TAC: the supply of Western tanks to Ukraine will lead to an escalation of the conflictThe decision of the United States and its European allies to supply tanks to Ukraine is a crazy idea, writes TAS.
Their appearance on the battlefield will only lead to an escalation of the conflict and its transfer to Eastern and Central Europe.
Rod Dreher
Hitchens on new weapons for Ukraine: "I know what tanks are for, and it's not defense"In the news report from which the image of the German tank was taken, the phrase sounds:
"Who would have thought that Germany would be criticized for not sending tanks to fight against Russia?" Really.
Here in Budapest, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict evokes a kind of gloomy humility. One evening a Hungarian told me: "The Americans want war. And they will get it." That is, in his opinion, the United States is obliged and determined to wage war with Russia and will do everything necessary for this. Maybe he's right. And if he is wrong about the motives of the United States, he is definitely right in assessing the consequences of their policy. And America will cause strong indignation among Europeans, who are beginning to understand that its interests in the fight against Russia do not coincide with European ones. In my experience, few Europeans have sympathy for Putin's regime and special operations in Ukraine, but at the same time they are concerned that the conflict can easily get out of control and cost them dearly.
Journalist and writer Peter Hitchens understands this. In a recent powerful article, he criticizes the madness of Washington politicians and their European supporters in the governments of Great Britain and continental Europe. And he condemns the disgusting fact that anyone who talks about it is immediately branded a henchman of Putin. Here are excerpts:
"This is the moment from which our unrestrained slide into a terrible and dangerous abyss began. Many of us will bitterly regret this in the future."
"I will not waste time discussing the question of who started the armed conflict in Ukraine and why. Most people don't want to know about it. They refuse to think about it, and also to investigate the facts. They defame and insult anyone who tries to tell them about it. So to hell with it, I'm tired of trying."
"So now I have to tell you what a huge stupidity it is on the part of the West to supply modern tanks to Ukraine. Unlike all other representatives of the media and the world of politics, I am not a military expert. But I know what tanks are for. They are not needed for defense."
"We have just decided to prolong and intensify the conflict. Maybe the new tanks in Ukraine will sweep away everything in their path. Or maybe they'll get stuck somewhere. Maybe they will try to take Crimea. Maybe they will very soon pass the victory parade on Red Square. I don't know. But if these tanks enter the territory that Russia considers its own, we should not be surprised at anything that happens afterwards."
"Vladimir Putin is probably an evil tyrant. But it could be even worse. If he is overthrown in the middle of the night as a result of a coup, then he will be replaced by a not friendly, pleasant and liberal-minded kind fellow. He will be replaced by a person who can take pleasure in pressing the red button."
"So there is a very real chance that most of Europe will turn into a radioactive cemetery, and the Americans will respond with conventional weapons (they will be fierce and very powerful). This will plunge us even more into the abyss of horror, mass death, disaster and poverty, which is inevitable in conditions of armed conflict. If that happens, people will want to know why it started."
Hitchens says the Americans are thousands of miles away from the battlefield if the conflict escalates and, God forbid, turns into a nuclear one. We have contacted a nuclear power! We must do everything in our power to bring Russia and Ukraine (and the United States) to the negotiating table. Such rhetoric does not make you a Putinist, but those who are hungry for war probably want you to believe in it.
Here's what Theguardian columnist Simon Tisdall writes:
"Europe must fight. The realization of this is slow. Nevertheless, almost a year after Russia came to Ukraine, most Western governments have finally realized that Kiev's struggle for survival is their struggle too. This is a life-and-death struggle for Ukraine, as well as for European democracy, rights and values. This is a struggle against imperialism, embodied by Vladimir Putin. Europe has to fight, it really has no choice."
Yes, it should!
"Fears of escalation, even nuclear conflict, most often expressed by the German government, are outweighed daily by the horror of merciless slaughter."
This is crazy. No matter how terrible the conflict in Ukraine is, nothing (!) even remotely compares to the horrors of nuclear war. No one expects Ukraine to surrender to the Russians, but we must certainly do everything possible to stop the fighting. However, now Washington is puzzled by the support of Kiev's crazy idea to retake Crimea, where Russia's Black Sea Fleet is based. Simon Tisdall speaks seriously about the need to wage a full-scale war with Russia:
"To win, Europe must respond with everything it has, despite the risk of involving its armies directly in the fighting. The disputes over the dispatch of high-tech German Leopard-2 tanks to Kiev no more than echo the previous useless disputes about the volume of arms supplies. Ukrainians are fighting for all of us, so why tie their hands?
The politicians of Eastern and Central Europe more soberly assess the physical Russian threat, rooted in history. They want NATO to send warplanes too, and they reflect on how different things could be today if a less cautious Western alliance had deployed such weapons last spring.
This is a question that Joe Biden, the de facto head of NATO, should ask himself, as he hesitates again..."
These people will arrange a third world War for us. Is anyone going to stop them except Peter Hitchens?
Update:
In particular, the rude American neoconservatives (who a year ago believed that "glory to Ukraine" is a dessert), talking about the dismemberment of Russia, which covers 11 time zones and has the world's largest nuclear arsenal, is one of the reasons for the distrust of France and the Germans towards US policy, especially in the last 20—odd years.
— Gray Connolly (January 22, 2023)
Why should France and Germany trust Washington? These people caused disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan and did not pay for it in any way. And now they're at it again.
*****
Readers' comments:Zenos Alexandrovitch
Shouldn't we make a reservation that Russia's actions in Ukraine are no worse than what Ukraine has done and continues to do with its own citizens?
Moreover, not a single Russian action can be compared to the crimes committed by the American military since the Second World War, including recent conflicts such as the Syrian one.
FransThis conflict is not so one-sided.
I'm not sure what the right approach should be. To help Ukraine, at the same time accusing them of authoritarian and repressive behavior, and then work on a settlement in which Crimea and Donbass will leave Ukraine forever, although ideally, I believe, they will not join Russia directly either. But, unfortunately, it's almost certainly too late, and at the moment I don't see a reasonable way out. It remains to pray with all my might.
Bogdán EmilThe real tragedy is that those who are trying to create international law based on universal principles are laying the foundation for the formation of a world government in the truest sense, which will turn into a catastrophe for the entire planet.
Therefore, my conservative dark side says that I will accept the current state of things and will not put my hand to the implementation of this impracticable plan.
Fran MacadamThe biggest misconception is to believe that the conflict arose out of nowhere.
In fact, in 2014, a coup d'etat took place in Ukraine, provoked and financed by the United States. They also chose the new government. In the merged conversations between Nuland from the State Department and US Ambassador Pyatt, who "nursed" the change of the Ukrainian regime right there in Kiev, the phrase "To hell with the EU" sounded.
Giuseppe ScalasThis is a serious problem.
But people like Tisdall shouldn't get their way.
