"You're denying the agency of Ukrainians!"

This is a line you've probably had bleated at you by propagandized empire livestock if you've engaged in online debate about the role western powers have played in paving the way to this war. ... Imperial narrative managers have even been working overtime to make the word "westsplaining" happen, which is their progressive-sounding term for when one makes the self-evident observation that western powers influence world events. Mainstream westerners are actively trained to regurgitate lines like "Stop westsplaining to Ukrainians about coups and proxy conflicts! You're denying their agency!"

Well, I'm saying it. This is a proxy war. Kyiv is a puppet regime. Ukraine does not have independent agency in any meaningful way. This is not the fault of the Ukrainian people, who are obviously far and away the greatest victims of the Russian invasion, but of the giant western power structure which deliberately worked to take away the nation's agency many years before the invasion took place. I mean, my god. The US and its allies are pouring billions of dollars worth of weapons into Ukraine from around the world, the CIA has been training Ukrainians to kill Russians, the US intelligence cartel is directly sharing military intelligence with Kyiv as we speak, and this follows US-backed coups in Ukraine in 2014 and in 2004 before that. This is a proxy war. This is exactly the thing that a proxy war is. The only "agency" Ukraine has is the Central Intelligence kind.

...The US power alliance does not care about Ukraine's sovereignty beyond what measures need to be taken to actively subvert it. When people object to criticisms of the way the empire has actively robbed Ukrainians of any real agency, what they are actually doing is defending the most powerful empire that has ever existed from attempts to highlight its malfeasance... Denying the western role in subverting Ukrainian sovereignty doesn't benefit ordinary Ukrainians, it hurts them. You can't fix a problem you don't understand, and until there's widespread understanding of the way the US empire uses proxies to advance its agendas of global domination, nothing can be done to stop these ugly proxy wars from happening.

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-only-agency-ukraine-has-is-the?s=r

:smile:

Cautiously, I do not have any a priori, blanket objection to the use of violence. Which is to answer your question directly: I do not think violence is inherently illegitimate. That said I'm not sure that legitimacy is an adequate rubric by which to assess violence - violence by nature is excessive, boundary-breaking. Most of the time what it challenges are the very frameworks by which we assess legitimacy in the first place. Violence should be uncomfortable, inherently: if there is a 'legitimate use of violence', this maybe tells us something more about the concept of legitimacy - and how limited it is as such - than it does violence. Which is not to say that we should give up on legitimacy, but that we should recognize that human action doesn't fall neatly, ever, into any normative framework which would give us a guarantee of comfort about our actions. Legitimacy should not be a crutch. Everything about what we do is contestable, always, no matter how secure the foundations of something like legitimacy are. That's why both politics and ethics are an ineradicable part of how we move in the world.

A second point, a kind of mantra really, is that almost all violence on the part of the repressed is, first and foremost, counter-violence. This is something that came through very clearly for me among the context of BLM and the whole discourse around that (speaking of policing...). Again this doesn't make it legitimate (or illegitimate), but it does head off immediate objections that non-violent approaches are the only answer to grievances. When one's entire ecology is one of violence that is perpetuated day by day (by state forces, say), a violent act against that ecology cannot be categorically attacked on account of merely 'being violent'.

As for Ukraine, things are more complex than I can know. On some accounts I've read by local socialist Ukrainians, the Ukranian left is entirely welcoming of weapons, and there is a certain resentment of those who would want those imports to stop. On the other hand, it is not at all contradictory to note that the pouring of Western arms into warzones have almost never, ever, ever lead to good outcomes, nor are have they ever been done with good outcomes (i.e. human flourishing) in mind. It's a simple fact that it is always correct - frankly transcendentally correct - to harbor enormous, relentless skepticism over weapons transfers done by powers who themselves do not put themselves at risk. It would be incredible news to hear that Ukraine beats back the Russian invasion with credit due to those weapons, but even that would still not settle the issue, as far as I'm concerned. The question really should be what happens after. By all rational predictions, nothing good. To quote from another Ukrainian whose interview I posted earlier:

"After Maidan, radical political action has been constrained to either participation in one of the army-adjacent militias or struggles for rights. Without abandoning the most basic radical positions of helping refugees as well as Ukrainian and Russian dissidents, radicals today must work to break the image of a “patriotic war” that the state has constructed. With this war and its aftermath, we will see great repression on both sides of the border, and it is ultimately the refugees burning through their savings and collecting ever greater debts who will bear the brunt of it. The attempt to cling to the remnants of law and capital even as the tanks are rolling in only further exposes the fact that human reproduction remains a byproduct of the reproduction of capital".

So I don't think it's inconsistent to say that those weapons are - literally and figuratively - double-edged swords. Whatever good they will do - if they do any 'good' - will only ever mean so much in a world where Ukraine remains a puppet of imperialism of either a military or capitalist stripe. Both are soul-destroying, and it would be wrong to be blinded by the (rightly horrible) spectacle of Russian missiles such that the 'other side' is uncritically celebrated or even welcomed. Like seriously, fuck the US - it has never not taken mass suffering as an opportunity for itself and its friends, to the determent of the entire planet.

--

Also Madeleine Albright is dead and I would have preferred if she died violently and painfully but we can't always get what we want apparently.

The US wants a unipolar world order. It wants a unipolar world order because (1) it's used to it, (2) it's profitable for capitalists who rely on it to secure and expand its markets, and who in turn sponsor the American state. Russian leverage, which includes European reliance on its oil and gas, as well as nuclear arms and billionaire investment money - among other things - threatens that unipolarity. It's also the case that Russian crony capitalism means that corporate profits are cut into by rents to the state, which is very inconvenient for Western capitalists who are quite used to having the state fuck right off except in the case of destroying workers' rights, bailing out their debts, and privatizing literally everything. The US, as guarantor of the 'rules based international order' - i.e. neoliberal capitalism - has never not looked for any opportunity to demolish any barriers to the system which it acts as a patron to. Russia remains one such barrier (China is another). NATO, a de facto American institutional agent, has been working for decades to dismantle said barrier, mostly by eating away at Russia's sphere of influence and threatening it's business model - which includes not adhering to trade standards that annoying institutions like the EU would like to place upon it. Ukraine right now is one more round in that ongoing saga. Ta da.

Lol if you're not flag-waving for one of the two imperial death machines, you are a 'political nihilist'. I actually feel sorry for you.

I never cease to be amazed at the desert of imagination of those who cannot fathom a politics that does not entail eating boots whole leather.

Thanks, I appreciate that. But yes, I remember being shocked to learn - not long ago either - that it was Russia that destroyed 80% of the wehrmacht in WWII, but in literally any narrative ever, it's the US that gets all of the credit.

I'm following the French news. There's nothing particularly original there that I can see. Of course they are not gung-ho like the Daily Beast or the WSJ, or the Sun. They try to be thoughtful and informative, as they should. There's a certain sobriety in French and more generally European media as compared to the US/UK.

The French government has kept its donations to Ukraine secret, probably because they didn't give much. The French state is pretty much broke.

The one and only French aircraft carrier +other ships are operating in the Black Sea, ostensibly to help protect Romania, Poland, etc. in case the conflict escalates.

All four French strategic nuclear strike submarines are out at sea (it's usually only one out at a time).

Most French analysts are satisfied that the Germans, at long last, are seriously investing in defence and trying to be less dependent on Russian gas. That's a good evolution, the way we see it, moving away from boy scout naivety.

On NATO, the French tend to act as the one disagreeing with the US. Other members would typically be shy to oppose the US in NATO, so the way it works is the French put out their objections informally on behalf of the other Europeans. It's all a bit fake. I don't know what the French position is re. Ukraine in NATO, but it would not surprise if they had been slow and uncommitted to it. — Olivier5

I am still laughing, by the way, that you responded to "here is perhaps the most important international shift of geopower in decades" with "here is where the French have put their boat".

It's really so good. The sobriety is, in fact, real.

Any insights on how the Italian and French diplomatic corps are looking at things? — Benkei

Not from me, but I cannot recommend this thread enough:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1506116621500403725.html

In addition, check out his elaboration of (ex-French PM) Dominique de Villepin's understanding, which strikes me as utterly correct:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1505396482274304000.html

The importance of taking China into account of any analysis of what is going on is made startlingly clear.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-23/putin-wants-hostile-states-to-pay-rubles-for-gas-interfax-says

Well this is interesting. Putin's done one better than preemptively cutting off gas. He's asking for gas payments in Rubles. He's trying to force the West to undermine their own sanctions if they want his goods. Gives credence to Michael Hudson's prediction that the war marks the beginning of the end of the US dollar hegemony:

For more than a generation the most prominent U.S. diplomats have warned about what they thought would represent the ultimate external threat: an alliance of Russia and China dominating Eurasia. America’s economic sanctions and military confrontation has driven them together, and is driving other countries into their emerging Eurasian orbit.... So I am somewhat chagrined as I watch the speed at which this U.S.-centered financialized system has de-dollarized over the span of just a year or two. ... I had expected that the end of the dollarized imperial economy would come about by other countries breaking away. But that is not what has happened. U.S. diplomats themselves have chosen to end international dollarization themselves, while helping Russia build up its own means of self-reliant agricultural and industrial production.

https://mronline.org/2022/03/08/america-shoots-its-own-dollar-empire-in-economic-attack-on-russia/

My point was more that the proper "side" to take is not of one powerful interest vs another when that's the very narrative that feeds their continued abuse of the powerless. — Baden

Exactly. This shouldn't be this hard. Hewing to a pretty basic principle like this should not occasion accusations of being a Putinist or somesuch. If there's one thing I'm learning is the breathtaking power of propaganda to force one to pick between two completely artificial positions - always aligned with power - as though they exhaust the field of the possible.

Wish I could quote this entire interview, conducted with a local Ukrainian leftist, by the communist Endnotes collective:

It’s hard to deny that the current situation definitely serves the reactionary forces: the militarised nationalist groups are receiving more support and are increasingly “mainstream”, and progressive liberals forgot about their “struggles” and threw all the support behind the state apparatus. But I am also seeing many opportunities for radicalization as the army and the police, by conscripting people and not allowing men out of the country, by arresting and killing looters, are exposing their interest in the protection of the law itself, not in our survival. Once you understand that the system we live in is the cause of this horror, that it feeds from this violence, once you feel it with your own skin, it’s really hard to listen to people painting Ukrainian suffering as permanent and suggesting political half-measures.

The Ukrainian government and the media paint the invasion as a “natural”, mythical occurrence. The minister of health easily transitioned from reporting the numbers of people infected and killed by Covid, to reporting the numbers of murdered children. The war and the pandemic are thus divorced from normality, their causes and consequences from the constitution of the state itself and the world at large: these are uncontrollable cataclysms. The mass murder of the Ukrainian civilian population is described as non-political, it originates from an inhuman, genetic and contagious population of Russian “orcs”. The Ukrainian state is merely trying to survive here, and it is treason to not throw your body to protect it.

What further characterises the present situation, after an intentional misattribution of its causes (“war can’t potentially be a part of normality, fascism isn’t a constant in a liberal democracy, it’s outside of it”) is the total absence of solutions among nationalists and liberals. Calls for reparations (themselves just disguised calls for mass genocide of “guilty” Russians), calls for Putin to be assassinated, show that the imperial layout of the world is expected to be eternal, we can only hope for slight redistributions. Financial help for Ukraine is important, but expectations of Ukraine experiencing an economic revival due to “high patriotism” and “national unity” after the war are groundless. These are all simply non-solutions since this war is inextricably bound up with capital and isn’t just an error in its normal functioning. And while a peace treaty or Putin’s death might stop this war here and now, they won’t prevent Russia from policing the post-USSR region in the future.

...What you won’t see in any of today’s war coverage, always praising Ukrainian military performance, and what people generally don’t understand, is that the training, maintenance and arming of the Ukrainian army, along with the IMF’s credit requirements, are the structural cause behind the gutting of hospitals, schools and universities, as well as poverty-level pensions and the lack of public sector wage increases. Austerity is the future that awaits Ukraine if it’s ever accepted into the EU.

https://endnotes.org.uk/other_texts/en/andrew-letters-from-ukraine-part-1

--

No, StreetlightX posted an interesting, if depressing, article worth considerstion. You post garbage conspiracy theories about a NATO Jihadi war on Slavs aided and abetted by the non-Slav Jew Zelensky. It'll be George Soros next. That's what makes you an embarrassment and him a contributor. — Baden

Thank you.

To be clear, Putin should probably be set on fire before being slowly dismembered by horses, but this is no less what any leader in the West deserves either.

This one is doing the rounds, and anyone who does not think that the West has enabled, at every step of the way, the wholesale slaughter of Ukrainians - right up until the point at which it has become political imprudent to do so - is a propagandized shill:

“According to [NYT reporter David] Sanger, who cannot have written his piece without high-level sources, the Biden administration “seeks to help Ukraine lock Russia in a quagmire without inciting a broader conflict with a nuclear-armed adversary or cutting off potential paths to de-escalation … CIA officers are helping to ensure that crates of weapons are delivered into the hands of vetted Ukrainian military units, according to American officials. But as of now, Mr. Biden and his staff do not see the utility of an expansive covert effort to use the spy agency to ferry in arms as the United States did in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union during the 1980s.”

...I have evidence from other sources to corroborate this. “The only end game now,” a senior administration official was heard to say at a private event earlier this month, “is the end of Putin regime. Until then, all the time Putin stays, [Russia] will be a pariah state that will never be welcomed back into the community of nations. China has made a huge error in thinking Putin will get away with it. Seeing Russia get cut off will not look like a good vector and they’ll have to re-evaluate the Sino-Russia axis. All this is to say that democracy and the West may well look back on this as a pivotal strengthening moment.”

I gather that senior British figures are talking in similar terms. There is a belief that “the U.K.’s No. 1 option is for the conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin.” Again and again, I hear such language. It helps explain, among other things, the lack of any diplomatic effort by the U.S. to secure a cease-fire. It also explains the readiness of President Joe Biden to call Putin a war criminal.

I.e. "How can we ensure Russia continues to turn Ukrainian citizens into ash for the sake of cementing American unipolarity?"

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-03-22/niall-ferguson-putin-and-biden-misunderstand-history-in-ukraine-war?sref=xzGl1Vcx

Anyone who thinks the West gives even an iota of a damn about Ukrainians was born under a rock and has remained there ever since.

It's time! :cheer: Also cheers for the write-up on Traverso. That's roughly what I've read about it too so I will probably hold off on that one for now.

Sophie Wahnich - In Defence of the Terror: Liberty Or Death in the French Revolution
Domenico Losurdo - War and Revolution: Rethinking the Twentieth Century
Domenico Losurdo - Liberalism: A Counter-History

The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, Shulamith Firestone — _db

Would like to hear your thoughts, when you're done.

Because liberals get hard-ons for authoritarianism when the going gets rough.

All the more reason to be critical of power, always, no matter what rock star status one might have.

-

Always fun to watch liberals get hard-ons for authoritarianism when the going gets rough.

And Zelensky is also living proof that Ukrainians were totally and absolutely disgusted with their political class and it's corruption. — ssu

Which is funny because before Zelensky got elevated to Western liberal Saint, he wasn't seen - even by the West - as a squeaky clean guy either. To say nothing of his being sponsored by billionares like Kolomoisky - who, as it happens, also funds neo-Nazi battalions.

Point being that there are perfectly good reasons to be critical about Zelensky. His being an ex-comedian is not one of them.

He was not elected for comedy, but because of the personality and promises. It's all about did they keep their promises. He failed to do so. Whose fault is that? — FreeEmotion

It would be nice if literally anything I said contradicted this. Thanks for the useless post though I guess.

I will say that the quips about Zelensky being an ex-comedian somehow a bad thing is dumb and classist. I want more comedians, baristas, garbage people, dance teachers and brick layers in positions of power, as a general rule. If anything Zelensky's sense for the dramatic has been an absolute boon to Ukraine in this war, even if people are really so thick as to take it at sheer face value. But that's not Zelensky's fault.

And then there's Raymond Geuss' lovely little piece, which can be rewritten line-by-line, replacing Al-Qaeda with Putin, and US troops in Saudi Arabia with NATO expansion:

One normal way of going about determining why someone did something is to ask the person in question. The question why Al-Qaeda bombed the Pentagon and the World Trade Center has a relatively clear answer: “They say they did it because of U.S. support for the corrupt Saudi monarchy and the garrisoning of American troops in Saudi Arabia.” One might then expect people to start asking why U.S. troops should be in Saudi Arabia anyway, why exactly control of this region is so important, and finally, how much real power the United States has and how it can be best deployed. Instead public discussion almost immediately began to focus on elaborating various fantasies about Islamic fundamentalism, “their” hatred of “our” values, freedom, and way of life, etc.

The creation of imaginary hate figures may give some immediate psychic satisfaction, but in the long run it only spreads and increases confusion and aggression. Troops can in principle be withdrawn from Saudi Arabia, policy toward the Saudi monarchy can change, but how can one deal in a satisfactory way with inherently spectral “Islamic terror”? It no doubt suits some political circles in the United States that the population continue to be fearful, mystified, and frustrated, the better to gain their acquiescence in various further military operations, but it is hard to believe that this kind of emotional and cognitive derangement of the population contributes to increasing U.S. political power.

Fantasizing about the mad-King Putin and his billionaires does have the disadvantage of being a little less spectral than 'Islamic terror', although 'Russian terror' will probably do the same job, I guess.

After 9/11, Judith Butler wrote a depressing piece in which she had to explain - to idiots apparently far more numerous than could have been imagined - that explanation is not, in fact, exoneration. It's equally depressing to read it today:

The Left 's response to the war waged in Afghanistan ran into serious problems, in part because the explanations that the Left has provided to the question "Why do they hate us so much? " were dismissed as so many exonerations of the acts of terror themselves. This does not need to be the case. I think we can see, however, how moralistic anti-intellectual trends coupled with a distrust of the Left as so many self-flagellating First World elites has produced a situation in which our very capacity to think about the grounds and causes of the current global conflict is considered impermissible. The cry that "there is no excuse for September 11" has become a means by which to stifle any serious public discussion of how US foreign policy has helped to create a world in which such acts of terror are possible.

We see this most dramatically in the suspension of any attempt to offer balanced reporting on the international conflict, the refusal to include important critiques of the US military effort by Arundhati Roy and Noam Chomsky, for instance, within the mainstream US press. This takes place in tandem with the unprecedented suspension of civil liberties for illegal immigrants and suspected terrorists, and the use of the flag as an ambiguous sign of solidarity with those lost on September 11 and with the current war, as if the sympathy with the one translates, in a single symbolic stroke, into support for the latter. — Judith Butler, Explanation and Exoneration

Considering that the US shortly after carried out a slow-motion holocaust in the Middle East, it's sad to note that few seemed to have learnt anything.

I asked if there's enough evidence to draw a conclusion of a possible other outcome. — Christoffer

And I said this is irrelevant.

Is there enough evidence to conclude the possibility that Russia would have invaded Ukraine anyway?

Yes or no? — Christoffer

This is dumb. Just pulling a counterfactual out of thin air then saying ha ha you can't prove it would or wouldn't have happened is meaningless and trivial. Anything can count as 'possible' if you fantasize hard enough about it. The question is why anyone should take these "possibilities" seriously in a way that does not just build in your conclusion at the outset.

(1) Unicorn monkeys have inflected Putin's brain with rainbows (which have made him mad).
(2) No one has yet precluded the possibility of unicorn monkeys infecting Putin's brain with rainbows.
(3) You can't draw a definitive conclusion that unicorn monkeys have not infected Putin's brains with rainbows (which have made him mad).

QED.

Counter-argument (mine): No premise denies the possibility that an invasion would have happened anyway (logic). If an invasion would have happened anyway, there's no responsibility for Nato in this invasion (logic). — Christoffer

Lol.

"If I disregard everything and assume my conclusion from the beginning, then I am correct".

Saved everyone from reading the ramble above.

Your obsession with my posts is unhealthy and maybe you should get that checked out. Just saying.

It's amazing how nearly every any American foreign policy strategist who knew anything about anything understood NATOs role in goading Russian aggression yet these couple of internet randoms are like no Putin is just very bad that's all, I did my 'research'. Is this the same kind of research anti-vaxxers do?

Or: This is clearly a geopolitical crisis but let's take the 'geo' and the 'politics' out of it and we're just left with "Putin bad".

Or: "Joining NATO is like having a library card, anyone can do it if they just sign the right documents. It's not like the entire point of NATOs existence, from top to bottom, is to make strategic decisions about how not to engender potentially world ending conflict. No, it's just like singing up to an Uber Eats account".

I analyzed the possible obsession with Nato in terms of how debates and discussions has been going on for 30 years now. To the extent of leading to bias dismissing the more logical motivations Putin and Russia have.

So far, all who argue for blaming Nato for Putin's invasion are the ones inventing facts or taking one unrelated fact and making false connections to motive. All while people who actually research Russia and Putin's presidency for a living, point towards how Putin's motivations relate to the expansion of Russia, not to the fantasy of a Nato invasion.

It's this Nato bias in the rhetoric so many have that makes them pick facts that do not actually logically glue to an actual conclusion for such external motivations of Putin. The "facts" are either what Putin says directly, which is undoubtedly the most unreliable source for any kind of fact, or a historic fact with the rhetorical suffix that it somehow connects to such motivations without any real connection established.

It's this inability to actually make coherent arguments where premises (facts) actually relate to the conclusion that creates a mess of a discussion where people just cite historical facts as premises for conclusions of their own opinion. Instead of looking at what people who research Putin actually says, use that for interpreting the behavior through this conflict and make logical and rational inductive conclusions based on it. — Christoffer

source: trust me bro

Tada, I condensed your four paragraphs.

As an enlightened centrist who is conflict averse and very much into big tent politics, I think it is perfectly possible to heap liquid shit upon Nato, the West, and Putin all at the same time. I'm all about joining hands across the aisle.

On the - not entirely reasonable - assumption that NATO does not trigger a nuclear holocaust, everything this rather sobering article says strikes me as sound:

It is not for us to give Zelensky advice on what he should do on the ground, and at what point he should cut a deal. Instead, what we in the west should do is be clearer about what we can do. For example, we can't fast-track his country’s membership application for the EU. It is really quite dangerous to dangle this carrot in front of the Ukrainians at a time like this. France has been blocking North Macedonia and Albania's accessions. There is no way that the EU can fast-track Ukraine without fast-tracking the others.

...Another carrot we are dangling in front of the Ukrainians is weapons. Most of the German weapons that were promised never arrived. Future weapons deliveries are going to get harder because Nato does not want to confront the Russian military directly. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said that western arms convoys constitute a legitimate target in the war. We should expect western weapons supplies to Ukraine to dry up over time.

A stick that the Ukrainians are holding over our heads is the repeated assertion that after Putin takes Ukraine, we are next. I understand why he wants to spin that narrative. But it is not true. Putin’s radius of horror is limited to the Russo-sphere that is not in Nato: Ukraine, Georgia, maybe Moldova. Nato’s response to this war has surprised him, and it will be stationing an overwhelming number of troops and weapons on its eastern front. Invading a Nato country would be too risky, even for a man who takes calculated risks.

Putin can, however, win the war in Ukraine because he has the deadliest weapons, and is willing to target civilians. Once the western weapons supplies end, the odds in this war will once again favour Russia. Time is on Putin’s side. ... Europe can, and should, make a credible promise that we will welcome Ukrainian refugees in the millions. But our ability to help Ukraine win the war is limited. This is what we must tell Zelensky. The cheerleading has to stop.

https://www.eurointelligence.com/column/the-cheerleading-has-to-stop

Or:

• The idea that Ukraine will be admitted into NATO in the foreseeable future is dumb and laughable.
• The idea that Russia will expand it's attack into states beyond its traditional area of influence is dumb and laughable. I take this one back who knows what Putin will do.
• Sending weapons to Ukraine will probably rack up body counts without payoff.

None of this is anything worth celebrating, nor fixed, but worth incorporating over the cheat-beating celebrations of treating the war like a rooster-fight.

Literally one million dead Iraqis later, on this anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, now close to entering its third decade, one has to wonder what actual fucking authority the US or the UK have to talk about 'respecting sovereignty'.

Where are the devastating economic sanctions? Where are the calls to throw American leaders into gulags where they belong, right next to Putin? Fuck any and all selective liberal pseudo-tears over Ukraine.

Financing shows a vested interest in the outcome. Selling arms show opportunism. It's a distinction with a difference, ethically speaking. — Janus

One day someone will explain to me how handing someone a gun while they are in the middle of a child murdering spree - and profiting from it - is somehow less contemptable than giving someone money so they can buy their own gun to murder children.

Presumably this someone will be a shameless apologist for murdering children.

Some people are going for a trial thing ...

• Statement calling for the creation of a Special Tribunal for the punishment of the crime of aggression against Ukraine
• ICC prosecutor launches Ukraine war crimes investigation (AP)
• Ukraine calls for Nuremberg-style tribunal to judge Vladimir Putin (Politico)
• Why we need a new Nuremberg trial to make Putin pay (Daily Mail)
• Putin’s use of military force is a crime of aggression (Financial Times) — jorndoe

Can you imagine if even a fraction of this - totally symbolic, completely useless - self-satisfied wank was applied even for a moment to American crimes or infinitely greater magnitute?

I think — Olivier5

Of the things I care about even minimally, what 'you think' is not on the list.

It's useful to keep all this in mind and to condemn every illegal war, including the current aggression of a democracy by a dictatorship in Ukraine. Two wrongs don't make a right. — Olivier5

Don't recall saying otherwise, but sure.

After. — frank

Oh, how convenient.

And surely the US can be trusted to not continue such sales, given its stellar track record.

Meanwhile American material support of genocidal regimes like Israel or brutal dictatorships like Egypt continue apace.

For someone who likes to enjoy performative condemnation, you sure do alot of wiggling out of such performances when its people you like.

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

Was this before or after the US$650 million arms deal with SA in November 2021?

Lmao, "The US didn't fund the Saudis, they just provided them with weapons so they got to skip the step of converting cash to arms and made killing Yemenis easier by ensuring the aid was fit for purpose from the get-go. This is somehow more indirect. I am very intelligent".

To be fair it works out better for the US because they get to cycle tax-dollars to their weapons companies which in turn props up the US economy - which can only function so long as it builds weapons to kill people with.

And of course, the war is accelerating the catastrophe of American-sponsored genocide in Yemen...

New nationwide assessments confirm that 23.4 million people now need assistance – about three of every four people. Among them are 19 million people who will go hungry in the coming months – an increase of almost 20 per cent from 2021 – while more than 160,000 of them will face famine-like conditions. Noting that Yemen relies on commercial imports for 90 per cent of its food and nearly all its fuel, he said one third of its wheat comes from Russia and Ukraine, where the conflict sparked on 24 February may push food prices, which already doubled last year, even higher.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1114002

And hopefully dead soon, probably peacefully, unfortunately.