Never sign something that is not going out right away. Really, June?
So… back in June they wrote it, felt that it was weaksauce or added nothing and said why bother?
Then someone complained “you progs have been nowhere on this issue” so staff says let’s whip out that unsent letter to show we did too say something?
Honestly, they needed @Lance_Turbo in the messaging department. Own the content of the statement since it’s already out, something like “oh please, we are affirming the existing consensus; sorry that many find the timing awkward”; and call out the fauxrage from the right.
Your goofball conspiracy theories never fail to entertain.
There was a message they wanted to send (or at least considered sending sometime in the summer), They typed it up and put it in a letter. Occam’s razor my man.
Agreed, and my statement was condemnation of the liars and trolls, not of those whose letter was maliciously maligned by them. Rereading, maybe I was not clear enough on that point.
Or, the other way around, you start out writing telling how great your boss is doing, but you keep watering it down to avoid looking like you are being too fawning over him.
What makes you think that you know what they were thinking when they wrote it?
But yeah, it does sound like it was a letter than, once revised by committee, ended up saying nothing useful, so wasn’t sent until it was by mistake.
Thinking about this more and I’m thinking this looks exactly like the kind of content free statement that you’d get by trying to write a statement that thirty people agree with.
It does look like they took that cue and decided to shelve the thing, for the most part at least.
First, there’s nothing objectionable in the letter.
But, it was totally unnecessary. Politically and policy-wise.
These people can get a message to Biden any time they want. If they have a suggestion for him, they can let him know.
So, they instead apparently think it is good politics to make a public statement? Why? Are their “pro-peace” credentials being challenged? No. Is the letter going to change US Policy? No. Is the letter going to bring about peace talks? No.
It’s one thing to answer a question if someone asks. But I don’t think this was in response to media inquiries wondering what the progressive caucus was thinking about Ukraine. I’m pretty progressive. I like the people who signed this letter. I just can’t fathom why it needed to be written.
It sounded like the sort of thing that people do to get all of them on the same page, talking points for the people who signed onto the letter in order for them to be consistent in media interviews and such.
Once done, as it was for their own use more than anything else, they had no reason to actually release it, so they didn’t.
But the unnecessity may be itself objectionable depending on the context, since communications generally are designed to bring new information, so by 'splaining the basics of foreign policy, the underlying implication is that these things needed to be said because someone doesn’t know them.
To take an extreme example, on the very rare occasions when TFG was absolutely right about something, it was invariably in an objectionable context because he states something like “Hey, water is wet! Not many people know that!”, which is a lot more condescending than the paper, but that’s why it’s an extreme example. But no one here was defending him needing to say those sorts of completely obvious things.
I’m glad I read the whole thing again before posting because I’m in complete agreement with that and was about to try to say something like that myself. The statement would have made perfect sense as an inquiry about a policy position.
Every political grouping feels some need to have a position on everything. And further, if they don’t say anything, they’re essentially inviting their opposition to paint them whatever color they like. Which leaves them having to defend something which ought need no defense. Better to play offense and have a position statement out there you can point to.
I’m sure if we looked through the totality of RW BS trumpeted since the war started, the Progressives have came in for quite a beating as weak on martial gumption and inherently un-American. The fact the beating is a lie from one end to the other doesn’t alter the fact it was a beating and caused at least some questions in some quarters. Hence the motivation for the letter to get written. It says in effect “we, the Progressives are not taking this lying down. We have a plan. A plan that matches our moral code and does Good in the World as well as good for the USA”.
Further, if the letter was signed by a gaggle of people in June, it would’ve started getting written in April. A time when the sentiments shown there were not out of tune with any foreign policy realist’s POV.
What I find odd is why it got released now. I don’t suspect skullduggery nearly as much as simple fear; fear that the RW fear-and-disinformation campaign is working, the election is rapidly approaching, and so the RW BS-firehose must be answered somehow and real soon. So somebody at caucus HQ dug around for something they could say, found this ready-to-go letter, and fired it off.
I read the entire letter. It prioritizes negotiating an end to the war. There is pro forma acknowledgement that the result has to be “acceptable to the people of Ukraine,” but the emphasis is on ending the war. It warns extensively of the dangers of “a war that is allowed to grind on for years.”
Quoting Zelensky’s statements from April and May on the need for diplomacy – as this letter does – is disingenuous. Since then, due to Putin’s illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory, Zelensky has pledged that there will never, ever be peace talks with a Putin-led Russia.
Under the current circumstances, this letter sends the wrong message. Ukraine and its allies do not have constructive options for diplomacy right now. The US needs to stay focused on helping end the Russian occupation of Ukraine through military means.
That doesn’t seem to be exactly the intent of Zelenskyy’s statement. I assume you’re referring to this:
The key sticking point is the illegal annexation. Zelenskyy clearly believes that Putin is realistically not going to give up on these claims, and until that happens peace talks are useless, but nevertheless the statement is less about Putin than the referenda. If Russia can be convinced to give up their claims, I do not see Zelenskyy still refusing talks.
Is that a realistic possibility? Probably not. Still, diplomacy is probably worthwhile if only to get Russia to commit. That has its own value.
Here is my take on what the letter was trying to do. Lets start by looking at the alternative strategy to what the letter suggested.
One could view the war in Ukraine as a good thing from a certain Real-Politic view. Every day that Putin spends sending blood and treasure into the Ukraine meat grinder, his status on the world stage grows weaker, our status grows and out military contractors get more wealthy. We need to keep this thing going as long as possible, keep Ukraine in a position to keep slowly gaining ground and grinding up the Russians but not give Putin any incentives to leave Ukraine.
Do I think that this is what Biden is doing? No. Does the Progressive Caucus think that this is what Biden is doing? No Do certain members of the cynical far left both-sides-are-the-same-in-the-pocket-of-Big-Buisness-out-to-crush-the-little-guy public think that this is what Biden is doing. Probably yes. Do the Progressive Caucus what to reassure those voters who are part of their base that that isn’t what they are in favor of? Based in this letter it seems so.
Your 12-dimensional chess reading is less compelling if you don’t ignore a significant component of the letter, which is the threat of escalation, nuclear or otherwise. Yes, every day Russia seems to have their conventional military ground into ever finer dust, which is advantageous to the west. But that cannot continue forever. Do we bet that Putin just takes his ball and goes home when he’s unable to project any further conventional force? Or should we consider the possibility of Putin switching to unconventional weapons?
Is anyone not thinking this? On one hand, we should not allow terroristic threats to cow us into abandoning Ukraine. But on the other, I hope the people in charge are thinking very hard about what kind of out Putin can be given. Surely, Putin himself has also done this calculation–what is the minimum he can walk away with while declaring the special military operation a success?
Perhaps there is no daylight between what Ukraine finds acceptable and what Putin can walk away with. As long as that’s true, the war will continue. It would be foolish not to explore the possibility otherwise, however.
“The Congressional Progressive Caucus hereby withdraws its recent letter to the White House regarding Ukraine,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the caucus, in a statement Tuesday
…the letter, originally drafted and signed by 30 members this summer, was not recirculated ahead of its public release on Monday.
Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., tweeted that she signed the letter in late June, but “wouldn’t sign it today.”
So kind of a snafu for the Caucus, in that the letter was signed 4 months ago and only just released, when conditions had seriously changed.
I’ll take slight issue with this snip. Surely various folks at the Russian government’s highest levels have thought about this: what is our exit strategy and exit conditions if/when total victory becomes obviously unattainable?
Whether Putin himself has entertained the thoughts, either in council or in the privacy of his own mind, is IMO, debatable.
You don’t drive your country to the places he’s driven his to being fully rational and equipped with an accurate understanding of the facts. Instead, it’s the result of less than rational thought applied to a rosier-tinged version of the facts that may well be so far off reality as to be largely fantasy. That problem is indeed the main occupational hazard of the job title Absolute Dictator.
So now the Russian high command has two problems: How to re-orient Putin to reality, and how to climb Russia down off the limb it’s worked itself out onto. Not knowing how far down the current tree of command the rot & delusion spreads makes this all the more fraught a bit of prediction for us and, likewise, a more fraught planning and implementation for them.
Yeah, it is dangerous. It’s dangerous for the Ukrainian people who would then have to live in a country that is in a war grinding on for years, and it’s dangerous for the rest of the world as that gives more time for things to escalate outside those borders.
It’s more than a bit disingenuous to talk the letter in the context of things that happened after the letter was written.
Not really what he said, and if he had said what you misrepresented him saying, then there is never any chance for peace. Ever.
Once again, the current circumstances are not the ones that were current at the time the letter was written, so that’s a pretty disingenuous criticism on your part.
The US has a lot more leverage to bring to bear on Russia than Ukraine does. Ukraine absolutely needs to be part of any negotiations, but it is the US that needs to apply the pressure to Russia to accept them.
Doesn’t that just emphasize why it was so bad to send this letter now?
Maybe it’s wrong to criticize the people who wrote and/or signed the letter. Let’s take Jayapal at her word and it was sent without vetting by someone who didn’t have authority to do it; some House staffer or whatever. The caucus certainly seemed unhappy about it being sent, which is why they retracted it. It seems fair to criticize whoever did send it, whatever their motives might have been.
Coulda been fat fingers, a complete mistake. Meant to send their Grub-Hub order, and instead sent a copy of a letter that’s been sitting there for the last 4 months.