Ukraine and racism

by liberal japonicus

The discussion about 'tankies' in the comments had me thinking about a number of things. I imagine all of you have seen various discussions of how the Ukraine conflict has laid bare some racist thinking. If you haven't, these two Daily Show segments can probably catch you up.
Here and here
Or this one, which gives the story without the jokes
Here

A few observations, I hope they are of interest. I'm certainly not up on all the coverage, what I get is largely English (US/UK) and I haven't followed any of European outlets as things have gone so quickly. But I think that there are some different threads to the differential reaction to Ukraine that need to be disentangled. Obviously, the reports about how the Ukrainian refugees are somehow 'more like us' along with the idea that this is a bigger tragedy because it is a 'civilized' country are underpinned by racism. But there are other factors.

I feel that some people want to feed that war jones. A major thread of the punditocracy is wanting to talk about military strategy and tactics. Now, having folks like the Ukrainians makes it a lot easier to discuss conflicts like that as opposed to ones where the US is on one side. And there is also a love of the underdog that can't be trotted out when the underdog is Iraq or, god forbid, Palestine. So you've got a (probably mythical) Ghost of Kyiv, but you don't have the equivalent for the Gaza strip. And while I'm sure Palestinians have told Israeli troops to f**k off, it seems so much more exciting when it is a bunch of Ukrainians on Snake Island making their last stand. Adducing that the people cheering on the Ukrainians are racist might be a stretch, depending on the person.

I imagine that people who were drawn to something like Civil War reenactment might be excited for a 'good war' that might provide more rhetorical defenses that running around in butternut grey. (I should acknowledge, I was a wargamer, with a subscription to Strategy and Tactics, and played war games all through high school. So I understand the impulse)

Finally, there is also that Russia is the one getting bloody nose. I used to have a t-shirt that said 'I'll root for the Cowboys when they play the Russians'. I remember Dana Rohrbacher, wing-nut from Orange County, who fought with the Taliban when they were fighting the Russians.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/04/dana-rohrabacher-afghanistan-war/

The word 'civilized' is interesting too, the US embassy in Ukraine's twitter troll in response to Putin's ahistoricism
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-embassy-trolls-russia-meme-after-putin-ukraine-history-rant-2022-2

underlines how it's always the good guys who are civilized, the bad guys aren't, and some of the reactions to Russians have an underpinning of racism as well.
https://www.axios.com/russian-businesses-us-vandalism-threats-bdde1c92-d661-48d5-9157-c540964b00fb.html

I suppose that in a laboratory, you could isolate these. A person who is so in love with underdogs that when an actual military is an underdog, they can let their flag fly. I mean, civil war reenactors, A person steeped in the notion of commie bastards can jump on the side of Ukraine whole heartedly despite not having a racist bone in their body. But in the real world, nothing is 100% pure.

Here in Japan, there has been a lot of support, the government, notorious for its eyedropper approach for accepting refugees, has shown a remarkable willingness to accept Ukrainian refugees
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Ukraine-war/Japan-Inc.-steps-up-fast-to-offer-support-to-Ukraine-refugees
though the devil is in the details

On the other hand, Uniqlo, a Japanese fast fashion brand, is resisting calls to pull back from Russia
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markfaithfull/2022/03/08/fast-retailing-defiant-as-it-keeps--russian-uniqlo-stores-open/?sh=44ef9b5c36a0

which will be interesting to see if there is a consumer backlash.

There is also a historical echo, after the Russian Revolution, a large number of Russians came to Japan and formed enclaves, most notably in Kobe and Tokyo.
https://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/130000994724/amp/en

Unfortunately, while this article gives 5 possible outcomes, I think there is only 2. One, the Ukrainians are screwed, with some sort of echo of the Troubles in Ireland or we all are screwed.

Anyway, a new thread.

Comments

[Michael Cain]

...the Ukrainians are screwed, with some sort of echo of the Troubles in Ireland...

The various Irish groups had to make do with hand-built improvised explosives and small arms. The Ukrainian resistance starts with some thousands of shoulder-mounted anti-tank and anti-helicopter weapons. Well, not just anti-helicopter if you can get into a position where the jets are flying low and slow. And a bit more motivation, since the Russians seem willing to reduce Ukrainian cities to rubble, which the English never did to the Irish.

As if the campaign is not doing enough damage to the Russian military, an occupation where the insurgents have plenty of effective anti-tank and anti-helicopter weapons is going to bleed them like no occupying force has been bled. Imagine the Vietcong with 10,000 Javelins, Stingers, and equivalent.

I'm not good at predictions, but I think the most likely end game is the Russian military deposes Putin, withdraws, and makes a big deal out of stripping the oligarchs to pay (insufficient) reparations while they rebuild on a smaller but much more professional scale.

[wj]

I think the most likely end game is the Russian military deposes Putin,

I'm guessing that first we see a series of Russian military leaders getting fired (or assassinated/executed) by Putin for failing to deliver the quick and easy victory he expected. Until whoever is next in line to take command decides that taking out Putin, however risky and difficult, still gives a better chance of survival.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

It's possible that Putin could have an accident.

Y'know, like tripping and somehow impaling his head with an ice-ax while cleaning his Kalashnikov, getting caught in the accidental discharge.

Pausing only twice to reload. An accident, da?

[russell]

My guess, which is worth less than two cents, is that Putin says f*ck it all and batters the Ukraine into rubble.

And I don't know what happens after that.

And yes, there is a palpable difference in how we (here, in the west) see the Russian invasion of the Ukraine vs invasions of countries not in Europe.

[wj]

An accident, da?

"We know it was an accident, because he's been made a national hero...." By the folks who were first on scene.

[ral]

Snarki, you make me think of the scene in the Cycling Tour at the British Embassy in Smolensk.

He have heart attack and fell out of window onto exploding bomb and was killed in a shooting accident.

Or perhaps he will just have a severe cold, like Yuri Andropov.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

"There is nothing at all to be done about it;
There is nothing to do about anything.
And now it is nearly time for the News;
We must listen to the Weather Report
And the international catastrophes"

The Chorus, from T.S. Eliot's "The Family Reunion".

CELIA from Eliot's "The Cocktail Party":

...everyone's alone - or so it seems to me.
They make noises, and think they are talking to each other;
They make faces, and think they understand each other..."

Well, under the circumstances, that could have been worse, couldn't it have been?

[liberal japonicus]

Michael, that's a good point. I wonder if I'm falling into the 'civilized' trope, imagining that they couldn't/wouldn't go that far (both Ukrainians AND Russians), and I feel that if you have a lot of _your own_ infrastructure, it might be difficult to be level it all to fight. Folks can correct me if I'm wrong, but all the conflicts/places where you have cities leveled because of boots on the ground have been when the city has been fought over by two armies that don't own it. The counter examples would be Stalingrad and Berlin, which might be defined as special cases. Are we seeing kyiv being named in the same breath?

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/08/europe/kyiv-defense-ukraine-russia-intl-cmd/index.html

Wikipedia on open cities
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_city

My fault for thinking that, after 2 years of Covid, things could not possibly get worse.

[Girl from the North Country]

I've been thinking of the assassination of Putin as being the answer since the beginning, but when I read the transcript of Ezra Klein's interview with Fiona Hill in the NYT yesterday, she makes clear how very dangerous this thinking/talking is.

Having said that, I like Michael Cain's prediction @08.34 above, but I think it's probably wishful thinking, and russell's first para @09.31 is more likely. And, as usual, the rest of what russell said as well.

[wj]

all the conflicts/places where you have cities leveled because of boots on the ground have been when the city has been fought over by two armies that don't own it. The counter examples would be Stalingrad and Berlin, which might be defined as special cases.

Then there's Dresden. Pretty much leveled by the fire bombing, without an opposing army (the boots on the ground kind) being anywhere close. Given the range of artillery (conventional and missiles) these days, that might be a close analogue.

[wj]

Here is a gem from an interview with Latvia’s Defense Minister Artis Pabriks:

...if they are not waging ‘war’ in Ukraine, according to Putin’s definition, then we are also not putting economic sanctions on them. It is simply a ‘financial operation.’

"Financial operation" -- gotta love it!

[liberal japonicus]

If it were aerial assault, you'd include most of the major cities in Japan. However, it seems that the kind of bombing that resulted in that kind of destruction has largely disappeared, as munitions are 'guided', though I wonder what the technology level is for Russian munitions.

I also wonder if Putin would rather have the army take over the city rather than standing back and shelling the hell out of it or doing the same as an aerial assault.

[wj]

it seems that the kind of bombing that resulted in that kind of destruction has largely disappeared, as munitions are 'guided'

But has it? Perhaps I am mis-informed, but my impression is that quite similar attacks are currently happening in Yemen. To give just one example.

[novakant]

Racism is definitely a big factor, but in this case not the only one - here's a thread by a Asst Prof of PoliSci who wrote a book about the subject:

https://twitter.com/LAbdelaaty/status/1500885565864042502

[wj]

Racism is definitely a big factor

*A* factor, certainly. But I think that it rates as a "big" factor only if you use "race" in a very sloppy manner. For example, Syrians are, on any sensible definition, "white." But they were not welcomed -- for reasons I would describe as cultural rather than racial.

[Hartmut]

If no target of worth is left (and the battle not won), one has to bomb the rest, doesn't one?

Which reminds me of Rumsfeld's argument about going to Iraq instead of Afghanistan because the latter had so few targets worth hitting.
And some very racist editorial cartoons about the Iraqi forces being towelhead camel drivers with donkey based artillery (very similar in spirit to anti-Japanese cartoons from WW2).

[wj]

If no target of worth is left (and the battle not won), one has to bomb the rest, doesn't one?

If no target of worth is left (and the battle not won), one has to rethink whether bombing is still (or ever was) a useful tactic for this battle. Too often, I think, bombing is employed simply because it is the tool at hand -- when your prime tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

[hairshirthedonist]

*A* factor, certainly. But I think that it rates as a "big" factor only if you use "race" in a very sloppy manner. For example, Syrians are, on any sensible definition, "white." But they were not welcomed -- for reasons I would describe as cultural rather than racial.

Is “you” the person describing the racism or the racist? I think you (wj) might be giving racists too much credit for using (presumed) “sensible” definitions of race. Race is fundamentally bullsh*t to begin with and deployed as needed and inconsistently.

[nous]

I'm with hairshirthedonist on this one in the Wittgenstein camp on "racism" not the Bertrand Russel camp.

Race does not have to be a rational construct, consistently deployed, for it to exist as a category of animus. We are not, on an operational level, rational creatures.

[wj]

hsh, I suspect that racists rarely have a single axis of bigotry. But if we are going to usefully describe their actions as "racist" (which some of those actions definitely are), it would be better to not use that as a generic term for any and all bigotry.

Is religious bigotry (cf India) racism? Is bigotry against gays racism? Painting with too broad a brush does not add clarity to a discussion. Not to mention that it gives other bigots an undeserved excuse if they don't include race among their bigotries.

[JanieM]

nous, have you read Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson? If so, what did you think? (Or anyone else who might have tackled it.)

My book group read it recently, and the examination of American "racism" in terms of caste was enlightening. The comparison with India and Nazi Germany was also useful.

PS: I'm not bringing this up to quibble about words and definitions. The book is long and difficult, both scholarly and personal, and I found it deeply thought-provoking, if depressing as hell.

[nous]

JanieM - I have not read Caste and don't foresee the opportunity any time soon. Right now I am reading to update all the materials for my Children in Armed Conflict class that I have not taught in three years (last minute course schedule change means I have two weeks to get the updated syllabus put together). After that I have to decide if I am going to keep teaching that syllabus next year or try to shift into Environmental Justice or The Rhetoric of Firearms for next year.

I have colleagues that have the racism and colonialism angles covered much better, so I tend to focus my attention on war and climate stuff.

And my evening reading is currently Dave Grohl's The Storyteller.

[Michael Cain]

However, it seems that the kind of bombing that resulted in that kind of destruction has largely disappeared, as munitions are 'guided', though I wonder what the technology level is for Russian munitions.

Real information is pretty much impossible to come by, but what I've read suggests that things are settling into an artillery duel. I understand Russia's ground military doctrine is artillery-focused. Artillery can level a city as flat as aerial bombing, it just takes longer. Smart munitions are expensive, dumb ones not. It's not hard to imagine Russia having millions of dumb artillery rounds tucked away. If they're just going to grind up the Ukrainian cities with artillery, it's going to be uglier than we can imagine.

[wj]

If they're just going to grind up the Ukrainian cities with artillery, it's going to be uglier than we can imagine.

At the moment, it appears that this is precisely what they are going to do. (Absent Putin's abrupt departure from the scene. Which doesn't look super likely, unfortunately.) At least within the constraints of their logistical capability to move the shells up to the guns. Javelins against ammo trucks may help there.

The Russian army does not appear to be capable of succeeding otherwise. And stopping would require Putin to admit (at least to himself) that he was wrong here. Which he does not appear to be capable of.

[JanieMJanieM]

Thanks, nous. I figured that if you had read it, you'd be able to put it in a wider context of thinking on the subject than I'm able to do myself.

Good luck with the syllabus....sadly apt (from Silverman's Ukraine post at BJ last night).

[nous]

Anecdote to feed the conversation.... Right now I am trying to update my webpage for the Children in Armed Conflict class mentioned above. The images from my 2019 class webpage were of Yemeni and Syrian children, and those images were a shock to my students because those conflicts were not at all on their radar.

With the current conflict in Ukraine so very much in front of my current students, do I shift the images for the class to scenes from Ukraine to leverage the interest? Do I keep the images from Yemen and Syria? Do I try to split the difference with one each?

If I go with Ukraine, does that erase the other conflicts and prioritize European suffering? If I defy that framing, does it orientalize our idea of children's suffering and strengthen unexamined colonialist biases in my students?

I face these sorts of questions every time I put together a syllabus or a class. It's a challenging balancing act, and whatever compromise I choose, I have to choose with a bias towards preserving the need to be able to act and not just stall out in self-reflection.

[wj]

With the current conflict in Ukraine so very much in front of my current students, do I shift the images for the class to scenes from Ukraine to leverage the interest? Do I keep the images from Yemen and Syria? Do I try to split the difference with one each?

My totally non-expert opinion would be to do both. Making the point that there are conflicts that the students are simply not aware of, but still having an impact on kids. And that, for a kid, it doesn't matter where you are, or what group you belong to, the negative impacts are pretty much identical.

With the Ukrainian kids included to perhaps helping the students to relate -- simply because the kids in the images are "like me." (Broader empathy would be wonderful. But sometimes you have to work with the tools at hand.)

[JanieM]

If I go with Ukraine, does that erase the other conflicts and prioritize European suffering? If I defy that framing, does it orientalize our idea of children's suffering and strengthen unexamined colonialist biases in my students?

I face these sorts of questions every time I put together a syllabus or a class.

Given your comments here, I think you will thread that needle about as well as anyone can.

I also seem to remember that you have a pretty diverse group of students, including a not insignificant number of Asians -- whether Asian-Americans or students from China I don't recall. But that adds another aspect to the balancing act. Never mind that the students are all individuals, despite their backgrounds and cultural shapings.

Another anecdote that fits with this subject: When I read Sophie's Choice, my own kids were just about the age of the children in the story when they were taken to the camp by the Nazis.

It hit me very hard, because for the first time, it came home to me that the horrors of the Holocaust had happened to real people, people just like me, not to people in a faraway, long ago story. It also made me realize that i can in fact happen here ("here" being anywhere), though that part didn't really sink in until the past few years.

There's a power in being able to identify with someone else along whatever axis; mine at the time was being a mother of young children. There are lots of such axes -- some of them can burrow sneakily behind overt biases. Seems to point toward a diversity of examples for your website....

[wj]

This is too wonderful not to share
A judge uses Tucker Carlson’s own words against Fox News

When Tucker Carlson's journalistic rigor (yes, really) is being used against Fox News to prove malice (that is, their failure to question an inherently wildly improbable story; when ever Carlson was skeptical...), that's really, really bad. And means Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News is looking good.

[hairshirthedonist]

…it would be better to not use that as a generic term for any and all bigotry.

I agree, which is why I never suggested any such thing.

[liberal japonicus]

Unfortunately, bigotry doesn't carry the punch of racism. See how many clicks your article titled 'Ukraine coverage reveals bigotry' gets.

On the subject of word meanings, this article via Robert Farley's post on LGM has this

It drives home the point that adopting a realistic approach towards the world does not consist in always reaching for a well-worn toolkit of timeless verities, nor does it consist in affecting a hard-boiled attitude so as to inoculate oneself forever against liberal enthusiasm. Realism, taken seriously, entails a never-ending cognitive and emotional challenge. It involves a minute-by-minute struggle to understand a complex and constantly evolving world, in which we are ourselves immersed, a world that we can, to a degree, influence and change, but which constantly challenges our categories and the definitions of our interests. And in that struggle for realism – the never-ending task of sensibly defining interests and pursuing them as best we can – to resort to war, by any side, should be acknowledged for what it is. It should not be normalised as the logical and obvious reaction to given circumstances, but recognised as a radical and perilous act, fraught with moral consequences. Any thinker or politician too callous or shallow to face that stark reality, should be judged accordingly.

And it occurs to me that labeling your theory as 'realism' (and it seems ironic that Mearshimer's theory of realism is called offensive realism) is a rhetorical twitch designed to hide some shoddy foundations. 'If my theory is realism, then yours has to be unrealistic! Checkmate!'

[wj]

Unfortunately, bigotry doesn't carry the punch of racism. See how many clicks your article titled 'Ukraine coverage reveals bigotry' gets.

If one's goal is clicks, no need to bother discussing bigotry. Of any flavor. One can merely invent horrors out of whole cloth. (Perhaps perpetrated in the basement of a building which, as it happens, has none.) Reality is just ever so much less fascinating.

[nous]

"Racism" - But it's not technically race...

"Okay, so "ethno-religious animus" - But this happens to other people who aren't that religion, too...

"Okay, so "intersectionality" - Why do you have to use jargon? Isn't "intersectionality" some sort of Critical Race Theory thing?

(How - intentionally or unintentionally - uncomfortable public conversation about the effects of animus get neutralized)

[liberal japonicus]

What nous said. As I pointed out, it is important to disentangle the threads to understand why it isn't 'just' racism, but I'm not really into trying to parse it into sufficiently tiny chunks in order to avoid calling it racism.

[nous]

Also, to be clear, I am not saying that wj is responsible for neutralizing the conversation here with his complaint about the term. I'm concerned with the way that conversations get shifted *collectively* away from the uncomfortable topic by small steps.

I think we all can recognize and acknowledge that Ukrainian suffering gets more bandwidth than Yemeni suffering, and we all have a sense of why that is, so it seems to me that the goal of things should be to address the inequity of that and try to find a way to lessen it rather than to attempt to pin down a precise term for the nature of the selective affinity involved.

And now I should probably shut up myself in the hopes that this conversation gets back to ways that we can lessen the suffering in either place.

[wj]

It is not entirely clear to me why we cannot just say "bigotry" and leave it at that.

Obscure academic papers can ponder whatever differences in effect, if any, the various different bigotries may show upon detailed examination. But for general use by the general population, just say bigotry and have done. (As a not insignificant side benefit, the bigots will lose the opportunity to argue that they are not guilty of a particular bigotry, thus obscuring the bigotry they clearly do display.) As an analogy, an artist may discuss exact shades of color, and insist that they matter. But the general population manages quite adequately with just a handful of words.

[wj]

the goal of things should be to address the inequity of that and try to find a way to lessen it rather than to attempt to pin down a precise term for the nature of the selective affinity involved.

Amen.

[hairshirthedonist]

Regarding the particular case of Syrian whiteness, sensible as it may seem to some, I’d remind people that there was a time when the likes of the Irish and Eastern and Southern Europeans were commonly not considered white (or at least not white enough) by those who would use race as a basis for discrimination. Bringing up homophobia as being distinct from racism is a non sequitur. It’s not relevant to the possibility of racism toward Syrians.

If people were to, say, beat up Sikhs based on Islamophobia (purely hypothetically!), would that make you think they were careful about their categories? Would you think there was a perceived racial component in their apparent confusion? Or is it just about religion?

[Donald]

I think bigotry is only half of the answer for why Yemen gets less attention than Ukraine ( or the Ukraine— I have a vague impression I am supposed to say one or the other but haven’t checked).

The other reason is that Putin is the war criminal in the Ukrainian war and was seen as a bad guy already ( including by me though two weeks ago I thought he was at least smart.). So in the West, except for a minority of Putin fans, it is easy to denounce his crimes.

Yemen is partly our fault and under three successive Presidents. No need to risk nuclear war with a no fly zone or push for an insurgency that will probably wreck the country or sanctions that mostly hit Russians who are less responsible for their government’s crimes than we are for ours. Just put pressure on the Saudis to lift the blockade which is most responsible for the death toll, which the UNDP puts at 377,000 as of the end of last year. ( Bombing killed thousands of civilians but famine hundreds of thousands.) What we would risk is bad relations with an oil rich country, but the Saudis don’t have nukes. And as for accountability, that is a subject which can’t be raised in serious circles. So there isn’t any. Democracies and authoritarian governments are fairly similar in their lack of accountability for massive crimes. If a crime is too big you can’t punish it without destabilizing the political system, or that is my theory. You can’t even talk about it in those terms or not in polite company. Putin might be deposed but if so it will be by the power structure there for weakening the country and no American President will be convicted for complicity in an unjust war. It should happen, to set a precedent and make people think before giving a green light to a stupid war on a very poor country, but it won’t.

I think there is less talk about Yemen because of shame, guilt and hypocrisy. Ben Rhodes wrote a book about his role as a foreign policy speechwriter in the Obama Administration ( “ The World As It Is” ) and said nothing about Yemen. That was pre- Khashoggi, and it was easier to do that then.

On bombing, the Russians destroyed Aleppo with indiscriminate bombing. We destroyed Raqqa and much of Mosul with discriminate bombing and shelling.

[Donald]

The best site for information about bombing in modern wars ( since 2014) is the Airwars site.

https://airwars.org/

They have a very large amount of information on US bombing in Iraq and Syria, Russian bombing in Syria, Israeli bombing and they are setting up to monitor Russian bombing in Ukraine.

[Donald]

This is what I think is their new project on the Ukrainian war

https://airwars.org/news-and-investigations

[wj]

Ukraine (or the Ukraine — I have a vague impression I am supposed to say one or the other but haven’t checked).

As I understand it, you say Ukraine if you think it is, snd should remain, an independent country. You say the Ukraine to imply that it is a territory (think the Yukon), and should not be independent.

[Donald]

That makes sense. I have long said “ the Ukraine” but had the vague sense the usage was outdated.

[wj]

Yemen is partly our fault and under three successive Presidents.

I blame, primarily, Bush II's "axis of evil" speech. A far more accurate axis would have replaced Iran with Saudi Arabia. Which, after all, was where the 9/11 attackers mostly came from, and where bin Laden was from.

Sure, Iran is a repressive theocracy. But then, so is Saudi Arabia. The main difference is that Iran is, basically, civilized. And has been for millenia. (More millenia than the number of generations since the Saudis were nomads herding camels.)

The chances of something better replacing the mullahs is substantially higher, and the population would be more than pepared to rejoin the modern world. Having been in Saudi Arabia, I can say that the bulk of the Saudi population just isn't.

And, if we'd had the wit to switch out the Saudis as allies, we would have been far less tolerant of their behavior. With Yemen. With Khashoggi. And on and on. 2001 was a golden opportunity, and we blew it.

[liberal japonicus]

It is not entirely clear to me why we cannot just say "bigotry" and leave it at that.

Because bigotry is, I think, considered an individual failing. I don't think it means anything if one says 'society is bigoted'.

I certainly don't want to be called racist, but I want that condition to hold because I'm not racist, not because I want to substitute another word for it.

One has to imagine that Tucker Carlson feels the same way, since he loves Putin because Putin hasn't called him racist. Interesting that.

sidenote, thanks for the reminder for the airwars link Donald.

[JanieM]

But for general use by the general population, just say bigotry and have done. (As a not insignificant side benefit, the bigots will lose the opportunity to argue that they are not guilty of a particular bigotry, thus obscuring the bigotry they clearly do display.)

This angle on the topic keeps the focus on individual people and their attitudes, which obscures the fact that the problem we're talking about is perpetuated not just by the attitudes of individuals, but rather is deeply embedded in our culture, our history, our laws, our medical care, our housing, our highways...everything. And has been for 400 years.

That's one thing Wilkerson keeps coming back to in Caste: this is a system, and it is very very old and entrenched. The word "bigotry" doesn't come close to encompassing where it comes from or how it works.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

"As I understand it, you say Ukraine if you think it is, and should remain, an independent country. You say the Ukraine to imply that it is a territory (think the Yukon), and should not be independent."

Wait, the Netherlands is an independent country?

"country X" vs. "THE country X" is, in my (not so greatly informed opinion) one of the linguistic connections of English to German. And no, it doesn't have to make sense, otherwise TGFTNC would visit "The Wales".

Cf. "Die Schweitz, Die Österreich, und so weiter"

Hartmut, chime in.

[Pro Bono]

Ukrainian and Russian, like most slavic languages, do not use articles, so the distinction between "Ukraine" and "the Ukraine" is largely invisible to Ukrainians.

But the Ukrainian government decided at the time of independence that the country should be just "Ukraine", so that's that.

окраина in Russian means something like "borderland". So "The Ukraine" made sense in the same way as "The Netherlands".

[wj]

Those countries in western Europe have the advantage of having been independent for a few centuries. Think of it as being grandfathered in.

In any case, the Ukrainians (and Putin) seem to be drawing the distinction in that case.

[Nigel]

Folks can correct me if I'm wrong, but all the conflicts/places where you have cities levelled because of boots on the ground have been when the city has been fought over by two armies that don't own it...

Kharkiv and Mariupol, which Putin claims are Russian cities, are well down that road.
But both have largely civilians on the ground.

[wj]

A couple of opinion pieces on what might happen to end this war:
Is Putin coup-proof? That depends on how much hardship Russian elites will stand.

Putin doesn’t fear a coup by oligarchs. But he should fear his fellow spies.

Because, AFAICT, Putin doesn't see, probably correctly, any way out except somehow wrenching victory from the jaws of defeat. Since that doesn't currently look likely any time soon, that means he has to go before peace has a chance.

[ral]

For your doom scrolling pleasure: How Vladimir Putin Lost Interest in the Present

There is no way for this to end well. Bleah.

[Hartmut]

No article for Österreich (if there was one, it would be 'das' btw). If 'Reich' was a separate word, it would get one (as "das Deutsche Reich" or "das österreichische Kaiserreich" (imperial Austria))
'Die Schweiz' is correct.
The Netherlands are (who came up with 'is'?) 'die Niederlande' (lit. the low countries)
[that's Plural not female as with Switzerland].
In Germany Ukraine will alomst always get the article (die Ukraine). As do Iraq and Iran but in connection with 'in' in the contracted form (in dem => im), while for Ukraine it's 'in der' because Iran and Iraq are male and Ukraine female.
The US are with article because it's an adjective with a noun (not a proper noun). And since it's again the plural article "die Vereinigten Staaten" they are always plural.

[Michael Cain]

And since it's again the plural article "die Vereinigten Staaten" they are always plural.

One of the language usage things that happened over the 30-40 years after the American Civil War Was the shift from "the United States are" (plural) to "the United States is" (singular). The closest to an official determination was in 1902 when a Congressional committee on regularizing laws specified that "the United States" would henceforth always be singular.

[wj]

in 1902 when a Congressional committee on regularizing laws specified that "the United States" would henceforth always be singular.

Although the philosophical, as opposed to linguistic, point had been made in the 1860s with the Civil Was. "Indivisible"

[bobbyp]

Not necessarily on topic, but I found this to be a good read.

[Hartmut]

Caesar non supra grammaticos!
And Congress neither.

[wj]

One has to wonder what Mearsheimer thinks is the appropriate way to deal with a bully when it is just a small town, or a group of kids on the playground, rather than a matter international relations.

Apparently even a suggestion that you might, nmght, group together to oppose him is a valid excuse for him to murder anyone in sight. Sick.

[hairshirthedonist]

Just today, a RW friend of mine PM'd me the youtube video of the Mearsheimer lecture from 2015 stating that "it makes you think." I have a feeling it makes me think something other than what it makes him think.

[Girl from the North Country]

C4 News ran a piece tonight on the varying reactions to war in Ukraine, versus (for example) Syria. There's no question in my mind that there's a great deal of systemic racism baked in to our various societies (including, of course, those in the East as I think lj references), but I think Janie's point upthread about various axes along which one personally identifies (in her case, suddenly, motherhood) is hugely significant. And shared cultural mythologies too, e.g. David v Goliath, Churchill and fighting on the beaches, Horatius holding the bridge (that latter a fave of Nelson Mandela by the way: he was in certain ways really an Edwardian gentleman!). I'm sure in societies where one of the foundational myths and touchstones is, for example, Arjuna and Krishna before the battle, the reference and attitude is very different.

[Hartmut]

One* always has to make the choice whether it's David against Goliath or whether the Ledeen doctrine applies.
Saddam famously assumed the latter and was rather surprised to be cast into the Goliath role.

*of course only those with proper understanding not any dirty commoner.

[liberal japonicus]

GftNC, that's a great point. There are all these narratives floating around at any time and which ones get latched onto can often dictate reactions.

[Nigel]

C4 News ran a piece tonight on the varying reactions to war in Ukraine, versus (for example) Syria.

There’s a far more straightforward comparison between those two examples, though.
One is a civil war, the other an invasion.

There are pretty strong pragmatic motivations alongside any based in prejudice.

[Girl from the North Country]

That too, for sure, Nigel.

[Girl from the North Country]

Why would anyone be surprised? From today's NYT:

WASHINGTON — Prominent social media users and conservative voices have amplified a baseless theory promoted by Russian state media accusing the United States of funding biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine.

There is no evidence to support the claims, which President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department have all unequivocally denied.

There are biological laboratories inside Ukraine, and since 2005, the United States has provided backing to a number of institutions to prevent the production of biological weapons. But Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host, and others have misleadingly cited remarks from American officials as proof that the labs are producing or conducting research on biological weapons.

“Out of nowhere, the Biden official in charge of Ukraine confirmed the story,” Mr. Carlson said on his program Thursday night. “Victoria Nuland, the under secretary of state, casually mentioned in a Senate hearing on Tuesday that actually, yes, the Biden administration does fund a series of biolabs in Ukraine.”

Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, characterized Ms. Nuland’s remarks as a “serious admission.” Donald Trump Jr., the son of the former president, tweeted that her comments propelled the claim from “conspiracy theory to fact.”

Mr. Carlson also pointed to an interview with Robert Pope, the director of the Pentagon’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which helps countries in the former Soviet Union secure or eliminate nuclear and chemical weapons.

“As Pope put it, scientists are scientists, they don’t want to destroy all the bioweapons,” Mr. Carlson continued in his segment. “Instead, they’re using them to conduct new bioweapons research — that’s what he said.”

The State Department said Ms. Nuland was referring to Ukrainian diagnostic and biodefense laboratories during her testimony, which are different from biological weapons facilities. Rather, these biodefense laboratories counter biological threats throughout the country, the department said.

Mr. Carlson mischaracterized those remarks from Ms. Nuland and Mr. Pope.

Tucker Carlson, utterly consistent in his stupidity, bad faith and wicked disregard for consequences. Meanwhile, as almost everyone who knows anything about it agrees, this accusation by the Russians almost certainly presages their own use of biological or chemical weapons. And Tucker Carlson et al, the useful idiots or worse, give them cover.

[wj]

There are biological laboratories inside Ukraine, and since 2005, the United States has provided backing to a number of institutions to prevent the production of biological weapons.

Perhaps more to the point, the US has been providing help and support to the Ukrainians as the work to shut down bioweapons labs left from the Soviet Union, and to safely dispose of the bioweapons created by the Soviets and left behind when the USSR collapsed. Which shows just how backwards Carlson, et. al, have got it. (The Russians, of course, know all about those labs, having been the ones running them back in the day.)

[GftNC]

Interesting piece from Ian Leslie:

https://ianleslie.substack.com/p/is-democracy-smarter-than-autocracy?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxNDk2NzMzLCJfIjoiZHFsN2IiLCJpYXQiOjE2NDcwOTIzODYsImV4cCI6MTY0NzA5NTk4NiwiaXNzIjoicHViLTU0NzQ4Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.1chg17x9joXsISOXIGWoPOMBLBib_tIOidQv3Ra1ceU&s=r

[Donald]

From the Leslie piece—

“ But I would say that Putin has managed the unthinkable and made America’s Iraq adventure look relatively competent and relatively honest. Without wishing to open up over-familiar debates - no really, spare us - nobody could argue that the Iraq invasion came as a surprise to anyone. ”

Make a statement and then tell people not to debate it.

Yes, democracies are perfectly capable of being immensely stupid and extremely callous, as demonstrated by the foreign policies of both the US and Great Britain. It is perfectly possible to condemn Putin as a war criminal and also stupid without this idiocy.

People did openly denounce the Iraq invasion before it happened and it made absolutely no difference to the leaders of both political parties in the US. Despite all that debate, many Americans thought Iraq had something to do with 9/11, thanks in part to liberal press organs like the New Yorker. And there has been zero accountability—Obama had a phrase for that. Look forward, not back. He covered for the CIA on torture and later gave the green light for Yemen. Biden is currently continuing that policy and is starving Afghanistan. Yay for democracy.

Democracy is the least bad form of government as another creator of a massive famine once said, but there are no governments which seem very good at policing themselves, including democracies, and the method for stirring up war fever isn’t that different in a democracy.

Leslie’s piece in microcosm is why democracies aren’t very good at avoiding stupid and cruel policies. It is the self flattery factor. Dictators don’t like admitting mistakes. Neither do politicians in democracies. And neither do voters who support the politicians and might have supported the policies.

Rather than be brutally honest with themselves and demand accountability from the people at the top who made the decisions, people look for face saving excuses, and look for convenient scapegoats, preferably either low ranking people ( for token war crimes trials) or members of the opposing party. And it can take years before a government pulls out of an extremely stupid war, no matter what sort of government it has.

[Donald]

It is actually a question of power and who has it and who will get hurt. Voters and politicians in a powerful democracy are often indifferent to the harm they do to some nonvoters overseas. That can also apply at home. White people in the Jim Crow South didn’t just decide to end Jim Crow. They were forced to do it.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

If Obama had tried to deliver some accountability to the Dubya war crimes, he'd have been JFK'ed.

Should have just ordered a drone-strike on his way out the door.

[CharlesWT]

White people in the Jim Crow South didn’t just decide to end Jim Crow. They were forced to do it.

And only after it got enough bad PR from what people in the rest of the country were seeing on their TVs creating enough political pressure that the politicians felt safe enough to do something about it.

Should have just ordered a drone-strike on his way out the door.

Obama had a drone strike list. Perhaps he didn't have the right people on it.

[Girl from the North Country]

Leslie’s piece in microcosm is why democracies aren’t very good at avoiding stupid and cruel policies. It is the self flattery factor.

I'm no apologist for Leslie, but I'm not sure this is right. The sentence before the bit you quote is:

We can draw some superficial parallels with Iraq: a military invasion made under false pretences on the orders of leaders ignorant of the country they were invading.

and the sentence after is:

Nobody could argue that U.S. soldiers and civilians were not exposed to arguments for and against the war beforehand.

So I think he is fairly open to the potential for (and history of) self-deception in democracies. I certainly think he would agree with you (as do I) when you say

Dictators don’t like admitting mistakes. Neither do politicians in democracies. And neither do voters who support the politicians and might have supported the policies.

[Michael Cain]

And it can take years before a government pulls out of an extremely stupid war, no matter what sort of government it has.

We wasted twice as much time (and probably money) in Afghanistan as the Soviet Union did, and to no better outcome.

[nous]

One thing that I think distinguishes autocratic foreign interventions from democratic foreign interventions is that they are built on different dimensions of power. Putin's current fiasco is more than a decade in the making and is driven by psychology and individual worldview. As long as he is satisfied with the results of his decisions - or is convinced that there is no personal benefit from changing course - the fiasco continues. The feedback loops built into the decision making process are limited and few, so it's only Putin's personal risk assessment guiding the process.

Democracies have more frequent feedback loops built into their decision making processes. Foreign policy can be planned for the long term, but it gets inflected and modified and second guessed with each election. It's not driven by personal factors so much as by culture and collective mythology and the deep patterns of our public discourse. Democracies suck at limited wars for limited gains for this very reason, and can only manage a long-term conflict by elevating it to the level of a cause. Otherwise someone like Putin can just wait for a more favorable election cycle and try again.

[Donald]

I think there are usually factions within authoritarian governments too and people like Putin have to worry that if they make a serious blunder they might be sidelined ( or worse). As Michael Cain pointed out, the Soviet Union pulled out of Afghanistan faster than we did, and faster than we pulled out of Vietnam ( depending on when you would say we got involved). With democracies the public attitude matters more, but the American public attitude probably is influenced mainly by the costs to Americans ( large numbers of American casualties especially) than by what we are doing to the people overseas. Incidentally, the American death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan was in the thousands rather than tens of thousands because battlefield medicine has gotten better, or so I have read— but a lot of those survivors might be facing long term health problems.

Long term involvement, like support for proxy wars or air strikes or brutal sanctions can be maintained indefinitely by democracies. There is no obvious pain to the voters, or that was true up until now. Russia is a different story. I think one could also ask whether sanctions should be imposed on Russia as a whole or just the oligarchs and ruling elite.

But that is straying off the subject. I don’t think Putin’s invasion is notably more idiotic than Iraq. It could end up that way—it depends on what Putin’s objectives are.

I thought the last part of the piece about China was more interesting, but the price for whatever real or alleged achievements they might have is brutal repression for dissidents and entire groups of people.

I almost got involved in the tankie discussion in the other thread, I read some tankies or tankie adjacent people because I think you should ( within time constraints) try to understand the views of people on every part of the spectrum. Also, a friend of mine ( the relationship is a bit strained right now) in real life is a tankie.

The motive seems to be a desire to believe that there are good guys somewhere who are powerful. The West is imperialist and bad, an Empire of Lies ( I kinda like that phrase) but tankies seem to have this need to believe in some sort of Good Empire, or some sources of power that will make this a multipolar world rather than one dominated by the US. I think we are in or near the cusp of that new multipolar world but have no deep need to think the other poles are good. Tankies do.

I’m more or less serious about the potted psychological profile.

[Girl from the North Country]

people like Putin have to worry that if they make a serious blunder they might be sidelined ( or worse)

I don't know if this is really so - all the Russia experts interviewed on C4, the BBC etc seem to suggest otherwise, at least on the "sidelined" part. On "or worse", I do think he is, and should be, absolutely paranoid about being disposed of. Apparently several senior FSB officers were arrested today, they're saying because Putin thinks they (along with Generals like Gerasimov, who seems to have been killed in Ukraine) gave him faulty info about pro-Russian feeling in Ukraine, or in the latter case about the likely speed and success of the military plan. Interestingly, nobody that I've heard has mentioned the thing we heard a few days ago about people in the FSB informing the Ukrainians of details about assassination attempts on Zelensky. Maybe it isn't true, or otherwise being suppressed for propaganda reasons.

[wj]

there are usually factions within authoritarian governments too and people like Putin have to worry that if they make a serious blunder they might be sidelined ( or worse).

In most, there are. What makes Putin exceptional (the main other case I can think of is the Kims in North Korea) is how carefully and completely he has neutered the usual competing factions. The other ex-KGB types might be an issue, if there are any left outside his personal clique. But otherwise, his only real risk is a panicked general getting lucky.

[Michael Cain]

@Donald, I'm feeling old and cynical today, so put "Good Empire" in the same category as, "We hypothesize a stable state we call 'peace' from the observation that there are occasionally gaps between the wars.'"

[Russell]

It appears that I am no longer aware of all internet traditions - what is a tankie?

[ral]

First try... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie

[Donald]

The Wikipedia entry describes the most extreme type and Hungary is where the term comes from but on the Internet it is broader. The Internet Western tankie reflexively defend in all respects whoever the US attacks. I read them to see their arguments and sometimes agree with some of them, but don’t go all the way.

For instance, in Syria a ‘ tankie” would say Assad was not a war criminal. They give arguments. I read the arguments and agree that it was a much messier more complex war than you often would have heard in the MSM ( with some exceptions) and there are reasons why many Syrians sided with Assad— mainly that they thought a rebel victory would mean genocide for their ethnic group, like the Alawites. But Assad is a war criminal.

I used to see someone from Lebanon I think who was a commenter at a far left blog I read regularly and she was unabashedly pro Assad and called him the Lion of Syria. She also liked it when the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi were overthrown in Egypt. She was not a tankie. She had skin in the game. Her family was in that area. Western lefties who wholeheartedly adopt that view that Assad is good are tankie types.

[Donald]

There are also gradations, of course, gray areas— how far do you go opposing the standard Western narrative before you slip into tankie territory?

My real life friend is reflexive. Everything bad said about a foe of the US is false.

[Donald]

Michael Cain—

I was old and cynical when I was young. There are no good empires.

[Donald]

Oh, btw, my one claim to contributing something to culture, no matter how trivial, is posting the comment that elicited “ I am aware of all internet traditions”. The “ Donald” in the link below was me, earnestedky explaining, genuinely trying to be nice, what the Daniel Davies meme “ shorter x “ meant. The rest was internet greatness. But I tried.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-am-aware-of-all-internet-traditions

[ral]

Donald! I had no idea.

[Donald]

Yes, I am quite modest about the whole thing.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Labels, schmabels.

Stalin, the Russian conservative who slaughtered Bolsheviks, is so 20th Century yesterday, as 17th, 18th, 19th century fucking subhuman conservative tyrants raise their ugly nostalgic snake heads.

Pat Buchanan and his fellow right wing tankies must indeed be Orthodox Christian Tankies, regardless of whether it's right wing fascists or left-wing Stalinists he supports, and he will kill the LGBT, blacks, immigrants, Jews and every Other.

Putin is an Orthodox Christian Remember the Alamo Peter the Great Czarist tyrant, and he will kill the LGBT, blacks, immigrants, Jews and every Other.

Their mutual anti-liquid modernity followers in conservative nationalist Russia and conservative nationalist America are genocidal lickspittles, including the conservative LGBT, blacks, immigrants and Jews among them who will kill every LIBERAL LGBT, black, immigrant, and Jew who attempts to tax and/or regulate them or who commits the sin of political correctness.

America is a drunken sinner, but if it shot both Putin et al and Buchanan et al in their heads, for 24 hours at least we could celebrate its temporary redemption before the inevitable backsliding.

I'd better skedaddle before novakant shushes me again. %-{}

[novakant]

Tankies are extremely rare these days.

We should be much more concerned about how some 'conservatives' shifted towards supporting autocratic leaders because they have become authoritarians (Trump et al) and other 'conservatives' who support autocratic leaders to line their pockets (Johnson et al)

These people are the real danger to democracy, not the odd tankie pontificating in some far left magazine that nobody reads.

[novakant]

nooneithinkisinmytree

I can see where you are coming from and I'm not the morality police, but I think advocating the killing of political enemies, as you do regularly and graphically, debases the discussion on this blog, giving it a whiff of all those right-wing to neo-nazi online communities who seem to indulge in this type of rhetoric and that's a real shame, since this is not one of those places

to whom it may concerne\: discuss

[ral]

I hope you know I count you all as friends. Things have gotten somewhat depressing lately and I can sympathize with JDT's outbursts, although they are a bit grating at times.

My advice to anyone who gets outraged by something seen on the 'net is: just ignore it.

[liberal japonicus]

apologies, in addition to the upcoming schedule of things, I'm dealing with a few personal issues that seem to occupy all my time and energy so I haven't been able to step in. Please try and ratchet things down, it would be appreciated

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

"I hope you know I count you all as friends."

Same here.

Take care all, and lj.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Please don't mistake me for the problem in fascist conservative America. Don't take your eyes off the ball that is coming for your noggin:

https://digbysblog.net/2022/03/13/trump-announces-his-dictatorship/

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/13/2085668/-Former-NSA-Contractor-Claims-Intel-Community-Internal-Com-Apps-A-Dumpster-Fire-Of-Hate-Speech

20 more cites, but never mind.

The fringe neo-nazis on Reddit are mainstream and in your institutions. They are not indulging themselves.

Gotta go read.

Sleep.

I'll stay low.

[Tom H.]

With novakant: I wish names were posted at the top of comments, because it'd make it easier to follow ral's advice to ignore things. I find nooneithinkisinmytree's usual tone off-putting enough to make me hesitant to engage.

(Which I've never done a lot of here, so my individual example is not a big loss to the community, but...)

[Donald]

New nonalignment movement

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/10/russia-ukraine-west-global-south-sanctions-war

[nooneithinksinmytree]

incoming: nooneithinkisinmytree

I'll try and remember to post my handle at the top of future commentary if it will help in the pre-sifting.

[Girl from the North Country]

"I hope you know I count you all as friends."

Same here.

Take care all, and lj.

Me too, in all respects.

[JanieM]

Please don't mistake me for the problem in fascist conservative America.

There are many kinds and degrees of problems. Just because you're not the one dropping bombs on cities doesn't mean the excrement you fling around makes our neighborhood smell nice. Nor does it move me, at least, to take any action in relation to the bombs that I wouldn't take otherwise. It only makes me want to put some distance between myself and the poo, which I mostly do these days.

It is in fact a problem, even if not "the" problem, when one person uses the public sidewalk as a privy.

[Pro Bono]

+1 for noitiimt to cut out the violent rhetoric please.

[Pete]

Just spitballing here and maybe it's been mentioned before, but hear me out...

Taking a page from the Duchy of Grand Fenwick as a hypothetical, what if Ukraine attacked Poland?

Would that not trigger Article 5? And in doing so, establish justification for NATO forces to secure, both in the air and on the ground (possibly with a shockingly swift advance due to an astonishing lack of resistance), Ukrainian territory east to Kyiv and down the Dnieper and possibly beyond?

And, AND, as NATO would find common cause to root out and denazify Ukraine in its effort to secure the peace for purely defensive reasons, there would be no cause for conflict or escalation with our new Russian allies!

The sanctions might take some time to unravel, international bureaucracy and so forth...