Common Grounds

Our Friday News Analysis | In Search of a Nation's Soul (Part 1)

September 02, 2022

"Real and sustainable peace begins in the mind and heart, in the will and soul because peace arises out of genuine appreciation and respect for the other.

Peace is a conscious decision to improve relations and to do everything possible to overcome tensions and misunderstandings; and, if possible, even to become friends.

Peace is the fruit of love. It is give and take, a dance with life, for life."

van Kempen, Abraham A. Christian Zionism ... Enraptured Around a Golden Calf - 2nd Edition: Evangelicals Rediscovering New Testament Revelations (p. 37). Fast Pencil Publishing. Kindle Edition.

What is the Side of the Story that is Not Yet Decisive?

By Abraham A. van Kempen, featuring the late Mikhail Gorbachev, President Vladimir Putin, and the 30-minute lecture (video) conducted by former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and former UN chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter.

Ohrid, Macedonia, 2 September 2022 | If you know of any story that is decisive, tell the world. We're still searching.

Intelligence and espionage agencies worldwide, leaders of states, diplomats, political commentators, and journalists are all trying to fathom Russian President Vladimir Putin's intentions and understand the aim of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

You don't have to search too much and go too far. Ask the late Mikhail Gorbachev! But first, let me quickly refer you to Our Friday News Analysis of 5 August 2022, 'Blood is Thicker than Water,'in which I state:

"Mr. Putin wants to increase his market share to improve the Russian economy, not by grabbing land but by selling Russian oil, gas, foodstuffs, and other natural resources. Yes, Mr. Putin fully intends to expand his sphere of influence to make money, not to hoist the Russian flags all over Europe."

Last week in 'A Balance of Power Through a Balance of Terror Part 2,' I implored the young and wet-behind-the-ears new president of Ukraine to: “Mr. Zelensky, Become the Leader You Are Meant to Be! Has Mr. Zelensky done everything he could to avoid war with the Russian Federation? Indeed, he inherited a civil war between the nationalist in the West and the separatist in the East. It’s a conflict that’s been brewing since the 1980s. What could the newly elected and wet-behind-the-ears President of Ukraine have done?

Mr. Zelensky could have engaged the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) to guarantee the safety of all Ukrainians, especially those of Russian descent who feared for their lives, as ASOV executed many as saboteurs, separatists, or simply undesirables.
Mr. Zelensky could have engaged the EU-US (NATO) Axis to guarantee Russian access to Ukraine’s seaports along the Black Sea, including Odesa, to facilitate shipping lanes for the free flow of Russian oil, gas, grain, and other foodstuffs.
Mr. Zelensky could have engaged the EU-US (NATO) Axis to guarantee the free flow of Russian oil and gas through advanced pipelines from Russia through Ukraine to Central Europe and Germany.
Mr. Zelensky could have secured trade agreements with all member states connected to the EU-US (NATO) Axis.
Mr. Zelensky could have secured trade agreements with the entire Russian Federation.

And what an economic feast it could have been for Ukraine, located between East and West. A natural conduit, Ukraine could have been the buffer state between the EU-US (NATO) member states and the entire Russian Federation, with all its natural resources coveted by the EU. Ukraine could now earn $billions of new-found revenues as a go-between of East and West.

Instead, the East and West are at war. Global hegemony is at stake. The people of Ukraine, serving the EU-US (NATO) Axis as cannon fodder and human shields, are smack in the middle.”

In ill health in the last months of his life, Mr. Gorbachev said nothing publicly about Mr. Putin's war in Ukraine. The son of a Ukrainian mother and a Russian father, Mr. Gorbachev shared Mr. Putin's view that Ukraine should be in Russia's orbit, once telling a journalist:

"It might not be a scientific fact, but we are the same people."

He supported Mr. Putin's annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014, saying it fully corresponds to "the will of the people there." In October 2014, he called the United States "a great plague." The following month in Berlin, to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall, 'Gorbi' said he was "absolutely convinced that Putin defended Russia's interests better than anyone else. "To a Siberian news outlet that the worst could be avoided. Mr. Gorbachev could not have fathomed that a war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine — between ‘brothers and sisters, neighbors and friends, cousins — was inevitable.

"A war between Russia and Ukraine — this is absurd," he said.

Two days after Mr. Putin's invasion in February, his Gorbachev Foundation, a research institute that "seeks to promote democratic values, "issued a statement calling for a "speedy cessation of hostilities" and "the immediate start of peace talks."

TASS reported that on 31 August 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a telegram expressing his deep condolences to the family and relatives of the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. Mr. Gorbachev died at the age of 91.

"Please accept our deepest condolences on the death of Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev.

Mikhail Gorbachev was a politician and statesman who significantly impacted the course of world history. He led our country in a period of complex, dramatic changes, large-scale foreign policy, and economic and social challenges. He deeply understood the need for reforms and tried to propose solutions to pressing problems.

I would also like to note the tremendous humanitarian, charitable and educational activity Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev has carried out recently."

In conclusion, the Russian president said he once again sent "sincere words of sympathy and support" to Gorbachev's family and relatives in connection with their loss.

His daughter announced the funeral of the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, will take place on Saturday. The service will be in the famous Hall of Columns in the House of Trade Unions in Moscow – the same venue where Joseph Stalin's body was displayed after his death in 1953.

Pavel Palazchenko, head of media relations at the Gorbachev Foundation, said the ceremony at the Column of Pillars would be organized by the protocol service of the Putin administration. "There is no information whether this is considered a state funeral or not," he told RIA.

The service will be open to the public, and then Gorbachev will be buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, TASS reported. There is also the grave of Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first president, and Gorbachev's political rival. Nikita Khrushchev is the only other Soviet leader buried there, and most others rest by the walls of the Kremlin in Red Square.

Vladimir Vladimirovitsj Putin in the Footsteps of the Gorbachev-Reagan Detente

Twenty years ago, it looked like Russian President Putin would move closer to the West.

"Russia is a friendly European country. For our country, which has endured a century of war catastrophes, the main goal is stable peace on the continent," said Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It is 25 September 2001, a few weeks after the 11 September terrorist attacks. Mr. Putin spoke to more than 650 members of the Bundestag in Berlin.

He started in Russian and then went into perfect Germanand talked about expanding the German-Russian partnership into a joint "European house," explaining,

               "The Cold War is over."

Mr. Putin was elected President in March 2000. Three months later, he delivered his first State of the Union address. He presented his vision of a cooperative, peaceful, integrated Russia:

               "Not strong against the international community, not against other strong nations, but together with them."

At his first Kremlin press conference as President in July 2001, Mr. Putin, like his predecessor Mr. Boris Yeltsin, proposed Russia's accession to NATO - the defense organization established in 1949 to counter the Soviet threat.

The United States did not respond directly to Putin's proposal, but the NATO-Russia Council was formed a year later. In June 2001, then-US President George W. Bush "looked Putin in the eye" and said:

               "I found President Putin to be very direct and trustworthy … I could get a feel for his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country."

Putin, however, compared Bush's warm words in stark contrast to the expansion of NATO:

               "It is a military organization. Yes, military! Yes, moving towards our border! Why?"

The image that the West wants to encircle and destabilize Russia was already gaining ground in the Kremlin during Putin's first term in office. In 2004 Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia joined NATO. Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic had joined five years earlier. The Kremlin regarded this as an attempt to reduce Russia's influence in its forecourt.

As Mr. Putin's first two terms in office approached the end, a turning point emerged in Russia's relations with the West. In early 2007, at the Munich Security Conference, Putin spoke plainly - and criticized the West more openly than ever before.

               He said the US was striving for "monopolar world domination" and imposed its norms on other states by force.

               Mr. Putin called NATO's eastward expansion a provocation weakening mutual trust.

               He said armed forces were closing in on Russia's state borders while Russia exercised restraint. It was a warning: "up to here and no further."

In 2008,Moscow drew the red line not to be crossed by NATO. Russian policy made it impossible for Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO.

…

In comments reported by Interfax, Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin's spokesman,called Mr. Gorbachev "an extraordinary and unique person" while also labeling him a "romantic" who naïvely believed that the West could become friends with a post-Soviet Russia.

"Gorbachev gave an impulse to end the Cold War and sincerely believed that it will end and there will be an eternal romantic period between the new Soviet Union and the world, and the collective West as we call it," Mr. Peskov said.

"That romanticism did not work out," Mr. Peskov went on.

"The bloodthirstiness of our opponents showed itself, and it is good that we have realized and understood it in time."

…

Scott Ritter: 'Two-Front War: Biden's Mouth is Writing Checks the US Military Can't Cash'

Former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and former UN chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter appears at the Ron Paul Institute Houston Conference with a blistering critique of the Biden Administration's Ukraine policy.

Expand your horizons by giving Scott Ritter thirty minutes. Mr. Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and United Nations (UN) Chief Weapons Inspector. His views are worthy of consideration.

Writing Checks, Your Body Can't Cash (excerpted below)

"The first check we're being asked to cash now deals with Ukraine. It's a dangerous situation. We're not just talking about a transformative moment in geopolitical history in Europe.

Thermonuclear war is a reality, and it's a reality that means the end of humanity, all humanity. So, we need to take this seriously.
What is NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, formed in 1949 during the Cold War? Once, it was a legitimate offensive or defensive alliance to protect Europe from the potential of any soviet aggression, which we believed wanted to gobble up the rest of Europe.
NATO was always premised on a false assumption.
In December of 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed
No reason for NATO to exist further.
We promoted its continued existence and reinforced its expansion – its redefinition.
NATO stopped being an organization that focused on the security of Western Europe.
NATO started to expand European transatlantic power on a global stage, a global platform.
NATO stopped being a defensive military alliance.
NATO became an offensive, regime-change-promoting alliance.

- Kosovo

- Serbia

- Libya

- Afghanistan

- Iraq

In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, NATO was indeed an alliance of military powers. The United States deployed its military into Europe with over 300,000 men and women. It was the finest military the world has ever seen, a military capable of engaging in large-scale ground combat in Europe and winning. I say that because I was one of them, and I'm telling you that if anybody thought they could beat us, they were wrong. We trained because we were organized. After all, we were prepared, but then something happened. The cold war went stopped.

…

The military that exists today is a byproduct of 20 years of neglect.
We do not have a military today that can fight a large-scale ground war in Europe.
We do not have a military today that can fight a large-scale ground war in Europe.
I'll say it one more time because this is important. We do not have a military today that can fight a large-scale ground war in Europe, yet what is the president positioning us to do: fight a large-scale ground war in Europe!
If we fight the Russians, we will lose. We will lose hands down. It won't even be close.
NATO doesn't exist anymore. Oh, it's there as an organization. Ask the Brits to put together a brigade and send it out of their island into Europe. They can't do it. Ask the French. They can't do it. Ask the Germans. They can't do it. No one can do it.
Joseph Burrell, the head of foreign policy for the European Union, says Europe cannot beat Russia in a war. That's an absolute statement of fact.
The Russians are some of the world's finest, most professional troops. Why? Because in the 20 years that we were squandering our resources hunting down goat herders and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, they were focused on fighting us not because they wanted to fight us but because we were promulgating policies that were pushing them into a corner where they had no choice to fight us.

…

We saw that from 2008 to 2014, remember 2014 Crimea. Little green men, well, the little green men were the new face of the Russian army professional.
Seventy (70) percent of the Russian military today comprises contract soldiers. They're very good at what they do.
The Russians today are organized to fight large-scale ground combat in Europe. How do we know this? Well, we see it right now, ladies and gentlemen.
Ukrainians have one of the largest militaries in Europe. They are also one of the best-equipped militaries in Europe, one of the best-trained militaries in Europe, and one of the most competent militaries in Europe.
The Ukrainian army can defeat any army in NATO, except the United States and maybe the Turks. They're that good.
And yet Russia is crushing them. That doesn't mean that Russia is not taking losses. Ukrainians are fully capable of delivering some heavy blows, and they have.
The Russians have made mistakes, and they have paid the price. But the sign of a professional organization is your ability to adapt and overcome. The Russians have adapted, and they've overcome.
The Russian battalion commanders on the ground in Ukraine today are the finest battalion commanders the world has ever seen. These guys are doing miracles.
America's battalion commanders would do well to study what these guys are doing.
How you lead from the front and sustain combat operations for 100 days, and you get better, not worse.

- That's a sign of a professional the Russians are winning hands down

- And they are going to win, hands down.

- There's nothing that can happen to stop this. Nothing!

…

But there's a problem. We can make the cost for Russia very high. We make it so high that it becomes painful, and if we make it too high, we have a game-changing moment. We're on the verge of reaching that.

We're providing Russia fighting the Ukrainians with weapons that will not change the war's outcome. They are not.

- High mars are not going to change the outcome of the war.

- The m777a2 with its Excalibur round will not change the war's outcome.

- Even if they get the harpoon anti-shipping missile, it will not change the war's outcome.

But what it will do, is kill Russians. It will kill Russians in large numbers, making it more difficult for Russia to win its victory in a reasonable time frame. It'll drag this conflict out. Now Russia will win, but the price that Russia will pay will be very high, and the price paid by Ukraine will be even higher.

If you care, if you care about the Ukrainian people, if you give a damn about humanity, then you'd want this war to be over today.

Tens of thousands of Ukrainians will die.
Tens of thousands of Russians will die.
Ukrainian infrastructure will be destroyed.

But that's not even the worst that can happen. The worst thing can happen when Russia decides that America has gone too far.

…

We're treating it as if it's a war. We have a defense minister secretary who has said that the purpose of the United States is basically to bleed Russia dry, to achieve a strategic victory by making the Russians pay such a heavy price that they are no longer able to threaten Europe. Well, if you're a Russian, listen to that; what are you thinking?

We are creating bitterness, anger, and resentment in Russia. At some point, they're going to cross the line, and they're going to fire missiles outside of Ukraine into American targets, into NATO targets. And now we're talking about a real war we won't win.

Mr. President, you're writing checks the American body can't cash."

_________________________

Next week's News Analysis will feature Professor Alexandr Dugin, who says:

"The war in Ukraine is a historic moment that will usher in a new world order."

Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, a stream of articles began to appear in Western media proposing that the neo-fascist philosopher Aleksandr Dugin is various "Putin's brain," "Putin's guru," or "Putin's Rasputin" — the grey eminence behind Putin's foreign policy.

But things aren't that simple. Dugin is just one of many radically anti-liberal, anti-Western voices to which Putin can appeal to justify his invasion of Ukraine, reaching right up to the Moscow Patriarch Kirill, Head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The assassination of Dugin's daughter, Daria Dugina, earlier this week seems to have been intended for him. This confirms that someone sees his role in the present conflict in Ukraine as significant enough to warrant an attempt to silence him, with effects we are yet to see.

Read the short introduction: 'Who is Russian ultranationalist Alexander Dugin?' by David Child, Al Jazeera, 23 August 2022.

Can the world reach a balance of power without a balance of terror? When will humanity learn from the lessons of history? Read all about it next week.

_________________________

Related articles by Abraham A. van Kempen:

Last Week's News Analysis, 'A Balance of Power Through a Balance of Terror (Part 2)

Friday News Analysis, 'A Balance of Power Through a Balance of Terror (Part 1)

Friday News Analysis, 'What's Mine is Mine, What's Yours is Mine Also.'

Friday News Analysis, Blood is Thicker than Water

Friday Edition, Israel's Twin Sister?

Friday Edition, Not in My Backyard (Part 3)

Friday Edition, Not in My Backyard (Part 2)

Friday Edition, Not in My Backyard (Part 1).

Friday Edition: Who Are They Fooling? Us or Them or None? Do the Russians Know Their Game?

Friday Edition: Why Should Ukrainians Die for Europe, the Eu-US Coalition of the Willing?