Posted by Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin can be watched at the following link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOCWBhuDdDo
I like Tucker Carlson and I think he is a smart cookie. I also think that Vladimir Putin is a very intelligent man.
Carlson’s interview avoided the key confrontational issues. The opening question should have been: “Mr. Putin, why did you order the invasion of a sovereign neighboring country, a UN member state?” Judging from Putin’s other responses he would probably have replied: “Ukraine is not a sovereign country. It has always been part of Russia. Both politically and culturally.” That reply would not have been supported by the historical facts. But what else could Putin have said?
When Carlson asked Putin if he would invade Poland, Putin said he would not do that because it “is not in Russia’s interest”. In other words: Putin deems any action he takes as justified as long as the action reflects the best interest of Russia – or what he thinks that is. This shows clearly that Putin is a “Realpolitiker”: He acts within the limits of what his power allows him to do. Considerations such as the right of a nation to exist as an independent nation state or limitations of international law are irrelevant to him.
Let us remind ourselves that Putin’s “Rasputin” or ideological ear whisperer is Alexander Dugin, a man who has promoted “Eurasianism”, an ideology that seeks to unite Europe and Asia, with Russia as the hegemon, and that is opposed to Western “Atlanticism”. Essentially a modern extension of Russian imperialism. Let us also not forget how this all started. It began with the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which than expanded and step by little step, subdued Asian and Eastern European nations and their countries piece by little piece. England stitched together its colonial empire by sea, Russia put hers together on land.
Dugin draws heavily on Nazi authors and thinkers such as Karl Haushofer, Hitler’s chief ideologist and mysticism guru, Martin Heidegger, and Carl Schmitt. What Arian supremacy was for the Nazis, Slavophilia is for the Eurasianists. When, in his younger years, Dugin performed publicly, he used the pseudonym “Hans Sievers”. This was in honor of the former Reichsgeschäftsführer, Wolfram Sievers, the director of the Ahnenerbe, which was an organization established by Heinrich Himmler to research paranormal and mystical phenomena. The real Sievers was hanged in 1947 after being found guilty at the Nuremberg trials of gruesome experiments on concentration camp prisoners. This loathsome character provided the basis for Dugin’s alter-ego. Do we see a connection between Nazi-Imperialism and Russian imperialism here? Dugin is reported to have frequently used the Hitler salute and he spouted songs like this:
Forward men, violent and rude We are inspired by the swastika in the night. We see how your dead bodies dance the tango in the gas oven. How nice and fresh the roses As happy and cheerful as the Russian forest On the last journey on the Via Dolorosa Goes the SS division. (Charles Clover, Black Wind, White Snow (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), p. 160
The ideological closeness between Eurasianism and Naziism is shown even in their symbolism. Here is a flag of Hitler’s NAZI Party next to the flag of Dugin’s National Bolshevist Party. Do we detect a slight similarity here?
And then we hear in the Carlson/Putin interview that Putin argues that he had to invade Ukraine so as to put an end to Naziism there. This would be ridiculous if it were not so perfidious and patently false. Yes, the Ukrainians collaborated with the Germans during WWII. They did so, because they had experienced Russian Bolshevism and Soviet imperialism as worse than Nazi rule. That Ukrainians had to make a choice between two evils and decided against the Russians, does not make them Nazis.
We all know where Carlson is coming from. He is against the US supporting the war in Ukraine. Is Biden supporting it only to hide his dirty clothes? Be that as it may, there would not be a war in Ukraine, if Russia had not invaded Georgia and Crimea with no pushback from the (Obama) USA and NATO and if Russia had not invaded Ukraine, an action, which Putin obviously deemed to be in Russia’s best interest.
It is pretty clear that Putin is trying to stich back together the former Soviet Russian empire, which was a re-run of the former Tzarist Russian empire. Apparently, he believed that the Ukrainians would have a spontaneous understanding for legitimate Russian power interests and would simply roll over and let Putin have his will. There seems to be a measure of indignation in Putin’s attitude over Ukraine’s renitence.
Apparently, Carlson wants to end American support for Ukraine. I agree with that in part. I think that, geostrategically, Russia’s moves to establish itself as the Eurasian hegemon again are a bigger and more direct threat to Europe than to the USA. We should therefore expect the European countries to carry the brunt of the burden of support for Ukraine. But if it matters little to the USA who dominates Eurasia, why then did the USA go to war against Hitler’s Germany?
Carlson wants America to focus on securing its southern border and stopping the uncontrolled influx of illegal aliens. So do I. But supporting Ukraine and securing our southern border are not mutually exclusive. They are complementary tasks, and we must do them both.
Our government spends tons of money on complete BS. And it is all inflationary spending anyway. We need to spend more money; we print more money. To close our southern border is not predicated on ceasing to support Ukraine. We could very well do both, if we just stopped spending billions on green energy and climate engineering. Our immigration laws are not broken. It is our own government that willfully breaks our immigration laws in hopes that all those illegal invaders can soon be made citizens (Kamala Harris: “a path to citizenship”) and will then, out of deep-felt gratitude toward their Democrat accommodators, become eternal Democratic voters whose votes will guarantee that the Democratic Party will stay in power for generations to come.
Carlson’s interview with Putin reminds me painfully of Neville Chamberlain’s tea talk with Hitler in Munich in 1938. He agreed that Hitler should be permitted to annex the Sudentenland and Hitler agreed that Germany would not have any further territorial demands in Europe. (Putin: “Russia has no interest in Poland.” The Poles beg to differ!) Chamberlain misjudged Hitler completely calling him “entirely undistinguished.” He waved a piece of paper with Hitler’s signature, which he considered “Peace for our time”.
Like Hitler, Putin is a power politician. He cares not about laws, international rules, agreements, or rights. He will always do what he has the power to do and stop only when opposed by superior power or motivated by overruling interests. The interview shows just that, and any realistic observer of Putin’s actions knew it from the get-go. One wonders what Carlson tried to accomplish with the interview. Certainly not to convey known facts or to corroborate preexisting views. Carlson is too smart for that. I think I know: It was a once in a lifetime opportunity for Vladimir Putin to promote Tucker Carlson. A Putin/Carlson commercial.
In conclusion I would like to point out a rather ironic coincidence. The Russian name “Vladimir” and the Ukrainian name “Volodymyr” mean the same. They both mean “Ruler of Peace”. However, the divergence in spellings reflects distinct approaches to “ruling”: Vladimir seeks dominion through force, while Volodymyr strives for peace and cooperation. Maybe before his next interview with Putin, Tucker Carlson should read up some more about Russian history, Eurasianism, Dugin, and the differences between the Russian and Ukrainian languages.
A Russian proverb sums it all up: “Когда видите, что это солома, что спрашиваете?” – “If you see that it’s straw, what are you asking?”