{"id":566,"date":"2015-03-07T23:00:07","date_gmt":"2015-03-07T23:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/?p=566"},"modified":"2015-03-13T21:45:47","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:45:47","slug":"russia-invaded-ukraine-and-iran-will-make-a-nuclear-bomb-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/03\/russia-invaded-ukraine-and-iran-will-make-a-nuclear-bomb-again.html","title":{"rendered":"Russia invaded Ukraine and Iran will make a nuclear bomb… again?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Je crois qu\u2019il y a des r\u00e9sistances honn\u00eates et des r\u00e9bellions l\u00e9gitimes.<\/em><\/p>\n

I believe that there are honest resistance forces and legitimate rebellions.<\/p>\n

Alexis de Tocqueville<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

How many times can the\u00a0liar lie, before people stop believing?<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Thousands of Russian tanks and soldiers passing into Ukraine, where they become invisible and only NATO spokesmen can see them<\/em><\/p>\n

This is an interesting question, and needs careful consideration. The same media that goose-stepped everyone off to war with Iraq (read Chomsky’s book Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda<\/em><\/a>\u00a0for that full critique) and failed over and over again to goose-step us to war with Iran, is once again trying to convince us all of the terrible impending threat\u00a0of an alleged enemy: Russia.<\/p>\n

Allegations that Russia is invading Ukraine are totally absurd. They make me laugh,\u00a0because none of the information coming out of Ukraine suggests anything like a Russian invasion, so\u00a0it smacks of crying wolf (if Russia was really invading, their jaws would have been blown off and no-one would have to listen to their whining). Ukraine is on very bad terms with Russia and Russia has invaded its neighbors in the past, under very similar circumstances to those in the Donbass region of Ukraine. We need only remember the invasion of Georgia in 2008 – which people forget Vladimir Putin didn’t order, and rather the then-president Dmitri Medvedev did order (the president necessarily has to give the order for any military action).\u00a0I hate to digress, but that leads me on to another important issue: the most hawkish critics of Putin see his presidency as a dictatorship that carried out aggression against Georgia, but if that’s so, how was he already a\u00a0dictator before he was president?\u00a0It is like accusing Kissinger of having ruled the United States as a monarch all along, and to prove it we point at his influence and say all the presidents were just carrying out\u00a0his sinister plans.\u00a0What are Putin’s critics\u00a0suggesting? Surely Putin stepping down as President won’t help, because the people who accuse him of invading Ukraine believe he was invading countries even when he wasn’t in office.<\/p>\n

As for whether Russia is invading Ukraine, Russia would be the most in trouble of all countries\u00a0if it was invading Ukraine. It would be against the Russian Constitution. Russia’s military has no authorization to be in Ukraine at this time. There are, however, limited loopholes that allow for Russian special forces, volunteers and mercenaries to get involved in Ukraine. Calling these forces an invasion army is delusional. This is basically on par with accusing the Stuxnet virus of being an invasion of Iran. Sabotage in a hostile country, while not officially at war with them, isn’t an invasion. It isn’t even aggression.<\/p>\n

If Russia is invading Ukraine, why is Ukraine still at peace with Russia? Ukraine hasn’t closed its diplomatic relations with Russia, as is custom in war. It doesn’t seem at all afraid of Russia’s nuclear weapons or its cruise missiles, which could eliminate all of Ukraine’s armed forces in a matter of minutes. These threats\u00a0might have been expected to put some pressure on Ukraine, if they really existed.<\/p>\n

Instead, we just get this feeble argument, based on sophistry, that Russia is invading Ukraine because Russians or Russian equipment have been found in Ukraine. Neither thing indicates that Russia is invading Ukraine. The telltale signs of Russia invading Ukraine<\/a> would be similar to America invading a country:\u00a0thousands of cruise missiles falling out of the sky, Kiev collapsing into a heap of rubble and the Americans leaving the country, not visiting\u00a0it. Once these things happen, I will be happy to say Russia has invaded Ukraine. Until then, telling lies about\u00a0Russia invading\u00a0Ukraine is only making life more difficult for Ukraine: it\u00a0makes it less likely that anyone will believe them, if Russia ever does invade Ukraine.<\/p>\n

#America<\/a>: death of a nation? http:\/\/t.co\/PhgFQ4B22i<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/DHH2kXLLfB<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Press TV (@PressTV) March 7, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have now published my latest op-ed at Press TV<\/em>, “America: death of a nation?”<\/a> This delves into the dystopic nature of US society against the backdrop of the US government’s messianic quest to force other countries to become more like America. Above all, the time is right to compare the United States with the Roman Empire, and alert Americans to the threat posed by repeating that empire’s mistakes. I am still writing more articles, which will be placed as unique content at the newly repolished clubof.info Blog<\/a>. That website has been redesigned thoroughly and I intend to refine the quality of the articles there a lot, even though it will now mean putting quality over quantity and reducing the number of weekly articles to three or four.<\/p>\n

\n

By\u00a0Harry J. Bentham<\/a><\/p>\n

\"HJB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Je crois qu\u2019il y a des r\u00e9sistances honn\u00eates et des r\u00e9bellions l\u00e9gitimes. I believe that there are honest resistance forces and legitimate rebellions. Alexis de Tocqueville How many times can the\u00a0liar lie, before people stop believing? Thousands of Russian tanks and soldiers passing into Ukraine, where they become invisible and only NATO spokesmen can see…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,71,72,127,66,56,15,69],"tags":[544,543,535,308,542,536,539,430,538,537,540,229,534,533,541,84],"class_list":["post-566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conflict-2","category-conflict-resolution","category-international-relations","category-journalism","category-politics-2","category-uk","category-us","category-violence","tag-chomsky","tag-donbass","tag-how-to-tell-russia-invaded-ukraine","tag-kiev","tag-kissinger","tag-putin-aggression","tag-putin-communist","tag-putin-dictator","tag-putin-invading-ukraine","tag-putin-invasion","tag-putin-tsar","tag-russia","tag-russia-invaded-ukraine","tag-russia-invading-ukraine","tag-russian-tanks-in-ukraine","tag-ukraine"],"yoast_head":"\nRussia invaded Ukraine and Iran will make a nuclear bomb... again? - L'Ordre<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/03\/russia-invaded-ukraine-and-iran-will-make-a-nuclear-bomb-again.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Russia invaded Ukraine and Iran will make a nuclear bomb... again? - L'Ordre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Je crois qu\u2019il y a des r\u00e9sistances honn\u00eates et des r\u00e9bellions l\u00e9gitimes. I believe that there are honest resistance forces and legitimate rebellions. Alexis de Tocqueville How many times can the\u00a0liar lie, before people stop believing? Thousands of Russian tanks and soldiers passing into Ukraine, where they become invisible and only NATO spokesmen can see…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/03\/russia-invaded-ukraine-and-iran-will-make-a-nuclear-bomb-again.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"L'Ordre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-03-07T23:00:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-03-13T21:45:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/stopwar.org.uk\/images\/news\/ukraine_russian_tanks_460.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Harry J. Bentham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Russia invaded Ukraine and Iran will make a nuclear bomb... again? - L'Ordre","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/03\/russia-invaded-ukraine-and-iran-will-make-a-nuclear-bomb-again.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Russia invaded Ukraine and Iran will make a nuclear bomb... again? - L'Ordre","og_description":"Je crois qu\u2019il y a des r\u00e9sistances honn\u00eates et des r\u00e9bellions l\u00e9gitimes. I believe that there are honest resistance forces and legitimate rebellions. Alexis de Tocqueville How many times can the\u00a0liar lie, before people stop believing? Thousands of Russian tanks and soldiers passing into Ukraine, where they become invisible and only NATO spokesmen can see…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/03\/russia-invaded-ukraine-and-iran-will-make-a-nuclear-bomb-again.html","og_site_name":"L'Ordre","article_published_time":"2015-03-07T23:00:07+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-03-13T21:45:47+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/stopwar.org.uk\/images\/news\/ukraine_russian_tanks_460.jpg"}],"author":"Harry J. Bentham","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/03\/russia-invaded-ukraine-and-iran-will-make-a-nuclear-bomb-again.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/03\/russia-invaded-ukraine-and-iran-will-make-a-nuclear-bomb-again.html","name":"Russia invaded Ukraine and Iran will make a nuclear bomb... again? - L'Ordre","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/03\/russia-invaded-ukraine-and-iran-will-make-a-nuclear-bomb-again.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/03\/russia-invaded-ukraine-and-iran-will-make-a-nuclear-bomb-again.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/stopwar.org.uk\/images\/news\/ukraine_russian_tanks_460.jpg","datePublished":"2015-03-07T23:00:07+00:00","dateModified":"2015-03-13T21:45:47+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#\/schema\/person\/576f5919c442d93e18909ed47628846e"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/03\/russia-invaded-ukraine-and-iran-will-make-a-nuclear-bomb-again.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/03\/russia-invaded-ukraine-and-iran-will-make-a-nuclear-bomb-again.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/03\/russia-invaded-ukraine-and-iran-will-make-a-nuclear-bomb-again.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/stopwar.org.uk\/images\/news\/ukraine_russian_tanks_460.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/stopwar.org.uk\/images\/news\/ukraine_russian_tanks_460.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/03\/russia-invaded-ukraine-and-iran-will-make-a-nuclear-bomb-again.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Russia invaded Ukraine and Iran will make a nuclear bomb… again?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/","name":"L'Ordre","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Harry Bentham","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#\/schema\/person\/576f5919c442d93e18909ed47628846e","name":"Harry J. Bentham","description":"Harry J. Bentham is a British futurist blogger who has been a contributor at a number of think tanks including the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies since 2013. His work at Press TV and the L'Ordre blog featured at the multi-faith Beliefnet website has gained increasing attention and praise, including in the international media. Commentaries on political and ethical controversies by Bentham have been published at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, H+ Magazine, Dissident Voice and numerous other publications. He edits The clubof.info Blog (http:\/\/www.clubof.info\/search\/label\/Harry_J_Bentham).","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Harry-J.-Bentham\/e\/B00D4MSEY0\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/author\/hbentham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/577"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":572,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566\/revisions\/572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}