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Opinion/How to Stop the War in Ukraine (a thought experiment)

— Igor Böhm

This posting is a thought experiment! Its purpose is to demonstrate how an appealing proposal to resolve a conflict is disregarded and denounced because its purveyor is labelled as evil and reprehensible.

Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell

The one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine that has killed thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of soldiers, forced millions to flee their homes, reduced entire cities to rubble and has fuelled fears the confrontation could slide into an open conflict between Russia and NATO, was the impetus for Austria, a neutral country in the heart of Europe, to attempt brokering a political settlement between Moscow and Kiev, as a resolution of the conflict on the battlefield is no longer tenable.

The following is the full text stating its position on the political settlement, with the aim to stop the war via diplomatic means:

The US and EU welcome the above proposal, hailing it as the first step towards de-escalating a bloody conflict that according to top US military officials can not be won on the battlefield anytime soon.

Unveiling the Experiment

The above proposal of a political settlement seems plausible. If you read this far, it is quite likely that in principle you do not disagree with anything. If you are generous, you will even admit that you agree with the political proposal made by Austria and welcome its support.

How would you feel if I told you that the above position on a political settlement was not made by Austria, but by China! Does that fact change how you think about the proposal? If the answer to that question is yes, then you need to ask yourself why it matters who makes a proposal? Shouldn’t we judge a proposal based on its content and merits instead of its purveyor?

It is extremely unfortunate (a simple google search demonstrates it 1 2 3 4) that the US and EU completely disregard and ignore the contents of the 12 point peace plan brought forward by China, and focus on denouncing its purveyor instead. Howbeit, the real tragedy is how US and EU mainstream media ignore and thereby suppress the contents of the peace plan in favour of scathing criticism of the messengers (i.e. Chinas) motives.

However reprehensible the messenger, the message itself might still be true. Malignant motives cannot be legitimate grounds for suppression of speech!

Eminent First Amendment scholar Zechariah Chafee observed that malignant motives cannot be legitimate grounds for suppression of speech:

When the public is interested, bad motives ought not to deprive it of the benefit of what is said…. [T]ruth is truth, and just as valuable to the public, whether it comes from the most enthusiastic supporter of [U.S. entry in World War I] or from a pro-German, and in order to get the truth, conflicting views must be allowed. … Truth may be told with a bad purpose, but it is none the less truth; and the most dangerous falsehoods … may be committed from motives of the highest patriotism. Even if one were inclined to suppress speech the impetus of which is evil, Chafee went on to say, it’s impossible to discern with sufficient certainty the animating motive: “You cannot tell a man’s intention by looking at his forehead, you must look through it to the inside of his head; and no judge and jury are capable of looking through the skull of a man who has done nothing but talk to see what goes on inside.” And again: “A bad intention is easily inferred from what we consider bad opinion. — Norman Finkelstein’s book I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It on p.48


  1. West reacts with skepticism to Chinese ceasefire proposal for Ukraine ↩︎

  2. U.S. dismisses China’s Ukraine peace proposal as an attempt to distract ↩︎

  3. You ain’t no middleman: EU and NATO slam China’s bid to be a Ukraine peacemaker ↩︎

  4. Skepsis nach Chinas Ukraine-Initiative ↩︎

#Political Science #Opinion