Oh, I can see that Mearsheimer /pushes/ that particular line, in an interview peppered with execrable falsehoods and apologia.
Which falsehoods might those be, precisely?
That Ukraine shares a contiguous land border with Russia? That Western ability to project force into the Black Sea from Crimea, potentially threatens Russian access to the Mediterranean? That as a slavic country, with slavic traditions, language, and culture, Ukraine is (and has been for eight hundred years) closer to Russia in terms of national and cultural proximity? Those are all basic facts, with simple truth-verification.
That the Russian state (imperial, Soviet, or nominally republican) considers it within its sphere of influence, and treats encroachment into that sphere an attack against its own interests, in the exact way the United States considers the Americas pursuant to the Monroe doctrine? That this boils down to basic political realist calculus?
That the United States has, in fact, been interfering in Ukrainian politics since before the end of the Cold War? And as such, Russia considers that interference within its sphere of influence an attack against its own interests, and will retaliate accordingly?
I'm eager to know precisely what part of the international relations scholar's predictions from 2015, were based on lies or Russian propaganda. Otherwise, I guess we will in fact have to just chalk it up to time-traveling Russians.
In so much waffle about how badly the British acted during that conflict (which is utterly irrelevant to my point) you've still failed to address the core question.
A question I refuse, because it's a poorly-conceived leading question based on a false dichotomy, once again intended to poison the well and deem me guilty by association to Nazism.
Do you believe the USSR was unacceptably wrong to defend Madrid at the Republicans' request?
I believe Britain was unacceptably wrong to surreptitiously defend Franco and the Nationalists, because UK conservatives were Nazi sympathizers. Which is what happened, not non-intervention -- or "non-intervention" -- as you claim.
Of course, not that this is
the first time we've heard such parallels. One wonders why you've constructed a connection between WWII, Iraq, and Ukraine, and why this topic has cut so close to home for you indeed...
Wouldn't be wasting my time if your position actually was just to not be "with Ukraine". But it ain't-- when you repeat the warmongering lines from known liars and state propagandists, and respond to any criticism of them with immediate and intense hostility, you're quite clearly hitching your horse to a specific wagon.
Keep repeating that mantra to yourself.
Especially clear when you decry the press manipulation in some countries, while endorsing it and repeating its output for others.
You're dressing up alignment with non-alignment.
Except, nowhere in your calculus is the possibility for
you to have been the one deceived. Which is the possibility with far more verisimilitude given the Western media reversed its consensus position on Ukraine quite literally overnight, when Russia launched its (long predicted) invasion.
Once again, your participation here is the product of psychological projection on your part, not hypocrisy on mine.
The fact that you can find /other/ useful idiots in the West who've also swallowed them isn't particularly meaningful or compelling.
And once again, here we are with your "your sources don't matter or are Russian propaganda". Just never mind my citations are near-exclusively statements and reports from the US Department of State, US-funded non-profits and watchdog organizations, Western mass media prior to the invasion, and highly influential American academics. The extent of Russian infiltration must be great indeed to have compromised the Department of State, and transformed it into a Russian propaganda outlet.
It's far worse than that. The Iraq War was never about anything as small as winning an election - and besides, they already had Afghanistan for the war boost.
Well, look who popped back up after I took a few days' absence from the forum. It's okay now, I'm back.
The origins of the Iraq War lie in the colossal hubris of the US right - people like Cheney, Bolton, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz - and their
Project for the New American Century. This was about attempting to install clear and long-lasting US dominance over international affairs. They had advocated an Iraq invasion in the 1990s: 9/11 was the gift to advance that case whilst they held office. (Note that GWB was not on board with an Iraq invasion initially, and resisted them for some time until eventually persuaded).
Now, remember what we were saying about lies of omission?
I mean, it's only Joe Biden, then-ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, pushing for unilateral invasion to disarm Iraq of the WMD's the US already knew didn't exist. You know, in 1998. In debate over the Iraq Liberation Act, which...let me check my notes here...was passed by Congress and signed into law by Bill Clinton. In October, 1998.
...who then proceeded to order
a four-day bombing campaign in which anything but alleged WMD production and storage sites were quite successfully obliterated. You know, in December, 1998.
So, why don't we dispense with the ridiculous notion the Iraq war was the exclusive product of a small cabal of neoconservatives, who conveniently found themselves in power thanks to the Bush administration and empowered by 9/11. Clinton's inability to keep his dick in his pants had more to do with regime change in Iraq in the '90s, than PNAC.
They don't want to scare populaces so much as they want to scare regimes. Saudi Arabian citizens can hate the USA all they like, it doesn't matter so much as long the Saudi government agrees with the USA on key policy, sells its oil at the price the USA would like, buys US military hardware, etc.
You have the nature of that relationship reversed: the US is Saudi Arabia's attack dog and provisioner against competition on the oil market, particularly fellow OPEC member-states. The US is entirely willing to prostitute itself for petrodollars as it did in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, whilst looking the other way with regards to Saudi Arabia's brazen, ongoing hostility towards the US and West at large.
Not that I blame Saudi Arabia. The West made the alternative clear, between the Suez crisis and '53 Iranian coup.
