I think SophistiCat is right when it comes to the moral arguments he's making, I'm not sympathetic to the responses he's been getting here. But politics is about doing your best to move closer to moral ideals through advocacy. Advocacy is not about making an abstract stamp of approval/disapproval, it's about considering what we should do within observed circumstances and acting to extract the maximum amount of justice possible. So there is value in trying to make appeals to understand Putin's actions in terms of Russia's geopolitical vulnerability as a result of NATO's expansion, and then attribute responsibility accordingly (and here I pretty much agree with John Mearsheimer's analysis). You can condemn his actions in the open saying that his actions were ultimately unjust, but that by itself doesn't get us anywhere.

It's so typical and obvious from this thread: somehow to be critical of the actions of the US seems to mean that one has to be a total apologist for other Great Powers like Russia. The inability for some people to be critical of both the US and Russia is evident. Why it is so I just wonder.

The problem is that the criticism, which itself is naturally good at a certain level, isn't here anymore objective: everything the US government does is bad, both for the countries involved and in the end to the US itself. It is similar to the self-flagellation that Germans do, which sometimes is healthy, but done allways at everything is silly and in the long run detrimental.

This one sided criticism leads to a bizarre view of the World. As if EVERYTHING countries like Russia do is just because of the evil rotten things the US has forced upon them. This is one of the most widespread ways Americans show their hubris unintentionally: as if everything orbits around them and everything happens because of the actions of the US. And hence everything is the fault of the US as all bad things happen because of US meddling. That Russia hasn't made any independent decisions itself, but has been pushed against a wall. Hence Russia is seen as a victim. It surely isn't one, but try telling that.

This America-centered view of the World blurs the reality that a) the US is only one actor among others and b) other countries are quite capable of making bad decisions themselves create tragedies even without the US. What also this one-sided criticism lacks is the ability to put things into perspective. As if countries like North Korea aren't so bad, they are just portrayed to be by the evil US media.

The total inability and lack of objectivity when it comes to other countries, be it Russia or China, transforms into hypocrisy. Also this criticism simply rules out the possibility of other people actually having a positive view of the US, even it's foreign policy and that it's defence pacts are made of countries where the people actually want to be allied with the US. The myth that other people hate Americans and/or the US government is widespread.

* * *

If this discussion would be held around totally ignorant people, it might be good to point out the obvious things criticisms against the US: that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and didn't have the WMD's or that since Operation Ajax there has been antipathy towards the US in Iran etc. Yet I think that on this forum people aren't uninformed at all.

[Delete] @Baden

[Delete] @Baden

And yet you are hitting all the usual propaganda bullet-points. Historical claims and grievances are always brought up to justify wars and invasions. Crimea was not Russian land before it was absorbed by the Russian Empire (with help from Ukrainian Cossacks), and it was not majority Russian until Stalin's ethnic cleansings. We could go back and forth like this endlessly - but what's the point? None of this justifies Russian aggression in this particular instance. Taking advantage of the turmoil in a neighboring country to stealthily invade part of its territory with troops, special forces and civilian thugs, overthrow the local government, close down or take over non-compliant media, intimidate or kidnap dissidents, hastily stage a "referendum" with fabricated results - I say that is wrong, whatever else may have been the case historically or contemporaneously. — SophistiCat

Referendum 1991, 1994, 2014. Those hastily staged ones? You mean the other referendums that were tried for but were denied outright by the Ukrainian government? Do you have evidence for this fabrication? Or does that not fit your narrative? Russia has been the majority population for nearly 100 years. They were there since the late 18th century. But more importantly they now constitute a massive majority in that region.

What's the point? You're throwing propaganda at Russia for things it may or may not be a part of without acknowledging the greater narrative. Of course Russia should be punished for their wrongdoings, of course they have plenty of things they are guilty of. But this is not one of them. "invade", "thugs", "overthrow", "fabricate". All very strong words. I read what happened, see a majority population pass a referendum, that they have consistently tried to over the last 30 years or so and see that it finally passed after Russia stopped the government from outright stopping it. I disagree with you about that one point and you call me a propagandist. Even though I could care less about either sides, as they are both doing immoral things to "win the game". But for some reason you don't see it as that? You can't even concede on that point when it is pretty obvious what happened there. Just because Russia is sneaky doesn't mean they don't occasionally do the right thing for their citizens. I would understand if Russians were not the majority in Crimea, I would. But they have been majority Russian for a century now (after Stalin pushed out the Crimean Tatar). America did that as a minority and no one did a thing. Russia does that in a region that has consistently changed hands and that they are a majority population and everyone throws their hands up just because it's Russia. That's just being hypocritical.

You aren't going to progress the conversation at all by assuming everyone that disagrees with one point is a sympathizer of Russia.

[Delete] @Baden

It's just you actually. You and your mates who can point the finger at Russia all they like and not look back at the West and say, "perhaps they have done something wrong as well".

I think all people who are critical of the U.S here are also critical of Russia. Of course Russia has done things wrong. Political assassinations, war on Georgia and Ukraine, etc. But we cannot just look at Russia without also addressing the U,S who s doing the blaming in the first place. — René Descartes

So you cannot talk about Russia without also addressing the US.

Can you talk about, let's say, Sweden without the US? Can Swedish foreign policy and the Swedish long term agenda be addressed without addressing the US and it's involvement with Sweden? Is it so that we cannot understand Swedish policies without taking into account the US? Oh I agree, Swedish-US relations are indeed important, but are they of such pivotal importance that you cannot understand Sweden without the US and the US has to included in the picture?

(Yes, Sweden!)


Just how do the West's action compare here with starting wars and annexing parts of other countries is indeed important. And is really every war the US has fought bad and unjustified? Sure, the "liberation" of Iraq is one thing. Yet would Koreans be better off with everyone of them being citizens of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea? Would the world be better with Saddam Hussein having Kuwait? Oh yes, you'll find this and that error or wrongdoing that the US made, but does that really offset everything?


And I haven't said that the West doesn't have any faults here, but on has to put things into perspective.
First of all, there indeed was a narrow window of opportunity where indeed Russia could have joined NATO when Russians indeed were open to idea after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This of course would have needed truly larger than life politicians on both sides and not the average ones that we had as getting Russia into NATO and keeping it their would truly have been a political feat. Yet what prevailed wasn't a conspiracy against Russia, but the typical Western hubris that Russia was past thing and never would rise up again and hence totally unimportant on the global scene.

Yet does this then justify Putin's policies?

[Delete] @Baden

Is English not your first language? — andrewk

Yes it is actually, and that you assume it isn't shocks me — René Descartes

I assumed no such thing. As a native English speaker you should understand the difference between asking whether X is the case and assuming X is the case.

You made an erroneous and unfounded accusation to another poster by your use of the word 'typical'. Had English not been your first language, that may have been excusable on the grounds that you didn't realise the meaning of what you had said. But you have now rendered that excuse unavailable to you, leaving the erroneous conclusion you leaped to standing there unexplained.

[Delete] @Baden

This is a typical American Imperialist view — René Descartes

... to somebody that is not American.

[Delete] @Baden

I said "this is a typical American Imperialist view." — René Descartes

And that is not the way the word 'typical' is used in English. How many examples do you know of somebody saying to someone that is not in group X, in a derogatory way, 'What you've just said/done is typical of group X'?

[Delete] @Baden

How many times have you done something stupid in your life (we all have). Does that discount everything possitive about you and mean you are a stupid person?
Just because someone has an American-style imperialistic view, it doesn’t mean they are American.

Not trying to make any associations between stupid and Americans, by the way. It’s just an example.
My point is, just because someone may have a view that is typically attributed to a particular group, it doesn’t automatically mean that they are part of that group.

(Where on Earth did my response go?)

Anyway, really Descartes?

The world would be a better Place if Saddam Hussein could have gotten Kuwait?

Your response just proves my point of lack of objectivity and perspective.

The world would be a better place without IS which was a result of the war in Iraq.

The world would be a better place without IS which was a result of the war in Iraq. — CuddlyHedgehog

Sorry, but you are referring to the wrong war.

I'm talking ABOUT the so-called Gulf War here (Desert Shield/Desert Storm). Not the American invasion of Iraq. That alliance didn't go into Iraq. The elder Bush listened to the voice of reason of the Saudis (that it would be a quagmire and no Arab nation would go along invading Baghdad...).

Do you wanna talk about Al-Qeda then? Meddling in other countries’ affairs creates and reinforces terrorism.

Sure,

My own opinion is that the 9/11 attackers and Al-Qaeda itself ought to have been processed just like the Twin Tower bombing of 1993 as a terrorist attack that the police and the justice system takes care of. Just like in Germany or Italy or nearly anywhere else. Heck, the terrorist of that attack and the 9/11 attack were family! But no.

Perhaps not invading a country and not going to war would have been a far too lame response for an US President (as we know that even if it would have been Al Gore as President, the US very likely would have gone into Afghanistan).

After all, the whole idea of the terrorist attack was to piss off America to hopefully bomb Mecca and Medinah (or something as stupid). These muslim loonies couldn't before instill an islamic revolution themselves their countries, so they thought to use the US. Hence the terrorists indeed got what they wanted. With the invasion of Iraq it was even better.

Then afterwards when in Iraq, the US armed forces actually did destroy largely Al Qaeda with the Sunni Awakening (basically simply allying with part of those insurgents), which wasn't at all done by Washington's lead, but by the commanders on the field. Yet then America withdrew and the first thing the Iraqi President did was to jail his Sunni Vice President and undo everything the US armed forces had achieved with the relations to the Sunni minority.

And hence you were left with IS.

Interesting conspiracy theory but bears no more credibility than that of the Bush administration being behind the twin towers’s attack.

Interesting conspiracy theory but bears no more credibility than that of the Bush administration being behind the twin towers’s attack. — CuddlyHedgehog

Would be interested for your argument just where it lack's credibility.

Would be interested for your argument to the contrary.

I still don't understand what you say lacks credibility. You should make the argument why it lacks credibility.

- That Al Qaeda's strategy with the 9/11 attacks were to get the US to invade Afghanistan is a well known fact. And It's basically a textbook strategy how a tiny terrorist cell making a terrorist strike thinks to get popularity: that the response of what is targeted (the government, or in this case a nation) will make people see that the cell has a justifiable cause. For example the German RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion) thought that with it's attacks the government response would open eyes of the (West) German people to see that their government was controlled by Nazis and then a true Red Army would emerge. Hence they called themselves only the fraction of this upcoming army. Similar thinking is evident in Al Qaeda's strategy, if naturally the objectives are totalal

- That Al Qaeda was basically defeated after especially with the "Sunni Awakening" and with the emergence of "Sons of Iraq" started to fight Al Qaeda. Unlike Afghanistan, the insurgency in Iraq had been contained only for the fruits of the counterinsurgency operation to be lost with basically by Nouri al-Maliki's sectarian policies. Thanks to al-Maliki, these then came the recruiting ground for IS. Add there the inability for the Shiite regime in Baghdad to control Iraq, and the sudden emergence of IS wasn't in the end so suprising.

After all, the whole idea of the terrorist attack was to piss off America to hopefully bomb Mecca and Medinah (or something as stupid). These muslim loonies couldn't before instill an islamic revolution themselves their countries, so they thought to use the US. Hence the terrorists indeed got what they wanted. With the invasion of Iraq it was even better. — ssu

This lacks credibility. "well-known fact", "textbook strategy of a terrorist cell (did you just make that up?)" are statements that prove nothing.

So you need references?

Just to look up a few...

Shahzad, who had been the Pakistan bureau chief for the Hong Kong- based Asia Times, had unique access to senior Al-Qaeda commanders and cadres, as well as those of the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban organizations.

His account of Al-Qaeda strategy is particularly valuable because of the overall ideological system and strategic thinking that emerged from many encounters Shahzad had with senior officials over several years.

Shahzad writes that Al-Qaeda strategists believed its terrorist attacks on 9/11 would lead to a U.S. invasion of Afghanistan which would in turn cause a worldwide “Muslim backlash.” That “backlash” was particularly important to what emerges in Shahzad’s account as the primary Al-Qaeda aim of stimulating revolts against regimes in Muslim countries.

Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 Strategy Explained

Or this one:

Al Qaeda knew its limited numbers precluded it from defeating these governments, so it sought to provoke the Muslim masses into overthrowing them. Al Qaeda also knew it lacked the strength to do this provoking by itself so it sought to trick someone more powerful into doing it. By al Qaeda's logic, an attack of sufficient force against the Americans would lure the United States to slam sideways into the Middle East on a mission of revenge, leading to direct and deep U.S. collaboration with those same secular, corrupt local governments. Al Qaeda's hope was that such collaboration with the Americans would lead to outrage — and outrage would lead to revolution. Note that the 9/11 attacks were not al Qaeda's first attempt to light this flame. The 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings and the 2000 USS Cole bombing were also the work of this same al Qaeda cell, but the attacks lacked the strength to trigger what al Qaeda thought of as a sufficient U.S. response.

The Many Faces of Al Qaeda

Questionable credentials. You cannot prove a point by quoting someone's opinion.

There was a great 2010 satire about radicalised Brits trying to use the same strategy. Four Lions.

[Delete] @Baden