Comments by "Jim Luebke" (@jimluebke3869) on "CIA spy analyzes Vladimir Putin and the War in Ukraine | Andrew Bustamante and Lex Fridman" video.

"There's something about a war to find the core, the spirit of a people, who wish to be independent" What if the answer to that is, "Nope, there isn't enough difference between Ukrainians and Russians after all, to make all this struggle worth it"? Also remember how the Franco-Prussian wars consolidated the pan-German identity of the previously fiercely independent German principalities...
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"Ukraine will not remain a sovereign nation" Are you talking about if Russia wins and makes it a puppet, or are you talking about if the West wins and all of Ukraine is restructured to service its trillions of debt to Western bankers?
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"The US has no economic investment in Ukraine" Aside from all that money they owe us thanks to lend/lease.
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@iddqdHD Dear sweet summer child, do you think with all their lobbyists, defense contractors actually need something as messy as a WAR to keep their budgets high? Besides, if defense contractors are so all-powerful in terms of budgeting, why isn't the defense budget keeping up with inflation?
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"Something unexpected might happen" Say, China invades Taiwan, and the full military might of NATO and Japan (hopefully minus nukes) swings into action against the Russian / Chinese axis.
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@obgaming101 Saying the EU is particularly free, is getting to be more and more of a joke these days. It's turning into a bureaucratic dictatorship too. No freedom of speech, the right to bear arms is ignored, religion is deprecated, your movements are tracked, you own less and less all the time, and what material wealth exists is controlled and distributed by a set of unaccountable elites according to their own agenda that you have no say in whatsoever. Freedom is great, but the EU doesn't offer that, really. Back in the day, I saw the difference between East and West Germany. I saw the Trabants, I saw the bombed-out churches, I ate the awful food. Trabants weren't quite as bad as electric cars, vegan food isn't quite as bad as what Erfurt and Dresden had to offer, but the new gods the EU would have you kneel and pay homage to are utterly contemptible. I hope the Ukrainians can somehow win their freedom. Real, Bill-of-Rights freedom, where the government admits that rights are inherent to individual people, and any government that does not respect that is illegitimate and can be turfed out of power, with a process in place to do that peacefully and regularly. Unless by some miracle they get a government that can cleverly play the Russians off of the EU in such a way that they can avoid the authoritarian tendencies of either side, though, I don't see that happening. Instead they've got Zelensky, who's willing to fight to the last Ukrainian as long as he's "winning the information war" (waged against US, by the way) on the cover of Vogue.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 Depends on what part of Ukraine you're from, apparently. Although, this "information war" has been waged against us so thoroughly, I'm not convinced that anything the Zelenskyy government says is true, about anything. If he said "the sky is blue" I'd go outside to check.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 I'm having trouble telling one corrupt oligarchy from another. What's worse -- actual neo-Nazi brigades, or poisoning journalists? =( It doesn't help when some of Lex's guests gush so much about how Zelenskyy is "winning the information war", after which we see Z on the cover of Vogue. It's enough to make you want to wash your hands of the whole thing.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 Vogue is a propaganda rag masquerading as a fashion magazine. Teen Vogue is ever worse. There are a lot of Western media outlets that have clearly been captured by radical (probably foreign) interests. Twitter's only the beginning. There is an information war that is being waged AGAINST Americans. Zelenskyy is, unfortunately, our enemy in this. At this point it's gotten so bad, we really need to bring back the House Un-American Activities Committee, as well as the blacklist.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 An "Information War" is waged by lying to everyone else for your own advantage -- The Ghost of Kiev, Snake Island, etc. Zelenskyy is conducting information war operations against America, and even against his own people. It's clear that he (and especially his allies in the West) will fight to the last Ukrainian, at the risk of destabilizing and even starving a large chunk of the world. I don't like being manipulated, lied to, or handled. People who do that by definition can't be trusted. People who can't be trusted make VERY bad allies.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 The fact is that footage of the Ghost of Ukraine was generated from a computer game, so yes, that was a lie. If we are to value the political loyalties of the people of a region (e.g., independent Ukraine), then shouldn't we value the fact that the people of the DonBas and Crimea seem to be loyal to Russia and not Ukraine? I've heard that official recognition of those territories as Russian was on the table as terms that would stop the war - less, even, with DonBas simply being independent. It seems that the West is willing for Ukrainians to continue to fight and die, to keep people under the dominion of a country they do not want to be part of. Since this is the whole rationale of Ukraine being independent of Russia, it seems more than a little hypocritical.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 Supporting a "plausible" claim with obviously false "proof" does not inspire confidence. Exactly the opposite, in fact. I don't like being lied to, plain and simple, and Zelenskyy has been lying to us. I don't trust the people who are his biggest supporters, either. The same American news outlets who are now carrying water for Zelenskyy were talking about the DonBas and Crimea as being basically Russian. It's an admission against interests, which generally makes it more plausible. Similarly, US government officials were talking about Russian offers for peace in exchange for the recognition of Crimea as being Russian, and the DonBas as being an independent buffer state. It seems to me that a neutral buffer state between Russia and everyone else would be a good thing going forward. It bears repeating -- I don't like being lied to, and Zelenskyy's "Information war" involves proven lies targeting the American people, to increase our sympathy for Ukraine on false pretenses. This corrupt strategy is backfiring, and should be abandoned.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 I think geography is going to determine whether Ukraine is a buffer state or not -- but I was referring to an independent DonBas. If Ukraine is insisting that it needs to be independent from Russia because it wants to be independent, but insists that DonBas and Crimea must not be independent of Ukraine despite the fact that DonBas and Crimea want to be independent of Ukraine, do they have any real moral standing? You're insisting that Zelenskyy be believed without presenting any examples supporting his credibility, and the examples I provided calling that credibility into question were not effectively answered. If Zelenskyy's credibility is to be re-established (big IF, at this point), you're probably not the one to do it.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 If the people of a place want to be independent, shouldn't they be? If not, what rationale does Ukraine have, for its own independence? Ukraine wasn't a state for several centuries. Crimea wasn't part of Ukraine when it was. If you're arguing that the status quo must never change, why was it a good thing when Ukraine got its independence from Russia in the first place? I'm not saying that Putin is a great guy. I'm just saying that Zelenskyy isn't either. I'm trying to decide whether I should support my tax money (tens of billions of it) going to Ukraine, and risking nuclear war, for something that looks like a civil war in a leper colony. I'm also saying that I can't trust anything Zelenskyy says, thanks in no small part to people like Kotkin gushing about his "information war". You're not being terribly persuasive either. Best thing here may be for us to just ignore them and let them work out their own damnation.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 If Ukrainians in other regions have a say in whether DonBas is independent or not, why wouldn't Putin have a say in whether Ukraine is independent or not? You're gaslighting at this point.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 Feel free to bring that up when the Chechnya question comes up again -- although as far as I understand the history of the Caucasus, they would all be terribly disappointed if the fighting ever had to stop. Back to the Ukraine, though - by what rationale does Ukraine have to be independent of Russia, if DonBas and Crimea cannot be independent of Ukraine?
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@firasbouhamdan9917 You're trying to change the subject -- the actual shooting war in Ukraine is far more urgent than the situation in Chechnya. I don't think that Ukraine's position -- that it must be independent, but Crimea and DonBas must not be, and therefore war must continue -- is morally consistent or defensible.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 According to the principle that places that want to be independent should be independent, sure. How in the world do you defend your own position, that Ukraine can tyrannize Crimea and DonBas (and risk plunging the world into nuclear war while they're at it)?
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@firasbouhamdan9917 Status quo back in the 1990s was the USSR. If claiming "status quo" to some arbitrary time in the past is valid, that justifies Putin conquering just about all of his neighbors. Sorry, doesn't work as a justification.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 Ukraine was indeed one of the republics of the USSR. You're not old enough to remember that, are you. It was part of the Russian Empire before that, and it (or portions of it, anyway) was a part of Poland-Lithuania, before that. Crimea was not a part of Ukraine, but Ukraine was part of Russia, when Catherine the Great (no doubt inspired by toxic masculinity as Boris Johnson so brilliantly asserted) took Crimea from the old Hordes and made it part of the Russian Empire. This is why going back to some arbitrary point in the past just isn't worth it. Anyone can point to a different part of the past where something else was true. The fact remains -- Ukraine has exactly the same right to insist that DonBas and Crimea are part of Ukraine, that Russia has to insist that Ukraine is part of Russia. If the price of a peace that respect the will of Ukrainians to be independent of Russia, is respecting the will of DonBas and Crimea to be independent of Ukraine, there's no moral excuse to turn down that offer.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 So how long do you think Europe will be able to survive without Russian oil and gas?
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@firasbouhamdan9917 It's crushing German industry and could lead to people freezing to death this winter. First you'll fight to the last Ukrainian, now you'll let Germans freeze (not to mention, the Africans who will starve because of the grain and fertilizer disruptions.) Has anyone else on your side ever turned to you and said, "Hans, are we the baddies?"
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@firasbouhamdan9917 My point about Crimea is that there's no special relationship between Ukraine and Crimea. Again, you're not actually providing any evidence to discount any of my points. Call Russia "inconsistent" if you like. The fact is that Ukraine is being similarly inconsistent, making Ukraine... consistent with what you condemn about Russia. And pushing to needlessly continue a war that leads to their own peoples' deaths by violence, Europeans' deaths by cold, and Africans' deaths by hunger and civil conflict, to establish itself in that inconsistency. There are no good guys here. Russia (somewhat shockingly) was offering a decent and principled peace. Ukraine dishonored itself by not taking it.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 The Ukrainians don't have enough ships to send the grain they have. There are recorded cases of unwilling people being forced to fight for Ukraine. Historically speaking, this sort of conscription in this part of the world has not been terribly humane. Germany isn't the only European country adversely affected by Ukraine's dedication to holding onto territory that would prefer to be independent. European stability broadly is under threat. The attitude of "they deserve what they get" is unlikely to be terribly persuasive.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 If by "capitulate" you mean let go of territories that wanted to be independent of Ukraine, but when you have to change the meaning of words to win an argument it's a sign you've lost the argument. "Status quo" is meaningless in a region so volatile.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 Current status quo is Russia in possession of Crimea, DonBas, and Chechnya, yet you're eager to spill blood to change that.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 How would we know if Ukrainians weren't "eager to fight"? The available logistical facilities for handling grain exports are about 1/10th of what they would need to be, to clear the granaries for the next harvest. Your quote about "100 vessels" is meant to sound impressive I suppose, but it's so out of context as to be entirely meaningless. That's the whole problem here. Plausible story + scanty, overstated, or downright falsified evidence = hoax. You're fighting your "Information war" against US, and it's extraordinarily annoying. There are protests throughout Europe against energy shortages, and the governments of major countries are shifting and falling. Your characterization of "European support" is somewhat... one-sided. And this is just for the tail end of summer. When General Frost starts his advance, European protestors are likely to start setting fire to government buildings just to stay warm. In spite of a couple weeks' worth of back-and-forth, you haven't persuaded me that America shouldn't just hunker down behind Admiral Atlantic and Admiral Pacific, and leave the Europeans to their own damnation. Look, I'm not keen on anything that could be spun as "a defeat for Western arms", although we've done enough damage so far that anyone will be thinking twice about tangling with us (hooray deterrent!), so long as we can restock effectively. Stuffing the Baltics and Poland full of our ordinance is probably enough to persuade Putin not to advance any further. (Playing "Arsenal of Democracy" is fun, for the Eastern European countries that really are democracies.) BUT, Zelenskyy runs a corrupt oligarchy, a lot like Putin's corrupt oligarchy. Sure, Putin could stop the war by simply withdrawing, but then Zelenskyy could stop the war by ceding territories full of people who are no more interested in being Ukrainian than he is in being Russian. Personally, I'm more in favor of the outcome that gives various populations a chance to be part of the state they want to be part of, ends this new risk of nuclear war, stops Ukrainians (and Russians) from getting shot, keeps Europeans from freezing to death, keeps Africans from starving, and keeps Russia and China from getting any more strategically integrated. Honestly, if there was anyone competent at State, they'd be saying to Putin, "Vlad, you can see you're not going to get much of anywhere grinding your way West. How about you get the territories that want to be Russian and that warm-water port you all have wanted since forever as a consolation prize, and then you consider the advantages of a Russian sphere of influence in some brand-new countries like East Turkmenistan, Tibet, Manchuria, and Greater Mongolia? Being a Chinese puppet is no fun, and you'd be happy to have some friends once resource-hungry China reaches nuclear parity with resource-rich Russia..." But, State seems to be dazzled by the stylish "Information Warrior of Kyev", instead of doing their jobs.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 If that's the standard, then why is it wrong for Russia to conquer Ukraine? (Or DonBas, or Crimea?)
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@firasbouhamdan9917 You haven't studied the Eastern Front in the 1940s if you think you can't get unwilling conscripts to fight. You're pumping out pro-Zelenskyy propaganda without any evidence whatsoever. To begin with I was kind of taking devil's advocate with my stance on Russia, but you've done such an abysmal job of providing any credible reason to support Zelenskyy, I think it would take a regime change in Ukraine for me to support what we're doing there. Zelenskyy is a corrupt oligarch and encouraged to be moreso by Biden - which (unfortunately for them both) got caught on tape. If there's a compelling reason to support Zelenskyy over Putin, you haven't provided it.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 Um, you haven't heard what Zelenskyy's "Azov Brigades" have been up to, have you. You're either a shill or a dupe. I really wish that someone defending the Western side could do better.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 Actual neo-Nazis are "just patriots fighting for Ukraine"?? Wow, when you blow your credibility, you really make it go down in flames, don't you.
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@firasbouhamdan9917 Praising neo-Nazis for their patriotism is a bit like praising the 9/11 hijackers for their piloting skills. Go on, tell us all more about how these admirable fellows make it clear to all right-thinking people that Zelenskyy is a champion of moral goodness who must be supported, nay, sacrificed for!
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@firasbouhamdan9917 So, if you praise them often enough, are the neo-Nazi Azov fighters going to turn into heroes? Are you completely in support of the Azov Brigades?
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@firasbouhamdan9917 Heroes. Wow. Just... Wow. You know, some US politicians thought that we should just have stood back and not interfered while the Third Reich and the Soviet Union destroyed one another. I can see their point. "A pity they can't both lose", as Kissinger said about the Iran / Iraq war. I'm not sure how you managed it (and a little bit of Lex would probably die, if he read this far down in this comment thread), but you've just about convinced me that a good long war of attrition is exactly what this part of the world needs. You should really get yourself out there too, Firas, and be the hero you were always meant to be.
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@darkrogue234 According to data available on mainstream media before the war, Russification had worked in the DonBas. For about five centuries Crimea was Tatar (conquered by the Mongols, who had a penchant for depopulating natives), not Ukrainian, before being conquered by Catherine the Great. Geography means that Moscow will always seek political unification with a warm-water port, probably Sevastopol. The first mention of anything like "Russia" in history includes Ukraine -- in fact in the "Kievan Rus" Ukraine was in charge of Muscovy. So.... where does that leave us? With hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians (probably more like millions) dying and the world risking nuclear Armageddon, over territory that doesn't want to be part of Ukraine any more than Ukraine wants to be part of Russia. It leaves us with Russia and China driven together strategically, Europe beggared, and Africa starving (with all the political instability that comes with that). Our seemingly desired endgame (Russia's comprehensive defeat) cannot be achieved without neutralizing Russia's nuclear arsenal, a nuclear arsenal which is the only thing keeping resource-hungry China from gobbling up resource-rich Russian East Asia, and in doing so becoming vastly less vulnerable to international economic sanctions. This is a disastrous failure of geopolitics. Foggy Bottom needs to be depopulated, and replaced with anyone in America still capable of competent strategy.
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"We're loaning to Ukraine, and the debt will come due" So which is worse -- being in severe debt to NATO, or being a Russian puppet state? At what point do the balance of incentives (don't forget, the incentive to stop the loss of life) tilt towards surrender to Russia?
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Do you honestly think that if Russia takes over Ukraine, any of Ukraine's debt to the West will ever be repaid? Wouldn't it discourage financial support for independence movements, if that debt is simply repudiated?
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"American independence was won by French arms" Eh, that, and the fact that we had a huge amount of sympathy among British parliamentarians themselves -- and even aside from democratic sympathies, they didn't want to see the House of Hannover acquire massive private estates and revenues in North America.
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@michaelcarney6280 Yes, although the support (even from the French) was exaggerated a bit in this presentation. The people who did the bleeding, were still American patriots, not French or Spanish. There were more Germans fighting for the English, than there were Europeans fighting for the Americans.
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@michaelcarney6280 Um, the people you mention fighting for the Americans? They were already independent of the Old Countries, and would stay in the United States after the war was done. In other words, they were Americans. The Germans fighting for the English, on the other hand, were mercenaries who would return to Europe after they were done.
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@michaelcarney6280 That's about 15% of the total, then, with two-thirds of them being sailors who were out fighting the British anyway. Certainly deserves a "thank you", and it would have been tougher without them, but I wouldn't really say they carried the day. Their blockade of Yorktown was the last nail in the coffin, not the first.
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