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Integral World: Exploring Theories of Everything
An independent forum for a critical discussion of the integral philosophy of Ken Wilber
Joseph DillardDr. Joseph Dillard is a psychotherapist with over forty year's clinical experience treating individual, couple, and family issues. Dr. Dillard also has extensive experience with pain management and meditation training. The creator of Integral Deep Listening (IDL), Dr. Dillard is the author of over ten books on IDL, dreaming, nightmares, and meditation. He lives in Berlin, Germany. See: integraldeeplistening.com and his YouTube channel.

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How Will the Delusions and Misrepresentations of the Russian-Ukrainian War End?

An Appraisal of Timothy Snyder's
"How does the Russo-Ukrainian War end?"

Joseph Dillard

So which is it Tim? Is Putin a tyrant, in which case there is no dissent in Russia? Or is dissent allowed in Russia, in which case Putin is not a tyrant?

An integralist flagged this essay as a worthy rejoinder to my last piece on Putin's epic speech.[1] It does appear that more than one integralist shares, to one degree or another, the worldview expressed by its author, Timothy Snyder, an American historian specializing in the modern history of Central and Eastern Europe, and who has published a number of influential books. Snyder seems to be doing an excellent job of reflecting the prevailing Western, integral, liberal, progressive (WILP) groupthink on Russia and the Ukrainian war. When you read Snyder, the most central fact you are likely to garner is that he hates Russia, although I doubt if he would state his aversion so simply and directly. Hatred is, in most cases, probably not a very integral emotion, and therefore its validation needs to be carefully considered by integralists, or those who aspire to anything 2nd Tier or spiritual. Therefore, it seems worth the time to look at the reasons a renowned Western public intellectual gives to legitimize hatred of Russia.

In the following, I will quote Snyder, followed by my comments with various references designed to give some depth to my perspective.[2] I encourage readers to read Snyder's entire piece to make up their own mind as to whether my assessment is fair or a straw man representation of what he writes. To point out that Snyder is most certainly wrong in many of his statements in this essay is not meant to imply that my position is “right.” It is enough to point out where those who subscribe to his position, regardless of how good their intentions may be, are being duped. Of course, none of what follows is going to change anyone's mind. However, it may cause some to think through why they believe what they believe and re-evaluate the soundness of the worldview that supports their identity. That's what I did when I read through his piece, asking, “What if Snyder is correct?” “What are the implications?| While challenging our worldview may not be a comfortable thing to do, moving out of Plato's cave toward the blinding light of day is probably better than staying below, chained to a bench, watching groupthink shadows thrown by a fire.

Snyder writes

…no one can imagine how it (the Russian-Ukrainian war) will end.

No one? Well, Snyder himself goes on to imagine at least one way it could end. I can certainly imagine several ways that it might end. I would not be surprised if you can too. So what is the point of saying that “no one can imagine how it will end?” My guess is that Snyder is setting its ending up as a mystery which he is preparing to disclose.

That Ukraine is winning on the battlefield matters…
Timothy Snyder
Timothy Snyder

This is a declarative statement, implying that it is true. Is it? Russia has destroyed the Ukrainian Air Force and Navy. It has absorbed into itself some twenty percent of its geographical area, about the size of England, an area historically responsible for something like ninety percent of Ukrainian GDP. The truth is that Ukraine is bankrupt; its government and army are supplied and funded by aid from the West. Without that aid, Ukraine would have already collapsed. As some wit has noted, “Ukraine is always one aid package away from victory.”

Snyder apparently bases his claim that Ukraine is winning on the advances it made in September, 2022, in the Kherson and Kharkiv regions. But these were in relatively unpopulated, lightly defended rural areas. The Russians did not fight the Ukrainians but instead chose to withdraw and establish more secure battle lines. The two towns that the Ukrainians did capture, Izium and Liman, are minor; no one knew about them when they originally fell to the Russians back in spring, 2022. If they were so critical and important, why was their initial loss not a major news item at the time? To cite Ukrainian advances in rural areas that do not involve the defeat of any Russian forces is hardly a reasonable definition of “winning.” But perhaps Snyder is referring to some other definition of “winning,” such as, perhaps, winning the hearts and minds of Westerners.

Tyrants such as Putin…

Here is another declarative statement by Snyder, one that ought to stop the reader dead in their tracks. Putin is a democratically elected President. Tyrants win by 98, 99% of the vote. In the 2000, 2004, 2012, and 2018 elections Putin won by 53.4%, 71.9%, 63.60%, and 76.69 respectively.[3] This is hardly the degree of victory of a tyrant. In addition, a “tyrant” is defined by Merriam-Webster Webster as

an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution; a usurper of sovereignty
a ruler who exercises absolute power oppressively or brutally; one resembling an oppressive ruler in the harsh use of authority or power

Snyder is most likely referring to Putin in the last meaning Merriam-Webster-Webster gives: “a ruler who exercises absolute power oppressively or brutally; one resembling an oppressive ruler in the harsh use of authority or power.” But Putin consults often and broadly, asking for input and the perspectives of others. Tyrants don't do that. Brutality and oppression are easy allegations to make against any government head; I did not find any citations to back those claims up in this essay, although plenty certainly exist. Anyone who knows anything about Russia and how Putin runs his government knows that he is most certainly restrained by law and the Russian constitution as well as being a major global defender of the sovereignty of nations. While Putin's opponents, both in Russia and in the west like to call him a tyrant, tyrants don't enjoy consistent public approval in the range of the high 70's and low 80s.

In addition, calling someone a “tyrant” in this sort of declarative and off-handed way, as Snyder does, even if they are the head of a government, comes close to being an ad hominem attack, that is, an attack on the person of an opponent rather than on the substance of the argument. As logical fallacies go, ad hominem is the lowest of the low, one easily mastered by second graders and hardly something anyone who considers themselves intellectual, integral, or spiritual wants to be associated with. Snyder knows this, and doesn't actually cross that line, but he comes close, inviting the reader to form that conclusion.

Another reason why referring to Putin as a tyrant is a bad idea is that it closes off communication. Who is going to negotiate with someone they consider a tyrant? Closing off communication is a fine strategy if you are an ideologue and have no interest in negotiating peace. Calling Putin (or anyone) a tyrant strongly implies that this is Snyder's stance, one that he is advocating for you and me. And although Snyder discounts the possibility of a nuclear war breaking out, a refusal to negotiate increases that likelihood. Snyder continues:

The war ends when Ukrainian military victories alter Russian political realities, a process which I believe has begun.

Here I can agree with Snyder, at least in part. For example, Ukrainian failure to accept Minsk II altered Russian political realities, causing Putin to give up on Minsk II. When both Poroshenko and Zelensky stated that they had no intention of fulfilling Minsk II and that the negotiations were a stalling tactic by Ukraine, Germany, and France, under the direction of the US, to create time for the arming of Ukraine by NATO, Putin finally, after eight years, gave up on diplomacy. That was because he was told outright that the other side had no intention of reaching a negotiated settlement, not because he wasn't willing to negotiate. Zelensky has recently reaffirmed that position, declaring Ukraine will never negotiate with Russia as long as Putin is president,

Ukrainian shelling of Donbas over seven years, killing some 10,000 Ukrainian civilians and culminating in a rapid acceleration toward the end of February, 2022, also led Russia to alter its political reality, leading to its Special Military Operation (SMO).[4] The retaking of the above-mentioned areas of Kherson and Kharkiv districts by Ukraine were also victories that led Russia to alter its political realities, changing its course from its SMO to calling up some 200,000 reservists, changing the fundamental nature of the war. Ukrainian shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, combined with its attempted assassination of Alexander Dugin and successful assassination of his daughter, as well as the terrorist attack on the Kerch Strait bridge, hailed as a great victory by Ukraine and the West, also led Putin and Russia to alter its political realities, so that it now views Ukraine as a terrorist state. These military “victories” by Ukraine have indeed altered Russian political realities, and those alterations will indeed lead to the end of the war, but that ending is unlikely - highly unlikely - to be the ending that Snyder envisions.

The Ukrainians…have turned out to be stunningly good warriors.

I agree with Snyder on this. When one is fighting for the continued existence of their homeland, and when they have been converted into a NATO proxy army that is led, paid, and armed by NATO, stunningly good warriors are the likely outcome.

Right now, though, we have a certain difficulty seeing how Ukraine gets to victory, even as the Ukrainians advance.

Snyder may here betray his fear that Ukraine will not win.

We should never lose sight of how much a Ukrainian victory will improve the world we live in.

At this point, the thoughtful reader might ask, “What is Snyder smoking and where can I get some?” Looking at Snyder's reference, we find it is to one of his own articles, one that somehow made it into Foreign Affairs, entitled, “Ukraine Holds the Future: The War Between Democracy and Nihilism.”[5] Already from the title, we do not have to be psychic to guess that for Snyder Ukraine equals Democracy and Russia equals Nihilism. The allegation that Ukraine is in any way to be associated with democracy is laughable to the point of absurdity. Its government has outlawed all opposition political parties and independent media. Is that something democracies or tyrannies do? Its government carries out targeted assassinations and terrorist acts. Is that something democracies or tyrannies do? Its government has as national heroes Nazi collaborators who presided over the murder of thousands of Jews, Poles, and Russians. Is the glorification of Nazi collaborators something democracies or tyrannies do? Does the world want and need the victory of such a nation?

Snyder and others are well within their rights to consider Russia nihilistic, if that is what they want to do. But if they do, what is the result? Essentially they write off the strongest autarky in the world and declare that they can live without its energy, precious metals, grain, and fertilizer, or that they can successfully live in the world with a nihilistic nuclear power. How would you regard someone who asserted that you were not only a tyrant but a nihilist? Would you be more or less likely to negotiate with them? Despite such language (and worse, used by Biden), Putin's public stance is that of being willing to negotiate with Ukraine. Snyder continues:

(Putin) is losing the conventional war that he started.

Is that true? As of this writing, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, Russia has destroyed the offices of the SBU, the Ukrainian security services in Kiev. The power supply has been shut down in five regions, including Lviv and Kharkov, and there are serious interruptions in another five, including Kiev. Over 60 percent of Ukrainian power grids have been knocked out. Over 75 percent of internet traffic is gone. Starlink, which provides frontline Ukrainian troops with operations management and connectivity, has been at least temporarily shut down by Russian electronic warfare. Does that look like Russia losing to you? It appears to me that quite a bit more of such “losing” may well be in the offing.

Snyder rejoices in the fact that there is a free press in autocratic, unfree Russia. At least that is what he is indicating when he states that

their television propagandists are admitting that Russian troops are retreating.

How can one be a propagandist for a tyranny if public media is allowed to broadcast the defeat of the tyranny? Does that make sense to you?

Two prominent Russian political figures, Ramzan Kadyrov and Yevgeny Prigozhin, have criticized the Russian high command quite brutally.

Is that something that happens in a tyranny? Isn't open dissent by powerful, persuasive voices supposed to be a characteristic of democracies, not tyrannies? Aren't those who express such dissent in a tyranny locked up at best and more likely assassinated? Then what are we to make of Kadyrov's promotion by Putin?[6]

So which is it Tim? Is Putin a tyrant, in which case there is no dissent in Russia? Or is dissent allowed in Russia, in which case Putin is not a tyrant? You can't have it both ways, depending on which way fits your narrative at the moment, Tim. You've got to choose. Which is it?

Reality is starting to matter more than television, and Russia will start to matter more than Ukraine.

Again, I have to agree with Snyder. Here in the west, higher gas, energy, food, and fertilizer costs as well as colder weather, are starting to matter more than television. In Russia, due to the number of terrorist attacks by Ukraine, the protection of the Russian nation is starting to matter more to the Russian government and population than the protection of Ukrainian civilians.[7] As a consequence of these terrorist acts, the vast majority of the Russian public supports a more aggressive war on the part of Russia against Ukraine and NATO.

There is a cleft both in elite and public opinion in Russia

This is the fervent wet dream of rabid Western Russiaphobes. It's all over the news, so it must be true. Because Russia is allowing dissent that must mean that support of Putin must be collapsing. But as of this writing, Russian opinion polls show support of Putin by Russian citizens remains strong.

(Putin) is already sending (to Ukraine) everything that he can.

This is wrong. Putin has only called up reservists; he has not called for a general mobilization. That means people who have already enlisted in the military, received training, and served at least six months active duty have been called up. Putin has not implemented a general mobilization, which would tap into a force of millions. However, something like 200,000 patriotic Russians voluntarily enlisted. There are many in Russia who would support Putin if he were to implement a general mobilization, but Putin attempts to accomplish the goals of the SMO with the fewest number of soldiers and the smallest amount of civilian damage as possible. At any point Putin could have turned Kiev into Falluja.

(Mobilization) was probably the result of a compromise, which shows us that Putin is not ruling alone….This is just the most basic of a number of contradictory positions that Putin now faces, from an exposed and weakened position.

But don't tyrants rule alone? Hasn't Snyder called Putin a tyrant? How is Snyder not contradicting himself?

(Putin) has few means of applying greater force.

This is news to the Ukrainians, who continue to be bombed and have their energy, communication, and transportation systems degraded and destroyed.

…is there a point in sending thousands of unprepared and underequipped men into what they increasingly know is doom?

I suspect that the reason Snyder has not sourced this allegation is because he either cannot do so or knows it's not true. I know of no evidence that Russia is sending unprepared soldiers into Ukraine. Putin has called up reservists. These are trained soldiers who have previously served. They are apparently being re-trained now, before being put into battle. That doesn't sound like sending in unprepared soldiers. Regarding “underequipped,” I also have not seen any evidence of this allegation. To the best of my knowledge, Russian soldiers are well-equipped.

And so we can see a plausible scenario for how this war ends. War is a form of politics, and the Russian regime is altered by defeat. As Ukraine continues to win battles, one reversal is accompanied by another: the televisual yields to the real, and the Ukrainian campaign yields to a struggle for power in Russia… During an internal struggle for power in Russia, Putin and other Russians will have other things on their minds, and the war will give way to those more pressing concerns.

And here we get to the heart of Snyder's boring fairy tale. He imagines that Russia will be defeated by an army that has already lost over one hundred thousand of its NATO-trained troops, that no longer has an Air Force or Navy, one whose artillery is overwhelmed by that of its opponent, one which is running out of artillery shells, tanks, and armored vehicles.

So what?

Unending tranches of Western sanctions have solidified citizen support for the Russian government and the war. There is no genuine struggle for power in Russia, just disgruntled voices on Telegram, while concerned soldiers and media figures demand answers from their government, which is what happens in democracies. If Westerners want to pin their hopes that a Kremlin power struggle will topple Putin they are certainly free to do so. After all, it could happen, regardless of how unlikely that prospect may be. But to hold on to false hopes only diverts us from waking up and taking responsibility for our own denial.

Why do people read “experts” like Snyder? Sadly, Snyder is only one of many public intellectuals in the West that gain notoriety, status, wealth, and power by parroting a delusional Western worldview toward Russia and Ukraine while ignoring the West's responsibilities in this conflict. There are several possible reasons. We all want and need validation for our worldview. This is because our worldviews support our identity. To challenge or demolish our worldview creates cognitive dissonance, which threatens our core identity. We can't have that. We need to climb into the iron maiden of groupthink, because it's safer.

Another possible reason is hatred. A lot of people are afraid of Russia. That could be because Russia is so big, or perhaps because Westerners conflate post 2000 Russia with the Soviet Union or with the Empire of the Czars. Perhaps it is because they have drunk the Kool-Aid horror stories of how bad Russia is and how evil Putin is. Hate blinds one to reason, so it makes sense that hateful people would buy Snyder's “reasoning.” The problem is that hate is itself a defense against fear, and if that fear is not surfaced and examined, it creates a reality that is not rational or fact-based.

People may believe people like Snyder because they are afraid of what will happen if their worldview is partial, faulty, or downright wrong. They might have to conclude that they have, like me, spent much of their lives duped and fooled, useful idiots supporting an ideologically-based national and geopolitical worldview.

An historical clash of worldviews

I have mentioned in a previous essay that while the West frames the conflict between itself and the Global South as one between “democracy vs. autocracy,” the Global South, including Russia, frames it in terms of “sovereignty vs. globalism.” While it appears to Westerners that Russia is hypocritically abusing its own distinction by invading Ukraine, because it is denying the sovereignty of Ukraine, this is not how the situation looks to Russia and the majority of the economic power of the Global South, based on the failure of China, India, Pakistan, and South Africa to condemn Russia for its annexation.

Why not? While the reason for South Africa's failure is obvious - it has itself been a victim of Western-supported apartheid and genocide - there are powerful economic reasons. China and India are heavily dependent on Russia for petrochemicals and other exports. In addition, these powerful and rising nations in the Global South accept Russia's argument that people who are ethnically Russians have been discriminated against, terrorized, and killed by their government and require protection. Therefore, from the eyes of major players in the Global South, ethnic Russians have been denied their sovereignty by Ukraine, with the military, economic, and media support and encouragement of the West. Russia and important members of the Global South view this aggression as merely the latest of a long line of examples of the United States denying sovereignty to peoples and nations when it is in its interests to do so.

Snyder, like most voices highlighted by Western media, refuses to accept this position, because to do so would make Westerners culpable and responsible in this conflict and provide Russia with a plausible defense of its action, under Articles 1 (self-defense) and 51 (legitimate defense of threatened peoples) of the UN Charter, as it claims. Of course, Snyder and Westerners do not have to agree with the “sovereignty vs globalism” distinction made by the Global South. They can continue to imagine that those who do, like myself, are apologists for Putin, Russia, tyranny, and unjustifiable aggression.

However, my opinion is irrelevant to the outcome of this conflict, and attempting to intimidate opponents into silence is not going to change that outcome, which is already obvious enough to those who are not blinded by ideology or groupthink. The problem for Western, Integral, liberal, progressives is that Russia, in addition to winning the military, economic, and informational wars, is winning the worldview war, in that the Global South is agreeing that the issue really is one of sovereignty vs. globalism, not democracy vs. authoritarianism. Therefore, it doesn't matter what I think or what Westerners think of me, because Westerners either have to recognize and accept this new global reality and learn to respect the sovereignty of outgroup nations or let the consequences of their ideologically-based worldview run its course, meaning that they will likely turn into energy-starved countries, devoid of an industrial base and the employment industry produces. That is quickly becoming the case.

However, beneath these two warring global framings lies a more fundamental one: rationality vs ideology. People like Snyder are fundamentally ideologues. They subscribe to the worldview attributed to Republican political operative Karl Rove when he said, “We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality…”[8] A good example of the power of an ideologically-based worldview is the strange silence in the Western press regarding the terrorist sabotage of NordStream 1 and 2 and the release of what Danish authorities have estimated is 500,000 metric tons of highly toxic methane greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.[9] While Biden stated that NordStream 2 would never be allowed to supply gas to Germany or Europe and Tony Blinken framed the sabotage as an “opportunity,” most of the coverage in the Western press involves the amazingly fanciful speculation that Russia blew up their own pipelines themselves.[10] It is not surprising to find the Western media either dropping the story or blaming Russia, because of the uncomfortable consequences of using reason and reality-based realism.

Europe, afraid to wake up to the reality that its most important “ally” has committed an act of war against its critical energy infrastructure, condemning millions of Europeans to suffer the depravations of cold, hunger and unemployment —all the while gouging Europe with profit margins from the sale of LNG that redefine the notion of “windfall” — remains silent.[11]

The conclusion that one's own ally destroyed the source of 40% of German energy in order to supply it with liquid LNG at three to four times the price, might create a degree of cognitive dissonance that is impossible to rationalize away. That NATO allies refuse to share the results of their investigation with Germany, the principle victim of the sabotage, raises further uncomfortable questions. That one's worldview is seriously delusional could be too embarrassing, shameful, and humiliating to face. Subsequently, continued denial is the best defense.

Ideologues are not fact and reason driven. Instead, they demand the world fit into their conceptual framing. For the last five hundred years, based on “might makes right,” which Jared Diamond states is in turn based on “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” the West has succeeded in imposing its ideological framing on the world. We are at a pivotal moment in world history because Russia is not only challenging that worldview but is providing an alternative, fact-based worldview that is being accepted not only by countries like China and India but by realist proponents of international relations as different as John Mearsheimer and Henry Kissinger.[12]

Impact on integral

Why the distinction between reason and ideologically-grounded worldviews is important for the integral community is that it gets to decide whether it wants to remain merely an ideologically-based idealism or join the reality-based community. If it insists on the former, as Wilber does when he eschews evolutionary science in favor of “Eros as spirit-in-action” and the reality of Absolute, that is, metaphysical, Truth, then Integral is likely to be consigned to the dustbin of history. If, on the other hand, Integral and integralists agree to submit ideology to unfolding facts as revealed by empirical consensus regarding facts on the ground, then it can survive this passage into a new world order.

Integralists imagine that their idealism incorporates reason and therefore transcends it. However, Wilber's pre-trans fallacy demonstrates that anything authentically transpersonal has to first pass the tests of reason. Metaphysical claims cannot, because they are not subject to empirical confirmation outside the family of fellow believers (Wilber's mystics). Reality, as revealed by reason, is slowly winning out over ideology, no matter how noble, spiritual, and transpersonal that ideology may be. That is as it should be, because any worldview that is not grounded in rational consensus not only is bound to fail, but should never be adopted in the first place. Because the Western worldview is a non-rational, ideological one that uses reason to justify the withholding of sovereignty to outgroup nations, it has sleepwalked off a civilizational cliff, is in free fall, and is about to discover that gravity votes last. The integral community is culpable in this disaster because it claims to be more highly evolved than mere red, blue, orange, and green worldviews. But with greater power comes greater responsibility. If the integral community wants to claim higher status on the evolutionary ladder then it must also accept greater responsibility for the mess the world currently finds itself in. This is something that the vast majority of integralists I have encountered refuse to do.

You don't have to like Russia or Putin to try to get people you care about to wake up. It's rather like a family intervention in the life of an alcoholic, drug abuser, or spouse abuser. They may hate you for it, but you care for them and for the family, and you are willing to be hated if, in exchange, the slide toward oblivion and damage to the innocent can be stopped. The victimized innocents certainly include the vast majority of duped Ukrainians, who deserve our compassion and support. You don't have to be Carrie Nation and you don't have to take sides to interrupt family or civilizational chaos; all you have to want to do is to call out delusional and self-destructive behavior, including the silent compliance of those who will not see or who pretend not to see.

NOTES

  1. My essay on Putin's speech: "Putin's Fiery Denunciation of the West, Its Implications for an Integral Worldview", www.integralworld.net
  2. Snyder, T., How does the Russo-Ukrainian War end?, snyder.substack.com, October 5, 2022.
  3. Electoral History of Vladimir Putin, en.wikipedia.org
  4. "On Feb 15, the OSCE recorded 41 ceasefire violations as Kiev's forces began shelling Donbas.
    Feb 16: 76 violations Feb 17: 316
    Feb 18: 654
    Feb 19: 1,413
    Feb 20-21: 2,026
    Feb 22: 1,484
    …virtually all by the Kiev side.
    Feb 24: Russian forces intervene".
    Source: @martyrmade on Twitter, 28 May, 2022
    Whitney, M., “Some of Us Don't Think the Russian Invasion Was "Aggression." Here's Why.” www.informationclearinghouse.info
  5. Snyder, T., Ukraine Holds the Future: The War Between Democracy and Nihilism. Foreign Affairs.
  6. Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov 'promoted' to general by Putin, www.msn.com
  7. These terrorist attacks include the assassination of Dugina, the attack on the Kerch Bridge, repeated shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, not to mention eight years of indiscriminate shelling of the Donbass, resulting in the murder of some 10,000 civilians.
  8. “The aide said that guys like me [Suskind] were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
    Suskind, R., “Faith, Certainty, and the Presidency of George W. Bush. The New York Times Magazine.
  9. Benshoff, L., “The Nord Stream pipelines have stopped leaking. But the methane emitted broke records” NPR.
  10. On Feb. 7, 2022, Biden declared “If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
    Tony Blinken: the attack was “a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy and thus to take away from Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy as a means of advancing his imperial designs.”
    In September, specialized U.S. Navy helicopters — the MH-60R, capable of employing the Seafox UUV — were tracked flying off the Danish island of Bornholm, directly over the segments of the Nordstream 1 and 2 pipelines that were later damaged in the sabotage incidents.
    To quote TASS,
    “On November 6, 2015, the NATO Seafox mine disposal unmanned underwater vehicle was found during the scheduled visual inspection of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline. It lay in space between gas pipelines, clearly near one of strings. NATO said the underwater mine disposal vehicle was lost during exercises. Such NATO exercises when the combat explosive device turned out to be exactly under our gas pipeline. The explosive device was deactivated by Swedish Armed Forces at that time.”
    “Not only did the U.S. Navy actively rehearse the crime in June 2022, using the same weapon that had been previously discovered next to the pipeline, but employed the very means needed to use this weapon on the day of the attack, at the location of the attack.”
    Ritter, S., “Pipelines vs. USA.” Consortium News.
  11. Ritter, S., “Pipelines vs. USA.” Consortium News.
  12. This fact-based worldview contains many facts that the West either vociferously protests or assiduously ignores. These include a long history of colonialist exploitation and subjugation of outgroup peoples and nations; internationally illegal wars of choice in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria; terrorist black ops and drone assassinations; economic blackmail via the IMF and World Bank; the persecution of political dissidents like Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning; and the pursuit of a widespread program of censorship, under the sponsorship of Google, Facebook, and the Western print media. While the common Western defense is that “Yes, and Russia and China do it too,” this is to change the subject and therefore an attempt to deflect responsibility. Russia and China, far from being perfect or without records of aggression and exploitation, do not compare either historically or in current world affairs, in the eyes of the Global South, with the scope or duration of massive abuses conducted by the West.







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