I hope so. :love:

You could have just asked for a better explanation, but ok.

Not if you're the meat in that sandwich. I mean just to be concrete about it re the current situation: if the war continues, NATO can feel it's winning by bleeding and weakening Russia, which it sees as a strategic adversary; and Russia can feel it's winning by bleeding and weakening Ukraine, which it sees as the proxy of a strategic adversary. You see who the only consistent loser is in this picture? You can also apply this to within Ukraine itself; while everyone loses to some extent, the leadership may at least have the commiseration of cementing power, most of the rich and privileged have already probably escaped, and the lower rungs get to be the cannon fodder or collateral damage. No matter what level of conflict you look at, those who are more responsible for it and have more power tend to suffer less and vice versa and that's the axis along which 'side-taking' should be applied imo. But the prevailing narrative is one of polarisation: the simplistic 'who's the bad guy'? 'who's the good guy'? which tends to support continued conflict and suffering among those who deserve it least. I don't want to be cheerleading that.

No, but I'd agree with the sentiment, at least re the British (don't expect much from my own crowd either).

I'm happy to take hits for poor explanations, but if you get absolutely nothing from what I and Street have just said, it's your loss, frankly.

Throwing sand in the air isn't going to work here. The evils of Western imperialisn are well known. But none of what you've presented is evidence of a NATO anti-Slav plot involving Zelensky. Instead of digging in, you'd be well advised to drop that clownish line and stick with some of your saner points.

It doesn't require a politicised label. It's pretty much axiomatic that power serves power.

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. — StreetlightX

:up:

To add to that, I don't see this as a "winnable" war. Everyone worth a shit has already lost and can only continue losing more the longer it persists,

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.

I hope articles like these continue to help extricate us from our projections of Ukraine and realize it's a real place most of us know fuck all about. I had a private student from there a few years back and the main impression I got from him was of a deeply dysfunctional poverty-stricken country ravaged by institutionalized corruption. Being a ping pong ball batted around by the world's most powerful interests obviously isn't helping. Another thing the article brings home is that before we go celebrating the deaths of Russian soldiers, they're just more plebeian coals been thrown into the fire along with their Ukrainian counterparts.

Unfortunately, if you post anything aside from anti-Russian propaganda you get called "Putin troll" by the NATO jihadis on here .... — Apollodorus

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.

However, I said "the West's jihad on Russia", not "Ukraine's". And as far as I'm aware NATO was created by America "to keep Russia out of Europe". — Apollodorus

No, you said the West's Jihad on Russia and "other Slavic nations", implying it was of racist intent by suggesting Zelensky being non-Slavic played a part, showing you don't even know what Slavic nations are (and suggesting possible anti-semitism on your part seeing as he's Jewish).

By the way, do you think the fact that Zelensky is non-Slavic plays a role in the West's jihad on Russia and other Slavic nations? — Apollodorus

Here's some education for you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavs

"Slavs are the largest ethnolinguistic group in Europe. Present-day Slavic people are classified into East Slavs (chiefly Belarusians, Russians, Rusyns, and Ukrainians), West Slavs (chiefly Czechs, Kashubs, Poles, Slovaks, and Sorbs) and South Slavs (chiefly Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes)."

Tell us more about the West's racist "Jihad" against Poland, Czechoslavakia, Bulgaria and Croatia. :lol:

Or just stop being a complete idiot.

By the way, do you think the fact that Zelensky is non-Slavic plays a role in the West's jihad on Russia and other Slavic nations? — Apollodorus

Of course, I mean Ukraine invaded Russia, just as Georgia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan did. They're in on the jihad too! As much as I don't care for the pro-NATO bias, at least its proponents believe their story. I'm utterly sick of your stupid disingenuous trash posts though. Anyway, carrying on playing the fool, I suppose.

The whimsically selective memory of the Putin troll. — ssu

Yes, I guess I wasn't out protesting that with millions of others around the globe because Apollodorus would never just make random stuff up to support his blatant pro-Russian bias. :lol:

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.