Ukraine Crisis
The situation in Ukraine is becoming more dire by the minute. NATO is implying Russia is planning to invade Ukraine, whereas Russia denies this. Russia claims it will not allow Ukraine to enter NATO, as this would effectively put a hostile military alliance - NATO - right at the borders of Russia.
There's also political maneuvering going around, with the US never wanting a lack of enemies - soon after the disaster in Afghanistan. And Putin is wanting to shift attention away from pretty bad conditions in Russia do to the COVID pandemic and rising prices.
The situation is quite dire and could escalate into something very, very dangerous.
Here are a few links for those interested:
NATO sends reinforcements to Eastern Europe amid Russia tensions
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/24/nato-sends-reinforcements-to-eastern-europe-amid-russian-anger
Russian naval exercises off Ireland's coast 'not welcome,' says Foreign Minister
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/24/europe/russia-naval-exercise-ireland-intl/index.html
Pentagon reveals number of US troops on higher alert over Ukraine
https://www.rt.com/russia/547231-pentagon-troops-europe-ukraine/
Rising costs of Ukraine gamble could force Russia’s hand
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/24/rising-costs-of-ukraine-gamble-could-force-russias-hand
Let's hope things don't escalate too much more. Welcome 2022...
There's also political maneuvering going around, with the US never wanting a lack of enemies - soon after the disaster in Afghanistan. And Putin is wanting to shift attention away from pretty bad conditions in Russia do to the COVID pandemic and rising prices.
The situation is quite dire and could escalate into something very, very dangerous.
Here are a few links for those interested:
NATO sends reinforcements to Eastern Europe amid Russia tensions
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/24/nato-sends-reinforcements-to-eastern-europe-amid-russian-anger
Russian naval exercises off Ireland's coast 'not welcome,' says Foreign Minister
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/24/europe/russia-naval-exercise-ireland-intl/index.html
Pentagon reveals number of US troops on higher alert over Ukraine
https://www.rt.com/russia/547231-pentagon-troops-europe-ukraine/
Rising costs of Ukraine gamble could force Russia’s hand
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/24/rising-costs-of-ukraine-gamble-could-force-russias-hand
Let's hope things don't escalate too much more. Welcome 2022...
Comments (18084)
All the empty smart-arse rhetoric from the Putin apologists in this thread, and yet that is indeed what it comes down to.
No child should die from starvation but from the trillions spent on weapons, used in illegal armed conflicts over the world.
For countries that are democracies, it follows that people want war. For those which are not democracies, the people of that country are off the hook.
I am not for insulting or disrespecting anyone much less for refusing to take official high-level phone calls.
It's easy. It could go like this, in the sort of detached, ultra-formal way the Russian governments makes its statements:
"Mr. President, we welcome the United States statement that it is 'not interested' in nuclear war. As we have said before, Russia will continue to act to protect its strategic interests, and to achieve its stated objectives. As partners we make a request to respect our decisions as a sovereign nation"
"Mr. President These peace talks with Zelenskyy how is it going?"
" As President Zelenskky has said, he needs more time to consider his options. He may have the requirement to consult with his allies and partners, that is his right. We have nothing to add to this but we need to state that Ukraine's sovereignty must be respected, both by allies and adversaries alike."
Of course President Putin could throw in a bit about Neo-Nazis or bio-weapons and the like. People need to talk after all, the Saudis, the Russians, the Chinese, what could possibly happen by talking?
President Biden could ask if the President Putin is feeling the sanctions yet. Maybe that may be too much.
Anonymous declared a ‘cyber war’ against Russia. Here are the results (Mar 16, 2022)
So who should be involved in this 'diplomacy' and who should have the most weight? Is it Ukraine - Russia or is it Ukraine-Russia NATO/USA ? Proxy diplomacy?
No, it follows that people want security. It's totally wrong-headed, I know, but as long as there are countries who continue to develop arms and increase their military capability, other countries prosperous enough to do so will follow suit.
What can be said? We're a fucked-up species.
I agree that Boethius must be on their payroll. Otherwise, his behavior here makes no logical sense.
Many humanitarian crisis are actually caused by conflict. Maybe the current crises will raise awareness of people around the world, I think and put pressure on governments to maybe focus on illegal bloodless coups rather than on war. Maybe that is what started this in the first place.
Conflicts map: I never knew there were so many.
https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/maps-and-graphics/2017/04/04/updated-mapped-world-war
You are welcome to go live in North Korea. We'll send you our good wishes and an orange once in a while.
Quoting Christoffer
Plenty of people in the 30's thought that Hitler and Mussolini made a lot of sense.
Speaking of that imperialism, Russia simply doesn't have the economic basis or military capacity to project an empire so I find such claims divorced from reality. Talk of Russian empire is a form of nationalism, just how the Dutch look favourably on our east India company and Italians talk about the Roman empire and Greeks about the cradle of civilisation.
What's worse is, I think, that the US and NATO were fully aware of provoking the Russians in which Ukraine was nothing more but a pawn. There was never an intent to defend Ukraine against any form of Russian aggression so creating a situation where this became Russia's only viable (in their view) action to take, means US and NATO are complicit in the deaths of innocent Ukrainians.
So what was the end game here? Could've been a couple of things in my view. Either a wish to further intensify sanctions to weaken Russia. Make it spend a lot of money on a, possibly protracted, war. I don't really know and I Wonder if they actually thought that far. I find it more likely that hubris and incompetence have led to this.
I find the following quote the most chilling:
“What good fortune for those in power that people do not think.”
? Adolf Hitler
That was part of his cynicism. I believe that in actual fact people do think, which is why a dictator needs to intimidate and misinform his own people.
Come to think of it, the current situation is akin to Hitler's invasion of Austria in March 1938, in an alternative history version where instead of marching unopposed all the way to Vienna, the Germans would have only captured 20% of Austria after three weeks of war, at great cost to their war machine.
The war in Ukraine is a failed Anschluss.
https://www.henryakissinger.com/articles/how-the-ukraine-crisis-ends/
Yep.
Looks like he has retired.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1114002
Trying to invade Ukraine and overthrow the Ukrainian government was totally delusional on divorced from reality. Yet Putin did it.
Having the grandeur thoughts of Novorossija, are also divorced from reality, but really is at the core of the genuine Russian imperialism. Disguised naturally in the "protection" from the evil West. The whole issue of territorial annexations should make it totally clear that it isn't just jingoistic "loonie talk".
Quoting Benkei
And that is the pretext Putin surely uses and many believe want to continue their self-flogging. Yet simply the Russian rhetoric makes it totally clear (and Russian actions in ex-Soviet countries that aren't anywhere close to NATO) that Russia will continue it's imperialist policies, will try to control them. Will with a heavy hand lay done a truly imperialist "sphere of influence".
Were the Baltic States not in NATO and not in the EU, there fate would be totally obvious: they would have Russian military bases and Russia would dictate their foreign policy. That should be absolutely totally clear to people. It is totally clear to us Finns. Why simply Vladimir Putin has any justification to say how sovereign states manage their alliances?
It's a blessing that Eastern European countries and the Baltics did have the chance to join NATO and the EU. We have now seen just how dangerous Russia is.
It works well on both sides. "We're prepared for war because they are." The arms vendors win.
However, I wanted to drop this analysis that seems, so far in my research, the best overall view of the crisis and each expert more-or-less predicts exactly the current situation in their area, and also agree on where their subjects overlap.
Anatol Lieven even predicts the exact Russian political strategy, which is to not "occupy" and passify the country, but just hold territory militarily, blowup everything that's a threat, and basically demand Ukrainian Neutrality and independence for Dombass regions.
The military experts correctly predict it will not be "half measures" but a full scale invasion, and the political experts correctly predict Russia can likely withstand the sanctions.
When searching for theories, you don't actually want too much analysis of current "just happened" information (although that's useful too, and necessary to even have some idea of what a theory would need to explain, just that so many theories can fit today's data), but rather theories in the past that predict the current information; i.e. predictive power, is what is most insightful.
The absolute key takeaway is: "The Swedes could join NATO, or could join any other alliance, they still won't fight."
This is again the trap of thinking rules-based. While I agree that this is and should be what we should aspire to, the reality is sovereignty means fuck all. Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, rendition etc. That's the same stuff. That doesn't absolve Putin but knowing geopolitics isn't rule based clarifies that responsibility lies with NATO just as much. It's not a pretext, it's how every country, including our own operates. The Cuban crisis was averted because the Russians pulled back. NATO decided to play chicken with Ukrainian lives on the line.
Also, why would they have an aerial picture of a building from 2 days before it was bombed? They just took pictures of every building in the city, hoping to get some before and after shots?
This would be considered insurance fraud where I am from: I just happened to take pictures and video of my basement showing all my expensive stuff a day before the fire destroyed everything. Lucky eh.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60776929
Mariupol theatre: 'We knew something terrible would happen' Why?
Mariupol city council said a Russian plane dropped a bomb on the theatre, calling the attack "deliberate and cynical".
A single Russian plane releasing a single bomb on a theatre? Is that theatre? Of course it may be true, but usually they use more than one bomb and more than one plane.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60785754
Maybe someone could explain the following lines or maybe it needs no explanation?
Quoting BBC
Reuters.
The International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC] called on the warring parties on Thursday to let people leave Mariupol safely and to allow aid in.
Up to 40 ICRC staff and their families had to flee the port along with other civilians on Wednesday, because they had "no operational capacity any more," the organisation's head Peter Maurer told a news conference.
----
Even in this hell, ICRC maintained some staff there all this time. Hats off.
He's never not been a piece of shit; e.g. never shied away from targeting civilians in Georgia and Syria. What's remarkable to me though is how he's taking bits from the Western military playbook and throwing it in our faces. Bullshit about weapons of mass destruction (see U.S. v Iraq); Dubious accusations of genocide (see NATO v Serbia); Invasions dressed up as "special operations"/civilian casualties blamed on "human shields" (see Israel v Gaza); and so on. Almost as if he's trolling.
I agree with this, particulary with regard to the aggressors in the most notable conflicts we've had over the past twenty years or so. We should recognize that powerful nations will pursue their interests as brutally as they can get away with, regardless of who they are. The side-taking then becomes about supporting the victims not our particular flavor of shit.
Here is an interview with a woman who got out of the besieged Mariupol two days ago. You can listen to it if you understand Russian, or read a translation of a partial transcript.
"I thought that life couldn't get any worse. But every day I discovered that it could get worse... When I left, there wasn't a single intact building left. Not a single undamaged road without bomb craters. Not a single unbroken window in the entire city of Mariupol... People carry out the dead and bury them close to home, because you have to stay close to the bomb shelter... Early on there were volunteers who collected corpses left outside at bus stops and benches and drove them to the morgue. But there is no more room in the morgue... The last four days it seemed like not five minutes would go by without sounds of bomb blasts... "
Yet notice the subtle difference of having a military as deterrence and not using it to the option of having a military and starting wars with it.
Quoting Benkei
Pakistan? How Pakistan? Actually Pakistan is just a great example and the way how the US treated a country that assisted a lot the fighters that the US fought and lost to. Pakistan is the crazy example of a country being an "ally" to both sides and getting away with it.
Afghanistan? Well, the Emirate of Afghanistan is back after fighting a long war against the US, which was backed by NATO. Even South Vietnam held a bit longer than the US backed Afghanistan. So did also the Najibullah regime too.
And finally Iraq. Well, I could start just how problematic and stressed the US-Iraqi relations are, but you would be bored, I guess, and this response would be too long.
Quoting Benkei
Historical events aren't monocausal. Yet again this continuous ignorance of any agency of either the Cubans or the Ukrainians themselves.
When it came to Cuba, the US tried everything else but a large scale invasion and it's the Cubans themselves who defended their beaches during the Bay of Pigs landing. Nicaragua has Ortega, Venezuela has Maduro and Cuba is governed by the Communists. That should tell how successful the US has been in it's own back yard after all the proxy wars, the failed coup attempts and covert actions. Just like Russia with Ukraine...only now Russia has opted for all out war. Be their policy choices good or bad, but these countries have shown quite well the limitations of even an Superpower.
Ukraine wanted to join NATO because it obviously could see the imminent danger it was in. And it was no "neo-nazis" that started the march toward NATO membership. It was Leonid Kravchuk, the last Soviet leader of Ukraine and first President of Independent Ukraine, who started the road with Ukraine joining the partnership for peace. Sure, Kravchuk obviously made a huge mistake on thinking that Russia would agree to international law and the promises it made in Budapest in 1994. Yet that was their error: to believe Russia's promises.
An Ukrainian President's "Peace at our time"-error moment in Budapest 1994. Just Like Chamberlain in 1938.
NATO enlargement is simply a side issue here, one thing that Putin extensively uses as a pretext for his imperialistic ambitions. Which, of course when it comes to Russia, are "defensive".
The real issue here is that Russia with Putin at it's helm didn't understand that the Russian Empire was over. They had lost it when the Soviet Union collapsed. Just like Austria had lost the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the British had lost their Empire. For some reason, Putin thinks that he can get it back. That Russia has some right for "a sphere of influnce". It genuinely might have that, if it wouldn't be openly so hostile against it's neighbors.
It would be as if the Netherlands simply "would have a say" in the internal politics of Indonesia and it could freely intervene in Indonesian domestic politics... because, that is the way it is. And then we would talk about Dutch, American and Chinese agenda and objectives in Indonesia and would disregard totally a country with 270 million people. Because that's how the narrative "all this happened because of NATO enlargement" seems to be like.
Well, if there's a will there's a way and those powerful nations can get their hubris shoved up their ass. It really healthy for them.
What I cannot understand why some cannot both oppose wars of conquest from both Russia and the US.
An inability to abstract out a concrete ethical position from an embedded perspective makes reality counterintuitive. This allows e.g. Boris Johnson to be taken seriously as condemning Putin in the strongest terms, while at the same time running and kissing the ass of the Saudi Arabians who are carrying out similarly barbaric acts in Yemen, financed by the U.S., who happily call Putin a war criminal only because he's not their war criminal, and so it goes on... :vomit:
I'm surprised that the American and European sympathy for Ukrainians, but not, say, Yemenis, isn't taken at face value, but counted as racist.
Not financed by the US. Supported in other ways.
Personally, I think sympathy is controlled by narrative, exposure, and proximity rather than racism. There was plenty of sympathy in Europe for Bosnian Muslims, but that was front and centre and magnified whereas Yemen is further away and minimized.
Yet still I don't understand just why you can't say that on this issue I support and on that issue I deeply condemn.
Besides there is a common issue just when I would condemn the actions. When the argument or justification for a war is a hypothetical.
-We have to get into a civil war because the one side are Communists and hence if we let South Vietnam fall, then it will be next all of Southeast Asia.
- We have to invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein might get nuclear weapons and then pose a threat.
- We have to invade Afghanistan because it could be otherwise a safe haven for terrorists and a springboard for further attacks.
- We have to invade Yemen because if the Houthis gain power, Iran might get a foothold in the Arabian Peninsula.
- We have to invade Ukraine because NATO might then use it as an attack on Russia.
All of the above are different to a justification: because X did attack Y, we should defend/give support to Y.
And then historically the absolute worst reason to attack: because time is running out, the war has to be fought sooner than later.
- Hence the German Empire thought it would be good to have the war before Russia gets to be too strong, so they were in a hurry.
- Hence the Project for the New American Century neocons wanted to remodel the Middle East before another Super Power would rise (after the Soviet Union), so they were in a hurry.
. Hence Putin decided to attack Ukraine now as otherwise Ukraine was getting military aid from the West and could possibly get it's economy into shape, so Putin was in a hurry.
OK, supported through arms sales and technical assistance, primarily.
Yes. The Saudis do pay hard cash for the M1 Abrams tanks, for those F-15 strike aircraft and smart bombs.
Donald Trump was happy!
Yea. What you said was in line with what StreetlightX said earlier. Most of his posts contain outright lies. That was one of them.
Of course. The Houthis are Shia, so Saudi Arabia doesn't need any prodding from the US to attack them. The shame is for supporting them while they did it.
Just to add that the fact that sympathy is (delibrately) fostered and controlled by narrative, exposure and proximity rather than more relevant stuff like degree of injustice or harm is what I'm mainly decrying here.
It's a distinction without much of a difference. Yemeni civilians are being killed with US weapons and the US is profiting from them being killed. Whether the support is direct finance or sweetheart weapons deals doesn't mitigate the ethics of the situation a whole lot, does it?
I disagree.
Ok, can you explain to me the huge ethical difference you see between e.g. selling someone a gun knowing they're going to murder someone with it and giving them money knowing they're going to go buy a gun and murder someone with it.
Why can't we just get the facts straight? Is that a problem?
I'm happy to be corrected on the facts. I just wonder if you agree that ethically there's no major difference. If you sell someone a weapon knowing they're going to use it to kill civilians, you are partly responsible for those deaths, right? (Would apply to China also if they sell weapons to Russia).
Yes. You're partly responsible.
We have two different narratives here. In one, the US finances a war crime. This suggests that the US had a particular interest doing damage to Yemen. This is not true.
In the second narrative the US assisted Saudi Arabia, but did not directly finance anything. It was a deal with the devil.
Let's say the weight of American sin is equal in both cases and Americans will spend the same amount of time in Hell either way.
Still, one story is true and the other is a fucking lie. Can we not get the facts straight?
To be fair it works out better for the US because they get to cycle tax-dollars to their weapons companies which in turn props up the US economy - which can only function so long as it builds weapons to kill people with.
It's not really that simple, frank. What counts as "financing" is debateable. It could be argued there's no difference except accounting between a discounted arms deal where some other favour, e.g. re oil, is returned and just giving the other party the money to buy weapons. The narrative concerning interest is not something I was arguing for. I don't think the US cares one way or the other, just as they don't really care about the civilian deaths in the Ukraine.
So that's a no. :chin:
Here's a gun; you can have it for half price (not direct financing). Here's half the price of a gun to help you buy a gun (direct financing). Distinction without a difference. Fact.
I'll get what I can for you on that. In the meantime:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_States%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_arms_deal
"In August 2018, a laser-guided Mark 82 bomb sold by the U.S. and built by Lockheed Martin was used in the Saudi-led coalition airstrike on a school bus in Yemen, which killed 51 people, including 40 children."
The human garbage that runs your country should be at least as concerning for you as the human garbage that invaded Ukraine, seeing as you may have voted for the former.
I think it's pretty clear what the end game was - and is. The West (America and its client states Britain and France) has always hated Russia for having its own interests. First, it hated Russia for being “czarist”, then it hated it for being “communist”, and now it hates it for being “Nazi” or “Stalinist”. Or, perhaps, “Nazi” and “Stalinist”!
The reality, of course, is that the West resents Russia's resistance to being made subordinate to Western economic and financial interests and for that reason it aims to destroy Russia as an independent power.
It would have been very simple for NATO to give Russia some guarantee that it wouldn't seek further expansion in former Soviet republics. But the British and the Americans knew exactly what they were doing which is why they secretly armed and trained the Ukrainians all these years since 2014:
Exclusive: Secret CIA training program in Ukraine helped Kyiv prepare for Russian invasion
The plan is (1) to arm Ukraine, (2) impose more sanctions, and (3) if need be, military intervention, first through European proxies and eventually directly. But the ultimate objective is the same: the destruction of Russia, the incorporation of its economic and political system into America's world empire, and control over its resources. There can be no doubt about it.
Of course. That was never in question. Biden is a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, BTW.
We're calm as far as I know.
@frank
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/19/politics/jared-kushner-saudi-arms-deal-lockheed-martin/index.html
E.g.
"President Donald Trump signed a nearly $110 billion defense deal with Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Saturday...
The deal was finalized in part thanks to the direct involvement of Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law and senior adviser. ..
...he personally called Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson and asked if she would cut the price of a sophisticated missile detection system, according to a source with knowledge of the call.
...
While calling the head of a major defense company and simply asking for a lower price is widely considered an unorthodox negotiation tactic, Kushner's hands-on approach has drawn comparisons to when then-President-elect Trump criticized the stealthy F-35 fighter jet for being too expensive, and Hewson gave her "personal commitment" to cut the cost of the program in February."
I don't think the exact figures are available on whatever discounts were involved but the principle of indirect financing here stands, regardless.
Being Irish doesn't make you any more moral than anyone else, frank nor does being Catholic, I'd wager. But thanks for the vote fo support, I guess.
I think you actually know it means to finance something. :rofl:
Side taking is an act of free will, so we have to all accept that. I have changed sides on occasion, given the facts, admittedly reaching me from the media, but also from media outlets from both sides.
Nations have a right to defend themselves, I think we all agree on that. Or do we? Alliances are one thing, false promises are not a defense. Nuclear arms is another, but I am not sure we want to take that route, although it has worked. Defense is the key, but with all the defense spending only a few nations are able to defend themselves. The solution? More defense spending of course.
I don't believe in insulting people, it's a sign of not being able to make a convincing argument. If you want, here is a quotable quote:
“Saddam, Bush, and Putin – they are all dogs,” al-Idreesi said. “And if Putin could learn anything from Iraq, that is this will be the beginning of his end.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/27/as-russia-invades-ukraine-iraqis-remember-painful-war-memories
I don't recall the end of Bush.
Biden ended the support for the war against Yemen. The support came from Obama and Trump.
But yes. Some Irish people are scum.
Was this before or after the US$650 million arms deal with SA in November 2021?
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/02/15/biden-doubles-down-failed-yemen-policy
"When running for office, President Biden promised to “make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.” In the context of the Yemen conflict, fulfilling this promise may not be easy, but it is clear: In Biden’s own words, America must “end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen.” Unfortunately, the administration’s response to the recent escalation in the conflict has been to revert to the same failed playbook as previous administrations, risking further complicity in the Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) coalition’s violations.
...
In response to the recent escalation, the Biden administration apparently has doubled down on support to the coalition, announcing the sale of additional fighter aircraft to the UAE. Biden said the administration is considering redesignating the Houthis a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
....
In addition to potentially violating U.S. law, continuing arms sales to the coalition puts the U.S. at risk of complicity in possible war crimes. The sales also fly in the face of justice and accountability for previous violations given the coalition’s dreadfully flawed investigations of its own strikes."
Thanks for the link to the Reuters report. "What are our leaders doing?" Well, they are prolonging your suffering for some good reason. National honor I guess.
Ukraine would have to undergo a disarmament process to ensure it wasn't a threat to Russia. There would have to be protection for the Russian language in Ukraine. And there is something called de-Nazification.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60785754
Ok so fight on for honor, principles etc. In the end it will be worth it. This looks to be more like a war between Europe and the United States. Someone pointed out the US never left its WW2 military bases.
US Military Bases are located in over 135 countries. Russia has 9, some of them radar stations, hence the empire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_military_bases_abroad#Current_bases
Oh Yes President Putin has a lot of empire building to do. As the nations of the world watch helplessly, maybe Russian Propaganda is working.
Your point is that Biden didn't end the support quickly enough to avoid becoming partially responsible for the deaths of innocent people.
I appreciate your pointing that out.
It's bedtime.
After. Liar.
No, my point is it may have been just a soundbite for the gullible like most politician's campaign promises. Good night.
Oh. No, he just ended it.
OK. If he did, that's good. (I originally wasn't referring to him in particular but your whole political establishment anyhow. And we'll judge them by their actions not their words etc.)
Wait a second... :chin: :lol:
Oh, how convenient.
And surely the US can be trusted to not continue such sales, given its stellar track record.
Meanwhile American material support of genocidal regimes like Israel or brutal dictatorships like Egypt continue apace.
For someone who likes to enjoy performative condemnation, you sure do alot of wiggling out of such performances when its people you like.
You mentioned my voting record, so,
Quoting StreetlightX
wut
I said you "may have voted for". I didn't know who you voted for and I was including congress. Anyhow...
LOL. This is exactly the double standards that agitates me. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were illegal. The expansion of drone bombings into Pakistan were illegal. The extra-judicial murder of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan was illegal. Either it's rule based or it's not.
And then an entire expose on the Cuban crisis to try to obfuscate the simple fact the Russians did what the US demanded because they knew full well it would lead to war. It sas their withdrawal that avoided the war, if they hadn't the US would've started a war against Cuba.
No man, fuck the USA and NATO just as much as Putin.
But then do you think that the war to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqi invasion illegal?
Do you think the United Nations going to war against North Korea after it invaded the South was illegal?
Do you think UK and France declaring war at Germany after it invaded Poland was illegal?
Or you just don't care?
Sorry, but I take the stance that countries can perform actions that they can be condemned about and similarly do something that can be supported.
It's useful to keep all this in mind and to condemn every illegal war, including the current aggression of a democracy by a dictatorship in Ukraine. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Don't recall saying otherwise, but sure.
I was recently reading about the concept of the ethical dilemma, specifically of the sort where a particular action is right and wrong at the same time.
One view is that ethical dilemmas of this kind only exist for world leaders as they act to advance the interests of their countries in the context of competition for political survival.
I think this issue is in the background of the discussions in this thread, though we seem to want to avoid facing it. What makes this interesting to me is how and why parties get close to dealing with it.
I'm not misrepresenting you at all. I understood that you were talking about the 2003 invasion. But I was referring to another war.
But the question is what you think about these conflicts. Were they illegal?
The fact is sometimes you can condemn and sometimes justify. That the Soviet Union in a large part destroyed the Third Reich was totally justified. They had been attack. Even if just before they had divided Eastern Europe with Hitler (and attacked my country, btw).
Quoting Olivier5
And those who don't condemn it, but accept issues like the annexation of Crimea by force should be as trolls left out of the discussion.
If people want to discuss the issues that Russia is using as propaganda talking points, then it would be good to understand that they are talking about issues that are used as propaganda. Let's take the case of NATO enlargement, one of the most cherished talking points among Ukrainian neo-nazis and US backed bioweapon labs etc. @dclements posted on another thread a great short video of the issue which does give an informative overview about the subject without falling to Anti-Americanism and hence indirectly promote the propaganda of the aggressor in the Ukrainian conflict.
If you haven't see it,
This is irrelevant to the point that plenty of illegal wars were fought by the USA and NATO and to now cry foul about Russia is just hypocrisy, which once again goes to the point that if legality isn't a relevant measure by all parties involved it shouldn't be an argument to absolve USA and NATO from their responsibility when considered strategically.
That some wars were justified and in accordance with international law doesn't diminish this point. Also, the Gulf War turned illegal.
For good order, based on international law the Ukraine invasion is illegal. Before people misunderstand my argument again as if it absolves Putin, it doesn't.
I think it's important to say these things unambiguously, not just "not say otherwise".
Yep. Recognizing that we live with contradictions might help us with clarity. Maybe.
Of the things I care about even minimally, what 'you think' is not on the list.
This thread is about now about the war in Ukraine. Earlier it was about a crisis in Ukraine.
But when you say "to now cry foul about Russia is just hypocrisy", I would politely disagree. Simple plain facts should simply be acknowledged and that is not hypocrisy. If some actors have skeletons in their closet, it doesn't make the issue at hand different.
Before Putin invaded, you put the blame on the West, didn't care about Putin and demanded the acceptance of power projection and spheres of influence for Russia:
Quoting Benkei
And then when Russia does invade, what's your comment? Events that happen because of the US:
Then you have made quite clear how skeptical we should be of everything we actually can see from Ukraine. And people were too oriented to NATO and stuff. I got that.
Yet remembering the Benkei that I had a discussion about Israel and it's actions, that Benkei did make a moral judgement and did take a moral stance. He didn't think it's hypocrisy to cry foul and likely wouldn't have accepted "spheres of influence" and other realpolitik justifications in that case. He wrote:
So the question is, why the above condemnation (which I agree with, actually, don't find anything incorrect there) is only preserved for Israel, but not for Russia and Putin? Now for some reason I find myself with a realpolitik (or anti-US?) Benkei who doesn't care what Russia does. (Perhaps it's all Western propaganda or what?)
Person referring to Holy Scripture in the justification of the war he started likely isn't going to cut a peace deal immediately.
Economic survival also. One option is for people joining the armed forces that they will not engage in any war or military action that proceeds without UN Security Council approval. Tell your local recruiting officer. Not sure how that will go down.
The difference is that the Palestinians have not made strategic choices for which they can be blamed, as opposed to Israel and its enablers. They haven't done anything wrong except for existing. If you want to compare it, then the Palestinians are Ukrainians.
It's interesting to see you think there's an inconsistency.
There's just two levels, strategic and rules based. I blame Russia for an act of aggression but I think it was the only correct strategic move. I therefore blame the USA and NATO for limiting strategic choices that result in war.
..just in case someone on this thread is interested in them and didn't see them.
Also there there is livemap, which shows an interact map of Ukraine and some of what is going on there:
https://liveuamap.com/
Dude, the whole current war is precisely because NATO isn't Ukraine's friend ... or it would be in Ukraine right now shoulder to shoulder, protecting its "friend".
Saying NATO arms dealing with Ukraine is "friendship" is like saying your meth dealer dealing you meth is "friendship".
Maybe you need the meth, but big mistake thinking your meth dealer's your friend. That's how suicides happen. Public service announcement everyone.
Yeah, this is the problem in a nutshell. NATO could still fast track Ukraine membership. But it won't because it doesn't want war with Russia, which means it would never let Ukraine join (since it would be de facto at war because of Russia's occupation of Crimea).
Ukraine would need to essentially invade Russia to get Crimea back, and, as we've just established, NATO's not going to help them do that. So they've no choice there either.
And if NATO aren't going to help in Crimea, they're certainly not going to go to war to return de facto independent states to the control of a previous authority.
So Ukraine are sending men off to die for the right to make a choice they don't even have.
Put the other way round is even more problematic...
No outcome currently on the table could be avoided by any possible military victory. They will not achieve membership of NATO, they will not get Crimea back, and they will not regain full control over the Dombass. So what, I'd like to know, is the strategic objective?
Offered so far has been...
We don't trust Putin - not a strategic objective, and in any case a 'fight to the death option'.
Various forms of 'teaching Putin a lesson' - I can't even believe anyone could describe the horror of Mariupol in one breath and then suggest it's all worth it to see the look on Putin's face if he loses.
*His research focused on protests and social movements, revolutions, radical right and left politics, nationalism and civil society. He authored a number of peer-reviewed articles and interviews on contemporary Ukrainian politics, the Euromaidan uprising, and the ensuing war in 2013-14
Anyone who thinks that 'the Ukrainians' are some kind of homogeneous mass that they can 'support' is talking shite.
But you've yet to explain what you want anyone to do about this, nor provided any reason at all for your assumption that they don't already know this.
Sometimes the facts (on which the propaganda is based) are relevant to understanding the issue. You can't just ban discussion of them on the grounds that some current aggressor is using them as a basis for their propaganda. No one here is promoting propaganda. Not one person has said that Ukraine's Neo-Nazi problem morally justified invasion, not one person has said that NATO expansion morally justified invasion. There's been no suggestion that Ukraine is 'rightfully' part of Russia, and no one has claimed that Ukraine are developing biological weapons designed to carry out some kind of Russocide.
So if no one here is promoting Putin's propaganda, why is discussing any of the facts on which it is based so in need of constant suppression?
On the subject of 'misinformation'...
Quoting https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/27/hunter-biden-joe-biden-president-business-dealings
Quoting Isaac
Can you explain how you're using these words?
I have seen many responses directly rebutting the claims at issue.
I have seen many dismissive non-responses (that the claims need not be discussed, much less rebutted, because they are irrelevant, unimportant, overblown, etc.).
Does any of that qualify as "banning" or "suppressing" discussion for you?
Aren't the Palestinians similar here to the Ukrainians? There's a link, except that:
- There was no Independent sovereign state of Palestine, whose territory and borders (the new) Israel would have earlier acknowledged.
- Unlike now when NATO and EU are assisting Ukraine, the Arab countries didn't join the war against Israel to help the Palestinians, but to carve up their own piece of the former British Mandate with Jordan being the most successful in this endeavour (thanks to an army trained and lead by British professional soldiers).
- The Palestinians fleeing the conflict thought they would come back after the fighting, but the Ukrainians now fleeing Eastern Ukraine can understand that if Russia holds those territories, there is no going back to home.
Quoting Benkei
WTF?
Only correct strategic move? To start a war they cannot win?
You really honestly say that invading Ukraine was the "only correct strategic move" for Russia? To start a war against a country that doesn't have nuclear weapons, doesn't have territorial claims at Russia and isn't thinking of attacking Russia, is the "only correct strategic move"?
Then you "therefore blame the USA and NATO for limiting strategic choices that result in war".
Let's think about just what you say: That what one US president promised years ago about NATO membership in the distant somehow "limited" Putin's options to not only annex Crimea, not only to try instill civil war in many regions (and being successful in the Donbass), but then years later, when there wasn't any indication of NATO membership of Ukraine, to start an all out invasion of Ukraine...and that's the ONLY CORRECT STRATEGIC MOVE?
:vomit:
Just to put into the proper context issues like the idea of the US sponsoring biowarfare labs in Ukraine.
It's like someone ardently wants to discuss Pizzagate in a thread of US politics as a real issue. So let's discuss where the children were kept! No really, where are they?
Quoting Isaac
Yet people have said that the US installed neo-nazis to lead Ukraine's government and have long wanted to make this a discussion of neo-nazis, even if extreme right has for example in France a lot more support... which has been supported by Putin's Russia. Hopefully we perhaps have sufficiently cleared the role of the extreme-right in Ukrainian politics: that even if they do exist, perhaps the assumption that they rule Ukraine isn't truthful.
Things like what are Russia's options next would be interesting. Or how this war will affect the wider region. Or how the war might end. Or where is Russia going from here.
But I guess NATO bashing is the only proper intellectual issue to do.
I'm not entirely sure I understand the question. When someone asks about the use of words, its usually because they find them confusing or incorrect in some way, but without that information I'm not quite sure how to answer. But I'll do my best...
I'm using 'Ban' or 'suppress' as in 'prevent from being published or spoken about'.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
What else would you ascribe to those comments? The idea is quite clearly to shame, insult, excommunicate, ostracise, or otherwise make it less likely the people making those points will continue to do so - ie to suppress such posts. I don't see any justification for assuming the setting up of social taboos is to be treated differently to legal ones when discussing intent. The intent in both cases is the same - to prevent the offending behaviour.
If I disagree with someone about, say, visual processing, I actively want them to continue posting, I encourage their response, to find out more about their position. If I disagree with someone about, say, racism I'll make them feel like they don't deserve to be heard, I'll insult them, ostracise them, make them feel generally unwelcome. The aim is to get them to stop, not to find out more about their racism.
The latter technique is being used against things like Ukrainian Neo-Nazis, NATO expansion, US sponsored biological weapons research, and all strategies for Ukraine other than 'fight to the death'.
Note, I'm not objecting to the use (which I take to be a perfectly normal part of politics), I'm asking why in this instance people are choosing them against those issues.
As I believe we may have spoken about before, I'm significantly more interested in the methods people here use to defend their beliefs than I am in what those beliefs are.
By 'proper' you mean the one you think is right?
Quoting ssu
Not in the least. The very reason we assume Pizzagate is nonsense is because of the absence of 'rooms where the children were kept', it would be more like saying we cannot discuss any high level collusion in government because that would be "...just like discussing Pizzagate"
The matters being raised here are real. There are Neo-Nazis, NATO is expanding, there are separatists in Dombass, Ukraine is corrupt, arms dealers do influence foreign policy... None of this is the least bit like Pizzagate.
Every single issue I've raised, without exception, has been raised also by either respected investigative journalists or, in most cases, by experts in their field. My citation rate here, I'd wager, is higher than yours.
These are not 'crazy conspiracy theories', these are legitimate foreign policy positions, but then you know that already, don't you?
Quoting ssu
Yep. As I said, its a theory held by people with sufficient expertise in the matter to outrank either of us. That you personally don't buy it is not reason to relegate it.
Quoting ssu
Oh come on! Did you seriously think that would work? I expect a better class of strawman by this stage.
Quoting ssu
I suggest if you're interested in those questions you read some of the expert commentary, don't come to an unvetted internet forum for it..
Strategy can result in an illegal war, we all know this. Strategy is only a plan of action to achieve something, in this case, not the survival of the world, but the survival of the fittest, with the 'not fit' being pushed down the food chain, not necessarily extinction.
Many wars are started by democratic countries, which raises the question who is really in control? A "government of the people, by the people, for the people" sounds great until you realize that he missed out a word.
"government of some people, by some the people, for some of the people" . The idea has been suggested before.
A Government For Some People, By Some People
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/government-for-some-people
BBC reported this in 2014 and 2015 . I am not sure what the BBC's strategy is, here. Suffice to say they were not happy with the government in 2015 and wanted to overthrow it again.
Neo-Nazi threat in new Ukraine: NEWSNIGHT
1,533,102 views Mar 1, 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY
The far-right group threatening to overthrow Ukraine's government - Newsnight
109,897 views Jul 23, 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEKQsnRGv7s
[sup]• Statement calling for the creation of a Special Tribunal for the punishment of the crime of aggression against Ukraine
• ICC prosecutor launches Ukraine war crimes investigation (AP)
• Ukraine calls for Nuremberg-style tribunal to judge Vladimir Putin (Politico)
• Why we need a new Nuremberg trial to make Putin pay (Daily Mail)
• Putin’s use of military force is a crime of aggression (Financial Times)
[/sup]
I'm guessing, at best, Putin will just have fewer viable travel destinations.
:vomit:
Demands ?
Responses ?
Meet ?
Bombs :fire: ? ?
Were the demands always bullshit?
Yes. Nice of you to get all judgmental over that assessment. Just like the USA would've done in the Cuban missile crisis, the Russians attacked. Strategy isn't about morality. I thought you'd be the one person from the camp not agreeing with my position that wouldn't confuse the two.
I guess we're done then?
Can you imagine if even a fraction of this - totally symbolic, completely useless - self-satisfied wank was applied even for a moment to American crimes or infinitely greater magnitute?
George Bush
Tony Blair
Joe Biden
Donald Rumsfeld
...notice a pattern?
But yeah, by all means carry on with your Putin exceptionalism, makes a nice cover for your sycophancy.
I am worried for President Putin: my biggest fear is that he will be alone.
I was hoping no-one would bring up the Holy War thing, wars are annoying especially the Holy Wars that as are Holy as North Korea is Democratic.
Maybe President Putin was tempted by the Devil?
You are afraid that he could end up committing suicide?
@ssu did not say Putin was exceptional in that, though. He just said that holy warriors aren't known for signing peace deals, so Putin is unlikely to seek peace in Ukraine.
Yes. The point was to show how far @ssu's warmongering extended. We can't advocate negotiation with Putin because he's invoked religion... So we can't advocate negotiation with the US, or UK for the same reason. Do you think there's a single war ever been fought without one side or the other invoking, as Dylan put it, God on their Side ?
So what now? No one can be trusted, no one is likely sue for peace...we'll just resort to violence to settle all our disputes then. We might as well just nuke each other now and get it over with.
That is not what he said, again. He pointed out that holy warriors often find it difficult to make peace with their enemies.
Why point that out?
For what purpose? What's the policy implication, what do we do with that knowledge?
Yes. How does it influence which strategy we might advocate?
Quoting Isaac
To all holy warriors including Putin, the advice might be something like: If you want to be able to get out of a war at some point through a peace deal, then maybe don't essentialize it as being between Good and Evil. Cause that makes it harder to sign a peace deal, eventually.
So you agree with me that all the framing of this war as 'evil Putin vs. noble Ukrainians' is unhelpful.
The implication is NOT that something or another is 'unhelpful' per se. It is that essentializing a conflict as good vs evil has a cost: it makes it harder to make peace. This cost may or may not be worth paying depending on the circumstances. It was certainly a good thing to see the fight against Nazism as a fight against evil, for instance. There was no peace to be made with Hitler.
That Putin is morally responsible for this war is a fact. He started it, from a position of strength, of dominance. He bears the moral responsibility of thousands of deaths, among Russians too. This should be recalled regularly since so many seem eager to forget it and because it is important to understand the Ukrainian government position and communication: they do not say that they are on a crusade against evil. They say that they are defending their land against a ultra-brutal and totally immoral invasion.
And that is true. It is not essentializing anything, just saying the truth.
And truth does not make a peace deal more difficult to strike.
No the problem is that Putin has framed the 'evil neo-nazi Ukrainians vs. noble holy-warrior Putin&Russians' in the first place (and persisting with that). That is unhelpful for peace making.
Yep. Which is entirely the reason I quoted all the other parties making the same religious invocations. Here's Zelensky, by the way, lest you feel he's absolved...
Quoting https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/03/zelensky-invokes-judaism-rally-support-ukrainian-cause
So all war leaders invoke religion and whether we frame it as 'good vs evil' depends on other factors? So, I'll ask again. Why talk about Putin's religious language making it less likely he'll strike a peace deal? What was the point if religious language has no impact on strategy because everyone does it and the essentialising is done, or not done, for completely different reasons?
Quoting Olivier5
How is that any different. "ultra-brutal and totally immoral" just sounds like a synonym for 'evil'.
Quoting neomac
Why is that more unhelpful for peacemaking than the opposite framing of 'totally innocent Ukrainians bravely fighting a ruthless and hell-bent tyrant, deaf to all pleas'?
Both sound equally unhelpful to peace talks, the essential component of which is some expectation of comprise.
I don't expect the victims of an aggression to make peace with the aggressor, especially while the latter is rampaging with the aggression. Unless they are demotivated to fight and defend their rights for themselves, of course.
Warmongering it is then.
Me or Putin? Define "warmongering".
Both.
Wanting a war to exist where there wasn't one before and wanting a war to continue where it might otherwise end are both acts of warmongering.
Then by your definition I'm not warmongering. I didn't want a war between Russia and Ukraine nor I want it to be continued. I was talking about my expectations about what the Ukrainians want not about what I want. BTW were the Russians warmongering when fighting back the Nazis out of their country in WW2?
Right. So why did you involve my post? If you want to have a different conversion, don't do so in response to my posts, it's really confusing. I'm talking about what course of action we ought to advocate, not what course of action we expect Ukrainians to do. I don't go around having 'expectations' of entire nations.
What's evil is the invasion, the bombing of civilians, etc. Again that is a fact. It IS evil to do these things. Facts don't make peace difficult.
Naked, unprovoked aggression makes peace difficult. It is detrimental to the common good, immoral, and forbidden as such by international law. It follows that the liberation of Ukraine from such aggression would contribute to the common good. But this doesn't make a liberation struggle 'essentialist' in that it's still not a crusade of cosmic proportion between the forces of good and evil. It can end as soon as the invasion ends.
You didn't specify anywhere what kind of conversation you want in your post. This is a public forum about Ukrainian crisis. You made a claim that I as others find questionable and I addressed it as such.
Worse than this, Putin is killing people who - he claims - belong to the same nation as Russians. So he's like killing Russians!
Peace requires a deal of some sort, and a deal of some sort requires both sides to give, which means both sides accepting some wrong. It doesn't matter what scale the wrong is, a mad tyrant might decide to wipe out a population because their leader insulted his wife, the two sides could still sue for peace with "I'll stop insulting your wife if you stop the genocide".
It's like none of you even know how negotiation works. You know they exchange pizzas for hostages in hostage negotiations, right? Do you think they're somehow claiming that withholding pizzas is the moral equivalent of holding an innocent person hostage at gunpoint? No, of course not - because (thank God) professional hostage negotiators aren't playing on their My First Ethics Fisher-Price toys and instead live in the real world with helping people as a priority over moral sanctimony.
What claim do you think you've addressed? Your response was "I don't expect Ukrainians to negotiate". To which 'questionable' claim of mine is that a counter?
To be clear - my claim is that framing the whole conflict as evil, genocidal Russia vs innocent Ukraine does not help achieve peace through negotiation.
What you (or I) expect Ukrainians to actually do is completely irrelevant to that claim.
That is simply not true. In such a deal the parties just have to agree on their future relationship. They don't need to agree on who was right or wrong in the past.
The point was that it becomes difficult to do so if you see the fight as part of some cosmic battle between Good and Evil. Note the capital letters. The fight here, for the Ukrainians, is to redress a particular evil, the invasion, not an absolute Evil. Zelensky is not going to fight all the way to Moscow.
Yes. He's bombing them to free them from fascism. It does work in a perverse way: corpses are free from a lot of the trouble living people have.
I didn't say they needed to agree on the moral judgement, only that such cards need to be in the player's hands. Each side needs to have a 'wrong' they can offer to right, otherwise they'll be no deal.
Quoting Olivier5
None of Putin's rhetoric implies he's going to wipe out the 'evil' Ukraine either. He talks a lot about how they are his Russian brothers. The 'evil' he's talking about is Neo-Nazisism, imperialism, genocide etc. All clear evils, not Evil capitalised.
He's certainly trying to fight all the way to Kyiv, though. Plus imperialism or nazism are universals, not specific evils.
Quoting Isaac
More confused BS. A negotiation is simply about finding mutually agreeable terms. A lot of push and shove happens but the Ukrainians should not, in my view, follow your advice and bomb Russian cities or fund separatist movements in Russia just in order to bring more 'wrong chips' at the bargaining table.
Let's just think how according to you, what "the only correct strategic move" has produced so far:
- The primary planned operation of a quick strike (as in 2014) failed.
- The Ukrainian government didn't fall.
- Russia has something like 65%-75% of it's operational forces already engaged in Ukraine.
- However you look at it, it is obvious that Russia has endured a lot of casualties and lost equipment.
- The attack has unified Ukraine in such a way that couldn't have been possible anyway else.
- The Ukrainians put up a far more stiff defense than even the US and NATO anticipated.
- Despite of efforts in modernization, the Russian armed forces performance in this war is closer to the wars in Chechnya and again the West overestimated the operational performance of the Russian military.
- Germany has made a historical sweeping change of it's foreign and security policy and has started to rearm. The one time 100 billion spending and raising military spending to 2% is huge.
- Germany also shut the Nordstream 2. In some time, I think they can do away with Nordstream 1.
- The EU has changed dramatically it's policies and is now arming Ukraine.
- European countries are trying to stop their energy imports from Russia, as these imports are extremely risky.
- Western companies are withdrawing in droves from Russia.
- Both Finland and Sweden are likely now to join NATO. In both countries prior to the attack those wanting to join NATO were a minority.
- Neither EU or NATO haven't been as unified before.
- All those politicians who "understood" somehow Putin in Europe, aren't there anymore for him.
- Russia is not only suffering from sanctions, but is paying a colossal price for this war every day.
- Russia is basically now the junior partner in the Russia-China relationship.
And then according to you, this was "the only correct move". Strategically. Nothing, absolutely nothing else, according to Benkei, couldn't have done. So somehow, starting a similar stupid, irresponsible war that is likely to fail as Mohammed bin Salman's ruinous intervention in the Yemeni civil war is according to you "the only correct strategic move".
That's simply an insane, delusional or very ignorant argument.
So yes, I am judgmental about those kind of stupid remarks.
Maybe a weaker man would, because its depressing being the only war criminal convicted since WW2.
Well, Isaac, because if you haven't noticed, there are on going peace talks.
How genuine Putin is at those peace talks, can be observed from what he talks to the Russian public. And when he is talking about neo-nazis and ultra-nationalists (as he mentioned) and about genocide (as he mentioned), and then referring to faith as usually politicians fighting a war can do (as you observed), it's not likely that there's going to be huge breakthroughs in the peace talks.
Perhaps the positive thing is that he left the "denazification" of Ukraine out. :roll:
If you cannot understand that, well...
Oh come on! You could say democracy and freedom from tyranny were universals. You're clutching at straws.
Yep. And how genuine Zelensky is at those peace talks, can be observed from what he says to the Ukrainian public. How genuine any mediator is at those peace talks, can be observed from how they talk to their public.
What does anyone do with that information?
I could say that, yes. But tyranny in Russia and democracy in Ukraine are facts right now.
It is not over yet, which is too bad, but we can take stock of strategies then.
Does NATO have a strategy here or are they innocent bystanders? What is 'correct strategy' for them?
So your argument fails then. You've failed to distinguish the harm (to peace talks) of Russian faith-based, fight-against-genocide, propaganda, and Ukrainian, faith-based, repel-the-evil-tyrant rhetoric.
They both invoke religion, they both essentialise, they both talk about universals (or specifics, depending how you look at it).
They both demonise the 'other', present them as deaf to negotiation, imply they'll be untrustworthy...
You've failed to show how either is functionally different in terms of their use working toward peace.
But then its quite clear you don't give a shit about peace, because this is all just an opportunity for you to get off on your moral virtue signalling from the comfort of your armchair.
Err... no.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_indicted_in_the_International_Criminal_Tribunal_for_the_former_Yugoslavia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_indicted_in_the_International_Criminal_Tribunal_for_Rwanda
Exactly.
Zelensky's objectives in a peace deal start from the obvious things that are decided in the battlefield. First would be that all of Ukraine isn't occupied and a functioning Ukrainian government exists. Well, that seems likely now.
Then comes the hard part. If simply surviving a Russian invasion is some kind of victory, then where to draw the line on the next consessions? Does Ukraine give Crimea to Russia? Does it accept that Russia takes the Donbas and gets a land corridor to Crimea (as the objective was already in 2014)? The thing here is, Ukraine isn't as small country as Finland was, hence with over 40 million people and having the support of the West, it can opt to continue the war.
Quoting Isaac
Good you asked. It tells a lot for example a) how committed Putin is to the war, b) are there any intensions against others and simply c) what one participant is saying to his people.
What Putin says is important. Some days before the invasion, I could tell from the speech Putin gave (and some others noted it too) that this was a man going to war. The whole idea of the staging of the troops to the border would be a way to get the US to talk and to solve the Ukraine problem went out of the window. This was an invasion force.
And you might have noticed yourself how this new Cold War has gone colder by Biden saying that Putin is a war criminal. Well, you don't talk to war criminals. Yeah, Biden can backtrack that, but still. Now I guess for the US there's one Stalin in Russia again.
Quoting Isaac
...I've bolded this time...see if that helps.
Quoting ssu
We seem to be having a language issue. 'Do' refers to some action, not a change in knowledge. If I realise you're Finnish, I haven't done anything.
I asked what anyone would do. It's irrelevant people just 'knowing' things unless you have some real world strategy that's going to be taken in a different direction because of that knowledge. Otherwise it's inconsequential.
What is the Ukrainian negotiator going to do differently because Putin used religious language in his speech?
Of course NATO isn't an innocent bystander. Not even Sweden or Finland are bystanders as both countries are arming Ukraine.
I personally don't think that policies are either correct or incorrect, far better to think of them as "effective" or "ineffective". Relying on sanctions is more ineffective than effective: if there would be obvious incentive of the target country to get the sanctions lifted for the sanctions to be effective, if you get what I mean.
Hence for example the sanctions against South Africa because it's apartheid policies were effective. The South African leadership came to the conclusion that doing away with Apartheid would be better than to have those sanctions. Yet sanctions when are imposed to a country that also is threatened by war and is the target of covert attacks, then the sanctions are ineffective. The hostility creates an existential threat, so changing your policies is seen as dangerous appeasement. Iran (or Cuba) are great examples of this.
Giving weapons to Ukraine is a more effective. Ukrainians have the will to fight and will defend their country. Hence backing them up is very effective as already they have halted the primary Russian attack.
And naturally the "no fly -zone" isn't only ineffective, but extremely counterproductive. It will put NATO fighters in direct combat with Russia, and that is WW3. Hence the most effective policy would give all the help to Ukraine to fight Russia.
Moral indignation is always easier. Feel free to call me stupid if that's what you really believe but I you're pushing me buttons when you suggest I'm unethical or immoral.
You think that understanding that Putin is going to attack even two days before is inconsequential? The Ukrainian government could have mobilized the reserves 48 hours prior to the attack. Not only afterwards the attack had happened. A thing that actually was a small mistake from the Zelensky government.
Quoting Isaac
He can trust even less what the Russian negotiator promises.
They don't, unless you have examples to provide.
What's he going to do about that?
I've provided examples.
You think your brilliant insight was unique to you? Others saw it also. What's difficult is deciding what to do about it. Maybe mobilise the reserves, maybe that'd be too provocative... People have not acted out of ignorance, they've acted consequent to a decision - a weighing of facts pro and con.
You keep presenting only one side as if that did all the work for us, as if there were no counterbalancing information that needed to be weighed against it
And you should understand just how reaching any strategic objectives is compromised by the disastrous decision to make a large scale, or basically an all out invasion of Ukraine. It simply doesn't help the situation of Russia. It wasn't "the only correct move".
Will it help to tackle NATO enlargement? Sweden and Finland will now very likely join NATO. What do you get with that land corridor between Crimea? There's already a bridge connecting Crimea. But all this, being the new economic North Korea is really worth it?
No. It's like Hitler declaring war at the US after Pearl Harbour. What was the point to do that? How did it benefit Germany? If even 6 months or a year would have passed before the US would have joined the European theatre, how important would have been for Nazi Germany? (Just an example, let's not go to that).
Starting from the basics as:
- Russia isn't the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was the second largest economy in the World. Russia's economy is the size of Italy or Spain. Putin has punched well over his class with his reckless gambles that had paid off until this disaster.
- Countries that got independent from the Soviet Union did it for a reason. They aren't coming back. And now they have been independent for 30 years and now you try to get them back?
Quoting Isaac
The obvious. No conclusion is reached. The fighting goes on. Putin wants this war, so he can have and will have it.
If you know that the other side is going to attack, then by all means, why not go with mobilization. You won't lose anything. If you think that it really matters that the Kremlin says "Because of the Ukrainian mobilization, we have no other choice than to attack" and attacks in two days, well, nobody out of the blue attacks another in two days with 190 000 troops. But those 48 hours before the missiles start flying does matter.
So warmongering for you too then.
It's not as if there's an "objective" measure as to whether it was worth it. That you think it isn't, doesn't make it so. Depends a lot also on what the alternative is that the Russians were worried about. Finland and Sweden joining NATO aren't really an issue; former Warsaw Pact members sharing a border with Russia appear to be.
What you get with a land corridor is less vulnerability since bridges are rather easy to destroy and now you have different ways to get there instead of one. It also gives access to Moldova, which might receive the same treatment. Then there are Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
So if Russia is serious about its "sphere of influence" any move by NATO to include these countries will likely result in another war. Putin has shown to be prepared to do what he said he'd do. So if I were any of those countries I'd be very careful about military integration with NATO since all NATO members give are thoughts and prayers and discounts on weaponry and debt. Despie the negative consequences, most of which were predictable and therefore accounted for, to reach this goal only war was available when NATO refused to stop the overtures.So, yes, strategically sound (even if illegal).
So when Anatol Lieven, veteran reporter on Eastern Europe and senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, says...
Or when George Kennan, one of the architects of the Cold War policy of containment of the USSR said...
They should have come to you, to be schooled on what is so 'obvious'. Your Eastern Bloc foreign policy expertise is...?
The Russians should follow your advice and surrender. :grin:
Nope. One private discussion between two Jews is not to be equated to a public speech at a rally.
Americans? They instead get impeached over blowjobs. :D
Of course, for the like of you people defending their country from an invasion is warmongering. Why don't the silly Ukrainians just surrender to Putin? (Just like @frank said)
Just to remind people what you said before the war:
And this shows just your understanding of the matters. If the UK would be committed to a ground war, that would be WW3. But hey, you weren't affected by Iraq, nor Afghanistan. So it doesn't matter at all.
Where have I advised anyone to surrender?
Both are speech acts. So evidently they can be equated. If they're dissimilar in some way significant to your argument then you'll have to state it. God knows why you feel the need to resort to arguing by Delphic aphorism.. Just state your case for Christ's sake.
Are you defending your country?
I'm going to have to ask you to stop war mongering and simmer down.
If the driver for the war is the reestablishment of a Russian empire of the likes of the former USSR (which i think it is), then the war had to be fought not just prior to Ukraine entering NATO, but prior to Ukraine breaking all ideological ties to Russia.
The window to seize Ukraine was closing through a potential NATO alliance, an EU entry, or just through continued liberalized democratization of Ukraine. If Russia wished to reestablish its past glory, it had to act before it lost all its potential prey to the protection of the West.
The problem is that Putin is learning is that the window was more shut that he thought it was. The fierce Ukraine resistance is based upon its belief that it is truly autonomous and not, as Putin would suggest, a group a Russians stranded in a Westernized state. Ukrainians stand with the full belief Russia is an invader and the West is a protector, indicating Russia is in a weaker position than maybe Putin appreciated.
This is just to say that whether NATO signaled it was expanding, or even if it signaled it was contacting (as Trump would have had it in his America first protectionism), Putin had to act now or forever lose Ukraine to the West.
Putin is fighting the infectious disease of Democracy, making this war inevitable as long as self rule is what the Ukrainians want. The only way for Ukraine to have avoided this war was to abandon democracy and submit to Putin. What backed Putin into a corner is that his country sucks and no one wants to be a part of it.
This is true. A democratically elected leader would try him for corruption. He can't go in that direction. Ever.
There are no innocent victims here. Putin’s invasion is the self-fulfilling progress of this sort of conflict.
My country isn't at war. But I'm a reservist, yes, with a wartime position.
Yet Ukrainians are defending their country.
Right. So what has my accusing you of warmongering got to do with people defending their country?
For this to work, you have to show it's reasonably possible for Russia to effectively occupy Ukraine. I don't think this is the case. Maybe Eastern Ukraine but then if Mearsheimer and Kissinger are to be believed only true neutrality would've seen them survive as independent countries.
And what exactly are Russians to believe when the US overthrew the Ukrainian government in 2014 and has an outsized influence on NATO and a proxy war between Russia and NATO/USA may have been going on since then?
It's very easy to think trust in your own country is the most natural thing in the world and those who don't are just delusional but to make sense of this, you do need to look at it from a different perspective.
Quoting Hanover
Piffle. This isn't some democracy vs. autocracy battle. But nice example of US propaganda I suppose, let's pretend it's about ideals when we all know another game is being played. There's a reason NATO chose the expansion in certain countries and that reason isn't benign.
Wow. I dread to think the effort you'd put in to responding to arguments you do care about.
Why don't specifically tells us how the US overthrew the Ukrainian government.
Because if it's that John McCain and others visited Ukraine among others and reference to the famous phone call of Victoria Nuland to ambassador Pyatt, taped by Russian intelligence services, seems to be all that is enough to declare that the US was behind the events. As if the Ukrainian protesters, or their Revolution of Dignity, was this astroturf US operation.
Not to give any agency to Ukrainians in their domestic issues is actually shows simply hubris and the self-centeredness. Historical events aren't monocausal and simply to describe events of 2013-2014 in Ukraine as "US overthrew the Ukrainian government" is simply false.
They are dissimilar in that one is public and the other private. I thought this would be obvious.
Here's a summary.
I expect one was in Russian and the other in Ukrainian too. One had more words in it. One was at a slightly higher pitch. One was delivered at a lower latitude than the other.
So what?
Just check how close the Finnish border is from St Petersburg and Moscow.
Quoting Benkei
And how many wars can he handle? And aren't we forgetting that his most trustworthy ally, Belarus, just had a year ago huge demonstrations against the Lukashenko government, so that country isn't as firm either... and really isn't at this time ready to go and assist in a war it has absolutely no desire to participate.
My point is that until this year, this invasion, Putin's gamble had paid off. And he had gambled even more and more. And now the gambling is backfiring.
As I've said again and again. Russia isn't the Soviet Union, it has the economy of the size of Italy and now has chosen a course that seems to be leading to an inevitable train wreck. Landbridges to Crimea or even the annexation of Crimea hardly matter when you have to resort to a Stalinist police state and throw your army into a quagmire of a war. Those eagerly quoting Mearsheimer perhaps don't notice that he said this to be the worst possible situation for Russia: throwing resources to fight a huge land war in Ukraine where the West can then bring on it's massive aid to Ukraine. That's the worst situation for Russia.
Hence my, Ok, judgemental, response that this really isn't "the only correct move", but a wrong disastrous move from Putin. It's a move like Saddam Hussein thinking that he could annex Kuwait, and that would take care of his economic problems.
It's a wrong move from the rat to go itself voluntarily into the corner where it cannot escape.
It likely is. Putin came to power by waging war. He needs a pretext for cementing his rule while his economy is stagnating. How about another useless war?
Benkei. That is exactly what I meant. Basically it's the Nuland Pyatt taped phone discussion and then saying that this is improper thing to do. And nothing else.
So where's the evidence that the US created the EuroMaidan protests, manufactured the students on to the streets? Or similar issues?
When you say that "the US overthrew the Ukrainian government", there really has to be that the US has been the major cause of the overthrow and without it, the coup wouldn't have happened. What in that article is said is in no way something like Operation Ajax which really was a US & British funded overthrow of a democratically elected government.
So "this is all Putin" would be a mistaken argument here. Ignoring the role of the US, Europe, Ukraine... That would be a mistake, yes? And yet when such arguments are made, I don't see you step in to correct them. It seems your desire to remind us all of the multi-causality of historical events is limited to exculpating America.
I live in Europe man, I know my geography. Finland and Sweden were never part of the former Warsaw pact, the stated sphere of influence for decades doesn't include them.
You are really unable to put two and two together, aren't you?
A private conversation does not make it more difficult to sign a peace deal, not the same way as a public speech may do. What is private does not feature in peace negotiations, and cannot play any role there.
The only thing which is all Putin is that he surely made the choice to invade Ukraine.
What I've said, and many others (perhaps you too agree with it) is that NATO, or especially a former US President made a promise that it didn't keep. To say that NATO membership is for Ukraine open ...in the future, not now. That gave Putin a pretext to act. But a large scale invasion after already annexing territories from Ukraine? That's a decision similar to Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait.
Quoting Benkei
Actually it does. Finnish airspace is what worries Russia. The Soviet Union inquired as late as in the 1970's from Finland if they could take care of Finnish Air Defence and put some SAM-bases in Finland. Our leadership politely declined. And even Imperial Russia was worried back then about an invasion by sea of the Russian Capitol, and that's why the built the Peter the Great's Naval Fortress on both sides of the Gulf of Finland in the start of the 20th Century. It's totally the same line of "sphere-of-influence".
And Russia has I guess now twice after this invasion started made actually quite similar threats as it did to Ukraine that if Sweden or Finland join NATO, it will have military consequences:
What is lacking is that Putin would be saying that we are an artificial country, so I guess that's promising.
That's a matter of definitions I guess. I'll rephrase to “inappropriately and illegally affected the internal politics of a sovereign nation". You know the exact same shit those powers did across the world during the cold War? Also, to be complete it must be noted Russia was playing the same games at the time. Point being, the war about Ukraine was being fought by Russia and the US since probably 2004.
The topic was Putin's likelihood of truly wanting peace - ie his intention. Intent can be no less judged by a public speech as a private one. In fact slightly more so by a private conversation if anything.
Besides which, Putin has already publicly laid out his demands perfectly clearly - no Nato membership, independent Dombass, Russian Crimea. Do you notice any religious fervour for the removal of Evil there? Your argument fails because Putin's already played his hand, further speculation is about intent, not public pronouncement.
Furthermore, none of this gets around the very public statements of religious fervour by America. Should we not negotiate with America either?
I know. My point was your blatant hypocrisy in pouncing on every suggestion of US complicity, yet letting the many comments to the effect that "this is all Putin" slide by unopposed.
Your aim here is clearly not to simply inform us all that history is multi-causal. It's to pour cold water on any discussion of the west's culpability.
I guess what's promising is your membership in the EU.
You can negotiate with whoever but know who you negotiate with.
That's a good start of us agreeing on the picture. You do understand the difference between "in 2014 the US overthrew the Ukrainian government" and "in 2014 the Ukrainian government was overthrown by a revolution eagerly supported by the US".
And this is actually very crucial to understand. Countries and especially Great Powers, not just Superpowers, do try to influence domestic politics of other countries. In my country we've seen a lot of this. Yet the type of Operation Ajax -style overthrow is different. Military interventions, launching off cruise missiles and the part are different from the ambassador using harsh rhetoric making veiled threats and supporting their favorite candidates in elections.
Quoting Benkei
I would put it even earlier, even if you are correct that the fault lines appeared in the Orange revolution. In a more broader sense the NATO war in Kosovo, which was a province, not a Republic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, was the final tipping point for Russia that broke the camel's back in NATO-Russia relations. That happened in 1999. And I think that is very crucial part as is the first and second Chechen wars, that started to get also former Soviet countries to be worried about Russia's behaviour.
Yet we should remember that Yanukovich did win the elections in 2010. When you look at the election map of the 2010 presidential elections, then you could see that the country was divided.
Do notice the ominous resemblance with the maps of Novorossiya with the election results table. This was the time when Vladimir Putin was hugely popular in Ukraine and Russia still looked to be a totally reasonable actor. And this is why I do say that Russia had many other paths than outright military intervention and annexation to truly take hold of it's "sphere of influence". Yet Putin chose a very extreme path of violence (as it had worked for him right from the start of his political career) and now we are in a really fucked up situation.
Quoting Benkei
Yeah. Even if there's a clause to help fellow EU member states, I wouldn't count on it. Never underestimate the fear of WW3. So it's not so bleak as in the 1930's when people knew that war was coming, not if, but when. Yet there's many ways to pressure countries in our time of hybrid attacks. Like you could start a blockade and not call it a blockade and deny it's an act of war. Perhaps you call it just a "Naval Quarantine". Or something. But those are hypotheticals.
The war isn't a hypothetical Ukrainians and for Russians it's not either going to be easy, even if they aren't dying and their cities turned into rubble. I don't think that this crisis will be contained to Ukraine, but I'm an optimist that it will be contained from becoming WW3.
How?
Agree with all this. It's what I've been saying many times in here. Everything we know from the inside of Russia, past its propaganda machine (like ex-KGB, ex-Kremlin people, leaked documents and so on), points to Putin's ambitions of restoring the old Russian empire as being the great motivator. The fear of Nato invading Russia has never been viewed as anything but false flag tactics because the idea of Nato invading Russia is just plain stupid. If Putin and his people think that is a genuine threat, then they are the most stupid people in power on the planet, which I doubt they are. The absolute most logical interpretation of all of this is that Russia doesn't fear Nato invading because they know that won't happen, but they also know that THEY won't invade a Nato nation as well. So when Nato is expanding, it starts to take large literal bites out of the dream of restoring the Russian empire. Bites that will never be recovered once they've been assimilated into Nato. But Putin can't have that as an official thing to say to the world. It would be utter stupidity to sit on state TV and say that "we don't want these nations to join Nato because we plan to assimilate them into our coming empire, and if they join Nato our plans of taking them by force will fail". But all behaviors point to this. Why would Putin invade Ukraine this recklessly? Why risk this much for Ukraine? Because, as you said, the clock is ticking. It's either now or risk losing the most important part of the old Russian empire to be lost to the West forever.
If we were to play devil's advocate with Russia: it doesn't make much sense to believe the propaganda narrative that they keep pushing. It also doesn't make sense to think they are stupid enough to believe Nato would invade them. It's easier to see why they talk like they do about Nato, about Ukraine, about everything if we have the context of actual logical motivations. Puzzle pieces fit more logically with this than any of the false flag tactical bs that comes out of Kremlin.
And this is why Russia risks becoming a failed state, because the rich want more, they can't be content with the current Russian border, they can't accept the status quo of modern Russia. They want to be big boys again, or the biggest boys. While I think they are smart enough not to have stupid tactics on the global diplomatic stage, they are just basically boys with toys. Toxic masculinity on a geopolitical scale, and that has already gone out of fashion. Russia just didn't get the memo.
I don't know why occupation or displacement is necessary for full control. The USSR controlled its member states. Quoting Benkei
This is a very one sided view. Can I say the US played no role in the overthrow, no, but I can't say the overthrow didn't represent the will of the Ukraine people either.. Ukraine was a pawn for both sides in 2014. They seemed to be moving toward the EU but then their President swung back to siding with Russia, in opposition to the will of the people, thus resulting in the uprising. Do you suspect Russian meddling caused the change of heart away from the EU? Seems the best explanation.
At any rate, do you think an uninfluenced Ukranian vote would side with Russia or the West? You can argue either will result in some form of subjugation, but the economic subjugation of the West is infinitely more palatable than the totalitarian subjugation of Russia.Quoting Benkei
NATO doesn't expand. Nations voluntarily join or they don't, and there are requirements for joining that must be met. I'd consider the Crimea event or the current invasion an expansion.
Financing shows a vested interest in the outcome. Selling arms show opportunism. It's a distinction with a difference, ethically speaking.
It is not clear that we are all agreed on Russia's strategic interests and their economic and security concerns. I think some of us feel Putin's actions are a result of imperialism, paranoia, or wanting to re-build the USSR in some way. He is not acting in Russia's interests at all they say. So what are Russia's legitimate interests?
This is Chomsky's view, quoted before, and I agree. I believe the crisis could have been avoided, and some people want the war, even fueling with arms and propaganda in a reality TV like show. Without taking sides, I believe pushing country A to the brink, knowingly, is some sort of a plan, like attacking a bear. Of course the bear should not maul you but if you knew that in the first place.
Quoting Chomsky
it is in the interest of the United States to promote peace, not conflict
No
Isn't this all part of the natural cycle of the rise and fall of empires? That cuts both ways. The Soviet Union collapsed, who is next?
One day someone will explain to me how handing someone a gun while they are in the middle of a child murdering spree - and profiting from it - is somehow less contemptable than giving someone money so they can buy their own gun to murder children.
Presumably this someone will be a shameless apologist for murdering children.
https://www.e-ir.info/2020/04/30/noam-chomskys-views-on-russian-foreign-policy-a-critical-analysis/
It's his rule that sucks. Many Europeans would just love to have a calm, peaceful and prosperous Russia, where entrepreneurs like Sergei Brin would stay and innovate new things. We don't have that with Russia. And many are eager to point out that Russia never has had democracy. Or when it has, sort of, it has resulted in a dictatorship later.
The reality is that Russia needs leaders that simply will tell the Russians themselves that the old empire is over and lost for good. That Russia is just like the United Kingdom today, a country that has lost it's empire and nothing and nobody will get it back. That if Russians want prosperity, it comes through trade (for which you need good relations with the rest of the World), innovation and not through conquest. Having a World which consists of China, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba isn't so great for trade.
Putin basically started the civil war that people anticipated would happen when the Soviet Union collapsed. Then the Politburo members and the apparatchniks at the helm could (after a hapless putsch attempt) peacefully guide the Superpower to break up without the war (or sort of, as Armenia and Azerbaijan had already started their quarrel). It was Yugoslavia which didn't succeed in a peaceful breakup. There it was Milosevic, who as the leader of the largest republic, opted to "protect" Serbs and make Serbia great again. And now Putin has now taken the role of a Russian version Slobodan Milosevic, the Super-Serb who fought for Greater Serbia. Milosevic was the most ruinous Serb politician to ever be. What comes of Putin now, we will see.
Russia is on the path of a more authoritarianism, seclusion and more poverty with Putin. The territorial gains will not give Russians anything but problems. And only the Russians themselves can do anything about Putin ...or then just wait that he finally dies.
We will just look on. And assist the Ukrainians in this war and put up those sanctions.
Putin demanded they don't become a NATO member, which they've come to terms with (big sigh on their behalf goes here :smile:).
If they want closer trade with, say, Hungary, Germany, Austria, then what of it? Why not? It's a way to prosper.
Seems less likely that the Ukrainians are inclined to look to Russia now.
Putin vetoed Donbas UN peacekeepers out like it was just up to him. He's also brought up appeal to morals (even if bullshitting), not quite unheard of.
More "propaganda":
I'm gona steal that...
Having a democracy does not necessarily mean that a country will be peaceful and prosperous. Suppose the people vote in favor of a war? Then what?
What if a Presidential candidate came forward stating that he would never engage in a war of conquest with any nation? That means committing to a nuclear 'no first strike' policy which China has, incidentally.
Will he get elected? What if the candidate promised never to use the military to further the interests of that country abroad?
What if he promised he would never respond with nuclear weapons for any reason?
I am attempting to figure out the role of democracy in all of this.
Quoting ssu
That's a great idea, but remember the U.K. voted to get out from under the control of Brussels. So much for integration.
When you mean prosperity through trade of the kind that China is engaging in? How do trade wars figure in this?
I agree that Russia seems to be unnecessarily stalling based on what is public. I suspect, but can't be certain, that the proposed interim government is giving issues, and how soon and by what means they can be gotten rid of. Ukrainians want to be a mature democracy but aren't there yet and whatever happens in this area will set them back on that path. Then there's also issues of territory. The fact the Russians asked the Ukrainian soldiers in Marioupol to stand down, seems to hint towards their endgame.
I also wonder if such an order could even be effective because the relation between Dmytro Korchynsky and the government in Kiev is unknown to me. Based on what I've read in the past, he might not listen to Kiev whatever happens and his men are fighting in Mariupol.
Quoting Hanover
Either you're unaware how the expansion happened or you're playing a semantic game. Which is it? Are you just taking issue with the word expand?
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2022/03/20/gps-0320-zelensky-on-negotiating-with-putin.cnn
Where are the devastating economic sanctions? Where are the calls to throw American leaders into gulags where they belong, right next to Putin? Fuck any and all selective liberal pseudo-tears over Ukraine.
They do it for profit. Some cumquats do it for free. :lol:
So if 'the public' are being fed lies, you know they're lies how?
Are you not 'the public'? Are you CIA, MI5 maybe? No wait, it's Illuminati isn't it... I knew it.
Or possibly, are you just such an arrogant twat that you think whatever you've heard simply must be true because, unlike all those other dupes, you couldn't possibly be being fed a narrative, you wouldn't fall for that. It's only everyone else who falls for that.
Well, to be fair, I'm falling for this narrative this very moment.
It's just damage control, I suspect. The idea is to combat the rapid depreciation of Mr Putin's allure in the West and elsewhere, as swift as the ruble's on the currency market.
I agree there's a variety of motives here.
This is simply not true. Putin's "allure" in the West is exactly the same as it was before: dictator, evil, murderer, Hitler, chemical weapons user, fascist and old soviet reactionary in addition to even older school Empirial Czarist as well.
His "allure" in the West hasn't "declined".
As for the rest of the world, China, India, Brazil, Africa etc. are staying neutral or then supporting Russia in buying gas and oil.
Indeed, EU's purchases of gas and oil far out-weigh any other sanctions or arms dealing with Ukraine.
For example, check out this infographic
If you're not actually stopping the flow of oil and gas ... you aren't really doing anything of significance against Russia's economy.
What would be significant is blocking off real, tangible intellectual property that Russia needs to function (single points of failure that are disproportionate points of leverage, such as in Soviet times) ... but, oopsie, we sent all the Western IPR made by our superior "freedom based creativity" to Communist China and other East-Asian countries that aren't about to stop sending anything China buys to China to stop Russia buying it from the Chinese.
All the West has area brands and "spanking" Russia by pulling out those brands just cedes market share to the Chinese. It's a capitalist wet dream for the entire pantheon of competing brands to just "go away" from the market, and Communist China definitely understands that part of capitalism ... to go take that market share.
However, to make things even worse about the infographic:
Brown box is other raw mineral commodities totally unaffected by sanctions as everyone needs these kinds of commodities, in particular China, and Russia offering these at even a slightly cheaper price, will be bought up, and the most that happens is global resource flows just change around a bit.
The pink box is petroleum derivatives, totally unaffected by sanctions, same reason as above.
The purple box is precious metals, again easy to sell and also just easy to stockpile as part of central bank holdings.
Yellow is food ... no one about to "not buy food" if they need it.
Beige and orange also food.
Red is wood products, again commodity not going anywhere on the international market.
Blue is capital equipment that, guaranteed, Russia isn't selling much of to Europe and likely those trade relations are totally unaffected by sanctions.
In short, pretty much the entire infographic of Russia exports are either totally unaffected by sanctions ... even by their "enemies" such as the EU sanctioning them, or then, at best, just re-orders international material flows a bit but in no way stops those Russian exports.
And since the war increases commodity prices generally speaking, even if Russia has to undercut competition in the markets it has access to (... like one of largest economies in the world, China, but also India isn't sanctioning Russia, and certainly not Russia's post-soviet allies that remain and Iran and so forth) ... is still selling at a larger profit than before the war, that then easily pays for the war.
People think this is Soviet collapse 2.0 ... depressing commodity prices (intentionally or just because cheap oil was plentiful back then) and restricting critical IPR (in particular computation) was a big part of the unravelling of the Soviet Union. If the Soviet Union was making bank on its core business of commodities then likely it could have kept people happier during its reform programs ... which it was only trying to do in the first place because, back then, IPR economy was king (and commodities ran on thin margins) and the whole Soviet system wasn't great at IPR style capitalism to constantly innovate the new bling people crave (you know, after they've been told they crave it by marketers).
But we're now at the end of the great capitalist "innovate your way out of your problems" 500 year run, and there isn't really any new "must have" gadgets that keep the "myth of progress" narrative going.
Westerners have cell phones ... so do Russians, and the "grass is greener" effect also no longer works as Russia has now tasted Western style capitalism and most Russians think they were better off under communism ... so, isn't that happening, certainly at least in the authoritarian component, just "democracy".
“ For Life, Shariy Party, Nashi, Opposition Bloc, Left Opposition, Union of Left Forces, State, Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Socialist Party of Ukraine, Socialists Party and Volodymyr Saldo Bloc”.
https://www.axios.com/ukraine-ban-political-parties-russian-ties-af264ecd-9ad4-4e98-9f87-76f32300fd5f.html
Oh it has, among the European left and even in the extreme right. Sympathy for the Kremlin is much lower, if there at all nowadays, in the rhetoric of a guy like Mélenchon in France, for instance. And for the first time for decades, the US, NATO and the EU appear vaguely competent, and more attractive than before Mr Putin's failed Anschluss on Ukraine.
https://www.eurointelligence.com/column/the-cheerleading-has-to-stop
Or:
None of this is anything worth celebrating, nor fixed, but worth incorporating over the cheat-beating celebrations of treating the war like a rooster-fight.
The latter. I'm drawing a distinction as to what happened. It's not as if western Europe and eastern Europe are both invaders into Ukraine fighting over the same prize. Western Europe has allowed countries to voluntarily apply for membership into NATO and decide how they wish to align. Russia has engaged in a hostile military takeover.
Whatever pressures the West has exerted to encourage NATO alignment doesn't equate to military force. My point being that if Russia wishes to justify their "expansion" into Ukraine as responsive to the West's "expansion" into Ukraine, that sounds like spin control, trying to assert an unjustified moral and logical equivalency.
What's been interesting about the Ukraine issue is the way that the narratives from Covid have been carried over - the idea of there being 'misinformation' which can simply be identified and expunged as if media were some kind of factory line quality control; the deifying of the status quo, where all the instruments of society become benevolent agents of public service; intense polemicism rendering every discussion in high contrast black and white...
A single 'other' enemy responsible entirely for the (unforeseen and unavoidable) harms, benevolent corporate and government agencies just desperately trying to serve humanity, frustrated only by a vocal minority of 'conspiracy theorists' who don't deserve to be included in the conversation...
...familiar plot?
OMG!!! Putin must be terrified!!!
But, even if that was true, there's clearly a big backlash to the neo-Nazi's and so on, otherwise the Western Media wouldn't constantly be saying we can't talk about it and people in this conversations wouldn't be all "shhhh, shhhh, hush, we don't mention the neo-Nazi's that helps Purit!" ... ok, well how does it help Putin if his "allure" is all gone?
Completely familiar ... but even more familiar is the exact same script in Syria:
1. Russian army is incompetent, hahahahah
2. "Resistance" is winning the information war, so many videos of "resistance" victories online!
3. Gains Russian army are making mean nothing
4. The people Russia are fighting are freedom fighters, not a single fanatical extremist among them
5. We need to pour arms into the situation to give Russia their Afghanistan! Hurrah!!!
6. Russia is winning ... but playing unfair!!! Boohoohooo
7. Chemical attack is going to happen
8. Anyday now, chemical attack since Russia is winning on the ground, but Putin and Assad are so evil they'll use chemical warfare when their wining! (obviously if they were actually losing we'd just let that play out into a failed state).
9. Chemical attack is coming ... it's coming ... Assad and Putin are just that crazy, and they know we'll be upset about a surprise chemical attack!!! And they know we'll easily find out!! And it will isolate Russia on the world stage and totally backfire!! But nothing can stop their evil machinations!!!
10. Chemical attack! Chemical attack!
We're on step 9 of this play.
Indeed, the Hitler-wannabe failed Anschlusser is being dragged in the mud by media the world over. You won't see any of that from St Petersbourg though.
The backlash is people getting into severe cognitive dissonance which disrupts the war horny trance like state they were in previously, when they encounter the fact the "neo-Nazi" problem isn't some fringe skinheads in some seedy bar, but a whole institution.
Which, please pay attention to the "black sun" which doesn't even have any apologist "it's just a rune" or "ancient Sanskrit symbol" whatever explanation, but literally created by the SS for the SS.
And also discover, at least the US and Canada (... maybe not other NATO members like Germany, who are the experts on neo-Nazi's after all and arbitrate whether they exist or not in today's media landscape) exposed to be breaking their own laws, which was military aid was contingent on irregular forces not doing any fighting or getting any weapons or ammunition ... which journalists could just go debunk in like, a single day's investigation?
And discover ... that when people talk about this problem going back to 2014 ... there's times and BBC reportings on this very thing:
Quoting BBC
Or discover this one which interviews the FBI talking about these terrorists training with Azov ... but ... wait, "the war on terror" doesn't extend to white terrorists training "oversees".
And has the quote (recorded on video) from one of the recruiters:
But ... the president is Jewish and is allied with these forces, who don't even hate Jews all that much! So obviously you can have Nazi's if their friendly Nazi's (to your side).
This one's just adorable.
Yep.
Step 11- millions of refugees resulting from the situation look to their noble benefactors for succor.
Step 12- noble benefactors: "fuck off, we've got a new crisis on the front page now"
Wow, I'm flattered. The entire world's media dragging Putin's name through the mud, but little old me on an obscure (no offense) internet forum mustn't stray for a second from 24/7 condemnation of him and him alone lest my failure be interpreted as tacit support and bring the whole project crashing down. I didn't realise I was so influential.
Well, I guess Putin would be the first person declaring that! He's just protecting ethnic Russians and welcomes them who want to join mother Russia. Just like Milosevic did for the Serbs. And uses his military on special military operations to stop a genocide perpetrated by neo-nazis.
The age when leaders truthfully admitted that they engaged in wars of conquest is ancient history.
I totally forgot about all those unpaid extras! Can't make a war epic without them.
I feel so silk stocking liberal right now, you have no idea.
But yes, people genuinely believe this current New cycle won't go the way of terrorism, Afghanistan, WMD's, Iraq, banks stealing trillions of USD after corrupting the entire system leading to it's crashing and a public bailout and zero accountability, emails, grab em by the pussy, emails, piss tape, the leader of the free world threatening to turn another country into a lake of fire as foreplay for some sort of online bromance, US mass riots and looting and buildings burning, and war on drugs needing more war part, invasion of the world's superpower's capital buildings, mass shooting of the week, ice-cream flavours, Chavez, Iran, Chavez, Iran, Maduro, Iran, China pivot, migrants drowning all the time, opioids scandal, Lybia, sporadic but most important political identity crisis to ever happen, Syrira, Covid, Afghanistan, toxic male executives all the time (guilty as charged though ... and this one will make a comeback, just like the Red Army and cold war paranoia!).
An oil embargo has been talked about by EU foreign ministers. For example Poland is openly demanding it and naturally many countries are opposing it. At least yet.
You have to make infrastructure investments and quite a dramatic realignment to stop Russian gas and oil trade. But it is totally possible. It simply cannot be done in weeks. But in few years, totally possible.
Quoting boethius
I guess post it when it actually happens.
Quoting ssu
Agreed that some infrastructure adjustments would be needed if the EU stopped importing ... but I'm not sure by how much, as Russia has been investing massively in a fleet of nuclear icebreakers, which, I assume, is to be able to ship out oil and gas from the arctic; and that capacity may be already there, at least most of the year, if the tankers can just show up.
They have already oil & gas pipelines to China and likely will build more:
Quoting boethius
I think that Covid pandemic and it's restrictions did change your life a bit, and of course the current crisis will partly contribute to the run away inflation. Gas, petroleum, food will become more expensive. Something people will notice daily.
Yes, we will surely soon forget this thread and the media can focus on other issues, but as long as the war goes on, the effects of it will be there. And even if the war would tone down as it did after 2015 for seven years or there would be a cease-fire that held, the World has already changed.
Don't flatter yourself. Nobody cares that you post here 24/7.
Can you at least stop using obscene words like that all the time? I find it disgusting.
I find cheerleading a war to continue and for arms to be poured in to fuel it with zero consideration if that even helps the victims of the war and simply pre-supposing any criticism of the righteous war and arms dealers propping it up is unrighteous as we know it's righteous even if it doesn't, and shouldn't, encounter any criticism of that premise at all, is disgusting.
We all have our own tastes, don't we.
I don't even like ice-cream at all.
Yes, but these pipelines across thousands of Kilometres do take time to build, so my reading is the nuclear ice-breakers are a plan B to ship oil out the arctic ... it's not like they'd be shipping beanie babies.
Quoting ssu
My basic point is that the Western media will focus on something else as soon as focusing on this is inconvenient. Afghanistan babies starving to death is inconvenient, so we're focusing on the Russians now.
Normal people don't necessarily forget, but the Western media is pretty synchronous with whatever policy the West "needs to do right now" to deal with [insert outrage].
Problems today, for Western institutions, are whatever Western media says they are, proven by the fact Western media is saying it and, doubly so, by the fact Western institutions are answering the call to do something about it.
Opinions of normal people don't really matter in this conversation between Western media and Western institutions, just that Western bureaucrats and politicians and even CEO's know what they're supposed to be doing today, hating the people that need hating today and coddling the people that need sympathy today from knowing about, sometimes even interacting, with said hated group (but mostly just knowing about a hated group exists, even if they lack any power at all to affect your life, is oppressive enough). From time to time the conversation exists to explain that, yes it's unfortunate, but nothing really can be done to help people negatively affected by Western policies--no end of the "realist" supply when those issues are "debated".
What I meant was, would people ever elect a president who promised never to attack another nation unless they attacked first? That would mean stopping existing wars. The converse of that would be that people would only elect a president who would leave the military option open, which means war is accepted as part of foreign policy.
What do you think?
You are the only war cheerleader here.
By recommending diplomacy be engaged with in good faith to try to end the war? And, simultaneously to that, diplomacy be used to protect civilians ... like evacuating them by boat from a port city.
Before this high intensity phase of the war began, diplomacy could have easily resolved it.
However, not taking that opportunity, now Zelensky and the West are faced with the problem that Ukraine won't be Russia's Afghanistan as their plan is to just completely demolish Ukraine's war infrastructure ... and most it's trained soldiers, and then just lay siege to cities until their demands are met.
And the whole thing of Western war hawks rushing to declare Ukraine Russia's Afghanistan as the insurgency will be impossible to manage (until shh, shh, shh we need to pretend their winning to justify sending the warms to fuel the insurgency) is premised on what:
1. The West's own Afghanistan was a completely immoral debacle and cluster fuck that simply killed Western soldiers for nothing, couldn't be won, and simply resulted in two decades of war and suffering and terrible deaths for normal Afghans only to be ruled, in the end, by fanatical extremists (the only kinds of people that fight an insurgency for 2 decades) that are even more extreme than before and now have zero fear of any Western military interventions of any kind and no diplomatic pressure can be placed on them whatsoever to alleviate people's suffering much less try to export those "Western values" I keep hearing so much about.
2. The conflict only benefited Western Arms dealers, just as this Ukraine conflict only benefits Western arms dealers at the end of the day.
3. The self-righteous refusal for years and years and years to negotiate some peace settlement with the Taliban, when there was far better position and leverage to do so, as "they're too evil", wasn't self-righteous and good faith at all, but just as an excuse to sell more arms ... considering negotiating with the Taliban is exactly what NATO does when they tire of the war and there's more arms to be sold in a new Cold war which is obviously coming (the pull out of Afghanistan happens after the Ukraine army start preparing for a large offensive in Dombas which solicits the totally expected and inevitable buildup of Russian forces, that must invade if there's no deal ... which NATO knows ahead of time isn't going to happen).
4. Ukraine will be totally wrecked by the insurgency and far more Ukrainians will be killed by fanatical extremists than Russians will be.
5. Ukraine, like Afghanistan, will serve as a extremist fighter training ground as well as giant arms depot, to then export extremist violence all around the region to destabilize any government of the CIA's choosing at any moment by providing more arms and money in exchange for focusing a generally omnidirectional fanatical rage on the target of the day, with "advisors" on the ground if things aren't going to great as over confidence is the fanatical extremist fighter's weakness and they keep dying in foolhardy attacks planned and executed entirely based on their own sense of superiority.
6. Decades from now, Ukrainian babies will be literally starving to death, and, just as with the West's Afghanistan, no one will care about the Russian's Afghanistan at that point in the future. Let them eat cake, those babies ... you know, if it's their birthday they certainly deserve it.
7. Such a public and long term moral and military disaster, waste of troops and equipment, will, just like the US, undermine Russia's security, position in the world, and erode their military's confidence and domestic and international image, leading, ultimately, to an embarrassing withdrawal (military loss) and signal to American "friends" that American "friendship" means dick-all and can't be counted on and also signal to all America's competitors that US public is tired of war and they need not fear any "boots on the ground" military intervention at any time in the near and medium and perhaps long term future, except maybe the supply of arms and dropping some bombs from time to time (2 things that can be easily dealt with technologically if you're any more sophisticated and prepared than Gadafi ... who honestly though he was a friend of the West, pitching his tent in the ).
When current and ex CIA, and other retired "Generals" and officials and so on, trip over the dicks and their tits to gleefully tell us Ukraine will be Russia's Afghanistan, it's exactly the above they have in mind.
Caption: European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana talks with Gaddafi during a meeting in his bedouin tent in Brussels, on 27 April 2004; Photograph: European Council/Reuters
For, when you have friends like these ... who needs enemies?
Lybia post-NATO no fly zone and glorious liberation!
There's a theory that Putin and Trump express obvious lies as a means of domination. The relentless bullshit creates a fog of abuse.
I'd say refusing to admit a difference between financing and support of other kinds is along the same lines: "I deny any semblance of common ground with you. You aren't even human to me."
That kind of thing.
Yep. It's about manufacturing confusion and doubt.
Note how frequently some posters misunderstand what we say here. It's done on purpose, evidently. They don't seriously try to reach understanding. That's not their goal.
It's abuse.
Boethius: "Valid criticism of the USA and NATO"
You: you're a "war cheerleader".
Maybe find a log cabin so the two of you can keep jerking either off.
I think the bellicose rhetoric of "fortress Russia" will only end when there is a humiliating defeat and too many soldiers are killed in a war that many don't understand why it's fought.
Take for example France and Algeria. Algeria was seen as part of France and not a colony, it had actually very many French living there. Well after seven years of war, 26 000 French soldiers and 50 000 French Harkis dead (plus the over two hundreds thousand Algerians killed), the French retreated.
That's the way thinking in Russia will change. If it changes. The division between "zapadniks" and the "slavophiles" is quite alive in Russia even today.
I think this is why right wingers gravitate to obvious liars: it is a sign of strength and status, to be able to tell such lies. The stronger one is, the bolder the lies one is able to tell.
Like being bound to facts is a sign of weakness. Yep.
"Can we do something about the Syrian refugees?"
"We'd love to, but it's all terribly complicated, getting the funding, the resources..."
"Can we take on one of the world's largest nuclear powers, in a fight to the death?"
"Sure, saddle up, grab that spare $15 billion we had lying around, and let's go!!"
Oh, you mean like the literal head of the CIA accusing, unnironically, the Russian's of waging an "information war".
Or ... do you have more in mind the current President of the United States saying he engaged in civil disobedience with Corn Pop as well as arrested in South Africa trying to see Mandela in prison.
Or maybe you have in mind something like George Bush joking about finding WMD's in Iraq, that they "gotta be around there somewhere"?
You have that sort of unaccountable lying ... or just Trump, who, last time I checked, does get held accountable for his lies, the liberal media repeats them ad nauseam and, unlike the neo-con's who bragged about "making the facts", Trump was held accountable in the democratic process and lost re-election and he's held accountable by the powerful all the time for his continued insistence the election was stolen from him. But, certainly Trump had so much power and was so unnacountable for anything he says that losing the election was the biggest expression of raw power the world has ever seen.
The script literally writes itself.
My only worry is we can't go "bigger" in the next installment of the NATO cinematic universe.
Oh, this is gold. So...just so I understand what's missing, would you quote for me an example of you 'trying to reach understanding' with any of the posters here opposing your position (me, boethius,, benkei, streetlight...). I just want to see how it's done.
Is it...
Quoting Olivier5
or...
Quoting ssu
or...
Quoting frank
or...
Quoting Olivier5
or...
Quoting Olivier5
or...
Quoting SophistiCat
or...
Quoting frank
Now that's classy. What is it with Putin sycophants and their constant horniness and jerkicity?
But does NATO have that kind of cash to attract that sort of talent?
And is there enough creative material and fan loyalty to avoid an X-men or Fantastic 4 ... just ... sort of fizzling out?
There's chances the franchise can keep loyal fans and build on that, but, honestly ... NATO may have to sell to Disney to access their production studios, creative pool and audience reach.
Sure, NATO's tapping yesterday's stars, but can Bono's edgy anti-establishment poetry he's so famous for, really get fans back in the seats? Can audiences really keep up with the franchise when there's huge drops like Obi Wan ... is Disney even prepared to pickup another creative orphan?
Uncertain times in the market, and I'm just not sure one hit, even as massive and totally adored on social media as it is now, is enough to fix plot things long term for NATO's creative executives.
Even die hard fans maybe difficult to keep committed if plot holes like NATO officers being killed in missile strikes don't have some sort of fan service resolution that keeps the older generation, that really grew up reading the old pre-NATO installments, like WWII, interested, while also reaching out to the new generation that thinks the SS were just total bad asses and it's just super fun to mix them up in a campy mashup of different characters fighting the new super villain; bringing out the "Red Army" is for sure a nostalgic throwback and safe choice for NATO, really directly addressing the core audience, but at the same time, even details like the new uniforms is a really big leap in design for them to take in, not to mention the whole re-conception of "The Soviet Red Menace" for a younger, more digital audience who connects more if they fear them as more of a "virtual" foe that's mostly just a danger to anonymous avatars online, than some actual "physical" enemy that may blowup entire cities at any moment, the classic "ticking clock" that kept eyes glued to screens in the 70s franchise heyday; but viewed by younger generations as a pre-internet tiresome gimmick. There's not even any submarines in this new story that happens nearly entirely on land, and for a lot of people that's a big disappointment; but maybe NATO's teasing a neo-Nazi submarine escape from Mariupole as a way to bridge those concerns, there's certainly no end to that sort of speculation about this sort of plot twist on the legacy fan forums, and maybe a way to really win over hearts that the rebranded neo-Nazi's as a ambiguous "anti-heros" that fans are supposed to empathize and understand in this new alliance, rather than that classic archetypal villain that just needs to be defeated for the plot to move forward, are a core part of the story now; of course, solutions may exist, such as another fan theory favorite is having them play that super cool submarine role, satisfying old fans demands to see more submarines as well a form of narrative continuation of the original Nazi's, of which submarines was a signature ability.
Oh sure, how the war is going it surely won't be an Afghanistan for Russia. It will be much, much worse. In Afghanistan in 9 years of fighting Russians lost merely 14 000 men. Now in less than a month of fighting, the estimate is what? 7 000 dead? Even in the two Chechen wars Russia lost more that in Afghanistan. Now they aren't facing one of the poorest nations in the World. Just one of the poorest European countries that is getting massive support from the West.
I guess the issue with being critical of the West and the US, like you or @Benkei, @Isaac are, is the thing that Russia is fighting a brutal war without caring much about civilian lives. For example @Isaac has stated it quite clearly: he doesn't want to give any credit the the US here as being a "knight in white armour". Fine. Yet talking about the failures and the imperialism of the West doesn't change the war in Ukraine.
That use massive firepower has been the Russian military doctrine in the past and that is it still today. They have done that in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Syria and now in Ukraine. As I said to @jorndoe 21 days ago, Ukrainian cities will look like Grozny. And of course, this will mean a lot of civilian casualties. The Russia warfighting tactics will cause enormous civilian losses.
Yet if someone talks about the attrocities of the Russians, then it's a bit odd to attack those of "believing in Western propaganda" or being "warmongers" or the type. This is thread of war in Ukraine, so that this war is discussed here.
Yeah, we've offered the caravans on our farm, but it's probably too far from anywhere to be of any use. We did have some Somalis with us a few years back, but they we part of a scheme organised by a local charity in the city. Everything has been sporadic and scraping around for funding... until now. It feels wrong complaining about the amount of help now available (for some), but I just can't help feeling what a fucking kick in the teeth it must be for the millions who've been crying out for help for the past decades.
Imagine being half-drowned, imprisoned, destitute and scraping for scraps for years and now finding the government who's mercy you've been begging all this time, can all of a sudden find £350 per person per month for an unlimited amount.
Barring the possibility of our governments suddenly finding a conscience, it just shows the latent racism thst still underlies the refugee issue.
I am happy that you did that. Or that your wife and your smart daughter insisted on that.
Never underestimate how precarious the acceptance of foreigners are. And that's why the Zelenskyi administration saying that all adult men of military age would have to stay in Ukraine was really important to the acceptance of Ukrainian refugees in Europe. Seeing that the refugees are mothers with small children and not young military aged men likely did make the Polish and the Hungarians open their arms for them. Just look at how the Polish government reacted to the hybrid operation of Lukashenko just some months ago.
I think it's very tough for the refugees from the Middle East to cope here in Europe. People aren't hospitable and are very open to negative stereotypes. What I'm worried is how Russians will be treated as the war goes on.
Right wingers and and left wingers too. That's why they're called wingers.
The suspense is killing me. At this point the West would be well advised to begin seriously addressing the mineshaft gap.
This isn't an "Afghanistan".
If the war is quick, it may cost lives but doesn't slowly ground down morale and domestic support over time.
Right now Putin's popularity has increased and Russian's support the war, so the war need only be ended within this window of popularity.
Putin has not made promises that can't be kept: like "democratize" Ukraine at the end of a rifle.
Putin has already achieved the land bridge to Crimea and if the Dombas front collapses and territory pushes out regions border, Putin can just sit on this territory and shell to oblivion anything that approaches while continuing to strike command and control and logistics infrastructure.
The entire Russian army can be consolidated to the lines around what Putin claims to want, maybe around Kiev as well to keep pressure on the capital ... and then just wait for his terms, that have not changed since the beginning of the war, to be accepted.
What the Kremlin has learned from previous episodes, is that Western "Unity" is only ever short lived and only ever exists on social media and not in any tangible form. Winning the social media culture war ... doesn't win a real war, is the main lesson to be drawn from Syria.
If a military status quo settles in with the Russian army mostly just sitting on the territory it wants to keep, then the EU is going to start to wonder what it's going to do with all the refugees and disputes will break out about that ... gonna look really attractive the idea of the war actually ending so Ukrainians can go back to Ukraine (which, for now, most want to do ... but if the war goes on for any amount of time, most will start making new lives and will have nothing to go back to).
As far as I can tell, the only reason Zelensky didn't accept Russia's terms in the first phase of the war, when it was easy to do:
1. Neo-Nazi's made it clear they would kill him if he did.
2. He genuinely believed in the power of acting to conjure up a NATO no-fly zone a la Churchillian Dumbledore.
3. He got so many views ... no one in show business can walk away from
However, the difference with Churchill is that he also had a feasible military strategy and feasible political strategy of getting US into the war and a pathway to military victory based on military experience (indeed, experience largely considered to be failures, and maybe a little dabbling in genocide, but potentially kind of experience that breeds the requisite caution). Also a little foot note: Britain was still head of a large empire from which to draw resources to take on the new Nazi empire, with the Nazi-Soviet alliance tenuously paranoid at best.
The modern conception that Churchill's speech somehow caused, in itself, the defeat of the Nazi's without any sort of credible plan ... is possibly misguided.
Politicians love Zelensky because social media loves Zelensky and his views of photo-ops are their views of photo-ops and the whole thing makes other political problems just sort of ... vanish.
And, their real constituents, the arms manufacturers, tell them war is good, and so it is. And so it is.
However, if speeches don't cause wars to be won in themselves, then Zelensky is in a dilly of a pickle, having fought an existential war to the last man ... only to accept terms offered on day one.
Of course, Russia likely knew the terms would be rejected, so they could then sell the war they want (total obliteration of the Ukrainian military as a going concern) even easier to the home audience, as nearly all Russians will agree A. Ukraine should be neutral and not host NATO missiles and nukes pointed at their cities B. Crimea should stay Russian and be recognized as Russian and C. Dombas should be independent.
At the end of the day, Russians are simply buying what Putin's selling as it makes sense to them, and he hasn't overplayed his hand by promising much more.
He's argued Ukraine is somehow apart of Russia already ... but there has not really been any actual demands to annex the whole of Ukraine, so that could be sort of contextual historical analysis not directly connected to any current political aim as well as a legal cover for conscripts in Ukraine, which did happen and may have been planned as a plan-C "if needs be" (as the conscripts can legally only defend Russia ... obviously, as @Benkei points out, the law doesn't really matter, but still pretextual justifications are needed, just as NATO made the pretextual justification to go from "No-fly-zone" to bombs everything that moved on the basis that anything that moved could in theory support an anti-air asset that in theory could support a plane that in theory could fly if Lybia had any left that weren't already shot down or bombed--it was totally preposterous reasoning, and the whole point is that doesn't matter).
Moi? I have been accused of war cheerleading here more often than I care to count. The words roll off the tongue of your buddies day and night. And when for the first time I return them the compliment, I'm the one to blame?
That's called a double standard.
Many posters here have been patiently explaining the most obvious things to you and the other serial misunderstanders for days now. You are either very slow on the uptake or you pretend to misunderstand. In your case my money is on the former.
Like what?
Maybe provide at least some examples of what's misunderstood.
How are you sure you're not serial misunderstanding your understanding of serial misunderstanderers?
And you've ruled out the possibility that it's they who don't understand our arguments because...?
I can't decide if it's just rhetoric or if you genuinely are so grossly narcissistic that you can't even contemplate the idea that it might be you who are actually wrong.
My money is on the former, but I'm excited at the prospect of having found a genuine case of the latter.
If you support the Ukrainian war effort ... but aren't in Ukraine fighting the war, nor even proposing troops from your own country go and fight with Ukrainians to at least vicariously live through your own soldiers' bravery ... then you are simply cheerleading other people fight a war that you're not willing to fight personally nor you're own government.
If you're in Ukraine fighting, then maybe that serves a military or political objective, maybe not, we shall certainly find out.
If you're arguing with people who's position is to put pressure on their own governments (who's policy they can most affect and are most morally responsible for affecting) and super-political-block, the EU, to use their soft power to work on diplomatic solutions rather than pour in arms ... precisely because we aren't about to send any troops and sending arms instead is a cowards cop out, that is the opposite of cheerleading a war.
None of us are cheerleading Russia to level Ukrainian cities to the ground, we are appalled it is happening and there are certainly diplomatic solutions given the immense leverage NATO and the EU has in the situation.
The US didn't just send arms to Britain to fight the NAZI's and call that "fighting a righteous cause" ... yet somehow social media posts are a moral substitute to taking any actual risk for one's pet cause.
This is literally the first time in history where selling and gifting arms is a pure act of altruism and the bravest thing freedom lovers could possibly do, or ever have done, amen.
Oh. So you think the "denazification" of Ukraine will be so easy at the end of a rifle?
Quoting boethius
Whopee! That sounds like fun. All this for a land bridge!!! :roll:
Quoting boethius
Of course. Those tens of thousands of anti-tank weapons being pushed in Ukraine won't mean a thing. Perhaps those 20 000 or so volunteers will come back after they have had an exiting weekend too.
Quoting boethius
Well, Syria actually didn't get much if any support. The US was fearful of giving arms to possibly Islamist extremists. Hence this outcome, which just reeks to extensive corruption and pocketing of taxpayers money:
All that for half a billion! Let's now compare this to what is the aid for Ukraine. Before the war started, the situation was the following:
Then afterwards:
And the war has been on for less than a month.
Quoting boethius
:roll: :yikes:
Have you been drinking or what?
Yes, and the US and Europe are complicit in it. You've yet to provide any kind of explanation of what exactly the problem is. What bad thing is going to result from our discussion of US and European complicity?
Quoting ssu
No less than talking about how bad Putin is, yet that doesn't seem to hold you back, nor do you concern yourself with those that do. So this seems an incoherent argument.
For instance, by pretending to take seriously Putin's excuse to invade Ukraine, ie the lives of them poor russophone Ukrainian brothers who he is bombing so mercilessly. This paradox was pointed to you many times and never answered.
For instance, you pretend again and again that there is some gag on you guys, while you are free to share your lies at length. That's an obvious contradiction which is never addressed.
Yeah, that would be really odd.
Fortunately, as you well know, that's never happened, otherwise you'd be able to fucking quote someone doing it instead of pulling some made up fantasy version of the discussion out of your arse.
My government has for the first time in it's history sent weapons to another country.
So let's just understand Putin.
He needed that sphere-of-influence.
NATO is bad. It made him do it,what else could he have done, so shame on NATO!
Quoting Olivier5
How dare you... how dare we have say anything supportive of Ukraine or focus on some minor issue like Russia invaded Ukraine. No, this thread is to bash NATO, bash the West and eagerly report anything bad they do, like "supporting bioweapon labs in Ukraine"!!! That's the only sensible thing to do in a thread about the war in Ukraine.
I'm talking facts. You guys talk rubbish. There's a provable difference.
And it's also a place to jerk, and be horny... For some.
Oh great, it really is the latter option.
Go on then. Let's have one of these 'provable' facts to set against some of my rubbish - together with the actual proof, of course.
Just to be clear, do you find Western sympathies for the Ukrainian side, their occasional cheerleading and their arm support more disgusting than the Russian aggression and indiscriminate bombing of Ukraine, or less disgusting?
The Kremlin does not care much about neo-Nazi's in themselves, they care about institutions that can threaten them ... and if those are explicitly or mixed up with neo-Nazi's it just so happens to be easy to explain to a Russian the reason to destroy those institutions.
That Westerners ignore the issue, or even cheer on the Azov brigade to "hold out" in Mariupol and never surrender, doesn't matter to nearly every Russian that is alive today.
Quoting ssu
If Russians generally support the war, which they seem to do, and the objectives of the war are attained, then it's easy to declare victory. Russians were genuinely concerned about Crimea being caught off from it's water source and were genuinely concerned about over 10 000 Russian citizens (all the separatists got Russian citizenship) dying in Ukrainian shelling since 2014.
Quoting ssu
In an occupation of the whole country, it would be disastrous, but if Russia simply pushes out the Dombas front (and so the territory is occupied by Dombas separatists and not insurgents) and just removes everyone from their land bridge, then, as we've discussed, ATGM's are so useful in assaulting a buildup front.
20 000 foreign fighters aren't a game changer, and will obviously mostly leave, if they don't die, once there's no military objectives that can possibly be achieved.
You also skip over the moral of these foreign fighters once in Ukraine as well as the moral of the Ukrainian forces. "Not letting men leave" from 18 to 60, was spun in Western media as "look at those heroes go valiantly back to the front! Such bravery" ... but I'm pretty sure those men wanting to leave don't feel the same way.
Quoting ssu
If it's a question of money ... Russia has more than a billion to spend.
Quoting ssu
As I've said many times, maybe there's some brilliant surprise counter offensive that routs the Russian army and the run back tail between their legs. I just don't see what it would be (but that's what a surprise means).
As it stands, Russia has militarily nearly achieved the key objectives it set out to achieve: destroy Ukrainian military capacity (1 billion doesn't magically repair all those bases and depots, nor bring back professional soldiers back from the dead), secure the Dombas, and secure a land bridge.
Although the Dombas front hasn't moved much (where the Ukrainians have been digging in for 8 years), it's logistical supply chain has been targeted by bombing and cruise missiles, and the front itself has been heavily bombarded since the start of the war. Simply because that line hasn't moved much yet, doesn't mean it's in the same condition as a month ago.
It's farthest from Western resupply and closest to Russian artillery and bombs, so I just can't see, from military strategy point of view, that it's possible to hold.
In addition, the Dombas line needs to deal with Dombas separatists who have extreme motivation to fight (get the war over with rather than continue the 8 years of shelling and accumulated deaths ... as well as finally the entire Russian army behind their movement); these aren't hapless Russian conscripts lost in the Ukrainian country side.
Now, if Ukraine pulls a win somehow, ok, Zelensky had speeches and the military strategy to back it up.
If not, and Zelensky accepts terms Putin offered at the start of the conflict, my prediction is that he will fall from grace in the eyes of Ukrainians and the world.
People like winners. Zelensky is winning on social media, which is usually enough for every other kind of dialogue, so people like him because they see he's winning.
Nooo! We'll run out of internet if we do that, we can't possibly condemn two sides at once. Why, I'm running out of space even to finish wrtng ths pst!
How could I refuse?
You have to promise. Positively so.
From Ukraine:
From Syria:
In Afghanistan in a war far shorter than the US war about one to two million Afghans. In the longer US invasion the death toll is 50 000 to 200 000.
In the first Chechen war even the Russian Statistical office estimates 30 000 to 40 000 Chechen civilians died while Human rights groups estimate that 80 000 civilians is closer to the truth and about 10 000 Chechen fighter died or went missing. In the Second Chechen war, that was the war Putin instigated, Chechen military and civilian losses estimates range from 50 000 to 100 000.
Add them up and you have what, perhaps from hundred thousand to two hundred thousand killed from a far more smaller population of a few million.
That's something close to butchery of the Polish in WW2. And I've explained just why the Russian style of war results in this. Targeting hospitals, shelling of cities randomnly is a warcrime.
So you just shut the fuck up!
Russians aren't cheerleading a war, they are fighting a war.
They are fighting a war their political representatives have told everyone they would fight in these circumstances for several decades.
They are at least not hypocrites.
With my limited understanding I can only judge contradictions ... to be contradictions, and thus wrong according to the self proposed standards.
Absolute truth and absolute right and wrong, I honestly can't really judge.
For example, I've pointed out that the moral and political question of "how many neo-Nazi's with power is too many neo-Nazi's with too much power and too much power". We would need to actually answer this question to start judging the Russian's justifications for the war.
Furthermore, the West doesn't take nuclear tensions and nuclear bating seriously (otherwise we wouldn't have pushed missile bases closer to Russia in order to "defend" ourselves in the middle-east) but maybe the Kremlin does and they see not-acting now as increasing the likelihood of a real nuclear exchange in the future.
The West basically assumes that the Kremlin is some sort of circus blundering around, knocking back shots of vodka and determining policy by throwing darts at a word-wall from a unicycle.
What if they are more serious thinkers than that? See themselves as being in control of nuclear weapons that could end the world and take that responsibility seriously and see NATO as an immature school boy skipping merrily into nuclear oblivion, that needs to be taught a lesson.
... Which ... as far as I can tell, NATO has learned that lesson and finally become a "NATO man".
History is made by people who don't hesitate to sacrifice a million souls to save 2 million. We praise those that won our wars and condemn those that lost against us.
This war is the lessor of two evils when it comes to Nuclear war. A classic MAD standoff is, in some respects, more stable than NATO just baiting Russia into nuclear tensions and war ... because it's fun?
Moral condemnation requires analyzing all these things to be sure the condemnation is justified.
Why do I say so? Because I would wish for myself a thorough analysis before I am condemned.
What does not take much analysis is to conclude that ending the war through talking, in some workable solution for everyone, is better than continued warfare.
If Zelensky wins, ok, another intrepid and committed war leader willing to sacrifice any number of his own citizens for glorious victory.
If Zelensky eventually accepts terms that were on offer before and at the start of the war, then it's difficult to justify the lives lost.
When someone hasn't anything to counter your argumentation, then start the nasty ad hominems.
After all, for some, they have to win debate. Not to learn something new or think issues from another point of view.
So what is the MOST disgusting of the two behaviors: to aggress your neighbour in such a war, or to cheerlead and help the victims trying to defend themselves? And which behavior is the LESS disgusting of the two?
Cheerleading others to fight for your own virtue-signalling on social media is far more disgusting.
Actually fighting a war, at least there's skin in the game."Courage of your convictions" as they say in French.
We say all our wars are just wars that were needed for our current institutions and "nations" to exist, and, just-so-happens, no war that ever inconvenienced us was justified. Is this really statistically credible?
And, who's the aggressor? Ukraine has been shelling Russian citizens for 8 years.
As the videos I posted (spanning several years since 2014) describe it: a "war".
A war, neo-Nazi's are on video crediting themselves as starting and also explicitly stating their objective for a war with Russia and who are most active in both fighting and promoting the war with Russians since 2014.
Are you Russian?
I am not Russian, I have in fact trained to fight Russians and would do so.
It's precisely because I have actually trained to fight against the kind of warfare Russia brings to the table, that I do not see how Ukraine can achieve any military victory in the field ... which we all agree it can't.
It needed NATO to supply its best and most sophisticated handheld weapons and for NATO and the EU to sanction Russia to put pressure at home.
At the same time the war is used as "proof" other NATO nations haven't been spending enough on their "own defense" ... yet no one holds Ukraine to the same standard, they get a free stuff.
A free pass from NATO, a doctrine NATO constantly rebukes, and they aren't even in NATO.
Zelensky literally threatened Russia with World War III yesterday ... is that a "Ukraine threat" or a "NATO threat"?
Guaranteed, if Ukraine didn't think it had free access to NATO resources and intelligence to fight the Russians, and would continue to have free access up to and including a NATO no-fly-zone, if not boots on the ground, then Ukraine would have had a different policy with Russia.
But when NATO reaches out it's hand to come along as a friend ... maybe is a false sense of security if NATO doesn't show up to the party to fight "the bully" you've been talking up a storm about finally teaching a lesson.
As a Finn watching Ukraine fight now Russia, I understand how Swedes felt during the winter of 1939-1940.
(Swedish posters of the time)
Quoting boethius
The small Baltic countries surely hope they aren't expendable.
Exactly.
People compare Russia to Hitler ... but Hitler didn't have Nuclear weapons, there was no threat of world obliteration if we went and fought Hitler.
Putin could be far, far, far more evil than he is now, and far more evil than Hitler ... and there's nothing much we can do about it through warfare ... why no Western country has sent any troops to Ukraine no matter the level of moral condemnation of Russia and praise of Ukraine as a bastion of freedom.
We can try to build a more peaceful world. That is our only practical choice.
Ukraine is completely expendable to NATO.
Finland was Gondor to Sweden's shire, but had the geography to hold out.
So, no quote then?
Gut wrenching.
But you know Isaac has shown his true colors. Sad.
Scout's honour.
There are certainly war crimes, likely Azov battalion not letting people leave Mariupol, which may or may not come out as undisputed fact after the war, is also a war crime.
Extrajudicial killing of alleged "saboteurs" would also be a war crime if they weren't actually sabotaging anything.
But, if the world is suddenly so interested in war crimes, we should probably go in chronological order and start with indiscriminate bombing of Cambodians and use of agent orange (a chemical weapon that causes neurological damages), and targeting Iraqi civilian infrastructure ... and torturing people; certainly all those documented things can be wrapped up in a day.
Oh, sorry, my bad, US doesn't recognize the "war crimes court," as it's totally irrelevant and means nothing, and I'm sure US officials making use of that institution now when it suits their purposes is just "a mistake".
However, as @Benkei has pointed out, you need an actual trial to convict someone of a war crime ... a trial where they present their own defense and evidence.
Russia has plenty of video too, and one thing Russia doesn't like to do is reveal it's operational capacity and intelligence methods during an operation and one thing it does like to do is hold onto evidence and prove things wrong later. The more people repeat a claim and for longer, the more credibility is lost when the claim is disproved.
Of course, Western media will simply ignore that, but it means something to other countries being proven to be an unambiguous shit talker and liar.
... And if you hand out weapons to hundreds of thousands of civilians, to walk around feeling "safer" clutching their riffle, you also make hundreds of thousands of legitimate military targets.
You would do so? Like, if Russia was to attack your country you mean?
If that was to happen, would you see the foreigners supporting your country as more disgusting than the army destroying your cities?
Yes.
The difference is that there would be a credible plan, equipment, bunkers and escalation of mobilization in lockstep with Russian force buildup (the whole point of conscripts against a larger country with a larger military that would obviously win in a total war situation, exceed the tolerance for losses and, through diplomacy, remove any reason to have a total war fight to the death situation, and, therefore, not be an "easy target" for a standing army in a non-total war situation).
And the whole point of such a posture is not to "wait for the day" to finally fight the Russians to the death, but demonstrate a respectful realism, and, instead of fighting words, offer friendship and good faith collaboration and grateful burning of Russian gas (that literally heats my home right now).
The point of actually fighting, if it came to that as the situation got out of control due to reckless civilian leadership (otherwise we'd be fighting the Russians right now if they were just that bad and no way to work with them), is to reach a settlement as quickly as possible, in a good negotiating position of having a credible military plan that would require total war to defeat.
Ukraine is in total war, but Russia is not in total war. However, Ukraine is in a severe geographical disadvantage.
There are many countries that do not exist for military reasons, but due to their existing being convenient for the far greater powers that surround them for one reason or another.
Monaco doesn't exist because it can fight the French, but because the French allow Monaco to exist, and you won't hear Monaco picking a fight with the French but rather diplomacy is used to maintain the status quo and continuously convince the French Monaco as it is now is better for them. This is perhaps the most extreme example, but many countries have no military option against a more powerful neighbor. No one claims Canada or Mexico would win in some total war situation with the United States.
If that was to happen, would you see the foreigners supporting your country as more disgusting than the army destroying your cities?
You're good at that, BTW, not answering questions.
Where things get worse is when they attain political power.
In some places they hide more due to legislation, in other places not so much.
[sup]• List of neo-Nazi organizations
• Racism by country
• List of white nationalist organizations
• Geography of antisemitism
[/sup]
[sup]? A fascinating map of the world’s most and least racially tolerant countries (The Washington Post; May 15, 2013)
[/sup]
That's not to say that "two wrongs make a right", though.
It all depends on the situation, and on who knows what about what. I'm not saying what the US has done in contributing to the oppression, suffering and killing of the Yemenis is justifiable.
But even there, merely selling arms to the Saudis and the UAE, while being able to claim (whether plausibly or not) "plausible" deniability is not the same as financing them specifically in order to attack and kill Yemenis.
The point is, turning a blind eye to something terrible (as terrible as that is) is not as bad as actively promoting it.
In your example it would depend on whether you gave money to someone on condition that they use it to buy a gun and murder children with it, or just gave them money to do whatever they want with.
In any case, why are we talking about that when the specific topic here is the question of whether Putin's actions in Ukraine are justifiable? The situation in Yemen has no bearing on this; each should be judged in its own right (or wrong).
Fixed it for you.
Which question? I literally answered "yes" to your last question.
On the "gotcha" of morally condemning the Russians, I simply do not make moral condemnations without the same analysis I would ask people wanting to condemn me to make, and, in particular, after I have provided my own defense of myself as well, to my own satisfaction; analysis of the Russians I have not yet done, as it's mostly irrelevant to the current situation and actually saving a single life, helping a single child.
I view the purpose of analysis to make decisions, not morally condemn.
What decisions matter to me in this situation that I can affect: the policies of my own country and political block.
What are those decisions:
A. Go to war on the assumption of Ukrainian just cause ... well, nearly the entire country and political block believes in Ukrainian's just cause yet we are not going to put our boots where our mouths are.
B. Send arms to Ukraine in the hopes they fight our righteous battle "for the free world" for us and win.
C. Pump arms into Ukraine, not for the purposes of option B, but to ensure an endless insurgency that bleeds the Russians at Ukraine's expense ... Wooooweee!!!!
D. Use diplomatic leverage to protect civilians as much as possible and work on a diplomatic end to the war.
I, personally, don't know how option B is going to work, so, if it can't work, then it's foolhardy and gets a lot of Ukrainians killed for no better a military outcome.
I don't see how C, "give the Russian's their Afghanistan, with love from NATO" actually helps Ukrainians. I honestly don't think Afghanistan is better off after NATO gave NATO its own literal Afghanistan. Which is a bizarre part of that argument, as it's framed like "tit for tat" to the Russians ... as payback for something we did to ourselves ... and not to forget the Afghanis.
So, it seems to me D is the best choice.
Do Ukrainians "have a right" to defend their country: Yes, I would agree, I claim the same right for my own country.
However, simply because something is a right does not mean it's the best choice. I have a right to do a lot of things that are not in my, nor anyone's, interest to do.
Time will tell.
The one you took care to delete from my quote, of course:
If Russia -- or anyone else for that matter -- was to attack your country, would you see the foreigners supporting your country as more disgusting than the armies destroying your cities?
Yes, if we had no chance of gaining anything militarily and we were just being used as pawns to bleed the Russians, setup before hand to bait the Russians into a war, genuinely believing those "foreigners" supporting us would come to our aid in some concrete "friendly ally" sense.
Being manipulated is far more disgusting than dealing with someone who does exactly what they say they're going to do, even. Being manipulated by your "friends" is a far worse taste than having some sort of clear foe.
I would also not expect anyone to give us free arms, and the honorable requirement to buy our own arms to fight our own wars, and perhaps take on massive debts to do that, would be part of the equation of whether fighting was worthwhile and what sort of deal (which would be the only possible positive outcome of the war ... as we're not about to march to Moscow and actually "beat the Russians" in any scenario whatsoever) would be a reasonable deal to end the war.
You fail to understand that there is no winning in this sort of situation.
The only possible end to this kind of war is negotiated settlement or then complete defeat in the field.
Even if the Ukrainians routed the Russians and they pulled back to the Russian border ... Ukrainians have not "defeated" the Russians, they would still be there, the war would still be ongoing, the Russians would come-up with some other strategy, maybe just drop a few tactical nukes and call it a day.
You don't win a war by not-losing for now, you need to actually go and defeat the enemy in their own homeland, defending their own soil, hoist your flag in their capital, put your feet up in the enemies government offices and drive down their boulevards smoking their cigars.
There is this righteous WWII narrative ... but no feasible WWII pathway to victory.
I find it funny how you pretend the other side isn't listening. Nobody has disagreed with what Putin has done is morally wrong and that the Ukrainians should be helped as much as possible. But if it's then argued sending weapons might not be the best choice for everybody involved or that the causes of the war are more complex involving a lot of shit from NATO and the USA that multiple people have warned about for decades to not to do, then there's simply condemnation and we get the stupid popularity contest questions again about who is supposedly worst? Or people whining about word choice because "mind your manners" is just another method of repression.
You have time and again been heard because nothing Putin has done is justifiable but you have certainly not listened to the other side. Neither I nor Isaac and Boethius are in this thread to bash NATO and the USA, but I do firmly believe in holding those to account that influenced these circumstances for the worst. That's not bashing, that's an attempt at putting the analysis in a broader context.
And I know you can do better so I think that this means you're truly worried about an escalation including Finland. I'm sorry if that's the case but I'm quite frankly a bit surprised that the real politik interpretation is one so difficult to accept for you. As a war/history buff that's what's it's always been, no?
An escalation that would only happen due to Finland rushing ahead to join NATO ... but not actually be in NATO.
Otherwise, Russia would have already attacked Finland if that was "the plan all along" ... and, since that wasn't the plan as it hasn't happened, but the status quo has been acceptable to Russia, then if the status quo was maintained ... certainly Russia wouldn't attack Finland after being weakened by NATO in Ukraine.
However, if the exact same warning to Ukraine are sincere to Finland and Sweden, then tactical nuclear weapons would be dropped until they, too, accept neutrality ... the exact same status quo as before baiting Russia into dropping tactical nuclear weapons.
Which, may explain, rather than Finland's millennial Prime Minister, who is completely clueless about geopolitics, it is Finland's older president with far longer experience dealing with the Russians and talking with Putin, all of a sudden represents Finland on the international stage (after not a single woke article being written about him and Finland's wonderful young and woman led government ... where are those young woman leaders now?) and ... is one EU leader not just fiercely condemning Putin and calling him a madman but saying things like "the situation is complex".
You're more submissive than most people, I guess.
@boethius disagrees with that.
I feel like I want to give credit to @ssu for presenting the more or less pro-NATO case reasonably. I don't know if you've read everything but some of the flack directed towards him has been rather personalized and unwarranted.
They can come and fight if they care, that would be welcome ... social media isn't "support".
It's hypocrisy.
A war should never be a charity case.
I said I haven't analysed it yet.
However, I would agree with @Benkei that it's morally wrong in a very large sense of morality. In my view, "morally right" would be turning Russia into an anarchist direct democracy.
Condemnation is a much stronger statement, such as "true evil".
There is also a middle area of whether Russia's Imperial war is "worse" than the other great power's Imperial wars.
For example, all the great powers owe their existence to Imperial wars, but we view the Nazi's Imperial war as much worse in comparison.
We (the West) condemn the Nazi's for WWII ... but we don't have similar condemnation for US in Vietnam or Iraq or the French in Algeria (and pre-WWII Imperial conquests are simply off limits for moral analysis; "different time" kind of thing, I'm sure you understand).
I don't have a problem with Ukrainians fighting, it's their choice.
I have a problem with neo-Nazi's, that's for sure; but I'm told that's a small part and the enemy of your enemy is your friend.
There is more than one war happening in the world at the moment.
Do you even know about the others, much less have picked one side and condemned the other?
Or do those people and whatever they're fighting about not matter in the slightest?
If so, why would you expect otherwise vis-a-vis Ukraine?
A few questions for you.
Oh you know of things that are morally right? That wasn't apparent so far.
So what would be the ideal outcome of this war, according to you?
I do. Why don't you discuss them, if they are so important to you?
Is that why you have to cheerlead the Russian side, a soddin' dictatorship bombing innocent people? Because there are other wars?
Revision 2:
Does that work? :D
He said that sending arms to Ukraine is more disgusting than bombing Ukraine. Literally.
It's far easier to know what are good things, and a good life, and the difference between pain and suffering, love and hate, peace and war, than condemn another as having nothing of value and doing nothing but evil.
Mostly, people agree on what are good things and would prefer love and peace.
The question is how to get there.
Quoting Olivier5
The war has already started. Assigning blame to who is most morally responsible for the war, can be easily debated many, many years, to get into every moral and political nuance, after the war is ended.
The ideal outcome of the war would be what minimizes suffering in the short term and creates a lasting peace.
No one disagrees that Dombas is filled with ethnic Russians that want to separate from a Ethno-Ukrainian nationalst state, and that they have done so and that there is no way for Ukraine to "defeat them" militarily as Russia won't allow it.
No one disagrees that Crimea is de facto now part of Russia and that won't change.
No one except neo-Nazi's and their sympathizers agrees that neo-Nazi's are a bad thing and policies should be agreed on by NATO, the EU, Russia and Ukraine on how to dismantle neo-Nazi organizations.
Of course, the "ideal" end to the war would be everyone in the whole world, including Americans and gangs and the mafia, laying down their arms and start talking things out in a bottom up participatory direct democracy without nation-states in any similar sense as they exist now.
However, if that "ideal" has no practical way to bring about as an ending for the war, then recognizing the right of "self determination" of the Dombas and Crimea, and that they are de facto in Russian control now anyways without any means of changing that, is a more reasonable outcome than fighting for ... what? To achieve what militarily?
And the answer is: through Putin.
Quoting boethius
Now you're talking. So ideally the Russians should lay down their arms and turn Russia into a vibrant democracy.
Glad we agree with that.
Quoting boethius
I actually disagree with that. I think it should be divided.
Quoting boethius
In Ukraine it is doable but I doubt it in the US, the EU or Russia. Neo-nazis are too deeply ingrained there.
Go ahead, enlighten us with who's right and who's wrong in every contemporary war.
Quoting Olivier5
I'm not cheerleading the Russians ... and no one in the EU is sending arms to the Russians.
The Russians can fight their own war, that seems clear, and what happens on social media doesn't affect their decision to do so.
You seem to think that "defeating" the Russians on social media will somehow defeat them in the field.
This is not the case. The war will not be fought in the sub-reddit's and the tweeting and the facebooking and in the forums, it's fought in the real world with real weapons and the affect of Western social media isn't very strong.
Pointing out the Ukrainians have no way of defeating the Russians, and therefore the war can only end with either the Ukrainians losing militarily or a negotiated settlement, is simply pointing out a fact, it's not cheerleading the Russians.
There is nothing that can be said on Western Social media that will change the Russian's policy and requirement of concessions for ending the war.
So, the choice are accept some concessions ... or fight to win.
If you have some plan that will have Ukrainians storming Moscow in any reasonable amount of time, then you do the Ukrainians a great disservice by placing your efforts here rather than going and telling them what to do.
The point is ... how will it change?
Ukrainians take back part of Crimea and if Russians don't accept that, they roll to Moscow?
What would be the point, pray tell?
Quoting boethius
Indeed. They might very well win here and lose in front of Kyiv.
But, so too the Americans, you agree with that?
And, maybe bother to actually read my posts, as I've mentioned this several times.
Especially the Americans.
Maybe you bother with intellectual honesty a bit more.
It's your standard: pick a side, cheerlead one and condemn the other.
And not just your standard you set for yourself, but you assume others have do anyways, just not honest about it: as any criticism of one side is doing what you prescribe for yourself.
Maybe, us serial misunderstandererers could use a few other examples to see how your method works and the righteous values it's based on.
Who said anything about any standard? YOU said that they are so many wars, so why take side. I didn't say you must take side. Don't support the Ukrainians if you find their cause so disgusting.
Ok great, so what's you plan of action?
We condemn the Americans until they put down their guns?
... But if they put down their arms, how do they give arms to the Ukrainians if they've given up those old barbaric ways?
And, if Ukrainians are just and the just thing to do is to put down arms, why aren't you calling for the Ukrainians to put down their arms and do the right and ideal thing?
First we take Moscow, then we take Berlin.
Quoting boethius
Because the right thing to do in front of naked aggression is rarely to lay down arms. This solves the immediate killing but only aggravates oppression and killings long term. Instead you must inflict as much damage on the enemy as possible, or the enemy will come back a year or a decade later.
This is not my argument.
The argument is that if other victims of war are just as deserving as the Ukrainians, certainly you have already put the energy into seeing which are the real victims and which the real aggressors in all the other wars happening right now, and so can share your just as honest disgust on that, as you so readily share about the Russians.
No need to hold back.
Teach us who do be disgusted by.
Maybe with a few examples we could better understand your philosophy.
Without any guns?
You got your condemnation of America. I'll pile mine on top of that.
It doesn't satisfy, does it? Why is that?
:roll:
I support in theory (though I don't fund anyone) pretty much all peaceful liberation movements, have more problem with violent ones. I support the Scottish independence movement wholeheartedly for instance, but am more ambivalent about the IRA.
So options A,B,C are practically saying that the West supporting Ukrainian defence is coward, hypocrite and cynical. While you would choose D which implies refusing to support Ukrainian defence and accepting Russian demands (whatever they are) not out of cowardice, hypocrisy or cynicism of course, but because it saves Ukrainian civilians as much as possible. And this is supposed to be the best example of analysis to make decisions not to morally condemn or do virtue signaling, right?
Quoting boethius
If they support it, why is there such a level of censorship in Russia (which is not even under martial law)?
As this is a philosophy forum, it think it is worth wile to ponder about morality or justifications. I think if you would understand that if the realpolitik argument would put above anything else in the case of Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
But anyway, the only real disagreement we have that I don't think this has been a really, really bad decision from Putin. Perhaps the ease with Putin could waltz into the middle of a Ukrainian revolution and snatch Crimea with a splendid military operation confused his judgement. The disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and the political turmoil made him perhaps to think that the US is weak.
The military aid now pouring over to Ukraine is simply huge. And if the Ukrainians continue to fight, which they will, this can be a drawn out thing. I really don't see what is the success here in this for Putin. Perhaps that because he is now truly in a large war, he can get even more authoritarian?
It's exactly as you said: we should be disgusted by anyone except by the actual professional killers.
After Sauli I guess we'll get an older Sanna Marin as President. She's bound to be the next. If she doesn't really fuck up.
I just find it amusing that this young beautiful woman is picked and put up to be the Prime minister... and then A GLOBAL PANDEMIC breaks out. And after few years that pandemic is starting to be RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE and Finland and Sweden see their foreign and security policy collapse and start moving to NATO membership. With things going like this, I think after this there will come that Asteroid that is going to hit Earth. Then we'll listen to her, dressed in black as usual, explaining what preparations the government has made for the current crisis...
But back to issue at hand:
Biden promised an additional 800 Stinger-missiles and 2000 Javelin missiles to Ukraine. A few years ago Ukraine had 37 Javelin ATGM launchers and a bit over 200 Javelin missiles in all. It tells just how much is poured now into Ukraine. And likely they will stop declaring just what the numbers are. Of course what is needed is medium to high altitude surface-to-air missile systems and those aren't so easy to get and use as Stingers (which cannot shoot down anything flying over 4 km altitude). The talk is of Russia S-300 "Grumble" missile system which the Ukrainians know how to use to be sent there from current NATO users. The simple fact is that in order to train a new Western SAM system, those very much needed Ukrainian professional soldiers should go to the West and train for the system. And all that takes months or at least half a year. The same with combat aircraft. Now during the Cold War the Soviet Union and the US had no qualms about it: especially the Soviets sent their personnel to operate and train their allies (suprisingly always using civilian clothing). And it might be that not only in Korea (which is documented), but also in Vietnam Soviet pilots did fight with the Americans.
But now Biden has problems how to handle this issue. And hence the search for Soviet legacy-system is on in order to help Ukraine.
(After Polish MiG-29's, perhaps Bulgarian S-300's to make that no-fly zone?)
Not at all.
Option A is obviously not cowardly, it would be the opposite of cowardice: it would be defending Ukrainian sovereignty and "democracy" even if it meant facing tactical nuclear weapons and having only tactical and/or strategic nuclear weapons on Russian soil as the only viable military response to continue courageously to fight for what's right.
Option B is only cynical if Ukrainians can't win against Russia (can't roll into Moscow the conquering heroes).
Option C is for sure cynical.
Option D does not exclude arms shipments, that I would still say Ukraine should pay for as paying for your own fights changes the calculus to pick fights in the first place.
Ukraine is a sovereign nation, and can take debts and pay for weapons if it wants to; wartime shouldn't stop that.
However, whether gifts or not, as I've been discussing with @ssu Ukrainians can fight to a better negotiating position. However, the cost in lives of fighting to a better negotiating position are not trivial. One should be pretty confident the additional lives and destruction and dead and traumatized children are "worth it" for the negotiating position.
If there are no further military gains to be had, no better negotiating position that can be fought to, the "thing to do" in such a situation is to declare a unilateral cease fire, not resupply (not a trick), and sue for peace. The sooner the better. For, unless there are tactical and strategic considerations, the more you fight the more concessions the other party wants to compensate the losses (and demonstrate to the home crowd the fight was worth it).
In diplomatic situations where diplomacy is concurrent to intense fighting, it is because neither side can win and the likely outcome is the borders will be wherever the battle lines happen to be when the deal is signed.
However, I was not talking about Ukraine in these choices, but my country and the EU ... we're not fighting in Ukraine, so we can either send arms or do diplomacy. Sending arms can be part of a optimal diplomatic strategy, but it would be cautious and non-escalatory (i.e. paradoxically increase the chances of peace than result in more death and destruction as we may usually expect arms to do).
For example, if the EU was bringing it's considerable leverage to the table, engaging in good faith with the Russians, and "making sense" and something the Russians can work with and Ukrainians can work with, then supplying arms to prop up the Ukrainians during that negotiation is just "normal statecraft" and not provoking Russia into a total war posture.
In the first "soft" weeks of the war, EU could have easily done this as it has a lot of things that both Ukraine and Russia want, and therefore could have easily negotiated a resolution where both parties are better off, and so entice a peace. Ukraine gets something (pathway to EU membership for example with some good faith financial and institutional support package, that just so happens to dismantle the neo-Nazi's) and Russia gets something (easing the previous sanctions, Nord Stream 2), and EU gets something the compensates these things. Of course, it's not a as simple as just sitting down and horse-trading these things, just pointing out that EU has considerable leverage on both parties that could have ended the war or prevented the war from happening.
Of course, maybe Russia refuses any reasonable deal and escalates the war anyways; there is no way to know "for sure", but the evidence that Russia is no the escalatory party is that Russia was making zero preparations for war in Georgia or Ukraine until they were surprise invited to join NATO; Russia responded immediately first with a war in Georgia that was viewed by Western analysts as completely improvised. Russia then tried negotiating some East-West middle way with Ukraine, which Ukraine, EU and Russia managed to agree on, and then the Ukrainian government fell in a violent coup; only afterwards did Russia take Crimea and then completely rebuild it's military operations and doctrines to conduct the current war and also sanction proof itself (such as make alternative to SWIFT, build home-grown industries of key components, cut deals with China on a bunch of things).
While this was going on, the US funded and trained the Ukrainian war against the Dombas, including neo-Nazi's, and also started it's "pivot" towards China. Just a normal everyday pivot of the world's super power just doing the righteous and "strategic" thing that no one should question.
... But how do you think the Chinese feel about it?
I bet they feel like there's not quite enough US troops in Europe.
The West is censoring Russian media, banned outright RT on every medium, even their website on the "world wide web" ... yet the West isn't even under martial law? Why is the west so afraid of Russian state media? We let the BBC, and CBC and PBS to exist globally, why not little ol' RT? If the West supports Ukraine why the censorship of RT?
Ukraine just banned opposition parties, if Ukrainians are simply united in the war effort ... why ban political parties?
I think this is a central question.
West assumes that hurting the oligarchs hurts Putin ... but maybe Putin wants his competitors, of which this theory presupposes have power to taken down Putin, to take a massive destruction of their wealth precisely so they aren't a threat to him. The oligarchs threat to Putin is, basically, bribing people with wealth ... outside Russia. So, maybe the West just did Putin a favour.
Likewise, escalating the war means more authoritarianism at home ... maybe that's what Putin wants.
A total war as we see now in Ukraine is a pretty big "message" to anyone else that may want to call Russia's bluff in the future.
The war is as much a demo for Russian arms as it is for NATO. People love going on about how NATO arms are better in every way ... but that doesn't help countries that are potential military targets for NATO.
... And on the subject of "NATO's arms are better" ... NATO spending significant political capital to send S-400 to Ukraine to take down Russian aircraft sounds like a pretty damn good commercial for one of Russia's big ticket arms exports.
Russia's response to NATO air superiority is lot's of cheaper missiles, and the more air defense systems it sells the more it can produce for itself also.
Escalation has meant Russia worked up to demoing hypersonic capability, a "world first" I'm sure the US is quite the jellybean over.
However, the real "show" of Russian warfare systems in Ukraine will come after the war and maybe you need a private screening.
We don't actually know what exactly the Kremlin is even trying to accomplish ... so it's difficult to conclude was a good or bad thing from their perspective.
As mentioned in my previous post, escalating the war to the point of NATO pivoting back to Europe is certainly part of the BFF plan with China.
All "Russia has made a mistake" arguments presupposes the Wests position of preeminence and position to dictate global trade relations. The war in Ukraine may, not due to the war itself but the predictable West's reactions to punish Russia, maybe have unexpected results for the West.
This is how the conflict can drag on for a long time... and that will put the human cost easily well beyond hundred thousand killed. Ukrainian and Russian losses combined is likely well over 10 000 in less than a month. Even if the fiercest fighting would have been seen, how ugly the figures are in a year or two is worrying as this is not insurgency, but a large scale conventional war.
Yet perhaps the "positive" side here is that both sides can retreat to the low burner, low intensity war that they had before. Yet that is difficult. What contained Ukraine from leashing an all out push into Donbas earlier was the threat of Russia launching an all-out invasion on Ukraine. Well, now we have seen that.
Quoting boethius
Not all opposition parties were banned. From the 11 parties I think For-Life was in the Rada and had 39 seats.
I need to sign off for the day, but I agree with your points. My expectation is that Russia will push to the borders of Dombas and then take a holding position, work out a deal.
Yes, by opposition I was meaning more "opposing Zelensky," and obviously censorship, but it is good to be precise in that it is not a uni-party system ... yet.
Yeah, this is a very stupid idea. Russia isn't the US. Putin doesn't need any backers for elections. He needs the support of the army and the intelligence services. When the head of the SVR is so frightened of Putin that he confusis his choreographed words, then some oligarch isn't a problem. As KGB guy I don't think there will be a palace coup to oust Putin. An assassination attempt to be successful is well, likely not as probable as Putin dying due to natural health causes.
So waiting for a 70-year old man to die might take a while...
Quoting boethius
Smart move to do (signing off at least), good night.
As long as Putin isn't hiding his wealth inside the oligarch's accounts, which some speculate he does. And when the war chest is empty, where does he get the money to fund his war and Russia's society? People downplay the sanctions, but they're really hitting hard on the economy and it's fine for now in terms of the war chest and funding the war, but if it goes on for months, that will not be the case. He's literally burning billions on a daily basis.
I agree with you here. Unfortunately, for reasons you outlined earlier, this is not a pure one on one conflict. This is not a private dispute. It has to bad enough that peace is the only option for both sides. Or all three. A settlement acceptable to Russia, Ukraine and NATO is something we can only dream of for now.
This is not democracy either: having other nations supply/deny armaments, meddle in elections and promise to make alliances that they never make good on has to be destabilizing at the least. Zelenskyy is under tremendous pressure within Ukraine, from certain nationalists, that is not democracy either. Might as well ban certain parties what has he got to lose. I don't see him coming out of this, but he talks like a man who has been given a personal nuclear umbrella.
Incorporating the joining of NATO within a constitution is simply unheard of, and is irresponsible. Now they have to change their constitution.
Russian soldiers appear to be dying in Ukraine at a remarkably high rate
[sup]Casualties in the early weeks far exceed the tolls in other recent conflicts[/sup]
The Economist; Mar 17, 2022
Russia Today (International) - Breaking news, shows, podcasts ? This RT?
(just in case anyone didn't know)
A 96-year-old Holocaust survivor, Borys Romanchenko, was killed Friday by a Russian strike on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Romanchenko's death was confirmed by the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial institute in a series of tweets.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/21/europe/borys-romanchenko-death-ukraine-intl/index.html
One of thousands of innocent non-combatants killed by the Russians from the comfort of their missile control centres.
The banning of any news site seems to be to prevent their influencing any public opinion in those countries. Why us public opinion important? Any government could do with widespread support for its policies, it makes things much easier, for example if there are no protests. It also helps in that nations international diplomacy.
The veracity of the content is not relevant here: truth can be as damaging as lies, maybe even more. News items can be fact-checked, and bringing certain facts to the attention of the public is all that is needed.
For example, RT headlines: All lies?
Ukraine says any deal with Russia would be put to a referendum
True
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-president-says-any-compromises-with-russia-will-require-referendum-2022-03-21/
Russia scraps peace-treaty talks with Japan
True
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/21/asia/russia-halts-japan-war-peace-talks-intl-hnk/index.html
EU approves common defense plan
True
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/eu-approves-rapid-reaction-force-of-up-to-5-000-troops
US-Russia ties ‘on the brink’ – Moscow
Hope it is a lie.
US says it wants to keep diplomacy open with Russia
[i]Russia, U.S. keep door open to Ukraine diplomacy, but big ...
Search domain msn.comhttps://www.msn.com › en-us › news › world › russia-keeps-door-open-after-u-s-rejects-key-security-demands › ar-AATchqz
Russia, U.S. keep door open to Ukraine diplomacy, but big gaps remain By Dmitry Antonov, Tom Balmforth and Simon Lewis 13 hrs ago Police in standoff with suspect after 3 Houston officers shot[/i]
[i]Whoops!
This page is gone.
To find something you’ll like, click a category above or use the search box.
2022-03-22T05:03:19.3594169+00:00
d6833f32-2f1e-4129-a1bd-a346f816aced[/i]
That page is gone, indeed. A casualty of war perhaps?
US imposes visa restrictions against China
This is propaganda, you realize this, right? As long as you realize it. All loss of life is regrettable, even Russian Generals dying in the comfort of the humanitarian corridor.
Oh it is expected for each side to exaggerate the other sides losses. I have no use for casualty figures except when this thing is over, and when the UN confirms them. I accept UN figures:
Date: 18 March 2022
From 4 a.m. on 24 February 2022, when the Russian Federation’s armed attack against Ukraine started, to 24:00 midnight on 17 March 2022 (local time), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 2,149 civilian casualties in the country: 816 killed and 1,333 injured.
This is unexpected:
Quoting UN
And under which circumstances/assumptions would that be true?
:100: :clap:
Over a thousand children died from completely preventable consequences of poverty just in the time since you posted that picture.
You asked why it's propaganda. It's propaganda, not because it didn't happen, but because it focuses social attention (which means it pulls attention away from other things). Barring outright lies, that's how propaganda works, by highlighting one grain of truth without any of the context, to pull people's attention to that one matter and away from the others.
Exactly what's happening here. The atrocities of war being used to keep attention firmly fixed on one issue, so that others (with no lesser a death toll) can go unnoticed.
"The 'other' is the enemy. They're sub-human - can't be reasoned with, they have no common goals (only their own peculiar ones). All the ills are their fault."
You seriously don't recognise that rhetoric? Not sounding familiar to you in any way...?
Let @boethius answer that, since after all it's his assumption, and a disgusting one at that.
Another month of this, and they won't have much of an army left.
No. He gave a 300 word answer of which you ignored 299.
Is this an example of your famous 'trying to understand' the other party's point of view?
It is easy to write a lot of meaningless text.
Don't lie, Isaac. Just don't. You can live without it, trust me.
And has he said it's worse or has he said it would make the situation worse, e.g. it doesn't help Ukrainians to send arms or to reach a negotiated settlement? Or do you disagree that a negotiated settlement is the best way out of the war?
See, after 100+ pages all I get from you is Putin is bad, NATO is good, which you haven't shown to be true. When people point out all the bad things done by NATO or its members in the recent past, we get the popularity contest question: Who do you like better? That's not an argument though and I've called out that particular stupidity 50 pages ago. (As I'm writing this, you've just accused one poster of lying and another of writing meaningless text without any amount of argument). It seems all you're here for is insisting that there's only one way to look at the world and that's your way, everybody else is a liar or delusional. That's not how it works.
Me, Isaac and Boethius distrust NATO (or more specifically, the USA as the main policy driver) almost as much as Putin. The only reason I trust USA in the are of war is because my country is a member ofNATO but that means nothing for any party outside of NATO. So our view is that NATO is bad, Putin slightly worse in this particular instance and limited to international relations, which is what we appear to be concerned with in this thread.
You can disagree but neither is Isaac a liar nor is Boethius writing meaningless posts. You are confusing your disagreement (and personal investment in your particular view) with bad faith on the part of others.
That's correct.
Quoting Benkei
You are confusing your own bad faith with sophistication.
Why not?
Quoting Olivier5
I happen to think you say really stupid things at times. This is another one. You're very concerned with manners and sophistication and then turn around and accuse people of bad faith or of being liars. Very consistent of you.
Similarly goes the civilian casualty figures. That happens when you fire rocket & artillery barrages at urban areas. And when you're out of wooden caskets, that tells something.
I was personally hopeful, once the war started, that this was going to be a slam dunk for Russia, not because I want them to win or think their cause is just but because I was hoping the civilians casualties would stay low that way. History has shown how little regard Putin has for civilians.
I just can't figure out any circumstances where helping a nation defend herself against aggression would be morally worse than said aggression. If you think it is possible, do explain how.
Quoting Benkei
Feel free to ignore my feeble posts. :mask:
@boethius has already done so, but it requires that you actually read that which you've prejudicially dismissed as 'meaningless text'
You've read and agreed with it? Maybe you can explain to others here what the argument was? Because I cannot think of any evidence for the statement: "killing someone is morally superior to helping someone."
Broadly, yes. I find manipulation leading to human misery to be slightly more disgusting than open aggression leading to the same misery. Something about the attempt to hide it adds to the disgust.
So arming Saddam Hussein in support in his war against the US in the 2003 Iraq War was morally totally the right thing to do?
That depends on the facts on the ground. Facts we are not yet fully in posession of.
You asked a hypothetical - "circumstances where helping a nation defend herself against aggression would be morally worse than said aggression". @boethius answered with a hypothetical (someone invading his country).
Whether that hypothetical applies to Ukraine is a separate question. One we're attempting to address here. The key questions being...
To what extent is Putin deliberately targeting civilians, to what extent does he intend to occupy Ukraine?
...and...
To what extent do the US genuinely believe their arms aid will lead to a Ukrainian win, and to what extent are they just cynically benefitting from having Russia engaged.
If the answer to the former is that Putin is reckless but not inhumane, if he wants neutrality, not dominance...
...and...
If the answer to the latter is that the US know perfectly well Ukraine can't win and are indeed cynically encouraging resistance to benefit from having a global financial power tied up and a massive reconstruction loan in the offing...
...then yes. The US would, under those circumstances be morally inferior. That's exactly why we're discussing those very possibilities.
If you want my current guess, I'm leaning toward the former being "no" (Putin appears to be a monster), and the latter being "yes" (the US know full well what they're doing) making them both as bad as each other.
That's a double standard. Either it's rule-based or it's not. If it isn't then Putin didn't commit any crime.
Okay so you are not quite sure yet if Putin is morally superior to the EU and US in the circumstances, and lean to moral equivalence between them. Kindly confirm.
As for @boethius, he wrote clearly about his moral preference for murder over cheerleading.
What? Unclear, kindly rephrase. My position, so you remember what we are discussing, is:
I can't figure out any circumstances where helping a nation defend herself against aggression would be morally worse than said aggression.
Note the term 'nation' in there.
So we have a real life example where you can think of a circumstance supporting a nation against aggression is not right. So you're not being able to figure out other circumstances just appear to a failure to think.
Good point. If the nation being attacked is led by a brutal dictatorship, it might not be the right thing to do to help this dictatorship defend itself, but it's still a morally good thing to help the people themselves; in any case it is better to help them than to kill them.
He wrote exactly what he wrote. The fact that you have to paraphrase rather than directly quote speaks quite clearly to your intellectual dishonesty. If @boethius wrote so 'clearly' of such a preference, you shouldn't have the slightest trouble quoting him saying so.
I understood from what he wrote that cheerleading a Ukrainian is morally worse than killing a Ukrainian. If he meant something else, he is welcome to clarify.
Well then there's little we can do to help you.
One measure is the moral quality of the victim for you. Fine. I can go along with that on case-by-case basis as sometimes this might not be all that clear (it was with Saddam).
It's been suggested here that another measure could be: what course of action leads to the least number of death. Now, this requires you to step in my shoes for a moment. I believe Crimea and this Ukraine war are highpoints in a proxy war the US and Russia have been fighting about Ukraine at least since 2004 (ssu put it even earlier). So what the US and Russia have been doing to each other using Ukraine to establish influence in the country in favour of one or the other has culminated in territory loss in 2014 and a war now.
You don't have to agree, just understand that that's my understanding of the context. Given that then the Ukrainians are victims of a larger power struggle and I would like to see the quickest, least deadly resolution to the conflict ensuring both the US and Russia will leave it alone. Does sending armaments make this more likely? Under some assumptions it does but it will drag out the war and will lead to more Ukrainian (and Russian) casualties but maybe those casualties are worth a better negotiation position against Russia. Under other assumptions it's worse, it just leads to more death and no better result in the long run. If the latter is the case then sending armaments is the wrong thing to do. That's not to say it's clear at this point what the right decision is but it's entirely possible sending armaments will result in a lot more death (especially since the Russians have no problems bombing civilians) without any meaningful gain in any area.
It's under such circumstances supporting Ukraine by sending weapons would be morally wrong because it only leads to more innocent people dying (and I would actually argue that even soldiers are innocent in this, because they just get send by the guys making the decisions. Well, it's a bit more nuanced when we're talking about war crimes but soldiers dying is as lamentable as civilians - they're human beings too).
Quoting Olivier5
But there is no moral question. We agree Putin is morally wrong and his war is illegal. We disagree about the role of the US. What is stupid is asking me to qualify Putin or the US as being better than the other. Criciticism of the US and NATO is in no way, shape or form excuse Putin's moral responsibility in this. A murderer can't excuse himself by saying another person is a murderer too.
You need more help than you can offer.
Bombing cities lead -- I think -- to more deaths than cheerleading, so by your own yardstick it is morally far more disgusting to bomb civilians than to cheerlead anyone. And I agree with you!
Quoting Benkei
You and I apparently agree that Mr Putin is morally wrong. But that does not apply to some other posters who cultivate far more ambiguity than that. You don't understand @boethius for instance, although you think you do. He is more sinister than you think.
Criticism of NATO was made here a long time ago, and we all or nearly all agreed that many errors were made and the US and EU have had their share of hypocrisy and immorality. But once this is agreed, you would expect the conversation to go back to Ukraine. Yet it does not... Some people want to talk about NATO again and again and again.
Why?
My hypothesis is that the point is to deflect blame from Mr Putin, which is why the guilt of NATO has to be mentioned constantly, and not just occasionally.
Going back to my previous argument that because we haven't really had any superpower dictators since the soviet era ended, intellectuals have generally shifted focus to a more globalized critique of how all nations handle economy, ideology, war and geopolitics. The main focus of the last 30 years has been on criticizing the US, and rightfully so, since it's been the biggest player on the world stage during this time. So when Putin almost overnight becomes a despot dictator and the world once again has a "bad man", then all the intellectuals who's been painting the picture of the US as a nation being the "bad man" over the last 30 years can't really compute this change and need to turn everything back against the US. Regardless of how Nato operates, regardless of the US not being in direct control of Nato, any type of action by Putin can, according to them, be led back to Nato, and by association, the US in some form or another. Regardless of how much points to Putin's true motivations for this invasion, it doesn't matter because we can't move away from the narrative that the US has been the "bad man" for the last 30 years. Putin knows this, he knows how to spin the narrative about Nato and he's playing these "intellectuals" like good little puppets. The only rational connection to Nato is the fact that they can block any expansion of Russia as an empire and that's why we see this desperate invasion of Ukraine. Does that mean that if Nato had held off accepting new nations towards the east, Russia would have played things cool and not invaded? No, it might have been even worse. They've might have had almost free reign of military actions without much interference from the west. Or they could have killed anti-russian politicians and installed puppets over many years to reclaim these nations. Regardless, they would have kept pushing to build up the empire again, by any means necessary. And with Putin at the helm, it seems that he doesn't want to go out of this world without getting that "Tsar status" solidified in history. This invasion has clearly been an act of desperation. Do it now or lose Ukraine forever. It's either do it now or fail for Putin, that's why he doesn't back down, why he won't peace talk with Ukraine and why the demands are plain and simple "surrender into part of our empire or die".
Putin is simply a regular 20th-century despot dictator coming back to haunt us for thinking the world got rid of them.
RT is using the same tactics, portraying a city in the Donbass region as being an innocent casualty of war a tragic situation for its people - but this time from the breakaway region.
Quoting RT
"people live here" sounds so tragically ironic.
Criticism of Putin was made here a long time ago too, and we all or nearly all agreed. Does that mean no further conversation on the matter should take place?
The vast majority of this thread has been taken up with attempts to paint such criticism as apologetics for Putin.
The US did a bad thing creating the circumstances for, and provoking this war.
Putin did a bad thing responding to that provocation so violently and with such callousness.
We all agree on both.
So why do you want conversation about one to stop, but conversation about the other to continue?
Presenting your opinion about what Putin would and would not do, how the US might or might not have responded, what influence they may or may not now have...is the whole point of a discussion forum.
Being baffled that anyone would disagree with you renders the medium pointless. I suggest you take up blogging instead.
So you are saying if Ukraine was run by a "brutal dictatorship" something like what is happening now, that is sending arms to 'help the dictatorship defend itself' 'might not be the right thing'.
Even if civilians died in the same number and in the same way.
I don't recall the ICJ outlawing 'brutal dictatorships' just illegal invasions.
What are you even talking about now? If you mean that there's no point to analyze interlocutors as part of the analysis of global events you've missed almost the entirety of 20th-century philosophy.
There was no provocation that I can see. So no, i don't agree. It's all on Putin.
Quoting Isaac
The vast majority of your posts have been devoted to whining about how NATO is bad and to relaying the propaganda of the Kremlin.
Quoting Isaac
Stop lying, do try it once. I never ever said I wanted any conversation to stop. I said I wanted dishonesty, obscenities, lies and wilful misunderstanding to stop. I am also explaining what purpose is served by blaming NATO again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. The purpose is to try and deflect blame from the actual murderers.
Keep trying, by all means.
The argument into which you contributed your comment was...
Quoting Olivier5
It uses this expectation as evidence for the analysis of interlocutors you, quite rightly, allow for.
Yet the utility of this (and your agreement) as evidence for ulterior motives relies entirely on an assumption that you (and the position you espouse) is just categorically right. Obvious and verified. Hence the suspicion levied at those who oppose it.
I'm suggesting the reality is simply that those who oppose it just disagree with you about the facts.
So when you said...
Quoting Olivier5
...what errors were you referring to and what were their consequences?
Quoting Olivier5
Your explanation relies on an assumption that the conversation ought to have stopped. Without that assumption, there is no cause to impute ulterior motives on those who continue it. If the conversation about NATO can be continued legitimately, on what grounds do you assume those who do so are doing so illegitimately?
Start a thread, or even better, read this one. It's all been described. None of it implies a provocation from Washington.
Quoting Isaac
You misunderstood me again: the discussion of NATO's sins must in fact continue forever, as a way to deflect attention from the war crimes on the ground.
I don't think this was the issue to begin with. But even so when people are manufacturing consent that we should support the Ukrainians no matter what, it makes people unreceptive to a more quantitative analysis in this regard. Just look how many pages it took to find some semblance of agreement when in fact the differences of opinion between posters here are minimal.
It was the issue I raised, in response to constant complaints about my so-called disgusting 'war cheerleading'. I wanted to know what was worse: 'cheerleading' people who defend themselves, or murdering people.
For some, this appears to be a difficult question. But it's important to reach moral clarity and I agree we are getting there, at long last.
Quoting https://jubileedebt.org.uk/news/cancel-ukraines-debt
I analyzed the possible obsession with Nato in terms of how debates and discussions has been going on for 30 years now. To the extent of leading to bias dismissing the more logical motivations Putin and Russia have.
So far, all who argue for blaming Nato for Putin's invasion are the ones inventing facts or taking one unrelated fact and making false connections to motive. All while people who actually research Russia and Putin's presidency for a living, point towards how Putin's motivations relate to the expansion of Russia, not to the fantasy of a Nato invasion.
It's this Nato bias in the rhetoric so many have that makes them pick facts that do not actually logically glue to an actual conclusion for such external motivations of Putin. The "facts" are either what Putin says directly, which is undoubtedly the most unreliable source for any kind of fact, or a historic fact with the rhetorical suffix that it somehow connects to such motivations without any real connection established.
It's this inability to actually make coherent arguments where premises (facts) actually relate to the conclusion that creates a mess of a discussion where people just cite historical facts as premises for conclusions of their own opinion. Instead of looking at what people who research Putin actually says, use that for interpreting the behavior through this conflict and make logical and rational inductive conclusions based on it.
source: trust me bro
Tada, I condensed your four paragraphs.
So George Kenan, John Mearsheimer, Stephen Cohen, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, Vladimir Pozner,Jeffrey Sachs, former United Nations Under-Secretary-General Pino Arlacchi, former CIA director Bill Burns, former US Secretary of Defense Bob Gates...
These are all what now? Non-experts on Russia?
Or: This is clearly a geopolitical crisis but let's take the 'geo' and the 'politics' out of it and we're just left with "Putin bad".
Or: "Joining NATO is like having a library card, anyone can do it if they just sign the right documents. It's not like the entire point of NATOs existence, from top to bottom, is to make strategic decisions about how not to engender potentially world ending conflict. No, it's just like singing up to an Uber Eats account".
Oh I almost forgot...
Jack F. Matlock Jr., US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-199.
Sir Roderic Lyne, former British ambassador to Russia.
George Beebe who used to be the CIA's top Russia analyst
Ted Galen Carpenter, Cato Institute's senior fellow for defense and foreign policy studies
Frank Blackaby, former director of SIPRI
...
Every single one on this list and the previous one has implicated NATO expansion as the main provocation for war in Ukraine.
And the experts you've quoted saying its all Putin's empire building so far tally...?
Back on page 38...
Quoting Isaac
Nothing since then.
Hey! A post with no misinformation! :up:
That's two in a row! What? Is Twitter down? jk
Quote them, then, if you think it can help your argument. Name dropping ain't enough, for your words are worth little.
Missed this gem.
So what Putin says and what Putin does are consigned to the wastebasket as far as evidence is concerned. What's far more compelling is what you think he thinks.
I already have, but sure...
In 1998 George Kennan warned that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake" that ought to ultimately provoke a "bad reaction from Russia"
Henry Kissinger here https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/henry-kissinger-to-settle-the-ukraine-crisis-start-at-the-end/2014/03/05/46dad868-a496-11e3-8466-d34c451760b9_story.html
How many do you want?
What bothers me is that while the US is actively bombing Iraq, killing children, orphaning children, and giving children a charred wreck to grow up in, this is the time to clearly condemn the US and Bush in particular if it turns out he made this decision against the will of his own government and people.
There will be plenty of time later to analyze how the US was provoked, which UN inspectors warned that Iraq was hiding something, why geopolitically, the war seemed to make sense before it all fell to pieces in an ISIS nightmare.
You know?
I happen to know Jeffrey Sachs. He's a nice guy but never found a cliché he could resist, and is in part responsible for ruining post communist Russia through shock therapy. He bears some responsibility in my view.
Cohen liked Putin a lot. People make mistakes.
Matlock and Mearsheimer are I believe bright and respectable. But I don't see the "provoked" word in their quote.
It's one thing to say the US fucked up, another to say they provoked this war. The latter is a much graver accusation which implies that other players have no agency.
Your turn. The experts concluding that
Quoting Olivier5
...?
That critique pertains to the Bush administration, right? Or Clinton? Because Georgia and Ukraine are not in NATO and there are no current efforts to bring them in. So the quote is outdated. And so are your other quotes as well.
In 2022, there wasn't any threat to Russia nor any provocation by NATO, and yet a war was started.
By whom? Nobody seems to know...
So true. The French seemed to be friends of the Iraqi children, but they were really more like drug dealers, getting those children killed. Or more killed. More severely blown up than otherwise we would expect from a full scale invasion.
Exactly. It's by the fault of the French that Americans and Brits had to kill so many Iraqis, including them kids. Because you see, the French tried to meddle in the US sphere of influence. Tsk tsk tsk. One million Iraqi deaths later, they still haven't learnt from their mistake.
Well, the US is just a giant killing machine. If you piss it off, you get what you deserve. Obviously.
As we can see in Ukraine right now... The Americans are bombing a lot of cities there, you know?
I mean, provoking such bombing, I think... or wait, perhaps they even bomb themselves, I don't remember what my FSB handler said.
I think you meant to say that America is financing neo-nazi chemical warfare plants in Ukraine. Or biological warfare. But then, anthrax is actually made of chemicals, so it's probably the same thing.
Can you read what I wrote? And then understand what I wrote?
Quoting Christoffer
[i]Fact: Nato is expanding.
Fact: Russia doesn't like it.
Fact (based on these experts): Nato expansion could lead to a response by Russia.
Conclusion (yours and others): Nato is partly responsible for the invasion.[/i]
Counter-argument (mine): No premise denies the possibility that an invasion would have happened anyway (logic). If an invasion would have happened anyway, there's no responsibility for Nato in this invasion (logic).
This creates a hole in the argument people make about Nato's blame, a hole that needs to be plugged before continuing any other argument using Nato's responsibility as a factual conclusion (which is done over and over, using that conclusion as a premise for everything else being said).
I then ask for further premises to back up that the expansion of Nato, led to the invasion of Ukraine. So far, such premises haven't been presented. This means you can't draw a definitive conclusion of Nato's responsibility. The fact that the expansion of Nato provokes Russia, does not equal Russia's motivations and plans for invasions to be because of Nato's expansion. It can, as I've said numerous times, be the logical outcome that a nation Russia wants to invade and overtake becomes blocked by becoming a Nato member and therefore Russia invades sooner rather than later.
What this means is that Nato might unintentionally provoke an earlier reaction, but the act could most likely happen anyway. This possible conclusion makes it impossible to establish that Nato is responsible for the invasion of Ukraine. Even outside of the fact that Russia's act is still made by them and cannot be blamed on provocation when no military provocation has been done. And since many of the surrounding nations have been fearing a future invasion of their nation, they have been seeking security through Nato, which means that the aggression and the motivations and fears all originate from Russia's acts and behaviors, not Nato.
Quoting Isaac
Yes, but can you conclude that Russia wouldn't have invaded anyway? Would aggressions and previous provocation of Russia over the years against their neighboring nations that led to them seeking security with Nato be another causality factor? So:
1. Soviet Union falls.
2. Neighboring nations seek independence.
3. Russia acts aggressively against these nations, claiming they should be part of Russia or exist under Russia's regime. (aiming to invade or gain control in some way)
4. Neighboring nations seek security from these aggressions by joining Nato or asking to join Nato.
5. Neighboring nations joining Nato provokes Russia.
6. Russia invades.
So far, the causality you propose starts with point 5, not point 2. How then, does Nato become the one provoking? The fact that Russia "feels provoked" and that these experts state that fact, does not equal Nato being to blame for the invasion. There has to be a definitive conclusion that an invasion would not have happened without Russia "feeling provoked", which isn't established and also ignoring a causality of provocations that first starts with Russia provoking neighboring nations.
The problem isn't the experts, the individual facts, it's how those facts are put into a deduction by you and others who ignore logical gaps and other factors to the extent that you continue to build arguments that use your previous faulty deduction as a matter of fact.
You can't list experts' facts when the problem I point to has to do with the deduction you're doing using those facts. Gaps in logic don't fill up by just reciting facts you used wrongly in the first place.
Quoting Isaac
You can induce a lot by looking at what someone says in contrast to what he does. Combining that with the research into his regime, there are a lot of puzzle pieces fitting together far better than much of the logical gap crap some people spew out over hundreds of pages in this thread. It at least pokes holes in the logic of your conclusions.
Lol.
"If I disregard everything and assume my conclusion from the beginning, then I am correct".
Saved everyone from reading the ramble above.
Not banned, not here at least.
Quoting Isaac
Do you think that makes bombing the Saltivka residential district, killing Romanchenko, right?
Putin's disrespect, like a loose cannon, contributes to the worry of the nuclear scenario and to resentment of Putin, as well it should.
Great, what we need is another disrespecting, authoritarian top-bully with ? ? :death: :fire: and a ?????? imperial vision, almost leisurely kicking others around.
(This was sort of a "meaningless" comment, .)
Except it was just part of my argument. As well as you totally not fucking understanding what I write as usual. If I point out a hole in the logic of someone's argument, that isn't me saying "my conclusion is right", it's me saying "your conclusion is not solid enough to be right". If all you are doing is to make these kinds of low-quality posts in response to what I write, then do me a favor and just stop, just ignore what I write, ok?
(2) No one has yet precluded the possibility of unicorn monkeys infecting Putin's brain with rainbows.
(3) You can't draw a definitive conclusion that unicorn monkeys have not infected Putin's brains with rainbows (which have made him mad).
QED.
Quoting Christoffer
Most seem to just focus on point 5 and the result in point 6. What about Russia provoking neighboring nations into wanting to join or joining Nato, indirectly expanding Nato east? So if we're talking about provocations here, who actually provoked who here?
Are you unable to do anything but kneejerk posts?
1.
Is there enough evidence to conclude the possibility that Russia would have invaded Ukraine anyway?
Yes or no?
If yes, how can Nato be blamed for the invasion of Ukraine?
2.
Is there enough evidence to conclude that neighboring nations have felt threatened by Russia over the years since the Soviet Union fell?
Yes or no?
If yes, how does them joining Nato be the provocation to blame for the invasion and not the initial provocation by Russia?
3.
"Nato expanding east could lead to actions by Russia" is a fact that's been used as a premise over and over in here.
How does this fact lead to "Nato is to blame for the invasion of Ukraine" when taking into consideration points 1 and 2.
This is dumb. Just pulling a counterfactual out of thin air then saying ha ha you can't prove it would or wouldn't have happened is meaningless and trivial. Anything can count as 'possible' if you fantasize hard enough about it. The question is why anyone should take these "possibilities" seriously in a way that does not just build in your conclusion at the outset.
What is stupid are your kneejerk responses. I asked you for yes and no answers. I asked if there's enough evidence to draw a conclusion of a possible other outcome. Which if true, would have poked holes in the argument for Nato to be blamed, not to prove some conclusions about the possible other outcome being true. You just don't seem to understand the difference between the two or just keep intentionally misunderstanding in order to bully your way forward, ugh. Fucking waste of time you are.
The existence of a possible other outcome means there can't be a true conclusion to arguments just pointing the blame at Nato. Would you say that through all the Russian empire loving delusions dug up around Putin and his strong men, such a possible outcome of an invasion anyway is off the table? Out of thin air? Or just conveniently ignored?
And if you agree with yes on point 2, then how can Nato be blamed anyway if the provocation began with Russia provoking neighboring nations and not Nato provoking Russia? Are you saying that Russia hasn't provoked other nations? Are you saying that Russia hasn't broken air space intentionally as they recently did in Sweden? If we in Sweden see this as a provocation by Russia and therefore we join Nato to secure ourselves from the Russian provocations, does that mean that Nato is provoking Russia by expanding east through Sweden joining? What's "out of thin air" here?
You just don't seem to actually care to read what is being written, just puke out your kneejerk answers without even an inch of engagement. May I predict a similar answer as before? I don't have any proof you will, I'm just inducing the possibility based on analyzing behavior and previous events.
And I said this is irrelevant.
Quoting Christoffer
Oh the irony
That sounds so crazy that it must be true. And as we all know, Josef Mengele was an American of Ukrainian origins, who never read Tolstoï. That should tell you something. (wink wink)
[quote=Judith Butler, Explanation and Exoneration]The Left 's response to the war waged in Afghanistan ran into serious problems, in part because the explanations that the Left has provided to the question "Why do they hate us so much? " were dismissed as so many exonerations of the acts of terror themselves. This does not need to be the case. I think we can see, however, how moralistic anti-intellectual trends coupled with a distrust of the Left as so many self-flagellating First World elites has produced a situation in which our very capacity to think about the grounds and causes of the current global conflict is considered impermissible. The cry that "there is no excuse for September 11" has become a means by which to stifle any serious public discussion of how US foreign policy has helped to create a world in which such acts of terror are possible.
We see this most dramatically in the suspension of any attempt to offer balanced reporting on the international conflict, the refusal to include important critiques of the US military effort by Arundhati Roy and Noam Chomsky, for instance, within the mainstream US press. This takes place in tandem with the unprecedented suspension of civil liberties for illegal immigrants and suspected terrorists, and the use of the flag as an ambiguous sign of solidarity with those lost on September 11 and with the current war, as if the sympathy with the one translates, in a single symbolic stroke, into support for the latter.[/quote]
Considering that the US shortly after carried out a slow-motion holocaust in the Middle East, it's sad to note that few seemed to have learnt anything.
Fantasizing about the mad-King Putin and his billionaires does have the disadvantage of being a little less spectral than 'Islamic terror', although 'Russian terror' will probably do the same job, I guess.
They are the good guys, on the right side of history, and also supplying oil. I don't see anything wrong with the Saudi monarchy - Saudi Arabia comes across as a wealthy, progressive nation.
Don't believe me? Here is CNN in one instance:
Saudi Arabia Fast Facts | CNN
cnn.comhttps://www.cnn.com › 2015 › 04 › 01 › middleeast › saudi-arabia-fast-facts › index.html
Apr 1, 2015 Read CNN's Fast Facts about Saudi Arabia and learn more about the oil-rich, Middle Eastern kingdom, home to Islam's holiest cities, Mecca and Medina.
I quoted what you wrote at the head of my post.
Quoting Christoffer
Its clearly false. They point to how Putin's motivations relate other issues such as the threat of NATO.
I'm not going to repeat the flaw in your argument because if you didn't understand it when @StreetlightX explained it, I don't imagine I'd have any greater success.
Quoting Christoffer
No.
Can you conclude that Russia would have invaded anyway?
No.
So where does that get us?
Quoting Christoffer
Well, that may be, but since you not provided us with a shred of evidence for anything you've asserted so far, I guess we'll have to remain in chair-clutching suspense. You old tease, you.
Why would I think that?
Quoting jorndoe
If you don't understand a comment, you can just ask.
Well, Lyne spoke last year and Beebe in January, but whatever...
What dates do you have for all the other sources I cited, you must know them pretty intimately to be able to declare them all out if date?
And, more importantly, perhaps, what exactly dates them? Has NATO retreated? Has Russia had a change of heart about it?
Oh yea. He'd never even heard of Dostoevsky.
What a lot of these "Putin bad" people don't get is that it's not Russians invading Ukraine. It's Americans! They're all blond, blue eyed, neo nazi Americans.
That's what's so dastardly about the whole thing. :grimace:
They're in on it. No doubt about it. George Soros, man. It all links up.
Yep. The only thing I'm still unclear about is how the 9/11 hoax and pizzagate fit in all this.
As already mentioned:
Quoting Olivier5
Scholz said there were no plans to accept Ukraine into NATO, and
"That is why it is [peculiar] that the Russian government is making something that is practically not on the agenda the subject of major political problems"
Scholz was in damage control mode on 22 Feb, because on 14 Feb he said all countries have the right to choose their alliances freely, and the principle is not negotiable. That pissed off the Finnish.
Zelensky also clearly stated before the invasion that he had no hopes for joining NATO.
I think you might be on the verge of being semi-reasonable about this if you accept the above statement. :eyes:
So...you think all the experts cited didn't know that? What relevance does their exclusion have for the argument?
To remind you. It was claimed that...
Quoting Christoffer
I responded by citing a large number of experts who don't believe Putin's motivations relate solely to the expansion of Russia, but rather to the threat from NATO expansion.
You tried to claim my sources were out of date (without providing any relevant dates). Then you claimed that Georgia and Ukraine were not being considered for membership.
Given that all the experts I cited know this and yet still thought NATO expansion a motivating factor, I fail to see the relevance.
When does he say this before the invasion?
He's said, after the invasion, that he's been "cold on NATO" for a while.
And, also, I think just yesterday, said pretty clearly that he asked NATO to tell him when they could actually join, or to say no clearly, and that NATO told him that Ukraine would never be allowed to join, but the door would be left open publicly.
This is after the invasion.
Before the invasion and the first week, I only remember ever seeing a defense of Ukraine's "right" to join NATO.
Do you have a citation of Zelensky that he had no hopes of joining NATO stated before the invasion?
Putin clearly stated before the invasion that he was only conducting a 'special operation' to de-nazify the independent regions.
Do you even know how diplomacy works?
I hate to break your little Disney version of the world, but global leaders lie.
Oh and Santa Claus isn't real either I'm afraid.
Here.
Sorry guys, but if you wanted to discuss this sanely, you should have demonstrated that earlier. I can't deal with either of you.
And he didn't state no hope of joining but he would consider letting the plan go if it would avoid war.
In any case, Zelensky's statement can't set aside the constitution or change established NATO policy.
Ok.
Quoting Benkei
Correct.
Literally the first paragraph of your source...
...explains exactly the point being so rabidly denied. That the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO was something Russia viewed as a threat.
considering all the shit you raised about how important it was to get the facts straight (funding arms, not donating arms, remember?) and all the later shit about the word 'provoked'. To now claim that
"Maybe the question of open doors is for us like a dream.” While emphasizing that NATO membership “is for our security and it is in the constitution,”
...is the same as...
"clearly stated before the invasion that he had no hopes for joining NATO"
...is bullshit.
Zelensky's soundbite there is all over the news. I specifically picked an article that mentions it in the context of the Ukrainian constitution. Pundits say interpreting that statement (which is directed to Ukrainians) requires that context.
Point well taken, I was not aware of that. Note that it happened after the first Russian invasion though. That a country being invaded would seek alliances is somewhat natural.
Ah. So I did know Zelensky had tried to emergently join, and I thought it was obvious why.
He's since let that go.
Zelensky just made clear yesterday that the constitutional questions would need to be done through the constitutional process ... with a referendum.
So what Zelensky says as a soundbite is entirely meaningless.
Of course, NATO, been made up of sovereign nations, could have easily signed a treaty with Russia that Ukraine would not join NATO, regardless of what Ukrainian constitution said.
However, that idea was rejected by all parties, including Zelensky saying things "nothing decided about Ukraine without Ukraine", because it was important to uphold and also fight (except for NATO who wouldn't be doing any of the actual fighting) for the "right" to join NATO.
NATO was pretty clear that it stood by Ukraine's right to join NATO ... even if it couldn't actually join NATO.
"Solidarity brother, I mean sister" was I believe an exact paraphrase of the NATO position.
Not entirely. But kudos for noticing the constitutional situation. Very reasonable of you.
No one criticizes Ukraine for wanting to join NATO and seeking to join NATO.
The problem is they aren't actually in NATO ... and maybe should have negotiated actually getting into NATO before "flexing" about it.
Putin clearly stated before the invasion that he had no intension of invading Ukraine. Denazification I think was the term when the invasion had been launched.
And when the US intel got it (the invasion) few days wrong, an active person on this thread posted:
And then continued:
Made up threats indeed.
I don't know why it's in their constitution, maybe @ssu knows?
The Russian president can override the constitution. I don't know if Ukraine's is similar.
Trump seemed to think the US constitution is like that. It's not.
You need to be more precise. He didn't use the Bible as his justification for his actions in the Ukraine, nor did he argue that he is following God's orders or that he otherwise has divine justification. Unlike the way US presidents did.
Correct. The question is why they decided to "flex" about it. And the answer seems to be that they were encouraged, as well as armed and trained, by the US and UK.
So, it looks like it was all planned in advance by the West in order to draw Russia into a protracted war. Russia's mistake was to fail to realize this. But this isn't surprising given the levels of corruption even in the ranks of the Russian intelligence and military - which rather demonstrates that Putin is nothing like Stalin or Hitler.
The biggest losers in this are the Ukrainians who are getting killed and having their homes pulverized for no reason. What exactly did Zelensky think? That Israel was going to come and save Ukraine? I know he's a comedian, but how delusional can this guy be??? And is it really him, or the oligarchs and foreign powers behind him?
Incidentally, America's Iraq War left 100,000 Iraqis dead. And no one complained ....
Yet the war isn't going as earlier predicted. I think that now Russia will simply need few days to a week to rearrange the supplies and resources for a next push. Perhaps a cease-fire would be convenient?
At least the Ukrainians are optimistic:
The whimsically selective memory of the Putin troll.
He must know a lot more. I just checked and it was not decided under Zelensky's presidency. He became president on 20 May 2019 while the constitution of Ukraine was amended on 21 February 2019.
Before his election, I gather he was doing this:
Don't know well the Ukrainian constitution...
Quoting Olivier5
Yep. Talk about a postmodern twist. Or Karma. Announcing his candidacy and having to insist, it's not a joke.
...And then becoming this wartime leader of a country in the largest war in Europe since WW2.
As I explained to you earlier, just because YOU are a troll it doesn't mean the rest of us must be trolls.
BTW, no sanctions were imposed on America. Unfortunately, without memory (or a brain) you couldn't possibly remember this even if you tried .... :rofl:
I think he's still doing it, I mean the sequel. Directed by NATO and produced by Hollywood as we speak.
Another interesting development is that Zelensky has nationalized Ukraine’s TV news and has banned opposition parties …
Zelensky nationalizes TV news and restricts opposition parties – The Week
Clearly, you don't actually know his stance on Putin.
This discourse is the same as the covid one: "He that is not ferociously with us is feruciously against us, end of story, those are the only two options."
It's this simplificationism that keep the fires going.
And what came of those protests? Nothing.
This is what we've come down to. Presidents in war-torn countries winking to their people in support.
Hmm... I thought he'd been visiting hospitals or whatever, talking with UN/EU/US, making some efforts to talk with Putin, tweeting about a deepfake featuring him or something, ...
And the pro-NATO trolls.
We also need to consider that Zelensky has put Ukraine under marshal law, he has nationalized all TV news, and he has banned opposition parties. So, basically, he is running the country single-handedly, with the help of dodgy characters like Sergey Shefir, Kolomoisky, and the CIA.
And, yet, some are claiming that Putin is the "dictator" ....
By the way, do you think the fact that Zelensky is non-Slavic plays a role in the West's jihad on Russia and other Slavic nations?
They always screw up their act in the end... :roll:
Yes, I guess I wasn't out protesting that with millions of others around the globe because Apollodorus would never just make random stuff up to support his blatant pro-Russian bias. :lol:
Of course, I mean Ukraine invaded Russia, just as Georgia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan did. They're in on the jihad too! As much as I don't care for the pro-NATO bias, at least its proponents believe their story. I'm utterly sick of your stupid disingenuous trash posts though. Anyway, carrying on playing the fool, I suppose.
If that's what you mean, it's alright by me.
However, I said "the West's jihad on Russia", not "Ukraine's". And as far as I'm aware NATO was created by America "to keep Russia out of Europe".
According to NATO's official website:
Lord Ismay - NATO
This also seems to be the general consensus, though perhaps not on some philosophy forums ....
Quoting Baden
Well, you are doing a good job, so I wouldn't worry too much if I were you. :wink:
No, you said the West's Jihad on Russia and "other Slavic nations", implying it was of racist intent by suggesting Zelensky being non-Slavic played a part, showing you don't even know what Slavic nations are (and suggesting possible anti-semitism on your part seeing as he's Jewish).
Quoting Apollodorus
Here's some education for you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavs
"Slavs are the largest ethnolinguistic group in Europe. Present-day Slavic people are classified into East Slavs (chiefly Belarusians, Russians, Rusyns, and Ukrainians), West Slavs (chiefly Czechs, Kashubs, Poles, Slovaks, and Sorbs) and South Slavs (chiefly Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes)."
Tell us more about the West's racist "Jihad" against Poland, Czechoslavakia, Bulgaria and Croatia. :lol:
Or just stop being a complete idiot.
Quoting Baden
Idiots cannot do that. :smile:
I think there is an "Anglo-Saxon", i.e., Anglo-American jihad against other nations. NATO is basically an Anglo-American operation and a product of Anglo-American Atlanticism:
Atlanticism - Wikipedia
IMO "Keeping the Americans in, the Russian out, and the Germans down" is a racist proposition.
I don't see NATO waging war on Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or Britain. Aren't Germans called "Huns", "Jerries", and "Krauts"???
List of terms used for Germans - Wikipedia
Quoting Baden
Sure. How about you posting comments for us and we just sit and watch? :rofl:
It was out of place. Maybe it was unconstitutional to put it in the constitution in the first place. In any case, it makes negotiations more difficult.
Captive audience.
Definition of captive audience
: a person or people who are unable to leave a place and are thus forced to listen to what is being said
The passengers on the plane were a captive audience.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/captive%20audience
How about 'captive nations'?
Did you know there is a captive nations week?
The Congress, by joint resolution approved July 17, 1959 (73 Stat. 212), has authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation designating the third week of July of each year as “Captive Nations Week.”
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/07/16/a-proclamation-on-captive-nations-week-2021/
Or maybe a 'captive democracy'?
Nothing new: the search engine comes up with this.
CHAINS TIGHTEN ABOUT A CAPTIVE DEMOCRACY; Czecho-Slovakia Must Obey the Nazis' Will
https://www.nytimes.com/1939/02/26/archives/chains-tighten-about-a-captive-democracy-czechoslovakia-must-obey.html
He was not elected for comedy, but because of the personality and promises. It's all about did they keep their promises. He failed to do so. Whose fault is that?
How is this for a headline?
Politician Fails to Keep Promises and Precipitates a Major War.
(Not a real headline, I made it up)
https://www.biography.com/political-figure/volodymyr-zelenskyy
Quoting CNBC
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/27/3-years-ago-zelenskyy-was-a-tv-comedian-now-hes-standing-up-to-putins-army.html
By the way I am against funding armed separatists in another country. Peaceful means or nothing.
It was very upsetting to know that President Carter made the decision to fund Afghan rebels. "Morally wrong" I would think.
Clearly I do.
I've discussed him issues far enough. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it is a duck.
Why don't you just look at what he says:
So there you hear from the troll. Starting from that Putin cannot be a dictator. Putin has a point in many things, according to him. And he tells what Putin has told very accurately. Only saying that what Putin says are facts. And when you never, ever utter anything negative or critical about someone, it tells who you are.
It would be nice if literally anything I said contradicted this. Thanks for the useless post though I guess.
... ? KGB ? Soviet collapse ? Yeltsin ? cozying up with oligarchs ? ousting some oligarchs ? ...
Allan Little muses:
Ukraine war: Putin has redrawn the world - but not the way he wanted (Mar 18, 2022)
Quoting paraphrasing Timothy Garton Ash
I see nothing 'morally wrong' in carrying out the wishes of the people. It is citizens that support war as a means of foreign policy that are morally wrong. Aggressive war, that is. Then there are pre-emptive strikes, the kind that Israel has done.
Ukraine is winning at least in the West the information war. It was totally different in the confusion of 2014. And it has to be said that a lot of things were different then. And you can see how much better Zelensky is in his role compared to the mayor of Kiev or the former president Poroshenko, who also is frequently interviewed by Western media.
Comedians have to smart, they have to understand their crowd and quickly respond. So likely Charles Chaplin would have made a better wartime Prime Minister of UK than WInston Churchill. Totally possible, if pure hypothetical. Chaplin likely would have let the generals fight the war and likely would have given far more inspiring speeches against Hitler. At least he was against Hitler just like Churchill. No Lindberg. And likely would have been less of an old-school imperialist.
And Zelensky is also living proof that Ukrainians were totally and absolutely disgusted with their political class and it's corruption.
Yep. That accurately describes your position on NATO.
As for me, I don't think there is any need to criticize Putin seeing that you have made it your life's mission (or obsession) to do that 24/7, possibly under multiple user names .... :smile:
Which is funny because before Zelensky got elevated to Western liberal Saint, he wasn't seen - even by the West - as a squeaky clean guy either. To say nothing of his being sponsored by billionares like Kolomoisky - who, as it happens, also funds neo-Nazi battalions.
Point being that there are perfectly good reasons to be critical about Zelensky. His being an ex-comedian is not one of them.
Yeah, right. Zelensky's approval ratings were down to 30% before the war!
How President Zelensky’s approval ratings have surged - The New Statesman
Well, that's right. Britain declared war on Germany in 1914 on the false pretext that the Germans were "Huns" and violated "Belgian neutrality". And, of course, the whole British populace was for it especially as they were paid by America and they knew that if things got wrong, Uncle Sam (i.e., Wall Street) would come to their rescue ....
Selective troll memory, part II.
So you go with your lies...
Yep. "Criticizing NATO" but calling others "Putin trolls" when they make some real criticism of NATO. I would call that propaganda and dissimulation .... :smile:
BTW I still haven't seen you criticizing Turkey (a NATO member!) for invading Cyprus and Kurdish territories in Syria.
And you forget the criminal and genocidal activities of the Ottoman Empire of which you're so proud and which you're trying to justify.
Armenian genocide - Wikipedia
Slavery in the Ottoman Empire – Wikipedia
I think that if Zelensky worked in Ukrainian media making films, there likely was an oligarch owning the media. Hence that part is the usual mudslinging as Ukrainians hate oligarchs: Just look at how our forum troll never forgets to repeat the name of the oligarch when mentioning Zelensky.
I think the real critique of Zelensky is how he went after the former president Poroshenko and also the closures of opposition parties. It's one of the oldest trick in the book: to go after your political opponents on corruption charges, hence it really has to be done really carefully. Closing opposition parties is even more problematic. Some can indeed be militant (as we now from the case of the Svoboda etc). Now some of those can get funding from Russia, but in a democracy you have to be really careful of authoritarianism. The fear of the "fifth column" is something that easily can lead to overreactions. Just to take for example, Mariupol has a very large ethnic Russian population, and they likely aren't so happy of their Russian "liberators" now.
During a war it's better to ditch democracy because it's sloppy and inefficient. Come back to it after the war is over.
The pundits are saying this is going to be a very long war, tho.
-
Always fun to watch liberals get hard-ons for authoritarianism when the going gets rough.
One shouldn't feed a troll, but anyway.
Selective troll memory part III:
And that we already got your answer: you don't condemn the annexation of Crimea. In fact you think it's totally justified. And not only that:
So enough. I won't bother with a Putin troll like you.
I think all contemporary democracies allow temporary dictatorship during war. Don't you know why?
It unfortunately looks to be a long, bloody war.
Quoting StreetlightX
Yes. Democracies can stay as democracies even during the war... but it will be tough. Martial laws are never nice or very democratic. I think that here common sense can prevail: common sense just what is covert action of the enemy and what is simply opposition. But leadership is needed as war brings up very nasty emotions.
Battle of Voznesensk (Wikipedia)
FYI, as of typing, Voznesenks' homepage takes me to a site in Japanese (sv1055·xserver·jp) entitled:
??????????????????? (What action should I take if I realize I don't have the key?)
:)
Might be a rip off some other random sites.
Apparently, voznesensk·org is run by GMO Internet in Tokyo.
Also remember that the United States started out as a one - party system. Like China today.
The Wikipedia on democracy highlights several common themes: What is surprising to me is that much of what we see in the news is an illustration of some of these failings of the system.
It gets better:
Some economists have criticized the efficiency of democracy, citing the premise of the irrational voter, or a voter who makes decisions without all of the facts or necessary information in order to make a truly informed decision
Who would have thought.
Via Sputnik > https://www.wsws.org/en > Article: The US arming of Ukraine and the preparations for war
Andre Damon•16 March 2022 > US Department of State:
U.S.-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership
As for the status of Crimea before the United Nations:
Again from the agreement. They agreed to do what? (My emphasis)
The agreement supersedes an earlier agreement in which the word "Russia" or "Russian" appears only once, to name the parties to the agreement, if I am no mistaken.
But but but he should not have winked, you see? That was one wink too many! Now the whole universe is about to collapse, perhaps. Thank God Putin is a real man, not a winker...
I.e. "How can we ensure Russia continues to turn Ukrainian citizens into ash for the sake of cementing American unipolarity?"
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-03-22/niall-ferguson-putin-and-biden-misunderstand-history-in-ukraine-war?sref=xzGl1Vcx
Anyone who thinks the West gives even an iota of a damn about Ukrainians was born under a rock and has remained there ever since.
The arms are sent to "vetted" Ukrainian military units.
You may have missed that part.
I hope Ukraine and Russia can work out a peace deal soon and avoid this insane bloodshed.
Seconded. Unfortunately the popular media narrative is increasingly frustrating those efforts by painting Zelensky into a corner. The more Disneyfied the conflict is allowed to become, the harder it will be for either side to sell a realistic peace deal to their respective populace.
From the US and UK government, I'd expect no less. What's surprised me on this occasion was the ease with which social media has been wielded to further that agenda. It's scary just how readily such a powerful weapon can be put to such unilateral use.
I've already explained to you that the fact that you are a NATO jihadi doesn't make others "Putin trolls".
It ought to be obvious that I was simply stating a fact, namely that Crimea has never been "Ukrainian". It isn't my fault that you are ignorant of European history.
As for dividing Ukraine between Ukrainians and Russians, I thought it was one logical way to solve the problem. Dividing territories has been done for centuries, there is nothing new about it: Germany, Cyprus, Korea, China, etc.
But, obviously, you prefer to see half of Ukraine turned into rubble ....:grin:
That's exactly what I've been saying. In fact, the US and UK have been arming and training the Ukrainians since 2014, obviously, anticipating Russia's reaction to EU and NATO expansionism:
Exclusive: Secret CIA training program in Ukraine helped Kyiv prepare for Russian invasion
Unfortunately, if you post anything aside from anti-Russian propaganda you get called "Putin troll" by the NATO jihadis on here ....
That's very strange, because the mandatory PC consensus on this thread seems to be that Putin has total control over the world's news and social media. And that he's going to invade London, New York, and Finland tonight. Though not necessarily in that order .... :smile:
This one is doing the rounds, and anyone who does not think that the West has enabled, at every step of the way, the wholesale slaughter of Ukrainians - right up until the point at which it has become political imprudent to do so - is a propagandized shill:
[tweet]https://twitter.com/ruskin147/status/1506539085669748744[/tweet]
I fear this boat has sailed.
I think the offer Russia made a couple of weeks at the very start of high-intensity warfare, could have been taken.
Zelensky could have then sold it to his people as due to courageous Ukrainians, Russia couldn't just take the whole country, but peace is now needed and so on. Even easier if there was behind the scenes negotiations for Ukraine to join the EU, which Russia said it had no problem with at that time.
And Putin could have sold it to his people as just what he wanted the whole time of ending the war in the Dombas, and Putin could then withdraw his troops as he said he would and I think the whole world would have been super relieved about that.
I am totally willing to believe the Kremlin had larger ambitions, but I think the losses did make them reconsider and so offer the minimum they could accept (... essentially just the de facto status quo before the war).
As hard as it is to believe, the ant-Russian rhetoric was actually pretty tame even a couple of weeks a go and normalizing political relations was potentially possible, everyone having learned war is a bad thing and we should all try a lot harder to use our mouths to avoid it.
However, at from watching his speeches and addresses, Zelensky seems to have now rationalized why the deal would have been good to take then ... but building new rationalizations of why it can't be taken now, and banning opposition political parties and consolidating the media into one organization to double down on the war (of which ... certainly there are some Ukrainians questioning whether it's worth continuing to fight for Crimea and Dombas that can't be taken back militarily and also filled with ethnic Russians that ethnic Ukrainians don't like too much anyways ... and continuing to fight for the "constitutional" right to join NATO, even though Zelensky himself has clarified NATO told him Ukraine would never join).
So, accepting Russia's demands now would make the fighting since the offer was first made basically pointless and Zelensky would be immediately just a dangerous fool that got his citizens killed for literally no reason.
Hence, Zelensky has now chosen to "pull a Brexit" and pass the responsibility on to a referendum that is basically politically impossible to organize. There is literally zero political reason to go on television and place a referendum as a condition to any peace deal, and the whole point of martial law is that it suspends the constitution ... which Zelensky doesn't hesitate to take advantage of in banning opposition parties and opposition media.
There was a few days building up the idea of a settlement in the Western media, but the new narrative is that Ukraine is "winning" ... which, as I've explained previously, you actually have to defeat your enemy to win.
Western media points to a few areas of push back by the Ukrainians, but there is zero evidence that Russia didn't simply tactically retreat to consolidate it's current position (lot's of evidence it's doing this though).
Given all this, it seems now a diplomatic end to the war is currently off the table, and my guess is that Russia will collapse and encircle the Dombas line (accomplish militarily it's stated objectives) and then just sit on the territory it's taken.
We hear good news in the West and around Kiev ... but I don't think internet people keep in mind the Eastern front is over 1000 KM away from Poland. From Lviv to Donesk, it's 1200 KM and 17 hour drive, whereas Donesk to Russia is a 1.5 hour drive.
Not only an incredible distance ... where you may need more gas along the way, but Russia can strike anywhere along the supply chain with missiles at anytime.
Which is something all the "retired" generals and CIA folk fail to mention, is that it's a massive advantage to Russia to keep Ukrainian troops as far East as possible ,if the goal is not, and never has been, to occupy all of Ukraine, but simply wreck it's military, obliterate Azov, and lay siege to Kiev until their demands are accepted.
What seems likely now is that Russia will take the whole Dombas region and then Putin will just declare victory in that his demands were modest, he's achieved them in the field and he doesn't want more of Ukraine and forces around Kiev and elsewhere will be withdrawn as soon as the military reality is accepted diplomatically.
Russia can then just sit behind it's lines and continue to pummel Ukrainian logistics with missiles. With drone spotters, normal spotters and heavy artillery, these lines will be simply impossible to assault.
Zelensky will then be in a "what now?" position: impossible to "defeat" the Russians, and impossible to fight to any better a negotiation position and impossible to get any concessions from Russia who are already sitting on their demands and Zelensky himself has already Ukraine is never joining NATO.
Of course, still better to negotiate the only political end available, before Eastern lines collapse, and sell that as best as can be done (and accept an end to your political career), but Zelensky's ego simply can't that.
Cretins whining about social media. What else is new?
We're not whining about social media, social media is whining about Putin and all but declaring Ukrainian victory and parading in the streets.
Now, if Putin can be beaten by social media posts, that would be one thing.
However, if the war fervor (that almost no one supporting Ukraine on social media has any personal risk in) just embolden's the CIA's plan, as @StreetlightX has posted a good article about you may want to respond to if you perceive yourself as having a "debate", to pump arms into Ukraine, not for Ukraine to win, but just to bleed the Russians ... is maybe harming Ukrainians for nothing but the CIA's stated objective.
Zelensky got the information directly from NATO before the war that Ukraine will never be allowed to join, was just PR standing beside (in the sense of standing in an entirely different and safe country ... not like "actually standing beside" in fighting) Ukraine's "right" to join NATO.
Zelensky should have taken that information and ... instead of--how you say it--"whining" about that being unfair to Ukraine of being in a limbo and wanting to live in denial of needing to do any diplomacy with it's largest neighbor ... done actual diplomacy and crafted a policy that takes into account never joining NATO.
Maybe consider Blinken's publicly explaining long before the war, how Ukraine's military options aren't very good as whatever military asset is put in Ukraine, Russia will simply double or quadrupedal that. If Zelenesky is such a military genius, maybe he would have taken that obvious fact into consideration: that Ukraine has no military solution by itself in dealing with Russia and that Ukraine is never going to be joining NATO.
Maybe being officially neutral is better than being officially NATO's expendable side kick?
Well, Zelensky couldn't parse this information and seems to have concluded instead that when push comes to shove, he could simply hold Ukrainian civilians hostage and "force" NATO to do the right thing and come and save him ... instead of NATO fearing Russia, as he is realizing now.
For years and years and years, the Western media has been ridiculing Putin for wanting a seat at the "big boy table" and to be taken seriously and respected as a nuclear power. Hahahahah our pundits would say.
Seems now that was just a fact all along, NATO does indeed take Russia's nuclear weapons seriously.
Ukraine didn't want to be neutral, and now it has what it wanted--it's certainly not neutral now, it's fighting a war--but it got more than it bargained for in being neutral alone, when it thought it wouldn't be alone ... but it is alone and was told it was alone before the war.
Or, you disagree?
Or, let me guess, you disagree but you feel you need not explain why.
In theory, yes. In practice, highly improbable if we consider that, as pointed out by analysts, Ukraine is a pawn on America's chess board and is being pushed by the US and UK to reject all Russian requests in order to draw Russia into a protracted war after which they can impose sanctions to cripple its economy, topple its government, and impose rule by Wall Street.
Niall Ferguson, Putin Misunderstands History. So, Unfortunately, Does the U.S. - Bloomberg
Incidentally, Ferguson is a respected historian, though I'm sure the NATO jihadis on here would like to label him "Putin troll" ....
You don't understand what's happening if you focus too much on Zelensky. Presidents don't fight wars. Armies don't win wars. [I]Nations[/i] win and lose wars.
Mr Zelensky could be dead tomorrow; it won't change much on the battlefield. Don't confuse him with a dictator taking all decisions. He is very different from Putin from this point of view. If Mr Putin dies, this whole thing stops tomorrow.
Ukrainians are fighting for their lives, their land, their freedom; Zelensky is just giving them voice.
Ukrainians have proven that the Russian army is dumb and far weaker than it looked. That's a gain for everybody including Russia. Mr Putin now knows his army is weak and incompetent. I suppose he'll do something about it. If he had any class, he would thank the Ukrainians for the good lesson they gave him.
Again: explain how the nation of Ukraine is going to win the war and take Moscow and the East?
But sure, definitely Zelensky the Ukraine "President" should have shared what NATO already told him--that NATO ain't coming and will never be coming--with the "Nation" of Ukraine, so that they, due to the President being irrelevant, could have decided--I guess by referendum--on the cost/benefit of rejecting Russia's neutrality offer before and during the war.
You really think Ukrainians wouldn't have wanted to know that ... or is it they shouldn't know because they aren't the "President" and it's the President with the executive prerogative to do wants?
Quoting Olivier5
Ah yes, the "not a dictator" banning opposition parties and not only banning critical media but consolidating all media into one organization.
Quoting Olivier5
Honestly makes negotiation difficult if the whole nation is fighting and all Zelensky has the power to do is casually mention that.
Quoting Olivier5
We shall see. Russia has certainly taken losses, but so too has Ukraine. How do Americans justify their opinion of being the best considering Afghanistan? They say "we killed, like 100 Afghanis for every American that died!"
In terms of military capacity, this Russia-Ukraine conflict will be evaluated on the same metric American's evaluate their own military capacity in looking at Afghanistan. US was dumb as it didn't achieve it's objectives of "democratizing" Afghanistan (but don't worry, Afghani's are to blame for that) but not weak (what actually matters to them) because far more Taliban were killed than American soldiers. On this same standard, Russia is not dumb if it achieves it's objectives, and not weak if it has killed more Ukrainians.
You seem to be counting your graves before they've all hatched.
"Slava Ukraini!"
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-60827109
"Žyvie Bielaru?!"
Kill enough Russians, I suppose. How do you think Russia is going to win this war?
Quoting boethius
No, this has already been seen. It's a fact. They do exist, you know?
Putin has put some of his intelligence and army chiefs under house arrest, he has redeployed his troops around Kiev, he has banned Facebook and Instagram, he has stopped European flights, he is nationalizing foreign businesses, etc.
Russian spy chiefs under house arrest – The Independent
Russia arrests military chief – The Independent
So, it may be argued that he’s taking the right steps. All he needs to do now is close down the US and UK embassies, ban the use of English, promote Russian language and culture, and encourage resistance to US-UK imperialism in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Quoting Olivier5
Sometimes it's "nations", but other times it's the foreign powers behind them. If Ukraine won, that would be a win for US-UK and their NWO agenda.
BS. It would be a win for mankind.
He's trying, at least.
Russia's land forces may be incompetent, but Russia still has the air power and it can pulverize Ukrainian cities from its own territory. So, Russia hasn't lost the war yet. We can only speculate what the final outcome will be. But if NATO had desisted from insisting on unlimited expansion, the conflict may have been avoided.
You mean a mankind ruled by America. I think judging by the historical experience, Britain and America have been far more predatory and imperialistic than Russia could ever have been.
Russia has never had African or Indian slaves. Unlike the British Empire, the Russian Empire was not based on slavery and overseas colonies.
That would not be winning the war.
And maybe it should be pause for thought for you, and anyone that sympathizes with you, that you've engaged in pages and pages of analysis of a military situation, promoted Ukrainians fighting on ... and yet you do not even have in mind what a military victory for Ukraine would even look like.
As I've already explained, even if Ukraine pushed Russian forces to the Russian border, the war would still be ongoing, Ukraine would not have won, as Russia is still there, and no one even proposes that as a possibility.
However, certainly you have really no issue then of Russia employing the exact same strategy of just "killing enough Ukrainians, you suppose" as a military objective?
No, @StreetlightX posted an interesting, if depressing, article worth considerstion. You post garbage conspiracy theories about a NATO Jihadi war on Slavs aided and abetted by the non-Slav Jew Zelensky. It'll be George Soros next. That's what makes you an embarrassment and him a contributor.
Don't forget Vietnam. And Iraq. The US bombed the place into the stone age, left 100,000 Iraqis dead, and the whole region in the hands of Islamic State.
I mean, how dumb can a government be? And does America have a government, or is it run by Wall Street together with defense and energy corporations?
This could all be a lie, but it looks like the end game to me. In which case, the "Putin Regime" has the right and duty to fight back in self defense or is that right only reserved for some nations?
You have no idea how badly that statement reeks of imperialism and hatred. To me at least. But then these are people willing to use nuclear weapons.
It's just rhetoric to justify the policy. For, presumably, policies have some objective ... so if we're pumping weapons into Ukraine and sanctioning Russia then, if we're doing international relations and not Tictok, then there's some purpose to these policies.
The only logical thing to say in public is that the goal is to "end the Putin regime".
However, Putin's popularity in Russia has gone up since the war, he has China's backing and India is staying neutral about it, as with the rest of the developing world.
Of course, never say never, but currently there's no indication that the sanctions and the war effort will end the Putin regime.
Now, keep in mind this is just some random official and so they could be just virtue signalling.
However, what is clear--even if the internal evaluation is Putin's hold on power is even tighter as a result of the West "attacking" him--is that the real policy is Cold War 2.0.
That's what the "OMG, we didn't see it coming, but we actually did!" crowd don't really get.
The point of expanding NATO East was to sell arms (a lot of NATO arms can only be sold to NATO countries) and the "warning", from basically every expert, of provoking Russia with this Poilcy, rather than have mutually beneficial trade relations immensely positive, is a great thing from the point of view of this arms selling policy (war on terror was a 'not great, not terrible' place holder) and provoking Russia leads to even way more arms sales and harms the EU (the US' biggest rival).
https://endnotes.org.uk/other_texts/en/andrew-letters-from-ukraine-part-1
--
Quoting Baden
Thank you.
I hope articles like these continue to help extricate us from our projections of Ukraine and realize it's a real place most of us know fuck all about. I had a private student from there a few years back and the main impression I got from him was of a deeply dysfunctional poverty-stricken country ravaged by institutionalized corruption. Being a ping pong ball batted around by the world's most powerful interests obviously isn't helping. Another thing the article brings home is that before we go celebrating the deaths of Russian soldiers, they're just more plebeian coals been thrown into the fire along with their Ukrainian counterparts.
Of course, although they are welcome to surrender and seem to be well treated when they do. I doubt the Ukrainians are killing the Russians with joy.
My point was more that the proper "side" to take is not of one powerful interest vs another when that's the very narrative that feeds their continued abuse of the powerless.
I disagree. I think what is far more embarrassing is the pro-NATO camp’s ignorance or denial of facts.
As far as I’m aware, NATO is a military organization. And it fights “righteous wars”. Hence, jihadi organization. It aims to “keep Americans in, Russians out, and Germans down”. Hence, racist organization.
This is from a Pilgrims Society meeting attended by Woodrow Wilson. Last statement is Wilson’s own:
Cable Unites Pilgrims Here And In London – New York Times
See also
The Anglo-Saxon Myth in the United States - JSTOR
Atlanticism is a form of "Anglo-Saxon", i.e., Anglo-American imperialism aiming to bring Europe and the rest of the world under Anglo-American control. NATO is an instrument of Atlanticism, i.e. primarily US self-interest, as admitted by its founders:
Atlanticism - Wikipedia
In his speech to Congress, Eisenhower, the first Supreme Allied Commander Europe, made it very clear that the principal objective of the NATO project was US self-interest:
https://www.nytimes.com/1951/02/02/archives/text-of-eisenhowers-speech-to-senate-and-house-of-representatives.html
And, of course, everyone knows that American and British societies are racist and founded on racism and slavery:
Racism in North America – Wikipedia
Turkey is another racist member of NATO (with a neo-fascist government):
Racism in Turkey – Wikipedia
Armenian genocide - Wikipedia
Slavery in the Ottoman Empire – Wikipedia
Crimean–Nogai slave raids in Eastern Europe - Wikipedia
10 Little-Known Facts From The Crimean Slave Trade
Anyway, the real conspiracy theory that I see on this thread is that Russia is supposed to be responsible for all the problems in the world .... :smile:
Oh our forum Putinist has already extensively covered the evils of George Soros. :smile:
Quoting Baden
That is the sad truth.
I remember what a Finnish former MP privately told about Ukraine. He had been the head of the Finnish-Ukrainian Parliamentary group (made obviously of both Finnish Ukrainian MPs). In a meeting with his Ukrainian counterparts he said that his time as the Finnish head of the group was over as he had lost the elections. The Ukrainians were sorry to hear that, until someone of them asked how long he had served in the Parliament. When he replied that had been a member of Parliament for 12 years, they were "Ah, no problem! You have no troubles!" After all, every MP in the World has had to acquired quite a wealth in 12 years and be a rich man.
Yep, as reported in the New York Times, Putin's personal propaganda outlet, and written by Richard Poe, America's foremost Nazi leader .... :rofl:
https://www.richardpoe.com/2004/07/16/velvet-revolution-usa-2/
The marxist viewpoint, huh? It's another way to take some side, and often the worse one.
Exactly. This shouldn't be this hard. Hewing to a pretty basic principle like this should not occasion accusations of being a Putinist or somesuch. If there's one thing I'm learning is the breathtaking power of propaganda to force one to pick between two completely artificial positions - always aligned with power - as though they exhaust the field of the possible.
This presentation by the Swedish ex Prime Minister about his time really trying to focus and help things when he was in office, is super insightful.
There's also an interesting exchange with a Ukrainian diplomat of some sort who lays out a bunch talking points.
Swedish ex-Prime Minister answers about the idea the gas transit fees "are being weaponized" is that they're a major source of corruption ... and more or less implying maybe it would actually help if they were no longer there!
Germany could have easily recycled Nord Stream 2 massive profits and better and cleaner economic development into EU programs to help Ukraine in a less corrupt way.
EU would have been better off, Russia would have better off, and even the Ukrainians (though perhaps not their politicians) would have been better off!
Which was the craziest part of that argument, all the rage in Western media at that time ... things need to be done less economically efficiently to "help" Ukraine?
Where were all the neo-liberal "nep-classical" economists on the air waves to lecture us on the mad Pareto Gains of doing things more efficiently and just compensating Ukraine for that. If only we had access to their wisdom then! This whole war could have been avoided! By capitalism 101, I keep on hearing so many great things about.
Well this is interesting. Putin's done one better than preemptively cutting off gas. He's asking for gas payments in Rubles. He's trying to force the West to undermine their own sanctions if they want his goods. Gives credence to Michael Hudson's prediction that the war marks the beginning of the end of the US dollar hegemony:
https://mronline.org/2022/03/08/america-shoots-its-own-dollar-empire-in-economic-attack-on-russia/
It doesn't require a politicised label. It's pretty much axiomatic that power serves power.
Quoting StreetlightX
:up:
You are of course right that no one can possibly win this war. The question now is more about who will lose the most, who will be crippled the longest.
By any measure that will always be the Ukrainians.
It's pretty much meaningless, but thanks for saying nothing.
Throwing sand in the air isn't going to work here. The evils of Western imperialisn are well known. But none of what you've presented is evidence of a NATO anti-Slav plot involving Zelensky. Instead of digging in, you'd be well advised to drop that clownish line and stick with some of your saner points.
I can imagine nukes but I'd rather not. What other developments and circumstances do you think will viably lead to Ukraine having been shafted royally but where it will actually be another country who's bleeding out of its anus? Figuratively speaking of course.
I'm happy to take hits for poor explanations, but if you get absolutely nothing from what I and Street have just said, it's your loss, frankly.
This is honestly the most bizarre part of Western media "analysis" and the 6th (irrelevant) column of online partisans, that somehow the "humiliation" of Russia not winning on day 1 is not only comparable in harm, but actually more harmful, than millions of people sleeping in basements and subways for weeks, millions of refugees, cities being reduced to rubble, in addition to all the death and trauma.
People online are basically "we got'em".
No, but I'd agree with the sentiment, at least re the British (don't expect much from my own crowd either).
The ideal solution according to the Biden camp would have been for Germany and other European countries to buy oil and gas from America. At higher prices than Russia's, of course.
Britain's clown-in-chief Boris Johnson even said that the Germans should "make a sacrifice in the interests of peace". Shows how easy it is to sacrifice other people's economies and boost America's and Britain's .... :smile:
I can dish it out too, trust me. I'm French. Don't get me started.
But if you have a problem with a certain power, what's the alternative to applying a counter power? Isn't that pretty basic?
IOW, just being anti-power is pretty much the same as being suicidal, except it takes an application of power to follow through.
Indeed, your clichés are lost on me.
Not from me, but I cannot recommend this thread enough:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1506116621500403725.html
In addition, check out his elaboration of (ex-French PM) Dominique de Villepin's understanding, which strikes me as utterly correct:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1505396482274304000.html
The importance of taking China into account of any analysis of what is going on is made startlingly clear.
Although we are in total agreement here,
I agree with Baden's analysis of:
Quoting Baden
I think it nevertheless worth explaining somewhat more for your and others benefit.
History is filled with conspiracies, but, although interesting to historians, most (if not all) historians will be happy to explain that those conspiracies had little affect.
For example, assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand was a successful conspiracy, and credited with triggering the events that started WWI, but at the same time most historians view the war as inevitable at that point and the trigger largely irrelevant.
Also of note, the "black hand" wasn't some great international conspiracy, but a relatively local organization of random violence, manipulated by people wanting to start the war ... so, if that didn't work they'd do something else.
Let's say the Sinking of the Lusitania was the US doing to get into WWI ... well, if that didn't work, they'd just do something else.
Likewise, if The Reichstag Fire wasn't set by the Nazi's they would have found some other excuse, lit something else on fire, or just waited for the next bad thing to happen to blame on the socialists, or then just done their plan without any event at all.
However, focusing on this historical minutia would be missing the forest for the trees. Mussolini, Franco, Hitler ... fascism was simply a popular movement and that's what brought about WWII, in conjunction with post-WWI policies that brought about the great depression.
In all these "start a war" cases, the policies are already decided by those in power and they're just looking for the pretexts: the choices are 1. just wait for a pretext (if there's all sort of random acts of violence happening anyways, then easy to just pick one), or 2. then make a pretext (conspiracy of some sort), or 3. then just do it anyways for reasons and no triggering event at all.
If a case about WMD's in Iraq couldn't be made, some other reason for invading Iraq would have been invented.
In short, definitely there have been conspiracies associated with immense political events such as starting world wars ... twice!
Conspiracies would matter a lot if option 2 was the only option available, but what people forget who focus on the events above as "the cause" of the bad things happening, is that if it wasn't option 2, it would be option 1 or 3.
There's pros and cons to each option ... and what actually matters is there's a power structure that wants to start a war or purge their political enemies, and can do it with immense support (enough to control society) even, for many, if there was no reason given at all than the other people are bad and we hate them!
What matters is the power, everything else is secondary.
The fact of WMD evidence being fabricated to start a war is totally secondary to the fact there's a small group of people that have the power to start a war in the first place and ... even if the reason is proven (by their own military institutions!) to be bogus, have the power to face no consequences about it anyways, just joke and laugh about "those WMD's gotta be somewhere".
Why the CIA folks love saying "the world is messy" and they don't have total control, is because it's true and it distracts from the structure of power and their part within it ... that maintains the disparity between the rich and the poor.
But it's not a conspiracy, it's simply everyone knowing their place: including most poor people.
Almost everything we see as "the serious politics" of the day is just smoke and mirrors, if people weren't "super concerned" with this, we'd be "super concerned" about something else. The war seems certainly "more serious" than usual, but, as has been discussed, there's been several ongoing wars no one cares about; why we care about this one is just part of the show.
People are dying, true, so easy to sell this is "big" ... but people are dying all the time in horrible ways, with far easier ways to help them than solve this mess in Ukraine. All those deaths aren't "big", but something that a lone intrepid journalists needs to go expose just to be ignored by mass media, because Ukrainian deaths today serve the power structure's already chosen policies (in the West, China and Russia), for different reasons and presented in different ways of course. As soon as the war is over and the deaths of these Ukrainians becomes inconvenient for the West, China and Russia ... we'll stop hearing about it, just as we stopped hearing about Afghanistan after literally a couple months after Afghani deaths became inconvenient rather than a call to arms to "defeat the hated enemy".
The power structure focuses our attention on the dead in Ukraine not because people have some intrinsic value, but because it distracts from all the rest, and that's pretty damn convenient right now. But if it wasn't the dead in Ukraine, it would be something else, and people would be just as emotional about it.
If you peer behind the curtain, you'll find it's just fun and games, laughing and partying between those that are in the party. What they do doesn't really matter, and between lines on a hookers ass crack things aren't thought out all that far and coherently (academia has an entire industry dedicated to re-interpreting the whims of the powerful as representing serious doctrines of some sort, but that's just part of the power structure), but it's why this party is happening in the first place and what keeps it going, that's what matters.
True, the power structure is sadistic, and so it is in fact giving it more credit to believe they exercise their sadism in secret, for they must be ashamed of it. But they aren't! They hide things only if it was more fun and adventurous that way, but if it's funner to just do it in the open to really feel how powerful they are, they have no hesitation.
Not that their stupid, they're just "normal people" as anyone who gets close to them informs us.
And, they do get serious from time to time. What's elites "getting serious" look like? After they blowup the banking system and bank cards are literally about to stop working and the party may actually end, then, for sure they get "serious". What do they do? They sit down and draft a single paper giving the banks unlimited money.
They don't, in their moment of tension and "bringing their best", finally create some giant tome of intellectual mastery, they just give themselves trillions of dollars with a single paper.
Which both explains why they don't need clever plans when they can just print money to fix the last disaster and create the next one, and why they have the power to begin with: the money.
Still curious what circumstances you think can realistically arise where Ukraine isn't the party that is worst off. Just going by the destruction in various cities seems difficult to reproduce elsewhere.
Not if you're the meat in that sandwich. I mean just to be concrete about it re the current situation: if the war continues, NATO can feel it's winning by bleeding and weakening Russia, which it sees as a strategic adversary; and Russia can feel it's winning by bleeding and weakening Ukraine, which it sees as the proxy of a strategic adversary. You see who the only consistent loser is in this picture? You can also apply this to within Ukraine itself; while everyone loses to some extent, the leadership may at least have the commiseration of cementing power, most of the rich and privileged have already probably escaped, and the lower rungs get to be the cannon fodder or collateral damage. No matter what level of conflict you look at, those who are more responsible for it and have more power tend to suffer less and vice versa and that's the axis along which 'side-taking' should be applied imo. But the prevailing narrative is one of polarisation: the simplistic 'who's the bad guy'? 'who's the good guy'? which tends to support continued conflict and suffering among those who deserve it least. I don't want to be cheerleading that.
You could have just asked for a better explanation, but ok.
Maybe Benkei isn't getting any, so he keeps fantasizing about you and I. I guess he swings in multiple directions.
I hope so. :love:
Ok, hold on. I didn't know this. Why does NATO see Russia as a strategic adversary? I'm asking for real.
Maybe I could come back to the rest of your post later.
:grimace:
I'm not saying they make that explicit in their documents. It's my wording. As I see it, NATO represents an expanded pre-cold-war block and Russia a diminished pre-cold-war block of countries that were on friendly terms for about five minutes before reverting to pursuing separate and often conflicting interests. Putin has been more open about talking about this than the Western side who are a little more coy. I could probably dig up some quotes from him.
The French government has kept its donations to Ukraine secret, probably because they didn't give much. The French state is pretty much broke.
The one and only French aircraft carrier +other ships are operating in the Black Sea, ostensibly to help protect Romania, Poland, etc. in case the conflict escalates.
All four French strategic nuclear strike submarines are out at sea (it's usually only one out at a time).
Most French analysts are satisfied that the Germans, at long last, are seriously investing in defence and trying to be less dependent on Russian gas. That's a good evolution, the way we see it, moving away from boy scout naivety.
On NATO, the French tend to act as the one disagreeing with the US. Other members would typically be shy to oppose the US in NATO, so the way it works is the French put out their objections informally on behalf of the other Europeans. It's all a bit fake. I don't know what the French position is re. Ukraine in NATO, but it would not surprise if they had been slow and uncommitted to it.
We will probably welcome them in the EU though. Now.
Well, Russia makes up a very large percentage of the world's Slavic population. And NATO is admittedly anti-Russia.
Plus, my question was addressed to @baker, not to you, so I don't see why there was a need for you to intercept it and put an "antisemitic" spin on it.
Moreover, I NEVER said NATO is only anti-Russia or anti-Slavs. On the contrary, I've repeatedly said NATO is also (or even primarily) anti-German.
It’s a well-known fact that NATO was created by America “to keep Russia out of Europe and the Germans down” as admitted by NATO's own website:
Lord Ismay - NATO
But the way I see it, Russia is equally entitled to create a military organization to keep America out of Europe. Likewise, Germany is entitled to create an organization to keep America and Russia out of Europe, etc., etc.
I don’t think America should have more rights over Europe than Russia or Germany. On the contrary, Russia should have more rights over Europe than America, and Germany as a Central European country, should have more rights over Europe than both Russia and America.
The problem is that America and its client states Britain and France have always hated Russia for having its own interests. First, they hated Russia for being “czarist”, then they hated it for being “communist”, and now they hate it for being “Nazi” or “Stalinist”. Or, perhaps, “Nazi” and “Stalinist”. Or, maybe, just for being Russian!
And the same goes for Germany. America, Britain, and France hated Germany for wanting to be an independent country, then they hated it for being “militaristic”, then for being “Nazi”, and now they hate it for not being militaristic enough and for refusing to play the role of NATO’s attack-dog against Russia!
Plus, as stated before, America and Russia invaded Germany in 1945. The Russians eventually left but the Americans are still there. Why can’t America just get out and leave Germany and Europe alone???
Why must Europe be an American colony? Why doesn’t America go and colonize China, India, Africa, or some other place like Afghanistan? Why Europe? Is it because Europeans have been brainwashed into seeing America as the master race that has a “God-given right” to rule over them?
IMO if America wants Russia to stay out of Europe then it should lead by example and go home first. And take its British and Turkish poodles with it. Unfortunately, that's impossible because the whole point of NATO is "to keep the Americans in Europe"!
If by "saner points" you mean parroting the mandatory pro-NATO line, then this should be stated in the OP. Anyway, I've got better things to do, so don't let me interrupt your "discussion" ....
I liked Frank's question to you: how do you fight power without power? Did you respond?
I said Quoting Baden
'Your' as in 'you', not the pro-NATO side.
Yes.
"New World Order"? If so, ye' can't be serious.
Couple chucklesome quotes...
I don't think Putin's concern is NATO. It's the US. He wants the US to go down a notch in global importance, and for Russia to go up a notch.
But instead of approaching it like a 21st century neoliberal, he's going at it like he thinks he's Peter the Great.
That's my half-assed assessment. The US, on the other hand only cares about Russia because they interfered in American elections, and they're sketchy to deal with on Middle Eastern security issues.
The US government cares about China because they're prepping to take over half the world.
See why I'm confused about the Idea that NATO is pestering Russia? I don't see how.
Can you explain it?
Quoting Benkei
A ruin can be rebuilt, that is very easy, but a fascist regime cannot improve. It cannot be reformed into a less fascist one. Russia is now a fascist militarist petrostate, and will remain so for quite a while. This can't be good for them Russians, although of course it's good for the leaders.
If Ukraine manages to remain a democracy, it will rebound. Of course this remains to be seen.
The war isn't contributing to Russian socio-economic organisation. It was a fascist military oligarchy before the war started.
Ukraine was a democracy in name only. Riven with corruption.
What I'm missing from your analysis is number of deaths and deplacement of people. I'm somewhat less concerned with economic damage; the ruins seem to suggest a lot civilian death. I suppose that wasn't very clear. Russia doesn't have to rebuild much, except military equipment so far. So again, under which realistic circumstances will Russia come out worse than Ukraine?
Hilarious that this exists.
And worth following the link, it's not even buried in a bunch of text as just the historical record relevant for that reason, it's the lead citation summing up this guys contribution to the world.
And definitely, more fruitful, especially on a philosophy forum, to stick to facts that are easy to establish.
True, the term "World New Order" does get mentioned from time to time by our overlords, but it's not an established fact that it's anything more than something "cool" to say they made up drinking on the golf course one day.
And these are people that give themselves Star Wars nicknames:
[quote=The Return of the Pentagon’s Yoda, Foreign Policy;https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/12/the-return-of-the-pentagons-yoda-andrew-marshall/]And there he stayed for 42 years, cultivating a group of disciples who called themselves members of “St. Andrew’s Prep.” By the 2000s, Marshall, then in his 80s, had earned the affectionate nickname Yoda.[/quote]
These are just minions, but the people at the top aren't having any less fun.
... There's even a Wikipedia page of George Bush's nicknames for people.
[quote=List of nicknames used by George W. Bush, wikipedia;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_used_by_George_W._Bush]
Nickname: Flies on the Eyeballs Guy
Real name: Cofer Black
position: Director of the CIA Counterterrorist Center[/quote]
It's more Lord of the Flies than 1984, just we're all stuck on the same island.
The arms manufacturers win - contracts. Somebody has to be benefiting. Always winnable.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/15/europe/germany-f-35-fighter-jets-replace-tornado-intl/index.html
Very clearly an anti-Putin piece, anyone can see that. For those who are not impressed by such propaganda it is simply annoying.
It should be easy for you then to demonstrate where I've been naive. Go ahead.
The future will come soon enough. I don't need to engage, and least of all solve, a dispute between rival prophecies here. I suspect you don't really need it either. Just wait and see.
I am still laughing, by the way, that you responded to "here is perhaps the most important international shift of geopower in decades" with "here is where the French have put their boat".
It's really so good. The sobriety is, in fact, real.
"Any insights on how the Italian and French diplomatic corps are looking at things?"
What I think is at play for your reticence here is you're worried that in fact Boethius might be right all along, that cheerleading the continuation of the war and sending armaments (to "bleed the Russians" as Niall Ferguson quoted a US official), could be an immoral position.
There's one part I found note worthy that wasn't transcribed.
Transcription skips Villepain explaining Russian perspective, in particular no credit for their fight against the Nazis, and instead being antagonized and ultimately humiliated by the West.
Interviewer interrupts with:
"Re-writing history, says Emanuel Macron"
Villepain:
"""
Yes, but it's not so simple as that!
You know, anyways, as a diplomat, we can't just completely deny what other's believe.
We can consider we have differnet opinons, but we are obliged to take into consideration [the others]: above all, when they're in front of us, and we're even brought to confront them.
And a last battle, which is essential, and China advances, obviously has in mind, is the battle of power! And we can all see the effort well militarily, of people here and there, and the economic one by China; thus we cannot consider it a negligible quantity.
"""
(French way of talking sounds a bit weird translated directly to English, but it's just how French people talk; such as "we're brought" to do something, is an interesting French expression which explains what you decided to do ... by presenting it as others stringing you along the whole time; and other people don't even need to be involved at all, it connotes more that the end result, or that part of the story, wasn't some sort of goal, but haphazard series of events)
There are a much wider and more important range of economic and security reasons the US cares about Russia. The most pertinent being:
"The nation possesses approximately 6,000 nuclear warheads as of 2022—the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. Nearly half of the world's 12,700 nuclear weapons are owned by Russia."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
I don't think the US govt sees Putin as an evil madman. I think they see him as the dictator of a regional power.
I was asking specifically about NATO's antagonism of Russia, the basis of it and the form it has taken.
I can investigate myself, I just thought you would know about it.
You remember the iron curtain ? It was not symmetrical. Not many Westerners tried to flee East. That could mean something.
I never cease to be amazed at the desert of imagination of those who cannot fathom a politics that does not entail eating boots whole leather.
Yes, I was being hyperbolic.
Quoting frank
Oh, OK. Well, you can go right back to the end of the cold war and work your way up from there. I find this a good overview for the 90's up to 2009 for a start.
https://www.cairn.info/revue-politique-etrangere-2009-5-page-107.htm
"Moscow still looked at Eastern Europe, which was now relabeled as Central Europe, as a security buffer between Russia and the West. Moscow did not want and had no means to dominate this strategically important region. But it also did not want the region to be controlled by a more powerful military alliance, which had been Moscow’s enemy in Europe for so many years. NATO never seriously considered Russia as a possible member, and its joint military organization now had huge superiority over Russian military forces.
Russia’s efforts to maintain the status quo failed.
1) "in 1997. NATO invited Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary to join. At the same time, it signed another declaration with Russia – the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security, which established the procedure for consultations, but no Russian veto rights over NATO’s decision-making. NATO promised no “permanent stationing of substantial combat forces” and “no intention, no plan and no reason to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of new members.”
2) "In 1999 NATO started ‘a war of choice’ against Serbia, which was trying to suppress by brutal force the secessionists’ insurgency in Kosovo. The NATO bombing during the Kosovo war was widely perceived in Russia as proving the naivety of post-Cold War expectations that the West was willing to treat Russia as an equal partner
3) "In 2002, the George W. Bush administration decided to unilaterally withdraw from the ABM Treaty and started to deploy ballistic-missile defense systems, despite Russian protests. In 2002, Moscow was presented with a fait accompli when NATO implemented a new round of expansion. This time it was a ‘big bang’ – NATO admitted seven new members, including three former Soviet republics: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. NATO fully absorbed what used to be the ‘security belt’ of the USSR."
4) "In 2003 the US invaded Iraq. This war was opposed by Russia."
5) "Moscow interpreted the ‘orange’ and ‘rose’ revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, respectively, in 2004 as new evidence of the Western strategy to marginalize Russia and make it militarily impotent before the US and NATO"
6) "Russia was even more alarmed about the third US ballistic missile defense (BMD) site, which the Bush administration decided to deploy in Poland and the Czech Republic. The third site had an open-ended architecture, and was perceived as demonstrating that the US intended to eventually deny Russia’s nuclear deterrence. " (that's a biggie).
:100:
This makes no sense as a response to my post. It's the opposite of politicial nihilism to look beyond propaganda to actual real people and how they are affected by real things like bombs and suchlike and make their welfare the priority rather than some nationalistic ideal that is antithetical to their interests.
That Western Europe was a nicer place to live than the USSR I'm not debating and is not even remotely the issue here. :roll:
I don't think that was what I was focusing on at all. On the contrary, my focus was on the larger picture which is the conflict between rival world powers. Without the rivalry between America and Russia, which is a continuation of the previous rivalry between Britain and Russia, there would be no conflict over Ukraine.
Anyway, from what I see, there are at least three anti-Russian threads on this forum, including this one. So, I honestly don’t understand why there is so much fear and panic when someone posts one comment that disagrees with the pro-NATO narrative. I find it quite odd, actually.
As I said, maybe the best solution would be for the mods to post comments on our behalf and we just sit and watch – or, even better, we can ignore the “discussion” and the forum …. :grin:
Jesus H. Christ, I'm a mod and I'm arguing against the pro-NATO narrative right now, you dill.
Why, thanks for writing clearly. The accusation that anyone is 'cheerleading' the Ukrainians is a bit odd though. I'm trying to be open minded, but it seems to me that the team on the ground is playing the game, not the pompom girls. In US sport, are cheerleaders often credited with the wins or losses of the team they cheerlead?
My personal 'support' to Ukraine is not going to change anything, it is symbolic. I am not even supporting any particular direction by the Ukrainian leadership. They are perfectly welcome to negotiate something, as far as I am concerned.. You shouldn't be worried about my guilt in all this.
The charge of cheerleading is thus bogus. Now to that of sending armaments to "bleed the Russians". Why would you see that as immoral? The Russians are on the offensive. The West is interested in beating them down. The Ukrainians are defending themselves, which is their right, and they ask for ammunition. Of course the West is going to ship some, at least countries that can afford it, if only to test them in real war conditions.
Historians say that perception actually ended with the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing. This was the real basis of the cold war: Stalin felt vulnerable.
Quoting Baden
Their economy was in shambles. The US gave aid to Russia, for fuck's sake.
Quoting Baden
Wasn't this because of Iran?
Eh, this was a mistake. You're just pissing me off. I need the information without any spin. I'll find it.
Of course you are doing that, only so long as it's in line with YOUR idea of "arguing against the pro-NATO narrative". :smile:
Anyway, carry on arguing, I'm not preventing you, am I? I was simply replying to @boethius.
You ask me how NATO antagonised Russia and then you don't want to know how Russia perceives itself to be antagonized by NATO. What?
As for this:
Quoting frank
So funny accusing me of spin while spinning the Iran angle.
I'll try Wiki but I guess you don't want answers just your own biases confirmed.
"Putin said that in trying to persuade Russia to accept US withdrawal from the treaty, both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had tried, without evidence, to convince him of an emerging nuclear threat from Iran."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ballistic_Missile_Treaty#United_States_withdrawal
You may blindly accept the word of your ex-presidents but Putin can be forgiven for being a bit more sceptical.
Now what exactly about:
"In 2002, the George W. Bush administration decided to unilaterally withdraw from the ABM Treaty and started to deploy ballistic-missile defense systems"
is spin?
... And West only really invaded Europe after Russia had already turned the tide.
However, Villepin has another really good analysis that follows, that's only partly transcribed, so I've put bellow the whole thing:
"""
Villepin: And there is another factor, above that humiliation, is the sentiment of Western hypocrisy.
We ignore that factor.
For Vladimir Putin we are liars.
News anchor: But on what? [in a tone of clueless, innocent honest perplexion]
Villepin: 1999, the Kosovo, we talked of a military intervention, without authorization of the security council. [can't quite make out the word], the term we used at the time, and Vladimir Putin would hold it against us even today, in us [creating or crediting] a genocide on the part of-on the - on the [can't make it out, I assume Albanians] from the part of the Serbs.
Second step of the lie, and the occidental hypocrisy, the United States in Iraq, where they are evidently [expression I've never heard before], and how many times the Russian foreign minister at the time told us: you did nothing to judge for the monstrous War Crimes, hundreds of thousands dead, not George Bush nor Tony Blair.
Third step, Lybian crisis, where we made a deal with the Russians, since the supported the revolution 1973, and we largely exceeded the mandate.
And when they tell you that, the Russians, what do they add: we stretched out our hands to you, and it's that in 2001, 911, made a considerable gesture, vis-a-vis the United States--
New anchor: that does not permit to explain what is currently happening
Villepin: But, it doesn't expla - it doesn't justify it, but it allows to understand the software of a man who, hates humiliation and hypocrisy, adds to that, and I think we would ignore it in favour of the crisis, we would ignore - if we don't take it into consideration, we would make a colossal mistake, it's the immense feeling of injustice and the desire for revenge, Eastward, yes in the Orient, but also in the South.
And when we see, skipping some steps to save time, where at the general assembly, there are 35 states who abstain, and a few states, not so important, who voted against. But among the 35 states, there's delegations like Senegal, so we need to understand why, why these African states, why these South-American states, feel necessary to send us this message; which is: you have the habit of crushing us, which is from where comes the argument ["masu" not sure what it means; edit: likely means a "sledge hammer"] of Vladimir Putin, that not only he wants to put into question [i.e. challenge] the European order, but he wants to put into question the occidental domination. And thus-
Interviewer: [interrupts]
Villepin: And thus, I finish, as it's a point, a major point. And thus, the whole game, is to know if Russia will stay relatively alone, and the embargo against China will become more and more important, all the way to China taking distance from Russia, or if, as Vladimir Putin puts into question the European order, well then, at the same moment, the President Xi feels the need to put into question the Indo-Pacific order and the World order and then the junction, between those two revindications would happen, and there, the risk - I do not say a World War - but a world confrontation would be, verily, then, current affairs.
"""
Let me guess: you think that I am not doing precisely that? That @ssu isn't looking beyond propaganda? That @frank behaves as a valet of US imperialism? That we don't care for the fate of ordinary Ukrainians and Russians? That we are the pro-NATO folks?
Think again. You're not the only one with his eyes open.
No, I was responding to the odd accusation of political nihilism. If I want to say anything about any of the posters mentioned, I'll say it.
Nothing I've said should suggest I'm not aware that Putin has the morals of a snake, that the invasion was morally unjustified, and that he is committing horrible crimes in Ukraine, just as he did in Syria, Chechnya and so on.
I guess I'm more interested in the ways NATO actually threatened Russia. If NATO threatened some Russian's dreams of empire, that doesn't constitute a threat to Russia.
At this time, China is threatening the vision of some Americans as having a divine mission to rule the world. Only a fucking moron would say: "Look! That's evidence that China is antagonizing America! (Not that you're a fucking moron, I don't think that).
Everybody has some responsibility to look at the world objectively, including Putin.
Quoting Baden
Is it spin? The problem I have is that it makes sense that the US would ready itself to bomb Iran. Iran has been hostile toward the whole region. It's a sectarian issue.
Why would the US prepare to attack Russia? What missing facts would allow that to make sense?
I'm not making normative judgements about whether Russia should feel threatened or not. I'm simply trying to help lay out an explanatory framework for their actions/reactions. That's all that's important to me. If you want to get into should Russia feel threatened or not, then you're required to look deep into the heart of NATO and see if there really is a cuddly care-bear sitting there ready to give Putin a big sloppy kiss. That's rather pointless in my view.
And this from a Russian angle could read as:
"Why would Russia prepare to attack the U.S.? What missing facts would allow that to make sense?"
So, why did NATO expand, why plant missiles in Eastern Europe?
Simply invert your perspective and you answer your own questions.
So your point is that Russians in general have felt threatened by American missile placement? Or is it just the Russian govt?
If so, we can probably drop "NATO" here, right? It's mostly just the US.
And the present invasion of Ukraine is related to this apparent aggression.
I think there's probably a kernal of truth in there, in that, without the USA or EU, Putin wouldn't need to invade. He could just send in his drushina and kill Zelensky.
Would you feel threatened if Russia became friendly enough with Mexico to allow it to place missiles there? I suppose most, if not all, Americans would. And your government certainly would and would act correspondingly.
No. If the US placed missiles in Eastern Europe to threaten Russia, there has to be a reason for it.
I can't get out of my mind Villepin's caricature in Quai d'Orsay, a graphic novel on the French foreign ministry under Villepin during the build up to the Iraq war. Written by the guy to whom it happened. He was hired to write Villepin's speeches but cannot follow the guy's thoughts, Villepin goes way too fast and changes constantly and switches from the highest concepts to the most trivial details all the time -- as transcribed in a post upthread, his elocution is that of a scatterbrain. Not stupid by far, but a poet more than a mathematician.
The whole life of this poor speech writer becomes a rollercoaster between New York, Paris, Berlin, while the diplomatic push and shove happens. An English translation was released, under the name Weapons of Mass Diplomacy. Highly recommended.
https://www.selfmadehero.com/books/weapons-of-mass-diplomacy
So your point is that Russians in general feel threatened by the US?
Do you happen to have some data that shows that?
The reason is to increase its military dominance, obviously. And if you can abnegate completely a country's nuclear deterrence e.g. through placing techincally advanced anti-missile systems near their territory then you really can dominate them and threaten their interests. Putin would not so easily have been able to invade Ukraine if he didn't still have a nuclear option. So, the threat doesn't have to be directly military. It's just the guy with the biggest gun calls the shots on the global stage. Putin wants to maintain his big gun.
Of course.
No, my point was to ask you the same question. I suppose if you would feel threatened they might. I don't know of any studies that specific. We can apply common sense here. Or look to the history of the Cuban Missile Crisis where America risked nuclear war rather than allowing such an eventuality. I presume y'all felt a bit threatened.
Again, my goal was to understand your statement that NATO sees Russia as an adversary.
I think the missile placement issue is more about Putin's objections to American foreign policy decisions. He has bemoaned the way Americans leave instability and cell-structured terrorism in their wake, which happens to be his backyard.
He believes he would deal more effectively with turmoil in the middle east, and I think he's probably right. American efforts to install democracy have been disastrous.
The totalitarian screw is tightening in Russia, and the economy will suffer. I am truly worried about the aftermath in Russia as well, not pretending. Their cities weren't bombed, it's true.
Ukraine is a democracy. No need to treat people with contempt. No democracy is perfect. There is corruption in France, the US, Germany, everywhere.
The missle placement is clearly a direct threat to Russian power. You can add layers to that if you like, but there is no fundamental reason for Russians to be happier about having American missiles piled up along their borders than Americans would be having Russian missiles piled up along their borders. Again, there are lots of other layers and nuances you can add, but I don't know why that basic fact is hard to grasp or agree on.
The problem is: this presupposes conflict instead of explaining it.
Obviously the UK doesn't feel threatened by American missile placement. If Russia does, then what is the basis of the conflict?
Apologies if that was a miss.
A lot of the arguments against NATO here boil down to: the US is worse. Or: the West is worse. Or: there are many other wars why do you care for this one? The general impression is of westerners doubting the west. Of people living in democracies (I suppose) whining on social media about the social media (built by democracies) and doubting whether democracy means anything. It's a form of First World navel gazing political nihilism.
Once again, sorry if I misunderstood you.
Of for sure, I definitely don't have any totally precise idea of Villepin's general political philosophy.
However, this could easily be by design (or then a sort of survivor bias in that only his kind of personality can persists in politics, doesn't get immediately taken down by the press).
For his way of packing everything together, highest principles and trivial details, sort of overwhelms interviewers and news anchors and he can make his point.
If you try to really get into the mechanics of the argument, there's all sorts of missing pieces, but the point and structure of the argument is clear; you can easily fill in the blanks ... and certainly "sounds" smart. But this might be just his personality.
The next part, for sure by design, is that he waits his moment. He certainly has had these idea of Western hypocrisy and and the affect on the world since a while--conversations with his Russian counterparts are literally decades in the past. But he waits the right political moment to speak his mind.
Lot's to debate and disagree with, but certainly not a coward in any case.
It's not a problem to recognize the obvious that the relationship between allies like the US and the UK is not the same as between non-allies and traditional adversaries such as the US and Russia. That doesn't mean you can't also explain it, just like you can acknowledge that India and Pakistan are a threat to each other in a way that India and the UK aren't, but that it would be facile to argue that India and Pakistan weren't a mutual threat or that that fact was in some doubt on the basis that the entire history of their relationship had to be explained first. It would be even more facile if you were Indian and considered Pakistani missiles on your border a threat to wonder why Pakistanis found Indian missiles on their border equally a threat or to demand data to prove it, etc. Basic reasoning can deal with this up to a point.
No worries. :up:
I think this tells me all I needed to glean from your perspective. Thanks for the discussion.
If you don't think Russia and the US can be described as 'traditional adversaries', you may very well be alone in this discussion. It's not a controversial statement by any means.
Definitely so. He is convincing. He believes in what he says. His aura in France is that of a looser magnifique, a flibustering poet-diplomat. A bit passé now of course.
The book above is a good one, if you are interested in diplomacy. Respectful of Villepin, and also disrespectful in a light way. Same with the US. This is not a brutal caricature, it's a soft, very smart one, including with emotional intelligence. Artistic intelligence I should say, truly. Real, but funnier.
I should try and read some of his poems...
I didn't say it was.
But you don't want to talk to anyone who describes it as such? It's not a judgement but an observation btw.
Anyway, it's cool. We both said our piece.
Have a good evening/night. :halo:
:up:
Une massue = a big club
Un argument massue = a sledgehammer argument ?
He's got a point there. The contempt paid to the South is coming back to haunt us. The whole western condescension, the hypocrisy, it's been palpable for decades. Villepin doesn't mention Palestine but there's been that as well.
He's still a politician though, and associated the whole
Quoting Villepin, Wikipedia
... A passage that paints Sarkozy as the victim--and maybe he was--but who later went on to get embroiled even larger corruption scandals involving kickbacks for submarines and just brief cases of cash from the Oreal fortune.
Quoting Sarkozy, Wikipedia
... So maybe Villepin was just the best of a rotten lot, or too dumb or too arrogant (I think typical French attitude about him today).
Of course, it's not like Villepin is running the red cross or anything since leaving public office:
Quoting Wikipedia
So ... maybe just a realist idealist, that was too naive or too clever with too much ambition for his own good (notably: he did get acquitted).
However, the above scandals were so massive and messy (leading to far more "all politicians are corrupt" kind of attitude in France -- and super charging the far right, who are generally at least not "corrupt", as they have no power), that the French generally just want to forget about them all: hence Macron could just waltz in and won the presidency with an entirely new party he invented literally the year before.
Is my feeling from when I lived in France, people just didn't want to talk about it anymore (even though I was still super enthusiastic).
This makes a lot more sense, thanks!
I had heard it originally as Massoud ... so, like, maybe Massoud has some referencable anti-Imperialist argument? that Villepin would reference Putin as making ... but then I discarded that possibility.
The book sounds really good, thanks for the tip.
Sarko and co. were big time crooks, with several very serious judicial cases ongoing.
Quoting boethius
Here's Biden announcing a "New World Order" led by America in Business Roundtable address:
Joe Biden talks about 'new world order' in Business Roundtable address - YouTube
Was he just about to say "We're going to impose a New World Order", but slightly changed the phrasing?
In any case, maybe it isn't Russia who's behind the NWO agenda, after all ....
Exactly, difficult to say Villepin was somehow squeaky clean, certainly at least knew how things worked ... or then not that smart after all.
Even people who liked Villepin that I would talk to would always finish with ... well then there was all this fucked up shit.
You're confusing his anti-Western stance for being pro-Putin.
The matter is the same as in the covid discourse: a simplistic side-taking prevails.
Has it ever occured to you that he is just trying to be fair?
Again, you're confusing his anti-Western stance for being pro-Putin.
Secondly, some people still have a sense of shame and so they would not say about another person (what to speak of saying it to the other person), "He's a piece of shit", "He should be put down", "You have no soul", and things like that.
There was a time and a place when people considered it beneath their dignity to say such things about other people, what to speak of saying them directly to them. They believed that they would lower themselves if they said such things.
It seems there are very few such people left.
I feel disheartened to see what language is being used in this discourse (as well as in many others). It shows how low so many people have fallen.
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/970136
I think it's paywalled for non-academic access so briefly... Dr Caplan is suggesting
He's seriously saying that innocent cancer patients should be denied treatment because they're Russian
Of course we'd expect this kind of virtue-signalling bullshit from Caplan, but still...
Why I mention that the elites literally say this ... even after it has the reputation for being their conspiracy.
But does it represent some coherent plan ... or is it just a flex to use the expression?
However, I don't view "conspiracy research" as irrelevant, just that (from my point of view at least) it's more a journalism activity than philosophical or political project. As Noam Chomsky says about it, that they already got caught red handed starting a massive war that killed hundreds of thousands of people and destabilised the whole region, and faced no consequences, what more do you need?
Of course, where I disagree with Chomsky is simply that the truth of whatever machinations the elite are up to is valuable for it's own sake, so I wouldn't say it's as irrelevant as Chomsky argues. However, plenty insane scandals have been revealed already by many credible journalists over the decades (Iran Contra, obviously Iraq, French shit we've been discussing) ... and it doesn't change anything in itself these scandals coming about.
The whole cathartic "and then the politicians went to jail / reported to the president" trope at the end of nearly every political thriller for decades ... until it was simply so unbelievable that they had to start changing that genre to way more mirky, if there's any moral point at all.
And indeed, the whole "conspiracy theorist" trope is literally documented as a FBI fabrication for propaganda purposes ... so, should beg the question: why?
However, be that as it may, there are forums dedicated to the topic. On a philosophy forum you may simply find it more efficient to either use facts that are supported by some journalist or institution that most here would likely accept, or then just use the word if rather than assertions to make your argument (people can then look into the premises on their own time).
I don't get this part. Cease all research generally speaking? Or just in Russia?
Since then, justice has scored some points, out of the media frenzy that marked those days.
Hence Macron now of course. But there are many other reasons. Like the French economic elite being tired of being ignored and milked. They support him 100%.
Sorry, yes, just Russia. I've added a bit to the quote I cited, which was unclear.
Of course, now the zeitgeist has changed, Caplan's popularity weathervane has shifted. He now informs us ...
...oddly only a few months ago when arguing in favour of enforced consumer compliance over vaccinations he assured us...
Apparently not anymore, if Twitter says it isn't.
I suppose one needs to be a member of a Slavic nation to experience this and to noitice it.
You know what the slang term for Slovenes is? "Viennese horse stable keepers" (it's a succint phrase in Slavic languages).
Ever since I can remember, it's been beaten into us that we are inferior, an inferior race, and that only the British, the French, and the German are "proper people".
The previous prime minister of Slovenia (prime minister is the position with the most power in the country) was a former comedian. He wasn't in position for the full term, he was overthrown by the current government just before the covid crisis broke out.
He has proven to be a competent enough politician, but it's just hard to take him seriously, because everytime he begins to speak, I recall his comedic impersonations of politicians.
This has nothing to do with classism. It has to do with the justified expectation that a political leader should be an honorable and capable person.
"Vote for us, and you will all have higher salaries!" is a slogan one of the current government parties here is using (the elections are in April). I used to think such slogans would be limited to dystopian science-fiction and caricatures in politology textbooks, and that no actual political party would ever say such a thing. But they do. And they come from the ordinary people.
What do the categories of people you mention above know about how to run a country?
And how could they fend against political extremism taking over?
It doesn't help that the war is presented as a video game.
It's not clear what your reply has to do with my question. The protests against the war in Iraq changed nothing, other than once more convicing people that protests accomplish nothing and are useless.
That's exactly why, personally, I prefer to analyze it in terms of a conflict between geopolitical spheres of interests. The "conspiracy" may or may not exist but the conflict is generally acknowledged and beyond dispute.
Philosophy, after all, must be based on facts, otherwise it's just idle speculation. And the more facts are available for analysis, the better. US dominance of international organizations especially in the fields of security, trade, and finance, for example, is not disputed by scholars. See US Hegemony and International Organizations, Oxford University Press (2003), etc.
Unfortunately, the facts are disputed and denied by the ignorant (or disingenuous) who scream "conspiracy theory" the minute you suggest that at least some of the causes of the conflict may lie not with Russia but with the West.
And that is when hysteria, hype, and agit-prop begin to be substituted for rational debate, and meaningful discussion becomes impossible, no matter what forum you happen to be on.
This, of course, is facilitated by the media and its political masters or collaborators. Take Zelensky's claim that the end of the world has arrived or that Russia is trying to exterminate the Ukrainian people in a "final solution", for example:
From there to "Putin wants to take over the world" is not far .... :smile:
Quoting Baden
Quoting baker
The British have traditionally been racist towards the Irish too, e.g. the phrase 'That's a bit Irish' means 'That's stupid'. That doesn't amount to a Western Jihad against the Irish. And a NATO jihad against NATO members, such as Poles, would be a bit self-defeating wouldn't it?
We definitely agree on this point. Different political structures will manage their interests in their own idiosyncratic way.
Indeed, the only reason we have the concept of "conspiracy" in the sense of some large scale political thing going on, is because we have the concept of democracy, and they are incompatible.
No one's claiming Xi is some paragon of transparency and openness and just an "noraml guy" you'd just want to have a beer with.
Quoting Apollodorus
No argument with you there. Which is exactly why I don't join in the "conspiracy theorist" smearing as it's a double edged sword ... even if I didn't find even the most outlandish conspiracies theories entertaining and at least interesting exercise to work out exactly why I disagree, and did want such discourse "banned", what goes around comes around.
Quoting Apollodorus
Super weird to use the wording "again" ... as if we can actually exorcize all our Western demons and cast them into Putin.
Why don't you tell? It's your theory.
Quoting Apollodorus
Tell what "the NWO agenda" is exactly.
Actually, spamming this (already-spammed) thread might be too spammy. Though, I suppose, if you have something material, then do tell (in some thread).
Not necessarily. I think a certain degree of objective observation and honesty is sufficient.
There is no doubt that that derogatory terms are often used with reference to Slavic people. Take English "Polack" or German "Polacke" for Polish people, or German "Kanake" for South-East Europeans in general, for example.
Polack - Wiktionary
Having said that, Slavic peoples sometimes use derogatory terms for each other, which probably adds to being looked down on by non-Slavs.
You were accused of conspiracy theorizing by me for actual conspiracy theorizing not for suggesting that "at least some of the causes of the conflict may lie not with Russia but with the West". Most of the posters on this thread, including me, would agree with that. It was one of the first points I made here. But damn, it's a pain keeping up with your self-victimization fantasies.
There is no doubt that that derogatory terms are often used with reference to Hispanic people. Take English "Spick".
None of this has anything to do with the topic of the thread. Stay on topic.
It isn't "my" theory any more than it is yours.
It's a political term that refers to world governance, as often used by Western (and sometimes other) politicians:
New world order (politics) - Wikipedia
But I'm not a politician, so you better ask Biden (or Baden) ....
Quoting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_Order_(conspiracy_theory)
Fixed it. Not a conspiracy theory anymore.
Cool. Can you do this bit next?
"shapeshifting aliens called Reptilians control the Earth."
Ha! Yes.
[s]"shapeshifting aliens called Reptilians control the Earth."[/s]
I may run out of strike though before the end of the article!
Wow. I think his hat may be beginning to fall off now ... :wink:
Quoting Baden
:chin:
Or are we out of date on that?
If you look slightly to your right, my point will be on the shelf just above you.
Indeed, and not even a great deal of shape shifting required. Same old shite with a different bow around it seems to do the job.
It’s hard to believe because humans are largely incapable of running such a scheme. The current state of affairs is largely due to their incompetence rather than design.
I see. Well, never mind, it's all a theory (or an old hat), anyways ... :smile:
Sure. The question remains though as to what Biden meant:
Joe Biden talks about 'new world order' in Business Roundtable address - YouTube
It seems to be something of a mystery. And if even philosophers of the greatest learning and judgment like those here don't know, what chance do mere mortals have? Biden must have an intelligence far superior to all of us ....
There ya go.
Nah, the issue isn't that he's more intelligent than me, but that he's more intelligent than philosophers of great learning and judgement, especially two-headed ones. He also appears to have some knowledge of "shifting things". Perhaps he did mean shape-shifting reptilians, as you suggested.
:ok:
Volleyed and thundered.
But all joined in the hymn of the new world order: and you can too ...
That's interesting. So the battle is between Russia and the 'West'? Why is the West involved anyway, and doesn't it prove the point they were involved before the invasion and that was a provocation of sorts?
I think it is more precise to call this as a battle between the current regime in the United States and their Oligarchs rather than blaming the American People for anything. They are been successfully manipulated after all.
Quoting frank
Isn't it funny how all the evil madmen live in the east? Never heard George W Bush or Tony Blair described as such, though they have initiated a lot of carnage through their good intentions. "At least he is sincere"
Protests accomplished nothing?
Oh no, protests are very useful for demonstrating that that Regime allows dissent and democracy. The power structures are safe from any influences from below, and things carry on as usual. They don't jail people for protests, worse, they ignore them.
These people are captives: they are being used to pacify, ironically, those who were against the war: see, we are protesting, we are fighting back, but in the end there is no effect.
Some statistics:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/248521/us-arms-exports/
Somebody benefited. Oligarchs maybe?
Recent posts from you both (you'll forgive me for not quoting) have made undeniably powerful points about power and how those we might identify as "powerless" -- that's a bit of a can of worms, though, right? -- inevitably suffer, and particularly suffer when they're caught in the middle of a fight between one power and another. I appreciate how clearly and forcefully you have reminded us -- well, me, at any rate -- of how the world is made to turn.
With that as a given, I think I can also understand @Isaac's disgust for one great power encouraging some relatively powerless nation or people to take on some other great power, and offering them support to do so, in essence convincing them to be complicit in their own inevitable or continued pummeling. It is conceivable that the misguided powerful might do so out of ignorance, but if we have reason to believe they know exactly the sort of outcome they're pointing someone else toward, and if they offer their "support" in the name of "solidarity" or some such idealism while actually pursuing their own ends, not only getting it wrong, but getting it wrong on purpose, deceitfully, and exploiting the admirable courage or patriotism of others -- unforgivable, and it's understandable that one might find such underhandedness even more distasteful than forthright if appalling aggression.
So much for the status quo. It is abysmal. The dinosaurs died (again tonight on RadioLab) to clear the way for us to do this.
I want above all to ask you impractical questions. What is our relationship to violence? What is the place of force in human society? Can it change? How could such change be brought about?
Is violence inherently illegitimate? I genuinely don't know, but it's a question even the luckiest of us are compelled to think about almost every day now, possibly the most important question there is. (If it's not obvious, I have not only war but policing on my mind.) No one in this thread, I think, has suggested that Ukraine, or Ukrainians, ought simply to turn the other cheek. We tend to believe in the legitimacy of self-defense, and, even if we didn't, it's unseemly to suggest that someone else submit to force, just as it's unseemly to suggest that they fight back at risk to themselves. It is a situation in which we will tend to find either choice understandable, perhaps even laudable in the circumstances, but somehow we are barred -- by our conscience, I mean -- from giving advice (much less encouragement or inducement). In the same way that it's at once appalling to deny aid to the aggressee, as if we had hearts of stone, or to offer aid to the aggressee, thus prolonging their suffering. Violence, once set in motion, transmutes all choices and all outcomes to bad ones. You would think we would have learned by now how to avoid it. Is it conceivable that we will ever do so?
A second point, a kind of mantra really, is that almost all violence on the part of the repressed is, first and foremost, counter-violence. This is something that came through very clearly for me among the context of BLM and the whole discourse around that (speaking of policing...). Again this doesn't make it legitimate (or illegitimate), but it does head off immediate objections that non-violent approaches are the only answer to grievances. When one's entire ecology is one of violence that is perpetuated day by day (by state forces, say), a violent act against that ecology cannot be categorically attacked on account of merely 'being violent'.
As for Ukraine, things are more complex than I can know. On some accounts I've read by local socialist Ukrainians, the Ukranian left is entirely welcoming of weapons, and there is a certain resentment of those who would want those imports to stop. On the other hand, it is not at all contradictory to note that the pouring of Western arms into warzones have almost never, ever, ever lead to good outcomes, nor are have they ever been done with good outcomes (i.e. human flourishing) in mind. It's a simple fact that it is always correct - frankly transcendentally correct - to harbor enormous, relentless skepticism over weapons transfers done by powers who themselves do not put themselves at risk. It would be incredible news to hear that Ukraine beats back the Russian invasion with credit due to those weapons, but even that would still not settle the issue, as far as I'm concerned. The question really should be what happens after. By all rational predictions, nothing good. To quote from another Ukrainian whose interview I posted earlier:
"After Maidan, radical political action has been constrained to either participation in one of the army-adjacent militias or struggles for rights. Without abandoning the most basic radical positions of helping refugees as well as Ukrainian and Russian dissidents, radicals today must work to break the image of a “patriotic war” that the state has constructed. With this war and its aftermath, we will see great repression on both sides of the border, and it is ultimately the refugees burning through their savings and collecting ever greater debts who will bear the brunt of it. The attempt to cling to the remnants of law and capital even as the tanks are rolling in only further exposes the fact that human reproduction remains a byproduct of the reproduction of capital".
So I don't think it's inconsistent to say that those weapons are - literally and figuratively - double-edged swords. Whatever good they will do - if they do any 'good' - will only ever mean so much in a world where Ukraine remains a puppet of imperialism of either a military or capitalist stripe. Both are soul-destroying, and it would be wrong to be blinded by the (rightly horrible) spectacle of Russian missiles such that the 'other side' is uncritically celebrated or even welcomed. Like seriously, fuck the US - it has never not taken mass suffering as an opportunity for itself and its friends, to the determent of the entire planet.
--
Also Madeleine Albright is dead and I would have preferred if she died violently and painfully but we can't always get what we want apparently.
I prefer it to be true that all people get to review their lives after they die.
Her 'life review' may be difficult. They say you get to feel the pain of everyone you hurt by your actions, in your 'after - death ' life review. Maybe she will change her mind about if it was 'worth it'.
No, alas, and besides, you are too kind.
I have tried to make the case that the people of the world have to ask their governments to promise to never engage in violence, that is, wars of aggression, defense being justifiable. This request will never be made: it appears people, and the governments they represent, want to keep the violent option open. Nuclear arms, along with a 'first strike' option, are the most powerful expression of this idea. So be it.
Quotes from Goodreads/Violence
“A weapon does not decide whether or not to kill. A weapon is a manifestation of a decision that has already been made.”
? Steven Galloway, The Cellist of Sarajevo
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
? Voltaire
For a nation to avoid violent invasion, it seems it has to have either the capacity to defend itself, through alliances or weapons, or the diplomacy to prevent invasion.
As Orwell pointed out:
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
? George Orwell
An peace agreement when defeat seems inevitable is an option that seems the wisest, however that is for the people of that nation (only) to decide without outside pressure, but that is the world.
Many great minds have addressed the question of violence. (from Goodreads/violence)
“I believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in anything you believe is evil.”
? Albert Einstein
“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”
? Mahatma Gandhi, The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas
I think all socially directed violence is illegitimate. Only personal self-defence is legitimate. Whenever someone decides for others to go forth elsewhere and fight to the death, whatever the reason, it is ethically wrong whether we label that war a just war or not.
We're not made for this, and I mean that in a very real biological and mental sense, to serve large abstracted entities called states with weapons that can flatten cities. We're supposed to throw a stone or two and maybe accidentally kill someone with a an unlucky strike. Everything more than that is just the horror of civilisation combined the failure of imagination to feel empathy for nations and its people because it's too far removed from ourselves and a system that enables sociopaths to rise to the top.
“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”
? Howard Zinn
I don't know if you wanted an answer from me or if my name was invoked rather as a hyperbolic (I even agree with Isaac!), but notwithstanding...
I'm broadly in agreement with @StreetlightX's analysis, so I won't repeat it. I will add that part of the reason I think this analysis works is because there reaches a point in societal responses (war, protest, revolution) where an ethical analysis simply ceases to be useful. It's not that the players don't have any ethical choices (they do, clearly) but that those choices are so constrained by material circumstances that analysing events using them is like adding the light of a single candle to the 1000W spotlight that a systemic analysis can provide.
That a few saints might come up with some genius method of passive resistance, or that a few devils will relish the chance to play Star Wars but with real guns, is irrelevant compared to the mass who didn't think they really had much of a choice (whether they actually did or not, being again, besides the point).
Something like invasion, or some of the stronger forms of oppression (apartheid springs to mind) are such gross infractions against our humanity that it would be perverse to expect any reasoned ethical choice to be made as to how to respond from those suffering from it, hence the legitimacy of any response seeming something of a pointless post hoc exercise.
Yeah, I mean, those primitive people over there have no agency of their own, do they? They are nothing but pawns of the powerful. They couldn't have risen up against a corrupt and oppressive regime without Nulland engineering the whole thing. They wouldn't even dream of resisting an invasion by a force that threatens their existence as a people without great powers "convincing" them to fight.
It's not about agency, it's about power. Ukrainians could have all the agency in the world. They can't will a thousand Javelins, no less a billion dollars, into existence. Unless you're really subsumed by some kind of David and Goliath fairy tale version of warfare, Ukraine lacked the power to resist Russia, not the agency. The US (or anyone else) cannot lend power, it wields it, and so it is their agency in wielding that power that dominates the narrative.
What peaceful options did he have anyway? The US - Ukraine agreement stated in no uncertain terms that their goal was to 're-unify' Ukraine, that is, re-integrate Crimea.
No, he's genuinely being pro-Putin. Did you read through the his quotes that I gave? Likely not.
Neither @Isaac or @StreetlightX or anybody else is saying such obvious pro-Putin arguments and willing to carve up Ukraine. Nobody else promotes such nonsensical views.
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-only-agency-ukraine-has-is-the?s=r
:smile:
Just to clarify, lest I'm absolved of guilt unfairly - I have supported 'carving up' Ukraine. I think an independent Donbass and a Russian Crimea are perfectly sensible solutions. I don't give a fuck whose flag flies over the government buildings and I'm not so naive to think that life in Russian Crimea is going to be materially so much worse that it's worth another ten thousand dead bodies to avoid it. We have as much chance of making Russia a more democratic and prosperous place for its people as we have of keeping a Putin-lead Russia out of Ukraine permanently. Give Russia the Crimea, stop the war, then overthrow Putin (and the like) so that it doesn't matter one jot what colour the passports are.
Of the two barriers to either strategy (improve Russia or militarily keep them out of Crimea), I can't see any compelling reason to think the latter is somehow the obvious, easier option. The last 20 years of failure in either cause would not seem to raise either one above the other.
Objection to 'carving up' Ukraine is misplaced, as if 'Sovereignty' were some kind of measure of human flourishing above all other, like if we all kept to our borders, everything else would be fine. The border between Ukraine and Russia is not the issue, the abject poverty, powerlessness and immiseration of the people on either side of it is.
Bravo.
But as you so well put it, this is the thinking of many here.
Here the agency comes into view so well when you compare the fight the Ukrainian armed forces are putting up and the fight the Afghan Natioanal Army put up against the Taleban. I think it would be good to compare Zelensky and his actions to Ashraf Ghani to his. Ghani, who left as a young boy Afghanistan, went into an American high school and continued to Berkeley, then made a stellar career in international organizations like the World Bank. And then fled Afghanistan with presumably a large fortune.
Talk about agency. And real puppet regimes.
And how well you know these independent states of Luhansk and Donetsk?
Unfortunately for the Ukrainians, neither your nor your nor @SophistiCat's taking offence at the suggestion changes the facts on the ground. People are not given agency because you're offended by the suggestion they don't have it.
Quoting ssu
My knowledge of them is irrelevant. Even if we assume that life in 'independence' would be worse for the people there (a significant assumption), the fact remains that two options are open to us to do something about that
1. Keep fighting wars to keep them under the control of the (marginally) better government.
2. Keep fighting revolutions to make it not matter what government they are under the control of.
The latter has the advantage of freeing millions more from misery and you've presented little by way of clear evidence that the former is somehow so much easier as to commend on the grounds of achievability alone.
:up:
An intercepted phone call recording was released by Ukraine’s Security Service late yesterday, indicating total disarray on the Russian side in this area.
Ukrainians have agency alright. The Russians, not so much. An army of slaves.
So what? A guy says something and?
Yet you have firm convictions about them being perfectly sensible solutions.
Your buddies are taking a beating, me think.
Yes. I'm firmly convinced of the fact that no minor fact of geographical or cultural heterodoxy will have any impact on the logical existence of two options, nor the global facts about which are better/more achievable.
When Russia invaded, did you caution our condemnation? Did you say "hang on, unless we have intimate geographical knowledge of this area we can't be sure bombing the fuck out of them is a bad thing".
If you have a point, make it. What local knowledge changes the options as I've presented them?
I was referring to your conclusions, not your evidence. We're all just 'some guy'. The entire point of this forum is that we respond in some reasoned manner to the things that 'some other guy' says.
Dismissing them on the grounds that they're just 'some guy' renders the entire format redundant.
We have a few guillotines left, we could lend them to the Brits if they seriously want to get rid of their kings and queens.
But why would anyone post the opinion of other person than himself, of some random dude out there? Yuliy Dubovyk is welcome here if he wants to contribute.
Yes, they seem to try to encircle the Russian forces. This I think could be the first major operation as the counterattacks before have been tactical ones. But seems like at least for a while, the push towards Kyiv by the Russian forces has halted and they are on the defensive.
Anatoly Tsubais resigned and seems he has left the country. Had lasted there since Yeltsin times.
After Putin's stadium performance, flags dumped into garbage. Sometimes a picture tells a lot, actually.
In this day and age? Like people cheering the destruction of twin towers which never happened. I don't trust images especially if they're unsourced and don't quite understand why you would.
Imagine thinking the Russians in that photo lack agency! They can't just decide for themselves that they like Putin's agenda. No, you have to go and assume they must be manipulated by some greater power, tsk! Shame on you!
But one should notice that Putin's Russia is authoritarian, and spontaneity is usually controlled "spontaneity". Letting people to be spontaneous is not the correct way in Russia.
And of course those who are against the "special military operation" and even say it would be a war, can face jailtime.
Of course. I'd agree it's likely, but the probability of it being fake isn't zero. And even if it's simply thoughtlessness of those who cleaned up the stadium, it still shows that in an authoritarian system you cannot be sure just how original or astro-turf public support is.
I don't object to your assessment of Russia. I object to your assessment of Ukraine.
This need to polemicise is at the heart of the problem. Russia is no North Korea and Ukraine is not Utopia. It's not that citizens in Russia are controlled like robots, nor is it that Ukrainians are somehow immune to the US's billions. Influence doesn't only take the form of a Stazi with a cosh. And even then, Ukraine is not lacking in coshes.
As I've already shown, by every metric issued, by authorities such as the UN and the World Bank (with no love of Russia), Ukraine and Russia are simply not that far apart in indices of human freedom. You can post all the images you like, but I'll take the United Nations report over your photos.
In a documentary of the Russo-Georgian war these's footage of the 58th Army commander doing exactly this: before the drive to South Ossetia, a the general spoke a huge crowd of various officers and soldiers just how the lead formations will move Tskhinvali.
Really concise analysis a historian, well, or so he calls himself ... history will be the judge of that.
At the end of the video, he mentions -- as @Benkei has already -- that more evidence of context is required to assert war crimes especially if the only evidence we have access so far is provided by one side, and, even more intellectually honest, that we can also argue war crimes by the Ukrainians ... with their own material.
That it's a poor corrupt country where the people have been long angry about their ruling politicians? That even those who have promised them change have disappointed too?
If there's something I have tried to point out, is that when the leader who starts a war against a country says the "country is artificial", there's not much appeasement that the country could have taken to avoid the war. Surrendering would have only enforced the idea of Ukrainians being "lesser-Russians" or "little-Russians". NATO expansion wasn't the only reason for this war. And since Ukraine has a lot of problems, it would have been in my view very easy for Russia to keep Ukraine out of NATO. After all, Russia got all those US bases closed in Central Asia (that now the US desperately would want to have) without invading them.
No-one has pointed out the obvious, no matter what side you are on, that out of thousands of flags given out, there are maybe what fifteen, poked into what looks like a trash can. Protesters? Patriots who don't respect the flag? What are they supposed to do, burn them?
The conclusion that we are asked to draw, that President Putin is not supported widely, and that he forces people to his meetings, that conclusion is not support.
It is an interesting propaganda piece, though.
Yes (insofar as any such description was in word only - not forming part of any conclusion). If you agree that Ukraine is no picnic and Russia not a totalitarian dystopia (yet) then why do you consider it worth thousands of lives to ensure Crimea is ruled by the former and not the latter?
Quoting ssu
Yes, and yet without a shred of evidence. Leaders lie all the time, the employ jingoistic rhetoric, they whip up a crowd. Taking a few soundbites and saying "well there's not much point in suing for peace, we might as well all die on the battlefield" is monumental stupidity. What Putin says in front of a crowd and what he's prepared to offer at negotiation are as night and day.
Quoting ssu
Not to the millions of Ukrainians who support more integration with Russia. not to mention the millions more who wouldn't give a shit about being considered "Little Russians" if it meant their sons and daughters were not killed in war.
There is a difference between a necessary and sufficient condition. It is simply a matter of reasoning. The coup in Ukraine could have happened with or without foreign interference, and it could have been a success or a failure. Ukraine could resist invasion with or without outside help. So what is your point?
And for the record, I support President Putin, and President Zelensky. Do I support their actions? No. But then I do not have their Intelligence. Do I support their aims for their people? Yes.
Millions of Russians don't want to die for Donbas either, but you don't seem to care for their lives so much.
Wtf? What have I said that could possibly lead to that conclusion?
(Just on the practical side here, might come back to the more philosophical point about violence later.)
My understanding from what I've read is that Putin won't agree to a ceasefire until he's negotiating from a position of strength, which he hasn't yet achieved. One metric for achieving that would be to cut the Ukranian forces off from the sea. Another, would be to take some of the major cities. If that is true and the Ukranians are provided with more weapons and encouraged not to back down to Russian demands where does that leave us?
It seems to me the worst case scenario for Ukraine is a continued war of attrition that they're not losing quickly but can't win either and lose slowly until Putin achieves his military position of strength. And so they continue fighting while their cities are reduced to rubble; their citizens lose access to food, water and electricity; civilian casualties mount; and the cost of reconstruction both in terms of time and money skyrockets. And seeing as NATO has explicitly ruled out intervening militarily, which of the following do you think is the more likely outcome?
A) Ukraine eventually decides the cost is too much and gives in?
If this is the case, continuing to fight was most likely not in their interests.
B) Putin eventually decides the cost is too much and gives in?
If this is the case, continuing to fight may have been in their interests if they can achieve a better long-term negotiated solution than they would have if they had not continued to fight.
Considering the Kremlin's stated aim (as per a recent TV interview) is to "destroy the anti-Russia the West has created on its borders" how likely is it that the continued destruction of Ukraine over the next few months would be more of a problem for Putin than Ukraine itself to the extent that Putin would risk appearing weak and backing down to stop it happening? And considering Putin has Germany by the balls re oil and gas, how likely do you think threats of further economic sanctions are going to sway him?
My first instinct is to want to support Ukraine in every possible way against Russia, but, ultimately, the only effective support would be direct military NATO involvement, which I'm against due to the risk of a wider war. So, my cold assessment is that the Ukranians are in an impossible situation and at some point will be forced to acquiesce to all or most of Russian demands.
To @SophistiCat @ssu Is the difference between us here anything other than differing assessments of likely outcomes? I presume you would not support the continuation of a pointless war of attrition, the only appreciable result of which is greatly increased levels of suffering among the most vulnerable in Ukraine?
Lastly, it bothers me that NATO countries are likely aware of the above calculus and as intimated early may be delibarately extending the war just to send Russia some kind of message. So, call me a surrender monkey if you will, but the prospect of NATO fighting Russia by proxy to the last drop of Ukranian blood is something that I will never get on board with and will never feel guilty about not getting on board with.
Yes, I think the danger is our media leading us to believe it's all going terribly for Putin and he's out of options blah blah blah. Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to get pummelled, 90% of Russia's forces there are intact and regathering for a new offensive, and Putin has plenty more threats he can use to scare the shit out of us.
I'm not speaking to Russian soldiers. Nor am I speaking to Ukrainians. I'm speaking (mostly) to Europeans, Americans and Scandinavians. So why would I use my posts to encourage Russians to surrender?
The people I'm speaking to (you lot) are encouraging continued Ukrainian resistance (and continued Western arms supply). I think that will lead to more innocent deaths for no (or minimal) gain, so I oppose it.
If a Russian soldier posted something along the lines of "we should keep fighting to rid Ukraine of those Nazis" I would oppose that too, but since there's been no such post, there's no cause for me to write such a response.
I'm not in the habit of simply announcing to the world things I believe to be the case (as though anyone cared). I respond to what is posted. I presume that's what the posters want me to do, or else why post?
I think it would be here important for you to see the sea-change what has happened in Ukraine, even before this invasion. As I've said earlier, before 2014 Vladimir Putin was very respected and popular politician in Ukraine. Afterwards not. Russia tried to instill insurrection in 8 regions and was successful in two (Donetsk and Luhansk). Now after this large scale invasion, I don't think there's much enthusiasm to join Russia. That's the funny thing when you start invading countries ,annexing territories and bombing people.
And perhaps you should notice that while Donetsk and Luhansk what the UN or Human Rights Watch have explained of these now "independent" Republics is telling.
From an UN report (from Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) in 2016:
These new republics have shown the worrying signs of how it will be in the Putin controlled Ukraine.
Ok, so you think the Russians can't be beaten.
Just watch.
I don't see how that analysis makes any difference. I'm not painting those republics as utopia so you providing data showing they're not is irrelevant, and of course, a Russian invasion is going to turn people against Russia, but we're not (I hope) advising long-term policy be based on short-term hatreds for the actions of an obviously isolated dictator.
The point I made earlier still stands. There are two ways to solve the problems you highlight.
1. Fight a war to ensure they're under the control of a (marginally) better government
2. Fight a revolution to ensure it doesn't matter whose government they're under the control of
If we can beat Russia in war, I don't see any reason why we can't bring about internal change any less easily.
https://www.rferl.org/a/death-toll-up-to-13-000-in-ukraine-conflict-says-un-rights-office/29791647.html
How many more are you prepared to reach while we "watch"?
beat me to it.
Hard to tell. Likely at least Putin will declare it a huge victory in any case and the objectives he had have been gloriously met by the victorious Russian army.
And Ukraine can declare...that they survived.
Quoting Baden
No. But this is the scariest outcome. From the realpolitik view, an option is for the West to keep Russia bleeding in Ukraine. At least then it isn't threatening other countries. Luckily there is the agency of Ukraine: they are the ones fighting and material support doesn't mean anything if there isn't the will to fight (as seen in the rapid collapse of Afghanistan). If Ukraine agrees on halting the war either from their offer or from an offer Putin has made, nobody else can say something about it.
For a historical example: just look how long it took Iran and Iraq finally to stop the war, even if the Iraqi primary assault was halted quickly.
Then why...
Quoting Olivier5
...?
Quoting Benkei
Putin has surely his limitations on what he can do. Don't think otherwise.
Quoting ssu
I can't do anything with this. What limitations? Why? What would stop Putin from shooting a 1 MT tactical nuke into Kiev or Mariupol if he can't do it by conventional means? You think NATO or the US will all of sudden get involved?
Every party has limitations but who do you think will take more pain before folding? Putin or the West? Who do you think is the tougher and more instransigent party when push comes to shove, Russians or Western Europeans? Who do you think is more likely to effectively tell their politicians "Too much! Make it stop!" when their pocketbook gets hurt more and more by spiralling inflation? Western Europeans or Russians? Who do you think is more scared of military escalation? The Western European public may support continued war now when there appears to be little or no cost to them. Just wait until that changes as the economic and security stakes rocket. I don't believe we're built for a confrontation with Putin and I don't believe he doesn't know that.
Pride, I think. Doing so would be to accept that he lost the regular fight. Perhaps he's got some decency left, also.
He could easily set up a false flag chemical weapons attack on his troops and use that as an excuse>Pride solved. As for decency, don't make me fucking laugh.
We're not built for it but neither is he. Putin is weaker than he thinks. If his army can't subdue Ukraine, it can't defeat Belgium. His regime cannot survive critiques, but ours can.
He is still a human being.
Well said, I am very much in agreement with you. Since I am not taking sides, or wish both sides well, it is very clear to see one-upmanship by supporters of one side or the other. "Think they can't be beaten? Think again" I am fine with Russia being 'beaten' after all they are the invader and the outcome of a war had to be accepted. President Putin knows that.
There are two other points that I don't see anyone mentioning. Firstly, Zelenskyy talks about 'giving us more time' and 'Maybe by April - reach a deal'. Why the wait? Could it be he is waiting for the de-militarization to happen, and the de-Nazification to happen so that he has an exit path where he can survive politically and otherwise?
Here is a thought, and where Madeleine Albright is sorely missed: why not NATO strike a deal with both parties behind the scenes: supply arms to Ukraine so there is an excuse for the delay in 'Russia's advance' and then provide the gps coordinates of the lets say persons of interest that will be a problem to both Zelenskyy and Putin as well as military hardware that anyway the the West will only be too happy to replace : for a price.
This is cold-blooded in the extreme, and treasonous but that never stopped anyone before. It surely is a 'diplomatic' option for NATO, and a win win situation for all except the Neo Nazis that everyone dislikes.
How is that a good thing?
Any fool knows that 1 nuclear strike is enough to black mark that nation for ever. They will be attacking Russians in the streets. Not an option. Wait till the pictures of irradiated babies comes over the lines.
No one is that stupid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
What? You really will drag up anything to avoid just having to concede won't you? Now Putin won't escalate because of his world-renowned decency? A minute ago we had to fight to the death because he was an incorrigible monster, now we're saved because he's too decent to use tactical nukes?
Suggest stopping the war by negotiation? - "Putin's a monster, you can't negotiate with him"
Suggest stopping the war lest it escalate? - "Putin's a decent guy, he won't escalate"
Anything, anything to just keep the war going...
His spokeperson said yesterday that they will use nukes only in case of existential threat. He didn't mention failing to take Kyiv as an existential threat.
You can call Putin a banana for all I care if you can explain to me how this war can be ended without conceding to at least some of the Russian demands.
So, they can make one up. Again, I don't expect it to come to that but they know which buttons to push in more ways than one.
Learn to read. I said: PERHAPS he's got SOME decency left. Do you need an English course from me?
He also said he was carrying out a 'special operation' to denazify Ukraine. You believe that?
And that makes a difference to the argument how?
Or is that too logical?
Extraordinary! :clap:
I was talking about the future, not now. Is that too logical?
Quoting Baden
No, they won't get involved. And basically he doesn't need to use a strategic ballistic missiles. A tactical nuke will scare enough people, yet that happening has a very low probability.
Because... then what?
You think Russians would be fine with that? Ukrainians, who before were brotherly people now against are used nuclear weapons... because Russia had them? The time when nuclear weapons were just weapons with large firepower was in the thinking of American generals in the late 1940's.
You think China will be totally OK with Russia using nukes at Ukraine? I don't think so.
I see. Another poster who needs an English course.
We normally use WILL to speak about the future. It is always combined with another verb.
Examples of Will:
I will go to the cinema tonight.
He will play tennis tomorrow.
The Kremlin spokeman said they will not use tactical nukes in Ukraine.
But earlier you said...
Quoting ssu
...and...
Quoting ssu
Now you're arguing he won't use nukes because it's not a strategically smart move.
It seems Putin swings from the empire obsessed isolated autocratic to the savvy, popularity-aware diplomat as and when it suits your argument.
Apparently the same applies to Valery Gerasimov, Chief of Staff... Neither of them have been seen in public for nearly two weeks. Maybe there's a epidemic of heart diseases in the Russian top brass.
Weather today cloudy with some sunny intervals. Highs of 12 degrees.
I taught academic English for over ten years. But I won't have to dig very far into that experience to clear this one up.
Quoting Olivier5
Your use of will above pertains to a present message of intention. My hypothetical concerned a future message of intention. I used the 'first conditional' to express this hypothetical.
Quoting Baden
The essence of the structure here is:
[If that is what it takes][clause 1]...[he will make us think (he will use nukes)] [clause 2]
"We use the first conditional when we talk about future situations we believe are real or possible."
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/grammar/intermediate-to-upper-intermediate/conditionals-1
So, whether or not Russia is currently sending the message it might use nukes doesn't abrogate the possibility that it will send that message in the future. I mean Russia also assured NATO and the rest of the world the whole idea it was going to invade Ukraine was preposterous, didn't it? What basis do you have for the idea that because Russia isn't currently threatening to use nukes, it won't do so?
Ah yes this comes up. Who were on the 'nuclear bombers' side? Most of the world, including countries that were cruelly invaded. This time 'our' side is the victim. The whole world was against Japan, even Russia and China. China will not damage its reputation by siding with a nuclear attacker.
Any nuclear attack should be met with immediate ceasefire offers to prevent escalation. World opinion and isolation will kill the attacker. Not to mention unfettered and global insurgencies targeting that nations assets. All moral standing would be lost. That is according to my thinking.
Don't forget that during the Cuban Missile crisis Kennedy's generals were suggesting that he strike first.
Of course one could argue then that provocation leading to a nuclear attack would be the rational thing to do.
See also:
https://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?802613-How-to-Win-a-Nuclear-War-(According-to-Herman-Kahn)
Maybe there is a thread to discuss nuclear strategy.
Again, I'm not arguing they'll go through with it. Mostly because it would be a red line for China and India. But again, I expect scare tactics from Russia eventually if they don't get their way.
I propose to cross that bridge if and when we ever get to it.
As of now, lots of news outlets in the West want you to be very afraid of the Kremlin 'madman' and want you to think that he's going to use nukes, chemical weapons, biological weapons etc. These are good headlines for media businesses.
And maybe, indeed, at some point Mr Putin will try and scare folks by making them think he's crazy. But i don't think so. To threaten nukes on Ukraine is to look weak, not strong.
Yes, that is an apposite quote. Is it true? If it is true today, must it always be so?
Those men on the wall, is what they are doing noble? As members of the non-fighting caste, we are inclined to engage in nuanced, systemic analysis of the role of the fighting caste, but many of them are not so inclined. Many people in uniform actually believe what we might dismiss as propaganda.
The "not built for this" issue has another side. Whether people wear the uniform and take up arms willingly, even eagerly, they will pay a price. I think we ask more of soldiers and police officers than should be asked of any human being. It is not only a question of the harm they might do, which is considerable, but of the harm to them.
Quoting SophistiCat
(Just to be clear: I put "powerless" in quotes in my first sentence and called this "a can of worms" for a reason.)
My gut reaction is to feel a sort of pride and wonder at Ukrainian willingness to fight: they are the underdog; the aggressor is autocratic while they are at least trying to be democratic; and, since the war has a great and obvious material cost, it is fought not for material gain but for ideas, for feelings -- country, family, neighbor, home. @Benkei says we should never send anyone else to fight for abstractions, but to be willing oneself to fight for, if not abstractions exactly, non-material goods seems noble, so long as what you're fighting for is worth it. (Keeping in mind the myth of the lost cause, which is still powerful in my part of the world.)
Quoting Isaac
Like Leymah Gbowee?
Quoting Nobel site
Why the dismissive tone, Isaac? What if nonviolence works and violence doesn't?
There are so many layers here -- including @StreetlightX's interesting points about "legitimacy", which I'm sorta passing over only because it's the whole thing, and I precisely don't know what to say about the whole thing -- but I'm not sure I want to discount the ethical as you do. "It's up to you not to heed the call up," you know? We talk of dictators sometimes, but no dictator ever single-handedly terrorized a nation; there must be others willing to do his bidding. Any of the Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine could have refused, could have not joined the army in the first place. You can say that, if you're inclined, to mark them as morally culpable; but it's another way of saying that these people, as a group, if they acted as a group, if they acted in solidarity with those they are charged with doing violence upon, have more than enough power to make Putin irrelevant. He is not, himself, fighting a war in Ukraine.
But all of that just leads back to my questions. What are our options in a world with people willing to use violence? Here's a different problem: is it violence that we should be concerned with, or control? But is there genuine control that is not backed by the threat of violence?
Thanks @StreetlightX, @Benkei, @FreeEmotion, @Isaac for thoughtful responses all.
Quoting Baden
I can't contribute anything on the practical side. Even on the philosophical, all I can manage is asking some questions.
Who knows? Maybe it will end as the Afghan wars with the Soviet Union first and with the US later ended. But most importantly, since making concessions to Putin's demands will have strategic consequences for the economic and military security of all players around the world, and not just for Ukraine, one can not possibly think that what is at stake is just Putin's demands to end this war. As long as the Ukrainian feel like fighting against the Russian oppression, whoever might feel strategically threatened by Russia and the imperial ambitions of authoritarian regimes around the globe now or in the near future can not do other than side with the Ukrainians one way or the other, forced by the same logic that Putin claimed to justify his attack against Ukraine and fend off the putative threat of having the NATO at their doorstep. And BTW Russian representatives are not stopping to spread their military threats against the West beyond what's happening in Ukraine: they clearly want the world to take the Ukrainian case as an example of the Russian Superpower status and so influence whatever "new world order" may come with it.
Yes, exactly.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
If it does it does. I wasn't being dismissive of it as a method, more of its absence as a condemnation. I have the greatest respect for someone like Leymah Gbowee's methods, but I think it would be a mistake to suggest that no material circumstances allowed her that option, circumstances that may be denied to others. Again, this shouldn't be read as denying an ethical element, only in denying its usefulness when compared to an analysis of the material circumstances which propel some (not all) in the direction of violence.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yeah, indeed, and I'd cry out for them to do just that if I had the opportunity, but the more important question for us is why they didn't. If it was a moral failure, then why so many moral reprobates, what circumstances brought about such mass derogation? If the decision was too hard (for anyone) then we're back to material circumstances that way.
In essence, it comes down to this; if you can talk to that soldier, tell him he oughtn't fight in this war, listen to him tell you it's too hard, say he ought try harder...if, when he replies "but how?", you find you have an answer, then you have yourself a promising approach.
Me, I don't have an answer to that question.
I believe so. Do you know what it takes to shoot a human being dead much less bayonet him? An army officer once explained it to me. Looks like you have to leave your soul behind.
How US-NATO Illegal Bombing of Yugoslavia Undermined Rule of Law in the World 23 Years Ago
It was former US Secretary of State of Henry Kissinger who admitted in an interview with the UK Daily Telegraph on June 28, 1999: "The Rambouillet text, which called on Serbia to admit NATO troops throughout Yugoslavia, was a provocation, an excuse to start bombing."
https://sputniknews.com/20220324/how-us-nato-illegal-bombing-of-yugoslavia-undermined-rule-of-law-in-the-world-23-years-ago-1094157612.html
The Wikipedia article has no mention:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia
https://defence-blog.com/ukraine-conducts-successful-cruise-missile-launch/
Maybe there's a difference between having no choice and thinking you have no choice. (For some sorts of analysis, that difference won't show up at all.) What's needed then is what Seamus Heaney calls
(And you can safely assume he had the Troubles in mind when he said that.)
War is death and destruction on a massive scale carried out by people who would rather not be doing what they're doing.
On some readings, Putin believed he had no choice but to invade Ukraine. And then his army believed it had no choice but to do as he commanded. Perhaps earlier Ukraine believed it had no choice but to seek alliances to the west. And so it goes. We can point at any link in the chain of events and say, but you did have a choice, or say, it's understandable that you thought you had no choice, or both.
The material conditions, then, might come down to this: are the options more than theoretical? Can you come to believe that you do have real competing options, requiring a choice? I want to say that this is what you see with the most effective government programs, the most effective NGOs, that they make options real for people. That's true, of course, but it's not like those things fall from the sky; that's still just people. At some point, people have to create their own possibilities.
My oldest son recently read 1984 and reminded me (decades since I read it) that the state is not in fact all powerful -- it just makes people believe it is. And this is always the trick.
https://t.me/insiderUKR/26783
Here you can see a selection of announcements sent out to employees and college students, as well as calls for paid "extras".
(This is how "non-Slavic" people are often referred to in Russia, regardless of where they are actually from.)
This is a typical thing that happens before every government-organized "Puting" (as people call them - a play on "meeting," or rally).
Quoting ssu
Today the head of Ukrainian border guards issued a mock thank you to a Russian TV propagandist who unwittingly helped Ukrainian military locate and sink a Russian warship in the port of Berdyansk.
I don't see Ukrainians needing encouragement or persuasion - they are the ones doing all the persuading. And they are the ones doing all the fighting. So it is not for you to decide what is best for them, as if they were children who can't make responsible decisions about their own well-being. If they ask for help, you either give it to them or fuck off.
The Russian campaign is arguably already a total failure. According to sober estimates they've lost 15,000 troops, that is more than in their entire Afghanistan campaign, and failed to fully capture any city. The troops are demoralised and were it not for the Russian willingness to destroy civilian infrastructure with missiles they would be considered totally defeated already; they've had to practically destroy the only city (Mariopul) they've come near to capturing. As a consequence of all this, NATO and the United States are more united than ever, NATO has drawn up plans to bolster its defensive forces on all of their Eastern lines. Russia is almost totally isolated from the rest of the world save India and China and some other hold-outs. The Russian economy is contracting at a rate which is bound to ensure a domestic depression and a catastrophic diminution of living standards, erasing nearly all the gains made by economic liberalisation since the end of the USSR. In short, the whole adventure has been a catastrophic error of judgement which is going to end in disaster for the Russian government. So, I think you're backing the wrong horse.
Yes, I'm aware this is the Western propaganda line. You're literally parroting what we all read in Western newspapers every day. But apart from the fact their economy is contracting as would be expected you've presented no evidence for anything you've said.
Quoting Wayfarer
Ok, how? Tell me what you think is going to happen over the next few months and how Putin's strategic objectives will not be achieved. No one is arguing they won't be achieved at a cost, but if they are achieved, he's won the war. So, I'm not and have never said this was a good idea or is good for Russia economically; what I've said is I don't believe a prolonged war will deter Putin from pursuing and ultimately achieving at least most of what he set out to achieve. I expect he'll end up getting more than what he asked for before the war. And a real danger is the longer it goes on, the more he may demand.
Even some Western media outlets concede:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/russias-war-of-attrition-with-ukraine-where-nobody-wins.html
"...the conflict quickly risks becoming a “war of attrition,” analysts say — essentially, a prolonged struggle in which both sides seek to exhaust the opponent through the gradual loss of personnel, equipment and supplies.
“The war in Ukraine is likely heading towards a grinding war scenario — a stalemate phase during which both sides have limited ability to conduct offensive operations while the devastation and human suffering continues,” Andrius Tursa, Central and Eastern Europe advisor at Teneo Intelligence, said in a note this week.
What concerns me is a Lindy effect where the longer the war goes on the longer it's likely to go on. So, I'm not backing a horse; this isn't a competition between me and you over who gets to be right about who wins, it's a determination, from my point of view, about how further devastation in Ukraine can be minimized.
So, do a little analysis. Explain to me where you see this situation in three months time. Explain to me how Putin will be defeated and retreat from Ukraine without them acquiescing to his demands. What's the line of reasoning here. His soldiers will get demoralised and give up? He'll admit it was a whoopsie and back down? What?
:rofl: That's hilarious. I view the entire episode as a disaster, a fiasco, and historic mistake, and can only hope that it culimates in Putin's downfall in the shortest possible time. I don't want to entertain any other idea.
Quoting Baden
Hopefully with massive civil unrest in Russia culminating in the fall of Putin.
Not sure what's hilarious about giving me a Biden speech. But if you're happy with that and aren't willing to contribute anything beyond, ok.
Can you deal with my post, please and give your analysis. I never said the war was justified (in fact I said the opposite from the start) or wasn't a disaster in human terms. Read what I wrote and respond.
How long do you think Putin can continue losing thousands of soldiers a week and still stay in power? Russia quit Afghanistan, I can see them quitting here too.
Just saw your edit, and what? That's it. A [I]hope[/i] on the basis of no evidence with no probability assigned because you don't "want to entertain any other idea", i.e. facing reality might be too uncomfortable, so you'll just cheer on the death and destruction from your living room hoping it'll work out somehow. Well, gee, don't hurt yourself trying to be helpful.
The Russians haven't succeeded in occupying Ukraine. All they can do is pulverise it with missiles, which is a criminal act. If they drive most of the population out and destroy many of the cities, how does that amount to the achievement of anything?
When Hitler invaded Poland, he successfully over-ran and disarmed the country's army and replaced the government in a little over five weeks. I think that was Putin imagined Russia would do, but he's patently, obviously, plainly failed to do that. It's now become, as you say, 'a war of attrition', with troops dug in for the long haul, and meanwhile the Russian economy is in free fall.
I just don't understand how you can parse this as acheiving anything whatever.
Quoting Baden
There must be a very large number of Russians, many of them formerly wealthy, many of them with connections to Government, who are seeing their fortunes evaporate in front of their eyes. The young urban intelligentsia are fleeing in droves for neighbouring countries and the West. Putin is locked in an impenetrable fortress of delusion and will never be able to admit he was wrong, but hopefully it will be taken out of his hands. And the sooner the better. The whole thing is an unmitigated disaster.
Western propaganda>It's a complete disaster
Russian propaganda>It's all going to plan
Any non-idiotic impartial observer>Neither of those is true. They are both just propaganda.
Yes. After ten years.
Quoting Changeling
Nothing to do with me. But let's at least make sure our heads are not completely empty and admit we have propaganda too. Now having admitted that, what is it? What is our propaganda concerning the war? You tell me.
Yes, not you. You seem to be looking for some middle ground here - which is commendable. I've no idea what that ground looks like, though.
Lot of strawmen and red herrings there. It can be a disaster on some metrics for either or both parties. What's relevant to Putin are his strategic goals. My ideal scenario is the same as everyone else's here. That he loses tomorrow and goes home. But despite his difficulties, I've yet to see any evidence that he'll lose at all. But same challenge to you: "Let's at least make sure our heads are not completely empty and admit we have propaganda too. Now having admitted that, what is it? What is our propaganda concerning the war? You tell me."
OK, what military objectives has Russia achieved so far?
It depends on how you define that. I'm firmly on the side of the victims here, i.e. the Ukranians. I just have different ideas about how their long term interests might be served. A war of attrition would be low on my list.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/up-to-40000-russian-soldiers-killed-wounded-captured-or-mia-nato-says.html
That's in one month of fighting. Those are unsustainable losses. Maybe you think NATO is talking out their ass, but based on all the other reporting, Russia has lost gobs of men and material. Do you think they can sustain these kinds of losses indefinitely???
Propaganda: zealous speech to persuade. "Their propaganda is all lies, our propaganda is full of truth."
The overarching basic aims of the invasion are as follows.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56720589
"Russia is ... aiming for a neutral Ukraine. Russia may also seek to hold on to its territorial conquests - both Crimea in the south and in Ukraine's east."
They control the breakaway regions now and they've got Zelensky to say his country will never join NATO for a start.
:up: :up: :broken:
I for one believe the prevalent military analysis among experts, ie that this war is going very badly for both sides, while the expectation was that of a relatively easy take over from the Russians.
The dynamics can only turn worse for the latter now, the way I see it. If they haven't won by now, chances are they will never win. Russian troops cannot sit duck in defensive lines for long. A total breakdown of the Ukrainian forces could still happen I guess, but it's not happening... What seems to be happening is that long supply lines are easy targets for them. There is also a huge difference in troop morale between the two sides. The Russian army doesn't know why they fight. The Ukrainians do. It makes a difference.
Russia can seek and aim all it wants, but after a month of fighting all they have to show is control of some breakaway areas and Zelensky backpedalling on NATO, that's a military disaster. This is not where Russia wanted to be a month in.
I don't expect them to keep doing the same things. I expect them to adjust strategy to reduce their losses.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes, and no one has answered my question. Given we do propaganda too, obviously. What is it? If it's invisible to us, that's a problem.
It is absolutely heart-breaking.
If the enemy is getting mauled, the truth is its own propaganda. We don't need to make anything up. Russia has committed a catastrophic blunder, and it's obvious to the whole world. Why should we risk our credibility inventing stories when the truth is all anyone needs to hear?
You mean achieving aims, which it would have settled for before the war is a complete disaster for it and a victory for the Ukraine who now can't even stop the war by conceding what would have prevented the war in the first place? That's ridiculous. The big loser in terms of strategic outcome here is Ukraine. They'll probably never get the breakaway regions back and never get to join NATO and as a bonus have their country completely fucked up.
If our propaganda is utterly invisible to you and you think it's the 'truth' then you're just a tool. For a start, the spin that Russia is getting 'mauled' by Ukraine as if Ukraine are winning here rather than just holding out while suffering much greater losses, if you include non-combatants, is batshit crazy.
But are they really losing if they're fighting against another corrupt putin-puppet being in charge of their country?
I don't think anything would have prevented this war. Putin thought it would be a cakewalk, and the West was too dependent on his energy to do anything but mount token resistance.
If David drives off Goliath and suffers some broken bones in the process, who's the big loser of that fight?
We're not in a Bible movie. Discuss this like an adult or don't discuss it at all.
Like Wayfarer said, there aren't two sides to every story. Climate change is real, and the reality of the Holocaust is not "Western Propaganda". This is a disaster for Russia, from any perspective.
Jfc
Seriously? David (Ukraine) fights until the bigger country (Russia) cries uncle and leaves. Even if David breaks a couple arms (damage to Ukraine), who lost that fight?
Quoting Olivier5
The Ukrainians have the 'home court advantage' -- no small thing. There is more adrenaline to fight hard for one's own land than to ruin someone else's.
Having about 7% of the population displaced to other countries is also no small thing,
We're not discussing this on the same level. Take care.
Brave Westerners willing to fight to the Ukranians' last broken bone. :sad:
Ukraine is not going to emerge from this unscathed. Their losses will be considerable. But they have rich friends in their corner, and they're going to end up in the EU, if they hold Russia off. They'll be the darlings of the free world, if they pull it off. They'll be rebuilt.
Russia, on the other hand, is fucked. That's all there is to it. They miscalculated so badly on this. Even if they beat Ukraine into submission, the world will look at them as pariahs and their economy will sink down to something like Iran's.
Quoting Changeling
Russia hasn't demanded Zelensky step down and that a Putin puppet be installed as far as I know. But if you're fighting a losing battle then, yes, you are losing, obviously. The question is can they win and at what cost. I don't think they can beat Russia and I don't think reducing their country to rubble trying is worth it.
Yes, they can win. We've seen it happen before with this particular country bullying a smaller one: Afghanistan.
Yes, well, if Ukraine was 80% mountains it would be a little more difficult to get those tanks through.
The Russians lost 15,000 men in Afghanistan after years of fighting. They've lost 10,000+ in one month fighting Ukraine. Ukrainians don't seem to need mountains.
I don't know why you think it's so outlandish that Ukraine can hold Russia off, especially since it already happened in Afghansitan. We know this particular playbook.
There must be a lot of anger in those kids sent to die in an absurd war. Of course you could say all wars are absurd, but in their case, the nationalist ideology or worldview underlying the attack isn't even anything clear. I mean, you can disagree with Communism -- ir fascism -- but these were relatively clear, unambiguous ideoligies. Putin's megalomania has failed to translate into clear ideas. Some ideological amorphous marshmallow, some vague, faux-grandiose delirium mixed with paranoia doesn't a Trotsky or a Lenine make. Ideological marshmallows won't help the soldier much on the battlefield either.
This war is absurd and the guys fighting it knows it.
Plus all the internally displaced.
https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-24-22/index.html
Like I said, why bother with propaganda when you've got CNN reporting this stuff?
To say nothing of the current American induced famine over there right now.
A decade long war of attrition is fine apparently as long as Dave fucks over Golgoth or whatever.
Shhh, look, Dave shot big ship! Yay!
Similarly, the impression I get is some here get the same type of pleasure out of this they get out of rooting for the underdog at a football game and that's not something they want to give up. Tell you what guys, get your own asses down to Ukraine, do without food, clean water, and heat in the freezing cold while being fucking shot at and then tell us how you want this to go on and on until bad man Putin gives up.
Mariupol 3(!) days ago. Just a few broken bones. Just a David.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/24/how-russia-is-using-tactics-from-the-syrian-playbook-in-ukraine
“The important lesson from Syria is when military and political victory is their explicit ambition there is pretty much nothing that will cause them to stop except achieving that."
"The woman in labour stared out from the stretcher, as medics rushed her over a wasteland left by a Russian attack on a maternity hospital. In a different hospital and feeling her baby slipping away, she begged doctors: “Kill me now.” Hours later, both she and her child were dead.
The horror of the attack on a maternity hospital in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol stunned the world. But it was not the first time Russian bombs had fallen on women as they gave birth."
This is fine. Whatever it takes. Because hopefully Putin might be overthrown or something. Eventually.
When the whole country looks like that, the cheerleaders here might actually get bored and change their mind, moving on to the next shiny object to get their armchair kicks from.
Absolutely this. These people have been reared on underdog stories their whole life and now that they get a real, live one, oooh boy is it exciting and thrilling for them.
Maybe take a break from this for a little bit.
Thanks for the article. Sure is long, but contains some great quotes by Aldous Huxley
For the unhappy few who know the complicated truth about Kosovo, the words of Aldous Huxley seem most appropriate: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall drive you mad.”
What came down to us general populace was "Serbs were the bad guys".
I did some browsing to find the UN records - which have not been edited to prevent thought-crime - had to say about this. I rather trust the non-aligned parties views on the issue rather than the defense made by the perpetrators. The agreement is mentioned also in passing.
https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/kos%20SPV3988.pdf
I will go with that. Of course that applies to President Putin's actions as well, according to this much revered concept, although Russia did mention something about preventing genocide.
You missed out the possibility that certain forces felt that they had no choice but to provoke Russia into this military operation as they say, and keep fueling it.
It all depends on what your end game is. If you like starting wars and keeping them going, like a sort of international pyromaniac then that is what you will do. Helps clear the forest.
The Guardian uses tactics from the propaganda playbook: highlight a few horror stories from the war, to inflame public fury against the perpetrator of this unforgivable act. I don't recall any stories on other victims of war in other, less valuable places of the earth.
[quote=Talleyrand]You can do anything you like with bayonets, except sit on them.[/quote]
So, a sort of asymmetry or imbalance, if you will.
With Gorbachev and the wall/curtain coming down, all that, there were concerts, busses of young people going to Russia for friendship (I know some personally), a sort of fresh optimism was going 'round, "enough with all the :vomit: posturing, let's party and be friends".
If I were to have a vision for Russia, it might be a place where people wanted to go — no, not (necessarily) to escape Interpol. :) Say, with good accessible educational resources (for children, researchers), job and business opportunities, fair general safety and health support, reasonable freedom, increased trust, whatever, ... (came to mind while typing). But that seems different from Putin's vision for/of Russia, going by his actions at least. Authoritarianism, imposition, dreams of an empire, power, corruption, assassinations, ? posturing, stomping freedom, ... Not really a dream destination for a family.
Someone should put together a Putin versus Gandhi game, maybe like a board game or something. :) However much I admire the staunch pacifism, I'm guessing Gandhi would be Putin's laughing stock. :fire:
The Ukrainians aren't really pacifists (when invaded) as far as I can tell, despite faced by a heavy-duty ? ? :death: (and other arms) force.
Anyway, I can't tell if Zelenskyy has a vision for Ukraine in the sense above. Could Ukraine become a place where people wanted to go? If Putin and his are caught in a geo-political-cultural thing, then what of the Ukrainians? They don't seem inclined to Gandhian pacifism, nor "Putinism", though many are Russian-speakers.
Quoting Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov
Disgusting. Petkov :down: :sad:.
Not a whole lot sought refuge in Russia, by the way:
Refugees of the Syrian civil war (Wikipedia)
The big question is, are Russians Europeans?
As someone mentioned, and from my consumption of mainly English language based information, there seems to be a feudal hierarchy in the world. I was looking for a list, but I found a simple arrangement called the G7. These governments call the shots and want to continue to do so, because they are better than everyone else? I do not know. Certainly get that impression, in any dispute with another country, that country is automatically wrong. All empires are the same.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52885178
The G7 does not include some of the world's biggest economies, such as China, Brazil, and India.[/quote]
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/group-of-seven-g7-countries.html
I think it best to understand, sympathize, and work with the situation which is basically a worldwide military rule. For example, I wish no-one else gets expelled from the G-7.
I am sure the Romans of old looked down at everybody just because they had an empire. George W. Bush impressed me on the campaign trail by saying "Americans must be humble. We cannot tell the world what to do" . Then he got elected.
Not if they fight to the last man. I am more worried about President Zelenskyy's ambitions rather than of President Putin's.
Yes, I agree, but, of course, there's more to believing one has a choice than merely it being materially the case. I think a greater part of what makes people feel they have no choice is that scarcity itself constrains one's opportunities to explore something as esoteric as an analysis of the probability space.
To put it a bit more crudely; if one is having to expend considerable mental resources on securing one's food and board, one is less likely to be pushing the apparent boundaries of one's prison, self-made or otherwise. Not until such time as food and board* become the very problem in need of some boundary-testing solution.
*I mean food and board here somewhat figuratively, I'm not literally bringing everything down to material needs, only basic ones. In Many places it's literal physical safety.
To be clear, I'm not simply saying ordinary people often have no choice because of material constraints - I'm saying the mere existence of certain material constraints act themselves as a constraint on the assessment of choice even where there might actually have been a material choice in some given case.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I realise I didn't actually answer your question, though the answer you hint at is exactly the one I would agree with. It's about power ('control') not violence. MMA is violent. The violence we need to be concerned about is an abuse of a power imbalance, but such abuses need not always come in the form of violence and sometimes violence is the result not the means.
Then it is for 'you' to decide isn't it? Your last sentence literally entails a decision. It's that decision we're discussing. If some Ukrainians (they are not, as I keep having to repeat, some kind of homogenised entity, they are 40 million diverse people), if some Ukrainians ask for help in the form of military aid, then our governments (and us in our role as their mandate) have to decide whether it is in the best interests of humanity at large to give such aid. It is totally up to us to decide what's best for them, that's the nature of the power relationship. We have the weapons they need, so we must decide whether what they're asking for is in their (and other people's) best interests.
The alternative would be the utterly ludicrous suggestion that whatever a democratically elected leader decides is best for his country must automatically be best for that country - as if democratically elected leaders cannot possibly be wrong about that. Is that really the line you want to take? That Zelensky simply can't possibly be wrong?
Why would that be a big question? :brow: It's not.
, none, except maybe add a bit more context to 's grievances. (Is "Petty Petkov" a good nickname?)
That's easy. Putin and Russia, or basically the Russians can take magnitudes more pain before folding. At worst, once if they do fold, it could become even worse for them. Authoritarian regimes are like this: they can bend over backwards, clamp down on protests, look very strong and popular... until everything snaps. Democracies will have their political crisis far much earlier, which will make them less harmful. That may look to some people as weakness, but it isn't actually. And since the starting points are totally different, it's an interesting question. The Soviet Union looked eternal too...until it collapsed.
Quoting Baden
Don't underestimate yourself. Just in comparison, would you have thought Western people would fold so quickly in line with covid lock downs? Also, now it might look that West Europe is bound to have the energy ties to Russia. In one year it can be different.
Which might have happened, had liberalization been successful after the end of the USSR. But it manifestly was not, so having not been successful in the ‘market of ideas’ they can only try and win by bludgeoning other countries into submission and threatening nuclear armageddon. It’s a tragic situation.
This is possibly the most hilarious one of the last page, so I thought it worth re-iterating. If there were propaganda, from what source were you expecting it? "Who needs propaganda when we have CNN reporting the absolute truth".
Propaganda - as I explained to @Wayfarer in his last post, is as much about what you miss out as it is about what you say. People don't have to lie, they can simply shift your focus away from what they don't want you to know.
https://fair.org/home/how-much-less-newsworthy-are-civilians-in-other-conflicts/
Quoting RogueAI
Quoting Wayfarer
So guys... how do we spot one of these 'truisms'?
The former economic advisor to Putin, Illarionov, makes extremely good points and comments. Good comments for example about Mearsheimer and just how long Putin has been obsessed about Ukraine.
Quoting FreeEmotion
I'd also add that it's different for those in power. Vivek Chibber explained it quite well in an interview recently, so I'll borrow him...
Quoting Baden
Could you please stop lying, both of you? Nobody here is cheerleading anything. We just have different opinions than yours, that's all. No need to get all nasty and insulting. Go discuss the baldness of the kings of France somewhere, will you?
I'm reminded of when you cluelessly accused me of not knowing English. Anyway, what's nasty is referring to a war like it's a cliche scene from a movie, learning absolutely nothing about what's going on, refusing outright to engage in any critical thought whatsoever, and using that basis of pure ignorance to call for its continuation.
That was meant as a joke.
Quoting Baden
Don't be so hard on yourself.
If you don't like propaganda, don't lie. Otherwise what does that make you?
Nobody here is cheerleading anything. If you want to pretend we are, give proof. Use the quote function. A lie oft repeated is just another lie...
You can go down your high horse now.
First, do you know what 'cheerleading' means in this context? You don't have a good record on understanding what posters are saying. So, let me know what you think it means and if we've got that straight I'll give you a quote.
You really are a case, aren't you. Tell me, when you wrote that, what went through your mind? Did you think of all the nasty insulting things you've said on this thread and think "I expect no one will remember", or have you actually blocked them out of your mind now your narrative has changed?
Quoting Olivier5
Again. Do you not even recall my having to ask you to do exactly that? Is it just some kind of willful blindness, or just a wild gamble?
He was just joking, man. :lol:
Just read the David and Goliath stuff from the last page for a start. I'm not going to be your English instructor any more. Sorry, if that's nasty but you're an arrogant nasty little sod yourself when you want to be, aren't you?
Just stop lying. You don't need to. I am not cheerleading, you are not cheerleading, nobody is cheerleading. Okay?
For you, maybe. I'm quite happy with the claim and prepared to stand by it. For me, however, the point is very much the astonishing...
Quoting Olivier5
Your narcissism surpasses your contributions as a subject of interest by some margin.
I never claimed you were cheerleading, @RogueAI was though in my view. Again, read the last few pages. And my objection is that this is an attitude that is easy to take when you're not in the firing line. I'm not even married to the word. Whatever word you like to apply to a trivialized show of support from the sidelines that displays an absolute ignorance for the effects of continued war on the victims. Also, I don't particularly enjoy taking the gloves off here, I can go back to being nice but I do want to call out in the strongest possible terms that kind of behaviour, because it's the type of thing you'd probably usually get a pat on the back on.
Quoting https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/cheerleading
And its use in context...
https://www.eurointelligence.com/column/the-cheerleading-has-to-stop
Alright, that's welcome. Who then do you accuse of 'cheerleading'?
It is high time we have this conversation. If you do a search, the term 'cheerlead' appears 41 times, and the gerond 'cheerleading' 40 times in this thread. That's a whole lot. Now do explain who cheerleads whom where, with quotes. Or just drop the accusation.
We seldom find ourselves in the firing line, yet we do comment on the events that happen around the World.
(Although it's sign of the times that many volunteers are going to Ukraine to fight. Similar things happened in the Spanish Civil War and even few came to the Winter War. And no doubt there are also Syrians that support the Russians being there to help the Assad regime and will go to fight in Ukraine for Russia for a decent salary.)
Of course if there would be Ukrainians participating in this forum, I think they would find many comments insulting.
So the charge is that we have strong opinions? Meh...
I've read them. People are entitled to an opinion, especially when they present facts buttressing them, as @RogueAI did.
'Propaganda' is another misunderstood word. Just using the passive voice can make the perpetrator disappear. '10 children died in Iraq today' v 'Russia bombed a school killing 10 children today'. Fascinates me it's so effective though that I still haven't managed to get our American friends to find one example of it in anything they've read about this war.
Goalposts shifted. Yes, people are entitled to an opinion and people are entitled to opinions about opinions. It's opinions, goalposts, and cheerleaders all the way down, isn't it?
And it behoves us then as passive observers to put some effort in, no? Some critical thought? I know you do. Anyhow, that's the crux for me.
A real danger? You keep asking for evidences (which already seems to clash with the idea that we are living in a news environment poisoned by propaganda from any side) what evidences do you have to support the idea that the longer it goes on, the more Putin may demand? I think we have more evidences to the contrary. Indeed he wanted to denazify Ukraine in the first place , which also implied a regime change, along with having Ukraine forever outside Nato, securing Crimea annexation, and keeping the independents Ukrainian regions independent. Now he is not talking of denazification or regime change on the negotiation table.
Quoting Isaac
I’m wondering if we should not think of 40M Ukrainians to be some kind of homogenised entity, all the more it’s true for ~8 billion of currently living people that constitute (still in small part) humanity at large, what makes you think we are even capable to decide what it is in the best interests of humanity at large?! In any case your dialectic approach looks to me deeply flawed mainly for the following reasons: you as many other contributors here want to keep the privileged moral position to denounce ("critically think" about) the hypocrisies of the West, its propaganda machine and showcase your pity for the Ukrainian population’s fate while accusing your opponents of “cheerleading” the Ukrainians against the Russians (and this position indeed is not a strategic stand wrt a geopolitical power struggle), and then expect from your opponents a rational and detached strategic analysis (assuming anybody here is as competent and reliably informed as strategic analysts who shape our government’s choices are) based on evidences which you may claim are compromised by propaganda if coming from western mainstream media, to understand Putin’s aggression of Ukraine, Putin’s demands and the likely evolution of this war to convince you that the best options for Ukrainians or “some” Ukrainians (and not humanity at large) is to accept Putin’s demands as soon as possible to end this war (which I doubt it’s a strategic objective for the Ukrainians or “some” Ukrainians or other indirectly involved parties who support Ukrainians).
One fact is that nobody here is cheerleading -- whatever you mean by that, which remains to be seen -- and that this charge has been levelled unfairly in a facile rhetorical manner. That is a fact. At least in my book.
Another fact is that the reporting coming from certain western and other channels is of high quality. There's some topnotch journalism being done, including by Al Jazeera, or Indian media if you don't like CNN. Of course there are huge data /field access limitations and filters, but these too are being analysed and reflected upon in the best news source. Free press is one of the (many) reasons why democracy is ultimately superior to autocracy, at least on the long run. And that's where I object to a facile and false symmetry between power structures, 'oh it's all propaganda' style. There's a difference between free press and propaganda.
It makes a change from 'mad' and 'idiotic', but it's not an improvement. When I was in primary school the insult of choice was 'spastic'. Ah, the good old days.
As to propaganda: the idea that anyone will win is propaganda. Everyone will lose on both sides, because that's what a war of attrition is, the last man standing takes possession of the smoking ruins.
You're all spastics!
Amen. The problem is how far the ruins will go.
As long as the Russian army is fighting in Ukraine, there are few Russian soldiers on our border and near my summerplace (which is on the border). :smile:
The problem is this is simply not true.
There is zero fighting happening on Russian soil and, except for NATO using nuclear weapons (we we shouldn't "want"), zero way for Ukrainians to win militarily.
Military campaigns should have an achievable military objective.
Now, had Ukraine "put up a fight" and then accepted the peace terms offered, that was clearly the minimum Russia would accept (and far away from just taking over the whole country, which obviously they would have done if Ukraine just surrendered immediately), then that's a reasonable military action.
However, there's simply no way to fight Russia to lower peace terms, and, after rejecting the lowest they would be willing to accept, then Russia will be demanding more and more to compensate the cost of continued fighting ... and, unfortunately, the logic quickly becomes that, due to all the bad press from the West spinning Russia is losing by winning somehow, a decisive military victory is needed.
When Western generals lambast the Russians on TV for not using their overwhelming fire power, rather than pointing out the obvious the low-intensity of the first phases of the war were for laudable moral / political reasons ... what does Russia say? Russian generals answer "well, I'll show you high intensity warfare if that's what you want".
Western media goes on and on about how Russia hasn't achieved total air superiority, but then fails to mention Russia is doing 300 bombing sorties a day.
Not achieving immediate total air superiority is also a completely ludicrous criticism. US achieves this fighting irregular forces with ... zero air power and defence whatsoever.
However, US lost a F-117 in Yugoslavia, because any military more sophisticated than the Taliban and ISIS can keep SAM sites hidden and moving around and turn them on for very short engagements to fire a missile. SAM systems are not all on, all the time and you can just go and blow them up.
In addition, Ukraine has CIA intelligence and NATO weapons and training, so the idea of measuring military progress compared with fighting the Taliban, which is basically the Western media uses as a metric, is just crazy.
Of course, if you're saying Russians will also lose "morally" and also lose troops and equipment as well as economically, I agree. Russian people won't be better off due to this war. However, they definitely can win militarily whereas Ukraine has no pathway to victory, and continued fighting, since passing up the minimum offer, simply causes more harm and will result in worse conditions for peace.
And the logic is now completely contradictory: we're told that Russians are losing and getting a spanking and are so incompetent, but also if Ukraine doesn't fight to the last man, fight the Russians in Ukraine rather than in NATO ... the Russia is going to just steam roll into Poland?
How does that even make sense?
... yeah ... true, but that just means Russia's only option to deal make their point of Finland not joining NATO is with nuclear weapons.
I don't feel all that safer about the fact Russian soldiers are tied up in Ukraine and NATO is escalating tensions ... with the explicit goal to bleed the Russians and collapse the Russian state, which Russia has said it would use Nuclear weapons in that exact scenario NATO desires.
None of the retired generals or NATO officials or NATO heads of state explain to us how giving Ukrainians weapons will lead to their deliverance from the war, Russia's aggression, or any positive outcome for the Ukrainians at at all.
They just praise their bravery and are literally giddy about bleeding the Russians and "giving Russia their Afghanistan".
It makes "social media sense" only because Zelenskyy makes speeches that tap into Western victory nostalgia, and asks for weapons ... so of course we'll give him weapons, he's just so cute.
However, the only plan I can tell Zelenskyy ever had was to cause so much suffering of Ukrainian civilians that NATO would be forced, while creating that "fighting against impossible odds" every Western war and super movie presents (and also associated with victory) -- that, seeing such suffering and "Englishman" bravery, that NATO, being such morally upstanding altruistic people without any self interest whatsoever, to intervene with a no-fly-zone (which, after Libya, doesn't mean "you can't fly here", but that every single military asset can be bombed as any asset could in theory support an air asset ... of course, a logic only just so happens to apply only to one side in the conflict that NATO happens to want to destroy).
Now, maybe there's some secret plan, and all this was just "cover", but it's difficult to believe.
Competent military strategy would have been to mobilise before Russia invaded and took lot's of territory uncontested. However, that would not have played well in social media, as there would be no reasons for stunts like handing out small arms to civilians.
The Turkish grand vizier told a Venetian envoy: "In wresting Cyprus from you, we cut your arm off; in defeating our fleet [in Lepanto], you have only shaved our beard. An arm when cut off cannot grow again; but a shorn beard will grow all the better for the razor."
I will welcome Russian tanks in my street if it avoids a nuclear war. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is worth a strategic nuclear escalation. Freedom be damned. I prefer to live and find the relative freedom possible even in the most autocratic regimes.
Empires come and go. I'm not willing to die for one. I'm not willing to risk the lives of others for one.
It's incredible that this is the irresponsible, reckless and immoral attitude in today's "media-scape".
Of course, if North Korea launched a nuclear weapon into South Korea or at Japan, its entire military capacity would be immediately obliterated by nuclear weapons ... so that would the end of that.
However, that problem is solved by simply having enough nuclear weapons.
So, previously, immense diplomatic effort was put into creating workable international relations where a nuclear power, aka. Russia, has no incentive to use nuclear weapons to easily win a war, knowing, when nuclear push comes to nuclear shove, that NATO will not use strategic nuclear weapons simply to punish Russia for using tactical nuclear weapons to win a war ... that is only happening because NATO pumps in billions of dollars worth of weapons and many, many, many billions more worth of intelligence.
However, since hyperbaric weapons exist, and are cheaper and more tactically useful as a "giant bomb", Russians ... I guess fortunately in a a sense, will just use those, as we're seeing.
The reason the West complains about them is simply that they are a game changing weapon against a bunch of dug in infantry / Taliban, that the US also uses in the exact same situation of dug in infantry actually causing an conventional military problem.
So it's waiinnn, unfair. Which is the Western media standard of assessment: Russia using it's overwhelming fire power--which if it doesn't use we call them idiots for not using--is unfair and thus Russia has "lost" by using the exact same tactics as the US in similar situation.
For, US has also dropped hyperbaric weapons for the exact same reason (and when there's video of it, social media is alight with glee and celebration, and explaining how clever and effective and painful it is for the enemies of the US and there's nothing they can do about it etc.); it's not the case that the US even adheres to the standard it's judging Russia by now, as "fair" and fighting "unfair" according to this standard is losing by winning.
And my favourite:
But can't forget the classics, shoutout to:
And lot's more super valuable military analysis, like "Mike Sierra: looks like Abdul got some that day." (The actual MOAB explosion, Abdul "getting some", to thunderous applause, is at the end of the video.)
And yes, I'm ashamed to admit it, but Peter K is right, I have been sharing my opinions these days ... instead of bringing freedom to Afghanistan. I haven't even started ordering from Amazon any freedom supplies, much less started packing my truck with it (and I don't have a truck! That's how unpatriotic of an American I've allowed myself to become).
What was the chain of command and military justification on this one?
That's the attitude that Putin is basing his ideas on using nukes to "escalate-to-de-escalate".
He just needs people like you, @Benkei. If everyone would think like you, it would be totally logical for him to invade the Baltics, at least to get that "landbridge" through the Suwalki corridor to Kaliningrad and basically make NATO meaningless. All the objectives he has purposed in December of last year could be met.
Your idea brings the use of nuclear weapons far closer than you think.
by Rémy Ourdan, Le Monde, 19 March 2022, translation Deepl
https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2022/03/19/guerre-en-ukraine-la-vie-a-kiev-dans-une-capitale-desertee_6118235_3210.html
REPORTAGE -- Bite into a croissant on the terrace of a bakery-café, do some shopping in a grocery store with raided shelves, sit down in one of the few open restaurants or paint in the sun. During the rare moments of respite, the inhabitants who have remained in the Ukrainian capital cling to a semblance of normality.
Between the two extremes of exodus and armed struggle, there is a semblance of ordinary life in Kiev, in this capital of Ukraine fighting for its existence, to the rhythm of the air raid sirens and the bombardment of the Russian artillery that strikes at the gates of the city.
The first sign of life in Kiev, every morning at dawn, appears at the central station Pasazhyrskyi. While the Russian army gradually cut off the roads leading to the city, the trains were still running. If the station was, with the convoys of buses, the symbol of the exodus during the first weeks of the war, it has almost returned to its original appearance. The ticket offices and platforms are no longer besieged by desperate crowds trying to flee before the Russians, as the Kievians feared, razed or invaded the city. The capital has already been emptied of almost half its population: 1.6 million inhabitants have left and 2 million have remained, according to the city hall. Seeing the darkened buildings and unlit windows in the evening, this is probably a minimum estimate.
In the train station, where soldiers and policemen keep watch, the stores are closed. Pavlo, the only shopkeeper now, serves coffee to the few travelers. He used to work in a shop in the city, and believes he has not lost out. "They say that the train station is the safest place in town. Well, that's what they say... Well, yes," adds Pavlo, "I heard that the best anti-aircraft defense in the city is around the station." He himself smiles at this popular belief, as if the railway station was better protected than strategic buildings, places of power or military bases.
The five cab drivers beating the pavement in front of Pasazhyrskyi station are out of work. No one uses cabs in town anymore," says Volodymyr. The only customers are refugees fleeing the suburbs" because of the Russian military advance, and those who come to catch a train to the west of the country. The idle driver laughingly mutters a few phrases of French that he used to quote to tourists. How far away do those times of peace seem now...
The city wakes up. The winter cold is still biting but, since a few days, the weather has changed from snow to sunshine. The bakery-cafe La Fabrique opens its doors. With the old French owner back home, three employees decided a few days ago to reopen this place where chic ladies come to buy bread and pastries. "People are so happy that we are open, they come from all over Kiev," says the waitress. Bread is one of the hard-to-find commodities in the city, where only a few bakeries continue to operate.
Mainly military activity
While at a table in front of the shop window, three women are having a morning coffee and laughing out loud, the customers come and go. Baguettes, rye bread, "classic" French croissants and Ukrainian-style filled croissants are all in demand. In a few hours, there will be nothing left. If the success of the bakery is confirmed, the three employees are thinking of relaunching the pastry shop as well.
Kiev lives in a very strange atmosphere. Once the shock of the declaration of war on February 24 and the first air raids had passed, followed by two weeks of exodus for some, or life in the shelters for others, it is as if a certain normality was returning to a capital that is almost deserted, at least from the point of view of civilian life. For the activity in the city is essentially military, in the face of columns of Russian tanks that have arrived about ten kilometers from the city limits, to the northwest and northeast. The time has come to engage in territorial defense, to fortify military positions and checkpoints, to engage in armed resistance. Without knowing what awaits the capital, between an encirclement effort - which is currently extending to the western flank - or a brutal assault attempt.
In Victory Square, where the city's liberation from Nazi occupation by the Red Army is celebrated every year - on November 6, 1943 - and which is ironically today one of the axes of a possible invasion by the Russian army, the Silpo supermarket tries to provide for the needs of the inhabitants. One saleswoman says that the main items missing are "potatoes, onions, eggs and milk," but there are still pasta and canned goods, and even some fruit and vegetables.
The first aile to be stormed at the beginning of the war, as in all grocery stores in Kiev, was tobacco's. It is rarely restocked, and immediately raided. "It's normal, the cigarettes go first to the soldiers," says a young girl. Others pout. The lack of cigarettes becomes a problem that makes some people nervous. "I still have tobacco," says a young man, "but no more leaves to roll." He seems distraught for a brief moment, before picking himself up and smiling, aware that this is not really here nor there when Kiev's survival is at stake.
At the Musafir restaurant, one of the very few establishments still open in Kiev, near another highly symbolic square, that of Independence and the "Maïdan revolution", families and loving couples come to taste Crimean Tatar cuisine. Despite the scarcity of food, there are still tcheboureks and yantiks - beef or mutton turnovers, classic or fried - and cheese naans. Musafir serves them with Georgian tarragon- or vanilla-flavoured lemonade. The war seems far away for a few moments, until a new air raid siren sounds.
Islands of survival
In the Ukrainian capital, partly deserted and turned in on itself, La Fabrique and Musafir are islands of survival appreciated by the rare inhabitants who dare to go outside. There is also the "X", an underground café that very few know about - and whose name and location we will not mention, as the place is illegal -, the only bar to serve alcohol clandestinely. Alcohol has been forbidden in Kiev since the government and the mayor's office distributed tens of thousands of Kalashnikovs to the territorial defense volunteers, not necessarily all of whom are familiar with the use of weapons.
Larysa Pukhanova laughs at the sirens. After three weeks "cloistered knitting socks", this painter felt "inspired by the return of the sun". She picked up her brushes again. After painting the monument of the founders of Kiev, on the bank of the Dnipro river, she set up her easel in the Shevchenko park. She paints the statue of the poet and the red facade of the national university. She never goes down to the shelters anymore. "I think no one goes there anymore."
Apart from the gardeners and the artist, only the birds in the park remain to keep company to the spirit of Taras Shevchenko.
"At my death, stand up, brothers,
Tear off your chains,
Let the enemy's blood sprinkle
A free and healthy life," he wrote in Testament.
Ukrainians often refer to the famous poet, seeing in Taras Shevchenko, a long-time prisoner in Russia who never stopped writing clandestinely about Ukraine, the embodiment of their taste for freedom.
A siren sounds. Larysa quietly continues to paint. "I'm not afraid anymore, it's over."
No. It's not their only option. How about starting with a) oil & gas embargo, b) migration crisis, c) naval blockade, d) whatever else. Having a panic attack like some about nukes in truth is the last option.
One has to keep a cool head, just like the President of Finland said.
Quoting boethius
Finland is closer to war than it has been for a long time. But it's not so close as in the mid 1930's at all. It's still just your average political crisis. That's not a reason to hyperventilate, but to think calmly about the situation.
Russia's plan didn't go the way it was intended. That's clear now. So they are entangled in this war in Ukraine. And Finland is sending arms to Ukraine. That's the reality we have to face.
But does @Benkei feel the same way?
No really, what makes the idea of "escalate-to-de-escalate" so scary is that it could work. The risks are obvious and a simple normal deterrence posture will likely make it far too risky. The absence of that deterrence posture is what makes it scary.
If everyone thinks that once a small nuke is used it inevitably leads to an all out exchange with even all the reserves being used, so everything has to be sacrificed to get an armstice, then it becames a possible (if still risky) move escalate-to-de-escalate.
variables:
1. Putin doesn't use nukes, no escalation
2. Putin uses nukes, no escalation
3. Putin uses nukes, escalation
costs:
1. Ukrainians and Russians die, I pay extra tax funding Ukrainians
2. Ukrainians and Russians die, I pay extra tax funding Ukrainians
3. everybody dies
If Putin uses nukes, we shouldn't do anything. So yes, Putin trusting in me making the only reasonable choice seems about right. I can only hope the jingoist leaders in the West aren't as hubristic they think there's anything to win here.
It's only a risky move because apparently there are some idiots who like to entertain dying in a fiery ball of fire or radiation poisoning because they think it's heroic to stand up to a bully. Let's take the kindergarten morality out of hese equations please for fuck's sake I'm begging everyone before you cause the death of my children.
Whom is he working for? A former Putin ally who has fallen out and has an axe to grind?
When this is all over we will have a clearer picture.
We have no problem telling people when faced with a mugger, 'just give them your wallet and walk away, don't be a hero'. Stakes are much higher here but it seems fine to us to risk escalation because of the underdog narrative or whatever.
Running with the analogy and directing this at those who think Ukraine should be encouraged to fight on: suppose we have a friend who is being robbed by a guy with a gun. We have a gun too, but we don't want to fight the other guy with a gun directly because... mutually assured destruction. Is it morally justifiable for us then to encourage our friend to fight, maybe by giving him a knife? I mean, sure, he might do some damage but the chances are he'll lose his wallet anyway and come off much worse than the better-armed aggressor (who has made it into his house and is now burning his furniture). Note too that even if he asks us for a knife, it doesn't mean we're 'taking away his agency' by refusing to give one to him. Maybe we just don't want him to get killed.
I mean only military option ... of which less Russian soldiers on the border would be relevant.
Though I agree chance of conventional war is low in Finland, Poland, Baltics ... it's unclear to me that increasing the chance of nuclear war in exchange, even slightly, is a positive outcome.
I don't know, but Joe Biden does. That's what matters.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/hot-peace-putins-war-as-clash-of-civilization-by-slavoj-zizek-2022-03
--
Incidentally, the injunction to not 'cheerlead' means precisely to not give into the insane demand that one either stands with "the West" or else is some kind of Putin supporter. A false choice made for morons without power, by morons with power.
Besides, they are the ones that can change Russia.
To be fair, Rocky's epic duel with Ivan Drago is both a cinematic master piece and "feels" how reality actually works by divine scriptwriter intervention.
Ivan Draggo had overwhelming advantage. Russia has overwhelming advantage.
Rocky had heart. Ukraine has heart.
Ivan Draggo lost anyways. Russia will therefore lose anyways.
It's honestly difficult to argue with.
Same reason everyone was rooting for the Taliban all these years, and now super happy they "defended their country" and defeated the more powerful military and have returned to power to defend their nation and culture, such as barring girls over 11 from going to school.
Sure. The first time I mentioned the word was in response to...
Quoting Olivier5
We were talking about Russia's rhetorical use of the Neo-Nazi issue and the most diplomatically strategic response, you blustered in with the tribal chant "there's no Neo-Nazis in Ukraine anymore!" completely ignoring both the context and the purpose of the discussion.
That - I stand by - is 'cheerleading'. Mindlessly chanting mantras supporting one side of a conflict without any relevance to the actual issue at hand.
The second time it was mentioned, in passing, was...
Quoting Isaac
Here, you seemed not to disagree with the description at all, but merely the moral weighing.
Incidentally - on the subject of quoting, I note above a request for the use of a quote from you to clarify an accusation. A request you have yet to reply to.
And there's
Quoting Isaac
If you're not prepared to accede to my requests from a fortnight back, I don't see why I'd be expected to trawl through to carry out yours.
...or just drop the accusation
Yeah, I was trying to convey to @Wayfarer earlier this very idea that propaganda is not just lies, but (more so, in my opinion) distraction, misdirection. I fear the point was lost.
Nothing. Yet that is a necessary task (unless you advise we just guess). It is not a necessary task for us to assume a single goal for all Ukrainians, there's no unit of agency there.
I think this is a frequently recurring issue here - people are drawn into the empire narrative, as if 'Ukrainians' had an objective that was opposed to that of 'Russians'. It's that very narrative that got us into this mess.
Quoting neomac
You seem to have listed only one (albeit behemothic) sentence. Does it contain more than one reason? I can barely decipher it, but I gather you're taking issue with the use of evidence? Perhaps you could be a little more clear?
:up:
I agree that change, as difficult as it will be, has to come from within, with support.
Views of protestors from inside Russia.
Posted in the Shoutbox.
29dys ago, from @jamalrob:
***
An update from me 25/03/2022:
Likewise posting this here instead of the lengthy Ukraine Crisis discussion.
It's good to see increasing Russian voices speak out in this way. Dangerous to them, no doubt.
Halcyon days indeed! We could insult whichever mental condition we liked - what fun we had.
Fortunately for my tattered reputation, I used a lower case 'n' in narcissism (phew!), so I'm saved the pearl-clutching. It is, after all, a word simply to describe a person's non-pathological obsession with their own grandeur as well as the English for DSM-5 301.81
Letting then Russian tanks to the streets of Netherlands is doing a lot, not doing anything, actually.
Quoting Benkei
Talk of an overreaction. Weren't you born during the Cold War? Seems you have been blissfully ignorant about nuclear deterrence or how it works.
Yeah, there's been some weird moral arguments raised as truisms which I thought had been put to bed long ago. This idea that we should support the weaker party by encouraging them to fight, as you say, seems incongruent.
The other is "we can't negotiate with Putin because he's a (war) criminal". Odd, because we negotiate with terrorists and hostile nations all the time, even war criminals (for example Prime Minister's Questions during Tony Blair's incumbency - [/satire]).
Also, a new one, is that democratically elected leaders must automatically be right (if Zelensky asks for military aid he must know best). I mean, we're currently governed by a philandering clown, I'd prefer we didn't start to normalise the idea that he automatically knows what's best for us.
And finally, the most worrying of all, the transition of holding authority to account from a moral duty of a citizen to a suspicious act of mental instability, a slippage into 'conspiracy theory'...
But that's not all what was said in this discussion. Important points were made re. Mr Putin's own closeness to neonazis, re. the marginal representation in parliament of Ukrainian neonazis, or about the obscene absurdity that bombing nations out of the blue would be a legitimate way to free them from neonazis.
This neonazi accusation is one of Mr Putin's justifications for war, as you pointed out. 'Cheerleading' would be to relay it uncritically. That would be 'Mindlessly chanting mantras supporting one side of a conflict'. We have not done that here; we have discussed this issue in some depth and have critiqued the claim made.
Have you? Did you read those points and address them?
I would presume that people on a Philosophy Forum would back up those who are against authoritarianism and imperialism. If people here can safely go and protest the actions of the US and the West when the West has started wars with imperial ambitions (like the invasion of Iraq), you would think they would support those doing that in other countries where it's dangerous to do that and oppose similar wars of conquest.
The unfolding war in Ukraine has taken a backseat to petty point-scoring arguments by some.
A war of words on TPF is nothing new but this latest round has taken it to another level.
What I think should be considered cheerleading was enthusiastically promoting the idea "Russia invading Ukraine has no truth to it and is only American media hype" or the idea that the US sponsors bioweapon labs in Ukraine. Or trying to argue (several times, actually) that Vladimir Putin isn't a dictator.
That kind of cheerleading has been seen in this thread. By various different people, I should add.
Quoting Amity
In truth people were far more angry about police brutality in the US (George Floyd et al), but then it wasn't as divided.
Perhaps Ukraine is so far away...
Yes, there's been that too. It's been a rich debate, let's put it this way.
I see you have no argument against my argument other than "this is how we've been doing it for decades!" Pretty cool of you to assume ignorance instead ofengaging my argument that clearly disagrees with nuclear deterrence as an acceptable policy.
Mutual Assured Destruction, or the idea that after innocents are killed due to the use of a WMD that is totally indiscriminate it then is a great strategic step to kill more innocents, is fundamentally flawed.
They'd probably tell Putin he has to give up all nuclear materials or face attack. He wouldn't give them up, and Russia would be attacked. It would be fucking horrendous, illogical as it may be.
thanks for sharing this video, it was very instructive!
It's not quite true; the winners will be those far away and not involved - China and the US maybe, and S. America and Australia. But Russia can gain all their objectives and still lose. Lose a generation of young men, trade with the world, the intangible 'social capital' that they are already very short of, and of course military materiel and reputation. Kind of like the UK won a couple of wars last century, and lost an empire.
I don't disagree if you're talking about non-military things. For sure, war and sanctions isn't good for normal Russians.
But the competition is between states. Normal Americans and normal Chinese people don't benefit from the war either, but, certainly, neither normal Ukrainians.
Agreed, that China and US states (i.e the elites that run them) win in this war and EU loses. The insanity of committing to buy LNG gas from the US and build all that infrastructure ... even though the war will be long over, and normalising trade relations would be an immense diplomatic tool to actually end the war and bring peace (... never hear the EU saying that ... that peace would have benefits to everyone), and it's just using the war as an excuse to do the US's bidding.
However, even so, China's benefit is in anyways Russias benefit, as they are besties now.
US pivots towards China (this isn't viewed as a big warm hug by the Chinese), Russia comes to China and says the logical thing: "the US views you as their enemy, they talk about it all the time, they have no shame saying so, now they bring their ships and their planes and their submarines and their missiles to your shores, which are moves of war and not of peace--even though we Russians know you Chinese are a peaceful people and have never invaded us nor taken anything that wasn't rightfully yours--but war has come to you, even if neither of us want it we must accept that as a fact, and what I suggest, is that we are in fact in this together, and that this 'pivot' to threaten you, the US talks about, that it is simply the reasonable move in response, if we look on a map, to open a second front with the US, and force them to commit troops to defend in the West too: I can do this, bring American soldiers back to Europe, now that they leave the Middle East in fiery ruins, and, if you feel the same way, that we are in this together, then I will do this for you. For we Russians know the treachery of the Americans and have learned to deal with it, and we will take this heat in the West so you may have peace in the East."
Now, the US, indeed does benefit with harming their real competition (the EU) ... but can they say the same thing as the Russian state can: that they are also helping their allies in so doing?
And for those accusing me of being a Russian propagandist, simply seeing someone's point of view and what persuasive arguments they can make and reasonable strategic decisions they can make to advance their stated goals or defend themselves against a party that has no hesitation nor qualification in calling them the enemy, doesn't mean I agree with such arguments. If I was Putin, I'd go to Xi and say: "Have you heard of decentralised grass roots anarchism, pretty rich tradition, don't want to brag but Nordic style participatory creative education was actually an anarchist idea and first developed in anarchist schools, it's pretty cool actually, kids a lot happier and even more productive economically! who knew ... and, umm, and I have here a few brochures here I'm going to leave with you, ok just putting them under this gold paper weight, just take a look when you have a moment and think about it, my number's on the bottom there if you have any questions, and ... we're actually having a little anarcho-get-together in a few weeks at the Kremlin / new local community soup kitchen, feel welcome to come check it out, have a few drinks, maybe bring North Korea along--honestly, I feel they could actually really use a hot soup right now, and, you know, we're there for them."
So? The argument was that you raised token mantras where they had no relevance in context. Their 'importance' is immaterial.
Quoting Olivier5
Indeed it would.
Quoting Olivier5
Why would I? As I said, I respond to the points made, that's what a discussion forum is for, it's not a fucking Facebook page for me to fill with my likes and dislikes. I haven't critiqued Putin's claims because no one here has posted supporting them. Why would I just blurt out random stuff I happen to think?
I'm sure, given the newfound zealotry, @Olivier5 will join heartily in the calls for you to back up such accusations with quotes. Or does your insistence only apply to some and not others @Olivier5?
I did not. I tried to explain to you, that prior to your post, we already had a lengthy discussion on the matter in which the most reasonable posters among us concluded that the claim was an excuse to invade Ukraine rather than something serious.
If you don't understand the relevance of some of the points to the geopolitical situation, you can just ask.
Alternatively, if all you want is post after post emoting how bad things are in different ways then I suggest you try Facebook.
Oh right, so just stupidity then. I can forgive that.
Mustn't you, to survive among the rest of us?
Geopolitics in a nutshell.
That's a good analogy, so let me take it further: you want to put paid to a 'mugger' by setting a trap but you don't want to take the risk of getting mugged, so you ask your friend to walk down the alley late at night promising to come 'stand by him'. When he is attacked, you supply him with a few guns to keep things going until maybe the mugger gets wounded and bleeds to death in the ensuing battle. It was worth it. Your 'friend'? Well, you could always take in his family for the 375 pounds or so the government is offering.
Perhaps it's flawed, but I'm not so sure if "surrender if threatened with nuclear weapons" would really work better.
Of course how could I know. I'm not the one living under the nuclear umbrella.
Could someone please enlighten me on this MAD strategy. If I was leading country, say Country X, having nuclear weapons, I would think the best strategy would be to publicly state the following plan:
1. Reduce nuclear warheads
2. Promise not to launch a first strike under any circumstances
3. If a first strike is launched against my country, upon verification, promise to launch a limited strike against a few military targets using nuke and conventional ICBMS and then seek to de-escalate immediately.
4. If de-escalation is not possible, take no further action. (If country Y wants to launch all its missiles and destroy country X there is no way to stop them)
This will avoid accidental response. This will avoid mutual destruction, while preserving the moral high ground by not responding in a way that destroys the entire world.
You are the opposing country, country Y. What is your response? I need to l know how other people think in order to evaluate this strategy. Is it mad? I ask because I have no expertise in this field at all.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/long-fuse-big-bang/202203/cognitive-bias-could-trigger-nuclear-war
By the way, I do not agree with that article: the devastation caused by conventional weapons in this war as well as in previous wars should have demonstrated that nuclear strikes are not necessary here. The fallout by itself from the neighboring country would be a disincentive, not to mention Russia forever losing its honor as a nation. President Putin must know that as I do.
I can see an imperialist streak in NATO's expansion and authoritarianism in telling countries how to vote at the security council, whom to trade with, and whom to condemn. If that is what you mean, I am against it.
I can understand that pragmatic approach. Just have to remember that people have been (systematically) killed by the hands of empires that rolled in before. :( Quote spam ...
Quoting Benkei
4. Strike a deal, no escalation
[sup]• no Ukraine NATO membership ? ? the main demand
• ... (possibly UN peacekeepers) ...
• Russia to clean up or pay for what they ruined (? incidentally, negative return on destructive investment)
[/sup]
Is that sort of thing off the table already?
Absolutely not! But I thought that was implied with my post history in this thread. :wink:
But yes, a negotiated settlement is best for everyone involved even if I'm sure certain US hawks will see their hopes dashed.
All right, I’ll expand my argument with a premise. I see 2 distinct kinds of possible evaluations on the current Ukraine-Russia conflict: one is strategic and the other is moral. From a strategic point of view, what counts is how geopolitical agents can maximise benefits and opportunities while minimising costs and risks wrt actual/potential competitors, independently from any moral considerations. Indeed moral considerations are seen as instrumental in the form of propaganda or soft-power in winning consensus against geopolitical competitors. On the other side, from a moral point of view, an action can be good or bad without necessarily being strategically good or bad, yet strategic thinking should be constrained by moral considerations. Given this distinction one can argue that while letting Ukraine free to choose to join NATO was morally good because we value freedom and sovereignty, yet it was not strategically good because it challenged Russia to react in a way we weren’t neither ready nor capable to properly contain; or argue that the Western propaganda is hypocritical in trying to downplay the role of neo-nazi movements or even hide their indirect support to neo-nazi militia, yet this propaganda is strategically effective in winning the consensus of the western public opinion for supporting the Ukrainians.
The distinction I just pointed out is at play also in your (and not only your) comments when, on one side, you morally condemn the the Western hypocrisy (see the case of Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, etc.) and “warmongering” propaganda at the expenses of the Ukrainians. On the other side, you switch to strategic thinking mode when the subject is Putin, so the point is no longer to condemn the propaganda or the inhumanity of the Russian aggression of Ukraine, but to evaluate costs/benefits of a protracted war between Ukraine and Russia. And expect your interlocutors to do the same.
This dialectical approach is twice flawed:
I think it's already has changed from mutually assured destruction to "reasonable" assured destruction as the amount of nuclear weapons have luckily been decreased radically. US and Russian politicians in the 1990's did some good agreements and many of those Russian warheads ended up as nuclear fuel for American cities (one of the rare nice stories about disarmament). The country that is increasing it's nuclear deterrence is China. But it's still way smaller than the US and Russian stockpiles:
"Russian commander killed ‘deliberately’ by his own troops in Ukraine, Western officials say"
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russian-commander-ukraine-colonel-medvechek-b2044282.html
Looked into this story, which I first saw in a Twitter post. No evidence for it, apparently, except a FB post by a Ukranian journalist (parroted by unnamed Western 'officials', I guess). Seems the Daily Mail got a version too except in their version, there's video of the guy alive and hospitalised but with serious injuries to his legs. That didn't stop them headlining the story:
"Revealed: Russian commander has DIED after being run over with a tank by his own mutinous troops"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10652501/Russian-commander-deliberately-run-tank-soldiers-DIED.html
"[i]Ukrainian journalist Roman Tsymbaliuk said in a Facebook post on Tuesday that Colonel Medvedev's tank battalion of 1,500 troops had lost around half its strength to either death or injury.
'A soldier, choosing a convenient moment during the battle, ran over his brigade commander, Colonel Yuri Medvedev, with a tank, injuring both his legs,' Tsimbalyuk wrote in his report to his followers.
'Medvedev is in a hospital in Belarus and has already been awarded the Order of Courage.' He said the Colonel is now awaiting compensation.
There was no independent corroboration of the claim, but a video released by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov - a close ally of Vladimir Putin - allegedly showed Medvedev being transported by medical troops to Belarus for hospital treatment.[/i]"
So, he's dead according to the headline but in the body of the story he seems to be alive in hospital. The Independent leaves out the bit where he's alive and just runs with him being dead.
It might turn out the story is true or it might turn out it's bullshit of half-true (Note for example how him being run over morphed into him being deliberately run over by 'mutinous' troops as if it couldn't have been, e.g. a battlefield accident). I can guarantee you anyhow we won't be getting any retractions.
I'm not Russian, nor talking to any Russians. Why would I morally condemn them? This is a discussion forum, not a socialising site. You're not 'getting to know me better' by my writing a little puff piece about all the things I like and dislike.
Morally - People have implied (outright said in some cases) that 'the West' bears no responsibility for what's happening. I think that's morally wrong, so I oppose it. No one has said that Putin's is blameless, so there's no cause for me to write anything morally condemnatory about him.
Strategically - Again, no one has commented to the effect that we should not take America's strategic interests seriously, so there's no cause to write anything to the effect that we should. People have, however, treated Putin as if he were a psychopath with no legitimate security interests, I think that's wrong so I oppose it.
The mistake you're making in your analysis is thinking my comments here represent some kind of manifesto. I think that's a pointless approach to take. To be honest I can't really understand why anyone would ever start a thread here at all (though I am, of course, incredibly grateful that they do).
Yet the fact is the Russian reality is absolutely strange. It's a myriad of strange occurrences and crazy events in the eyes of Westerners. I don't know what would come close to it: a perpetual Trump administration? It's really different from the West.
In a way it's on purpose organized to various different elements, a multitude of intelligence services with their own military forces and to army and national guard, in order that there wouldn't be some strong counterweight to Putin himself. Quite similar to the Third Reich, actually.
Look, Biden refers to Putin with he! It must be that Biden is a Putin troll!!!!!$#%"/$&%3
You're so hyped up that it clouds your judgment.
I can't remember the keywords, so I can't find you many direct quotes, but @Apollodorus has said things like:
Quoting Apollodorus
That's clearly not pro-Putin or pro-Russia. In some earlier discussion elsewhere, I also saw him commenting negatively on Putin. So I see no reason to think he is pro-Putin.
*sigh*
Your bad faith really isn't helping.
The total genius of Western democracies is that they outsourced government oppression to individual people. So that it isn't the government which oppresses people, it's Tom oppressing Dick and Harry. The government's hands are clean, but the people walk on eggshells and fear for their jobs and lives. At the same time, they are becoming more and more alike, the differences between them are superficial at best, one big mass of mindless drones. And what does it help if some politician can hold his elected position of power only for 4, 8 or, 10 years, or so, if the next one differs from him only by name?
The greatest trick that the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
Eh? Did you ever get the impression that it had any honor in the eyes of Americans and most other Westerners?
Pffft.
People love to say they are against "authoritarianism and imperialism", and they do so in an utterly authoritarian manner.
The endless ironies of life.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2022-03-24/putins-afghanistan
The point is that the anti-Slavic sentiment, and specifically, the anti-Russian sentiment serves as a framework, a context, in which it is perfectly sensible to say mean things about Russians and their leaders, and to take action against them. Without decades of anti-Russian propaganda under their belt, the Westerners couldn't pull this off.
Not if they use the Poles as cannon fodder. That would be achieving two goals with one blow.
You often have to fight fire with fire.
So a proper, strong democracy is the one that can maintain its own illusion?
To get what?
To put the fire out. Do you really think there was some kind of moral equivalence between Nazi's using violence to round up and kill Jews and Americans using violence to stop the Nazi's?
I posted a story about a 96 year old Buchenwald survivor killed by a Russian missile. This was labelled 'propoganda'. I expressed the view that Russia's invasion has already failed, in that no major city has been captured, and the Russian economy is going to contract to depression-era levels as a result of sanctions. This was also labelled propoganda. Any criticism of Russia's actions seems to be regarded as 'propoganda' by someone, but that seems to me to be apologetics for Russia's actions.
My opinion is that Russia's invasion is illegal, unjustified, unwarranted, totally destructive, a disaster and a humanitarian catastrophe. Some will label that 'propoganda' but as far as I'm concerned it's factual. I will post stories that draw attention to this from time to time.
Correct. What is important to bear in mind is that the Chief Jihadi entity is America who created and leads NATO as an anti-Russian and anti-German organization, and expects its proxies and client states to do most of the work on America's behalf.
It's the same mentality Britain had in WW1 when it expected Russia to flatten the Germans after which the French would finish them off and the Brits would go in with a small expeditionary force to claim "victory" over the Germans and add Germany's African colonies to the empire. The Americans have inherited not only much of the British Empire but also the mentality.
Quoting baker
Don't you know, the only thing you're likely to come across in the Finnish outback is reindeer in the winter, giant mosquitoes in the summer, and some isolated trolls in between. Judgement would be the last thing to expect .... :smile:
Quoting baker
Absolutely. I have repeatedly said that I'm against Putin's policies like his alliance with Turkey which is a neo-fascist state with a long history of racism, slavery, and genocide, as well as being a NATO member.
Racism in Turkey – Wikipedia
Armenian genocide - Wikipedia
Slavery in the Ottoman Empire – Wikipedia
Crimean–Nogai slave raids in Eastern Europe - Wikipedia
And, of course, saying that Crimea has never been Ukrainian is stating a historical fact, not being "pro" or "against" anyone. I also repeatedly said that I believe in free and independent countries and continents.
And I don't see anything wrong with giving Crimea, which has been Russian for centuries, back to Russia, and the same goes for areas within Ukraine that are inhabited by ethnic Russians, IF that's what those areas want.
Unfortunately, you can't reason with NATO's zombified jihadis and activists on steroids. Complete waste of time, to be quite honest ....
There is white, grey, black, and many other types of propaganda:
White propaganda – Wikipedia
Black propaganda - Wikipedia
I don’t know about that particular concentration camp survivor, but there are literally hundreds of instances of fake news relating to Ukraine.
Even the Western media, the New York Times, the Guardian, the BBC, etc. has pointed out that Western platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and others are full of fake news:
Ukraine conflict: Further false images shared online – BBC
And Ukraine's TV news channels have been taken over by Zelensky, so it would be hard to find independent and verifiable info unless you are there and see something with your own eyes.
That's probably right. But how many Russians do you see on this thread (or forum)?
And, funny enough, you may see the mods as pro-Russian. but I tend to see them (or most of them) as pro-Western.
And, no, I'm not "pro-Russian", just anti-NATO and anti-US hegemony. And definitely against world government. But I better not even mention that as it's supposed to be "conspiracy theory" and against the "rules" .... :wink:
You got called out by me for basically copypastaing a Biden speech. Many of us have condemned the invasion as absolutely unjustified. That's a different issue.
If you want to listen to some analysis about what's going on militarily, you might watch from minute 11 to minute 15 of the following:
"I'm just shaking my head at the US media, all the armchair generals, people who don't know their history, don't understand the geography. Putin's bogged down... etc, they're stalled. It's nonsense. Kyiv is not the first target on the list, it's the last target on the list. You go for the capital when you've got everything else under control... If you want to attack a city from three sides, you don't want one side to start without the other two... He's not stalled, he's not bogged down, he's waiting until everything else in place.
A few key points:
1) Look at a map. There is no way Russia was ever going to allow Ukraine, which completes a C encirclement of Moscow to ever be under NATO control.
2) Putin is on track to win the war as planned. He's constructing a diagonal line of control from the NE to the SW. This cuts the Ukranian army in two, similarly to how the Germans cut the allied armies in two at the beginning of WWII by going through the Ardennes.
3) There will be a three vector attack on Kyiv. Russia will be attacking from the North from Belarus, from the South from Crimea, and from the East after Kharkhiv falls.
You might not agree with this analysis and it might not turn out as described but it is proper analysis and if you look at a map of Putin's military positioning and the analogies given, the reasoning makes a lot more sense than blanket declarations, backed up by nothing, that this has been a military disaster for Putin
There are lots of inaccurate statements people make on forums. It's no different from other social media. Especially on a super-fast-moving thread like this with some members apparently posting nearly 24/7, there is nothing you can do about it.
Pretty hopeless, really, but that's how the cookie crumbles. Probably wisest to keep a safe distance ....
Glad to be perceived as being on the opposite side of everyone here. :up:
And I'm glad that you are glad. It could be worse .... :wink:
Comrade, as they say where we are from, the goat with the longest beard is wisest.
I did no such thing. I said this:
Quoting Wayfarer
I wrote it, and I stand by it. As for 'backing the wrong horse' that is a comment on your repeated suggestion that Putin might succeed or win, whatever that might mean, but I'm not going to argue the case further at this point as it's obviously inflammatory.
You can't believe everything you read in the media. No kidding. But the images we've been seeing of entire regions completely gutted by long-range missiles, millions of people fleeing, bodies in the streets - this is not 'propaganda', it's actually happening.
If you don't believe in relevant reasoning or evidence re making a judgement on military success or failure. For example, if you have no interest in looking at a map or military positioning or historical precedent, then while you are entitled to your opinion, it's entirely worthless. Kind of like if I was to say, "Hey, Kant was wrong, his philosophy was a disaster", and when asked to provide some kind of analysis as to why, refuse and just repeat the charge. An opinion, but a useless one.