No – Not simply Russian Imperialism Has Triggered Warfare in Ukraine
The issue with any conflict is that each side at all times consider they’re proper. On this age of digital communication and complicated instruments designed to distort actuality, each side additionally closely put money into propaganda. Those that try to introduce nuance whereas a battle is raging are usually bullied by one of many sides to fall into line, as we identified in our evaluation of an astonishing interview by a Western journalist of India’s Minister of Exterior Affairs, Dr. S Jaishankar. In occasions of conflict, perspective itself turns into the enemy.
A long time after the ultimate victory or peace treaties, historians might calmly assess the occasions that led as much as a conflict, tease out the play of rivalries that triggered it, elucidate the financial and cultural components that outlined its emotional character and assess the influence of the the personalities concerned in launching and prosecuting the conflict. Such analyses, when performed by goal historians, reveal advanced networks of that means and a number of components hidden from public view on the time of the conflict. The “fact” regarding the causes of any conflict can by no means be absolutely described. Extra considerably, for a real historian, it will probably by no means be lowered to a easy attribution of blame.
The title of a well-argued article by Bhaskar Majumdar that appeared on Truthful Observer every week in the past illustrates a threat that has turn into all too widespread in at the moment’s journalism. It’s the temptation to cut back the evaluation of each battle to a easy blame sport. Its final purpose is to establish a single particular person who will bear the brunt of the blame. Who can overlook the evil Saddam Hussein, purveyor of weapons of mass destruction so deviously hidden nobody might ever discover them? Our flesh pressers and media defined how he needed to be eradicated to usher in a wonderful interval of peace and prosperity that may inevitably comply with. Or Muammar al-Qaddafi? Or Bashar al-Assad? To say nothing of Ho Chi Minh, Salvador Allende or Hugo Chavez, who had been by no means elevated to completely Satanic standing however nonetheless grew to become the main focus of a noble fight to switch pure evil with unadulterated good.
Russian Imperialism, Not NATO Enlargement, Brought on the Ukraine Warfare
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Not one of the circumstances cited above ended effectively. So why do our legislators and media persist in the identical vein even at the moment? Is it only a lazy behavior or is there a novel technique this time round? Psychologists perceive that attributing blame to 1 group of individuals for some social, political or financial sick is straightforward to do. In the future it’s Mexicans and one other, Asians, Arabs, Russians, Jews or just immigrants usually. Animosity in direction of such teams clearly turns into exaggerated in occasions of conflict. However we also needs to bear in mind that, even in occasions of peace, this tendency persists. It’s on the core of each type of racism.
To efficiently stir the emotion of the inhabitants of any nation dedicated to conflict, propagandists can not rely solely on suspicion or hatred of the group alone. An efficient conflict mentality requires two different important components that can turn into the muse of each efficient effort of propaganda. The primary is an ideological hole, an element of cultural differentiation that claims to explain what one other group of individuals believes in or is dedicated to. The second has turn into much more essential on this age of media celebrities. It’s the deal with a single persona to bear the blame. Eliminating that agent of evil will restore purity to the world.
Ideology may be many issues. It may even be assembled from numerous elements. These embody faith, language, financial concept (capitalism vs. communism), implicit or express ethical codes, and elegance of presidency (e.g. democracy vs. autocracy). The ideology needn’t be actual within the sense that it’s consciously embraced by all or perhaps a majority. It may merely be a handy label primarily based on formally inculcated aspirations. In at the moment’s Western anti-Russian propaganda, the popular selection for labelling the ideology combines one summary notion, “autocracy,” and one supposedly concrete actuality, “Russian imperialism.” Each notions seem slightly nebulous, a simplistic formulation of a much more advanced actuality. The important thing to believing that they quantity to an ideology is the identification of a singular and consummate evil-doer, whose thoughts is targeted on that credo. The arch-villain who embodies the ideology we’re licensed to hate at the moment is in fact Vladimir Putin.
How nuance may be overtaken by simplification
In his article, Majumdar makes quite a few pertinent factors concerning the Russian context that assist make clear some key features of the battle. He evokes the background to the battle and acknowledges its complexity. He additionally reminds readers of the tendency, in occasions of propaganda, to revert “subconsciously, if not consciously” to the reflex developed through the Chilly Warfare. He describes it as placing “issues in simple views: a binary black and white, the US towards Russia, us versus them.”
After this promising begin, the temper adjustments. In the middle of the article Majumdar even seems to contradict himself. He slowly builds as much as a place that denies the very nuance and perspective he promoted within the opening paragraphs. In direction of the tip of the article, he simplifies historical past to the very sample of black vs. white that he earlier warned towards. How else might we interpret this pair of assertions? “US President Joe Biden might have been at fault in Afghanistan however he isn’t at fault for Ukraine. Putin is the person chargeable for this battle.” Again to the Manichean blame sport.
How did the writer slide into the type of reasoning he derided? He commits three widespread errors of pseudo-historical reasoning that deserve our consideration. They are often seen as illustrative of the method by which, in occasions of armed battle, propaganda falls, “subconsciously, if not consciously” into place. The primary is logical, the subsequent, linguistic. The third is what literary critics name the “intentional fallacy.”
Within the very first sentence Majumdar aptly calls into query “the favored narrative of the Chilly Warfare.” He identifies it with George W. Bush’s well-known assertion: “In case you are not with us, you’re towards us.” In different phrases, it reduces an issue to 2 competing and mutually unique narratives, one among which will probably be thought-about proper or good, and the opposite incorrect or evil. At this level, we’d count on the article to spotlight the significance of nuance and complexity in its evaluation of the battle in Ukraine. Nuance implies that attribution of an absolute ethical high quality to any place is prone to be inaccurate. Complexity means two issues. The primary is that there’ll probably be different components that can inevitably result in formulating greater than two competing and mutually unique explanations. However, regardless of the variety of causes recognized, even after they appear contradictory, they could show to be complementary. For instance, Russia’s motivation could also be concurrently imperialistic (expansive) and anti-imperialistic (countering NATO’s growth). Deciding on one and ignoring or suppressing the opposite is what propaganda usually does.
Majumdar seems to veer in direction of propaganda when, after evoking the truth that the US is likely to be justifiably blamed for “neo imperialism and extra,” he tries to reply the query that seems after the subheading: “US Provocation or Russian Imperialism?” His argument begins with a curiously hesitant assertion about blame for the conflict. “A few of the fashionable narrative in lots of nations is that the US is chargeable for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a minimum of partially.”
Why “some” of the narrative? And why “fashionable narrative?” What does this convey? It’s clearly dismissive of the thought he hasn’t even begun to elucidate. It is step one within the logical error of lowering the advanced to a easy opposition and discarding one of many phrases of the binary pair by branding it illegitimate. As an alternative of exploring the relative benefit of two views of the battle, this paragraph presents them as mutually unique hypotheses, one among which should be eradicated from consideration. There’s a easy option to be made: Russia is accountable or the US is accountable (although presumably solely “partly”). In different phrases, the reader is confronted with a formulation equivalent to the Chilly Warfare logic that the writer critiqued as simplistic in his first paragraph.
To make his case for putting the blame on one aspect solely, the writer astonishingly writes: “John Mearsheimer, professor on the College of Chicago, has popularized this line of thought.” It is a curious and slightly disingenuous linguistic trick. Those that are conversant in Mearsheimer know that he’s a really severe tutorial who, regardless of the curiosity of doing so, isn’t invited by the favored media to make clear public points. In different phrases, opposite to Majumdar’s assertion, he has by no means “popularized” something.
With a verbal sleight of hand the writer places the political scientist’s well-researched evaluation into the class of “fashionable narrative.” That is each an unjustified factual distortion and, by way of logic, a class error. Its impact is to dismiss Mearsheimer’s very severe contribution to a difficulty of monumental significance for all of humanity by invoking a misattributed adjective: “fashionable.” Mearsheimer as a author of pulp fiction?
Majumdar is under no circumstances a propagandist, however this type of confusion of phrases and classes is exactly what propaganda encourages. To be honest, the writer’s assimilation of the ambient propaganda is most certainly unconscious, if not unconscious within the Freudian sense. However that’s how propaganda works, as Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, defined in his personal guide, Propaganda. The phrase propaganda in Latin means “issues which are unfold or propagated” via the cultural ambiance. Which means we’re all of the designated receivers. That ought to remind us why in occasions of propaganda, when the Chilly Warfare mentalities Majumdar describes are creating, it is very important apply logical and linguistic rigor to every little thing one receives. Even that gained’t make us immune.
What Mearsheimer says
Majumdar takes Mearsheimer to job for daring to counsel that NATO’s eastward growth may need provoked the Ukraine conflict. He implies that the distinguished College of Chicago professor has mistakenly (if not treasonously) chosen the opposite camp within the binary selection regarding the attribution of blame. However Mearsheimer by no means hesitates to qualify Russia’s invasion as unlawful and an unambiguous act of aggression. What he refuses to just accept, as a result of historical past makes the case clear, is the actually unprovoked concept that Putin’s aggression was unprovoked. Western propaganda, echoing the White Home and State Division, has created a Pavlovian affiliation between Russia’s invasion and the adjective, “unprovoked.” In so doing, it dismisses with a swipe of the hand a long time of historic proof simply obtainable to anybody even mildly interested by occasions within the area, particularly over the previous eight years.
The purpose Mearsheimer has been making for a few years is just that this battle was predictable. As a result of meteorologists examine the situations of stress, temperature and humidity, they’ll moderately precisely predict the dynamics that can outline the forecast for days and even weeks to come back. One of many major components Mearsheimer targeted on was the evolving perspective and actions of the West, and extra notably the USA because the reigning hegemon. Telling that story on no account resembles “a well-liked narrative.” As an alternative, it’s a fancy bundle of info contained inside a systemic chain of occasions. And the US has persistently performed a significant position at each part.
In a second and maybe even extra astonishing class error, Majumdar dismisses Mearsheimer’s evaluation as “curiously imperial.” Maybe he believes that Mearsheimer is a “helpful fool” or a Kremlin stooge. Is he suggesting that Mearsheimer seeks to justify a Russian plan of imperial conquest for which there isn’t a proof aside from the invasion of Ukraine itself, which may be extra simply and neatly defined because the response to a really actual marketing campaign to develop NATO proper as much as Russia’s border?
To buttress his case, Majumdar cites the issues of the Baltic nations primarily based on the historical past of their relations with tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union. In so doing, he seems to counsel that there’s some type of important character trait in Russian civilization that requires it to behave as an imperial energy and to repeat equivalent or a minimum of related actions that passed off in fully totally different historic situations. There could also be some fact to this when learning the lengthy period, however basing the speculation on the sentiments of the neighbors slightly than the phrases and actions of the agent can’t be thought-about proof. In any case, Russia by no means reacted “imperially” to the Baltic states’ integration to NATO, regardless of seeing it as a damaged promise by the USA.
Although cultural continuity will at all times be an element that performs out over the long run, making such suppositions about Russian imperialism fails to acknowledge that the trendy Russian state is essentially totally different from each tsarist Russia and the USSR, simply as the trendy French republic and Britain’s parliamentary democracy now not operate as absolute monarchies, whereas nonetheless retaining quite a few vestiges of the custom of aristocratic privilege and colonial attain.
Because the chief of the college of realism in geopolitical evaluation, Mearsheimer focuses not on imprecise fears and historic recollections, however on how energy is structured, the instruments it possesses and the way it makes use of them. He seeks to detect patterns and legal guidelines that inform us how the ability sport will play out, given what we all know concerning the enjoying discipline and the belongings of the groups. Simply as empirical science constructs hypotheses, predicts results and attracts conclusions on the idea of the success or failure of the empirical info, prediction performs a basic position in political science.
Correct prediction, when it’s taken critically, can render a significant pragmatic service. It may facilitate prevention. Forewarned is forearmed, says the proverb. In distinction, as Hamlet famous, “taking arms towards a (predicted) sea of troubles” in the end results in being drowned within the tsunami. Mearsheimer claims his predictions might have spared us the drowning Ukraine is now present process. Anybody enterprising sufficient to seek the advice of his predictions from so long as seven years in the past would discover how correct they’ve been. We’re witnessing a battle that, in a number of methods, is now threatening the world. Western propagandists appear extra tempted by the speculation Hamlet correctly rejected: on this case, the West’s determination to massively present “arms towards a sea of troubles.”
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Mearsheimer is neither a politician nor a propagandist. He has no canine within the struggle, no stake within the sport. None, that’s, aside from his quest for scientific readability. Up to now, he has usually sinned on the aspect of selling American hegemony. However that’s exactly why he, as an American patriot, has persistently mobilized his capability for scientific remark not with a view to condemning or excusing different empires, however within the curiosity of enhancing the possibilities of preserving US hegemony, which he admits has supplied him with a lifestyle he has said on many events that he appreciates.
Is there a distinction between hegemony and empire?
The identical can not at all times be mentioned of Mearsheimer’s critics. That is particularly of those that possess – or slightly appear possessed by – an imperial slightly than a merely hegemonic mindset. As a result of whether or not or not Russia, with its already giant landmass and unimpressive financial system, has imperial ambitions, it’s clear that the US has persistently had such ambitions, and by no means extra so than previously 75 years, a interval wherein it consciously took over Britain’s position of dominant Western empire.
Hegemony, Mearsheimer’s focus, or empire? What’s the distinction between these two related notions? Hegemony is about relative geopolitical affect, the well-known “steadiness of energy” that regulates issues in any world or intensive system of relationships that admits of a “rule of legislation” or, on the very least, a “legislation of guidelines.” The thought of hegemony depends on and implies a respect for authority. Empire, in distinction, is about exercising management and exploiting assets. Respect of any authority aside from its personal, if it exists, is secondary. Empire is pushed by its capability to extract wealth from different components of the world and implement the obedience of different peoples. Hegemony is summary; empire is concrete. Thus there could be a science of hegemony however solely a historical past of empire. The primary is a sport, the second, a racket.
Mearsheimer justly claims to be a political scientist. He analyzes habits, however as a revered mental – in distinction with opportunistic suppose tank lecturers and consultants – he usually doesn’t search to immediately affect or alter different folks’s or his personal authorities’s habits. He nonetheless hopes his work will have an effect on political decision-making, however makes no particular effort to border insurance policies and even much less to implement them. Essentially the most invaluable consequence of a real political scientist’s work is prediction, simply as probably the most invaluable consequence of a pure scientist’s work is the affirmation of legal guidelines of nature.
That’s the reason Majumdar’s declare that Mearsheimer has a “curiously imperial” mindset makes little sense. Predicting a habits primarily based on one’s understanding of bodily or psychological legal guidelines mixed with familiarity with context merely ought to by no means be interpreted as in any approach excusing the habits thus described or serving the pursuits of the celebration it describes. However that’s what authorities within the West have been doing systematically with anybody who suggests an alternative choice to their model of propaganda.
An correct prediction of an undesirable occasion ought to thus by no means be confused with consent. However that’s what Majumdar seems to be suggesting. Mearsheimer has been learning the state of affairs in Ukraine and talking about it publicly for the previous decade. Some at the moment are hailing him as a contemporary Nostradmus for predicting in eerily correct phrases the present conflict again in 2016. Is that what Majumdar means by a “curiously imperial” argument? One may say the identical factor of the soothsayer who informed Julius Caesar: “Beware the Ides of March.” That marked the historic second the Roman republic disappeared, to get replaced after years of civil conflict by the empire.
Majumdar persuasively begins his article like a political scientist however someplace alongside the road drifts right into a discourse that resembles propaganda. Statements resembling “US President Joe Biden might have been at fault in Afghanistan however he isn’t at fault for Ukraine” are doubly uncertain. First, with regard to Ukraine, it’s far too early to precisely allocate fault in such an extended, advanced story. As for Afghanistan, and no matter fault one can attribute to Biden, that’s much more advanced.
Biden’s relationship with occasions in Ukraine is in itself a fancy story. Anybody even vaguely conscious of the occasions main as much as and together with the Maidan rebellion in 2014 or who has heard the voice of US State Division’s Victoria Nuland in her hacked cellphone name with Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, will pay attention to Biden’s energetic position in Ukraine. On the time Barack Obama had made Biden his level man in Ukraine.
Is it actually stretching issues to suspect that Biden, even earlier than turning into president, had already been implicated within the occasions that led to the invasion? Did what occur within the Obama years don’t have anything to do with the occasions that accelerated as quickly as Biden was took over as president in January, 2021. Nitpickers might go additional and point out one other seemingly insignificant participant recognized to have performed a peripheral position within the drama: Hunter Biden. How peripheral was it? In brief, it’s far too early to let Biden off the hook for his potential private fault in Ukraine. Simply as many accused George W Bush of wanting to complete his father’s unfinished enterprise in Iraq, household relations might have one thing to do – nevertheless marginal – with the occasions which have unfolded in Ukraine over the previous eight years.
The paradox of phrases chosen to explain historic relationships
After categorically exculpating Biden, Majumdar focuses on what he represents because the distinctive fault of the Russians and Putin particularly. White Home and State Division propagandists can solely applaud.
Propaganda at all times makes use of the shifting and imperfectly perceived that means of phrases to create beliefs meant to distort actuality in methods which are slight sufficient that the general public is unlikely to note. Majumdar supplies an attention-grabbing instance when he casually calls NATO’s perspective with regard to Ukraine as “welcoming.” Let’s name this a beneficiant interpretation of a considerably much less palatable actuality. This verbal ploy elides the delicate distinction between a pair of associated actions: welcoming and alluring.
If Ukraine had merely requested to affix NATO, it will be honest to explain NATO’s place as “welcoming.” It’s even true that on the very starting, again in 2005, Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s president on the time, really did formulate a request to affix each NATO and the European Union. That set off a interval of debate, each inner and involving Russia, concerning the long-term implications of Ukraine becoming a member of NATO.
That debate was by no means resolved. However there was a vital second in 2008 when US President George W Bush insisted not on “welcoming” Ukraine however on actively inviting it to use for NATO membership. In actuality, Yushchenko’s earlier request itself had already been the outcome, not of the spontaneous want of Ukrainians, however of stress from the US that had already been increasing NATO. The initiative by the US with regard to Ukraine, not like the Baltic states, was persistently resisted by France and Germany, two main members of NATO.
Issues took a unique flip when the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych was elected president in 2010. The Ukrainian parliament voted particularly to exclude the purpose of integration into not simply NATO however to turning into a member of any army bloc. It’s a standing referred to as neutrality. The legislation nonetheless permitted and even inspired cooperation with alliances resembling NATO whereas selling the thought of becoming a member of the European Union.
The annoying complexity of historical past
In different phrases, on the finish of 2013, the standing of Ukraine was that of a nation that in 2008 had been invited to affix NATO by the US, although – and that is important – not by Europe. However as a result of Ukraine itself had declined the invitation, the query of being welcomed grew to become moot.
On the finish of 2013 – as is now effectively documented – the CIA stepped in (not for the primary time) to assist foment the protests that had begun peacefully however had been turning into more and more violent, This was the direct impact of the American initiative of “welcoming” the participation of Ukraine’s ultra-nationalist teams, recognized for his or her extremist neo-Nazi tradition and their style for brutality. The technique labored. This grew to become clear when the elected president Yanukovych fled the nation, leaving it within the succesful palms of a band of political actors vetted and briefed by the US State Division.
The remainder of the story is well-known to anybody who even vaguely adopted occasions in Ukraine. A corrupt billionaire absolutely conscious of the US agenda was elected president. Petro Poroshenko served out his five-year time period presiding over a deeply kleptocratic state. With a civil conflict raging within the east and corruption put in as a lifestyle, he nonetheless managed to turn into unpopular sufficient to be voted out of workplace in 2019 in favor of a comic book actor who satisfied 73% of Ukrainian voters that he can be extra competent than the incumbent. Or a minimum of that he can be much less corrupt, just like the president he performed on tv. Furthermore, Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised to be the outsider able to doing what Poroshenko had been unwilling to do: collaborate with Russia, Germany and France on making use of the Minsk accords that granted autonomy throughout the Ukrainian state to the disputed Russian-speaking areas of the east.
Majumdar simplifies issues within the excessive when he describes Putin’s ambitions in these phrases: “Working a kleptocratic regime, this authoritarian chief must squash a democratic Ukraine.” That is half appropriate. Russia is certainly kleptocratic and authoritarian, however not more than – and a few may declare even lower than – any of the regimes which have been put in in Kyiv since 1991. Ukraine isn’t any extra a democracy than Russia itself and has by no means discovered a approach of recovering sturdy political or financial stability for the reason that collapse of the Soviet Union. It is likely to be extra lifelike to rewrite Majumdar’s assertion with this formulation: “Working a kleptocratic regime, this authoritarian chief [Putin] must squash one other kleptocratic, authoritarian regime: Ukraine.” Of their majority, the Ukrainians undoubtedly need to be impartial of Russia, however they’ve by no means proven any aptitude for democracy.
The promoters of the conflict within the West by no means ask themselves why the US is so closely engaged in Ukraine? Are they so averse to killing or the methods of conflict? In that case, shouldn’t they’ve stepped in on Yemen’s aspect within the Saudi conflict on the Yemen republic?
When interrogated about the issue of organized crime within the US, many Individuals will shrug their shoulders and say, “Properly, a minimum of the Mafia basically kills its personal and leaves the remainder of us alone.” One may count on them to conclude that when two authoritarian neighbors in Japanese Europe start slaughtering one another on their very own disputed territory, why ought to we really feel involved to the purpose of funding their complete army?
That truly was President Barack Obama’s coverage. He famously informed The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg: ““The actual fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO nation, goes to be weak to army domination by Russia it doesn’t matter what we do.” As with every little thing regarding nations which have acquired the behavior of meddling within the affairs of others, this must be taken with a grain of salt. Obama mentioned it on the very second when his State Division was intrusively working within the wings to favor one of many two authoritarian rivals (Ukraine) over the opposite (Russia). To some extent washing his palms of this troubled zone, Obama delegated to his Vice President Joe Biden the duty of managing what had been basically covert operations of deep army engagement within the identify of NATO.
Majumdar’s informative article highlights some essential features of Russia’s and Putin’s authoritarian methods in addition to his typically unlawful and harmful actions. However when analyzing the causes of a fancy drama that has now turn into harmful for all of humanity, it’s at all times useful to chorus from simplistic explanations that depend on figuring out a blameworthy particular person. We at all times need to perceive the psychology of leaders responsible of aggression, however speculating about their “actual” motives and asserting that they clarify every little thing is exactly what propaganda does as a routine. That is very true when teasing out the causes of one thing that has turn into clearly rather more than simply “a significant geopolitical disaster.”
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As the times go by, the conflict in Ukraine more and more resembles the preliminary rumblings of World Warfare III. On the NATO summit within the closing days of June US President Biden responded to a query about how lengthy Individuals must help the excessive value of gasoline with these phrases: “So long as it takes, so Russia can not, actually, defeat Ukraine and transfer past Ukraine.”
Other than the message to Individuals that their consolation and well-being is much less essential than the federal government’s dedication to a international conflict, this may be interpreted in a number of methods. One risk is that this reveals what has been a sample for many years: the inclination of each US authorities to commit, although in a barely modified position, to yet one more endlessly conflict. It’s the responsibility of an empire to take care of a everlasting army presence in any respect strategic factors across the globe. Time in such endeavors isn’t a difficulty, particularly when, with no troops on the bottom, no Individuals are coming again house in physique luggage.
One other slightly extra shocking risk, is that this will point out a severe change of technique. The situations Biden evokes might presage the phrases of a negotiated settlement. If the tip of hostilities might be introduced formally not as a victory of Russia over Ukraine however as Ukraine’s heroic achievement of a newly outlined independence from Russia accompanied by the peace of mind that Russia would make no different territorial claims and settle for NATO on its borders all over the place besides Ukraine, everybody may save face. That rosy situation appears unlikely, given one other comment Biden made in the identical interview: “What occurs if the strongest energy, NATO, the organizational construction we put collectively, stroll[s] away from Russian aggression?”
A 3rd is that the US will proceed till it has put a dagger within the coronary heart of Russia, or a minimum of of Vladimir Putin. Which will clarify why the chit-chat within the West has more and more turned to issues of Putin’s naked chest. That lighthearted banter assumes that at no level would Russia, or the US itself, be tempted to make use of nuclear weapons able to compromising the survival of humanity itself. Or that, making the most of the confusion, Israel may take the initiative to nuke Iran or North Korea to nuke its personal chosen targets, only for the game of it.
When the way forward for the human race and the planet itself is at stake, providing simplistic takes on who’s at fault tends to be harmful slightly than constructive. Taking time to tease out all the main points — one thing John Mearsheimer and some others have been doing through the years – might be well worth the effort. We owe them our respect.
[Fair Observer invites its authors to dialogue with one another in the spirit of what we call a “crucible of collaboration.” In any crucible, things may get heated, but that is how good alloys are produced. The aim is to go beyond each contributor’s monologue to produce what may become a productive dialogue.]
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Truthful Observer’s editorial coverage.
