Hold up, got anything to back up these assertions about Ukraine doing genocide?
And I reckon it’s terrible to threaten the neighbor who continually saber-rattles at you when not annexing whole chunks of your country, how dare they accept US aid under such circumstances. Russia is not at fault there at all. /s
And I reckon it’s terrible to threaten the neighbor who continually saber-rattles at you when not annexing whole chunks of your country, how dare they accept US aid under such circumstances. Russia is not at fault there at all (sarcastic).
This is a classic example of what I call a “Shapiro”. Some short vague comment that has tons of built-in assumptions and unstated assertions. I’m going to try to adress these, but by adressing them I am afraid I will allow you to simplify everything down to some “good/evil” dichotomy, as your statement clearly leads to. I lack the best word to describe this way of analysing geopolotics, the best one I can think of is: Redundant. As in it is superfluous, it makes the discussion itself useless, as an analysis it does nothing. So I’m also going to adress some of the simplifications when I can be bothered. Most of them are adressed by the compilation I linked you to though, so I’d really just recommend going through that one. An additional article: The far-right militias managed to force the people of the Luhansk republic to evacuate shortly before the invasion. Breaking peace treaties, bombing civilians until they leave… One might consider this a pretty decent casus belli. It is, at the very least, undoubtely ethnic cleansing.
Here’s the assumptions/assertions listed, as I see them:
Russia was annexing ukrainian territory before the war, which is why Ukraine sought “US aid”.
I am going to assume that by “US aid” you mean membership into NATO and donations of military equipment.
Russia often annexed ukrainian territory before the war, which is why Ukraine sought “US aid”.
Russia has annexed large amounts of ukrainian territory before the war, which is why Ukraine sought “US aid”.
I am stating that Russia is blameless in the conflict.
Russia is threatening Ukraine
I do not disagree. Russia stated that ukrainian membership into NATO was a red line. That is pretty clearly a threat and a serious one.
Worth mentioning: Despite being aware this was a stated Red Line for Russia, NATO pretended mebership was still an option and Zelensky likewise decided to continue to agitate for membership, despite being aware it was not possible. Now he does not state when he was made aware of this, but since NATO membership is not available to nations engaged in active conflicts, we can safely assume this occurred before the invasion.
Brinksmanship
Between this and the previous assumption there is yet another I have failed to mention: Russia is “wrong” to threaten Ukraine. “Right” and “wrong” aren’t really easy to discuss with regards to geopolitcs as it becomes a whole discussion of morality of its own. So I am not going to discuss this from a moral perspective, but from the perspective of Russias geopolitical interests and adress wether I personally consider the actions “reasonable” (about as subjective as morality, but you seem like a reasonable fellow, so I hope our antennas are somewhat aligned on basic reason) while trying to steer around morality.
The two comments I’ve linked you outline the foundation for my response here. From the resources given in those compilations it does not appear as if Russia is “saber rattling” but rather responding to aggression by a nuclear superpower that, since the inception of modern Russia, has sought to control the country.
Since I don’t know what you specifically have in mind when you’re talking of “saber rattling” it is hard for me to adress it better than this.
Russia was annexing ukrainian territory before the war, which is why Ukraine sought “US aid”.
and
Russia often annexed ukrainian territory before the war, which is why Ukraine sought “US aid”.
and
Russia has annexed large amounts of ukrainian territory before the war, which is why Ukraine sought “US aid”.
The only situations before the war I am aware of is the annexation of Crimea. I assume you’re also including the declaration of independence by the DPR and LPR as “russian annexation” because the republics were likely to be cooperating with Russia rather than the US.
It is correct that Russia formally annexed the crimean peninsula after 2014. I don’t really care about “formal” declarations, but rather material reality. The material reality is that, up to the US-backed coup in 2014, Crimea was in all practicality a part of Russia. The reasons for this stretch far back. The fact that it had been part of the USSR until the dissolution of the union and then remained De Facto under russian control until 2014, does not legitimise annexation in my eyes. This is completely subjective however. Many people base their geopolitics on “who used to own the piece of land?” As a socialist I am however far more interested in democratic representation of people. Therefore I view the formal annexation as “legitimate” or whatever “rules based international order”-style language you want to use for this, for the following reasons:
The people living on the peninsula wanted to be part of Russia.
The people living on the peninsula were afraid they would be persecuted by far-right ukrainian militias, as had been seen happening during the Maidan.
The argument for the peninsula remaining in Ukraines control was that it had been part of Ukraine while Ukraine was in the Soviet Union.
Since I do not consider “Historically it belonged to…” to be a valid reason for annexation, I do not consider it a valid counterargument either. I have not encountered substantial arguments against apart from “it used to belong to” and “the people of Ukraine want it”. If the people of crimea desires independence, then I do not see why they should not get it, just because people somewhere else base their national identity on having a piece of land. Especially when the main plan for that plot of land seems to be ethnic cleansing of those that live there.
Back to the two republics: They, since their declaration, been bombed by Ukrainian military and far-right militias, in breach of Minsk II and Minsk I. During the development of the political situation in Ukraine between 2014 and 2022 the situation for the people living in the republics became more and more dangerous. After the invasion they voted to become part of Russia. I don’t know how “legitimate” the election is, but since they voted for independence before, were unable to defend themselves without russian intervention and things have since escalated, I struggle to see why it is unrealistic they would vote for such a thing. I know they certainly did not wish for membership in Ukraine.
One could just as easily flip the script: Ukraine is the one trying to annex large plots of land. Ukraine is the one to break treaties and rattle sabers.
Finally: For it to be true that Ukraine sought US aid due to Russian saber rattling, then the post-maidan government in Ukraine would have sought this aid after agressive posturing from Russia. However the US was closely involved with those who would become government members before the coup was carried out. The US was likewise present in Ukraine as soon as the maidan began. We can thus see that Ukraine did not seek aid in response, at best you could argue it sought it in expectation of aggression. One would then have to consider why Ukraine would expect aggression.
I am stating that Russia is blameless in the conflict.
While Russia pursued many diplomatic solutions before the war and attempted to negotiate for peace several times over the years, I still do not consider Russia blameless. Apart from being a bigoted capitalist oligarch, Putin is also incredibly naive. He sought membership in EU in the ´00s. He sought membership in NATO. He did not expect the massive escalation that would come from the invasion. While I think it is right to defend the republics from far-right militias, and I think it is completely reasonable to draw a red line at NATO membership, I think the invasion was an overreaction. There was still other avenues of action available.
He could have done like Obama did and established a “no-fly-zone” and laughed when he saw a video of Zelensky sodomized with a bayonet. Or he could have fomented his own colour revolution.
They are both being used by the US as tools of imperialism. “Israel” in case of West Asia and Ukraine as a spearhead against Russia. Ukraine’s government was overthrown in a coup in 2014 and had been conducting ethnic cleansing on Eastern Ukraine until Russia intervened.
taiwan is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie literally funded by the us. south korea is occupied land by the us after they lost the war. israel is a nazi state sustained in its current form for the purpose of genociding the entire middle east. ukraine is a puppet state that has been receiving cia funding, military training, and equipment with the only purpose of destabilizing russia. so essentially they’re all varying degrees of us imperialism in different shades.
they didn’t but that was the plan. if russia wouldn’t have invaded the idea would have been to fund paramilitary groups that do terrorist attacks. it’s the same fucking tactic they’ve used in xinjiang and many fucking other places. the difference is that russia didn’t let these right wing terrorists do their thang. thus the SMO started.
what you seem to be cool about is with the us militarily funding white supremacist groups in ukraine to kill ethnic russian in the donetsk and luhansk. you’re so full of shit you can’t even say anything about past imperialist projects by the us, those are probably real and verified by the cia, but you would have said the same shit you’re saying now if this were vietnam. you’d be convincing me how the vietnamese are filthy red rats who’re no better than shit and that you’re doing a better job since you’re bringing democracy to them. you’re white, you know better than them. it’s a rule.
don’t come to me with bullshit moraline because i don’t want a single hit of that cia fabricated crap.
i can’t say these are very good sources since they’re western so they’re in bed with the us regime.
It’s not Europe. It’s a bit different… There is a war here.
The law has changed, procedures have been simplified…
If I choose to, I can have you arrested right now, put a
bag over your head and lock you up in a cellar for 30
days on suspicion of aiding separatists.
–Aidar battalion commander to Amnesty
International researcher
Just a few days before the invasion, the LPR was shelled so heavily and threatened to such an extent that the population was told to evacuate - A population that is primarily russian. https://archive.ph/YFDL5 Longer report describing breaches of Minsk I and II. The breaches are generally carried out by far right ukrainian militias, for the purpose of scaring away ethnic russians - A form of ethnic cleansing.
As far as the report goes, I’ll have to get back to you on that when I have a chance to read it. But leading with an RIA article doesn’t really help your article.
Oh boy, you really need to be walked thru the steps, huh? I’ll try to spell it out for you: Making a mockery out of the other persons argument is a form of rebuttal. Your attempt at mockery was piss-poor.
If you want to improve yourself consider practicing by moving beyond the simple “I know what you are, what am I” you’ve attempted in this response.
These nations comprise more than 100 million people. Even if the Epstein class personally impregnated 100 million children to deliver the population, the countries would still have basic legitimacy, because they contain these people.
If you’re about to hit me with your definition of these countries just being the respective governments, not the people within, then you are using a definition outside the norm and should not be surprised that you piss people off, no matter what propaganda you want to believe in.
All countries have people in the lol. What are you even trying to argue here? There’s plenty of peoples with unrecognised countries. There’s plenty of countries with contested territory and people in the contested territory. There’s plenty of countries with people who don’t consider their country “legitimate” and countries with people who consider separatist movements in their country “illegitimate”. Is your basis for legitimacy wether a country has people and a wikipedia page or what are you trying to get at here?
Names of countries and borders around people change all the time. They are in perpetual flux.
The countries change, yet the people within them are the same, across that change.
If you think states or nations are inextricably linked to their people, your definitional “norm” is probably some form of propaganda, and has little to do with historical reality. Or, maybe you are a goldfish.
Regardless, no, your own inability to comprehend the distinction between a population and a state is not a failure that most other people share. It’s actually easy and commonplace for human beings to recognize that they are not in fact identical to the entity that governs them. I’m sure even you are actually capable of it too, since even the most diehard fanatical nationalist doesn’t unquestioningly agree with everything their state does or mistake themselves for their government when they look in a mirror, or mistake their state for themselves when they see a flag in a meme.
Sure some people identify with their state, but none of them identify as their state, the way you’re trying to make out as if they do with your weird impregnation analogy.
But I get it, it’s rhetorically handy to be able to preemptively discredit the most obvious counter to your argument by stating a falsehood about it and then pretending what you said is “the norm.” That way you don’t have to account for that pesky reality getting in the way of the point you’re trying to make.
The absurdity of your claim also becomes apparent as soon as it’s pointed out that there are significant numbers of people within each of those countries (excepting maybe “Israel”) who would fullheartedly agree with the OP image and affirm the illegitimacy of the state that rules over them.
What a spread of opinions in this one. You are hard to nail down on what you believe.
it’s very easy, the issue is your western bias.
This is not snark, I am actually asking here, because I clearly am missing something.
What does Israel and Ukraine have in common?
Genocidal US proxy-state existing mainly to ensure military access/threat towards adversaries.
Hold up, got anything to back up these assertions about Ukraine doing genocide?
And I reckon it’s terrible to threaten the neighbor who continually saber-rattles at you when not annexing whole chunks of your country, how dare they accept US aid under such circumstances. Russia is not at fault there at all. /s
Happy you asked! It would be wild to claim a country is committing an act of genocide - Specifically ethnic cleansing, pogroms and cultural erasure - Without having any underlying sources. Initially I’d point you towards this compilation of articles describing Ukraine before the media decided we needed to be propagandised to support it.
It should answer most of your questions.
This is a classic example of what I call a “Shapiro”. Some short vague comment that has tons of built-in assumptions and unstated assertions. I’m going to try to adress these, but by adressing them I am afraid I will allow you to simplify everything down to some “good/evil” dichotomy, as your statement clearly leads to. I lack the best word to describe this way of analysing geopolotics, the best one I can think of is: Redundant. As in it is superfluous, it makes the discussion itself useless, as an analysis it does nothing. So I’m also going to adress some of the simplifications when I can be bothered. Most of them are adressed by the compilation I linked you to though, so I’d really just recommend going through that one. An additional article: The far-right militias managed to force the people of the Luhansk republic to evacuate shortly before the invasion. Breaking peace treaties, bombing civilians until they leave… One might consider this a pretty decent casus belli. It is, at the very least, undoubtely ethnic cleansing.
Here’s the assumptions/assertions listed, as I see them:
I am going to assume that by “US aid” you mean membership into NATO and donations of military equipment.
I do not disagree. Russia stated that ukrainian membership into NATO was a red line. That is pretty clearly a threat and a serious one.
Worth mentioning: Despite being aware this was a stated Red Line for Russia, NATO pretended mebership was still an option and Zelensky likewise decided to continue to agitate for membership, despite being aware it was not possible. Now he does not state when he was made aware of this, but since NATO membership is not available to nations engaged in active conflicts, we can safely assume this occurred before the invasion.
Here is a comment giving some context as to why Russia might consider NATO membership a “red line”.
Now we might balk at a country daring to decide what another country does, however red lines are quite common. Obama set them. They are not uncommon. A longer articles giving some context about red lines.
The two comments I’ve linked you outline the foundation for my response here. From the resources given in those compilations it does not appear as if Russia is “saber rattling” but rather responding to aggression by a nuclear superpower that, since the inception of modern Russia, has sought to control the country.
Since I don’t know what you specifically have in mind when you’re talking of “saber rattling” it is hard for me to adress it better than this.
and
and
The only situations before the war I am aware of is the annexation of Crimea. I assume you’re also including the declaration of independence by the DPR and LPR as “russian annexation” because the republics were likely to be cooperating with Russia rather than the US.
It is correct that Russia formally annexed the crimean peninsula after 2014. I don’t really care about “formal” declarations, but rather material reality. The material reality is that, up to the US-backed coup in 2014, Crimea was in all practicality a part of Russia. The reasons for this stretch far back. The fact that it had been part of the USSR until the dissolution of the union and then remained De Facto under russian control until 2014, does not legitimise annexation in my eyes. This is completely subjective however. Many people base their geopolitics on “who used to own the piece of land?” As a socialist I am however far more interested in democratic representation of people. Therefore I view the formal annexation as “legitimate” or whatever “rules based international order”-style language you want to use for this, for the following reasons:
Since I do not consider “Historically it belonged to…” to be a valid reason for annexation, I do not consider it a valid counterargument either. I have not encountered substantial arguments against apart from “it used to belong to” and “the people of Ukraine want it”. If the people of crimea desires independence, then I do not see why they should not get it, just because people somewhere else base their national identity on having a piece of land. Especially when the main plan for that plot of land seems to be ethnic cleansing of those that live there.
Back to the two republics: They, since their declaration, been bombed by Ukrainian military and far-right militias, in breach of Minsk II and Minsk I. During the development of the political situation in Ukraine between 2014 and 2022 the situation for the people living in the republics became more and more dangerous. After the invasion they voted to become part of Russia. I don’t know how “legitimate” the election is, but since they voted for independence before, were unable to defend themselves without russian intervention and things have since escalated, I struggle to see why it is unrealistic they would vote for such a thing. I know they certainly did not wish for membership in Ukraine.
One could just as easily flip the script: Ukraine is the one trying to annex large plots of land. Ukraine is the one to break treaties and rattle sabers.
Finally: For it to be true that Ukraine sought US aid due to Russian saber rattling, then the post-maidan government in Ukraine would have sought this aid after agressive posturing from Russia. However the US was closely involved with those who would become government members before the coup was carried out. The US was likewise present in Ukraine as soon as the maidan began. We can thus see that Ukraine did not seek aid in response, at best you could argue it sought it in expectation of aggression. One would then have to consider why Ukraine would expect aggression.
While Russia pursued many diplomatic solutions before the war and attempted to negotiate for peace several times over the years, I still do not consider Russia blameless. Apart from being a bigoted capitalist oligarch, Putin is also incredibly naive. He sought membership in EU in the ´00s. He sought membership in NATO. He did not expect the massive escalation that would come from the invasion. While I think it is right to defend the republics from far-right militias, and I think it is completely reasonable to draw a red line at NATO membership, I think the invasion was an overreaction. There was still other avenues of action available.
He could have done like Obama did and established a “no-fly-zone” and laughed when he saw a video of Zelensky sodomized with a bayonet. Or he could have fomented his own colour revolution.
They are both being used by the US as tools of imperialism. “Israel” in case of West Asia and Ukraine as a spearhead against Russia. Ukraine’s government was overthrown in a coup in 2014 and had been conducting ethnic cleansing on Eastern Ukraine until Russia intervened.
In fact: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/5/zelenskyy-says-wants-ukraine-to-become-a-big-israel
taiwan is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie literally funded by the us. south korea is occupied land by the us after they lost the war. israel is a nazi state sustained in its current form for the purpose of genociding the entire middle east. ukraine is a puppet state that has been receiving cia funding, military training, and equipment with the only purpose of destabilizing russia. so essentially they’re all varying degrees of us imperialism in different shades.
How did they destabalize rusdia?
they didn’t but that was the plan. if russia wouldn’t have invaded the idea would have been to fund paramilitary groups that do terrorist attacks. it’s the same fucking tactic they’ve used in xinjiang and many fucking other places. the difference is that russia didn’t let these right wing terrorists do their thang. thus the SMO started.
So, you’re cool with Russia militarily invading its neighbors?
what you seem to be cool about is with the us militarily funding white supremacist groups in ukraine to kill ethnic russian in the donetsk and luhansk. you’re so full of shit you can’t even say anything about past imperialist projects by the us, those are probably real and verified by the cia, but you would have said the same shit you’re saying now if this were vietnam. you’d be convincing me how the vietnamese are filthy red rats who’re no better than shit and that you’re doing a better job since you’re bringing democracy to them. you’re white, you know better than them. it’s a rule.
don’t come to me with bullshit moraline because i don’t want a single hit of that cia fabricated crap.
Got any proof of this killing of ethnic Russians?
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur50/040/2014/en/ https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/07/21/you-dont-exist/arbitrary-detentions-enforced-disappearances-and-torture-eastern
i can’t say these are very good sources since they’re western so they’re in bed with the us regime.
It’s not Europe. It’s a bit different… There is a war here. The law has changed, procedures have been simplified… If I choose to, I can have you arrested right now, put a bag over your head and lock you up in a cellar for 30 days on suspicion of aiding separatists. –Aidar battalion commander to Amnesty International researcher
While sharing RIA? Come on, dude.
Just a few days before the invasion, the LPR was shelled so heavily and threatened to such an extent that the population was told to evacuate - A population that is primarily russian. https://archive.ph/YFDL5
Longer report describing breaches of Minsk I and II. The breaches are generally carried out by far right ukrainian militias, for the purpose of scaring away ethnic russians - A form of ethnic cleansing.
An article from Russian state-owned media?
As far as the report goes, I’ll have to get back to you on that when I have a chance to read it. But leading with an RIA article doesn’t really help your article.
Here’s a longer response
These flags, what do they all have in common?
They’ve all got blue in them?
They’re all vassal states of the US empire. The US controls them and in south Korea’s case their army is commanded by an Amerikan.
Their only goals are to project their empire’s power and encircle Russia and China. Japan is also a vassal state the same way.
You got all that out of a flag? Farken hell, maybe you Mother Lovers are onto something
This might be the worst attempt at a rebuttal Ive ever seen. They got it from knowing about the countries the flags represent.
I think you mean your buttal. Also how did you think my original comment was not taking the piss?
You should walk around with a helmet on
Oh boy, you really need to be walked thru the steps, huh? I’ll try to spell it out for you: Making a mockery out of the other persons argument is a form of rebuttal. Your attempt at mockery was piss-poor.
If you want to improve yourself consider practicing by moving beyond the simple “I know what you are, what am I” you’ve attempted in this response.
Fuck me, you must be painful on the piss
??
oh true
I believe, jankforlife just believes in pissing off as many people as possible…
This theory is, this with all due respect, a failure of imagination.
The only ones I piss off are lemmy libs such as yourself LMBO
What does lmbo stand for?
They answered in a different thread. It’s “Laughing my butt off”.
Thanks. I guess they’re trying to make it a thing?
it’ll only piss you off if you believe in the epstein class’ propaganda.
These nations comprise more than 100 million people. Even if the Epstein class personally impregnated 100 million children to deliver the population, the countries would still have basic legitimacy, because they contain these people.
If you’re about to hit me with your definition of these countries just being the respective governments, not the people within, then you are using a definition outside the norm and should not be surprised that you piss people off, no matter what propaganda you want to believe in.
All countries have people in the lol. What are you even trying to argue here? There’s plenty of peoples with unrecognised countries. There’s plenty of countries with contested territory and people in the contested territory. There’s plenty of countries with people who don’t consider their country “legitimate” and countries with people who consider separatist movements in their country “illegitimate”. Is your basis for legitimacy wether a country has people and a wikipedia page or what are you trying to get at here?
Do you believe in the basic legitimacy of the DPRK, sometimes called “North Korea”?
Names of countries and borders around people change all the time. They are in perpetual flux.
The countries change, yet the people within them are the same, across that change.
If you think states or nations are inextricably linked to their people, your definitional “norm” is probably some form of propaganda, and has little to do with historical reality. Or, maybe you are a goldfish.
Excellent illustration of my point. Thanks!
Go back to reddit
Is your point that you’re immune to reason?
Regardless, no, your own inability to comprehend the distinction between a population and a state is not a failure that most other people share. It’s actually easy and commonplace for human beings to recognize that they are not in fact identical to the entity that governs them. I’m sure even you are actually capable of it too, since even the most diehard fanatical nationalist doesn’t unquestioningly agree with everything their state does or mistake themselves for their government when they look in a mirror, or mistake their state for themselves when they see a flag in a meme.
Sure some people identify with their state, but none of them identify as their state, the way you’re trying to make out as if they do with your weird impregnation analogy.
But I get it, it’s rhetorically handy to be able to preemptively discredit the most obvious counter to your argument by stating a falsehood about it and then pretending what you said is “the norm.” That way you don’t have to account for that pesky reality getting in the way of the point you’re trying to make.
The absurdity of your claim also becomes apparent as soon as it’s pointed out that there are significant numbers of people within each of those countries (excepting maybe “Israel”) who would fullheartedly agree with the OP image and affirm the illegitimacy of the state that rules over them.
Removed by mod
Seems like a better way of making that point would’ve been to just say it
it’s about who controls them right now.
without the united states empire taiwan, south korea, and isreal would not exist as countries and ukraine wouldn’t be controlled by fascists.