I assume that you supported US interference in those examples then? Because if you didn’t I don’t see how Russia’s interference in Ukraine could be seen as acceptable because the USA did shitty things in the past. Understandable, sure, but just as I will criticise the US for all the bad things they’ve done, and do (and there are plenty) I don’t see why we should use their sins to justify the yet to be committed sins of others. Would be a race to the bottom, no? Maybe let’s just criticise bad things as being bad, try to prevent more bad things from happening and attempt to hold those to account who have committed bad things in the past. We can choose to criticise actions, not criticise actions solely based on who we choose to align with (US or Russia here).
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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I assume that you supported US interference in those examples then? Because if you didn’t I don’t see how Russia’s interference in Ukraine could be seen as acceptable because the USA did shitty things in the past. Understandable, sure, but just as I will criticise the US for all the bad things they’ve done, and do (and there are plenty) I don’t see why we should use their sins to justify the yet to be committed sins of others. Would be a race to the bottom, no? Maybe let’s just criticise bad things as being bad, try to prevent more bad things from happening and attempt to hold those to account who have committed bad things in the past. We can choose to criticise actions, not criticise actions solely based on who we choose to align with (US or Russia here).
It is the things we believe we can't see happening that catch us out... shades of Donald Rumsfeld and his " there are known known's; known unknowns, and worst of all the unknown, unknowns.. that catch us out"
Yeah there's really Putin bots on the caf
Discuss any nuance and it's reduced to 'OMG Putin Bot'. It's an obviously complex issue but as always people want to discuss the models of fighter jets over the geopolitical complexities.
That feel inclined to help? Seems like everyone except Germany right now.
NATO membership talks with Ukraine cease. Russia withdraws. Ukraine is the political loser.
A "boring" outcome and therefore the most realistic one.
List the countries that can actually help.
I can't find the link right now, but I have read that Czech has said it will start to supply Ukraine with weapons and hasn't ruled out the offer of troops if the request came from their friends.
@Simbo I agree with your response by the way to me earlier post. If Russia were to put on a full scale invasion of Ukraine, I don't see NATO sitting idly by protecting the NATO boarders and not getting involved
The are plenty of threads for that. But trying to excuse Russia's intimidating actions by referring to Cuba Iraq Nicaragua and Ireland is precisely gru troll behavior.Yeah there's really Putin bots on the caf
Discuss any nuance and it's reduced to 'OMG Putin Bot'. It's an obviously complex issue but as always people want to discuss the models of fighter jets over the geopolitical complexities.
Are we going to pretend that this is a game changer or we stop playing games?
I'm responding to someone who talked about how the US isn't interfering with Mexican sovereignty in a hypothetical scenario, and I pointed out that there are many non-hypothetical examples.
From the little I've read, whatever Russia did in Crimea seems partly justified, whatever they are supposed to be planning for now does not. Some people want to make this WW2 with Putin as Hitler, I wonder if this is WW1 with tensions rising between two blocs, and things on hair-trigger. Certainly there's no ideological fight, both Ukraine and Russia have Nazi battalions ffs
Get Flashheart involved too .
Iraq?
It reminded me Dastardly and Muttley.
I'm responding to someone who talked about how the US isn't interfering with Mexican sovereignty in a hypothetical scenario, and I pointed out that there are many non-hypothetical examples.
From the little I've read, whatever Russia did in Crimea seems partly justified, whatever they are supposed to be planning for now does not. Some people want to make this WW2 with Putin as Hitler, I wonder if this is WW1 with tensions rising between two blocs, and things on hair-trigger. Certainly there's no ideological fight, both Ukraine and Russia have Nazi battalions ffs
Fair enoughInterested to hear your reasoning behind that.
Their invasion of Kuwait or Iran? Neither are comparable I don't think.
The Iraqi annexation of Kuwait is quite comparable.
Off-topic but the Kuwait annexation is quite fascinating. I've read multiple posts about it on r/askhistorians. Apparently the Iraqi's seriously misinterpreted the American response, thinking they got the green light.
Liz Truss as been sent out to whip up the usual suspects, but Germany are looking reluctant
Apart from the sheer brutality, it was however an 'over-night' affair was it not? More comparable to Crimea.
I don’t want to panic the pro Russia posters but yes all the key players are coming over.
I didn't know that most of the CAF wasn't born 4 months ago when US left Afghanistan in shambles
Based on what you said once to me, Russia has absolutely the right to do what is doing to Ukraine because is stronger and can bully around based on their agenda
This is not a matter of being good or being bad. They are all evil superpowers
China does the same with their sphere of influence
Russia does the same
US does the same
And it still happen while we speak
Sometimes economically (new silk route, Cuba embargo, Transnistria)
Sometimes military (China supplies in Myanmar, US NATO support allies and multiple bases, Russia support in Belarus)
Sometimes behind the scenes (proxy wars)
I want the US-EU to win because I and my loved ones lives in that area of influence, even if they are evil. But no doubt I would support any of the other 2 if I would live there.
But in either case I would never deny that all 3 did, they do and will do the same and as much as @Raoul preventively mentions it, is hypocritical of try to consider the other ones better or worse because they do the same in their own style and our propaganda will tell us about their worse (true or false) while their propaganda they will do the same
China does the same with their sphere of influence
Russia does the same
US does the same
And it still happen while we speak
Sometimes economically (new silk route, Cuba embargo, Transnistria)
Sometimes military (China supplies in Myanmar, US NATO support allies and multiple bases, Russia support in Belarus)
Sometimes behind the scenes (proxy wars)
I want the US-EU to win because I and my loved ones lives in that area of influence, even if they are evil. But no doubt I would support any of the other 2 if I would live there.
But in either case I would never deny that all 3 did, they do and will do the same and as much as @Raoul preventively mentions it, is hypocritical of try to consider the other ones better or worse because they do the same in their own style and our propaganda will tell us about their worse (true or false) while their propaganda they will do the same
Apologies, would like to respond but not 100% sure what you're suggesting. Please elaborate as happy to reply, just don't want to get the gist wrong
In a scenario of violence, outside of Russia and Ukraine the only countries that matter are the ones with military power which in this case is limited to the US, France and the UK. The rest are absolutely useless in stopping/dissuading Russia. The previous poster for some reason took offence with my mention of these countries, in a post that was about why people would bring the US own geopolitical actions when people use morality as a reason to intervene. My point being that if morality is the benchmark then none of these have a leg to stand on but if we talk about national, political or geopolitical interest then it's a different story. I personally don't see why these countries would actually go to war with Russia for Ukraine but I'm probably missing something.
PS: And if we are honest France and the UK are minnows in a conventional conflict that involves Russia and the US.
There is no excusing of the Russian intimidation going on though. Just because you don't want to discuss the complexities of all players doesn't make it excusing Russia.
Its impossible to fully discuss matters of this complexity without discussing all factors and the history of superpowers. They frame and explain the context.
Hypocrisy is not a legitimate debating point in lieu of analyzing the specifics involved in each case, most importantly the one this actual thread is about.
On this note, do we have any insight on how they're framing it in Russia? Do they even care about trying to frame it in a certain way to their own people?
The two cases aren't comparable. The US had a bilateral agreement with the legitimately elected Afghan government to be there. Putin is attempting to invade a neighboring nation with a democratically elected government in order to prevent democracy from reaching Russia's doorstep.
Any more cases of "hypocrisy" you'd like to bring up, or shall we go back to debating the topic of this thread ?
im okay with that
Allegedly and democracy already exists at their doorsteps.
Yes. The alternative is to have 2 nuclear powers at war, and although that's happened before at a small border level with countries like India and Pakistan, its something that they generally avoid at all costs. Its hard to keep something like that contained, there's too much at stake (not least pride) and a small miscalculation could set us on a road to WW3. This might sound hyperbolic but it's not. This was exactly why you never saw Russia and US openly battling each other during the Cold War.
Which is why he is attempting to reverse that and emplace an authoritarian puppet in Kiev. Just think of what a strong and democratic Ukraine would do for the aspirations of domestic Russian pro-democracy sentiment.
My only issue with this conversation is some people act like Russia has no agency of its own. They shot down a civilian plane less than ten years ago. If you go back into the 1980s, five years before the US shot down an Iranian civilian plane the Soviets shut down a Korean civilian plane but the latter is nowhere near as known in the annuls of Cold War military debacles. A lot of the same points made against the western imperialism can be made about them but there is a definitely a group of people who are insufferable by making it out anything bad Russia does is simply in reaction to XYZ as opposed to their leaders wanting to do this. Everything has trade-offs. They spend more on their military than the UK does and if you are someone who wants the UK to reallocate military funds into social services (I do) how can you simultaneously ignore Putin's military build-up while his people are impoverished
It's been more or less covered in this thread:
- there's a threat in NATO expanding its influence towards Russian borders (and this is the point that's been a part of the propaganda's agenda for years if not for decades)
- Ukraine is a fascist state with a lot of Nazi sympathisers that mistreats Russian or pro-Russian people that live there
- US & it's minions (sometimes UK is mentioned by name, but rarely anyone else, it's usually the collective West) actively work to destroy Russia as they see its regime as a threat — and they have started out with ex-Soviet republics like Ukraine & Georgia (with Belarus' & Kazakhstan recently being threatened with dangerous riots, that are obviously organised & funded from abroad)
- NATO wants to dictate the movement of Russian troops on Russia's own land and threatens to take action if Putin doesn't comply (and he obviously won't)
- Ukraine is gathering forces for a military strike on both DNR & LNR to take them back under its control — with potential repercussions for most of its population, most of which had either fought against Ukrainian military or supported the DNR/LNR militia in some way
- At this point the DNR leader had already warned everyone on one of Russia's main TV channels that they're expecting Ukrainian military to strike soon — and that they have information about Ukrainian covert agents that are supposed to blow something up in Donetsk
Allegedly. And Ukraine would do the grand total of nothing regarding russian pro-democracy sentiment, Russia isn't a closed country their citizens know exactly how the world works outside of Russia.
Strangely enough, you share what is western propaganda which is one of the very big problems of these threads. I know that the vast majority of people that have posted in the last pages aren't lunatics and are generally not foolish enough to parrot propagandist talking points and yet that's exactly what is happening.
Also to be clear, I don't know where is the truth on that topic, the only thing that I know is that both sides tend to manipulate information and lie, so I will wait a little bit before taking their words as gospel.
What do you think is a fact and what "western propaganda" ?
1. Iranian civilian plane over Iran
2. Korean civilian plane over the USSR
...
3. On what basis are you saying one is more well known? Are you polling twitter leftists or the general public? I learnt about the Iranian one from leftist forums and haven't seen it mentioned in a non-political context, but learnt about the Korean one from Nat Geo air crash investigations - a non-political, more broad source.
Well, once he's successful I'm pretty sure that Ukraine's newly legitimately elected government will set up an agreement with Putin that would justify Russia's military presence. I'm not a fan of whataboutisms, especially not in this thread as this is the only counter-argument that Russian propaganda has to any criticism, but it's fascinating how non-critical you become once the topic changes to US politics (and I'm sure that it's not a switch that you consciously perform every time by the way).
I suppose that it's a tangent but nonetheless at no point did I suggest that Russia was better or a victim.