Merkel and Hollande went together to see the president of Ukraine and the Russian dictator, in a last ditch effort before Putin sends his tanks across southern Ukraine (after a barrage of Russian rockets killed scores of civilians in the large Ukrainian town of Mariopol).
The meeting with Putin was icy. Defeated by the Russians, the Ukrainians have to negotiate. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees are evacuating. Putting requested a meeting with Merkel and Hollande alone. He wants the large city of Mariopol (so that, in a few months, he can dash towards Crimea, and then Odessa). Putin also wants twice the territory his agents control in Ukraine. We have seen this sort of methods in Munich, 1938.
OK, let’s be the devil’s advocate. Let’s talk in the name of peace. What does peace fear? War. The president of France just said there was war in Ukraine (the definition of a war is 1,000 killed; more than 6,000 were killed in the war in Ukraine, so far).
“Pacifists” pontificate that no French, German or American, should die for Ukraine: Putin wants Ukraine, let him have it. Who cares about Ukraine? Sounds good, elevated. Peace will follow. If it sounds good, peace should follow. Then “pacifists” preen, deeply self-satisfied with their own goodness, friendliness, generosity, and general standing as higher human beings. They look themselves in the mirror, they love what they see. Theu call themselves progressive, and view others as imperialists, anti-colonialists. If only the rest of humanity could be so detached.
But then the job of the philosophers is to be critical. It is never to opt for the easy way out. Philosophers never follow the herd, stampeding towards happiness. Philosophers ask: why does Putin want Ukraine so much? Putin says Ukraine was always Russian, that Russia owned all of Ukraine, or, at least, half of Ukraine, etc.
These are enormous lies: Ukraine was highly civilized, a millennium ago, and owned Crimea then, when Moscow was not even on any map. Moscow literally did not exist then. Descendants of Ukrainians and Vikings had not gone that far to the east.
In truth, it’s the other way around: demographically, civilizationally, linguistically, historically Russia is a colony of Ukraine. Russia is a poorly educated brat.
And not just that: Russia is, arguably, a degenerate form. Ukraine resisted the Mongols, and got defeated and devastated by them. Moscow then made peace, and collaborated, with the Mongols, and became like them. Just look at Putin, and in particular his slanted eyes: obviously his ancestors were in the sack with Mongols. Maybe Putin is so anxious to show himself a Russian patriot, because, like Lenin, he has slanted eyes? Maybe he wants to show that he is of pure, Russian, white essence?
This mock racist argument is not funny anymore when Putin’s most savage behavior is contemplated. Annexing territory is exactly what Mongols did.
If pacifists want to give Ukraine to Putin, they have to answer this: why?
Just because he wants it? So when the next Mafioso comes along and wants to kill ten million people, just because he wants it, they are going to agree?
At this point, our friends the pacifists look rather criminal. Let’s press them on. Let’s ask: ‘Does Putin wants all this property for the same reason as Hitler wanted the property of the Jews in 1938?”
What, say our friends the pacifists: history is not their forte. Indeed, Hitler attacked the Jews because his massive militarization program had impoverished Germany. He needed wealth and to look victorious.
So Putin is stealing Ukraine, because he wants to look like the one who brings, gifts, the one who augments. This is so true, Octavian, Caesar grand nephew, and heir, was named “Augustus”, the one who augments.
Putin augmented Russia, already Earth’s largest country, by a very long shot, by annexing Crimea. That made him “Augustus”. And 85% Russians now love him, because Putin has augmented their tiny minds. In part thanks to relentless propaganda.
We have seen that before, when all Germans loved Hitler, the more he used his propaganda on them. And even after millions of Germans had been killed, thanks to Hitler.
To be loved more, maybe Putin should kill more people, and even more Russians.
What else? Putin is remaking his entire military, all the way to nuclear forces, as if he knew world war was coming. It cost a gigantic amount of resources. So Russia is getting impoverished, and Putin has to look as the “Augmenter” the hard way: through massive theft.
This is exactly the politico-psychological process Hitler went through.
“Pacifists” said: let Hitler have the Jews, that’s what he wants. No French, British, let alone American, should die for Jews.
Hitler wanted the Austrian Republic? Let him have it. After all, Austria spoke German. Austrian Jews such as Freud could always go live in England. Less fortunate ones could go to Italy, or France.
So hear this, pacifists: there was a matter of principle: can we let the leader of a great nation use massive lethal force to steal massive property? Can we tolerate crimes against humanity?
And think a bit, pacifists: if stealing other countries alleviate the pain the attacking dictator would otherwise suffer, where does it stop?
Putin is the first to annex territory in Eurasia, since Hitler.
Some warn: don’t make Putin mad, he is Hitler, with nukes. Those who give the mad man a reason to attack are maniacs, culprit of war mongering.
Such pacifists are not really even arguing they are pacifists, just that they are cowards, and that cowardice is a most admirable strategy. Those peace mongers are not just dumb and self-satisfied, as usual pacifists are, but they aggravate their case by being cowardly, to the point of unreason.
Not provoking a mad man is no strategy. The question is why is the mad man becoming ever more mad? As I said above, it’s because the economy of his militarizing dictatorship is going down. He has to militarize, to create the impression that Russia, by far the largest country on Earth, is under attack: that activates the fascist reflex. All the Russian baboons then gather behind their chief, and do exactly what their chief is telling them to do. This insures the power of the chief.
Putin is sick, he has to be cured.
Question: why was Putin not acting like Hitler before? Because, before, he was afraid. Afraid of the power of the West. Now he is not. (I explained it had to do with not eliminating the criminal Assad personally; that too, let to the rise of extreme Islam fanatics; but there are other factors, such as a diminution of the military capability of the West, greatly caused by USA stealth planes not working, and Europeans doing austerity on defense. Except for neutral Sweden, which noticed Putin’s madness).
Thus, to make Putin stop, one has to scare him.
Pacifism means to look scary. The Romans put it this way: Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum.
Some will say it’s too scary to try to scare Putin.
Why?
Because, because, because, well, Putin behaves like Hitler, whine the “pacifists”.
Then the question is this: did appeasers not learn history? Trying to make friends with evil does not just endanger peace, it’s a crime.
ELECTING EVIL IN ISRAEL? NOT CLEAR:
Israel is a case in many ways opposite to Russia. Israel is tiny, Russia 70% larger than the three largest countries after it (Canada, USA, China). Israel was founded by people whose country (Israel) was stolen by the fascist Roman state, as punishment for rebellion. But then the Catholics, such as “Saint” Augustine made a morality from what was meant as non-permanent situation.
Netanyahu (nicknamed “Bibi”) is running for re-election, and may well win. With his reassuring baritone. His brother, a crack commando commander, was the only fatality in the hyper daring Entebbe raid he led. Bibi is sort of extreme, he tends to King David’s Israel, the Greater Israel, with all the pesky Palestinians somewhere else. If wars come long and thick enough, the Greater Israel may well become a reality.
Differently from Putin’s mad dream of reconstituting what he calls the “Big Country” makes survival sense. Israel, as it is, is 1,100 times smaller than the empire Putin dreams aloud of.
Bibi can be a baby, as long as Arabs stay even more infantile. As it is, this cannot end well, so the party of Armageddon may as well rule. As long as some participant(s) is(are) looking for a final solution, the others may as well. One cannot make peace alone. But one can make war alone. Bibi is occupying a vacuum.
As long as Israel has good reason to fear for its survival, Bibi and, or, his ideas, and moods will rule. It’s a matter of survival, the best reason there ever was, for most people, most of the time.
Jordan got seriously angry against Daesh (aka “Islamic state”) and conducted air raids against it, after its young F16 pilot with green eyes got burned alive.
Jordan’s anger is healthy. It’s a change of values. The Middle East will bloom, if it aligns its values on the best ones the West ever offered. Look at China: why does it do so well? Because China adopted the high performance aspect of learning long championed, and monopolized, by the West.
Ultimately, the Chinese effort will fail, or, as in Germany a century ago, will have horribly deviant consequences, if it does not embrace the learning of criticism, that is, the learning of going meta, relative to the knowledge we have.
In either case, the West has to remember history, and roll back an educational system where real data is shown, and absorbed (especially at the meta level).
Much of the rise of plutocrats (including increasingly crazed maniac as Putin) is caused by an overall lack of education and a decrease capability to ascertain causation.
When pacifists believe that burrowing their heads in the sand works best to remove threats, they just lack education. There cannot be moralization without education.
Patrice Ayme
