Tucker Carlson, Colonel Douglas Macgregor, The Ukraine War

[Estro Felino]

It was a private phone call between U.S. officials that was bugged. I'm pretty confident there've been private conversations between European officials about the U.S. that were similarly affectionate.

Absolutely not. There are not.
Also because we Europeans need the US as allies. We would never expect the US to do bad things against us, against our welfare or against our security:

 

[anna.]

Absolutely not. There are not.
Also because we Europeans need the US as allies. We would never expect the US to do bad things against us, against our welfare or against our security:

You don't know there are not, let alone absolutely.

These conversations are usually private, unless they're bugged and/or publicized.

 

[lukethethird]

How was he "provoked"? How was the Ukraine a threat to Russia? It looks as if the attack was merely a tactic to draw attention away from his corrupt regime.

Missiles would be brought up to the Ukrainian Russia border pointing at a not too distant Moscow from there. I am old enough to remember the Cuban missile crisis, everyone in North America felt threatened by Soviet missiles in Cuba, a mere 70 miles off the coast of Florida. The US reacted and we came close to a nuclear holocaust, how many people even know that we are alive because of Vasily Arkhipov? Cuba was going to be invaded but cooler heads prevailed. It appears that this time around that both Russia and the nato countries have done away with diplomacy.

 

[Estro Felino]

You don't know there are not, let alone absolutely.

These conversations are usually private, unless they're bugged and/or publicized.

Why should I trust Nuland?

 

[lukethethird]

Why should I trust Nuland?

Why should anyone?

 

[Copernicus]

Yes. May I know what Victoria Nuland was doing in Kiev in 2014, distributing food to Maidan coup's protesters?
Because you know, I am slightly tired of this narrative that the US Deep State has nothing to do with the Maidan Coup.
Not even the stones believe that the US Deep State is not in on it.

Nuland was trying to broker a peaceful resolution to the crisis. That's what diplomats do. She interacted both with the protesters and the Yanukovych government. The US sympathized with the protesters, who were outraged that Yanukovych had reverted to his old stance of spurning closer ties with the EU. They certainly weren't protesting and risking their lives on behalf of the US or any foreign nation. Their reason for being there was entirely their own. Don't forget that this kind of protest had happened nationwide during the Orange Revolution when pro-Moscow officials tried to rig an election in favor of Yanukovych.

Rather than negotiate, Yanukovych chose to brutally suppress the protest by shooting and killing people. His security forces went so far as destroy medical facilities with patients inside because they were treating protesters. (IOW, they behaved like the Russian military has during its post 2022 resumption of hostilities.) It is all in the public record for anyone interested in checking. Those who have Netflix access can watch the brilliant documentary, Winter on Fire. It includes details of US attempts to broker a peaceful resolution and how the Yanukovych government responded.

 

[Copernicus]

Again, I condemn Putin for the invasion as much as you or anyone else does...

That's good, but I don't think you condemn them quite as much as others do.

...but you are right, I'm not buying the unprovoked line. Putin felt threatened by Ukraine joining nato and how could he not? He could have and should have used diplomacy, work with Europe to form diplomatic ties and alliances but instead resorted to using his military to deal with his problems as he did in Georgia, Chechnya, and Syria. I just don't happen to think the powers that be in the west are lily white in all of this, I remember hearing John McCain and Lindsay Graham talking to Ukrainians back in 2015 or there abouts promising to supply arms to Ukraine so as to kill Russians. There is this thing about Americans and Russians.

That is utter BS. Neither McCain nor Graham promised any such thing. They favored doing more to arm Ukraine against an unprovoked invasion that had already been started by Putin. Why do you think Putin initially tried to deny that the anonymous men in unmarked uniforms occupying Crimea were Russian agents? He had planned and executed an invasion without any provocation from Ukraine and against Russia's Budapest agreement to respect Ukrainian sovereignty. McCain and Graham were trying to support greater US support for the defense of a sovereign nation that the US had pledged to support. Both the US and the UK were following a policy of continuing to maintain a signed commitment to support the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Russia had reneged on that agreement. Yet you continue to maintain that it was NATO provoking Russia into an invasion. As a sovereign nation, Ukraine had every right to seek closer integration with the EU and even to apply for permission to join NATO. They had been denied permission to join by NATO and are still being denied that permission.

 

[Estro Felino]

Nuland was trying to broker a peaceful resolution to the crisis. That's what diplomats do. She interacted both with the protesters and the Yanukovych government. The US sympathized with the protesters, who were outraged that Yanukovych had reverted to his old stance of spurning closer ties with the EU. They certainly weren't protesting and risking their lives on behalf of the US or any foreign nation. Their reason for being there was entirely their own. Don't forget that this kind of protest had happened nationwide during the Orange Revolution when pro-Moscow officials tried to rig an election in favor of Yanukovych.

Rather than negotiate, Yanukovych chose to brutally suppress the protest by shooting and killing people. His security forces went so far as destroy medical facilities with patients inside because they were treating protesters. (IOW, they behaved like the Russian military has during its post 2022 resumption of hostilities.) It is all in the public record for anyone interested in checking. Those who have Netflix access can watch the brilliant documentary, Winter on Fire. It includes details of US attempts to broker a peaceful resolution and how the Yanukovych government responded.

Really?
Because I have another version of the story.
The US Deep State supported Maidan, Poroshenko and Zelenskij to create an artificial conflict between Russians of Ukraine and Ukrainians.
So the civil war in Donbas would have been exploited as pretext to create tension between West and Russia...and to induce Putin to invade.
Because their objective is to overthrow Putin and to destabilize Russia, invade it and dismember it. And at last, seizing its resources.

 

[Copernicus]

...
Also because we Europeans need the US as allies. We would never expect the US to do bad things against us, against our welfare or against our security:

If you are so pro-EU, then why do you support Putin's invasion of Ukraine, which took place in response to Ukraine's attempt to develop closer ties with the EU?

 

[Copernicus]

Really?
Because I have another version of the story.
The US Deep State supported Maidan, Poroshenko and Zelenskij to create an artificial conflict between Russians of Ukraine and Ukrainians.

You have no idea of the recent history of events. Zelensky beat Poroshenko in a runoff election in 2019. The Maidan revolution took place in 2014. Putin invaded in February and March, 2014, in response to the overthrow of Yanukovych. Neither Poroshenko nor Zelensky were in power when Russia invaded. There was a power vacuum in Ukraine at the time, and Putin was taking advantage of it.

So the civil war in Donbas would have been exploited as pretext to create tension between West and Russia...and to induce Putin to invade.
Because their objective is to overthrow Putin and to destabilize Russia, invade it and dismember it. And at last, seizing its resources.

Nobody has come close to threatening to overthrow Putin except apparently his late henchman, Yevgeny Prigozhin. There is no such objective in the US government, let alone your fictional "deep state". All you are doing here is spouting paranoid fantasies pushed by Russian troll farms.

 

[lukethethird]

That's good, but I don't think you condemn them quite as much as others do.



That is utter BS. Neither McCain nor Graham promised any such thing. They favored doing more to arm Ukraine against an unprovoked invasion that had already been started by Putin. Why do you think Putin initially tried to deny that the anonymous men in unmarked uniforms occupying Crimea were Russian agents? He had planned and executed an invasion without any provocation from Ukraine and against Russia's Budapest agreement to respect Ukrainian sovereignty. McCain and Graham were trying to support greater US support for the defense of a sovereign nation that the US had pledged to support. Both the US and the UK were following a policy of continuing to maintain a signed commitment to support the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Russia had reneged on that agreement. Yet you continue to maintain that it was NATO provoking Russia into an invasion. As a sovereign nation, Ukraine had every right to seek closer integration with the EU and even to apply for permission to join NATO. They had been denied permission to join by NATO and are still being denied that permission.

That's good, but I don't think you condemn them quite as much as others do.

This is the medieval mindset I run up against.


That is utter BS. Neither McCain nor Graham promised any such thing.

McCain and Graham promising arms for Ukrainians. The video of the same meeting with McCain saying we will kill Russians has been removed but this says enough:

Graham starts speaking at 1:10

 

[Copernicus]

That's good, but I don't think you condemn them quite as much as others do.

This is the medieval mindset I run up against.

I don't think that my remark was actually going medieval on you, but I'm sorry to have caused all that trauma.

That is utter BS. Neither McCain nor Graham promised any such thing.

McCain and Graham promising arms for Ukrainians. The video of the same meeting with McCain saying we will kill Russians has been removed but this says enough:

Graham starts speaking at 1:10

I watched it from where Graham started speaking, and I was right. Neither man said anything about killing Russians, and Graham said explicitly that the US was not opposed to the Russian people, but to Putin. Moreover, their remarks were really pretty much standard rhetoric in a situation like that. The two senators praised their courage in resisting the invaders, and they pledged to do everything in their power to support their needs. That's all they could do, since they are only two votes in the Senate, not people in charge of US policy. Moreover, Donald Trump was in the first year of his presidency at the time, so their remarks were hardly a provocation to Russia, which had just pulled off a very successful operation to help Donald Trump get elected. Trump only reluctantly went along with aid to Ukraine and even tried to obstruct it at one point in an effort to get Zelensky to help him with his reelection campaign. In his "perfect phone call", Trump also advised Zelensky to come to an accommodation with Putin.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Missiles would be brought up to the Ukrainian Russia border pointing at a not too distant Moscow from there. I am old enough to remember the Cuban missile crisis, everyone in North America felt threatened by Soviet missiles in Cuba, a mere 70 miles off the coast of Florida. The US reacted and we came close to a nuclear holocaust, how many people even know that we are alive because of Vasily Arkhipov? Cuba was going to be invaded but cooler heads prevailed. It appears that this time around that both Russia and the nato countries have done away with diplomacy.

Again, NATO has always been a defensive force. Where is the threat? Russia at the time of the Cuban missile crisis was very much involved in a Cold War against the US. That is pretty much over with. One cannot successfully attack a nuclear power like the US or Russia. They have to know that. You should know that.

So where is the threat?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I know, I am an apologist for imperialism because I strayed from the narrative. Tell me all about it.

You have just done a perfect example of exactly what I described in that post. You have responded to nothing, just regurgitated your nonsense slogans.

And yes, you are an imperialist, because you constantly downplay the harm of Russia's imperialism.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Here is democracy in action, the democracy in Ukraine our tax dollars are preserving with bombs.

Ukraine suspends 11 political parties with links to Russia

Eleven Ukrainian political parties have been suspended because of their links with Russia, according to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Wow! Suspending a bunch of political parties that have direct ties with a country that HAS LITERALLY JUST INVADED THE COUNTRY! Who could ever possibly have imagined such totalitarianism!

If you expressed one tenth the outrage at Russia invading Ukraine as you pretend to express at Ukraine for doing literally ANYTHING, you'd not be defending them like you do.

You can never stay on one subject, Luke. You're like a wheelhouse of Russian propaganda. As soon you get exposed for one flagrantly dishonest take, you just shift to another. Hence why you have never tried to actually stand up for any actual position, and are completely incapable of defending any of your arguments for more than a couple of posts.

You're an imperialist, and a propagandist. And pretty bad at both.

 

[lukethethird]

Again, NATO has always been a defensive force. Where is the threat? Russia at the time of the Cuban missile crisis was very much involved in a Cold War against the US. That is pretty much over with. One cannot successfully attack a nuclear power like the US or Russia. They have to know that. You should know that.

So where is the threat?

I suppose putting Russian missiles in Cuba or Mexico would not be a threat?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I suppose putting Russian missiles in Cuba or Mexico would not be a threat?

Russia is an imperialist force known for invading their neighbours and annexing their territory. NATO is a reactive defensive pact that PREVENTS Russia from engaging in imperialism.

Russia is also a nuclear power. Any country genuinely putting boots on the ground in Russia would effectively be rushing the world to mutually assured destruction. Russia is not, nor has it ever been, at threat from invasion by NATO.

The threat NATO poses is to Russia's imperialist and expansionist ambitions.

These things you refuse to talk about about.

Because you're an imperialist.

 

[lukethethird]

You have just done a perfect example of exactly what I described in that post. You have responded to nothing, just regurgitated your nonsense slogans.

And yes, you are an imperialist, because you constantly downplay the harm of Russia's imperialism.

That was all there was to respond to. Come up with something, tell me all about how I downplay the harm caused by Russia. If I wanted harm done I would support supplying weapons too but like the chicken hawks in Washington you are really brave from the comfort of your armchair when it's not your life on the line. I'm for diplomacy, but that seems to be a thing of the past.

 

[lukethethird]

Russia is an imperialist force known for invading their neighbours and annexing their territory. NATO is a reactive defensive pact that PREVENTS Russia from engaging in imperialism.

Russia is also a nuclear power. Any country genuinely putting boots on the ground in Russia would effectively be rushing the world to mutually assured destruction. Russia is not, nor has it ever been, at threat from invasion by NATO.

The threat NATO poses is to Russia's imperialist and expansionist ambitions.

These things you refuse to talk about about.

Because you're an imperialist.

Nato is nothing but a self fulfilling prophecy, a war treaty looking for a war, and now they got one, but you don't get that.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

That was all there was to respond to. Come up with something, tell me all about how I downplay the harm caused by Russia.

I have said it repeatedly. You have called the invasion a "border dispute". You have attempted to excuse the invasion as a consequence of a "US backed coup" that was actually a popular protest within Ukraine that resulted in new, democratically elected leader. You have claimed that Ukraine has been killing Russian-speaking people in the Donbas, and when pressed for evidence of this you claimed they were responsible for 14,000 deaths, which I later learned was the total number of deaths - on both sides - of the war in the Donbas that was initiated by Russian separatists (and also just so happens to have been virtually identical to a dishonest claim made by Putin to excuse his invasion). You are desperate to shift the cause of the invasion, and it's moral weight, onto the USA or NATO (usually after you fail to put it onto Ukraine). You place blame ANYWHERE but at Russia, and only offer vague platitudes about Putin being bad while doing ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING YOU CAN to remove any moral accountability or responsibility for the invasion (when you're willing to call it that) from him.

If I wanted harm done I would support supplying weapons too but like the chicken hawks in Washington you are really brave from the comfort of your armchair when it's not your life on the line. I'm for diplomacy, but that seems to be a thing of the past.

You don't care about Ukrainians, otherwise you would respect their decision to defend their home and fight off an invading force, rather than calling it a "border dispute" and constantly having to LIE about Ukraine's history.

Ukraine has the right to self defense. The USA, their military ally, has the right (and, I would argue, the moral necessity) to provide them with the means to defend themselves. Putin has the right to negotiate, but isn't willing to cease his invasion without concessions in the form of territory.

An anti-imperialist would support a powerful nation aiding a weaker nation to protect their borders from an actual invasion. That is the bare minimum principle required of being anti-imperialist. You have to REJECT IMPERIALISM and support any acts - diplomatic, hegemonic or otherwise - that curtail actual imperialism.

You wouldn't be downplaying it. You wouldn't be excusing it. You wouldn't engage in lies and repeat the ACTUAL ARGUMENTS OF AUTHORITARIAN IMPERIALISTS to support the disarming of a nation that is defending itself AGAINST imperialism

Those are things an imperialist does.

You have done them.

Hence, you're an imperialist.