REFERENCE: The Soul of a Man (Part II)

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The following references are associated with Part II - The War » Preclude To War » The Soul Of A Man

NARRATIVE

The Man Named Putin

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

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer serving as the current president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime minister from 1999 to 2000 and from 2008 to 2012, and as president from 2000 to 2008 and since 2012. ... Putin worked as a KGB foreign intelligence officer for 16 years, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel before resigning in 1991 to begin a political career in Saint Petersburg.

 

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/11/13/vladimir-putin-has-shifted-from-autocracy-to-dictatorship

And Russians across the country are feeling the heat.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-has-been-in-5-wars-during-putins-reign-heres-what-you-should-know-about-them/ss-AA13zUyo

1999: War of Dagestan - The newly appointed Putin ordered Russian forces to level the Chechen capital of Grozny, and by early 2000 the city was reduced to rubble. 1999-2009: Second Chechen War - Early in the Second Chechen War, Putin established a pro-Russia government in Chechnya led by strongman Akhmad Kadyrov. When Kadyrov was assassinated in 2004, his son Ramzan Kadyrov took his place, and he remains the current leader of Chechnya and a close ally of Putin. 2008: Russo-Georgian War - Russia fabricated claims of a genocide carried out by Georgians in South Ossetia. In the two territories, Russian troops joined forces with Russian-backed separatists, and they invaded a militarily unprepared Georgia. Russia succeeded in taking control of the territories. 2009-2017: War in the North Caucasus - A Chechen independence movement continued alongside the fundamentalist Sunni nationalist organization, the Caucasus Emirate. The group, which developed ties to the Islamic State group and al-Qaida, aimed to drive out Russian influence in the North Caucasus and to establish Sharia law in the region. 2014-present: Russo-Ukraine War - Russian and Ukrainian troops began a standoff in Crimea, ending in the Russian military securing the territory. Putin claimed that ethnic Russians in Ukraine were in danger and needed Russian protection, claims not unlike those made regarding Georgia in 2008.

 

https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-russia-president-1999-chechnya-apartment-bombings/30097551.html

Felshtinsky, who now lives much of the time in the United States, said he believed the bombings were engineered by Russian security agencies to justify a new war in Chechnya, and to help bolster Putin’s credibility as a law-and-order leader. “In 2000, it was clear that the FSB blew up the buildings in order to declare war on the Chechen Republic, and this would result with Vladimir Putin being elected a tough leader,” he told RFE/RL.

 

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/06/john-bolton/did-vladimir-putin-call-breakup-ussr-greatest-geop/

"I think Putin knows that he has the high cards, militarily, economically and politically, and he’s prepared to use them," Bolton said. "He gave us notice of his strategy seven or eight years ago when he said, in what is now one of the most frequently repeated quotes from his leadership in Russia, when he said, ‘The breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.’ ...Putin, a veteran of the Soviet spy agency called the KGB, made the comments Bolton cites in an April 2005 state of the nation address to the country’s top politicians and parliament. A version is available in English from the Kremlin archives. Putin’s words vary depending on the translation, but the idea remains the same.

 

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-they-call-Germany-Fatherland-and-Russia-Motherland

In Russian it is both Motherland and Fatherland depending on the context. ... The Russian word for ‘fatherland’ or ‘homeland’ is otechestvo, which means ‘father-ness’: otsa = father, -stvo = an ending with the same function as English -hood, -ness, -ity, -ship etc. ... However, they also use the word rodina meaning ‘place of origin’ or motherland.

 

https://news.yahoo.com/what-the-west-doesnt-understand-about-russia-or-ukraine-215609030.html

“You have to understand, George. Ukraine is not even a country.” Those were the jarring — and, it would turn out, prescient — words uttered by Russian strongman Vladimir Putin in 2008, during a meeting with then-President George W. Bush. It was an unambiguous assertion of ownership over a sovereign nation, an assertion that has particular resonance 14 years later, as Putin has just recognized the independence of two Ukrainian regions and sent troops to bolster Russian-backed separatists.

 

https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/you-have-understand-george-ukraine-not-even-country

Thus spake Vladimir Putin to the second George Bush, the man who once said that he had looked into Putin's eyes and decided he could work with him.

 

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

George W. Bush was a Cub Scout. He sent a video message for the 2001 National Scout Jamboree, and spoke in person at the 2005 National Scout Jamboree.

 

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-repressive-aggressive-not-fascist/31794918.html

Nasty, Repressive, Aggressive -- Yes. But Is Russia Fascist? Experts Say 'No.'

 

https://www.newsweek.com/vladimir-putin-fascist-325534

A growing number of Russian analysts, in Russia and abroad, have taken to calling Vladimir Putin's regime "fascist." And they don't use the term casually or as a form of opprobrium. They mean that Putin's Russia genuinely resembles Mussolini's Italy or Hitler's Germany.

 

https://theconversation.com/yes-putin-and-russia-are-fascist-a-political-scientist-shows-how-they-meet-the-textbook-definition-179063

In contrast, Mussolini’s Italy and Xi Jinping’s China are clearly fascist, as were Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s USSR. Fascist states can thus be on the right and on the left.

 

https://www.brightworkresearch.com/did-putin-really-say-he-wants-to-reconstitute-the-soviet-union/

Putin walks the audience through the history of the Soviet Union and its dissolution. At the 1 minute 26-second point in the video, Putin states the following: "I have already commented on that: it makes no sense to restore the Soviet Union."

 

Fascism

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

The image has survived in the modern world as a representation of magisterial or collective power, law, and governance. The fasces frequently occurs as a charge in heraldry: it is present on the reverse of the U.S. Mercury dime coin and behind the podium in the United States House of Representatives; and it was the origin of the name of the National Fascist Party in Italy (from which the term fascism is derived).

 

https://www.nps.gov/places/washington-statue-vafo.htm

There were multiple cast bronze copies made using molds struck from the marble original, and the statue at Valley Forge was created in 1932 to celebrate the bicentennial of George Washington's birth. The statue was first acquired by the Washington Memorial Chapel and later transferred to Valley Forge National Historical Park.

 

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

From the latter half of the 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands, threatening war if these were not met. The Saarland voted by plebiscite to rejoin Germany in 1935, and in 1936 Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland, which had been demilitarized after World War I. Germany seized Austria in the Anschluss of 1938, and demanded and received the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia in that same year. In March 1939, the Slovak state was proclaimed and became a client state of Germany, and the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was established on the remainder of the occupied Czech Lands. Shortly after, Germany pressured Lithuania into ceding the Memel Territory. Germany signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union and invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, launching World War II in Europe

 

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

Aryanism is an ideology of racial supremacy which views the supposed Aryan race as a distinct and superior racial group which is entitled to rule the rest of humanity. Initially promoted by racist theorists such as Arthur de Gobineau and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Aryanism reached its peak of influence in Nazi Germany. In the 1930s and 40s, the regime applied the ideology with full force, sparking World War II with the 1939 invasion of Poland in pursuit of Lebensraum, or living space, for the Aryan people.

 

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

Following Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Lebensraum became an ideological principle of Nazism and provided justification for the German territorial expansion into Central and Eastern Europe. The Nazi policy Generalplan Ost (lit. 'Master Plan for the East') was based on its tenets. It stipulated that Germany required a Lebensraum necessary for its survival and that most of the indigenous populations of Central and Eastern Europe would have to be removed permanently (either through mass deportation to Siberia, extermination, or enslavement), including Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Czech, and other Slavic nations considered non-Aryan. The Nazi government aimed at repopulating these lands with Germanic colonists in the name of Lebensraum during and following World War II. Entire indigenous populations were decimated by starvation, allowing for their own agricultural surplus to feed Germany.

 

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-murder-of-people-with-disabilities

Many Germans did not want to be reminded of individuals who did not measure up to their concept of a "master race" and were considered "unfit" or "handicapped." People with physical and mental disabilities were viewed as "useless" to society, a threat to Aryan genetic purity, and, ultimately, "unworthy of life." At the beginning of World War II, individuals with mental or physical disabilities were targeted for murder in what the Nazis called the "T-4," or "euthanasia," program.

 

Russia Glasnost And Later Oppression

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

Glasnost has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, and so on. It has been used in Russian to mean "openness and transparency" since at least the end of the 18th century.

 

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

Formation 12 May 1976; 46 years ago Dissolved 25 January 2023

 

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-helsinki-group-closed/32239220.html

The Moscow City Court has ruled in favor of a Justice Ministry motion to dissolve the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), Russia's oldest and one of its last independent human rights organizations, amid a Kremlin campaign to muzzle criticism of the war in Ukraine.

 

https://editorials.voa.gov/a/russia-liquidates-memorial-international/6390645.html

On December 28, 2021, Russia’s Supreme Court ordered the closure of Memorial International Society. One day later, the Moscow City Court decided to shut down the group’s Memorial Human Rights Centre. With these decisions, Russian authorities attempted to silence Memorial, the country's oldest human rights association.

 

https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/13/russia-repression-escalates

Russian authorities unleashed a full-fledged witch hunt on civic groups, independent media and journalists, political opposition and other critics in the run-up to the parliamentary election in September 2021, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2022.

 

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

Chechnya declared full independence from Moscow in 1993 as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI).

 

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

On 10 October 1999, Maskhadov outlined a peace plan offering a crackdown on renegade warlords; the offer was rejected by the Russian side. He also appealed to NATO to help end fighting between his forces and Russian troops, without effect.

 

https://interestingliterature.com/2021/06/one-for-all-and-all-for-one-phrase-origins-meaning/

Which famous writer gave us the phrase ‘one for all, or all for one’? To make it easier, let’s make it multiple-choice. Was it: a) William Shakespeare; b) Alexandre Dumas; or c) Virgil?

 

Obama-Biden Under Putin Time

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

The United States Senate career of Joe Biden began on January 3, 1973, and ended on January 15, 2009. A member of the Democratic Party from the state of Delaware, Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972, and was sworn into office at the age of 30; he was later re-elected six times. He is Delaware's longest-serving U.S. senator.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/us/politics/18text-biden.html

Following is a statement issued by Senator Joseph Biden's office tonight upon his return from Georgia.

 

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/20/ukraine-deterrence-failed-putin-invasion/

When the Obama administration took office, his team sought to reset relations with Russia. In short order, the United States abandoned Bush administration plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, canceled sanctions against Russian arms sector, and reduced the U.S. presence in Europe. By 2013, there were no U.S. tanks on German soil, a historic end to a deterrent force that had been in place for nearly seven decades. U.S. Army troops across Europe shrunk to a historic low of 30,000, just one-tenth of the commitment during the Cold War.

 

-Ism Tidbits

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

Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and military power), but also soft power (cultural and diplomatic power).

 

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

Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their religion, language, economics, and other cultural practices

 

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

Fascism's extreme authoritarianism and nationalism often manifests as belief in racial purity or a master race, usually blended with some variant of racism or bigotry against a demonized "Other", such as Jews. These ideas have motivated fascist regimes to commit genocides, massacres, forced sterilizations, mass killings, and forced deportations.

 

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

The Heim ins Reich (meaning "back home to the Reich") was a foreign policy pursued by Adolf Hitler before and during World War II, beginning in 1938. The aim of Hitler's initiative was to convince all Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) who were living outside Nazi Germany (e.g. in Austria, Czechoslovakia and the western districts of Poland) that they should strive to bring these regions "home" into Greater Germany, but also relocate from territories that were not under German control, following the conquest of Poland, in accordance with the Nazi–Soviet pact.

 

China Fascist

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping#Political_positions

Often described as an authoritarian leader by political and academic observers, Xi's tenure has included an increase of censorship and mass surveillance, deterioration in human rights, including the internment of one million Uyghurs in Xinjiang (which some observers have described as part of a genocide), a cult of personality developing around Xi, and the removal of term limits for the presidency in 2018. Xi's political ideas and principles, known as Xi Jinping Thought, have been incorporated into the party and national constitutions, and he has emphasized the importance of national security and the need for CCP leadership over the country.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization#Xinjiang

Critics of China's treatment of Uyghurs have accused the Chinese government of propagating a policy of sinicization in Xinjiang in the 21st century, calling this policy a cultural genocide, or ethnocide, of Uyghurs.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-dash_line

The nine-dash line, at various times also referred to as the ten-dash line and the eleven-dash line (by the ROC), is a set of line segments on various maps that accompanied the claims of the People's Republic of China (PRC, "mainland China") and the Republic of China (ROC, "Taiwan") in the South China Sea.

 

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

Han Taiwanese, Taiwanese Han, Taiwanese Han Chinese, or Han Chinese are Taiwanese people of full or partial ethnic Han descent. According to the Executive Yuan of Taiwan, they comprise 95 to 97 percent of the Taiwanese population, which also includes Austronesians and other non-Han people. Major waves of Han immigration occurred since the 17th century to the end of Chinese Civil War in 1949, with the exception of the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945). Han Taiwa.nese mainly speak three languages of Chinese: Mandarin, Hokkien and Hakka

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/09/biden-russia-putin-love-story-492195

In the March 2011 encounter in Moscow, Biden later told a journalist that he turned to Putin and said, “Mr. Prime Minister, I’m looking into your eyes, and I don’t think you have a soul.” According to Biden, Putin smiled and replied, “We understand one another.”

 

Israeli Democracy

https://www.npr.org/2023/01/12/1148410190/netanyahu-israel-orthodox-conservative-bibi-anshell-pfeffer

Israel's new government is the most right-wing government in the country's history. In order to regain his position as prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was sworn into office Dec. 29, entered into a coalition with ultra-Orthodox religious parties and ultra-nationalist parties.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/12/middleeast/israel-protests-benjamin-netanyahu-intl/index.html

Protesters and critics of Netanyahu’s plan say it would weaken the country’s courts and erode the judiciary’s ability to check the power of the country’s other branches of government.

 

PICTORIAL