I feel like I want to give credit to @ssu for presenting the more or less pro-NATO case reasonably. I don't know if you've read everything but some of the flack directed towards him has been rather personalized and unwarranted.

You mentioned my voting record, so, — frank

I said you "may have voted for". I didn't know who you voted for and I was including congress. Anyhow...

But yes. Some Irish people are scum. — frank

Wait a second... :chin: :lol:

OK. If he did, that's good. (I originally wasn't referring to him in particular but your whole political establishment anyhow. And we'll judge them by their actions not their words etc.)

No, my point is it may have been just a soundbite for the gullible like most politician's campaign promises. Good night.

Biden ended the support for the war against Yemen. — frank

https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/02/15/biden-doubles-down-failed-yemen-policy

"When running for office, President Biden promised to “make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.” In the context of the Yemen conflict, fulfilling this promise may not be easy, but it is clear: In Biden’s own words, America must “end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen.” Unfortunately, the administration’s response to the recent escalation in the conflict has been to revert to the same failed playbook as previous administrations, risking further complicity in the Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) coalition’s violations.

...

In response to the recent escalation, the Biden administration apparently has doubled down on support to the coalition, announcing the sale of additional fighter aircraft to the UAE. Biden said the administration is considering redesignating the Houthis a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
....

In addition to potentially violating U.S. law, continuing arms sales to the coalition puts the U.S. at risk of complicity in possible war crimes. The sales also fly in the face of justice and accountability for previous violations given the coalition’s dreadfully flawed investigations of its own strikes."

Biden is a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, BTW. — frank

Being Irish doesn't make you any more moral than anyone else, frank nor does being Catholic, I'd wager. But thanks for the vote fo support, I guess.

We're calm as far as I know.

@frank

https://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/19/politics/jared-kushner-saudi-arms-deal-lockheed-martin/index.html

E.g.
"President Donald Trump signed a nearly $110 billion defense deal with Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Saturday...

The deal was finalized in part thanks to the direct involvement of Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law and senior adviser. ..

...he personally called Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson and asked if she would cut the price of a sophisticated missile detection system, according to a source with knowledge of the call.
...
While calling the head of a major defense company and simply asking for a lower price is widely considered an unorthodox negotiation tactic, Kushner's hands-on approach has drawn comparisons to when then-President-elect Trump criticized the stealthy F-35 fighter jet for being too expensive, and Hewson gave her "personal commitment" to cut the cost of the program in February."

I don't think the exact figures are available on whatever discounts were involved but the principle of indirect financing here stands, regardless.

I'll get what I can for you on that. In the meantime:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_States%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_arms_deal

"In August 2018, a laser-guided Mark 82 bomb sold by the U.S. and built by Lockheed Martin was used in the Saudi-led coalition airstrike on a school bus in Yemen, which killed 51 people, including 40 children."

The human garbage that runs your country should be at least as concerning for you as the human garbage that invaded Ukraine, seeing as you may have voted for the former.

Here's a gun; you can have it for half price (not direct financing). Here's half the price of a gun to help you buy a gun (direct financing). Distinction without a difference. Fact.

Cross posted...

It's not really that simple, frank. What counts as "financing" is debateable. It could be argued there's no difference except accounting between a discounted arms deal where some other favour, e.g. re oil, is returned and just giving the other party the money to buy weapons. The narrative concerning interest is not something I was arguing for. I don't think the US cares one way or the other, just as they don't really care about the civilian deaths in the Ukraine.

I'm happy to be corrected on the facts. I just wonder if you agree that ethically there's no major difference. If you sell someone a weapon knowing they're going to use it to kill civilians, you are partly responsible for those deaths, right? (Would apply to China also if they sell weapons to Russia).

Ok, can you explain to me the huge ethical difference you see between e.g. selling someone a gun knowing they're going to murder someone with it and giving them money knowing they're going to go buy a gun and murder someone with it.

Personally, I think sympathy is controlled by narrative, exposure, and proximity rather than racism — Baden

Just to add that the fact that sympathy is (delibrately) fostered and controlled by narrative, exposure and proximity rather than more relevant stuff like degree of injustice or harm is what I'm mainly decrying here.



It's a distinction without much of a difference. Yemeni civilians are being killed with US weapons and the US is profiting from them being killed. Whether the support is direct finance or sweetheart weapons deals doesn't mitigate the ethics of the situation a whole lot, does it?

OK, supported through arms sales and technical assistance, primarily.

Personally, I think sympathy is controlled by narrative, exposure, and proximity rather than racism. There was plenty of sympathy in Europe for Bosnian Muslims, but that was front and centre and magnified whereas Yemen is further away and minimized.

What I cannot understand why some cannot both oppose wars of conquest from both Russia and the US. — ssu

An inability to abstract out a concrete ethical position from an embedded perspective makes reality counterintuitive. This allows e.g. Boris Johnson to be taken seriously as condemning Putin in the strongest terms, while at the same time running and kissing the ass of the Saudi Arabians who are carrying out similarly barbaric acts in Yemen, financed by the U.S., who happily call Putin a war criminal only because he's not their war criminal, and so it goes on... :vomit:

In international politics (and honestly, I could leave out the "international" part) everyone is a piece of shit (excuse my French) and your only choice is which flavor of shit you'd like jammed into your mouth. — Tzeentch

I agree with this, particulary with regard to the aggressors in the most notable conflicts we've had over the past twenty years or so. We should recognize that powerful nations will pursue their interests as brutally as they can get away with, regardless of who they are. The side-taking then becomes about supporting the victims not our particular flavor of shit.

He's never not been a piece of shit; e.g. never shied away from targeting civilians in Georgia and Syria. What's remarkable to me though is how he's taking bits from the Western military playbook and throwing it in our faces. Bullshit about weapons of mass destruction (see U.S. v Iraq); Dubious accusations of genocide (see NATO v Serbia); Invasions dressed up as "special operations"/civilian casualties blamed on "human shields" (see Israel v Gaza); and so on. Almost as if he's trolling.

he is obviously profiting from the conflict …. — Apollodorus

Positive side> bump in approval ratings; negative> country destroyed and probable assassination by Putin's goons. A quick cost-benefit analysis tells me one of you is incredibly stupid.

+"There is nothing to say about Putin’s attempt to offer legal justification for his aggression. Its merit is zero.

Of course, it is true that the U.S. and its allies violate international law without a blink of an eye, but that provides no extenuation for Putin’s crimes."

Everyone should just read the interview. Summarizes a lot of what some of us have been trying to get across here.

:point: "It’s easy to understand why those suffering from the crime may regard it as an unacceptable indulgence to inquire into why it happened and whether it could have been avoided. Understandable, but mistaken. If we want to respond to the tragedy in ways that will help the victims, and avert still worse catastrophes that loom ahead, it is wise, and necessary, to learn as much as we can about what went wrong and how the course could have been corrected. Heroic gestures may be satisfying. They are not helpful." :up:

I admit I stopped reading your posts in detail and saw that as being as it was written without the question mark. I understand what you meant now but that I didn't delete it stands to illustrate that we tend to allow that type of thing in these types of threads. I stopped reading your posts in detail btw because they appeared to lack substance. I think some of the insults here are saying the same thing, but in less diplomatic language. It would be nice if we could all be nice, I agree.

And more cursing. And more attitude problems. — Christoffer

And since you are a mod, there's no point in flagging your posts. — Christoffer

No one flagged this (or any of your other outbursts) and I didn't mod you for bad language because it's politics.

Should just not give a shit about any of that? What's your fucking solution?
...
So bend down and get fucked. — Christoffer

So, stop being a hypocrite please. If you can dish it out, you're going to have to take it.

but you can bet that this "blame NATO" game is being played all over the interwebs and in traditional media as well. — Olivier5

Actually the game is two-fold; there's Russian blame NATO and there's Western blame NATO critics. So, when you give reasons for the conflict that involve NATO actions, Western propagandists will spin you as giving justifications for the Russian invasion. And when you condemn the invasion, Russian propagandists will spin you as denying NATO involvement. Seeing as both justifying the invasion and denying NATO involvement are bonkers, you get to be strawmanned into oblivion by both sides. This thread is riddled with that kind of thing. Those of us with any sense ignore it and the posters who propagate it here.

Unfortunately, they have to expand because world domination is their ultimate objective — Apollodorus

>Instructions for use: Attach said meaningless cliche to enemy of choice, so serious people can ignore you.

Cheers, this guy has some good info.

On the one hand, you claim to be looking for solutions, on the other you focus on attributing blame. Let's suppose, for arguments sake, this is 100% Putin's fault. Now we are precisely zero steps closer to finding a way to deescalate the situation.

Understand why you feel strongly about this, but a solution will come from a sober analysis. If you don't try to understand your opposition's perspective, you won't be able to deal with them effectively. It's like being in a poker game and thinking throwing your cards in your opponent's face is going to help you beat him.

Earlier this month the UK - land of populist Brexit - was already looking to provide government loans to cover energy bills in an out of control energy market. That was before any of this started, proper. Can European governments afford to drive up those prices further? Not even asking rhetorically, but as a genuine open question. — StreetlightX

They have some cover now and I expect they'll print/borrow more money for more subsidies, spreading the additional inflationary effects out to the broader economy. Most likely, governments, especially the UK, will consider this an opportunity to accrue 'moral' capital to offset their unpopularity on the economic front.

Anyway, back to the original point - one interesting thing about cutting off Russian oil and gas - whoever does it first, if it happens at all - is that it is likely to stir up further reactionary movements in Europe, which is already having a nice little fascist/populist revival. Living conditions falling as they are - thanks to the Euro - a price hike will hit the working class first and foremost as the price of living will shoot up considerably (more). As it stands the people who stand to benefit from this are nationalist identitarians everywhere, and it's not clear that the neoliberal elites of Europe will be willing to pay that price. And this to say nothing about the new wave of refugees that is about to hit Europe, already having a 'migrant crisis'. Or ordinary Russians who will also pay the price of Western sanctions. Again, it's more complicated than 'punish Russia because Putin is bad-man'. — StreetlightX

The sanctions stuff is really complex. The original sanctions were typically toothless but the Putin-as-Bond-movie-villian narrative is dominant across social media and Western politicians are being tempted to weigh social brownie points over bigger picture considerations. That may or may not turn out OK, but it is dangerous, I agree.

:lol:

He will either act upon it, or he will be hunted as a war criminal after this — Christoffer

I don't expect either of these scenarios. But if you're right in the former case, we'll be too dead to argue about it anyway.

If Putin really makes a reality of using tactical nukes against the west, then a lot of people in this thread will go silent with their naive ideas. — Christoffer

Things aren't going all that well for Putin and he may fear that his agreeing to talks look like weakness. The nuclear rhetoric is just a way to counterbalance this imo.

Thanks. :up:

If @Isaac hadn't given such an appropriate response, I would have deleted that. Please do not speak of your friend here again.

Generally, what we try to do here is analysis, which involves reason and evidence. If you're not here for that, don't post in the thread. You can do random nonsense in the Shoutbox or the Lounge.

Biden is a senile old man on medication who wants to take revenge on Putin for allegedly helping Trump beat Hillary.

When Biden says he isn’t going to send troops into Ukraine what he really means is the following:

When Boris Johnson sent British troops to Ukraine in January to “train Ukrainians”, that was a cover for special operations. The troops were pulled out but left “specialists” behinds.

The Brits (and some Americans) are now inside Ukraine organizing resistance aiming for (a) Russian retreat, (b) civil war, or (c) world war.

They have also completely penetrated Russia where they are organizing “peace-demos”, cyber-attacks on government institutions (together with Anonymous), and planning a coup to topple Putin in collaboration with America.

It is absolutely clear that Biden and Johnson have come to an understanding to overthrow the Russian government. All the talk about “sanctions” is just a smokescreen.

So, if you really care about your people you must tell them that it is time for Germany, France, Italy, and other European countries to unite, make peace with Russia, and kick America out of Europe. It’s either that or slavery. If you care about the future, don't repeat the mistakes of the past. The people of Europe must stand up and fight for their rights. And they must do it NOW, before it's too late. — Apollodorus

This is copypasta from an intern working in a Russian propaganda agency, right? It's really that silly.

It astounds you that posters here are trying to analyze the situation from an objective perspective? Daring to look at both sides of what has been a complex ongoing issue for years? On a philosophy forum. Really? Some of us have specifically condemned the invasion and those who haven't I presume do apart from the tiny pro-Russian crowd here, who are entitled to their perspective. Personally, I think Putin is a rotten piece of shit and I hope his troops get run out of Ukraine pronto. I feel like saying I hope every one of them gets a bullet in the head, but then I remember I taught Russian students, some of them were my friends, and some may have ended up in the army. Anyhow, that's irrelevant here. If all you want is shouting about how horrible all this is (and it is) go to the shoutbox rather than take shots at posters here for doing what they're supposed to be doing.