And that retroactively makes those events not true?
No, the events are still true or false as may be. The problem with conspiracy theory is that it ceases to matter.
Call the argument the US and NATO does heinous shit a conspiracy theory, expect examples of the US and NATO doing heinous shit.
I have at no point suggested that elements of the US government, or those of other NATO countries, much less the more than 3 million people involved in the armed forces of NATO countries, have never done anything bad.
What I'm still not sure about is why it matters and what exactly the point you're trying to make is.
The irony of this is I'm the one calling it simple realpolitik and arguing others shouldn't be moralizing the conflict into demonstrably false, dichotomous, "Russia bad!"/"West good!" nonsense.
Where exactly is the
realpolitik?
There are clear ideological and geopolitical alignments that the government of Ukraine shares with the governments of most NATO countries. Ukraine is a liberal democracy. It's legislative branch is dominated by liberal and centrist parties. Even combined, far right parties hover around 2% of the national vote. There isn't really a geopolitical aisle to reach over here.
But insofar as who is waging the conflict and for what reasons, I didn't think there'd be a day where we'd be arguing whether Nazis exist or are evil...on this forum, of all places. I'd think "Nazis are bad" is an supposition upon which we should all be able to agree.
I don't think that's what we're arguing at all.
What I think noone is buying, and rightly so, is this impressionist painting of the situation where the government of Ukraine is being controlled by a secret Nazi conspiracy, and that this secret Nazi conspiracy is being controlled by US intelligence agencies who secretly love Nazis and being evil and we can totally tell because those intelligence agencies supported right-wing dictatorships and paramilitaries in Latin America as part of the cold-war era Monroe doctrine.
The position in opposition to mine is the US isn't doing -- and hasn't done -- heinous shit in Ukraine. And by extension, the US didn't start this shit by doing heinous shit in Ukraine. Because apparently, the last 233 years (but more importantly, the last 88 of that) of the US doing heinous shit and starting regional conflicts across the globe by doing heinous shit, isn't track record enough to demonstrate doing heinous shit is absolutely in-character for the US.
In historical context, the amount of "heinous shit" the US has done in its relatively short period of existence is pretty unexceptional.
But again, here we cut to the essence of conspiracy theory. The idea that the actions of the US government are dictated not by geopolitical concerns in the present but by some kind of nebulous organizational character or tendency towards evil is really, really dumb. Even if the goal here was for Nazis to take over Ukraine and form some kind of Nazi puppet state who love evil and America and will be fanatical slaves to the CIA because they've all been mind-controlled with LSD, there's still one massive problem. Why would that ever be worth it?
Ukraine is not a rich country. It's one of the poorest countries in Europe. It doesn't have amazing natural resources that could be exploited by US companies. It doesn't have a wealthy population who could be a market for US goods. It has been devastated by war and will require many years to rebuild its economy and military capabilities. Nothing the US will ever get back from Ukraine will ever be worth the amount it is going to have to spend to secure a Ukrainian victory, so if your argument is that this is some kind of
realpolitik, then where is the incentive. Where is the "real"?
going to do slight Devil's Advocate but America's treatment of Native Americans can be seen in a similar light to what Russia did with its Neighbours. "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" policy can be strikingly similar to what russia did to its neighbors,where they try to force them to be Russian. The only difference is the disease did not mess them up to the point they could not fight back in Eastern Europe compared to America's natives.
I don't think that's a Devil's Advocate take at all.
Russia's treatment of incorporated non-Russian minorities has never been good and frequently veered into openly genocidal.
I'm unaware of many cases of indigenous activists in the US being snatched off the street and either winding up dead or being indefinately detained in insane asylums without trial. That seems to be alarmingly common in Russia.
mronline.org
www.cnn.com
