"If Ukraine and the West are guilty, then Russian security services do not have to explain why they failed to stop Islamic terrorists from killing so many Russians, because Islamic terror vanishes from the story. And if Ukrainians are to blame, then this would seem to justify the war that Russia is prosecuting against Ukraine."
If Palestinians and Iran are guilty, then Israeli security services do not have to explain why they failed to stop Hamas terrorists from killing so many Israelis, because the Netanyahu regime's complicity vanishes from the story. And if Palestinians are to blame, then this would seem to justify the war that Israel is prosecuting against Gaza.
The unprecedented political success of right wing religious extremists in Israel lead to the unprecedented intelligence failure of the Netanyahu regime on Oct 7. Prior to Oct 7 the Netanyahu administration was entirely focused on a Federalist Society style court capture - to deprive all Israelis of their civil rights, as they'd already suppressed those of Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Territories. In their blinkered arrogance they did not imagine seeing millions of Israelis in the streets peacefully protesting for months. Nor did they credit warnings of an imminent terrorist attack by Hamas. Netanyahu's razing of Gaza is born out of personal and political panic, an impulse for retribution, and a desire for any distraction. If releasing the hostages and destroying Hamas is the goal, then it is a complete failure. At the cost of slaughtering civilians, creating a humanitarian crisis, and turning Israel into the monster its enemies had malignly and mistakenly painted it as, before Oct 8.
I continue to wonder if Zelensky's refusal to go along with Trump's "request," revealed by Alexander Vindman's heroic whistle blowing, played a part in Putin going to war with Ukraine. I imagine Putin was infuriated that Zelensky wouldn't cave to Trump's pressure. And perhaps this war is at least, in part, punishment from Putin to Zelensky.
“Publicizing the photos of the tortured suspects, as Russia has done, almost seems like goading Islamic State. “
There will now be more attacks by Isis K. I still do not understand why the current Tajik Terrorists did not fight to the death or have suicide vests at the end. It doesn’t match other ISIS terror scripts to escape and be captured. Why not blow themselves up when it appeared they would be captured? Especially in Russia, where they would be tortured?
On my recent flight from CPH-MIA I sat next to a mother with three teenage kids. The oldest of the kids, a young girl slept almost the entire trip, and when I asked her what language they spoke, she said Russian. But she quickly added that they came from Belarus and weren’t Russians.
She also told me that she was so tired, as they had already travelled for a long time. I still wonder why it took them so long to travel from Belarus to Copenhagen? I never saw them in MIA baggage claim and also wonder if they even made it through US Immigration.
Meanwhile, Latvia plans to phase out teaching Russian. 🇱🇻 #ProtectDemocracy
Thanks for this additional appraisal. It is astonishingly on point to make the observation, even if as a strong hypothetical perspective,:
"... Because Putin denies that Islamic State is the actor, he cannot tell Russians that Islamic State is one thing and Muslims in Tajiks in general are another. He has created the impression, instead, that Muslims and Tadjiks are the enemy because they work for the West. "
This also has a significance as perspective, perhaps also better characterized 'hypothetical' , on Trump, his supporters among members of the US House and US Senate, and other of his supporters who regularly attempt to character their political opponents (thus labelled ONLY because these people do not share their views of American society, rule of law civil society, and the US Constitution and its governance system) and many groups of Americans and others as wittingly or unwittingly anti-Trump and anti-Trumpism.
In both instances, vast numbers of people are mislead and misinformed to the extent that they are lead to the false and extremely un-factual and dangerous (universally dangerous) conclusions that they must both fear and oppose these others and that norms that they apply to themselves and to those they like need not be applied to these others.
In both instances, the vicious distortions of peoples' characters and the diversity of aspirations and thoughts are consciously made and broadcast to others from the misplaced fear-based awareness that only others can and do cause one's sense of insecurity, personal danger, of obstacle to living within one's own willful controllable human ecology. This 'helpless and endangered' sense of personal moment and relational agency is so well illustrated by the two very different but very similar willfully acted out career paths of Putin and of Trump. Each and both have such tragic character and tragic living situation histories, and each and both willfully (if not deliberately) makes decision after decision that enforce and more deeply embeds each in tragic conflict with people and institutions around them.
Self-destruction. "Terror, delusion, and self-destruction".
In our support for the Ukrainian self-defense and the reconciliation and novel building of Ukrainian society and of its relations with the communities of the world, it seem to me to be so important and necessary to constantly remind myself to ask them to help us to have the facts - all the facts that they individually and collectively can provide - to assist us in our dialogue with them to dialogue with improved understanding, mutual understanding. This, I choose to believe, is also vital to our domestic American political dialoguing; I must make strenuous efforts and do so conscientiously and continuously to foster mutual understanding, no matter how hard that is when it causes me to question my own 'living map' of others and of the novel realities of the world.
To think more, to think more often beyond the possibilities imposed by fears, and to think of others as having similar capacities to think and to think without the blocks imposed by fears -- these ways of thought and thoughtful perception are, I believe, what has enabled President Zelenskyy and his close supporters (which include the majority of Ukrainians) to consciously support themselves and seek supports from others in order to overcome fear and to continue willfully to build self-defense, to improve self-defense and to work within the notion of 'successful and internationally supported and shared goals of self-defense' leading directly and realistically to a democratic, secure postwar domestic and international civil environment. Environment is the conscious and the practical creation of rule of law, of humanitarian values for social and international relationships, and of a competence-based confidence in doing better future together.
As Tony Judt points out in Postwar, A History of Europe Since 1945, this sort of thinking and thoughtful effort must be on-going and its must have consciously enforced gradual and inclusive character.
Perhaps this is also part of choosing, and doing so with the conscious intention that this is mutual and shared human capacity, to be a 'free' choice-maker and to inform freedom in personal willful agency. A person need not fear the collapse of personal previously held ideas and emotional preferences when conscientiously engaged with others in becoming better and more mutually informed. I am free to have failed ideas, views, emotional preferences; I am being free when I make choices and acting within the intention of personal responsibility to myself and to others, predicated on the awareness that choices and actions may and often do reflect a sense of collective and mutual need but ALWAYS and in all ways do arise from incomplete and partial perception and understanding of the world. Choice, responsibility, mutuality of respect and commitment, limited understanding, willingness to correct and to voluntarily proceed together
This stood out to me: “The Ukrainian far right has never done well in elections, and is far less prominent than in any European state you care to name, let alone the United States. Ukrainians have an active civil society, a vibrant press, multiple political parties, and freedom of speech. Ukraine's president won a free and fair election. He is also, incidentally, Jewish. The Ukrainian minister of defense, for that matter, is a Muslim. The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces was born in Russia, where his parents still reside. This kind of political and social pluralism is unusual by any standards.”
Russians live in such a gray haze unless they have seen outside the country. What else can people do to remain sane but live in an unknowing gray haze? We experienced a similar effect under Trump. It was and is difficult to listen to his finger nails on chalk board bullshit guttural sounds. Then think if this haze of mental survival lasted for decades and generations including persecutions to anyone who tries to claw up and out of the fuzzy gray haze. Suddenly there is a collapse of power and Russia is no longer Communist. By the late 1990s there were Russians who still did not know that had happened. They would not or could not watch tv or keep up with any sort of current events. Some could not afford a tv. Others, the more educated, knew current events under authoritarianism is utter nonesense and bullshit. Then Putin began to come into power. Mostly only educated Russians knew. Putin ordered people to become Russian Orthodox, get baptized, and wear an Orthodox cross necklace showing their baptism. So Russians did. About the only thing Russians know is that following orders and not standing out means survival and most likely there is some propaganda about how following orders will grant a more prosperous life. Maybe that is why many Orthodox converts with their baptismal necklaces were allowed to work outside the country? Look at the Olympics, the ice skaters wore their baptismal necklaces, the synchronized swimmers performed to Russian Christian Orthodox themes. Many did not know why, others probably were grateful for a mental change. But most, after decades and generations of militant atheist rule did not have a clear concept of what Christian Russian Orthodoxy even was. With the exception of what was left of the underground and educated Russian Orthodox believers who's families had long resisted Communism. Which had become very few and far between. They kept warning with mutters under their breath that a KGB thug coming to power would not end well. Their friends exiled outside Russia backed their claims and even more vocally voiced their disapprovals of a KGB thug coming to power. For twenty years. Twenty years of knowing a KGB twenty year strategical cycle, and watching it come to fruition, has to be brutal to anybody's well being and mental health. Starting the twenty year cycle with Bush Jr. "looking into Putin's soul" after hearing Putin's Russian Orthodox baptism story. And then American evangelical after evangelical who during the Cold War stood against militant atheism and were American resistance to Communist dictatorship began to fall. Or die, many were WWII veterans who experienced the horrors of life outside our Democratic American safe haven at young ages. Because Russian KGB dictatorship and propaganda is very crafty at keeping ALL Americans AND ALL Russians in a gray fuzzy confused haze as well. It seems like only our Eastern Block Resistance (Ukraine in particular)....Poland...., many of whom have or had ties to the last underground Soviet Russian Orthodox Christian Resistance fighters have successfully climbed out of the gray fuzzy haze and fully understand what is at stake. Yes, not to undermine the also brave Soviet Jewish Resistance as well. Putin is a classic and horrific Soviet styled KGB trained militant atheist. The faster American evangelicals especially, wrap their heads around this concept, the better off we ALL will be.
Thanks Dr. Snyder for continuing to delineate Putin’s tactics as he works to convince Russians of who the “true enemy” is in this horrible incident. His tried and true tactic of flooding the Russian media with a variety of explanations isn’t new nor is the populace’s tendency to decide that at least one of these stories must be true. All of that fits within the paradigm of never admitting any weakness in the architecture of the state he has created while always blaming a stated enemy for any misfortunes. This is not, IMO, Putin’s mastery of the narrative. It’s the current iteration of a narrative that repeated regimes have employed - a narrative that says we have support the motherland in its constant struggle against the designated aggressors who are always trying to dismantle our motherland. And, unfortunately, it’s an age-old paradigm in the education of Russian citizens that they’ve internalized as true; therefore, making it difficult for them to question.
Meanwhile many Americans spend their time divided between uselessly spending their time trying to understand Putin’s psyche or trying to selectively develop a narrative of history since WWII that posits that we and our Allie’s are as much to blame’s for Russia’s situation today as Putin is. The question here is why? Are these endeavors, which many Americans posit, a hold over from the Fukuyaman belief in the end of history of wars because we are all rational actors in developing a global world view? Or possibly are they related to the public narrative spun by American politicians during Putin’s early days when he was “making nice” with the West? Whatever the explanations we, as a nation, have to come to grips with the change in Putin’s world view in the last couple of decades or so and recognize, as do the European countries who’ve directly experienced Putin’s aggressive stances, that Putin is NOT a victim of western designs against Russia but is, in fact, actively pursuing aggressive tactics that belie the established world order that we have all benefited from since the conventions ending WWII.
Rationality is one item that is definitely in short supply in Putin's Kremlin. He may actually be taking the steps he has and making the statements he has to incite the Islamic State to commit more terrorist attacks. Because with each such attack, he further tightens his grip on the country, blaming the West and proclaiming that he alone can prevent the next one. That is the hallmark of an authoritarian dictator anywhere.
The West, and the rest of the world, needs to do more to choke off trade with Russia - make the citizens realize it is their Leader who is crazed and taking them down a dark path. Stop buying Russian oil and gas. Stop supplying Russia with goods made in the West. Ramp up all the sanctions. While not seeking to make daily life miserable for the average Russian, they must be made to realize that they need to take more concerted action against their so-called Leader. He is no Leader. He is the second coming of Hitler in so many ways, and the world is in the equivalent of the mid-1930s right now.
This is not the first large scale terrorist attack by ISIS against Russia. In 2015, ISIS blew up a Russian passenger plane of Kogalymavia (Metrojet Flight 9268), killing all 224 people on board. They did it most probably as a revenge for Russia supporting the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. ISIS and the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad are fierce enemies. There have been many smaller terrorist attacks by ISIS against Russia, such as the 2017 Saint Petersburg metro bombing, which "only" killed 15 people.
Another reason for ISIS to hate Russia is Russia's support for the Taliban. These two terrorist organizations, ISIS and Taliban, are also bitter enemies.
At first l was confused as to why we were going over the same demarcations, and the known facade that Russian tacticians are putting forth. Then as l read on l realized that Professor Snyder’s explanation is more nuanced. I see this expanded piece, as a warning about how the misuse of power can justify rampant disregard for our own sovereignty, not only as Americans, but as world citizens, often without safety or homes!
When speaking of the abuses of power it is best not to generalize and apply “the rules” you are describing to any other situation!
You are simply making a false comparison and drawing inaccurate conclusions.
Those who use this argument to impune Israel, a nation that has been fighting for its own survival since before its inception, end up misrepresenting the complexities of each conflict.
Throwing casualty rates around brings up the old adage: Figures don’t lie, but liars do figure!
As Dante observed 700 years ago, words are powerful. For Putin and Trump, words are chosen to deceive. They both mix self-serving lies with truths, non-facts with facts, whatever achieves the ends.
The Former President of the United States, and the Leader of the Free World, told his communications staff in the White House, "It doesn't matter what you say. Just repeat it and they will believe you." This will be remembered as Trump's most candid, honest, moment. Defraud. Deceive. Divert. Deflect. Blame. Insult. Defame. It doesn't matter what you say if the words achieve the goal. (Compare his appeal to corruption with the integrity of Washington, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt. And every other American President.)
Putin's speech declaring war on Ukraine (which he says doesn't exist) and the democracy in Ukraine (which he says doesn't matter) is a mess of historical facts mixed with fictions, with the intent to deceive the Russian people, first. The West, second. He continues with his deceptions today.
" In Russia's system, it is not simply political convenience that adds the big lie of Ukrainian jihadism to the big lie of Ukrainian Nazism. It is the deeper need to make reality, or at least psychological reality, conform to the story told by the state. In the psychological project, more killing is necessary. Russians are engaged in the project of killing Ukrainians. Russians in Ukraine torture Ukrainians for being loyal to Ukraine, deport Ukrainian children for assimilation to Russia, and persecute and execute local elites who they regard as threats. Russians fire some combination of shells, glide bombs, drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles at Ukraine every single day, for no reason that communicates with reality. Yesterday, for example, multiple Ukrainian cities were struck by fifty-seven Russian missiles and drones."
This is the key point: Putin's plan is to completely destroy any trace of Ukraine and Ukrainians -- the total annihilation of anything Ukrainian anywhere. He, of course, cannot succeed. Ideas and souls cannot be eliminated from the Universe. Hence, his madness, his increasingly irrational statements and actions. Ukraine is still not dead forever. 🇺🇦Ще не вмерла Україна!🇺🇦
Someone or something has got to make Mike Johnson move on funding aid to Ukraine. He has a lot on his conscience.
"If Ukraine and the West are guilty, then Russian security services do not have to explain why they failed to stop Islamic terrorists from killing so many Russians, because Islamic terror vanishes from the story. And if Ukrainians are to blame, then this would seem to justify the war that Russia is prosecuting against Ukraine."
If Palestinians and Iran are guilty, then Israeli security services do not have to explain why they failed to stop Hamas terrorists from killing so many Israelis, because the Netanyahu regime's complicity vanishes from the story. And if Palestinians are to blame, then this would seem to justify the war that Israel is prosecuting against Gaza.
The unprecedented political success of right wing religious extremists in Israel lead to the unprecedented intelligence failure of the Netanyahu regime on Oct 7. Prior to Oct 7 the Netanyahu administration was entirely focused on a Federalist Society style court capture - to deprive all Israelis of their civil rights, as they'd already suppressed those of Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Territories. In their blinkered arrogance they did not imagine seeing millions of Israelis in the streets peacefully protesting for months. Nor did they credit warnings of an imminent terrorist attack by Hamas. Netanyahu's razing of Gaza is born out of personal and political panic, an impulse for retribution, and a desire for any distraction. If releasing the hostages and destroying Hamas is the goal, then it is a complete failure. At the cost of slaughtering civilians, creating a humanitarian crisis, and turning Israel into the monster its enemies had malignly and mistakenly painted it as, before Oct 8.
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦 I think that it is time to remember that Russia lost the war in Afghanistan in the 1980's.
The Ukrainian forces can prevail if provided with the ammunition they need.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Soviet-invasion-of-Afghanistan
I continue to wonder if Zelensky's refusal to go along with Trump's "request," revealed by Alexander Vindman's heroic whistle blowing, played a part in Putin going to war with Ukraine. I imagine Putin was infuriated that Zelensky wouldn't cave to Trump's pressure. And perhaps this war is at least, in part, punishment from Putin to Zelensky.
“Publicizing the photos of the tortured suspects, as Russia has done, almost seems like goading Islamic State. “
There will now be more attacks by Isis K. I still do not understand why the current Tajik Terrorists did not fight to the death or have suicide vests at the end. It doesn’t match other ISIS terror scripts to escape and be captured. Why not blow themselves up when it appeared they would be captured? Especially in Russia, where they would be tortured?
On my recent flight from CPH-MIA I sat next to a mother with three teenage kids. The oldest of the kids, a young girl slept almost the entire trip, and when I asked her what language they spoke, she said Russian. But she quickly added that they came from Belarus and weren’t Russians.
She also told me that she was so tired, as they had already travelled for a long time. I still wonder why it took them so long to travel from Belarus to Copenhagen? I never saw them in MIA baggage claim and also wonder if they even made it through US Immigration.
Meanwhile, Latvia plans to phase out teaching Russian. 🇱🇻 #ProtectDemocracy
Thanks for this additional appraisal. It is astonishingly on point to make the observation, even if as a strong hypothetical perspective,:
"... Because Putin denies that Islamic State is the actor, he cannot tell Russians that Islamic State is one thing and Muslims in Tajiks in general are another. He has created the impression, instead, that Muslims and Tadjiks are the enemy because they work for the West. "
This also has a significance as perspective, perhaps also better characterized 'hypothetical' , on Trump, his supporters among members of the US House and US Senate, and other of his supporters who regularly attempt to character their political opponents (thus labelled ONLY because these people do not share their views of American society, rule of law civil society, and the US Constitution and its governance system) and many groups of Americans and others as wittingly or unwittingly anti-Trump and anti-Trumpism.
In both instances, vast numbers of people are mislead and misinformed to the extent that they are lead to the false and extremely un-factual and dangerous (universally dangerous) conclusions that they must both fear and oppose these others and that norms that they apply to themselves and to those they like need not be applied to these others.
In both instances, the vicious distortions of peoples' characters and the diversity of aspirations and thoughts are consciously made and broadcast to others from the misplaced fear-based awareness that only others can and do cause one's sense of insecurity, personal danger, of obstacle to living within one's own willful controllable human ecology. This 'helpless and endangered' sense of personal moment and relational agency is so well illustrated by the two very different but very similar willfully acted out career paths of Putin and of Trump. Each and both have such tragic character and tragic living situation histories, and each and both willfully (if not deliberately) makes decision after decision that enforce and more deeply embeds each in tragic conflict with people and institutions around them.
Self-destruction. "Terror, delusion, and self-destruction".
In our support for the Ukrainian self-defense and the reconciliation and novel building of Ukrainian society and of its relations with the communities of the world, it seem to me to be so important and necessary to constantly remind myself to ask them to help us to have the facts - all the facts that they individually and collectively can provide - to assist us in our dialogue with them to dialogue with improved understanding, mutual understanding. This, I choose to believe, is also vital to our domestic American political dialoguing; I must make strenuous efforts and do so conscientiously and continuously to foster mutual understanding, no matter how hard that is when it causes me to question my own 'living map' of others and of the novel realities of the world.
To think more, to think more often beyond the possibilities imposed by fears, and to think of others as having similar capacities to think and to think without the blocks imposed by fears -- these ways of thought and thoughtful perception are, I believe, what has enabled President Zelenskyy and his close supporters (which include the majority of Ukrainians) to consciously support themselves and seek supports from others in order to overcome fear and to continue willfully to build self-defense, to improve self-defense and to work within the notion of 'successful and internationally supported and shared goals of self-defense' leading directly and realistically to a democratic, secure postwar domestic and international civil environment. Environment is the conscious and the practical creation of rule of law, of humanitarian values for social and international relationships, and of a competence-based confidence in doing better future together.
As Tony Judt points out in Postwar, A History of Europe Since 1945, this sort of thinking and thoughtful effort must be on-going and its must have consciously enforced gradual and inclusive character.
Perhaps this is also part of choosing, and doing so with the conscious intention that this is mutual and shared human capacity, to be a 'free' choice-maker and to inform freedom in personal willful agency. A person need not fear the collapse of personal previously held ideas and emotional preferences when conscientiously engaged with others in becoming better and more mutually informed. I am free to have failed ideas, views, emotional preferences; I am being free when I make choices and acting within the intention of personal responsibility to myself and to others, predicated on the awareness that choices and actions may and often do reflect a sense of collective and mutual need but ALWAYS and in all ways do arise from incomplete and partial perception and understanding of the world. Choice, responsibility, mutuality of respect and commitment, limited understanding, willingness to correct and to voluntarily proceed together
This stood out to me: “The Ukrainian far right has never done well in elections, and is far less prominent than in any European state you care to name, let alone the United States. Ukrainians have an active civil society, a vibrant press, multiple political parties, and freedom of speech. Ukraine's president won a free and fair election. He is also, incidentally, Jewish. The Ukrainian minister of defense, for that matter, is a Muslim. The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces was born in Russia, where his parents still reside. This kind of political and social pluralism is unusual by any standards.”
Russians live in such a gray haze unless they have seen outside the country. What else can people do to remain sane but live in an unknowing gray haze? We experienced a similar effect under Trump. It was and is difficult to listen to his finger nails on chalk board bullshit guttural sounds. Then think if this haze of mental survival lasted for decades and generations including persecutions to anyone who tries to claw up and out of the fuzzy gray haze. Suddenly there is a collapse of power and Russia is no longer Communist. By the late 1990s there were Russians who still did not know that had happened. They would not or could not watch tv or keep up with any sort of current events. Some could not afford a tv. Others, the more educated, knew current events under authoritarianism is utter nonesense and bullshit. Then Putin began to come into power. Mostly only educated Russians knew. Putin ordered people to become Russian Orthodox, get baptized, and wear an Orthodox cross necklace showing their baptism. So Russians did. About the only thing Russians know is that following orders and not standing out means survival and most likely there is some propaganda about how following orders will grant a more prosperous life. Maybe that is why many Orthodox converts with their baptismal necklaces were allowed to work outside the country? Look at the Olympics, the ice skaters wore their baptismal necklaces, the synchronized swimmers performed to Russian Christian Orthodox themes. Many did not know why, others probably were grateful for a mental change. But most, after decades and generations of militant atheist rule did not have a clear concept of what Christian Russian Orthodoxy even was. With the exception of what was left of the underground and educated Russian Orthodox believers who's families had long resisted Communism. Which had become very few and far between. They kept warning with mutters under their breath that a KGB thug coming to power would not end well. Their friends exiled outside Russia backed their claims and even more vocally voiced their disapprovals of a KGB thug coming to power. For twenty years. Twenty years of knowing a KGB twenty year strategical cycle, and watching it come to fruition, has to be brutal to anybody's well being and mental health. Starting the twenty year cycle with Bush Jr. "looking into Putin's soul" after hearing Putin's Russian Orthodox baptism story. And then American evangelical after evangelical who during the Cold War stood against militant atheism and were American resistance to Communist dictatorship began to fall. Or die, many were WWII veterans who experienced the horrors of life outside our Democratic American safe haven at young ages. Because Russian KGB dictatorship and propaganda is very crafty at keeping ALL Americans AND ALL Russians in a gray fuzzy confused haze as well. It seems like only our Eastern Block Resistance (Ukraine in particular)....Poland...., many of whom have or had ties to the last underground Soviet Russian Orthodox Christian Resistance fighters have successfully climbed out of the gray fuzzy haze and fully understand what is at stake. Yes, not to undermine the also brave Soviet Jewish Resistance as well. Putin is a classic and horrific Soviet styled KGB trained militant atheist. The faster American evangelicals especially, wrap their heads around this concept, the better off we ALL will be.
Thanks Dr. Snyder for continuing to delineate Putin’s tactics as he works to convince Russians of who the “true enemy” is in this horrible incident. His tried and true tactic of flooding the Russian media with a variety of explanations isn’t new nor is the populace’s tendency to decide that at least one of these stories must be true. All of that fits within the paradigm of never admitting any weakness in the architecture of the state he has created while always blaming a stated enemy for any misfortunes. This is not, IMO, Putin’s mastery of the narrative. It’s the current iteration of a narrative that repeated regimes have employed - a narrative that says we have support the motherland in its constant struggle against the designated aggressors who are always trying to dismantle our motherland. And, unfortunately, it’s an age-old paradigm in the education of Russian citizens that they’ve internalized as true; therefore, making it difficult for them to question.
Meanwhile many Americans spend their time divided between uselessly spending their time trying to understand Putin’s psyche or trying to selectively develop a narrative of history since WWII that posits that we and our Allie’s are as much to blame’s for Russia’s situation today as Putin is. The question here is why? Are these endeavors, which many Americans posit, a hold over from the Fukuyaman belief in the end of history of wars because we are all rational actors in developing a global world view? Or possibly are they related to the public narrative spun by American politicians during Putin’s early days when he was “making nice” with the West? Whatever the explanations we, as a nation, have to come to grips with the change in Putin’s world view in the last couple of decades or so and recognize, as do the European countries who’ve directly experienced Putin’s aggressive stances, that Putin is NOT a victim of western designs against Russia but is, in fact, actively pursuing aggressive tactics that belie the established world order that we have all benefited from since the conventions ending WWII.
Rationality is one item that is definitely in short supply in Putin's Kremlin. He may actually be taking the steps he has and making the statements he has to incite the Islamic State to commit more terrorist attacks. Because with each such attack, he further tightens his grip on the country, blaming the West and proclaiming that he alone can prevent the next one. That is the hallmark of an authoritarian dictator anywhere.
The West, and the rest of the world, needs to do more to choke off trade with Russia - make the citizens realize it is their Leader who is crazed and taking them down a dark path. Stop buying Russian oil and gas. Stop supplying Russia with goods made in the West. Ramp up all the sanctions. While not seeking to make daily life miserable for the average Russian, they must be made to realize that they need to take more concerted action against their so-called Leader. He is no Leader. He is the second coming of Hitler in so many ways, and the world is in the equivalent of the mid-1930s right now.
This is not the first large scale terrorist attack by ISIS against Russia. In 2015, ISIS blew up a Russian passenger plane of Kogalymavia (Metrojet Flight 9268), killing all 224 people on board. They did it most probably as a revenge for Russia supporting the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. ISIS and the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad are fierce enemies. There have been many smaller terrorist attacks by ISIS against Russia, such as the 2017 Saint Petersburg metro bombing, which "only" killed 15 people.
Another reason for ISIS to hate Russia is Russia's support for the Taliban. These two terrorist organizations, ISIS and Taliban, are also bitter enemies.
At first l was confused as to why we were going over the same demarcations, and the known facade that Russian tacticians are putting forth. Then as l read on l realized that Professor Snyder’s explanation is more nuanced. I see this expanded piece, as a warning about how the misuse of power can justify rampant disregard for our own sovereignty, not only as Americans, but as world citizens, often without safety or homes!
When speaking of the abuses of power it is best not to generalize and apply “the rules” you are describing to any other situation!
You are simply making a false comparison and drawing inaccurate conclusions.
Those who use this argument to impune Israel, a nation that has been fighting for its own survival since before its inception, end up misrepresenting the complexities of each conflict.
Throwing casualty rates around brings up the old adage: Figures don’t lie, but liars do figure!
As Dante observed 700 years ago, words are powerful. For Putin and Trump, words are chosen to deceive. They both mix self-serving lies with truths, non-facts with facts, whatever achieves the ends.
The Former President of the United States, and the Leader of the Free World, told his communications staff in the White House, "It doesn't matter what you say. Just repeat it and they will believe you." This will be remembered as Trump's most candid, honest, moment. Defraud. Deceive. Divert. Deflect. Blame. Insult. Defame. It doesn't matter what you say if the words achieve the goal. (Compare his appeal to corruption with the integrity of Washington, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt. And every other American President.)
Putin's speech declaring war on Ukraine (which he says doesn't exist) and the democracy in Ukraine (which he says doesn't matter) is a mess of historical facts mixed with fictions, with the intent to deceive the Russian people, first. The West, second. He continues with his deceptions today.
" In Russia's system, it is not simply political convenience that adds the big lie of Ukrainian jihadism to the big lie of Ukrainian Nazism. It is the deeper need to make reality, or at least psychological reality, conform to the story told by the state. In the psychological project, more killing is necessary. Russians are engaged in the project of killing Ukrainians. Russians in Ukraine torture Ukrainians for being loyal to Ukraine, deport Ukrainian children for assimilation to Russia, and persecute and execute local elites who they regard as threats. Russians fire some combination of shells, glide bombs, drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles at Ukraine every single day, for no reason that communicates with reality. Yesterday, for example, multiple Ukrainian cities were struck by fifty-seven Russian missiles and drones."
This is the key point: Putin's plan is to completely destroy any trace of Ukraine and Ukrainians -- the total annihilation of anything Ukrainian anywhere. He, of course, cannot succeed. Ideas and souls cannot be eliminated from the Universe. Hence, his madness, his increasingly irrational statements and actions. Ukraine is still not dead forever. 🇺🇦Ще не вмерла Україна!🇺🇦
Thank you Dr. Snyder. Is it possible that you have a Russian Language version
of this post. If you do and you would like to know about my purpose in requesting one
I am happy to let you know.