Correcting Mandel: Why arming Ukraine is the road to peace

An infuriating article; the ultimate NATO bootlicking Western Leftist position on the war, featuring all the brainworms one would expect. I think if this person set foot outside of a western country and talked to the people there, he would melt into a puddle of pure indignation.

A few choice quotes:

Mandel complains that Zelensky called Kissinger’s peace proposals a “stab in the back of Ukraine.” Mandel calls Kissinger “a comparative voice of sanity.” Take a deep breath, Dimension readers, as you digest that.

idk man, you're the one who is being even more bloodthirsty than Henry fucking Kissinger here.

Using the same logic, does he refer to “Palestine’s war against Israel,” “Grenada’s war against the United States,” or “The Falkland Islands’ war against Great Britain?”

As these are all obviously comparable.

Mandel is of the school that believes the US is responsible for a coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014. There is, of course, much evidence that the Americans were influencing civilians and political actors, blackmailing and lying. This is hardly surprising: the US has long tentacles, so goes imperialism.

There is also much evidence leading to a contrary conclusion: that the push for a radical change in government in Ukraine was led by a young, healthy and growing democratic nationalist movement upset with leaders perceived as too pro-Kremlin and deaf to the streets. Many scholars, union and community activists believe that, for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukrainians had found a way of harnessing the popular will.

was it "harnessing the popular will" when fascists burned Russians alive in Odessa?

However, Mandel has no proof the US has blocked negotiations. With so many players involved, how would that happen, exactly? Does Mandel really believe that, acting for the Americans, Boris Johnson, in a lightning visit to Kyiv on the morning of April 9, 2022, laid down the law that Zelensky was not allowed to negotiate with “war criminal” Putin? That Zelensky from that point on was only following NATO’s orders to disastrously fight on?

...yes...?

In constructing his narrative, Mandel picks and chooses from a few sources: quotes from President Biden and an American general, something from the CIA and something else from the Rand Corporation. He only cites such sources when they bolster his narrative; he ignores them when they do not.

...

Mandel never utters a word about Russia’s iron-clad clampdown of the media, never nods in the direction of the thousands of dissidents tossed in prison or forced into exile.

NEITHER DO YOU, ABOUT UKRAINE!

More than a year after deep, serious and thorough investigations into the cold-blooded execution of civilians in Bucha, Mandel still cannot sit down at his computer and admit that the Bucha massacre was real and horrific.

There are pictures, forensic examinations, satellite images tracing troop movements. Participating soldiers and commanders from the regiments have been identified. There are recordings of Russian cell phone messages and military radio intercepts. There is video footage. There are autopsy reports. There are reports totalling thousands of pages from a range of independent, credible international organizations, including the UN Commissioner for Human Rights that reports the summary executions of 73 civilians. A team of New York Times journalists spent a month investigating what transpired. There is ample evidence of war crimes.

I've seen the videos of Ukrainians murdering Russian civilians in recaptured areas and then throwing them down hills into a mass grave. Russia has no monopoly on atrocities even if we accept that Russians did kill civilians in Bucha. Fuck you and fuck off.

Yes, in part, Mandel is right: Putin may well have invaded Ukraine because he wanted to protect those Ukrainians whose cultural identity was first and foremost Russian.

The Soviet Union is still alive in the memories of many. More than a million Ukrainians are now refugees in Russia.

That said, we on the left have to stand firm when it comes to the rights of sovereign countries.

No, we really do fucking not. Israel can eat my shit and hair. So can the United States, and the United Kingdom, and every other western country.

These people are so fucking insufferable. This guy would be a great redditor.