Russia begins the invasion

[Frank Underwood]

The REAL REASON why Zelensky is prolonging the war is his commitment to defending Ukraine's sovereign borders, a stance widely supported by the Ukrainian population. This approach would be the same for the USA if anyone invaded your country, so it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Whatever conspiracy theorist Jimmy Dore says in that video, it's likely to be nonsense, unverified and with no factual basis whatsoever because that's his usual schtick.

It has nothing to do with what "Jimmy Dore says." He's just the presenter who showed how the US used to cover the far-right Nazi faction in Ukraine.

Dore also showed a snippet of an interview between journalist Aaron Maté and the late Stephen F. Cohen. Cohen was an American scholar of Russian studies.

Here is the REAL, REAL REASON why Zelensky is prolonging the war:

Siding With Ukraine’s Far-Right, US Sabotaged Zelensky’s Peace Mandate​

On a warm October day in 2019, the eminent Russia studies professor Stephen F. Cohen and I sat down in Manhattan for what would be our last in-person interview (Cohen passed away in September 2020 at the age of 81).

The House was gearing up to impeach Donald Trump for freezing weapons shipments to Ukraine while pressuring its government to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The Beltway media was consumed with frenzy of a presidency in peril. But Professor Cohen, one of the leading Russia scholars in the United States, was concerned with what the impeachment spectacle in Washington meant for the long-running war between the US-backed Ukrainian government and Russian-backed rebels in the Donbas.

At that point, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky was just months into an upstart presidency that he had won on a pledge to end the Donbas conflict. Instead of supporting the Ukrainian leader’s peace mandate, Democrats in Congress were impeaching Trump for briefly impeding the flow of weapons that fueled the fight. As his Democratic allies now like to forget, President Obama refused to send these same weapons out of fear of prolonging the war and arming Nazis. By abandoning Obama’s policy, the Democrats, Cohen warned, threaten to sabotage peace and strengthen Ukraine’s far-right.

“Zelensky ran as a peace candidate,” Cohen explained. “He won an enormous mandate to make peace. So, that means he has to negotiate with Vladimir Putin.” But there was a major obstacle. Ukrainian fascists “have said that they will remove and kill Zelensky if he continues along this line of negotiating with Putin… His life is being threatened literally by a quasi-fascist movement in Ukraine.”

Peace could only come, Cohen stressed, on one condition. “[Zelensky] can’t go forward with full peace negotiations with Russia, with Putin, unless America has his back,” he said. “Maybe that won’t be enough, but unless the White House encourages this diplomacy, Zelensky has no chance of negotiating an end to the war. So the stakes are enormously high.”

The subsequent impeachment trial, and bipartisan US policy since, has made clear that Washington has had no interest in having Zelensky’s back, and every interest in fueling the Donbas war that he had been elected to end. The overwhelming message from Congress, fervently amplified across the US media (including progressive outlets) with next to no dissent, was that when it comes to Ukraine’s civil war, the US saw Ukraine’s far-right as allies, and its civilians as cannon fodder.

The Ukrainian battle against Russian-backed rebels, State Department official and opening impeachment witness George Kent testified, was being waged by the “Ukrainian equivalent of our own Minutemen of 1776.” In his opening statement at Trump’s trial, Democratic impeachment manager Adam Schiff approvingly quoted another Kent line: “The United States aids Ukraine and her people, so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.”

Although Trump’s impeachment failed to remove him from office, it succeeded in cementing the proxy war aims of its chief proponents: rather than support Zelensky’s peace mandate, Ukraine would instead be used to “fight Russia over there.”

In using Ukraine to bleed Russia, the US has showcased its contempt for everything in Ukraine that it claims to defend, namely its democracy and security. By treating Ukraine as a depot for US weapons, the US has joined Ukrainian fascists in sabotaging the 2015 Minsk accords that could have put an end to the civil war triggered by a US-backed coup the year prior. Minsk called for granting Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population in the eastern Donbas limited autonomy and respect for their language. This prospect was a non-starter for the far-right nationalists and Nazis empowered by the 2014 US-backed Maidan coup.

“The uncomfortable truth is that a sizeable portion of Kiev’s current government — and the protesters who brought it to power — are, indeed, fascists,” two specialists with prominent Western think tanks wrote in Foreign Policy in March 2014, one month after the coup.

The fascists have blocked peace in the Donbas at every turn. When the Ukrainian government voted on a “special law” advancing the Minsk accords in August 2015, the Svoboda party and other far-right groups led violent clashes that killed three Ukrainian soldiers and left dozens wounded. Then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who had signed Minsk at a time when President Obama was resisting heavy bipartisan pressure to arm Ukraine, got the message and refused to uphold Ukraine’s end of the bargain.

In April 2019, Zelensky was elected with an overwhelming 73% of the vote on a promise to turn the tide. In his inaugural address the next month, Zelensky declared that he was “not afraid to lose my own popularity, my ratings,” and was “prepared to give up my own position – as long as peace arrives.”

But Ukraine’s powerful far-right and neo-Nazi militias made clear to Zelensky that reaching peace in the Donbas would have a much higher cost.

“No, he would lose his life,” Right Sector co-founder Dmytro Anatoliyovych Yarosh, then the commander of the Ukrainian Volunteer Army, responded one week after Zelensky’s inaugural speech. “He will hang on some tree on Khreshchatyk – if he betrays Ukraine and those people who died in the Revolution and the War.”

Full Article here: Siding With Ukraine’s Far-Right, US Sabotaged Zelensky’s Peace Mandate

 

[Angela Channing]

It's not "my claim." Per the report in Salon, "As is detailed in declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents released in 2017, Bush and the leaders of West Germany, the U.K. and France gave similar assurances." Are former US Secretary of State James Baker and former CIA Director Robert Gates not credible enough sources?

The so-called "unverified comments" from Salon are based on declassified documents they linked to. Here's an excerpt from them:

Washington D.C., December 12, 2017 – U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).

The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels.

The documents reinforce former CIA Director Robert Gates’s criticism of “pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.” The key phrase, buttressed by the documents, is “led to believe.”

Source: NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard | National Security Archive

A Wikipedia article states that "The controversy regarding the legitimacy of eastward NATO expansion relates to the aftermath of the Revolutions of 1989, when the fall of Soviet-allied communist states to opposition parties brought European spheres of influence into question. Russian authorities claim that agreement on non-expansion of NATO to Eastern Europe took place orally and the alliance violated it with its expansion, while the leaders of the alliance claim that no such promise was made and that such a decision could only be made in writing. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who participated in the 1990 negotiations, subsequently spoke out about the existence of a "guarantee of non-expansion of NATO to the east" inconsistently, confirming its existence in some interviews and denying it in others. Among academic researchers, opinions on the existence or absence of a non-extension agreement also differ.

On February 9, 1990, at a meeting with Shevardnadze, US Secretary of State Baker said that, assuming Germany would reunite, the US favored the united Germany remaining "firmly anchored" in NATO, with which there would have to be "iron-clad guarantees that NATO's jurisdiction or forces would not move eastward." Later that day, at a meeting with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, he acknowledged that "not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction", and he asked Gorbachev whether he would prefer a united Germany "outside of NATO that is independent and has no US forces or [...] a united Germany with ties to NATO and assurances that there would be no extension of NATO's current jurisdiction eastward." When Gorbachev replied that "a broadening of the NATO zone is not acceptable," Baker agreed. In response, the head of the Soviet state told Baker that what he had said was "very realistic" and suggested that they "think about" it. Baker, at a press conference in Moscow on the same day, made public the resulting exchange, saying that the US proposed, in order to mitigate the concerns of those east of Germany, to prevent the expansion of NATO forces in the eastern direction and stated that the unification of Germany, according to the US position, is hardly possible without "some sort of security guarantees" with regard to the advance of NATO forces or its operation to the east. In its February 13 press release sent to embassies, the US State Department said that "the Secretary [of State] made clear that the U.S. [...] supported a unified Germany within NATO, but that we were prepared to ensure that NATO's military presence would not extend further eastward."

Source: Controversy regarding the legitimacy of eastward NATO expansion - Wikipedia


His people are being slaughtered, which is the end result of every endless war. It's easy not to surrender when you're not on the front lines, unlike those who are conscripted.

This is the problem with making the choice to believe a conspiracy theory rather that accepting the facts. Even the documents you are clinging on to to justify your point only say they were "considering" the option not that it was an agreed policy.

UK government papers released that cover this period were declassified after 20 years and there was no mention of any agreement not to expand NATO so I'm sceptical about your sources.

It has nothing to do with what "Jimmy Dore says." He's just the presenter who showed how the US used to cover the far-right Nazi faction in Ukraine.

Dore also showed a snippet of an interview between journalist Aaron Maté and the late Stephen F. Cohen. Cohen was an American scholar of Russian studies.

Here is the REAL, REAL REASON why Zelensky is prolonging the war:

Siding With Ukraine’s Far-Right, US Sabotaged Zelensky’s Peace Mandate​

On a warm October day in 2019, the eminent Russia studies professor Stephen F. Cohen and I sat down in Manhattan for what would be our last in-person interview (Cohen passed away in September 2020 at the age of 81).

The House was gearing up to impeach Donald Trump for freezing weapons shipments to Ukraine while pressuring its government to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The Beltway media was consumed with frenzy of a presidency in peril. But Professor Cohen, one of the leading Russia scholars in the United States, was concerned with what the impeachment spectacle in Washington meant for the long-running war between the US-backed Ukrainian government and Russian-backed rebels in the Donbas.

At that point, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky was just months into an upstart presidency that he had won on a pledge to end the Donbas conflict. Instead of supporting the Ukrainian leader’s peace mandate, Democrats in Congress were impeaching Trump for briefly impeding the flow of weapons that fueled the fight. As his Democratic allies now like to forget, President Obama refused to send these same weapons out of fear of prolonging the war and arming Nazis. By abandoning Obama’s policy, the Democrats, Cohen warned, threaten to sabotage peace and strengthen Ukraine’s far-right.

“Zelensky ran as a peace candidate,” Cohen explained. “He won an enormous mandate to make peace. So, that means he has to negotiate with Vladimir Putin.” But there was a major obstacle. Ukrainian fascists “have said that they will remove and kill Zelensky if he continues along this line of negotiating with Putin… His life is being threatened literally by a quasi-fascist movement in Ukraine.”

Peace could only come, Cohen stressed, on one condition. “[Zelensky] can’t go forward with full peace negotiations with Russia, with Putin, unless America has his back,” he said. “Maybe that won’t be enough, but unless the White House encourages this diplomacy, Zelensky has no chance of negotiating an end to the war. So the stakes are enormously high.”

The subsequent impeachment trial, and bipartisan US policy since, has made clear that Washington has had no interest in having Zelensky’s back, and every interest in fueling the Donbas war that he had been elected to end. The overwhelming message from Congress, fervently amplified across the US media (including progressive outlets) with next to no dissent, was that when it comes to Ukraine’s civil war, the US saw Ukraine’s far-right as allies, and its civilians as cannon fodder.

The Ukrainian battle against Russian-backed rebels, State Department official and opening impeachment witness George Kent testified, was being waged by the “Ukrainian equivalent of our own Minutemen of 1776.” In his opening statement at Trump’s trial, Democratic impeachment manager Adam Schiff approvingly quoted another Kent line: “The United States aids Ukraine and her people, so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.”

Although Trump’s impeachment failed to remove him from office, it succeeded in cementing the proxy war aims of its chief proponents: rather than support Zelensky’s peace mandate, Ukraine would instead be used to “fight Russia over there.”

In using Ukraine to bleed Russia, the US has showcased its contempt for everything in Ukraine that it claims to defend, namely its democracy and security. By treating Ukraine as a depot for US weapons, the US has joined Ukrainian fascists in sabotaging the 2015 Minsk accords that could have put an end to the civil war triggered by a US-backed coup the year prior. Minsk called for granting Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population in the eastern Donbas limited autonomy and respect for their language. This prospect was a non-starter for the far-right nationalists and Nazis empowered by the 2014 US-backed Maidan coup.

“The uncomfortable truth is that a sizeable portion of Kiev’s current government — and the protesters who brought it to power — are, indeed, fascists,” two specialists with prominent Western think tanks wrote in Foreign Policy in March 2014, one month after the coup.

The fascists have blocked peace in the Donbas at every turn. When the Ukrainian government voted on a “special law” advancing the Minsk accords in August 2015, the Svoboda party and other far-right groups led violent clashes that killed three Ukrainian soldiers and left dozens wounded. Then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who had signed Minsk at a time when President Obama was resisting heavy bipartisan pressure to arm Ukraine, got the message and refused to uphold Ukraine’s end of the bargain.

In April 2019, Zelensky was elected with an overwhelming 73% of the vote on a promise to turn the tide. In his inaugural address the next month, Zelensky declared that he was “not afraid to lose my own popularity, my ratings,” and was “prepared to give up my own position – as long as peace arrives.”

But Ukraine’s powerful far-right and neo-Nazi militias made clear to Zelensky that reaching peace in the Donbas would have a much higher cost.

“No, he would lose his life,” Right Sector co-founder Dmytro Anatoliyovych Yarosh, then the commander of the Ukrainian Volunteer Army, responded one week after Zelensky’s inaugural speech. “He will hang on some tree on Khreshchatyk – if he betrays Ukraine and those people who died in the Revolution and the War.”

Full Article here: Siding With Ukraine’s Far-Right, US Sabotaged Zelensky’s Peace Mandate

Ukraine is a terribly racist country that discriminates against black people but that doesn't mean it hasn't the right to want to preserve the integrity of its borders. If Russia invaded your country and annexed Alaska, for example, do you think the USA government should just say "OK you keep it, we shouldn't fight for what is our sovereign territory?" Do you not think that would just encourage Russia to believe it could take more US land without any resistance?

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

This is the problem with making the choice to believe a conspiracy theory rather that accepting the facts.

Oh, the irony. Why do conspiracy theorists always accuse others of being "conspiracy theorists"?

 

[Angela Channing]

Oh, the irony. Why do conspiracy theorists always accuse others of being "conspiracy theorists"?

Wikipedia states that Jimmy Dore is a conspiracy theorist. Regurgitating Putin propaganda which has no factual basis deserves to be called out for the conspiracy theory that it is.

What exactly are the conspiracy theories that you claim I believe in?

 

[Frank Underwood]

This is the problem with making the choice to believe a conspiracy theory rather that accepting the facts. Even the documents you are clinging on to to justify your point only say they were "considering" the option not that it was an agreed policy.

UK government papers released that cover this period were declassified after 20 years and there was no mention of any agreement not to expand NATO so I'm sceptical about your sources.

You mean "accepting the facts" as you see them. What they were "considering" was Central and Eastern European membership in NATO, which they rejected.

Even if you take the UK out of the equation, it's clear from the documents that former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker told Gorbachev that “there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east.” He also agreed with Gorbachev’s statement that “Any extension of the zone of NATO is unacceptable.”

US officials such as former CIA Director Robert Gates, Cold War diplomat and historian George Kennan, and Jack Matlock, the last U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, all complained about NATO duplicity. In 1995, 18 retired U.S. foreign service and State and Defense Department officers signed a letter denouncing these NATO recruitments, saying they would convince Russians that the U.S. wanted to "isolate, encircle, and subordinate them." NATO penetration into Russia's sphere is the root cause of the conflict.

Source: Yes, Putin's a tyrant — that doesn't mean his Ukraine demands are unreasonable | Salon.com

The fact that there wasn't a formal agreement not to expand NATO is clearly the most problematic part. For starters, it allowed people like Biden's Secretary of State Antony Blinken to say that “NATO never promised not to admit new members," even though it's clear that verbal assurances were made. However, the US refuses to look like the bad guy in the eyes of the public, so they try to convince us that there was no duplicity on their part. That's the only way they can push the narrative that they didn't provoke Putin.

Ukraine is a terribly racist country that discriminates against black people but that doesn't mean it hasn't the right to want to preserve the integrity of its borders. If Russia invaded your country and annexed Alaska, for example, do you think the USA government should just say "OK you keep it, we shouldn't fight for what is our sovereign territory?" Do you not think that would just encourage Russia to believe it could take more US land without any resistance?

Was the US right to back a coup in Ukraine, overthrow their government, and replace it with a regime that was sympathetic to the West? Or is that not "provocation?"

A country has the right to defend its territory, but at what point do you cut your losses? Russia hasn't retreated after 3 years, so what makes Ukraine think they're going to win the war militarily? Sadly, Ukrainians are cannon fodder for far-right Nazis, defense contractors, and leaders in the West who get to wage a proxy war against their foe Russia.

 

[Frank Underwood]

Wikipedia states that Jimmy Dore is a conspiracy theorist. Regurgitating Putin propaganda which has no factual basis deserves to be called out for the conspiracy theory that it is.

What exactly are the conspiracy theories that you claim I believe in?

I remember you running with the Russia-gate conspiracies from the "pee tape" to the idea that Pence would replace Trump during his first term.

Your refusal to look past Jimmy Dore is odd. He's a commentator covering news stories just like mainstream media pundits. The difference is he doesn't promote establishment narratives. The fact that Wikipedia says Jimmy Dore is a conspiracy theorist doesn't mean anything. It reminds me of the joke "It has to be true, I read it on the Internet!" Like all information sources, Wikipedia is only as reliable as the people who contribute to it. Wikipedia is just as susceptible to biases and spin creeping in as the mainstream media.

I believe in challenging establishment narratives, and I always provide sources to support my claims. Your rebuttal usually includes ad hominem attacks such as calling me a conspiracy theorist, accusing me of "regurgitating Putin propaganda," etc. The fact that there's conflicting information about what Russia was promised in regard to NATO expansion isn't surprising. Without a formal agreement, US officials can engage in revisionist history in order to make Putin look like the sole aggressor. This is the same US that lied about WMDs in Iraq and exploited fears that Trump was a Russian agent who conspired to steal the 2016 election. They will do and say anything to push their agenda.

Personally, I prefer having critical thinking skills to regurgitating Western political establishment propaganda.

 

[Angela Channing]

You mean "accepting the facts" as you see them. What they were "considering" was Central and Eastern European membership in NATO, which they rejected.

Even if you take the UK out of the equation, it's clear from the documents that former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker told Gorbachev that “there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east.” He also agreed with Gorbachev’s statement that “Any extension of the zone of NATO is unacceptable.”

US officials such as former CIA Director Robert Gates, Cold War diplomat and historian George Kennan, and Jack Matlock, the last U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, all complained about NATO duplicity. In 1995, 18 retired U.S. foreign service and State and Defense Department officers signed a letter denouncing these NATO recruitments, saying they would convince Russians that the U.S. wanted to "isolate, encircle, and subordinate them." NATO penetration into Russia's sphere is the root cause of the conflict.

Source: Yes, Putin's a tyrant — that doesn't mean his Ukraine demands are unreasonable | Salon.com

The fact that there wasn't a formal agreement not to expand NATO is clearly the most problematic part. For starters, it allowed people like Biden's Secretary of State Antony Blinken to say that “NATO never promised not to admit new members," even though it's clear that verbal assurances were made. However, the US refuses to look like the bad guy in the eyes of the public, so they try to convince us that there was no duplicity on their part. That's the only way they can push the narrative that they didn't provoke Putin.

Even if I were to accept that NATO said they wouldn't expand to the east (I don't for reasons already given) it still doesn't justify Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine. He is the aggressor, he is the one who broke international law and he is the one prolonging the war by continuing to bomb and refusing to withdraw from illegally seized territory. That is the reason why the Ukrainian people think he shouldn't be rewarded by giving him their land.

A country has the right to defend its territory, but at what point do you cut your losses? Russia hasn't retreated after 3 years, so what makes Ukraine think they're going to win the war militarily? Sadly, Ukrainians are cannon fodder for far-right Nazis, defense contractors, and leaders in the West who get to wage a proxy war against their foe Russia.

If your country was invaded by Russian and you were faced with the prospect of living under Putin's authoritarian regime and had your rights and democratic privileges removed, would you want to fight on or would you just shrug your shoulders and say, let Putin get away with it, I don't care?

Your refusal to look past Jimmy Dore is odd. He's a commentator covering news stories just like mainstream media pundits. The difference is he doesn't promote establishment narratives. The fact that Wikipedia says Jimmy Dore is a conspiracy theorist doesn't mean anything. It reminds me of the joke "It has to be true, I read it on the Internet!" Like all information sources, Wikipedia is only as reliable as the people who contribute to it. Wikipedia is just as susceptible to biases and spin creeping in as the mainstream media.

The first sentence in Dore's Wikipedia entry (my use of bold):

"James Patrick Anthony Dore (born July 26, 1965) is an American stand-up comedian, political commentator, conspiracy theorist, podcaster and YouTube personality."

It also goes on to state how he was accused of sexual harassment so it's no surprise that he would side with Trump. It's not just Wikipedia that are saying these things, it's a broadly held opinion of many people who can support their claims with verifiable evidence, something that Dore regularly fails to do.

I don't think this makes him a credible commentator and that's before I take into account the complete lies, distortions and half-truths that he was peddling during the pandemic about Covid-19 and vaccinations which could well have cost some people their lives.

Regarding pee-gate, former UK intelligence agent Christopher Steele who complied the dossier which originally made the claim stands by his findings. Trump attempted to sue him for libel in the UK courts and lost and was ordered to Steele $382,000. So people (including myself) who think that Trump is compromised and that Putin has an hold over him, have just justification in holding that position because the evidence was supported in a UK court.

Trump ordered to pay $382,000 after losing UK lawsuit over Steele dossier

Orbis, founded by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, compiled allegedly damaging intelligence on Trump in 2016

www.theguardian.com

 

[Frank Underwood]

Even if I were to accept that NATO said they wouldn't expand to the east (I don't for reasons already given) it still doesn't justify Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine. He is the aggressor, he is the one who broke international law and he is the one prolonging the war by continuing to bomb and refusing to withdraw from illegally seized territory. That is the reason why the Ukrainian people think he shouldn't be rewarded by giving him their land.

If your country was invaded by Russian and you were faced with the prospect of living under Putin's authoritarian regime and had your rights and democratic privileges removed, would you want to fight on or would you just shrug your shoulders and say, let Putin get away with it, I don't care?

I have repeatedly said that nothing justifies Putin's invasion of Ukraine. However, US and NATO provocation shouldn't be swept under the rug. And yes, I believe Putin was provoked for reasons I've already given. It wasn't just NATO expansion that provoked him. As I've also pointed out repeatedly, it was also the 2014 US-backed coup in Ukraine.

If fighting meant my fellow Americans were being slaughtered by the thousands to benefit smug politicians and military contractors, I would want it to end. It's obvious that this war won't be won militarily, yet people still ask "Would you surrender to Putin?" Nobody wants Putin to win, but continued war will only lead to more civilian casualties. The only way to end a war is through diplomatic negotiations and concessions, but the West doesn't want that because it isn't profitable for the defense industry. That's partly why they provoked a madman like Putin in the first place. They also hoped this war would weaken Putin, but that proved to be more difficult than they originally thought.

The first sentence in Dore's Wikipedia entry (my use of bold):

"James Patrick Anthony Dore (born July 26, 1965) is an American stand-up comedian, political commentator, conspiracy theorist, podcaster and YouTube personality."

It also goes on to state how he was accused of sexual harassment so it's no surprise that he would side with Trump. It's not just Wikipedia that are saying these things, it's a broadly held opinion of many people who can support their claims with verifiable evidence, something that Dore regularly fails to do.

I don't think this makes him a credible commentator and that's before I take into account the complete lies, distortions and half-truths that he was peddling during the pandemic about Covid-19 and vaccinations which could well have cost some people their lives.

"A broadly held opinion," yet Dore regularly interviews award winning journalists and experts in their field. As it turns out, many of the mainstream narratives around Covid have broken down. Of course, the idea that Dore cost people their lives is simply ridiculous. He regularly told people to consult their doctor before making medical decisions.

The sexual harassment charge was a bogus claim made by Dore's former TYT co-worker Ana Kasparian. It was based around an inappropriate joke Dore told, which he had apologized for years prior. Kasparian threatened to use it against Dore during the #MeToo era because they were feuding at the time over TYT's smears of anti-war journalists.

The real reason Dore's "siding with Trump" on Ukraine is because he doesn't want any more dead Ukrainian civilians.

Regarding pee-gate, former UK intelligence agent Christopher Steele who complied the dossier which originally made the claim stands by his findings. Trump attempted to sue him for libel in the UK courts and lost and was ordered to Steele $382,000. So people (including myself) who think that Trump is compromised and that Putin has an hold over him, have just justification in holding that position because the evidence was supported in a UK court.

Trump ordered to pay $382,000 after losing UK lawsuit over Steele dossier

Orbis, founded by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, compiled allegedly damaging intelligence on Trump in 2016

www.theguardian.com

What's funny is the judge only sided with Steele because the dossier was published without Steele's permission and was never meant to be made public.

CNN is as mainstream as media gets in the US, and even they had to admit that the dossier is a discredited piece of trash funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign:

A series of investigations and lawsuits have discredited many of its central allegations and exposed the unreliability of Steele’s sources. They also raise serious questions about the political underpinnings of some key explosive claims about Trump by shedding new light on the involvement of some well-connected Democrats in the dossier, and separate efforts to prod the FBI to investigate ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia.

Source: The Steele dossier: A reckoning | CNN Politics

 

[Gabriel Maxwell]

Our social justice keyboard warriors — whose “I stand with Ukraine” usually pertains to switching their Facebook avatar to the Ukrainian flag and would never pick up a gun and actually join the fight in Ukraine — normally say that a peace deal should never be made with land concessions to Russia because that would reward Putin and embolden him to later attack the rest of Europe. On the contrary, they say, the war must continue until Russia is beaten militarily and pushed off the Ukrainian territory.

The most common argument they use from their comfy Netlix sofas to instantly shut down any further debate about this is reminding people of the 1930s Western attempts to appease Hitler and his promises not to continue his invasions and how he promptly broke his own word and went on a conquering rampage across Europe.

Except they conveniently skip over crucial context, both from World War II and today’s frontlines in Ukraine.

First, Hitler was able to conquer Poland in just 5 weeks, Warsaw fell even earlier than that. The Netherlands took 5 days, the Czech Republic 1 day and Norway about 6 hours! Until Hitler’s grand failure in Russia, he was able to conquer all his targets with his infamous Blitz Krieg strategy within about 2 months max, most often in mere days or hours.

If Putin is incapable of conquering more than 20% of Ukraine after 3 years, how on Earth is he going to conquer the entire Europe going against a combined military of NATO’s 30+ countries? Russia’s military budget is 80 billion, NATO is 1.2 trillion while Russia’s population is 145 million, NATO is 950 million.

Second, the front lines in Ukraine were set back in the summer of 2022 when Putin went up from 45,000 km² he initially conquered in 2014 to about 100,000 km². Since that time, for almost 3 years, it’s been mostly a stalemate with a minor change in Russia’s favor in 2024 when they went up to about 110,000 km² (out of Ukraine’s 600,000 km²) which they were able to get at a great cost in terms of lives and military equipment.

Ukraine is heavily dependent on Western military aid. They would’ve fallen a long time ago without it. And yet despite the support of the Biden administration and the rest of NATO, not only have they not been able to push out the Russians, it appears a prolonged war may only end up costing them more territory.

The Russians are obviously exposed to nothing but Putin’s propaganda. But how much better is the West doing? I’ve been hearing for 3 years how these latest sanctions are really going to cripple Russia. Or how they only have enough money for a few more weeks of war. Or how Putin is terminally ill and dying of cancer or Parkinson’s. Look at his hand shaking!

Meanwhile, according to data from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), the EU paid approximately €140 billion for Russian fossil fuels between February 2022 and February 2023. In comparison, by March 2025, the EU’s financial and military aid to Ukraine totaled around €132 billion. Talk about empty virtue signaling!

The war is costing both sides in the conflict tens of thousands of lives each year (and that’s on top of the many more injured) and the EU and the US taxpayers at least $4.5 million per hour (and that’s on top of humanitarian and financial aid) to the total tune of about $250 billion and counting.

What is a prolonged war supposed to achieve based on what we’ve seen over the past 3 years except continuing stalemate on the front lines, additional tens of thousands of lives lost for nothing, and more billions upon billions of taxpayers’ money redirected to the military industry?

I’m also not happy about Ukraine being unable to win the war (though I’d never particularly cared for that ridiculously corrupt and often racist & homophobic country and would certainly never go to fight for it) or Russia being a nuclear superpower which can always resort to suicide and global apocalypse if pushed too far? But if you’re going to be pragmatic about peace, you have to acknowledge reality.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

And someone here once claimed she never sees Wikipedia. Isn't that funny?

 

[Laurie!]

Our social justice keyboard warriors — whose “I stand with Ukraine” usually pertains to switching their Facebook avatar to the Ukrainian flag and would never pick up a gun and actually join the fight in Ukraine — normally say that a peace deal should never be made with land concessions to Russia because that would reward Putin and embolden him to later attack the rest of Europe.

Only Ukrainian people get to decide when the war ends. They shouldn't be extorted of critical minerals or anything else in exchange for assistance.
We should offer our help to any democratic country/territory where an attempt is being made to illegally annex land.

On the contrary, they say, the war must continue until Russia is beaten militarily and pushed off the Ukrainian territory.

The war ends when Ukraine says so. Nobody else gets to decide for them.

If Putin is incapable of conquering more than 20% of Ukraine after 3 years, how on Earth is he going to conquer the entire Europe going against a combined military of NATO’s 30+ countries? Russia’s military budget is 80 billion, NATO is 1.2 trillion while Russia’s population is 145 million, NATO is 950 million.

Easy. NATO doesn't really want to defend anyone and Russia knows it.

But if you’re going to be pragmatic about peace, you have to acknowledge reality.

Imagine if the Netherlands, Poland, France, et al had simply acknowledged reality back in the early 1940's....stopped fighting to save lives and accepted their inevitable fate.

Larger militaries don't always win wars. Nobody won Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan for example. Though the U.S. lies and says they've never lost a war (1812 anyone).

The U.S. also likes to pretend they could easily take over Canada militarily. However, it would take hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground to do so, given our land mass. You can guarandamntee that we won't simply concede defeat and the U.S. public doesn't have the stomach for what would happen. They won't use nukes on us either. The radiation alone would kill hundreds of thousands of Americans. FYI, we know how to make nukes and have lots of uranium.

Bottom line is, the Ukrainian people hold all of the cards; despite what Trump says.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Bottom line is, the Ukrainian people hold all of the cards; despite what Trump says.

And, despite what you're told, the Ukranian people don't want the war either.

 

[Laurie!]

And, despite what you're told, the Ukranian people don't want the war either.

That's a bit misleading since nobody wants war. I highly doubt any majority of them would want to be Russian as the alternative.

 

[Frank Underwood]

I'm always fascinated when people condemn the American imperialist agenda while advocating for it at the same time.

While it's true that only Ukraine can decide when the war ends, they're not entitled to the US footing the bill. Personally, I'd like to see an end to US involvement in all wars.

I also don't believe that "offering our help" should come in the form of death and destruction for the sole purpose of enriching defense contractors.

It seems clear that this war won't be won militarily. Prolonging it is just delaying the inevitable at the expense of innocent lives. The excuses to keep it going don't work for me.

 

[Laurie!]

While it's true that only Ukraine can decide when the war ends, they're not entitled to the US footing the bill. Personally, I'd like to see an end to US involvement in all wars.

I believe in honoring contracts and that a handshake should mean something.
As a result, Ukraine is indeed "entitled" to the US and UK footing a lot of the bill for this war. Given the US, Russia and UK agreed to those terms if Ukraine agreed to give up their nuclear weapons with the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.
If they'd kept their nukes, this wouldn't be happening.

In many ways, abandoning Ukraine after they trusted your word, doesn't send a good sign for nuclear non proliferation anywhere else in the world (talk about saving lives potentially).

I also don't believe that "offering our help" should come in the form of death and destruction for the sole purpose of enriching defense contractors.

How about for the purpose of your word and signed contracts meaning something?

It seems clear that this war won't be won militarily. Prolonging it is just delaying the inevitable at the expense of innocent lives. The excuses to keep it going don't work for me.

The so-called inevitable was supposed to have happened within a week, three years ago.
I certainly don't want any loss of innocent lives but I also don't take away individual Ukrainian's decisions. For the most part, those who wanted to leave, did so. Those who've stayed are willing to die defending their land.

 

[Frank Underwood]

Honoring contracts? The US was the first to violate Ukraine's sovereignty and security when they backed a coup in 2014 and then used the ensuing civil war as "our fight."

The US government has always been duplicitous, and they're always inserting themselves into foreign conflicts. After 3 years and thousands of lives lost, the best Ukraine's been able to achieve is a stalemate. Several politicians and media figures in the US already gave the game away. The war is profitable for the US defense industry, as all wars are. Thus, there's never any incentive to end them. Nobody wants to "reward" Putin, but negotiating an end to war is the only solution if you don't want continued bloodshed.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

After 3 years and thousands of lives lost,

1.4 million -- 90% of which have been Ukrainian.

 

[Angela Channing]

There could be peace immediately if Putin agreed to stop fighting and withdrew Russian forces from Ukrainian sovereign territory. That is the simplest and legal solution to the issue, everything else is just pro-Putin propaganda.

 

[Frank Underwood]

People are accused of spouting "pro-Putin propaganda" for simply acknowledging the reality of the situation. The fact is the people who use that smear are just spouting pro-war propaganda. In a perfect world, the US wouldn't have backed a coup in Ukraine and Putin would have never waged an illegal invasion of the country. Unfortunately, we live in a world that is far from perfect. As far as I can tell, there are only two options. Either the war continues indefinitely and innocent Ukrainians continue to be murdered, or concessions are made and a peace deal is reached. Neither option is ideal, but the latter option sounds more pragmatic to me. I didn't even realize the number of causalities was over a million until Snarky pointed that out. War is far more horrific than we can possibly fathom, which is why I believe bringing it to an end should be the main objective.

 

[Angela Channing]

People are accused of spouting "pro-Putin propaganda" for simply acknowledging the reality of the situation. The fact is the people who use that smear are just spouting pro-war propaganda. In a perfect world, the US wouldn't have backed a coup in Ukraine and Putin would have never waged an illegal invasion of the country. Unfortunately, we live in a world that is far from perfect. As far as I can tell, there are only two options. Either the war continues indefinitely and innocent Ukrainians continue to be murdered, or concessions are made and a peace deal is reached. Neither option is ideal, but the latter option sounds more pragmatic to me. I didn't even realize the number of causalities was over a million until Snarky pointed that out. War is far more horrific than we can possibly fathom, which is why I believe bringing it to an end should be the main objective.

The reality of the situation is that Russia illegally invaded Ukraine so to end the war, Russia needs to withdraw its troops and respect Ukrainian borders. That would bring the war to an end and save lives.

Who is arguing that Ukraine should concede its sovereign territory to Russia? Vladimir Putin is. Saying Ukraine should surrender its land and the rest of the world should ignore that Russia broke international law is Putin's position.