George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center and the author of over twenty books on politics, theology, current events, and history. His syndicated column is published each week by Catholic World Report and he is a regular contributor to this site.
He corresponded with me this afternoon about the current and fast-moving situation in Ukraine.
CWR: In yesterday’s syndicated column, titled “On Ukraine,” you stated that “a Russian invasion of Ukraine has not been ‘imminent;’ the invasion is ongoing.” And now there are over military attacks taking place on Ukraine. As of what right now, what is your assessment of what is happening in Ukraine?
Weigel: Vladimir Putin has confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt that he is a pathological liar as well as a thief, kleptocrat, tyrant, and murderer. For months he has been saying that the Russian forces gathering on Ukraine’s borders were not the spearheads of an invasion; now Russia is conducting a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by land, sea, and air. What Putin’s short-term goal is remains unclear, but he would certainly not cavil at bringing down the government in Kyiv and installing some sort of puppet regime, which I cannot see the Ukrainian people accepting quietly.
Putin’s speech as the full-scale invasion began on February 24 was nauseating. Ukraine is a country with a democratically elected president of Jewish heritage whose first language was Russian. To say, as Putin did, that this man and the government he leads require “denazification” set a new low for Kremlin prevarication.
Ukraine poses no security threat to Russia. None. Neither does NATO. All such claims on Putin’s part are disinformation and propaganda. The threat Ukraine poses is the possibility that a free, prosperous, and democratic Slavic nation-state could emerge on Russia’s borders — a living alternative to Putin’s kleptocracy, which has failed the Russian people by any measure: economic, social, cultural, and political.
Putin trusts his own people so little that, in the first hours of the invasion, he ordered that only official Kremlin-authorized “news” on the war in Ukraine be published by any Russian media or social media outlet. That there are peace demonstrations in parts of Russia suggests that Putin’s war is not so popular as he might imagine it to be, but those demonstrations, in a tightly-controlled police state, are not likely to have much impact on the hard man in the Kremlin.
CWR: President Biden has announced further sanctions, while President Putin has threatened “consequences you have never seen” to countries that interfere. What are some possible responses from the U.S. and European countries? What approach do you think should be taken?
Weigel: The gold standard, so to speak, of economic sanctions would be to cut Russia off from the SWIFT system of international financial exchange. I was glad to hear Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the U.K. tell the House of Commons on February 24 that such a move was certainly on the menu of options being considered by western countries. The Moscow stock exchange lost many billions of dollars in asset-value in the hours after the February 24 invasion and pressure to continue that degradation of Russian assets should be maintained.
But in addition to sanctioning Russia, Putin, and the kleptocrats who depend on him, it is important to pour western aid into Ukraine: military assistance, to be sure, including anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry, but also financial and economic assistance. Part of Putin’s game may be to so disrupt the Ukrainian economy that the Ukrainian currency collapses and with it, the present government. We should be doing everything in our power to thwart that.
Western leaders have also got to explain to their own people that we in the West are going to have to bear some burdens in all this, including higher energy prices and possible cyber-attacks from Russia — to which we should respond with appropriately robust countermeasures.
CWR: What are Putin’s motives, based on both his recent remarks and his presidency overall?
Weigel: Vladimir Putin is a child of the old KGB and has made it clear for two decades that he regards the defeat of the Soviet Union in the Cold War as a disaster — a disaster amplified by the fact that his former allies rushed to join NATO in order to be protected from a revanchist, imperialist, post-Soviet Russia.
Putin’s recent speeches have also displayed an almost psychotic hatred of Ukraine and Ukrainians, to the point where entirely sober-minded analysts with whom I am in contact wonder whether the Russian autocrat is coming unhinged. Hatred of Ukraine is one facet of Putin’s evident personal investment in a Big Lie about the historical and cultural heritage of the eastern Slavic peoples, which to his mind seems to be a heritage For Russians Only.
This warped view of history includes the historically and ecclesiologically untenable notion that the Russian Orthodox Church is the sole legitimate heir of the baptism of the eastern Slavs in 988. Thus I found it both interesting and somewhat encouraging that the leaders of the two competing Orthodox communities in Ukraine, including the community that has maintained close ties with the Russian Orthodox patriarchate of Moscow, condemned Putin’s invasion and defended Ukraine’s sovereign integrity.
CWR: There is obviously a great deal of media coverage and punditry about this situation. What are some errors and falsehoods that need to be avoided and rejected?
Weigel: The Big Lies to be rejected, no matter what their sources (including certain Fox News personalities and certain Catholic websites), would include at least the following:
• This entire situation is the West’s fault. Exactly backwards: this is all Putin’s doing, and what fault lies with the West lies in not taking him more seriously years ago and figuring out effective ways to deter him from his stated goal of reversing history’s verdict in the Cold War.
• NATO poses a threat to Russian national security. Many NATO countries are functionally pacifist; NATO poses no more threat to Russia than it does to Papua New Guinea.
• Russia has a “right” to a “sphere of influence” around itself. It doesn’t. That is sheer imperialism. And to compare Putin’s claims to the Monroe Doctrine is nonsense on stilts. The Monroe Doctrine was aimed at retarding the further advance of imperialism in the name of the national sovereignty of free states. What Putin is doing is advancing imperial claims that deny other countries their sovereign rights.
• This is none of our business. It is very much our business and anyone who doesn’t recognize that is being willfully blind or is besotted by ideology — perhaps both. If Putin is allowed to dismantle by force the security architecture of Europe, Xi Jinping will be encouraged do the same thing in east Asia, and the world will be faced with decades of chaos in which tyrannies are calling the tune. Didn’t the twentieth century teach us anything about what happens when tyrants are allowed to invade and subjugate free peoples? And don’t we have a moral obligation to help people, under attack, who have asked for our help in defending themselves? The Kitty Genovese Syndrome — ignoring pleas for help from a victim — usually makes for very bad policy and an enormous amount of suffering. Moreover, when Ukraine agreed in 1994 to surrender the nuclear weapons it had inherited from the now-defunct Soviet Union, the United States agreed to guarantee Ukraine’s territorial integrity. If we renege on that pledge, the appropriate lessons will be drawn in Tokyo, Seoul, and perhaps Taipei, and nuclear proliferation will likely accelerate.
• We should focus our attention on China, which is the major threat to American interests. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping made it quite clear right before the Winter Olympics that they have now forged an alliance of interests, the primary interest being overturning the post-Cold War world order to their benefit. You can’t ignore lethal, unprovoked Russian aggression and expect that that will have no impact on China’s strategic calculations, beginning with Taiwan and later, the Philippines.
CWR: What role, if any, is the Russian Orthodox Church playing in this aggression against Ukraine?
Weigel: I have to think that many devout Russian Orthodox believers find this war appalling. But their leaders, including Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and the Moscow patriarchate’s chief ecumenical officer, Metropolitan Hilarion, have bathed Putin in sycophancy for years. On February 23, shortly after Putin’s incredible anti-Ukraine tirade, Kirill threw bouquets of compliments at the Russian autocrat and Russia’s armed forces, which were, Kirill said, promoting Russia’s national security. Less than a day later, the missiles and bombs began falling on Ukraine. Kirill’s subsequent statement as the invasion intensified was an anodyne call for peace with not a syllable of criticism of Putin’s aggression.
In this context, one wonders what it will take for the Holy See to recognize, finally, that the Russian Orthodox leaders with whom it is in contact are agents of Russian state power before they are churchmen.
CWR: Any further thoughts?
Weigel: It has been one of the great graces of my life to have become friends with many members of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The UGCC has played a crucial role in building civil society in post-Soviet Ukraine, not least by creating the remarkable Ukrainian Catholic University in L’viv, the finest institution of higher learning in the country.
The leader of the UGCC, Major-Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, his fellow-bishops, clergy, and their impressively active laity deserve the generous support of Catholics throughout the world. They, and their fellow-countrymen, also deserve far more support than they have received to date from the Vatican. Well may we join Pope Francis in a day of prayer and fasting on Ash Wednesday for peace in Ukraine. But let us all — including the Vatican — acknowledge who has broken the peace: and who has been doing do for the past eight years, during which 14,000 lives have been lost to Russian-supported forces and some million people internally displaced.
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One can properly wonder about the development of Putin’s adventurism were the moral coward and profound fool Biden not in office, a situation to which Weigel contributed by his active campaign against Trump for President among the Catholic vote.
I think you have the wrong US president tagged on this. Try dialing back four years, sir.
Strange. Under Obama-Biden, Putin invaded and took Crimea from the Ukraine. Then, under Trump, Putin did not invade. Now, under Biden, .
But somehow it’s all Trump’s fault. Interesting perspective.
I don’t think any US president bears any more than a sliver of blame. But if we’re talking about a “moral coward and profound fool,” then Mr Baker indeed has slept for four years.
You don’t seem to understand the situation. Under Trump we were energy independent, were attempting to stop Nord Stream 2, encouraging Europeans to buy energy from us and not the Russians, and arming the Ukrainians when needed.
Biden kneecapped our energy production on behalf of environmentalists, the Democrats filibustered an attempt to sanction Nord Stream 2 (now belatedly, with no explanation, Biden has now done so), and though Biden cried out “war, war” and explained that “minor incursions” would be ok, he did not arm the Ukrainians.
We are now buying hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day from the Russians, which are quite expensive given our own diminished energy production. We are paying for Putin’s adventure.
I think I understand things well enough. Mr Putin was happy with Mr Trump in the WH here. Now he doesn’t have a friend in the exec branch, only the occasional Republican on the fringes of government.
As for petrochemicals, at some point we’re going to run out. Let’s wean ourselves off this addiction to wide open roadways fueled by other countries’ resources. Make the changes today so it won’t be so catastrophic later this century.
Oh, and stop making excuses for a military and its leader sending missiles into apartment buildings. Be a non-Christian as you wish. Just don’t deny it while giving succor to a godless dictator and a clan of oligarchs.
So obviously, in addition to ignorance over geopolitical reality, and ignorance over energy production (characterizing an “addiction to fuel is like describing an addiction to breathing), you’re also another Catholic pro-abort with contempt for the man who saved more lives than any man in human history.
BINGO
Nice. But that’s not the game we’re playing today.
Unfortunately true, for us and for the Ukrainians.
Well said. You are absolutely correct.
https://vimeo.com/252426896?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=26898102
What an unhinged screed. I understand Mr Weigel’s personal closeness and affection. However, the notion that the West is innocent is absolutely appalling. If Ukrain is a model for post-Soviet Christian life wherein 2/3 pregnancies end in abortion, LGBQ is supported by a majority of the people, then I would hate to see failing christian nations. NATO has colonized Ukraine socially and morally, and used it to bankroll their kids. Biden, Romney, Pelosi, and Kerry all just happen to have sons who collect fat paychecks from Ukrainian gas companies. What a strange coincidence. Please. To call Russia a bankrupt kleptocracy and Ukraine as a model for free Slavs is disingenuous, foolish, and belies the absolute failures of Neoliberalism.
Many good points!
Your claim about Kerry’s son, Pelosi’s son and Romney’s son is demonstrably false. Various media examined employment records, including USA Today.
The Western establishment ruling elites conduct as of late makes me question their sobriety. Their conduct during the pandemic would suggest that Chairman Xi and the CCP are their aspirational role models. People drunk with power. Western dissipation doesn’t communicate seriousness. Perhaps the Ukraine situation is a wakeup call to get our priorities in order to better face Russia and China.
I am reminded of Putin’s address to the nation last Monday, a portion of which was dedicated to the ‘Empire of Lies’, the US and Europe, in which he essentially presented the cultural degeneration of the West as a threat to Russia and humanity. Add to this his dark, defiant tone and demeanor, and threats of nuclear war towards any country that offers interference. It is possible that Putin’s motivations are more far-reaching than just Ukraine.
The best financial aid that Ukraine could receive — aside from the immediate needs to survive — would be to abandon the failed Keynesian policies that back the currency with government debt, destabilize the currency, and rely on foreign investment capital to finance economic growth. Central banking was originally intended to provide the private sector with a stable, asset-backed, “elastic” and uniform currency and adequate money supply without inflation or deflation. It is only an accident of history (and politicians’ greed) that central banks began funding government operations.
By implementing a monetary policy whereby commercial banks accept bills of exchange to finance sound capital investment and rediscounting the bills at the central bank, using open market operations as intended to monetize existing inventories, phasing out dealing in government securities, and financing growth in ways that create new owners as recommended in § 46 of Rerum Novarum, Ukraine will be in a better position to resist any foreign domination and rebuild in a way that benefits every citizen once Putin and his puppets have been dealt with.
https://www.cesj.org/learn/economic-democracy-act/
As devil’s advocate, one thousand years ago another Vladimir, a prince of the Kievan Russ, established Christianity in what grew to became Russia. Its centre was Kiev. At that time there was no such political entity as Ukrain.
In the contemporary region of Ukrain the east, chief city Kiev, looks to Russia, the west with its chief city Lwow formerly Lemberg, to Poland, of which it was once a part, and central Europe.
The second world war saw west Ukrainians welcoming the Nazi invaders with dire consequences for the Jewish population. On the other hand those in the east joined the Russian army.
The heartland of Ukrainian culture is in the west. The soviet republic of Ukrain was a Stalin creation, deliberately contrived, as all the republics were, to be ethno-culturally and politically unstable and dependent on Moscow.
Eastern Europe is a complex mix of minorities, shifting borders and competing nationalisms Putin knows that, knows his history and is using that fluidity as the rationale for his tactic. He wants the east, what the Russians consider the core of Mother Russia and the ancient Orthodox city of Kiev, back.
The US, Nato and even western Europeans need to get off the high moral horse and open those dusty history books.
Fortunately, Bergoglio is all over this situation.
He’s got a very creative, totally unpredictable solution. He’s proposing “dialogue.”
Maybe the Russians and the Ukrainians can embark on a decades-long Synod on Synodality.
(Sigh.)
Now that I think about it, if there’s anything that could make being slaughtered in the streets sound remotely acceptable, that would be it.
“And don’t we have a moral obligation to help people, under attack, who have asked for our help in defending themselves?
What exactly would be the limit of this obligation – Europe, the Mid East, Africa? How well did it work out for us to help the people in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Our country is currently being led by a government that is expanding the already horrible numbers of babies killed by abortion. It is allowing millions of illegals to enter our country (aided by Catholic Charities), is ruining our military by allowing LGBTQ in the ranks, and wasting time on diversity, inclusion, equity and climate change. It has caused tens of thousands to loose their jobs for not taking an abortion tainted “vaccine), is in the process of removing thousands of our military personnel for refusing this abortion tainted “vaccine.” The current situation in our country is a result of those who voted in this administration (including @ 50% of Catholics).
I think that we have a moral obligation to work on our own country.
Much of this is fake news. Abortion is largely driven by economics at the lower end of the wage scale. I’d say there’s a broad lot to blame across the spectrum of both US political parties. The But-Abortion! card seems to get used quite a bit without much awareness of history. I think a lot of people on the Catholic Right have a moral obligation to work on themselves before they can think about working on other people. Let alone a country.
As “man of the left” in the you have a political obligation to keep voting to achieve Margaret Sanger’s declared objective of reducing the population of “inferior groups,” and make sanctimonious remarks about other people “working on themselves.”
Your comment is silly. Margaret Sanger was a racist and has far more company in today’s Far Right than anyone on the Left
Unfortunately for you Mr. Flowerday, as a devoted man of the left, you get the daily exercise of insisting that you are not in agreement with Margaret Sanger, and get to insist that you are not a racist like her (even though its not clear whether or not you might stand with Margaret about the net benefits of abortion, or whether you disavow the point of view of the late Justice Ginsberg, who when questioning a petitioner about the intent of legalized abortion in the US, candidly asserted her defense of legalized abortion with words approximating this: “I thought eliminating undesirables was the goal?”)
It’s a real box to be painted in, and you get to stand in it. Unless of course you are a card-carrying “Pro-Life-Democrat,” but word is that there aren’t so many such people who would stand up and say that.
It is a sign an argument has been conceded when they attempt to make the discussion about the other person. In this case, I accept your surrender since you have no further comments about Russia or Ukraine.
Leftists like you are all about racism and judging human worth by utilitarian standards of functionality, which is why you are a pro-abort and why you need to project such things as non-existent racism onto the very conservatives who oppose it. You have a very confused mind.
Mr Baker, you are spouting fake news and detraction here, a grave sin. I refer you to #2478 in the catechism. I have no problem with a public disavowal of both of the US major political parties. I am a confirmed independent, and my votes are my own to cast, one in each election, each as I see fit. I also have no problem with being a consistent pro-life Catholic, strongly leaning to pacifism and a host of other stances that anti-abortion Catholics often find distasteful. Too bad for them.
Like our friend Chris here, you have veered away from the discussion topic, Ukraine. You practiced some very bad guesswork about the person who has already won this discussion thanks to ad hominem detours. As with our Maryland friend, I accept your surrender and wish you the best next time.
Yes, and that counsel also applies directly to you. Put your own moral and spiritual house in order before you criticize others. Addressing smug self-righteousness might be a good place to start.
Weigel would never admit it, but he surely knows that the likelihood of this having happened if Trump were still president would have been very low. But it still was vitally important to boot that Russian lackey out of the White House! Thank goodness the grown-ups are back in charge.
So it’s “grownup” to crank up the abortion rate again?
This is an excellent article. But i fear it too is colored by bias:
• NATO poses a threat to Russian national security. Many NATO countries are functionally pacifist; NATO poses no more threat to Russia than it does to Papua New Guinea.
• Russia has a “right” to a “sphere of influence” around itself. It doesn’t. That is sheer imperialism. And to compare Putin’s claims to the Monroe Doctrine is nonsense on stilts. The Monroe Doctrine was aimed at retarding the further advance of imperialism in the name of the national sovereignty of free states. What Putin is doing is advancing imperial claims that deny other countries their sovereign rights.
Putin watched carefully as NATO destroyed Libya, Syria, and helped destroy Iraq and Afghanistan. Does Wiegel really not see this?
The US has intervened repeatedly in Latin America to deny nations sovereign rights and specifically to install rightwing dictatorships. Does Wiegel not see this?
i am afraid that there is no truly unbiased perspective here. Each side is colored by egoistic biases.
And Wiegel doesn’t recognize that the West has lost almost all its moral legitimacy. We are weak and dying under an onslaught of culture corruption and banality as well as an economy that is unjust unequal and deeply bankrupt.
Putin is also a war criminal.
Weigel makes a good case for supporting Ukraine and opposing Putin’s vision. The disgusting “whataboutism” voiced by some here disturbs me. Ceausescu severely restricted abortion — does that mean we should have supported his tyranny? Do these people really think that military conquest by another country is valid if the conquered country allows abortion and does not persecute homosexuals? Balance that against widespread judicial murder and imprisonment of political prisoners and all the deaths caused by Putin’s adventurism in the Caucasus. AS for Ukraine’s right to self-determination, please read about its history in a reliable source and you will see that the argument about Stalin “creating” it is false.
I respect George Weigel’s views and scholarly perspectives, however his flawed analysis of this situation reveals a lack of historical understanding of eastern or rather central Europe. He seems to be unaware of centuries old shifting borders from before the time of Rome in the land north of the Black Sea and west to Austria. The scenario is much more complex than Weigel is willing to admit. Putin is not unhinged. He is carrying out a plan from a Russian security position. To pretend that NATO and the West in general are the defenders of democracy and civilization itself is an expression of embarrassing hubris. He has to be more humble and look closely at other people’s take of human events, even tragic explosions like the war that has broken out. Pray for speedy end to the war and a just peace that meets the true interests of all protagonists.
If this forum consists of Catholics and other people of goodwill, and not Putin apologists, we should recognize that just because the democracies and the Church are far from perfect, that doesn’t equate them with Putin’s murderous designs. Remember, there were many apologists for Hitler and Stalin. For all its flaws, Ukraine strives to be a democracy and the country is populated by millions of Christians. We also shouldn’t forget that the gravest threat to the world isn’t climate change or infectious diseases, but nuclear weapons, of which Russia has plenty.
Amen.
A lack of serious people in positions of power encourages actions like that that Putin is making. The Afghanistan debacle, with no leadership overhaul, does not speak well for the Biden administration, nor inspire confidence.
“Ukraine is a democracy”
That is a lie, as much of the media narrative is. It’s a de-facto dictatorship under the complete control of the US and brought about by the CIA and MI6 among others (German intel also does regime-change operations, as happened in Belarus). The people voted for Zelensky to bring about an end to this conflict but this did nothing.
Their war effort would collapse within weeks without the US and within days without general western support. And what do they do with this leverage? Have them carry out offensive after offensive that wasted the lives of their men.
“Putin’s murderous design.”
Someone buys the propaganda cool-aid. It’s not him that had the Donbas civilians being the aim of shells from spring 2014 onward. Following the false flag and coup of February 2014.
If Cuba had attempted to join the Warsaw Pact in the 1960s, would Mr. Weigel have supported President Kennedy in an invasion to oust Fidel Castro?
Catholics who wholesale condemn Vladimir Putin, such as Mr. Weigel, are either sadly ignorant, unthinking, or execrable. Or simply apostate.
Vladimir Putin is a hero of Christendom, in schism or not, against the indifferentism revolution. He has acted to topple a regime installed by secular (aka infidel) Western elites, a regime which is the vanguard of a pernicious, world-aggressive liberal ideology. Of authoritarian inclusion, pluralism, and perversity. In a way, Putin is the Ukraine’s liberator.
I am certainly very sorry for the Ukrainian people, but they, like us, are occupied by dark forces of godless internationalism. If Ukrainian blood is on anyone’s hands, it is on American hands, on the hands of American ideologues and oligarchs. Putin is in effect the de facto defender of Western, Christian nationalism. Does Mr. Weigel not understand that he is taking the side of evil? Of the money-lenders?
Many world leaders in history, even the great and good ones, are ultimately ruthless. Hopefully Mr. Putin will be more successful in Eastern Europe than Blessed St. Louis was in Egypt.
Whenever Russia has controlled Ukraine, it’s native Catholic population has suffered terribly. By supporting Putin, you are abetting the genocide of Ukrainian Greek Catholics. Shame on you.
Yes, of course, Ukraine is ruled by Nazis and Putin is waging a Christian crusade to liberate Ukraine.
President Zelensky is Jewish.
Please don’t insult my intelligence.
Robert:
You are so right!
Viva Cristo Rey!
This website attracts so many braindead anti-semites it’s incredible. I find it a mark of pride that over the years my comments have specifically gotten under the skin of this site’s editors pointing out hypocrisy since they are usually ignorant (or quiet) about all the repulsive trash they seem to court.
“of the money-lenders” lmao, why is everyone afraid to say the J word? Do they fear being struck down by mysterious online kabbalah powers?
Anyone who thinks that the actual CWR site is anti-Semitic is either deluded or loves to slander. Judging by your past comments, both options are strong possibilities.
Note that Putin never did this stuff when Trump was POTUS, only under Barry O and the man Barry mocked as unfit to be POTUS, JOEY BOY-B, the professional-political-fraud.
Mr. Weigel is asking us to pretend reality doesn’t matter, snd that we have a compelling national interest in this conflict. He is wrong.
Rod Dreher is right, snd you csn read him here:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/
I think the US president can do better than being a fanboy of dictators (2017-21).
If you are simply going to shill mindlessly, shill mindlessly.
But we know Biden praised Putin in 2001, comparing him to Peter the Great
He also praised him in 2021 as tough and smart.
Mr. Flowerday:
I agree with you that it is wrong for President Biden to be a an occult fan of dictators, and to be enriching himself and his crooked family with revenues from dictators in China and Ukraine and all of the others we don’t know about, just like 80% of the DEM Party and REP Party kleptocracy, which includes Obama and Bush and McConnell.
But that’s just the way “the establishmentarians” run things for themselves, and the above are embarrassed and threatened by Trump, because he made “his deals” outside of “their deals,” which, as Beatrix Potter might put it: “Offends the dignity and repose” of the Establishmentary cocktail party.
More evidence of a time warp on this: “himself and his crooked family.” To my knowledge Mr Biden has not been accused of a crime. His predecessor, on the other hand, deserves the scrutiny being brought to bear. I think criminals, even rich ones, should be investigated, charged, and made to pay for their crimes against the common good.
If this means Mr Trump and his children have to go to jail, or go bankrupt paying fines and restitution, so be it.
Mr. Flowerday: everyone is free to admit that Joey-Boy-Biden is a crook, and even those who voted for him are edified by doing so, since admitting reality is happening is a credit to anyone.
Just ask Hunter-Boy-Biden, son-of-Joe, co-income-earner with “the-big-guy” on Millions of Burisma energy dollars.
Go on, you are free to admit it Mr. Flowerday. Unless of course you insist that Joey-Boy-B got his 4 multi-million $$ mansions by careful tending of his “thrift-savings plan” as a Congressman and Senator.
But reality is “different” for Hunter-Boy and his dad, isn’t it? I understand Hunter-Boy painted a picture and it sold for $500,000. That’s “reality” in Biden-Boy-Land.
Mr. Flowerday:
One of your co-travellers John-Mrs-Heinz-Kerry expresses his frets about what damage the Russian invasion of Ukraine may mean to the global discussion on climate change:
https://nypost.com/2022/02/25/john-kerry-just-reminded-us-of-how-unserious-a-statesman-he-really-is/
Dr. Weigel’s writing, especially his books, are impressive non-fiction. In the matter of this question, he sounds like a spokesperson reading State Department notes.
Also, his entire argument – the Big Lie – is itself an argument not entirely rooted in the truth. Russia demanded concessions. We didn’t grant them. We didn’t grant half of them.
We said, “NO.”
How is the Ukraine better off?
a question that Weigel sidesteps. He also sidesteps the reality that in international affairs, the maintenance of the international system depends on diplomacy.
Diplomats don’t call the people on the other side of the negotiating table “madmen” and “pathological liars.” That’s how you start a war, not how you prevent one. Oh, and by the way, John Paul II never called his political opponents “madmen” in public.
He was a diplomat.
I am not quite sure how someone with a PhD in philosophy speaks with such authority on these matters. And, you got your own fact set wrong.
This article and the article entitled “On Ukraine” lack balance. There is no acknowledgement that in 2014 a democratically elected President (with overwhelming support in the Russian speaking regions of Ukraine) was ousted in an unconstitutional coup d’etat because of his Russian sympathies and his refusal to sign trade agreements with the European Union. Democratic states governed by the rule of law remove leaders, who advocate policies that do not command popular support, through the ballot box. What is also ignored is that shortly after the Ukrainian Parliament seized power from the President (who, by the way, was forced into exile within 24 hours of his agreeing to a deal brokered by the Polish and German governments that would have seen a substantial transfer of power from the President to the Parliament), that Parliament passed a Bill repealing a law that had given official recognition to Russian as a regional language. In passing that Bill, the Ukrainian Parliament signalled very publicly its contempt for the Russian minority and the cultural affinities and aspirations of that minority.
With regard to what happened in Crimea in 2014: have you forgotten the amputation of Kosovo (to the applause of EU and NATO countries) from Serbia? Either the territorial integrity of every sovereign state is inviolable or the democratic will of a population to secede from a sovereign state is inviolable – you can’t have it both ways.
A guarantee of Ukrainian neutrality would have made it very difficult for the Russian President to justify an invasion of Ukraine. Why is it considered so problematic? In 1955 such a guarantee was critical to the decision of the Soviet Union to withdraw its forces from Austria – the only territory in Europe that Soviet forces voluntarily relinquished after the Second World War and prior to the collapse of Communism. No one would seriously argue that Austrian neutrality compromised its sovereignty. Incidentally, how would the US react if membership of a military alliance hostile to the US were to become a declared objective of the government of Mexico or Canada?
The fact is that the EU and NATO have led Ukraine up the garden path and now in its hour of need they won’t lift a finger in its defence.
More generally but no less relevant, the hypocrisy, conceit and moral degeneracy of Western civilisation is utterly repellent to Russia. No doubt Russia anticipates that the closer alignment of Ukraine with the West will result in Ukraine’s colonisation by certain poisonous ideologies promoted by western institutions and governments: ideologies made manifest in the denial of nature and the rejection of God and his law; ideologies that are corrosive to the human soul and threaten to eviscerate whole nations.
Why don’t you say “it’s the Jews’ fault” and get it out of your system? This dancing around is tedious. Or do you fear their power!?
As usual, there is a fair amount of bunk in loaded into Weigel’s analysis. Some focus on his five “big lies” might be useful. First, few people are claiming that the invasion is entirely the fault of the West. However, anyone who has followed Russian-Western affairs over the last thirty years knows that the West has broken promises, rebuffed Russian offers of cooperation in combatting the Islamic threat and consistently attempted to undermine the Russian state internally and in its near abroad. Beginning with the Clinton Administration, the US and the EU have violated the assurance given by the first President Bush that NATO would not expand eastward. In 2014, the US under Obama, helped to engineer the overthrow of the democratically elected pro-Russian Ukrainian government.
No major power ever would or should accept the contention that it does not have a sphere of influence in its part of the world. No Western country is pacifistic, even if many NATO members have abdicated their responsibility to pay for their own defense. Russia has always feared encirclement and potentially putting NATO troops on its border is going to incite fear and hostility. No vital American interest is at stake in who rules Ukraine. It is not at all likely that Putin intends to roll into Eastern Europe once the conquest of Ukraine has been achieved.
If Weigel cannot see that the still avowedly Communist regime of China is a far more powerful and natural adversary than Russia then he really should give up commenting on geopolitical matters. China has a much larger population and economy and is openly hostile. He is correct that the emerging Russia – China alliance is very troubling. He refuses to acknowledge that the belligerent anti-Russian policies he has supported has helped bring it about. Putin surely got China’s okay before he launched the attack. What Nixon accomplished in the 1970s, American presidents since the 1990s, with the partial exception of Trump, have squandered.
None of this is intended as a defense of the immoral and outrageously unnecessary war Russia has launched. Putin should be roundly condemned. The damage he has done to any attempt to rebuild US-Russian relations will probably take decades to undo.
Finally, as Pat Buchanan has written in his last column, the Biden Administration should be pressured to declare that Ukraine will not be admitted to NATO. By stating that America will not intervene militarily in this war, he has already made the point that we will not fight on its behalf. It is too late to help those who have already paid the price, but it may help to prevent or limit future horrors. Anyone who cares about the Ukrainian people and wants peace should demand it.
The key diplomatic blunder was refusing to negotiate or counter offer when Russia asked for a security guarantee in Ukraine. we can’t claim to know their true motives because we declined to propose a “war-avoidance” strategy when we said “no” to a security guarantee.
Now we have war, Russian troops on the outskirts of Kiev/Kyiv, and casualties on both sides.
This isn’t good diplomacy. The refusal to agree, even temporarily, to a guarantee that Ukraine could not join NATO was a provocation of the highest order.
This issue of expanding NATO eastward has been controversial for two decades. We always knew it would provoke Russia.
And Russia didn’t ask for political control of Ukraine, they asked for a promise that Ukraine not join NATO.
Wut, Flowerboy?
It should be noted that a lot of Americans like Trump, some Republicans, and some conservative -so called white National or patriot- Catholics, are on the side of Putin in this war. It was a long time ago -think of Reagan- when a mark of American conservatism was being Anti-Russian. Now it has flipped. Not only is it because they love to put down Biden by all means in this make him look weak. But many in this sector of American society see Putin as a savior of the whites. They don’t see it wrong when Russia was interfering in U.S. elections it was rather the white savior Putin helping white Americans from the rising tide of multi-racial America.
Sanctimonious and sociopathic all in one comment.
This observation is not mine alone. Read and listen to this sampling of conservative influencers: “In 20 years, Russia will the only country that is recognizably European.” (Ann Coulter); “Putin is the leader of the free world….”(Matt Drudge); “Russia is the key to white survival.” (David Duke).
True indeed, Volodemyr. It shows how one’s honor and patriotism, and even one’s Christian faith (in some instances) can be corrupted by self-indulgence. Good thing Lent is coming. This apologism for Russia looks like something Jesus talked about: a kind of malady that can only be healed by prayer and fasting.
Keep repeating it to yourself. Mr. Flowerday will understand.
Chris – your 2/26 @11:01 – I’ll settle for funny.
The Democratic party used the false Russian hysteria to bludgeon their political opponents with, pretty much preempting serious discussions about Russian and Ukraine. The Biden laptop is a thing. Mueller’s Congressional Testimony was cringe worthy.
Volodymyr, your observation might be true of Right Wing Evangelicals and Orthodox, but precious few Catholics inclufing the very Traditional or Conservative ones. Even SSPX supporters are condemning Outin’s aggression on social media.
63% of White Catholics who attend church regularly voted for Trump in 2020. Couldn’t they see Trump’s coziness with Putin? Couldn’t they anticipate Putin’s aggression?
Agree with Joe Smith.
Along the lines of Joe Smith, bere is the Mearsheimer lecture from 2015, recommended by Rod Dreher:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=785&v=JrMiSQAGOS4&feature=emb_logo
Just as the Evangelicals using the Book of Revelation who are inordinately obsessed with prediction of end-times, now a lot of conservative Catholics refresh their fixation with the so-called third Fatima secret predicting the end-times with this Russian invasion of Ukraine and again renew calls for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by the Pope to stop this war and convert Russia. What is ironic is that a good number of conservatives in their misplaced obeisance to Trump are the ones converted and are now siding with Russia in this conflict. Our Lady of Fatima must be crying a lot at this time at this about face!
More likely Our Lady is tsk-tsking at American conservatives, shaking her head, and suggesting some guardian angels need to apply some serious head-slaps.
Putin is described as continuously wearing the cross that his mother gave him when he was a child. He is orthodox Christian.
I don’t always agree with GW but he nails it here:
“It is very much our business and anyone who doesn’t recognize that is being willfully blind or is besotted by ideology — perhaps both.”
I pro and con on this thesis, one that also looks at WWII Vatican policy, would be very helpful.
To those willing to learn, history has taught us this: The Russians understand and RESPECT 2 things – 1) force 2) (most important) – the willingness to use it.
Putin has met Biden, taken his measure, and found him laughable.
Most of us were anti-Communist. Russia no longer is Communist. Ukraine is leaning toward Western secularism/relativism under its comedian/president usurper of a democratically-elected government.
Putin is a thug, liar and murderer.
We had peace under Trump , but now “the adults are in charge”, really?
Did you not see the Afgan exit? We were energy independent, now were are enriching Putin.
Mr. Weigel may excel in certain church matters, but clearly is an amature when it comes to judging effective leadership for america and geopolitics.
When NATO bombed Serbia, russias acient ally, something they had no roght to do, it soured relations with russia and angerred their people, which helped get the thug putin in power.
If Weigel thinks that isnt a threat to Russia, how would we feel about the Warsaw pact bombing Montreal? Or Mexico.
Clowns like the Clintons and catholics like Weigel who help get them elected have absolutely contributed fo the current sxituation in Ukraine.
Our leaders in the West have FAILED us.
Dear Georg and others who comment on the war in Ukraine, remember what you and your governments thought about when the Serbian-Yugoslav army attacked Croatia in 1991, you were all in tears because the country of Yugoslavia, where honey and milk flowed, is falling apart. sent several large cannons and a dozen tanks the war would be over quickly, but no UN imposed an embargo on arms imports on Croatia, and after the liberation of Croatia you asked under a magnifying glass from Croatian generals to justify every bullet fired, SHAMEFUL.
My advice to myself in these ugly times. Keep reading the Gospels. And when you don’t like what you read, read it again. And again.
He is a Catholic neoconservative. Neoconservatism is an ideology started by jews that were previously Trotskyites. Is about capitalism and American dominance and warmongering, especially against nations that are enemies of Israel – Muslim countries and Russia.
Trump publicly stated his opposition to NATO. How many people associated with EPPC, like Weigel, voted for him in 2020 anyway?
But, I appreciate Weigel’s willingness to mention, “Catholic sites”. There’s a pattern of Catholic writers omitting Catholic in their cover for the Church. Even in referring to Pat Buchanan they use “Christian national” or other obfuscating terms. (as example, Thomas Zimmer, Guardian, “America’s culture war is spilling into actual war war”). “Culture war” is Buchanan’s framing because it hides right wing religion’s imposition of theocracy. “Culture War” implies a large segment agrees, when in truth, the majority opposes the politics of conservative Catholics. Georgetown Catholic University’s hiring of Ilya Shapiro (Koch) is a tell for the colonialist values of one of the religion’s flagship institutions.
Mother Jones has a good article, “Right wing activists…hellbent on transforming the Catholic church …” March-April 2022. One quote included, “liberal Catholics have no plan.”
William Barr, as attorney general of the U.S., said he wanted religion introduced at every opportunity. Recently he told NBC in an interview that he would vote for Trump if he was the GOP candidate in 2024. Barr said he prefers Trump to a “progressive” agenda i.e. Barr belongs to a conservative American faith that overtly discriminates against women, that has a history of racist colonialism and that opposes rights for LGBTQ. Barr places his interpretation of “the Word” above the interests of the U.S.
Barr is not the only one that belongs to that faith. Barr would be damnable if he put the interests of the U.S. over that of “the Word.”
Here, in perhaps a grossly overly simplified way, is what Vigano said. Sounds true to me and the facts available to anyone with good will using non-propaganda sources.
The entire conflict is a trap designed by the global Deep State to purposefully provoke a war.
The West knows expanding NATO upsets Russia but is doing it anyway, despite previously saying it wouldn’t.
NATO and various other countries are illegally pouring ammunitions into Ukraine, thereby violating international law. This is making Ukraine a tinderbox ready to explode.
There are many economic factors at play in Ukraine — gas pipelines, biolabs, technologies, etc. — that make it attractive to outside parties.
President Zelensky is a corrupt individual acting as a puppet of Klaus Schwab and the Great Reset. He is selling out Ukraine to the West and not preventing neo-Nazi forces trained by the US from wreaking havoc on Russian-speaking Ukrainians.
Joe Biden has been tied to Ukraine since his time as Barack Obama’s Vice President. His son Hunter is connected to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
There was a Color Revolution in Ukraine backed by George Soros and other Western groups. This has caused great social unrest since taking place in 2013/2014.
Rhetoric has been ratcheted up in the last several months by Zelensky (and the West) about nuclear and atomic weapons, thereby heightening Putin’s mistrust and prompting him to dissolve the Minsk agreement.
The media cannot be relied on to report about what’s going on in Ukraine. Their COVID track record is proof they can’t do anything but lie. They are purposefully trying to entice Westerners to support an escalation.
The US, EU, and NATO promise the Ukrainian people prosperity if they side with them but in reality, they seek to enslave Ukrainian citizens to the same freedom-robbing and culturally depressing policies that have destroyed the now godless West.
The West needs to return to Christ and seek peaceful relations with Russia so all people can live in harmony. Rome has fallen silent about the true crimes being committed across the world. Perhaps God is going to use Russia as His bulwark against the secular West.