The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming!

R

rickyb

Well-Known Member
Ralph Nader: Welcome indeed. Listeners, we're going to cover a lot of ground here – NATO,
Putin, Ukraine. We're going to talk first about...tell us your reaction to the media coverage here.
You were a close observer, Chris, of the media coverage of the Bush-Cheney slaughter in Iraq,
and well over a million people, hundreds of thousands of children killed; the society destroyed,
public services, healthcare, drinking water, electricity, internal warrings, huge amount of money
wasted, several thousand US soldiers killed, hundreds of thousands exposed to all kinds of toxics
like burn pits, criminal war of aggression. There doesn't seem to be the level of outrage on the
Iraq situation compared to the congressional White House media outrage here. Could you give us
your thoughts on this, and why?


Chris Hedges: Well, it gets to what Chomsky and Ed Herman wrote about in their book,
Manufacturing Consent: [
The Political Economy of the Mass Media]--the difference between
worthy and unworthy victims. So our victims are not worthy. Yemenis are not worthy.
Palestinians are not worthy. Ukrainians are worthy. It helps, of course, that they're white. So that
is a classic trope of empire. Remember, when I was covering the war in El Salvador, that's of
course where four church women were raped and murdered by the Salvador National Guard at
roughly the same time you had a Polish priest that was murdered by the communist government.
The Reagan administration kept speaking about that priest and using it as a kind of bludgeon to
attack the communist government in Poland. And yet, by the end of the war, 19 priests were
killed and the Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated. So that was a kind of dichotomy that
some victims count and others don't. So Iraqis don't count. The two decades of war crimes that
we committed that have so far dwarfed anything that Putin has done in Ukraine are ignored. And
this kind of moral posturing and cheerleading and self-adulation, plays to what viewers, and
often readers, want to hear but it's deeply hypocritical. And that's not lost on the rest of the
world.

 
V

vantexan

Well-Known Member
rickyb said:
Ralph Nader: Welcome indeed. Listeners, we're going to cover a lot of ground here – NATO,
Putin, Ukraine. We're going to talk first about...tell us your reaction to the media coverage here.
You were a close observer, Chris, of the media coverage of the Bush-Cheney slaughter in Iraq,
and well over a million people, hundreds of thousands of children killed; the society destroyed,
public services, healthcare, drinking water, electricity, internal warrings, huge amount of money
wasted, several thousand US soldiers killed, hundreds of thousands exposed to all kinds of toxics
like burn pits, criminal war of aggression. There doesn't seem to be the level of outrage on the
Iraq situation compared to the congressional White House media outrage here. Could you give us
your thoughts on this, and why?


Chris Hedges: Well, it gets to what Chomsky and Ed Herman wrote about in their book,
Manufacturing Consent: [
The Political Economy of the Mass Media]--the difference between
worthy and unworthy victims. So our victims are not worthy. Yemenis are not worthy.
Palestinians are not worthy. Ukrainians are worthy. It helps, of course, that they're white. So that
is a classic trope of empire. Remember, when I was covering the war in El Salvador, that's of
course where four church women were raped and murdered by the Salvador National Guard at
roughly the same time you had a Polish priest that was murdered by the communist government.
The Reagan administration kept speaking about that priest and using it as a kind of bludgeon to
attack the communist government in Poland. And yet, by the end of the war, 19 priests were
killed and the Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated. So that was a kind of dichotomy that
some victims count and others don't. So Iraqis don't count. The two decades of war crimes that
we committed that have so far dwarfed anything that Putin has done in Ukraine are ignored. And
this kind of moral posturing and cheerleading and self-adulation, plays to what viewers, and
often readers, want to hear but it's deeply hypocritical. And that's not lost on the rest of the
world.

Click to expand...
And Nader and friend are flat out lying.
 
R

rickyb

Well-Known Member
Ralph Nader: And then the accountability issue. Like, now they're talking about bringing Putin
before the International Criminal Court, accusing him of war crimes, which he committed of
course, but there was no accusation against Bush and Cheney and his successors in terms of war
crimes. The International Court, the New York Times, and the Washington Post don't even
mention it because the parlance on Iraq is, yeah, it didn't turn out the way we wanted it; it was,
quote, "a mistake". That's what Hillary Clinton calls it, a mistake. She voted for the Iraq war--a
mistake. And of course a lot of the slaughter occurred in Afghanistan as well. People forget that
in the first move against Iraq under George Herbert Walker Bush, where they drove the Iraqi
soldiers out of Kuwait and back to Baghdad, they went overboard. They blew up the electrical
system and drinking water system. And then during these air raids, over 600 huddling children,
men and women, were in a shelter, an air-raid shelter deep underground, and the precision
munitions of George Herbert Walker Bush somehow found a missile and it went right down the
chute and incinerated over 600 people. Of course, that's forgotten.

Chris Hedges: All the shock and awe. It was 3,000 bombs dropped almost exclusively on
civilian areas that killed over 7,000 non-combatants in the first two months of the war. Yeah, it's
all forgotten. And in fact, it's even worse. Condoleezza Rice was on Fox News and this host,
Harris Faulkner, argued that when you invade a sovereign nation, that's a war crime, and Rice
answered, “it's certainly against every principle of international law and international order.”
And that is why throwing the book at them now in terms of economic sanctions and punishments
is also a part of it. This just is almost unbelievable given the fact that of course preemptive war;
when Russia does it, it's a war crime, but we did it so overtly. And I just want to add that the
invasion of Iraq was based on lies and falsifications. The expansion of NATO, and I was in
Eastern Europe in 1989 as a reporter covering the breakup of the Soviet bloc and the USSR, that
the expansion of NATO is not a lie. The expansion of NATO is a direct provocation.

 
O

Overpaid Union Thug

Well-Known Member
Putin’s true goal.

4E0A1ED8-5733-4FCB-AE0A-0869092097D5.jpeg
 
B

BigGuy2732

Well-Known Member
Azov crying, making their last stand in Mariupol. I hope the Russians take no prisoners with these nazi scum. Azov are fighting with pagan idols near their bases. Total wignats. Russians are going to show them what Christians do to pagans any hour any day now.
 
R

rickyb

Well-Known Member
@vantexan

https://secureservercdn.net/198.71..../Ralph-Nader-Radio-Hour-Ep-423-Transcript.pdf

Ralph Nader: Chris, we're going to get to that in a minute. Just to complete the analogy, Iraq
didn't threaten the US. There was no threat there at all. It was 6,000/7,000 miles away, and we
still went in with the most modern warfare you could imagine. And of course now, almost 20
years later, it's still chaotic; it's still brutal--the poverty, the refugees, the displaced persons, the
diseases and there we have a few thousand soldiers still in Iraq, but the system is in total chaos,
and it's called a mistake instead of a first-class war crime. So back to your point on NATO, let's
go back into history a bit here. Napoleon invaded Russia--slaughtered. The Kaiser invaded
Russia-- slaughtered. Hitler invaded Russia--slaughtered. Maybe a total of 50 million people, and
it's quite understandable that the Russian people, apart from Putin, are quite concerned about
their western frontier. Imagine if that happened on our northern border--three invasions. Do you
think we would have calmly set sail for Tahiti or Hawaii? What would we have done to our
northern border if the shoe was on the other foot? So start with the NATO assurances with Jim
Baker and others
 
O

Overpaid Union Thug

Well-Known Member
wilberforce15 said:
Why should we care?
Click to expand...
Anyone sane enough to not want communism cares.
BigGuy2732 said:
Azov crying, making their last stand in Mariupol. I hope the Russians take no prisoners with these nazi scum. Azov are fighting with pagan idols near their bases. Total wignats. Russians are going to show them what Christians do to pagans any hour any day now.
Click to expand...
Ukraine’s president is Jewish. Azov isn’t the only ones fighting the Russians. Ukraine actually has a military in case you didn’t know. Both are made up of people from all walks of life. Yes, including Nazis. Strange how all of them are willing to overlook their various beliefs and differences to fight off the savage and barbaric Russians.
 
V

vantexan

Well-Known Member
rickyb said:
@vantexan

https://secureservercdn.net/198.71..../Ralph-Nader-Radio-Hour-Ep-423-Transcript.pdf

Ralph Nader: Chris, we're going to get to that in a minute. Just to complete the analogy, Iraq
didn't threaten the US. There was no threat there at all. It was 6,000/7,000 miles away, and we
still went in with the most modern warfare you could imagine. And of course now, almost 20
years later, it's still chaotic; it's still brutal--the poverty, the refugees, the displaced persons, the
diseases and there we have a few thousand soldiers still in Iraq, but the system is in total chaos,
and it's called a mistake instead of a first-class war crime. So back to your point on NATO, let's
go back into history a bit here. Napoleon invaded Russia--slaughtered. The Kaiser invaded
Russia-- slaughtered. Hitler invaded Russia--slaughtered. Maybe a total of 50 million people, and
it's quite understandable that the Russian people, apart from Putin, are quite concerned about
their western frontier. Imagine if that happened on our northern border--three invasions. Do you
think we would have calmly set sail for Tahiti or Hawaii? What would we have done to our
northern border if the shoe was on the other foot? So start with the NATO assurances with Jim
Baker and others
Click to expand...
The Russians didn't reinforce their border with military installations. They invaded a sovereign nation because that nation wouldn't kowtow to them. The Russians have the biggest arsenal of nukes in the world. They don't have to worry about being invaded by anyone. They have the satellite technology to know if someone is launching an attack on them and they can retaliate before those missiles hit them. And whoever attacks them with ICBM's doesn't have to be right on the Russian border to do so. They could be on the other side of the planet. This whole argument about them being worried about NATO next door is silly. NATO is already next door in the Baltic States. Invading Ukraine is about Russian aggression which is why NATO was formed to begin with. And why all the Eastern European countries in the Warsaw Pact very quickly quickly got themselves into NATO after the Soviet Union fell apart. Not because they hope to invade Russia someday. They just want to be left alone and as Ukraine demonstrates if you don't have a huge military backing you up Russia won't leave you alone.
 
R

rickyb

Well-Known Member
vantexan said:
The Russians didn't reinforce their border with military installations. They invaded a sovereign nation because that nation wouldn't kowtow to them. The Russians have the biggest arsenal of nukes in the world. They don't have to worry about being invaded by anyone. They have the satellite technology to know if someone is launching an attack on them and they can retaliate before those missiles hit them. And whoever attacks them with ICBM's doesn't have to be right on the Russian border to do so. They could be on the other side of the planet. This whole argument about them being worried about NATO next door is silly. NATO is already next door in the Baltic States. Invading Ukraine is about Russian aggression which is why NATO was formed to begin with. And why all the Eastern European countries in the Warsaw Pact very quickly quickly got themselves into NATO after the Soviet Union fell apart. Not because they hope to invade Russia someday. They just want to be left alone and as Ukraine demonstrates if you don't have a huge military backing you up Russia won't leave you alone.
Click to expand...
they invaded it because of NATO expansion. ukraine is too strategically important for russia to let it go just like the other 17 NATO countries which werent supposed to be NATO members since WARSAW collapsed. btw didnt america have nukes during cuba missile crisis? and yet it really bugged you guys.


Chris Hedges: Right. So I was there. First of all, we thought NATO was obsolete, which shows
you how naïve we are, because NATO was created to prevent Soviet expansion into Central and
Eastern Europe. Well, that was over. In fact, Gorbachev was negotiating observer status at
NATO and speaking about building a joint security alliance between the United States, Europe
and Russia. There were promises by Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the German foreign minister,
Margaret Thatcher and James Baker, as you said, the secretary of state under Reagan, all of
whom promised that NATO would not be expanded beyond the borders of a unified Germany.
And everybody understood from Henry Kissinger to George Kennan. It didn't matter, that this
was absurd; this was a clear provocation against a Russian government that wanted to work with
us. But it expanded anyway. And why? Well, because it was a multibillion-dollar a year
bonanza.

You had, if you expanded NATO, then Soviet Bloc militaries or countries that had Soviet Bloc
military equipment would have to reconfigure their equipment to make it NATO-compatible.
And that's exactly what happened. I was in Warsaw a couple of years ago and there were
billboards all over the place from Raytheon because, of course, they're bilking the Polish people .
. . a lot of this is paid for with loans but it was what George Kennan later called the expansion of
NATO the gravest mistake of the post-Cold War era. And then you had not only the expansion of
NATO, but during the Clinton administration there were promises that NATO troops would not
be deployed in Central and Eastern Europe, and now there are thousands. And we've got to also
acknowledge that Ukraine, in many ways, is a de facto NATO country. It also has been flooded
with NATO military equipment. It had I think 150/200 NATO military advisors before this war
began. So yes, Russia has every right to be concerned. We almost went to nuclear war with the
Soviet Union when the Soviets attempted to station or put missiles in Cuba, which is 90 miles off
the Coast of Florida, while you have NATO missile bases being constructed 100 miles from the
Russian border. Again, that doesn't excuse what Russia did. They were baited, without question,
but they did pull the trigger. But you can't even begin to acknowledge this in the kind of giddy
euphoria. I think a lot of it is really wrapped up in the kind of self-adulation that we've probably
not been able to visit on ourselves over the last two decades.
 
R

rickyb

Well-Known Member
BigGuy2732 said:
It’s life or death for Russia. The gay American empire is so stupid to push a nuclear power like this. Cornering a bear.
Click to expand...
i was just wondering where are the anti nuclear war protestors?

we have no organization and people probably dont know how bad the situation is
 
B

BigGuy2732

Well-Known Member
rickyb said:
i was just wondering where are the anti nuclear war protestors?

we have no organization and people probably dont know how bad the situation is
Click to expand...

They don’t exist because you’re fingered automatically as pro Russia. You can’t survive the character assassination to do anything about it.
 
V

vantexan

Well-Known Member
rickyb said:
they invaded it because of NATO expansion. ukraine is too strategically important for russia to let it go just like the other 17 NATO countries which werent supposed to be NATO members since WARSAW collapsed. btw didnt america have nukes during cuba missile crisis? and yet it really bugged you guys.


Chris Hedges: Right. So I was there. First of all, we thought NATO was obsolete, which shows
you how naïve we are, because NATO was created to prevent Soviet expansion into Central and
Eastern Europe. Well, that was over. In fact, Gorbachev was negotiating observer status at
NATO and speaking about building a joint security alliance between the United States, Europe
and Russia. There were promises by Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the German foreign minister,
Margaret Thatcher and James Baker, as you said, the secretary of state under Reagan, all of
whom promised that NATO would not be expanded beyond the borders of a unified Germany.
And everybody understood from Henry Kissinger to George Kennan. It didn't matter, that this
was absurd; this was a clear provocation against a Russian government that wanted to work with
us. But it expanded anyway. And why? Well, because it was a multibillion-dollar a year
bonanza.

You had, if you expanded NATO, then Soviet Bloc militaries or countries that had Soviet Bloc
military equipment would have to reconfigure their equipment to make it NATO-compatible.
And that's exactly what happened. I was in Warsaw a couple of years ago and there were
billboards all over the place from Raytheon because, of course, they're bilking the Polish people .
. . a lot of this is paid for with loans but it was what George Kennan later called the expansion of
NATO the gravest mistake of the post-Cold War era. And then you had not only the expansion of
NATO, but during the Clinton administration there were promises that NATO troops would not
be deployed in Central and Eastern Europe, and now there are thousands. And we've got to also
acknowledge that Ukraine, in many ways, is a de facto NATO country. It also has been flooded
with NATO military equipment. It had I think 150/200 NATO military advisors before this war
began. So yes, Russia has every right to be concerned. We almost went to nuclear war with the
Soviet Union when the Soviets attempted to station or put missiles in Cuba, which is 90 miles off
the Coast of Florida, while you have NATO missile bases being constructed 100 miles from the
Russian border. Again, that doesn't excuse what Russia did. They were baited, without question,
but they did pull the trigger. But you can't even begin to acknowledge this in the kind of giddy
euphoria. I think a lot of it is really wrapped up in the kind of self-adulation that we've probably
not been able to visit on ourselves over the last two decades.
Click to expand...
You think Cuba was putting nukes in strictly for defensive purposes? The communists were determined to expand their ideology into every country and the biggest roadblock to that was the United States. You may be in love with the idea but the countries saddled with that economic system really suffered. And the ones closest to Russia and dealt with that for decades want to make sure it never happens again. Russia does not have the right to dominate its neighbors but someone like you, who's supposed to care about rights and freedom, makes constant excuses for Russia's behavior. You are literally saying it's ok to destroy Ukraine because they didn't fall in line. That's ridiculous.
 
R

rickyb

Well-Known Member
vantexan said:
You think Cuba was putting nukes in strictly for defensive purposes? The communists were determined to expand their ideology into every country and the biggest roadblock to that was the United States. You may be in love with the idea but the countries saddled with that economic system really suffered. And the ones closest to Russia and dealt with that for decades want to make sure it never happens again. Russia does not have the right to dominate its neighbors but someone like you, who's supposed to care about rights and freedom, makes constant excuses for Russia's behavior. You are literally saying it's ok to destroy Ukraine because they didn't fall in line. That's ridiculous.
Click to expand...
as ive said before but ur too immature to admit, its a war crime for them to invade much like its a war crime for america to invade iraq.

ppl suffer under capitalism as well. which is why you have coops and unions and laws.

i dont know about cuban nukes. it was likely offensive since its being compared to nato aggression.

USA likely expands its ideology which is profits and brutal capitalism.
 

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