Sung to the tune, "We had to destroy this town in order to save it" Putin 'denounces' imperialism' while commencing Genocide. And Nuclear threats

It is actually a bit longer, but it is a way to encapsulate the insanity of Putin's behavior> In 1968 the USA scandalized the world with this situation. It appears Americans are learning from their mistakes.

Here is what we did over 54 years ago. It is rightfully infamous

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The U.S. military’s official explanation of why “it became necessary to destroy the town” is that it had been infiltrated by thousands of Viet Cong.Thus, their rationale went, trying to oust the VC in ground-level fighting, from street to street, would have caused a high number of American casualties and even more civilian casualties.

Perhaps they were right. But the outcome described in Arnett’s news story doesn’t quite smell like victory:

U.S. advisers said the heavy allied firepower hurled on the city to drive out the Viet Cong probably contributed largely to the deaths of at least 500 civilians and possibly 1,000. South Vietnamese officials say the enemy dead totaled 451. About 50 Vietnamese soldiers died, along with more than 20 Americans...Lt. Col James Dare of Chicago, commander of U.S. Advisory Team 93, said “we will never know for sure” the number of civilians who died…Maj. Chester L. Brown of Erie, Pa., spent hours over the city as an Air Force forward air controller directing helicopter and fighter-bomber attacks. “It is always a pity about the civilians,” he said.

The story went on to say:

U.S. officials reported it was impossible to determine the attitude of the city’s residents to the bombing and artillery fire. “Most of those we see around appear mighty relieved that they survived,” one official said, “But I know that there are lots of refugees, maybe 10,000 to 15,000, outside of town in a camp and they may not be so happy.”

I suspect that last quote was a bit of an understatement.

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Whereas Putin thinks he has to devastate Ukraine in order to make its post conquest victims happy Russian Federation SLAVES\

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Putin branded Western leaders as “racist” and claimed they were guilty of “spreading Russophobia all around the globe.” However, his main focus was the allegedly imperialistic policies of the West. The Russian leader supported his argument by reciting a long list of crimes committed in the name of Western imperialism including everything from the colonization of Africa to the mid-nineteenth century Opium Wars in China. “For centuries, the West has claimed to be bringing freedom and democracy to the world,” he declared. “In fact, the exact opposite is true.”

Putin is apparently oblivious to the absurdity of condemning imperialism while at the same time committing the most brazen act of imperial aggression in modern European history.

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How is it in any way different from the 54 year old idiot quote which is now recognized as unacceptable in America?

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Putin is using the illegal annexations of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts to reframe the war for Russian citizens, Hooper said, adding that "now he and his advisors can tell a story, going forward, of how the Kremlin wants peace but Ukraine and its US supporters are insisting on war and attacking Mother Russia."

"This is scary. It is a false narrative, constructed by a person who absolutely knows his actions will prompt further conflict. It is a strategy designed in expectation of military escalation," Hooper said.?

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Ahem, rape all of Ukraine and then say you are defending your VICTIMS of Russian imperialism from NATO

Righto, Putin. Just kill all Ukrainians whom object and say it is to save their immortal souls. Right ?

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February 07, 2015

“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

On?February 7, 1968, American bombs, rockets and napalm obliterated much of the South Vietnamese town of?Ben Tre ?— killing hundreds of civilians who lived there.

Later that day, an unidentified American officer gave Associated Press reporter?Peter Arnett ?a memorable explanation for the destruction.

Arnett used it in the opening of the story he wrote:

??“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,”?a U.S. major said Wednesday.

??He was talking about the grim decision that allied commanders made when Viet Cong attackers overran most of this Mekong Delta city 45 miles southwest of Saigon. They decided that regardless of civilian casualties they must bomb and shell the once placid river city of 35,000 to rout the Viet Cong forces.

After Arnett’s story was published in newspapers the next morning,?February 8, 1968, the unnamed major’s remark became one of the most infamous war-related quotes in modern history.

To this day, it is still used as a quotation that epitomizes the brutal absurdities of war in general and of?the Vietnam War ?in particular.

The veracity of the quote has also been a subject of controversy. Since Arnett did not identify the officer who supposedly used the line, some people have questioned whether anyone actually said it.

In 2006, a Vietnam veteran named?Michael D. Miller?created a website titled?“Saving Ben Tre.” ?On that site, Miller claims to have been present when a?“Major Booris” said something very close to what Arnett reported.

Miller gives the quote as:?“We had to destroy Ben Tre in order to save it.”

However, like Arnett’s report, Miller’s version has been disputed.

More significant to the people of Vietnam is the issue of whether Ben Tre actually had to be destroyed.

The U.S. military’s official explanation of why “it became necessary to destroy the town” is that it had been infiltrated by thousands of Viet Cong.

Thus, their rationale went, trying to oust the VC in ground-level fighting, from street to street, would have caused a high number of American casualties and even more civilian casualties.

Perhaps they were right. But the outcome described in Arnett’s news story doesn’t quite smell like victory:

U.S. advisers said the heavy allied firepower hurled on the city to drive out the Viet Cong probably contributed largely to the deaths of at least 500 civilians and possibly 1,000. South Vietnamese officials say the enemy dead totaled 451. About 50 Vietnamese soldiers died, along with more than 20 Americans...Lt. Col James Dare of Chicago, commander of U.S. Advisory Team 93, said “we will never know for sure” the number of civilians who died…Maj. Chester L. Brown of Erie, Pa., spent hours over the city as an Air Force forward air controller directing helicopter and fighter-bomber attacks. “It is always a pity about the civilians,” he said.

The story went on to say:

U.S. officials reported it was impossible to determine the attitude of the city’s residents to the bombing and artillery fire. “Most of those we see around appear mighty relieved that they survived,” one official said, “But I know that there are lots of refugees, maybe 10,000 to 15,000, outside of town in a camp and they may not be so happy.”

I suspect that last quote was a bit of an understatement.

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RIGHTO, Step up the PODIUM, PUTIN. Have a GO at it

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Putin is using the illegal annexations of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts to reframe the war for Russian citizens, Hooper said, adding that "now he and his advisors can tell a story, going forward, of how the Kremlin wants peace but Ukraine and its US supporters are insisting on war and attacking Mother Russia."

"This is scary. It is a false narrative, constructed by a person who absolutely knows his actions will prompt further conflict. It is a strategy designed in expectation of military escalation," Hooper said.?

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Ahem, rape all of Ukraine and then say you are defending your VICTIMS of Russian imperialism from NATO

That is the spirit, Putin. Upward and onwards ! Right ?

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Putin denounces imperialism while annexing large swathes of Ukraine

By?Peter Dickinson

FILTER RESULTS

HIDE

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered one of his most unhinged performances on September 30 in a speech announcing the annexation of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. Addressing hundreds of Russian officials during a ceremony in the Kremlin, Putin had relatively little to say about the war in Ukraine. Instead, his address was dominated by some of the fiercest anti-Western rhetoric of his 22-year reign.

Putin branded Western leaders as “racist” and claimed they were guilty of “spreading Russophobia all around the globe.” However, his main focus was the allegedly imperialistic policies of the West. The Russian leader supported his argument by reciting a long list of crimes committed in the name of Western imperialism including everything from the colonization of Africa to the mid-nineteenth century Opium Wars in China. “For centuries, the West has claimed to be bringing freedom and democracy to the world,” he declared. “In fact, the exact opposite is true.”

Putin is apparently oblivious to the absurdity of condemning imperialism while at the same time committing the most brazen act of imperial aggression in modern European history. Perhaps this should not come as a surprise. After all, for years he has been transforming Russia into a fascist state while presenting himself an anti-fascist. Why not also pose as an anti-imperialist while engaging in naked imperial aggression?

Many veteran Kremlin observers commented that this was comfortably the most vitriolic public attack on the West ever delivered by the Russian leader. “I’ve watched a lot of Putin speeches over the last 10-15 years and this is the most anti-US one by a really long way,”?tweeted ?Financial Times Moscow bureau chief Max Seddon.

The decision to focus today’s address on the alleged injustices of modern Western imperialism appears to have been designed primarily to position Russia at the forefront of a new global coalition of anti-Western forces. At one point in his speech, the Russian leader?spoke ?specifically of ending US hegemony through an “anti-colonial movement” to be led by Moscow.

Putin’s anti-imperialism reflects Russia’s broader geopolitical realignment as the Kremlin comes to terms with the fallout from the disastrous invasion of Ukraine. Moscow now appears to recognize that there is little chance of repairing relations with Europe or the US. Instead, Russia will seek to mobilize global anti-Western sentiment and play the role of counter-weight to Western dominance in the international area.

It is far from clear whether this gambit will be successful. At present, few countries from the developing world seem ready to align themselves with Russia. Judging by voting habits at the United Nations, only a handful of global pariahs such as Syria and North Korea are currently prepared to side with the Kremlin. Meanwhile, both China and India have signaled in recent weeks that they are far from happy with the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Nor are Putin’s anti-imperial credentials particularly convincing. While he has tried to blame the war in Ukraine on everything from NATO expansion to imaginary Ukrainian Nazis, it is now painfully obvious that the invasion is actually an old-fashioned war of imperial aggression. Putin himself?admitted as much ?in summer 2022 when he compared the invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great. His decision to annex approximately 15% of Ukraine now removes any lingering doubts.

Today’s speech should cure Western policymakers of any illusions regarding the possibility of a pragmatic relationship with Russia as long as Vladimir Putin remains in the Kremlin. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already drawn the necessary conclusions and?declared ?that there will be no more negotiations with Putin. Given the gravity of the situation, similar clarity from other Western leaders is now urgently needed. Putin has effectively declared war not only on the West but on the entire rules-based system of international relations. He is attempting to redraw the map of Europe by force and is holding the world hostage with the thinly-veiled threat of nuclear apocalypse.

It is crucial that the democratic world stands up to Russia’s nuclear blackmail. Failure to do so will have potentially catastrophic consequences for international security. Putin would be emboldened to repeat his nuclear ultimatums against new victims throughout the former Soviet Empire, while countries across the globe would soon scramble to protect themselves from this new reality by acquiring nuclear arsenals of their own. Decades of nuclear nonproliferation efforts would collapse and give way to a perilous new era of international instability.

Putin is not escalating from a position of strength. His fake referendums, absurd annexations, nuclear threats, and anti-Western rants all point to the fact that he is losing the war in Ukraine. This desperation makes him more dangerous than ever. The West must respond by demonstrating its unwavering unity and resolve. This means tougher sanctions against Russia and accelerated military support for Ukraine. Today’s speech makes clear that Putin can no longer be reasoned with. He can only be defeated.

Peter Dickinson is Editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Service.

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Also

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Putin's annexation of Ukrainian land raises the risks a nuclear weapon will be used and tanks the possibility of talks to end the war

John Haltiwanger ?1 hour ago

Putin's annexation of four regions of Ukraine raises the risk of a nuclear weapon being used in the long-term, experts warn.

• "Russia is committing to an escalation," one Russia expert told Insider.?
• Putin sees this moment as one of "civilizational conflict with the West," a former senior intelligence officer told Insider.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions into Russia on Friday in a bombastic speech filled with anti-Western rhetoric, nuclear threats, and historical revisionism. He also warned that Russia "will defend our land with all the powers and means at our disposal."

Russia watchers and military experts told Insider that these aggressive moves and statements show Putin is "losing" in Ukraine and wants the US and its NATO allies to "back off." They warn that Putin has effectively eliminated the possibility of negotiations and stressed that these annexations raise the risk of nuclear weapons being used in the long-term.?

Putin sees this moment as one of "civilizational conflict with the West," and he made this clear in his speech, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former senior intelligence officer who led strategic analysis on Russia for the National Intelligence Council from 2015 to 2018, told Insider.?

The Russian president is "raising the stakes in so many different ways," said Kendall-Taylor, now the director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.

During his speech, Putin said that use of nuclear weaponry by the US against Japan during World War II set a "precedent."

That Putin went out of his way to make such a point is "extremely unnerving," Kendall-Taylor said, adding that it almost seems as if the Russian leader is "talking himself into it and looking for ways to justify his potential use of a nuclear weapon if he needs to do so at a later date."

The risks of Putin employing a nuclear weapon in the immediate future are "still low," she said, but she emphasized that the annexation "increased those risks."

"I do worry now that as the Ukrainians reclaim territory that Russia has now annexed and that [Putin] claims as Russian, given that he now is so personally invested in this, that the risk of his use of a tactical nuke on the battlefield in Ukraine has gone up," Kendall-Taylor said.

'Committing to an escalation'

"Russia is committing to an escalation," Cynthia Hooper, a history professor and Russia expert at the College of the Holy Cross, told Insider.?

Putin is using the illegal annexations of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts to reframe the war for Russian citizens, Hooper said, adding that "now he and his advisors can tell a story, going forward, of how the Kremlin wants peace but Ukraine and its US supporters are insisting on war and attacking Mother Russia."

"This is scary. It is a false narrative, constructed by a person who absolutely knows his actions will prompt further conflict. It is a strategy designed in expectation of military escalation," Hooper said.?

The pressing issue for Putin at the moment is that he's "been losing," Jeffrey Edmonds, a CNA Russia expert and former CIA military analyst, told Insider, and the "annexation, the mobilization — these are all measures he's trying to take to fix the problem."

The Ukraine war has been disastrous for the Russian military so far. Strategically, military experts say that Russia has essentially already been defeated. Putin launched the war with the goal of subjugating the whole of Ukraine. But Russia failed to take Kyiv and was effectively forced to turn its attention to the eastern Donbas region — a far less ambitious objective.

Russian forces are estimated to have suffered as many as 80,000 casualties, if not more, since the war began, and they've struggled with myriad equipment issues.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has in recent weeks managed to recapture a significant chunk of territory as part of a blistering counteroffensive. These losses are widely believed to be the reason behind Putin's decision last week to announced a military mobilization plan, calling up tens of thousands of reservists to help address Russia's manpower problems. There have been a number of signs that the mobilization is highly unpopular, with thousands of Russian men fleeing the country amid nationwide protests and even instances of violence.?

Putin realizes that Russia is "really on a negative trajectory at this point," Edmonds said. "The counteroffensive and the fact that he wasn't able to take these territories like he thought, that was a big turning point for him and the Russian population in which he really felt like he needs to escalate — or at least rhetorically escalate and warn of nuclear weapons."

Putin knows the US and NATO do not want to go to war with Russia and is trying to send a message that if they keep providing Ukraine with weapons and security assistance, then that's "exactly what we'll have, with all the nuclear trappings that go with it," Edmonds said, "That's really where the rhetoric comes from. He's always used nuclear rhetoric, but it it is picking up."

Indeed, the mobilization and annexations come at a desperate moment for Putin. In formally annexing the four Ukrainian regions — a move that came after referendums decried as a sham by leaders across the globe — Putin is vying to hold on to what little progress Russian forces have made.?But as Ukraine's counteroffensive continues, Russia may find it difficult to hold on to the territory it now claims as its own and vows to defend.?

Putin announced the annexations "even as Ukrainian forces encircled Russian troops in the key city of Lyman, Luhansk Oblast, immediately demonstrating that Russia will struggle to hold the territory it claims to have annexed," according to?a Friday report ?from the Institute for the Study of War, which has provided timely battlefield updates on the Ukraine conflict. "Putin likely intends annexation to freeze the war along the current frontlines and allow time for Russian mobilization to reconstitute Russian forces," the report added.?

'There's not a negotiated settlement to this'

The annexation of Ukraine's territory, which came eight years after Russia annexed Crimea, also greatly diminishes the possibility of any negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv.?

"The ceremony today was presented, on Russian television and to a domestic Russian audience, as a Russian victory. Putin said himself that now that these four regions have been, in his words, reunited with Russia, he is prepared to negotiate for peace — but then in the same breath, he added that any peace deal would have to respect these new territorial acquisitions and that their status was not up for future negotiation," Hooper said.?

Ukraine has been clear that it will not accept any peace deal that involves ceding territory to Russia.

"Russia has been and remains an aggressor illegally occupying parts of Ukrainian land. Ukraine has every right to liberate its territories and will keep liberating them whatever Russia has to say," Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba?said ?in a tweet earlier this month.?

Along these lines, analysts say that Putin has helped ensure that the Ukraine war won't end any time soon. The annexations solidify for "the Ukrainians that they have to defeat the Russians in Ukraine," Edmonds said, "There's not a negotiated settlement to this."

"I don't think there's room for negotiation for quite some time because the Ukrainians have been winning and the Russians just demand Ukrainian surrender. Why would you surrender when you're winning?" Edmonds added.

And if Russia continues to lose ground, particularly in territories in now claims as its own yet does not fully occupy, this could reduce the threshold for further escalation and possibly even the use of a nuclear weapon.?

"In some ways the mobilization itself lowered the probability of nuclear use in the near-term," Edmonds said, explaining that Putin announced the draft to help address the issues Russian forces have been facing and that he wants to see how it all plays out.?

"Now, let's say in some scenario, it doesn't fix the problem. The Russian military collapses over the winter, and he starts losing big — then I think the chances for non-strategic nuclear use go up. But I think right now he's really trying to step up the rhetoric to get the US and NATO to back off," Edmonds added.?

Similarly, Kendall-Taylor said that the "unfortunate reality" is that the better the Ukrainians do on the battlefield, the higher the risk of Russia using a tactical nuclear weapon. "The stakes are higher for Putin," Kendall-Taylor said, because mobilization and annexation were "quite clearly his decisions."

Putin will give mobilization a "little bit of time to play out and to see how effective it can be in turning the tide, or at least stemming Ukrainian advances," Kendall-Taylor said, but the use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine is "directly tied to Russia's fate on the battlefield."

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Andrew Beckwith, PhD