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Comment by oblio | Hacker News Reader

Russia's backyard?!?

You can't imagine how angry this makes me.

Russia is twice the size of the US. Their direct "sphere of influence" was three times the size of the US.

Romania, for example, never wanted to have anything to do with Russia, yet here we are 2500+ kms away from the Russian heartland, stressing out about this stuff, because apparently it's "Russia's backyard". We've been here 2000+ years, it's <<our>> backyard. The same goes for many of the countries next to Russia.

And modern Russia, just like the USSR, is highly interventionist. Who do you think is propping up the Assads? Or was propping up Marxist militias in Latin America and in Africa?

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I hear you, and I share severe criticism of USSR and USA imperialism. I condemn Russia’s imperialism, too. I am just saying that all of this is also true of the USA.

The entire Caribbean is in USA’s sphere of influence. We toppled Hawaii’s kingdom and annexed that, too.

Actually, the entire hemisphere, going back as early as President Monroe (200 years earlier)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine

USA seized territory during the Spanish-American war, which is now Texas / Arizona etc.

In short, as angry as you are, I am sure many South American countries were and are angry at the USA as well, for propping up fascist dictators (Pinochet), or toppling regimes for fruit companies (Guatemala), or arming rebels (Nigaragua) in violation of our own laws (Iran-Contra affair) or training terrorists and dictators (School of the Americas). Whether or not we are “a dictatorship” is beside the point.

I was simply pointing out that Donbas has ethnic Russians so it is more their business than Iraq was ours, Iraq has no credible threat to us at all. Neither do the dozens of other countries that USA effected regime change in.

https://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peopl...

Whataboutism at its best.

I see, I guess Matthew 7:5 can be brushed off as “whataboutism”.

Pointing out total hypocrisy and asking both sides to stop doing bad things is somehow hitting below the belt eh

It’s a sad state of affairs when being evenhanded and keeping a sense of proportion is considered extreme bias.

When you say that a member of group X is bad, then you have to have a baseline. When it comes to superpowers we have Russia, China, USA. They all do terrible imperialistic things and we the people living in them should maybe try to get them to let up. “Whataboutism” is a stupid non-rebuttal that just says “let me just be biased and keep navel gazing at one specific country while ignoring even worse things by other countries because I care not about the actual humanitarian issues but about proving how bad a particular country is, and you’re making me care about the actual issues”.

> It’s a sad state of affairs when being evenhanded

This is not one of those things where there is a bit of truth on both sides. One country just invaded another.

I’m not talking about whether Russia did not invade Ukraine. I’m saying I hope you and the world can be JUST as vocal when US does similar things. For example when it invades or bombs a country or does regime change. Or when China does it. Evenhanded means that USA should get sanctions after doing it.

"Whataboutism" has long been used as a term for "how dare you not focus on the thing I'm outraged about by telling me that something I supported/condoned/was quiet about was pretty much the same thing. Traitor. Now repeat my narrative or be persecuted!"

Important information about "whataboutism":

https://theoutline.com/post/8610/united-states-russia-whatab...

From your own article:

> That’s why you usually hear “whataboutism” used by people who are punching down, not punching up. The nation that is more powerful, or more assured of their moral superiority, tells a Bad Nation it is Bad.

At this exact moment, the US isn't punching anyone, neither up or down.

Russia... well, you can see it on livestreams.

> You can't imagine how angry this makes me.

Join the club, it seems to be in the water or something:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30454020

Chile is far more distant from USA than Romania is from Russia, however Allende was thrown and killed by the CIA...

The US ousted Allende in 1973, almost 50 years ago. During a Cold War with an enemy that large groups of people - including their allies! - truly considered a pox upon humanity.

The US withdrew from Afghanistan and Iraq, ending mistakes made almost 20 years ago.

Russia attacked Ukraine 2 days ago.

So we should follow the model of the current day aggressor, not of the country that's at least trying to change its ways?

Which country is trying to change its ways? In the last 20 years we have destroyed or severely impacted Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, contributed to the rise of ISIS and Boko Haram and Muslim Brotherhood, having an effect countless small tribes like Yezidis, and that’s just the middle east, 3000 miles away

The US withdrew from all of those places.

And how is all of this relevant in a discussion about Russia attacking Ukraine, anyway?

Extremely relevant. Because Russia, China and USA are the three "regional powers" in the world (USA being a "superpower" meddling everywhere) so we need to avoid double standards in order for our discussion to convince anyone or come to a productive result. If we ignore when one country does it, while decrying when another country does it, to me that's just empty rhetoric and not really trying to solve the actual issues.

Some call this the Chomsky principle: "My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one’s actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century." - Noam Chomsky

Problems are best solved one at a time. And they're best solved in the present or for the near or far future.

Nobody can fix the past, just apologize for it.

Right now we need to fix Ukraine.

> propping up Marxist militias in Latin America

Could you expand on that a bit? I'm genuinely curious.

For people who are not aware, a huge chunk of left wing guerillas across the world, from ~1924 until 1991, were funded and supported by the USSR.

Greece, Germany, Peru, Columbia, Angola, you name it, Soviet funded.

Some others were funded by China, but those were a minority.

Are the militias who were fighting against US- and CIA-backed dictatorships across Latin America part of this classification?

Yes, as were the militias that were fighting against US- and CIA-backed democracies.

Let's not be biased or naive and assume that the authoritarian USSR was all of a sudden only sponsoring socialist democracies around the world...

And dont forget all the shit that cuba pulled. Oh boy they were busy.

Peru? Come on. Sendero luminoso was Maoist.

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