After his annexation of four regions of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin gave a speech in which he defended his actions, attacked the U.S. and her allies, and claimed that the West is the greatest danger to sovereign nations, historical values, religious faith, and freedom.
By contrast, he proclaims Russia as the bulwark of equality, morality, peace, multi-polar geopolitics, and self-determination. This is why, he says that the rapacious neo-colonialist U.S. wants to crush Russia, deconstruct her culture, enslave her people and confiscate her resources.
Putin reaches out to like-minded persons of all nationalities to resist Western hegemony, which he says is already collapsing. He lambastes the West’s embrace of homosexuality and transgenderism, and he quotes Christ.
While he acknowledges there’s no going back to the Soviet Union — the fall of which he brands as “tragic” and anti-democratic — he adds:
The world has entered a period of a fundamental, revolutionary transformation. New centres of power are emerging. They represent the majority – the majority! – of the international community.
Putin is no amateur propagandist.
We would do well to study this speech.
It is not merely a rant against the United States, but a recruiting tool for allies within these states. Americans of all political stripes will find elements of it easy to embrace.
3 replies on “What Vladimir Putin Tells Russians about Annexation of Ukraine, and about the U.S.A.”
For all of us, the enemy of our enemy is our friend. For half of us, D.C. is our enemy, which makes Russia our friend.
Fact is, Russia isn’t jailing, poisoning, raiding, intimidating Americans and promoting sexual perversions onto our children. D.C. is.
There are two distinct statements quoted above. Neither of those statements comes anywhere near resembling something remotely related to true. Nope, not even a tiny bit.
The fact that Russia isn’t jailing, poisoning, raiding, intimidating Americans and promoting sexual perversions onto our children* and D.C. is doing that does not somehow magically and miraculously make Russia our friend. That is a baseless, absurd idea. As I will proceed to explain.
(*Even though it was Russia and more recently China too who has supported, promoted, goaded, prodded, beguiled, bribed, coerced and undermined simpletons and outright wickeds in our nation and our own government into doing things like that for decades without interruption. Forget that for now, which shouldn’t be a problem for you as it seems you already have.)
The fact that D.C. opposes the Russian invasion of its smaller neighbor is not justification to consider Russia our friend. WTF, over? That doesn’t even make any sense.
I do not subscribe blindly to the “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” school of thought. That’s an Arab saying originating from Islamic culture. If for no other reason knowing that would make the concept highly dubious to me. Just because a saying is popular does not make it true. It has to be true as well as popular and that particular adage doesn’t meet the bar for that.
You will rarely hear anyone with any significant military experience, that is to say someone who actually knows what he’s talking about, support that idea. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is taught as a deadly dangerous fallacy in most military educational venues. There’s much more to friendship or any sort of alliance than a mutual enemy.
Helping a wolf catch a rabbit still leaves a well fed wolf that will eventually turn on you and have to be dealt with. The idea that you and the wolf both want a rabbit dinner does not mean the wolf is going to oblige you with your fill of bunny then walk away like he was your ol’ buddy from back on the block. (Which is exactly how it was put to me in one of those military educational venues I mentioned. Funny how solidly those lessons stick, huh?)
Such “friendships” have an alarming and overwhelming tendency to end very badly for the gullible party who naïvely adopted that policy. Which is why it became so popular among crafty Arabs to establish that as a “truth” — Right up until you feel the knife between your ribs.
There are a lot of both tactical and strategic reasons why that particular saying is sheer, unmitigated, dumbassed folly. If you’d like to know more just ask and I’ll be happy to amplify further. I could write an entire lesson plan on why you should not ally yourself with your enemies just because you both have a mutual adversary and if you like I will go on, and on, and on about it to prove my point. Or you can just stipulate that it’s a dumb saying representing a dumb idea and just move on. Your call.
I kind of shudder a little bit whenever I see well meaning people of good faith repeat that nonsense as if it were unequivocal. It’s not a good idea, it’s a very, very bad idea that has gotten way, way too much traction.
And therein lies the problem many people have understanding the scope of this particular problem. It’s not as simple as many think it is. It becomes even less simple and a good deal more dangerous when you cite and rely on a fallacy to base your opinions upon.
That said, unless you’re a very simple minded person you should be able to grasp the concept of having more than one enemy at a time. Which is the case with what you refer to. Either, both or all of your enemies are immensely capable of doing the nasty things to each other that you would like them to.
Wisdom lies in letting them do that and so each weaken the other. Not f*cking making friends with voracious carnivores. There is no wisdom in befriending an irredeemable enemy. Unless cold steel between your ribs seems wise to you. In which case it’s still not wisdom but that doesn’t matter because what you think is no longer important. As you have allowed yourself to be liquidated.
So neither of those two statements is true. Seriously.
In the West we’re struggling with an adversary that thinks we are all deceived by pretty words masking abominable actions. Putin knows this tactic well and applies it in this speech.
Ask yourself, if Putin laments the fall of the Soviet Union which was a thoroughly anti-Theistic State if ever there was one, how is it that he now champions Christianity and even quotes Jesus Christ himself? Soviet Communism and Christianity are mutually exclusive. Yes, even Satan elegantly quotes Scripture. If you are a Christian you’ve been warned about this sort of tactic.
Putin is a snake and not the viper you want to clasp to your bosom. Putin is using exactly the same tactics that the Serpent used in the Garden of Eden against Eve.
In his speech Ol’ Vlad refers to the Soviet Union as “our great country”. Which great country is that, Vlad? The country of the Gulag Archipelago, of thousands of bullets to the heads of thousands of human beings in the basement of Lubyanka Prison without trial or due process? The country of the Kulak Massacre, the invasion of Czechoslovakia and the Berlin Wall? The country that built an Iron Curtain around itself to keep out the West and keep in everyone who wanted a better life? The country that was so horrible to live in that if they’d let people who wanted to go leave would have been intellectually and financially bankrupted in a short time? The country that HAD to build an Iron Curtain because life there was so abominable that the best, brightest and wealthiest would have fled on a moment’s notice to the West? The country that started brush wars all over the world, toppled governments with lies and false promises of a Worker’s Paradise that never existed nor could ever exist? The country that kept its client state of Cuba in squalor and poverty and even bet the lives of everyone on that island nation in a strategic gamble by placing thermonuclear weapons on it? The country that hunted down and persecuted Christians and banned the Bible from its people? The country that slaughtered and murdered 20 million of its own people for political reasons? The country where even the citizens who supported it were not safe from being abused, imprisoned and murdered by their own government for no more than a casually misspoken, unguarded word or two? The country of jack booted thugs breaking down doors in the wee hours of the morning to haul off anyone who it perceived as even a minor threat? The country that used raw, savage political power against its own people to a far greater degree than it did its external enemies? The country that will gladly use lies, deception, false virtue and moral turpitude to further its own goals? The country that defines morality as anything that is good for the State? The country that did all these things and much more claiming ‘necessity’? The country whose policy is “Ignore what I do and heed what I say”?
That “great country”?
Oh, there’s a lot more I could say about the “great country” whose fall you lament but people should be getting the idea by now.
We remember, Komrade Putin, what the country you admire so greatly did. We may have problems that we’re struggling with here in the West but we remember your honey coated bloody ways and we are not fooled by you.