Dave Smith: belief

Transcript context

…I think, for sure, Trump wants peace. I also think Putin wants to wrap the conflict up. And I think that Putin has been willing to deal through the entire lead up to the war and pretty much throughout the war, and there’s been a lot of solid reporting on this. I mean, the sources on it are pretty impeccable. The head of NATO… Stoltenberg? I always mess up his name. He literally said that in late 2021 that Vladimir Putin actually sent a draft agreement to NATO, and that his condition for not invading… He is like, I will not invade, but you have to put it in writing. He sent a draft treaty to them, “You have to put in writing that Ukraine will not join NATO.”. And then Stoltenberg bragged about how he said, “No, because we won’t let Vladimir Putin dictate to us whether we can expand NATO or not.”. And then he was bragging. He was like, “And look what he got, more NATO expansion, Finland, and this and that, so look at that.”. And it didn’t even seem to notice that, wait a minute, you’re admitting that you could have just promised not to bring Ukraine into NATO and saved hundreds of thousands of lives? Seems like it would’ve been a much better deal. It’s going to be a much better deal than what Ukraine will ultimately end up getting. I think also Joe Biden’s CIA director, who was a CIA director a whole four years, William Burns, when he was ambassador to Russia, he wrote the Nyet Means Nyet. And again, this was dumped by Julian Assange. This wasn’t for the public. This was just him writing to Condoleezza Rice to tell the secretary of state his assessment. And he said that, his exact words were, “A decision Russia does not want to have to make.”. This was the decision about whether to invade the Ukraine or not. He was like, “They say, if you keep pushing for Ukrainian entry into NATO, this could lead to a civil war and even worse. And in that situation, Russia would have to decide whether or not to intervene. A decision Russia does not want to have to make.”. So, essentially I think it’s pretty clear from all sides that Putin didn’t want it to come to this. Even after the coup in 2014, he took Crimea, but he didn’t invade the country. He may have sent special forces in, but I mean not the full-scale 2022 invasion. And even the civil war, going all that… I’m not defending the decision. I’m just saying it seemed like he reluctantly [inaudible 02:25:19]. What was it? In 2014 or ’15, when they had the plebiscites in Crimea and in the Donbas region, and they voted to be independent, he didn’t take them then. I mean, he could have used that as a pretense for, hey, they voted to be with us, and he didn’t. I think he wants to end the war. as region, and they voted to be independent, he didn’t take them then. I mean, he could have used that as a pretense for, hey, they voted to be with us, and he didn’t. I think he wants to end the war. Zelenskyy, from everything he’s said publicly, seems like he still feels like… I’m just taking him at his word here, that it’s like, no, we could end the war, but we got to end the war… It seems like he’s moved from his position being like, no, we have to reclaim all of our territory, to now his position is like, all right, maybe we don’t reclaim all of it, but we got to be given some type of security guarantee in the future. I think the problem with that is just, again… I don’t mean to be cruel about this, because it sucks that there’s little countries that are next to big countries that get bullied around about them, but there also is a bit of an entitlement to demanding a security guarantee. What exactly do you mean? From America? What? That we’ll go to war if you’re invaded? Why do we owe that to anybody? That’s crazy. I’m sorry. You can’t just sign up to say that we’ll go to war if anybody invades anybody. I hope nobody invades anybody, but I don’t want us to get dragged into… That’s a recipe for always being at war, and I don’t think that’s right for our country. So essentially, I think Trump and Putin want peace. And if that’s the case, I think we’ll ultimately get to an end of this war. There’s a lot of stuff to say here. Let’s actually start at the beginning, at the foundation of this. I think the thing that we left unsaid that’s important to say is that Putin invaded Ukraine in February 24th, 2022. And I think he is, at least from my perspective, the person who started the war. You could talk about NATO expansion. You could talk about any other thing that led to it. You could start at the collapse of the Soviet Union. You can go all the way back, as he did, 1,000 years. The reality is, and this goes to our deep discussion about the morality of war, no matter the reasons, the guy that pulls the trigger first non-accidentally and keeps pulling the trigger, that’s the guy who’s at fault.…

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