anthony

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Posts posted by anthony

  1. 21 hours ago, Marc said:

     

    Marc, Good find, I was about to link it. Humble apologies forthcoming from BBC's anchors and 'analysts' jumping to conclusions, perhaps?

    The automatic and prejudiced presumption Israelis dunnit - and they are lying - isn't new to us.

    It's certain moral cowardice to faithfully accept the word of a (once again recently) proven terrorist gang. (Cynic that I am, I did first consider this deliberate, not by Israel as the "projected" narrative was manipulated - by Hamas.

    What are the odds of a misfired rocket hitting a hospital? We'll see more. I put no act beyond Hamas.

    Do the media believe appeasing them will keep future terrorist operations out of their countries? 

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  2. Glenn Greenwald, only just found his show and quite impressed with his lucid thinking. Canada and neo Nazis in Ukraine in there.

    7 mins in

     

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  3. 12 hours ago, Marc said:

    Keep posting your propoganda my man.

     

    The brilliance of the indoctrination machine: inducing in mass minds that Ukraine is/was righteously defending itself - BUT - that Russia is/was not. (And has no moral or legal right to, anyway)

    The plain reality, both nations are defending themselves, one against NATO, Kyiv and the collective West. The other, Ukr, against a country, Russia, provoked into pre-emptive self-defence, by that combination.

    If anyone believes that Russia was not under severe threat from a sizable Ukraine/NATO Army, (and, later on, nuke missiles on its borders), and had to instantly respond before matters got much more dangerous, you're propagandized. And believing Russia has no right to protect its borders, the far future safety of its people or of the Ukr=Russian civilians about to be expelled/killed in an "ethnic cleansing" in early 2022  - for the West to grab Crimea/Sevastopol and the Donbass, and presumably, topple the Russian Gvt., create unrest and a probable civil war breaking up Russia ("divide and rule") to grab cheap natural resources and gain a geostrategic foothold over the next country in line, check your prejudices and premises.

    The nasty plan playing out before our eyes (for those who can see), was in setting both countries - defensively - against one another. (For which conflict self-congratulatory bureaucrats are celebrating is not costing "us" lives, just a bit of money out of the defense budget-- a bargain). They can openly tell the world that without shame.

    "Monsters", Johnstone correctly observes.

    SUBSTACK.COM

    In an interesting speech about the way US imperial aggression provokes violence around the world, antiwar commentator Scott Horton made reference to an April 2022 article from Yahoo News that had previously escaped my attention. The article is titled “

     

     

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  4. On 7/21/2023 at 8:41 PM, Peter said:

    Currently The World is experiencing a serious, nuclear problem with North Korea. Their chief potentate shoots his mouth off and also shoots off rockets that could contain nuclear war heads, and they could reach much of the globe. What can one country do, other than threaten retaliation killing him and his family and a million North Koreans?

    It is a tough dilemma, and not to sound too Scifi, I worry about this scenario being the end of the world "as we know it." I wonder why the universe of intelligent beings is not out there communicating with other entities? Could it be reaching the threshold of creating nuclear weapons is what kills off civilizations? That may be too pessimistic, but currently with several nuclear level countries I think the risk is steadily increasing.

    Woe is me. And everyone else.

          

    Peter, a saying goes - "if you're not part of the solution, you could be part of the problem". That applies I think to the West's poor handling, a huge overreach, of Russia, and somewhat to China. Rather than a show of strength, with Ukraine, what has become apparent to outsiders is how incredibly the West has sacrificed itself. The major problem is identifying Russia and China as joined together, a combined Asian geopoltical threat/peer competitor which needs containing/subsuming, one after the other. (There are big differences, the first being ideology). That's alluded to by generals and politicos as 'we have to make a final "example" of Russia's invasion to send the message to others - they cannot do the same'. I think this is dangerously short-sighted. What it does is notify China that they are likely next, raising alarm there. All of their leaders want their countries to be treated with respect - and, failing that, for NK, apparently with fear. That is where statesmen and diplomatic envoys enter. They don't have to approve of the regimes and leaders, just acknowledge that they know e.g. N Korea has its needs and security worries, as do their own countries, so cut out the attention-seeking display of missiles. A little carrot goes far, with the implicit stick not shown. But diplomacy seems to be a lost art. The perception is today that it is a sign of weakness - appeasement - to deal with dictators and authoritarians. I consider it a sign of character, dedication to reality and value in all humankind. The efforts of treating them as rational beings often reduce tension. The thing is to realize that nations cannot be coerced into some kind of perfection, but people volitionally change along with new generations born, they have to find their own way and the world wlll not be a Utopia.    

  5. On 7/10/2023 at 6:14 AM, Peter said:

    From “Objectivism The Philosophy of Ayn Rand” by Leonard Peikoff. The Initiation of Physical Force as Evil. Rationality requires the exercise of volition, which is the metaphysically given faculty of reason. Human beings must exercise reason (and therefore volition) in order to live. Because thought is an individual and not a collective process, different individuals may draw different conclusions about how to live. Two or more people who disagree about this issue have only three ways to resolve the dispute. The first is simply to go their separate ways; the second, to use persuasive argumentation; and the third, to initiate direct physical force (or its indirect version, fraud), which renders the victim's reasoning irrelevant and therefore impotent. Because individual human life is the standard of value and the individual's own reasoning and property is his proper method of sustaining that value, the initiation of physical force or fraud against the individual or his property is the basic moral wrong and evil. This holds true even if an individual's conclusions about how he should run his life eventually prove to be self-destructive, since he is the exclusive owner of his life and he alone will pay the price for his own mistakes. end quotes

    For all this is a very well-reasoned argument by Peikoff, I was dismayed at one excerpt: "Because individual human life is the standard of value..."

    Again, there is ambivalence and misunderstanding of "standard" which created confusion for O'ists. I can't resist picking it out again.

    Exact words matter.

    Rand was specific: while the individual's life is his/her's supreme value, what is the standard of this value?  "Man's life" is the standard of value for Objectivist ethics.

    That's like leaping from the concrete to the abstract and back again.

    A metaphysical standard, man's life, is an abstract measure - a gauge - by which one (individual) estimates one's level of application (right, by "the exercise of volition") to all the values/virtues - reason...integrity, etc. - in one's concrete existence.

    She thereby sets an *objective* justification for her ethics. Briefly - practice all the virtues and - you llve as "man".

    We'll get various subjectivist interpretations and acts from - your own life - being "the standard of value", which would morally justify all manner of deception, thieving and cheating and preying on others, etc. --in order to preserve and sustain your own physical life.

    Anything goes to stay alive, no?

    Then, Rand's system of ethics is just one more predatory "egotism".

    From which, making (or not preventing) a needless, not self-defensive conflict which you have the power to stop at little cost to you, but perhaps you see 'gain' in it, is irrational, immoral, and by the standard of value, anti-man's life. Those humans are other lives of the same species who have value in themselves, whether objectively explicated in an ethics, or usually not. 

     

  6. The numbers (with healthy skepticism) are more readily believable from the Russian side. Simply, they have little 'to prove'. Their reports are hardly seen outside and restricted in several countries. Minimal to zero, compared to the MSM disinformation and lies global reach. They even report their battle setbacks. Also I'd say the more realistic Russian population, from long experience, is not so easily taken in and indoctrinated by their state media. Ukraine (et al) has to keep the victory-fiction running, or Western support will fall away. No one likes and backs "a loser". The vast human or resource sacrifices/self-sacrifices will be vindicated and morally justified - these utilitarian-consequentialists sense - only by victory or 'symbolic victories'.  

    https://youtu.be/DsqIm3F02Rc

     

  7. On 7/17/2023 at 7:00 AM, Peter said:

     

    Other gruesome news.

    From Ukrainska Pravda: 500 Russians killed in Ukraine and dozens of vehicles destroyed Yesterday 1:21 AM Over the past 24 hours, the Armed Forces of Ukraine killed 500 Russian occupiers and destroyed 5 tanks and 18 artillery systems. SourceGeneral Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Details: The total combat losses of the Russian forces from 24 February 2022 to 16 July 2023 are estimated to be as follows [figures in parentheses represent the latest losses – ed.]: approximately 237,680 (+500) military personnel;  4,107 (+5) tanks;  8,026 (+7) armored combat vehicles; end quote

     

    You'd have readers believe the wish-list figures in Ukr Pravda, from the Ukr General Staff but not from experienced US military observers with contacts on the ground, like Col. McGregor and many more?

    Gotten worse, several analysts report that casualties have jumped to a 10:1 ratio since this counter-offensive. The UAF is committing suicide against the Russian defense line. Anecdotes of desertions and surrenders by untrained conscripts shoved to the front, increasing. 

  8. On 7/17/2023 at 5:30 PM, tmj said:

    I think Trey meant end the war, winning is a way to end it but not a likely outcome.

    Russia, not just Putin but all elements of the Russian state, have been saying for decades that NATO in Ukraine is a redline they would treat as an existential threat and that sentiment was reported/shared/acknowledged/understood by US/west and 'we' still championed the idea of Ukraine as a member to NATO.

    It doesn't seem like Russia will face much in the way of domestic opposition in 'the Donbass' or Crimea while incorporating those regions into their fold, so minus a full fledged NATO/US backed total war effort, why would Russia relinquish the territories? And so what? Annexing those territories works to ensure the Black Sea Fleet operations. Historically when the Russians get uppity various European powers and the Ottoman Empire would maneuver and restrict or deny Russia the warm water ports, denying them access in a post nuclear weapon era is a harder task.

    Keeping Ukraine as a buffer state between NATO and Russia would probably have been safer for the Ukrainian people safer for sure than goading Russia into an invasion.

    As a person I feel horrible for the death and destruction war brings to actual people, as an American I don't see why I need to give two fucks about Eastern Europe, well except possibly those who have nuclear missile armed submarines and best not to piss them off , unless you are forced to and this doesn't seem like that.

    Yes, and so said Stoltenberg. Not possibly just after any negotiated armistice, no, your NATO membership depends on "a victory". Which means they will never get it. And many more men to perish in the attempt. To beat Russia, Zelensky is desperately counting on that NATO membership now, that instantly invokes Art. 5, and then - what? Ukraine would not exist any more. The scumbag 'leader' betrayed his country, that is, alll of his Ukraine citizens, and is as much culpable as anyone for its destruction.

    "Safer", certainly. I wonder how many Ukrainians now are waking up to the realization they ( their Gov anyway) made an awful blunder. Firm neutrality - was their single path to peace and prosperity . They would have benefited richly from both Europe and Russia, in that location.

    The trend is towards non-aligned neutrality all over the "Developing Nations".

    "You are either for us or against us!" - the false alternative - will gradually become old history.

  9. 6 hours ago, Peter said:

    So, the best moral outcome would be for Ukraine to surrender and be occupied by Russia?     

    Russia is not going to "occupy" Ukraine. Never wanted to and cannot do it. One can take that to the bank.

    Logically, they would never try to impose an occupation on people ideologically opposed to all Russians . e.g. Galicians and the western regions.

    While nothing here is for certain, the consensus which most makes sense is that inhabitants of those regions who will vote to leave Ukraine and secede to Russia, with a wide strip that provides a protective DMZ for those regions from missile/guerilla attacks, will be the RF's outer range of conquest. At that point presumably they'll talk terms, which might mean (the remaining) Ukraine's regime change; no doubt there'll be formalized security guarantees for both countries, agreed to by NATO. What Putin was always after...

    Ukraine has already lost its legal, moral and sovereign rights to rule those - once loyal - citizens whom they'd been trying to kill and evacuate off their land.

    One might say those inhabitants have permanently lost their faith in Kyiv.

    What comes first, people or territory? Who has the primary moral right but the people in and of that land? Even if Ukraine -could- take back the lost territory, they would lose the people they'd mistreated.

    Kyiv had its chances, Zelensky and his sponsors should have taken the first, quite fair and reasonable (Minsk 2) deal on offer. But he apparently got carried away with the delusions of grandeur he was fed by everyone.

    Sad that this will reach the point where either side will have to capitulate, and if the reality had been firmly held to by other governments and militarists involved, they'd have admitted early on, that most unlikely would it be Russia. 

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  10. 19 hours ago, Peter said:

     

    From the site “1945”: The former speech writer elaborated: “The Russian economy is deteriorating,” Gallyamov said. “The war is lost. There are more and more dead bodies returning to Russia, so Russians will be coming across more difficulties and they’ll be trying to find explanation why this is happening, looking around to the political process and they’ll be answering themselves: ‘Well, this is because our country is governed by an old tyrant, an old dictator.’” Additionally, Gallyamov outlined how Moscow’s abysmal war efforts in Ukraine are creating tensions among Russia’s military leadership.

    Wrong, wrong, false and false and partly true (there will always be tensions in the military command during wartime).

    I hope there's a special place in Hell for the paid stooges and compromised media who've urged Ukrainians to keep feeding their lives into the War Machine ("because Russia's going to collapse. Just you wait!"). 

  11. On 7/14/2023 at 6:28 AM, Peter said:

    Russia initiated force in Ukraine. Period. Ukraine did not invade Russia.

     

    See, the trouble is like everyone informed by MSM, you noted and paid attention - only - to the latest dramatic act of "force".

    Horrors! Russia attacked and will occupy innocent Ukraine! Next, comes the attack on Europe! 

    That nothing exists outside of what one has seen and been told and outside one's emotional prejudices, is subjectivist. 

    To make it simple, a mental diagram.

    1. "Big arrow" assault from West to East: 2014 until now.

    ----> (Kyiv's army  trained/equipped by US/UK against the Donbass).

     

    2. Big arrow assault from East to West: Feb 2022 until the present.

    <----- (Moscow's limited counter-assault into - mainly- the Eastern oblasts

    3. A counter-assault from Kyiv with NATO help, eastwards/southwards since 2022, to newly "liberate" the Russian-"liberated" land. 

    4. Defensive line of contact by RF forces in front of the liberated oblasts, against which the last UAF army is taking heavy losses .

    5. Who knows? Where it ends and at which new borders?

    To be impartial, who "initiated" the "force"? One does NOT have to cross a border to be the first user of force.

    What many people who actually live there in the East all report (ex-Urainians who still remain from the millions who ran into Russia for safety), for them this has been an ongoing 10-year conflict. The MSM deliberately kept a lid on the Ukraine civil war and now had the West believing hostilities began just last year. Out of sight, out of mind.

    I.e. Russia "did it" (for no sense or provocation!)

    By Kyiv breaking the terms of a formal multi-national treaty** and continuously attacking and trying to invade those oblasts and overthrow Russian-Ukraine dissidents (now for almost 10 years) -  because they are ethnic "Russians" -- and likely (when victorious) continuing the aggression up to Russia's borders - yes, it can be said that Nato-ized Ukraine presented the threat of further aggression into Russia, itself.

    They might have invaded Russian territory, encouraged by their victory over Ukrainian-Russians.

    But that's futurist, if plausible, conjecture. Putin's invasion stopped that. Clear though, Crimea, without Russian resistance, would definitely have been attacked and fallen to this large force.

    The main thing, the 1-2 assaults - their order and timing. 

    In brief: Kyiv was and is repressing, then killing (still) their own people whose sin was they were ethnic Russians. Unchecked, they were soon going to murder/expel even more.

    Make an objective, moral case out of that.

    [**Everyone knows now the Minsk treaty was a time-wasting stratagem to halt the conflict for a while, obviously, to build up the UAF for its conquest of the East with Nato's input.

    But by what special "rules" and official permission NATO was active inside Ukraine, a non-member, from 2015, and aided a non-democratic regime in a conflict is still not clear to me.]

     

  12. On 7/14/2023 at 6:35 AM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

    Peter,

    ... is hatred of Putin only or a consistent adherence to principle...

    :) 

    Michael

    Interesting, that "consistent adherence to principle" has been the theme Putin - a lawyer, btw - and Lavrov and others have constantly raised.

    This goes for you but not for me...

    On international relations, shouldn't the world be looking for objectively principled rule of law among governments, not subjective "rule by men" (the Gvt. officials)?

    In effect, what goes for "you", the West (e.g your unquestioned prerogative to respond as you see fit to potential or actual threats, on your borders, in neighboring countries or half-way across the world) but disallowed to anyone else, is called "rules-based order". Since who makes the "rules"? Never an unfavored nation, but the powerful, self-serving, in-group of nations.

    Obversely, Putin has often posed an international "law based order". Where one's standing/status/strength, etc., as a nation is immaterial. (He is more objective than some would believe, especially in foreign affairs. What I'm seeing - a lot more objective than the present Western leaders).

    Much of the world is beginning to move in that rough direction, a grassroots rebellion against domination or interference by outsiders, (for better or worse). If only in retrospect, this had to happen.

    (A dictatorship, of course excluded from that "law-based order"; and before the response by anyone -- Russia is no longer a dictatorship)

  13. On 7/13/2023 at 4:31 PM, Peter said:

    The news: President Biden is in Finland today. Finland along with Sweden want to enroll in NATO. Ukraine will abide by NATO rules if invited to join NATO after the Russian invasion, slaughter, and subjugation is ended. Ukraine will not violate human rights.

    Russia is the threat. Russia is the wolf at the door to the whole free world . . . well except here on OL which is the La La Land exception. Russia tried to take over a whole country using the initiation of force. It will try again, if and when they recover from this invasion.

    I am certainly not for using American volunteers to fight Russia, and no one that I know of thinks or suggests that. No one in the whole free world, accept a couple of people here on OL, hate and despise Ukraine and seem to find every nitpicking reason to make Russia and Ukraine as equally bad for being invaded and for invading.

    Being invaded. Invading. Are those equivalent? Some bad people are in one country so an invasion is "justified?" If discussing the invaders and the invaded why primarily say bad things about the invaded? How large will the graveyards in Ukraine become before this is over? 

    The UN is already ramping up for a "Russian War Crimes" investigation. The amoral business people who want Russian oil are the rotten people who are enabling Russia. 

    I don't think the donation of cluster bombs to Ukraine should be done nor should it be advertised. Russia has already stated they will use cluster bombs, but I thought they had already done that. Russia has certainly targeted Ukrainian civilians. I don't think a hatred of Ukraine which may embolden Russia is what Ayn Rand would promote. I don't think little or no "moral support" for Ukraine is objective or in the interest of the free world. 
           

    I take exception, if I am one of those Ukraine haters. Why was I insisting here on getting to talks, back at the start? Because I know how things spiral out of control, and had a rough idea of where this could go, and it wasn't good for Ukraine. Or Russians. Or Europe. Or the rest of the world. I'm not discriminatory, nor collectivist, I see only individuals, and the deaths and maiming of many thousands - of any nationality/ethnicity, is a moral offense. Rather, it was the West's Russian haters in Gvt. office and brainwashing media, who - by concealing/evading the fact that Putin was evidently ready for talks prior to and in the first months -  but doing nothing  - who wanted the war to go ahead, who relished Russian casualties - for one purpose, driving Russia down. Ukraine, the means to that end. Such are the 'lovers' of Ukraine. (With friends like these...)

    This, a preference for a needless, avoidable war - that could have been stopped with a phone call, and modest concessions - over peace is unbecoming to the leaders and people of free nations.

    Early on, it should have been the mature, responsible West which pressured Ukraine to take care of its ethnic divide, and secure equal rights for the Russian speakers, or else.

    I.E.: Kyiv was the initial,  immoral party by its illicit treatment of fellow citizens -  KYIV should have been warned, sanctioned if necessary, to get their act together, by the USA et al, LONG before Russia was.  (On the moot assumption that there had been no interference and regime change helped along by Victoria Nuland and the war hawks, and no Nato (de facto) internal involvement gearing up for an expected war, etc.).

    Then, guess what? No invasion.

    Except Nato pressed relentlessly ahead at the ONE country, after all the ex-Soviets had been absorbed by NATO without Russia's protest, the one that  RF presidents and rational US intellectuals warned they should not interfere in: Ukraine. Call the place Putin's paranoia. You 'go there', it can be for only one reason - against Russia's security - get ready for a certain response. Else, don't go. Now that I've heard from many politicians and sussed their delusions of grandeur and seen their reckless activities and cavalier attitude to lives,  I don't see it as his paranoia any longer. The "potential" or implicit "initiation of force" from a permanent future of heavily armed, massive Ukraine army with many Nato military bases and with Nukes on its Russian borders, would have been a constant Sword of Damocles over Russia.

    (That was the plan. Reversing cause and effect: "Let Putin respond with preventive force as he certainly will, to our potential threat to Russia and overt, direct threats to the Donbas, Crimea; then we have him - and can innocently blame him for starting hostilities").

    Putin is obviously a person who recognizes "implications" (that Oists ought to, too). Clear, he saw the above situation coming. No leaders would be allowed to put up with the ongoing fear and uncertainty by their populace.

    A little respect for other even, (in some respect) lesser or developing, nations and their individuals.

  14. On 7/10/2023 at 7:20 AM, Peter said:

    I think Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine has hardened the perceived need of the countries near Russia to join NATO or strengthen their ties to NATO. Sweden and Finland want to join NATO for their protection from the Russian wolf. These three quotes originated in the small countries of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

     

    Small countries yes, whose people collaborated with Nazis, and are rabidly anti-Russian and were anti-Jewish.

    They also haven't gotten over the Soviets. Though left alone by Russia since independence and had no need of Nato protection. Similar to Ukraine, still exist neo-Nazi groups in Lithuania now.

    https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-7-2012-006775_EN.html

    Let's not be naive. Over there, one needs to be careful who one sympathizes with (to demonize Russia). Before you know it, one can be siding with Nazis.

    The enemy of my enemy is my friend doesn't cut it.

    https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjY08eD4oqAAxXaiVwKHdkaCiw4ChAWegQICRAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fbrill.com%2Fdownloadpdf%2Fbook%2Fedcoll%2F9783657705757%2FBP000031.pdf%3FpdfJsInlineViewToken%3D171586147%26inlineView%3Dtrue&usg=AOvVaw1fJaQYaHN-JMBE_3I6eGR3&opi=89978449

    "Nazi propaganda exploited the anti-communist and anti-Jewish
    sentiment that had grown during the year of the Soviet occupation, and con-
    vinced some Lithuanians that Bolshevism was a Jewish force, and that it was
    primarily the Jews who were to blame for all the hardships...".

     

     

  15. On 7/10/2023 at 6:14 AM, Peter said:

     Because individual human life is the standard of value and the individual's own reasoning and property is his proper method of sustaining that value, the initiation of physical force or fraud against the individual or his property is the basic moral wrong and evil. This holds true even if an individual's conclusions about how he should run his life eventually prove to be self-destructive, since he is the exclusive owner of his life and he alone will pay the price for his own mistakes. end quotes

    Hmm, standard of value.

    "While (immorally) deterring peace talks". I said above.

    Jens Stoltenberg at Vilnius a few days back:

    NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
    [...]

    "We will provide support to Ukraine for as long as it takes. Because unless Ukraine wins this war, there's no membership issue to be discussed at all".

    --

    "Unless Ukraine wins..." Can you see what Putin saw? His "Existential threat"? Neutrality? There's no satisfying or dealing with Nato belligerence, it was coming for Russia next.

    No matter that Ukraine goes under, in the attempt (as it is) --you will keep fighting "to the last Ukrainian" (if you desire the glittering empty prize of Nato admission).

    The Ukrainians are worse than "proxy" combatants, they've been convinced by the adoring world to be "self-destructive" heroic slaves - to that final victory. Which, in the West's nasty notion of consequentialism, will claim undeserved moral supremacy in their public's eyes.

    While posturing as Ukraine's ... defender.

    Their premises laid bare by Jens S - these warmonger leaders strongly indicate contempt of any Slavic race, Russians or Ukrainians; both are lesser-human and can be "ethnically cleansed"/removed/subordinated for power, prestige and avarice.

    "Evil" martyrdom.

     

     

     

  16. On 7/7/2023 at 7:37 PM, Peter said:

     Who is winning the war?

    consequentialism
    noun
    Philosophy
    noun: consequentialism
    1. the doctrine that the morality of an action is to be judged solely by its consequences.
       
      ---
       
      Unsaid, the domain of this war is all about who's perceived to hold the "moral high ground". (The major aim of propaganda ).
       Who is killing more, holding more ground and therefore "winning this war"? (Not in doubt, despite msm propaganda).
      This alone determines the "mhg" for most people - the reason that casualty counts have been fanatically top of the public agenda.
      Everyone sort of understands subconsciously from much fiction, selected history and religious teaching -
      if "we" are righteous "we" will be victorious.
      Corollary:
      When we are victorious, we must by necessity be the morally righteous.
       
      That seems to govern the illogical moral thinking that is escalating the west's leaders' increasingly reckless actions. While (immorally) deterring peace talks.
       
      Therefore, the desperate collective West must not be seen to militarially- or morally - lose in Ukraine, expending all efforts up to the max.
      The Ukrainians serve only to be sacrificed for that cause.
      Throw the last human fodder to the cannons to maybe gain a little battlefield gain for daily headlines. Their lives matter little. Ultimate moral supremacy will be "judged solely by consequences".
       
      And if it goes the other way, the Russians aren't turfed out and emerge winners, overall, would this mean "they" have the righteous cause-- and that "we" were immoral? Yes, to be consistent with consequentialism doctrine.
      Ha, cognitive dissonance, a mental "flat spin" describes the lot of those fervently pro-Ukraine who try to resolve this contradiction.
      So much for "might makes right".
       
       
       
       
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