Let’s not turn another post into a political critique FFS.Originally Posted by Omegstrat6
He may be a generally respected voice in global economics but is Sachs himself either correct or reliable on everything? He wants closer co-operation between the US with China, does not see them as a threat and claims that calling the repression of Uyghurs by China as effective "genocide" is wrong. His views on the Covid outbreak also fuelled the (conspiracy?) theory that it was due to a leak in a secretive biological laboratory -only he thinks it from an American source rather than a Chinese one. He may have had a point about US interference in Syria but seems blinded to the consequences of the actions of both Syrian leader Bashar Al Assad and Putin on the civilian population and he supports the theory that it was the US rather than Russia that sabotaged the Nord gaspipe when there has been no hard evidence to back either up.
As for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, having read both Abelow's "How the West brought war to Ukraine" and Puri's "Russia's road to war with Ukraine", I can understand the argument for Western provocation to a degree. I also recognize that a significant proportion of eastern Ukrainians wanted to remain part of Russia and that Ukraine itself was still fighting inherent corruption within the country.
HOWEVER, what about one of the root questions in all this, which is why so many Eastern European countries that were formerly part of the old Soviet Union joined or wanted to join NATO in the first place? Clearly, there were economic reasons for them wanting closer ties to Europe but surely their main reason for joining NATO was for a level of protection against Putin and his own expansionist ambitions? The West may have welcomed them joining but they could not have forced them to. I suspect that fear of Putin's possible actions was a key driver.
Very clearly, the actions of the United States -and to a lesser extent it's Western allies-in other countries have not always been either defensible or successful but surely Putin is even worse given the conduct of his forces that he happily endorses whether that be in Chechnya, Syria or Ukraine.
"The evil regime is USA not Russia" and Putin is the "only sane one"? I don't consider myself blinded to all of the machinations of the US and I really dislike so much of what Trump stands for ( and whilst Sleepy Joe may be senile that doesn't mean he is not sane) but, "on balance", I would still personally much prefer the US to Putin's regime in Russia bordering.
We’ve enough of those.
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