Vanden Heuvel still ignoring Ukrainians' will, defending Putin, and blaming the U.S.

About one thing vanden Heuvel and her "non-interventionist liberal" ilk always are silent when it comes to Russia's armed aggression in Ukraine: What do Ukrainians want?  

As I've written before, she and others act as if Ukrainians have no agency, no say in the matter, and that Putin never had any choice but to seize Crimea and send troops and weapons into eastern Ukraine.

The key question is: Do most Ukrainians now want to be allied with Europe and the U.S.? And if they do, what gives Russia the right to stop them? 

It's sad to see a self-styled liberal like vanden Heuvel become more cynical and realpolitik than even Henry Kissinger when it comes to Ukraine. And it is simply because her husband Prof. Stephen Cohen is a russophile who shares the anti-Ukrainian chauvanism of many Russia experts and Russian intelligentsia 

Even worse, years ago vanden Heuvels magazine The Nation was critical of Russia's brutal crackdown on Chechen separatists, calling it "Putin's War." Keep in mind though, Chechnya was and is recognized as part of Russia. Now Russia has made real war by seizing a piece of Europe by force, the first time this has happened since WWII, and is setting the stage to take even more territory... and The Nation and vanden Heuvel are not only silent about it, they blame the U.S. for Putin's armed aggression!

I have no patience for such "liberals" who think the only time it's OK to criticize the world's despots is when they oppress their own ethnic or sexual minorities, or throw a sympathetic dissident in jail; it's a safe and cowardly defense of liberal ideals.

Rethinking the cost of Western intervention in Ukraine

By Katrina vanden Heuvel  

November 25, 2014 | Washington Post

URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-rethinking-the-cost-of-western-intervention-in-ukraine/2014/11/25/b92f8496-741a-11e4-9c9f-a37e29e80cd5_story.html

Kissinger: Military victory in Iraq impossible

Even the Devil himself is saying Bush can't achieve victory in Iraq. He is, however, persisting in supporting the losing occupation. (Don't question the Devil's logic).

Kiss says we can't win unless we involve neighboring states in negotiations. Unfortunately, we've spent the past 6 years calling those states "evil."

The Bush Administration has talked itself into a corner, diplomatically. And militarily, it can only tread water.

It's becoming more & more obvious that the Iraq war can be ended only with a Democrat clean sweep in 2008.

AP Exclusive: Kissinger says military victory not possible in Iraq
April 1, 2007 | Associated Press

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who helped engineer the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, said Sunday the problems in Iraq are more complex than that conflict, and military victory is no longer possible.

He also said he sympathizes with the troubles facing U.S. President George W. Bush.

"A 'military victory' in the sense of total control over the whole territory, imposed on the entire population, is not possible," Kissinger told The Associated Press in Tokyo, where he received an honorary degree from Waseda University.

The faceless, ubiquitous nature of Iraq's insurgency, as well as the religious divide between Shiite and Sunni rivals, makes negotiating peace more complex, he said.

"It is a more complicated problem," Kissinger said. "The Vietnam War involved states, and you could negotiate with leaders who controlled a defined area."

But Kissinger, an architect of the Vietnam War who has also advised Bush on Iraq, warned that a sudden pullout of U.S. troops or loss of influence could unleash chaos.

"I am basically sympathetic to President Bush," he said. "I am partly sympathetic to it because I have seen comparable situations."

During his tenure under President Richard Nixon, first as national security adviser and then as secretary of state, Kissinger faced a similar challenge in formulating policy for a Vietnam War that was increasingly unpopular at home.

He oversaw a gradual U.S. pullout from Vietnam through a strategy also planned for Iraq, where U.S. troops are training their Iraqi counterparts to take fuller control of security. He also negotiated directly with North Vietnamese leaders on ending the conflict.

Kissinger said the best way forward is to reconcile the differences between Iraq's warring sects with help from other countries. He applauded efforts to host an international conference bringing together the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Iraq's neighbors — including Iran, Washington's longtime rival in the region.

"That is the sort of framework out of which it is conceivable that an agreement should emerge," Kissinger said. "One needs to be prepared to negotiate with adversaries."

Kissinger said that fighting in Iraq is likely to continue for years, and that America's national interest requires an end to partisan bickering at home over war policy.

"The role of America in the world cannot be defined by our internal partisan quarrels," he said. "All the leaders, both Republican and Democratic, have to remember that it will go on for several more years and find some basis for common action."

[You're wrong, Kiss. It won't go on for years. The American people won't let it. – J]