Toward an honorable Ukraine ceasefire

by | Mar 11, 2022 | 5 comments

Here are some suggested win-win steps that Kyiv, Moscow or Washington should take to shut down the Russo-Ukrainian war. These steps are designed to initially be taken by just one government so that they can be taken NOW. Each of these moves would “succeed even if they fail” and would stand a good chance of moving the conflict toward an honorable ceasefire. 

Now that they have had some successes against the Russian government…Washington or Kyiv should make a tiny humanitarian gesture or other conciliatory gesture aimed at sparking a response-in-kind. For instance, a small-scale prisoner release or slight reduction in some sanction that only hurts the people. This should be videotaped and done with much fanfare. It should involve an implicit request for the enemy to reciprocate, in some tiny popular way. If Moscow fails to reciprocate, this will enrage the world further and strengthen Kyiv or Washington’s positions.  And the gesture can always be repeated in some new form until it works.  If Moscow does reciprocate, that opens the door for Kyiv or Washington to make a new, larger ameliorative gesture and so on. The goal should be an “escalating” series of conciliatory gestures until the shooting is much reduced. Each side should  gain a benefit each step of the way regardless of how the other side reacts.

Moscow, for its part, should not wait for western governments to do this. It should propose and implement a small unilateral ameliorative gesture of its own, also well publicized. Western media censorship of Moscow’s statements…is becoming a serious problem, however. They can always call FreeTalkLive.com and reach 200,000 people!

This idea of “escalating humanitarian gestures” is a long shot, at least coming from a not-very-important-person like me. But back channels may have saved the world during the Cuban crisis. Maybe this will inspire someone more influential to try a back channel of their own or forward this simple idea.

Moscow has proven it can wreak enormous damage and is willing to do so when you move your empire too close to Russia.   Various territories are now its to lose, and the sooner the fighting stops the less chance it loses them all…or loses everything in a cloud of ICBM’s.

Ukraine has already proven it can fight in the best traditions of Estonia’s war of independence and Finland’s Winter War.  The West and/or Ukraine could easily aim for objectives similar to those which the Finns successfully achieved, during their solo war with Moscow in 1940: Capture the world’s imagination, be its heroes, put up a stunning fight, but limit and end the war in a negotiated settlement which gives Moscow enough ground to bury its dead. Finland’s Winter War was technically a draw, but it put Finland on the map as a place not to mess with and drew a line against USSR expansion.  Ukraine is already on the path to accomplishing this, if it can just figure out how, when and where to stop.

These are not pro-freedom objectives par se, but they would end the war (and perhaps the nuclear exchange likelihood) without appeasement.  No one today would argue that the Finns “appeased” Moscow; they disemboweled its army as Ukraine is now doing.

Once the shooting stops, or at least is dramatically reduced, the long path toward toward Ukrainian healing and world progress can continue.

Dave Ridley
NHexit.com

Ukraine no fly zone: Insanity of the First Magnitude

by | Mar 4, 2022 | 11 comments

While out here trying to do my bit against the Kremlin’s re-incarnation of September 1, 1939…It’s important to raise concerns about some of the apocalyptic Moscow-fighting ideas that are getting put on the table in the excitement. It’s shocking my fellow Kremlin foes are advocating a U.S. led no-fly zone over Ukraine. This is a move which has perhaps 10 percent chance of ending civilization as we know it, since it would require direct, large-scale combat between the U.S. and Russia…inside Russia!

The real solution is deadly but a lot less deadly: Peaceable civil resistance inside Russia, at the discretion of Russians. Guerilla war and civil resistance inside Ukraine, funded, peopled and supplied from across the globe. The Kremlin can be beaten, but it has to be without direct conflict between the two top nuclear powers. This is a long established and proven concept; it’s already been done once in much tougher circumstances. Ideally it should happen at private rather than taxpayer expense, definitely without foreign military presence; each of us does need to do our bit without waiting for governments. We also need to do our bit to prevent Russian bystanders from suffering and prevent the Resistance from going nuclear. Most people are probably reluctant to say this; maybe I can say it since I was a volunteer inside Bosnia during that one and am hopefully doing my part for Ukrainians and friendly Russians during this one.

Dave Ridley
NHexit.com
“Independence without enmity”

NHexit.com statement on Kremlin invasion of Ukraine

by | Feb 25, 2022 | 298 comments

1) The Russian government’s act of all-out conventional war is wildly excessive. Any individual or voluntarily funded institution wishing to help defend Ukraine against this overstep is far within their rights, recent Kremlin threats against this non-withstanding.

2) The initial success of the attack on this Western-leaning nation…is a reminder that Washington cannot be relied on to defend New Hampshire. Counterintuitive as is sounds, NH would be better off – and the Western world should benefit – if we handled own defense and diplomacy. Instead of being tied the weirdly aggressive-yet-impotent D.C. zombie, we would find a wide range of better options for our security. These range from the happily de-militarized neutrality of Costa Rica to the gun-heavy but non-aligned preparedness of Switzerland. We would also have the option of doing something better for future nations-under-threat like Ukraine: We could insist that any government we ally ourselves with…free its own people from invasion-enabling gun control laws:

https://freekeene.com/2022/01/14/the-porcupine-peace-plan-how-nh-independence-could-boost-american-security-and-stop-armageddon/

3) Ukraine’s government has made this invasion practical by doing something most European governments and even American governments are still doing: They limited the private possession/carry of firearms up until the week of the invasion, when they finally let civilians carry them without permission. This is roughly what happened in the ill-fated Spanish Republic during the 1936 war. Ukrainians are now reported to be desperately mobbing gun stores, for good reason but probably too late. GunPolicy.org lists Ukraine as having only 7 civilian firearms per 100 persons…a foreign invader’s dream. Civilians in the average U.S. state, including New Hampshire, reportedly possess over 115 per 100.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_in_Ukraine

4) Washington has unnecessarily provoked Moscow over the last 30 years. By moving NATO so close to Russian borders and arguably sponsoring a Ukrainian coup in 2014, it ignored the Rodina’s security concerns. Since 2001 especially, it has bombed, blockaded and invaded many nations with little good reason but much abuse of local civilians. It has cast away the relative ethical high ground, against the wishes of most New Hampshirites. It has also become a direct physical threat to all of us with its unconstitutional rules and raids inside our libertarian-leaning state. It has become incapable of credibly condemning Russia’s actions the way it did during the Kremlin’s invasion of Finland in 1939.

5) U.S. ruler Joe Biden’s statement of Feb. 24, 2022 is partially worthy of condemnation: “Putin chose this war, and now he and his country will bear the consequences.” By speaking in this manner, he equated the Russian people with their quasi-dictator…that would be like equating General Franco with the Catalan anarchists he so victimized in the Spanish Civil War. Individual Russians and the Russian nation should be treated as potential allies against Putin; many have already risked their lives this week to protest against him

6) New Hampshire, unlike Switzerland and Costa Rica, is currently on the nuclear target list as a result of its membership in the United States system. This would be one thing if the U.S. were generally in the right and generally humane. It is not and thus is not worthy of *our* lives. Both D.C. and Moscow deserve opposition; neither deserve support.

7) Moscow’s move may be designed to divert attention from a planned attack on Taiwan, where invasion-friendly gun laws are even more severe than Ukraine’s.

8) The appropriate New Hampshire move is to peaceably declare independence from the U.S. (as Rep. Sylvia’s current legislation at Concord is attempting to do). Then it should set a clean foreign policy of its own crafting. This policy should be one that does not overextend and does not aggress but does keep faith with foreign allies by insisting (as a minimum condition of continued partnership) that their governments end all the gun controls they are imposing on their people.

Dave Ridley
NHexit.com
“Independence without enmity”


The Constitutional Case for NH Independence (CACR 32)

by | Jan 28, 2022 | 6 comments

This is an e-mail I sent to NH state reps around Jan 26, 2022.

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RepFolk: Here are some reasons you should feel “Constitutionally comfortable” voting for CACR 32…the right of the people to vote on whether we keep being ruled by an empire that starts a new war at our expense every three years or so.

What’s nice about the U.S. Constitution is that you generally don’t have to be a “Constitutional scholar” to understand it.

1) The Tenth Amendment makes the U.S. Constitution innocent of banning independence, until proven guilty. It reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” By default, “the powers,” thus includes the power of states and/or their voters to divorce D.C. In order for the U.S. to lawfully wield a power preventing that, such power would have to be “delegated to the United States by the Constitution.” Where does that Constitution clearly grant such power to D.C.? Why are the “anti-independence” Constitutional passages cited so unclear on this question when compared to the clarity of “The Tenth?”

2) Even if we were to assume, for the sake of discussion, that the Constitutional arguments against independence were valid…that leaves a different problem for Remainers. No one could credibly argue that the U.S. government has complied with its Constitution…not even during the last two hours, let alone the last two centuries. Have they voided their contract, perhaps millions of times? If they are not required to follow their Constitution, why are we?

3) If one could argue that the U.S. Constitution forbids the public from voting on independence this year, one could just as easily argue that the pre-existing NH Constitution *demands* it this year. Article 10 reads: “…whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government.” Has Washington endangered – or not endangered – “public liberty?” Are you currently able to “redress” your grievances with D.C.?

4) You face, perhaps for the first time, legislation which would actually end the central government’s practice of running employment bans and overseas TORTURE CHAMBERS* at NH taxpayer expense. Why have some of your House colleagues apparently picked *this* moment to begin pretending they follow either Constitution?

Dave Ridley
NHexit.com
“Independence without enmity”

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagram_torture_and_prisoner_abuse