"Wars Are Not Won By Evacuations"

 

Indeed.  That quote is from Winston Churchill's speech after the successful evacuation of much of the British Expeditionary Force (and over 100,000 French allied soldiers) from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940.  While the evacuation ["Operation Dynamo"] was rightly considered a wonderful achievement, Churchill cautioned:

"We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory.  Wars are not won by evacuations."

I was moved to recall Churchill's words in response to the bizarre reporting on the end of the fighting at the Azovstal Steel Plant in the contested city of Mariupol in the Ukraine.  Every headline in the pro-NATO media refers to an "evacuation" and to "an end of combat operations" there.  But reading further it appears that the fascist (and the mainstream media was fine with referring to these nazis as nazis up until a little while ago) battalion surrendered to the Russians:

Hundreds of combatants were evacuated on Monday from the besieged Azovstal metallurgical plant in the southeastern port hub of Mariupol. Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Anna Malyar, said fifty-three wounded soldiers were taken to a hospital in Novoazovsk, a town controlled by the breakaway pro-Russian Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), and another 211 Ukrainian personnel were taken to the DPR-controlled village of Olenivka.

A little while ago I posted about how it's difficult to know what the real military situation in the Ukraine is.  The propaganda in the NATO countries says that Russia's military is floundering, it's soldiers dividing their time between murdering civilians and surrendering.  NATO's weapons are pouring in and being used to destroy tonnes of Russian military equipment.  Meanwhile, in Russia itself, the population is simmering with anger against the tyrant Putin (who apparently smells funny and is losing his mind).  The Ukrainians are defying imperialism and protecting democracy and are a light and an example for the world.

Meanwhile, the pro-Russian websites are saying that Russia's special military operation is progressing in an orderly fashion according to their own timetable.  Ukrainian nazis are murdering pro-Russian collaborators and shooting civilians trying to escape through corridors provided by the Russians.  Ukranians have filmed themselves torturing Russian prisoners.  Russia has systematically destroyed the Ukraine's airforce and transportation infrastructure.  NATO weaponry is obsolete, cannot be used without proper training and is being destroyed before it reaches the front in any case.  Meanwhile, in Russia itself, Putin has 80% popular support and there is no mention of how he smells or how his body and brain are crumbling.

Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle?  I don't know.  But I have to say, with this stupid drivel about "evacuating" the nazi Azov Battalion from Azovstal when in actuality they've surrendered and been taken prisoner, the pro-NATO propagandists aren't doing themselves any favours.  The word "evacuation" tends to mean getting your people out to safety (like the British did at Dunkirk) and not being captured.

[EDITED TO ADD: It's so insane the way that surrender was referred to as an "evacuation" that in writing the post I forgot that the main reason I used Churchill's "Wars are not won by evacuations" quote is because however much that is an obvious truism, it is even MORE obviously true that wars are not won by surrenders to the enemy.  Even if you call those surrenders "evacuations."]

In related news, Norman Finkelstein asks a question that I've been pondering myself: What exactly was Putin supposed to have done in the face of YEARS of USA/NATO provocations?

And my question which I’ve constantly been putting in correspondence is a very simple one: if you agree that for 20 years—more than 20 years, more than two decades—, Russia has tried to engage in diplomacy; if you agree that the Russian demand to neutralize Ukraine —not occupy it, not determine its government, its form of economy, just neutralize it like Austria after World War II—, if you agree that was a legitimate demand; if you agree that the West was expanding and expanding NATO; if you agree that Ukraine de facto had become a member of NATO, weapons pouring in, engaging in military exercises in NATO; and if you agree… You know, Russia lost 30 million people during World War II because of the Nazi invasion, so there’s a legitimate concern by Russia with all of these —if you excuse my language— Nazis floating around in the Ukraine, then the simple question is: What was Russia to do?

I’m not saying I agree with the invasion, I’m not saying it went right, but I think one thing: the invasion showed… you know what the one thing the invasion showed, Briahna, was that Russia is kind of weak militarily, which is why all the more they may have been fearful of a NATO-backed Ukraine filled with Nazis, and probably at some point positioning nuclear missiles on its border. And I think 30 million, 30 million people… Listen to this: I think 30 million people is 30 million arguments in favor of Russia. Now I’m not going to say, because I’m not a general and I’m not a diplomat, so I’m not going… I’m not a military strategist so I’m not going to say it was the wisest thing to do. I’m not going to say it was the most prudent thing to do. But I will say —and I’m not afraid to say it because it would dishonor the memory of my parents if i didn’t say it—, I will say that they had the right to do it. And I’m not taking that back. They had the right to do it. They had if I can call it the historic right to do it. 30 million people (killed during WW2), and now you’re starting again, you’re starting again. No, no, you know I can’t go for it, I can’t go for those who acknowledge the legitimacy of the arguments made by Putin but then call the invasion criminal. I don’t see that.

Now you could say the way they executed it may have had criminal elements. However I don’t know… Well, you went to Harvard Law School, I don’t know if you studied the laws of war, but the laws of war make a very big distinction between ‘jus ad bellum’ and ‘jus in bello’, namely whether the launching of the war was legitimate or whether it was an act of aggression versus the way you conduct the war, ‘jus in bello’. Maybe the conduct, targeting of civilians and so forth, that probably violates the laws of war, but that’s a separate issue under law from “did they have the right to attack”. I think they did. I’m not going to back off from that.

Now, I think there's too much veneration of what the Soviet Union did in WWII and no acknowledgement of why Ukrainians might hate Russians because of Stalin's terror-famine in the 1930's.  (Though I don't think most Ukrainians hate Russians.  Seventy-three percent of the Ukrainian electorate voted for Zelensky as a peace candidate.  It's really only the degenerate extremists propped-up by the United States that have a visceral hatred for the Russians.)  Still and all, I think Finkelstein's stance is more respectable than those "idealists" blathering about their uninvestigated abstract principles (when they're not yammering insanely about how nuclear war might be an option to end Putin's aggression).

Also, the Democratic Party cult-site "Daily Kos" had a headline about how "Tankies" refuse to blame Russia for this war.  At this point in my life I just don't feel like engaging with something so irredeemably stupid and shit-headed.  I'm not going to argue with it.  I'm not even going to bother linking to it.  It is so fucking goddamned stupid to think that Russia wasn't provoked.  If you believe that ... fuck it.  

Here's something I will link to: An account of the European Union's economic suicide, within which are links to Michael Hudson's reflections, including news about psycopath Victoria Nuland's amoral scheming:

The only way left for U.S. diplomats to block European purchases is to goad Russia into a military response and then claim that avenging this response outweighs any purely national economic interest. As hawkish Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, explained in a State Department press briefing on January 27: “If Russia invades Ukraine one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.” The problem is to create a suitably offensive incident and depict Russia as the aggressor.

That's my blog post for tonight!