Indeed. How dare people have a different interpretation of geopolitical events? Don’t they know that world events are all straightforward cartoonish good vs evil storylines where the good guys are 200% good and the bad guys are 300% bad?
Yeah, the Iraq war wasn’t that bad either, Saddam was asking to be invaded. There were lots of grounds to prevent the unification of Vietnam too, you need to look at the geopolitical interpretations of the event /s
Good job proving my point by posting examples of popular positions in the US that turned out to be bullshit. So yeah, the different interpretations turned out to be right. If this was 2003, I’m sure I’d be shouted down, mocked, down-voted, and called a “tankie” (or, I suppose “terrorist lover” to be more accurate to the time) for saying we shouldn’t invade Iraq because clearly the only correct interpretation is that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction.
Cool, I’m not american, so I too disagreed with the invasion at the time, as did most people and governments in Europe and most American allies at the time warned the US not to do it. The american justification for invading was bullshit, as is russia’s. The difference is that nobody stood up to the US at the time and now there are a group of countries that at least have an interest in helping Ukraine uphold international law.
Between then and now, nothing changed in international law, I’m just applying it consistently. As you said, bullshit geopolitical reasons to invade a country can be brewed till the end of time, but starting a war with another country is objectively the greatest war crime, because it paves the way for the lawlessness that enables millions of other war crimes, like murder, rape, torture, forced deportation.
I wasn’t talking about you personally. My point is that geopolitical situations are more complex than the people here on their high horses would like everyone to believe. Russia is wrong for invading Ukraine and should get out. We should also see how to prevent this in the future, but people are apparently content with the “crazy dictator” explanation. Okay, so how do we prevent crazy dictators from getting into power? The US had played a strong influence in Russia ever since the fall of the USSR and it could be argued that Putin is a result of US policy toward Russia. Is there no merit in examining events from this angle?
I think there is merit in separating two things which are only related if they serve your point.
Look, I also read Shock Doctrine and watched Adam Curtis’ recent footage of the fall of the USSR, I understand what russia has been through and how the US gloated about “winning” the Cold War. From there up until 2014 you have a lot of actors, from the IMF to the homegrown oligarchs living the ancap dream to Yeltsin destroying russian democracy in 93 and other forces that shaped a path that was only shaped by the US with neglect, greed and giving bad examples, but the US is not russia’s caretaker, nor should it have been.
From 2014 onwards and the annexation of Crimea, the West just upped their neglect to the maximum, kept western media quiet about what was happening in the Donbas (and let russian media have a party presenting its own views unopposed) and pretended that nothing was happening because we were busy with other things and really didn’t want to get into a fight with russia. And since it was just a hybrid war, we mostly told Ukraine to STFU, like we did Transnistria and Georgia. Meh, “it’s the russian sphere of influence”, “Crimea used to be part of russia”, maybe if they have this and we deepen our economic connections, they’ll stop and be brought to reason, let’s keep Ukraine neutral, maybe that will work…
After Feb 2022 there was no margin of doubt that russia would only stop claiming more territory if it was forced to stop by force and the sooner the better. Anybody who hasn’t changed their mind about russia’s intentions after seeing russia attempt to storm Kiev is never going to change their POV on this. After that, russia’s word lost all crediblity, so there was a mask-off moment and all of putin’s speeches just sounded like “Bin Laden” with nukes to me, but maybe you like his batshit hypocritical critique of “satanist” american imperialism.
I have no idea what the basis for negotiation with russia is going to be now, because it can not end this war feeling that this brazen aggression was worth it, since they will come back to finish the job when they are better prepared (russia is great at glorifying the sacrifice of its people for bits of land in history books as an example for the future generations) nor can it accept that it already wasn’t worth it, because they imagine that defeat means more 90s hardship for them, so here we are 💀
What’s wrong with this comment section is that most of the people chiming in have an opinion wholly formed by the nightly news program they watch and nothing else. I’d rather have universal health care than spend a trillion dollars every year policing ten other countries, personally.
Exactly The idea we should allow a free nation to fall to Russian invaders, just so we can throw extra money at health insurance executives, is laughable.
What’s ‘tanky’ is arguing for your own impoverishment, which is what you’re doing when you try to defend our country spending a trillion a year on war in ten other countries.
And then another 100+ billion on another country’s war, that we’re not even fighting in. That 100 billion could keep people cool in a heat wave, or fix a state’s broken power grid, or put clean water in Flint, Michigan. But no, you’d rather we neglect our own people instead.
War spending is 100% why we don’t have universal health care in this country, and we are the only country dropping a trillion-plus a year.
It is kind of funny that people throw around the word “tankie” so meaninglessly when the US has the largest military spending in the world by far and is thus literally the most “tankie” i.e. enforcing their will with military might.
Indeed. How dare people have a different interpretation of geopolitical events? Don’t they know that world events are all straightforward cartoonish good vs evil storylines where the good guys are 200% good and the bad guys are 300% bad?
There is only one interpretation of an event like one country invading and stealing territory from another.
Russia invaded Ukraine and stole Crimea.
So you’re okay with having nazis and pedos to encourage “different interpretation”?
nazis and pedos? What the hell are you talking about?
Just a different interpretation, bro.
Yeah, the Iraq war wasn’t that bad either, Saddam was asking to be invaded. There were lots of grounds to prevent the unification of Vietnam too, you need to look at the geopolitical interpretations of the event /s
Good job proving my point by posting examples of popular positions in the US that turned out to be bullshit. So yeah, the different interpretations turned out to be right. If this was 2003, I’m sure I’d be shouted down, mocked, down-voted, and called a “tankie” (or, I suppose “terrorist lover” to be more accurate to the time) for saying we shouldn’t invade Iraq because clearly the only correct interpretation is that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction.
Cool, I’m not american, so I too disagreed with the invasion at the time, as did most people and governments in Europe and most American allies at the time warned the US not to do it. The american justification for invading was bullshit, as is russia’s. The difference is that nobody stood up to the US at the time and now there are a group of countries that at least have an interest in helping Ukraine uphold international law.
Between then and now, nothing changed in international law, I’m just applying it consistently. As you said, bullshit geopolitical reasons to invade a country can be brewed till the end of time, but starting a war with another country is objectively the greatest war crime, because it paves the way for the lawlessness that enables millions of other war crimes, like murder, rape, torture, forced deportation.
I wasn’t talking about you personally. My point is that geopolitical situations are more complex than the people here on their high horses would like everyone to believe. Russia is wrong for invading Ukraine and should get out. We should also see how to prevent this in the future, but people are apparently content with the “crazy dictator” explanation. Okay, so how do we prevent crazy dictators from getting into power? The US had played a strong influence in Russia ever since the fall of the USSR and it could be argued that Putin is a result of US policy toward Russia. Is there no merit in examining events from this angle?
I think there is merit in separating two things which are only related if they serve your point.
Look, I also read Shock Doctrine and watched Adam Curtis’ recent footage of the fall of the USSR, I understand what russia has been through and how the US gloated about “winning” the Cold War. From there up until 2014 you have a lot of actors, from the IMF to the homegrown oligarchs living the ancap dream to Yeltsin destroying russian democracy in 93 and other forces that shaped a path that was only shaped by the US with neglect, greed and giving bad examples, but the US is not russia’s caretaker, nor should it have been.
From 2014 onwards and the annexation of Crimea, the West just upped their neglect to the maximum, kept western media quiet about what was happening in the Donbas (and let russian media have a party presenting its own views unopposed) and pretended that nothing was happening because we were busy with other things and really didn’t want to get into a fight with russia. And since it was just a hybrid war, we mostly told Ukraine to STFU, like we did Transnistria and Georgia. Meh, “it’s the russian sphere of influence”, “Crimea used to be part of russia”, maybe if they have this and we deepen our economic connections, they’ll stop and be brought to reason, let’s keep Ukraine neutral, maybe that will work…
After Feb 2022 there was no margin of doubt that russia would only stop claiming more territory if it was forced to stop by force and the sooner the better. Anybody who hasn’t changed their mind about russia’s intentions after seeing russia attempt to storm Kiev is never going to change their POV on this. After that, russia’s word lost all crediblity, so there was a mask-off moment and all of putin’s speeches just sounded like “Bin Laden” with nukes to me, but maybe you like his batshit hypocritical critique of “satanist” american imperialism.
I have no idea what the basis for negotiation with russia is going to be now, because it can not end this war feeling that this brazen aggression was worth it, since they will come back to finish the job when they are better prepared (russia is great at glorifying the sacrifice of its people for bits of land in history books as an example for the future generations) nor can it accept that it already wasn’t worth it, because they imagine that defeat means more 90s hardship for them, so here we are 💀
What’s wrong with this comment section is that most of the people chiming in have an opinion wholly formed by the nightly news program they watch and nothing else. I’d rather have universal health care than spend a trillion dollars every year policing ten other countries, personally.
The US spends more per-capita on healthcare than almost every other country. Making sure a free nation isn’t overrun by Russian invaders is not the reason the US healthcare system sucks.
Correction: The US spends more per-capita lining the pockets of health insurance execs than every other country.
Exactly The idea we should allow a free nation to fall to Russian invaders, just so we can throw extra money at health insurance executives, is laughable.
What’s ‘tanky’ is arguing for your own impoverishment, which is what you’re doing when you try to defend our country spending a trillion a year on war in ten other countries.
And then another 100+ billion on another country’s war, that we’re not even fighting in. That 100 billion could keep people cool in a heat wave, or fix a state’s broken power grid, or put clean water in Flint, Michigan. But no, you’d rather we neglect our own people instead.
War spending is 100% why we don’t have universal health care in this country, and we are the only country dropping a trillion-plus a year.
It is kind of funny that people throw around the word “tankie” so meaninglessly when the US has the largest military spending in the world by far and is thus literally the most “tankie” i.e. enforcing their will with military might.