If a war effects for example your work, I think it's obviously more important for you than something that just notice every once in a while in the papers.You really think it's "distance" and not "skin colour" determining the wildly different reactions to war, or which presumably there's always one side in the wrong and at least somebody is a victim, in different continents? — boethius
Of course not! In fact it seems that others have these kind of ideas.I honestly don't get what you're even trying to argue on this topic of the "little green men".
Are you saying if we catch the US or the Ukrainians in a lie then we can assume everything they say is a lie? — boethius
Then make the revelant link by all means.It's not off topic because the US are heavily involved in Ukraine, so their reputation is very relevant. — Isaac
If a war effects for example your work, I think it's obviously more important for you than something that just notice every once in a while in the papers. — ssu
What I'm saying is that one can use common sense and notice the most clumsy lies. Because the fact is, which I remember quite vividly, was that the journalist covering the Crimean invasion didn't dare to say for days just who the forces were...because they didn't have the Russian flag and Putin said that they weren't Russian soldiers, but Crimean volunteers. — ssu
Not if the EU is dominated economically, financially, politically, and militarily by America. — Apollodorus
guess my point is really that we're complaining about something that we think is "horrible" but we've done everything to normalise that in the past 60 odd years (and actually way before that). — Benkei
Your government fought in Afghanistan for 20 years. In quite similar circumstances against many times the same enemy as the Russians had.So honestly I really can't bring myself to the level of condemnation the pro-NATO crowd levies at the Russians when it's really nothing different from what our own governments would do in exactly the same circumstance. — Benkei
one can use common sense and notice the most clumsy and most obvious lies. — ssu
Then make the revelant link by all means. — ssu
I made the the link that the decision for Saudi-Arabia to intervene in the Yemen Civil War was as stupid and disastrous as the idea for Russia to invade Ukraine. — ssu
No, the question that Benkei assumed was that people would have more interest on the plight of Ukrainians because they are white than with the plight of black Africans.Sure, but the comment was about Western nations generally, not individuals personally affected. — boethius
When you are individually affected, even if it's nothing dramatic, you do notice that the events are quite real. Not just an article on page 5. — ssu
By the looking at various estimates of those being killed in the separate wars.How are you measuring that? — Isaac
Add in that religion too, obviously. I would assume that people here wouldn't be racists.Seems a true statement about Western nations and a majority of people in them to me. — boethius
But the threat of war, even if still low, has increased.Again, most people in "Western countries" aren't personally affected, it is purely empathy driven to demand heaven and earth be moved to help the victims even at the risk of nuclear war ... empathy that does not appear for black Africans — boethius
For those arms deliveries to happen (basically paid by the US taxpayer), you needed Putin to invade in the first place. Hence there's that slight problem in the causal link. Of course you can go with the line that Putin was forced to start a war with Ukraine... which I would disagree with.That's not what I meant by link. It's just a similarity. When I say 'link' I mean causal. The US's involvement in Yemen is to sell arms, with disastrous effect. We're seeing them trying to do the same in Ukraine. We should fear the same disastrous effect. — Isaac
By the looking at various estimates of those being killed in the separate wars.
Of course, for you I guess those are just propaganda and you cannot rely on anything what for example the UN says etc. — ssu
For those arms deliveries to happen (basically paid by the US taxpayer), you needed Putin to invade in the first place. Hence there's that slight problem in the causal link. — ssu
Add in that religion too, obviously. I would assume that people here wouldn't be racists. — ssu
But the threat of war, even if still low, has increased. — ssu
which I would disagree with. — ssu
As has been understood for a long time, decades in fact, for Ukraine to join NATO would be rather like Mexico joining a China-run military alliance, hosting joint maneuvers with the Chinese army and maintaining weapons aimed at Washington. To insist on Mexico’s sovereign right to do so would surpass idiocy (and, fortunately, no one brings this up). Washington’s insistence on Ukraine’s sovereign right to join NATO is even worse, since it sets up an insurmountable barrier to a peaceful resolution of a crisis that is already a shocking crime and will soon become much worse unless resolved — by the negotiations that Washington refuses to join.
That’s quite apart from the comical spectacle of the posturing about sovereignty by the world’s leader in brazen contempt for the doctrine, ridiculed all over the Global South though the U.S. and the West in general maintain their impressive discipline and take the posturing seriously, or at least pretend to do so.
...
In brief, a constructive program would be about the opposite of the Joint Statement on the U.S.-Ukraine Strategic Partnership signed by the White House on September 1, 2021. This document, which received little notice, forcefully declared that the door for Ukraine to join NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is wide open. It also “finalized a Strategic Defense Framework that creates a foundation for the enhancement of U.S.-Ukraine strategic defense and security cooperation” by providing Ukraine with advanced anti-tank and other weapons along with a “robust training and exercise program in keeping with Ukraine’s status as a NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner.”
The statement was another purposeful exercise in poking the bear in the eye. It is another contribution to a process that NATO (meaning Washington) has been perfecting since Bill Clinton’s 1998 violation of George H.W. Bush’s firm pledge not to expand NATO to the East, a decision that elicited strong warnings from high-level diplomats from George Kennan, Henry Kissinger, Jack Matlock, (current CIA Director) William Burns, and many others, and led Defense Secretary William Perry to come close to resigning in protest, joined by a long list of others with eyes open. That’s of course in addition to the aggressive actions that struck directly at Russia’s concerns (Serbia, Iraq, Libya, and lesser crimes), conducted in such a way as to maximize the humiliation.
It doesn’t strain credulity to suspect that that the joint statement was a factor in inducing Putin and the narrowing circle of “hard men” around him to decide to step up their annual mobilization of forces on the Ukrainian border in an effort to gain some attention to their security concerns, in this case on to direct criminal aggression — which, indeed, we can compare with the Nazi invasion of Poland (in combination with Stalin).
Neutralization of Ukraine is the main element of a constructive program, but there is more. — Chomsky
I think it would be fruitful to ask why Ukraine wanted to join NATO. — frank
Plus, at this point, the real issue of concern is what the sanctions are about to do to the Russian society.
They're set to run Russia into the ground. — frank
The NATO aspiration was written in the Ukrainian constitution before Zelenskyy was elected president. It seems he had nothing to do with it. — Olivier5
Plus, at this point, the real issue of concern is what the sanctions are about to do to the Russian society. — frank
wish there was a clearer picture of what the sanctions are actually doing. Of course, gradually tightened sanctions are not going to have an over-night effect, but I hear mixed messages on their effectiveness. — Bitter Crank
it's better not to be delusional about it, then also put it to a referendum. — boethius
And why was it put in the constitution? — boethius
That 's precisely Zelenskyy's line, I think. — Olivier5
Zelenskyy's hands were therefore tied. — Olivier5
President Kekkonen used to invite world leaders and other officials to his private sauna at the height of the Cold War. Formal discussions started around a normal negotiating table and were followed by a sauna sitting. New ideas emerged and many of them helped the Finns move towards notable political and economic successes and ultimately Finland becoming “the Nokia Land.”
During the days of the Cold War, the Finnish neutrality between East and West was constantly challenged by the Soviet Union. President Kekkonen used his sauna diplomacy to defend Finland’s integrity and membership in the Western community of nations countering the Soviet efforts. The Financial Times once claimed that Kekkonen sweated his Soviet guests into cooperation in his sauna. The true story is certainly richer in detail than that but the truth remains that the sauna was an important instrument for Kekkonen in building confidence and diffusing the mistrust of our eastern neighbor. — Sauna Diplomacy, the Finnish Recipe
I explained why: the constitutional amendment binds him from doing anything else than implement it. Now this is water under the bridge. — Olivier5
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