Elite fall-out – At least WE got to see it this time

By Professor John Robertson OBA

This is still about Scotland because it's about everywhere. It's about what happens to smaller countries when their larger protectors do a u-turn and about how the elite groups in our country are not really our friends any more than the elite groups in other countries care about their own people.

Everybody’s talking about it. Two beefy big guys give a wee guy a dressing down in public. It looked like bullying. Just about everybody I agree with on Scottish independence is of one mind – we must stand by Ukraine.

It’s all much more, so much more, complicated than that. What’s different this time, is that the ‘bullies’ spoke in words that everybody understands and that for the first time in history, to my knowledge, we, the ordinary folk, got to see an argument over global politics by representatives of two country’s elites after one of the two countries, the bigger stronger one (USA) has just had a regime change and where the incoming elite has a different view from the outgoing one, on a matter of great concern to the elites in the smaller country (Ukraine).

Trump IS a monster, he’s really bad news for women and minorities in the USA, though quite a few voted for him on issues like abortion-rights and immigration.

I am not defending him in any way but, had the Democrats won, life for women and minorities might be better in the US, but life for the rest of the world, especially for women and children, might now be worse. Just as Labour in the UK is as aggressively interventionist as the Tories, sending Scots to die in pointless wars, often on behalf of the interests of corporations, so the US Democrats are often more hawkish. Democratic Party presidents, Roosevelt and Truman, would have used the atom bomb on Germany in 1945, had it been ready and did authorise it twice on Japan. The UK National Government supported the decision.

Democratic presidents, Johnson and Nixon, escalated the war in Vietnam before eventually, under pressure from the polls, giving up and abandoning their former allies in 1975. What words were said in meetings? To justify the abandonment, were the South Vietnamese leaders accused of having made mistakes, being in a weak position, risking World War III? We don’t know but I think I prefer knowing and seeing as we have just done.

Throughout history, many times, the US, Britain and the other former imperial powers, have started proxy wars against their rivals and, often on behalf of totalitarian governments, invested huge resources and sometimes lives. Then, often as their electorates tire of the war, they pull out leaving their former allies to make a bad deal. We never see the discussions at the end, the blaming of the victims to save face. In the past the language, the exchanges might have looked more civilised but the meaning would have been no less brutal than that in the words of Trump.

Doing a deal with Russia over Ukraine is often compared with Britain doing a deal with Nazi Germany, in 1939, to transfer the German-speaking region of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia back to Germany, but not in the way it should. You don’t have to be a deluded Nazi apologist to recognise that had France, Britain and the US not punished Germany so severely after World War I, including placing a German population in the newly formed Czechoslovakia, things might have been different. I suspect the oily, superior, duplicitous tones of Chamberlain as he tells the Czech premier (not in the photos) to give up ‘German’ territory might sicken deeply while Trump’s plain-speaking which must result in ‘Russian’ territory been ceded to Russia is at least honest.

There so much we don’t know about the war in Ukraine. What percentage of, and how strongly do, the Russian-speaking population in the east of the Ukraine want to leave? How have they been treated by the Ukrainian majority, the Government and various militia in recent years? Who and what are the interests of the elite groups behind the friendly face of Zelensky?

https://archive.kyivpost.com/business/occrp-pandora-papers-reveal-offshore-holdings-of-zelensky-and-his-inner-circle.html

https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-zelensky-corruption-problem-1863644

The people in both of those countries are expendable, in pursuit of elite interests. It’s a bit different in western democracies. If the media allow, the electorate will constrain the self-interested actions of elites but if they are supine (the media), we too will pay a blood price, as we have done recently in Ireland, in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

Getting back to that bullying, it wasn’t. Zelensky is just the acceptable face of an elite group in the Ukraine, hard and connected to crime, which is in dispute with another elite group in Russia, also hard and connected to crime.

Finally, to all those who are shouting loudly about standing by Ukraine, are we sending our troops to die again? Can your children or grandchildren be sent? Starmer seems to be ready to pay the blood price as Blair did 21 years ago.

29 thoughts on “Elite fall-out – At least WE got to see it this time”

  1. Thank goodness for an in depth opinion of this present farce rather than the blanket “we support Ukraine” easy way out chosen by most. Those speeches by party leaders at FMQs on Thursday made me feel quite queezy.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  2. Trump stops wars and saves the planet. That is why Americans voted for him. The Americans are sick of paying for eternal illegal wars, since WW2. Millions of people have died, countries been destroyed. Americans want a stop put to it.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Sod off with this ‘Trump stops wars and saves the planet’ bullshit Ken – You appear to have been banned already over on WGD over peddling this crap, yet you insist everybody else’s view of what el Mango did in plain sight before international media is somehow wrongly interpreted – That’s not “on the spectrum” anywhere…

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  3. Well said John. It’s a relief to hear a calm objective voice spell out the reality of the political dead end the leadership in Westminster has led us into. When all else fails they might try diplomacy and ditch their knee jerk denunciations which passes for debate nowadays.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  4. Donald Trump gave Volodymyr Zelenskyy a choice between surrendering his country’s natural assets to the US or its sovereignty to Russia.

    Donald Trump had been talking about the US Air base on the Chagos Islands with Sir Keir Starmer, the current Prime Minister of the UK, the global leader on acquiring natural assets from other countries.

    Around 1970 the UK deported the 1,500 native inhabitants of the Chagos Islands so that the US could build a military airfield on Diego Garcia the largest island in the group.

    In the face of growing condemnation by many nations over ignoring the International Court of Justice ruling that the islanders are entitled to return to their homeland the UK is negotiating the transfer of sovereignty of this UK territory, a grant of £18 billion for development, a 99 year lease of Diego Garcia to the US containing a clause that bars the return of the islanders during that time and of course the problem of the ICJ ruling to neighbouring Mauritius.

    No wonder that Donald Trump said that the US was minded to accept that deal and went on to humiliate the Ukrainians a few hours later.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

      1. Most Ukrainians would probably settle for peace in the first instance.

        The area that is currently the Ukraine has been apportioned between various warring factions for centuries.

        The people have rarely if ever been asked what they wanted.

        Liked by 3 people

        Reply

  5. Get Trident out of Scotland. A danger to Scotland. A total waste of monies. Redundant weaponry landing on the black market causing illegal destruction worldwide. An ever increasing Defence (attack) budget. A religious PM and anointed head of state breaking every commandment. Hypocrites. Greedy liars.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. What on Earth has religion to do with it? And we might have an increasing military budget but it buys jack shit. All the money gets lost on procurement. We have a tiddly armed force that couldn’t defend Mull. I agree about getting rid of weapons, but it’s not going to happen – and here we go:

      Not with the SNP in charge of our country. Remember independence? We wouldn’t have those weapons here if independent, but good old Swinney, he’s happy for it to stay, leaving the UK is just too scary. Nope, he’ll keep on bleating about Westminster cannae be trusted with Scotland’s blah, blah, blah. There’s your hypocrites and greedy liars.

      Like

      Reply

  6. 1 in 8 Russians died in WW2 saving the West. 1 in 80 died in Britain and France.

    Unilateral reduction treaties in Europe, Reagan and Gorbachev. 1990 Glasnost and Perestroika. The USSR pop halved. 150 million people gained self determination and self governance. Russian pop 150Million. One of the arguments for (limited) Devolution 2000 in Scotland. The emerging Baltic States had more freedom and democracy than Scotland in the UK.

    Russian will protect its borders. Ukraine broke agreements and Treaties. Ukraine joining NATO would put more nuclear weapons trained on Russia and the Russian border.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  7. Sorry, but you have swallowed the conspiracy theories about Ukraine and Zelensky whom you say is connected to crime. Nonsense. Evidence ?

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Sorry, but you (and several of the simplistic comments) have swallowed the conspiracy theories about Ukraine and Zelensky whom you say is linked to crime. Nonsense. Evidence? Stick to Scotland which yo at least know something about and cite evidence for your conclusions. 

      Try reading some of the stuff on Byline Times about Ukraine and Putin and other serious commentators who have done the research, rather than reading unattributed garbage propagated by Putin’s bots.  Such as on Ukraine did not break agreements, the CIA did not manufacture the Maiden revolution and Gorbachev did not have an assurance about NATO. 

      I wish I had read this before I made a substantial donation to your fund raiser as I certainly wouldn’t after this piece. 

      As for comments about what a fine guy Trump is, the peacemaker, even as he and Musk dismantle US democracy…..my god, wake up. Read about the connections between him and Putin and the Russian mafia going back decades. 

      So I am unsubscribing. Period.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  8. Sorry, but you (and several of the simplistic comments) have swallowed the conspiracy theories about Ukraine and Zelensky whom you say is linked to crime. Nonsense. Evidence? Stick to Scotland which yo at least know something about and cite evidence for your conclusions. 

    Try reading some of the stuff on Byline Times about Ukraine and Putin and other serious commentators who have done the research, rather than reading unattributed garbage propagated by Putin’s bots.  Such as on Ukraine did not break agreements, the CIA did not manufacture the Maiden revolution and Gorbachev did not have an assurance about NATO. 

    I wish I had read this before I made a substantial donation to your fund raiser as I certainly wouldn’t after this piece. 

    As for comments about what a fine guy Trump is, the peacemaker, even as he and Musk dismantle US democracy…..my god, wake up. Read about the connections between him and Putin and the Russian mafia going back decades. 

    So I am unsubscribing. Period.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  9. Russia signed a treaty (Minsk) alongside Us and UK guaranteeing Ukraine freedom and security in exchange for Ukraine returning nuclear weapons to Russia. This has not aged well with Russia invading Ukraine and trying to destroy the nation. Maybe you trust Putin? I certainly don’t. If Putin wins then he’ll start looking further west – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania… maybe even Poland or Romania?

    big Jon

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    2. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 the nuclear weapons in Ukraine were returned to Russia, the inheritor state, in compliance with the nuclear non proliferation treaties under IAEA supervision.

      The Minsk treaties were unanimously ratified by the UN Security Council in 2015 after the CIA led coup in 2014 overthrew the democratically elected government in Kiev and persecution of the ethnic Russians in the Donbass persisted, killing an estimated 15,000. Ukraine refused to implement the Minsk treaties and amended their constitution to allow NATO membership. This was the cause of the SMO.

      So the Minsk treaties were not about nuclear weapons but about protecting the people of the Donbass and remaining neutral.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. No wonder John!!! These people have taken this at face value. As a kid my father always told me to read once, read again and then read between the lines to ensure of understanding what the writer actually intends.
      I had been doing a bit of research myself on Zelensky, prior to this meeting of, as you quite correctly stated, the elites. I was going to write out a few things tonight but decided against it for the very reason that I just didn’t feel the need to be panned for showing the true Zelensky. I also just didn’t feel like having to defend myself against the onslaught that you yourself have had to do. That being said I thought that I would share some of my findings, more with links as opposed to text, to let people make their own minds up about Zelensky.

      This is a very difficult subject to broach as feelings obviously run high, although I do support the Ukrainian people and their right to live in peace in their own country without a larger neighbouring country taking control either politically or violently I just do not like Zelensky as he is from the same mould as Trump, Vance, Musk and Putin. Like Starmer Zelensky is a smaller player in their elitist group but all are very much the same type of people interested only in money and power.

      I don’t know if anyone has heard of Pandora Papers which consist of nearly 12 million files — totalling close to 2.94 terabytes — leaked from 14 companies that provide corporate services in offshore jurisdictions. The documents offer the most comprehensive look to date at how such service providers help the rich and famous — including celebrities, the ultra-wealthy, politicians, and criminals — to hide their money in financial secrecy jurisdictions. Zelensky is very much part of this.

      From the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)…….https://www.occrp.org/en/project/the-pandora-papers/pandora-papers-reveal-offshore-holdings-of-ukrainian-president-and-his-inner-circle

      And more from the Guardian on this subject……https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/revealed-anti-oligarch-ukrainian-president-offshore-connections-volodymyr-zelenskiy

      A bit more of his history and some insight to the man Zelensky from AlJazeera, some quite good facts about him and others….well you can make your own minds up…..https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/2/28/volodymyr-zelenskyy-a-dictator-or-a-ukrainian-churchill

      As I stated above I am anti Trump/Vance/Musk/Starmer/Farage and also Zelensky along with all the rest of the world elites.

      I agree with John that we must stand up for the people of Ukraine vehemently but let’s not forget to stand up for the people of Scotland against these rich warmongers also!!!

      JB

      Like

      Reply
  12. Pingback: Even the intelligent Bella Caledonia jumps unthinking onto the barricades, brandishing little more than a tooth-pick, to stop Trump coming to Scotland – Talking-up Scotland
  14. Pingback: Ukraine – Stand up for the people of Scotland against rich warmongers – Talking-up Scotland

  15. ” … for the first time in history, to my knowledge, we, the ordinary folk, got to see an argument over global politics by representatives of two country’s elites”

    But it wasn’t an argument over global politics. It wasn’t a debate. It was stage managed theatre organised by Trump and Vance. Trump’s comments about “great television” revealed what this was really all about.

    He wanted to show the World how much in contriol he thinks he is. He is deranged – a loathsome abomination of a human being. I’m afraid I can see no good in him at all.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a reply to johnrobertson834 Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.