“The collective West has brought us to the precipice of a nuclear Armageddon.” So says our guest professor Salim Mansur.
Those seeking peace are searching the West in vain for any among its leaders, media, or intelligentsia calling for peace. All seem blinded by an irrational and unjustified Russophobia. The result is a general populace duped into thinking that this is a “just war” and Ukraine must win despite the threat of a nuclear conclusion.
“There can be no just war in the nuclear age,” notes Professor Mansur. “There has to be an immediate ceasefire, an armistice, and then we talk and engage with what will be the position of Ukraine and meeting the interests of Russia and the interests of other European countries.”
There are historic precedents for the situation the West finds itself in. During the stalemate of WWI and after the loss of 15 to 22 million lives there came the realization that the only way to end the bloodshed was an armistice—not a surrender but an acknowledgment that nothing further could be gained by either side in continuing the conflict. And on November 11, 1918, an armistice was signed and at 11:00 am that day the guns went silent.
The same awareness came about during the war in Vietnam when Walter Cronkite went on the air in a rare opinion piece and said, “To say that we are mired in stalemate seems to be the only realistic if unsatisfactory conclusion. It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.” President Johnson was reported to have said "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." Such was the power of the media then and, although considerably weakened, such is the power of the media today.
So too, in this conflict involving nuclear combatants, there must come the understanding that all hostilities must cease and negotiations for the partition of Ukraine begin. A continuation of the conflict may only lead to the unthinkable.
You were correct when you said to Salim that there is no solution. Salim was wrong to ignore the implications of his own statement and just responded by going back to say that there is a solution which is to go back to the historical solution during the Cuba Missile Crisis and then to talk about the Monroe Doctrine.
The truth is as you stated, the West doesn't want a solution because the West is bent on destroying Russia and breaking it up. The West own anti Russian phobia has gotten so deep that the West is willing to accept a nuclear war. I've read that the Neocons in the U.S. believe that at nuclear war is winnable but more importantly it seems to me that the Neocons no longer want to be frightened by the prospect of nuclear war because they can't accept limits.
This position reminds me of what Jordan Peterson criticized the Left for which is that the Left is incapable of accepting to its desires whereas Conservatives do have their own red lines that they will not cross. This is why now the U.S. has the uniparty in Congress. The U.S. is dedicated to the extinguishment of Russia and that should frighten all the other nations of the world because they can be next. So much for the U.N. Charter of the equality and sovereignty of all its member countries if the U.S. has the right to decided which countries can exist and which ones can't
There's no coming back from the goals of regime change and elimination of Russia or China. The U.S. can't negotiate when it has these criteria for what the war is to accomplish. Russia can't give up nor can it even accept a Ukraine on its borders any longer. Russia must conquer all of Ukraine and either reincorporate it into Russia or make it a Russian protectorate.
Russia cannot give up any land that it has acquired. There is no one in the West that is to be trusted. Absolutely no one. All trust is gone and the U.S. has done it. The U.S. will not abide by anything it promises to do and I we know now that it never was negotiating in good faith with the Russians.
Zelensky doesn't have a country. Ukraine is a breakaway republic of Russia. Ukraine exist on land it stole from Russia. There's nothing in Ukraine that isn't Russian. Odessa is Russian, Crimea is Russian The U.S. has no interest in this region of the world and shouldn't be involved at all with any settlement. The U.S. and NATO are dishonest broker who irresponsibly rolled the dice of the world's present and future on destroying Russia. And employed every illegal act they needed to accomplish that goal.