Sabina Higgins Letter to Irish Times calling for ceasefire on Ukraine

donaghs · 29-07-2022 6:15pm #1

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 · 29-07-2022 6:33pm

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 · 29-07-2022 6:35pm

Here it is

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

Hello 2D Person Below · 29-07-2022 6:38pm

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 · 29-07-2022 6:42pm

Load of absolute hyper waffle, best she be ignored.

She should email her poem to Putin. 🙄

Boggles · 29-07-2022 6:44pm

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 · 29-07-2022 7:19pm

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 · 29-07-2022 7:26pm

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

dePeatrick · 29-07-2022 7:28pm

It’s really none of her business.

Furze99 · 29-07-2022 7:31pm

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 · 29-07-2022 7:37pm

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

Field east · 29-07-2022 7:39pm

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 · 29-07-2022 7:39pm

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 · 29-07-2022 7:48pm

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 · 29-07-2022 7:48pm

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 · 29-07-2022 7:54pm

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 · 29-07-2022 7:55pm

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 · 29-07-2022 7:57pm

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

CJhaughey · 29-07-2022 8:02pm

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

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

cheese sandwich · 29-07-2022 8:03pm

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

Flinty997 · 29-07-2022 8:07pm

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 · 29-07-2022 8:08pm

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

Kermit.de.frog · 29-07-2022 8:09pm

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 · 29-07-2022 8:09pm

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