Russia Declares War on Ukraine | Hacker News Reader

Russia Declares War on Ukraine

usatoday.com

72 pointstemp10 comments

If the editor-in-chief of state broadcaster RT is anything to go by, the Russian policy is alarmingly 'ours is not to reason why..': https://twitter.com/M_Simonyan/status/1496701223734583296 – "we lived without iPhones, and we can do without Parisians, if necessary"

This is such a tragedy. Beware of manipulation in threads like this. Russian bots are a trope but disinformation is a weapon they've honed over the last decade.

I'm so ashamed to be Russian today. The most shameful day in the history of our country.

Like all Germans had to pay for Hitler's crimes, all Russians will have to pay for Putin's.

Really, today? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

Country was formed in 1991.

If you factor in legacy up to Rurik in 9th century, then Katyn would be quite far from the top of the list.

as a non-american, non-russian, non-ukranian, why does USA always want to be in the middle of a conflict? i mean when USA invaded vietnam or afghanistan or iraq or libya, it was all "justified" because of some twisted reason but god forbid anyone else attack its "allies". why is it that USA is always justified in their actions but no one else is? why do you think russia isn't justified in their actions?

The US wasn't justified in those wars, and Russia isn't justified in this one. It's pretty simple.

sure sure. the "Revenge for twin towers" wasnt a thing. i get it. i also get why USA would continue to impose sanctions, essentially force iran to try to comply to its wishes because israel cannot do that on its own. they justify that with saying "but they are building nuclear weapons". sure.

imagine iran using stuxnet on an american facility or even an israeli nuclear facility. that is what i am asking for "justification".

if you say usa wasnt justified in any of the wars, we are on the same side. great

The government of the USA does, the USA itself does not.

American citizen here but I'll try to write from a neutral perspective.

> Iraq

Not justified. See e.g. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna22794451

> Vietnam

The justification used was the Containment doctrine, meaning the containment of Communism. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containment Basically, the US military feared the possibility that Communism would spread across the globe, which matched the rhetoric used by Communist politicians and writers, who promised a global workers' revolution. The US feared this outcome and sought to contain it via war. You can say they were unjustified or they were justified; that depends on your point of view about what constitutes a just war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory

> Afghanistan, Libya

I'm not familiar with the details of these conflicts so I won't try to address them.

From a perspective of a neutral party, if you're trying to decide whether to side with the US or Russia, I would point you to the Democracy Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index , which is the closest thing to a consensus view of the moral rightness of countries. The USA is not at the top of the index by any means (heck, our neighbor Canada has us beat) but the USA scores far better than the other military superpowers (China and Russia).

From a standpoint of realpolitik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik , no country is purely good or evil but it's smart to side with the country that would result in a better long-term outcome for the world, hence why I refer you to the Democracy Index.

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