Ukraine

[tstorm823]

...Dude.

Absent was also quite vocally critical of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, of the user you are now implying they are using an alt account to defend, and even of the same user you are insinuating they are using as an alt.

I think one thing got misunderstood here. Someone else suggested Ralfy is an alt, and I said no to that.

On the point of someone theoretically arguing with themself, seems to me to be a feature. That user has a consistent m.o. of misrepresenting his position to sympathetic ears to lull them into thinking him an ally. What better way to do that than invent a person that "agrees" with his critics just enough and then start the fade over to extremist communism anew.

 

[Seanchaidh]

I think one thing got misunderstood here. Someone else suggested Ralfy is an alt, and I said no to that.

On the point of someone theoretically arguing with themself, seems to me to be a feature. That user has a consistent m.o. of misrepresenting his position to sympathetic ears to lull them into thinking him an ally. What better way to do that than invent a person that "agrees" with his critics just enough and then start the fade over to extremist communism anew.

 

[ralfy]

1. Russia manipulated (and brutalised) Ukraine much, much earlier than the US. It also flooded Ukraine with arms before the US did.

2. "The US did bad things in Vietnam/Afghanistan/Iraq so therefore its not so bad for Russia to invade and annex Ukraine" isn't really an argument; its essentially whataboutism.



Yet Russia is the aggressor, and Ukraine is now fighting to prevent annexation of its own internationally-recognised territory. Arming the target of invasion as it defends itself is not morally equivalent to arming an aggressor.

You can't just gloss over which side is the aggressor and which is the target of imperial invasion. That's pretty central to whether assistance can be justified.

Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, and thus did not concern U.S. It was when the Soviet Union fell apart that the U.S. and NATO manipulated former Soviet republics using a combination of shock therapy and dangling NATO membership:

Bill Clinton’s Role in the Crisis Over Ukraine

The militarization of American foreign policy has evolved over the past thirty years. Ironically, this took place in the wake of the dissolution of the

www.counterpunch.org

This went on all the way to the 2010s, when Obama wanted Russia to join NATO:

NATO’s ‘Obama problem’

The alliance is hamstrung by the least Atlanticist president since World War II.

www.politico.eu

The Long, Destructive Shadow of Obama’s Russia Doctrine

A series of bad decisions during the Obama years prepared the ground for Vladimir Putin’s war.

foreignpolicy.com

What the pundits didn't mention is that Obama shifted from Clinton's adventurism in Eastern Europe and Dubya's adventurism in the Middle East to attempt a pivot in Asia:

The US Pivot to Asia Was Dead on Arrival

Since its unveiling under the Obama administration, the U.S. “pivot” to Asia has constantly been derailed by emergencies elsewhere. The Ukraine war is just the latest example.

thediplomat.com

In short, the U.S. was engaged in military expansionism and manipulation from the early 1990s to the present in the Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, which is exactly what Mearsheimer described:


Why? Because the goal of the U.S. is to protect the dollar, as Stoltenberg correctly pointed out recently:

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_222258.htm

This was never against a fight against tyranny or oppression or genocide but a global financial system dominated by the dollar. That's why the U.S. was engaged in multiple deals with all sorts of regimes across the decades:

FROM WOUNDED KNEE TO YEMEN – Zoltán Grossman

and even mayhem leading to millions dead:

Costs of War

The Costs of War Project is a team of 35 scholars, legal experts, human rights practitioners, and physicians, which began its work in 2011. We use research and a public website to facilitate debate about the costs of the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

watson.brown.edu

It is no different from the "tyrannies" it attacks, from China to Russia to North Korea to Iran. Why? Because without the U.S. dollar, it loses superpower status, and that leads to a unipolar world, which is what the U.S. elite, which make up 10 pct of the U.S. population and own 70 pct of the country's wealth, will not accept. To ensure that unipolar world, all other countries must remain weak.

Hence, a "forever war" for a country that has been in conflict for much of its existence:

The US Has Been at war 225 out of 243 years since 1776

The American history of overt and covert foreign interventions dates back to 1811, when it had invaded Chile, just a year after this South American country had gained independence from...

www.thenews.com.pk

 

[ralfy]

"That's whataboutism" is support for victor's justice when used to focus attention away from the unrepentant crimes committed with impunity by the most powerful country on earth. Like it or not, the US set some precedents. The UK followed it along like a good lap dog. Neither the US (nor UK) nor the particular people responsible for those various precedents have gone to any effort to make reparations and thus change the nature of those precedents in a good way. That sort of hypocrisy does matter, and you should be a lot more mindful that the ruling class of the US and friends care nothing for human rights except insofar as they can use it to dominate more of the globe, and more suspicious of their enthusiasm for arming a country whose government they were involved in overthrowing and replacing not ten years earlier... against another government who they were involved in overthrowing and replacing (and then "managing" the elections in) some 30 odd years ago.

This is not an invitation to respond. Don't bother yourself or me.

Indeed. It has been "Pax Americana" since the end of WW2, and driven by Bretton Woods followed by the petrodollar regime. The U.S. is top dog because it has the most expensive and expansive military force (over 700 military bases and installations worldwide used to maintain "law and order") and a budget that exceeds that of other military powers combined.

What has it been doing with that military and a government that wants to spread "freedom" and "democracy" to others? Engage in all sorts of intervention, manipulation, destabilization, etc., across decades:

FROM WOUNDED KNEE TO YEMEN – Zoltán Grossman

leading to millions dead:

Costs of War

The Costs of War Project is a team of 35 scholars, legal experts, human rights practitioners, and physicians, which began its work in 2011. We use research and a public website to facilitate debate about the costs of the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

watson.brown.edu

It also plays both sides, e.g., manipulating Ukraine and Russia, then using both, both arming one while going against the other, in the same way it arms Israel but also Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and arms Taiwan but refuses to recognize its sovereignty in order to appease major trading partner China. It doesn't stop there: it formed a dictatorship in Iran, then armed Iraq to attack Iran, then tried to make deals with Iran using drug money from thugs it was supporting in Central America, then attacked Iraq, then abandoned it. It used allies like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to unwittingly help form radical Islamic fundamentlist groups to counter the Soviets, then went against them to support Northern Alliance drug pushers and rapists, then abandoned them to the Taliban.

 

[ralfy]

Yes, this is pure whataboutism. Listing the crimes of one country in order to deflect and justify the similar crimes of another country later and elsewhere is logically and morally bankrupt deflection.

They set the "precedent"? Oh, well, I suppose we can also excuse the actions of the US too, since the European colonial Empires-- one of which was Russia!-- engaged in brutal hegemony over other countries earlier.



Manipulation that never even began to approach the scale or severity of Russian manipulation of Ukraine. The poisoning of Ukraine's President, the parading of his successor as a puppet, the proxy insurgency, the disguised troops, the literal annexation. Nothing America has ever done in Ukraine even comes close to it.

"Arming Ukraine" is also kind of ridiculous to gripe about when it is Russia that flooded the country with weapons for the preceding 8 years. Except Russia did so into the arms of a proxy insurgency it operates, whereas Western arms are being provided at the request of the government in direct defensive response to invasion.



I don't need your invitation or permission.

Claims of whataboutism is the tactic of neocons and neolibs who want to imagine a Reaganite "Evil Empire" world or Dubya's "you're either with us, or you're with the terrorists" narrative. In short, they can't afford to have more people realize that U.S. exceptionalism, if not that of the West, is a sham.

That's why they're crickets in the Israel-Palestine thread, where the War Machine that arms Ukraine is also arming Israel.

The problem is that many from BRICS and the Global South are much more outspoken now as they raise the phony propaganda from the U.S. and G-7. It has reached a point when people in the same countries are beginning to realize such hypocrisy as their governments, for example, imposed sanctions on Russia but still bought uranium and fossil fuels from the same.

When money talks....

 

[ralfy]

That certainly would have happened without Russia attacking the Ukraine. The EU was busy distancing itself from the US, pursueing its own economic and political interest.
But now ?

Russia using military conquest and fantasizing about cold war borders was just what the US needed to stay relevant in Europe. In addition to the fact that the whole debacle hurts the European economy (and the Russian) one far more than the US economy.

Russias conquest of the Ukraine is what delays the multipolar world order you dream of by decades.

Except that they took place before Russia attacked Ukraine.

 

[ralfy]

We're going around in circles. If the world left eastern Europe without any protection against the predator that historically and presently was out to get them then they would have betrayed them. For most of eastern Europe they indeed weren't sacrificed because they received the protection they needed. And that's why Russia and their shills are so angry about it. They wanted eastern Europe to get controlled by the Kremlin.

I think the big mistake in your reasoning is that you deem the US to be the only actor and that no other nation can possibly have desires or interests of their own. Eastern Europe didn't need an American siren's call to protect itself from the entity that keeps terrorizing them.

Protection against whom? Themselves? The U.S. and the West were manipulating former Soviet Republics as early as the 1990s:

Bill Clinton’s Role in the Crisis Over Ukraine

The militarization of American foreign policy has evolved over the past thirty years. Ironically, this took place in the wake of the dissolution of the

www.counterpunch.org

It even reached a point when they even wanted Russia to join NATO:

Obama, Medvedev pledge stronger economic ties - CNN.com

President Barack Obama and visiting Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pledged cooperation on stronger economic ties Thursday, announcing a deal for Russia to again accept U.S. poultry exports and touting U.S. support for Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization.

edition.cnn.com

Why should not be surprising? The U.S. has been engaged in all sorts of deals with various "tyrannies" for decades:

FROM WOUNDED KNEE TO YEMEN – Zoltán Grossman

It even did things like arm Saudi Arabia to ensure the petrodollar scheme, and against Israel, which it was also arming because it needed to control the Middle East. It supported dictatorships in Iran, Indonesia, and various South American countries, not to mention death squads and right-wing thugs, including radical terror groups in the Middle East and Central Asia, and armed Chinese provinces like Taiwan while continuing to work with its major trading partner China.

Finally, why do you think the U.S. is not the only actor in this stage? It's a unipolar world, which is what it wants. Are you referring to BRICS and the Global South surging?

The rise of the global middle class

Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty but can the middle class continue to grow?

www.bbc.com

 

[ralfy]

Try these instead:

 

[Thaluikhain]

Finally, why do you think the U.S. is not the only actor in this stage?

 

[Satinavian]

Except that they took place before Russia attacked Ukraine.

Yes, the US was losing its importance as single remaining superpower.
But Russia helped the US retain it by invading the Ukraine.

Protection against whom?

From Russia. There were all in the past suppressed parts of the Russian Empire and they are rightfully scared to become that again.

They don't care whether the US motivations are true or not as long as its influence keeps Russia at bay. If someone else could keep Russia at bay they night even choose someone else. But at the moment that is not really the case.

Basically everyone in Eastern Europe feels the need for protection against Russia because they didn't trust is. And with the invasion now all those fears were proven right.




This is all about Russia, not about the US.

 

[Hades]

Protection against whom? Themselves? The U.S. and the West were manipulating former Soviet Republics as early as the 1990s:

Against Russia. Duh. The entity that keeps trying to oppress them. Learning a bit about the region would really help you.

Finally, why do you think the U.S. is not the only actor in this stage? It's a unipolar world, which is what it wants. Are you referring to BRICS and the Global South surging?

For the simple fact that other countries exists and are always independent actors to some degree or not. To discount that would be foolish. Not to mention extremely rude.

There exist a history between Russia and its victims that's completely divorced from the US. Russia was terrorizing Poland back before the US even existed.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Finally, why do you think the U.S. is not the only actor in this stage? It's a unipolar world, which is what it wants.

You're reaching tinfoil-hat levels of "everything bad in the world is because of the US".

 

[Silvanus]

The United States is the most powerful country on earth. It has the power to set and enforce new precedents. With that power, you would think, should come some responsibility over what those precedents are. Instead, the United States is baldly hypocritical, consistent only in placing expedience above every other value. Order, rules, 'stability', 'security', human rights, are all treated as tools by the United States ruling class to utilize to maintain its power.

Just reiteration of the same whataboutery. The US invaded and slaughtered elsewhere, so for some godforsaken reason we apparently should accept and allow Russia to invade and slaughter in Ukraine. Imperialist horseshit.

And you are participating in that maintenance with enthusiastic conviction. You're not inconsistent; after all, you dislike the hypocrisy half the time. But the other half of the time you are willing to overlook the role the support of people like you plays in maintaining US global hegemony so long as you can celebrate the punishment of the lesser international sinners-- whose greatest crime is mirroring-- by the greater one, who establishes the precedents, enforces the double standards, and pushes other countries to respond to its aggression and crimes in various ways, sometimes the most expedient of which are perpetrating crimes of their own. And expediency is the main value of this international order, make no mistake. The United States (and friends) has the power to change that if they wished. They manifestly do not. You either have not realized this yet (somehow!) or you find it acceptable.

Of course I know the US has the power to set precedents. What I fail to see is how one sovereign country defending itself against the imperial ambitions of its neighbour somehow helps maintain US domination. Underneath the self-righteous word-salad, there's very little substance to the line of reasoning: so... in order to undermine US hegemony, we should therefore allow or encourage rival imperial powers to swallow and destroy their neighbours? Is that what you're getting at?

Putting aside the fact that Russia's invasion massively empowered NATO. Other countries also under threat of naked Russian aggression have rushed to join, because they see they cannot be safe outside a defensive alliance. Others increase their defence funding. You spout this waffle about wanting to challenge US and NATO power, and then enthusiastically support courses of action that massively empower them. Putin knew this would happen, of course: he needs an external threat to solidify domestic power, as tyrants throughout history always have.

 

[Silvanus]

Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, and thus did not concern U.S. It was when the Soviet Union fell apart that the U.S. and NATO manipulated former Soviet republics using a combination of shock therapy and dangling NATO membership [...]

Yes, Ukraine was in an extremely unequal partnership with Russia in the Soviet Union. Russian domination and oppression of Ukraine took place throughout the USSR's existence, and further back into the era of Empire that Putin now openly wants to restore.

The rest of this post is just regurgitation.

 

[Ag3ma]

You're reaching tinfoil-hat levels of "everything bad in the world is because of the US".

Reaching? Long since already there.

I remember in about 1995 speaking to some guy who, in summary, said that everything bad the USSR had ever done it was forced to in self-defence against (Western) capitalism. Half the stuff I've been hearing in this thread is the same sort of concepts this guy was telling me ~30 years ago.

Ultimately, the core problem this branch of anti-capitalism has is how to deal with those who oppose capitalism (/the USA). Because overwhelmingly they are unpleasant countries that tend to have much worse human rights and so on, and so often present a sort of moral problem for an anticapitalist to cheer on.

One answer, deployed to a staggering degree in this thread by all the people you'd expect, is to act like they don't have any agency, any choices. So the Russia-Ukraine way has either been deviously arranged by the capitalist military-industrial complex, or an incompetent miscalculation, or a mix of both (as convenient). Whatever, the long and short of it that no-one had any choice except the USA (i.e. Wall Street).

 

[Asita]

I think one thing got misunderstood here. Someone else suggested Ralfy is an alt, and I said no to that.

On the point of someone theoretically arguing with themself, seems to me to be a feature. That user has a consistent m.o. of misrepresenting his position to sympathetic ears to lull them into thinking him an ally. What better way to do that than invent a person that "agrees" with his critics just enough and then start the fade over to extremist communism anew.

Someone else first suggested ralfy might be an alt (specifically, Sean's due to how similar their positions are). You were the one who passive aggressively insinuated that ralfy was instead Absent's alt due to what you were framing as suspicious timing which you capped off with the quintiessentially sarcastic "I'm sure it's just a coincidence" line. As such, it is pertinent to point out that your reasoning - such as it is - is pretty much a straight up Texas Sharpshooter fallacy, treating a period in which ralfy is active and Absent is...well, absent as if that were a smoking gun without consideration for the times that they were active concurrently (which is to say, it fails to even make its point on its own terms). Similarly, it is worth pointing out that due to Absent's observed position being both antithetical and hostile to that voiced by ralfy and Sean (whom you imply Absent is now defending), your insinuation simply doesn't have anything behind it.

It's like if someone were to speculate that you were my alt (or vice versa, if you prefer), because of a period where one of us was active and the other was not. And when pointed out that it doesn't make sense because not only have we been active concurrently, there's quite a bit of bad blood between us and that the inactive user was quite vocally opposed to the positions the active user is championing...they turn around and claim that said bad blood was just a cover. That's not an intelligent argument, that's just scrambling for an explanation that would allow the speaker to dismiss contradictory evidence out of hand.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Just reiteration of the same whataboutery. The US invaded and slaughtered elsewhere, so for some godforsaken reason we apparently should accept and allow Russia to invade and slaughter in Ukraine. Imperialist horseshit.

You're doing a lot of blathering to avoid contemplating this point: [The United States] has the power to set and enforce new precedents and is therefore responsible for the nature of today's geopolitics. For example, since you so clearly need it spelled out, it could change the nature of the Iraq precedent by punishing those responsible for the invasion-- instead of rewarding them, as they have been. It could retire the law authorizing an invasion of the Netherlands if the ICC takes any action against the United States. Change toward a better geopolitical paradigm may not come from the top, but it must aim there. The "Imperialist horseshit", a description which you are fast diluting into meaninglessness, is the idea that it is acceptable or useful to punish only the targets of US hypocrisy without touching the US itself. You're just being a tool of the empire with the occasional impotent whine at its clearest crimes, an unpleasantness the empire will put up with so long as it remains impotent and not a moment longer. Anti-imperialism that supports the actions the greatest empire takes to maintain its power is no anti-imperialism at all.

 

[Silvanus]

You're doing a lot of blathering to avoid contemplating this point: [The United States] has the power to set and enforce new precedents and is therefore responsible for the nature of today's geopolitics.

I'm not avoiding contemplating it-- I'm pointing out how irrelevant it is to the question at hand. I'm refusing to accept it as justification for autocrats and kleptocrats around the world to prey on their neighbours and seize land wherever they please.

What, are we supposed to accept any and all flagrant abuse and slaughter so long as those who perpetrate it give some anti-American rhetoric now and then? Is that how paper-thin and conditional your opposition to imperialism and war are?

You're just being a tool of the empire with the occasional impotent whine at its clearest crimes, an unpleasantness the empire will put up with so long as it remains impotent and not a moment longer. Anti-imperialism that supports the actions the greatest empire takes to maintain its power is no anti-imperialism at all.

You haven't drawn a credible relationship between 1) opposing invasions and annexations around the world and 2) "maintaining the American empire". There's no causal link; and simple righteous indignation doesn't cut it. Opposition to the US's imperial ambitions doesn't necessitate support for other imperial ambitions-- quite the opposite, because you can hardly mount a credible criticism of American abuses if you enthusiastically endorse the same abuses being perpetrated by other states.

Russia's actions categorically empowered the United States and NATO.

 

[Gergar12]

A presidential candidate in 2028 everyone.

 

[tstorm823]

Someone else first suggested ralfy might be an alt (specifically, Sean's due to how similar their positions are). You were the one who passive aggressively insinuated that ralfy was instead Absent's alt due to what you were framing as suspicious timing which you capped off with the quintiessentially sarcastic "I'm sure it's just a coincidence" line.

No, I passive aggressively insinuated that Absent was Sean's alt. I said no to Ralfy's involvement.

There are more things that made me suspicious beyond just periods of activity. Absent appeared on a largely dying forum and within like a week of joining was going across threads posting about how it wasn't worth engaging with anything I said and that all the efforts should be focused on tearing me down personally. I know I can make an impression, but that's grudge-like behavior, and there's only one user here (edit: in the last decade, I won't forget you blablahb) I've given that treatment to deserve repayment in kind.

The timing of the appearance and disappearance and the suggestive title are just added fuel for my preexisting conspiracy theory.