Garry Kasparov's thread on free speech, and cost of the Ukraine war

[BootinUp]

Link to tweet

unrolled thread https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1584623485158039552.html

Garry Kasparov

In his replies, it appears that in discussing chess, Musk has found something he understands even less than geopolitics. Congratulations.

I've always said that an aptitude for chess demonstrates nothing more than that, so there we agree. But I also have a long track record of predicting Putin's behavior and the consequences of the sort of appeasement Musk is pushing.

Winter Is Coming
The stunning story of Russia's slide back into a dictatorship-and how the West is now paying the price for allowing it to happen. The ascension of Vladimir P...
https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/garry-kasparov/winter-is-coming/9781610396219/

It would be ironic if it weren't so dangerous that Musk is proposing the same failed strategy of Obama, Trump, and even early Biden in wanting to engage and make concessions to Putin and his terror state. This slaughter in Ukraine is the result.

I assume the reason Musk did not take to chess was its 100% transparency. No "fog of war" as he said, to hide alliances or, say, finances. But now that he will be running Twitter, perhaps he can answer a few relevant questions about connections to Russia.

Has he spoken to Vladimir Putin, and if so, when and about what? If not, why is he confident Putin would be interested in his "peace" plan, when he has expanded terrorist actions against Ukraine?

Thanks, again, for Starlink, but the recent reports are contradictory. Was it a donation, to support Ukraine's resistance against Russia's invasion, or has there been compensation beyond the huge PR value of its use there?

Now that the Twitter deal is going through, with very interesting timing, will the money still be coming from Saudi and Qatari sources, where many interests are shared with Putin? Will there be any Russian money in the deal?

I hope these questions don't violate the new terms of service Musk applies to this platform. Those who talk so much about threats to free speech are often mostly concerned about the speech being directed at them.

If you think defending Ukraine is expensive, if you think defeating Putin is dangerous, you haven't paid attention to how expensive and dangerous it is when Putin wins. That's why we are here, why he invaded Ukraine, costing trillions of dollars and nuclear threats.

Most importantly, it's why millions of innocent Ukrainians are under siege, thousands dead and tortured, with Russian ethnic cleansing still ongoing in the occupied territories the appeasers would concede and call it peace—until Putin's next attack.

Putin will continue to use blackmail—nuclear, energy, food, financial, compromat—and every other kind, as long as he is in power. Rewarding it will lead to more of it, which takes only the observation of his track record to understand, not genius.