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Aaron says; 'By choosing to invade, Russia is legally and morally responsible for the carnage that it has caused'. I agree with the commentator Doc Hollywood. There was nowhere to go for the Kremlin. Would they have been responsible for allowing the massive planned offensive on the Don basin to go ahead unchallenged (60,000 troops were amassing there for that very reason) and the almost certain ethnic cleansing of the Nazi battalions that would result?

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There are a lot of progressives who cling to some kind of imaginary liberal values that eschew warfare in any form. Not one can answer the fundamental question, "Faced with the circumstances that Putin understood as real, what would you have done?" Of course, the easy answer is to deny necessity and somehow say that Putin's belief was erroneous. However, too many sources and too much history, conform with Putin's view. To be frank, I came up with this analysis quite independently, but not so thoroughly, as V. Putin.

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Thanks for watching and responding! Yes, I think that it becomes more obvious every day that the US has been goading Putin, with biolabs, intermediate range nuclear weapons, military bases, NATO training, and NATO inclusion. We never would have stopped until it provoked a response that warranted direct intervention. I'm planning my next episode also on Ukraine as The Hegemon's Last Stand.

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I just responded to another commenter, who agreed with you and Doc, on Aaron's article. Here's the excerpt from Putin's speech that I posted:

"In this context, in accordance with Article 51 (Chapter VII) of the UN Charter, with permission of Russia’s Federation Council, and in execution of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic, ratified by the Federal Assembly on February 22, I made a decision to carry out a special military operation.

"The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.

"It is not our plan to occupy the Ukrainian territory. We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force. At the same time, we have been hearing an increasing number of statements coming from the West that there is no need any more to abide by the documents setting forth the outcomes of World War II, as signed by the totalitarian Soviet regime. How can we respond to that?

"The outcomes of World War II and the sacrifices our people had to make to defeat Nazism are sacred. This does not contradict the high values of human rights and freedoms in the reality that emerged over the post-war decades. This does not mean that nations cannot enjoy the right to self-determination, which is enshrined in Article 1 of the UN Charter.

"Let me remind you that the people living in territories which are part of today’s Ukraine were not asked how they want to build their lives when the USSR was created or after World War II. Freedom guides our policy, the freedom to choose independently our future and the future of our children. We believe that all the peoples living in today’s Ukraine, anyone who want to do this, must be able to enjoy this right to make a free choice."

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Yes, geopolitically speaking this gives a different perspective, one entirely ignored or ridiculed by the West and their media, perhaps it just seems a little too 'noble' to be believed as opposed to the US 'we're getting rid of the bad guy. Of course spiritually speaking all war is anathema (well to the Christian anyway, despite what Kiril and Epiphanius and the UCCRO have said in their support for this war). That is why neutrality makes sense in a world where man has 'dominated man to his injury'. (Eccl 8:9)

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I have submitted your article as a Quicklink on OpEd News. Same title. Hopefully it will generate some discussion. The readers there are quite divided on the Ukraine issue. Those with views opposite to your's always respond with "Putin BAD!" and (IMHO) never back it up with anything other than "he shouldn't have invaded Ukraine".

I keep asking what Michael Corleone should have done about Sollozo. Crickets.

Then I ask who doesn't root for Clint Eastwood in all of his western movies. Crickets.

It takes a couple of hours to know if they'll accept your article.

WOW, they just accepted it! As I was typing this.

Now getting it posted, will also take some time.

I do hope you'll try to defend your position there. I admit it isn't even close to getting published in the NYT, but somehow, some way, we gotta combat the Oligarchy. Start naming names. Pierre Omidyar and the Intercept. Jeff Bezos and the WaPo. We have to be relentless in exposing them for the crooks they are.

There are 700+ Billionaires in the US. Nothing happens without their consent.

Gonzalo Lira had a great analogy. There are 700 strings attached to the American Puppet. No wonder the dance is so incoherent.

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Wow John, thank you so much! That's really exciting. Let me know how to find it when it comes out. I love a good debate so defending it would be fun ;-) I know, I have a strange idea of fun...

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So any response would be here, on my page, is that right? Excellent to get that exposure, really appreciate it.

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