Invasion of Ukraine • Page 170

It's about excusing Russia's actions as being caused by someone else while trying to pretend it's not excusing it, and I'm pointing out that that is an excuse we absolutely would not accept if the roles were reversed in the China/Mexico example. If that happened, a bunch of folks you would deride as "libs" would say "well I don't like the invasion but Mexico shouldn't have been buddying up with China and threatening us", and we'd all correctly point out "yes, of course we understand the United States motivation for invading Mexico, no one's arguing that, but at the end of the day the United States is still the main party to blame for invading Mexico".

Everyone here understands what Russia's possible motivations for invading Ukraine are. Only some seem to accept it as a big enough excuse to continue to run cover for them and pretend Ukraine and anyone helping Ukraine fight back are the 'bad guys', so to speak.

 

how many times are you going to make me type the word 'predictable'

 

As many times as you post about Ukraine being in the wrong, insisting they're all actually secret nazis and that's why they're resisting Russian takeover, or anyone in the west being wrong for supporting them trying to keep their independence as a country lol

Call it "predictable" all you want, at the end of the day most folks reading yours and others posts here get the impression that you're not just making an objective observation on the moments leading up to invasion, but rather a value judgement on who you'd prefer to prevail, in the name of "america bad". And I'm not saying that to be a jerk/insulting, I'm just telling you how it comes off to people reading the back and forth lol

 

Understanding history and how we got to this point is not “excusing” anything

 

Since when are you the voice of the people lol

 

This attempted insult would make more sense if multiple people haven't also told you the same

 

I won’t speak for anyone else in here but I appreciate the leftist critique of foreign policy that happens here and in the main politics thread

 

Yeah except everyone you're replying to understands the history and is still telling you Russia is wrong for invading Ukraine, is at the end of the day the ones mainly responsible for the war, and it is good actually that Ukraine is not letting them take away their independence, and that Russia should probably end the war and get out of Ukraine as that would by far be the fastest way to peace, regardless of what NATO did/didn't do for the last 30 years. And for some reason that seems to really bother you lol

 

1. I’m not convinced the poster I was conversing with yesterday does understand that history, they seem to have their own warped version of it

2. Lots of peaceful routes out of the conflict between the US and Russia have been foreclosed because of the aggression of the West, Russia clearly aren’t going to withdraw from Ukraine at this point. The longer this war drags on, the worse the negotiating position of the Ukrainians. The US has led Ukraine down the garden path and now they’ve been smashed

3. What bothers me is the continual escalation of a war that could go nuclear, and what’s really amazing is how much it bothers you that I hold that view. Also interesting how folks on your side of the debate just can’t bear the thought that maybe just maybe the West holds the primary culpability for this whole mess

 

Primary culpability remains with Russia obviously, since they invaded for no legit reason, but yes there are absolutely things the west/NATO could have done to reduce the chances of the unjustified invasion from happening.

 

Like most liberals, you have a great grasp of power dynamics in interpersonal relationships and on a sociological level but completely reject the idea in the sphere of international relations and geopolitics. The US is the economic and political hegemon of the world, Russia is not. This matters. It means the US has had more influence over the state of the world. It has had more ability to do good things and prevent bad things than any other country in the world for at least 30 years, probably 50, maybe 70. See above. Remember "racism = prejudice + power"? Same principle. In both cases a wild oversimplification though.

Plus, the analogy isn't sound, as you can read in the full version of one of the posts I quoted. It does not work on the level of Ukraine:Russia::Mexico:US nor on the level of US:Russia::US:China. It's a non sequitor. I know you didn't initially bring it up but regardless it's not valuable. The US is about to invade Mexico anyway lol.

The US is right now, as it does "good" in Ukraine, committing a holocaust, the worst crime against humanity of the 21st century. I remember you saying many times that I just couldn't handle that "America is on the side of good for once" or words to that effect. But ultimately, what the US is doing here is not defending a people from an aggressive invasion, it's defending its empire. The former is literally a coincidence. It doesn't play into the calculus one bit.

So, yes, while I'm against war and hope the war ends as soon as possible not least to avoid nuclear annihilation, I do hope that the result weakens the United States because the United States, in my view, is not just "bad." As a capitalist imperialist hegemon, it exploits the global south as part of system of economic and geopolitical domination that stunts the political, diplomatic, and developmental opportunities of the global south. I believe the way to historical progress is through the destruction of that system and the opening up of those opportunities for the countries currently being exploited by that system. I also think that if you disagree but don't have an alternative path to the opening up of those opportunities for the global south, your politics isn't worth much. And "America decides to be nice to them now" doesn't count.

Russia, while it would surely set up such a system for itself if it could, currently does not benefit from the extant hegemony. It's victories are the hegemony's losses. It's massacres may be comparably brutal and it may not take the wellbeing of the people into account any more than the United States, but it does not act in service to this global system which perpetruates misery on a much larger scale. In fact it acts against it.

But none of this matters if the world is in nuclear winter and I don't support the deaths of innocents or ethnic cleansing so I do support the war ending as soon as possible, preferably on unfavorable terms for the United States. And if all of this just reads to you like "America bad" and nothing else, that's fine, but again, if not through the destruction of the US' hegemony, where is the path out of immiseration and neocolonialism for the global south?

 

for me, this phase of the debate all hinges on your very last closing point here, because I do not accept that The West holds primary culpability for Russia choosing to invade Ukraine. even typing those words out just now sounds fundamentally absurd to me. Russia obviously holds primary culpability for that because they actively made the choice to do it - whatever The West had done that influenced them to make that choice is secondary at that point.

this

but I also don't even really want to make that argument (and have been sitting a lot of this out recently) because it even feels to me like I am arguing semantics while the United States and Russia are pointing loaded guns at all of us and all of our family members and every person on this entire fucking planet while screaming like insane lunatics saying they are about to open fire

I think it is incorrect to say that it is only a coincidence that the US is helping to defend a people from an aggressive invasion and that it does not play into the calculus at all, but I do not think you and I will ever agree about that. I think the truth is more complex than that. but again, even I see that that is one very small point in your very long post

 

To the first bolded, just throwing your hands up and accepting that is a terrible precedent to set!

To the second...because in this case, they really don't lol. Russia did not have to invade Ukraine, nothing NATO or the US was doing needed to be counteracted by a brutal invasion that is killing a lot of people and reports of ethnic cleansing and etc. Ukraine wanted closer economic ties to what they felt, at the time, was a group of countries that would allow them a bit more freedom in how they ran their economy and used their natural resources and etc. Russia invaded, and now they're either going to become a vassal economic state to Russia with less people and country and identity in general, or, if the recent reports about basically offering the entire economy to the US (seems like a ploy to keep Trump on board with helping them IMO) are accurate, a vassal economic state to the US plutocracy. And yes I'm sure you'll point out that US/west would have pressured Ukraine on economic issues anyway, but it's pretty obvious at this point that Ukraine would have ended up with a lot more autonomy had Russia not invaded.

 

I'm not entirely sure but I think I've said several times here that I very much doubt the US's main impetus for helping Ukraine is certainly not out of the goodness of their hearts for the poor Ukrainians getting invaded, aka they obviously have an economic and geopolitical interest there that is probably their main goal. But I disagree that it "doesn't play into the calculus one bit" that it's mostly accidental that they're doing the right thing by helping Ukraine. The US foreign policy apparatus has very rarely gotten involved in conflict in my lifetime where they happened to be doing the right thing, and this is IMO one of those times. Preventing Ukraine from being taken over by a hostile foreign country is a good thing to do, in my opinion.

I certainly agree with some of the rest of what you said there, but I do not believe that Russia's "victories are the hegemony's loses", especially when you admit that they would readily replace that hegemony with their own if they could. I don't see a Russian victory in Ukraine as something that is going to dramatically alter US hegemony or have any effect of the west's domination and exploitation of the global south. And especially don't think that, even if some of that were true, that it would be acceptable to write off the "comparably brutal massacres" of Russia as acceptable since it doesn't "act in service" to US's own brutality. It's not doing anything against US-caused misery! It's just perpetuating more misery elsewhere on another group of people instead. It's not like there's a fixed amount of misery in the world where Russia enacting it on Ukraine means it has to come down somewhere else. It just adds to it.

 

I'm not accepting anything, I think it's awful. I'm saying it's unlikely Russia will withdraw at this stage of the conflict.

Also, didn't you vote for Kamala? She's been at the top of the US government while it's been facilitating a genocide in Palestine for more than a year now! Genocide isn't a red line for you, seems like a terrible precedent to set!

 

This is interesting to me. You think part of the US's motivation here is a genuine attempt to defend an innocent people from invasion?

 

Ignoring the discussion of the role of the VP aside, yes I have said many times that I don't view my vote and an endorsement of everything a candidate supports and never have, nor do I think an individual person's vote sets a precedent the same way a country approaching peace negotiations with the idea of "well they're never going to withdraw" would lol

 

The hypocrisy of liberals never ceases to amaze me lol

 

I personally do, but that wasn't really the point I was trying to make. even if you look at it cynically and say that the US gets to perpetuate it's interests while using a big charade about helping prevent an innocent people from being invaded or saving democracy or whatever, the fact that they know it looks better to say the stuff that sounds good inherently means that it does play into the calculus. it's not a coincidence.

even I know this is very *pushes glasses up on my nose while saying actually*, which is why I didn't really go into it at first

I definitely do not think though that the United States' primary interest here is to help an innocent people from being invaded, or even to help an ostensible ally from being invaded. that is maybe tertiary at best, which I find infuriating, but nobody cares about that. I think the US' primary motivation here is to weaken Russia militarily and economically without having to actually go to war against them. which, again, is infuriating on many levels, but again, nobody really cares

 

What about the countries in Europe? Any of them primarily supporting out of goodness? Of wanting to stop the threat toward Europe?

 

These foreign policy catastrophes are ALWAYS pursued under the guise of moral good, and ALWAYS later revealed to be the cynical and destructive power grabs that they are. It’s absolutely laughable to pretend that the US is “accidentally” doing the right thing here.

If this was 2002, you’d all be clamoring to go to war with Iraq.

 

if you're asking me, I think countries in Europe are supporting out of self preservation

I'm not sure if this was directed at me or someone else, and I hear what you're saying, but I am not saying that the US is accidentally doing the right thing here. I would say it is more like they are using a just action as a smokescreen to fuck around in the way that they want to fuck around, consequences to Ukrainians and Russians and other Europeans (and maybe everyone else on the planet) be damned

honestly, the only thing worse than being friends with the United States is not being friends with the United States when Russia invades you

 

Well, no, because Iraq wasn't invading a neighbor in the name of conquest. That was 1991 and preventing Kuwait from being taken over was probably the right thing to do!

Also I don't know how old you are, but I was definitely old enough to remember the invasion of Iraq and even my dumbass not interested in politics at all teenage self thought it was really dumb and bad and it was probably one of the foundational moments of my life in terms of forming a political identity lol.

 

I also thought the Iraq invasion in 2003 was bad; in fact I probably torpedoed my Naval Academy nomination in 2004 because of my opposition. When applying you have to be nominated by your state representatives, and before that you have to go in for interviews at your state rep's offices, and I know in all three interviews I did I mentioned/touched on how I thought what the US was doing was bad, even though I knew most of the country at the time was gung-ho towards killing bad brown people in the Middle East. I eventually got nominated by one of the three reps, but that wasn't enough to make it through.

 

Kuwait is a comprador state comparable to the other Arab Gulf states, ie is essentially a slave society that exists of the back of hyperexploited foreign workers. Neo-Baathism would've been comparably progressive