The woeful and dangerous ignorance of Stephen Gethins
In his recent Scotsman column, Stephen Gethins MP demonstrates his woeful ignorance about geopolitics and history, and exemplifies the execrable quality of UK MPs. If Gethins is expressing the foreign policy views of the SNP leadership, then God help us. And I pity his students at St Andrews where he’s Professor of Practice in International Relations.
Gethins’ knee-jerk Russophobia shows that he has imbibed the relentless stream of western anti-Russian propaganda. I have news for him. Russia has zero interest in invading any European nation. It DOES, however, have a big interest in not having US missile systems or military bases anywhere near its borders, just as the US wouldn’t tolerate Russian missiles or military bases anywhere near its borders.
Since 1997, the US has enlarged NATO by 14 countries. Adding Ukraine would have completed Russia’s encirclement. Just imagine if Russia made Canada and Mexico members of an anti-western military alliance… The US wouldn’t allow it. Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Then in 2002 the US unilaterally abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and put Aegis missiles in Poland and Romania, directly threatening Russia.
In 2019, the US pulled out of the Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty, signed by Reagan and Gorbachev in 1987, which had eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons. Now those weapons are back, with NATO announcing it will deploy intermediate-range missiles in Germany by 2026, a return to a Cold War strategy which will endanger, not enhance, European security.
Gethins is flat wrong that Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. It didn't. Instead, the US staged a coup against the democratically elected Ukrainian leader who wanted good relations with Russia.
When the ethnic Russian Donbas region broke from the Russophobic nationalist coup leaders (with links to Nazi SS groups), Kiev deployed neo-Nazi paramilitary units to retake the Donbas. Over 14,000 people were killed.
Ukraine, the US and EU failed to honour the UN Security Council Minsk I and II accords to make Donbas autonomous and end the violence, but instead lied to President Putin while arming Ukraine for a future fight with Russia.
In a final effort to avoid conflict, in 2021 Putin proposed a draft security agreement between the US and Russia, requesting America agree to Ukrainian neutrality. It refused.
The result? 600,000 dead Ukrainians, over a million wounded, the country in ruins. And Europe’s economies are in a tailspin because they foolishly cut themselves off from cheap Russian gas. Germany’s leaders stood by while the CIA blew up the Nordstream pipeline. Talk about shooting yourself in both feet!
The solution, Mr. Gethins, is to stop funding the Ukraine disaster, re-engage with Russia, the world’s 4th largest economy, and get energy and trade flowing again. That’s how you have peace.
But Europe’s weak and ineffectual leaders, including those here in the failing UK, show no signs of doing this. As a result, the decline of the west will accelerate.
Maybe Russia and the US should have a proper war between themselves, you know.......? cut out the proxies. Either that or grow the f*ck up.
Thank you immensely Leah to opening my eyes to the background of this horrific war and waste of lives, money, environment