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)
Yes, and I was pointing out that being a bad neighbour to Ukraine is not sufficient ground for such action. Invading Ukraine does not alone mean they'll invade everywhere. Just as the US invading Iraq doesn't mean they'll invade everywhere. Countries have strategic reasons for, and strategic obstacles to, invading places. The balance of reasons and obstacles is what motivates a decision. Their invasions here are being used as an example of another country frequently invading places but one which no European countries consider a threat - demonstrating the mere willingness to invade is not sufficient ground for everyone to consider them a threat. That you have some kind of allergic reaction to mentions of the US is not my problem.
So Finland is joining NATO because something which no-one is even sure happened might happen to them and somehow NATO can stop it?
Quoting Punshhh
I don't think it's why they want to join NATO either, I'm arguing against that position. I suspect they want to join NATO because it's newfound status as 'Good Guy' makes it politically expedient ally.
It might be important for your evangelical condemnation, but I doubt the families of the 22,000 dead are much consoled by some apologist's theorising that they didn't mean to.
Your sycophancy is not an argument.
Quoting Christoffer
No. The US has raped and executed civilians. So has Russia. You're drawing a distinction between the two on the grounds of the numbers. Russia, you say, has done it more. Unless you're arguing that the US soldiers accidentally raped the victims in Columbia https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/07/us-army-colombia-rapes-investigation
Quoting Christoffer
The intention isn't in question. The solution is. Neutrality can be a defence against attack as well as a risk.
Quoting Christoffer
No one's ignoring the brutality of the Russian attack, it's just that the brutality alone in Ukraine isn't evidence that it will do the same to every neighbouring country, nor that joining NATO will prevent it.
Quoting Christoffer
Except it literally the one thing that has a credible threat of attack premised on it.
Quoting Christoffer
Right. So the decision is based on whether declaring an intention to join NATO increases that risk in the intervening time, or increases the scale of the threat if Russia feel backed into a corner.
Yes, perhaps you should call it a day.
Quoting Olivier5
Oh, I see. Amateur. Your qualifications are?
That is not a counter-argument. I could say the same to you, you ignore what Russia has done in Ukraine and shift focus away from it instead. This is like you saying a construction worker who mismanaged and fucked up his responsibilities which resulted in a building collapsing and killing innocents is the same as that construction worker intentionally going into the building, raping, torturing, and executing those civilians for no reason. If you can't spot the differences between the two then you're just plain stupid.
Quoting Isaac
Your whataboutism isn't either.
Quoting Isaac
No, by the systematic nature of it.
Quoting Isaac
Oh, why didn't you tell that to the Ukrainians, maybe that would have kept Russia from invading? :shade:
You don't know what the fuck you're talking about when you speak about Finland and Sweden. Your argument is fucking naive.
Quoting Isaac
Why wouldn't they? It's systematic, that's why. And joining Nato means Russia won't dare attack, why can't you fucking understand how Nato works for once in this thread? Why do we have to explain this to you over and over? The key here is that you just ignore all of that because it doesn't fit your worldview. Russia won't attack a Nato member because that would mean annihilation of Russia, period.
Quoting Isaac
No, that's in your head. I don't understand how you conclude something like this when the reality is that Russia won't dare attack a Nato member. Stop making shit up to fit your narrative it's embarrassing to witness.
Quoting Isaac
Russia can feel whatever the fuck they want. Nato is the only thing that creates an existential threat to them. They can have a fantasy of Nato invading them but that won't happen because it's a fucking defensive alliance with a democratic function for action. The US could say they want to attack Russia but 29 other nations can vote them down. What Russia delusionally believe is fucking irrelevant, the fact is that because Nato is too powerful for Russia to face, they cannot dare attack Sweden and Finland if we join... that is the fucking point. Sick and tired of you making shit up and believing you understand the situation of Finland and Sweden. You have some utopian ideal of neutrality keeping the Russian bear away, but Russia showed the world just who they are when they invaded Ukraine so we don't give a fuck about Russia, we want to be secure from their brutality and toxic stupidity. Whatever fantasy you think is an alternative, we don't have any alternatives for security, fucking understand already.
It means that the Russians could potentially try and invade (or try to otherwise damage militarily) some of their other neighbours. They've just unleashed some pretty extreme brutality onto Ukraine so they can do it to others. It's not beyond them.
For one, I can understand the need of other human beings for a sense of security.
So you are making the argument that those women were accidentally raped in Columbia? I didn't think your bootlicking would really descend that disgustingly low, but apparently I was wrong.
Quoting Christoffer
You've given no account of anything systematic other than some unspecified number of alleged rapes.
Quoting Christoffer
Do you even have a concept of disagreement? Is everything either agreeing or misunderstanding?
Quoting Christoffer
No, @ssu's head. It was his post I got it from.
On the same grounds. The US invaded a foreign nation hundreds of miles away in Iraq, so they can do it to others.
So do you need security against America? Or is it, just possibly, more than mere willingness to invade which determines which country is a security risk to whom?
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05/10/russia-s-long-shot-in-the-donbas
Yes you do need security against America when you are in their crosshair. And even more so if America becomes a ruthless, immoral dictatorship. Fascist for real, I mean, like when people like Chomsky are put in concentration camps. Every democracy on earth would then be in their crosshair so that would be an unmitigated disaster.
Right. So the question is not whether Russia has invaded other countries, it's whether Finland are in their 'crosseye'. No one has, as yet, given the slightest evidence that they are.
I didn't think your inability to understand what the fuck is being said could be so bad. Instead, you keep going with the loaded question fallacies just because you can't grasp the differences I presented.
Quoting Isaac
By the reports of the investigators in Ukraine. You want to keep play the numbers game instead of actually listening to the conclusions of the investigations. You can find them yourself if you cared to actually do any type of research that doesn't confirm your already existing opinions.
Quoting Isaac
Facts about how Nato works don't care about your fucking opinion of how it works. You live in a fantasy that supports your opinion and make shit up trying to argue for it. It's hollow.
Quoting Isaac
SSU said that joining Nato would lead to Russia attacking Finland? Really, @ssu?
It's here
Quoting ssu
What Russia says, threatens, and put in propaganda is not the same as what they actually do. Just like they said they wouldn't invade Ukraine for months before actually invading Ukraine. How can you be this fucking stupid to not see what @ssu meant with that statement?
They threaten us because they think we will bend to their will, because that is what they want us to do. If you think they will attack us when we are Nato members you are seriously delusional.
The Russians have flown four military jets in Swedish air space early March. Two of those were reportedly equipped with nuclear weapons, although this was not confirmed officially. A Russian army helicopter violated Finland's airspace today.
Uh Oh. War in South America on the horizon...
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuela-says-us-military-plane-violated-its-airspace-2021-07-23/
It happened 350 times in 2020 and 290 times in 2021 with respect to Russians testing air space alertness of NATO members, including the US but mostly the Baltic states.
Very few intercepted flights entered allied airspace, though. The Swedes took the March 2 case very seriously. It was not just one plane and they entered over several kilometres.
Sweden and Finland have objective reasons to fear Russia. It'd be nice if posters wouldn't deny the glaringly obvious needs of fellow human beings.
Here's one hypothetical scenario:
Putin's Russia would roll over Ukraine at some point (after much destruction); install puppets (Kremlin); bring mercs and hunt Ukrainian resistance mercilessly (they'd now be "terrorists" especially in all Russian media); reinforce Moldovian efforts westward.
At some point (with the aid of infiltrators and propaganda), threaten/scare/bully other border nations; depending on feasibility (plausibility of propaganda/excuses), look into making them proxies, perhaps pick relatively smaller nations.
"? I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons // First we take [Ukraine], then we take Berlin ?" ;)
I'm trying to extract the reason why Finland and Sweden fear attack by Russia. So far I've been given...
Russia attacked another county (no good, since the US have done that too and they don't fear attack by them).
Russia will attack them if they're not in NATO (Russia have literally said the exact opposite).
Russia invaded their airspace (as @Benkei has said, this happens all the time)
Russia have raped, executed and tortured their victims (so have the US, but no one's fearing attack by them)
Quoting Olivier5
It's nothing to do with denying anything. I haven't (yet) denied that they have objective reasons to fear Russia. Its just that you haven't yet supplied any such reason that wouldn't also apply to America, so there's clearly some factor you're still missing.
Oh, and if you can't tell the difference between what's 'glaringly obvious' to you and what's glaringly obvious to anyone, then what you're after is a blog. This is a discussion platform.
Draghi: "An imposed peace would be a disaster. US and Russia should sit at a table"
May 11, 2022 - 18:03
The premier, after meeting with Joe Biden at the White House, met with reporters at a press conference in Washington: "You have to ask how to build peace," he said.
"The right peace will be the one Ukraine wants, not the one imposed by allies or others." said Prime Minister Mario Draghi. "I thank the U.S. president and the entire administration for the welcome, the meeting went very well. He thanked Italy for being a strong partner and a credible ally. We agree that we need to continue to support Ukraine, put pressure on Russia but also that we need to ask how to build peace. The negotiating path is difficult."
"Russia is no longer Goliath, it is not invincible. The war has changed its face, initially it was a war in which it was thought there was a Goliath and a David, essentially a desperate defense that also seemed to fail, but today the landscape has completely turned upside down."
The Prime Minister addressed various issues [in the press conference], from the food and energy crises caused by the conflict to inflation eroding the purchasing power of the weaker sections of the population.
Which factor, pray tell?
I don't know. You're the one claiming it's so obvious. I think it's just politically expedient because Russia are the bad guys and NATO are the good guys. You score votes if you snub the bad guys and join the good guys.
You (and @Christoffer and @ssu) are the ones saying that they have this glaringly obvious reason, but nothing you're providing makes sense because it all applies to America too.
Quoting Isaac
Two of my colleagues are Venezuelan; they fled with some of their family members.
Apparently, the situation there is catastrophic. :sad: (to the point that we're not asking one of them about it, we'll just hail The Beatles, their favorite band)
At the moment, all bets are off when it comes to Venezuela.
Brutal does. America is without doubt responsible for more death and immiseration than any other nation.
As for dictatorship, no, but America has been at war for almost the entirety of the last 200 years, so it's hard to see how being a democracy is the deciding factor in which country one is most likely to be invaded by.
Yeah, America's history in South America is a disgrace. Quite something else to have first (or second) hand experience though.
Interesting to see what happens in Brazil if Lula comes to power.
Sure, but not in this case (Venezuela).
In reality there will be intelligence which onlookers are not aware of as to what these risks are
There’s always political expediency going on in a country. That is not the precursor to this development.
Putin’s explicit nuclear threat against NATO is justification/reason enough for all current developments regarding NATO.
Either agree with him or disagree with him, that's fine. But I don't think attributing this to his brain power - or alleged lack thereof, is a good critique.
The paradox he points out is a good one. The western media (by and large, with exceptions) are simultaneously claiming that Russia is a ferocious enemy that will not stop at Ukraine, and then also saying how embarrassing the Russian army is. Those are contradictory views.
If you say that it is not, because now there is a "window of opportunity" to join NATO, and that this solves such paradoxes, OK. I think that's a post-hoc rationalization, because, regardless of how Russia did (and is doing) in Ukraine, the issue would have come up.
But, some of you think that there is no double speak and that this makes sense, well then OK. No point in me continuing to argue about something we won't be able to solve by going back on forth on the same points.
Since when are western media supposed to be coherent? And what does that have to see with the Finns and their security? Does CNN make policy prescriptions to Finns now?
Vladimir Kazanevsky, Ukraine
Now Macron is ringing a similar bell:
"While suggesting the creation of a "European political community" likely to create closer bonds between the European Union (EU) the countries that aspire to join it, starting with Ukraine, the French president continues to plead, in the long term, for a "negotiated peace" with Moscow. This would follow a ceasefire that is still unattainable at this stage, with fighting still raging in the Donbas. For him, despite the delivery of heavy weapons to Kyiv, there is no question of allowing the conflict to drag on with the idea of weakening Russia. The priority remains, if possible, to re-establish Ukraine within its historical borders, or at least within those of before February 24, the date of the Russian invasion.
Mr. Macron considers that it is up to the Ukrainians to determine their war aims and the conditions for a possible resumption of negotiations with Moscow, currently at an impasse. It is not up to their European or American allies. "It is solely up to Ukraine to define the conditions for negotiations with Russia," explained the head of state from Strasbourg. The idea, as seen from France, is to guarantee Ukrainian security, while restoring, in the longer term, that of the entire European continent. "Our responsibility is to achieve a ceasefire without the conflict spreading to the rest of Europe. (...) But tomorrow we will have to build peace. Let's never forget it," he said. "
(Le Monde)
More on the current French take from Le Monde in English (recently launched):
US gets caught up in the euphoria of a proxy war against Russia
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/05/09/us-caught-up-in-the-euphoria-of-a-proxy-war-against-russia_5982921_4.html
Wrong! Nietzsche's philosophy is not at the root of nazism. You probably think that because of how his racist cunt of a sister intentionally misinterpreted his works after he died. His philosophy actually represents a cry of the individual against the collective...and nazism is fundamentally collectivist. If any philosopher can be credited with inspiring the nazi ideology, it is Hegel.
Wrong! Richard Dawkins had a time machine and he did it. Because he's an asshole!
“Explicit nuclear threat against NATO”?
To my knowledge, he said:
“If someone intends to intervene in the ongoing events from the outside and create strategic threats for Russia that are unacceptable to us, they should know that our retaliatory strikes will be lightning-fast.”
Putin threatens ‘lightning-fast’ strikes on anyone that intervenes in Ukraine war – American Military News
Substitute “America” for “Russia” in that statement and what you get is a pretty standard warning rather than an “explicit threat”. It says “do something that is unacceptable to us and you’ll pay for it”.
How else would you have formulated it?
IMO it all depends on how you define (a) “intervene”, (b) “unacceptable”, and (c) “retaliatory strikes”.
Also, is NATO’s jihad on Russia due to Russia’s “explicit nuclear threat” or due to Russia’s actions in Ukraine? As far as I am aware NATO’s jihad had already started before the alleged “threat”.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Good point. Hard to see Nietzsche as an advocate of mass culture. We mustn't forget that Nazism was a culture of the masses, similar to Socialism, hence the name (National Socialism):
? Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human
Incidentally, I'm not sure he would have agreed with NATOISM either.
Clearly not. One possible risk is that its expansion decreases global security. It's not defending against that risk, is it?
Quoting Punshhh
Wait, so now Russia is a threat to NATO? A minute ago Russia wouldn't dare strike against NATO. That's why Sweden and Finland were joining. If Russia are s threat to NATO, Sweden and Finland would be better off independent.
My incoherent rant?! If I find Zelensky credible but you don’t, and Zelensky has never claimed that “Crimea belongs to Russia”, once more, why on earth did you bring him up in support of your claim that “Crimea belongs to Russia”?! Where or earth is the logic and coherence in that?!
Quoting Apollodorus
So you make not only strawman arguments but also preventive strawman arguments, now?!
And why on earth would I even need to question your article whose subtitle is: More than 90 per cent of Ukrainians approve of their leader, compared with just 31 per cent before the Russian invasion?! How on earth is that evidence supporting your questioning Zelensky’s credibility?!
Quoting Apollodorus
“Plus”, “moreover”, “besides” what?! How on earth is the willingness to negotiate with Russia on the status of Crimea by Zelensky, even if confirmed by Western analysts, and despite the fact that you don’t find Zelensky credible anyways, supposed to support your claim that Crimea belongs to Russia as you argued based on your pre-conceived historical/ideological notions?!
Quoting Apollodorus
I already answered that question: Making territorial concessions to Russia, doesn’t necessarily validate the pre-conception that those territories belong to Russia, it could just grant a legal status to an illegal status quo for the sake of ending a horrible war.
In other words, Russian demands could just be seen as a case of illegitimate political blackmailing that forces Ukrainian authorities to embrace the realpolitik of a gloomy yet necessary solution. Indeed if someone is forced to compromise on a ransom with kidnappers or cybercriminals or terrorists, does that imply that kidnappers, cybercriminals and terrorists have legitimate claims?! Hell no!
Quoting Apollodorus
It “certainly seems” to whom?! Considering that there are 2 Russian-Ukrainian treaties where Russia acknowledged Ukrainian territorial integrity (and Crimea is considered integral part of Ukraine by Ukrainian constitution), and there is a UN resolution against the Russian annexation of Crimea, it “certainly seems” to me that Russia does NOT have more of a legitimate claim on Crimea than Ukraine.
Quoting Apollodorus
By “Crimean independence” do you mean as a sovereign state separated from both Ukraine and Russia? Why on earth would I refuse to contemplate this possibility?! I didn’t say anything that states or implies or suggests that. In turn, would you contemplate the possibility to make Crimea a neutral state independent from Ukraine and Russia?
Besides are the 2 treaties about the Ukrainian territorial integrity that Russia and Ukraine signed CIA-NATO propaganda?! Are you crazy?!
Quoting Apollodorus
On the contrary, you seem to have incomprehensibly (or conveniently) forgotten I explicitly questioned such claims of yours a while ago: [i]“Unfortunately educated people can also see that “ownership”, as a juridical notion, presupposes an undisputed judicial authority ruling over those territories to assess ownership claims, while if the judicial authority ruling over those territories is disputed for ideological and/or geopolitical reasons, then… they are disputed for ideological and/or geopolitical reasons, so Crimea belongs to Ukraine or Russia depending on which competing party one sides with, and each competing party could accuse the other of violating the “rightful ownership” over their territory. And concerning the judicial dispute relevant in this war, take into account that there are 2 treaties between Russia and Ukraine (not “alleged” and arguably irrelevant promises made under the table) where Russia acknowledged the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine prior to the annexation of Crimea:
Belovezh Accords (1991) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belovezh_Accords
Budapest Memorandum (1994) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ukraine._Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances"[/i]
Quoting Apollodorus
I didn’t claim I know, on the contrary I asked you for your confirmation (“since America/NATO didn’t play any role in the declaration of independence of Ukraine and Crimea from Russia, at the end of the Soviet Union, right?”). So do you have any evidence that they had a role? Was this role relevant? If so, how come they had this role and, despite that, Russia acknowledged with 2 treaties Ukrainian (Crimean included) territorial independence from Russia? Did they have this role only Ukraine or also on all other independence referendum in ex-Soviet Union states? Do you even have evidences of such any encouragement from CIA-NATO to independence from Russia to compare with the “encouraged NATO membership” you are talking about?
In other words, until you prove me wrong about the legitimacy of Ukrainian/Crimean independence referendum results, raising self-serving vague doubts against their legitimacy despite they weren’t officially questioned by the involved parties in the first place, just because I wasn’t there or something, far from being rationally compelling, “certainly seems” a biased conspiracy speculation that I would leave to pro-Russian trolls. And you aren’t one, right?
Quoting Apollodorus
On one side, I never questioned that ordinary Western citizens can decide whom they would politically side with among the relevant parties in this war. I just questioned some of your ideological criteria and certainties: “I strongly doubt that you (or anybody else for that matter) are really capable of an effective and impartial mapping of ethnic groups over territories to define sovereign states”. On the other side, my decision is based on a wider set of criteria than yours (including e.g. treaties, international and Western resolutions, defense&economic consequences, etc.), despite inherent doubts (e.g. given the dilemma between increasing the risks of a nuclear escalation and containing Russian terroristic expansionism, between supporting and questioning/counterbalancing the US hegemony in Western foreign politics ).
Quoting Apollodorus
You are trying to infer from my claims more than what they actually support. Since there are differences in democratic “representativeness”, “cohesion”, and “influence” across Western and non-Western elites, I may exercise my skepticism about their declared views according to such differences (e.g. I can suspect a lot about American self-interest in this war as much as I can do for Putin’s ambitions to expand Russian sphere of influence behind both narratives, yet I doubt that Putin didn’t have any other alternative that were more palatable for everybody except for the US, than going to war against Ukraine, while the US&Ukraine didn't do anything to Russia comparatively as aggressive as Russia did against Ukraine).
Moreover, as I already pointed out, I’m also skeptical about the popular “populist” dichotomy (evil elites vs innocent&fooled people) and the same goes with your dichotomy between “ordinary (and real) people” narrative and “elite narrative”, also because ordinary people can believe in all kinds of deranged conspiracy theories to fight some “evil” elites while being unaware of serving other and maybe more “evil” elites.
Quoting Apollodorus
What?! I’ve been talking about the West from my first comment up until now: Dude, Russia is a direct existential threat to the West (primarily to the EU), given its nuclear arsenal and related repeated threats, its political infiltration in support of populist movements in the West, its veto power at the UN, its energetic blackmailing, its military presence in the Middle East and in Africa, its power concentration in one man's hands, and Putin's declared ambitions to establish a new world order with China and directly antagonise the West. You can continue your intellectual masturbation over the hypocrisy of the West all you want, but at this point the West should not tolerate a terrorist state that big that aggressive that close. "Very simple and easy to understand”.
Besides have I ever said anything at all about what you should or shouldn’t mention wrt the war in Ukraine?! Hell no. I just criticised your claims as much as you criticised mine and others’. In other words, questioned their rationality. And criticising is not suppressing other people’s opinions, right? So what on earth are you complaining about?!
I'm sure he would have criticized it in his special way for its derived morality and general collectivism.
Quoting frank
He is an asshole. The time machine couldn't help him, he was born that way.
At the same time, Russia would pursue some negative security guarantees. So the interests seem to be opposed but that's what negotiations are for, figuring out a win-win.
What do you think a solution would look like?
Oh, I forgot to mention that it’s move to defend against threats doesn’t necessarily include its threat to itself.
I was talking about Putin, you know the autocrat with his finger on the button. Oh and also there is the rhetoric from Lavrov on the issue of nuclear war. As I say, here is justification enough for these developments in NATO.
But that's the very matter in polarised debate among the experts. You can't reasonably claim it is justification enough. It very clearly isn't.
The question is whether an expanding NATO will act as deterrent or provocation for the aforementioned autocrat. If you answer 'yes' then joining NATO is a reckless and self-defeating move. If you answer 'no', then it's either sensible, or pointless (depending on your assessment of non-nato related risks).
In no case is it simply a settled matter that joining is justified because Putin's an autocrat with nuclear weapons.
Russia shelling Ukraine is like that. Presently, peace (and less suffering) requires Putin making such a decision, giving such a command. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be in sight right now.
I imagine a mutual protection treaty.
https://amp2.handelsblatt.com/politik/international/handelsblatt-interview-mit-aussenminister-lawrow-russland-oeffnet-ukraine-den-weg-in-die-nato/2460820.html
Quoting Isaac
Quoting ssu
Oh boy, Isaac.
Russia has genuinely said that, yet "serious military and political repercussions" doesn't mean Russia will attack Finland. Actually very typical nonsense from you, so enough with your rubbish counterarguments and twistings of what people say.
From Interfax:
My quoting this statement (and there are others), doesn't mean that I'm saying that Russia will attack Finland. But of course you will just twist things.
Besides, several counties (among the UK) have given security guarantees for both Sweden and Finland now for the time the countries apply for membership. So let's see what those retaliatory measures are.
From today:
So what would the military repercussions be then?
The Europeans are saying to UK/US: "the goal is to repel the invasion, not to 'bleed Russia', so don't get too excited." What I would like to know now, is: have US/UK media reported that call, or not?
Apparently they have relayed neither Macron's nor Draghi's remarks of yesterday.
And that poses a problem to me: it looks like the US and UK are trapped into just as much of a controlled media as Russia right now... As during the war on Iraq, the US and UK press now behaves as subservient to political power and thus betrays its mission, which is to critique inform and educate independently from political power.
Seems Chomsky did get that right, irrespective of his obsession with the evils of the US making him unable to understand popular support to NATO in Europe.
We shall see, now that Finland has applied.
I suspect nothing since we know Russia lies through their teeth and uses propaganda and information as tools of war. The medium is the message. It's not what they say that is important it's how its used. To threaten Finland and Sweden of action if we join Nato is not to say that they will attack if we join Nato, but to deter us from joining in order to win against us with a pure propaganda game. But they will probably don't do anything if we join because it is just as suicidal as attacking any other Nato member. However, when their military power is built up again and if we don't join, they have an opening to attack because they know they can't just use the propaganda game to deter us from joining.
This is why joining right now is the only option, because Russia is weakened and sitting around waiting for some other ideal time to join would be downright stupid. And if Finland joins but Sweden doesn't, annexing Gotland would be an extremely important strategic point for Russia, especially to place nukes on. It would flank most regions of northern Nato members. So, that's why I said we have little choice but to join now. Russia is too dangerous to wait for them to recover before trying to join any kind of security.
Alyokhina was set to spend 21 days in a penal colony, but she left the country before Moscow police detained her.
The Pussy Riot's leader threw on the food courier disguise to avoid the Moscow police who were staked outside of her friend's apartment where she had been staying, the New York Times reports.
She left her cellphone behind to trick the police and avoid any tracking.
A friend then drove Alyokhina to Russia's border with Belarus and she traveled to Lithuania within a week.
The music band Pussy Riot, which was founded back in 2011 in Russia, is known for its protest songs and concerts that promote civil liberties.
I agree. It's now or never.
Well, starting from the things they already have said: deploying more nukes to Kaliningrad and perhaps to the Finnish Border. I guess the obvious thing would be to reinforce the air defenses in the Leningrad area and basically put more troops on the border. Assuming when they aren't fighting in Ukraine anymore.
And of course if you forget the actual events, Putin can now declare this as obvious proof that the West is out to get Russia. Yet the truth is that without the invasion of Ukraine, neither the Swedish or Finnish administrations, which both are lead by social democrats, wouldn't have made such a move and opted to use the "NATO option".
The probability of a military attack against Finland or Sweden is low. But at least the military here understands it's a possibility. Reservists are called to exercises far more frequently than before.
It will also stretch the Russian army thin, they will put more of their GDP into military development, which in turn will strain society. The positive outcome of this might be that the population suffers and rally against the government. Much of the pressure before the Soviet Union fell came from the mothers of deceased soldiers who earlier were strong supporters of that regime, the same can happen with this conflict and if not with this conflict then with the upcoming economy stretching thin as Russia tries to squeeze as much as they can into the military. As I've been saying, a Russian revolution would be better for the world and for Russia itself. Maybe it could be the last breath of old imperial thinking in Russia moving into a much more balanced and functioning society. But that's just too much optimism. Russia will probably just be like North Korea, maybe even best buddies with them, as have been hinted by their communication with each other. I don't think China will dare to touch Russia after this. They have collaborations with North Korea, but they treat it very hush-hush so as to not complicate things with their relation to the rest of the world.
Quoting ssu
And yet apparently thinking "military repercussions" might mean an attack is
Quoting ssu
The hubris is unbelievable. You come up with a load of armchair speculation ranging from the motives of leaders, the military tactics of armies, political strategies, economic repercussions... And then have the shameless ego to assume literally any other such guesswork is "nonsense". It just beggars belief.
You've created this post hoc narrative where Russia's capabilities and intentions fit exactly the course of action you've already decided you prefer (and no other), and you don't even seem to see how ridiculous that sounds in an environment of widely disagreeing expert opinion.
It's fascinating to be part of, I have to say.
:up:
It's so much easier to misunderstand and keep your narrative than to understand and challenge yourself. It's a bias that most people do and it's what philosophy aims to bypass. But clearly, there's no philosophy in this thread, the setting is set to "common internet forum mode".
We can do better than that. Even @Isaac can, I suspect. This is an important topic, about war and peace, life and death, far more important than any 'philosophical zombie'. Hence this thread should be better curated than others, not abandoned by the mods as it is now.
Irrespective of any moderation, we as a group can decide that this topic deserves better than that. We can raise the bar, if we all agree.
Claiming to be 'misunderstood' is a fallback of edgy artists and adolescents going through their goth phase.
If you want to avoid misunderstanding, perhaps focus more on clear articulation and less on bizarre insults, shitposting cartoons, and discussion of Hungarian bathhouses...?
...
Quoting Christoffer
Quoting Olivier5
This is priceless. In consecutive comments we've got @Christoffer complaining about people dogmatically keeping their narrative, and @Olivier5 complaining about thread quality...
The same people who, respectively, haven't changed a single iota of their narrative despite 200 pages of multi-partisan commentary, and who thought it would be funny to do a little skit about anal rape.
Do you two even have mirrors? Do you read what you write, or are really so self-absorbed you can't see how you're perpetrating the exact crimes you're accusing everyone else of? Is it the pace of commentary that's the problem, the emotional nature of it...?
Why so pissed?
What is it to you if the Swedes and Finns join NATO, for instance? Would it peel some skin off your nose? What do you care for their policies and alliances?
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/return-of-the-king
This being a far more astute analysis than @Christoffer's completely naive and frankly delusional idea that "China won't dare to touch Russia after this".
In other words, much cynicism has been spilled and spent here, as if hope was an offense.
Another fun read on how the West - that is to say, NATO under US leadership - effectively ensured that the Yugoslavian massacres would be as horrendous as they were:
History repeats itself.
Yes. Don't redo the mistake of the Versaille treaty.
You said "Putin's threat". Lavrov is not Putin. And you're not saying which of "Lavrov's comments" you're referring to. One of them was:
Nuclear war: Lavrov says “the risk is real” - Ukrainian Pravda
Russia's Lavrov: Do not underestimate threat of nuclear war - Reuters
The "threat" here seems to be meant in the more general sense of threat to both sides from a possible nuclear war. And he says that Russia stands for ruling out the threat of nuclear conflicts despite high risks at the moment and wants to reduce all chances of "artificially" elevating those risks.
Of course, this was blown out of proportion by NATO propaganda, but many, including Boris Johnson, have actually dismissed the idea of a "threat" of nuclear escalation. James Heappey (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces) told the BBC that there was a “vanishingly small” possibility of Russia using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
Moreover, NATO's war on Russia had already started and kept intensifying which means that there wasn't much fear of Russian nuclear strikes.
Quoting neomac
See, statements of that kind suggest either (a) that you aren't following the discussion and are just trolling for the sake of it, or (b) that you're some kind of CIA-NATO bot.
My position has always been that every country and continent should belong to its rightful owners. In fact, long before the Ukraine conflict.
So, OF COURSE, I would contemplate Crimea as an independent state if that's what Crimeans want, in the same way I think countries like Tibet, Cyprus, Kurdistan, and continents like Europe, Africa, etc., should be independent. That's why I'm against imperialism, be it American, European, Russian, Chinese, Turkish, or whatever.
I never said Crimea must belong to Russia. It's the NATO Nazis that are saying Crimea MUST belong to Ukraine!
What I'm saying is that Russia has more of a claim on Crimea than Ukraine has. So, no, I'm NOT denying independence to Crimea at all. It is YOU who is denying independence to Tibet, Cyprus, Kurdistan, etc. You even got mad at the thought of it, which exposes your inconsistency and hypocrisy in addition to your inability to read and think! :rofl:
Interestingly, there are three NATO activists here (including yourself) and all three got mad at the thought of China returning Tibet to the Tibetans, Turkey returning Cyprus to the Cypriots, etc. And without offering any explanation.
Anyway, as I said, I don’t see what you’re contributing to this discussion because all you seem to be doing is regurgitate the NATO Troll’s anti-Russian propaganda and disinformation.
I think even the blind can see that this is a war between Russia and NATO. You’re trying to reduce it to an issue between Putin and Ukraine in order to deflect attention from the West’s involvement and criminal culpability.
Unfortunately for NATO activists and trolls, the OP says to discuss NATO’s manoeuvres. And this is what I’m doing.
The fact is that NATO has been around for a very long time and that it was created for the express purpose of containing Russia.
The NATO website says very clearly:
Lord Ismay – NATO
Ismay was a representative of British imperial interests. He had been State Secretary for the Committee of Imperial Defence and was appointed by none other than Churchill, another arch-imperialist.
Though being an empire, Britain at the time was bankrupt and totally dependent on US financial assistance, which essentially made it a client-state of America. NATO, therefore, represented Anglo-American imperialist interests and as such its objective was to contain and, eventually, destroy all countries that were opposed to Anglo-American interests. The main opponent at the time was Communist Russia a.k.a. Soviet Union (USSR).
NATO showed its true colors after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. If the Soviet Union was what Reagan called the Evil Empire, and NATO’s purpose was to “keep the Soviet Union out of Europe”, then NATO should have disbanded when the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991.
NATO not only failed to disband, but actually increased its members from 15 to 28 (!) countries, starting with Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, which became members in 1999. Why was it necessary for NATO to almost double its membership when its stated target, the Soviet Union or “Evil Communist Empire”, no longer existed?
According to CIA-NATO disinformation and lies, NATO after the Cold War expanded because Eastern European countries like Poland were so scared of Russia that they begged NATO to allow them to join.
However, Poland may have had other reasons for joining, such as financial assistance. The real question for the purposes of this discussion is not why Poland joined but why NATO thought it was in its own interest to invite Poland to join. Not what a small country like Poland wanted, but what the already huge NATO Empire wanted.
NATO wanted to expand eastward because Russia’s western borders had moved further east, leaving a vacuum that NATO, as an imperialist and expansionist organization, was eager to fill. Moreover, the very fact that NATO moved its defense line eastward means (1) that NATO continued to regard Russia as enemy even after Russia had ceased to be Communist, and (2) that NATO had no intention to stop expanding eastward.
The fact is that contrary to CIA-NATO propaganda and lies, NATO is not some philanthropic organization whose expansion is somehow driven by the needs of countries that apply for membership. Its expansion is driven by its own agenda which is to promote the interests of its creators, America and its client-state Britain.
As in the case of Poland, CIA-NATO disinformation and lies claim that Ukraine wanted to join NATO. But this doesn’t mean that this is not what NATO itself wanted, nor does it exclude the possibility that Ukraine wanted to join because it was being encouraged or pushed to do so by NATO.
Indeed, steps to incorporate Ukraine into the NATO Empire were already taken at the NATO summit of July 1990, held in London, when NATO leaders proposed cooperation with all countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
It is important to carefully follow what happened next:
24 August 1991, Ukraine declared itself independent from the Soviet Union.
8 December 1991, Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, which had been the original founding members of the Soviet Union, established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to replace the Soviet Union.
20 December 1991, NATO created the North Atlantic Cooperation Council in which Ukraine and the other CIS countries were invited to participate.
So, we can see that NATO had planned to incorporate Ukraine (1) even before Ukraine became officially independent, and (2) at a time when Ukraine had willingly joined Russia and Belarus in the Commonwealth of Independent States!
Up to this point, Crimea had not been a major problem as relations between Ukraine and Russia had remained friendly. Russian President Yeltsin recognized Ukraine’s independence unconditionally, but in hindsight this seems to have been a mistake because some unresolved issues remained in relation to (1) Soviet nuclear weapons stationed in Ukraine, (2) the Black Sea Fleet, and (3) Crimea.
On December 30, 1991, Ukraine and Russia signed the Minsk Agreement in which it was agreed that Russia would be given charge of all nuclear weapons on Ukrainian soil. But in February 1992 Ukraine announced its intention to pursue a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP). This transformed all the above issues into major problems.
On May 23, 1992 Ukraine signed the Lisbon Protocol in which it agreed to return the nuclear weapons to Russia. Later that year, Ukraine changed its mind and claimed ownership of the nuclear warheads. In April 1993 it declared that it would only return some of the nuclear weapons. This unexpected move by Ukraine was criticized by both Russia and the US (which was acting as mediator), and the problem continued to fester.
An agreement was reached in the 1994 Trilateral Statement between Ukraine, Russia, and the US for Ukraine to return the weapons in exchange for security assurances and economic support from Russia and the US.
The Black Sea Fleet problem was temporarily resolved with the Partition Treaty of 1997 which divided the fleet and allowed Russia to use some of the Crimean naval bases.
But Crimea itself remained a major problem. The Soviet Union under Khrushchev had “gifted” Crimea to Ukraine in 1954. This may have made sense for inter-Soviet administrative purposes, as Crimea was geographically closer to Kiev than to Moscow. However, in May 1992, after Ukraine’s independence, the Russian parliament declared the “gifting” of Crimea to Ukraine illegitimate.
More important, and what CIA-NATO propaganda attempts to cover up, Crimea which at the time had an ethnic-Russian majority and a small Ukrainian minority, had started its own movement of independence from Ukraine. Already on July 16, 1990, Crimea had declared its state sovereignty. On January 20, 1991, i.e., prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union (USSR) and even prior to Ukrainian independence, the Crimeans voted to become an autonomous republic as they had been before being “gifted” to Ukraine, and this was granted by the Soviet leadership.
Therefore, when Ukraine became independent, Crimea remained an autonomous republic within Ukraine. Moreover, it continued its efforts to become independent. On February 26 1992, the Crimean parliament renamed the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Republic of Crimea, and on May 5 it proclaimed self-government and enacted a separate constitution to that of Ukraine. Ukraine dismissed Crimea’s action as illegal and although the Crimean parliament created the post of President of Crimea in 1993, in 1998 Crimea was pressured by Ukraine to rename itself Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
After its annexation by Russia in 2014, Crimea reassumed the name of Republic of Crimea as enacted by the Crimean parliament in 1992.
The basic historical timeline of Crimea is as follows:
5th century BC: Greeks begin to establish colonies on Crimea’s southern coast.
47 BC – 330 AD: Roman Empire.
330 AD – 1204 AD: Byzantine Empire. Important trade hub between the Rus and the Greeks.
950 AD – 1204 AD: Part of Crimean interior controlled by the Rus.
1239 AD – 1441 AD: Interior under Turco-Mongol Golden Horde.
1204 AD - 1475 AD: The south under (Greek) Empire of Trebizond and Principality of Theodoro.
1475 AD – 1774 AD: Ottoman Empire.
1778 AD – 1917 AD: Russian Empire.
1921 AD – 1945 AD: Autonomous Republic within Russian Soviet Republic (Russian SFSR).
1954 AD – 1990 AD: Transferred to Ukraine within the Soviet Union (USSR).
1991 AD – 2014 AD: Autonomous Republic within Ukraine. Attempts to become independent.
IMO the historical facts show (1) that Crimea had never been Ukrainian (even in demographic terms) in the first place, (2) that Crimea saw itself as a separate state from Ukraine after Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union (and even before), and (3) that the Crimea issue was not created by the current Russian state and even less by Putin who wasn’t even in power at the time.
So, basically, you haven’t got a leg to stand on … :smile:
By Charles Kennedy - May 11, 2022, 5:30 PM CDT
As the European Union warns companies against paying for Russian gas in rubles, Italy’s prime minister has stated the opposite, saying that European companies are free to pay in Russian currency without finding themselves in breach of sanctions that lack clarity.
“There is no official pronouncement of what it means to breach sanctions,” Draghi said during a press conference on Wednesday, as reported by Bloomberg. “Nobody has ever said anything about whether ruble payment breach sanctions.”
The Italian prime minister also claimed that “most of the gas importers” had already opened ruble accounts with Russian Gazprom.
On Tuesday, VNG, one of Germany’s largest importers of natural gas, reportedly opened a ruble account with Russian Gazprombank, which will see its euro payment converted into rubles in line with Russia’s scheme to bypass sanctions.
VNG was the second German company to have done this. In pril, German Uniper also said it was preparing the necessary accounts for the ruble payments.
The scheme, devised by Russia, envisions national gas purchasers opening two separate accounts with Gazprombank–one in euros or dollars and a second in rubles. Payments are made to the first account and then converted to rubles and transferred to the second account.
"To pay in rubles — if this is not foreseen in the contract — is a breach of our sanctions," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said two weeks ago. "Companies with such contracts should not accede to the Russian demands."
Several EU countries will have to renew supply contracts with Gazprom by the end of this month.
"Russia will" is definitive. What I've said that a military response is unlikely. Russia is already engaged in one war. A hybrid response is far more probable. And a political response is very probable.
Quoting Isaac
How Putin exactly will respond we cannot know. So saying "perhaps" isn't hubris.
Quoting Isaac
?
Obviously you simply do not know anything about such issues as military tactics, and obviously think that others are as ignorant as you. As usual, we do quote or make references to sources.
Then only a few sentences later:
Quoting Apollodorus
:snicker:
Or earlier, of the Russian expansionism according to our troll:
Quoting Apollodorus
Your argument for "rightful owners" of a piece of geographical land is just plain stupid. It's an argument that can be stretched to such extreme length that it becomes irrational as any kind of solution for any nation of the world. Just listen to people a bit more intelligent than you who reflect on the Ukraine conflict with the perspective of their own geopolitical perspective:
The world can argue back and forth about where to draw borders, but a peaceful world can be achieved by everyone accepting the status quo of borders as a reset for geographical conflicts and any shift to be through peaceful processes, not force.
Your argument for "rightful owners" is warmongering because it gives the right to anyone to take any point in history and claim their right to invade other nations because of it. It's the same stupidity that we condemn Russia for in view of the current invasion of Ukraine. By your concept, Sweden should invade Finland, the Baltics, Poland, and Russia and take back a large chunk of all of it because we owned it at one point in time. It's a stupid way of trying to justify invasions today and it falls flat.
I'm not so sure about that. If the Putinist regime would collapse like the Soviet Union, that would be great. We don't give enough credit how well the last leaders of the Soviet Union did handle the collapse of Union. Then it didn't go the way of Yugoslavia. But with people like Putin, you do have similar types as Milosevic. As one Serb intellectual put it, Milosevic was one of the worst things to happen to Serbia and the Serbians. There are many who believe in Putin in Russia. Those who oppose him flee to countries like Georgia.
It would be great if Russia did come to it's sense, but the real problem is that the Putinists might fight to the bitter end if it would come to it. And that isn't something I hope for.
* * *
Of course these issues should be looked from their positive effects: at least now Putin has a wonderful opportunity to help us to go green and off from (at least Russian) hydrocarbons. (The energy minister has said few days ago that Russia could cut off gas exports to Finland in weeks)
Those that uphold ideas like "rightful ownership" are usually the one's who start wars.
Because they were mostly educated people. Indoctrinated, but educated and intelligent as to how to handle that collapse and they did it in a group, not through a bloated self-absorbed despot. Russian people today seem to have lost a few points of IQ for some reason, maybe due to long-time exposure to the Chornobyl downfall or something.
Russia needs an overhaul, it's rotten to the core with deadly corruption and degeneracy. Since most decent people seek to leave the nation, there will only be these degenerate criminals left.
Finland: We are safer now!
--
It's funny that one of your favorite phrases is "bootlicker."
:lol:
Oh oh... Stocking up firewood yet?
Yes.
And of course, and what really broke the back of the Soviet Union was the 1991 putsch attempt, which put the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic directly opposed to the Union.
It's hard to explain how bizarre that situation was. It would be like a US President declaring that he would be taking all the powers from the States and the States then all walking away from the union. That wouldn't leave the Federal Government...with Washington DC?
Why so aggressive all the time? Why can't you just agree to disagree in a cool headed manner? Keep some sense of humour; try and understand others.
Why so pissed?
What is it to you if people talk about NATO a lot? Would it peel some skin off your nose? What do you care for their political opinions?
I didn't.
Quoting ssu
...is a classic example of the falsehood of...
Quoting ssu
We'd be lucky if one claim in twenty is sourced.
Why?
I've already have ample firewood at the countryside place. And trees, if it comes to that. And it starts finally to be warmer here. And anyway, this is the time to keep cool heads.
Quoting Streetlight
Yeah. I think many were indeed quite naive about Putin's Russia. 24th of February finally changed that.
:up:
That would be to conduct foreign policy by the whim of one’s adversary.
Russia has it forces in Ukraine (do you need references for that?). There aren't many forces on the Russian side of the Finnish border. (Here in Finnish, but use google translate).
So why hybrid?
link here
Or then the information front:
Or in general, just what Russia could do... can be anticipated from what it has done:
Form Hybrid Operations and the Importance of Resilience: Lessons From Recent Finnish History (Carniege endowment for international Peace, author René Nyberg)
Hence, when your military is fighting a war in another place, then you obviously have to use different methods. Or is that too daring of a conclusion to make?
Putin appears to be and wants to depict himself as taking advice on this from Lavrov. Lavrov is using weasel words with veiled threats. There was also a mention of WW3 in another comment.
As I say sufficient cause for Finland and Sweden to join NATO. Because this would be part of a defensive strategy and the threats I refer to are real threats which this strategy addresses. Whether, or not they are real threats, is irrelevant now. The threshold of risk has obviously been reached.
One could say that this is Putin’s strategy, to galvanise, expand and strengthen NATO.
No, it would be to conduct foreign policy taking into account the whim of one's adversary... you know, like strategists actually do in the real world, the one outside of whatever LARPing fantasy you live in.
Again, your conclusion is not in the least question. Not too daring, well informed, and now fully cited. Well done.
What's in question (and remains uncited) is the notion that the alternative is 'nonsense'.
I blame Top Gun
As I said that (nonsense) referred to this:
Quoting Christoffer
Quoting Isaac
Quoting ssu
Yet if you think Russia really will invade Finland, well, this was then a window of opportunity for us as Russia isn't a normal country trying to have normal relations with it's neighbors. If you haven't notice the abnormality from Putin's actions in Ukraine or Russia's actions in general in Ukraine. Or in Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Belarus...
Precisely and that is what Finland has done. It was literally on Putin’s whim that Russian troops entered Ukraine. Finland watched this move and then applied to join NATO.
Can’t you see it yet? The location of the new Iron curtain is being decided.
Putin pretty much nailed that.
Getting one country to change it's course in security policy after 200 years of a successful policy that made it to avoid WW1 and WW2, and another one basically the time it has been independent, one surely has had to make some radical decisions. And Putin has made them.
Maybe he just thought taking over Ukraine would be worth it. Who knows. Yet starting a large scale conventional war does change things.
And this is why I think he's a delusional despot with stupid minions under him. To think that the world, with all the alliances it has from WWII and forward would just sit idle while they murder Ukrainians is a delusion that only someone far up their own asses would do. The cost is so high for Russia that it's close to proven that they are stupid regardless of whether they taking over the entire Ukraine or not.
I see what you mean. Still, it wasn't Putin who said it.
Or are you suggesting that every time Putin says something, we should assume it's Lavrov who is saying it, even when Putin isn't saying it?
Plus, NATO's war on Russia had already started by then.
The Finns and Swedes can join NATO or any other organization they like to. I think the real problem, or tragedy, actually, is that so many people (on both sides) are getting killed for the sake of politicians.
It wasn't just me who said that Siberia was mostly uninhabited. (@Count Timothy of Icarus) said it and so would any other educated person.
If Russian presence in Crimea is "imperialism", so is Ukrainian presence.
If countries have "no rightful owners", on what basis are you claiming that a country belongs to a particular nation or state?
By your logic, Finland doesn't belong to the Finns, Sweden doesn't belong to the Swedes, Ukraine doesn't belong to Ukrainians, etc.
So, obviously, the Ukrainians aren't fighting for their country. Perhaps, they're fighting for America, then.
And whom do you think Tibet belongs to? To China who invaded, occupied, and annexed it?
But I must say it's really funny to see NATO trolls trying to "think" .... :grin:
Why didn't Finland join earlier? They just didn't think there was any need?
That your proposed solution isn't a solution as this has already been rejected by countries asked to give security assurances to Ukraine. So the problem is really complex. How do you provide security to Ukraine in a way that's also acceptable to Russia and that other counties are prepared to give? (e.g. Article 5 like assurances are not going to fly).
I think saying "Ukraine gets to decide the terms of peace" is naive, also coming from Draghi. Their terms were to join NATO. We all know how that went. NATO pretended they could join and then when there was an actual war all of a sudden that door closed. Not the epitome of trustworthiness either. Any peace is going to have to be tripartite, Ukraine, Russia and whatever countries are involved to give Ukraine assurances.
Because the policy of determined neutrality worked for them. Both policies carry risk. If you're attacked, you're alone when you're neutral. On the other hand, you won't be dragged into wars for expediency and are aren't a target by association.
NATO was necessary during the Cold War. Nowadays I only see trouble ahead. It's just a means for the US to bring the fight to the doorstep of other countries, without risking their own resources. And it does that through various treaties, not just NATO. The US has only known 15 years of peace since its inception and we've already seen NATO involved in conflicts that weren't defensive.
I haven't proposed anything. You misread the exchange.
Quoting Benkei
First thing first, Russia has to be defeated and repelled from Ukraine. Once that is done, and I have no doubt it will be, the situation will be different: Russia will need security guarantees against a victorious Ukraine; and Belarus may become independent.
The simple answer: The blowback from Russia seemed to be more than the security given by NATO. And earlier, especially during the Cold War and when there was the Soviet Union, we could have been in a similar situation as Ukraine is now. And basically (joining NATO) would have been a breach of the peace arrangement with the Soviet Union.
Quoting Benkei
With Finland it was sort of like that as @Benkei said.
Yet this neutrality was forced on to Finland. The country was left to the Soviet sphere and Finland understood it couldn't just waltz into the West. Not to NATO, not to the EEC. As I described earlier, the position after WW2 and when NATO was formed in 1949 was dire and there wasn't any guarantees that Stalin wouldn't do his "unfinished business" with Finland later.
And one should remember that the Finnish Army, the largest political parties of the country and the institutions are the same as before WW2. We have the same army that fought against the Soviets in the Winter War, then fought alongside Hitler's Germany and then finally fought against Germany. The army wasn't disbanded and a new formed as in every other country that fought on the Axis side. This experience had a severe effect on Finnish psyche and thinking. There was no "VE Day" for Finland in WW2. No allies liberated us (thankfully!). And when a Finnish general that had served during the war was once accused by someone in the West that "You fought with Hitler. ", he snapped back "And you with Stalin!". He represented the Finnish attitude quite well.
This had the effect that Finns were highly sceptical about NATO prior, as were the Swedes. In fact the views of Benkei or Isaac were quite typical in Finland when it came to NATO and later people were happy of just having a "NATO option", but being separate from it. No need to anger the bear next door.
But then came 24th of February and broke that glass house we were living in like a 9/11 moment. Russia simply wasn't the reasonable, the normal country that you could have normal friendly relations with. This dawned to everybody. Old policies simply didn't work: no matter if you would be neutral, Russia would continue it's threats and abusive policies and would try to get into the dominating role it enjoyed during the Cold War in Finland. It is abundantly clear now. Above all, Putin is so reckless that it could start a large scale conventional war against a neighboring neutral country that was far larger than Finland.
Yougov did an interesting poll among European countries, which show how Finns compared to others view the war in Ukraine:
It appears that Russia(Putin’s regime) hasn’t moved on from the Cold War like the rest of us(following the fall of the USSR). She will drag us back into it now, at great personal cost.
[quote=Anna]Putin has publicly demonstrated many times that he basically does not understand what a discussion is. Especially a political one – according to Putin, a discussion of the inferior and the superior shouldn’t take place. And if the subordinate allows it, then he is an enemy. Putin behaves in this way not deliberately, not because he is a tyrant and despot ad natum – he was simply brought up in ways that the KGB drilled in him, and he considers this system ideal, which he has publicly stated more than once. And therefore, as soon as someone disagrees with him, Putin categorically demands "to stop the hysteria." (Hence he refuses to participate in pre-election debates, which are not in his nature, he is not capable of them, he does not know how to make a dialog. He is an exclusive monologist. According to the military model the subordinate must keep silent. A superior talks, but in the mode of a monologue, and then all the inferiors are obliged to pretend that they agree. A sort of ideological hazing, sometimes turning into physical destruction and elimination as it happened to Khodorkovsky).[/quote]
This has the ring of truth. And if it is true, there is nothing to be done short of complete military defeat at any cost. It certainly makes more sense than the cries of delusion, stupidity, and pathology that are projected rather too easily in his general direction.
Having said that, I'm not sure all the contributors here understand what a discussion is either. :worry:
When Zelenskyy proposes direct talks between Putin and him, he's probly trolling Putin, knowing that his proposal is likely to be found offensive by the Megalomaniac in Chief.
Now the future for Russia is either bleak or even worse.
I remember when I stayed in Moscow in a family, acquaintances of my parents, during the last year when it was the Soviet Union. There was this nervousness on what the future would bring. It didn't look good. It looks similar for Russia now.
Then the possibility of a civil war loomed in the background. Well, it didn't come then, the civil war came now with the actions Putin and the war with Ukraine. In a way, this is the civil war after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Yet that's nothing compared to what Ukraine is going through now.
What is imperialism is to acquire territory through military force.
When countries acknowledge the sovereignty of a state, then that typically defines also the territory then. With Ukraine, these were furthermore acknowledged with the Budapest memorandum.
Such actions and peace treaties define who are the "rightful owner" of a territory. Disagreement can lead to war, because assuming that the last treaties / peace agreements are wrong, that there's another "rightful owner", are accusations that can (and have lead) to wars.
Oh pls, can I be a CIA-NATO bot transformer?
Quoting Apollodorus
But I never said you said it MUST! I just questioned your claim that Crimea belongs to Russia.
Anyway according to your recent claim, Crimea doesn’t belong to Russia either, contrary to what you were claiming previously, because Crimea belongs to Crimeans. And you revised your claim from Crimea belongs to Russia and not Ukraine, to Russia has more of a claim on Crimea than Ukraine has. You have to clarify this point too.
Besides according to your principle of self-determination, then Ukraine is allowed to join NATO if they wish so, right?
Quoting Apollodorus
Unfortunately, you are establishing inconsistency and hypocrisy wrt principles I’m not committed to and claims I never made. Such repeated blunders of yours are even embarrassing to witness and boring to emend.
Quoting Apollodorus
Ah yes, where were we? Here are the maps of the ethnic groups in Russia and China:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5c/Map_of_the_ethnic_groups_living_in_the_Soviet_Union.jpg/1200px-Map_of_the_ethnic_groups_living_in_the_Soviet_Union.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Ethnolinguistic_map_of_China_1983.png
So tell me what territory should be returned to whom? BTW are sovereign states free to ally for their defense with other sovereign states once you have done all your mapping?
Quoting Apollodorus
What would be the propaganda and disinformation I’m regurgitating, can you quote me by any chance?
Quoting Apollodorus
How on earth am I trying to do that, if the first comment to your post is an argument to support Western involvement in this war between Russia and Ukraine?! What criminal activities are you referring to?! What are your evidences of the Western involvement in such criminal activities?
Quoting Apollodorus
Sure it’s called “mutual interest”. And if Russia has security concerns at its borders, this is true also for other countries like Poland which as Russia has a long story of foreign invasions (including from URSS and Germany). So given the genesis of NATO, Poland seems to be the right place for the US to stay.
Quoting Apollodorus
Sorry to interrupt your daily intellectual masturbation over CIA-NATO hypocrisy (yuck!), but client states might also have their self-aware and self-serving interest in being client states of great powers.
Quoting Apollodorus
We can’t exclude it sure. That’s why we need evidences, right? To discriminate imagined possibilities from reality.
Quoting Apollodorus
Holy shit, after more than 30 years Ukraine didn’t join yet?! Me CIA-NATO bot transformer very disappointed! :(
Quoting Apollodorus
Holy shit, after 38 years Russia and not the Soviet Union realised Khrushchev was drunk that day?! How come?! That’s really a totally inconceivable not-like-usual-Russian-propaganda narrative twist, right?!
Quoting Apollodorus
Dude, no need to regurgitate history trivia you read somewhere else, just give us the link. Probably you got it from here: https://www.refworld.org/docid/469f38ec2.html
Anyway here some notes you might consider:
Quoting Apollodorus
Yet oddly you didn’t say this time: “we can’t exclude the possibility that Crimean effort to become fully independent from Ukraine was being encouraged or pushed to do so by Russia”.
Quoting Apollodorus
Historical facts show that Crimea has never ever been a national sovereign state neither prior to Soviet Union, nor during the Soviet Union, nor after the Soviet Union! And that the Crimea region was since 1954 under Soviet rule transferred to the administrative control of Ukraine and part of its territory until the end of Soviet Union, then Crimea was under the control of Ukraine and part of its territory until Russian annexation. The declaration of sovereignty by Crimea authorities was illegal under the only sovereign, independent and internationally acknowledged authority that counted: Ukraine!
Moreover by signing 2 treaties with Ukraine, Russia acknowledged territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine (which by constitution establishes that Crimea is integral part of its territory)!
Quoting Apollodorus
BTW which Crimea are you talking about? Prior to or after the Russification of Crimea by the soviets? Shouldn’t your Utopian principle mapping territories with ethnic groups, consider the reinstatement of all the non-Russian minorities that have been expelled from Crimea? And why on earth are you hiding the still ongoing oppression of non-Russian minorities in Crimea (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2016/578003/EXPO_STU(2016)578003_EN.pdf)?! Don’t they have a right for a sovereign state within the sovereign state of Crimea within the sovereign state of Russia, after the Russian annexation?!
Since we are at it, let me also remind you that “the principle of self-determination of peoples” you so passionately defend, is a super Western international law principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination), arguably stemming from American propaganda (“The American Revolution of the 1770s has been seen as the first assertion of the right of national and democratic self-determination[/b], because of the explicit invocation of natural law, the natural rights of man, as well as the consent of, and sovereignty by, the people governed; these ideas were inspired particularly by John Locke's enlightened writings of the previous century”) if not even Atlanticist propaganda (“In 1941 Allies of World War II declared the Atlantic Charter and accepted the principle of self-determination. In January 1942 twenty-six states signed the Declaration by United Nations, which accepted those principles. The ratification of the United Nations Charter in 1945 at the end of World War II placed the right of self-determination into the framework of international law and diplomacy.”[/I]). So, to share an old philosophical piece of wisdom, [i]gn?thi seauton b/c you might be a CIA-NATO bot that spreads CIA-NATO propaganda without being aware, and even more than I am!
Quoting Apollodorus
As a disputed territory between Russia and Ukraine, absolutely yes Russia created the problem starting from January 1992. I’m not denying that Russians had historical and geopolitical plausible reasons to do this and design their propaganda accordingly. But if Russia didn’t complain or push (as the rest of the chronology in that link abundantly shows), the case of Crimea could have been likely analogous to the case Catalunya (with its independent movements and the marvelous adventures of President Puigdemont).
Quoting Apollodorus
I can facepalm at your blunders also from my seat though. All you were able to prove so far is that ethno-historical considerations are relevant to understand and legitimise, and I never ever questioned it. Indeed they make us understand, at least in part, why Crimea is fiercely disputed between Russia and Ukraine and why it’s key also in the negotiation. However my point is exclusively but decisively that, contrary to your views, they are neither the only determinant factor to understand the current status of Crimea nor the only or even the primary source to assess related legitimacy claims. Indeed when it’s matter of sovereignty international relations (international order, treaties and power relations) are essentials to understand and justify historical events (also concerning the Western involvement in this war!). Or let’s say that this is, at least, part of my ideological view because saying that this is what history shows it would be an overkill, and you have already humiliated yourself enough, right?
To summarise: strawman arguments, preventive strawman arguments, surreal accusations (I doubt you even have a clue how internet bots work), question begging nonsensical challenges, misread/misunderstood/filtered historical trivia & news, and intellectual masturbation over evil NATO (yuck!). Did I miss anything else from your cringy repertoire of intellectual failures, dude?
The tensions and internal battles during the collapse of the Soviet Union was close to starting a civil war. If there's a collapse of Russia happening due to the current war, then the outcome might not be as good as it was back then, it could very well escalate to a full civil war. This is what I meant with revolution, it could lead to it because the Soviet Union's internal conflict had much more to do with the different nations breaking off from Russia while now, the possible internal conflict has no borders to break. So it could lead to a massive overhaul of the entire nation.
Of course speculative, but it only requires part of the military to be fed up with Putin and his minions to escalate it into a deadly divided nation and we've already seen a lot of Russian soldiers who deserted turning their backs on Russia.
Eh...?
You do like your death tolls high. What a surprise.
Quoting unenlightened
A striking illustration of how Putin talks to his underlings was this bizarre televised spectacle of his Security Council meeting right before the war, in which he sat them all down in front of him like children, in a semicircle, and had them publicly pledge their allegiance and complicity to the course, while scolding and humiliating those who went off script.
link
[I]As its name suggests, this magazine emphasizes reporting. Created in 2007 by the Expert group to be a “newspaper to read and look at”, its ambition is to “recount the life of modern societies” using quality texts and the work of the best photographers. Despite a certain notoriety validated by numerous prizes, it ceased its weekly rhythm from 2015 and only appears twice a month in the best of cases. Their website has its own editorial staff.[/i]
All this prefacing to say this is a Russian source, but a fairly decent one. The article dates back to March 2019, before the war when some free reporting was still allowed.
The text was originally posted with a photograhy portfolio, that one can see here or here.
Crimea as an Island
Stanislava Novgorodtseva
“Alas, how small is an individual before the inexorable laws of history,” wrote Vasily Aksenov in the novel The Island of Crimea.
As a child, Crimea seemed to me a sacred, apolitical place. An island of original mythology with traces of ancient civilizations. Here I saw the sea for the first time. The annual vacation trips were something like visiting your beloved grandmother - time free from worries.
The Crimean peninsula has formed its own identity in the melting pot of peoples. At different times, Tauris, Cimmerians, Scythians, Romans, Goths, Huns, Greeks lived on its territory. In 1783, this place of intersection of different religions and cultures became part of the Russian Empire and was granted the glory of a royal residence.
With the advent of the USSR, Crimea was redesigned from a vacation spot for the elite into a resort accessible to the Soviet people. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the peninsula was part of Ukraine, and in March 2014 it was included in Russia. Since that moment, Crimea has been at the center of the main political conflicts of the last five years. New realities have made adjustments to my relationship with the place. A new political layer has wedged into the world of childhood and local mythology.
Politics took a tough toll on families: many quarreled, broke off relations with relatives on the other side of the Russian-Ukrainian border. Since 2014, according to official figures, 22,823 people have moved and registered in Ukraine as migrants - about 1 percent of the inhabitants of the peninsula, primarily Crimean Tatars and citizens whose fate was closely connected with Ukraine. Active migration in both directions is still observed, although crossing the border is increasingly difficult. Now there are relatively few “pro-Ukrainian citizens” in Crimea, but they exist, although they are afraid to openly express their position.
The division also affected the Crimean Tatar population - only a part of the elders accepted the new Russian government, appreciating the steps made towards them, including the recognition of property rights to the occupied land and buildings, and the assignment of state status to the Crimean Tatar language.
The zealous work of the security forces makes a depressing impression on the dissenting part of the people. Since 2014, 32 Crimeans have been convicted of participating in the activities of the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization, which is banned in Russia. In Ukraine, it was not banned, and some people suddenly found themselves outside the law. Since 2016, the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, which is boycotting the annexation of Crimea to Russia, has been classified among the extremist organizations.
Among the Russian population, pro-Russian sentiments and approval of the current government prevail: in the 2018 elections, Vladimir Putin was supported by 90% of the inhabitants of the peninsula. However, there is an artificial planting of military-patriotic themes in education, in the landscape, in the environment.
State institutions and private companies compete in loyalty to the new government: billboards, house facades and bus stops are decorated with paintings depicting the Russian president and the tricolor. Civil initiatives to hang the Russian flag outside the windows are also not uncommon. Souvenirs shops are dominated by the same symbols, complemented by aggressive anti-American rhetoric.
But even [Russian] patriots complain that the increase in wages and pensions after joining Russia does not compensate for the rise in prices. Until May 2018, many lived in hope: “They will build the Crimean bridge, and life will begin to improve, prices will even out.” Alas, this did not happen - this year the same interlocutors no longer make such optimistic forecasts.
Tourism is still important for Crimea, but another problem has been added to the lack of infrastructure and services - rising prices. Unregulated camping and tourism remain stably popular, but do not help replenish the budget. And in hotels and sanatoriums - either Russians who are not allowed to travel abroad, or nostalgic pensioners. Service is worse than in Sochi, and the cost is higher than in Turkey.
There is a sense of isolation – there is no Sberbank, VTB, MTS, or other large companies in Crimea; they fear sanctions. And even the Crimean football teams have to play matches exclusively with each other. Small businesses also suffered; few were able to quickly reorganize themselves, taking into account Russian legislation and a rigid taxation system.
Another serious problem is the drought in the steppe. The energy blockade by Ukraine has somehow been overcome, but there is still an acute shortage of water. And first of all, the Crimean Tatars, who are engaged in agriculture here, suffer. When I saw how in the summer plastic containers with water were placed every 10 meters in the fields, I assumed that this was an irrigation system, but the owners of the fields explained: these are water dispensers for birds and rodents. Animals also suffer from drought and, in desperation, gnaw through irrigation hoses.
According to official reports, significant funds are being allocated to help the steppe regions, but there are no visible improvements yet.
Sanctions and individual restrictions on the territory of Crimea have reinforced the feeling of its isolation. The country of my childhood has been transformed into an isolated island somewhere on the map of Russia.
https://expert.ru/russian_reporter/2019/04/kryim-kak-ostrov/
Well, if I understood correctly, you live in the UK. Do you honestly see any Brits worrying about being nuked by Russia? Or Americans?
The impression I’m getting is that it isn’t ordinary people who are worrying, but NATO and its political collaborators, and that is because they fear that it’s expansionist plans might be frustrated by Russia.
The way I see it, the new Cold War is the result of the NATO Empire’s insistence on permanent expansion.
That’s precisely why NATO has been preparing for a conventional war with Russia, and why the Ukrainians were so well-prepared. I’ve no idea where the Russians had gotten their intelligence from, but they were obviously surprised to see how well-prepared the Ukrainians were. And of course they were well-prepared, as they had been trained by the US and UK.
Boris, for example, has his own agenda. He urgently needs some new trade deals to kick-start the economy. So, he’s trying to show what a good boy he is by sucking up to Biden and the EU (as well as to energy and defense corporations) and pushing for escalation in Ukraine.
Ukrainian minorities in Crimea “have been expelled by Russia”?! I bet you were there (in your dreams) and you saw it with your own eyes (or optic sensors)! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Crimea is a Russian-majority territory that has never been Ukrainian (there has NEVER been a Ukrainian majority there!) and that had a special status even within Ukraine. The Minsk Protocol itself was intended to give special status to areas of Donetsk and Luhansk:
This shows that the contested territories were NOT regarded as the same as the rest of Ukraine, even by the Ukrainian government, and certainly not by Crimeans and Donbas Russians.
In any case, if you think I’m going to waste my time with your evidence-free drivel, you’re seriously mistaken.
It makes no sense whatsoever to say that countries shouldn’t belong to their rightful owners. In fact, it contradicts your own position if you care to think about it! :grin:
As for “accepting the status quo”, why doesn’t NATO lead by example and stick to its own borders?
1. There are many different kinds of inter-state borders. If a country is an island, for example, then it has very clear borders.
Many countries don’t have clearly visible borders. For example, Finland’s border with Russia is not demarcated by any natural feature and has no proper barrier that divides the two countries.
2. Second, borders are drawn by people, not by laws. A lot of borders were drawn by force of arms, irrespective of any laws. Some were drawn by foreign powers or under pressure from foreign powers.
Finland’s border with Russia was drawn by Sweden and Russia, not by the Finns. Germany’s border with Poland was drawn by Russia, America, and Britain, not by the Germans, etc. Many borders in Africa, the Near East, and other parts of the world were drawn by the British Empire without the locals being asked.
3. Third, the purpose of law is to enforce justice. If a border drawn “by the law” is unjust to the inhabitants of the territory in question, then it is not a just border and the law that imposes it is not a just law.
4. Fourth, borders are not permanent. They change, especially when the concerned populations see them as unjust. This is precisely why so many border-related conflicts exist all over the world.
5. Fifth, it is not unheard of for territories occupied by one population to be returned to their original inhabitants.
For example, Australia has returned some land to the Aboriginal population:
160,000 hectares returned on path to reconciliation – Queensland Government
In 2019, the Tuluwat Island in California was returned to Native Americans:
Historic U.S. island return to native tribe 'path forward' for other land transfers - Reuters
Similar projects exist in Latin America and elsewhere. These are relatively small but significant and trend-setting examples of how the principle that every country should belong to its rightful owners can be, and is, applied when there is a will to uphold justice.
Unfortunately, NATO and its cheerleaders who are stuck in the 50's and 60's don’t seem to be interested in justice but in promoting American Imperialism.
American imperialism - Wikipedia
Moreover, your favorite neofascist NATO dictatorship, TURKEY, has said that it doesn’t want Finland and Sweden to join NATO because they are guesthouses for terrorists:
Turkey not in favor of Finland, Sweden’s admission to NATO: Erdo?an - Hürriyet Daily News
A bit embarrassing that, but as they say, "what goes around comes around" .... :wink:
“As a result of the actions of our military sailors, the logistics ship Vsevolod Bobrov, one of the newest in the Russian fleet, [caught fire]. They say that it is [being towed] to Sevastopol,” the Ukrinform news agency quoted spokesperson Serhii Bratchuk as saying.
I just want an aggression punished.
Don't have the figure handy; some engineering firm made some estimates a while back.
I doubt the destroying party is willing to pay up.
@Apollodorus, instead of all your quote mining and kooky comments, you should try spending some of that time drawing up connections between and activities of these people (incomplete list):
Not an oligarch list as such, but they're in "The Club". Hic sunt Dracones.
Quoting Olivier5
Deterred at least (apropos) :up:
That's seen as a problem in the US. We don't want to defend other countries for their sake anymore. We do not want to deploy more than the 100,000 US troops we already have in Europe to guard Finland or Sweden. Public opinion here thinks that Europe should rearm adequately to defend it's own frontiers when it comes to Russia. If you want to strengthen NATO then you all better hurry before the next major US elections.
Make an argument if you have one and no more silly videos, please.
Maybe try to keep your feelings out of it. The only people getting punished are civilians and soldiers. Putin will sit on his throne regardless. And where was your bloodthirst when Iraq happened or any of the 300 illegal wars the US has fought? I bet you ineffectually protested it and then after the fact bleat about the criminal court, if at all. Why don't you put your feet where your mouth is, pick up a gun and walk to Ukraine and "punish" some Russians while making a target of whatever building or people you're standing next to? Why must others do the punishing and dying on behalf of your misplaced principles? Ukraine had already signaled it wants peace, its prepared to give independence to the Donbass region but it's not getting the security guarantees from the West that it wants. I asked you how a peace deal would look like and I get a repetition of what isn't possible. So one of the guys who went on about "Ukrainian agency" prefers to not pursue the peace Ukrainians want because he feels Russia has to be punished. Fantastically consistent of you!
When Apartheid ended, reconciliation instead of punishment led to peace. When Germany was punished after WWI it led to WWII. Maybe think about the cost before pretending principles are worth shit.
:smile:
If you ask what I like, I'll respond. So, I shall leave my feelings out of it when you leave my feelings out of it...
Try and think logically, when you post. Don't accuse others of something you started, for instance. Otherwise it looks like you are just playing games.
Once again, if you don't want to send howitzers to Ukraine, chances are you will be sending troops to Poland.
So there's a conundrum there but both Draghi and Macron expressed the need to pursue peace instead of "bleeding the Russians". So what would a solution to that conundrum look like? That was my question.
Quoting M777
Even Hitler didn't act in a vacuum. It's well established that the peace enforced after WWI was onerous on the Germans which contributed to the circumstances allowing HItler to rise to power.
Here to NATO encroachment, contrary to promises made, has been a contributing factor (and in my view decisive). Especially when last year NATO once again expressed Ukraine could join, only to make u-turn quickly after the start of the war that it would never join, which makes you wonder as to the purpose of that NATO declaration to begin with. It's not as if war wasn't a likelihood. Then there was the proxy war going on in Ukraine for 20 years already, which also played a role. So, perhaps we shouldn't be contributing to higher likelihoods of war to begin with and when there is war think about how to extricate ourselves from it instead of arguing for the start of WWIII in which nuclear weapons are now part of the arsenal of the aggressor.
I gave you my answer already -- and then you veered into emotional language. Let's try again, slower.
1) The conundrum you described has no solution that you or I can see. That'd be why you call it a conundrum.
2) If no country is willing to give Ukraine security assurances, it goes without saying that Ukrainians will have to try and find their own indigenous solutions to their own security.
3) One way to do that is simply to repel the Russian army back into Russia. If Ukraine can achieve this, then it will have proven that it can ensure its own security. And Russia likely won't try to invade them again for a few decades.
4) The problem then becomes the security and stability of Russia itself. This is why Macron and others are reminding us all that we need to keep channels of communication open with Russia, and to make sure Ukraine doesn't push its advantage beyond the liberation of Ukraine. A victorious Ukraine, armed to the teeth, could also become a destabilizing factor in the future. Zelenskyy won't be here forever. Wars often stroke extreme nationalism.
Crimea is a Russian-majority territory that has never been Ukrainian (there has NEVER been a Ukrainian majority there!) and that had a special status even within Ukraine.[/quote]
Still rofling, dude?! Still chopping conveniently my quotes to suggest claims I never made?!
Still countering objections I never raised, nor implied, nor suggested, nor even need to raise to make my point against your claims?! Really?!
This was my question to you, read carefully (since you do not have optic sensors, I bolded the salient parts for you): “Shouldn’t your Utopian principle mapping territories with ethnic groups, consider the reinstatement of all the non-Russian minorities that have been expelled from Crimea?”. In other words I was questioning your Utopian principle wrt the demographic history of Crimea. Do you know there is an ethnic group indigenous to Crimea (so indigenous they got labelled with the word “Crimea” in their name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatars)? Do you know they constituted the ethnic majority until the progressive Russian colonisation by the Russian empire in the late 19th century (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Ethnic_Population_of_Crimea_18th%E2%80%9321st_century.png, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Tatarization_of_Crimea)? And that to ensure a Russian majority in Crimea the soviets had to expel other non-Russian minorities, in great part Crimean Tatars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Crimean_Tatars)? How about their ongoing oppression by the Russian imperialists (https://newlinesmag.com/essays/the-suffering-of-crimeas-tatars/)?! You didn’t say anything in defense of their rights to own Crimea, dude! They are waiting for you to defend them from Russian imperialism already! That’s your anti-imperialist job, right?!
I imagine this invasion has created hatred for Russia that will persist in Ukraine for the next 50 years at least.
I agree, and there lies a danger, long term.
In his poem Salut à l’Empereur dedicated to emperor Nicholas II of Russia, French poet José Maria de Heredia sang about "... the distant era / When Russians and French in a contest without hate, / Foreseeing the future, already mixed their blood."
(... [I]l'époque lointaine / Où Russes et Français en un tournoi sans haine, / Prévoyant l'avenir, mêlaient déjà leur sang.[/i])
His mellifluous verses allude to the Napoleonic wars, depicting them as heroic but not hateful. And I guess it's true that the Russians and the French never hated one another in 1812 or in the decades after, in spite of the terrible destruction meted by this "contest without hate".
The same cannot be said about the Ukrainians, for sure, and understandably. There are already credible reports of summary execution and torture of Russian POW by Ukrainian forces. And vice versa too of course.
I can assure you, the only one failing to follow the exchange at normal speed is you. @Benkei asked you what your solution was. You gave your answer (listed at 3 in your recent reply)...
Quoting Olivier5
...and @Benkei asked (rhetorically) why you'd chosen the most high risk, high damage option there. You replied that you'd chosen it because you want to see Putin's aggression punished, which is a) stupid - Putin is not in Ukraine, so he won't be punished, and b) callous - thousands will die in the pursuit of your schadenfreude.
The question here - the only one that's really been relevant despite all the avoidance of it - is whether your (3) is the only choice, the least harmful choice, the most ethical choice etc. No one is remotely confused about why we're faced with such a choice.
In my reasoning, 3) follows logically from 1) and 2). So it is a logical necessity, not something I want, but what the situation as described by @Benkei leads to. What's "in the cards" so to speak.
EDIT: It's also the context of the discussion, i.e. the scenario evoked by Macron:
Quoting Olivier5
IOW, Macron is not talking of an immediate ceasefire. He's taking a longer view, and assuming that Ukraine will turn this war around with the heavy artillery now supplied to them, he is talking of how far should Ukraine push its advantage: up to the pre-February borders, or beyond, up to the internationally recognized borders, i.e. inclusive of Crimea and Dombas?
Pathetic.
Quoting Olivier5
What do you think we've been discussing all this time? The primary objective should be to end the war. Putin is not (yet) demanding anything which was not de facto the case already and so Ukraine could save thousands of lives at very little cost by agreeing to those terms.
We ought lobby our governments to take negotiations seriously, reduce the rhetorical force of Putin's propaganda, and invest in grass roots development in both Ukraine and Russia to tackle the root causes of the extremism on both sides which have opened the door to this conflict.
Russia should be sanctioned (properly - meaning oil exports, not sporting events and medicine).
Putin would be in a far worse situation internationally if he proposed terms which he then broke, plus he'd have a face-saving way out.
The trouble is, people like you are more concerned with not allowing Putin to save face than you are about dead Ukrainians.
Quoting Olivier5
What was pathetic was your attempt to make your poor argument sound like it was @Benkei's slowness. The point was simple and clearly made, it revealed quite well what was obvious from the start - that your primary concern is some hollywood style denunement, not welfare.
When did Putin make any precise demand, and what are these terms, pray tell?
Quoting Isaac
That's what I am saying too.
I'm not just repeating the same discussion again. It was thoroughly discussed. You and the other warmongers dismissed it as 'giving in'.
Quoting Olivier5
You haven't once mentioned the problem of the US refusing to take part in serious negotiations.
You've disagreed with me about the value of reducing the force of Putin's propaganda.
You've mentioned nothing about grassroots investment but have instead championed the exact opposite in the form of increasing IMF and European debt.
There's no peace offer on the table from Putin that I am aware of. If you want to make one up because you want to argue, go right ahead: tell us what a good peace deal would look like.
The rest of your post is equally false, invented.
So what do you mean, let Putin take over Ukraine? How's about the Baltic, Poland? All Europe?
Anyways, reading the news from the front line it seems that Ukraine is doing pretty good and will win anyway, only without American weapons it might take some month longer and cost a few thousand lives more.
I'd call that a failure of imagination.
How about demilitarised zones? Or be old school about it and have an exchange of hostages? What else does Putin care about other than whatever strategic value he sees here? What is that strategic value? Can it be reached through different means? Etc. There's a multitude of avenues to explore that can give us an idea of solutions.
I think it's more interesting to do that with someone who thinks differently than with someone who already agrees with me.
The answer is in the past you didn't quote that went before it.
Dude, just because Tatars “constituted the ethnic majority until the Russian colonization by the Russian empire in the late 19th century”, that doesn’t mean that Crimea belongs to Ukraine!
And why on earth would I defend the Tatars’ rights to ”own” Crimea? Because they invaded it?
If the Tatars “own” Crimea for invading it, then they also “own” Ukraine, Russia, China, and many other countries in Asia and Europe! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
What you appear to conveniently forget - but only serves to expose your ignorance - is that Mongol presence in Crimea was the result of the Mongol invasions during the Middle Ages when they invaded and occupied Russia, Ukraine, Eastern and Central Europe, the Mid East, Persia, India, and China.
The Mongols murdered, raped, enslaved, and sold into slavery millions of innocent people and devastated extensive areas of Asia and Europe.
Mongol invasions and conquests – Wikipedia
The Mongol invaders lived off the export of slaves (Russians, Ukrainians, and other locals whom they kidnapped), and grain (produced by the subjugated local population). They turned Crimea into a gigantic slave market and they kept raiding Russian and other Slavic territories until Russia took Crimea back in 1783.
Crimean–Nogai slave raids in Eastern Europe - Wikipedia
So, NO, they don’t qualify as “rightful owners” of any territories they invaded and whose inhabitants they enslaved, though I wouldn't be surprised if YOU thought that they do.
Moreover, there was widespread popular resentment against Mongols in Russia, Ukraine, and other countries in the region due to the atrocities they had committed against the local populations. The memory of these atrocities was preserved for many centuries in chronicles, eye-witness accounts, and the folk stories and songs of many nations including Ukraine:
- Ukrainian Folk Song, A. Kashchenko, Opovidannia pro slavne Viis’ko Zaporoz’ke nizove
Mongol atrocities against European populations, for example in Russia, have been corroborated by irrefutable archaeological evidence:
'RITUAL CRUELTY' Gruesome burial pit from ‘city drowned in blood’ reveals how Mongols butchered entire families during European invasion – The Sun
1. In expelling some of the Mongols of Crimea and resettling them in Central Asia from where they had invaded, Russia arguably redressed a historic injustice.
[Incidentally, many Germans were expelled from their traditional territories in Eastern Europe after WW2, and I don’t see NATO trolls complaining about that!]
2. The Mongols were later given the right to return.
3. The Mongols were of Central Asian descent, NOT “Ukrainians”.
4. Therefore, Russia did NOT create an ethnic-Russian majority in Crimea “by expelling Ukrainians”.
What really matters in the context of the current conflict is that Crimea has NEVER had an ethnic-Ukrainian majority. This is precisely why Crimea has had a special status even within Ukraine and why it has repeatedly sought to gain independence from Ukraine. Unfortunately, its efforts have been suppressed by your “freedom- and democracy-loving” Ukrainian government!
In any case, the bottom line is that NATO has failed to produce any evidence that Ukraine has more rights to Crimea than Russia has, least of all in demographic or ethnic terms.
But, as I said, I’m not going to keep repeating myself just because of some folks’ patent inability to read, think, or follow the discussion ….
Quoting ssu
Well, even if peace treaties “define who are the rightful owner of a territory”, you still need to identify the rightful owner, and in so doing you apply my principle! :grin:
Moreover, the vast majority of people I’ve spoken to, have no problem whatsoever accepting the principle that every country and continent should belong to its rightful owners.
Older generations that are stuck in the 50’s and 60’s may have problems grasping the soundness of the concept, but they don’t really matter as they’re on their way out anyway.
As shown in my previous post, the principle is in fact being applied already and has been applied many times in the past. It formed the basis of the decolonization movement, for example!
Of course, (1) it must be applied on the merits of each particular case and (2) no one says it must be applied by force of arms. But nor can force or threat of force (or violence) be ruled out.
If force or violence were to be ruled out in all cases, all historical and current independence movements that involved violence and that resulted in independence, would have to be deemed illegitimate and hence null and void. Too absurd for anyone to seriously contemplate IMO …. :smile:
America, for example, would be a British colony even now.
So, treaties do matter to some extent, but they need to be consistent with justice.
Quoting Olivier5
That was exactly what I was saying from the start. Recognizing some of Russia’s claims might have contributed to avoiding the conflict. The French and the Germans seem to have taken a more balanced approach because they understand Europe better than outsiders like the Brits and the Americans.
As things stand now, even if NATO win the war, (a) much of Ukraine will be destroyed, (b) it will take years to rebuild, and (c) there is no guarantee that the country won’t fall into the hands of criminal oligarchs again. So, we may well see a repeat of the 1990’s. And maybe even a WW3.
Quoting Olivier5
I think Zelensky's statements need to be taken with a large grain of salt. Let's not forget that he's being advised by his British and American handlers.
But I doubt Putin is a real "megalomaniac". Russia is a big country and its leaders, like the leaders of other big countries, tend to think and act in ways that may appear "megalomaniac" to smaller countries. IMO, a more typical megalomaniac would be Napoleon and, to a lesser degree, Stalin and Hitler.
Quoting Apollodorus
Quoting Apollodorus
Quoting Apollodorus
What?! Why on earth are you talking about Mongols?! Crimean Tatars are indigenous to Crimea, they are NOT Mongols!
[I]“[b]The Crimean Tatars were formed as a people in Crimea and are descendants of various peoples who lived in Crimea in different historical eras. The main ethnic groups that inhabited the Crimea at various times and took part in the formation of the Crimean Tatar people are Tauri, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Greeks, Goths, Bulgars, Khazars, Pechenegs, Italians and Circassians. The consolidation of this diverse ethnic conglomerate into a single Crimean Tatar people took place over the course of centuries. The connecting elements in this process were the commonality of the territory, the Turkic language and Islamic religion.
An important role in the formation of the Crimean Tatar people belongs to the Western Kipchaks, known in historiography as Cumans. [/b]They became the consolidating ethnic group, which included all other peoples who inhabited the Crimea since ancient times. Kipchaks from the 11th-12th century began to settle the Volga, Azov and Black Sea steppes (which from then until the 18th century were called the Desht-i Kipchak – "Cumanian steppe"). Starting in the second half of the 11th century, they began actively moving to the Crimea. A significant number of the Cumans hid in the mountains of Crimea, fleeing after the defeat of the combined Cumanian-Russian troops by the Mongols and the subsequent defeat of the Cumanian proto-state formations in the Northern Black Sea region.
By the end of the 15th century, the main prerequisites that led to the formation of an independent Crimean Tatar ethnic group were created: the political dominance of the Crimean Khanate was established in Crimea, the Turkic languages (Cuman-Kipchak on the territory of the khanate) became dominant, and Islam acquired the status of a state religion throughout the Peninsula. By a preponderance Cumanian population of the Crimea acquired the name "Tatars", the Islamic religion and Turkic language, and the process of consolidating the multi-ethnic conglomerate of the Peninsula began, which has led to the emergence of the Crimean Tatar people.[19] Over several centuries, on the basis of Cuman language with a noticeable Oghuz influence, the Crimean Tatar language has developed.”[/i]
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatars#Origin
This sort of debate has also swirled around the issue of the ethnic identity of one of Europe's most misunderstood Muslim ethnic groups, the Crimean Tatars. While the Crimean Tatars (who were exiled in toto from their homeland from 1944±1989 by Stalin) see themselves as the indigenous people (korennoi narod) of their cherished peninsular homeland, with origins traceable to the pre-Mongol period, they have long been portrayed in western and Soviet sources as thirteenth-century ``Mongol invaders’’.
Source: Williams, Brian Glyn. 2001. "The Ethnogenesis of the Crimean Tatars. An Historical Reinterpretation"
[i]While the Crimean Tatars are traditionally described as descendents of the Golden Horde, the formation of this Turkic-speaking, Sunni Muslim people has pre-Mongol origins in the ancient, indigenous peoples of the Crimean peninsula. They believe their history begins with the tribes living
in Crimea in prehistoric and ancient times, including the Tavriis and Kimmerites, who occupied the peninsula from 2-1,000 B.C.E. (Kudusov 1995: 15). The Crimean Tatars therefore consider themselves one of the indigenous peoples, along with the Karaims and Krymchaks [/i]
Source: The Crimean Tatars’ Deportation and Return - GRETA LYNN UEHLING (2004)
Under the Imperial Russians, the Crimean Tatars, whose ethnic origins went back to the eleventh century Kipchaks and beyond to earlier south Crimean peoples, such as the Medieval Goths, Greeks and Italians, would begin to disintegrate as hundreds of thousands of the Tsarina’s new Muslim subjects fled Russian repression to the sheltering lands of the Ottoman sultans/caliphs. The majority of the Crimea’s Muslim Tatar peasants would ultimately leave the peninsula to par- take in hijra (migration to preserve Islam from oppression by the non- believer) to the Ottoman Empire.
Source: BRIAN GLYN WILLIAMS “The Crimean Tatars” (2016)
Quoting Apollodorus
Dude, I was inquiring about who are the right owners of Crimea according to your Utopian principle (not mine!) mapping territories and ethnic groups (as the right owners). Not Ukranians all right, forget Ukrainians. Russians? No, Crimean Tatars were before the Russians! If not Crimean Tatars who else?
Quoting Apollodorus
Quoting Apollodorus
NATO didn't fail, they just do not need to justify the fact that Crimea belongs to Ukraine in ethnic terms.
The Russians aren’t the Nazis, after all, and Putin isn’t Hitler. It wouldn’t have been just, or fair — I don’t agree with Russia’s decision to invade — but a quick German victory in WW1 would also have been unfair; yet it would have prevented WWII if allowed to happen.
I’d like to prevent WWIII. So to answer my own question: yes.
Maybe one could argue doing so could have the unintended consequence of WWIII — perhaps even a greater chance of it. But I’ve yet to come across that argument.
I suppose it’s irrelevant now. But I think this question gets to the foundation for offered solutions.
A world under China or the USSR in the 20th would have been better than no world at all. Ditto Nazism. Many terrible regimes throughout history, and all eventually changed. I don’t see how anyone can justify a higher priority than survival of the species — without that, there is nothing else. Do we all agree with this or not? Is there a flaw in my logic?
Have you looked at battlefield map lately? Ukrainians are kicking ass even before getting any lendlease weapons. So what WWIII are you talking about?
And yes, there is a flaw in your logic, because according to it the most crazy dictator can get his hands on a nuke and rule the world by threatening to blow it up.
You might want to listen to this speech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXBswFfh6AY&t=1435s
Quoting M777
LOL, because principles have obviously factored into "the West"'s decisions before. Tell me another fairy tale. We will trade with autocratic regimes if this is economically expedient.
We're not boycotting Israel, China or any number of Middle Eastern countries either.
If the west is sanctioning Putin's Russia already, why do you assume it would lift those sanctions if Putin is replaced by an equal nutjob from his immediate circle?
Also oil and gas hugely depends on the infrastructure, i.e. pipeline, trade routs, etc. that's is one of the reasons it took and still is taking Europe so long to stop using Putin's gas. But once new infrastructure is in place and the old one is decommissioned, there's pretty much no coming back.
Most world leaders said they don't want the regime to resume those hostilities in a couple of years. Also I don't see how Putin's regime could survive after ending hostilities, i.e. giving Crimea back.
Time isn't on their side.
Seriously, anyone who talks about 'regime change' has learned nothing from the last twenty years and has brain rot.
In any case these are stupid hypotheticals not worth entertianing any more than asking what if snow white had eight rather than seven dwarves.
I don't care if there happens a 'mass suffering' in Russia, as long as their nukes are removed.
Okay then, go and speak to Putin and Zelenskyy about your non-descript 'avenues'... Don't waste my time if you don't have the slightest idea.
Quoting M777
Probably there would be some intermediate form of governments would last a few week each. As for the government to be sustainable, it needs an army ( which is being decimated in Ukraine right now ) and money, which also won't be there without foreign trade.
So trade partners would ask for liberal democracy and giving up nukes, to which sooner or later Russia would have to agree.
It is our business, as to prevent Russia from attacking other countries, and I don't see how it is more dangerous than allowing Putin's regime to stay in power.
Plenty of countries are and will continue to trade with Russia. Your view is western centric. The majority of countries have not changed their trade relations with Russia and for the time being Europe is not free of its energy dependence on Russia.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/686699
I'm not interested in pie-in-the-sky analysis, you got that right. It's facile to go around an internet board yelling "Peace!" It's harder to face reality, which is what I am trying to do.
Europe is quickly moving in that direction and the map shows that countries that were buying Russian gan/oil and among the ones that are implying sanctions.
Being able to trade with some Paraguay, or even China for that matter, doesn't really help Russia much. They can buy stuff from China, but they need dollars/euros first, so they need to sell stuff to Europe.
I sympathise with your proposition as a means to avoid destruction of the species. I suggest it is complicated when it comes to geopolitics and it is going well when there is a period of stability(Cold War for example). What is more important in reference to Russia is the moving away by Europe from buying Russian oil and gas. If Russia had taken Ukraine and the oil and gas revenue had continued to pour in then Putin’s strategy would be reinforced and he would then push on into other Eastern European states.
In geopolitical terms powerful, wealthy countries are fine when they are stable and cooperative with other powerful countries. When a powerful country becomes unstable and expansionist it triggers the risk of world war. Now in the 21st Century it’s time for humanity to go beyond this kind of instability and focus our resources in more important issues such as climate change and ecosystem collapse.
I would suggest though that as the climate crisis hits, geopolitics will evolve into powerful countries helping each other out as crises become more serious for each of them. A good example is the current ecological crisis hitting India. They are currently experiencing an extreme heat wave, which has destroyed a lot of this years crops. Resulting in a ban on exports of grain, a couple of days ago. The worlds second largest grain producer. This at a time when the worlds 3rd largest grain producer, Ukraine can’t export a lot of its harvest. India has the largest population, having recently outstripped China. Will likely experience famine over the next few years. This may only be a harbinger for far worse ecological crisis over the next decade.
I should've asked @ssu
China pays in yuan for Russian oil and gas. Guess where Russia spends it yuan? Nice example of pretending you know what you're taking about when you really don't.
Why, I'm challenging you to read and try and understand what those leaders I quoted have actually said. They didn't say: "peace now and no matter what". They said 1) Ukraine decides when and what they want to negotiate; 2) Restoring Ukraine's territorial integrity ought to be the primary goal now; 3) but ultimately, once this is achieved (if possible) then a peace deal will need to be found -- the goal is not to bleed Russia forever.
What Draghi and Macron don't want is a never ending proxy war. They want to be clear about the end game. They are not saying, like a facile little internet troll would: "Let's have peace now by being creative and thinking out of the box -- hey why not hostages?"
Nowhere in those quoted speeches did either politician say "Restoring Ukraine's territorial integrity ought to be the primary goal now". Draghi didn't mention it and Macron qualified it with 'at least before February 24th'.
Neither politician even referenced the idea of peace negotiations only following a Ukrainian win.
More of your usual bullshit.
I think Macron did:
Quoting Olivier5
The "delivery of heavy weapons to Kyiv" is meant to help fight off the invasion, and thus "re-establish Ukraine within its historical borders". However, "in the long term", a peace deal will need to be found.
I listened carefully to Draghi's Washington press conference when he speaks of "David and Goliath" not being the case anymore (around mn 9, in Italian). What he is saying is also about "the kind of peace Ukraine wants", long term, and whether it stops here or there. That he has some long term idea in mind is evidenced by his language: "we need to start to think about peace"; "to construct a path towards peace negotiations"; etc.
In my understanding, Draghi is saying: the tide of the war, the mid game, has turned. Now is the time to start strategize the end game. What type of end game are we trying to land on? A draw, an endless bloodbath, a resounding Ukrainian victory all the way to Moscow, or something in between?
These calls can be interpreted in the context of US pronouncements in favor of "bleeding Russia". For the French and Italians, this would indeed constitute war mongering. There needs to be some end to this. Draghi is an economist and stressed heavily the economic consequences of a long war.
And again, that kind of peace involves security assurances from countries not willing to give it. So what's the solution? It's not a difficult question to understand, even if its answer isn't immediately apparent. So again, what would that possibly look like.
"I have no idea" is an answer too you know. But I've offered several questions you could try to answer to help you get an idea.
What it may look like now is this: either they stop pushing back the Russians at the pre-24 Feb border and allow Putin for some face saving way out, or they keep on pushing until they reconquer Crimea and Dombas.
In the latter case, Putin is left no face saving way out. He might do something nuclear, or opt to get reunited with Stalin, or both... Beside, the Ukrainian forces are likely to be perceived as invaders rather than liberators by a majority of the local population in Dombas and Crimea. So the latter option is possibly too risky, but it would secure the territorial integrity of Ukraine, a paramount national security goal.
There's no "however" in the speeches. Absolutely key difference.
No one but the Americans and their warmongering allies are trying to actively avoid peace negotiations until after a Ukrainian win. That would be absurd... unless your whole economy and foreign policy is based on perpetual war.
Quoting Olivier5
The very deal you've been spitting your vitriol at for the last 200 pages. The one on the table since the beginning...
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-invasion-end-ukraine-war-four-conditions-1685492
So remind me again why you want the war to continue?
[tweet]https://twitter.com/Ukraine66251776/status/1524436385435955201[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/ZOONewsTV/status/1524409604809003013[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/biwot01/status/1524406969754337281[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/KBoz3/status/1524395003384061953[/tweet]
Literally any other of fucking hundreds of alternatives... but sure, it's everyone else who are choosing an interpretation...
Quoting SophistiCat
Not you... definitely not the guy who's picking a couple of random Twitter posts and using them to divine the mindset of the entire Russian leadership.
These are results of the war. The question was what would a peace agreement look like. Russia and Ukraine need to settle and agree on the future or another war could arise even if Putin would be forced out of office. Ukraine stated it wanted security assurances from Canada, UK and the USA, none of them wanted to give it.
Quoting Isaac
Well, I have to admit that Russia's insanely backward military command structure, Ukraine's ability to listen in on Russian communication and now the arrival of GPS-guided artillery is making it very likely Russia will fail to make any meaningful gains if at all. Aside from the fact Ukraine would be prepared to make those concessions if they got security assurances (which they're not getting and why any peace deal kept failing, including USA's absence in any talks), stopping now would strategically be stupid when they're on the cusps of nullifying any gains the Russians made.
Edit: I still think none of this answers how longlasting peace looks like.
I don't want the war to continue. This is not about me.
This offer you mentioned dates from early March and was the basis for the talks in Antalya, Turkey during the month of March, talks during which some progress was reportedly achieved. Then the Bucha massacre came to light and the Ukrainian position stiffened while the Russians were denying it all.
A peace agreement with a totally defeated Russia would be relatively easy to arrive at and to enforce through whatever international mechanism à la blue helmet they would agree on for Crimea and Dombas. But if Russia is not soundly defeated military, then the question becomes: Can Ukraine trust any deal signed with Putin and his generals?
The problem is not just the American reluctance to seat at the negotiation table (they might prefer to wait until they have Sweden and Finland joining NATO, and bled the Russians' military machine and economy as close as possible to the brink of collapse). The point is that Russians may have made clear their demands, but they didn't clarify what they are ready to concede to Ukrainians in terms of material and psychological compensations and assurances for now and the future. If the only thing Russians are ready to concede to Ukrainians is peace now, Ukrainians will keep fighting for the reasons you just explained, and also because surrender to Russians demands would likely look as their humiliation: to the ones still alive and for the ones they have lost due to Putin's criminal aggression.
I think that depends if there's a notion to push through to Crimea and/or to try and regain more control over Donbas than before February. Personally, if we're talking about disputed territory, I think it's unjustifiable to use war as a means of either obtaining or regaining it. Exactly the same logic which applies to the injustice of obtaining territory by war applies to regaining it. It's not as if the territory 'belongs' to Ukraine in any meaningful sense.
I think one of the fundamental divide that this conflict has revealed is between those who are pro-borders because of some misplaced notion of 'nation' and those who are pro-borders simply as a means to avoid war. The former group now want Ukraine to 're-take' Donbas and Crimea, the latter group see the same principle applying to both.
As far as repelling Russia from gains outside of those contested regions, I think it's a moot point. If a peace settlement included a full withdrawal from those regions, I don't see why that should be accomplished militarily, even if it could be done at a great strategic advantage. There will still be great loss of life.
Overall, though the situation has changed insofar as the original decision was whether to sacrifice economic independence for political independence. The latter is easier to sell, so it was an obvious (though wrong) choice. That now done, they have the weapons to achieve what was previously not possible. There's no undoing the damage and the debts thus incurred, so I suppose they might as well. If you've irreversibly remortgaged the house to buy a yacht, you might as well have the yacht.
Of course it's about you. The only matter of possible interest here is our reasons. Yours, mine, everyone else's. That you have some insane notion of us sitting in our armchairs rationally working out global geopolitics by logical debate is your own problem.
Quoting Olivier5
So?
Which is why we should ban nuclear weapons. But even if a crazy dictator did get his hands on nukes— say the threat or possibility was real. Is it worth losing literally everything?
This isn’t the same as sacrificing your life for freedom— or even many lives. I wouldn’t want to live under a dictatorship either, of course. But that’s not really the question. The question concerns the survival of the species. Is it worth it to sacrifice everything for a principle or ideal?
I don’t think so. Much better to find another way. Dictators don’t live forever— neither do empires. Assyrian rule or Mongol rule was pretty bad, I’m sure. Would it have been worth it to destroy everything rather than be ruled by them?
Quoting Benkei
I agree it’s an awful choice. But would China rule, for example, be so bad as to warrant destroying everything? I’m talking specifically about nuclear war. Quite apart from whether a ruler orders a strike, ground wars increase the risk of accidents— which are very real.
I would go so far as to say even a worse regime would still be worth enduring if it means the species survives. No regime is permanent. The annihilation of humans is.
Thanks for your interest but that's not what I am looking for here. I already have a fan club.
Quoting Isaac
The offer has been rejected by Ukraine.
Maintaining peace often means a measure of friendly, reliable relations among societies, at the very least dependable indifference. And internally, reasonable treatment of people. Openness/freedom/fairness can help, fear/posturing/subversion/aggression the opposite. And making genuine efforts (in good faith) can help. (No one is expecting France to attack the UK or to interfere significantly in internal UK politics, despite past centuries of hostile action; it can be done, it's non-hypothetical.)
"Politics and governing demand compromise."
How to achieve something like that with respect to the Ukraine-Russia situation...?
In some ways that ship has sailed, new orders coming out of the Kremlin would do it, ...
That's because you are a coward. Luckily so is Putin, so knowing that NATO would drop a small nuke on his head if needed, he won't go too far. So in this case mutually assured destruction is better than banning nukes.
:roll:
Okay— bye.
So?
I don't see why you keep just saying obvious statements about the news. I have a newspaper.
What has Ukraine's rejection of the offer got to do with a discussion about whether they ought to take the offer?
It is has to do with the Ukrainians being in a better position to judge what they ought to do than us. Both Draghi and Macron insisted, rightly so IMO, on the fact that durable peace cannot be created by fiat, and that the genuine desire of the belligerents is key. No peace deal should be imposed on Ukraine against its will, they said. It's not our place to tell the Ukrainians what they should do. Not at this stage when they are fighting for survival.
So we shouldn't be discussing what the Russians ought to do either then? If they see fit to flatten Bucha, that's not for us to judge, they know best?
Quoting Olivier5
...and yet you advocate the wholesale destruction of the Russian attack. In what way is that ensuring the genuine desire of the belligerents? Sounds like you very much want to force one of the belligerents into a corner where they have no leeway to express any desires at all.
See, you seem to be think that military pressure is the only force in the world. That if they're winning, Ukraine are somehow miraculously 'free', ignoring the billions of dollars of debt attached to the virtually total control of their economy by foreign powers.
Quoting Olivier5
We're not. We (Europe, America) are working out what we think they ought to do so that we can decide what options to support and what options to not support. Or do we have no agency here? The alternative is just to blindly support whatever any nation asking for help asks us to do. Do you think that wise?
The Russians are not defending themselves. They are attacking. There is no comparison. Ethically we must condemn such an aggression.
Quoting Isaac
It would even out the negotiating positions of each, and ensure that the Russians get interested in making real concessions to secure peace. It'd put them in the right frame of mind.
Quoting Isaac
I support the line of my own government so far. I have no major disagreement with the 'Macron doctrine'.
That's begging the question. You first decide if an action is right or wrong, then if its right you say "it's not our business to judge", but you just judged.
Quoting Olivier5
That may be, but your criteria was not 'evening out'. Your criteria was that each party had a "genuine desire" for peace. If it's our business to put Russia in "the right frame of mind" then why is it disallowed for us to encourage Ukraine into any particular frame of mind?
Quoting Olivier5
I thought it wasn't about you.
Your argument is that governments ought to help Ukraine in whatever way they ask, it's not our business to judge the rights or wrongs of that request. I'm asking if you're prepared to follow through. If Ukraine asked us to drop a nuclear bomb on Moscow should we do so on the grounds that it's not our business to judge what Ukraine thinks is best for its defense?
Last three border drawings have been drawn by Finns and the Soviet Union.
One can condemn an attacker, that's fine, but it's usually believed that people have a right to defend themselves. So it's not so okay to condemn a defender. Maybe the distinction is not clear enough for you?
Quoting Isaac
Because they didn't start the war and are already in the right frame of mind. They don't want an endless war. They want peace.
Quoting Isaac
That is ridiculous. You can't help yourself but misunderstand others. All. The. Time. What the hell is wrong with you?
It's going to be an interesting summer. And the best thing is that both countries are doing this together. It might be even with some kind of joint declaration when President Niinistö visits Sweden next week, but basically this is already a dual application: both the Swedish and Finnish foreign ministers already informed jointly NATO leadership were the application was going in both countries, so it's already very coordinated. And of course, when applying to an alliance, it's good to show you can be a team player and coordinate your actions with others.
The likeliest response from Russia, that "military-technical response" it has promised, will be a restructuring of defensive and offensive assets inside Kaliningrad and Russia proper. Which actually is quite understandable and naturally Russia can do that. I'm not sure what some hybrid attack would do, actually. Already some assumptions have been proven false.
I think Turkey won't be a problem, Erdogan just wants to make a point as all foreign policy is in the end domestic policy. And of course when thirty different parliaments etc. have to agree on something, it does take time.
An interesting feature of Finland being outside of the Article 5 protection is that they can respond to any actual incursion from Russia without it being the NATO fight Putin is slavering for. Once Finland becomes a member, that freedom of movement will have conditions that will restrict Finland from counter attacking as they see fit. Neutrality has its benefits.
In some ways, Russia has been protected by NATO since collective war is always more lugubrious than unilateral action.
They will probably do something to show aggression in some way before the membership is finalized. Something that won't trigger any alliance response, like cyberattacks, border breaking, heavy military presence close to the border.
But at the moment they won't have any military strength to do so. Putting too much of the military close to Finland's border means a lot of staff away from Ukraine. Finland's border is huge and Russia can't really cover it without stretching its military thin.
So I doubt much will happen until they're done in Ukraine. Which is why now is the best time for us to join.
[i]The New York Times
May 2, 2022[/i]
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 14
[i]Institute for the Study of War
May 14, 2022[/i]
Whatever NATO's decision, Sweden/Finland aren't threatening Russia. Putin's Russia is threatening...a few others. Going to be costly. Hopefully a nation of haters isn't in the making with Ukraine. Some progress seemed to be underway.
So, if a defender commits genocide, its not OK to condemn them? Besides which, who mentioned condemnation? We were just talking about what they ought to do. I ought to pay my butcher's bill, that's hardly the same as condemnation if I don't.
Quoting Olivier5
Barely a page or two back you said...
Quoting Olivier5
...so which is it? A Ukraine that's in the right frame of mind for peace, or one which might "push its advantage beyond the liberation of Ukraine"?
Quoting Olivier5
It's your principle, not mine. Personally, I think governments ought to assess whether they ought to support some course of action for themselves, rather than just blindly doing whatever the defending nation ask for, but your counter argument was that it's not our business to judge what the best strategy is, so presumably, if Ukraine ask us to nuke Moscow, we nuke Moscow.
Alternatively, you could just realise you're talking shite, and actually it is perfectly reasonable for us to discuss whether Ukraine's strategy is a sound one since we're the ones supporting it with arms and loans...
...but that would mean you'd have to actually come to terms with the existence of a narrative other than the one your TV delivers you. I won't hold my breath.
It's just one of your many lies. You can't deal with the truth.
Edit: BTW, I had some older friends over one of whom was a fighter pilot in the Dutch elite squadron and worked a lot with NATO. He still has contacts and it looks like a sure win for Ukraine now.
So I think the outstanding question is whether Ukraine should push to retake the Donbass region or not. Is that going to be a long separatist war? Crimea seems a step too far considering Russia's territorial claim to it and statements on use of nuclear weapons. What do you think, @ssu?
I'm confused here. You say 'win' and then ask if they ought push for Donbass and Crimea. How's that a win? Russia comes in wanting control over Donbass and Crimea, it gets control over Donbass and Crimea. That doesn't sound like a win. What am I missing?
Micro-aggression.
Aka trolling
Yep
Quoting Isaac
Was about to post the same sentiment as @Isaac, just with also a map:
The black lines are what Russia controlled before the recent invasion, and Zelensky's own standard is removing Russia from all Urkainian pre-2014 territory, including Crimea, which no one seems to believe is going to happen (at least any time soon).
So ... where do these standards of Ukraine "winning" come from?
Now, jorndoe seems to believe the standard pro-diplomacy partisans such as my self have set for Russia is:
Quoting jorndoe
And therefore anything less than this is Ukraine "winning" ... but, I have said repeatedly that Russians could have disastrous morale collapse any minute and be routed on all fronts, just as has been predicted since the start of the war by Western media.
It's still the case now, that Russians could be routed from all fronts.
However, as it stands, Russia has occupied and also passified a large chunk of territory; in particular, forming a land bridge to Crimea and also securing the water canal as Kehrson, which are pretty big strategic victories in the Ukraine theatre.
The only evidence for "strategic defeat" is simply ex-CIA type people saying so, in the context of current CIA people unironically saying Ukraine is "winning" the information war and the CIA is just an unbiased third party impartial investigative reporter of these events.
As for the actual strategic situation ... we still don't even know what the Kremlin is trying to accomplish strategically (other than, for sure, a land bridge and canal opening, which they's done).
For example, if the Russians wanted to bait Ukraine into a total war posture, that's happened.
Rather, seems the narrative is changing to Finland and Sweden joining NATO is strategic defeat of Russia, but if Russia wasn't planning to conquer Finland and Sweden then this doesn't really change much strategically, unless Finland and Sweden wanted to join NATO to then invade Russia ... but that seems unlikely.
What seems more likely, is that we are in a phase of the conflict where both NATO and Russia are convincing their respective audiences that their winning / have won.
This could be the prelude of de-escalation, which I would guess both NATO and Russia both want at this point ... or ... a lot more escalation, especially as it seems Ukraine--at least as represented by Zelensky--has no motivation to do.
However, it's unclear if Zelensky has any further escalation options, which would leave the conflict in a stalemate and not a "victory" for Ukraine.
The West portrays stalemate as a Russian "loss", but if the stalemate involves Russia sitting on the critical assets it wanted, the analysis doesn't make sense to me.
Currently, as the map above shows, there's only a small portion of the Dombas left in Ukrainian control, and the media has portrayed this small holdout as a Russian "loss" rather than conquering the rest of the Dombas as a Russian victory so far.
Of course, it would be a morale booster and show of strength for Russia to conquer that last piece of territory, but it hardly seems like a microcosm for the whole war.
Now, if Ukraine started to take strategically critical positions such as Kershon or then retake Mariupole (in particular when there were thousands of Ukrainian and Azov defenders), that would be one thing.
As it stands, considering the troop levels Russia committed to the conflict, the current results seem basically the maximum territory they could aim to conquer and passify ... and, just so happens, the "ambitious" side of the land-grabs experts were speculating before the war.
For, keep in mind, Russia has not mobilised to total war, which would vastly increase its war fighting capability but would have immense domestic political and economic consequences (Russians view conscription as solely for self-defence, and mobilising conscripts removes people from critical civilian roles that they were previously doing).
Which leaves a cost-benefit analysis of whether these Russian gains came at reasonable or unreasonable costs.
Ukraine, as immediately repeated by the Western press, claim that Russian losses have been excessive.
But we don't actually know.
Neither do we know Ukrainian losses.
Who is attritting who we don't actually know.
Don't know what @ssu would strategize, but as a swede what I see Finland excelling at is being prepared for conflict. They have massive and well cared for underground shelters and a much larger part of the population enrolled as military reserves. Sweden's shelters are shit, we have a lot of them, around 60 000, but the tech is from the freakin 50s. It was even brought to attention recently in a Swedish TV show focusing on simulating a crisis; the reporter just picked up the phone supposed to be used by the leader in each bunker and it almost fell apart in her hands. So it's not very cared for. On top of that, my opinion about the Swedish population is that when it comes to national defense and the will to fight for our freedom, there are a lot of lazy people who just don't care. The greatest risk is that we don't have enough reserves and that people just don't give a fuck.
But combining Finland and Sweden's efforts it becomes a bit different. Finland will be much better at defending the actual border, they've done so before with a humiliating effect on the Soviet Union. Combining that strength with Sweden's speedy mechanical warfare (our mechanized strategies are many times faster than Russia, moving troops across terrain at high speed), as well as air and sea superiority (we beat both Nato and the US alone in Baltic exercises using only one of our u-boats), means that it would be impossible for Russia to gain presence at sea while being forced to focus on the borders to the Baltic nations and Finland. That's four Nato nations (five if counting in Poland) spreading their strength against invading troops and Finland also has such a harsh easter terrain that the pathetic Russian tank columns would get stuck before even entering the nation. All while Sweden totally blocks the baltic sea flank.
I think that if Russia would invade Nato in the north, that would lead to heavy counterattacks as well. Both Kaliningrad and St Petersburg can be cut off from Russia with heavy air attacks by the Swedish air force. Which would really tank the ability to hold the line for Russian ground troops. With Sweden and Finland part of Nato, it's basically game over in the north for Russia. The only way for them to expand anywhere would be east and southeast, but they might not be able to except by putting aged weapons in the hands of a large portion of their population. Hence why security increases so much for us being part of Nato, the collaboration for military defenses would be guaranteed, not just false promises that Ukraine experienced and had to overcome on their own.
And you were able to deduce all this from your armchair?
Impressive. Most impressive.
When do you expect Russia will be invading Sweden?
No, I did not.
But you can believe whatever the fuck you want from your armchair.
Quoting boethius
Now they won't. Without Nato perhaps as a flank position for missile and weapon placement on Gotland when their military has been built up again, but now that we're about to join Nato they won't, which is the point.
Quoting Streetlight
I think you should shut the fuck up. You're not even on the same side of the globe so you have no idea what you're talking about. If you want to criticize alliances you should criticize your Aukus involvement more than commenting on us joining Nato.
The headline right now is:
Skipping over this front page, first headline news article starts with "A Ukrainian unit fighting north of Kharkiv says it has reached the Russian border. According to Ukrainian officials," with zero verification, aka. journalism of any kind, just whatever Ukraine says is reported immediately as front page headlines ... where have they "made it" too?
There's no reason to assume the Kharkiv positions are strategically important. It can be claimed that this is a prelude to strategic gains, that Ukraine is "about" to win, etc. but we've been hearing that every day for literally 3 months.
If Russia is intent on consolidating the gains so using only "contract" professional soldiers, and not conquer and passify Karkhiv with troops it doesn't have, then consolidating defensive lines makes sense, and these Ukrainian troops haven't "made it" to anywhere important.
They could invade Russia (let's just ignore there was plenty other parts of border to do that all this time) ... that then gives the Kremlin the mobilisation card (the Kremlin is so far playing by Russia's legal rules as far as possible).
Now, some "pro-Ukrainians" here seem to think that escalating further total war with Russia—even to the point of NATO slipping Ukraine a few nukes on the downlow to casually nuke Moscow and St. Petersburg—is a good thing.
That harming Russia, even if they don't lose but are just harmed according to our standards and not the Kremlins standards (which we don't even know how things are being evaluated), is justified whatever the cost to Ukraine.
People should really think longer, in my opinion, of non-Ukrainians holding this position that any and all harms to Russia, even nuking Moscow, is justified for Ukrainians to carry out, regardless of the cost to themselves.
A position that basically reduces to: Do what we want and cheer for, without any cost-benefit analysis of any kind, ever!! Do it!! Dot it for the vine!!
No I think I will criticize anything I want, especially your overactive imagination, thanks. You can continue to cry about it, of course.
And as it so happens, AUKUS is a fucking joke, and I welcome your solidarity on that front.
Ok ... well then, when were they going to invade before?
And how does this concern for Finland and Sweden square with the idea Russia is losing in Ukraine?
If Russia can't even beat Ukraine, why would Finland and Sweden be in any danger at any point?
You can criticize anything you want, but you add very little to anything in here other than just being an annoying fucker from down under commenting on stuff you clearly know little about compared to us in the middle of it. If all you do is to try and bully around the thread for your own amusement then you're just making a fool out of yourself as an interlocutor and we won't care about anything you say other than as an annoying fly buzzing around. You don't criticize, there's no substance in your criticism, you're just irrelevant noise.
Why would we let Russia ever get to the point of trying? Ukraine might have beaten Russia, but at what cost for the Ukrainians getting systematically executed, tortured, and raped by Russians? Joining Nato blocks any attempts and any attempts are impossible to know about. That's why it's a security strategy to join Nato.
It's also in support of the Baltic nations which are at greater risk than we are.
But your question of "when" could have been asked to Ukraine before they were invaded and arrogantly remarked as something never to happen, but it did.
On top of that, we can mock the pathetic military that Russia has today, but what if they learn and improve after this conflict to have greater success next time that shouldn't be underestimated.
You don't build security out of guesswork, you build it out of the necessary defense against a number of possible scenarios. This is not a board game with dice throws, we build strategies in order to get double sixes every time.
Were you equally pathetic at bullying people in school? Did they laugh behind your back at those attempts? :lol: If you're not adding anything just fuck off into the outback or something.
We agree there's basically zero danger right now or for the foreseeable future.
We agree that Russia may likely win in Ukraine, survive economically, rebuild its military stronger and better than it was before, and, therefore, could be a credible threat to Sweden at some point in the future.
Therefore, the risk of Russian military, economic and diplomatic victory over Ukraine should be taken seriously, and mitigated by joining NATO.
Even if all this we both agree on is true, the counter arguments are simply the same ones from the cold war, that being in NATO guarantees being targeted by nukes in a nuclear war, NATO having more land border with Russia increases (rather than decreases) the likelihood of nuclear war, which one is now a guaranteed nuclear strike target.
Of course, the rebuttal to that would be that major Finnish and Swedish cities are already targeted by nuclear weapons as Russia sees them as functionally part of the West anyways, in which maybe there is some marginal benefit to be in NATO anyways if Russia sees it that way anyways.
This argument can go back and forth.
The rebuttal to this rebuttal, that Sweden and Finland are already nuclear strike targets, is that the benefits are therefor only analytic edge cases and the optimum cost-benefit would be to reduce likelihood of nuclear war overall, which joining NATO increases rather than decreases.
To which is countered that more countries joining NATO lowers, rather than increases, chances of nuclear war, and so on and so forth.
If we're talking about some distant future where the context has radically changed and Russia wants and feels it can invade Finland and / or Sweden with conventional or even nuclear weapons, it's possible that NATO is a deterrent for that ... or it's possible that NATO is not a deterrent for that in this new future context. Indeed, being in NATO may actually increase the likelihood of an attack designed to demonstrate that NATO article 5 is not a credible deterrent anymore.
The general problem of nuclear weapons is that it's rational to cede to nuclear blackmail. For instance, if Russia dropped nuclear weapons on Finland and Sweden today or even the day after they join NATO, it still remains completely rational for the US, UK and France to not attack Russia with nuclear weapons, fearing a nuclear counter attack.
Which is why "madman theory" was developed by the Americans in the cold war, as the only way for nuclear deterrence to work (especially in covering other countries by your nuclear retaliation umbrella ... which Article 5 doesn't quite do), is that you are willing to do the irrational thing and launch nuclear weapons even if it is irrational to sacrifice most or all of your citizens that would not otherwise be harmed, due to a paragraph on a piece of paper.
Why the Western press calling Putin and the Kremlin insane is actually a strategically optimum favour (from a nuclear rivalry point of view, that we don't necessarily need, but NATO has insisted on us having), as it allows the Kremlin to play Kissinger's madman playbook without even trying very hard (American's had to spend significant effort to convince the Soviets they were cowboy crazy enough to launch a first strike if they woke up and felt like it).
This makes no sense whatsoever. Unless you're literally walking to these sites in person you're getting your information from the same internet we all have access to. I don't know if you're aware of this, but the internet does stretch all the way to Australia.
Yeah, I think this is one of the major flaws in the whole "we're safe now we're in NATO" argument. As if a flimsy piece of paper is going to hold any weight at all against the gravity of nuclear annihilation. As if countries don't renege on agreements all the time.
Here's Michael Beckley, for example, on America's record of alliance fidelity
If they're prepared to tear up commitments for trivial political expediency, I don't see how NATO membership is going to mean anything if nuclear war is threatened.
Bugger, I didn't know. Well, you can all look forward to my thrilling forthcoming thread on the curfuffle about parking for the fishing boats down at the local harbour.
Of course none of you will be able to comment... Shame, its quite the scandal.
Even if we weren't part of Nato a nuclear war would annihilate us anyway. We're surrounded by nations that are targets for nuclear strikes, a strike on Germany with a southern wind would down us in fallout.
There's also a deterrent in expanding Nato as a response to Russia's aggression. If they, like most other nations of the world, as referenced in the video of the Kenyan ambassador I linked to, keep their nation within the borders that are set, there won't be any conflicts. Sweden and Finland joining should be, for any rational Russian, a clear point made about how the modern world functions, something they clearly haven't caught up to. Few had any problems with Russia pre-2014 and if they'd kept within their borders they could have been closer to China's success, with great trade and a booming economy. But they bitch about their great empire and live in old outdated fantasies, while the bulk of their wealth went through corrupt oligarchs instead of businesses, and that's "ok", if they keep it within their borders, but the problem is when they invade others to make those fantasies a reality, trying to cosplay something into real casualties.
But if nuclear weapons are only to be used as an option for Russia if they feel an existential risk, then there's no risk. If they attack out of the blue with nuclear weapons then they would have done so anyway. This is the new cold war and as long as Russia keeps to itself there's little risk of anything, especially with the hard iron curtain drawn against Nato.
The only one holding the cards here is Russia, if they want to annihilate themselves that's up to them, but even in their battlefield stupidity and imperial fantasies, they don't seem that stupid. I think they clearly understand the Nato/Russia dynamic but they use propaganda and lies as a weapon trying to control other nations, which this time failed miserably for them. It might even trigger a shift towards better diplomacy when the fallout of the Ukraine conflict starts to happen in Russia. There will be a lot of internal questioning of the information tactics they've been using since it ended up expanding Nato instead of deterring it. The message to Russia is clear, don't invade other nations believing you have any rights to it, because you don't, and the world will punish you for it, whatever delusional justification you present as a lie to "trick" people into supporting your cause, it's blatantly obvious. Stay within your borders and fix your shit, until then we won't be fooled into some surprise attack, we will keep our guns aimed at our borders until you grow up from your toxic fantasies.
Nuclear war is unlikely, it would only be a reality as a suicide action by Russia; "if we can't have the world, then no one will!"
Or just have other sources for the information than online ideological bloggers. Outside of that, I don't think someone in Australia would have a clear sense of the discussion, debate, and events going on in Sweden and Finland, however much time they spend online. I don't think he keeps 24/7 information going or has constant social interactions with people living and working or even being in the military here.
So, outside of your continuous black and white fallacies trying to point out that it doesn't make sense because I'm literally not bending over the possible war maps of strategic planning of defense, it makes sense in that I know more about our situation than some random Australian trying to bully himself to earning intellectual respect. :lol:
Neutrality or non-alliance won't hold against nuclear annihilation either. You can only plan a military defense against common warfare and that is what Sweden and Finland are doing. Nuclear annihilation would annihilate us even if we weren't in Nato.
... So when the use of nuclear weapons is inconvenient to your position, then there's simply no risk ... based on Russia's lying word about "existential threat" ... which is up for interpretation anyways.
In short, if Russia keeps its word (about policies it could change anytime anyways), according to you, then there's no risk?
Quoting Christoffer
Ah ... I get it now, Russian's are stupid right up until the moment it's convenient to believe they aren't "that stupid" the moment that's convenient for you to believe.
Quoting Christoffer
Maybe do some very basic geopolitical research.
Whether Russia invasion of Ukraine (to get water to Crimea and do other strategic things) turns out in the end to be a good idea or bad idea from a geopolitical point of view ... the "grow up" theory of international relations is new to me.
How did it apply to US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq ... or were you dismissively telling the US to "grow up" the whole time, and they finally listened and have "grown up" from their toxic fantasies of controlling middle east resources since retreating from Afghanistan last year?
They learned their lesson and now you are 100% behind these "adults" teaching the Kremlin trouble making "rebels" the same lesson?
Are they secret? Would you have to kill us if you told us - so exciting!
Quoting Christoffer
Again, why would people living and working in Sweden have any more idea than us about the geopolitical implications of NATO membership? Are you all secretly told about it via some complex system of Chinese whispers and knowing glances?
Geopolitical implications are usually discussed by...you know, geopolitical strategists. I don't know about the quality of your pubs over there, but here its mostly farmers and fishermen, it's an odd day on which an international foreign policy scholar turns up to regale us firsthand with his hot-off-the-press analysis of the situation.
You're making the case against your own position. World politics is changing drastically in the wake of technological and economic globalization. Old alliances are fading and Pax Americana is coming to an end. Political polarization, not in small part generated by Putin's triumphant cold war strategy, has changed the stability of American commitments. America will do what serves its needs just as other nations do. Russia's foolish and incompetent war opened the door and this period of confusion is precisely the right time for Sweden and Finland to affirm their European identity.
Gotta love it. The West basically did all it could to make sure Russia would respond by murdering Ukranians, and then, when it does just that, gets people to affirm that it needs Western unity now more than ever.
I don't think anyone is simply declaring that Ukraine is winning, will win, militarily.
Yet, note that Russians like Yuri Podolyak and Vladlen Tatarsky have commented on Russian military failures and criticized Russian efforts. (Careful with the words people, cf polonium.)
My comment was about the continuing implicit denial that the Kremlin can be moved.
(And, in contrast, Ukraine can be moved and should be convinced to give up.)
Eh? Which position is this making the case against?
America keeps or reneges on its agreements according to its own political expediency, right? So Sweden and Finland's membership of NATO isn't worth the paper it's written on in terms of military aid against a nuclear threat (of questionable value against a conventional threat even, as Beckley's examples show)
So...therefore it's a good time for Finland and Sweden to join NATO? I don't follow...
Quoting magritte
And NATO does that how?
You see that massive blue block on the left? That's not Europe.
If someone invades Russia, that's a valid existential risk for them, but no one is invading them. If they use the existential risk as a propaganda lie for a false flag operation with nukes, that obviously brings an existential threat to them due to the risk of counterattacks. It's the whole point of nukes as deterrents. The only risk of nuclear war would be if Russia sank so low on the intelligence charts and promotes a total lunatic who would just push every button possible to annihilate everyone who's not Russian, but that equals nuclear annihilation and then it doesn't matter if you're in Nato or not. Being in Nato helps block any attempt at common military invasion tactics or strikes. Nuclear war would be destructive for everyone regardless of alliances, especially back at Russia.
It doesn't matter if Russia keeps its word or not, an act that could destroy themselves entirely would only be taken by suicidal morons which, outside of the fact they are lunatics, is probably not the length they would go.
Quoting boethius
They are delusional morons around their imperial fantasies, but they aren't suicidal, they know what happens if they start bombing the world with nukes. And even if they were, being outside of Nato wouldn't mean much if such a thing happens.
Quoting boethius
We're not talking about the US, but you don't think the US has gotten extreme criticism over the years on how they've handled the middle east? I'm equally critical of US foreign affairs, they did however not use nukes as retaliation for 9/11 which, even if the war was in no way justified for that reason, would probably have been the "existential threat" Russia would have argued as the reason if they were in that position.
Quoting boethius
Well, it's basically that we've moved away from imperial mythology. Even if we can argue that the US acts as if they are an empire, they're not really doing it in the way pre-WWII empires did. What I refer to is the invasion and shifting of geographical lines, planting flags and shit. We can criticize a lot of how war and conflicts are fought today, proxy wars and resource-based politics and conflicts, but even with the presence of the US around the globe, they haven't planted a flag and expanded their land as part of their empire. They have a military presence, but the land they're in is ruled by the owner of that land. If they want to kick out US troops, they can, which happened in Afghanistan, regardless of what we think of the Talibans.
The old imperial methods were mostly based on myths, on conquering and ownership of other lands. Since WWII most nations have moved away from such war geopolitics to gain assets. Instead, like China and the US, superpowers have gained influence through more peaceful means (yes, sometimes proxy wars), but mostly through investment and ownership of corporations in other nations. Trade has become the new way to build an empire.
And yes, we can criticize that as well, it's pure capitalism as imperialist might, but the lemonade is that we don't have the horror of hell that is world wars. I much rather prefer something bad than hell, a bad that "can" be improved upon when the old die and the young grow into power. We can criticize globalism for the negative effects it create, but it has also brought different nations and cultures closer to each other and built up a sense of social peace between people. Many young people today have no interest in geopolitical conflicts because they see lesser differences between them and people in other nations. This is the good thing about globalism, the weakening of imperial delusions, of fantasies of the might and power of a nation owning the world. Collaboration becomes more interesting than owning others.
Russia acts with the old imperial ideal and it's so out of date that when the rest of the world "grew up" they tried to play the new game with oligarchs and money flow, but their deep corruption and toxic mythological ideals made it impossible for them to play the game like China successfully did. While Russia failed, China's economy grew to the extreme. Maybe it's not so much that they need to "grow up", but more kill off the old holding the nation back in these outdated ideologies.
Yes
Quoting Isaac
We weren't talking about the geopolitical implications in the sense you mean. I was talking about the Swedish and Finnish situation of joining Nato, how our perspective is on the matter and what our security would be against Russian aggression.
Quoting Isaac
Maybe my social circle is just more educated than that and has more insight into things. But you know, you don't believe in education so you won't grasp such concepts.
Here comes the lecturer on ad hominems by the guy who constantly tries to bully others and add nothing but his egocentric bloatedness to the discussion. You're just acting like a toxic troll, no one seriously cares about your input. :lol:
And if the latter is the case, then there is no worse response on the planet to Russia Bad than: let's make the West nestle right up against its borders. It has all the logic of: if we add oil to these flames, these flames will get tired and go away.
You're welcome to ignore me. But you probably won't.
Canada and Greenland, what did they do wrong to you?
Likewise, I mean, I seem to remember askíng you to stop replying earlier in this thread, so it's rather you who can't contain your need to bully around. You may need to talk to someone, preferably not a kangaroo though, they hit back.
Cool, so you are a spy! I knew it, how exciting! I won't tell anyone, promise.
Quoting Christoffer
That's the geopolitical implications in the sense I mean. What your security would be against Russian aggression. Are you suggesting that's something Swedes somehow know more about by virtue of their place of birth? How does this work exactly. If I'm born in Sweden but move away do I still have the magic?
Quoting Christoffer
Well, yeah, I should imagine you have James fucking Bond round to dinner and everything...
Oh you're quite right I will continue to point out how wrong you are about everything ever and are basically a war slut. Except for this one thing! But do continue to tell me how you don't care while caring a great deal, over and over again. I knew you couldn't keep away :heart:
Fortunately for world peace, Russia conveniently alternates between brutally masterminding existential threats to the whole of Europe and acting out Dad's Army in futile attempts to gadfly the world's 22nd largest army who'll easily defeat them any minute.
Phew!
I really don't know what you are talking about here. I know more than you about what is going on in my own country, I know more than you about the debates, discussions, social dynamics around the topic of Nato and defense and security against Russia. And as we have closer ties with the rest of the nordic nations, we have much more interactions than many other groups of nations in the world. When it comes to discussions about our military, security and identity as nations, I know more than you since I live within this information 24/7, while you have to filter it through outside reports, translations, cultural interpretations, media etc. And yes, if you move away from Sweden and don't have much interaction with people back home, you start to lose up to date stuff outside of the cultural identity you brought with you and the knowledge born from that. This is just basic logic.
Quoting Isaac
Funny you should say :lol:
I don't care at all about you :lol: Do you see me seriously engaging with what you say? I just hate bullies and like to put them in their place, but I don't care about you, sorry if you wanted to be seen by bullying other people.
NYT :clap:
If this sustains and Russia is pushed back even further, then Ukraine won back its freedom and can rebuild. Going forward it's interesting to remember all of those who just argued for Ukraine to surrender and become part of Russia, giving up any future they had based on their Ukrainian identity and surrendering to the ideologies of Russia, erasing all the work against corruption they've speedily been doing to reach a point where they can become members of the EU which would then never be even considered a reality. And with all the atrocities that have happened, such things would probably have just continued and become a dark long period of hell in occupied parts of the nation.
So basically, if all goes right from this moment, resistance and the will to fight for freedom paid off, securing the future for all Ukrainians who want to live free and independent as their own nation.
:up:
Its gleaming future: shoe factory and interest rate bearer for the West. And all that juicy black earth, ripe for international agribusiness, to be sold at bargain basement prices, and eliminating local farmer control. How exciting.
After the American and Russian poster boy old farts die off who will direct American foreign policy and for what end, say in two years? Should Europe just wait it out?
That's not going to happen. First of all, a country has to be functional democracy, which Ukraine isn't and won't be for a very long time.
We'll see.
Yep. Welcome to your own species.
Quoting magritte
Not sure what you're asking. American foreign policy will be consistent as ever: eliminate democracy in favor of market-expansion and the destruction of labor rights everywhere. Doesn't quite matter who is in charge.
They said it was an infected boil.
I think they make up the rules as they go, though.
Correct. Bad Motherfuckers do what they want.
But they said they don't want to sedate you to lance it, so they're going to just leave it. :groan:
Mostly just familiarity with the way people maneuver. If Europe doesn't want Ukraine in NATO, they might refer to the rules as a reason to deny Ukraine's application.
But if Europe wants to accept the application, they'll find a way.
Russia: OMG! We suddenly realized that NATO has been expanding in Europe since 1997! And Ukraine might some day join NATO too! This is an existential threat! NATO must pull back right now!
Putinverstehers: See what you've done, NATO? Putin feels threatened!
February 2021
Russia: That's it! We can't wait any longer! We have to attack Ukraine right now, before it might some day join NATO and attack us!
Putinverstehers: See what you've done, NATO? Russia's war on Ukraine is totally your fault! You left Russia no choice!
May 2022
Finland & Sweden: We are going to joining NATO now.
NATO: Welcome, Finland & Sweden!
Russia: It's cool, we are not worried.
Dude, according to most scholars “Turkic” means Mongol or related to Mongol:
Turkic migration - Wikipedia
Also, “The Crimean Tatars emerged as a nation at the time of the Crimean Khanate, an Ottoman vassal state during the 16th to 18th centuries” - Wikipedia.
Of course, they would have some non-Mongol DNA as they enslaved the local population and raped thousands of local women! The Cumans themselves were a "Turkic nomadic people that eventually settled to the west of the Black Sea" (Wikipedia).
In any case, that doesn’t make Crimea “Ukrainian”! :grin:
Well, your first few maps show Finland’s borders expanding north- and eastward under Swedish occupation. So, your so-called “status quo” kept changing and quite a lot!!! Plus, the border was between Sweden and Russia.
And no, contrary to your claim, imperialism isn't necessarily "to acquire territory through military force".
American imperialism – Wikipedia
In any case, if the NATO Empire keeps expanding its territory, then it is incorrect to say that its aim is to maintain the “status quo”.
This is confirmed by the West’s stated intention to destroy Russia economically and financially:
The West's $1 trillion bid to collapse Russia's economy – CNN
Also, in military terms, if Russia’s armed forces are degraded to the point that it can’t defend itself, then Russia can be conquered by the West.
Of course, NATO imperialists will keep claiming that their Empire is “defensive”, but I doubt that thinking people will agree :grin:
How do you get 24/7 information unfiltered, just by being in Sweden/Finland? I'm in England, I don't get information about English military security, unfiltered. I still get it though the press, open source intelligence, and commentators I read - same as everyone else. I can't just walk up to MI5 and ask, just because I'm a local. Yet all these sources are online, for anyone in the world to access.
What sources of military and security information do Swedes and Finns have unfiltered access to which are not on the internet?
Dude, I quoted you not only Wikipedia but ethnogenesis studies on the Crimean Tatars, that prove Crimean Tatars' origins were pre-Mongol. And also specific genetic studies on Crimean Tatars prove that they can not be assimilated to Mongols! https://www.iccrimea.org/reports/genographic-results.html
(BTW there are more recent genetic studies that prove the hypothesis that Siberian Tatars stem from Mongols wrong: "The approach based on the full sequencing of the Y chromosome reveals only a weak (2%) Central Asian genetic trace in the Siberian Tatar gene pool, dated to 900 years ago. Hence, the Mongolian hypothesis of the origin of Siberian Tatars is not supported in genetic perspective". source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S0026893316060029)
And if the Crimean Tatar genetic pool shares something with the Mongols this is for the same reason why also Russians may have Mongol and Tatar ancestors, namely due to ancient nomadic tribes' migrations and the Mongolian invasions!
Finally, and most importantly, it's not matter of how pure their blood is (see how racist your principle starts sounding?), but who are the indigenous inhabitants of Crimea. Not the Russians! But the Crimean Tatars (https://ctrcenter.org/en/o-krymskih-tatarah, Here some more on their history [1])! So they should be the right owners according to your views!
Quoting Apollodorus
Sure, according to your principle (not mine), Crimea belongs to Crimean Tatars, so neither "Ukrainian" nor "Russian"! But Crimean Tatars seem to fear more the Russians than the Ukrainians: https://theconversation.com/why-crimean-tatars-are-fearful-as-russia-invades-ukraine-178396
This is something that should concern you, because you too have now reasons to oppose Russian imperialism in Crimea based on your own principles!
[1]
The antinationalist, multiethnic Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Re- public(RSFSR), guidedbyitsMarxist,class-orientedideology,stoodfourth in line of descent of ethnically heterogeneous empires under which Crimean Tatars had struggled to retain a distinctive group identity. Beginning with the Mongols early in the thirteenth century, the Qipchaq component of the inhabitants who populated the peninsula, Tatars, rather soon found themselves a minor segment in another conglomerate, the Ottoman Empire, a government led by politicians more willing than later imperial rulers to leave Crimean Tatar unity intact. Russian emperors in their turn sought not only to absorb the geography and economy of Crimea into their unitary state but to destroy or dissolve any viability of the Crimean Tatar community.
source: "The Tatars of Crimea" E. A. Allworth (1998)
All of this is more than just military intel alone. You have researchers, politicians, police, security services, different types of authorities etc. Outside of that, do you know anyone in the military over here, any authorities? The combined flow of information depends on who you know and what the official discussion is in media and online. Just because you're in a bubble of guesswork does not mean everyone is. On top of that, you don't have the information flow that exists here, you do not watch Swedish news, media, or discussions that we have, all you have are from anyone sharing that information, with their interpretation filter and media reporting with the perspective of your nations journalism. It's filter through filter before you can start guessing, which isn't the case for me. On top of that, Sweden and the nordic nations, in general, have one of the lowest biases in media in the world. So it's easier to sift through the information flow compared to a nation like the US which has close to no media outlets not biased in one way or another.
Your point here is that it's either unfiltered raw information from the most secretive halls of the military... or it's just guesswork. Which is just a black and white fallacy... again. You might be doing guesswork, but others, even in the civilian sector, can know more than you, even if you try to make it into some kind of argument against me and SSU knowing anything about our own situation.
Bottom line is that if the information sources you describe are your only sources, then you definitely don't have enough insight to question what I present about our situation in Sweden. I can moderately describe Finland's situation since the nordic nations have so much in common and communicate regularly, but @ssu can describe Finland's point of view better than I.
Brilliant stuff! Look, for you personally, we're all well aware that you're basically Jack Ryan, but surely the rest of Sweden aren't all crack secret agents like you? How are they getting their unfiltered information?
Quoting Christoffer
So how do Swedish media not present the news from the perspective of their nation? Is the Swedish perspective magically more likely to be accurate than the rest of the world?
Quoting Christoffer
Ha! Called it.
Quoting Christoffer
Wtf? You're serious aren't you? You're actually going through with the idea that you've got some special insight which us mere mortals can't even question. This is fantastic stuff, do go on about how unique you are, we'll see if we can't get you elevated to demi-god by the end of the thread.
The US running 'special military operations' in Somalia. Can't wait till the US invades the US for violating the sovereignty of other nations' territory. Oh just kidding the US does in fact occupy its own citizens and kills them for funsies for doing things like being black and poor and existing in general. Will have to change my social media profile to a little Somalian flag in solidarity in the meantime. Slava Somalia! Or whatever State Department phrase du jour that Westerners like to peddle before forgetting it in about six months time. Probably because they are too busy losing their rights or being shot dead by racist mass killers inspired by the same people their government is funding overseas.
But maybe the Finnish won't let me talk about this because I'm not Somalian :zip:
Who'd be so facile?
I agree with you.
I think Ukraine has a good chance to halt the assault in Donbas and push back as they have done in Kyiv and Kharkov. They surely can stop the attack on Odessa and even limit the "landbridge" to Crimea. But Crimea is going to be the really tough issue. That will be viewed by Putin as Russia proper, so I would think twice before pushing the luck to go there.
I remember one former high-ranking British officer saying the obvious thing which isn't said: That there has to be a negotiated peace to end this war. At some time, even if Ukraine is victorious, they have to seek a negotiated settlement of then adapt a low-intensity stalemate, what we saw after 2015 before February 24th. Going to the Red Square isn't an option.
There is a lot of enthusiasm both in Ukraine and to support Ukraine, but if the war prolongs, it might wane. Russia can always simply halt it's offensives and go to the defense. It still will take some time that Ukraine can start making large attack operations with several brigades. The attacker will be the one that suffers more casualties.
Slava fucking Ukraine hey? So glad the epicentre of neo fucking Nazism in Europe is getting flooded with weapons after being destabalized to shit hey? Maybe gargling and regurgitating the propaganda ejaculate of the US empire is not the best idea hey? Can't wait to have these motherfuckers as part of NATO.
It'll probably be totally fine. After all, it's not as if Ukraine is also one of the largest arms trafficking markets in Europe!
Quoting Global Organised Crime Index
Oh fuck!
Still... the look on Putin's face when they win, eh...Priceless...gotta be worth an international resurgence of armed Neo-Nazis committing hate crimes...
But as with Poland and the Baltic States, both Sweden and Finland are happy to join the "Retro-NATO", an alliance that is about article 5 than an alliance designed for global police duties, peace enforcement etc. For those the contribution will be small: at the largest a battalion or a few aircraft or a naval vessel. The typical force that a small NATO countries deploy to an international NATO operation. Basically what NATO-Sweden and NATO-Finland will offer to the alliance has already been seen in Libya and in Afghanistan. But in Northern Europe it's a different matter and in the matter of deterrence.
It's very likely that neither country has any appetite for large NATO bases or deployed nuclear weapons, which likely the US or NATO has not even thought about. The countries will be happy about one or two NATO squadrons that could be deployed to the countries in a crisis. And that's basically it and both countries know it: we have to defend our territory, inside or out of NATO.
And likely now Swedish and Finnish warplans will be coordinated even more.
Incredible. Can you teach this power of making things up out of thin air? Is it a scandi thing? Your fellow scandi has similar powers of complete fabrication. Is it just all that detective noir that you guys produce?
I liked the bit where you said the US and NATO have not thought all that much about nuclear weapon deployment. That was my favourite bit of completely incredulous fantasy.
Oh I make this up? FYI, not all NATO countries have nuclear weapons deployed in them.
France and UK don't have their nuclear weapons in other countries either. Deployment of Pershing's in Europe is history.
I went back and bolded the relevant bit to help out a foreign language speaker.
Does it come from the same intelligence reports that say the US and the West don't like war?
Like, would it hurt you to stop writing paragraphs of completely obviously made up trash?
Agreed. Supposedly, it would also be viewed negatively by many inhabitants of Crimea.
No, I'm just calling out your bullshit thinking you know even surface-level stuff of what is going on in Sweden and Finland.
Quoting Isaac
And you are a professor who fights against the norms by stating education isn't needed, so how on earth can we take you seriously. You are the definition of an armchair guy.
So obviously you don't know shit about the deployment of nuclear weapons.
Hopefully you know what the US nuclear triad means. Hence two of those legs of the triad aren't in any NATO country, but in CONUS and on (under) the seas. What are deployed in NATO countries are the old free fall nukes, which also can be dropped by some aircraft of NATO countries. But these are limited and notice that the nuclear weapons haven't been deployed to Eastern NATO states (the map above). So it's extremely unlikely that they would be deployed (meaning that they are storaged) into Sweden or Finland.
(Russia already has it's nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad and Russia proper, so that part is already in place.)
A unified European defense has been mentioned here and there.
What timelines might that take to implement anyway...?
For something to become effective?
As far as I know, it's not particularly on anyone's desk.
Well, we obviously don't have an unified Europe, if we think that Russia is an European country (and I think it is, even if half of it is in Asia).
That aspect of Russia having a European identity is why I wonder about all the other ultra-nationalists in different states. Those different culture wars contest collective security on the basis of identity rather than a Chomsky style critique of empire. Their enemies are within the state.
This is why I said that Nato is the only option for Sweden and Finland. There's no other real guarantee, as we've seen with the support for Ukraine before the invasion and during. Many larger nations will say that they support smaller ones but it's mostly just as empty as people on Facebook putting flags on their profile pictures, it doesn't help at all and is no guarantee of security. And by the time the EU gets together a proper alliance at the level of Nato, Russia would already have forces on the move to stop it. So, it doesn't matter what people think of Sweden and Finland joining Nato, I rather take the lesser evil as security than risk the worse one going postal on us.
The fact is that Russia simply isn't a normal country that would try to have good relations with it's neighbors. It seeks the role it had when it was an empire/Superpower, makes huge gambles and takes extreme risks. It's extremely reckless. There simply are no benefits in trying to appease Putin.
Hence there simply is no win-win in trying to behave as before. It's all lose-in-every-scenario. What does having good ties with Russia mean? Being Belarus? Kazakhstan?
Or Armenia?
Armenia is in a military alliance with Russia in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), along with four other ex-Soviet countries, a relationship that Armenia finds essential to its security. Or thought was essential. But Russia didn't intervene or come to the help of Armenia when Azerbaijan attacked in the Nagorno-Karabach. It actually had sold weapons to Azerbaijan. And is all but happy using the divide and rule tactics in the Caucasus.
A legitimate issue. What happens if the US decides to step away from its leadership role in NATO, not now, but after a couple of years? Will the militarized member nations stay united or will their leaders reignite historical nationalistic conflicts against their neighbors?
Yeah and ths US and NATO "likely have not thought about" this, but you, random ass person who says wrong things all the time on the internet, have. Please excuse me while I laugh to infinity.
This is the essential challenge. Autocratic regimes tend to last while democratic regimes can change over short periods. Finland may think that it looks like a great idea to join NATO now, but what about in a couple of years when we have a protectionist and isolationist American administration that is perfectly willing to leave Finland on the front line of a Cold War no one wanted?
Now, I am personally biased against war and the military-industrial complex in America and I suspect - but I'm willing to be proven wrong - that the current conflict in Ukraine owes as much to US influence as it does to Russian aggression, so I'm not a perfectly neutral commenter here - for full disclosure if it is worth anything.
However, I would not be adverse to a neutral position for all nations between Russia and the EU in the interest of avoiding a second Cold War.
Side note - is this just too absurd that we have a World War 1 followed by World War 2 and then a Cold War 1 followed by Cold War 2? Is that too much a proof of the old saying "history repeats itself. First as tragedy and then as farce"?
My main problem with US support of the Ukrainian Conflict is that the United States is the largest and most committed arms dealer in the world and NATO, as far as we view it, is an international protection racket - war is a racket, full stop - so it feels like we'll end up with a divided Ukraine anyway, but one that required the devastation of the nation and a mountain of Ukrainian and Russian casualties.
I mean, it seems like from a humanitarian perspective, it would have been better if Russian won after a couple of days. Am I wrong?
I haven't even mentioned anything going on in Sweden and Finland. I've been talking about the sense and consequence of their actions in joining NATO. Something that's going on in the global political sphere at large. Something which global political analysts do look at and write about, despite (I realise this will be difficult for you)...despite, not being from Sweden.
Now, obviously they don't discuss any of this without passing it by you and @ssu first, that goes without saying, and we're ever so grateful that you've decided to tell us here on this obscure philosophy forum before, say, briefing cabinet, or the UN, but once you've made your secret intel public, is it too much to ask that us mere mortals can have an opinion about it?
Quoting Christoffer
I don't see what my views on education have to do with this. Non-pedagogic learning systems are not, perhaps mainstream, but those who espouse them don't seem to have any trouble securing research posts, teaching positions and consultancy. The world at large doesn't have any problem taking them seriously, so if you do, it suggests a more noetic problem...?
This assumes that a victorious Russia would not have jailed, tortured, rapped and assassinated the civilians under their control.
There is a reason why Ukrainians don't want to live under Putin's boot.
Likely have not thought about = Likely have not planned to do
This from the guy who until the end didn't believe that Russia would attack, that it all was just hype from the US.
Weak.
Don't be naïve. Russia did not actually attack. It's all fake news from NATO. @Streetlight was right.
He usually knows best, especially when it comes to the sexual life of marsupials but also Russia, this land of milk and honey.
And it really was hype from the US, whether or not Russia attacked or not. They could not have been more excited. They are even more so now. They get two more nation whores in Sweden and Finland to fuck.
The alternative assumes a war wouldn't have lead to worse.
The Ukrainian people were given a shit choice - lose part of your country to Russian rule (and all that entails), or keep things as they are territorially, a barely significant improvement in government, but lose thousands of civilians and soldiers and hand over your economy to foreign power to be asset stripped and enslaved.
Anyone who genuinely gives a shit about Ukrainians would bemoan the injustice of that choice. Those who are nothing but stooges for US foreign policy bemoan only the side which suits their narrative.
Significance is highly subjective. Some people like slavery, others don't.
Russia has about 1 million slaves according to the definition of Modern Slavery, Ukraine has about 0.2 million. Per capita, one is about as likely to be slave in Ukraine than in Russia.
But don't let actual facts get in the way of your budding fiction writing career.
Unlike you, we do look up what is happening in our countries and what is talked about. It's a common misconception to think that others are as ignorant as you are and are just follow what is on the mainstream evening news and nothing else. Me and @Christoffer started immediately discussing the possibility of our countries joining NATO when the war started. Not because of any "inside information", but because it was simply obvious. If you had followed anything about security policy in both countries. Global media just picked it up far later.
Unlike you, this does effect me. You are just engaging in your spare time on a Philosophy Forum. I notice these developments even in my work, so perhaps I've got an incentive to follow the news and stay informed.
Quoting Streetlight
Stick to issues you know. Your best field of knowledge maybe isn't military doctrine or nuclear weapons.
Quoting Streetlight
Yet Russia did attack. It started a large conventional war of the kind we haven't seen in Europe since WW2. I was an optimist and hoped that Putin wouldn't attack (as invading such a large country with such a force was crazy), but then he made quite clear in his speeches what he intended to do. It really wasn't about Minsk protocols or NATO enlargement. That should be obvious when the leader starts to talk about denazification.
Learn some English, maybe?
Then why do you keep making it? Your argument is so obviously circular it's a joke. You think A, I think B you assume I don't have the data to inform my conclusion on no other grounds than that I disagree with you. Neither you, nor @Christoffer have yet been able to answer my very simple question -
What source of information about the global sense and consequences of Finland's and Sweden's decision to join NATO is only available to Swedes and Finns?
Quoting ssu
What was obvious? That they would want to? No one is disputing that. That it's a good idea? Well, many analysts still think it isn't, so I can't be that obvious can it?
Again, you're stuck in this crazy echo chamber where every opinion that disagrees with yours must be somehow uninformed, as if the world suddenly became crystal clear overnight - no grey, no nuance, no complexity giving rise to a range of well-informed, but different opinions. Just two mutually exclusive categories {what ssu believes} and {lies}.
I know very well when you fabricate completely incredulous trash out of nowhere. I've seen it so much I'm practically an expert. Like: the West is very tired of war; or, NATO has not really given all that much thought to nuclear weapons deployment in Europe.
Quoting ssu
Yeah yeah, NATO are innocent little babes and Putin is just a video game baddie. Oh and Ukraine is not chock full of Nazis inspiring murderers in the US who wear the same insignias that Zelensky's pal soldiers like to parade around in. The same Nazis you like to run PR for on behest of the American state department.
Uh huh, obvious from Putin's speech it wasn't about NATO...
No Nazis yet...
10th paragraph, still no Nazis...Quite a lot about NATO though...
He just can't stop with the Nazi routine can he? Who does he think he's kidding?
It's sooo obvious this isn't about Nato...He's barely mentioned them in amongst all that talk about Nazis...
...
Finally. Told you it was all about the Nazis! What a douche! You'd think he'd have at least bothered to come up with some other reasons...
NATO: moves East.
Russia: Uses violence.
NATO apologists: Oh no the only solution to this is to expand NATO more. Crazy how Putin blames Nazis.
Even though, as it so happens, Ukraine is in fact crawling with fucking Nazis, now armed with American weapons, downplayed by Nazi apologists like ssu.
Somehow not interested to reply to such bullshit.
Putin: Let's invade.
*Putin shows how inept the Russian military actually is.*
NATO: moves East.
Or did this extensive Western media coverage of Nazis in Ukraine retroactively become Putin propaganda only as it became expedient to American interests, which you parrot?
Doesn't Russian law prohibit sending conscripts into war outside Russia? (If captured, they'll hopefully not be sent back in Putin's arms, whether having the law on their side or not.)
Putin's Russia, the invader, failed to swiftly take over Kyiv and capture Ukrainian leaders, succeeded somewhat with nuclear intimidation, succeeded in ruining parts of Ukraine (destroying, looting, killing), prompted Sweden/Finland to seek NATO membership (the rest of the north are founding members), succeeded in suppressing/removing other voices at home (for some time), succeeded in propagating particular narratives (propaganda-style), failed to respond timely to concessions thus making diplomacy increasingly harder when allowing bloodshed and ruinage, may have triggered making haters out of many Ukrainians (including Russian-speaking), ... Some successes some failures, with Ukrainians on the ground being shelled?
Although that Ukraine would field 1 million men is unlikely, it can and will use the pool of reservists and the National Guard to replace it's losses. Now Russia would basically have millions of reservists, but the fact is that is has no way to train and mobilize them and huge difficulties to arm them. Above all, the move would be as toxic as the US reinstating the draft.
Yet the example of Mikhail Khodaryonok shows very well just how perilous situation Putin has put Russia now. I don't know if the TV program was cut at that point (perhaps it was!), but he surely was telling the truth.
Marteen Wolterink, from the Netherlands
Source: Cartooning for Peace
Yes, but no one's forcing you to keep posting them.
I was wondering if any of the great humanitarians here could direct me to the UK's 'Homes for Somalis' scheme. They set up the excellent, and not at all useless, Homes for Ukraine scheme, almost immediately as war broke out, so I assume a similar scheme for Somalis has been up and running for years, but I seem to be having trouble finding it.
Ah! Is this it...?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/20/100m-uk-aid-budget-returning-north-african-refugees
...oh no, that must be a different scheme...
Maybe this one...
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jun/22/betrayed-somali-refugees-kenya-dadaab-camp-sent-from-safety-into-war-zone
...no, that's the UN's excellent scheme to [s]kill[/s] repatriate them.
They really need to improve their advertising for it, because at the moment it almost looks as if no one gives a shit because they're black.
War on Terror continues... sigh.
Well the US state department has not released a statement condemning the war in Somalia, so our friends here don't have any script to follow. It's not their fault.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1184575/europe-accused-of-double-standard-on-ukrainian-refugees/
That said the Europeans it's true absolutely fucking loathe anyone who is not lily-white so they will welcome their Ukranian refugees with open arms while letting those horrible Africans bloat at sea.
Quoting ssu
There's a lot of Russian propaganda around -- but listening to the reasons given has to be done, no matter how absurd one thinks they are. Sometimes there's a kernel of truth in it, other times a surprising amount of truth.
It's far harder to make the attempt to understand than it is to cheer for the home team. I don't think Russia is in the right here -- they're not, and military aggression like this is unacceptable. That's fairly obvious. But if we care about Ukrainians, we have to do more than cheer. We can see if and how we've contributed to this situation and make moves in the direction of peace. Can anyone argue that the United States' actions over the last 30 years have encouraged peace? I don't think so, any more than one could argue it for the middle east.
I don't see anyone on here claiming Putin is a good guy or is in the right.
Give them some time.
I don't think anything was going to deter Putin from invading Ukraine except its membership in NATO. He thought he could just waltz in and take over the country. The takeaway here is that if Ukraine was in NATO, there would be peace right now. Finland and Sweden have certainly drawn that conclusion. I don't blame them.
Funny, that's almost exactly the view that the US government and arms industry needs you to hold in order to justify it foreign policy.
But that would only be a problem if you'd formed that view entirely based on intelligence reports from the US government and opinion pieces in the media from experts with ties to the arms industry... and no one would be that daft...
And as usual, quite clueless.
Like "Stand with Somalia". Well, the Somalian government (that use the blue flag with the white star) are happy that the US are back. But that small detail doesn't matter I guess.
As I said, the War against Terror goes on. Unfortunately.
But there's the anti-US team that thinks everything bad happens because of the US and is extremely unhappy about anything taking the focus off from how the bad the US is. Their main argument is that it's the actions of NATO and the US which lead Russia to start the war and hence it's the fault of the US. And the rest is just ad hominems.
"Everything bad happens because of the US" is, of course, an exaggeration. Who believes this? Think about it. Does anyone believe this?
No.
So let's leave that aside. Has the United States, as the world superpower, contributed to this mess in Ukraine? Yes, of course it has. Does anyone argue that this isn't the case?
So what the fuck are we talking about here?
Who knows what Putin was thinking. Whatever he was thinking, this was a stupid decision.
But to argue nothing would have deterred him from invasion except for NATO membership, when there's reason to believe that it was NATO's advancement that contributed to the decision, is pretty unrealistic -- in my view.
I tend to listen to the likes of John Mearsheimer on this issue. Pretty good scholarship there. Been lecturing about this for years.
Let's be absolutely clear, because the entire thread is on record. The issue has been entirely with your 'side' complaining about any and all mention of anywhere except Russia.
Literally your second post
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/648631
...complaining about mention of US culpability.
Quoting jorndoe
Quoting ssu
Good idea. I don't get why anyone would even want to give the time of day to these fuckwits. The less attention they get the better.
Except I've said about the mistakes like the Kosovo war and of course leaving Ukraine hanging dry with promises of NATO membership in the distant future. Or how stupid the post-Cold War era "New NATO" thinking was and how only now, after 2014 and 24th of February this year NATO has found itself again.
But those are things you won't notice. The mere mention that when a country annexes parts of another, it's main objective isn't to stop the enlargement of a third party international organization seems to be blasphemy for some.
At least I'm having first row seats to see just how much this all has been about NATO enlargement. Because here's the big NATO enlargement!
Quoting SophistiCat
Yeah.
But this is a Philosophy Forum and if someone who usually writes nonsense says something good or true, I'll give him or her my approval. Engaging with people that disagree with you can be beneficial and if people who are interested in Philosophy cannot speak to each other, then all is lost. We'll just look at each other through the sights of our rifles.
To the extent that nothing occurs in a vacuum, sure, the existence of the US as a threat to Russia and the expansion of its influence through NATO sparked conduct on the part of Russia.
Who's to blame for Russian boots on Ukraine soil. I'd say Russia.
Moral responsibility rests not with the every actor along the causal chain, but upon the actor who interrupts that causal chain with a specific intentional act resulting in the specific bad act.
It's why we don't throw bad parents in jail for the acts of their children. It's that quaint notion of free will. That you killed because your parents sparked all sorts of bad conduct might be true, but if you pulled the trigger, it's on you and only you.
Well, what then you think of John Mearsheimer's correct forecast in 1993 published in Foreign Affairs?
See The Case for Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent
Nukes might have been the solution. Not a popular idea, but still plausible. Unfortunately then the West was far more afraid of those nukes ending in the black market than the sovereignty of Ukraine.
:up:
This battle has been won by Ukraine. At least for the moment, at least in 'the West'. Look at the Eurovision vote. Look at the Finnish parliament vote for NATO accession.
Billions of equipment and ammunition later, and with Finland + Sweden now on their way to joining NATO, I personally feel less urge to fight it off here.
The most argumentative 'peace lovers' -- they are argumentative aren't they? -- here make a lot of noise but they represent 5% of public opinion in Europe.
The issue of NATO's role was well summarized (for many of us anyway) by @Hanover. Now it's water under the bridge, in any case. It would be better to focus on the way forward.
Well said. The status quo has been upended. The future is unlikely to be a reset of the previous deals.
Last I checked this is exactly what Russia has claimed of Ukraine. But sure, pick your propaganda as you see fit for the side of the imperial murderers you like best, whom you do your utmost to cheerlead.
I am, though. I need to understand the Mathusalem angle. Like who is he?
Ah yes, the infant-won't-go-to-bed theory of international politics. Nevermind that the US activtely encouraged and spurred on this war, and frankly couldn't be more enthusiastic about every dead Ukranian that gets blown to bits by Russian bullets. Yeah, in the face of tens of thousands of dead people, the best we can do is - because apparently humans are incapable of any sense of complexity and must treat their international politics like a bedtime story - 'pick a side'.
"Free will". Imagine using this Christian metaphysical bullshit to think about how to understand the geopolitics of Ukraine and expect to be taken seriously.
:-)
Apologies, it's 'Methuselah' in English. According to the Book of Genesis, Methuselah was the son of Enoch, the father of Lamech, and the grandfather of Noah. He had the longest lifespan any human ever reached, dying at 969 years old....
https://time.com/5926750/azov-far-right-movement-facebook/
Propagandized fucking morons in March 2022: "lol Nazis in Ukraine are Putin propaganda lol"
• No Kurds
• No restrictions on Turkey's arms trading
Mainly targeted at Sweden.
Might actually speak in Sweden's favor? :chin:
Xtrix asked if the US contributed to the mess in Ukraine. And your response is a parable about bad parents and free will? What is this? Seasame Street?
Mind blown.
No, what you're frankly out to do is continuously reiterate your narrative that you have some special understanding of the situation that somehow evades everyone else and so you stomp your feet around like that should make us better believe you.
What I said was that the Russians are morally responsible for their decisions. Somewhere you read into that that my position was that the best course of action for the US is to do that which would instigate immoral activity on the part of the Russians. That interpretation of my bad parenting analogy must also mean that you think I thought bad parenting was perfectly acceptable simply because they wouldn't be responsible for their children going out and committing murder.
In terms of the white paper you envision either of us being summoned to write, I suppose I would write it seeking to obtain whatever pragmatic objective I wanted to achieve, and I generally don't get sidetracked with moralizing. However, I do thank you for letting me know the consequence if I did moralize, as I'd be fired, laughed at, scolded, and just embarrassed until my face was so bright red that I'd never be able to show it ever ever again.
Of course. Again— I don’t see who’s denying this.
I’m not in favor of increasing nuclear weapons — so I disagree.
A lot has changed since 1993, incidentally.
I like his rantings. It's like a gadfly
Awww really... do we have to?
Personally, I feel like a debate on war, especially an active war, should be as aggressive and vitriolic as possible. How else will we be able to identify which side people support?
For example:
I support the right of an aggressor state to invade another, and occuppy it if possible. I also support the right of a victimized state to repel its aggressors, and sanction the fuck out of them if possible...you motherfucker!
See, it works great :ok:
Talk of "reading into"... Perhaps you can quote where I said that of your post?
Quoting Hanover
Except I don't have any special insight. My sources are fucking TIME magazine. And basic reporting, say, of the European refugee crisis. None of this is special, not one bit. It only seems special in the face of the vomitus regurgitation of US propaganda talking points regularly and dutifully reproduced by participants in this thread. Your post just happened to be one among a long line of many that has tried to reduce and downplay American culpability by reducing world politics to some morality play for children with some help of metaphysical categories employed only by the most seasoned 18th century romantics.
Do not confuse the inconvenince of what I say with your ability to screen it out of consideration because it does not fit the approved script you run by.
Uh huh. And I've said Russia's invasion is brutal, unjustified and criminal. That didn't seem to be enough either.
Quoting ssu
Again, as the record of this thread shows, it's not "the mere mention" at all, it's the relentless suffocation of absolutely every single mention of NATO, America, Nazis, literally anything that isn't an unending stream of righteous condemnation.
No one is objecting to 'the mere mention' of Russia's culpability. Its taken for granted. What's being objected to is the facile denial of any other angle whatsoever.
Ukraine faces a choice, has done since the war started, between submitting to some form of Russian demands or getting the aid it needs to repel Russia and thereby submit to American/European economic demands down the line. There's simply no argument about the fact of that choice. So when discussing what Ukraine might, or ought to, do, ignoring the consequences of one of the options is puerile
Quoting Hanover
And why on earth, after 246 pages, would we still be discussing moral responsibility? Is anyone still having trouble working out the morality here? If America's foreign policy approach was instrumental in making a brutal war more likely than it otherwise would have been, then we need to shout that from the rooftops, because it needs to stop such an approach immediately, lest it make conditions for another brutal war more likely. We don't, as seems to be happening here, want to hush it up lest it seem as if we're not apportioning the correct amount of moral condemnation. I realise coming from an Englishman of a certain generation, this is clichéd, but we needn't all wear our heart on our sleeve all the time.
Sesame Street is the best thing to come out of America, ever.
Jim Henson is like Jesus in the the states
I had to look him up, and yet I owe him hours of laughter. Genius.
One fun way of running Nazi PR is to pretend that they're not really a problem in Ukraine.
And rape their women. Like that we shall be Nazi too.
That’s not the half of it. I was brought up on Tom and Jerry, Banana Splits, Whacky Races, etc etc.
This is the actual reality. There are so few participating on this forum, that single opinions effect where the discussion goes and what points are made.
This has been an absolute disaster for Russia and it's becoming more clear as the war goes on. It's the end times for Putin. What he can now basically do is just try to hold on to his power and survive.
But this war isn't like Afghanistan was for the Soviet Union, it's becoming more like the Russo-Japanese war was to the Russian Empire. Or could become like that.
Back then Czar Nicholas had been told by his advisors that the Japanese would not dare to challenge Russia militarily, even after negotiations between the two powers had collapsed (as Russia had rejected Japan's deal, offering to cede control of Manchuria). Back then when the war started, many in Russia believed that it would be a victorious war that would improve the domestic and foreign standing of the Czar. That wasn't what happened. A revolution happened.
That and nukes. It's the only possible way for him to do anything. So everything hangs on how supportive or indoctrinated his surrounding staff is. If he gets to a point where he just wants the world to burn for all the shit that hit the Russian fan, then we can only hope there are no degenerate idiots carrying out his orders and instead it's the last straw for them to remove him.
Quoting ssu
Which is why I believe it is a real possibility. Depending on how bad things get for Russia moving on from the current low point, there's definitely a point when the people have had enough and if the people and military/police start to align in their critique of Putin and his minions, instead of being against each other, then that's the point things start to change.
And of course those who stand against US assistance in Somalia have different flags. :snicker:
Not immediately successful, but yes.
I agree that it is also a question of holding on to outdated worldviews. The Belarusian president said a few days ago that "By definition, Russia cannot lose this war." That made me laugh. "By definition" stands for: "In my fossilized world view".
Hang on, let me get this straight. (Ignoring the fact that the whole issue of flags came up as a reaction to their facile use...but that's clearly beyond you) You're saying that using a Somali flag doesn't actually show solidarity for the Somali people (likely now to be murdered in their hundreds as 'collateral damage')...because of a Twitter handle...?
No...correction...because of a Twitter handle and the fact that you found a picture on the internet of some badges?
Quoting Streetlight
Actually it would be an interesting topic of how much of the emergence of jihadist organizations is a direct consequence because of the "War on Terror" itself, but I'm not sure if your genuinely willing or interested in the discussion being something else than your rants.
@frank said it so well four months ago on this thread:
Quoting frank
I know quite well what flags mean. I just figured it'd be less important than supporting genocidal regimes. But I know you've got a thing for colors.
Quoting ssu
Well, it's a simple 'all of it', but I know this is a fuzzy topic for you because you like to defend superpowers and their holocausts.
Oh go back to fantasizing about rape.
Could it be more clear?
Imagine if someone took seriously the idea that the Russian invasion is OK because the people they invaded are happy to see Russian troops in Ukraine.
They would be rightly be called an apologist for mass suffering.
Could it be more clear?
Gods! People fly little Ukrainian flags because the media told them it would make a good virtue signal to cover up their otherwise moral degeneracy whilst they sit back in their armchairs and do fuck all else to help. The US have just launched a 'Special Operation' in Somalia which will, without doubt - based on past record - kill hundreds of innocent Somalis. No one is flying a Somali flag. That's the issue we're talking about. I very much doubt the reason for that is that the population as a whole has a better grasp of vexillology than I do.
Actually not 'all of it' as muslim extremism has happened far earlier too and there's for example Algeria.
The US hasn't been involved in Algeria and Algeria saw one of the most bloodiest civil wars. It also shows that also Algerian military junta could use extremist fractions (the GIA) to divide the opposition. Hence when the Islamic opposition tried to get France to start negotiations, what do you know, GIA attacks French airliners. There are allegations of Algerian forces posing as the GIA and carrying on attrocities. And finally when the opposition laid down it's arms, the GIA suddenly simply vanished out of existence.
But that's for a different thread...
Well that was a war on terror conducted by the French. Who deserved every dead Frenchman killed by an Algerian.
Because doing so is pro-American. :lol:
The relevance being...?
As I said, the internal politics of Somalia are completely irrelevant to the point.
US military involvement will cause casualties (it always does).
People fly flags of a country to virtue signal their concern for the population of that country (regardless of their vexillological knowledge).
No one is doing so in response to this immanent threat to Somali lives because Somalis are non-european and the threat comes from American recklessness.
That is the entire sum total of the point being made. It's the same point being made throughout this thread.
People aren't less dead when they're victims of callous disregard than they are when they're victims of brutal aggression.
People aren't less poor when they've had their livelihoods wrecked by complex financial instruments than they are when they've had their livelihoods wrecked by tyrannical government.
People aren't less in jail when they've been jailed because systematic racism constrains their life choices than they are jailed because an oppressive regime bans their newspaper.
...and so on.
All the while our concern for others is guided by some Hollywood concept of good guys and bad guys, life will not improve for those on the lowest rungs, we merely swap the cause of their oppression.
But clearly this is the wrong place for any such complexity, being reserved for schoolchildren gloating over the sight of a bully being told off.
Quoting Streetlight
Good. Because it does. :lol:
[quote=Parenti, Against Empire]The truth slipped out when the Los Angeles Times (January 18, 1993) reported that “Four major U.S. oil companies are quietly sitting on a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions to explore and exploit tens of millions of acres of the Somali countryside.” The story notes that “nearly two-thirds of Somalia” was allocated to “the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips in the final years before Somalia’s pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown.” The companies are “well positioned to pursue Somalia’s most promising potential oil reserve the moment the nation is pacified.” The article reports that “aid experts, veteran East Africa analysts, and several prominent Somalis” believed that “President Bush, a former Texas oilman, was moved to act in Somalia, at least in part,” to protect corporate oil’s investments there.
Government officials and oil industry representatives insisted there was no link. Still, Conoco (owned by Du Pont), actively cooperated in the military operation by permitting its Mogadishu offices to be transformed into a U.S. embassy and military headquarters. The U.S. government actually rented the offices from Conoco. So U.S. taxpayers were paying for the troops in Somalia to protect Conoco’s interests, and they were paying the corporation for the privilege of doing so. The Times article continues:
[T]he close relationship between Conoco and the U.S. intervention force has left many Somalis and foreign development experts deeply troubled by the blurry line between the U.S. government and the large oil company. . . . “It’s left everyone thinking the big question here isn’t famine relief but oil—whether the oil concessions granted under Siad Barre will be transferred if and when peace is restored,” [one expert on Somalia] said.“It’s potentially worth billions of dollars, and believe me, that’s what the whole game is starting to look like.”
The intervention was treated as a humanitarian undertaking and then as a nation-building operation. U.S. and UN troops fought pitched battles, killing several thousand Somalis, in attempts to hunt down a “warlord” deemed too independent-minded. One did not have to be a Marxist to suspect that Washington’s goal was to set up a comprador order, not unlike the deposed Siad Barre regime, that would be serviceable to Western investors.[/quote]
Those oil fields are of course still around. So yeah, more dead American soldiers would be excellent. As excellent as dead Russian soldiers.
It's like you have the memory retention of a goldfish. You're outraged anew every time you learn this stuff.
Fine. Bye.
Yeah, because a much more appropriate reaction to America running an actual insurance racket is to tut quietly and move on to the sports section. Pathetic.
You still have your pro-American flag waving. I don't know what to say about that.
Surely we don't have a good representation here. I'm not on Twitter or Facebook, so I don't know. I think we just have a couple of people who are trying to be emotionally abusive. Probably because it feels good to them.
And yet here you are, saying something about that.
Perhaps there's a lesson there for future post quality.
Yeah. The US sent in 500 troops to support the Somali government. And you're waving the Somali flag.
:lol:
Wow. Your tiny mind must have been blown apart by what was happening here then.
Were they protesting against the government? But how? They were waiving the government's flag.
Carry on. You're doing fine. :up:
That doesn't mean if the US sent 100,000 troops backed by heavy armour and air support into Somalia, bombed some of their cities to dust and killed thousands of their citizens, that the reaction of the West would be as sympathetic to Somalia as it is to Ukraine. It just means that's a hypothetical and arguing a hypothetical as if it was a reality isn't going to fly.
I don't say this to extend this aspect of the debate but hopefully to truncate it as it's not going anywhere.
Except this is exactly what Putin said did in fact happen in the Donbass. But of course, when the US says it, one is obvious propaganda - which it is - and the other is, uh, good guys being good guys, helping friends out.
When US oil interests are at stake, well, we can really believe that help is called for. And that the US is obliged to help, despite the evidence being that every place on the planet they fight in they leave a fucking crater and a mountain of dead.
How goddamn hard is it not to apologize for US Empire.
Well, Zelensky didn't ask Russia to invade, but the Somalian President did welcome U.S. troops, so I don't really understand what you're trying to say here.
They are also extremely toxic and disgusting, openly wishing the death of folks, calling you a Nazi, me a rapist... I understand their nervousness. They chose the wrong camp and are panicking now.
According to Putin, he was invited by Russian-speaking populations who were - and this is actually true - getting fucked by the Ukrainian central government. But go on, make your apologies.
I couldn't care less what Putin or NATO say about it. The comparison is valid or invalid based on reality not what competing propagandists say. America has either launched a massive invasion of Somalia akin to Russia's invasion of Ukraine or it hasn't. There have been thousands of civilians killed or there haven't. The government either invited them or they didn't. There's some leeway for ambiguity there but not so much we can't make our own judgements confidently based on the evidence available, no?
And the populations of Donbass invited Putin or they didn't.
Here's what you're missing: it doesn't fucking matter. If the US is sending troops overseas, they shouldn't be. Because nothing but suffering and death follows. It's that simple. Stop. Apologizing. For. US. Empire.
What apologies? I'm just drawing a factual distinction between a government requesting military assistance from a foreign power and foreign power starting a war.
Your argument would work better if you compared Russia's invasion to the U.S-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and then we can argue whether or not Putin's/Bush's invasions were legitimate.
And I'm drawing a factual distinction between a government requesting military assistance from a foreign power and a local population - or at least part of a local population - requesting military assistance from a foreign power.
Nothing I said involved taking a position on U.S. troops in Somalia. It's consistent to be absolutely against that move and recognize that the US hasn't launched a massive invasion of the country, that there aren't tens of thousands of U.S. troops there, that they're not bombing cities there or trying to overthrow the government etc. Maybe they will. That's also irrelevant.
No, it's a special military operation.
And yet people aren't. That's it. That's literally all there is to the use of the Somali flag here.
People were openly and vociferously against Putin's invasion of Ukraine - even before the death toll mounted - and they enthusiastically waived their little flags to show it.
No one. No one waives little flags for the countries the US wrecks. Not Somalia, not Yemen, not Iraq...
That's the point. Nothing more.
We call it a lollipop for all I care. It's irrelevant. What is relevant is the differences in the circumstances. When and if the U.S. send hundreds of thousands of troops along with heavy armour and air support into Somalia and kill tens of thousands of Somalis, I'll gauge Western reaction then and judge hypocrisy or lack of it on that basis.
Why would the US do that when they can get Ukrainians to die en masse on their behalf? A frankly worse thing to do.
The vast majority of people would never have heard of Ukraine if all that happened was what's happening in Somalia. You used an example because it was current not because it was apt in order to make a point that has some truth to it. But it's not as if there aren't tons of better examples, e.g. Yemen as you mentioned.
I don't know, why did Big Bird kill Snuffleupagus? What is the relevance of this to anything I said?
I said I'd judge that reaction when and if that comparison becomes valid. My argument is against the validity of the specific comparison, not against Western complicity in the war in Ukraine. Separately, I've already put the West on the hook for helping to cause and extend the war. That was probably the main argument I've made during this discussion.
source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-calls-finland-sweden-joining-nato-mistake-with-far-reaching-consequences-2022-05-16/
The internet is inundated with false information about Ukraine.
Is there any way this forum could be an oasis from that? For instance, could there be a standard of at least trying to present correct information?
A couple of the posters here have admitted they aren't interested in being truthful. Could we sanction that?
Posters should argue in good faith. But if we were to mod everything we thought was false, we'd not unjustifiably be accused of censorship and bias.
If someone argues for several pages that Russia invaded Ukraine to control Nazis, we know that poster is a troll. Couldn't we at least identify them as such? Like with a T over their avatar?
That's kind of the point. 4,000 Ukrainians killed since the war began (UN figures). 350,000 children on the point of starvation in Somalia (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs figures) - 258,000 died in the same conditions in 2011, so it's no exaggeration. They're asking for $1.42 billion, a fraction of what the US alone has spent on Ukraine.
And America sends soldiers...
But it's not really about America, it's about the mindless jingoistic faddishness of the media-glamour vomited up time and again, on demand whenever Western powers need an excuse, distraction, new yachts... whatever.
So yeah, the Somali flag is symbolic (I said as much in response to @Streetlight's post which started the whole thing), but it's got nothing to do with the actual specific details of the military action.
Much as this Mark-of-Cain-for-Ukraine-Nazi-thesis-perpetrators sounds like fun, I think Big Bird will probably be against it.
Anyhow, the vitriol on this thread does nothing for its quality is all I'll say.
But then, if we already know who's trolling, do we need some infamous mark? Can't we just not feed them, as @SophistiCat is saying?
The discussion died down a long time ago, in any case. Now it's a zombie thread. It's not like we're going anywhere engaging the "peace lovers".
I was just thinking of ways to discourage it. I get your point.
I used to be good at that. :-)
:up:
Ukraine's triumphant rhetoric faces limits on the ground
According to experts, foreign weapons deliveries are not enough to sustainably push back Russian forces in the Donbas and Southern Ukraine.
By Emmanuel Grynszpan, Le Monde
Published on May 17, 2022
Ukraine dreams of a total liberation of its territory, not only of the areas occupied since February 24, but also of the "separatist" Donbas and Crimea, annexed in 2014. Successive Russian tactical setbacks, and the stalemate in the battle for Donbas over the past month and a half are the source of a triumphant discourse in Kyiv. Top Ukrainian military intelligence official, general Kyrylo Budanov, told Sky News on Saturday, May 14, "the breaking point will be in the second part of August", and "most of the active combat actions will have finished by the end of this year (...) As a result, we will renew Ukrainian power in all our territories that we have lost including Donbas and Crimea."
Last week, Defense minister Oleksiy Reznikov declared the war was "entering a new long-term phase," in which Russian forces will take a defensive posture to hold captured territory. Moscow first failed to storm Kyiv in early March, and to surround the bulk of Ukrainian troops in Donbas in April.
The influx of Western military could encourage or accelerate a shift in favor of Ukrainian forces. U.S. President Joe Biden signed a $40 billion Ukraine aid package on May 9. Ukraine's Western allies have provided around 120 long-range guns, which are technically capable of attacking Russian positions beyond the front lines.
'Going on the offensive is expensive'
For Alexander Musienko, Ukrainian military expert, there is no doubt a major Ukrainian counterattack will take place. "This counter-attack will depend on the weapons that will be supplied by the West, this is a key point. We are talking about Caesar guns, which are of excellent quality; it is very important for us to be able to use them. We will also have the Panzerhaubitze 2000 howitzer and the American Himars and M270 multiple rocket launchers which have a greater range than Russian artillery. It's just an extra three to five kilometers, but it makes a big difference. It's enough for Ukrainian forces to hold secure positions while hitting the opponent's firing positions."Mr. Musienko also emphasized the key role that "weapons more specifically intended for the offensive, such as attack drones, armored vehicles and tanks of Soviet design that will be provided by the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Poland would play."
Other observers are more cautious in their predictions. "Weapon deliveries are crucial for rebuilding the Ukrainian defense of tomorrow. On the other hand, I doubt that they will have a significant influence on the battlefield" said military expert specializing in Russian defense Pierre Grasser. "Overall, I think it is a bit too late to influence the battle of Donbas that is taking shape: I can see Severodonetsk being surrounded in the next few days. Moscow is pushing forward now and will slow down in the summer. On the other hand, the arrival of new Ukrainian units will take place in the summer. In the meantime, the troops locked in combat since the beginning are holding the line and, for the last few weeks, it has been difficult. And even if this Russian offensive were to get bogged down, the Ukrainian equipment would hardly allow for serious counterattacks. Going on the offensive is expensive, because the losses would be very difficult to replace."
These posters (Street, Isaac, Benkei) are not just arguing in bad faith. They are trolling and intentionally derailing the thread. They made it clear from the start that they are not interested in the actual topic, and instead want continue to talk about what they talk about in every other political thread: the villainy of US, the evils of capitalism, etc.
Quoting Olivier5
Apparently not...
For others it appears very difficult to separate criticism of Western contributory negligence from Putin apologism.
Twelve fires have targeted buildings used for army recruitment, as testimonies of army reservists receiving "invitations" to report build up.
By Benoît Vitkine (Moscow, correspondent)
Posted today at 2:00 p.m.
In the middle of the night on May 4, in the center of Nizhnevartovsk, a city of just under 300,000 inhabitants located in northern Siberia, an apparently young man walks with a determined step. His face hidden under a hood and a mask, a plastic bag in his hand, he heads for Peace Street, 78. Methodically, he pulls out seven glass bottles and lines them up on a sidewalk corner. Then, perfectly calm, he lights his Molotov cocktails one by one and throws them at the door and windows of the military registration office that is there.
Not a single word is spoken, and it is impossible to trace the video, which appeared the next day on social networks. There is nothing to identify the man with the Molotov cocktails or the accomplice who films him. On May 13, the police reported having arrested two suspects, remanded in custody for two months. But unlike the usual arrests of "saboteurs" and "spies", very much staged with a lot of Nazi symbols, no details were given.
The case of Nizhnevartovsk is not isolated. In Tcherepovets, in the Vologda region (north-west), the same scenario occurred on May 12, with attackers a little less effective. They had to try twice to detonate their Molotov cocktails. The facade of the voenkomat (the military office) nevertheless caught fire.
In other similar cases, the perpetrators remain hidden. An understandable element knowing the very heavy penalties incurred. Only surveillance cameras, when installed, provide an overview of the facts. Otherwise, only partially charred facades remain, the photos of which begin to circulate in the early morning. In all, since the beginning of the "special operation" on February 24, twelve fires or attempts to burn such buildings have been listed in the local media.
The figure of twelve seems important, but it should be put into perspective: Russia has just under 1,500 voenkomat. This name, contraction of "military commissariat", is inherited from the Soviet period. The role of the institution is to manage the recruitment of contractors for the army at the local level, to organize conscription and to keep the list of men who can be mobilized up to date. ...
If it is to be seen as a mode of protest against the conflict, in the same way as the posters or the tags visible in Russian cities, the target, as well as the chronology, are telling. The first attack dates back to February 28, but there has been a clear acceleration since the beginning of May. The latest, in the suburbs of Moscow, was perpetrated on the night of May 17 to 18. ...
More and more elements show an intensification of the work of these military offices, which certain Russian sites in exile go so far as to compare to an “underground mobilization”.
Maybe it's harder for me to give up on a discussion than it should be. In any case you've long adopted the only sane and effective approach re. our most "peace-loving" friends, and I respect that.
?
I think you are referring to the Algerian war, not the Algerian Civil war of 1991- 2002. The Algerian FLN wasn't at all islamist (or what we would call now islamist).
The civil war happened when the Algerian military made a coup when rulers didn't accept that the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) would have victory in the elections. Unlike in Mali, France didn't play an active role in the war and the only Frenchmen killed were those killed by the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). GIA was far more active in killing FIS members and Algerian civilians than the soldiers of the Algerian military. FIS didn't attack France.
Hence the dead Frenchmen killed by Algerians (GIA) in this war were in 1994 four French embassy workers, in 1995 (killed or wounded) users of the Paris metro, passers by on the Arc de Triomphe, and some in a Jewish school. Only ten killing ten were killed, but scores were wounded (about 200 people). In 1996 four were killed in Paris by a car bomb. Earlier one person in a hijacked Air France plane had been killed the organization's hijackers.
The connection between GIA and the Algerian junta seems to have been clear to the French as Chirac refused to meet with Algerian ministers after the 1995 bombings, openly saying that the GIA could have been manipulated by the Algerian secret services. Such allegations were actually widespread.
Algerian civil would be a prime example were the insurgents are successfully divided and the most bloodthirsty extremist cabal then turns the public sentiment against the insurgents.
I'm not sure about that how much panic there is. It's just usually that when you don't have anything to say, any actual objections on the topic, anything to counter the arguments, some people then resort to ad hominems.
Maybe.
Quoting Benkei
And sometimes we have agreed on issues. Besides, if people can make myself to change my opinion / views, learn something or see something from a different perspective, what could be more beneficial?
Hilarious. You must be attending the same second-rate kindergarten as the other two. Or maybe CIA-NATO bots come in packs of three. As the poet says, “bad things come in threes” .... :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
The truth of the matter is that there is very little genetic difference between Mongols and Turkic people like the Tatars. They all originated from the same place.
Essentially, Turkic peoples were peoples originally from the region comprising South Siberia and Mongolia. In other words, Mongols were from Mongolia proper, and Turkic people were Mongols from adjacent areas.
As the Mongols proper (i.e., Mongols from Mongolia) expanded their rule westward, they became increasingly “Turkified”, so that eventually most “Mongol” invaders were in fact Turkic.
For example, when Genghis Khan divided his empire among his four sons, his eldest son Jochi inherited the westernmost part with 4,000 Mongol troops. Later he had an army of nearly 500,000, virtually all of whom were Turkic. Genghis Khan’s grandson Berke became ruler of the Kipchak Khanate which was almost entirely Turkic, etc., etc.
Turkic peoples looked like the Mongols, spoke a language that was identical or closely related to, and mutually intelligible with Mongolian, and had the same nomadic culture with horses and bows and arrows that they used to attack sedentary Slavic populations.
There were several Mongol-Turkic invasion waves including Bulgars, Pechenegs, Cumans, and Kipchaks, followed by Mongols, with later waves pushing earlier ones further and further west, or assimilating them in the process. This also holds for areas now known as Russia and Ukraine.
To indigenous Russians and Ukrainians there was no difference between Mongols, Turkic people, and Tatars. The term “Tatar” referred to the non-Slavic, Mongol and Turkic tribes that invaded the region in the Middle Ages. Crimean Tatars are a subgroup of the Tatars and are, by definition, Turkic, i.e, closely related to the Mongols. You can see that for yourself if you take a look at a picture of Turkish president Erdogan!
This is precisely why they are called, and call themselves, “Tatars”.
The original inhabitants of Crimea were the Tauri who lived mainly in the southern highlands while the lowlands were invaded by a succession of various tribes. But by the time of the Mongol invasions, Crimea was controlled by Russia who later took it back from the Mongols and Turks.
Obviously, as the Tatars enslaved the local population (consisting of Greeks, Slavs, etc.) and raped their women, modern-day Tatars are mixed-race with various amounts of Mongol-Turkic DNA. This is why some look Mongolian, some look European, and others look mixed. And they’re currently a small MINORITY (about 10%) in Crimea while the majority are ethnic Russian.
In any case, none of this shows that “Crimea belongs to Ukraine”!
Quoting ssu
"Divide and rule tactics in the Caucasus"? Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at loggerheads for ages!
There were already fights between the Armenians and Azerbaijanis in 1905. The reason was that Azerbaijanis were Muslim fanatics who had joined Turkey's dream of rebuilding the Ottoman Empire.
See also the Khilafat Movement - Wikipedia
Before that, it goes back to centuries of clashes between local Armenian Christians and Muslim-Turkic invaders. Nothing to do with Russian "divide-and-rule" tactics. If anything, it's got to do with Turkey who's still trying to revive the Ottoman Empire and the Caliphate.
As I've explained to you many times before, Turkey has been aspiring to create a "Turkish world from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China" since the 1990s which is why it has founded the Organization of Turkic States, comprising Turkic countries like Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey and Uzbekistan.
From the Adriatic Sea to the Great Wall of China – TEPAV
The idea, of course, was promoted by US state secretary Kissinger as part of established US policy of containing and encircling Russia, and keeping it not only "out of Europe" as stated by NATO, but also out of Asia. Which pretty much exposes NATO's true intentions .... :smile:
Quoting Olivier5
Most of the world don't want to live under America's boot, either.
Quoting ASmallTalentForWar
Good point. People tend to forget that the main purpose of US foreign policy is to promote US business especially as dictated by oil and defense lobbies.
Incidentally, US State Department figures show that between 2014 and 2016 U.S arms exports to the EU were worth $62.9 billion. EU arms exports to the U.S were only about $7.6 billion. And EU arms imports from the US are growing, and growing fast. If the EU now starts buying oil and gas from the US as well, we can see how this serves the interests of America’s global empire.
And I agree that a quick Russian victory in Ukraine would have saved thousands of lives and many cities and villages that are now just heaps of dust and rubble. It's difficult to see what Zelensky's actual "plan" is. A ruined and bankrupt country that will be taken over by Western corporations and the local oligarch mafia that are currently sunbathing in Cyprus, Israel, or Miami while waiting for the war to end?
This is exactly it.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1527092111195226114?t=4aJHaYj9gZy3NsxYz4B4qg&s=19[/tweet]
These are the demented murderous fucking clowns that people here are falling over themselves to defend as goodies against Russian baddies.
These people are so used to treating plots of land beyond their borders as their personal fiefdoms that they can't keep straight which one their imperial designs are currently bearing on.
The 'topic' is the Ukraine crisis. Says it right at the top of the page. It's not 'how bad do we think Putin is', nor is it 'who's winning right now'.
The Ukraine crisis is a complex geopolitical situation involving more than two parties. Even at the most superficial level possible the US are involved in arming Ukraine. At the level of basic adult conversation we'd accept that Ukraine's propaganda war is being fought substantially in Western countries, largely for the purposes of securing military aid...
Then there's the terms of the American and European loans, the extent to which NATO figures in Putin's address, the fact the the whole war started (back in 2014) as a conflict in Ukraine between support for Russia and support for Europe, the fact that the US were involved in that initiating event, and the degree to which that figures in Putin's propaganda.
All this is simply the facts of the case prior to any opinion about it.
To say that America and Europe are not part of the "actual topic" is itself a political opinion within the topic. All you're trying to do here is make political opinions you personally don't like seem as if they don't deserve to be discussed. It's a pathetic ruse which undermines the power of this exact tool for political opinions which do, in fact, not deserve to be discussed (like Nazism).
Take a look back at the posts of @Olivier5 (the person to whom you are replying here) and @Christoffer, and no few of your own, and tell me seriously if you still want to stand by the whole 'ad hominem=nothing to say' theory. Shall I quote them for you?
I think this idea is central to the way this topic is being discussed. Western powers have so much blood on their hands from colonialism onward that they are permanently stained by it. If they were now some third world states with an unfortunate past, we might live and let live - mistakes were made but everybody who made them is dead now. But they're not. They're the wealthiest, most powerful nations on earth - an earth containing 800 million starving people. It's not complicated morality to say that if you've benefited from the impoverishment of other countries you owe them a debt until the field is levelled again.
The unwillingness to look into the historical causes of any situation, like Ukraine, was, of course, always solely to do with this unwillingness to confront the extent to which the wealth and power of today were built on the flagrant abuse of the past. What's particularly insidious this time is the effort to literally wipe that history from the debate. I think the combination of an easy cartoon villain, an oven-ready non-American hero, and the new language of dis- and mis- information have presented an opportunity to create a dangerous new narrative which says "all that's in the past now, the reality is a new fight of good vs evil and you must pick a side" where 'picking a side' involves absolving the 'goodies' of all their past wrongs (and letting them keep all the wealth and power they thereby gained in the process).
It's insidious because the framing of good vs evil attaches atonement for the past crimes of imperialism (even up to crimes of last week, yesterday, just now...) to one of only two mutually exclusive positions, the other of which is 'evil'. We can see that framing all over the rhetoric used here.
Yet the only reasonable answer to the complaint that "Oh it's always about the US, the west, capitalism..." is "Yes". It is always about the US, the West and capitalism.
That sounds honest on their part. Ironic
Then why are so many trying to emigrate there, or in Europe?
Because America itself is the place least under America's boot, obviously.
Fuck up everywhere else on the planet, then when those populations come fleeing to the one place you haven't completely fucked you say "why would they all come here if we're so bad?"
An argument that would be laughed off the page if it wasn't for people willing to repeat it.
That's how much the guy cares for human life, at least his web persona.
Where the French were the colonial oppressor and he defines the French as terrorists and believes it was just the Algerians kicked them out? That's not supporting terrorism.
Edit; in not saying it's not a crude way of putting it but reading support for mass murderers and terrorists even in this thread is simply not there. I still read your posts even if I think most of them are not well thought out.
So, just as an example when you think another poster is lying, probably there's some misinterpretation going on. Try being charitable.
It's only a matter of time before America's boot size grows so large that it begins stepping on its tail. Immigrants will be the first casualty.
You shouldn't really. They are wasted on you.
You seem to forget that I numerous times asked you and other trolls to stop involving yourself in discussions I had with others, you kept doing it, kept on writing low-quality bullshit, and since mods don't give a shit about this thread I just applied the same level of rhetoric that you people used since it seems it's the only kind of posts you people understand. And when I wrote a long correctly formulated argument against you, you just ignored it as irrelevant since you had nothing left to counter with, and instead tried to steer away from that failure to attack something else. You constantly quote me or refer to me over and over with low-quality shit and then complain about the low level you drag others down to. This is why I'm not active as much in here anymore, because I don't find it productive to discuss with people like you and since mods don't care about quality in here, I'll just counter low quality with the same quality. But you can't seem to get over anything, and you seem to forget your own rhetoric and posts. Maybe I shall do a compilation of both how wrong you've been compared to what has happened in this war, as well as all the times you upheld the low-quality posting and ad hominems you yourself whine about now.
Sums up this discussion.
I don't give a fuck about human life. Everything for me revolves around the mine gap.
But seriously, don't be crazy, if Street actually condoned terrorism, with his conviction, he would be a terrorist. But he is only more intelligent than you, and it can be embarrassing when you get your ass handed to you, intellectually speaking.
And you can tell because?
Damn strait. America and the the rest, beginning with agreeable white europeans
I don't know how to put it better than this.
As for the above conversation, I don't support terrorism, but I sure as day support counter-terrorism.
The fact that you're to egotistical to tell the difference between a judgement of yours and a fact is not itself an argument for engaging in abusive language though, is it?
Quoting Christoffer
I'm not whining about anything. I've no problem with the ad-hominems, it's a passionate topic, bound to raise some robust language - completely appropriate to the emotional scale of the issue, I think. I do have a fascination with hypocrisy - you lot complaining about ad-hominems when you're engaged in them to absolutely no lesser an extent than everyone else. I can't figure out how you're maintaining that level of dissonance.
This...
Quoting Christoffer
...for example, just doesn't make any sense. I mean, it's a direct contradiction from the outset, but even if it weren't, the idea of countering low quality with low quality doesn't even follow. How is low quality a counter to low quality?
And this...
Quoting Christoffer
...is just bizarre since I made no such complaint, and I can't even see how it would help your narrative if I had. I mean it would make me hypocritical, but you just included your own hypocrisy (fighting low quality with low quality) as part of the same storyline.
It's quite the tangled web you weave.
Like drone strikes! Right?
Some people here do, and they might found your cynicism offensive. Just so you know.
What worries me is whether this tactic - so successful in the mainstream media - will be extended. How soon until we start to hear the same line being trotted out to deny, say, debt relief - "the slave trade was all in the past, water under the bridge - these African nations are so warlike, you wouldn't want to be supporting them would you...?".
Or to support orchestrated regime change every time there's a hint of socialism in South America - "we laundered their drug money and propped up criminal rackets ages ago, all irrelevant now, water under the bridge - you wouldn't want to side with the same people who abstained from voting against Putin would you...?".
Any move to end systemic racism - "yes we horrendously mistreated African Americans, but that's got nothing to do with the current problem, all water under the bridge - you wouldn't want to side with those viscous street gangs now would you...?"
And so on. Once a narrative's been established it can just be picked of the shelf for use next time and it sounds so comfortingly familiar that it's got its own appeal beyond the convenience even of the excuse it offers.
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/abroad/english-ignorance-about-ireland-just-isn-t-funny-anymore-1.3677267
Yes. I mean exactly that. Are you suggesting that was a good thing done there?
So you see? You don't need to go all the way to Somalia or South America to find some example of imperialism. You can just look right under your nose, at the fabric of your own country. How it bears the mark of the empire. How eager the English are to forget what the Irish want to remember. And how it's now unraveling.
My attempts at low-quality generally lead me to longer better-formulated posts. I generally fail at being consistently low-quality.
And harsh language, swears etc. are not ad hominems. I'm guilty of many swears, and that doesn't mean anything more than focusing the text to make the point stronger and more clear on where I stand. Low-quality, however, means making little to no argument, short, sarcastic, down-talking remarks of little value to the discussion but more focused on the ego of the poster. Going back in this thread there's a clear pattern of long arguments being broken apart into strawmanned arrogant hit pieces by people generally not interested in actual discussions but more focused on bragging about their own supposed intellect and pushing their ideas, ideology, and convictions with no regard for actual understanding of other's arguments before replying.
Like, your first post in this thread is a sarcastic mock out of everyone seriously contemplating the risk of Russia invading Ukraine.
Quoting Isaac
The tone you set here is perhaps what sparks the quality to go down in a thread like this. I didn't start it, and neither did SSU or many others. Just like the invasion of Ukraine should be blamed on Russia for starting it, maybe soul-searching your own rhetoric would be good practice for you. Did you enter the discussion with respect or just arrogance? Do you think that a strong response to such arrogance is others' fault or your own? If you think it's others' fault, then you just seem to be along for the ride in order to trigger people and that's basically what a troll does.
I'm not innocent of getting down and dirty, but it usually comes as a response to something, while many others in here seem to have a tendency to just initiate a discussion with bad behavior, low-quality arrogant bully mentalities, or whatever. This, for me at least, puts these people, regardless of their knowledge of a subject, in a place where they become irrelevant interlocutors as they degrade the quality of the discussion. This is why I tried to call out to moderators to clean this shit up, but they don't care, possibly since this behavior is also conducted by moderators like Benkei as well.
So this thread is a cesspool that lost its smell of quality when these people went hard into such posts, and like trolls, triggering others until getting a response that they can point at and claim they're innocent of bad behavior. It's tiresome that this thread ended up in mostly only those kinds of back and forths, imagine if the moderators actually moderated this thread from the beginning instead of claiming "it's politics so the bar is higher". :shade:
Says the guy who thinks NATO handing Ukraine a few Nukes under the table to nuke Moscow and St. Petersburg is A. a good idea and B. Russia would be like "oh my, you got us! the ol' nukes under the table ploy, plausible deniability, we can't retaliate, untouchable".
Quoting ssu
Oh, you mean ad hominems like:
Quoting Olivier5
Quoting Olivier5
Quoting Olivier5
As pathetic desperation of people that "don't have anything to say, any actual objections on the topic, anything to counter the arguments"?
Or ... not these ad hominems?
Quoting Apollodorus
You didn't provide any evidence to support these claims. I have evidences that question them. Indeed Turkic people may be genetically very different from Mongols:
Only two out of five Siberian Tatar groups studied show partial genetic similarity to other populations calling themselves Tatars: Isker–Tobol Siberian Tatars are slightly similar to Kazan Tatars, and Yalutorovsky Siberian Tatars, to Crimean Tatars. The approach based on the full sequencing of the Y chromosome reveals only a weak (2%) Central Asian genetic trace in the Siberian Tatar gene pool, dated to 900 years ago. Hence, the Mongolian hypothesis of the origin of Siberian Tatars is not supported in genetic perspective.
Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S0026893316060029
In particular another study shows: The Turks and Germans were equally distant to all three Mongolian populations [...] These results confirmed the lack of strong genetic relationship between the Mongols and the Turks despite the close relationship of their languages (Altaic group) and shared historical neighborhood. .
source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12753667/
So again the genetic link between Crimean Tatars and Mongols is highly questionable also through the reference to generic "Tatars" or "turkic people" group (assuming this was sufficient, which is not even the case!). This is even less surprising if one understands that the ethnonym "Tatar" may be highly equivocal: Frequently different peoples, at times ethnically not connected with each other, were called Tatars. Many historians and ethnologists in the 19th-20th centuries, following the Kazan missionaries, designate with the ethnonym Tatar (without definitions) the peoples who in the past were called Tatars by someone, for example, the ancient Tatars, and the Mongolo-Tatars, and the Kipchak Khanate Tatars and the modern Bulgaro-Tatars, all of them are just simply called Tatars. As a result these ethnically not connected or only partially connected Tatars were group identified. We find this identification in the monographs on the history of Tatars, and in the "Tatar" sections of the school and high school textbooks written by some Russian, and sometimes by foreign authors. It resulted in rude distortions in the study of the ethnogenesis for the specific Tatars
Source: https://www.podgorski.com/main/tatar-origins.html
Quoting Apollodorus
Quoting Apollodorus
Dude you are desperately trying to support your claim that Crimean Tatars are "the Mongols of Crimea" (now you revised your claim "closely related to Mongols"! How closely?!) and suggested their strong link to Middle Age invaders of Russian lands (including Crimea, right?).
Unfortunately you didn't provide anything that supports those claims and contradicts what I said. Besides the fact that Tatar and Mongols can not be confused from a genetic and historical point of view [1], that Tatars were originally a confederation of Turkic nomadic tribes covering a huge territory which is consistent with their great genetic variability (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartary#/media/File:1806_Cary_Map_of_Tartary_or_Central_Asia_-_Geographicus_-_Tartary-cary-1806.jpg), and that relying on blood purity is not only foolish but also gives a Nazi flavor to your theory matching ethnic groups with territorial claims (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_and_soil), the main problem is that you didn't provide any evidence specific to the Crimean Tatars in support of the idea that Crimea belongs to Russia more than to Crimean Tatars!
Concerning specifically the Crimean Tatars here are the claims you should address with pertinent evidences from the available literature:
- Crimean Tatars are the indigenous people of Crimea (not the Russians!) and it doesn't matter how pure their blood is for being considered indigenous (even actual Russians may have Tatar and Mongol genetic traces, Italians and Spaniards may have people with Arab ancestors yet they are not Arabs!). This is enough to say that, according to your theory, Crimean Tatars are the rightful owners of Crimea and not the Russians. Period.
- Crimean Tatars stemmed from merging different groups including pre-Mongol ethnic groups (like the Tauri, and others: Scythians, Goths, Byzantines, Genovese, later merging with Turkic groups such as Khazars, Kipchaks, Tatars and Ottoman Turks https://www.iccrimea.org/reports/genographic-results.html). The fact that Crimean Tatars' ethnogenesis took place in Crimea and consisted of several stages lasting over 2500 years is proved by genetic research showing that in the gene pool of the Crimean Tatars preserved both the initial component for more than 2.5 thousand years, and later in the northern steppe regions of the Crimea. (Source: https://us.edu.vn/en/Crimean_Tatar_people-0262024006)
- Crimea Tatars are not Mongols from a genetic point of view. This is a corollary of what I said before but here some recent genetic studies to confirm that once more:
1. 62% of the Crimean Tatars' genetic pool is not even of Asian origins! Source: https://www.iccrimea.org/reports/genographic-results.html
2. “The Westasian and Mediterranean genetic components (population of Asia Minor and Balkans) predominate in the gene pool of Crimea Tatars, the Eurasian steppe component is much fewer.” Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311805917_The_Tatars_of_Eurasia_peculiarity_of_Crimean_Volga_and_Siberian_Tatar_gene_pools
3. The Eurasian genetic influence concerns particularly a subgroup of Crimean Tatars:
“It is the most likely that discovered features of Steppe Crimean Tatars gene pool reflect the genetic contribution of medieval Eurasian Steppe nomads. The component predominant in Mountain and Coastal Crimean Tatars gene pools and in Crimean Greeks suggests that genetic contribution of East Mediterranean populations continued in Crimea for many centuries.”
Source: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/the-gene-pool-of-indigenous-crimean-populations-mediterranean-meets-eurasian-steppe/pdf
Conclusion: Wikipedia historical trivia (yours included) do not question but confirm that the ethnic stratification of Crimean Tatars relate to the period prior to, during and after the Mongol empire (which per se was already a multi-ethnic empire as many ancient empires were! And that is also why genetic evidence about “generic” Tatars wrt Mongols is neither very useful nor conclusive!), that is why they are not Mongols in a historical sense either!
So any assimilation of Crimean Tatars with Mongols or middle-age Mongolian-Tatar hordes is, to be kind, an oversimplification, partly based on historical misconceptions (arguably still supported by Russian propaganda [2]). And I would question also its relevance even if it was true! So if you are against any form of imperialism (at least the one that violates what belongs to the rightful owners), then you should oppose Russian imperialism in Crimea, instead of promoting it by spreading their lies about Crimean Tatars!
Quoting Apollodorus
Oh really?! Did you conveniently forget that they are a minority due to the Russification of the peninsula by Russian imperialism (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Ethnic_Population_of_Crimea_18th%E2%80%9321st_century.png, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Tatarization_of_Crimea), the kind of imperialism you claim to be opposing?! If you haven't, then you should oppose Russian imperialism in Crimea as much as you oppose NATO imperialism. Even more so with Russian imperialism, since Crimean Tatars have more problems with Russians than with NATO or Ukraine! (https://newlinesmag.com/essays/the-suffering-of-crimeas-tatars/ , https://theconversation.com/why-crimean-tatars-are-fearful-as-russia-invades-ukraine-178396)
[1]
The Tatars (/?t??t?rz/; Tatar: ????????, tatarlar, ???????, Crimean Tatar: tatarlar; Old Turkic: , romanized: Tatar) is an umbrella term for different Turkic ethnic groups bearing the name "Tatar".[34] Initially, the ethnonym Tatar possibly referred to the Tatar confederation. That confederation was eventually incorporated into the Mongol Empire when Genghis Khan unified the various steppe tribes.[35] Historically, the term Tatars (or Tartars) was applied to anyone originating from the vast Northern and Central Asian landmass then known as Tartary, a term which was also conflated with the Mongol Empire itself. More recently, however, the term has come to refer more narrowly to related ethnic groups who refer to themselves as Tatars or who speak languages that are commonly referred to as Tatar, namely Tatar by Volga Tatars (Tatars proper), Crimean Tatar by Crimean Tatars and Siberian Tatar by Siberian Tatars. The largest group amongst the Tatars by far are the Volga Tatars, native to the Volga-Ural region (Tatarstan and Bashkortostan), who for this reason are often also known as "Tatars" in Russian. They compose 53% of the population in Tatarstan. Their language is known as the Tatar language. As of 2010, there were an estimated 5.3 million ethnic Tatars in Russia.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatars
[2]
[I]The firm belief that the Crimean Tatars were descendants of the Golden Horde, who settled on the peninsula in the first half of the 13th century, was firmly ingrained in the minds of many scholars. This myth appeared immediately after the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 1783, and has since become firmly entrenched in official Russian and then Soviet historiography and continues to be replicated in the scientific literature. The falsifiers took the events related to the Horde period as the starting point of origin of the Crimean Tatars, which, in fact, is only a stage of a centuries-old, complex historical process.[/I]
Source: https://culture.voicecrimea.com.ua/en/ethnogenesis-of-the-crimean-tatars/
Stop lying. I never said it was a good idea. Only that if Russia nukes Ukraine, as you fantacized about, then Ukraine might be able to retaliate.
I genuinely believe you are on Putin's payroll. That's not an insult. In fact it's a compliment: at least you're getting paid for your lies, and your lies are much better crafted than others', more professional. You're the master of them all.
"Somalia's leadership has made a swift reversal on an oil exploration deal signed with a US company. On Saturday, the Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Abdirashid Mohamed Ahmed announced that production sharing agreements had been signed with US-based firm, Coastline Exploration Ltd. Ahmed said in a statement that the deal was "a huge moment" for the people of Somalia. But with the ink barely dry, both Somalia's president and prime minister announced the deal was off. In a statement, the office of President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed said the deal was nullified. The presidential palace Villa Somalia tweeted that "it contravenes Presidential Decree 7/8/2021 which bans the inking of deals during elections so as to protect public resources from exploitation during elections."
Protecting public resources from exploitation? Time to be concerned about terrorists again!
https://m.dw.com/en/somalias-president-cans-us-oil-deal-hours-after-it-was-signed/a-60846562
---
It's not unlike that time last month when India, having refused to join in on Russian sanctions, all of a sudden, out of the blue, from completely nowhere, found themselves at the centre of US concern for "human rights abuses". Which of course it is up to it's neck in, but only used as a cugdel when American interests are not satisfied.
--
America is obviously very concerned with the poor people in Ukraine :sad:
@Boethius, I'm responsible of what I write. And yes, others might get offended at the insults hurled at them and respond accordingly. The last time I got really pissed off was a guy that said that the Saur-revolution was a blessing for Afghanistan and it was the best thing that happened to the country. If someone says exactly the same things as Putin and never actually criticizes Russia, but acts like an apologist, I think it's fair to say that the person is a troll. Hence for example Streetlight has criticized what Russians have done in Ukraine, so he's not a Russian troll.
(In the military coup about 2 000 died and then repression was introduced to Afghanistan, which it had never before seen with something like 27 000 political prisoners being executed by the communists. And the well known response to this was the countryside going up in arms and the mujahideen emerging and over 40 years of war then continuing in the country.)
Quoting boethius
Quoting Olivier5
Let's remember that nobody was giving them nukes. They already had them as Ukraine had been part of the Soviet Union. And this is the one point people forget: as if the sole successor of the Soviet Union was Russia and none of the other republics had any claim to what had been an union of Soviet Republics.
Well, if the new elected Somali government goes further with that US deal, you just have made your case then.
And they still have the know-how. Technically speaking, the Ukrainians could build nuclear missiles tomorrow. The problem would be access to military grade uranium or plutonium.
I don't get this refrain. You and I caring about all people is nice, but countries aren't you and I.
Why on Earth would any country be concerned with non-productive people who are an expensive drag to every nation? Being poor is an entirely different issue than countries not giving a shit. Poverty is a consequence of not contributing sufficient monetarily valued services or goods to the local economy.
But considering Ukraine is an economic basket-case and will be even more so now maybe the difference is not all that great tbf.
Yet, nations like mine (Sweden) contribute to donations with little to no actual return in any kind of neoliberal capitalist sense, whatever so-called experts on Swedish foreign affairs in here say. Sweden has for a very long time been one of the largest contributors of donations to poor nations or nations in need of help. That goes against any idea that a nation must have some ulterior motive, it might just be that people vote for a better world and understand that helping others can be just about helping others. If people stare long enough into the void of the geopolitics of nations not giving a shit, it's easy to do a fallacy of believing every nation in the world follows that example. Just like many in here believe that every nation in the west follows the same neoliberal extremism as the US. I'm not saying Sweden is perfectly innocent in every international deal, but compared to the worst offenders of national egocentric politics, we're not at all what you describe above. The "why" in that question can be answered with "because we can" out of our economy.
Classic. You don't disappoint. Tell me again how your posts are just sooo well formulated that anyone disagreeing with them simply must be trolling...
Quoting Christoffer
No accusing everyone who disagrees with you of being "mentally retarded" is. Your particular weapon of choice when it comes to the ad-hom is that your interlocutor's arguments need not be addressed because of either their lack of intellectual rigour, or their nefarious motive. Less flamboyant than @Olivier5's paranoid delusions about us all working for the FSB, but far more interesting. Counter-arguments need not be addressed as they're from the under-informed. How do we know they're under-informed? Their conclusions are faulty. How do we know their conclusions are faulty without countering them? There's no need to counter them, they're under-informed... Brilliant.
Quoting Christoffer
Not at all. It's mocking anyone suggesting that a war might 'just happen' and that the most powerful nation on the planet wouldn't have a position on that and be pulling strings as hard as it possibly can in a direction that suits it's agenda best.
Quoting Christoffer
The tone of this thread has been that anyone talking about how America might share some blame is either uninformed, heartless, trolling, or actually working for the FSB. I really don't see how that could possibly be a coherent response to the perception of an overuse of sarcasm.
Quoting Christoffer
No, what you called on the moderators to clean up was what you called poor arguments. But the moderators, having at the very least a post-adolescent grasp of epistemology recognised that the producers of said arguments would likely contest such a judgement and, lacking any means of disinterested arbitration, there the matter would rest in perpetuity.
Lol.
You are blessed to be living in Sweden. A country needs excess resources to be able to give charity to its needy. When our grand orange offered to buy Greenland, its inhabitants retorted that Danish welfare topped our offering.
Yet, "Ukraine never had the ability to launch those missiles or to use those warheads. The security measures against unauthorized use were under Moscow’s control. The Ukrainians might have found ways around those security measures, or they might not have. Removing the warheads and physically taking them apart to repurpose them would be dangerous, and Ukraine did not have the facilities for doing that. Nor did Ukraine have the facilities to maintain those warheads Source: https://nucleardiner.wordpress.com/2022/02/06/could-ukraine-have-retained-soviet-nuclear-weapons/
Well, a country that has basically collapsed, that has parts of it declared independent (Somaliland) and a major internal conflict, it's not surprising that there aren't general elections.
The real problem for Somalia will be the possibility of famine.
Add to this that the missing supplies from Ukraine and the global inflation will raise food prices, the victims of the war in Ukraine might be found also in Somalia and in the Sahel.
Quoting neomac
Obviously they would have had to make a major program, but it wouldn't have been the situation of starting from nothing. The main obstacle wouldn't have been the technical aspects of the program.
The main obstacle would have been the West and the US. US had come to the conclusion that the best option was for Russia to solely have the Soviet Nuclear Arsenal, which obviously Russia totally agreed with. Let's not forget the environment of the Clinton-Yeltsin era: Russia wasn't a threat. The idea that Ukraine needed guarantees from Russian aggression wouldn't have flown. Russia had trouble fighting the Chechens inside Russia, so many simply wrote off Russia. Hence there would have been a coordinated effort against an Ukrainian nuclear program.
The disarmament of Ukraine actually didn't end with nuclear weapons. As the perception was that Soviet arms would end up in the wrong hands, the US persisted in Ukraine giving up large quantities of shoulder launched SAMs, which it now would have desperately needed. Shoulder launched missiles are too easy and effective.
Hence in 2005 NATO was doing things like this with Ukraine:
Just as I pointed to, your arrogant first argument where you mocked others through sarcastic rhetoric ended up being downright wrong the moment Russia invaded Ukraine. No one could hand you scientific peer-reviewed evidence of this going to happen, but we all knew it based on reading the signs of the information coming out, understanding how to sift through the bias of media, and understanding Russia's information war. You've jumped between taking Putin at his words and saying he's lying, whatever fits the argument you're making at the time. Without any context to when and how things are said. So every time someone makes an inductive argument based on the current information you demand proof in big letters, but not when you yourself argue something, then the information quality can shift however you like. The case point was the discussion about education and stuff where my final argument had highly detailed papers in favor of my argument and you dismissed it when we ended up at that point. You play with arguments, you fracture them into pieces and pick and choose to make things easier for you, it's a dishonest way of discussion that makes it impossible to have it honest and in a good tone. And then you strawman or change someone else's argument or conclusion to mock it as a way of taking some higher ground, when in fact it's so obvious I can't take you seriously. If you had any intention of meeting me at some place of actual philosophical discussion you would have done so, but your constant low way of discussing makes it impossible to have a real discussion with you. You've set that bar early on, don't blame others for the result.
Quoting Isaac
That wasn't what you wrote, you mocked the idea that the US provided honest intel of a coming invasion because it didn't fit your anti-US narrative. When it turned out it was perfectly honest information and that helped battle the false flag strategies of Russia at the start of the invasion, you changed the narrative again.
Quoting Isaac
It has not, it's you guys who come in here with that argument and argue with such arrogant bully mentality of everyone who has a more grey-ish perspective on these matters. All it takes is a look at what you all are writing, how you write arguments against those who disagree, and see how the tone shifted. Like how @ssu gets constantly bashed for being some "pro"- Nato-loving US puppet when he's owning everyone's ass with his extremely well-researched arguments. If only I had his calm temper to handle all of that, but I don't, I can't stand bullshit. The reason why FSB payroll arguments are made is because of the blatant Russian-apologetic nature of some arguments. When someone writes purely about a Ukraine-Russian dynamic in this conflict, someone whataboutist it into some anti-US argument. It's sickening how any kind of critique against Putin and Russia has been turned to focus entirely on the US or Nato as a culprit. That's why it becomes apologetic because it shifts the focus from the atrocities and crimes of Russia to just talking about the US's role in it.
And this is what happens when people who might spend years criticizing neoliberalism and the US, go into a discussion where Russia is in fact the culprit, however you try to turn it around. Because I can turn what you say around and position that when I argued for possible reasons for Putin's actions and talked about how he aims to expand Russia into the style of the old empire with its larger borders and how Nato would block such attempts just by being in an alliance with independent nations and not from a place of malice, you call me uninformed, puppet, US-loving indoctrinated stupid.
And this is what's actually my point. The "tone" started when you people began to have that attitude, arrogantly talking down on anyone who isn't anti-American and anti-Nato. Even when I've positioned plenty of times that I'm no fan of Nato, but see how it is necessary security for my own nation, the grey nature of such a thing is lost and in you people's eyes I become an indoctrinated puppet of the US for having that conclusion. It's downright stupid.
If you go back and look, I started out with attempts at good arguments, but the disagreement with the conclusions triggered some of you to start mocking my arguments. I and the ones close to my conclusions just ended up using the same rhetoric against you, if we began with you guys calling us Nato and US puppets, it ended up being you all acting as apologetic Russian trolls. You reap what you sow.
Of course. Why would you participate in a discussion?
Tells everything about your contribution to this thread.
We have excess resources because we understand how to handle the economy with care for the people. The irony of this is that we're still a free-market capitalist nation. Like, it seems possible to actually have socialism and capitalism in synthesis and the result is a high living standard, quality of life, and excess to help the poor with little to no demand of anything in return. Imagine if other nations started copying the same formula. This makes it strange to view news in Sweden because the bad things happening here get turned up to such extreme proportions that when compared to bad things in other nations it becomes a parody. Like, we have a real problem with gang violence and shootings right now in Sweden, but compare that to the US and it's like comparing to an outright war zone.
The only source you seem to refer to is the Jacobin magazine.
Just try, try really hard, to see that this is a subjective judgement of yours, not a fact about the world. If seeing that is too hard, then just imagine it is...
Now re-read your take on how things have panned out from the point of view of someone who disagrees with you about that subjective judgement. Someone who sees your arguments as carelessly lazy echoing of mainstream narrative, someone who sees your arguments as deliberate attempts to draw attention away from the one cause we can purposefully rebuke, towards the cause for whom rebuke is pointless virtue signalling.
Try to see your arguments from the perspective of someone seeing Ukraine slipping into an endless war, and becoming another horrific tally on America's million plus death toll for its foreign interventions.
Try to see your arguments from the perspective of someone for whom the faux hand-wringing over 4000 tragic deaths when 300,000 face starvation (and are afforded not so much as a passing sentence in the same press from which your position derives) is sickening.
Your moralizing may well seem genuine and heartfelt to you, its opposition seeming thus beastly by contrast, but there are those who genuinely believe your position does more harm than good, and by several fold. These are not trivial questions of philosophy. Thousands of actual people's lives are being destroyed by the forces and strategies we're debating the merits of.
:sweat:
From FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting).
In 2018 the Atlantic Council wrote on the subject of the threat of the far right in Ukraine:
By 2021 the same Atlantic Council in a piece entitled “The Dangers of Echoing Russian Disinformation on Ukraine,” give the argument as to why talk of far right problems in Ukraine was 'disinformation'...
The exact red herring they themselves alerted us to three years previous. Same data, different spin. When no American foreign policy is at stake, we're free to see lack of election support as a side issue to the rise in threatening violence. As soon as Nazism needs downplaying to ensure America's actions are whiter than white, those exact same election stats are wheeled out to perform the opposite function.
You can look for yourself. My first arguments were in good faith of honest discussions, bringing up my perspective. And then look at your own first post. I'm not sure it's subjective to say that your post reeked of sarcastic mocking of others' arguments. So who started that behavior?
Quoting Isaac
Because mainstream is always bad? Mainstream can also be the voice of those actually working on researching the subject. It can also be different things in different nations. US "mainstream" is downright biased while mainstream in Sweden focuses much harder on facts from people who worked with analyzing all of this for many many years. The anti-mainstream argument is a blanket argument to use when the points to counter aren't easily countered. So the counterargument gets reduced to "mainstream bullshit". That's low quality.
I didn't echo anything like that, I looked at the information that exists and I have access to and made my argument based on somewhat of a consensus in the matter. You, however, especially with your radical nonsense conclusions about formal education and other stuff, just pull whatever cherry-picking necessary to fit your narrative. Then concludes other opinions to be "mainstream echo" and therefore meaningless.
Quoting Isaac
Yet, Ukraine seems to kind of win this war and they fought for themselves asking for material help. The problem with you people is that you totally ignore the Ukrainian's perspective, their wants, needs, ambitions, and will to exist. You criticize the US to play around with Ukrainian lives, while totally ignoring their opinions, independence, and needs. This is why your arguments come off as so blind and ignorant, because you blatantly ignore the Ukrainian perspective, just as you ignore the Swedish perspective of why we want to join Nato. You are so limited in your perspective that all you see is a chess game with US and Nato on one side and Russia on the other, ignoring anyone else on that field who has their own voice, opinions, and reasons to act.
Your argument becomes a shallow surface level hateful game of focusing all criticism on the US, whatever the cost of intellectual depth.
Quoting Isaac
Yet you ignore the Ukrainians and you argue that I argue for something that does more harm? Like, if it ends up as things seem to end up now, with the Ukrainians winning, pushing Russia out, and returning Ukraine to themselves to live as they see fit and not under the boot of a despot, all of this fighting was not in vain, was not a waste, but a defense for the right to exist as they want to exist, without being under the boot of Russia.
So who's actually arguing for more harm? The one who is open to the idea of Ukraine being under the boot of Russia just to end the war, or the one hoping for them to win back their freedom against Russia, even if it comes at the cost of lives? My vote is for fighting to survive, to live free from Russia and you are pretty alone if you feel otherwise.
Quoting Isaac
And how would Ukraine be if no one helped Ukraine? If the US didn't help Ukraine with material and intel? Looking at the war crimes of Russia, the horror and hell that could have happened if they had to succumb to that outcome.
So 'no' to the trying then?
Quoting Christoffer
No, because reciting the mainstream is lazy, and careless when mainstream narratives work to immiserate people. Again, I'm just trying to get you to look at this from the other perspective. From the perspective of someone who disagrees with...
Quoting Christoffer
...or disagrees with...
Quoting Christoffer
These are, again, not just facts of the world, they are opinions of yours and other people disagree with them. That changes how they see your arguments. If you think your arguments are soundly based on unbiased consensus, then of course you're going to find opposition to them incoherent (or at least not understand the vitriol), but for those who disagree with that assessment, we might be offended your lack of effort, your lazy preference for the easiest narrative.
Your arguments have you and your country come out completely blameless and leave absolutely no obligation on you to do anything. They look just too convenient to someone unconvinced as to the unbiased authority of your sources.
:grin: (Noticed it too.)
So you disagree with media in Sweden being much more factual and unbiased than in many other nations. Care to back up that disagreement with anything?
And you disagree with someone using the consensus of researchers in the matter as most of the sources to form their argument?
What exactly is it that you disagree with here? The process of argument or the arguments themselves? Because all I see is someone triggered by the fact that someone uses the consensus of researchers as a basis for an argument while claiming to have good knowledge of the level of bias for media you don't even have access to.
Am I interpreting this correctly? Because there are not many other ways to interpret what you said there.
Quoting Isaac
If I use the consensus of researchers, both officially cited in Swedish media and my own personal sources from people I know who research these things, that makes my argument an uninformed opinion? What does that leave you? Who usually draws sources from heavily ideological bloggers and single individuals who share the same opinion as you? Why would your sources of information that form your conclusions be of any more factual value than mine? Because you said so? Please
Quoting Isaac
Yet, I only draw from the sources to form my arguments, I don't recite as you put it, even though I understand it's easier to counter me if you strawman it like that.
And disagreement without a foundation that can balance against such a consensus background is just disagreement noise. Your opinion is valued even lower if you only have a handful of ideological bloggers and individuals that you agree with in the first place.
The problem is that you just don't accept when I say I balance the information I have to find what seems most inductively probable. Because it doesn't fit your narrative and therefore you set out to discredit my arguments instead of actually arguing against them. Hence why you resort to sarcastic mocking rhetoric. You don't counter-argue, you resort to cherry-picking easily countered points pulled out of context, steering things towards a direction that's easier for you to control while dismissing context, the conclusions of points or the full narrative of the other speaker.
If your starting point is that you are being offended by something that's not even close to a hateful worldview and that it rather only doesn't fit with your personal and ideological worldview, you aren't an honest interlocutor if that offense turns into a sarcastic mockery. Then you're just an angry easily triggered person who just wants to shout at people who disagrees with you.
Quoting Isaac
Yet you have nothing else but "it looks too convenient". All you have is your emotional response to everything here, you have no argumentative quality in your writing but blame others for having less. And you are the one talking about being hypocritical? You make no effort to evaluate the actual logic or rationale of the others' argument, you just compare it to your emotional opinion on the matter and if it doesn't fit, then the other person is a stupid, indoctrinated puppet. And when you get an argument with lots of actual sources you bail out, as you did with the "education" discussion.
You're not an honest interlocutor, you are an emotionally driven, easily triggered person who needs to mock others when you don't agree with them. I have no interest in discussing anything with you because of that, but you persist to spam your unfounded emotional responses to everything said by anyone that has another conclusion than you.
Hence why...
Quoting Isaac
Because that's all that you do, react, mock and fight anything that isn't fitting within your narrative. While you blame others for not respecting your views :shade:
Yes, as a statement of fact, I do.
Quoting Christoffer
I have absolutely no reason to believe you. It just sounds like "Oh and my sources are the best, if you don't agree, you disprove it". I don't agree (by default) because it's a very convenient position for your argument.
Quoting Christoffer
No. I disagree with your claim that you have done so. Plus I disagree with the claim that a consensus of experts is more likely to be right that a single, or small group of experts. Qualification and error checking are the factors which make an expert opinion more likely to be right. There's absolutely nothing about a consensus to say they have greater qualification (in fact they will on average have less), nor that they have carried out more robust or lengthy error checking (again, I think marginally they will have done less than some). The expert most likely to right is the one who has the greatest knowledge and has carried out the most thorough error checking. That, by definition, will not be the mass around the mean, but rather one of the extremes.
Quoting Christoffer
My conclusions are not more factual than yours. I don't know how many times I can say this in different ways that you might understand. I choose evidence which supports my preferred narrative. The narrative comes first, the evidence second. The difference between me and you here is that you're still labouring under the delusion that you don't. That you somehow start every investigation with a blank slate, unbiasedly selecting your sources, interpreting their conclusions according to some disinterested algorithm, and then just happening, by chance to come up with answers which exactly support your pre-existing political ideals. It's bullshit. You, like every other human in the planet, interpret a complex soup of almost infinite data in ways which confirm your pre-existing biases until such time as those narratives become completely unsustainable in the face of evidence to the contrary. You're hard-wired to do this, it's literally how your brain works, from perception, through emotion, right up to grand world-philosophies.
Quoting Christoffer
Again, this is just your opinion. One with which others disagree. The people I've cited are all experts in their field. That you personally find them to be 'ideological' is your conclusion. As to your sources, you pretty much refused to cite any, so we can't tell.
Quoting Christoffer
Again, whether the points I counter are 'cherry-picked' and 'out of context' are both subjective judgements, I would obviously disagree with that assessment.
Quoting Christoffer
Once more, the idea of having countered 'logic' is a subjective opinion, one with which I would disagree. A recurring problem here is that you cannot seem to understand things which seem 'logical' to you are not that way to others. It's not as if you're arguing that 2+2=4, these are complex issues.
Quoting Christoffer
I'm simply not going to engage in a full blooded discussion about education in a thread about Ukraine. The point of it was to see how far you'd take an argument. I was intrigued as to why you didn't just assume I was lying about being a psychology professor (seemingly the easiest option for your argument) but instead assumed that you (presumably unqualified in the field) could 'outargue' someone holding a professorship by looking up a few things on Google. That position simply peaked my interest so I wanted to see how far it went. If you want to start a thread about education I'd be more than happy to contribute, though I'd expect a bit more than a hastily thrown together collection of papers. My views on the matter are not mainstream though.
Quoting Christoffer
Yep. This is a public forum, not your private blog.
Quoting Christoffer
Yes, that's a fair summary (the vast majority of the time). If I want to learn, I'll read a book. If I want to discuss with experts, I'll track some down (though I grant my personal situation makes this much easier for me than others, I'm not criticising other people in this). I have a very specific interest in this place - seeing how people react to having their views challenged, particularly on views I have strong opinions about (it reveals interesting things about my own psyche too, not that I'm going to share any of them publicly). Unless such a form of interaction is against the rules, I'll carry on.
The "good old days" :grin:
It may well be the case. I encourage you to post English versions of interesting Swedish articles here, if you care. I kind of agree with the peace lovers that the English press does follow a rather narrow script on Ukraine. I do post stuff from the French press here, that I believe deviate from what the typical English language media would or could report. I'm sure it's taken by some as further example (if need be) of my French air of haughtiness. But in truth I post this stuff because I naively think it can be useful.
Something like this, for instance.
Weird. Useful to whom? Do you think we're not aware that foreign newspapers exist? I realise I might be the one in the minority here, but I just don't understand this at all. If I want to know what the foreign press is saying I can look up foreign press articles, I've got access to the internet. Google do an excellent translation service... So you're doing what? The choosing for us? Why would anyone want someone else to do that for them?
Because I read the French press, and they don't.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=French+press+about+Ukraine&t=fpas&ia=web
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=french+newspapers+on+Ukraine&t=fpas&ia=web
It's not a fact just because you say so. :shade:
Quoting Isaac
One way to get a hint of the situation: https://rsf.org/en/index?year=2022, but of course I'm mostly referring to the expert guests within these media channels who provide most of the information able to be used to assess any kind of probable overview of the current events.
Which is more than you can provide. And of course, you used your "professor" claim at every point it works best for you, and then not when it doesn't, as well as what I can remember biased bloggers or writers close to your own ideological heart but rarely valid for any kind of unbiased method.
Quoting Isaac
For a professor that's quite bad English there, had to fill in the gaps and English isn't even my first language. But then you don't make much sense either, like, you don't seem to understand the idea behind consensus, in scientific terms. If you have a set of experts, then the more experts that conclude the same, the better the consensus is because all that error checking and reviewing goes through a larger set of data. So, they all work through an analysis of the information they have access to in order to reach a conclusion with high probability, which can vary based on the information. So the more experts there are, the higher the probability of reaching a truthful conclusion.
The claim you make that a single expert can be more right than a group is only a way for you to justify that your experts are the right ones. That's as epistemically irresponsible as you can get really. A single expert can reach a new perspective and present it, but it's not a fact or close to the truth before that perspective has been tested and checked by others.
Quoting Isaac
And there's absolutely nothing to say the opposite or that your expert source is better, just that a consensus of many experts has a higher probability to be better as a collective, than a single expert. This is why methods to reduce bias require more people than just one expert.
Quoting Isaac
More conjecture in order to create the impression that your single sources are better than others.
Quoting Isaac
And again, this does not invalidate my sources or make your sources more valid or truthful. The biggest problem was when I bias-checked your sources and found them far more politically biased than what would be considered valid for any good argument to be made from them.
Quoting Isaac
You cannot know that. Just because you have an opinion based on nothing more than your emotional reaction to what others write, does not equal me not using the information I have in front of me much more when making an argument. You seem to think that because you don't agree with someone else through pure opinion and emotion, then they are on the same playing field as you, which I know I'm not. The discussion about education was a clear example of our differences and should have made a point of that, but obviously, it didn't for you.
Quoting Isaac
Yeah, this is why you are generally full of shit. This is wrong and backwards on so many accounts that it proves just why you're pretty irrelevant as a voice in this discussion. Here's a little lesson in how to handle this with epistemic responsibility; you have a claim, hypothesis, or opinion, then you check all the facts to not only verify but also falsify in order to reach an answer as to if it's a probable conclusion or not. Since we're unable to do pure deduction with the available information, it's induction, probability. Only when different conclusions have been made can you create a possible narrative. If you think I'm not making efforts to do any of this, then you are wrong. But the way you tackle things is plain wrong and makes it impossible to have a proper discussion since you make most shit up and cherry-pick whatever fits your narrative, just as I suspected.
Quoting Isaac
I'm not. But I guess it's impossible for you to grasp that when you've entangled yourself into such a backwards method of finding out what's probable.
Quoting Isaac
What the fuck are you ranting on about here? And what political ideals are you referring to?
Quoting Isaac
This is why there are methods to make sure biases and emotions get suppressed while formulating rational conclusions. Methods you clearly just shown to do backwards and wrong. Just because you don't understand this or think it's impossible or believe that because you can't do it then everyone else can't, doesn't mean that everyone works things out as you do.
Quoting Isaac
No, it's not opinion to point out how method trumps appeal to authority.
Quoting Isaac
Not when I bias checked the sites you referred to.
Quoting Isaac
You already proved you do exactly what I said so case closed.
Quoting Isaac
What's logical is that I look at information, facts, and many experts and form a basis of knowledge before formulating any kind of conclusion. While you decide on a truth you like and pick what fits it. This is what you've said yourself to do and if we compare who's following most logic here, I'd say you proved to be on the lower end. It doesn't have to be a math equation to be a logical method of finding out probable answers to complex issues. If you think complex philosophical topics cannot use logical methods to help bypass emotional opinions, then you're really not knowledgeable in this epistemical topic.
Quoting Isaac
No, you stopped when the argument became too solid. That's what happened, you had no problem discussing it for many pages and long posts before you dropped it when I provided enough actual papers to support it. Cherry-picking to fit your narrative won't cut it by that time.
Quoting Isaac
Yeah, sure :lol:
Quoting Isaac
:lol:
The attempts you make to slither yourself out of failing to counter that and change things into some personal study you make in order to sound like you're above it all would be considered arrogant if it wasn't so fucking hilarious. But at least it proves just how you act and work, combined with what you've said now about how you actually just pick what fits your narrative best shows just how lost in the woods you are.
Quoting Isaac
It's a public forum focused on higher-level discussion. If you want something more casual, then go to any social media platform of your choosing. And wouldn't spamming answers to everyone, cherry-picking stuff and providing your wild emotional opinions be closer to the idea of a private blog than being on a public forum? No one is trying to censor you, I was just asking you to stop spamming answers to me, but I guess that your idea of a public forum doesn't require people to act civilly and respect such requests. For you, a public forum is more of the wild west, just like, you know... trolls think public forums are.
Quoting Isaac
And again you believe you are the only one who is able to track down experts :rofl:
Quoting Isaac
I'd say it makes you a dishonest interlocutor with a motive that no one has any interest in being part of. You can do whatever you want, but you're just proving yourself to be dishonest in the discussion and you have now also proven to not care for reviewing your own opinions and just cherry-pick whatever works best for you when answering others. If this isn't proof enough that you are irrelevant in this discussion I don't know what. Dishonest, sloppy and lazy in creating arguments and basically just interested in anything else but the topic of this very thread. Based on this, your lack of respect towards others here is remarkable.
Why should I give you more of my time then? You're not writing here with honesty, you're just jerking off.
I mean, you never post from an English language news site? What's the essential difference?
So the role you play is determining what's interesting?
Quoting Olivier5
Not without comment, no. Posts should have a point, I think.
Surprisingly that's false. Check out this
More precisely, what,s interesting and unlikely to have been reported in mainstream English language sources. Who as you know are quite narrow-mindedly... well.. shall we call it "cheerleading Ukraine"?
I can add comments...
I've seen that video before, and yes, it is like this, but if you go to 11:20 in that video you get my answer and why I'm always pointing out why there's still no point in saying we shouldn't aim for it. The only way to get things as right as possible is to follow it. As I've argued in other threads, it is possible to train yourself to emulate the rigorous process used in science, in everyday thinking, it just requires training. It is not equal to always being right, but it is far better than relying on our biological biases when trying to make any kind of argument and it is a vital tool for being a more balanced person that can evaluate perspectives better than one who doesn't follow it.
As for what I wrote, what I mean is that if all experts follow their work and ethical praxis, the outcome is far better if the statistical number of experts is higher. Generally the higher number of people looking at an object, the more likely it exists as they describe it. Basically.
...as well as the video coming out in 2016, when at 10:12 he states that "the last 10 years things have started to change for the better", and now we're 6 years after this video was published, so it's important information, but also a thing the scientific world has been working to fix for 16 years now, 6 years after Derek said "it's changing for the better".
I gather they're saying that Ukraine sort of happens to have been caught between
• democracies versus autocracies (e.g. Biden)
• "old world order" versus "new world order" (e.g. Jinping)
Not sure what such a new world would be (except Uyghur culture probably won't be invited).
Comments would be an improvement, in my opinion. I might disagree with you most of the time, but at least I can ask you why you think what you think. Can't ask the journalist who wrote the article.
Yeah, and that's actual papers with method statements and statistical analysis.
Once you get into the field of 'expert opinion', you're pretty much just getting a run down of the current paradigms from any consensus.
Not to mention the fact that when people say 'consensus' they generally mean a biased sample of experts whose views have been collated or otherwise published in the sources available to whomever is making that claim. We're rarely talking about some statistically valid sampling procedure.
And, add to all that the fact the experts in most fields simply do not spend their time frantically checking each other's papers. Maybe psychology is some rare oddity, but it just doesn't happen. Over the course of a decade, maybe a bit less you might just get sufficient turnaround for the earlier papers to have been checked by a small handful of their colleagues, the rest will certainly have an opinion on everyone's papers (got that in spades), but not checked with any rigour-adding methodology.
As for...
Quoting Christoffer
The main improvements have been in pre-print servers and set pre-print methodologies. It's about the avoidance of specific forms of statistical manipulation and low powered experiment design. It wouldn't apply to vox pop experts at all.
The end of human rights as "normative" (as the UN would have it) for instance. Human rights are now just some "Western" concept, waged by the West when it suits them, which is true. Any international norm, any international organisation like WHO requiring any modicum of transparency in information sharing between states, would ultimately go down the drain.
Because Western.
Spheres of influence are the new thing, in a multipolar world.
Dystopian.
(contribution to the thread's soundtrack)
Ukraine war has stoked global food crisis that could last years, says UN
Shortages of grain and fertiliser could cause ‘mass hunger and famine, says chief, as World Bank pledges $12bn to ease shortfall
The United Nations has warned that the war in Ukraine has helped to stoke a global food crisis that could last years if it goes unchecked, as the World Bank announced an additional $12bn in funding to mitigate its “devastating effects”.
UN secretary general António Guterres said shortages of grain and fertiliser caused by the war, warming temperatures and pandemic-driven supply problems threaten to “tip tens of millions of people over the edge into food insecurity”, as financial markets saw share prices fall heavily again on fears of inflation and a worldwide recession.
Speaking at a UN meeting in New York on global food security, he said what could follow would be “malnutrition, mass hunger and famine, in a crisis that could last for years”, as he and others urged Russia to release Ukrainian grain exports.
He said he was in “intense contact” with Russia and other countries to try to find a solution.
I think the worst affected areas will be the Sahel. But the hit Ukraine's economy is taking is extremely severe, but naturally that isn't on the minds of Ukrainians as they are bombed daily by Russia and fighting a conventional war. When the enemy is bombing your cities, people aren't upset about the economy tanking.
This a food price crisis, and I would think that as such, it will hit poor countries that are net importers of staple food. There's a long list of those, all the more so because a long period of globalisation and low food prices on the global markets -- a period that appears to be ending now -- has led many countries to neglect their domestic food production in favor of their 'comparative advantage' on world markets. It worked for them as long as globalisation was reasonably 'functional', but now with Covid and this war, it doesn't work anymore.
For instance Egypt has a strong comparative advantage on the world tourism market, and that's what they developed, and they kept imoprting more and more wheat. Now there're few tourists going there, so...?
Troubles in the economy will in some places become political troubles. It's hard to know just where.
My prognosis is: North Africa, Egypt, the Indian subcontinent, a number of African countries strongly relying on world markets, and poor island states. (for the worse effects)
Russia, which competes mainly with the European Union and Ukraine for wheat supplies to the Middle East and Africa, has been limiting its grain exports with taxes and an export quota since 2021 amid efforts to slow domestic food inflation."
So Russia will profit from high food prices.
(Russian Invasion of Ukraine - 80 day update - Cold War Special)
If you really want to know who the original inhabitants of Crimea were, then you should try to find out instead on fixating on Tatars just because it serves your political agenda.
Unfortunately, if you don’t even understand what Mongols are, how are you going to understand what Turkic people and Tatars are?
For your information, Tatars and other Turkic peoples originally came from the same area as the Mongols and are genetically closely related to them. Otherwise said, they're genetically closer to Mongols than to local populations like the Slavs. This can be seen from their facial features like eyes, etc. as noted by Arab and other visitors to the region in the Middle Ages:
For those who are unfamiliar with the subject, the easiest thing to do is to think (a) of Mongolia as situated to the north of China and having a population related to the Chinese, and (b) of Turkic people (including Tatars) as originally coming from western Mongolia and Mongols proper from eastern Mongolia:
The Genetic Legacy of the Expansion of Turkic-Speaking Nomads across Eurasia – National Institutes of Health
1.
A. Turkic people come from the same area as, and are related to, Mongols.
B. Tatars are Turkic people.
C. Therefore Tatars come from the same area as, and are related to, Turks and Mongols.
The Turkish government calls Crimean Tatars “Crimean Turks” and “kinsmen”:
'Turkey to continue to stand by Crimean Tatars' – Anadolu Agency
When Russia retook Crimea in 1783, most of the “Crimean” Tatars emigrated to Turkey, which shows that they felt more at home among their Turkish kinsmen than in Russia!
2. “Tatars” or “Tatary” (??????) in Russian, was a generic term applied to both Mongols and Turkic peoples associated with the Mongols, and it was first applied to Genghis Khan’s hordes which were composed of Mongols and Turkic tribes.
3. Irrespective of genetic affinity, the Tatars were closely associated with the invading Mongols and Turks.
4. It wasn’t “just the Mongols” but the Tatars themselves, including Crimean Tatars that attacked and enslaved Slavic populations like Ukrainians and Russians:
Ukrainians and Russians kept fighting the Tatars for several centuries, as anyone who has read Russian authors well knows.
Gogol was not only a great writer, but he wrote at a time when memories of Tatar raids were still fresh in the national consciousness, and he was from the Cossack region of Ukraine that had been at the very center of the Slavs’ struggle against the Tatars. Indeed, like many Cossacks, he may have been part-Tatar himself.
In sum, any objective analysis must start from the fact that the prehistoric inhabitants of the region were Eastern European hunter-gatherers (EHG). Indeed, the region is regarded by scholars as the Urheimat or original homeland of Indo-European people. By definition, this makes people like the Tatars outsiders.
Eastern Hunter-Gatherer – Wikipedia
Map of Indo-European Expansion – History Files
In historical times, Crimea was inhabited by Indo-European (Caucasoid) peoples: indigenous Tauri, followed by Greeks, Scythians, Goths, Alans. These were invaded by successive waves of nomadic Turkic tribes from the east (Central Asia): Huns, Bulgars, Cumans, Khazars, Mongols.
The Greeks were the first to introduce civilization and to build cities in Crimea from the 5th century BC, and southern Crimea remained Greek until it was conquered by Turkey in 1475, i.e., it was GREEK for a thousand years!
By taking Crimea from the Tatars and Turks in 1783, Russia reintegrated Crimea into Europe, put an end to the Tatar depredations, and redressed a historic injustice. And justice, after all, is what this is about.
Moreover, in recognition of Crimea’s Greek heritage, Russia gave Crimea’s main port the Greek name of Sevastopol, and there was a wider effort to re-Hellenize the region after its liberation from Turkish-Tatar occupation in order to keep the Turks out of Europe (see Catherine the Great’s Greek Plan ).
Unfortunately, treacherous France and England ganged up with Turkey against Russia in the Crimean War (1853 – 1856) and that’s where the problems with the West started.
If we say that “Crimea belongs to the Tatars” and the Tatars are considered to be Turks, we can see how this can be an invitation for Turkey to try and bring Crimea under its control and we’re playing into the hands of Erdogan who aims to rebuild the Ottoman Empire.
Indeed, Turkey’s (a NATO state) current manoeuvres in Crimea and other parts of Ukraine and the wider region have provided Russia with an additional and, arguably legitimate, reason to intervene.
IMO if NATO gives its member state Turkey free hand to intervene in Syria and Iraq on the grounds that Turkey has “legitimate security concerns in the region”, then Russia should also be allowed to intervene in Ukraine.
In any case, there is no evidence that Crimea belongs to Ukraine and even less that it belongs to America!
Problem with CIA-NATO-Nazi bots is that they may have the technology but they haven’t got the intelligence! :grin:
BTW, if anyone is genuinely interested in the subject, here are some good articles on Turkey’s agenda in Crimea and Ukraine:
Turkey’s Tatar Agenda Explained - Insideover
Erdogan’s wolf trace: Crimean Tatars will turn into Ukrainian Turkomans — Eurasia Daily
Quoting Christoffer
Well, I don't think you've demonstrated superior knowledge of countries other than Finland and Sweden. Kettle calling the pot black, comes to mind ....
Quoting ssu
The Armenian-Azeri conflict has absolutely nothing to do with Russia’s “divide-and-rule tactics”.
For your information, the territory inhabited by European (Caucasoid) populations originally stretched all the way to western China and southern Siberia. See Afanasievo Culture.
The problem was created when nomadic Mongol and Turkic tribes began to invade European territories. See Turkic Migrations. This includes Azeris, a Turkic group, that invaded Armenian territory in the Middle Ages.
Russia did NOT create the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The conflict goes back many centuries and needs to be taken in the context of Mongol and Turkic encroachment on European territory.
If anything, Russia is trying to strike a balance between two existing mutual enemies on its borders. Russia did sell some weapons to Azerbaijan but it was Turkey that armed the Azeris and encouraged them to attack Armenia by offering military and diplomatic support.
Turkish arms exports to Azerbaijan exploded before Nagorno-Karabakh clashes - Turkish Minute
Don’t forget that Turkey regards itself and Azerbaijan as “two states, one nation” as part of its imperialist designs on the region!
AP Explains: What lies behind Turkish support for Azerbaijan – ABC News
Except that Stalin made the region with a majority Armenian population to an autonomous oblast of Azerbaijan in 1923.
Furthermore, in the last war it was totally clear that Russia didn't support Armenia as one would think a treaty member should be supported. Of course you might argue that Nagorno-Karabakh isn't Armenia...
Yet one obvious reason is that Russia didn't like the administration of prime minister Nikol Pashinyan, that had come into power after street protests (read, color revolution) in 2018.
As Aljazeera put it:
That attempt was a no-no.
One commentator put's it this way (when the last war was fought):
With Russia, it's all about control and influence. Or basically dominance. Not to have an alliance where other's can have a say (and thus can have a mind of their own, like Turkey's horse trading now with Swedish and Finnish NATO membership or the various times when France and other allies haven't gone along with US foreign policy adventures).
:snicker:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/inside-putins-propaganda-machine
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/ukraines-new-labour-law-wartime/
Can't post pictures of atrocity porn to get-off to on this topic, however. Not that Russia would do any better, but the West is no less a terminal virus which similarly ought to be expunged.
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/joining-the-west?pc=1442
Turns out I too, like listening to 'local' voices - just not voices that happen to align with the rich and powerful.
You might appreciate this diatribe in Al Jazeera:
The future is post-Western
This current chapter of Western-run human history must be flung shut.
Yannick Giovanni Marshall
Published On 20 May 2022
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/5/20/the-future-is-post-western
Yannick Giovanni Marshall is currently Assistant Professor of Africana Studies (sic) at Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois (re-sic).
Maybe you want to give it a try. Could be a nice thread.
Problem is, they never woke up from it. They had to accept the nightmare as real.
Something similar will happen to our civilization, at a not so distant point now. We cannot really imagine it, only dimly. And when it happens, few will understand what just happened, because we see the world through our self-satisfied, self-gratulating western eyes.
YOU should feel compelled to find out who the original inhabitants of Crimea were by your own theory of the rightful owners, NOT ME! And in any case it’s NOT the Russians!
Quoting Apollodorus
Authors Joo-Yup Lee and Shuntu Kuang analyzed ten years of genetic research on Turkic people and compiled scholarly information about Turkic origins, and said that the early and medieval Turks were a heterogeneous group and that the Turkification of Eurasia was a result of language diffusion, not a migration of a homogeneous population .
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic_migration#Origin_theories
You keep talking about the origins of the Tatars and Turkic peoples (while conflating genetic with cultural-linguistic factors), not about the Crimean Tatars whose origins are indigenous to Crimea and stem from millennia of demographic stratification that preceded and followed Mongol invasions! You didn't disprove anything I said about the Crimean Tatars! They are NOT the Mongols of Crimea as the filo-Russian propaganda would claim!
Quoting Apollodorus
From the evidence I provided the ancient Tauri community merged with the Crimean Tatars (at least in good part, considering that the Crimean Greek-speaking Greeks were deported outside Crimea again by the Russians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Greeks#History), so I don't see how the distinction you make can be of any help to you. But hey if you think that the original inhabitants of Crimea are the Greeks, then, again, you should support the "Crimean Greeks", or the Ukrainian Greeks or the Greeks in general (if you want to go as far as to claim that Crimea and other parts of Ukraine like Mariupol and Donetsk belong to Greece!) and - for exactly the same reason - oppose the Russification of Crimea (and Ukraine) as an imperialist and colonialist process against indigenous people of Crimea!
In any case Crimean Tatars have surely more of a claim on Crimea than the Russians for historical reasons! In other words Russians are not the right owners of Crimea!
Quoting Apollodorus
The "historic injustice” you are referring to concerns the raids of the Crimean–Nogai Horde of centuries ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean%E2%80%93Nogai_slave_raids_in_Eastern_Europe) to the Russians of centuries ago not to the current Crimean Tatars and, as I argued, only a sub-group of Crimean Tatars may have genetic ties with the Crimean–Nogai Horde! ([I]“It is the most likely that discovered features of Steppe Crimean Tatars gene pool reflect the genetic contribution of medieval Eurasian Steppe nomads. The component predominant in Mountain and Coastal Crimean Tatars gene pools and in Crimean Greeks suggests that genetic contribution of East Mediterranean populations continued in Crimea for many centuries.”[/I] Source: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/the-gene-pool-of-indigenous-crimean-populations-mediterranean-meets-eurasian-steppe/pdf, “The Westasian and Mediterranean genetic components (population of Asia Minor and Balkans) predominate in the gene pool of Crimea Tatars, the Eurasian steppe component is much fewer.” Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311805917_The_Tatars_of_Eurasia_peculiarity_of_Crimean_Volga_and_Siberian_Tatar_gene_pools). But notice that Turkic people inhabited Crimea for centuries prior to the Crimean-Nogai Horde (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgars , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars) and even prior to the formation of Kievan Rus’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus%27)!
Finally, not only the Russian ancestors were the victims of Crimean-Niogai Tatars' raids but also the Ukrainian ancestors (more likely so, since Crimea is attached to Ukraine) so why on earth should Crimea be a compensation for the Russians and not for the Ukrainians?!
But tell me more about how your "historic injustice” theory work, should the Russians become the right owners of Mongolia too, or Crimea is enough as a compensation?! BTW Russian ancestors pillaged, raped and enslaved Azerbaijani and Iranian people too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_expeditions_of_the_Rus%27 so are Azerbaijan and Iran right owners of pieces of Russia as a compensation now?! And what is the compensation for the Ukrainian oppression by the Russian empire as Lenin acknowledged (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/dec/12a.htm) and by Stalin, the Russian national hero (https://cla.umn.edu/chgs/holocaust-genocide-education/resource-guides/holodomor)?!
Quoting Apollodorus
According to YOUR theory, if Crimean Tatars want to join Turkey, that should be fine with you too!
Crimean Tatars have strong community bonds; this is what helped them preserve their national and cultural identity through their troubled Soviet history. Following Stalin's death, they were partially cleared of the charge of Nazi collaboration, but without the right of return to their homeland and without restoration of their seized property. Later, in the 1960s, the collective punishment was finally lifted from the Crimean Tatar people, together with the prohibition of settling in Crimea, but no compensation or resettlement assistance was offered. On the contrary, although they were no longer legally barred from living in Crimea, authorities made it very difficult for Tatars to move there. This was helped by Soviet Catch-22 registration laws (the infamous propiska), which technically made it next to impossible for people to change residence within the country without being explicitly authorized and directed by the state. In an apt illustration of a popular saying that the severity of Russian laws is moderated by their arbitrary enforcement, motivated people found ways around that legal thicket. Except that in the case of Crimean Tatars enforcement was anything but arbitrary. However, thanks to hard work and cooperation, Tatars trickled back to their homeland over the ensuing decades, and you could see them here and there on the peninsula.
In the late 1980s, on the wave of general liberalization, Crimean Tatars were campaigning for their right of return, assisted by Russian human rights activists with a lot of experience navigating Moscow bureaucracy. I shared a flat with members of their delegation for a couple of weeks at that time. Lovely people, from what I can remember of them.
The bureaucratic wall finally fell at the high point of Perestroika. Shortly after the USSR was dissolved, and under the benign neglect of the newly sovereign Ukrainian state Tatars streamed back to Crimea. Most Crimean Tatar families were able to return, even without assistance from the state - such was their determination to regain their homeland. Now, however, they are once again facing repression from Russia. Shortly after it annexed Crimea, Russia banned the main organization of Crimean Tatars that served as their informal organ of self-government and mutual aid, and exiled its leader. Dozens have since been imprisoned on trumped-up charges; many had to flee to mainland Ukraine - where they are now once again being pursued by Russian occupiers.
I recall one encounter in central Crimea, from the time before the annexation. I was on a local train from Bakhchysarai, on my way to meet some friends. There were two women in the same car, one young, one middle-aged - probably her mother. The young woman was dressed in modern urban garb and spoke in Russian. The older wore more a traditional rural clothing - dark dress and a headscarf. She spoke in what I assumed to be one of the Crimean Tatar dialects, with no admixture of Russian words (as often happens with non-Russian people who live among Russian speakers). They carried on their conversation throughout the entire trip, neither one the least bit inconvenienced by this superposition of dissimilar languages.
:ok:
That was interesting. Especially when you look at the sources on the new left review article.
A quote:
Luckily the article gives the link to the Helsingin Sanomat article, which is in Finnish. Which actually states this:
The first two paragraphs is used in the article, which explain who is the typical person in favour of NATO and who are against (under 30, women etc). What is (naturally?) dismissed are the following paragraphs of the same article:
And this is what that's in English:
And here is the prime example of media bias.
It's not based on lies, it's about selective use of sources and a noteworthy comment like a) that there has been a rapid change in the views of young leftist people and that b) and there is a clear majority among all age groups etc is not something worthy or notable to write in the article.
That actually the Finnish Parliament voted 188 to 8 in favor of NATO, which one of the most unanimous votes ever taken in the Parliament (a bigger majority than the vote in 1917 for Independence), isn't noted.
Hence Lily Lynch's agenda is quite easy to see.
And your agenda? Pointing out the omissions in a left-wing, anti-NATO article...?
Do we see the same eagle-eyed hunt for bias in the more centrist, mainstream offerings others have posted? No, of course not.
Spotting bias in politically embedded arguments is like spotting typographic errors. Pointless and ubiquitous.
What matters is why Lynch is looking to find a leftist, anti-NATO angle, and why your biases are looking to support a centrist, pro-NATO one.
I can't speak for Lynch, but the benefits of a leftist, anti-NATO view seem obvious - equality, fair distribution of power, etc.
What's different about centrists is that their arguments seem entirely to plead necessity : "we'd love to reign in America's power but unfortunately we're forced to pick the lesser of two evils", or "we'd love nothing more than to give more to the poor, but unfortunately the economy just doesn't work that way, our hands are tied".
So the whole centrist agenda relies on the objective, cold, hard, rational assessment. Which is why you guys cling so desperately to this idea of impartially.
Except it's bollocks.
Quoting ssu
The mainstream media are literally inviting arms dealers on to give commentary on how the war is going.
Newspapers are actually contradicting their own previous reports to change the narrative about Nazis.
Social media platforms are consulting with the government to ban anything contrary to the official government line on the war.
...and only now you see fit to bring up media bias, now there's a left-wing article?
Far longer than it should, unfortunately. Russia cannot obtain it's objectives. But it can prolong the war if Putin wants to prolong it. Putin hasn't ever had to withdraw from a fight, so he unlikely will do it.
The problem is that it when both sides are out of steam for an offensive, it can just become static as before (in 2015-2022). Zelensky has declared that now Ukraine has 700 000 in service now. As obviously a major part of that force aren't frontline troops, it's still a huge manpower reserve. In the 8 years of fighting before this large scale attack about 400 000 Ukrainians did serve on the front. These make the backbone of a qualified reserve for Ukraine.
Perhaps then peace negotiations can start again and we can get a ceasefire, at the very least.
The question is why would there be a ceasefire. Ceasefires happen when either one side sees the situation totally unbearable or are close to defeat and the other sees a ceasefire a far better choice than the continuation of the war. There is no imminent outside reason for the conflict to end.
It will have to end in an ceasefire. It's extremely unprobable that Putin can invade all of Ukraine and Ukrainian tanks will never be on the Red Square.
Likely Putin is embracing for a long war. Already in the Duma they are talking about postponing future elections. As elections would according to some in the Duma be bad for morale.
God I wish you were even semi-literate:
[quote=The Article]In Finland, however, there is little mainstream opposition to NATO. The issue has been tinged by nationalist sentiment, and opponents of membership are accused of not caring about their country’s security. Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of membership this week, with 188 for and only eight against.[/quote]
But that would be too much to except to a Nazi PR pusher.
OK! So she mentioned that. So I stand corrected, enough to be corrected earlier in the article that I didn't notice it. Yet the issue is that now in every age group and income group, there is a majority for NATO membership. Which was left out. (So at least I have better in Finnish literacy than you are, Aussie.)
And how much "nationalist sentiment" is there in the Green Party, The Social Democrats and the Left Alliance now in government sounds a bit dubious for me. The Left Alliance didn't walk out of the government, so I guess they uphold "nationalism" now.
You just continue and tell us how bad Ukraine, the Ukrainian government and perhaps the Ukrainians are (Nazis, corrupt neoliberals oligarch lovers and so on...) and how the West (US) is turning a blind eye on the evils of Ukraine. Because that's the most important issue here, right?
Pathetic attempt at deflection.
The issue is that support for NATO membership is being driven by industries who stand to benefit from it. Which is why...
And why the article opens with a description of the heavily propagandised media to conclude...
The demographics are only really mentioned to show the blatant lie behind...
...by revealing that...
Far from the soulless statistical reportage you're critiquing, the point of the article is that, for example,...
...and...
But by all means carry on pretending that this is about getting the polling right and ignore the blatant railroading of the issue by big business. I'm sure the fact that they stand to make billions out of the move is just another one of those coincidences we hear so much about lately, where rich and powerful institutions are both capable of influencing policy and benefit from influencing policy, but on this occasion just happen not to have done.
And by the way, I was tucking into some Knäckebröd, whilst listening to Abba in my Fjällräven shirt whilst writing that so I'm totally allowed to have an opinion on it.
Lol. Oh boy, are you clueless. Last time big business was indeed "blatantly railroading" was with the EU membership. And that was a close call, actually. But of course you don't know anything about my country. And it seems that you have mixed my and @Christoffer's country, which is quite telling. :snicker:
So on what grounds are you even taking part in a thread on Ukraine?
Quoting ssu
The article was about Finland and Sweden. You're from Finland are Christoffer is from Sweden. Is that wrong?
https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2022/05/19/open-letter-to-noam-chomsky-and-other-like-minded-intellectuals-on-the-russia-ukraine-war/?fbclid=IwAR0jG9z-7zfHPsUmBZQr2w4vpljnHzwYQSBdwTJGyDAUBxu_gme1Ln2qs70
You're forgetting stalemates.
I agree with all those nuances and I think it's still good to remember we really don't know all that much so shouldn't get our panties too twisted when someone disagrees. Also, we shouldn't overestimate the ability to emulate the scientific method through a thinking process - a lot is grunt work and getting enough data which we simply don't have the time for especially in areas like these: none of us our experts. But this is a sensitive topic even so and a lot of ethical feeling is associated with it, so when someone's panties are twisted, we shouldn't care too much either and at least try to listen.
Well, most of them have ALREADY joined Turkey! There are more Crimean Tatars in Turkey than in Crimea! :grin:
So, you seem to be not only ignorant but also confused.
The fact of the matter is that the original inhabitants of the area comprising southeastern Ukraine, southwestern Russia, and Crimea were Eastern European hunter-gatherers a.k.a. Eastern Hunter-Gatherers (EHGs):
By the time of the late Copper Age to early Bronze Age (3300–2600 BC), the population of the Pontic-Caspian steppe (which includes Crimea) formed the Yamnaya (Pit Grave) Culture.
The Yamnaya people were semi-nomadic and later farmers, herded cattle and sheep, practiced metallurgy and some agriculture, apparently invented the wheel (the worlds’ oldest wheels were found in the area), had carts and wagons probably drawn by oxen, and rode horses.
The Yamnaya were Caucasoid (Indo-European) people who gradually expanded westward into Europe and eastward into Asia, spreading Indo-European language and culture, and making major genetic contributions to European populations (75% of genomic DNA in Bronze-Age Central European populations). The first historically recorded inhabitants of Crimea, the Tauri or Taurians (Greek Tauroi), clearly were from the area.
In contrast, the Turkic peoples were a Mongoloid population originally from Northeastern China and Northeast Asia, who moved westward into Mongolia in the late 3rd millennium BC, where they adopted a pastoral lifestyle, after which they became equestrian nomads and began to expand westward into European (Caucasoid) territory.
Being nomadic horsemen and armed with bows and arrows, the Turkic tribes found it easy to invade European territories and raid the farming settlements they found there. When the Mongols invaded the area, the Turkic tribes allied themselves with their Mongolian relatives and formed a new ruling class that enslaved the local Slavic populations.
The Tatars, therefore, were Mongols and Turks with some admixture from the local populations they had invaded and enslaved. The Crimean Tatar Khanate emerged after the Mongol invasions and had a multi-ethnic population dominated by a Mongol-Turkic a.k.a. “Tatar” ruling class. The first ruler of the Crimean Tatar Khanate was the Mongol Hac? Giray, a descendant of Genghis Khan’s eldest son Jochi.
Moreover, the Crimean Tatars showed their true colors when they tried to take over all the Slav territories that had been conquered by Genghis Khan’s Golden Horde to which they saw themselves as heirs. Encouraged by Turkey, they devastated South Russia and burned down Moscow in 1571. However, the Russians in those days had not yet forgotten their Viking ancestry and still knew how to fight. In the following year they thoroughly defeated the Tatars at the Battle of Molodi.
Nevertheless, under the protection of Turkey (Ottoman Empire), the Crimean Tatars kept attacking Ukraine, Russia, and other Slav territories for the next two centuries until the Russians gradually pushed back the Turks and reclaimed the region.
Crimean–Nogai slave raids in Eastern Europe - Wikipedia
1. Given that Turkic tribes (a) were non-local invaders and (b) were involved in the enslavement and exploitation of earlier local populations, it cannot be claimed that they are “rightful owners” of Crimea.
2. Given that several non-Turkic ethnic groups existed in Crimea (Tauri, Scythians, Greeks, Goths, etc.) prior to the arrival of the Tatars, it cannot be claimed that the Tatars were “the majority”. On the contrary, if we consider that even ordinary Tatars had several domestic, agricultural, and sex slaves, we can see that the non-Tatar population must have been significant.
Indeed, about 75% of Crimea’s population under the Khanate (or Tatar State) itself were non-Tatar slaves and freedmen, i.e., mostly Slavs from Russia, Ukraine, and Poland, and Caucasians from places like Georgia and Circassia.
3.1. Following the Russian liberation of Crimea from Tatar and Turkish rule in 1783, most Crimean Tatars emigrated to various parts of Turkey (Ottoman Empire).
3.2. By 1897, Tatars were only 35% of Crimea’s population.
3.3. During the 1921 Russian Famine, thousands of Crimean Tatars emigrated to Turkey.
3.4. When Stalin in 1944 resettled Crimean Tatars to Turkic areas within the Soviet Union (e.g., Uzbekistan), the Tatars were already a small minority
3.5. Tatars currently amount to about 10% of Crimea’s total population.
4. Given that the Crimean Tatars were involved in the capture, enslavement, and sale into slavery of millions of Slavs whose total number exceeded that of the Tatars, it cannot be claimed that the Slav population owes anything to Tatars in relation to the latter’s subsequent “expulsion” from Crimea.
5. On the principle that “every country and continent should belong to its rightful owners”, if anyone has a legitimate claim to being “rightful owners” of Crimea, it is the Tauri (Taurians) and their descendants. But the Greeks also have a claim to parts of Crimea as they built cities, established international trade, and brought prosperity and civilization. They also civilized the Russians who in turn liberated Crimea from the Turkic invaders.
6. In contrast to Greeks and Russians who were from the area, the Turkic populations (Cumans, Turks, Mongols, Tatars) were an alien, invasive element from thousands of miles (4000km/2485mi) away that was highly aggressive and predatory toward the locals.
All facts considered, I think it doesn’t make sense to claim that “Crimea belongs to the Tatars” or to Ukraine. And even less to America. So, I for one fail to see why America thinks it must stick its neo-colonialist snout in the European trough.
But let’s take a look at the Tatars’ own claims lest we are accused of ignoring or persecuting them.
Here’s a post from the “International Committee for Crimea”:
Genetically, who is a Crimean Tatar? – ICCRIMEA
Essentially, what those DNA results really boil down to is the following:
28% Northern Asian = Siberian (Mongol/Turk) = Tatar
20% Mediterranean = Greek/Italian
22% Northern European = Scandinavian? Baltic?
20% Middle Eastern = ? (Iranian? Turkish? Jewish? Egyptian/Arab?)
“Northern Asian” and “Mediterranean” seem pretty clear, i.e., (1) Mongol/Turk and (2) Greek/Italian.
“Northern European” is already less clear. It could be Scandinavian (Viking) via Rus (Russian, Ukrainian). But in that case there should be some Eastern European (Slav) element that seems to be missing here. Other possibilities would be Goth (originally from Gotland) or Lithuanian (from captured and enslaved Baltic populations).
“Middle Eastern” is totally unclear as it could be a wide range of unrelated Southwest Asian ethnicities.
Now, if someone is of “Northern Asian, Northern European, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern” descent, then by definition, that person isn’t an indigenous Crimean!
If he is 42% European and only 28% Tatar then why does he call himself “Tatar” and not “European”?
What is it that makes him a Tatar more than a European?
Could it be that he is descended from people that were mostly Europeans but were forced to speak Tatar and convert to Islam?
Or did Allah give Crimea to his Mongol great-great-grandfather?
Has he been radicalized by Turkish nationalists and imperialists who think that Crimea belongs to the Ottoman Empire?
Is he being used by the CIA and MI6 against Russia?
Etc., etc. …. These are important questions that need an answer.
In the meantime, I think the apparently arbitrary self-designation “Crimean Tatar” is highly problematic and lends itself to manipulation for political and/or commercial purposes.
It reminds me of the way “Native American” is sometimes misused. Some Americans obviously are Native American, but others are less so. Take Johnny Depp, for example, who claimed to be “Cherokee” but it turned out that he had made it up. In reality, he is English, French, German, Irish, and West African. So, he got himself adopted by a Comanche family to “prove” that he didn’t lie about being Native American! :rofl:
But I think philosophers should at least try to be more truthful than Hollywood actors ….
Quoting ssu
Well, how is it different with America?
What Russia obviously wants in the region is neighbors that are friendly toward it or at least neutral.
Which is exactly what America wants in its own "backyard" that apparently includes Europe, parts of Asia, and the Pacific ....
Quoting Isaac
Good question. I for one am not entirely convinced that it is right. People claim all kinds of things. Could it be that @ssu and @Christoffer both are from Finland? After all, it used to be one country ....
Quoting Olivier5
Well, I think you know why they're in France? It's because "La Grande Nation" screwed up their countries!
And some, apparently, are on their way to England.
But not all are there to live under your boot. Allegedly, some think they're there to take over .... :wink:
Stalemate is what we have seen in Donbas after the larger battles in 2014-2015 before February 24th of this year. When both sides have no incentive or ability for larger operations, stalemate ensues. But usually that doesn't mean that it will be peaceful. The stalemate option is very probable, only to be then to be replaced with new offensives.
Actually in many cases there has been this kind of low intensity conflict going on beneath the radar of the international media. Not only in Donbas, but earlier in the Israeli-Lebanese border or the War of Attrition after the Six Day War in 1967-1970. Even in the Iran-Iraq war there were these times of less fighting when both sides replenished their stocks.
Russia simply has to take a breather if it wants to build up it's forces. And even if Ukraine will get supplies and modern weapon systems from the West, it usually takes months to deploy these systems.
https://labourheartlands.com/jacques-baud-the-military-situation-in-the-ukraine-update/
There's differences.
Quoting Apollodorus
There's a difference in how the US has acted in Europe and how it has acted in Central America and the Caribbean. Just as how Russia acts in it's "near abroad" and towards other countries let's say in Western Europe or Latin America.
But let's first think of the broader picture. Just look at what the Warsaw Pact did compared to NATO. And how many countries wanted to continue the relationship with Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed. Not many, I think.
A lot can be said about NATO post-Cold War operations, yes, but let's remember that the only time when the Warsaw Pact acted was with Operation Danube in crushing the "Prague Spring" with the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Of the half million troops deployed to the country the majority were Soviet troops, but for example Poland deployed 28 000 men into Czechoslovakia, Hungary one division. Have NATO troops been used this way? Nope.
The fact is that Russia's actions and attitudes haven't become much different from the Soviet times. Same kind of bully tactics have continued. I've had a front row seat to see this in action when the Soviet neighbor transformed into being Russia again. There's not much difference especially during the Putin years. Fall of the Soviet Union seems to have been a temporary set back, while I think that after Suez crisis the UK understood that there was no Empire anymore.
You yourself have noted that Americans listened to European integrationists after WW2 and the positive US attitude towards West-European integration basically created the environment were European countries are all but happy with US participation in European defense. "Keeping the US in" as they say. We can see how countries can have a say in the Western alliance system now with Turkey, and many times NATO members have opted out from various US-lead operations. And have been extremely annoying to the US.
And of course obvious fact is that the US behaves quite differently towards Canada, the UK, Netherlands, Sweden or Finland, than it has behaved towards for example Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti or Lebanon. First world countries and Third World countries are dealt differently. With Russia, it treats it's "near abroad" totally differently than other countries, which we have clearly seen now.
Above all, there is a dramatic difference between countries that have wanted to join the US-lead alliance and those countries where the US has literally installed a new government. The train wreck that we knew as Afghanistan has already collapsed in a huge catastrophe, while the relations between the US and the Post-Saddam Iraq have been cold and extremely problematic. Hence when the US has in Iraq and Afghanistan applied the old imperialist strategy of occupying a country and then picking a favorable administration for it, it usually has failed miserably.
Yes, but the Warsaw Pact (WP),[5] was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955.
The thing we have to remember is that The Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO[6][7][8][9] in 1955 as per the London and Paris Conferences of 1954.
We shouldn't forget that There was no direct military confrontation between the two organisations; instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and in proxy wars.
So, in conclusion, East Germany withdrew from the Pact following German reunification in 1990. On 25 February 1991, at a meeting in Hungary, the Pact was declared at an end by the defense and foreign ministers of the six remaining member states.
What ruined Africa was first and foremost the slave trade. It made some Portuguese, French, English and other merchants very rich, as well as a few African kings, but at a horrendous human cost, and led to economic ruin from Senegal to Congo, on the West Coast.
Prior to the Europeans, the Arabs had been raiding and buying slaves from East African black communities for centuries, from Somalia to Zanzibar.
Yes, but The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups.
Slavery was relatively rare in pre-civilisation hunter-gatherer populations,[2] as it develops under conditions of social stratification.[3] Slavery operated in the first civilizations (such as Sumer in Mesopotamia,[4] which dates back as far as 3500 BCE).
So you see, Both Christians and Muslims captured and enslaved each other during centuries of warfare in the Mediterranean.[6] Islamic slavery encompassed mainly Western and Central Asia, Northern and Eastern Africa, India, and Europe from the 7th to the 20th century.
I think the important point is that European merchants initiated the transatlantic slave trade, purchasing enslaved Africans from West African kingdoms and transporting them to Europe's colonies in the Americas. The transatlantic slave trade was eventually curtailed due to European and American governments passing legislation abolishing their nation's involvement in it.
This in response to the following exchange:
Quoting Apollodorus
Well, it turns out that in actual fact many folks do want to live in America (or Europe) very very badly. People vote with their feet.
Discussing the war in Ukraine, for some. Braying "NATO caca", for others.
I thought there might be a lower limit to how far you'd be prepared to sink in your Western apologetics, but "the slave trade wasn't that bad" is a new low, even for you. Disgusting.
Note that in a context full of liars, stating historical or other facts --even straight from Wikipedia -- can be revolutionary, because it helps fend off the lies and re-establish a mentally sane, factually based environment for discussion.
Most of times, I have the information necessary to tell the difference, thank you. I agree that you don't.
Oh good.
But do remind us again how 'factually' Europe did not actually ruin Africa, but the Africans did it to themselves.
No one is in any doubt about your apologism, so repeating it doesn't get us anywhere. I was just being 'revolutionary' in showing it to be the bullshit it is.
It's not funny. You've just publicly claimed that the reasons Africans migrate to Europe, the reasons Africa is a worse place to live than Europe, are not the fault of Europe. You've just attempted to absolve Europe of hundreds of years of oppression, slavery, and racism. I don't find such claims funny, I find them disgusting.
Which as it's only military operation occupied one of it's own members.
And that just tells where the real threat was: the main aim wasn't only NATO, but also in crushing revolts that sporadically happened in Eastern European countries (East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia).
And actually it's no wonder that the largest ever Warsaw Pact exercise was held in 1981 and it had an amphibious assault made next to Gdansk, the birthplace of free Polish trade union Solidarno??. The Polish Solidarity Movement was one of the first cracks of the freedom movements against the Soviet empire behind the Iron Curtain. Polish officials did get the message and hence martial law was imposed in Poland few months after the Zapad 81 exercise.
Hence sticking to the official lithurgy is one thing, but totally forgetting that the Warsaw Pact was a tool to control Eastern Europe itself for the Soviet Union is simply wrong. The fact that Yugoslavia (or Albania) weren't part of the Warsaw Pact should tell this obvious fact.
Also this NYT post on Haiti has been doing the rounds recently. There's some controversy because of its bad citational practice, but it makes a good case for burning all of France to the ground, along with everyone in it.
If you don't know enough to be able yo tell what is true and not, how come you know enough to tell that the same applies to me, or to any others? How do you know that my level of information, or that of any other poster here, is the same as yours, i.e. by your own account next to nil?
You are arguing from a position of ignorance. Now, it's fine for the ignorant to say: "I am ignorant". But what ground does the ignorant have to deny others any possibility of knowledge?
Yes, but The USSR, fearing the restoration of German militarism in West Germany, had suggested in 1954 that it join NATO, but this was rejected by the US and UK.[25][26][27]
The Soviet request to join NATO arose in the aftermath of the Berlin Conference of January–February 1954. Soviet foreign minister Molotov made proposals to have Germany reunified[28] and elections for a pan-German government,[29] under conditions of withdrawal of the four powers' armies and German neutrality,[30] but all were refused by the other foreign ministers, Dulles (USA), Eden (UK), and Bidault (France).[31]
The thing is that Molotov, fearing that the EDC would be directed in the future against the USSR and "seeking to prevent the formation of groups of European States directed against the other European States",[36] made a proposal for a General European Treaty on Collective Security in Europe "open to all European States without regard to their social systems"[36] which would have included the unified Germany (thus rendering the EDC obsolete). But Eden, Dulles, and Bidault opposed the proposal.[37]
And don't forget Albania officially left the organization in 1968, in protest of its invasion of Czechoslovakia. Romania had its own reasons for remaining a formal member of the Warsaw Pact, such as Nicolae Ceau?escu's interest of preserving the threat of a Pact invasion so he could sell himself as a nationalist as well as privileged access to NATO counterparts and a seat at various European forums which otherwise he wouldn't have had (for instance, Romania and the Soviet-led remainder of the Warsaw Pact formed two distinct groups in the elaboration of the Helsinki Final Act.[81]).
You are a colon, living on a land stolen from Aborigens. Why don't you burn your own house to the ground?
Wondering if you still think this way???
About what exactly am I ignorant and confused?! And how on earth is your report pertinent wrt what I’m questioning?! I was questioning your theory of “rightful owners” and the issue is this: if the rightful owners of Crimea are the Crimean Tatars more than the Russians, then - according to your theory - they are the people that could legitimise annexation or independence of Crimea, so even if they wanted Crimea to be part of Turkey, that should be fine with you!
You keep regurgitating at length and needlessly all sorts of trivia in your posts, while using links that I myself already provided and took into account in my comments (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean–Nogai_slave_raids_in_Eastern_Europe , https://iccrimea.org/reports/genographic-results.html) YET WITHOUT FALSIFYING ANYTHING I SAID ABOUT THE CRIMEAN TATARS!
Moreover, I cited academic papers and books dedicated specifically to the Crimean Tatars history and ethnogenesis to support my claims about the Crimean Tatars, and yet you simply ignore them and come up with your pointless speculations about them as if you could claim to know more about the Crimean Tatars than those studies I cited. Are you crazy?!
Quoting Apollodorus
So what?! CRIMEAN TATARS ARE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF CRIMEA on ethnohistorical grounds and they can not be conflated with the historical Crimean Nogai Tatars! What we refer to as "Crimean Tatars" today is the result of 2500 years of demographic stratification which in part - especially a subgroup of Crimean Tatars in the north of Crimea - may be related to the historical Crimean Nogai Tatars. Moreover there are Turkic people who settled in Crimea prior to the Crimean Nogai Tatars! Finally, you keep suggesting an assimilation between Mongols and Tatars by conflating linguistic-cultural factors with genetics, and conveniently overlooking the studies I cited that question this assimilation!
So for all your misconceptions, you call the Crimean Tatars of today the “Mongols of Crimea”?! And then you call me ignorant and confused?! Are you crazy?!
Quoting Apollodorus
It doesn’t matter who constituted the majority in those times: the point is that, after the Tatar-Mongol reign, the Crimean Tatars as indigenous people of Crimea became the majority by assimilating other ethnic groups (see this historical demographic map https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Ethnic_Population_of_Crimea_18th%E2%80%9321st_century.png) and today Crimean Tatars may count among their ancestors european slaves (which thing should also justify their rightful ownership to Crimea according to your theory, right?), post-Mongolian invasions Anatolian people, pre-Mongolian invasion Turkic people, and more!
Quoting Apollodorus
So what?! It’s the period where the russification of Crimea was increasing, and prior to that period Russians also massively deported Greek-speaking Crimean Greeks outside Crimea!
Quoting Apollodorus
So what?! I already talked about it: the deportation of the Crimean Tatars is part of Russian imperialism and colonialism in Crimea, which you should oppose!
Quoting Apollodorus
As a result of Russian imperialism and colonialism, that you should oppose!
Quoting Apollodorus
The Crimean Tatars of today’s Crimea CAN NOT be collectively considered the descendants of the Crimean-Nogai Tatar rulers (but surely there may be genetic traces of those rulers in some of today's Crimean Tatars), and the Slavic people victims of the Crimean-Nogai Tatars’ raids were not only the Russian ancestors but also and probably primarily the Ukrainian ancestors, yet Ukraine acknowledges Crimean Tatars as indigenous people of Crimea (https://www.dailysabah.com/world/europe/ukraine-adopts-law-recognizing-crimean-tatars-as-indigenous-peoples) on political grounds too, while Russians forcefully russified, annexed Crimea and oppress the Crimean Tatars as imperialists do!
Quoting Apollodorus
So, is the Tauri community the “rightful owner” of the entire Crimea or only of the part of Crimea they have colonised? In any case, the Tauri community in part was assimilated to the Crimean Tatars, in part got DEPORTED BY THE RUSSIANS into other areas of Ukraine like Donetsk (does Donetsk belong to Greece now according to your theory?!)! And again, if you want to defend the Crimean Greeks self-determination in Crimea go for it. The Russians didn’t "liberate" Crimea for the Greeks as the rightful owners of Crimea because they russified Crimea instead of bringing back the Crimea Greeks, or the Ukrainian Greeks, or the Greeks there ! And now you are ridiculously stretching your ethnic based (and possibly racist) theory of the rightful owners to include the Greek cultural heritage and so legitimise your pro-Russian narrative?!
Quoting Apollodorus
“Indigenous” means that what we call today “Crimean Tatars” is a population formed as a melting pot of different ethnicity in the Crimean peninsula across more than 2 millennia. Period.
Also the Russians formed through the historical fusion of some Slavic and Finnic tribes, neither of which were indigenous to the geographic area corresponding to today’s Russia.
Quoting Apollodorus
Or, even better, Mongol of Crimea?!
To say the least, "Crimean Tatars" speak a “Crimean Tatar language” as their native language:
The Crimean Tatar language (q?r?mtatar tili, ??????????? ????, tatar t?l?, tatar?a, k?r?m tatar?a), also called Crimean language (q?r?m tili, ?????? ????), is a Kipchak Turkic language spoken in Crimea and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of Uzbekistan, Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria, as well as small communities in the United States and Canada. It should not be confused with Tatar proper, spoken in Tatarstan and adjacent regions in Russia; the languages are related, but belong to two different subgroups of the Kipchak languages and thus are not mutually intelligible. It has been extensively influenced by nearby Oghuz dialects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatar_language
But for sure that’s not enough to call them “the Mongols of Crimea” as you did!
Quoting Apollodorus
For sure, this is how the Russian trolls are motivated to see this issue right?!
Anyway, given your confusion between genetic and cultural-linguistic features (Tatar -Mongol link misconceptions) and your obscure pseudo-historical theory of justice (why is Crimea a compensation for the injustice suffered by the Russians but not by the Ukrainians from the Crimean Nogai Tatars?! Why must the Crimean Tatars of today which may be only in part related to the Crimean Nogai Tatars suffer the Russification and annexation of Crimea by the Russians for what Slavic people - including non-Russians - have suffered from the Crimean Nogai Tatars centuries ago? What territorial compensation do Iranian and Azerbaijan deserve for the historical oppression they have suffered from Russians’ ancestors?! What territorial compensation do Ukrainians deserve for the historical oppression they have suffered from the the Russian Empire, the Soviets and today’s Russians?! How can the Russians be considered as “liberators” of Crimea just because they have been civilised by the Greeks who you claim to be the rightful owners of Crimea?! How can the Indo-European pre-history possibly help you decide who belongs Crimea to, given that all Westerners can claim to be Indo-European and have inherited the Greek cultural heritage according to your theory?! BTW how can one even ground a sedentary notion of land ownership based on prehistoric nomadic hunter-gatherer people?!), your theory of the “right owners” looks not only preposterous but conveniently advertised as long as it supports your pro-Russian propaganda.
Dude, it's pointless to waste your time desperately trying to justify your claim that Crimean Tatars are the Mongols of Crimea by reiterating ad nauseam your misconceptions and misreading of Wikipedia. So suck it up and move on. But if you still feel like arguing about this, then make sure you have pertinent rebuttals to my actual objections, especially based on a more consistent or intelligible theory of the “rightful owners” to prove - at the very least - that you are not ridiculously biased toward the Russians in the case of Crimea.
Right. Look at the article in question. https://labourheartlands.com/jacques-baud-the-military-situation-in-the-ukraine-update/#The_Military_Situation_in_the_Ukraine-An_Update
Do you see a lack of evidence? It's littered with evidence. Every single blue highlight is a piece of evidence. Not to mention the author's credentials themselves as an expert.
So evidence is not the differentiating factor here. You need to show why your evidence shows your position to be true and the opposing evidence is insufficient to do the same for their position.
Simply saying "my position has evidence" is facile. Both positions have evidence. The mere presence of evidence is irrelevant to the truth or not of either.
You really think that the Soviet Union would have altered it's policies toward the Eastern European countries it held under it's control? Nonsense. It just wanted to water down the organization, make it into an UN type organization where it would have a veto-vote.
Because it's a bit hard to think that a basically Stalinist Soviet Union would apply things like Article 2:
Russia joining NATO in the 1990's was a far more possible outcome and then it could have worked, but as I've said, you would had to have larger than life politician both in the US and in Russia back then. There was a window of opportunity for this. But then Russia ought to have understood that the Russian/Soviet Empire was over and it would be somewhat larger, but comparable, Great Power as France or the UK. As the Soviet Union had just collapsed in one night or so, there wasn't this feeling that everything had changed. And Putin's goal has been to "make Russia great again" by using violence.
The fact is that the KGB should have truly been disbanded, not just broken up into successor agencies and former KGB agents should not have been given the keys to the Kremlin. Then true change could have happened in Russia. Unfortunately, it didn't happen and here we are.
And for the US and the West, they should have understood that Russia will continue to play a role in the World. Which they didn't.
Your illiteracy knows no bounds, not in any language.
[quote=The Article]In this media environment, it is perhaps unsurprising that support for NATO membership is high: about 60% in Sweden and 75% in Finland.
...On 23 March, 44% of young people surveyed were for NATO and 21% against. Last week, 43% of them were for NATO and 32% against: a double-digit leap. Support for membership rises with each age bracket, with the elderly most staunchly in favour.[/quote]
Yeah but The Russia–NATO Council was established in 2002 for handling security issues and joint projects.
The idea of Russia becoming a NATO member has at different times been floated by both Western and Russian leaders, as well as some experts. No serious discussions were ever held.[155]
The thing is that, In 1991, as the Soviet Union was dissolved, Russian president Boris Yeltsin sent a letter to NATO, suggesting that Russia's long-term aim was to join NATO.[159]
What we mustn't forget is that According to Rasmussen, in the early days of Putin's presidency around 2000–2001, Putin made many statements that suggested he was favorable to the idea of Russia joining NATO.[158]
And... In early 2010, the suggestion was repeated in an open letter co-written by German defense experts. They posited that Russia was needed in the wake of an emerging multi-polar world in order for NATO to counterbalance emerging Asian powers.[160]
On Nov. 4, 2021 George Robertson, a former UK Labour defence secretary who led NATO between 1999 and 2003, told The Guardian that Putin made it clear at their first meeting that he wanted Russia to be part of western Europe. “Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join Nato?’.
So, in conclusion Russian gas exports came to be viewed as a weapon against NATO countries,[183] and the US and other Western countries have worked to lessen the dependency of Europe on Russia and its resources.[184]
Yes, the 1990's and basically early 2000's were the time that something really radical could have been done in Russia-US relations. As I've said earlier in this thread, people thought this could be a real possibility. A German military attache to Finland said to me with a straight face that Russia could possibly join NATO. That was then.
But perhaps think about this way. Assume that both US and Putin's Russia would have found each other and faced the War on Terror together as allies. The real question would be then, would Russia have become more like a Western democracy or would the US become like Russia. Putin had his corrupt ties already from St Petersburg and came like a "Mr Fixit" for Yeltsin and Yeltsin didn't face any charges for his corruption. He started the ruthless and violent war against the Chechens with similar results as we see from Ukraine now. For the neocons like Rumsfeld and Cheney, Russia could be the perfect ally: capable of operating in other continents, wouldn't flinch about casualties, and would have no problems of fighting dirty. Russia isn't an ordinary European state. But Russia chose China and basically chose with Putin to be a great Power on it's own with the objective to regain what it had lost.
Boris Bondarev, 41, said he had "never been so ashamed of my country" and the "aggressive war" waged by President Vladimir Putin's forces. [...]
"Today, the ministry of foreign affairs is not about diplomacy. It is all about warmongering, lies and hatred."[/I]
https://news.sky.com/story/russian-diplomat-boris-bondarev-resigns-over-ukraine-war-saying-he-has-never-been-so-ashamed-of-my-country-12619768
You do realise I've just been randomly cutting and pasting sections from the relevant Wikipedia articles? I'm not even paying any attention to what's in them.
The first lot are from
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact
And the second from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93NATO_relations
It was supposed to be a joke I wasn't expecting it to actually work. Did the citation numbers left in the text not look a little suspicious?
What does it say about that style of discussion that one side can be entirely replaced by completely random sections of Wikipedia?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/23/we-must-stop-letting-russia-define-the-terms-of-the-ukraine-crisis
I have. The numbers [15] tell it instantly. Although the topic doesn't make it random.
I've just assumed that you don't have anything else to say.
And likely you have no attention what I reply. But perhaps someone else does read them.
Because thinking that NATO and Warsaw Pact were the same and had similar objectives in nonsense.
First there's Putin's response at the CSTO meeting tells it all:
In a telephone conversation with the Finnish President, Putin acknowledged what had happened and just remarked that it was a mistake from Finland to join NATO. But no threats were made. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that "Finland's and Sweden's accession into Nato will most likely make not much difference".
Sweden has already stated that it doesn't want foreign bases or nuclear weapons on it's soil, and neither Finland has any appetite for them also. And actually NATO has no desire to do this (see here) The real deal is the membership part. As both countries do have satisfactory defence forces, there is no need for new bases.
And as now the US, the UK, Italy and even Poland has given security guarantees for the two countries during the time when the application forms are in (and the haggling continues with Turkey), the two EU countries can be quite calm. The only response to Finland has been the gas exports from Russia have stopped (because the Finnish side won't go into paying with rubles). But this has been anticipated for months. What also was lacking was the information (war) effort made towards Finland as done in 2014. Even the Russian ambassador stayed in Helsinki and no formal complaint was given to Finland. And when Russia doesn't have a war to be fought, it will likely improve it's armed forces facing Finland. But that will take time... and is totally acceptable: Russians can do whatever they want in their own territory.
The contrast is striking when compared to the Russian behavior towards Ukraine. The response to Finland and Sweden is (at least for now) is in my view totally normal. Which makes such a striking difference to the "denazification" and "disarmament" of Ukraine. If hypothetical NATO membership was a reason for all out war, but actual membership by other countries doesn't mean much, it simply doesn't add up.
All this just makes it more clear that Russia was more interested in subjugating and annexing more land from Ukraine than in "countering the NATO threat". This should be obvious to everyone at least now.
Precisely, as well as supporting what I've been saying all along, that the only "threat" that Nato pose to Russia is when it tries to grab nations within the geographical interest of Putin. If he and his minions want to rebuild some grand Russian empire, then they can invade and try... as long as that nation isn't a member of Nato. So the only connection there is that Nato threatens the expansion of Russia. Sweden and Finland have never really been part of this "dream". However, the strategic position of Gotland and Sweden being part of Nato is very important as it would close off how submarines can move through Öresund to get to the Atlantic ocean. So there's an interest there.
But I think the downplaying is part of some sort of internal collapse around Putin. It might be that their threats reached a point where they realized that they played the game a little too dangerously.
Quoting ssu
Yes, the key interest for Nato is the Baltic sea, and Sweden and Finland defending these waters. If there were ever a situation of a third world war that didn't kick off with total nuclear annihilation, then the Baltic sea would be a place of massive sea and aerial battles.
Quoting ssu
The setbacks of their attempts at Kyiv, as well as their attempts at the assassination of Zelenskyy, seem too much to be just a distraction. As well as replacing key military officials and other internal problems in Russia. I think Putin generally thought of taking control of the entire nation or at least splitting it in half, gaining Kyiv. With the losses they had in the first part of the war, this second one sees the Russian army fighting on their knees. If they had focused on a smaller distraction and put a larger focus on the eastern border from the beginning, then it would be totally different. The key right now seems to be creating a corridor down to Crimea, as well as blocking Ukraine's ability to export through the Black Sea.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmarkman/2022/05/23/expanded-nato-will-shoot-billions-to-us-defense-contractors/?sh=63252d933189
--
But surely it must be because the pathetic Russian army which can barely face up to a bunch of weaponized tractors poses a threat to the rest of Europe.
Nothing to do with Russians being Russians IMO. It has to do with materialism.
If you think that humans are just meat machines, that human rights are a fiction, that might makes right, then you will find that brutality is the best way to rule those meat machines.
Of course not because they are Russians, but the behavior is systemic in their politics, which leads to their war behavior accordingly. So it's ingrained in Russian traditional culture, it's part of their type of hero culture, their type of masculinity norms, and fascist power hierarchies. This is the biggest problem with Russia, the foundational destructive form of their traditional identity. An immature philosophy that doesn't care for human lives. Can we conclude that the basic respect for human life and rights is part of a modern philosophy that's considered up to date? I have a hard time arguing for a moral philosophy that goes below that level and I can't help to position it as being an inferior moral philosophy that most of us moved away from long ago. You either put human lives and rights at the top or you put something else at the top under which human lives and rights are inferior, the latter won't judge murdering thousands to reach the peak of humanity and has been the root cause for many religions murdering thousands for a fabricated ideal held above human lives and rights. Can we then conclude this Russian perspective to be morally corrupt at its core? Just like we position capitalism as morally corrupt since it puts capitalist ideals before human well-being.
And to whose thinking would that be relevant? Since the quote you responded to was...
Quoting ssu
To which my parody of your response was entirely apt. The question was about the broad matter of control and influence. Rather than just saying "Yes, they're roughly similar there" like any normal person not trying to get a job at the White House PR office, you scattergun the thread with a load of pointlessly specific historical details unrelated to the actual question, just to try and deflect attention from the political point.
Your singling out of Russian foreign policy as being "all about control and influence" was simply wrong. It's no more so than most other powerful countries. The difference between NATO and the Warsaw Pact has nothing to do with it. It's no secret that the US uses different tactics to achieve it's 'control and influence', no-one needs six pages of Wikipedia summaries to tell them that.
No. Of course it's not because they're Russian. It's just that...
Quoting Christoffer
...which we can all see is totally different from saying that it's because they're Russian. It's just their entire culture, mythology, political system, norms and personality types...
I mean, alternatively, we're hearing the war-fogged actions of a very small minority of Russians heavily mixed up with the actions of the know Neo-Nazi mercenaries fighting for Russia, exaggerated to maximum impact by a country desperate for weapons, knowing their survival relies on a wholly negative image of Russia...
But that would be crazy, far more likely that the entire culture of a nation has become systemically psychopathic.
The number of mass graves and war crimes still being uncovered speaks against exaggeration and against it being a minority group as these sites are located spread out over Ukraine.
You're still rambling and refuse to be specific with your remarks on what I wrote. Get off your high horse little bully.
Well, no. Seeing as they're being uncovered by the very parties in whose interest it is to exaggerate to maximum effect, as I said. If you're under the illusion that Ukraine (and US/European allied foreign observers, now) wouldn't have a vested interest in maximising the impact of every find then you're not only more naive than I thought, but you've clearly no real sense of the peril Ukrainians feel. Anyone in their position would demonise their enemy to the greatest extent possible. It's happened in basically every single war ever. I know you lot like to heroise, but suggesting that Ukraine remain calm and dispassionate in their interpretation of war crime evidence is utterly absurd. They will, and understandingly so, do their best to provide the worst possible interpretation.
What is far less forgivable is people sitting in their armchairs hundreds of miles away using such propaganda to make racist assumptions about an entire nation, the vast majority of whom are not even in Ukraine.
Re-writing really needs at least a few pages to go by...
Quoting Isaac
Do you mean UN and ICJ investigators? Isn't it easy to just dismiss everyone involved as having some ulterior motive and interest? Or maybe you're just wrong and the findings in Ukraine by these independent investigators paint a far worse picture than you want to accept.
Yes, maybe I am. Maybe I'm not. That's the whole point I've been trying to get across in practically every comment I've made on this thread. We don't have enough information to be compelled to accept one narrative over another. The evidence is just not anywhere near overwhelming.
So the question becomes why do we choose one narrative over the other.
Scarily similar to some of the early anti-Semitism in 30s Europe though, much of the writing at the time talked about the culture of Jewry rather than the actual genetic Jew. Didn't take long to mutate into pure racism.
Can you imagine? I feel sick typing that.
Yes, as you can see, I start with "politics" and focus on the war behavior it spawns. What informs this political perspective? Maybe the hero culture, the masculinity norms and fascist power hierarchies where there has to be a hero leading the people and the people needs to follow this person as almost being godlike.
If anyone thinks this is racist, they don't know what the fuck they're talking about. It's about the structure and moral philosophy informing their political behaviors that get spearheaded on the battlefield.
Quoting Isaac
You are. They are there investigating, they are uncovering this, and you call these people liers because the war crimes and atrocities being systematic by the Russian military don't fit with your opinions.
I mean, you have already pointed out that you don't do any research and that you just find things that support your opinion and won't care for anything else.
Quoting Isaac
Oh, so you mean that the Jews culture leads them to war crimes on a battlefield? That's a new one for me, I thought that they criticized Jews like that to paint them as bad when they weren't. Or maybe you're just doing a guilt by association fallacy, trying to connect dots where there aren't any in order to just paint me as a fucking nazi racist? Are you fucking serious right now? Do you have a brain meltdown not understanding what I'm talking about?
Quoting Streetlight
Except Jews didn't do anything wrong, they didn't push politics that then pushed some military leaders to execute civilians. Do you think I'm just writing this out of context against Russians? Why the fuck do you just intentionally misinterpret everything like this?
Nope, you weren't "questioning my theory of rightful owners" but your deliberate misinterpretation of it!
It's precisely that kind of statement that demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that you ARE ignorant and confused. Are you sure you aren't related to @ssu and @Christoffer? :rofl:
As a matter of fact, you haven't really addressed any of the many legitimate points I've made. All you're doing is resort to evasion and diversion to cover up your ignorance and duplicity.
If the Crimean Tatars are "indigenous Crimeans", why don't they call themselves Indigenous Crimeans? Why do they call themselves "Tatars", a name given to Mongols and Turks from Central Asia?
Wikipedia - and all other sources - state very clearly (a) that Tatars are a Turkic people and (b) that Turkic people are a Mongoloid group that originated in Siberia. What exactly have I "misunderstood"???
By definition, Tatars are a TURKIC people. Turkic peoples were nomadic tribes that originated in Northern Asia (Siberia) from where they migrated to Mongolia and Central Asia.
Turkic Migrations – LibreTexts
Turkic migration – Wikipedia
From Central Asia, the Turkic tribes began to invade the Caucasus and Eastern Europe. The first Turkic tribes to invade the area to the north of the Black Sea and Crimea were:
Huns (4th century AD)
Bulgars (7th century)
Khazars (8th century)
Pechenegs (11th century)
Cumans (11th century).
It must be noted that these were warlike, nomadic tribes that occupied and enslaved local populations:
When the Mongols began to invade the region in the 1200’s AD, they were joined by many Turkic tribes. The name “Tatar” is an exonym, i.e., it was given by Indo-European (Caucasoid) locals to this mixture of Mongol and Turkic invaders. By adopting it and calling themselves “Tatars”, Turkic tribes from Crimea clearly identified with the invaders to whom they had close cultural, linguistic, and genetic links.
Indeed, the first Crimean state, the Crimean Khanate established in the 1400’s, was a Turkic state in which the ruling classes were Mongols and Turks, and the majority were enslaved Europeans.
According to sources (e.g. Encyclopedia Britannica), 75% of Crimea’s population under the Tatar Khanate were non-Tatar slaves and freedmen, i.e., mostly Slavs from Russia, Ukraine, and Poland, and Caucasians from places like Georgia and Circassia.
When Russia took Crimea from Turkey in 1783, the majority of Crimeans are supposed to have been Tatars. However, this is obviously misleading as it depends entirely on how “Tatar” is defined.
Many Russians and Ukrainians, and I suspect even Putin himself, have some Tatar (Mongol-Turkic) ancestry and may even have some Tatar features. But modern genetic analysis shows that even those who self-identify as “Tatar” often have more European DNA than Tatar. This renders the claim that Tatars made up “the majority” prior to the Russian takeover of Crimea highly questionable.
As you can see for yourself, the Tatar lady who posted her DNA data on ICCRIMEA is only 28% Northern Asian, i.e., Siberian-Mongol-Turkic or Tatar proper. Are you now denying your own evidence? :grin:
In some Crimean Tatars the percentage may indeed be higher or lower as she suggests, but if her DNA is anywhere near average, this indicates that genuine Tatars with more than 50% Northern Asian DNA could not have been the majority! Your own evidence contradicts your claim that Tatars were "the majority"!!!
In fact, if you care to think about it, 28% Tatar DNA matches estimates according to which 75% of the Crimean population was non-Tatar even at the time of the Tatar Khanate!
The true ratio of Northern/East Asian and European DNA in Tatar populations is corroborated by data from individuals outside Crimea, such as the Volga-Ural region, showing that the mitochondrial gene pool of the Volga Tatars has a Eurasian (Caucasoid) component that prevails considerably over the Eastern Asian (Mongoloid) one:
Mitogenomic Diversity in Tatars from the Volga-Ural Region of Russia - Oxford Academic
As for claims that “Crimean Tatars have nowhere else to go than Crimea”, they are complete nonsense given that most Crimean Tatars emigrated (note, emigrated, not "expelled") to Turkey between 1783 and 1897, thus settling that question of their own accord.
Indeed, most of the descendants of Crimean Tatar immigrants in Turkey (5-6 million according to some estimates) have assimilated and consider themselves Turks. The very fact that they emigrated to Turkey (where they were received with open arms as “Crimean Turks”) confirms that Tatars themselves saw themselves as a Turkic group. Whether all of them were genuine Tatars and whether Turkey was their true home is another matter.
The way I see it, the correct application of the principle that “every country and continent should belong to its rightful owners” is not for Crimean Tatars to join Turkey – as Turkey itself is territory illegally taken from Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, and others – but to return to Turkic countries in Central Asia.
Stalin’s resettlement of Crimea’s Tatar minority (about 20% of the total population) to their original homeland in Central Asia was unfair on those Tatars who were actually European, and this was readily acknowledged by the Russian authorities who eventually gave resettled Tatars the right to return.
To the extent that it was arbitrary, that resettlement scheme was a mistake. It is one thing to relocate genuine Turkic Crimeans to Central Asia where they had come from. It is quite another to send Greeks who had lived in Crimea since the 7th century BC to Kazakhstan!
Similar mistakes were made during population exchanges between Greece and Turkey in the 1920’s when thousands of Greeks ended up in Turkey just because they were Muslim and Turks ended up in Greece because they were Christian. Or when ethnic Germans were expelled from Eastern Europe after WW2, even though they had lived there for centuries, etc., etc.
This is why, personally, I’m against forced deportations and I think diplomatic solutions backed by financial incentives are to be preferred. But the process has to start with correctly identifying who should relocate. Otherwise, how are we going to know which territory rightfully belongs to whom?
In the Crimean context, the problem seems to be not as much genetic as CULTURAL. The genetic evidence indicates that “Tatars” are mostly Indo-Europeans (Caucasoids) who were forced to speak Tatar (a Turkic language) and to convert to Islam under Mongol-Turkic rule. In other words, they assumed an alien cultural and linguistic identity under foreign occupation and this identity is now blown out of proportion for political ends.
And if the problem is cultural, one logical solution would be not to resettle Crimeans of European descent but to encourage them to shed their false Turkic or “Tatar” identity.
In any case, Tatar presence in Crimea does NOT show that “Crimea belongs to Ukraine”!
Yet the Natoist argument seems to be as follows:
A. Crimea is “Tatar”.
B. Tatars are “Ukrainians”.
C. Therefore Crimea is Ukrainian.
D. And Ukraine is Western.
E. Therefore Ukraine and Crimea belong to America and its NATO Empire.
F. But Russia doesn’t think that Crimea and Ukraine belong to America.
G. Therefore Russia must be destroyed so that it never again deviates from what America says the world should think.
Who has given America the right to destroy a country of 150 million just because it thinks differently?
If America is prepared to do this to Russia, how can other countries be sure that it won’t do the same to them?
Moreover, the destruction of Russia is likely to result in Turkey, China, Iran, and other powers trying to fill the vacuum and potentially lead to decades of instability and war in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere.
Eastern Europe is already heading for a serious recession, probably to be soon followed by Western Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Economic hardship and wars will result in millions of refugees fleeing to Western Europe and other parts of the First World. These are enormous problems that America has created but is unwilling and unable to solve.
America has a long and well-documented history of “solving” some problems whilst creating many other new ones. We need only look at Iraq where they removed Saddam Hussein but created ideal conditions for Islamic State a.k.a. ISIS to emerge - who turned out to be far worse than Saddam.
In these circumstances, European and other leaders around the world may start asking themselves whether it isn’t time to break free from America’s policy of world domination in which the only thing that matters are the interests of US oil and defense corporations.
IMO a far more balanced – and philosophically acceptable – position would be to follow the lead of less-ideologically-committed analysts, and advise Ukraine to (a) stay neutral and (b) cede some territory, e.g., Crimea, to Russia.
As Henry Kissinger has said, “the United States needs to avoid treating Russia as an aberrant to be taught rules of conduct established by Washington.” I think philosophers would do well to consider the implications of refusing to follow Kissinger’s advice.
Quoting ssu
Nope. It doesn't "clearly show" that at all. Russia did NOT invade Ukraine because of NATO expansion in Finland, but because of potential or anticipated NATO expansion in Ukraine!!!
Quoting ssu
Well, that only shows your anti-Russian bias. Wanting Russia to be like Finland sounds pretty unhinged to me. Why don't you want America to be like Finland? Or the whole world? :grin:
You're using the same NATO NAZI argument as @Christoffer according to which Russia and the world MUST be like the West or else.
Plus, you haven't demonstrated that the Armenian-Azeri conflict was created by Russia.
Quoting Olivier5
Correct. Prior to the Arabs it was Africans who raided, enslaved, and sold off other Africans. But Africa had its own prosperous kingdoms until they were conquered by France, England, and Belgium. They're now emigrating to France because France is their former colonial "mother country" that exploited, oppressed, and ruined her children.
Et en plus, what will happen when old Mother France gets old and passes away? Will her stepchildren still live under her boot, or sit on her throne? :smile:
I won't go into that because to me, "up to date" means nothing in philosophy. There is no progress in philosophy, as there is in science or technology.
The idea that human life deserves respect is very old, and rooted in religion: it was argued that human beings deserve respect because they are in the image of God.
What I am saying re. Russia is that Putin and his archeo-tchekists do not believe in God nor in Man deserving any respect. They are hardcore materialists, therefore for them might is right, force is legitimate, and killing human beings is not anymore a problem than killing worms or flies.
Interesting opinion but I note that Afghanistan or Ethiopia were never colonized. Yet there's no shortage of poor people and emigrants from Ethiopia or Afghanistan. Also France got a huge influx of Polish, Italian, Armenian, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese immigrants over the years, and yet we never colonized them... So maybe colonisation is not the only factor at play
Maybe folks want to go live in Europe because there, one might have a remote chance of improving one's lot.
[I]Rêver, c'est déjà ça...[/i]
--
It is quite interesting to watch the slow pivot of US Empire from Russia to China. Having now (for now?) mired Russia in a stupid, senseless war it did everything to enable, it now looks to Taiwan as the next bunch of people who can drop dead for their purposes. Now with the timing of the - rightly horrifying - 'Xinjiang Police Files', the pressure on the America's next geopolitical rival is set to be ramped up.
The problem in your comments as I see it is the overgeneralization. Critiques of culture require nuance and objectivity, which you've lacked. You are not the only one who does that and I wouldn't call it racist, but it's clumsy and unhelpful, just like some of the criticisms of America, the West, and NATO have been. I've been guilty of that myself too at times, and the consistency and intensity of the prejudices on display here remind me why sometimes I just need to keep my hands off the keyboard.
Thank you for a normal answer. And yes, I wasn't racist in any kind of intention, I wasn't talking about a Russian people in that sense, but an ideology and ideal very common in Russia and extremely common in their politics and military. The clumsiness could be that I'm not native of the English word, so maybe something was lost in translation, I don't know, but if I would have gotten your answer instead of the bullying behavior of the others, then I could have elaborated more and explained better instead of having to defend against low-quality trash. But yeah, I feel less and less like going to this forum. It seems to be a place dedicated for the bullies to feel important rather than focused on good discussions.
A lot of that back and forth is just going to get deleted anyhow and I don't know who's bullying who but there's not much in the way of charitable interchange going on for sure.
Shouldn't Russia's "ideology" be a matter for Russians to decide?
And you do seem to regard Russian society as somehow defective and inferior, and therefore in need of being "corrected" by you.
It's right to point out prejudice, which was on display in Christoffer's post, but all of you are looking for excuses to make each other look as bad as possible.
E.g. That's a better way to make the point.
Contrary to you. You're quite good at making yourself look good. :-)
But why does he rêve something and not something else? IMO, social and economic background, history, colonization, etc. seem to influence the content of the reve ....
Not always... :halo:
I'm speaking of an ideology or idealism that's very common in Russia. The society in Russia is split, with a lot of people not following this type of idealism. The ones who do, primarily under Putin's enforcement of this idealism, trickle down the military chain of command, down to soldiers on the ground shooting civilians in the back in order to loot and rape. It happens so systematically in so many places that this isn't just an isolated behavior, it's a result of putting an ideal before human well-being. If you go into war with well-being in mind, you don't do anything other than what you have to do on the battlefield. But raising these boys into this behavior comes from somewhere and looking at how Putin and his people talk, behave and the ideology they push, we can see an idealism of heroes leading a united people where the empire, the "thing" is more important than the individual human being.
This is the ideology and idealism I criticized. On one hand, you have Russians who don't agree with it, who speak up against the war because they see through this pipe dream that used to indoctrinate people but have a harder time today due to information flow being more free and uninfluenced by the people in power. And on the other, the conservatives who want to return to this ideal society, this empire where people in power were regarded as deities while the empire aimed for greatness and beyond.
And yes, their ideology is for them to decide unless the result of such ideology spills over into atrocities and horrors for other people in other nations who didn't ask for it. Just like the Nazis, which I made a point about. The behavior of people in power, throwing their own people into other nations as cannon fodder, in order to realize their fascist dreams.
Quoting Baden
This is basically my point, the Russian culture hasn't changed, while some Russians have and oppose it due to its destructive consequences. Some Russians want to have a change from that conservative pipe dreams, and they get beaten down by a fascist boot for wanting it. How this is different from Nazi Germany, I don't know.
I bet he'd look even better with a glass of poitín in his hand .... :wink:
Now you are talking. The West has also colonized the minds of folks. So the first thing to do, for those hoping of liberation, would be to free one's mind from their BS. And one of those BS idea about the West, is precisely that it's all the West's fault.
Thinking that it's all the West's fault is the same BS as the 'white man's burden'. It's treating Europe or the West as exceptional, as oh-so-special. It's pretending that the white man rules the whole world.
I don't care much about how I look, myself. Optics moptics.
Streetlight here has been calling for France's destruction, by the way, in case you care beyond mere optics.... :-)
Wasn't communism a Western ideology? Didn't the Western world erupt into applause when czarist "dictatorship" was replaced by Stalinism? Didn't Western intellectuals call Lenin the best statesman in the world?
Plus, "fascism" isn't necessarily imposed by force of arms. It can be done through education, indoctrination, mass manipulation and control. Say something in your country that deviates from the politically correct "norm" and you'll get ostracized.
In other words, your own society allows "freedom" only so long as you think, speak, and act as you're told .... :grin:
What is poitín?
Exactly. The fault of the perpetrators is not the fault of an entire culture, especially not in a secular and multicultural culture like "the west". "The west" is such an extremely broad perspective and I think most people just think of "the west" as being "the US" and through guilt by association, every western nation is therefore supporting or equally being as bad as "the US". As I've also pointed out long ago, we've lived in an intellectual anti-western criticism for over 30 years now. We can just look at art, literature and other pop culture for that, there's such an introspective uppercut against western ideals of neoliberalism and capitalism from within our western society that people have forgotten that other cultures can also be "bad". But since so many spent over 30 years of criticizing the west they themselves live in, they cannot wrap their heads around someone else acting out as Russia has done now. So instead of accepting Russia's actions as being taken by them, they need to pin this on the west by any means necessary, since they emotionally feel like not doing so would undermine their critique of the west. Instead of just... criticize where it's valid to criticize.
Sure. But that's only an extension of the BS idea that it's all Germany's and Russia's fault.
Non-Westerners aren't stupid. If Westerners keep criticizing each other, there is only one logical conclusion ....
BTW, poitín (Irish pronunciation: [?p??t?i?n?]), anglicized as poteen (/p??t(?)i?n, p??ti?n/) or potheen, is a traditional Irish distilled beverage (40–90% ABV). Former common names for poitín were "Irish moonshine" and "mountain dew" .... - Wikipedia
It's easy for the masses to praise something when no historical context exists to discredit it yet. And no, "the west" is not all. Not all praised Hitler either. First many did, then no one did, except the idiots.
Quoting Apollodorus
Fascism as I described it was state-controlled actual violence and silencing of anyone criticizing the government. The most literal form of fascism, when the boot is literal.
The other forms you describe can manifest through governments, but most likely through different groups in society. Other than that, you don't get ostracized in Sweden unless you actually conduct hate speech. If you say something that deviates from the most basic moral ideals, then you don't get ostracized by society because of fascism, but because you're a fucking asshole. I never understand how people confuse fascism with that, most likely because they don't know what fascism is.
So, you DO get ostracized, after all.
And if someone doesn't think, speak, and act like you, he MUST be a "fucking asshole" because everything YOU say is always right. Isn't that how fascist ideology starts? :rofl:
And where did this idea come from?
My hypothesis is that historically, it was the colonizer, i.e. Great Britain, that inculcated in the minds of their many subjects the hatred of the other colonizers, i.e. of their "competitors" in the "colonization business". So the French were depicted as ridicule, the Spaniards as wasteful, etc. etc., to try and make sure that British colonies would remain British... And these convenient stereotypes have been carried down to this day.
All this to say that the colonized have in some case internalized the very racism of their colonizer.
How about: Russia is responsible for what it actually did? If they bombed an entire country out of the blue, they own it.
Or are Russians inferior beings, unable to make their own decisions?
Yeah... Not long after that they were doing in Chechnya pretty much what they are doing in Ukraine today.
That's not to say that something is wrong with Russians in particular, as opposed to the rest of the world (who are "Russians" anyway - all who were born within Russian state borders?) That's a naive and unhelpful way of thinking.
What country did Russia "bomb out of the blue"?
If you mean Ukraine, it wasn't "out of the blue" at all. It was because of the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO and then trying to retake Crimea and the ethnic Russian areas in Donbas, in addition to turning the Black Sea into a NATO lake.
I'm not defending Russia's bombing of Ukrainian civilians, but I think it had a legitimate reason to feel threatened which means that NATO bears some responsibility for the invasion. But there is no point going on and on about it. IMO it is more important to remove misconceptions like that Crimea belongs to Ukraine
No, now you're doing that thing again, the thing people ask you not to do, are you off your pills? The thing where you don't actually read or understand what you read and instead make up your own version of what was being said.
I said
Quoting Christoffer
Now what can I possibly refer to here? Basic moral ideals? What would that mean? Maybe something like shouting racist slurs, misogyny, behaving aggressively, punching people or whatever. You know, things that balance on the edge of illegal but generally just make people exclude you from social connections and get you into trouble at work etc. We can go on and on about the philosophy surrounding this, but if you don't understand the basic concept of this then I'm afraid you either aren't capable of understanding it or you just decided not to in order to hold your line of argument or something. Most probable is that you just try to muddy the waters of the argument and I'm not interested in conducting that kind of discussion. Of course, you might mean "ostracized" in the old Greek version, that doesn't happen, maybe where you're from, but not here.
Nonsense! Western intellectuals praised Soviet Communism AFTER visiting Russia. Bernard Shaw, Lady Astor, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and many other leading intellectuals and socialites of the time visited Soviet Russia and praised its regime.
Shaw said that Lenin was “the greatest statesman of Europe” and called Stalin “a good Fabian” in 1948. The Webbs wrote a book, Soviet Communism: A New Civilization, in which they praised the communist system. These were among the leading ideologists of the British Labour Party that formed a coalition government during the war and became the ruling party, thus controlling the whole British Empire, after the war. Far from being ignorant masses, they were well-informed intellectual elites!
Quoting Christoffer
“Basic moral ideals”? Like calling people names for disagreeing with you??? :rofl:
From what I see here, in your opinion everyone who doesn’t think exactly like you is “a fucking asshole”, “a troll”, “off their pills”, etc., etc. Are you sure you aren’t related to @neomac and @ssu? As I said, NATO bots seem to come in packs of three, because they’re cheaper. And so do NATO Nazis …. :rofl:
Quoting Olivier5
On 6 July 1990, NATO leaders proposed cooperation with all countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
On 20 December 1991, NATO created the North Atlantic Cooperation Council in which Ukraine and the other CIS countries (former Soviet republics) were invited to participate.
On 8 February 1994, Ukraine joined NATO's Partnership for Peace program (PfP) that the US government described as a "track that will lead to NATO membership".
On 29 May 1997, Ukraine became a member of NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) that replaced the North Atlantic Cooperation Council.
On 24 June 2010 the Ukrainian government approved an action plan to implement an annual national program of cooperation with NATO that included training of Ukrainian troops in the structures of NATO members and joint tactical and strategic exercises with NATO.
On 8 June 2017, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law making integration with NATO "a foreign policy priority".
On 14 September 2020, Zelensky approved Ukraine's new National Security Strategy, "which provides for the development of the distinctive partnership with NATO with the aim of membership in NATO".
And in the meantime America and England were arming and training Ukrainian forces ….
So, not quite out of the blue.
In any case, if history teaches anything it is that the Germans know how to fight, the Americans and Brits know how to finance wars, and the Russians know how to flatten everything. Conclusion: if you’re a small country and don’t want to get flattened, don’t start a war with Russia!
Including themselves, apparently. Ukrainians will teach them a lesson.
And did they know all the details of the regime? Did people visiting Nazi Germany in the 30s know every detail? How many times have people been in the dark about regimes, leaders, and other people, and only after the truth is revealed have they backed away from their praise? People praised Weinstein as well, up until it was clear they shouldn't.
Do you actually think that a regime will show visitors their murders and horrors in between welcoming drinks? :rofl: I know you desperately try to win an argument in any way possible, but this is just ridiculous.
Quoting Apollodorus
There's nothing wrong with Marxism as a system and Russian communism was the Lenin/Stalin corruption of it. Without the knowledge of millions of people murdered, if you visited a nation that's among the first in the world to try and adapt anything from Marx and you get the snake oil sale pitch, of course, intellectuals were going to praise it. People praised Hitler as well, remember that he fixed the German economy, do you think people didn't praise him for that?
Judging people's opinions today by the context of 100 years of history into the future is downright stupid. We don't know what is revealed in 10 years or 30 years. We might, today, live in a time where we praise stuff that in 30 years' time will be revealed to be monstrous. You don't seem to understand how psychology works or how little people actually know.
Quoting Apollodorus
Can you do anything other than strawmanning? If you are unable to then why should anyone discuss with you?
Quoting Apollodorus
So you are in bullshitting mode again. You're not really making yourself relevant to the discussion. If you want to be a joke in here, I'm not interested.
Does your passion for getting other people to die for your moral didactics know no bounds?
Indeed, but Russia will have to fold at some point; they cannot keep this up forever. So the Ukrainians are teaching them a lesson: a lesson in resilience.
It's easy to be resilient when you get bankrolled, armed, trained, encouraged, and supported by the world's largest military organization.
Besides, Russia has also shown resilience by repelling numerous attempts to conquer and subjugate it since Napoleon's time and before ....
Is this enough proof that Apollodorus is playing into the Putin narrative of everyone against him and Russia are Nazis? I guess moderators are fine with it
What is really easy, down right facile, is to be dismissive and contemptuous of people defending their country.
According to him, any defense against Russia and Putin is considered being a Nazi, so it's quite obvious where he stands.
Seriously guys, I don't see any need to keep dragging the moderators into this brawl. You both know full well your own posts have been no less viscous, inflammatory and off-topic as anyone else's, so just give up with this pathetic 'appeal to the law'. If this thread were moderated more strictly, half your posts would be discarded with the rest, so if you want a different standard of debate, set it yourself first before criticising others for not enforcing rules you yourselves are not even prepared to keep to.
If a response offends you, flag it, and then, most importantly, don't just copy the exact same tone, that just so offended you, in response.
Quoting Isaac
We don't spend every moment of our day watching this thread, therefore moderation not being instant is not evidence that it won't be forthcoming. You can expedite the process by doing the above.
Quoting Olivier5
Hate to interrupt your martyrdom, Jeanne d'Arc, but same applies to you. Further complaints can be directed to feedback or PM.
Like we are the ones who entered this thread in a tribalistic mentality and you are the one calling in mods. :rofl: I've been trying to get mods into this thread to properly moderate it since the beginning of this tribalistic attitude started and they refused, and now you try to play the good guy? :rofl:
My interest in this thread has fallen, it's not a discussion anymore, it's just bully egos and bullshit arguments.
I don't agree at all that a political discussion where there's a lot of emotion involved means it's better not to moderate it, I think it needs moderation much more because of it. At the moment, there's really nothing of intellectual value going on in this thread so the value of participating is down the drain.
I've deleted dozens of posts just in the last couple of days and I've had enough of baseless complaints we're not moderating the thread, especially by someone who needs moderation as much as anyone else here. Future comments on moderation will be deleted. Stay on topic or stay away.
The Russians (and their Nazi compadres) can head home, the Ukrainians are already home.
The Russians (and their Nazi compadres) have homes, the Ukrainians are running :fire: shorter.
Unless ... "You can check out any time you like / But you can never leave" ...
I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here (I rarely am with your posts, I have to say). The Russians are the invading party, yes. I think we're all agreed on that. My comment was directed against people sitting in comfort hundreds of miles away egging on strangers they've never given a shit about before (nor will after) to risk their lives so that these armchair wargamers can get their rocks off on a Russian defeat.
If @Olivier5, or you for that matter, think it such a good cause to die for, then get out there and start shooting, otherwise a little humility might be in order recognising it's other people's lives you're gleefully anticipating the consequences of risking.
Where do you see any glee? Where does this accusation of gleefulness come from?
Maybe what you confuse with glee here, is hope.
Dude, I don’t mind your insults, it’s really that you arguments really suck. Even sarcasm is wasted on you.
Quoting Apollodorus
Again?! I’m going to repeat the same answer I gave you in the previous post (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/699578).
[i]“Crimean Tatars" speak a “Crimean Tatar language” as their native language:
The Crimean Tatar language (q?r?mtatar tili, ??????????? ????, tatar t?l?, tatar?a, k?r?m tatar?a), also called Crimean language (q?r?m tili, ?????? ????), is a Kipchak Turkic language spoken in Crimea and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of Uzbekistan, Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria, as well as small communities in the United States and Canada. It should not be confused with Tatar proper, spoken in Tatarstan and adjacent regions in Russia; the languages are related, but belong to two different subgroups of the Kipchak languages and thus are not mutually intelligible. It has been extensively influenced by nearby Oghuz dialects.[/I]
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatar_language
But for sure that’s not enough to call them “the Mongols of Crimea” as you did!
Quoting Apollodorus
You do not only confuse cultural factors with biological factors but you do it on a historical scale (given your obsession for the mythic “origins”).
“Mongoloid race” has to do with biology:
[i]Mongoloid (/?m??.??.l??d/[1]) is an obsolete racial grouping of various people indigenous to large parts of Asia, the Americas, and some regions in Europe and Oceania. The term is derived from a now-disproven theory of biological race.[2] In the past, other terms such as "Mongolian race", "yellow", "Asiatic" and "Oriental" have been used as synonyms.
BTW
The concept of dividing humankind into three races called Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid was introduced in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen School of History and further developed by Western scholars in the context of racist ideologies during the age of colonialism.[3] With the rise of modern genetics, the concept of distinct human races in a biological sense has become obsolete.[/I]
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid
“Tatar” has to do with language:
[i]The Tatars (/?t??t?rz/; Tatar: ????????, tatarlar, ???????, Crimean Tatar: tatarlar; Old Turkic: , romanized: Tatar) is an umbrella term for different Turkic ethnic groups bearing the name “Tatar".
[…] More recently, however, the term has come to refer more narrowly to related ethnic groups who refer to themselves as Tatars or who speak languages that are commonly referred to as Tatar, namely Tatar by Volga Tatars (Tatars proper), Crimean Tatar by Crimean Tatars and Siberian Tatar by Siberian Tatars.[/I]
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatars
[i]The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of Central, East, North and West Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.[/I]
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic_peoples
[i]Authors Joo-Yup Lee and Shuntu Kuang analyzed ten years of genetic research on Turkic people and compiled scholarly information about Turkic origins, and said that the early and medieval Turks were a heterogeneous group and that the Turkification of Eurasia was a result of language diffusion, not a migration of a homogeneous population.[/I]
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic_migration#Origin_theories
[i]Tatars are divided into 3 main ethno-territorial groups: Tatars of the Middle Volga and Ural regions, Siberian Tatars, Astrakhan Tatars. In addition, a separate group of Polish-Lithuanian Tatars is distinguished. Crimean Tatars, due to their ethno-historical development, are considered a separate people. Volga Tatars are divided into 3 groups: Kazan Tatars, Mishars and Teptyars, Kasimov Tatars form an intermediate group. Siberian Tatars are divided into 3 groups: Baraba, Tobolsk, Tomsk. Astrakhan Tatars are also divided into 3 groups: Yurt, Kundra Tatars and Karagash, close to the Nogais. The traditional occupation of the Tatars is arable farming, among the Astrakhan Tatars - cattle breeding and melon growing. Tatars are Sunni Muslims, with the exception of minor groups of Kryashens and Nagaybaks, who converted to Orthodoxy as early as the 16th-18th centuries. According to the anthropological type, the Kazan Tatars are Caucasoids, part of the Astrakhan and Siberian Tatars belong to the South Siberian type of the Mongoloid race[/I].
Source: https://www.vokrugsveta.ru/encyclopedia/index.php?title=%D0%A2%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%8B
So the generic label “Tatars” may refer to different races, different turkic languages, and different ethnic groups in different historical periods and geographical regions! And I pointed that out on many occasions! Your misconceptions stem from your ignorance and confusion about the ethnohistory of the people called “Tatars”, and the result of this is your misconception that the Crimean Tatars are the Mongols of Crimea, which is false on historical, genetic and linguistic grounds!
Quoting Apollodorus
So what?! Can you provide the link to the source you are referring to?
Quoting Apollodorus
So what?! And who on earth said that “the Tatars” made up the majority?! In my previous post (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/699578) I said: “after the Tatar-Mongol reign, the Crimean Tatars as indigenous people of Crimea became the majority by assimilating other ethnic groups (see this historical demographic map https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Ethnic_Population_of_Crimea_18th%E2%80%9321st_century.png)”
I never understood the label of “Crimean Tatars” as referring to Mongols or historical Tatar-Mongol (like the Golden Horde invaders and rulers), you did and I questioned it!
Quoting Apollodorus
What on earth did you just write?!!! I cited this ICCRIMEA article to support the claim that Crimean Tatars are NOT MONGOLS AS YOU CLAIM!!! And again, I never said that the Tatars as you understand them were the majority, but I explicitly said that the Crimean Tatars as the indigenous people of Crimea by assimilation of different ethnic groups became the majority prior to the Russification of Crimea, see the fucking historical demographic map I provided to you!!!
Quoting Apollodorus
And how on earth does that prove that “the truth of the matter is that there is very little genetic difference between Mongols and Turkic people like the Tatars” as you claimed?! And how on earth does that prove that Crimean Tatars currently living in Crimea are Mongols or historical Mongol-Tatars as you claimed?!
Crimean Tatars are NEITHER MONGOLS (whatever the origin of the turkic language or of the Tatar migrations is !!!) NOR THE HISTORICAL TATAR-MONGOLS AS YOU CLAIMED OR SUGGESTED!!!! EXACTLY THE POINT I MADE A WHILE AGO!
[i][b]Conclusion: Wikipedia historical trivia (yours included) do not question but confirm that the ethnic stratification of Crimean Tatars relate to the period prior to, during and after the Mongol empire (which per se was already a multi-ethnic empire as many ancient empires were! And that is also why genetic evidence about “generic” Tatars wrt Mongols is neither very useful nor conclusive!), that is why they are not Mongols in a historical sense either!
So any assimilation of Crimean Tatars with Mongols or middle-age Mongolian-Tatar hordes is, to be kind, an oversimplification, partly based on historical misconceptions (arguably still supported by Russian propaganda [2])[/b].
[2] The firm belief that the Crimean Tatars were descendants of the Golden Horde, who settled on the peninsula in the first half of the 13th century, was firmly ingrained in the minds of many scholars. This myth appeared immediately after the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 1783, and has since become firmly entrenched in official Russian and then Soviet historiography and continues to be replicated in the scientific literature. The falsifiers took the events related to the Horde period as the starting point of origin of the Crimean Tatars, which, in fact, is only a stage of a centuries-old, complex historical process. Source: https://culture.voicecrimea.com.ua/en/ethnogenesis-of-the-crimean-tatars/[/i]
Source: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/697542
Quoting Apollodorus
Really?! You certainly mean: not expelled, but emigrated to avoid Russian imperialistic oppression that you should oppose, right?!
The Crimean Tatar diaspora dates back to the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 1783, after which Crimean Tatars emigrated in a series of waves spanning the period from 1783 to 1917. The diaspora was largely the result of the destruction of their social and economic life as a consequence of integration into the Russian Empire .
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatar_diaspora
And the phrase “Crimean Tatars have nowhere else to go than Crimea” is again a way to stress that Crimean Tatars are indigenous to Crimea and would prefer to stay in their homeland without suffering oppressive regimes like the one Russian imperialism is offering AND you should oppose!
Quoting Apollodorus
What on earth did you just write?! You previously offered evidence in support to the claim that Crimean Tatars are neither Mongols nor the historical Tatar-Mongols, and now you want to move them to Central Asia?! How on earth would you do so?! You mean that Russian imperialists as privileged heir of the Greek civilisation and holy custodian of the Indo-European heritage should impose a racial test among Crimean Tatars and expel the ones who show more than 50% Mongoloid race owners DESPITE THE FACT THAT the ethnogenesis of the Crimean Tatars proves that Crimean Tatars as indigenous to Crimea also by assimilating Indo-European Caucasoid people and that no western Indo-European Caucasoid ancestors can claim to have colonised the entire Crimea prior to Turkic people migrations AND THEREFORE they should be considered the rightful owners of Crimea ?! Are you crazy?!… And racist?!
(BTW I guess all the Indo-European Caucasoid that colonised America should be resettled in Europe or, even better, crammed into the Caucasian area where all the Indo-European came from, right?)
Quoting Apollodorus
Oh I see, they acknowledged it, and that’s why the Russians are still oppressing Crimean Tatars in Crimea, right?! It makes perfect sense! Moreover you previously argued in favour of resettling Crimean Tatars back again to Central Asia as your theory demands, so Russians are wrong in giving resettled Tatars the right to return to Crimea, they should listen to you, right?!
Quoting Apollodorus
Quoting Apollodorus
Then start by defining what “[I]genuine[/i] Turkic Crimeans” and “Greeks” mean, because as suggested in the ICCRIMEA article, since Crimean Tatars are ethnically intermixed, one can not send 28% of Northern Asian genes to Central Asia, if it makes sense to you, right?!
BTW, you are against imperialism, against forced deportation and for economic incentives, but Crimean Tatars didn’t see anything like that in centuries of russification of Crimea, did they? Besides how is this putative attitude of yours square with what you were claiming previously: “In expelling some of the Mongols of Crimea and resettling them in Central Asia from where they had invaded, Russia arguably redressed a historic injustice”. Indeed, why would economic-civic oppression and deportation of Crimean Tatars be illegitimate if it’s matter of rectifying a horrible historical injustice that the Russians suffered for centuries?!
Quoting Apollodorus
What on earth did you just write?! To me, if your “logic” solution is to deport some and brainwash the rest, the problem is in your preposterous theory of the rightful owners grounded on all sorts of historical, genetic, linguistic and ideological misconceptions. Ironically, even within your own misconceptions, you finally rejected your own previous claims by supporting that Crimean Tatars are, mostly, not the Mongols of Crimea and do not need any resettling!
What is still missing in your racist views is an argument to support the idea that the Turkic cultural identity is a false identity while the biological identity is a true identity (considering that is also based on obsolete racial theories like the distinction of Mongoloid or Caucasoid races)!
BTW shouldn’t Christianism be abandoned since it stemmed from Semitic people while true Westerners are Indo-European Caucasoid non-Semitic (Arians?) people?
Quoting Apollodorus
Neither the opposite though, at least until you can provide a genetic study of the Crimean Tatars that proves there is no relevant genetic link between them and Ukrainians’ ancestors.
Still, unfortunately, this claim of yours is and has always been absolutely non pertinent to address my objections, because I talked about the Crimean Tatars to question your theory of “the rightful owners” and conclude not that Crimea belongs to Ukrainians, but that - according to your own theory of the rightful owners - the Crimean Tatars should most likely be considered the rightful owners of Crimea as indigenous people of Crimea, not the Russians! Ukrainians acknowledged this on legal grounds, while Russians are still oppressing Crimean Tatars.
Quoting Apollodorus
Who on earth is making this Natoist argument?! I never made, implied nor suggested such a shitty argument! There is not even any remote resemblance to what I would be capable of arguing! So either you are bizarrely confusing me with other (imaginary?) interlocutors or you are blatantly making things up as the worst Russian trolls do, maybe with the intent to redirect people’s attention far from your preposterous racist theory of the rightful owners and resume your filo-Russian propaganda routine!
Quoting Apollodorus
This is the best example of diversion with random anti-NATO and filo-Russian propaganda which bears no relation whatsoever to what I was disputing wrt Crimean Tatar issue. Is this really your best to prove you are not biased toward Russian propaganda?!
What an epic failure are you, dude!
OK.
A little humility might be in order recognising it's other people's lives you're hopefully anticipating the consequences of risking.
I just hope they win. Rest assured it's a humble hope.
No. We all hope they win. You additionally hope they 'teach Russia a lesson'. I don't give a fuck about teaching Russia a lesson because doing so at the expense of other people's lives is a despicable objective.
It was fairly straightforward. I thought your response to , missed a bit, so I added it.
[sup](I guess some may knowingly walk into a minefield and expect pity when a leg is blown off, others may or may not feel schadenfreude if those unfortunate people walked in there to blow others up. I'll abstain, but that's just me.)[/sup]
Don't bomb others' home. If you do, then don't expect them to just lie down and die. The Ukrainians aren't anyway.
It's not about coincidental schadenfreude though, it's about the active encouragement with schadenfreude as a goal. The difference (in your analogy) is between smirking as someone who shouldn't be in your front yard steps on a rake, and actively promoting the leaving of more and more lethal rakes, in someone else's backyard, at great expense to the landowner just for the pleasure of seeing the intruder get their comeuppance.
The costs of Ukraine's defence are enormous, both in terms of lives, and in terms of future economic devastation. Neither you, nor any of the other cheerleaders here are going to have to suffer that. Ukrainians are. There are clearly two options available.
1. Ukraine does the minimum required to ensure a future they can tolerate.
2. Ukraine inflicts the maximum damage on their antagonists.
Ukraine will do whatever they choose, we can support (and encourage) either depending, obviously, on what we think best.
Supporting (1) would be to maximise diplomatic efforts, maximise non-military solutions, stop fighting at the smallest opportunity from where diplomacy might be ale to take over.
Supporting (2) would be to keep framing the whole war as 'teaching Russia a lesson', exaggerating the necessity of driving them off, minimising the likelihood that any non-military solution will work, maximising the evils of the antagonist and minimising those of the defenders.
I think doing (2) whilst not actually being prepared to fight that fight oneself is morally reprehensible.
There's nothing "additional" here. It makes no practical difference if the Ukrainians win or the Russians lose. And if the Russians lose, one can only hope that they will learn a lesson from it.
It's exactly the 'additional' element about which the entire disagreement here revolves. As I said above, there are two options - one is to end hostilities at the earliest opportunity from which diplomacy might take over, the other is end hostilities at the last possible opportunity, inflicting the maximum damage to the antagonist. Concerning yourself (and your rhetoric) with the damage inflicted supports the second. Concerning ourselves with the costs of war supports the first.
Our entire disagreement here is about the morality of supporting either approach.
Is it? I personally see no objection to Ukraine signing any peace treaty they want, at any point. I've said so already so I am a bit surprised by your apparent confusion.
Who said anything about anyone objecting to the signing of a peace treaty? I'm talking about what you support, not what you fail to object to.
Yep, as I said, I'm talking about what you support, not what you fail to object to. Supporting someone's right to do something is the same as just not objecting to it.
I support your right to vote, I have not the slightest care whether you actually do so.
A campaigner for minimum wage supports fair pay, a campaigner for laissez faire supports the right of employers to pay minimum wage if they see fit.
Thank you so much. Do you additionally support the right of Ukrainians to vote? If yes, you will agree with me and many others that the freely elected and hence legitimate government of Ukraine has the right and the duty to defend the lives and well being of the country's population, and to decide which peace they want, based not only on a consideration of immediate outcomes, tomorrow or next month, but also on whether or not a peace deal could be trusted to work in the long term.
Do take the long term into consideration. From a long term perspective, the idea of "teaching R a lesson" is NOT to harm them for the sake of it. It's about deterrence. The idea is to lower the chances of a future war of aggression from Russia, and therefore intended to reduce future damage inflicted by future wars to the Ukrainian people.
This, the Ukrainian leadership understands very well. And I think it's a legitimate war goal.
Yeah, and we're back into your obvious nonsense that we've been through before. Entertaining though your mental gymnastics are, there's little to be gained from seeing you do the same trick twice. I want something new at least.
It doesn't say anywhere that people aren't allowed to make anti-NATO arguments!
As for your "disputing wrt Crimean Tatar issue" you could have saved yourself that long and incoherent rant because it looks like you don't have a clue what you're disputing! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
You claimed that "Crimean Tatars became the majority" and then backpedaled by saying "I never said that the Tatars were the majority"!
So, were they the majority or not???
And, obviously, in order to even discuss Crimean Tatars and your spurious claim that "Crimea is owned by Tatars therefore it belongs to Ukraine (or America?)", we need to establish what a Crimean Tatar is.
My definition of Tatar is identical to the accepted definition in the literature, i.e., a member of several Turkic ethnic groups speaking Turkic languages and living mainly in Russia, including Crimea.
Turkic people are defined as "descended from agricultural communities in Northeastern China and wider Northeast Asia, who moved westwards into Mongolia in the late 3rd millennium BC" (Wikipedia). This is scholarly opinion corroborated by genetic, historical, and archaeological evidence, not a "myth".
This is why they are referred to as "Mongoloid", because they are related to Mongols and some even look like Mongols. "Mongoloid" is the term used by scholars:
Erdogan calls them "Crimean Turks". How is that better than "Crimean Mongols"???
Obviously, there must be some Crimean Mongols as Crimea was invaded and occupied by the Mongols. But I didn't say ALL Crimean Tatars are Mongols. On the contrary, my point was that the genetic evidence suggests that many of them are NOT Mongols, NOT Turkic, and therefore NOT Tatars, depending on their genetic makeup. That's precisely what people make DNA tests for, to establish their ethnic and geographical roots.
In contrast, your "definition" is more than useless as it is totally meaningless and incapable of identifying a Crimean Tatar, or anything else for that matter!!! :rofl:
If you want to know what a real Crimean Tatar looks (and sounds) like, try this:
(Scroll down to "A speaker of Crimean Tatar, recorded in Romania".)
Crimean Tatar language – Wikipedia
Or the same clip on Youtube:
WIKITONGUES: Neceadin speaking Crimean Tatar - Youtube
The Britannica article that you pretend not to find says very clearly:
Slavery - Britannica
What makes you think that I must prefer your NATO propaganda to mainstream sources???
And NO, your Tatar witness does NOT support your claim that Tatars are "indigenous to Crimea". Her DNA is as follows:
28% Northern Asian = Siberian (Mongol/Turk) = Tatar
20% Mediterranean = Greek/Italian
22% Northern European = Scandinavian? Baltic?
20% Middle Eastern = ? (Iranian? Turkish? Jewish? Egyptian/Arab?)
In case you forgot, Crimea is in Eastern Europe. There is no Eastern European DNA in your "evidence"!
Incidentally, note how she conveniently leaves out the Taurian people who were the original, indigenous inhabitants of Crimea!
Also note how she conveniently leaves out the Crimean Greeks who have lived in Crimea from the 7th century BC, i.e., many centuries before the Tatars.
And note that she mentions four Turkic groups among her ancestors, which amounts to an admission to being at least in part of Turkic, i.e., Mongoloid-Siberian descent.
But when she lists her DNA makeup, it turns out that she is only 28% Turkic and 42% European, the rest being “Middle Eastern” which could be anything!
And still nothing to specifically link her to Crimea as one might expect in someone that is supposedly "indigenous" to Crimea. So, you've got nothing, really.
That's why I prefer to go by proper scientific publications than your cut-and-paste stuff randomly collected from activist sources .... :smile:
Quoting Olivier5
I think more "downright facile" is to claim that stating that Ukrainians are "bankrolled, armed, trained, encouraged, and supported by the world's largest military organization" is "facile".
In the real world, resilience is very short-lived without cash, weapons, ammo, etc.
In any case, it should be obvious that the longer the war drags on with US assistance, the more people will die on both sides. In other words, Europeans killing Europeans for America ….
That's what wars do, indeed. What else is new?
No one's commenting about the novelty of it. We're commenting about the ethics of it.
What else is new?
Not just 'war'. This war. Yes, it's always been about the ethics, not just 'now'. As I've said a dozen times none of us are qualified to offer an opinion on the technicalities so it's pointless to act as if we could. What we can discuss is the ethics, the politics... That, we are perfectly as qualified as any other to discuss.
The point being made right now is that supporting the continuation of war is unethical. War is something which should be avoided at the first opportunity, not encouraged until the last.
Your rhetoric of 'teaching lessons', minimising the risks of arms support, heroising those who fight, demonising those who advocate diplomacy... is unethical because it supports war beyond the first opportunity at which it could be avoided.
Your repeated attempts to pretend you're nothing but a dispassionate observer, reporting the facts and leaving all decisions up to the Ukrainians are transparent as attempts to simply dodge the ethical question.
Where have I disparaged diplomatic efforts, ever?
Who said anything about disparaging diplomatic efforts? There's a quote function here for a reason. Quote the section of my post you consider to be a lie. I know how much you love the old "liar" dodge, but some minimal effort to actually find a lie is not too much to ask surely?
How psychopathic do you have to be to be more Hawkish than Henry fucking Kissinger?
From the political history of my country, I can really see that this isn't the case. Russia is a genuinely different actor than let's say the UK, France, the US or even China.
The difference between NATO and the Warsaw Pact has everything to do with it. It shows in the most clearest way the differences.
You're still talking about methods when the comment was about objectives. Russia clearly has no greater an objective of "control and influence" than America. Gods! If America weren't aiming for "control and influence" then the almost global level of "control and influence" they have acquired (apparently by chance!) must have come as a tremendous shock to them.
American culture, industry, military and politics is present in one form or another in every country in the world. Dominant in most. Russian culture, industry, military and politics holds sway in a very narrow band of contested countries at its borders.
Unless you're suggesting that situation came about entirely by luck, then its absolutely unarguable that America has sought "control and influence" to no lesser, if not a greater, extent than Russia.
Even somewhere like Finland. Take a serious look at your financial institutions, your corporate governance, your media... and tell me exactly how that's more controlled by Russia than by the US. I'll eat my hat if Black Rock and Vanguard don't own at least half the companies in Finland.
But this doesn't make sense. Russia is attacking in Ukraine, in the Donbas, right now.
What on Earth is for Ukraine to "stop fighting at the smallest opportunity" when the other side is attacking you? At least you should have some stalemate where Russian's can see they aren't making progress with continuing the attack.
The only way for Ukraine to get a peace agreement with Russia is when Russia cannot gain it's objectives through military force and it is worse for Russia to continue the war than to have a peace agreement. And likely Ukraine has to at least accept that it has lost Crimea, which will be a huge letdown for the Ukrainian people who likely won't know the real situation on the battlefield.
Making this about all about Ukraine is simply logically wrong. Both sides have to make the conclusion that a ceasefire is better than continuing the war. Hence you have to look at this from both sides, not just Ukraine.
Concede the independence of Dombas and Crimea, and the independence from NATO. Then deal with their independent governance via diplomatic means. It's not complicated.
Quoting ssu
The bizarre, near maniacal, certainty you have about Russia's 'objectives', is not shared by...well, anyone rational. The rest of us take a more circumspect approach to what it is that they might concede to in negotiations.
Quoting ssu
I think we've roundly established that invading a country just because you want it back under your control is wrong. It's wrong if Russia do it, its wrong if Ukraine do it. Crimea is now under Russian control. Invading it to get it back is warmongering. The correct course of action is sanctions and political activism to allow the people of Crimea to elect the leadership they want.
If we haven't established that using tanks to effect political change is a bad idea by now then there's little hope for the world.
This incoherent double standard again. Is Russia losing really badly or not? Make up you mind.
When you want to advocate further arms sales, you claim Russia are useless, losing horribly. Then when is comes to joining NATO, Russia are a force to be reckoned with again. Then when assessing objectives, Russia are back to being useless, couldn't hold the ground they wanted. Then when the idea of negotiated peace is raised, Russia are back to winning again, nothing for them to gain by a peace settlement...
You did.
Quoting Isaac
That was disingenous. Nobody here has ever demonised any diplomacy advocate. You are inventing your own debate, obsessed as you are with pointing fingers at other posters.
Calm down already. What we do here is called a conversation, not a war.
Wrong. Methods do matter. In fact, it's all about those methods.
The US hasn't approached every other country in the world as it has gone with socialist Cuba. It hasn't tried to poison or kill the Canadian prime minister. It hasn't sponsored a group of Canadian militants and pushed them over the border to start a guerilla campaign to overthrough the Canadian government. It hasn't put stiff sanctions towards Canadia. It hasn't thought about invading Canada. All that it has done towards Castro's Cuba. US-Cuban relations don't depict all of the relations the US has with other countries.
Hence if your way of gaining that "control and influence" is by creating a mutual defense organization where you assist the countries if they are attacked, where countries can choose if they participate and with what kind of force to your endeavors, where other members than you have a say. Many country may like that deal and join voluntarily your organization. And naturally you will have amoung your citizens a debate just why are carrying so much weight for these other countries.
Quoting Isaac
Wrong again. Crimea isn't independent. Russia sees Crimea as part of itself. Get the facts straight, Isaac!
And how do you do it now? Just admit that hey, you are open to give everything this away right now, immediately. That works wonders for morale for the Ukrainians now defending the Russian attack, I guess.
And if as the response Russia says, nah... we would like Odessa too. At least to get the Novorossiya. And then what? Wait for the next time that Russia invades after it has restocked in equipment and trained new batch of soldiers. Come to finish you let's say in 2030?
Quoting Isaac
I think Putin has made those objectives quite clear. Not only the Donbas, but the demilitarization of Ukraine and of course the denazification. Or you disagree?
1) Russia has had losses. It has had to limit it's objectives.
2) Yet it is making some progress, even if little.
3) It is extremely unlikely that it can now military overtake the whole country.
4) What will happen in peace talks or with a peace agreement is still very much open.
Thinking of it, the Putinistas may be under the impression that their esteemed contributions here are part of the war, part of a battle for public opinion.
This battle did take place, but it's over now. It's been won by Ukraine and there's nothing the Putinistas can do about it, except cry and bitch.
Hence the aggressive tone of @Isaac, hard to understand but logical in his position: he's like one of these Japanese soldiers stranded alone on some Pacific island, still fighting a long lost war years after 1945.
Myself, Boethius, benkei, streetlight among others have advocated diplomacy. You've demonised all. Accusations of working for the FSB, supporting terrorism, condoning rape etc. It is an indisputable fact the you have demonised posters here who advocate diplomacy. The latest of which is referring to them as...
Quoting Olivier5
You really are stupid aren't you. In the same posts as you're trying to claim you don't demonise, you refer to anyone with a different opinion to you as supporters of a war criminal. Do you even think for a second before spewing out whatever crap it next occurs to you to write?
Who said methods didn't matter. The question was about objectives. A simple "yes" would have sufficed.
Quoting ssu
Did I say it was? I suggested it might be a negotiating concession, not an existent state of affairs. Your reading comprehension is appalling.
Quoting ssu
So? The future of Western Europe is decided by what's best for the morale of the Ukrainian army? Why?
Quoting ssu
Yes. That's exactly it. Because fighting a devastating war because you think someone might otherwise attack you in ten year's time is monstrous.
Quoting ssu
No. This is a negotiation.
What remains inconsistent is the idea of a Russia both immanently about to lose and one which would have nothing to gain from a peace deal.
Zelensky has already made the proposal of going back to the pre 24th February limits, which means that Russia gets Crimea and the part of Donbas they already had.
Hence it's the Ukrainians who already have made concessions here. Have they have to give more to an imperialist aggressor here or what?
This war was started by Russia and Russia can also stop this war of aggression. Ukraine cannot stop it, or then perhaps accept terms that Putin wants. Hence it's a bit odd just to focus on Ukraine.
I've not criticized any of you BECAUSE you advocated diplomacy, to the extent that you have actually done so, which is unclear.
None of you have advocated a specific diplomatic approach or solution.
Vague gesticulations towards it, yes, but I haven't seen anything serious and precise. And I suspect that these gesticulations -- including your whining here -- are part of an effort to make others look bad. It's a 'demonising tool' and nothing more
IFF you start to propose specific approaches and ideas for a peace process, I'm a taker. But if all you want is to posture as the most morally woke TPFer, don't expect me to be impressed.
Russia has not seen Italian peace plan for Ukraine
Reuters
May 24 (Reuters) - Russia has not yet seen an Italian peace plan for Ukraine, but hopes to receive it through diplomatic channels, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio gave the broad outlines of the plan last week and said that he had discussed it with United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres during a visit to New York.
"We haven't seen it yet, we hope it will be delivered to us through diplomatic channels and we will familiarise ourselves with it," Peskov said.
The plan would involve international groups such as the United Nations, the European Union and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe which would act as facilitators to organise localised ceasefires initially, Di Maio told a news conference in Italy last Friday. [...]
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, was dismissive of the plan and other such initiatives by the West. [...]
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has repeatedly called for a ceasefire in Ukraine. Italy's broad ruling coalition is divided over the issue of whether to supply more arms to Ukraine.
Good for him. I'm talking to you, not Zelensky.
Quoting ssu
As far as I'm aware Russia has not made any greater demands than that. What's needed are some independent authorities willing to help broker such a deal. If America weren't hell bent on throwing Ukrainian bodies under Russian tanks a deal might well have been made already. What's needed is the mechanism, the involvement of agencies outside of the conflict. Which is why it's so important to talk about their role in this, to put pressure on them to do the right thing here.
If Ukraine, together with a couple of third parties (say the US and China) are actively willing to make a deal but Russia refuse, then we can bleat about how they've no incentive to stop.
Right now we have the last official word from Russia being that they demand an independent Dombas, Crimea, and no NATO membership. We have Ukraine offering much the same. So what's missing? Any serious united international help to get them together.
How do you know that “there is nothing wrong with Marxism as a system”, when Marxism has never been implemented as a system aside from in places like Russia, China, and North Korea?
The fact is that Russia is different and it has the right to be different.
Russia’s ideology is a matter for the Russian people, not for you.
I don’t see how Western ideologies like Communism, Nazism, Imperialism, Unipolarism, Natoism, etc., are “superior” to what you call “Russian ideology”.
If NATO can bomb and invade other countries, so can Russia.
Russia would have had no reason to invade Ukraine if it hadn’t been for NATO’s expansionism.
Why are you so concerned about Russia’s “ideology”?
When did Russia last invade your country?
Has your country never invaded anyone?
Now that Britain has promised to protect you and you’re joining NATO (with Turkey’s help :wink:), why are you still afraid of Russia?
Plus, there is nothing you can do about it anyway, so what’s your point? Who are you trying to convince, Western Russophobes and NATO jihadis who already think that Russia is “evil”? :grin:
Quoting Olivier5
What seems to be “new” (at least to some here) is that there is more than one side to every conflict. One side is that Ukrainians are defending their country. Another side is that Russians are defending what they believe to be their country. And a third side is that Europeans are killing Europeans for the sake of America and its NATO Empire.
IMO it seems unphilosophical to take a one-sided view of the conflict.
Incidentally, the way things currently stand, the most likely scenario is that Russia will be able to hang on to Crimea and the Donbas. So, it’s difficult to see what exactly Zelensky is trying to achieve. Arguably, he’s waiting for more heavy weapons from the West, but (a) that requires people who know how to operate them and (b) Russia still has a number of options available.
Zelensky says he is “ready to talk to Putin” and is “willing to leave Crimea out of the talks”.
But:
He wants Russia to withdraw “from the territory it has occupied since 24 February” as a precondition for the talks.
and
He “would not compromise over Ukraine’s territorial integrity”.
So, what exactly does he want to talk about???
He talks like someone who either doesn't know what he's talking about or is just being dishonest. He has said things before that turned out to be untrue. For example, when he said that everyone should calm down because there wasn't going to be an invasion, when he said that the Ukrainian troops ensconced in the Azovstal works will never surrender but they did surrender, etc.
My guess is that he says what he's told to say by his US and British "advisers" to whom he now owes zillions of dollars .... :smile:
If they believed so, they wouldn't bomb civilians so much.
They just believe that they are entitled to bomb anyone, including their own people. Quoting Apollodorus
In my opinion, it is unprincipled not to do so.
Woah, a pro war puff piece in The Atlantic. What a surprise!
The same Atlantic whose Editor said, of the Iraq war...
Sound at all familiar? Christ! It's unbelievable that idiots just lap this stuff up when they've barely done more than just change the names.
What part of her argument do you disagree with?
2 mins ago (17:53 GMT)
Italy aims to free grain exports blocked in Black Sea ports, Prime Minister Mario Draghi has told reporters following a phone call he held with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The first initiative one could begin to explore is to see whether a cooperation between Russia and Ukraine to unblock Black Sea ports could be built,” Draghi said.
Draghi said he would soon talk to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on this issue.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/05/26/the_putin_puzzle_why_is_the_russian_dictator_so_obsessed_with_ukraine_834318.html
Or there's facts...
https://www.cgdev.org/cdi#/?adjusted=true
Commitment to development index. The United States is below Russia. But who cares about which country is actually responsible for mass starvation when you've got a warmongering narrative to feed.
"On 24 April the head of the world’s largest ship manager, René Kofod-Olsen, urged Nato to provide naval escorts for commercial vessels passing through the Black Sea: “We should demand that our seafaring and marine traffic is being protected in international waters. I’m sure Nato and others have a role to play in the protection of the commercial fleet.”"
This is a good article about where things stand in Ukraine militarily, and the growing pressure for some kind of action to protect commercial food shipping. You can view the whole thing in incognito mode.
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/ukraine/2022/05/black-sea-blockade-crimea
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/23/we-must-stop-letting-russia-define-the-terms-of-the-ukraine-crisis
This caught my attention:
US-supplied howitzers to Ukraine lack computers
(KYIV, Ukraine) — Dozens of artillery systems supplied by the United States to Ukraine were not fitted with advanced computer systems, which improve the efficiency and accuracy of the weapons, ABC News has learned.
The M777 155mm howitzers are now being used by the Ukrainian military in its war with Russia.
The Pentagon did not deny that the artillery pieces were supplied without the computers but said it had received “positive feedback” from the Ukrainians about the “precise and highly effective” weapons.
That positive sentiment was echoed by a Ukrainian politician, who spoke to ABC News on condition of anonymity. However, the politician also expressed frustration that the artillery pieces had not been the fitted with the digital computer systems. [...]
Howitzers without a computer system can still be fired accurately, using traditional methods to calculate the angle needed to hit a target. Modern computer systems, however, rule-out the possibility of human error.
Why the artillery pieces supplied to Ukraine did not have the digital targeting technology installed is unclear. The Pentagon said it would not discuss individual components “for operational security reasons.” [...]
A security expert, retired Colonel Steve Ganyard, said the United States had not sent the devices for fear that it might fall into the hands of the Russians. “In this case, they could not share the best of the United States,” he said.
Not looking for engagement, just correcting your bullshit. The responsibility for the ensuing starvation is categorically the result of the underdevelopment-related vulnerability of these nations to fluctuations in imports for which Russia is far less responsible than America, or, even more so, Europe.
Depends. They could always say:
1. Civilians who have sided with NATO.
2. 150,000 got killed in America's jihad on Iraq. Russia hasn't killed anything in Ukraine that even remotely approaches that.
3. The Ukrainians are keeping their military casualties secret, but many more of their forces must have got killed than people believe. Of course, it serves NATO propaganda to make the world believe that Russians only kill civilians. But propaganda shouldn't be confused with facts.
4. Bombing civilians is considered acceptable in some parts of the world. Sometimes even in the West: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Germany, etc.
5. That's how Russia fights. And Ukraine and its Western paymasters knew it perfectly well from the start.
As I say, giving Russia Crimea and the ethnic-Russian areas of Donbas, and staying out of NATO, would have been a small price to pay for peace. This is why I believe that Zelensky is being pushed by America and Britain to carry on and escalate in order to (1) promote the interests of Western defense industries and (2) weaken or destroy Russia to facilitate its takeover by the West (which is what they already tried to do in the 90's).
Not yet, at least.
But the numbers from Afghanistan, Syria and the two Chechen wars simply show that Russia doesn't care so much about civilian casualties. Actually the comparison between the casualty figures of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the US in Afghanistan tell something. Russia uses extensively firepower and the morale is low as it doesn't take care of it's troops, so it hasn't been so surprising that the pictures from Ukraine have a resemblance to the pictures we saw from Chechnya decades ago.
(then)
(now)
Starvation is, and has been, going on for decades. Millions died of starvation under British rule in India, Africa, Ireland ....
Timeline of major famines in India during British rule - Wikipedia
Great Famine (Ireland) - Wikipedia
Quoting Olivier5
Of course they could. And so could the West. As Churchill put it:
It isn't "a list of lies", but of things they could say in response to your claim.
Whether (a) they're actually saying that and (b) they're lies, remains to be seen.
I confirm I couldn't care less, then.
I didn't think you'd care about the truth. But thanks for the confirmation.
Really?! Well, it looks to me like NOBODY in those countries cares about civilian casualties. And neither does the West, otherwise it wouldn't have instigated civil wars there.
Plus, as you say, the Russians haven't killed 150,000 Ukrainians yet. Though, I'm sure Zelensky believes it's 60+ million .... :grin:
It’s a pity— I’ve been impressed with the Atlantic in recent years.
The consequences of this war will be felt for years to come. That’s the only certainty I can see.
In the end, one has to be dumbfounded by the stupid, stupid move on Putin’s part. To say nothing about the immorality.
Also great to see bipartisan support for the US government actively contributing to, and benefiting from, this atrocity. Comforting to know some things never change.
In unrelated news: Lockheed stock has surged nearly 13% since mid February. Chevron about 30%. Thankfully neither industry has much pull in Washington.
Numbered propaganda items?! :rofl:
I think you’re in denial. Some estimates attribute 186,318 Iraqi deaths to the US-led Coalition.
Lancet surveys of Iraq War casualties – Wikipedia
Is your counting dead Ukrainian civilians any better???
Besides, this isn’t about counting civilian casualties, it’s about the enormous worldwide ramifications of this war that was started by Russia but instigated by America and its European client-states.
Lockheed Martin, one of the largest US defense contractors, donated $256,500 to the campaigns of members of Congress, a gubernatorial campaign, and Republican and Democratic political action committees. In total about 150 lawmakers. This is how it gets decided how much America invests in the war, which defense companies are awarded contracts, etc., etc.
One of the largest defense contractors in the nation donated to nearly 150 members of Congress as they debated Ukraine military aid – Business Insider
THAT is what drives America’s war effort in Ukraine. Of course, to those who are in denial this is not truth but “propaganda” and “conspiracy theory” …. :grin:
[Quote]DRUZHKIVKA, Ukraine — Stuck in their trenches, the Ukrainian volunteers lived off a potato per day as Russian forces pounded them with artillery and Grad rockets on a key eastern front line. Outnumbered, untrained and clutching only light weapons, the men prayed for the barrage to end — and for their own tanks to stop targeting the Russians.
“War breaks people down,” said Serhiy Haidai, head of the regional war administration in Luhansk province, acknowledging many volunteers were not properly trained because Ukrainian authorities did not expect Russia to invade. But he maintained that all soldiers are taken care of: “They have enough medical supplies and food. The only thing is there are people that aren’t ready to fight.”
But Lapko and Khrus’s concerns were echoed recently by a platoon of the 115th Brigade 3rd Battalion, based nearby in the besieged city of Severodonetsk. In a video uploaded to Telegram on May 24, and confirmed as authentic by an aide to Haidai, volunteers said they will no longer fight because they lacked proper weapons, rear support and military leadership.
“We are being sent to certain death,” said a volunteer, reading from a prepared script, adding that a similar video was filmed by members of the 115th Brigade 1st Battalion. “We are not alone like this, we are many.”[/quote]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/26/ukraine-frontline-russia-military-severodonetsk/
It must be so nice to expect other people to bear the misery of war for Western revanchism. On to Moscow they can go!
They have a standing invitation, apparently.
[quote=Dmytro]We are fighting to protect the more or less free society that exists in Ukraine, without which there would be no space for activism or underground movements.
Putin’s terror is happening [in Ukraine] and it is indiscriminate. It is happening against every part of the population, but especially against the Russian-speaking parts of the population that Putin supposedly came here to liberate,
His regime is an ultraconservative, rightwing dictatorship that represses anarchists in Russia, the free press, LGBT networks. It scares even the most banal, grassroots initiatives, like animal rights activists. We see the conflict between Ukraine and Russia as a conflict between a more or less democratic state and a totalitarian one.
We have a strict screening process. We don’t want people who just come here to kill; we want them to understand what they are fighting for.
[/quote]
[quote=Movchan]Putin has appropriated the word anti-fascist and he exploits it to justify his war. [Ukrainian] nationalists say if you’re anti-fascist, you’re pro-Russian, but that’s not the case.
I think both sides of the elite did a lot to create a situation whereby Ukrainians argue a lot about language and versions of history instead of how Kryvyi Rih Stal was privatised.
The cause of the war is the Russian Federation.
[/quote]
I don't see why it matters. America and Europe have enough food to feed the world several times over. If they gave a shit about starving people they'd fucking feed them. They also have enough firepower to break the blockade with their eyes shut.
So whether they'll break the blockade or not will depend entirely on whether they think it will serve their foreign policy objective or not. The starving poor are, as ever, collateral damage in their endless fucking war.
Maybe you'd like to throw some more Ukrainian bodies at it.
As ever, all this bleating about the starving poor is nothing more than useful idiots regurgitating warmongering propaganda. A minute ago we had to continue to fight Putin because of the civilian deaths, now its because of starvation. This despite the fact the the Western governments and corporations of these exact same useful idiots kill more civilians and cause more starvation in their normal activities than Putin has this entire war.
Afghanistan - Not even going to dignify that one with an answer, it was 40 years ago. are we going to allow Hiroshima and Vietnam in the comparison?
Syria - some 6,000 civilians killed by Russian forces http://sn4hr.org/blog/2018/09/24/civilian-death-toll//
Chechnya - some 40,000 civilians killed (some proportion of which will be Russian forces) according to the research of Chechnya expert John Dunlop
America's wars (for comparison) https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/WarDeathToll
Afghanistan: 46,000
Iraq: 200,000
Pakistan: 24,000
Yemen: 12,000
So just fully explain to us all how exactly 'the numbers' show that Russia particularly cares any less (or more) about civilian casualties than any other.
In your dreams.
The point would obviously be to lower food prices and reduce suffering the world over. Your casual disregard of the poor is noted. As long as Putin is safe, you're happy.
Quoting Olivier5
Why would we do that via breaking a naval blockade when we could do it without losing a single life simply by paying the food producers a fair wage so that they can afford the food we export?
Why would we do that when we can have a lovely little war?
Civilian casualties during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (9+ years): 562 000 - 2 000 000 killed
Civilian casualties during the American invasion of Afghanistan (19+ years): 176 000 - 212 000 killed
There's a difference.
Ah yes, I'd forgotten that world-famous saver of lives - warfare.
Translation: "I've got no counter argument and the intellectual imagination of a five year old, so I'll resort to parroting the puerile trope that anyone not cheerleading the war must be pro-Putin"
Civilian casualties during the American invasion of Vietnam (9+ years): 332,000
Civilian casualties during the American atomic bombing of Japan (2 days): 355,000
Civilian casualties during the American fire bombing of Tokyo (1 day): 100,000
How far back do you want to go? Just far enough to prove your point, and no further?
Shall we add up all the wars Western powers have been involved in and those of Russia? Shall we divide by the size of the country? Shall we include deaths from starvation and health poverty resulting from pecuniary postwar loan terms?
Your point?
Again this seem to be false.
Even the Russian Federal State Statistics Service put only the first Chechen war to be 30 000 to 40 000 civilians dead. The Federation of American Scientists write of the first war:
Yet there's the second Chechen war, instigated by Putin himself. There the estimates of civilian casualties vary from 25 000 to 200 000. After the war Chechen officials (which are Pro-Kremlin, naturally) put the death to of the two wars at 160 000 (see here).
So hence it's interesting to actually look at what John Dunlop has actually said. From which it is obvious that Isaac, as usual, is totally clueless of there being two wars in Chechnya. But from the first Chechen war is said:
And obviously John Dunlop is talking about the first Chechen war, because the article was written in the year 2000, when the Second Chechen war was still underway (Dunlop, John B. 2000. “How many soldiers and civilians died during the Russo-Chechen war of 1994 – 1996?” Central Asian Survey 19:3-4, 328 – 338.)
Hence the civilian casualties of the Second Chechen war should be added up:
And of course one should remember that compared to Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria, the population of Chechens is tiny. So small, that even if we don't believe what the Chechens say is hundreds of thousands, it's still a quite genocidal killing as there are ONLY two million Chechens. Which just show what a killing spree Russia went in Chechnya, and now you have Chechen fighters fighting in Ukraine on both sides.
With figures from the World Wars you get high numbers of course.
My point is that Russia's way of fighting a war increases both civilian and military casualties. Similar losses that Russian units have suffered, the Western generals and leadership would flinch and pull back. Russians units can be decimated and it doesn't cause a huge political uproar. I think it's been carried from the Soviet thinking and never has the Russian/Soviet war machine care about individuals like the US Army with slogans like "safety first". Of course this has also an impact on the soldiers themselves as they can see that they aren't backed up or taken care of.
Such arguments are not a "good thing", either. Wars happen because folks think that war is better than submission to [insert arsehole here] This applies even to aggressors, who also think that war is better than submission to [insert limitation of their power]. Thus war entails agreement to fight, and agreement that war is better than submission. Start your discussion with this agreement in mind, that the war is necessary, and the lessor evil. both sides would prefer to have their own way peacefully, but...
Why? Should we add up all the collective interventions in the 'war on terror'?
Quoting ssu
Ah, so we should reduce your figures for the deaths in Afghanistan? Or do we only reduce figures by population size when it suits you?
And...as still goes unanswered...
Quoting Isaac
As was famously espoused during the Covid crisis, total unexpected death is the only way to get a true measure of a country's general concern for civilian life.
So. Add up all the avoidable death in the world - the invasions, the starvation, the civil wars, the poor health, pollution, suicides - just how many are on Russia's hands and how many on America's?
Anything less than that is just fiddling with statistics to make your point.
...one has to be popular to become a President and gain power, even in Russia. And for Putin, starting a war has been the way to get that popularity up. It worked earlier so well.
(Notice that the Second Chechen War started in 1999 and raised Putin's popularity from being unknown. And I will add that there have been also other reasons for the popularity, like getting the economy growing in the first decade of the Millennium.)
You're really clueless, you know that?
OK. If the population is only two million and not forty million (like in Afghanistan), then 40 000 killed means that more of the population has been killed in the war.
Too many.
To think this is a question with any significance is to espouse a dogmatic ideology that necessarily creates its negation as the eternal enemy. This is an exercise in futility that the world can well do without, that has taken over from religion as the banner under which wars and other power games are commonly prosecuted. "Your body pile is higher than mine, therefore we are the good guys." Another bad argument.
I think he would have been even more popular if Ukraine had submitted.
That was the thing Putin was gambling on. And the spectacular success in 2014 likely contributed to these ideas being treated as totally serious. It worked then, why wouldn't it work now?
Besides, this reasoning is quite universal. If the liberation of Kuwait wouldn't have been such an easy thing to do, there likely wouldn't have been an occupation of Iraq by Bush Jr later. Victories promote later hubris, defeats criticism and reconsidering.
Yes. Exactly my point. War is always an agreement.
[quote= Lewis Carroll]Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.[/quote]
So what?! It still is an excellent example of dialectic diversion, exactly because that piece of anti-NATO propaganda routine has nothing to do with what I was questioning. Indeed even if there was no NATO and no war between Russia and Ukraine involving NATO, all my arguments challenging your theory of the rightful owners as applied to the case of the Crimean Tatars would have been exactly the same.
Quoting Apollodorus
Dude, congrats, you just offered the epitome of your intellectual misery!
Now tell me, where on earth did I claim “Crimea is owned by Tatars therefore it belongs to Ukraine (or America?)” ?! How on earth can you be so intellectually dishonest to double quote something I never written nor implied nor suggested nor believe, yet suggesting I made that claim which is a blatant lie?!
BTW if we need to establish first what “Crimean Tatar” means before discussing “Crimean Tatars” and I also repeatedly clarified what “Crimean Tatar” means to me in my past posts, why on earth do you feel so confident in mixing your claims about “Tatars” with my claims about “Crimean Tatars” to artificially suggest an inconsistency or backpedaling that doesn’t exist ?!
I stand by what I wrote and am responsible for what I write not for that you are incapable of understanding. To repeat once more the point, briefly: “Crimean Tatars” are ethnically indigenous people of Crimea who speak natively Crimean Tatar language (along with whatever cultural&genetic heritage this native language enables people to share, of course) and whose ethnogenesis show a genetic admixture of different ethnic subgroups happening within Crimea in more than 2 millennia.
But if you do not like my definition we can relay on a mainstream source like Wikipedia:
[i]Crimean Tatars (Crimean Tatar: q?r?mtatarlar, ??????????????) or Crimeans (Crimean Tatar: q?r?mlar, ????????? or q?r?ml?lar, ???????????), are a Turkic ethnic group and nation who are an indigenous people of Crimea. The formation and ethnogenesis of Crimean Tatars occurred during the 13th–17th centuries, uniting Cumans, who appeared in Crimea in the 10th century, with other peoples who had inhabited Crimea since ancient times and gradually underwent Tatarization, including Greeks, Italians and Goths.[/I]
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatars
[i]The Crimean Tatar language (q?r?mtatar tili, ??????????? ????, tatar t?l?, tatar?a, k?r?m tatar?a), also called Crimean language (q?r?m tili, ?????? ????),[1] is a Kipchak Turkic language spoken in Crimea and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of Uzbekistan, Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria, as well as small communities in the United States and Canada. It should not be confused with Tatar proper, spoken in Tatarstan and adjacent regions in Russia; the languages are related, but belong to two different subgroups of the Kipchak languages and thus are not mutually intelligible.[/I]
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatar_language
Quoting Apollodorus
You just summed up the roots of your misconceptions about the Crimean Tatars. Crimean Tatars are not the Mongols of Crimea as you called them. Period! Now you are ridiculously backpedaling: proof is that you stopped to call them Mongols of Crimea and you even dare to say [I]”I didn't say ALL Crimean Tatars are Mongols”[/I] (which is not only shameless but goofy because calling the Crimean Tatars “The Mongols of Crimea” doesn’t necessarily suggest that ALL Crimean Tatars are Mongols, they could just be the majority which is again arguably wrong!). If there was nothing wrong with this label promoting Russian propaganda, you would keep calling them the Mongols of Crimea, instead of moving to “The Tatars of Crimea”.
What is mythical in your flawed reconstruction is the assimilation of Crimean Tatars to Mongols because of their putative historical origins and by conflating cultural aspects (the turkic language which doesn’t even guarantee intercommunicability between Crimean Tatars and Mongols or other Turkic people) with biological aspects (based on the obsolete distinction between Mongoloid and Caucasoid, and notice that phenotypical traits relevant for racial classifications do not necessarily prove anything conclusive about a single genotype, go figure for a mixed genotype, https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/phenotype-variability-penetrance-and-expressivity-573/).
I remind you also of the fact that you claimed [i]“Tatars and other Turkic peoples originally came from the same area as the Mongols and are genetically closely related to them.”[/I] which is contradicted by what you just cited [i]“about 80% of the Volga Tatars belong today to Caucasoids and 20% to Mongoloids (Khalikov 1978)”[/I] exactly for the reason that if 80% of the Volga Tatar genetic pool is Caucausoids then more closely related to Caucasoids then to Mongols and THEREFORE they should be called Caucasoid, and not Mongoloid!!!
That is also why I refuse to use the generic term “Tatars” to refer to Crimean Tatars, because that terminology will more easily trigger all your misconceptions.
By calling Crimean Tatars “Crimean Turks” Erdogan may be promoting his own propaganda as much as the Russians are promoting theirs by calling the Crimean Tatars “The Mongols of Crimea”, that’s hardly surprising: Putin is even denying the Ukrainian national identity and despite Russians consider them their “brothers” (https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/02/16/we-are-one-people-why-would-we-fight-our-brothers-russians-react-to-ukraine-war-threat-a76414), they are now bombing them, looting them, and raping them to pursue their imperialist ambitions which are arguably more immoral than ancient Mongol-Tatar (non-Slavic) tribes killing, looting and raping ancient Slavic tribes!
Quoting Apollodorus
You are disastrously reiterating your conceptual confusion: you are conflating biological factors (genetic evidences) with cultural classifications/identities (e.g. what language is natively spoken)! One can be 80% Caucasoid and still speak a Turkic/Tatar language natively!
Quoting Apollodorus
First of all, this is my quote [i]“I cited this ICCRIMEA article to support the claim that Crimean Tatars are NOT MONGOLS AS YOU CLAIM!!!”[/I]
Second, my Crimean Tatar witness supports my claim that Tatars are "indigenous to Crimea" [i]“The above DNA test results reaffirm what we have known from history that Crimean Tatars are descendants of the various peoples who settled and lived in Crimea for centuries. The Crimean Tatars, indigenous people of Crimea, did not just come from the East, as many are inclined to think. Rather, they are the descendants of the people who moved to Crimea from different directions: Scythians, Goths, Byzantines, Genovese, and Turkic groups such as Khazars, Kipchaks, Tatars and Ottoman Turks.”[/I] Source: https://iccrimea.org/reports/genographic-results.html
Third, even assumed that the ICCRIMEA article is NATO propaganda, for sure there is no contradiction between NATO propaganda and mainstream sources, concerning the fact that Crimean Tatars are indigenous people of Crimea. Indeed I cited from other sources too: Wikipedia articles, books and anthropological papers dedicated to the Crimean Tatars, scientific papers on the genetics of the Crimean Tatars [1]. All of them support the claim that Crimean Tatars are not the Mongols of Crimea and they are indigenous to Crimea.
Quoting Apollodorus
My question to you is still the same: if the victims of these raids and slavery market where not only the ancestors of Russians but also the ancestors of Ukrainians or from other Eastern European areas, why are ONLY the Russians repaid for the Mongol-Tatars’ past injustice through the annexation of the entire Crimea?!
Quoting Apollodorus
So what?! If the test doesn’t report genes that the laboratory could classify as Eastern European this is neither her fault nor laboratory’s fault. Besides the equations you are suggesting are your personal conjectures since the study maps geographic areas with DNA pools, and doesn’t offer any strong evidence to support whatever you may infer from it in racial terms.
Quoting Apollodorus
These are your personal conjectures (where again you confuse racial with ethnic concepts), besides the reference to other turkic groups is contextual to a comment about Crimean Tatars in general not to her case in particular (she didn’t say ALL Crimean Tatars! LOL).
Quoting Apollodorus
That she did so out of convenience is just your personal conjecture. Besides, I don’t know her personally, but I know your ideological bias enough to understand why you are motivated to frame her article this way.
Concerning the “indigenous” question, which is the substantial one, let’s clarify another source of misunderstanding: the claim that some people are “indigenous” may be LEGITIMATELY understood in relative historical terms, in the sense some people are “indigenous” if they occupy a land prior to the expansion of a foreign colonial power or the formation of nation state by foreign people in that land. In that sense “Crimean Tatars” are indigenous of Crimea wrt Ukrainians and Russians (as the foreign State contenders of this territory), and so they are officially acknowledged with the status of “indigenous people” by Ukrainians, EU and UN. And this is echoed in mainstream sources too.
However, the claim that some people are “indigenous” may be LEGITIMATELY understood in absolute historical terms as the earliest traceable settlers on a given territory. So the Tauri as the earliest Greek settlers in Crimea can be legitimately considered the “indigenous” people of Crimea in absolute historical terms. Does this settle the issue about the indigenous inhabitants of Crimea in absolute historical terms once for all? To me, ABSOLUTELY NO for three reasons (all supported by mainstream sources): a) in ancient times, the colonial or (semi-)nomadic nature of various ethnic groups and tribes’ settlements didn’t ensure any wide and permanent territorial occupation and control. For example, the Tauri didn’t populate the entire Crimea, but mainly the southern coastal areas of Crimea. The northern part of Crimea was exposed to different waves ethnic semi-nomadic tribes (Iranic, Germanic and Turkic). So none of those ethnic groups had stable, complete or dominant territorial occupation over the entire Crimea. In that sense even nomadic people who settled in Crimea AFTER the Tauri could be considered the earliest inhabitants of Crimea, and so indigenous in absolute historical terms, simply because they were occupying regions of Crimea never inhabited nor dominated by the Tauri! b) The assimilation of earliest ethnic groups (including the Tauri) into the Crimean Tatar ethnic group, so the blood of the ancient Tauri (and other earliest inhabitants) is still running into Crimean Tatars’ veins and being their descendants they share the “indigenous” status in Crimea in absolute historical terms. c) from an ethno-genetic perspective, since the Tatarization of the entire Crimea was possible starting from the 15th century under the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire, the earliest dominant ethnic group native to Crimea in the entire Crimea were the Crimean Tatars ("The Crimean Tatar language was the universal means of communication in the Crimea from the 15th to the 19th centuries" Source:https://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/crimean_jews.shtml). And the fact that the officially acknowledged indigenous people of Crimea are so far only Crimean Tatars, Crimean Karaites, and Krymchaks suggests that there are no Tauri descendants that could claim or could be acknowledged the status of “indigenous” for a distinctive Tauri ethnic-group. So until you can provide evidence for the existence of an ethnic-group with mainly ancient Tauri ancestors distinct from other indigenous people of Crimea, I don’t even see the relevance of talking about them.
Finally, as I already repeatedly argued in the previous posts,
IF your theory of the rightful owners establishes for whatever reason that the Tauris as the unique earliest inhabitants of Crimea or generically “the Greeks” (as Greek is the Tauris’ original ethnicity) are the rightful owners of (part of or the entire?) Crimea,
THEREFORE you should oppose the imperialist annexation or russification of Crimea by Russians
AND promote instead the annexation/concession of (part of or the entire?) Crimea to the Crimean Tauri descendants as distinct indigenous ethnic community (if they still exist) or the Greeks
AS WELL AS the annexation/concession of (part of or the entire?) the Russian Krasnodar Krai since in the same ancient times the Tauris also colonised as first known settlers some coastal areas of the actual Krasnodar Krai (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasnodar_Krai#History)!
So, now you have 2 ways to oppose Russian imperialism and promote the magnificent Indo-European Caucaisoid Greek Tauri civilisation ([i]“in his Histories, Herodotus describes the Tauri as living “by plundering and war”[/I] Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tauri )! Good luck with that!
There is really nothing you can do to recover all the bullshits your have shamelessly thrown at me. You are intellectually miserable. I would even respect more professional Russian trolls than you, coz at least they are paid for it.
[1]
[i]The fact that Crimean Tatars' ethnogenesis took place in Crimea and consisted of several stages lasting over 2500 years is proved by genetic research showing that in the gene pool of the Crimean Tatars preserved both the initial component for more than 2.5 thousand years, and later in the northern steppe regions of the Crimea.[/I] (Source: https://us.edu.vn/en/Crimean_Tatar_people-0262024006)
[I]“[b]The Crimean Tatars were formed as a people in Crimea and are descendants of various peoples who lived in Crimea in different historical eras. The main ethnic groups that inhabited the Crimea at various times and took part in the formation of the Crimean Tatar people are Tauri, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Greeks, Goths, Bulgars, Khazars, Pechenegs, Italians and Circassians. The consolidation of this diverse ethnic conglomerate into a single Crimean Tatar people took place over the course of centuries. The connecting elements in this process were the commonality of the territory, the Turkic language and Islamic religion.
An important role in the formation of the Crimean Tatar people belongs to the Western Kipchaks, known in historiography as Cumans. [/b]They became the consolidating ethnic group, which included all other peoples who inhabited the Crimea since ancient times. Kipchaks from the 11th-12th century began to settle the Volga, Azov and Black Sea steppes (which from then until the 18th century were called the Desht-i Kipchak – "Cumanian steppe"). Starting in the second half of the 11th century, they began actively moving to the Crimea. A significant number of the Cumans hid in the mountains of Crimea, fleeing after the defeat of the combined Cumanian-Russian troops by the Mongols and the subsequent defeat of the Cumanian proto-state formations in the Northern Black Sea region.
By the end of the 15th century, the main prerequisites that led to the formation of an independent Crimean Tatar ethnic group were created: the political dominance of the Crimean Khanate was established in Crimea, the Turkic languages (Cuman-Kipchak on the territory of the khanate) became dominant, and Islam acquired the status of a state religion throughout the Peninsula. By a preponderance Cumanian population of the Crimea acquired the name "Tatars", the Islamic religion and Turkic language, and the process of consolidating the multi-ethnic conglomerate of the Peninsula began, which has led to the emergence of the Crimean Tatar people.[19] Over several centuries, on the basis of Cuman language with a noticeable Oghuz influence, the Crimean Tatar language has developed.”[/i]
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatars#Origin
This sort of debate has also swirled around the issue of the ethnic identity of one of Europe's most misunderstood Muslim ethnic groups, the Crimean Tatars. While the Crimean Tatars (who were exiled in toto from their homeland from 1944±1989 by Stalin) see themselves as the indigenous people (korennoi narod) of their cherished peninsular homeland, with origins traceable to the pre-Mongol period, they have long been portrayed in western and Soviet sources as thirteenth-century ``Mongol invaders’’.
Source: Williams, Brian Glyn. 2001. "The Ethnogenesis of the Crimean Tatars. An Historical Reinterpretation"
[i]While the Crimean Tatars are traditionally described as descendents of the Golden Horde, the formation of this Turkic-speaking, Sunni Muslim people has pre-Mongol origins in the ancient, indigenous peoples of the Crimean peninsula. They believe their history begins with the tribes living
in Crimea in prehistoric and ancient times, including the Tavriis and Kimmerites, who occupied the peninsula from 2-1,000 B.C.E. (Kudusov 1995: 15). The Crimean Tatars therefore consider themselves one of the indigenous peoples, along with the Karaims and Krymchaks [/i]
Source: The Crimean Tatars’ Deportation and Return - GRETA LYNN UEHLING (2004)
Under the Imperial Russians, the Crimean Tatars, whose ethnic origins went back to the eleventh century Kipchaks and beyond to earlier south Crimean peoples, such as the Medieval Goths, Greeks and Italians, would begin to disintegrate as hundreds of thousands of the Tsarina’s new Muslim subjects fled Russian repression to the sheltering lands of the Ottoman sultans/caliphs. The majority of the Crimea’s Muslim Tatar peasants would ultimately leave the peninsula to par- take in hijra (migration to preserve Islam from oppression by the non- believer) to the Ottoman Empire.
Source: BRIAN GLYN WILLIAMS “The Crimean Tatars” (2016)
2. “The Westasian and Mediterranean genetic components (population of Asia Minor and Balkans) predominate in the gene pool of Crimea Tatars, the Eurasian steppe component is much fewer.” Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311805917_The_Tatars_of_Eurasia_peculiarity_of_Crimean_Volga_and_Siberian_Tatar_gene_pools
[i]3. The Eurasian genetic influence concerns particularly a subgroup of Crimean Tatars:
“It is the most likely that discovered features of Steppe Crimean Tatars gene pool reflect the genetic contribution of medieval Eurasian Steppe nomads. The component predominant in Mountain and Coastal Crimean Tatars gene pools and in Crimean Greeks suggests that genetic contribution of East Mediterranean populations continued in Crimea for many centuries.”[/i]
Source: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/the-gene-pool-of-indigenous-crimean-populations-mediterranean-meets-eurasian-steppe/pdf
I wasn't talking about the changes to your argument regarding Chechnya, I was talking about the changes to your argument regarding Afghanistan. You cited absolute figures for Afghanistan because they looked big, then when you want to make smaller figures look bigger your revert to proportional figures. It's just a really transparent trick. Hence my reference to totals.
If you want to use figures to make the claim that Russia cares less about civilian deaths than America, then you need to compare the actual number of civilian deaths each country has knowingly caused, in total, by it's various actions. Anything less is just lying with statistics.
Quoting unenlightened
Then you might want to take the matter up with @ssu who made the claim...
But the numbers from Afghanistan, Syria and the two Chechen wars simply show that Russia doesn't care so much about civilian casualties. — ssu
...but still, I think it's relevant here. If one of your choices when fighting a bear is to let a lion in to the arena it's relevant to know whether the lion's going to do more damage to your bear than it it is you.
And how did you suppose it was going to do that? By catching me out in a cunningly worded question? Are you one of the people who think "What's in your bag, sir?" actually catches terrorists?
Of course I would be in favour of a diplomatic solution to the blockade, but I would say that even if I weren't because it's so obviously the only reasonable sounding thing to say, so I fail to see how you've 'tested' anything that you didn't already know.
Yeah, what are those warmongering Ruskies like eh? Such a thing would never happen in civilised countries...
You seem to be getting increasingly confused and irrational. :smile:
You posted that propaganda piece on Tatar DNA to “prove” that Crimea belongs to Tatars and that Tatars are Ukrainians hence Crimea belongs to Ukraine.
But you haven’t answered my question of why (a) she leaves out the Tauri and the Greeks, and (b) why she has zero Eastern European DNA.
You probably imagine that we haven’t noticed, but her post was republished by Euromaidan Press, an anti-Russian outfit, back in 2015 to “prove that Putin is wrong about Crimea”! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
In other words, your "evidence" is not from some reputable scientific publication, of course not, but from evidence-free, anti-Russian propaganda literature.
Not only you have no evidence for your spurious claims, but it was YOU who brought up the Crimean Tatars!
My original argument was (1) that “every country and continent should belong to its rightful owners” and (2) that if NATO wants to give Crimea to Ukraine after it’s been annexed by Russia, it should start by returning Tibet to the Tibetans, North Cyprus to the Cypriots, Kurdistan to the Kurds, etc.
You seem to have got mad at the suggestion that Tibet belongs to the Tibetans and started hurling invectives. And you’ve been incoherently ranting ever since.
It should be obvious that Crimea doesn’t need to be given to the Tatars the same way Tibet should be returned to Tibetans (1) because Tatars are an alien minority in Crimea whereas Tibetans are native to Tibet and (2) because Crimea has been Russian (not Tatar) since 1783; for the same reason, Crimea should not be given to Ukraine.
However, as I’ve repeatedly stated, the principle that every country and continent should belong to its rightful owners needs to be applied on the merits of each individual case.
In Crimea’s case, I never said that it MUST belong to Russia. On the contrary, given that when Russia took Crimea from the Turks, Russia and Ukraine were one country, Crimea in an ideal situation should be amicably shared by Russia and Ukraine (with some additional rights given to Crimean Greeks and others).
In fact, Crimea was initially shared after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Russia was able to use the naval bases there. But this was rendered impossible when America insisted on drawing Ukraine deeper and deeper into its NATO spiderweb.
Very simple and easy to understand IMO. Unfortunately, the ignorant and the uneducated are unable to understand, and NATO jihadis don’t want to understand. This is why they irrationally insist that Crimea belongs to Ukraine, Ukraine belongs to NATO, and NATO belongs to America!
As for my referring to Crimean Tatars as “Mongols of Crimea” it’s the same as the Turkish government calling them “Crimean Turks”. It simply refers to their generally accepted Turkic/Mongol ethnicity:
See also:
I even demonstrated to you what a REAL Crimean Tatar looks like. I think even the blind can see the resemblance with Mongols:
WIKITONGUES: Neceadin speaking Crimean Tatar - Youtube
So, I’d highly recommend you go and educate yourself before discussing things of which you have no knowledge or understanding.
The fact is that the Crimean Tatars EMIGRATED. They weren’t “expelled”. Millions of people from England, France, Germany, and other European countries including Russia emigrated to America. It doesn’t mean they were “expelled” or “persecuted”.
Moreover, the vast majority of Crimean Tatars emigrated to Turkey between 1783 and 1897 because they were a Turkic group. Clearly, they saw themselves as non-Europeans and preferred to live among their Turkish kinsmen than among Europeans. The Turkish government refers to them as “Crimean Turks” and “our kinsmen”.
Given that Tatars were a Turkic group that originated in Northern or Eastern Asia (Siberia), the original Tatars had Northern/Eastern Asian DNA.
As they migrated to Central Asia and then Europe, they mixed with the local, non-Asian populations and acquired non-Asian DNA.
If Tatars had been the “majority” in Crimea prior to its takeover by Russia in 1783, Crimean Tatars would have more than 50% Tatar DNA. But your own “witness” has majority-European not Tatar DNA and this is confirmed by Volga Tatars who are more European than Tatar.
This is entirely natural, as Tatars were a MINORITY that subjugated the local population and imposed its language on the locals. Even you have admitted that Tatars “became the majority by assimilating local populations”. Assimilation of other populations means Tatars assimilating non-Tatar DNA, resulting in Tatars with significant and even overwhelming non-Tatar DNA, e.g., your “witness” or “evidence”!
Three things become obvious from this:
1. Tatars proper were never a majority in Crimea.
2. People currently called “Tatars”, including Crimean Tatars, are in reality mostly European with some Tatar admixture.
3. Not all Crimeans who spoke or speak Tatar (a Turkic language) are Tatars proper. For example, many Tatar-speakers are in fact Greeks, also known as Urums (from Arabic-Turkish Rum, Roman).
This means that Crimean Tatars must be carefully distinguished by their ethnicity:
Tatars proper (with majority North/East Asian DNA).
Ethnically mixed Tatars (with a mixture of Tatar and non-Tatar DNA).
Tatarophone non-Tatars (with non-Tatar DNA but speaking Tatar), e,g., Crimean Greeks.
It follows that when applying the principle that “every country and continent should belong to its rightful owners”, a wide range of factors such as genetics, geography, history, language, and culture must be taken into consideration, and a decision must be taken on the merits of each individual case.
Tatars proper (“Crimean Mongols” or “Crimean Turks”) cannot be regarded as “rightful owners” because they came to the area as invaders.
Moreover, they are currently a small minority and therefore not an issue. It is made an issue by anti-Russian Westerners and CIA-NATO trolls.
In any case, Crimea has never belonged to Ukraine. It was taken by Russia (i.e., local Eastern Europeans) from the Turks (who were invaders from Central Asia) and it has been Russian ever since. So, nope, it doesn't "belong to Ukraine" and even less to America! :grin:
Does that mean you support Mario Draghi's efforts?
You're doing no more than expose your abject ignorance. But do carry on, by all means .... :lol:
There may be a difference.
However, my point was that (a) even local combatants in those countries don't care much about civilian casualties and (b) the same applies to Western powers that instigate civil wars or uprisings for their own ends, resulting in civilian casualties.
Plus, you're making the same mistake as @Olivier. Focusing exclusively on the number of dead civilians prevents you from seeing the wider ramifications of a conflict and its causes.
As I said, it is true that Russia started the military conflict. But it is equally true that NATO could have avoided the conflict if it had taken into consideration Russia's legitimate security interests.
After all, there must be a reason why Russia invaded Crimea and the Donbas region, and not Finland or America, for example.
Ports and oil, I'd imagine, using Deep Throat's principle, 'follow the money'.
Talk of ethnicity, democracy, denazification, de-islamification, or removal of oppression, always seem to become important near oilfields.
:100:
Funny how selectively applied such an aphorism is.
I meant by pundits, not perpetrators.
But then you want to try and make a partisan point of it. :sad:
I'm not sure what partisan point you thought I was making, but you've misunderstood. The complaint is against idiots regurgitating media talking points and pretending they're arriving at them via some use of intellectual analysis.
Following the money is, more often than not, applied only post hoc after deciding who the target of blame should be.
And who is the target of your blame for this reprehensible post hoc deciding?
In general or specifically? The former are self-defined (those that do it), just as my target for criticism of racism are racists, no further categorisation is justified.
Specifically, we have an example right after your post, giving full approval (100%, apparently) to your assessment, yet in previous assessments dismissing the importance of the billions that arms manufacturers and financial institutions stand to gain from a prolonged war as potential causes.
The unavoidable consequence of following the money is that the putative blame lies with any and all of those who both stand to gain and have the means to bring that gain about.
Here, on this thread, we have ample evidence of people enthusiastic about following the money to Russian actors, but vehemently opposed to any suggestion that a similar process could lay an equal amount of suspicion on American arms dealers, European financial institutions, and Western industries in general who stand to gain billions from a prolonged war which results in a ruined Russia.
Quoting unenlightened
It's really unproductive, serves to diminish the force of the argument I was making, and looks like the finger-pointing attitude it is pointing its finger at. I would like to make a discussion of war that does not mimic its topic, and this does not help me.
Unfortunate then that you're on a public forum whose membership is not limited to those who already agree with you.
So let me repeat, again:
Civilian casualties during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (9+ years): 562 000 - 2 000 000 killed
Civilian casualties during the American invasion of Afghanistan (19+ years): 176 000 - 212 000 killed
I think this is quite clear. Same country. Are you genuinely implying that you don't see any difference in the civilian death toll?
This naturally doesn't meant that the latter estimate would be low, it's very high. And we know that the war was a failure, from the start. And there's a lot to criticize the American war in Afghanistan, perhaps starting from the military intervention itself. Yet perhaps you would had to have a larger than life US President who would have had the ability to contain the whole 9/11 attack as a police operation, not make it a military operation and have the FBI seek and find the cabal of Al Qaeda members, just like the US had done with the earlier terrorists that had tried to blow up the WTC years earlier.
Difference, yes. Significance to the discussion about whether Russia uniquely doesn't care about civilian casualties, no.
What you've failed to show is any kind of general trend, nor any link between direct military casualties, specifically, and an increased disregard for civilian lives above those destroyed by any other method (such as starvation or pecuniary loan terms).
All you've shown it that in one war nearly half a century ago, a completely different regime which happened to be in the same country as the one currently under consideration, showed a monstrous disregard for civilian casualties resulting from its military territorial practices.
What you've failed to show is that such disregard continued (in scale, it clearly continued in practice), nor that it was uniquely callous compared to other methods of mass slaughter such as withholding food and medicine.
Not at all. We can disagree about things without casting moral aspersions at each other or exchanging insults. It is irritating that you use my comments to do that, and unnecessary and unproductive. But I will struggle on. You castigate @RogueAI for agreeing with my post, that you claim also to agree with, and have generally wasted a page of comments creating a disagreement out of nothing at all.
Ah, I see. Such as...
Quoting unenlightened
Quoting unenlightened
Yes. I am not immune from the general atmosphere, and not proud of it, and that is why I withdraw from discussion sometimes. And yet again you are making a conflict where there is no reason to. I'm going to go quiet now, because our conversation is not productive.
[I]You[/i] accused me of being unnecessarily insulting and unproductive. Not the other way round. In any decent company, it is such an accusation that counts as the cause of the conflict, not the attempt to respond to it. But you do you.
The ports of Crimea were Russian from 1783 up to Ukrainian independence in 1991 after which they became "Ukrainian" but on the understanding that Russia would be allowed to use them as bases for its Black Sea Fleet.
All this changed with NATO insisting on its "right of infinite expansion" and on making Ukraine, Crimea, and most of the Black Sea "NATO (i.e., US) territory".
Of course the most successful large Soviet military operation is actually something we don't call a war, and that is the occupation of Czechoslovakia. The overwhelming use of force and simply pushing quickly the tank columns into the streets of Prague worked: the Czech army didn't try even to defend. This method was again tried in the First Chechen war...with devastating consequences. The armoured columns driving into Grozny were destroyed as the Chechens were willing to fight.
Hence when the first rapid takeover didn't work, Russia went to slow methodical firepower fight and simply clearing the city block by block, basically going back to the warfighting tactics from Stalingrad and Berlin. And this worked. So basically it's no wonder that Russians approach cities and urban areas and just use artillery extensively.
Quoting Isaac
It would be interesting if you could tell us just who where oppose the idea that " American arms dealers, European financial institutions, and Western industries in general who stand to gain billions from a prolonged war which results in a ruined Russia." Someone might add that it's especially Ukraine that is baring the brunt of the war as the war is fought in Ukraine, not in Russia, and naturally Western financial institutions are anticipating to gain profits from rebuilding Ukraine, not Russia. Perhaps for you this is that "vehement opposition".
And where the big bucks will be made is in the rearmament of the NATO countries, starting with Germany. The fact is that already produced weapons are given to Ukraine, and then these weapons have to be replaced in the countries that have given them. With newer weapons likely.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to make some money.
And all at Alice's expense,
They thought it very funny.
So Alice found her dress all torn
Her body bruised and broken
While Tweedledum cried "Liberty"
From Dee, "Freedom" was spoken.
Seems to be a theme of yours. The comment was...
Quoting ssu
...and it was in response to a comment about America's apparent lack of concern for civilian casualties. Your inability to just say "Yes, that's about right" has again led us down a pointless trail of Wikipedia summaries unrelated to the actual issue. I've no doubt Russia does use a lot of artillery, I've neither the expertise, nor the interest to check. That has nothing whatsoever to do with the discussion that started this whole subsection which was the point made by @Olivier5 that Russians could not believe they were doing something righteous because if they did "they wouldn't bomb civilians so much". A counter argument to @Apollodorus suggesting they could have because American's certainly did and yet caused no fewer civilian casualties.
Your technical point about Russian use of artillery seems almost entirely unrelated. I can see perhaps that their choice to use artillery shows a pretty callous disregard for civilian casualties in military offensives, but America's use of pecuniary loan terms attached to cuts in social spending shows a pretty callous disregard for civilian lives also, just via a different method.
Quoting ssu
I didn't say anyone opposed that idea. What I said was that people opposed...
Quoting Isaac
...that much is abundantly evident since not one single post in the entire 260 page thread that lays any blame on the US and Europe has been allowed to stand uncontested.
IMHO, the whole point of philosophy is to look beyond appearances by questioning the “officially correct” narrative.
Though the Ukraine conflict is being sold by politicians and the media as a war between Russia and Ukraine, most serious analysts see it as a proxy-war between America and Russia.
Therefore, to get to the bottom of it, we need to look at both sides of the story.
As an illustration, suppose citizen X is involved in a gunfight with citizen Y. Prima facie, X appears to have fired the first shot. This may give the impression that X caused the shooting and tempt us to conclude that he is the “culprit”. But experience tells us that first impressions are not a valid criterion by which to judge a case, as they can be refuted by later evidence or arguments.
A proper judgement can only be made when all the facts of the incident have been established and duly considered.
Things that need to be looked into include:
1. What was done.
2. When it was done.
3. By whom it was done.
4. With what intention.
5. For what motive.
If possible, we also need to look at the history of each party involved.
In contrast, if we decide in advance (a) that Russia is “evil” and (b) that America is not the world’s largest economic, financial, and military empire but some philanthropic organization dishing out free cash and food to the world’s poor and selflessly protecting them from aggressors, then no proper judgement can be arrived at, and no genuine discussion can take place.
This thread could have, and I believe should have, been an interesting discussion. The OP sounds balanced enough to ensure that. Unfortunately, the thread got hijacked by people who were biased against Russia from even before the conflict. Notably among these are people like @ssu and @Christoffer who appear to be from a small country or village on Russia’s border and who may or may not have a legitimate reason to be “afraid of Russia”. What is not legitimate is to allow their fear (or phobia?) to color their analysis of the situation in Ukraine.
This leads to preposterous claims that I am “pro-Russia” or “pro-Putin” when in fact I am pro-Western, but I believe that it is in the West’s best interest for America, Europe, and Russia to be allies, not enemies. Unfortunately, this is impossible when America has made it its life mission to “keep the Germans down and Russia out”.
Also, as I’ve repeatedly pointed out, there are no Russians on this thread. So, with one or two exceptions, the whole thing tends to become an echo chamber for angry Westerners to vent their frustration over Russia daring to challenge America’s New World Order.
IMO this can’t possibly make good philosophy or even good politics. It might be alright for a bit of fun or for people who’ve got nothing else to do to kill time, but it seems pretty pointless otherwise …. :smile:
Doesn't seem to be a sign of a booming economy.
Demanding trade in rubles (oil, gas, whatever) might push the ruble up some?
What can Russian companies import? (Chinese toys?)
Filtration and forced deportation: Mariupol survivors on the lasting terrors of Russia’s assault (May 26, 2022)
Anyway, it's a land-grab alright, an attempted conquest, like an up-scaled "finders keepers". (As if Russia wasn't large enough already, must be hard to protect against the barbarians at the door.)
The diplomats (when not just for display) may have to wait until Putin's generals/strategists have worked out what they think is feasible, maybe after they've tried a few more things.
Ruinage, looting, killing, displacement, ...
Doubtful that Putin's Russia will pay up, but I'm not going to quit holding it to them either.
Military tactics on the use of artillery equivalent to cuts in social spending?
Right...
That you don't see anything wrong in the actions that Putin has done, like starting a war with Ukraine, and see the fault in the US simply shows how Pro-Putin you are.
Fuck Sweden
I think what you guys fail to see is that even if aspects of what Russia is doing are wrong (and I never said they weren't!), America still bears a lot of responsibility for Russia's actions.
The fact is that with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in 1991, NATO should have disbanded. But, instead, it decided to expand, shifting its defense line eastward and seeking to draw Ukraine and other former Soviet republics into its orbit.
Indeed, when Ukraine became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, it had no reason to feel threatened by Russia.
On the contrary, on 8 December 1991, Ukraine joined Russia and Belarus to establish the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to replace the Soviet Union.
These three countries had been the core of the Kievan Rus and later of the Russian Empire and were very close to each other historically, culturally, and linguistically. The logical step to take would have been for them to remain on friendly terms and this was recognized by all three when they formed CIS.
It was NATO leaders who on 6 July 1990 (even before Ukraine became independent) proposed cooperation with all countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
On 20 December 1991, NATO created the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) in which it invited Ukraine and the other CIS countries (former Soviet republics) to participate.
On 22 February 1992, Ukraine announced its intention to pursue a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP).
On 8 February 1994, Ukraine joined NATO's Partnership for Peace program (PfP) that the US government described as a "track that will lead to NATO membership".
On 29 May 1997, Ukraine became a member of NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) that replaced the North Atlantic Cooperation Council.
On 24 June 2010 the Ukrainian government approved an action plan to implement an annual national program of cooperation with NATO that included training of Ukrainian troops in the structures of NATO members and joint tactical and strategic exercises with NATO.
On 8 June 2017, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law making integration with NATO "a foreign policy priority”.
On 14 September 2020, Zelensky approved Ukraine's new National Security Strategy, "which provides for the development of the distinctive partnership with NATO with the aim of membership in NATO".
IMO what the facts indicate is that the expansion process was initiated by NATO, not by Ukraine.
It is often claimed that countries like Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic wanted to join NATO because they were "scared to death" of Russia. But NATO aimed to incorporate not only smaller Warsaw Pact countries but also Russia itself.
If NATO is a "defensive organization", against whom exactly did Russia need to be “defended” by NATO??? :smile:
Clearly, there was an expansionist agenda on NATO’s part! Russia was initially interested – which, incidentally, demonstrates that it had no hostile intentions – but eventually declined when it realized that joining NATO meant submitting to US domination.
On October 22, 1993, Russian President Yeltsin and US Secretary of State Warren Christopher held a meeting in Moscow.
According to minutes of the meeting,
Secretary Christopher's meeting with President Yeltsin, 10/22/93, Moscow - National Security Archive
There is absolutely no evidence that Russia at the time had any hostile or expansionist intentions toward the West. It simply wanted to be treated as an equal partner.
Though not put into a formal treaty, it is obvious from official US documents that the understanding was that Russia would not be "ignored or excluded from full participation in the future security of Europe" but integrated in a "Partnership for Peace" which would put Russia and other newly independent former Soviet republics ("NIS") on an equal footing with NATO.
Unfortunately, as in other areas of international relations, “partnership with America” really means submission to American domination which, of course, is unacceptable to Russia.
It follows that the root of the problem is not Russia but NATO expansionism and disregard for Russia’s legitimate security concerns. Russia did not invade Finland or America. It invaded Ukraine because Ukrainian membership of NATO would have put Crimea, the Donbas region, and the Black Sea (which Russia needs for its naval bases and for access to the Mediterranean) under NATO, i.e., US control.
In addition, I’m not at all convinced that thousands of dead civilians, millions of refugees, scores of flattened cities and villages, and destroyed infrastructure, are a price worth paying for a scrap of land that Ukraine could, and should, have peacefully shared with Russia. I think even Ukrainians are beginning to have second thoughts on it.
Ukraine war: 'This is just the beginning, everything is still to come' - BBC News
Except this is all bullshit.
Especially when the siloviks, Putin at the forefront, and not the "Westernizers" took power in Russia. You would had to have some other people in power to fulfill your fairy-tale dream of Russia becoming an ally of the West, Apollodorus. And why? Just ask yourself:
How about Crimea? The desire for Russia to annex Crimea was there all along. The aspirations to join Russia started immediately when Ukraine got it's independence. How many times have we heard here (or in the public) that Nikita Khrushchev had no right to give Crimea to Ukraine and that this meant nothing as all were in the Soviet Union?
Or how about the case of Moldova? There you have the perfect example of the strategy that Russia has implemented all along and in many places: Russian backed proxies starting an insurrection with Russia openly encouraging the Transnistrians to to obtain their independence, then having Russian soldiers (stationed in the republic) becoming "peacekeepers", but de facto backing the proxies and turning the situation into a frozen conflict. Happened in Georgia and was exceptionally successful towards Ukraine in 2014, but not afterwards.
And the list could be continued. It is simply ludicrous to argue that without a NATO, Russia wouldn't have attempted to regain dominance over their "near abroad", the former Soviet Republics. It would have. And it simply would have been more easy for Russia to do. Of course there wouldn't be this pretence of it being a response to NATO aggression, but there would be always many justifications.
The simple facts are:
[b]With or without NATO there would be all those minorities of Russians living in former Soviet Republics (just like Serbs living in other states of Yugoslavia).
With or without NATO Russia wouldn't have change it's views about itself as a Great Power and a peer to the US.[/b]
Hence those imperialist ambitions towards the near abroad would be there with or without NATO. The fall of the Soviet Union was thus is so bizarre, because the coup attempt put Russia directly opposed to the Soviet Union. But that was a passing moment, the great tragedy for leaders like Putin: now you can see that Russia thinks it embodies everything of the Soviet Union, and rarely people think that the other former Republics would have an equal share to the heritage or the spoils of the Union.
So without a NATO, hence likely the Baltics couldn't have wiggled their way out of the Russian "sphere of influence" and wouldn't never have joined the EU and wouldn't be the success story they are.
And we would be thanking our Finlandization now and thinking how stupid West Europeans had been about Russia when they disbanded NATO. And likely we would have an alternative defence organization that Russia would see as an imminent threat to itself.
It is more history than philosophy which leads some of us there. Tell me more about this moral distinction, that is so clear to you and so imaginary to others. One compares levels of dishonest propaganda, deaths of civilians, abandonment of principles of justice such as torture imprisonment without trial, assassination attempts, etc, etc, and it appears to some of us that the moral high ground is unoccupied by any government. But if you berate folk for even making the comparison and insist that the difference is obvious at the same time, then you cannot expect to convince any sceptic of the righteousness of one cause over another.
I am not saying that democracies are always right or that they occupy any moral high ground by virtue of being democracies. Some of them are also dysfunctional. They don't actually function as democracies, only formally so.
I am saying though, that there is no moral equivalence between 1) a ruthless militaristic dictatorship and 2) the democracy attacked by 1. That Russia is in the wrong here, and that condemning war crimes doesn't imply any russophobia whatsoever on my side, contrary to what Apo was implying, but common decency instead.
You are saying it, but do not seem to be prepared to back it up or consider comparisons made by others. And it is odd considering that the ruthless militaristic dictatorship and the attacked democracy in this case were, within my lifetime at least, one and the same nation. How is it that all the saints of the USSR lived in the West and all the sinners in the East?
I am prepared to back it up, if challenged. As for comparisons, those are rarely about Ukraine. They are usually about how equally destructive the US has been. But two wrongs don't make a right.
Quoting unenlightened
That is a rather slanted question. I am not trying to essentialise this conflict. There are I suppose historical and geographical reasons why the various republics who emerged from the breakdown of the USSR had diverging political evolutions. Are you denying that Russia is presently a ruthless dictatorship, and/or that Ukraine is a democracy? If not, what are you saying?
Unfortunately your incredulity doesn't constitute an argument.
Wherein lies the persistent, willful, misrepresentation of all such arguments since no one talking about the US has been doing so by way of 'judgement' of who's 'right'. It's about strategy, and accepting that Ukraine's defence doesn't happen in a vacuum, their choice involves assessing the relative merits of Russian influence vs American/European influence. The influence of neither not being an option.
Who's 'right' and who's 'wrong' is for the puerile moralisers here to agonise over which flag to waive. Anyone with a post-adolescent grasp of politics is discussing the actual outcomes and their impact on Ukraine (and the wider world).
:up:
Can't wait till "good" Swedish weapons explode some Kurdish or Armenian families into bloody little pieces in the hands of Turks because the Swedes were too pussy to stand up to American plans for global supremacy.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the OP doesn’t seem to disallow “pro-Russian” or “anti-NATO” arguments. So, saying that an argument is “pro-Russian/anti-NATO” isn’t really a valid objection.
Moreover, all I’m arguing is that the conflict involves two parties and that a balanced analysis/discussion requires taking into consideration both sides.
Unfortunately, we’ve got people on here who believe that only the Ukrainian/NATO side should be considered as to do otherwise would be “unprincipled” ()!
Such people are clearly IN DENIAL as they deny the truth of Ukrainian/NATO actions that may have prompted Russia to invade Ukraine.
While in some cases (Type 1, e.g., @Olivier5) this denial may be a conscious decision on grounds of spurious and unexamined “ethical principles”, in other cases (Type 2, e.g., @ssu) it fits the definition of denial as “an unconscious defense mechanism characterized by refusal to acknowledge painful realities, thoughts, or feelings” and seems to be rooted in psychological issues.
In addition to denial, there also seems to be a case of mental confusion (both in Type 1 and Type 2), as such individuals seem to be unable to distinguish between (a) Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine and (b) Russia’s alleged “crimes” against Ukrainian civilians after the invasion.
The facts of the matter are as follows:
1. On June 22, 1994 Russia at NATO’s invitation signed the Partnership for Peace Framework Document (PfP) that according to Clinton was "the track to NATO membership".
So, there can be no doubt that America planned to incorporate Russia into its NATO Empire. But if the purpose of NATO was to “defend its members”, against whom did NATO think it needed to “defend” its prospective member Russia??? Clearly, there was no such need, and this exposes NATO's expansionist agenda!
The truth is that Russia was in a dire economic situation and there were hopes of Western financial and technological assistance that would have come with membership in NATO and other US-EU projects. Yeltsin was an alcoholic who didn't always know what he was doing. And Clinton who as everyone knows is a highly opportunistic character, took full advantage of the situation (as did the Russian kleptocrats, oligarchs, mafia, and their Western accomplices).
2. Russia gave up on cooperation with NATO when it correctly realized that such cooperation meant submission to US domination.
3. Even if “the desire for Russia to annex Crimea was there all along”, it doesn’t mean that this desire was not legitimate, given that Crimea had been Russian since 1783!
But it isn’t my job to educate the ignorant and the uneducated. Folks that are in denial and tend not only to ignore facts but to deny them when they’re pointed out to them, can’t be helped anyway.
If you guys think that what you’re doing is “philosophy”, do carry on, by all means. All I can say is that after nearly 8K posts, this thread is getting far too repetitive and pointless, and beginning to look like some social club for the retired and the unemployed. Boring for the most part, hilarious at times, but at the end of the day, there’re much better things to do in life …. :grin:
Of course.
It's the notion that one can hate and despise someone and consider them their enemy, but still expect this party to be nice and harmless that is absurd.
Apparently, the moral lines are absolutely clear between what Russia are doing and what Amnesty describe (of Turkey) as ...
We must immediately enable the latter to fight the former, all because the likes of the commentators here can't handle anything with a moral complexity greater than that of Star Wars.
I am denying that there is a vast moral difference between them on the grounds that I do not see a vast moral difference between governments in general. Power has no morality, but only competence, expediency, and habit. Thus I expect and see evidence of the same corruption, manipulation by oligarchs, and so on whether I am looking at the US, UK, Ukraine, or Russia. Which countries indulge in military adventures abroad at any particular moment is nothing to do with the moral fibre of the country, and everything to do with economic advantage and the possibility of profit, financial or power-wise.
Of course geography and history have a role as well, but I do not see nations foregoing any horror on purely moral grounds, but only on the grounds that they won't be able to get away with it. I am open to persuasion that say, Ukraine preferred to cede some territory rather than enter a long struggle with separatists, or that any supporters of Ukraine have done something noble and disadvantageous. Do you have an example at all?
To what extent is this judgement based on your own personal experience with different modes or types of governments? Because this strikes me as something a person would say from the safe comfort of a First World armchair.
My personal experience of living under governments is entirely First world, and only 2 European countries at that. What is your personal experience that gives you the advantage?
Correct. There are obvious biases, proclivities and lenses through which we look at this war. It is tempting, because if it often true, to say that a poster here is "pro-West/Anti-Russia" or "Pro Russia/ Anti-NATO". And all varieties of such combinations.
Nevertheless, once we reach a point in which such accusations are made, I see little by way of argument that could persuade a person on any side.
There's been much discussion here, and I've only skimmed a good portion of it, but my feeling is that @Isaac is correct in the following: that we are responsible for what our governments do and can act on that to some extent.
Unless we are Russian (and even then it's hard, given the current regime in Russia) we can't do much about it. And merely saying how horrible Russia is, over and over, is convenient moralizing.
I draw exceptions with people living next to Russia, but besides that, its just much easier to condemn Russia, than what's happening in say, Yemen, which is almost entirely the fault of the US. But, people wave flags, for good and ill.
I thought that was Iran's and Saudi Arabia's fault?
Who supplies the arms to Saudi Arabia? You think SA would dare due this if they US didn't allow it?
Iran is blown way out of proportion due to Israeli interests.
Nevertheless, don't want to derail the main topic here. It's easier to condemn an enemy than admit the faults of one's own state.
This very much applies to the Russia war in Ukraine.
I don't know whom you are talking about. Who are all these guys, and where are they discussing the impact on Ukraine, or the rest of the world?
Here we have the real apologist in action.
Giving this legitimacy to the actions of Russia, after it had recognized the independence of Ukraine on 2nd of December 1991 and afterwards when it had specifically recognized the borders of Ukraine in the Budapest memorandum shows deliberately you being a Putin troll. It seems you mentally block out what it means to recognize the independence of another state.
So according to our troll, Crimea is a different matter. Because it had been Russian since 1783!
And you're desperately clinging on to your strawman arguments. I've said that Russia sees NATO and NATO enlargement as a threat. We have seen Russia's response now when Sweden and Finland have made the application. Where I simply disagree is that without NATO, Russia would be this peaceful country that would have left it's neighbors like Ukraine alone, with their large Russian speaking minorities. That simply wouldn't have happened and didn't happen under the former KGB-men now in charge of Russia. And you have been quite active in making their case.
If someone like Boris Nemtsov and his supporters would have been the leaders of Russia, that peaceful coexistence could have happened, even if the Chechens surely would have been smashed (as being inside the borders of Russia proper). But that's a lot of historical what if -thinking.
Excellent! Perhaps you can share your experience a little. what countries are top of the moral pops? My feeling is that I would prefer a wealthy country to a poor one, a stable one to an unstable one, a well organised one to a badly organised one, a peaceful one to a violent, and so on. and I feel I know in a general way how to start estimating these things. Do you think of the morality of a country in these terms or in some other way?
Likely in this case because of Sunni fears. Saudi Arabia has a history of entangling itself into the affairs of Yemen. Earlier the threat was Egypt and Nasserism threatening Saudi Arabia's "interests" in Yemen. Now Egypt has been replaced by Iran, but otherwise it's quite like the North Yemen Civil War in the 1960's.
It's all we've ever been discussing. I can't be responsible for the fact that you're too stupid to understand the conversation.
I would add a number of unalienable rights to the list, such as the right of thinking and saying more or less what you want to, the right to private property, protection against arbitrary violence and so forth.
How?
I'm sure @unenlightened will follow whatever line of argument he sees fit, but by way of not losing an important point I think was raised... unenlightened did not reference 'democracy'.
The point (as I understood it) was about governments. Actual governments. People living in some tyrannical dictatorship may well want 'democracy', but that's not the same as saying they'd want the American government, or the UK government. Nor is it the same as saying they'd want those governments for the world at large.
Unless you're arguing 'might makes right', then simply pointing to a government individuals tend to prefer is insufficient ground to make a moral argument.
The point unenlightened was making, which I thought a pertinent one, was that there's insufficient gap between actual governments to justify the sort of extreme moral caricatures being drawn here. That's not the same as saying democracy is no better than tyranny, it's saying that actual existent democratic governments are insufficiently better than actual tyrannical governments to justify a certain level of moral side-taking.
Quoting unenlightened
Show me one single post of yours discussing the possible consequences of this war on Ukraine.
By pressuring our governments, voting our politicians in or out, engaging in demonstrations that could push or stop legislation, sending letters to our representatives all of which are an essential part of democracy.
As we are not citizens of Russia, we do not have this option - and also they get arrested if they do protest.
Yes, it has a very long, ugly history, curiously supporting the more radical elements of Islam, which often coincide (not always) with Western economic and military interests.
Nevertheless, that's a topic deserving of its own thread.
On the contrary, it’s YOU who’s blocking out the fact that a state can de-recognize something it previously recognized if circumstances change!!! :rofl:
In December 1991 Ukraine was a friendly state and co-member with Russia of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). This began to change after 1994 when Ukraine decided to get closer and closer to NATO, and America and its NATO Empire tried to bring Russia under their domination, with the result that US-Russia relations soured.
As for the “Budapest Memorandum” of 1994, you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s a well-known fact that that memorandum was only a formality that without a sanctions mechanism provided no real guarantees to Ukraine.
When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Ukraine waved the agreement but to no avail. Theoretically, you could argue that Russia violated the agreement by annexing Crimea, but then so did America and other signatories by refusing to take any action.
Plus, the memorandum was just an American trick to get Ukraine to get rid of its nukes that America claimed were directed at it. So, basically, you’re doing nothing except expose yourself as a clueless NATO Nazi!
Anyway, now that Turkey’s Sublime Sultan Erdogan has vowed to personally assist Finland to join NATO as fast as possible, you’ve got nothing to fear. I’m sure you’ll be in by Friday after prayers. Whether it’s gonna be this Friday, or this year, or this century, is hard to tell. But that’s another story …. :rofl:
Quoting Manuel
Well, yes. It tends to be folks that allow themselves to be guided by emotions (@Olivier5), propaganda (@ssu), or political ideology (@Christoffer), instead of reason. In any case, when they start saying that it is “unprincipled” to consider all the facts, you know that this is getting toxic .... :grin:
I for one think that it makes more sense to see (1) territorial claims, (2) Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and (3) alleged Russian “war crimes” as separate issues.
Real war crimes are established through evidence-based legal process, not through Ukrainian propaganda or allegations made by Western media outfits and NATO activists.
Besides, not being on the ground in Ukraine, we can’t know for sure what’s happening and bombing residential buildings isn’t necessarily proof of intent to harm civilians.
Obviously, Russia’s actual goal is to hit Ukraine’s military facilities and troops. But my guess is that the Russians are simply using the weapons they’ve got, i.e., old-fashioned multiple rocket launchers that fire unguided rockets. Even when they’re using guided missiles, if the military target is close to civilian areas, collateral damage can’t always be avoided.
In any case, until such “crimes” have been officially established, it is pointless to even start speculating about them.
The central issue for now remains the legitimacy of claims made by both sides in relation to territorial and security concerns.
From what I see, no one has demonstrated that placing the ethnic-Russian Donbas region, Crimea, and the Black Sea under NATO, i.e., under US control, should be of no concern to Russia!
And, as I said before, much of what’s posted on this thread isn’t philosophical statements but the politically-motivated (and/or Covid-19-affected?) outbursts of angry, middle-aged Western males trying to vent their frustration over Russia’s challenge to America’s neo-colonialist New (or not-so-new) World Order.
And you’re absolutely right about Western duplicity and hypocrisy. NATO member Turkey has repeatedly invaded Kurdish territories in Syria and has proudly announced that it will do so again:
Erdogan: Turkey's Syria operation could happen 'suddenly' - The Independent
Thousands of Kurdish civilians killed, millions displaced or deported, thousands of villages destroyed. Is America or NATO giving drones, howitzers, and missile launchers to the Kurds to defend their national sovereignty and territorial integrity???
Of course not. On the contrary, NATO claims that Turkey has “legitimate security concerns” in the region and seems to think that it can murder as many innocent Kurdish men, women, and children, as it pleases! Not to mention the massacres and other atrocities committed against Kurds (and others) in Turkey itself. And what do our "moralists" here have to say? "NATO doesn't get involved in the internal affairs of its members"!
I don't think it's even possible to have a modern day war, without committing war crimes. It comes with the territory.
I do agree that the evidence needs to examined by independent legal scholars, looking at the facts - as far isolated from ideology as possible. But to get rid of ideology entirely I don't think is possible.
It's part of being human, to have biases. It need not be bad.
But sure, hypocrisy from the West, no doubt at all about that.
This is working from an emaciated set of morals. That all depends upon how we treat others, including our enemies(those whom we despise and hate), doesn't it?
Peaceful co-existence need only require that one sovereign nation respect another. The same is true of individual people. One can consider another an enemy on certain terms and in certain non violent, non harmful ways. These terms and ways do not cause harm. Nor do they seek any unnecessary unprovoked offensive violence towards this enemy. Seeing another as an enemy is in itself insufficient ground for the enemy to cause retaliatory harm. So, no it is not the least absurd to be able to expect to see another as an enemy(in nice and harmless ways), and completely expect the enemy to be and remain nice and harmless.
One can peacefully co-exist with one's enemy if both should so choose.
One can see another as the enemy of self-governance.
Here is the overlap Un and Isaac have been skirting around. There are some in all governments, I would suspect, who are such. Whether or not they are knowingly and intentionally against self-governance for the sake of being so(authoritarians), or whether they act in ways contradictory and harmful to such governments(too many to capture here), I would consider these people enemies of self-governance.
The hallmarks(actual results) of good self-governance are shown in the actual lives and livelihoods of the overwhelming majority. Good government produces quality lives.
'Empire', 'domination'...
Rhetorical drivel.
Key words:Ukraine decided...
Ukraine liked what NATO and the west had to offer it as a sovereign country. Russia did not. Some in the Ukrainian territory were/are unhappy about it. Others(it seems the overwhelming majority) were/are fine with it.
In what naive world do you imagine that the enormous political might of America and Europe simply stood back and said to Ukraine "it's your choice, we'll not try to influence you in any way"?
It's funny in a world where we wouldn't even trust a used car salesman to give an honest pitch, people seem to have tremendous trouble with the idea that the world's most powerful nations might not be fully honest and on the level in their dealings with other countries.
The West runs something little short of a protection racket and people still want to believe they're running a 1950s sweet shop.
So Hitler and Stalin were in the right, and the Red Cross are fools. Good to know.
Quoting Manuel
We do have the option of protesting against the Russian government. And we can do it on behalf of all decent Russians.
Of course war is a crime. But who started this war? Your honey bunny Putin did.
Must be sad to be so insecure.
Pre-edit.
Lol.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-05-29/germany-to-change-constitution-to-enable-110-billion-defense-fund
"BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany has agreed to change its constitution to allow for a credit-based special defense fund of 100 billion euros ($107.35 billion) proposed after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the German finance ministry announced on Sunday. Germany's centre-right opposition and ruling coalition with centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) said they reached the required two-thirds majority to exempt the defense fund from a constitutional debt brake."
It's always good fun when Germany is armed to the teeth. That has always gone well.
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/empire-solves-ukraines-nazi-problem?s=w
A classic example of why you are not a trustworthy human being and have the sense of humor of a child. Thank Cthulhu you're no longer a mod.
I shouldn't have to spell this out, X.
:rofl: :vomit:
Those are not mutually exclusive notions; influence and choice. Of course the west wanted Ukraine to join forces. There was something in it for the west as well as Ukraine, otherwise the west would not have been interested, nor would Ukraine.
Just because the US policy has a sorted history of hidden agendas and not so honest means, it does not follow that every US decision or policy has a hidden agenda and dishonest means.
I do not agree.
At the person... fail!
I am a Noam Chomsky 'fan'. For whatever that's worth around here.
Nothing, apparently.
It is amazing that the US can literally lie, fuck-up, and cause untold destruction in literally every war and foreign policy intervention it has ever been involved in since the beginning of time, and people will still be like "it's different this time I swear bro".
Well, I'm not even going to attempt to defend most of our foreign policy decisions during my lifetime. Ukraine begged for help. Russia clearly seems the aggressor. Yes, the US does not have a stellar history of supporting duly elected leaders unless those leaders are the ones who are 'friendly' to the US and it's financial interests. So...
The claim of 'standing up for democracy' rings hollow.
It's not history, it's happening right now, and will continue to happen. Russia is the aggressor. The US just did everything in its power to ensure this would be the case.
Spell this out in a bit more detail...
So, we just give them the benefit of the doubt, every time? What is it about their behaviour that makes you think they deserve the benefit of the doubt?
If someone has a long history of racism and they discriminate against a black person in a job interview, do you assume the discrimination was racially motivated, or do you assume it was, just this once, a fair judgement?
We're not in a court of law here. The US aren't about to be executed if we find them guilty of unfair influence, presumption of innocence does nothing here but continually excuse their actions.
A pragmatic political approach assumes each actor will act roughly according to their recent past behaviour, why would we not?
Ukraine chose to build financial and diplomatic relations with the west, against the wishes of Russia and it's leaders.
Sure, there are agendas held by the west. There are benefits for the west. There were benefits for Ukraine as well. Call US diplomatic relations and NATO a protection racket if you like, though I think that's a bit too strong a language choice given that the US was the one paying the most for it.
All I am saying is that not all mutual benefit and agendas are nefarious.
There are 264 pages of discussion about this for you to read about this topic. In lieu of that, here is one single discussion among millions of others:
https://mate.substack.com/p/by-using-ukraine-to-fight-russia?s=r
Worth noting, that, contrary to the story-tale that Ukraine 'chose' to deal with the West, the West couped Ukraine exactly at the time at which it choose to stop dealing with the West, as outlined in the article.
---
A basic rule of thumb for assessing world politics: assume the worst about US intervention overseas, and the truth will be roughly twice as murderous and disgusting as that.
Street was a mod once?
I hear he's considered very smart around here, which says a lot about this place.
And yet you started this discussion about a "Ukraine crisis" - events in which the main participants are Russia and Ukraine (in that order, since Russia initiated the crisis and, being the more powerful actor, commands more initiative and holds more responsibility). If your position is that people should only discuss the goings-on in their home countries, then why did you open this discussion in the first place? If you only want to talk about how bad the US is (a perfectly legitimate topic) then why do this under the pretense of discussing something else?
IFF you are Russian, then you would have good moral grounds to criticize the Russia government, but unfortunately you are not allowed to do so. And IFF you are not Russian, then criticizing the Russia government is morally fraudulent, although legally permissible.
So when it is moral to criticize the Russian government, it is illegal; and when it's legal, then it's immoral.
Nice catch 22, isn't it?
As @Streetlight has already mentioned, this is simply not true.
We obviously have a fuzzy definition of sorts - technically one 'chooses' to follow the demands of the person with a gun to your head, but we don't normally call that a choice.
Ukraine were about to make a choice one way, the US (and parts of Europe) intervened in a very substantive manner to reverse that decision. That level of interference is not what we'd normally call a free choice.
Quoting creativesoul
Perhaps not, but it remains the case that most are, it therefore remains the case that a least biased default would be to assume this one was (in the absence of evidence to the contrary), and it remains the case that there's little to no such evidence to the contrary.
As such, the most rational position would be that this decision was not made as a free choice.
In summary - the US usually interfere to limit the choices of nations who might oppose them, they had ample opportunity to do so here, there's no evidence to show they didn't. So why would we assume they didn't?
* Italians have a cosy term for this - campanilismo (campanilism)
No one's position is that we should only discuss the goings-on in our home countries.
The position being espoused is that we should primarily concern ourselves with the actions of those actors over which we have some influence (our own governments and their allies). Those actions may well (as here) take place in a foreign country.
But then I suspect you knew that already, which just shows the paucity of your argument against the actual position that you had to devise such an obvious straw man to knock down.
I appreciate the rooted nature of all cultures but to me, the most interesting place is between cultures, and what happens there, on the margins of one's culture, in that no man land.
A lot of posters here seem deeply parochial to me; anglo-saxon to be precise; unaware that the world is a big and complicated place; and quite sneering about anything that comes from beyond the confine of their little world.
I like you tho. :love:
Well, at least your rhetorical tactics have risen above the level of a high school debating class. This one I like. Set up your objection as categorical (@Manuel categorically should not have started an OP about Ukraine if he only wanted to talk about the actions of the US), then change your objection to a qualitative one (the complaints are too parochial), and hope no one notices during the switch that you've avoided making any argument for how to measure what is too parochial.
Brilliant. You don't disappoint. So now your argument that "Russia is evil, Ukraine are good, and America are just benevolent bystanders" is the worldly and complex one!
Well. That's cheered up my lunchtime.
Institutions mold people. I write as a veteran.
The 'complexity' argument on the side of people who are like "everything is exactly as the US news media portrays it and anyone who says different is a Putin sympathiser" is wild.
Hatred would be a better word here. The Ukrainians and Russians used to be brothers; now they will positively hate one other for generations.
Yep. A minute ago considering the US's role in this was overly complicating a simple issue, now doing so is excessively simplistic and parochial. What a shame we missed it when it was just right!
Agree. I don't think a lot of people realize how rotten the Russian military is as an institution. There's been frequent reports of serious hazing problems with junior enlisted, and that kind of thing gives rise to a culture of rule-breaking and nihilism where regulations no longer matter. Everyone wants to be an officer in Russia so the enlisted, the ones who frequently carry out mission execution, get neglected. One of the nice things about the US military is how they pay special attention to their enlisted. I just don't get the sense that the Russian enlisted trust their officer corp to have their best interest in mind.
Yes, seen that. It's often an ultra violent environment, apparently. So no wonder they kill people for fun, if that how they themselves are treated by their superiors.
We can't say that the Russian people aren't the problem either. The support for Putin (celebrated as a great leader like Stalin) and his war is pretty high in Russia and I doubt this is only due to the regime propaganda (propaganda seems so effective because Russians may be predisposed to it due to historical anti-Western feelings ingrained in their culture). Western people are a problem too: in the West there is great polarization toward this war, there are many pro-Russian or anti-NATO/WEST/EU/(NEO)CAPITALIST/GLOBALISATION whatever you want to call them.
Cool. Is anyone else playing cliché bingo, @Streetlight? I've just got a full line with "the silent majority agree with me...".
I'm waiting for "This is what we fought the Nazis for...", then I've got a full house.
imo hazing reinforces the notion that rules don't matter and that might makes right; if you're in a position of power and you want to mess with your subordinates then go for it, there will be no punishment as the war institution condones it. it also reinforces the notion that one's superiors are in no way people to be relied on.
i get what you're saying just keep in mind that under dictatorships the prudent need to stay quiet for their own safety.
Oh no my mistake, that is the literally the majority of the entire planet, although presumably they are 'minorities' because they are not quite white enough to count as actual people or something.
All those billions of Putinistas if only they were more enlightened by the grace of Western Reason.
I haven't said nor insinuated that one cannot speak about Russia's actions, of course one speaks about Russia's actions, that's part of the thread.
Ukraine would literally not be a topic of discussion here if NATO weren't a massive factor, as I posted in the OP.
People should talk about whatever they think is interesting and important.
That's a different issue from saying that by condemning Russia, we are being morally correct or righteous. That Russia is engaging in war crimes is a truism.
That I think my governments (US and Spain) are doing much to improve the situation, I don't think is the case.
Quoting Olivier5
You can do it and you get arrested. Those protesting in Russia are very brave and deserve moral praise.
Quoting Olivier5
I am impressed by your reading comprehension skills, given how creative you can be extrapolating words I never said.
I enjoy speaking to someone like @SophistiCat, even if we may disagree. You simply distort meanings to a remarkable degree.
Indeed.
I think it's obvious that either the Saudi's are either supporting the Sunni extremists (Al Qaeda) or at least not opposing them. In the Middle East you have strange bedfellows.
Yep. Empire and domination is "rhetorical drivel" when talking about America but "gospel truth" when talking about Russia. Well done, you can congratulate yourself on your impeccable objectivity! :lol:
Meantime, the facts on the ground show that it's NATO that is constantly expanding (from 12 countries in 1949 to currently 30!), not Russia ....
Enlargement of NATO - Wikipedia
Quoting Manuel
Above all, war comes with dead civilians, flattened cities and villages, and destroyed infrastructure. America showed how it's done in Japan, Germany, and Iraq, especially Fallujah.
I agree that ideology can't always be kept out of discussions, but when it is deliberately used as a substitute for fact-based objective analysis, then it tends to suppress rather than encourage fruitful discussion.
From what I see, people like @ssu are trying to take advantage of the fact that most people, especially Americans, have no knowledge of European geography, history, or politics, in order to peddle their NATO Nazi propaganda and disinformation.
The fact is that even before the Russian Empire, Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine were simply different regions within the Land of the Russians, (Rusiskae Zemle) or short, Rus. In other words, Russia and Ukraine entered history as one people and one country.
The idea of Ukraine as a separate country was introduced by foreign powers – the Mongol Horde, Lithuania, Poland, Austria, Turkey - that occupied parts of Ukraine and encouraged separatism.
After the 1917 revolution, Ukraine came under German control, while England and France had their own plans to divide Russia into zones of influence:
As admitted by Churchill, the Franco-British Agreement stated:
W. Churchill, The World Crisis: The Aftermath, p. 166
This divide-and-rule policy was resumed by America in the 90’s, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The 1994 "Budapest Memorandum" mentioned by @ssu as part of his straw man argument is a prime example of this policy that was obviously intended to disarm Ukraine and incorporate it into America's expanding NATO Empire.
While it may be argued that Ukraine decided to join America's NATO Empire of its own accord, we still need to take into consideration (1) financial and economic incentives that may have acted as motivating factors, (2) Ukraine's domination by an oligarchic (i.e., criminal and hence illegitimate) class, and (3) America's own intention and motives that may have conflicted with Ukraine's best interests.
We mustn't forget that Zelensky came to power only because he promised to get rid of the oligarchs. Ukraine prior to 2019 and even prior to 2022 was as much dominated by oligarchs and kleptocrats as Russia.
So, it is incorrect to say that Ukraine's increasing closeness to the West has amounted to unmitigated "progress". In fact, it was the West that facilitated the rise of the oligarchs and kleptocrats in Russia and Ukraine in the first place, by providing financial aid and by facilitating the transfer and investment of the stolen money in Western banks, businesses, and assets.
I think the inclusion of places like Australia and Canada in that map is misleading as they are very large territories with very small populations. They make the Natoist camp look much bigger than it actually is.
Essentially, it's just America and its European (EU-NATO) client-states .... :grin:
Own what you say. Don't run away like this.
From this article (given above), just to make a comment for others.
Aaron Mate goes through what is usually now known about the Maidan revolution and what role the US did without much if anything new to give. He does acknowledge Putin is at fault, but this isn't what the article is about. Somehow he quotes some analysts (Darden and Way) who say that Yanukovich was still the most popular political figure in the country. This is highly dubious claim, because why then wouldn't the Donetsk and Luhansk republics taken their guy (Yanukovich's political base had been in the Donbas) as their leader? A democratically elected President surely would have given them credibility. Or then the reason is that you couldn't call any Ukrainian politician being popular. But that's a small issue. The real bias is in the following.
Aaron Mate sums up in this article the events in this way:
End of story.
What Aaron Mate fails to mention, even if he does mention that Yanukovich was democratically elected, are both the October 2014 parliamentary elections, where the far right that had such a major role in the rioting during the revolution lost it's seats in the administration, and also the presidential elections that were held in May that year too. Indeed without these elections I would talk about a coup too and Ukraine would be obviously quite undemocratic, as portrayed in the article. To leave the elections following the revolution totally out of the article shows the bias of this piece, which is telling, even if otherwise it tells the story how we know it today. And how we know it today is the focus on the US actions, not on what Russia did. That Ukrainians have shown their anger also in the election booth and demanded change in elections should be noted, but isn't. And of course there have been many administrations and elections since then and that now there is in charge in Ukraine a totally new political party that wasn't even around in 2014 doesn't matter at all. Nope, once you get the nazi card, you have the nazi card and people will use it at anything how ever long they want.
But of course, the reason why these articles that have the anti-US bias don't give any credit to Ukrainians themselves or have nothing to do with Ukraine or the Ukrainians is obvious. Ukrainians are not what they are interested in. It's all just about how bad the US is and nothing else. US is bad and everything evolves around the US and hence the US is at fault in everything. The blatant self-centeredness is quite numbing.
And how could this be put more clearly than here with one of our active members:
Quoting Streetlight
That's all we need to know, I guess.
Literally no one is saying this, and the only people keen to force a choice between waving one flag or the other - as if this were a soccer match - are people who cannot stand to see their "team" being spoken badly of.
You know you can make your personality more than just about coming to the defense of your favorite genocidal state. It's OK to do that.
Ah, yes. That'll be why Amnesty International wrote in 2017
...and why Human Rights Watch warned about...
...and the Atlantic Council warned in 2018...
...all because there's absolutely no far-right problem in Ukraine, it all just went away and Ukrainians voted and campaigned with free abandon.
I'm sure the "uncontrolled violence" by the anti-Russian far right groups had absolutely no influence at all. Maybe they all just stayed home.
Kudos for those continuing to try after 265 pages.
This is a return of a well-worn classic, the old "It's just a coincidence that everything is going exactly as America wants it to"
"America did interfere with the democratic parliament of a foreign country, but it's OK, everything was going to go that way anyway! What luck!"
Same pattern as...
"The exact same arms dealers who both control the media narrative and government policy are making a fortune from the continued war they're promoting, but that's OK, it just happens to be the best policy anyway! What luck!"
"America wants nothing more than to drive Russia into the ground, remove Chinese alliances and regain control of Eastern oil supplies, but it didn't provoke the one situation which would bring this about, it all just happened anyway. What luck!"
America really should put it's next spending round on the roulette wheels, with the luck it's having lately it's bound to win a fortune.
Quoting Streetlight
It's you who are waving the "US is bad" flag. You simply don't perhaps notice it.
And for you it's enough that someone says that Russia's actions are deplorable. What your response is "but US does deplorable things too". And nobody has denied that.
Quoting Streetlight
This was literally a response to someone saying that "not every US decision or policy has a hidden agenda and dishonest means".
But your kindergarten reading ability has been remarked upon before, and it would be unnecessary to bring it up again.
The US government has a terrible history. Terrible. You acknowledge this.
You also acknowledge that the US, just by being the worlds largest economy (and most powerful militarily), has real influence over nearly all major events around the globe.
It’s also true that Putin’s invasion was and is immoral and stupid, and that the deaths of civilians is beyond words.
So why the characterization as “US bad”? The US isn’t bad— the choices powerful people have made (and continue to make) within the government of the United States is “bad.”
I’m still not seeing where the major disagreement lies. A matter of emphasis?
No one says "China has a bad history" or "Russia has a bad history". They simply say - correctly - "China fucking sucks" and "Russia fucking sucks". Guess what? America, currently, presently fucking sucks.
It's happened twice now in the space of the last two pages. "History" is not a storage space for America's bad shit, to be sequestered and lopped off as an academic's concern.
I own things I say and have retracted if relevant information arises, as I did at the start of this invasion.
But I will not retract things I did not say.
And yes, I think one has to asses who merits continued engagement, and who does not. My reading of your comments suggest that you extrapolate what you want to hear, so you attack something somebody did not say.
I think it doesn't make sense to discuss imaginary statements.
If you call that running away or cowardly, fine. I don't care.
Yes.
Quoting Xtrix
Ask yourself. How much in the thread are following issues being debated:
- According to (UNHCR) over 6 million Ukrainians have fled Ukraine, 90% of them women and children.
- Over 200 000 Russians have fled Russia after the war started with the largest group to Georgia.
- Over 3 500 civilians have been killed.
- Ukrainian authorities are already investigating more than 11,000 potential Russian war crimes since the invasion began.
And how much is it about:
- Ukraine's Nazis.
- The US made Putin to invade Ukraine because NATO enlargement.
- The war is the fault of the US is because it's actions.
- If the actions of Russia in a thread about the Ukraine war are mentioned, it means that those who write such things somehow are in favour of the actions of the US... and they should write about the bad things the US is doing. So let's talk here about something else.
Of course the latter topics should be discussed. But that they would be everything that we discuss on a thread about the Ukrainian war is ummm...
Compared to the Maoist China of the Great Leap / Culture Revolution or the Russia of Stalin's Soviet Union, both countries have improved a lot! Even in the current configuration.
Killing less of your own people is an improvement.
This is a discussion forum, not a newspaper. Unless there's some interesting issue or disagreement about any of that list, I can't for the life of me think why they'd make an appearance.
But for your benefit...
According to (UNHCR) over 6 million Ukrainians have fled Ukraine, 90% of them women and children.
Now what? We all congratulate ourselves for correctly identifying that this is a 'bad' thing?
Have you considered just like, not apologizing for bad things? Or do you just have like some kind of externally-directed Catholic guilt about the world?
Or is saying that the far right lost in the 2014 elections in Ukraine "an apology"? It isn't.
Well,
How long are those millions of people be away from Ukraine? What will be the effect of millions of Ukrainian children now growing up in a different country? How much will it change Eastern Europe? What are the effects for Ukraine as such a huge percentage is now refugees?
Or more to your liking: is it racism that East Europeans have taken up with open arms the refugees coming from Ukraine, but the migration several years before (and still taking place now in the Mediterranean) wasn't.
That could be a discussion.
So just your typical ad hominem bullshit.
Of course.
Yeah like all the ad homs where you literally could not read and then ran away with your tail behind your legs when it's been pointed out to you. You are worth exactly the minimum effort and not a finger more.
How the hell should I know? I'm sure there are people out there with far more expertise on the progress and impacts of mass migration than any of us here have. What's the point in us just guessing? Have you come across The Internet? It's got loads of stuff on it.
Quoting ssu
Ah, you mean like here
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/667030
And here
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/673863
And here
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/670630
And here
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/663647
And here
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/696548
And here
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/670619
Quoting frank
As I said, more to your liking. And the topic isn't how bad the US is, so at least it's something different.
Quoting neomac
______________________________________________________
Quoting Olivier5
You will hear no argument from me to contradict that an equitable society that promotes the common good is both a pleasant place to live and at least in these respects a moral society, though that is sounding a bit socialist. Do you broadly agree with the observations of others quoted above, that there is an intimate entanglement of people and institutions such that they mould the people that create them and are remoulded by the people they create?
Yet in the end, the principle upheld at the Nuremberg trials was that moral responsibility is always on individuals, those who made immoral laws, gave immoral orders, and each of those who obeyed them. there is no collective responsibility, no institutional responsibility, no national responsibility, and thus no morality of nation or government other than the morality of those individuals.
Okay. And you acknowledge its current influence on world affairs.
Putting these things together, there’s every reason to assume the US has a hand in this conflict — even if we know next to nothing about the particular event. So we’re in agreement.
You go on to ask why this is discussed over other issues — which is what I meant by “matter of emphasis.” I think it gets discussed at length because when it’s pointed out it gets misrepresented as a defense of Putin— or simply denied, when it should be taken for granted. (Just as condemning this invasion should be taken for granted — I see no one excusing Putin’s crimes either.)
Personally, as a US citizen I often bring matters back to my government’s involvement for the simple reason that I feel I can do the most to change it (and admittedly little at that). They supposedly represent me, after all. But that doesn’t mean I’m ignoring Russian responsibility.
We all agree we want this to end, yes? So discussing every part of the issue is important. One part is the United States. Happens to be a major part. Still missing where the gulf lies.
"Russia has exported MORE oil since the war began (of course for much more money) than in the year before it. And case study in hypocrisy, the United States, while pressing the world to put sanctions on Russian oil, in March 2022, almost doubled how much it imported from Russia to 4.2 million barrels a month. Note the explosion of Asian export vectors. So much for sanctions. As for the EU’s comic announcement today that they will embargo Russian oil, except not for 8 months, and excluding oil delivered by pipeline (lucky old Hungarians and Germans). And of course any seaborne cargo with only 49% Russian oil is permitted, the other 51% may be itself 49% Russian molecules, shake and repeat until you have a seaborne cargo supplied by a cunning Greek shipping magnate and a sly Zurich commodities broker, which is deemed non-Russian but in fact has possibly 99% Russian molecules." -via a comrade.
Not even the West believes in the bullshit the West is peddling. Which leaves only forum flag-wavers to actually buy into it, who in turn get mad when critics of the West simply agree with the West that it is up to it's neck in bullshit and blood. What even is the level of patheticness it takes to run interference for people who don't believe in the very things they get the people to run interference for them over?
More distraction and diversion from the NATO Troll in chief. :grin:
IMO "how bad the US is" is very much the topic, given that according to Russia it invaded Ukraine to keep NATO out which, as everyone knows, is an instrument of US imperialism.
American imperialism - Wikipedia
Plus, it is America that is bankrolling and driving the West's jihad on Russia.
Not only are you a self-identified defender of American imperialism and Natoism, but you've failed to explain why you're trying to hijack the thread if you're not a pro-NATO propagandist and activist.
And what exactly makes you think that the world must see this conflict through the eyes of Finland???
I think Biden is doing what he can. He needs to avoid escalation.
Dombass is collapsing as we speak, and retaking it will be very difficult according to military analists. I don't think it will affect the 'west' as much as it might affect the Ukrainian forces' resolve. We shall see.
I believe so, yes. So I agree with you: we are all responsible for what we do, including the Russians.
Quoting Isaac
And yet, when offered by @ssu an opportunity to discuss just that, you were not interested:
Quoting Isaac
Your pants are on fire.
This is the passage I summarized by stating that: to criticize the Russian government is either illegal (if you live in Russia) or immoral (if you live outside of Russia).
To what extent have I distorted your position? By replacing "convenient moralizing" by "immoral". Okay so allow me to rephrase:
According to you, to criticize the Russian government is either illegal (if one lives in Russia) or convenient moralizing (if one lives outside Russia).
His wavering on the MLRS rocket launchers is telling. The weapon system is very effective, especially the M30/31 projectile with 70km range can avoid counter battery fire. No need to give then the ATACMS version with 300 km range, but to tell that you don't give weapon systems that can reach Russia when the Ukrainian forces are still in many places on the border with Russia is a bit strange. And Ukraine can reach (and has fired on) targets deep in Russia as it has tactical artillery missiles like the Tochka with 120 kilometer range and perhaps the HRIM missile with 350 kilometer range. Already the Ukrainian anti-ship missile has been used quite successfully.
Still the mainstay in the artillery duels is the old venerable BM-21 Grad with 45 km range, even if Ukraine has Smerch and Uragan systems from the Soviet era. But that now it's the M270 MLRS system that is debated does show how attitudes have changed as Ukraine has been able to fight Russia for so much time.
It is illegal, as a matter of fact, in Russia. It's an empirical affair. Not morally wrong in the least, actually the opposite.
Quoting Olivier5
Correct.
Where you live affects this, in my opinion. If you live in Poland or Finland, I think it's different. If you live in say, France, the US or Australia, then yes, most of what I hear (not all) is convenient moralizing.
I am beyond my expertise level, but let me try an experiment here. Considering the lack of credible arguments proposed lately by our dear friends the "peace lovers", the lack of a "loyal opposition" if you wish, which results in a toxic debate with endless ad hominem, let me argue the pacifist side for a moment. I will try and put forth substantive arguments for a de-escalation. For the sake of the argument.
I might even convince myself once I get into the role. In any case, let us see if we can do a better, more productive debate, perhaps, than what we've been treated with so far.
Considering the risks involved in this situation and the 'fog of war', ie the fact that we probably can't know all the actual risks, it might be a good idea to play it a bit safe.
The risks as we can assess them include 1) escalation into a broader conflict involving, say, Belarus for a start, Finland later, maybe even NATO ultimately; 2) the risk of a future radicalisation of the Ukrainian government into some extreme nationalist regime, following the next election or the one after that; and 3) the potential capture of NATO weapons by the Russians.
Risk #1 is permanent. I wonder if in Biden's mind there is not the potential yet haunting image of a missile made in USA crashing into a Russian apartment complex. Something like that making the morning news could send us all into a spiral of death.
I trust the Ukrainians are better than that but radicalisation being a frequent effect of wars, historically, risk #2 cannot be ruled out.
Regarding risk #3, ie the potential loss of NATO weapons to the Russians, I note that the M777 given to Ukraine were sent without their computers, precisely to avoid the Russians getting acces to the code. That tells something: the trust in the strength of the Ukrainian forces is not total in the Pentagon.
Finally, any weapon system that they would decide to deliver only now will not avoid the loss of Dombas. It's too late. It will take a month before it's delivered, and two months before it becomes operational, minimum.
How did I do?
Yes.
The first one (it being illegal) is just a fact. But not morally wrong at all.
As to the convenient moralizing, yes, with the caveats mentioned.
Indeed. If that article is true regarding the coup to overturn a free and fair election, it is well worth noting. If the free and fair election was not a free and fair election(if it was rigged), then perhaps there's more to the story. Given the known history of recent Russian elections, and given that Russia backed the ousted leader, and given that Russia is known to interfere in the elections of others...
...I remain unconvinced, although I'm currently less confident about the goodwill for goodwill's sake.
Thanks.
Yes. I'm aware of the agreement Bush Sr.(???) made after the fall of the Berlin wall to not expand NATO "one inch farther" to the east. Then, during the Clinton administration(I think???) that promise/agreement was broken. I understand that Russia feels insecure and vulnerable with so many US allies and installments surrounding it. I do understand that that could feel like a threat.
You say this as though it is either an accurate or an appropriate thing to say to me. It's neither. For whatever that's worth around here.
:brow:
Let me see if I can explain this at your level.
We are not experts in military strategy, refugees, foreign relations... Even were one of us to be, we would only be one among many.
As such, speculating via our own pet theories about these matters is pointless. If we disagree, we've absolutely no ground on which to resolve that disagreement, and if we agree we're just building castles in the air.
What we can discuss is our reasons for believing some expert or other. In other words, our political opinions, our narratives. On a thread about Ukraine, these will be (substantially) to do with the effects on Ukraine. That's not the same thing as idlely predicting what the effects will be. It's talking about why we believe someone else's predictions about what the effects will be.
The topic is still the effects on Ukraine.
The mode of discussion is not lay guesswork.
Has that got anywhere? Do I need to render it in pictures?
Fact: you have not talked at all about the effects on Ukraine.
Fact: you are a serial liar.
God. He wants a nuclear Armageddon.
Okay, so I did not misrepresent your position. Thank you.
:snicker: Any ideas why, of all the things possible, he'd want that?
Ares up to mischief, again?
It's not. But when one does so in each and every post of his over 200+ pages, you start to wonder what got into them.
Don't Look Up.
Don't Look Up.[/quote]
We aren't exactly likable, are we?
Nobody likes me, that's for sure.
The right that you want to exercise and you don't see granted in Russia is likely perceived by the ruthless Russian president and his Chinese counterpart - both leaders of authoritarian regimes and challengers of the current World Order - as a sign of Western weakness, one that could bolster their economic and military aggressiveness by exploiting the Western internal divisions and lack of resolve. Therefore, wanting to exercise this right to promote appeasement and concessions to them even when they are violating international rules to oppress, murder and destroy an independent state striving to be part of the West, will likely prove to them and the rest of the world they were on the right track.
:snicker: Same here! Join the club.
And what ground do we absolutely have to resolve narrative or political opinion disagreements?
So?
You don't seem to have finished your argument. Does it matter that they think us weak for using appeasement? If so, what ought we do about that? Make war just so we don't seem weak?
Quoting neomac
None. We persuade.
Never mind that the places like the US routinely shoot their own children in schools, which is no doubt a sign of immense strength.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/biden-closing-new-weapons-package-ukraine-2022-05-31/
Anyway, another $700 million dollars of death dealing because fuck it, may as well cycle the money to arms dealers while the going is good and the grift can be maintained.
I did it on purpose, to have Manuel's feedback on this.
Quoting Isaac
And on what grounds do we persuade?
On the contrary, you will be seen as strong, since the wanton murder of Ukrainians is what their big Russian "brothers" are doing.
Edit: Sorry, by "partake" I mean, not partake at all and let Ukranians do the dying on their behalf.
The way things work here, people do not persuade each other, ever. They don't even try much, because it takes two well disposed debaters, and that is not available.
Instead, a lot of people here try to aggravate others by way of trolling. It's an attempt to destroy or debase the debate, to muddle the water and make everybody confused.
Isaac in particular can't articulate what he wants to talk about but he is absolutely certain that others are dead wrong to talk about what he doesn't want them to talk about.
And he demonstrably lies all the time. Lyin' for Putin... Figure that.
Depends. The reasons we're persuaded of a theory are numerous.
Sometimes it might fit better with other beliefs so I might persuade you by pointing out those conflicts.
Sometimes they might be token beliefs of a social group to which you want to belong, so I might persuade you by raising the likelihood of ostracism if you don't adopt it.
Sometimes it's familiarity and I persuade you by simply repeating the theory often enough for it to seem like the most familiar one.
And any one of a dozen other ways. You might just prefer the name of it....
Hell, sometimes I might just keep calling you a twat until you break under the pressure of my relentless insults.
For now (and if we exclude Westerners are participating also with volunteers fighting and dying there). The stronger Russia remains the more likely they will be able to come back after us one way or the other in the West and outside, and encouraging the anti-Western front in the rest of the World. And Europeans are exposed to these existential threats much more than the US.
Biden seems to have already gotten assurances that US systems aren't going to be used to attack Russia proper from the Ukrainians.
(And seems that now the weapon system is the newer HIMARS that is going to be delivered)
Quoting Olivier5
How actually this will happen is a real question mark. And seems that many don't even think they need to explain just how this would happen.
We've already seen that what some here argue is the main cause of war, NATO expansion, has already happened thanks my country and my neighboring country doing the most provocative thing ever. And what was the response? That it's a non-issue, both with Putin and Lavrov stating this.
Hence the escalation is partly, and I emphasize partly, something of a risk. The obvious non-starter was the demand for an no-fly-zone. That didn't happen and that surely would have been escalatory. The next escalatory issue is basically blockade running or talk of it.
In some form, perhaps under UN charter or something, this could happen, but of course then it's a negotiating tactic for the Russians. They have to get something from it. They have to agree with it, perhaps allowing some humanitarian grain shipment to countries that are in desperate need of supplies. But likely Russians would demand checking the cargo inbound to Ukraine.
Yet the fact is, which ought to be obvious, is that Ukraine's only alternative is to get a settlement, a peace deal or a cease-fire. It simply cannot win in the classic sense Russia. Russia has nuclear weapons, and it hasn't got them. And likely to have a good negotiation stance, Ukraine has to appear as bellicose and as willing to continue the fight, until it accept the peace terms.
Even for the Finnish people during the Winter War, the peace was a huge and total shock, as obviously the propaganda machine had lifted the spirits up even if the military situation was close to collapse and the end of the war. But that isn't a thing you obviously want to publicly state.
Bingo! I've got "No one understands me (but I understand everyone else perfectly)!"
That's a full house.
Not saying it WILL happen. I was talking about the kind of risks that may be on our leaders' mind. An escalation COULD happen, which is probably why Biden is moving carefully. In any case, I'm ready to give him the benefit of doubt here.
This is just neoconservative parochial trash. Your paranoia does not mean you get to excuse and encourage Western bloodshed. The one lesson to be learnt from the mass murder of Ukranians taking place right now is that efforts to 'weaken' perceived enemies are above all the prime causes of mass death on a global scale. It will of course not be learnt. Anyone with a pulse will have learnt this paying attention to even an iota of US foreign policy since the end of the second world war, but warmongering stains like you continue to champion this utter death-generating rubbish over and over again.