The logical statement I take from his interview is that he believes they should sacrifice the autonomy of Eastern European states to get the Russians on board against China. Most of the rest of what he says (in support of that statement) doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Especially taking that one vague, but somewhat catchy "whoever doesn't miss it has no heart, whoever wants it back has no brain" quote as some sort of gold standard honest insight into Putin's mind.
Geopolitics
- Thread starter Mciahel Goodman
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The logical statement I take from his interview is that he believes they should sacrifice the autonomy of Eastern European states to get the Russians on board against China. Most of the rest of what he says (in support of that statement) doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Especially taking that one vague, but somewhat catchy "whoever doesn't miss it has no heart, whoever wants it back has no brain" quote as some sort of gold standard honest insight into Putin's mind.
It may be because at the time they could have been trying to get into NATO and the EU.
Anyway, lots of countries invaded Iraq under the auspices of that UN resolution, does that mean they deserve to be invaded without agreement in the UN today? Why didn't Russia try to obtain this validation of their actions in Ukraine?
First, Where did I ever mention that they deserve to be invaded!!!!! You people need to stop putting words in our mouths that we never said, In fact I said it many times in the other thread, If there is anyone to whole heartedly sympathise with Ukrainian people and and feel the same feeling about the crimes they are witnessing at these times is people like us who suffered from unjust wars.
Second, What UN resolution? 1441?
The war was illegal, wrong, and caused the suffering of millions of Iraqis, hunderd of thousands of dead and millions scattered all over the globe and that is on the hands of US, UK and Ukrainian governments.
At least the war criminal Tony Blair admitted it.
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Is that Tony Blair's fun sister?
I think the ”war criminal” description makes it clear who he means.
https://m.economictimes.com/news/po...crimes-against-peace/articleshow/10843882.cms
Woosh.
So they are not "war criminals"?
Fun fact: Ukraine's prime minister at the time was Viktor Yanukovich, the man the Russians allegedly want to install as president.
That tells you enough about him.
To clarify, I have no particular ill-will against Russia as a nation or its people. The unfortunate truth though, is that they have - to an extent - allowed Putin to tighten his grip on the country, to the extent that we can now see where it looks like a larger and better armed version of North Korea. I do not have any first hand knowledge, and I am aware that there are many Russians who will seek balanced information sources and likely oppose the war. There are also a very significant number who seem to have bought into the Russian imperialist narrative, to the point where I dont believe that simply getting rid of Putin will fix things.
One could argue - justifiably - that the UK and US arent that different in the sense of a divided populace, and I wouldnt dispute it. Nonetheless, the current situation in Ukraine is not an 'out of the blue' incident - Putin has been waging an information war against the West for decades, and the Russian people have largely put up with it (clearly their capacity to resist is hampered by the authoritarianism though). We saw the BLM protests in America where they were simply too much and too widespread for the state to be able to suppress and sweep under the carpet. We have not - to my knowledge - seen such widespread resistance in Russia.
I would like nothing more than for a responsible and yes, civilized Russia, to be welcomed back into the fold, so we can work together. Its one of the great tragedies of modern society that rather than working together for the advancement of the entire species, so much money and power is spent on creating divisions, and individual greed. See 'The Great Filter' if you are familiar with the concept.
Of course, they are... There is very little difference between Bush, Blair, and Putin. They all invaded sovereign countries for their own imperialist interests while claiming to have a justification in some fabricated claims of "WMD" and "nazification"...
It's curious that you place blame specifically on Urkaine right at the end here Because of this I can't see any other reason for your initial questions and that statement that such an implication. There were 35 other countries tied to the multi-national force and they joined after the initial assualt led by the US, UK, Poland and Australia.
We all agree that the invasion of Iraq was based on lies and with hindsight illegal but the US did use diplomacy to build that case, although they did overstep the bounds of that resolution. And they and the UK should rightly be condemned for leading others down that path and what happened to the people of Iraq. Still, why didn't Russia attempt a diplomatic approach and instead act unilaterally?
I understand, not trying to scold you or anything. I just really dislike this hierarchy of civilization type discourse and worry about who/what it serves and the places it leads to. I’m also watching this rush to sanction, boycott, isolate, etc. and wondering who exactly it’s going to end up hurting the most - not just materially but also in terms of the type of shit ordinary Russians will inevitably be putting up with from now on. And to what end? My understanding was that these types of actions are most effective when specifically targeted. Can’t help thinking we’ll come to regret this orgy of demonization.
I see the Iraq war gets brought up a lot. It's a heavy subject. What would have been the best option? Keep Hussein in power?
Are you aware there were two Vietnams?
I guess... he was a genocidal c*nt of the highest order, but not unique in the world. What was unique about him was just that he was isolated (in terms of allies) and the US had a bizarre political hard-on for Iraq ever since 1991.
I was listening to a podcast a few weeks back about the UN weapons inspection program that went on through the 90s. It was at many times just a front for CIA and the US military to continuously run intelligence operations in Iraq (the lead inspector was a former US Marine officer), and at times they even tried to fabricate casus bellis , before 9/11 and before 2003. The question I was stuck with and couldn't answer (because I was just a kid in the 90s) was why the US at the height of its relative powers cared so much about this one specific middle-eastern dictatorship? My main theory is just that in a time without many threats (again, before 9/11) it served as a convenient boogeyman when one was needed in internal politics.
The Saudi's didn't like Iraq and perhaps considered them a geopolitical rival. That's what I recall from reading about a little bit more about Hussein.
And you know who's partnered with Saudi Arabia.
The obsession with Iraq on the part of the left never ceases to amaze. The war was hubristic, based on false pretences and caused thousands of deaths of innocent people. It turned a brutal dictatorship into pure anarchy in which terrorists flourished. However, it is not a top trumps card to use against any foreign policy decision made by the West, particularly against old favourites like Russia, Venezuela, Cuba etc. A clusterfeck 19 years ago does not negate a correct policy in 2022.
Idk, maybe to think twice before getting involved in Middle Eastern politics in the first place.
The problem with the West in general is that a lot of the unknowledgeable think that the reason these people were removed from power is because they were tyrannical dictators. But Saddam wasn't a dictator when the US funded him to go to war with Iran, The Taliban weren't terrorists when Carter and the CIA gave them military backing and millions of dollars to fight the Soviets. The majority of the population of the West think that prior to the US invading both countries they weren't involved with putting them into power in the first place. So much for democracy.
correct policy would be the one that saves ukrainian lives not cheering some poor soul to pick up arms and sacrifice his life.
What does that have to do with my post? They did invade South Vietnam in an attempt to prevent communism from spreading from North to South, when people in South Vietnam did support Ho Chi Min.
Correct policy would be to support the wishes of the Ukrainian people insofar as we can gauge it. And certainly not anything advocated by RT regular Jeremy Corbyn.
After 1991 he was very much a paper tiger with most of his army destroyed. But he was still good foil vs Iran as far as the Saudis might have been concerned, and the Israelis too. I dunno, maybe I'm missing a much better reason, but I do think sometimes it was the lack of anything else to worry about on the part of the US/UK defense and intelligence communities, so they were continuously still "engaged" with their most recent adversary.
The CIA in particular sort of sold the rest of the US govt on the idea that Saddam wouldn't stay in power for much longer after 91, as long as they strangled Iraq with sanctions. He did and the CIA never seemed to come around to admitting that it hadn't worked, so they were still advocating the same playbook until at least 2000.
Again, mainly I'm talking about how Iraq was still this "household name" in 2002 and how I think it relates to Iraq still being very much in the crosshairs from 1992-2001.
Why did they put sanctions on Iraq in the first place? Was Saddam even affected by the sanctions? 400k child died because of the sanctions because of the lack of food, milk and medicin! Off course he was a dictator and should have been removed, but did they need to invade a country and occupy it for 8 years, destroy it and send it back to the stone ages? Why did they even help Saddam put the iraqi revolution against him in 1991 down? the should have let the Iraqi people get rid of him on their own in 1991.
Not empowering Sadam in the first place -to use him in our war against Iran- would have been a good move to start... Not to starve the Iraqi population to death during the 90s when Sadam had already destroyed all of his WMD arsenal could have opened other solutions.
In between 2001-2003, when Saddam regime was already tremendously crippled by the inhumane sanctions (that killed over 1 million Iraqi civilians) there were other diplomatic solutions to pursue. But we proceeded to shame France and Germany for trying to look like sticking to international law.
And yes leaving another broke dictatorial regime in power would have been better than what we did. Treating Saddam like North Korea would have been better than the invasion.
We work with dictators and support them in their crimes every day. Don't make it about "removing an awful regime".
Instead, we invaded a country, we destroyed it. We basically eliminated all the structures of the state. We made it a playground for extremism, criminality, lawless milices and sectarian wars. And that chaos is what gave birth to ISIS, the worst terror group in modern history.
Off course I blame their government as much as the US and the UK. They did participate in the war based on lies to help their case in joining NATO. So invading another country, putting blood on their hands comes with a cost.
How do you reckon South Vietnam support Ho?
corbyn living in your head rent free
They didn't help him put it down, they just didn't help it to succeed.
Wasn't Saudi Arabia allowed to assist Sadam in cracking the "Shiite uprising"?
So you don’t have any response to the issue at hand, just a cliche. How do you propose to save Ukrainian lives without them giving up large chunks of their country? Specifics, please, not homilies about peace.
They did help him put it down in many ways. For example, The nofly zone was lifted temporarily so he could fly his helicopters and eradicate all the hotspots, without his arial power he wouldn't survive. The revolution was on the gates of Baghdad. This was a specific request from the Saudis after seeing the southern Iraqi uprise.
From the documentary I saw, and small tibits elsewhere, there was support for Ho Chi Min since he played a role in removing the Japanese and French, and their leader was quite corrupt.
How can anyone listen to that shite and think yeah it’s reasonable. Countries shouldn’t get to choose their own paths in a democratic and peaceful ways because you’re some sort of imaginary buffer state to someone very sick in the head. You have to be a cnut really to even think like this.
you’re the one who mentioned corbyn out of nowhereSo my original interpretation of your questions was correct?
Also, I noted earlier they were not part of the original invading force.
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Do you have references for that? The no-fly zone over Southern Iraq was only established in August 1992.
No, your interpretations is wrong. Because you are claiming, that I claim Ukraine deserve to be invaded which is false and on top of that is serious accusation of lack of humanity and compassion. My post is to tell even the Ukrainian government has been in path of wrongdoings and not everything they did should be portraited as good. I hope the people of Ukraine in the future stand against any similar scenario of joining the US or UK or Russia or any superpower in invading other countries. I will say it one last time, the Invasion Russia is raging against the Ukrainian people is an imperialistic aggression just like the 2003 Iraq invasion.
I hope so too and I'll add that I hope that the US, UK and other militaries are watching this apparent debacle of the Russian army in Ukraine and not only having a chuckle, but also taking further lessons (that should have been learned post Iraq and the Afghanistan occupation) to not go trying to invade countries where you won't find enough popular support so that they'll govern the country themselves immediately following the end of major combat operations.