IS SHUTTING RUSSIA OUT OF THE CONVERSATION THE HEALTHIEST OPTION?

It's easy to talk to your friends. But very hard to talk to your enemies.

It used to be a commonly heard adage that to resolve conflict it was necessary to talk to those you were in conflict with. Hard though it may be hearing someone out would appear to be a primary prerequisite in resolving areas of violent disagreement.

With both sides having something to say about what's happening in Ukraine I think you would agree that if we consider the western mainstream we are only hearing from one of those sides.

Could this possibly have something to do with the fact that the great western powers have strong vested interests regarding a long-term ambition to bring Ukraine into the fold? Or, do you think western mainstream news is simply reflecting an objective reality that Russia has no case to be heard?

Having made an intensive study of events in Ukraine since the events which took place on Kiev's Maidan Square in the winter of 2013-14 my view is that Russia does indeed have a case that it can put forward in justification for what is happening now. If you hold that the Russian intervention was wrong on its face perhaps even when the Russian's made their case you might still feel the same way. But wouldn't you agree it would be appropriate to hear that case?

Watching western mainstream and state media news from station to station it is quite obvious that the judgement has been made while hearing the arguments of only one lawyer. Can this be said to be just in any sense of the word? Or do you think that due to the universal western political and media elite opinion being that it is a clear fact that Russia did wrong by Ukraine and that's that?

What happens then if we apply similar standards to the attack upon and invasion of Iraq by the USA and a coalition of other nations affiliated with it? Did we see anything remotely similar to the response to Russia's actions? Of course we are not quite comparing like with like. The devastation and fatalities involved in the U.S. attack upon Iraq were far greater in both extent and time period during which those attacks took place... and ultimately we discovered that the very basis of the intervention was found to be absent. Were there calls for sanctions against the USA or any of those who assisted it against Iraq? The very idea is absurd as it tends to be only these very nations who apply sanctions to others.

It is these very nations and their seeming addiction to sanctioning others who sanction Russia now and one of these sanctions quite clearly is to shut down Russia's ability to state its case.

War is absolutely awful, always. Death, destruction, hate and the ruination of lives and livelihoods, the fracturing of communities and entire societies. It should always be the very last option after all other possible roads to a solution based on discussion, compromise and potential agreement have been taken.

Eight years ago Russia refused the breakaway republics of Ukraine permission to join the Russian Federation. They were told that their future was as an integral part of Ukraine but Russia advised at that time that a federalised solution to their quest for autonomy would be a good solution where reconciliation could be found between the two sides, they and the new administration in Kiev.

In 2015 that administration agreed that to talk with the leaders of the breakaway republics was a positive step they would take. It also agreed that a law would be passed to give the republics a special status within Ukraine granting them a high degree of autonomy. All sides agreed, put pen to paper. The Minsk Agreements as they were called then went to the United Nations where they were officially ratified.

Seven years later of Russian urging to implement them, Kiev officially reneged on the entire contents of the Minsk Agreements. If the road to peace and reconciliation was not to be taken to Kiev what did that leave as the alternative?

Meanwhile NATO was edging ever closer to Russia while in the USA Russia was being described as an adversary to be contained. Years before under the GW Bush administration it was announced that Ukraine too would one day join NATO. It is a matter of record that Kiev was re-arming in a major way and stationing ever more troops near the two republics. Ukrainian troops, now with extreme right wing ultra-nationalists in their ranks who hated the people of the two republics, began training with NATO troops. Ukraine was steadily becoming a de facto NATO state while the rhetoric about 'taking back' Crimea and the republics, clearly by military means was increasing.

Russia took the step of laying out its red lines concerning its need for security in the face of all this. Nothing of substance emerged regarding the response by NATO and very little that was hopeful was included in the U.S. response either.

Then in mid-February Russian intelligence apparently caught wind of an imminent campaign to be mounted against the republics so dear to Russian hearts. 

In brief the above section represents much of the Russian case for the intervention which took place on February 24th. Nothing of any of the above is heard anywhere across western mainstream media news or from western politicians. All that is heard is predicated upon the blithely stated assertion that Russia made an unprovoked  and unwarranted attack, out of the blue so to speak... a completely irrational, evil and wholly unjustified and unjustifiable act of state criminality.

This is said without a single blush caused by remembrance of the rather long list of U.S. interventions down a great many decades and some of them very much within living memory. But no, Russia was to be condemned as an outrider, an obviously criminal exception to the good management evinced by the western powers (without evidence of any tongue in any cheek).

Russia's very ability to state its case was to be outlawed as the conviction by the jury of those who had intervened violently in so many nations so very recently. Tried and convicted without need for any case for the defence. Metaphorically bound and gagged while the sentence was read out in quite similar fashion to the civilian population of the two republics who, because they sought autonomy from Kiev found their voices suddenly muted by western political elites and mainstream media news, a condition that lasted eight long years.

It could be argued that sanctioning speech is in some ways has an even greater effect than sanctioning a nation's financial and economic systems? Even a convicted murderer is allowed to have his or her say at the end of a trial and through their lawyer during the trial itself. No such right has been accorded the people or government of Russia.

To return to where I began, I would appeal to good common sense regarding disputes, even those that lead to war, that it is better to keep talking rather than making threats, casting accusations and escalating on the basis of universal non-understanding, demonization all made so much worse by gagging your opponent that at some stage you will need to find some common ground with. As Winston Churchill famously said, it was always better to "Jaw Jaw than War War". So no, I do not consider it right that Russia be shut out of the conversation and on a number of levels. If the misunderstanding and rhetoric are fuelled ever further and exacerbated endlessly we can all see where it could lead.

That mushroom cloud in the distance that for now is a mere threatening mirage, can by this road lead to a something far more real.