Sabina Higgins Letter to Irish Times calling for ceasefire on Ukraine

donaghs

Discussion on Newstalk now about this.

Overall she seems to be suggesting Ukraine should cut their losses and look to keep whatever they can at this stage.

https://www.politico.eu/article/irish-president-wife-sabina-higgins-russia-ukraine-peace-letter/amp/

“While Higgins didn’t directly endorse Moscow’s view of events, she did place equal responsibility for ending the war on the shoulders of the Russian and Ukrainian presidents, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. She also lauded a University College Cork historian’s assessment that NATO is “pouring arms into a losing battle” and that Ukraine should agree to surrender territory seized by Russia.”

Although I don’t agree with her, mainly because at this point I wouldn’t trust a deal with Putin, She’s still entitled to her opinion.

But as the President’s wife, it seems a bit out of place to be making the comments on such a hot topic. Especially given the death and destruction that Russia has brought to Ukraine. Or since she has no official state role, is she free to say whatever she wants? I think I prefer the previous precedent where Presidents husbands and wives didn’t opine on these topics.

full letter here, unless stopped by paywall: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/2022/07/27/war-in-ukraine-a-moment-of-moral-choice/

Boggles

Would need to see the letter.

The politico article is all over the shop and sports a headline as clicky batey as one can muster.

Ten of Swords

Here it is

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/2022/07/27/war-in-ukraine-a-moment-of-moral-choice/

Well, she's certainly right about one thing, NATO are pouring tens of billions into a losing battle.

January 2022 vs. July 27th 2022

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60506682

As for her commenting on the war, no issue with it whatsoever.

Boggles

Load of absolute hyper waffle, best she be ignored.

She should email her poem to Putin. 🙄

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119404835#Comment_119404835

Well, she's certainly right about one thing, NATO are pouring tens of billions into a losing battle.

Have you a map that suggests the state of play if the UK and the USA, etc had not provided arms, supplies and intelligence to Ukraine?

Podge_irl

Until the world persuades President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine to agree to a ceasefire and negotiations, the long haul of terrible war will go on. How can there be any winner?

By killing enough Russians.

Ukraine do not want a ceasefire and Ukrainians do not wish to give up land to appease a warmonger. Forcing them to do so is just wannabe imperialism in another form.

Also she should not be getting involved in what is essentially a political question.

Augme

The suggestion that NATO/USA would have been better off doing nothing is absolutely comical.

dePeatrick

It’s really none of her business.

Furze99

The president and his wife are the 'first citizens' of the country and put there to represent the common man or woman.

She certainly does not represent my views on these matters.

Her ill thought out intervention has already been seized on by the resident Russian ambassador here to support the heinous acts of war his country have inflicted on their neighbouring state.

Very damaging to the presidents office and should be an immediate withdrawal of the letter/ explanation/ apology.

Grounds for resignation if that represents the view from the Aras.

Gant21

The years of eating like a queen has clouded her reality.

Field east

Who the Hollis she speaking on behalf of - definitely not me. Did someone do a survey on what the Irish think about the war in Ukr and she is basing her letter on that. She certainly is not singing to the same tune as the Irish Gov. No matter what she does she cannot once remove herself from being the wife of the president of the Irish state - there is a kind of a conflict of interest involved here. Look at what happened to that senior An Bord Planala employee who’s brother got planning permission for a development . He apparently did not know that the application was from a close relative of his - yet this caused him ‘to walk’. There might be more to this but the principal still stamds

Dyr

I said this before, there isnt a dictator in the world that little bollix in the Áras wouldnt make excuses for so long as they were against the west

banie01

The letter is an affront to Ukraine and to those who are suffering due to Russia's invasion and aggression.

The attempt to both-sides a war of aggression is the worst kind of specious champagne socialism bullshít.

Sabine needs to retract and apologize IMO. The atrocities visited upon Bucha, Hostomel, Irpin, Mariupol and every other Ukrainian town, village and city that Russia has invaded and put under fire.

Russia is the aggressor and Sabine's letter is akin to asking Poland to negotiate with Germany in 1939.

It's an abhorrent stance and is unworthy of the Aras.

Flinty997

It's victim blaming.

Can the victim stop defending themselves so they can be robbed blind and massacred easier.

Why. Because Russia pretends to be a socialist state. Where it's actually just a dictatorship and police state.

Even if you disagree with that. There isn't even the argument that appeasement worked in the past with Russia. Because if anything they just kept escalating from that to this war.

There's an irony in referencing Irish history in this. As if the Irish State was born from moderation and negotiation alone and the military conflict that preceded all those events was somehow redundant.

There's no acknowledgement that Russia was the aggressor and started all this or their actions to date. Which negates anything else that is said.

Strumms

She has no mandate to be writing any letters for publishing in an official capacity advocating anything of this nature.

even if the letter didn’t appear on state headed paper.. which we don’t know if it did.. she is obviously identifying as the wife of the president, obviously making a political statement… of which from her or anyone in her position, currently or in the future is not welcome.

You didn’t hear a peep out of Martin McAleese, Nicholas Robinson, on political matters that I can recall

TheValeyard

She's a fool to put pen to paper for that.

Could you let your neighbour steal from you a little more please?

Sounds stupid? So does what she said. It's like asking a woman to stay with her abusive husband because he might beat you more if you try to leave.

Ukraine is fighting for survival against a genocidal enemy, guilty of war crimes.

ancapailldorcha

Another decadent western twit happy for another country to be carved up by a dictator.

CJhaughey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405065#Comment_119405065

and drinking like a queen may also cloud one’s judgement.

cheese sandwich

The idiocy of the self-proclaimed “anti-war” left in all its glory

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119404835#Comment_119404835

That's a very myopic view point.

They've fought Russia to a stale mate twice. Successfully tested loads of weapons. Sucked Russia dry of it's latest weapons (which have been exposed as mostly obsolete). It's rearmed NATO and increased it's membership. It's shattered the Russian economy and destroyed lots of future trade routes. It's also forced many sitting on the fence to pick a side. Mostly that's not Russia side.

On the flip side it's exposed the energy dependancy in Europe and flawed energy policies in Europe. Also other dependancy of raw materials in a global market, and export markets around the world.

Stewball

She has certainly upset all the right people today - all the war-bros and centrist dads are going apeshit.

Kermit.de.frog

She doesn't speak for me and I'm fairly sure most people. That's the problem when the ideologues get such positions - they put forward views on behalf of the people they represent that they might not agree with and can be damaging.

cheese sandwich

This is from a report in this week’s New Yorker magazine from Ukraine:

This second phase of the war began the same way the first one ended: with a massacre. On April 8th, while communal graves of murdered civilians were still being excavated near Kyiv, a Russian missile armed with cluster bombs targeted a railway station in Kramatorsk, the provisional seat of Ukrainian-held Donetsk. More than a thousand people were awaiting trains to take them away from the impending offensive in the Donbas. “As soon as I arrived, I saw a little girl lying there with no legs, hugging her Teddy bear,” a police officer who responded to the scene told me, when I visited Kramatorsk this summer. Sixty-one civilians were killed, and about a hundred and twenty were wounded. “There were pieces of people everywhere,” the officer said. “When someone died, we took their tourniquets off and put them on someone else. By the end, my boots were filled with blood.”

Imagine doing a “both sides” on that atrocity. Imagine treating Russian fascist terrorism as the same as the Ukrainians defending themselves. It beggars belief

Gant21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405182#Comment_119405182

Horsing back the finest of wine no doubt.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405217#Comment_119405217

Michael D is the President not her.

And no matter what the President says, he won't always be speaking for all, there will be those who disagree. As it has always been.

If she has a view she is entitled to express it.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405240#Comment_119405240

If she has a view she is entitled to express it.

And I am entitled to call her a dangerously simple fúckwít.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405250#Comment_119405250

Absolutely you are. Why not write that into the Irish Times.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405265#Comment_119405265

I don't have a subscription, I wouldn't be able to read it.

JP Liz V1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405077#Comment_119405077

I'm imaging Bishop Brennan saying that

Maybe she should do an article for Vogue next

Sierra Oscar

https://twitter.com/John_McGahon/status/1553096805948301314

A fair point in fairness. This article isn't fit for official publication by the Office of Uachtarán na hÉireann. A thundering disgrace.

EDIT: It appears officials also believe it wasn't fit for publication considering it's now been deleted.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405271#Comment_119405271

You are able to write stuff without reading it? Neat trick. 😮

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405283#Comment_119405283

Seems wholesale around here alright. 🤭

A sovereign state being subjected to an invasion by an imperialist state should sue for peace and give up land by way of concession. That's the crux of the letter. In wider society you've got this truly bizarre mix of far-left and far-right sorts finding common ground reaching this conclusion.

The Dublin 8 bit made me chuckle.

Dyr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405240#Comment_119405240

Francie stanning for Putin just like Mickey D and his missus, if there's one thing shinners learn to do its double standards.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405313#Comment_119405313

Or somebody who sees a costly war, assesses that it is unwinnable for either side and wants to suggest a way to stop needless killing.

Whether you agree or not it is a legitimate view, many wars come to a stalemate and are stopped in this fashion, with a ceasefire or a peace agreement.

How would you see that panning out, Francie? A peace agreement? Do you think the Russian State, with all their imperialistic pronouncements, should be allowed claim land from neighbours?

I'm genuinely interested in trying to understand the thinking behind a SF supporter advocating for such a position. The whole moral relativism behind it tbh.

Danzy

The Russians will be publishing that letter in every one of their papers.

Comrade Sabina needs to cop on.

growleaves

So what happens if the Ukrainians themselves decide they don't want to continue to be fed into the meat-grinder?

The automatic assumption that Western Europeans eating a box of Pringles and flipping through TV channels are supporting Ukraine by insisting the war continue and that a compromise peace is an act of sabotage against an invaded country leaves me cold.

Zelensky, when first elected, was more 'dovish' than hardliners in the Army and his political rivals. He is pressured from all sides, including Ameroeuropean allies, to prolong the war.

Especially when so many boards posters outright admit on the occasional threads that pop up that they themselves would refuse to fight and surrender right away if Ireland were invaded. IOW they value their own lives far more than national political independence.

Sierra Oscar

Article has since been deleted from the President.ie website but was live all day. Absolutely disgraceful. You can see it using Google Cache.

https://president.ie/diary/details/sabinas-letter-to-the-irish-times

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405380#Comment_119405380

I actually disagree with her.

I think Ukraine should never give up the struggle for freedom.

But I also believe Ukraine is a pawn in a costly game.

That's my issue with this sad affair.

Gant21

It wouldn’t surprise me if md and Sabrina had an account each on here and trolling. Said it before they are spoofers. Loaded up on finest of food and drink.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405419#Comment_119405419

See my answer to Dyr above. I have no idea if it tallies with SF's view or not. You seem to know it does.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405440#Comment_119405440

Russia doesn't care if they surrender or not.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405440#Comment_119405440

Compromised like the 6 counties. That worked out well in hindsight... not.

I guess throwing all those Russian conscripts into the meat grinder by telling them they are going on an exercise is a much better demonstration of independent thinking.

jmcc

Has Sabina Higgins ever written to the Irish Times on geo-political matters before? She wasn't elected to anything.

Regards...jmcc

20silkcut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405440#Comment_119405440

Thats not the case. Ukrainians are choosing to fight. The alternative is being massacred like in bucha or women being systematically raped or being shipped out to the Far East of Russia or being castrated by deranged Chechens. They are choosing to fight. Would ya blame them ??? Please tell us what the alternative is?? A return to mother Russia and the Soviet lifestyle or worse ???

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405508#Comment_119405508

No I don't blame them. More power to them. We're discussing a possible ceasefire btw, not a total surrender in which Ukrainians are put in chains and sold into slavery.

At some point Zelensky might decide a pause in the fighting and retrenchment behind new borders is the best move.

I don't see how all the territory lost can be regained on any kind of short-term calculus.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119405497#Comment_119405497

Michael Collins and Liam Lynch had plans for an 'Army of the North' to re-take the six counties later on but both were killed before they could get started.

You don't always have the option of fighting to the last man. Are you going to be angry with Zelensky if the war ends short of total victory and recapture of all lost territory?

20silkcut

There is absolutely no indication that Russia have any interest in a ceasefire. Lavrov stated in the last week that they intend further advances into Ukraine beyond the two republics. So why is the spotlight on Zelensky to start moving towards a ceasefire?