Revisiting the Greek War of Independence While Ukraine Fights for Its Own

From the revolution’s first engagement in the small Danubian port of Galati, the Greeks made a habit of massacring not just enemy combatants but also Muslim civilians. “There was a widespread sense that it was time for their former masters to learn their place,” Mazower writes. When they took the stronghold of Tripolitsa, “the robbery, butchery and looting went on for three days.” Similar fates awaited Kalavryta, Navarino, Corinth, and Athens. “I became disgusted with the Greek cause,” one of its own leaders wrote, “because we were a lot of cannibals.”

The Ottomans were no better. “The furious sultan … toyed with the idea of having all the Greeks of the empire put to death,” Mazower writes. Advisors dissuaded him from that genocidal course, but he still had Greeks occupying senior ministerial and clerical posts — including Patriarch Gregorios V — hanged. In an address to the empire’s Muslims, he also issued what amounted to an open invitation to slaughter. Constantinople, Edirne, Smyrna, Salonica, Ayvalik — all witnessed massacres. The worst was on Chios, where 30,000 Ottoman irregulars “roamed unchecked for nearly two weeks,” killing, plundering, and looting “with the blessing of the Ottoman governor.”

In both the Ukrainian and the Greek cases, Western audiences were won over by the efforts of a savvy leader who framed his people’s plight in ways they could appreciate. Alexandros Mavrokordatos, the first president of Greece’s provisional government, was an urbane, Western-educated man, reputedly conversant in 10 languages and steeped in the Enlightenment. He did not believe that Greece could achieve independence on its own. Anxious to secure the support and intervention of outside powers — like Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky today — he took pains to present his country’s struggle in a sympathetic light and tailored his appeals to his audience.

Armenians are terrific people, they live in my city. Now, 1 bad apple, doesn’t have the potential to spoil the whole barrel, but it can give a pretext to an oppressor. There was an Armenian terrorist movement in the late 19th century, that had more in common with other, non-Armenian terrorist movements that with their own people. Like the IRA. (I’m a Mick, I can say it.) This gave ammunition to their oppressors.

“Sultan Putin”

It is not indicative for all of Russia, but Russia “proper”, (Not counting the dominantly Muslim CIS), does have a very significant Muslim population.

The city of Kazan, (and I know we have a Putinist here on FR with the screen name “kazan”), the old capital of Tatarstan,
is Russia’s fifth or sixth largest city, with possibly up to 1.5 million people now, and is approx 440 miles East of Moscow. It may not be official, but some Russians I knew in Moscow placed the breakdown of Muslims in Kazan at over 80% percent.

Inside the Kazan Kremlin is the Qolşärif Mosque, with white tiles, turquoise dome, and four minarets. It was inaugurated in 2005 with the help of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Qolşärif is the largest mosque in Europe outside Istanbul. There are about 1500 mosques in “Tatarstan”.

Some demographers place the Muslim population of Russia at 15% percent (or approx 20 million) and rising quickly.

We learned several years ago, a large number of Tatar militants from Russia were fighting against the US, coalition, and Afghan Army alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan. As well, while “strange bedfellows”, some were tied to Al Qaeda/ISIS. *Of course these are Russian citizens, sometimes found with Russian International Passports.

This was a significant ongoing problem for the United States.

In truth, we had many near terminal problems coming out of the CIS.

Until 2021 I thought Pooptin was logical.

He’s lost it.

If he had been cooler headed he would have waited for Ukraine to collapse from its internal disunity.

Instead Pooptin is the great United. He has united all Ukrainians, whether Russian or Ukrainian speakers, into one nation. Pooptin has also United NATO, which was a washed up organisation without a cause until Putin’s invasion.

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