Ukraine and the Doctrine of Just War

[Biggie]

I think the US and UK are not being the good guys here either. The US talks about national sovereignty but will invade whoever whenever its “interests” are threatened, not just its security.
Ed

Huh? Examples and equivalence please!

 

[Biggie]

Honestly, the amount of hysteria and russiophobia that is spreading is truly frightening.

Sorry but this just sounds like a failure to understand the geopolitics in play. Russia has invaded Georgia. It has interjected itself into Syria. It has become the sponsor of Iran. Russia is attempting to make itself the center of influence in the middle east.

At the same time, the move into the Ukraine threatens our Eastern European allies who we most recently disarmed as a “reset” in an attempt to appease Russia. It’s not as if the then Soviet Union had once (within the memory of Putin and all of Eastern Europe’s adults) invaded Hungary and Poland … oh, it did. . Now Russia humiliates the US in its refusal to be appeased, and in its invasion of the Ukraine which we also disarmed with the promise of security we obviously cannot provide. They invaded the Ukraine without the color of uniform, wearing black masks without markings, a clear violation of the Geneva accords. So to date Russia has successfully furthered the destabilization of the Middle East and Eastern Europe while weakening the posture of the US in those theaters and on the world stage.

Meanwhile North Korea fires short range missiles, China hauls out long range missiles. Are they watching? Is a Sino-Russian alignment in play? It is possible. China is at the brink of engagement with Japan over the Senkaku Islands and is at loggerheads with the US over Taiwan. We all know what’s going on with North Korea, a client state of the Chinese.

We are in a historic, critically dangerous period not because of hysteria but because of very real and very imminent threat. To fail to at least recognize the potential is just not responsible.

 

[Durnford]

I always prayed that Russia would come back to God. They did and now they are resisting the evil of Mammon and Baal as represented by the west where money and lust are what we worship. My prayers are with Mr Putin. He needs to defend his people from evil.

 

[Durnford]

Sorry but this just sounds like a failure to understand the geopolitics in play. Russia has invaded Georgia. It has interjected itself into Syria. It has become the sponsor of Iran. Russia is attempting to make itself the center of influence in the middle east.

At the same time, the move into the Ukraine threatens our Eastern European allies who we most recently disarmed as a “reset” in an attempt to appease Russia. It’s not as if the then Soviet Union had once (within the memory of Putin and all of Eastern Europe’s adults) invaded Hungary and Poland … oh, it did. . Now Russia humiliates the US in its refusal to be appeased, and in its invasion of the Ukraine which we also disarmed with the promise of security we obviously cannot provide. They invaded the Ukraine without the color of uniform, wearing black masks without markings, a clear violation of the Geneva accords. So to date Russia has successfully furthered the destabilization of the Middle East and Eastern Europe while weakening the posture of the US in those theaters and on the world stage.

Meanwhile North Korea fires short range missiles, China hauls out long range missiles. Are they watching? Is a Sino-Russian alignment in play? It is possible. China is at the brink of engagement with Japan over the Senkaku Islands and is at loggerheads with the US over Taiwan. We all know what’s going on with North Korea, a client state of the Chinese.

We are in a historic, critically dangerous period not because of hysteria but because of very real and very imminent threat. To fail to at least recognize the potential is just not responsible.

Russia was invaded three times by the west in the last century and US aggression (Atomic bomb , surrounding Russia with missile in Turkey) caused the Cold War. The only American president who reached out to Russia (JFK) was murdered by his own apparatus. I think the rest of the world is now tired of American moral hypocrisy and posturing. Any country which kills its own unborn in such vast numbers is not a country of God but of the deceiver.

 

[GratefulFred]

Russia was invaded three times by the west in the last century and US aggression (Atomic bomb , surrounding Russia with missile in Turkey) caused the Cold War. The only American president who reached out to Russia (JFK) was murdered by his own apparatus.

I think the rest of the world is now tired of American moral hypocrisy and posturing. Any country which kills its own unborn in such vast numbers is not a country of God but of the deceiver.

I disagree that US aggression caused the Cold War or that prior invasions of Russia caused the Cold War. That Russia would be fearful of foreigners is probably true. But we must remember that Communism was the goal set by Russian leaders and they intended to expand that style of government to as many nations around the world as possible. We must also remember that Stalin killed way more Russians than Hitler did Jews and others. Killing your own people is not a retaliation against American aggression or fear of foreigners.

Review the Truman Doctrine and see why it was necessary to set a limit as to how many countries Russia could back under its control.

I agree, America does have a lot of moral hypocrisy these days, but we still have a lot of morals too. And I fail to see how either of your points justifies Russia’s current attempt to deny Ukraine free choice and just take over so the Ukraine serves Russia.

 

[Biggie]

Russia was invaded three times by the west in the last century and US aggression (Atomic bomb , surrounding Russia with missile in Turkey) caused the Cold War. The only American president who reached out to Russia (JFK) was murdered by his own apparatus. I think the rest of the world is now tired of American moral hypocrisy and posturing. Any country which kills its own unborn in such vast numbers is not a country of God but of the deceiver.

Three invasions of Russia by the west last century? The atomic bomb in Turkey causing the cold war? JFK alone reaching out to Russia? This is just utter nonsense as in sounds silly to even repeat it and doesn’t really deserve elevation with a serious reply. Simply put not one word is remotely true - please consult any history text. Any at all.

 

[Durnford]

WWI was followed by the western sponsored white armies which caused much destruction
Then the Germans invaded
After that all Stalin wanted was a barrier
One of Truman’s considerations in dropping the atom bomb was to frighten the Russians who had borne the brunt of the fighting in WWII
The US then surrounded the Russians with hostile states and placed ICBMS’ in Turkey on the border
In response Krushchev tried to place missile on Cuba
JFK was pushed by the securocrats to launch the big one but he and Krushchev agreed on a stand down and the securocrats never forgave Kennedy for that.
Is there any other bits I have wrong here.

 

[Durnford]

Regardless of communism the Russians have returned to God whilst the US seems to only be interested in sodomy abortion and the Oscars
Maybe we should start praying for the conversion of the USA

 

[babochka]

This is what the leader of the world’s Ukrainian Catholics, Major Archbishop (Patriarch)Sviatoslav Shevchuk, has to say about the situation. His statement does not directly address the question of US intervention, but his words are strong and clear regarding the right of the Ukrainian people to defend their homeland.

“With regret, we can say that Ukraine, unfortunately, has been pulled into a military conflict. So far no one is shooting, so far people are not dying, but it is obvious that military intervention has already begun. And so, indeed, the entire world community is on the side of Ukraine, as Russia is the aggressor. The role of the church is consistent. During the last three months, the church, especially the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, was with its people. And it will continue to remain with its people. If, God forbid, we will have to stand together on the battlefield with our soldiers, with our army, the Ukrainian Church, especially the UGCC, is ready to provide pastoral support.

Every citizen of Ukraine must be prepared to defend his or her independent and sovereign state. The church has always sought to defend peace. The church at all costs tried to prevent bloodshed. Unfortunately, there are already victims in Ukraine, and bloodshed was not prevented. We will continue to use every opportunity to relieve tension in society and avoid casualties.

The activity of the AUCCRO over the last three months has shown that the church is fully consolidated. We will not be silent. The church has never covered any falsehood or violence by silence. The church always exposes lies. The church has always defended human life and human dignity. The AUCCRO is not only ready to continue this work, but we are absolutely united. At a time when our Fatherland is in danger, all kinds of interfaith disputes including property issues that may be the subject of discussion between the churches should be put aside. We now need to unite and consolidate in order to protect our people and our country. I appeal to all the faithful of the UGCC and to all the Ukrainian people. Our people and our country are currently in danger. We must stand up for our country, to be ready – if necessary – to sacrifice our lives in order to protect the sovereign, free, independent, and unified state. And here we are absolutely united. We now need to think about what unites us. Our state is a multinational, multiconfessional, but we all have to be together to defend our own independent and sovereign state.”

 

[Biggie]

WWI was followed by the western sponsored white armies which caused much destruction
Then the Germans invaded
After that all Stalin wanted was a barrier
One of Truman’s considerations in dropping the atom bomb was to frighten the Russians who had borne the brunt of the fighting in WWII
The US then surrounded the Russians with hostile states and placed ICBMS’ in Turkey on the border
In response Krushchev tried to place missile on Cuba
JFK was pushed by the securocrats to launch the big one but he and Krushchev agreed on a stand down and the securocrats never forgave Kennedy for that.
Is there any other bits I have wrong here.

I’m thinking now you’re joking. Sorry. For a minute there I actually thought someone could know that little of history. Once you reached absurdity I realized it was a joke.What a relief!

 

[Tzimisce]

I think the US and UK are not being the good guys here either. The US talks about national sovereignty but will invade whoever whenever its “interests” are threatened, not just its security.

In 1994, the United States and the United Kingdom and Russia and China signed an agreement with the Ukraine. Basically the Ukraine would disarm its nukes and disband its military. In the event of conflict, the United States and the United Kingdom would protect the sovereignty of the Ukraine.

As a Senator, Barack Obama visited the Ukraine. He pushed the Senate to send money so that the Ukraine could disarm MORE of their military.

As President in 2009, Obama reaffirmed his commitment to protecting the Ukraine.

And now in 2014, we’re hanging them out to dry.

But what do you expect from a government that constantly lies to its own people?

Why would ANYONE now want to make ANY type of agreement with the US when the next US election is four years away at its furthermost?

theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/28/ukraine-accuses-russia-of-taking-over-airports-live-updates?view=desktop#block-531112b3e4b093d4729c2f16

 

[Durnford]

I’m thinking now you’re joking. Sorry. For a minute there I actually thought someone could know that little of history. Once you reached absurdity I realized it was a joke.What a relief!

Just asking but is there one factual inaccuracy in the events I Have listed.
Maybe you should just for once try and see the world from some one else’s perspective
Mother Russia lost up to twenty million people defeating Facism
How many did the west lose?
Just asking

 

[GEddie]

There were indeed three historically recent invasions of Russia from the west, although in somewhat over a century:

1). Napoleonic France in 1812. They got all the way to Moscow, which burned, and this war is commemorated in the famous 1812 Overture.

2). Germany in 1914 (WW1).

3). Nazi Germany in 1941 (WW2).

129 years, not 100.

Not even counting the Anglo-American expedition to Arkhangelsk in 1920 against the Bolsheviks.

The Russians have every right to be xenophobic. Look how obsessive we as Americans are about “arming against tyranny,” yet our continent has not been invaded since the war of 1812 (which we brought on ourselves).

And I don’t think we as Americans really want to set the precedent of world intervention every time there is a local conflict between neighboring nations. How many times in the 1900s have we intervened militarily in Mexico, Central and South America, or the Caribbean? Would we have welcomed the world or the CCCP in our faces each time we did such?

ICXC NIKA.

 

[anthonymarie]

Russia’s actions at the moment are completely understandable and any powerful enough country would have responded in a similar way.

Just imagine for a moment that there was a somewhat precarious revolution in Mexico in which a large group of people (although evidently not a majority else they would have won the previous election) overthrew a democratically elected pro-US government and replaced them with a non-elected anti-US government. How would the US respond?

There the analogy has to end, but in fact the reality for Russia is far worse than that even, The Crimea is so important for Russia strategically that losing the ability to station troops and vessels their would be detrimental to what they see as their national security.

Russia’s actions are predictable and natural responses that any world power would exhibit in those circumstances. Look at how the US and UK responded to a perceived (but in fact non-existent) threat on the other side of the world (Iraq). China reserves the right to invade Taiwan. India are still in control of Kashmir. The UK are still in control of Northern Ireland.

If they do hold a free and fair referendum, and the people of Crimea do want to join the Russian Federation, then what’s all the fuss about? I find the idea of “an illegal referendum” laughable. In a democracy, how can a referendum ever be a bad thing? How can people even talk about war when the majority of people in the Crimea are Russian. Doesn’t anyone remember the Falklands War? The UK waging war on the other side of the world to “protect” UK citizens that just so happened to be living on a very strategically important island? Where was America’s voice then?

 

[edwest2]

In 1994, the United States and the United Kingdom and Russia and China signed an agreement with the Ukraine. Basically the Ukraine would disarm its nukes and disband its military. In the event of conflict, the United States and the United Kingdom would protect the sovereignty of the Ukraine.

As a Senator, Barack Obama visited the Ukraine. He pushed the Senate to send money so that the Ukraine could disarm MORE of their military.

As President in 2009, Obama reaffirmed his commitment to protecting the Ukraine.

And now in 2014, we’re hanging them out to dry.

But what do you expect from a government that constantly lies to its own people?

Why would ANYONE now want to make ANY type of agreement with the US when the next US election is four years away at its furthermost?

theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/28/ukraine-accuses-russia-of-taking-over-airports-live-updates?view=desktop#block-531112b3e4b093d4729c2f16

At the start of World War II, Britain and France had an agreement to defend Poland. They did nothing militarily. All they did was to allow the Polish government to travel to Great Britain to avoid capture. Meanwhile, the Russians attacked Eastern Poland under a previous agreement with the Germans. That agreement was later broken as German intelligence revealed that the Russians were sending and stockpiling weapons, vehicles, aircraft and other equipment along their side of the border. Hitler realized what Stalin was about to do and launched a first attack.

The Ukrainian people are fiercely independent and will remain so. However, this recent crisis has not affected Wall Street, so everything appears to be going according to plan.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Tzimisce]

“Justice” has no definition.

 

[Protector]

fnr;11765244] Hitler began his conquests by rolling through neighboring countries and expanded his war in a mad grab for “Lebensraum” (which I understand as “breathing room”) for the German people. Now, in the name of protecting ethnic Russians in Crimea, Vladimir Putin is invading Ukraine. That’s a very stark way to put it, but who knows the future? It seems to me that Putin is asserting a territorial claim based on ethnic domination.

I was doing a little research on the Goths today and came across the following:-

Crimean Goths were those Gothic tribes who remained in the lands around the Black Sea, especially in Crimea. …The Ostrogoths became vassals of the Huns until the death of Attila, when they revolted and regained independence. Like the Huns, the Goths in the Crimea never regained their lost glory. (Wikipedia)

The Goths apparently, were a Germanic people, so maybe the Russians were the invaders in the first place - Just a thought.

Protector.

 

[GEddie]

“Justice” has no definition.

Which means it depends on whatever those in command say it is, correct??

 

[Biggie]

Just asking but is there one factual inaccuracy in the events I Have listed.
Maybe you should just for once try and see the world from some one else’s perspective
Mother Russia lost up to twenty million people defeating Facism
How many did the west lose?
Just asking

You didn’t cite three “invasions of Russia” by the West in the last century so why did you offer it? It’s silly.No such “invasions” occurred. In one you did cite, Germany, the US and Britain were Russia’s (using Russia for Soviet Union where applicable) allies. In fact the US and Russia were allies in the two world wars, although in the first Russia withdrew as Marxism lead to the upheaval of its society and political structure.

Your statements regarding JFK are simply not true history. For one, numerous American Presidents have engaged in relations and rapprochement with Russia. FDR, for example, and many members of his administration, according to some accounts, were sympathetic to Communists. There is no doubt FDR sat down with Stalin as an equal at Yalta. Likewise Nixon, Carter and Reagan made a variety of serious attempts at normal relations with the Soviet Union. As to JFK, his relations with Khrushchev are a matter of history and were by no means normal ( cfr the first meeting between the two, cfr the Cuban Missile Crisis, cfr Cuba and the Bay of Pigs).

There is no doubt that in the aftermath of WWII, while the US engaged in the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, Stalin built a wall to partition Germany, a symbol of what came to be referred to as “the Iron Curtain.” If you wish to date the beginning of the Cold War, this might be a good place to mark it, and if not there, then perhaps Sputnik where Khrushchev tried to assert dominance in space, launched the “space race” and had children all over this country learning to hide beneath their desks in the event of a nuclear attack from Russia. This period was highlighted by Khrushchev’s challenge to the US, “We will bury you.” Your assertion the missiles in Turkey started the cold war kind of ignores the whole history of Communism in Russia and deserves a face palm.

You cannot seriously speak sympathetically of Stalin. Even if you chose to overlook the purge (murder) of members of his administration and his own family, you cannot overlook his murder of at least as many millions of his countrymen as Hitler murdered of his. Likewise, you cannot forget to mention that through most of the last century Russia became the Soviet Union, a Marxist state. You may need to look up Dialectic Materialism to understand the implications of Marxism and why it is not only offensive to the free world but also to the Church. It might be enough to say, however, that the Dialectic presumes conquest by the Marxist state. It is aggressive, it believes, as a matter of scientific fact and the whole point of the Marxist state is to be a place holder until the world succumbs.

Now I hate long responses. I don’t object to other people’s perspectives, but you can’t distill history to the extent you have and make it history at all. It becomes fiction.

 

[Durnford]

You didn’t cite three “invasions of Russia” by the West in the last century so why did you offer it? It’s silly.No such “invasions” occurred. In one you did cite, Germany, the US and Britain were Russia’s (using Russia for Soviet Union where applicable) allies. In fact the US and Russia were allies in the two world wars, although in the first Russia withdrew as Marxism lead to the upheaval of its society and political structure.

Your statements regarding JFK are simply not true history. For one, numerous American Presidents have engaged in relations and rapprochement with Russia. FDR, for example, and many members of his administration, according to some accounts, were sympathetic to Communists. There is no doubt FDR sat down with Stalin as an equal at Yalta. Likewise Nixon, Carter and Reagan made a variety of serious attempts at normal relations with the Soviet Union. As to JFK, his relations with Khrushchev are a matter of history and were by no means normal ( cfr the first meeting between the two, cfr the Cuban Missile Crisis, cfr Cuba and the Bay of Pigs).

There is no doubt that in the aftermath of WWII, while the US engaged in the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, Stalin built a wall to partition Germany, a symbol of what came to be referred to as “the Iron Curtain.” If you wish to date the beginning of the Cold War, this might be a good place to mark it, and if not there, then perhaps Sputnik where Khrushchev tried to assert dominance in space, launched the “space race” and had children all over this country learning to hide beneath their desks in the event of a nuclear attack from Russia. Your assertion the missiles in Turkey started the cold war kind of ignores the whole history of Communism in Russia and deserves a face palm.

You cannot seriously speak sympathetically of Stalin. Even if you chose to overlook the purge (murder) of members of his administration and his own family, you cannot overlook his murder of at least as many millions of his countrymen as Hitler murdered of his. Likewise, you cannot pretend that through most of the last century Russia became the Soviet Union, a Marxist state. You may need to look up Dialectic Materialism to understand the implications of Marxism and why it is not only offensive to the free world but also to the Church. It might be enough to say, however, that the Dialectic presumes conquest by the Marxist state. It is aggressive, it believes, as a matter of scientific fact and the whole point of the Marxist state is to be a place holder until the world succumbs.

Now I hate long responses. I don’t object to other people’s perspectives, but you can’t distill history to the extent you have and make it history at all. It becomes fiction.

I am sorry but what do you call the German Invasion of Russia in WWI, The Landing of British Troops in Russia in 1919 and Operation Barbarossa if not invasions?
Where have I ever spoken sympathetically of Stalin?
Russia existed long before Communism and as you can see she will exist for a long while yet as a Christian country. She has reason to doubt the integrity of the west.
As for the origins of the Cold War I think you are quite incorrect.
There is little doubt that Munich was an attempt by the wets to turn German aggression against the USSR. Furthermore after the war Stalin are no real attempt to help the communist in Greece as he and FDR and Churchill and already divided the wold up into spheres of influence, It was US intransigence and insistence on building up the defeated aggressor Germany that contributed greatly to the Cold War. You can argue about perspective but my facts are actually correct despite what you seem to think.