Name: Dave Smith Breaks Down the Reasons Russia Invaded Ukraine
Uploaded: 2022-09-28T17:23:21.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dave Smith Breaks Down the Reasons Russia Invaded Ukraine' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-09-28. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dave Smith Breaks Down the Reasons Russia Invaded Ukraine' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-09-28. Transcript available.

- The Joe Rogan experience.
- Dude, this thing with Russia
is just like the craziest thing in the world.
Like, the idea that we're actually
flirting with a nuclear conflict with Russia
is the most important priority in the history of humanity,
is that America and Russia do not go to war.
There's nothing more important than that.
That's it.
We'll destroy the human species if we do this.
And yet, there's this war right on Russia's border,
and there's no effort to negotiate going on.
There's like no effort.
In fact, from very solid reporting,
that actually America, through Boris Johnson,
told Ukraine not to negotiate with Russia
at the very beginning of the war,
when they had a deal worked out.
They had a deal worked out.
There's been reported in multiple sources
that they had a deal worked out,
and the deal was basically
that Vladimir Putin would pull back,
he would pull back his troops and leave Ukraine
under the condition, the very simple conditions,
that Ukraine guaranteed autonomy for the Donbass region,
and agreed to never join NATO.
And that was a deal.
Like, okay, I'm not saying everyone thinks that's the perfect deal,
but it's better than what we got right now.
It's better than nuclear war.
And right now, just the other day,
dude, the official narrative on this whole war,
it's just like it makes no sense.
And again, like I said, remember,
the same people who are pushing this
are the ones who are telling you Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction
and stuff,
but the official narrative, Joe, is basically that,
okay, so Vladimir Putin is a madman,
a crazy war criminal who's hell-bent on reforming the Soviet Union,
and this is a real threat that he could do this,
but also he's getting humiliated in this war in Ukraine.
It's like, he's losing to the poorest country in Europe,
and he's just getting humiliated and beat back,
but he's still a real threat to take over all of Europe.
And he's a complete madman, by the way, Joe.
But when he says he's going to use nuclear weapons,
don't listen to that.
He'd never actually do that, even though he's a complete madman.
And as everyone says, this war, the word they use over and over and over again,
Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, all of them, unprovoked.
Vladimir Putin led an unprovoked war in Ukraine.
But then, it's just like with Osama Bin Laden, what they did with him then.
Don't listen to him.
Whatever you do, don't listen to what he's actually saying,
because none of that's his motivations.
Like, his motivations are what we tell you.
Osama Bin Laden hates us because we're free.
And then, like, Ron Paul would just go like,
"Yeah, but that's not what he's saying at all."
Like, Osama Bin Laden was so clear about why he hated America.
And he's like, "Look, I hate you because you murder innocent civilians in the
Muslim world,
you prop up brutal dictators in the Muslim world,
you prop up Israel who mistreats the Palestinian people,
and you have your bases in our Holy Land in the Arabian Peninsula."
And then they're like, "No, he hates us because we're free."
Like, he didn't mention anything about freedom there.
And then, if you say that, they're like,
"Well, are you defending Osama Bin Laden?"
And you're like, "No, I'm just saying, listen to your enemies.
There's a reason why he hates us."
And if you listen to Vladimir Putin and what he's saying,
I mean, look, he's wrong for invading Ukraine.
And, I mean, you know me, Joe.
I'm the most anti-war fucking person there is.
And there's no excuse for that.
Like, tens of thousands of people have died.
It's horrible.
And a lot of them are soldiers, but a lot of them are civilians.
And, um, but to say he was unprovoked is, like, insane.
It's just only people who know nothing about the history of this conflict
would say there was no provocation.
Did you see the conversation that Roger Waters had with that CNN guy?
Yeah, and right, because Roger Waters was awesome on that.
Yeah.
Because he knows what he's talking about, dude.
And he's right about all of that shit.
He's, look, the, the promise, and this is what he was saying,
and he's absolutely right.
Is that the promise, when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991,
and this was, like, verbally promised and put in writing,
was that NATO would not expand one inch to the east.
And NATO, at that point, the line then was through Germany, right?
Like, the, the, the western half of Germany was in the west,
and the eastern half was with the Soviet Union.
And they were like, we'll let all of these nations, you know, secede,
and the Soviet Union will collapse, and we're giving up on communism.
It's one of the greatest things that ever happened.
And the deal was, okay, you do that, then we won't move NATO.
We won't move our military alliance into your area.
That used to be your realm of influence.
And every single president since then has moved NATO east,
to the point that NATO is now on Russia's border.
And in Ukraine, even though they didn't officially join NATO,
there was always talk of it.
Kamala Harris, very, right before the start of the war,
said, we're looking to put Ukraine into NATO.
And the, the, um, you know, they, they put under George W. Bush,
they put in, um, in, uh, Poland, these dual use rocket launchers.
There's a big complaint that Vladimir Putin has that he's like, these long,
these can be used to get nukes here in a matter of minutes.
Like, this is a, this is like a threat to us that we cannot tolerate.
And then in 2014, there was a coup in Ukraine that was completely led by the
west.
I don't know if you've ever heard, but like, uh, like, I think I sent you
actually once the,
uh, the tape of Gideon Rose, who was the editor for foreign affairs magazine on
the old Stephen
Colbert report, uh, show back when Colbert was hilarious.
And he was just openly bragging about what the game is here.
And then he was like, well, Ukraine is kind of like the Robin to Russia's
Batman.
And so our job is to steal Robin away from Batman and make him come over here
and join us.
And aha, Vladimir Putin's so stupid that he won't do anything.
And then Colbert's in his old character.
So he's like, well, shouldn't Obama be spiking the football and saying, yeah,
in your face, Putin.
And Gideon Rose is like, well, no, no.
Cause then Putin might invade Ukraine.
So we wouldn't want to spike the ball, but they, there, there's these.
Oh yeah, let's play it.
Let's play it.
Go from the beginning.
Yeah, play it from the beginning.
There's the magazine foreign affairs.
Now, now, now, now Gideon, uh, help me out here.
We've got a, we've got a battle.
The Ukraine, some of them want to go into the EU, the European Union.
Right.
Uh, and some of them want to stay with Russia.
If the Ukraine's not in Europe right now, what continent is it on?
Well, it's part of Eurasia, but it's part of Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet bloc.
It's basically Robin to Russia's Batman.
And the challenge here, the challenge here is to try to attract it to the West,
to get
it to flip sides.
So the rebels in the streets, what are they fighting for?
They're fighting for a better future.
Countries have a development.
That sounds like a political speech.
No, but it's actually true.
Countries have to develop over time.
And Ukraine, basically, after the, uh, end of the Soviet Union, faced two
tracks.
It could stay a sort of stagnant, corrupt, authoritarian country tied to Russia.
Or it could essentially join the West.
It could modernize, liberalize, become a democracy.
Uh, at the last minute, when it looked like it was going to trade up from its
sort of, uh,
abusive relationship with its boyfriend from the hood to a nice, yuppie, uh, uh...
You're not loading these choices in any way whatsoever.
It's actually true.
When it looked like it was going to trade up to a better, uh, environment, uh,
at the
last minute, Putin offered a bribe.
How much?
Uh, $15 billion.
Uh...
That's a lot of cash, man.
It's a lot of cash.
And the president, who himself was tied to the old elites and the eastern part
of the
country who ties to Russia, decided to back off the change and go join Russia.
Do you know how many pirate-themed restaurants you can buy with $15 billion?
The problem was the western parts of the country and the younger parts of the
country
and the more modern liberal parts of the country basically knew that they had
no future being
Russia's, Russia's vassal.
Do we...
And so they took to the streets.
Is America taking sides in this in any way?
If, if these people...
The rebels are winning right now, right?
Yes.
Just recently.
So, why isn't Obama spiking the ball in the end zone and calling Putin and
saying,
"Hey, you might have won the medal count, but we won the country count, biatch?"
It's actually a very good question.
And the answer is that we don't want Russia to intervene and kick over the
table like a
game of risk and take Ukraine back.
And so we...
Would they do that?
Could he send in troops?
Yes, he could.
So we are choosing...
Does Ukraine have any troops of their own?
Would they fight back?
Yes, but we don't want this to escalate and we don't want Russia to crack down.
So we want to basically distract Russia.
"Oh, look, you have the highest medal count.
Oh, you did really well."
And, you know, focus on the Olympics.
There's a shiny object.
It'll just take an entire country away from you.
Holy shit.
Yeah.
Now, there's a power vacuum right now.
There's a power vacuum.
The opposition is all together, which everybody...
It's easy to agree on getting rid of the bad old regime
and much harder to create a stable country in which everybody compromises and
moves forward.
But they need a strong leader to move the country forward.
Do you know who's always good at a moment like that?
Vladimir Putin.
Do you think he might volunteer to come in and help Ukraine find its way?
The reason we don't want...
We don't want...
We don't want Putin to get involved in this.
And so we are basically...
We want to try and involve him in this decision so that he allows Ukraine to go.
We actually want to not...
We want to say we want a non-exclusive relationship with Ukraine.
You can have a relationship with it, too.
You're the only one making this into a girlfriend-boyfriend relationship.
Ukraine is basically choosing its future between two completely different
courses of action.
And we're trying to blur that choice so the old boyfriend doesn't get too upset.
When it makes the right choice for us.
Jesus Christ.
So it's just all these George Soros-funded NGOs were funding the militias on
the ground
who were overthrowing the government.
And then there's a tape of Victoria Nuland, who was at the State Department at
the time,
one of the top people at the State Department.
And she was basically talking about who would be the new government that took
over,
who America didn't want in, who we did want in the new government.
So it's not, you know, what happened basically was, as Gideon Rose was even
saying,
the Ukrainian government was kind of siding with Russia, or at least a lot more
pro-Russia.
And then we overthrew that government and installed a pro-America government.
And this to Putin, he had said over and over again, was a huge red line for him.
Like Ukraine was the big line.
And you could look, imagine, take it from our point of view,
if like Russia was coming over here and overthrowing the pro-America government
in Montreal
and installing a pro-Russia government there.
And, you know, like this would be seen as, would you call that an unprovoked
attack,
you know, if we were to go in there and then go overthrow that government?
So again, I'm not justifying what he's doing.
But, and then the other thing to this, right, that's important to add, is like,
you remember,
the two big things that it's so weird, no one, like, at least in the larger
conversation,
I don't see anyone connecting these things, is that there's two things like
involving Ukraine,
that were very big, that happened very recently in American history,
that very much connect to this war.
And one is that our last president was impeached over a thing with Ukraine.
And like, what was that?
And then the other thing is the current president's son was getting paid
millions of dollars
from a company, Burisma, in Ukraine.
And these things all connect.
And basically what happened was after the 2014 coup, this company, Burisma,
they were,
and by the way, Matt Taibbi has done incredible reporting on this.
I highly recommend everyone read his stuff, his substex, incredible,
unbelievable.
Yeah, he's fantastic.
But so basically, Burisma was in bed with the old government that had allied
with Russia.
And so when this government was overthrown, they were very worried, because
they were like,
oh, we were in bed with the old government, and now there's this new government
who's in there.
And so instead of bribing the new government, they just went right to the
source and bribed
the son of the sitting vice president, Joe Biden, when he was vice president,
was in charge of Ukraine policy.
Oh my God.
So they just went, that was why they put him there.
And then they put some other like CIA guy or something like that on their board.
They're just paying them money to just be like, hey, keep us in with you.
And then Trump was telling them to investigate all of this shit.
He got on the phone with them and was like, I want to investigate everything
that was going on
with Joe and Hunter Biden in Ukraine. And Donald Trump did. He got into an area
that it was,
there's an argument it was not okay what he was doing, because he was kind of
going like,
maybe you don't get this, these, these weapons that I was going to send in,
unless you go investigate them. And this was his political opponent.
So it was a little bit of a shady thing. But then the other story about that is
that
ultimately Trump caved and he sent in the weapons to Ukraine. So now not only
did Obama
overthrow the regime, when Joe Biden was the point man, Joe Biden was running
Ukraine policy,
Obama leads this coup, overthrows that government and puts in a pro-Western
government.
Then Trump comes in, sends in a whole bunch of weapons to this new government
that Obama
wouldn't even send in because he was concerned it would provoke Russia. And
then the next president
is Joe Biden, the last guy who was the point man on Ukraine, who was there when
this coup happened.
Then he comes back in. And this is all like the context that led to Vladimir
Putin invading Ukraine.
So again, I'm not saying, and the other other little thing I should mention
there too, is that
that Donbass region on the Eastern portion of Ukraine is like majority ethnic
Russians.
And they got really pissed off at when the new government came in in 2014. And
they were basically
warring with the, you know, the Kiev Western portion of Ukraine since then. And
they had a referendum
in 2015 and voted overwhelmingly that they wanted to be a part of Russia. And
Vladimir Putin didn't
take them, but they said they voted that they wanted to be a part of Russia,
not a part of Ukraine.
So it's just a very complicated mess. And it's the same thing with like the war
on terrorism.
If you're going to tell this story of like what led to this, to understand
where to go from here,
the story has to include that America was intervening in the Middle East for
decades before 9/11.
The story can't just start at 9/11. You know what I mean? And so I guess the
biggest part is what I said
before that the concern of all of us should be just that there's no nuclear
conflict between
America and Russia, which seems like we're like dangerously close to.
Thank you.

Dave Smith Breaks Down the Reasons Russia Invaded Ukraine

- The Joe Rogan experience.
- Dude, this thing with Russia
is just like the craziest thing in the world.
Like, the idea that we're actually
flirting with a nuclear conflict with Russia
is the most important priority in the history of humanity,
is that America and Russia do not go to war.
There's nothing more important than that.
That's it.
We'll destroy the human species if we do this.
And yet, there's this war right on Russia's border,
and there's no effort to negotiate going on.
There's like no effort.
In fact, from very solid reporting,
that actually America, through Boris Johnson,
told Ukraine not to negotiate with Russia
at the very beginning of the war,
when they had a deal worked out.
They had a deal worked out.
There's been reported in multiple sources
that they had a deal worked out,
and the deal was basically
that Vladimir Putin would pull back,
he would pull back his troops and leave Ukraine
under the condition, the very simple conditions,
that Ukraine guaranteed autonomy for the Donbass region,
and agreed to never join NATO.
And that was a deal.
Like, okay, I'm not saying everyone thinks that's the perfect deal,
but it's better than what we got right now.
It's better than nuclear war.
And right now, just the other day,
dude, the official narrative on this whole war,
it's just like it makes no sense.
And again, like I said, remember,
the same people who are pushing this
are the ones who are telling you Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction
and stuff,
but the official narrative, Joe, is basically that,
okay, so Vladimir Putin is a madman,
a crazy war criminal who's hell-bent on reforming the Soviet Union,
and this is a real threat that he could do this,
but also he's getting humiliated in this war in Ukraine.
It's like, he's losing to the poorest country in Europe,
and he's just getting humiliated and beat back,
but he's still a real threat to take over all of Europe.
And he's a complete madman, by the way, Joe.
But when he says he's going to use nuclear weapons,
don't listen to that.
He'd never actually do that, even though he's a complete madman.
And as everyone says, this war, the word they use over and over and over again,
Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, all of them, unprovoked.
Vladimir Putin led an unprovoked war in Ukraine.
But then, it's just like with Osama Bin Laden, what they did with him then.
Don't listen to him.
Whatever you do, don't listen to what he's actually saying,
because none of that's his motivations.
Like, his motivations are what we tell you.
Osama Bin Laden hates us because we're free.
And then, like, Ron Paul would just go like,
"Yeah, but that's not what he's saying at all."
Like, Osama Bin Laden was so clear about why he hated America.
And he's like, "Look, I hate you because you murder innocent civilians in the
Muslim world,
you prop up brutal dictators in the Muslim world,
you prop up Israel who mistreats the Palestinian people,
and you have your bases in our Holy Land in the Arabian Peninsula."
And then they're like, "No, he hates us because we're free."
Like, he didn't mention anything about freedom there.
And then, if you say that, they're like,
"Well, are you defending Osama Bin Laden?"
And you're like, "No, I'm just saying, listen to your enemies.
There's a reason why he hates us."
And if you listen to Vladimir Putin and what he's saying,
I mean, look, he's wrong for invading Ukraine.
And, I mean, you know me, Joe.
I'm the most anti-war fucking person there is.
And there's no excuse for that.
Like, tens of thousands of people have died.
It's horrible.
And a lot of them are soldiers, but a lot of them are civilians.
And, um, but to say he was unprovoked is, like, insane.
It's just only people who know nothing about the history of this conflict
would say there was no provocation.
Did you see the conversation that Roger Waters had with that CNN guy?
Yeah, and right, because Roger Waters was awesome on that.
Yeah.
Because he knows what he's talking about, dude.
And he's right about all of that shit.
He's, look, the, the promise, and this is what he was saying,
and he's absolutely right.
Is that the promise, when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991,
and this was, like, verbally promised and put in writing,
was that NATO would not expand one inch to the east.
And NATO, at that point, the line then was through Germany, right?
Like, the, the, the western half of Germany was in the west,
and the eastern half was with the Soviet Union.
And they were like, we'll let all of these nations, you know, secede,
and the Soviet Union will collapse, and we're giving up on communism.
It's one of the greatest things that ever happened.
And the deal was, okay, you do that, then we won't move NATO.
We won't move our military alliance into your area.
That used to be your realm of influence.
And every single president since then has moved NATO east,
to the point that NATO is now on Russia's border.
And in Ukraine, even though they didn't officially join NATO,
there was always talk of it.
Kamala Harris, very, right before the start of the war,
said, we're looking to put Ukraine into NATO.
And the, the, um, you know, they, they put under George W. Bush,
they put in, um, in, uh, Poland, these dual use rocket launchers.
There's a big complaint that Vladimir Putin has that he's like, these long,
these can be used to get nukes here in a matter of minutes.
Like, this is a, this is like a threat to us that we cannot tolerate.
And then in 2014, there was a coup in Ukraine that was completely led by the
west.
I don't know if you've ever heard, but like, uh, like, I think I sent you
actually once the,
uh, the tape of Gideon Rose, who was the editor for foreign affairs magazine on
the old Stephen
Colbert report, uh, show back when Colbert was hilarious.
And he was just openly bragging about what the game is here.
And then he was like, well, Ukraine is kind of like the Robin to Russia's
Batman.
And so our job is to steal Robin away from Batman and make him come over here
and join us.
And aha, Vladimir Putin's so stupid that he won't do anything.
And then Colbert's in his old character.
So he's like, well, shouldn't Obama be spiking the football and saying, yeah,
in your face, Putin.
And Gideon Rose is like, well, no, no.
Cause then Putin might invade Ukraine.
So we wouldn't want to spike the ball, but they, there, there's these.
Oh yeah, let's play it.
Let's play it.
Go from the beginning.
Yeah, play it from the beginning.
There's the magazine foreign affairs.
Now, now, now, now Gideon, uh, help me out here.
We've got a, we've got a battle.
The Ukraine, some of them want to go into the EU, the European Union.
Right.
Uh, and some of them want to stay with Russia.
If the Ukraine's not in Europe right now, what continent is it on?
Well, it's part of Eurasia, but it's part of Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet bloc.
It's basically Robin to Russia's Batman.
And the challenge here, the challenge here is to try to attract it to the West,
to get
it to flip sides.
So the rebels in the streets, what are they fighting for?
They're fighting for a better future.
Countries have a development.
That sounds like a political speech.
No, but it's actually true.
Countries have to develop over time.
And Ukraine, basically, after the, uh, end of the Soviet Union, faced two
tracks.
It could stay a sort of stagnant, corrupt, authoritarian country tied to Russia.
Or it could essentially join the West.
It could modernize, liberalize, become a democracy.
Uh, at the last minute, when it looked like it was going to trade up from its
sort of, uh,
abusive relationship with its boyfriend from the hood to a nice, yuppie, uh, uh...
You're not loading these choices in any way whatsoever.
It's actually true.
When it looked like it was going to trade up to a better, uh, environment, uh,
at the
last minute, Putin offered a bribe.
How much?
Uh, $15 billion.
Uh...
That's a lot of cash, man.
It's a lot of cash.
And the president, who himself was tied to the old elites and the eastern part
of the
country who ties to Russia, decided to back off the change and go join Russia.
Do you know how many pirate-themed restaurants you can buy with $15 billion?
The problem was the western parts of the country and the younger parts of the
country
and the more modern liberal parts of the country basically knew that they had
no future being
Russia's, Russia's vassal.
Do we...
And so they took to the streets.
Is America taking sides in this in any way?
If, if these people...
The rebels are winning right now, right?
Yes.
Just recently.
So, why isn't Obama spiking the ball in the end zone and calling Putin and
saying,
"Hey, you might have won the medal count, but we won the country count, biatch?"
It's actually a very good question.
And the answer is that we don't want Russia to intervene and kick over the
table like a
game of risk and take Ukraine back.
And so we...
Would they do that?
Could he send in troops?
Yes, he could.
So we are choosing...
Does Ukraine have any troops of their own?
Would they fight back?
Yes, but we don't want this to escalate and we don't want Russia to crack down.
So we want to basically distract Russia.
"Oh, look, you have the highest medal count.
Oh, you did really well."
And, you know, focus on the Olympics.
There's a shiny object.
It'll just take an entire country away from you.
Holy shit.
Yeah.
Now, there's a power vacuum right now.
There's a power vacuum.
The opposition is all together, which everybody...
It's easy to agree on getting rid of the bad old regime
and much harder to create a stable country in which everybody compromises and
moves forward.
But they need a strong leader to move the country forward.
Do you know who's always good at a moment like that?
Vladimir Putin.
Do you think he might volunteer to come in and help Ukraine find its way?
The reason we don't want...
We don't want...
We don't want Putin to get involved in this.
And so we are basically...
We want to try and involve him in this decision so that he allows Ukraine to go.
We actually want to not...
We want to say we want a non-exclusive relationship with Ukraine.
You can have a relationship with it, too.
You're the only one making this into a girlfriend-boyfriend relationship.
Ukraine is basically choosing its future between two completely different
courses of action.
And we're trying to blur that choice so the old boyfriend doesn't get too upset.
When it makes the right choice for us.
Jesus Christ.
So it's just all these George Soros-funded NGOs were funding the militias on
the ground
who were overthrowing the government.
And then there's a tape of Victoria Nuland, who was at the State Department at
the time,
one of the top people at the State Department.
And she was basically talking about who would be the new government that took
over,
who America didn't want in, who we did want in the new government.
So it's not, you know, what happened basically was, as Gideon Rose was even
saying,
the Ukrainian government was kind of siding with Russia, or at least a lot more
pro-Russia.
And then we overthrew that government and installed a pro-America government.
And this to Putin, he had said over and over again, was a huge red line for him.
Like Ukraine was the big line.
And you could look, imagine, take it from our point of view,
if like Russia was coming over here and overthrowing the pro-America government
in Montreal
and installing a pro-Russia government there.
And, you know, like this would be seen as, would you call that an unprovoked
attack,
you know, if we were to go in there and then go overthrow that government?
So again, I'm not justifying what he's doing.
But, and then the other thing to this, right, that's important to add, is like,
you remember,
the two big things that it's so weird, no one, like, at least in the larger
conversation,
I don't see anyone connecting these things, is that there's two things like
involving Ukraine,
that were very big, that happened very recently in American hist