Trusting a KGB thug like Putin out of optimism was forgivable once. But only once. He’s broken every deal, exploited every concession and agreement, and the West keeps lining up to be conned again, this time with Ukrainian blood on the line.
They know, of course. Some are corrupt, happy to sell out Ukraine and Europe. The others are just hoping to pass the buck on Russian aggression like their predecessors did, which is how we got here. And Putin knows it. This is the price of appeasement, and it always goes up.
Imagine had the free world united to curb Putin's aggression in 2008, when Russia invaded Georgia, or 2014, when it invaded Ukraine. Instead they rewarded the attacks with resets & pipeline deals. Incredibly, with entire Ukrainian cities demolished, they want to do it again. No.
Anyone calling for UKR territorial concessions at this point are either Kremlin tools or aren’t honest enough to say they just want Ukrainians to die more quietly & for Putin to consolidate before taking the rest of Ukraine, when they’ll write more articles blaming someone else.
The appeasers are furious that Ukrainians have chosen to live free and die on the battlefield fighting for that freedom instead of dying slowly in Russian slavery. It’s either that or they actually trust Vladimir Putin, which is even more pathetic.
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Uncertainty is better than dictatorship, than terror, than war and invasion. There is opportunity in change, never certainty. Hope, not impossible guarantees, not a failing status quo, but hope. You must take chances to change the world.
Those safe in the halls of power and wealth in the free world tell the people of Iran and Russia and Venezuela that they must live with their dictators. They tell their victims in Ukraine and Israel and Syria and Lebanon that making deals is less risky than taking action.
The possibility of positive change, a chance at freedom and prosperity for their children, must be preferred over the terrible certainty of oppression and life without hope. The dictators and terrorists must fall. If you wait for guaranteed success, you will never succeed.
Providing a platform for authoritarian regimes to have equal status with democratic nations has turned the UN into a cesspool. It was designed to freeze the Cold War between nuclear superpowers, and it mostly worked. The model became obsolete & toxic when the Cold War ended.
It may not be worth the effort of disintegrating the UN, as corrupt and worthless as it is becoming. But there must at least be an alternative organization where dictatorships aren't running human rights committees & authoritarian regimes can't gang up to condemn democracies.
There may be a place for an organization where every nation & regime is treated equally, but such an institution can never be a force for good. Dictatorships are illegitimate by definition. Platforming & empowering them increases all forms of human suffering.
I treasure my own Chess Olympiad memories & would love to just enjoy this Olympiad in Budapest. But politics and the value of human life come first. The Russian Federation is banned, as from most international events, due to Russia's genocidal war in Ukraine. It must be upheld.
As I know from long experience in the USSR and Russia, there is no "just chess," or "just sports" when it comes to propaganda. It means allowing Russia to promote its image on the global stage while murdering Ukrainians in an unprovoked war of conquest.
I was proud to play under the new Russian flag, and I was perhaps the first to insist that I did not represent the Soviet Union. My mother even made me a flag from ribbons for the 1990 world championship. But now that flag represents tyranny & murder. nytimes.com/1990/10/01/wor…
I can’t vote in the US but I am honored to live here and have always admired it. I don’t much care for Harris or many of her policy positions. But even more after seeing Trump tonight, I look forward to vehemently disagreeing with her for four years as US president.
Trump is unfit and always has been. He proved it in office and is only worse now. I’m pretty conservative, but he’s not. He’s the clearer and greater threat to America and American values than the progressive mush that Harris has in her baggage.
As for "Comrade Kamala," allow me a Lloyd Benson moment. MAGA, I know Communism. I grew up under Communism and fought against it and despise it in all its vile, soul-crushing forms. And MAGA, Kamala Harris is no Communist.
Emphasizing that part of this WH fallacy is the idea there is a "Russia" at all on a strategic decision-making level. It’s a one-man dictatorship. There are no core interests except for Putin's. Only when he sees leaving Ukraine as better for his survival than war will he stop.
You cannot negotiate out of a crisis with someone whose survival depends on the crisis continuing. Either Russia destroys Ukraine with massive material and strategic gains, with NATO next, or continuing becomes a threat to Putin’s grip on power so he declares victory & leaves.
This piecemeal support from the West drags it out. Putin is happy to continue the war at this level and escalate opportunistically. He couldn’t care less about Russian lives or the Russian economy or anything else "Russia". Only the threat of an undeniable defeat will stop him.
Ukraine is again proving they know how to fight a dictatorship—with surprise & aggression that creates doubt and fear in the dictator. Meanwhile, its allies continue the failed model of appeasement and diplomacy, which only emboldens the dictator. Read:
Novelty & attack are key. They force decisions all the way up to the dictator & paralyze the power vertical. In a dictatorship, everyone from conscript to general is terrified of making a decision. If it’s business as usual, the behemoth can function. Anything novel is crippling.
Decisions going to Putin is slow & produces cautious reactions. Dictators are fearful; it’s how they survive. Loss of control means death, so they only act aggressively when they are sure of a positive result. They can be wrong, of course, with disaster. So deterrence is vital.