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There are no two sides on this, theres one side that is.
- Raping and torturing children in Ukraine [1]
- Commiting Genocide in Ukraine [2]
- Commiting Crimes agianst Humainty in Ukraine [3]
The other side is defending itself from a brutal imperlaistic regime that is trying to erase it off the map
> When the shoe is on the other foot, e.g. the USA blockaded Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we violated international law and also your principle that "sovereign countries can make whatever security arrangements they want, with no consequences". Obviously that principle is dangerous (just like "anyone can have a gun"), because it just allows more escalation to happen until things boil over. I support Kennedy for establishing a direct line with Khrustchev and both sides taking nukes off neigboring countries (USA from Turkey, and USSR from Cuba). Cuba had every right to ask USSR for help, as USA was belligerent and the year before sponsored the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion to try to invade and regime-change Cuba. Also look at what USA had done to Haiti... they occupied, regime-changed, destroyed their democracy and literally enslaved the population[1]. at the time, Cuba didn't want that. Even so, Kennedy was right to call out Khrustchev and de-escalate with Cuba. To this day, however, the UN votes overwhelmingly (more overwhelmingly than condemning Russia's invasion) for USA to end its embargo on Cuba [2], but we don't, even though Cuba presents no threat.
America did something that was wrong 60 years ago does not preclude that Russia is doing terirble things for terrible reasons right now.
> Dialogue and de-escalation is always preferable to justification of escalation and expansion.
Tell that to the Russians who just continually do terrible things when people try and de-escalate. The Russians will only de-escalate when they have a foot to their throat or a rope around there neck.
> I mean, come on, which country would be viewed as the greatest threat to democracy and peace? Well, we know which by a large margin -- because polls have been conducted worldwide [3], [4] so you can't say it's "just" Russia or "just" Putin or "just" the Islamic world, etc.
Whats this cost to do with Russias brutal invasion of Ukraine? your whataboutism is commendable but ultimately useless.
> The reality is simple: USA wanted this war to happen, to weaken its geopolitical rivals.
Wow so Russia can just pull out of the war then right? so it doesn't fall into Americas trap?.
> Also, we know already from most previous invasions of USSR/Russia that they were actually baited into invading [8] [9] -- the goal isn't to justify what they're doing, but to say that we need to stop our own provocations, and the first step is to acknowledge them [10] and the CIA's role in them [11]
Man Russias really stupid they keep falling for the same trap, its like they just want to keep invading countries doesn't it?
I have the strangest feeling no source will convince you, cause you as an 'intellectual' appear to have aligned your brain entirely with what Russian propaganda try's to push
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russian-troops-raped-tort...
[2] https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/09/russia-committing-...
No, not 60 years ago. Now. They are embargoing Cuba now and UN votes overwhelmingly to condemn them every year, we US citizens just don’t care and our media doesn’t show it.
But as far as Kennedy’s reaction to nuclear missiles on Cuba - no, what he did was RIGHT! His “peace speech” convinced the Russians to establish a direct line and de-escalate LIKE ADULTS. All the lies were exposed and dealt with (such as US missiles in Turkey). That is GOOD and I WISH that Biden and Putin would have done it this time. Kennedy gave a stark warning in his speech:
* Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy--or of a collective death-wish for the world.*
https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-k...
Our administration’s explicit policy IS EXACTLY THE FLOUTING OF THIS WARNING and they push anyone who suggests peace to shut up and retract it:
https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/25/democrats-jo...
Tell that to the Russians who just continually do terrible things when people try and de-escalate. The Russians will only de-escalate when they have a foot to their throat or a rope around there neck.
That’s exactly what every side in every war said, ever. “Those Arabs only understand power.” “Those Red Indians have no honor and they kill women and children” — it is right there in the Declaration of Independence, which I read yesterday on July 4th. This type of nationalistic thinking about “the russians” or “the arabs” is a TRAP. And happens that the people who pay the price are the ones in the proxy war country 3000 miles away, not us. So our public doesnt care.
Whats this cost to do with Russias brutal invasion of Ukraine? your whataboutism is commendable but ultimately useless.
Everything to do with it. If you have a playground bully going around punching people, or trying to flip all their friends against them, someone is bound to react. If they react, it is not “whataboutism” to point out what they are reacting TO, and hkw the bully did it elsewhere. It is explanation so we can understand how things look outside the NATO bubble and how to end it. Otherwise 5 years from now you’ll be saying the same about China.
But the concerted effort is to put the word “unprovoked and unjustified” behind the words “invasion of Ukraine”. Do you think it is an accident that this phrase is repeated faithfully on official websites and all mainstream media? It is coordinated. Same as “weapons of mass destruction” and “hacking the election” and “they hate us for our freedoms”. Stop and think about it for a moment! Do you not see a pattern?
> The reality is simple: USA wanted this war to happen, to weaken its geopolitical rivals. Wow so Russia can just pull out of the war then right? so it doesn't fall into Americas trap?.
Sure, they would have if Naftali Bennett was allowed to conclude a peace agreeemnt JUST LIKE NIKOLAS SARKOZY DID in the Russo-Georgia war. The question to you is WHY DID THE US BLOCK IT? Answer that directly, don’t dodge!
Sure, Russia could just allow US to go 3000 miles away, flip all its neighbors against it, put nuclear missiles aimed at Russia on its borders, successfully regime-change and flip everyone against Russian speakers. Heck, why doesn’t Russia and China just let USA build bases all around them, surround them economically, militarily, after all NATO is just a defensive alliance. Any other thing — like diplomacy - is unacceptable. Whenever someone insists that ONLY fantasy scenarios can end this war — and kills PEACE AGREEME TS — we know they don’t act in good faith.
The worst part is, the fantasy scenario is exactly the one Kennedy warned about will bring about the destruction of humanity. And our leaders have it as an explicit policy! It’s a game of chicken where they are actively chasing down the cornered animal with larger and larger escalations until it reacts. And we are all held hostage. Why ?
This is a misrepresentation of events. The Israeli PM has clarified that his comments were taken out of context: https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-bennett-walks-back-cl...
When the war started, the West was pressuring Ukraine into a peace deal with Russia at any cost. When the Bucha massacre was uncovered, the pressure stopped.
Russian propaganda has tried to paint this change as "the West forcing Ukraine into war", which is blatantly false.
The attempt to label what half the world believes as “Russian Propaganda” is itseld a deligitimization tactic. Even within the most hawkish countries (like UK) there have been tons of voices clearly not on Russia’s payroll, but just as systematically ignored. This is a systemic problem:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/russia...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KqE7UTptgGg
https://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-francis-blames-nato-russia...
https://theconversation.com/amp/ukraine-war-follows-decades-...
The Israeli PM walked back
No, that lame attempt by someone at Business Insider to try to spin it was already addressed in the Krystal Ball video I posted. Did you watch it? They argued that it was a mistranslation and the US “stopped” the peace deal, rather than “killing” it. Oh great. Not exactly “walking back” anything, the title is misleading. Any other sources for this?
When the war started, the Weat was pressuring Ukraine into a peace deal with Russia at any cost.
This seems… untrue. Nah, stronger than that, every available piece of evidence points the other way. Almost like Ukraine was led down a path where all pro-Russian doves were sidelined or eliminated, and all hawks were promised EU and NATO membership if they stayed the course.
What you said can’t possibly be true starting with the fact that the real-life timeline doesn’t match up. Bucha happened in late March, while the US killed the Bennett negotiation in early March.
Even solidly pro-Ukrainian media in Ukraine admitted that Boris Johnson traveled to Kyiv to kill any peace deal. To quote this Ukrainskaya Pravda article:
As soon as the Ukrainian negotiators and Abramovich/Medinsky, following the outcome of Istanbul, had agreed on the structure of a future possible agreement in general terms, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson appeared in Kyiv almost without warning. "Johnson brought two simple messages to Kyiv. The first is that Putin is a war criminal; he should be pressured, not negotiated with. And the second is that even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not. We can sign [an agreement] with you [Ukraine], but not with him. Anyway, he will screw everyone over", is how one of Zelenskyy's close associates summed up the essence of Johnson's visit. Behind this visit and Johnson's words, there is much more than a simple reluctance to get involved in agreements with Russia. Johnson’s position was that the collective West, which back in February had suggested Zelenskyy should surrender and flee, now felt that Putin was not really as powerful as they had previously imagined.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2022/05/5/7344096/
This totally contradicts your narrative, but to any person who’s been following the events since 2014 it makes sense that US and UK promised great things to Ukraine if they would leave Russia’s orbit up to and including having their population having a war with Russia. That’s been their MO since the beginning so it would be very strange if suddenly they would be “pressuring” Ukraine into an agreement.
2013: Before any invasions, armed conflicts, here is USA’s top people (including the very recently candidate for President, who hated Russia as he was a PoW in a USSR prison) fomenting a revolution against any Pro-Russian government — in this case Yanukovich who killed the extremely unpopular NATO integration that pro-NATO Yuschenko was pushing through against the wishes of the majority of Ukrainians … so McCain openly advocated for regime change: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=93eyhO8VTdg
2015-2019 Angela Merkel, Zelensky and Poroshenko all admitted that Minsk II was just “a way to give Ukraine the time it needed to build up its armed forces”. Poroshenko even calls the army “his baby”. The same army that is now conscripting and sacrificing huge numbers of men to double down on the counteroffensive:
At least they stopped the nonsense about people “lining up around the block to fight” and saying Ukraine doesn’t need to forcibly draft men into the war, while most propaganda says that Ukrainian men lined up around the block to fight:
https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/02/26/ukraine-finds-st...
2015-2018 - constant training and arming of radical groups, including neo-nazi elements, just as we have been arming radical groips with jihadist elements in parts of the world:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2018-07-09/ty-article/ri...
2019 - Arestovich openly says Ukraine needs a big war with Russia so it can emerge victorious as part of NATO. He eerily predicts all the elements of the war (like Dick Cheney 1994 video about Iraq) and then says it is preferable to being in Russia’s orbit 10 years later. He became the advisor to Zelensky, like Kellyann Conway was to Trump:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1xNHmHpERH8
2021 - Ukraine absorbed the radical paramilitary groups into its army and they have been trained and armed for years to take on Russia. USA wants to avoid the “failure scenario” of how the Russo-Georgian war was brought to a quick end by Sarkozy. There has been peace and relative prosperity ever since. (I was in Georgia a few weeks ago, and it’s still a very poor country, but its economy was not destroyed, its population didn’t flee in the millions, and it doesn’t fear Russian attack at all. That is the result most reasonable people would want.)
US killed the deal with Bennett, and Boris Johnson personally told Zelensky to keep fighting since Russia appeared much weaker to the West than thought. Here we are a year later - and USA doesn’t want any peace agreements to happen.
Non-mainstream media in US, such as The Hill, Kim Iverson, Krystal Ball, progressive voices, conservative voices, Tulsi Gabbard, etc. are not all “Russian Propagandists”, despite what major hawks like Hillary or John Bolton would say, neither is the pope or the entire population or India or China or the heads of state if Brazil etc. Something else is going on here.
He said that it was not the US, France, or Germany that put an end to any peace talks. Rather, it was Russia slaughtering hundreds of civilians. "The Bucha massacre, once that happened, I said: 'It's over,'" Bennett recalled.
If you want to argue over timelines, then I'm sure he'll appreciate your input.
Bucha was uncovered in early April 2022 and external pressure on Ukraine to make peace with Russia dissipated quickly after that. There was no way to keep making such demands to Ukraine while they were excavating mass graves. There was no option to give up and leave people on occupied territories to that fate.
Overall, your entire premise how the US is forcing Ukraine into war against their will is deeply flawed. Fighting off Russian invaders has near-universal support in Ukraine. This is not something they have to be coerced into.
I have Ukrainian developers. I visited them in Ukraine. I was at their wedding in Chernivtsy when they got married years ago. I was in Kyiv multiple times. I have lots of info from the inside.
Let’s leave aside the residents of Donetsk, Luhansk etc. who clearly “don’t count” for you in this analysis. Although it would be interesting to hear what you think their position is regarding Russians.
Let’s also leave out the entire republic of Crimea, which in 1991 voted to be INDEPENDENT of Ukraine with overwhelming majority (over 95%), but was ignored, then got absorbed into Ukraine by a 54% majority vote… and has since repeatedly insisted on autonomy in Ukraine, signed agreements which Ukraine’s federal government renegged on, etc. And then finally voted in 2014, unsurprisingly, to leave Ukraine, and Ukraine retaliated by cutting off their water. Never mind all that. Let’s focus ONLY on the people on “the true Ukraine”, you know, the one dominated by Ukrainian armed forces and not Russian armed forces. (Because no matter who is in charge, someone is always keeping the monopoly of force there — look at Catalonia’s independence referendum.)
OK so what do we know about this population? The support for continuing the war with Russia is only around 54-58% in EASTERN AND SOUTHERN UKRAINE — the ones most affected by the war. Hardly the “near-universal” consensus that you claim:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/403133/ukrainians-support-fight...
THAT IS SUPER SIGNIFICANT if you care about actual humans who are affected, and not just flags and countries.
I claim that if the war or the draft seriously came to Northern and Western Ukraine, many would suddenly want it to end. Very easy to be a keyboard warrior from your couch — but obscene to volunteer OTHERS to die for your geopolitical ambitions. Same here:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/508037/americans-support-ukrain...
A poll conducted last month asked if respondents agreed with "under no circumstances should Ukraine give up any of its territories, even if the war lasts longer and will threaten independence".
Results:
- West 86%
- Center 84%
- South 86%
- East 75%
- Overall 84%
Results:
- West 9%,
- Center 12%
- South 8%
- East 12%
- Overall 10%
>> Gallup collected these data Sept. 2-11 across all regions of Ukraine, including the Donbas
They literally surveyed the occupiers and there was still majority support for the Ukrainians to retake all their land.
That’s hilarious.
Of all places. As if you'd be able to find even a single person in that city right now who even remotely agrees with anything you've been posting in this thread.
But having said that, yes I specifically mentioned Chernivtsi because it is in Western Ukraine and to show that I am acquainted with people who live there. Cities like Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi and Lviv are historically Polish Galicia, they really have had quite anti-Russian sentiment for a very long time.
Even during Soviet times, the USA tried to reach them with Radio Liberty —- started by the CIA (bet you didn’t know that). People living there are the ones who hope the most that USA will come and help them escape having to deal with “the Russian-speaking world”. Many of them don’t like the Eastern Ukrainians, calling them “katsapy” as far back as 70 years ago. And the Russians — well, they are “Muscovites” while Ukrainians are the “true Russians” in their view.
Again, this is not everyone but a prevailing sentiment. Just like with sunnis and shiites and kurds, it is a very convenient tinderbox for an outside power (the US, say) to come in and play one side against the other, just as they have done in many other countries. (And KGB used to do as well, eg with Palestinians in Israel/Jordan etc.) It is a playbook that predates the US by millennia. In the Bible, the Egyptians worried about Jews becoming numerous and siding with their enemies etc. Anyway, Wikipedia has a textbook entry on “proxy war” that literally describes it all: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_war
A lot of far-right groups enjoyed the most support in Western Ukraine. Svoboda, a far-right nationalist party, got 38% of the vote in some regions, in 2012 — before ANY Russian invasions at all. They have been the lynchpin on which the US staked its hopes when it sent John McCain and others to foment a revolution:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=93eyhO8VTdg
The BBC did a nice documentary on this back when it was still allowed to point out the truth:
2014: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY
2015: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sEKQsnRGv7s
and PBS had a very in-depth special about the two very different sides of Ukraine:
2014: https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-battle-ukraine/
You can see very clearly a country divided, between the anti-Russian and pro-Russian regions. But also, very importantly, between young and old.
A generation that grew up since 1991 feels Ukraine is their COUNTRY, with a flag, and many are willing to fight and kill/die for their national identity, and for national territory.
By contrast, the generation that grew up in the USSR remembers what it’s like to have the “brotherhood of nations”, and being able to freely travel and have families across Republics, the way that a resident of NY or California regards themselves today as a citizen of USA, a federation.
But if California or Texas ever split off, you can bet your butt that a new generation might very well grow up ready to die for the Republic of California dlag with the Bear, or the Lone Star, against the USA and teach in the schools all the grievances about how USA took the land from Mexico, and oppressed spanish-speaking peoples (after they genocided native Americans and enslaved Africans of course).
You can always play on resentments and nationalist movements. That’s why Turkey is so worried about the PKK, for instance, or Israel was worried about PLO and Hamas, or Spain about Catalonia, the list goes on. An outside power coming in to destabilize the region does exactly what USA has done — and it almost always leads to misery for the regular people who live there. Iran did it in Yemen, and now the people are starving for a decade. We have started to do it now in Taiwan.
Oh sure. The older generation in Ukraine knows all about the "brotherhood of nations", and how great things were in the Brezhnev era.
Way too many other hallucinations in your post for me to unpack. Simply put, the "proxy war" narrative is pure bunk. And you will not find any meaningful contingent in Chernivtsi, this place where you claim to have friends and personal connections, who subscribes to it.
Also, Poland is getting nukes and soon we will be close to nuclear war — over something that could have been avoided 15 different ways. I guess I’ll just defer to your judgment in all things. What seems like double standards and insanity to me is actually the only correct and moral thing, and there’s nothing to worry about (or if humanity is destroyed it’s for a good cause — Ukraine will be free from the evil Russians).
Polands getting nukes because Belarus now has Russian nukes.
Belarus having Russian nukes is in direct violation of the Budapest Memorandum by the way, which Belarus has signed.
Poland having nukes has nothing to do with Ukraine and everything to do with Russia placing nukes in Belarus and also routinely threatening to nuke half the western world into oblivion.
Why does Poland getting nukes place us any closer to the world ending then there being nukes in Kaliningrad?, of which there have been for years at this point.
It's true with Russia though, every time there was any sort of anything like negotiating they just try and raise the stakes.
Like when they intentionally bomb Kyiv when international visitors are visiting just to try and make a point.
> Sure, they would have if Naftali Bennett was allowed to conclude a peace agreeemnt JUST LIKE NIKOLAS SARKOZY DID in the Russo-Georgia war. The question to you is WHY DID THE US BLOCK IT? Answer that directly, don’t dodge!
This was answered for you by someone else, so I am just going to link to it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36600919
> Sure, Russia could just allow US to go 3000 miles away, flip all its neighbors against it, put nuclear missiles aimed at Russia on its borders
This was never going to happen, no one wants nukes in Ukraine but it ironically would be poetic justice as Ukraine gave up their nukes for a promise from Russia, the US and the UK that they wouldn't do what Russia is doing right now.
Why don't you care about the peace agreement Ukraine has had with Russia for decades?.
You seem to want very much some sort of Minsk scenario but completely ignore the fact the Ukraine already has a peace agreement with Russia.
They have just being ignoring, because they don't care to follow international agreements when it doesn't suit them.
It's funny though your opinion on this exact topic and many others just happens to be the exact same as all the other pro Russian people.
Yet you claim to be 'even handed'.
> The worst part is, the fantasy scenario is exactly the one Kennedy warned about will bring about the destruction of humanity. And our leaders have it as an explicit policy! It’s a game of chicken where they are actively chasing down the cornered animal with larger and larger escalations until it reacts. And we are all held hostage. Why ?
No one is escalating aside from Russia.
Defending yourself isn't escalating.
My point of view is very simple … implementing Minsk II could have prevented all of this. Presidents met repeatedly for YEARS but, at least on the Ukrainian side, it was all just “to buy time” for a larger escalation, never to implement the Minsk II. But google it and read the provisions. ALL OF THEM ARE POSITIVE FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED. And far better than this war.
If Russia really wanted to take over Georgia, why didn’t they?
If Russia wanted to kill Ukrainians why did they not carpet bomb a single city like they did Aleppo and Grozny?
Why are so many people saying this is “just Putin”? Because they still hope to avoid blaming ALL RUSSIANS. But the fact is if you killed Putin it would be like assassinating JFK — the next guy LBJ only escalated the “special military operations” in Viet Nam, Laos, etc.
We HAVE TO RESPECT OTHER COUNTRIES’ CONCERNS, instead of caricaturing them as alternately dumb, deranged, simply under a psychopathic leader, etc.
In 2008, Burns, then the American ambassador to Moscow, wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”
That about says it all. It is NOT just ”one dictator”. It is our foreign policy. Just as it was in every. other. country.
And it’s not just Jeffrey Sachs or Scott Ritter or something. It’s literally EVERY expert who isn’t a war hawk and whose job it was to know this predicted the outcome. And wrote open letters and so on:
https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-w...
Ah yes more international agreements that Russia will just ignore, like they ignored Minsk 1.
Just like they ignored the Budapest Memorandum
But trust us this time, we will totally follow the agreement!.
Russia doesn't abide by agreements they seem them as weakness they only abide when they see strength.
A agreement will never stop this war it will just kick it down the road at best, and letter Russia rearm at the worst.
> If Russia wanted to kill Ukrainians why did they not carpet bomb a single city like they did Aleppo and Grozny?
Have you not seen Bakhmut?. This what Russia does, like they did and do in Syria, like they did Checneya, like they do in Ukraine.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/5/24/satellite-...
> We HAVE TO RESPECT OTHER COUNTRIES’ CONCERNS, instead of caricaturing them as alternately dumb, deranged, simply under a psychopathic leader, etc.
No amounts of caps lock will make this reality.
Russia doesn't have 'concerns' its only 'concern' is that it will be unable to subjugate post soviet states in the future due to either their strength or their inclusion in alliances like NATO.
> And it’s not just Jeffrey Sachs or Scott Ritter or something.
Why am I not surprised you instantly invoke two Russian propagandist.
Instantly as opposed to what? The point was to list them as a countrexample. Here is a longer list of “Russian assets”:
Noam Chomsky
The Pope
Tulsi Gabbard (Hillary said so!)
Progressives in Congress
Conservatives in Congress
The population of India
The population of China
Nigel Farage
All experts who signed warnings for decades: https://theconversation.com/amp/ukraine-war-follows-decades-...
Just like now, experts in AI write strongly worded open letters warning of 10% or more chance of human extinction, but we disregard them, just like no one builds nuclear fallout shelters anymore. It’s a generation that pollutes the planet with plastic etc, destroys species and ecosystems, insect populations are plummeting, and even global warming is now a much less pressing concern — and no one can stop it from rushing to the precipice. But I’m glad you have such great justifications for continuing the forever wars.
Literally no one with any pedigree regardless of what they have done, can be tolerated for anything else than full support for the latest endless war. Same with if you questioned any aspect of the rushed vaccines. Or any number of other coordinated movements.
https://www.agenzianova.com/en/news/zelensky-returns-from-tu...