On why it is bad to underestimate the devil when it comes to Ukraine, fascism or war

Is Putin good at playing chess? Are we or politicians pieces of chess on a board? Or can we trust that the devil is as stupid, uneducated, and bad at war as it gets?

The Donetsk airport has been receiving resupplies from the junta by means of heavy cargo airplanes (Antonov). At least several such large Antonov cargo planes landed there in the last several days, even though they might not have dared to depart. They brought armor and more elite troops.

Krasny Liman, an important gateway to Slavyansk (15 km north of Slavyansk) has been taken yesterday (with some 25 self-defense wounded soldiers executed by the Naz-Guard in the hospital).

This week, in addition to air raids and heavy artillery, the junta started using tanks and Grad missiles. The escalation, which started adding ever deadlier weapons, clearly followed a very meticulous ladder or protocol the technical signature of which shows the American hand behind it.

The blocking actions by the junta (or the blocking part of the military plan) have been accomplished perhaps with some 60-80% of success. Without food supplies the blockaded cities cannot survive.

There is a significant flight of people from eastern Ukraine, that not only creates a difficult situation in the receiving areas in Russia and Crimea, but it would also leave the cities soon eligible for being simply flattened with artillery and tanks (sooner or later).

The insurgency in Syria was able from the beginning to establish safe corridors and smuggling routes from Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan with billions of dollars of financing and steady arms supplies from the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar.

Moreover, very early on, the Qaeda-led insurgency/invasion "opened" hundreds of miles of Syria's borders in the west, south, east, and north. Also from the beginning, the West declared the Syrian government "illegitimate" and the insurgency, which it created, "the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people," even though it is mostly foreign-based.

The insurgency in Syria has been planned and prepared for several years (from Iraq, Turkey, Jordan and from within). A large gun-running operation was organized from Libya and also from Eastern Europe (especially from Croatia). The antifascist insurgency was created on the go from below--all its organization is being born only now.

In this respect, antifascist insurgency is greatly disadvantaged--no recognition, no official, public support, under blockade, with very few routes to the outside. But it has few strengths--its morale and spirit and it has also popular support where it operates. But it has nothing that would even remotely resemble Russia's military assistance to Syria.

Moreover, it appears that Russia (not the people, but the government) is much unaware (however incredible and puzzling this sounds) of the urgency and gravity of the situation even though the Kiev junta has been saying it from the very beginning again and again and in so many ways that they are at war with Russia.

For most part, Russia is a liberal and oligarchic state, and, as history and serious political science knows, corrupt oligarchy or liberalism lacks the spirit and the necessary means and structures for mobilization, control and command needed to fight fascism. In this US, the deficiencies of mere oligarchy has been balanced and mitigated by the so-called republican regime, which is actually a military or military-based culture with necessary structure, culture, and traditions (i.e., know-how). Moreover, in World War II, both in the US and Great Britain, the state basically assumed direct control and command over the whole society, thus effectively establishing a military dictatorship. However, part of the (semi)colonial status of any state is the non-negotiable demand that the targeted state does not have or does not develop proper organization and structures of self-defense. Instead, they are taught to become Nietzsche's/Fukuyama's "last men" who merely blink in the face of the danger. As Nietzsche ironically and only somewhat cryptically says in the Prologue of Thus Spoke Zarathustra:

Lo! I show you the Last Man.

"What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?" -- so asks the Last Man, and blinks. ... hops the Last Man, who makes everything small. His species is ineradicable as the flea ....  They have left the regions where it is hard to live ... He is a fool who still stumbles over stones or men! A little poison now and then: that makes for pleasant dreams. And much poison at the end for a pleasant death. ... "Formerly all the world was insane," -- say the subtlest of them, and they blink.

The last men are enslavable and  hence relatively easily defeatable men who have been "privatized" and "liberalized" like their countries in order to pave the way for new Supermen (Ubermenschen)--the new fascist tyranny that is rearing its head whereby rearing and rear have become strangely assimilated with each other (even though supposedly being each other's opposite end).The last men are enslavable and  hence relatively easily defeatable men who have been "privatized" and "liberalized" like their countries in order to pave the way for new Supermen (Ubermenschen)--the new fascist tyranny that is rearing its head whereby rearing and rear have become strangely assimilated with each other (even though supposedly being each other's opposite end).

The chess analogy used for politics today and also for the war now exploding in Ukraine has something going for it as an image and metaphor, however, it has also serious drawbacks. Usually a game of chess is not a situation where it is about either enslaving or killing the other player and where the "best" moves are moves without any rules. But it is a game that feeds on the blunders and ignorance of the other player(s). Moreover, politics unlike chess is never a game where everyone starts with the same and equally powerful figures or where there is any equality honored or respected. That too has to be won first. Yes, Brzezinski used the term "chessboard" to describe the grand strategy which is now in one of its terminal or late phases. Interestingly though, he did not talk of chess as such. He mentioned only the chessboard.

And what is the "chessboard"? It is the symbolic foundation of the New World Order. Its "checkered floor" with black and white squares--or (knowledge of) "good and evil" over which and over the distinctions of which the Machiavellian powers that be trample and walk.

As a teenager (few decades back) I was listening to Abba (on the account of which one Canadian diplomat once told me that because of that I wasted my childhood).Anyway, not only Abba made a great musical called Chess with the most recognizable song "One Night in Bangkok" with an important line "I feel the devil walking next to me" (or "if you are lucky, the god is a she").

Besides, Abba also had a song that kept and keeps asking: "Do you know the name of the game?"

The fact is that it is not chess ... although it does look like chess. But like chess, it is a "royal" game. Game of Shakti. Game of power. Game of Fate with Fate and also against Fate. A game of life and death. And to hold one's own in the game, the best is both to know and love (or know what is worth loving and know how to love). If one does not know, one has at least know how to love. For the other side loves only power and nothing and no one besides.

In the face of fascism--truly evil or even demonic politics--some outside experts, trying to be helpful even suggested that the best way of how to deal with it, would be

"to evacuate the Russian people of the area and ask for the UN to come in and provide the humanitarian corridor ... [it is] not worth getting into a fight ... it will only heighten tension that are already heightened and play into US and NATO plans. There is nothing wrong with retreat and avoiding war. Sometimes it is best to leave the playing field. ... Does Russia truly need this? Do the people's of Eastern Ukraine truly need this? Throughout history people have fled bad situations. If you don't need to fight, why fight? ... Regardless of what this junta is and the nature of its politics, its still not attacking Russia. The people of the eastern Ukraine have two options. Put down their weapons and/or put down their weapons and leave. There is nothing noble about death and destruction and engaging in a civil war and guerrilla activity. I don't agree this is an attack on the foundation of Russia."

Is evacuating 10-20 millions (at least) really a viable way of leaving other people in the hands of the fascists and a way of solving the conflict? If some people have not noticed, the war is already in full blast and it is also very much a war against Russia. Already. 

Martin Niemöller (1892-1984), a prominent Protestant pastor who spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps, famously summed up the progression of the supposedly humanitarian, enlightened surrender to evil and acquiescence in the evil of fascism as follows: 

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Socialist.Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Trade Unionist.Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Jew.Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

Today, the lesson might be only slightly modified for our purposes perhaps in this way: The first they attacked only communists, so I was safe, then they attacked only the Jews, so I was safe, then they attacked only my neighbor, so I was safe, then they attacked only those who resisted and since I did not fight back, I was safe, then they attacked only those who thought differently, but since I did not think differently (or otherwise), I was still safe, then they attacked only those who did not join their death squads; but since I did not mind, as I did not mind any time before, I was safe because I joined in ... for I knew or rather believed and kept also telling everyone else that by avoiding war and fight I would not play into their plans. I was always too smart for that. "If you don't need to fight, why fight? This needs to be given very serious thought ..." Luckily for us, the grandsons and granddaughters of those who resisted, fought against fascism and ultimately prevailed, someone did fight. To pontificate about the meaninglessness of the struggle against fascism is play into the hands of fascism itself. It would mean to be part of it.

Fascism? Yes, it is fascism which we are now facing on the part of the Kiev putschists and their revived Banderism, a local variant of Fascism. Savik Schuster, the "most popular host" on Ukrainian TV left no doubt what his side stands for, who they are and what their program is. On the air, he went public and openly explained to the nodding heads of his audience that partisans are terrorists, and, to destroy these "terrorists," it is the people who have to be wiped out. For the people are like water to partisans who are the fish among the people for whom they fight and among whom they live. So by killing the water (the people), fish (resistance) would be killed too--killing greater life would also kill those who fight. According to fascism (and Savik Shuster), the problem and its final solution is thus simple: kill the people (they are just "water"), and the problem (the people) will be solved.