PUTIN IS HITLER
The Ukraine invasion is the revanchism of Nazi Germany.
Basically, Putin lives in the past of an imperial Russia. He also wants to stay in power and maintain his authoritarian regime. Democratization movements in Ukraine and Belarus represent strong threats to his authoritarian regime. He also believes Russia is entitled to hegemony over the two nations and its own sphere of influence. Lastly, he has become habituated to war and violence. He was likely behind the assassination of his political opponents, including Alexander Litvinenko, Anna Politkovskaya, Natalia Estemirova, Stanislav Markelov, Boris Nemtsov, and others. His support for Assad’s regime in Syria has given him a working template for overrunning Ukraine. As in our historical experience of Hitler, murder begins on the individual level and then escalates to encompass the nation and the world.
Communist China is watching the Ukraine invasion carefully because it provides a model for how they intend to take over Taiwan.
Ukraine is an independent democratic country with a distinct history, language, and culture. It is not a vassal of the Russian state or its extension. Ukrainians are a people distinct from the Russians. See 1:20:
“The most crucial thing to know is that Ukrainians are not Russians and that Ukraine is an ancient independent nation. Ukraine has a history of more than a thousand years. Kiev was a major metropolis and cultural center when Moscow was not even a village. For most of these thousand years, Kiev was not ruled by Moscow, they were not part of the same political entity. For centuries Kiev was looking westwards and was part of a union with Lithuania and Poland until [Ukraine] was eventually conquered and absorbed by the Russian Empire, by the Tsarist Empire. But even after that, Ukrainians remained a separate people to a large extent. And it’s important to know that, because that is really what is at stake in this war. The key issue of the war, at least for President Putin, is whether Ukraine is an independent nation, whether it is a nation on its own. He has this fantasy that Ukraine isn’t a nation, Ukraine is just a part of Russia, that Ukrainians are Russians.”
—TED, “The War in Ukraine Could Change Everything | Yuval Noah Harari | TED,” YouTube video, 49:37 minutes, March 3, 2022
141 out of 195 countries in the UN General Assembly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Only five countries opposed the UN General Assembly Resolution. The remainder abstained.
UN General Assembly Resolution on the Ukraine invasion – full voting breakdown:
—Nick Duffy, “UN Russia vote: Full voting breakdown as North Korea and Syria back Putin over Ukraine invasion,” inews.co.uk, March 2, 2022
Public domain image with adaptations
ReplyDeleteImage link:
https://freesvg.org/vladimir-putin-portrait-vector-drawing
Gonzalinho
The war in Ukraine is the product of the injured pride of one man who has become inured to dictatorial rule and murder.
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
Munich Agreement, (September 30, 1938), settlement reached by Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy that permitted German annexation of the Sudetenland, in western Czechoslovakia.
ReplyDeleteAfter his success in absorbing Austria into Germany proper in March 1938, Adolf Hitler looked covetously at Czechoslovakia, where about three million people in the Sudetenland were of German origin.
…By May 1938 it was known that Hitler and his generals were drawing up a plan for the occupation of Czechoslovakia.
…Neither France nor Britain felt prepared to defend Czechoslovakia, however, and both were anxious to avoid a military confrontation with Germany at almost any cost.
…Mussolini introduced a written plan that was accepted by all as the Munich Agreement. (Many years later it was discovered that the so-called Italian plan had been prepared in the German Foreign Office.) It was almost identical to the Godesberg proposal: the German army was to complete the occupation of the Sudetenland by October 10, and an international commission would decide the future of other disputed areas. Czechoslovakia was informed by Britain and France that it could either resist Germany alone or submit to the prescribed annexations. The Czechoslovak government chose to submit.
…Chamberlain returned home to jubilant welcoming crowds relieved that the threat of war had passed, and Chamberlain told the British public that he had achieved “peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.” His words were immediately challenged by his greatest critic, Winston Churchill, who declared, “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war.” Indeed, Chamberlain’s policies were discredited the following year, when Hitler annexed the remainder of Czechoslovakia in March and then precipitated World War II by invading Poland in September. The Munich Agreement became a byword for the futility of appeasing expansionist totalitarian states….
https://www.britannica.com/event/Munich-Agreement
—“Munich Agreement,” Britannica.com, July 20, 1998
Richard Griffiths (Letters, 11 March) suggests that “the only way forward” from the current situation is for Ukraine’s independence to be guaranteed by a treaty to be signed “between Russia and the west”. Such a treaty already exists – the 1994 Budapest memorandum on security assurances. The memorandum guaranteed Ukrainian (and Belarusian and Kazhak) sovereignty and territorial integrity, prohibited the signatories from threatening or using military force against the three former Soviet and then independent states, and required the return of Soviet-era nuclear weapons on the three nations’ territory to be returned to Russian control.
Russia has broken its obligations to Ukraine in 2014, by annexing Crimea and supporting breakaway statelets in Donbas, and by its current attack on Ukraine. It’s difficult to see how a treaty could resolve the situation when it is clear that Putin’s Russia has no intention of respecting existing treaties.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/14/a-new-treaty-will-not-end-the-war-in-ukraine
—Blaine Stothard, “A new treaty will not end the war in Ukraine,” The Guardian (March 14, 2022)
Putin is Hitler.
Gonzalinho
PRAY THAT PUTIN WILL DIE
ReplyDeleteRussian President Vladimir Putin is betting that Russian forces can prevail in Ukraine through a grinding war of attrition and believes “Ukraine matters more to him than us,” CIA Director William Burns told lawmakers on Thursday.
Despite morale and other problems facing Russian forces in Ukraine, “Putin is very much taking a longer-term view,” Burns told a House Intelligence Committee hearing.
“I think he’s doubling down,” Burns said. “I believe he’s convinced that he can make time work for him, that he can grind down the Ukrainians through this war of attrition, that he can wear down Western supporters of Ukraine.
“And he’s convinced also and has been for some time that Ukraine matters more to him than to us,” said the CIA chief, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia.
“Therefore, the challenge, I think, is to puncture that view.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/putin-thinks-he-can-win-ukraine-war-says-cia-chief-rcna74221
—Dan De Luce, “Putin thinks he can win in Ukraine because it matters more to him than to the U.S., says CIA chief,” NBC News, March 10, 2023
Here’s a thought that occurred to me—wouldn’t it be legitimate to pray for the death of Putin so that the war could end and hundreds of thousands of lives would be saved as a result?
We wouldn’t pray for his damnation—just for his death.
Believe it or not, the preconciliar Baltimore Catechism says it’s acceptable in some cases to pray for someone’s death:
It’s a shocking thought at first – praying for another’s death.
Is it a sin to do so?
If it isn’t, when should you pray for another’s death and when shouldn’t you?
Believe it or not, the Catholic Church teaches that isn’t a sin in all cases, and there are actually certain times we should do so!
Turning to the Baltimore Catechism, we find the condition required to pray for another’s death:
“Nor is it sinful to wish another’s death, under the condition that it be in accord with God’s will.” – Baltimore Catechism No. 3 210
In what situations may we pray for another’s death without sin?
“For example, to wish a person’s death so that he will be relieved of great suffering, or because he is a menace to society or is likely to inflict grave harm on an innocent person, or because he deserves death by reason of crime.”
https://ucatholic.com/blog/is-it-sinful-to-pray-for-someones-death/
—George Ryan, “Is It Sinful to Pray for Someone’s Death?” uCatholic, November 10, 2022
It seems to me that if we ask in a spirit of vengeance, no, we cannot pray for another person’s death.
On the other hand, there may be circumstances in which it is legitimate to pray for someone's death. As an act of God's mercy, for example.
In Putin's case, we could pray for his conversion, and for the sake of all the dying, for an end to the war…and, in order to end the war, for his death, if necessary, according to the wisdom and mercy of God.
I don’t have a good answer—just a question.
Gonzalinho
I think the inspiration for legitimate prayer in this case is not vengeance but rather consequentialism—Putin is the architect of this neo-imperialist policy of invasion—if his death means the end and revision of this policy, for the sake of saving many, many thousands of lives—then we ask God to end the war by putting Putin to death, if necessary, among other things.
DeleteWe recall that the voice of God in the Bible many times threatens and punishes the evil and reprobate with the penalty of death.
True, someone worse could take Putin’s place—but then again, his death could end the slaughter. Surely, the death of Hitler and of Stalin saw better times for their respective nations afterwards.
Gonzalinho
The great struggles today that shed copious blood are about democracy versus authoritarianism, the world leaders of the latter being the formerly old-style Communist states of Russia and China.
ReplyDeletePost-Cold War, democracy is under perilous assault worldwide.
Gonzalinho