Mopologist William Schryver Continues His Descent Into Madness

[Morley]

It's wild to me that we have a segment of 55+ year old conservatives who grew up stewing in Reaganism and the Cold War who by reflex backed the US against any adversary for 50+ years who have become Russian sympathizers.

My favorite post, Bond.

[honorentheos]

Perceived atrocities committed against ethnic Russians by the Ukrainian government are the core of Russian propaganda, after all, even though many of the elements of that propaganda campaign happen also to be true.

Genuinely curious which propoganda elements specific to atrocities committed against ethnic Russians happen to also be true?

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Perceived atrocities committed against ethnic Russians by the Ukrainian government are the core of Russian propaganda, after all, even though many of the elements of that propaganda campaign happen also to be true.

Genuinely curious which propoganda elements specific to atrocities committed against ethnic Russians happen to also be true?

Bump for Sym.

- Doc

[Symmachus]

Perceived atrocities committed against ethnic Russians by the Ukrainian government are the core of Russian propaganda, after all, even though many of the elements of that propaganda campaign happen also to be true.

Genuinely curious which propoganda elements specific to atrocities committed against ethnic Russians happen to also be true?

One example I mentioned above is the very obvious attempt to terrorize populations who might not be on board with the liberal Ukrainian state-building project through the summary execution of ordinary people accused of being "saboteurs" by using shibboleths, but in this case I was thinking of many instances before the invasion of this year, most obviously the frequent shelling of the (very pro-Russian) population of Donetsk from 2014 onward (I have read/seen/heard discussion about many over the years, but see Amnesty International here for an example). Very interesting is how some reports of Amnesty International have broken links to alleged Ukrainian atrocities in reports that otherwise say there are witness to them (see, for example, here, where the link to the killing of an 18 year-old and a schoolchild is broken but referenced; some of the other pages have similarly broken links). Last month Amnesty reported how the Ukrainian military is basically using the populations of territories under its control as human shields, with a caveat for its liberal readers, at once both comforting and insulting, that "Such violations in no way justify Russia’s indiscriminate attacks, which have killed and injured countless civilians" (why do they need to be reminded of this? I wonder). Of course the most egregious example is the attempt to cut off water to the (again, very pro-Russian) population of Crimea. That serves no military purpose and is obviously an attempt to punish civilians, most of whom think of themselves as ethnically Russian. Its effects have really quite devastating, and it is instructive to think of how this would be portrayed had it been Russians doing it to the Ukraine. There of course all kinds of videos of Russian POWs being mistreated (as there of Ukrainian POWs), which I should not link to. One could mention the Aidar and Azov people and all of their crimes in support of the Ukrainian government, but I think even the Ukrainian government wishes it could be rid of such help.

Two examples I find quite disturbing but illustrative of the way that real things become propagandized are the definition of "mass grave" and the issue of the "petal" mines (lepestok)." Back in 2014, there was apparently a grave containing the remains of four Russian separatists executed by the Ukrainians. In Russia, this became the course of outrage, especially after the foreign minister Lavrov said it was 400, and then when it was reduced by a factor of 100, it was like, "well these four people don't matter? Is it only a mass grave when it is Ukrainians?" So, the fact that this hinges on an interpretation or a definition means that this it is going to be used in one side's propaganda efforts against the other.

The lepestok, from what little I understand of such things, are mines that are meant to maim rather than kill because the intent is to cause logistical damage and disrupt supply lines by flooding hospitals with de-limbed civilians—particularly children who pick them up apparently because the mines look like toys; this depletes supplies of donated blood, etc. and otherwise harms the military effort of one side by reducing its capacity to absorb losses. Now, Ukrainians and western media who repeat whatever the Ukrainians say claimed early on that Russians were using these, though that has been not been verified (this source from March says there is no evidence for the Russian link). However, these have been scattered around Donetsk in very large numbers (the pro-Russian area), such that local government officials are having to put out leaflets with pictures etc. to tell the local population (again, very pro-Russian) not to pick them up. It is kind of hard to see why the Russians would drop mines like this in the civilian areas of territories that are sympathetic to them and that they otherwise provide support for. It makes even less sense why the Russians would then go about trying to clear the mines that they supposedly dropped in the first place (see here too). Basically there is propaganda war over this between the Ukrainians and Russians. For what it's worth, the Russian case at least does not violate logic, and I have to say that the people who brought us "the ghost of Kiev" and other such BS seem not too credible in general. Their propaganda effort is aimed mainly at western politicians and opinion makers because that's who pays the bill for all of this, and it's just too revealing to me that these people brag about "winning the propaganda war," as if winning the prize for being the most manipulative and deceitful is coveted moral victory. It doesn't help that they get retweeted by the same people who brought us the Iraq war.

If you say that this stuff just happens in war, well, I suppose that must be true, but I would just remind the two people still reading this that I am not trying to create moral equivalencies with all of this; I'm pointing out that if you have to remind readers that facts are not to be interpreted in a way that makes the other side look good, as Amnesty International does—well, you are performing a function of a propagandist and what you are telling them is propaganda, even if it is reporting true things. That is what I am talking about with the quote you've taken from earlier post.

My goto for understanding some of this has been Marlene Laruelle. She maintains that Ukraine as part of Russia is central to Russian identity--an identity that is still being reformulated post-Gorbachev. It seems that a Russian military conflict with the West was inevitable, given the West's (and especially America's) cultural and idealogical exports that have put inexorable pressure on Russian society and identity.

Add to this the Crimean peninsula. When Khrushchev gave Crimea to Ukraine, they were still a part of the Soviet Union, and it was understood that the gift was largely ceremonial. Russia fully expected to get custody of this baby after the divorce. While not forgivable, it is sometimes understandable when the noncustodial parent tries to kidnap their offspring.

I am sure there is a lot to that, but in general I really think the western commentators vastly inflate the issue of ethnicity for Russians. The Russian Federation, which is what we are talking about when we say "Russia," already has many, many non-ethnic Russian groups speaking many different languages. None of these genocidal motives imputed to the Russians make any sense not only because they are not uncomfortable with non-Russian ethnicities within their territory but because it's hard to know what a "Ukrainian" ethnicity is, as I said in the earlier post above. The ones obsessed with ethnicity are those who have been trying to invent a Ukrainian identity and impose on the rest of the country, not the Russians.

Some of this reminds me of Iraq again. Like Iraq, Ukraine is an artificially created country drawn by the victors of previous wars who were distant and uninterested in the local populations. Ukraine is a very mixed place like Iraq in that the drawing of these borders put related but different groups in (Russians, Galicians, Cossacks, even Poles). These populations are administered and governed by a fragile state. If the state is a fragile one, yet unlike Iraq it is not a fractured state: there are not serious and long-standing ethnic tensions. This is something that the fragile state has been trying to invent in order to make this a digestible conflict for western audiences: that there is this tribe of Ukrainians whose little country is being invaded by big bad Russians who are motivated by ethnic hatred or sh!t like that. It's just not the case. I think this conflict is much more about the Russian response to the exploitation of Ukrainian fragility by the west for geopolitical purposes that western rulers have yet to ask their populations about in any serious way—"we're just sending another $13 billion of your money over there this week with some more weapons; don't mind us."

To tie this back to Mormonism, I think Khrushchev is probably pounding his shoe on the podium in Spirit Prison, as he watches all of this--umm, while signing the papers accepting his proxy baptism.

I suspect that he has found the hierarchy of the Church in the Spirit World strangely comforting and familiar, and he has likely become one of the great missionaries in the Spirit World:

"Vi vill baptIZE you!"



Elder Nikita Kruschev delivers an address encouraging yet more missionary work at the Semi-Annual Spirit General Conference.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

The de facto authorities in Donetsk claimed that pro-Kyiv forces used an improvised mobile mortar launcher within the city for the strike, but Kyiv denied responsibility for the incident.

Are we actually giving Russians the benefit of the doubt after their historical record has been, well, not super trustworthy? Why are the Kievan Rus an unacceptable ethnic identity while simultaneously legitimizing ethnic Muscovite identity?

Anyway. Thanks for the well-composed post Symm, but it appears your statement, “… many of the elements of that propaganda campaign happen also to be true” seems a little too trusting in Russian claims, all the while the Russians are, you know, breaking treaties, promises, and murdering thousands to steal away territory.

Whatever the case may be, this is proving to be a very revealing war, and I suspect the Biden admin sees an opportunity to degrade Russia’s status in the world, and is masterfully doing so. I don’t see any strategic upside to handing Russia trillions in natural resources given their stated geopolitical aims. Add in the fact we’re going to have to face China sooner or later and fighting a proxy war with Russia now instead of later is not only smart, but cheap (until it isn’t).

X Doc

[Morley]

I am sure there is a lot to that, but in general I really think the western commentators vastly inflate the issue of ethnicity for Russians. The Russian Federation, which is what we are talking about when we say "Russia," already has many, many non-ethnic Russian groups speaking many different languages. None of these genocidal motives imputed to the Russians make any sense not only because they are not uncomfortable with non-Russian ethnicities within their territory but because it's hard to know what a "Ukrainian" ethnicity is, as I said in the earlier post above. The ones obsessed with ethnicity are those who have been trying to invent a Ukrainian identity and impose on the rest of the country, not the Russians.

I think you misunderstand me. Laruelle's definitely not arguing that. She is--as I say--pointing out how integral Ukraine is to Russian self-identity. To be honest, I haven't seen anyone make the 'different ethnicities' argument, other than say, CNN.

I think many see Ukrainian national identity as a relatively modern construct. Which is why Putin and many in the West were surprised by their seemingly robust nationalistic resistance.

Some of this reminds me of Iraq again. Like Iraq, Ukraine is an artificially created country drawn by the victors of previous wars who were distant and uninterested in the local populations. Ukraine is a very mixed place like Iraq in that the drawing of these borders put related but different groups in (Russians, Galicians, Cossacks, even Poles). These populations are administered and governed by a fragile state. If the state is a fragile one, yet unlike Iraq it is not a fractured state: there are not serious and long-standing ethnic tensions.

The 'artificially created country' argument was one of the intellectual / technocratic justifications for the US going into Iraq. We'd give the Kurds and the Sunnis their own power bases, we'd clean up the messes the British made. It wasn't a good enough reason for war then, neither is it a good enough reason to justify the Russians taking Ukraine.

This is something that the fragile state has been trying to invent in order to make this a digestible conflict for western audiences: that there is this tribe of Ukrainians whose little country is being invaded by big bad Russians who are motivated by ethnic hatred or crap like that. It's just not the case.

Russia is something of a fragile state, itself. It could also be said that this is something that the fragile state (Russia) has been trying to invent in order to make this a digestible conflict for its own domestic audiences: that Russians and Ukrainians are all the same ethnicity, that our homeland, the land of our ancestors, is being taken over by the big, bad Nazi Ukrainians and the corrupt and decadent West.

I suspect that he has found the hierarchy of the Church in the Spirit World strangely comforting and familiar, and he has likely become one of the great missionaries in the Spirit World:

"Vi vill baptIZE you!"



Elder Nikita Kruschev delivering an address encouraging even more missionary work at the Semi-Annual Spirit General Conference.

Outstanding. I expected nothing less.

[Symmachus]

The de facto authorities in Donetsk claimed that pro-Kyiv forces used an improvised mobile mortar launcher within the city for the strike, but Kyiv denied responsibility for the incident.

Are we actually giving Russians the benefit of the doubt after their historical record has been, well, not super trustworthy? Why are the Kievan Rus an unacceptable ethnic identity while simultaneously legitimizing ethnic Muscovite identity?

Anyway. Thanks for the well-composed post Symm, but it appears your statement, “… many of the elements of that propaganda campaign happen also to be true” seems a little too trusting in Russian claims, all the while the Russians are, you know, breaking treaties, promises, and murdering thousands to steal away territory.

Whatever the case may be, this is proving to be a very revealing war, and I suspect the Biden admin sees an opportunity to degrade Russia’s status in the world, and is masterfully doing so. I don’t see any strategic upside to handing Russia trillions in natural resources given their stated geopolitical aims. Add in the fact we’re going to have to face China sooner or later and fighting a proxy war with Russia now instead of later is not only smart, but cheap (until it isn’t).

X Doc

First, a lot of Russians will say exactly the same thing to you about western propaganda, or they will say something close to it. But I don't think I am taking the Russian government at face value or giving them the benefit of the doubt; I am taking Amnesty International at face value, as well as Bloomberg and Deutsche Welle. The point is not to keep "atrocity score," and determine who is better and more worthy of support based on tabulating atrocities after those atrocities have been proven and prosecuted in all details. Rather—as I said—the point is to show how atrocities are instrumentalized for propaganda purposes. I don't think much or anything of what I mentioned is factually open to dispute (the shelling of Donetsk on and off for eight years, the cutting off of water supplies to Crimea, etc.), though they are described very differently in the west when it happens to Russians (why do you think people living in the United States need to be told how to think about one side doing the same thing as the other side in a distant country that most people can't find on a map?). Of what I cited, the issue of the lepestok alone is disputed, but as I discussed, I don't really see why Russians would be behind that in Donetsk, where its use has actually been proven, as a matter of logic—it's on the level of making 9/11 an inside job. Some people find that kind of thinking compelling and persuasive; I don't.

I find your first sentence very puzzling, as no one calls themselves "Kievan Rus" or "Muscovite." I would call it hilarious except that I don't doubt your sincerity, but those are historical terms imposed on the past for the purpose of understanding the medieval history of the region. Who calls themselves "Kievan Rus" in 2022? No one even in 1022 called themselves Kievan Rus. Today, a "Muscovite" is someone who lives in Moscow, whatever their ethnicity. I wonder: perhaps you take western propaganda a bit too much at face value? Western propaganda also claims a rich tradition with a long and storied history and is very much alive.

I'm not sure either that I think the Biden + Obama holdovers have handled this masterfully. The sanctions were so masterful that Russia has been able to profit from them while the west has moved into an inflationary economy: "Make them sell the gas and oil to India and China instead, forcing our energy costs to increase—that'll show 'em!" Added to this, we still rely on Russia in order to get some kind of symbolic deal from Iran, and the only reason Russia engages in those talks is to work with Iran in building a parallel economy that is immune from NATO sanctions. It is almost hilarious how the US president, in a rare moment of coherence, tells us Putin "has got to go" with one side of his mouth and then begs its help in dealing with Iran from the other. The Russians help out of securing an interest—so we should think about what that interest is and be suspicious of the wisdom of making them a partner in diplomacy that is ostensibly about curbing the spread of nuclear weapons. Not smart, in my view. Certainly not masterful. Meanwhile, we have pissed off a great many Indians in attempting to strong-arm their government into this fake alliance, a nation which—if you are sincere in your fear of China—we should be trying to bring to our side with deeper ties, not alienating by treating as a sub-colonial client state. Curiously, that kind of treatment doesn't go down well over there. Among the Immortal Incompetents, the people of the Biden administration should be awarded the highest seats, if nothing else for their humiliating and cruel exit from Afghanistan. I wouldn't trust these people to organize my kid's birthday party. They'd probably end up droning it, and then claim it was all masterful in an a fake apology written in HR-speak.

Speaking of China—assuming you are correct that our current administration is using this as a proxy war with China, when has the administration ever made that case to voters? All I have heard is that Putin is Hitler, an evil authoritarian fighting against the forces of democracy who raised gas prices. Oh, and he Facebook to put Trump in office. Not very compelling to me. I speak as a lifelong Democrat, but I don't think that my voting history means I have to surrender my judgment or good sense.

And what stated "geopolitical aims" are you talking about? The United States won't even tolerate the slightest interference in the western hemisphere, but somehow we are to expect a nuclear-armed country like Russia to tolerate a NATO puppet state on its borders and have its leaders pre-approved by the United States (as we were caught doing in 2012)? I think very few to 0 practitioners of American statecraft would have operated under such irresponsible arrogance in the past. It's not giving Russia the benefit of the doubt to say this, but it is good sense to worry about it, because such complacent hubris is usually broken only by unexpected bursts of savage violence. World War One was not supposed to happen because of so many masterful diplomats.

I'm sure we'll not find much to agree about on this issue.

[Symmachus]

I think you misunderstand me. Laruelle's definitely not arguing that. She is--as I say--pointing out how integral Ukraine is to Russian self-identity. To be honest, I haven't seen anyone make the 'different ethnicities' argument, other than say, CNN.

Well, at least I know where our good Doctor Cam is getting that from, though I have seen the claim made many times that Russians are going to commit genocide against Ukrainians. Hard to do that if there is no such thing as Ukrainians, but in general I think of all of this symptomatic of the primacy of narrative over understanding that dominates discourse about Russian and Ukraine in western publics (especially in the US).

I think many see Ukrainian national identity as a relatively modern construct. Which is why Putin and many in the West were surprised by their seemingly robust nationalistic resistance.

Was it the result of a robust national identity or the fact that Ukraine has a massive military (thanks to the US and allies)? I am skeptical of all this. Why are the Ukrainians enforcing conscription and controlling the flow of Ukrainian men from and inside the country? I don't know about you, but if Mexico invaded the US, there probably wouldn't be much worry from the government that Americans would flee to Mexico or even Canada. But if they did, we have to wonder whether such people really had such a strong national identity after all. So, presumably, Ukraine wouldn't need to force a population to fight if that population had such a strong national identity. Added to this is the fact that Ukraine does not appear to have a manpower shortage as much as a shortage of materiel (which is why we keeping sending them money and weapons), which suggests something else is going on.

And who knows what Putin thinks? I have heard so many different theories, all of which say more about the theorist than Putin. We still don't really know what Russian war aims are—and perhaps the Russians do not either! Which surely would be the most Russian thing of all time. It really amazes me the competence that we attribute to the Russian government. The Facebook memes many in the US believe were used to install Trump were hilariously bad and ineffective, but I wouldn't go on an Aeroflot plane if you paid me. My favorite exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum was some soviet space equipment on loan which included one of the suits used in some mission or other that went outside of the space craft (equivalent to the US Gemini program): it had a piece of wood to which different parts of the suit were connected with screws—fVcking wood in space! Just glorious.

(enter Physics Guy to explain why the wood was genius idea)

The 'artificially created country' argument was one of the intellectual / technocratic justifications for the US going into Iraq. We'd give the Kurds and the Sunnis their own power bases, we'd clean up the messes the British made. It wasn't a good enough reason for war then, neither is it a good enough reason to justify the Russians taking Ukraine.

I remember that was part of the discussion, but I don't recall anyone using that, at least in the US, as justification for the invasion of Iraq; it was all about freedom, democracy, Al Qaeda, and weapons of mass destruction, never about Kurds getting a country or anything like that. In any case I am not justifying anything. My point was about western narratives that there is some inherent sanctity to having national borders that overrides any interest that Russia may have, and therefore that supporting Ukraine in an unthinking way is ipso facto justified because of that. Just about every response to my earlier post is a variation of that: "well, maybe that is so, but the minute they crossed the border they earned the death penalty and we must fight them."

I just don't buy that, because we circumvent national borders all the time just in subtler form—we were caught fVcking redhanded trying to pick the leader of Ukraine in 2012! I think this species of "justification" is important for propaganda purposes or for in general feeling good about what you are doing. But I would suggest that this idea that a war has to have a moral justification dependent on sovereignty alone is not only a rather recent but also a very western (especially American) obsession. Most wars involve the application of force for group interest, and most wars have not needed this kind of justification—the interest for prosecuting the war needed to be justified, not the reason for violating sovereignty. Nations will always act in their interest, and sometimes they will wage war to do so. But in the US and its sub-colonial partners we have this idea that somehow we have outgrown this, that we don't operate on interest but only on a highs principles like democracy, and that national conflicts elsewhere can be mediated—usually through submission to US will via one of its innumerable proxies. It has worked out poorly. This is why Obama sounded like a complete idiot when he said Russia was behaving like a nineteenth century power, only to go on and do nothing about it—it was behaving merely as all nations do, just without the moral exhibitionism that Americas prefer. The reason I see it as a problem is because it may force us to see as an enemy someone who really isn't (and I don't think Russia really is much of a threat to the US as a sovereign nation, though it is a threat to US pretension to being the global hegemon). It is the equivalent of being duped by your own propaganda. That doesn't mean I am a Russian sympathizer or a fan of Vladimir Putin or someone thinks the US is the Great Satan, and Chomsky is not my prophet; I just think believing your own BS is detrimental in the end, and if Russia truly is our enemy, such delusion will only help them outwit us (as they have been and continue to do).

Russia is something of a fragile state, itself. It could also be said that this is something that the fragile state (Russia) has been trying to invent in order to make this a digestible conflict for its own domestic audiences: that Russians and Ukrainians are all the same ethnicity, that our homeland, the land of our ancestors, is being taken over by the big, bad Nazi Ukrainians and the corrupt and decadent West.

It could be said, but I just don't see it as anything but wishful thinking and—once again—another narrative tool that is only useful to the extent it reflects what is real. So how does it actually reflect something real? Why didn't Russia do this earlier? Is support of a war proof-positive that it was done for this reason another? It just seems like something a journalist or analyst would come up with because it is a cliché and they only think in cliches because—to get back to my very first post—they don't really understand these places or people—they don't even try to.

Again, Stephen Kotkin is great on this; he denounces the kind of regime Putin has but not without pointing out—much to the discomfort of commentators who rely on pre-made narratives—that it has been successful because it has co-opted so many people into it. A lot of people have an interest in keeping Putin's regime going. And even if it were someone else, it would be just someone else, not a different regime. Putin has not invented this pattern but is adapting the technologies of governance and administration that have long been a part of Russian life.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I feel like the Cato Institute has a representative on the board.

As far as Ukrainian identity being legitimate or not, or whether or not they have a right to self-determination, I suppose that depends on one’s views on their sense of who they are, and what they feel is their territory. They’re an eastern slavic ethnicity with their own language, customs, and enough differences with their Russian cousins to result in a regional claim that led to their being their own ‘state’ under various iterations of regional polities. In a sense they’re no different from an Alabamian feeling ethnically apart from a Texan or Floridian or Kentuckian. Are Alabamians ridiculous for feeling or thinking that way? Maybe, maybe not.

As far as Amnesty International is concerned, they failed to provide context on Russia's bombardments of populated areas and documented attacks on civilians distorting reality, drawing a false moral equivalence between the aggressor and the victim, and boosting Russia's disinformation effort. This is fake 'neutrality', not truthfulness. If Russia had honored their pacts with Ukraine there’d be exactly zero breakaway states, zero Crimean land grabs, and zero invasions resulting in the absolute decimation of Ukrainian cities. They’ve launched so much artillery on Ukrainian cities they’re literally using shells from the 60’s now. To play the moral equivalence card in Ukraine is bananas. Russia is a kleptocracy ran by maniacal mafiosos, there’s simply no way anyone with any sense can look at Russian history and think, “You know what? They should be allowed to take over the 7th largest country in the world along with Black Sea control and trillions in resources, because, you know, ignoring political avarice works out well for the world.” Russia should be isolated and politically contained.

eta: inb4 it’s the West’s faults because Ukraine wanted a political relationship with it, and we obliged

- Doc

[drumdude]

I feel like the Cato Institute has a representative on the board.

Seriously.