What was the poison pill in the fine print that the US had found, according to Nuland? It was that Ukraine would be limited from the types of weapons it could deploy. Nuland said the US showed this to Ukraine and said that it would leave Ukraine defenseless, and not to agree to it. That was basically Nuland's answer to how the deal that was close, with both sides in basic agreement and an expected closure of the deal, was ended.

Now in this NPR story I looked for what that particular sticking point could be about, of Nuland's reference to restrictions on Ukraine's deployment of weapons.

I saw this:

Speaking of an announcement on March 29, 2022 by Russian lead negotiator Medinsky, stating that the Ukrainians had agreed to principles for an agreement:

CHAKRABARTI: He went on to say the principles include Ukraine's willingness not to join NATO, a renunciation of nuclear weapons, as well as possessing, acquiring, and developing of other weapons of mass destruction. A commitment to hold military drills with foreign military participation only upon agreement with guarantor states among which would be the Russian Federation ... The same day, the top negotiator for the Ukrainian side, David Arakhamia, told reporters that a final agreement could be near.

So to answer your (fair) question, W., I interpreted this as the substance or content of Victoria Nuland's reference. When Victoria Nuland said the US advised torpedoing the anticipated agreement for ending the war on grounds of limits of the types of weapons which could be deployed, well, there it is.

Now if in your research you could actually find and quote from the fine print in that annex or whatever it was that was Victoria Nuland's reference, and it was not talking about or referring to nukes, I am willing to be corrected. But that was my reasoning on that.

Edited September 11 by Greg Doudna

[W. Niederhut]

11 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

W., I got my information from this NPR story, "The story behind 2022's secret Ukraine-Russia peace negotiations" https://www.nprillinois.org/2024-05-06/the-story-behind-2022s-secret-ukraine-russia-peace-negotiations. Featured guest interviews with Sergey Radcenko, Johns Hopkins University, and Samuel Charp, RAND Corporation, doing the analysis. So far as I can tell, the two guests combined mainstream credentials and expertise, point of view roughly (my sense) mainstream West position while attempting to be objective. The host of the program is Meghna Chakrabarti.

I read this article after I listened to the Victoria Nuland interview in which she was asked about the story that Ukraine and Russia were close to an agreement but Boris Johnson, UK, advised against it and basically the US/UK thwarted it. The interviewer asked Nuland to say what happened, what about that. Nuland's answer was the critical starting point for me. Nuland basically confirmed the close to agreement business. Nuland then said (this is her version or account of what happened), at a late stage Ukraine had sought US advice. The US looked at the proposed agreement and found buried in the fine print in one of the annexes, or something like that, a poison pill (I don't remember if that was Nuland's exact term for it, but was her sense).

What was the poison pill in the fine print that the US had found, according to Nuland? It was that Ukraine would be limited from the types of weapons it could deploy. Nuland said the US showed this to Ukraine and said that it would leave Ukraine defenseless, and not to agree to it. That was basically Nuland's answer to how the deal that was close, with both sides in basic agreement and an expected closure of the deal, was ended.

Now in this NPR story I looked for what that particular sticking point could be about, of Nuland's reference to restrictions on Ukraine's deployment of weapons.

I saw this:

Speaking of an announcement on March 29, 2022 by Russian lead negotiator Medinsky, stating that the Ukrainians had agreed to principles for an agreement:

CHAKRABARTI: He went on to say the principles include Ukraine's willingness not to join NATO, a renunciation of nuclear weapons, as well as possessing, acquiring, and developing of other weapons of mass destruction. A commitment to hold military drills with foreign military participation only upon agreement with guarantor states among which would be the Russian Federation ... The same day, the top negotiator for the Ukrainian side, David Arakhamia, told reporters that a final agreement could be near.

So to answer your (fair) question, W., I interpreted this as the substance or content of Victoria Nuland's reference. When Victoria Nuland said the US advised torpedoing the anticipated agreement for ending the war on grounds of limits of the types of weapons which could be deployed, well, there it is.

Now if in your research you could actually find and quote from the fine print in that annex or whatever it was that was Victoria Nuland's reference, and it was not talking about or referring to nukes, I am willing to be corrected. But that was my reasoning on that.

Greg,

   That's the same NPR article I just referenced above.

    The two experts also mentioned;

1) Disagreements about the extent of Ukrainian de-militarization, and

2) Skepticism about whether Putin was negotiating in good faith.

[Jeff Carter]

18 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Greg,

    I'm still trying to get the specific facts about the unsuccessful 2022 peace deal.

    According to an NPR interview of two academic experts, at the time, there were significant disagreements about the extent of Ukrainian de-militarization required for the deal, which Putin pursued only after the failure of his blitzkrieg on Kyiv.

    There were also significant doubts about whether Putin was negotiating in good faith.

    The two academicians said nothing about your claim that negotiations broke down over the issue of nukes and WMDs.

P.S. There's so much Russian-funded disinformation circulating in Europe and the U.S. that we should all evaluate our sources carefully.

Good luck with your research. I would suggest downloading the materials now, as the internet might be spotty while we all cower in our personal bunkers. Word on the street has approval for long-range missile strikes directly into Russia coming on Friday, while Israel has apparently received the green-light for full-scale incursion into Lebanon which may begin on the weekend as well. But in the aftermath there should be plenty of time to argue whether Nuland was a manipulative warmonger or a misguided idealist.